The Finger of Fate Part 7

The widow opened her eyes, once beautiful enough, but now only expressive of surprise. The manner of the attorney, his tone of confidence--of an almost friendly a.s.surance--led her to look for some pleasant revelation. What could it be?

"Over-zeal on your part can never be offensive, Mr Woolet--at least, not to me. Please let me know what you have to communicate. Whether it concern me or not, I promise you it shall have my full consideration, and such response as I can give."

"First, Mrs Mainwaring, I must ask a question that from any other might be deemed impertinent. But you have done me the honour to trust me as your legal adviser, and that must be my excuse. There is a rumour abroad--indeed, I might say, something more than a rumour--that your daughter is about to be--to contract an alliance with one of the sons of General Harding. May I ask if this rumour has any truth in it?"

"Well, Mr Woolet, to you I shall answer frankly: there is some truth in it."

"May I further ask which of the General's sons is to be the fortunate, and, I may say, happy individual?"

"Really, Mr Woolet! But why do you want to know this?"

"I have a reason, madam--a reason that also concerns yourself, if I am not mistaken."

"In what way?"

"By reading this, you will learn."

A sheet of bluish foolscap, with the ink scarce dried upon it, was spread out before the eyes of the widow. It was the will of General Harding.

She coloured while reading it. With all the coolness of her Scotch blood; with all the steadiness of nerve produced by an eventful life--in long accompaniment of her husband in his campaigns--she could not conceal the emotion called forth by what she read upon the sheet of foolscap. It was like the echo of her own thoughts--a response to the reflections that, scarce an hour before, had been not only pa.s.sing through her mind, but forming the subject of her conversation.

Adroitly as woman could--and Mrs Mainwaring was not the most simple of her s.e.x--she endeavoured to make light of the knowledge thus communicated. She was only sorry that General Harding should so far forget his duties as a parent, to make such a distinction between his two sons. Both were equally of his own blood; and, though the younger might have been of better behaviour, still he was the younger, and time might cure him of those habits which appeared to have given offence to his father. For herself, Mrs Mainwaring was very sorry indeed; and, although it did not so essentially concern her, she could not do otherwise than thank Mr Woolet for his disinterested kindness in letting her know the terms of this strange testament. In fine, she would always feel grateful to him for what he had done.

The last clause of her speech was delivered in a tone not to be misunderstood by such an astute listener as Mr Woolet; and at its conclusion he folded up the will, and prepared to take his departure.

To repeat excuses, and say that he had only done what he deemed his duty, were empty words, and were so understood by both.

A gla.s.s of sherry, with a biscuit, and the interview came to an end.

Mr Woolet returned to his trap, and was soon rolling back to the town; while b.u.t.tons was commanded to take back the pony to its stable. The sauntering Belle was summoned into the drawing-room.

"What did he want, mamma?" was her inquiry on entering. "Anything that concerns me?"

"I should think so. If you marry Henry Harding you will marry a _pauper_. I have seen the will. His father has disinherited him."

Miss Mainwaring sank upon the couch, with a cry that told rather of disappointment than despair.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

AWAITING THE PROPOSAL.

In the afternoon of that day Belle Mainwaring sat upon the couch in a state of expectation not easily described. The more difficult, from its being so rare--that is, the circ.u.mstances under which she was placed.

She was in the position of a young lady who expects a proposal of marriage to be made to her, and who has already determined upon declining it. She was strong in this determination; though her strength came not from her own inclinations. She was but acting under the commands of her mother.

She was not without some sinking of spirits as to the course she was about to take. In reality she loved the man she was going to reject-- more than she imagined then, more than she knew until long afterwards.

Flirt as she had been, and still was, conqueress of many a heart, she was not without one herself,--it might not be of the purest and truest; but, such as it was, Henry Harding appeared to have won it.

For all that, he was not to wear it; unless he could surround her with all the adornments of wealth, and the costliest luxuries of social life.

She now knew he could not do this; and, though her heart might still be his, her hand must go to some other. To his brother Nigel, perhaps, she may have whispered to herself. She was a beautiful woman, Belle Mainwaring--tall, large, and exquisitely moulded--a figure that becomes the reclining att.i.tude required by a couch; and, as she so reclined upon ordinary occasions, the coldest observer might well have been excused for admiring her gracefulness.

On the day in question her att.i.tude was not graceful. It was not even easy, nor befitting her figure. She sat bolt upright, now and then starting to her feet; pacing the room in quick, hurried strides; stopping a moment by the window, and scanning the road outside; and then returning to the couch, and staying upon it for a short time, as if a prey to terrible unrest and anxiety.

At times she would sit reflecting on the answer she should give; how it might be shaped, so as to make it least unpalatable to him who was to receive it. She had no doubt about its bitterness; for she felt confident in having the heart of the man about to offer her his hand.

She did not wish to unnecessarily give him pain; and she studied the style of her intended refusal, until she fancied she had most cunningly arranged it. But then would come a spasm of her own heart's pain; for to say "No!" was costing it an effort; and at this the whole structure would give way, leaving her intended answer still unshaped.

Once she was on the point of changing her purpose; and, prompted by the n.o.bility of love, she came near giving way to her better nature. She had almost made up her mind to accept Henry Harding spite his adverse fortune--spite the counsels of her mother.

But the n.o.ble resolve remained but one moment in her mind. It pa.s.sed like a flash of lightning, only showing more distinctly the dark clouds that would surround such a destiny. Henry disinherited--a thousand pounds alone left him! It would scarce be enough to furnish the feast, with the trousseau she might expect upon the day of her marriage.

Preposterous! Her mother was right; she would yield to the maternal will.

There was another thought that held her to this determination. She felt confident in her conquest; and if at any future time she might see fit to give way to her predilection, it would still be possible to do so.

General Harding would repent the disinheritance of his younger son, and revoke the will he had made, perhaps in a moment of spite or pa.s.sion.

Neither the lawyer who made it, nor her own mother, had any idea of the General's doing so. It was not in keeping with his character. But Belle believed differently. She saw through the eyes of hope, lighted by the light of love.

In such frame of mind did Miss Mainwaring await the expected visit of Henry Harding. Nor was there any change, when the boy in b.u.t.tons announced his arrival, and the moment after ushered him into the room.

Perhaps, just at that moment, at the sight of his handsome face and manly form, her heart may have faltered in its resolution. But only for an instant. A thought of his disinheritance, and it was again firm.

She was right as to the object of his coming. Indeed, he had all but declared it at their last interview--all but accomplished it. Words had already pa.s.sed between them, that might have been construed as on his side a proposal, and on hers an acceptance. He now came in all the confident expectation of formally closing the engagement by the terms of a betrothal.

Frank, loyal, and without thought of trick or deception, he at once declared his errand.

The answer went like an arrow through his heart--its poison but little subdued by the fact of its being conditional. The conditions were "the consent of mamma."

Henry Harding could not understand this. She, the imperious belle, who in his eyes seemed armed with all power and authority, to have her happiness dependent on the will of a mother, and that mother known to be at the same time selfish and capricious! It was a rebuff unexpected, and filled him with forebodings, as to what might be the decision of Mrs Mainwaring. He was not the man long to endure the agony of doubt; and at once demanded to see her.

His wishes were readily complied with; and, in less than five minutes after, the couch lately graced by the fair, frivolous daughter, was occupied by the staid, serious mother--the daughter absenting herself from the interview.

In the frigid face of the widow Henry Harding read his fate. His forebodings were confirmed. Mrs Mainwaring was sensible of the honour he would have conferred by becoming her son-in-law, and deeply thankful for the offer; but the position in which she and her daughter were placed made such a union impossible. Mr Harding must know that, by the sudden death of her late dear husband, she had been left in straitened circ.u.mstances--that Belle would therefore be without fortune; and that as he, Mr Harding, was in the same position, a union between the two would not only be impolitic, but absolute insanity. Though poor, her child had always been accustomed, if not to the luxuries, at least to the comforts of a home. What would be her condition as the mother of a family, with a husband struggling to maintain them? Mrs Mainwaring could not speculate on such a fate for her dear child; and, although Mr Harding was young, and had the world all before him, he had not been brought up to any profession promising a maintenance, nor yet to those habits likely to lead to it. For these reasons she, Mrs Mainwaring, must firmly, but respectfully, decline the offered alliance.

Throughout the speech, which partook somewhat of the nature of a lecture, Henry Harding sat listening in silence, but with astonishment strongly depicted in his features. This had reached its climax, long before the last sentence was delivered.

"Surely, madam," said he, giving vent to his surprise, "you cannot mean this?"

"Mean what, Mr Harding?"

"What you have said of my inability to support a--your daughter. I know nothing of the struggle you speak of. I admit I have no profession; but my expectations are not so poor as to make it necessary I should have one. Half of my father's estate is sufficient to provide against such a future as you allude to. And there are but two of us to share it."

"If that be your belief, Mr Harding," rejoined the widow, in the same cold, relentless tone, in which she had all along been speaking, "I am sorry to be the first to disabuse you of it. The estate you speak of will not be so equally divided. Your share in it will be a legacy of a thousand pounds. Such a trifling sum would not go far towards the maintenance of an establishment."

Henry Harding stayed not to answer the last remark, made half interrogatively. In those that preceded it he had heard enough to satisfy him, that he had no longer any business in the drawing-room of Mrs Mainwaring; and hurriedly recovering his hat and cane, he bade her an abrupt good morning.

He did not deign to address the same scant courtesy to her daughter.

Between him and Belle Mainwaring was now opened a gulf so wide, that it could never be bridged over--not even to save him from a broken heart.

As the rejected lover strode away from the cottage that contained what he so lately looked upon as his _fiancee_, black clouds came rolling over the sky, as if to symbolise the black thoughts in his heart.

In all his youthful life it was the first great shock he had received; a shock both to soul and body--for in the announcement made by Mrs Mainwaring there was a blow aimed at both. His love blighted, his fortune gone--both, as it were, in the same instant! But the bitterest reflection of all was that the love had gone with the fortune. The loss of the latter he could have endured; but to think that the sweet speeches that had been exchanged between him and Belle, the tender glances, and the soft, secret pressure of hands that more than once had been mutually imparted--to think that, on her side, all these had been false, heartless, and hollow, was enough to wound something more than the self-esteem of a nature n.o.ble as was his. He could frame no excuse for her conduct. He tried, but without success. It was too clear, the cause of her refusal; too clear were the conditions on which she would have accepted his love, and had led him to believe in its acceptance.

Her words and acts had been all pretence--the very essence of coquetry.