One Of Them

“I don’t believe,” said she, in a slow, collected voice, “that there exists a more painful position than that of a woman who, without what the world calls a natural protector, must confront the schemes of a man with the inferior weapons of her sex, and who yet yearns for the privilege of setting a life against a life.”

“You’d like to be able to fight a duel, then?” asked he, gravely.

“Yes. That my own hand might vindicate my own wrong, I ‘d consent freely to lose it the hour after.”

“That must needs have been no slight injury that suggests such a reparation.”

She only nodded in reply.

“It is nothing that the Heathcotes – ”

“The Heathcotes!” broke she in, with a scornful smile; “it is not from such come heavy wrongs. No, no; they are in no wise mixed up in what I allude to, and if they had been, I would need no help to deal with them. The injury I speak of occurred long ago, – years before I knew you. I have told you,” – here she paused, as if for strength to go on, – “I have told you that I accept your aid, and on your own conditions. Very few words will suffice to show for what I need it. Before I go further, however, I would ask you once more, are you ready to meet any and every peril for my sake? Are you prepared to encounter what may risk even your life, if called upon? I ask this now, and with the firm assurance that if you pledge your word you will keep it.”

“I give you my solemn oath that I’ll stand by you, if it lead me to the drop before the jail.”

She gave a slight shudder. Some old memories had, perhaps, crossed her at the moment; but she was soon self-possessed again.

“The case is briefly this. And mind,” said she, hurriedly, “where I do not seem to give you full details, or enter into clear explanations, it is not from inadvertence that I do so, but that I will tell no more than I wish, nor will I be questioned. The case is this: I was married unhappily. I lived with a man who outraged and insulted me, and I met with one who assumed to pity me and take my part. I confided to him my miseries, the more freely that he had been the witness of the cruelties I endured. He took advantage of the confidence to make advances to me. My heart – if I had a heart – would not have been difficult to win. It was a theft not worth guarding against. Somehow, I cannot say wherefore, this man was odious to me, more odious than the very tyrant who trampled on me; but I had sold myself for a vengeance, – yes, as completely as if the devil had drawn up the bond and I had signed it. My pact with myself was to be revenged on him, come what might afterwards. I have told you that I hated this man; but I had no choice. The whole wide world was there, and not another in it had ever offered to be my defender; nor, indeed, did he. No, the creature was a coward; he only promised that if he found me as a waif he would shelter me; he was too cautious to risk a finger in my cause, and would only claim what none disputed with him. And I was abject enough to be content with that, to be grateful for it, to write letters full of more than gratitude, protesting – Oh, spare me! if even yet I have shame to make me unable to repeat what, in my madness, I may have said to him. I thought I could go on throughout it all, but I cannot. The end was, my husband died; yes! he was dead! and this man – who I know, for I have the proofs, had shown my letters to my husband – claimed me in marriage; he insisted that I should be his wife, or meet all the shame and exposure of seeing my letters printed and circulated through the world, with the story of my life annexed. I refused, fled from England, concealed myself, changed my name, and did everything I could to escape discovery; but in vain. He found me out; he is now upon my track; he will be here – here, at Rome – within the week, and, with these letters in his hand, repeat his threat, he says, for the last time, and I believe him.” The strength which had sustained her up to this now gave way, and she sank heavily to the ground, like one stricken by a fit. It was some time before she rallied; for O’Shea, fearful of any exposure, had not called others to his aid, but, opening the window, suffered the rude wind to blow over her face and temples. “There, there,” said she, smiling sadly, “it is but seldom I show so poor a spirit, but I am somewhat broken of late. Leave me to rest my head on this chair, and do not lift me from the ground yet. I ‘ll be better presently. Have I cut my forehead?”

“It is but a slight scratch. You struck the foot of the table in your fall.”

“There,” said she, making a mark with the blood on his wrist, “it is thus the Arabs register the fidelity of him who is to avenge them. You will not fail me, will you?”

“Never, by this hand!” cried he, holding it up firmly clenched over his head.

“It’s the Arab’s faith, that if he wash away the stain before the depth of vengeance is acquitted, he is dishonored; there’s a rude chivalry in the notion that I like well.” She said this in his ear as he raised her from the ground and placed her on a chair. “It is time you should know his name,” said she, after a few minutes’ pause. “He is called Ludlow Paten. I believe he is Captain Paten about town.”

“I know him by repute. He’s a sort of swell at the West-End play clubs. He is amongst all the fast men.”

“Oh, he’s fashionable, – he’s very fashionable.”

“I have heard him talked of scores of times as one of the pleasantest fellows to be met with.”

“I ‘m certain of it. I feel assured that he must be a cheerful companion, and reasonably honest and loyal in his dealings with man. He is of a class that reserve all their treachery and all their baseness for where they can be safely practised; and, strange enough, men of honor know these things, – men of unquestionable honor associate freely with fellows of this stamp, as if the wrong done to a woman was a venial offence, if offence at all.”

“The way of the world,” said OShea, with a half sigh.

“Pleasant philosophy that so easily accounts for every baseness and even villany by showing that they are popular. But come, let us be practical. What’s to be done here? – what do you suggest?”

“Give me the right to deal with him, and leave the settlement to me.”

“The right – that is – ” She hesitated, flushed up for an instant, and then grew lividly pale again.

“Yes,” said he, taking his place at her side, and leaning an arm on the back of her chair, “I thought I never saw your equal when you were gay and light-hearted, and full of spirits; but I like you better, far better now, and I ‘d rather face the world with you than – ”

“I don’t want to deceive you,” said she, hurriedly, and her lips quivered as she spoke; “but there are things which I cannot tell you, – things of which I could not speak to any one, least of all to him who says he is willing to share his fate with me. It is a hard condition to make, and yet I must make it.”

“Put your hand in mine, then, and I ‘ll take you on any conditions you like.”

“One word more before we close our bargain. It might so happen – it is far from unlikely – that the circumstances of which I dare not trust myself to utter a syllable may come to your ears when I am your wife, when it will be impossible for you to treat them as calumnies, and just as idle to say that you never heard of them before. How will you act if such a moment comes?”

“Answer me one plain question first. Is there any man living who has power over you – except as regards these letters, I mean?”

“None.”

“There is, then, no charge of this, that, or t’ other?”

“I will answer no more. I have told you fairly that if you take me for your wife you most be prepared to stand in the breach between me and the world, and meet whatever assails me as one prepared. Are you ready for this?”

“I’m not afraid of the danger – ”

“So, then, your fears are only for the cause?”

It was with the very faintest touch of scorn these words were spoken; but he marked it, and reddened over face and forehead.

“When that cause will have become my own, you ‘ll see that I ‘ll hesitate little about defending it.”

“That’s all that I ask for, all that I wish. This is strange courtship,” said she, trying to laugh; “but let us carry it through consistently. I conclude you are not rich; neither am I, – at least, for the present; a very few weeks, however, will put me in possession of a large property. It is in land in America. The legal formalities which are necessary will be completed almost immediately, and my co-heir is now coming over from the States to meet me, and establish his claim also. These are all confidences, remember, for I now speak to you freely; and, in the same spirit that I make them, I ask you to trust me, – to trust me fully and wholly, with a faith that says, ‘I will wait to the end – to the very end! ‘”

“Let this be my pledge,” said he, taking her hand and kissing it. “Faith!” said he, after a second or two, “I can scarcely believe in my good luck. It seems to be every moment so like a dream to think that you consent to take me; just, too, when I was beginning to feel that fortune had clean forgotten me. You are not listening to me, not minding a word I say. What is it, then, you are thinking of?”

“I was plotting,” said she, gravely.

“Plotting, – more plotting! Why can’t we go along now on the high-road, without looking for by-paths?”

“Not yet, – not yet awhile. Attend to me, now. It is not likely that we can meet again very soon. My coming out here to-day was at great risk, for I am believed to be ill and in bed with a feverish cold. I cannot venture to repeat this peril, but you shall hear from me. My maid is to be trusted, and will bring you tidings of me. With to-morrow’s post I hope to learn where Paten is, and when he will be here. You shall learn both immediately, and be prepared to act on the information. Above all things, bear in mind that though I hate this man, all my abhorrence of him is nothing – actually nothing – to my desire to regain my letters. For them I would forego everything. Had I but these in my possession, I could wait for vengeance, and wait patiently.”

“So that from himself personally you fear nothing?”

“Nothing. He cannot say more of me than is open to all the world to say – ” She stopped, and grew red, for she felt that her impetuosity had carried her further than she was aware. “Remember once more, then, if you could buy them, steal them, get them in any way, – I care not how, that my object is fulfilled, – the day you place them in this hand it is your own!”

He burst out into some rhapsody of his delight, but checked himself as suddenly, when he saw that her face had assumed its former look of preoccupation.

“Plotting again?” asked he, half peevishly.

“I have need to plot,” said she, mournfully, as she leaned her head upon her hand; and now there came over her countenance a look of deepest sorrow. “I grow very weary of all this at times,” said she, in a faint and broken voice; “so weary that I half suspect it were better to throw the cards down, and say, ‘There! I ‘ve lost! What’s the stake?’ I believe I could do this. I am convinced I could, if I were certain that there was one man or one woman on the earth who would give me one word of pity, or bestow one syllable of compassion for my fall.”

“But surely your daughter Clara – ”

“Clara is not my daughter; she is nothing to me, – never was, never can be. We are separated, besides, never to meet again, and I charge you not to speak of her.”

“May I never! if I can see my way at all. It ‘s out of one mystery into another. Will you just tell me – ”

“Ask me nothing. You have heard from me this day what I have never told another. But I have confidence in your good faith, and can say, ‘If you rue your bargain, there is yet time to say so,’ and you may leave this as free as when you entered it.”

“You never mistook a man more. It’s not going back I was thinking of; but surely I might ask – ”

“Once for all, I will not be questioned. There never lived that man or woman who could thread their way safely through difficulties, if they waited to have every obstacle canvassed and every possible mystery explained. You must leave me to my own guidance here; and one of its first conditions is, not to shake my confidence in myself.”

“Won’t you even tell me when we ‘re to be one?”

“What an ardent lover it is!” said she, laughing. “There, fetch me my shawl, and let me see that you know how to put it properly on my shoulders. No liberties, sir! and least of all when they crush a Parisian bonnet. The evening is falling already, and I must set off homewards.”

“Won’t you give me a seat in the carriage with you? Surely, you ‘d not see me ride back in such a downpour as that.”

“I should think I would. I ‘d leave you to go it on foot rather than commit such an indiscretion. Drive back to Rome with Mr. O’Shea alone! What would the world say? What would Sir William Heathcote say, who expects to make me Lady Heathcote some early day next month?”

“By the way, I heard that story. An old fellow, called Nick Holmes, told me – ”

“What old Nick told you could scarcely be true. There, will you order the carriage to the door, and give these good people some money? Ain’t you charmed that I give you one of a husband’s privileges so early? Don’t dare to answer me; an Irishman never has the discretion to reply to a liberty as he ought. Is that poor beast yours?” asked she, as they gained the door, and saw a horse standing, all shivering and wretched, under a frail shed.

“He was this morning, but I had the good luck to sell him before I took this ride.”

“I must really compliment you,” said she, laughing heartily. “A gentleman who makes love so economically ought to be a model of order when a husband.” And with this she stepped in, and drove away.

CHAPTER II. A DINNER OF TWO

The O’Shea returned to Rome at a “slapping pace.” He did his eight miles of heavy ground within forty minutes. But neither the speed nor the storm could turn his thoughts from the scene he had just passed through. It was with truth he said that he could not give credit to the fact of such good fortune as to believe she would accept him; and yet the more he reflected on the subject, the more was he puzzled and disconcerted. When he had last seen her, she refused him, – refused him absolutely and flatly; she even hinted at a reason that seemed unanswerable, and suggested that, though they might aid each other as friends, there could be no copartnership of interests. “What has led her to this change of mind, Heaven knows. It is no lucky turn of fortune on my side can have induced it; my prospects were never bleaker. And then,” thought he, “of what nature is this same secret, or rather these secrets, of hers, for they seem to grow in clusters? What can she have done? or what has Penthony Morris done? Is he alive? Is he at Norfolk Island? Was he a forger, or worse? How much does Paten know about her? What power has he over her besides the possession of these letters? Is Paten Penthony Morris?” It was thus that his mind went to and fro, like a surging sea, restless and not advancing. Never was there a man more tortured by his conjectures. He knew that she might marry Sir William Heathcote if she liked; why, then, prefer himself to a man of station and fortune? Was it that he was more likely to enact the vengeance she thirsted for than the old Baronet? Ay, that was a reasonable calculation. She was right there, and he ‘d bring Master Paten “to book,” as sure as his name was O’Shea. That was the sort of thing he understood as well as any man in Europe. He had been out scores of times, and knew how to pick a quarrel, and to aggravate it, and make it perfectly beyond all possibility of arrangement, as well as any fire-eater of a French line regiment. That was, perhaps, the reason of the widow’s choice of him. If she married Heathcote, it would be a case for lawyers: a great trial at Westminster, and a great scandal in the papers. “But with me it will be all quiet and peaceable. I ‘ll get back her letters, or I ‘ll know why.”

He next bethought him of her fortune. He wished she had told him more about it, – how it came to her, – was it by settlement, – was it from the Morrises? He wished, too, it had not been in America; he was not quite sure that property there meant anything at all; and, lastly, he brought to mind that though he had proposed for dozens of women, this was the only occasion he was not asked what he could secure by settlement, and how much he would give as pin-money. No, on that score she was delicacy itself, and he was one to appreciate all the refinement of her reserve. Indeed, if it came to the old business of searches, and showing titles, and all the other exposures of the O’Shea family, he felt that he would rather die a bachelor than encounter them. “She knew how to catch me! ‘A row to fight through, and no questions asked about money, O’Shea,’ says she. ‘Can you resist temptation like that?’”

As he alighted at the hotel, he saw Agincourt standing at a window, and evidently laughing at the dripping, mud-stained appearance he presented.

“I hope and trust that was n’t the nag I bought this morning,” said he to O’Shea, as he entered the room.

“The very same; and I never saw him in finer heart. If you only witnessed the way he carried me through those ploughed fields out there! He’s strong in the loins as a cart-horse.”

“I must say that you appear to have ridden him as a friend’s horse. He seemed dead beat, as he was led away.”

“He’s fresh as a four-year old.”

“Well, never mind, go and dress for dinner, for you’re half an hour behind time already.”

O’Shea was not sorry to have the excuse, and hurried off to make his toilet.

Freytag was aware that his guest was a “Milor’,” and the dinner was very good, and the wine reasonably so; and the two, as they placed a little spider-table between them before the fire, seemed fully conscious of all the enjoyment of the situation.

Agincourt said, “Is not this jolly?” And so it was. And what is there jollier than to be about sixteen or seventeen years of age, with good health, good station, and ample means? To be launched into manhood, too, as a soldier, without one detracting sense of man’s troubles and cares, – to feel that your elders condescend to be your equals, and will even accept your invitation to dinner! – ay, and more, practise towards you all those little flatteries and attentions which, however vapid ten years later, are positive ecstasies now!

But of all its glorious privileges there is not one can compare with the boundless self-confidence of youth, that implicit faith not alone in its energy and activity, its fearless contempt for danger, and its indifference to hardships, but, more strange still, in its superior sharpness and knowledge of life! Oh dear! are we not shrewd fellows when we matriculate at Christ Church, or see ourselves gazetted Cornet in the Horse Guards Purple? Who ever equalled us in all the wiles and schemes of mankind? Must he not rise early who means to dupe us? Have we not a registered catalogue of all the knaveries that have ever been practised on the unsuspecting? Truly have we; and if suspicion were a safeguard, nothing can harm us.

Now, Agincourt was a fine, true-hearted, generous young fellow, – manly and straightforward, – but he had imbibed his share of this tendency. He fancied himself subtle, and imagined that a nice negotiation could not be intrusted to better hands. Besides this, he was eager to impress Heathcote with a high opinion of his skill, and show that even a regular man of the world like O’Shea was not near a match for him.

“I ‘m not going to drink that light claret such an evening as this,” said O’Shea, pushing away his just-tasted glass. “Let us have something a shade warmer.”

“Ring the bell, and order what you like.”

“Here, this will do, – ‘Clos Vougeot,’” said O’Shea, pointing out to the waiter the name on the wine carte.”

“And if that be a failure, I ‘ll fall back on brandy-and-water, the refuge of a man after bad wine, just as disappointed young ladies take to a convent. If you can drink that little tipple, Agincourt, you ‘re right to do it. You ‘ll come to Burgundy at forty, and to rough port ten years later; but you ‘ve a wide margin left before that. How old are you?”

“I shall be seventeen my next birthday,” said the other, flushing, and not wishing to add that there were eleven months and eight days to run before that event should come off.

“That’s a mighty pretty time of life. It gives you a clear four years for irresponsible follies before you come of age. Then you may fairly count upon three or four more for legitimate wastefulness, and with a little, very little, discretion, you never need know a Jew till you’re six-and-twenty.”

“I beg your pardon, my good fellow,” said the other, coloring, half angrily; “I’ve had plenty to do with those gents already. Ask Nathan whether he has n’t whole sheafs of my bills. My guardian only allows me twelve hundred a year, – a downright shame they call it in the regiment, and so I wrote him word. In fact, I told him what our Major said, that with such means as mine I ought to try and manage an exchange into the Cape Rifles.”

“Or a black regiment in the West Indies,” chimed in O’Shea, gravely.

“No, confound it, he did n’t say that!”

“The Irish Constabulary, too, is a cheap corps. You might stand that.”

“I don’t mean to try either,” said the youth, angrily.

“And what does Nathan charge you? – say for a ‘thing’ at three months?”

“That all depends upon the state of the money-market,” said Agincourt, with a look of profoundest meaning. “It is entirely a question of the foreign exchanges, and I study them like a stockbroker. Nathan said one day, ‘It’s a thousand pities he’s a Peer; there’s a fellow with a head to beat the whole Stock Exchange.’”

“Does he make you pay twenty per cent, or five-and twenty for short dates?”

“You don’t understand it at all. It’s no question of that kind. It’s always a calculation of what gold is worth at Amsterdam, or some other place, and it’s a difference of, maybe, one-eighth that determines the whole value of a bill.”

“I see,” said O’Shea, puffing his cigar very slowly. “I have no doubt that you bought your knowledge on these subjects dearly enough.”

“I should think I did! Until I came to understand the thing, I was always ‘outside the ropes,’ always borrowing with the ‘exchanges against me,’ – you know what I mean?”

“I believe I do,” said O’Shea, sighing heavily. “They have been against me all my life.”

“That’s just because you never took trouble to study the thing. You rushed madly into the market whenever you wanted money, and paid whatever they asked.”

“I did indeed! and, what’s more, was very grateful if I got it.”

“And I know what came of that, – how that ended.”

“How?”

“Why, you dipped your estate, gave mortgages, and the rest of it.”

O’Shea nodded a full assent.

“Oh, I know the whole story; I ‘ve seen so much of this sort of thing. Well, old fellow,” added he, after a pause, “if I ‘d been acquainted with you ten or fifteen years ago, I could have saved you from all this ruin.”

O’Shea repressed every tendency to a smile, and nodded again.

“I ‘d have said to you, ‘Don’t be in a hurry, watch the market, and I ‘ll tell you when to “go in.’’”

“Maybe it’s not too late yet, so give me a word of friendly advice,” said O’Shea, with a modest humility. “There are few men want it more.”

There was now a pause of several minutes; O’Shea waiting to see how his bait had taken, and Agincourt revolving in his mind whether this was not the precise moment for opening his negotiation. At last he said, —

“I wrote that letter I promised you. I said you were an out-and-outer as to ability, and that they could n’t do better than make you a Governor somewhere, though you ‘d not be disgusted with something smaller. I ‘ve been looking over the vacancies; there’s not much open. Could you be a Mahogany Commissioner at Honduras?”

“Well, so far as having had my legs under that wood for many years with pleasure to myself and satisfaction to my friends, perhaps I might.”

“Do you know what I ‘d do if I were you?”

“I have not an idea.”

“I ‘d marry, – by Jove, I would! – I ‘d marry!”

“I ‘ve thought of it half a dozen times,” said he, stretching out his hand for the decanter, and rather desirous of escaping notice; “but, you see, to marry a woman with money, – and of course it’s that you mean, – there’s always the inquiry what you have yourself, where it is, and what are the charges on it. Now, as you shrewdly guessed awhile ago, I dipped my estate, – dipped it so deep that I begin to suspect it won’t come up again.”