A very sadly different scene; no young hopes blossoming towards
perfection--no young lives beginning--no joy--has called together this
company, or makes this room bright; a dark house, shrouded still in its
closed curtains and shutters, a wan light in the apartment, a breathless
air of death throughout the place. Outside, the tawdry Frenchman, with a
long crape hatband, knotted up in funeral bows, as is the custom in
Scotland, walking up and down smoking his cigar, angry at finding
himself excluded, yet tired of the brief decorum into which even he has
been awed, and much disposed to amuse himself with any kitchenmaid whom
he may chance to see as he peers about their quarters, keeping at the
back of the house. But the maids are horrified and defiant, and the
affair is rather dull, after all, for Monsieur Pierrot.
The company are all assembled in the drawing-room, as they have returned
from the funeral. The minister, the doctor, a lawyer from Melrose,
Cameron, and the three brothers Livingstone. Madame Roche, her black
gown covered with crape, and every thing about her of the deepest sable,
save her cap; the white ribbons of which are crape ribbons too, sits,
with her handkerchief in her hand, in an easy chair. The Mistress is
there, too, rather wondering and disapproving, giving her chief
attention to Desirée, who sits behind her mother quietly crying, and
supposing this solemn assembly is some necessary formality which must be
gone through.
“Is it to read the will?” asks the minister, who suggests that her
husband had better be present; but no, there is no will--for poor Marie
had nothing and could leave nothing. When they have been all seated for
a few minutes, Madame Roche herself rises from her chair. Though the
tears are in her eyes, and grief in her face, she is still the beautiful
old lady whom Cosmo Livingstone loved to watch from his window in St.
Ouen. Time himself, the universal conqueror, can never take from Mary of
Melmar that gift which surrounded her with love in her youth, and which
has lighted all her troubled life like a fairy lamp. The sweet soft
cheek where even wrinkles are lovely, the beautiful old eyes which even
in their tears can not choose but smile, the footstep so light, yet so
firm, which still might ring “like siller bells,” though its way is
heavy. Every one was looking at her, and as they looked, every one
acknowledged the unchanging fascination of this beautiful face.
“Gentlemen,” said Madame Roche with a little tremor in her voice, “I
would speak to you all--I would do my justice before the world; you have
heard what I was in my youth. Mary Huntley of Melmar, my father’s
heiress. I was disobedient--I went away from him--I knew he disowned me,
and knew no more than an infant that he relented in his heart when he
died. I was poor all my life--my Marie, my dear child!” and here Madame
Roche paused to sob aloud, and Desirée laid her head upon the knee of
the Mistress and clutched at her dress in silent self-control; “it was
then she married this man--married him to break her heart--yet still
loved him to the last. Ah, my friends, I was thus a widow with my sick
child in my husband’s town. My Jean was dead, and she was forsaken--and
my Desirée was gone from me to serve strangers--it was then that one
came to my house like an angel from heaven. Cosmo, my friend, do you
blush that I should name your name?
“And what a tale he told me!” cried poor Madame Roche, whose tears now
filled her eyes, and whose lips quivered so that she had to pause from
moment to moment; “I, who thought me a lonely woman, whom no one cared
for;--my father had thought upon me--my kinsman, Patrick Livingstone,
had sought me to give me back my lands--my young hero was seeking me
then; and his brother, yes, Huntley, his noble brother, was ready to
renounce his right--and all for the widow and her children. I weep, ah,
my friends, you weep!--was it not noble? was it not above praise? When I
heard it I made a vow--I said in my heart I should repay this excellent
Huntley. I had planned it in my mind--I said in my thoughts, my Marie,
my blessed child, must have half of this great fortune. She is married,
she can not make compensation--but the rest is for Desirée, and Desirée
shall give it back to Huntley Livingstone.”
Every one of her auditors by this time gazed upon Madame Roche. Desirée,
sitting behind her, lifted her face from the lap of the Mistress; she
was perfectly pale, and her eyes were heavy with crying. She sat
leaning forward, holding the Mistress’s gown with one hand, with sudden
dismay and terror in her white face. Just opposite her Cameron sat,
clenching his hand. What _he_ was thinking no one could say--but as
Madame Roche spoke of Marie he still clenched his hand. Then came the
strangers, surprised and sympathetic, Patrick Livingstone among them.
Then Huntley, much startled and wondering, and Cosmo, with a face which
reflected Desirée’s, dismayed and full of anxiety, and the attitude of a
man about to spring up to defy, or denounce, or contradict the speaker.
The Mistress behind sat upright in her chair, with a face like a psalm
of battle and triumph, her nostril dilating, her eyes shining. For the
first time in her life, the Mistress’s heart warmed to Mary of Melmar.
She alone wanted no explanation of this speech--she alone showed no
surprise or alarm--it was but a just and fit acknowledgment--a glory due
to the sons of Norlaw.
“But, alas,” cried Madame Roche; “God has looked upon it, and it has not
been enough. He has broken my heart and made my way clear; pity me, my
friends, my Marie is in heaven and her mother here! And now there is but
one heir. My Desirée is my only child--there is none to share her
inheritance. Huntley Livingstone, come to me! I have thought and I have
dreamed of the time when I should give you my child--but, alas! did I
think it should be only when Marie was in her grave? Huntley
Livingstone! you gave up your right to me, and I restore it to you. I
give you my child, and Melmar is for Desirée. There is no one to share
it with you, my daughter and my son!”
Huntley had risen and approached to Madame Roche, though with
reluctance, when she called him. Now she held his hand in one of hers,
and stretched out the other for that of Desirée--while Huntley,
confounded, confused, and amazed beyond expression, had not yet
recovered himself sufficiently to speak. Before he could speak Cosmo had
sprung to the side of Desirée, who stood holding back and meeting her
mother’s appeal with a look of dumb defiance and exasperation, which
might be very wrong, but was certainly very natural. Every one rose. But
for the grief of the principal actors, and the painful embarrassment of
all, the scene might almost have been ludicrous. Cosmo, who had grasped
at Desirée’s hand, did not obtain it any more than her mother. The girl
stood up, but kept her hold of the Mistress’s gown, as if for
protection.
“No, no, no, no!” said Desirée, in a low, hurried, ashamed voice;
“mother, no--no--no! I will not do it! Mamma, will you shame me? Oh,
pity us! Is it thus we are to weep for Marie?”
“My child, it is justice,” cried Madame Roche, through her tears; “give
him your hand--it is that Huntley may have his own.”
“But there is some strange mistake here,” said Huntley, whose brow
burned with a painful flush; “Melmar was never mine, nor had I any real
right to it. Years ago I have even forgotten that it once was possible.
Be silent for a moment, Cosmo, I beg of you, and you, Mademoiselle
Desirée, do not fear. Madame Roche, I thank you for your generous
meaning, but it is an entire mistake in every way--let me explain it
privately. Let us be alone first;--nay, nay, let me speak, then! I am my
father’s heir, and our house is older than Melmar; and nothing in the
world, were it the hand of a queen, could tempt me to call myself any
thing but Livingstone of Norlaw!”
The Mistress had been standing up, like everybody else, an excited
spectator. When Huntley said these words she sat down suddenly, with a
glow and flush of triumph not to be described--the name of her husband
and her son ringing in her ears like a burst of music; and then, for the
first time, Desirée relinquished her hold, and held out her hand to
Huntley, while Cosmo grasped his other hand and wrung it in both his
with a violent pressure. The three did not think for that moment of
Madame Roche, who had been looking in Huntley’s face all the time he
spoke to her, and who, when he ended, dropped his hand silently and sank
into her chair. She was leaning back now, with her white handkerchief
over her face--and the hand that held it trembled. Poor Madame Roche!
this was all her long thought of scheme had come to--she could only
cover her face and forget the pang of failure in the bigger pang of
grief--she did not say another word; she comprehended--for she was not
slow of understanding--that Huntley’s little effusion of family pride
was but a rapid and generous expedient to save him from a direct
rejection of Desirée. And poor Madame Roche’s heart grew sick with the
quick discouragement of grief. She closed her eyes, and heavier tears
came from them than even those she had shed for Marie. She had tried her
best to make them happy, she had failed; and now they for whose sake
alone she had made all this exertion neglected and forgot her. It was
too much for Madame Roche.
“Mamma, listen,” whispered Desirée, soothingly. “Ah, mamma, you might
force mine--I should always obey you--but you can not force Huntley’s
heart--he does not care for _me_; bah, that is nothing!--but there _is_
one whom he cares for--one whom he has come home for--Katie, whom they
all love! Mamma, you were right! he is noble, he is generous; but what
is Melmar to Huntley? He has come back for Katie and his own home.”
“Katie?--some one else? My darling, does he love her?” said Madame
Roche. “Then it is God who has undone all, Desirée, and I am content.
Let him come to me, and I will bless him. I will bless you all, my
children,” she said, raising herself up, and stretching her hands toward
them. “Ah, friends, do you see them--so young and so like each other!
and it was _he_ who sought us, and not Huntley; and it is I who am
wrong--and God is right!”
Saying which, Madame Roche kissed Huntley’s cheek, dismissing him so,
and took Cosmo into her arms instead. Her sweet temper and facile mind
forgot even her own failure. She put back Cosmo’s hair tenderly from his
forehead and called him her hero. He was her son at least; and Desirée
and Melmar, the two dreams of his fancy, between which, when he saw the
girl first, he suspected no possible connection, came at once, a double
gift, the one eagerly sought, the other totally unthought of, into the
Benjamin’s portion of Cosmo Livingstone.