the blow so long expected, yet so eagerly and hopefully scoffed at with obstinate persistency, falls at last (all too soon) upon the towers. perhaps it is not the very final blow that when it comes must shatter to atoms all the old home-ties, and the tender links that youth has forged, but it is certainly a cruel shaft, that touches the heart strings, making them quiver. the first thin edge of the wedge has been inserted: the sword trembles to its fall: c'est le commencement de la fin.
it is the morning after lady chetwoode's ball. every one has got down to breakfast. every one is in excellent spirits, in spite of the fact that the rain is racing down the window-panes in torrents, and that the post is late.
as a rule it always is late, except when it is preternaturally early; sometimes it comes at half-past ten, sometimes with the hot water. there is a blessed uncertainty about its advent that keeps every one on the tiptoe of expectation, and probably benefits circulation.
the postman himself is an institution in the village, being of an unknown age, in fact, the real and original oldest inhabitant, and still with no signs of coming dissolution about him, thereby carrying out dicken's theory that a dead post-boy or a dead donkey is a thing yet to be seen. he is a hoary-headed old person, decrepit and garrulous, with only one leg worth speaking about, and an ear trumpet. this last is merely for show, as once old jacob is set fairly talking, no human power could get in a word from any one else.
"i am always so glad when the post doesn't arrive in time for breakfast," doatie is saying gayly. "once those horrid papers come, every one gets stupid and engrossed, and thinks it a positive injury to have to say even 'yes' or 'no' to a civil question. now see how sociable we have been this morning, because that dear jacob is late again. ah! i spoke too soon," as the door opens and a servant enters with a most imposing pile of letters and papers.
"late again, jermyn," says sir nicholas, lazily.
"yes, sir nicholas,—just an hour and a half. he desired me to say he had had another 'dart' in his rheumatic knee this morning, so hoped you would excuse him."
"poor old soul!" says sir nicholas.
"jolly old bore!" says captain rodney, though not unkindly.
"don't throw me over that blue envelope, nick," says nolly: "i don't seem to care about it. i know it, i think it seems familiar. you may have it, with my love. mrs. geoffrey, be so good as to tear it in two."
jack is laughing over a letter written by one of the fellows in india; all are deep in their own correspondence.
sir nicholas, having gone leisurely through two of his letters, opens a third, and begins to peruse it rather carelessly. but hardly has he gone half-way down the first page when his face changes; involuntarily his fingers tighten over the luckless letter, crimping it out of all shape. by a supreme effort he suppresses an exclamation. it is all over in a moment. then he raises his head, and the color comes back to his lips. he smiles faintly, and, saying something about having many things to do this morning, and that therefore he hopes they will forgive his running away from them in such a hurry he rises and walks slowly from the room.
nobody has noticed that anything is wrong. only doatie turns very pale, and glances nervously at geoffrey, who answers her frightened look with a perplexed one of his own.
then, as breakfast was virtually over before the letters came, they all rise, and disperse themselves as fancy dictates. but geoffrey goes alone to where he knows he shall find nicholas in his own den.
an hour later, coming out of it again, feeling harassed and anxious, he finds dorothy walking restlessly up and down the corridor outside, as though listening for some sound she pines to hear. her pretty face, usually so bright and debonnaire, is pale and sad. her lips are trembling.
"may i not see nicholas, if only for a moment?" she says, plaintively, gazing with entreaty at geoffrey. at which nicholas, hearing from within the voice that rings its changes on his heart from morn till eve, calls aloud to her,—
"come in, dorothy. i want to speak to you."
so she goes in, and geoffrey, closing the door behind her, leaves them together.
she would have gone to him then, and tried to console him in her own pretty fashion, but he motions her to stay where she is.
"do not come any nearer," he says, hastily, "i can tell it all to you better, more easily, when i cannot see you."
so doatie, nervous and miserable, and with unshed tears in her eyes, stands where he tells her, with her hand resting on the back of an arm-chair, while he, going over to the window, deliberately turns his face from hers. yet even now he seems to find a difficulty in beginning. there is a long pause; and then——
"they—they have found that fellow,—old elspeth's nephew," he says in a husky tone.
"where?" asks doatie, eagerly.
"in sydney. in paul rodney's employ. in his very house."
"ah!" says doatie, clasping her hands. "and——"
"he says he knows nothing about any will."
another pause, longer than the last.
"he denies all knowledge of it. i suppose he has been bought up by the other side. and now what remains for us to do? that was our last chance, and a splendid one, as there are many reasons for believing that old elspeth either burned or hid the will drawn up by my grandfather on the night of his death; but it has failed us. yet i cannot but think this man warden must know something of it. how did he discover paul rodney's home? it has been proved, that old elspeth was always in communication with my uncle up to the hour of her death; she must have sent warden to australia then, probably with this very will she had been so carefully hiding for years. if so, it is beyond all doubt burned or otherwise destroyed by this time. parkins writes to me in despair."
"this is dreadful!" says doatie. "but"—brightening—"surely it is not so bad as death or disgrace, is it?"
"it means death to me," replies he, in a low tone. "it means that i shall lose you."
"nicholas," cries she, a little sharply, "what is it you would say?"
"nay, hear me," exclaims he, turning for the first time to comfort her; and, as he does, she notices the ravages that the last hour of anxiety and trouble have wrought upon his face. he is looking thin and haggard, and rather tired. all her heart goes out to him, and it is with difficulty she restrains her desire to run to him and encircle him with her soft arms. but something in his expression prevents her.
"hear me," he says, passionately: "if i am worsted in this fight—and i see no ray of hope anywhere—i am a ruined man. i shall then have literally only five hundred a year that i can call my own. no home; no title. and such an income as that, to people bred as you and i have been, means simply penury. all must be at an end between us, dorothy. we must try to forget that we have ever been more than ordinary friends."
this tirade has hardly the effect upon dorothy that might be desired. she still stands firm, utterly unshaken by the storm that has just swept over her (frail child though she is), and, except for a slight touch of indignation that is fast growing within her eyes, appears unmoved.
"you may try just as hard as ever you like," she says, with dignity: "i sha'n't!"
"so you think now; but by and by you will find the pressure too great, and you will go with the tide. if i were to work for years and years, i could scarcely at the end achieve a position fit to offer you. and i am thirty-two, remember,—not a boy beginning life, with all the world and time before him,—and you are only twenty. by what right should i sacrifice your youth, your prospects? some other man, some one more fortunate, may perhaps——"
here he breaks down ignominiously, considering the amount of sternness he had summoned to his aid when commencing, and, walking to the mantelpiece, lays his arm on it, and his head upon his arms.
"you insult me," says dorothy, growing even whiter than she was before, "when you speak to me of—of——"
then she, too, breaks down, and, going to him, deliberately lifts one of his arms and lays it round her neck; after which she places both hers gently round his, and so, having comfortably arranged herself, proceeds to indulge in a hearty burst of tears. this is, without exception, the very wisest course she could have taken, as it frightens the life out of nicholas, and brings him to a more proper frame of mind in no time.
"oh, dorothy, don't do that! don't, my dearest, my pet!" he entreats. "i won't say another word, not one, if you will only stop."
"you have said too much already, and there sha'n't be an end of it, as you declared just now," protests doatie, vehemently, who declines to be comforted just yet, and is perhaps finding some sorrowful enjoyment in the situation. "i'll take very good care there sha'n't! and i won't let you give me up. i don't care how poor you are. and i must say i think it is very rude and heartless of you, nicholas, to want to hand me over to 'some other man,' as if i was a book or a parcel! 'some other man,' indeed!" winds up miss darling, with a final sob and a heavy increase of righteous wrath.
"but what is to be done?" asks nicholas, distractedly, though inexpressibly cheered by these professions of loyalty and devotion. "your people won't hear of it."
"oh, yes, they will," returns doatie, emphatically, "they will probably hear a great deal of it! i shall speak of it morning, noon, and night, until out of sheer vexation of spirit they will come in a body and entreat you to remove me. ah!" regretfully, "if only i had a fortune now, how sweet it would be! i never missed it before. we are really very unfortunate."
"we are, indeed. but i think your having a fortune would only make matters worse." then he grows despairing once more. "dorothy, it is madness to think of it. i am speaking only wisdom, though you are angry with me for it. why encourage hope where there is none?"
"because 'the miserable hath no other medicine but only hope,'" quotes she, very sadly.
"yet what does feltham say? 'he that hopes too much shall deceive himself at last' your medicine is dangerous, darling. it will kill you in the end. just think, dorothy, how could you live on five hundred a year!"
"other people have done it,—do it every day," says dorothy, stoutly. she has dried her eyes, and is looking almost as pretty as ever. "we might find a dear nice little house somewhere, nicholas," this rather vaguely, "might we not? with some furniture in queen anne's style. queen anne, or what looks like her, is not so very expensive now, is she?"
"no," says nicholas, "she isn't; though i should consider her dear at any price." he is a depraved young man who declines to see beauty in ebony and gloom. "but," with a sigh, "i don't think you quite understand, darling."
"oh, yes, i do," says dorothy, with a wise shake of her blonde head; "you mean that probably we shall not be able to order any furniture at all. well, even if it comes to sitting on one horrid kitchen deal chair with you, nicholas, i sha'n't mind it a scrap." she smiles divinely, and with the utmost cheerfulness, as she says this. but then she has never tried to sit on a deal chair, and it is a simple matter to conjure up a smile when woes are imaginary.
"you are an angel," says nicholas. and, indeed, considering all things, it is the least he could have said. "if we weather this storm, dorothy," he goes on, earnestly,—"if, by any chance, fate should reinstate me once more firmly in the position i have always held,—it shall be my proudest remembrance that in my adversity you were faithful to me, and were content to share my fortune, evil though it showed itself to be."
they are both silent for a little while, and then dorothy says, softly,—
"perhaps it will all come right at last. oh! if some kind good fairy would but come to our aid and help us to confound our enemies!"
"i am afraid there is only one fairy on earth just now, and that is you," says nicholas, with a faint smile, smoothing back her pretty hair with loving fingers, and gazing fondly into the blue eyes that have grown so big and earnest during their discussion.
"i mean a real fairy," says dorothy, shaking her head "if she were to come now this moment and say, 'dorothy'——"
"dorothy," says a voice outside at this very instant, so exactly as doatie pauses that both she and nicholas start simultaneously.
"that is mona's voice," says doatie. "i must go. finish your letters, and come for me then, and we can go into the garden and talk it all over again. come in, mona; i am here."
she opens the door, and runs almost into mona's arms, who is evidently searching for her everywhere.
"ah! now, i have disturbed you," says mrs. geoffrey, pathetically, to whom lovers are a rare delight and a sacred study. "how stupid of me! sure you needn't have come out, when you knew it was only me. and of course he wants you, poor dear fellow. i thought you were in the small drawing-room, or i shouldn't have called you at all."
"it doesn't matter. come upstairs with me, mona. i want to tell you all about it," says doatie. the reaction has set in, and she is again tearful, and reduced almost to despair.
"alas! geoffrey has told me everything," says mona, "that is why i am now seeking for you. i thought, i knew, you were unhappy, and i wanted to tell you how i suffer with you."
by this time they have reached dorothy's room, and now, sitting down, gaze mournfully at each other. mona is so truly grieved that any one might well imagine this misfortune, that is rendering the very air heavy, in her own, rather than another's. and this wholesale sympathy, this surrendering of her body and mind to a grief that does not touch herself, is inexpressibly sweet to her poor little friend.
kneeling down by her, dorothy lays her head upon mona's knee, and bursts out crying afresh.
"don't now," says mona, in a low, soothing tone folding her in a close embrace; "this is wrong, foolish. and when things come to the worst they mend."
"not always," sobs doatie. "i know how it will be. we shall be separated,—torn asunder, and then after a while they will make me marry somebody else; and in a weak moment i shall do it! and then i shall be utterly wretched for ever and ever."
"you malign yourself," says mona. "it is all impossible. you will have no such weak moment, or i do not know you. you will be faithful always, until he can marry you, and, if he never can, why, then you can be faithful too, and go to your grave with his image only in your heart that is not so bad a thought, is it?"
"n—ot very," says doatie, dolefully.
"and, besides, you can always see him, you know," goes on mona, cheerfully. "it is not as if death had stolen him from you. he will be always somewhere; and you can look into his eyes, and read how his love for you has survived everything. and perhaps, after some time, he may distinguish himself in some way and gain a position far grander than mere money or rank can afford, because you know he is wonderfully clever."
"he is," says dorothy, with growing animation.
"and perhaps, too, the law may be on his side: there is plenty of time yet for a missing will or a—a—useful witness to turn up. that will," says mona, musingly, "must be somewhere. i cannot tell you why i think so, but i am quite sure it is still in existence, that no harm has come to it. it may be discovered yet."
she looks so full of belief in her own fancy that she inspires doatie on the spot with a similar faith.
"mona! there is no one so sweet or comforting as you are," she cries, giving her a grateful hug. "i really think i do feel a little better now."
"that's right, then," says mona, quite pleased at her success.
violet, coming in a few moments later, finds them still discussing the all-important theme.
"it is unfortunate for every one," says violet, disconsolately, sinking in a low chair. "such a dear house, and to have it broken up and given into the possession of such a creature as that." she shrugs her shoulders with genuine disgust.
"you mean the australian?" says dorothy. "oh, as for him, he is perfectly utter!—such a man to follow in nicholas's footsteps!"
"i don't suppose any one will take the slightest notice of him," says violet: "that is one comfort."
"i don't know that: lilian chetwoode made him welcome in her house last night," says doatie, a little bitterly.
"that is because nicholas will insist on proving to every one he bears him no malice, and speaks of him persistently as his cousin. well, he may be his cousin; but there is a limit to everything," says violet, with a slight frown.
"that is just what is so noble about nicholas," returns doatie, quickly. "he supports him, simply because it is his own quarrel. after all, it matters to nobody but nicholas himself: no one else will suffer if that odious black man conquers."
"yes, many will. lady rodney,—and—and jack too. he also must lose by it," says violet, with suppressed warmth.
"he may; but how little in comparison! nobody need be thought of but my poor nicholas," persists doatie, who has not read between the lines, and fails therefore in putting a proper construction upon the faint delicate blush that is warming violet's cheek.
but mona has read, and understands perfectly.
"i think every one is to be pitied; and jack more than most,—after dear nicholas," she says, gently, with such a kindly glance at violet as goes straight to that young woman's heart, and grows and blossoms there forever after.
