"I see now that such nuptials are out of the question. But has the world come to such a pa.s.s that one can never at any age have a friend in a lady unless she marry him? Scruple to accompany me--me your cousin--me your nearest surviving relation--in order to take back the young lady you have virtually adopted!--scruple to trust yourself for half an hour to that tumbledown old Fawley! Are you afraid that the gossips will say you, the Marchioness of Montfort, are running after a gloomy old widower, and scheming to be mistress of a mansion more like a ghosttrap than a residence for civilised beings? Or are you afraid that Guy Darrell will be fool and fop enough to think you are come to force on him your hand? Pooh, pooh! Such scruples would be in place if you were a portionless forward girl, or if he were a conceited young puppy, or even a suspicious old roue. But Guy Darrell--a man of his station, his character, his years! And you, cousin Caroline, what are you? Surely, lifted above all such pitiful crotchets by a rank amongst the loftiest gentlewomen of England; ample fortune, a beauty that in itself is rank and wealth; and, above all, a character that has pa.s.sed with such venerated purity through an ordeal in which every eye seeks a spot, every ear invites a scandal. But as you will. All I say is, that Darrell"s future may be in your hands; that after to-morrow, the occasion to give at least n.o.ble occupation and lasting renown to a mind that is devouring itself and stifling its genius, may be irrevocably lost; and that I do believe, if you said to-morrow to Guy Daxrell, "You refused to hear me when I pleaded for what you thought a disgrace to your name, and yet even that you at last conceded to the voice of affection as if of duty--now hear me when I plead by the side of your oldest friend on behalf of your honour, and in the name of your forefathers,"--if You say THAT, he is won to his country. You will have repaired a wrong; and, pray, will you have compromised your dignity?"
Caroline had recoiled into the corner of the carriage, her mantle close down round her breast, her veil lowered; but no sheltering garb or veil could conceal her agitation.
The Colonel pulled the check-string. "Nothing so natural; you are the widow of the Head of the House of Vipont. You are, or ought to be, deeply interested in its fate. An awful CRISIS, long expected, has occurred. The House trembles. A connection of that House can render it an invaluable service; that connection is the man at whose hearth your childhood was reared; and you go with me--me, who am known to be moving heaven and earth for every vote that the House can secure, to canva.s.s this wavering connection for his support and a.s.sistance. Nothing, I say, so natural; and yet you scruple to serve the House of Vipont--to save your country! You may well be agitated. I leave you to your own reflections. My time runs short; I will get out here. Trust me with these doc.u.ments. I will see to the rest of this long painful subject. I will send a special report to you this evening, and you will reply by a single line to the prayer I have ventured to address to you."
CHAPTER XII. AND LAST.
IN WHICH THE AUTHOR ENDEAVOURS, TO THE BEST OF HIS ABILITY, TO GIVE A FINAL REPLY TO THE QUESTION, "WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?"
SCENE--The banks of the lake at Fawley. George is lending his arm to Waife; Mrs. Morley, seated on her camp-stool at the opposite side of the water, is putting the last touch to her sketch of the Manor-house; Sir Isaac, reclined, is gravely contemplating the swans; the doe, bending over him, occasionally nibbles his ear; Fairthorn has uncomfortably edged himself into an angle of the building, between two b.u.t.tresses, and is watching, with malignant eye, two young forms, at a distance, as they moved slowly yonder, side by side, yet apart, now lost, now emerging, through the gaps between melancholy leafless trees. Darrell, having just quitted Waife and George, to whose slow pace he can ill time his impatient steps, wonders why Lionel, whom, on arriving, he had, with brief cordial words, referred to Sophy for his fate, has taken more than an hour to ask a simple question, to which the reply may be pretty well known beforehand. He advances towards those melancholy trees. Suddenly one young form leaves the other--comes with rapid stride through the withered fern. Pale as death, Lionel seizes Guy Darrell"s hand with convulsive grasp, and says: "I must leave you, sir; G.o.d bless you! All is over. I was the blindest fool--she refuses me."
"Refuses you!--impossible! For what reason?"
"She cannot love me well enough to marry," answered Lionel with a quivering lip, and an attempt at that irony in which all extreme anguish, at least in our haughty s.e.x, delights to seek refuge or disguise. "Likes me as a friend, a brother, and so forth, but--nothing more. All a mistake, sir--all, except your marvellous kindness to me--to her--for which Heaven ever bless you."
"Yes, all a mistake of your own, foolish boy," said Darrell, tenderly; and, turning sharp, he saw Sophy hastening by, quickly and firmly, with her eyes looking straightward--on into s.p.a.ce. He threw himself in her path.
"Tell this dull kinsman of mine that "faint heart never won fair lady."
You do not mean seriously, deliberately to reject a heart that will never be faint with a meaner fear than that of losing you?"
Poor Sophy! She kept her blue eyes still on the cold grey s.p.a.ce, and answered by some scarce audible words--words which in every age girls intending to say No seem to learn as birds learn their song; no one knows who taught them, but they are ever to the same tune. "Sensible of the honour"--"Grateful"--"Some one more worthy," &c., &c.
Darrell checked this embarra.s.sed jargon. "My question, young lady, is solemn; it involves the destiny of two lives. Do you mean to say that you do not love Lionel Haughton well enough to give him your hand, and return the true faith which is pledged with his own?"
"Yes," said Lionel, who had gained the side of his kinsman, "yes, that is it. O Sophy--Ay or No?"
"No!" fell from her pale, firm lips--and in a moment more she was at Waife"s side, and had drawn him away from George. "Grandfather, grandfather!--home, home; let us go home at once, or I shall die!"
Darrell has kept his keen sight upon her movements--upon her countenance. He sees her gesture--her look--as she now clings to her grandfather. The blue eyes are not now coldly fixed on level air, but raised upward as for strength from above. The young face is sublime with its woe, and with its resolve.
"n.o.ble child," muttered Darrell, "I think I see into her heart. If so, poor Lionel, indeed! My pride has yielded, hers never will!"
Lionel, meanwhile, kept beating his foot on the ground, and checking indignantly the tears that sought to gather to his eyes. Darrell threw his arm round the young man"s shoulder, and led him gently, slowly away, by the barbed thorn-tree-on by the moss-grown crags.
Waife, meanwhile, is bending his ear to Sophy"s lip. The detestable Fairthorn emerges from between the b.u.t.tresses, and shambles up to George, thirsting to hear his hopes confirmed, and turning his face back to smile congratulation, on the gloomy old house that he thinks he has saved from the lake.
Sophy has at last convinced Waife that his senses do not deceive him, nor hers wander. She has said, "O grandfather, let us ever henceforth be all in all to each other. You are not ashamed of me--I am so proud of you. But there are others akin to me, grandfather, whom we will not mention; and you would be ashamed of me if I brought disgrace on one who would confide to me his name, his honour; and should I be as proud of you, if you asked me to do it?"
At these word, Waife understands all, and he has not an argument in reply; and he suffers Sophy to lead him towards the house. Yes, they will go hence--yes, there shall be no schemes of marriage! They had nearly reached the door, when the door itself opened violently, and a man rushing forth caught Sophy in his arms, and kissed her forehead, her cheek, with a heartiness that it is well Lionel did not witness!
Speechless and breathless with resentment, Sophy struggled, and in vain, when Waife, seizing the man by the collar, swung him away with a "How dare you, sir," that was echoed back from the hillocks--summoned Sir Isaac at full gallop from the lake--scared Fairthorn back to his b.u.t.tresses--roused Mrs. Morley from her sketch, and, smiting the ears of Lionel and Darrell, hurried them, mechanically as it were, to the very spot from which that thunder-roll had pealed.
"How dare I?" said the man, resettling the flow of his disordered coat--"How dare I kiss my own niece?--my own sister"s orphan child?
Venerable Bandit, I have a much better right than you have. Oh, my dear injured Sophy, to think that I was ashamed of your poor cotton print--to think that to your pretty face I have been owing fame and fortune--and you, you wandering over the world--child of the sister of whose beauty I was so proud--of her for whom, alas, in vain! I painted Watteaus and Greuzes upon screens and fans!" Again he clasped her to his breast; and Waife this time stood mute, and Sophy pa.s.sive--for the man"s tears were raining upon her face, and washed away every blush of shame as to the kiss they hallowed.
"But where is my old friend William Losely?--where is w.i.l.l.y?" said another voice, as a tall, thin personage stepped out from the hall, and looked poor Waife unconsciously in the face.
"Alban Morley!" faltered Waife, "you are but little changed!"
The Colonel looked again, and in the elderly, lame, one-eyed, sober-looking man, recognised the wild jovial w.i.l.l.y, who had tamed the most unruly fillies, taken the most frantic leaps, carolled forth the blithest song--madcap, good-fellow, frolicsome, childlike darling of gay and grave, young and old!
""Eheu, fugaces, Postume, Postume, Labuntur anni,""
said the Colonel, insensibly imbibing one of those Horatian particles that were ever floating in that cla.s.sic atmosphere--to Darrell medicinal, to Fairthorn morbific. "Years slide away, w.i.l.l.y, mutely as birds skim through air; but when friend meets with friend after absence, each sees the print of their crows" feet on the face of the other. But we are not too old yet, w.i.l.l.y, for many a meet at the fireside! Nothing else in our studs, we can still mount our hobbies; and thoroughbred hobbies contrive to be in at the death.
"But you are waiting to learn by what t.i.tle and name this stranger lays claim to so peerless a niece. Know then Ah, here comes Darrell. Guy Darrell, in this young lady you will welcome the grandchild of Sidney Branthwaite, our old Eton school friend, a gentleman of as good blood as any in the land!"
"None better," cried Fairthorn, who had sidled himself into the group; "there"s a note on the Branthwaite genealogy, sir, in your father"s great work upon "Monumental Bra.s.ses.""
"Permit me to conclude, Mr. Fairthorn," resumed the Colonel; "Monumental Bra.s.ses are painful subjects. Yes, Darrell,--yes, Lionel; this fair creature, whom Lady Montfort might well desire to adopt, is the daughter of Arthur Branthwaite, by marriage with the sister of Frank Vance, whose name I shrewdly suspect nations will prize, and whose works princes will h.o.a.rd, when many a long genealogy, all blazoned in azure and or, will have left not a sc.r.a.p for the moths."
"Ah!" murmured Lionel, "was it not I, Sophy, who taught you to love your father"s genius! Do you not remember how, as we bent over his volume, it seemed to translate to us our own feelings?--to draw us nearer together?
He was speaking to us from his grave."
Sophy made no answer; her face was hidden on the breast of the old man, to whom she still clung closer and closer.
"Is it so? Is it certain? Is there no doubt that she is the child of these honoured parents?" asked Waife, tremulously.
"None," answered Alban; "we bring with us proofs that will clear up all my story."
The old man bowed his head over Sophy"s fair locks for a moment; then raised it, serene and dignified: "You are mine for a moment yet, Sophy,"
said he.
"Yours as ever-more fondly, gratefully than ever," cried Sophy.
"There is but one man to whom I can willingly yield you. Son of Charles Haughton, take my treasure."
"I consent to that," cried Vance, "though I am put aside like a Remorseless Baron. And, Lionello mio, if Frank Vance is a miser, so much the better for his niece."
"But," faltered Lionel.
"Oh, falter not. Look into those eyes; read that blush now. She looks coy, not reluctant. She bends before him--adorned as for love, by all her native graces. Air seems brightened by her bloom. No more the Outlaw-Child of Ignominy and Fraud, but the Starry Daughter of POETRY AND ART! Lo, where they glide away under the leafless, melancholy trees.
Leafless and melancholy! No! Verdure and blossom and the smile of spring are upon every bough!"
"I suppose," said Alban, "it will not now break Lionel"s heart to learn that not an hour before I left London, I heard from a friend at the Horse Guards that it has been resolved to subst.i.tute the regiment for Lionel"s; and it will be for some time yet, I suspect, that he must submit to be in gloriously happy. Come this way, George, a word in your ear." And Alban, drawing his nephew aside, told him of Jasper"s state, and of Arabella"s request. "Not a word to-day on these mournful topics, to poor w.i.l.l.y. To-day let nothing add to his pain to have lost a grandchild, or dim his consolation in the happiness and security his Sophy gains in that loss. But to-morrow you will go and see the stricken-down sinner, and prepare the father for the worst. I made a point of seeing Dr. F. last night. He gives Jasper but a few weeks. He compares him to a mountain, not merely shattered by an earthquake, but burned out by its own inward fires."
"A few weeks only," sighed George. "Well, Time, that seems everything to man, has not even an existence in the sight of G.o.d. To that old man I owe the power of speech to argue, to exhort, and to comfort;--he was training me to kneel by the deathbed of his son!"
"You believe," asked the Man of the World, "in the efficacy of a deathbed repentance, when a sinner has sinned till the power of sinning be gone?"
"I believe," replied the Preacher, "that in health there is nothing so unsafe as trust in a deathbed repentance; I believe that on the deathbed, it cannot be unsafe to repent!"
Alban looked thoughtful, and George turned to rejoin Waife, to whom Vance was narrating the discovery of Sophy"s parentage; while Fairthorn, as he listened, drew his flute from his pocket, and began s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g it, impatient to vent in delicate music what he never could have set into words for his blundering, untunable tongue. The Colonel joins Darrell, and hastens to unfold more fully the story which Vance is reciting to Waife.
Brief as it can, be the explanation due to the reader. Vance"s sister had died in childbirth. The poor young poet, unfitted to cope with penury, his sensitive nature combined with a frame that could feebly resist the strain of exhausting emotions, disappointed in fame, despairing of fortune, dependent for bread on his wife"s boyish brother, and hara.s.sed by petty debts in a foreign land, had been fast pining away, even before an affliction to which all the rest seemed as nought.
With that affliction he broke down at once, and died a few days after his wife, leaving an infant not a week old. A French female singer, of some repute in the theatres, and making a provincial tour, was lodging in the same house as the young couple. She had that compa.s.sionate heart which is more common than prudence or very strict principle with the tribes who desert the prosaic true world for the light sparkling false one. She had a.s.sisted the young couple, in their later days, with purse and kind offices; had been present at the birth of the infant--the death of the mother; and had promised Arthur Branthwaite that she would take care of his child, until she could safely convey it to his wife"s relations, while he wept to own that they, poor as himself, must regard such a charge as a burthen.