Evenings at Donaldson Manor; Or, The Christmas Guest

by Maria J. McIntosh

"Horace, you are mad!" exclaimed the young man, starting from his chair, with quivering limbs and a face from which every trace of color had departed.

Hitherto the tone in which Sir Horace had spoken, the alternate flush and pallor on his face, and the shiver that occasionally passed over his frame, had shown him to be fearfully excited; but as Edward became agitated, all these signs of emotion passed away, and with wonderful calmness taking the paper in his hand, he commenced reading that part of it which explained its purpose. This was to secure the descent of the baronetcy of Maitland and the property attached to it in the male line. Having made Edward Maitland comprehend this purpose, Sir Horace drew towards him a genealogical table of their family, and showed him that he was himself the only living descendant in a direct line through an unbroken succession of males from the period at which this entail was made.

"And now, Edward," he said in conclusion, "I am prepared to give up every thing to you. That you have so long been defrauded of your rights has been through ignorance on my part, and equal ignorance, I am convinced, on the part of my uncle. You know he paid little attention to business, leaving it wholly to his agents. I have often heard him express a wish to examine the papers in the old escritoire in which I found this deed, saying that they had been sent home by old Harris when he gave up his business to his nephew—the old man writing to my uncle, that as they consisted of leases that had fallen in, or of antiquated deeds, they were no longer of any value except as family records. It was a just Providence that led me to that escritoire, to search for the missing title-deeds of the farm I was about to sell."

Edward Maitland had sunk into his chair from sheer inability to stand, and for several minutes after his cousin had ceased speaking, he still sat, with his elbows resting on the table before him, and his face buried in his clasped hands. At length looking up, he said, "Horace, let us burn this paper and forget it."

"Forget! that is impossible, Edward."

"Why?—why not live as we have done? You speak of defrauding me, but what have I wanted that you had? Has not your purse been as my own? Your home—has it not been mine? It shall be so still. We shall share the fortune, and as to the title, you will wear it more gracefully than I."

"Dear Edward! Such proof of your generous affection ought to console me for all changes, and it shall. I will confess to you that I have suffered, but it is past. My people——" his voice faltered, his chest heaved, and turning away he walked more than once across the room before he resumed—"they are mine no longer—but you will be kind to them, Edward, I know."

"Horace, you will drive me mad!" cried Edward Maitland. "Promise, I conjure you, promise me to say nothing more of this."

He threw himself as he spoke into his cousin's arms with an agitation which Horace vainly sought to soothe, until he promised "to speak" no further on this subject at present to any one. Satisfied with this promise, and exhausted by the emotions of the last hour, Edward soon retired to his own room. It was long before he slept, and had he not been in a distant part of the house, he would have heard the hurried steps with which, for many an hour after he was left alone, Sir Horace Maitland continued to pace the floor of the dimly lighted library. The clock was on the stroke of three when he seated himself and began the following letter:

Dear Edward:—I must go, and at once. I cannot without the loss of self-respect continue to play the master here another day, neither can I live as a dependent within these walls—no, not for an hour. Do not attempt to follow me, for I will not see you. I will write to you as soon as I arrive at my point of destination—I know not yet where that will be. Feel no anxiety about me. I shall take with me a thousand pounds, and will leave an order for Decker to receive from you and hold subject to my draft whatever sum may accrue from the sale, at a fair valuation, of Sir Thomas Maitland's personal property, which he had an undoubted right to will as he pleased, the amount of the mesne rents expended by me during the last three years having been deducted therefrom. Do not attempt to force favors upon me, Edward—I cannot bear them now. Such attempts would only compel me to cut myself loose from you and your affection—the one blessing that earth still holds for me.