THE McPHERSONS.
The room in which Hugh McPherson was lying was the largest, and coolest,
and best furnished in the house, for since he had been confined to his
bed Dorothy had brought into it everything she thought would make it
more attractive and endurable to the fastidious invalid, who, on the
June morning when his son was in the garden talking to Daisy Allen, was
propped upon pillows scarcely whiter than his thin, worn face, and was
speaking of Archie to his brother John, who was standing before him with
folded arms, and a gloomy, troubled expression on his face. Just across
the room, by an open window, sat Lady Jane, pretending to rearrange a
bowl of roses on the table near her, but listening intently to the
conversation between the two brothers.
"I don't know what will become of Archie," the sick man said, speaking
very slowly. "I shall leave him nothing but Stoneleigh, with a mortgage
on it for four hundred pounds, and a little annuity which came through
his mother. Strange, that from dear little Dora, who, when I married
her, had nothing but her sweet voice and sweeter face, the boy should
inherit all the ready money he can ever have, unless you or our sister
Betsey open your hearts to him. You used to fancy the boy, and talked
once of adopting him, when I had that fever at Pau, and you came to see
me."
Here Lady Jane's long neck arched itself more proudly, and John felt how
intently she was awaiting his reply.
"Yes, Hugh," he said, "I like the boy. He is bright and intelligent; and
I did think of adopting him once, but that was before Neil came. Now I
have a son, which makes a difference. I cannot take Archie, or do very
much for him either. You know I have very little money of my own, and I
have no right to spend Lady Jane's."
Here the willowy figure near the window bent very low over the roses,
as if satisfied with the turn matters were taking, as John went on:
"As his uncle and guardian, I will see to him, of course, and will write
to our sister, asking her to do something for him. Perhaps she will
invite him to come to her in America, and if so, what are your wishes?
Shall I let him go?"
The invalid hesitated a moment, while his common sense fought with the
old hereditary pride of blood and birth, which would keep one in the
rank to which it had pleased God to call him, even if he starved there.
The latter gained the victory, and Hugh replied:
I would rather Archie should not go to America if there is any other
way. Betsey is very peculiar in her ideas, and would as soon apprentice
him to a shoemaker as anything else. In the last letter I received from
her, she advised me to put him to some trade, and to break stone myself
on the highway, rather than do nothing. No, Archie must not go to
America, he may marry well, if you and Lady Jane look after him; and you
will, John. You will have a care for my boy when I am gone, and, oh,
never, never let him go near the gaming-table. That has been my ruin.
Keep him from that, whatever you do."
"Why not require a promise from him to that effect? He is a truthful
boy; he will keep his word," John said, and Hugh replied:
"Yes, yes, that's it; strange I never thought of it before. I will send
for him at once. Call Anthony to fetch him; and, oh, John, I owe Anthony
fifty pounds; money borrowed at different times from his hard earnings.
You will see that he is paid?"
"Yes," John answered, promptly; for Anthony, who had been at Stoneleigh
since he was a boy, and had been so much to him, was his favorite, and
should not suffer.
He would pay Anthony; but when his brother mentioned other debts owing
to the trades-people in Bangor, and Beaumaris, and even Carnarvon, he
objected, on the ground that he was not able, but said he would lay the
matter before his sister Betsey, who was far richer than himself.
It was at this point that Archie appeared in the door, and after
greeting his Uncle John and the Lady Jane with the grace and courtesy so
natural to him, he went to his father's bedside, where he stopped
suddenly, struck with an expression on the pinched, white face, which
earlier in the morning had not been there.
"Father," he cried, while a great fear took possession of him, "what is
it? Are you worse?"
"Yes, my son, weaker--that is all--and going from you very fast--before
the day is over, perhaps--and I want to talk to you, Archie, and to tell
you I have nothing to leave you but Stoneleigh, and that is mortgaged;
nothing but the small annuity on your life from your mother's little
fortune, which came too late to do her any good. Oh, Dora! who bore with
me so patiently, and loved me through all--shall I find her, I wonder?
She was so good, and I am so bad! And, Archie, my ruin has been the
gaming-table, which you must avoid as you would the plague. Death and
eternal ruin sit there side by side. Shun it, Archie, and promise me, as
you hope for heaven, never to play for money--never!"
"But what shall I do?" Archie asked, remembering that he had intended to
try his fortune at Monte Carlo, where he had heard such large sums were
sometimes made. "What shall I do?"
"I don't know, my boy," the father replied. "There will be some way
provided. Your Uncle John will look after you as your guardian, and your
aunt in America will help. But promise, and I shall die happier."
And so, with no especial thought about it, except that his father wished
it, Archie McPherson pledged himself never to play for money under any
circumstances, and the father knew the boy would keep the pledge, and
felt that his last hours of life ware easier; for those hours were his
last, and when the sun went down the master of Stoneleigh lay dead in
the room where he had blessed his son and commended him to the care of
his brother and Anthony, feeling, certain that the latter would be truer
to the trust than the former, in whom selfishness was the predominant
trait.
It was a very quiet, unpretentious funeral; for John McPherson, who knew
the expense of it would fall on himself, would have no unnecessary
display, and the third day after his death Hugh McPherson was laid to
rest by the side of the Dora he had often neglected, but always loved.
As soon as the funeral was over, John returned to London with Lady Jane,
having first given Archie a great deal of good advice, to the effect,
that he must do the best he could with what he had, and never spend a
shilling unnecessarily, or forget that he was a McPherson.
On his arrival in London, John wrote to his sister in America, telling
her of Hugh's death; of his poverty and his debts, and asking what she
was willing to do for the boy who was left, as it were, upon the world.
In due time the answer came, and was characteristic of the writer. She
would pay the mortgage and the debts to the trades-people, rather than
have the McPherson name disgraced, and she would take the boy and put
him in a way to earn his own living at some honest and respectable
occupation. If he did not choose to come, or her brother did not choose
to send him on account of any foolish pride and prejudice against labor,
then he might take care of him or the boy might starve for all of her.
This letter John and Lady Jane read together, but did not consider for a
moment. With a scornful toss of her head Lady Jane declared herself
ready to give of her own means toward the maintenance of the boy, rather
than to see a McPherson degraded to manual labor and thus disgrace her
son Neil, the apple of her eye.
And so it was settled between them that Archie was to be kept in
ignorance of his Aunt Betsey's offer, which the low taste he had
inherited from his mother might possibly prompt him to accept. Meanwhile
he was for the present to remain at Stoneleigh, where his living would
cost a mere pittance, and where he would pursue his studies as
heretofore, under the direction of a retired clergyman, who, for a
nominal sum, took boys to educate. This sum, with other absolute
necessaries, John undertook to pay, feeling when all the arrangements
were made that he had done his duty to his brother's child, who was
perfectly delighted to be left by himself at Stoneleigh, where he could
do as he pleased with Anthony and Dorothy, and his teacher, too, for
that matter, and where he was free to talk with and tease and at last
make love to Daisy Allen, for his Uncle John paid but little attention
to him beyond paying the sum he had pledged, and having him in his
family at London and in Derbyshire, for a few weeks each year when it
was most convenient.
Naturally he could not help falling in love with Daisy, who was the only
girl he ever saw except the high-bred, milk-and-water misses whom he
sometimes met in Lady Jane's drawing-room, and who, in point of beauty
and grace and piquancy, could in no degree compare with the playmate of
his childhood.
After the morning when Daisy kept the sun from him in the old yew-shaded
garden, and he jestingly proposed to marry her, that she might take care
of him, a change came over the girl, who began to develope the talent
for intrigue in which she afterward became so successful. And as a
preliminary step she made herself so necessary to Archie that his life
without her would hardly have been endurable, and of his own accord he
always shortened as much as possible, his visits to London, for he knew
how bright was the face and how warm the welcome awaiting him at
Stoneleigh.
And so it came about that when Daisy was sixteen and he was twenty, he
offered himself to the girl, who pretended no surprise or reserve, but
promptly answered yes, and then suggested that their engagement be kept
a secret from every one until he came of age and could do as he pleased,
for Daisy well knew the fierce opposition he would meet from his proud
relatives, if once they knew that he had stooped to the daughter of a
dressmaker. And so well did she manage the affair that not even Dorothy
suspected the real state of affairs, until one morning, when Archie, who
had been absent for two weeks on a tour through Scotland, astonished her
by walking into the house with Daisy, whom he introduced as his wife and
the mistress of Stoneleigh. She, too, had been to Scotland to visit some
friends, and there the marriage was consummated, and Archie had some one
to take care of him at last.
And when his uncle John wrote him a most angry letter denouncing him as
his nephew, and cutting off his yearly allowance, which, though small,
was still something to depend upon, Daisy rose to the situation and
managed his annuity, and managed the household, and managed him, until
enough was saved from their slender means to start on the campaign which
she had planned for herself, and which she carried out so successfully.
The Continent was her chosen field of action, and Monte Carlo the point
toward which she steadily set her face; until, at last, one Lovely
October day, five months after her marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Archibald
McPherson, of Stoneleigh, Wales, were registered at the Hotel
d'Angleterre, and look possession of one of the cheapest rooms, until
they could afford a better.
"It does not matter where we sleep, or where we eat, so long as we make
a good appearance outside," she said to Archie, who shrank a little at
first from the close, dreary room on the fifth floor, so different from
his large, airy apartment at home, which though very plainly furnished,
had about it an air of refinement and respectability in striking
contrast to this ten by twelve hole, where Daisy made the most ravishing
toilets of the simplest materials, with which to attract and ensnare any
silly moth ready to singe its wings at her flame. She had settled the
point that if Archie could not earn his living because he was a
McPherson, she must do it for him. Five months had sufficed to show her
that there was in him no capability or disposition for work, or
business, or exertion of any kind. He was a great, good-natured,
easy-going, indolent fellow, popular with everybody, and very fond, and
very proud of, and very dependent upon her, with no grain of jealousy in
his nature. So, when the English swells, of which there were many at
Monte Carlo, flocked around her, attracted by her fresh young beauty and
the girlish simplicity of her manners, she readily encouraged them; not
because she cared particularly for their admiration, but because she
meant to use them for her own purpose, and make them subservient to her
interests.