'I certainly shall not go without you.You may take that as certain.Is it likely that I should leave you alone in August and September in this great gloomy house? If you stay, I shall stay.' Now this meant a great deal than it had meant in former years.Since Lopez had died Mr Wharton had not once dined at the Eldon.He came home regularly at six o'clock, sat with his daughter an hour before dinner, and then remained with her all the evening.It seemed as though he were determined to force her out of her solitude by her natural consideration for him.She would implore him to go to his club and have his rubber, but he would never give way.No;--he didn't care for the Eldon, and disliked whist.So he said.Till at last he spoke more plainly.
'You are dull enough here all day, and I will not leave you in the evenings.' There was a persistent tenderness in this which she had not expected from the antecedents of his life.When, therefore, he told her that he would not go into the country without her, she felt herself almost constrained to yield.
And she would have yielded at once but for one fear.How could she insure to herself that Arthur Fletcher should not be there?
Of course he would be at Longbarns, and how could she prevent his coming over from Longbarns to Wharton? She could hardly bring herself to ask the question of her father.But she felt an insuperable objection to finding herself in Arthur's presence.
Of course she loved him.Of course in all the world he was the dearest of all to her.Of course if she could wipe out the past as with a wet towel, if she could put the crape of her mind as well as from her limbs, she would become his wife with the greatest joy.But the very feeling that she loved him was disgraceful to her in her own thoughts.She had allowed his caress while Lopez was still her husband,--the husband who had ill-used her and betrayed her, who had sought to drag her down to his own depth of baseness.But now she could not endure to think that the other man should even touch her.It was forbidden to her, she believed, by all the canons of womanhood eve to think of love again.There ought to be nothing left for her but crape and weepers.She had done it all by her own obstinacy, and she could make no compensation either to her family, or the world, or to her own feelings, but by drinking the cup of her misery down to the very dregs.Even to think of joy would in her be a treason.
On that occasion she did not yield to her father, conquering him as she had conquered him before the pleading of her looks rather than her words.
But a day or two afterwards he came to her with arguments of a very different kind.He at any rate must go to Wharton immediately in reference to a letter of vital importance which he had received from Sir Alured.The reader may perhaps remember that Sir Alured's heir--the heir to the title and property--was a nephew for whom he entertained no affection whatever.This Wharton had been discarded by all the Whartons as a profligate drunkard.Some years ago Sir Alured had endeavoured to reclaim the man, and spent perhaps more money than had been justified in doing in the endeavour, seeing that, as present occupier of the property, he was bound to provide for his own daughters, and that at his death every acre must go to this ne'er-do-well.The money had been allowed to flow like water for a twelvemonth and had done no good whatever.There had been no hope.The man was strong and likely to live,--and after a while had married a wife, some woman that he took from the very streets.This had been his last known achievement, and from that moment not even had his name been mentioned at Wharton.Now there came tidings of his death.It was said that he had perished in some attempt to cross some glaciers in Switzerland;--but by degrees it appeared that the glacier itself had been less dangerous than the brandy which he had swallowed whilst on his journey.At any rate he was dead.As to that Sir Alured's letter was certain.And he was equally certain that he had left no son.
These tidings were quite important to Mr Wharton as to Sir Alured,--more important to Everett Wharton than to either of them, as he would inherit all after the death of those two old men.At this moment he was away yachting with a friend, and even his address was unknown.Letter for his were to be sent to Oban, and might, or might not, reach him in the course of a month.But in a man of Sir Alured's feelings, this catastrophe produced a great change.The heir to his title and property was one whom he was bound to regard with affection and almost with reverence,--if it were only possible for him to do so.With his late heir it had been impossible.But Everett Wharton he had always liked.
Everett had not been quite all that his father and uncle had wished.But his faults had been exactly those which could be cured,--or would almost be virtues,--by the possession of a title and property.Distaste for a profession and aptitude for Parliament would become a young man who was heir not only to the Wharton estates, but to half his father's money.
