CHAPTER XLIV
It was frost, and Tyne was “bearing” at Kirkbride, where the village held a carnival of sliding and skating, and where even the national winter sport, the yearly curling matches, began to be talked of. There was, however, no one at Melmar to tempt Tyne to “bear,” even had it been easy to reach his glassy surface through the slippery whitened trees, every twig of which was white and stiff with congealed dew. The Kelpie fell scantily, with a drowsy tinkle, over its little ravine, reduced to the slenderest thread, while all the branches near it were hung with mocking icicles. The sun was high in the blue, frosty midday skies, but had only power enough to clear here and there an exposed branch, and to moisten the path where some little burn crept half frozen under a crust of ice. It was a clear, bracing, invigorating day, and Joanna and Desirée, spite of the frost, were on Tyne-side among the frozen woods.
When standing close together, investigating a bit of moss, both simultaneously heard a crackling footstep among the underwood, and turning round at the same moment, saw some one approaching from the house. He was one of her own countrymen, Desirée thought, with a little flutter at her heart. He wore a large blue cloak, with an immense fur collar, a very French hat, a moustache, and long black hair; Desirée gazed at him with her heart in her eyes, and her white little French hands clasped together. No doubt he brought some message from mamma. But Desirée’s hopes were brought to an abrupt conclusion when Joanna sprang forward, exclaiming:
“Oh, Oswald, Oswald! have you really come home? I am so glad you have come home!” with a plunge of welcome which the stranger looked half annoyed, half pleased to encounter. He made a brotherly response to it by stooping to kiss Joanna, a salutation which the girl underwent with a heightened color, and a half-ashamed look; she had meant to shake both his hands violently; any thing in the shape of an embrace being much out of Joanna’s way—but Oswald’s hands were occupied with his cloak, which he could not permit to fall from his shoulders in the fervor of his brotherly pleasure. Holding it fast, he had only half a hand to give, which Joanna straightway possessed herself of, repeating as she did so her cry of pleasure: “Oh, Oswald, how glad I am! I have wished for such a long time that you would come home!”
“It was very kind of my little sister—or should I say my big sister,” said the stranger, looking gallant and courtier-like, “but why, may I ask, were you so anxious for me now? that was a sudden thought, Joanna.”
Joanna grew very red as she looked up in his face—then unconsciously she looked at Desirée. Mr. Oswald Huntley was a man of the world, and understood the ways and fancies of young ladies—at least he thought so. He followed Joanna’s glance, and a comical smile came to his lips. He took off his hat with an air half mocking, half reverential.
“May I hope to be introduced to your friend, Joanna?” said the new-found brother. With great haste, heat, and perturbation, blushing fiery red, and feeling very uncomfortable, Joanna stumbled through this ceremony, longing for some private means of informing the new-comer who “her friend” was, ere accident or Patricia made him unfavorably aware of it. He was a little amazed evidently by the half-pronounced, half-intelligible name.
“Mademoiselle Desirée?” he repeated after Joanna, with an evident uncertainty, and an air of great surprise.
“Oh, Oswald, you have never got my last letter,” cried Joanna; “did you really not know that Desirée was here?”
“I am the governess,” cried Desirée, with immense pride and dignity, elevating her little head and drawing up her small figure. Patricia had done her best during these three months to annoy and humiliate the little Frenchwoman—but her pride had never been really touched until to-day.
Oswald’s countenance cleared immediately into suavity and good-humor—he smiled, but he bowed, and looked with great graciousness upon the two girls. He could see at a glance how pretty and graceful was this addition to the household of Melmar—and Oswald Huntley was a dilettanti. He liked a pretty person as well as a pretty picture. He begged to know how they could find any pleasure out of doors in this ferocious climate on such a day—and with a glance, and a shrug and a shiver at the frosty languor of the diminished Kelpie, drew his cloak close round him, and turned towards the house, whither, Joanna eagerly, and Desirée with great reluctance and annoyance, the girls were constrained to follow. He walked between them, inclining his ear to his sister, who overwhelmed him with questions, yet addressing now and then a courteous observation to Desirée which gradually mollified that little lady. He was a great deal more agreeable than Melmar or than Patricia—he was something new in the house at least—he knew her own country, perhaps her own very town and house. Desirée became much softened as they drew near the house, and she found herself able to withdraw and leave the brother and sister together. To know the real value of a new face and a new voice, one needs to live for a long winter in a country house like Melmar, whose hospitality was not very greatly prized in the country-side. Desirée had quite got over her anger by the time she reached her own apartment. She made rather a pretty toilet for the evening, and was pleased, in spite of herself, that there would be some one else to talk to besides Melmar, and Aunt Jean and Joanna. The whole house, indeed, was moved with excitement. A dark Italian servant, whom he had brought with him, was regulating with a thermometer, to the dismay and wonder of all the maids, the temperature of Mr. Oswald’s room, where these unscientific functionaries had put on a great, uncomfortable fire, piled half-way up the chimney. Patricia had entered among them to peer over her brother’s locked trunks, and see if there was any thing discoverable by curiosity. Mrs. Huntley was getting up in haste to see her son, and even Aunt Jean trotted up and down stairs on her nimble little feet, on errands of investigation and assistance. It made no small commotion in the house when the only son of Melmar came home.
Oswald Huntley, but for his dark hair, was like his sister Patricia. He was tall, but of a delicate form, and had small features, and a faint color which said little for his strength. When they all met together in the evening, the traveled son was by much the most elegant member of the household circle. His dainty, varnished boots, his delicate white hands, his fine embroidered linen, filled Joanna with a sentiment which was half impatience and half admiration. Joanna would rather have had Oswald despise these delicacies of apparel, which did not suit with her ideal of manhood. At the same time she had never seen any thing like them, and they dazzled her. As for Patricia, she looked from her brother to herself, and colored red with envious displeasure. One of Oswald’s rings would have purchased every thing in the shape of jewelry which Patricia ever had or hoped for—his valet, his dress, his “style,” at once awed and irritated his unfortunate sister. If papa could afford to keep Oswald thus, was it not a disgrace to confine “me!” within the tedious bounds of this country house? Poor little Patricia could have cried with envy and self pity.
In the meantime, Oswald made himself very agreeable, and drew the little party together as they seldom were drawn. His mother sat up in her easy chair, looking almost pretty with her pink cheeks, and for once without any invalid accompaniments of barley-water or cut oranges. Melmar himself staid in the drawing-room all the evening, displaying his satisfaction by some occasional rude fun with Joanna and jokes at “Mademoiselle,” and listening to his son very complacently though he seldom addressed him. Aunt Jean had drawn her chair close to Mrs. Huntley, and seriously inclined, not her ear only, which was but a dull medium, but the lively black eyes with which she seemed almost able to hear as well as see. Joanna hung upon her mother’s footstool, eagerly and perpetually asking questions. The only one out of the family group was Desirée, who kept apart, working at her embroidery, but whom Mr. Oswald by no means neglected. The new comer had good taste. He thought the little table which held the governess’s thread and scissors, and little crimson work-bag, and the little chair close by, where the little governess herself sat working with her pretty white hands, her graceful girlish dress, her dark hair in which the light shone, and her well-formed, well-poised head bending over her embroidery, was the prettiest bit in the room, and well worth looking at. He looked at it accordingly as he talked, distributing his favors impartially among the family, and wondered a little who this little girl might be, and what brought her here. When Oswald stooped forward to say something politely to the little Frenchwoman—when he brought a flush to her cheek by addressing her in her own language, though Desirée’s own good sense taught her that it was best to reply in English—when he pronounced himself a connoisseur in embroidery, and inspected the pretty work in her hands—his ailing mother and his deaf aunt, as well as the spiteful Patricia, simultaneously perceived something alarming in the courtesy. Desirée was very young and very pretty, and Oswald was capricious, fanciful, and the heir of Melmar. What if the little governess, sixteen years old, should captivate the son, who was only five-and-twenty? The fear sprang from one feminine mind to another, of all save Joanna, who had already given her thoughts to this catastrophe as the most desirable thing in the world. Oswald’s experience and knowledge of the world, on which he prided himself, went for nothing in the estimation of his female relatives. They thought Desirée, at sixteen, more than a match for him, as they would have thought any other girl in the same circumstances. People say women have no esprit du corps, but they certainly have the most perfect contempt for any man’s powers of resistance before the imagined wiles and fascinations of “a designing girl.” These ladies almost gave Oswald over, as he stood, graceful and self-satisfied, in the midst of them—a monarch of all he surveyed—extending his lordly courtesies to the poor little governess. Had he but known! but he did not know any thing about it, and said to himself compassionately, “Poor little thing—how pretty she is!—what could bring her here?” as he threw himself back upon the pillow in that room of which Antonio had regulated the temperature, and thought no more about Desirée; whereas poor little Desirée, charmed with the new voice, and the new grace, and the unusual kindness, dreamed of him all night.
CHAPTER XLV
“Am I to understand that our title is somehow endangered? I do not quite comprehend your last letter,” said Oswald, addressing his father somewhat haughtily. They were in Melmar’s study, where everybody went to discuss this business, and where the son sat daintily upon a chair which he had selected from the others for his own use, leaning the points of his elbows upon the table, and looking elaborately uncomfortable—so much so, that some faint idea that this study, after all, could not be a very pleasant apartment, entered, for the first time, the mind of Melmar.
“Come nearer to the fire, Oswald,” said Mr. Huntley, suddenly. He was really solicitous about the health and comfort of his son.
“Thank you; I can scarcely breathe here,” said the young man, ungratefully. “Was I right, sir, in supposing that to be your reason for writing me such a letter as your last?”
“You were right in supposing that I wanted to see you,” said the father, with some natural displeasure. “You live a fine life in foreign parts, my lad; you’ve little to put you about; but what could you do for yourself if the funds at Melmar were to fail?”
“Really the idea is disagreeable,” said Oswald, laughing. “I had rather not take it into consideration, unless it is absolutely necessary.”
“If it were so,” said Melmar, with a little bitterness, “which of you could I depend upon—which of you would stretch out a helping hand to help me?”
“To help you? Upon my word, sir, I begin to think you must be in earnest,” said his son. “What does this mean? Is there really any other claimant for the estate? Have we any real grounds for fear? Were not you the heir-at-law?”
“I was the heir-at-law; and there is no other claimant,” said Melmar, dryly; “but there is a certain person in existence, Oswald Huntley, who, if she but turns up soon enough—and there’s two or three years yet to come and go upon—can turn both you and me to the door, and ruin us with arrears of income to the boot.”
Oswald grew rather pale. “Is this a new discovery?” he said, “or why did I, who am, next to yourself, the person most concerned, never hear of it before?”
“You were a boy, in the first place; and in the second place, a head-strong, self-willed lad; nextly, delicate,” said Melmar, still with a little sarcasm; “and it remains to be seen yet whether you’re a reasonable man.”
“Oh, hang reason!” cried the young man with excitement. “I understand all that. What’s to be done? that seems the main thing. Who is this certain person that has a better right to Melmar than we?”
“Tell me first what you would do if you knew,” said Mr. Huntley, bending his red gray eyes intently upon his son. Melmar knew that there were generous young fools in the world, who would not hesitate to throw fortune and living to the winds for the sake of something called honor and justice. He had but little acquaintance with his son; he did not know what stuff Oswald was made of. He thought it just possible that the spirit of such Quixotes might animate this elegant mass of good breeding and dillettanteism; for which reason he sat watching under his grizzled, bushy eyebrows, with the intensest looks of those fiery eyes.
“Pshaw! do? You don’t suppose I would be likely to yield to any one without a struggle. Who is it?” said Oswald; “let me know plainly what you mean.”
“It is the late Me’mar’s daughter and only child; a woman with children; a woman in poor circumstances,” replied Mr. Huntley, still with a certain dry sarcasm in his voice.
“But she was disinherited?” said Oswald, eagerly.
“Her father left a will in her favor,” said Melmar, “reinstating her fully in her natural rights; that will is in the hands of our enemies, whom the old fool left his heirs, failing his daughter: she and her children, and these young men, are ready to pounce upon the estate.”
“But she was lost—did I not hear so?” cried Oswald, rising from his chair in overpowering excitement.
“Ay!” said his father, “but I know where she is.”
“In Heaven’s name, what do you mean?” cried the unfortunate young man; “is it to bewilder and overwhelm me that you tell me all this? Have we no chance? Are we mere impostors? Is all this certain and beyond dispute? What do you mean?”
“It is all certain,” said Melmar, steadily; “her right is unquestionable; she has heirs of her own blood, and I know where she is—she can turn us out of house and home to-morrow—she can make me a poor writer, ruined past redemption, and you a useless fine gentleman, fit for nothing in this world that I know of, and your sisters servant-maids, for I don’t know what else they’re good for. All this she can do, Oswald Huntley, and more than this, the moment she makes her appearance—but she is as ignorant as you were half an hour ago. I know—but she does not know.”
What will Oswald do?—he is pacing up and down the little study, no longer elegant, and calm, and self-possessed; the faint color on his cheeks grows crimson—the veins swell upon his forehead—a profuse cold moisture comes upon his face. Pacing about the narrow space of the study, thrusting the line of chairs out of his way, clenching his delicate hand involuntarily in the tumult of his thoughts, there could not have been a greater contrast than between Oswald at his entrance and Oswald now. His father sat and watched him under his bushy eyebrows—watched him with a steady, fixed, fascinating gaze, which the young man’s firmness was not able to withstand. He burst out into uneasy, troubled exclamations.
“What are we to do, then?—must we go and seek her out, and humble ourselves before her?—must we bring her back in triumph to her inheritance? It is the only thing we can do with honor. What are we to do?”
“Remember, Oswald,” said Melmar, significantly, “she does not know.”
The young man threw himself into a chair, hid his face in his hands, and broke into low, muttered groans of vexation and despair, which sounded like curses, and perhaps were so. Then he turned towards his father violently and suddenly, with again that angry question, “What are we to do?”
He was not without honor, he was not without conscience; if he had there could have been little occasion for that burning color, or for the cold beads of moisture on his forehead. The sudden and startling intelligence had bewildered him for a moment—then he had undergone a fierce but brief struggle, and then Oswald Huntley sank into his chair, and into the hands of his father, with that melancholy confession of his weakness—a question when the matter was unquestionable—“what are we to do?”
“Nothing,” said Melmar, grimly, regarding his son with a triumph which, perhaps, after all, had a little contempt in it. This, then, was all the advantage which his refinement and fine-gentlemanliness gave him—a moment’s miserable, weakly hesitation, nothing more nor better. The father, with his coarse methods of thought, and unscrupulous motives, would not have hesitated: yet not a whit stronger, as it appeared, was the honor or courage of the son.
“Nothing!” said Melmar; “simply to keep quiet, and be prepared against emergencies, and if possible to stave off every proceeding for a few years more. They have a clever lad of a lawyer in their interests, which is against us, but you may trust me to keep him back if it is possible; a few years and we are safe—I ask nothing but time.”
“And nothing from me?” said Oswald, rising with a sullen shame upon his face, which his father did not quite comprehend. The young man felt that he had no longer any standing ground of superiority; he was humiliated, abased, cast down. Such advantage as there was in moral obtuseness and strength of purpose lay altogether with Melmar. His son only knew better, without any will to do better. He was degraded in his own eyes, and angrily conscious of it, and a sullen resentment rose within him. If he could do nothing, why tell him of this to give him a guilty consciousness of the false position which he had not courage enough to abandon? Why drag him down from his airy height of mannerly and educated elevation to prove him clay as mean as the parent whom he despised? It gave an additional pang to the overthrow. There was nothing to be done—the misery was inflicted for nothing—only as a warning to guard against an emergency which, perhaps, had it come unguarded, might not have stripped Oswald so bare of self-esteem as this.
“We’ll see that,” said Melmar, slowly; then he rose and went to the door and investigated the passages. No one was there. When he returned, he said something in his son’s ear, which once more brought a flush of uneasy shame to his cheek. The father made his suggestion lightly, with a chuckle. The young man heard it in silence, with an indescribable look of self-humiliation. Then they separated—Oswald to hurry out, with his cloak round him, to the grounds where he could be alone—Melmar to bite his pen in the study, and muse over his victory. What would come of it?—his own ingenuity and that last suggestion which he had breathed in Oswald’s ear. Surely these were more than enough to baffle the foolish young Livingstones of Norlaw, and even their youthful agent? He thought so. The old Aberdonian felt secure in his own skill and cunning—he had no longer the opposition of his son to dread. What should he fear?
In the meantime, Patricia, who had seen her brother leave the house in great haste, like a man too late for an appointment, and who had spied a light little figure crossing the bridge over Tyne before, wrapped herself up, though it was a very cold day, and set out also to see what she could discover. Malice and curiosity together did more to keep her warm than the cloak and fur tippet, yet she almost repented when she found herself among the frozen, snow-sprinkled trees, with the faint tinkle of the Kelpie striking sharp, yet drowsy, like a little stream of metal through the frost-bound stillness, and no one visible on the path, where now and then her foot slid upon a treacherous bit of ice, inlaid in the hard brown soil. Could they have left the grounds of Melmar? Where could they have gone? If they had not met, one of them must certainly have appeared by this time; and Patricia still pushed on, though her cheeks were blue and her fingers red with cold, and though the intensity of the chill made her faint, and pierced to her poor little heart. At last she was rewarded by hearing voices before her. Yes, there they were. Desirée standing in the path, looking up at the trunk of a tree, from which Oswald was stripping a bit of velvet moss, with bells of a little white fungus, delicate and pure as flowers, growing upon it. As Patricia came up, her brother presented the prize to the little Frenchwoman, almost with the air of a lover. The breast of his poor little sister swelled with bitterness, dislike, and malicious triumph. She had found them out.
“Oswald! I thought you were quite afraid of taking cold,” cried Patricia—“dear me, who could have supposed that you would have been in the woods on such a day! I am sure Mademoiselle ought to be very proud—you would not have come for any one else in the house.”
“I am extremely indebted to you, Patricia, for letting Mademoiselle know so much,” said Oswald. “One does not like to proclaim one’s own merits. Was it on Mademoiselle’s account that you, too, undertook the walk, poor child? Come, I will help you home.”
“Oh, I’m sure she does not want me!” exclaimed Patricia, ready to cry in the height of her triumph. “Papa and you are much more in her way than I am—as long as she can make you gentlemen do what she pleases, she does not care any thing about your sisters. Oh, I know all about it!—I know papa is infatuated about her, and so are you, and she is a designing little creature, and does not care a bit for Joanna. You may say what you please, but I know I am right, and I will not stand it longer—I shall go this very moment and tell mamma!”
“Mademoiselle Huntley shall not have that trouble,” cried Desirée, who had been standing by utterly amazed for the first few moments, with cheeks alternately burning red and snow pale. “I shall tell Mrs. Huntley; it concerns me most of any one. Mademoiselle may be unkind if she pleases—I am used to that—but no one shall dare,” cried the little heroine, stamping her little foot, and clapping her hands in sudden passion, “to say insulting words to me! I thank you, Monsieur Oswald—but it is for me, it is not for you—let me pass—I shall tell Mrs. Huntley this moment, and I shall go!”
“Patricia is a little fool, Mademoiselle,” said Oswald, vainly endeavoring to divert the seriousness of the incident. “Nay—come, we shall all go together—but every person of sense in the house will be deeply grieved if you take this absurdity to heart. Forget it; she shall beg your pardon. Patricia!” exclaimed the young man, in a deep undertone of passion, “you ridiculous little idiot! do you know what you have done?”
“Oh, I know! I’ve told the truth—I am too clear-sighted!” sobbed Patricia, “I can not help seeing that both papa and you are crazy about the governess—it will break poor mamma’s heart!”
Though Desirée was much wounded, ashamed, and angry, furious rather, to tell the truth, she could not resist the ludicrous whimper of this mock sorrow. She laughed scornfully.
“I shall go by myself, please,” she said, springing through a by-way, where Oswald was not agile enough or sufficiently acquainted with to follow. “I shall tell Mrs. Huntley, instantly, and she will not break her heart—but no one in the world shall dare to speak thus again to me.”
So Desirée disappeared like a bird among the close network of frozen branches, and Patricia and her brother, admirable good friends, as one might suppose, together pursued their way home.