One Of Them

Alfred could only smile good-humoredly at the speech, and the other went on, —

“You Britishers begin by givin’ us Yankees certain national traits and habits, and you won’t let us be anything but what you have already fashioned us in your own minds. But, arter all, I’d have you to remember we are far more like your people of a century back than you yourselves are. We ain’t as mealy-mouthed and as p’lite and as smooth-tongued as the moderns. But if we ‘re plain of speech, we are simple of habit; and what you so often set down as rudeness in us ain’t anything more than our wish to declare that we ain’t in want of any one’s help or assistance, but we are able to shift for ourselves, and are independent.”

Quackinboss arose, as he said this, with the air of a man who had discharged his conscience of a load. He had often smarted under what he felt to be the unfair appreciation of the old doctor for America, and he thought that by instilling sounder principles into his son’s mind, the seed would one day or other produce good fruit.

From this he led Alfred to talk of his plans for the future. It was his father’s earnest desire that he should seek collegiate honors in the university which had once repudiated himself. The old man did not altogether arraign the justice of the act, but he longed to see his name once more in a place of honor, and that the traditions of his own triumphs should be renewed in his son’s.

“If I succeed,” said Alfred, “it will be time enough afterwards to say what next.”

“You’ll marry that gal, sir, and come out to the States. I see it all as if I read it in a book.”

Alfred shook his head doubtfully, and was silent.

“Well, I ‘m a-goin’ to Milan with Harvey Winthrop; and when I see the country, as we say, I ‘ll tell you about the clearin’.”

“You’ll write to me too?”

“That I will. It may be that she won’t have outright forgotten me, and if so, she ‘ll be more friendly with me than an uncle she has never seen nor known about. I ‘ll soon find out if her head’s turned by all this good luck, or if, as I hope, the fortune has fallen on one as deserved it. Mayhap she ‘ll be for goin’ over to America at once; mayhap she ‘ll have a turn for doing it grand here, in Europe. Harvey Winthrop says she ‘ll have money enough to buy up one of these little German States, and be a princess if she likes; at all events you shall hear, and then in about a month hence look out for me some fine evening, for I tell you, sir, I’ve got so used to it now, that I can’t get through the day without a talk with you; and though the doctor and I do have a bout now and then over the Yankees, I ‘d like to see the man who ‘d abuse America before him, and say one word against England in the face of Shaver Quackinboss.”

CHAPTER X. THE LETTER FROM ALFRED LAYTON

When Sir William Heathcote learned that Mrs. Morris had quitted his house, gone without one word of adieu, his mind reverted to all the bygone differences with his son, and to Charles did he at once ascribe the cause of her sudden flight. His health was in that state in which agitation becomes a serious complication, and for several days he was dangerously ill, violent paroxysms of passion alternating with long intervals of apathy and unconsciousness. The very sight of Charles in his room would immediately bring on one of his attacks of excitement, and even the presence of May Leslie herself brought him no alleviation of suffering. It was in vain that she assured him that Mrs. Morris left on reasons known only to herself; that even to May herself she had explained nothing, written nothing. The old man obstinately repeated his conviction that she had been made the victim of an intrigue, and that Charles was at the bottom of it. How poor May strove to combat this unjust and unworthy suspicion, how eagerly she defended him she loved, and how much the more she learned to love for the defending of him. Charles, too, in this painful emergency, displayed a moderation and self-control for which May had never given him credit. Not a hasty word or impatient expression escaped him, and he was unceasing in every attention to his father which he could render without the old man’s knowledge. It was a very sad household; on every side there was sickness and sorrow, but few of those consolations that alleviate pain or lighten suffering. Sir William desired to be left almost always alone; Charles walked moodily by himself in the garden; and May kept her room, and seldom left it. Lord Agincourt came daily to ask after them, but could see no one. Even Charles avoided meeting him, and merely sent him a verbal message, or a few hasty lines with a pencil.

Upwards of a week had passed in this manner, when, among the letters from the post, which Charles usually opened and only half read through, came a very long epistle from Alfred Layton. His name was on the corner of the envelope, and, seeing it, Charles tossed the letter carelessly across the table to May, saying, in a peevish irony, “You may care to see what your old admirer has to say; as for me, I have no such curiosity.”

She paid no attention to the rude speech, and went on with her breakfast.

“You don’t mean to say,” cried he, in the same pettish tone, “that you don’t care what there may be in that letter? It may have some great piece of good fortune to announce. He may have become a celebrity, a rich man, – Heaven knows what. This may contain the offer of his hand. Come, May, don’t despise destiny; break the seal and read your fate.”

She made no answer, but, rising from the table, left the room.

It was one of those days on which young Heathcote’s temper so completely mastered him that in anger with himself he would quarrel with his dearest friend. Fortunately, they were now very rare with him, but when they did come he was their slave. When on service and in the field, these were the intervals in which his intrepid bravery, stimulated to very madness, had won him fame and honor; and none, not even himself, knew that some of his most splendid successes were reckless indifference to life. His friends, however, learned to remark that Heathcote was no companion at such times, and they usually avoided him.

He sat on at the breakfast-table, not eating, or indeed well conscious where he was, when the door was hastily thrown open, and Agincourt entered. “Well, old fellow,” cried he, “I have unearthed you at last. Your servants have most nobly resisted all my attempts to force a passage or bribe my way to you, and it was only by a stratagem that I contrived to slip past the porter and pass in.”

“You have cost the fellow his place, then,” said Charles, rudely; “he shall be sent away to-day.”

“Nonsense, Charley; none of this moroseness with me.”

“And why not with you?” cried the other, violently. “Why not with you? You’ll not presume to say that the accident of your station gives you the privilege of intruding where others are denied? You ‘ll not pretend that?”

A deep flush covered the young man’s face, and his eyes flashed angrily; but just as quickly a softened expression came over his countenance, and in a voice of mingled kindness and bantering, he said, “I ‘ll tell you what I ‘ll pretend, Charley; I’ll pretend to say that you love me too sincerely to mean to offend me, even when a harsh speech has escaped you in a moment of haste or anger.”

“Offend you!” exclaimed Heathcote, with the air of a man utterly puzzled and confused, – “offend you! How could I dream of offending you? You were not used to be touchy, Agincourt; what, in the name of wonder, could make you fancy I meant offence?”

The look of his face, the very accent in which he spoke, were so unaffectedly honest and sincere that the youth saw at once how unconsciously his rude speech had escaped him, and that not a trace of it remained in his memory.

“I have been so anxious to see you, Charley,” said he, in his usual tone, “for some days back. I wanted to consult you about O’Shea. My uncle has given me an appointment for him, and I can’t find out where he is. Then there ‘s another thing; that strange Yankee, Quackinboss, – you remember him at Marlia, long ago. He found out, by some means, that I was at the hotel here, and he writes to beg I ‘ll engage I can’t say how many rooms for himself and some friends who are to arrive this evening. I don’t think you are listening to me, are you?”

“Yes, I hear you, – go on.”

“I mean to clear out of the diggin’s if these Yankees come, and you must tell me where to go. I don’t dislike the ‘Kernal,’ but his following would be awful, eh?”

“Yes, quite so.”

“What do you mean by ‘Yes’? Is it that you agree with me, or that you haven’t paid the slightest attention to one word I’ve said?”

“Look here, Agincourt,” said Charley, passing his arm inside the other’s, and leading him up and down the room. “I wish I had not changed my mind; I wish I had gone to India. I have utterly failed in all that I hoped to have done here, and I have made my poor father more unhappy than ever.”

“Is he so determined to marry this widow, then?”

“She is gone. She left us more than a week ago, without saying why or for whither. I have not the slightest clew to her conduct, nor can I guess where she is.”

“When was it she left this?”

“On Wednesday week last.”

“The very day O’Shea started.”

They each looked steadfastly at the other; and at last Agincourt said, —

“Would n’t that be a strange solution of the riddle, Charley? On the last night we dined together you may remember I promised to try what I could make of the negotiation; and so I praised the widow, extolled her beauty, and hinted that she was exactly the clever sort of woman that helps a man on to fortune.”

“How I wish I had gone to India!” muttered Charles, and so immersed in his own cares as not to hear one word the other was saying.

“If I were to talk in that way, Charley, you ‘d be the very first to call out, What selfishness! what an utter indifference to all feelings but your own! You are merely dealing with certain points that affect yourself, and you forget a girl that loves you.”

“Am I so sure of that? Am I quite certain that an old attachment – she owned to me herself that she liked him, that tutor fellow of yours – has not a stronger hold on her heart than I have? There ‘s a letter from him. I have n’t opened it I have a sort of half suspicion that when I do read it I ‘ll have a violent desire to shoot him. It is just as if I knew that, inside that packet there, was an insult awaiting me, and yet I ‘d like to spare myself the anger it will cause me when I break the seal; and so I walk round the table and look at the letter, and turn it over, and at last – ” With the word he tore open the envelope, and unfolded the note. “Has he not given me enough of it? One, two, three, ay, four pages! When a man writes at such length, he is certain to be either very tiresome or very disagreeable, not to say that I never cared much for your friend Mr. Layton; he gave himself airs with us poor unlettered folk – ”

“Come, come, Charley; if you were not in an ill mood, you ‘d never say anything so ungenerous.”

It was possible that he felt the rebuke to be just, for he did not reply, but, seating himself in the window, began to read the letter. More than once did Agincourt make some remark, or ask some question. Of even his movements of impatience Heathcote took no note, as, deeply immersed in the contents of the letter, he continued to read on.

“Well, I’ll leave you for a while, Charley,” said he, at last; “perhaps I may drop in to see you this evening.”

“Wait; stay where you are!” said Heathcote, abruptly, and yet not lifting his eyes from the lines before him. “What a story! – what a terrible story!” muttered he to himself. Then beckoning to Agincourt to come near, he caught him by the arm, and in a low whisper said, “Who do you think she turns out to be? The widow of Godfrey Hawke!”

“I never so much as heard of Godfrey Hawke.”

“Oh, I forgot; you were an infant at the time. But surely you must have heard or read of that murder at Jersey? – a well-known gambler, named Hawke, poisoned by his associates, while on a visit at his house.”

“And who is she?”

“Mrs. Penthony Morris. Here’s the whole story. But begin at the beginning.”

Seated side by side, they now proceeded to read the letter over together, nor did either speak a word till it was finished.

“And to be so jolly with all that on her mind!” exclaimed Agincourt. “Why, she most have the courage of half a dozen men.”

“I now begin to read the meaning of many things I never could make out her love of retirement, – she, a woman essentially of the world and society, estranging herself from every one; her strange relations with Clara, a thing which used to puzzle me beyond measure; and lastly, her remarkable injunction to me when we parted, her prayer to be forgotten, or, at least, never mentioned.”

“You did not tell me of that.”

“Nor was it my intention to have done so now; it escaped me involuntarily.”

“And what is to become of Clara?”

“Don’t you see that she has found an uncle, – this Mr. Winthrop, – with whom, and our friend Quackinboss, she is to arrive at Rome to-night or to-morrow?”

“Oh, these are the friends for whom I was to bespeak an apartment; so, then, I ‘ll not leave my hotel. I ‘m delighted to have such neighbors.”

“May ought to go and meet her; she ought to bring her here, and of course she will do so. But, first of all, to show her this letter; or shall I merely tell her certain parts of it?”

“I ‘d let her read every line of it, and I ‘d give it to Sir William also.”

Charles started at the counsel; but after a moment he said, “I believe you are right. The sooner we clear away these mysteries, the sooner we shall deal frankly together.”

“I have come to beg your pardon, May,” said Charles, as he stood on the sill of her door. “I could scarcely hope you ‘d grant it save from very pity for me, for I have gone through much this last day or two. But, besides your pardon, I want your advice. When you have read over that letter, – read it twice, – I ‘ll come back again.”

May made him no answer, but, taking the letter, turned away. He closed the door noiselessly, and left her. Whatever may be the shock a man experiences on learning that the individual with whom for a space of time he has been associating on terms of easy intimacy should turn out to be one notorious in crime or infamous in character, to a woman the revulsion of feeling under like circumstances is tenfold more painful. It is not alone that such casualties are so much more rare, but in the confidences between women there is so much more interchange of thought and feeling that the shock is proportionately greater. That a man should be arraigned before a tribunal is a stain, but to a woman it is a brand burned upon her forever.

There had been a time when May and Mrs. Morris lived together as sisters. May had felt all the influence of a character more formed than her own, and of one who, gifted and accomplished as she was, knew how to extend that influence with consummate craft. In those long-ago days May had confided to her every secret of her heart, – her early discontents with Charles Heathcote; her pettish misgivings about the easy confidence of his security; her half flirtation with young Layton, daily inclining towards something more serious still. She recalled to mind, too, how Mrs. Morris had encouraged her irritation against Charles, magnifying all his failings into faults, and exaggerating the natural indolence of his nature into the studied indifference of one “sure of his bond.” And last of all she thought of her in her relations with Clara, – poor Clara, whose heart, overflowing with affection, had been repelled and schooled into a mere mockery of sentiment.

That her own fortune had been wasted and dissipated by this woman she well knew. Without hesitation or inquiry, May had signed everything that was put before her, and now she really could not tell what remained to her of all that wealth of which she used to hear so much and care so little.

These thoughts tracked her along every line of the letter, and through all the terrible details she was reading; the woman herself, in her craft and subtlety, absorbed her entire attention. Even when she had read to the end, and learned the tidings of Clara’s fortune, her mind would involuntarily turn back to Mrs. Penthony Morris and her wiles. It was in an actual terror at the picture her mind had drawn of this deep designing woman that Charles found her sitting with the letter before her, and her eyes staring wildly and on vacancy.

“I see, May,” said he, gently taking her hand, and seating himself at her side, “this dreadful letter has shocked you, as it has shocked me; but remember, dearest, we are only looking back at a peril we have all escaped. She has not separated us; she has not involved us in the disgrace of relationship to her; she is not one of us; she is not anything even to poor Clara; and though we may feel how narrowly we have avoided all our dangers, let us be grateful for that safety for which we really contributed nothing ourselves. Is it not so, dearest May? We have gained the harbor, and never knew that we had crossed a quicksand.”

“And, after all, Charles, painful as all this is now, and must be when remembered hereafter, it is not without its good side. We will all draw closer to each other, and love more fondly where we can trust implicitly.”

“And you forgive me, May?”

“Certainly not – if you assume forgiveness in that fashion!”

Now, though this true history records that May Leslie arose with a deep flush upon her cheek, and her massy roll of glossy hair somewhat dishevelled, there is no mention of what the precise fashion was in which Charles Heathcote sued out his pardon; nor, indeed, with our own narrow experiences of such incidents, do we care to hazard a conjecture.

“And now as to my father, May. How much of this letter shall we tell him?”

“All; every word of it. It will pain him, as it has pained us, or even more; but, that pain once over, he will come back, without one reserved thought, to all his old affection for us, and we shall be happy as we used to be.”

CHAPTER XI. AN EAGER GUEST

When Lord Agincoort returned to his hotel, he was astonished to see waiters passing in and out of his apartment with trays covered with dishes, decanters of wine, and plates of fruit; but as he caught the deep tone of O’Shea’s voice from within, he quickly understood how that free-and-easy personage was making himself at home.

“Oh, it is here you are!” said Agincourt, entering; “and Charley and I have been just speculating whether you might not have been expiating some of your transgressions in an Austrian jail.”

“I am here, as you perceive,” said the O’Shea, wiping his lips with his napkin, “and doing indifferently well, too. By the way they treat me, I ‘m given to believe that your credit stands well with the hotel people.”

“When did you arrive?”

“An hour ago; just in time to make them roast that hedgehog. They call it a sucking-pig, but I know it’s a hedgehog, though I was eight-and-forty hours without eating.”

“How was that?”

“This way,” said he, as he drew out the lining of his pockets, and showed that they were perfectly empty. “I just left myself enough for the diligence fare from Bologna, and one roll of bread and a pint of wine as I started; since that I have tasted nothing but the pleasures of hope. Don’t talk to me, therefore, or talk away, but don’t expect me to answer you for fifteen minutes more.”

Agincourt nodded, and seated himself at the table, in quiet contemplation of the O’Shea’s performance. “I got an answer to my letter about you,” said he, at length, and rather curious to watch the struggle between his hunger and his curiosity.

O’Shea gave a nod, as though to say “Proceed;” but Agincourt said nothing.

“Well, go on!” cried O’Shea, as he helped himself to half a duck.

“It’s a long-winded sort of epistle,” said Agincourt, now determined to try his patience to the uttermost. “I ‘ll have to show it to you.”

“Is it Yes or No?” asked O’Shea, eagerly, and almost choking himself with the effort to speak.

“That’s pretty much how you take it. You see, my uncle is one of those formal old fellows trained in official life, and who have a horror of doing anything against the traditions of a department – ”

“Well, well, well! but can’t he say whether he ‘ll give me something or not?”

“So he does say it, but you interrupt me at every moment. When you have read through his letter, you ‘ll be able to appreciate the difficulties of his position, and also decide on what you think most conducive to your own interests.”

O’Shea groaned heavily, as he placed the remainder of the duck on his plate.

“What of your duel? How did it go off?”

“Beautifully.”

“Did your man behave well?”

“Beautifully.”

“Was he hit?”

A shake of the head.

“Was the Frenchman wounded?”

“Here – flesh wound – nothing serious.”

“That’s all right. I’ll leave you now, to finish your lunch in quiet. You ‘ll find me on the Pincian when you stroll out.”

“Look here! Don’t go! Wait a bit! I want you to tell me in one word, – can I get anything or not?”

The intense earnestness of his face as he spoke would have made any further tantalizing such a cruelty that Agincourt answered frankly, “Yes, old fellow, they ‘ve made you a Boundary Commissioner; I forget where, but you’re to have a thousand a year, and some allowances besides.”

“This is n’t a joke? You ‘re telling me truth?” asked he, trembling all over with anxiety.

“On honor,” said Agincourt, giving his hand.

“You ‘re a trump, then; upon my conscience, you ‘re a trump. Here I am now, close upon eight-and-thirty, – I don’t look it by five years, but I am, – and after sitting for four sessions in Parliament, not a man did I ever find would do me a hand’s turn, but it ‘s to a brat of a boy I owe the only bit of good fortune of my whole life. That’s what I call hard, – very hard.”

“I don’t perceive that it’s very complimentary to myself, either,” said Agincourt, struggling to keep down a laugh. But O’Shea was far too full of his own cares to have any thought for another’s, and he went on muttering below his breath about national injustice and Saxon jealousy.

“You ‘ll accept this, then? Shall I say so?”

“I believe you will! I’d like to see myself refuse a thousand a-year and pickings.”

“I suspect I know what you have in your mind, too. I ‘ll wager a pony that I guess it. You ‘re planning to marry that pretty widow, and carry her out with you.”

O’Shea grew crimson over face and forehead, and stared at the other almost defiantly, without speaking.

“Ain’t I right?” asked Agincourt, somewhat disconcerted by the look that was bent upon him.

“You are not right; you were never more wrong in your life.”

“May be so; but you ‘ll find it a hard task to persuade me so.”

“I don’t want to persuade you of anything; but this I know, that you ‘ve started a subject there that I won’t talk on with you or any one else. Do you mind me now? I ‘m willing enough to owe you the berth you offered me, but not upon conditions; do you perceive – no conditions.”

This was not a very intelligible speech, but Agincourt could detect the drift of the speaker, and caught him cordially by the hand, and said, “If I ever utter a word that offends you, I pledge my honor it will be through inadvertence, and not intention.”

“That will do. I ‘m your debtor, now, and without misgivings. I want to see young Heathcote as soon as I can. Would I find him at home now?”

“I ‘ll get him over here to dine with us. We ‘ll have a jolly evening together, and drink a boundless success to the Boundary Commissioner. If I don’t mistake, too, there ‘s another good fellow here would like to be one of us.”

“Another! who can he be?”

“Here he comes to answer for himself.” And, as he spoke, Quackinboss lounged into the room, with his hands deep in his trousers-pockets, and his hat on his head.

“Well, sir, I hope I see you in good health,” said he to Agincourt. “You’ve grown a bit since we met last, and you ain’t so washy-lookin’ as you used to be.”

“Thanks. I ‘m all right in health, and very glad to see you, besides. Is not my friend here an old acquaintance of yours, – the O’Shea?”