The party at the Villa were seated at breakfast the following morning, when Vyner arrived with his young guest—a fine, manly-looking, determined fellow, whose frank bearing and unaffected demeanour interested the ladies strongly in his favour at once; nor did the tone of sorrow and sadness in his manner detract from the good impression he produced. The tidings of his father’s death had met him as he landed at Genoa, and overwhelmed him with affliction—such utter friendlessness was his—so bereft was he of all that meant kindred or relationship. His captain was, indeed, now all that remained to him, and he had nursed and tended him in his long illness with untiring devotion, insomuch, indeed, that it was with difficulty Vyner could persuade him to come down to the Boschetto for a few days, to rally his strength and spirits by change of air and scene.
Sir Gervais had very early observed that the young sailor possessed the characteristic reserve of his family, and avoided, whenever possible, all reference to himself. Strange and eventful as his last few years had been, he never referred to them, or did so in that careless, passing way that showed he would not willingly make them matter to dwell upon; and yet, with all this, there was an openness when questioned, a frank readiness to answer whatever was asked, that plainly proved his reserve was mere shyness—the modest dislike to make himself or his story foreground objects.
Lady Vyner, not usually attracted by new acquaintances, liked him much, and saw him, without any motherly misgivings, constantly in Ada’s society. They walked together over the olive hills and along the sea-shore every morning. Once or twice, too, they had taken out Vyner’s little sail-boat, and made excursions to Sestri or to Recco; and in the grave, respectful, almost distant manner of Harry Luttrell, there seemed that sort of security which the mammas of handsome heiresses deem sufficient. Ada, too, frankness and honesty itself, spoke of him to her mother as a sister might have spoken of a dear brother. If he had been more confidential with her than with the others—and his confessions were even marked with a sort of strange deference, as though made to one who could not well realise to her mind the humble fortunes of a mere adventurer like himself—there was also a kind of rugged pride in the way he presented himself even in his character of a sailor—one who had not the slightest pretension to rank or condition whatever—that showed how he regarded the gulf between them.
It was strange, inexplicably strange, what distance separated him from Miss Courtenay. Neither would, perhaps neither could, make any advances to the other. “She is so unlike your mother, Ada,” blurted he out one day, ere he knew what he had said. “He is painfully like his father,” was Georgina’s comment on himself.
“You have had a long visit from young Luttrell, Mr. M’Kinlay,” said she, on the day after his arrival, when they had been closeted together for nigh two hours.
“Yes, Sir Gervais begged me to explain to him some of the circumstances which led his father to will away the Arran property, and to inform him that the present owner was his cousin. I suspect Sir Gervais shrank from the unpleasant task of entering upon the low connexions of the family, and which, of course, gave me no manner of inconvenience. I told him who she was, and he remembered her at once. I was going on to speak of her having been adopted by your brother, and the other incidents of her childhood, but he stopped me by saying, ‘Would it be possible to make any barter of the Roscommon property, which goes to the heir-at-law, and who is now myself, for the Arran estate, for I hold much to it?’ I explained to him that his being alive broke the will, and that Arran was as much his as the rest of the estate. But he would not hear of this, and kept on repeating, ‘My father gave it, and without she is disposed to part with it for a liberal equivalent, I’ll not disturb the possession.’”
“The Luttrells were all so,” said she; “half worldly, half romantic, and one never knew which side was uppermost.”
“He means to go over to Arran; he wants to see the place where his father is buried. The pride of race is very strong in him, and the mere utterance of the word Luttrell brings it up in full force.”
“What a pity she’s married!” said she, insolently, but in so faint a voice he could not catch the words, and asked her to repeat them. “I was only talking to myself, Mr. M’Kinlay,” said she.
“I pressed him,” continued the other, “to give me some instructions, for I can’t suppose he intends to let his fortune slip out of his hands altogether. I told him that it was as much as to impugn his legitimacy; and he gave me a look that frightened me, and, for a moment, I wished myself anywhere else than in the room with him. ‘He must be something younger, and bolder, and braver than you, Sir, that will ever dare to utter such a doubt as that,’ said he; and he was almost purple with passion as he spoke.”
“They are all violent; at least, they were!” said she, with a sneering smile. “I hope you encouraged the notion of going to Arran. I should be so glad if he were to do it at once.”
“Indeed?”
“Can you doubt it, Mr. M’Kinlay? Is it a person so acute and observant as yourself need be told that my niece, Ada, should not be thrown into constant companionship with a young fellow whose very adventures impart a sort of interest to him?”
“But a sailor, Miss Courtenay!—a mere sailor!”
“Very well, Sir; and a mere sailor, to a very young girl who has seen nothing of life, would possibly be fully as attractive as a Member of Parliament. The faculty to find out what is suitable to us, Mr. M’Kinlay, does not usually occur in very early life.”
There was a marked emphasis in the word “suitable” that made the old lawyer’s heart throb fast and full. Was this thrown out for encouragement—was it to inspire hope, or suggest warning? What would he not have given to be certain which of the two it meant.
“Ah, Miss Courtenay,” said he, with a most imploring look, “if I only could assure myself that in the words you have just spoken there lay one spark of hope—I mean, if I could but believe that this would be the proper moment——”
“My dear Mr. M’Kinlay, let me stop you. There are many things to be done before I can let you even finish your sentence; and mind me, Sir, this, ‘without prejudice,’ as you lawyers say, to my own exercise of judgment afterwards; and the first of these is to send this young man away. I own to you, frankly, he is no favourite of mine. I call ruggedness what they call frankness; and his pride of name and birth are, when unattached to either fortune or position, simply insufferable. Get rid of him; send him to Arran, if he won’t go to Japan. You can do it without inhospitality, or even awkwardness. You can hint to him that people rarely remain beyond two or three days on a visit; that his intimacy with Ada gives pain, uneasiness, to her family; that, in short, he ought to go. I know,” added she, with a bewitching smile, “how little there is for me to instruct Mr. M’Kinlay on a point where tact and delicacy are the weapons to be employed. I feel all the presumption of such a pretence, and therefore I merely say, induce him to go his way, and let him do it in such guise that my brother may not suspect our interference.”
“There is nothing I would not do, Miss Courtenay, with the mere possibility that you would deem it a service. All I ask is the assurance——”
“Must I stop you again?” said she, with a sweet smile. “Must I remind you that he who stipulates for his reward, risks in some sort his character for generosity, and, worse still, implies a distrust of the one he serves?”
“I am your slave, Miss Courtenay—your humble slave!” said he, bowing with a deep humility.
“It is what I intend you should be,” muttered she to herself; and then added aloud: “Lose no time about this; my brother mentions that he accidentally met Sir Within Wardle in the doorway of the hotel at Genoa; that they embraced most cordially, and parted with Sir Within’s promise to come over and pass some days here, and I believe he may be expected to-morrow; and of course it would be more convenient to have this young man’s room, all the more that Mr. Grenfell also is expected.”
“I’ll set about my negotiation at once.”
“Don’t call it negotiation, my dear Mr. M’Kinlay. It must be far more effectual and more peremptory. To present this sailor lad as an acquaintance to Sir Within would be monstrous. The pleasure of his visit will depend on his coming actually amongst all his old friends.”
Ah, Mr. M’Kinlay, how your heart swelled proudly at that flattery! How exquisite it was to feel you were a member of an order to which, in your proudest day-dreams, you had not aspired!
“There, now, you have your instructions. You’ll find me here about four o’clock to report progress, or rather, as I trust, to announce success.”
“I have an excellent opportunity,” cried M’Kinlay, as she moved away. “He has asked me to go out fishing with him in the boat today. It will be just the time to fall into confidential discourse. At four expect me.”
On gaining the beach where he had appointed to meet Harry Luttrell, Mr. M’Kinlay discovered that his young friend had gone off already, taking Ada with him. He could, indeed, detect the form of a lady in the stern of the boat, as she slipped along over the calm sea, and mark that Luttrell was seated at her side.
Here was imprudence, rashness, wilful rashness, all the more reprehensible in a man like Vyner, who knew, or ought to know, the world by this time. “How is that sailor there to remember that he is only a sailor? and how is that young heiress to call to mind that she is an heiress? Why should people ever be placed in a position in which the impossible ceases to look impossible, and even gets a look of the probable?” Such were some of the wise reflections of this sage moralist, though it is but truth to say he never once thought of applying any one of them to his own case.
“What would Miss Courtenay say, too,” thought he, “when she discovered that he had been so neglectful of the mission entrusted to him?” He looked about for another boat to go after them. It was a strong measure, but it was a time for strong measures. No boat, however, was to be had. He bethought him of hailing them, or trying to attract their attention by signals, and to this end he mounted a rock, and attaching his handkerchief to his umbrella, waved it frantically to and fro, screaming out, “Boat ahoy!” in a voice he meant to be intensely maritime.
“Shout away, old fellow!” muttered Harry, whose well-practised eye and ear detected the signal-maker. “I’m not going back for you.”
“Do you sec any one, Harry?” asked Ada. “Who is it?”
“That old lawyer—I forget his name, but he’s the only creature in the house that I can’t bear. You wouldn’t believe it, but he came up to me yesterday evening, and asked if I had any recollection of his having saved my life. But I stopped him full, for I said, ‘I remember well how Captain Dodge picked me up off a spar at sea, and had to threaten to throw yourself overboard for opposing it.’”
“Well, but, Harry,” said she, gently, “people don’t say such unpleasant things—I mean, when they meet in the world; when thrown together in society, they forgive little grudges, if they cannot forget them.”
“Don’t you know that we Luttrells do neither? I can no more forget a wrong than a kindness. Mind me, though,” added he, quickly, “I do not ask to clear off scores with the lawyer, only let him not claim to make me his debtor. Shout away, it will stretch your lungs for the Old Bailey, or wherever it is that you make your living.”
“If your memory be as good as you say, Harry,” said she, smiling, “can you recal the time papa’s yacht, the Meteor, anchored in the little bay at Arran?”
“I can. I remember it all.”
“And how you came on board in one of our boats?”
“Ay, and how you called me Robinson. Don’t get so red; I wasn’t offended then, and I’m sure I’m not now. You said it in a whisper to your father, but I overheard you; and I think I said I should like well to be Robinson Crusoe, and have an island all my own.”
“And so you have. Arran is yours.”
“No. Arran was mine, or ought to have been mine, but my father, believing me dead, left it to my cousin.”
“Oh, how I long to see her again,” cried Ada, passionately. “You know how we were brought up together.”
“Your father told me all about it; but I never well understood how or why she was sent away again. Were you disappointed in her?”
“Oh no, no. Nothing of the kind. She was cleverer, and more beautiful, and more attractive, than any one could have anticipated. The lesson that would take me days to learn, she had but to glance at and she knew it. The governess was in despair how to keep in advance of her. And then there was a charm in her manner that made the veriest trifle she did a sort of fascination.”
“And were these the traits to send back into hardship and barbarism?”
“To this very hour I never knew how or why she went back, nor to what she went. I must tell you a secret, a great secret it is, Harry, and you will promise never to reveal it.” He nodded, and she went on: “Aunt Georgina never liked Kate. She could not help owning that she was very beautiful, and very gifted, and very graceful, but nothing would wring from her one word of affection, nor even a smile of kindly meaning.”
“It is exactly how she treats me. She is all courtesy and politeness; but it is a courtesy that chills me to the heart, and ever seems to say, ‘Don’t forget the distance that separates us.’ Perhaps,” added he, laughing, “my cousin Kate and I have some family resemblance to each other?”
“Don’t indulge any such flattery, Harry,” said she, laughing. “Kate was beautiful.”
“Come, come, I never meant in face. I only suspected that it was the marvellous gift of fascination we held in common.” And he laughed good humouredly at his own expense. “But to be serious. Was it quite fair to send such a girl as you have described back to all the miseries and sufferings of a peasant’s life?”
“I’m not sure that this was done. I mean, that after she went to live at Dalradern—for Sir Within Wardle became her guardian when we came abroad—I never knew what happened; my Aunt Georgina actually forbade the merest mention of her.”
“I wonder would she tell me why, if I were to ask her.” “Oh, Harry, I implore you not to do so. It would be at once to betray the confidence I have placed in you. She would know who had told you of her dislike to Kate.”
“The lawyer could tell it, I’m certain,” muttered Harry; “that fellow watches us all. I have marked him, as we sat in the drawing-room, studying the looks of each in turn, and pausing over chance words, as if they could mean more than they seemed to say.”
“How acute you want to be thought,” said she, laughing. “I have sailed in two ships where the crews mutinied, Miss Ada, and a man learns to have his wits about him where he suspects mischief, after that. There! look at the lawyer in the boat; he has got a boat at last, and is going to give us chase. Shall we run for it, Ada, or stand and fight him?”
“What wickedness are you muttering under your breast, there, Sir?” asked she, with a mock imperiousness.
“Well, I was just saying to myself that, if you hadn’t been here, I’d even run foul of him and upset us both. I’d like to see the old fellow in the water. Oh! I see I must behave well. Miss Courtenay is in the boat too!”
“Which means a reproof to me, Harry. My aunt never comes out on any less solemn mission.”
“And why a reproof? What have you done?” “Have I not gone off sailing all alone with that wild scamp Harry Luttrell—that buccaneer who respects neither laws nor proprieties! But that’s my aunt’s voice! What is she saying?”
“She’s telling the lawyer that it’s all his fault, or Sir Gervais’s fault, or somebody’s fault, and that it’s a shame and disgrace, and I don’t know well what else besides.”
“What can it be?”
“Just what you said a minute ago. There! I’ll wait for them. I’ll slack off and let them come up.”
Whatever might have been the rebukeful tone of Miss Courtenay’s voice a few moments before, now, as the boat drew up beside Luttrell’s, her tones were softened and subdued, and it was with her most silvery accent she told Ada that some visitors had just arrived, and begged her to return with her to receive them, while Mr. M’Kinlay would join Mr. Luttrell, and obtain the lesson in sea-fishing he was so eager for.
“Come along,” said Harry. “It looks fresh outside, and may turn out a nice mackerel day, calm as it seems here.”
“With your good leave, Sir, I shall decline a nice mackerel day. I’m a very fair-weather sailor.”
A hurried whisper from Georgina seemed, however, to arrest him in his excuses, and she added aloud: “Of course Mr. Luttrell has no intention of venturing out to sea farther than you like, Sir. He goes for your pleasure and amusement, and not to educate you for the Navy.”
Another hurried whisper followed this pert speech, and poor M’Kinlay, with the air of a condemned man, stepped into Luttrel’s boat with a heavy sigh, and a look of positive misery.
“No, no, not on any account,” were the last words of Ada into Harry’s ear, as he helped her to her place.
“Remember, we dine at six!” said Georgina, as she waved them an adieu; and young Luttrell cried out, “All right!” as he slacked off his sheet, and let the boat run broad and full towards the open sea.
“It is fresher, far fresher than I thought!” said M’Kinlay, whose transition from a row-boat to a sailing one imparted the impression of a strong breeze.
“Cat’s-paws! light airs of wind that die away every moment! But I see it looks bluer out yonder, and now and then I see a white curl on the water that may mean a little wind.”
“Then I beseech you, Sir, let us keep where we are!”
“Don’t you want me to teach you something about fishing? You said you wished to know what ‘trawling’ meant.”
“Not to-day; not on this occasion, my young friend. It was another errand brought me here this morning. Could you not draw that thing a little closer, and do something to make us go somewhat steadier?”
“I’ll close haul, if you prefer it,” said Harry, taking a strong pull at the sheet, and, with his helm hard up, sending the skiff along under a full wind. She leaned over so much, too, that it required all M’Kinlay’s strength, with both arms outside the gunwale, to keep his position. “That’s pleasanter, ain’t it?” asked Harry.
“I’ll not say I like it, either.”
“You will when the wind steadies; it’s squally just now, and she feels it, for she has no keel.”
“No keel! And ought she to have a keel?”
“Well, I think she’d be the better of one,” said Harry, smiling.
“Let us get back, Sir—let us get back at once! This is the reverse of agreeable to me. I don’t understand, and I don’t enjoy it. Put mc ashore anywhere, and leave me to find my way how I can. There—yonder, where you see the rocks—land me there!”
“If I tried it, you’d find your way sure enough, but it would be into the next world! Don’t you see the white line there? Those are breakers!”
“Then turn back, Sir, I command, I implore you,” cried he, with a voice shaking with terror.
“I’ll put about when the wind slackens. I can’t do it just yet. Have a little patience. Take the rudder a moment.”
“No, Sir; I refuse—I decidedly refuse. I protest against any share in what may happen.”
“Perhaps it will be past protesting if you don’t do what I tell you. Hold this, and mind my orders. Keep the tiller so till I cry out hard down; mind me, now—no mistake.” And not waiting for more, he sprang into the bow of the boat as she ran up into the wind, and held out the foresail to the breeze. “Down helm—hard down!” cried he; and round she spun at once, and so rapidly, that the lee gunwale went under water, and M’Kinlay, believing she had upset, uttered one wild cry and fell senseless into the bottom of the boat. Not much grieved at his condition—perhaps, on the whole, almost glad to be rid of his company—Harry lighted a cigar and steered for shore. In less than half an hour they gained the slack water of the little bay, and M’Kinlay, gathering himself up, asked if they were nigh land.
“Close in; get up and have a cigar,” said Harry, curtly.
“No, Sir; I will not.”
“I thought you liked a weed,” said Harry, carelessly.
“My likings or my dislikings must be matter of perfect indifference to you, Sir, or I should not be wet to the skin and shivering as I am now.”
“Take a go of brandy, and you’ll be all right,” said Harry, throwing his flask to him.
Though not very graciously offered, M’Kinlay accepted the dram, and then looked over the side towards the shore with an air of greater contentment. “Considering, Sir, that I came here to-day on your account, I think I might have been treated with somewhat more deference to my tastes,” said he, at last.
“On my account? And in what way on my account?”
“If we are not likely to have any more storms of wind, I can perhaps tell you.”
“No, no, it’s still as a fishpond here. Go on.”
“Before I go on—before I even begin, Mr. Luttrelle I must have your promise that you will not mention to any one what shall pass between us to-day. It is on a subject which concerns you—but still concerns others more nearly.”
“All right. I’ll not speak of it.”
“You will give me your word?”
“I have given it. Didn’t you hear me say I’d not speak of it?”
“Well, Sir, the matter is this: Great uneasiness is being felt here at the intimacy that has grown up between you and Miss Vyner. Motives of extreme delicacy towards you—who, of course, not having lived much in the world, could not be expected to weigh such considerations—but motives of great delicacy, as I say, have prevented any notice being taken of this intimacy, and a hope has been felt that you yourself, once awakened to the fact of the long interval that separates her condition from yours, would soon see the propriety, indeed the necessity, of another line of conduct, and thus not require what may seem an admonition, though I really intend you should receive it as the warning counsel of a friend.”
“Have you been commissioned to say this to me?” asked Luttrell, haughtily.
“Though I had decided with myself not to answer any questions, I will reply to this one—and this only. I have.”
“Who gave you this charge?”
M’Kinlay shook his head, and was silent.
“Was it Sir Gervais Vyner?”
Another shake of the head was the reply.
“I thought not. I am certain, too, it was not Lady Vyner. Be frank, Sir, and tell me candidly. It was Miss Courtenay employed you on this errand?”
“I really see no necessity for any explanation on my part, Mr. Luttrell. I have already transgressed the limits of mere prudence in the avowal I have made you. I trust you will be satisfied with my candour.”
“Let me ask for a little more of that same candour. I want to know what is expected of me. What I am to do?”
“Really, Sir, you make my position a very painful one. You insist upon my being extremely disagreeable to you.”
“Listen to reason. I am telling you that I found myself in considerable embarrassment, and I entreat of you, as a favour, to show me the way out of it. Am I to discontinue all intimacy with Miss Vyner? Am I to avoid her? Am I to leave this, and not return?”
“That I opine to be the most fitting course under the circumstances,” said M’Kinlay, bowing.
“I see,” said Harry, pondering for some seconds—“I see.” And then, with a more fervid manner, resuming: “But if I know, Sir—if I feel—that all this caution is unnecessary, that I have not—that I never had—the slightest pretensions such as you speak of, that Miss Vyner’s manner to me, in its very freedom, repels any suspicion of the kind,—I ask you, is it not a little hard to deny me the greatest happiness I have ever tasted in life—the first holiday after a long spell of work and hardship? Why should I not go straight to Sir Gervais and say this?”
“You forget your promise to myself.”
“Ay, to be sure, that is a barrier. I suppose you are right. The best, the only way, is to go off; and I own I feel ashamed to make this return for all the generous kindness I have met here; and what an insufferable coxcomb must it stamp me, if it ever comes out that I left on such grounds as these.”
“That is not how the world regards such things, Sir. Men are not supposed to measure their affections by their circumstances. If it were so, we should not see so many mésalliances.”
“I don’t know how to go about it. I’m a precious bungler at making excuses, and, whenever I have told a lie in my life, my own shame and confusion have always convicted me; help me to some ingenious pretext for a sudden departure.”
“You can have law business. Your agents wish to see you.”
“But I have no property, or next to none. No, no, that won’t do.”
“You desire to visit your friends in Ireland.”
“Just as bad. I have as little friends as fortune. Try again.”
“Why should not Captain Dodge have sent for you; you left him very ill, and confined to bed, I understand?”
“He told Sir Gervais to keep me as long as possible; that the air of the hospital was bad for me, and had brought back my ague.”
“If you are so very scrupulous, Sir, as to what people generally regard as a mere conventionality, I should say, pack up and be off without any explanation at all.”
“I believe you are right. It is the old story of paying one’s debts with the topsail sheet. Shabby enough, too, but it can’t be helped. Perhaps, Mr. M’Kinlay, if occasion should occur, you would find means to let Sir Gervais know that I am not the ungrateful dog my want of manners might bespeak me; perhaps you would convey to him that this step of mine had been suggested by yourself.”
“It is possible, Mr. Luttrell, that a fortuitous moment for an explanation of the kind you mention might occur, and, if so, you may rely on my willingness to profit by it. You mean to go at once?”
“I suppose so. Is it not what you advise?”
“Most certainly.”
“Here goes, then! I’ll start this instant. They are all out driving, except Miss Courtenay. I see her in the garden yonder. She, I know, will forgive me my abrupt departure, and you’ll make the best story you can out of it, Mr. M’Kinlay. As I was last seen in your company, you’ll be obliged, for your own sake, to say something plausible.”
“I will do my best, Sir. The eccentric habits of a sea-life must bear the burden of the explanation.”
“It’s poor comfort that I can’t be much missed! Good-by!” And, without any more cordial leave-taking, Luttrell turned into a side-path that led directly to the house, while M’Kinlay entered the garden and made straight for the sea-wall, on which Miss Courtenay was sitting, awaiting him.
“Well?” said she, impatiently, as he came forward—“well?”
“It is done—all finished!”
“In what way? How is it finished?”
“He goes away—goes at once!”
“Of course he writes a note, and makes some sort of excuse to my brother-in-law for his hurried departure?”
“I believe not. I fear—that is, I apprehend—he is one of those not very tractable people who always do an awkward thing in the awkwardest way; for when I explained to him that his position here was—what shall I say?—an indiscretion, and that Miss Vyner’s friends saw with uneasiness the growing intimacy between them——”
“You did not speak of me—you did not mention my name, I hope?” broke she in, in an imperious tone.
“You could not suppose me guilty of such imprudence, Miss Courtenay!” said he, in an offended manner.
“No matter what I suppose, Sir. I want you to tell me that my name was not uttered during your interview.”
“Not by me—certainly not by me!” said he, timidly.
“Was it by him, Sir? Answer me that!”
“Well, I rather think that he did say that I had been deputed by you to convey the message to him.”
“What insolence! And how did you reply?”
“I observed that I was not there exactly for the purpose of a cross-examination; that in my capacity as a friendly adviser, I declined all interrogation.”
“Fiddle faddle, Sir. It would have been far more to the purpose to have said, ‘Miss Courtenay has nothing whatever to do with this communication.’ I really feel ashamed to think I should play the prompter to a professor in subtleties; but I still think that your ingenuity might have hit upon a reason for his going, without any reference to us, or to our wishes. Did it never occur to you, for instance, that the arrival of Sir Within Wardle might offer a convenient plea?”
“Indeed! I might have mentioned that,” said he, in some confusion. “The house does not admit of much accommodation for strangers, and an additional room would be of consequence just now.”
“I think, Sir,” said she, haughtily, “you might have put the matter in a better light than by making it a domestic question. This young man might have been brought to see that the gentleman who was so ungratefully treated—I might say, so shamefully treated—by his near relative, could not be the pleasantest person for him to meet in a narrow family circle.”
“I might. It is quite true, I might have insinuated that consideration,” said he, with a crestfallen air and look.
“I suppose you did your best, Sir!” said she, with a sigh; and he felt all the sarcastic significance of its compassion. “Indeed, I am certain you did, and I thank you.” With these words, not conveyed in any excess of warmth or gratitude, she moved away, and M’Kinlay stood a picture of doubt, confusion, and dismay, muttering to himself some unintelligible words, whose import was, however, the hope of that day coming when these and many similar small scores might be all wiped out together.
“What! that you, Harry? How comes it you have left all the fine folk so soon?” cried Captain Dodge, as he suddenly awoke and saw young Luttrell at his bedside. “Why, lad, I didn’t expect to see you back here these ten days to come. Warn’t they polite and civil to you?”
“That they were. They could not haye treated me better if I had been their own son.”
“How comes it, then, that you slipped your moorings?”
“Well, I can’t well say. There were new guests just arriving, and people I never saw, and so, with one thing or other, I thought I’d just move off; and—and—here I am.”
It was not difficult to see that this very lame excuse covered some other motive, and the old skipper was not the man to be put off by a flimsy pretext; but, rough sailor and buccaneer as he was, he could respect the feelings that he thought might be matter of secret meaning, and merely said: “I’m glad to see you back, at all events. I have no one to speak to in this place, and, as I lie here, I get so impatient, that I forget my smashed thigh-bone, and want to be up and about again.”
“So you will, very soon, I hope.”
“Not so soon, lad!” said he, sorrowfully. “It’s a big spar to splice, the surgeon says, and will take three months; though how I’m to lie here three months is more than I can tell.”
“I’ll do my best to make it endurable for you. I’ll get books—they’ve plenty of books here—and maps, and drawings; and I saw a draftboard this morning, and you’ll see the time won’t hang so heavily as you feared.”
“That ain’t it at all, Harry. You’ve got to go to Liverpool to Towers and Smales—them’s the fellows know me well. Smales sailed with me as a youngster, and you’ll hand them a letter I’ll write, and they’ll look about for the sort of craft we’re wanting—something bark-rigged, or a three-masted schooner. I was dreaming of one last night—such a clipper on a wind! The French are blockading Vera Cruz just now, and if we could slip past them and get in, one trip would set us all right again.”
“I think I should like that well!” cried the youth. “Like it! Why. wouldn’t you like it? There ain’t nothing to compare with blockade running in this life: stealing carefully up till you see the moment to make a dash—watching your wind, and then with every inch of canvas you can spread, go at it till the knee timbers crack again, and the planks work and writhe like the twigs of a wicker basket, and all the ships of war flying this signal and that to each other, till at last comes a gun across your bows, and you run up a flag of some sort—English belike, for the French never suspect John Bull of having a clipper. Then comes the order to round to, and you pretend to mind it; and just as they man their boat, dead at them you go, swamp every man of them, and hold on, while they fire away, at the risk of hulling each other, and never take more notice of them than one discharge from your pivot-gun, just by way of returning their salute. That’s what I call sport, boy; and I only wish I was at it this fine morning.”
“And what happens if you’re taken?”
“That depends on whether you showed fight or not; if you fired a shotted gun, they hang you.”
Luttrell shook his head, and muttered, “A dog’s death; I don’t like that.”
“That’s prejudice, Sir; nothing more. Every death a man meets bravely is a fine death! I’d just as lieve be hanged as flayed alive by the Choctaws!”
“Perhaps so would!”
“Well, there’s what you’ve got to do. Towers and Smales, shipbuilders!—they’re the men to find what we want, and they know a clipper well; they’ve built more slavers than any house in the trade.”
Harry made a wry face; the skipper saw it, and said: “There’s more prejudice; but when you’ve been at sea as long as I have, you’ll think less about the cargo than what you get per ton for the freight.”
“I’d not turn slaver, anyhow; that much I can tell you,” said he, stoutly.
“I’d not do it myself, Sir, except when business was alack and freights low. It ain’t cheering, noways; and there’s a certain risk in it besides. Towers and Smales—Towers and Smales!” muttered he over to himself three or four times. “They’d not be the men they are to-day, I can tell you, if they never traded in ebony ware! Had you any talk with your grand friend, Sir Gervais, about that loan he offered me?” asked he, after a pause.
“Not a word. I came away hurriedly. I had no good opportunity to speak about it.”
“He said, ‘Two thousand, and pay when I like;’ not hard terms certainly.”
“And yet I’d rather you’d not accept them,” said Harry, slowly.
“Not take money without interest charged or security asked? What do you mean?”
“I mean, I rather you’d wait till I’ve seen those lawyers that managed my father’s affairs, and see whether they can’t sell that trifle of property that comes to me.”
“Why, didn’t you tell me your father willed it away to some peasant girl?”
“Yes, the island, for the entail had been broken by my grandfather, but the small estate in Roscommon goes to the next of kin, and that happens to be myself. It must be very little worth, but it may help us at least to get a ship, and we’ll soon do the rest ourselves.”
“That will we, Harry. This is the fourth time in my life I’ve had to begin all over again, and I’m as fresh for it as on the first day.”
They went on now to talk of the future and all their plans like men who felt the struggle with life a fair stand up fight, that none with a stout heart ought ever to think of declining. The skipper had not only been in every corner of the globe, but had brought back from each spot some memories of gain, or pleasure, or peril—sensations pretty much alike to his appreciation—and whether he commanded a whale-boat at Behring’s Straits, or took in his ship store of cocoa-nuts and yams at the Spice Islands, adventure ever tracked his steps. Dashed with the love of danger was the love of gain, and in his narrative one never could say whether there prevailed more the spirit of enterprise or the temper of the trader.
“We’ll want that loan from Vyner yet, I see, Harry,” said he, at the end of a long calculation of necessary outgoings; “and I see no reason against taking it.”
“I do, though,” said the other, gravely.
“Mayhap some sentimental reason that I’d not give a red cent for, boy. What is it?”
“I’ll not trouble you with the sentimental reasons,” said Luttrell, smiling, “though perhaps I’m not without some of them. What I’ll give you will suffice. While I was one morning with Sir Gervais, going over all about my father and his affairs, of which he knew far more than I did, he opened his writing-desk, and took out a great mass of letters. ‘These,’ said he, ‘are in your father’s hand; read them, and you’ll be better acquainted with him than you have yet been.’ They were on all manner of themes—of society, field sports, books, and much about politics—and interested me vastly, till at last I came upon one which certainly Sir Gervais would not have suffered me to see had he been aware it was amongst them. It was the last letter my father had ever written to him, and was almost entirely about myself. He spoke of the semi-barbarism I had been reared in, and the humble prospects before me, and he told about my disposition, and my faults of temper—the old family faults, he called them—that made us all ‘intractable to our friends, and intolerable to all who were not friends.’ At the end he asked Vyner to become my guardian, and he added these words: ‘Be a friend to my boy in all ways that your kindness, your sympathy, your counsel can dictate. Guide, direct, encourage, or, if need be, reprove him, but never, whatever you do, aid him with your purse. It is on this condition I commit him to you. Remember.’”
“Well, I’d be noways obliged to my father if he had made any such condition about me. I’ve never been much the better for all the good advice I’ve got, but I’ve found the man that lent me a thousand dollars uncommon useful.”
“I am telling you of what my father wished and asked for,” said Harry, proudly, “not of anything else.”
“And that’s just what I’m objectin’ to, youngster. It was his pride to take no help, and it brought him to live and die on a barren rock in the ocean; but I don’t intend to do that, nor to let you do it. We’ve got to say to the world, ‘Sheer off there, I’m a comin’, and I mean comin’ when I say it. There’s maybe room enough for us all, but I’ll be smashed and chawed up but I’ll have room for me!”
Whether it was the fierce energy with which he spoke this, or the fact that in a few rough words he had embodied his whole theory of life, but certainly Harry looked at him with a sort of wonder blended with amusement.
“Besides this,” resumed Bodge, with the same decision of tone, “your father might say, if he pleased, ‘You shan’t help Harry Luttrell,’ but he never could say, ‘You mustn’t help Herodotus Dodge.’ No, Sir!”
“At all events,” said Harry, “you’ll let me try my own plan first. If that fail, there will be time enough to consider the other. I’ll start to-night for Liverpool. After I have seen your friends there, I’ll go over and consult my lawyers in Dublin; and I mean to run across and see Arran—the old rock—once more. It shall be my last look at it.”
“It ain’t a beauty, that’s a fact,” said Dodge, who saw nothing of the agitation in the other’s voice or manner. “Give me an hour or two, and I’ll write the letters for you, and I’ll tell Smales that if you want any money——”
“I shall not want it.”
“Then you’ll be unlike any other man that ever wore shoes, Sir, that’s all!” And Dodge stuffed a formidable piece of tobacco into his mouth, as though to arrest his eloquence and stop the current of his displeasure, while Harry waved him a good-by, and went out.
The same evening he started for Liverpool. The skipper’s friends were most cordial and hospitable to him. They had had long dealings with Dodge, and found him ever honourable and trustworthy, and Harry heard with sincere pleasure the praises of his friend. It was evident, too, that they were taken with young Luttrell, for they brought him about amongst their friends, introducing him everywhere, and extending to him every hospitality of their hospitable city. If Harry was very grateful for all this kindness, his mind continually reverted to the society he had so lately mixed in, and whose charm he appreciated, new as he was to life and the world, with an intense zest—the polished urbanity of Sir Gervais; the thoughtful good nature of Lady Vyner; the gentle gracefulness of Ada; even Miss Courtenay—no favourite of his, nor he of hens—yet even she possessed a winning elegance of manner that was very captivating.
Very unlike all these were the attentions that now surrounded him, and many were the unfavourable comparisons he drew between his present friends and their predecessors. Not that he was in love with Ada; he had asked himself the question more than once, and always had he given the same answer: “If I had been a man of rank and fortune, I’d have deemed my lot perfect to have had such a sister.” And really it was sister-like she had been to him; so candid, so frank, so full of those little cares that other “love” shrinks from, and dares not deal in. She had pressed him eagerly, too, to accept assistance from her father—a step she never could have taken had love been there—and he had refused on grounds which showed he could speak with a frankness love cannot speak.
“I take it,” muttered he to himself one day, after long reflection—“I take it that my Luttrell blood moves too slowly for passionate affection, and that the energy of my nature must seek its exercise in hatred, not love; and if this be so, what a life is before me!”
At last the ship-builders discovered the craft that Dodge was in search of. She was a slaver recently captured off Bahia, and ordered to be sold by the Admiralty. A few lines from Harry described her with all the enthusiasm that her beauty and fine lines could merit, and he smiled to himself as he read over the expressions of admiration, which no loveliness in human form could have wrung from him.
He sailed for Ireland on the night he wrote, but carried his letter with him, to relate what he might have to say of his meeting with his lawyer. A little event that occurred at his landing was also mentioned:
“As I was stepping into the boat that was to take me ashore, we were hailed by a large ship-rigged vessel just getting under weigh, and from which several boats, crowded with people, were just leaving. We rowed towards her, and found that they wanted us to take on shore a young lady whose class evidently prevented her mixing with the vulgar herd that filled the other boats. She was in deep mourning, and so overwhelmed with grief, that she was almost unconscious as they lifted her into the boat. I caught a mere glimpse of her face, and never saw anything so beautiful in my life. Only think! the vessel was a convict-ship, and she had gone there to take a last farewell of some father or brother, perhaps—husband it could scarcely be, she was too young for that. Can you imagine anything more dreadful? One evidently of rank and birth—there were unmistakable signs of both about her—mixing even for an instant with all the pollution of crime and wickedness that crowd the deck of a convict-ship! I asked leave to accompany her to her house or hotel, or wherever she was going, but she made a gesture of refusal; and, though I’d have given more than I dare tell to have known more about her, I thought it would be so unworthy to follow, her, that I left her the moment we landed, and never saw her more.
“I am sure I did what was right and becoming, but if you knew how sorry I am to have been obliged to do it—if you knew how, now that it is all done and passed, I think of her incessantly—ay, and follow every one I see in mourning till I discover that it is not she—you’d wonder what change has come over this thick blood of mine, and set it boiling and bubbling as it never used to do.”
He went on next to tell of his visit to the agents of his father’s property. Messrs. Cane and Carter had been duly apprised by Sir Gervais Vyner that Harry Luttrell was alive, and it scarcely needed the letter which he carried as a credential, to authenticate him, so striking was the resemblance he bore to his father.
“You should have been here yesterday, Mr. Luttrell,” said Cane. “You would have met your cousin. She has left this for Arran this morning.”
Harry muttered something about their not being known to each other, and Cane continued:
“You’d scarcely guess what brought her here. It was to make over to you, as the rightful owner, the property on the Arran Islands. We explained to her that it was a distinct deed of gift—that your late father bequeathed it to her as a means of support—for she has really nothing else—and that legally her claim was unassailable. She was not to be shaken from her resolution. No matter how we put the case—either as one of law or as one of necessity, for it is a necessity—her invariable reply was, ‘My mind is made up, and on grounds very different from any you have touched on;’ and she left us with full directions to make the requisite conveyances of the estate in your favour. I entreated her to defer her final determination for a week or two, and all I could obtain was a promise that if she should change her mind between that time and the day of signing the papers, she would let me know it. She has also given us directions about taking a passage for her to Australia; she is going out to seek occupation as a governess if she can, as a servant if she must.”
Harry started, and grew pale and red by turns as the other said this. He thought, indeed, there was some want of delicacy in thus talking to him of one so nearly allied to him. His ignorance of life, and the Irish attachment to kindred together, made him feel the speech a harsh one.
“How will it be, Sir,” asked he, curtly, “if I refuse to accept this cession?”
“The law has no means of enforcing it, Sir. There is no statute which compels a man to take an estate against his will. She, however, can no more be bound to retain, than you to receive, this property.”
“We had three hours’ talk,” said Harry, in writing this to Captain Dodge, “and I ascertained that this very property she is now so anxious to be free of, had formed up to this the pride and enjoyment of her life. She had laboured incessantly to improve it, and the condition of the people who lived on it. She had built a schoolhouse and a small hospital, and, strange enough, too, a little inn, for the place was in request with tourists, who now found they could make their visits with comfort and convenience. Cane also showed me the drawing of a monument to my father’s memory, the ‘Last Luttrell of Arran,’ she called him; and I own I was amazed at the simple elegance and taste of the design made by this poor peasant girl. Even if all these had not shown me that our old home has fallen into worthy hands, I feel determined not to be outdone in generosity by this daughter of the people. She shall see that a Luttrell understands his name and his station. I have told Cane to inform her that I distinctly refuse to accept the cession; she may endow her school or her hospital with it; she may partition it out amongst the cottier occupiers; she may leave it—I believe I said so in my warmth—to be worked out in masses for her soul—if she be still a Catholic—if all this while none of her own kith and kin are in want of assistance; and certainly times must have greatly changed with them if it be not so. At all events, I’ll not accept it.
“I own to you I was proud to think of the high-hearted girl, bred up in poverty, and tried by the terrible test of ‘adoption’ to forget her humble origin. It was very fine and very noble of her, and only that I fear if I were to see her the illusion might be destroyed, and some coarse-featured, vulgar creature rout for ever the pleasant image my mind has formed, I’d certainly make her a visit. Cane presses me much to do so, but I will not. I shall go over to the island to see the last resting-place of my poor father, and then leave it for ever. I have made Cane give me his word of honour not to divulge my secret, nor even admit that he has more than seen me, and I intend to-morrow to set but for Arran.
“I asked Cane, when I was leaving him, what she was like, and he laughingly answered, ‘Can’t you imagine it?’ And so I see I was right. They were a wild, fierce, proud set, all these of my mother’s family, with plenty of traditions amongst them of heavy retributions exacted for wrongs, and they were a strong, well-grown, and well-featured race, but, after all, not the stuff of which ladies and gentlemen are made in my country at least. You have told me a different story as regards yours.
“You shall hear from me from the island if I remain there longer than a day, but, if my present mood endure, that event is very unlikely.”