Honor Edgeworth; Or, Ottawa's Present Tense Part 3

"That verse is her own," said the still watcher at the window.

The girl's voice faded to a sigh, she drew her hands apart and opened the book again, the face outside pressed more eagerly still against the cold pane.

"Why!" she suddenly exclaimed, "the words are all marked in pencil!

underlined, just where I have been accustomed to emphasize them, does Mr. Rayne?--Oh impossible.--Whose can it be?" She turned impatiently to the fly-leaf and there in a clear masculine hand she saw, "G. E. from the only true friend and bitter enemy he has in the world--himself."

The book fell from her fingers. She looked earnestly into the fire, and a sad expression stole over her face.

"G. E.! Who was G. E.? Who was it that seemed to sympathise with her already? Who else in the world considered one's self a friend and an enemy, except herself?" She was beginning to long for him, to feel a loneliness for this kindred soul, as if he had come into her life and then had gone suddenly out of it again, leaving her in a melancholy despair. And as she sat there, lost in a long, tangled reverie, the eager face vanished from the window, for another figure strode up the little avenue, and quietly opening the door, pa.s.sed in. Then the tall young stranger emerged from his hiding place, and noiselessly went out through the rustic gateway, trampling beneath his feet, the fallen leaves, over whose inevitable fate, Honor had spent so many sighs; but his heart was beating quickly, and his face was aglow with a new-lit flame. A strange transformation had apparently settled over all his surroundings. The moon was mounting over the house-tops and shedding a pale, soft light on his way. The world looked fairer and brighter far, than it did a little while ago. The tall trees swaying their naked boughs on the chill night air of mid-autumn, only gave out a responsive sigh to the new longing within his breast, and the crisp rustling of the withered leaves only chimed in harmoniously with the echo of the love lay that was lingering on the chords of his heart; and where the moon in her silent loveliness cast shadows here and there on his way, he saw a vision of the loveliest face that ever haunted a mortal; and wherever quietude reigned profound, he heard the echo of the grave sweet voice saying:

"Must I stand alone in life's busy crowd, A living heart in a death-like shroud?"

And then his heart burst out its pa.s.sionate "No." He had not recognized those responsive emotions in that lovely girl to forget them so soon again, he had been searching for them too long not to prize them now. He had thought he was anchoring at despair, and now that a star broke through the clouded heavens, beckoning him on, was he mad to scorn the hope that lay within his grasp? No, indeed, and that very night, under the immediate impulse of his new-born emotions, Guy Elersley made up his mind.

We cannot be surprised at this sudden change in Guy, although it was the most unexpected and unlooked for circ.u.mstance that could possibly have come to him. Falling in and out of love is almost so certain a portion of our destiny, that we should never be surprised by it. We know of love as we do of death, that it is to come some day, if not now, by and by.

We wait for it without expecting it, we recognize the symptoms that foretell its approach, but of its real bearing on our future lives, we can tell nothing. Time alone, as it unravels the strange mysteries, shows us in what way our love can prove a blessing or a curse. If we were so const.i.tuted, in general, as to make up our minds coolly and calculatingly, to fall in love sensibly, but no, with most of us, a look, a word, a pressure of the hand, a sigh, a flower or some such trifling thing, has sufficed to plunge us hoplessly into the delirium of "love." Dreamy eyes that fascinate us, pretty words that gratify us, little signs of preference, have been the prices of human hearts from time immemorial. The pity is, that love so often dies of its own excess, making the dreamy eyes fiery with anger and hatred, turning the pretty words into violent reproaches, and subst.i.tuting the deeds of preference by coldness and neglect. 'Tis better to have hated all our lives, than to learn the lesson from a blighted love. Life is never bitter, but for those whose misplaced love has caused their faith in men to wither, filling their hearts with that hopelessness of regret, by which misery is recognised in any of its disguises. But these are inconsistent reflections, when proceeding from such suggestive sources as "first love," "moonlight quietude," etc. Let us draw a veil across them for the present. If there must be bitter drops in the deep chalice, let us not spoil the taste of the sweeter ones, by antic.i.p.ating the loathsomeness of the rest. In another sense we may cry "let us live to-day, for to-morrow we die."

CHAPTER IV.

"We talked with open heart and tongue, Affectionate and true, A pair of friends though I was young"

--Wordsworth.

The morning following Guy's visit to his uncle's window panes, as Henry Rayne was sipping his rich brown chocolate, with Honor and Nanette, at breakfast, Fitts brought in a note and laid it before his master. The usual broad smile came over Rayne's face, as he recognized his nephew's handwriting.

"So he's in town," he soliloquized, as he opened the folds of the crisp paper and read:

"Dear Uncle, I came to town last evening, and wish to see you when you will be quite alone.

Guy."

"There's an ansur wanted, sur," Fitts said timidly.

"Oh, say this afternoon at five, Fitts, that will do."

Evidently, it was not Mr. Rayne's intention to mention the existence of his nephew yet, to his new comers, for he quietly slipped the little note into his pocket and said no more of it. The day wore on, and at five o'clock Fitts brought around the "ponies" to take "Miss Honor" for a drive. They had scarcely gone a block away, before Guy Elersley opened the gate leading up to his uncle's house, and admitted himself. He went into the sitting-room, but it was empty, that is, his uncle was not there, or any other living intruder; but there arose between him and the gloomy coals, the same sweet face and graceful figure that had kept a ceaseless vigil over his slumber last night. The same sad voice filled the room with its wailing echo, and as he listened again to its appealing pathos, he strode idly towards the little _etagere_ and took up his little volume from which he had seen her read. A strong impulse rose within him. He imagined himself under the same spell as the romantic hero of "Led Astray," and taking out his pencil, he traced at the bottom of the page, under the words she had recited, this little verse:

"There is another life I long to meet, Without which life _my_ life is incomplete.

Oh sweeter self! like me, thou art astray, Trying with all thy heart to find the way To mine. Straying, like mine, to find the breast, On which alone can weary heart find rest."

He had scarcely closed and replaced the book, when the door opened and his uncle bustled in.

"Hallo, Guy! dear old boy, welcome! welcome!" and Henry Rayne extended both hands to his nephew as he spoke. "And so here you are in Ottawa, eh? What's the trouble now?" and before seating himself to chat, Henry Rayne poked the fire into a roaring blaze.

"No trouble this time, uncle, at least no 'yellow envelopes' trouble, but I've been promised an appointment in the Civil Service, and I've come to you for the 'slap on the back' that makes a fellow stiff when he's in there. Now you know it's all right for a petty clerk in those solemn Parliament Buildings, when he has an uncle that is precious to the government, for the thousands he owns and that he can scarce count.

This is why I ask you to come forward, for your a.s.sistance is all I want, to make a neat little job of the whole thing. Just snap _your_ fingers over my head, and none will dare oppose me. It is not the career I had planned, you know, uncle, but 'half a loaf is better than a whole loafer,' and that is what I threatened to be, if I remained a student in Montreal any longer. The boys are too jolly there in proportion to their means, and I pride myself I escaped in time. I'd just as soon live on the bounty of the people for a while, and eat my lunch perched on an office stool, with plenty of good ice water at hand, and a chance of a cosy 'smoke' now and then, if I don't burn out my pockets hiding the pipe when the dignified 'Boss' approaches."

"Well, well, well, Guy, you are a reckless boy, you know I could have secured you a position in the Civil Service long ago, but you aimed still higher and--missed the mark. I thought you had chosen a profession exacting too much labor for a lover of self-indulgence such as you are; however, I suppose you don't want me to say a single word of rebuke now, and I have grown so accustomed to spoiling you, that I must only give in. You can make yourself easy as far as I am concerned, I will make matters all right."

"You're the best old uncle that ever had a sister married to the father of a fellow like me," Guy said, shaking the hand of his benefactor warmly, "and by and by, when I'm a clever cabinet minister, I'll show you what grat.i.tude is."

"I am afraid such a 'by and by' as that is as far in the past as it is in the future," Henry Rayne said, laughing.

"Oh well, if I am not clever enough to be a solemn minister, they'll make a Lieutenant-Governor of me, or a Judge, Lieutenant-Governor Elersley! By Jove the name was intended to be worn with a t.i.tle!"

"Well, when you're done all these nonsensical licenses, you are giving your common sense, I will tell you something nice," Mr. Rayne interrupted, as Guy rattled off his idle chat. In a moment Guy's limbs that had been lying carelessly around in the vicinity of his chair, were jerked into a respectable sitting posture, as leaning his face eagerly towards his uncle he asked:

"Something to tell me? Now that is a surprise; I generally do all the talking when I come here."

"Well," Henry Rayne began slowly, and with a look of unusual merriment twinkling in his eyes, "It has taken a long time you see for this surprise to come, but it was worth the trouble of waiting. May be you think that at fifty years all the romance has died out of a man's life, but I am going to show you that such is not the case." (Great Heavens!

Guy thought, has the dear old man fallen in love?) "A new life has begun of late for me; henceforth, my love, that has been all yours, must be divided I have a.s.sumed a series of new and trying duties--"

"Pardon me, uncle; but you don't mean--you can't possibly be insinuating that you have--have--have done such a desperate thing as to--"

"I have indeed, Guy. I suppose you thought I had no soft corner left in my heart that would be a ready victim to a woman's wiles? but I had, you see." There was a mischevious twinkle in the old man's eye as he spoke.

This joke on his clever nephew amused him immensely, while poor Guy was feeling the tight clutch of despair upon his heart Of all the horrors conceivable, Guy had never dreamt of such a thing as his uncle's marriage, and now it was quite evident that his words implied this terrible catastrophe. He saw the long cherished project of his insured welfare pa.s.sing away so noiselessly from him, dropping through a wedding ring into the clutching fingers of a new-born heir. And when it struck him that the beautiful vision he had feasted his eyes upon last evening was, undoubtedly, the fair destroyer of his every hope, a conflict of violent feelings began to gnaw at his poor heart, making a genuine picture of woeful misery out of the laughing face of a moment before, but he battled against his moral foes, at least--he must not show his uncle that any selfishness of his could mar the sincerity of his felicitations.

"I suppose I am justified in congratulating you?" Guy said in a tone something like that in which one says "'Tis nothing," when three hundred pounds of fashionable humanity apologises for having left its foot print on our toes.

"I know that you do congratulate me warmly," Guy's uncle said, emphatically, "and indeed it is as much for your sake, nearly, as for my own that I rejoice, the benefit will be divided between us." Guy didn't see how--unless his uncle fell into the ordinary routine of wedded life, and grew regretful by degrees--he could share those sentiments very plentifully, but his better nature still revolted against such selfishness, and obeying a generous impulse, he stood up and shook his uncle warmly by the hand.

"I am glad indeed, uncle," he said sincerely, "that at last your earthly happiness is complete. It was poor gratification to you, to trust to me for an ample return for all your unmerited kindness. You deserved some one more faithful and more demonstrative than I. This new tie you have formed will, of course, exclude me from a great portion if not from all of your heart, but, at least, I can still continue to appreciate and love you as though there had been no change. After all, it is the most natural thing in the world for a man to marry."

"Who's married?" Henry Rayne exclaimed in astonishment.

"Why, yourself, to be sure," Guy answered, "I was alluding to you."

Henry Rayne threw back his curly head and laughed heartily and loud; Guy looked on in open-mouthed astonishment, suspecting a temporary aberration of mind in his uncle.

"Oh! that is a splendid one," Mr. Rayne cried slapping his knees violently, and blinking away the tears that were gathering in his eyes from excessive laughter. "You had just better circulate such a piece of slander about me, and see how it would be received, why, the dogs on the road would laugh at your simple credulity." Then a.s.suming a becoming air of mock gravity the old man continued, "This is terrible, Guy, that you should openly accuse me of such a serious piece of forgetfulness is, I fear, more than I can readily forgive--I dare say I do a great many surprising things now and then--but to get married--Oh no, Guy, you wrong me--wrong me terribly."

Guy had to laugh at this, though still lost in the mystery.

"Perhaps now that you have laughed quite enough at rue, you will kindly explain all," he said in an anxious tone.

"Well, the truth is, Guy," his uncle began in earnest, "there is a woman at the bottom of it, of course, and though I have pledged myself at the altar of friendship to love and protect her, there is no such thing as 'till death do us part' in the transaction. I have been left the odd legacy of an only daughter by an old school-friend of mine," Guy blushed inwardly, and felt guilty, "she is a dear, lovely little creature, and will, I am sure, make my home a different one altogether, from what solitary bachelordom has brought it to. I hope you will agree, both of you, I know you will like her just as soon as you see her, you have no idea how lovely she is." (Oh fie! Elersley! how innocent you look).

"Well, really uncle, you are a little more demonstrative over female superiority than I would expect," Guy said lazily, as if he had made up his mind that he would not be so enthusiastic.

"Because she deserves it," Mr. Rayne said, earnestly. "Don't think, my boy," he continued, "that I am a perfect old ogre with regard to women, for I am not, I have travelled over and seen more of the world than you, and I know the difference, vast and mysterious as it is, that lies between woman and _woman_. The word, has, of all words, two meanings, the most ant.i.thetical and contradictory, one is the limit of the Beautiful, the other the limit of the Repulsive; one is synonymous with purity, truth and excellence, and the other with vice and diplomacy. The world is often imposed upon when the latter counterfeits the former. Men are dazzled by the glitter and gaudy show of the pretended, and pa.s.s by, unnoticed, the less flashy attractions of the real, but I pride myself that I have never been deceived in this way. The girl that I have brought to my home is as genuine a sample of n.o.ble, good, pure and honorable women, as could exist, if you had known her father I would tell you, she is Bob Edgeworth's child and you could not then doubt the truth of all I say."

"Edgeworth?" Guy queried, "It seems to me I have heard that name before."

"It was you who revived all my precious memories of him," Henry Rayne said thoughtfully. "That letter you wrote me before leaving Montreal, telling me of an interview you had with a traveller who had seen Edgeworth defend me so bravely and gallantly abroad, was the first I had heard of my dear old friend for many many years."

"Oh yes, I remember now!" Guy exclaimed, "but how in the world did he trace you up after all these years?"