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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78846 ***
+
+
+
+
+                                  THE
+                          MOORS AND THE FENS.
+
+
+                                   BY
+                            F. G. TRAFFORD.
+
+
+                           IN THREE VOLUMES.
+
+                                VOL. II.
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+                  SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL.
+
+                                 1858.
+
+
+               [_The Right of Translation is reserved._]
+
+
+                                 London
+ Printed by SMITH, ELDER & CO., Little Green Arbour Court, Old Bailey.
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS.
+
+
+              CHAP.                                   PAGE
+                I.— A New Friend                         1
+               II.— The Way of the World                22
+              III.— Marry in Haste, &c.                 44
+               IV.— The Road to Fortune                 63
+                V.— Sir Ernest “Scatters his Enemies”   83
+               VI.— A Dream of Youth                   107
+              VII.— Crumbs of Comfort                  127
+             VIII.— A Sudden Blow                      141
+               IX.— The Next of Kin                    160
+                X.— A Proposal                         169
+               XI.— Mina “in Training”                 196
+              XII.— The Moors once more                214
+             XIII.— A Woman’s Weapons                  231
+              XIV.— Mina Triumphant                    255
+               XV.— Stony-hearted London               278
+              XVI.— Mina rushes on her Fate            297
+
+
+
+
+                        THE MOORS AND THE FENS.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+                             A NEW FRIEND.
+
+
+There were no bounds to the affection Miss Warmond had conceived, or
+professed to have conceived, for Mina Frazer: her parents had, no doubt,
+entertained a sort of love for the girl; Malcolm, possibly, might be
+fond enough of his sister; the laird and Allan were evidently deeply
+interested concerning her welfare; but to have seen and heard Miss
+Warmond, one really would have imagined that her very soul was wrapt up
+in her new friend; that Mina Frazer was to her, light, air, sunshine;
+that where she lived, happiness must ever abide.
+
+Now, every one among us has probably met, at one period or other, some
+bright sunshiny face that claimed and received at once, without the
+usual dreary preliminary fee, called long acquaintance, a portion of his
+regard, a corner in his memory, a very abundant share of friendship;
+and, therefore, to deny that occasionally an individual may jump into an
+intimacy, and not repent of his rashness afterwards, would be an
+absurdity. But for one person who leaps and finds good safe ground under
+his feet, fifty discover they have managed to entangle themselves in a
+very difficult quagmire. The rule is, that friendship, being an affair
+of sense and reason, and not a dream of sentiment, ought to be the
+result of long acquaintance and great watchfulness; and the exception
+that, as some people are possessed of the great art of making themselves
+liked at once, the acceptance of their hand in friendship is not an act
+always to be dreaded, though it may be well to perform even that simple
+operation with a sufficient amount of caution to lessen the risk of
+subsequent disappointment.
+
+A limited number of individuals are perfectly irresistible: if they say,
+“You shall like me,” they are sure to accomplish their purpose; and if
+one of this chosen band do occasionally work mischief, the victim is
+rarely blamed for being so absurdly “taken in,” everybody knowing that
+some human beings, like some snakes, are impotent to repel the power of
+“fascination,” and that it is not in the nature of man to be always
+suspecting evil, more especially when it lies hidden under honied words
+and kind looks and noble sentiments.
+
+And so, if Mina Frazer had been a peculiarly “captivating creature,” a
+bright cheerful gladsome being, going about claiming a corner in every
+heart, a joyful greeting in every home, who had mixed much in society,
+and yet remained unspoiled by it, who went through the world gathering
+friends as others do enemies at each brief stopping-place, Miss Warmond
+might have professed an undying attachment for her on the occasion of a
+first interview, without incurring the imputation of telling fibs; but,
+as it unfortunately chanced that she was the enchantress, it resulted
+that Mina was the dupe of Cecilia, who succeeded to perfection in
+throwing all sorts of dust into the unsuspecting eyes of the laird’s
+niece, a feat she had often successfully performed on the much keener
+orbs of wiser and older persons.
+
+Mina Frazer was a girl to become gradually interested in, not perhaps to
+be taken with soon, but to remember for long; to value, not for any
+particular grace, or ease of manner, or felicity of expression, or
+striking beauty, but for the real genuineness of her character, the
+steadiness of her nature, and the earnest truth and purity of her heart.
+It is said that extremes meet, that opposites agree, and if any one who
+had acquired the least insight into Miss Warmond, could have dreamt of
+believing her sincere in anything save her aversions, the above
+paradoxes might have accounted for the sudden affection she evinced
+towards Mina. But Cecilia denied that they were dissimilar in aught
+“save manner and, _perhaps_, appearance:” she said, “their tastes,
+thoughts, feelings were identical;” and her new friend believed this
+statement to be perfectly correct, for the General’s daughter could
+“seem all things to all men,”—sneer with the scoffer and pray with the
+Christian; she laughed with the hopeful and sighed with the desponding;
+she had a clever story or witty repartee for those whose temperament was
+more mirthful than melancholy, and yet there was not a chord of
+sentiment, a tone of grief, she was not capable of sounding for the
+edification of the romantic, the world-tired, the unhappy.
+
+Her mind was just like her piano, she could draw anything from it she
+pleased; whatever air was called for, whether joyful or sorrowful,
+plaintive or spirit-stirring, mournful or triumphant, holy or profane,
+came ready to order.
+
+All she required was a hint as to the sort of melody her auditor
+fancied; that sufficed, for simple ballad or brilliant bravura, slow
+dirge or rapid concerto, all seemed alike to her.
+
+“She is so clever she can do anything,” said her father.
+
+Perhaps it might have been quite as well had fewer talents been
+entrusted to her keeping, for then she could not have been held
+accountable for the misuse of so many.
+
+There is, however, a charm about real simplicity of character, which
+exercises a strange spell even over those whose minds are as full of
+twists and turns as was the Cretan labyrinth of old; and thus, perhaps,
+as Mina was by no means so accomplished or so handsome as Miss Warmond,
+and appeared, in that lady’s eyes, in the light “of quite a chit of a
+child,” it is just possible, at the bottom of the immense mountain of
+absurd pretence which the General’s daughter raised and styled
+attachment, there may have originally existed a little grain of that
+indefinite article, liking, beyond which, staid, sensible people never
+go,—further than which it might be well for many never to venture.
+
+Mina’s boundless admiration probably flattered the vanity of one whose
+desire for praise was, indeed, almost unlimited; besides, Miss Warmond
+had a few very cogent reasons for affecting, in the present instance, a
+fondness she was incapable of feeling; and accordingly she lavished such
+an amount of attachment on the girl, that Mr. Frazer felt quite
+gratified, and Mina wrote Miss Caldera a long letter full, as that lady
+drily remarked, of “Cecilia Warmond;” and Malcolm—who, whenever he once
+became enamoured of a face that pleased him, went on from stage to stage
+of absurdity till he grew tired of it, or saw something which pleased
+him better—began to think, in the superlative vanity and conceit of his
+boyish heart, that the Edinburgh belle, the heiress of Glenfiord, must
+have taken a fancy to his mother’s darling,—that, in short, the lady’s
+love for the sister was caused solely by her love for the brother;
+whilst Allan, who alone fully comprehended the whole business, sneered
+as he looked grimly on, for it was Cecilia Warmond who had contrived,
+with sweet smiles and sweeter words, to cast the shadow over Craigmaver,
+the cloud across the soul of Mina’s clever cousin.
+
+No mortal ever ventured within the magic circle of her attractions who
+passed out scatheless therefrom; no one who once gazed admiringly upon
+her, ever subsequently forgot that woman: she was not a being to be
+looked at, flirted with, talked to, flung by, and forgotten, but a
+creature to remember, not for a few hours merely, but through life.
+
+People liked her too soon, and despised her too late; nobody ever “found
+her out” in time: friend, suitor, enemy, it was just the same,—Cecilia,
+in due course, wrought sorrow for them all; if any one loved her with a
+lasting attachment, it was grievous to have to part from her; and it was
+a worse fate to stay long enough beside her to get a glimpse of the dark
+turnings of her heart, and yet not be able to leave the enchantress,
+whose songs had ceased to be melodious, whose tones struck harshly on
+the ear, whose smiles wearied the eye, whose artifices had no more power
+to delude; who, the more her captive struggled to be free, held him the
+tighter; who said to those desirous to become her slaves, “I want you
+not, away from my presence, and be happy if you can;” and to those who
+loathed the fetters they had once foolishly permitted her to bind around
+them, “I will never unloose the chain, and every effort you make to
+escape me only renders my determination stronger.”
+
+It was, perhaps, merely an act of retributive justice, that Allan
+Frazer, the most incorrigible flirt who ever existed, should finally
+meet with his “match” in the person of Cecilia Warmond; still it was a
+hard fate. He had rushed willingly into the trap; and then he would have
+given all he possessed on earth to get out of it again: but he had
+caught the bait too greedily to escape the hook, and a hand, strong and
+cruel, though apparently weak and merciful, held the line,—and, spite of
+her assumed negligence and careless demeanour and teazing and
+tormenting, held it, as Allan well knew, securely also.
+
+And for all this, the young man confessed he had nobody to thank but
+himself: he had fallen so desperately in love with Miss Warmond the
+season previously, when she first “came out” in Edinburgh, after various
+“comings out” in London, Paris, and elsewhere, that he had neglected
+every other pursuit, abandoned every other object, and devoted the whole
+of his thoughts, energies, and talents to one great end, namely, that of
+inducing her to care for him; and when, thanks to his being at that time
+the “rage,” he had succeeded in effecting this purpose, he never rested,
+by night nor by day, till he had gained a promise from General Warmond,
+that whenever Cecilia was one-and-twenty she should become his wife. He
+had, in fine, managed, in the course of a few brief months, to get
+himself so hopelessly entangled with her and her connections—to rush so
+far along the dangerous road leading to matrimony, without once
+seriously thinking of whom he actually intended to take for better, for
+worse—that when, before marriage, he contrived to do, what many of his
+relatives had accomplished after that event, namely, fall out of love
+again, he found, to his unspeakable dismay, that retreat was utterly
+impossible.
+
+His grandfather beheld the lady in Edinburgh, just when Allan’s
+affection for her was at fever heat; and the beauty, the vivacity, the
+grace, the position, the pretended high-mindedness, and the assumed
+amiability of the General’s daughter, so completely captivated old Mr.
+Frazer, that, with a tremulous voice, he told the young man that the
+“dearest, proudest wish of his heart would be fulfilled when he brought
+her home to Craigmaver—a bride;” and thus matters progressed charmingly,
+till General Warmond and his daughter returned to Glenfiord, and invited
+Allan to go with them there.
+
+Then, at last, light dawned on his eyes; and when they were opened, he
+beheld, like the disenchanted visitor to some fairy palace, deformity
+instead of beauty, affectation in the place of what he had fondly called
+candour; in fact, just as paper, on which words unintended to meet the
+common eye have been traced, when held before the fire, presents,
+instead of its former pure white surface, dark tracings, whose very
+existence was previously unsuspected, so the apparent guilelessness of
+Cecilia’s character, when presented calmly and steadily to view in the
+clear searching light of truth, was seen to be spotted all over with
+stains of hypocrisy, envy, uncharitableness, and selfishness.
+
+He remained a fortnight to note the process, became restless, uneasy,
+unhappy, and returned to Craigmaver so altered, as to cause his
+grandfather to mourn over the fickleness of his character, to lament the
+change society and flattery, and the pomps and vanities of the world,
+had wrought in the soul of the boy he had educated and been proud of, as
+if he had been a still nearer relation than was actually the case—his
+own son.
+
+The quondam lover dared not explicitly state the opinion he had recently
+arrived at about Miss Warmond; first, because it was not one great fact
+that could be related against her, but a series of little droppings that
+had made such fearful inroads on his affection; second, because he had
+heard the old remark cavillers made anent the inconstancy of his race in
+matters of the heart; and, as he knew himself sufficiently well to be
+compelled to admit he could admire more ardently than steadily, he was
+aware that if he confessed the whole state of affairs to his
+grandfather, he would only be met with charges of changeableness and
+caprice, from which, on account of various foregone circumstances, he
+should be perfectly unable to clear himself.
+
+Besides, what was the use of speaking! it was utterly impossible for him
+to draw back now with honour: if he jilted the girl whom he had
+professed to adore, it would blast his own prospects and break his
+uncle’s heart; and, besides, if Miss Warmond really cared for him—which
+vanity whispered was more than possible—he must marry her, there was no
+help for it. Fifty times a day Allan cursed his overhaste and his folly
+and his unlucky destiny, in terms that would have alarmed the old
+laird’s piety had he heard him: and thus, pining and fretting, because
+of the chain he had doomed himself to wear, the young man dragged over a
+few weeks, at the expiration of which time Mina and her brother arrived
+at Craigmaver.
+
+During those weeks, however, a sort of comprehension of the storm raging
+within his grandson’s bosom had dawned on the old laird’s brain, and the
+very day before their relative’s arrival he asked Allan abruptly,
+
+“Do you repent this engagement?”
+
+“Bitterly,” was the answer, which almost involuntarily escaped the happy
+lover’s lips; “but there is no use in talking, I cannot recede; I have
+gone too far for that: if beggaring myself could free me, I would
+relinquish every shilling I possess; I would give up every dream of
+fame, every hope in life, to have my liberty restored, to undo ever
+having seen or spoken to Cecilia Warmond.”
+
+“I never had but one fault to find with this alliance, Allan,” responded
+the laird, sadly; “I feared you were too unsteady to make any woman
+permanently happy: you have been flattered and caressed by the beautiful
+and the amiable till you have grown like a spoiled child, dissatisfied
+with everything; you weary of the loveliest faces and the most
+interesting pursuits the moment they lose the charm of novelty; my
+conviction is,” he added, earnestly, “that Miss Warmond is too good to
+throw herself away on a ridiculous fellow, who has not the sense to
+value the pure sterling love of such a creature, when he knows himself
+to be actually in possession of it.”
+
+“I hope you may always think so, sir,” responded Allan, as he turned to
+leave the room; “and I only wish you could persuade Miss Warmond to
+become a convert to your opinion. However,” he continued, noticing the
+shade that came over his grandfather’s face, “I have no intention of
+running off my engagement; I shall marry whenever the proper time comes:
+meanwhile, all I ask is no conversation on the subject: I must endeavour
+to forget her for a space, and try whether absence will, in my
+unfortunate case, make ‘the heart grow fonder.’”
+
+And accordingly from that hour the lady’s name was never mentioned at
+Craigmaver till she herself appeared there, for Mr. Frazer had great
+faith that separation and silence would rekindle the flame; and Allan,
+feeling that when near Mina he breathed a purer atmosphere than was his
+wont, not merely, during the course of the month succeeding her arrival,
+strove to forget Miss Warmond altogether, but occasionally succeeded in
+this laudable object.
+
+For he was, indeed, fickle as the winds; and, though, had any one told
+him he was “getting up a flirtation with Mina, his cousin,” she who had
+been so lately a child, he would indignantly have rejected the idea; yet
+there cannot be a doubt that he was travelling very fast towards it,
+when Miss Warmond’s unexpected visit to Locholen startled him from his
+dream, and roused him to a full memory of how he was situated, whom he
+had proposed for, ay, and actually intended to marry.
+
+He would fain have kept Mina and her apart; but Mr. Gordon knew of the
+advent of his cousins, and he could not deny that they were still at
+Craigmaver: he pleaded Mina’s delicacy as an apology for deferring a
+visit to some indefinite period; but the General’s daughter was too
+skilful a tactician to be so put off. See the new arrival she was
+determined she would; indeed, the instant she had heard of the flutter
+of a petticoat having been noticed on the lawn of Allan’s home, her
+curiosity had become painfully excited, and accordingly she volunteered
+to lay aside all ceremony, and “come and make friends with the old
+laird’s niece,” of whom she had heard so much ever since her arrival in
+Scotland.
+
+And finding Mina as unlike a rival as can well be imagined, she took the
+girl thenceforth under her caressing hand, petted and fondled her, and
+treated her as if she had been a favourite kitten; and poor Mina, never
+once imagining aught so beautiful could ever treat her unkindly, gave
+herself up altogether to the care of the lovely vision, who had glanced
+so unexpectedly across her path.
+
+Locholen was such a distance from Craigmaver, Cecilia found it
+impossible to see as much as she desired of her new friend, so she
+appeared one day in a handsome open carriage, and carried Mina off
+bodily with her; but when pressed by the laird to come and spend a
+little time with his niece, she answered, shaking her curls till their
+brightness arrested the very sunbeams and caused them to fling rich
+golden shades on the tresses of her luxuriant hair,
+
+“No, no, the dear grandpapa at home could not do without me at all; I
+cannot leave him during my brief visit, even for a day;” and so Mina
+passed the greater portion of a fortnight at Locholen, during which
+period Miss Warmond, by dint of a little judicious feminine cross
+questioning, contrived to get everything out of her she wanted to know,
+which, in plain English, meant that Mina was so foolish as to tell her
+all the particulars of her life, all about her uncle and Malcolm, and
+Mr. Westwood and Miss Caldera, and Ernest Ivraine, and everybody and
+everything; and the young lady, when she had read her through like a
+book, breathed freely and felt satisfied.
+
+She had never met any one who resembled his niece, she assured the Laird
+of Craigmaver; there was a something so perfectly natural and
+unsophisticated about her, so different from the generality of the girls
+she had known, it really was quite refreshing to talk with her; and, in
+fine, she did talk so effectually to all, that it was ultimately agreed
+Mina should return with her to Glenfiord, and General Warmond politely
+hoped “Mr. Frazer, his grandson, and nephew would accompany them also.”
+
+“Should you like to have a peep at your old home, my pet?” demanded Miss
+Warmond of the girl, when she had fairly set matters in train to effect
+the grand explosion she contemplated; “should you like to see Ben Lomond
+and Loch Lomond, and the flowers and the fields and the trees of
+Glenfiord once more?”
+
+“I should be so glad,” answered Mina, after a pause, “so very glad to
+see it, only—only—I should be so sorry.”
+
+“Not to come and be my sister there for a while, surely?” said the
+other; “you have not lost that home, remember, you have only changed it,
+as you will again change your present one for a brighter and a happier;
+think of it in that light: let me take you back there and we will talk
+about anything you like under the shadow of the hills, sitting beside
+the waterfalls, looking over the silent lake.”
+
+Mina gazed into the distance, as if, at the end of some long vista of
+silent thought, she beheld Glenfiord beckoning to her: all her
+childhood’s memories came gently up before her—the old haunting sorrow,
+the happiness of the present, the possibilities of the future; and at
+length her heart became so full of feelings, half sorrowful, half
+pleasant, that she laid her head on her friend’s shoulder and burst into
+tears; for the silly child had a way of crying whenever her father or
+her old home was mentioned, for which Cecilia secretly despised her.
+
+“She does not weep,” thought that amiable individual, “for things worth
+crying about,—for the want of society and equipages, and excitement; but
+she maudles concerning a man who has been dead for years, and a place
+which, though well enough in its way, is nothing remarkable.” Yet, spite
+of this soliloquy, the young lady bent down her head and kissed the
+broad smooth forehead, and said, by way of diverting her thoughts, and
+turning them into a pleasanter channel,
+
+“You shall see everything about the place, if you will come, from the
+new wine cellar up to my eccentric cousin, who lives there, and
+housekeeps for me.”
+
+“I never heard you speak of her before,” answered Mina.
+
+“Well, she was not worth speaking about; she is a most exemplary piece
+of mechanism,—always keeps in time, never gets out of tune; is made up
+of conscientiousness, religion, and economy; has not a single idea
+beyond strict decorum, tidiness, and cleanliness, though she is trying
+to acquire one or two more to please a clergyman who astonished us all
+one day by proposing for her, after we had set her down as an old
+maid,—a Glenfiord fixture, who was to go on having things made
+comfortable for the household generally till the end of time. Principle
+and propriety are her virtues; she possesses no others, and she has no
+foibles or sins, unless, indeed, not thinking very highly of me can be
+classed as one of the latter.”
+
+“Does she not think highly of you, then?” demanded Mina.
+
+“No, she has not nearly so good an opinion of me as she ought,” replied
+Miss Warmond, laughing. “I am not neat enough, nor economical enough, to
+suit her ideas; perhaps when I am as old as she I may improve: meantime,
+however, she imagines I am far from what I ought to be.”
+
+“That is strange,” said Mina; “I thought nobody in the world could wish
+you to be different from what you are.”
+
+“Oh! but then you are not a prim, stiff, starchedup old maid,” suggested
+the other; “I often wonder what could have attracted her reverend
+suitor, for she is not rich or beautiful or accomplished or anything.”
+
+“Is not she good?” asked Mina, and the question, simple though it was,
+brought a colour into her friend’s cheek, as she hastily answered,
+
+“To be sure, she is; perfectly, unexceptionably good: but mere goodness,
+you are aware, is occasionally rather uninviting.”
+
+“Perhaps so,” said Mina; “but still it is valuable, for all that: and
+what,” she added, after this little hint, which was given more
+innocently than hint ever was, “what is he—the clergyman—like?”
+
+“He! not what either you or I would choose,” responded Miss Warmond;
+“but he is well enough, and has a little money, and everybody agrees is
+quite good enough for her. He wears shoes an inch thick in the sole, it
+is true, and despises etiquette, and ‘values only the mind, and not the
+setting,’ he says—which inuendo I always pretend not to understand—and,
+oh! he is just another piece of mechanism, wound up to perform certain
+duties in a certain manner: they will get on capitally together; you
+shall see him when you come, and every other individual of note who
+visits at my present quiet home; I suppose it won’t be my home for very
+long, though.”
+
+“Why, is General Warmond going to sell it?” abruptly demanded Mina, a
+wild yearning for wealth to purchase it rising in her bosom.
+
+“No, silly one,” responded the other, “I said _my_ home, not his.”
+
+Her friend gazed earnestly in her face for a moment; then, as if she had
+solved a mystery, she exclaimed,
+
+“You must be going to be married; is not that it?”
+
+“Perhaps!” was the reply.
+
+“You said, a minute or two ago, that clergyman was not what either you
+or I would choose for a husband. I have never reflected about choosing
+any, but you must; please tell me what he is like?”
+
+“Wonderfully like your cousin Allan,” said Miss Warmond, smiling.
+
+“Is it he? are you going to marry him, are you really?” Mina demanded;
+and as the words “I am” fell on her ear, she cried, flinging her arms
+around the neck of her relative that was to be, “Oh! I am so glad—so
+very glad; then we shall be cousins, next to sisters, you know, dear,
+dear, Cecilia.”
+
+Dear Cecilia felt quite gratified at this way “of receiving the news,”
+for it proved conclusively that Mina had never entertained any evil
+designs on the pre-occupied heart of Allan Frazer; still it did strike
+her as something remarkable that the matter should never have been named
+before such close connexions; and she, therefore, to make assurance
+doubly sure, inquired,
+
+“Did your cousin never tell you we were engaged?”
+
+“Never,” was the answer.
+
+“Strange,” half murmured Miss Warmond; then added, “well, you must not
+mention the matter to any one till I give you permission; promise me you
+won’t, even to your brother.”
+
+“I promise,” said Mina; and, after that brief sentence had passed her
+lips, she would as soon have dreamt of cutting off her right hand as of
+betraying a trust, no matter of what nature, which had once been
+confided to her: and that Miss Warmond possessed penetration enough to
+know; wherefore she had done, what ladies are sometimes in the habit of
+doing, sounded the girl by telling her a secret, and bidding her keep it
+safely.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+                         THE WAY OF THE WORLD.
+
+
+“And so, Mr. Malcolm, ye’re goin to take a man’s look over the place
+your sister first opened her eyes to the light of heaven in.”
+
+It was Colin Saunders who spoke the above sentence; and Mina’s brother
+who responded, as he pulled a flower to pieces and scattered the leaves
+carelessly on the ground,
+
+“Well, Colin?”
+
+“Weel,” repeated Saunders, a little tartly; “many a one says weel, weel,
+when it ne’er was waur wi’ them.” And, after concluding the above
+sententious remark, he looked with such a meaning glance at his auditor,
+that the young gentleman was induced to demand, more hastily than
+politely,
+
+“What the devil he meant.”
+
+“The deevil and me has no sort of connexion,” remarked Colin gravely,
+“further than the universal one Adam and Eve made up with him by
+partaking of his food, the apple, off the tree of knowledge, which
+brought sin and death into the world, and——”
+
+“Oh! stop your preaching, Saunders,” interposed Malcolm; “I never could
+stand sermonizing, even in my youngest days; and, since I left Scotland,
+I have been knocking too much about the world, and have met too many
+kinds of people, to have learned to ‘stand fire’ a single bit better
+than ever.”
+
+“The Lord takes his own time,” groaned forth the man; “but,” he
+added,—noticing his late master’s son removing one foot from the stump
+of an old tree, preparatory to finishing the discussion by “moving
+off,”—“but I had not the design of taking the work of reforming you in
+hand myself, believing it would be useless; all I wanted to ask was, if
+you would be so obliging as not to couple my name and that of him that’s
+no canny together in a single sentence.”
+
+“Well, I’ll try not,” said Malcolm; “but it can do you no harm, and it
+is, after all, only a habit I have got; I suppose swearing is a sort of
+sin, but still I like it, and so I go on with it, as with smoking and
+one or two other accomplishments I learnt in the navy.”
+
+“There is many a thing, sir, ye like besides what ye learned in the navy
+that won’t benefit ye much, either here or hereafter.”
+
+“Indeed; I am not aware——” commenced Malcolm, with a very abortive
+attempt at a guiltless demeanour.
+
+“That a pretty face could mak’ you do ony single folly in the world;
+that you are fonder of sitting beside a woman’s piano, galloping wi’ her
+over the moors, and walking wi’ her through the gardens, than of going
+bravely out and working like a man. Tak’ care, Master Malcolm Frazer,
+tak’ care.”
+
+“Of what?” demanded that personage.
+
+“Of her,” replied Colin, “of the lady all Craigmaver, that is, all the
+gentlefolk part of it, has run mad, I think, about: the General’s
+handsome daughter, Miss Cecilia Warmond.”
+
+“Why, you don’t think that she is in any imminent peril, that you bid me
+have such especial charge of her, do you?” said Mr. Frazer, wilfully
+misinterpreting the man’s words.
+
+“I do not think _she_ is in any great danger, except what she may choose
+to make for herself; but I am sure you are,” replied the gardener: “it
+maybe won’t kill you—such like, seldom do—but you’ll get yourself hurt;
+and if I were Mr. Malcolm Frazer, I would neither go to Glenfiord myself
+nor let Miss Mina be for ever on wi’ the mistress of it.”
+
+The youth turned first red and then pale; but determining not to be
+“worsted” by Colin, he answered,
+
+“As to myself, I am pretty competent, I fancy, to keep out of harm’s
+way; and, with regard to the young lady, what possible injury she can
+have done you or yours, I confess is a mystery to me.”
+
+“I never said she did me or mine an injury, but I do say she will,
+maybe, do you and yours one, some day or other; however, I see I might
+as well try to stop the rivers from running as to turn a gentleman on to
+the right gait, when he has once made up his mind to take the wrang. I
+never do go out of my way and say a word against those whom my betters
+have taken a fancy to, but I repent it;” and Colin commenced hacking and
+hewing away at an unfortunate tree he had been engaged in pruning in a
+more scientific manner, before Mr. Frazer’s advent set his brains
+rambling to other and more important subjects.
+
+“I think you are perfectly incorrigible, Colin,” said the young man;
+“you are just the same as I remember you years ago: not the least
+changed in any one respect.”
+
+“Well,” answered Saunders, “I am sure I might say the same of my old
+master’s son, for what he had as a boy, I see he has carried up to
+manhood with him; but I did not mean to offend ye, sir: I am sorry if I
+have done so, only as I know it would have been well for Mr. Allan if he
+had never looked twice in that lady’s face, I thought I would just make
+so free as to give you a hint, which, as I might have expected, you
+don’t feel obliged to me for; and I hope, sir, you may never find my
+words come true. And now I have no more to say, except that I trust the
+Lord will take better care of you and that kindly-hearted child Miss
+Mina (who, I thank God, is _not_ changed) than either of you seem
+willing or able to do for yourselves:” and, as Malcolm, after muttering,
+“A pious finale to a prosy sentence,” strolled off, whistling, the old
+man gave over pruning, and stood sadly gazing at his retreating figure
+till it disappeared altogether, when he exclaimed,
+
+“You will have sense taught you some time or another: I hope it wunna
+come to you as it did to your father, too late to benefit either him or
+those who were near to him. Ah, well-a-day! to think o’ _his_ children
+going back to that place wi’ her.”
+
+Poor Colin did more than think about them going, for he saw their
+departure.
+
+“I never saw good come of a woman who could not keep her mouth quiet,
+who was for ever smiling or laughing or singing or talking or
+something,” he soliloquised. “There surely is a ‘thraw’ in her, some
+place, she wants to hide, or she would let herself be at peace
+sometimes, if it was but by way o’ variety.”
+
+And one other person in the world besides Saunders had grown weary of
+the eternal brightness of Cecilia’s face, who journeyed to Glenfiord as
+he would to a funeral, and took up his abode there as he might in a cell
+in Newgate.
+
+He said he was ill, to account for his lack of spirits, and the laird,
+who thought he really was so, backed this assertion so warmly that their
+host grew quite uneasy about him, and Cecilia tormented him with so many
+kindnesses that he often ungallantly wished she were lying at the bottom
+of the lake; whilst Malcolm, who, in such cases, was blind as an owl
+with the light shining full on him, fancied his cousin was jealous of
+the progress he had made in Miss Warmond’s affections, and Mina and the
+quiet mechanical cousin wondered and surmised, but said nothing.
+
+It had been a source of much astonishment to Mina to find the said
+“cousin” a placid, amiable looking person of about thirty, with no token
+of extreme eccentricity about her, who seemed to have only one object
+and aim in life, and that to make others happy, and to forget herself as
+completely as if such an individual had no place on the outside of the
+round ball we live on; and it had been a still greater matter of
+surprise to her, when, on the night of their arrival, she heard—after
+Cecilia had kissed her twenty times and wished her pleasant dreams and
+departed—first, a gentle tap at her chamber door, and then beheld the
+door opened, without ceremony, by Miss Lynd, who walked in and closed it
+after her.
+
+“Do you ever take advice?” asked the lady, gazing from the elevated
+point of view, which superiority of height gave her, on the girl, who,
+having been engaged, ere she entered, in the task of settling her long
+refractory tresses for the night, stood now, brush in hand,
+contemplating her unexpected visitor. “Do you ever take advice?”
+
+“Sometimes, if I like it,” responded Mina, a vivid memory of Miss
+Caldera’s rejected counsel recurring to her.
+
+“But if it happen to be good would you refuse to accept advice, solely
+because it might seem a little disagreeable?”
+
+“Well, no,” returned Mina, after a pause, “not if I thought it good
+too.”
+
+“Do you, then, never take anything on trust?” was the next question.
+
+“Scarcely ever.”
+
+“Not even a friend?” Miss Lynd inquired.
+
+Mina made no answer, but fastened her eyes on the other’s face as she
+proceeded:
+
+“In a general way I permit people to plod along their several paths
+without dreaming of interfering with them; but you are so young, I have
+thought it my duty to give you this warning—never make a confidante of
+one you have not known well and long; place nothing in anybody’s power,
+and believe that occasionally a fair exterior may conceal a false
+heart.”
+
+“Do you mean to imply——?” commenced Mina, indignantly.
+
+“Nay, nay, do not get into a passion; you think me prejudiced,
+eccentric, odd, I know,—in fact ere you came here you were possibly
+taught to expect to meet something decidedly peculiar; and, perhaps,
+trouble, which has not spared me, may have made me different from my
+happier fellows: but still I am a great deal older than you; and,
+because of your extreme youth, because you have no mother or sister or
+friend near, I have come to say, that the less of your private affairs
+you tell any one, in the course of your passage through life, the
+greater is the probability of your making that passage smoothly and
+safely. Read the hint as you please, apply it as you choose, repeat it
+if you will; I have performed my duty: good night;” and, as she had
+appeared, so she vanished, abruptly and rapidly, leaving Mina to
+complete the brushing and disentangling of her hair, after having
+supplied some new thoughts to keep her company and prevent her mind from
+stagnating during the process.
+
+Early the next day Mina arose, and, flinging open her window, gazed over
+the scene that lay sleeping peacefully beneath her, bathed in the
+sunshine of morning; it was so early that not one of the household,
+excepting a few of the servants, was stirring, and all looked so
+exquisitely still and quiet, that she felt as if no better opportunity
+were likely to present itself, during her stay at Glenfiord, for a
+lonely visit to the abiding place of the only friend she possessed, who
+had lain him down to rest in the land of his birth, under the shadow of
+the mighty Ben Lomond: and accordingly, tying on the rustic hat she had
+worn since her arrival in the Highlands, she quitted the house, and
+crossing the gardens and passing through the plantations, arrived ere
+long at the enclosure, wherein reposed generations who after ‘life’s
+fitful fever’ slept there ‘well.’
+
+She pushed the rusty iron gate open and walked up to the corner, where a
+plain marble slab, bearing the name of Allan Frazer, covered the dust of
+him whose child she was. She stood for a minute or two motionless; but
+then, flinging the flowers she had carried with her on the grave, she
+crept close down to the ground, as if that brought her somehow nearer to
+him, and, laying her face on the damp grass, she wept, as most of us
+have, at one time or other, over the last home of a loved and dear
+relative for ever departed.
+
+“Is it now ye are beginning to miss him, poor bairn?” said a harsh voice
+in a kindly tone at her side; and Mina, starting up, found herself face
+to face with the sexton’s wife, who had known her when a child, known
+her and him and all of them.
+
+“I am not _beginning_ to miss him now, Margery,” she answered; “I have
+felt it just the same always, only time, perhaps, has softened the trial
+and reconciled me to it.”
+
+“Ye’ll feel his loss more yet than ye have ever done,” was the
+consolatory reply; “and that minds me, Mr. Allan sent me out to bring ye
+away from the grave and the wet grass: see how your gown is pairfectly
+dreeping; come in and get it dried, if ye are no set to kill yersel’,”
+and the worthy woman fairly dragged Mina into her wretched abode, where,
+half-choked with smoke and surrounded by a swarm of dirty, hungry
+children, she managed, with the assistance of a blazing wood fire, to
+dry her garments; during which operation her hostess entertained her
+alternately with laments of the family that “was gone,” and
+commendations of the family that “had come,” applying the corner of her
+apron to her eyes one minute, as she related some instance of liberality
+on the part of the late Captain Frazer, “who was the best gentleman that
+ever lived;” and brightening up the next, when she told how Miss Warmond
+had given the children dresses a-piece the Christmas before, and new
+bonnets at Easter, and “behaved like a real born lady, as everybody knew
+her to be.”
+
+“Come, Mina, are you ready?” said her cousin Allan at length, putting
+his head in at the door and speaking through a dense mass of smoke and
+dust; and, thankful to escape from the woman’s garrulous details and
+endless reminiscences, she at once replied that she was, and went out to
+join him, after placing such a souvenir in Margery’s hand as caused her
+to be ranked from thenceforth as something little, if at all, lower than
+a duchess.
+
+“Now, little one, you are not to do that foolishness again, remember,”
+were the only words her cousin spoke to her during the progress of their
+homeward walk: he was commencing, indeed, another sentence, when the
+appearance of Cecilia Warmond, who came tripping across the garden
+bright and fresh as ever, cut it short.
+
+“You are a pretty pair,” she said laughing; “I concluded you had run off
+together, and papa was just suggesting the advisability of a pursuit to
+Gretna, whilst my cousin, in a state of tranquil despair at being put
+out of her usual methodical course, has sat down to read Shakespeare
+before breakfast—only think of that—Shakespeare with the “beauties,” for
+fear she might not be able to find them out herself. Now what apology
+have you to offer for thus setting a whole household in disorder,
+turning my cousin’s brain upside down by upsetting her whole system of
+domestic management, and forcing her to begin the day at the wrong end?”
+
+Mina had heard such sentences as the foregoing uttered perpetually by
+her friend without ever once thinking they were out of place; but, fresh
+from a graveyard, newly arrived in a place which brought all sorts of
+memories back to her mind, the words jarred upon her feelings, and, for
+the first time in her life, she fancied Cecilia a little flippant. Could
+it be that the doubt Miss Lynd had whispered in her ear was taking
+effect? She had no time to analyse the matter, for Allan, after
+apologizing as best he might for their long delay, led Miss Warmond into
+the breakfast room, while Mina ran back to her own apartment to arrange
+her costume and render it altogether, as Malcolm would have said,
+“presentable.”
+
+That day Cecilia made herself more charming than ever; there was no end
+to her affection for her guest: whatever Mina liked, she liked; whatever
+the other wished, she was delighted with; she gave her a lesson on the
+guitar; she had the quietest horse in the stable brought round for her
+to try; she was wonderfully solicitous about her friend’s health;
+declared early rising was most injurious to the constitution; made
+Malcolm take them a row on the lake by moonlight, as Mina was romantic
+and liked moonlight, and was so obliging as to teach both of them a form
+of invocation to the moon, which invocation had reference to the future
+partner fate had in store for them, and the answer whereto was to be
+conveyed through the rather uncertain medium of a dream.
+
+The following morning she inquired first of Mina what vision had
+appeared to her; and, after receiving an answer, which she deemed a fib,
+to the effect that the girl had not been favoured with any lunar reply,
+she turned to Malcolm, and demanded of whom he had dreamt.
+
+“Of you,” said that young gentleman, which impertinent and most untrue
+response caused Miss Warmond to blush most becomingly, and declare he
+was “perfectly unbearable,” while Mina wished greatly, that Cecilia
+either would cease flirting with Malcolm—or, rather, encouraging him to
+flirt with her—or else permit her to tell him the grand secret she was
+not then at liberty to reveal, viz., the engagement subsisting between
+Miss Warmond and Allan Frazer.
+
+For though Mina would not at first admit such an idea, there could not
+be a doubt but that the poison was beginning to work. Suspicion—that
+many-eyed fiend—had been set on the trail of Cecilia’s errors; and when
+once a correct scent is given, we know how fast it is possible to follow
+it, particularly when it leads to anything disagreeable. Hitherto, it
+had been Mina’s habit only to look for virtues in her friend, but now
+she had an eye for the failings also, a sort of distrust—of what she
+scarcely knew—having been infused into her. Ere she had been quite a
+week at Glenfiord, she had absolutely detected Cecilia covertly sneering
+at her three times in the prettiest manner conceivable, and she detected
+her fibbing twice and flirting, whenever an opportunity presented
+itself, always. Cecilia was not perfect: Mina found that fact out in an
+incredibly short space of time after her arrival at Glenfiord, and, like
+many another person in the world, she felt a little inclined to be angry
+with her friend for not possessing all the qualities she had most
+absurdly imagined her to be endowed with.
+
+The veil soon dropped partially from her eyes; ere long it fell
+altogether, and she beheld Cecilia, not as she seemed, but very much as
+she actually was.
+
+For Mina now saw Cecilia under different circumstances from those under
+which they had first become acquainted; and Miss Warmond, by dint of
+ceaseless watching, came to know that Allan Frazer’s malady was not a
+bodily one, that his affection for her was most sensibly diminished, and
+that he entertained altogether too high an opinion of his cousin to suit
+her uncommonly strict ideas of propriety.
+
+“What beautiful hair you have,” Mina said, as the junior portion of the
+Glenfiord party stood, one bright sunshiny day, among the flowers of the
+garden, “what beautiful hair you have,” and Mina, as if the fact had
+never struck her so forcibly before, twisted one of the long silken
+curls round her finger while she spoke.
+
+“Not more so than your own,” responded Miss Warmond, who could afford to
+praise a ‘decidedly inferior article,’ “as, I have no doubt, some people
+in England would tell you if they were here.”
+
+“Don’t teach the child folly,” interposed Allan Frazer a little sharply,
+“she will learn nonsense in the world soon enough when she mixes with
+it, believe me.”
+
+The blood mounted even to Cecilia’s temples at these words, which, had
+the speaker reflected a minute, he would never have uttered, and she
+quickly retorted,
+
+“You would like to have the instructing her in all kinds of lore
+entirely to yourself, signor, I doubt not; well, be it so: she is not
+altogether such a child but that she will make an apt pupil. Is not your
+cousin becoming a perfect Goth?” she added, turning to Malcolm, with a
+laugh; and that young gentleman gladly declared he was, and rejoiced in
+his heart to see how savage Allan looked, not that he disliked the
+laird’s grandson, but it proved, he thought conclusively, what fair way
+he himself must be making in the good graces of their hostess, who, from
+that day, treated Mina with a sort of sarcastic fondness, which
+estranged them more than any actual unkindness could have done. Just as
+a cunning mischievous boy lures a dog up to him by all sorts of devices,
+by tones of encouragement, by calling ‘poor fellow,’ holding out a bone,
+and fifty other treacherous expedients, to the end that, when he has got
+the animal within reach, he may give him a sly kick or a sound thrashing
+and send the creature away howling; so Cecilia would spend half a day,
+sometimes in making herself fascinating to Mina, and then deal her a
+telling blow, which was struck nobody could say how, and felt nobody but
+the actors could point where, but the sharp pain of which, nevertheless,
+frequently kept Mina weeping for hours after she had laid her head on
+her pillow.
+
+She could not have repeated the words containing the sting: it was a
+thing to be felt, not seen, heard, or repeated. In the art of irony
+Cecilia was an adept; thus she wounded her visitor under cover of a
+compliment, and, by pretending to be a useless being, good for nothing
+but accomplishments, not by the one half so intellectual and learned as
+Mina, she effectually turned every scrap of knowledge the girl called
+hers into ridicule, and by a process, imperceptible to any eyes save
+those of her victim and Allan Frazer, succeeded in making her so
+miserable, and placing her in so very inferior a position, that one
+morning, when a letter arrived from London, requiring her return on
+account of her mother’s indisposition, Mina felt as if heaven had
+suddenly opened before her, she was so rejoiced to get away from
+Glenfiord, and leave her persecutor hundreds of miles behind.
+
+To have heard Miss Warmond begging her to stay, if it were only for one
+other week, any person might have arrived at the conclusion which
+delighted the old laird of Craigmaver, that the girls were bosom
+friends, and likely for ever to remain so; but, if her mother had been
+at the point of death, Mina could not more strenuously have urged the
+necessity of her immediate departure, and Malcolm, to his sister’s
+unutterable thankfulness, wished to be gone also: so without any
+unnecessary delay they bade “good bye” to the hills and the waters of
+their native land and the people who dwelt there, and set off on their
+long journey to that mighty city both of them now called “home.”
+
+Mina had clung for an instant round her dear old uncle’s neck, and a
+tear had fallen on his face as she said farewell; she had looked sadly
+at Allan’s troubled countenance, and gazed back again and again at
+Glenfiord; but still, though the sorrow of departure hung heavy on her
+soul, it was not the passionate unmixed sorrow of her childhood; she had
+learnt one lesson from her northern tour, namely, that happiness abides
+not in place; that true hearts make pleasant homes anywhere; that there
+is a treasure of more account than beautiful scenery or lovely
+faces—pure affection, which can, thank God, dwell in hovels, and exist
+in atmospheres killing to mawkish sentiment and pretence, and which is
+to be found in the bosoms of those whose countenances are stained and
+weather-beaten, furrowed by time and seamed by trouble. Mina had learnt
+a great deal; so Miss Caldera thought.
+
+“Well, dear,” said that sterling friend, as she poured out scalding tea
+for her and Malcolm on the night of their return, “well, dear, did your
+visit realise _all_ your anticipations?”
+
+“Not quite,” was the rejoinder.
+
+“And Miss Warmond, whom you were so fond of, has she proved all you
+expected——?”
+
+“She has proved the most confounded flirt I ever met,” burst in Malcolm,
+to the astonishment of both ladies; after which remarkable assertion, he
+hurried through his meal in silence, and then sulkily ascended to his
+mother’s room.
+
+“And so, dear foolish child, you are not, on the whole, sorry to be back
+here once again,” said Miss Caldera.
+
+“Sorry!” repeated Mina, “I’m very glad; I will tell you all some time if
+I can: I do not want to see the Highlands again till I can carry you all
+there with me; and I have brought the cairngorm quite safe, indeed I
+have, it is in my trunk upstairs.”
+
+“And the heart, Mina?”
+
+“I left it behind in the old places when I was a child; but it has come
+back to England with me this time,” she answered.
+
+“I had fancied your cousin, Allan——”
+
+“Oh!” broke in Mina, “you don’t know about Allan; he is so clever and
+talented and altered, I would not have known him; and, besides——”
+
+“Well, Mina?”
+
+“Well, you see, though I don’t think it could do any harm to tell you,
+still I promised not, and——”
+
+“Quite right,” said Miss Caldera; “so that is the way of it, is it? and
+do you feel very glad?”
+
+“I did, but I am not sure I do now,” was the reply; and Mina, by way of
+a finale to some unspoken train of thought, put her arm round the
+governess’s neck, and kissed her over and over again. “I often imagined
+when I was away,” she said, “I had not been half fond enough of you; but
+I will be now, and never grow cross or impatient or discontented any
+more.”
+
+“Don’t be too sure,” answered Miss Caldera laughing; “we shall know more
+about that when you are next tempted.”
+
+“Well, I will love you from this night twice as much as ever I did,”
+replied Mina, colouring.
+
+“Love me just the same, and keep the affection unchanged through time;
+that will be a deal better for both of us,” remarked Miss Caldera,
+earnestly: and Mina acquiesced in the truth of this observation so
+meekly, that the lady thanked the fates for having sent her former
+refractory charge to Scotland, and taming her so effectually when they
+got her there.
+
+“I only hope it may last,” murmured Miss Caldera, as she stole silently
+up the stairs of her relative’s house, and thus went noiselessly, and
+more tranquilly than usual, to rest.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+                          MARRY IN HASTE, ETC.
+
+
+Yes! Mrs. Frazer was ill, and John Merapie silent, and Mr. Westwood in
+existence, and Miss Caldera truthfully candid as ever, and Belerma
+Square had not grown one whit more cheerful during her absence, and yet
+still Mina was glad, thankful to be back. It is true she did not quite
+comprehend the deliberate badness of Miss Warmond’s nature: much as she
+had seen, much as she had discovered, she did not fully understand the
+utter worthlessness and deceit which were covered by so fair a mantle of
+beauty and of grace; but she had found out enough, and suffered
+sufficiently, to render her grateful to leave luxury and scenery and
+fashion behind, and find herself once more amongst those who pretended
+nothing, but loved her much.
+
+Miss Caldera was right: the girl had learnt a great deal when she
+returned to be contented in John Merapie’s town house. She had taken her
+first lesson in the world, tasted one drop out of the cup of fashionable
+life, and found it wonderfully bitter; she had become convinced that one
+word of praise or kindness uttered by a sterling steady friend, aye,
+even a sentence of warning or rebuke spoken by such an one in loving
+sincerity, is more really valuable than all the deceitful compliments
+and flattering falsehoods which hollow hearts can dictate and fulsome
+tongues whisper.
+
+She returned, not very strong perhaps, but still much better, with a
+colour in her cheek and a light in her eye, and a style in her manner,
+carriage, and deportment, which she had learnt from Cecilia. For she was
+at that age when association is everything, when accent is improved, an
+air of fashion conferred, ideas of elegance implanted, by being brought
+into contact with persons whose every movement, tone, gesture, tells
+that they have mixed in _le beau monde_, and that its usages and customs
+and ceremonies are familiar to them as household words. “Wonderfully
+improved in appearance,” even her mother thought her. She retained her
+former manner, it is true, but the brusqueness, living in a secluded
+solitary kind of way had formerly caused her to acquire, was almost
+gone; the tone of her voice bordered occasionally on the very confines
+of liveliness, her step had lost its languor, her face its melancholy;
+quiet and reserved she seemed still at intervals, but, taking her on the
+whole, a decided change for the better had been effected by her Highland
+trip; perhaps the mountain air might have benefited her health, which,
+for a considerable period previous to her departure—indeed, almost from
+her childhood—was anything rather than good; perhaps the “rubbing up”
+she had got, the mixing with other people besides her own exclusive home
+circle, the being drawn out of herself and forced to think of others and
+their concerns, exercised a beneficial influence on her mind; perhaps
+the glimpse she had gained of “fairy land,” of fine ladies and clever
+gentlemen, and the other beings who move in that sphere we call, _par
+excellence_, ‘the fashionable world,’ had tended to reconcile her
+considerably to a mere terrestrial common-place existence in Belerma
+Square: at all events Mina came home to her uncle’s, altered,—not for
+the worse.
+
+And if, after the first peaceable fortnight, she and Miss Caldera did
+again commence to have various little “tilts” of opinion, still they
+never signified, and were by no means so frequent as of yore, for the
+governess had apparently arrived at the determination of permitting Mr.
+Alfred Westwood to manage his matrimonial plans as best he could without
+her interference; and as this was the only point on which she and Mina
+had been wont to have arguments, that might almost have been termed
+quarrels, they plodded on together without any greater differences of
+opinion arising between them than served to prevent their tongues
+growing rusty by want of sufficient exercise.
+
+Occasionally, indeed, Malcolm became a very serious bone of contention
+for both to try their teeth on, for that young gentleman, whose chances
+of a commission seemed far off as ever, grew day by day so much more
+useless and indolent and fashionable than had been his wont before, (and
+“Goodness knows,” said Miss Caldera, “he was bad enough in those
+respects always”) that the worthy governess at last fairly lost all
+patience on the subject, and frequently asserted, “He ought to be
+ashamed of himself.”
+
+“But what can he do?” demanded Mina, who was very fond and proud of her
+brother, “what can he do?”
+
+“Work,” responded the lady; “is not that what men are sent into the
+world for, and what right has he, blessed with youth, health, and
+talent, to be standing idle, whilst older and better men are toiling
+wearily from day to day?”
+
+“He has no profession,” suggested the girl.
+
+“Let him choose one, then,” replied Miss Caldera, “or rather let him get
+rid of some of his absurd dandyism and family pride and dreamy
+anticipations, and settle quietly down at business and become a useful
+member of society.”
+
+“Like uncle John?” added Mina.
+
+“He will never be like any one half so good,” remarked Miss Caldera
+warmly, for she thought Mina’s words implied a sneer, which they did
+not.
+
+Her former charge looked for a minute or two up at the clear blue
+heavens, then she said in a deprecating tone,
+
+“I do not think I have any pride, or absurdity, or ‘notions,’ as you
+call them, and yet I should not like Malcolm to do what he styles, ‘put
+himself into harness’ and be buried alive at Wapping, and sit there the
+whole day leaning over a desk, writing from morning till night, and
+thinking of nothing but money—money—money—till he grew a regular old
+city merchant like some of my uncle’s friends: I cannot fancy my brother
+‘a business man.’”
+
+“Indeed!” angrily retorted Miss Caldera; “and pray, my dear, what can
+you fancy your brother?”
+
+“An officer,” replied Mina.
+
+“A nonsense!” exclaimed her friend.
+
+“I don’t see why he should not,” said his sister; “he is handsome
+enough, and daring enough, for anything, and my father was in the army,
+and many of our relations; I really do not see why Malcolm should not be
+an officer, if he choose.”
+
+“Well, I do,” answered Miss Caldera; “for he has so provoked your uncle,
+that I can see plainly he will never buy him a commission.”
+
+“Then we must get him one some other way, that is all,” replied Mina, so
+quietly, that Miss Caldera began to think her almost as foolish as her
+brother, and told her so; at which the girl laughed, and said she
+believed her friend imagined both of them to be perfect simpletons, but
+that, indeed, she was mistaken.
+
+“That may be,” responded the governess, in a manner, however, which
+clearly implied the unspoken mental addition of “but I don’t believe I
+am.”
+
+Meanwhile, very shortly after her return to London, the old laird’s
+niece received a long letter from Cecilia, so full of “dears” and
+“loves” and “darlings” and all sorts of fond expressions, that it fairly
+astounded the recipient, and induced her almost to believe she must have
+misunderstood her friend, and felt displeased with her on very slight
+insufficient grounds.
+
+Cecilia hoped her “pet” would come and be one of her bridesmaids, for
+she was to be married in the autumn, and though Mr. Malcolm Frazer and
+she had not parted on the _very_ best terms, she hoped he had not quite
+forgotten her, and desired best and kindest remembrances to him. And she
+gave an account of her cousin’s wedding, and said how _very_ lonely
+Glenfiord seemed after Mina’s departure, and filled half a sheet with
+wishes that they were living close to each other, and asked how she was
+contriving to exist in that dreadful Belerma Square, and made particular
+inquiries concerning the state of Mrs. Frazer’s health, and said that if
+Mr. Merapie were going to retire, and thought of purchasing an estate in
+the Highlands, there was a beautiful property to be sold not a mile from
+Glenfiord; how delightful it would be if Mina could induce him to buy
+it; and she wound all up by saying, “Of course my engagement is no
+secret now. Ever dear, dear Mina, your affectionately attached—CECILIA
+WARMOND.”
+
+Miss Caldera smiled when she finished reading through the epistle her
+former pupil handed to her for perusal, and in answer to Mina’s
+question, “Well, what do you think of it?” she said briefly, “Not much;”
+which reply, undoing the effect the letter had produced, brought the
+individual who was so happy as to be called by Miss Warmond “friend”
+back to her preconceived opinion of that young lady, and caused her to
+doubt if every word traced in that fair, delicate, Italian hand were
+true, and whether the one half at least of the contents of the epistle
+did not sound, as Miss Caldera, who never could resist a saw or a
+proverb, said, “a vast deal too sweet to be altogether wholesome.” Also,
+on Mina’s informing her brother of the projected marriage, he curtly
+rejoined,
+
+“Oh! yes, I knew all about it long ago; she told me she was engaged to
+Allan after she had drawn me on to propose—hang her!” and, in fact, so
+much evidence, circumstantial and otherwise, was produced just about
+this period in Miss Warmond’s disfavour, that poor Mina began to be
+thoroughly convinced she was very far from what she ought to be—very,
+very far, indeed, from being the sort of person she had fancied that
+bright spring morning, when she threw her arms around the beautiful neck
+and said she was so glad, so very glad Cecilia was to become her cousin.
+
+“What is making Mr. Allan Frazer marry such a creature?” demanded Miss
+Caldera, as she folded up the letter with an air of supreme contempt;
+“what in the world has possessed him?”
+
+“I am sure I do not know,” replied Mina, and it was true, for she felt
+Allan’s love for the General’s daughter was nothing remarkable, and she
+had speculated often concerning what could, as Miss Caldera said, “have
+possessed him.”
+
+But Allan Frazer himself knew, and that was sufficient; he was aware of
+how he had longed to be free—of a painful interview between himself and
+his uncle, which terminated with his saying, “Oh! if she would only give
+me up,” a thing she had not the remotest intention of doing, either for
+him or anybody else.
+
+For, as far as she was capable of loving man or woman, she loved the
+laird’s grandson—loved him for himself, his appearance, his talents, and
+the sort of celebrity he had acquired; further than all this, she stuck
+to him because he desired to cast her off, and showed her he did; and,
+because she fancied he cared for Mina, “that little, insignificant,
+uneducated child,” and she was determined as he had once proposed for
+her he should marry her, or else she would know the reason why.
+
+“If you have not changed your mind,” said Allan; coldly, to her one day,
+when, at length, some kind of an explanation had become unavoidable, “if
+you have not changed your mind, or repented your choice, or come to the
+conclusion that I am not qualified to make you happy,—if, in one word,
+you wish me to fulfil my engagement, I am ready to do so; if not——”
+
+“You will start for London and resume your interrupted flirtation with
+Mina Frazer,” she added, with an angry laugh.
+
+“With Mina Frazer! heaven forbid!” ejaculated Allan; “no, no; Mina is
+too good and gentle-hearted to flirt with, and as to marrying, if she
+ever do commit the folly, I trust the fates will provide her a better
+husband than I feel I am competent to make any one: no, no,” he said
+again, in a less hurried tone, “I am fond of her as a cousin, as a
+sister, as a dear, good, truthful little girl; she always rises to my
+mind like a pure pleasant memory of childhood, or something very close
+to childhood: never say that again, Cecilia; I cannot bear to have even
+Mina’s name mentioned in connection with that horrid word.”
+
+“I spoke thoughtlessly,” responded Miss Warmond, who felt she had
+ventured a little too far on dangerous ground, “and it was wrong for me
+so to do, as you were talking seriously concerning a serious subject.”
+
+“Our marriage!” acquiesced Allan. “You have now had a long period to
+reflect upon the matter, and I wish to know if you are still of opinion
+that I am an individual with whom you could endure to pass years—a life
+time. I do not desire to hold you bound because of any engagement
+between us: I have endeavoured not to deceive you in any point, whether
+relating to my family, circumstances, or self; you have seen everything
+as it is, had ample opportunities of judging for yourself. I am well
+aware that I can offer you no home equal to some others, the doors of
+which would open gladly to receive you; and therefore I ask you to
+consider yourself as perfectly free, and to decide for the second time,
+as if it were the first, whether you will take me as I am and my
+fortunes as they are, or whether we shall part now, never to meet again
+excepting, perhaps, as friends.”
+
+Cecilia knew what this speech meant just as well as the person who
+uttered it: she knew he was really asking her to set him free, though he
+worded the sentence as if it were he conceding that boon to her; she
+read down into the depths of his heart and saw that his love for her,
+vehement, wild, romantic as it had been, was gone; she felt he was
+yearning with a soul-sick longing to be set at liberty; that he was
+waiting, like a criminal to hear his doom, dreading lest she would
+accept him. Cecilia knew and saw all these things, and yet, and perhaps
+because of them, she held him to the contract he had madly rushed into
+and would not give him up.
+
+There was a burning fury raging in her heart; if she had hated Allan
+Frazer she would still have forced him to marry her: she resolved to be
+revenged, even though, in working out that vengeance, she should wound
+herself; jealousy, anger, resentment, affection, mortified vanity,
+determined obstinacy, a truly feminine spirit of contradiction, and a
+lamentable deficiency of womanly feeling and womanly pride, urged her
+on, and, amidst a torrent of, for once, perfectly genuine tears, she
+sobbed forth the decision, which it was death to the laird’s grandson to
+hear, “She would marry him.”
+
+The fiat had been pronounced that sealed and blasted his destiny for
+life; like the victim who feels the last plank drawn from beneath his
+feet; like the child of care, on whose bosom the chill hand of
+misfortune has just stamped some ineffaceable mark; like the bereaved
+one who is told of the death of a friend, loved better than land or gold
+or station; like the merchant who hears his wealth has vanished and that
+he is left a beggar, so Allan Frazer listened to her final resolution;
+and when at length he slowly and gloomily quitted the apartment, it was
+with that look of fixed despair in his face, which marks so
+unmistakeably the man who feels his peace is wrecked, his happiness
+destroyed, his future blighted.
+
+Moore, in one of his songs, tells us how wretched man would be
+
+                      “If, when deceived in love,
+                      He could not fly to hate.”
+
+Which may be strictly true, not merely in poetry, but in fact, when the
+parties who hate are compelled to separate.
+
+But hatred, or even indifference, is a commodity of rather questionable
+utility to start with in the line matrimonial; so Allan Frazer thought,
+yet still he did start with nothing beside it, excepting, perhaps, a
+little contempt and a great deal of anger, as a happy benedict: and he
+found, as time went on, he was never likely to become a bankrupt, for
+his stock in trade increased rather than diminished, and when people
+congratulated him and admired her, the new-made husband turned away sick
+and dispirited; for the beauty that had won was impotent to retain, the
+grace and the accomplishments had grown distasteful to his soul, her
+soft low voice affected him sadly, as a melody—no matter how sweet it
+may be—that awakens disagreeable memories palls on the ear of the
+listener and causes him to desire to fly from the sound of it: where she
+dwelt was a place to be absent from as much as possible; in one word,
+the doom of many of his race was upon him, only he had repented sooner
+than they. The change, he was conscious of before marriage, but that,
+perhaps, made the sorrow only the greater, for the lady, not desiring
+the engagement to be cancelled, he had felt himself bound in honour to
+make her his bride; and thus Cecilia carried her point, as she would
+have carried any other on which she had once set her mind, even had the
+same been going up to her neck in Loch Lomond and finishing her earthly
+experiences there: and if she did not get all she wanted, why Allan got
+nothing he desired, and that was an immense advantage gained,
+considerably more than half the battle; it was indeed almost the whole
+of it, so the General’s daughter consoled herself by thinking at
+times—when the conviction forced itself upon her that both had been
+worsted in the struggle, that she had paid a high price for something
+not particularly well worth having, that, in short, for the sake of
+loving him a little, it had been scarcely worth while to persist in
+tying herself, whether he would or no, to a husband who loved her not at
+all. But whatever she thought about the business signified not; there
+was nothing now to be done but make the best of it, for they were
+married. Oh! yes, there could not be the least doubt about that fact;
+they were married one bright sunshiny morning in the autumn, as Cecilia
+wrote to her “Dear Mina” was to be the case; and the ceremony proved a
+very sublime affair indeed, for an Indian commander-in-chief—or, to
+speak more correctly, a commander-in-chief who had been in
+India—honoured the nuptials with his presence; and his niece, Lady
+Matilda Cintra, looked charming, as one of the bridesmaids; and, in
+brief, so many grandees, gathered from far and near, came in carriages
+and pairs and carriages and fours, flanked by outriders and surrounded
+with a sort of halo of liveries and crests and coats of arms and
+pedigrees, to see one person, at least, made miserable, that the leading
+Edinburgh paper of that period devoted a paragraph to the affair; and it
+got stuck somehow in the _Morning Post_, and cards went flying about to
+the houses of the great and the noble and the wealthy; and John Merapie,
+who hated humbug, read the passage through from beginning to end, and
+then told a city friend, who asked if the bridegroom were not a
+connexion of his, that he believed he was cousin or something of that
+kind to the children (Mina and Malcolm), and that the bride had wanted
+his niece to be one of the bridesmaids, but, he was thankful to say, she
+was too sensible to run mad after folly and fashion and Mechlin veils
+and lords and ladies and—humbug.
+
+All of which impressing the city friend with a magnificent idea of the
+grandeur of Mrs. Frazer’s Highland relations and of the wealth and sense
+of her brother—a man who could afford to talk lightly of a
+commander-in-chief and a Lady Matilda Cintra—he turned over thenceforth
+a new leaf in his behaviour towards the family in Belerma Square, and
+found out that Malcolm and Mina had the “stamp of aristocrats about them
+and no mistake.” “Real true blues,” he remarked to an acquaintance who
+had extensive dealings in indigo, and who, therefore, stupid as he
+generally was, understood that style of praise, and grunted forth an
+acquiescence thoroughly genuine and sincere, though he did outrage
+Lindley Murray and mangle Dr. Johnson horribly during the performance.
+
+And that paragraph was perused by many another besides John Merapie and
+his city friends.
+
+Alfred Westwood learned it off by heart, and then silently cursed some
+mysterious parties, and communed for hours with himself, after which he
+took a fixed resolution. Miss Caldera glanced through it and said, she
+“hoped they’d be happy.” Mina skimmed the list of fashionables over the
+governess’s shoulder, and sighed, she knew not why, to find so grand a
+lady was actually her cousin.
+
+Mrs. Frazer got her son to read all about the wedding aloud for her
+edification, and though he sneered when he came to the part about the
+lovely, amiable, and accomplished bride, still the whole thing gratified
+his Highland pride and snobbish nonsense. The cards so beautifully tied
+together and inscribed, Mr. Allan Frazer—Mrs. Allan Frazer, to the end
+that they might be better seen, were taken carefully out of the highly
+enamelled envelope and placed on the top of the papier maché basket John
+Merapie’s sister had filled with bits of pasteboard collected during
+previous years, on which were printed the names of grandees, who had
+forgotten such an individual as herself ever existed.
+
+Well, well, it was a harmless vanity, a reminiscence of more fashionable
+days, a sort of silent denial that Belerma Square was a proper place for
+her to reside in, a mute protest against the injustice of shutting her
+out for ever from intercourse with “the persons moving in the sphere of
+life she had formerly been accustomed to.”
+
+I once heard a tale of an individual who _stole_ a card, having the name
+of a peeress traced on it, and who, if the story were not a fiction,
+preserved it among lesser and more ignoble cards till it grew yellow
+with the action of time, worn with the process of perpetual fingering.
+Poor Mrs. Frazer did not carry her absurdity so far as this; she merely
+exhibited to, or rather placed within view of, curious visitors what was
+_bonâ fide_ her own, acquired legitimately in other times; and finally,
+as if by accident, so disposed the heap, that the last precious
+_morceaux_ the fates were pleased to send her should be seen by
+everybody at a glance: only did this, and got Malcolm to read her a
+dreary newspaper paragraph through.
+
+One other person permitted his eyes to wander over that chronicle of the
+goodly company who went to see Miss Warmond transformed into Mrs.
+Frazer; and, when he concluded, a darker shade came on Ernest Ivraine’s
+brow, and he sighed as he looked at the swamps of Paradise to find
+Mina’s relatives appeared to be, not merely rich, but aristocratic; that
+to the beautiful land of her birth she had so many ties; that Malcolm’s
+assertions regarding their family were quite correct; that his own
+impressions had been a little wrong. Ernest’s hand trembled slightly as
+he laid down the paper which a sycophantish neighbour sent his father
+day after day; why it should have done so he knew best; “she was nothing
+to him—nothing;” he said so constantly, and tried to believe the
+statement correct.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+                          THE ROAD TO FORTUNE.
+
+
+Months previously the baronet’s son had returned home, looking, as Sir
+Ernest kindly told him, like a “resuscitated corpse:” and, in truth, his
+long illness had produced anything rather than a beneficial change in
+his appearance. His pale face, haggard looks, and emaciated person,
+completely removed a suspicion his father had entertained, that Ernest,
+for some unknown purpose, “was shamming;” it was a vast deal clearer
+than a finger-post that the young man was just recovering from
+sickness,—long, severe, dangerous; and having satisfied his mind on this
+point by one keen scrutinising glance, the baronet’s thoughts, which
+constantly turned to gold—“true as the needle to the pole”—reverted to
+money, and he began to consider what a deal his son’s accident must have
+cost, and how the fees and medicines and etceteras were to be paid.
+
+“So you have been very ill, you say,” was almost the first remark he
+vouchsafed.
+
+“Yes, sir, nearly dead,” responded Ernest, laying an unconscious, but
+still most mournful, emphasis on the “nearly,” as if he regretted an
+answer could not have been given regarding him without the presence of
+that word.
+
+The baronet mentally calculated the cost of having his body conveyed
+from London and buried at Lorton; debited and credited the accounts of
+life and death, so to speak, and finding the balance decidedly in favour
+of the former, the expenses of the latter being, at a moderate
+computation, more than double, he said, in a much more satisfied tone,
+
+“Well, but you’re better now, are not you?”
+
+“A great deal; I am, I may say, quite strong again.”
+
+“And so your journey might have been saved; the opinion is——”
+
+“What I wrote you,” supplied Ernest, as his father stopped, “that you
+have not an inch of ground to stand upon. Scott and Smeek took that view
+from the first; but as they did not like to go by their own judgment
+alone, they said it would be better to lay the affair before some
+eminent barrister, which we did. The very first legal opinion of the day
+has, therefore, been taken on the question, and the sum and substance of
+that opinion is, that if you wish to go to law you can, but it will be
+with a positive certainty of being beaten.”
+
+“Humph! that would scarcely suit Sir Ernest Ivraine,” said the baronet
+reflectively.
+
+“So I told Scott, and he said he knew that, and intimated to the
+barrister you were not accustomed to that sort of thing. The other said
+shortly, ‘He had heard of your having twenty law suits and never losing
+one; but that if you brought this into court you would get the worst of
+it.’”
+
+“A straightforward honest speech,” remarked the baronet, who was pleased
+to find his fame, in respect of successful litigation, had spread even
+to the heart of England’s metropolis. “Lawyers are the only class of men
+I care to have any dealings with; they are up to every kind of villainy,
+and make no pretence about it; and when they say, ‘Don’t go to law,’ you
+may depend they are sincere, seeing it is their interest everybody
+should be at loggerheads with his neighbour. The first ‘case’ I have, I
+will retain that fellow, and my opponent shall pay him: ha, ha! Well,
+Ernest, anything else?”
+
+“Nothing, excepting that, in return for the guineas he received from me,
+he sent back a ‘full opinion’ to you, which you can read at your
+leisure, I having now condensed the matter of it; and further, Mr. Scott
+called frequently upon me during my illness, or, rather, when I was
+getting better—not in the way of business, but as a friend—and, before I
+left, he advised me to urge you by no means to go to law, as it would
+certainly entail enormous expense and could serve no good purpose,
+except to give your opponents a triumph over you.”
+
+“And he styles that a good purpose,” soliloquised the baronet; “well, so
+be it, only it’s one I won’t be the means of accomplishing just at
+present: and he went to see you without wanting to be paid for it, did
+he?”
+
+“I presume, on account of certain former business transactions with you,
+he considered it only respectful to call on your son after I had been so
+unfortunate as to get my arm broken; besides which, Belerma Square is
+scarcely a stone’s throw from his office in Arras Street.”
+
+“I wonder,” said Sir Ernest with his usual benevolence, “you could not
+have watched where you were going, and avoided such an accident; I never
+heard of anything so clumsy or provoking in my life,—stumbling for no
+other conceivable purpose than to make work for the doctors. Pshaw! I
+thought you had more sense; the expense of them alone must have been
+something frightful; set of leeches as they are, they never let a
+patient out of their hands till they have sucked his pockets dry: I
+would hang the half of them, and that might be a warning to the
+remainder of their brethren.” And the baronet, who loved lawyers,
+delivered this sentence with peculiar gusto, and chuckled, in his
+customary savage manner, at the idea of how summarily he would settle
+the bills of the numerous and much libelled class, who either prefix Dr.
+to their surnames or else stick M.D., as an appropriate and ornamental
+finish to the same.
+
+“I beg to assure you,” said Ernest, when the old man, having thought
+better about suffocating himself, had stopped his detestable laugh
+before it fairly took away his breath for ever, “I beg to assure you, my
+expenses for medical attendance were so moderate as quite to surprise
+me, and you must remember I was at none other.”
+
+“None other? ah, yes! I had forgotten: somebody picked you up and
+carried you home,—a philanthropist was it, or an undertaker anxious to
+get the job of burying a gentleman, or a lady desirous for a good
+matrimonial settlement, who thought if she could bring you round, you
+might ‘do,’ eh! Ernest, which was it?”
+
+The blood mounted into the young man’s cheeks, and he bit his lip to
+find it doing so, particularly as the baronet’s cold, shrewd, searching
+eye was upon him; but he answered with an attempt at unconcern.
+
+“I do not think the person who performed the very kind act of rescuing
+me from the tender mercies of a policeman and an hospital can lay any
+claim to the character of a philanthropist, or, indeed, would wish to do
+so; but that certainly is the only one of the three personages you have
+named he even faintly resembles.”
+
+“Don’t like philanthropists,” remarked the baronet, determined to sift
+the matter to the very bottom; “glad to hear he does not set up for one,
+though I admit they are occasionally useful, as in a case of this kind,
+for instance; but who was your entertainer? open your mouth wide for
+once, Ernest, and tell me: I am desirous of knowing who saved the life
+of my son; naturally anxious—you understand,” and the wretched,
+ungrateful old man smiled like a fiend and fastened his glistening eyes
+on the thin worn face of him who grew alternately red and pale under a
+scrutiny which was becoming almost unbearable.
+
+“My entertainer was a Mr. John Merapie, of the firm of Merapie and
+Westwood—rich I should think, kind I know, eccentric I believe—who
+resides at number 12, Belerma Square, and is reported to be a first-rate
+man of business and to stand high in the commercial world as a person of
+strict integrity, and so forth.”
+
+“What family has he?” demanded Sir Ernest, as his son paused.
+
+“None: he never was married and seems a confirmed bachelor,” was the
+reply.
+
+“Humph!” This favourite ejaculation of the baronet’s was uttered after
+the fashion of a confidential soliloquy, and his son was just praying he
+had got to the end of his queries—in other words, he either had never
+smelt the game at all or else been lured off the scent of it, when
+suddenly out came the next question, and the one Ernest had been
+dreading from the commencement.
+
+“What kind of a feminine creature keeps house for him? He does not live
+all alone in one of those Belerma Square mansions without some female
+relative, I suppose, eh?” and the miser finished off this interrogatory
+by stretching forth one hand, as if he would fain have shaken
+information full and accurate out of his son.
+
+“His sister, or, rather, his half sister, manages the establishment,”
+Ernest responded.
+
+“And what may she be like?” persisted his father; “is she young or old,
+handsome or plain, rich or poor, a dependant or what? Tell me at once,
+sir; I—I want to understand this business thoroughly. I always suspect
+these disinterested people: I am not going to have you inveigled into a
+vulgar pauper marriage, I——”
+
+“For heaven’s sake, sir, don’t agitate yourself so unnecessarily!”
+interposed Ernest, in the calm sarcastic tone he had surely inherited
+from his parent, for it was one Sir Ernest could assume at pleasure;
+“the lady is neither young, handsome, nor peculiarly attractive; she may
+either be a dependant or not for aught I know about her: John Merapie
+never made the slightest effort to ‘catch’ her for me, and if you remain
+without a daughter-in-law till I ask you to receive that gentleman’s
+sister, greatly indebted as I feel myself to both of them, you will live
+to see the youngest oak on your property a giant tree. Pray set your
+mind at ease; nobody has spread the net matrimonial for me since I left
+here; great catch as I admit I would be for the relative of a man who is
+worth some quarter of a million at any rate.”
+
+For about the first time in his life the baronet found himself at fault;
+there was a quiet scorn in his son’s manner that threw him off the
+trail: it was long before fresh occurrences set him on it again, and
+caused him to reflect that there might be other ladies living at number
+12, Belerma Square, than John Merapie’s sister. Ernest’s tone satisfied
+him the young man was not in love with the merchant’s relative; and, as
+he had no particular fault to find with the pair who had saved him from
+the infliction of a long hotel bill, and no very good pretence for
+quarrelling with Ernest, and as, moreover, he wanted to inform him he
+had thought of a way of “doing” Sir Hugh Xifer and the rest, without
+going to law with them, he contented himself by saying,
+
+“If he have a quarter of a million, he will hardly ask you to marry his
+sister, I am perfectly satisfied about that; only I like to see my way
+and not to be blinded: Henry has brought disgrace enough into our
+family, without your making us any worse; and for what he has done I
+have renounced him, cut him off from my heart and my home, blotted out
+his name as child of mine; remember that, sir, never forget it.”
+
+“It strikes me you were a little premature with regard to my brother,
+just as, a few minutes since, you were too hasty in reference to
+myself,” remarked Ernest, still maintaining the withering tone which
+alone ever seemed to produce the slightest effect on his parent; “I told
+you years ago Henry would rise to name and fortune yet, and you then
+laughed my assertion to scorn; but the boy had the materials in him out
+of which heroes are moulded; he has risen, as I asserted he would; he
+has flung back the lie in the teeth of those who would have prejudiced
+you against him by tales of his rashness, his discontent, his
+waywardness; he has struggled, he has conquered, he has won; your son is
+no longer a ‘common private, a vagabond soldier.’ Without money, without
+influence, almost without a friend, he has raised himself from the
+ranks, and now stands in a position in which you will not blush to
+acknowledge him. To what station he may further attain it is impossible
+to say; perhaps his name may yet become one famous in history; if life
+be spared, he will certainly achieve some brilliant destiny for himself:
+meantime, you will learn from this letter what he has already
+accomplished; he enclosed it in one to me, and bade me be sure to give
+it, whether you were willing or not, into the hands of ‘his father.’”
+
+These were the concluding words of the longest sentence Ernest had ever
+uttered in his life; but this time the miser did not inform him he was
+“becoming eloquent.” No; during the progress of the speech he turned
+pale, livid almost with excitement; his face assumed a totally different
+expression, his whole frame quivered and trembled, as though shaken by
+some violent emotion; and when, at last, his son held out the missive,
+he looked at him, first wildly for a moment, and then clutching it with
+convulsive eagerness, he bade Ernest, in a voice almost inaudible from
+emotion, leave him alone—leave him alone quickly.
+
+And when Ernest obeyed, the old man tore open the letter, and devoured
+rather than read its contents. If Henry’s speeches had been of the
+longest, assuredly his epistle was of the shortest: but what did that
+signify; “good news,” like “good goods,” go in small bulk, and thus a
+few honest manly lines sufficed to tell the struggles, the
+disappointments, the success of the younger brother; he possessed
+nothing to give in exchange for a commission, he said, “but his blood,”
+and of that he had not been sparing: his upward course was marked by a
+deep broad track of crimson, but he had won, at length, name, fame,
+epaulettes, position; and standing—after years of toil and struggle, of
+weary climbing and of sickening disappointments, on the broad sure
+stone, Success—he wrote, for the first time since they parted, to his
+parent, and conveyed to him the story of his experiences, his
+long-deferred hopes and their final realization, in a score or so of
+concise decided words.
+
+But oh! what volumes did those words not contain: the story of manhood’s
+toil; the exultation of youthful pride; the firm purpose of a noble
+soul; the unalterable steadiness of a truthful generous heart; the
+natural triumph of one who, having been misunderstood and traduced, was
+able to fling the undeniable fact of having carved out his own way to
+fortune, unassisted, unpatronised, unsullied, in the faces of his former
+calumniators: there was everything in that short letter, everything—even
+to a vague instinctive attachment for his miser parent—save love of
+home.
+
+He desired not to revisit Paradise, that was self-evident; he loathed
+the very memory of that place, amid the fields and the trees and the
+swamps of which the old miser baronet sate him down to read and re-read,
+with a half-proud and a half-angry heart, the history of his disobedient
+son’s wild projects, and their just commenced fulfilment.
+
+“It was in him, in him always, Henry, my brave rash son.”
+
+So muttered Sir Ernest, and the letter shook in his hand, and something
+very like a film came for a moment over his restless grey eyes as the
+record of step after step—how longed for, how won—swam before him; no
+one could have believed it was actually the unfeeling old baronet who
+thus grasped, who thus perused, the letter of a soldier—his gallant boy;
+he seemed as different as night is from day, as the tempest from
+sunshine, as storm from calm, as good from evil; but still he was just
+the same, only the single good chord in his nature having been touched,
+a sort of harmony—not the less affecting because strange and wild and a
+little harsh and irregular—pervaded his whole being; he was thinking
+then, kindly, gently, of the only creature under heaven he loved, after
+his selfish sordid fashion, well and disinterestedly; and as the words
+and the looks and the tones of old came stealing into his soul, and with
+their magic fingers woke the music of that one solitary string which
+alone ever vibrated at the swell of gentle passions, the miser became,
+for a brief space, a man, the cynic a father, the sneerer a something
+capable of experiencing human emotions, and being melted for a moment by
+them.
+
+There was a wild joy and a strange sorrow in the heart of Ernest Ivraine
+when he beheld how his parent received the news of Henry’s success, when
+he noted how, for a period after the receipt of that letter, the miser
+seemed softened, subdued, altered: a mingling of many feelings,—triumph,
+regret, impatience, anger, grief; boundless exultation at the leap his
+brother had so unexpectedly made from the dull dark shore, called
+poverty, to that other, its bright opposite comparative, prosperity.
+Henry’s pride was his pride; he could now, in his name, give back scorn
+for scorn to those who had dared to question the abilities and the sense
+of his brother, to measure the exact height at which he should always
+remain stationary, to point out with sarcastic finger a spot close to
+the base of the hill of fame where he was ever to stand still, gazing
+wistfully up to that summit, which it would never be his good fortune to
+reach; he could now keep them at bay better than formerly; he possessed
+a hold over the old miser, more potent than flattery, or subservience,
+or cleverness; the second chance was again restored, and its influence
+he found to be, not merely unimpaired by the lapse of time and change of
+circumstances, but strengthened fourfold; it had almost ceased to be a
+“chance,” for their hope of a goodly inheritance might now, Ernest saw,
+be called a certainty.
+
+And if the hate he bore some of his kindred made him rejoice their
+assertions had been proved false, a far better and more Christian
+feeling, the love he felt for his brother, caused every pulse of his
+heart to beat quicker in fraternal sympathy with the triumphant
+expressions of the young officer.
+
+The weight was at last lifted from his soul; he no longer lay awake at
+night, mourning for the generous youth whose spirit had been crushed by
+disappointments; who, having chosen his lot, was forced to drag out year
+after year in weary servitude, uncheered by congenial companionship,
+unillumined by a hope; who had no friend out there or anywhere to help
+him up; who loved no one and was loved by no one, save Ernest, his
+silent, melancholy, absent brother.
+
+No; light had dawned in India at length: the night was passed, the
+morning come, and sometimes when sorrow pressed sorely upon him, when
+his own chains galled and his own thoughts oppressed him, the elder
+brother turned his mournful gaze away to the glorious east, to the land
+of splendid luxury, of pearls and perfumes, of gorgeous flowers and
+towering mountains, of cactus hedges and impenetrable forests, of
+palaces and magnificence; to the land where great destinies have been
+achieved and valour recognized and diplomacy rewarded; to the land which
+had become that of promise to the miser’s youngest born. From the dreary
+fens of Lincolnshire he turned his mournful gaze away to the east, and,
+forgetful of himself for a period, drew comfort and gratification from
+watching the proud confident strides that were being taken in rapid
+succession by him who so resembled the fairhaired, gentle woman they
+both had called, in childhood’s first faltering accents, “Mother.”
+
+So much for the joy; so far all was as, perhaps, it ought to have been,
+as pure, as unselfish as human feelings ever are; but a craving,
+never-sleeping sorrow, which devoured his peace, intervened at this
+point and prevented his good thoughts obtaining entire mastery over
+him,—prevented, in one sentence, Ernest Ivraine from rejoicing so fully
+and completely with him who rejoiced as he would unquestionably have
+mourned had ill fortune fallen to the lot of the youth, who, having gone
+forth nobly to breast the stream of fate, had reached, with the help of
+Him in whom he had put his trust, a safe and happy port at last.
+
+Oh! why in those far back years had Ernest not been strong in faith,
+brave in honest self-reliance, too? why had he not ventured out into the
+strife, that he might now have been free, unfettered, independent? why,
+when with a sickening heart, a vague repentance oppressing him, he asked
+himself these questions, did he not, earnest in purpose, hopeful in
+spirit, leave Paradise behind him, and casting from off his soul the
+shackles of that which Henry had called “accursed gold,” commence, even
+at the eleventh hour, the struggle of existence?
+
+Because their dispositions, temperaments, and gifts were so different;
+because the one was rash and the other prudent; because the one was
+enthusiastic and the other calculating; because Ernest had more patience
+and Henry more energy; because the former saw no sin in lingering,
+watching, waiting for a parent’s death, while the latter felt, as he
+said, the guilt of even the idea oppress his soul; because the elder had
+inherited something of his father’s indomitable obstinacy and adhesive
+persistence; because a little of woman’s blind impulsiveness, of her
+foolish impetuosity, and absurd ideality, had been bequeathed by his
+dead mother to the younger.
+
+Difference of character! in that brief sentence was contained the key to
+diversity of conduct; the bold fearlessness of the one had sent him out
+on a vague desperate errand into the world; the cold cautiousness of the
+other kept him hanging on for ever about Paradise, a man toiling and
+slaving for another’s benefit, enduring, hoping, waiting for a chance.
+
+But now when, without his assistance, Henry had climbed so high as to be
+able to reach down a helping hand to aid him in his ascent, when each
+Indian letter, as it arrived, came laden with words of affection and
+promises of assistance if he only would join the writer, when he called
+all the money he had so long and uselessly hoarded for Henry’s benefit
+his own, and was thus possessed of enough to leave his father’s house
+and take his first step in life’s highway—a gentleman, with gold
+sufficient to buy civility and courtesy from the cringing throng,—when
+after years of anxious waiting, the end he had longed for seemed far off
+as ever, why did he hesitate?
+
+Because, though circumstances might have altered he had not: the old
+temptation was strong as ever to retain, the new lure feeble as formerly
+to attract; he repented him, it is true, that he had not gone _then_,
+but he asserted it was too late for him to commence _now_; if his father
+bequeathed them wealth, he should be better off than any exertions of
+his own could possibly make him; and if, on the other hand, he left
+Paradise and failed—ay, there was the old doubt again—Henry could only
+give him assistance, not wealth; whilst, by lingering a little longer,
+taking a fresh stock of patience on board to serve him for a brief
+space, he should become a rich baronet without a care.
+
+And what if Mina married in the interim? What if, before he was able to
+go and tell her, with unclouded brow, the history of his secret
+troubles, of his former reserve, of his affection for the sister of one
+who had saved his life? What if, before death’s kind hand left him at
+liberty to try whether a woman could be induced to love him as well as
+Henry had done, she—the only creature, save his mother and Henry, for
+whom he ever entertained a sincere attachment—should have made new ties
+for herself and become incapable of being ever aught unto him, save a
+sad memory and a gentle-hearted friend?
+
+The thought flickered through his brain at intervals, and so surely as
+it struggled to light, Ernest smothered it with a sentence he tried to
+believe, but could not, “She is nothing to me, can never be;” and as
+rapidly as he smothered the reflection in one form, it sprang to life in
+another, and thus—a vague, indefinite, painful idea,—it remained with
+and constantly haunted him.
+
+Thus the summer, passed in dim reveries under spreading trees, wore
+slowly away, and autumn came,—that autumn when Cecilia Warmond was
+married, and the baronet’s son read all about the ceremony in the
+aristocratic columns of the _Morning Post_.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+                   SIR ERNEST “SCATTERS HIS ENEMIES.”
+
+
+Meanwhile the select committee had not been idle; the bridge progressed
+apace, the farmers rejoiced as the affair proceeded rapidly towards
+completion. Sir Hugh Xifer rode down day after day to note how the
+workmen were “getting on;” the owners of land in the vicinity had become
+reconciled to the idea of a most moderate toll, as the “roundabout”
+seven miles nuisance had really become unbearable. Everybody was
+satisfied, everybody, even to Sir Ernest Ivraine, only the baronet did
+not tell the select committee so; no, he held his peace, and they saw
+their bridge rise quickly to something fit to put a toll on, and were
+thankful.
+
+There were many, indeed, who whispered “Sir Ernest meant mischief,” but
+the wise men of Lorton laughed the assertion to scorn.
+
+“He would like to do us mischief, we have no doubt,” they said, “but we
+defy him legally to carry out his wishes, and if he attempt to carry
+them out illegally, we ‘have him;’ but he is too wise by far for that.”
+
+Yes, Sir Ernest Ivraine was too wise for that, particularly as he knew
+he “had them.” He neither summoned them for trespass nor served them
+with notice not to build on his premises, nor bribed “parties” to
+undermine the foundations, nor ordered out a select band to pull down
+the toll gate; he did not threaten, or rage, or trouble himself
+apparently in the slightest degree about the matter; he expressed,
+indeed, perfect indifference on the subject when it was named in his
+presence, and was altogether so externally careless, that he contrived
+to deceive his old enemy, Sir Hugh, and the remainder of the select
+committee most completely; he lulled them into a state of the most
+placid contentment and unbounded confidence, induced them to believe he
+was vanquished; in fine, he was so clever as to let them build away in
+peace and make them think they had triumphed over him so completely,
+that he had ceased to talk of opposition or of annoyance.
+
+There was a look, however, in the baronet’s face which Mr. Medill
+distrusted, a sort of half-suppressed malicious expression, that puzzled
+the worthy attorney; he could not, indeed, tell exactly what plot the
+old miser was hatching, but he felt convinced there was something
+disagreeable in the wind, else Sir Ernest would never be taking the
+matter so quietly and making so little noise about it.
+
+“I fear,” remarked Mr. Medill to Sir Hugh, “the weather is too calm at
+Paradise; we shall certainly have a storm before long, blowing due north
+from that quarter.”
+
+“Nay; rather,” returned the knight, “remember the inverse of the proverb
+you were thinking of, ‘after a storm comes a lull.’ We had high winds
+and high words and thunder threats some months since: I am sure it is
+not to be marvelled at there should be a little peace now, after the
+tempest he raised last winter.”
+
+“But that tempest did no harm; it was fierce, it is true, but it was
+also open: this time he is brewing some precious mess in that
+impenetrable cauldron of a brain of his; and I know, by the sarcastic
+twinkle of his eye and a peculiar curl, or rather twist, of his lip,
+that he is not merely bent on crossing your plans, but has found out
+some way of effecting his design.”
+
+“I defy him,” said Sir Hugh solemnly.
+
+“Do you defy the devil?” demanded the attorney.
+
+“And all his imps,” answered the other; “he has no law on his side: the
+road is ours; we repair the bridge at our private cost, and every
+individual who has any influence in the matter, excepting, perhaps,
+himself, has agreed that our proposal of a nominal toll is only just and
+equitable. He dare not damage the building, he cannot pass over the
+bridge without paying; he could only remove the gate by using illegal
+force; in short, I defy him to outwit us now in any way which would not
+overstep the bounds of law and render him liable to an action. I have
+looked at the matter from every point of view, and I see nothing that he
+can do to annoy us or benefit himself.”
+
+“Well, you may depend he does,” briefly responded Mr. Medill.
+
+“Do not believe it,” said the knight, shaking his wise head in a
+sceptical manner; “I feel sure we have got the better of Sir Ernest
+Ivraine for once.”
+
+“Never knew any man yet who was so fortunate,” was the reply. “Other
+people swear and bluster quite as much, perhaps, but they stop
+sometimes: now there is _no end_ to Sir Ernest; he never lets go his
+hold; he never lifts his nose from the scent till he has hunted his game
+down; he never turned aside from any purpose in his life: if he cannot
+do harm one way, he will in another; he never forgets, he never
+forgives. Take my advice and have a care; I know there is danger near at
+hand, for the owner of Paradise is never so dangerous as when apparently
+perfectly tranquil.”
+
+But Sir Hugh laughed the injunction to scorn; and he laughed still more
+confidently when the bridge was finished, when carts passed over, and
+their drivers paid tolls, and the temporary plank affair was removed
+altogether, and the other opened and presented to the public, renewed,
+strengthened, beautified, as a route for regular traffic.
+
+Still the lull remained unbroken at Paradise: it is true Sir Ernest had
+been heard to remark he would pay toll one day on the bridge, but never
+again; it was also noticed that not a single one of his tenants had been
+seen to pass over it, and somebody asserted that a fresh “opinion” had
+been taken on some mysterious subject connected with the bridge affair;
+but the committee pursued the even tenor of their self-sufficient
+course, perfectly satisfied that they were so excessively clever, nobody
+could, by any stretch of human ingenuity, manage to outwit them.
+
+The structure, however, had not been a “perfect miracle of art” for more
+than three days, ere the worn-out old pensioner, whom Sir Hugh and his
+brethren—he being fit for nothing else—had hired “cheap” to do their
+“dirty work,” as the ungrateful farmers now styled the task of
+collecting their pennies, came hobbling up to Lorton Hall, and craved an
+interview with its owner, Sir Hugh Xifer.
+
+“I am afraid, sir,” he began, “there is something astir up there,” and
+he jerked his head in the direction of Paradise, “so I made free to come
+and tell you so, and to say I think it might be well to keep a sentinel
+or two about the place for a few nights.”
+
+“Confound your sentinel,” said Sir Hugh, savagely; “we are, and have
+been, at sufficient expense already; he _dare_ not do us any injury; he
+will never put himself within the clutch of the law; I only wish he
+would, hang him, but he won’t, I know he won’t.”
+
+“Well, sir,” recommenced the old man, who had “stood at ease” during the
+rapid delivery of the above speech, “when I served under the Duke I
+learned two things; the first was to report all I saw to my superiors,
+the next, to obey their commands implicitly; so I will, first, if you
+please, tell you what happened this afternoon, and then leave you to
+order what you think best to be done.”
+
+“Make haste, then,” growled Sir Hugh, who listened only with one ear to
+the pensioner’s harangue, the other being amply engaged hearkening for
+the sound of the dinner bell; “make haste, then,” and, accordingly, thus
+graciously permitted to proceed, the man began:
+
+“About half-past three, sir, I was leaning over the side wall, looking
+at the river, and thinking how quiet and sluggish it seemed, and of how
+it could brawl at times, when who should I see coming to have a glance
+at the work but Sir Ernest Ivraine—he, and a friend with him, and they
+did take a precious stare at it to be sure.”
+
+“I hope they admired it,” remarked the knight.
+
+“I don’t know about that, sir; but they walked over and over and round
+and round it, and down on to the bank, and stood for more than fifteen
+minutes staring at the supports and buttresses, or whatever they call
+them; and then they came up again and leant over the parapet, and talked
+like pickpockets together for ever so long: and, at last, when they
+passed me on their way home, I saw the baronet was laughing in that
+strange fashion of his, not out loud, but in to himself—quietly in his
+throat; and, when they had got twenty yards or so from the bridge, again
+I saw them stop and look back, and I heard the gentleman, whoever he
+was, laughing, till the very arches rung, as they walked away to
+Paradise.”
+
+“Is that all?” demanded Sir Hugh.
+
+“Yes, sir, that is all,” answered the man, “and plenty too, I think,” he
+added, _sotto voce_.
+
+“Sir Ernest Ivraine dare not tamper with that bridge,” remarked the
+knight, who really felt more uneasy than he cared to confess; “we won’t
+begin with watchmen, or any other useless expense; but it is quite right
+for you to notice everything, and let me hear it, quite: however, I am
+sure we have nothing to fear in that way; you may rest perfectly easy;
+if he could have given us any trouble, he would have done so long ago:”
+and, as the dinnerbell rung at this juncture, Sir Hugh summarily
+dismissed the pensioner, and repaired to that meal with what appetite
+the rather disagreeable intelligence just received had left him.
+
+“Medill was right,” he muttered, “there is mischief brewing; I wonder
+when death will try a tussle with the old fellow. I am sure it could not
+be too soon for the peace of the shire.” And Sir Hugh spent the
+remainder of that evening in grumbling about his neighbour, wishing
+savage and unchristian things concerning him, and hoping all sorts of
+evil might shortly happen to him: for the society about Lorton was none
+of the most select; manners were of rather a common standard, and
+refinement at the lowest ebb: the knight was much coarser in demeanour
+and rougher in speech than the baronet; but still he was rich enough to
+head and lead on a band of insurgents, whose pride Sir Ernest had
+wounded by his taunts, his contemptuous sneers, and his unanswerable
+sarcasms; and thus war for ever raged betwixt the owners of Paradise and
+Lorton Hall, thus it was that Sir Hugh defied Sir Ernest, and that the
+baronet declared, with a diabolical grin, he “had” the knight at last.
+
+For there were times and circumstances in and under which the miser
+never scrupled to expend money to effect a purpose; and, having once
+vowed that the Lincolnshire sages should have, as he styled it, “to
+knock under,” he rested neither by day nor night till he discovered a
+plan likely to meet his views, and disconcert theirs: and, that he might
+be enabled to carry it completely into action, and know exactly on what
+ground he was standing, he first got an “opinion” as to whether the
+committee, having opened the bridge as a public thoroughfare for general
+traffic, had the power to refuse any toll; and, finding such was not the
+case, he got a friend of his, an engineer, to come and inspect the
+masonry, and give an idea of how many tons weight it would require to
+injure it: then he had a vehicle purposely constructed, tested, and
+found suitable, procured horses _ad libitum_, and at length announced
+himself ready.
+
+“Come, Ernest,” he said, “and see the fellows settled;” so Ernest walked
+down by his side to the scene of action, and witnessed the final result
+of his parent’s long concerted experiment.
+
+The men in charge of the enormous load soon came in sight, and the old
+pensioner, who had closed the gate, in anticipation of a passage being
+forced, was agreeably surprised to find the toll instantly paid without
+a word of remonstrance or irritation.
+
+As the horses dragged countless tons over the bridge, a slight cracking,
+however, was heard, which filled the soul of the old pensioner with
+dreadful alarm.
+
+“The general in black uniform must have dealings with you,” he thought,
+scowling at the baronet; “but, thank heaven! it is safe over at last.”
+
+“Turn,” called out Sir Ernest, as he had just muttered the last words;
+and, with some difficulty, the horses’ heads were turned, and again the
+bridge was passed, but this time it bent perceptibly.
+
+“Turn,” was again the baronet’s order; “here, fellow, take your toll,”
+he added, holding out the proper amount. “What, in the name of all the
+fiends, are you doing, closing the gate in the face of my servants! Open
+it at once, sirrah, or I’ll make an example of you.”
+
+“You are set to break down the bridge,” answered the man, assuming a
+defiant attitude—a stiff military position.
+
+“And what business is it of yours what I do?” returned Sir Ernest; “you
+are here to receive tolls, not to obstruct traffic: open the gate, I
+say, and let the horses pass.”
+
+“I won’t,” responded the man, doggedly. “I understand perfectly what you
+are up to, but I know something too——and——”
+
+“You absolutely refuse to open that gate?” said the baronet.
+
+“I do,” was the reply.
+
+“Though the proper toll be offered to you?”
+
+“Though fifty tolls be offered to me.”
+
+“And you persist in obstructing the passage of my carts and horses?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, then, the consequences be on your own head,” finished off the
+baronet; “you are only making trouble for yourself and your employers.
+Put rests under the shafts and keep the horses quiet,” he added,
+addressing the men, “till I can obtain legal assistance to enable me to
+cross a bridge on a public road.”
+
+“Run and tell Sir Hugh Xifer that Sir Ernest Ivraine is going to break
+down the bridge by law,” whispered the pensioner to a boy who stood near
+him; “run like the wind, and say I want to know what I’m to do; make
+haste and I will give you a penny,” which remarkable piece of liberality
+produced such rapidity of movement in the youth, that before five
+minutes had elapsed he was standing in the presence of the worthy
+knight, gasping forth the frightful legal intention which had taken
+unexpected possession of his neighbour and enemy, the miser baronet.
+
+“Hang him!” exclaimed Sir Hugh, who could have adjusted the rope himself
+and swung the adversary with pleasure; “hang him! Here, boy, run off to
+the other gentlemen and tell them, and if you can find Mr. Medill, bring
+him down to the place too, and there’s a shilling for you,” and the
+owner of Lorton Hall absolutely flung the lad the coin he had mentioned,
+and then hurried off to the point of action, the much-canvassed,
+greatly-endangered, long-menaced bridge.
+
+“Good morning, Sir Hugh,” said the baronet, nodding superciliously to
+him, whilst Ernest, who wished himself at the antipodes rather than
+where he was, vouchsafed a more gracious inclination.
+
+“You are come, I presume, to make straight a matter your servant has
+chosen to put crooked,” continued the miser, with a diabolical grin; “he
+declines to receive toll or to permit my horses to pass; may I inquire
+whether or not he is acting under your orders?”
+
+“How the deuce could he be acting under my orders, when I was not here
+to give him any?” vociferated the knight, whose flushed face and excited
+manner afforded a striking contrast to the cool sardonic self-possession
+of his opponent, who, long and pale and thin, and apparently
+unconcerned, stood leaning against one of the pillars of the bridge,
+listening carelessly to Sir Hugh’s answer.
+
+“Then am I to understand,” he said, “that this person has no
+instructions to close the gate?”
+
+“I never instructed him anything about the matter,” growled forth Sir
+Hugh, who, in a face-toface encounter with the baronet, found himself no
+match for the owner of Paradise.
+
+“If he have acted without orders and without instructions, I conclude
+you disapprove of his conduct and have come to make reparation for it,”
+said Sir Ernest.
+
+No verbal answer was vouchsafed to this speech; but a puzzled scowl and
+an eager straining look along the road leading to Lorton, implied, as
+the baronet knew, volumes.
+
+“This delay has been and is a serious inconvenience to me,” he resumed;
+“if you wish me to believe your servant is really the party in fault,
+and not merely an instrument in your hands, please express your desire
+that no further annoyance be given to me or my people.”
+
+The Knight of Lorton Hall looked wistfully at the load, then at the
+bridge, then at Sir Ernest Ivraine, finally along the road.
+
+“If you let them ’ere blocks of granite over one time more all will go
+down together,” ventured the pensioner, who thought he read indecision
+in his employer’s face.
+
+“Silence, fellow!” bellowed Sir Hugh, as he noted the sneer which curled
+his opponent’s lip; and thus “put down,” the gate-keeper—by far the
+honestest man of the trio—relapsed into silence, still, however,
+sticking as resolutely to his post as if it had been the key to some
+strong position in the Peninsula, unexpectedly menaced by the French.
+
+“Do you know, Sir Hugh, you are acting very foolishly?” recommenced the
+miser; “it is nothing to me, or at least merely involves a few minutes’
+delay till I procure legal assistance, but it may be much to you: as a
+friend, therefore, I counsel you not to lend your countenance to such a
+business.”
+
+Sir Hugh merely bit his lip, by way of rejoinder, and glanced back, for
+the twentieth time, to see whether help and counsel were coming; as he
+beheld, however, a solitary figure advancing, he inwardly muttered a
+fervent “Thank Heaven!” and fresh spirit and fresh hope revived within
+him, when Mr. Medill, the very man he most desired at that moment to
+see, drew near to the spot, and inquired, in a cool, quiet tone, what
+was the matter.
+
+“He wants to break down the bridge,” spluttered forth Sir Hugh.
+
+“Good morning, Medill,” said the baronet in quite a friendly manner,
+extending one long finger to the attorney; “rather a stand still here,
+you perceive: I have offered this fellow the proper toll, and it has
+been refused. Your client won’t cross his servant’s whim, so I am just
+waiting till proper authority arrives to enable me to get a load of
+stone along a public thoroughfare. Then I can insist on the gate being
+opened: meanwhile it is rather idle work standing here; fine morning,
+though, is not it?”
+
+What response the attorney would have made to this explanatory speech
+can never now be known, for just as he opened his lips to reply, Sir
+Hugh, who—feeling himself re-inforced, so to speak—could keep silence no
+longer, burst forth with the question,
+
+“Pray, Sir Ernest Ivraine, is it your desire to break down that bridge?”
+
+“It is my desire that my men and my horses and my property should cross
+that bridge,” replied the other.
+
+“That you may demolish the work of months in a few minutes.”
+
+“That is your idea of the matter,” said the baronet.
+
+“And a correct idea, is it not?” retorted Sir Hugh.
+
+“That you can discover for yourself,” replied the miser; “Sir Hugh
+Xifer’s remarkable powers of mind and rapidity of conception are so well
+known, it would be worse than superfluous for me to attempt enlightening
+him.”
+
+The person to whom this polite speech was addressed absolutely gnashed
+his teeth with rage; he longed to strike his opponent with the riding
+whip he carried, but a wholesome fear of the consequences restrained
+him: there was no use getting into an outrageous passion with a man who
+only became more cool as he became more excited. Sir Ernest would not
+quarrel—he knew that by experience; and therefore, after a moment’s
+hesitation, he turned to Mr. Medill and demanded,
+
+“Has he a right to demand leave for that pyramid to cross?”
+
+“Clear,” was the brief response.
+
+“And if we persist in keeping the gate shut——”
+
+“He can force you to open it.”
+
+“Quite correct, my dear sir, else I had never been here,” remarked the
+baronet.
+
+“Stand aside, then,” roared out the knight to his _employé_, “let them
+pass and be——”
+
+The holy finale to this brief sentence was lost in the noise which had
+ensued on a sign from Sir Ernest to his men, who commenced forthwith
+shouting to their horses and striving to get the animals to start.
+
+“They’ll all go in together,” groaned out the pensioner.
+
+“Let them,” said Sir Ernest with the utmost _sang froid_, and he crossed
+his arms on his chest and watched—triumph gleaming from his eyes—the
+countenance of Sir Hugh, who heard the bridge crack and bend under the
+enormous weight it required almost a regiment of horses to drag over it.
+
+“I have a right to come back now without paying any toll,” remarked the
+baronet drily, and once again the horses’ heads were turned.
+
+“That will be the fourth time,” said the gate-keeper.
+
+“Will you hold your peace, sirrah!” exclaimed Sir Hugh, who vented his
+spleen on him in default of being able to expend it on the original
+cause of irritation.
+
+“May I beg that you will order your drivers to stop for a moment?”
+interposed Mr. Medill, addressing the baronet; “I see the remaining
+proprietors coming, and it would be a pity for more damage to be done
+before they arrive: perhaps you and they could settle the matter
+amicably.”
+
+“Amicably with him!” said Sir Hugh Xifer, who was fairly distracted;
+“amicably with——”
+
+“Oh! you might have finished your speech aloud,” laughed Sir Ernest;
+“the devil, you know, listens to terms occasionally.”
+
+“You know that,” retorted the knight; “for, if all we have heard be
+true, there is a sort of compact between you and——”
+
+“Don’t excite yourself unnecessarily,” interposed the other; “here come
+your friends, they will relieve you from the trouble of conversing with
+me.”
+
+And, as he spoke, the three other individuals, who, with the owner of
+Lorton Hall, composed the select committee, arrived, filled with vague
+alarms, in consequence of assurances they had received from the lips of
+the boy who had been despatched to summon them, that “Sir Ernest Ivraine
+had sent for a body of police, and was breaking down the bridge by law.”
+
+Mr. Medill, being the only disinterested party present, explained the
+state of the case to them, during which explanation the baronet stood
+with his hands buried in the pockets of his threadbare trousers,
+listening with the most perfect unconcern to the recital. When Mr.
+Medill concluded, however, he added, by way of a “settler,”
+
+“To condense all into one brief sentence, gentlemen, I have the power,
+if I pay the proper toll, to cross and recross that bridge till
+eternity, or rather, as there is little hope of the structure lasting so
+long, till it break down.”
+
+Here was a “fix;” the proprietors looked at one another, then the
+stupidest of them inquired,
+
+“How often Sir Ernest wanted to draw the load over?”
+
+“As often as I please,” was the response; “and now, as I have delayed a
+considerable time to the end that you might have an opportunity of
+personally admiring the strength of the pile of masonry that owes its
+existence to your enterprising spirit, I must beg that you will stand a
+little to one side and let my men pass.”
+
+“For Heaven’s sake, stop!” vociferated the trio with one breath; “what
+is it you want us to do? only tell us.”
+
+“To keep out of the way, that you may not be knocked down and trampled
+to death,” answered the baronet.
+
+“But will you listen to no terms, agree to no conditions?” they
+demanded.
+
+“Ah! now you begin to talk like sensible men,” remarked Sir Ernest;
+“offer me reasonable terms, and you won’t find me difficult to deal
+with; be stiff, and, if it prove in the power of granite to do it, I’ll
+set your bridge swimming.”
+
+“I’d let it swim or sink or stay,” said Sir Hugh Xifer, “before I’d
+offer you terms or agree to any you proposed.”
+
+“Yes, but you are only one out of four,” replied the baronet; “a very
+important unit, I admit, but still only an unit.”
+
+“I wish——” began his neighbour.
+
+“I know you do; but what is the good of it? Meantime, your friends are
+wishing to speak, and you prevent their doing so. Now, gentlemen, if you
+please,” and Sir Ernest made a patronizing sign for the crest-fallen
+landowners to commence.
+
+“We can’t propose terms, as we don’t know what ground we are going on:
+we want to hear what you want.”
+
+“A clear sentence, concisely constructed,” sneered the baronet: “let me
+see; you can’t propose terms, you have no idea of what ground you are
+upon, and you want to hear what I want. Well, the latter part seems all
+I have to do with, and, as I cannot—not having been blessed by nature
+with the talents of my friend, your colleague—answer such an important
+question in a moment, I propose, first, a sort of truce between us; and,
+second, that you send some accredited agent—say Mr. Medill, for
+instance—to Paradise any time before twelve o’clock to-morrow morning,
+to hear my decision. If he and I come to terms, well and good; if not,
+well and good, still: meanwhile, I undertake that my carters do not
+cross the bridge during some fixed period, say the next four-and-twenty
+hours; and I shall take means to prevent any injury being done to my
+property in the interim. Really the air is chilly to-day,” added the
+baronet, assuming an erect position: “Shall we settle the matter that
+way, then, gentlemen, for the present?” he continued, after an instant’s
+pause; and, having received a doleful affirmative from the lips of all
+concerned, save Sir Hugh Xifer and his _employé_, he first addressed a
+few words to one of the carters, and then walked off towards Paradise,
+accompanied by Ernest.
+
+For a full hour the committee remained on the bridge, canvassing,
+contradicting, grumbling; but there was no use in it: Sir Ernest Ivraine
+had laid his plans well; there was no getting out of his net; no
+cheating or deceiving or “putting off” him; and the end of it all was,
+that when Mr. Medill was despatched to Paradise, he was empowered to
+accede to any terms the baronet might propose “in reason.”
+
+“As if,” growled out Sir Hugh, “anything he expects could be in reason.”
+
+“They have put me to a deal of expense,” said the person thus spoken of,
+“a great deal, and given me an incredible amount of annoyance; but I
+don’t want to be hard with them or impose any disagreeable conditions,
+solely because I am master now: no; these are the terms I propose, from
+which I will not abate one iota; and if they do not like them, we need
+treat no further, that is all.”
+
+And the end of the business was, that Sir Ernest extorted from the
+proprietors a paper, exempting him and every individual who called him
+“landlord,” or who should, at any future period, become a tenant of his,
+from the payment of any toll or tolls whatsoever, by whomsoever
+demanded, on a certain bridge, built across, etc., etc., flowing
+through, and so forth.
+
+And, moreover, he made them give him a sum sufficient to repay every
+shilling he had laid out since the commencement of the affair; and,
+while Sir Hugh Xifer first swore till he was almost black in the face,
+and then grew so furious that a doctor had to be sent for to save him
+from a fit of apoplexy, his enemy, whose power he had defied, remarked,
+with a quiet smile to his son, pointing at the same time to a cheque for
+a very respectable amount,
+
+“That settles the cost of your visit to London, Ernest, at any rate.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+                           A DREAM OF YOUTH.
+
+
+One August afternoon, about a month after Mina’s return from the
+Highlands, and before Allan Frazer had been, as the hacknied phrase
+runs, “made completely happy,” John Merapie’s niece asked Miss Caldera
+if she should have any objection to go out with her.
+
+“Not the least,” was the response; and, accordingly, out they went
+together, Mina piloting their way up streets and down streets and across
+squares and through all sorts of strange places with an expertness and
+“knowledge of her business,” which would have struck the worthy Laird of
+Craigmaver as something rather remarkable.
+
+“Why did you never ask me where I was going?’” she demanded at length,
+after they had walked a considerable distance in silence.
+
+“Because I know, my dear, you can occasionally give a short answer,” was
+the reply.
+
+“Just because of that ill-natured one of yours, then, I won’t tell you,”
+said Mina, colouring even while she laughed, for the little thrust, like
+all Miss Caldera ever attempted, went home; and—perhaps rather glad of
+the excuse than otherwise—she spoke not another word on the subject till
+she finally paused before a door, graced by a dingy brass plate,
+intimating to the world in general, and to authors with money in their
+pockets, in particular, that on the other side of it lay the publishing
+office of the Messrs. Hannade.
+
+It might have cost any one, excepting Mina Frazer, a smile to behold the
+contortion Miss Caldera pulled when her former charge halted in front of
+the above-mentioned inscription; but the only visible effects it
+produced upon that young lady were to heighten her colour considerably,
+and to induce a rather irritable inquiry of,
+
+“Will you come in?”
+
+“I may as well see the play out,” said Miss Caldera, resignedly.
+
+Mina made no reply, but turning the handle, entered without ceremony and
+without fear—(as is the fashion of young aspirants, who, never having
+gone through the ordeal of a rejection, entertain little dread of a
+repulse)—a dreary-looking place, so strewed with books and papers, that
+somehow it gave Mina the idea of being painted, furnished, and carpeted
+with manuscripts.
+
+There was no one in the office when they first glanced around it; but
+almost immediately after an individual of the shortest stature, with
+fiery red hair, brushed angrily back from his forehead, and a quick,
+shrewd, intelligent, though not intellectual, expression of countenance,
+emerged from an inner chamber, and advanced to learn what business might
+have brought two ladies from the fates knew where, and set them down on
+the much worn matting covering the floor the fates, not he, knew how.
+
+It was palpable to the most unobservant that he must have been engaged
+in the not very literary or romantic, though occasionally necessary,
+operation of washing his hands, for the cuffs of his coat and the
+wristbands of his shirt being turned back, in a suspicious manner,
+implied the fact, whilst a very coarse towel, with which he was
+industriously drying his fingers, confirmed it.
+
+He appeared, however, not in the least degree concerned at having been
+detected in this employment, but coolly continuing it, looked first at
+the elder lady, and then at the younger, not speaking, but calmly
+awaiting information.
+
+Mina glanced appealingly towards her friend, but Miss Caldera remained
+impracticable. It was her principle to let “everybody talk for himself;”
+and as, moreover, Mina had never asked her to interpose in her behalf,
+she resolved to permit her emancipated pupil to say what she chose as
+she chose.
+
+“Is Mr. Hannade in?” stammered the girl at last, feeling some one ought
+to say something, and that her companion would not, “is Mr. Hannade in?”
+
+“My name is Hannade,” responded that gentleman, in a rapid manner;
+indeed, he talked so fast that his words tripped over each other in
+their passage from tongue to lips, the result of which was that the
+listener came quite as soon into possession of the last syllable as the
+first; and, having intimated the fact, he shut up his mouth again and
+looked at Mina to see what impression the intelligence produced upon
+her.
+
+“I wished to speak to you about a book,” she said.
+
+“Pray be seated,” answered the publisher, and down went a pile of papers
+on the floor, after which performance Mr. Hannade graciously presented
+his visitors with—chairs.
+
+A long pause ensued, the only noticeable thing during which was, that
+whilst he appeared to be waiting for Mina to speak, and keeping an
+attentive ear open to catch any word of wisdom which might fall from her
+lips, he fastened his eyes on Miss Caldera, and never once removed them
+from her face, as though he were endeavouring to discover from its
+expression whether her companion, the young Miss in her teens, were a
+hoax, crazy, or jesting.
+
+“Do you ever read manuscripts?” was the question with which Mina
+ventured, after some deliberation, to break the ice.
+
+“It is what we are here for,” tumbled out Mr. Hannade, with a facetious
+grin.
+
+“Would you then read one of mine?” asked the girl, a smile on Miss
+Caldera’s lips having rendered her quite desperate.
+
+“We are rather overstocked at present,” he said, cautiously; and, in
+rather a slower tone, “you desire to publish on your own account?” this
+last was interrogatively.
+
+“I do not precisely understand,” observed Mina.
+
+“You wish to retain the copyright and pay the expenses,” he explained.
+
+“No,” said the would-be authoress, “I want you to do that,” which reply
+brought a less agreeable expression over Mr. Hannade’s face and caused
+Miss Caldera to smile again.
+
+“We are rather overstocked at present,” repeated Mr. Hannade, in a tone
+sufficient to have annihilated the hopes of a much more confident
+individual than Mina Frazer.
+
+It was the first time in her life she had ever been refused anything by
+a stranger; it was the first check that had met her in this absurd
+literary attempt, and absurd though it assuredly was, it did not strike
+her as being such. She made a violent effort to appear unconcerned, but
+it would not do: a deep burning flush came up into her cheek and a tear
+persisted in dimming her eye; and when, after an instant’s hesitation,
+she arose to go, there was a look of such mortification in her face as
+moved the pity of the governess, even while she tried to convince
+herself, “the conceited child deserved a regular ‘setting down’ for her
+presumption.”
+
+Now, spite of the war-like style in which he arranged his hair, and the
+dry, shortness of his address, and the excessive rapidity of his speech,
+Mr. Hannade was really a kind-hearted man; though he was a publisher, he
+was still a mortal, and he did not like to send anything of the feminine
+description out of his office almost crying: no doubt he would have
+acted more prudently and kindly in the end, had he permitted Mina to
+depart and take her manuscript with her; but the sorrowful look in her
+dark soft eyes, and a certain tremor about the mouth, fairly conquered
+his previous determination, “not to be tormented with her,” and he,
+therefore, let in a gleam of sunshine upon the previous darkness of his
+address, by inquiring on what subject the work in question was written.
+
+“It is a novel, sir,” answered Mina brightening up so suddenly, that Mr.
+Hannade felt he had “fairly committed himself.”
+
+“I knew that, well enough,” he thought; then added aloud, “So I presume,
+but what kind of a novel?”
+
+“I cannot tell——” Mina began.
+
+“I mean, what sort of a novel: is it a religious one or——”
+
+A violent fit of coughing from Miss Caldera caused the remainder of the
+sentence to be strangled in Mr. Hannade’s throat; but, after a moment,
+he resumed, a just perceptible smile lingering around the corners of his
+mouth, “Or historical, perhaps, or sentimental, eh?” and the publisher
+insinuated this last idea in a well-pleased tone, as if the right nail
+had been finally struck on the head by him.
+
+“No,” answered Mina in all seriousness, “it is not exactly any of the
+three; it is more, I think, what would be called, a moral novel.”
+
+“A what?” gasped out Mr. Hannade.
+
+“A moral novel,” she repeated, blushing to her very forehead; “that is,
+I mean it is about people trying to do right and be good, and there is
+some religion in it too, and——but perhaps you would be so good as to
+read it, and then you would know better what is in it.”
+
+And the girl stretched out the manuscript so entreatingly that Mr.
+Hannade felt himself constrained to take it from her and promise to
+“look over it,” even whilst he shrunk with horror from the idea of
+fulfilling that promise, and made a sort of composition of one page in
+the hundred with his conscience, which whispered he ought not to
+tantalize and deceive his visitor by accepting the imposing looking
+parcel, with the intention merely of laying it carefully aside till she
+called for it again. Yes, yes, he would “look at it.”
+
+Oh! if young authors could only be made to understand the precise
+meaning publishers attach to those three words, how many an hour of
+weary sickening suspense, how many a bitter disappointment, how many a
+dispiriting miserable walk they might save themselves! How many a high
+vision that brief sentence has conjured up; how many an air-castle has
+been built on the strength of it, raw youths fresh from college and
+women just cast adrift on the world’s wide ocean, who have unadvisedly
+flown to the pen as to a means of fame and wealth, could tell: they turn
+from the publisher’s door as Mina Frazer did, fancying the rubicon is
+past, the battle won, the prize gained; and they come back to have all
+their lovely edifices levelled in the dust, to be recalled from dreams
+of countless sovereigns to the horrible actuality of scanty shillings,
+to be sent out despairing as they had entered triumphant by the three
+other words, which sound the knell of the rejected manuscript, “does not
+suit.”
+
+Mina Frazer, however, in common with many another aspirant after
+literary reputation, had never been favoured with a peep into the brief
+convenient dictionary publishers have compiled for their own especial
+behoof, relief, and benefit; and imagining, as most young scribblers do,
+that if she could only get her book read, it was certain to be accepted,
+Mr. Hannade’s tardy “I will look over it,” appeared to her merely next
+door neighbour and intimate friend to “I will take it.”
+
+“I am greatly obliged,” she said, in a tone so polite it might have
+astounded Malcolm, though it did not surprise Miss Caldera.
+
+“If you knew all, you need not be,” thought the publisher with a sort of
+compunctious twinge, holding the door open for his visitors to pass out,
+and wishing most fervently they had never come in; but he merely smiled
+and bowed in actual reply.
+
+“When shall I call to know?” vaguely demanded Mina on the threshold.
+
+“Oh! give me a few days,” answered Mr. Hannade; then noticing Miss
+Caldera’s quick glance settling on him, he turned a little red and
+added, “let me see, I fear I can scarcely promise to read it under a
+fortnight, we are so very busy,” and he looked hopelessly at the papers
+around, as Mina thought, in utter despair. “Could I write to you?” he
+added; “I should be very happy to do so.”
+
+“I don’t doubt that in the least,” half murmured Miss Caldera; but her
+charge settled his hopes of escape through the medium of the post by
+hastily replying,
+
+“No, thank you, I will call again in about a fortnight; I need not give
+you the trouble of writing.”
+
+“It would be no trouble,” said Mr. Hannade: “rather a pleasure,” he
+added, after he had returned Mina’s good evening and Miss Caldera’s
+stiff bow and seen them fairly “off the premises.” “Rather a pleasure: I
+wish I had let her go at the first, it would have saved me an immense
+deal of subsequent annoyance, but it is no use wishing now. Bless my
+heart, what a bundle! and such a title, and a moral novel, of all things
+under the sun, written so carefully: well, I promised to look at it, and
+I will.” And Mr. Hannade, leaning with folded arms upon his desk,
+skimmed the first page, read a few lines of the fifty-seventh, glanced
+again at the hundredth, and, after making one rapid jump to the end of
+all, found himself master of the contents of the entire manuscript; at
+least he had seen enough of the contents to know, “it would not suit.”
+
+“Won’t do,” he soliloquised, tying it up again in a meditative manner,
+“won’t do, and she won’t do; but how I am to tell her that, I don’t
+know: no good her starting in that line at all: she has not the gift as
+they call it; only if she’d publish herself, that would be no great
+concern of mine if she wished to test the experiment. If she only had it
+back now: but still it is a fortnight a-head, and perhaps she may get
+some new ideas in the meantime.” Haying concluded which speech,
+complimentary to Mina’s talents, and really creditable to his own rapid
+powers of discrimination, he thrust the parcel into a box filled with
+others in a similar predicament, and, on the old principle of “out of
+sight out of mind,” forgot all about Mina Frazer and Mina Frazer’s
+“effort.”
+
+Totally unconscious, however, of the very summary manner in which her
+darling child had been tried, condemned—or, to speak more properly, left
+in a sort of literary morgue, to be claimed—Mr. Merapie’s niece walked
+along the London streets by her friend’s side, waiting eagerly for the
+latter to speak, longing, yet still not liking, to open the conversation
+herself. Miss Caldera, however, maintained a resolute silence, until at
+length, as they were crossing one of the most crowded of the many
+crowded thoroughfares, she chanced to meet Mina’s eye fastened so
+intently upon her, that she found it impossible to repress a smile.
+
+There was something about that smile which annoyed the girl so much,
+that, forgetting all her good resolutions, all her affection for her
+friend, all she had thought about her when in Scotland, all about the
+omnibuses and carts and cabs and vans and broughams, she came to a dead
+halt right in the middle of the crossing, and demanded in an extremely
+angry manner, what Miss Caldera was laughing at?
+
+“You, my dear,” returned that lady, as she dragged her from under the
+nose of a carriage horse, and so over the broom of an Irish ‘sweeper’ to
+the side path and safety; “if you do not wish to form the subject of an
+interesting newspaper paragraph, I should advise you never again to halt
+right in the centre of a London street; you were very nearly knocked
+down that time.”
+
+“Well, suppose I had been?” said Mina, sulkily.
+
+“And if not killed, been crippled or invalided for life, perhaps!” added
+the governess; “how should you have liked a finish of that kind?”
+
+“Not at all,” was Mina’s frank confession; “but, you see, you provoked
+me just then.”
+
+“As I very often do,” retorted Miss Caldera; “as it is not a very
+difficult business to effect: but still I do not see why you should
+endanger your life every time you get out of temper.”
+
+“I do not get out of temper so very often,” pleaded the girl, who felt
+she had been both irritable and ungrateful; “and, indeed, I try not to
+be cross, but you know I cannot endure to be laughed at, particularly
+when I am in earnest about anything: and I am very much in earnest about
+beginning to write and make money, and——”
+
+“Make folly,” interposed Miss Caldera; “have you not everything you
+want, everything money can procure? What new mania is it that has set
+you scribbling now? I declare, Mina, I thought you had more sense.”
+
+“Well, don’t be angry without a reason, dear, cross old friend,” said
+the young lady, “and I’ll tell you all about it, and how the idea of
+writing occurred to me; only, remember, you are to keep it a great
+secret, and not to speak about the matter to anybody.”
+
+“I have too much regard for you to do anything of the kind,” retorted
+the governess.
+
+“You see,” continued Mina, without noticing this friendly remark, “my
+cousin Allan is very, very clever, and he has published a great deal,
+and——”
+
+“You thought the talent ran in the family,” interrupted Miss Caldera.
+
+“I thought nothing of the kind,” responded Mina; “and, if you keep
+catching me up so every minute, I will stop talking altogether. I had
+been wishing for months and months to have money, you understand, _of my
+own_, to do what I liked with: but it never once crossed my mind I could
+by possibility make any myself, till one day, at Glenfiord, Cecilia
+said, when we were all out on the lake together—I knew she was making
+fun of me, but that did not matter—
+
+“‘I do so wish, Mina, you would begin to write a book, I am sure it
+would be unique; I would pay all expenses just for the pleasure of
+getting a peep at it:’ then she turned to Allan, and added, ‘could not
+she write a book, don’t you think?’
+
+“‘Anybody could do that,’ he answered, in the stiff brief way he has
+trained himself occasionally to speak in, ‘anybody could do that; but
+Mina is quite clever enough to write a book worth reading, though I hope
+she will never be so foolish as to make the endeavour.’”
+
+“Your cousin Allan is a simpleton,” broke in Miss Caldera; “as if you
+were not conceited and puffed up enough with flattery before, he must
+commence complimenting, to see if it were possible to make you vainer,
+and more absurd than you had become without his assistance.”
+
+“Indeed, you are mistaken,” said Mina; “Allan has, I admit, changed into
+rather a fashionable man, but still he never complimented me.”
+
+“Oh! you thought it all truth, I have no doubt,” replied her friend.
+
+“And whenever,” resumed the girl, without heeding this remark, “he heard
+Cecilia Warmond praising me, even in the most simple things, he seemed
+vexed and irritated.”
+
+“I don’t care what he did, or what he did not do,” persisted Miss
+Caldera; “if it be he who set you on this ridiculous writing scheme, he
+has a great sin to answer for, that is all.”
+
+“But he did not; it was Cecilia who spoke at first, he merely answered
+her. Well, I thought and I thought after that whether I could not make
+out a book some way, and at last I resolved to try; and, whenever I came
+home I did try, and I have managed to finish one, and you know the
+rest.”
+
+“Yes, I know plenty,” grumbled Miss Caldera; “and pray what do you
+propose to do now you have ‘made out a book?’”
+
+“I propose—always supposing I can get enough sold—to buy Malcolm a
+commission, and then work very hard till I grow very rich indeed; then
+some time, many years hence, when Malcolm is a great man, and has
+retired from the army, he and I will club together and buy a fine place
+in the Highlands and have carriages for mamma, and Uncle John will come
+and stay with us, and you shall give up that horrid teaching and have
+everything in the world you want, and we shall all be as happy, oh! as
+happy, dear old friend, as kings and queens.”
+
+Miss Caldera fairly faced about and stared at Mina, who, with flushed
+face and beaming eye had uttered the above rapid sentence.
+
+Having satisfied herself that she had not suddenly been deprived of
+whatever small amount of sense might formerly have belonged to her, she
+became completely bewildered which course out of three to adopt; whether
+to cry over the simple nonsensical vision Mina had so speedily conjured
+up, in which the comfort of her quaint governess had not been
+forgotten,—to reason with her on the worse than folly of such wild day
+dreams,—or to laugh at her excessive absurdity: ridicule being, as she
+well knew, the only weapon capable of making any permanent wound, she
+resolved to use it and let matters take their course.
+
+“And have you informed Malcolm of your benevolent intentions concerning
+him?” she demanded, after a short pause.
+
+“No,” said Mina, “I thought it would be so delightful a surprise.”
+
+“Decidedly, when it comes to pass,” acquiesced Miss Caldera, laying an
+ominous emphasis on the three last words; “and you have no fear of
+success?”
+
+“Mr. Hannade said he would look it over,” was Mina’s reply.
+
+“Yes, to please a foolish girl whom he knew had no more genius than I
+have; to get rid of you without a crying scene, in short, my dear, as
+men, you know, have a horror of hysterics: and, when you go back, he
+will tell you he is extremely sorry that ‘it does not suit;’ that the
+public are tired of moral novels; that historical, or religious, or
+sentimental, or, to speak plainer English, every kind but that you
+happen to have tried, are those which go down at present; that he is
+greatly obliged by your favouring him with a perusal; in brief, he will
+tell you everything under the sun but—truth.”
+
+“Well, we shall see,” said Mina, in a rather crest-fallen tone; “but I
+do not think,” she added, “it is kind of you to snub me as you are
+doing, particularly when it was you who first made me reflect about our
+being dependants, and the possibility of our having, at some time or
+other, to maintain ourselves; I do not think it kind of you.”
+
+“When I reminded you that business was uncertain, affection quite as
+much so, that changes came into all houses, and affliction into most, I
+said also distinctly that the reason I asked you to reflect on these
+things was, to induce you to consider well before you rejected a
+comfortable settlement, for no conceivable motive that I was ever able
+to divine. I never recommended you to turn milliner, or governess, or
+amanuensis, or scribbler, or adopt any other absurd expedient for making
+a few pounds per annum; if you are not satisfied with your present
+position, and desire to assist Malcolm to become an officer, why do you
+not marry Mr. Westwood? He would do anything in the world you asked him,
+even to buying your brother the right to wear a scarlet uniform. I
+should advise you to think of it.”
+
+“Should you!” retorted Mina; “well, I won’t: I am determined to assist
+Malcolm myself by my own exertions, by my own labour.”
+
+“Just try the experiment,” said Miss Caldera, “you will soon tire; I
+have only two other things to say to you before we part for to-day: I
+know not one woman out of a thousand can effect anything, and I
+seriously recommend you to marry Mr. Westwood.”
+
+“And I say,” replied Mina, “that one woman will effect much, and that I
+will not marry Mr. Westwood;” and having given her head a decided nod as
+she concluded this sentence, the girl bade her friend good-bye, with her
+hopes a little shaken, perhaps, but her resolution never, under any
+circumstances, to marry from prudential motives, as she fondly fancied,
+more immovable than ever.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+                           CRUMBS OF COMFORT.
+
+
+Time jogged, after a somewhat dreary fashion, through the rooms and up
+and down the staircases of number 12, Belerma Square, for about the
+space of two calendar months from the conclusion of my last chapter; he
+brought no commission to Malcolm Frazer, no money to his sister, no
+greatly improved health to that young lady’s mother, nor cheerful
+expression to John Merapie’s face. Excepting, perhaps, that Mina had
+learned a little experience, had just sipped of the cup of
+disappointment, and acquired a vague disagreeable idea of its taste, had
+made the acquaintance in a very slight degree of that “hope deferred,”
+which the wise man assures us “maketh the heart sick,”—excepting these
+very trivial changes, things had remained _in statu quo_ (to use for
+once a very hacknied, very much imposed upon, very pedantic sounding
+Latin phrase, which happens to express my meaning better than any
+English one ready to my pen at present), for the period above-mentioned,
+when one evening some slight variety was afforded by the most unexpected
+advent of Mr. Ernest Ivraine, who “having come to London to discharge a
+series of Indian commissions, could not resist the temptation of
+calling, at a rather unseasonable hour, to see Mr. Merapie.”
+
+John Merapie had been, for a considerable number of months previously,
+in that state of mind which, though it induces most other mortals to
+desire solitude and to detest company, makes the Londoners hail the
+society of any one as a perfect God-send; add to this the fact of his
+liking Ernest, both for himself and his position, and you have, surely,
+reasons enough to account for his grasping the young man’s hand in
+cordial friendship, and inviting him not merely to stay and dine in
+Belerma Square, but also to make number 12 his abiding place during the
+remainder of his sojourn in London.
+
+But Ernest Ivraine could not, or would not, avail himself of the last
+clause in Mr. Merapie’s hospitable speech; he remained to dinner,
+however, and called once or twice afterwards, and accepted a second
+invitation to come and take John Merapie “as he was,” such being the
+worthy merchant’s favourite style of expression; and everybody in the
+house was glad to see him, for his manners were mild, quiet, and
+gentlemanlike; and the whole household was so bored to death with its
+own society, that, though the baronet’s son was by no means the most
+cheerful guest in the world, he was still a vast deal better than many,
+and infinitely preferable to none.
+
+Mina never forgot that evening; it was the last landmark she beheld
+before plunging into a boiling, bubbling ocean, blackened by poverty,
+clouded with sorrow, beset with danger: she stood, or fancied she stood,
+then on firm ground, and before she well knew what had occurred, she
+found herself battling, struggling, suffocating in a perfect sea of
+doubts, difficulties, and calamities.
+
+What a cheerful pleasant circle they formed round the fire, talking
+about foreign lands and books of travel and strange adventures,—of the
+topics which, though now forgotten, were then the engrossing “news of
+the day.” How the hours sped by, how loath Ernest was to rise and
+depart, feeling, as he did so, he was leaving much he cared for behind
+him; how gladly he availed himself of John Merapie’s invitation to come
+and breakfast there the next morning before setting out on his long
+journey home; how pretty Mina looked, he thought, as he bade her good
+night; how pale and abstracted his host seemed at times,—he remembered
+afterwards: time brought that evening and took it away again. “That
+pleasure is past for ever,” thought Ernest, as he silently wended his
+way back to his hotel, murmuring sundry discontented observations
+concerning the old enemy’s various rates of progress in London and at
+Paradise.
+
+Paradise! how, as fancy recalled the memory of the bright blaze he had
+left, and of the faces—one especially—on which it shone, he sickened at
+the name of that place, and loathed the galling chain which drew him
+back to it! And as slumber with him was the rarity, wakefulness the
+rule, he lay through weary hours, counting the chimes as they solemnly
+pealed forth their warning sound in the deaf-adder-like ears of
+millions,—counting the chimes and thinking of himself and his home, and
+of her and her home.
+
+“What a happy home it must be,” he reflected, a haven of rest, a heaven
+upon earth, a luxurious palace in comparison with the place where he
+resided. “Oh! that I could shape my destiny and hers as I would,” he
+exclaimed, half aloud, “that I had never seen her, or else died ere I
+learned to know I loved her.”
+
+And thus care kept guard beside his pillow; but at length sleep laid a
+gentle hand on his eyes, and brought, with that touch, oblivion, peace,
+repose; and though care never left its post, but stood there, alert and
+watchful, ready to pounce upon its victim the instant he awoke, still,
+during that temporary respite, sorrow and pain vanished; and in the
+dreams of night Ernest Ivraine was at liberty to fancy himself free and
+unfettered, able to grasp happiness, competent to feel pleasure, to defy
+grief; to forget, for a brief period, that the curse of gold was upon
+him, that he had wasted the best years of existence in almost total
+inaction, waiting and sinfully longing for the death of a man who,
+though a miser, was still his father, and who, after his waiting and
+watching and bearing, could, at any moment, cast him off or leave him a
+beggar.
+
+Sleep brought, as it occasionally does, forgetfulness of his actual
+position to the wearied spirit of the baronet’s first-born; but with
+morning’s dawn recollection awoke also: what a bitter thing that waking,
+morning after morning, to the consciousness of disappointment, the
+necessity of endurance, the need for patience, the repentance of errors,
+the perception of follies, the importance of exertion, always proves!
+Oh! who that might sleep on, after he has once eaten of the tree of
+knowledge, and learned a little of life’s weary teachings, would, if the
+choice were given to him, desire to open his eyes on earth’s vanities
+again? Who, having the option granted of quitting the trouble and the
+care and the vexation and the turmoil, would voluntarily plunge for the
+second time into the dangerous whirlpool, the maddening vortex, the
+uncertain strife? Who would not thankfully choose to be at rest, to
+slumber peacefully for ever?
+
+So, at least, thought Ernest Ivraine; but then he was not peculiarly
+well adapted to decide on the question, seeing that he had started in
+life on a wrong principle; that he might have made a better use of
+it—turned it to a far more profitable end; that he was living for
+himself alone; that he had refused to go forth and work and labour like
+a responsible being; that he would not employ whatever talents had been
+given to him to shape out some happier destiny for himself, to benefit
+others, to make a more endurable thing of existence: he was no fair
+judge, nor is any one who permits his faculties to sleep, though his
+body is awake; he had decided wrongly years before, and he was now
+commencing to pay the full penalty of that great desire for wealth, to
+be won by no merits or exertion of his own, which had prevented his
+leaving Paradise years previously, which compelled him to return to it
+even then.
+
+Even then! yes, he meant to go home again that very day, after he had
+breakfasted, according to invitation, in Belerma Square, and said
+good-bye to the friends who dwelt there.
+
+Mrs. Frazer, Malcolm, and Mina welcomed him when he entered the
+dining-room; he had never seen the latter look so bright and happy
+before; new life seemed to have been infused into her; there was a flush
+in her cheek and an elasticity in her step and a change in her usually
+quiet manner that puzzled him not a little: but if he had heard a brief
+dialogue which passed between her and Mr. Merapie on the preceding
+night, he would have understood all perfectly.
+
+“Mina,” said that gentleman to her immediately after Ernest’s departure,
+“I want to speak to you;” and, accordingly, Mrs. Frazer having gone off
+yawning to bed, and Malcolm having ascended to a special sanctum of his
+in the third floor, where he retired to smoke cigars when his uncle—who
+detested the “lazy practice,” as he termed a habit which involves
+Certainly more exertion than not smoking at all—chanced to be at
+home,—Mina sat quietly down in the drawing-room to hear what her uncle
+had to say in peace and quietness.
+
+“You are no longer a child,” began Mr. Merapie, in a blank
+straightforward manner, which defied contradiction, as did also the fact
+stated. “I do not know that I ever thought about the matter till the
+other day, when Mr. Westwood pointed it out to me.”
+
+He paused, as if a little embarrassed; but Mina resolutely maintained
+silence: she knew what was coming, but she thought her uncle might
+explain it himself without her assistance.
+
+“You know, Mina,” he began again at last, “I can never make long
+speeches, and I am not much accustomed to talk or think about such
+matters, only I promised to speak to you on the subject; to cut all
+short, he—Mr. Westwood—wants to marry you.”
+
+“Yes, sir,” said she, looking very steadily at the fire.
+
+“Well,” resumed John Merapie, wonderfully fortified by this most
+unsentimental comment on his information; “well, what I want to know now
+is, do you want to marry him?”
+
+“No, I don’t,” she replied, most emphatically.
+
+“Oh!” exclaimed John Merapie, and he cogitated over her answer for a few
+minutes; then, remembering he had promised Mr. Westwood to use his
+influence, he continued,
+
+“It might be well for you to think about this offer, Mina,
+notwithstanding; you see, a love match is a very foolish thing, never
+ends well; it is a sort of taking for the look, not for the reality; it
+always disappoints. Now, I know most girls have a great many absurd
+ideas on the subject of matrimony, but I fancy you have not; and, though
+Alfred Westwood is a little too old, yet still he would be very fond of
+you, and he is a good sort of fellow, uncommonly clever, with a clear
+head for business, and he is tolerably well off, and indeed, Mina, the
+more I reflect about it, the more sure I feel you could not do better.”
+
+“Well, but uncle, I do not want to do any better, or to marry any one. I
+am quite content as I am; quite satisfied with my present home; far
+fonder of you than I could ever be of fifty Mr. Westwood’s. I am so
+well, I do not wish to be better; I do not see why I should think of
+marrying at all.”
+
+“Faith, neither do I,” exclaimed Mr. Merapie, “and that’s just what I
+told him.”
+
+“Did you?” said Mina; “oh! thank you for it.”
+
+“The truth is,” returned Mr. Merapie, “I never did entertain a very high
+opinion of this eternal marrying and giving in marriage which is going
+on in the world: matrimony never seemed to me so extraordinarily
+desirable a consummation as it is deemed by most people. I always
+considered it a great risk to undertake running in harness with a
+comparative stranger for life—till death,” added the merchant, in a
+strange tone; “and so I told Westwood, that, though I had no objection
+to the match, and should, in fact, rather like it than otherwise, still
+that I would leave you to decide as you chose, unbiassed by any
+expressed wishes of mine.”
+
+“I am sure,” suggested Mina very softly, “you would never compel me to
+marry——”
+
+“Compel!” echoed Mr. Merapie, “God forbid; I have always considered that
+the greatest sin a parent or guardian can commit; and, as you say, I do
+not see why you should think of wedding at all. If girls are left
+penniless and orphans and so forth, I suppose it is better for them to
+marry than turn governesses and one thing or another of that kind: I
+don’t know, but I suppose it is. When they are certain, however, always
+of a competence, the case is entirely different, and I will take care
+you are amply provided for, I will never leave you dependent, my dear
+good little girl, rely upon that.”
+
+There was something so earnest and tender in the tone of his voice, so
+sorrowful an expression stole over his face as he spoke, that Mina,
+feeling she had never half appreciated the solid goodness of his
+character, never been sufficiently grateful for all the kindness he had
+shown her since childhood, arose from the seat she occupied and, taking
+possession of a low stool at his feet, placed her small soft hand
+lovingly in his, and answered,
+
+“You have been so nearly a father to me ever since I lost my own, you
+have made this place so much like home, that I should be a monster to
+wish to leave either it or you. There was indeed a time—I may well blush
+to own it—when, spite of all your kindness, your generosity, your ready
+compliance with every wish, I did so long for the land of my birth, that
+nothing here completely satisfied me; but I see things so differently
+now: I have learnt so much latterly, that I am twice as happy now as
+ever I was, and doubly grateful to you for having provided such a home
+for us when an unexpected misfortune deprived us of our own. I cannot
+say all I feel and have felt for a good while past,” she added, with a
+sort of tremor in her voice; “but though I cannot talk much of all we
+owe you, I can think a great deal and remember it always.”
+
+It was the first time in his life John Merapie ever recollected hearing
+such a sentence addressed to him by true faltering lips, and it melted
+the worthy merchant so much, that, moved by some strong impulse, he bent
+suddenly down and kissed his niece, who flung her arms round his neck
+and began to weep, as was her absurd fashion when her heart was either
+touched with joy or moved by kindness.
+
+“What a foolish child you are,” said John Merapie at last; “I have done
+nothing for you but what was my imperative duty, not so much as I ought;
+I might have made this home a little gayer for you, if I had thought of
+it,—yes, and I will do it.”
+
+“I do not wish it to be different,” sobbed Mina; “I am quite happy,
+quite: I have not a single wish on earth,” she paused, and then added,
+somewhat reluctantly, “but one.”
+
+“And what may that be?” demanded her uncle, but she remained silent.
+“Will money gratify it?” he asked.
+
+“It might,” she said: “I’ll tell you what it is, uncle, if you won’t be
+angry.”
+
+“Angry! no, indeed; go on.”
+
+“I wish so much, then, poor dear Malcolm had a commission; he has set
+his heart on being an officer, and indeed, indeed, I know, if you gave
+him a chance now, he would be very, very steady; he has told me he
+would, often: he knows he did wrong before; but he was quite young,
+uncle, and he felt so ashamed of himself and was so sorry about all the
+money he spent, that he could not ask you to get him into the army. I
+hope you will not be displeased. That is the only wish I have, uncle.”
+
+Her uncle had fixed his eyes very moodily on the fire when she commenced
+this speech, and, at its conclusion, he said, rising,
+
+“Malcolm has disappointed me grievously, Mina, and I do not think he is
+at all improved, or likely to improve; I cannot tell what I ought to do
+with him, but still I will think about it and see: meanwhile, with
+regard to yourself, you do not wish to marry Mr. Westwood?”
+
+“No, indeed, uncle, I do not.”
+
+“Well, then, you shall not,” he answered, and rose to retire for the
+night.
+
+Before he had quite reached the door, however, he turned back a step,
+and, taking Mina’s hand—she wondered at the time what made him do it,
+and she remembered the action long, long afterwards—he squeezed it very
+tight in his, then said,
+
+“God bless you!” twice over, in a strange, troubled, yet still earnest
+sort of way, after which he went hurriedly out of the room, looking very
+pale and haggard.
+
+And Mina sat down by the dying embers and cried very much; why, she
+scarcely knew, excepting that she had been greatly flurried and
+agitated, and was now immensely relieved and rejoiced. But when she
+arose next morning, not a tear dimmed her eyes or a trace of one was
+visible on her cheek, for she felt sure Malcolm would now have another
+chance given him; and she was delighted to think she had “done with” Mr.
+Westwood for ever. Her uncle had removed a load from her heart: Miss
+Caldera was quite astray—Malcolm and she would always be provided for.
+There was nothing wrong with the business, no reason to fear any
+reverse: they would always be independent; Mr. Merapie had said so: and
+thus it was only natural that she should trip down stairs with a much
+lighter step than usual and greet Mr. Ernest Ivraine in such a
+remarkable cheerful manner, that the miser’s son found himself
+marvelling what extraordinary piece of good fortune had befallen his
+host’s niece, which caused her to seem so altogether changed a being
+from what he had ever fancied her before.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+                             A SUDDEN BLOW.
+
+
+“Malcolm,” said Mrs. Frazer to her son, a few minutes after Mr.
+Ivraine’s arrival, “I wish you would see what is keeping your uncle;
+tell him breakfast is ready.”
+
+“Mina,” cried Malcolm, one of the laziest of mortals, unless he were
+engaged in some occupation he cared for, “run up stairs like a good
+child and deliver your mama’s message; be quick now, and do not get into
+any mischief by the way;” and having thus shifted the trouble on to his
+sister’s shoulders, he drew his chair a little closer to the fire and,
+commenting on the coldness of the morning, began to stir the already
+blazing coals into a brighter glow, talking and jesting in his usual
+careless style as he did so.
+
+He had just uttered some pleasantry, when, in the middle of the laugh
+which followed it, the door was flung suddenly open, and, making but one
+bound to where he was seated, Mina, as if the sound of his merriment
+maddened her, laid her hand over his mouth and uttered the single word
+“stop,” in a tone which rung in Ernest Ivraine’s ears for months
+afterwards.
+
+“What is the matter?” demanded her brother, looking in blank amazement
+in her horror-stricken face; “have you seen a ghost? speak, can’t you?”
+
+“I—I’ve seen a corpse,” she gasped out, cowering down on the hearthrug
+and burying her face in her hands, as though to shut out some horrible
+sight; “he is dead!”
+
+With a simultaneous exclamation of horror, Malcolm and Ernest rushed out
+of the apartment and up the staircase together. The door of an outer
+chamber, which Mr. Merapie had used half as dressing-room, half as
+library, was wide open, and, hurrying in, they beheld John Merapie
+sitting behind a small writing-table, his head falling back over the top
+of an old-fashioned chair, his eyes staring; his features fixed, rigid,
+cold, in death.
+
+To have seen Malcolm Frazer’s demeanour, one would have imagined he had
+lost his senses; he moaned and raved and tore his hair, and finally
+betaking himself to the bell-pull, he commenced ringing with such
+violence as speedily brought the few servants the house contained to the
+spot.
+
+“What is it you want?” Ernest Ivraine kept demanding, whilst he busied
+himself endeavouring to discover whether any spark of life still
+remained, “what is it you want?”
+
+“A doctor, send for a doctor, go for a doctor!” Malcolm almost screamed
+out at last; and though he saw it was perfectly hopeless, Ernest Ivraine
+did speed forth on his dreary errand, and returned in five minutes’
+time, dragging little Dr. Richards with him.
+
+“Been gone for hours,” were the first words the brusque man of medicine
+spoke when he glanced at the stiffened countenance; “past human aid long
+ago, long ago; poor Merapie!” and the doctor’s voice softened as he
+murmured the concluding words. “It’s of no use doing anything,” he
+added, in answer to Malcolm’s wild entreaty for him to bleed, to
+blister, to restore heat, to try some vague means for bringing back the
+dead to life, not to lose time, but if he could suggest nothing to send
+for further help at once.
+
+“What you desire is impossible,” said Dr. Richards in a much gentler
+manner than usual; “all the physicians in England, all the skill and
+medicine in the world, could not make his pulse beat even once again.”
+
+But still Malcolm implored so earnestly that means might be employed,
+that Mr. Ivraine whispered in the doctor’s ear, “It is useless, I see,
+but do humour him, he is almost crazy.”
+
+“Never minded a syllable his uncle spoke when living, but goes frantic
+about him now he is dead,” growled out the doctor; then, addressing
+Malcolm, he continued, “I tell you, young man, we can only treat
+breathing bodies, not inanimate corpses; but if it will be any
+satisfaction to you, go quietly down stairs, leave me in peace, and I
+promise that, if mortal power can be of any avail, I will do my very
+best.”
+
+“And I will assist you,” cried Malcolm; and as, spite of all persuasion
+and entreaty and command, he would not leave the room, Ernest stole away
+from the dreary apartment to see how it fared with Mina.
+
+She had never changed her position since the first; Mrs. Frazer was in a
+swoon, and women were ministering to her, but Mina, as though turned
+into stone, still remained in the attitude into which she had fallen at
+the beginning: they had spoken to her, but she never answered; striven
+to move her, but in vain; there she was, just as when he left her, half
+kneeling, half sitting, before the fire, her face hidden from
+observation, neither weeping, moaning, nor sobbing; she was shivering
+and trembling, that was all.
+
+“Miss Frazer,” said Ernest; but she gave no answer: then he strove to
+arouse her by a gentle touch, laid on her shoulder; but finding all his
+efforts as ineffectual as those of the women had been, he stooped down,
+and by means of some slight violence, at last succeeded in withdrawing
+her hands from her face.
+
+Such a look! the dark terrified eyes never met his, but gazed afar off,
+as if fastened on some horrible spectacle, from which she found it
+impossible to avert them. Every vestige of natural colour had fled from
+her face; it was not white or red, but almost black; her lips were
+parted, and the chattering teeth, and quick unequal breathing, showed
+the shock she had received—the fright she was even then experiencing.
+Ernest was glad to release her hands again, and let her head drop upon
+them once more; but nothing could obliterate the recollection of that
+fixed expression of horror from his mind: it haunted him in dreams in
+after years.
+
+“Doctor,” he said to his old acquaintance, after Malcolm had been
+dragged from the death chamber and Mrs. Frazer carried to her own
+apartment, where the man of medicine had first drowned her in hartshorn
+and sal volatile, to rescue her from a fainting fit, and then dosed her
+with opiates to avert a series of hysterics, or, rather, to lessen their
+violence, “doctor, there is a poor sufferer here, needing your
+assistance as much, or more than any one; I can do nothing with her,
+will you try?” and he led him into the room where Mina—still crouching
+down on the floor—sat silent, asking no sympathy, speaking no sentence,
+making no sign.
+
+“Mina!” exclaimed Dr. Richards, who had entertained a sort of regard for
+her since she was a child, “Mina!”
+
+Finding no response came, he pulled her hands away with a not unkindly
+jerk; then, raising her drooping head by the simple contrivance of
+placing his forefinger under her chin, he was met by the same look which
+had frozen Ernest’s heart within him.
+
+“This must not go on,” said Dr. Richards, decidedly; “crying is bad, and
+fainting too, and screaming, and hysterics worse, but of all evil
+methods of taking sorrow I like this least, it does far the most harm in
+the long run: Mina!” he added, speaking to her in a louder, and, as
+Ernest thought, unnecessarily harsh tone, “you must answer me some
+questions; rise up now, it is necessary for you to do so: now, attend to
+me; I want to know exactly what you saw when you went to call your uncle
+to breakfast?”
+
+He had by this time managed to get her placed in a large arm-chair, and
+he stood before her, striving to attract and retain her attention; but
+still that look he so disliked remained on her face, and her teeth
+continued chattering, while she seemed totally unconscious or unmindful
+of anything which was passing around her.
+
+“You must speak!” exclaimed Dr. Richards, in an angry determined tone,
+that appeared to affect every quivering nerve, and cause it to vibrate
+with acute pain.
+
+Ernest, who had gone to work far more gently, felt as if Dr. Richards
+were devoid of common humanity; but the desired result had been at
+length produced. The eyes wavered for an instant in their steady stare,
+and making an almost convulsive effort, she asked, a sort of spasm or
+suffocating sensation apparently impeding her powers of utterance,
+
+“What is it, what do you want?”
+
+“I want to know,” replied the doctor, speaking in a still louder
+key,—never for one instant relaxing hold of his victim’s hands and
+grasping them with greater force the more she shrunk from him, “I want
+to know what you saw in your uncle’s room this morning?”
+
+The old look came over her countenance again, and she struggled for an
+instant so violently, that she managed to release one hand from her
+tormentor; but Dr. Richards caught it again, and held her by the wrists
+in such a vice-like gripe, that the mere bodily pain seemed at length to
+exercise a beneficial influence over the wandering faculties of her
+mind.
+
+“I saw—I saw,” she gasped, every muscle in her face working, till Ernest
+really began to fear the doctor would throw her into a fit,—“him,
+sitting with his head leaning on the table; and then——”
+
+“Go on,” insisted he, as she paused and shuddered, “go on, and then——”
+
+“Then I went up to him and spoke.”
+
+“Well,” persisted the doctor, wringing the words out of her, “you spoke,
+and what did he answer?”
+
+“Answer!” she echoed, and the trembling and chattering recommenced worse
+than before; “answer!”
+
+“Yes, answer!” he repeated. “Come make haste now, I have not time to
+wait here all day; get on, what did he answer?”
+
+“Nothing,” she almost panted out, “nothing.”
+
+“What did you do?” he further demanded.
+
+“Then I lifted his head and looked in his face—and—and—I saw he was
+dead!”
+
+“There, she will do now,” said Dr. Richards, as a sudden burst of tears
+succeeded the conclusion of her short story: then, discarding the harsh
+commanding tone he had hitherto used, he commenced addressing all sorts
+of soothing expressions to her, giving her whatever scraps of comfort
+came most readily to hand, striving to console and pacify her with such
+genuine kindness and almost womanly gentleness, that Mr. Ivraine,
+looking gravely on, confessed he had done the little doctor grievous
+injustice, and never, until that moment, fully understood how tender and
+feeling a heart may beat under the roughest and most unpromising
+exterior.
+
+Having succeeded in calming her in some degree, Dr. Richards walked over
+to the sideboard, and, pouring out a glass of wine, presented the
+same—after he had insidiously dropped something out of a small phial
+into it—to his patient, and bade her swallow the mixture.
+
+“Now,” he said, “sit perfectly still where you are till I return,” and,
+drawing down the blinds, he beckoned Ernest to follow his example and
+left the apartment. “That,” he remarked as he coolly turned the key in
+the wards and then deposited it in his pocket, “that will keep her quiet
+for some hours, at any rate; and now, my dear sir, what is the next
+thing to be done?”
+
+Mr. Ivraine did not know, but he went in search of Malcolm, whom he
+found pacing up and down the drawing room, rather more composed than
+when he had left him about an hour previously, but scarcely arrived,
+even then, at a state which might properly have been called sane.
+
+“Mr. Frazer,” began Ernest, “is there anything I can do for you? Do you
+think I could be of the slightest assistance in this emergency? If it is
+in my power to prove of the least use, I hope you will allow me to be
+so; but if not, I feel I ought no longer to intrude.”
+
+“Oh! for pity’s sake,” broke in Malcolm, “do not leave me; there is not
+a person in England I care to speak to but yourself: I don’t know what
+to do, or where to turn, or how to manage, and—and—for Heaven’s sake
+don’t leave me here alone, with a corpse lying in the house and not a
+soul to exchange a syllable with but a lot of helpless women.”
+
+“I shall certainly not go; but if you wish me to remain,” replied Ernest
+in a soothing tone, “sit down for a little while and do try to compose
+yourself: you must recollect how much has suddenly devolved upon
+you,—the entire care and comfort of your mother and sister and the whole
+management of your uncle’s affairs. A heavy responsibility now rests
+upon you, and you ought to prepare yourself to meet it with a man’s
+heart and a man’s quiet unmoved steadiness: you are a boy no longer; you
+have solemn duties to discharge; you have, as you say, helpless women
+depending upon you as their only male prop. You must prove yourself a
+strong one; sit down and calm yourself, and then we will look the worst
+steadily in the face and see what has actually happened, and what, under
+the circumstances, is best to be done. Dr. Richards has promised to
+return in a couple of hours, and we can then consult with him who,
+having known you and yours for years, takes a deep interest in all that
+concerns you.”
+
+“That fellow Westwood,” here broke in Malcolm, who had listened to the
+above exhortation without heeding a single syllable of it, “has been
+prowling about the house all the morning; I wonder what business he has
+here, or who sent for him, or who wants him: I wish to heavens we could
+turn him out. Ivraine, could you not give him a civil hint that if he
+would go, it would be an immense relief? I’d feel for ever obliged if
+you just would rescue me from him. I came here solely to be out of his
+way; he is the most impudent——”
+
+“Mr. Frazer,” interposed Alfred Westwood at this juncture, pushing open
+the door, which Ernest had left slightly ajar, and cutting right across
+the flattering remark his late partner’s nephew was just commencing,
+“Mr. Frazer, will you excuse me, as a friend, asking you an apparently
+very impertinent question?”
+
+“I suppose it makes very little difference whether I will or not, as you
+are sure to ask it at any rate,” replied Malcolm sulkily.
+
+“I must ask it,” returned Mr. Westwood; “still I trust, though I am
+aware my words must sound very unfeeling at such a time, that you will
+not be offended. Has your uncle left any will?”
+
+“What business is that of yours?” demanded Malcolm, his whole
+countenance flushed with anger; “how the devil can it concern you,
+whether he has or not?”
+
+Mr. Westwood shuddered, as if the sound of the young Scotchman’s hasty
+oath appalled his refined religious ears; but getting, with wonderful
+rapidity, over the horror with which he desired it to be thought it had
+inspired him, he answered,
+
+“It concerns _me_ not in the least, Mr. Malcolm Frazer, I admit; but you
+may yet discover it a matter of some importance to you and to some
+others, after whose interests you are now most certainly bound to look
+with an eye of watchful affection: you, however, dislike to hear truth
+from the lips of a friend; I will, therefore, relieve you of my
+presence.” And Mr. Westwood, a half-triumphant, half-insulting
+expression on his face, turned, as he concluded, to leave the room.
+
+“Stop!” cried Malcolm, a vague dread of some unknown evil flashing
+through his mind and bringing him ‘to his senses,’—“stop!” and he flung
+himself between his late uncle’s partner and the door. “Now, sir,” he
+continued, folding his arms resolutely across his chest and using a
+quick decided tone, “now, sir, I see by your face, I judge by your
+words, that you are aware of some circumstance or circumstances of which
+I am at present in ignorance, but of which I ought to be informed; and,
+as you have thought fit to come here without invitation, you shall stay
+here on compulsion till you explain your meaning clearly and
+satisfactorily.”
+
+A smile of contempt and malice curled Mr. Westwood’s lip, and, for a
+moment, Mr. Ivraine imagined he had some intention of swinging Malcolm
+from his position and clearing a passage for himself; but, if he ever
+harboured such an idea, it was instantly abandoned, for he answered
+without even a trace of irritation and, as the looker-on thought, with
+the most wonderful temper and forbearance.
+
+“I came here as a friend, and you received me as an enemy; now, when I
+propose going, you insist that I shall remain, but I am willing to make
+every allowance on account of your youth, inexperience, and the trying
+situation in which you are placed; and, as I really wish to be of
+service to you if I can, I overlook the insulting style of your address,
+and, merely remembering that you desire information, reply, that I am
+here ready and willing to answer any questions you may think proper to
+put, always supposing they are of such a nature as that good and not
+harm can result from responding to them.”
+
+“I detest long sentences, sir,” was Malcolm’s polite rejoinder to Mr.
+Westwood’s temperate speech.
+
+“I really think you are acting foolishly, Mr. Frazer,” interposed
+Ernest, over whom a shadowy alarm had begun to steal, “I really think
+you are.”
+
+“And I know he is,” returned Mr. Westwood; “but that is no affair of
+mine: my motto is, ‘let everybody take care of himself, and manage his
+own business as best suits his own fancy.’”
+
+“I wish you’d carry your theory into practice,” exclaimed Malcolm
+pettishly; “but, whether foolish or wise, I want to put an end to this
+interview, therefore suppose we proceed at once to the matter in hand.
+Why, therefore, do you assert that the fact of my uncle not having left
+a will can be an affair of importance to me and mine?”
+
+“Because,” replied Mr. Westwood, “a few strokes of the pen have
+sufficed, in some instances, to make a man independent for life, while
+the absence of two or three words has reduced many individuals to
+beggary and want.”
+
+“But, in our case, a will is unnecessary; an unfavourable one might have
+unmade us, it is true; the want of one altogether merely leaves us in
+possession of what my uncle always intended should be ours.”
+
+“Perhaps so,” said Mr. Westwood.
+
+“Why, don’t you know,” burst forth Malcolm, “that we are his nearest
+relatives, that the next of kin always succeeds to property in the event
+of an intestacy, that nothing _but_ a will could deprive us of it? Are
+you not lawyer enough to understand this, or,” he added, a sudden
+suspicion occurring to him, “do _you_ know of any will? By Heavens! if
+you have worked upon him to disinherit us, if you have been scheming and
+plotting against either me or my sister, if you have dared to meddle in
+family concerns, or got my uncle to leave you anything to our prejudice,
+I swear you shall never enter into possession of the property, never
+live to spend a single shilling of the money so iniquitously acquired.”
+
+Ernest Ivraine never could tell, at least not until long years
+afterwards, why this scene affected him with a sort of deadly sickness,
+that faint sinking of the heart, which is induced, not by bodily
+illness, but by mental excitement: he felt as if he, too, had an
+interest in the matter; as if he, too, had a right to interfere; as if
+he were one of the parties concerned—likely to be benefited, or possibly
+to be wronged: it was a sort of acting by others of what might come to
+himself; it was a kind of rehearsal of something, in which hereafter he
+was to be a principal character—a prominent figure; he had felt at the
+first that loathing of hearing pecuniary matters discussed in a house
+shadowed by the wings of the mighty angel, Death, which the sensitive or
+the uninterested always experience, when the mercenary and the grasping
+introduce the theme of probable legacies, and wrangle concerning their
+various chances, in a room next to that desolate apartment tenanted by
+the corpse of one who has done with earth, and the curse
+thereof—gold—for ever. But Malcolm’s words had touched the vibrating
+chord in his heart; the demon was at length roused; the legacy
+hunter—the man who had voluntarily doomed himself to a hateful slavery,
+to the end that he might keep all other claimants at bay—all other
+vultures off the spoil—felt himself sympathising with Malcolm, and
+anxious for his prosperity, desiring to hear more, wishful for accurate
+information, doubtful of Mr. Westwood, fearful of the event; and,
+accordingly, before he well knew what induced the action, he found
+himself standing, dark and stern, at Malcolm’s side, with one hand on
+the youth’s shoulder, entreating him to greater calmness, to attend
+patiently, and hear Mr. Westwood’s reply.
+
+“Let me talk to you,” said that individual, turning from Malcolm with an
+angry gesture; “let me talk to you, as you seem disposed to be a friend
+to those who will, I fancy, ere long require friendship from many a one
+who will not be ready to extend it to them. It is useless speaking to
+him; the boy is a fool—a child, not in understanding, but in wayward
+passion, absurd caprice, senseless prejudice; do you act for him, and
+lose no time; search every drawer, box, desk, safe, in the house,
+possible or impossible, and see if you can discover a will. I intend to
+proceed to Mr. Merapie’s solicitors, and see whether they possess any
+document of the kind; and if not, I request that some disinterested
+person may search the office. It is of no importance to me whether any
+be discovered or not, further than that I wish well to this ungrateful
+youth, and the two delicate beings, who may be reduced to beggary by
+_the absence_ of such an instrument. Directly or indirectly I shall
+never benefit by my late partner’s demise. Mr. Frazer’s suspicions have
+done me most foul wrong. I think it the height of villainy in any man to
+attempt to step between relatives; and if I were left sole legatee
+to-day, the only use I should make of my wealth would be to hand it over
+to the rightful owners to-morrow. Do not let prejudice blind you; have
+the house thoroughly examined: I am giving good sound advice, for which,
+perhaps, at a future day, even Mr. Malcolm Frazer may thank me.”
+
+He made a step forward, as if to leave the room, but Ernest detained
+him.
+
+“Tell me,” he said, “what it is you mean? Are not Mrs. Frazer and her
+children the sole living connections Mr. Merapie has left behind him?”
+
+“They are not,” replied Mr. Westwood.
+
+“Has he any nearer relatives?” demanded Mr. Ivraine.
+
+“Time will show,” was the brief response uttered, as Mr. Westwood pushed
+Malcolm—who stood like a statue, gazing intently and half stupidly in
+his face—gently aside, and walked past him out of the room and down the
+stairs and so out of the house.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+                            THE NEXT OF KIN.
+
+
+The hunt for the lady, so faithfully recorded in the song called “The
+Mistletoe Bough,” was a mere apology for a search in comparison to that
+Ernest Ivraine forthwith instituted from garret to cellar of number 12,
+Belerma Square; and the reason is obvious: in the first case, “only a
+wife” was the article missing; in the last, an all-important document
+was required to be found. Had the poor bride been a piece of parchment,
+blackened over with legal hieroglyphics, rely upon it she would have
+been discovered in a very brief period; for, in that event, no place,
+likely or unlikely, no nook, cranny, box, hole, or spring chest, no
+matter how long it might have “lain hid,” would have been neglected or
+overlooked: the value of the thing absent, makes all the difference
+possible in the zeal and activity and sharp-sightedness of the
+searchers: and who on earth, possessed of half an ounce of common sense
+or worldly prudence, would look with the same indefatigable industry
+after a lost woman as for a lost will?
+
+Malcolm was in far too unsettled a state of mind to be of any very great
+assistance, but he did his best; whilst Mr. Ivraine laboured through
+desks and papers and _secretoires_ with as much interest as though the
+whole of his future welfare depended on the existence of a proper
+testament—sealed, signed, and delivered. The sheet of foolscap that had
+been discovered lying before John Merapie’s corpse, upon which the
+merchant had probably been engaged, when death, so abruptly entering the
+chamber, interrupted him in his labours, proved, on examination, to be
+the commencement of an unfinished will; but it was merely the
+commencement, for after a short preamble, in which a life annuity was
+devised to his sister, payable quarterly, came the words, “and to my
+beloved niece, Mina Frazer, I bequeath the sum of——”
+
+Here the chill visitor had seized his hand, apparently with so firm and
+sudden a grasp that the pen dropped from his lifeless fingers before
+another syllable could be added; and he carried the knowledge of what he
+had intended leaving his niece to the grave with him. He remembered her,
+and tried to repair a fatal error whilst standing on death’s very
+threshold; but that was all Mina or any one else ever knew about it—he
+had died almost in the very act of writing her name. The girl wept
+bitterly when she heard that; but she had still more cause to weep in
+after years that he expired, before being able to carry the good thought
+fully out—before the kind intention assumed the firm unchangeable
+character of a deed.
+
+Alfred Westwood, “prowling,” as Malcolm had stated, about the house,
+perused the few brief lines the paper contained, and gathered from them,
+before descending to the drawing-room, the certainty that John Merapie
+had died intestate. Ernest Ivraine read it also, after hearing Mr.
+Westwood’s words of “friendly” warning, and—he did not know himself
+exactly why—but the fact of an incomplete will existing, made him feel
+doubly anxious to find a perfect one; and, accordingly, he pored over
+deeds and fitted keys to locks and searched and hunted through every
+place, possible and impossible, where a deed of the kind could by any
+accident have been mislaid or secreted.
+
+But in vain; everything but the required document was forthcoming; and,
+at length, fairly dispirited and disappointed, Ernest Ivraine came to
+the conclusion that if no will could be discovered in the dining-room,
+the key of which Dr. Richards had in his pocket, no such deed existed;
+for Mr. Westwood had most considerately despatched a messenger from
+Wapping to inform them that the late Mr. Merapie’s solicitors were not
+in possession of the desired paper, and that not a vestige of any
+testamentary disposition of property could be detected at the office,
+though such exertions were used in prosecuting the search as must
+inevitably have led to its discovery had it been forthcoming.
+
+“We want the key of this apartment, if you please, doctor,” said Ernest,
+addressing the little M.D., who, after listening to a detail of the
+hints Mr. Westwood had thrown out some hours previously, reluctantly
+unlocked the door of the dining-room, and gave the pair admission as
+they desired.
+
+Mina was lying back in the easy chair, just as they had left her, buried
+in that profound stupor which more resembles death than sleep. There she
+sate, her countenance pale as that of a corpse, her long dark hair
+hanging in disordered masses over her face, neck, and shoulders; one
+hand was flung carelessly over the arm of the chair, the other she
+pressed tightly, even in slumber, upon her heart, as if some dreadful
+pain abode there; her breathing was scarcely audible; and altogether she
+looked so unlike a living being—she so resembled that which appals our
+humanity—as to cause Ernest Ivraine to exclaim, turning a quick glance
+on the doctor,
+
+“Can you waken her?”
+
+“All in good time,” he replied, calmly.
+
+“Was it not rather a dangerous experiment?” persisted Ernest.
+
+“I am sure it was,” here broke in Malcolm; “if I had been here she
+should never have been so dosed: I wish Dr. Richards,” he added,
+speaking passionately, like a wilful yet frightened child, “I wish you
+had let her alone; I really do not know what right you had so to stupify
+her, at a time when she could have been of such use too: she would have
+been able to tell about this paper at once, as she used to arrange my
+uncle’s books and desks for him; do try and rouse her.”
+
+“I tell you what it is, young man,” retorted Dr. Richards, savagely, “if
+you have no regard for your sister, I have, and, therefore, instead of
+submitting to be ordered by you, I insist that you carry the girl to her
+own room, and leave her there in peace; she will wake soon enough, poor
+child, without your hurrying the process: remember, in any house where a
+patient of mine resides, I am master for the time being, so do what I
+desire; you are strong enough, surely, to bear so light a burden; and I
+tell you it is necessary almost to her very existence that she should
+sleep on for some time longer.”
+
+Very sulkily Malcolm Frazer complied with the doctor’s command, and
+then, spite of the little man’s pooh poohing, and speaking of their
+pursuit as unfeeling, mercenary, and so forth, he and Ernest recommenced
+their search, but all in vain: there was no will, and John Merapie had
+died intestate.
+
+For hours Ernest Ivraine sat by the dim firelight, striving one moment
+to comfort Malcolm for the loss of a good, kind relative, and the next
+endeavouring to persuade him the absence of a will was a matter of
+little or no consequence, as—even supposing other relatives did present
+themselves—there was surely sufficient property to give several
+individuals handsome fortunes; but still—why, he did not know—Ernest’s
+heart misgave him: Mr. Westwood’s face, more than his words, had
+impressed him with the dread of impending evil; he distrusted the man
+with his cold, polite, perfectly imperturbable manner, with his fixed
+smile and sarcastic expression; and the malicious triumphant look he had
+noticed in his countenance as he shoved Malcolm aside, had filled the
+baronet’s son with more alarm than a volume of threatening sentences
+from any other individual could have done. Still, however, he did his
+best to console the youth just entering upon life, whom he who knew most
+about John Merapie’s affairs had said _might_ be reduced to beggary; he
+spoke soothingly, hopefully, strove to pacify his fears, calm his
+excitement, and induce him to forget his sorrows even for an instant.
+
+Ernest Ivraine had never talked so before, not even to Henry; but he
+felt as if he were comforting a child, not a man,—a wayward, dependent,
+half-formed creature, not one his equal in any way, in mind, character,
+or experience.
+
+At last he partially succeeded in his endeavour of diverting the
+conversation from the events of the last twenty-four hours; the dead and
+the missing deed had not been spoken of for some five minutes
+previously, and Malcolm was looking with a calmer quieter expression of
+face into the fire, when a loud ring of the house bell—a peal such as
+might have sufficed to break even the repose of the “seven
+sleepers”—caused him to start from his seat, nervously exclaiming,
+
+“Good heavens! what is that?”
+
+“Sit down,” said Ernest, thrusting him back into his chair and holding
+him there; but the quick anxious ear caught a sound of hurried words and
+rapid footsteps. The next instant the dining-room door was flung
+violently open, and the servant announced, in a voice shrill with
+surprise and excitement,
+
+“_Mrs._ Merapie, sir.”
+
+“Widow of the late Mr. John Merapie,” added a determined looking woman,
+still handsome and, comparatively speaking, young, who advanced into the
+dining-room and uttered the above sentence by way of a pleasant
+explanatory introduction. Ernest Ivraine gazed for an instant curiously
+on her, and, as he did so, unconsciously relaxed his hold of Malcolm,
+who, making one resolute effort, released himself altogether, crossed
+the room at a single bound, and darted up the staircase with the
+rapidity of the wind.
+
+“Mina,” he yelled rather than spoke, flinging himself down by the side
+of the couch, “Mina, for God’s sake waken and speak to me; I shall go
+mad if you don’t: uncle John has left no will and he has a wife, and
+we—we are beggars!”
+
+The way he screamed out the words thrilled every nerve of the girl’s
+body. Like one roused from the dead by the powerful aid of galvanism she
+started up, her large eyes distended, her body quivering with excessive
+fear and horror.
+
+“Speak to me,” he again cried out; “oh! Mina, Mina, we are beggars!”
+
+A sort of convulsive throe shook her frame for a moment; then Mina
+Frazer, burying her face in her hands, strove to realize the meaning of
+the words she just had heard.
+
+When she raised her head again she was calm and cold as stone, and she
+rose and took her brother’s hand in hers and bade him tell her all; then
+she put an arm round his neck and kissed him two or three times
+over—why, she did not know—and she sat down and talked to him for a few
+minutes.
+
+She was composed now; the potion had done its work; she had awakened, as
+Dr. Richards said she would, too soon,—ah! yes, too soon by far.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+                              A PROPOSAL.
+
+
+Morning at length broke—as it will break, after hours of pain and
+watching and trial—type of that glorious eternity which must eventually,
+sooner or later, succeed to, and dispel the darkness of, the dreariest
+existence that ever fell to the lot of mortal man—man who is “born to
+trouble as the sparks fly upwards.”
+
+It dawned, bright, cold, and clear, upon that miniature nation, that
+vast human beehive, filled with all sorts of labourers and drones, that
+city of wealth and solidity and striking contrasts and worldwide
+renown—London, the mighty, and silent and beautiful: its beams fell on
+the windows of number 12, Belerma Square, and, spite of drawn blinds and
+closed shutters, found, by some means, an entrance into each dingy,
+desolate apartment.
+
+The rays, at first dim and uncertain, straggled in through a chink to
+the room where the corpse was lying, and cast strange lights on the
+ceiling, floor, and walls; then gathering strength, one among them crept
+curiously forward, little by little, bit by bit, till it finally fell
+full on the calm, still face of the dead. There it rested for a
+considerable period, as if content to remain stationary over that emblem
+of mortality, whilst its brethren peered into other parts of the chamber
+and obtruded their cheerful presence into other portions of the house.
+
+Light, full, clear, and brilliant, at length streamed on every corner in
+the mansion, into the apartment where John Merapie’s unfeeling widow
+sat, exulting over the change in her condition, over the grand wide
+prospect now spread out before herself and her only child, a boy some
+twelve years old—hard, keen, precocious, selfish, like his parent;
+whilst, on the next floor, Malcolm and Mina kept together in their
+mother’s dressing-room, talking and wondering and waiting for some
+indefinite event, which they felt to be approaching towards them with
+hurried, rapid strides.
+
+It was strange, almost pitiable, to notice how Malcolm—for the time
+being thoroughly broken down and prostrated by the force of the
+unexpected blow—hung like a child about his sister, followed her every
+step, watched her every look; he seemed so impressed by the calmness of
+her manner, as to entertain a vague idea that she would be able to
+effect some arrangement for their benefit; he appeared to feel that,
+whilst with her, no fresh sorrow could come near them: she spoke so
+little, made so few laments about their misfortunes, exhorted him so
+earnestly not to give way, not to look at the very blackest side of
+things till they knew for a certainty there was no other; seemed to
+consider the sorrow of their uncle’s death so much more than the
+pecuniary difficulty, that Malcolm, who never looked beyond the surface,
+imagined her cold, collected manner was the sign of a hopeful heart
+instead of a breaking one, of a spirit buoyed up by expectations of
+sunshine speedily bursting through the gloom, instead of a soul nerved
+to endure and meet the worst by firmness of purpose, by natural strength
+of character.
+
+In answer to his incessant query of, “But, Mina, what are we to do?” she
+had invariably answered,
+
+“Wait, for the present, and see.”
+
+But as eight, nine, half-past nine o’clock came, passed, and brought no
+further knowledge on their rapid wings, even she grew restless to learn
+their doom for a certainty; and, therefore, going to the fountain head
+direct, she sent in a message to Mr. Westwood, requesting a few minutes’
+conversation with that gentleman.
+
+“Why could you not have asked to see _her_, Mina, at once?” inquired
+Malcolm; but his sister shrunk from an interview with the imperious
+stranger, of whose loud commanding voice and haughty overbearing manner,
+the servants had brought such hurried intelligence to her the preceding
+night, so she answered,
+
+“Mr. Westwood can tell me all I want to know much better, and I am
+accustomed to speak to him, whilst I have never even seen her.” And,
+accordingly, the message was despatched to Mr. Westwood, who received it
+just as he was in the act of pouring out his last cup of coffee.
+
+“She will be glad enough to see me _now_,” he soliloquised, “in spite of
+the airs she used to give herself, glad enough to see me now, and hear
+me speak, and ready enough to speak to me; I always knew it was pride:
+but I am of a forgiving disposition and will overlook past offences,
+particularly as she has made the first advance to reconciliation, and I
+will marry her, though I might do far better. Yes; I vowed I would, and
+I never broke a vow yet, but one; but, oh! what a confounded thing it is
+to have a conscience.”
+
+Having concluded which peroration, he struck his hand upon his forehead
+and then walked quietly into number 12 and up the wide staircase leading
+to the drawing-room he had so often entered during the lifetime of his
+late partner.
+
+There was a lady in the apartment when he crossed the threshold, but it
+was not Mina Frazer. She was a woman, not young, but still in the prime
+of life, with fair hair, clear red and white complexion, large blue
+eyes, pouting mouth, and high smooth forehead, the _beau ideal_ of a
+“vulgar beauty:” it was only the quick determined glance and somewhat
+aristocratic curve of the scornful upper lip that redeemed her face from
+the general impression of commonness the remainder of her features
+conveyed to the beholder.
+
+Without word, without salutation, without apology, Alfred Westwood,
+turning, perhaps, a shade paler than usual and keeping his eyes steadily
+fixed on her countenance, advanced towards the new-made widow.
+
+She had wheeled round when he first came in, and contemplated him, for
+an instant, with an indifferent, half-curious, half-defiant expression
+of face; but as he drew slowly nearer and nearer, that expression gave
+place to one of doubt, surprise, terror; and, suddenly stretching out
+both arms, as if to prevent his approach, she uttered a short startled
+cry and fell back in a dead swoon.
+
+With a fierce stormy cloud on his brow, Alfred Westwood remained
+contemplating her for a moment: he never moved a finger to lift her; the
+idea of endeavouring to restore consciousness never seemed to occur to
+him.
+
+“Yes, woman, yes,” he muttered, after he had scanned every lineament
+with a settled stare of hatred; and then something like an oath came
+hissing forth from between his tightly-set teeth, a sort of malediction
+breathed over the inanimate form of John Merapie’s widow: there could be
+no doubt of the matter, he was inwardly cursing her.
+
+But at length remembering he had not come there merely to look at the
+face of a fainting woman, he laid a hand on the bell pull, and then
+stooping, raised, with no very compassionate or gentle gesture, Mrs.
+Merapie from the ground.
+
+“Take care of your mistress,” he said to the former housekeeper, Mrs.
+Colefort, who appeared in answer to his summons. “Let Miss Frazer be
+told I await her in the dining-room: after a short time I will speak to
+Mrs. Merapie here;” and, without casting another glance on the person
+last mentioned, he strode out of the apartment to seek some other
+portion of the citadel not yet occupied by the enemy, where he might
+hold a few minutes’ uninterrupted conversation with Mina Frazer.
+
+“I will go with you,” Malcolm pleaded, as his sister rose to leave the
+room when Mr. Westwood’s message was delivered to her; but she answered,
+
+“No, no; stay with mamma,” and ran down the stairs without him.
+
+The visitor had drawn a mental portrait of how she would appear before
+him,—a pale, despairing, stricken, suppliant, a being as different as
+possible from the Mina of former and more prosperous days as can well be
+conceived: tears, lamentations, entreaties,—he had pictured them all,
+and smiled grimly and contemptuously as he did so. He had fully prepared
+himself to meet one sort of feminine sorrow; to speak words of hope and
+comfort to one who came to him as to the sole friend misfortune had left
+her, whose pride had yielded to her poverty, whose vanity had melted
+away together with the dream of riches, which was, as he conceived, the
+sole cause of her former coldness and reserve towards him.
+
+Standing with his back to the fire-place, looking at the pattern on the
+hearthrug, Mr. Westwood had drawn the above fancy sketch, which a nearer
+view, a few moments after, pronounced to be, in many most important
+respects, erroneous.
+
+Pale and calm, though bearing on her face unmistakable marks of the blow
+which had struck her heart, the girl came gliding in: changed she
+was—changed, but not as he expected to find her; changed by sudden
+sorrow, a great trial, an agonizing fear; changed, but not bowed: she
+looked as if she had passed through a chastening lifetime of trouble
+since last he beheld her, a sea of danger and strife and uncertainty,
+which had only braced her nerves and developed some traits of greater
+firmness in her character; altered she was for the better for herself,
+perhaps; but he saw, and saw it with bitter anger, for the worse for
+him.
+
+They shook hands in silence, as people do shake hands upon the occasion
+of their first meeting after some great misfortune has blasted the
+happiness of one; the eloquent sentence he had prepared to check a
+torrent of imaginary tears died away on Mr. Westwood’s lips.
+
+Instead of his being the first to speak as he had intended, she broke
+the stillness of that room where city men had laughed solemnly over
+their wine, by saying, whilst she pointed to a chair,
+
+“Will you not be seated?”
+
+“Cool, with a vengeance,” thought Mr. Westwood, dropping into the chair,
+however, as meekly as if he, not Mina, had been, as the newspaper
+advertisement phrase runs, “the party in distress.”
+
+“I have sent for you——” Mina began.
+
+“Sent, indeed!” soliloquised the indignant visitor, whilst she
+proceeded,
+
+“To learn from your lips precisely how we are situated.”
+
+“Right to the point, at all events,” he reflected; and the conclusion of
+her sentence reminding him of her exact position and of the elevated
+pinnacle he, by comparison, occupied, his former confidence returned,
+and he accordingly replied to her simple question by demanding what she
+meant.
+
+“I believe,” she resumed, “you know everything” (the girl did not intend
+this as a compliment, but Mr. Westwood accepted it as such), “and
+therefore I thought I would ask you how the fact of my uncle being
+married will affect us now he is dead?” The white lips trembled slightly
+as she spoke. “My brother seems to fear we shall be reduced to penury; I
+do not clearly understand, but—is it so?”
+
+“If I do not mistake your meaning, you wish information on three
+points,” answered Mr. Westwood in a blunt straightforward sort of way:
+“first, if the person who arrived here last night be no impostor;
+second, whether she and her son take precedence of you and your brother;
+third, if any money will be left for you out of the wreck. Am I right?”
+he demanded.
+
+“Yes, I think so,” she replied.
+
+“Before going any further,” he responded, “I must ask you whether your
+uncle has left a will behind him? for if so, the aspect of your affairs
+might be considerably brightened.”
+
+“Malcolm says not,” she returned.
+
+“Did he look?” asked Mr. Westwood.
+
+“Mr. Ivraine did, I believe,” she replied, “but nothing finished;
+nothing but the few lines he died before completing could be
+discovered.”
+
+A dry burning sensation, caused by excess of agitation and the absence
+of tears, oppressed the girl’s aching eyeballs as she spoke of that
+document, and Mr. Westwood, noticing the look of pain, asked if she were
+ill.
+
+“No, not very; that is, not at all: please go on.”
+
+“I feared, from the commencement, there was none,” he resumed; “your
+uncle promised me he would make some provision for you, and I presume
+was just about to carry out his intention when——but we need pursue that
+painful topic no further,” he added, with exquisite consideration. “With
+regard to the marriage, I have known it for some considerable time. Mrs.
+Merapie and her son succeed to _all_ the money your uncle left behind
+him, the widow claiming one-third, the boy the remainder; and there will
+be nothing for yourself, mother, or brother, either now or at any future
+time.”
+
+“Nothing?” she repeated.
+
+“Not a solitary shilling,” he returned; “you have now no home, for you
+were merely here on sufferance from the moment of your uncle’s demise:
+you wish to learn the worst, and I tell it to you. Mrs. Merapie is so
+indignant at having been kept in the background for such a number of
+years, that she is eager to retaliate a little on those who she
+imagines, during that interval, usurped her house and her position: you
+are liable, at any moment, to rudeness and insolence; you are perfectly
+powerless to resent either, as nothing here—not a single article the
+place contains, excepting your own personal effects—belongs to you or
+yours. I am speaking frankly, as you desired; it is best, perhaps, for
+you to learn these facts from the lips of a friend than to hear them,
+for the first time, spoken by an arbitrary vindictive woman.”
+
+Though his words were stinging, still the tone was not unkind. Mina
+looked for a moment right into the fire, whilst a faint colour suffused
+her cheek and a sudden gush of her old pride, a sad thought of how truly
+desolate they were, swept across her soul: the next instant she was calm
+again, and said in a low voice, as if communing with herself,
+
+“Then we are beggars.”
+
+Mr. Westwood made no response; indeed, none was required.
+
+“Thank you,” she said, after a brief pause, rising, as if about to leave
+the room, “thank you, very much for devoting your time to me: I know all
+I want to know, now.”
+
+“More than it has been a pleasure to me to communicate,” returned Alfred
+Westwood, who felt something nearer genuine love for the girl now than
+he had ever done before. “Miss Frazer,” he hurriedly added, “this is no
+time, these are no circumstances under which to consider ceremony; will
+you excuse my again adverting to a subject we discussed in happier days?
+If you would only give me a right to assist you, I will lay down my life
+to serve you: I cannot promise what, perhaps, once you had reason to
+expect, but I can give you a comfortable home, a competence, sterling
+affection. Mrs. Frazer and you are both unfitted to bear the chill blast
+of misfortune: I can provide a shelter as good as this, at all events; I
+will help your brother to wealth, fortune, position; I will guard you
+more tenderly now than even might have been the case had your lot been a
+more fortunate one. Sorrow only makes real love stronger; I can preserve
+you from knowledge of poverty, from grief, anxiety, vexation: only speak
+one word, and I will smooth every difficulty away from your path and
+devote my whole existence to making yours happy.”
+
+There was no doubt about the matter now, so Mina thought; she had done
+him great injustice: he had not been a mere mercenary fortune hunter; in
+the hour of gloom, in the dark time of trial, he remained unchanged; he
+had been weighed in the balance, and not found wanting; he had been
+subject to the test, and discovered to be the sterling article. Mina
+felt touched, softened—as what woman would not under similar
+circumstances? There could be no mistake concerning his
+disinterestedness at that moment; and though Mina felt no hesitation as
+to the nature of her reply, still she paused for a moment ere uttering
+it.
+
+Slowly—not as they had done twice previously, rapidly and
+indignantly—the words of refusal were uttered: she could not marry him;
+she was very, very grateful, but it could not be.
+
+“Think though,” said Alfred Westwood, “of your desolate position: a
+delicate mother, a brother out of employment, all near relatives dead,
+hundreds of miles from any who feel an interest in you; think of having
+to go from hence without another place of shelter being provided for
+you, of the skeleton poverty, of the daily fret and difficulty of
+procuring, not luxuries, but the merest necessaries; think of poor mean
+lodgings, the expense of medical attendance, the hopeless struggle, the
+endless pinching and saving, the eternal outlay and demand; think that
+the chief part of all this anxiety will fall on you, that friends will
+grow cold and relatives careless and acquaintances callous. It requires
+some time to realize such a position; therefore all I ask at present is,
+for you to think of it. I have striven to keep myself and my own wishes
+and everything, save yourself and your ultimate good, in the background;
+but let me just remind you that this is not a mere affair of sudden
+caprice or wayward fancy: I have loved you for years, ever since
+you—then quite a child—came, with your Highland heart and thoughts fixed
+intently on the moors and the hills and the streams of your native land,
+to be caged up and imprisoned in a dull, depressing London square; and
+now I love you better than formerly, because I have latterly learnt more
+thoroughly to appreciate your character.”
+
+Here was a change, indeed,—Mr. Alfred Westwood, instead of conferring
+the immense honour of his hand on a portionless girl, instead of
+graciously hearing her trembling petition for succour and help, and
+acceding with triumphant superiority,—begging her to marry him, as he
+might in the hey-day of her prosperity; the more difficult the prize
+became to gain, the more valuable it appeared in his eyes. He had
+formerly thought her a good catch, a pretty little self-willed being;
+but now she seemed something more, a reasoning, reflecting,
+brave-hearted girl, looking sorrow so steadily and undauntedly in the
+face, suffering so much, talking so little, that the man of the world,
+quite losing his wonted self-possession, absolutely forgot for once to
+act and simulate, became natural, unaffected, earnest, and spoke in
+those tones of truth which strike home to the understanding.
+
+Mina Frazer felt her bosom swell and her conscience reproach her with
+ingratitude as she listened to him, whom in prosperity she had despised
+and rejected, renewing his suit with double ardour, now she had fallen
+from her great estate and stood a pauper hearkening to his tale.
+
+She did think, too; the rapid procession of mother, brother, self—of the
+probable future and the certain present—of scanty means and expensive
+tastes and contending opinions—of ill health and discontent—of murmurs,
+repinings, reproaches, regrets,—swept across that stage we call the
+mind. There was not a spectre he had conjured up before her, which did
+not appear in obedience to his command.
+
+The troop wanted nothing but reality to make them perfect; but the girl
+had never yet experienced actual poverty, never known a day’s want,
+never been short of money in her life; therefore the phantoms presented
+for her contemplation were, after all, merely phantoms. She certainly
+would have preferred not encountering them at all, but she did not dread
+them sufficiently to prefer marrying Mr. Westwood to going forth and
+meeting them; they were a chance, he a certainty: she had thought if it
+might not be her duty for one brief instant, and then she reflected, an
+union without affection never could be otherwise than a sin: “It could
+not be; it could never be,” so she told him.
+
+“I shall not receive that as a final answer,” he returned; “think more
+about your situation, give yourself time to understand the danger and
+difficulty of your position; look on both sides—at the prospect the
+world presents, and the love and security and home I offer; ponder the
+matter sensibly, quietly, rationally, and then decide: meanwhile,
+consider me as a friend, a sincere, though humble one, and——”
+
+What he was about to propose she should do with him when she had got the
+length of friendship must ever remain a mystery, for at this juncture
+the door of the dining-room opened and in stalked Mr. Ernest Ivraine,
+who seemed destined to interrupt or overhear every dialogue Mr. Westwood
+held, whereof matrimony was the theme.
+
+“I—I beg your pardon,” he stammered, finding that he had happened to
+stumble in on the wrong people at the wrong time: “I wish to see Mr.
+Malcolm Frazer.”
+
+“You will find him in the breakfast parlour,” fibbed Mr. Westwood,
+angrily; and hastily precluding the possibility of a reply from Mina,
+and seeing his presence was most unwelcome, the baronet’s son walked
+across the hall, and, entering the vacant breakfast parlour, sat down to
+wait in patience till some one should have leisure or inclination to
+come and see what he was doing.
+
+Mina could not tell why she blushed to the temples when Ernest Ivraine
+appeared so suddenly before her, but she felt the tell-tale blood mount
+to her cheek while Alfred Westwood saw it; and, forgetting everything
+but indignation at the advent of a supposed rival, he turned almost
+fiercely and said, as if it had been a criminal he was addressing, so
+totally devoid of consideration and respect was his manner,
+
+“So that’s the way of it, is it?”
+
+“Sir!” she exclaimed.
+
+“Yes, yes,” he continued, “I see it all; a baronet’s son would be a very
+nice catch: a protracted illness is a capital time for——”
+
+“Mr. Westwood,” she vehemently interposed, “how can you allude to such
+matters at a time when my heart is bleeding for the loss of a kind,
+beloved relative, when my mind is distracted with our unhappy situation,
+when I have less leisure and less inclination than ever to hear subjects
+of the kind discussed? Your remark was worse than mistimed, it was
+unfeeling and cruel; but,” she added, seeing the scarcely suppressed
+sneer which curled his lip, “let me assure you, Mr. Ivraine is nothing
+to me, except an acquaintance, a friend, like yourself.”
+
+“So I thought,” remarked Mr. Westwood drily.
+
+“I mean,” she eagerly explained, “that he is merely a friend to us,
+nothing, nothing more; like what you offered to be a little time since,
+like what I feel to you.”
+
+“Oh, indeed!” sneered Mr. Westwood, who had managed to forget Ernest’s
+very existence during the course of his conversation with Mina till that
+gentleman, walking so unhappily in, reminded him of it; “Oh, indeed!”
+
+“I think it very unkind,” began Mina, her large eyes filling with tears
+of mortification, wounded sensitiveness, pride, irritation, and
+resentment, “and——”
+
+“Mrs. Merapie’s compliments, Miss, and would be glad to know when you
+can leave the house,” here broke in the _ci-devant_ housekeeper,
+flinging open the door and addressing the above speech to the young lady
+from a hostile position she occupied on the mat outside.
+
+Mr. Westwood turned with a triumphant glance to see how “Mina took it.”
+It seemed to him as if every drop of blood forsook its accustomed
+channel to rush into her face. The tears dried on the quivering lashes,
+her eyes seemed literally to flash fire, and as she repeated the words
+“leave the house,” her nostrils distended and her bosom heaved like one
+restraining, by a violent effort, the outburst of a paroxysm of passion.
+
+“Yes, Miss,” responded Mrs. Colefort, “she says she just wants to know,
+and then she can make her arrangements accordingly, and so she sent me
+to you to ask when you will leave.”
+
+“Now,” said Mina, in a tone so emphatic that it implied more than a
+dozen sentences could have done, and quickly sent Mrs. Colefort back to
+her mistress, silently admiring the spirit which dictated it.
+
+“Mina,” said Mr. Westwood, as she too turned to leave the room, “Mina,
+matters have hurried much more than even I feared they would do; for
+mercy’s sake let me counsel and assist you; give me liberty to act for
+you: I spoke hastily a few minutes back, forgive me; do not refuse help
+when you stand so lamentably in want of it.”
+
+“If you will help me as a friend,” she returned, “if you will forget
+everything which has heretofore passed between us, and let us start
+afresh on that footing, I shall gratefully accept your offer; God knows,
+friends are not so plentiful we can afford to refuse any, nor are they
+likely now to become more so.”
+
+There was a deep accent of despair running through the hurried current
+of her words; she looked imploringly at him, as if she would have
+accepted succour almost from an enemy; but Mr. Westwood was not to be
+“done” now. He rapidly reflected that if he could not mould the iron of
+the girl’s heart into the shape he wished in its present heated pliable
+condition, he had no chance of effecting his object in calmer, cooler
+moments; he had no idea of working for her Now, and being rejected
+afterwards; he saw events were moving with such giant strides, that it
+was needful for some decided steps to be taken at once, and he therefore
+thrust his former scheme of friendship and gratitude impatiently aside,
+and, with a vivid memory of Mina’s look when Ernest Ivraine entered,
+tincturing his speech, he returned,
+
+“You must give me a right to interfere in your concerns; after toiling
+and working for your benefit and the benefit of those dearest to you, I
+have no desire to be cast aside as a worthless instrument—a tool which
+is no longer required; to have your brother call me a meddling fellow;
+to have others considering me, perhaps, obtrusive, officious,
+presumptuous; and, by way of a finish, when I have done all I can in
+your behalf—when I have completed my task, and placed you beyond the
+reach of want, to hear you coldly say how ‘grateful’ you are, and bid me
+good-bye, wishing all the time it had been possible to do without me,
+and that any other person save myself had been able to assist you in
+your need.”
+
+Once again Mina felt every syllable he had said was true; she knew
+Malcolm would resent his interference the moment it ceased to be of
+importance; that she should feel gratitude towards him a wonderfully
+irksome burden; that obligation to him would be insupportable: besides,
+unless she married him, or promised to marry him, what could he do for
+her or hers which she could endure to accept from his hands? No, she
+would not receive assistance from him; she and Malcolm were young; there
+was plenty of work open in the world for both; she would rely on herself
+and those in whom she had trusted for years, not on a man whom, even
+whilst she acknowledged she had wronged, she disliked,—of whom, almost
+in spite of herself, she felt a distrust. He had proffered service to
+her, and she was grateful for that kindness; but further she could not
+go, more she would not say.
+
+“It cannot be,” she repeated, “I can give you no right. I thank you for
+the kindness you have been wishful to show, most sincerely. Let us part
+friends,” she added, extending her hand, “it may be long before we meet
+again.”
+
+“If I had influence enough with this woman to wring out of her an
+annuity for your mother, would it make no difference in your sentiments
+towards me?” thoughtlessly demanded Mr. Westwood, thrown off his guard
+and provoked by the girl’s inexplicable refusal to become his wife; and
+the question let light in on her understanding; she saw through him now;
+trickery will reveal itself at last; she comprehended him fully, but she
+made no reply.
+
+“If you will but say, ‘Yes,’ to one simple request,” he proceeded, “I
+will undertake to represent your case to her in such a way as will
+ensure a small competence for Mrs. Frazer, and, perhaps, a commission
+for your brother; give me the right to interfere, and I will use the
+little influence I possess to some purpose.”
+
+“Do you think,” said Mina, fixing a steady, searching gaze upon him, “do
+you think you could manage to get me a fortune?”
+
+The words were spoken in a cold, almost careless, tone, yet they made
+Mr. Westwood look as confused as if he had been detected in a robbery,
+and though he tried to stammer out an answer, his usual volubility had
+forsaken him.
+
+“No, no,” said Mina, “I see you were not as disinterested as I thought;
+I am very sorry for it.”
+
+“I am thoroughly disinterested,” he interrupted; “I could contrive to
+get as much to portion any bride I might choose perhaps; or, better
+still, wed your uncle’s widow, and so get all into my own hands. I am
+speaking fairly now; I love you, and you are the only being on earth I
+do love; once for all, will you marry me?”
+
+“I will not,” she answered.
+
+“And you cast from you my assistance, and consequently, any chance of
+fortune for yourself and your brother, or a competence for your mother;
+you cut off the sole hope of reconciliation, or rather, of a
+commencement of friendly feeling, between your family and Mrs. Merapie;
+you fling yourself without a shelter, almost a pauper, on the world:
+will you do this?”
+
+“If you have any influence, as you seem to imply, having received my
+final answer and knowing my positive decision, I leave all the rest to
+your generosity.”
+
+“To the devil,” muttered Mr. Alfred Westwood, stamping furiously on the
+carpet as Mina left the apartment; “well, be it so, Miss Frazer; you
+shall repent this yet.”
+
+Long, long afterwards, when he had concluded a confidential conversation
+with Mrs. Merapie and was just about taking his departure from the
+house, Mr. Westwood encountered some weeping servants carrying boxes,
+bags, portmanteaus, etc., into the hall.
+
+“What’s this for?” he demanded.
+
+“They are going,” was the brief reply.
+
+“What, now?” he ejaculated.
+
+“Immediately, sir.”
+
+“Smart work, egad!” soliloquised the _ci-devant_ clerk, once again
+re-ascending the staircase, in the hope of meeting Mina, for if there
+were one thing more than another he admired, it was a commodity he
+mentally styled “pluck,” of which it appeared the lady of his affections
+had an abundant store.
+
+She had gone into the room where the corpse lay, after everything was
+prepared for their abrupt departure; she had fallen on her knees by the
+side of the bed, and kissed the pale cold face with a passion of
+affection she had never felt for her uncle in life; tears of regret and
+anguish fell abundantly on the countenance of the dead, and the drops
+remained there till Mrs. Colefort came and removed the moisture, for the
+natural heat had departed, which once would have absorbed them.
+
+“Dear, dear uncle,” she moaned forth, “where shall I ever find another
+friend like you? No place in the wide world.”
+
+And then she took one long farewell of the inanimate body, as if it had
+been a living being dearly loved she never hoped to see again; and,
+passing drearily out of the room, was met on the threshold by Alfred
+Westwood.
+
+“I will give you another chance, Mina,” he said, “I offer you fortune,
+position, establishment, affection: will you marry me?”
+
+“No!” she responded; and, drawing her veil closely over her tearful
+face, she passed him hastily to meet on the next landing the lady who
+now called that place home, and had come so cruelly, and with such
+unnecessary haste, to dispossess them of it.
+
+Their dresses brushed together as Mina swept by her with the proud
+defiant carriage of her childhood; there was no pause, no salutation, no
+word: for an instant the broken-hearted girl seemed superior to the
+triumphant haughty woman, for there was a confused upstart endeavour at
+unconcern visible in the manner of the one, and nothing but contemptuous
+indifference in the bearing of the other; the slight figure had been
+drawn up to its full height, but there was nothing of stiffness about
+the way in which she discharged her portion of the ceremony, while an
+awkward attempt at well-bred stateliness failed altogether on the side
+of Mrs. Merapie.
+
+“Cleverly done, in truth,” thought Mr. Westwood, who witnessed the
+little scene from his position above; “a very good beginning, Miss Mina:
+well, they may talk as they like about men doing things better than
+women, but there is one point the ladies excel in, and that is, cutting
+one another: why, I could not have passed my worst enemy with the same
+cool disdain as that girl has just done if it were to save my life.”
+
+And Mr. Westwood, having concluded this sentence, and given the _pas_—as
+every one does—to the feminine sex for natural talents in the grand
+science above alluded to, exchanged a few more words with the widow of
+his late partner, and then left her; but, while he was talking, a cab
+had driven from the hall door, bearing another widow and her two
+children to comfortless lodgings—to a new home—drearily, sadly conveying
+them out into the world; and from that time forth the house in Belerma
+Square “knew them no more;” and that place which had once been a home,
+became, to all intents and purposes unto them as though it had never
+been.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+                          MINA “IN TRAINING.”
+
+
+A space of three months has passed away since the conclusion of the
+preceding chapter, unmarked by any events, save such as may be
+chronicled in a few brief lines—spoken of and dismissed in a single
+passage.
+
+It seemed at first as if the violence of the blow had neutralised its
+painful effects—as though the dreadful shock, the abrupt descent, the
+desperate fall, had produced—after the momentary pain—a sort of mental
+stupor, numbness, or apathy, which rendered the sufferers, for a period,
+almost insensible to the anguish they endured, and prevented their
+comprehending the nature and extent of the misfortune which had befallen
+them; and, before they awoke from this torpor, so long a time had
+elapsed that the first sting of the reverse was past—the first force of
+the blow expended. Bitterness enough remained behind assuredly; but it
+was not the unbearable bitterness which had filled their hearts to
+overflowing during the dreary twenty-four hours succeeding their
+bereavement and loss of fortune.
+
+There is something healing in the mere passage of time, something
+soothing in the very flutter of his wings; so the mourners discovered
+when, at last, they recovered sufficiently from the sort of stupefaction
+into which they had been thrown, to be able to raise their heads a
+little and look, as some of the Irish who occasionally cross the Channel
+in search of employment express it, “the trouble in the face.”
+
+For the all-important “time-being,” they were by no means badly off;
+there was the amount Allan Frazer had settled, when a young subaltern,
+on his wife, still untouched, and, so long as one thousand pounds
+lasted, the “battle of life” promised to be anything rather than a
+losing game, a hopeless struggle, a weary, unprofitable fight.
+
+“But when it was done?”
+
+Mina once propounded this question and was met by Malcolm with a “Pooh,
+pooh, child! then I’ll provide for you.”
+
+“How?” she further ventured, and he concluded the conversation by
+answering, “How! any how,” and walked out of the room, softly whistling
+the “British Grenadiers;” for Malcolm was now more independent than ever
+he had been. His mother never said he spent too much; never wondered
+where the last ten pounds had gone; never refused further advances,
+thought everything he did and said was right; lay helpless on a sofa in
+West End lodgings, visited by a doctor whose charges in town were only a
+guinea a time, and in the country only a guinea a mile; and distracted
+Mina by rushing into and countenancing expenses which made fearful
+inroads into the thousand pounds, and foretold that, before any immense
+time had elapsed, the amount standing to their credit on the books of a
+bank in Fleet Street would be easily described and easier counted as
+nought.
+
+When, at length, Mina began to look with fearful eyes at their enormous
+expenditure, the evil had proceeded too far to be checked; Malcolm found
+the life he was leading too easy and pleasant to be readily abandoned;
+Mrs. Frazer still thought money would “turn up,” that the thousand
+pounds would last for ever, that there was no use in such “niggardly
+economy;” in fact, with all canvass set, she and her son were evidently
+bent on sailing down upon the black shore—poverty: and what could
+Mina—who, of course, had no control of the money—do?
+
+Very little, but spend nothing herself and drift along the current
+leading to destruction as patiently and resignedly as might be.
+
+The trial of woman’s life was already upon her; and in the hard school
+of daily discipline, in expensive lodgings near Eaton Square, with money
+flying about and squandered as Mina had never seen money squandered
+before, she commenced to learn the verb “to bear” through; it took her
+years and years thoroughly to master the task, but patience does a deal,
+and everything in this life, we know, must have a beginning; even the
+“British constitution” had one, why not Mina Frazer’s patience?
+
+She was being put into “training” at last, so Miss Caldera said. What a
+pity young hearts, like young horses, require to be “broken in;” what a
+“breaking down” it frequently proves; what a common-place affair it
+makes of life, being driven through it “in harness.” How differently
+people view the world when wandering untrammelled at their own sweet
+wills, free to stay, free to roam, free to stop, and free to go, from
+what they deem it, when stern necessity compels their daily journey
+along a certain “line of rail:” how the flowers lose their perfume; how
+dark the sky grows; how weary the road seems. What an altogether
+unsatisfactory affair life appears, hacking, hacking eternally on. The
+wild colt of the Indian prairie, bounding over the plains free and
+unconfined, bears not less resemblance to the stupid, ill-used beasts of
+burden we sigh to look at in the city streets, than does the
+poverty-stricken wretch, whom misfortune has rendered patient, and
+sorrow quiet, to the glad impulsive youth, who left his father’s roof
+some years previously, hopeful, buoyant, rejoicing, to go forth and make
+“his fortune.”
+
+He did not mean _that_ fortune, however, but so it has “turned out.”
+
+No doubt it is all for some good end, to serve some inscrutable purpose,
+that these perpetual “breakings in” are permitted; and no doubt it was,
+as Miss Caldera asserted, “very good for Mina” to be instructed in the
+art of bearing, for the girl was unquestionably learning a great deal
+very rapidly.
+
+Malcolm said her knowledge was extremely disagreeable, called her his
+“prudent little sister,” said she had a real Scotch head, capable of
+working out any account and crammed full of £ _s._ _d._, that “she was a
+sordid calculating monster,” and many other equally polite names; and
+when she would have persisted, he told her she was too pretty to turn
+miser, and not to trouble herself about the money, for that when it was
+gone he would get more.
+
+Mina, however, had an idea that it would be too late for him to go and
+look for further supplies when their present stock was quite exhausted;
+and, accordingly, one evening when Mrs. Frazer, being more ill than
+usual, had retired earlier than was her wont, leaving Malcolm, as he
+expressed it, “to the tender mercies of his sister,” the latter most
+determinedly opened fire upon him in the following words:
+
+“Malcolm, do you know how much money we have spent in the last four
+months?”
+
+“Now, for pity’s sake, Mina, do cease eternally harping on that
+‘monetary’ question,” he pleaded; “see, I’ll play a game at chess with
+you, or hold silk while you wind it, or listen to you reading a sermon,
+or do any other disagreeable thing you choose to name, if you will only,
+my dear, wise little sister, shirk that subject, upon which, it seems to
+me, you have gone perfectly insane.”
+
+“If you will listen to me to-night, I will promise not to tease you
+again,” she returned; “it really is quite necessary for us to talk about
+the matter: do you know, Malcolm, how much we have spent?”
+
+“No I don’t,” he responded; “a pretty smart sum, I dare say, for the
+expenses have been rather heavy: a couple of hundreds, possibly.”
+
+“Just three hundred and fifty pounds,” she answered.
+
+“Nonsense, child; how could that amount have gone?”
+
+“That I cannot tell,” she answered; “but it is gone for all that, and if
+we live the next eight months at the same rate as we have been living
+for the last four, there will not be a shilling of the thousand left at
+the end of the year, and——”
+
+“And we shall be fifty in debt besides,” supplied Malcolm; “was not that
+what you were going to add, little Solomon? Well, don’t torment about
+the matter; I will do something before the eight months expire—I will
+indeed.”
+
+“Had not you better do something now, Malcolm?” she demanded: “I wish
+that while the money is there you would buy a commission.”
+
+“Buy a folly,” interrupted the young man; “and pray, my dear, how should
+I live when I had procured it?”
+
+“On your pay,” she suggested.
+
+“That’s impossible,” he said; “I always calculated when I spoke about
+Uncle John buying me a lieutenantcy, that he would also allow me a
+hundred a year or so besides to enable me to keep up a gentlemanly
+appearance: no, I cannot enter the army without private means; I must
+look out for a genteel and lucrative government appointment; in fact, I
+have mentioned my wishes to two or three persons, and I mean to set
+about the business in real right-down earnest whenever we return from
+our intended visit to Craigmaver: and talking of Craigmaver reminds me
+that I must write to Mr. Ivraine; have you any message?”
+
+“Why what are you going to write to him about?” she demanded.
+
+“You are as curious as Mother Eve, Mina,” replied her brother; “but
+since you must know, I have been requested by Colin Saunders to procure
+him an English situation, either as gardener, caretaker, or “useful
+body,” and it has occurred to me that Mr. Ivraine might very possibly
+know of some one wanting to meet with a person like him; therefore,”
+continued Mr. Frazer, carefully selecting an unexceptionable sheet of
+highly glazed letter paper—he need not have been so particular if he had
+only known the sort of place it was going to—putting the same before
+him, and commencing forthwith a wild irregular scrawl, which would have
+settled his chances for ever of promotion in a merchant’s office,
+though, very possibly, it might have done well enough for a government
+one,—“therefore I am going to write to him.”
+
+Mina laid down the trifling piece of work she held in her hands, and
+watched her brother scribbling away in silence till he reached the
+bottom of the sheet; then, as he paused for a moment, she inquired,
+
+“What has happened at Craigmaver that Colin can want to leave it.”
+
+“Why, little one, he says that he and the new mistress don’t ‘sort,’ or,
+at least, he implies that fact; and, besides—but pshaw! there is the
+letter,” he added, pulling a species of “whitey brown” epistle out of
+his pocket-book, and flinging it towards her, “read it, and understand
+it for yourself.”
+
+She lifted the missive, but did not open it for a minute.
+
+“Well, Mina, on what other subject do you require information?” demanded
+her brother, noticing her eyes still fixed upon him.
+
+“Nothing particular; only is there no other way you could get a place
+for poor Colin without troubling Mr. Ivraine?”
+
+“No, there is not,” he somewhat angrily retorted, “at least, none which
+appears so easy and altogether desirable. Mr. Ivraine made me promise
+that if I thought he could ever be of the slightest use to me, I would
+write to him at once; and I feel sure he will be able to procure
+something good for Colin; and, if you were not a little idiot, you would
+see he is a desirable acquaintance, and one I ought to endeavour not to
+lose sight of.”
+
+“If he do not write to you, Malcolm, I would not force myself on him,”
+she timidly returned. “Remember how changed our position is, and——”
+
+“If you do not cease lecturing and tormenting me, Mina, I shall have to
+cease talking to you at all; you have acquired so many ridiculous
+ideas—you are becoming so absurdly particular, so fastidious and
+provoking, that there is really scarcely any doing with you. You do not
+want to remain in London, because so much money is spent, and yet still
+you demur about going to Craigmaver to save; you implored me not to
+accept any favour from Alfred Westwood, even if he offered to assist me,
+and insinuated that it was mean to put myself under an obligation to a
+person whom I considered beneath us in birth and station; and now you
+want me not to make a trifling request to a man who owes his life almost
+to me, and who exerted himself like a brother about our affairs, solely
+because my uncle died before leaving us what would have made us
+independent for life. The truth is, Mina, I do not understand you, and
+believe that disappointment at not being a great heiress has utterly
+soured your temper, never a particularly mild or contented one. There,
+there, don’t begin to cry; it is a deuced hard thing a fellow cannot do
+what he likes, without being meddled with by a nonsensical girl, and
+that, when he does say what he thinks for once, he must be treated to an
+ocean of tears; but weep or not weep, Mina, I do repeat, you have tried
+me greatly, and that I really don’t profess to have patience to bear
+such perpetual dictating, particularly from you, and I won’t bear it,
+that’s more.”
+
+And Malcolm very determinedly turned over the sheet and went on with his
+letter, whilst Mina rose and quietly left the apartment, without
+answering him even by a look.
+
+It was scarcely nine o’clock, but still she took a candle and ascended
+to her bedroom, where, sitting down before the dressing-table and,
+crossing her arms upon it, she drooped her head on the support thus
+afforded, and remained in this position immovable for hours. She was not
+weeping now; she was thinking, with a racking pain in her temples and an
+oppression about her heart, of their almost hopeless prospects, of her
+mother’s state of health, of her brother’s unkind expressions, of some
+fruitless efforts of her own, of their present home, and the proposed
+journey northwards.
+
+It was one of those periods when fifty things, all unpleasant, are
+thought of simultaneously; when there seems no hope in the future, no
+enjoyment in the present, no brightness in the past; when every
+disagreeable occurrence rises to the memory; when every pleasant
+reminiscence fades totally from the recollection; when all around,
+above, below, looks cloudy, stormy, unpromising; when the heart lacks
+courage to face the gathering tempest, and the soul wants faith to
+believe the sun will ever break through the darkness again; when there
+appears no good, no use, no happiness in anything; when the mind grows
+dangerously active in conjuring up phantoms wherewith to terrify itself;
+when life spreads out a huge blank page—blank, save for the word
+“unhappiness” written across it; when no succour can be discerned
+approaching from any quarter; when, although the tired brain confesses
+there is “no use in thinking,” it still persists in going on thinking
+and wearying itself to death.
+
+The fit rarely lasts long, it is true; it produces no apparent injury,
+inflicts no permanent harm, therefore no one sympathises with these
+states of mental depression. They are hard to endure, for all that,
+however—so Mina felt; though, had any one asked her what had occurred
+particularly to annoy her, she could scarcely have answered the question
+in a satisfactory manner, still she was more thoroughly wretched as she
+sat there with her face concealed from view than she had ever been in
+her life before. The worst malady of the body is that for which doctors
+can discover no sufficient cause, which affects the patient he can
+hardly tell how; and, in like manner, any vague mental unhappiness is
+always more difficult to endure than the anguish arising from some
+decided misfortune.
+
+The one can be grappled with and overcome, perhaps; at all events, it
+can be grappled with, being tangible, whilst the other flits about so as
+to elude the touch of the most skilful and experienced amongst those who
+make it their business to search out the secret griefs of the heart and
+eradicate them therefrom.
+
+Men fight with men, but the bravest shrink appalled from the mere
+representation of that which reason assures them exists only in fancy—a
+ghost. I have known persons who would have walked without flinching up
+to the cannon’s mouth, confess to having hesitated facing what, by the
+dim moonlight, bore the semblance of an apparition.
+
+Well hath the secret sorrow of every home been styled a skeleton; if it
+were a living creature, possessed of flesh, bones, muscles, it would be
+speedily routed out of the citadel; as it is, no hand can be laid on it,
+no one can ever exactly say, “There it stands.” It glides from room to
+room, steals into the soul and out of it again, skulks in the heart’s
+dark corners, and defies the might of man to drive it from its
+stronghold.
+
+But that mental depression produced by a variety of causes, which
+occasionally bows down the spirit, cannot last long; and thus, at
+length, the first bitterness of wounded feeling having past, the girl
+raised her head, and, pushing back the masses of long waving dark hair
+which, falling loose and unrestrained over her eyes, obscured her sight,
+she looked for an instant half dreamily at the candle burning dimly down
+into the socket, and then at Colin Saunders’ epistle that she had almost
+unconsciously retained in her hand.
+
+It was indeed, inside and out, a unique missive; written on the coarsest
+of paper, with the thickest of pens, and the palest of ink, in a
+straight up-and-down crabbed hand; easy to read, however,
+notwithstanding, as the character—straightforward, honest, and simple—of
+him who indited it.
+
+Scripture passages were somewhat strangely intermixed with details of
+what he was “fit for,”—the heavenly kingdom forming the burden of one
+passage, and the amount of temporal wages he would be “content with,”
+being the intelligence conveyed in the next. The account of how his
+daughter Jenny, who married James Frith, the English butler, as Mr.
+Malcolm might recollect, was about returning to London and starting
+together with her husband (whose master had just died and left him four
+hundred pounds) a sort of boarding-house, was succeeded by reflections
+on the mutability of all earthly things and the importance of looking
+after the affairs of eternity. Then followed a pretty plain hint that
+Craigmaver was not what it used to be, and that the young laird’s wife
+was too grand and fine to “put up with” humble bodies like himself: and
+the whole epistle wound up with requesting Malcolm to procure him a home
+among the “strangers,” for that he could not think of serving any one in
+Scotland, except “one of the old clan.”
+
+After a cramp signature came a postscript, begging his dutiful
+remembrances to “Miss Mina,” and hoping the mistress was better, and
+that Mr. Malcolm would excuse the liberty he had taken of writing to him
+and of getting the address off a letter the laird was sending to Miss
+Mina, and he said he should not have thought of troubling him about a
+poor man’s business, had he not “been the son of his old master.”
+
+Tears, such as she had not shed for months previously, moistened the
+page as Mina read the quaint effusion Saunders had penned, after his
+day’s work, in his little cottage at Craigmaver. What a change must have
+occurred there, to make him dream of leaving “the old place,” Mina
+guessed; and where he could not stay she must go: she would never say
+another syllable against that or any other thing her brother chose to
+propose; she would try herself, silently and quietly, to avert the
+misfortunes she saw threatening on every side. There was one thing
+certain, her hopes whispered—Malcolm would not wish to remain in
+Scotland very long, and she resolved to do what she could before leaving
+London, to see the result of her latest experiment, and to hold her
+peace about money matters and seem as patient as it was in her nature to
+seem. Perhaps her brother was right; she had tormented him a little too
+much: men, she always heard, did not like to be interfered with; but
+still she thought he had been rather unkind, and she wished, oh! so
+much, he had not written to Mr. Ivraine.
+
+There was no help for it, however; she would never meddle with him
+again: and, after all, it was merely a folly on her part; why should he
+not correspond with any one he liked? it had nothing to do with her; it
+was altogether a matter of business. So she mused, looking at the
+expiring candle abstractedly, till it gave one long bright leap up into
+a flame, after which it died out altogether: then she crept to rest and
+soon, tired out, sank to slumber. It might have prevented her falling
+asleep quite so soon, had she known that, prompted by the spirit of
+opposition, her brother had inserted in his “business” despatch a clause
+to the effect that “his mother and Mina sent their kind remembrances to
+Mr. Ivraine.”
+
+But she did not know; and Malcolm had never heard what Mr. Westwood
+implied during the course of his final conversation with Mina. Perhaps,
+if she had told him, he might not have written at all; but she did not
+like to repeat the words which stung her so bitterly at the time: so
+Malcolm, in ignorance, sealed up the letter, and Mina, in ignorance,
+slept tranquilly, and arose quite resigned about that matter, but to
+find her mother worse, to hear speedy change of air recommended by the
+doctors, to acquiesce in rapid arrangements for her removal by easy
+stages to the bracing Highland air, and finally to go away to Miss
+Caldera and tell her all about it.
+
+“Oh! dear old friend,” she said almost in despair, “we are to leave for
+Scotland almost immediately.”
+
+“Do you remember how glad you were at the prospect of a similar journey
+this time last year?” demanded the governess.
+
+“I have learnt a great deal since then,” answered the girl, sorrowfully.
+
+“Lay it to heart,” was the emphatic reply; “it may profit you much
+hereafter.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+                          THE MOORS ONCE MORE.
+
+
+When the laird of Craigmaver first wrote, inviting his relatives to his
+Highland home, of course he meant for them to stay at the place of his
+own actual abode; but Mina suggested, when she found her mother
+inclining to yield to Malcolm’s desire for them to go and see their
+grand connexions, that if the cottage near the lake were vacant, it
+might be better for them to remain there, as Craigmaver proper was now
+always so crowded with company as to render it anything rather than a
+desirable house for an invalid, requiring occasionally perfect rest and
+total quietness: accordingly young Mrs. Frazer had the “wigwam,” as she
+styled it, made habitable. She delighted the old laird by walking down
+with him every day to see that the workmen were doing their duty; she
+sent furniture from the “castle on the hill” to the “cottage in the
+vale;” she assisted with her own fair hands in the arrangement of
+draperies; had the garden “done up” under her especial _surveillance_;
+went almost crazy on the subject of well-aired beds and rousing fires;
+and declared to her husband’s grandfather that she would do anything in
+the world to make his “dear little niece and her mother comfortable.”
+
+And he whom woman had never blinded before, was deceived by her, and he
+humbly thanked God for the great comfort He had granted to be the pride
+and blessing of his declining days; and he trusted Allan, when he grew a
+little older, and became tired of the world’s flatteries and vanities,
+would learn to appreciate her in time also; for surely, thought the old
+man, “there never existed so almost faultless a creature as Cecilia.”
+
+Who, having tact enough to perceive that so long as she possessed his
+grandfather’s ear she retained a strong hold on her husband, had devoted
+herself to the old man, with something more than the affection of a
+daughter, ever since, standing with his grey head uncovered on the
+threshold of that beautiful home, he welcomed her lovingly to it. She
+brought sunshine with her to his soul; he felt lonely if she left him
+for a few days; he thought every one must be wrong excepting herself:
+there was a charm about her which captivated his very soul.
+
+Mrs. Frazer looked with perfect wonder on the lovely being who greeted
+her with such tenderness in the lonely romantic spot.
+
+Standing at the cottage door, the sun beaming on her hair, and turning
+each tress into a lock of gold, her purple eyes soft and sympathising,
+her features perfect as those of a statue, her colour a little
+heightened, and her voice more musical than ever, what wonder if the
+exhausted invalid thought her more an angel than a woman; what marvel if
+she felt proud to hear her greet Mina as a sister, and to see her kiss
+the girl over and over again.
+
+How kind she felt it of her to stay and pour tea out for her, and make
+her lie down on a sofa, the pillows and cushions of which she arranged
+with a skilful hand, and remain coaxing her to eat, though she said they
+were going to have a large dinner party at seven o’clock, and that she
+should scarcely have time to dress for it.
+
+“I must go, I fear,” at last she said; “and I am so sorry, but we could
+not avoid having these people, as Lord Cintra and Lady Matilda leave us
+to-morrow; but I shall be down first thing in the morning to see how you
+have slept. Mina, make your mamma go to bed immediately: I mean to take
+the entire management of you both, and to bring back a colour into your
+cheeks: but now I must really be off,—see, it is more than half-past
+six;” and she darted out of the house and up the hill with the speed and
+gracefulness of a fawn. Malcolm Frazer said she was the only woman he
+had ever seen who could run gracefully; but then once, after she had
+regained her dominion over him, Mina heard him affirm that his cousin
+Cecilia—as she insisted on their calling her—could bring “creeping on
+all fours” into fashion if she chose; there was nothing she could not
+do, nothing.
+
+And, accordingly, she laid herself out to cure Mrs. Frazer, took her
+drives in the tiniest of pony phaetons, exhausted even the invention of
+a French _chef_ to concoct tempting dishes for her; got the doctor to
+say “donkey exercise” would be most beneficial, and procured one of the
+tribe “that would go” over from Locholen, and walked miles across the
+moors, sometimes leading the beast by the bridle, sometimes sauntering
+gaily along by Mrs. Frazer’s side, singing snatches of wild mountain
+songs to amuse the invalid; then she had cushions laid down in the
+pleasure-boat, because she felt sure the breeze on the lake would revive
+her; she almost went distracted one day when she found Mina had
+permitted her parent to stand for two minutes in a draught; she insisted
+on writing to an old Edinburgh doctor, a great friend of her father, and
+asking him to come and stay at Craigmaver, with a view to learning his
+opinion of what was the exact nature of Mrs. Frazer’s malady; she nursed
+and petted the lady for months; and at last, by dint of almost
+superhuman exertions, she had her—before the golden glory of summer was
+half expended—almost well again.
+
+Then came, however, a slight change: it was hardly perceptible; it was a
+thing to be felt, not seen—a sort of occasional superciliousness—an
+assumption in the presence of strangers, and, in the absence of her
+husband and the laird—a half patronizing air, which wounded Mina to the
+very soul: there was a gradual falling away in her affection for the
+trio—Malcolm, perhaps, who was handsome, and flattered her, alone
+excepted; a little touch of sarcasm mingled at times in her discourse;
+fresh visitors came in flocks to Craigmaver, and, of course, it was
+impossible for her always to be attending to, and studying the wishes
+of, her husband’s relations. Mina knew they had been too long there, but
+Malcolm would not move; the gay life, the grand society, the perpetual
+excitement suited him; so she said nothing, but bore—she knew how
+much—“patiently and silently.”
+
+It was one balmy day in July that Cecilia glided into the parlour of the
+cottage. Allan and she and one or two others were going out on the lake,
+and they wanted to know if Mina and Mrs. Frazer would not join them; she
+said it in her old bright frank manner, for her husband had told her to
+make them come, and she wanted to please him; but her eye had wandered
+round the room, and in one corner she spied what caused the angry blood
+to colour her cheek, though she took no notice of the discovery at the
+time, and so prayed and begged and beseeched them to join the boating
+party, that Mrs. Frazer, after vainly urging a slight cold as an
+apology, felt constrained to rise and put on her bonnet, and desire Mina
+to do the same.
+
+“Oh! never mind a bonnet, never mind anything but the straw hat, Mina,
+and your scarf,” said Cecilia, “the day is so warm, you will be baked;”
+and accordingly she commenced tying on the hat in question, and flung
+the tartan scarf about the girl’s shoulders, exclaiming, “There, that
+will do beautifully! I see,” she added the next minute, in a quick light
+tone, as Mrs. Frazer left the room, “I see you have got a new guitar.”
+
+“Yes, Allan brought it me from Edinburgh,” answered Mina, simply; “it
+has such a sweet tone, have you tried it yet?”
+
+“Tried it yet!” repeated Cecilia; “no, indeed, how should I?”
+
+“Will you play something on it now, while mamma is getting ready?” said
+Mina.
+
+“Another time, _ma chére_,” said the lady; “I did not know it was the
+fashion for married gentlemen to give presents: when did it come out,
+Mina—you, who are from London and have seen more of the world than I,
+must be better informed—when did it come out?”
+
+“What do you mean, Cecilia?” demanded Mina; “though Allan is married, he
+is still my cousin, is not he? I really never thought——”
+
+“No, no, I know you did not,” sneered the other, “and neither did he—of
+his wife; I wish he would buy _me_ a new one.”
+
+“Take that, do,” cried Mina eagerly; “I do not want it at all, I told
+him so; I never could learn to play well, and indeed it is of little or
+no use to me: do please take it.”
+
+“It was from him, not you, I wanted a present,” said Cecilia coldly;
+“but here is Mrs. Frazer, let us be gone,” and she turned with a bright
+smile to meet the lady, and they all walked down together to the landing
+stage near the boat house, where the visitors, with Allan and Malcolm,
+were already standing.
+
+It was a close sultry day; there was not a leaf stirring, there was
+scarce a ripple on the waters, the song of the birds was hushed, there
+was a dead stillness, a suffocating closeness in the air,—so Allan
+remarked when they had got some distance from shore.
+
+“I fear there will be a thunder storm before very long, sir,” remarked
+one of the rowers, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with the
+back of a horny hand.
+
+“So do I,” returned Allan, glancing anxiously up at the darkening sky;
+“I think we had better return.”
+
+“Now, Allan, do not be tiresome,” expostulated Cecilia; “when it is
+threatening, you will not venture out at all, and when it is fine, you
+immediately want to return; as we have got so far, do let us go on.”
+
+“It is only on account of Mrs. Frazer,” said Allan; but a “Pray don’t
+mind me,” from that lady, settling the question, they proceeded a
+considerable distance further, till at length Allan again exclaimed,
+
+“Well, really I think we had better return; there is no pleasure in
+getting wet, and——” his eye fell on the thin dresses of the widow and
+her daughter, which glance decided Cecilia’s answer.
+
+“And there is no pleasure in always anticipating evil, and the day is so
+delightful; we shall never have a finer, if we wait for a year.”
+
+She had barely concluded ere a flash of lightning, succeeded by a
+deafening peal of thunder, announced that the storm had commenced. The
+rowers instantly turned the boat’s course homewards and pulled with
+might and main. Cloaks and shawls, which had, unfortunately, been
+provided in the very scantiest quantities, were produced and adjusted
+with anxious care, but all in vain; the tempest swept down upon them
+with relentless fury; the men found it difficult to make “headway;” the
+rain poured in torrents on the devoted heads of those who had gone out
+on a party of pleasure; the wind whistled, the thunder roared, the
+lightning gleamed: it was, in fact, a terrible mountain storm, more
+violent than enduring, and so, ere long, it went rushing over the hills
+to seek some other spot whereon to expend the remnants of its fury, and
+left the boat and its occupants, unswamped, it is true, but thoroughly
+drenched, as people only can be in some lonely spot in the lonely
+Highlands, or else on the bosom of the waters, far from human shelter,
+far from human habitation.
+
+Nothing could exceed Cecilia’s grief on this occasion; she said she was
+quite distracted with anxiety about Mina’s poor mother; she would not
+let her return to the cottage, when they had at length regained _terra
+firma_, declaring Craigmaver was nearer. Before changing her own
+garments, she insisted on seeing Mrs. Frazer in bed, with a glowing fire
+in her room, warm bottles at her feet, and every other precaution taken
+to avert the injurious consequences of a chill. She made Mina put on
+some clothes of hers, and persisted in forcing her to wrap shawls and
+cloaks about her till the girl thought she should be fairly suffocated;
+she sent a servant galloping off for the nearest doctor, with a full
+statement of events and a request for the learned gentleman to bring
+something with him likely to cure Mrs. Frazer, supposing she became ill
+after such an exposure. She was solicitous about all her guests, but she
+lavished any amount of attention on Mina and her mother: there was no
+end to her kindness; and when Mrs. Frazer, the following day, was able
+to come down in time for luncheon, it might have been imagined that some
+incredible piece of good fortune had occurred to render Cecilia so
+joyous, light-hearted, and happy.
+
+Then she would not hear of a return to the cottage for a day or two; she
+wished to make certain of the completeness of the recovery, before
+letting Mrs. Frazer out of her sight.
+
+She could not trust Mina, she said, and hurt Mina by saying so; but the
+words were spoken in such a kind, cordial manner, that nobody, save one
+inclined to fault finding, could have quarrelled with them; and so she
+did keep the widow for a couple of days, to be quite exhausted with the
+eternal bustle of visitors, and wearied with the sight of gaiety and
+fashion and society, which she had no longer health or spirits to enjoy.
+
+The third morning there were to be grand races some five miles off,
+whither all the household, excepting Mina, her mother, and a few
+servants, proceeded. Cecilia had implored her “little cousin” to be good
+natured and leave her mother, who was now so much better, under the
+charge of an exemplary lady’s maid, but Mina was firm; she did not care
+for the races, and she did for her mother, wherefore she resisted all
+entreaties, and for once successfully.
+
+As she and her parent stood at the window watching the departure of the
+gay cavalcade, it seemed as if a sudden feeling of affection for her
+daughter and consideration for her situation came into the widow’s
+breast; previously, Malcolm had been all in all to her—the idol of her
+soul, the being for whose welfare no sacrifice could be considered too
+great, whose word was law, whose lightest wish must be fulfilled; but
+now, even while she smiled in answer to his proud, happy glance, her
+eyes turned from his face to the pale countenance of her who, with less
+ostentation and less skill than Cecilia, had nursed and tended her with
+untiring devotion, with silent, earnest care. She knew that for nights
+the girl never left her bedside, that she was there ready to listen to
+her smallest request, to comply with her lightest demand. Because Mina
+had never made a “fuss,” she had never imagined she was doing anything;
+but, at that moment, the whole state of the case burst upon her, and,
+for the first time in her life, she inquired, almost tenderly,
+
+“Mina, should you not like to go too?”
+
+“No, indeed, mamma, I had far rather stay with you.”
+
+There was no other word spoken, but they both bent their eyes steadily
+on the group of happy faces clustered below—on the carriage containing
+the Laird of Craigmaver and some of the visitors—on Allan’s melancholy
+face—on Malcolm’s frank happy countenance and bold careless bearing—on
+the lady of the mansion, with her blue cloth riding-habit, her long hair
+half veiling her figure, her graceful easy seat, and lively demeanour.
+They all smiled and bowed to the two they left behind as they departed;
+and when the train had entirely swept out of sight, when the last
+flutter of Cecilia’s feather disappeared from view, when nothing
+remained within their range of vision but the silent hills and the
+lonely mountains, and the dark, quiet, mournful fir trees, the widow
+turned sadly from the window with a deep involuntary sigh.
+
+“Mina,” she said, after a pause, “I think I will go home; so much
+company and excitement tires me.”
+
+And the girl forthwith led her silently back to the cottage. When they
+arrived there, she spoke again.
+
+“I should like to go to bed, dear; I do not feel very well.”
+
+Mina did not know why a sort of chill crept to her heart when she heard
+these words; but a kind of presentiment of coming evil oppressed her.
+There was no doctor nearer than four miles; but as soon as she had
+assisted her mother to undress, she despatched a bare-legged Highland
+lad, who was weeding in the garden, to summon him.
+
+It was hours before the boy returned: he said they told him the doctor
+was gone to the races, and he had followed him there, but could hear no
+tidings of him; he had searched high and low, but was not able to see
+him.
+
+“And did you not speak to my uncle? you must surely have seen him,”
+exclaimed Mina.
+
+“Yes, I saw him; but there was such a gathering of great folks about the
+place where he and Mr. Allan and the young leddy were, I could not get
+word wi’ them; however, I met Mr. Thomas, the new footman, and I bid him
+tell the laird and look out for the doctor, and he said he would, Miss,
+so I came home.”
+
+After he had stayed an hour watching the horses, he might have added,
+but he did not; and it would have done Mina no good if he had. She stole
+back to her mother’s room, listening eagerly for the footsteps of one
+who never again came there—in time.
+
+At length, as evening was approaching, a rapid sound of horses’ hoofs
+smote on her ear.
+
+“It must be he, at last,” she said; “oh! thank God for it!” and she went
+out to the hall door to meet him.
+
+A man was coming down the hill at a furious pace: it was not he, nor
+Malcolm, but Allan Frazer.
+
+“What is the matter, Mina?” he exclaimed, springing from the saddle.
+
+“I don’t know,” she said. “Where is the doctor, and where in the world
+is Malcolm?”
+
+“He and the rest had set out for Locholen before that fellow delivered
+the message to me,” returned Allan; “I despatched a groom after him,
+however, and he will be here immediately; nobody seems to know anything
+about the doctor, but I have sent to the market town for another. What
+is it, Mina? tell me, child; what is it?”
+
+“Death,” she responded in a quivering voice, hope having died out at the
+sound of his words, “death! oh! cousin Allan, come in and tell me if it
+is not so; for pity’s sake don’t leave me, I cannot face it myself.”
+
+He flung the bridle hastily to the gaping lad and entered the house;
+something else entered it with him, flitted by him in the hall, rushed
+into the sick chamber and close up to the bedside before he could reach
+it.
+
+Not before Mina, however, with a wild cry, had flung herself, into her
+mother’s outstretched arms.
+
+“God bless you, child,” she cried, in a voice which rang in Allan’s ears
+like the sound of a passing bell: “you have been a good, good child to
+me. God bless you for it! be a fond sister to Malcolm.”
+
+“Oh! mother, stay,” gasped out the girl; “mother! I have nobody else on
+earth.”
+
+Ere the sentence was quite concluded, she had not her on earth either,
+for the woman, who was just beginning to feel such affection for her
+daughter as might have made life happier to them both, fell back, with a
+heavy sob, into the arms of the invisible spectre, which had made such
+cruel speed to receive her.
+
+Mina never knew what occurred between that moment and another, when she
+awoke to the knowledge of passing events and a consciousness of the
+great trial which had befallen her. She had a confused recollection of
+some fresh arrivals, of hearing Malcolm’s voice, of seeing Cecilia
+leading him out of the room, of a harsh Highland accent she recognized
+as the doctor’s, of words of kindness spoken by Allan Frazer and some
+strangers, of driving through the stillness of night to Craigmaver, and
+being left alone with her dear old uncle there. She spent two or three
+days in a sort of miserable dream, and then she came fully to comprehend
+it all: how they were totally orphans, how her mother was dead and
+buried, how they had no home, or shadow of one, left, and how she and
+her brother were residing on sufferance in their uncle’s house—beautiful
+Craigmaver—under the same roof with Cecilia Frazer, General Warmond’s
+lovely daughter.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+                           A WOMAN’S WEAPONS.
+
+
+“Man is to man the sorest, surest ill.” So said one who encountered
+many trials, felt the sting of poverty, endured the sorrows of life,
+knew the bitterness of remorse, and died with his genius only
+half-recognised—only half-developed: but if he had only been treated
+to a sight of the bad side of that sex, every member of which, if
+pretty or accomplished or amiable or graceful, he idealised into
+angels—he would surely have recanted, and declared that though man can
+give all sorts of annoyance to his fellow, beggar him, imprison him,
+torture and mutilate his frame, degrade him into something similar to,
+if not quite, a beast, all the sorrow and irritation he is capable of
+producing fade into total insignificance, when compared with the agony
+woman can inflict on woman.
+
+Heaven only knows how they do it, for the adepts in the art of feminine
+persecution keep the _modus operandi_ a profound secret from the lords
+of the creation and the uninitiated of their own sex; like the mysteries
+of freemasonry, which everybody sees and hears of, and nobody (save the
+brethren) understands, the thing is perpetually being practised, and
+yet, unless it comes into the world with people, they cannot learn the
+knack. There are some poisons so subtle and insidious, that their
+presence can only be detected by their deadly consequences; and, in
+similar manner, the little venomed darts female tongues are capable of
+flinging at some innocent victim, can only be traced by the wounds they
+inflict. The result is produced—that is evident to the most careless and
+unsensitive; but how? oh! that is quite another question—entirely beyond
+me to explain. Cecilia Warmond could have told had she liked; but then,
+being one of the patentees, so to speak, of the cruel invention, she
+kept the means in the background; permitted no eye, save her own, to see
+the peculiarly delicate verbal mechanism which possessed the rare power
+of clothing deformity with beauty, concealing a thorn with a rose,
+presenting some dreadful potion in the semblance of a tempting draught,
+shrouding a sneer as a compliment, sending forth a falsehood under the
+simple disguise of truth.
+
+The Pope who infused poison into the blood of his victim, under pretence
+of clasping his hand with cordial friendship, would surely have
+out-Heroded Herod in subtlety of deceit and fertility of expedients had
+he been a woman instead of a Pope. If it had pleased fate to change his
+sex and position, and transfer him from the Vatican to some French
+chateau or gorgeous palace, to give him flowing locks, a beardless chin,
+a soft yielding feminine manner, and a portion of woman’s exhaustless
+tact and alarming rapidity of invention—if fate had unhappily done all
+this, I say, surely the noble art of mental scorpion-scourging would,
+centuries ago, have been pronounced incapable of further improvements:
+ladies must have been content thenceforth to walk in the old-beaten
+track, and follow, in humble admiration, the footsteps of their great
+predecessor.
+
+But he was only a Pope; so, finding himself impotent to wound the minds
+of his victims, he contented himself with killing their bodies: he
+paused, unwillingly, at a fixed point, beyond which none but women’s
+feet have ever passed; it is the unenviable distinction of Eve’s
+daughters that some amongst them can effect what it would be worse than
+useless for men to attempt. Let us be humbly thankful, however, there
+are but few who possess the gift. What a world it would be if every
+third or fourth gentle, graceful being possessed the power of
+fluttering, with beautiful out-spread wings, towards her enemy, and
+stabbing her to the heart under cover of a loving flattering caress!
+What a world it would be, when no law can punish the criminal, no friend
+procure redress for the victim; when the whole business is conducted
+more surely, more quietly, more secretly than the inquisition trials of
+old; when no one, save the sufferer, is even aware what instruments of
+hidden torture are thus planted in the “heart’s dark chambers;” when it
+is totally impossible for her to tell how they came there at all, and
+why she permitted herself to be mentally racked and thumb-screwed in a
+country where, for not much greater offences, inflicted on the less
+important part of her nature—the body—her opponent would assuredly be
+hanged.
+
+The power of uttering a clever sarcasm, the ability to be wittily
+satirical, are dangerous weapons to be placed, unsheathed, in female
+hands; but they are harmless playthings in comparison with the sharp
+little invisible stiletto, to which these remarks refer, and from which
+Mina Frazer received many a private stab during the course of two weary
+months she spent at Craigmaver, after the death and funeral of her
+mother.
+
+It would have been hard to tell what gratification Cecilia derived from
+the exercise of this power. We see boys who, before they can well speak,
+delight in impaling flies on pins and watching their agony, and who,
+carrying the humane propensity up with them to manhood, take literally a
+pleasure in witnessing human suffering, even that most revolting form of
+it, a public execution. Perhaps it was on the same principle Mrs. Frazer
+revelled in beholding the mental anguish she was capable of inflicting
+by a word, a tone, a look; at all events she did exult to set Mina
+writhing,—a task it was, unfortunately, easy to perform.
+
+Had it been anything open, the girl could have encountered it; in a
+smart skirmish of tongues, in that kind of polite warfare, which the
+vulgar wage with clenched hands and undignified blows, Mina might not
+have come off the worst; at all events, she would have had the pleasure
+of retaliating, for she could occasionally fling a missile, in the shape
+of an angry retort, at the head of an adversary as well as anybody. In
+the open field she dreaded no one; if vanquished, people saw how it was
+done; she had, at least, the comfort of knowing against what and whom
+she was fighting, but in Cecilia’s guerilla practice, she was a complete
+novice; it was a style of thing she had never been accustomed to: she
+could not tell from behind what curious intellectual ambush the shot was
+fired, in what secure nook the enemy found refuge, what sort of armour
+would suffice to shield her from injury, what species of weapon might
+prove serviceable in defence. She was fairly bewildered and stood
+stupidly passive, while the shafts, unseen by other eyes, winged their
+unerring course towards her, always lodging, no matter how swift the aim
+or unpromising the ground, right in the spot intended, where they
+remained quivering for days after.
+
+It was the bitterest ordeal, Mina fancied, she could ever be called upon
+to pass through. When Allan was at home, indeed, things were more
+endurable; but then he very rarely was at home, and Cecilia had so
+completely gained the old laird’s affections, that she could almost have
+persuaded him white was black, and accordingly she did induce him to
+believe there had been a something rather defective in dear Mina’s
+training, something which considerably detracted from her numerous
+virtues, something which did not make her friends less fond of her, but
+only caused them to feel a little anxious and uneasy concerning her
+future welfare.
+
+“If she had been brought up at Craigmaver, under your watchful tender
+care,” insinuated the lady; and this being an embodiment of Mr. Frazer’s
+own idea, he sighed, and Cecilia sighed, and the old laird wished his
+“little girl” were more like his “dear daughter.”
+
+“She falls far short of that,” he once said, sadly; but then added—his
+old love for the child of his dead nephew gushing up again in his soul,
+clear and bright, notwithstanding all the rubbish Cecilia had so
+perseveringly thrown on the top of it—“but she is a dear, good, quiet
+little creature, notwithstanding, and I wish—I wish we could do anything
+for her; her fate has been a very unfortunate one, Cecilia.”
+
+What was “to be done” with her had been, indeed, a very vexed question
+in Mrs. Frazer’s mind for a considerable period; to keep her as a
+Craigmaver fixture she was resolved she would not; but then where could
+she be transported to, unless Malcolm grew discontented with his
+quarters and turned his attention towards seeking some settled lucrative
+employment. Cecilia therefore resolved, contrary to her usual custom—for
+she was generally as considerate towards gentlemen as the reverse
+towards ladies—to make Craigmaver anything rather than a pleasant
+abiding place for him; but, before she had time to carry her benevolent
+intention fully into effect, or had leisure to do more than just
+surprise him on one or two occasions, a circumstance occurred which
+induced her to consider such a line of conduct unnecessary, and to
+believe there were other means by which Mina might be got rid of.
+
+“Cecilia,” said the laird one fine autumnal morning as they sauntered
+round the garden together, “Cecilia, read that letter and give me your
+opinion: what ought we to do?”
+
+Mrs. Frazer took the missive in her slender fingers and glanced over it
+in her usual rapid manner. It was dated from a fashionable Edinburgh
+hotel; it was penned on the thickest and best of paper; it was written
+in a firm gentlemanlike hand; it contained plausible words and plenty of
+them: from “Dear sir” to “Yours, faithfully.” Cecilia comprehended every
+syllable, and, almost before she had taken in the signature, she
+exclaimed,
+
+“Oh! let us have him here, by all means.”
+
+“Do you mean, ask him to Craigmaver?” demanded the laird, a little
+doubtfully.
+
+“_Oui, vraiment_,” she answered; “he will be enchanted with our Highland
+scenery: having an object in view, he cannot be bored with our lonely
+situation; then you will be able to judge of him for yourself. I think
+it a most frank and straightforward epistle.”
+
+“But Mina——”
+
+“Oh! when you have invited him, it will be time enough to tell her. You
+see it is evident there has been a coolness, or something of that kind,
+between them; it is better not to ask her at all about the matter, but
+just let us see what he is like, and, if you approve of him, permit
+affairs to take their own course. After you have answered this letter, I
+will break the subject to her: it would be such a desirable match, such
+an opening for poor Malcolm, such a comfortable home for dear Mina,
+darling child; how glad I should be for her to be happily settled—as I
+am,” she ingenuously added, taking the old laird’s hand and pressing it.
+“Do let us have him here; not exactly as an accepted suitor, you
+understand, dear papa (Cecilia always ignored the grandfather), but as
+the Londoners—the milliners, I mean—say about their goods, on
+approbation; if he do not suit, we can render his visit agreeable and
+send him away again; but if, _au contraire_——”
+
+The lady did not finish the sentence, but looked so perfectly beautiful
+and graceful, standing among the flowers of the garden, that the old
+laird never thought of uttering another syllable in the way of dissent;
+and Cecilia “kept up the steam” by harping on about how pleased she was
+and how she hoped he was as nice as his letter, and how she had always
+thought it would be a “desirable thing” for Mina long before her uncle’s
+death, when they used to be talking of him at Glenfiord, and how she
+felt, even then, that the “little silly thing” was suffering some
+strange prejudice to blind her.
+
+In short, Cecilia got the all-important letter of invitation written,
+for which Mr. Alfred Westwood’s soul had yearned, which he read and
+smiled over and then sneered at, in his usual polite manner, while
+sitting in one of the best apartments of the best Edinburgh hotel.
+
+It was a lovely trait in the character of Mr. Westwood, as it is in the
+characters of many individuals, that “the more he could not get a thing,
+the more he wished for it;” he hated to be what he, in city phrase,
+termed, “done:” and to be rejected by a woman, to have “No,” said once,
+twice, thrice, to him by a little contemptible girl, whom he had seen
+grow up under his very eyes,—the thing was not to be borne. He would
+master her yet, he vowed, and, as he himself said, he had never yet
+broken a vow, save one.
+
+What that one was, he knew, but, though it concerned the Frazers
+considerably, they did not, and he by no means intended to enlighten
+them. He wanted to marry Mina Frazer for three reasons: first, because
+she disliked him and had seen through and scorned him; second, because
+he did feel something near akin to love for her,—not love, not strong
+affection—he was incapable of that—but a little admiration, a very
+sufficient fancy; third, because he should be marrying into a good
+connexion: with Mina’s family and his own fortune, they might have
+almost any society they chose. He meant to retire from business in a
+little while, buy an estate, become a country gentleman, and talk of his
+Scottish relatives who lived at Craigmaver and were next neighbours to
+the Earl of Lobenclu.
+
+He had taken ample time to reflect about the matter; he had made many
+and secret inquiries, not merely concerning the Highland establishment,
+the members composing it, and the visitors who flocked to it, but also
+about the very servants and labourers. He had got a little information
+anent Ernest Ivraine and his prospects. Money, we all know, can open the
+gate of every home, save heaven, and place the curious in possession of
+the secrets of all households; so, fortified by a vast amount of
+apparently unnecessary knowledge, encouraged by the fact of Mrs.
+Frazer’s demise, Malcolm’s continued inaction, and Mina’s peculiar
+position; satisfied, in brief, that he was “doing the right thing at the
+right time,” Alfred Westwood penned a long and artful letter to Mr.
+Frazer, senior, setting forth his earnest affection for his niece,
+confessing she had, at one time, seemed not very much inclined towards
+him, but venturing a hope that now she might perhaps view him in a
+rather more favourable light. Then he entered into a detail of pecuniary
+and other matters; told all he could do for Mr. Malcolm Frazer; said
+that, although disparity of years certainly did exist, he hoped
+intensity of affection might melt that obstacle away; frankly confessed
+that, in point of family, he could advance no claim, save that of
+respectability; and wound up by requesting to know if the Laird of
+Craigmaver would permit him to renew, with his sanction, his addresses
+to his niece.
+
+This was the letter Cecilia read and decided should be politely
+answered, as we have seen.
+
+“Mina,” she said to that much enduring young lady the day previous to
+that on which Mr. Westwood had said he should arrive, “Mina, an old
+friend of yours is to be here to-morrow.”
+
+“An old friend of mine!” echoed Mina; “who may that be?”
+
+“Why could you not have said, ‘who may _he_ be?’ at once and saved me
+the trouble of correcting your form of speech?” demanded Cecilia in a
+kinder and livelier tone than usual, watching to see the effect her
+words produced.
+
+“He!” ejaculated Mina; “he!”
+
+“How you say it,” laughed the lady, “and how you blush, and how
+frightened you look; but he is not an ogre, darling—this same Mr. Alfred
+Westwood—rest assured of that.”
+
+“Alfred Westwood! Oh! Cecilia, this is your doing,” cried Mina
+passionately; “but I tell you this much, I have borne a great deal from
+you, I have kept silence when my heart has been breaking, I have never
+said I was unhappy, though often and often I have wished to be lying
+beside my dead mother, out of the way of annoyance and humiliation: but
+stay in the house with Mr. Westwood, I will not.”
+
+“Take it quietly, _ma mignonne_,” sneered Cecilia; “don’t distort your
+pretty face nor injure your lungs with such excessive loudness of
+enunciation, I entreat.”
+
+“Do not madden me, Cecilia,” burst in Mina; “you have no feeling, you
+have no heart, you are not like a woman. Oh! if I had known you once as
+I know you now——”
+
+“Well, dear, what should you have done?” demanded her tormentor.
+
+“Nothing that I have done,—nothing; but I am resolved about this, and I
+shall go at once to my uncle and tell him that, if Mr. Westwood come
+here, I go.”
+
+“Surely you could never dream of depriving us of the immense advantage
+of your society,” said the other; “but supposing you are so cruel, where
+should you go?”
+
+“As far as possible from you,” retorted Mina, with quivering nostrils,
+feeling her own impotency, yet unable to restrain the expression of her
+anger any longer; “if I only knew a spot on the earth on which you had
+ever set your foot, I would avoid it as I might a pestilence.”
+
+“You are an ungrateful little virago,” said Cecilia, laughing as one
+might at the fury of a wayward child; “such a storm about nothing.”
+
+“It may be nothing to you, but it is much to me,” answered Mina; “but I
+will not talk any more to you, I will go to my uncle:” and before
+Cecilia had fully made up her mind whether to prevent her executing her
+purpose, or to spur her on to accomplish it, Mina settled the question
+by darting out of the drawing-room, where the brief dialogue had taken
+place, and rushing, _sans ceremonie_, into the opposite apartment, where
+Malcolm, Allan, and the laird were just about thinking of leaving the
+decanters of prime old wine, and sauntering in to join “the
+ladies:”—there she went.
+
+“I have come, uncle,” she began, “to tell you that, if it be true Mr.
+Westwood is coming here to-morrow, I should like to leave Craigmaver
+to-night. I know perfectly well what brings him; I understand it all. I
+cannot stay to meet him again: I will not do it.”
+
+“He is only coming here as a visitor—as an invited guest, Mina,”
+commenced the laird, but his niece interrupted him with,
+
+“He is coming here to strive to make me marry him, and I won’t. He
+offered, in the first shock of our beggary, to wring an annuity for
+mamma and a commission for Malcolm out of Mrs. Merapie, if I only would
+be his wife, and I said ‘no’ then: is it likely, when _she_ is dead, I
+would say ‘yes’ now? I told him always I would not—always; and the last
+time we parted we had a sort of quarrel, and——”
+
+A perfect storm of reproaches here burst forth on Mina’s head,—almost
+invectives from her brother, remonstrances from the laird, wondering
+expressions from Cecilia: she had, so they affirmed, blighted her
+brother’s prospects; sacrificed her mother to her own extraordinary
+prejudices; maintained a secresy and reserve reprehensible in the
+highest degree; treated a high-minded man with a contempt and unkindness
+for which no words of condemnation were sufficiently strong: she had
+exhibited a degree of perverseness, of which they had believed her
+incapable, and permitted herself to give way to a fit of passion that
+was really alarming: in fact, there was no sin in the catalogue she had
+not committed. And truly, standing amongst them—her face flushed, her
+frame trembling, her manner excited—she did look like one who, though
+she knew herself to be in the wrong, was determined to persevere
+therein, urged forward by a bold defiant obstinate spirit.
+
+Cecilia Warmond was one who would have sown doubt and distrust between
+the nearest of friends, the most unsuspicious of relatives: she had
+contrived to loosen the tie which bound the old laird to his niece; she
+had managed to lessen whatever love Malcolm ever possessed for his
+sister; she was a worm in the heart of that heaven-born blossom—domestic
+affection—gnawing and gnawing away for ever, eating the good and beauty
+out of the flower by imperceptible degrees: how she enjoyed that scene
+she knew—how she kept heaping fuel on the fire Mina felt. But at length
+the crisis of the affair was produced by Malcolm vehemently exclaiming,
+
+“Why did you never hint before that an accommodation with Mrs. Merapie
+was possible; that Mr. Westwood had offered to be mediator in the
+matter; that there was any hope held out for me; that there was a
+possibility of procuring a handsome competence for our mother? Mina, I
+could not have believed you capable of such deceit—such secresy—such——”
+
+“You all want to be rid of me,” sobbed Mina, bursting into a passion of
+tears; “there is not one in the world who cares for me—not one. Oh!
+father,” she cried, lifting her hands with a wild despairing gesture,
+“if I only could have gone with you _then_!”
+
+She ran hurriedly out of the apartment and up the stairs, seeking some
+quiet place to weep in solitude.
+
+“Mina, child, come and tell me all about it,” said Mr. Allan Frazer—who
+had left the dining-room at the commencement of the argument with a
+black cloud on his brow, stopping her in her rapid career—“what is it my
+little cousin? speak to me, Mina.”
+
+“No, no, Allan Frazer, I do not want to speak to you again ever,” she
+cried, breaking away from him; and turning down the stairs, again she
+quitted the house, and went wandering through the gardens—wandering and
+weeping—till the old laird, who loved her, as he said, in spite of her
+faults, sought and found his little girl, and talked to her, as he might
+have done years and years ago at Glenfiord.
+
+But Mina was a child no longer, and he had ceased to be the uncle of
+former days; it was not that the truth and honesty and sincerity of his
+heart had been impaired—that they were ever likely to be impaired—that
+his sterling goodness and the straightforwardness of his guileless
+purpose were capable of variation; no—but Cecilia had stepped between
+them. He believed her immaculate; a paragon amongst females; a being who
+was free from any sin, save that original taint transmitted to her by
+Mother Eve; and Mina could not accuse her to him; she could not tell him
+what she thought of his grandson’s wife; she could not clear herself by
+blaming that faultless creature; she could not say, “Uncle, you are
+deceived; you are nursing a scorpion, which has stung me, which may
+sting you.” Cecilia was perpetually between them,—dogged their
+footsteps, checked the impulses of their hearts, made them reserved,
+distant, uncommunicative; and, accordingly, the interview terminated—as
+such interviews frequently do—in dissatisfaction to both. Mina listened
+to him—that was all; not in the frank, confiding, trustful spirit of
+former days, but as to one whom an enemy was prompting on to torment
+her; and she answered, so he thought, waywardly and unreasonably and
+selfishly; and, though Mina became calm, and he kind, yet there was a
+gloom on the countenances of both, a shadow on the hearts of uncle and
+niece, when, after a long, painful, useless interview, they re-entered
+the house together.
+
+The next day Allan Frazer went to Edinburgh, and Mr. Alfred Westwood
+arrived at Craigmaver from it; and, though there was a cold, sullen,
+settled aversion visible in Mina’s manner towards him, he felt, on the
+whole, perfectly satisfied with his reception. It had been very easy for
+Mina to say she would go; but as she had no place to go to, no one to go
+with, she was forced to remain—to be looked on as a person in disgrace
+by the household generally, to note how Mr. Westwood ingratiated himself
+more and more each day with her uncle, how fascinating Cecilia made
+herself to him, how captivated he seemed by her. She noted all in
+silence; she never spoke when it was possible to avoid doing so; but she
+thought, till her brain whirled and her head ached and her heart
+sickened—of what she was to do—of where she was to go, for she saw
+Craigmaver was never destined to be a happy home for her, and she knew
+there was no other open but one that she could not accept—from the very
+mention of which she desired to flee. Mr. Westwood progressed not at all
+in his wooing; and Malcolm speedily found himself, as he expressed it,
+“thrust to the wall” by bright beautiful Cecilia, who, under pretence of
+rendering Alfred Westwood’s visit “agreeable” to him, contrived to make
+herself eminently so.
+
+But he saw through her: for about the first time in her life the
+general’s daughter encountered an individual, who, in depth of
+character, in power of dissimulation, in cleverness, heartlessness, and
+hypocrisy, was more than a match for her; who could walk in and out of
+her magic circle unharmed; who could flutter near the flame and not be
+scorched; who could admire, and still despise—flatter, and secretly
+sneer; who acknowledged her to be the most beautiful and captivating
+amongst women, even whilst he laughed inwardly at her for being only a
+woman—a very vain, very unamiable, very treacherous, dangerous woman. He
+did not hate, or dread, or avoid her: he amused himself with
+complimenting her; with making her imagine he, like all the rest of the
+world, considered her a sort of divinity,—by watching every turn and
+twist and wind of her deceitful nature: he listened quietly when she
+delicately implied—scarcely hinted—one day, when conversing about Mina’s
+perverseness, “that she was not quite worthy of him;” he pretended to
+believe her when she said she “loved her cousin like a sister;” he
+declared no mortal woman ever sung as she sung; he admired her and
+everything she did, and administered small doses of flattery so
+judiciously, that his words sounded more like solemn truths than
+specious falsehoods; he completely blinded her and the laird; and, at
+first, almost succeeded in bringing round Malcolm, but did away with the
+effect of that by “taking the patron on him too soon,” and also by
+covertly assisting Cecilia to sneer at the brother, to the end that
+he—finding in what a position poverty placed them both—might urge on
+Mina to accept her suitor; for Mrs. Frazer wanted the girl to marry Mr.
+Westwood, and she wanted Mr. Westwood to admire her.
+
+She desired to be rid of Mina, to have a bone of silent contention
+removed from betwixt her husband and self; to have no female to divide
+the palace of Craigmaver with her; to have done with an insignificant
+little intruder whom Allan would not let her make a slave of: and, as
+she could not perceive any other “eligible opening,” she wished to send
+her off under charge of Mr. Westwood, and to send Mr. Westwood off,
+firmly believing there never was, on the face of this round earth, so
+completely fascinating, accomplished, beautiful a creature as Mrs. Allan
+Frazer, who had witched away his heart from him, and left not even an
+atom thereof to be ever after possessed by Mina.
+
+It is difficult to describe such a character; almost impossible to tell
+by what means she tried to effect her object. It sounds paradoxical to
+say she coquetted with a man for whom she did not care one straw; whom
+she could not have married, even if she had; whom she would not have
+wedded had she been single: it is hard to convey in words an exact idea
+of the results, a mixture of inconsistency, vanity, heartlessness,
+frivolity, and cleverness may produce. Perhaps, reader, you have
+happened to meet with such an one in your pilgrimage through life,—a
+woman, and yet not a woman; an angel in outward form, a syren, an
+enchantress, who spent her life in trying to make other people unhappy,
+who cared for little save admiration, who strove to win hearts for the
+purpose of breaking them, and who was, to sum up all into one brief
+sentence, as Malcolm Frazer once stated, “the most confounded flirt that
+ever existed.”
+
+If you have not, no description could make you deem Cecilia’s character
+otherwise than a fictitious one; if you have, then you can understand
+how it came to pass that Alfred Westwood, seeing down into her—reading
+the trumpery matter enclosed in such magnificent binding,—tracing every
+thought, feeling, wish—preserved his heart perfectly uninjured, spite of
+the blaze of attractions to which it was perpetually exposed; and found
+himself growing each day a little fonder of the girl who would not care
+for him, and who, let her have what other faults she might—let her be,
+in other respects, black as Erebus—was innocent as a lamb of having
+ever, even once in her life, thought of what Allan Frazer stigmatized,
+and justly, as a horrid word—flirting. But all would not do: Mina was
+quiet, but she was also determined; and when matters became unendurable
+at Craigmaver, she left it by means and in manner following.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+                            MINA TRIUMPHANT.
+
+
+There never existed under the canopy of heaven so careless,
+unsatisfactory, incomprehensible a being as Malcolm Frazer; such an
+indolent, pleasure-seeking, easily ruffled, easily appeased, vain,
+self-sufficient, good-natured, hard to be angry with, creature as Mina’s
+brother, who, having been cut out by nature for a useless, dandified
+“man about town,” took it exceedingly hard to be kicked by fate from
+post to pillar; to be told he ought to exert himself; to have, in one
+brief word, to do any single thing but what he liked himself; to hear
+any solitary remark that was not precisely such as suited his taste. He
+combined the faults of a man with the absurdities of a child; he would
+catch at a straw to-day, and then turn round and be angry with the
+person who had flung it in his way, to-morrow. Misfortune had taught him
+nothing but irritability; the necessity for firmness only made him
+vacillating; he had no fixed principle of action, no aim nor object in
+life; he never seemed to have properly developed, he never seemed likely
+to develope; he had, owing to some peculiarity in his mental
+construction, grown older in years, but not in sense; bodily, he was
+not, perhaps, quite so young as formerly, but in mind he never aged; he
+remained a boy, and he looked a man: his resentment was not worth
+dreading, his friendship not worth having; any one who could give him
+what he liked, flatter his vanity, humour his weaknesses, was the best
+creature in the world at the time; whosoever annoyed him, crossed his
+whim, or told him an unpalatable truth, was his enemy for the time: he
+had become perfectly good for nothing since his uncle’s death; the
+unrestrained liberty, the wild free existence, the unlimited command of
+money he had enjoyed during his mother’s lifetime, had utterly ruined
+him for any settled regular employment; he possessed talents which were
+never used, energies he never exerted, feelings that never were aroused:
+it depended on future events whether he should remain for ever the same
+useless and desperately simple—ready to believe and hope anything,
+willing to be turned from or to any purpose, anxious to be benefited by
+any one—sort of youth he actually was,—when one day Mina, forgetful of
+her former vows never to try to influence or meddle with him, dragged
+him off to a quiet summer-house, and made him sit down and hearken to
+her.
+
+“Malcolm,” she began, “you spoke very harshly, very unkindly, very
+unjustly to me one evening since we came here; you joined one, who is no
+friend to either of us, in her exclamations against me; you implied that
+you desired I should marry a man in adversity, whom you insisted I ought
+not to speak civilly to in prosperity; you declared I had injured your
+prospects by not blasting my own happiness; though you knew our mother
+lacked no comfort money could procure for her, you affirmed, I might
+have made her life more peaceful by marrying, or, at least, temporizing,
+with a man I despised; you accused me of deceit, for not speaking on a
+painful subject; you said my secresy had ruined you, when I merely kept
+silent because I was perfectly well aware Alfred Westwood never would do
+anything for you, unless I married him, and very possibly not then. I
+believe he could, perhaps, have wrung a fortune out of Mrs. Merapie by
+some means, had I wedded him, but it would have been a fortune, not for
+you, but for me, his wife. I do not profess to thoroughly understand Mr.
+Westwood, but he cannot blind me for all that, and though I am poor, I
+never intend to be his wife; do you hear that, Malcolm?”
+
+“Yes, I do, and I’m not sure that I ever wanted you, only Cecilia
+said——”
+
+“I know she did,” interposed Mina; “she has said a great many things you
+ought never to have believed, Malcolm; but I do not want to talk about
+her or the bitter words you spoke that night. I wish to tell you, first,
+what was the last sentence our mother ever spoke; I never have told you
+yet, because I never had an opportunity, and there has been a sort of
+coolness between us for a long time: I know why there has been and who
+has caused it, and therefore I have never felt angry with you, only hurt
+and grieved. Just before she died, she gasped out, ‘Be a fond sister to
+Malcolm.’ She was always far fonder of you than of me; you were her
+first thought, her pride, her darling; the place I held in her heart was
+nothing in comparison to that you occupied; I never heard her speak to
+me as she used to speak to you, as papa used to speak to me, till the
+very day she died; but still we were both her children: and do not you
+think, Malcolm, that if you had been there too, and life had lingered
+for a minute longer, she might have added, ‘Be a fond brother to Mina?’”
+
+The young man did not answer for a minute; he looked away towards the
+mountains, though he was unconscious of seeing them. Then taking his
+sister’s hand, he replied, with a sort of huskiness in his voice which
+betrayed more than he would have thought it dignified to confess,
+
+“And so I will, little one, so I will, though she did not say it; I will
+be a fond brother, for her sake, and yours, and my own.”
+
+“There are only the two of us in the world, Malcolm,” she continued,
+“only the two, strongly tied to one another. We have relatives and
+friends and acquaintances; but none so near, but that a day might
+alienate them; none so dear, but that they might feel themselves at
+perfect liberty to hate us bitterly: the bond between us is so strong,
+nothing ought ever to have power to snap it; there ought to be no
+coldness, no disguise in our conduct,—we must try to work with and for
+each other, to have no concealments, to be true to ourselves, and to
+join together against all external enemies; not to be influenced by the
+breath of slander or the words of strangers, who care for neither of us
+and only desire to sow sorrow in the hearts of both. Do you agree with
+me?”
+
+“Yes.” He said it half stupidly, as if he did not understand what she
+was driving at. Though he comprehended the little hint directed against
+Cecilia, he felt Mina’s speech implied a vast deal more, and he waited
+for further explanation: it was speedily given.
+
+“If we are truly brother and sister,” recommenced Mina, “the secret of
+one ought to be the secret of both. I was once so wounded with you that
+I almost vowed I never would meddle in any affair of yours, never try to
+influence you, never tell you any plan of my own; but then I reflected
+that was not a right way for us to get on,—that where there is little
+confidence there can never be much fondness; and when I saw that Cecilia
+was beginning to sneer at you, as she sneered at me, to make you feel
+our painful position, to let you taste a drop of the cup she has long
+been making me swallow, my resolution was fairly overturned, and I
+thought I would neither bear longer myself, nor let you be humiliated by
+her and Alfred Westwood; and, in place of deciding to leave this alone,
+I determined to strive and get you to go with me.”
+
+“That’s all very well, Mina, and I have thought about it myself; but I
+really don’t see where you can go, unless——”
+
+“I marry Mr. Westwood; well, just listen to me, once for all, Malcolm,
+and remember I am not speaking now rashly and unthinkingly, but in calm
+sober earnest: before I would do that—before I would become wife to a
+man I hate and despise and scorn, and still dread, I would walk quietly
+down to that lake, and shroud myself from care and want and sorrow for
+ever in its deep waters. I know I should be committing a sin; but I
+should not care for that, because the other would be, to my mind, one
+nearly equally great. I should—if I saw no means of escape open but by
+death—choose death, and never think twice about the matter: you know I
+would do what I say, so you may settle your mind positively on one
+point, namely, that ever leave Craigmaver his wife—_I will not_.”
+
+She had risen as she spoke. From the spot they occupied the lake below
+was clearly visible, lying calm, dark, and silent a hundred feet
+beneath; and, when she pointed with one hand down towards the grave she
+said she should never hesitate to select, and raised the other with a
+half-passionate, half-despairing gesture above her head, Malcolm—looking
+into her flushed face, gazing at the black sullen shadow lying across
+her eyes, hearkening to her thoroughly serious words—felt it was in her
+to do what she threatened—felt there was an obstinacy and force of will
+about her which entered not into the composition of his nature. He could
+not admire the wild stubbornness of her character: there was a something
+rather repelling, violent, unfeminine, to his thinking, in the
+composition of his sister; she was unlike him,—no weathercock blown
+about by the changeful breath of the world’s opinion—no reed shaken by
+the withering wind of circumstances—no pliable creature, eager to do
+what seemed best at the moment, to accept help from any quarter, to like
+and dislike according to the amount of shillings she possessed, and the
+number of guineas her friends could give her; she was unlike him, and
+Malcolm felt the consciousness of their dissimilarity strike home and
+annoy him, even whilst he knew he was capable of being somewhat
+influenced by a disposition so completely opposite to that which he had
+always considered the acme of perfection—his own.
+
+“But, Mina,” he commenced, after a pause, “I really do not see what you
+are to do.”
+
+“Tell me, Malcolm,” she said, “do you see what _you_ are to do? Put me
+out of the question—suppose you were situated just as you are at
+present, only without a sister, what would you do?”
+
+Malcolm moved uneasily on his seat: he would willingly have shirked the
+question, but Mina’s eyes were fastened on his face, and an answer of
+some kind became absolutely necessary; he could not conceal, even from
+himself, the fact that he was lounging away the best part of his life as
+a dependant: still the query, though a direct one, was only
+supposititious; an answer, therefore, bound him to nothing; he might
+talk grandly and still remain inactive, and the instant this idea struck
+him, he replied,
+
+“Why, supposing an impossibility—supposing you never had existed, and
+that I were standing here all alone, I would gather together any money
+that was left out of the wreck, start for London, and take my chance of
+finding employment there.”
+
+“That is what you would do if no Mina Frazer walked on this earth,” she
+said: “well, Malcolm, that is just what I want you to do; you will go to
+London to work out your plans, I to work out mine. If you were not here
+I should leave Craigmaver to-morrow. As it appears we have both one
+common destination, shall we make up our minds at once to travel in
+company, and that speedily?”
+
+Here was a “fix.” Malcolm stared in blank amazement at his sister, who
+had uttered this audacious proposal with a perfectly unmoved face; and
+he echoed the words.
+
+“To London, and that speedily?”
+
+“Tell me,” she said, in a sort of imperious tone—for she had made up her
+mind to go, whether he did or not, and, strong of purpose, she was
+resolute of speech—“tell me, when we came here, did you intend to stay
+all your life at Craigmaver?”
+
+“No, merely to recruit our mother’s health; but, then, you see, Mina, a
+great change has taken place lately.”
+
+“I know that; a mother has died—a sorrow has been endured: but, Malcolm,
+there is less now than ever to keep us here. For her sake we might have
+dreaded encountering the world with small means; but she can never feel
+earthly privation more: we have not a tie here of any kind; we ought to
+be gone; you must go to London and commence work of some kind.”
+
+Once again Malcolm tried to find refuge behind the old excuse.
+
+“I really do not see, Mina,” he said, “what is to become of you?”
+
+“Will you oblige me, Malcolm, by thinking, not what is to become of me,
+but of yourself. I am going, whether you remain here or not. Miss
+Caldera’s cousin is dead; she has written to offer me a share of her
+home: I mean to return, and try whether I cannot make money either by
+translations or by original tales. I never told you before I had
+attempted writing, but I have; and now all that remains to be decided
+is, whether you will come and try to support yourself, as I mean to go
+and support myself. Will you choose?”
+
+“But I say, Mina, have you any chance as a—whatever you call it—author,
+eh?” he eagerly demanded.
+
+“That remains to be tried,” she answered, with a smile; “I am a
+tolerable linguist at all events, and if I cannot do one thing, I will
+another—there, that’s the secret I want you to keep: now will you go or
+stay?—stay here to be sneered at, and remain doing nothing, attempting
+nothing, hoping for nothing, or go to make a fortune, and obtain enough
+to buy a fine estate and become a man of consideration and substance:
+you can be that if you like; choose, brother.”
+
+Make a fortune! what a captivating phrase it is; how easily the words
+are spoken; what a “making” it generally proves; how seldom, when
+obtained, it seems worth the wear and tear and fret and trouble it
+required to gain it. But the idea is a fascinating one, especially when
+with the sound no thought, is conveyed to the sense of weary days and
+sleepless nights and toiling years, and obstacles to be surmounted and
+sorrows endured; when it is grasped by the fancy as readily as if
+produced at the touch of an enchanter; when all the brightness is
+revealed—all the darkness concealed. It costs but a breath to utter the
+phrase, it costs but a thought to realise it; the breath expires and the
+thought dies in time, but out of their ruins the fortune does not arise;
+the fabric, built of air—made tangible to imagination—crumbles into its
+original nothingness, and disappointment broods on the foundations, and
+anger and irritability dwell among the wrecks. Fortunes have to be made
+of sterner stuff than imagination: it is easy to talk of them—hard to
+win them; yet still the phrase is a captivating one uttered by hopeful
+lips, listened to by self-sufficient ears.
+
+And Mina was hopeful, and her brother prone to believe fortune would
+come to him somehow; that he, by raising his finger, could command
+anything; so he was ruled by her, and Mina had incurred the heavy
+responsibility of leading him off after a chimera. She felt glad about
+it then, but her soul shrunk in after times from the weight of that
+responsibility—she could have led him by a thread after a few minutes
+more of earnest vehement discourse: how she often wished afterwards he
+had been difficult to move as a log of wood, which might have resisted
+all her efforts to drag it from that place; not but what it was well for
+Malcolm to follow, though it was ill for her to lead; not but that the
+responsibility was a holy one, only it was rather too great for her.
+
+It fettered and oppressed her in after times; but what else could she do
+then but go herself, and try to take him with her? what could she do? It
+was a choice presented between the known and the unknown—the felt and
+the unfelt; it was right for them to leave Craigmaver, but not as they
+did leave it—perfect children in sense and experience and folly, running
+off, without a thought of failure, in quest of the crock of gold, to be
+found at the end of the rainbow arch,—in search of what they never found
+for years; never found at all, unassisted, for themselves.
+
+It was quite a stormy scene when Mina, who undertook to “break the
+news,” declared they were going, that nothing but force should prevent
+her doing so. It was, indeed, rather an alarming declaration to “weak
+nerves,” as Cecilia insinuated hers were; it was painful intelligence to
+be conveyed to a loving heart such as the laird’s actually was: all his
+old anxiety about the girl’s welfare returned with tenfold intensity;
+his interest in—his love for—her came back to their old quarters; he
+implored, he pleaded, he commanded. Mr. Westwood, getting an inkling of
+the true state of the case, insisted he was the person to depart, a
+proposition the laird, instigated by Cecilia, refused to listen to, more
+particularly as Mina declared, if there were no such person in the
+world, she would go all the same, though she declined giving her reasons
+for taking such a step.
+
+The torrent of opposition had well nigh swept Malcolm along with it; but
+Mina, sitting still amidst the uproar, said so fixedly,
+
+“Malcolm may stay or go, just as he pleases, but I am determined; his
+resolution cannot influence mine,” that the laird at length remarked, if
+she went, he should insist on Malcolm going also to take care of her,
+which observation settled Mr. Malcolm and made him decide to become her
+“grand protector.”
+
+“Mina, child,” said Mr. Frazer, holding the girl to his heart and
+literally shedding tears over the wilful one, “Mina, child, do not go;
+for pity’s sake stay here among those who love and wish you well! Oh! my
+dear little niece, how time and the world have changed you since those
+days at Glenfiord, when a word from your old uncle would have made you
+do anything; but you do not care for me now, Mina.”
+
+As in those “old days,” he had pushed back the long glossy curls from
+her face, so she now laid a gentle hand on his forehead and removed some
+straggling locks of silver white that strayed over it. She listened to
+him for a minute in perfect calmness; but all at once the sorrow of her
+soul burst forth.
+
+“Don’t call me changed,” she cried; “anything but that: better than ever
+I did, I love you now: it’s not for the world I pine, but for peace; I
+am forced to leave you, but it is not that _I_ am changed: oh! no
+indeed, indeed I am not!”
+
+She hardly knew what she was saying, but she put her arms round his neck
+and kissed him half wildly, and cried and sobbed as if her heart would
+break. Standing in the cold damp air of a winter morning, on the
+threshold of “beautiful Craigmaver,” the stern old mountains
+contemplating that burst of passionate human feeling from afar, the pine
+trees looking on grim and motionless, the lake sleeping far below, she
+hung about him murmuring she was not changed, and begging and praying
+him to believe her.
+
+“Dear papa,” exclaimed Cecilia, “how can you dream of standing there
+without your hat? Mina, I wonder you had not more consideration than to
+allow him; but then you never think about any person excepting——”
+
+“Myself, Cecilia, you were going to say,” returned Mina, raising her
+tearful face and gazing almost fiercely at the evil genius of that
+Highland home. “God witness between us which loves that good man
+best,—you or I,—which would sacrifice the most for him; but, dear
+uncle,” she added, the flush of anger half fading from her cheek as she
+turned towards him, “do go in; it is far too cold for you here, only
+first bid me good-bye again, and say you don’t think me changed,—say you
+don’t.”
+
+Her face was touching his once more as she spoke, and she whispered the
+few last words so tenderly and entreatingly, that the old man had no
+choice left but to answer,
+
+“I hope you are not; I will try to hope.” He strained her to his heart:
+and, as Mina felt a tear fall on her face, she cried almost wildly,
+
+“Oh! let me go; I shall die! let me go! Good-bye, good-bye, dear, dear
+uncle.”
+
+She was almost choking with emotion; she saw nothing, heeded no one but
+him; and, tearing herself away, she sprang into the carriage without
+even looking at Cecilia, and, burying her face in her hands, shut out
+Craigmaver and every external object from her sight. She never raised
+her head again for miles; and when she did, all visible traces of the
+mental storm, save death-like paleness, had passed away.
+
+“Mina,” said her brother, “should you like to go back again?”
+
+“No,” she obstinately answered, and for hours she spoke not a single
+word.
+
+“Do come in, papa,” Cecilia said as the vehicle drove off; “you will be
+sure to catch cold, and, as she was so willing to go, you need not
+grieve so much about her: she will be very happy in London, I dare say,
+much happier in the midst of its gaiety than shut up in our quiet
+hermitage here: she went off without bidding me good-bye; what a strange
+wayward creature she is. But do come in, dear papa,” and the lady laid a
+persuasive hand on his sleeve when she concluded.
+
+The old man withdrew his eyes from the southern road and turned to
+re-enter the house, sighing deeply. For about the first time in his
+life, he felt Cecilia’s words jar on his feelings: he did not know why,
+but his heart seemed like a loosened string, which, having been
+thoughtlessly touched by a rude finger, the sound it returned to his
+soul was harsh and discordant.
+
+For, oh! how he once loved the child of his dead nephew, she who was now
+gone forth so lonely and friendless,—he knew; how he loved her still,
+spite of all her faults, he felt, but cared not to confess. It was about
+the first note Cecilia had ever unintentionally struck out of tune;
+perhaps, indeed, it was not so much out of tune as time: it had not been
+judiciously pressed down just at the right moment, and it consequently
+grated, with the force of a discord, on the ear of the listener. And so
+the old laird, without answering a word, walked mournfully into the
+house.
+
+His granddaughter felt piqued to see the effect Mina’s departure had
+produced, and angrily accompanied him; she shut the hall door with a
+sort of bang, which sound once again smote on Mr. Frazer’s heart; for,
+when the nerves are loosened, even a breath causes them to vibrate and
+tremble. He crossed the hall with a heavy step, and moodily entered his
+library without asking Cecilia to follow him.
+
+She who noticed everything, noticed this, and she consequently turned
+towards the drawing-room with a disdainful shrug; but her displeasure
+did not prevent her hearing that the old man was coughing, as had very
+frequently been the case for some time past, painfully.
+
+About three weeks afterwards, a letter directed to Allan Frazer, Esq.,
+senior, and marked “Private,” with two emphatic strokes underneath the
+word, arrived by the southern post at Craigmaver. Allan Frazer, junior,
+who had ten days previously been hastily summoned from Edinburgh, in
+consequence of his father’s illness, after gazing intently at it for a
+minute, laid the missive unopened in his desk, and turned the key upon
+his cousin’s dispatch.
+
+“I will keep it for him,” the young man murmured, “till he is better.”
+
+Days passed away, but the looked-for improvement never came. Feverishly
+Mina had written that letter; eagerly she awaited a reply: she wondered,
+day by day, whether it had offended him—if he were from home—if Cecilia
+had intercepted it—or whether he had shown it to her and she was
+adroitly satirizing it; she felt as if it must have produced an effect
+of some kind, good, bad, or indifferent; she thought for weeks of
+nothing but that letter, never dreaming how it was lying unthought of,
+unopened, totally forgotten,—whilst sorrow shadowed the house, a corpse
+tenanted one of the formerly pleasant chambers, a funeral train wound
+solemnly down the avenue.
+
+The old laird was dead. His eyes had closed on earth’s sorrows for ever
+without reading the record of trial, the assurances of love, the story
+of foolish hopes, the half explanation that missive contained; his hand
+never touched the sheet; he had no opportunity of learning to understand
+her better, no leisure to grow to love her more: yet, almost the last
+words he uttered ere passing to that land where deceit and hypocrisy
+find no entrance, ere casting earthly blindness from him and walking
+into the full glory of celestial light, were,
+
+“And Mina, Allan, our Mina, be kind to her; if she need help, as she
+will some day, be to her like a brother. I hope, I believe she is _not_
+changed.”
+
+If he had seen down into her soul, if he had read even the partial
+disclosures of what was passing there contained in her epistle, blotted
+occasionally by a tear, and the text made clearer—paradoxical as it may
+sound—by that unintentional marginal note, he would have been quite sure
+that, if she were changed, it was only for the better.
+
+Allan Frazer knew perfectly well that he ought to return the letter to
+Mina rather than open it himself, but he adopted the latter course one
+day after the interment was over; and then, with a sort of pang, he sat
+down to answer it and tell her the news of his grandfather’s death.
+
+He told her of the charge he had received from the deceased, to “be kind
+to our Mina.” He said he would always be a friend, a cousin, a brother
+to her and Malcolm; he touched slightly on the sudden departure from
+Craigmaver, and implied he understood the cause more clearly than she
+had cared to explain it; he alluded to what she had told her uncle of
+her intention to support herself by “pen work,” and added, that he would
+help her with money, influence, suggestions, time,—anything she
+required, he would do; in any way she could think of, he would help her,
+his poor dear little Mina, who had been so lately a child and who was
+still his sister.
+
+The girl scanned the contents of that long, most truly affectionate
+letter through blinding tears; he never once asked her to come back to
+Craigmaver; but the burden of the whole was, “let me help you.”
+
+It might not be; Mina scarcely knew why, but she felt the fact: it was
+not but that they were, in some sort, like brother and sister; since
+childhood, the laird had seemed to her to come only after her father,
+Allan scarcely after Malcolm, in her heart’s affections: it was not that
+she felt estranged from him, that she was proud, or angry, or morbid;
+no, but she could take nothing from him: she might have subdued her
+spirit, tamed her nature sufficiently to have gone and begged a boon
+from Alfred Westwood, but she never would, so long as she lived, accept
+the commonest favour from the hands of Cecilia’s husband. She cared not
+to ask herself why, because so many painful reproaches, so many sharp
+stinging words, returned to memory as she analyzed, or rather attempted
+to analyze, her feelings; but she was resolved, and so she quietly wrote
+and told him.
+
+It was a brief letter, almost touching in its simple expressions of
+gratitude, almost mournful in its earnest, absurd, self-reliance; there
+was not a word in it intended to convey an intimation of her real
+reasons for refusing assistance from him; but all was clear to Allan as
+the noonday sun,—he read her heart through her actions; he saw her wish
+that intercourse of all sort should cease; he knew she meant that for a
+final adieu to Scotland—her early home, his present abode,—himself,
+Cecilia, everything; and, watching the expression of his wife’s face,
+when she accidentally caught sight of the envelope, he acknowledged, in
+bitterness of heart, that the girl was right,—that friend, cousin,
+sister, she could never be to him more; that, inferior in beauty and
+talents and accomplishments though she might be to the graceful mistress
+of Craigmaver, she was still sufficient to be jealous of, to have some
+feminine venom poured out upon. Yes, it was better there should be no
+correspondence between him and his cousins, even on business.
+
+Still he felt he must do something for them, so he sent a large sum of
+money to Mina, to fulfil the desire of his grandfather that he should
+help her; but Mina returned the money, and the note, thanking him for
+his offer, was the last that for years passed between them,—the last,
+save one, and that one came not then.
+
+So the Highlands faded from Mina’s eyes: thus the friends and the
+relatives of early days dropped off one by one; thus the vision of her
+childhood—“perfect happiness”—melted away as she and Malcolm started in
+life, all alone.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+                         STONY-HEARTED LONDON.
+
+
+Still time went on,—oh! with such a steady unwavering march over the
+city streets, and the tramp of his measured footsteps wore a sort of
+channel in Mina’s heart, to be filled up with all kinds of griefs,
+anxiety, self-reproach; for Malcolm could get no “government situation,”
+Mina no employment; their money dwindled down to “_nil_,” or, at all
+events, the bottom of their hoard was rendered clearly perceptible by
+the limited number of sovereigns scattered over it. She grew restless,
+pale, ill, careworn; he impatient, repining, hard to be satisfied,
+occasionally snappish, always discontented. “Life in London” now, was a
+very different affair from what it had once been.
+
+Malcolm detested moping in the house, still he professed himself unable
+to face the sight of his fellows in a shabby hat and threadbare coat; he
+would have been glad enough to purchase a commission or anything then,
+and had come to believe it might be possible for him to exist on his
+pay, but the money which could once have procured it was gone, and there
+were no means by which he could get more; for once again—although he did
+not know that—Mina had cast fortune from him, by declining assistance
+from Allan Frazer: and, though he candidly confessed he would have
+accepted help from the “arch fiend,” had that personage only been so
+obliging as to offer it, he could not go begging to any one; and, as
+Allan never wrote to him, he never wrote to Allan.
+
+And was there nobody else? Well, yes; he might have asked Mr. Ivraine,
+but he did not like; his pride, his feelings of delicacy, alike forbade
+that; for, he argued, it would show “there was a split between us and
+the Craigmaver people; and, besides, it would look as if, because I once
+picked him up in the street, I fancied I had a sort of claim. No, hang
+it! that would be mean; I can’t do that.”
+
+Which was the more praiseworthy in him, as the first time Mr. Ivraine
+called, after their return from Scotland, he asked very pointedly if
+there were any way he could forward Malcolm’s views. To be sure he did
+not know the youth had then no definite ones, but he evidently thought
+he ought to have; and, on Malcolm answering in the negative, he turned
+away, as Mina’s brother thought, disappointed: so that, on the whole,
+that part of his conduct was meritorious; it was about the only part at
+that period, however.
+
+How Mina toiled, Miss Caldera could almost have wept to see, for she
+knew nothing but disappointment could ever be in store for her, and yet
+still no word she said was able to turn the girl from her purpose; the
+more she talked, the more obstinate Mina became; she wanted to support
+herself, she said, and truly there was need she should be able to work
+out her object, as she seemed very little inclined to let any other
+person provide that support for her—not even Ernest Ivraine, as Miss
+Caldera had once quietly suggested.
+
+But she was met on that solitary occasion with such a burst of proud,
+angry, resentful expressions—such a torrent of denunciatory remarks
+concerning matrimony, and match-making, and wedding for money, and
+marrying for homes, as fairly astounded her.
+
+The “anti-Westwood fever was nothing to that,” the governess asserted,
+and so for months Mr. Ivraine’s name was never mentioned between them;
+but as the financial difficulty increased, her friend seriously began to
+wish Mina would come to her senses some way or other, and marry any
+sensible person who would take care of her, and put Malcolm in the way
+of earning an “honest livelihood”—a favourite phrase of the lady, which
+she used on all occasions, to the ineffable disgust both of the young
+gentleman to whom it referred, and of that young gentleman’s sister.
+They “could not come down to their circumstances,” so Miss Caldera told
+them frequently, and it was true; Mina had not yet learned patience, nor
+Malcolm sense.
+
+Miss Caldera felt a weighty charge had devolved on her; she was not
+actually supporting them yet, but it would soon come to that, she
+clearly foresaw: and, if she had imagined her small means could prove
+sufficient, she would never have repined, only she thought Malcolm ought
+to exert himself, and she knew Mina was breaking her heart in hunting a
+will-o’-the-wisp, a shadow without a substance, a hope without a
+foundation.
+
+One day the girl came in, looking angry, vexed, and flushed. Wearily,
+and yet still pettishly, she flung down a parcel on the table, and
+dropping into the nearest chair, remained silently gazing at the windows
+of number 24, just opposite, where a young stock-broker lodged—it was
+not of him she was thinking though—till Miss Caldera broke the stillness
+by the brief query,
+
+“Well, Mina?”
+
+“Well,” repeated that young lady, speaking rapidly—as was her wont when
+much annoyed—“why only what I might have expected. When I tried original
+English tales, they wanted French translations; when I took them French
+translations, they thought, perhaps, Italian would suit the public taste
+better; when I had finished the Italian, they said the rage for that
+kind of literature was past, and suggested German; and now, when I have
+nearly lost my eyesight poring over those unchristian hieroglyphics, and
+half-choked myself learning their horrid gutturals, I find they are
+overstocked with German translations, and think I had better try the
+French again.”
+
+“And you——”
+
+“Said I should try no more.”
+
+“And so——” once again suggested Miss Caldera.
+
+“And so, here is my manuscript, and there is an end of it,” finished
+Mina.
+
+“I told you when you first began this wild goose chase, that no woman
+could effect anything, and that you had better marry Mr. Westwood,
+Mina,” remarked her friend.
+
+“And I told you one woman would effect much, and that I would not marry
+Mr. Westwood,” said the girl; “and I mean to prove my words true yet, in
+spite of fate.”
+
+“Indeed! I thought you said but just now you would try no more——”
+
+“Translations,” explained Mina; “there are too many clever women, ay,
+and for that matter, too many clever men, at the business for me to have
+any chance; no, no, I mean to return to my own work, and stick to it.”
+
+“Certain that in original literature you will meet with no rivals,” her
+friend said, with a smile.
+
+Mina bit her lip, but made no reply; whilst Miss Caldera proceeded.
+
+“You think me most unsympathising and ill-natured and narrow-minded, I
+know; but, believe me, I only speak thus to save you from certain
+misery, positive anxiety, that hope deferred which maketh the heart
+sick, and, most certainly, ultimate failure and disappointment.”
+
+“Pleasant prospect,” remarked Mina.
+
+“Anything but it,” returned the lady; “you are wasting your youth and
+your strength and your energies in endeavours which cannot prove
+otherwise than useless. Where one manuscript is accepted, fifty are
+rejected—for one author who succeeds, twenty fail; it is the most
+unsatisfactory, unremunerative, thankless profession in which man ever
+engaged; and, as for woman! even if she rise to anything beyond a mere
+scribbler of love tales for some tenth-rate magazine, literary
+reputation never brings any real satisfaction with it to her. You have
+not—I must say plainly what I think, what I know, Mina—either the talent
+or the patience necessary to ensure anything at all like a third or
+fourth class standing, or, in fact, any standing at all; and, further, I
+believe you have not sufficient humility to be satisfied except with a
+place on the daïs.”
+
+“It is agreeable to be complimented,” said Mina, with a very feeble
+attempt at unconcern.
+
+“It is not agreeable to hear the truth, I admit, but hereafter you will
+thank me for speaking it; you have, in spite of all your foibles, enough
+good sense left to bear with me, though I will not compliment: the real
+fault in your training is to be found in the fact that you have been too
+much flattered——”
+
+“By you,” suggested Mina tartly.
+
+“No, but by every one else; if I have understood you rightly,—by your
+father and cousin; to my own knowledge, by mother, brother, Mr. Merapie,
+Mr. Westwood: it is better for me to tell you these things than a
+stranger. Your friends imagined you were cleverer than most girls who
+had the same opportunities, and they were wrong; I admit you have
+abilities, but I deny you are a genius, and I implore you not to delude
+yourself into that belief; you can do literally nothing, as I told you
+long ago; in fact, to repeat what I have said fifty times before, there
+is, in a general way, nothing a woman can do except——”
+
+“Marry,” supplied Mina.
+
+“Except marry,” acquiesced Miss Caldera.
+
+“Refuge for the destitute,” remarked Mina.
+
+“And not altogether a bad one,” retorted her friend.
+
+“But one of which I do not intend to avail myself just at present,” said
+Mina. “I wonder, when you have such an opinion of it, you do not set me
+the example.”
+
+She was sorry the next moment she had uttered the thoughtless speech,
+for the blood came mantling up into Miss Caldera’s face as she replied,
+
+“The heart knoweth its own bitterness, Mina dear; but,” she proceeded,
+after a pause, “I know the annoyance these perpetual rejections are
+giving you, and I really see no use in your persisting in making griefs
+for yourself and needlessly inflicting pain on others; I never see you
+take a grammar in your hand, or sit down to write, or put on your bonnet
+to go out, but a sort of dread comes over me: I do wish, from the very
+bottom of my heart, dear child, you would give up this wild idea;
+believe me, you will never make it a reality.”
+
+“I would give it up to-morrow,” returned Mina, “if you could suggest
+anything in its place.”
+
+The governess remained silent, and Mina continued.
+
+“You see, dear old friend, affairs are getting desperate with us; by
+some means I _must_ make money: point out to me any other way by which I
+can earn the amount necessary, and, if that way should turn out to be
+sweeping a crossing, I will thankfully go and do it.”
+
+Time was when Miss Caldera would have laughed at this declaration, but
+she did not do so now; she received it as a matter of sober earnest, a
+thing the girl would actually perform, “for affairs were,” as she said,
+“getting desperate,” and Mina, though not humbled, was being so;
+wherefore her friend replied,
+
+“I tell you, Mina, there is no way for you; suppose you had the ‘gift,’
+which I say you have not; suppose you had genius, imagination, tact, and
+the thousand and one _et ceteras_ needful to make a successful author;
+suppose, again, you had a friend to assist, you might think yourself
+especially fortunate if, for several years, you could make sufficient to
+cover the expenses of pens, ink, and foolscap. You see what teaching is;
+you are unfit for any profession, trade, employment; but such is not the
+case with Malcolm,—no man who will work need starve: but you encourage
+him in all his absurd ideas, and talk about this thing and that
+situation not being genteel, as if he were now in a position to consider
+gentility, that monstrous bugbear which has only power to influence
+weak-minded women and foolish men.”
+
+“What would you have him do?” impatiently demanded Mina.
+
+“Work,” was the rejoinder; “abandon this chimerical government situation
+notion, and put his shoulder to the wheel wherever he sees a vacancy,
+low down or high up: I have no patience with him, I confess, or sympathy
+in his aristocratic laziness, nor can I endure to hear you aiding and
+abetting every distaste and whim and vagary he has: if he cannot be a
+clerk, let him turn labourer, cabman, porter, anything rather than what
+he is at present,—a listless, dissatisfied, useless being, who smokes
+half his time, and sleeps—when he is not grumbling—the remainder.”
+
+“I could not ask him to _work_,” said Mina, laying a painful emphasis on
+the word, and flushing as she spoke it; “I could not ask him to do that:
+I brought him here:—because of me—yes, I may as well speak plainly when
+I am at it—because of me he can hope for no assistance from Craigmaver.
+He came to London on my suggestion: I meant to make money for us both;
+if he were not able to get a government appointment, I intended to buy
+him a commission, and—and I cannot say now—‘disgrace our family and
+connexions and yourself by accepting some menial situation’—I cannot do
+it.”
+
+“Disgrace, nonsense,” retorted Miss Caldera, for the conclusion of the
+above speech trenched on hostile ground, and she rose in arms on the
+moment; “I declare, Mina Frazer, you would provoke a saint with your
+anti-business prejudices and your Highland pride and your stuff about
+family connections who would not care if you died in a workhouse
+to-morrow. You seem to imagine the sun was made to shine for you; my
+mother once entertained a similar idea with regard to me, but——”
+
+“But what?” demanded her auditor.
+
+“She found she was mistaken, or, at least, I did for her,” was the
+response.
+
+“By which remark you mean to imply,” said Mina, “that Malcolm and I will
+make a similar discovery; do you not think trial enough has fallen to
+our lot to convince us the sun can go down as well as rise and shine?”
+
+“No,” replied Miss Caldera; “you are not half tamed, nor is Malcolm; but
+you will both, or I am greatly mistaken, get a ‘settler,’ yet: however,
+as you are so very fastidious, as you seem so very anxious to make your
+brother’s path smooth, why do you not marry and ask your husband to help
+him?”
+
+“Husbands are not to be picked up on every door step, Miss Caldera,”
+retorted Mina; “they are a rare commodity.”
+
+“All the more valuable for that,” remarked her friend, “as I told you
+before about Mr. Westwood.”
+
+“Yes, but Mr. Westwood is to me dead and buried; I would not take him
+when I could get him, and now, when I know the worth of the prize I
+rejected, I cannot go and ask him to marry me, can I, dear friend?”
+
+“You will get a settler, yet,” repeated the governess; “but,” she added,
+not perceiving that the girl’s levity of manner was merely assumed, to
+cover a smarting wound, “but I was not then thinking of Mr. Westwood; I
+was alluding to Mr. Ivraine.”
+
+“Well,” said Mina, remembering Mr. Westwood’s taunt, and choking back
+all signs of emotion with a desperate effort, “shall I ask _him_?”
+
+“Mina Frazer,” returned Miss Caldera, “I could shake you.”
+
+“Miss Caldera,” replied Mina, “will you be so kind as to abandon the
+theme matrimonial? I do not like it. With what kind of feeling do you
+suppose I could meet Mr. Ivraine, after you have suggested to me the
+propriety of trying to ‘catch him.’ I loathe and detest the very mention
+of match-making or marrying from prudential motives.”
+
+“You will repent your conduct some day, Mina,” her friend began; but
+Mina, whose pride and vanity and sensitiveness were all alike touched by
+the _finale_ she knew was approaching, here vehemently interposed in a
+tone of much pique, the reason of her great annoyance finding vent at
+last.
+
+“If I were rich you would not say such things to me; it is because you
+know I have no money or the capability of making any, that you speak
+thus. If I were rich——”
+
+“It would not make the slightest difference in my opinion,” interposed
+her friend; “if you would only listen to reason for one moment, and
+consider the value and the rarity of a true disinterested attachment——”
+
+“A true disinterested folly,” broke out Mina, the blood rushing up into
+her cheeks and the tears into her eyes at a precisely similar ratio of
+speed; but, almost immediately recovering her self-possession, she added
+in a less abrupt manner, “I believe it is all nonsense, indeed I do; but
+supposing every word you utter to be the perfection of wisdom, supposing
+me to be tractable and willing to follow your advice and—and—settle down
+into a country squire’s country wife, don’t you think—now don’t you,
+wisest of friends, think that it might, on the whole, be advisable for
+me to wait till the aforesaid country squire asketh me, Mina Frazer, to
+become the aforesaid country wife?”
+
+Miss Caldera could endure with patience any vehement outburst of temper;
+she very rarely lost her own: she was as fond of a game at argument as
+some good folks are of a game at chess; and so, whenever her adversary
+threw a king, or, in other words, an opinion, into a precarious position
+by over haste or an absence of sufficient reflection, she bore down upon
+her antagonist in first-rate style, drawing, in the forms of cogent and
+rapid reasons, bishops, knights, and castles around the stronghold of
+her unhappy opponent, check-mated and put him _hors de combat_ in a
+moment.
+
+And thus it chanced that, whenever Mina grew extremely angry on any
+point, Miss Caldera became proportionably cool and drily provoking; but
+occasionally—once, perhaps, in a year or so—Mina had a way of turning
+the tables quietly round and settling herself in a sort of defiant
+position, from whence she calmly flung missiles at the head of her
+tormentor. Then Miss Caldera fairly lost all patience; she felt her
+place had been usurped, that Mina was getting the best of it, that
+nothing but anger was capable of dislodging her from the post she
+occupied; and accordingly, on the present occasion, she commenced a
+vehement denunciation, which was only cut short by Malcolm opening the
+door and demanding, in the sort of slang Mina always regretted to hear
+him use, “what was the row.”
+
+“Only the finish of a little altercation Mina and I have had, which
+originally commenced about her literary efforts.”
+
+“I wish to heavens,” said Malcolm pettishly, coining a word, for his own
+especial convenience, “I wish to heavens she had never ‘efforted’
+anything about them; and that when women are living together they could
+agree. If she had not deceived me about what she could do, and had kept
+from quarrelling with Cecilia, we might have been at Craigmaver; still
+or, at least, she might, for Allan, I’m sure, would have done something
+for me instead of leaving me here stranded like a shipwrecked waif: men
+get on together well enough; why the deuce ladies wrangle so
+tremendously I cannot understand.”
+
+Mina bent her head over her breast, but said never a word, while Miss
+Caldera answered,
+
+“It is because men are never thrown with men as we are with each other;
+believe me, you would not stand the ordeal one single bit better if you
+were subjected to a similar test: but, although your cousin and you are
+not on very intimate terms at present, is there nothing you can think of
+which might prove the means of procuring a livelihood for yourself?”
+
+“If it were not for Mina,” he said impatiently, “I’d ship myself off to
+the colonies to-morrow, or enter as able-bodied seaman on board some
+man-of-war, or enlist: hang it! I’m so sick of the whole business of
+life, perhaps I might drown myself; at all events, I would do something,
+but I cannot leave her.”
+
+It was the old excuse again; but it passed current this time, for Miss
+Caldera was so eager to get her own ideas into circulation, that she had
+scarcely leisure to notice the counterfeit coin he handed to her in
+exchange.
+
+“I want Mina to marry,” she began.
+
+“I wish to goodness she was settled some way or other,” he exclaimed;
+“I’m sure, as you say, it is the only thing a woman can do, and I know
+she ought to have married long ago.”
+
+“You told me yourself, Malcolm, you never would give your consent to
+anything of the kind,” said Mina, raising her face, and speaking
+hurriedly with parched lips, “you know you did, when you came back from
+India—when——”
+
+“Things were different then,” he interrupted, “and I did not know so
+much about the world, and about you, and I thought Westwood beneath
+us—and so he is; but still he would have been a vast deal better than
+beggary, as you may find yet, Mina.”
+
+“Well, but she detested Mr. Westwood,” remarked Miss Caldera; “and,
+besides, we cannot go and ask him if he be still desirous to marry her:
+but there are others in the world who are fond of your sister,—Mr.
+Ernest Ivraine, for instance.”
+
+“Ay, Mina, what do you think of him?” demanded Malcolm, for it was a
+subject he and Miss Caldera had once before discussed, and he was not
+sorry to have an opportunity of reverting to it; “what do you think of
+him?”
+
+“I think little of him,” said Mina, rising from her seat and talking
+very slowly, with clenched hands, and a sort of nervous fierceness,
+“excepting that he is a strange, reserved, silent individual; but I
+think of you, Malcolm, that if you had a spark of manly feeling about
+you, a particle of brotherly consideration, a single idea such as your
+father’s son ought to have, a regard for yourself and the name you bear,
+you would not be going over a catalogue of ‘desirable’ husbands in order
+to select one to fasten me upon: I will be no party to such a
+conversation; I would leave the house before I would endure further
+persecution of this kind; I——”
+
+“Mr. Ivraine is in the drawing-room, sir,” said a servant, opening the
+door at this moment; which announcement curtailed Mina’s speech of its
+fair proportions, and sent Malcolm upstairs to the old favourite jigging
+time denominated six-eight.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+                        MINA RUSHES ON HER FATE.
+
+
+It might have been imagined that Ernest Ivraine would hardly have
+been the man voluntarily to make a fresh care and anxiety for
+himself, nor had he voluntarily, in the first instance, sown the
+seeds of a troublesome crop, promising, if fostered, to bring forth
+trials abundantly; no—that inexplicable something which moulds our
+life’s experiences into a definite shape—fate, chance, accident,
+call it by what name you will—cast the germ into the ground, and
+he—half-unconsciously, perhaps—instead of nipping and crushing it in
+the bud, nursed and tended the plant, so that, at length, after it
+had grown, when he came to see the evil of it—when he discovered the
+sorrow it was likely to prove, he found its roots had twined
+themselves so around his heart that he could only eradicate the one
+by tearing out the other.
+
+The soil of his rugged nature was one in which it was difficult to get
+any tender emotion to flourish; but that obstacle once surmounted, the
+rest was easy. It stayed there, spite of himself, spite of
+circumstances, spite of prudence, through life; and so, since her
+uncle’s death, since he came to understand how poor Mina actually was,
+since he had found that, like himself, she was penniless, he had never
+listened to the voice of prudence at all. He felt, so long as Mina was
+likely to be an heiress, that to her he was—must always be—nothing; but
+now, though he might not marry, he could care for her, and he would have
+done anything in the world to make her care for him: but Mina would not;
+she had been annoyed, not by, but through him; her pride was wounded,
+her vanity offended; her womanly feelings were insulted; they never
+seemed destined to “get on” together. Mina went back with him to what
+she had been with others as a child: but that made no difference to him;
+he was fond of her, though he never exactly knew why he was so; though
+he could not have given a single reason for his apparently extraordinary
+choice, there could not be a single doubt of the matter: he, Ernest
+Ivraine, a prudent, practical, silent, uncommunicative man, was,
+nevertheless, so totally deficient in worldly sense and worldly caution
+as to form a very sincere affection for a girl without a shilling, of
+whose real nature he had not the faintest idea, many years younger than
+himself, not handsome—merely pretty, with a strange wayward mood, and a
+not especially placid temper. In one word, he had made one cold plunge
+into the stream of his fate, and found himself—sometimes to his
+pleasure, oftener to his sorrow—decidedly in love.
+
+Sir Ernest, shrewdly suspecting this, wrote a confidential missive to
+Messrs. Smeek and Scott, inquiring about John Merapie and his family;
+but the solicitors, not being detective officers, merely informed him,
+by return of post, that they understood Mr. Merapie was dead, and his
+widowed sister removed from London: wherefore the baronet was once more
+thrown off the scent, and he did not find it again till too late to
+benefit by it.
+
+Colin Saunders, who had now been for a considerable period “useful man”
+about Paradise, indeed heard occasionally from his daughter—who lived
+near Miss Caldera, and had established a sort of patronizing intimacy
+with that lady’s servant—how Mr. Ivraine was great friends with Mr.
+Malcolm Frazer, and spent half his time with him when in London; but
+Colin never guessed the truth—never thought so “dark-browed a young
+gentleman” would dream of marrying any one but some great heiress; and,
+even if he had known all, and the baronet had stretched him on the rack,
+he would have divulged nothing. He was a worthy descendant of the stiff
+old Covenanters, who worshipped on the bare hill sides, and skulked in
+caves, and braved death and persecution and torture for conscience sake.
+“The man was a mass of sterling steady principle,” so Ernest once said,
+and he was right.
+
+“When the heart gives the will, the devil gives the way,” is one of
+those aphorisms people never care to speak, because it can lay no claim
+to beauty of thought and elegance of expression; but still, one which
+nobody can deny, because it generally proves so strictly true. Far be it
+from me to say that his Satanic majesty had any share in sending Ernest
+Ivraine so often to London, but surely it was an evil genius which drove
+him so perpetually across Mina’s path: excuses were never wanting to
+render a visit to the metropolis needful, for Henry was married
+now—married to an heiress, rich in goodness, beauty, friends, and
+ancestors. The young officer inundated his brother with lists of
+commissions he desired executed,—every third or fourth Indian mail
+brought with it the necessity for a journey to town; and the sum Ernest
+had accumulated on Henry’s behalf, but which Henry had exultingly
+returned to him, enabled the miser’s elder son to protract his visits a
+little longer than it would otherwise have been possible for him to do:
+so he was always coming to see Malcolm, perpetually being announced as
+“in the drawing-room, sir,” by the maid-of-all-work, after the fashion
+recorded towards the conclusion of the preceding chapter, before this
+explanation of his feelings was commenced.
+
+On the day in question, however, he did not see Mina; she had a bad
+headache, went to her own room, and, moreover, to put it out of
+Malcolm’s power to torment her further, went determinedly off to bed.
+
+Perhaps her brother really thought she was ill; perhaps he regretted
+annoying the pale-faced girl, his only near relative; perhaps he felt
+there was much blameable in his own conduct; perhaps some words Ernest
+Ivraine had spoken, during the course of their interview, might have
+induced him to look more affectionately at her—less angrily on the
+world; perhaps it was only the usual reaction, which generally occurred
+after he had been particularly pettish towards her; perhaps her
+concluding sentence had touched his heart and aroused his pride; at all
+events one thing was certain, that he was so kind to her the following
+morning, so different from usual, so much like the wild good-natured
+youth of other times, that Mina forgot her vexation, and felt for the
+moment happy to see him so; and that afternoon, when the baronet’s son
+walked in with her brother, she did not go to bed again, but remained in
+the room, not talking herself, but listening to them doing so,—for, at
+last, Malcolm had appealed to Mr. Ivraine for advice, and Mr. Ivraine,
+for the first time since Mina had known him, spoke long, earnestly,
+energetically; he grew absolutely eloquent whilst looking at the young
+man’s position, and exhorting him to do what he had not been brave
+enough to do himself. The difference between them was, however, that he
+was waiting and longing for something, and Malcolm was not,—unless,
+indeed, for absolute beggary, which he had unintentionally confessed was
+stalking towards them. Ernest at length comprehended how they were
+situated, and he first advised strenuously, and then proffered
+assistance.
+
+It was a painful conversation throughout; Mina felt it to be so, as,
+step by step, word by word, it approached the end; but there was a
+fascination about it for her: even had a sufficient pretext arisen for
+her to leave the apartment, she could not have done it, so strongly were
+her interest excited, her feelings aroused: there was a fate in it, as
+there is in all things in earth below, in heaven above.
+
+“I will tell you,” said Mr. Ivraine, by way of conclusion to the many
+arguments he had advanced, in order to induce Malcolm to go forth and
+battle manfully,—for he felt a sort of sympathy for and interest in him,
+and desired to warn the youth, ere it was too late, to avoid the
+quicksand on which he was stranded,—“I will tell you,” he repeated,
+rising and leaning against the corner of the mantel-piece, his face
+turned towards both his auditors, “what course a friend of mine adopted,
+whose case was not, apparently, nearly so hopeless as yours. Would to
+God I had followed his example a dozen years since, my lot would have
+been a happier one; but let that pass. He was not qualified for a
+business man; he had not received an education fitting him to be a
+professional one; his father would not push him forward in any way: he
+had friends, it is true, possessed of some influence; but they thought,
+and naturally, it was his parent’s duty to provide for him; and, even
+had such not been the case, he was too proud and self-reliant to seek
+their assistance. He disliked home for many sufficient reasons; but
+still, recollect he had a home—and—so long as he remained there, a
+species of support, which you have not. That fact makes all the
+difference between your cases. He was not absolutely compelled to work;
+you ought to have been doing so long ago.
+
+“He thought for a time, and then he acted. Starting from his father’s
+house one gloomy morning in November, with a money capital of a few
+shillings, and none other, save an energetic determined spirit, which
+will accomplish more for a man than any moderate amount of money, high
+birth, or connexion.
+
+“People said he was mad, for his father was rich, an old man, likely to
+die soon; they affirmed, if he had only waited a little longer he would
+have found wealth ready made to his hand, whereas, by his rashness, he
+had flung the chance of fortune—save by his own exertions—from him for
+ever; but he replied, he had rather make a fortune than wait for one,
+that he desired the death of no man, and that he would not waste the
+best years of his life lounging about home, and putting himself in the
+way of being tempted to commit a great sin, viz. that of wishing for his
+father’s death: he said, that those who stayed might gain; that, for his
+part, he would either win a happy home for himself on the earth, or else
+seek it in the grave; that, if he earned a name, his father should hear
+of him again,—if not, he would never return to the land of his birth
+more.”
+
+The speaker paused for a moment, but neither Malcolm nor Mina interposed
+a word. Unconsciously, whilst recalling the events of that night, he had
+grown desperately in earnest, and that earnestness flung such a stamp of
+reality upon the narrative, that the listeners felt, in hearkening to
+it, almost as though the hopeful, ardent, brave adventurer were standing
+there before them, recounting with his own lips the story of his trials,
+resolves, struggles. Mina’s gaze became rivetted on the miser’s eldest
+born; she wanted to hear what one so situated had done: to learn, for a
+certainty, what her brother might do. Ernest Ivraine met that anxious,
+eager glance, and felt it pain, even while it calmed, him. With a half
+sigh, turning his eyes on Malcolm and striving to forget the straining
+look he knew was fastened on his face, he resumed:
+
+“He went as I have said, enlisted in the army as a common soldier in a
+regiment just about embarking for India, never informed his father of
+the step he had taken, never repented him of it,—but sailed,—a gentleman
+in the uniform of the ranks.
+
+“Years rolled away, and in England there was only one who knew
+accurately what had become of him; and when that friend was at length
+enabled to send him out a sum sufficient to purchase a commission, it
+was returned with the proud boast that he had bought one with his blood;
+that he had fought his way up to the point where he stood, and could
+show for every step some severe wound, some long deep scar. Note the
+result of his rash folly, as people termed it. His father is still
+living: he might have grown grey-haired waiting for the wealth which
+could only be his through the death of a parent, and was then contingent
+on the old man’s will; he might have moped and dawdled and murmured away
+the best years of his existence, of no use to mortal being, a burden to
+himself, and have, finally, died first or gained nothing after all. He
+made a better and a manlier choice, has won name, position, honour, some
+money, much love. If you, Malcolm Frazer, will go and do likewise, I
+think I can promise to give you the first step, which he had to hew out
+for himself: make up your mind to go out to India; I will obtain an
+ensigncy or something for you there: after that, all depends on
+yourself: only resolve to be great, and you may become so,—only
+determine to rise, and that determination will give you wings to soar
+almost to any height you please.
+
+“Will you at once take courage and example from a true story of life?
+cease waiting and watching and vaguely hoping, and finally act. I do not
+proffer assistance through officiousness, but solely because I imagine
+you require, and perhaps might not object to accept it. If you do not
+like the plan, say so frankly; if you decide to follow it, only speak
+the word and I will aid you by every means in my power. Will you go or
+stay?”
+
+Who, with poverty on the one side and the realization of his boyish
+hopes on the other, would have hesitated to choose? Not Mina’s brother,
+for, without an instant’s reflection, he cried,
+
+“Go, with a hundred thousand thanks.”
+
+“You have spoken wisely and well,” remarked Ernest.
+
+“Mina, what say you?” demanded her brother in a kind eager tone, and
+with sparkling eyes; “I have been little of a comfort, little save a
+trouble for a long time; still you will miss me: what say you?”
+
+“That you must go,” she answered, speaking firmly, even though she could
+not prevent tears springing to her eyes at the prospect of this last
+break.
+
+“You are right, Miss Frazer,” said Mr. Ivraine; “your brother ought not
+to waste his life either here or in Scotland,—he must go to India: and
+you,” he added, after a pause, “you will return to Craigmaver, I
+presume.”
+
+The blood came rushing up into Mina’s face, and a sort of agonized
+remembrance of what that place had once been, of what it had lately
+become, sweeping unbidden through her soul, checked her utterance; but
+Malcolm, who liked not the appearance of aught being amiss betwixt
+himself and the wealthy head of their clan, answered promptly, “Of
+course.”
+
+Ernest Ivraine looked at her for a moment almost despairingly; he
+thought of her desolate position, of his wretched home, of a choice
+between none and that, of whether his father would receive her and what
+difference it might make in his future prospects, of being separated
+from her for ever, of having her beside him always, of which would be
+the worst for her,—to be a wife amongst his friends or a dependant
+amidst her own—with one in the world to love her tenderly, or all
+perhaps looking coldly upon her. He could not leave her—he feared to
+take her. He saw there was a something which prevented _her_ thinking of
+a return to Scotland as of a happy event. Was it that her proud spirit
+brooked not the idea of being a pauper in the house of her rich cousins?
+or was it—could it be—that she cared for him?
+
+If so, she would not value the smiles or the frowns of relatives; she
+would endure privation, grief, annoyance, for a brief space, for his
+sake. All swept through his mind with the velocity of light: the old
+barriers of prudence, consideration for her happiness, dread of the
+result, were broken down instantaneously as he gazed upon her troubled
+face, and then came rapidly forth the words,
+
+“I know little, it is true, of your affairs; but believe there is no
+other home open for her, unless—she will marry me.”
+
+He spoke to Malcolm, but he looked towards Mina; he could read nothing
+from her face; he saw she tried to speak, but could not; he felt he
+cared for her more than ever, whilst his destiny thus hung quivering in
+the hands of fate.
+
+The second which ensued after his abrupt question without his receiving
+an answer, seemed such an eternity of torture that, to shorten its
+duration, he said to Malcolm, in a tone tremulous with suppressed
+emotion,
+
+“Do you think she would?”
+
+“I answer yes for her,” returned Malcolm boldly, though he felt half
+conscious he was tampering with her fate, solely that he might win his
+own game; “if you wish to hear it from her lips, she will say so too:
+Mina, speak.”
+
+One quick despairing glance into the past, an equally rapid and hopeless
+one towards the two futures now presented for her choice, a thought of
+the selfishness of clouding Malcolm’s prospects again—of flinging him
+once more friendless and helpless on the barren shore where he had till
+that morning been lying,—a dream of all he might rise to, if she would
+just do that which she had for so long been told she ought, a reckless
+sensation concerning her own destiny, a feeling of gratitude towards the
+man who offered so much to both—who must have a regard for her,—and then
+Mina, at the command of her brother, pronounced the monosyllable she had
+long vowed she would not speak, but which now, as it was pronounced, she
+would have died ere recanting, unless he—Ernest Ivraine—wished it. And
+oh! how many a time did she pray that he might desire it.
+
+But he did not: once or twice he thought of telling her frankly and
+fairly what a life lay before her; but then the dread that she might
+repent, and the conviction that her position as his wife would be better
+than any other which presented itself added to the hope that hereafter
+he could give her all he might only wish for her now, kept him silent.
+He entered the house that day resolved not to drag her into misery,
+vowing never to utter a single syllable till he was independent—Sir
+Ernest Ivraine, his own master—a fortune-hunter no longer; and he left
+it with the little word of assent ringing in his ears, alternately with
+the sound of a blessing and the power of a curse.
+
+“Mina is finally settled, Miss Caldera,” said Malcolm to that lady, with
+a light laugh, which, however, only partially concealed his troubled
+feelings; “kiss the child,” he added, “for being good at last.”
+
+But Mina angrily pushed him away, and escaping from them both, fled to
+the solitude of her own chamber, where she could think and weep in
+peace.
+
+She felt bewildered, terrified, overwhelmed; she thought of his unknown
+relatives, of his uncomprehended self; she reflected alternately
+concerning his silence, his kindness, and his reserve; she tried to see
+where she was going, and with whom; wondered if he felt he were
+condescending to her, and whether he would not be sorry hereafter, and
+how he ever came to care for and to think of marrying her; she
+remembered Miss Caldera’s advice, and Alfred Westwood’s words, and
+Malcolm’s speculations, and, bowing her flushed face in her hands, shed
+scalding tears of mortified pride to reflect that some people might say
+she had striven to catch a baronet’s son—that he himself might fancy so
+sometime.
+
+The idea haunted her so that she could not endure for long to hear his
+name uttered by either her friend or her brother; she shrunk from the
+mention of the subject as if she had been a party to some guilty
+transaction; she did not comprehend how poor and unhappy he was, and
+consequently attributed all sorts of proud haughty feelings to him, of
+which he was completely innocent; she was always glad when he was there,
+because then they could not talk about the proposed match, and what a
+good one it was; her soul sickened at the idea of marrying for a
+position—for money, of being a mere mercenary calculating creature.
+
+“I am not that,” she cried aloud, communing in solitude with the
+feelings of her heart, “I am not that, and I have not deceived him, or
+ever tried to make him care for me; and, if I am doing wrong, I cannot
+help it. I strove to do right, and they would not let me, and I cannot
+see what is right—only—only—I wish he were poor like myself;” and then
+she grew utterly wretched, reflecting how foolishly he would feel he had
+acted when he found out more about what she actually was, and how
+estranged they were from all rich connexions, and what a lonely desolate
+little wanderer he had taken home.
+
+Home! where was it? what sort would it prove? Had he sisters who would
+sneer at her like Cecilia, brothers who would frown darkly on her,
+parents who would be angry at his choice? and, as she thought of these
+chances, and knew how she had said “yes,” and remembered she might be of
+use to Malcolm, that her husband would be sure to help her brother, she
+nerved herself up to a kind of hardened determination, steeled and
+fortified her soul for the event, tried to reconcile herself even to the
+idea of coldness, pride, neglect, haughty relatives, a comfortless home,
+superciliousness and contempt. “It will be a home at any rate,” she
+said, “and if I marry I have a right to it.” She never told others all
+the wild fears she entertained, all the sorrow she endured, but she sat
+for hours by herself—pondering and struggling and pining—and sometimes
+she grew quite calm externally, and, in fact, looked listlessly at the
+whole affair from beginning to end. The end, ah! she could not see that.
+It lay far away among those fens, whither she was to journey with him.
+He once told her the country there was very flat, ugly, and
+uninteresting; but that was all she knew about it, and she did not care
+to hear more: she fancied she should be in possession of all quite soon
+enough.
+
+He had asked her, not to love, but to marry him; and she said “yes,”
+because Malcolm had first spoken it for her, and then ordered her to
+repeat the word after him,—because she was sick of striving, tired of
+being perpetually told she ought to marry, weary of seeing her brother
+inactive, murmuring, discontented. She had no home—no definite
+expectation, present or future, of providing a happy one for herself:
+she imagined it was best for her to listen, at least, to advice; she
+sometimes argued that as she had never previously followed counsel, when
+it clashed with her own wishes or ideas, she must now be acting
+prudently in yielding to the persuasions of friends, whilst every
+feeling of her heart said “no” to the step they proposed.
+
+Many trials, successive disappointments, and actual ill health had
+finally reduced her to that state of utter hopelessness in which many
+persons fly to convents, and place the irrevocable barrier of a vow
+betwixt them, the world, and its cares for ever; and just, in like
+manner, she was rushing into matrimony, as she one day told Miss
+Caldera, with something between a sneer and a sob, “to have done with
+it.”
+
+“To have done with what, my dear?” mildly inquired that lady.
+
+“The theme matrimonial,” returned Mina; “after I take this man for
+better for worse, you can never, thank goodness, ask me to marry again.
+When once I am Mrs. Ivraine, I shall at last be ‘settled,’ shall I not?”
+
+“Heaven send!” devoutly murmured Miss Caldera, who sincerely entertained
+doubts whether the girl would ever be at rest—even in her coffin.
+“Heaven send!”
+
+“Amen,” said Mina, bitterly.
+
+“You have never been settled or at peace since I knew you,” remarked
+Miss Caldera.
+
+“You have never let me be at peace since I knew you,” retorted Mina;
+“but now, at length, I hope you and Malcolm are satisfied. I have
+accepted a man for whom I do not care a straw; am about to enter a
+family of which I know nothing; am marrying from purely prudential
+motives: what girl could do more, even if brought up by a worldly
+managing mother? I have proved an apt pupil in the noble art of
+match-making, and yet you give me no credit for my proficiency in the
+science.”
+
+“I think, Mina,” returned Miss Caldera severely, “that you are, without
+exception, the strangest, most unreasonable, most dissatisfied person I
+ever met with. Here you, a portionless girl, without any extraordinarily
+rich or high relatives, are on the eve of espousing a handsome,
+agreeable, elegant-looking, country gentleman, son to a baronet, rich,
+amiable, apparently qualified to make any woman happy; in fact, it is in
+every way a much better match than you could possibly, even during your
+uncle’s lifetime, have expected.”
+
+“But good gracious!” here broke in her auditor, “I never expected, I
+never wanted to make a grand or a good, or any kind of a match at all; I
+only wanted to be let alone, and, as I always said: and as you have just
+now confessed, had I been rich, you never would have so tormented me;
+and—and,” she added hastily, “I wish I were dead.”
+
+“Solely, I believe, because you cannot die just at present,” responded
+her friend; “if you could, you would not wish it, and if you could not
+marry, I daresay you would think a home of your own a very haven of
+happiness. Mina, you are a perfect enigma to me: why, most girls would
+think themselves fortunate if, in your position, they could settle one
+half so well, and yet you talk, or rather rave—for I do not think you
+mean one half what you say—incessantly, as if you were a sort of martyr;
+in fact, I half suspect you feel as if you were one, don’t you, dear?”
+
+“I feel as if my heart were breaking,” returned Mina, as she left the
+room, in a tone so cold and steadfast, that somehow it carried more
+conviction to the mind of Miss Caldera than had ever entered there
+before.
+
+“Things have gone very cross with her lately, poor darling, and she can
+see no happiness in anything just at present,” she soliloquized, for in
+her heart she loved the girl better than any one else on earth; even
+whilst she scolded and lectured and worried her life out, she felt a
+near and tender interest in the child of a wayward temper and a wayward
+destiny. She did it all for her ultimate good; she sincerely and
+rationally enough believed that to marry Mr. Ivraine was the very best
+thing the orphan could do, both for herself and her brother; and,
+accordingly, she left no stone unturned to induce her to become, as Mina
+had once pettishly said, “a country squire’s country wife.”
+
+But still there was a something so fixed, so unchangeable in Mina’s
+mood, that the lady at length began to marvel if the marriage really
+would turn out as happy an affair as she had at one time anticipated it
+might.
+
+She once wondered “if it were prudent;” and then again she said, “of
+course,” because, if the girl did not wed him, what else was she to do?
+Work she could not, beg she might not, teach she would not—to make money
+as she desired, by writing, was a farce; and her brother,—no, no, there
+was nothing for it but a golden wedding ring: she was securing a home
+for herself,—employment, promotion, perhaps a brilliant destiny, for
+Malcolm. “It would be all right in time, quite right;” so Miss Caldera
+hoped, so she tried to believe, yet the doubt which had crossed her
+mind, made her feel vaguely, strangely uncomfortable.
+
+The interval which elapsed from the time of Ernest’s sudden proposal was
+truly a miserable one for all; in after days, not one of the trio ever
+liked to look back upon it. When, in answer to a question regarding the
+period for the marriage, Mina responded, she did not care—the sooner the
+better, adding her customary “then it will be done with,” her friend
+felt strongly inclined to read her a lecture concerning the sin of
+ingratitude generally, and hers particularly; but a look at the face of
+one whom she had known as a child and watched through all the struggles
+and sorrows of her later life,—whose story, vague, unsatisfactory, and
+foolish though it might have been, she had pondered on and sighed over,
+drove back the words as she would have uttered them, and she refrained.
+
+Yes, they were growing very patient with, and fond of, and lenient
+towards her now, when patience and fondness and leniency availed not;
+Mina felt that, and sometimes it softened and sometimes it chafed her:
+she was seldom ten minutes in the same temper, though she never varied
+on one point,—regret that, against her will, she had been forced, as she
+said, into an unequal union.
+
+One night, after a brief conversation in the usual style, to which
+Malcolm, sitting more thoughtful than was his wont by the fire, listened
+in silence, Miss Caldera said, as they arose to separate for the night,
+
+“If you are so very averse to him, Mina, would it not be better for you
+to pause—to break off the marriage?”
+
+“Yes, it’s all very well to ask me that _now_,” returned the girl almost
+fiercely; “as I have gone so far, I will go still further,—settle my
+destiny and myself for ever. It is too late to draw back; and, even if I
+could, it would be of no use: it must come to this, or something very
+like this, some time sooner or later, and perhaps the sooner the
+better.”
+
+She uttered the sentence in one rapid breath as she stopped for a moment
+on the staircase; and when she concluded, without waiting for answer of
+any kind, she ran hastily towards her own room and locked and bolted the
+door behind her.
+
+“I wonder if it be a right thing,” murmured Miss Caldera, half aloud, “I
+wonder how it will ‘turn out.’”
+
+“If evil come of it,” said Malcolm sternly, in answer, “will either of
+us be free from blame in the matter?”
+
+The lady coloured deeply at the unexpected remark; she seemed as if
+about to reply, but the words died away on her lips, and the young man,
+with a gloomy look in his usually thoughtless eyes, left her to her own
+reflections—pleasant or the reverse—as successive ideas, fears, and
+visions floated through her brain.
+
+Malcolm paused, ere proceeding to his own apartment, by the door of his
+sister’s room, and listened for a moment. He heard no sob, no
+sigh—nothing but the sound of her light tread, and the rustle of her
+mourning dress, as she moved restlessly backwards and forwards,
+measuring with hurried footsteps the length and breadth of the small
+chamber; scarcely knowing what she was doing, but walking on a sort of
+mental treadmill, to which she had bound herself, as she fancied, for
+life.
+
+“Mina,” cried her brother softly, “Mina, dear, speak to me one word.”
+
+She unfastened the door and asked him what he wanted.
+
+“It is not for me, Mina,” he said, in a sort of choking way, “not for me
+you are doing this.”
+
+“Doing what?” she demanded.
+
+“Marrying Mr. Ivraine; I have not forced you into this, have I?”
+
+There was a self-reproach, a sorrow in his words that brought back the
+girl’s love and affection for him, recalled her to a remembrance of
+their actual position, revived her dreams of a bright future for him,
+made her almost forget herself, brought their childhood vividly to mind.
+The light fell full on his pale troubled face; she saw he was willing,
+at that instant to give his consent to the match being broken off, to
+renounce his darling hopes rather than incur the responsibility of
+pushing on the marriage; she perceived he had repented of his share in
+the business, that he longed for her to say it was not he who was
+forcing her to take a step she dreaded. A strong revulsion of feeling
+chased all angry emotions from her soul: she would have done anything in
+the world for him then; so, putting her arms about his neck, she said in
+a low hushed voice,
+
+“I am marrying for a home, Malcolm; do not distress yourself: I am not
+very unhappy, and you shall never hear me complain more; we have both of
+us much reason to be thankful.”
+
+He kissed her when she concluded with a tenderness and reality of
+affection one could scarcely have imagined him capable of feeling: one
+depth of his heart had at last been sounded; and thenceforth he seemed
+changed, improved, subdued. And Mina,—she had effected a sort of victory
+over herself, and became quite calm: whatever she felt or thought, she
+never said. At last she was granted perfect peace on the
+subject,—“left,” as she had often wished to be, “alone.”
+
+If they had always done that, she might have been made to care for him
+long before; but she was not conscious of that fact—only humbly thankful
+for the silence Malcolm and Miss Caldera now generally maintained.
+
+I wonder, however, what silence could keep an impending marriage a
+secret from a London maid-of-all-work. Not that, at all events, which
+was preserved in Miss Caldera’s abode, for the young damsel who
+officiated in that capacity in the governess’ domicile, took occasion to
+have a confidential chat with Mrs. Frith concerning the whole affair,
+and Mrs. Frith wrote down an account of the same to her father, Colin
+Saunders, who would, the worthy Scotchwoman fancied, be overwhelmed with
+joy to hear Miss Mina was to be wedded to his master’s son: but the news
+did not seem altogether to rejoice the old man; he moped about the place
+for some time after receipt of that letter without speaking to anybody,
+during which period Mina never suspected an humble friend was grieving
+deeply, though silently, for her.
+
+
+                           END OF VOLUME II.
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+            Printed by SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15, Old Bailey.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+ ● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+ ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78846 ***