Tremenhere had two distinct characters; with those he disliked, he had
more than the coldness ascribed to Englishmen in general; there was
something almost despotic in his manner. With those to whom his
affections kindled, he was not alone gentleness itself, but forbearing,
bending, loving, the almost habitual frown quitted his face, and left it
youthful, bland, and joyous in expression. Poor Miles! he had suffered,
and been made to endure, keenly; he had been forced to graft suspicion
on a noble nature, and this destroyed the bud of much good fruit. There
was so much wild nature about him, that not unfrequently the usages of
society suffered from his bluntness; what he thought, he spoke freely.
"Miss Dalzell knows, I presume," he said, as the three entered the
path-field, "my history--as I was--as I am?"
"But slightly," she answered, rather embarrassed.
"Well, 'tis best, perhaps, little known to one so young and pure as
yourself. It would show you a capability of vice in the human heart,
which you may never discover in your personal career--so better ignore
it; it might, too, tarnish your mind's purity, to see so dark a current
in a life's ocean; but what I wished to allude to, is this, when I
first saw you, and heard your name mentioned, it recalled you to me as
one whom I have recently heard of as the elected bride of my hopeful
cousin, Marmaduke Burton. My first thought of you was darker than
dislike--'twas contempt; no good, true heart could love that man for
himself."
"Stop, Mr. Tremenhere," cried Skaife hastily, and in evidently painful
emotion. "Do not judge harshly what woman's weakness or love may lead
her to forget, or forgive, for herself or another."
"Good heavens, Mr. Skaife!" cried Minnie, amazed and in almost horror;
"what do you suppose?"
Skaife had forgotten her, he was thinking of another. Tremenhere stopped
suddenly, and flushed deeply, as he fixed his earnest eyes on her--
"Have I, can I have been mistaken? Has my own wary judgment in general,
deceived me this once? I thought," he almost uttered these last words to
himself, "no one could cheat my watchfulness now."
"Mr. Tremenhere," exclaimed she in much embarrassment, yet anxious to
cast from her a garment so hateful as the one which should cloak her as
Burton's wife in his or any eyes, "I may be speaking boldly for a girl,
and to you, a stranger too, but I would not have any one suppose, much
less you, an injured man, that I can ever become your cousin's wife. Mr.
Skaife, pray assure Mr. Tremenhere you did not allude to me!"
"Indeed," said Skaife, much puzzled by his own awkwardness, "I had
forgotten all present; I will explain my meaning to you," and he turned
to Miles.
"Oh!" answered this man again, reassured in confidence, and smiling his
own peculiar smile on Minnie. "I ill deserve this kindness, this haste
to soothe my wounds. Believe me, they are deep and cankering when I
think of Burton, not for myself, but another. You have been so Christian
in kindness to poor Mary, that I could not bear, Miss Dalzell, to
associate any one I respected in even my thoughts with that traitor.
Thought," he continued, musingly, "is a gift of the soul; you will
inhabit mine, linked with that unfortunate girl, whom I much love."
"Am I to understand," asked Skaife aside to him in surprise, "that you
know all?"
"All?" and the other stared, astonished at the question to himself.
"Could any know it better? what else has again brought me to this place?
what drove me from it?"
"Then, indeed, you are to be pitied, Mr. Tremenhere--deeply pitied; but
I feared something of this, from your emotion in the humble cottage we
have quitted."
Skaife was playing with shadows of his own creating. He fancied
Tremenhere loved Mary, with whom he had been brought up from childhood;
and he also thought he (Tremenhere) knew all her painful story. Skaife's
last words demanded an explanation. Before the other could ask it,
Minnie uttered an exclamation, and over the stile, the last one, near
which they stood, struggled Mrs. Gillett--for struggle it was--whether
she should overcome the stile, or the stile lay her in the ditch.
However, she arrived safely on the side where stood the three,
smoothed her dress, settled her apron, picked up a patten which she had
dropped (she always carried these, even in the finest weather, to cross
the brooks on,) and then she looked up over her spectacles, which were
on the tip of her nose, and stood transfixed. At a glance she knew Miles
Tremenhere. Mrs. Gillett had one excellent quality--she was no
talebearer; she kept circumstances to herself; they only oozed out in
imperceptible drops in her counsellings, making her seem an OEdipus
for soothsaying and guessing. Her hearers were amazed when truths came
to light which she had foretold, without any seeming foreknowledge of
them: herein lay her strength and power over all. "Mussiful powers!" she
mentally said; "here's a pretty business! What am I to do with _him_?"
She was thinking of all the lovers for Minnie she had already on hand,
with their leaders. Skaife was the first to recover self-possession.
"Perhaps, Miss Dalzell," he said, "you will allow me"--he did not say
"us," for Mrs. Gillett was, perhaps, ignorant who Tremenhere was; he
might seem as a stranger to Minnie in her eyes--"to hand over my escort,
however unwillingly done, to Mrs. Gillett; and I and my friend (he
glanced at Miles) will continue our walk of business."
But Tremenhere stepped boldly forward; something more than his usual
candour forbade disguise, even if practicable: "Mrs. Gillett," he said,
"you and I are old friends. Surely you remember the 'sweet youth,' as
you were used to call me when I visited Gatestone and your cosey room
there!"
Mrs. Gillett shrunk back--she was on her slippery rock: had they been
alone, she would gladly have spoken to Miles, before witnesses she durst
not. She looked down, and, affecting not to hear, stooped, resting on
one toe to support her knee, on which, placing a patten, she very
assiduously begun tying its string. Miles laughed aloud: it was a cold,
contemptuous, unpained laugh. "Miss Dalzell," he said, lowly bowing, and
changing his tone to one of feeling, "I do indeed thank you for to-day,
for all your gentle words. Whenever I revisit this spot, here shall I
pause to salute the shade of one whose kindness will be ever present
with me." He was turning sadly away: "Good bye, Mr. Tremenhere," she
cried, extending her hand; "and when we meet again, may you be very
differently circumstanced to what you are to-day."
He grasped her hand, and all the speeches ever formed could not have
been half so eloquent, as his tremulous "I thank you deeply and
sincerely, may your kind wish be heard;" and with a sigh, which we often
grant to sympathy, though refusing it to our own hardened feelings, he
turned away with Skaife, who shook Minnie kindly by the hand; it was a
parting of three very kindred spirits. As they walked off, Mrs. Gillett
rose from her occupation. "Your dear aunts sent me to meet you,
darling," she said, glancing round cautiously, "and I always like to
bring my pattens with me; I don't like damp grass, it don't agree with
my rheumatics." At that moment Tremenhere paused in his walk, and turned
round, as if irresolute whether to return, and perhaps say something
left unsaid. Mrs. Gillett saw it, and, once more stooping, she gave a
violent tug to her patten string; she had raised herself three inches
upon those kind of young stilts, which even yet old-fashioned country
folks wear. "Bless the tie!" she cried, bent nearly double, her back
curved like a boy at leap-frog; "bless the tie, it always comes undone,
or gets into a knot--I never see such strings!" Minnie saw nothing of
this; she could not have comprehended Mrs. Gillett's policy; then, too,
her thoughts were more knotted than even the patten tie;--who might
unweave and straighten them? Alas! a few moments will often entangle the
skein of our existence, knotting up hopes, fears, and cares, in one
unravelable mass. Tremenhere turned, and walked on; Minnie had seen the
action, and it troubled her, "What had he wished to say? would he tell
Skaife? could she serve him in any way? poor fellow--poor Miles
Tremenhere!" Every one knows the reputed relationship between friendship
and love; they have a family likeness, and are not unfrequently mistaken
for one another, till the latter pirouettes, and then we find the
arrowless quiver, (_they_ remain with us,) and the extended wings,--who
may clip them?
"Your aunts were very anxious about you," continued Minnie's companion,
peering over her spectacles to read if the other had read _her_; "poor,
dear ladies, I'm sure it's a great blessing for you to have such
relations in your orphan state; and then your kind uncle, too, he is
more sensible, and judges better what's good for you than any, as in
course he should--in course he should," here she paused, and peeped at
the thoughtful girl. "The lawyer Mr. Dalby's very well," ran on Mrs.
Gillett, "and so is Mr. Skaife--oh, he's a pious young man! and his
sermons are quite edifying; but then, I've always remarked, your very
pious young men don't make _very_ good husbands, or happy homes. A man
should only think of his wife, and how can the clargy do that when
they're the fathers of the whole parish? and I'm sure Mr. Skaife has
enough to do hereabouts, for they are an ill broughtened-up set as ever
I met with, and, as his housekeeper says, when he isn't writin' his
sermons, he's _astonishing_ some one," (_query_, admonishing?) "Now, as
to marrying him, with all his occupation, it might do very well for Miss
Sylvia, or Miss Dorcas, but for a fine young lady like you, why, you
should have horses, and carriages, and servants at command, and be the
grandest lady in the neighbourhood. Then, as for Mr. Dalby, why, what
with latty_cats_, _re_jectments, and briefs, it's but little time _he'd_
find to pay you proper attention."
"Mrs. Gillett!" exclaimed Minnie, so suddenly that she almost frightened
her off her pattens, "don't you know Mr. Tremenhere? didn't you know him
as a boy?"
"Bless me, Miss Minnie, what _are_ you talking of! don't speak of that
dreadful young man, Miss; it's unbecoming a modest young lady to know
there's such a person living."
"Mrs. Gillett!" and the girl stood still in amazement.
"To be sure," responded the woman, "he must be a bad character--wasn't
his mother? and how could he be good?--Don't a cat always have kittens?"
"Mrs. Gillett," cried Minnie, again grasping her arm, and her eyes
looked deepest violet with emotion. "You would be a very wicked woman to
think what you say; that was Miles Tremenhere with Mr. Skaife. I pitied
him before knowing him, and now, if I could by any means see him
righted, I'd lend my hand to the good work, and I do hope some day he
may be at the manor-house again!"
"That Mr. Tremenhere!" exclaimed the politic Gillett. "How boys _do_
alter, to be sure!" She evaded replying to the other things said; it
would not do, too decidedly, to take any side of the question; the womb
of Time is very prolific--we never know what offspring it may produce.
They were in the shrubberies of Gatestone by this time; a few moments'
silence ensued, interrupted only by the click-clack of Mrs. Gillett's
pattens.
"Mrs. Gillett, why will you wear those horrid things on the gravel
walks? you cut them up terribly," said a voice behind them. Minnie
turned, her companion stopped, and stooped to disencumber her feet of
their appendages, by which movement Juvenal nearly fell over her. She
was pitched forward on her hands and knees by the concussion, with a
scream; another picked her up--'twas the squire. Juvenal was evidently
cross, or he would not have spoken so disrespectfully to his matron
housekeeper.
"I hope I see Miss Dalzell well?" said Burton, offering his hand.
"Well, thank you," answered she, not appearing to notice it--he bit his
lip, and dropped beside her.
"I really should like to know where you go every day--where you have
been this morning, Minnie?" asked her uncle crossly.
"Shall I tell you, uncle?" she answered, and then, without giving
herself a moment to consider possible consequences to herself or others,
with the too hasty candour of a generous mind anxious to espouse the
weaker side, she continued, addressing herself this time to Marmaduke
Burton,--"I've been to Mary Burns's cottage, and there I met Mr. Skaife,
and your cousin, Mr. Burton, Mr. Tremenhere." Certainly she created an
effect; the squire tottered and became ghastly pale, Juvenal looked
amazed and annoyed. "What--together?" he cried. "How came that about?
Where is Mr. Tremenhere? and how dare you become acquainted with that
man?"
"Your surprise equals mine," said Burton, recovering himself partially,
then added ironically--"Our young curate might do better composing his
sermons, than becoming bear-leader to an impostor, and a man of Mr.
Tremenhere's character. As _cousin_, Miss Dalzell, allow me to disavow
him; he is none such by law, and I have no desire to outstep any bounds
to claim that enviable distinction."
"I only judge the law of humanity," she replied, in a slightly tremulous
tone; she began to be afraid of the storm of such passions as his face
bespoke working in his frame. "And no man should be condemned for the
faults--if faults there were--of his parents."
"If faults there were," said Burton, echoing her words. "Allow me, Miss
Dalzell, to reject, in all politeness, the right your speech offers me,
of standing in Mr. Tremenhere's position. He or I am an impostor, a
claimant to an unjust title of proprietorship; besides, there are more
personal faults appertaining to that gentleman, at variance with my
ideas of honour."
For an instant a doubt crossed her mind about Mary and Miles; could
Burton allude to this? But her heart repudiated the thought.
"Did he become suddenly so wicked?" she calmly asked. "As boys
together--as men, indeed--up to the period of his father's death, had he
the deep hypocrisy to conceal all this?"
"Miss Dalzell seems well informed of my history," he said, through his
half-closed teeth. "I cannot but feel flattered by the kind interest it
evinces in me." He bowed low.
"Really, Minnie," said her uncle, "you have chosen a strange subject;
pray, drop it. How could you have become acquainted with that man? This
comes of your running about alone--it must be seen to, and quickly: Mrs.
Gillett!" The woman stepped forward at his call; and now she blessed her
forethought and policy in having ignored Tremenhere's identity!
"Mrs. Gillett," said her master, while the other two walked on in
silence, "what do you know about this? You were with Miss Dalzell: where
did you find her, and how?" The woman was quite calm under this criminal
examination--she felt so sure of her innocence.
"I know nothing of it, master," she said decidedly: "I met Miss Dalzell,
dear child, in the holly field; just as I stepped over the stile, my
patten came undone; I was busy settling it; I saw Mr. Skaife and another
gentleman, but I'm sure I couldn't swear to him; I never looked in his
face--it isn't my custom so to do to them above me, 'specially
gentlemen!" and she smoothed her virginal-looking apron, tied over her
modest heart with wide tape strings.
Sylvia and Dorcas came out to meet the approaching group. "Where was the
child?" demanded the former at the top of her voice. Juvenal looked, and
was, much excited. "Mrs. Gillett found her," he replied, "with an
improper--a most improper--character!"
"What a dreadful thing!" screamed Sylvia; "who was it?"
Dorcas was by the girl's side, calmly speaking, and inquiring the cause
of her protracted stay, which had alarmed them. She knew, however, that
Minnie was not in any wilful harm, yet her affection made her fearful of
ill. We will leave them to their explanations, to which Mr. Burton was
not a witness, having taken his leave hastily of all. Poor Minnie had a
sad trial, and a severe lesson and lecture, the consequences of her warm
heart and candour--two things, bad guides in this world of brambles;
with these her garments would be, haplessly, frequently rent and
disfigured.
We will ask our readers to step into the holly field with us, to where
we left Skaife and Miles Tremenhere, both of them walking back in deep
thought.