Edina: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

In the days gone by there were three of the brothers Raynor: Francis, Henry, and Hugh. Francis entered the army; Henry the church; and Hugh the medical profession. With the two former we have at present nothing to do. Hugh Raynor passed his examinations satisfactorily, and took all his degrees—thus becoming Dr. Raynor. Chance and fortune favoured him. He was at once taken by the hand by an old doctor who had an excellent practice in Mayfair, and became his assistant and frequent companion. The old doctor had one only child, a daughter, who was just as much taken with Hugh (and he with her) as was her father. They were married; and on the death of the old doctor shortly afterwards, Dr. Raynor succeeded to a good deal of the practice. He was quite a young man still, thoroughly well intentioned, but not so prudent as he might have been. He and his wife lived rather extravagantly, and the doctor sometimes found himself short of ready-money. They resided in the house that had been the old doctor's; and they heedlessly, and perhaps unconsciously, made the mistake of beginning where he had left off: that is, they continued their housekeeping on the same scale as his: maintained the same expenses, horses, carriages and entertainments. The result was, that Dr. Raynor in the course of four or five years found himself considerably involved. In an evil moment, thinking to make money by which to retrieve his fortunes, he embarked his name (and as much money as he could scrape together) in one of the bubble schemes of the day. A scheme which—according to its prospectus, its promoters' assertions, and the credulous doctor's own belief—was certain to realize an immense fortune in no time.

Instead of that, it realized poverty and ruin. The scheme failed—the usual result—and Dr. Raynor found himself responsible for more money than he would ever make in this world. Misfortunes, it has been too often said, do not come singly: Dr. Raynor proved an example of it. Just before the bubble burst, he lost his wife; and the only one element of comfort that came to him in the midst of his bitter grief for her, was to know that she died before the other blow fell.

A frightful blow it was, almost prostrating Dr. Raynor. The creditors of the ruthless company took all from him: even to the gold watch upon his person. They sold up his furniture, his books, his carriages and horses, everything; and they told him he might thank their leniency that they did not imprison him until he could pay up the scores of thousands they made out he was responsible for. The fact was, the promoters of the company, and those of its directors who possessed funds, had gone over to the Continent; and there remained only the poor doctor, innocent and honourable, to come upon.

Turned out of house and home, his name in the papers, his prospects gone, Dr. Raynor felt he should be glad to die. He did not even attempt to retain his practice, which was a great mistake; his only care was to escape from the scene of his prosperity and hide his humiliated head for ever. His little child, Edina, the only one he had, was five years old; and for her sake he must try and keep a roof over his head and find bread to eat. So he looked out for employment after a time, as far away from London and in as obscure a corner of the land as might be, and obtained it amidst the collieries in North Warwickshire, as assistant to a general practitioner. After remaining there for some years, he heard of an opening at a place in Cornwall. The surgeon of the place, Trennach, an old man, who wanted to retire, chanced to know Dr. Raynor, and wrote to offer him the succession upon very easy terms. It was accepted, and the doctor removed to Trennach. The returns from the practice were very small at first, he found, scarcely enabling him to make way, for it lay almost entirely amongst the poor; but subsequently Dr. Raynor dropped into a better class of practice as well through the death of another surgeon some two or three miles from Trennach. And here, in Trennach, he remained; a sad and silent man ever since the misfortune of his early days; and lived as retired a life as might be. His only care, his constant companion, had been his beloved child, Edina. He had trained her to be all that a woman should be: true, earnest, thoughtful, good. Mrs. Pine, who had no children of her own, had helped him, and been to Edina almost as a second mother. Not many women in this world were like Edina Raynor.

The only sister of the three brothers Raynor had married a London banker, Timothy Atkinson, the junior partner in the house of Atkinson and Atkinson. When Edina was two-and-twenty years of age, she went on a visit to her aunt in London. Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Atkinson, who had married rather late in life, were childless; and in these later years Mrs. Atkinson had become an invalid. She was also eccentric and capricious; and, for the first few days after her arrival, Edina thought she should not enjoy her visit at all. Timothy Atkinson was a sociable little man, but he spent all his time in the business downstairs—for they lived at the banking-house. His cousin, the head and chief, disabled by illness, rarely came to business now; it all lay on Timothy's shoulders. No one seemed to have any time to give to Edina.

But soon a change came. George Atkinson, the son of the elder partner, found out Edina; and perhaps pitying her loneliness, or out of courtesy, constituted himself her cavalier. He was nine or ten years older than Edina: a good-looking, rather silent young man of middle height and grave courtesy, with a pleasant voice and thoughtful face. He was not strong, and there had been some talk of his having been ordered to travel for his health; but the death of his mother had intervened and prevented it. But, though a silent man to the world in general, he was eloquent to Edina. At least, she found him so. As though they had been the actual cousins that Mrs. Atkinson sometimes called them, he was allowed to take her everywhere. To the theatres, the opera, the gardens, all the shows and sights of London, Edina was entrusted to the care of George Atkinson. Sometimes Mrs. Atkinson was with them; more often she was not.

And better care he could not have taken of her, or shown himself more solicitous for her comfort, had she been his sister or cousin. Honourable, instinctively kind, upright and noble, there was in George Atkinson a chivalrous devotion to women, that could only betray itself in manner and tell upon those on whom it was exercised. It told upon Edina. Highly educated, and possessing a fund of general information, he was a most agreeable companion. Before one-half of their few weeks' intercourse together had passed, she had learned to love George Atkinson with a lasting affection.

Many a half-hour did he spend talking to her in low gentle accents of his recently dead mother. His love, his reverence, his still lively grief for her loss, was expressed in the truest and most tender terms. This alone would have taken Edina's heart by storm. She believed there lived not another man in the world who was so true a gentleman, so estimable and admirable in all respects as George Atkinson. Indeed he was very much so, as young men go; and neither Edina nor any other girl need feel anything but pride at being chosen by him.

Poor Edina! It was the one great mistake of her life. Whilst George Atkinson had no ulterior thought of her, hope was whispering to her heart the possibility that they might pass their future lives together. And oh, what an Eden it would have been for Edina! She loved him with all the intensity of a pure young heart; a heart in its virgin freshness. Whilst he, though no doubt liking her very much indeed; nay, perhaps even loving her a little just in one corner of his heart; had no thought, no intentions beyond the present hour. He knew he was not strong; and he meant to see what travelling far and wide would do to make him so. Consequently the idea of marriage had not entered his head.

It was only on the last day of her stay, the one previous to her departure for home, that the revelation came to Edina, and her eyes were opened all too abruptly. They were together in the drawing-room in the half-hour before dinner. Mr. Timothy Atkinson had not come up from the counting-house, his wife was in her chamber, dressing. It was a lovely day in late spring. Edina stood by one of the open windows, which had been made into a sort of small fernery. The western sunlight was playing upon the leaves, and touching her own smooth hair and her fair young face.