RGL e-Book Cover 2018©
RGL e-Book Cover 2018©
The Australian authoress Mary Helena Fortune (ca. 1833-1911) was one of the first women to write detective fiction, and probably the first to write it from the viewpoint of the detective. Her opus includes several novels and over 500 stories, many of which feature a detective by the name of Mark Sinclair. She wrote under the pseudonyms "Waif Wander" and "W.W."
NIGHT had fairly closed in around the farmhouse, and all the inmates of Mr. Elder's immediate family were gathered around the hearth in the comfortable sitting-room. It was a cool night early in August, and the glow of the pleasant wood fire made the surrounding comfort warmly visible, though light had not yet been brought into the room.
The party consisted of four—Mr. Elder himself; his cousin once removed, Alick Grant; Mr. Elder's daughter, Phemie; and his ward, Moira Bathgate.
Place aux dames (let me quote very fashionable foreign phrases or cease to be considered a learned person). Phemie Elder was a medium-sized and perfectly developed woman of twenty-three, with a sweet, gentle-looking face, and a broad, smooth forehead, surmounted by plain braids of glossy fair hair; her large, mild eyes were dark grey, her figure perfect as a type of unconfined and graceful nature, while her not too small hands and feet were the perfection of form. She sat by her father, simply attired in a dark, well fitting cashmere, and her hands were crossed on her lap, though the work-basket on the table at her side suggested an intention of work when the lamp made its appearance.
Opposite to Phemie, and close to Alick Elder, sat the very antithesis of the fair, thoughtful daughter of the house. Moira Bathgate was nineteen, petite in figure and dark in complexion. Her black hair was tortured into a crisp tangle over a forehead so typical of her want of that higher intelligence with which Phemie was gifted, that it was well most of it was hidden by the curly frizz she patronized. At the back of her head was a weight of impossible plaits—that is to say, impossible to her except as purchased property, for they were mostly artificial. Her features were rather pretty, and her manner eminently self-conscious and vain. Her dress was of dark silk, and had its trailing skirt, and its skin-like fit, that so disgustingly outlines the forms of our silly votaries of "the Fashion." Her laces, her jewelry, the knot of flowers at the left side of her too voluminous collarette of guipure lace, and the crimson roses in her hair, looked sadly out of place by the plain fireside of a farmer, even though he might be one of means, as indeed was Mr. Robert Elder.
That gentleman himself was a good and sensible and generous, yet most determined man, of some fifty years, whose character my story will more fully develop; while Alick (whom he called nephew, as being a term more suitable to the difference of age between them than cousin) was a stalwart young man of twenty-seven, with a fine thoughtful face and large hazel eyes, that could beam with affection when he felt it, as well as flash anger or scorn when either was excited in his breast. The young man had, too, all of that self-repose that can only be acquired in good society, and no one, to look in his face, could for one moment doubt its being that of an educated and intellectual man.
"I fear we are going to have more rain, and it will interfere sadly with your ploughing, Alick."
"I don't know, uncle; new land will stand a more thorough soaking than that which has been long under cultivation."
"Goodness knows, we don't want any more of that horrible weather," Moira said, with a pout. "The Broken River was so flooded today that John said he could not cross, though I wanted a shade of blue silk for my embroidery so much."
"John could not have been spared at any rate, Moira; this is a busy time with all farmers. You're getting on fairly, Alick, my lad, and I think ye've been lucky to get that land at the figure ye did. In ten years it'll be as valuable as Elderwood."
"Ten years! Oh, heavens, just fancy ten years spent here!" cried Moira as she fidgeted on her seat restlessly, and rose up to shake out the folds of her rustling train. "I should be dead of ennui in the quarter of the time!"
"That's a bad job," replied Mr. Elder, as he glanced, with ominous disapproval, at the combination of laces and silks and jewels and flowers and frippery. "Bad for you, I mean, since ye have just the quarter o' ten years to stay here before the law makes ye free o' my guardianship. Alick, ring for the lamp, will ye? When we get light we'll maybe be able to occupy ourselves better than in growlin' at and findin' fault wi' a comfortable home, when many far better than oursel's are without a bite to eat."
This long speech for quiet Mr. Eider, and his relapse into a broader Scottish dialect, were certain symptoms of a deeper feeling than usual, whether it was a pleasant or unpleasant one.
"Indeed, Mr. Elder, if you think I will exist all the remainder of my minority in this desolate region you are mistaken," Moira said, with a rising anger that flushed her dark cheeks and made her great eyes flash unpleasantly. "I mean to write to my other guardian about it tomorrow."
"Ye may; I'll no hinder ye, lass, an' ye'll get yer answer. Hasn't the mail lad been up yet, Nancy?"
"Not yet, sir," the servant who brought in the lamp replied. "He's late, but I think that's the horn now."
It was, and in a few moments Mr. Elder was in possession of several papers and letters.
"A regular stock, Alick, lad; English mail's in at last. Two for you; one for you, Phemie; half a dozen for me, and nothing for you, Moira."
As he uttered the words he gave the epistles to his daughter and Alick, totally heedless of Moira's indignant toss of the head as she sailed across the room to bring from a side-table a strip of velvet partly embroidered in showy colours, and of course intended to decorate her own valued person.
Alick took his letters, opened and read them. When he had finished, his uplifted eyes met the soft, shy look of Phemie Elder. The expression of perfect understanding and loving confidence in the eyes of both would have easily been interpreted by a close observer, but close observer there was none at the moment, Mr. Elder being absorbed in a home letter, and Moira too indignant to seem to take any notice of affairs appertaining in any way to the despised farm of Elderwood.
"You have a letter from your Uncle John, Alick?" asked, Phemie, in the sweet, low voice that was usual with her.
"Yes; how did you know it?"
"Cousin Mary speaks of it here."
"Did she tell you what he wants, Phemie?"
"She did."
For an instant longer the loving eyes met in a steady, sorrowful gaze, and then Phemie's drooped quietly to her letter again.
"Your wish to correspond with your second guardian has been anticipated, Moira," Mr. Elder said as he looked over his spectacles at the fashionable beauty smiling enjoyably as he spoke. "There is a letter from him to me, but it concerns yourself and you had better read it."
"Uncle," commenced Alick, when Moira had drawn toward her the indicated letter, "I have got one from Gowanbrae."
"Ay; and how is Uncle John?"
"Ill, he fears, unto death."
There was a pause which Mr. Elder broke.
"There is something else, Alick; I see it in your face. He's not dead?"
"No, but he wants me home at once."
"Wants you home!"
"Yes, to see me once again ere he goes the long journey, he says, and you know how great a claim he has on my perfect obedience."
"I do, lad. I know he was a father to you when you had none o' your ain, and that you are no a lad to be wantin' in love or gratitude to your friends. Ay, I'll read the letter, lad, but ye maun go."
Once more the eyes of the so-called cousins met sadly, and there were tears in the sweet orbs of Phemie as they once more fell to her letter.
"Whoever heard of such a thing!" here interjected Moira Bathgate, who had been reading the letter from Mr. Elder's fellow trustee and guardian. "The man must have taken leave of his senses. Phemie, what ever do you think Mr. Collins proposes? He thinks I ought to go to school. A girl of nineteen going to a boarding school!"
"Better late than never, Moira," Mr. Elder said. "Your poor mother's over-indulgence permitted you to shirk your educational opportunities woefully, but there is an alternative, I think."
"Yes; a proposal that I should have some staid, respectable lady as governess. I fancy I see her, if Mr. Collins chose her—a prim, stuck-up old thing, all bones and rusty black silk, and with a blue tint born of all the languages and 'ologies' her musty old brain is crammed with. What was that you said about going somewhere, Mr. Alick? How I envy you if you are really going to escape from this awful place."
"I am very far from being glad to go, I assure you, Miss Bathgate," Alick replied quietly; "but duty is duty, and I must go to Scotland; not for long though, if it please the Almighty," and the young man's look once more wandered to the drooping face of Phemie Elder.
"Well, I suppose you are used to it; but one thing is certain, I shall never get used to such a vegetable existence."
"No, I don't think you will, Moira," Mr. Elder said pointedly.
"And, pray, why should I? I have been brought up to a very different life, and am fond of pleasure and society. Why, then, should I not enjoy myself since I am not without the means?" The questions were put with a saucy toss of the frizzy head as an accompaniment, but the girl's bold, dark eyes fell beneath the steady look of her guardian as he seriously returned—
"It would be as well for you to recollect that riches often take unto themselves wings and flee away, Moira, for I tremble to think what, with your silly habits and tastes, would become of you if the property left for your benefit should be absorbed in any other way.
"Absorbed in any other way! How could it be? It is mine, wholly and solely."
"There are more ways than one by which you might be left penniless," was the curt reply. "Alick, who is your other letter from?"
The young man smiled as he laid the letter in question down. "It is rather an awkward affair for me, sir, as I am going home for a time, for it is a reply to an invitation I wrote Ralph Greer last week to spend a few weeks with me at the new house."
"And he accepts?"
"Yes, uncle, he is coming tomorrow."
"What sort of chap is he, Alick? I know he was a college mate, but who and what is he, and what like?"
"He is about my own age, uncle, and his father holds some Government situation in Melbourne. Ralph himself has been in a bank, I think, but the confinement does not agree with him, and he gave me a broad hint that he would be glad to come into the country for a time."
"Ay, ay; he's no blate, I see," the old gentleman said.
"We were very intimate at college, you know" Alick explained with a smile.
"And his character, what o' that, eh?"
"I never saw or heard anything wrong with it. I have fancied he thought a good deal more than he said, and was much more clever than you would be likely to give him credit for. Oh, he's not a bad fellow, unless he has changed much."
"Ay, weel, what think ye, Phemie? Will we ask this young man to visit Elderwood instead of Fairholm, as Alick must go? What say ye, hinny?"
It was in a lower tone than was even her quiet wont that sweet Phemie replied to her father—
"All you wish, father; if Alick would like it, we must do our best to make his friend comfortable."
In an instant the brilliant embroidery was dropped, and Moira, who had been sulking in consequence of her guardian's reproof, was instantly interested.
"A town gentleman coming here on a visit, did you say? Oh, what a godsend! Pray, make him stop all the time you are away, Mr. Alick, and don't come back too soon!"
Phemie looked at the selfish speaker with as strong an expression of disapproval as her soft eyes could retain, and Alick replied with an accompanying smile—
"You are not complimentary, Miss Bathgate."
"No, I am not; I never try to be so. I tell people the truth always, and if they do not like it I cannot help it."
"Well, I never object to hear the truth as regards myself, Miss Moira."
"When it is necessary," added Mr. Elder, emphatically. "I am, however, acquainted with a certain young lady who decidedly objects to hear the truth as regards herself at any time."
"There are such things as disagreeable truths, if truths they be, and I give you, sir, the credit of being able to tell them disagreeably in competition with any guardian out of romance. When I write to Mr. Collins to put my veto on both his delightful suggestions of school or governess I shall, at the same time, request to be removed from Elderwood Farm."
"Ye may be gey an' glad to own such a home as Elderwood Farm yet, Moira; but, indeed, I may say, as ye pretend to like truths, that I'll no be sorry to see the day that takes ye oot o' my charge, for ye are a responsibility I'm no keen o'."
"You are surely too hard on Moira tonight, dear father," Phemie said, softly and deprecatingly.
"Her flippant tongue brought it on herself, my lass; an' weel might the Psalmist say that the tongue was an unruly member."
"The Psalmist said nothing of the sort; it was Paul," snapped Moira.
"I am glad ye ken enough about the Book to try and set me right at any rate, Moira. Alick, will you come to my room? I have something to consult you about."
Towards evening on the day following that on which Alick Grant had received the momentous letter from his uncle in Scot land, he had taken a trap to meet the 5.30 train at Benalla. Alick expected his old schoolfellow, Ralph Greer, and he was not disappointed. When the panting engine forged slowly past the station, and the carriages stopped, from the first opened door sprang a well-built, gentlemanly-looking, young gentleman, of about twenty-six or seven, with clean-shaved whiskers and a perfectly trimmed moustache. He was attired in well-cut and well-fitting garments, and every accessory of his toilet was of the best, yet without any attempt at finery or show. His hair and eyes and moustache were nearly black, his features good and essentially aristocratic, as also was the expression of calm thoughtfulness, and the perfect savoir-faire that pervaded his countenance, and inspired every movement, was as refreshing to look upon as the still surface of an unfathomable pool of water.
"How kind of you to meet me in person, old fellow," he said, as he deposited himself and his belongings beside Alick. "You can explain matters to me as we bowl along."
"I hope you will not be disappointed, Greer, that I am obliged to decline the pleasure of a visit from you at present," said Alick, as he smiled so broadly as to show a set of most perfect, though rather large, white teeth.
"Decline my visit! What do you mean?"
"What I say, lad, but don't look so awfully taken aback. With the same mail that brought me your last I received a letter from Uncle John, and he wishes me to go home at once and see him before he dies."
"Uncle John, of Gowanbrae? Is the old fellow ill?"
"Yes, and I am going with the mail steamer which sails two days hence."
"And you are quite right, Grant, for Uncle John can make a long will or a short one, just as it pleases him. By all means try and let the will have only your own name in it as legatee."
"I should go if he had not a penny," Alick said seriously. "I love and revere my uncle, and who has a better right to do so? An orphan, he gave me home and education, and I owe it to him that I am this day in a position to look forward into a prosperous future."
"You're a lucky chap, and always were, Grant. Here we are, nearly of an age, and I have neither prospects nor profession."
"You have left the bank?"
"Yes; 'took the first word o' fliten,' as they say at home, and cut the bank ere it cut me. I am not suited for desk work, Alick; it's a case of 'to dig I cannot, and to beg I am ashamed.' There is nothing for me but an heiress, old fellow, and it was especially to see if you could help me to one I came here."
Alick looked into his old schoolmate's face, over which a smile was spreading, and then he whistled softly.
"You heard something about Moira Bathgate?" he questioned.
"I heard what you told me of her coining, and I discovered more at a certain office in Queen-street, where you could buy a copy of the Shah of Persia's will if he made one in Victoria; but your going away must upset all my probabilities."
Alick was silent for a moment, but they were nearing Elderwood, and he spoke—
"My going will rather help than hinder you, Ralph, for Mr. Elder has proposed that you should pay your intended visit to the country as his visitor. But you will remember that Miss Bathgate is my cousin's ward, Greer, and that all must be fair and above-board."
"Surely you know me well enough to believe that I am incapable of a dishonourable action, my dear Grant? I would not marry a penniless duchess, but I will never wed a woman I cannot love, or who cannot love me."
"Then all is well, Greer; go in and win the heiress; she is very pretty, but I warn you she has a will of her own."
"Did you ever know a woman who had not?"
"Yes, I do know one, and I may as well speak of her now, for it is best you should know, as I am going away for some months. Mr. Elder's daughter, Phemie, is my affianced wife."
"Sly rogue! and you are afraid I might fall over head and ears in love with her, instead of legitimately placing my affections on the heiress."
"By no means," returned Alick, smiling softly to himself. "Phemie is not a young lady likely to attract a man of your tastes. Miss Bathgate, on the contrary, is most likely to fulfill every one of your requirements in addition to the wealth she might bring you."
"Well, we shall see, Grant. I have told you already that I must love a woman I wed, but, if she is lovable, the more beauty and money she possesses the better."
These were Ralph Greer's spoken words, but his thoughts were very different, and they ran in this way:
"Grant is as big a softy as ever he was, and will believe every word one tells him. I wonder what he would say if I told him the truth, viz., that I'd marry a witch as old as my mother if she was owner of a goodly store of money bags. What does it matter who or what a man's wife is? He's at liberty to enjoy himself in his own way all the same."
Few could have guessed the existence of such sentiments in the quiet, gentlemanly young man who warmly responded to Mr. Elder's welcome to Elderwood Farm, yet the good Scotchman did not take to him from the first.
"He's no' the kind o' chap I'd have gien ye credit for seeking as a friend," he said to Alick when they were alone. "He's too glib with fine words, and seems to me to haud too much of his real self back."
"He was never exactly what you would understand by the term friend, though we were companions, uncle, but I never saw any harm in him; still, many years have passed, and he may be changed."
"Ay, may he."
The visitor was introduced to the ladies just before tea, and if Phemie was still her gentle self, and attired as usual in plain yet graceful attire, Moira made ample sacrifices to the Goddess Fashion to serve for the worship of two women. In her trailing velvet and rich laces, with her flashing jewels and flower-bedizened hair, and with her great dark eyes ablaze with anticipated triumph, she formed a startling picture, and the visitor's admiration was plainly enough expressed, as his eyes met hers, to satisfy the almost insatiable appetite for flattery of even Moira Bathgate.
"My dear daughter, Phemie, Mr. Greer; Miss Moira Bathgate, my ward" were the words that made the young people known to each other, and Ralph's courtesies were made with due consideration and care.
"What do you think of him?" Moira asked of Phemie when the gentlemen had gone out to the verandah to indulge in a smoke.
"He seems a very agreeable, gentlemanly person," was Phemie's reply, as, "on household cares intent" she was removing salts and cruets, etcetera, to the sideboard.
"I'm delighted with him!" exclaimed the heiress rapturously. "It is such a change to have someone who can talk of society and amusements and life in general. I am tired to death of hearing about drops and prices and farming details, and I am sure, if (which heaven forfend!) I was doomed to be a farmer's wife, I should die in a month."
"While I think such a life to be the very happiest in the whole world," Phemie returned, while her street, handsome face was lighted up by a smile as full of brightness and hopeful content as Moira Bathgate would never know.
"Oh, well, you were made so, I suppose, and women with your tastes could not well be done without after all, for what should we do for housekeepers, and hams, and eggs, and fowls, and things."
"Do without them if you couldn't get them, Miss Bathgate," said Greer; "but, pray, do not think of such very prosaic things while there is so much poetry abroad in the 'dewy eve.' Will you take pity on me and show me some of the beauties of Elderwood? The gentlemen have been called away, and I perceive Miss Elder is engaged."
"Yes, Mr. Greer; there is always something for a farmer's daughter to see about," returned Phemie, with one of her peaceful smiles; "but Moira will enjoy a walk this lovely evening."
"Don't talk of walks," Moira said, pettishly, as she gathered up her train, and draped a black lace shawl gracefully around her shoulders. "I never walk; I can stroll, that is all. I will trouble you for your arm, Mr. Greer, and we must keep on the broadest gravel walks—there is one by the river, if I can only manage to reach it."
"Ralph's visit is a regular bit of good luck for Moira," Alick said with a laugh, as he entered the room just as the pair were moving from the verandah. "What do you think of him, Phemie, dear?"
"I could not form a decided opinion on so short an acquaintance, Alick; but indeed my mind is almost entirely occupied in counting over and over again the long mouths you must be away. It is very ungrateful of me while I have dear father well and happy, but indeed I shall miss you far more than I like to own."
"You are my good, sensible Phemie," the young man said, fondly, as he drew her to him and kissed her sweet lips; "you know it is right for me to go, and when we do our duty in life the way is always made easy for us. I have promised you, my love, and I will keep my promise. I will be with you, without fail, at the New Year."
"So many things may happen, dear Alick," the low, tremulous voice murmured.
"Our lives are in His hand, my love. Where is your trust and faith, my Phemie? Something assures me that I shall be permitted to fulfill my word, and I shall assuredly be with you at the New Year."
"I will put my trust in God, Alick, and I know His will must guide our future, and will certainly guide and shape it for the best."
Time slipped away at Elderwood, and it was nearly a month since Alick had sailed for home, yet still Ralph Greer lingered by Moira's side. That young lady was reveling in the bliss of an imaginary "first love," and it is possible that she had really given what affection she was capable of to her handsome and stylish young wooer. Yet, strange to say, in spite of all the encouragement he undoubtedly got, Mr. Greer had not as yet proposed in plain terms.
This fact Mr. Elder was aware of, but not at all averse to. A practical man himself, it was but seemly and prudent for a young man to make himself fully acquainted with the character and disposition of a woman before he took the serious and irretrievable step of making her his wife. Mr. Elder was, however, entirely mistaken as to Ralph Greer's motives in holding aloof, and the truth was that, from many dropped snubs of Mr. Elder to his ward, he had gathered some grave doubts of the young lady's solvency as an heiress.
On several occasions he had declared he must go, and that he was already ashamed of the length of his visit but Mr. Elder's repeated invitations to remain were truly genuine, for he did hope, for untold reasons, that Moira might settle herself comfortably as the wife of so promising a young man, and so it was that it was the middle of September, and Ralph was strolling by Moira's side near the banks of the Broken River.
The full, clear water laved the grass it made lush and green, and in the golden wattles that dipped their branches into the bright stream, little birds flitted and chirruped, and, in their own way, gave God praise of life and its innocent enjoyments.
Moira was dressed in dark-blue cashmere, combined with satin and velvet of the same hue. In the very extreme of the mode there was, of course, nothing artistic about the dress, but Moira was satisfied in knowing herself to be perfectly dressed, according to the decrees of that High Priestess of Folly whose name is Fashion. And she was really a lovely girl had it not been that every movement was affected, and that a personal vanity, so great as to warrant a belief in her moral blindness, craved with an insatiable craving for adulation and flattery on which to feed.
"Isn't this heavenly?" she exclaimed, as she leaned heavily on his arm, and paused to watch the gliding river. "I couldn't bear Elderwood before you came, Mr. Greer, but it is so different now," and her languishing eyes were lifted for a moment to meet his admiring gaze.
"It would be heavenly to me in a desert if you were there," was the apparently impassioned reply. "There is nothing enjoyable in life without love."
"True," she murmured, softly; "life is nothing without love."
"And money!" Greer thought, but he said, "How often I pity poor Alick, torn from his darling with so short notice; but Miss Elder seems to bear the separation bravely."
"What do you mean, Mr. Greer?" was the sharp question.
"Why won't you call me Ralph? You promised you would."
"Well, Ralph, then; but do tell me what you mean—is it that you think Phemie and Alick are lovers?"
"Yes!"
"You are quite mistaken then; why, they are cousins"
"Cousins not infrequently marry, dear Miss Bathgate; at all events I assure you this is a settled matter, for Alick himself was my authority."
"Well, I never!"
"You are surprised; but don't you think with me that it will be a most suitable match? Miss Elder will undoubtedly have a comfortable dot, and Alick, lucky fellow, has a home and a prospect to share with a wife. How different are the positions we occupy. Here am I with so small an income that it does not really suffice for the indulgence of the habits and tastes of a gentleman," and an apparently heavy sigh accompanied the well-chosen words.
So well chosen that they were not lost on Moira's ears. "What does it matter on which side the money is if there is love on both?" she murmured, her long lashes were permitted to droop over her cheeks.
"Ah! Yours is a heart of gold, but guardians never feel with young people in matters of this heart—would that they did!" and the hand that lay on his arm was pressed fervently.
"No guardians in the world should ever prevent me from marrying the man I loved," Moira said firmly. "They might prevent it until my majority, but they could do no more."
Perhaps this plain speaking might have drawn a declaration and a proposal from Ralph Greer had he been quite certain of the amount of Moira's inheritance, but he was not, and, to the young lady's great annoyance, his only reply to her words was a sigh so deep that it might have been drawn from the bottom of the Broken River at his side.
To add to the chagrin of the anxious girl at this moment, the tête-à-tête must be interrupted by the approaching figures of Mr. Elder and Phemie, the latter looking fair and bonny in her plain, graceful dress and her simple garden hat. There was a dignity and grace in the form of Phemie that not all the dress and ornament she patronized could ever be attained by Moira Bathgate, and in his heart Ralph Greer envied his old college mate the girl he had won.
"We thought of a little stroll before dinner," said Mr. Elder, bluntly, "and it is well Phemie thought of the river walk, for there will be two couples now, as I want to speak with Mr. Greer for a little."
Ralph, with one of his courtly bows, resigned Moira's arm, bestowing on her, at the same time, an eloquent look, as expressive of devotion and regret as his fine eyes could make it; and the heartless guardian walked him off as coolly as if Moira was not fervently wishing he was laid up with gout or a broken limb before he had interrupted the anxiously awaited proposal she had fancied just hovering on Greer's lips.
"Whatever possessed you to bring your father in this direction, Phemie?" she asked, pettishly, as she discontentedly walked by fair Phemie's side.
"It was not I, exactly, Moira, and I am sorry if we joined you at a mal apropos moment."
Moira caught sight of a dimple that was wont to exhibit itself in Phemie's cheek when she smiled, and was indignant accordingly.
"Any girl might have sense enough to acknowledge the probability of certain parties preferring to be alone when they are together," she said, with a toss of her dusky head, "and there is no excuse for you. And that reminds me of something—how sly you are, Phemie, to keep your engagement secret from me all this time."
Phemie blushed rosily up to the roots of her soft, glossy hair.
"I have made no secret of it, Moira, but I do not think it nice for a girl to talk much of lovers, or such affairs. My father knows, and approves, and I wonder you did not observe our—I mean Alick's and my intimacy—yourself."
"Of course I did! The intimacy of cousins, and no more; but how could I believe you were engaged to Alick?"
"Who told you, Moira?"
"Ralph—I mean Mr. Greer, but I could not believe him."
"Why?"
"Could any one credit that a well brought up girl would marry her cousin? No, indeed!"
"Many thousands of well brought up girls have so married; but Alick is not my cousin."
"What!"
"Alick is not my cousin as you mean it; he is my father's second cousin, and consequently my third or fourth, and we are to be married as soon as he returns—at the New Year."
There was a firmness in Phemie's tones, as she told of her hoped-for happiness, that was not usual with her, but Moira's words had offended her for Alick's sake. Gentle and trustful soul, she could not bear to know that it was possible for any one to believe her Alick capable of wrong-doing, even in so small a matter as marrying a cousin.
"Well, you do astonish me, Phemie! Alick, as you call him, calls your father uncle, and you cousin. How was I to know?"
"You could not know," Phemie replied, with all her usual composure; "you have not been long with us yet."
"I am sorry I have been so long, but I trust soon to have a home of my own"—this with a conscious rustling of the silken draperies as the vain little heiress drew herself into a more erect position, and arranged the gemmed rings on her slender fingers. "But it is usual to offer congratulations on such occasions—pray, accept mine."
"May I venture on offering you mine in return, Moira? Have you accepted Mr. Greer?"
"How do you like him?" asked Miss Bathgate, evading the question.
"He is Alick's friend, and I am certain that Alick would accept no unworthy man as a friend. I sincerely trust you will be happy, dear Moira."
While this conversation was taking place between the two young girls, Mr. Eider had "buttonholed" Greer to a secluded walk, and commenced at once with what he had to say.
"I wanted to ask you privately if you know a lawyer about town named Lordan?"
"Lordan, of Chancery Lane? Yes, he is well known."
"Is he a man likely to have a hand in any tricky job, do you think?"
"I am sure he is not; Mr. Lordan's character as a gentleman and a man of principle, as well as of enlarged legal knowledge, stands high in town."
"That is enough. I have received a very peculiar business letter from him today, the claim set forth in which, on behalf of a client, has utterly confounded me. At first I hoped it might have been a trumped up business, but, now that you assure me of the man's respectability, I must at once communicate with my colleague, Mr. Collins," and the worthy man, with eyes bent on the gravel at his feet, was about to walk quickly away when Greer stopped him.
"One moment, Mr. Elder; I wish to speak with you as Miss Bathgate's guardian. I am devotedly attached to that young lady, yet truly conscious of my unfortunate inability to keep a wife at present; but I would solicit your permission to address Miss Bathgate with a view to making her my wife in a year or so should she accept my hand. By that time I may be in a Government situation, where my father is using every effort to place me."
"Have you proposed to Miss Bathgate?" asked Mr. Elder.
"I have not. I would not do so without your permission, but Miss Bathgate must undoubtedly have recognized the depth of my admiration."
"And has given you no discouragement?"
"I hope and think she has not."
"Mr. Greer, you are my nephew's friend and visitor, and I believe you to be an honourable man," Mr. Elder said, after a thoughtful pause. "Will you answer me a few plain questions? In the first place, are you aware that my ward, Moira Bathgate, has been considered quite a wealthy heiress?"
"I am. Alick told me of it himself."
"Has that young lady's prospective inheritance any influence in your present proposal?"
"Undoubtedly it has, sir. I love Miss Bathgate too sincerely to ask her to share a home such as my possible means could supply, and her own fortune would be devoted to herself."
"Under those circumstances it is just that you should be warned of the uncertain tenure we hold of the property bequeathed to Moira. It is about her affairs I have received the letter from Mr. Lordan. In a few weeks Moira Bathgate may be a penniless orphan."
Greer looked very serious, but he was not taken at a disadvantage.
"As that is the case, my dear Mr. Elder, I had better defer my proposal until my own position is secured, when, should Miss Bathgate be deprived of all else, I may be at least able to offer her a comfortable though an humble home. It will also be prudent for me not to remain longer at Elderwood at present."
"Yes; I like prudent young men," the farmer returned, with grim emphasis. "You can easily get a call for your immediate return."
"Oh, certainly! And it will be quite unnecessary for my hopes to be mentioned to Miss Bathgate at present."
"Quite unnecessary," and that was the end of the momentous interview that destroyed forever all Moira's hopes of becoming Mrs. Greer.
That evening at the farmhouse was an unusually dull one. In vain did Moira exercise all her charms of manner and use her grand eyes for the benefit of Ralph Greer. He was courteous and agreeable, but the cunning "girl of the world" missed something that had hitherto formed her greatest happiness in his society. Mr. Elder was gravely silent, and looked often at the serene face of his truly womanly and good daughter, as she sat with eyes bent on her plain sewing, or occasionally lifted as she replied to some direct attention of the careful Greer; but at last bedtime came, and the usual good-nights were exchanged.
"Stay with me a little, my lass," Mr. Elder said to Phemie as she was lighting her candle. "I want a few words with you," and in short terms he told her of his trouble about Moira's shattered prospects, both of her legacy and a husband.
"I felt hardly toward the girl, Phemie," he concluded, "for her vain folly is disgusting to me; yet I do not like to tell her this; it will come far better from you."
"Oh, no, father; indeed I could not do it, nor would Moira take it so well from me; indeed I could not do it. She would think I was glad of an opportunity to humiliate her."
And so the poor man was compelled to be the imparter of grievously humiliating tidings to his ward. When they met at breakfast, and Greer's chair was empty, Moira inquired anxiously as to the cause.
"Ralph—I mean Mr. Greer, is not ill, I hope? Indeed, I feared something of the sort, as he was so silent and distrait last night."
"Mr. Greer has gone to Melbourne," Mr. Elder said, without lifting his eyes from his breakfast.
"Gone!" It was almost in a shriek the word was uttered.
"Yes; if you will drop the subject I shall explain all to you after breakfast;" and Moira ate her breakfast, firmly assured that Ralph had proposed to her guardian for her lily-white hand, and had gone to make preparations for an early marriage.
"I daresay the disagreeable old man is only too glad to get rid of me," she thought, "for indeed I have never tried to make myself accommodating in this detestable place."
And the acknowledgment was most certainly truthful.
"I have bad news for you, Moira, and I'm loath to tell it," began the farmer, when he was alone with his ward.
"Bad news!" and the deceived girl's thoughts fled instantly to Ralph Greer! "If it is about—about Mr. Greer, tell me quickly! He is not dead?"
"Dead! No! My bad news does not directly relate to him, but if you are fond of the lad I'm sorry for you."
"Sorry for me? Why?"
"I will speak of our late visitor after; just now I want a painful job over. Moira, my lass, you have for many months now looked upon yourself as an heiress, and as such you were consigned to the joint care of Mr. Collins and myself in your mother's will. It will be a great change for you to know that you will not possess an acre of ground or one penny piece when you come of age or before."
The young lady could not and would not realize the truth.
"You must be dreaming, Mr. Elder! Nothing could deprive me of the property my father left my mother in trust for me, and it is worth thousands a year. Nonsense, I do not believe one word of it. Not an heiress indeed! The law will have something to say to that."
"The law has already had something to say to it," Mr. Elder replied, in tremulous tones, for his warm heart was grieved for the girl's sore disappointment. "I cannot bear to talk over it just now, but I will leave you these letters, and may God help ye to bear patiently and firmly the trouble ye have early met, and remember that, whatever happens, a home and a welcome ye will aye find at Elderwood Farm wi' me and Phemie."
The speaker laid three letters before Moira and quickly left her alone, while she snatched the first letter up with the scorn of a proud disbelief on her face.
Sir—
As one of the gentlemen appointed by the will of the late Mrs. Charles Bathgate, of Glenormiston, as guardian to her daughter, and presumed heiress, Miss Moira Bathgate, we beg to inform you that, on the part of our client, Mr. Jacob Trump, we hold mortgages over the properties of Glenormiston and Conjunga, which mortgages were signed prior to Mr. Bathgate's decease, and the terms of which have not been complied with. If due possession is not at once given of these properties, we are prepared, and instructed, to take legal measures to ensure the recovery of the same.
We are, sir,
Very faithfully yours,
Lordan and Mortimer
Oh, she was dreaming—she must certainly be dreaming!—was Moira's
thought or hope as her trembling fingers grasped the paper, and her distended
eyes mastered its contents. There was some plot against her, some vile plot,
at the bottom of which was the heartless, narrow-minded farmer under whose
roof she sat. "But she would let him know," etc., etc., etc., and she took up
the next epistle to her hand. It was a telegram from Mr. Collins, her other
guardian.
IT IS QUITE TRUE. I HAVE SEEN THE MORTGAGES, AND THERE IS NOT THE GHOST OF A CHANCE OF DISPUTING THE CLAIM. THE GIRL IS PENNILESS. MORE BY MAIL. J. COMORO.
As Moira's helpless hand dropped the telegram, her eyes fell upon the third
letter, and she recognized Greer's handwriting in the address to Mr. Elder.
Opening it, while her white face flushed with hope and the dark eyes
softened, she read the following, and it was enough:
Dear Sir,
I cannot go without gratefully acknowledging your kindly hospitality, and that of Miss Elder. I have truly enjoyed my visit, and trust to repeat it for my friend Alick's happy marriage. In the meantime it may as well be understood that the change in Miss Bathgate's position would render it highly imprudent for me to entertain any hopes of her hand, even at a distant date.
Yours most sincerely,
Ralph Gripes.
Moira rose from her chair, and tore this note to pieces as though she had
been rending to atoms the peace and prosperity of the writer, and then she
walked steadily to the door and went to her room. Phemie met her in the hill,
and was frightened by the white rage in the girl's face, that seemed
transformed into that of a woman with twice her years; but Moira sailed on,
taking no more notice of the pitying and sympathetic Phemie than if she had
not seen her at all.
It came to dinner time, and no Moira appeared.
"Go to her, Phemie, my lass; the child is disappointed, and sorely wae; take up something nice to her, for she'll no care to face us yet."
Phemie returned with a pale face and a bit of paper in her hand.
"Moira has gone, father."
"Gone! Nonsense! How could she gang and we no ken?"
"She is indeed gone; her trunks are packed and corded. She has only taken a small portmanteau, and this paper was left on the toilet."
Send my trunks to Railway Station, Melbourne; you shall not be troubled with me any more at Elderwood Farm.
—Moira Bathgate
"Guid guide us!" ejaculated the thoroughly confounded farmer, "the lassie's
gane clean wud!"
"Has she any money think ye?" questioned Phemie, relapsing into her father's occasional Scottish idiom.
"I gave her the quarter's allowance only yesterday," was the reply, "and I can do nothing but send Collins word."
AND so Moira disappeared from the farmstead of Elderwood, for when the
mortgages effected on his property by the deceased Bathgate were proved
genuine, the will of Moira's mother was, of course, valueless, and the
authority of Messrs. Elder and Collins, as supposed guardians of the girl,
ceased. She had taken her own way in life, and they knew nothing of it,
having only got a line from her to say she had received her trunks in due
course of time.
And so the weeks rolled on while dear Phemie waited patiently and trustfully the return of her Alick. Letters came from him by every mail, and they knew that Uncle John was better and actually preparing to come out and live with his favourite nephew in his new home near Elderwood; and at last they had sailed, arrived in Australia, and were joyously welcomed by the delighted farmer and his happy Phemie.
The travelers arrived before Christmas, and Phemie was to be made proud Alick's wife "at the New Year." Christmas passed, and the New Year came, bringing the quiet, but joyous wedding day. A few days after, and before the wedded lovers had left for their own home, Mr. Elder received a letter, the contents of which made him fairly laugh outright, but communicate the cause of his mirth he would not.
"Ye'll ken the morn," he said; "they're comin' the morn! But lay your heads thegether for a gey surprise!"
Well, tomorrow came and the mail coach had arrived as usual. At about two o'clock a lady and gentleman—the latter leaning on the arm of the former—presented themselves at Elderwood Farm. Mr. Elder met and welcomed both, leading them into the room where were Phemie and her husband, and Uncle John. You may guess the surprise of the bride as she recognized in the dowdily-dressed lady, who supported an old, half-crippled husband, the extravagant and proud heiress, Moira.
"Yes, yes; I'm Jacob Trump, and this is my wife, Mrs. Trump. You see I am the man that held the mortgages over Bathgate's property (and a double rogue he was never to tell his wife of it). Well I got into some little trouble that obliged me to seek another land for a few years, and when I came back Moira here lost her money bags. But she was a cute one, was Moira! When she heard of my claim, what does she do but follow me up and never let me alone with them big eyes of hers until I married her. Moira had one or two little railings in the love of fancy and show, and a temper of her own, but I've cured her of all that," and he looked with complaisance at the prim and unbecoming attire of the angry Moira. "I keep the purse now, and the hawks don't swirl half so much about my bonny bird now that her showy feathers have gone in the molting, eh, Moira, my dear?"
"Brute!" said Moira, amiably.
"Ay, ay, it's a case of Beauty and the Beast over, but the Beast carries the purse for all that!"
Now my tale for the New Year is ended, and I hope that, in the sad fate of Moira, I have satisfied the most stringent sticklers for the "poetical justice" we read of.