A REFUSAL
"Come out on the colonnade; the air is delicious." As he spoke, Hugh drew
his cousin's arm through his, and led the way from the tea-table.
"Irene, how long do you intend to keep me in painful suspense?"
"I am not aware that I have in any degree kept you in suspense."
"You shall not evade me; I have been patient, and the time has come when we
must talk of our future. Irene, dearest, be generous, and tell me when will
you give me, irrevocably, this hand which has been promised to me from your
infancy?"
He took the hand and carried it to his lips, but she forcibly withdrew it,
and, disengaging her arm, said emphatically--
"Never, Hugh. Never."
"How can you trifle with me, Irene? If you could realize how impatient I am
for the happy day when I shall call you my wife, you would be serious, and
fix an early period for our marriage."
"Hugh, why will you affect to misconceive my meaning? I am serious; I have
pondered, long and well, a matter involving your life-long happiness and
mine, and I tell you, most solemnly, that I will never be your wife."
"Oh, Irene! your promise! your sacred promise!"
"I never gave it! On the contrary, I have never failed to show you that my
whole nature rebelled against the most unnatural relation forced upon me."
"My dear Irene, have you, then, no love for me? I have hoped and believed
that you hid your love behind your cold mask of proud silence. You must,
you do love me, my beautiful cousin!"
"You do not believe your own words; you are obliged to know better. I love
you as my cousin, love you somewhat as I love Uncle Eric, love you as the
sole young relative left to me, as the only companion of my lonely
childhood; but other love than this I never had, never can have for you.
Hugh, my cousin, look fearlessly at the unvarnished truth; neither you nor
I have one spark of that affection which alone can sanction marriage."
"Indeed, you wrong me, my worshipped cousin. You are dearer to me than
anything else on earth. I have loved you, and you only, from my boyhood;
you have been a lovely idol from earliest recollection."
"You are mistaken, most entirely mistaken; I am not to be deceived, neither
can you hoodwink yourself. You like me, you love me, in the same quiet way
that I love you; you admire me, perhaps, more than anyone you chance to
know just now; you are partial to my beauty, and, from long habit, have
come to regard me as your property, much in the same light as that in which
you look upon your costly diamond buttons, or your high-spirited horses, or
rare imported pointers. Hugh, I abhor sham! and I tell you now that I never
will be a party to that which others have arranged without my consent."
"Ah! I see how matters stand. Having disposed of your heart, and lavished
your love elsewhere, you shrink from fulfilling the sacred obligations that
make you mine. I little dreamed that you were so susceptible, else I had
not left you feeling so secure. My uncle has not proved the faithful
guardian I believed him when I entrusted my treasure, my affianced bride to
his care."
Bitter disappointment flashed in his face and quivered in his voice,
rendering him reckless of consequences. But though he gazed fiercely at her
as he uttered the taunt, it produced not the faintest visible effect.
"Confess who stands between your heart and mine. I have a right to ask; I
will know."
"You forget yourself, my cousin. Your right is obviously a debatable
question; we will waive it, if you please. I have told you already, and now
I repeat it for the last time, I will not go with you to the altar, because
neither of us has proper affection for the other to warrant such a union;
because it would be an infamous pecuniary contract, revolting to every true
soul. Hugh, cherish no animosity against me; I merit none. Because we
cannot be more, shall we be less than friends?"
She turned to leave him, but he caught her dress, and exclaimed, with more
tenderness than he had ever manifested before--
"Oh, Irene! do not reject me utterly! I cannot relinquish you. Give me one
more year to prove my love--to win yours. If your proud heart is still your
own, may I not hope to obtain it by----"
"No, Hugh! no. As well hope to inspire affection in yonder mute marble
guardians. Forgive me if I pain you, but I must be candid at every hazard."
She pointed to the statues near the door, and went through the greenhouse
to the library, thence to the observatory, expecting, ere long, to be
joined by her father. Gradually the house became quiet, and, oppressed with
the painful sense of coming trouble, she sought her own room just as the
clock struck twelve. Pausing to count the strokes, she saw a light gleaming
through the keyhole of her father's door, opposite her own, and heard the
sound of low but earnest conversation mingled with the restless tramp of
pacing feet. She was powerfully tempted to cross the passage, knock, and
have the ordeal ended then and there; but second thought whispered,
"To-morrow will soon be here; be patient." She entered her room, and,
wearied by the events of the day, fell asleep, dreaming of the new lot in
the cemetery, and the lonely, joyless man who haunted it.
As she adjusted her riding-habit the following morning, and suffered Andrew
to arrange her stirrup, the latter said good-humouredly--
"So, Mas' Hugh got the start of you? It isn't often he beats you."
"What do you mean?"
"He started a while ago, and, if he drives as he generally does, he will
get to his plantation in time for dinner."
"Did father go, too?"
"No, ma'am; only Mas' Hugh in his own buggy."
Returning from her ride, she stood a moment on the front step, looking down
the avenue. The Bermuda terrace blazed in the sunlight like a jewelled
coronal, the billowy sea of foliage, crested by dewy drops, flashed and
dripped as the soft air stirred the ancient trees, the hedges were all
alive with birds and butterflies, the rich aroma of brilliant and countless
flowers, the graceful curl of smoke wreathing up from the valley beyond,
the measured musical tinkle of bells as the cows slowly descended the
distant hills, and, over all, like God's mantling mercy, a summer sky.
Involuntarily she stretched out her arms to the bending heavens and her
lips moved, but no sound escaped to tell what petition went forth to the
All-Father. She went to her room, changed her dress, and joined her father
at the breakfast-table. Half-concealed behind his paper, he took no notice
of her quiet "good morning," seeming absorbed in an editorial. The silent
meal ended, he said, as they left the table--
"I want to see you in the library."
She followed him without comment; he locked the door, threw open the
blinds, and drew two chairs to the window, seating himself immediately in
front of her. For a moment he eyed her earnestly, as if measuring her
strength; and she saw the peculiar sparkle in his falcon eye, which, like
the first lurid flash in a darkened sky, betokened tempests.
"Irene, I was very much astonished to learn the result of an interview
between Hugh and yourself; I can scarcely believe that you were in earnest,
and feel disposed to attribute your foolish words to some trifling motive
of girlish coquetry or momentary pique. You have long been perfectly well
aware that you and your cousin were destined for each other; that I
solemnly promised the marriage should take place as soon as you were of
age; that all my plans and hopes for you centred in this one engagement. I
have not pressed the matter on your attention of late, because I knew you
had sense enough to appreciate your position, and because I believed you
would be guided by my wishes in this important affair. You are no longer a
child; I treat you as a reasonable woman, and now I tell you candidly it is
the one wish of my heart to see you Hugh's wife."
"Father, my happiness will not be promoted by this marriage, and if you are
actuated solely by this motive, allow me to remain just as I am. I should
be most miserable as Hugh's wife; most utterly miserable."
"Why so?"
"Father, my own feelings stand an everlasting barrier to our union. I do
not love Hugh, and--I must tell you, sir, that I think it wrong for cousins
to marry."
"You talk like a silly child; I thought you had more sense. Your objections
I have listened to; they are imaginary and trifling; and I ask you, as a
father has a right to ask his child, to waive these ridiculous notions, and
grant the only request I have ever made of you. Tell me, my daughter, that
you will consent to accept your cousin, and thereby make me happy."
He stooped and kissed her forehead, watching her countenance eagerly.
"Oh, father! do not ask this of me! Anything else! anything else."
"Answer me, my darling child; give me your promise."
His hold was painful, and an angry pant mingled with the pleading tones.
She raised her head and said slowly--
"My father, I cannot."
He threw her hand from him, and sprang up.
"Ingrate! do you mean to say that you will not fulfil a sacred
engagement?--that you will break an oath given to the dead."
"I do not hold myself bound by the oaths of another, though he were twice
my father. I am responsible for no acts but my own. I, only, can give
myself away. Why should you wish to force this marriage on me? Father, do
you think that a woman has no voice in a matter involving her happiness for
life?"
"Oh! I suspected that your cursed obstinacy would meet me here, as well as
elsewhere in your life. You have been a source of trouble and sorrow from
your birth; but the time has come to end all this. You know that I never
menace idly, and if you refuse to hear reason, I will utterly disinherit
you, though you are my only child. Ponder it well. You have been raised in
luxury, and taught to believe yourself one of the wealthiest heiresses in
the state; contrast your present position, your elegant home, your
fastidious tastes gratified to the utmost; contrast all this, I say, with
poverty--imagine yourself left in the world without one cent! Think of it!
think of it! My wealth is my own, mark you, and I will give it to whom I
please, irrespective of all claims of custom. Now the alternative is fully
before you, and on your own head be the consequences. Will you accede to my
wishes, as any dutiful child should, or will you deliberately incur my
everlasting displeasure? Will you marry Hugh?"
"Father, I will not marry Hugh, so help me, God!".
Silence fell between them for several moments; something in that fixed,
calm face of his child awed him, but it was temporary and, with a bitter
laugh, he exclaimed--
"Oh, very well! Your poverty be upon your own head in coming years, when
the grave closes over me. At my death every cent of my property passes to
Hugh, and with it my name, and between you and me, as an impassable gulf,
lies my everlasting displeasure. Understand that, though we live here in
one house, as father and child, I do not, and will not, forgive you. You
have defied me; now eat the bitter fruit of your disobedience."
"I have no desire to question the disposition of your wealth; if you prefer
to give it to my cousin, I am willing, perfectly willing. I enjoy wealth as
well as most people do, I suppose; but poverty does not frighten me half so
much as a loveless marriage. Give Hugh your fortune, if you wish, but,
father! father! let there be no estrangement between you and me. I can bear
everything but your displeasure; I dread nothing so much as the loss of
your love. Oh, father! forgive a disappointment which my conscience would
not permit me to avert. Forgive the pain which, God knows, I would not have
caused you if I could have avoided it without compromising principle. Oh,
my father! my father! let not dollars and cents stand between you and your
only child. I ask nothing now but your love."
She drew nearer, but he waved her off, and said with a sneering laugh--
"Away with all such cant! I gave you the choice, and you made your
selection with your eyes fully open. Accept poverty as your doom, and with
it my eternal displeasure. I intend to make you suffer for your obstinacy.
You shall find, to your sorrow, that I am not to be trifled with, or my
name is not Leonard Huntingdon. Now go your own way, and find what a thorny
path you have made for yourself."
He pointed to the door as he had done years before, when the
boarding-school decree went forth, and without remonstrance she left him,
and sat down on the steps of the greenhouse. Soon after, the sound of his
buggy wheels told her that he had gone to town, and, leaning her cheek on
her hand, she recalled the painful conversation from first to last. That he
meant all he had threatened, and more, she did not question for an instant,
and, thinking of her future, she felt sick at heart. But with the shame and
sorrow came also a thrill of joy; she had burst the fetters: she was free.
Wounded affection bled freely, but brain and conscience exulted in the
result.