THE TRAITOR.
Upon the day following, O'Connor had not yet received any answer to his
letter. He was, however, not a little surprised instead to receive a
second visit from young Ashwoode.
"I am very glad, my dear O'Connor," said the young man as he entered,
"to have found you alone. I have been wishing very much for this
opportunity, and was half afraid as I came upstairs that I should again
have been disappointed. The fact is, I wish much to speak to you upon a
subject of great difficulty and delicacy--one in which, however, I
naturally feel so strong an interest, that I may speak to you upon it,
and freely, too, without impertinence. I allude to your attachment to
my sister. Do not imagine, my dear O'Connor, that I am going to lecture
you on prudence and all that; and above all, my dear fellow, do not
think I want to tax your confidence more deeply than you are willing I
should; I know quite enough for all I would suggest; I know the plain
fact that you love my sister--I have long known it, and this is
enough."
"Well, sir, what follows?" said O'Connor, dejectedly.
"Do not call me _sir_--call me friend--fellow--fool--anything you
please but that," replied Ashwoode, kindly; and after a brief pause, he
continued: "I need not, and cannot disguise it from you, that I was
much opposed to this, and vexed extremely at the girl's encouragement
of what I considered a most imprudent suit. I have, however, learned to
think differently--very differently. After all my littlenesses and
pettishness, for which you must have, if not abhorred, at least
despised me from your very heart--after all this, I say, your noble
conduct in risking your own life to save my worthless blood is what I
never can enough admire, and honour, and thank." Here he grasped
O'Connor's hand, and shook it warmly. "After this, I tell you,
O'Connor, that were there offered to me, on my sister's behoof, on the
one side the most brilliant alliance in wealth and rank that ever
ambition dreamed of, and upon the other side this hand of yours, I
would, so heaven is my witness, forego every allurement of titles,
rank, and riches, and give my sister to you. I have come here,
O'Connor, frankly to offer you my aid and advice--to prove to you my
sincerity, and, if possible, to realize your wishes."
O'Connor could hardly believe his senses. Here was the man who,
scarcely six days since, he felt assured, would more readily have
suffered him to thrust him through the body than consent to his
marriage with Mary Ashwoode, now not merely consenting to it, but
offering cordially and spontaneously all the assistance in his power
towards effecting that very object. Had he heard him aright? One look
at his expressive face--the kindly pressure of his hand--everything
assured him that he had justly comprehended all that Ashwoode had
spoken, and a glow of hope, warmer than had visited him for years,
cheered his heart.
"In the meantime," continued Ashwoode, "I must tell you exactly how
matters stand at Morley Court. The Earl of Aspenly, of whom you may
have heard, is paying his addresses to my sister."
"The Earl of Aspenly," echoed O'Connor, slightly colouring. "I had not
heard of this before--she did not name him."
"Yet she has known it a good while," returned Ashwoode, with
well-affected surprise--"a month, I believe, or more. He's now at
Morley Court, and means to make some stay--are you sure she never
mentioned him?"
"Titled, and, of course, rich," said O'Connor, scarce hearing the
question. "Why should I have heard of this by chance, and from
another--why this reserve--this silence?"
"Nay, nay," replied Henry, "you must not run away with the matter thus.
Mary may have forgotten it, _or_--or not liked to tell you--not cared
to give you needless uneasiness."
"I wish she had--I wish she had--I am--I am, indeed, Ashwoode, very,
very unhappy," said O'Connor, with extreme dejection. "Forgive
me--forgive my folly, since folly it seems--I fear I weary you."
"Well, well, since it seems you have _not_ heard of it," rejoined
Henry, carelessly throwing himself back in his chair, "you may as well
learn it now--not that there is any real cause of alarm in the matter,
as I shall presently show you, but simply that you may understand the
position of the enemy. Lord Aspenly, then, is at present at Morley
Court, where he is received as Mary's lover--observe me, only as her
lover--not yet, and I trust _never_ as her _accepted_ lover."
"Go on--pray go on," said O'Connor, with suppressed but agonized
anxiety.
"Now, though my father is very hot about the match," resumed his
visitor, "it may appear strange enough to you that _I_ never was.
There are a few--a very few--advantages in the matter, of course,
viewing it merely in its worldly aspect. But Lord Aspenly's property
is a good deal embarrassed, and he is of violently Whig politics and
connections, the very thing most hated by my old Tory uncle, Oliver
French, whom my father has been anxious to cultivate; besides, the
disparity in years is so very great that it is ridiculous--I might
almost say _indecent_--and this even in point of family standing, and
indeed of reputation, putting aside every better consideration, is
objectionable. I have urged all these things upon my father, and
perhaps we should not find any insurmountable obstacle _there_; but
the fact is, there is another difficulty, one of which until this
morning I never dreamed--the most whimsical difficulty imaginable."
Here the young man raised his eyebrows, and laughed faintly, while he
looked upon the floor, and O'Connor, with increasing earnestness,
implored him to proceed. "It appears so very absurd and perverse an
obstacle," continued Ashwoode, with a very quizzical expression, "that
one does not exactly know how to encounter it--to say the truth, I
think that the girl is a little--perhaps the least imaginable
degree--taken--dazzled--caught by the notion of being a countess; it's
very natural, you know, but then I would have expected better from
her."
"By heavens, it is impossible!" exclaimed O'Connor, starting to his
feet; "I cannot believe it; you must, indeed, my dear Ashwoode, you
_must_ have been deceived."
"Well, then," rejoined the young man, "I have lost my skill in reading
young ladies' minds--that's all; but even though I should be right--and
never believe me if I am _not_ right--it does not follow that the giddy
whim won't pass away just as suddenly as it came; her most lasting
impressions--with, I should hope, one exception--were never very
enduring. I have been talking to her for nearly half an hour this
morning--laughing with her about Lord Aspenly's suit, and building
castles in the air about what she will and what she won't do when she's
a countess. But, by the way, how did you let her know that you intend
returning to France at the end of this month, only, as she told me,
however, for a few weeks? She mentioned it yesterday incidentally.
Well, it is a comfort that I hear your secrets, though _you_ won't
entrust them to me. But do not, my dear fellow--_do_ not look so very
black--you very much overrate the firmness of women's minds, and
greatly indeed exaggerate that of my sister's character if you believe
that this vexatious whim which has entered her giddy pate will remain
there longer than a week. The simple fact is that the excitement and
bustle of all this has produced an unusual flow of high spirits, which
will, of course, subside with the novelty of the occasion. Pshaw! why
so cast down?--there is nothing in the matter to surprise one--the
caprice of women knows do rule. I tell you I would almost stake my
reputation as a prophet, that when this giddy excitement passes away,
her feelings will return to their old channel." O'Connor still paced
the room in silence. "Meanwhile," continued the young man, "if anything
occur to you--if I can be useful to you in any way, command me
absolutely, and till you see me next, take heart of grace." He grasped
O'Connor's hand--it was cold as clay; and bidding him farewell, once
more took his departure.
"Well," thought he, as he threw his leg across his high-bred gelding at
the inn door, "I have shot the first shaft home."
And so he had, for the heart at which it was directed, unfenced by
suspicion, lay open to his traitorous practices. O'Connor's letter, an
urgent and a touching one, was still unanswered; it never for a moment
crossed his mind that it had not reached the hand for which it was
intended. The maid who had faithfully delivered all the letters which
had passed between them had herself received it; and young Ashwoode had
but the moment before mentioned, from his sister's lips, the subject on
which it was written--his meditated departure for France. This, too, it
appeared, she had spoken of in the midst of gay and light-hearted
trilling, and projects of approaching magnificence and dissipation with
his rich and noble rival. Twice since the delivery of that letter had
his servant seen Miss Ashwoode's maid; and in the communicative
colloquy which had ensued she had told--no doubt according to
well-planned instructions--how gay and unusually merry her mistress
was, and how she passed whole hours at her toilet, and the rest of her
time in the companionship of Lord Aspenly--so that between his
lordship's society, and her own preparations for it, she had scarcely
allowed herself time to read the letter in question, much less to
answer it.
All these things served to fill O'Connor's mind with vague but
agonizing doubts--doubts which he vainly strove to combat; fears which
had not their birth in an alarmed imagination, but which, alas! were
but too surely approved by reason. The notion of a systematic plot,
embracing so many agents, and conducted with such deep and hellish
hypocrisy, with the sole purpose of destroying affections the most
beautiful, and of alienating hearts the truest, was a thought so
monstrous and unnatural that it never for a second flashed upon his
mind; still his heart struggled strongly against despair. Spite of all
that looked gloomy in what he saw--spite of the boding suggestions of
his worst fears, he would not believe her false to him--that she who
had so long and so well loved and trusted him--she whose gentle heart
he knew unchanged and unchilled by years, and distance, and
misfortunes--that she should, after all, have fallen away from him, and
given up that heart, which once was his, to vanity and the hollow
glitter of the world--this he could hardly bring himself to believe,
yet what was he to think? alas! what?