Volume Iii Part 5 (1/2)
”I couldn't get an opportunity of being at him then,” said Smithers, ”but I'm d----d if I don't carry out your suggestion now. I'll get an opportunity before he goes away.”
”If you do I only hope you'll manage it so as not to implicate me,” said Mr. Rainsfield. ”I don't wish to interfere with your private quarrels; but I would not like the young fellow attacked in my house or in my presence. Though I have quarrelled with his brother I haven't done so with him; and I must say he has been so attentive to Eleanor during her illness that I would consider any countenanced outrage on him would be the offering of an insult to her. Nevertheless, if you have any little settlement to make with him, let it be out of my sight and hearing, and I won't interfere with you.”
”All right, old fellow,” Smithers replied, ”you need not fear me, I'll manage it comfortably enough you'll see. I'll get him quietly away from the house, and let him feel the weight of this.” Saying which he laid his whip about some imaginary object with a force that made the missile whiz in the air, and with a determination that plainly portrayed the satisfaction with which he would operate upon his victim.
”Very well,” said Rainsfield, ”do as you like. Only, as I said before, don't implicate me, and though I rather like the young man I shall have no objection to hear of the whole matter after it's done.”
These two worthies then separated, Bob Smithers to seek the opportunity of which he spoke, and the other either to go about some business of the station, or to keep as much out of the way of the coming event as possible. The reader will no doubt wonder how a man of Mr. Rainsfield's generally reputed integrity could reconcile his conscience to such behaviour; and also that he should willingly, and, we may add, collusively aid the suit of a man, of whose mental and moral turpitude he could have had no doubt, in preference to the honourable addresses of a gentleman in every way a more eligible match for his cousin. ”But thereby hangs a tale,” and it is our painful task in the office in which we stand, to see that that tale be not suppressed.
At an early date after Eleanor's settled sojourn with Mr. Rainsfield he became aware of the existence of an engagement between her and Bob Smithers, from whom we may safely conjecture the knowledge was obtained.
When Rainsfield, feeling for the dependent and forlorn condition of his relative, took her to the bosom of his family he did so out of pure sympathy and kindliness towards her, and had no wish or desire to interfere in the disposal of her affections. Consequently he paid very little attention to the matter. But Smithers made a proposal to him which, if it did not excite his cupidity, induced him to think more of the affair as one in which he as a relative, and a protecting relative, had an interest. It had the effect of suborning his countenance to the match, and enlisting his strenuous exertions, to induce Eleanor to accede to the wishes of the Smithers family, and plight herself anew to the man who had already received her youthful acquiescence.
The offer that Smithers had made to Rainsfield was this. That they should enter into partners.h.i.+p, and throw their respective properties into one concern, and work together on equal terms. Smithers was to embark all the country he was then possessed of, or the proceeds arising from the sale of any portion, and what capital he could command; and the other was to bring in the stock and station of Strawberry Hill. In making this offer Smithers conceived that he would be benefited by such an arrangement, in so far as he would be able to more effectually stock the immense tracts of country he had taken up. He considered this more advantageous than disposing of the runs; as, he argued by lightly stocking them in the first place, and allowing them to become by gradation fully stocked, through augmentation and the natural increase, he would eventually be possessed of larger property than if he with his own means only stocked an integral part of his holdings. On the other hand Rainsfield considered the offer as equally worthy of attention to himself, possibly looking at it in the same light. However, he had agreed to it; and this was the _douceur_ that had made him a warm partizan of the Smithers' cause; and that had influenced the collusion that worked for the consummation of Bob's, or we might say Mrs.
Smithers', matrimonial scheme.
With regard to Eleanor, her feelings, we fear, were little dreamt of in the matter. Rainsfield deemed Smithers a good match for her, and possibly believing that she entertained at least some respect for the man, he never imagined for a moment that she could have had any objection. While she, on the other hand, from the continual promptings of her cousin, in the absence in her mind of any other imaginative cause for her cousin's warmth, attributed it to the desire on his part to be relieved of an irksome burden; and she had given her consent.
We must admit that women are as equally (it is even affirmed they are more) susceptible than men to the warm affections of the heart; and that as they are inspired by love so are they influenced by aversion. And as a man, we mean of course with honour and conscience, would go to any extremity rather than ally himself to a woman whom he contemned, so would a woman feel as great a repugnance in accepting a man for whom she could not entertain any respect. We do not say that Eleanor actually abhorred Bob Smithers; but we can affirm that she felt no enjoyment in his society, but rather the reverse; and though she had accepted him to avoid the unpleasantness of her situation, the match was positively distasteful to her. Smithers' nature was diametrically opposed to hers.
They had no one feeling in common; his tastes were not as her tastes; nor hers as his. Besides, she had an exalted, and perhaps romantic, idea of matrimony. She didn't think it proper to marry for convenience, but imagined it was a compact that was only justly and favourably formed on true love. Not that at the time of her engagement with Smithers she had experienced the sentiment; but she was aware she had entertained the proposal of a man in the absence of it, and therefore had sacrificed a moral principle. But her trial was to come.
She then met John Ferguson; and their mutual companions.h.i.+p, if it had had its effects on John, had surely had no less so on her. It is true she had thought no more of him, at first, than as a friend, a kind attentive friend. But then she admired him, his precepts, his manners, his conversation, and his general ingenuousness; she liked him, and found pleasure in his society. Did she think she loved him? It may be she never gave herself a thought on the subject. She was content to live in the pleasing delusion, that John Ferguson was nothing more to her than a friend; but there was her danger. She might have mistaken his manner; misconstrued his feelings; and been blind to the more than ordinary warmth of his greeting. But the pleasure in his company, the delight at his approach, the longing for his presence between the intervals of his visits; and the heart's palpitations, as she felt the welcome touch of his hand in the grasp of friends.h.i.+p, must and did have their own warning voices, to which Eleanor could not shut the ears of her understanding. She suspected he loved her; she read it in his eyes; but she feared to ask herself the question, Was the feeling reciprocated?
Next came the explanation. He declared the existence of that lasting affection which never dies. But could she give him hope? could she encourage him in his love? No! she felt she could not. She had voluntarily given herself to another, yet felt she had by her manner incited this one; had probably by her demeanour given him cause to hope, while she was not justified in holding out any. She might have, nay, she even feared she had, destroyed his peace of mind, and all through her own selfishness. Why had she not warned him in time? why not forsworn the pleasure to which she had no claim? These were questions she asked herself, but could give no reply, except the sigh her heart chose to offer. Her relations.h.i.+p to Smithers reverted to her mind. That she did not love him, nor he her, she was convinced; then why not accept the love of John Ferguson? She meditated; but in that meditation her principle got the better of her inclinations, and she sacrificed her interest, her happiness, and her comfort, for the inviolable preservation of truth.
These scruples were known to Mrs. Rainsfield and Tom, who, we have seen, considered them unnecessarily severe, and combated against them unceasingly, though without making any impression on the mind of Eleanor. They deprecated what they considered her folly, and attempted by all the arts of persuasion to move her from her purpose; but she had been inculcated with a perception of high morality, and an appreciation of strict integrity. Truth had been always represented to her mind as the fundamental basis of all virtue. Her desires and her pa.s.sions had been regulated to a subserviency to the Christian character, and her nature had been moulded in a religious education. Consequently, upon the dictates of her conscience she acted, and felt she would be guilty of an unpardonable moral offence to refuse her hand where her word had been pledged.
In this light, then, the parties stood to one another. Rainsfield was anxious to get his cousin married to Smithers, who was equally uneasy to have the event consummated, as he had serious misgivings on the eventual possession of his prize. Eleanor, though she was by no means anxious to hasten the marriage, had no desire to unnecessarily postpone an occurrence which she could not prevent, but of which latterly, more than ever, she had had cause to dread. However, she knew regrets were vain, and therefore attempted to attune her thoughts and feelings to a strict sense of duty, to forget her own personal likings, and to enter calmly upon the obligations expected of her. Notwithstanding all her fort.i.tude poor Eleanor was but mortal, and she could not sustain the gigantic contest she had undertaken. She strove long and bravely, but her love would at times overcome her, and leave her the constant prey of her feelings, and to a melancholy contemplation of the sacrifice she was making; hence her protracted illness and tardy recovery.
But we must return to our narrative. We left William and the ladies in the parlour at Strawberry Hill house, and Bob Smithers walking from the stockyard in that direction, breathing heavy threats of vengeance against the gentleman who had so grievously offended him, and who had escaped his just punishment upon the occasion when the offence was committed. It is needless for us to comment on Bob's version of his affray with William Ferguson, as the correct one is already known to the reader; but the tale he told Rainsfield was the one related by him wherever the circ.u.mstance of the blow became known.
William, as we have said, was sitting in company with the ladies, and was submitting with the greatest docility to be made use of, by lending his hands for the extension of a skein of silk while it was being wound off by Eleanor, when a little boy bearing the Billing impress on his features appeared at the open window, and said he had something to say to Mr. Ferguson.
”Say it out, my boy,” said William, who imagined it might be some formal invitation from the Billing paterfamilias.
”Please, sir, father told me to tell you a gentleman was waiting down at our house to see you,” said the boy.
”And who is the gentleman, my lad?” asked William.
”Please, sir, I don't know,” he replied; ”father only told me a gentleman wanted to speak with you directly.”
”Is Mr. Rainsfield down at your father's house?” asked William.
”No, sir,” was the reply.
”Very well; tell the gentleman, or your father, that I will be down there in a few minutes,” said William; ”and that if the gentleman is in any very particular hurry, it would have been a great saving of his time if he had come up here.”
Now, the circ.u.mstance struck all present (though no one said so) as being rather remarkable, that Smithers, for they knew it could be no other than he, should desire to meet William Ferguson alone, and away from the house. William knowing or suspecting the nature of the coming interview, fearing that his friends would have a similar suspicion, and having no desire to excite their fears, tried to show his coolness and indifference by whistling an air as he left the room. But this oft-repeated stratagem had not the desired effect of allaying the fears of one, at least, who was cognizant of the quarrel at Brompton and the whole attendant circ.u.mstances. This was Eleanor, and she was convinced, from the manner of Smithers, that he meditated some action which he was ashamed to perform within sight of the house. She therefore hastily put on her hat, and prepared to follow William, and being joined by Kate, she stepped out through the window to the green sward in front.