She had been introduced into the house just two weeks after the marriage as "my niece from the country—Jane Liston." As Jane Liston she had remained here ever since, winning "golden opinions" from all the household. She had found Mr. Darcy a decrepit, irritable old invalid, bored nearly to death since his ward's wedding—lonely, peevish, sick. He had looked once into the pale, lovely face, and never needed to look again to like her. Trouble and tears had not marred her beauty. A little of the bloom—there never had been much—all of the sparkle, the gay brilliance that had charmed Richard Gilbert were gone; but the eighteen-year-old face was very sweet, very lovely, the dark Canadian eyes, with their unutterable sadness and pathos, wonderfully captivating; and old Hugh Darcy, with a passion for all things fair and young, had become her captive at once.
"You suit me fifty times better than Helen," he said often, drawing the dark loops of shining hair fondly through his old fingers. "Helen was a rattle pate. Never mind—matrimony will tame her down, though the lad's fond of her enough, and will make her a very good sort of husband, I dare say, as husbands go. But you, little woman, with your soft voice—you have a voice like an Æolian harp Jennie, your deft fingers, your apt ways—you are a treasure to a cross old bachelor. You are a nurse born, Jennie, child; how did I ever get along all these years without you?"
He meant it, every word, and a moonlight sort of smile, sweet and grateful, if very sad, thanked him. Once she had lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it, passionate tears filling her eyes.
"I a treasure! Oh, Mr. Darcy! You do not know what you say. I am a wretch—a wretch unworthy of your kindness and trust. But one day I shall tell you all."
He had wondered a little what she meant. "Tell him all!" What could the child have to tell? She was so young—so pathetically young to be widowed—what story lay in her life? The very oldest of all old stories, no doubt—a beloved one lost. He sighed as he thought it, bald-headed, hoary patriarch that he was. He had had his story and his day. The day had ended, the story was read, the book closed and put away, years and years and years ago. In the gallant and golden days of his youth he had met and loved a girl, and been (as he believed, as she told him,) loved in return. He left her to make a home and a competence—he was no millionaire in those far-off days, save in happiness—to return in a year and marry her. Eight months after there came to him his letters, his picture, his ring. A richer knight had entered the lists, and the lady was borne off no unwilling captive. A commonplace, every-day story—nothing new at all.
He took his punishment like a man, in brave silence, and the world went on, and years and riches and honors came, and a man's life was spoiled forever, that was all. As he recalls it, old, white haired, half paralyzed, now in the twilight of seventy odd years, he can remember with curious vividness how brightly the July sun shone down on the hot white pavement of the streets below, the cries of the children at play, the quivering glare of the blazing noontide, as he sat in his office and read the words that renounced him. Twenty-seven years ago, but the picture was engraven on Hugh Darcy's brain, never to be blotted out. Twenty-seven years ago, and when the fortunate rival had fallen in the battle of life, ten years later; when his feeble-souled wife had followed him to the grave, Hugh Darcy's revenge upon her had been to step forward and take the child of that marriage to his heart and home to rear him as his own son, to make his will in his favor, leaving him sole heir to a noble inheritance.
Laurence Thorndyke had sown his wild oats. Well, most young men go in for that kind of agriculture, and the seed sown had not yet begun to crop up. He was happily married, and done for, and for himself Mr. Darcy meant to keep his little "Jennie" with him always, to travel about with her this coming summer, and leave her a handsome portion at his death. "For of course," said Mr. Darcy, "she will forget the husband she has lost, and make some good man happy after I am gone."
He had settled her little romance quite to suit himself. She had crept with her quiet, gentle, womanly ways into his inmost heart—a very kindly heart in spite of life's wear and tear; very kindly, yet with a stubborn sense of justice, and of right and wrong underlying all. Kindly, yet terribly, obstinately, unforgiving to anything like immorality, deception or dishonor.
"I love the child almost better than Helen," he thought sometimes. "I don't want to lose her, and yet I should like to see her safely sheltered under a husband's wing before I go. There's Richard Gilbert now. I've often meant to introduce him to her, but somehow she always slips out of the room and the house when he sends up his card. I wonder if he's got over the loss of that girl last fall. Some men do get over that sort of thing they say. I hope Laurence had nothing to do with it. Gilbert suspected him, I know, but then—'give a dog a bad name and hang him.' Yes, my little Jennie wouldn't make half a bad wife for Dick Gilbert. I'll introduce him the very next time he comes."
Mr. Darcy sits before his study fire this chill afternoon alone. Liston left some hours ago. It is not yet dinner time, and his companion—where is she? He looks impatiently around—while he took his afternoon nap she has left him. He listens a moment to the wailing voice of the wind, sobbing in a melancholy way about the house, then reaches forth nervously, and rings the bell.