Why, man, she is mine own;
And I as rich in having such a jewel,
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
Shakspere.
Lester Vane, while he indulged his appetite for profligate pleasures or pursued with pertinacity a revengeful purpose, never lost sight of his personal interest, especially where that interest centred itself upon an object awakening his selfish desire.
He had a double motive in desiring to obtain the hand of Flora Wilton. He needed the income she would bring with her, and he coveted her beautiful self. He loved her, so far as he could love anything feminine apart from a lower emotion, intensely, and was, in fact, sufficiently fascinated by her charms to have married her had she been penniless, even if he had neglected and ill-treated her afterwards.
As she was circumstanced she was a valuable prize, for she had beauty and riches too. The combination was something rare; no one comprehended or appreciated that fact better than himself. How he would be envied when she was his—fortune and all. He never separated that consideration from the pictures his imagination sketched of the future. He dwelt upon the vision which saw him folding the fair creature to his heart, and placing the fortune she brought to his own credit at his own banker’s.
What he had learned and knew respecting Hal Vivian, he treated lightly—contemptuously; nevertheless, the figure of this young “pin-maker” would obtrude itself. Still he brushed the shadowy object from his sight with an impatient sneer, for he had faith in his own attractions; he thought it impossible that a gentle creature so simple, and certainly so impressionable, as Flora could resist him.
As yet he had not had a chance to play off upon her his attractions to win her. That odious Indian bore, as he deemed Mires, with his bright, tiger-like eyes, had always during his sojourn at Harleydale intruded himself just as he had brought up his artillery of glances, soft words, and tender empressement; and again, at the moment he had devised an excellent plan for flinging his Indian rival, the unexpected presence of Vivian, and the events it precipitated, drove him from the scene.
“Out of sight out of mind” was a favourite axiom with him. It was one he invariably acted upon in affairs of the heart, unless, as in the present instance, his personal interest was identified with his passion for the lady.
He, being thus banished from the object of his passionate and pecuniary hopes, reflected that the axiom he adopted as a principle might have a similar influence upon one whom he would rather have unconscious of the existence of the proverb, much less capable of its application.
To render such a contingency impossible, he addressed a letter to Mr. Wilton, penned with a full conviction that it would be laid before and perused by Flora.
It was well done, and admirably calculated to effect its object, if—ah, those “ifs!”—Flora’s love for Harry Vivian had been of a different complexion. He commenced by regretting that any event should have occasioned his premature departure from Harleydale; yet more did he regret the circumstances which had happened, because they were of a character to disturb the domestic peace of Mr. Wilton, and to inflict pain upon the gentle heart of his most charming daughter. He begged to be allowed to express the effect which those events had had upon himself. Here he grew elaborate and diffuse. He declared that he fully comprehended the position in which Flora stood with respect to Vivian. He was aware, he said, that the heart was not at the disposal, nor under the control of the will Love scorned common influences or restraint; he was himself an example of the fact. Until now he had not really understood the difference between loving and liking; until now he was not conscious how consummately predilection and admiration simulated love. In man’s nature this was an incontestable truth—he believed that it had its place in woman’s. He had witnessed and keenly appreciated the amiable sweetness of Miss Wilton’s disposition; he had discerned with pleasure her ready and generous gratefulness for any service tendered to her or actually rendered; he could, therefore, perfectly understand the influence a handsome youth would have upon her grateful sense of benefit received, in having saved her from death in a moment of frightful peril. This generous gratitude took the form of emotion very like love. Yet it was not love—oh, no! love was higher and holier in all its attributes. The emotion he had described was not ineradicable; nay, when its real nature was fairly and rigorously examined, its actual character would be detected. It was no desire of his that Miss Wilton should abate one jot of her gratefulness to Mr. Vivian for the daring act of gallantry by which he had rescued her from a most horrible death: nay, it would be his duty, as well as his pleasure, to respect and to share it even. He had no wish that Miss Wilton should be denied the society of Mr. Vivian whenever her father approved his visits. In short, he had only one desire, and that was to render her happiness, now and in the future, perfect and entire; and he had no fear of not accomplishing this, although Miss Wilton were not united with the present object of her choice.
More than this, indeed, he said, but enough has been given to show the purpose with which his communication was framed.
Mr. Wilton received the epistle upon the morning of the rencontre between Colonel Mires and Mr. Chewkle. He read it with feverish pleasure again and again. Then he rang his bell, and bade the servant who attended to request Miss Wilton to come to him immediately in his library.
Flora, with a beating heart, obeyed the summons. Interviews with her father in his library of late had not been pleasurable to her. He evidently regarded her as a rebel in captivity, himself being the stern judge before whom she was occasionally brought, in order that she might, with frowns, be lectured out of her contumacy. Unfortunately for the purpose he entertained, Flora’s nature was one not to be frowned either into or out of anything upon which she had decided a certain line of conduct was the proper path to pursue, and when he grew angry and wroth, and styled her stubborn, she felt an inward conviction that she was not obstinate, but firm in acting rightly.
On appearing before her father, he commanded rather than requested her to be seated. She obeyed; and then taking up Lester Vane’s letter, he handed it to her.
“Read that,” he said; and added, authoritatively, “attentively.”
She took the letter apprehensively, but felt relieved when she found the handwriting was unknown to her.
A few glances made her mistress of the name of the writer, and then it flashed across her mind that her father’s eyes would be bent keenly upon her face, and he would read every expression that her emotions raised during the perusal might place there. She set her teeth and lips closely together, contracted her brow and read slowly on to the end without losing a word or betraying any other sign than a slight curl of the upper lip. When she had finished its perusal, she returned it to her father without a word.
He waited for a minute expecting her to speak, but she continued silent. A flush mounted to his forehead, and his brow loured.
“What answer have you to make, Miss Wilton?” he asked, rather impetuously.
“I would rather be excused answering your question, sir,” she returned, in a low tone.
“No doubt you would,” he responded, promptly; “but I require you to answer me.”
“The letter is not addressed to me,” she said, coldly.
“No!” he rejoined, sharply; “but it makes most important references to you; it aptly describes the situation in which we are all placed, and appears to me to be conceived in the very noblest spirit.”
Flora’s lip curled most expressively.
“I say, in the very noblest spirit!” almost roared her father.
“And yet so transparent as to disclose the motives which originated and have governed its composition,” she observed, calmly.
“Motives—what motives?” repeated old Wilton, excitedly; “what other motive could Mr. Vane have than that of opening your—I had almost said wilfully—-blind eyes to your perverse error—to show you how mistaken you are in the insane impression you are fostering and cherishing in obstinate opposition to the wish nearest and dearest to my heart.”
“I do not acknowledge the correctness of Mr. Vane’s conclusions, in respect to the influences by which my conduct is controlled,” returned Flora, firmly. “I consider myself to be the best judge of the effect Mr. Vivian’s gallantry has produced upon my gratefulness.”
Mr. Wilton’s breath seemed taken away. He was something more than astonished, he was exasperated. He struck the library-table with his fist.
“You shall not decline Mr. Vane’s hand,” he cried, vehemently, “upon that subject I have made up my mind.”
“And I,” ejaculated Flora, decisively.
He rose up as these words fell from her lips. She rose up, too, and stood calmly and unshrinkingly before him. He looked into her clear, unwavering eyes, which bore his steadfast gaze without the smallest perceptible tremor in the lid. He saw written there in plain emphatic language the determination which would submit to death rather than yield to coercion. He saw there the unquailing spirit, glowing as in a garment of fire, though that eye still was soft and seemed so gentle in its blue loveliness.
He gasped twice or thrice—he did not sigh.
“Are you my daughter?” at length he uttered, hoarsely.
“I was,” she replied.
“Was!” he echoed, in a bewildered tone.
“When we were poor and struggling,” she continued, “and you were labouring—toiling for the bread we ate, you were my father, for then you were tender, kind, and thoughtful, in all that related to my welfare and to my happiness; then I was your daughter, your child, your own—own Flo’.”
She wiped the welling tears from her eyes.
“You smiled upon me benignly,” she continued, “you spoke to me in accents of soft lovingness, and you made my life, though poverty intermixed with our daily wants and wishes, one of quiet happiness, for you loved me then, and I—I—adored you.”
She paused for a moment. He listened with downcast eyes. She went on—
“Amid our trials, our toils, our sorrows, under our one great affliction—when—when my—my sainted mother——”
A sob burst from her quivering lips. The old man’s head bowed yet lower. Flora, with an effort, controlled her tears and went on.
“When she was taken from us, no sacrifice you could have asked of me I would have ever paused at to make you happy. I would have compressed my heart till it had been pulseless, rather than have interposed my happiness between you and your perfect content. I should have laid down my life with a cry of joy to have seen you without care. This, this, I would have done at a time when—if they would ever—selfish considerations would most have weighed with me, for any change out of our miserable destitution must have been productive of greater comfort at least. The scene, sir, has been changed; the rags of wretchedness have been flung aside, the poor abode has sunk in charred ruins. You are master of lordly domains, and revel in wealth, and—the relation previously subsisting between us has changed also. Almost immediately after our arrival here we ceased to be to each other as father and daughter.”
“Flora!”
“Or Miss Wilton—that name, sir, is more fitting from your lips now.”
“Do I dream?” cried Wilton, pressing the palms of his hands to his temples.
“No, sir!” she continued, in the same firm tone as before. “You are broad awake, the morning sun is now, at least, shining upon your eyes. You have seen me always passive and placid, yielding, and perhaps even, as the writer of yon well-dissembled epistle has flattered me by saying, displaying an amiable sweetness of disposition. In poverty, sir, you were gentle, yielding—oh, most amiable; but there you had an inner nature which has developed itself here at Harley-dale. I, too, sir, have an inner nature; it is developing itself now.”
“It is, indeed,” almost groaned Wilton, and then added, sternly, “to what end?”
“To this, sir,” replied Flora, as decisively as before.
“In this house, on these estates, you are the lordly patrician, lofty to me as to the beater of your game. I am received by you, addressed by you, retire from your presence as from that of the supreme head of the household alone.”
“Am I not?” he demanded.
“You are, sir; as such, I pay you homage,” she responded, “but you are my father no less, and in that capacity you have thought it proper to treat me as a stranger—would dispose of me as a lord of old would give in marriage the daughter of one of his serfs to a neighbour’s vassal.”
“Girl—girl, you are insane!” he cried, stamping his foot.
“If I were, sir, I should not see the change in you—-the bitter—bitter alteration. Oh, I have loved you so dearly, so truly, so fondly, when there were no trappings and riches to step in between our loving hearts. How I loathe this state which freezes our affections into ceremonious greetings; how I fling back Miss Wilton to your lips, sir, and how gladly would I take up poverty again, to be once more your own darling Flo’!”
She sank sobbing into a chair.
The old man felt a tugging at his heart-strings. He turned his eyes up to encounter those of his wife’s, looking down upon him from her portrait with a soft, sad expression, as though to remind him of her dying injunctions to cherish and make happy the little helpless innocent creatures she left behind her.
He tottered rather than walked to the side of his daughter. He placed his hand upon her shoulder.
“My sweet child, my own Flo’, there should be no division between us,” he said, in a voice quivering with emotion.
Flora flung herself upon his breast with a cry of joy, as the old tone of voice greeted her ears, and he bent over her, kissing her white forehead with his trembling lips.
Outwardly there was a reunion, and inwardly too, at least, so far as their true attachment for each other, uninfluenced by the particular cause of their recent estrangement, existed.
Flora had astonished her father; no wonder—she had surprised herself. The alteration in his manner since his return to Harleydale had been so remarkable that, while it pained her, it was incomprehensible to her. There was something so new in his hauteur and so bewildering in his grand patronising air, that she, whose memory of former grandeur was but a fleeting dream, and of their recent humble condition exceedingly vivid, felt distressed at the splendour by which she was surrounded so abruptly, and by homage which she was called upon to render as well as to receive. She wished to have been permitted to glide into her new position, and not at one bound spring from a child of poverty into the position of a duchess. She forgot that penury had been, as it were, her normal condition, that the change in her father was a resumption of his dignity, not a new manner founded upon a sudden accession of wealth. She had been uncomfortable in her isolation at Harleydale, for isolated she was. She had brooded over the changes which had occurred and those which threatened her. She had held self-communings and imaginary conversations, with what result we have seen.
Her inner nature had developed itself in one great explosion; it gave to both father and daughter a lesson.
Wilton, as he embraced his daughter, became conscious that her affectionate nature required something more tender in the mode of addressing her, and in the manner of acting towards her, than he had lately adopted. He perceived that gentle fondness would gain always the strongest influence over her, and he resolved on the instant to dispense with his loftiness in his interviews with her, and he hoped, in recovering the earnest affection she had always previously evinced, to steal from her a consent to wed the man he had selected for her husband.
She, too, at the moment had a thought that, with returning fondness, her father might be led to see Hal Vivian with, her eyes, and his strong opposition to their union might be made to pass away.
Neither, however, alluded to the subject; both knew it was not the time, yet each felt the impression strengthened that the resumption of their fond relations would tend to a result they both wished to see consummated, though so different in effect.
Wilton made no further remark upon Lester Vane’s epistle, nor did he hint that he still entertained a very high opinion of the spirit in which it was conceived, or that it was his intention to reply to it, and beg the writer to come down to Harleydale quietly, when, having the field to himself, he might endeavour, by gentle words and soft persuasions, to induce Flora to transfer her affection from young Vivian to him.
He addressed a few kind words to the yet tearful girl—endeavoured to chase away an impression that his restoration to his proper position lessened his natural affection for her—and dismissed her with a parental kiss, bidding her come to him again with brighter eyes and her own sweet smile, to cheer up the hours in which they were accustomed to meet, and which their late estrangement had made irksome and gloomy to both.
She quitted the library, her overcharged heart much relieved. She hastened to her chamber, but not to remain there. She quickly attired herself, for she wished to sit and think over the events of the morning, and the prospects they seemed to open up for her, at the spot where Hal had first poured the passionate words of love in her willing ears. There, and there only, could she find it in her heart to sit and think of him, and to fashion hopes of rosy aspect, and sigh forth tender aspirations for a union that was to be to her conception so happy—so very happy.
Flora was on her way to the little glen for this purpose when the baleful eye of Colonel Mires fell upon her. As she disappeared in the leafy opening, Mr. Chewkle followed her, according to the directions of his new employer, while the Colonel hurried away to set in action the train of arrangements he had with much cunning artifice devised, and now sought to bring to a successful issue.
Mr. Chewkle, following his instructions to the letter, turned into a shrubby alley, which Colonel Mires had omitted to tell him to pass, and instead, therefore, of directing his steps to the spot where Flora was sitting, he unconsciously hurried towards the village inn from which he had clandestinely bolted.
Colonel Mires, as he had arranged, appeared at the proper moment within the glen, but to his vexed surprise he saw Flora, with upturned face, sitting in a thoughtful attitude, and no Chewkle there.
He instantly surmised that a mistake had occurred, and he would have retired, but Flora heard his approaching step, and, on seeing him, she rose up suddenly, with the evident intention of hastily quitting the little fairy-like solitude.
Colonel Mires impulsively placed himself before her and intercepted her. He was conscious the moment had arrived for him to effect his plan, and make her compulsorily his bride or resign her for ever to the arms of another.
His heart, at the bare thought of the alternative, seemed to be plunged into the centre of a flaming furnace, and the sight of her exquisitely beautiful but certainly very much astonished features roused his worst passions, so as entirely to shut out the suggestions of caution, reason or justice.
“Pardon me, Miss Wilton,” he said, in a voice which actually trembled with excitement, “for appearing thus abruptly before you, as well as for desiring to detain you for a few minutes while I make a communication to you of an important character—at least to my future happiness.”
“Your pardon in return, Colonel Mires,” she interposed, frigidly; “any communication you may desire to make to me must be made at the Hall, and in presence of my father!”
“Ordinarily, Miss Wilton, such would be the proper mode, I confess; but there are occasions which override etiquette, and this is one of them.”
As Colonel Mires had always treated her with a profound and tender respect, no fear of him entered her mind. She disliked him because he had acted so rudely and contemptuously to Hal, and because his attentions to herself had become sufficiently marked to be offensive to her. She would not, therefore, have hesitated to remain if it had been a mere question of reliance upon his gentlemanly conduct; but the instinct of danger so quickly felt by women when there is real danger at hand raised in her a desire to be away from that lonely place, and, without replying to his observation, she moved on to depart. Once more he stayed her by intercepting her progress.
“Excuse me, Miss Wilton,” he said, “you must hear me.”
Her soft eye glittered, an angry expression appeared upon her fair face, so lovely, even in its ruffled aspect, as to make the heart of the Colonel ache with an intensity of passion.
“Colonel Mires,” she said, sternly, “you forget alike what is due to my position and your own.”
“Possibly, Miss Wilton!” he answered, rapidly. “I forget that—all, everything in the world, in your beautiful presence. You must have seen long since, Miss Wilton, how completely you have enslaved my heart, how entirely my whole being is absorbed by a devouring passion for you. In my words—in my looks—-in my manner, you must have observed how ardently I love you—you must perceive and comprehend that I cannot live without you. Oh, Miss Wilton, I am aware your imagination has been ensnared by a generous impulse in favour of another; but believe that he can never—would never perform one tithe of the devotions I will offer up at your shrine. He would not—no other being would so constantly and unceasingly worship you—so persistently consult your happiness and do so much to secure it as I; for, oh, no other can love you with the impetuous soul-worship which burns in my breast for you.”
“This language, in this place, is an insult to me, Colonel Mires. I demand to be allowed to depart,” cried Flora, as soon as she could recover from the bewilderment his torrent of passionate words occasioned her.
“I only ask Miss Wilton for one small word—tell me to hope—one kind look, and the displacement of that offended expression upon your face by a forgiving smile, for I do nought in offence but all in love.”
“I insist on not being detained, sir,” she cried, indignantly; “you must answer to my father, Colonel Mires, for this unmanly outrage.”
She sprang past him, and was about to rush from the spot, when Chewkle made his appearance, out of breath. He had been running; in his turn he intercepted her—“Beg pardon,” he said, almost inarticulately; “you are Miss Wilton, I b’lieve?”
“I am,” said Flora, readily, for even in this man she believed she should find a protector from the importunities of the now-detested Colonel Mires.
“That’s all right,” responded Mr. Chewkle, still panting. “I’ve been ’untin’ all over the grounds arter you, Miss, for I’ve a very pertikler dockyment to give into your ’ands alone.”
“A document into my hands—what do you mean, my good man?” she responded, with surprise.
“Yes, Miss, a letter,” he returned, with a kind of knowing nod.
Colonel Mires retired a few paces, as if animated by a well-bred desire not to play the part of an eavesdropper.
“Why did you not leave this communication at the Hall?” said Flora, with some misgiving. “Why take so much trouble to find me?”
“Because, as I told you, Miss, I was charged to give it into your ’ands only. You knows Mrs. Harper of Highbury, don’t you, Miss? aunt to poor young Mr. Vivian, poor fellow, poor fellow!”
Flora’s face blanched. His last sentence sounded like the sudden boom of a death-knell in her ear. She tried to speak but found it impossible to articulate a word.
Mr. Chewkle placed in her cold hand the letter he had received from Colonel Mires.
“That letter is from her,” he said; “she told me to give it to nobody but you, and I was to bring back your answer. Poor creature, she is distressed, she is!”
Flora had scarcely strength to tear open the letter. A terrible vision of something dreadful having happened, with which Hal was intimately connected, rose up before her, and it was not dissipated by finding the paper on which the communication was written was thickly bordered with black.
Her trembling eyes settled on the characters traced by a female hand. She read a few lines, uttered an agonized, suffocating cry, dropped the letter, staggered back a few steps, and fell into the ready arms of Colonel Mires lifeless.
“Fainted, by goles!” cried Mr. Chewkle.
“Quick, man, quick, assist me to bear her away from here,” cried the Colonel, in a state of excessive agitation—“quick, not an instant is to be lost.”
Mr. Chewkle complied, and together they bore her by a narrow avenue into a copse, and thence into a little country-lane, over which a canopy of trees arched from either side of the hedges that bordered it.
Near to a gap which had been purposely made in the hedge stood a close carriage, upon which was seated Colonel Mires’ Indian servant, and within it the man’s wife, an ayah, who had come over from India with a family at the same time Colonel Mires had returned to England.
Into this carriage Flora was placed, and Colonel Mires followed. There was a very brief conference between him and Mr. Chewkle—the rapid passing of a sum of money, and then, at a signal from Colonel Mires, who drew up the overlapping wooden blind, the carriage was driven swiftly away—a route through byways having been previously arranged; and Mr. Chewkle was left alone.
The commission agent looked at the money he had received with a smile, and then put it carefully away.
“Honesty’s a poor game after all,” he muttered, with a self-satisfied, half-triumphant air. “This sort of thing is the paying game,” he added, with a chuckle.
He forgot that the game had a heavy penalty attached to it, one indeed that he might be called upon to pay.
He sneaked back into the copse, and stealthily made his way to Harleydale Woods, remarking to himself—
“Now to make short work of old Wilton. The daughter is disposed of, the old man must foller, and I must touch some more of Grahame’s money. Business is business, and a ’ighly renoomerative business is pleasure—tip-top pleasure.”
At the moment that he, like a prowling wolf, was stealing beneath brake and covert, on an errand of murder, Mr. Wilton was preparing to take a walk alone to the very place where Chewkle was hiding, as though he knew the ruffian was secreting himself there, and it was his duty to place himself in his power.
Rosalind lacks, then, the love
That teaches thee that thou and I am one:
Shall we he sunder’d? Shall we part, sweet girl?
No; let my father seek another heir.
Therefore devise with me how we may fly,
Whither to go, and what to bear with us:
For by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
Say what thou canst, I’ll go along with thee.
—Shakspere.
Mark Wilton, during his last interviews with Lotte Clinton, and in the intervals that occurred between them, passed through a severe trial of his love. All the unfavourable points in the circumstances revolving round Lotte served, instead of cooling the ardent flame kindled in his breast, to make it burn more fiercely. They were so many small impediments which, apparently calculated to stop the progress of his passion, actually extended its area, and added to its depth.
Mark determined after the last interview with her to marry her.
He made his way down to Harleydale, absorbed in the purpose of bringing his father round to his way of thinking. He expected a very angry opposition, and he left London in a state of preparation for it. He commenced with a fierce altercation with a cab-driver, quarrelled with the money-taker at the railway station, and with fiery eyes and spluttering words informed the guard of the train that he would report him, because that functionary refused to admit him into a carriage already filled.
Fortunately the compartment into which he did defiantly thrust himself had no other passenger, and he was solus all the way to the station nearest to Harley-dale. He consequently, quite undisturbed, vehemently argued the case, every inch of the way, with an imaginary obstinate, obdurate parent, who was most absurdly hostile to his views.
By the time he reached Harleydale he had exhausted the discussion, triumphantly defeated the arguments of the phantom father, extorted from him a consent to the union between himself and Lotte, and had got so far as to hear the village bells ringing a joyous peal.
He was awakened to the reality of the case by ascending to the library at the Hall, and meeting his father just as he was issuing from it to place himself unconsciously within the reach and power of Mr. Chewkle.
Mark Wilton’s impetuous nature would brook no delay in bringing the subject nearest to his heart to an issue. The life he had passed on the islands of the South Pacific and in other wild regions, amid unlettered, impulsive men, had communicated to his character much of that hasty decision and impatience of delay peculiar to those who mix in the exciting scenes which abound in the warm climes of the tropics. He could not have endured to pass the day patiently away; dined with an appetite; discoursed on different topics with his father, and ultimately parted with him for the night with a formal notice that in the morning he wished to confer with and consult him upon an important subject connected with his settlement in life.
No. He had quite made up his mind to marry Lotte Clinton, whether his father consented or not; and, therefore, the sooner he knew what side his father ranged himself on—and adhered to—the better.
Mr. Wilton, having just parted with Flora, was most complacent. He, too, had been indulging in imaginary conversations, and a vision, wherein his daughter, overpowered by his affectionate conduct and his honeyed words, gave, at his suggestion, with graceful sweetness, her hand and heart to the Honorable Lester Vane. As he was mentally bestowing his benediction upon the kneeling pair, his eyes fell upon his son, Mark.
With a face radiant with smiles, and with a lofty air which suited the rather windy eloquence in which he indulged, he exclaimed—
“Ah! my dear boy, back from the great metropolis so soon; I am glad to see you, none the less because you are wearied of its turmoil, its driving, rushing, selfish careering, its hollowness and its heartlessness.”
“Nothing of the sort, sir,” said Mark, bluntly and a little eagerly, “I had an object in coming back; certainly, not one of those sentiments you have suggested induced me to leave London, of which, if I must speak the truth, I am infinitely more fond than of the country. But I see you are going out—anywhere particular?”
“No, Mark,” returned Wilton, with a mild, patronising manner, “merely for a stroll and the air. I have not stirred abroad for some days, and pedestrian exercise is necessary for health.”
“Very true, sir; I will accompany you if you will allow me; we can talk in the broad, free, fresh air as well as beneath the carved roof of your library!” said Mark, with some little force in his tone, as though urging a point.
“With all my heart,” said Mr. Wilton.
So together they left Harley dale Hall, and pursued their way to the woods, where Mr. Chewkle lay hidden.
As they sauntered slowly across the park, the old man replied to some questions respecting Flora which Mark put to him in so cheery a strain that the latter augured favourably of his cause. Because he perceived that a reconciliation had ensued between his sister and his father, and as he had the strongest faith in Flora’s adhesion to the choice of her heart, he concluded his father had made the necessary concession, and that his own path to Lotte’s hand was half-freed from the impediments he had conjectured he would place in it.
He at once cast about for an opening to broach the delicate subject; but his father saved him the trouble by plumply introducing it.
Mr. Wilton felt slightly hilarious; brightened hopes of his daughter’s marriage, assisted by the healthful fresh air playing round his brow, disposed him to be sprightly.
How perfectly unconscious he was of the bombardment he was about to receive, or of the animation with which he should return the fire!
He threw the first rocket into Mark’s entrenchment; it was returned with a live shell, which exploded the instant it reached Wilton’s faery fabric, and demolished it with one fatal crash.
“Well, Mark,” exclaimed the old man, as they went on, “pray what is the special, object which has brought you down to Harleydale post-haste from gay London—something important, of course?”
Mark nodded with an air of one who is impatient to communicate some weighty affair.
Old Wilton chuckled.
“A wife, Mark, eh?” he said, in a light, jesting tone, simply because it was the most improbable thing that occurred to him.
“Yes,” said Mark, with emphasis, surprised that his father should come to the point of their anticipated discussion without being, so far as he knew, prepared for it.
At first Wilton laughed, for he accepted the answer as one returned in the same spirit as that in which he put the question.
Then it struck him that there was a remarkable and decided emphasis in the tone of the affirmative which Mark had uttered. He gave an uneasy glance at his son’s features. He felt a cold perspiration steal slowly over him. His heart suddenly leaped, jumped, and ached so painfully that he stopped. What was coming?
Mark walked on thoughtfully; presently he missed his father from his side.
“Why do you pause?” he turned round and said; “you are not already tired—shall we go back?”
Old Wilton waved his hand impatiently—
“I am not tired,” he said, sharply, but rather huskily. “We will go on—but—a-hem—but, I quite presume that you understand my question to you, Mark, was put jestingly?”
“Jestingly!” echoed Mark. “Ah! but, father, I am very desirous that you should understand I replied in serious earnestness.”
“Explain!” exclaimed Mr. Wilton, his visage contracting, and wearing that hard expression which so chilled Flora’s warm affection for him.
“You remember the old house in Clerkenwell, where we lived in a very different state of things to this,” said Mark, and paused as he pointed around him.
“Go on,” responded his father, coldly.
“In that house”—he cleared his throat and raised his voice—“I say in that house, from whose burning ruins young Vivian saved my sister, your only daughter—-saved, too, the document by which alone you were enabled to enter on the possession of this property and leap from destitution into prosperity—correct me if I mistake aught.” He paused again.
Mr. Wilton maintained a grim silence.
Mark proceeded—
“In that house there dwelt a young girl, a tenant of yours—saved also by Hal from the flames—you remember her, father, do you not?”
Mr. Wilton bowed stiffly.
“Ah! how would it be possible to forget her charming face, having once seen it?” cried Mark, ardently.
“Proceed!” said Mr. Wilton, in a grating voice, with difficulty enunciating the word.
“What more need I say, sir?—she is my choice!” returned Mark plumply. and with a firm decision of manner.
The expression upon his father’s face was not lost upon him. He saw the opposition brewing, and he gathered his strength to meet the storm.
A kind of spasmodic yell burst from his father’s lips.
“Preposterous!” he cried, vehemently; “frantically, deliriously preposterous!”
“You are opposed, sir, to my making Lotte Clinton my wife?” exclaimed Mark, with a falling brow.
“Opposed!” echoed Wilton, with a sardonic grin; “opposed! Don’t talk of opposition, boy; the thing cannot be entertained for one moment.”
“Upon what grounds?” asked Mark, firmly.
Mr. Wilton waved his hand contemptuously, as though the subject altogether was beyond discussion. Mark was not so to be put off.
“You found her honest, sir!” exclaimed Mark, as he perceived his father declined to give his reasons for so strongly objecting to her.
“A beggar!” gasped the old man.
“Chaste!” persisted Mark, “A beggar!” screamed his father. “Industrious, willing, cheerful!” continued Mark, with stern emphasis and heightened colour.
“A beggar!” reiterated Wilton, foaming at the mouth.
“Handsome, intelligent, and good!” shouted Mark, elevating his voice to a pitch which o’er topped his father’s excited tone.
“Had she all the cardinal virtues and the beauty of a seraph, she is still a low-born beggar, and, therefore, cannot be admitted into my family, to mingle with its blood, to take her place by my children’s side as their equal!” cried Wilton, vehemently. “If she is in want, I will assist her cheerfully, gladly. If she wishes to be settled in life, choosing some honest young man, her equal, for her life-companion, I will present her with a dowry. Beyond that limit it is the most insane folly to expect me to move.”
“Am I to understand, sir, that virtue and truth, industry, purity, and integrity weigh nothing in the scale when placed against birth and station?” asked Mark, sternly.
“In such a case as this to which you would apply it, I say certainly not. The veriest rag-collector may possess all these qualifications, but, therefore, am I to admit her into my family as my daughter.”
“Yet your objection springs only from a sense of worldly distinctions.”
“A most refined sense, boy.”
“But after death, sir, at the great Judgment Day, what will weigh against the virtues I have named?—will birth and station cope with them then?”
Mark spoke with startling emphasis, for he wished that his words should have a strong effect upon his father.
For an instant the old man was staggered, but the next moment the idea that he was called upon to accept for his son’s bride a poor needlework girl, banished the sharp impression Mark’s suggestion had made, and he exclaimed, violently—
“I will not argue the monstrous proposition with you longer. I command you to speak upon it in my hearing no more.”
“We will settle it now, sir, if you please,” said Mark, in a firm, determined tone. “I hope you don’t quite overlook the fact, in your sense of your own grandeur, that my future happiness is involved in the event we are discussing, or that I am, therefore, entitled to a voice in the disposal of my own person; and while you are taking upon yourself to decide who shall not become a member of your family, you do not, I trust, forget that your decision may help to diminish its number.”
Old Wilton turned a fierce and angry glance upon his son.
“I do not forget that you are my son, and, while I live, dependent upon me,” he exclaimed, with enraged bitterness. “While such a condition of your affairs remains unchanged, I will control such suicidal acts as you meditate. I will compel you to obey me so long as I am master of your purse-strings.”
“Sir, sir!” cried Mark, with strong emotion, “the lesson of poverty and wretchedness has been lost upon you. You have passed through the furnace, yet your old dross clings to you. Listen to me—I am not dependent upon you; this strong right arm and Heaven’s bounteous generosity enabled me to wrest from the earth’s bosom a sum which to men with moderate wishes is an ample fortune. This money I brought to England to lift you and my sister out of your beggary, if you had needed its aid. You have not required it, and it yet stands in my name; I will henceforth use it for myself, leaving you to enjoy what you possess, but taking care to reap from my own wealth that happiness which you so selfishly deny me.”
He turned to move away, but the old man called to him, sharply—
“Mark, Mark, what is it you would do?”
Mark, faced round and gazed upon him with steadfast eyes. With unfaltering voice, he said—
“Make Lotte Clinton my wife.”
“Know you at what cost?” cried the old man, with inflamed eyes and clenched hands.
“Your favour, and my stipend,” replied Mark, firmly, “I sacrifice the two, but I regain my independence, and take to my heart the only woman I shall ever love.”
“You have omitted one thing, one tremendous item,” ejaculated old Wilton, with heaving chest—“my curse!”
“No,” cried Mark, in a clear firm tone, “that will never leave your lips. Sir, I have seen in my short life that curses, like birds, come home to roost. Do not you try the experiment.”
Mark once more turned to quit the spot.
“Mark, boy, wretch!” shrieked his father, “pause—you—you will not—dare—dare not marry the artful, designing, infamous creature who had infatuated—cozened you—”
“When you speak of her, use gentler terms, sir,” fiercely interrupted Mark. “She is entitled to the profoundest respect of the noblest man alive, and I will suffer no one to breathe a contumelious word respecting her in my hearing.”
“If you persist, my bitterest curse shall cling to your footsteps, and drag you down through palsying vice and debasing misery to perdition!” almost yelled Wilton.
“Pause!” interposed Mark, in a loud tone. “If you will curse me, wait until you return to your library. There, sir, alone with that exquisitely truthful representative of my sainted mother, sink upon your knees, and, with your eyes bent on her soft, loving, tender orbs, call down your curse upon me—if you have the heart to do it. Farewell, sir! When we meet again, you shall yourself appoint the interview.”
Once more he quitted him, with a rapid step, and Wilton staggered almost senseless back against the stem of a tree. The old man gasped for breath, and wrung his hands.
What! was there no condition in life exempt from disappointed hopes, from harassing cares? What! did not ample estates and a large income secure uninterrupted happiness?
In his dreams over his toiling labour, in the poverty-stricken home at Clerkenwell, memories of the past and anticipations of the future had built up for him a visionary state of untroubled serenity, should he ever again resume the position he had lost. With what pride he had, after his return to Harleydale, believed that it was secured to him. Where was it now?
How he had gloated over the knowledge that a worm, was eating up the very heart of Grahame’s happiness. Lo! a canker had commenced to corrode his own. Was this visitation the retributive wrath of an offended Deity at his towering pride of position and his selfish paternal despotism?
He felt his temples throb and ache, and his breast burn as he tried to thrust back the answer which sought to present itself.
He folded his arms, and plunged deeper into the wood.
He dared not face the portrait of his wife hanging in the library. It seemed to him that a voice would issue from those small lips and demand of him how he had kept his promise given to her in her dying moments to do his utmost to secure the happiness of his children.
As he struck into a bye-path a pistol-shot was fired; he uttered a cry of mortal agony and fell bleeding to the ground.
The next instant a figure emerged from the copse; it proved to be Mr. Chewkle. He bent over the prostrate form of Wilton.
“Only winged him arter all!” he exclaimed; “thought I’d covered him, too. Never mind, I’ll do the trick this time. You shall have it through the head and no mistake, old gel’man.”
He pointed the muzzle of a revolver to the temple of Wilton, but at the instant his finger pressed the trigger a pair of powerful hands seized him by the throat and dragged him back. The pistol was discharged, but the bullet, missing its destination, buried itself in the earth, a foot from Mr. Wilton’s head.
Chewkle uttered a yell of terror, startled by the suddenness of the attack upon him. His first impression was that he had been pounced upon by Nathan Gomer, and that his were the fingers—of solid, burnished gold, cold as death—which now clutched him by the throat, and his heart beat violently.
But his antagonist was certainly taller; and then it flashed through the mind of Mr. Chewkle that he was in the hands of one of Mr. Wilton’s gamekeepers.
The gallows, in an atmosphere of flame, presented itself before his eyes.
With a violent, enormous exertion of strength, under the influence of a sudden and maddening excitement, he flung off his captor and faced him.
It was no gamekeeper—no other than young Mr. Vivian.
Chewkle gave a growl of rage, and, with a fierce oath, fired his pistol suddenly at his youthful antagonist. The ball grazed Hal’s ear and caused him to stagger; but before Chewkle could repeat his shot, as he intended, Hal closed again with him and a deadly struggle once more commenced.
Twice did Chewkle, in the fearful wrestle between him and Hal, contrive to fire off the revolver, but without success; and at length Vivian’s youth, courage and skill prevailed over Chewkle’s powers, wasted by debauchery and his recent illness. Hal flung him with violence to the ground; and, kneeling on his chest, twisted, with a sudden wrench, the pistol out of his hand.
Almost at the same moment the head-gamekeeper and his assistant, with a couple of dogs, came crashing through the foliage, and took part in the proceedings. A few hasty words from Hal Vivian, and Chewkle was raised to his feet, his arms were strongly bound behind him, and he was given into the custody of the assistant-keeper, a tall, powerful fellow, who, with a strong grip upon Chewkle’s collar, and some very profane words in his mouth, dragged him, sullen and half-resisting, to the police-station in the village.
Hal Vivian and the head-keeper then raised old Wilton, and bore him to the Hall, still senseless and bleeding from the wound inflicted by the scoundrel Chewkle.
A medical man was summoned, and quickly made his appearance. He examined his patient, and relieved the minds of those gathered round him by informing them that Mr. Wilton’s arm had been broken by a bullet, but there was no immediate or probably real danger. The old man was placed in his bed, and the doctor proceeded to dress the wound.
In the meantime Flora Wilton was sent for, searched for, but the messenger, after half-an-hour’s absence, returned by saying he could not find her; she had been seen to enter the little glen skirting the park, but she was not there now.
Mark Wilton, too, had not returned to the Hall. He had been observed to hurry away towards the railway station, as if on his way back to London.
Young Vivian heard with a grave and anxious face that Flora was nowhere to be found; and as soon as he saw that old Wilton was in charge of persons who would pay him every attention and nurse him with care, he left his name and address in the charge of the housekeeper, proceeded to the police-station and there made a statement, fixing the crime of the attempted murder of Mr. Wilton on Chewke. He then hurried to a cottage in the village, where a paper was given to him by an old woman, and, having perused it with no little excitement, he ran to the village inn, where a sound, serviceable and swift horse was ready saddled awaiting his commands.
He had him brought out, and, after a few words to the landlord, he sprang into the saddle, and clapping spurs to the animal gallopped away, as if engaged upon a mission of life and death.
In the meanwhile, Mark Wilton, with a mind much perturbed and intent on rash proceedings, hastened to the railway station, without again entering his father’s house, even to see his sister. It happened that on reaching it, before there was time to reason or for his thoughts to cool, a train for London drew up at the station; he entered it, and was borne swiftly from Harleydale, having no knowledge or conception of the act of Mr. Chewkle, the condition in which it placed his father, or of what had happened to his sister.
That same evening he presented himself before Lotte Clinton. She was not a little astonished to see him. He had prepared her for a longer separation, but one glance at his handsome and expressive face informed her that something had happened unfavourable to his wishes.
She did not for an instant assume that he had been to Harleydale, but she rapidly concluded that some event had arisen which had shown him the disparity of their positions, and he had now come to break off the match he had so hurriedly and so impetuously desired to form.
A feeling of pain and disappointment gave her a sudden heartache, but she would not let her emotion become visible, for fear that it might deepen the gloom already heavy on his brow.
Mark laid down his hat, and silently gazed in Lotte’s inquiring eyes. Then he said—
“I am soon back, you see, Lotte.”
“Surely you have not been to Harleydale!” she exclaimed.
“Indeed, but I have,” he replied. “I have seen my father, too, and have fully discussed with him our intended marriage.”
Lotte looked at him with a sad and serious expression.
“He has forbidden it!” she exclaimed, with a countenance which grew gradually pale in spite of her effort to control her emotion.
“Forbidden it!” echoed Mark, evasively; “he has not the power to forbid it. I am my own master, Lotte, and am independent of him.”
“Oh! Mark, do not let there be any reserves or concealments between us; let me know the truth,” she urged; “indeed I am not afraid to hear it, if you will only speak it.”
“To you, Lotte,”’ responded Mark, “I am desirous of speaking and acting always only truthfully.”
“I do believe it!” she exclaimed, earnestly.
He took both her hands in his, and pressed them.
“When I do other,” he said, with emphasis, “turn your face from me, and speak to me never more.”
She returned the pressure of his hands, then she said to him, with downcast eyes and a slightly lowered tone—
“You have seen your father, Mark, and you have told him how much you have honoured me in selecting me to be your wife.”
“How much I am honoured by your consent to have me, my sweet Lotte,” interposed Mark, almost fiercely.
“Yes, Lotte, I told him all. I told him that my heart and happiness were bound up in you; that if I did not have you, neither wealth nor station would ever compensate me for your loss; that, in fact, they would only heighten my anguish and unhappiness, so I had determined to marry you—having your consent—and there was an end of the matter. So, in solemn truth and honour, I have; and here I am, Lotte, darling, for you to name the day.”
“But what said Mr. Wilton in reply?” asked Lotte, looking him steadfastly in the face.
Mark turned his eyes askance.
“What does it signify, Lotte,” he exclaimed, evasively, “what he said? My happiness is all invested in you; if you love me, yours is equally centred in me. I have enough to keep us both in comfort and happiness, and some day I shall be as wealthy as my father now is. Oh! Lotte, we will live with each other and for each other, you, my dear little wife, thinking of and caring only for your faithful husband, and I—I, Lotte, exhausting every plan to complete and perfect for you a peaceful, happy existence.”
“But, dear Mark, what said Mr. Wilton?” persisted Lotte, looking grave and even sad.
“He is an old man, Lotte, and obstinate,” replied Mark, with some little vehemence; “he is selfish, vain, arrogant, upstart——”
Lotte raised up her soft white hand to his mouth—
“Your father,” she said—“still your father.”
“Even so, Lotte; yet he, too, should remember that I am his son,” exclaimed Mark, with some excitement, “his son, Lotte, not his serf, his slave, his dog. He should recollect, Lotte, that my happiness is of as much importance to me as pride of position to him; and he should not overlook the fact that I don’t care a—that I don’t care that”—he snapped his fingers—“to be great and grande if I am to be unhappy in my elevation.”
“I am to understand by this,” said Lotte, very calmly, though sadly, “that he has refused to give his consent to receive me into his family, as your wife—you will not trifle with my feelings, Mark, on this point, I am sure.”
Mark remained silent.
She laid her hand upon his arm softly.
“Answer me, Mark!” she said, gently.
He looked into her soft appealing eyes, he passed his arm round her waist, and pressed her to his bosom.
“I will do or say aught you wish me, Lotte, but do not ask me to wound your feelings,” he said, in a low, earnest tone.
“Nay, it will pain me so much not to know the truth, for you know, Mark, I may conjecture much that was never said,” she responded; adding, “tell me, did he not decline to receive me as his daughter-in-law.”
Mark set his teeth.
In an almost inaudible voice, after some hesitation, he replied—
“He did.”
“His objection, Mark—fear not for me—my bruised heart has been too much accustomed to such trials, to faint under learning all he could say of me.”
“I cannot repeat his words!” cried Mark, with a burst of feeling.
Lotte still urged him.
“It is needful Mark, indeed, that I should know,” she said.
“Lotte,” exclaimed Mark, taking her hand and pressing it passionately to his lips, “remember, the words I may repeat have had—and never can have—any influence on me.”
“Of that I am sure,” she observed.
“His objection was that you were poor——”
“Yes,” said Lotte, as he paused. .
“And low-born,” added Mark, as though the words scorched his throat while finding utterance.
A flush of scarlet spread itself over Lotte’s features. She threw up her head with a haughty and indignant air, and her short upper lip trembled with an expression of offended pride.
She was about to utter a hasty reply, but she checked herself, disengaged herself from Mark’s encircling arms, and walked in silence to the further end of the room. She hid her face in her handkerchief; for a minute her whole frame seemed convulsed.
Mark watched her with eyes half-blinded by scalding tears, and it was only the endeavour to recover the power of speaking clearly that prevented him at once catching her in his arms, bid her banish from her mind all she had heard, and to consent, in spite of what his father had said, to become his bride at the earliest moment possible.
He knew not Lotte yet.
She was the first to recover calmness, and she returned to where he was standing.
“I understand your father’s weakness by my own.” she said. “I pardon the pain it has given me, for I am reminded, by my own poor indignation at being termed low-born, how natural his anger would be at the thought of one so humble as myself being elevated to his side, and made a member of his family, in opposition to all those prejudices of which station and affluence are so fruitful. Well, Heaven knows best. I bow to its decree. The dream, only too glorious to be realised, was sweet, very, very sweet, while it lasted, and I wake once more to be plain Lotte Clinton, the needle-worker——”
“To be my wife, Lotte,” cried Mark, passionately; “my wife, my adored, my honoured wife, Lotte——”
“Oh! Mark,” she said, in pleading earnestness, “remember our contract.”
“I remember, Lotte,” he said, “that I am human, that I have my passions and my failings, as others of my sex; but I hope I have, too, that broader view of life that makes virtue and worth the true nobility, and that I can appreciate it when it comes before me, as it has in you, Lotte. I have all my life—at least so long as I remember—lived in a sphere in which worth, and amiability, and virtue, shine most because they are surrounded by the worst temptations to which the higher qualifications can be subjected, and when they maintain themselves unsullied they are, in my eyes, the true and most fitting emblems of a real nobility. All I hope to find in woman I believe dwells in your clear soul, Lotte. I, feeling how rich you are in sterling virtues, ask no more, for you are wealthy enough in that. Well, what influence can the intemperate words of my father have hereafter upon my happiness? I shall ever love you. It shall be my study to retain your attachment; and, for the rest, it is all empty pomp and pride, which we can be very, very happy without.”
“It cannot be, Mark!” exclaimed Lotte, with a deep sigh.
“It cannot be?” echoed Mark, as though he had not heard aright.
“No; it must not be,” she said plaintively, but yet very firmly. “We must part, Mark. Oh! believe me grateful for your kindly expressed thoughts, and for the tender preference so dear, so very dear to my heart, which you have evinced for me. Believe that to have been your wife, Mark, would to me have proved the greatest felicity I can imagine on earth. Yet I cannot consent, even to secure my own happiness, to sow dissension in the hearts of others. I could not look at times, Mark, upon your brow, clouded sometimes by thoughts of home and those dwelling there, without feeling how deeply I have erred in causing strife to rise up between you and them.”
“Lotte, Lotte, do not drive me to distraction and despair!” cried Mark, passionately. “The world is wide: we will remove from the scene of my father’s pride and selfishness to some brighter land. I know many spots; surrounded by the clear blue waters of the vast Pacific, where we can settle down unfettered by the paltry worldly distinctions which agitate my father’s breast, and mindful only of that love which makes each to the other a world of treasure.”
Lotte’s eyes swam in tears.
“It may not be, Mark,” she said, decidedly, and then added with agonized earnestness: “I am so grateful, so deeply grateful for your affection. I will never, never suffer that gratitude to abate, nor will I ever cease to love you as now—most fervently for that I am parting with you; but, great as the grief I feel at our separation, Mark, it is less than the consciousness of what I had done in consenting to wed you in the face of the hostility of your father—nearest and dearest to you in blood and affection—would make me eternally suffer; for well I know that his peace of mind, yours, and that of the other members of your family, would all, more or less, be injured by my act. No, Mark, I will bear my trial—as—as—well as I can—all the lighter, because I have spared those who fondly love you, and you who love them, from tearing asunder those ties which bind you so closely together now.”
How her poor bosom heaved and her lips quivered as she said this.
“Lotte,” exclaimed Mark, with intense earnestness, “is my love for you— my future happiness—to weigh nothing in the considerations by which you are influenced to this harsh step?”
“Harsh, Mark; mostly to myself. I love you, Mark; let that be your solace. No other man; I swear, shall ever receive the hand you have kissed. You; after we have parted; you—will not forget me—no—no, I do not believe that—but you will meet with others in a higher sphere, beautiful, accomplished, and engaging, more than I can ever hope to be, and you——”
“Do not finish your sentence, Lotte,” cried Mark huskily. “You do not love me, or you would not permit such a thought to enter your brain,” he added reproachfully.
“Your doubt wounds my heart!” exclaimed Lotte, with evident pain. “I will not reiterate what I have confessed to you on that point. I will only add that I would have cheerfully married you, and joined in our mutual support by my own labour, if such had been needful; I would have done it with the proudest content, had circumstances been such that I could have entered your family as an equal. This cannot be. I see the disparity more strongly now, perhaps, than even he who has forbidden me to approach his affinity; but, Mark, I could not consent to become your wife and his daughter on other terms than your continued friendship with him, without incurring contumely myself. It is wholly impossible to change my opinions on this point; so Mark, dear Mark, let us bid each other farewell. I am faint—oppressed—ill. I would part with you at once——”