With the inmates1 of Withington Chase two uneventful years glided4 imperceptibly away. Between Sir Gilbert and his wife the name of the proscribed5 heir was never mentioned; to all seeming he had vanished out of their lives as completely as if he had never existed. That his image still dwelt more or less in his father's thoughts was only in the natural order of things, but to faithful Mr. Page alone, from whom the baronet had few or no secrets, did Alec's name ever cross his lips, and to him no oftener than was unavoidable.
The lawyer had duly remitted6 his quarterly allowance to the young man, forwarding it now to one obscure continental7 town and now to another, in accordance with Alec's written request; but, beyond that, nothing whatever was known of him or his whereabouts.
Then one day the baronet received a letter from his son, dated from Catanzaro, a small out-of-the-way town in southern Italy.
In it the writer stated that he was utterly8 tired of the idle, purposeless life he had been leading for the past two years, and that if his father would agree to give him six thousand pounds down, he would emigrate to the United States and never trouble him for another shilling as long as he lived. But he would do more, much more, than that, should his father consent to his proposition. In that case he would agree to the cutting off of the entail9 and would sign whatever documents might be needful for the due carrying out of that design. Sir Gilbert sat staring at the letter after he had finished reading it like a man whose faculties10 had been paralysed by sheer amazement11.
So absorbed was his attention that he was unconscious of the door behind him being opened and of the entry of his wife. Her footfalls made no noise on the thick carpet. She went up behind him and was on the point of placing a hand on his shoulder, when her gaze vas attracted to the letter which lay spread open on the writing-table in front of him.
Lady Clare was more than a score of years younger than her husband and her eyesight was still as keen as ever it had been. Half-a-dozen seconds sufficed her to take in the sense of Alec's letter, the handwriting of which she had at once recognised. A little gasp12 escaped her before she knew it. An instant later the baronet had started to his feet, and was confronting her with flaming eyes; involuntarily his hand closed over the letter.
"Madam, I am not in the habit of being startled in this way," he said, "nor do I like it."
"On the contrary, dear, it was you who startled me," she replied in her blandest13 accents, with a hand pressed to her left side. "Of course I naturally supposed that you had heard the door opened and shut, and was on the point of addressing you when you started up as if you had been shot."
"Humph! I have had occasion before to-day to beg of you not to be quite so feline14 in your movements," he answered with something like a snarl15. "Did you--did you read any portion of the letter that was on the table in front of me?"
"My dear Gilbert, what do you take me for! That there was a letter there, I am aware, but as for reading as much as a line of it----"
"There, there, that will do. Just ring the bell, will you, and then tell me what you want to see me about."
When the servant came in response to the summons, he said: "Tell Graves to bring the dog-cart round at once."
Ten minutes later saw Sir Gilbert on his way to Mapleford with his son's letter in his pocket. In such a contingency16 he felt that he could not do better than seek the advice of his valued counsellor.
Mr. Page, a tall, lanky17, somewhat loose-jointed man, with a long thin face, a prominent nose and an expression that was a curious compound of hard common sense, shrewdness and good-nature, gave vent3 to a low whistle when he had come to the end of Alec's epistle.
"What an exceedingly foolish young man!" were his first words.
"Why so, pray--why so?" demanded the baronet with a lifting of his eyebrows18.
"To offer to sell his birthright for a mess of pottage--for that is what he here proposes to do."
"Six thousand pounds is a large sum, Page."
"In itself it may perhaps seem so, but what is it in comparison with the reversion of Withington Chase and the other entailed19 property? Why, it's not equivalent to one year's rent-roll! A very foolish young man!"
"It is to be presumed that he knows his own business best," remarked the baronet drily. "Besides, you seem to forget the many hundreds of pounds--nay, I may say thousands--that I have had to disburse20 at different times by reason of his extravagance."
The lawyer shook his head.
"There's more under the surface, I feel convinced, than either you or I yet know of." Then, after a pause, during which he seemed lost in thought, he added, "I should not be in the least surprised if a woman were at the bottom of this business."
The baronet was startled.
"That is a possibility which did not suggest itself to me," he said. "It would, indeed, be just like Alec to finish up his career by contracting a low marriage." Then with a shrug21 he added: "But he can please himself about that when once the proposition embodied22 by him in his letter has been duly carried into effect."
"Then you really mean to accept his offer to cut off the entail?"
"I do. If I had any hesitation23 before, your last suggestion would have effectually disposed of it. I am certainly inclined to believe that you have hit upon the real reason which underlies24 his offer. Well, I am glad he has sufficient sense and good-feeling left to betake himself to a country where there's not a creature who knows him. In that case a mésalliance on his part will be a matter of very minor25 consequence. And now let us consider by what means we can most readily lay our hands on six thousand pounds."
A week later Sir Gilbert and Mr. Page set out for Italy.
It had never been the baronet's practice to take his wife into his confidence about matters which, from his point of view, did not concern her, consequently he had kept his own counsel as far as Alec's letter and its contents were concerned. It would be time enough to tell her after the all-important document should have been signed by which Alec renounced27 his birthright. He began to regard young Randolph, the present Lady Clare's eldest28 son, with very different eyes from those with which he had hitherto looked upon the boy. A few more days and he would be the heir of Withington. The pity of it was that the title could not descend29 to him as well as the estates. That was a point as to which the law was manifestly to blame.
Lady Clare betrayed not the slightest interest as to the nature of the business which was taking her husband and Mr. Page all the way to Italy. So well did she play her part that no faintest suspicion entered Sir Gilbert's mind that she had any knowledge of the existence of Alec's letter, much less of the nature of its contents. She judged, and rightly, that her husband would not have been at the trouble to go to Italy and take his lawyer with him, unless he had agreed to accept the terms proposed by his eldest son. After all, then, the one great grievance30 of her life would cease to exist, and her darling Randolph would become his father's heir, as he ought to have been all along! Only herself knew with what eager anxiety she awaited her husband's return. Surely, surely, he would not be so cruel as to keep the good news from her an hour after it should be his to tell! He could not fail to know how happy it would make her.
The theory propounded31 by Mr. Page as to the motive32 which lay at the foundation of Alec's letter to his father, was not very wide of the mark. Had it not been for a certain pair of brilliant black eyes, in all probability it would never have been written.
About six months before, in the course of his aimless wanderings Alec had found himself and his very limited luggage at Catanzaro, a small but romantically situated33 Calabrian town, a few miles inland from the Gulf34 of Squillace.
The place had pleased him and he had made up his mind to stay there awhile.
He had accordingly taken up his quarters at the principal osteria, kept by one Giuseppe Rispani. Alec lived very simply, and, of late, had learnt to confine his wants within narrow limits, so that his father's allowance, conjointly with his own income of one hundred and eighty pounds a year, amply sufficed for all his needs.
Rispani was a widower35 with one son, who had lately left home for England in the hope of bettering his fortunes, and one daughter, Giovanna by name, at that time a beautiful girl of nineteen.
Rispani's wife had been an Englishwoman, whom he had married for the sake of her little fortune of five hundred pounds, while she had married him for his beaux yeaux; for in early life the Italian had been a very handsome man, with a soft tongue and a persuasive36 manner which poor Miss Verinder had found it impossible to resist.
The Signora Rispani, who at one time had been a governess, and, later on, companion to a lady of rank, was a woman of considerable education and refinement37. She took great pains with the tuition and bringing up of her daughter, and to her mother Giovanna owed it that she was almost as familiar with the English tongue as the Italian.
Unfortunately the Signora died when Giovanna was about thirteen years old, just the age when a mother's care and watchfulness38 were most needed, for the girl's disposition39, like her father's, was cold, calculating, and avaricious40; and when the one person was gone whose untiring effort it had been to keep down the weeds of selfishness and greed of which her nature was so prolific--for the Signora had by no means been blind to her daughter's defects--it was not difficult to foretell41 what the result would be.
If Giuseppe Rispani had known anything of the doctrine42 of heredity, he might have pointed43 to his daughter as a living example of it as far as the reproduction in her of certain of his own most predominant qualities was concerned.
In appearance Giovanna was a true daughter of the sunny South.
Her figure was tall, with a certain stateliness of carriage that became her well. Her complexion45 was of the clearest and most transparent46 olive, her eyes and hair as black as midnight, while her features were almost classic in the regularity47 of their outlines. In any country in the world Giovanna Rispani would have been accounted a very beautiful young woman.
Vanna had not reached the age of nineteen without having had several suitors, eligible48 and otherwise, for her hand, but to one and all she had turned a deaf ear. Her father had in no wise tried to influence her choice, being, indeed, firmly persuaded in his own mind that it would have been futile49 to attempt to do so; but had merely laughed pleasantly as each baffled aspirant50 went his way, and remarked that Vanna, had plenty of time before her in which to make up her mind.
Alec Clare had not been many days an inmate2 of the osteria of the Golden Fig44 before it became clear to Vanna Rispani, that in the tall, handsome young Englishman, she had achieved another conquest.
Vanna had never made a practice of waiting on her father's guests, holding herself, indeed, somewhat haughtily51 aloof52, but she condescended53 to wait on Alec. It was not his looks that attracted her, but the fact that in him she found some one who could talk to her in her mother's native tongue.
She was proud of her ability to speak English, but it was an acquisition which had been in some danger of becoming rusty54 from disuse; now, however, a day rarely passed without she and Alec having at least one long talk together. To him, too, who had lived for the last two years among what might be termed the byeways of life, it was an inexpressible pleasure to have lighted on some one with whom he could converse55 in his own tongue; for although by this time he could speak Italian almost as fluently as a native, his thoughts and self-communings were all couched in the language to which he had been born.
Giovanna was wholly free from self-consciousness and mauvaise honte; she was as self-possessed as a woman twice her age; consequently there was a charming ease and naturalness in her intercourse56 with Alec, which he found increasingly fascinating as time went on.
It was surprising what a number of things they found to talk about, and how naturally one subject seemed to lead up to another. If sometimes Alec's talk went a little over the girl's head, if he now and then started a subject which for her was devoid57 of interest, she was careful not to betray the fact. She might be secretly bored, but her lips never lost their smile, nor her eyes their sparkle.
The heir of Withington Chase lingered on week after week in the little Italian town till a couple of months had gone by, without caring to ask himself why he did so.
At length the time came when he had neither the power nor the will to tear himself away. Self-deception was a species of weakness in which he had never indulged; he had always dealt frankly58 with himself, and he did so now. He was in love with the innkeeper's daughter, and he admitted it. More than once, in years gone by, his fancy had been taken captive, but in every case the day had come, and that after no long time, when he had snapped the silken thread that loosely held him, and had gone on his way again, heart whole and fancy free.
But it was no frail59 silken chain that held him now: he was a helpless captive bound hand and foot in Love's golden fetters60.
When, however, he asked himself what prospect61 there was of his passion being reciprocated62, he could but reply that he had no grounds whatever for answering the question in his own favour. That Vanna sought his society and that she derived63 a certain amount of pleasure from it, could not be doubted; but, on the other hand, every one of those signs was wanting which are supposed to foreshadow the dawn of love in a young girl's heart. She was as easy and unembarrassed in his company as in that of her father, which, of itself; seemed to indicate the absence of any special regard for him. And yet there were times when an inscrutable something glanced at him for a moment out of the depths of her magnificent eyes and kindled64 a sudden flame of hope in his heart, which, if it quickly died down again, left behind it a certain glow less evanescent than itself.
At length a time arrived when it became clear to Alec that matters between himself and Vanna could not go on much longer as they were. The state of uncertainty65 in which he lived was fast becoming intolerable to him. Not much longer could he keep silent. He would give words to the passion that was consuming him and win all or lose all by the result.
On more than one occasion in the course of their many talks together, Giovanna had so far opened her mind as to confide26 to Alec the longing66 which beset67 her to get away from the dull and narrow routine of her life in her native town. She wanted to see something of the world, to live a larger and freer existence in some country beyond the sea.
Probably it was owing to the influence of these talks that the inception68 of the scheme was due which, a few weeks later, Alec embodied in his letter to his father.
Should the latter prove willing to give him the sum he had specified69, he would ask Giovanna to become his wife, and if she consented, he would seek with her a home in the New World, where his six thousand pounds would, he confidently hoped, prove the corner-stone from which to build up one of those colossal70 fortunes in comparison with which the revenues of Withington Chase would seem insignificant71 indeed. In any case, as he truthfully stated in his letter, he was heartily72 sick of the idle, purposeless existence he had been leading for a couple of years. For aught he knew to the contrary, his father might never revoke73 the promise extracted from him not to return to England till leave should be given him to do so.
Meanwhile his life was slowly rusting74 away.
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1
inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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inmate
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| n.被收容者；(房屋等的)居住人；住院人 | |
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vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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proscribed
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| v.正式宣布（某事物）有危险或被禁止( proscribe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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remitted
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| v.免除（债务），宽恕( remit的过去式和过去分词 )；使某事缓和；寄回，传送 | |
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continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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entail
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| vt.使承担，使成为必要，需要 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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blandest
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| adj.（食物）淡而无味的( bland的最高级 )；平和的；温和的；无动于衷的 | |
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feline
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| adj.猫科的 | |
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snarl
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| v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮 | |
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contingency
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| n.意外事件，可能性 | |
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lanky
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| adj.瘦长的 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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entailed
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| 使…成为必要( entail的过去式和过去分词 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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disburse
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| v.支出，拨款 | |
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shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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24
underlies
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| v.位于或存在于（某物）之下( underlie的第三人称单数 )；构成…的基础（或起因），引起 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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confide
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| v.向某人吐露秘密 | |
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renounced
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| v.声明放弃( renounce的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布放弃；宣布与…决裂；宣布摒弃 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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31
propounded
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| v.提出（问题、计划等）供考虑[讨论]，提议( propound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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persuasive
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| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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watchfulness
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| 警惕，留心； 警觉（性） | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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avaricious
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| adj.贪婪的，贪心的 | |
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foretell
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| v.预言，预告，预示 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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fig
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| n.无花果(树) | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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regularity
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| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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48
eligible
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| adj.有条件被选中的；(尤指婚姻等)合适(意)的 | |
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49
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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50
aspirant
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| n.热望者；adj.渴望的 | |
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51
haughtily
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| adv. 傲慢地, 高傲地 | |
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52
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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53
condescended
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| 屈尊，俯就( condescend的过去式和过去分词 )； 故意表示和蔼可亲 | |
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54
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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55
converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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56
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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57
devoid
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| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
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58
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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59
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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60
fetters
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| n.脚镣( fetter的名词复数 )；束缚v.给…上脚镣，束缚( fetter的第三人称单数 ) | |
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61
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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62
reciprocated
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| v.报答，酬答( reciprocate的过去式和过去分词 )；（机器的部件）直线往复运动 | |
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63
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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64
kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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65
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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66
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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inception
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| n.开端，开始，取得学位 | |
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69
specified
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| adj.特定的 | |
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70
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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71
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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72
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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73
revoke
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| v.废除，取消，撤回 | |
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74
rusting
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| n.生锈v.（使）生锈( rust的现在分词 ) | |
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