Luttrell Of Arran

“So they are,” said she, calmly. “I had them once, too; but I had to lay them down – lay them down as stakes on the table for the prize. I played for.”

“Oh, this is too bad – too sordid!” cried he, madly.

“Say on, you cannot speak more cruelly than I have spoken to my own heart. All these have I told myself over and over!”

“Forgive me, my dear Cousin Kate, but if you knew with what agony your words wring me – ”

“I can believe it, Harry; better and purer natures than mine could not stand the test of such confessions, but you would have them, remember that. You said, ‘No concealments,’ and now you are shocked at the naked truth. With very little aid from self-deception, I could have given you a more flattering view of my heart and its affections. I could have told you, as I often told myself, that I wished to be better – that I longed to be better – that the only ones I ever envied were those whose fate entailed no such struggle as mine – a struggle, remember, not to gain smooth water and a calmer sea, but to save life – to escape drowning! To fall from the high place I held, was to fall to the lowest depth of all! I had plenty of such casuistry as this ready, had you asked for it. You preferred to have me truthful, you ought not to shrink from the price!”

“Had you no friend to counsel – to guide you?” “None.”

“Was there none to take you away from the danger you lived in?” “I could have gone back to the cabin I came from; do you think I was well suited to meet its hardships?”

“But my father – surely my father’s house was open to you!”

“Not till he believed that he was childless. It was when the tidings of your shipwreck came that he asked me to come here. All his generosity to me, his very affections, were given on a false assumption. He gave me his love, as he gave me his fortune, because he did not know that the rightful heir to both was living.”

“No, no. I have heard, in the few hours that I have been here, of your tender care of him, and how he loved you.”

“He had none other,” said she, sorrowfully.

“Oh, Kate, how differently others speak of you than you yourself. What have I not heard of your devotion to these poor islanders; your kindness to them in sickness, and your cheering encouragement to them in their health. The very children told me of your goodness as I came along.”

“You gave me the true epithet a while ago, Harry.”

“I? What did I say?”

“You used a hard word, but a true one. You called me sordid,” said she, in a low, tremulous voice.

“Oh no, no! Never! I never said so. Oh, dear Kate, do not believe I could couple such a word with you.”

“I will not any more, since you have forgotten it; but in honest truth it was the very epithet my conduct merited. Let us speak of it no more, since it pains you. And now, Harry, there is daybreak. I must not ask you to stay here – here in your own house. I, the mere intruder, must play churlish host, and send you off to your inn.”

“This house is yours, Kate. I will never consent to regard it otherwise. You would not have me dishonour my father’s name, and take back what he had given?”

“It is too late in the night to open a knotty discussion. Say good-by, and come back here to breakfast,” said she, gaily; “and remember to make your appearance in becoming guise, for I mean to present the lieges to their master.”

“I wish you would not send me away so soon; I have many things to ask you.”

“And is there not all to-morrow before you? I am going to see Inchegora after breakfast; a very important mission, touching a limekiln in dispute there. You shall sit on the bench with me, and aid justice by your counsels.”

“Can you not give, all to-morrow to me, and leave these cares for another time?”

“No, Sir. ‘We belong to our people,’ as Elizabeth said. Good night – good night.”

With a most reluctant heart he answered, “Good night,” and pressing her hand with a cordial grasp, he kissed it twice, and turned away.

Sleep was out of the question – his mind was too full of all he had heard to admit of slumber – and so he strolled down to the shore, losing himself amongst the wild, fantastic rocks, or catching glimpses of the old Abbey at times between their spiked and craggy outlines.

“What a creature, in what a place!” muttered he. “Such beauty, such grace, such fascination, in the midst of all this rugged barbarism!” And what a terrible story was that she told him: the long struggle she had endured, the defeat, and then, the victory – the victory over herself at last, for at last she saw and owned how ignoble was the prize for which she had perilled her very existence. “What a noble nature it most be, too,” thought he, “that could deal so candidly with its own short-comings, for, as she said truly, ‘I could have made out a case for myself, if I would.’ But she would not stoop to that– her proud heart could not brook the falsehood – and oh, how I love her for it! How beautiful she looked, too, throughout it all; I cannot say whether more beautiful in her moments of self-accusing sorrow, or in the haughty assertion of her own dignity.”

One thing puzzled him, she had not dropped one word as to the future. The half-jesting allusion to himself as the Lord of Arran dimly shadowed forth that resolve of which Cane had told him.

“This must not be, whatever shall happen,” said he. “She shall not go seek her fortune over the seas, while I remain here to enjoy her heritage. To-morrow – to-day, I mean,” muttered he, “I will lead her to talk of what is to come, and then – ” As to the “then,” he could not form any notion to himself. It meant everything. It meant his whole happiness, his very life; for so was it, she had won his heart just as completely as though by the work of years.

Where love steals into the nature day by day, infiltrating its sentiments, as it were, through every crevice of the being, it will enlist every selfish trait into the service, so that he who loves is half enamoured of himself; but where the passion comes with the overwhelming force of a sudden conviction, where the whole heart is captivated at once, self is forgotten, and the image of the loved one is all that presents itself. This was Harry Luttrell’s case, and if life be capable of ecstasy, it is when lost in such a dream.

CHAPTER LXV. THE LUTTRELL BLOOD

“Look at this, Harry,” said Kate, as he came into the room where she was preparing breakfast. “Read that note; it bears upon what I was telling you about last night.”

“What a scoundrel!” cried Harry, as his eye ran over the lines. “He scarcely seems to know whether the better game will be menace or entreaty.”

“He inclines to menace, however,” for he says, “The shame of an exposure, which certainly you would not be willing to incur.’”

“What may that mean?”

“To connect my name, perhaps, with that of my poor old grand-father; to talk of me as the felon’s granddaughter. I am not going to disown the relationship.”

“And this fellow says he will arrive to-night to take your answer. He has courage, certainly!”

“Come, come, Harry, don’t look so fiercely. Remember, first of all, he is, or he was, a priest.”

“No reason that I shouldn’t throw him over the Clunk rock!” said Luttrell, doggedly.

“I think we might feel somewhat more benevolently towards him,” said she, with a malicious twinkle of the eye, “seeing how generously he offers to go all the way to Italy to see Sir Within, and explain to him that my marriage with Mr. Ladarelle was a mockery, and that I am still open to a more advantageous offer.”

“How can you talk of this so lightly?”

“If I could not, it would break my heart!” said she, and her lip trembled with agitation. She leaned her head upon her hand for some minutes in deep thought, and then, as though having made up her mind how to act, said, “I wish much, Cousin Harry, that you would see this man for me, only – ”

“Only what?”

“Well, I must say it, I am afraid of your temper.”

“The Luttrell temper?” said he, with a cold smile.

“Just so. It reaches the boiling-point so very quickly, that one is not rightly prepared for the warmth till he is scalded.”

“Come, I will be lukewarm to-day – cold as the spring well yonder, if you like. Give me my instructions. What am I to do?”

“I shall be away all day. I have a long walk before me, and a good deal to do, and I want you to receive this man. He will soon moderate his tone when he finds that I am not friendless; he will be less exacting in his demands when he sees that he is dealing with a Luttrell. Ascertain what is his menace, and what the price of it.”

“You are not going to buy him off, surely?” cried Harry, angrily.

“I would not willingly bring any shame on the proud name I have borne even on sufferance. I know well how your father felt about these things, and I will try to be loyal to his memory, though I am never again to hear him praise me for it. Mr. Cane already wrote to me about this man, and advised that some means might be taken to avoid publicity. Indeed, he offered his own mediation to effect its settlement, but I was angry at the thought of such submission, and wrote back, I fear, a hasty, perhaps ill-tempered answer. Since then Cane has not written, but a letter might come any moment – perhaps to-day. The post will be here by one o’clock; wait for its arrival, and do not see the priest till the letters have come. Open them till you find Cane’s, and when you are in possession of what he counsels, you will be the better able to deal with this fellow.”

“And is all your correspondence at my mercy?”