ENGAGED.
John Treverton stayed at the Manor-house till after dark, alone with
his betrothed, and happier than he had ever been in his life. Yes,
happy, though it was with a desperate happiness as of a child plucking
wild flowers on the sunny edge of an abyss. He must have been something
less or more than human if he had not been happy in Laura Malcolm’s
company to-day, as they sat by the fire in the gloaming, side by side,
her head leaning against his shoulder, his arm round her waist, her
dark eyes hidden under drooping lids as they gazed dreamily downward at
the smouldering logs; the room lit dimly by the fire-glow, grotesque
shadows coming and going on the wall behind them, like phantom forms of
good or evil angels hovering near them as they sat face to face with
fate, the one unconscious of all danger, the other reckless and defiant.
Now that the word had been spoken, that they two were pledged to each
other to the end of life, Laura let her heart go out to her lover
without reserve. She was not afraid to let him see her fondness.
She did not seek to make her love more precious to him by simulated
coldness. She gave him all her heart and soul, as Juliet gave herself
to Romeo. Lips that had never breathed a word of love, now murmured
sweetest words in his ear; eyes that had never looked into a lover’s
eyes, gazed and lost themselves in the depths of his. Never was lover
more innocently or unreservedly adored. If he had been boastful or
self-assertive, Laura’s pride would have taken alarm. But his deep
humility, and a shadow of melancholy which hung over him even when
he seemed happiest, asked for her pity; and a woman is never better
pleased with her lover than when he has need of her compassion.
‘And do you really love me, Laura?’ he asked, his face bent over the
beautiful head which seemed to have found so natural a resting-place
upon his shoulder. ‘If there had been no such thing as my cousin
Jasper’s will, and you and I had met in the outside world, do you think
I am the man your heart would have chosen?’
‘That is too abstruse a question in metaphysics,’ she answered,
laughingly. ‘I only know that my heart chose you, and that papa’s
will--I must call him by the old name--did not influence my choice.
Don’t you think that is quite enough for you to know?’
‘It is all I desire to know, my loveliest. Or not quite all. I should
like to know--out of mere idle curiosity--when you first began to think
me not altogether despicable.’
‘Do you want the history of the case from the very beginning?’
‘From the eggs to the apples, from the very first instant when your
heart began to beat a little more kindly for me than for all the rest
of the world.’
‘I will tell you----’
She paused, and looked up at him with a smile of innocent coquetry.
‘Yes, dearest.’
‘When you have told me the history of your life, from the instant when
I became more to you than the common herd of women.’
His first answer was a deep sigh.
‘Ah, dear love, my case was different. I struggled against my passion.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I felt myself unworthy of you.’
‘That was foolish.’
‘No, dear, it was wise and right. You are like a happy child, Laura;
your past is a blank page, it has no dark secrets----’
He felt her trembling as he spoke. Had his words frightened her? Did
she begin to divine the dangers that hemmed him around?
‘Dearest, I don’t want to alarm you; but in the past experience of a
man of my age there is generally one page he would give ten years of
his life to cancel. I have a dark page. Oh, my love, my love, if I felt
myself really worthy of you my heart would hardly hold my happiness.
It would break with too great a joy. Men’s hearts have so broken.
When did I begin to love you? Why, on the night I first entered this
house--the cheerless winter night, when I came, like the prodigal son,
weary of the husks and the stye, vaguely yearning for some better life.
Your thrilling eyes, your grave, sweet smile, your tender voice, came
upon me like the revelation of a new world, in which womanhood meant
goodness and purity and truth. My senses were as yet unmoved by your
beauty; my mind reverenced your goodness. You were no more to me than
a picture in a gallery, but you thrilled my soul as the picture might
have done; you awakened new thoughts, you opened a door into heaven.
Yes, Laura, admiration, reverence, worship, those began on the first
night. Before I left Hazlehurst, worship had warmed into passionate
love.’
‘Yet you stayed away from January to April!’
‘My absence was one long conflict with my love.’
‘And from April to December--after----’
‘After you had shown me your heart, dear love, and I knew that you
might be mine. That last absence needed a more desperate courage. Well,
I came back, you see. Love was stronger than wisdom.’
‘Why must it be unwise for us to love each other?’
‘Only because of my unworthiness.’
‘Then we will forget your unworthiness, or, if your modesty likes
better, I will love you and your unworthiness too. I do not suppose you
a faultless paragon, John. Papa told me that you had been extravagant
and foolish. You will not be extravagant and foolish any more, will
you, dear, when you are a sober married man?’
‘No, love.’
‘And we will both strive to do all the good we can with our large
fortune.’
‘You shall be the chief disposer of it.’
‘No, no, I would not have it so on any account. You must be lord and
master. I shall expect you to be quite the ideal country squire, the
sun and centre of our little universe, the general benefactor. I will
be your prime minister and adviser, if you like. I know all the poor
people for ten miles round, on our estate, and on other people’s land.
I know their wants and their weaknesses. Yes, John, I think I can help
you in doing much good; in making improvements that will not ruin you,
and will make the lives of the labouring people much happier.’
‘Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require,’
quoted John, tenderly. ‘Can I ever be happier than in obeying you?’
‘Do you know that it will be a great happiness to me not to leave the
Manor,’ said Laura, presently. ‘You must not think me mercenary, or
that I value a big house and a large fortune. It is not so, John. I
could live quite contentedly on the income papa left me, more than
contentedly, in a cottage with you; but I love the Manor for its own
sake. I know every tree in the grounds, and have watched them all
growing, and sketched and painted them until I almost know the form of
every branch. And I have lived so long in these old rooms that I doubt
if any other rooms would ever look like home. It is a dear old house,
is it not, John? Will you not be very proud when you are the master of
it?’
‘I shall be very proud of my wife when I can dare to call her mine.
That will be pride enough for me,’ answered John, drawing her a little
nearer to his heart. ‘And now, I suppose I ought to go and see Sampson,
and tell him that everything is definitely settled. When are we to be
married, love? My cousin died on the 20th of January. We ought not to
delay our marriage longer than the end of this month.’
‘Let us be married on the last day of the month,’ said Laura. ‘It
is the most solemn day in all the year. We shall never forget the
anniversary of our wedding if it is on that day.’
‘I should never forget it in any case,’ answered John Treverton. ‘Let
it be on that day, love. The closing year shall unite me to you for
life. I shall see Mr. Clare to-night, and arrange everything.’
They were a long time saying ‘Good-bye,’ and just at the last John
Treverton suggested that Laura should put on her hat and jacket and
walk to the gates with him, so the first ‘Good-bye’ was wasted trouble.
They were a long time walking to the gates, and the early winter night
had come, and the stars were shining when they reluctantly parted.
Laura tripped along the avenue with as light a foot as Juliet’s when
she came to the friar’s cell to be married; John Treverton went slowly
down the road towards Hazlehurst village, with his head bent upon his
breast, and all the joy faded out of his face.
He found Mr. Sampson and his sister just sitting down to dinner, and
was welcomed with enthusiasm by both.
‘Upon my soul, you’re a most extraordinary fellow,’ exclaimed the
lawyer, after a good deal of handshaking. ‘You run off in no end of a
hurry, promising to come back in a week or two at latest, and for six
months we see no more of you; and you don’t even favour your family
solicitor with a line to say why you don’t come. There are not many men
in England who would play fast and loose with such chances as yours.
Your cousin, when he made that curious will of his, told me you had
been wild, but I was not prepared for such wildness as this.’
‘Really, Tom,’ remonstrated Miss Sampson, blushing the salmon pink
peculiar to sandy-haired beauty, ‘you have no right to talk to Mr.
Treverton like that.’
‘Yes, I have,’ answered Sampson, who prided himself on his open
manner--his ‘bonnomy,’ as he called it; ‘I have the right given me by a
genuine interest in his affairs--the interest of a friend rather than a
lawyer. You don’t suppose it’s for the sake of the six-and-eightpences
I take so much upon myself, Lizzie? No, it is because I have a sincere
regard for my old client’s kinsman, and a disinterested anxiety for his
welfare.’
‘I think you may make your mind easy about me,’ said John, without any
appearance of elation; ‘I am going to be married on the last day of
this month, and I want you to prepare the settlement.’
‘Bravo!’ cried Tom Sampson, flourishing his napkin; ‘I’m almost as glad
as if I’d backed the winner of the double event and woke up to find
myself worth twenty thousand pounds. My dear fellow, I congratulate
you. The Hazlehurst property is a good eight thousand a year. There’s
three thousand in ground rents in Beechampton, and your dividends from
railways and consols bring your income to a clean fourteen thousand.’
‘If Miss Malcolm were penniless, I should be as proud of winning her as
I am now,’ said John, gravely.
‘That’s a very gentlemanlike way of looking at it,’ exclaimed the
lawyer, as much as to say, ‘We know all about it; you are bound to say
that kind of thing.’
Miss Sampson looked down at her plate, and felt that appetite was
gone for ever. It was foolishness, no doubt, to feel so keen a pang;
but girlhood is prone to foolishness, and Eliza Sampson had not yet
owned to thirty. She had known from the first that John Treverton was
to marry Laura Malcolm, and yet she had allowed herself to indulge in
secret worship at his shrine. He was handsome and attractive, and Miss
Sampson had seen so few young men who were either one or the other,
that she may be forgiven for fixing her young unhackneyed affection on
the first distinguished stranger who came within the narrow orbit of
her colourless life.
She had lived under the same roof with him; she had handed him
his coffee in the morning, his tea--ah, how carefully creamed and
sugared!--in the evening. She had studied his tastes, and catered for
him with unfailing care. She had played Rosellen’s Reverie in G for
his delectation every evening during his two visits. She had sung his
favourite ballads, and if her voice sometimes failed her on the high
notes, she made up in pathos what she wanted in power. These things are
not easily to be forgotten by a youthful mind fed upon three-volume
novels, and naturally prone to sentiment.
‘Our wedding will be a very quiet affair,’ said John Treverton,
presently; ‘Laura wishes it to be so, and I am of her mind. I shall
be glad if you will kindly refrain from talking about it to anyone,
Sampson, and you too, Miss Sampson. We don’t want to be objects of
interest in the village.’
‘I will be as dumb as a skin of parchment,’ answered the lawyer, ‘and I
know that Eliza will be the soul of discretion.’
Eliza looked up shyly at their guest, her white eyelashes quivering
with emotion.
‘I ought to congratulate you, Mr. Treverton,’ she faltered, ‘but it is
all so sudden, so startling, that I can hardly find words.’
‘My dear Miss Sampson, I know your friendly feeling towards me,’ John
answered, with tranquil good-nature.
Oh, how cool he was, how cruelly indifferent to her feelings! And yet
he ought to have known! Had Rosellen’s Reverie, with the soft pedal
down, said nothing?
Later in the evening John Treverton and his host smoked their cigars
_tête-à-tête_ in Mr. Sampson’s office, beside the comfortable hearth,
by which the lawyer was fonder of sitting than in his sister’s highly
decorated drawing-room, among the starched antimacassars, and chairs
that were not to be sat on, and foot-stools that were intended for
anything rather than the accommodation of the human foot. This
unsociable habit of spending his evenings aloof from the family circle
Mr. Sampson excused on the plea of business.
The two men sat opposite each other for some time in friendly silence,
John Treverton gravely meditative, Mr. Sampson in an agreeable frame
of mind. He was congratulating himself on the prospect of retaining
his position as agent for the Treverton Estate, which profitable
stewardship must have been lost to him if John Treverton had been so
besotted in his folly as to forfeit his heritage by refusing to comply
with the conditions of his kinsman’s will.
‘I want fully to understand my position,’ said John, presently. ‘Am I
free to make what settlement I please upon my future wife?’
‘You are free to settle anything which you at present possess,’
answered the lawyer.
‘My present possessions amount to something less than a five-pound
note.’
‘Then I don’t think we need talk about a marriage settlement. By the
terms of your cousin’s will his estate is to be held in trust for a
twelvemonth. If within that time you shall have married Miss Malcolm,
the estate will pass into your possession at the end of the year. You
can then make a post-nuptial settlement, on as liberal a scale as you
please; but you cannot give away what you do not possess.’
‘I see. It must be a post-nuptial settlement. Well, you may as well
take my instructions at once. You can rough-draft the settlement,
submit your draft to counsel, have it engrossed and ready for execution
upon the day on which I pass into possession of the property.’
‘You are in a desperate hurry,’ said Sampson, smiling at his client’s
grave eagerness.
‘Life is full of desperate uncertainties. I want the welfare of the
woman I love to be assured, whatever fate may be mine.’
‘That is a generous forethought rare in lovers. However intensely they
may love in the present, their love seldom takes the form of solicitude
for the beloved one’s future. Hence generation after generation of
penniless widows and destitute children. After me the deluge, is your
lover’s motto. Well, Mr. Treverton, what do you propose to settle on
your wife in this post-nuptial deed?’
‘The entire estate, real and personal,’ answered John Treverton,
quietly.
Mr. Sampson dropped his cigar, and sat transfixed, an image of
half-amused astonishment.
‘This bangs Banagher;’ he exclaimed, ‘you must be mad.’
‘No, I am only reasonable,’ answered Treverton. ‘The estate was left to
me nominally, to Laura Malcolm actually. What was I to the testator? A
blood relation, truly, but a stranger. At the time he made that will he
had never seen my face; what little he had ever heard of me must have
been to my disadvantage; for my life has been one long mistake, and I
have given no man reason to sing my praises. What was Laura to him? His
adopted daughter, the beloved and the affectionate companion of his
declining years; his faithful nurse, his disinterested slave. Whatever
love he had to give must have been given to her. She had grown up by
his hearth. She had sweetened and cheered his lonely life. He left his
estate to me, in trust for her; so that he might keep his oath, and yet
leave his wealth where his heart prompted him to bestow it. He found
in me a convenient instrument for the carrying out of his wishes; and
I have reason to be proud that he was not unwilling to trust me with
such a charge, to give me the being he held dearest. I shall settle the
whole of the estate on my wife, Sampson. I consider myself bound in
honour to do so.’
Mr. Sampson looked at his client with a prolonged and searching gaze, a
slow smile dawning on his somewhat stolid countenance.
‘Don’t be offended at my asking the question,’ he said. ‘Are you in
debt?’
‘I don’t owe sixpence. I have lived a somewhat Bohemian life, but I
have not lived upon other people’s money.’
‘I am glad to hear that,’ said Sampson, selecting a fresh cigar from
a comfortably-filled case, ‘because if you imagine that by such a
settlement as you propose you could escape the payment of any debts
now existing you are mistaken. A man can make no settlement to the
injury of his creditors. As regards future liability the case would be
different, and if you were deeply involved in commerce, a speculator,
I could understand your desire to shift the estate from your own
shoulders to your wife’s. But as it is----’
‘Can’t you understand something not strictly commercial?’ exclaimed
John Treverton, waxing impatient. ‘Can’t you understand that I want to
obey the spirit as well as the letter of my cousin Jasper’s will? I
want to make his adopted daughter the actual mistress of the estate, in
the same position she would have naturally occupied had he never made
that foolish vow.’
‘In so doing you make yourself a pensioner on her bounty.’
‘So be it. I am content to occupy that position. Come, my dear Sampson,
we need not argue the question any further. If you won’t draw up the
form of settlement I want, I must find a lawyer who will.’
‘My dear sir,’ cried Tom Sampson, briskly, ‘when a client of mine
is obstinately bent upon making a fool of himself, I always see him
through his folly. He had better make a fool of himself in my hands
than in anyone else’s. I do not suffer by the loss of his business, and
I am vain enough to believe that he suffers less than he would if he
took his business to any other office. If you have quite made up your
mind, I am ready to rough-draft any form of settlement you dictate; but
I am bound to warn you that the dictation of such a settlement is a
qualification for Bedlam.’
‘I will risk even as much as that. Nobody need know anything about the
settlement but you and I, and, later, my wife. I shall not speak of it
to her until it is ready for execution.’
Mr. Sampson, in a chronic state of wonder, took half a quire of
slippery blue foolscap, and began his draft, with a very squeaky quill
pen and a large consumption of ink. Simple and uniform as the gift
was which John Treverton wished to make to his wife, the transfer of
it required to be hedged round and intertwined with so much legal
phraseology that Tom Sampson had consumed his half-quire of foolscap
before he came to the end of the draft. The estate had to be scheduled,
and every homestead and labourer’s cottage had to be described in a
phrase of abstract grandeur, as ‘all that so and so, commonly known
as so and so,’ and so forth, with almost maddening iteration. John
Treverton, smoking his cigar, and letting his thoughts wander away at
a tangent every now and then to regions that were not always paths
of pleasantness, thought his host would never leave off driving that
inexorable quill--the sort of pen to sign a death-warrant and feel none
the worse for it--over the slippery paper.
‘Come,’ exclaimed Sampson, at last, ‘I think that ties the estate
up pretty tightly on your wife and her children after her. She can
squander the income as she pleases, and play old gooseberry up to
a certain point, but she can’t put the tip of her little finger on
the principal. And now you have only to name two responsible men as
trustees.’
‘I don’t know two respectable men in the world,’ said John, frankly.
‘Yes, you do. You know the vicar of this parish, and you know me. Your
cousin Jasper considered us worthy to be trustees to his will. You need
hardly be afraid to make us trustees to your marriage settlement.’
‘I have no objection, and I certainly know no better men.’
‘Then we’ll consider it settled. I’ll send the deed to counsel by
to-morrow’s post. I hope you quite understand that this settlement will
make you a pauper--wholly dependent upon your wife. If you were to
throw yourself on the parish, she would have to maintain you. Bar that,
she may use you as badly as she likes.’
‘I am not afraid of her ill-usage.’
‘Upon my honour and conscience,’ mused Thomas Sampson, as he laid
himself down to rest that night. ‘I believe John Treverton is over head
and ears in love with Miss Malcolm. Nothing but love or lunacy can
explain his conduct. Which is it? Well, perhaps the line that divides
the two is only a distinction without a difference.’