Chapter VII: A Startling Discovery

The following morning Aunt Jane received a letter, which, to her great dismay and annoyance, obliged her to proceed at once to London, on some urgent business connected with her late sister’s affairs. I was more particularly grieved at losing her so unexpectedly, as my guardian had written to say he was to return in a few days.

I cried most bitterly at parting, and implored her to return as soon as possible, as I dreaded the arrival of Mr. Henry Mordaunt fearfully. She kissed away my tears, and her dear little brown eyes looked so hopefully into mine that I was somewhat comforted.

Aunt Jane had never been pretty, I heard, but she had the most cheering and hope-giving countenance I ever saw. I ought to have described her, but I knew when they gave me all that foolscap paper I should never write this properly. I have described nothing, only just put down the impression places and people gave my selfish self.

I think the impression her hopeful face at parting gave me, lasted all that day; but, alas! the next morning my guardian arrived, and there was such a look of obstinate resolve in his face, and in the decided tones of his harsh voice, that I felt a vague and most depressing dread of some impending misfortune. This was increased when he told Mrs. Mordaunt, in a solemn and significant tone, that he had something very particular to tell me, and begged for a few minutes’ conversation with me in the library.

“Oh! come with me there!” I implored of Mrs. Mordaunt.

But he peremptorily refused this; and she, not understanding my fears, hinted that I had better hear what he had to say.

Mrs. Mordaunt was decidedly a weak woman, though really, as well as apparently, good-natured, and I felt more angry with her at that moment than even with Mr. Mordaunt; but I had often observed that he had a wonderful influence over her, which I afterwards attributed to mesmerism. I often remember the exact words of the conversations I had even before that memorable one with Henry Mordaunt; but there was something so bewildering in the statements he made in that interview, that it now seems like a terrible dream, and I cannot put it into words.

Yet nothing could be more clear than his statements, or more decisive than his words, looks, and resolutions. The result of it all was that I must either consent to be his wife, and retain for my own exclusive use and disposal Langdale Priory property; or, in the event of my refusal, I was to lose it all, and become actually penniless.

He held in his hands the undeniable proofs that my father’s elder brother had married the Canadian girl, Rosalie, and she had given birth to a son a few months after her husband’s death. But as yet no one knew of this fact, except one person, who was completely in Henry Mordaunt’s power, and on whose secrecy he could fully rely. Of course he declared that he loved me so deeply that he could not exist unless I consented to be his wife. He then painted in glowing colours the good I could do if I retained possession of my property and old family place; and drew an equally vivid picture of what my life would be if I were deprived of all means of subsistence; for my mother had scarcely any fortune at all. I knew we should not have sufficient to live in the luxury to which she had always been accustomed.

He ended by declaring that if I promised to say nothing at all about this to anyone, he would allow me two days for consideration; but without that promise he must at once declare publicly the real state of the case, and give up the property to the real heir, and re-instate him in all his rights.

“Oh, that I could have seen Aunt Jane!” thought I. Yet there is but one thing for me to do--if my uncle had really married the girl of whom I had already heard, his son must have a right to the property, and what could be more unjust than an attempt to deprive him of it?

Then I gave vent to the anger and indignation I felt, and reproached him bitterly for his meanness in offering to keep the matter secret.

The fact was that he had probably not given me credit for sufficient honesty of purpose. He had built upon a want of early training, and expected that I should have no objection to the subterfuge and deceit he intended, in order to save my inheritance. He soon saw the mistake he had made, and I perceived that he dreaded lest I should proclaim to the world the disgraceful conditions he had offered in the event of my consenting to be his wife.

For a moment he seemed staggered, and assumed his old oily and insinuating manner, and looking beseechingly in my eyes, said,

“Well, your beauty will be my excuse, and the wish to protect my dear friend, your loved father’s child, from loss; and perhaps at some future time, when the world has turned its cold side towards you, and that you have experienced the loss of the Marchese Carlo’s love, which I am convinced will not last when you become poor--at some future day you may be glad to accept me. For I am rich, richer than you could ever have supposed I should be. The same ship which brought the proof of your loss, brought the news that a mine, in which I had purchased shares many years ago, has become most successful, and at this moment I could easily realize a million.”

“Your fortune could make no difference to me; I would much rather starve or sweep the streets,” said I, with a proud and defiant look; at the same moment a vision of the often-dreaded poverty gave me a cold shudder, which I endeavoured to conceal by rushing abruptly out of the room.

I ran to my own apartment, and after locking the door, threw myself on the floor in a paroxysm of despair. Yes, I was most unheroic, I was almost as rebelliously and wickedly miserable as when my dear father died nearly four years before. All the accomplishments and languages I had learnt since then, the good nun’s training, the books I had read, and even the words Aunt Jane had spoken, availed nothing to quiet the rebellious anger and despair which made me writhe and tear my hair in agony.

“But, Carlo,” I at last thought, “he surely will not desert me; and why cannot we be happy in Italy, where, if one cannot have luxuries, our real wants are fewer than in England; and then my voice, so praised by composers--I could go on the stage, as many have done; and Carlo, even if his father is angry and gave him nothing, he too has a fine voice and could act, when we might still be almost happy.”

As these ideas gradually developed themselves in my mind, I rose from the floor and went to the window. But alas! the lovely view over my favourite south gardens--the splendid woods beyond reflected in the clear water; the village cottages or the hill beyond, surmounted by the beautiful spire of the ancient church; the pretty school my dear father had built, and all the children I had learnt to know, and the old cottagers who talked to me of my father and the old family: all this I must leave for ever.

Again I threw myself down in a paroxysm of despair. Soon, however, a knock at the door, and the sound of Mrs. Mordaunt’s voice, roused me; and ashamed of being seen in such abject grief, I started up and smoothed my hair and dress. I had more pride, probably, though not more resignation than when I so selfishly shut myself up after my father’s death. I could not bear to let Mrs. Mordaunt see how badly I bore this trial. For I concluded that she must have heard of it. But I found that she had not. She only fancied there was some bad news, because Mr. Henry looked so miserable, she said, when he came back into the drawing-room, and he had asked for a private interview with her husband. She then looked for me in the garden, as she concluded I had gone to my favourite seat, where the table was generally covered with my books or drawing things. I then tried to describe to her all that had passed, and how it had turned out that I was no heiress at all. I say tried, because poor dear Mrs. Mordaunt was rather stupid and very slow of comprehension, and the whole thing seemed so strange that she could not understood it at all.

“But we rent this place,” she said, “and no one can turn us out till you are of age, and surely you can live here with us.”

“It must belong to--to my cousin,” said I, with a kind of vague wonder as to what sort of person this cousin, the rightful heir of the old property, was likely to be. For a few minutes the wondering speculations about him distracted my mind from my own misfortune. Would he be like my father, and should I like him so well as to be reconciled to my loss?

“But he cannot love the place nor my dear father’s memory as I do.”

“You seem to bear all this with most proper resignation,” said Mrs. Mordaunt.

But I could not bear to be praised for what I did not deserve, so I confessed what a state of utter and most rebellious despair I had been in.

“There is no need for that either,” said the dear matter-of-fact woman; “surely you will have a right to some fortune; and then this cousin,” she said, with a sudden smile, as if surprised at her own brilliant imagining, “who knows but this rightful heir, as you call him, will be very handsome, as I hear his father was; and when he sees you he will certainly fall in love, and then--then you will be mistress of this place after all.”

“Oh! that is impossible,” I declared; and then I told her for the first time of my engagement to my mother’s cousin, Carlo.

“Oh! dear, that is a sad misfortune. I don’t like foreigners at all. You know it was your dear father’s greatest misfortune that he took up with--I mean--of course you cannot help having an Italian mother, but, you know, she took him away from this place, which he loved so much, where his presence was of so much use to all the country round. You can’t think how he was looked up to by all parties,” she added. “Oh! it’s a sad pity you should have gone and engaged yourself that way, and before you went to school even. I should have thought you must have forgotten each other by this time. Well, to be sure, as the maids say, things will be so contrary; but I really don’t seem able to take all this in yet, nor shall I till I see what you call the rightful owner with my very own eyes.”