A week after their settlement at Grove Road, while the girls were
expecting every day to receive at least by telegraph some news from
their mother, Geoffrey made his appearance in the middle of the day, and
with a face of much serious meaning. He asked his mother and her guests
to come with him to Miss Anna’s room; and then having gathered them all
around him, he took out some papers and made a little speech to them
with great seriousness. “I thought it was of the utmost importance that
we should all know exactly how we stood,” he said, “and I put the whole
case into Mr Furnival’s hands. We all trust him who know him, and Grace
and Milly were willing to take him on my word. He has had all the facts
before him for some days; with such scraps of evidence as you could
furnish us with,” he added, turning to Grace: “and he took counsel’s
opinion. I informed him that it would be in any case an amicable suit to
settle our respective rights. I have brought you their opinions now.”
“I thought there was something going on,” said Miss Anna, “something
underhand, a conspiracy, concealed from me.”
“Conspiracies are not in my way,” Geoffrey said. “Perhaps you would like
me to read what they say. It confirms my own opinion--though perhaps my
advice would have been different.”
He spread out his papers on the table, and the women round him turned
their eyes to him with expressions as different as their characters: his
mother proud of the position her boy was assuming, yet a little nervous
as to how Anna would take it, and suspicious of the look which she
thought she detected him directing towards Milly; Grace a little
reserved, holding her head erect, looking at him with an interest
which had not much curiosity in it, but a rising impulse of
resistance--although she could not tell as yet what it was she was to
resist; Milly with milder interest and a gentle admiration of Geoff
which was like a shy shadow of his mother’s. But Miss Anna, all alert,
turned eagerly towards him as if she would have snatched the papers out
of his hands, her dark eyes blazing, her whole figure full of energy and
latent wrath, which she was ready to pour out upon him should the
lawyers’ opinion go against her own.
“I need not read it word for word,” said Geoff; “I will give it
afterwards to my cousin Grace. The lawyers think, after close
consideration, that there is--no case----.” (Here there was a movement
on the part of Miss Anna and a quick “I told you so.”) “Wait a little,”
said Geoffrey, “They say there is scarcely any case to go to a jury;
but they say also that if it did go to a jury the strong moral
probability and the touching character of all the circumstances might
lead to a verdict for the claimants notwithstanding the weakness of the
evidence. Law would be against it; but the jury might be for it.”
“I understand that reasoning,” said Miss Anna: “most men are fools, and
jurymen are men--therefore it is likely that fools being the judges, the
verdict would be preposterous. Is that all your wiseacres have got to
say?”
“Not quite,” said Geoff; “the lawyers advise a compromise.”
“A compromise? I object--I object at once. I will not hear of it. Let it
go into court. If I am compelled to yield to the sentiment of a dozen
British idiots, I must do so; but consent to rob myself, for no reason?
oh no, no! I will never do that.”
“Aunt Anna, you are not the only person concerned.”
“I am,” she said; “I have the largest share. I am the eldest. Your
mother has never gone against me in her life, and she will not now.”
“Anna,” said Mrs Underwood tremulously, “I always have followed your
advice--oh, always, it is quite true; but Geoff, you know--Geoff is a
man now; and he has been bred up to the law, and he ought to know
better, far better than we do.”
“Should he? but he doesn’t; he’s a poor weak sentimental creature not
strong enough to be either one thing or another, a swindler or an honest
man. He naturally takes refuge in compromises. I haven’t known him so
long without knowing that. I believe the lawyer’s opinion is his own, it
is so like him. A compromise? no! I will have no compromise,” cried Miss
Anna, striking her stick upon the floor.
“And we reject it too,” cried Grace--“we will have nothing, nothing! we
settled upon all that before we came here. If we had not decided so, we
should never have come.”
“Let it go to a jury if you like,” said Miss Anna, paying no attention
to this. “I am not afraid. I take the risk of sentiment. Yes, of course,
they are a pack of sentimental fools: two pretty girls in deep mourning
will get anything out of a British jury. Still I’ll risk it. But
nothing, nothing in the world will make me consent to a compromise.”
Grace had risen to her feet, with her usual eagerness of impulse, “Do
you not hear me--do you not understand me, Miss Anna? We will take
nothing; we will have no compromises, no more talk even, not a word
said. We will have nothing, nothing to do with it! We have a right to be
heard as well as you----”
“And I think I also have a right to be heard,” cried Geoff--he was calm
between the excitement of the others; “I am not without a voice.
Whatever you say, justice must be done, and justice suggests this
course. Yes, Aunt Anna, whatever you say, I have a right to be heard. It
is for our own comfort, without thought of them.”
“I want no such comfort,” she cried. “I gave in to your mother’s
nonsense, and allowed them to be asked here. I allowed them to be asked
because they were----”
“Aunt Anna! do you wish me to tell them in so many words why you wanted
them----?”
“Geoff, Geoff!” cried his mother, in alarm.
The girls paid but little attention to this quarrel as it raged. They
did not comprehend even what it was about. “We had better go away as
this is not our affair,” Grace said, with a stately little bow. And
Milly, too, rose to go with her sister--when the conflict around
suddenly ceased, and the two girls, who seemed to have been pushed aside
by the other more energetic emotions, suddenly became again the centre
of the scene, and the chief persons in it. What was it? only the
entrance of old Simmons with a yellow envelope in his hand.
The others stopped short in their conflict. They acknowledged with a
little awe the presence of something greater which had come into their
midst. They looked on in silence while the girls, clinging together,
read their telegram. Then there was a little pause.
“We must go home at once,” said Grace, as well as she could speak for
tears. “We do not require to wait. There are steamers every day, I
suppose. Would you answer this for us, Cousin Geoffrey? and say we want
no one. We will come.”
It required some power of divination to make out the last words, which
were almost choked with the weeping to which Milly had entirely given
way.
“Go at once?” said Miss Anna, “without an escort--without seeing
anything?”
The girls gave her, both together, an indignant look; and then they
turned and went out of the room, moving in one step, like one creature,
with a soft sweep as of wings. So at least Geoffrey thought, looking
after them with the tenderest pity in his eyes. They did not walk but
disappeared, flying to be alone and get some comfort from their tears.
“What does the telegram say--who sends it--is it long or short--is it
from the mother herself, is it--?” Miss Anna put out her hand and tried
to take it from Geoff. Both the ladies were full of curiosity. Mrs
Underwood, indeed, in sympathy with the trouble of the girls, dried her
eyes as she looked up eagerly for news--but Miss Anna owned no trace of
tears. She was full of interest and keen curiosity. “Give it me. The
very wording of it will tell us something more about them,” she cried.
Geoff’s first movement was to hurry away, carrying this communication
with him; but he paused as a new idea took possession of him. He was too
good a man to be altogether a free agent. He paused, and looked at the
mother upon whom he knew he was about to inflict a great blow. She was
not a wise woman, and the instinct of curiosity which had possession of
her at the moment was not one to please that critical faculty which is
so exaggerated in youth. He did not like to see in her eyes even a
shadow of the hungry appetite for news which burned in her sister’s.
Nevertheless, he read the telegram slowly.
“Your terrible news just received. Mother utterly prostrated. Wire if
wish me to come for you--otherwise return first ship.”
The name of the sender was a strange one--it was evidently an uncle or
some relation who could speak with authority. Geoff paid no attention to
what the ladies said, but went on. “Mother, I am going to say something
which will vex you. You must try to remember that I am old enough to
take care of myself. I am going with them, to take them to their
mother.”
“Geoff--Geoff--by sea!--to America!” Mrs Underwood gasped; she could not
get her breath.
“Of course it must be by sea if he goes to America,” said Miss Anna.
“There is no land passage invented yet.”
“It is my plain duty,” said Geoff, colouring a little, “if, as I
believe, they are our near relations; and in any case there is a
question between us which they are too young in their generosity to
settle. We cannot take advantage of the generosity of two children,
mother----”
“Oh, Geoff! but for you to go--to go to America--a long voyage, and at
this time of the year----”
“The equinoctials coming on,” put in Miss Anna quickly.
“The equin----, yes; nothing but storms and shipwrecks, and every kind
of danger. If you mean me never to have a night’s rest more--to go
distracted every wind that blows--to have neither peace nor comfort of
my life! Oh, Geoff! all that, for them that you never had seen a
fortnight ago! and me, your mother, that have never had another thought
but you for eight-and-twenty years----”
“Surely, mother,” cried poor Geoff, “there is no need to put it so
tragically. I am not going to abandon you. I am only going to do what
half the men of my age do for pleasure--and I shall have a real motive
in it. In the first place, a duty to Grace and Milly: if they were your
children, how should you like them to go over the sea all alone, when a
great idle fellow calling himself their cousin was here doing nothing?
And then this business, which otherwise may worry us for years, which we
never can be sure about--for if these dear girls, in the generosity of
their hearts, refuse to have anything to do with it, who can tell that
their mother, their brothers will be of the same mind?”
Mrs Underwood had fallen into tears and broken exclamations. She was
incapable of any connected words. “Oh Geoff--my boy--all I have--all I
have in the world!” and “a sea voyage--a sea voyage to America,” was all
she said.
Miss Anna got up to her feet, and struck her stick emphatically upon the
floor. “Listen, Mary! I have said your son was soft, and a dawdle like
yourself. I retract. He’s a clever fellow, and sees the rights of a
matter when it’s put before him. There, Geoff! go, and you have my
blessing. I’ll give you a hundred pounds, too, if you want it, that you
may have a pleasant trip. Your mother’s talking nonsense. I never knew
her lose a night’s rest, except when you were teething; and then that
was your doing, not hers, for you squalled all night. Go, my boy, and
success to you. It’s the wisest thing you ever thought of in your life.”
“Oh, Anna!” cried her sister, “how can you be so cruel?” She had dried
her eyes at these accusations, and sat up with a flushed countenance.
“If you knew, if you only knew half what a mother goes through! Do you
think I have always told you when I lay awake thinking of him--or any
one? Geoff, I have never denied you anything; but I think this will
break my heart!”
“Mother,” said Geoff, half pleading, half angry, “I run no more risk
than half the women’s sons in England--no risk at all; you make me feel
a fool to talk like this.”
“Never mind,” said Miss Anna, while Mrs Underwood relapsed into weeping;
“I’ll bring her round. Go off at once, there is plenty of time, and see
about your berths. You’ll find her quite reconciled to it when you come
back.”
“But, Aunt Anna, I don’t understand the change on your part. You who
rejected all idea of a compromise----”
Aunt Anna laughed. “I have no objection to one kind of compromise. Bring
us back that little dove-eyed thing as Mrs Geoff. I’d rather have had
the other; but you could never have managed her. Settle my money upon
Milly in her marriage settlements; and don’t mind about our absence from
the ceremony. Go and see Niagara, and all that, and bring us back your
wife--that’s the kind of compromise I want; that’s all I stipulate for,
Geoff.”
“If I can, Aunt Anna.”
“Pooh--can! With a week under the same roof, and a fortnight in the same
ship. Rubbish! If you can’t, you are a poorer creature than I thought.
Go, go, off with you, Geoff--before your mother comes to herself.”
“Where is Geoff going? Oh, Anna, help me, help me! don’t let him go.
Geoff!” cried Mrs Underwood.
Upon which Miss Anna confronted her sister with her most imposing looks.
“Mary! don’t be a fool. The boy is doing precisely what he ought to do.
I never had such a good opinion of him before; let him alone. He is
fifty times better able to take care of himself than you are to take
care of him. Here’s the telegram; let us see what it says.”
“It says, I suppose, just what he read to us, Anna,” said the other,
frightened into some degree of self-denial, and with a little curiosity
re-awakening in her blurred overflowing eyes.
“A thing never says anything to you when it’s read aloud. Here it is.
‘Stephen Salisbury, Quebec, to Grace Yorke, Montague Hotel, London.’
(Then it was sent on from the hotel.) ‘Terrible news received; mother
prostrated; wire if wish me to come.’ Of course it must be the mother’s
brother. The people must be well off, Mary. There cannot be any doubt
about that. You see he says he will come if they want him; and even the
message shows it. The man would never have sent such a long message if
he had not been well off.”
“I always knew that,” said Mrs Underwood feebly, “from what Grace and
Milly said. Why shouldn’t their uncle (if it is their uncle) come for
them? I don’t know why they should be in such a hurry to get away?”
“It is a great deal better that Geoff should go with them,” Miss Anna
said. “Pluck up a heart; or if you can’t do that, get a little
common-sense, Mary; common-sense will do just as well. Why should
anything happen to a Cunard steamer because your boy happens to be in it
more than another? Do you think God has a special spite against _you_?”
“Oh, Anna!” cried her sister, horrified; “me? I know God is merciful and
good: but----”
“But you would rather not trust Geoff in His hands, lest He should take
a cruel advantage? That is the way of people like you.”
“I never said so; I never thought so. I--I hope I have always put my
trust in God.”
“But you think, all the same, if He had a chance like this, that He
would like to do you an ill turn? Oh, I understand what you mean. I have
heard a great many people--pious, devout people--speak just like you.”
Mrs Underwood relapsed into speechless misery. Against such an
accusation as this, what could she say? She who never missed church, nor
ceased to profess her belief in Providence. She was silenced altogether.
She wept and sighed the name of Geoff now and then; but there was
nothing more to say.
Geoff went down to the City without loss of a moment. He secured berths
in a steamer which was to sail in three days; and with a bound of
pleasure and conscious pride in his heart found himself engaged for his
passage across the Atlantic. He went home very soberly, but with the
blood coursing in his veins. He had taken such an initiative now as he
had never been able to take in all his life before. He had emancipated
himself at last. It was, however, with a little apprehension that he
turned homeward. Whether his mother would impede his way with weeping,
whether the sisters would reject his escort, he could not tell; but his
fears in both cases were unnecessary. Mrs Underwood had been reduced to
subjection some time before he got home. And as for Grace and Milly,
they were neither excited about his proposal nor disposed to refuse it.
They took it as the most natural thing in the world. There was a gleam
of brightness, he thought, in Milly’s face, but Grace paid very little
attention. Geoffrey was a little cast down when he perceived that they
saw nothing at all heroic in his mission, nothing that anybody would
think twice about. But he had to console himself with Miss Anna’s
declaration that a fortnight on board ship would settle all questions.
He himself felt a great confidence that everything would come right in
the end.
Thus the difficulty was brought to a conclusion, in a way little
contemplated by the Canadian who once had been Leonard Crosthwaite, and
had broken his heart for his cousin Anna. When the young people were
gone, the two ladies from Grove Road made a little pilgrimage to the
great, grey, dismal London cemetery in which all that remained of him
lay--where Mrs Underwood laid some flowers, and Anna gazed with eyes
that looked as if they could penetrate the very secrets of the grave,
upon the mound under which the lover of her youth slept in peace. What
were the thoughts that had lain concealed within his breast for thirty
years, yet which had brought him, carrying fear and confusion which he
little anticipated, to her dwelling, the first day he spent in England,
no one could tell. He had carried all that mystery with him to the other
world.
And after a while Geoffrey Underwood came safely back from the terrible
voyage which had so much alarmed his mother, bringing with him, exactly
as Miss Anna had foreseen and commanded, his young wife. She was far too
young a wife, her mother thought, to venture so far; but Milly did not
think so. How to do without Grace, and to think for herself, was more
difficult to Milly than the distance and the voyage. But she did what
was a great deal easier than thinking for herself--she transferred all
the responsibility to her husband. Nothing could be handsomer than the
marriage settlement which Miss Anna made. She made the little bride her
own representative, with the larger share of the fortune. And the
Canadian family were well pleased, and asked no more. Indeed, all that
Mrs Yorke desired was that nothing should be said about this strange
illumination thrown at the last upon the husband who had been hers for
twenty years, and who now seemed to be stolen from her and changed into
another man. She would not listen to any explanations on the subject;
the sound of the other name was odious to her. She took even from her
boy, Leonard, that name of his which came from his father’s old life,
and jealously called him Robert, which was his second name.
Almost a year elapsed before the young pair came home. They arrived on a
bright April afternoon, when the sun was shining over the great smoke.
The windows were open: the lawn all green with spring, and set in a
frame of English primroses, looked as fresh as the bride herself, who
recognised it, and the difference in it, with a little cry of pleasure.
Mrs Underwood threw herself, as was natural, upon the wonderful son who
had been delivered from the seas, who had not been drowned, or swallowed
by a whale, who had come safely through marriage, and all the other
terrific dangers to which he had been exposed; but Miss Anna walked
across the room with a little stately limp, casting aside her stick,
and took little Milly in her arms. “Welcome!” she said, “little girl
with the dove’s eyes. I always said I would accept one, but only one,
compromise!”
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.