Kitabı oku: «Luttrell Of Arran», sayfa 44

CHAPTER LXVIII. TRUSTFULNESS

Perhaps the night brought reflection; at all events, Mr. M’Kinlay had so far recovered himself, that he came down to breakfast with a smile on his face and a mass of fresh-opened letters in his hand, with whose contents he purposed to amuse the company.

Miss Courtenay’s manner was so kind, so actually cordial, too, that he felt perfectly reassured on the score of their last interview; and as Sir Within was not present – he never made his appearance till late in the afternoon – all went on pleasantly and well.

Giving the precedence to “fashionable intelligence,” Mr. M’Kinlay related how certain great people were about to marry certain other great people, with intimations as to the settlements, and, in some cases, a minute account of the costly presents to the bride – all circumstances which, somehow, seem to have their interest for every age, and class, and condition of humanity. Some of these were known to Vyner, and he asked about them with eagerness. Grenfell knew none of them except by name, but he spoke of them with all the confidence of an old and intimate friend. Of the “men,” without using their titles; of the “women,” as dear Lady Fanny, or that charming little Lady Grace. So that hearing him was actually imbibing an atmosphere of aristocracy, inhaling the Peerage at every respiration.

“What is the large packet with all the seals on it, Mr. M’Kinlay?” asked Georgina. “It has been torturing my curiosity in the most painful manner these last ten minutes.”

“This, my dear Miss Courtenay,” said he, laying his hand on a somewhat bulky parcel, “is not for me, though it came under cover to my address. It is for Sir Within Wardle, in a lady’s handwriting.”

“I think I know the hand,” said Miss Courtenay, as she bent her head over it.

“Of course you do, Aunt Georgy. It is Kate’s. Nobody ever made those dear little round symbols but herself. It is the very prettiest writing in the world.”

“By the way,” said Mr. M’Kinlay, searching amongst the papers before him, “there is something here – I just glanced at it – from that young lady. Ay, here it is! You know, Sir Gervais, that you instructed me to write to the land agents of the late Mr. Luttrell, and inform them of your intention to confirm the deed of gift of the lodge in Donegal on Miss Luttrell; in consequence of which I wrote to Messrs. Cane and Carter, and here is their reply. But perhaps I had better keep these business matters for another opportunity?”

“Not at all. We are all friends here, and all about equally interested in these affairs,” said Sir Gervais. “Go on.”

Mr. M’Kinlay mumbled over, in an indistinct tone, something that sounded like an apology for not having more promptly answered his late communication. “‘It was only yesterday,’” he read aloud, “‘that we were in receipt of Miss Luttrell’s reply. The young lady refuses to accept of the property in question. She declines to admit that it had been at any time in the possession of her family, and desires me, while expressing her deep sense of gratitude, to explain that, associated as the spot is to her with a great calamity, it never could be an object of her desire or ambition.’”

“She refers to that scrimmage where her old grandfather killed a man,” said Grenfell, stirring his tea. “Really I fancied they took these things much easier in Ireland.”

“Don’t you see that the young lady is of the exalted school? Not to say that, as she always gambled for a high stake, she can’t abide low play.”

This bitter speech Georgina addressed directly to Grenfell, as the one person in the company adapted to comprehend it. He nodded and smiled a perfect acquiescence with her, and Mr. M’Kinlay read on:

“‘For your own guidance, therefore, as well as Sir Gervais Vyner’s – if you should desire to make the communication to him – I may remark, that any further insistance on this project would be perfectly ineffectual. Everything I have seen of Miss Luttrell has shown her to be a person of most inflexible will, and a determination far beyond the common. This will be apparent to you when you hear that she is equally resolved to make over the Arran estate, bequeathed to her by her late uncle, to the present Mr. Luttrell, leaving herself, as I may say, totally penniless and unprovided for.’”

“What a noble-hearted, generous girl!” cried Vyner.

“The dear, high-hearted Kate!” murmured Ada.

“A most artful, designing minx!” whispered Georgina to Grenfell; “but I suspect that her scheme will not have the success she anticipates.”

“‘Of course,’” read on M’Kinlay, “‘I mention the last in perfect confidence to you.’”

“Oh, of course!” broke in Georgina, “my dear Mr. M’Kinlay; the very first trait I discover in myself of angelic self-devotion, I’ll certainly impart it to you under the seal of inviolable secresy. Mind, therefore, that you tell nobody what a mine of goodness, of charity, and self-denial I am.”

Mr. M’Kinlay bowed an acquiescence, not aware in the least to what he was acceding, so overcome was he by the astounding assurance that the world contained one creature who refused to accept a legacy or avail herself of a gift.

“I am such a poor, weak-minded, vacillatory being myself,” said Georgina, still turning to Grenfell as most likely to appreciate her meaning, “that I really feel terrified in the presence of these great-souled creatures, who refuse to be stirred by the common motives of humanity.”

“The girl must be a fool!” muttered M’Kinlay, with his eyes fixed on a postscript of Cane’s letter – “a perfect fool!” But, without explaining why he thought so, he bundled up his papers, and hurried away.

“What is the mysterious parcel? I am dying to know the content» of it,” said Georgina, as she stood at a window with Grenfell.

“I think I could guess,” said he, slowly.

“You think you could guess! And you have the coolness to tell me this, seeing all the tortures of my curiosity!”

“It is by the shape of the packet that I am disposed to believe I know what is in it.”

“Pray tell me! Do tell me!” said she, entreatingly.

“I don’t think I can. I don’t think I ought. I mean,” said be, in a more apologetic tone – “I mean, it is not my secret. It is another’s – that is, if my guess be the right one.”

“And you have the courage to heighten my eagerness by all this preamble! Why, my dear Mr. Grrenfell, they told me, that of all the men about town, none knew women as you did!”

“Who told you that?” asked he, eagerly.

“Scores of people.” And she quoted at random the most distinguished names of her acquaintance, every syllable of their high-sounding titles falling on Grenfell’s ear with a cadence perfectly enthralling. “Come, now,” said she, with a look of entreaty, “don’t worry me any longer. You see I know more than one half of the secret, if it be a secret, already; from whom it comes, and to whom it is addressed.”

“I am in your hands,” said he, in a tone of submission. “Come out into the garden, and I’ll tell you all I know.”

Georgina accepted his arm as he spoke, and they passed out into a shady alley that led down to the sea.

“If I be right,” said he, “and I’d go the length of a wager that I am, the packet you saw on the breakfast-table contains one of the most costly ornaments a woman ever wore. It was a royal present on the wedding-day of Sir Within Wardles mother, and sent by him to fulfil the same office to Miss Luttrell on becoming Mrs. Ladarelle.”

“You know this!” said she, in a slow, collected tone.

“I know it because he sent me to his gem-room at Dalradern to fetch it. He opened the casket in my presence, he showed me the jewels, he explained to me the peculiar setting. Emeralds on one side, opals on the other, so as to present two distinct suites of ornaments. I remember his words, and how his lips trembled as he said, ‘Ladies in these times were wont to turn their necklaces, now they only change their affections!’ You’d scarcely believe it, Miss Conrtenay, but it is fact, positive fact, the poor old man had been in love with her.”

“I certainly cannot stretch my credulity to that extent, Mr. Grenfell,” said she, with a shade of vexation in her voice, “though I could readily believe how an artful, unprincipled girl, with a field all her own, could manage to ensnare a most gentle, confiding nature into a degree of interest for her, that she would speedily assume to be a more tender feeling. And was the casket sent to her, Mr. Grenfell?” asked she, in a suddenly altered tone.

“Yes, I enclosed it, with an inscription dictated by Sir Within himself.”

“And she sends it back to him?” said she, pondering oyer each word as though it were charged with a deep significance.

“It would seem so.”

“I think you guess why. I am certain, if I have not taken a very wrong measure of Mr. Grenfell’s acuteness, that he reads this riddle pretty much as I do myself.”

“It is by no means improbable,” said Grenfell, who quickly saw the line her suspicions had taken. “I think it very likely the same interpretation has occurred to each of us.”

“Give me yours,” said she, eagerly.

“My reading is this,” replied he: “she has returned his present on the ground that, not being Mrs. Ladarelle, she has no claim to it. The restitution serving to show at the same moment a punctilious sense of honour, and, what she is fully as eager to establish, the fact that, being still unmarried, there is nothing to prevent Sir Within himself from a renewal of his former pretensions.”

“How well you know her! How thoroughly you appreciate her wily, subtle nature!” cried she, in warm admiration.

“Not that the game will succeed,” added he; “the poor old man is now beyond such captations as once enthralled him.”

“How so? What do you mean?” asked she, sharply.

“I mean simply what we all see. He is rapidly sinking into second childhood.”

“I declare, Mr. Grenfell, you astonish me!” said she, with an almost impetuous force of manner. “At one moment you display a most remarkable acuteness in reading motives and deciphering intentions, and now you make an observation actually worthy of Mr. M’Kinlay.”

“And so you do not agree with me?” asked he.

“Agree with you! certainly not. Sir Within Wardle is an old friend of ours. Certain peculiarities of manner he has. In a great measure they have been impressed upon him by the circumstances of his station. An ambassador, a great man himself, is constantly in the presence of a sovereign, who is still greater. The conflict of dignity with the respect due to royalty makes up a very intricate code of conduct and manner of which the possessor cannot always disembarrass himself, even in the society of his equals. Something of this you may have remarked in Sir Within’s manner; nothing beyond it, I am confident!”

“I only hope, my dear Miss Courtenay, that, if the day should come when my own faculties begin to fail me, I may be fortunate enough to secure you for my defender.”

“The way to ensure my advocacy will certainly not be by attacking an old and dear friend!” said she, with deep resentment in tone; and she turned abruptly and entered the house.

Mr. Grenfell looked after her for a moment in some astonishment. He was evidently unprepared for this sudden outburst of passion, but he quickly recovered himself, and, after a brief pause, resumed his walk, muttering below his breath as he went: “So, then, this is the game! What a stupid fool I have been not to have seen it before! All happening under my very eyes, too! I must say, she has done it cleverly – very cleverly.” And with his cordial appreciation of female skill, he lit his cigar, and, seating himself on the sea-wall, smoked and ruminated during the morning. There were many aspects of the question that struck him, and he turned from the present to the future with all that ready-wittedness that had so longed favoured him in life.

He heard the bell ring for luncheon, but he never stirred; he was not hungry, neither particularly anxious to meet Miss Courtenay again. He preferred to have some few words with her alone ere they met in society. He thought he had tact enough to intimate that he saw her project, and was quite ready to abet it without anything which could offend her dignity. This done, they would be sworn friends ever after. As he sat thus thinking, he heard a quiet step approaching. It was doubtless a servant sent to tell him that luncheon was served, and while doubting what reply to make, he heard M’Kinlay call out, “I have found you at last! I have been all over the house in search of you.”

“What is the matter? What has happened? Why are you so flurried – eh?”

“I am not flurried. I am perfectly calm, perfectly collected – at least, as collected as a man can hope to be who has had to listen for half an hour to such revelations as I have had made me; but it is all over now, and I am thankful it is. All over and finished!”

“What is over? What is finished?”

“Everything, Sir – everything! I leave this within an hour – earlier if I can. I have sent two messengers for the horses, and I’d leave on foot – ay, Sir, on foot – rather than pass another day under this roof!”

“Will you have the extreme kindness to tell me why you are going off in this fashion?”

Instead of complying with this reasonable request, Mr. M’Kinlay burst out into a passionate torrent, in which the words “Dupe!” “Fool!” and “Cajoled!” were alone very audible, but his indignation subsided after a while sufficiently to enable him to state that he had been sent for by Sir Within, after breakfast, to confer with him on the subject of that codicil he had spoken of on the previous day.

“He was more eager than ever about it, Sir,” said he. “The girl had written him some very touching lines of adieu, and I found him in tears as I came to his bedside. I must own, too, that he talked more sensibly and more collectedly than before, and said, in a tone of much meaning, ‘When a man is so old and so friendless as I am, he ought to be thankful to do all the good he can, and not speculate on any returns either in feeling or affection I I left him, Sir, to make a brief draft of what he had been intimating to me. It would take me, I told him, about a couple of hours, but I hoped I could complete it in that time. Punctual to a minute, I was at his door at one o’clock; but guess my surprise when Miss Courtenay’s voice said, ‘Come in!’ Sir Within was in his dressing-gown, seated at the fire, the table before him covered with gems and trinkets, with which he appeared to be intently occupied. ‘Sit down, M’Kinlay,’ said he, courteously. ‘I want you to choose something here – something that Mrs. M’Kinlay would honour me by accepting.’ She whispered a word or two hastily in his ear, and he corrected himself at once, saying, ‘I ask pardon! I meant your respected mother. I remember you are a widower.’ To withdraw his mind from this painful wandering, I opened my roll of papers and mentioned their contents. Again she whispered him something, but he was evidently unable to follow her meaning; for he stared blankly at her, then at me, and said, ‘Yes, certainly, I acquiesce in everything.’ ‘It will be better, perhaps, to defer these little matters, Miss Courtenay,’ Said I, ‘to some moment when Sir Within may feel more equal to the fatigue of business.’ She stooped down and said something to him, and suddenly his eyes sparkled, his cheek flushed, and, laying his hand-with emphasis on the table, he said, ‘I have no need of Law or Lawyers, Sir! This lady, in doing me the honour to accord me her hand, has made her gift to me more precious by a boundless act of confidence; she will accept of no settlements.’ ‘Great Heavens! Miss Courtenay,’ whispered I, ‘is he not wandering in his mind? Surely this is raving!’ ‘I think, Sir, you will find that the only person present whose faculties are at fault is Mr. M’Kinlay. Certainly I claim exemption both for Sir Within Wardle and myself.’ It was all true, Sir – true as I stand here! She is to be his wife. As to her generosity about the settlements, I understood it at once. She had got the whole detail of the property from me only yesterday, and knew that provision was made – a splendid provision, too – for whomsoever he might marry. So much for the trustfulness!”

“But what does it signify to you, M’Kinlay? You are not a Lord Chancellor, with a function to look after deranged old men and fatherless young ladies, and I don’t suppose the loss of a settlement to draw will be a heart-break to you.”

“No, Sir; but, lawyer as I am, there are depths of perfidy I’m not prepared for.”

“Come in and wish them joy, M’Kinlay. Take my word for it, it might have been worse. Old Sir Within’s misfortune might have befallen you or myself!”

CHAPTER LXIX. THE END

“You see, Sir, she is obstinate,” said Mr. Cane to Harry Luttrell, as they sat closeted together in his private office. “She is determined to make over the Arran estate to you, and equally determined to sail for Australia on the 8th of next month.”

“I can be obstinate too,” said Harry, with a bent brow and a dark frown – “I can be obstinate too, as you will see, perhaps, in a day or two.”

“After all, Sir, one must really respect her scruples. It is clear enough, if your father had not believed in your death, he never would have made the will in her favour.”

“It is not of that I am thinking,” said Luttrell, with a tone of half irritation; and then, seeing by the blank look of astonishment in the other’s face that some explanation was necessary, he added, “It was about this foolish journey, this voyage, my thoughts were busy. Is there no way to put her off it?”

“I am afraid not. All I have said – all my wife has said – has gone for nothing. Some notion in her head about the gratitude she owes this old man overbears every other consideration, and she goes on repeating, ‘I am the only living thing he trusts in. I must not let him die in disbelief of all humanity.’” Harry made a gesture of impatient meaning, but said nothing, and Cane went on: “I don’t believe it is possible to say more than my wife has said on the subject, but all in vain; and indeed, at last, Miss Luttrell closed the discussion by saying: ‘I know you’d like that we should part good friends; well, then, let us not discuss this any more. You may shake the courage I shall need to carry me through my project, but you’ll not change my determination to attempt it.’ These were her last words here.”

“They were all the same!” muttered Harry, impatiently, as he walked up and down the room. “All the same!”

“It was what she hinted, Sir?”

“How do you mean – in what way did she hint it?”

“She said one morning – she was unusually excited that day – something about the wilfulness of peasant natures, that all the gilding good fortune could lay on them never succeeded in hiding the base metal beneath; and at last, as if carried away by passion, and unable to control herself, she exclaimed, ‘I’ll do it, if it was only to let me feel real for once! I’m sick of shams! – a sham position, a sham name, and a sham fortune!’”

“I offered her the share of mine, and she refused me,” said Luttrell, with a bitterness that revealed his feeling.

“You offered to make her your wife, Sir!” cried Cane, in astonishment.

“What so surprises you in that?” said Harry, hastily. “Except it be,” added he, after a moment, “my presumption in aspiring to one so far superior to me.”

“I wish you would speak to Mrs. Cane, Mr. Luttrell. I really am very anxious you would speak to her.”

“I guess your meaning – at least, I suspect I do. You intend that your wife should tell me that scandal about the secret marriage, that dark story of her departure from Arran, and her repentant return to it; but I know it all, every word of it, already.”

“And from whom?”

“From herself – from her own lips; confirmed, if I wanted confirmation, by other testimony.”

“I think she did well to tell you,” said Cane, in a half uncertain tone.

“Of course she did right. It was for me to vindicate her, if she had been wronged, and I would have done so, too, if the law had not been before me. You know that the scoundrel is sentenced to the galleys?”

Cane did not know it, and heard the story with astonishment, and so much of what indicated curiosity, that Harry repeated all Kate had told him from the beginning to the end.

“Would you do me the great favour to repeat this to my wife? She is sincerely attached to Miss Luttrell, and this narrative will give her unspeakable pleasure.”

“Tell her, from me, that her affection is not misplaced – she deserves it all!” muttered Harry, as he laid his head moodily against the window, and stood lost in thought.

“Here comes the postman. I am expecting a letter from the captain of the Australian packet-ship, in answer to some inquiries I had made in Miss Luttrell’s behalf.”

The servant entered with a packet of letters as he spoke, from which Cane quickly selected one.

“This is what I looked for. Let us see what it says:

“‘Dear Sir, – I find that I shall be able to place the poop cabin at Miss L.‘s disposal, as my owner’s sister will not go out this spring. It is necessary she should come over here at once, if there be any trifling changes she would like made in its interior arrangement. The terms, I believe, are already well understood between us. By the Hamburg packet-ship Drei Heilige, we learn that the last outward-bound vessels have met rough weather, and a convict-ship, the Blast, was still more unfortunate. Cholera broke out on board, and carried off seventy-three of the prisoners in eleven days.’”

There was a postscript marked confidential, but Cane read it aloud:

“‘Can you tell me if a certain Harry Luttrell, who has signed articles with me as second mate, is any relation of Miss L.‘s? He has given me a deposit of twenty pounds, but my men think he is no seaman, nor has ever been at sea. Do you know anything of him, what?’”

“Yes!” said Harry, boldly. “Tell him you know him well; that he was with you when you read aloud that passage in his letter; assure him – as you may with a safe conscience – that he is a good sailor, and add, on my part, that he has no right to make any other inquiries about him.”

“And do you really intend to make this voyage?”

“Of course I do! I told you a while ago I could be as obstinate as my cousin. You’ll see if I don’t keep my word. Mind me, however; no word of this to Miss Luttrell. I charge you that!”

“And the property, Sir! What are your views respecting the estate?”

“I shall write to you. I’ll think of it,” said Harry, carelessly. After a few words more, they parted. Harry had some things to buy in the city, some small preparations for the long voyage before him; but, promising Cane to come back and take a family dinner with him, he went his way. For some hours he walked the streets half unconsciously, a vague impression over him that there was something he had to do, certain people to see, certain places to visit; but so engaged was he with the thought of Kate and her fortunes, his mind had no room for more. “She shall see,” muttered he to himself, “that I am not to be shaken off. My Luttrell obstinacy, if she will call it so, is as fixed as her own. Country has no tie for me. Where she is, there shall be my country.” Some fears he had lest Cane should tell her of his determination to sail in the same ship with her. She was quite capable of outwitting him if she could only get a clue to this. Would Cane dare to disobey him? Would he face the consequences of his betrayal? From these thoughts he wandered on to others – as to how Kate would behave when she found he had followed her. Would this proof of attachment move her? Would she resent it as a persecution? Hers was so strange a nature, anything might come of it. “The same pride that made her refuse me, may urge her to do more. As she said so haughtily to me at Arran, ‘The peasant remedy has failed to cure the Luttrell malady; another cure must be sought for!’”

Harry had scarcely knocked at Cane’s door, when it was opened by Cane himself, who hurriedly said, “I have been waiting for you. Come in here;” and led him into his own room. “She’s above stairs. She has just come,” whispered he.

“Who?” asked Harry, eagerly. “Who?”

“Your cousin – Miss Luttrell. A letter from the surgeon of the convict-ship has conveyed news of old Malone’s death, and she has come up to free herself from her arrangement with the captain. And – ”

He stopped and hesitated with such evident confusion, that Harry said, “Go on, Sir; finish what you were about to say.”

“It is her secret, not mine, Mr. Luttrell; and I know it only through my wife.”

“I insist on hearing it. I am her nearest of kin, and I have a right to know whatever concerns her.”

“I have already told you what I promised to keep secret. I was pledged not to say she was here. I came down to make some excuse for not receiving you to-day at dinner – some pretext of my wife’s illness. I beg, I entreat you will not ask me for more.”

“I insist upon all you know,” was Harry’s stern reply.

“How do I even know it,” cried Cane, in despair, “from a few incoherent words my wife whispered in my ear as she passed me? Were I to tell, it may be only to mislead you.”

“Tell me, whatever may come of it.”

Cane took a turn or two up and down the room, and at last, coming in front of Luttrell, said: “She is about to take back her old name, and with it the humble fortune that belonged to it. She says you and yours have suffered enough from the unhappy tie that bound you to her family. She is resolved you shall never see, never hear of her again. She took her last look at Arran last night. To-morrow she declares she will go away from this, where none shall trace her. There’s her secret! I charge you not to betray how you came by it.”

“Let me see her; let me speak with her.”

“How can I? I have promised already that you should not hear she is here.”

“Send for your wife, and let me speak to her. I must – I will speak to her.”.

“Go into that room for a moment, then, and I will advise with my wife what is to be done.”

Harry passed into the room and sat down. He heard Cane’s bell ring, and soon afterwards could mark the tread of a foot on the stairs, and then the sound of voices talking eagerly in the adjoining room. His impatience nearly maddened him; his heart beat so that he felt as if his chest could not contain it; the vessels of his neck, too, throbbed powerfully. He opened the window for air, and then, as though the space was too confined, flung wide a door at the side of the room. As he did this, he saw that it led to the stairs. Quicker than all thought his impulse urged him. He dashed up and entered the drawing-room, where Kate sat alone, and with her head buried between her hands.

She looked up, startled by his sudden entrance, and then, resuming her former attitude, said, in a low, muffled voice, “You have heard what has befallen me. I am not fated to acquit the debt I owed.”

Harry sat down beside her in silence, and she went on: “I was hoping that this pain might have been spared us – I mean, this meeting – it is only more sorrow. However, as we are once more together, let me thank you. I know all that you intended, all that you meant by me. I know that you would have come with me, too. I know all! Now, Harry,” said she, in a more resolute voice, “listen to me calmly. What I say to you is no caprice, no passing thought, but the long-earned conviction of much reflection. From my people came every misfortune that has crushed yours. Your father’s long life of suffering – told in his own words – his diaries – revealed in the letters from his friends – I have read them over and over – was caused by this fatal connexion. Are these things to be forgotten? or are you cruel enough to ask me to repeat the experiment that broke your mother’s heart, and left your father friendless and forsaken? Where is your pride, Sir? And if you have none, where would be mine, if I were to listen to you?”

“There comes the truth!” cried he, wildly. “It is your pride that rejects me. You, who have lived in great houses, and mixed with great people, cannot see in me anything but the sailor.”

“Oh no, no, no!” cried she, bitterly.

“I know it – I feel it, Kate,” continued he. “I feel ashamed when my coarse hand touches your taper fingers. I shrink back with misgiving at any little familiarity that seems so inconsistent between us. Even my love for you – and God knows how I love you! – cannot make me think myself your equal.”

“Oh, Harry, do not say such things as these; do not – do not!”

“I say it – I swear it; the highest ambition of my heart would be to think I could deserve you.”

She hid her face between her hands, and he went on, madly, wildly, incoherently; now telling her what her love might make him – now darkly hinting at the despair rejection might drive him to. He contrasted all the qualities of her gifted nature, so sure to attract friendship and interest, with the ruggedness of his character, as certain to render him friendless; and, on his knees at her feet, he implored her, if any gratitude for all his father’s love could move her, to take pity on and hear him.

There was a step on the stair as Harry seized her hand and said, “Let this be mine, Kate; give it to me, and make me happier than all I ever dreamed of. One word – one word, dearest.” And he drew her face towards him and kissed her.

“The Luttrell spirit is low enough, I take it, now,” said she, blushing. “If their pride can survive this, no peasant blood can be their remedy.”