Elizabeth's Pretenders/Part 3/Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI

But it was decreed by a Higher Power than Hatty's that a fortnight should pass before she should have that close conversation with her brother which she so passionately desired. Another attack of hemorrhage prostrated her the same day on which she looked to have spoken to him, and after that the doctor interdicted her talking for more than a week. She fretted terribly under the restriction; but even when she began to regain a little strength, Alaric always avoided being left alone with her. Elizabeth's devotion was untiring as ever; the greater part of every day was passed in her sick friend's room, and the subject of anxiety common to the brother and to herself did away with much of the restraint and the watchfulness which, as I have already said, characterized their relations at first, after Melchior's departure.

In the mean time Elizabeth received, officially, the news of her large additional inheritance, by reason of the alteration in her uncle's will. She could not affect to regret that the woman who had so infamously deceived the kind old man, and who had done her best to ruin Elizabeth's own life, should not have it in her power to enrich her paramour. But she did very honestly grieve that his last hours should have been embittered by the knowledge of his wife's treachery—which the alteration of his will clearly proved him to have obtained. Mr. Twisden's cautiously worded letter did no more than repeat verbatim the message her uncle had desired should be transmitted to his niece. It was enough. He had forgiven Elizabeth, for his eyes had been opened. It was a comfort to her to know that his last thought of her was not unkindly, not resentful of her fancied ingratitude. Still, the burthen of more money! She sighed as she thought of it. Uncle William was dead, and with his death the main object of her reclusion, the only valid excuse for leading her present life, was at an end. She did not shut her eyes to the truth. It would be her duty now to return to England, and take up her solitary existence at Whiteburn.

The Paris train had been in about an hour one afternoon—it was some days after Elizabeth had received the above communication—when Alaric walked into his sister's room, and found her alone, lying on a sofa near the window. Under her thin hand there lay an open French book, but she was not reading. Her wasted face was turned towards the last golden gleam of day, over which the twilight was rapidly gathering.

"Are you coming to sit with me a little while. Ally?" she asked. "We are so seldom alone, and I have so much to say to you."

He drew a chair close to her sofa, and sat down.

"We shall not be interrupted for some time, I fancy," he remarked dryly. "Miss Shaw is occupied."

"Is she? I am glad. It is about her I want to talk, dear. My time here now is very short—we both know it, don't we?—and if it were not for yon, and for this dear devoted girl, I should be glad to go. As it is, I am unhappy—very unhappy."

She wanted him to ask "Why?" But he was silent. He stroked her thin hand, and looked away. He saw that the explanation he had so long avoided was inevitable.

"Do you know what this book is called?" she said, holding up the yellow-paper-covered volume. "It is called 'À Coté du Bonheur.' I am so afraid that may be your case, Ally. Having happiness, perhaps, within your grasp, that you will let it slip by you—past all recall!"

"Happiness is not within my grasp. On the contrary, it is out of reach at present. I won't pretend to misunderstand you, Hatty. Rest satisfied, dear, that if this could be, it should be; but it is impossible"

"Why?"

"You know I told you long ago that I could never marry as long as I was penniless. I am worse than penniless—I am in debt, and to this very girl! Think of that, and then of my asking her to wipe out the debt by marrying me! Dragging her down to my poverty; trading upon her devotion to you, her womanly self-sacrifice, her position here with us, to make her accept a man who has nothing—absolutely nothing to offer her!"

"What do you mean by being in her debt?" Hatty gasped.

"I mean that it was she who bought my picture to enable us to have the money to come here. It was noble, it was like her; but it has been a cruel blow to my pride, to think that we are living on the proceeds of some part of her small fortune. Of course it shall be repaid, every farthing of it, by-and-by. But ask her now to marry me? No."

His sister lay back and closed her eyes for a moment.

"Ally, my belief—my firm belief—is that Elizabeth loves you. Yon have as good as confessed now that you love her. Let no false pride nor mistaken delicacy come between you. Think, dear, how much poorer you leave her if you rob her of her love, her peace of mind, than she is now by the loss of a few thousand francs!"

"That is all very well," he said decisively; "but it would not be the part of an honourable man to entangle her in an engagement now. I shall never care for any other woman; I shall never marry any other woman. You can believe me, Hatty, because you know I never change. But, though sure of myself, I know she should be left free. She is impulsive, enthusiastic. She did this thing out of love for you. She might accept me now, and repent it later. I must not take advantage of my position as your brother. By-and-by, if I am fortunate, if I can make an independent income, as long as she remains unmarried, I shall not abandon hope. In the mean time, there are others, as you know, in the field."

"You don't mean that dreadful Jew? You can't think she would have him?"

"No, she would not. But I am not so clear about that fellow George. Do you know that he has followed her here?"

"Here? Mr. George?"

"He arrived by the last train. As I passed by the salon just now, I looked in. They were there together in close conversation."

"I hate that young man!" said Hatty, viciously. "I always hated him, since Fontainebleau. What on earth does he come here for?"

"Well, I should think it was pretty plain. If he is encouraged to stay, you will acknowledge you were too sanguine—eh? The fellow has youth, social cleverness, high spirits. I am ten years older, and though, I suppose, I have better brains, have no facility for using them in company, and have very little gas in my composition. If she finds me dull———"

"She does not. You were disagreeable to her at one time, but dull—never."

"We are fast friends now; I know it. But she does not guess that she is much more to me than that; and it may be this young fellow touches something in her that I never could touch. Why should I be surprised if it is so? I have no false modesty, Hatty. I know my own worth. But I try to have no delusions—on this subject, especially. I love her with all the strength of my nature. But during the six months I have known her, she has changed so much———"

"Not more than you have," interrupted Hatty. "I mean in manner towards her."

"But I have not played with fire. Elizabeth has. Understand, dear. I don't reproach her. What right have I? But I cannot jump so readily as you do to the conclusion that I have won her heart. You told me yourself you suspected she was recovering from some bitter disappointment, which made her so on the defensive, when she arrived at Madame Martineau's. Then came the episode of that blackguard Doucet. After that this George, and then followed the lord, who called himself Mr. Elton. He did not stay long, it is true; bat there must have been something between them in the past to have encouraged him to come. I do not believe that she has cared for any one of these men; but still, looking dispassionately at all this———"

"Ah! there it is. You ought not to look at it dispassionately. You ought to forget everything in your determination to win this pearl of great price, by speaking to her openly, freely, with all the passion you really feel. What does the past signify? She loves you now, or she does not. When I am dead, she will go back to England, believing you to be cold—insensible. And believing you so, and feeling very lonely, as she will (she told me yesterday how she hated the thought of returning ing there alone, without a single relation), she will in time, I suppose, do as other women do—marry some man whom she does not, and never will, care for as she does for you!"

Poor Hatty spoke out of the fulness of her heart, vehemently, but spasmodically, gasping for breath at intervals. Her intensity moved him. He raised the thin little hand to his lips.

"Will any one ever love me as beautifully, as unselfishly as you have done, Hatty?" he said, with unusual tenderness. "From boyhood upward you have been my guardian angel, and no one—neither Elizabeth, nor any other woman—sees me with your partial eyes. Rest satisfied with this—that my love for her has grown upon me, day by day, till it is part of my being. I cannot ask her to marry me now; I have told you why. But if you are right in believing that she really cares for me, she will not quickly turn to another, though I remain silent, and she is free as air."

"I see it is useless arguing with you," murmured Hatty, faintly.

He poured out some medicine from the bottle on the table beside her. Then, to prevent her talking more, he drew the Journal des Beaux Arts from his pocket, and began reading aloud.

On Mr. Twisden's return from Farley, George Daintree had asked his uncle boldly for the fortnight of his holiday which he had lost by being recalled at the end of October. The old man felt he could not reasonably refuse. George had been working hard during the intervening months, and devoting himself to his uncle with praiseworthy patience. Though always cheerful and energetic, he had been beginning to lose something of his fresh colour of late. He must certainly be allowed a holiday. And his uncle, who thought the matter well out, decided that he had neither the right, nor the power, to stop his nephew's following Elizabeth, as Mr. Twisden felt sure he would, knowing George's tenacity of purpose. Under these circumstances, there was but one thing to be done. He wrote to Elizabeth, in these terms—

"My nephew, George Daintree, told me some time ago a thing which has troubled me a good deal—namely, that being led accidentally to the pension where you stayed in Paris, he concealed his identity from you, knowing yonr wish to remain unknown. This was foolish. I hope you will believe that it was a pure accident that brought him to Madame Martineau's. I did not betray your address. He is an excellent young man, and I have a high esteem as well as affection for him. As my possible successor in this firm, I am glad you should know him, but I regret that you should have known him in this way. In your relative positions, I consider it unadvisable that, as long as you are alone, and on the Continent, you should be thrown much together. The world might, very naturally, blame me for this. At the same time, I cannot forbid my nephew from finding you out, if he be so minded, and I have reason to suspect that he means to do so, when he takes a run abroad, shortly. The only straightforward course for me is to tell you who 'Mr. George' really is, and strongly to counsel you to discourage an intimacy which may lead to disappointment and estrangement hereafter, when my desire is that you may find in him a wise and trustworthy legal adviser."

This passage in Mr. Twisden's letter, received three days before, had prepared Elizabeth for George Daintree's appearance that afternoon. There was a certain change in her manner, of which he was at once conscious, as she held out her hand.

"So you have found me out again, Mr. George Daintree! Why did you not tell me in Paris that you were the nephew of my old friend?"

He had come, meaning to make a clean breast of it—or as clean as was possible under the circumstances; but for an instant he was taken aback. Then he said, colouring—

"I respected your wish to remain unknown. And as you, for your own reasons, desired to keep 'dark,' I did not see why I should not do so. If I had told you who I was, you would have suspected that I had been sent by my uncle as a spy."

"I never suspect those I trust. T trust your uncle implicitly."

"You said when we departed, Miss Shaw, that you trusted me. I hope you still do so?"

"Frankly, my trust in you is a little shaken. But I hope to recover it," she added, smiling. "Now that I know you are dear Mr. Twisden's nephew—and he writes most affectionately of you—I am going to believe that you will be his worthy successor some day, and—my friend."

"I shall always be that," he said, eagerly. "But why do you say your trust is shaken? Because I concealed my name? Surely that is not fair. You yourself were in hiding, which comes to the same thing."

"Our positions were not the same, Mr. Daintree," she said, after a moment's hesitation. "I had particular reasons for wishing to be unknown. As to yours—the one you have just given me—it does not strike me as a very good one. You might have left the pension at once, after accidentally discovering me, had you been so afraid I should regard you as a 'spy.' After you were gone I learnt something which opened my eyes. But, let us forget the past—forget a little folly on your part, and some, perhaps, on mine. I am quite willing, frankly, to begin a new score—and never to allude to the old one. Only I think you had better not stay here now. It might—it might be misunderstood."

He looked crestfallen. "I suppose you learnt from Lord Robert that I knew who you were? Did that change all your kindly feeling towards me? You did not discourage my return. I hoped you would let me remain near you for a while. When we parted you said—you would be always glad to—see me."

"And so I shall be, by-and-by, in England. But at present everything is changed with me," she added with a sigh. "Here I am passing my days sorrowfully in a sick-room, and, on every account, I should not wish you to stay here. Do not think me rude—but it is better so."

He was bitterly chagrined; but he would not even now own himself defeated. After a pause he asked—

"When do you expect to be in England, Miss Shaw? My uncle says, now that Mr. William is dead, there are many things on your Whiteburn estate that require your presence to decide what is to be done."

"They must go on as they are for the present. My return depends on my friend's health. She cannot live very long. When she is gone"—there was a break in her voice—"I shall go back there."

"And you will let me know? You will let me come and see you?"

"I shall let your uncle know at once, Mr. Daintree."

He saw it was useless to remain longer. Indeed, she herself rose, and walked to the window. He followed her.

"Say you forgive me."

"Oh yes, I forgive you. Indeed, there is nothing to forgive. I am sorry you took the trouble to come here. That is all."

"I shall obey you, and go away. Some day———"

"We shall meet on friendly terms in England. Good-bye."

He looked wistfully into her face as they shook hands; but there was no softening, no relenting. She was no longer the Elizabeth Shaw of three months ago to him.

And so they parted.