Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 22

by Unknown

"I am surrounded on all sides by difficulties," sighed the young woman, as she seemed to find herself in the mazes of an unseen destiny. As she looked at her cousin, she thought that one of her evils was that the capture of her affections so early by Walter had prevented her from viewing Paul in any other light than that of an ingenious artist, and a man of kindly sympathies, however much he was separated from mankind by a theory of the world too esoteric for ordinary thought, and which yet, at some time of man's life, forces its way amidst palpitations of fear to every heart.

On reaching home she met there the notary, Mr. Ainslie, who informed her, probably at the request of her father (for information of that kind is seldom given gratuitously), that the will had been signed, and left in the possession of the old man. Even this communication, so calculated to shake from the heart so many of the sorrows of life, had no greater effect upon her generous nature than to increase the responsibility of fulfilling the condition upon which the inheritance was to be received and held. If she had not been under the effect of an early prepossession in favour of Walter, she might have doubted the sincerity of his statement, as it came from his own mouth. Suspicion attached to every word of it; but after the communication made by Paul, it was scarcely possible for her to resist the conclusion that he had told her a falsehood, and that he was aiming at the fortune, without the power or the inclination to give her in return his love; nay, that he was heartlessly sacrificing to his passion for gold two parties—the object of his real love, and that of his feigned. Yet she did not resist that conclusion; and so good an analyst was she of her own mind, that even when in the very act of throwing away these suspicions of his honesty, she knew in her soul that her love was in successful conflict with an array of evidence establishing the fact which she disregarded. Then the consciousness of this inability to cease loving the man whom she could hardly doubt to be a liar, as well as heartless and mercenary, brought up to her the strange theory of Paul. The motive which no man or woman could make or even modify, was the prime spring as well as ruler of the will, cropping out, to use his own words, from moral, if not also physical causes, laid when God said, "Let there be light, and there was light." A deeper thinker than most of her sex, she felt "the sublimity in terror" of this view of God's ways with man. If she could not resist the resolution to love Walter, how could he resist the love he bore to another? The thought shook her to the heart; nor was she less pained when she reflected on the hapless Paul, with his long-concealed affection, so pure from the sordidness of a desire for money, that he would have toiled for her under the flame of the midnight lamp, continued into the light of the rising sun.

During the night the persistency of her resolution to remain by her past affection was maintained; yet as it was still merely a persistency implying the continuance of a foe ready to assert the old rights, she was so far unhappy that she wanted that composure of mind which consists in the absence of conflict among one's own thoughts.

In the morning she found the locket lying on her parlour table, with the inscription changed from Agnes Ainslie to Rachel Grierson. She took it up and fixed her eyes upon it. At one time she would have given the world for it; now it attracted her and repelled her. It came from the only man she loved; but another name had been on it, which ought, for aught she could be sure of, to have been on it still. It might be the pledge of affection, but it might also be the evidence of falsehood to her and unfaithfulness to another. And then, as she traced the lines of her name, she thought she could discover the signs of a tremulousness in the hand that traced them. Amidst all these thoughts and conflicting feelings, she could not help recurring to the circumstance that he had not presented the locket with his own hands. She was unwilling to indulge in an unfavourable construction; and perhaps the more so that it so far pleased her as relieving her from the dilemma of accepting it with more coldness than her love warranted, or more warmth than her reason allowed. Nay, though she gloated over his image when she was alone, she felt an undefined fear of meeting him. Might he not be precipitated into some further defence or confession, which might fortify suspicions still battling against her prepossessions, and diminish her love? Nor was this disinclination towards personal interviews confined to this day—it continued; and it seemed as if he also wished his connection with her to stand in the meantime upon the pledges and confessions already made. This she could also notice; but as for rendering a true reason for it, she couldn't, even with the great ability she possessed in construing conduct and character.

But meanwhile time was accumulating antagonistic forces which would explode in a consummation. Her thoughts were to be occupied by another, who claimed her affections and care by an appeal as powerful as it was without guile. Her father was seized with paralysis. He was laid speechless on the bed where she sat, a watchful and affectionate nurse, ready to sacrifice sleep and peace and rest to the wants of him who, all through her life, had been her friend and benefactor, and who had provided for her future days at the expense of hopes entertained by his legitimate heirs. For three days he had lain without speaking a word, and Rachel could only guess his wants by mute signs. During all this time her thoughts had scarcely glanced at Walter. He seemed anxious about the condition of his uncle, calling repeatedly at the bedroom door, and going away without entering. But his manner indicated no affection, if it did not rather seem that he considered the old man had done his worst against him, and that sorrow was not due from one he had disinherited. Her affections were too much engrossed by her patient to permit her thinking of what was being transacted in the outside world. Yet, when she looked upon the face of the invalid, so pale and motionless, where so long the shades of grief and the lights of joy had chased each other, by the old decree of human destiny, the words of Paul would occur to her. Was the death that was there impending the result of a more necessary law than that which had ruled every other condition of body or mind which had ever been experienced by the patient sufferer? Then there came the question, Could Walter Grierson so regulate his heart as to force it to love her in preference to Agnes Ainslie? Could she, Rachel herself, so rule her feelings as to cease loving the man she still suspected of falsehood and treachery? It was even while she was thus ruminating over thoughts that made her tremble, that she observed, on the third night, a change in her patient. He seemed to start by the advent of some recollection. His body became restless, and he waved his hand wildly, as if he wanted her to bend over him, to hear what he might struggle to say. She immediately obeyed the sign. He fixed his eyes upon her, made efforts to articulate, which resulted only in a thick, broken gibberish. She could only catch one or two indistinct words, from which it seemed that he wished to tell her where she would find the will; but the precise phrase whereby he wished to indicate the deposit was pronounced in such an imperfect manner that she could not make it out. Strangely enough, yet still consistently with the generosity of her character, she did not like to pain him by indicating that she did not understand him. Nay, she nodded pleasantly, as if she wanted him to be easy, under the satisfaction that he had succeeded in his efforts to articulate. Yet so far was she from thinking of the importance of the communication to herself, that she flattered him into the belief that, as he could now speak so as to be understood, he was in the way of improving. Alas for the goodness which is evil to the heart that produces it!

"There are of plants
That die of too much generosity—
Exhaling their sweet life in essences."

Paul would have said that this too was a cropping out of the old causal strata. In two hours more, David Grierson was dead, and Rachel was left to mourn for her parent and benefactor.

Now the issues were accumulating. A very short time only was allowed to elapse before Mr. Ainslie, accompanied by Walter, came to seal up the repositories; an operation which was gone through in a manner which indicated that both of them thought they were locking up and making secure that which would destroy their hopes. They seemed under the conviction that the will was in the bureau; and if they had been men otherwise than merely what, as the world goes, are called honest, they might have abstracted the document; for the generous Rachel never even looked at their proceedings, grieved as she was at the death of her father. They were, at least, above that.

In a few days David Grierson was consigned to the earth, and, after the funeral, Mr. Ainslie, accompanied by Walter, again attended to open the repositories and read the testament. Rachel agreed to be present. When the seals were removed, she was asked by the notary if she knew where the document was deposited. She now felt the consequence of the easy manner in which she had let slip the opportunity so dearly offered by her father, of knowing the locale of a writ in all respects so important; for it cannot be doubted that, if she had persevered, she might have succeeded in drawing out of him the word, articulated so as that she might have comprehended it. She accordingly, yet without any anticipation of danger, answered in the negative, whereupon the notary and nephew, who seemed to be on the most friendly terms, set about a search. Rachel remained. A whole hour was passed in the search; the will was not yet found. Every drawer of the bureau was examined,—the presses, the cabinets, the table-drawers, the trunks. And so another hour passed—no will. Rachel began to get alarmed, and perhaps the more that she saw upon the faces of the searchers an expression which she could not comprehend. Their spirits seemed to have become elated as hers became depressed; yet why should that have been, if Walter Grierson was to be "true to his troth?"

"We need search no more," said Mr. Ainslie. "The will is not in the house. I should say it is not in existence, and that Mr. Grierson, having changed his mind, had destroyed it."