Luttrell Of Arran Part 108

"I suspect not," said he, smiling. "I rather opine we salt-water folk are too free of our hearts."

"But why were you not in love with her?" cried she, as she arose impatiently, and walked up and down the room. "You come off a life of hardships and perils into what, of all things, is the most entrancing--the dairy life of people bred up to all the courtesies and charms that embellish existence--and you find there a very beautiful girl, well disposed to accept your intimacy and your friendship--how can you stop at friendship? I want to hear that."

"I never knew there was any difficulty in the task till now that you have told me of it," said he, smiling.

She opened a little drawer in a cabinet as she stood with her back towards him, and drew on her finger a ring--a certain plain gold ring--which recalled a time of bygone sorrow and suffering, and then, coming close to him, laid her hand upon his arm, so that he could but notice the ring, and said:

"I ought to have remembered you were a Luttrell, Harry--the proud race who never minded what might bechance their heads, though they took precious care of their hearts!"

"What does that mean?" said he, pointing to the ring; and a paleness like death spread over his face.

"What does such an emblem always mean?" said she, calmly. "It is not that you are married, Kate?

"Surely you have heard the story. Mr. M'Kinlay could not have been a week at the Vyners' without telling it."

"I have heard nothing, I know nothing. Tell me at once, are you a wife?--have you a husband living?"

"You must be patient, Harry, if you want a somewhat long history."

"I want no more than what I asked you. Are you a married woman? Answer me that."

"Be calm, and be quiet and listen to me," said she, sitting down at his side. "You can answer your own question when I shall have finished."

"Why not tell me in one word? A Yes or a No cannot cost _you_ so much, though one of them may cost _me_ heavily."

"What if I could not so answer you? What if no such answer were possible? Will you hear me now?"

"Say on," muttered he, burying his face between his hands--"say on!"

"I have a long story to tell you, Harry, and I will tell it all; first, because you shall give me your counsel; and secondly, because, if you should hear others speak of me, you will know where is the truth. You will believe me? Is it not so?"

"That I will. Go on."

"It would be well if I could speak of myself as one simply unlucky,"

said she, in a tone of deep melancholy, "but this may not be! I have gone through heavy trials, but there was not one of them, perhaps, not self-incurred."

"Oh, Kate, if you would not break my heart with anxiety, tell me at once this ring means nothing--tell me you are free."

"Be patient, Harry, and hear me. Trust me, I have no wish to linger over a narrative which has so little to be proud of. It is a story of defeat--defeat and humiliation from beginning to end."

She began, and it was already daybreak ere _she_ came to the end.

Tracking the events of her life from her first days at the Vyners', she related an inner history of her own longings, and ambitions, and fears, and sufferings, as a child ripening into the character of womanhood, and making her, in spite of herself a plotter and a contriver. The whole fabric of her station was so frail, so unreal, it seemed to demand incessant effort to support and sustain it. At Dalradern, where she ruled as mistress, an accident, a word might depose her. She abhorred the "equivoque" of her life, but could not overcome it. She owned frankly that she had brought herself to believe that the prise of wealth was worth every sacrifice; that heart, and affection, and feeling were all cheap in comparison with boundless affluence.

"You may imagine what I felt," said she, "when, after all I had done to lower myself in my own esteem--crushed within me every sentiment of womanly affection--when, after all this, I came to learn that my sacrifice had been for nothing--that there was a sentiment this old man cared for more than he cared for me--that there was a judgment he regarded more anxiously than all I could say--the opinion of the world; and it actually needed the crushing sorrow of desertion to convince him that it was better to brave the world than to leave it for ever. Till it became a question of his life he would not yield. The same lesson that brought _him_ so low served to elevate _me_. I was then here--here in Arran--holding no feigned position. I was surrounded with no luxuries, but there were no delusions. Your father gave me his own proud name, and the people gave me the respect that was due to it. I was real at last.

Oh, Harry, I cannot tell you all that means! I have no words to convey to you the sense of calm happiness I felt at being what none could gainsay--none question. It was like health after the flush and madness of fever. This wild spot seemed to my eyes a Paradise! Day by day duties grew on me, and I learned to meet them. All the splendid past, the great life of wealth and its appliances, was beginning to fade away from my mind, or only to be remembered as a bright and gorgeous dream, when I was suddenly turned from my little daily routine by an unhappy disaster.

It came in this wise." She then went on to tell of her grandfather's imprisonment and trial, and the steps by which she was led to ask Sir Within's a.s.sistance in his behalf. On one side, she had to befriend this poor old man, deserted and forlorn, and, on the other, she had to bethink her of her uncle, whose horror at the thought of a public exposure in court was more than he had strength to endure. If she dwelt but pa.s.singly on the description, her shaken voice and trembling lip told too well what the sacrifice had cost her. "The messenger to whom I entrusted my letter, and whom I believed interested almost equally with myself in its success, brought me back for answer that my letter would not be even opened, that Sir Within refused to renew any relations with me whatever--in a word, that we had separated for ever and in everything. I cannot tell now what project was in my head, or how I had proposed to myself to befriend my grandfather; some thought, I know, pa.s.sed through my head about making a statement of his case, so far as I could pick it up from himself and going personally with this to one of the leading lawyers on the circuit, and imploring his aid. I always had immense confidence in myself or in whatever I could do by a personal effort. If I have learned to think more meanly of my own powers, the lesson has been rudely taught me. What between the mental strain from this attempt, anxiety, privation, and exposure to bad weather, I fell ill, and my malady turned to brain fever. It was during this time that this man O'Rorke, of whom I have told you, returned, bringing with him Mr. Ladarelle, a young relative of Sir Within's. On the pretext of giving me the rites of my Church, a priest was admitted to see me, and some mockery of a marriage ceremony was gone through by this clergyman, who, I am told, united me, unconscious, and to all seeming dying, to this same young gentleman. These details I learned later, for long, long before I had recovered sufficient strength or sense to understand what was said to me, my bridegroom had gone off and left the country."

"And with what object was this marriage ceremony performed?" asked Luttrell.

"I have discovered that at last. I have found it out through certain letters which came into my hands in looking over your father's papers.

You shall see them yourself to-morrow. Enough now, that I say that Sir Within had never rejected my prayer for help; on the contrary, he had most n.o.bly and liberally responded to it. He wrote besides to your father a formal proposal to make me his wife. To prevent the possibility of such an event, Ladarelle planned the whole scheme I have detailed, and when your father wrote to Sir Within that I had left Arran--'deserted him,' he called it--and Ladarelle forwarded a pretended certificate of our marriage, no further proof seemed wanting that I was one utterly unworthy of all interest or regard. I came here in time--not to receive my dear uncle's forgiveness, for he had long ceased to accuse me--his last thoughts of me were kind and loving ones. Since then," said she, "my life has had but one severe trial--my leave-taking with my poor old grandfather; but for this it has been like a strange dream, so much of active employment and duty blending with memories of a kind utterly unlike everything about me, that I am ever asking myself, 'Is it the present or the past is the unreal?'"

"The marriage is, however, a mockery, Kate," said Luttrell; and, taking her hand, he drew off the ring and threw it into the fire. "You are sure it gives him no claim--no power over me?" asked she.

"Claim!--power! None. I'm no lawyer, but I could almost swear that his act would subject him to severe punishment; at all events, you have a cousin, Kate, who will not see you insulted. I'll find out this fellow, if I search ten years for him."

"No, no, Harry. To publish this story would be to draw shame upon me. It was your own father said, 'A Woman is worse with an imputed blame than is a Man after a convicted fault.' Let me not be town-talk, and I will bear my sorrows patiently."

"That's not the Luttrell way to look at it!" said he, fiercely.

"Remember, Harry, I am only Luttrell by adoption," said she, rising, and approaching the fire.

"What are you looking for there in the embers, Kate?"

"My ring," said she, drawing the charred and blackened ring out from the ashes. "I mean to keep this--an emblem of a sorrow and a shame which should not be forgotten."

"What do you mean? It was by no fault of yours this trick was worked!"

"No; but it was my own heartless ambition that provoked it, Harry. I wanted to be a great lady, at the cost of all that gives life a charm."

"You surely would not have married this old man--this Sir Within, you speak of?"

"I would," said she, coldly.

"Oh, Kate! unsay that. Tell me that you only said this in levity or jest!"

"I will not tell you one word of myself which is not true," said she, in a tone firm and collected.

"And you would have married a man you could not love--a decrepit old man, whose very attentions must have been odious to you?"

"I never forgot the misery I was reared in. I shrank with terror at the thought of going back to it. I used to dream of cold, and want, and privation. I used to ramble in my sleep about the weary load I had to carry up the slippery rocks with bleeding feet, and then wake to see myself waited on like a queen, my slightest word obeyed, my merest whim fulfilled. Are these small things?--or, if they be, what are the great ones?"

"The great ones are a fearless heart and a loving nature!" said Harry, fiercely; and his dark face almost grew purple as he darted an angry look at her.

"So they are," said she, calmly. "I had them once, too; but I had to lay them down--lay them down as stakes on the table for the prize. I played for."

"Oh, this is too bad--too sordid!" cried he, madly.

"Say on, you cannot speak more cruelly than I have spoken to my own heart. All these have I told myself over and over!"

"Forgive me, my dear Cousin Kate, but if you knew with what agony your words wring me----"

"I can believe it, Harry; better and purer natures than mine could not stand the test of such confessions, but you would have them, remember _that_. You said, 'No concealments,' and now you are shocked at the naked truth. With very little aid from self-deception, I could have given you a more flattering view of my heart and its affections. I could have told you, as I often told myself, that I wished to be better--that I longed to be better--that the only ones I ever envied were those whose fate entailed no such struggle as mine--a struggle, remember, not to gain smooth water and a calmer sea, but to save life--to escape drowning! To fall from the high place I held, was to fall to the lowest depth of all! I had plenty of such casuistry as this ready, had you asked for it. You preferred to have me truthful, you ought not to shrink from the price!"

"Had you no friend to counsel--to guide you?" "None."

"Was there none to take you away from the danger you lived in?" "I could have gone back to the cabin I came from; do you think I was well suited to meet its hardships?"