In Trust: The Story of a Lady and Her Lover

by Mrs. Oliphant

‘I take a great interest in my cousins,’ said Heathcote gravely. ‘Do you know I believe poor St. John meant to buy my interest, to accept my proposal, and leave Mount to his eldest daughter.’

‘No; you don’t think so? Well, that might have been a way out of it—that might have been a way out of it—now that you recall it to me the same thought struck myself; at least I thought he would take advantage of that to make a new settlement, after he had taken his fling and relieved his mind with this one. Ah, poor man, he never calculated on the uncertainty of life—he never thought of that rabbit-hole. God help us, what a thing life is! at the mercy of any rolling stone, and any falling branch, of a poor little rabbit’s burrowing, or even a glass of water. And what a thing is man! as Hamlet says; it’s enough to make anyone moralise: but we never take a bit of warning by it—never a bit. And so you really think he meant to take Mount off your hands and settle it on Anne? I don’t think he had gone so far as that—but I’ll tell you what we’ll do, we’ll tell her so, and that will make her happy. She’s not like other people, she is all wrong here,’ said Mr. Loseby, laughing, with the tears in his eyes, and tapping his forehead. ‘She has a bee in her bonnet, as the Scotch say. She is a fool, that is what Anne is—she will be as pleased as if he had left her a kingdom. The worst thing of it all to that girl is, that her father has made himself look like a tyrant and a knave—which he wasn’t, you know—he wasn’t, poor Mountford! though he has done his best to make himself appear so. Once give her something to build up his character again upon, some ground, it doesn’t matter how fanciful it is, and she’ll be happy. She won’t mind her own loss, bless you,’ said the old lawyer, half crying, ‘she is such a fool!’

‘Mr. Loseby,’ said Heathcote with an emotion which surprised him, ‘I think you are giving my cousin Anne the most beautiful character that ever was.’

‘Sir,’ cried Mr. Loseby, not ashamed to dry his eyes, ‘whoever said anything different? Did you ever hear anything different? As long as I have known the world I have never known but one Anne Mountford. Oh, Mr. Heathcote, Mr. Heathcote,’ he added, his voice turning into tremulous laughter, ‘what a thousand pities that you did not make your appearance a year before!’

Heathcote got up from his chair with a start, and walked about the room in a nervous impatience, for which he could give no reason to himself. Was it that he, too, wished he had come to Mount a year sooner? He left the old man to finish his wine, and roamed about, now pausing a moment with his back to the fire, now extending his walk into the dark corners. He had lit his cigarette, which furnished him with an excuse—but he was not thinking of his cigarette. What he was thinking was—What the devil did that fellow mean by staying away now? Why didn’t he come and stand by her like a man? What sort of a pitiful cur was he that he didn’t come, now he was free to do it, and stand by her like a man? He disposed of Charley Ashley’s mild plea with still greater impatience. Perhaps she had forbidden him to come. ‘Would I have been kept away by any forbidding?’ Heathcote said to himself without knowing it. Then he came back from the corners in which such suggestions lay, feeling uneasy, feeling wroth and uncomfortable, and took his stand again before the fire. ‘Perhaps you will give me a little advice about the money I wanted,’ he said to Mr. Loseby. This was safer on the whole than suffering himself to stray into foolish fancies as to what he would have done, or would not have done, supposing an impossible case—supposing he had made his appearance a year sooner; before there was any complication of any unsatisfactory ‘fellow’ with the image of his cousin Anne.

CHAPTER XXII.
SOPHISTRY.

It is not to be supposed that the events which had moved so deeply the household at Mount, and all its connections, should have passed lightly over the one other person who, of all to whom the Mountfords were familiar, could alone feel himself a principal in the important matters involved. Douglas had looked on from a distance, keeping himself out of all the immediate complications, but not the less had he looked on with a beating heart, more anxious than it is possible to say, and, though still quiescent, never less than on the verge of personal action, and never clear that it would not have been wisest for him to plunge into the midst of it from the first. His position had not been easy, nor his mind composed, from the beginning. When he had heard of Mr. Mountford’s death his agitation was great. He had not become indifferent to Anne. The thought that she was in trouble, and he not near her, was no pleasant thought. All the first evening, after he had received Charley Ashley’s telegram, he had spent in a prolonged argument with himself. He knew from Anne that something had been done, though he did not know what; that, according to her father’s own words, the property had been taken from her and given to her sister. She had told him what her father said, that it was understood between them that this transfer was to be made, and that she had no longer any interest in the fortune which had once been so certainly considered hers. Cosmo had not admired the ease with which she spoke on this question. He had gnashed his teeth at Anne’s unworldliness, at her calm consent to her father’s arrangements, and ready making up of the quarrel with him. She was his love, his dearest, in all truth the one woman in the world who had captivated his affections, and made him feel that he had no longer any choice, any preference, that did not point to her; but he had acted like a fool all the same, he thought. In some minds, perhaps in most minds, this conviction can exist without in the least affecting the reality of the love which lies behind. He loved Anne, but his love did not make him think that everything she did was well done. She had behaved like a fool. Old Mr. Loseby said the same thing, but he said it with glistening eyes, and with an appreciation of the folly and its character such as Cosmo was altogether incapable of.

Nevertheless, Anne’s lover did not feel his love materially lessened by this conviction. He gnashed his teeth at it, thinking, ‘Had I but been there!’ though he knew very well that, had he been there, he could have done nothing to change it. But one thing he could do: when she was his wife he could put a stop to such follies. There should be none of this ridiculous magnanimity, this still more ridiculous indifference, then. In writing to her he had felt that it was difficult to keep all vestige of his disapproval out of his letters, but he had managed pretty nearly to do so: feeling wisely that it was useless to preach to her on such a subject, that only his own constant guidance and example, or, better still, his personal conduct of her affairs, could bring real good sense into them. He had been anxious enough while this was going on, not seeing what was to come, feeling only certain that, love as he might, he could no more marry his love without a penny than he could make himself Lord Chief Justice. It was out of the question: in his position marriage was difficult in the best of circumstances; but to marry a wife without a fortune of her own, without enough to keep her comfortable, was simply folly not to be thought of. Anne’s dreams of romantic toil, of the enthusiasm of hard work into which a man might rush for the sake of a woman he loved, and of the heroic life the two could lead, helping each other on to fame and fortune at the end, were to him as silly as a nursery tale. Men who made their own way like that, overcoming every obstacle and forcing their way to the heights of ambition, were men who did it by temperament, not by love, or for any sentimental motive. Cosmo knew that he was not the sort of man to venture on such a madness. His wife must have enough to provide for her own comfort, to keep her as she had been accustomed to be kept, or else he could have no wife at all.

This had given him enough to think of from the very beginning of the engagement, as has been already shown. His part was harder than Anne’s, for she had fanciful ups and downs as was natural to her, and if she sometimes was depressed would be next moment up in the clouds, exulting in some visionary blessedness, dreaming out some love in a cottage or still more ludicrous love in chambers, which his sterner reason never allowed to be possible, not for an hour; therefore his was the hardest burden of the two. For he was not content to part with her, nor so much as to think of parting with her; and yet, with all his ingenuity, he could not see how, if her father did not relent, it could be done. And the worst thing now was that the father was beyond all power of relenting—that he was dead, absolutely dead, allowed to depart out of this world having done his worst. Not one of the family, not one of Mr. Mountford’s dependents, was more stunned by the news than Cosmo. Dead! he read over the telegram again and again—he could not believe his eyes—it seemed impossible that such a piece of wickedness could have been accomplished; he felt indignant and furious at everybody concerned, at Mr. Mountford for dying, at God for permitting it. A man who had made such a mistake, and to whom it was absolutely indispensable that he should be allowed time to repent of his mistake and amend it—and instead of this he had died—he had been permitted to die.

The news threw Cosmo into a commotion of mind which it is impossible to describe. At one period of the evening he had thrown some things into a bag, ready to start, as Ashley expected him to do; then he took another thought. If he identified himself with everything that was being done now, how could he ever withdraw after, how postpone ulterior proceedings? This, however, is a brutal way of stating even the very first objection that occurred to Cosmo. Sophistry would be a poor art if it only gave an over-favourable view of a man’s actions and motives to the outside world, and left himself unconvinced and undeceived. His was of a much superior kind. It did a great deal more for him. When its underground industry was once in full action it bewildered himself. It was when he was actually closing his bag, actually counting out the contents of his purse to see if he had enough for the journey, that this other line of reasoning struck him. If he thus rushed to Mount to take his place by Anne’s side, and yet was not prepared (and he knew he was not prepared) to urge, nay, almost force himself upon Anne’s immediate acceptance as her husband, would he not be doing a wrong to Anne? He would compromise her; he would be holding her up to the world as the betrothed of a poor man, a man not so well off as to be able to claim her, yet holding her bound. He paused, really feeling this to throw a new light upon the subject. Would it be acting honourably by Anne? Would it, in her interest, be the right thing to do?