Cora slowly, sadly, silently shook her head.
"Oh, yes; you will."
"No, no; no, dear grandpa. I will bear my dear, lost husband"s name to the end of my life, and it shall be inscribed on my tomb. Ah! would to Heaven that at the last, I might lay my ashes beside his," she moaned.
"Now don"t be a confounded fool, Cora Rothsay! To be sure, all women are fools! But, then, a girl with a drop of my blood in her veins should not be such a consummate idiot as you are showing yourself to be. You shall not go out with Sylvan to that savage frontier. It is no place for a woman, particularly for an unmarried woman. You would come to a bad end.
I shall speak to Sylvan. I shall forbid him to take you there," said the old autocrat.
Cora smiled, but answered nothing. She had firmly made up her mind to go with her brother, whether her grandfather should approve the action or not; but she thought it unnecessary to dispute the matter with him just now.
"So, mistress, you will stay here, under my guardianship, until you accept a husband, like a respectable woman," continued old Aaron Rockharrt.
Still Cora remained silent, standing by his chair, with her hand resting on the table, and her eyes cast down.
The egotist seemed not to object to having all the talk to himself.
"Come!" he exclaimed, with sudden animation, sitting bolt upright in his chair, "When I found you in this room just now, you said you had something to tell me. And you told it. Naturally, it was not worth hearing. Now, then, I have something to tell you, which is so well worth hearing that when you have heard it your missionary madness may be cured, and your Quixotic expedition given up: in fact, all your plans in life changed--a splendid prospect opened before you."
Cora looked up, her languor all gone, her interest aroused. Something was rising in her mind; not a sun of hope ah! no--but nebula, obscure, unformed, indistinct, yet with possible suns of hope, worlds of happiness, within it. What did her grandfather mean? Had he heard something about--Was Rule yet--
Swift as lightning flashed these thoughts through her mind while her grandfather drew his breath between his utterances.
"Listen! This is what I had to tell you: I had a letter a few days ago from an old suitor of yours," he said, looking keenly at his granddaughter.
Cora"s eyes fell, her spirits drooped. The nebula of unknown hopes and joys had faded away, leaving her prospect dark again. She looked depressed and disappointed. She could feel no shadow of interest in her old suitors.
"I received this letter several days since, and being at leisure just then. I answered it. But in the pressure of some important matters I forgot to tell you of it, though it concerned yourself mostly, I might say entirely. Shouldn"t have remembered it now, I suppose, if it had not been for your foolish talk about going out for a missionary to the savages. Ah! another destiny awaits your acceptance."
Cora sighed in silence.
"Now, then. Of course you must know who this correspondent is."
"Without offense to you, grandfather, I neither know nor care,"
languidly replied the lady.
"But it is not without offense to me. You are the most eccentric and inconsistent woman I ever met in all the course of my life. You are not constant even to your inconstancy."
Having uttered this paradox, the old man threw himself back in his chair and gazed at his granddaughter.
"I am not yet clear as to your meaning, sir," she said, coldly but respectfully.
"What! Have you quite forgotten the t.i.tled dandy for whom you were near breaking your heart three years ago? For whom you were ready to throw over one of the best and truest men that ever lived! For whom you really did drive Regulas Rothsay, on the proudest and happiest day of his life, into exile and death!"
"Oh, don"t! don"t! grandfather! Don"t!" wailed Cora, sinking on an office stool, and dropping her hands and head on the table.
"Now, none of that, mistress. No hysterics, if you please. I won"t permit any woman about me to indulge in such tantrums. Listen to me, ma"am. My correspondent was young c.u.mbervale, the noodle!"
"Then I never wish to see or hear or think of him again!" exclaimed Cora.
"Indeed! But that is a woman all through. She will do or suffer anything to get her own way. She will defy all her friends and relations, all principles of truth and honor; she will move Heaven and earth, go through fire and water, to get her own way; and when she does get it she don"t want it, and she won"t have it."
"Grandfather!" pleaded Cora.
"Silence! Three years ago you would have walked over all our dead bodies, if necessary, to marry that n.o.ble b.o.o.by. And you would have married him if it had not been for me! I would not permit you to wed him then, because you were in honor bound to Regulas Rothsay. I shall insist on your accepting him now, because poor Rothsay is in his grave, and this will be the best thing to do for you to help you out of harm"s way from redskins and rattlesnakes and other reptiles. I don"t think much of the fellow; but he seems to be a harmless idiot, and is good enough for you."
Cora answered never a word, but she felt quite sure that not even the iron will of the Iron King could ever coerce her into marriage with any man, least of all with the man whose memory was identified with her heart"s tragedy. The old man continued his monologue.
"The best thing about the fellow is his constancy. He was after your imaginary fortune once. I am sure of that. And he was so dazzled by the illumination of that _ignis fatuus_ that he didn"t see you, perhaps, and didn"t recognize how much he really cared for you. At all events, in his letter to me--and, by the way, it is very strange that he should write to me after the snubbing I gave him in London," said the Iron King, reflectively.
Cora did not think that was strange. She, at least, felt sure that it was as impossible for the young duke to take offense at the rudeness of the old iron man as at the raging of a dog or the tearing of a bull. But she did not drop a hint of this to the egotist, who never imagined pa.s.sive insolence to be at the bottom of the duke"s forbearance.
"In his letter to me," resumed old Aaron Rockharrt, "the young fool tells me that, immediately after his great disappointment in being rejected by you, he left England--and, indeed, Europe--and traveled through every accessible portion of Asia and Africa, in the hope of overcoming his misplaced affection, but in vain, for that he returned home at the end of two years with his heart unchanged. There he learned through the newspapers that you had been recently widowed, through the murder of your husband in an Indian mutiny. That"s how he put it. He farther wrote that, in the face of such a tragedy as that, he felt bound to forbear the faintest approach toward resuming his acquaintance with you until some considerable time should have elapsed, although, he was careful to add, he always believed that you had given him your heart, and would have given him your hand had you been permitted to do so. He ended his letter by asking me to give him your address, that he might write to you. He evidently supposed you to be keeping house for yourself, as English widows of condition usually do. Well, my girl, what do you think I did?"
"You told me, sir, that, being at leisure just then, you answered his letter immediately," coldly replied Cora.
"Yes; and I told him that you were living with me. I gave him the full address. And I told him that I was pleased with his frankness and fidelity, qualities which I highly approved; and I added that if he wished to renew his suit to you, he need not waste time in writing, but that he might come over and court you in person here at Rockhold, where he should receive a hearty, old-fashioned welcome."
Cora gazed at the old man aghast.
"Oh, grandfather, you never wrote that!" she exclaimed.
"I never wrote that? What do you mean, mistress? Am I in the habit of saying what is not true?"
"Oh, no; but I am so grieved that you should have written such a letter."
"Why, pray?"
"Because I cannot bear that any one should think for a moment that I could ever marry again."
"Rubbish!"
"Well, it does not matter after all. If the duke should come on this fool"s errand, I shall be far enough out of his reach," thought Cora; but she said no more.
The breakfast bell rang out with much clamor, and the old man arose growling.
"And now you have cheated me out of my hour with the newspapers by your foolish talk. Come, come to breakfast and let us hear no more nonsense about going on that wild goose chase to the Indian frontier."
At the end of the morning meal he arose from the table, called his young wife to fetch him his hat, his gloves, his duster, and other belongings, and he got ready for his daily morning drive to the works.
"I shall remain at North End to bid you good-by, Sylvan. Call at my office there on your way to the depot," he said, as he left the house to step into his carriage waiting at the door.
As the sound of the wheels rolled off and died in the distance, Rose turned to Cora and inquired:
"My dear, does he know that you are going out West with Sylvan?"
"He should know it. I have spoken freely of my plans before you both for months past," said Cora.
"But, my dear, he never took the slightest notice of anything you said on that subject. Why, he did not even seem to hear you."