Luttrell Of Arran

by Charles James Lever

“It would be well if I could speak of myself as one simply unlucky,” said she, in a tone of deep melancholy, “but this may not be! I have gone through heavy trials, but there was not one of them, perhaps, not self-incurred.”

“Oh, Kate, if you would not break my heart with anxiety, tell me at once this ring means nothing—tell me you are free.”

“Be patient, Harry, and hear me. Trust me, I have no wish to linger over a narrative which has so little to be proud of. It is a story of defeat—defeat and humiliation from beginning to end.”

She began, and it was already daybreak ere she came to the end. Tracking the events of her life from her first days at the Vyners’, she related an inner history of her own longings, and ambitions, and fears, and sufferings, as a child ripening into the character of womanhood, and making her, in spite of herself a plotter and a contriver. The whole fabric of her station was so frail, so unreal, it seemed to demand incessant effort to support and sustain it. At Dalradern, where she ruled as mistress, an accident, a word might depose her. She abhorred the “equivoque” of her life, but could not overcome it. She owned frankly that she had brought herself to believe that the prise of wealth was worth every sacrifice; that heart, and affection, and feeling were all cheap in comparison with boundless affluence.

“You may imagine what I felt,” said she, “when, after all I had done to lower myself in my own esteem—crushed within me every sentiment of womanly affection—when, after all this, I came to learn that my sacrifice had been for nothing—that there was a sentiment this old man cared for more than he cared for me—that there was a judgment he regarded more anxiously than all I could say—the opinion of the world; and it actually needed the crushing sorrow of desertion to convince him that it was better to brave the world than to leave it for ever. Till it became a question of his life he would not yield. The same lesson that brought him so low served to elevate me. I was then here—here in Arran—holding no feigned position. I was surrounded with no luxuries, but there were no delusions. Your father gave me his own proud name, and the people gave me the respect that was due to it. I was real at last. Oh, Harry, I cannot tell you all that means! I have no words to convey to you the sense of calm happiness I felt at being what none could gainsay—none question. It was like health after the flush and madness of fever. This wild spot seemed to my eyes a Paradise! Day by day duties grew on me, and I learned to meet them. All the splendid past, the great life of wealth and its appliances, was beginning to fade away from my mind, or only to be remembered as a bright and gorgeous dream, when I was suddenly turned from my little daily routine by an unhappy disaster. It came in this wise.” She then went on to tell of her grandfather’s imprisonment and trial, and the steps by which she was led to ask Sir Within’s assistance in his behalf. On one side, she had to befriend this poor old man, deserted and forlorn, and, on the other, she had to bethink her of her uncle, whose horror at the thought of a public exposure in court was more than he had strength to endure. If she dwelt but passingly on the description, her shaken voice and trembling lip told too well what the sacrifice had cost her. “The messenger to whom I entrusted my letter, and whom I believed interested almost equally with myself in its success, brought me back for answer that my letter would not be even opened, that Sir Within refused to renew any relations with me whatever—in a word, that we had separated for ever and in everything. I cannot tell now what project was in my head, or how I had proposed to myself to befriend my grandfather; some thought, I know, passed through my head about making a statement of his case, so far as I could pick it up from himself and going personally with this to one of the leading lawyers on the circuit, and imploring his aid. I always had immense confidence in myself or in whatever I could do by a personal effort. If I have learned to think more meanly of my own powers, the lesson has been rudely taught me. What between the mental strain from this attempt, anxiety, privation, and exposure to bad weather, I fell ill, and my malady turned to brain fever. It was during this time that this man O’Rorke, of whom I have told you, returned, bringing with him Mr. Ladarelle, a young relative of Sir Within’s. On the pretext of giving me the rites of my Church, a priest was admitted to see me, and some mockery of a marriage ceremony was gone through by this clergyman, who, I am told, united me, unconscious, and to all seeming dying, to this same young gentleman. These details I learned later, for long, long before I had recovered sufficient strength or sense to understand what was said to me, my bridegroom had gone off and left the country.”

“And with what object was this marriage ceremony performed?” asked Luttrell.

“I have discovered that at last. I have found it out through certain letters which came into my hands in looking over your father’s papers. You shall see them yourself to-morrow. Enough now, that I say that Sir Within had never rejected my prayer for help; on the contrary, he had most nobly and liberally responded to it. He wrote besides to your father a formal proposal to make me his wife. To prevent the possibility of such an event, Ladarelle planned the whole scheme I have detailed, and when your father wrote to Sir Within that I had left Arran—‘deserted him,’ he called it—and Ladarelle forwarded a pretended certificate of our marriage, no further proof seemed wanting that I was one utterly unworthy of all interest or regard. I came here in time—not to receive my dear uncle’s forgiveness, for he had long ceased to accuse me—his last thoughts of me were kind and loving ones. Since then,” said she, “my life has had but one severe trial—my leave-taking with my poor old grandfather; but for this it has been like a strange dream, so much of active employment and duty blending with memories of a kind utterly unlike everything about me, that I am ever asking myself, ‘Is it the present or the past is the unreal?’”

“The marriage is, however, a mockery, Kate,” said Luttrell; and, taking her hand, he drew off the ring and threw it into the fire. “You are sure it gives him no claim—no power over me?” asked she.

“Claim!—power! None. I’m no lawyer, but I could almost swear that his act would subject him to severe punishment; at all events, you have a cousin, Kate, who will not see you insulted. I’ll find out this fellow, if I search ten years for him.”

“No, no, Harry. To publish this story would be to draw shame upon me. It was your own father said, ‘A Woman is worse with an imputed blame than is a Man after a convicted fault.’ Let me not be town-talk, and I will bear my sorrows patiently.”