“Am I to understand that our title is somehow endangered? I do not quite
comprehend your last letter,” said Oswald, addressing his father
somewhat haughtily. They were in Melmar’s study, where everybody went to
discuss this business, and where the son sat daintily upon a chair which
he had selected from the others for his own use, leaning the points of
his elbows upon the table, and looking elaborately uncomfortable--so
much so, that some faint idea that this study, after all, could not be a
very pleasant apartment, entered, for the first time, the mind of
Melmar.
“Come nearer to the fire, Oswald,” said Mr. Huntley, suddenly. He was
really solicitous about the health and comfort of his son.
“Thank you; I can scarcely breathe _here_,” said the young man,
ungratefully. “Was I right, sir, in supposing _that_ to be your reason
for writing me such a letter as your last?”
“You were right in supposing that I wanted to see you,” said the father,
with some natural displeasure. “You live a fine life in foreign parts,
my lad; you’ve little to put you about; but what could you do for
yourself if the funds at Melmar were to fail?”
“Really the idea is disagreeable,” said Oswald, laughing. “I had rather
not take it into consideration, unless it is absolutely necessary.”
“If it were so,” said Melmar, with a little bitterness, “which of you
could I depend upon--which of you would stretch out a helping hand to
help me?”
“To help _you_? Upon my word, sir, I begin to think you must be in
earnest,” said his son. “What does this mean? Is there really any other
claimant for the estate? Have we any real grounds for fear? Were not you
the heir-at-law?”
“I was the heir-at-law; and there is no other claimant,” said Melmar,
dryly; “but there is a certain person in existence, Oswald Huntley, who,
if she but turns up soon enough--and there’s two or three years yet to
come and go upon--can turn both you and me to the door, and ruin us with
arrears of income to the boot.”
Oswald grew rather pale. “Is this a new discovery?” he said, “or why did
I, who am, next to yourself, the person most concerned, never hear of it
before?”
“You were a boy, in the first place; and in the second place, a
head-strong, self-willed lad; nextly, delicate,” said Melmar, still with
a little sarcasm; “and it remains to be seen yet whether you’re a
reasonable man.”
“Oh, hang reason!” cried the young man with excitement. “I understand
all that. What’s to be done? that seems the main thing. Who is this
certain person that has a better right to Melmar than we?”
“Tell me first what you would do if you knew,” said Mr. Huntley, bending
his red gray eyes intently upon his son. Melmar knew that there were
generous young fools in the world, who would not hesitate to throw
fortune and living to the winds for the sake of something called honor
and justice. He had but little acquaintance with his son; he did not
know what stuff Oswald was made of. He thought it just possible that the
spirit of such Quixotes might animate this elegant mass of good breeding
and dillettanteism; for which reason he sat watching under his grizzled,
bushy eyebrows, with the intensest looks of those fiery eyes.
“Pshaw! do? You don’t suppose _I_ would be likely to yield to any one
without a struggle. Who is it?” said Oswald; “let me know plainly what
you mean.”
“It is the late Me’mar’s daughter and only child; a woman with children;
a woman in poor circumstances,” replied Mr. Huntley, still with a
certain dry sarcasm in his voice.
“But she was disinherited?” said Oswald, eagerly.
“Her father left a will in her favor,” said Melmar, “reinstating her
fully in her natural rights; that will is in the hands of our enemies,
whom the old fool left his heirs, failing his daughter: she and her
children, and these young men, are ready to pounce upon the estate.”
“But she was lost--did I not hear so?” cried Oswald, rising from his
chair in overpowering excitement.
“Ay!” said his father, “but I know where she is.”
“In Heaven’s name, what do you mean?” cried the unfortunate young man;
“is it to bewilder and overwhelm me that you tell me all this? Have we
no chance? Are we mere impostors? Is all this certain and beyond
dispute? What do you mean?”
“It is all certain,” said Melmar, steadily; “her right is
unquestionable; she has heirs of her own blood, and I know where she
is--she can turn us out of house and home to-morrow--she can make me a
poor writer, ruined past redemption, and you a useless fine gentleman,
fit for nothing in this world that I know of, and your sisters
servant-maids, for I don’t know what else they’re good for. All this she
can do, Oswald Huntley, and more than this, the moment she makes her
appearance--but she is as ignorant as you were half an hour ago. _I_
know--but _she_ does not know.”
What will Oswald do?--he is pacing up and down the little study, no
longer elegant, and calm, and self-possessed; the faint color on his
cheeks grows crimson--the veins swell upon his forehead--a profuse cold
moisture comes upon his face. Pacing about the narrow space of the
study, thrusting the line of chairs out of his way, clenching his
delicate hand involuntarily in the tumult of his thoughts, there could
not have been a greater contrast than between Oswald at his entrance and
Oswald now. His father sat and watched him under his bushy
eyebrows--watched him with a steady, fixed, fascinating gaze, which the
young man’s firmness was not able to withstand. He burst out into
uneasy, troubled exclamations.
“What are we to do, then?--must we go and seek her out, and humble
ourselves before her?--must we bring her back in triumph to her
inheritance? It is the only thing we can do with honor. What _are_ we to
do?”
“Remember, Oswald,” said Melmar, significantly, “_she_ does not know.”
The young man threw himself into a chair, hid his face in his hands, and
broke into low, muttered groans of vexation and despair, which sounded
like curses, and perhaps were so. Then he turned towards his father
violently and suddenly, with again that angry question, “What are we to
do?”
He was not without honor, he was not without conscience; if he had there
could have been little occasion for that burning color, or for the cold
beads of moisture on his forehead. The sudden and startling intelligence
had bewildered him for a moment--then he had undergone a fierce but
brief struggle, and then Oswald Huntley sank into his chair, and into
the hands of his father, with that melancholy confession of his
weakness--a question when the matter was unquestionable--“what are we to
do?”
“Nothing,” said Melmar, grimly, regarding his son with a triumph which,
perhaps, after all, had a little contempt in it. This, then, was all the
advantage which his refinement and fine-gentlemanliness gave him--a
moment’s miserable, weakly hesitation, nothing more nor better. The
father, with his coarse methods of thought, and unscrupulous motives,
would not have hesitated: yet not a whit stronger, as it appeared, was
the honor or courage of the son.
“Nothing!” said Melmar; “simply to keep quiet, and be prepared against
emergencies, and if possible to stave off every proceeding for a few
years more. They have a clever lad of a lawyer in their interests, which
is against us, but you may trust me to keep him back if it is possible;
a few years and we are safe--I ask nothing but time.”
“And nothing from me?” said Oswald, rising with a sullen shame upon his
face, which his father did not quite comprehend. The young man felt that
he had no longer any standing ground of superiority; he was humiliated,
abased, cast down. Such advantage as there was in moral obtuseness and
strength of purpose lay altogether with Melmar. His son only knew
better, without any will to do better. He was degraded in his own eyes,
and angrily conscious of it, and a sullen resentment rose within him. If
he could do nothing, why tell him of this to give him a guilty
consciousness of the false position which he had not courage enough to
abandon? Why drag him down from his airy height of mannerly and educated
elevation to prove him clay as mean as the parent whom he despised? It
gave an additional pang to the overthrow. There was nothing to be
done--the misery was inflicted for nothing--only as a warning to guard
against an emergency which, perhaps, had it come unguarded, might not
have stripped Oswald so bare of self-esteem as this.
“We’ll see that,” said Melmar, slowly; then he rose and went to the door
and investigated the passages. No one was there. When he returned, he
said something in his son’s ear, which once more brought a flush of
uneasy shame to his cheek. The father made his suggestion lightly, with
a chuckle. The young man heard it in silence, with an indescribable look
of self-humiliation. Then they separated--Oswald to hurry out, with his
cloak round him, to the grounds where he could be alone--Melmar to bite
his pen in the study, and muse over his victory. What would come of
it?--his own ingenuity and that last suggestion which he had breathed in
Oswald’s ear. Surely these were more than enough to baffle the foolish
young Livingstones of Norlaw, and even their youthful agent? He thought
so. The old Aberdonian felt secure in his own skill and cunning--he had
no longer the opposition of his son to dread. What should he fear?
In the meantime, Patricia, who had seen her brother leave the house in
great haste, like a man too late for an appointment, and who had spied a
light little figure crossing the bridge over Tyne before, wrapped
herself up, though it was a very cold day, and set out also to see what
she could discover. Malice and curiosity together did more to keep her
warm than the cloak and fur tippet, yet she almost repented when she
found herself among the frozen, snow-sprinkled trees, with the faint
tinkle of the Kelpie striking sharp, yet drowsy, like a little stream of
metal through the frost-bound stillness, and no one visible on the path,
where now and then her foot slid upon a treacherous bit of ice, inlaid
in the hard brown soil. Could they have left the grounds of Melmar?
Where could they have gone? If they had not met, one of them must
certainly have appeared by this time; and Patricia still pushed on,
though her cheeks were blue and her fingers red with cold, and though
the intensity of the chill made her faint, and pierced to her poor
little heart. At last she was rewarded by hearing voices before her.
Yes, there they were. Desirée standing in the path, looking up at the
trunk of a tree, from which Oswald was stripping a bit of velvet moss,
with bells of a little white fungus, delicate and pure as flowers,
growing upon it. As Patricia came up, her brother presented the prize to
the little Frenchwoman, almost with the air of a lover. The breast of
his poor little sister swelled with bitterness, dislike, and malicious
triumph. She had found them out.
“Oswald! I thought you were quite afraid of taking cold,” cried
Patricia--“dear me, who could have supposed that you would have been in
the woods on such a day! I am sure Mademoiselle ought to be very
proud--you would not have come for any one else in the house.”
“I am extremely indebted to you, Patricia, for letting Mademoiselle know
so much,” said Oswald. “One does not like to proclaim one’s own merits.
Was it on Mademoiselle’s account that you, too, undertook the walk, poor
child? Come, I will help you home.”
“Oh, I’m sure she does not want _me_!” exclaimed Patricia, ready to cry
in the height of her triumph. “Papa and you are much more in her way
than I am--as long as she can make you gentlemen do what she pleases,
she does not care any thing about your sisters. Oh, I know all about
it!--I know papa is infatuated about her, and so are you, and she is a
designing little creature, and does not care a bit for Joanna. You may
say what you please, but I know I am right, and I will not stand it
longer--I shall go this very moment and tell mamma!”
“Mademoiselle Huntley shall not have that trouble,” cried Desirée, who
had been standing by utterly amazed for the first few moments, with
cheeks alternately burning red and snow pale. “_I_ shall tell Mrs.
Huntley; it concerns me most of any one. Mademoiselle may be unkind if
she pleases--I am used to that--but no one shall dare,” cried the little
heroine, stamping her little foot, and clapping her hands in sudden
passion, “to say insulting words to me! I thank you, Monsieur
Oswald--but it is for me, it is not for you--let me pass--I shall tell
Mrs. Huntley this moment, and I shall go!”
“Patricia is a little fool, Mademoiselle,” said Oswald, vainly
endeavoring to divert the seriousness of the incident. “Nay--come, we
shall all go together--but every person of sense in the house will be
deeply grieved if you take this absurdity to heart. Forget it; she shall
beg your pardon. Patricia!” exclaimed the young man, in a deep undertone
of passion, “you ridiculous little idiot! do you know what you have
done?”
“Oh, I know! I’ve told the truth--I am too clear-sighted!” sobbed
Patricia, “_I_ can not help seeing that both papa and you are crazy
about the governess--it will break poor mamma’s heart!”
Though Desirée was much wounded, ashamed, and angry, furious rather, to
tell the truth, she could not resist the ludicrous whimper of this mock
sorrow. She laughed scornfully.
“I shall go by myself, please,” she said, springing through a by-way,
where Oswald was not agile enough or sufficiently acquainted with to
follow. “I shall tell Mrs. Huntley, instantly, and she will not break
her heart--but no one in the world shall dare to speak thus again to
me.”
So Desirée disappeared like a bird among the close network of frozen
branches, and Patricia and her brother, admirable good friends, as one
might suppose, together pursued their way home.