There was a little, sunny, green walk opposite the dining-room windows, edged on either side by masses of white and crimson phlox and a row of sunflowers, where the gentlemen of the house were in the habit of taking their morning stroll and smoking their first cigar. It was here that Hugo was slowly pacing up and down when Brian Luttrell came out of the house in search of him.
Hugo gave him a searching glance as he approached, and was not reassured. Brian's face wore a curiously restrained expression, which gave it a look of sternness. Hugo's heart beat fast; he threw away the end of his cigar, and advanced to meet his cousin with an air of unconcern which was evidently assumed for the occasion. It passed unremarked, however. Brian was in no mood for considering Hugo's expression of countenance.
They took two or three turns up and down the garden walk without uttering a word. Brian was absorbed in thought, and Hugo had his own reasons for being afraid to open his mouth. It was Brian who spoke at last.
"Come away from the house," he said. "I want to speak to you, and we can't talk easily underneath all these windows. We'll go down to the loch."
"Not to the loch," said Hugo, hastily.
Brian considered a moment. "You are right," he said, in a low tone, "we won't go there. Come this way." For the moment he had forgotten that painful scene at the boat-house, which no doubt made Hugo shrink sensitively from the sight of the place. He was sorry that he had suggested it.
The day was calm and mild, but not brilliant. The leaves of the trees had taken on an additional tinge of autumnal yellow and red since Brian last looked at them with an observant eye. For the past week he had thought of nothing but of the intolerable grief and pain that had come upon him. But now the peace and quiet of the day stole upon him unawares; there was a restfulness in the sight of the steadfast hills, of the waving trees—a sense of tranquility even in the fall of the yellowing leaves and the flight of the migrating song-birds overhead. His eye grew calmer, his brow more smooth, as he walked silently onward; he drew a long breath, almost like one of relief; then he stopped short, and leaned against the trunk of a tall fir tree, looking absently before him, as though he had forgotten the reason for his proposed interview with his cousin. Hugo grew impatient. They had left the garden, and were walking down a grassy little-trodden lane between two tracks of wooded ground; it led to the tiny hamlet at the head of the loch, and thence to the high road. Hugo wondered whether the conversation were to be held upon the public highway or in the lane. If it had to do with his own private affairs, he felt that he would prefer the lane. But he dared not precipitate matters by speaking.
Brian recollected his purpose at last, however. After a short interval of silence he turned his eyes upon Hugo, who was standing near him, and said, gently—
"Sit down, won't you?—then we can talk."
There was a fallen log on the ground. Hugo took his seat on it meekly enough, but continued his former occupation of digging up, with the point of a stick that he was carrying, the roots of all the plants within his reach. He was so much absorbed by this pursuit that he seemed hardly to attend to the next words that Brian spoke.
"I ought, perhaps, to have had a talk with you before," he said. "Matters have been in a very unsettled state, as you well know. But there are one or two points that ought to be settled without delay."
Hugo ceased his work of destruction; and apparently disposed himself to listen.
"First, your own affairs. You have hitherto had an allowance, I believe—how much?"
"Two hundred," said Hugo, sulkily, "since I joined."
"And your pay. And you could not make that sufficient?"
Hugo's face flushed, he did not answer. He sat still, looking sullenly at the ground. Brian waited for a little while, and then went on.
"I don't want to preach, old fellow, but you know I can't help thinking that, by a little decent care and forethought, you ought to have made that do. Still, it's no good my saying so, is it? What is done cannot be undone—would God it could!"
He stopped short again: his voice had grown hoarse. Hugo, with the dusky red still tingeing his delicate, dark face, hung his head and made no reply.
"One can but try to do better for the future," said Brian, somewhat unsteadily, after that moment's pause. "Hugo, dear boy, will you promise that, at least?"
He put his hand on his cousin's shoulder. Hugo tried to shrink away, then, finding this impossible, averted his face and partly hid it with his hands.
"It's no good making vague promises," he said by-and-bye. "What do you mean? If you want me to promise to live on my pay or anything of that sort——"
"Nothing of that sort," Brian interrupted him. "Only, that you will act honourably and straightforwardly—that you will not touch what is not your own——"
Hugo shook off the kindly hand and started up with something like an oath upon his lips. "Why are you always talking about that affair! I thought it was past and done with," he said, turning his back upon his cousin, and switching the grass savagely with his cane.
"Always talking about it! Be reasonable, Hugo."
"It was only because I was at my wits' end for money," said the lad, irritably. "And that came in my way, and—I had never taken any before——"
"And never will again," said Brian. "That's what I want to hear you say."
But Hugo would say nothing. He stood, the impersonation of silent obstinacy, digging the end of his stick into the earth, or striking at the blue bells and the brambles within reach, resolved to utter no word which Brian could twist into any sort of promise for the future. He knew that his silence might injure his prospects, by lowering him in Brian's estimation—Brian being now the arbiter of his fate—but for all that he could not bring himself to make submission or to profess penitence. Something made the words stick in his throat; no power on earth would at that moment have forced him to speak.
"Well," said Brian at last, in a tone which showed deep disappointment, "I am sorry that you won't go so far, Hugo. I hope you will do well, however, without professions. Still, I should have been better satisfied to have your word for it—before I left Netherglen."
"Where are you going?" said Hugo, suddenly facing him.
"I don't quite know."
"To London?"
"No, Abroad."
"Abroad?" repeated Hugo, with a wondering accent. "Why should you go abroad?"
"That's my own business."
"But—but—" said the lad, flushing and paling, and stammering with eagerness, "I thought that you would stay here, and that Netherglen and everything would belong to you, and—and——"
"And that I should shoot, and fish, and ride, and disport myself gaily over my brother's inheritance—that my own hand deprived him of!" cried Brian, with angry bitterness. "It is so likely! Is it you who have no feeling, or do you fancy that I have none?"
"But the place is yours," faltered Hugo, with a guilty look, "Strathleckie is yours, if Netherglen is not."
"Mine! Yes, it is mine after a fashion," said Brian, while a hot, red flush crept up to his forehead, and his brows contracted painfully over his sad, dark eyes. "It is mine by law; mine by my father's will; and if it had come into my hands by any other way—if my brother had not died through my own carelessness—I suppose that I might have learnt to enjoy it like any other man. But as it is—I wish that every acre of it were at the bottom of the loch, and I there, too, for the matter of that! I have made up my mind that I will not benefit by Richard's death. Others may have the use of his wealth, but I am the last that should touch it. I will have the two or three hundred a year that he used to give me, and I will have nothing more."
Hugo's face had grown pale. He looked more dismayed by this utterance than by anything that Brian as yet had said. He opened his lips once or twice before he could find his voice, and it was in curiously rough and broken tones that he at length asked a question.
"Is this because of what people say about—about you—and—Richard?"
He seemed to find it difficult to pronounce the dead man's name. Brian lifted up his face.
"What do people say about me and Richard, then?" he said.
Hugo retreated a little.
"If you don't know," he said, looking down miserably, "I can't tell you."
Brian's eyes blazed with sudden wrath.
"You have said too little or too much," he said. "I must know the rest. What is it that people say?"
"Don't you know?"
"No, I do not know. Out with it."
"I can't tell you," said Hugo, biting his lips. "Don't ask me, ask someone else. Anyone."
"Is 'anyone' sure to know? I will hear it from you, and from no one else. What do people say?"
Hugo looked up at him and then down again. The struggle that was waging between the powers of good and evil in his soul had its effect even on his outer man. His very lips turned white as he considered what he should say.
Brian noted this change of colour, and was moved by it, thinking that he understood Hugo's reluctance to give him pain. He subdued his own impatience, and spoke in a lower, quieter voice.
"Don't take it to heart, Hugo, whatever it may be. It cannot be worse than the thing I have heard already—from my mother. I don't suppose I shall mind it much. They say, perhaps, that I—that I shot my brother"—(in spite of himself, Brian's voice trembled with passionate indignation)—"that I killed Richard purposely—knowing what I did—in order to possess myself of this miserable estate of his—is that what they say?"
Hugo answered by a bare little monosyllable—
"Yes."
"And who says this?"
"Everyone. The whole country side."
"Then—if this is believed so generally—why have no steps been taken to prove my guilt? Good God, my guilt! Why should I not be prosecuted at once for murder?"
"There would be no evidence, they say." Hugo murmured, uneasily. "It is simply a matter of assertion; you say you shot at a bird, not seeing him, and they say that you must have known that he was there. That is all."
"A matter of assertion! Well, they are right so far. If they don't believe my word, there is no more to be said," replied Brian, sadly, his excitement suddenly forsaking him. "Only I never thought that my word would even be asked for on such a subject by people who had known me all my life. You don't doubt me, do you, Hugo?"
"How could I?" said Hugo, in a voice so low and shaken that Brian could scarcely hear the words. But he felt instinctively that the lad's trust in him, on that one point, at least, had not wavered, and with a warm thrill of affection and gratitude he held out his hand. It gave him a rude shock to see that Hugo drew back and would not take it.
"What! you don't trust me after all?" he said, quickly.
"I—I do," cried Hugo, "but—what does it matter what I think? I'm not fit to take your hand—I cannot—I cannot——"
His emotion was so genuine that Brian felt some surprise, and also some compunction for having distrusted him before.
"Dear Hugo," he said, gently, "I shall know you better now. We have always been friends; don't forget that we are friends still, although I may be on the other side of the world. I'm going to try and lose myself in some out-of-the-way place, and live where nobody will ever know my story, but I shall be rather glad to think sometimes that, at any rate, you understand what I felt about poor Richard—that you never once misjudged me—I won't forget it, Hugo, I assure you."
He pressed Hugo's still reluctant hand, and then made him sit down beside him upon the fallen tree.
"We must talk business now," he said, more cheerfully—though it was a sad kind of cheerfulness after all—"for we have not much time left. I hear the luncheon-bell already. Shall we finish our talk first? You don't care for luncheon? No more do I. Where had we got to? Only to the initial step—that I was going abroad. I have several other things to explain to you."
His eyes looked out into the distance as he spoke; his voice lost its forced cheerfulness, and became immeasurably grave and sad. Hugo listened with hidden face. He did not care to turn his gloomy brows and anxiously-twitching lips towards the speaker.
"I shall never come back to Scotland," said Brian, slowly. "To England I may come some day, but it will be after many years. My mother has the management of Strathleckie; as well as of Netherglen, which belongs to her. She will live here, and use the house and dispose of the revenues as she pleases. Angela remains with her."
"But if you marry——"
"I shall never marry. My life is spoilt—ruined. I could not ask any woman to share it with me. I shall be a wanderer on the face of the earth—like Cain."
"No, no!" cried Hugo, passionately. "Not like Cain. There is no curse on you——"
"Not even my mother's curse? I am not sure," said Brian. "I shall be a wanderer, at any rate; so much is certain: living on my three hundred a year, very comfortably, no doubt; until this life is over, and I come out clear on the other side——"
Hugo lifted his face. "You don't mean," he whispered, with a look of terrified suspicion, "that you would ever lay hands on yourself, and shorten your life in that way?"
"Why, no. What makes you think that I should choose such a course? I hope I am not a coward," said Brian, simply. "No, I shall live out my days somewhere—somehow; but there is no harm in wishing that they were over."
There was a pause. The dreamy expression of Brian's eyes seemed to betoken that his thoughts were far away. Hugo moved his stick nervously through the grass at his feet. He could not look up.
"What else have you to tell me?" he said at last.
"Do you know the way in which Strathleckie was settled?" said Brian, quietly, coming down to earth from some high vision of other worlds and other lives than ours. "Do you know that my grandfather made a curious will about it?"
"No," said Hugo. It was false, for he knew the terms of the will quite well; but he thought it more becoming to profess ignorance.
"This place belonged to my mother's father. It was left to her children and their direct heirs; failing heirs, it reverts to a member of her family, a man of the name of Gordon Murray. We have no power to alienate any portion of it. The rents are ours, the house and lands are ours, for our lives only. If we die, you see, without children, the property goes to these Murrays."
"Cousins of yours, are they?"
"Second cousins. I have never troubled myself about the exact degree of relationship until within the last day or two. I find that Gordon Murray would be my second cousin once removed, and that his child or children—he has more than one, I believe—would, therefore, be my third cousins. A little while ago I should have thought it highly improbable that any of the Gordon Murrays would ever come into possession of Strathleckie, but it is not at all improbable now."
"Where do these Murrays live?"
"In London, I think. I am not sure. I have asked Colquhoun to find out all that he can about them. If there is a young fellow in the family, it might be well to let him know his prospects and invite him down. I could settle an income on him if he were poor. Then the estate would benefit somebody."
"You can do as you like with the income," said Hugo.
The words escaped him half against his will. He stole a glance at Brian when they were uttered, as if anxious to ascertain whether or no his cousin had divined his own grudging, envious thoughts. He heartily wished that Richard's money had come to him. In Brian's place it would never have crossed his mind that he should throw away the good fortune that had fallen to his lot. If only he were in this lucky young Murray's shoes!
Brian did not guess the thoughts that passed through Hugo's mind, but that murmured speech reminded him of another point which he wished to make quite clear.
"Yes, I can do what I like with the income," he said, "and also with a sum of money that my father invested many years ago which nobody has touched at present. There are twelve thousand pounds in the Funds, part of which I propose to settle upon you so as to make you more independent of my help in the future."
Hugo stammered out something a little incoherent; it was a proposition which took him completely by surprise. Brian continued quietly—
"Of course, I might continue the allowance that you have had hitherto, but then, in the event of my death, it would cease, for I cannot leave it to you by will. I have thought that it would be better, therefore, to transfer to you six thousand pounds, Hugo, over which you have complete control. All I ask is that you won't squander it. Colquhoun says that he can safely get you five per cent for it. I would put it in his hands, if I were you. It will then bring you in three hundred a year."
"Brian, you are too good to me," said Hugo. There were tears in his eyes; his voice trembled and his cheek flushed as he spoke "You don't know——"
Then he stopped and covered his face with his hands. A very unwonted feeling of shame and regret overpowered him; it was as much as he could do to refrain from crying like a child. "I can't thank you," he said, with a sob which made Brian smile a little, and lay his hand affectionately on his shoulder.
"Don't thank me, dear boy," he said. "It's very little to do for you; but it will perhaps help to keep you out of difficulties. And if you are in any trouble, go to Colquhoun. I will tell him how far he may go on helping you, and you can trust him. He shall not even tell me what you say to him, if you don't wish me to know. But, for Heaven's sake, Hugo, try to keep straight, and bring no disgrace upon our name. I have done what I could for you—I may do more, if necessary; but there are circumstances in which I should not be able to help you at all, and you know what those are."
He thought that he understood Hugo's impulsive disposition, but even he was not prepared for the burst of passionate remorse and affection with which the boy threw himself almost at his feet, kissing his hands and sobbing out promises of amendment with all the abandonment of his Southern nature. Brian was inclined to be displeased with this want of self-control; he spoke sharply at last and told him to command himself. But some time elapsed before Hugo regained his calmness. And when Brian returned to the house, he could not induce his cousin to return with him; the young fellow wandered away through the woods with drooping head and dejected mien, and was seen no more till late at night.
He came back to the house too late to say good-bye to Brian, who had left a few lines of farewell for him. His absence, perhaps, added a pang to the keen pain with which Brian left his home; but if so, no trace of it was discernible in the kindly words which he had addressed to his cousin. He saw neither his mother nor Angela before he went; indeed, he avoided any formal parting from the household in general, and let it be thought that he was likely to return in a short time. But as he took from his groom the reins of the dog-cart in which he was about to drive down to the station, he looked round him sadly and lingeringly, with a firm conviction at his heart that never again would his eyes rest upon the shining loch, the purple hills, and the ivy-grown, grey walls of Netherglen. Never again. He had said his last farewell. He had no home now!
Angela Vivian's brother Rupert was, perhaps, not unlike her in feature and colouring, but there was a curious dissimilarity of expression between the two. Angela's dark, grey eyes had a sweetness in which Rupert's were lacking; the straight, regular features, which with her were brightened by a tender play of emotion, were, with him, cold and grave. The mouth was a fastidious one; the bearing of the man, though full of distinction, could sometimes be almost repellantly haughty. The merest sketch of him would not be complete unless we added that his dress was faultless, and that he was apt to bestow a somewhat finical care upon the minor details of his toilet.
It was in October, when "everybody" was still supposed to be out of town, that Rupert Vivian walked composedly down Gower-street meditating on the news which the latest post had brought him. In sheer absence of mind he almost passed the house at which he had been intending to call, and he stood for a minute or two upon the steps, as if not quite sure whether or no he would enter. Finally, however, he knocked at the door and rang the bell, then prepared himself, with a resigned air, to wait until it should be opened. He had never yet found that a first summons gained him admittance to that house.
After waiting five minutes and knocking twice, a slatternly maid appeared and asked him to walk upstairs. Rupert followed her leisurely; he knew very well what sort of reception to expect, and was not surprised when she merely opened the drawing-room door, and left him to announce himself. "No ceremony" was the rule in the Herons' household, and very objectionable Rupert Vivian sometimes found it.
The day had been foggy and dark, and a bright fire threw a cheerful light over the scene which presented itself to Rupert's eyes. A pleasant clinking of spoons and cups and saucers met his ear. He stood at the door for a moment unobserved, listening and looking on. He was a privileged person in that house, and considered himself quite at liberty to look and listen if he chose.
The room had an air of comfort verging upon luxury, but if was untidy to a degree which Rupert thought disgraceful. For the rich hues of the curtains, the artistic character of the Japanese screens and Oriental embroideries, the exquisite landscape-paintings on the walls, were compatible with grave deficiencies in the list of more ordinary articles of furniture. There were two or three picturesque, high-backed chairs, made of rosewood (black with age) and embossed leather, but the rest of the seats consisted of divans, improvised by ingenious fingers out of packing-boxes and cushions covered with Morris chintzes; or brown Windsor chairs, evidently imported straight from the kitchen. A battered old writing-desk had an incongruous look when placed next to a costly buhl clock on a table inlaid indeed with mother-of-pearl, but wanting in one leg; and so no valuable blue china was apt to pass unobserved upon the mantelpiece because it was generally found in company with a child's mug, a plate of crusts, or a painting-rag. A grand piano stood open, and was strewn with sheets of music; two sketching portfolios conspicuously adorned the hearth-rug. A tea-table was drawn up near the fire, and the firelight was reflected pleasantly in the gleaming silver and porcelain of the tea-service.
The human elements of the scene were very diverse. Mrs. Heron, a languid-looking, fair-haired woman, lay at full length on one of the divans. Her step-daughter, Kitty, sat at the tea-table, and Kitty's elder brother, Percival, a tall, broad-shouldered young man of eight-and-twenty, was leaning against the mantelpiece. A girl, who looked about twenty-one years of age was sitting in the deepest shadow of the room. The firelight played upon her hands, which lay quietly folded before her in her lap, but it did not touch her face. Two or three children were playing about the floor with their toys and a white fox-terrier. The young man was talking very fast, two at least of the ladies were laughing, the children were squabbling and shouting. It was a Babel. As Rupert stood at the door he caught the sense of Percival's last rapid sentences.
"No right nor wrong in the case. You must allow me to say that you take an exclusively feminine view of the matter, which, of course, is narrow. I have as much right to sell my brains to the highest bidder as my friend Vivian has to sell his pictures when he gets the chance—which isn't often."
"There is nothing like the candour of an impartial friend," said Rupert, good-humouredly, as he advanced into the room. "Allow me to tell you that I sold my last painting this morning. How do you do, Mrs. Heron?"
His appearance produced a lull in the storm. Percival ceased to talk and looked slightly—very slightly—disconcerted. Mrs. Heron half rose; Kitty made a raid upon the children's toys, and carried some of them to the other end of the room, whither the tribe followed her, lamenting. Then, Percival laughed aloud.
"Where did you come from?" he said, in a round, mellow, genial voice, which was singularly pleasant to the ear. "'Listeners hear no good of themselves.' You've proved the proverb."
"Not for the first time when you are the speaker. I have found that out. How are you, Kitty? Good evening, Miss Murray."
"How good of you to come to see us, Mr. Vivian!" said Mrs. Heron, in a low, sweetly-modulated voice, as she held out one long, white hand to her visitor. She re-arranged her draperies a little, and lay back gracefully when she had spoken. Rupert had never seen her do anything but lie on sofas in graceful attitudes since he first made her acquaintance. It was hermétier. Nobody expected anything else from her except vague, theoretic talk, which she called philosophy. She had been Kitty's governess in days gone by. Mr. Heron, an artist of some repute, married her when he had been a widower for twelve months only. Since that time she had become the mother of three handsome, but decidedly noisy, children, and had lapsed by degrees into the life of a useless, fine lady, to whom household cares and the duties of a mother were mere drudgery, and were left to fall as much as possible on the shoulders of other people. Nevertheless, Mrs. Heron's selfishness was of a gentle and even loveable type. She was seldom out of humour, rarely worried or fretful; she was only persistently idle, and determined to consider herself in feeble health.
Vivian's acquaintance with the Herons dated from his first arrival in London, six years ago, when he boarded with them for a few months. The disorder of the household had proved too great a trial to his fastidious tastes to be borne for a longer space of time. He had, however, formed a firm friendship with the whole family, especially with Percival; and for the last three or four years the two young men had occupied rooms in the same house and virtually lived together. To anyone who knew the characters of the friends, their friendship was somewhat remarkable. Vivian's fault was an excess of polish and refinement; he attached unusual value to matters of mere taste and culture. Possibly this was the link which really attached him to Percival Heron, who was a man of considerable intellectual power, although possessed sometimes by a sort of irrepressible brusqueness and roughness of manner, with which he could make himself exceedingly disagreeable even to his friends. Percival was taller, stronger, broader about the shoulders, deeper in the chest, than Vivian—in fact, a handsomer man in all respects. Well-cut features, pale, but healthy-looking; brilliant, restless, dark eyes; thick brown hair and moustache; a well-knit, vigorous frame, which gave no sign as yet of the stoutness to which it inclined in later years, these were points that made his appearance undeniably striking and attractive. A physiognomist might, however, have found something to blame as well as to praise in his features. There was an ominous upright line between the dark brows, which surely told of a variable temper; the curl of the laughing lips, and the fall of the heavy moustache only half concealed a curious over-sensitiveness in the lines of the too mobile mouth. It was not the face of a great thinker nor of a great saint, but of a humorous, quick-witted, impatient man, of wide intelligence, and very irritable nervous organisation.
The air of genial hilarity which he could sometimes wear was doubtless attractive to a man of Vivian's reserved temperament. Percival's features beamed with good humour—he laughed with his whole heart when anything amused him. Vivian used to look at him in wonder sometimes, and think that Percival was more like a great overgrown boy than a man of eight-and-twenty. On the other hand, Percival said that Vivian was a prig.
Kitty, sitting at the tea-table, did not think so. She loved her brother very much, but she considered Mr. Vivian a hero, a demigod, something a little lower, perhaps, than the angels, but not very much. Kitty was only sixteen, which accounts, possibly, for her delusion on this subject. She was slim, and round, and white, with none of the usual awkwardness of her age about her. She had a well-set, graceful little head, and small, piquant features; her complexion had not much colour, but her pretty lips showed the smallest and pearliest of teeth when she smiled, and her dark eyes sparkled and danced under the thin, dark curve of her eyebrows and the shade of her long, curling lashes. Then her hair would not on any account lie straight, but disposed itself in dainty tendrils and love-locks over her forehead, which gave her almost a childish look, and was a serious trouble to Miss Kitty herself, who preferred her step-mother's abundant flaxen plaits, and did not know the charm that those soft rings of curling hair lent to her irregular, little face.
Vivian took a cup of tea from her with an indulgent smile, He liked Kitty extremely well. He lent her books sometimes, which she did not always read. I am afraid that he tried to form her mind. Kitty had a mind of her own, which did not want forming. Perhaps Percival Heron, was right when he said that Vivian was a prig. He certainly liked to lecture Kitty; and she used to look up at him with great, grave eyes when he was lecturing, and pretend to understand what he was saying. She very often did not understand a word; but Rupert never suspected that. He thought that Kitty was a very simple-minded little person.
"There was quite an argument going on when you appeared, Mr. Vivian," said Mrs. Heron, languidly. "It is sometimes a most difficult matter to decide what is right and what is wrong. I think you must decide for us."
"I am not skilled in casuistry," said Vivian, smiling. "Is Percival giving forth some of his heresies?"
"I was never less heretical in my life," cried Percival. "State your case, Bess; I'll give you the precedence."
Vivian turned towards the dark corner.
"It is Miss Murray's difficulty, is it?" he said, with a look of some interest. "I shall be glad to hear it."
The girl in the dark corner stirred a little uneasily, but she spoke with no trepidation of manner, and her voice was clear and cool.
"The question," she said, "is whether a man may write articles in a daily paper, advocating views which are not his own, simply because they are the views of the editor. I call it dishonesty."
"So do I," said Kitty, warmly.
"Dishonesty? Not a bit of it," rejoined Percival. "The writer is the mouthpiece of the paper, which advocates certain views; he sinks his individuality; he does not profess to explain his own opinions. Besides, after all, what is dishonesty? Why should people erect honesty into such a great virtue? It is like truth-telling and—peaches; nobody wants them out of their proper season; they are never good when they are forced."
"I don't see any analogy between truth-telling and peaches," said the calm voice from the corner.
"You tell the truth all the year round, don't you, Bess?" said Kitty, with a little malice.
"But we are mortal, and don't attempt to practice exotic virtues," said Percival, mockingly. "I see no reason why I should not flourish upon what is called dishonesty, just as I see no reason why I should not tell lies. It is only the diseased sensibility of modern times which condemns either."
"Modern times?" said Vivian. "I have heard of a commandment——"
"Good Heavens!" said Percival, throwing back his handsome head, "Vivian is going to be didactic! I think this conversation has lasted quite long enough. Elizabeth, consider yourself worsted in the argument, and contest the point no longer."
"There has been no argument," said Elizabeth. "There has been assertion on your part, and indignation on ours; that is all."
"Then am I to consider myself worsted?" asked Percival. But he got no answer. Presently, however, he burst out with renewed vigour.
"Right and wrong! What does it mean? I hate the very sound of the words. What is right to me is wrong to you, andvice versa. It's all a matter of convention. 'Now, who shall arbitrate? as Browning says—
'Now, who shall arbitrate?Ten men love what I hate,Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;Ten, who in ears and eyesMatch me; we all surmise,They, this thing, and I, that; whom shall my soul believe?"
'Now, who shall arbitrate?Ten men love what I hate,Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;Ten, who in ears and eyesMatch me; we all surmise,They, this thing, and I, that; whom shall my soul believe?"
The lines rang out boldly upon the listeners' ears. Percival was one of the few men who can venture to recite poetry without making themselves ridiculous. He continued hotly—
"There is neither truth nor falsehood in the world, and those who aver that there is are either impostors or dupes."
"Ah," said Vivian, "you remind me of Bacon's celebrated sentence—'Many there be that say with jesting Pilate, What is truth? but do not wait for an answer.'"
"I think you have both quoted quite enough," said Kitty, lightly. "You forget how little I understand of these deep subjects. I don't know how it is, but Percival always says the things most calculated to annoy people; he never visits papa's studio without abusing modern art, or meets a doctor without sneering at the medical profession, or loses an opportunity of telling Elizabeth, who loves truth for its own sake, that he enjoys trickery and falsehood, and thinks it clever to tell lies."
"Very well put, Kitty," said Percival, approvingly. "You have hit off your brother's amiable character to the life. Like the child in the story, I could never tell why people loved me so, but now I know."
There was a general laugh, and also a discordant clatter at the other end of the room, where the children, hitherto unnoticed, had come to blows over a broken toy.
"What a noise they make!" said Percival, with a frown.
"Perhaps they had better go away," murmured Mrs. Heron, gently. "Dear Lizzy, will you look after them a little? They are always good with you."
The girl rose and went silently towards the three children, who at once clustered round her to pour their woes into her ear. She bent down and spoke to them lovingly, as it seemed, and finally quitted the room with one child clinging round her neck, and the others hanging to her gown. Percival gave vent to a sudden, impatient sigh.
"Miss Murray is fond of children," said Vivian, looking after her pleasantly.
"And I am not," snapped Kitty, with something of her brother's love of opposition in her tone. "I hate children."
"You! You are only a child yourself," said he, turning towards her with a kindly look in his grave eyes, and an unwonted smile. But Kitty's wrath was appeased by neither look nor smile.
"Then I had better join my compeers," she said, tartly. "I shall at least get the benefit of Elizabeth's affection for children."
Vivian's chair was close to hers, and the tea-table partly hid them from Percival's lynx eyes. Mrs. Heron was half asleep. So there was nothing to hinder Mr. Rupert Vivian from putting out his hand and taking Kitty's soft fingers for a moment soothingly in his own. He did not mean anything but an elderly-brotherly, patronising sort of affection by it; but Kitty was "thrilled through every nerve" by that tender pressure, and sat mute as a mouse, while Vivian turned to her step-mother and began to speak.
"I had some news this morning of my sister," he said. "You heard of the sad termination to her engagement?"
"No; what was that?"
"She was to be married before Christmas to a Mr. Luttrell; but Mr. Luttrell was killed a short time ago by a shot from his brother's gun when they were out shooting together."
"How very sad!"
"The brother has gone—or is going—abroad; report says that he takes the matter very much to heart. And Angela is going to live with Mrs. Luttrell, the mother of these two men. I thought these details might be interesting to you," said Vivian, looking round half-questioningly, "because I understand that the Luttrells are related to your young friend—or cousin—Miss Murray."
"Indeed? I never heard her mention the name," said Mrs. Heron.
Vivian thought of something that he had recently heard in connection with Miss Murray and the Luttrell family, and wondered whether she knew that if Brian Luttrell died unmarried she would succeed, to a great Scotch estate. But he said nothing more.
"Where is Elizabeth?" said Percival, restlessly. "She is a great deal too much with these children—they drag the very life out of her. I shall go and find her."
He marched away, noting as he went, with much dissatisfaction, that Mrs. Heron was inviting Vivian to dinner, and that he was accepting the invitation.
He went to the top of the house, where he knew that a room was appropriated to the use of the younger children. Here he found Elizabeth for once without the three little Herons. She was standing in the middle of the room, engaged in the prosaic occupation of folding up a table-cloth.
He stood in the doorway looking at her for a minute or two before he spoke. She was a tall girl, with fine shoulders, and beautiful arms and hands. He noticed them particularly as she held up the cloth, shook it out, and folded it. A clear, fine-grained skin, with a colour like that of a June rose in her cheeks, well-opened, calm-looking, grey-blue eyes, a mass of golden hair, almost too heavy for her head; a well-cut profile, and rather stately bearing, made Elizabeth Murray a noticeable person even amongst women more strictly beautiful than herself. She was poorly and plainly dressed, but poverty and plainness became her, throwing into strong relief the beauty of her rose-tints and finely-moulded figure. She did not start when she saw Percival at the door; she smiled at him frankly, and asked why he had come.
"Do you know anything of the Luttrells?" he asked, abruptly.
"The Luttrells of Netherglen? They are my third cousins."
"You never speak of them."
"I never saw them."
"Do you know what has happened to one of them."
"Yes. He shot his brother by mistake a few days ago."
"I was thinking rather of the one who was killed," said Percival. "Where did you see the account? In the newspaper?"
"Yes." Then she hesitated a little. "And I had a letter, too."
"From the Luttrells themselves?"
"From their lawyer."
"And you held your tongue about it?"
"There was nothing to say," said Elizabeth, with a smile.
Percival shrugged his shoulders, and went back to the drawing-room.
Percival and his friend dined with the Herons that evening. Mr. Heron was an artist by profession; he was a fair, abstracted-looking man, with gold eye-glasses, which he was always sticking ineffectually upon the bridge of his nose and nervously feeling for when they tumbled down again. He had painted several good pictures in his time, and was in the habit of earning a fairly good income; but owing to some want of management, either on his part or his wife's, his income never seemed quite large enough for the needs of the household. The servants' wages were usually in arrear; the fittings of the house were broken and never repaired; there were wonderful gaps in the furniture and the china, which nobody ever appeared to think of filling up. Rupert remembered the ways of the house when he had boarded there, and was not surprised to find himself dining upon mutton half-burnt and half-raw, potatoes more like bullets than vegetables, and a partially cooked rice-pudding, served upon the remains of at least three dinner-services, accompanied by sour beer and very indifferent claret. Percival did not even pretend to eat; he sat back in his chair and declared, with an air of polite disgust, that he was not hungry. Rupert made up for his deficiencies, however; he swallowed what was set before him and conversed with his hostess, who was quite unconscious that anything was amiss. Mrs. Heron had a vague taste for metaphysics and political economy; she had beautiful theories of education, which she was always intending, at some future time, to put into practice for the benefit of her three little boys, Harry, Willy, and Jack. She spoke of these theories, with her blue eyes fixed on vacancy and her fork poised gracefully in the air, while Vivian laboured distastefully through his dinner, and Percival frowned in silence at the table-cloth.
"I have always thought," Mrs. Heron was saying sweetly, "that children ought not to be too much controlled. Their development should be perfectly free. My children grow up like young plants, with plenty of sun and air; they play as they like; they work when they feel that they can work best; and, if at times they are a little noisy, at any rate their noise never develops into riot."
Percival did not, perhaps, intend her to hear him, but, below his breath, he burst into a sardonic, little laugh and an aside to his sister Kitty.
"Never into riot! I never heard them stop short of it!"
Mrs. Heron looked at him uncertainly, and took pains to explain herself.
"Up to a certain point, I was going to say, Percival, dear. At the proper age, I think, that discipline, entire and perfect discipline, ought to begin."
"And what is the proper age?" said Percival, ironically. "For it seems to me that the boys are now quite old enough to endure a little discipline."
"Oh, at present," said Mrs. Heron, with undisturbed composure, "they are in Elizabeth's hands. I leave them entirely to her. I trust Elizabeth perfectly."
"Is that the reason why Elizabeth does not dine with us?" said Percival, looking at his step-mother with an expression of deep hostility. But Mrs. Heron's placidity was of a kind which would not be ruffled.
"Elizabeth is so kind," she said. "She teaches them, and does everything for them; but, of course, they must go to school by-and-bye. Dear papa will not let me teach them myself. He tells me to forget that ever I was a governess; but, indeed"—with a faint, pensive smile—"my instincts are too strong for me sometimes, and I long to have my pupils back again. Do I not, Kitty, darling?"
"I was not a pupil of yours very long, Isabel," said Kitty, who never brought herself to the point of calling Mrs. Heron by anything but her Christian name.
"Not long," sighed Mrs. Heron. "Too short a time for me."
At this point Mr. Heron, who noticed very little of what was going on around him, turned to his son with a question about the politics of the day. Percival, with his nose in the air, hardly deigned at first to answer; but upon Vivian's quietly propounding some strongly Conservative views, which always acted on the younger Heron as a red rag is supposed to act upon a bull, he waxed impatient and then argumentative, until at last he talked himself into a good humour, and made everybody else good humoured.
When they returned to the untidy but pleasant-looking drawing-room, they found Elizabeth engaged in picking up the children's toys, straightening the sheets of music on the piano, and otherwise making herself generally useful; She had changed her dress, and put on a long, plain gown of white cashmere, which suited her admirably, although it was at least three years old, undeniably tight for her across the shoulders, and short at the wrists, having shrunk by repeated washings since the days when it first was made. She wore no trimmings and no ornaments, whereas Kitty, in her red frock, sported half-a-dozen trumpery bracelets, a silver necklace, and a little bunch of autumn flowers; and Mrs. Heron's pale-blue draperies were adorned with dozens of yards of cheap cream-coloured lace. Vivian looked at Elizabeth and wondered, almost for the first time, why she differed so greatly from the Herons. He had often seen her before; but, being now particularly interested by what he had heard about her, he observed her more than usual.
Mrs. Heron sat down at the piano; she played well, and was rather fond of exhibiting her musical proficiency. Percival and Kitty were engaged in an animated, low-toned conversation. Rupert approached Elizabeth, who was arranging some sketches in a portfolio with the diligence of a housemaid. She was standing just within the studio, which was separated from the drawing-room by a velvet curtain now partially drawn aside.
"Do you sketch? are these your drawings?" he asked her.
"No, they are Uncle Alfred's. I cannot draw."
"You are musical, I suppose," said Rupert, carelessly.
He took it for granted that, if a girl did not draw, she must needs play the piano. But her next words undeceived him.
"No, I can't play. I have no accomplishments."
"What do you mean by accomplishments?" asked Vivian, smiling.
"I mean that I know nothing about French and German, or music and drawing," said Elizabeth, calmly. "I never had any systematic education. I should make rather a good housemaid, I believe, but my friends won't allow me to take a housemaid's situation."
"I should think not," ejaculated Vivian.
"But it is all that I am fit for," she continued, quietly. "And I think it is rather a pity that I am not allowed to be happy in my own way."
There was a little silence. Vivian felt himself scarcely equal to the occasion. Presently she said, with more quickness of speech than usual:—
"You have been in Scotland lately, have you not?"
"I was there a short time ago, but for two days only."
"Ah, yes, you went to Netherglen?"
"I did. The Luttrells are connections of yours, are they not, Miss Murray?"
"Very distant ones," said Elizabeth.
"You know that Brian Luttrell has gone abroad?"
"I have heard so."
There was very little to be got out of Miss Murray. Vivian was almost glad when Percival joined them, and he was able to slip back to Kitty, with whom he had no difficulty in carrying on a conversation.
The studio was dimly lighted, and Percival, either by accident or design, allowed the curtain to fall entirely over the aperture between the two rooms. He looked round him. Mr. Heron was absent, and they had the room to themselves. Several unfinished canvasses were leaning against the walls; the portrait of an exceedingly cadaverous-looking old man was conspicuous upon the artist's easel; the lay figure was draped like a monk, and had a cowl drawn over its stiff, wooden head. Percival shrugged his shoulders.
"My father's studio isn't an attractive-looking place," he said, with a growl of disgust in his voice.
"Why did you come into it?" said Elizabeth.
"I had a good reason," he answered, looking at her.
If she understood the meaning that he wished to convey, it certainly did not embarrass or distress her in the least. She gave him a very friendly, but serious, kind of smile, and went on calmly with her work of sorting the papers and sketches that lay scattered around her.
"Elizabeth," he said, "I am offended with you."
"That happens so often," she replied, "that I am never greatly surprised nor greatly concerned at hearing it."
"It is of little consequence to you, no doubt," said Percival, rather huffily; "but I am—for once—perfectly serious, Elizabeth. Why could you not come down to dinner to-night when Rupert and I were here?"
"I very seldom come down to dinner. I was with the children."
"The children are not your business."
"Indeed they are. Mrs. Heron has given them into my charge, and I am glad of it. Not that I care for all children," said Elizabeth, with the cool impartiality that was wont to drive Percival to the very verge of distraction. "I dislike some children very much, indeed, but, you see, I happen—fortunately for myself—to be fond of Harry, Willie, and Jack."
"Fortunately, for yourself, do you say? Fortunately for them! You must be fond of them, indeed. You can have their society all day and every day; and yet you could not spare a single hour to come and dine with us like a rational being. Vivian will think they make a nursery-maid of you, and I verily believe they do!"
"What does it signify to us what Mr. Vivian thinks? I don't mind being taken for a nursery-maid at all, if I am only doing my proper work. But I would have come down, Percival, indeed, I would, if little Jack had not seemed so fretful and unwell. I am afraid something really is the matter with his back; he complains so much of pain in it, and cannot sleep at night. I could not leave him while he was crying and in pain, could I?"
"What did you do with him?" asked Percival, after a moment's pause.
"I walked up and down the room. He went to sleep in my arms."
"Of course, you tired yourself out with that great, heavy boy!"
"You don't know how light little Jack is; you cannot have taken him in your arms for a long time, Percival," said she, in a hurt tone; "and I am very strong. My hands ought to be of some use to me, if my brain is not."
"Your brain is strong enough, and your will is strong enough for anything, but your hands——"
"Are they to be useless?"
"Yes, they are to be useless," he said, "and somebody else must work for you."
"That arrangement would not suit me. I like to work for myself," she answered, smiling.
They were standing on opposite sides of a small table on which the portfolio of drawings rested. Percival was holding up one side of the portfolio, and she was placing the sketches one by one upon each other.
"Do you know what you look like?" said Percival, suddenly. There was a thrill of pleasurable excitement in his tone, a glow of ardour in his dark eyes. "You look like a tall, white lily to-night, with your white dress and your gleaming hair. The pure white of the petals and the golden heart of the lily have found their match."
"I am recompensed for the trouble I took in changing my dress this evening," said Elizabeth, glancing down at it complacently. "I did not expect that it would bring me so poetic a compliment. Thank you, Percival."
"'Consider the lilies; they toil not, neither do they spin,'" quoted Percival, recklessly. "Why should you toil and spin?—a more beautiful lily than any one of them. If Solomon in all his glory was not equal to those Judean lilies, then I may safely say that the Queen of Sheba would be beaten outright by our Queen Elizabeth, with her white dress and her golden locks!"
"Mrs. Heron would say you were profane," said Elizabeth, tranquilly. "These comparisons of yours don't please me exactly, Percival; they always remind me of the flowery leaders in some of the evening papers, and make me remember that you are a journalist. They have a professional air."
"A professional air!" repeated Percival, in disgust. He let the lid of the portfolio fall with a bang upon the table. Several of the sketches flew wildly over the floor, and Elizabeth turned to him with a reproachful look, but she had no time to protest, for in that moment he had seized her hands and drawn her aside with him to a sofa that stood on one side of the room.
"You shall not answer me in that way," he said, half-irritated, half-amused, and wholly determined to have his way. "You shall sit down there and listen to me in a serious spirit, if you can. No, don't shake your head and look at me so mockingly. It is time that we understood each other, and I don't mean another night to pass over our heads without some decision being arrived at. Elizabeth, you must know that you have my happiness in your hands. I can't live without you. I can't bear to see you making yourself a slave to everybody, with no one to love you, no one to work for you and save you from anxiety and care. Let me work for you, now, dearest; be my wife, and I will see that you have your proper place, and that you are tended and cared for as a woman ought to be."
Elizabeth had withdrawn her hands from his; she even turned a little pale. He fancied that the tears stood in her eyes.
"Oh," she said, "I wish you had not said this to me, Percival."
It was easy for him to slip down from his low seat to a footstool, and there, on one knee, to look full into her face, and let his handsome, dark eyes plead for him.
"Why should I not have said it?" he breathed, softly. "Has it not been the dream of my life for months?—I might almost say for years? I loved you ever since you first came amongst us, Elizabeth, years ago."
"Did you, indeed?" said Elizabeth. A light of humour showed itself through the tears that had come into her eyes. An amused, reluctant smile curved the corners of her mouth. "What, when I was an awkward, clumsy, ignorant schoolgirl, as I remember your calling me one day after I had done something exceptionally stupid? And when you played practical jokes upon me—hung my doll up by its hair, and made me believe that there was a ghost in the attics—did you care for me then? Oh, no, Percival, you forget! and probably you exaggerate the amount of your feeling as much as you do the length of time it has lasted."
"It's no laughing matter, I assure you, Elizabeth," said Percival, laughing a little himself at these recollections, but looking vexed at the same time. "I am perfectly serious now, and very much in earnest; and I can't believe that my stupid jokes, when I was a mere boy, have had such an effect upon your mind as to prevent you from caring for me now."
"No," said Elizabeth. "They make no difference; but—I'm very sorry, Percival—I really don't think that it would do."
"What would not do? what do you mean?" said Percival, frowning.
"This arrangement; this—this—proposition of yours. Nobody would like it."
"Nobody could object. I have a perfect right to marry if I choose, and whom I choose. I am independent of my father."
"You could not marry yet, Percival," she said, in rather a chiding tone.
"I could—if you would not mind sharing my poverty with me. If you loved me, Elizabeth, you would not mind."
"I am afraid I do not love you—in that way," said Elizabeth, meditatively. "No, it would never do. I never dreamt of such a thing."
"Nobody expects you to have dreamt of it," rejoined Percival, with a short laugh. "The dreaming can be left to me. The question is rather whether you will think of it now—consider it a little, I mean. It seems to be a new idea to you—though I must say I wonder that you have not seen how much I loved you, Elizabeth! I am willing to wait until you have grown used to it. I cannot believe that you do not care for me! You would not be so cruel; you must love me a little—just a very little, Elizabeth."
"Well, I do," said Elizabeth, smiling at his vehemence. "I do love you—more than a little—as I love you all. You have been so good to me that I could not help caring for you—in spite of the doll and the ghost in the attic." Her smile grew gravely mischievous as she finished the sentence.
"Oh, that is not what I want," cried Percival, starting up from his lowly position at her feet. "That is not the kind of love that I am asking for at all."
"I am afraid you will get no other," said Elizabeth, with a ring of sincerity in her voice that left no room for coquetry. "I am sorry, but I cannot help it, Percival."
"Your love is not given to anyone else?" he demanded, fiercely.
"You have no right to ask. But if it is a satisfaction to you, I can assure you that I have never cared for anyone in that way. I do not know what it means," said Elizabeth, looking directly before her. "I have never been able to understand."
"Let me make you understand," murmured Percival, his momentary anger melting before the complete candour of her eyes. "Let me teach you to love, Elizabeth."
She was silent—irresolute, as it appeared to him.
"You would learn very easily," said he. "Try—let me try."
"I don't think I could be taught," she answered, slowly. "And really I am not sure that I care to learn."
"That is simply because you do not know your own heart," said Percival, dogmatically. "Trust me, and wait awhile. I will have no answer now, Elizabeth. I will ask you again."
"And suppose my answer is the same?"
"It won't be the same," said Percival, in a masterful sort of way. "You will understand by-and-bye."
She did not see the fire in his eyes, nor the look of passionate yearning that crossed his face as he stood beside her, or she would scarcely have been surprised when he bent down suddenly and pressed his lips to her forehead. She started to her feet, colouring vividly and angrily. "How dare you, Percival!—--" she began. But she could not finish the sentence. Kitty called her from the other room. Kitty's face appeared; and the curtain was drawn aside by an unseen hand with a great clatter of rings upon the pole.
"Where have you been all this time?" said she. "Isabel wants you, Lizzie. Percival, Mr. Vivian talks of going."
Elizabeth vanished through the curtain. Percival had not even time to breathe into her ear the "Forgive me" with which he meant to propitiate her. He was not very penitent for his offence. He thought that he was sure of Elizabeth's pardon, because he thought himself sure of Elizabeth's love. But, as a matter of fact, that stolen kiss did not at all advance his cause with Elizabeth Murray.
He did not see her again that night—a fact which sent him back to his lodging in an ill-satisfied frame of mind. He and Vivian shared a sitting-room between them; and, on their return from Mr. Heron's, they disposed themselves for their usual smoke and chat. But neither of them seemed inclined for conversation. Rupert lay back in a long lounging-chair; Percival turned over the leaves of a new publication which had been sent to him for review, and uttered disparaging comments upon it from time to time.
"I hope all critics are not so hypercritical as you are," said Vivian at last, when the volume had finally been tossed to the other end of the room with an exclamation of disgust.
"Pah! why will people write such abominable stuff?" said Percival. "Reach me down that volume of Bacon's Essays behind you; I must have something to take the taste out of my mouth before I begin to write."
Vivian handed him the book, and watched him with some interest as he read. The frown died away from his forehead, and the mouth gradually assumed a gentler expression before he had turned the first page. In five minutes he was so much absorbed that he did not hear the question which Vivian addressed to him.
"What position," said Rupert, deliberately, "does Miss Murray hold in your father's house?"
"Eh? What? What position?" Away went Percival's book to the floor; he raised himself in his chair, and began to light his pipe, which had gone out. "What do you mean?" he said.
"Is she a ward of your father's? Is she a relation of yours?"
"Yes, of course, she is," said Percival, rather resentfully. "She is a cousin. Let me see. Her father, Gordon Murray, was my mother's brother. She is my first cousin. And Cinderella in general to the household," he added, grimly.
"Oh, Gordon Murray was her father? So I supposed. Then if poor Richard Luttrell had not died I suppose she would have been a sort of connection of my sister's. I remember Angela wondered whether Gordon Murray had left any family."
"Why?"
"Why? You know the degree of relationship and the terms of the will made by Mrs. Luttrell's father, don't you?"
"Not I."
"Gordon Murray—this Miss Murray's father—was next heir after the two Luttrells, if they died childless. Of course, Brian is still living; but if he died, Miss Murray would inherit, I understand."
"There's not much chance," said Percival, lightly.
"Not much," responded Vivian.
They were interrupted by a knock at the door. The landlady, with many apologies, brought them a telegram which had been left at the house during their absence, and which she had forgotten to deliver. It was addressed to Vivian, who tore it open, read it twice, and then passed it on to Percival without a word.
It was from Angela Vivian, and contained these words only—
"Brian Luttrell is dead."