Only a clod
him, and he might bask in the sunshine of her presence! For a little
while he might enjoy the dangerous delight, and then the officer to whom
she was betrothed would come back to claim her, and there would be a
wedding at the old church by the Thames; and he, Francis, would see his
divinity radiant in bridal robes and crowned with orange-flowers before
he departed for ever into the outer darkness where she was not.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER XIX.
MR. HILLARY SPEAKS HIS MIND.
After that meeting in Hyde Park, Francis Tredethlyn came very often to
the Cedars; so often, as to engender a vague uneasiness in Miss
Hillary’s mind. She knew that he loved her. If that sudden declaration
in the study had never occurred to reveal the fact, Maude must have been
something less than a woman had she been blind to a devotion that was
made manifest by every look and tone of her adorer. She knew that he
loved her, and that he had done battle with his love in order that she
might be happily ignorant of the pangs that tormented his simple heart.
The highly educated girl was able to read the innermost secrets of that
honest uncultivated mind, and was fain to pity Francis Tredethlyn’s
wasted suffering. Alas! had she not indeed traded upon his devotion, and
obtained her father’s safety at the expense of her own honour?
Such thoughts as these tormented Miss Hillary perpetually now that
Francis spent so much of his life at Twickenham. She perceived with
inexpressible pain that her father encouraged the young man’s
visits,--her father, who could not surely shut his eyes to the real
state of the Cornishman’s feelings; yet who knew of her engagement to
Harcourt Lowther. She did not know that Julia Desmond had taken good
care to inform Francis of that engagement, and that the young man came
knowingly to his delicious torture. She did not know this; and all that
womanly compassion which was natural to her, that pitying tenderness
which showed itself in the injudicious relief of barefaced tramps and
vagabonds about the Twickenham lanes, and the pampering of troublesome
pet dogs and canary birds--all her womanly pity, I say, was aroused by
the thought that she was loved, and loved in vain, by an honest and
generous heart.
Thus it came to pass that she could no longer endure the course which
events were taking, and she determined upon speaking to her father. They
had dined alone one bright June evening: they were not often thus
together now, for Mr. Hillary had fallen into his old habit of bringing
visitors from London, and the ponderous matrons and croquet-playing
young ladies inflicted a good deal of their company upon Maude. They had
dined alone, and Miss Hillary seized the opportunity of speaking to her
father upon that one subject which had so long occupied her thoughts.
“Mr. Tredethlyn comes here very often, papa,” she said, breaking ground
very gently.
Lionel Hillary filled his glass, retiring an it were behind the
claret-jug, from which comfortable shelter he replied to his daughter’s
remark,--
“Often?--yes--I suppose he does spend a good deal of his time here. I am
glad that he should do so; he is an excellent young man, a noble-hearted
young fellow--the best friend I have in the world.”
Mr. Hillary was a long time filling that one glass of claret, and his
face was quite hidden by the crystal jug.
“Yes, papa, he is very good; but do you think it is quite right--quite
wise to invite him so often?”
“Right--wise?” cried Mr. Hillary; “what, in the name of all that’s
absurd, can you mean by talking of the right or wisdom of an invitation
to dinner? The young man likes to come here, and I like the young man,
and like to see him here. That is about all that can be said upon the
subject.”
Maude was silent for some moments. It was very difficult to discuss this
question with her father, but she had grown familiar with difficulties
within the past few months, and was no longer the frivolous girl who had
known no loftier cause of anxiety than the uncertain health of her Skye
terrier. She returned to the charge presently.
“Dear papa, I am sorry to worry you about this business,” she said,
gently, “but there are such peculiar circumstances in our acquaintance
with Mr. Tredethlyn--we are under so deep an obligation to him, and----”
“And on that account we ought to shut our doors in his face, I suppose!”
exclaimed Mr. Hillary, with some show of impatience. “My dear Maude,
what mare’s-nest have you lighted upon?”
“It is so difficult for me to explain myself, papa: you can never
imagine how difficult. But I think you ought to understand what I mean.
When Julia was here, Mr. Tredethlyn’s visits were quite natural, and I
was always glad to see him; but it was my application to him for the
loan of that money which resulted in the breaking of Julia’s engagement.
I cannot forget that night, papa; nothing but desperation would have
prompted me to appeal to Francis Tredethlyn; and now that we are under
this great obligation to him, I feel that we are bound to him by a kind
of duty. We have, at least, no right to deceive him.”
“Deceive him! Who does deceive him?”
“Willingly, no one. But he may deceive himself, papa. You force me to
speak very plainly. Upon the night on which I appealed to him for that
loan, he told me that he loved me, even though he was then engaged to
Julia. There was something in his manner that convinced me of his
sincerity, though I was shocked at the want of honour involved in such a
declaration. But now that his engagement to Julia has been broken off,
indirectly through my agency, he may think it likely that----”
“He may think it likely that you would be wise enough to accept one of
the best fellows that ever lived for your husband. Is that what you
mean, Maude?”
“Papa!”
“Oh, my dear, I have no doubt you think me a cruel father, because I
venture to make such a suggestion. But surely, Maude, you cannot have
been blind to this young man’s devotion. From the very first it has been
obvious to anyone gifted with the smallest power of perception. Julia
Desmond contrived, by her consummate artifice, to inveigle the poor
fellow into a false position; but in spite even of that foolish
engagement, he has been devoted to you, Maude, from the first. I have
seen it, and have counted, Heaven knows how fully, upon a marriage
between you and him.”
“You have done this, papa, and yet you knew all about Harcourt,”
exclaimed Maude, reproachfully.
“I knew that you were a foolishly sentimental girl, ready to believe in
any yellow-whiskered young Admirable Crichton, who could make pretty
speeches, and criticise the newest Italian opera, or Tennyson’s last
poem. But I knew something more than this, Maude; I knew the state of my
own affairs, and that my only hope for you lay in a wealthy marriage.”
“And you thought that I would marry for money--you could think so meanly
of me, papa!”
“I thought that you were a sensible, high-spirited girl, and that when
you came to know the desperation of the case, you would show yourself of
the true metal--as you did that night at Brighton; as you did when you
asked Tredethlyn for the loan which saved me from ruin.”
Lionel Hillary stretched out his hand as he spoke, and grasped that of
his daughter. In the next minute she was by his side, bending over him
and caressing him. Only lately it had begun to dawn dimly upon Maude
Hillary, that perhaps this father, whom she loved so dearly, was not the
noblest and most honourable of men: but if any such knowledge had come
to her, it had only intensified the tenderness with which, from her
earliest childhood, she had regarded that indulgent father. The
experience of sorrow had transformed and exalted her nature; and she was
able to look upon Lionel Hillary’s weaknesses with pitying regret,
rather than with any feeling of contempt or indignation.
“Dear papa,” she said, very gravely, “you and I love each other so
dearly, that there should be no possibility of any misunderstanding
between us. I can never marry Mr. Tredethlyn; I know that he is good and
generous-minded and simple-hearted; I feel the extent of our obligation
to him, but I can never be his wife. It is for this reason that I am
fearful lest any false impression may arise in his mind. Pray, dear
papa, take this into consideration, and do not let him come here so
often--at any rate, not until you have been able to repay him his money,
not until the burden of this great obligation has been removed from us.”
Lionel Hillary laughed aloud.
“Not until the money has been paid! I’m afraid, in that case, Tredethlyn
will stop away from this house for a long time to come.”
“A long time, papa! But you told me you would be able to repay the
twenty thousand pounds,” said Maude, turning very pale.
“And I dare say I shall be able to pay the money some day. Such a loan
as that is not repaid in a few months, Maude. How should you understand
these matters? The twenty thousand pounds went to fill a yawning gulf in
my business, and it would be about as easy for me to get the same amount
of money back out of that gulf as it would for a single diver to bring
up the treasures of a sunken argosy.”
Maude sighed wearily. It seemed as if a kind of net had been woven round
her, and that she suddenly found herself in the centre of it, unable to
move.
“Papa,” she cried, “you don’t mean that Mr. Tredethlyn’s money is lost?”
“Lost! No, child; but it may be a very long time before I shall be able
to pay him. If you were not so foolish as to throw away one of the
noblest hearts in Christendom--to say nothing of the fortune that goes
along with it--there would be very little need for me to worry myself
about this money.”
“Oh, I understand, papa. If I were Mr. Tredethlyn’s wife, you would not
be obliged to pay the twenty thousand pounds,” said Maude, very slowly.
“I should not be tormented about it as I am now. Say no more, my dear;
you don’t understand these things, and you drive me very nearly mad with
your questions about my affairs.”
“Forgive me, papa. No, I don’t understand--I can’t understand all at
once; it seems so strange to me.”
She bent her head and kissed her father on the forehead, and then went
quietly out of the room; leaving him alone in the still summer twilight,
with a belated wasp buzzing feebly amongst the fruit and flowers on the
table. Maude went to her own room, and sitting there in the dusk, shed
some of the bitterest tears that had ever fallen from her eyes. The
discovery of her father’s views with regard to her had humiliated her to
the very dust. The idea that Francis Tredethlyn’s loan would never be
repaid was torture to her keen sense of honour; torture which was
rendered still more poignant by the recollection of her own part in the
transaction. Would he ever be paid? Would that money, for the loan of
which--and never more than the loan--she had supplicated her friend’s
betrothed husband, would that money ever be returned to the generous
young man who had so freely lent it? Her father had said that it would
in due course; but there was something in his manner that had
neutralized the effect of his words. To Maude Hillary’s mind this debt
was a very sacred one, a debt which _must_ be repaid, and for which she
herself was responsible. Twenty thousand pounds;--all the faculties of
her brain seemed to swim in a great sea of confusion as she thought of
that terrible sum--twenty thousand pounds, which she was bound to see
duly paid; and she was no longer an heiress, to whom money was dross.
She was a penniless, helpless girl: worse off than other penniless girls
by reason of her inexperience of poverty.