One Of Them

“But surely, child, you have not reached the land of regrets already?” said he, fondly drawing her towards him with his arm.

She turned her head away, and drew her hand across her eyes.

“It is very early to begin with sorrow, my dear child,” said he, affectionately. “Let me hope that it’s only an April cloud, with the silver lining already peeping through.”

A faint sob broke from her, but she did not speak.

“I ‘d ask to be your confidant only in thinking I could serve you, dearest Clara. Old men like myself get to know a good deal of life without any study of it.”

She made a slight effort to disengage herself from his arm, but he held her fast; and, after a moment, she leaned her head upon his shoulder and burst out crying.

At this critical instant the door opened, and Mrs. Morris entered. Scarcely inside the room, she stood like one spell-bound, unable to move or speak; her features, flushed by exercise, became pale as death, her lips actually livid. “Am I indiscreet?” asked she, in a voice scarcely other than a hiss of passion. “Do I interrupt a confidence, Sir William?”

“I am not sure that you do,” said he, good-humoredly. “Though I was pressing Clara to accept me as a counsellor, I ‘m not quite certain I was about to succeed.”

“Indeed!” said Mrs. Morris, sarcastically. “My theory about young ladies excludes secrets altogether. It assumes them to be candid and open-hearted. They who walk openly and on the high-road want little guidance beyond the dictates of a right purpose. Go to your room, Clara, and I ‘ll be with you presently.” These latter words were spoken in perfect calm, and obeyed at once. Mrs. Morris was now alone with Sir William.

The Baronet felt ill at ease. With a perfect consciousness of honorable motives, there is an awkwardness in situations which seem to require explanation, if not excuse, and he waited, in a sort of fidgety impatience, that she should say something that might enable him to state what had occurred between Clara and himself.

“I hope you are better than when I left you this morning?” said she, as she untied her bonnet and seated herself in front of him.

“Scarcely so; these pains recur at every instant, and my nerves are shattered with irritability.”

“I ‘m sorry for it, for you have need of all your firmness; bad news has come from America.”

“Bad news? What sort of bad news? Is there a war – ”

“A war!” said she, contemptuously. “I wish it was a war! It’s far worse than war. It’s general bankruptcy. All the great houses breaking, and securities utterly valueless.”

“Well, bad enough, no doubt, but it does not immediately concern us,” said he, quickly.

“Not concern us! Why, what have we been doing these last months but buying into this share-market? Have we not invested largely in Kansas stock, in Iroquois and in Texan bonds?”

Whether he had not originally understood the transfers in which he had borne his part, or whether the pain of his seizure had effaced all memory of the events, he now sat bewildered and astounded, like one suddenly aroused from a deep sleep, to listen to disastrous news.

“But I don’t understand,” cried he. “I cannot see how all this has been done. I heard you and Trover discussing it together, and I saw innumerable colored plans of railroads that were to be, and cities that must be, and I remember something about lands to be purchased for two dollars and re-sold for two hundred.”

“And, by all that, you have confessed to know everything that I did,” said she, firmly. “It was explained to you that, instead of muddling away upon mortgage at home, some thirty or even forty per cent might be realized in the States. I showed you the road by risking whatever little fortune I possessed, and you followed. Now we have each of us lost our money, and there ‘s the whole story.”

“But it’s May’s money I ‘ve lost!” cried he, with a voice of anguish.

“I don’t suppose it matters much to whom it belonged once,” said she, dryly. “The gentlemen into whose hands it falls will scarcely burden themselves to ask whence it came.”

“But I had no right to gamble May Leslie’s fortune!” burst he in.

“We have no time for the ethical part of the question at present,” said she, calmly. “Our concern is with how we are to save the most we can. I have just seen the names of two houses at New York, which, if aided in time, will be able to stand the torrent, and eventually pay everything. To save their credit here will require about eighteen thousand pounds. It is our interest – our only hope, indeed – to rescue them. Could you induce May to take this step?”

“Induce May to peril another large portion of her fortune!” cried he, in horror and astonishment.

“Induce her to arrest what might proceed to her ruin,” whispered she, in a low, distinct voice. “If these American securities are forfeited, there will be no money forthcoming to meet the calls for the Spanish railroads, no resources to pay the deposit on the concessions in Naples. You seem to forget how deep our present engagements are. We shall need above thirty thousand pounds by the 1st of March, – fully as much more six weeks later.”

The old man clasped his hands convulsively, and trembled from head to foot.

“You know well how ignorant she is of all we have done, all we are doing,” said he, with deep emotion.

“I know well that no one ever labored and worked for my benefit as I have toiled for hers. My endeavor was to triple, quadruple her fortune, and if unforeseen casualties have arisen to thwart my plans, I am not deterred by such disasters. I wish I could say as much for you.”

The ineffable insolence of her manner as she uttered this taunt, far from rousing the old man’s anger, seemed only to awe and subdue him.

“Yes,” continued she, “I am only a woman, and, as a woman, debarred from all those resorts where information is rife and knowledge attainable; but even working darkly, blindly, as I must, I have more reliance and courage than some men that I wot of!”

He seemed for a moment to struggle hard with himself to summon the spirit to reply to her; for an instant he raised his head haughtily, but as his eyes met hers they fell suddenly, and he muttered in a half-broken voice, “I meant all for the best!”

“Well,” cried she, after a brief pause, “it is no time for regrets, or recriminations either. It is surely neither your fault nor mine that the cotton crop is a failure, or that discounts are high in Broadway. When May comes in, you must explain to her what has happened, and ask her leave to sell out her Sardinian stock. It is a small sum, to be sure, but it will give us a respite for a day or two, and then we shall think of our next move.”

She left the room as she said this, and anything more utterly hopeless than the old Baronet it would be difficult to imagine. Bewildered and almost stunned by the difficulties around him, a sort of vague sense of reliance upon her sustained him so long as she was there. No sooner, however, had she gone, than this support seemed withdrawn, and he sat, the very picture of dismay and discomfiture.

The project by which the artful Mrs. Morris had originally seduced him into speculation was no other than to employ Miss Leslie’s fortune as the means of making advantageous purchases of land in the States, and of discounting at the high rate of interest so freely given in times of pressure in the cities of the Union. To suffer a considerable sum to lie unprofitably yielding three per cent at home, when it might render thirty by means of a little energy and a little skill, seemed actually absurd; and not a day used to go over, in which she would not compute, from the recorded rates of the exchanges, the large gains that might have been realized, without, as she would say, “the shadow of a shade of risk.” Sir William had once gambled on ‘Change and in railroad speculations the whole of a considerable estate; and the old leaven of speculation still worked within him. If there be a spirit which no length of years can efface, no changes of time eradicate, it is the gamester’s reliance upon fortune. Estranged for a long period as he had lived from all the exciting incidents of enterprise, no sooner was the picture of gain once more displayed before him than he eagerly embraced it.

“Ah!” he would say to himself, “if I had but had the advantage of her clear head and shrewd power of calculation long ago, what a man I might be to-day! That woman’s wit of hers puts all mere men’s acuteness to the blush.” It is not necessary to say that the softest of blue eyes and the silkiest of brown hair did not detract very largely from the influences of her mental superiority; and Sir William was arrived at that precise lustre in which such fascinations obtain their most undisputed triumphs.

Poets talk of youth as the impressionable age; they rave about its ardor, its impetuous, uncalculating generosity, and so forth; but for an act of downright self-forgetting devotion, for that impulsive spirit that takes no counsel from calm reason, give us an elderly gentleman, – anything from sixty-four to fourscore. These are the really ardent and tender lovers, – easy victims, too, of all the wiles that beset them.

Had any grave notary, or deep plotting man upon ‘Change suggested to Sir William the project of employing his ward’s fortune with any view to his own profit, the chances are that the hint would have been rejected as an outrage, and the suggester insulted; but the plan came from rosy lips, whispered by the softest of voices; and even the arithmetic was jotted down by fingers so taper and so white that he lost sight of the multiples in his admiration of the calculator. His first experiences, besides, were all great successes. Kansas scrip went up to a fabulous premium. When he sold out his Salt Lake Fives, he realized cent per cent. These led him on. That “ardor nummi” which was not new in the days of the Latin poet, is as rife in our time as it was centuries ago.

Let us also bear in mind that there is something very fascinating to a man of a naturally active temperament to be recalled, after years of inglorious leisure, to subjects of deep and stirring interest; he likes the self-flattery of being equal to such themes, that his judgment should be as sound, his memory as clear, and his apprehension as ready as it used to be. Proud man is the old fox-hunter that can charge his “quickset” at fourscore; but infinitely prouder the old country gentleman who, at the same age, fancies himself deep in all the mysteries of finance, and skilled in the crafty lore of the share-market.

And, last of all, he was vexed and irritated by Charley’s desertion of him, and taunted by the tone in which the young man alluded to the widow and her influence in the family. To be taught caution, or to receive lessons in worldly craft from one very much our junior, is always a trial of temper; and so did everything conspire to make him an easy victim to her machinations.

And May, – what of her? May signed her name when and wherever she was told, concurred with everything, and, smiling, expressed her gratitude for all the trouble they were taking on her behalf. Her only impression throughout was that property was a great source of worry; and what a fortunate thing it was for her to have met with those who understood its interests, and could deal with its eventualities! Of her large fortune she actually knew nothing. Little jests would be bandied, at breakfast and dinner, about May being the owner of vast tracts in the far West, territories wide as principalities, with mines here and great forests there, and so on, and sportive allusions to her one day becoming the queen of some far-away land beyond the sea. Save in such laughing guise as this she never approached the theme, nor cared for it.

Between May and Clara a close friendship had grown up. Besides the tastes that united them, there was another and a very tender bond that linked their hearts together. They were confidantes. May told Clara that she really loved Charles Heathcote, and never knew it till they were separated. She owned that if his careless, half-indifferent way had piqued her, it was only after she had been taught to resent it. She had once even regarded it as the type of his manly, independent nature, which she now believed to be the true version of his character; and then there was a secret – a real young-lady secret – between them, fastest of all the bonds that ever bound such hearts together.

May fancied or imagined that young Layton had gone away, trusting that time was to plead for him, and that absence was to appeal in his behalf. Perhaps he had said so; perhaps he hoped it; perhaps it was a mere dream of her own. Who knows these things? In that same court of Cupid fancies are just as valid as affidavits, and the vaguest illusions quite as much evidence as testimony taken on oath.

Now, amongst all the sorrows that a young lady loves best to weep over, there is not one whose ecstasy can compare with the affliction for the poor fellow who loves her to madness, but whose affection she cannot return. It is a very strange and curious fact – and fact it is – that this same tie of a rejected devotion will occasionally exact sacrifices just as great as the most absorbing passion.

To have gained a man’s heart, as it were, in spite of him, – to have become the depositary of all his hopes, and yet not given him one scrap of a receipt for his whole investment, – has a wonderful attraction for the female nature. It is the kind of debt of honor she can appreciate best of all, and, it must be owned, it is one she knows how to deal with in a noble and generous spirit To the man so placed with regard to her she will observe an undying fidelity; she will defend him at any cost; she will uphold him at any sacrifice. Now, May not only confessed to Clara that Layton had made her the offer of his heart, but she told how heavily on her conscience lay the possible – if it were so much as possible – sin of having given him any encouragement.

“You must write to the poor fellow for me, Clara. You must tell him from me – from myself, remember – that it would be only a cruelty to suffer him to cherish hope; that my self-accusings, painful enough now, would be tortures if I were to deceive him. I’m sure it is better, no matter what the anguish be, to deal thus honestly and fairly; and you can add that his noble qualities will be ever dwelt on by me – indeed, you may say by both of us – with the very deepest interest, and that no higher happiness could be than to hear of his success in life.”

May said this and much more to the same purpose. She professed to feel for him the most sincere friendship, faintly foreshadowing throughout that it was not the least demerit on his part his being fascinated by such attractions as hers, though they were, in reality, not meant to captivate him.

I cannot exactly say how far Clara gave a faithful transcript of her friend’s feelings, for I never saw but a part of the letter she wrote; but certainly it is only fair to suppose, from its success, that it was all May could have desired.

The epistle had followed Layton from an address he had given in Wales to Dublin, thence to the north of Ireland, and finally overtook him in Liverpool the night before he sailed for America.

He answered it at once. He tendered all his gratitude for the kind thoughtfulness that had suggested the letter. He said that such an evidence of interest was inexpressibly dear to him at a moment when nothing around or about him was of the cheeriest. He declared that, going to a far-away land, with an uncertain future before him, it was a great source of encouragement to him to feel that good wishes followed his steps; that he owned, in a spirit of honest loyalty, that few as were the months that had intervened, they were enough to convince him of the immense presumption of his proffer. “You will tell Miss Leslie,” wrote he, “that in the intoxication of all the happiness I lived in at the villa, I lost head as well as heart. It was such an atmosphere of enjoyment as I had never breathed before, – may never breathe again. I could not stop to analyze what it was that imparted such ecstasy to my existence, and, naturally enough, tendered all my homage and all my devotion to one whose loveliness was so surpassing! If I was ever unjust enough to accuse her of having encouraged my rash presumption, let me now entreat her pardon. I see and own my fault.”

The letter was very long, but not always very coherent. There was about it a humility that smacked more of wounded pride than submissiveness, and occasionally a sort of shadowy protest that, while grateful for proffered friendship, he felt himself no subject for pity or compassion. To use the phrase of Quackinboss, to whom he read it, “it closed the account with that firm, and declared no more goods from that store.”

But there was a loose slip of paper enclosed, very small, and with only a few lines written on it. It was to Clara herself. “And so you have kept the slip of jessamine I gave you on that day, – gave you so ungraciously too. Keep it still, dear Clara. Keep it in memory of one who, when he claims it of you, will ask you to recall that hour, and never again forget it!”

This she did not show to May Leslie; and thus was there one secret which she treasured in her own heart, alone.

CHAPTER XXXIV. A WARM DISCUSSION

“I knew it, – I could have sworn to it,” cried Paten, as he listened to Stocmar’s narrative of his drive with Mrs. Morris. “She has just done with you as with fifty others. Of course you ‘ll not believe that you can be the dupe, – she ‘d not dare to throw her net for such a fish as you. Ay, and land you afterwards, high and dry, as she has done with scores of fellows as sharp as either of us.”

Stocmar sipped his wine, half simpering at the passionate warmth of his companion, which, not without truth, he ascribed to a sense of jealousy.

“I know her well,” continued Paten, with heightened passion. “I have reason to know her well; and I don’t believe that this moment you could match her for falsehood in all Europe. There is not a solitary spot in her heart without a snare in it.”

“Strange confession this, from a lover,” said Stocmar, smiling.

“If you call a lover one that would peril his own life to bring shame and disgrace on hers, I am such a man.”

“It is not more than a week ago you told me, in all seriousness, that you would marry her, if she ‘d have you.”

“And I say it again, here and now; and I say more, that if I had the legal right over her that marriage would give me, I’d make her rue the day she outraged Ludlow Paten.”

“It was Paul Hunt that she slighted, man,” said Stocmar, half sneeringly. “You forget that.”

“Is this meant for a threat, Stocmar?”

“Don’t be a fool,” said the other, carelessly. “What I meant was, that other times had other interests, and neither she, nor you, nor, for that matter, I myself, want to live over the past again.”

Paten threw his cigar angrily from him, and sat brooding and moody; for some time nothing was heard between them save the clink of the decanter as they filled their glasses, and passed the wine.

“Trover’s off,” mattered Paten, at last.

“Off! Whereto?”

“To Malta, I believe; and then to Egypt – anywhere, in short, till the storm blows over. This American crash has given them a sharp squeeze.”

“I wonder who’ll get that Burgundy? I think I never drank such Chambertin as that he gave us t’ other night.”

“I’d rather pick up that pair of Hungarian chestnuts. They are the true ‘Yucker’ breed, with nice straight slinging action.”

“His pictures, too, were good.”

“And such cigars as the dog had! He told me, I think, he had about fifteen thousand of those Cubans.”

“A vulgar hound! – always boasting of his stable, or his cellar, or his conservatory! I can’t say I feel sorry for him.”

“Sorry for him! I should think not. The fellow has had his share of good fortune, living up there at that glorious villa in luxury. It’s only fair he should take his turn on the shady side of the road.”

“These Heathcotes must have got it smartly too from the Yankees. They invested largely there of late.”

“So Trover told me. Almost the last words he said were: ‘The man that marries that girl for an heiress, will find he has got a blind nut Her whole fortune is swept away.’”

“I wonder is that true.”

“I feel certain it is. Trover went into all sorts of figures to show it. I’m not very much up in arithmetic, and so could n’t follow him; but I gathered that they ‘d made their book to lose, no matter how the match came off. That was to be expected when they trusted such things to a woman.”

Another and a longer pause now ensued between them; at length Paten broke it abruptly, saying, “And the girl – I mean Clara – what of her?”

“It’s all arranged; she is to be Clara Stocmar, and a pensionnaire of the Conservatoire of Milan within a week.”

“Who says so?” asked Paten, defiantly.

“Her mother – well, you know whom I mean by that title – proposed, and I accepted the arrangement. She may, or may not, have dramatic ability; like everything else in life, there is a lottery about it. If she really do show cleverness, she will be a prize just now. If she has no great turn of speed, as the jocks say, she ‘ll always do for the Brazils and Havannah. They never send us their best cigars, and, in return, we only give them our third-rate singers!”

It was evident in this speech that Stocmar was trying, by a jocular tone, to lead the conversation into some channel less irritating and disputatious; but Paten’s features relaxed nothing of their stern severity, and he looked dogged and resolute as before.

“I think, Stocmar,” said he, at length, “that there is still a word wanting to that same bargain you speak of. If the girl’s talents are to be made marketable, why should not I stand in for something?”

“You, – you, Ludlow!” cried the other. “In the name of all that is absurd, what pretext can you have for such a claim?”

“Just this: that I am privy to the robbery, and might peach if not bought up.”

“You know well this is mere blind menace, Ludlow,” said the other, good-humoredly; “and as to letting off squibs, my boy, don’t forget that you live in a powder-magazine.”

“And what if I don’t care for a blow-up? What if I tell you that I ‘d rather send all sky-high to-morrow than see that woman succeed in all her schemes, and live to defy me?”

“As to that,” said Stocmar, gravely, “the man who neither cares for his own life or character can always do damage to those of another; there is no disputing about that.”

“Well, I am exactly such a man, and she shall know it.” Not a word was spoken for several minutes, and then Paten resumed, but in a calmer and more deliberate tone, “Trover has told me everything. I see her whole scheme. She meant to marry that old Baronet, and has been endeavoring, by speculating in the share-market, to get some thousands together; now, as the crash has smashed the money part of the scheme, the chances are it will have also upset the marriage. Is not that likely?”

“That is more than I can guess,” said Stocmar, doubtingly.

“You can guess it, just as I can,” said Paten, half angrily. “She’s not the woman to link her fortune with a ruined man. Can’t you guess that?” Stocmar nodded, and Paten went on: “Now, I mean to stand to win on either event, – that’s my book.”

“I don’t understand you, Paul.”

“Call me Ludlow, confound you,” said Paten, passionately, “or that infernal name will slip out some day unawares. What I would say is, that, if she wishes to be ‘My Lady,’ she must buy me off first. If she ‘ll consent to become my wife, – that is the other alternative.”

“She’ll never do that,” said Stocmar, gravely.

“How do you know, – did she tell you so?”

“Certainly not.”

“You only know it, then, from your intimate acquaintance with her sentiments,” said he, sneeringly.

“How I know, or why I believe it, is my own affair,” said Stocmar, in some irritation; “but such is my conviction.”

“Well, it is not mine,” said Paten, filling up his glass, and drinking it slowly off. “I know her somewhat longer – perhaps somewhat better – than you do; and if I know anything in her, it is that she never cherishes a resentment when it costs too high a price.”