Fated to Be Free Part 27

He was stooping as he sat, and slightly swinging his hat by the brim between his knees. He had reddened at first, with a sullen and half-defiant expression, but this soon faded, and, biting his lips, he brought himself with evident effort to say--

"Well, John, I've done for myself, you see; Giles has married her.

Serves me right, quite right. I've nothing to say against it."

"No, I devoutly hope you have not," exclaimed John, to whom the unlucky situation became evident in an instant.

"Grand always has done me the justice to take my part as regards my conduct about this hateful second engagement. He always knew that I would have married poor Lucy if they would have let me--married her and made the best of my frightful, shameful mistake. But as you know, Mrs.

Nelson, Lucy's mother, made me return her letters a month ago, and said it must be broken off, unless I would let it go dragging on and on for two years at least, and that was impossible, you know, John, because--because, I so soon found out what I'd done."

"Wait a minute, my dear fellow," John interrupted hastily, "you have said nothing yet but what expresses very natural feelings. I remark, in reply, that your regret at what you have long seen to be unworthy conduct need no longer disturb you on the lady's account, she having now married somebody else."

"Yes," said Valentine, sighing restlessly.

"And," John went on, looking intently at him, "on your own account I think you need not at all regret that you had no chance of going and humbly offering yourself to her again, for I feel certain that she would have considered it insulting her to suppose she could possibly overlook such a slight. Let me speak plainly, and say that she could have regarded such a thing in no other light."

Then, giving him time to think over these words, which evidently impressed him, John presently went on, "It would be ridiculous, however, now, for Dorothea to resent your former conduct, or St. George either.

Of course they will be quite friendly towards you, and you may depend upon it that all this will very soon appear as natural as possible; you'll soon forget your former relation towards your brother's wife; in fact you must."

Valentine was silent awhile, but when he did speak he said, "You feel sure, then, that she would have thought such a thing an insult?" He meant, you feel sure, then, that I should have had no chance even if my brother had not come forward.

"Perfectly sure," answered John with confidence. "That was a step which, from the hour you made it, you never could have retraced."

Here there was another silence; then--

"Well, John, if you think so," said the poor fellow--"this was rather a sudden blow to me, though."

John pitied him; he had made a great fool of himself, and he was smarting for it keenly. His handsome young face was very pale, but John was helping him to recollect his better self, and he knew it. "I shall not allude to this any more," he continued.

"I'm very glad to hear you say so," said John.

"I came partly to say--to tell you that now I am better, quite well, in fact, I cannot live at home any longer. At home! Well, I meant in St.

George's house, any longer."

The additional knowledge John had that minute acquired of the state of Valentine's feeling, or what he supposed himself to feel, gave more than usual confidence and cordiality to his answer.

"Of course not. You will be considering now what you mean to do, and my father and I must help you. In the first place there is that two thousand pounds; you have never had a shilling of it yet. My father was speaking of that yesterday."

"Oh," answered Valentine, with evident relief, and with rather a bitter smile, "I thought he proposed to give me that as a wedding present, and if so, goodness knows I never expect to touch a farthing of it."

"That's as hereafter may be," said John, leading him away from the dangerous subject. Valentine began every sentence with a restless sigh.

"I never chose to mention it," he remarked. "I had no right to consider it as anything else, nor did I."

"He does not regard it in any such light," said John. "He had left it to you in his will, but decided afterwards to give it now. You know he talks of his death, dear old man, as composedly as of to-morrow morning. He was reminding me of this money the other day when he was unwell, and saying that, married or unmarried, you should have it made over to you."

"I'm very deeply, deeply obliged to him," said Valentine, with a fervour that was almost emotion. "It seems, John, as if that would help me,--might get me out of the sc.r.a.pe, for I really did not know where to turn. I've got nothing to do, and had nothing to live on, and I'm two and twenty."

"Yes."

"I do feel as if I was altogether in such an ignominious position."

As John quite agreed with him in this view of his position, he remained silent.

Valentine went on, "First, my going to Cambridge came to nothing on account of my health. Then a month ago, as I didn't want to go and live out in New Zealand by myself, couldn't in fact, the New Zealand place was transferred to Liz, and she and d.i.c.k are to go to it, Giles saying that he would give me a thousand pounds instead of it. I shall not take that, of course."

"Because he will want his income for himself," John interrupted.

Valentine proceeding, "And now since I left off learning to farm,--for that's no use here,--I've got nothing on earth to do."

"Have you thought of anything yet?"

"Yes."

"Well, out with it."

"John," remarked Valentine, as the shadow of a smile flitted across John's face, "you always seem to me to know what a fellow is thinking of! Perhaps you would not like such a thing,--wouldn't have it?"

John observed that he was getting a little less gloomy as he proceeded.

"But whether or not, that two thousand pounds will help me to some career, certainly, and entirely save me from what I could not bear to think of, _her_ knowing that I was dependent on Giles, and despising me for it."

"Pooh," exclaimed John, a little chafed at his talking in this way, "what is St. George's wife likely to know, or to care, as to how her brother-in-law derives his income? But I quite agree with you that you have no business to be dependent on Giles; he has done a great deal for his sisters he should now have his income for himself."

"Yes," said Valentine.

"You have always been a wonderfully united family," observed John pointedly; "there is every reason why that state of things should continue."

"Yes," repeated Valentine, receiving the covert lecture resignedly.

"And there is no earthly end, good or bad, to be served," continued John, "by the showing of irritation or gloom on your part, because your brother has chosen to take for himself what you had previously and with all deliberation thrown away."

"I suppose not, John," said Valentine quite humbly.

"Then what can you be thinking of?"

"I don't know."

"You have not talked to any one as you have done to me this morning?"

"No, certainly not."

"Well, then, decide while the game is in your own hand that you never will."

So far from being irritated or sulky at the wigging that John was bestowing on him, Valentine was decidedly the better for it. The colour returned to his face, he sat upright in his chair, and then he got up and stood on the rug, as if John's energy had roused him, and opened his eyes also, to his true position.

"You don't want to cover yourself with ridicule, do you?" continued John, seeing his advantage.

"Why, even if you cared to take neither reason, nor duty, nor honour into the question, surely the only way to save your own dignity from utter extinction is to be, or at least seem to be, quite indifferent as to what the lady may have chosen to do, but very glad that your brother should have taken a step which makes it only fair to you that he and his wife should forget your former conduct."