Take back the foul reproach, unmanner’d railer!
Nor urge my rage too far, lest thou should’st find
I have as daring spirit in my blood
As thou or any of thy race e’er boasted;
And though no gaudy titles grac’d my birth,
Yet Heaven that made me honest, made me more
Than ever king did when he made a lord.
Insolent villain!
Rowe.
The passionate embrace which had followed Flora Wilton’s adjuration to Harry Vivian not to leave England was but the prelude to fervent acknowledgments of mutual love.
Hal had quickly come to a sense of what constituted his predilection for Flora. He admired her beauty, her sweetness of manner and amiability of disposition. These emotions concentrated produced within him a species of devotional reverence.
Flora, on the contrary, loved him without being conscious of more than this. She was fully sensible of his handsome personal qualifications. She was attached to him by ties of gratitude of the strongest nature; for had he not saved her life? She was instinctively pleased flattered; gratified; by his subdued, and almost reverential manner towards her—by the unfailing homage of his clear, beaming eyes—in truth, by all those small silent attentions, and that gentle deference which are so grateful to the heart of woman.
It has been said that a woman cannot even to herself explain why she loves the being to whom she yields her heart. It is not alone by qualities of person or of mind she is won, but there is a charm that fascinates and enthralls her, which silently defies description, and will not submit to analysis.
This charm Flora discovered in Harry Vivian without knowing truly what was its real effects upon her; it elevated him into the first place in her estimation so gradually and naturally, that she did not detect the truth, although she found herself almost constantly thinking of him, dreaming of him, wishing that he would come again to see her even as soon as he had departed.
But when she met him in the glen in Harleydale Park, saw his saddened countenance, listened to his confession of love and heard his expressed determination of parting with her for ever, then she awakened to a sense of the state of her heart—then she saw that he was essential to her happiness—and that if he went abroad to return no more to her, her future life would be one of blank hopeless desolation.
She found now that she loved him fondly and dearly; and, as she clung to him, she revealed, with words broken by sobs, the truth to him, and extorted from him a promise that he would change his resolve, now that he knew her heart was irrevocably his.
Some hours passed in fond communings. Up to this moment, their relation to each other had, while essentially friendly, not been of a confiding character—it was so now. The time, however, came when they must part, and they did so with mutual expressions of tenderness, but with the understanding that for the present their attachment should be kept as a secret between them, and remain such until a favourable moment presented itself for an avowal.
It was also arranged that no mention should be made by either of their present meeting, but that Hal should return to the inn at which he had put up, and that he should pay his visit to the Manor House as though he had arrived from London on a visit, having taken advantage of the general invitation he had received from her father, to come to his house when he would, with the certainty of always receiving a warm welcome.
They separated. Flora, with a light step, and a strange buoyancy of spirit, hastened towards the house, and, after allowing her, as he believed, time to regain it, Hal left the sequestered glen, for evermore a dear spot in his memory, and struck off by a bye-path through the wood to the inn at which he had stopped on his arrival.
During the morning’s shooting, Lester Vane and Colonel Mires accidentally became separated. The former was an ardent sportsman, and in the excitement of excellent sport, he followed up his game with more celerity and eagerness than the Colonel, whose long residence in India had grafted upon him habits of indolence which he felt little disposition to change.
When the latter found that he was left alone—for he had seated himself beneath the branches of an oak, to rest for a short time—-it abruptly occurred to him that Lester Vane had a motive in being so violently active, and that he purposed distancing him with the object of having somewhere a tête-à-tête with Flora. The fact was that his mind, always dwelling upon her, and being apprehensively jealous of the power of others to win her favour to his disadvantage, he construed circumstances in many instances falsely and absurdly, so as to square with his prevailing impression.
Determined, therefore, not to be jockeyed by Vane, he wended his steps in the direction of the Manor House, taking a somewhat circuitous route, not heeding the occasional, though distant reports of Lester Vane’s gun in the opposite direction, because, eaten up by his jealous suspicions, he regarded the continued discharges as a mere blind, and believed them to be kept up by the gamekeeper, under the instructions of Vane, purposely to deceive him.
Sick, restless with inflamed thoughts, he pursued his course until he found himself emerge into the open park. As he did so, he perceived Flora emerge by a narrow path between two hills, forming a small natural gorge from the glen where she had met Hal.
He watched her proceed to the Manor House, which was in view; he noted the elastic step with which she hastened on, and he felt a painful, burning emotion of wonder as to why her bearing should have, in so brief a period, undergone a change at once evident and to him remarkable.
He had not long to wait in wonder.
Her form was scarcely lost among the shrubs and trees with which the gardens were profusely adorned, when his eyes suddenly lighted upon the form of young Vivian emerging from the same gorge which Flora had so recently left. Hal made unconsciously direct to the spot where the Colonel was standing, but desirous of not being observed by him the latter instantly retreated, and concealed himself in a small brake until the object of his curiosity and wonder passed.
The distance which divided them prevented his recognising at first the person of the stranger, who, he felt convinced, had just terminated an interview with Flora, alone and in a solitary spot.
He trembled with rage and agony; his lips became parched, his hands and forehead burned, as he concluded it must be Vane, and he resolved, upon his arrival near where he lay concealed, to advance and tax him, at any risk of consequences, with the ungentlemanly duplicity of which he believed he had been guilty.
What, however, was his astonishment and fury when he found that Harry Vivian was the hero of the interview, the stranger who had infused into Flora’s manner that apparent happiness, in which, of late especially, it had been so deficient.
His first impulse was to rush from his covert, fasten upon him, and strangle him; but the physical proportions of Hal were such as to compel him to reflect, in spite of his intense vindictiveness, upon the prospect of success in such a step. To be himself overpowered and fail, would be destruction to his hopes; and he paused to rack his brain for the best course for him to adopt.
But Harry Vivian was light of heart and of step, too, and he was abreast of Mires, and had disappeared in the recesses of the wood before the latter had decided upon what step he should take. Nothing was left for him but to retrace his steps, with the endeavour of meeting Lester Vane as he returned from his sport. He threw his gun over his shoulder and moved away with a shadow of gloom settled upon his features.
“Fool,” he muttered, “not to have thought of my gun. A stiff charge in both barrels would have more than sufficed to have dealt him his fate, and who would have suspected me?”
He cast his eyes rapidly in the direction Hal had taken, but no sign of him was visible, not even his receding footstep could be heard in the solemn stillness. He failed to meet Lester Vane in the wood, and when they encountered at dinner he saw that the latter treated him coldly, and with suspicious distrust.
As usual, old Wilton engaged him in conversation, leaving Lester the opportunity of paying undivided attention to Flora. With glaring eyes he watched every movement of both. He perceived that his rival was actuated by no common motive to gain the favourable opinion of Flora, and he observed that she seemed abstracted and inattentive, though her cheek was blooming like a rose, and her eye shining like a star.
But for the circumstance he had witnessed that morning, he would have believed that the low, earnest words, and the deep fervent gaze of Lester Vane had occasioned her heightened colour and the brilliancy of her eye; now he was convinced that her secret interview with young Vivian was the cause, and he cursed him bitterly in his heart.
Flora, pleading a headache, retired early, and Colonel Mires, feeling that conversation after she had gone would be insupportable, alleged fatigue as an excuse to seek his room, leaving Lester Vane and old Wilton alone.
The Colonel was too excited to remain in his room, and he walked upon the terrace, gazing up at the lighted windows of the sleeping apartments, imagining that in which Flora would repose, and groaning in spirit, as he thought that he would not be the chosen object of her thoughts and prayers ere she sank into the fairy land of dreams.
Once or twice he fancied that a shadow flitted past him, although at some little distance, and suddenly remembering the incident in Regent’s Park, it occurred to him that the same watcher at Flora’s window there might be here upon the same errand.
He darted into the deep shadow of a buttress upon the terrace, and, crouching, glided, like a panther stealing after his prey, up to the spot where he had seen the phantom-like object disappear.
He always carried a brace of small pocket pistols with him. It had been his custom in India, when stationed among the hill tribes, and he did so in England. He had never hesitated to shoot one of the natives, even upon a trifling pretext: he would not have hesitated much to do a similar thing in England, but that the law is inconveniently sensitive upon that point.
Now he seemed to feel himself justified in using the deadly weapon, because it would be discharged at some prowler seeking plunder. Such, at least, was the reason he should offer for his murderous act. That he arranged with himself. He drew from his breast pocket a pistol, and, upon observing a man, wrapped in a loose cloak, silently approach from the precincts of a turreted wing of the mansion, he felt convinced, though it was too dark to see his features, that he knew the stranger.
He raised his pistol and took a careful aim.
But himself and purpose were detected, and the stranger sprang hastily forward towards him.
Mires pulled the trigger. A flash of light, and a report followed. At the same instant he felt a heavy blow strike him upon the temple, which hurled him over the balustrade that edged the terrace, and he fell among the flowers beneath, on to the soft earth, and lay there stunned.
When he recovered, the servants were closing up the house. With a brain racking and splitting, he rose up. His hand yet grasped the pistol; his finger still curled round the trigger. Had he slain the man at whom he had fired? He gazed around him, and listened. There was no trace of excitement either within or without the building; no sign that the discharge of the pistol had been heard, or the short violent struggle between himself and the stranger witnessed.
He shook himself, and hastily brushed the evidences of his fall from his attire. He slowly ascended the steps of the terrace, feeling cold and shivering, while his limbs ached as though he had been beaten all over.
He threw a glance at the spot where he had fired at the stranger, but failed to perceive a prostrate human body, although he could not believe that he had missed his aim.
He entered the house, and then retired to his room, to pass the night in profitless speculation and mystified wonder. That he had encountered young Vivian, he felt convinced; but, so far as he knew, only to his own discomfiture: beyond, all was a chaos of doubt, presumption, and ardent but malicious wishes.
In the morning he met at breakfast, Wilton, Flora, and Lester Vane, but not a word transpired in allusion to the event of the preceding night. Flora seemed cheerful and expectant. She frequently gazed out of the window into the park; with what object, Mires very shrewdly guessed, and it was evident both to him and to Vane, that the animation she had displayed on the preceding evening was maintained.
Lester Vane was cold to Mires, but more than ever devoted in his manner to Flora, who appeared to take no notice of his profound attention, her thoughts being engrossed by a subject far more pleasing to her.
While the Colonel, with a heart gnawed by emotions of envy and jealousy, was regarding the only too tender politeness of Vane, a servant entered with a letter addressed to Mr. Wilton. The old gentleman opened it and after running his eye hastily over its contents, he handed it to Flora.
“It is from young Vivian,” he said; “he is in the neighbourhood, and will be here this morning, on a short visit. He shall be welcome, very welcome; I shall be most glad to see him, for, irrespective of the great obligation I owe to him, I like the youth himself. To his manly spirit is allied considerable genius and ability; he possesses rare skill in his art, and is modest withal—a true sign that he is no mere pretender.”
Both Mires and Vane bent their eyes upon Flora, to watch the effect this announcement would have upon her, and to observe the expression of her beautiful features as she perused the note placed in her hands. Their scrutiny was the reverse of “satisfactory”: they saw a roseate glow spring into her cheeks, and mount to her fair white brow; they observed, with disturbed feelings, the glitter of her eye; and the soft smile that gently curled her short upper lip. Mires, with wrathful vindictiveness, interpreted the play of her features; and Lester Vane did so too, but in vexed wonder.
“Who is this person?” the latter mentally asked himself. “He possesses evidently a high place in Miss Wilton’s good opinion! In what relation does he stand to her? What are his claims upon her favour?”
He at once, with considerable artifice, addressed himself to the task of ascertaining, and soon learned from Wilton’s lips, and from Flora’s expressive countenance, all and more than he desired to know.
“A rival,” he thought, and smiled contemptuously. “I scarcely imagine he excels me in personal qualifications,” he mused; “and on all other points I have him at an enormous advantage: I will crush his pretensions, if he have any, at once.”
Harry Vivian was not long behind his note. He was greeted in a warm, friendly manner by old Wilton; and by Flora, with a quiet earnestness, which could not fail to impress—as it was intended—those who witnessed it with a sense of the estimation in which she held him, and it did its work.
With surprise and anger, she observed that Colonel Mires, on Wilton presenting his new guest to him, threw up his head in a manner purposely and offensively insolent, and that Lester Vane drew himself up haughtily, and scarcely moved at the introduction.
She saw the quick flash of Hal’s eyes, and the scarlet flush which spread itself like a band across his forehead. Impulsively she moved towards him, to remove as far as possible by her own marked attention, the wound her father’s guests had inflicted upon him, by their contemptuous mode of receiving him, but her father, who did not appear to have noticed the behaviour of either of her guests, caught her by the hand.
“Flo’, my darling,” he said, “I will avail myself of your arm, to assist me to my library this morning; I have a word to say to you; and as our friends know each other now, they will excuse our short absence, and find amusement in the pleasure of their own society until our return.”
With the air of a patrician he waved his hand to his guests, and turned to leave the room.
On reaching the threshold of the door, Flora looked back to Hal, for she felt grieved, after what she had witnessed, to leave him in a position which must, necessarily be embarrassing to him. His eyes were bent upon her, and it seemed to her with a saddened expression in them.
She gently disengaged her arm from her father’s grip, and said—
“One moment, dear father, I will follow you.”
She returned to the room, and he proceeded towards the library.
She hastened towards Hal with a smiling countenance. She laid her white hand upon his arm, and whispered in his ear. He smiled, and pressed her hands in evident gratefulness, and she quitted the room, looking back upon him to the last.
Not a glance or motion did she vouchsafe to Vane or to Mires, for she, with swelling bosom, seemed to feel that the insult directed at Harry Vivian was levelled at her also, and she resented it accordingly. Of course this was not so construed by either of the suitors, nor did they seem to read her interpretation of their conduct in her bearing towards themselves; they only saw in it a confirmation of their fears, that she had by far too strong a predilection for the youth whose society they had somewhat unexpectedly been called upon to enjoy.
She was gone, and Hal was left alone with the pair. Colonel Mires cast a hurried glance at him; there was no sign of the last night’s encounter upon his person, or in his manner; he doubted, therefore, if he could have been the man he had seen and fired at, but, if not, who could it have been? That was a question to be settled hereafter.
He caught Hal’s bright eye fixed upon him, and he tried with, gloomy, knitted brows, to frown it down, but, as it never wavered in its settled gaze, he deliberately turned his back upon him, and with a formal salute to Lester Vane he strode out of the room.
The latter was thus left alone with Harry Vivian. He looked steadfastly and scrutinisingly at him from head to foot; he could not deny to himself that Hal was eminently handsome, and that he was dressed fashionably—nay, elegantly, and with unexceptionable taste. But he was a parvenu!—a creature in trade, only just out of his apprenticeship. What a rival! Vane’s lip curled as the thought passed through his mind; he even laughed, and aloud.
It was a mocking laugh, and grated on Hal’s ear most harshly. His impetuous blood surged boilingly through his veins, and he trembled in his effort to appear collected and calm. But such an outward aspect he felt in his present position to be imperative to preserve, and by a strong effort he kept his inward indignation from revealing itself.
After his sneering laugh, Vane, with a direct and insolent stare, again scanned Vivian from top to toe. As he smiled, he twirled the points of his moustache between his fingers and thumb, and then turning his back deliberately upon Harry Vivian, walked up to a pier-glass, and arranged his collar. Harry saw now that he was the object of deliberate and studied insult, but he felt that it would not be advisable to create a scene in Mr. Wilton’s house by any impetuous or violent conduct. For the behaviour of Colonel Mires towards him he could make allowance, but this man had no such excuse. In vindication of his position as a young honourable man, he resolved not to submit to the indignity, or to suffer Vane to part from him in the belief that he would endure contumelious rudeness without resenting it. .
He advanced towards him, and said, in a low, but clear, firm voice—
“Mr. Vane!”
Lester Vane turned slowly round and stared at him. A most rude, offensive stare it was; as though his groom had suddenly addressed him on easy and familiar terms.
It failed to add anything to the resentment which Hal felt at the treatment he had already experienced, because it could not exceed in offence the previous contumely directed at him. But he proceeded to say, with the air of one who would be neither put down nor put aside—
“Mr. Lester Vane, we meet here upon an equal footing—that is, as guests of Mr. Wilton. I have the honour of being received by him and Miss Wilton as a friend; let us therefore understand each other. While I am thus received by them, I claim to stand in the same position as any of their guests, and to be regarded by those guests as holding beneath this roof no meaner station. Here, sir, I am your equal, and I request you to distinctly understand that I will not calmly endure unprovoked insult from you or any individual breathing.”
Lester Vane regarded him with a glance of scornful contempt, and replied in a haughty, supercilious tone—“My good man, you forget yourself and presume. Let me give you distinctly to understand that I differ with you in your view of the laws and regulations which govern the position of visitors in this or any house. Mr. Wilton is undoubtedly master in his house and of his own actions, but I am no less the master of mine. Mr. Wilton, in his eccentricity, may choose to invite here some pin-maker’s son or apprentice, it is immaterial which, but I am not bound to entertain violent feelings of friendship for him, or even to associate with him. What is more, I do not choose to do so.”
He was about to leave the room but Hal caught him by the wrist.
“No,” he said, “pardon me: you cannot go this moment.”
Vane tried to fling him off, but Hal held him as if he were in a vice, and said—
“It will be unadvisable to struggle or to raise your voice, because I shall then consider you desire to make the household a witness to our brief discussion, and I shall deem you coward as well as poltroon. Now, sir, mark me, I repeat it—in this house I stand your equal; out of it, your superior—ay, sir, your superior. You may be, as the son of a poor lord, an empty-pocketed Honorable, without deserving even that appellative, for honour is independent of condition. You may possess a town-house, at which the sheriff’s officer is the most frequent visitor; you may drive a carriage obtained upon promise of payment, attended by a groom in arrears of a wages; you may move in fashionable circles, attired in clothes not paid for, or display at times money wrung by hard pleading from usurers at exorbitant interest; you may do worse even than all this, for in your ‘view’ to be honourable is not to be honest, but no item of that foul list entitles you to treat me with scorn, or to reflect upon my birth or position. Nor shall it. I will not permit your very brassy nobility to be flashed in my eyes, and sounded in my ears as pure gold. I know the ring of the true metal too well for that. If I am a pin-maker, I scorn to do a dishonourable action, and, therefore, I may justly, which you cannot, lay a claim to the title of ‘Honorable.’ And now let me warn you, that as I hold myself to be, in all particulars upon which manhood may pride itself, infinitely your superior, any further insult, tacit or direct, will be resented by me in such manner as your courage or your cowardice may determine. Now go.”
He flung him from him; then, turning his back, he walked slowly to the window, which was open, and stepped upon the terrace, strolling with a calm and seemingly imperturbed manner along the tesselated pavement.
Lester Vane was livid with passion. He was obliged to wipe the froth from his mouth. Yet, by no outward extravagance of manner did he betray the emotions seething within his breast. His first impulse was to follow, and commit some act of violence upon his aggressor; his second, to act as though he had come in collision with some low, vulgar personage.
As soon, therefore, as he was released, he shook his wrist, apparently to remove from it visible marks of a dirty hand; he smoothed the wrinkled evidences of the tight grip which had held him, and walked to the pier-glass, to arrange his attire, should it have been disarranged in the little passage which had just taken place.
He was acting. He believed the eye of the “pin-maker” to be upon him; it was not. The performance was therefore, in this instance, thrown away.
The glass told him that his lips were parched, and as white as his face. He bit them sharply to redden them.
“It would not be difficult to incite that fellow to go out with me,” he muttered. “I could put a bullet in his heart at fourteen paces, to a dead certainty.”
He paused for a moment, reflectively; then added—“Pshaw! it would not do to go out with him; I should raise him—insulting vagabond—to my level. No; I’ll ruin him here, and that promptly. The girl is mine! thank the stars! that is settled. It is very clear that Mires bears towards him a mortal hatred. Together we will get up a little plot to blast him in the favour of Wilton; and my skill in exercising an influence over a woman is mean indeed, if I cannot make the simple, single-minded, pretty Flora despise him. Hum! let me see. I will seek out Mires at once, and with his aid fling the scoundrel a harder back-fall than ever he has sustained in his life. When he is disposed of, I must turn my attention to my friend Mires. I don’t like that fellow’s visage. I don’t like his scowl. I must be careful how I handle him; but as for my friend, the pin-maker,’” he concluded with gnashing teeth, “he shall be tossed into a horse-pond before he leaves this, with the pretty Flora as a spectator, looking on and enjoying the sport.”
He cast a glance towards the terrace, but did not observe the object of his spite and envy; he then quitted the room, and proceeded to that of Colonel Mires, where a servant had informed him that he would find him.
He tapped lightly at the door, and entered the chamber. He beheld Colonel Mires leaning forward upon the edge of his chamber-window; yet in such a mariner as to avoid observation, and that he was gazing eagerly down upon the terrace beneath.
His curiosity being aroused, he moved with a noiseless step to Mires’s shoulder, and peered over it. The Colonel’s attention was so riveted upon some object, that he did not perceive his unexpected visitor, and the latter beheld on the terrace young Vivian, who appeared to be somewhat closely examining a particular spot. Presently he stooped down, picked up something, and put it in his pocket. Colonel Mires uttered an oath, as he witnessed the act, and the next moment, stepping back, he came in contact with Vane.
He gazed upon him fiercely, and said—
“How, sir? What is the meaning of this strange intrusion upon my privacy?”
“Your pardon, Colonel!” exclaimed Lester Vane with a quiet smile and a shrug of the shoulders. “I wish to have a few words in private with you, and sought you with that purpose. I knocked at your door, and imagined that I heard your voice bidding me enter. I came, in fact, to confer with you respecting the individual who has this morning obtruded himself in this house. I observed that you did not welcome him with any indication of delight; and as I regard his advent as an infliction and a nuisance, it struck me that together we might rid ourselves and the house of a common enemy by some little arrangement concerted for that purpose.”
Mires listened coldly. He by no means jumped at the proposition, but he motioned Vane to be seated, and they sat down to confer.
Jul. Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
Hear me with patience but to speak a word.
Cap. Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!
I tell thee what—get thee to church o’ Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face.
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me.
Day, night, late, early,
At home, abroad, alone, in company,
Waking or sleeping, still my care hath been
To have her match’d: and having now provided
A gentleman of princely parentage,
Of fair demesnes, youthful and nobly trained,
Proportion’d as one’s heart would wish a man,—
And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet, in her fortunes tender,
To answer—I’ll not wed—I cannot love—
I am too young—I pray you pardon me.
But, an’ you will not wed. Look to’t—think on’t—
I do not use to jest; Thursday is near—
An’ you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend;
An’ you be not, hang, beg, starve, die i’ the streets;
For, by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee.
Jul. Is there no pity sitting in the clouds
That sees into the bottom of my grief!
Shakspere.
Wilton did not observe wherefore his daughter quitted his arm, and re-entered the breakfast-room. In all probability, if he had seen the little incident which followed, he would have taken no notice of it. He took again her proffered arm, and together they entered his library.
She arranged his easy chair—her frequent office—while he carefully fastened the door. Then, placing a chair for her, he motioned her to be seated.
She obeyed, gazing upon him with an expression of gradually dawning surprise.
“What can you possibly have to communicate to me in this retired, private manner, dear sir?” she exclaimed, expecting that the interview would result in the information that he had some present to make her—a pleasure he had frequently indulged in since his recent accession to wealth. Still there was an unusual expression in his air and manner that warranted a strange and uneasy foreboding that it would prove of greater importance and less pleasure than a mere present.
The old man gave a loud preparatory hem! to clear his voice, and then said, with a peculiar earnestness of tone—
“Flo’, my sweet one, during the struggling years of poverty to which we were together doomed, neither I nor your sainted mother—a-a-a-hem!—made any allusion, in your presence or in that of your brother, to the past affluence from which we were so harshly and unexpectedly thrust. Nor did we mention, at any time, the names of those with whom we associated or with whom we were on intimate or friendly terms. But there were many. Some are dead; some I do not wish to renew relations with; others I may shortly invite here, that I may have the joy of seeing the old hall brightened up with the loved faces of happier times. To come, however, to the point and purport of this interview, I must tell you that there was one friend to whom I was greatly attached He was the playmate of my childhood, the school companion of my boyhood, and my friend in after years. His name was Montague Vane of Weardale. You heard me, I think, on meeting with the Honorable Lester Vane in London, name him in terms indicating the high esteem in which I held him.”
Flora’s attention began to be riveted, and her wonder at the coming revelation to increase. She could not trust herself to speak. She merely bowed.
“Well,” continued Wilton, “our friendship was so single-hearted and unselfish—as we each many times proved it to he—that we determined, on both contracting alliances, to draw that friendship yet closer by cementing, if Providence permitted us, a union between our families.”
Flora felt the colour stealing from her cheeks, and she could hear the beating of her heart.
She watched, with intense eagerness, the half-thoughtful, half-abstracted expression her father’s features wore while speaking, and she remained wholly silent, awaiting what was yet to come.
Her father went on——-
“Yes, if Heaven blessed us with children of opposite sex, we made a solemn compact, to betroth them, that in due time they might wed each other.”
Flora became paler than marble, and a dizziness seemed to take possession of her so that she could scarcely preserve her equilibrium. Her father did not observe her, but went on, with the same thoughtful manner as before.
“Heaven denied him family,” he continued.
Flora breathed again.
“But I was more blessed—” he proceeded, “you were born. Almost immediately afterwards the wife of Montague Vane breathed her last. Her death was sudden, and the shock to my friend appeared to be irrecoverable. Our compact would thus have fallen through, but that he urged and entreated me to permit him to nominate the son of his elder brother, Lord Colborne, instead of the child he had hoped would have handed down his name. I assented, and each solemnly vowed to visit with our lasting displeasure and irreconcilable hostility, either of the children attempting to frustrate our compact by wilful and obstinate disobedience.”
“Cruel! cruel!” muttered Flora, overwhelmed with agony, at what had just been communicated to her.
Still, her father had not turned his eyes upon her to observe the effect this startling intelligence would naturally have, but continued addressing her.
“It is a singular coincidence,” he said, “that young Grahame—whose father, by the way, has written to propose for your hand for his son—ho! ho! I have declined that honour—I say it is singular that young Grahame should, by accident, introduce to me and to you the son of Lord Colborne, who, as you may surmise, is that young Vane to whom, in your infancy, I contracted you. Yet more singular, for these events generally turn out the reverse of what is intended or desired, Mr. Vane declares himself most strongly and passionately attached to you, and that it will be to him the proudest and happiest event that has happened or can happen in his life, when you bestow your hand upon him. We talked the matter over for some length of time last night, after you had retired. I have no reason to doubt the ardour of his affection for you, or that he will make it the study of his future life to render your happiness perfect and complete. He will be a lord some day, you know, and thus the humble daughter of the poor old gilder will be ‘a lady and ride her Barbary courser yet.’”
It would be wholly impossible to attempt to depict the horror and amazement of Flora, on receiving this announcement of the disposal of her hand and person. She sat utterly aghast. The dreams of the previous night, and at the golden dawn, were at one blow rudely shattered. Her father had always been so gentle in his tenderness to her; so mindful of her wishes and inclinings; so overjoyed to gratify them; so careful not to thwart them, that though a strange, unbidden impression had obtruded itself in her felicitous daydreams that he might object to her love for Hal Vivian, yet she felt that he was so devotedly fond of her, he would not be able to withstand her fond and earnest pleadings in Hal’s favour.
Such a contingency as this which he submitted to her she could not, by any possibility, have surmised; thought was absolutely paralysed. She knew not what to say, how to act, for what to prepare: in short, she was completely confounded, bewildered—ready to die with fright and grief.
Even now, Wilton had not raised his eyes to catch the expression of his daughter’s face. He was not without a consciousness that he was exercising a stretch of parental authority beyond its just limits, and he began to have a perception that it would be a great relief to him if he were to feel his daughter’s white arms entwining his neck, her soft lips pressing upon his forehead, as they uttered, in a low whisper, her assent to do as he wished her. But she made no sign, and he had a distinct sense that she did not.
“I sought this interview with you, Flo’, my darling,” he continued, with a slight cough, “because I thought, before you formed for yourself an attachment, you should know my position and your own, in respect to the disposal of your hand; also, because the young man to whom you are betrothed is in the house; and because, further, he is urgent to plead his own cause, to do which, of course, I have granted him full permission. You must expect to hear from his lips the soft language of affection, to think of him with tenderness, and always to remember that he will be your future husband.”
“Father!” burst from the lips of the unhappy girl. Sobbing hysterically, she flung herself at his feet, and clasped his knees.
Wilton did not expect this display. He had been surprised at her silence, and a feeling crept over him that she did not receive the revelation he made with her usual deference to any expression of his will, but he did not look for a weeping suppliant at his feet.
He started back and cried amazed:
“Flo’—Flo’—my child! why do you act thus?—what is the meaning of this affrighted sorrow?”
“Spare me—in mercy spare me!” she gasped. “Do not let me leave you; pray—pray—do not urge your proposition upon me!”
“My foolish girl,” he replied, soothingly, “we shall not separate. You will still be beneath this roof with me. Oh! believe me, I stipulated for that. There—there, Flo’—dry your tears; you can be a happy wife as well as a fond daughter.”
“No! no! no!” she exclaimed, with shuddering vehemence; “I cannot—I cannot—I dare not!” she half shrieked.
“Dare not!” echoed her father, elevating his eyebrows with wonder, almost with terror. “Your words are a mystery to me—your conduct inexplicable! What is the meaning of it all?”
“I cannot—oh! I cannot receive Mr. Vane’s addresses!” she exclaimed, almost frantically.
“Flora, this is but childish absurdity; unless you have some grave complaint to make to me against Mr. Vane,” said her father, with a slight sternness of manner. “Has he done aught to give you offence?”
“No,” she replied, in a faint tone.
“Is there aught in his appearance or manner to create aversion in your breast?” he inquired.
“It is not that,” she returned—“it is not that!” She paused.
“What is it?” inquired her father. “Rise, Flora; your position does not become the relation in which we stand to each other. Be seated; be composed and calm. Tell me where lies your objection to Mr. Vane?”
She rose up slowly, and stood before her father. She pressed her hand upon her throat to subdue its spasmodic heavings.
“I do not love him!” she ejaculated, almost inaudibly.
“I can well believe that,” returned her father, gently. “Your acquaintance has been short. People don’t, out of romances, and in the actual world, fall in love with each other the instant they meet. It takes time and observation, besides many little nameless charms, to raise love. At present you have not—you cannot have anything to say against the personal appearance of Mr. Lester Vane; he is gentlemanly in his manners, honourable in his sentiments, and in his disposition amiable and kind. I judge so from what I have seen. These are endearing qualities; and when you are thrown more into each other’s society—when he yet more softens his manner in his wooing, and consults your wishes and tastes, makes your will his, and shows to you that he has no greater earthly bliss than that afforded him in seeing you happy; when you come to observe this, and to appreciate it—then, then you will begin to love him.”
“Never,” cried Flora, emphatically.
“I say, yes,” responded Mr. Wilton, with sharp emphasis. “‘Dropping water wears away stone.’ You will receive him on probation; you cannot remain ice-cold to many and constant kindnesses—it is not your nature to do so; and when you find yourself growing grateful, you will find love creeping into your heart to keep it company.”
She had found it.
“I implore you, sir, to spare me from an ordeal agonising to me, and utterly useless and hopeless in its result to the person for whom it is appointed,” she rejoined, with extreme earnestness; “I never can love Mr. Vane.”
“Why not?” cried her father, in a more excited tone than he had yet used; and now regarding the expression on her face with startled wonder. He had never before seen it so aroused, or such a strange gleam flashing from her eye.
She spoke not in answer to this question.
“Why not, I ask?” he cried, loudly and harshly. “I see by your manner that you imply a motive for that assertion. Again, I ask you, why not?”
She struggled passionately with her emotions. She wrung her hands, and looked about her almost piteously for some aid or help by which she might escape from answering this question.
“Speak!” he thundered, animated by a rage she had never yet seen him display. It seemed gradually to change her to stone. She drew herself gently up, crossed her hands over her breast, closed her eyes, and said in a low, but clear, firm voice. “I love already—another!”
Wilton, who in his excitement, had risen angrily from his feet, now staggered back, and sank into his chair, like one smitten with paralysis.
He pressed his hands over his forehead, upon which stood large drops of perspiration. Suddenly he raised his head, and cried hoarsely—
“It is impossible! it is a subterfuge; it is—but if it were true, girl, I have—years, years ago—registered a vow.”
“And I!” she exclaimed, hysterically, “unknowing what you had done, I, too, have registered a vow with Heaven. I may not—cannot—will not—break it.” With a loud sobbing cry, she ran from the room, and sought her own, plunged into a deeper grief than any yet known by her, although she had suffered much.
She saw that she was to be torn from Hal, and her heart clung to him only the more vehemently. Now she knew, indeed, that she loved him; now she experienced in its fullest force how entirely he was enwoven with all her hopes of future happiness; she knew it, too, at the moment that she was to be robbed of him, perhaps for ever.
She gave way to the wildest emotions of sorrow; she flung herself by her bedside upon her knees, and called upon God to help her in her distraction. She pictured Lester Vane approaching her, stealing his arm, snakelike, about her waist, and his hot breath reeking on her cheek. She shuddered, and shrieked.
“How may I help myself?” she gasped. “How! how! how! Oh! I am so alone—so alone—none to counsel me—what am I to do? how save myself from this fate? Oh, Hal! Hal! had you but let me perish in the blistering flames. I shall go mad! I shall go mad!”
She sank, as she in acute agony vehemently ejaculated these words, prostrate upon the floor, in abject despair, and almost senseless.
Wilton remained for some time alone in his library, overwhelmed by the result of his interview with his daughter. A project he had nursed for years, even in his destitution, and especially in his affluence, was destroyed from the quarter in which he least expected to meet with opposition. He was foiled, too, by an event upon which he had not calculated.
Flora in love! With whom?—with whom? ah! that was the point. Who had won her young susceptible heart? Of young Vivian he never thought. It was but the other day he was a mere youth; his figure did not, therefore, now present itself to his inquiring eyes. Was it young Grahame? His father had written to propose the match, but where had they met? Then, too, he was vulgar and foolish. No, no; he gave Flora’s taste more credit. Who was there else? no one—save Mires.
The old man stopped in his walk.
“Can he have taken the opportunity of being my guest, to gain her simple heart?” he muttered, with a fierce and angry gesture. “Can he possibly have done this? He may—he is subtle and insinuating; if he has, he shall never have her—never. It may be that I have hit the truth in this surmise, but I will be sure; I will question him, and from his own lips learn the truth.” He rang his bell violently, and a servant answered him.
“Seek Colonel Mires,” he said, sharply; “say to him that when he is at liberty, I should be glad of a few minutes’ conversation with him here in the library.”
The man disappeared with a bow, and performed his errand.
An hour probably elapsed, during which Wilton was eaten up with anxiety, and a thousand distracting and inexact surmises. He was about again to summon his servant, to request the presence of his guest, when Colonel Mires made his appearance.
Wilton made a sharp and curt remark upon the engagement which had so long detained him from complying with his request for an interview, but he expressed his gratification that it had not wholly prevented him from presenting himself.
The Colonel saw that something had happened, and excused himself by stating that the servant who had conveyed to him the message, had given him no intimation that Wilton desired the interview to be immediate.
“As it is calculated to have a material influence upon my future peace, it is one which cannot commence too early, nor close too soon,” Wilton exclaimed, as he motioned Colonel Mires to a seat, which he accepted. Wilton then proceeded—
“I have a daughter, Colonel Mires, almost at a marriageable age.”
Colonel Mires’ face flushed crimson, as Wilton’s bright eye met his. He only bowed, however, wondering what this observation was to prelude, especially as he could see that the old man was trembling with strong excitement.
“That daughter, as you are aware, Colonel Mires,” continued Wilton, “is my favourite child, the gift of wedded love, the most beautiful among her sex—the ‘Flower of my Flock.’ I had designed a certain position for her. I had bound myself to its fulfilment by a vow. I have through the greatest trials and worst vicissitudes cherished it, and now, when upon the verge of its consummation, I find my purpose retarded, flung back by an event as unlooked for as it is most untoward.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Yes, sir, indeed. Mark me, Colonel Mires, I am fully acquainted with my daughter’s temperament, her inclinings, every phase of her gentle disposition; I am fully convinced that she has no guile, would not cast about her to find a man to love, to bestow her heart upon, in the ultimate hope of following up the gift with that of her hand. It is not her nature; she must be wooed to be won.”
“That I believe,” exclaimed Colonel Mires, with some little emphasis.
“Of course,” responded Wilton. “Now let me inform you, sir, if you know it not already, she has been wooed, sir, and won; surreptitiously wooed, and stealthily, fraudulently won.”
The face of Colonel Mires changed colour like a chameleon; he knitted his brows, and bent an almost fierce gaze upon Wilton.
“Have you strong reasons, sir, for forming this strange conclusion?” he inquired.
“Oh, Colonel!” rejoined Wilton, with an expressive gesture, “the very best; I have it on the authority of the lady herself.”
An oath escaped the lips of the Colonel. He rose and paced the room in visible agitation. When he had somewhat controlled his emotion, he returned to his seat, and confronting Wilton, he said—
“Will you tell me, sir, who has thus acted?”
“That is what I wish to know,” exclaimed Wilton, striking the palm of his hand with his clenched fist; “the lady omitted that very important item in her confession. I sent for you under an impression that you were the very man who could supply that valuable piece of information.”
Colonel Mires was bursting to ask for the circumstances which led to this confession on the part of Flora. He could easily understand that it must have arisen from a proposition made by her father to her, extremely repugnant to her feelings. He had an instinctive sense that he was not the object of her father’s choice, and he was at least glad that Flora had rejected the proposed husband, whoever he might be.
It was not difficult for him at the same time to form a shrewd guess at the person Flora had acknowledged loving. From the frame of mind in which Wilton was at present, he foresaw that it would be easy to ruin the successful rival in Wilton’s estimation at once, and, as he believed, for ever; he therefore instantly resolved to attempt it.
“Have you formed no surmise identifying the person who has inveigled your daughter’s affections?” he asked. “I have” replied Wilton, drily.
“May I ask who it is?”
“I prefer hearing your communication first,” responded Wilton, in the same hard manner.
“I think I can show him to you, and at this moment,” exclaimed Mires, rising.
“I am afraid that I expect you can,” returned Wilton, growing more stern, severe, and cold in his manner.
“Attend me, if you please,” observed Mires; noticing the distant manner of his host.
He advanced to the centre window, which looked out upon the terrace beneath. He motioned to Wilton to gaze below. He pointed out Hal Vivian, who stood in an attitude of melancholy abstraction, his gaze seemingly fixed upon the beautiful landscape, stretching away to the horizon.
“That is the man,” he exclaimed, emphatically.
Wilton gazed upon him with distended orbs, and then gave utterance to a wild laugh of incredulity.
“Preposterous!” he exclaimed.
“Unquestionably,” remarked Mires; “but it yet is the fact.”
Old Wilton pressed his hands to his temples, and tried to look back upon the past. The effort helped him to no solution of the enigma. That his daughter should have fallen in love with the goldsmith’s apprentice seemed incredible; but when he came to remember that he had saved her life, had been able to pay her many most acceptable attentions when she was in misery and distress, he began to believe that there might be something in it after all.
He staggered rather than walked to his seat, and, pressing his hands again over his brow, once more went over the scenes in which, under his eye, they had taken part together. There was not enough to satisfy him yet that the Colonel’s assertion could be true.
He turned sharply to him.
“Pray inform me, Colonel,” he said, “how you came to alight upon this discovery?”
The Colonel shrugged his shoulders.
“I had a shrewd notion of it from the first,” he returned. “I observed his conduct when visiting you at the Regent’s Park. I detected his artful duplicity immediately after I had been, as your guest, called upon to endure his company. I noticed his obsequious deference to you, his readiness to coincide with your views, and to assent, without reflection, to all you said.”
“I did not observe that,” remarked Wilton, thoughtfully.
“No,” replied Colonel Mires; “nor did you notice his marked, though quiet, attentions to your daughter; his incessant gaze upon her eyes when she was present; his subdued, yet devoted, bearing to her; the cunning manner in which he turned every word from her lips into an acknowledgment of love, or asked for grateful remembrances of an act which the Royal Society’s fire-escape conductor would have done much better, and have expected scarcely scanty thanks for the able performance of his duty. You did not observe how he foisted his society upon her at every turn, because you never dreamed that he would be guilty of such presumption, any more than you could have any conception that he had induced her to consent to clandestine meetings, or of the number of such interviews which have taken place.”
Old Wilton sprang to his feet, with a howl of wounded rage and pride.
“Colonel Mires, this is a most grave charge,” he cried, with foaming lips. “It is one that compromises my daughter’s fair fame, as well as the honour of young Mr. Vivian, of whom, until you have spoken concerning him, I have heard nothing but what redounds to his credit.”
Colonel Mires sneered.
“Praises, in fact,” he said, “which have been prepared for your ears. Do not misapprehend me, Mr. Wilton,” he continued, hastily; “I have no intention or design to compromise the fair fame of Miss Wilton. She is too pure, too ingenuous and artless for any charge having such object, to be sustained. But her simple guileless nature lays her open to the designs of an unprincipled adventurer, who, by adventitious circumstances, has obtained some influence over her, and she might be induced to consent to an interview artfully suggested, and ardently pressed, without having, in her simplicity, any notion that her assent would bear a construction unfavourable to her—to any lady acting in the same manner, under similar influence.”
Mr. Wilton waved his hand sternly.
“Let us keep to facts, Colonel,” he said. “You are now charging upon my daughter and Mr. Vivian the grave impropriety of indulging in clandestine interviews—are you prepared with proofs?”
“I can speak to one having occurred yesterday,” replied Colonel Mires.
“Yesterday!” echoed Wilton. “You are mistaken, you must he. Vivian did not arrive from London until to-day—that is, at least—are you sure of what you assert?”
“I saw him in your park yesterday—let him deny it if he dare.”
“Colonel Mires, I must see this matter to the end. I will send for Mr. Vivian, this moment, and interrogate him—and in your presence.”
“As you will,” returned Mires, coolly.
Mr. Wilton rang the hell sharply, and when the servant answered the summons, he said—
“You will find in the garden my guest, Mr. Vivian, ask him to attend me here immediately. Say that I have something of importance to confer with him upon.” The man disappeared, and, in a few minutes, young Vivian was ushered into the library. He started on seeing Colonel Mires, and he turned his eyes upon the flushed and excited countenance of old Wilton. The scene between himself and Flora, in the glen, on the day preceding, flashed across his mind, and instantly a grim foreshadowing of what was to come passed like a gloomy cloud over his brain.
Wilton’s manner was grave, cold, even harsh. Colonel Mires met him with an insulting but triumphant curl of the lip, which Hal retorted with a glance of scorn and defiance.
“Mr. Vivian,” commenced Wilton, his voice trembling in his eagerness to come at the truth, “I am given to understand that you have designs upon the affections of my daughter, Miss Wilton—that you have prosecuted those designs with secrecy and subtlety, and, by mean artifices, have in some degree succeeded in your unworthy purpose——”
“Mr. Wilton—sir!” interrupted Hal, in a voice which startled him, “are you conscious of the nature of the words you are addressing to me? Mean artifices!—unworthy purpose! This is bitter language, sir, which I do not deserve, and most indignantly repudiate!”
“Listen to me!” rejoined Mr. Wilton, with an imperious manner.
“With respect,” responded Hal; “but at the same time, I must insist, sir, in addressing me you do not employ terms derogatory to my honour!”
Colonel Mires laughed scornfully.
Hal turned fiercely to him.
“Our day of reckoning is to come,” he exclaimed; “it is unnecessary for you to add to your obligations.” Then again turning to Mr. Wilton, he continued—
“I presume, sir, that I have been brought here as a delinquent placed upon his trial—that you will enact the parts of judge and jury, and this man will be the counsel for the prosecution, the witness, and will offer the whole of the evidence. Be it so—proceed with your charges, I will not utter one word until you have both finished, I shall then reply to the allegations; and; of this be assured; sir, that I shall not now, any more than I have ever done, swerve from the truth, be the consequences what they may to myself.”
Hal kept his promise; not a word was extorted from him by the wild suppositions of Wilton, or by the insults, the taunts, or the base insinuations of Colonel Mires; but at last when Wilton called upon him for his answer, he had discovered that, although Flora had confessed to having disposed of her heart, she had not stated to whom; that all that had been produced against himself were the suppositions of the old man, or suggestions of the bitter enemy before him. Even the accidental interview of the day before, so strongly referred to, rested only on Colonel Mires’ statement of having seen Flora and himself emerge successively from the glen; and he perceived that if he chose to keep his mouth sealed, the main features of the charge would hang upon the veracity of the Colonel, respecting which it was certain that Mr. Wilton did not entertain the most exalted notions. He, however, resolved to free Flora from the faintest breath of imputation, and to acknowledge just so much—with regard to their mutual passion—as the turn his own defence and explanations might eliminate, and no more.
Had the course adopted to examine him been what it ought to have been, he would not have concealed an incident; as it was, he determined to reserve as much as he could, from Colonel Mires, at least.
Before, however, he could speak, the library door was flung open, and the servant announced in a loud voice—
“Mr. Mark Wilton.”