One Of Them

“Did May tell you so?” said he, in a voice thick with passion.

“No.”

“Did she ever hint as much?”

“No.”

“Do you believe that any one ever dared to say it?”

“As to that, I can’t say; the world is very daring, and says a great many naughty things without much troubling itself about their correctness.”

“It may spare its censure on the present occasion, then.”

“Is it that you will not exact her compliance?”

“I will not.”

“How well I read you,” cried she, catching up his cold and still reluctant hand between both her own; “how truly I understood your noble, generous nature! It was but yesterday I was writing about you to a very dear friend, who had asked me when the marriage was to take place, and I said: ‘If I have any skill in deciphering character, I should say, Never. Charles Heathcote is not the man to live a pensioner on a wife’s rental; he is far more likely to take service again as a soldier, and win a glorious name amongst those who are now reconquering India. His daring spirit chafes against the inglorious idleness of his present life, and I ‘d not wonder any morning to see his place vacant at the breakfast-table, and to hear he had sailed for Alexandria.’”

“You do me a fuller justice than many who have known me longer,” said he, pensively.

“Because I read you more carefully, – because I considered you without any disturbing element of self-interest; and if I was now and then angry at the lethargic indolence of your daily life, I used to correct myself and say, ‘Be patient; his time is coming; and when the hour has once struck for him, he ‘ll dally no longer!’”

“And my poor father – ”

“Say, rather, your proud father, for he is the man to appreciate your noble resolution, and feel proud of his son.”

“But to leave him – to desert him – ”

“It is no eternal separation. In a year or two you will rejoin him, never to part again. Take my word for it, the consciousness that his son is accomplishing a high duty will be a strong fund of consolation for absence. It is to mistake him to suppose that he could look on your present life without deep regret.”

“Ah! is that so?” cried he, with an expression of pain.

“He has never owned as much to me; but I have read it in him, just as I have read in you that you are not the man to stoop to an ignominious position to purchase a life of ease and luxury.”

“You were right there!” said he, warmly.

“Of course I was. I could not be mistaken.”

“You shall not be, at all events,” said he, hurriedly. “How cold your hand is! Let us return to the house.” And they walked back in silence to the door.

CHAPTER XV. MRS. PENTHONY MORRIS AT HER WRITING-TABLE

It was late on that same night, – very late. The villa was all quiet and noiseless as Mrs. Morris sat at her writing-table, engaged in a very long letter. The epistle does not in any way enter into our story. It was to her father, in reply to one she had just received from him, and solely referred to little family details with which our reader can have no interest, save in a passing reference to a character already before him, and of whom she thus wrote: —

“And so your alchemist turns out to be the father of my admirer, Mr. Alfred Layton. I can sincerely say your part of the family is the more profitable, for I should find it a very difficult problem to make five hundred pounds out of mine! Nor can I sufficiently admire the tact with which you rescued even so much from such a wreck! I esteem your cleverness the more, since – shall I confess it, dear papa? – I thought that the man of acids and alkalies would turn out to be the rogue and you the dupe! Let me hasten, therefore, to make the amende honorable, and compliment you on your new character of chemist.

“In your choice, too, of the mode of disembarrassing yourself of his company, you showed an admirable wisdom; and you very justly observe, these are not times when giving a dog a bad name will save the trouble of hanging him, otherwise an exposure of his treasonable principles might have sufficed. Far better was the method you selected, while, by making him out to be mad, you make yourself out to be benevolent. You have caught, besides, a very popular turn of the public mind at a lucky conjuncture. There is quite a vogue just now for shutting up one’s mother-in-law, or one’s wife, or any other disagreeable domestic ingredient, on the plea of insanity; and a very clever physician, with what is called ‘an ingenious turn of mind,’ will find either madness or arsenic in any given substance. You will, however, do wisely to come abroad, for the day will come of a reaction, and ‘the lock-up’ system will be converted into the ‘let-loose,’ and a sort of doomsday arrive when one will be confronted with very unwelcome acquaintances.”

As she had written thus far, a very gentle voice at her door whispered, “May I come in, dearest?”

“Oh, darling, is it you?” cried Mrs. Morris, throwing a sheet of paper over her half-written epistle. “I was just writing about you. My sweet May, I have a dear old godmother down in Devonshire who loves to hear of those who love me; and it is such a pleasure, besides, to write about those who are happy.”

“And you call me one of them, do you?” said the girl, with a deep sigh.

“I call you one who has more of what makes up happiness than any I have ever known. You are very beautiful, – nay, no blushing, it is a woman says it; so handsome, May, that it is downright shame of Fortune to have made you rich too. You should have been left to your beauty, as other people are left to their great connections, or their talents, or their Three per Cents; and then you are surrounded by those who love you, May, – a very commendable thing in a world which has its share of disagreeable people; and, lastly, to enjoy all these fair gifts, you have got youth.”

“I shall be nineteen on the fourth of next month, Lucy,” said the other, gravely; “and it was just about that very circumstance that I came to speak to you.”

Mrs. Morris knew thoroughly well what the speech portended, but she looked all innocence and inquiry.

“You are aware, Lucy, what my coming of age brings with it?” said the girl, half pettishly.

“That you become a great millionnaire, dearest, – a sort of female Rothschild, with funds and stocks in every land of the earth.”

“I was not speaking of money. I was alluding to the necessity of deciding as to my own fate in life. I told you that by my father’s will I am bound to declare that I accept or reject Charles Heathcote within six months after my coming of age.”

“I do not, I confess, see anything very trying in that, May. I conclude that you know enough of your own mind to say whether you like him or not. You are not strangers to each other. You have been domesticated together – ”

“That ‘s the very difficulty,” broke in May. “There has been intimacy between us, but nothing like affection, – familiarity enough, but no fondness.”

“Perhaps that’s not so bad a feature as you deem it,” said the other, dryly. “Such a tame, table-land prospect before marriage may all the better prepare you for the dull uniformity of wedded life.”

May gave a slight sigh, and was silent, while the other continued, —

“Being very rich, dearest, is, of course, a great resource, for you can, by the mere indulgence of your daily caprices, give yourself a sort of occupation, and a kind of interest in life.”

May sighed again, and more heavily.

“I know this is not what one dreams of, my dear May,” resumed she, “and I can well imagine how reluctant you are to seek happiness in toy terriers or diamond earrings; but remember what I told you once before was the great lesson the world taught us, that every joy we compass in this life is paid for dearly, in some shape or other, and that the system is one great scheme of compensations, the only wisdom being, to be sure you have got at last what you have paid for.”

“I remember your having said that,” said May, thoughtfully.

“Yes; it was in correction of a great mistake you had made, May, when you were deploring the fate of some one who had contracted an unequal marriage. It was then that I ventured to tell you that what the world calls a misalliance is the one sure throw for a happy union.”

“But you did n’t convince me!” said May, hastily.

“Possibly not. I could not expect you to look on life from the same sad eminence I have climbed to; still I think you understood me when I showed you that as air and sunlight are blessings which we enjoy without an effort, so affection, gained without sacrifice, elicits no high sense of self-esteem, – none of that self-love which is but the reflex of real love.”

“Charles would, then, according to your theory, be eminently happy in marrying me, for, to all appearance, the sacrifice would be considerable,” said May, with a half-bitter laugh.

“My theory only applies to us dear May; as for men, they marry from a variety of motives, all prompted by some one or other feature of their selfishness: this one for fortune, that for family influence, the other because he wants a home, and so on.”

“And not for love at all?” broke in May.

“Alas! dearest, the man who affords himself the pleasure of being in love is almost always unable to indulge in any other luxury. It is your tutor creature, there, like Layton, falls in love!”

May smiled, and turned away her head; but the crimson flush of her cheek soon spread over her neck, and Mrs. Morris saw it.