When Kate had gained her room she locked the door, and throwing off her
shawl and bonnet, sat down before the glass; her hair fell heavily down
in the rude carelessness with which she flung her bonnet from her, and
now, with a faint tinge of colour in her cheek--the flush of a passing
excitement--she looked very beautiful.
“So,” said she, smiling at her image, “it is the old story, ‘Qu’en dira
le Monde?’ The dear old man was very, very fond. He admired me very
much; I pleased him--I amused him--I made his life somewhat brighter
than he would have found it rambling amongst his Titians and Peruginos;
but, with all that, he couldn’t face the terrible question, What
will the world say? Ma foi, Mademoiselle Kate, the confession is not
flattering to you! Most people would call me very inexpert that I had
not made that grand old place my own before this. I had the field all
to myself--no rivalry, no interference--and certainly it was a great
opportunity. Perhaps I was too much occupied in enjoying my happiness;
perhaps I took no note of time; and, perhaps, if I ever thought at all,
I thought I could win the game whenever I liked, and now I awake to
discover that there is something that he fears more than he loves me;
and that the dear old dowager world, that shakes down reputations with a
nod and blasts pretensions with a stare, will declare a strict blockade
against the distinguished Sir Within Wardle and that girl--lucky if
they do not say, ‘that creature’--he married. Ought he not to have had
a spirit above this? Ought he not to have been able to say, ‘I am rich
enough to buy this bauble, and if the wearing it gives me pleasure, I
can forget your sarcasms? I like the life she can throw around me; which
of you all could give such colour to my existence?’ He might have said
this, but he did not. He heard me talk of a new home, and a new name,
and he would not offer me his own. He saw and felt bitterly, too, how my
position compromised me. I took care he should see it, but no thought of
separation crossed him, or, if it did, stronger than all was the dread
query, ‘Qu’en dira le Monde?’
[Illustration: 373]
“There are things one cannot believe possible till they have happened;
and, even then, some strange uncertainty pervades the mind that they
have not been read aright. This is one of them. No one could have
persuaded me this morning that this prize was not mine whenever I cared
to claim it. What a fall to my pride! How little must I feel myself,
that after all these years of subtle flattery, I might as well have
been with the Vyners--living with creatures of my own nature--giving
affection and getting it--cultivating the heart in the rich soil of
human hopes and fears, and loves, and trials, and not wearing a mask
till it had stiffened into my very features. And he refused me--yes,
refused me; for there was no maiden bashfulness in the terms of my
offer. I said, I go back to be the niece, or I stay to be the wife; and
his reply was, ‘Qu’en dira le Monde?’ I suppose he was right--I am sure
he was; but I hate him for it--how I hate him!” She arose and walked the
room with long and measured steps for a while in silence, and then burst
out: “What would I not give to be revenged for this? Some vengeances
there are he would feel bitterly. Should he meet me in the world--the
great world, for instance--the wife of some one, his equal, see me
courted, and feted, and flattered; hear of me at all times and all
places, and learn that this ‘Monde’--that is his god--had adopted me
amongst his spoiled children, I think I know the dark despair that would
gather around him as he muttered to himself, ‘And she might have been
mine--she had been mine for the asking--she offered herself;’ ay, he
might say so, if he wished to add insult to my memory; ‘and I only
replied, “The world would not bear it!” How I hate him! How I hate him!
If I cannot be revenged as I wish, I will be revenged as I can. I shall
leave him--go at once. He has passed his last of those blissful days,
as he loves to call them; and he shall, awake to see his life in all the
weariness of desertion. Not a look, nor a sound; not a laugh, not a
song to cheer him. With every spot full of memories of me, he shall be
haunted by a happiness that will never return to him. I know that in his
misery he will ask me to forgive the past and be his wife; and if the
alternative were to be the wretchedness I sprung from, I’d go back to
it!
“I do not know--in all likelihood I shall never know--what this heart
of mine could feel of love, but I know its power of hatred, and so shall
Sir Within, though it may cost me dear to buy it.
“Your repentance may come as early as you please, it shall avail you
nothing. It may be even now; I almost thought I heard his foot on the
stair; and I know not whether I would not rather it came now, or after
months of heart-suffering and sorrow. I was slighted--he weighed the
beauty that he admired, and the love he thought he had gained, against
the mockeries of some score of people whose very faces he has
forgotten, and ‘Qu’en dira le Monde’ had more power over him than all my
tenderness, all my wit, and all my beauty.
“Is it not strange that, with all his boasted keenness to read people’s
natures, he should know so little of mine? To think that I could stand
there and see the struggle between his pride of station and what he
would call ‘his passion’--that I could tamely wait and see how I was
weighed in the balance and found wanting--that I could bear all this
unmoved, and then return to my daily life, without an attempt to resent
it?
“It is true, till this letter came from my uncle, there was no pressure
upon him. None in the wide world was more friendless than myself. His
life might have gone on as heretofore, and if a thought of me or of my
fate invaded, he might have dismissed it with the excuse that he could
mention me in his will; he could have bequeathed me enough to make me a
desirable match for the land-steward or the gardener!
“How I bless my Uncle Luttrell for his remembrance of me! It is like a
reprieve arriving when the victim was on the scaffold. He shall see with
what gladness I accept his offer. If the conditions had been ten times
as hard, I would not quarrel with one of them. Now, then, to answer
him, and that done, Sir Within, you run no danger of that scandal-loving
world you dread so much! For if you came with the offer of all your
fortune to my feet, I’d spurn you!”
She opened her writing-desk, and sat down before it. She then took out
Luttrell’s letter, and read it carefully over. I must take care that
my answer be as calm and as unimpassioned as his own note. He makes
no protestation of affection--neither shall I. He says nothing of any
pleasure that he anticipates from my companionship--I will be as guarded
as himself.” She paused for a moment or two, and then wrote:
“My dear Uncle,--Though your letter found me weak and low, after a
severe illness, its purport has given me strength to answer you at once.
I accept.
“It would be agreeable to me if I could close this letter with these
words, and not impose any further thought of myself upon you; but it is
better, perhaps, if I tell you now and for ever that you may discharge
your mind of all fears as to what you call the sacrifices I shall have
to make. I hope to show you that all the indulgences in which I have
lived make no part of my real nature. You have one boon to confer on me
worth all that wealth and splendour could offer--your name. By making me
a Luttrell, you fill the full measure of my ambition.
“For whatever share of your confidence and affection you may vouchsafe
me, I will try to be worthy; but I will not importune for either, but
patiently endeavour to deserve them. My life has not hitherto taught
many lessons of utility. I hope duty will be a better teacher than
self-indulgence. Lastly, have no fears that my presence under your roof
will draw closer around you the ties and the claims of those humble
people with whom I am connected. I know as little of them as you do.
They certainly fill no place in my affection; nor have I the pretence
to think I have any share in theirs. One old man alone have I any
recollection of--my mother’s father--and if I may judge by the past, he
will continue to be more influenced by what tends to my advantage, than
what might minister to the indulgence of his own pride. He neither
came to see me at Sir Gervais Vyner’s, nor Dalradern; and though I have
written to him once or twice, he never sought to impose himself as
a burden upon me. Of course, it will be for you to say if this
correspondence should be discontinued.
“You will see in these pledges, that I give in all frankness, how much
it will be my ambition to be worthy of the noble name you allow me to
bear.
“There is no necessity to remit me any money. I have ample means to pay
for my journey; and as there are circumstances which I can tell you
of more easily than I can write, requiring that I should leave this at
once, I will do so immediately after posting the present letter. I will
go direct to the hotel you speak of at Holyhead, and remain there till
your messenger arrives to meet me.
“You distress me, my dear uncle, when you suggest that I should mention
any articles that I might require to be added to your household for my
comfort or convenience. Do not forget, I beg, that I was not born to
these luxuries, and that they only attach to me as the accidents of a
station which I relinquish with delight, when I know that it gives me
the right to sign myself,
“Your loving Niece,
“Kate Luttrell.”