THE NEXT HEIR.
That night, as they drove home, Captain Stondon talked about Basil
Stondon to his wife, about the young man whom he had met with apparently
accidentally, and who had never by word or sign or letter acknowledged
the existence of his wealthy relative since his father’s death.
“Poor fellow,” said Captain Stondon, “it is very sad for him, upon my
word it is.” And he waited for Phemie to answer, but Phemie held her
peace.
She was wiser in her generation than her husband; it might be that she
was less amiable too; and she knew just as well as though she had been
present at the enemy’s council of war that Mr. Basil Stondon’s rencontre
with his kinsman was anything rather than the result of chance.
She had not liked Mr. Montague Stondon, she had not liked Mrs. Montague
Stondon, and it was not likely she should like the son who now stood—and
it was this which broke on Mistress Phemie Stondon with a shock, as
though the idea were quite new to her—in the position of heir to
Marshlands.
The fact had never come home till that moment. He would inherit—he was
young; he would come after Captain Stondon and own woods and lawns and
lake and park, because she was childless. It was she who now held the
place merely as a tenant on lease of one life, and that her husband’s.
If her son had lived, this man would, socially, be nowhere; as it was,
Phemie perceived that socially he would take precedence of herself.
She had been philosophical on the subject so long as she did not
comprehend how the want of children might some day affect her own
happiness. Almost a child herself, she had not understood how the
failure of direct heirs would ultimately affect her position.
She had been glad to get away from Mrs. Aggland’s babies: her youth had
been spent in hushing refractory imps to sleep, in amusing cross
infants, in learning to nurse cleverly and keep the brats from crying;
and it was therefore not altogether unnatural that Phemie should
consider there was a reverse side to the pleasure of having a family,
and, particularly when her life had twice trembled in the balance,
rejoice rather than lament because no more children seemed likely to be
born, to die.
Hitherto she had been rather vexed to see how much Captain Stondon
desired a direct heir—now, Phemie, a child no longer, but a worldly,
selfish woman if you will, found that there was rising up from the
bottom of her heart an exceeding bitter cry of lamentation for the dead
sons whose loss she had never greatly mourned before, for the children
she had passed through the valley of the shadow of death to bring into
the world, for naught.
Looking out into the moonlight, Phemie, to whom all strong passions had
hitherto been strangers, found that her eyes were filling with angry
tears. She disliked this Basil Stondon, to whom she had never yet spoken
a word. She hated to hear her husband praising his appearance and his
manners. She felt sure he and Miss Derno were in league together. “Her
pet, indeed!” thought Phemie; “I have no doubt they are engaged. Her
pet! I daresay he is.” And Phemie smiled to think she was no longer the
girl whom Miss Derno had met six years before; but a woman quite Miss
Derno’s match in penetration and knowledge of the world.
She had eaten her apple, and left primitive simplicity a long way behind
her; and Phemie felt glad to think that it was so. They could not impose
on her now. Her eyes were opened, and she saw, as all such people do
see, more evil than good upon the earth. She had tasted of the tree of
knowledge, and this was the result. It had been pleasant to the eye, it
had seemed good for food, it had been a thing to be desired; and behold
this was the end attained—selfishness and envy and uncharitableness.
A character to be disliked rather than admired; and yet have patience,
reader, for there came a day of reckoning to Phemie Stondon, when she
had to settle for every fault, for every shortcoming!
She was vain;—grievous suffering crushed all vanity out of her: she
claimed love as a right, and thought little of all the tenderness that
was lavished upon her—when the time arrived that the love of her own
heart broke it,—Phemie remembered; she thought she stood firm, and it
was only when she lay humbled in the dust that she acknowledged how weak
is the strength of man; she was proud of her accomplishments, yet in the
future she turned from their exhibition with loathing; she rejoiced in
her own cleverness—she could not avoid knowing how much cleverer she was
than her husband—than the man who had taken her from poverty and
drudgery to make her the mistress of Marshlands;—is it too early now to
tell of the hour when all her talents, all her attainments, all her
gifts of beauty and manners, seemed to be but as sand, as earth, beside
his truth, his forbearance, his devotion?
That night was the turning point in the life story of Phemie Keller—that
night, when she sat beside her husband, listening while he told her how
glad he felt at the prospect of being able to do anything for poor
Montague’s son, how much pleased he was that Basil had promised to call
the next day at Marshlands.
“He really is a very fine young fellow,” finished Captain Stondon, “and
we must try to keep him from going to rack and ruin as his father did.
It is high time he was doing something now. He must be five-and-twenty I
should say.”
And Mr. Basil Stondon’s relative was quite right. He was
five-and-twenty—a man with eyes dark, dreamy, and sadly tender—a man
whom women raved concerning—a desperate flirt—and a dangerous flirt,
because while the fit was on him he really did care for the person who
had excited his admiration.
He danced like an angel—so the ladies said. There were few games either
of chance or skill at which he had not tried his hand. He could hunt
over the worst country if his friends would only give him a mount. If
his horse could take the leaps, Basil could sit his horse. It did not
matter to him if an animal were quiet or the reverse. Find him a strong
bit, and let the girths be tight, and the young man would fight the
question of temper out at his leisure.
He was a good oarsman, a good swimmer, a capital fellow at a picnic. He
had quite a genius for making salads and mixing sherry cobbler.
He knew very little about literature, but the number of his
acquaintances was something to stare at.
He had forgotten the little he ever learned at school and college; but
he could talk about the opera and the theatres, about the new prima
donna and the favourite danseuse, with an intimate fluency that moved
his listeners oftentimes to admiration.
Further, he was not conceited; he did not vaunt his talents. He was not
boastful, he was not a bore; he was amiable, he was pitiful, he was
generous, he was swift to forgive and repentant for having erred; but he
was weak and he was self-indulgent; he was weak as water, as uncertain
as the weather, as changeable as an April day; a vacillating creature
whose purposes ebbed and flowed like the sea, who had no fixed
principles, whether bad or good, and who came and went and went and came
wheresoever his impulses carried him.
And it was this man, with his handsome face, with his careless, easy,
engaging manner, who came the next day by special invitation to call at
Marshlands.
He did not call alone. He had not courage enough for that, he told the
Hurlfords, laughingly; so Mrs. Hurlford and Miss Derno and young Frank
Hurlford accompanied him, nothing loth, for Miss Derno and Mrs. Hurlford
had “taken the young man up,” and decided that it was a great pity of
him, that it was all nonsense for him to keep aloof from his relatives
because his father had cut his throat, and that, in fine, Captain
Stondon should know him, like him, and do something for him.
Women were always taking Basil up—were always, dear souls, planning and
plotting to advance his interests. In London he was perpetually being
introduced to some great man who promised to find a vacant post. In the
country he was continually being put in the way of marrying some sweet
creature—some heiress, some widow—somebody who would make him happy, or
push him on, or bring him a fortune.
There was no end to the roads that opened out before Basil Stondon; but
by a curious fatality they all led nowhere; and the most sensible thing
that ever was proposed for his benefit was to bring him and Captain
Stondon together, and to get the owner of Marshlands to give his next of
kin a helping hand on in the world.
“All he wants, my dear,” said Mrs. Hurlford to Miss Derno, “is a fair
start and a sensible wife—a wife just like yourself.”
“Only ten years younger,” added Miss Derno.
“Now, what would _he_ do with a young girl?” demanded Mrs. Hurlford.
“Why, they would be lost out in the world like the babes in the wood. He
ought to have a woman, a strong-minded, clear-headed woman, who could
manage for him and tell him how to go on, and see that he was not
imposed on.”
“A kind of keeper,” suggested Miss Derno.
“How absurd you are. You know what I mean perfectly well. Even for his
sake you ought to play your cards better; and for your own, I can tell
you, Olivia, Marshlands is a very nice property, and has a very nice
rent-roll attached to it.”
“What a pity I cannot get Basil to think of me excepting as his mother!”
observed Miss Derno.
“What a pity,” answered Mrs. Hurlford, who was a distant relation to her
visitor, “that you will not believe any woman may marry any man.
Propinquity, my dear, it is all propinquity. I heard a very clever lady
say once she would undertake to bring any man to a proposal if she were
thrown with him for a fortnight at a country house, and I am positive
she could have done it too.”
“How glad I am, not to be a man,” remarked Miss Derno. “If I were, I
would never venture beyond the gas-lamps.”
“But it would be for his good, for his happiness, you ridiculous
creature!” persisted the lady; and so confident did she feel of the
ultimate success of her manœuvres, that she absolutely decided on the
colour of the dress she should wear at the wedding, and saw the very
bracelet she intended to present as a cousinly offering to the bride.
Entertaining these views, it is not to be wondered at that she eagerly
offered to accompany Mr. Stondon to Marshlands.
“We owe Mrs. Stondon a visit,” she remarked, “and it will make it a less
formidable affair for Basil if we all go over together.”
“Poor Basil!” said Miss Derno, “I wonder if he will ever be brave enough
to go over there alone?”
“It is not Captain Stondon I dislike meeting,” he replied, “it is his
wife.”
“I think her perfectly charming!” broke in Mrs. Hurlford, with
enthusiasm. “And as for Mr. Hurlford, you should hear him rave about
her!”
“I really should not allow it, Laura,” said Miss Derno. “Mr. Hurlford
ought not to rave about other men’s wives.”
“I cannot imagine what any man can see in copper-coloured hair and blue
eyes to get spoony over,” observed Basil. At which remark Mrs. Hurlford
shot a glance towards her cousin, who retorted—
“I have seen you spoony about every colour, from white to black, Basil.
When you were only twelve years old I remember your being in love with a
little Irish girl whose hair was exactly the colour of tow; and as for
eyes—do you recollect Miss Smyth, whose eyes were red?—if you do not, I
do.”
“Now, Mrs. Hurlford, I appeal to you!” exclaimed Basil. “Is it fair for
the sins of the boy to be visited on the man? How should you like me,
Miss Derno, to commence telling tales?”
“If they were entertaining, I should like it of all things,” she
answered; “but to return to Mrs. Stondon—she really is beautiful, and
she never looks so beautiful as when she is talking. If you do not
recant before you leave Marshlands this afternoon I will give you such a
scolding,” finished Miss Derno, flushing a little as she caught Basil’s
eyes fixed upon her with an expression which was quite as intelligible
to her as it was to Mrs. Hurlford.
“He will propose before the week is over,” thought that lady, little
dreaming that the ceremony had been gone through two or three times
already. “She must be married from here, but it will be very miserable
for her travelling in the winter. However, she does not dislike
travelling,” reflected Mrs. Hurlford, while she went upstairs to prepare
for her visit to Mrs. Stondon. “Only if they could be married at once,
and get away in the summer, how much nicer it would be.”
From which speech the reader will see that Providence had been very good
to the male sex in denying Mrs. Hurlford daughters. She had sons, but
then “sons are not daughters, Heaven be praised!” said a gentleman of
her acquaintance.
“It is a beautiful property,” remarked Mrs. Hurlford, as they drove
under the elms and the fir-trees up to Marshlands House.
Basil Stondon had been thinking the same thing, and he had been thinking
of other things as well, that made him look a little sadder than usual
when he crossed the threshold of his kinsman’s house.
“We have come to take you by storm, Mrs. Stondon,” said Mrs. Hurlford.
And then Phemie assured her she was very glad to see them whatever their
intentions might be: and Miss Derno, remembering the shy, blushing girl
of six years before, looked on and marvelled.
“The spring cannot last for ever,” reflected that lady, philosophically,
“and yet summer has set in very early with her.” And Miss Derno watched,
and Miss Derno listened, and the more she watched and the more she
listened, the more astonished she felt.
Mrs. Stondon inquired after the health of Mrs. Montague Stondon calmly
and politely, as though she had never sat on thorns in that dreary
drawing-room in Chapel Street. She made her visitors stay for luncheon,
and went with them about the grounds in a bewitching straw hat, laughing
and talking as they walked.
The girl Miss Derno remembered had vanished, but the fascination which
had hung about the girl had been retained somehow by the woman. For the
first ten minutes people might not like Mrs. Stondon; but the longer
Miss Derno watched her the more satisfied she grew that there was a
charm about her which no one who knew her intimately could resist.
Under the polish, under the easy manner, under the graceful
indifference, there lay heart and passion and feeling and conscience.
Under the rocks we find iron and coal, and the iron is firm to endure
and the coal has warmth and heat. Whose fault is it if the mines are
never worked,—if the hidden treasures lie buried for ages? Is it the sin
of the earth that holds them? Is it the crime of the breast where they
remain dormant?
After all, was it Phemie’s fault that she seemed a well-bred,
passionless woman? Had she not done her best in the station of life in
which she had been placed, and was her best not what her guests found
her—ladylike, unimpulsive, attentive, a trifle sarcastic perhaps, but
still graceful and well-educated?
“I recant,” said Basil Stondon to Miss Derno, when Marshlands was left
behind. “I think Mrs. Stondon as beautiful as ice in sunshine, as snow
in summer. She is as polished as marble, as cold as steel.” And the
young man went through a pantomime of shivering as he spoke.
“And how do you like Captain Stondon?” asked Miss Derno.
“He is one of the most delightful old men that was ever ruled by a young
wife,” answered Basil Stondon, laughing. “How did she happen to marry
him? Why, a woman like that might have aspired to a coronet.”
“Pshaw!” exclaimed Miss Derno. “Excuse me, Basil, but really men are so
very foolish. They see a well-dressed woman, with a pretty face, and
fall down and worship forthwith, and talk such nonsense about her as
might make the very angels weep.”
“Granted,” said Basil; “but what has that to do with Mrs. Stondon?”
“Why, only this much:—you see Mrs. Stondon mistress of Marshlands, and
say she might have aspired to a coronet: so she might if she could start
in the race matrimonial now; but Mrs. Stondon of Marshlands and Miss
Keller of nowhere are two very distinct people. Miss Keller did
exceedingly well when she married Captain Stondon.”
“But she was a Keller,” insisted Basil.
“True, but she was a poor Keller, and she is now a rich Stondon, and she
has made, in my opinion, an extremely good match, beautiful though she
may be.”
“How very vehement you are, Olivia, my dear,” said Mrs. Hurlford, as a
reminder.
“I am vehement because I do think she has done very well for herself.
Setting aside his wealth, Captain Stondon is a husband any wife might be
proud of. He is just the man I should have liked to marry myself.”
“I shall really have to speak to Mrs. Stondon,” remarked Mrs. Hurlford,
while Basil laughed, and said that he was sure Mrs. Stondon would feel
greatly flattered could she hear all the remarks they had made on
herself and her husband.
“I am going over there again one day next week, and I shall be able to
make mischief, Miss Derno,” he finished; whereupon Mrs. Hurlford at once
replied she hoped he would make some favourable impression on her,
“because,” she concluded, “I did not think her manner at all cordial to
you to-day.”
“It is not likely,” said Basil Stondon, “there can ever be much
cordiality between us.” And the conversation dropped.