"Now, my dear young lady," said Mr Gray; "now, my dear, good Miss
Rosamund, let me ask you if you are doing right in flinging the gifts of
Providence from you?"
"I am doing perfectly right," I retorted with spirit.
"Pardon me, please do pardon me; youth is so impulsive and hot-headed;
youth is so assertive, so positive, it must be guided by age--it simply
must. Now, Miss Rosamund, will you sit down in this easy-chair? Will
you sit perfectly still, and allow me to speak for three or four
minutes?"
"Yes, you may certainly do that," I replied.
"Take this chair, then; lean back in it. It is known to have the most
soothing effect imaginable on irritable nerves."
"Thank you very much; but my nerves are not irritable, and I prefer to
stand."
"Good heavens! Rosamund Lindley's nerves not irritable. Rosamund, who
is all fire and impatience; all quicksilver; the most sensitive, the
most nervous of mortals."
"Oh, please, please, Mr Gray, don't discuss me. If you have anything
to say, please say it quickly."
Mr Gray was not a lawyer for nothing. He saw he had gone too far; his
manner altered--he became business-like, grave, polite, and as a matter
of course, persuasive.
"You have been left this money, Miss Lindley," he said, "on, I grant
you, very peculiar conditions."
"On impossible conditions," I interrupted.
"Now, now, that is the point I am coming to; _are_ the conditions
impossible?"
"They are. Mr Gray, if you have nothing more to add I will say
good-morning."
"I have a great deal more to add. This is a very serious matter, and
you must not be a child about it."
"A child?"
"Yes! a baby, if you like. The fact is, Miss Lindley, I have no
patience with you."
"You have not?"
"No, I have none whatever! You are both conceited and selfish. I am
ashamed of you."
Mr Gray spoke in a very angry tone. Strange as it may seem, I quite
enjoyed it. At that moment it was positively nice to be scolded.
"I will listen to you," I said, in a weak voice.
"You are very selfish," pursued Mr Gray. "Providence intends you to be
wealthy, and to help all your relatives. Providence means you to be a
blessing and assistance to your family. You prefer to be a hindrance, a
clog, a kill-joy, a spoil-all. Your mother is delicate, your father
poor, your brothers without any opening in life. You can remove the
thorns out of all their paths. You refuse to do this. Why? Because of
pride. Providence, in addition to wealth, offers you the best fellow in
Christendom for a husband. You won't even look at him. You refuse to
make him happy by becoming his wife, and you leave him in a state of
poverty, because he can not inherit the fortune which is offered to him
without your assistance. Thousands and tens of thousands of pounds are
placed at your feet. What a power they are! what a grand power! But
you won't have anything to say to them, and they go to enrich the Jews,
and the Society for Befriending Lame Cats, or some other preposterous
charity, I'm sure I can't say what." Mr Gray's voice rose to a perfect
storm of indignation as he spoke of the provisions Cousin Geoffrey had
made for the spending of his wealth in case I refused to comply with the
conditions of his will.
"Well, what am I to do?" I said, when the angry little man paused again
for want of breath. "Am I, influenced by the reasons you have
mentioned, to lower myself, to have no regard at all for those natural
feelings of pride which all girls ought to have, and go up to my almost
unknown cousin and beg and pray of him to take pity on me, and allow me
to become his wife?"
"Who said you were to do anything of the kind?"
"Please, Mr Gray, _what_ am I to do?"
The lawyer jumped from his chair, rushed over to me, and seized both my
hands.
"Now you are reasonable," he said; "now you are delightful--now you
shall listen to my scheme."
"Please what is your scheme?"
"Listen, listen. In the first place, Tom knows nothing of the
conditions of the will."
"Of course he does not. How could he know?"
"Listen, Miss Rosamund. Tom Valentine shall fall in love with you in
the ordinary and orthodox fashion, and shall propose to you in orthodox
fashion. And you shall fall in love with him."
"How can you bring that about?"
"Never mind. Nothing shall be done to hurt your pride. My part in the
matter is simple enough. I give you and Tom Valentine an opportunity of
becoming acquainted with each other. I have a place at Putney--a
charming place. You shall pay me a visit there."
"I won't go," I said.
"Yes, you will go--you will do what I tell you."
"No," I repeated; "you ask me to Putney for an object. You mean to
conquer me--I won't be conquered. I shall be very glad to visit you, if
you will be kind enough to invite me on another occasion. But I am not
going to meet Mr Valentine; I am not going to meet him, because at last
I know the contents of Cousin Geoffrey's will."
Mr Gray rubbed his hands with impatience. "You are doing wrong," he
said stoutly. "You are offered a gift which will befriend you and
yours, which will help your mother who is ill."
"How do you know my mother is ill?" I asked testily.
The lawyer gave me a piercing glance, he turned away.
"Your mother is not well," he said evasively. It was curious, but that
tone in his voice broke me down. I said--
"A visit to you, after all, involves nothing. Say no more about it--I
will come."
I went home that day feeling uncommonly weak and small. My excitement
had run its course--the re-action had set in; I felt dead tired and
languid. I had a slight headache too, which I knew would get worse by
and by. In short, I was more or less in a state of collapse, and I felt
that tears were not far from my eyes.
It seemed to me that I had just been going through a very severe fight,
and that I was in danger of being beaten. I knew this by the fact that
in my collapsed condition I did not much care whether I was beaten or
not.
I arrived home to find matters a little more dismal even than usual. My
mother's cough was so bad that the doctor had been sent for. He had
prescribed (in those comfortable, unfaltering words which doctors are so
fond of using) the Riviera as the sovereign remedy. My mother must
leave the harsh east winds of our English spring, and go into the land
of balmy breezes and colour and flowers.
"You must go without delay, Mrs Lindley," the doctor said, and then he
shook hands with her, and pocketed his fee, and went away.
His visit was over when I reached home, and my mother was seated,
wrapped up in a white fleecy shawl, by the little fire in the
drawing-room. That shawl became her wonderfully. Her beautiful face
looked like the rarest old porcelain above it; her clear complexion, the
faint winter roses on her cheeks, the soft light in her eyes, the
sweetness of her lips, and the fine whiteness of her hair gave her as
great a beauty as the loveliness of youth. In some way my mother's
picturesque loveliness exceeded that of the innocent freshness of
childhood, for all the story, and all the sorrow, and all the love, the
courage, the resignation which life rightly used can bring, was
reflected on her beloved features.
I bent forward and kissed her, and the tears which were so near welled
up in my own eyes.
"Well, Rose, I can't go," she said; "but I'll tell you what we'll do,
we'll bring the Riviera here. With a few flowers, and a nice book, and
a little more fire in the grate, we can get these pleasant things around
us; and I have no doubt, notwithstanding gloomy Dr Hudson, that I shall
soon lose my cough, and be as well as ever."
"Oh, yes, you will soon lose your cough, mother," I said. I sat down at
her feet, and took her thin hand and pressed it passionately to my lips.
Over and over again I kissed it, and each moment a voice kept
whispering to me:
"The battle is going against you--you know it--you know it well!"
We were very poor at our home; but I will say this for us, we did not
make money the staple subject of conversation. When we met at meals we
each of us pushed our penury away under a decent sort of cloak, and
although we constantly fought and argued and disagreed, we did not
mention our fears with regard to the possibility of meeting the next
quarter's rent, and paying the water rates, and filling the coal cellar
with fuel.
It seemed to-night, however, as if all my family were in league to break
this customary rule. George crossly declared that he could not exist
any longer without a new suit of clothes. My father desired him to
hush, and said that he might be thankful if he had a roof to cover him,
as there were already two quarters owing for rent, and he had not the
faintest idea where the necessary cheque was to come from. Then he
began to scold about the expenses incurred during Jack's illness, and my
mother, weak and low already, put her handkerchief up to her eyes and
wept.
In the midst of our tribulation a letter arrived from Hetty, in which
she begged and implored me, for the love of Heaven, to send her a postal
order for a couple of sovereigns by return of post.
This letter of Hetty's was the last drop. What _did_ it matter about me
and my feelings, and my righteous pride, and all the holy instincts of
my youth? There was my mother to be saved, my home to be relieved, my
poor little new sister to be comforted and made happy. I rushed out of
the room and wrote a frantic letter to Hetty. I could not send her the
money, but I could send her hope. I did. I sent it flying to her on
the wings of her Majesty's post. Then I wrote to Lady Ursula, and
apologised for not keeping my appointment at the Chamber of Myths that
day. I said that Cousin Geoffrey's letter was of a very startling
character, and that it was impossible for me to disclose its contents to
any one at present. I spoke to Lady Ursula affectionately and in a
sisterly spirit, and I sent my kind regards to her intended husband,
Captain Valentine. I paused and even blushed as I considered what
message I could forward to my cousin Tom. After careful reflection I
felt that I could say nothing about him. He was the thorn in my lot at
present, and I felt that I owed him an enormous grudge, and that I
should have liked very much to hate him. But when I remembered his
extremely honest expression, his bluntness and downrightness, I could
not quite manage to get up a feeling of hatred to a man who was really
in himself quite innocent.
Finally I wrote to Mr Gray, and told him that I would present myself at
his villa in Putney to-morrow.