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Chapter One
A Rough Suitor
“Be quiet! What a silly little fluttering dove it is, struggling like this, ruffling all your plumes, and making your face so red. But how it becomes you!”
“Mr Saul Harrington, how dare you!”
“Because I love you so, you little beauty. There – and there – and there!”
The kisses were given in spite of the frightened looks and struggles; but at each kiss there was a faint cry of shame, dislike, and indignation mingled.
“You know I love you, and I know you love me.”
“It is not true, sir. Let me go!”
“It is true, or you would have screamed the house down.”
“If I do not scream for help, it is because I would not alarm your uncle. I tell you he is dying.”
“Gammon, Gertie! The old tyrant – he is too tough. No such luck for us. There, don’t struggle any more. You are going to be my darling little wife.”
“Mr Saul. Pray, pray let me go.”
“Directly you have given me your word, Gertie. There, it is your fault that I was so rough. You do love me?”
“I hate you, sir, with all my heart, and you force me to say it. This is a cruel outrage. What have I done that you should dare to treat me so? Is there no one to help me? Bruno! Bruno!”
There was a short yelp, a sound as of a dog leaping to the floor, the rattle of nails in the hall, and a plump up against the door, accompanied by an impatient bark.
Saul Harrington, a good-looking man of five-and-thirty, started, and involuntarily loosed his hold of his captive, just as there was a sharp peal of a bell, and the slight, dark-eyed, trembling girl he had held in his arms slipped away, darted to the door of the sombre-looking dining-room, threw it open, and ran out, just as a great black Gordon-setter bounded in, set up the frill of hair about his neck, and uttered a low fierce growl, as he stood glaring at the occupant of the room.
“Lie down, you beast!” was the savage retort. “Oh, that’s it, is it? Well, the time may come, my fine fellow, when I can do as I like here, and, if it does, why, then – well, I’m sorry for you.”
But the dog did not lie down, and when requested to give his paw, turned his back upon the visitor, and slowly walked out of the room.
“A beast! All her coyness. A bit frightened, perhaps. Don’t suppose she was ever kissed before. She liked it, though, a pretty little jade. Well, what are you staring at, you old curmudgeon?” he continued, standing apostrophising a portrait hung over the sideboard – that of a stern-looking, fierce-eyed old man, the said eyes seeming to follow him, go where he would. “I’ll kiss her, and as soon as you are dead I’ll marry her, and we’ll spend your rusty coin, you miserable old usurer. I wish you were out of the world.”
He threw himself in a great morocco-covered easy-chair and bit his nails carefully all round, pulled off his left-hand glove, and treated the fingers there to the same trimming, as he looked furtively about from the rich thick Turkey carpet to the solid furniture, and the great silver salver on the sideboard; ending by trying to appraise the two fine paintings at the side of the room.
“Yes,” he muttered, “one ought to do pretty well. I’m tired of being poor – and in debt.”
“George!” he said softly, after gazing thoughtfully before him. “No, he’ll never leave him a penny. The father killed that. Gertie will get all. I shall get Gertie, and the silly little jade will not struggle then.”
He rose, laughing in an unpleasant way, and began walking up and down the room. Then, growing weary and impatient, he crossed to the door, opened it gently, looked out into the dull hall, with its black and white marble floor, and listened.
Tick-tack! tick-tack! the slowly beating off seconds measured by a tall, old-fashioned clock. Not another sound; and Saul Harrington drew back into the room and closed the door.
“She’ll come down again,” he muttered, with the same, unpleasant laugh. “Trust her woman’s nature. All latent yet, but it’s there, and opportunity will bring it out. All her pretence. She knows that she will be my wife and girls like a little rough courting, or I’m no judge.”
An hour, that seemed like two, passed slowly away, and then Saul Harrington rang the bell.
At the end of a minute a quiet, very old-looking woman in black, with white cap and old-fashioned muslin cross-over, came to the door.
“Go and tell Miss Gertrude I am waiting to see her again.”
“She is with master, sir.”
“Well, go and tell her, Mrs Denton.”
The woman shook her head.
“I dare not, sir. It would send master into a fit of fury.”
“Pish! Never mind; I’ll wait. How is he?”
The woman shook her head, lifted her white apron, and applied a corner to her eyes.
“None of that, Mrs Denton,” said Saul Harrington, with a sneering laugh. “So fond of him, eh?”
“Yes, sir. Dear old master.”
“Ha, ha! Dear old master! Won’t do, Denton, I’m too old. Don’t wait.”
“If it would please God to spare him for a score of years,” said the old servant piously, as she left the room. “A bit harsh and a bit of a temper; but I know – I know.”
“I’ll wait and see her again, if I have to wait all night,” said Saul Harrington to himself. “Hang this grim old house! It’s almost as gloomy as a tomb.”
Chapter Two
Uncle James’ Plan
“That you, Gertie?”
“Yes, uncle, dear,” and the girl, who had made a brave effort to grow calm, approached the side of a great four-post bedstead, where a large, thin, yellow hand lay upon the white coverlet.
“That’s right, my dear, don’t leave me long. It’s getting very near the end, my darling.”
“Oh, uncle, dearest, don’t – don’t talk like that,” cried the girl, throwing herself upon her knees, and passionately kissing the yellow hand.
“Ah, that’s nice, my pet – that’s real. You couldn’t have acted that.”
“Uncle, dear,” whispered the girl, as she raised herself, and gently passed her arm beneath the neck of the gaunt, withered old man whose head lay upon the white pillow, “it doesn’t sound like you to talk so bitterly.”
“Oh, yes, it does, my dear. Why shouldn’t I tell you I know you are a dear, good, patient little darling, true as steel to the disagreeable, miserly old hunks whom everybody hates and wishes dead. But who was that downstairs?”
“Mr Saul Harrington, uncle.”
“Damn him!”
“Uncle, dear!”
“Well, he deserves it. Do you know, Gertie, that man only says one prayer, and that is for my death.”
“Oh, uncle, you misjudge him.”
“Eh? What? Has he been trying to court you again?”
Gertrude inclined her head.
“Eh? What?” cried the old man excitedly, and his deeply sunken eyes seemed to glow. “You – you are not beginning to like him?”
“Oh! uncle, dear,” sobbed the girl, “I detest him, and he frightens me.”
“Ah!” ejaculated the old man, with a sigh of content followed by a low chuckle. “A fox, that’s what he is Gertie. Thinks I shall leave you all my money, and that he’ll marry you and get it to spend – a mean, despicable, cunning fox. But I haven’t left you a penny, my pet.”
“No, uncle.”
“But don’t tell him so. I want him to be punished. He deserves it. I helped him a dozen times, but he always turned out badly. Not left you a penny, Gertie. Ain’t you bitter against me?”
“Bitter against you who have always been like a dear father!”
“Eh? Well, tried to be, little one,” said the old man as he toyed with the girl’s long, wavy dark hair. “Poor little fatherless, motherless thing! why, of course I did. But now look here, Gertie. I’m wasting time, and there’s so little left.”
“Don’t say that, dear.”
“But I must, my pet. And don’t cry; nothing to cry for. An old man of eighty-six going to sleep and rest, Gertie – that’s all. I’m not sorry, only to leave you, my dear. I want to live till George comes home and marries you. You – you will marry him, Gertie?”
“If he is the good, true man you say, uncle, and he will love me, and wish me to be his wife, I will pray God to make me a true, dutiful companion to him for life.”
“But – but you don’t speak out, my child,” said the old man suspiciously.
“It is because I can’t, uncle, dear. The words sees to choke me. It is such a promise to make.”
“But you never cared for any one else?”
“Oh no, uncle dear. I never hardly thought of such a thing.”
“No; always shut up here in the dingy old Mynns with me.”
“Where I have been very happy, uncle.”
“And Heaven knows I tried to make you so, my child. And you will be happy when I’m gone – with George. For he is all I say – a true, noble fellow. But – but,” he cried, peering into the girl’s eyes from under his shaggy brows, “suppose he is ugly?”
“Well, uncle dear,” said the girl with a little laugh, “what does that matter?”
“Ay, what does that matter? But he can’t be ugly, Gertie. Such a handsome little fellow as he was when I saw him last. And he’ll be a rich man, Gertie. He shall have The Mynns and everything, for the injury and wrong I did his father – my poor, poor boy!”
“Uncle, dear, don’t reproach yourself,” cried the girl, kissing the withered forehead, as the old man’s voice broke into a whimper, and his hands trembled. “It was all a mistake.”
“No, Gertie, my dear; I was a hard, bitter, passionate man, and made no allowances for him. He would not stick to business, and he would marry one woman when I wanted him to marry another, and I told him he’d be a beggar all his life, and we quarrelled. Yes, he defied me, Gertie, when I told him he would come cringing upon his knees for money, and he said he would sooner starve. Only like yesterday,” continued the old man after a pause, “and I never saw him but once more, he came to say good-bye, with his wife, before they sailed for what he called the Golden West, and we quarrelled again because he disobeyed me and would not stay. I was ready to forgive him, Gertie, if he would have stayed and taken to business, but he wouldn’t stop with the arbitrary old tyrant, and they went and took their boy.”
The old man lay silent for some minutes, raising the girl’s soft little hand to his lips from time to time. Then he startled her by bursting into a long low laugh.
“Uncle, dear!”
“Eh? Only laughing at him, my pet – that boy George. Such a determined little tyrant. Did what he liked with the old man. Wasn’t afraid of me a bit. A little curly-headed rascal, and as sturdy as could be. Such eyes. Gertie; looked through you. ‘I don’t like you, grandpa,’ he said. ‘You make my mamma cry.’ Bless him! that he did. Ha, ha, ha! I saw him when he was washed – a little, chubby, pink cupid of a fellow, splashing in his tub; and there, on his little white breast, was a blue heart with an arrow stuck in it. His father’s doing after he came back from the West – he went out first, leaving his wife. And I asked the little chap about it. ‘Did it hurt much, my man?’ I said. ‘Yeees,’ he said. ‘And did you cry, George?’ I said. ‘Pa said I was to be a man and not cry,’ said the little fellow sturdily, ‘but I did a little, and to did my mamma.’ ‘Have you no feeling for your child?’ I said to his father. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but I want to teach him how to bear pain. It will come easier to him, father; for he will have to bear it as I have had in my time.’ Yes, Gertie, I recollect it all. That’s twenty-five years ago, and I’ve never seen George since. But perhaps I shall now, for he’s coming back, Gertie.”
“Yes, uncle.”
“Fetch me the second drawer; the keys have worked right behind.”
She thrust her hand beneath the pillow, and drew out a bunch of very bright-worn keys, before crossing the room to a tall, black oak cabinet in the corner near the bed’s head. Unlocking the glass door, she unlocked also and took out a small shallow drawer which, evidently according to custom, she placed across the old man’s knees, afterwards assisting him to rise, and propping him with pillows, so that he could examine the contents.
“There,” he said eagerly, as he took a handsome gold watch from its case, the chain and seal pendant being curiously formed of natural nuggets of gold.
The watch was of American make, and looked as new as if it had only just left the maker’s hands.
The old man’s eyes looked on eagerly as the girl took and opened the watch, the peculiar sound emitted, as she carefully re-wound it, seeming to afford the invalid the greatest satisfaction.
“Not lost, has it, Gertie?” he said quickly.
“No, uncle, dear,” said Gertie, comparing her hands with those of her own watch.
“Nor likely to. A splendid watch, Gertie. No trashy present, that. My boy’s made of too good stuff to mar his future. But I was blind in those days, Gertie – blind. Now read it again.”
As if well accustomed to the task, the girl held the open case to the light, and read on its glistening concave, where it was deeply engraved with many a flourish and scroll:
James Harrington, Esq, from his grandson.
Pure gold from the golden west.
“Pure gold from the Golden West!” said the old man, as he stretched out his hands eagerly and ran the nugget chain through his fingers. “And I mocked at his poor father, and told him it was all a myth. Put it away, Gertie. George is to wear that always, my dear. I’ve saved it for him. You know I’ve only worn it on his birthdays since.”
“Yes, uncle, dear,” said the girl gravely, as she replaced the watch in its case.
“And now look here, my dear,” said the old man, taking up a small pocket-ledger and handing it to Gertie; “open at page six.”
“Yes, uncle,” said the girl wonderingly; and then looking at him for further instructions.
“Do you see that?”
“Yes, uncle – entries of money, twenty-five pounds, over and over again.”
“Do you know what that means?”
“No, uncle; but you are tiring yourself.”
“Ay, but I shall have plenty of time to rest, Gertie, by-and-bye.”
“Uncle, dear!”
“Ah, don’t you cry. Listen, Gertie. I wanted to try him – George. I’m a suspicious old man, and I said when he sent me that watch, a year after his father and mother died, ‘It’s a sprat to catch a herring!’ Ha, ha, ha! and I waited and wrote to him – such a lie, Gertie – such a lie, my dear.”
“Uncle!”
“Yes, the biggest lie I ever told. I wrote and told him that things had gone wrong with me – so they had, for I had lost two hundred and fifty pounds by a man who turned out a rogue – and I begged George to try and help his poor old grandfather in England for his father’s sake, and might I sell the watch.”
“And what did he say, uncle?” cried Gertrude eagerly.
“He sent me a hundred pounds, Gertie, in an order on a London bank; and he said if I ever sold that watch he would never forgive me, for it was his father’s wish that he should send it as a specimen of the gold I had disbelieved in. A hundred pounds, Gertie, and ever since, for four years now, he has sent me twenty-five pounds every quarter.”
“Then he thinks you are poor?”
“Yes, he did till I sent to him to come home. But I invested every penny, Gertie, and there is the interest; and now what do you say? Is he a true man – good enough to love?”
“Oh, uncle – yes!” cried the girl, with the tears glittering in her eyes.
“Yes, my darling, a worthy husband for you; one who will love and protect you when I’m gone.”
“But, uncle, dear – ” faltered the girl.
“Yes – yes?”
“Does – does he know?”
“That he is to marry you? Yes. He knows by now that he is a rich man, or will be when I’m gone, and that he has the sweetest, truest little wife waiting for him here. Put the book away; you and Mr Hampton know everything. Lock up the cabinet and put the keys under the pillow again; and some morning, when you find I’m too fast asleep to wake again, take the keys and keep them for my dear boy.”
“Oh, uncle, dearest!” sobbed the girl.
“God bless you, my pet! But I put it off too long. I may not see my boy again. That’s right; quite under the pillow, dear. Thank you. Kiss me, not as your uncle, but as James Harrington, the grim old man who told your father and mother he would protect their little girl, and has tried to do his duty by her.”
Gertrude raised the withered hand, and held it to her lips, as, after removing the pillow, the old man lay back, tired out, and slept calmly and peacefully. And, as she watched him, she thought of her position there in that great house a dozen miles from town. How she had grown up with no young companions save those she had encountered at school, and how the time had glided away. How of late the old man who had adopted her had begun to talk of his approaching end, and chilled her at first with horror till she grew accustomed to his conversation; but never chilling her so much as when Saul Harrington, the old man’s nephew, had begun to make advances to her – advances which filled her with disgust and dread.
She shivered as she thought of the scene in the dining-room that day; and, like a black cloud, the idea arose as to what her fate would be if the old man, hanging, as it were, on the brink of eternity, should pass away, leaving her alone.
There was Mrs Denton, the old housekeeper, and there were Mr and Mrs Hampton, old Harrington’s confidential solicitor and his wife, friends both – Mrs Hampton, in her harsh, snappish way, always meaning to be most kind. And then there was the doctor. Yes; and Bruno. But still, she would soon be alone, and at the mercy of Saul Harrington, a man whom she had always dreaded when he came to pester his uncle for money.
Then came a change in her musings, and she began to picture the man who had been selected for her husband, and the warm blood came and went in her cheeks as she found herself wondering what he would be like, what he would think of her, and whether, under the circumstances, her future would be happy.
She bent down and covered her face with her hands, as she sat listening to the old man’s faint, regular breathing, and seemed to see the bright-eyed, sharp-witted child who had made so great an impression on her guardian. Then the blue tattooed heart upon his little white skin stood out before her mind’s eye, and she half shuddered as she thought of the pain the brave child must have suffered under his sea-going father’s whim.
And, as she thought and thought, wondering what her future would be, she was so intent that she did not hear the door open, and a footstep cross the carpet, the first suggestion of another presence being a hand laid lightly upon her shoulder, and she started into wakefulness to encounter the mocking countenance of Saul.
Chapter Three
Out West
Dan Portway sat in the shade cast by a large hemlock, an extinct pipe between his lips, and his chin resting upon his hands, gazing down upon his companion, whose head and breast alone were in the shade, for the sun seemed to have veered farther round since they ate their meal together, and then lay down to rest until the heat had grown less. They were upon the steep slope of one of the mountains which shot up rugged and bare on all sides, and sank down in dangerous gulches, like rocky crevices in the earth, their precipitous sides sometimes going down sheer to where water gushed, and roared, and sprang from rock to rock, hundreds of feet below. Wherever a sheltered spot offered itself for foothold, the pines and hemlocks had risen, like dark green cones, towards the deep blue skies, their heads glistening in the sunshine, and exhaling a perfume that floated upon the mountain breezes far and wide. It was one of Nature’s solitudes in the Far West, and the two men, as their rifles and accoutrements showed, had climbed up there in search of the game which found a home in these wilds.
They had had a long tramp and climb that day, but neither bear nor mountain sheep had fallen before their bullets, and they found themselves at last miles away from the pine grove where they had set up their tent, with the sombre boughs above and the pine-needles forming a thick bed below. The surroundings were glorious. It was the ideal haunt of a mountain hunter, and here a month before, on a farewell excursion, before obeying the recall he had received, George Harrington had revisited the neighbourhood which he had discovered far up in the mountains years before, when prospecting for gold.
The days had glided by, and evening after evening he had come to the determination that after the next day he would begin to move in the direction of civilisation, and hunt and shoot as he went; but, in spite of the fact that they had come twice over upon Indian signs there was so much fascination in the place that he always determined upon leaving in another day or two.
When George Harrington started upon his trip it was in company with an experienced guide, but the man had fallen ill and gone back to one of the towns, and just as Harrington was in despair, he had come suddenly upon a man whom he had twice before encountered and with whom he had hunted. Hearing from George the quandary in which he was placed, Dan Portway, a man of good birth and education, who had emigrated to the West a couple of years before and found the hunting life in the mountains more to his taste than straightforward labour, at once volunteered to accompany him. The offer was eagerly accepted, for it seemed suicidal to go alone, and as Dan had proved himself to be companionable, a clever shot, and well versed in hunting craft, the time had glided pleasantly away without their once encountering a soul.
Two men with a similarity of tastes cannot chum together in a little tent here and there in the mountains without becoming confidential, hence it was that before long George Harrington pretty well knew his companion’s impecunious history – that is, as much as he chose to tell, and on the other hand, not only had Portway, apparently without pumping, learned Harrington’s position, but had received an invitation to accompany him to England.
“Have another day,” Portway would say laughingly; “at present you are free. Who can say when you will enjoy such another succession of climbs as you have out here.”
“True,” Harrington said thoughtfully.
“When you get back, of course, it will be pleasant to inherit the money; but what about the wife?”
“Well,” said Harrington sternly, “what about her?”
“I mean,” said Portway hastily, “how do you know what she may be like? Take another view of the case – pass me the tobacco pouch – I am a selfish man as well as a poor one. You are giving me a delightful trip, finding me in food, a horse, rifle and ammunition, everything I could wish for, including a glass of prime old Bourbon whiskey. So I say, let’s keep it on as long as we can. By the way, how long have we been out here?”
“Going on for six weeks.”
“Which are like six days.”
“Ah, well,” said Harrington over and over again, “we will not give up yet.”
This conversation, or one very similar, occurred again and again before the day waned.
Dan Portway sat with his chin in his hands gazing down at the sleeping figure in the shade.
When Dan Portway smiled, his was a pleasant though rather a coarse face, and his changeful life had made him a man full of information, but when he did not smile his face was not a pleasant one, vice in more than one form having left its mark. When he looked at Harrington waking, he invariably smiled; but Harrington was sleeping, and Dan Portway did not smile now.
But he sat thinking of his companion’s prospects – wealth, a handsome wife, a life of luxury – and compared these prospects with his own. As he watched the sleeper’s frank, sun-browned face, he recalled everything he had told him about home, his father and grandfather. He noted the ring upon his finger – a heavy gold circle roughly beaten out of a piece of virgin gold. He took in his lineaments, and compared their ages, and he thought of the letters Harrington had among his traps in the tent miles away beneath the pines.
There were other little things, too, there in the saddlebags, all of which seemed to fit in with a misty chaotic set of ideas which floated through his brain. Lastly, his eyes seemed to be fascinated by his companion’s breast as he lay there with his head thrown back, his flannel shirt all open at the collar and chest, and as he gazed a ray of sunlight shot between the boughs, and fell right upon the white skin.