"Her life, I said
Will be a volume wherein I have read
But the first chapters, and no longer see
To read the rest of the dear history."
--_Longfellow_
Honor had just taken up her crocheting and was plying her needle busily
when Mr Rayne drew his heavy leathern chair opposite to the fire and
began:
"Well, my dear little girl, here you are a young woman all at once on my
hands, and to me you are yet the childish little thing you were three
years ago in the railway carriage at the Manchester Depot. But the world
won't see things to suit a short-sighted old bachelor like me, and
according to that omnipotent, omniscient world, it is now my duty to
introduce you into society, to bring you 'out' into Ottawa life, that
you may make a display of all the accomplishments which fortune has
bestowed upon you. I will introduce you to a world that will not
hesitate in appreciating all the physical, mental, and moral beauty, you
may choose to display in it. My duty will then be completed for another
while. Now what is your opinion on it? You will have Mrs. D'Alberg, my
widowed cousin from Guelph, to chaperone you, you have 'carte blanche'
as regards toilet expenditure, and my house is open and at your service
henceforth."
All along a smile of slow astonishment had been creeping over Honor's
beautiful face, but instead of any showy enthusiasm either way, as Mr.
Rayne had certainly expected, she straightened out the rosette of lace
work on her knee and clapped it with her little palm. Then drawing a
long breath she said:
"So! it has come to this. Well, my dear Mr. Rayne, if my position in
your house exacts an _entree_ into society, I most willingly go forth to
it, though had you never spoken of it, it had never entered my mind. I
am prejudiced, it is true, against society, but I defy its influence
over me. Every woman owes her mite to the social world, and consequently
I owe mine, so as soon as you wish it Mr. Rayne, I am yours to command."
She had scarcely finished the words when the door was flung open and the
words and air of "I'll live for love or die" filled the room. He was
just continuing "I'll live for lo--"
"O pardon, a hundred thousand times, Miss Edgeworth and uncle, I didn't
really think the room was inhabited at such an early hour in the
morning, but the fact that it is, only enchants me all the more, I
assure you."
"Well, well, Guy, you are a 'case.' How are you this morning? Have you
breakfasted?"
"Well, uncle, I thank you; and to your second kind query, I respectfully
beg to inform you that I helped to clear away Mrs. Best's table this
morning very perceptibly. Not that I had any particular relish for her
compositions--which were yesterday's lunch and last night's dinner done
over _a la Francay_--Rooshan-hash-up! but then a fellow by natural
instinct owes himself the indispensable duty of eating his breakfast,
and as a slave to duty, I, this morning, about an hour ago, ate my
breakfast."
"Well, for goodness sake! as a duty to your fellow-creatures talk sense.
Here, sit down," Mr. Rayne continued, rising himself, "I must excuse
myself for half-an-hour. I've not had a look at the _Citizen_ yet, and I
must be off soon to official duties."
Guy Elersley was well satisfied to be a substitute in Mr. Rayne's vacant
chair. He had not laid himself out for such good luck when he turned
into his uncle's on this eventful morning, so his appreciation was
consequently all the more vivid.
"You're bright and early, Honor, for a young lady on a winter morning,"
he said, as he drew his chair towards the fire.
"Not unusually so for Honor Edgeworth--and that means a young lady,
doesn't it?"
"That's right; snub a fellow right and left when he forgets to isolate
you from the whole living, breathing creation. Then you are not bright
and early--will that do?"
"My dear Mr. Elersley," said Honor, in a provokingly placid way, "don't
exert yourself so violently in contradicting your own free, unextracted
observations. You can amuse me in a dozen other different ways as well."
"Oh, bother! Come now, Honor, leave off that ice water business, and
give a fellow a word of welcome after being out in the cold. Put away
that bundle of thread you're fooling with there this half-hour. You have
not taken your eyes from off it yet, nor spoken a decent word since I
came in."
"Oh, dear!" said Honor, drawing a feigned sigh, "I suppose when a
child's spoiled it's spoiled, that's all, and you must humor it." "Now,"
folding up her work, "what have you to say worth the trouble you've
given me?"
"Oh nothing I could tell you would be that in your opinion. I was at a
big 'shine' last night at Miss Teazle's, and feasted my eyes on all
Ottawa has to show in the way of female loveliness."
"And you have come to spend the gush of your emotions consequent to such
a feast on me, have you?"
"No, Honor, I have not. I did see deuced pretty girls, but the emotion,
as you call it, vanished as I handed the last fair bundle of shawls into
her carriage. While the light burns, you know, the moth hangs around it,
but when the flame goes out, spent in a weary flicker, after 'braving
it' for a whole night, the moth goes to roost, when he has not been
singed, or otherwise personally damaged without insurance. Well, what
are you thinking of now? when you cross your arms, bury your gaze in the
fire and strike your slipper with such measured beat on the fender, I
know you're not paying much attention to what I am saying."
She drew a long breath as though no answer were required, and then in a
quiet, low tone she said,
"Guy, do not talk in that light way of any woman. I know what you men
have long accustomed yourselves to believe--that woman was made
purposely for your pleasure; 'Man for God only, _she_ for God in
him,'--but, all the same that does not exact the ratification of Heaven.
If my sisters of Ottawa society, with whom you one moment amuse
yourself, and the next amuse your listeners with a recital of their
follies, are weak enough to seek to gratify you and your kind, 'tis not
that such a weakness is a natural inheritance, for every woman who
realizes her true worth, knows what a grand mission is before her, and
consequently crushes such an absurd theory as fashionable women are
brought up to believe from their infancy. Perhaps I am too sensitive on
this point, if such a thing could be, but it is the awful wrong which is
being done to our sex that fires my indignation thus. And then there are
those poor deluded 'ornamental women' who sanction that outrage on their
own dignity by sitting with folded hands, taking in all the nonsense
which is dealt out to them when they should gather up their skirts and
shrink away from you as their inveterate enemies. False faces lead them
astray, but there are others who see behind them."
"Yes, by Jove! And you are one who can see through the hair of a
fellow's head. Well, Honor, it's plain to see, that you and I cannot
agree. There's an involuntary performance of 'rhyme' for you, excuse me
for so doing, but I could not withhold it. I said that we don't agree,
and it is true. You are quite too tremendously proper for me, and I am
just too 'galoptiously' awful for you. So begin to maul that wool over
again, and I'll go to my respectable office in the respectable Eastern
Block, and there I am sure of finding half-a-dozen eager friends with
their pens behind their ears wheeled around on their office stools,
quite ready to hear all the 'news' that you reject with such dignity."
"Then go. Sow your seed in fertile ground; but if you speak so lightly
of any woman in presence of an office full of men, as you do to me, I
cry,--shame on you and your listeners."
She had taken the soft bundle of crochet work in her lap again, and as
she bent her indignant face over its intricate stitches, Guy could not
help acknowledging to himself, that this was the fairest vision man had
ever beheld. How was it that her name never crossed his lips in fun? He
would have torn the tongue from its roots before uttering hers in jest.
He stood at the door, with the knob in his hand, trying to extract one
word of earnest friendship from her, but the serious frown never relaxed
itself on her brow, and her mouth was set and stern. He could not stand
this. He thought if it was only any other girl--any of Miss Teazle's
heroines, he could pooh-pooh it so easily, but Honor was not one of them
at all--his heart told him that. He left his place at the door and was
at her side instantly. She looked quietly up and said nothing. He felt
as though the words would not come, and the wee small voice said
"another time," so he merely reassumed his old way, and said:
"Good morning, Honor. Don't send a fellow off in the blues. Come now,
smile just the least little bit and speed me away with a charitable
word." Then the sweet red lips parted, and looking up from her work, she
said:
"I absolve you, Guy. Good morning."
"Well, I'll make hay while the sun shines, and be off, for if I delay a
minute I shall have a dozen more pardons to ask. By, bye!"
He closed the door and was gone, but though his hurried steps brought
him further and further away from the form he loved, yet his thoughts
were of her, his heart beat for her, and his memory dwelt upon each
little word she had spoken.
Honor sat as most of us do very often in our lives, with the same smile
on her face which had absolved Guy at parting. If we meet a friend and
are pleased, the smile of recognition lingers on our faces long after he
has passed. If we have heard a pleasant word, the gratification is
evident on our countenances, long after the words have died; and the
same with unpleasant or sorrowful things. I suppose our memory is
necessarily a slow faculty, and only revives the expression of our
emotion just as that caused by the first experience is dying away. Any
one could tell by Honor's face, that she was thinking of pleasant
things. Thence we may know it was no 'clairvoyant' tendency on the part
of Mr. Rayne, that on entering the room the ne moment, he exclaimed:
"So you're spinning your threads in the sunlight, my pet, are you?"
Honor started--"Sunlight? Yes, I think the sun will be up presently."
"Oh, you distracted child! I am talking of the sunlight of your
thoughts." Here both joined in a hearty laugh, and Mr. Rayne having
thrown aside the well dissected _Citizen_, re-deposited himself in the
arm-chair by Honor's side. He came too to make hay while the sun shone,
and the smile on Honor's face indicated that much.
"You see, that fellow Guy interrupted us just in the beginning of our
discourse--but perhaps it was just as well, for something has since
happened that throws a new light on the subject. With this morning's
mail came a document from Turin to me, from your father's bankers,
Honor. It seems from the copy of an original letter written by your
father, that he wished to test my friendship by holding me responsible
for his daughter's welfare and comfort, and he therefore apparently
represented you to me as entirely dependent on my bounty. Even as such,
it was an immense gratification to me to take you, and at the risk of
all I own nou I could not let you go, but it seems your diplomatic
father--and my best friend--had arranged it so, that if, after a short
period, I had performed the duties of a true friend towards you,
supplying you with the necessary comforts and wants out of my own
pocket, that on your birthday at the end of that time, which is to-day,
this document should be forarded to me. The surprising and intensely
gratifying news concerns only you, it makes not the slightest matter to
me," and so speaking, he handed her the least formidable looking letter
of a pile of correspondence. She read it with dilated eyes and confused
look generally, and laid it down only with this difference actually to
her, that she had in her own realization, in one short moment been
suddenly transformed from Mr. Rayne's dependent waif into a richly
endowed heiress, independent and free. A small change indeed for Honor
Edgeworth. It had not power to chisel in finer style the features of her
handsome face, nor the power to direct into her heart a purer, holier or
more worthy sense of duty than already reigned there. No, it could make
her no better. Hers was not a nature susceptible to the ready influences
of evil, and so she experienced none of that material delight which
generally is the result of such a change for the world's ordinary ones.
The only gratification it afforded her was, that now she could repay Mr.
Rayne for his untiring kindness, she could deck Nanette in "decent"
attire, and give such little alms as she longed to distribute with Mr.
Rayne's money. She folded the letter carefully back into its primitive
creases and handed it to Mr. Rayne, saying,
"I thought I should have had to repay your unlimited kindness to me by
love, sincerity and gratitude alone; and though this would have been an
easy debt to liquidate, so far as my sentiments went, yet, it seems
Providence has not tired of heaping favors upon my head, and I can add
to my other offering this new found treasure. But I think, Mr Rayne, had
this gold mine never opened beneath our feet, we would still be the same
to one another, I know"--and as she spoke she rose and threw herself
into the old man's arms--"you, who have been both parents to me when I
was alone and penniless, who surrounded me with comforts and luxuries,
cannot now be cold to me because I no longer need to be dependent. You
have made your home and your kind watchfulness a necessity to me, now
will you not let us be the same as ever with one another? I do not want
to be a rich heiress if I must thereby cease to be 'your own Honor,' and
'your own favorite.'"
The old man's eyes were wet with tears. He pressed the girlish figure
close to him and kissed the fair, flushed cheek.
"We will speak no more of it, darling," he said, "let it be as though
nothing had happened, only you must no longer hesitate to accept the
many little favors that, up to this, you persistently refused--
henceforth _I_ am _yours_ to command when you want something. But, about
your _début_ child, I want you to consult some one else on that matter,
for you must be as fine to look at as all the rest. You can be ready as
soon as you please, for Mrs D'Alberg will be here shortly, I requested
an immediate answer."
Honor looked thoughtfully into the fire. "This is all so strange," she
said, "but Destiny is Destiny, I suppose, and Fate is Fate."