One Of Them

by Charles James Lever

And, last of all, he was vexed and irritated by Charley's desertion of him, and taunted by the tone in which the young man alluded to the widow and her influence in the family. To be taught caution, or to receive lessons in worldly craft from one very much our junior, is always a trial of temper; and so did everything conspire to make him an easy victim to her machinations.

And May,—what of her? May signed her name when and wherever she was told, concurred with everything, and, smiling, expressed her gratitude for all the trouble they were taking on her behalf. Her only impression throughout was that property was a great source of worry; and what a fortunate thing it was for her to have met with those who understood its interests, and could deal with its eventualities! Of her large fortune she actually knew nothing. Little jests would be bandied, at breakfast and dinner, about May being the owner of vast tracts in the far West, territories wide as principalities, with mines here and great forests there, and so on, and sportive allusions to her one day becoming the queen of some far-away land beyond the sea. Save in such laughing guise as this she never approached the theme, nor cared for it.

Between May and Clara a close friendship had grown up. Besides the tastes that united them, there was another and a very tender bond that linked their hearts together. They were confidantes. May told Clara that she really loved Charles Heathcote, and never knew it till they were separated. She owned that if his careless, half-indifferent way had piqued her, it was only after she had been taught to resent it. She had once even regarded it as the type of his manly, independent nature, which she now believed to be the true version of his character; and then there was a secret—a real young-lady secret—between them, fastest of all the bonds that ever bound such hearts together.

May fancied or imagined that young Layton had gone away, trusting that time was to plead for him, and that absence was to appeal in his behalf. Perhaps he had said so; perhaps he hoped it; perhaps it was a mere dream of her own. Who knows these things? In that same court of Cupid fancies are just as valid as affidavits, and the vaguest illusions quite as much evidence as testimony taken on oath.

Now, amongst all the sorrows that a young lady loves best to weep over, there is not one whose ecstasy can compare with the affliction for the poor fellow who loves her to madness, but whose affection she cannot return. It is a very strange and curious fact—and fact it is—that this same tie of a rejected devotion will occasionally exact sacrifices just as great as the most absorbing passion.

To have gained a man's heart, as it were, in spite of him,—to have become the depositary of all his hopes, and yet not given him one scrap of a receipt for his whole investment,—has a wonderful attraction for the female nature. It is the kind of debt of honor she can appreciate best of all, and, it must be owned, it is one she knows how to deal with in a noble and generous spirit To the man so placed with regard to her she will observe an undying fidelity; she will defend him at any cost; she will uphold him at any sacrifice. Now, May not only confessed to Clara that Layton had made her the offer of his heart, but she told how heavily on her conscience lay the possible—if it were so much as possible—sin of having given him any encouragement.

“You must write to the poor fellow for me, Clara. You must tell him from me—from myself, remember—that it would be only a cruelty to suffer him to cherish hope; that my self-accusings, painful enough now, would be tortures if I were to deceive him. I'm sure it is better, no matter what the anguish be, to deal thus honestly and fairly; and you can add that his noble qualities will be ever dwelt on by me—indeed, you may say by both of us—with the very deepest interest, and that no higher happiness could be than to hear of his success in life.”

May said this and much more to the same purpose. She professed to feel for him the most sincere friendship, faintly foreshadowing throughout that it was not the least demerit on his part his being fascinated by such attractions as hers, though they were, in reality, not meant to captivate him.

I cannot exactly say how far Clara gave a faithful transcript of her friend's feelings, for I never saw but a part of the letter she wrote; but certainly it is only fair to suppose, from its success, that it was all May could have desired.

The epistle had followed Layton from an address he had given in Wales to Dublin, thence to the north of Ireland, and finally overtook him in Liverpool the night before he sailed for America.