But most the proud Honoria fear’d th’ event,
And thought to her alone the vision sent:
Her guilt presents to her distracted mind
Heaven’s justice.
--Dryden.
If Flora Wilton’s lovely countenance had so remarkable an effect upon
the Duke of St. Allborne, and specially upon the heart of the Honorable
Lester Vane, it is very certain that the persons of those gentlemen
made no such impression either upon Flora or even Lotte. Both were so
embarrassed at their sudden intrusion, as it appeared, upon the privacy
of the party in the adjoining garden, that they hurried away without
taking particular notice of the individuals composing it.
But both Flora and Lotte had a floating impression that one of the
gentlemen there had large, deep, dark eyes; and that he used them too
unreservedly and unscrupulously. Flora had also an idea of a fair,
young, gentle face, the soft eyes of which regarded her with tenderness
and admiration.
Beyond this, nothing was retained in their minds of the persons they had
encountered. Flora only laughingly suggested that she should scarcely
attempt again to observe her neighbour’s garden from that point of view.
Both girls had quite overlooked Malcolm Grahame; but if the Duke and
Lester Vane were struck by the beauty of Flora’s face, so was Malcolm
by that of Lotte. It was precisely of that order of prettiness which
especially commended itself to his taste. Selfish and proud as his
mother, silly and conceited too, there was not much space in his heart
for affection; nevertheless, passion occupied a tolerably large space,
and the gratification of it was a first consideration with him.
In his eyes Lotte was the “prettiest” girl he had yet seen, and to call
the prettiest girl in the kingdom his was an ambition. He did not count
the cost even to the poor girl who was to be captured and wear his
chains. He had found satins and jewels, and golden gifts achieve
wonders; he believed there was no limit to their efficacy in conquering
a woman’s scruples, and he had the strongest possible conviction that,
if employed without reserve or hesitation, the most severely rigid
propriety would succumb to their influence.
To be smitten with the face of Lotte was to desire to obtain her. He
viewed it as a question of time and money, and he made a memorandum in
his note-book to that effect.
Lotte, thus favoured by his admiration and his intentions, had not
observed him; if she had, she would have forgotten him immediately
afterwards.
No; her thoughts were employed upon the future. Under the care and
kindness of Flora, she had in one short week won back more strength
and health than she would have done in a month under the roof of
Mrs. Bantom, or such an one as she could herself afford. It must be
remembered, too, that her mind was at peace in respect to the present,
and hopeful as regarded the future.
One week longer she decided to stay beneath the roof of her good friend,
and then into the world again, that she might eat the bread for which
her own hands had laboured successfully. It was in vain that Flora
endeavoured to change her determination; her self-dependent nature and
free spirit recoiled from being indebted even to Flora for a home. So
long as she had strength to work, and was able to obtain it, she would
support herself until she became the wife of the man she had yet to see
and love, and then if able to keep her, she would accept the luxury the
wedded state might afford her; if not, they would work together, and
together win a living for both.
She did not refuse to accept from Flora a complete stock of clothes, nor
the loan of a small sum of money to start with, nor did she ridiculously
refuse her profferred assistance in procuring an apartment in a
respectable dwelling; nor when Flora urged upon her to employ her
abilities upon some description of needlework less slavish and better
paid than cap-front making, did she refuse to make the effort, or
hesitate to accept work from a juvenile clothing warehouse, obtained
through the influence of Flora’s new dressmaker.
Her spirit of independence was neither fastidious nor affected; it was
genuine, sincere, and directed her along a path that, while by her open,
ingenuous, cheerful, loving disposition, she gained the affection of all
who knew her, she commanded their respect by eschewing all obligations
calculated to fetter her freedom of action.
Malcolm Grahame, during the last few days of his stay, had contrived to
ascertain her name, and the information that she was a humble friend
of Miss Wilton’s--a communication he received with great satisfaction,
because it intimated that she was poor. To be poor was to be accessible
to temptation, and he resolved to use gold profusely to gain her.
He little thought while making this ignoble calculation, that he himself
stood on the very brink of a degraded beggary. Lotte was poor, but her
poverty had no blur of dishonour upon it.
He caught sight of her walking alone in the garden several times, and
rushed to an upper window to waft a kiss _viâ_ his fingers to her, or to
lay his hand upon the left side of a rather narrow chest, or to render
himself conspicuously ridiculous in other ways. His vagaries were
uselessly performed and expended without result, for Lotte did not once
perceive him, and left the roof of Flora Wilton, in the Regent’s Park,
without knowing, or desiring to know, that any such vain heartless
coxcomb as Malcolm Grahame was in existence.
The interview between old Wilton and Grahame was brief; on the side of
the former; it was conducted with cold dignity, and on the latter--after
two or three revelations were made which yet further opened his eyes to
the tremendous character of the gulf, on the verge of which he had
stood with so slippery a footing--with an oily obsequiousness which was
contemptible.
Nathan Gomer conducted the whole proceedings, and displayed an influence
over Wilton, the more extraordinary as it was evidently not obtained at
the price of pecuniary obligations. The preliminaries were all arranged,
Mr. Grahame consenting to terms which gave him the enjoyment of half the
property and surplus funds in trust, until the claim of Wilton was fully
substantiated, when Mr. Grahame was to resign his half, and enter upon
arrangements by which he would gradually restore to the estate the sums
he had received from it.
The arrangement was far from being a satisfactory one to Grahame, but
his position was that of a drowning man, and, therefore, he was only too
glad to seize anything that floated within his reach, by which he might
support himself for a time, if not save himself altogether.
A memorandum was drawn up by Nathan, who grinned as he composed it,
grinned as Grahame signed it, and grinned yet more when he appended his
name as a witness to it. He even laughed a fat, chuckling laugh as he
drew Grahame’s attention to the fact, that the sheet of paper, upon
which the memorandum was executed, bore the proper stamp.
It was Grahame’s turn to smile when, throwing a cold doubt upon the
realisation of the estates to be thus divided, Gomer laconically
requested him to furnish him with a list of his most pressing
engagements, and he would at once liquidate them.
“I have some thousands lying idle at my bankers,” he said. “I may as
well realize a slightly better percentage from you.”
“And the security?” questioned Grahame, doubtfully.
“I require nothing more than your acknowledgment of the amounts
advanced, and your copy of this memorandum,” replied Gomer.
Grahame assented delightedly, and would have taken the most affectionate
farewell of both Wilton and Nathan Gomer, but that the former coldly
repelled him, and the latter grinned in his face in a manner so
strangely impish that he involuntarily shuddered, and hastened away.
As he descended the stairs, he encountered Flora Wilton, just as she was
entering her favourite sitting-room, a small one overlooking the garden.
He started as he caught sight of her upturned face, and turning to
Nathan Gomer, who was following him, he said--
“Miss Wilton, I presume.”
Nathan nodded.
“How strikingly beautiful!” he ejaculated. “Pray introduce me,” he
added.
Gomer did so briefly, saying--
“You will soon have the opportunity of knowing each other better.”
“In truth, Mr. Gomer,” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, in his grandest manner, “I
shall look forward with impatience for that honour, I need not add, and
high gratification.”
Flora could only look timidly from one to the other, and feel extremely
relieved by the absence of both.
Nathan Gomer having, ere they parted, reiterated his promise of
supplying Mr. Grahame with all the funds his present need required, that
gentleman walked into his mansion with the cold loftiness of a Sultan,
and with high elation of spirits. Not that the latter emotion rendered
him cheerful; on the contrary, it expanded and inflated his pride--it
made him look over to the verge of the horizon, and believe the lands
and domains between were his own. It made him regard his servants as
serfs, his tradespeople as vassals, his acquaintances as persons who
lived only to bask in the sunshine of his smiles, himself an imperial
personage, to whom it was the duty of the world in general to bow down
and worship.
During the last ten days, he had felt rather disposed to sneak out of
sight than to exhibit his greatness to wondering eyes. Now, removed from
the danger of imminent disgrace, his own grand staircase appeared too
circumscribed for the majesty of his presence.
Whelks, who had--by hot lotions and cold lotions, and fomentations,
and blistering garlic, new flannel, a couple of calomel pills, and
a half-a-pint of black draught--subdued the ear-ache, lost a
sovereign--how, he was mystified in imagining--and taken the form of a
ghostly shadow--noticed the change in his master, but with infinitely
less surprise than that alteration which made him almost familiar with
Chewkle.
With the instinctive perception of individuals of his class, he
presumed, by the ascendancy of the commission agent, that “something was
up.” He was extremely anxious to find out what: hence, his civility to
Chewkle, and his desire to form an acquaintance with him. Whatever
that something was, it was plain, by his master’s resumption of stern
pomposity that it was “down again.”
Mr. Grahame, preceded by Whelks, entered the room in which he expected
to find Mrs. Grahame and one at least of her daughters, but the whole
family as well as the two guests, who had been prevailed to extend their
visit beyond the term originally intended, were assembled together,
engaged in conversation, which did not pause for an instant at the
appearance of Mr. Grahame.
“Can it be pawsible, Lady Mawgawet,” exclaimed the young Duke,
addressing Miss Margaret Grahame, using the prefix “Lady” as he said in
“playfulness,” “that you did not considaw that that young cweachaw
wejoices in one of the fawest, divinest faces, ever pwesented by the
wosy goddess Beauty to one of youaw chawming sex?”
“I scarcely noticed the person,” returned Margaret, in a cold,
supercilious tone, bending her half-closed eyes upon a magnificently
jewelled bracelet, clasping her fat white arm, which she placed in
various positions to study the effect of the ornament, and to admire
trinket and arm together.
Helen looked up at the Duke with a quick action and a glittering eye.
She said in a slightly petulant tone--
“Wax dolls have the ‘fairest, divinest faces,’ my lord Duke, yet we do
not fall into raptures with them.”
“Not _we_, assuredly Miss Grahame,” observed Lester Vane, slowly,
“but little children do. In their eyes dolls’ faces possess immense
attractions, and they have a title to be ranked as the best judges of
beauty in dolls, as”----
He paused, and looked into Helen’s eyes.
“As men lay claim to be of loveliness in woman,” she responded, with a
scarcely perceptible sneer.
He bowed.
“As, indeed, they ought to be,” he rejoined, quickly; “else why are your
sex so desirous to obtain the approving admiration of ours?”
“A fallacy, which your sex has the impertinence to assert, and the
fatuity to believe,” she responded with a curling lip.
“A shrewd imbecility, nevertheless,” returned Vane, smiling meaningly.
“What say you, Miss Evangeline?”
“Indeed, I think she had the sweetest face I ever beheld!” exclaimed
Evangeline, with an enthusiasm which afflicted Mrs. Grahame--if that
lady permitted any emotion, residing soberly within her well-ordered
frame, to agitate itself to the extent of affliction.
“Pish!” cried Malcolm, “you like dolls, even now. The fact is, you are
all at fault; the companion was the prettiest of the two.”
“What, haw maid?” inquired the Duke, extending his eyebrows half way up
his forehead.
“No, her friend. I have seen them arm in arm. None of you looked at her
face; I did--she had the prettiest in Christendom, St. Allborne, all the
world to nothing.”
“May I, without inadvertence, inquire whose merits you are discussing?”
inquired Mr. Grahame, with a loftiness he had for some time not
displayed.
“I have been listening in pain and astonishment,” responded Mrs.
Grahame; “the subject is some creature who suddenly intruded herself
upon your family and your guests in your garden, Mr. Grahame.”
“Intruded herself in my garden!” exclaimed ‘Mr. Grahame, in a tone of
outraged dignity.
“His grace, perhaps, will repeat the romantic story?” added Mrs.
Grahame.
“Oh, weadily, weadily! you are wight, madam, the stowy is womantic,”
returned the Duke, with vivacity. “The fact is, my deaw host,” continued
he, “we weaw all in the gawden the othaw mawning; we had awested owaw
steps for a few seconds, when, all of a moment, an appawition of angelic
beauty pwesented itself to owaw dazzled eyes.”
“In my garden!” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, fiercely, as much as to say, “how
dare apparitions of angelic beauty present themselves in _my_ garden?”
“No,” returned the Duke, “in the next gawden to the left. She wemained
but faw an instant, and then dis-appeawed. We aw divided in opinion with
wespect to haw chawms.”
The manner of Mr. Grahame in a moment strangely altered its character.
“The young lady is exquisitely beautiful!” he exclaimed, with an
emphasis which made Mrs. Grahame slowly elongate upwards and Margaret
Claverhouse open her eyes to their full extent, while the others looked
at him with surprise.
At length Mrs. Grahame found a tongue.
“I should have hardly conceived that such a person had attracted the
notice of Claver’se Grahame!” she exclaimed, in a tone of contemptuous
surprise.
“I have just returned from a visit to the young lady’s father,” he
returned, sharply stung by the tone of his wife’s remark.
Mrs. Grahame knew not how to support this dreadful wound to her pride;
her upper lip trembled.
“Pray, Mr. Grahame,” she said, “have you been seized by the weakness of
toadying to some man, some person, some mushroom trader, because he has
been able to make a little parade by successful plunder?”
“Stay, Mistress Grahame,” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, with imperious
grandeur. “Before you suffer yourself to be betrayed into any
observation you may be disposed hereafter to recall, let me inform you
that Mr. Wilton, the father of the young lady of whom you appear
to speak and think so slightingly, is a gentleman possessing twenty
thousand a year, and cash to the extent of one hundred and fifty
thousand pounds”----
An exclamation burst from the lips of all present. Mrs. Grahame felt
that she had been premature. How Margaret began to hate Flora!
“Let me add,” continued Mr. Grahame, “that Mr. Wilton can claim an older
and a nobler descent than either you, madam, or myself. In his veins
runs the blood of the Stuarts, the Eglintons, the Grahames, and the
Gordons. When, therefore, you apply the epithets of ‘man’ and ‘person’
to him, you injuriously insult a gentleman entitled to your highest
consideration.”
He ought to have added, also, for the “consideration” of his proud
lady--“A short time back he was a pauper whom I sued and thrust into
prison.”
Mrs. Grahame was sure now she had been premature.
Margaret hated Flora more than ever. She had despised her before; she
feared her now.
“Weally,” cried the Duke, “this is a twuly bwilliant _dénouement_
to owaw womance. Gwahame, you must pawsitively intwoduce me to that
delightful young lady. Miss--what is haw name?”
“Wilton,” responded Grahame; “Mrs. Grahame will probably make a visit
to Miss Wilton, and introduce the young ladies. Miss Wilton, I have no
doubt, will be induced to return the visit. This, as a matter of course.
Our families are, though distantly, related. Mr. Wilton descends from
the elder branch.”
“I shall have the greatest pleasure in paying a visit to this pearl of
beauty,” said Mrs. Grahame, with an animation quite unusual to her. “I
regret my hasty observations, but who could have dreamed that our next
neighbour was of such distinguished birth and position; and a
relative too? I will not defer my visit, and taking advantage of the
relationship, waive a portion of that ceremony I consider it essential
in other cases to observe.”
“So I shall have, too, an introduction to this ‘pearl of beauty,’”
thought Lester Vane; “it will save me a world of trouble.”
“May I not go with you when you pay your first visit to Miss Wilton,
dear mamma?” asked Evangeline.
“Absurd!” muttered Margaret, contemptuously; “mamma will go alone; I
shall not go.”
Mr. Grahame frowned; his wife caught the expression of his face, and in
a tone which her daughters all knew was intended to silence opposition,
she said--
“Helen and Margaret will accompany me; they will exert themselves to win
the favourable opinion of their relative--attracting her to visit us
by their cheerful smiles, rather than repelling her by any formal
frigidity. You, Evangeline, who set all the rules of propriety at
defiance, must remain at home, or you will only commit yourself in some
such manner as heroines do in novels.”
“Don’t you think I ought to accompany you, madam?” exclaimed Malcolm,
with a strong impression that he should get an opportunity of exchanging
looks and words with Lotte. “I think the visit will hardly be _en
règle_, without my presence.”
It suddenly struck Mr. Grahame that a match between Malcolm and Flora
Wilton would, in all respects, be most desirable. The young lady
possessed a long line of ancestry, wealth, and beauty. What more could
a man desire in a wife? A marriage, too, would end the conflicting
interests of both parties. He did not doubt for a moment, that Wilton
would gladly embrace the advantages offered by such a plan, and he,
therefore, almost looked upon it as being accomplished, his own future
peace being secured by the arrangement.
It did not occur to him that Flora might object, or Malcolm offer any
opposition. He looked upon marriage as a contract, in which it was the
parent’s duty to secure for their children eligible matches, and for the
children to unhesitatingly complete them.
He was immediately, therefore, anxious that Malcolm should accompany
his mother, and his suggestion took the shape of a command. No one but
himself had any inkling of his project, but though some little surprise
was manifested, no remark was made or objection raised.
As the visit was not to be paid until the next morning, the subject
was here changed, and Lester Vane, as before, addressed his attentions
almost exclusively to Helen. He rarely spoke to her without conveying
a meaning beyond the apparent import of his words. He omitted no
opportunity, either by word or glance, to induce her to believe that he
was fascinated by her personal attractions and charmed by the graces of
her mind.
She threw herself as much in his way as possible, whether in the
presence of her family or alone, and she exerted all her powers to
enslave him. She was by turns full of fire and life, seemingly gratified
by his presence; anon, cold and pettish. She would laugh with him, and
frown at him, display interest in what he said or did when he appeared
least to desire to chain her attention, and seem most provokingly
indifferent when he wished her to listen to him heedfully.
Most of all, when alone, did she play with him.
When, by some tenderness of manner, he would be induced to commence
acknowledgments warmer than those warranted by friendship, she would
parry his observations, turn them to ridicule, or give to them an
interpretation they were never intended to bear: so that he would trust
only to his expressive eyes to say what she refused to hear his tongue
utter.
He could tell by her drooping lid and rising blush that she comprehended
that language, and that if she would defiantly encounter his gaze, she
must read it and interpret it.
“She loves me,” he would say to himself, “and she must be mine--under
what contract circumstances must alone decide for me.”
That decision was arrived at when he heard that Flora Wilton was well
born and rich--his hand should be for her, his passion for Helen.
It is easy to make calculations based on probabilities, but when
contingencies are left out, the result mostly takes a very different
form to that which it first promised to assume.
Helen had carefully watched his countenance while her father spoke of
Flora Wilton; she had not forgotten how his eyes seemed to gloat on her
beauty when he beheld her in the garden, and she felt convinced by the
expression which passed over his features when he learned that
Miss Wilton was of good birth and rich, that he then formed designs
respecting her.
A flush of indignation and mortification passed through her frame.
“I will bring him to my feet, and spurn him yet!” she said to herself.
It was in this spirit they were all but toying with each other, when
Malcolm, who had been reading the _Times_, uttered an exclamation, and,
turning to his father, he said--
“You remember young Riversdale, sir?--you do, Helen, of course,” he
cried, turning to his sister.
Had fame--life--depended upon an unchanged countenance, she must
have lost both. She on the instant grew deathly pale; she could not
reply--she merely bent her head.
“A son of Major Riversdale,” said Mrs. Grahame; “I think we met them in
the north?”
“Yes,” returned Malcolm.
“Ah! I remember; his father died a beggar, and his uncle, an East India
merchant, took charge of him--made him a clerk, or something of that
kind,” observed Mr. Grahame--“a person one could not notice now. Why did
you introduce his name to our notice?”
“Here is a paragraph about him in the _Times_. It is rather a strange
affair, I’ll read it out,” replied Malcolm.
“Do so,” said his mother.
Helen held her breath. She felt that some dreadful disclosure was about
to be made, which would overwhelm her, too. Oh, that she might not
faint! If only she did not faint, and could get to her room, to wrestle
with the trial--for such it must be--alone! She sat with closed hands,
teeth, her eyes only open, motionless as a statue. Malcolm turned his
eyes upon the journal he held in his hand, and, in a loud, clear voice,
read as follows:--
“A singular circumstance attended the departure from these shores of the
Peninsula and Oriental Steam Company’s ship, the ‘Ripon,’ bearing the
mails for India and China. When off the Needles, a young gentleman,
whose name was ascertained to be Mr. Hugh Riversdale, was observed to
be regarding the receding cliffs of England with deep emotion. Suddenly,
uttering a loud cry, said by some who heard it to be the name of a
lady, he sprang on to the taffrail of the ship, and leaped into the sea.
Fortunately, a pilot-boat was standing off and on, waiting the arrival
of an American liner. Her crew had observed the suicidal act, and made
most noble efforts to rescue the young gentleman. Their exertions were,
we are happy to say, so far crowned with success that they picked up the
body in a lifeless state. Meanwhile, the engines of the ‘Ripon,’ under
the thrilling cry of ‘a man overboard,’ had been stopped and reversed,
and the crew of the pilot-boat were thus enabled to convey the body on
board the steam-ship--the most advisable course to be pursued, as the
best medical assistance, with ready access to restoratives, could be
there promptly afforded. We are unable to state whether the exertions to
restore life were successful, as on the recovery of the body the engines
of the steamer were set in motion. The crew of the pilot-boat returned
to their vessel, and the Ripon, at race-horse speed, proceeded on her
distant voyage.”
“Rather strange affair that!” concluded Malcolm, laying down the paper.
“Vewy womantic! ha! ha!” laughed the young Duke. “Pwepostewous folly
that, to dwown oneself for love! Ha! ha!”
Suddenly they were all startled by a terrified cry bursting from the
lips of Evangeline. She sprang from her seat, and twined her arms round
her eldest sister.
“Helen! Helen!” she cried; “Helen, dearest Helen, you are ill, darling!
Speak, Helen! Speak, for Heaven’s sake! Oh, mamma, mamma, pray come to
Helen; she is dying!”
Helen sat erect, still, rigid as a stone statue and as lifeless.
She had listened in a state of high-wrought feeling to the reading of
the paragraph up to a certain point. She heard the description of Hugh’s
emotion at the sight of the diminishing heights of the land containing
all that he loved or prized. She knew that her form--her averted form
was at that instant before his humid eyes.
She heard his despairing call upon her name; she saw him suddenly spring
up upon the vessel’s edge, and leap out with a wild cry, plunging down,
down into the dreadful depths of the surging sea, to find that peaceful
release from intense mental anguish which she had selfishly and
heartlessly denied to him here.
Then all was dark!
She sat motionless, stark, corpse-like, consciousness departing from
her, and leaving her without sense or motion.
Mr. and Mrs. Grahame were disturbed at the undignified departure from
the proprieties of life displayed by both Helen and Evangeline.
Mrs. Grahame especially was grieved to think that the example of icy
immobility set on all occasions by Margaret Claverhouse was not followed
by both her sisters. The bell was rung violently by Malcolm, who,
except Evangeline, displayed the most feeling of the family. Chayter
was summoned, and Helen, accompanied by Evangeline, was borne to her
apartment.
Lester Vane retired to the garden.
Folding his arms, he paced the sinuous paths thoughtfully.
“So,” he muttered, “the mystery is solved. This youth, Hugh Riversdale,
was my assailant in the alcove, and Helen was his companion there. Hem!
His merchant uncle has despatched his clerk to India. He, out of his
love-sick grief, like a mad fool, leaps into the sea, and she swoons to
hear of his folly. She is selfish; but she loves him and seeks to fool
me. ’Um! He struck me--this clerk. Well, she shall avenge the blow:
away with thoughts of marriage! No; Miss Wilton, young, exquisitely
lovely, of proud descent, and great wealth, she shall be my bride; while
you, Helen, you--’um! we shall see.”
He leaned upon the slight iron rail which ran along the end of the
garden, and gazed thoughtfully into the depths of the flowing stream
running soundlessly by.
END OF VOL. I.