Chapter II

“Oh! Simon, what do you think? Oh! good gracious, Simon, what _do_ you think?”

These two exclamations were made at another breakfast, and were caused by another letter. They were made in a tone of simple wonder. No other feeling was mingled with it.

The Simon addressed was reading a newspaper, and without looking up he replied--

“I think nothing. You know I hate guessing. What is the row?”

A lady and gentleman were at breakfast in the small room of a villa near London. The room was bright from the large window that opened on the small garden, and everything in it was in decent order; but it was a tasteless room. The presiding genius of the room evidently did not care for pretty things. The lady was tolerably young, tolerably dressed, and tolerably good-looking, but like her room she was tasteless. A commonplace amiable woman, and nothing else. The man was different, but he shall not be described till his wife has spoken.

“Why, Simon, only think; here is a letter from Uncle Smythe, and what do you think he says? He is going to be married!”

There are moments in life when, in consequence of sudden temptation, secrets are revealed to men regarding the mysteries of their own hearts. So, also, there are moments when, in consequence possibly of some slumbering passion awaking, a new expression comes out on a well-known countenance.

Before her husband answered her, commonplace and unobservant as Mrs. Devereux was, she saw a new something in _his_ face, which, diverting her thoughts from her letter, made her say,

“Are you ill? What is the matter?”

“Give me that letter!” he said, shortly and sharply.

And she, mutely and wonderingly regarding him, obeyed.

He read it, and made no comment; but low and hissing through his teeth there came the sound of an oath.

The mind of Mrs. Devereux, which was not, as has been said, a large mind, which could not easily pursue two trains of thought at once, was so occupied with her husband, that she sat regarding him with awe and surprise, unconscious of the connection between his new face and the fact announced in the letter. She was a tolerably good woman, good without thought, and the sound of an oath instinctively shocked her; on the other hand, she thought men were lords of the creation, and their privileges large; wrong was wrong, but if men did wrong that altered the case. _They_ had privileges. The man her husband more than any.

His oath shocked her inward sense; but outwardly he alone occupied her. What could have given his face that strange expression; what could have disturbed his usual demeanour?

The usual demeanour of Mr. Devereux was not particularly prepossessing, not at least in the eyes of any one but his wife; but he looked like a gentleman. There was nothing vulgar or coarse or unrefined in his air or manner; but there was nothing good and winning. His features and figure were not badly formed, but were cold and charmless. There was nothing to repel, but nothing to attract. Hitherto he had been a kind of negative man; calm, unattractive, and apparently passionless.

But on this day an expression had come into his calm face--had been suddenly born into it; and it was not a pleasant one. He sat reading and re-reading the letter with this new-born expression on his face, and his wife sat puzzling over it. At last a gleam of intelligence came to her.

“Are you thinking about Uncle Smythe’s marriage?” she asked.

He roused himself from his abstraction, folded up the letter, and returned it to her.

“What do you think of it, Simon?” she asked, varying her question.

“I think there is no doubt he is insane,” he said calmly.

“Do you? Poor old man! Do you know, Simon, that when Jane Ord heard of his taking that girl to live with him, she said something disagreeable would be sure to happen. I suppose she was thinking of this.”

“Hardly. No one, unless he, too, was insane, could have thought of such an event.”

“I suppose I must write and wish him joy,” she now said doubtfully.

“You may leave it to me,” he replied with a cold sneer. “I will go and wish him joy.”

Mrs. Devereux looked puzzled and frightened.

“Do you mean to tell Uncle Smythe that he is--that you don’t like his marriage?”

“I shall certainly give him my mind on the subject.”

“But oh! Simon, do you remember how angry he was about my settlement--with what you said, I mean?”

“I suppose, Letitia, I may be allowed to know my own business.”

“Oh! yes; certainly.”

“I consider it my duty as, through you, his nearest relation, to interfere; a duty to him, a duty to you, and a duty to those poor children.” And he glanced towards a little girl and a baby boy, who were on the floor in a corner of the room.

“Oh! yes,” his wife said admiringly. “You are always right.”

Mrs. Devereux was a great-niece of Mr. Smythe’s. Her grandmother had been his half-sister, much older than himself. Both mother and grandmother had died, and she was his nearest relation. Although therefore the daughter of a poor man--a Captain Allen in the Navy--she had been considered a good speculation by one who was given to think of speculations even where his affections were concerned.

Mr. Devereux was the son of a gentleman of good family and good means. But the good means had been squandered, and when at seventeen Mr. Devereux had succeeded to his inheritance, he succeeded to debts and little else. His father had been fond of money, though he squandered it. He had squandered it in trying to make more of it; and he had imbued his son, not with a sense of the value of money, which is good, but with the love of it, which is a different thing. At seventeen Simon Devereux was able to persuade those who acted for him to sell his property, and to give him by this means as large an income as was possible. He went to college and became a lawyer.

During his youth he lived a kind of negative life. Nobody liked him. Nobody disliked him. No one thought about him. He had no vices, and no virtues; no friends, and no enemies. He studied for the bar, and he also studied--with the small income that he had--the art of speculating wisely. He walked and talked like other men; but an undercurrent was always going on in his mind; how he could make a little money! His love for money was negative like his life. He did not love to hoard, nor love to spend. Everything about him was always proper and decent; not pretty nor showy, nor yet spare or miserly. It was the love of money, pure and simple, without regard to consequences.

When he was nine-and-twenty he thought he would marry. He was beginning to have a little business, and this, joined to the small income, made him able to offer himself without shame. He looked about him for a suitable wife, and found Letitia Allen. She was humble and fortuneless, and therefore would be likely to be flattered by his notice; but she was great-niece to a rich merchant, and therefore a good speculation.

At the moment he chose her she was only a speculation. Captain Allen had offended Mr. Smythe by two things. First by his character, which was unsteady; and secondly, by asking, as a right, for the assistance which would otherwise have been willingly given. Mr. Smythe and his half-sister had inherited from their father the same sum, not a very large one. The large fortune he possessed he had made by his own exertions, and he did not choose to be dictated to as to its disposal. On this point his mind had always been openly expressed. Notwithstanding which, Captain Allen had claimed his assistance to pay his debts as a _right_.

The assistance so claimed had been given. When he saw his distress, Mr. Smythe had been unable to refuse, but he had taken the opportunity once more to assert his freedom, and, as regarded Letitia Allen, to declare in positive terms that she was not, and should not be his heiress.

This declaration had been made some months before Simon Devereux became acquainted with Letitia; but it was not talked of, and he had courted her under the impression that she was, or was likely to be, an heiress.

When he had gained his point, and won the soft heart he had attacked, he found out his mistake. Now, there are very few monsters in human nature. The bad have some good, and the cold have some warmth. Simon Devereux had a hard, passionless nature; but still it was a human nature, and though he had begun to attack the soft heart without affection, a feeling of affection was, during the courtship, elicited. When he found out his mistake, he also found out a reluctance to give her up. This bias of inclination biassed his views; it made the speculation--though declared to be uncertain--appear a good and certain one in his eyes. He determined to stick to his bargain, and to marry Letitia Allen.

He had an immediate reward. Mr. Smythe was pleased with what he heard, and gave Miss Allen a wedding present of ten thousand pounds.

Instead, however, of being satisfied with this, the instantaneous concession made by the great-uncle enlarged the hopes and views of the lover. He thought the game was in his own hands, and having a high opinion of himself and his powers, he endeavoured to draw from Mr. Smythe some definite promises for the future--some tangible thing that could form a portion of the settlements.

Mr. Smythe was displeased and offended. An opportunity had been lost. Had Simon Devereux, bent on winning him, seen how to do it, it might have been done. He was pleased at the marriage of his great-niece. His mind was essentially just, and though tenacious of his right and his freedom, he would have been glad to be able to like his relations. The family of the young man, and his own staid character, contrasted favourably with all that was known of Captain Allen; and his choice of Letitia while under the ban of his displeasure made a favourable impression. It was a moment in which one who knew how to humour him might have wound a chord about him. But most men’s characters are stronger than their perceptions. Many can act a part if they see a reason for it, but few can hold their characters at bay while they make discoveries how to act.

Simon Devereux did not see. He offended in the very same way that Captain Allen had done. Mr. Smythe, however, though he began to watch him, remained civil. He took a dislike to him, but he did not give him up. His civility deceived. In spite of the determined refusal with which his request was met, Mr. Devereux thought he had got the best of it. He thought the way to manage him was to hold persistently and steadily before him the rights of relationship, to enthral him with the bond of kindred. On this opinion he had acted then, and he now was prepared to act again.

It was five years since his marriage, and they had been years of peace. A doubt of the success of his speculation had never crossed his brain. Looking on his wife as the means of obtaining enormous wealth, he had honoured her, and he waited in calmness for the happy time of prosperity to arrive. During these five years, the love of money had reposed in his breast. It did not sleep, for it now and then gave signs of life, and these the keen sight of Mr. Smythe perceived; but it reposed--the hope in the future fed it so fully, that it seldom bestirred itself. He lived a quiet, sober, respectable, negative life, doing nothing good, and doing apparently no evil. His wife admired and loved him; saw with his eyes, and thought with his brain.

On this morning the old love arose from its long rest, and with it a violent feeling, almost a passion awoke in his calm breast--a hate to Mr. Smythe. Revenge for having deceived him; hate for the deception. It came up very suddenly, and he was himself unconscious of its growth. He went, as he had intended, to express his feelings on the proposed marriage; and he went as one who had a right to do so, and was determined to exercise his rights. Now, that the connections of an elderly man should be annoyed at a marriage to a very young girl, was but just and right. That they should fear for her happiness and his, and that they should wish to dissuade from a dangerous experiment, was but charitable.

That there should be disappointment in such a case, was also simply natural. The nearest relations of a rich elderly man can hardly help a hope that they or their children will benefit by his riches; and though common discretion advises the conquest of such disappointment, the thing itself is almost inevitable.

When Mr. Devereux went on his errand to Mr. Smythe he might have so spoken as to prevent the evil he feared. A good word in due season is seldom altogether lost; at all events it will not in the end offend a good nature. But men speak according to their characters; and as there was no spark of kindness or charity in the heart of Mr. Devereux towards his old relation, no spark of kindness came forth in his words. His speech, though studiously temperate in expression, was hard and insolent, grasping and selfish.

Mr. Smythe heard him with perfect patience. When all seemed to be said he addressed him in a tone strangely unlike his usual half-childish, peevish tone.

“Listen to me, Simon Devereux. If, as you say, you speak for my interest, let me inform you that I have ceased to be a child, and am not yet in my dotage. If, as I think, you speak for your own, let me inform you that you are in the wrong box. My money is my own, and with the very last sixpence of it I shall do as I, and only I, think proper. Now, good morning to you.”

Rage and mortification swelled in the breast of Simon Devereux, but he spoke without passion. A cold and withering sneer came over his lips, and he said,

“Some part of your speech I am disposed to doubt. _Some_ men can understand advice when it is given. I have offered mine, and you have rejected it. It is as you will.”

“This much at least I have sense to understand. I understand _you_,” was the retort. “Enough of this. Leave me!” and they parted.

“What fools these mortals be!” says the sprite Ariel in the “Tempest;” and certainly to a passionless spectator the folly of passion is often a marvel. To anyone but Mr. Devereux it would have been plain that he had, in familiar phrase, done for himself; but it was not so to him; so far from it that he returned home exulting in the success of the scheme he was laying for the future. That Mr. Smythe was offended with him he did see, but this gave him little concern. He imagined that even in offending he was binding himself to him, and impressing his rights upon his mind.

“Well, Simon,” asked his wife, eager for news on his return, “did you congratulate Uncle Smythe?”

“I did what I thought it right to do,” was his cold reply; and she saw she was not to be satisfied.

After a moment she asked timidly if she had better call on Miss Maxwell, or rather putting it as a necessity if she had not better do it.

“Call on Miss Maxwell!” he said severely. “No, Letitia. I do not suppose Miss Maxwell is a proper person for my wife to associate with.”

“Mrs. Ratcliffe told me she was very amiable, though not very clever,” she said, hesitatingly.

“If it is amiable and modest for a young woman to marry an insane old man for his money, then, I suppose, she is amiable. My views are different.”

“Do you think Uncle Smythe is mad?” she asked, and she stared at him.

“Decidedly so.”

“Poor old man!” And having so said, Mrs. Devereux resigned herself into her husband’s hands. Had she consulted her own feeling, she would have said it was a pity; that it was not right, and even not wise to make divisions and quarrels in the family; but she never did consult her own feeling. Her husband was her conscience, his eyes her eyes, his judgment her judgment; and so the matter rested, and no visit was paid.