PERCIVAL'S OWN WAY.
Percival had his way. He came back to the house looking stern and grim,
but with a resolute determination to carry his point. In half-an-hour it
was known throughout the whole household that Miss Murray was engaged to
be married to young Mr. Heron, and that the marriage would probably take
place before Christmas.
Kitty cast a frightened glance at Elizabeth's face when the announcement
was made, but gathered little from its expression. A sort of dull apathy
had come over the girl--a reaction, perhaps, from the excitement of
feeling through which she had lately passed. It gave her no pain when
Percival insisted upon demonstrations of affection which were very
contrary to her former habits. She allowed him to hold her hand, to kiss
her lips, to call her by endearing names, in a way that would ordinarily
have roused her indignation. She seemed incapable of resistance to his
will. And this passiveness was so unusual with her that it alarmed and
irritated Percival by turns.
Anger rather than affection was the motive of his conduct. As he himself
had said, he was rather a selfish man, and he would not willingly
sacrifice his own happiness unless he was very sure that hers depended
upon the sacrifice. He was enraged with the man who had won Elizabeth's
love, and believed him to be a scheming adventurer. Neither patience nor
tolerance belonged to Percival's character; and although he loved
Elizabeth, he was bitterly indignant with her, and not indisposed to
punish her for her faithlessness by forcing her to submit to caresses
which she neither liked nor returned. If he had any magnanimity in him
he deliberately put it on one side; he knew that he was taking a revenge
upon her for which she might never forgive him, which was neither
delicate nor generous, but he told himself that he had been too much
injured to show mercy. It was Elizabeth's own fault if he assumed the
airs of a sultan with a favourite slave, instead of kneeling at her
feet. So he argued with himself; and yet a little grain of conscience
made him feel from time to time that he was wrong, and that he might
live to repent what he was doing now.
"We will be married before Christmas, Elizabeth," he said one day, when
he had been at Strathleckie nearly a week. He spoke in a tone of cool
insistence.
"As you think best," she answered, sadly.
"Would you prefer a later date?"
"Oh, no," said Elizabeth, smiling a little. "It is all the same to me.
'If 'twere done at all, 'twere well done quickly,' you know."
"Do you mean that?"
"Yes."
"Then why delay it at all? Why not next week--next month, at latest?
What is there to wait for?"
They were sitting in the little school-room, or study, as it was called,
near the front door--the very room in which Elizabeth had talked with
Brian on the night of his arrival at Strathleckie. The remembrance of
that conversation prompted her reply.
"Oh, no," she said, in a tone of almost agonised entreaty. "Percival,
have a little mercy. Not yet--not yet."
His face hardened: his keen eyes fixed themselves relentlessly upon her
white face. He was sitting upon the sofa: she standing by the fireplace
with her hands clasped tightly before her. For a minute he looked at her
thus, and then he spoke.
"You said just now that it was all the same to you. May I ask what you
mean?"
"There is no need to ask me," she said, resolutely, although, her pale
lips quivered. "You know what I mean. I will marry you before Christmas,
if you like; but not with such--such indecent haste as you propose. Not
this month, nor next."
"In December then?"
"Yes."
"You promise? Even if this man--this tutor--should come back?"
"I suppose I have given you a right to doubt me, Percival," she said.
"But I have never broken my word--never! From the first, I only promised
to try to love you; and, indeed, I tried."
"Oh, of course, I know that I am not a lovable individual," said
Percival, throwing himself back on the cushions with a savage scowl.
She looked up quickly: there was a bitter word upon her tongue, but she
refrained from uttering it. The struggle lasted for a moment only; then
she went over to him, and laid her hand softly upon his arm.
"Percival, are you always going to be so hard upon me?" she said. "I
know you do not easily forgive, and I have wronged you. Can I do more
than be sorry for my wrong-doing? I was wrong to object to your wishes.
I will marry you when you like: you shall decide everything for me now!"
His face had been gloomily averted, but he turned and looked at her as
she said the last few words, and took both her hands in his.
"I'm not quite such a brute as you think me, Elizabeth," he answered,
with some emotion in his voice. "I don't want to make you do what you
find painful."
"That is nonsense," she said, more decidedly than he had heard her speak
for many days. "The whole matter is very painful to both of us at
present. The only alleviation----"
"Well, what is the only alleviation? Why do you hesitate?"
She lifted her serious, clear eyes to his face.
"I hesitated," she said, "because I did not feel sure whether I had the
right to speak of it as an alleviation. I meant--the only thing that
makes life bearable at all is the trying to do right; and, when one has
failed in doing it, to get back to the right path as soon as possible,
leaving the sin and misery behind."
He still held her hands, and he looked down at the slender wrists (where
the blue veins showed so much more distinctly than they used to do) with
something like a sigh.
"If one failure grieves you in this way, Elizabeth, what would you do if
you had chosen a path from which you could not turn back, although you
knew that it was wrong? There are many men and women whose lives are
based upon what you would call, I suppose, wrong-doing."
There was little of his usual sneering emphasis in the words. His face
had fallen into an expression of trouble and sadness which it did not
often wear; but there was so much less hardness in its lines than there
had been of late that Elizabeth felt that she might answer him freely
and frankly.
"I don't think there is any path of wrong-doing from which one might not
turn back, Percival. And it seems to me that the worst misery one could
go through would be the continuing in any such path; because the
consciousness of wrong would spoil all the beauty of life and take the
flavour out of every enjoyment. It would end, I think, by breaking ones
heart altogether."
"A true woman's view," said Percival, starting up and releasing her
hands, "but not one that is practicable in the world of men. I suppose
you think you know one man, at least, who would come up to your ideal in
that respect?"
"I know several; you amongst them," she replied. "I am sure you would
not deliberately do a wicked, dishonourable action for the world."
"You have more faith in me than I deserve," he said, walking restlessly
up and down the room. "I am not so sure--but of one thing I am quite
sure, Elizabeth," and he came up to her and put his hands on her
shoulders, "I am quite sure that you are the best and truest woman that
ever lived, and I beg your pardon if I seemed for one moment to doubt
you. Will you grant it to me, darling?"
For the first time since the beginning of the visit, she looked at him
gratefully, and even affectionately.
"I have nothing to forgive you," she said. "If only I could forgive
myself!" And then she burst into tears, and Percival forgot his
ill-humour and his sense of wrong in trying to soothe her into calmness
again.
This conversation made them both happier. Elizabeth lost her unnatural
passiveness of demeanour, and looked more like her clear-headed,
energetic self; and Percival was less exacting and overbearing than he
had been during the past week. He went back to London with a strong
conviction that time would give him Elizabeth's heart as well as her
hand; and that she would learn to forget the unprincipled scoundrel--so
Percival termed him--who had dared to aspire to her love.
The Herons were to return to London in November, and the purchase of
Elizabeth's trousseau was postponed until then. But other preparations
were immediately begun: there was a great talk of "settlements" and
"entail" in the house; and Mr. Colquhoun had some very long and serious
interviews with his fair client. It need hardly be stated that Mr.
Colquhoun greatly objected to Miss Murray's marriage with her cousin,
and applied to him (in strict privacy) not a few of the adjectives which
Percival had bestowed upon the tutor. But the lawyer was driven to admit
that Mr. Percival Heron, poor though he might be, showed a very
disinterested spirit when consulted upon money matters, and that he
stood firm in his determination that Elizabeth's whole fortune should be
settled upon herself. He declared also that he was not going to live
upon his wife's money, and that he should continue to pursue his
profession of journalism and literature in general after his marriage;
but at this assertion Mr. Colquhoun shook his head.
"It shows a very independent spirit in ye, Mr. Heron," he said, when
Percival announced his resolve in a somewhat lordly manner; "but I think
that in six months' time after the marriage, ye'll just agree with me
that your determination was one that could not be entirely carried out."
"I usually do carry out my determinations, Mr. Colquhoun," said
Percival, hotly.
"No doubt, no doubt. It's a determination that reflects credit upon ye,
Mr. Heron. Ye'll observe that I'm not saying a word against your
determination," replied Mr. Colquhoun, warily, but with emphasis. "It's
highly creditable both to Miss Murray and to yourself."
And although Percival felt himself insulted, he could not well say more.
The continuation of his connection with the daily press was the proof
which he intended to offer to the world of his disinterestedness in
marrying Elizabeth Murray. He disliked the thought of her wealth, but he
was of too robust a nature, in spite of his sensitiveness on many
points, to refuse to marry a woman simply because she was richer than
himself. In fact, that is a piece of Quixotism not often practised, and
though Percival would perhaps have been capable of refusing to make an
offer of marriage to Elizabeth after she had come into her fortune, he
was not disposed to withdraw that offer because it had turned out a more
advantageous one for himself than he had expected. It is only fair to
say that he did not hold Elizabeth to her word on account of her wealth;
he never once thought of it in that interview with her on the
river-bank. Selfish as he might be in some things, he was liberal and
generous to a fault when money was in the question.
It was Mr. Colquhoun who told Mrs. Luttrell of Miss Murray's engagement.
He was amazed at the look of anger and disappointment that crossed her
face. "Ay!" she said, bitterly, "I am too late, as I always am. This
will be a sore blow to Hugo."
"Hugo!" said the old lawyer. "Was he after Miss Murray too? Not a bad
notion, either. It would have been a good thing to get the property back
to the Luttrells. He could have called himself Murray-Luttrell then."
"Too late for that," said Mrs. Luttrell, grimly. "Well, he shall have
Netherglen."
"Are you quite decided in your mind on that point?" queried Mr.
Colquhoun.
"Quite so. I'll give you my instructions about the will as soon as you
like."
"Take time! take time!" said the lawyer.
"I have taken time. I have thought the matter over in every light, and I
am quite convinced that what I possess ought to go to Hugo. There is no
other Luttrell to take Netherglen--and to a Luttrell Netherglen must
go."
"I should have thought that you would like better to leave it to Miss
Murray, who is of your own father's blood," said Mr. Colquhoun,
cautiously. "She is your second cousin, ye'll remember; and a good girl
into the bargain."
"A good girl she may be, and a handsome one; and I would gladly have
seen her the mistress of Netherglen if she were Hugo's wife; but
Netherglen was never mine, it was my husband's, and though it came to me
at his death, it shall stay in the Luttrell family, as he meant it to
do. Elizabeth Murray has the Strathleckie property; that ought to be
enough for her, especially as she is going to marry a penniless cousin,
who will perhaps make ducks and drakes of it all."
"Hugo's a fortunate lad," said Mr. Colquhoun, drily, as he seated
himself at a writing-table, in order to take Mrs. Luttrell's
instructions. "I hope he may be worthy of his good luck."
Hugo did not seem to consider himself very fortunate when he heard the
news of Miss Murray's approaching marriage. He looked thoroughly
disconcerted. Mrs. Luttrell was inclined to think that his affections
had been engaged more deeply than she knew, and in her hard, unemotional
way, tried to express some sympathy with him in his loss. It was not a
matter of the affections with Hugo, however, but his purse. His money
affairs were much embarrassed: he was beginning to calculate the amount
that he could wring out of Mrs. Luttrell, and, if she failed him, he had
made up his mind to marry Elizabeth.
"Heron!" he exclaimed, in a tone of surprise and disgust, "I don't
believe she cares a rap for Heron."
"How can you tell?" said his aunt.
Hugo looked at her, looked down, and said nothing.
"If you think she liked you better than Mr. Heron," said Mrs. Luttrell,
in a meditative tone, "something might yet be done to change the course
of affairs."
"No, no," said Hugo, hastily. "Dear Aunt Margaret, you are too kind. No,
if she is happy, it is all I ask. I will go to Strathleckie this
afternoon; perhaps I can then judge better."
"I don't want you to do anything dishonourable," said his aunt, "but, if
Elizabeth likes you best, Hugo, I could speak to Mr. Heron--the father,
I mean--and ascertain whether the engagement is absolutely irrevocable.
I should like to see you happy as well as Elizabeth Murray."
Hugo sighed, kissed his aunt's hand, and departed--not to see Elizabeth,
but Kitty Heron. He felt that if his money difficulties could only be
settled, he was well out of that proposed marriage with Elizabeth; but
then money difficulties were not easily settled when one had no money.
In the meantime, he was free to make love to Kitty.
Percival spent two or three busy weeks in London, and found that hard
work was the best specific for the low spirits from which he had
suffered during his stay in Scotland. He heard regularly from Elizabeth,
and her letters, though not long, and somewhat coldly expressed, gave
him complete satisfaction. He noticed with some surprise that she spoke
a good deal of Hugo Luttrell; he seemed to be always with them, and the
distant cousinship existing between him and Elizabeth had been made the
pretext for a good deal of apparent familiarity. He was "Hugo" now to
the whole family; he had been "Mr. Luttrell" only when Percival left
Strathleckie.
He was sitting alone in his "den," as he nicknamed it, late in the
afternoon of a November day, when a low knock at the door made itself
faintly heard. Percival was smoking; having come in cold and tired, he
had wheeled an arm-chair in front of the fire, and was sitting with his
feet on the bars of the grate, whereby a faint odour of singed leather
was gradually mingling with the fumes of the very strong tobacco that he
loved. His green shaded lamp stood on a small table beside him, throwing
its light full upon the pages of the French novel that he had taken up
to read (it was "Spiridion" and he was reading it for about the
twentieth time); books and newspapers, as usual, strewed the floor, the
tables, and the chairs; well-filled book-shelves lined three of the
walls; the only ornaments were the photographs of two or three actors
and actresses, some political caricatures pinned to the walls, a couple
of foils and boxing-gloves, and on the mantelpiece a choice collection
of pipes. The atmosphere was thick, the aspect of the furniture dusty:
Percival Heron's own appearance was not at that moment calculated to
insure admiration. His hair was absolutely dishevelled; truth compels us
to admit that he had not shaved that day, and that his chin was
consequently of a blue-black colour and bristly surface, which could not
be called attractive: his clothes were shabby to the last degree, frayed
at the cuffs, and very shiny on the shoulders. Heron was a poor man, and
had a good deal of the Bohemian in his constitution: hence came a
certain contempt for appearances, which sometimes offended his friend
Vivian, as well as a real inability to spend money on clothes and
furniture without getting into debt. And Percival, extravagant as he
sometimes seemed, was never in debt: he had seen too much of it in his
father's house not to be alive to its inconveniences, and he had had the
moral courage to keep a resolution made in early boyhood, that he would
never owe money to any man. Hence came the shabbiness--and also,
perhaps, some of the arrogance--of which his friends complained.
Owing partly therefore to the shabbiness, partly to the untidiness,
partly to the very comfort of the slightly overheated room, the visitor
who entered it did not form a very high opinion of its occupant.
Percival's frown, and momentary stare of astonishment, were, perhaps,
enough to disconcert a person not already very sure of his reception.
"Am I dreaming?" muttered Heron to himself, as he cast the book to the
ground, and rose to his feet. "One would think that George Sand's
visionary young monk had walked straight out of the book into my room.
Begging, I suppose. Good evening. You have called on behalf of some
charity, I suppose? Come nearer to the fire; it is a cold night."
The stranger--a young man in a black cassock--bowed courteously, and
seated himself in the chair that Percival pointed out. He then spoke in
English, but with a foreign accent, which did not sound unpleasantly in
Heron's ears.
"I have not come on behalf of any charity," he said, "but I come in the
interests of justice."
"The same thing, I suppose, in the long run," Percival remarked to
himself. "But what a fine face the beggar has! He's been ill lately, or
else he is half-starved--shall I give him some whisky and a pipe? I
suppose he would feel insulted!"
While he made these reflections, he replied politely that he was always
pleased to serve the interests of justice, offered his guest a glass of
wine (chiefly because he looked so thin and pale)--an offer which was
smilingly rejected--then crossed his legs, looked up to the ceiling, and
awaited in silent resignation the pitiful story which he was sure that
this young monk had come to tell.
But, after a troubled glance at Mr. Heron's face, (which had a
peculiarly reckless and defiant expression by reason of the tossed hair,
the habitual frown and the bristles on his chin), the visitor began to
speak in a very different strain from the one which Percival had
expected.
"I have come," he said, "on affairs which concern yourself and your
family; and, therefore, I most heartily beg your pardon if I appear to
you an insolent intruder, speaking of matters which it does not concern
me to know."
His formal English sentences were correct enough, but seemed to be
constructed with some difficulty. Percival's eyes came down from the
ceiling and rested upon his thin, pale face with lazy curiosity.
"I should not have thought that my affairs would be particularly
interesting to you," he said.
"But there you are wrong, they interest me very much," said the young
man, with much vivacity. His dark eyes glowed like coals of fire as he
proceeded. "There is scarcely anyone whose fortunes are of so much
significance to me."
"I am much obliged to you," murmured Percival, with lifted eyebrows;
"but I hardly understand----"
"You will understand quite soon enough, Mr. Heron," said the visitor,
quietly. "I have news for you that may not be agreeable. I believe that
you have a cousin, a Miss Murray, who lately succeeded to a great
fortune."
"Yes, but what has that to do with you, if you please?" demanded Heron,
his amiability vanishing into space.
The stranger lifted his hand.
"Allow me one moment. She inherited this fortune on the death of a Mr.
Brian Luttrell, I think?"
"Exactly--but what----"
"Excuse me, Mr. Heron. I come to my piece of news at last. Miss Murray
has no right to the property which she is enjoying. Mr. Brian Luttrell
is alive!"