Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite Part 26

"Just the thing," said he, without raising his head.

"Will you copy it now, George?"

"Not just now, I am so seedy. I'll take it and do it at the club."

"No; I will not have that. The draft would certainly be left out on the club table; and you would go to billiards, and the letter never would be written."

"I'll come back and do it after dinner."

"I shall be at the theatre then, and I won't have you here in my absence. Rouse yourself and do it now. Don't be such a poor thing."

"That's all very well, Lucy; but if you had a sick headache, you wouldn't like to have to write a d----d letter like that."

Then she rose up to scold him, being determined that the letter should be written then and there. "Why, what a coward you are; what a f.e.c.kless, useless creature! Do you think that I have never to go for hours on the stage, with the gas in a blaze around me, and my head ready to split? And what is this? A paper to write that will take you ten minutes. The truth is, you don't like to give up the girl!" Could she believe it of him after knowing him so well; could she think that there was so much of good in him?

"You say that to annoy me. You know that I never cared for her."

"You would marry her now if they would let you."

"No, by George. I've had enough of that. You're wide awake enough to understand, Lucy, that a fellow situated as I am, over head and ears in debt, and heir to an old t.i.tle, should struggle to keep the things together. Families and names don't matter much, I suppose; but, after all, one does care for them. But I've had enough of that. As for Cousin Emily, you know, Lucy, I never loved any woman but you in my life."

He was a brute, unredeemed by any one manly gift; idle, self-indulgent, false, and without a principle. She was a woman greatly gifted, with many virtues, capable of self-sacrifice, industrious, affectionate, and loving truth if not always true herself. And yet such a word as that from this brute sufficed to please her for the moment. She got up and kissed his forehead and dropped for him some strong spirit in a gla.s.s, which she mixed with water, and cooled his brow with eau-de-cologne. "Try to write it, dearest. It should be written at once if it is to be written." Then he turned himself wearily to her writing-desk, and copied the words which she had prepared for him.

The letter was addressed to Mr. Boltby, and purported to be a renunciation of all claim to Miss Hotspur's hand, on the understanding that his debts were paid for him to the extent of 25,000, and that an allowance were made to him of 500 a year, settled on him as an annuity for life, as long as he should live out of England. Mr. Boltby had given him to understand that this clause would not be exacted, unless circ.u.mstances should arise which should make Sir Harry think it imperative upon him to demand its execution.

The discretion must be left absolute with Sir Harry; but, as Mr.

Boltby said, Captain Hotspur could trust Sir Harry's word and his honour.

"If I'm to be made to go abroad, what the devil are you to do?" he had said to Mrs. Morton.

"There need be no circ.u.mstances," said Mrs. Morton, "to make it necessary."

Of course Captain Hotspur accepted the terms on her advice. He had obeyed Lady Altringham, and had tried to obey Emily, and would now obey Mrs. Morton, because Mrs. Morton was the nearest to him.

The letter which he copied was a well-written letter, put together with much taste, so that the ign.o.ble compact to which it gave a.s.sent should seem to be as little ign.o.ble as might be possible. "I entered into the arrangement," the letter said in its last paragraph, "because I thought it right to endeavour to keep the property and the t.i.tle together; but I am aware now that my position in regard to my debts was of a nature that should have deterred me from the attempt.

As I have failed, I sincerely hope that my cousin may be made happy by some such splendid alliance as she is fully ent.i.tled to expect."

He did not understand all that the words conveyed; but yet he questioned them. He did not perceive that they were intended to imply that the writer had never for a moment loved the girl whom he had proposed to marry. Nevertheless they did convey to him dimly some idea that they might give,--not pain, for as to that he would have been indifferent,--but offence. "Will there be any good in all that?"

he asked.

"Certainly," said she. "You don't mean to whine and talk of your broken heart."

"Oh dear, no; nothing of that sort."

"This is the manly way to put it, regarding the matter simply as an affair of business."

"I believe it is," said he; and then, having picked himself up somewhat by the aid of a gla.s.s of sherry, he continued to copy the letter, and to direct it.

"I will keep the rough draft," said Mrs. Morton.

"And I must go now, I suppose," he said.

"You can stay here and see me eat my dinner if you like. I shall not ask you to share it, because it consists of two small mutton chops, and one wouldn't keep me up through Lady Teazle."

"I've a good mind to come and see you," said he.

"Then you'd better go and eat your own dinner at once."

"I don't care about my dinner. I should have a bit of supper afterwards."

Then she preached to him a sermon; not quite such a one as Emily Hotspur had preached, but much more practical, and with less reticence. If he went on living as he was living now, he would "come to grief." He was drinking every day, and would some day find that he could not do so with impunity. Did he know what delirium tremens was?

Did he want to go to the devil altogether? Had he any hope as to his future life?

"Yes," said he, "I hope to make you my wife." She tossed her head, and told him that with all the will in the world to sacrifice herself, such sacrifice could do him no good if he persisted in making himself a drunkard. "But I have been so tried these last two months. If you only knew what Mr. Boltby and Captain Stubber and Sir Harry and Mr. Hart were altogether. Oh, my G----!" But he did not say a word about Messrs. Walker and Bullbean. The poor woman who was helping him knew nothing of Walker and Bullbean. Let us hope that she may remain in that ignorance.

Cousin George, before he left her, swore that he would amend his mode of life, but he did not go to see Lady Teazle that night. There were plenty of men now back in town ready to play pool at the club.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"I SHALL NEVER BE MARRIED."

Sir Harry Hotspur returned to Humblethwaite before Cousin George's letter was written, though when he did return all the terms had been arranged, and a portion of the money paid. Perhaps it would have been better that he should have waited and taken the letter with him in his pocket; but in truth he was so wretched that he could not wait.

The thing was fixed and done, and he could but hurry home to hide his face among his own people. He felt that the glory of his house was gone from him. He would sit by the hour together thinking of the boy who had died. He had almost, on occasions, allowed himself to forget his boy, while hoping that his name and wide domains might be kept together by the girl that was left to him. He was beginning to understand now that she was already but little better than a wreck.

Indeed, was not everything shipwreck around him? Was he not going to pieces on the rocks? Did not the lesson of every hour seem to tell him that, throughout his long life, he had thought too much of his house and his name?

It would have been better that he should have waited till the letter was in his pocket before he returned home, because, when he reached Humblethwaite, the last argument was wanting to him to prove to Emily that her hope was vain. Even after his arrival, when the full story was told to her, she held out in her resolve. She accepted the truth of that scene at Walker's rooms. She acknowledged that her lover had cheated the wretched man at cards. After that all other iniquities were of course as nothing. There was a completeness in that of which she did not fail to accept, and to use the benefit. When she had once taken it as true that her lover had robbed his inferior by foul play at cards, there could be no good in alluding to this or that lie, in counting up this or that disreputable debt, in alluding to habits of brandy-drinking, or even in soiling her pure mind with any word as to Mrs. Morton. It was granted that he was as vile as sin could make him. Had not her Saviour come exactly for such as this one, because of His great love for those who were vile; and should not her human love for one enable her to do that which His great heavenly love did always for all men? Every reader will know how easily answerable was the argument. Most readers will also know how hard it is to win by attacking the reason when the heart is the fortress that is in question. She had accepted his guilt, and why tell her of it any further? Did she not pine over his guilt, and weep for it day and night, and pray that he might yet be made white as snow? But guilty as he was, a poor piece of broken vilest clay, without the properties even which are useful to the potter, he was as dear to her as when she had leaned against him believing him to be a pillar of gold set about with onyx stones, jaspers, and rubies. There was but one sin on his part which could divide them. If, indeed, he should cease to love her, then there would be an end to it! It would have been better that Sir Harry should have remained in London till he could have returned with George's autograph letter in his pocket.

"You must have the letter in his own handwriting," Mr. Boltby had said, cunningly, "only you must return it to me."

Sir Harry had understood, and had promised, that the letter should be returned when it had been used for the cruel purpose for which it was to be sent to Humblethwaite. For all Sir Harry's own purposes Mr.

Boltby's statements would have quite sufficed.

She was told that her lover would renounce her, but she would not believe what she was told. Of course he would accept the payment of his debts. Of course he would take an income when offered to him. What else was he to do? How was he to live decently without an income? All these evils had happened to him because he had been expected to live as a gentleman without proper means. In fact, he was the person who had been most injured. Her father, in his complete, in his almost abject tenderness towards her, could not say rough words in answer to all these arguments. He could only repeat his a.s.sertion over and over again that the man was utterly unworthy of her, and must be discarded. It was all as nothing. The man must discard himself.

"He is false as h.e.l.l," said Sir Harry.

"And am I to be as false as h.e.l.l also? Will you love me better when I have consented to be untrue? And even that would be a lie. I do love him. I must love him. I may be more wicked than he is, because I do so. But I do."

Poor Lady Elizabeth in these days was worse than useless. Her daughter was so strong that her weakness was as the weakness of water. She was driven hither and thither in a way that she herself felt to be disgraceful. When her husband told her that the cousin, as matter of course, could never be seen again, she a.s.sented. When Emily implored her to act as mediator with her father on behalf of the wicked cousin, she again a.s.sented. And then, when she was alone with Sir Harry, she did not dare to do as she had promised.

"I do think it will kill her," she said to Sir Harry.

"We must all die, but we need not die disgraced," he said.

It was a most solemn answer, and told the thoughts which had been dwelling in his mind. His son had gone from him; and now it might be that his daughter must go too, because she could not survive the disappointment of her young love. He had learned to think that it might be so as he looked at her great grave eyes, and her pale cheeks, and her sorrow-laden mouth. It might be so; but better that for them all than that she should be contaminated by the touch of a thing so vile as this cousin. She was pure as snow, clear as a star, lovely as the opening rosebud. As she was, let her go to her grave,--if it need be so. For himself, he could die too,--or even live if it were required of him! Other fathers, since Jephtha and Agamemnon, have recognised it as true that heaven has demanded from them their daughters.