“You see, Sir, she is obstinate,” said Mr. Cane to Harry Luttrell, as
they sat closeted together in his private office. “She is determined to
make over the Arran estate to you, and equally determined to sail for
Australia on the 8th of next month.”
“I can be obstinate too,” said Harry, with a bent brow and a dark
frown--“I can be obstinate too, as you will see, perhaps, in a day or
two.”
“After all, Sir, one must really respect her scruples. It is clear
enough, if your father had not believed in your death, he never would
have made the will in her favour.”
“It is not of that I am thinking,” said Luttrell, with a tone of half
irritation; and then, seeing by the blank look of astonishment in the
other’s face that some explanation was necessary, he added, “It was
about this foolish journey, this voyage, my thoughts were busy. Is there
no way to put her off it?”
“I am afraid not. All I have said--all my wife has said--has gone for
nothing. Some notion in her head about the gratitude she owes this old
man overbears every other consideration, and she goes on repeating,
‘I am the only living thing he trusts in. I must not let him die in
disbelief of all humanity.’” Harry made a gesture of impatient meaning,
but said nothing, and Cane went on: “I don’t believe it is
possible to say more than my wife has said on the subject, but all
in vain; and indeed, at last, Miss Luttrell closed the discussion by
saying: ‘I know you’d like that we should part good friends; well, then,
let us not discuss this any more. You may shake the courage I shall need
to carry me through my project, but you’ll not change my determination
to attempt it.’ These were her last words here.”
“They were all the same!” muttered Harry, impatiently, as he walked up
and down the room. “All the same!”
“It was what she hinted, Sir?”
“How do you mean--in what way did she hint it?”
“She said one morning--she was unusually excited that day--something
about the wilfulness of peasant natures, that all the gilding good
fortune could lay on them never succeeded in hiding the base metal
beneath; and at last, as if carried away by passion, and unable to
control herself, she exclaimed, ‘I’ll do it, if it was only to let me
feel real for once! I’m sick of shams!--a sham position, a sham name,
and a sham fortune!’”
“I offered her the share of mine, and she refused me,” said Luttrell,
with a bitterness that revealed his feeling.
“You offered to make her your wife, Sir!” cried Cane, in astonishment.
“What so surprises you in that?” said Harry, hastily. “Except it be,”
added he, after a moment, “my presumption in aspiring to one so far
superior to me.”
“I wish you would speak to Mrs. Cane, Mr. Luttrell. I really am very
anxious you would speak to her.”
“I guess your meaning--at least, I suspect I do. You intend that your
wife should tell me that scandal about the secret marriage, that dark
story of her departure from Arran, and her repentant return to it; but I
know it all, every word of it, already.”
“And from whom?”
“From herself--from her own lips; confirmed, if I wanted confirmation,
by other testimony.”
“I think she did well to tell you,” said Cane, in a half uncertain tone.
“Of course she did right. It was for me to vindicate her, if she had
been wronged, and I would have done so, too, if the law had not been
before me. You know that the scoundrel is sentenced to the galleys?”
Cane did not know it, and heard the story with astonishment, and so much
of what indicated curiosity, that Harry repeated all Kate had told him
from the beginning to the end.
“Would you do me the great favour to repeat this to my wife?
She is sincerely attached to Miss Luttrell, and this narrative will give
her unspeakable pleasure.”
“Tell her, from me, that her affection is not misplaced--she deserves
it all!” muttered Harry, as he laid his head moodily against the window,
and stood lost in thought.
“Here comes the postman. I am expecting a letter from the captain of the
Australian packet-ship, in answer to some inquiries I had made in Miss
Luttrell’s behalf.”
The servant entered with a packet of letters as he spoke, from which
Cane quickly selected one.
“This is what I looked for. Let us see what it says:
“‘Dear Sir,--I find that I shall be able to place the poop cabin at Miss
L.’s disposal, as my owner’s sister will not go out this spring. It is
necessary she should come over here at once, if there be any trifling
changes she would like made in its interior arrangement. The terms,
I believe, are already well understood between us. By the Hamburg
packet-ship _Drei Heilige_, we learn that the last outward-bound vessels
have met rough weather, and a convict-ship, the _Blast_, was still more
unfortunate. Cholera broke out on board, and carried off seventy-three
of the prisoners in eleven days.’”
There was a postscript marked confidential, but Cane read it aloud:
“‘Can you tell me if a certain Harry Luttrell, who has signed articles
with me as second mate, is any relation of Miss L.’s? He has given me a
deposit of twenty pounds, but my men think he is no seaman, nor has ever
been at sea. Do you know anything of him, what?’”
“Yes!” said Harry, boldly. “Tell him you know him well; that he was with
you when you read aloud that passage in his letter; assure him--as you
may with a safe conscience--that he is a good sailor, and add, on my
part, that he has no right to make any other inquiries about him.”
“And do you really intend to make this voyage?”
“Of course I do! I told you a while ago I could be as obstinate as my
cousin. You’ll see if I don’t keep my word. Mind me, however; no word of
this to Miss Luttrell. I charge you that!”
“And the property, Sir! What are your views respecting the estate?”
“I shall write to you. I’ll think of it,” said Harry, carelessly. After
a few words more, they parted. Harry had some things to buy in the city,
some small preparations for the long voyage before him; but, promising
Cane to come back and take a family dinner with him, he went his
way. For some hours he walked the streets half unconsciously, a vague
impression over him that there was something he had to do, certain
people to see, certain places to visit; but so engaged was he with the
thought of Kate and her fortunes, his mind had no room for more. “She
shall see,” muttered he to himself, “that I am not to be shaken off.
My Luttrell obstinacy, if she will call it so, is as fixed as her own.
Country has no tie for _me_. Where she is, there shall be my country.”
Some fears he had lest Cane should tell her of his determination to sail
in the same ship with her. She was quite capable of outwitting him if
she could only get a clue to this. Would Cane dare to disobey him?
Would he face the consequences of his betrayal? From these thoughts he
wandered on to others--as to how Kate would behave when she found he had
followed her. Would this proof of attachment move her? Would she resent
it as a persecution? Hers was so strange a nature, anything might come
of it. “The same pride that made her refuse me, may urge her to do more.
As she said so haughtily to me at Arran, ‘The peasant remedy has failed
to cure the Luttrell malady; another cure must be sought for!’”
Harry had scarcely knocked at Cane’s door, when it was opened by Cane
himself, who hurriedly said, “I have been waiting for you. Come in
here;” and led him into his own room. “She’s above stairs. She has just
come,” whispered he.
“Who?” asked Harry, eagerly. “Who?”
“Your cousin--Miss Luttrell. A letter from the surgeon of the
convict-ship has conveyed news of old Malone’s death, and she has come
up to free herself from her arrangement with the captain. And----”
He stopped and hesitated with such evident confusion, that Harry said,
“Go on, Sir; finish what you were about to say.”
“It is her secret, not mine, Mr. Luttrell; and I know it only through my
wife.”
“I insist on hearing it. I am her nearest of kin, and I have a right to
know whatever concerns her.”
“I have already told you what I promised to keep secret. I was pledged
not to say she was here. I came down to make some excuse for not
receiving you to-day at dinner--some pretext of my wife’s illness. I
beg, I entreat you will not ask me for more.”
“I insist upon all you know,” was Harry’s stern reply.
“How do I even know it,” cried Cane, in despair, “from a few incoherent
words my wife whispered in my ear as she passed me? Were I to tell, it
may be only to mislead you.”
“Tell me, whatever may come of it.”
Cane took a turn or two up and down the room, and at last, coming in
front of Luttrell, said: “She is about to take back her old name, and
with it the humble fortune that belonged to it. She says you and yours
have suffered enough from the unhappy tie that bound you to her family.
She is resolved you shall never see, never hear of her again. She took
her last look at Arran last night. To-morrow she declares she will go
away from this, where none shall trace her. There’s her secret! I charge
you not to betray how you came by it.”
“Let me see her; let me speak with her.”
“How can I? I have promised already that you should not hear she is
here.”
“Send for your wife, and let me speak to her. I must--I will speak to
her.”.
“Go into that room for a moment, then, and I will advise with my wife
what is to be done.”
Harry passed into the room and sat down. He heard Cane’s bell ring, and
soon afterwards could mark the tread of a foot on the stairs, and
then the sound of voices talking eagerly in the adjoining room. His
impatience nearly maddened him; his heart beat so that he felt as if
his chest could not contain it; the vessels of his neck, too, throbbed
powerfully. He opened the window for air, and then, as though the space
was too confined, flung wide a door at the side of the room. As he did
this, he saw that it led to the stairs. Quicker than all thought his
impulse urged him. He dashed up and entered the drawing-room, where Kate
sat alone, and with her head buried between her hands.
She looked up, startled by his sudden entrance, and then, resuming her
former attitude, said, in a low, muffled voice, “You have heard what has
befallen me. I am not fated to acquit the debt I owed.”
Harry sat down beside her in silence, and she went on: “I was hoping
that this pain might have been spared us--I mean, this meeting--it is
only more sorrow. However, as we are once more together, let me thank
you. I know all that you intended, all that you meant by me. I know that
you would have come with me, too. I know all! Now, Harry,” said she,
in a more resolute voice, “listen to me calmly. What I say to you is
no caprice, no passing thought, but the long-earned conviction of much
reflection. From _my_ people came every misfortune that has crushed
yours. Your father’s long life of suffering--told in his own words--his
diaries--revealed in the letters from his friends--I have read them over
and over--was caused by this fatal connexion. Are these things to be
forgotten? or are you cruel enough to ask me to repeat the experiment
that broke your mother’s heart, and left your father friendless and
forsaken? Where is your pride, Sir? And if _you_ have none, where would
be mine, if I were to listen to you?”
“There comes the truth!” cried he, wildly. “It is your pride that
rejects me. You, who have lived in great houses, and mixed with great
people, cannot see in me anything but the sailor.”
“Oh no, no, no!” cried she, bitterly.
“I know it--I feel it, Kate,” continued he. “I feel ashamed when my
coarse hand touches your taper fingers. I shrink back with misgiving at
any little familiarity that seems so inconsistent between us. Even my
love for you--and God knows how I love you!--cannot make me think myself
your equal.”
“Oh, Harry, do not say such things as these; do not--do not!”
“I say it--I swear it; the highest ambition of my heart would be to
think I could deserve you.”
[Illustration: n033]
She hid her face between her hands, and he went on, madly, wildly,
incoherently; now telling her what her love might make him--now darkly
hinting at the despair rejection might drive him to. He contrasted all
the qualities of _her_ gifted nature, so sure to attract friendship and
interest, with the ruggedness of his character, as certain to render
him friendless; and, on his knees at her feet, he implored her, if any
gratitude for all his father’s love could move her, to take pity on and
hear him.
There was a step on the stair as Harry seized her hand and said, “Let
this be mine, Kate; give it to me, and make me happier than all I ever
dreamed of. One word--one word, dearest.” And he drew her face towards
him and kissed her.
“The Luttrell spirit is low enough, I take it, now,” said she, blushing.
“If their pride can survive this, no peasant blood can be their remedy.”
End of Project Gutenberg’s Luttrell Of Arran, by Charles James Lever