It was late at night when Harry landed on Arran. Dark as it was,
however, his sailor’s eye could mark that the little jetty was in trim
order, and that steps now led down to the water where formerly it was
necessary to clamber over rugged rocks and slippery seaweed. A boatman
took his carpet-bag as matter of course, too, as he stepped on shore,
and trifling as was the service, it had a certain significance as to the
advance of civilisation in that wild spot. More striking, again, than
these was the aspect of the comfortable little inn into which he
was ushered. Small and unpretending, indeed, but very clean, and not
destitute of little ornaments, sketches of the scenery of the island,
and specimens of ore, or curious rock, or strange fern, that were to
be found there. A few books, too, were scattered about, some of them
presents from former visitors, with graceful testimonies of the pleasure
they had found in the trip to Arran, and how gratefully they cherished
the memory of its simple people.
Harry amused himself turning over these, as he sat at the great turf
fire waiting for his supper. Of those who served him there was not one
he recognised. Their looks and their language bespoke them as belonging
to the mainland, but they spoke of the island with pride, and told
how, in the season, about July or August, as many as fifteen or twenty
strangers occasionally came over to visit it.
“There _was_ a day,” said the man, “in the late Mr. Luttrell’s time,
when nobody dare come here; he’d as soon see ould Nick as a stranger;
and if a boat was to put in out of bad weather, or the like, the first
moment the wind would drop ever so little, down would come a message to
tell them to be off.”
Harry shook his head; an unconscious protest of dissent it was, but the
other, interpreting the sign as condemnation, went on:
“Ay, he was a hard man! But they tell me it wasn’t his fault; the world
went wrong with him, and he turned against it.”
“He had a son, hadn’t he?” asked Harry.
“He had, Sir. I never saw him, but they tell me he was a fine boy, and
when he was only ten years old, got a broken arm fighting with a seal in
one of the caves on the shore; and, what’s more, he didn’t like to own
it, because the seal got away from him.”
“What became of him?”
“He was lost at sea, Sir. I believe he turned pirate or slaver himself,
and it was no great matter what became of him. They were all unlucky men
and women. No one ever heard of a Luttrell coming to good yet.”
“That’s a hard sentence.”
“You’d not think so, Sir, if you knew them; at least, so the men tell me
about here. They liked the man that was here last well enough, but they
said that nothing he could do would ever prosper.”
“And who owns it now?”
“Kitty O’Hara that was--Neal O’Hara’s daughter--he that was transported
long ago--she’s now the mistress of the whole island, and her name--she
took it by his will--is Luttrell--Luttrell of Arran!”
“Do the people like her?”
“Why wouldn’t they like her? Isn’t she working and slaving for them all
day long, nursing them at the hospital, visiting them in their cabins,
teaching them in the school, getting them seed potatoes from Belmullet,
and hasn’t she set up a store there on the shore, where they can buy
pitch, and hemp, and sailcloth, and all kinds of cordage, for less than
half what it costs at Castlebar?” “How has she money to do all this?”
“Just because she lives like the rest of us. Sorrow bit better dinner or
supper she has, and it’s a red cloak she wears, like Molly Ryan, and
she makes her own shoes, and purtier ones you never looked at.” “And who
taught her to manage all this so cleverly?” “She taught herself ont of
books; she reads all night through. Come here, now, Sir! Do you see that
light there? That’s her window, and there she’ll be till, maybe, nigh
five o’clock, stodyin’ hard. Molly says there’s nights she never goes to
bed at all.” “That light comes from the tower.”
“So it does, Sir, however you knew it,” said the man; “but it was the
favourite room of him that’s gone, and she always sits there.” “And
are strangers permitted to see the Abbey?” asked Harry. “Yes, Sir. All
they’ve to do is to write their names in this book and send up a message
that they want to see the place, and they’d see every bit of it but the
two little rooms Mr. Luttrell that was used to keep for himself.”
“And if one wished to see these also?”
“He couldn’t do it, that’s all; at least, I’d not be the man that axed
her leave!”
“Take my name up there in the morning,” said Harry, as he wrote “H.
Hamilton” in the book, that being a second name by which he was called
after his father, though he had long ceased to use it.
The supper made its appearance at this moment, and little other
conversation passed between them. As the man came and went, however, he
continued to speak of Miss Luttrell, and all she had done for the people
in terms of warmest praise, winding up all with the remark, “That no
one who had not lived the life of hardship and struggle of a poor person
could ever be able to know what were the wants that press hardest--what
the privations that cut deepest into the nature of the poor. And that’s
the reason,” he said, “that she’ll never let any one be cruel to the
children, for it was as a child herself she knew sorrow!”
Long after the man had left him, Harry sat at the fire thinking over all
he had heard. Nor was it, let us own, without a certain irritation that
he thought of the contrast the man drew between his father and this
girl--his father, the man of mind and intellect, the scholar, the
orator, the man whose early career had been a blaze of success, and
yet all his acquirements and all his knowledge paled beside the active
energy of a mere peasant. The reflection pained him; it chafed him
sorely to admit, even to his own heart, that birth and blood were not
always the superiors, and he causistically suspected that much of the
praise he had heard bestowed upon this girl was little other than the
reflex of that selfish esteem the people felt for qualities like their
own.
And out of these confused and conflicting thoughts he set to work to
paint her to his mind and imagine what she most be. He pictured her a
coarse, masculine, determined woman; active, courageous, and full of
expedients, with some ability, but far more of self-confidence, the
great quality of those who have been their own teachers. From what Mr.
Cane had told him, she was one who could take a proud view of life and
its duties. That very resolve to cede the property, when she heard that
there was yet a Luttrell alive to inherit it, showed that there was
stuff of no mean order in her nature. “And yet,” he thought, “all this
could consist with vulgar looks and vulgar manners, and a coarseness of
feeling that would be repugnant.” With these imaginings he went to bed,
and dreamed the whole night through of this girl.
“Have you taken my message up to the Abbey?” asked he, as he sat at
breakfast.
“Yes, Sir; and Miss Luttrell says you are to go where you like. She’s
off to the far part of the island this morning to see a woman in fever,
and won’t be back till night.”
“Then perhaps I may be able to see those two rooms you spoke of?”
The man shook his head in silence, perhaps not over-pleased at the
obstinacy of the stranger to investigate what was deemed sacred.
“I want no guide,” said Harry. “I see the Abbey, and I’ll find my own
way to it.”
And with these words he sauntered along, every step and every stone
of the path familiar to him. As he drew nigh he saw some changes. The
railing of the little garden had been repaired, and the garden itself
was better tilled than of yore, and close by the wall of the Abbey,
where shelter favoured, a few flowers were growing, and some attempt
there seemed making to train a creeper to reach the window-sill.
Molly Ryan was out, and a strange face that Harry knew not received him
at the door, leaving him, as he entered, to go where he pleased, simply
saying, “There’s the way to the Abbey, and that’s where _she_ lives!”
He turned first to the aisle of the church, paved with the tombstones
of bygone Luttrells, and where now a cross in blue limestone marked his
father’s grave. The inscription was, “To the Memory of the Last of the
Luttrells, by one who loved him, but not merited his love.”
“Strange that she should have said so,” thought he, as he sat down upon
the stone. But it was soon of the long past his mind was filled with. Of
the days of his boyhood, no happy, careless, sunny youth was it, but
a time of loneliness and sorrow--of long solitary rambles through the
island, and a return at nightfall to a home of melancholy and gloom. He
bethought him of his poor mother’s tears as they would fall hot upon
his face, and the few words, stern and harsh, his father would meet him
with; and yet, now in his utter desolation, what would he not give to
hear that voice again whose accents were wont to terrify him?--what
would he not give to see the face whose slightest sign of reproof had
once overwhelmed him with shame?
How fervently, how faithfully, will the heart cling to some memory of
kindness for those whose severity had once been almost a terror! What
a sifting process do our affections go through where death has come,
tearing away the recollections of what once had grieved and pained us,
and leaving only the memory of the blessed word that healed, of the
loving look that rallied us. John Luttrell had been a hard, stern,
unforgiving man; it was but seldom that he suffered his heart to sway
him, but there had been moments when his love overcame him, and it was
of these Harry now bethought him, and it was in such guise he pictured
his father now before him.
“Oh! if he were here to welcome me back--to let me feel I was not
homeless in the world--what a moment of joy and happiness had this
been!” How keen can sorrow make memory. There was not a little passing
word of praise his father ever spoke--there was not a kindly look, not
a little gesture of fondness, that did not recur to him as he sat there
and wept.
With slow steps and heavy heart he turned into the house, and sought the
little room where his father usually sat during the day. There was the
great old chair of bog oak, and there the massive table, and over the
fireplace the great two-handed sword, and the stone-headed javelin
crosswise over the ox-hide shield; all these he knew, but other objects
there were new and strange to him--so strange, that he could not but
wonder at them. A half-finished water-colour on an easel, done by no
common hand, was at one side of the window, and in a deep chair, as
though left hurriedly there, was a guitar. Music, and pen sketches, and
books, were strewn about, and a solitary rose in a glass of water bore
an almost painful testimony to the rareness of flowers on the spot.
A basket of some sewing work--capes of frieze for her school
children--stood beside the fire. It was plain to see that this peasant
girl had caught up tastes and pursuits which belong to another sphere,
and Harry pondered over it, and questioned himself if she were the
happier for this cultivation. “Was it better for her, or worse, to be
endowed with what, in imparting a resource, removes a sympathy?”
Seated on the little window-stool--the same spot where he had often sat
silent for hours--he fell into a train of melancholy thought. His
poor father--the broken-down, crushed man, without a companion or a
friend--rose before his mind, and filled each spot he turned to, and it
was with a feeling of deep self-reproach he recalled how he himself had
left him--deserted him, he called it now--to live on in sorrow and
die forlorn. Out of this dreamy half-stupor he was roused by the woman
hurriedly telling him that her mistress was, coming up the path to the
house, and entreating him to go away before she entered.
He arose at once, and, passing through the kitchen, issued forth by the
back of the Abbey at the very instant that Kate crossed the door.
“Who has been here, Jane? Whose cane is this?” said she, taking up a
stick, Harry had forgotten in his haste..
The woman explained it was the young gentleman to whom her mistress gave
permission that morning to see the Abbey, and who had only just taken
his departure.
“The whole day here!” exclaimed Kate.
“True enough, Miss. He was two hours, and more in the Abbey, and I
thought he was asleep, for he was lying on the masters, grave with his
face hid; but when I spoke he answered me. It was what he wished, Miss,
was to be let go up in the tower and have a view from the top; but I
told him your own rooms was there, and nobody ever got leave to see
them.”
“I mean to go to the Murra Glen to-morrow, Molly,” said Kate, turning to
her old and faithful servant, “and you may let this stranger go over the
Abbey in every part; so that he be away before nightfall, the whole is
at his disposal. Go-down this evening to the inn, and take his stick to
him, with this, message.”
Seated at her tea, Kate was thinking over the long sea voyage that lay
before her, and the new land in which she was to seek her fortune,
when a wild shrill scream startled her, and, at the same instant,
Molly rushed into the room, and when she had reached the middle of it,
staggered back, and leaned, half fainting, against the wall.
[Illustration: 541]
“What’s the matter, Molly? What has happened?” cried Kate, eagerly.
“May the blessed saints protect and guard us, Miss, but I seen him as
plain as I see you.”
“Whom did you see?”
“Himself that’s gone--the master! Glory to him, and peace too, if it was
God’s will,” said the woman, falteringly.
“How foolish this is, Molly. I scarcely expected this from _you_.”
“I don’t care. I’ll swear it on the book I saw him, and heard him
too. ‘Would you be so kind------’ says he; and at that I let a screech
out of me and ran in here.”
“This is too absurd,” said Kate, with some irritation in her voice. “Go
and see what this man wants.”
“Not if you were to give me a hat full of goold, Miss Kate. May I never,
if I’d go there again to be Queen of England.”
“I am not pleased with you, Molly,” said Kate, taking a candle in her
hand and moving towards the door. The woman threw herself at her feet
to prevent her, but with a haughty gesture she motioned her away, and
passed out.
A man was standing in the doorway, who courteously removed his hat as
she came forward, and said, “I’m sorry to have alarmed your servant,
Miss Lutrell, but I had left my walking-stick here this morning, and
came to get it.”
Screening the light from herself with one hand, she threw the full glare
on the other’s face, and, in a voice of deep emotion, said, “I see well
why she was frightened. Your name is Luttrell!”
“I must not deny it to the only one that remains of all my kin. Are you
not my Cousin Kate?”
She held out her hand to him, and, in a voice quavering and broken,
said, “How glad I am to see you--and to see you here under your own
roof.”
“There must be two words more before that be settled, Kate,” said he,
kindly, as, still holding her hand in his own, he walked back with her
to her room.
“There, Molly--there’s your young master; perhaps you’ll be less
frightened now that you see him at my side.”
While the poor woman gave way to a transport of joy and tears, Harry
continued to gaze at Kate with an intense eagerness. “Tell me one thing,
Cousin Kate,” said he, in a whisper; “answer me truly: Were you on
board of a convict-ship in Kingstown harbour on Tuesday last, as she was
getting under weigh?”
She nodded assent
“Then it was I who lifted you into the boat, and asked your leave to see
you safely on shore.”
“I’m ashamed to seem ungrateful, but I have no memory of your kindness.
I had too much sorrow on my heart that morning.”
“Oh, if you knew how I longed to meet you again--how I walked and walked
incessantly to try and come up with you, never dreaming of such
happiness as this--that, when we met, I could claim you as my own dear
cousin!”
“And was it right, Cousin Harry, for you to come here in disguise and
visit the Abbey like a stranger? Was that an evidence of the affection
you speak of?”
“You forget, Kate, I didn’t know whom I was to meet. If I had known that
you were the girl whom I carried down the ladder to the boat, I’d have
gone to the world’s end to see you again. How came you to be there?”
“You shall hear it all when you have time and patience. We each have
much to tell, and you shall begin, but not to-night, Harry; let us be
satisfied to make acquaintance now. Why do you stare at me?”
“Because you are so beautiful--because I never saw any one so beautiful
before.”
“A very frank compliment, and I suppose too frank to be construed into
what is called flattery.”
“To think of you living here!--_you_, in such a place as this! Why, it
is downright monstrous.”
“Cousin Harry,” said she, gravely, “if you are to-do nothing but make
me compliments, our intimacy will have but a sorry chance to make any
progress. I have no doubt I’m pretty, but remember, that in this place
here there are scores of things you’ll be struck by, simply because
they come upon you unexpectedly. Look at my little tea equipage, for
instance; could you have dreamed of anything so tasteful on the Island
of Arran?”
The playful raillery of this speech could not turn his thoughts from
herself. Nor was it alone her beauty that amazed him, but her exquisite
grace of manner, the sweet-toned voice, low and gentle, her every
movement and gesture, and then her bearing towards himself, so nicely
balanced between the reserve of a maidenly bashfulness and the freedom
of a near relative.
“We will have our tea together, Harry,” said she, “and you shall tell
me all your adventures. You could not readily find a listener more eager
for all that is strange, or wild, or exciting. Let me hear of the scenes
you have gone through, and I’ll be able to make some guess of what
manner of man my cousin is.”
“My rough life is little more than a long catalogue of common-place
hardships--hardships that sailors come at last to look at as the
ordinary events of existence, but which certainly tend to make us
somewhat careless about life, but very ready to enjoy it. Where am I to
begin?”
“At the beginning, of course. I want to see you as a boy before I hear
of you as a man.”
With a manly frankness, and a modesty totally devoid of any affectation,
he told the story of his sea life; the strange lands and people he had
seen; the wild spots he had visited; the hopes of fortune at one time
full and radiant, at another dashed and destroyed by disaster; dreams
of wealth and affluence rudely dispelled by mischances; and, last
of all--the crowning calamity--the attack made by the Riffs, and his
captivity amongst the Moors.
“Was home very often in your thoughts through these reverses?” asked
she, gravely.
“Seldom out of my thoughts, Kate. It had not been, as you may know, a
very cheerful or a happy home. It was a lonely, gloomy life I led here,
but I believe sorrows can attach just as well as joys, and I longed to
see the old rock again, and I used to fancy how much more companionable
I could be to my poor father now that I had grown up and had learnt
something of the world and its ways. All my misfortunes were nothing
compared to the sorrowful tidings that met me as I landed at Genoa, and
learned I was alone in the world, without even one to care for me.”
“You went at once to Sir Gervais Vyner’s. Tell me about _them_.” “You
know them better than I do, Kate,” said he, smiling. “Ada told me of all
her love for you--it was the theme she never tired of--your beauty,
your wit, your gracefulness, your talent at everything--till I grew half
angry. She would talk of nothing else.”
“And Ada herself--what is she like? She was, as a child, almost
perfectly beautiful.”
“She is very handsome. Her features are all regular, and her smile is
very sweet, and her manner very gentle, and her voice singularly silvery
and musical.”
“So that you fell in love with her?” “No,” said he, shaking his
head--“no, I did not.” “Yes, yes, you did! That list of her perfections
was given too readily not to have been conned over.”
“I tell you again, I felt no love for her. We were whole days together,
and lived as a brother and a sister might, talking of whatever
interested us most, but one word of love never passed between us.” “A
look, then?”
“Not even that. Just think one moment, Kate. Who is she, and who am I?”
“What would that signify if your hearts caught fire? Do you think the
affections ask leave of title-deeds?”
“Mine certainly did not. They had no need to do so. I was as frank with
Ada as with you.” Scarcely was the last word out, than a deep crimson
flash covered his cheek, and he felt overwhelmed with confusion, for he
had said what, if true in one sense, might possibly convey a very
different meaning in another. “I mean,” added he, stammeringly, “I told
her all I have told you about my sea life.”
“You are a puzzle to me, Harry,” said she, after a pause. “You can
enumerate a number of qualities with enthusiasm, and still declare that
they had no influence over you. Is this the sailor temperament?”
“I suspect not,” said he, smiling. “I rather opine we salt-water folk
are too free of our hearts.”
“But why were you not in love with her?” cried she, as she arose
impatiently, and walked up and down the room. “You come off a life
of hardships and perils into what, of all things, is the most
entrancing--the dairy life of people bred up to all the courtesies and
charms that embellish existence--and you find there a very beautiful
girl, well disposed to accept your intimacy and your friendship--how can
you stop at friendship? I want to hear that.”
“I never knew there was any difficulty in the task till now that you
have told me of it,” said he, smiling.
She opened a little drawer in a cabinet as she stood with her back
towards him, and drew on her finger a ring--a certain plain gold
ring--which recalled a time of bygone sorrow and suffering, and then,
coming close to him, laid her hand upon his arm, so that he could but
notice the ring, and said:
“I ought to have remembered you were a Luttrell, Harry--the proud race
who never minded what might bechance their heads, though they took
precious care of their hearts!”
“What does that mean?” said he, pointing to the ring; and a paleness
like death spread over his face.
“What does such an emblem always mean?” said she, calmly. “It is not
that you are married, Kate?
“Surely you have heard the story. Mr. M’Kinlay could not have been a
week at the Vyners’ without telling it.”
“I have heard nothing, I know nothing. Tell me at once, are you a
wife?--have you a husband living?”
“You must be patient, Harry, if you want a somewhat long history.”
“I want no more than what I asked you. Are you a married woman? Answer
me that.”
“Be calm, and be quiet and listen to me,” said she, sitting down at his
side. “You can answer your own question when I shall have finished.”
“Why not tell me in one word? A Yes or a No cannot cost _you_ so much,
though one of them may cost _me_ heavily.”
“What if I could not so answer you? What if no such answer were
possible? Will you hear me now?”
“Say on,” muttered he, burying his face between his hands--“say on!”
“I have a long story to tell you, Harry, and I will tell it all; first,
because you shall give me your counsel; and secondly, because, if you
should hear others speak of me, you will know where is the truth. You
will believe me? Is it not so?”
“That I will. Go on.”
“It would be well if I could speak of myself as one simply unlucky,”
said she, in a tone of deep melancholy, “but this may not be! I have
gone through heavy trials, but there was not one of them, perhaps, not
self-incurred.”
“Oh, Kate, if you would not break my heart with anxiety, tell me at once
this ring means nothing--tell me you are free.”
“Be patient, Harry, and hear me. Trust me, I have no wish to linger
over a narrative which has so little to be proud of. It is a story of
defeat--defeat and humiliation from beginning to end.”
She began, and it was already daybreak ere _she_ came to the end.
Tracking the events of her life from her first days at the Vyners’, she
related an inner history of her own longings, and ambitions, and fears,
and sufferings, as a child ripening into the character of womanhood,
and making her, in spite of herself a plotter and a contriver. The
whole fabric of her station was so frail, so unreal, it seemed to demand
incessant effort to support and sustain it. At Dalradern, where she
ruled as mistress, an accident, a word might depose her. She abhorred
the “equivoque” of her life, but could not overcome it. She owned
frankly that she had brought herself to believe that the prise of wealth
was worth every sacrifice; that heart, and affection, and feeling were
all cheap in comparison with boundless affluence.
“You may imagine what I felt,” said she, “when, after all I had done
to lower myself in my own esteem--crushed within me every sentiment
of womanly affection--when, after all this, I came to learn that my
sacrifice had been for nothing--that there was a sentiment this old
man cared for more than he cared for me--that there was a judgment he
regarded more anxiously than all I could say--the opinion of the world;
and it actually needed the crushing sorrow of desertion to convince him
that it was better to brave the world than to leave it for ever. Till it
became a question of his life he would not yield. The same lesson that
brought _him_ so low served to elevate _me_. I was then here--here in
Arran--holding no feigned position. I was surrounded with no luxuries,
but there were no delusions. Your father gave me his own proud name, and
the people gave me the respect that was due to it. I was real at last.
Oh, Harry, I cannot tell you all that means! I have no words to convey
to you the sense of calm happiness I felt at being what none could
gainsay--none question. It was like health after the flush and madness
of fever. This wild spot seemed to my eyes a Paradise! Day by day duties
grew on me, and I learned to meet them. All the splendid past, the great
life of wealth and its appliances, was beginning to fade away from my
mind, or only to be remembered as a bright and gorgeous dream, when I
was suddenly turned from my little daily routine by an unhappy disaster.
It came in this wise.” She then went on to tell of her grandfather’s
imprisonment and trial, and the steps by which she was led to ask Sir
Within’s assistance in his behalf. On one side, she had to befriend
this poor old man, deserted and forlorn, and, on the other, she had
to bethink her of her uncle, whose horror at the thought of a public
exposure in court was more than he had strength to endure. If she dwelt
but passingly on the description, her shaken voice and trembling lip
told too well what the sacrifice had cost her. “The messenger to whom I
entrusted my letter, and whom I believed interested almost equally with
myself in its success, brought me back for answer that my letter would
not be even opened, that Sir Within refused to renew any relations
with me whatever--in a word, that we had separated for ever and in
everything. I cannot tell now what project was in my head, or how I had
proposed to myself to befriend my grandfather; some thought, I know,
passed through my head about making a statement of his case, so far as
I could pick it up from himself and going personally with this to one of
the leading lawyers on the circuit, and imploring his aid. I always had
immense confidence in myself or in whatever I could do by a personal
effort. If I have learned to think more meanly of my own powers, the
lesson has been rudely taught me. What between the mental strain from
this attempt, anxiety, privation, and exposure to bad weather, I fell
ill, and my malady turned to brain fever. It was during this time that
this man O’Rorke, of whom I have told you, returned, bringing with
him Mr. Ladarelle, a young relative of Sir Within’s. On the pretext of
giving me the rites of my Church, a priest was admitted to see me, and
some mockery of a marriage ceremony was gone through by this clergyman,
who, I am told, united me, unconscious, and to all seeming dying, to
this same young gentleman. These details I learned later, for long, long
before I had recovered sufficient strength or sense to understand what
was said to me, my bridegroom had gone off and left the country.”
“And with what object was this marriage ceremony performed?” asked
Luttrell.
“I have discovered that at last. I have found it out through certain
letters which came into my hands in looking over your father’s papers.
You shall see them yourself to-morrow. Enough now, that I say that Sir
Within had never rejected my prayer for help; on the contrary, he had
most nobly and liberally responded to it. He wrote besides to your
father a formal proposal to make me his wife. To prevent the possibility
of such an event, Ladarelle planned the whole scheme I have
detailed, and when your father wrote to Sir Within that I had left
Arran--‘deserted him,’ he called it--and Ladarelle forwarded a pretended
certificate of our marriage, no further proof seemed wanting that I was
one utterly unworthy of all interest or regard. I came here in time--not
to receive my dear uncle’s forgiveness, for he had long ceased to accuse
me--his last thoughts of me were kind and loving ones. Since then,” said
she, “my life has had but one severe trial--my leave-taking with my poor
old grandfather; but for this it has been like a strange dream, so much
of active employment and duty blending with memories of a kind utterly
unlike everything about me, that I am ever asking myself, ‘Is it the
present or the past is the unreal?’”
“The marriage is, however, a mockery, Kate,” said Luttrell; and, taking
her hand, he drew off the ring and threw it into the fire. “You are sure
it gives him no claim--no power over me?” asked she.
“Claim!--power! None. I’m no lawyer, but I could almost swear that his
act would subject him to severe punishment; at all events, you have a
cousin, Kate, who will not see you insulted. I’ll find out this fellow,
if I search ten years for him.”
“No, no, Harry. To publish this story would be to draw shame upon me. It
was your own father said, ‘A Woman is worse with an imputed blame than
is a Man after a convicted fault.’ Let me not be town-talk, and I will
bear my sorrows patiently.”
“That’s not the Luttrell way to look at it!” said he, fiercely.
“Remember, Harry, I am only Luttrell by adoption,” said she, rising, and
approaching the fire.
“What are you looking for there in the embers, Kate?”
“My ring,” said she, drawing the charred and blackened ring out from
the ashes. “I mean to keep this--an emblem of a sorrow and a shame which
should not be forgotten.”
“What do you mean? It was by no fault of yours this trick was worked!”
“No; but it was my own heartless ambition that provoked it, Harry. I
wanted to be a great lady, at the cost of all that gives life a charm.”
“You surely would not have married this old man--this Sir Within, you
speak of?”
“I would,” said she, coldly.
“Oh, Kate! unsay that. Tell me that you only said this in levity or
jest!”
“I will not tell you one word of myself which is not true,” said she, in
a tone firm and collected.
“And you would have married a man you could not love--a decrepit old
man, whose very attentions must have been odious to you?”
“I never forgot the misery I was reared in. I shrank with terror at
the thought of going back to it. I used to dream of cold, and want, and
privation. I used to ramble in my sleep about the weary load I had to
carry up the slippery rocks with bleeding feet, and then wake to see
myself waited on like a queen, my slightest word obeyed, my merest whim
fulfilled. Are these small things?--or, if they be, what are the great
ones?”
“The great ones are a fearless heart and a loving nature!” said Harry,
fiercely; and his dark face almost grew purple as he darted an angry
look at her.
“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.