Chapter Seventeen.
Ugly Poverty and I.
Cousin Geoffrey had sealed his letter with red wax. He had stamped the seal with his own signet-ring, which gave the impress of a coat-of-arms with a quaint device. That device became a household word with me by and by, but I was too impatient even to trouble myself to decipher it just then. I spread the thick sheets of paper before me, and gave myself up to the luxury of satisfying the most burning curiosity which surely ever besieged a girl.
Cousin Geoffrey’s letter—a letter addressed to myself, well and carefully written—was far too long to make it possible for me to quote it here. I read it once, twice, three times. Then I sat with my hands before me, the open sheets of paper lying on my lap, my eyes fixed on vacancy. Two or three candles were lighted in my room; one by one they burnt low in the socket, and expired. I was in the dark, not mentally but physically. There was no darkness in my mental vision that night; my mind was so active that my body was incapable of feeling either fatigue or cold, and my eyes were incapable of noticing the thick darkness which surrounded them.
This was my position: I was an heiress of Cousin Geoffrey’s wealth. On certain conditions I was to inherit exactly one-half of his houses and lands, of his money in stocks and shares, and in the English Funds. I could have for my own, exactly one-half of the marvellous treasures which filled the old house. I could divide those shawls from Cashmere, those sandal-wood boxes from China, those quaint embroideries from Persia. Even the half of those lovely painted windows in the Chamber of Myths would belong to me.
It was very funny. I could not help almost laughing, as I sat in the dark, with Cousin Geoffrey’s open letter on my lap, over the persistency with which I would think of the treasures which the Chamber of Myths contained. Which Cashmere shawl might I take? Which piece of embroidery might I clasp to my heart as my very, very own? Above all, which of the painted windows might in future be known as Rosamund Lindley’s window—hers and no one else’s?
I felt far, far more anxious about these comparatively minor matters than I did about the money in the Funds and the landed possessions, one-half of which also belonged to me.
Alack and alas! the news in the letter had nearly stunned me. I found that I was incapable of clear reasoning. What a fool I was—what an idiotic girl—to plan and consider, and think of Cashmere shawls and Indian embroideries and painted windows, and wonder which would fall to my share—which of the beautiful things I might claim as my own.
My own! Cousin Geoffrey gave me nothing, nothing whatever of all his wealth as my own absolutely.
On a certain condition I might have half. Half of the money, half of the treasures, should be settled on me and on my children for ever, if—ah, here was the rub, here was the astounding discovery which took my breath away and paralysed me, and made me incapable of any consecutive thought beyond a burning sense of shame and anger. I was to have these riches if I fulfilled a condition.
This was the condition. I was to marry the heir of all the other half of the wealth and the beauty. The other half of Cousin Geoffrey’s riches was left to my almost unknown cousin, Tom Valentine. He was to possess his half if he married me. I was to take possession of my half on the day I became his wife.
“I like you, Rosamund Lindley,” Cousin Geoffrey had said in his letter; “you are no beggar, and no fawner. You are a simple-minded, honest, downright English girl. You have courage, too, and I always respect courage. You have come to me to help you with your art. You have done this with such a ludicrous, belief in yourself and your own powers, with such a simple sort of vanity, that I should probably have tried to cure it by granting your request had you come to me as a stranger. But I cannot look upon you as a stranger, Rosamund; you belong to my own kith and kin, and you are the daughter of the woman I love best on earth. Because you are Mary Rutherford’s daughter I give you half my wealth if you fulfil the conditions I require!”
I knew these words of the long letter almost by heart; I said them over to myself many times.
When the first light of morning dawned I rose from my chair, stretched my cramped limbs, pinched my arms to see if I were awake or if I had only been going through a horrid nightmare; opened the window, took in a draught of the cool morning air, and putting Cousin Geoffrey’s letter into my pocket went down-stairs.
The place looked as I had left it last night—our maid-of-all-work had not yet come down-stairs. Ugly Poverty surrounded me, and once more it hemmed me tightly around, and made its presence more felt even than of old, I had looked into a land of promise—an ideal and lovely country. I had thought to enter; but alas! iron bars of pride, of maidenly modesty, of right feeling, of even righteousness, kept me out. All the womanhood within me declared wildly and desperately—
“Even to enter into that promised land you shall not sell yourself?”
Ugly Poverty and I must still be close acquaintances—nay more, we must be intimate friends, even comrades, walking the path of life side by side and hand in hand.