CHAPTER II.
Lord what a nothing is this little span
We call a man!
How slight and short are his resolves at longest,
How weak at strongest!
QUARLES.
Cuthbert Charteris returned to Edinburgh that night, but not until he had first made a rude outline—he was no artist, but could use his pencil enough for this—of Allenders, with its eccentric turret and shady mall, and the boat—a very crazy, incompetent boat as it turned out—lying under the saugh tree upon the quiet water. He showed it to Harry, as they eagerly consulted about the necessary improvements, and Harry thought it quite a remarkable production; but Cuthbert greatly doubted as he enclosed it to Martha Muir. The deed almost lost its original intention of simple kindness, as he pondered over it, and feared that they might think his drawing a very poor affair; but it was sent at last.
Harry remained with Lindsay in Stirling. It was necessary to see the family of Allenders residing there, who, failing Harry and his household, were next heirs; and some legal forms had also to be gone through. Harry had recovered his usual spirits; he was, excited with his new position, with his proposed improvements, and even with his inn lodgings; and while Lindsay laboured through some necessary processes for his enfeoffment, Harry strayed out to see the town. He saw the town, it was very true. He climbed to the bastions of the lofty castle, and looked round him east and west. To the blue Highland hills in the distance—to Demeyet and his brother Ochils, glooming in brown shadows over the country at his feet—to the silvery maze of the Forth, wantoning in and out between those verdant banks as if he were fain of a pretext to linger at every corner, because he loved the way so well—and to the broad strath of Bannockburn, stealing away into those great lines of cloud, which seemed to carry its gently sloping plain into the distant sky. Harry looked upon them all, and mused and lingered, thinking pleasant thoughts. Then he saw the lights begin to gleam, one after another, in the town below, and he sauntered down to walk through the streets with their pleasant, quiet, leisurely stir, and then to return to his hotel.
But it was very late when Harry returned to his hotel—and he was “indisposed,” and would not see the wondering Lindsay, who only left his papers for the supper he had ordered, when he heard that Mr. Muir had already gone to his room, and was “indisposed.” Lindsay was puzzled and offended. He could not make out what this sudden indisposition could mean.
Poor Harry! next morning he rose late, with an aching head and a pained heart. He forgot at first when he woke how he had concluded the last evening; but as the remembrance dawned upon him, he wrung his hands and groaned aloud. What could he do? how could he defend himself against this overpowering weakness? He threw himself upon his face, and prayed in an agony of self-reproach and shame, for strength, for deliverance. Alas! this great inheritance, this fair new life—had he put the stain of his infirmity upon its promise already.
Lindsay had breakfasted some time before Harry made his appearance in their sitting-room; and now sat at a window, reading a newspaper, and looking very grave and stately. A ceremonious salutation passed between them; and Harry, sick, despondent, and miserable, sat down at the table. As he loitered over his coffee, and pushed his plate away from him with loathing, there was perfect silence in the room, except for the rustling of Lindsay’s paper, and his own restless motions.
Poor Harry was utterly cast down, but his humiliation struggled with a fierce irritability; and Lindsay never moved his paper, but his companion felt the strongest impulse to snatch it from his hand, and trample on it, as if the indifference, which could content itself with a newspaper, while he was suffering thus, was a positive injury to him.
When he had finished breakfast, he remained still leaning his head upon his hand, and idly brooding over the disordered table. He did not feel any inclination to go out, he had indeed nothing present before him, but a diseased image of himself overspread with blank despondency, and clouded with rising ill-humour. He had never felt this so much before; for always before he had to justify himself, or to melt in sympathy with those tears of yearning love and pity which had been wept over him so often. He scarcely had known till now how bitterly and harshly the soul can condemn itself, alone.
“When you are at leisure, Mr. Muir,” said Lindsay, coldly, “I shall be glad if you will accompany me to call on Dr. Allenders. He was here last night, having received a note I wrote him from Edinburgh; and as he did not see you then—”
“Of course, I am ready—of course,” said Harry, starting up hastily. “It was impossible I could know when Dr. Allenders intended to call. But I am quite at your command, Mr. Lindsay. Does this man mean to dispute my claim?”
“This man is a person of the highest character,” said Lindsay, with his stiff gravity. “Having seen the documents, he does not intend to put any obstacle in your way, Mr. Muir. By the bye, I do not know whether you mean to assume the name of the family which you succeed. It is not a condition of the will certainly, but it was implied. Shall I present you to the Doctor as Mr. Allenders?”
“No, no, not yet,” said the conscience-stricken Harry. “Not yet—not to-day. No, no—let it be a better time.”
These words were spoken incoherently, but Lindsay understood them, and his heart was softened.
They went out, and the conversation gradually became less constrained and more familiar; but Harry painfully recognised the places which he had passed during the ramble of the previous night, and vowed in his heart, as the bright day without restored in some degree his failing spirit and courage, that never more, never again, should these inanimate things remind him of temptations yielded to, and resolutions broken. Poor Harry! a very short time makes him as confident as ever; and when they have reached the doctor’s door, he has again begun to look forward fearlessly into the future, and to bring no self-distrust or trembling out of the past.
The doctor’s house is on the outskirts of the town, a square, comfortable habitation, with a radiant glimpse from its windows of the mazes of the river and the far-off hills. Upon the door glitters a brass plate, bearing the name of John Allenders, M.D.; and Dr. John Allenders seems to be in comfortable circumstances, for a spruce boy in buttons opens the door, and they are shown into a handsome library, which a strong, peculiar fragrance, and a suspicious glass door with little red curtains, proclaims to be near the surgery; but Dr. John has a good collection of books, and altogether appears to Harry an exceedingly creditable relation, and one with whom even the heir of Allenders may be sufficiently well pleased to count kin.
It is some time before Dr. John makes his appearance; but Lindsay, who stands opposite the glass door, catches a glimpse of a dissipated-looking head, in great shirt collars, stealthily peeping through the red curtains at Harry, and making faces with an expression of unmitigated disgust. But he has scarcely time to notice this, when a shadow falls upon the door, and, with a solemn step, Dr. Allenders enters the library.
He is a common-place looking man, with great dark eyes, which project almost their whole round from under the puckered eyelid. It is curious to notice how those eyes move, as if they were touched by strings or wires behind; but the rest of his face is very tolerable, and he looks what he is, a thoroughly respectable person, driving his gig, and having money in the bank; and understanding himself to be a responsible man, owing society, in right of his position in it, ever so many observances and proprieties.
Close behind Dr. Allenders, comes the dissipated head and the shirt collars, which just now made faces at Harry Muir. The owner of the head stumbles up the two steps which connect the lower level of the surgery with that of this more dignified apartment, and enters the room with a swagger. He has eyes like the doctor’s, and a long, sallow face, encircled by the luxuriant brushwood which repeats under his chin the shaggy forest of hair which is the crown and glory on his head. He wears a very short grey coat, a coloured shirt, and an immense neck-cloth; and there enters with him into the room an atmosphere of smoke, tinted with many harmonizing odours, which envelopes his whole person like a separate world.
Harry turned round with slightly nervous haste as the doctor made his appearance. The Doctor bowed, and held out his hand with a frankness half real, half assumed; but Harry’s hand fell as it advanced to meet that of Dr. Allenders, while Dr. Allenders’ son uttered a coarse exclamation of surprise and recognition. Poor Harry! his face became purple with very shame and anger—for this coarse prodigal had been one of his boon companions on the previous night.
“Met before?” said the doctor, inquiringly, as Harry stimulated by the rude laugh of young Allenders, and the serious wonder of Lindsay, made a strong effort to recover himself. “Seen my son in some other place, Mr. Muir? I am glad of that, for blood is thicker than water; and though we have lost an estate through your means, my young friend, I hope we’ll have grace given us not to be envious, but to rejoice in your exaltation as if it were our own; besides that, it would have been very inconvenient to me—extremely inconvenient for my professional duties—to have lived five miles out of town; and then the house is such an old tumble-down affair. So I wish you joy, most heartily, Mr. Muir. The income of Allenders’ estate would have been small compensation to me, and Gilbert here has not settled to the harness yet; so we’ve no reason to complain—not a shadow. Pray sit down—or will you come up-stairs and see my wife and my daughters? Oh, we’ll not disturb them; and being relations, they have heard of you, Mr. Muir—I told them myself yesterday—and would like to see the new heir.”
“I say Muir, my boy, I’m delighted it’s you,” said Mr. Gilbert Allenders, thrusting forward a great bony, tanned hand, ornamented with a large ring. “Pleasant night, last night, wasn’t it? Glad to see we’ve got another good fellow among us. Come along up-stairs and see the girls.”
Mr. Gilbert Allenders had a rough voice, with the coarsest of provincial accents; and to mend the matter, Mr. Gilbert put himself to quite extraordinary pains to speak English, omitting his r’s with painful distinctness, and now and then dropping a necessary h. It had been a matter of considerable study to him, and he was very complacent about his success.
Harry submitted with a bad grace to shake hands, and unconsciously drew nearer to Lindsay.
But Lindsay, who only smiled at the vulgar Mr. Gilbert, instinctively drew himself up, and turned his face from Harry. Harry Muir for himself was nothing to the young lawyer; but Lindsay felt personal offence mingle in the contempt with which he perceived how his client chose his company—leaving himself solitary in their inn, to go and seek out a party which could admit this Gilbert Allenders. Henceforth, Mr. Lindsay might be man of business to the new heir—friend he could never be.
“I must be in Edinburgh this afternoon,” said Lindsay coldly. “Do you accompany me Mr. Muir? for if you do not, I have accomplished all that is necessary here, I fancy, and may take my leave.”
Harry hesitated for a moment, his better feelings struggling with false shame and pride; but lifting his eyes suddenly, he encountered the derisive smile of Gilbert Allenders, and took in with one rapid glance all the characteristics of his new-found kinsman. These had more effect on his susceptibility than either reason or repentance. He did not decide on returning in the lawyer’s respectable society, because he feared for his own weakness, if he permitted himself to remain here alone. No, often though Harry’s weakness had been demonstrated even to his own conviction, it was not this; but what a knowledge of himself could not do, disgust with Gilbert Allenders did. He answered hastily that he too would return at once, and persuading Lindsay to remain and accompany him up-stairs to the drawing-room where Mrs. Allenders and her daughters sat in state expecting their visit, they at length left the house together, declining the preferred escort of Mr. Gilbert.
But Harry did not escape without a galling punishment for the previous night’s folly. Gilbert Allenders, seeing how he winced under it, plied him with allusion after allusion. “Last night, you recollect?” and with the most malicious perseverance recalled its speeches, its laughter, its jokes and its noise, assuming too an ostentation of familiarity and good-fellowship which Harry could scarcely restrain his fury at. The effect was good and bad; on the one hand, Harry vowed to himself fiercely that he never would put himself in the power of such a man again: on the other, he forgot how he himself had wasted the fair summer night begun with pleasant thoughts and blessings; how he had desecrated and polluted what should have been its pure and healthful close. He forgot his repentance. He felt himself an ill-used man.
But he left Stirling that night with the half-mollified Lindsay. So much at least was gained.