"I didn't know there was such a person in the world! I could not come
immediately on Erne's death. I was ill, and I was busy, and I let things
wait for me. Why did no one write?"
"No one knew there was such a person as _you_. At least, no one supposed
it signified."
"Signified! The Rim was my father's as much as it was Disbrowe Erne's
father's. Disbrowe Erne's father entrapped mine, and got the other half.
It was the old story of Esau's pottage, with thrice the villany. My
father made me promise him on his death-bed, that, come fair means, The
Rim should be mine again. I was twenty, Erne was fifty. Fair means came.
Nevertheless, if I had known how things stood, I might have broken the
promise,--who knows?--if at that moment I had happened to possess
anything else in the world but my wardrobe, and sundry debts, and this!"
He opened, as he spoke, a purse that had seen service, and from his
lordly height and supreme indifference, scattered its contents on the
projecting top of the fireplace. They were two old pieces of ringing
Spanish silver, a tiny golden coin of Hindostan, a dime, and a pine-tree
shilling.
"Marlboro' won my last dollar," said he.
"Marlboro'?" said Mrs. Arles.
"What do you know of Marlboro'?"
"He lives over here at Blue Bluffs."
"The Devil he does!"
Mr. St. George Erne glanced at the dark little woman sitting before him.
No smile softened her face, no ray had lighted it; she only
intelligently observed, and monosyllabically answered him. She was a
study,--might also be convenient; the place would be ennuisome; somebody
must sit at the head of his table. He threw his purse into the fire.
"Mrs. Arles," he said, "it is decidedly necessary, that, to conduct my
house, there should be in it a female relative,--an article I do not
possess. Will you take the part, and remain with me on the same terms as
with my Cousin Erne?"
Mrs. Arles had intended to propose such an arrangement herself, and,
after a brief pause for apparent consideration, replied affirmatively,
not thinking it worth while to tell him that the section of the farm,
with its laborers, set apart for her benefit, was a device of Éloise's,
and not one of anterior date.
"Thank you," said Mr. St. George Erne; "that being settled, will you
have the kindness to order rooms prepared for me and my traps?"
Which Mrs. Arles disappeared to do.
It was early the next morning that Éloise knocked at Mrs. Arles's door.
"Good bye!" said she, looking in. "And good bye to The Rim! I don't
suppose his Arch-Imperial Highness, Mr. Earl St. George Erne, will want
to see my face immediately. I've only taken my clothes, as they'd be of
no use to him, and"--
"Where are you going?" inquired Mrs. Arles from among her pillows, as
quietly as if such an exodus were an every-day affair.
"To the Murrays',--till I can find something to do."
"What can you find to do?"
"I haven't the least idea," said Éloise, coming in and sitting down.
"I've thought all night. I can't do anything. I can't teach; I can't
sew; I can't play. I _can_ starve; can't I, Mrs. Arles?"
"You don't know that!"
"Well, I can be a nursery-governess, or I can sing in a chorus; I should
make a very decent _figurante_, or I could go round with baskets.
Perhaps I can get writing. There's one comfort: I sha'n't have anything
more to do with Arabic numerals till the latest day I live, and needn't
know whether two and two make four or five. I may remember, though, that
two from two leave nothing!"
"Yes,--we are all equal to subtraction."
"So, good bye, Mrs. Arles," said Éloise, rising. "We've had pleasant
times together, first and last. I dare say, I've tried you to death.
You'll forgive me, and only remember the peaceful part. If I succeed,
I'll write you. And if I don't, you needn't bother. I'm well and strong,
and seventeen."
Mrs. Arles elaborated a faint smile, kissed Éloise's cheek, told her she
would help her look about for something, rang for Hazel to close the
door the careless girl left ajar as she went springing down-stairs, and
arranged herself anew in the laced pillows that singularly became with
their setting the creamy hue of her tranquil face.
But Éloise was keeping up her spirits by an artificial process that she
meant should last at least as far as the Murrays'. Passing, on her way,
the door of her father's cozy cabinet, the attraction overcame her, she
turned the handle, only for a moment, and looked in. The place was too
full of memories: yonder he had stood, and she remembered what he said;
there he had sat and stroked her hair; here he had every night kissed
her two eyes for pleasant dreams. The door banged behind her, and she
was sitting on the floor sobbing with all her soul.
When the tornado had passed, Éloise rose, smoothed her dress, opened the
window that the morning air might cool her burning eyes, then at length
went to find a servant who would take her trunk to the Murrays', and
passed down the hall.
As she reached the door of the long, antique room where last night's
scene had passed, it opened, and Mr. St. George Erne came out.
"Good morning, Miss Changarnier," said he. "May I speak with you a
moment?"
"Very briefly," said Éloise, loftily, for she was in an entirely
different mood from that in which she had left him the night before.
The corner of a smile curled Mr. St. George Erne's mouth and the brown
moustache above it. Éloise saw it, and was an inch taller. Then St.
George did not smile again, but was quite as regnantly cool and distant
as the Khan of Tartary could be.
"I glanced at the papers to which you referred me last evening," said
he. "As you intimated, I perceive the snarl is hopeless. Were it for
nothing else," he added, casting down the orbs that had just now too
tremulous a light in them, "I should ask you to remain and assist me in
unravelling affairs, for a few days. I intend, so soon as the way shall
be clear, to set off half of the estate to you"--
"Sir, I do not accept gifts from strangers. I will be under no
obligations. I hope to earn my own livelihood. The estate is yours; I
will not receive a penny of it!"
"Pardon me, if I say that this is a rash and ill-considered statement.
There is no reason why you should be unwilling, in the first place, to
see justice done, and, after that, to respect your Adopted father's
wish."
"My father could have wished nothing dishonest. He is best pleased with
me as I am."
"Will it make any difference, if I assure you that the half of the
estate under my plan of management will yield larger receipts than the
whole of it did under your proprietorship?"
"Not the least," said Éloise, with a scornful and incredulous smile.
"You make me very uncomfortable. Let me beg you to take the matter into
consideration. After a few days of coolness, you will perhaps think
otherwise."
"After a thousand years I should think the same. I do not want your
money, Sir. I thank you. And so, good bye."
"Where are you going?"
"Out into the world."
"What are you going to do?"
"That is certainly no affair of yours."
"How much money have you in that little purse?"
She poured its contents down where he had emptied his own purse on the
previous evening, adding to those still remaining there some four or
five small gold-pieces.
"Of course they are yours, Sir. I have no right to them!"
He brushed them indignantly all down together in a heap upon the hearth.
"You sha'n't have them, then!" said he, and ground them with his heel
into the ashes.
"I can sell my mother's jewels!" said she, defiantly.
"I can confiscate them for the balance of the half-year's income of the
estate!"
Éloise turned pale with pride and anger and fear and mastery.
"We are talking very idly," said St. George, then, softening his
falcon's glance. "Pray excuse such savage jesting. I should like to
share my grandfather's estate with you, the adopted child of his elder
grandson. It looks fairly enough, I think."
"Talking very idly. I have assured you that I never will touch it. And
if you want more, here I _swear_ it!"
"Hush! hush!"
"It's done!" said Éloise, exultantly, and almost restored to good-humor
by the little triumph.
"And you won't reconsider? you won't break it? you will not let me beg
you"--
"Never! If that is all you had to say, I shall bid you good-morning."
Mr. St. George was silent for a moment or two.
"I am greatly grieved," said he then. "I have done an evil thing
unconsciously enough, and one for which there is no remedy, it seems.
Until you mentioned your name last night, I was innocent of your
existence. I had, indeed, originally heard of my cousin's educating some
child, but our intercourse was so fragmentary that it made no impression
upon me. I had entirely forgotten that there was such a person in the
world, ungallant as it sounds. Afterwards,--last night, this morning,--I
was so selfish as to imagine that we could each of us be very happy upon
the half of such a property, until, at least, my affairs should right
themselves. I was wrong. Whatever legal steps have been taken shall be
recalled, and I leave you in full possession to-day and forever. 'The
King sall ha' his ain again.'"
"Folderol!" said Éloise, turning her shoulder.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You may go where you please, and let all The Rim do the same,--go to
dust and ashes, if it will! As for me, my hands are washed of it; if it
isn't mine, I will not have it. Now let the thing rest! Besides, Sir,"
said Éloise, with a more gracious air, and forgetting her wicked temper,
"you don't know the relief I feel! how free I am! no more figures! such
a sad weight off me that I could fly! You would be silly to be such a
Don Quixote as you threaten; it would do nobody any good, and would
prove the ruin of all these poor creatures for whom you are now
responsible. Don't you see?" said Éloise, taking a step nearer, and
positively smiling upon him. "It isn't now just as you like,--you have a
duty in the case. And as for me, good morning!"
And Éloise actually offered him her hand.
"One moment. Let me think."
And after her white flag of truce, there came a short cessation of
hostilities.
"Very well," said Mr. St. George Erne at last, looking up, and shaking
his strong shoulders like a Newfoundland dog coming out of the water.
"Let it be. I have, then, one other idea,--in fact, one other condition.
If I yield one thing, it is only right that you should yield another. It
is this. I am entirely unaccustomed to doing my own writing. My script
is illegible, even to myself. My amanuenses, my copyists, in Washington,
have cost me a mint of money. I find there are none of the servants, of
course, who write their names. I cannot afford, either, at present, to
buy a clerk from Charleston. And on the whole, if it would be agreeable
to you, I should be very glad if you would accept a salary,--such salary
as I find convenient,--and remain as my accountant. You will, perhaps,
receive this proposal with the more ease, as Mrs. Arles agrees to occupy
the same position as formerly in the house."
Those horrible accounts! And a master! Who said Marlboro' was a master?
What thing was Earl St. George Erne?--Yet too untaught to teach, too
finely bred to sew, too delicate to labor, perhaps not good enough to
starve,--
A quarter of an hour elapsed in dead silence.
Éloise threw back her head, and grew just a trifle more queenly, as she
answered,--
"I thank you. I will stay, Mr. Erne."
The last word had tripped on her tongue; it had been almost impossible
for her to give to another person her father's name, which she had never
been allowed to wear herself.