THE BARTER OF A LIFE.
Two evenings afterward a carriage drove up to the door of Chetwynde
Castle, and a young man alighted. The door was opened by the old
butler, who, with a cry of delight, exclaimed:
"Master Guy! Master Guy! It's welcome ye are. They've been lookin'
for you these two hours back."
"Any thing wrong?" was Guy's first exclamation, uttered with some
haste and anxiety.
"Lord love ye, there's naught amiss; but ye're welcome home, right
welcome, Master Guy," said the butler, who still looked upon his
young master as the little boy who used to ride upon his back, and
whose tricks were at once the torment and delight of his life.
The old butler himself was one of the heirlooms of the family, and
partook to the full of the air of antiquity which pervaded the place.
He looked like the relic of a by-gone generation. His queue,
carefully powdered and plaited, stood out stiff from the back of his
head, as if in perpetual protest against any new-fangled notions of
hair-dressing; his livery, scrupulously neat and well brushed, was
threadbare and of an antediluvian cut, and his whole appearance was
that of highly respectable antediluvianism. As he stood there with
his antique and venerable figure his whole face fairly beamed with
delight at seeing his young master.
"I was afraid my father might be ill," said Guy, "from his sending
for me in such a hurry."
"Ill?" said the other, radiant. "My lord be better and cheerfuler
like than ever I have seen him since he came back from Lunnon--the
time as you was a small chap, Master Guy. There be a gentleman
stopping here. He and my lord have been sittin' up half the night
a-talkin'. I think there be summut up, Master Guy, and that he be
connected with it; for when my lord told me to send you the telegram
he said as it were on business he wanted you, but," he added, looking
perplexed, "it's the first time as ever I heard of business makin' a
man look cheerful."
Guy made a jocular observation and hurried past him into the hall. As
he entered he saw a figure standing at the foot of the great
staircase. It was Mrs. Hart. She was trembling from head
to foot and clinging to the railing for support. Her face was pale as
usual; on each cheek there was a hectic flush, and her eyes were
fastened on him.
"My darling nurse!" cried Guy with the warm enthusiastic tone of a
boy, and hurrying toward her he embraced her and kissed her.
The poor old creature trembled and did not say a single word.
"Now you didn't know I was coming, did you, you dear old thing?" said
Guy. "But what is the matter? Why do you tremble so? Of course you're
glad to see your boy. Are you not?"
Mrs. Hart looked up to him with an expression of mute affection,
deep, fervent, unspeakable; and then seizing his warm young hand in
her own wan and tremulous ones, she pressed it to her thin white lips
and covered it with kisses.
"Oh, come now," said Guy, "you always break down this way when I come
home; but you must not--you really must not. If you do I won't come
home at all any more. I really won't. Come, cheer up. I don't want to
make you cry when I come home."
"But I'm crying for joy," said Mrs. Hart, in a faint voice. "Don't be
angry."
"You dear old thing! Angry?" exclaimed Guy, affectionately. "Angry
with my darling old nurse? Have you lost your senses, old woman? But
where is my father? Why has he sent for me? There's no bad news, I
hear, so that I suppose all is right."
"Yes, all is well," said Mrs. Hart, in a low voice. "I don't know why
you were sent for, but there is nothing bad. I think your father sent
for you to see an old friend of his."
"An old friend?"
"Yes. General Pomeroy," replied Mrs. Hart, in a constrained voice.
"He has been here two or three days."
"General Pomeroy! Is it possible?" said Guy. "Has he come to England?
I didn't know that he had left India. I must hurry up. Good-by, old
woman," he added, affectionately, and kissing her again he hurried up
stairs to his father's room.
Lord Chetwynde was there, and General Pomeroy also. The greeting
between father and son was affectionate and tender, and after a few
loving words Guy was introduced to the General. He shook him heartily
by the hand.
"I'm sure," said he, "the sight of you has done my father a world of
good. He looks ten years younger than he did when I last saw him. You
really ought to take up your abode here, or live somewhere near him.
He mopes dreadfully, and needs nothing so much as the society of an
old friend. You could rouse him from his blue fits and ennui, and
give him new life."
Guy then went on in a rattling way to narrate some events which had
befallen him on the road. As he spoke in his animated and
enthusiastic way General Pomeroy scanned him earnestly and narrowly.
To the most casual observer Guy Molyneux must have been singularly
prepossessing. Tall and slight, with a remarkably well-shaped head
covered with dark curling hair, hazel eyes, and regular features, his
whole appearance was eminently patrician, and bore the marks of
high-breeding and refinement; but there was something more than this.
Those eyes looked forth frankly and fearlessly; there was a joyous
light in them which awakened sympathy; while the open expression of
his face, and the clear and ringing accent of his fresh young voice,
all tended to inspire confidence and trust. General Pomeroy noted all
this with delight, for in his anxiety for his daughter's future he
saw that Guy was one to whom he might safely intrust the dearest idol
of his heart.
"Come, Guy," said Lord Chetwynde at last, after his son had rattled
on for half an hour or more, "if you are above all considerations of
dinner, we are not. I have already had it put off two hours for you,
and we should like to see some signs of preparation on your part."
"All right, Sir. I shall be on hand by the time it is announced,"
said Guy, cheerily; "you don't generally have to complain of me in
that particular, I think."
So saying, Guy nodded gayly to them and left the room, and they
presently heard him whistling through the passages gems from the last
new opera.
"A splendid fellow," said the General, as the door closed, in a tone
of hearty admiration. "I see his father over again in him. I only
hope he will come into our views."
"I can answer for his being only too ready to do so," said Lord
Chetwynde, confidently.
"He exceeds the utmost hopes that I had formed of him," said the
General. "I did not expect to see so frank and open a face, and such
freshness of innocence and purity."
Lord Chetwynde's face showed all the delight which a fond father
feels at hearing the praises of an only son.
Dinner came and passed. The General retired, and Lord Chetwynde then
explained to his son the whole plan which had been made about him. It
was a plan which was to affect his whole life most profoundly in its
most tender part; but Guy was a thoughtless boy, and received the
proposal like such. He showed nothing but delight. He never dreamed
of objecting to any thing. He declared that it seemed to him too good
to be true. His thoughts did not appear to dwell at all upon his own
share in this transaction, though surely to him that share was of
infinite importance, but only on the fact that Chetwynde was saved.
"And is Chetwynde really to be ours, after all?" he cried, at the end
of a burst of delight, repeating the words, boy-like, over and over
again, as though he could never tire of hearing the words repeated.
After all, one can not wonder at his thoughtlessness and enthusiasm.
Around Chetwynde all the associations of his life were twined. Until
he had joined the regiment he had known no other home; and beyond
this, to this high-spirited youth, in whom pride of birth and name
rose very high, there had been from his earliest childhood a bitter
humiliation in the thought that the inheritance of his ancestors,
which had never known any other than a Chetwynde for its master, must
pass from him forever into alien hands. Hitherto his love for his
father had compelled him to refrain from all expression of his
feelings about this, for he well knew that, bitter as it would be for
him to give up Chetwynde, to his father it would be still worse--it
would be like rending his very heartstrings. Often had he feared that
this sacrifice to honor on his father's part would be more than could
be endured. He had, for his father's sake, put a restraint upon
himself; but this concealment of his feelings had only increased the
intensity of those feelings; the shadow had been gradually deepening
over his whole life, throwing gloom over the sunlight of his joyous
youth; and now, for the first time in many years, that shadow seemed
to be dispelled. Surely there is no wonder that a mere boy should be
reckless of the future in the sunshine of such a golden present.
When General Pomeroy appeared again, Guy seized his hand in a burst
of generous emotion, with his eyes glistening with tears of joy.
"How can I ever thank you," he cried, impetuously, "for what you have
done for us! As you have done by us, so will I do by your
daughter--to my life's end--so help me God!"
And all this time did it never suggest itself to the young man that
there might be a reverse to the brilliant picture which his fancy was
so busily sketching--that there was required from him something more
than money or estate; something, indeed, in comparison with which
even Chetwynde itself was as nothing? No. In his inexperience and
thoughtlessness he would have looked with amazement upon any one who
would have suggested that there might be a drawback to the happiness
which he was portraying before his mind. Yet surely this thing came
most severely upon him. He gave up the most, for he gave himself. To
save Chetwynde, he was unconsciously selling his own soul. He was
bartering his life. All his future depended upon this hasty act of a
moment. The happiness of the mature man was risked by the thoughtless
act of a boy. If in after-life this truth came home to him, it was
only that he might see that the act was irrevocable, and that he must
bear the consequences. But so it is in life.
That evening, after the General had retired, Guy and his father sat
up far into the night, discussing the future which lay before them.
To each of them the future marriage seemed but a secondary event, an
accident, an episode. The first thing, and almost the only thing, was
the salvation of Chetwynde. Those day-dreams which they had cherished
for so many years seemed now about to be realized, and Chetwynde
would be restored to all its former glory. Now, for the first time,
each let the other see, to the full, how grievous the loss would have
been to him.
It was not until after all the future of Chetwynde had been
discussed, that the thoughts of Guy's engagement occurred to his
father.
"But, Guy," said he, "you are forgetting one thing. You must not in
your joy lose sight of the important pledge which has been demanded
of you. You have entered upon a very solemn obligation, which we both
are inclined to treat rather lightly."
"Of course I remember it, Sir; and I only wish it were something
twenty times as hard that I could do for the dear old General,"
answered Guy, enthusiastically.
"But, my boy, this may prove a severe sacrifice in the future,"
said Lord Chetwynde, thoughtfully.
"What? To marry, father? Of course I shall marry some time; and as to
the question of whom, why, so long as she is a lady (and General
Pomeroy's daughter must be this), and is not a fright (I own I hate
ugly women), I don't care who she is. But the daughter of such a man
as that ought to be a little angel, and as beautiful as I could
desire. I am all impatience to see her. By-the-way, how old is she?"
"Ten years old."
"Ten years!" echoed Guy, laughing boisterously. "I need not distress
myself, then, about her personnel for a good many years at any rate.
But, I say, father, isn't the General a little premature in getting
his daughter settled? Talk of match-making mothers after this!"
The young man's flippant tone jarred upon his father. "He had good
reasons for the haste to which you object, Guy," said Lord Chetwynde.
"One was the friendlessness of his daughter in the event of any thing
happening to him; and the other, and a stronger motive (for under any
circumstances I should have been her guardian), was to assist your
father upon the only terms upon which he could have accepted
assistance with honor. By this arrangement his daughter reaps the
full benefit of his money, and he has his own mind at ease. And,
remember, Guy," continued Lord Chetwynde, solemnly, "from this time
you must consider yourself as a married man; for, although no altar
vow or priestly benediction binds you, yet by every law of that Honor
by which you profess to be guided, you are bound _irrevocably_."
"I know that," answered Guy, lightly. "I think you will never find me
unmindful of that tie."
"I trust you, my boy," said Lord Chetwynde, "as I would trust
myself."