One Of Them

“I scarcely know what I am saying,” cried May, as she covered her face with her hands.

“Poor child!” cried Mrs. Morris, tenderly, “I can find my way into your heart without your breaking it. Do not cry, dearest. I know as well all that he said as if I had overheard him saying it! The world has just its two kinds of suitors, – the one who offers us marriage in a sort of grand princely fashion, and the other who, beseechingly proclaiming his utter unworthiness, asks us to wait, – to wait for an uncle or a stepmother’s death; to wait till he has got this place in the colonies, or that vicarage in Bleakshire; to wait till he has earned fame and honor, and Heaven knows what; till, in fact, he shall have won a wreath of laurel for his brows, and we have attained to a false plait for ours!” She paused a second or two to see if May would speak, but as she continued silent, Mrs. Morris went on: “There are few stock subjects people are more eloquent in condemning than what are called long engagements. There are some dozen of easy platitudes that every one has by heart on this theme; and yet, if the truth were to be told, it is the waiting is the best of it, – the marriage is the mistake! That faint little flickering hope that lighted us on for years and years is extinguished at the church door, and never relighted after; so that, May, my advice to you is, never contract a long engagement until you have made up your mind not to marry at the end of it! My poor, poor child! why are you sobbing so bitterly? Surely I have said nothing to cause you sorrow?”

May turned away without speaking, but her heaving shoulders betrayed how intensely she was weeping.

“May I see him, – may I speak with him, May?” said Mrs. Morris, drawing her arm affectionately around her waist.

“To what end, – with what view?” said the girl, suddenly and almost haughtily.

“Now that you ask me in that tone, May, I scarcely know. I suppose I meant to show him how inconsiderate, how impossible his hopes were; that there was nothing in his station or prospects that could warrant this presumption. I suppose I had something of this sort on my mind, but I own to you now, your haughty glance has completely routed all my wise resolutions.”

“Perhaps you speculated on the influence of that peculiar knowledge of his family history you appear to be possessed of?” said May, with some pique.

“Perhaps so,” was the dry rejoinder.

“And which you do not mean to confide to me?” said the girl, proudly.

“I have not said so. So long as you maintained that Mr. Layton was to you nothing beyond a mere acquaintance, my secret, as you have so grandly called it, might very well rest in my own keeping. If, however, the time were come that he should occupy a very different place in your regard – ”

“Instead of saying ‘were come,’ Loo, just say, ‘If the time might come,” said May, timidly.

“Well, then, ‘if the time might come,’ I might tell all that I know about him.”

“But then it might be too late. I mean, that it might come when it could only grieve, and not guide me.”

“Oh, if I thought that, you should never know it! Be assured of one thing, May: no one ever less warred against the inevitable than myself. When I read, ‘No passage this way,’ I never hesitate about seeking another road.”

“And I mean to go mine, and without a guide either!” said May, moving towards the door.

“So I perceived some time back,” was the dry reply of Mrs. Morris, as she busied herself with the papers before her.

“Good-night, dear, and forgive my interruption,” said May, opening the door.

“Good-night, and delightful dreams to you,” said Mrs. Morris, in her own most silvery accents. And May was gone.

The door had not well closed when Mrs. Morris was again, pen in hand, glancing rapidly over what she had written, to catch up the clew. This was quickly accomplished, and she wrote away rapidly. It is not “in our brief” to read that letter; nor would it be “evidence;” enough, then, that we say it was one of those light, sparkling little epistles which are thrown off in close confidence, and in which the writer fearlessly touches any theme that offers. She sketched off the Heathcotes with a few easy graphic touches, giving a very pleasing portraiture of May herself, ending with these words: —

“Add to all these attractions a large estate and a considerable sum in the funds, and then say, dear pa, is not this what Ludlow had so long been looking for? I am well aware of his pleasant habit of believing nothing, nor any one, so that you must begin by referring him to Doctors’ Commons, where he can see the will. General Leslie died in 18 – , and left Sir William Heathcote sole executor. When fully satisfied on the money question, you can learn anything further from me that you wish; one thing only I stipulate for, and that is, to hold no correspondence myself with L. Of course, like as in everything else, he’ll not put any faith in this resolution; but time will teach him at last. The negotiation must be confided to your own hands. Do not employ Collier nor any one else. Be secret, and be speedy, for I plainly perceive the young lady will marry some one immediately after learning a disappointment now impending. Remember, my own conditions are: all the letters, and that we meet as utter strangers. I ask nothing more, I will accept nothing less. As regards Clara, he cannot, I suspect, make any difficulty; but that may be a question for ulterior consideration. Clara is growing up pretty, but has lost all her spirits, and will, in a few months more, look every day of her real age. I am sadly vexed about this; but it comes into the long category of the things to be endured.”

The letter wound up with some little light and flippant allusions to her father’s complaints about political ingratitude: —

“I really do forget, dear papa, which are our friends; but surely no party would refuse your application for a moderate employment. The only creature I know personally amongst them is the Colonial Sec., and he says, ‘They ‘ve left me nothing to give but the bishoprics.’ Better that, perhaps, than nothing, but could you manage to accept one? that is the question. There is an Irish M.P. here – a certain O’Shea – who tells me there are a variety of things to give in the West Indies, with what he calls wonderful pickings – meaning, I suppose, stealings. Why not look for one of these? I ‘ll question my friend the Member more closely, and give you the result.

“It was odd enough, a few months ago, O’S., never suspecting to whom he was talking, said, ‘There was an old fellow in Ireland, a certain Nick Holmes, could tell more of Government rogueries and rascalities than any man living; and if I were he, I ‘d make them give me the first good thing vacant, or I ‘d speak out.’ Dear papa, having made so much out of silence, is it not worth while to think how much eloquence might be worth?

“Your affectionate daughter,

“Lucy M.”

CHAPTER XVI. A SICK-ROOM

It was a severe night of early winter, – one of those stormy intervals in which Italy seems to assume all the rigors of some northern land, with an impetuosity derived from her own more excitable latitude. The rain beat against the windows with distinct and separate plashes, and the wind rattled and shook the strong walls with a violence that seemed irresistible.

In a large old room of a very old palace at Lucca, Alfred Layton walked to and fro, stopping every now and then to listen to some heightened effort of the gale without, and then resuming his lonely saunter. There were two large and richly ornamented fireplaces, and in one of them a small fire was burning, and close to this stood a table with a shaded lamp, and by these frail lights a little brightness was shed over this portion of the vast chamber, while the remainder was shrouded in deep shadow. As the fitful flashes of the wood-fire shone from time to time on the walls, little glimpses might be caught of a much-faded tapestry, representing some scenes from the “Æneid;” but on none of these did Layton turn an eye nor bestow a thought, for he was deep in sorrowful reflections of his own, – cares too heavy to admit of any passing distraction. He was alone, for Agincourt had gone to spend the day at the “Caprini,” whither Alfred would have accompanied him but for a letter which the morning’s post had brought to his hands, and whose contents had overwhelmed him with sorrow.

It was from his mother, written from a sick-bed, and in a hand that betokened the most extreme debility. And oh! what intense expression there is in these weak and wavering lines, wherein the letters seemed to vibrate still with the tremulous motion of the fevered fingers! – what a deep significance do we attach to every word thus written! till at length, possessed of every syllable and every stop, we conjure up the scene where all was written, and feel as though we heard the hurried breathing of the sick-room. She had put off writing week after week, but now could defer no longer. It was upwards of two months since his father had left her to go to Dublin, and, from the day he went, she had never heard from him. A paragraph, however, in a morning paper, though not giving his name, unmistakably alluded to him as one who had grievously fallen from the high and honorable station he had once occupied, and spoke of the lamentable reverse that should show such a man in the dock of a police-court on the charge of insulting and libelling a public character in a ribald handbill. The prisoner was so hopelessly sunk in drunkenness, it added, that he was removed from the court, and the examination postponed.

By selling one by one the little articles of furniture she had, she contrived, hitherto, to eke out a wretched support, and it was only when at last these miserable resources had utterly failed her that she was driven to grieve her son with her sad story. Nor was the least touching part of her troubles that in which she spoke of her straits to avoid being considered an object of charity by her neighbors. The very fact of the rector having overpaid for a few books he had purchased made her discontinue to send him others, so sensitive had misery made her. And yet, strangely enough, there did not exist the same repugnance to accept of little favors and trifling kindnesses from the poor people about her, of whom she spoke with a deep and affectionate gratitude. Her whole heart was, however, full of one thought and one hope, – to see her dear son before she died. It was a last wish, and she felt as though indulging it had given her the energy which had prolonged her life. Doubts would cross her mind from time to time if it were possible for him to come; if he could be so far his own master as to be able to hasten to her; and even if doing so, he could be yet in time; but all these would give way before the strength of her hope.

“That I should see you beside my bed, – that you should hold my hand as I go hence, – will be happiness enough to requite me for much sorrow!” wrote she. “But if this may not be, and that we are to meet no more here, never forget that in my last prayer your name was mingled, and that when I entreated forgiveness for myself, I implored a blessing for you!”

“That letter was written on the Monday before; and where had he been on that same Monday evening?” asked he of himself. “How had he been occupied in those same hours when she was writing this? Yes, that evening he was seated beside May Leslie at the piano, while she played and sang for him. They had been talking of German songwriters, and she was recalling here and there such snatches of Uhland and Schiller as she could remember; while Clara, leaning over the back of his chair, was muttering the words when May forgot them, and in an accent the purest and truest. What a happy hour was that to him! and to her how wretched, how inexpressibly wretched, as, alone and friendless, she wrote those faint lines!”

Poor Layton felt very bitterly the thought that, while he was living in an easy enjoyment of life, his mother, whom he loved dearly, should be in deep want and suffering.

In the easy carelessness of a disposition inherited from his father, he had latterly been spending money far too freely. His constant visits to Marlia required a horse, and then, with all a poor man’s dread to be thought poor, he was ten times more liberal to servants than was called for, and even too ready to join in whatever involved cost or expense. Latterly, too, he had lost at play; small sums, to be sure, but they were the small sums of a small exchequer, and they occurred every day, for at the game of pool poor Layton’s ball was always the first on the retired list; and the terrible Mr. O’Shea, who observed a sort of reserve with Charles Heathcote, made no scruple of employing sharp practice with the tutor.

He emptied the contents of his purse on the table, and found that all his worldly wealth was a trifle over fifteen pounds, and of this he was indebted to Charles Heathcote some three or four, – the losses of his last evening at the “Caprini.” What was to be done? A journey to Ireland would cost fully the double of all he possessed, not to say that, once there, he would require means. So little was he given to habits of personal indulgence, that he had nothing – absolutely nothing – to dispose of save his watch, and that was of little value; a few books, indeed, he possessed, but their worth, even if he could obtain it, would have been of no service. With these embarrassing thoughts of his poverty came also others, scarcely less fraught with difficulty. How should he relieve himself of his charge of Lord Agincourt? There would be no time to write to his guardians and receive their reply. He could not leave the boy in Italy; nor dare he, without the consent of his relatives, take him back to England. How to meet these difficulties he knew not, and time was pressing, – every hour of moment to him. Was there one, even one, whose counsel he could ask, or whose assistance he could bespeak? He ran over the names of those around him, but against each, in turn, some insuperable objection presented itself. There possibly had been a time he might have had recourse to Sir William, frankly owning how he was circumstanced, and bespeaking his aid for the moment; but of late the old Baronet’s manner towards him had been more cold and reserved than at first, – studiously courteous, it is true, but a courtesy that excluded intimacy. As to Charles, they had never been really friendly together, and yet there was a familiarity between them that made a better understanding more remote than ever.

While he revolved all these troubles in his head, he walked up and down his room with the feverish impatience of one to whom rest was torture. At last, even the house seemed too narrow for his restless spirit, and, taking his hat, he went out, careless of the swooping rain, nor mindful of the cold and cutting wind as it swept down from the last spur of the Apennines. As the chill rain drenched him, there seemed almost a sense of relief in the substitution of a bodily suffering to the fever that burned in his brain, and seeking out the bleakest part of the old ramparts, he stood breasting the storm, which had now increased to a perfect hurricane.

“The rain cannot beat upon one more friendless and forlorn,” muttered he, as he stood shivering there; the strange fascination of misery suggesting a sort of bastard heroism to his spirit. “The humblest peasant in that dreary Campagna has more of sympathy and kindness than I have. He has those poor as himself and powerless to aid, but willing to befriend him.” There was ever in his days of depression a fierce revolt in his nature against the position he occupied in the world. The acceptance on sufferance, the recognition accorded to his pupil being his only claim to attention, were painful wounds to a haughty temperament, and, with the ingenuity of a self-tormentor, he ascribed every reverse he met in life to his false position. He accepted it, no doubt, to be able to help those who had made such sacrifices for him, and yet even in this it was a failure. There lay his poor mother, dying of very want, in actual destitution, and he could not help – could not even be with her!

Though his wet clothes, now soaked with half-frozen drift, sent a deadly chill through him, the fever of his blood rendered him unconscious of it, and his burning brain seemed to defy the storm, while in the wild raging of the elements he caught up a sort of excitement that sustained him. For more than two hours he wandered about in that half-frenzied state, and at length, benumbed and exhausted, he turned homeward. To his surprise, he perceived, as he drew near, that the windows were all alight, and a red glow of a large wood-fire sent its mellow glare across the street; but greater was his astonishment on entering to see the tall figure of a man stretched at full length on three chairs before the fire, fast asleep, a carpet-bag and a travelling-cloak beside him.

Never was Layton less disposed to see a stranger and play the host to any one, and he shook the sleeper’s shoulder in a fashion that speedily awoke him; who, starting up with a bound, cried out, “Well, Britisher, I must say this is a kinder droll way to welcome a friend.”

“Oh, Colonel, is it you?” said Layton. “Pray forgive my rudeness. But coming in as I did, without expecting any one, wet and somewhat tired – ” He stopped and looked vacantly about him, as though not clearly remembering where he was.

Quackinboss had, however, been keenly examining him while he spoke, and marked in his wildly excited eyes and flushed cheeks the signs of some high excitement “You ain’t noways right; you ‘re wet through and cold, besides,” said he, taking his hand in both his own. “Do you feel ill?”

“Yes; that is – I feel as if – I – had – lost my way,” muttered he, with long pauses between the words.

“There ‘s nothing like bed and a sound sleep for that,” said the other, gently; while, taking Layton’s arm, he led him quietly along towards the half-open door of his bedroom. Passively surrendering himself to the other’s care, Alfred made no resistance to all he dictated, and, removing his dripping clothes, he got into bed.

“It is here the most pain is now,” said he, placing his palm on his temple, – “here, and inside my head.”

“I wish I could talk to that servant of yours; he don’t seem a very bright sort of creetur, but I could make him of use.” With this muttered remark, Quackinboss walked back into the sitting-room, where Layton’s man was now extinguishing the lights and the fire. “You have to keep that fire in, I say – fire – great fire – hot water. Understand me?”

“‘Strissimo! si,” said the Tuscan, bowing courteously.

“Well, then, do you fetch some lemons – lemons. You know lemons, don’t you?”

A shrug was the unhappy reply.

“Lemong – lemong! You know them?”

“Limoni! oh si.” And he made the sign of squeezing them; and then, hastening out of the room, he speedily reappeared with lemons and other necessaries to concoct a drink.