A HOPELESS SUITOR
RALPH made good use of his time at the Hall. He was in some respects so
manly, in others such a thorough child, but in every way so outspoken,
that not only Kathleen but Mrs. Ellicott and Geraldine were charmed
with the boy.
Even Mountain thawed when the little fellow visited the stables, and
made some knowing remarks about the animals he saw there.
"He might ha' been his own father by the way he reckoned up the
horses," said Mountain afterwards. "And he is a little gentleman in his
ways. If he only hadn't got a father at all, I'd never mind how often
he was in and out here."
When Aylmer Matheson paid his next visit to the Hall, he was
entertained, if not gratified, by an account of Ralph's sayings and
doings. He heard Kathleen say that she must really ask the boy now and
then, he was so delightfully bright and original; he had given them all
something to talk and laugh over after he left them.
"You would have been charmed with the little fellow, Aylmer. You must
help me to be kind to him."
What could Aylmer say? How could he object to Kathleen inviting a mere
child, because of his father's antecedents? He knew that to suggest the
exclusion of the boy would probably raise a storm of indignation on
the part of his ward, and would appear to most people ungenerous and
tyrannical. Yet Hetty Stapleton's words of warning were ringing in his
ears, and he was profoundly convinced of their wisdom.
"He will woo Kathleen most effectively by means of his boy, of whom she
is very fond."
It would be almost impossible to preserve the same distance between
the Hall and Monk's How, if Kathleen made a pet of Ralph under her own
roof. A mere outdoor intimacy, which allowed John Torrance to join her
whenever they chanced to meet, would be worse still.
Aloud, Aylmer said, "I shall be only too glad to help you, Kathleen, in
any plan for the boy's real good."
All the same, his mind was full of fears, which he vainly strove to
stifle, and he wished that any one but himself filled the post of
guardian to Kathleen. She was wonderfully sweet and kind in her manner
to him that evening, asking his advice even about what seemed purely
feminine matters, and promptly acting upon it, even where it did
not accord with her own ideas. So stirred was Aylmer by the tender
graciousness of Kathleen's manner, that he gave himself no further time
for self-questioning. Hetty Stapleton's counsel had encouraged hope,
his own doubts and scruples were put aside, and, availing himself of an
unexpected opportunity, Aylmer told his ward the story of his love.
"I know not when I began to love you, dear," he said. "It seems to me
that I cannot look back upon a time, since you were the merest slip
of a girl, when you were not first and dearest of all to me. Though
you were so much younger, and I grown to manhood, I never pictured a
home for myself in which you were not the 'angel of the house.' Your
father loved me, Kathleen, and gave me the place a brother might have
filled, had you possessed one. Let me finish, dear Kathleen;" for the
girl would have interrupted. "Hear my story out, and then give me your
answer."
Then Aylmer told her how, whilst longing to be faithful to the trust
reposed in him, it had raised a certain barrier between her and himself
which had kept him silent until now, though he had longed to speak.
"I have been afraid that the world would misjudge me, and say that the
guardian was selfish, and scheming to keep his beautiful ward and her
wealth for himself. And yet, dear, you will believe me when I say that
to me my sweet Kathleen, with only herself to bestow, would give me
what is worth more than all the riches of the world, if she would put
her dear hand in mine and bid me keep it."
"I wish I could—oh, how I wish I could!" said Kathleen. "It is dreadful
to me to say a word that will grieve you, but I have never thought of
you in that way. I have been trying so much of late to show you that
I cared for you as if you were my own dear, good brother, and many,
many times when I have pained you I have suffered more myself than you
have done, though I have seemed hard and wilful, for you were always so
patient. When I was a child, Aylmer, I used to think God had given you
to me for a brother, because I had none of my own. Be my brother still,
and try to forget."
Kathleen raised her beautiful eyes to Aylmer's, streaming with tears.
Her hand was in his, for he had taken it, and she made no effort to
withdraw it. Aylmer's clasp had been to her an assurance of safety ever
since the stalwart youth had made her his child-playmate. Her look of
distress went to his heart and appealed to his unselfish nature, whilst
it caused him the bitterest pain and disappointment.
"I have been as a brother hitherto, dear Kathleen," he replied, "but I
have always hoped to fill a yet dearer place in your affection. Now I
reproach myself for abruptness. I have told my story too suddenly. Let
me leave it with you unanswered for a while. Take what time you choose;
I will have patience, and trust that when you have examined your own
heart more closely, you may find me occupying more than a brother's
share of it."
Kathleen shook her head. "Better answer now, Aylmer. The waiting would
be trying to you, and very hard for me, because I should all the while
be grieving at the thought of pain to come. You are so good and true.
You have been brother, friend, guardian all in one, but in all my life
I have never thought of you as you think of me, and I know I shall not
change in this respect. I wish I felt differently, but, apart from such
love as you ask, I have given you the best I had to bestow. There is no
one whom I would place as friend and brother side by side with you. Let
me tell you, too, that I know you would be glad to take me as a poor
girl rather than as a rich heiress, and that I am certain, whenever you
do choose a wife worthy of you, she will be one of the happiest women
in the world."
"I shall not be likely to choose again, Kathleen. Mine will be a
life-long love for you."
"Do not say that, Aylmer, except in the sense of remaining still my
best and truest friend."
"I can never be less than that, dear Kathleen, never do less than the
best in my power to promote your happiness, at any cost to myself. May
God bless you, dear, and help me to bear my sorrow patiently!"
He touched her hand with his lips, then left the room and the house,
without waiting to see Mrs. Ellicott and Geraldine again.
To neither of these did Kathleen repeat what had passed between her
and Aylmer. "It is his secret, and must be held sacred," she said to
herself. "Besides, there is only Ger that I make a girl confidante of,
and I could not tell her that he cares for me most of all. Perhaps
he will learn some day to think of her as he now does of me. That is
the one bit of comfort to be had out of the whole thing—the hope that
through this present sorrow a great happiness may come to Ger in the
future."
Not for one moment did Kathleen indulge in a feeling of triumph on
account of her conquest. Wilful she was, but far above any littleness
of that kind. She would have had Aylmer forget his disappointment and
her refusal, had this been possible. Still, in heart she could not
altogether silence the feeling of pride and joy at the thought of being
the choice of one so good as her guardian.
"My father would have wished me to accept him," she thought; and it
gave her a feeling of pain that she should go contrary to what she knew
would have been his wish.
"But he would have put my happiness before even Aylmer's, and would
never have desired my lips to say 'Yes' when my heart said 'No.'"
A few dull days followed—dull both in and out-of-doors. Grey skies,
rare glimpses of sunshine, alternate drizzle and downpour, made up
weather neither fit for walking nor driving. Aylmer was from home. He
had talked of accepting an invitation to join a shooting party at a
friend's place some fifty miles away; and when he sent a few lines to
say that he should be absent for a week or more, they all concluded
he had done so, as he gave no address. Only Kathleen guessed why he
had left home so suddenly, and she missed him more than she cared to
acknowledge to herself, whilst she dreaded his return. There would
never, she thought, be the same happy, unrestrained intercourse that
there had been in the past. Ever before them both would come the memory
of pain inflicted by the one, and of rejected affection and hopes
crushed on the other.
Kathleen thought the week which followed the longest she had ever
spent. The weather which was so trying to her, was equally so to her
neighbours, and visitors were few in a country place where friends'
houses lay somewhat wide apart.
A change came at last, and with it Kathleen's spirits began to rise
again. She was happier, too, after Aylmer's return, for he had bravely
schooled himself to meet her as of old, and to reserve his regrets,
or at least the manifestation of them, for lonely hours at home. Even
there he did not sit down and give himself up to unavailing sorrow, but
sought strength from God to endure his trial, and found comfort in the
thought of that divine love which never faileth.
Aylmer had just one confidante—Hetty Stapleton. As he had already told
her what was in his heart, so now he acquainted her with the downfall
of his plans and the extinction of his hopes.
"You will think I was wrong to speak so soon," he said, "but Kathleen's
kindness carried me out of myself, and, shall I own it? your own
suggestion as to the use that John Torrance would make of Ralph, urged
me to try my fortune, lest I should lose by delay what I would have
exercised any amount of patience to win. With the boy going in and out
at the Hall, Kathleen charmed with him and bent on doing him good, the
lad himself such a winsome little fellow, and so loyal to his father,
I foresaw that the thin end of the wedge had been inserted. A little
while, and it would be impossible to keep John Torrance in his present
position."
"I understand the difficulty, and I do not blame you, though I wish
you had not spoken so soon. What can I do to warn Kathleen? If I only
dare tell her what I know, and yet I should hate to do it. She might
put a wrong construction on my speaking, for most people hereabouts
thought at one time that John Torrance was paying attentions—I will not
say to me, he has far too good taste for that, but to my money. He was
terribly embarrassed just then, and would have swallowed any pill if it
were sufficiently gilded. He found another way out of his difficulties,
but he paid a high price for it, as my brother Gerard happens to know."
"If any one could say a warning word to Kathleen with a chance of
success, you would be that one, Hetty. She likes and trusts you, and
your good sense and tact would enable you to choose the right time."
"And that is not the present. Kathleen knows that we are good friends,
and she would regard a word against John Torrance as suggestive of
advocacy on your behalf. It will be very difficult for me to speak at
all."
"You will understand, Hetty," said Aylmer, "that all I desire is
Kathleen's happiness. If she could have loved me as I love her, I
should have regarded her as a precious gift from God, and cherished
her as such. This cannot be; but, all the same, I will leave no stone
unturned to save her from herself, and from harm at another's hand. But
no one must plead for me with her. I could not bear that."
"And you do not for a moment suppose that I could be so wanting in
delicacy, or of true friendship to yourself as to dream of such a
thing," replied Hetty stoutly.
"I am afraid I did think you capable of going almost any length that
was not unwomanly, to help one whom you blessed with your friendship.
You are so staunch always."
Hetty blushed with pleasure, but re-asserted her own views on the
subject.
"That would have been unwomanly, in the higher sense of the word,
though very woman-like in another, for the sex is very impulsive, you
know, and apt to damage a cause by mistaken kindness. Trust me, Aylmer.
I will never injure yours."
"I do trust you. Now let me ask if you have heard the last rumour as to
Captain Torrance's pecuniary position? It is whispered that before long
he will have to yield possession of Monk's How to his creditors, and
that everything is virtually gone now."
"I heard this before I left town. At least it was said that he was
about to make an arrangement of the kind, and that unless he married a
rich girl, or had another fortune left to him, he would leave the old
home of his family a penniless man, at a given time."
"When will that come to pass, I wonder? It is dreadful to think of,
especially when Ralph is considered. His father will have robbed him of
everything."
"When? In a little over a year from this time; and with all my heart I
wish he were gone from Hollingsby now, never to return. We would take
care of Ralph amongst us, or let Kathleen adopt him if she chose, and
John Torrance out of the way, all would go well," said Hetty, in a tone
that showed how much in earnest she was.
"I would rather think of John Torrance aroused to a sense of his
responsibilities, starting to retrieve his fallen fortunes, and proving
yet a wise as well as an affectionate father to that boy," replied
Aylmer.
"What a sanguine nature yours must be! In the first place, there is
no washing white, yet there is a better chance of doing that than of
changing John Torrance. Then about the fallen fortunes. How would he
begin to retrieve them? He has no profession, though he might perhaps
turn jockey. He has no capital, and if he had, would he not be more
likely to try to increase it by gambling than in any other way? He is
just a hopeless black sheep. Nobody can help him, I tell you."
In Aylmer's mind was the higher thought: "There is One mighty to
save to the uttermost, though human friends despair, or have become
indifferent." But he did not say this to Hetty. He only replied—
"It is possible some friend might be found to help Torrance, if he were
really inclined to make a start in the right direction."
"And I believe you would be foolish enough to do it, Aylmer Matheson.
It would be like your Quixotic notions, and you would be rewarded as
you deserved to be," said Hetty, indignant at the very thought.
"You judge my motives with your usual charity, dear friend. You are
only just in thinking that there is no man to whom I would not lend a
hand to help him upwards, if he were in earnest in wishing to rise."
"If you are desirous of devoting your means to John Torrance's
service, he will find you plenty of opportunities. Perhaps you would
prefer giving him Westhill and its appurtenances in the meanwhile. An
extra fortune will not long encumber John Torrance," said Hetty with
considerable warmth.
"Not quite that," replied Aylmer, "though I would sacrifice something
for Kathleen's sake. If Torrance were worthy of her, I could bear my
own disappointment, and feel rewarded by the knowledge that she was
happy."
"You are simply too good for this world, Aylmer, but a Quixotic goose
all the same, though I like you the better for a nobility that I could
not imitate. Were I a man, in your shoes, for instance, now, I should
set all my wits to work to circumvent John Torrance and win Kathleen in
spite of him. Aye, and I would do it somehow. I cannot think that it is
manly to accept one rebuff as a final defeat, or to hold out open arms
and a full purse to your opponent, to furnish him with new weapons to
turn against yourself. Think better of it, my friend, on all accounts."
Aylmer did think, but it was not of Hetty's advice. He thought of the
Master he professed to serve, the one perfect Man who, though He was
equal with God, "made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the
form of a servant"—for what?
Thinking of His blameless life of good-doing and His death of
sacrifice, Aylmer Matheson might well feel that he would lose no
manliness that was worth the name, if only he followed in the footsteps
of his Divine Lord, "the Man of sorrows."