Thenext day Cameron came up stairs to Cosmo’s room, where the lad was writing by the window, with an open letter in his hand and rather a comical expression on his face.
“Here is for you, Cosmo,” said Cameron. “The like of me does not captivate ladies. Macgregor and I must make you our reverence. We never would have got this invitation but for your sake.”
“What is it?” cried Cosmo, rising eagerly, with a sudden blush, and already more than guessing, as he leaned forward to see it, what the communication was. It was a note from Madame Roche, oddly, yet prettily, worded, with a fragrance of French idiom in its English, which made it quite captivating to Cosmo, who was highly fantastical, and would not have been quite contented to find his beautiful old lady writing a matter-of-fact epistle like other people. It was an invitation to “her countrymen” to take a cup of tea with her on the following evening. She had heard from Baptiste and his wife that they were English travelers, and loved to hear the speech of her own country, though she had grown unfamiliar with it, and therewith she signed her name, “Mary Roche de St. Martin,” in a hand which was somewhat stiff and old-fashioned, yet refined. Cosmo was greatly pleased. His face glowed with surprised gratification; he was glad to have his old heroine come up so entirely to his fancy, and delighted to think of seeing and knowing her, close at hand in her own home.
“You will go?” he said, eagerly.
Cameron laughed—even, if truth must be told, the grave Highlander blushed a little. He was totally unused to the society of women; he was a little excited by the idea of making friends in this little foreign town, and already looked forward with no small amount of expectation to Madame Roche’s modest tea-drinking. But he did not like to betray his pleasure; he turned half away, as he answered:—
“For your sake, you know, laddie—Macgregor and I would have had little chance by ourselves—yes, we’ll go,” and went off to write a very stiff and elaborate reply, in the concoction of which Cameron found it more difficult to satisfy himself than he had ever been before all his life. It was finished, how ever, and dispatched at last. That day ended, the fated evening came. The Highland student never made nor attempted so careful a toilette—he, too, had found time to catch a glimpse of Cosmo’s beautiful old lady, and of the pale, fragile daughter, who went out once a week to drive in the little carriage. Mademoiselle Marie, whom Cosmo had scarcely noticed, looked to Cameron like one of the tender virgin martyrs of those old pictures which had impressed his uncommunicative imagination without much increasing his knowledge. He had watched her, half lifted, half helped into the little carriage, with pity and interest greater than any one knew of. He was a strong man, unconscious in his own person of what illness was—a reserved, solitary, self-contained hermit, totally ignorant of womankind, save such as his old mother in her Highland cottage, or the kind, homely landlady in the High Street whose anxiety for his comfort sometimes offended him as curiosity. A lady, young, tender, and gentle—a woman of romance, appealing unconsciously to all the protecting and supporting impulses of his manhood, had never once been placed before in Cameron’s way.
So Cosmo and his friend, with an interest and excitement almost equal, crossed the little street of St. Ouen, towards Madame Roche’s second floor, in the early darkness of the February night, feeling more reverence, respect, and enthusiasm than young courtiers going to be presented to a queen. As for their companion, Cameron’s pupil, he was the only unconcerned individual of the little party.Hewas not unaccustomed to the society of ladies—MadameRoche and her daughter had no influence on his imagination; he went over the way with the most entire complacency, and not a romantical sentiment within a hundred miles of him; he was pleased enough to see new faces, and share his own agreeable society with some one else for the evening, and he meant to talk of Italy and pictures and astonish these humble people, by way of practice when he should reach home—Macgregor was not going to any enchanted palace—he only picked his steps over the causeway of the little street of St. Ouen, directing his way towards Madame Roche’s second floor.
This chamber of audience was a small room, partly French and party English in its aspect; the gilded clock and mirror over the mantel-piece—the marble table at the side of the room—the cold polished edge of floor on which Cameron’s unwary footsteps almost slid—the pretty lamp on the table, and the white maze of curtains artistically disposed at the window, and looped with pink ribbons, were all indigenous to the soil; but the square of thick Turkey carpet—the little open fire-place, where a wood fire burned and crackled merrily, the warm-colored cover on the table, where stood Madame Roche’s pretty tea equipage, were home-like and “comfortable” as insular heart could wish to see. On a sofa, drawn close to the fire-place, half sat, half reclined, the invalid daughter. She was very pale, with eyes so blue, and mild, and tender, that it was impossible to meet their gentle glance without a rising sympathy, even though it might be impossible to tell what that sympathy was for. She was dressed—the young men, of course, could not tell how—in some invalid dress, so soft, so flowing, so seemly, that Cameron, who was as ignorant as a savage of all the graces of the toilette, could not sufficiently admire the perfect gracefulness of those most delicate womanly robes, which seemed somehow to belong to, and form part of, this fair, pale, fragile creature, whose whole existence seemed to be one of patience and suffering. Madame Roche herself sat on the other side of the table. She was not in widow’s dress, though she had not been many years a widow. She wore a white lace cap, with spotless, filmy white ribbons, under which her fair hair, largely mixed with silver, was braided in soft bands, which had lost nothing of their gloss or luxuriance. Her dress was black satin, soft and glistening—there was no color at all about her habiliments, nothing but soft white and black. She did not look younger than she was, nor like any thing but herself. She was not a well-preserved, carefully got-up beauty. There were wrinkles in her sweet old face, as well as silver in her hair. Notwithstanding, she sat there triumphant, in the real loveliness which she could not help and for which she made no effort, with her beautiful blue eyes, her soft lips, her rose cheek, which through its wrinkles was as sweet and velvety as an infant’s, her pretty white hands and rosy finger tips. She was not unconscious either of her rare gift—but bore it with a familiar grace as she had borne it for fifty years. Madame Roche had been beautiful all her life—she did not wonder nor feel confused to know that she was beautiful now.
And she received them, singular to say, in a manner which did not in the slightest degree detract from Cosmo’s poetic admiration, asking familiar questions about their names, and where, and how, and why they traveled, with the kindly interest of an old lady, and with the same delightful junction of English speech with an occasional French idiom, which had charmed the lad in her note. Cameron dropped shyly into a chair by the side of the couch, and inclined his ear, with a conscious color on his face, to the low voice of the invalid, who, though a little surprised, took polite pains to talk to him, while Cosmo as shyly, but not with quite so much awkwardness, took up his position by the side of Madame Roche. She made no remark, except a kindly smile and bow, when she heard the names of Cameron and Macgregor, but when Cosmo’s was named to her she turned round to him with a special and particular kindness of regard.
“Ah! Livingstone!” she said; “I had a friend once called by that name,” and Madame Roche made a little pause of remembrance, with a smile and a half sigh, and that look of mingled amusement, complacence, gratitude, and regret, with which an old lady like herself remembers the name of an old lover. Then she returned quietly to her tea-making. She did not notice Macgregor much, save as needful politeness demanded, and she looked with a little smiling surprise into the shadow where Cameron had placed himself by the side of her daughter, but her own attentionwas principally given to Cosmo, who brightened under it, and grew shyly confidential, as was to be looked for at his age.
“I have seen you at your window,” said Madame Roche. “I said to Marie, this young man, so modest, so ingenuous, who steals back when we come to the window, I think he must be my countryman. I knew it by your looks—all of you, and this gentleman, your tutor—ah, he is not at all like a Frenchman. He has a little forest on his cheeks and none on his chin, my child—that is not like what we see at St. Ouen.”
The old lady’s laugh was so merry that Cosmo could not help joining in it—“He is my dear friend,” said Cosmo, blushing to find himself use the adjective, yet using it with shy enthusiasm; “but he is only Macgregor’s tutor not mine.”
“Indeed! and who then takes care of you?” said the old lady. “Ah, you are old enough—you can guard yourself—is it so? Yet I know you have a good mother at home.”
“I have indeed; but, madame, how do you know?” cried Cosmo, in amazement.
“Because her son’s face tells me so,” cried Madame Roche, with her beautiful smile. “I know a mother’s son, my child. I know you would not have looked down upon an old woman and her poor daughter so kindly but for your mother at home; and your good friend, who goes to talk to my poor Marie—has he then a sick sister, whom he thinks upon when he sees my poor wounded dove?”
Cosmo was a little puzzled; he did not know what answer to make—he could not quite understand, himself, this entirely new aspect of his friend’s character. “Cameron is a very good fellow,” he said, with perplexity; but Cosmo did not himself perceive how, to prove himself a good fellow, it was needful for Cameron to pay such close reverential regard to the invalid on her sofa, whom he seemed now endeavoring to amuse by an account of their travels. The reserved and grave Highlander warmed as he spoke. He was talking of Venice on her seas, and Rome on her hills, while Marie leaned back on her pillows, with a faint flush upon her delicate cheek, following his narrative with little assenting gestures of her thin white hand, and motions of her head. She was not beautiful like her mother, but she wasso fragile, so tender, so delicate, with a shadowy white vail on her head like a cap, fastened with a soft pink ribbon, which somehow made her invalid delicacy of complexion all the more noticeable, that Cosmo could not help smiling and wondering at the contrast between her and the black, dark, strong-featured face which bent towards her. No—Cameron had no sick sister—perhaps the grave undemonstrative student might even have smiled at Madame Roche’s pretty French sentiment about her wounded dove; yet Cameron, who knew nothing about women, and had confessed to Cosmo long ago how little of the universal benevolence of love he found himself capable of, was exerting himself entirely out of his usual fashion, with an awkward earnestness of sympathy which touched Cosmo’s heart, for the amusement of the poor sick Marie.
“We, too, have wandered far, but not where you have been,” said Madame Roche. “We do not know your beautiful Rome and Venice—we know only the wilderness, I and my Marie. Ah, you would not suppose it, to find us safe in St. Ouen; but we have been at—what do you call it?—the other side of the world—down, down below here, where summer comes at Christmas—ah! in the Antipodes.”
“And I would we were there now, mamma,” said Marie, with a sigh.
“Ah, my poor child!—yes, we were there, gentlemen,” said Madame Roche. “We have been great travelers—we have been in America—we were savages for a long time—we were lost to all the world; no one knew of us—they forgot me in my country altogether; and even my poor Jean—they scarce rememberedhimin St. Ouen. When we came back, we were like people who drop from the skies. Ah, it was strange! His father and his friends were dead, and me—it was never but a place of strangers to me—this town. I have not been in my country—not for twenty years; yet I sometimes think I should wish to look at it ere I die, but for Marie.”
“But the change might be of use to her health,” said Cameron, eagerly. “It often is so. Motion, and air, and novelty, of themselves do a great deal. Should you not try?”
“Ah, I should travel with joy,” said Marie, clasping her white, thin hand, “but not to Scotland, monsieur. Yourfogs and your rains would steal my little life that I have. I should go to the woods—to the great plains—to the country that you call savage and a wilderness; and there, mamma, if you would but go you should no longer have to say—‘Poor Marie!’”
“And that is—where?” said Cameron, bending forward to the bright sick eyes, with an extraordinary emotion and earnestness. His look startled Cosmo. It was as if he had said, “Tell me but where, and I will carry you away whosoever opposes!” The Highlandman almost turned his back upon Madame Roche. This sick and weak Marie was oppressed and thwarted in her fancy. Cameron looked at her in his strong, independent manhood, with an unspeakable compassion and tenderness. It was in his heart to have lifted her up with his strong arms and carried her to the place she longed for, wherever it was—that was the immediate impulse upon him, and it was so new and so strange that it seemed to refresh and expand his whole heart. But Marie sank back upon her pillows with a little movement of fatigue, perhaps of momentary pettishness, and only her mother spoke in quite another strain.
“You do not know my country, my child,” said Madame Roche. “I have another little daughter who loves it. Ah, I think some day we shall go to see the old hills and the old trees; but every one forgets me there, and to say truth, I also forget,” said the old lady, smiling. “I think I shall scarcely know my own tongue presently. Will you come and teach me English over again?”
“You should say Scotch, madam—it is all he knows,” said Cameron, smiling at Cosmo, to whom she had turned. It was an affectionate look on both sides, and the boy blushed as he met first the beautiful eyes of his lovely old lady, and then the kind glance of his friend. He stammered something about the pleasure of seeing them in Scotland, and then blushed for the common-place. He was too young to remain unmoved between two pair of eyes, both turned so kindly upon him.
“He is his mother’s son, is he not?” said Madame Roche, patting Cosmo’s arm lightly with her pretty fingers. “I knew his name when I was young. I had a friend called by it. You shall come and talk to me of all you love—and you and I together, we will persuade Marie.”
Cameron glanced as she spoke, with a keen momentary jealous pang, from the handsome lad opposite to him, to the invalid on the sofa. But Marie was older than Cosmo—a whole world apart, out of his way, uninteresting to the boy as she lay back on her cushions, with her half-shut eyes and her delicate face. It was strange to think how strong and personal was this compassion, the growth of a day, in the Highlander’s stern nature and uncommunicating heart.
Thedays glided on imperceptibly over the travelers as they rested in St. Ouen—rested longer than there seemed any occasion for resting, and with so little inducement that Macgregor began to grow restive, and even Cosmo wondered; Cameron was no longer the same. The fiery heart of the Highlander was moved within him beyond all power of self-restraint. He was calm enough externally by the necessity of his nature, which forbade demonstration—but within, the fountains were breaking, the ice melting, a fiery and fervid activity taking the place of the long quiescence of his mind. He neither understood it himself nor reasoned upon it. He yielded because he could not help yielding. An arbitrary, imperious impulse, had taken possession of him, strengthening itself in his own strength and force, and taking into consideration no possibility of obstacles. His big, strong heart yearned over the tender weakness which could not help itself—he could think of nothing but of taking it up in his powerful arms and carrying it into safety. It was the first awakening of his native passionate fervor—he could acknowledge nothing, perceive nothing to stand in the way. He was as unreasonable and arbitrary as the merest boy—more so, indeed, for boys do not know emotions so stormy and violent. It had an extraordinary effect altogether upon this grave, reserved, toil-worn man; sometimes he was capricious, impatient, and fitful in his temper—at other times more tender than a woman—often half ashamed of himself—and only clear about one thing as it seemed, which was, that he would not go away.
Another point he was angrily jealous upon; he neither lingered in Baptiste’s room himself, nor, if he could possibly prevent it, permitted Cosmo to do so. He would have no questions asked, no gossiping entered into about Madame Roche. “These ladies should be sacred to us—what they wish us to know they will tell us,” said Cameron almost haughtily, on one occasion, when he interrupted a conversation between the cobbler and his young companion. Cosmo was half disposed to resent at once the interference, and the supposition that he himself would gossip about any one, or acquire information by such undignified means—but the serious feeling in his friend’s face, almost stern in its earnestness, impressed the lad. It was evidently of tenfold importance to Cameron more than to himself, much as he was interested in his beautiful old lady. Cosmo yielded with but little demonstration of impatience and wonder, half-guessing, yet wholly unable to comprehend what this could mean.
Another day, when Cosmo sat by his little window in the corner, to which he had been shy of going since he knew Madame Roche, but which had still a great attraction for him, Cameron entered his room hurriedly and found him at his post. The Highlandman laid his powerful hand roughly on the lad’s shoulder, and drew him away, almost in violence. “How dare ye pry upon them?” he cried, with excitement; “should not theirhomebe sacred, at least?” Almost a quarrel ensued, for Cosmo struggled in this strong grasp, and asserted his independence indignantly. He pry upon any one! The lad was furious at the accusation, and ready to abjure forever and in a moment the friend who judged him so unjustly; and had it not been that Cameron himself melted into an incomprehensible caprice of softness, there must have been an open breach and separation. Even then, Cosmo could scarcely get over it; he kept away from his window proudly, was haughty to his companions, passed Baptiste without the civility of a recognition, and even, in the strength of his ill-used and injured condition, would not go to see Madame Roche. Out of this sullen fit the lad was awakened by seeing Cameron secretly selecting with his uncouth hands such early flowers as were to be found in the market of St. Ouen, and giving shy, private orders aboutothers, more rare and delicate, which were to be sent to Madame Roche, in her second floor. Cosmo was very much perplexed, and did not comprehend it, any more than he comprehended why it was that the Highlandman, without motive or object, and in face of the protestations of his pupil, persisted in lingering here in St. Ouen.
Thus a week passed—a fortnight, and no period was yet assigned for their stay. They became familiar with that pretty, little, half French, half English apartment, where poor Marie lay on the sofa, and her mother sat working by the window. Madame Roche was always kind, and had a smile for them all. Marie was sometimes vivacious, sometimes fatigued, sometimes broke forth in little outbursts of opposition to mamma, who was always tender and forbearing to her! sometimes Cosmo thought the gentle invalid was even peevish, lying back among her cushions, with her half closed eyes, taking no notice of any one. This poor Marie was not only weak in frame—she was unsatisfied, discontented, and had “something on her mind.” She started into sudden effusions of longing and weariness, with eager wishes to go away somewhere, and anticipations of being well, if mamma would but consent, which Madame Roche quietly evaded, and, during which, Cameron sat gazing at her with all his heart inquiring in his eyes, where? But Marie showed no inclination to make a confidant of her mother’s countryman. She listened to him with a languid interest, gave him a partial attention, smiled faintly when her mother thanked him for the flowers he sent, but treated all these marks of Cameron’s “interest” in herself with a fatal and total indifference, which the Highlandman alone either did not or would not perceive. It did not even appear that Marie contemplated the possibility of any special reference to herself in the stranger’s courtesies. She treated them all alike; paying no great regard to any of the three. She was amiable, gentle, mild in her manners, and pleasant in her speech; but throughout all, it was herself and her own burdens, whatever these might be, that Marie was thinking of. Perhaps they were enough to occupy the poor tender spirit so closely confined within those four walls. Cosmo did not know—buthissympathies were with the bright old mother, whose beautiful eyes always smiled, who seemed to have no time to spend inimpatience or discontent, and whose perpetual care was lavished on her daughter, whether Marie was pleased or no.
Madame Roche, it would appear, was not too sensitive—her husband, who loved and was jealous of her, and who died and left her a widow, had not broken her heart; neither could her child, though she was ill and peevish, and not very grateful. Perhaps Cosmo would rather, in his secret spirit, have preferred to see his beautiful old lady, after all her hard life and troubles, and with still so many cares surrounding her, show greater symptoms of heart-break, but Madame Roche only went on working and smiling, and saying kind words, with an invincible patience, which was the patience of a natural temper, and not of exalted principle. She could not help her sweetness and affectionate disposition any more than she could help the beauty which was as faithful to her in age as in youth. She was kind even to Macgregor, who was totally indifferent to her kindness; perhaps she might be as kind to the next wandering party of travelers who were thrown in her way. Cosmo would not allow himself to believe so, yet, perhaps, it was true.
And in the meantime Macgregor grumbled, and wrote discontented letters home; and even Cosmo could give no reason to himself for their stay in St. Ouen, save Madame Roche and her daughter—a reason which he certainly would not state to the Mistress, who began to be impatient for her boy’s return. Cameron had no letters to write—no thoughts to distract him from the one overpowering thought which had taken possession of his mind. The arbitrary fancy, absolute and not to be questioned, that his own errand in the little Norman town was to restore liberty, health, content, and comfort to Marie Roche de St. Martin. He felt he could do it, as his big heart expanded over Madame Roche’s “wounded dove"—and Cameron, on the verge of middle age, experienced by privations and hardships, fell into the very absoluteness of a boy’s delusion. He did not even take into account that, upon another capricious, willful, human heart depended all his power over the future he dreamed of—he only knew that he could do it, and therefore would, though all the world stood in his way. Alas, poor dreamer! the world gave itself no trouble whatever on the subject, and had no malice against him,nor doom of evil for Marie. So he went on with his imperious determination, little witting of any obstacle before him which could be still more imperious and absolute than he.
Onone of these days Cameron came again to Cosmo with a letter in his hand. His look was very different now—it was grave, resolute, determined, as of a man on the verge of a new life. He showed the letter to his young companion. It was from Macgregor’s father, intimating his wish that they should return immediately, and expressing a little surprise to hear that they should have remained so long in St. Ouen. Cameron crushed it up in his hand when it was returned to him; a gesture not so much of anger as of high excitement powerfully restrained.
“We must go, then, I suppose?” said Cosmo; but the lad looked up rather doubtfully and anxiously in his friend’s face—for Cameron did not look like a man obedient, who was ready to submit to a recall.
“I will tell you to-morrow,” said the Highlander; “yes—it is time—I don’t resent what this man says—he is perfectly right. I will go or I will not go to-morrow.”
What did this mean? for the “will not go” was a great deal more than a passive negative. It meant—not a continued dallying in St. Ouen—it meant all that Cameron imagined in that great new torrent of hopes, and loves, and purposes, which he now called life. Then he went to Cosmo’s window and glanced out for a moment; then he returned with a deep, almost angry flush on his face, muttering something about “never alone,"—then he thrust his arm into Cosmo’s, and bade him come along.
“I am going to see Madame Roche,” cried Cameron, with a certain recklessness of tone. “Come—you’re always welcome there—and four is better company than three.”
It was no little risk to put Cosmo’s temper to—but he yielded, though he was somewhat piqued by the address, feeling an interest and anxiety for something about to happen,which he could not perfectly define. They found Madame Roche alone, seated by the window working, as usual—but Marie was not there. The old lady received them graciously and kindly, as was her wont. She answered to Cameron’s inquiries that Marie’s headache was more violent than usual, and that she was lying down. Poor Marie! she was very delicate; she suffered a great deal, the dear child!
“Invalids have sometimes a kind of inspiration as to what will cure them,” said Cameron, steadily fixing his eyes upon Madame Roche, “why will you not let her go where she wishes to go? Where is it? I should think the trial worth more than fatigue, more than labor, ay—if man had more to give—more even than life!”
Madame Roche looked up at him suddenly, with a strange surprise in her eyes—a painful, anxious, terrified wonder, which was quite inexplicable to Cosmo.
“Alas, poor child!” she said hurriedly, and in a low voice. “I would grudge neither fatigue nor labor for my Marie; but it is vain. So you are going away from St. Ouen? ah, yes, I know—I hear every thing. I saw your young Monsieur Macgregor half an hour ago; he said letters had come, and you were going. We shall grieve when you are gone, and we shall not forget you, neither I nor my Marie.”
Cameron’s face changed; a sweetness, an elevation, a tender emotion, quite unusual to those strong features, came over them.
“It is by no means certain that I shall go,” he said, in a low and strangely softened voice.
“Does Mademoiselle Marie know?”
And once more he glanced round the room, and at her vacant sofa, with a tender reverence and respect which touched Cosmo to the heart, and filled the lad with understanding at once and pity. Could he suppose that it was hearing of this that aggravated Marie’s headache? could he delude himself with the thought that she was moved by the prospect of his departure? Poor Cameron! Madame Roche was looking at him too with a strange anxiety, trying to read his softened and eloquent face. The old lady paused with an embarrassed and hesitating perplexity, looking from Cosmo to Cameron, from Cameron back again to Cosmo. The lad thought she asked an explanation from him with her eyes, but Cosmo had no explanation to give.
“My friend,” said Madame Roche, at last, trying to recover her smile, but speaking with an evident distress which she endeavored in vain to conceal—“you must not sayMademoiselleMarie. The people do so, for they have known her as a girl; but they all know her story, poor child! I fancied you must have heard it from Baptiste or Margot, who love to talk. Ah! have they been so prudent?—it is strange.”
Madame Roche paused again, as if to take breath. Cosmo instinctively and silently moved his chair further away, and only looked on, a deeply-moved spectator, not an actor in the scene. Cameron did not say a word, but he grasped the little marble table with a hand as cold as itself, and looked at Madame Roche with the face of a man whose tongue clove to his mouth, and who could not have spoken for his life. She, trembling a little, afraid to show her emotion, half frightened at the look of the person she addressed, proceeded, after her pause, with a rapid, interrupted voice.
“My poor, tender Marie—poor child!” said the mother. “Alas! she is no more mademoiselle—she is married; she was married years ago, when she was too young. Ah, it has wrung my heart!” cried the old lady, speaking more freely when her great announcement was made; “for her husband loves her no longer; yet my poor child would seek him over the world if she might. Strange—strange, is it not? that there should be one most dear to her who does not love Marie?”
But Cameron took no notice of this appeal. He still sat gazing at her, with his blank, dark face, and lips that were parched and motionless. She was full of pity, of distress, of anxiety for him; she went on speaking words which only echoed idly on his ear, and which even Cosmo could not attend to, expatiating in a breathless, agitated way, to cover his emotion and to gain a little time, upon the troubles of Marie’s lot, upon the desertion of her husband, her broken health and broken heart. In the midst of it, Cameron rose and held out his hand to her. The trembling mother of Marie took it, rising up to receive his farewell. She would have made a hundred anxious apologies for the involuntary and unconscious deceit from which he had suffered, but dared not. He shook hands with her hastily, with an air which could not endure speaking to.
“I shall leave St. Ouen so soon, that I may not be able to see you again,” said Cameron, with a forcible and forced steadiness which put all her trembling compassion to flight; and he looked full in her eyes, as if to dare her suspicions. “If I can not, farewell, and thank you for your kindness. I can but leave my best wishes for—Mademoiselle Marie.”
Before Cosmo could follow him—before another word could be said, Cameron was gone. They could hear him descending the stair, with an echoing footstep, as they stood together, the old lady and the lad, in mutual distress and embarrassment. Then Madame Roche turned to Cosmo, took his hand, and burst into tears.
“Could I tell?” cried Marie’s mother—“alas, my child! could I think that your tutor, so grave, so wise, would be thus moved? I am beside myself! I am grieved beyond measure! Alas, what shall I do?—a good man is in distress, and I am the cause!”
“Nay, it is not your fault, madame,” said Cosmo; “it’s no one’s fault—a mistake, a blunder, an accident; poor Cameron!” and the lad had enough ado to preserve his manhood and keep in his own tears.
Then Madame Roche made him sit down by her and tell her all about his friend. Cosmo would rather have gone away to follow Cameron, and know his wishes immediately about leaving St. Ouen, but was persuaded, without much difficulty, that it was kinder to leave the Highlander alone in the first shock of the discovery he had made. And Madame Roche was much interested in the story of the student, whose holiday had ended so sadly. She wished, with tears in her eyes, that she could do any thing to comfort, any thing to help him on. And in turn she told the story of her own family to Cosmo; how Marie’s husband had turned out a vagabond, and worthless; how he had deserted his girlish wife in the beginning of her illness, leaving her alone and unattended, at a distance even from her mother; how they had heard nothing of him for three years—yet how, notwithstanding all, the poor Marie wept for him constantly, and tried to persuade her mother to set out on the hopeless enterprise of finding him again.
“My poor child!” said Madame Roche; “she forgets every thing, my friend, but that she loves him. Ah, it is natural to us women; we remember that, and we remember nothing more.”
Cosmo could not help a momentary spark of indignation. He thought Marie very selfish and cold-hearted, and could not forgive her his friend’s heart-break:—
“Mademoiselle Marie should not forgetyou,” he said.
Though he dealt with such phenomena occasionally in his verses, and made good sport with them, like other young poets, Cosmo was, notwithstanding, too natural and sensible, not to pause with a momentary wonder over this strange paradox and contradiction of events. To think of such a man as Cameron losing his wits and his heart for love of this weak and perverse woman, who vexed her mother’s heart with perpetual pining for the husband who had ill-used and deserted her! How strange it was!
“Marie does not forget me, my child; she is not to blame,” said Madame Roche; “it is nature; do not I also know it? Ah, I was undutiful myself! I loved my poor Jean better than my father; but I have a little one who is very fond of me; she is too young for lovers; she thinks of nothing but to make a home in my own country for Marie and me. My poor Marie! she can not bear to go away from St. Ouen, lest he should come back to seek her; she will either go to seekhim, or stay; and so I can not go to Desirée nor to my own country. Yet, perhaps, if Marie would but be persuaded! My little Desirée is in Scotland. They think much of her where she is. It is all very strange; she is in a house which once was home to me when I was young. I think it strange my child should be there.”
“Desirée?” repeated Cosmo, gazing at his beautiful old lady with awakened curiosity. He remembered so well the pretty little figure whose bearing, different as they were otherwise, was like that of Madame Roche. He looked in her face, anxious, but unable, to trace any resemblance. Desirée! Could it be Joanna’s Desirée—the heroine of the broken windows—she who was at Melmar? The lad grew excited as he repeated the name—he felt as though he held in his hand the clue to some secret—what could it be?
“Do you know the name? Ah, my little one was a true Desirée,” said Madame Roche; “she came when the others were taken away—she was my comforter. Nay, my friend—she wrote to me of one of your name! One—ah, look at me!—one who was son of my old friend. My child, let me see your face—can it be you who are son of Patrick, mygood cousin? What!—is it then possible? Are you the young Livingstone of Norlaw?”
Cosmo rose up in great excitement, withdrawing from the half embrace into which Madame Roche seemed disposed to take him; the lad’s heart bounded with an audible throb, rising to his throat:—
“Do you know me? Did you know my father? Was he your cousin?” he cried, with an increasing emotion. “He was Patrick Livingstone, of Norlaw, a kinsman of the old Huntleys; and you—you—tell me! You are Mary of Melmar! I know it! I have found you! Oh, father! I have done my work at last.”
The lad’s voice broke into a hoarse cry—he had no words to express himself further, as he stood before her with burning cheeks and a beating heart, holding out his hands in appeal and in triumph. He had found her! he could not doubt, he could not hesitate—gazing into that beautiful old face, the whole country-side seemed to throng about him with a clamorous testimony. All those unanimous witnesses who had told him of her beauty, the little giant at the smithy to whom her foot rung “like siller bells,” the old woman who remembered her face “like a May morning,” rushed into Cosmo’s memory as though they had been present by his side. He cried out again with a vehement self-assurance and certainty, “You are Mary of Melmar!” He kissed her hand as if it had been the hand of a queen—he forgot all his previous trouble and sympathy—he had found her!hissearch had not been made in vain.
“I am Mary Huntley, the daughter of Melmar,” said the old lady, with her beautiful smile. “Yes, my child, it is true—I left my father and my home for the sake of my poor Jean. Ah, he was very fond of me! I am not sorry; but you sought me?—did you seek me?—that is strange, that is kind; I know not why you should seek me. My child, do not bring me into any more trouble—tell me why you sought forme?”
“I sought you as my father sought you!” cried Cosmo; “as he charged us all to seek you when he died. I sought you, because you have been wronged. Come home with me, madame. I thank God for Huntley that he never had it!—I knew I should find you! It is not for any trouble. Itis because Melmar—Melmar itself—your father’s house—is yours!”
“Melmar—my father’s house—where my Desirée is now?—nay, my friend, you dream,” said the old lady, trying to smile, yet growing pale; she did not comprehend it—she returned upon what he said about his father; she was touched to tears to think that Norlaw had sought for her—that she had not been forgotten—that he himself, a young champion, had come even here with the thought of finding her;—but Melmar, Melmar, her father’s house! The old Mary of Melmar, who had fled from that house and been disinherited, could not receive this strange idea—Melmar! the word died on her lip as the voice of Marie called her from an inner chamber. She rose with the promptness of habit, resuming her tender mother-smile, and answering without a pause. She only waved her hand to Cosmo as the boy left her to her immediate duties. It was not wonderful that she found it difficult to take up the thread of connection between that life in which she herself had been an only child, and this in which she was Marie’s nursing Mother. They were strangely unlike indeed.
Cosmoran down the stairs, and out of the gate of Madame Roche’s house, much too greatly excited to think of returning to his little room. The discovery was so sudden and so extraordinary that the lad was quite unable to compose his excitement or collect his thoughts. Strange enough, though Mary of Melmar had been so much in his mind, he had never once, until this day, associated her in the smallest degree with the beautiful old lady of St. Ouen. When he began to think of all the circumstances, he could not account to himself for his extraordinary slowness of perception. At, least a score of other people, totally unlikely and dissimilar, had roused Cosmo’s hopes upon his journey. Scarcely a place they had been in which did not afford the imaginative youth a glimpse somewhere of some one who might be the heroine; yet here he had been living almost by her sidewithout a suspicion, until a sudden confidence, given in the simplest and most natural manner, disclosed her in a moment—Mary of Melmar! He had known she must be old—he had supposed she must have children—but it was strange, overpowering, a wild and sudden bewilderment, to find in her the mother of Desirée and Marie.
Cosmo did not go home to his little room—he hurried along the narrow streets of St. Ouen, carried on by the stress and urgency of his own thoughts. Then he emerged upon the river side, where even the picturesque and various scene before him failed to beguile his own crowding fancies. He saw without seeing the river boats, moored by the quay, the Norman fishermen and market-women, the high-gabled houses, which corresponded so pleasantly with those high caps and characteristic dresses, the whole bright animation and foreign coloring of the scene. In the midst of it all he saw but one figure, a figure which somehow belonged to it, and took individuality and tone from this surrounding;—Mary of Melmar! but not the pensive, tender Mary of that sweet Scottish country-side, with all its streams and woodlands—not a Mary to be dreamt of any longer on the leafy banks of Tyne, or amid those roofless savage walls of the old Strength of Norlaw. With an unexpressed cry of triumph, yet an untellable thrill of disappointment, the lad hurried along those sun-bright banks of Seine. It was this scene she belonged to; the quaint, gray Norman town, with its irregular roofs and gables, its cathedral piling upward to a fairy apex those marvelous pinnacles and towers, its bright provincial costume and foreign tints of color, its river, bright with heavy picturesque boats, and floating baths, and all the lively life of a French urban stream. It was not that meditative breadth of country, glorious with the purple Eildons and brown waters, sweet with unseen birds and burns, where the summer silences and sounds were alike sacred, and where the old strongholds lay at rest like old warriors, watching the peace of the land. No—she was not Mary of Melmar—she was Madame Roche de St. Martin, the beautiful old lady of St. Ouen.
When Cosmo’s thoughts had reached this point, they were suddenly arrested by the sight of Cameron, standing close to the edge of the quay, looking steadily down. His remarkable figure, black among the other figures on thatpicturesque river-side—his fixed, dark face, looking stern and authoritative as a face in profile is apt to look—his intense, yet idle gaze down the weather-stained, timber-bound face of the river-pier, startled his young companion at first into sudden terror. Cosmo had, till this moment, forgotten Cameron. His friendship and sympathy woke again, with a touch of alarm and dread, which made him sick. Cameron!—religious, enthusiastic, a servant of God as he was, what was the disappointed man, in the shock of his personal suffering, about to do? Cosmo stood behind, unseen, watching him. The lad did not know what he feared, and knew that his terror was irrational and foolish, but still could not perceive without a pang that immovable figure, gazing down into the running river, and could not imagine but with trembling what might be in Cameron’s thoughts. He was of a race to which great despairs and calamities were congenial. His blood was fiery Celtic blood, the tumultuous pulses of the mountaineer. Cosmo felt his heart beat loud in his ears as he stood watching. Just then one of the women he had been in the habit of buying flowers from, perceived Cameron and went up to him with her basket. He spoke to her, listened to her, with a reckless air, which aggravated Cosmo’s unreasonable alarm; the lad even heard him laugh as he received a pretty bouquet of spring flowers, which he had doubtless ordered for Marie. The woman went away after receiving payment, with a somewhat doubtful and surprised face. Then Cameron began to pull the pretty, delicate blossoms asunder, and let them fall one by one into the river—one by one—then as the number lessened, leaf by leaf, scattering them out of his fingers with an apparent determination of destroying the whole, quite unconscious of the wistful eyes of two little children standing by. When the last petal had fallen into the river, and was swept down under the dark keel of one of the boats, the Highlander turned suddenly away—so suddenly, indeed, that Cosmo did not discover his disappearance till he had passed into the little crowd which hung about a newly-arrived vessel lower down the quay;—his step was quick, resolute, and straightforward—he was going home.
And then Cosmo, brought by this means to real ground, once more began to think, as it was impossible to forbearthinking, over all the strange possibilities of the new events which had startled him so greatly. If Marie had not been married—if Cameron had wooed her and won her—if, strangest chance of all, it had thus happened that the poor Highland student, all unwitting of his fortune had come to be master of Melmar! As he speculated, Cosmo held his breath, with a sudden and natural misgiving. He thought of Huntley in Australia—his own generous, tender-hearted brother. Huntley, who meant to come home and win Melmar, and who already looked upon himself as its real master—Huntley, whose hopes must be put to an absolute and instant conclusion, and were already vain as the fancies of a child. He thought of his mother at home in Norlaw, thinking of the future which waited her son, and refusing to think of the woman who had inflicted upon her the greatest sufferings of her life—he thought of Patie, who, though much less concerned, had still built something upon the heirship of Melmar. He thought of the sudden change to the whole family, who, more or less unconsciously, had reckoned upon this background of possible enrichment, and had borne their real poverty all the more magnanimously, in consideration of the wealth which was about to come—and a sudden chill came to the lad’s heart. Strange perversity! Cosmo had scorned the most distant idea of Huntley’s heirship, so long as it was possible; but now that it was no longer possible, a compunction struck him. This prospect, which cheered Huntley in his exile, and put spirit into his labor—this, which encouraged the Mistress, for her son’s sake, to spare and to toil—this, which even furthered the aims of Patie in his Glasgow foundery—this it washisungracious task to turn into vanity and foolishness. His step slackened unconsciously, his spirit fell, a natural revulsion seized him. Madame Roche de St. Martin—the poor sick Marie, who loved only herself and her worthless French husband, who doubtless now would find his way back to her, and make himself the real Lord of Melmar! Alas, what a change from Cosmo’s picturesque and generous dreams among the old walls of Norlaw! When he thought of the vagabond Frenchman, whose unknown existence had made Cameron miserable, Cosmo made an involuntary exclamation of opposition and disgust. He forgotthatMary of Melmar who was now an imaginary and unsubstantialphantom; he even forgot the beautiful old lady who had charmed him unawares—he thought only of the French Marie and her French husband, the selfish invalid and the worthless wanderer who had deserted her. Beautiful Melmar, among its woods and waters, to think it should be bestowed thus!
Then Cosmo went on, in the natural current of his changed thoughts, to think of the present family, the frank and friendly Joanna, the unknown brother whom bowed Jaacob respected as a virtuoso, and who, doubtless, firmly believed himself the heir—the father who, though an enemy, was still a homeborn and familiar countryman. Well,thathousehold must fall suddenly out of prosperity and wealth into ruin—his own must forego at once a well-warranted and honorable hope—all to enrich a family of St. Ouen, who knew neither Melmar nor Scotland, and perhaps scorned them both! And it was all Cosmo’s doing!—a matter deliberately undertaken—a heroical pursuit for which he had quite stepped out of his way! The lad was quite as high-minded, generous, even romantic, in the streets of St. Ouen as he had been in his favorite seat of meditation among the ruins of Norlaw; but somehow, at this moment, when he had just succeeded in his enterprise, he could not manage to raise within his own heart all the elevated sentiments which had inspired it. On the contrary, he went slowly along to his lodgings, where he should have to communicate the news to Cameron, feeling rather crest-fallen and discomfited—not the St. George restoring a disinherited Una, but rather the intermeddler in other men’s matters, who gets no thanks on any hand. To tell Cameron, who had spent the whole fiery torrent of that love which it was his nature to bestow, with a passionate individual fervor, on one person and no more—upon the capricious little French Marie, who could not even listen, to its tale! Cosmo grew bitter in his thoughts as he took down the key of his chamber from the wall in Baptiste’s room and received a little note which the cobbler handed him, and went very softly up stairs. The note was from Madame Roche, but Cosmo was misanthropical, and did not care about it. He thought no longer of Madame Roche—he thought only of Marie, who was to be the real Mary of Melmar, and of poorCameron heart-broken, and Huntley disappointed, and the French vagabond of a husband, who was sure to come home.
Cameronwas not visible until the evening, when he sent for Cosmo to his own room. The lad obeyed the summons instantly; the room was rather a large one, very barely furnished, without any carpet on the floor, and with no fire in the stove. It was dimly lighted by one candle, which threw the apartment into a general twilight, and made a speck of particular illumination on the table where it stood, and by which sat Cameron, with his pocket-book and Baptiste’s bill before him. He was very pale, and somehow it seemed impossible to see his face otherwise than in profile, where it looked stern, rigid, and immoveable as an old Roman’s; but his manner, if perhaps a little graver, was otherwise exactly as usual. Cosmo was at a loss how to speak to him; he did not even like to look at his friend, who, however, showed no such embarrassment in his own person.
“We go to-morrow, Cosmo,” said Cameron, rather rapidly; “here is Baptiste’s bill to be settled, and some other things. We’ll go over to Dieppe the first thing in the morning—every thing had better be done to night.”
“The first thing in the morning! but I am afraid I—I can not go,” said Cosmo, hesitating a little.
“Why?” Cameron looked up at him imperiously—he was not in a humor to be thwarted.
“Because—not that I don’t wish to go, for I had rather be with you,” said Cosmo—“but because I made a discovery, and a very important one, to-day.”
“Ah?” said Cameron, with a smile and a tone of dreary satire; “this must have been a day for discoveries—what was yours?”
“It was about Madame Roche,” said Cosmo, with hesitation—he was afraid to broach the subject, in his anxiety for his friend, and yet it must be told.
“Just so,” said Cameron, with the same smile; “I knewit must be about Madame Roche—what then? I suppose it is no secret? nothing more than everybody knew?”
“Don’t speak so coldly,” entreated Cosmo, with irrestrainable feeling; “indeed it is something which no one could have dreamed of; Cameron, she is Mary. I never guessed or supposed it until to-day.”
Something like a groan burst from Cameron in spite of himself. “Ay, she’s Mary!” cried the Highlander, with a cry of fierce despair and anguish not to be described, “but laddie, what is that to you?”
They were a world apart as they sat together on either side of that little table, with the pale little light between them—the boy in the awe of his concern and sympathy—the man in the fiery struggle and humiliation of his manhood wrung to the heart. Cosmo did not venture to look up, lest the very glance—the water in his eyes, might irritate the excited mind of his friend. He answered softly, almost humbly, with the deep imaginative respect of youth.
“She is Mary of Melmar, Cameron—the old lady; my father’s kinswoman whom he was—fond of—who ran away to marry a Frenchman—who is the heir of Melmar—Melmar which was to be Huntley’s, if I had not found her. It can not be Huntley’s now; and I must stay behind to complete the discovery I have made.”
Perhaps Cosmo’s tone was not remarkably cheerful; the Highlander looked at him with an impatient and indignant glance.
“Why should it be Huntley’s when it is hers?” he said, almost angrily. “Would you grudge her rights to a helpless woman? you, boy! are evenyoubeguiled when yourself is concerned?”
“You are unjust,” said Cosmo. “I do not hesitate a moment—I have done nothing to make any one doubt me—nor ever will.”
The lad was indignant in proportion to his uneasiness and discomfort in his discovery, but Cameron was not sufficiently at rest himself to see through the natural contradictions of his young companion. He turned away from him with the half-conscious gesture of a sick heart.
“I am unjust—I believe it,” he said, with a strange humility; “lands and silver are but names to me. I am like other folk—I can be liberal with what I have not—ay, more!I can even throw away my own,” continued Cameron, his strong voice trembling between real emotion and a bitter self-sarcasm, “so that nobody should be the better for the waste; that’smyfortune. Your estate will be of use to somebody—take comfort, callant; if you are disappointed, there’s still some benefit in the gift. But ye might give all and no mortal be a gainer—waste, lavish, pour forth every thing ye have, and them the gift was for, if ever they knew, be the worse and not the better! Ay! that’s some men’s portion in this life.”
Cosmo did not venture to say a word—that bitter sense of waste and prodigality, the whole treasure of a man’s heart poured forth in vain, and worse than in vain, startled the lad with a momentary vision of depths into which he could not penetrate. For Cameron was not a boy, struggling with a boy’s passion of disappointment and mortification. He was a strong, tenacious, self-concentrated man. He had made a useless, vain, unprofitable holocaust, which could not give even a moment’s pleasure to the beloved of his imagination, for whom he had designed to do every thing, and the unacceptable gift returned in a bitterness unspeakable upon the giver’s heart. Other emotions, even more heavy and grievous, struggled also within him. His old scruples against leaving his garret and studies, his old feelings of guilt in deferring voluntarily, for his own pleasure and comfort, the beginning of his chosen “work,” came back upon his silent Celtic soul in a torrent of remorse and compunction, which he could not and would not confide to any one. If he had not forsaken the labors to which God had called him, could he have been left to cast his own heart away after this desperate and useless fashion? With these thoughts his fiery spirit consumed itself. Bitter at all times must be the revulsion of love which is in vain, but this was bitterer than bitterness—a useless, unlovely, unprofitable sacrifice, producing nothing save humiliation and shame.
“I see, Cosmo,” he said, after a little pause, “I see that you can not leave St. Ouen to-morrow. Do your duty. You were fain to find her, and you have found her. It might be but a boy’s impulse of generosity, and it may bring some disappointment with it; but it’s right, my lad! and it’s something to succeed in what you attempt, even though you do get a dinnle thereby in some corner of yourown heart. Never fear for Huntley—if he’s such as you say, the inheritance of the widow would be sacred to your brother. Now, laddie, fare you well. I’m going back tomyduty that I have forsaken. Henceforth you’re too tender a companion for the like of me. I’ve lost—time, and such matters that you have and to spare; you and I are on different levels, Cosmo; and now, my boy, fare ye well.”
“Farewell? you don’t blameme, Cameron?” cried Cosmo, scarcely knowing what he said.
“Blameyou—for what?” said the other, harshly, and with a momentary haughtiness; then he rose and laid his hand with an extreme and touching kindness, which was almost tender, upon Cosmo’s shoulder. “You’ve been like my youth to me, laddie,” said the Highlandman; “like a morning’s dew in the midst of drouth; when I say fare ye well I mean not to say that we’re parted; but I must not mint any more at the pathways of your life—mine is among the rocks, and in the teeth of the wind. I have no footing by nature among your primroses. That is why I say—not to-morrow in the daylight, and the eyes of strangers, but now when you and me and this night are by ourselves—fare ye well, laddie! We’re ever friends, but we’re no more comrades—that is what I mean.”
“And that is hard, Cameron, to me,” said Cosmo, whose eyes were full.
Cameron made no answer at all to the boy; he went to the door of the dim room with him, wrung his hand, and said, “Good night!” Then, while the lad went sadly up the noisy stair-case, the man turned back to his twilight apartment, bare and solitary, where there was nothing familiar and belonging to himself, save his pocket-book and passport upon the table, and Baptiste’s bill. He smiled as he took that up, and began to count out the money for its payment; vulgar, needful business, the very elements of daily necessity—these are the best immediate styptics for thrusts in the heart.
Cosmo, to whom nothing had happened, went to his apartment perhaps more restlessly miserable than Cameron, thinking over all his friend’s words, and aggravating in imagination the sadness of their meaning. The lad did not care to read, much less to obey the call of Madame Roche’s pretty note, which bade him come and tell her further whathis morning’s communication meant. For this night, at least, he was sick of Madame Roche, and every thing connected with her name.
Themorning brought feelings a little more endurable, yet still, very far from pleasant. Very early, while it was still dark, Cosmo saw his companions set off on their journey home, and was left to the cold dismal consciousness of a solitary day just beginning, as he watched the lights put out, and the chill gray dawn stealing over the high houses. The first ray of sunshine glimmered upon the attic windows and burned red in the vane over the dwelling-place of Madame Roche. This gleam recalled the lad’s imagination from a musing fit of vague depression and uneasiness. He must now think no more of Cameron—no more of those strange breakings off and partings which are in life. On the contrary, his old caprice of boyish generosity laid upon him now the claim of an urgent—almost an irksome—duty, and he, who went upon his travels to seek Mary of Melmar with all the fervor of a knight-errant, turned upon his heel this cold spring dawn with an inexpressible reluctance and impatience, to go to her, in obedience to her own summons. He would rather have been with Cameron in his silent and rapid journey—but his duty was here.
When Cosmo went to Madame Roche, which he did at as early an hour as he thought decorous, he found her alone, waiting for him. She came forward to receive him with rather an anxious welcome. “I almost feared you were gone,” said the old lady, with a smile which was less tranquil than usual. “When I saw your friends go, I said to myself, this boy is but a fairy messenger, who tells of a strange hope, and then is gone and one hears no more of it. I am glad you have not gone away; but your poor friend, he has left us? I thought it best, my child, to say nothing to Marie.”
Cosmo’s heart swelled a little in spite of himself; he could not bear the idea of the two women gossiping together over his friend’s heart-break, which was the first thought that occurred to him as Madame Roche spoke, and which, though it was certainly unjust, was still partly justified by the mysterious and compassionate tone in which the old lady mentioned Cameron’s name.
“I am not aware that there is any occasion for saying any thing, madame,” said Cosmo, with a little abruptness. Madame Roche was not remarkably quick-sighted, yet she saw through the lad’s irritation—the least smile in the world came to the corner of her lip. She did not think of the great pang in the Highlander’s heart—she knew very little indeed of Cameron—she only smiled with a momentary amusement at Cosmo’s displeasure, and a momentary sense of womanish triumph over the subjugated creature, man, represented in the person of this departed traveler, who, had just gone sadly away.
“Do not quarrel with me, my child,” she said, her smile subsiding into its usual sweetness; “the fault was not with me; but tell me once more this strange news you told me last night. Melmar, which was my father’s, I was born heiress of it—did you say it was mine—mine? for I think I must have mistaken what the words mean.”
“It is quite true,” said Cosmo, who had not yet quite recovered his temper, “your father left it to you if you were ever found, and if you were not found, tomyfather, and to Huntley Livingstone, his heir and eldest son. My father sought you in vain all his life; he never would put in his own claim lest it should injure you. When he died, Huntley was not rich enough to go to law for his rights, but he and everybody believed that you never would be found, and that he was the heir. He thinks so now; he is in Australia working hard for the money to maintain his plea, and believing that Melmar will be his; but I have found you, and you are the lady of Melmar; it is true.”
“You tell me a romance—a drama,” cried Madame Roche, with tears in her eyes. “Your father sought me all his life—me? though I was cruel to him. Ah, how touching! how beautiful!—and you, my young hero!—and this Huntley, this one who thinks himself the heir—he, too, is generous, noble, without selfishness—I know it! Oh, mychild, what shall I do for him? Alas, Marie! She is my eldest child, and she is married already—I never grieved for it enough till now.”
“There is no need, madame,” said Cosmo, to whom these little sentences came like so many little shooting arrows, pricking him into a disappointed and vexed resentment. “Huntley needs nothing to make him amends for what is simply justice. Melmar is not his, but yours.”
This speech, however, which was somewhat heroical in tone, expressed a most uncomfortable state of mind in Cosmo. He was angry at the idea of rewarding Huntley with the hand of Marie, if that had not been given away already. It was a highly romantic suggestion, the very embodiment of poetic justice, had it been practicable; but somehow it did not please Cosmo. Then another suggestion, made by his own fancy, came dancing unsolicited into the lad’s mind. Desirée, perhaps, who was not married, might notshebe compensation sufficient for Huntley? But Cosmo grew very red and felt exceedingly indignant as he thought of it; this second reward was rather more distasteful than the first. He paid very little attention, indeed, to Madame Roche, who, much excited, smiled and shed tears, and exclaimed upon her good fortune, upon the kindness of her friends, upon the goodness of God. Cosmo put his hands in his pockets and did not listen to her. He was no longer a young poet, full of youthful fervor and generosity. The temper of the British lion began to develop itself in Cosmo. He turned away from Madame Roche’s pretty effusion of sentiment and joy, in ahuffof disenchantment, discontented with her, and himself, and all the world.
Perhaps some delicate spirit whispered as much in the old lady’s ear. She came to him when her first excitement was over, with tender tears in her beautiful old eyes.
“My child, you have found a fortune and a home for me,” said Madame Roche, “but it is to take them away from your brother. What will your mother say at home?”
“She will say it is right and just, madame, and I have done my duty,” said Cosmo, briefly enough.
Then Madame Roche bent forward and kissed his young cheek, like a mother, as she was.
“We are widow and orphans,” she said, softly. “God will bless you—He is the guardian of such; and He will not let Huntley suffer when He sees how all of you do justice out of a free heart.”
Cosmo was melted; he turned away his head to conceal the moisture in his own eyes—was it out of a free heart? He felt rebuked and humbled when he asked himself the question; but Madame Roche gave him no time to think of his own feelings. She wanted to know every thing about all that had occurred. She was full of curiosity and interest, natural and womanly, about not only the leading points of the story, but all its details, and as Marie did not appear, Cosmo by himself, with his beautiful old lady, was soon reconciled to the new circumstances, and restored to his first triumph. He had done what his father failed to do—what his father’s agents had never been able to accomplish—what newspaper advertisements had attempted in vain. He had justified his own hope, and realized his own expectation. He had restored home and fortune to the lost Mary of Melmar. A night and a morning were long enough for the sway of uncomfortable and discontented feelings. He gave himself up, once more, to his old enthusiasm, forgetting Huntley’s loss and Cameron’s heart-break, and his mother’s disappointment, in the inspiration of his old dreams, all of which were now coming true. The end of this conversation was, that Cosmo—charged with Madame Roche’s entire confidence, and acting as her representative—was to follow his former companions and return to Edinburgh as speedily as possible, and there to instruct his old acquaintance, Cassilis, to take steps immediately for the recovery of Melmar. He parted with the old lady, who was, and yet was not, the Mary of his fancy, that same evening—did not see Marie, who was fortunately kept in her room by an access of illness or peevishness, took leave of Baptiste and the old streets of St. Ouen with great content and exhilaration, and on the very next morning, at an hour as early, as chilly, and as dark as that of Cameron’s departure, began his journey home.