CONCLUSION.
Mina Ivraine and Malcolm Frazer did get, not quite one hundred and sixty
thousand pounds, but that amount less one third between them, which sum
sufficed to enable the latter to come home in magnificent nabob style
from India, and start as a grand sort of modern chieftain in the
Highlands, where—experience and sorrow having taught him many valuable
lessons—he led an almost useful life, aided in his good endeavours and
exhorted to economy and unselfishness by—what, in other years, he might
not have deserved—about one of the best wives that ever existed,
youngest sister to Mrs. Henry Ivraine, and possessing, if not quite all
that lady’s virtues, at least an abundant share of her own.
And the portion belonging to Mina paid off the mortgages on Paradise,
and left a very sufficient overplus besides.
It is true, there was an immense difficulty about undoing the knot Mrs.
Merapie had never possessed any legal right to tie; there was such
swearing and counter-swearing, such producing of evidence and summoning
of witnesses, and taking of oaths and procuring of certificates, and
making of affidavits, and raising of objections, as drove Colin almost
frantic and kept Mr. Twining and all other parties concerned, either
directly or indirectly, in a perpetual state of anything rather than
pleasurable excitement.
As, however, you, dear reader, are not a juryman called to decide upon
the merits of the case, but simply a very patient auditor, respectfully
solicited to listen to the result of a long-protracted trial, hearkened
to by three judges, and fought over by gentlemen in huge wigs and silk
gowns to the number of nine, suffice it to say, that the matter was
finally brought to a conclusion, about a year after Mina’s return to
Paradise, by a decision in favour of the plaintiffs, Ivraine and
another, this latter word representing Malcolm Frazer.
Then there was a warrant granted for the apprehension of Edward Maxwell,
alias Alfred Westwood, on a charge of wilful murder; but, as no evidence
of any kind could be adduced against him, and as he declined to throw
the least light on the subject himself, that affair fell to the ground;
and, as regarded the next, his apprehension for the old bank affair, he
first procured bail and then, gathering the bulk of his property
together, fled from England, leaving his sureties to pay the piper. They
did so, and some people were so ill-natured as to say they lost nothing
by the transaction, that it was altogether a preconcerted affair, and
that, if they appeared to be great sufferers in public, they were very
resigned martyrs and willing gainers in private.
So ill-natured people said; but then what is the use of repeating or
believing one half the things which contribute to form the curious and
very rarely instructive _mélange_, styled in conversation, “topics of
the day.”
After a while, the whole business was forgotten; and it was only when
some wandering Londoner casually informed a friend that he had seen that
fellow “Westwood” in Milan, Naples, Vienna, Madrid, or Stockholm, that
the story of his life was alluded to; but, as hath already been stated
in this tale, no one ever managed to get a near sight of the history of
his existence and read it through from beginning to end. In flying from
a prison and from a wife, it is true, glimpses were caught of him at
uncertain intervals, but the places where he was seen were so wide
apart, and the characters he assumed were so different, that it was
impossible to follow his track with any degree of certainty; so, in due
course, his wife discovered, for she tried to do so. In the prime of
life, or rather when its evening shadows were just beginning to steal
across his path, he started off a wanderer on the face of the earth:
just at the period at which he had mentally intended, years previously,
to retire, buy an estate, and get into capital country society, he
commenced a sort of rich vagabond fugitive career; and, if he had been
at all given to literature, a strange wild medley of falsehood and fact
would have been presented to the public of his varied adventures.
Like the Russian spy, of whom most have heard, whom many have met, he
was everywhere,—in the best places, amongst the best company; he was
successively entertained as a _milor_ in Italy, as a _millionaire_ in
Spain, as a _savant_ in Germany, as a man of wit and fashion in France.
He produced quite a _furore_ in America, crossed thence to an island in
the Pacific, and enacted the part of king there for a period;
subsequently he gained the confidence of an Indian prince, and lorded it
in eastern pomp till he wearied of his station, or, what is more
probable, deemed his neck in jeopardy. His finishing exploit was turning
Mussulman, and obtaining great favour in the eyes of a Sultan of Turkey,
during whose reign he lived in splendour, surrounded by the gorgeous
magnificence of that luxuriant clime, steeped in perfumes, buried in
divans, laden with jewels, admired, honoured, consulted—a man of weight
and esteem and consideration, a person whose frown was to be dreaded,
whose smile was to be courted,—till his patron, the Sultan, died; but
immediately consequent on that event, the favourite disappeared: whether
he were poisoned, assassinated, bowstrung, or otherwise privately and
effectually removed from a public sphere of action, never accurately
transpired. Some imagined he fled to other lands, joined the Arabs under
the shade of the date trees of the desert, or contrived to gain the
confidence of the tribes of Tartary; whilst others maintained that the
new Sultan put him _hors de combat_, and by some brief means stopped his
wandering feet from further travel for ever.
How it was I know not, one thing alone being certain—that his end, like
his life, was a mystery. Where he was born none could tell, where his
body rests no friend or enemy can say: he disappeared. These two words
express the sum total of the information which ever was gained about
him, and it ought to prove satisfactory to all disinterested parties,
when, on the strength of it, his widow entered for the third time the
state matrimonial, and espoused an old gentleman whose housekeeper she
had long been, “ever since the entire loss of our fortune,” as she
always piteously stated, though Mina and Malcolm had, out of regard to
their uncle’s memory, agreed to allow her an annuity, and provided
handsomely for her son, who, by way of evincing his gratitude for their
liberality, first wrote a squib against Sir Ernest and Lady Ivraine,
then induced a friend, the editor of a country newspaper, to publish it,
and finally denied all knowledge of the transaction, when an action for
libel was threatened.
Henry Ivraine’s son never succeeded to the baronetcy, but in after
times—not so very long after the death of his father either—within ten
happy years, there was a Governor-General of India created Lord Ivraine,
the first of that title, in consideration of important military and
civil services; and that Governor-General was Henry, his father’s
youngest born, the favourite son of the miser Sir Ernest,—Henry, who
would not wait for a fortune, but went boldly forth and won it.
And much he did win truly, reader,—not merely wealth, position, renown,
respect, admiration, but the love of a woman, who walked by his side
till grey hairs shaded the temples of both, and who, seated in an old
ancestral hall, told, in the calm, lovely evening of her days, to her
children’s children, the story of her husband’s early struggles, his
brave resolves and their great fulfilment.
And the miser’s eldest born, Ernest Ivraine? “Mina,” he said, one glad
spring morning, to his wife, as she stood beside him on the terrace
commanding a dreary prospect over the now unencumbered estate, its
swamps, its trees, its morasses, and its streams, “Mina, should you like
to buy Glenfiord and go back to Scotland?”
She made no reply, but looked first over the mournful view from Paradise
and then wistfully into her husband’s face. He knew she was contrasting
the two places, the present and the remembered, thinking of the wild
scenery and the bracing air and the rocks and the hills and the streams
and the valleys and the moors of her fatherland.
So was he, for he had lately made a second journey thither, and the
beauty of that land had been a dream of his soul ever since. Their
feelings and wishes were identical: he read that fact in her face and
proceeded,
“An experimental farmer, with—I think—more money in his pockets than
brains in his head, wants to take a long lease of Paradise, and, as I
knew of no other house you would like so well, I agreed with the
executors of the late General Warmond for the purchase of that romantic
place, where, if you choose, we may settle quietly down and live
happily!”
Choose, how could she but choose to go whither her husband wished,
whither her own desires tended, whither happiness followed their
footsteps—where content and peace and confidence dwelt for ever more?
Once again children bounded over the lawns, a light pleasure-boat glided
across the loch; the daughter of a Frazer was mistress of her father’s
former home, and Sir Ernest, her stern melancholy husband, shook at last
the gloom from his soul, cleared the shadow from his brow, welcomed
friend and relative cordially to his hospitable board, grasped Allan
Frazer’s hand in friendship, and behaved with wonderful politeness
towards the laird’s accomplished wife.
He and she never came together,—they never saw the same people at the
same time, they never travelled in company.
There was no actual separation, no investigation in the ecclesiastical
courts about incompatibility of temper, no suit instituted for alimony,
no stating of mutual grievances, no catering for the public amusement by
an _exposé_ of private unhappiness; but, whenever she went to
Craigmaver, he shifted his quarters to Edinburgh; when she came to
Edinburgh, he took horse for Craigmaver: it was a quietly understood
matter amongst their dependants that Mr. and Mrs. Frazer did not “sort,”
and genteeler intimates went a step further and asserted “Craigmaver
hated her.” So nobody ever dreamed of inviting the husband and wife
together, even to a State dinner party; and thus it chanced, whenever
Cecilia came to see her “dear Mina” in May, Allan deferred his visit
until June.
So they managed their matrimonial routes; and a much more agreeable mode
both discovered it to be than squabbling at home in Edinburgh, or
silently sulking over a _tête-à-tête_ Highland breakfast.
“She wears me out,” Allan once said; “I cannot be tormented with her;”
and in bodily presence he never was.
They had their own separate establishments, servants, pursuits,
pleasures, acquaintances, friends,—a vast deal better arrangement than
wrangling and scolding and making every mortal about them miserable, I
admit; yet still not, on the whole, a very desirable method of running
in matrimonial harness.
Allan Frazer was not a very happy man on the strength of it, at all
events; the most peaceful portions of his unsatisfactory existence were
those he spent in his cousin’s home at Glenfiord, riding over the hills
with her husband, singing old melodies for them in the summer twilight,
teaching the children of the southern gentleman all kinds of northern
lore, and telling them about the Highlands, where he had as beautiful a
place as Glenfiord, and was called by hundreds of honest tongues, in a
broad Gallic accent, “the laird.”
He flung aside literature and its cares, forgot matrimony and its
sorrows, pined not for youth and its hopes whilst he remained amongst
them. “I grow almost young and happy again whilst here,” he said to
Ernest Ivraine; and Ernest wished he could stay there always, for the
baronet grew at length to like him so much, that he finally declared,
next to his wife, children, and brother, there was no one in the world
in whose joys and sorrows, pleasures and troubles, he took so near and
deep an interest as in those of Allan Frazer,—whose wife never altered,
save that she changed from an unamiable, beautiful young woman to a
spiteful, faded, middle-aged one, who, fortunately for the comfort of
all parties, died before her son Charles—as he had been called, after
General Warmond—married Eliza, the baronet’s eldest daughter, she who
kept Mina’s heart from despair in those dreary days at Paradise.
That marriage cemented the friendship between the two families by a
stronger tie of relationship than had previously existed; and, after it,
peace came to the soul of Allan Frazer, and the evening of his life was
brighter than its morning; and the old Laird of Craigmaver, dwelling
with his son and his son’s wife in that beautiful home, the last
possession of his clan, looking forth on the hills and the mountains,
the lake and the pines, was happier than the young laird, surrounded by
luxury and wealth and pomp and fashion, had ever been. He thanked God
for the daughter wherewith, in his later days, He had blessed him; and
well he might, so Miss Caldera affirmed;—Miss Caldera, whom Mina had
taken one day, soon after her arrival at Glenfiord, to see a little
_bijou_ of a cottage, surrounded by a perfect wilderness of flowers,
commanding one of the fairest views in Scotland. Her former pupil led
her through the few rooms it contained, along the grassy garden paths,
and then back again into the house.
“Do you remember, old friend,” said Mina, “once telling me you had a
wish, and my answering that, if I were rich, it should soon be in
reality? About the greatest pleasure I ever felt in my life was
superintending the altering and furnishing of this place, which you
won’t be too proud to accept from your once wayward Mina: it’s a very
small gift from me to you, who were a mother at one period, a friend,
sister, adviser always; I hope you will not gauge my love for you by the
size of the house I ask you to live in.”
And Mina put her arms about Miss Caldera, who could only weep in reply;
and tears being the most contagious of all feminine disorders, Mina took
to weeping also, and they jointly cried the matter out in that sunny
little drawing-room, for the strangest of all conceivable reasons,
because they were so happy.
Miss Caldera did not live much at the cottage, however: she spent most
of her time at Glenfiord; but still that place was her retreat, her
home, her pride: she was at last mistress of a house, possessed of
property, buried in flowers, poetry, romance, content, tranquillity. And
although, till the end of her days, she persisted in asserting to Mina,
that “marrying for a home was a judicious step, and not a bad thing
after all,” yet it was remarked that, from the period of Mina’s wedding,
she never took upon herself the responsibility of advising any one to
marry or give in marriage; and when Mina, then still a pretty woman,
though verging a little into the sere and yellow leaf of middle age,
asked her confidentially what she thought of the proposed match between
Charlie Frazer and Eliza Ivraine, the lady promptly responded,
“Match them yourself, my dear, or leave it alone, whichever you think
best, but ask me nothing about it, for I vowed, after your affair, I
would never meddle in such matters more. I know now what a marriage may
produce, what yours might have produced, what I once expected it would,
but what I can never feel sufficiently thankful it did not.”
“And what was that?” Mina demanded, though she knew perfectly well, none
better.
“A lifetime of misery to the parties married, a lifetime of regret to
all who advised the step,” responded Miss Caldera; “and you know, Mina,
as well as I, a period was when your happiness hung just suspended by a
thread: fate touched the fortunate scale, however, and you are what you
are; but had it been otherwise——. Ah!” she added, rising, “I can
scarcely bear to contemplate that chance, even now; and it was a likely
enough one then, far more likely, I confess, than this.”
* * * * *
Under the shadow of the Glenfiord roof-tree a home was made for a
white-haired man, whom Mina Ivraine loved as the sole tie which
connected the past and the present, as the last survivor of old times.
It was a lovely sight to see how her children were wont to nestle around
“good Colin,” as they styled the old Highlander, who, leaning on his
staff, surveyed the noisy group with a proud, satisfied expression, as
if the last wish of his soul were gratified in seeing the wild, happy,
beautiful, kind-hearted descendants of his dear Captain Allan, giving to
that glorious scene all it wanted to make it perfect,—life, animation,
the hum and stir and joy and excitement of careless, thoughtless, happy,
youthful existence.
But, at length, he went to his long home also. After he had been ailing
for a considerable period, one evening a message came to inform Mina he
was dying. She sprang up from the dining-table where the tidings reached
her, and, with the impetuosity of other days, with the unchecked sorrow
of her childhood’s vehement morn, rushed to his bedside.
“Oh! no, no, Colin,” she cried, “you must not die, I cannot do without
you; this will break my heart: we cannot spare you yet.”
The aged man turned his glazed eyes on her troubled features, and a
faint smile quivered around his mouth as he said,
“Dinna hinder me, Miss Mina dear, for I am going hame,—hame to God, who
sent me here, who ca’s me hence. It is His will: tak’ patience, Miss
Mina, tak’ patience, for we will a’ meet again in heaven.”
And Mina Ivraine did take patience at last,—she hushed her sobs, she
subdued her grief, she closed the eyelids of as true, good and honest a
man as ever existed; and then she walked quietly to her own chamber,
thinking about his latest words and the calm tenor of his entire life.
In the churchyard beneath, under the shadow of Ben Lomond, near to that
loch which he always believed to be the finest and the loveliest in the
world, they laid him tenderly and peacefully down to sleep, and the
descendants of that, the most faithful retainer of the proud old Frazer
clan, point with honest exultation to a monument which bears this
inscription,
“Erected to the memory of Colin Saunders, by his friends Mina and Ernest
Ivraine and Malcolm Frazer.”
It spoke volumes for the man who left such friends behind him. Dear
reader, may we be able to do as much, according to our means, for some
on the earth as he did for them!
THE END.
LONDON:
Printed by SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15, Old Bailey.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Page Changed from Changed to
32 “None!” slowly repeated the old “None!” slowly repeated the old
man, griping man, gripping
● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.