University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.

When I reached home, I discovered by the first
glance at Jane that she had heard all from Douglas,
who had been there. At the same time a
mysterious look, as she rolled up her eyes, lifted
one hand, and heaved a short sigh, told me that the
secret was known to herself alone of all the household.
As soon as she could catch me alone she
exclaimed,

“Oh, William! to think of the mischief that my
indiscretion was so near producing!”

“You are mistaken as to the cause, Jane,” said I.

“Oh no!” said she, “I know. Douglas told me
it was the effect of my foolish speech to him, which
he repeated to Howard. Though, to tell the truth,
I don't see that I am so much to blame, for how
did I know that Howard was crazy enough to
quarrel about such a thing. Indeed I am glad to

hear you say that I was not the cause of the
quarrel.”

“I said that your indiscretion was not the cause.
You are never indiscreet, Jane. I almost wish
you were sometimes.”

“Gracious Heaven, William!” she exclaimed,
with a look of horror quite theatrical; “you do
not mean to impute to me any design to bring about
such consequences?”

“Nothing like it,” said I. “No design at all.
Nothing but a perfect indifference to consequences
which you did not foresee might react on yourself.”

She now looked at me with an expression of
undissembled amazement. Up to this time she
had always used freely the elder sister's privilege
of rebuking my faults. Of hers I had never presumed
to speak. But the tone of calm displeasure
in which I spoke reversed our position at once,
and she said with an air of anxious humility,

“William! what does this mean?”

“Nothing,” replied I, “but that I would not
have you deceive yourself, and so aggravate a real
fault by endeavouring to correct one which is altogether
imaginary.”

“And what is that real fault, brother?” said she,
meekly.

“Selfishness,” replied I.

“Selfishness! selfishness!” screamed Jane, indignantly,
and immediately endeavouring to resume
the ascendant. “Selfish! I who—but I won't be

my own trumpeter. But you know enough to
know, William, that I am anything but selfish.”

“I know you think so, Jane, and I say this to
undeceive you. Were I merely disposed to wound,
I might call it malevolence; but it is not that.”

“Selfishness and malevolence!” said she. “I
selfish and malevolent? I who—”

“I know what you would say,” I replied. “The
proofs of benevolence to which you would appeal
are no secret. If they were, I might judge of them
differently. But I am not mistaken. Now look
at this business. Had you not been wrapped up
in your own schemes, could you not have spared
enough of sympathy to me, and gratitude to one to
whom we both owe so much, to refrain from applying
to Balcombe the epithet of matchmaker?
Could you not have heard of the late occurrence
with pleasure at the escape of our friends, instead
of losing all other interest in the affair but that
which grew out of your own part in it? Could
you not bear the well meant remonstrance of a
brother, without endeavouring to put him in the
wrong, by imputing to him words he never uttered?
Did I say you were malevolent?”

“You said malevolence,” said she.

“Still struggling for victory,” replied I, “still
all for self. I did say malevolence. I said I did
not impute to you malevolence. Was not that
it?”

“That was not what you meant,” said she.

“Am I then in the habit,” asked I, “of saying
one thing when I mean another?”

She half raised her eyes and looked spitefully at
me, but did not dare to say “Yes.” But she
would say nothing else, and so her spirit again
gave way, and she burst into tears.

I would not have the reader suppose I saw this
with indifference. A woman in tears, and that
woman my sister, was no pleasant sight. But I
manned myself to bear it, and saw her through a
fit of hysterics without running away, or calling
for help. What I had begun I determined to go
through with. She at length reached that point
of exhaustion at which the pathetic seems more
practicable than any other mode of eloquence, and
lifting up her hands and eyes, exclaimed plaintively,

“Oh me! to be accused of selfishness by my
own brother!”

“Was it then a brother,” asked I, “whose hopes
of happiness you sought to destroy for the chance
of bettering yours?”

“Good Heaven, William!” she exclaimed, with
well acted amazement, “what do you mean?”

“Did you not tell my father and Ann,” I asked,
“that Miss Howard had avowed a decided preference
for me?”

“I said I had been told so by another,” was the
reply.

“By a confidential friend. Was it not so?”

“I said I was told that the communication was
made in confidence.”

“And the object of that confidence was—Sally
Grey! The silly, flippant, indiscreet, and vulgar
Sally Grey, the confidant of the highminded, delicate,
refined, intellectual Margaret Howard! I
will not ask you, Jane, if you believed that. But
I will ask you if you did not tell Ann that I was
engaged to Miss Howard?”

“I told her everybody said so.”

“And believing it yourself, doubtless, you encouraged
her to believe it.”

“And what right had I to doubt it?” she asked.

“You could not believe it,” I replied, “because
you were in the secret. I was not. But you and
Douglas perfectly understood how it was that Miss
Howard and I were thrown so much together.
He is an honourable young fellow. Are you content
that he should know that you encouraged Ann
to believe it, and that the notable device of keeping
her room unless I would promise eternal silence
was of your suggestion?”

“Oh, William!” she exclaimed, with an alarmed
look.

“Douglas,” I continued, “does know of the interdict.
Does he know how it was brought about?
Your silence says no. And though your love for
him prompted the deception, yet for the world
you would not have him know it. What is it,
Jane, that bribes conscience, and makes it a more

lenient judge than a devoted lover? Can selfishness
achieve a greater triumph?”

She made no answer, but at length sobbed out
in a reproachful and querulous tone,

“I have no home but yours; no protector but
you.”

“Still harping on self,” said I. “Will it not
even suffer you to remember that none of us has
any home. That your mother has no home? And
if you ever have a home, at least while you are
single, you will owe it to one who has perilled his
life to serve you, and towards whom you have
never permitted yourself to feel one sentiment of
gratitude.”

“I am sure,” said she, “he never did anything
on my account, and does not care a straw what
becomes of me.”

“And therefore you, who are not at all selfish,
wantonly asperse and endanger the life of one,
whose only merit is his gratitude to your grandfather,
and his generous devotion to your brother,
because, if he serves you at all, it will be but incidentally.”

She saw that in her eagerness to defend herself
she had given up her cause, and again had recourse
to tears. I went on:

“As to your having no protector, Jane, but me,
that is true, and I therefore am doing the duty of
one, painful as it is. It is my duty to free your
mind from the delusions which self-love, and the
flattery of a certain clique of sentimentalists, have

palmed on you for truth. I have no wish to mortify
you. You have qualities of the highest order,
which fit you to be the happiness or the torment of
your friends. Which you shall be depends on
your coming to a right understanding of yourself.
Learn to bear the thought that others may be
happy, without owing their happiness to you, and
then, if you cannot make them so, you will at least
not make them wretched. Look into your own
heart, and you will see that there has been the
root of all this bitterness. Instead, therefore, of
cherishing angry feelings against your brother,
remember that he not only forgave his own
wrongs, but forbore to speak of them. Let that
be my pledge, that having done my duty now, you
shall not find me inclined to recur to this unpleasant
topic. On the contrary, assure yourself, that I
shall never fail in the respect and tenderness due
to a lady and a sister.”

Saying this, I took her hand, and she, subdued
and softened, threw her arms around my neck,
and now wept penitential and salutary tears.

As the affair between Balcombe and Howard
was no longer a secret, I made no scruple of telling
the whole story to my mother and Ann. I knew
they would hear it all after I was gone, and I
wished to witness the pleasure with which Ann
would look on this new display of the noble qualities
of her friend. She was by this time as far
gone as I in confidence in the resources of Balcombe;
and if he had promised her the crown of

China, she would hardly have doubted the fulfilment
of the promise.

The next day I left home, and went as far as
the house of Mr. W—, the lawyer mentioned by
Major Swann, and the day after we rode together
to Raby Hall.

I was pleased to find the old gentleman only so
much indisposed with a slight rheumatism, as to
make it unadvisable to go from home at that inclement
season. James had in a great measure
recovered his spirits. He seemed quite domesticated
at the hall, and happy in the free use of
books which he read with his sister. In her I saw
no change, except that she had been drawn out by
degrees from that shrinking reserve to which she
had condemned herself, and now showed in conversation
the same superiority of intellect of which
I had seen so many other proofs. What punishment
could be too severe for the wretch by whose
villany such a woman had been lost to the world
and to herself?

Mr. W—, whose business required his presence
elsewhere, at once betook himself to that
which brought him to Raby Hall. He did no
sleep until he had done his work, and next morning
left us immediately after breakfast.

Before his departure, he admonished Mr. Swann
that it was proper he should send the answer and
packet by some confidential person, and turning to
me, added,

“No person can be more worthy of such confidence

than yourself, Mr. Napier; but you will
nevertheless see that this paper should reach the
court without ever having been in your hands.”

I felt the justice of this, and therefore did not
touch it; though I saw, with some anticipation of
disappointment, that the packet was too large to
contain merely such a will as my father's memorandum
spoke of. I saw, too, where the scorched
envelope had crumbled away, nothing but the appearance
as of an old newspaper. But a moment's
reflection satisfied me, that whatever unimportant
papers it might contain, there was certainly some
document there of great consequence, and that
Montague was especially anxious to keep that
from falling into my hands. Why else had my
appearance broken up his repose, and determined
him even to risk his life to destroy it or possess
himself of it?

After some reflection, the major determined to
ask James to take charge of the packet, which he
agreed to do, and it was settled that we should go
together. The next day but one was court day,
and the distance almost too great for a day's ride.
I had intended to go as far as Tapahannock that
evening, but James could not be ready until morning.
I therefore determined to wait for him.

Walking out in the evening, I met a man
mounted on a fine roan horse, of remarkable action
and fleetness. I thought I had rarely seen one
that got over the ground with so much ease to
himself and his rider. I turned as he moved

rapidly by, and remarked the fine and vigorous
movements of the animal as he went from me.
Charles was not far behind me, and I saw the
horseman stop and speak to him. He then passed
on, and I waited till Charles came up.

“Who was that, Charles?” said I.

“I don't know, sir. He stranger to me
master.”

“What did he want with you?”

“Just ask me if that was you, sir, and if you
was going to start to Fredericksburg this evening
He say he want company.”

“And what did you tell him?” said I, not liking
to give my company to one so free of his.

“I tell him, sir, I hear 'em say you wasn't going
to start 'fore morning. Then he say you have
mighty long ride, and I tell him you got a good
horse, carry you to Fredericksburg mighty hand
before bedtime.”

Returning to the house, I sat with Mr. Swann
who could not take his usual exercise, and to whom
therefore, a companion was more necessary that
usual. Before I came in he had been talking with
James, who no sooner found me engaged in conversation
than he resumed his book. Our thought
necessarily ran on Montague and his machination
and we spoke of him, forgetting the presence of
poor James. I am not sure that the major was
aware of his ignorance of his sister's history. Be
that as it may, he let fall some expression which
struck on James's ear with a shock that made him

spring into the middle of the floor. Startled at
this movement, I looked at him, and saw him staring
wildly on the major. At length he recovered
himself enough to ask the meaning of what he had
heard. Unluckily the major gave an answer, which
he perceived to be designedly evasive.

The change in his whole appearance and manner
at once made me sensible of the reason of Mary's
caution to Balcombe concerning him. I have
never seen the wildness of rage and desperation
so displayed as in his countenance. The glare of
his eye, the paleness of his face, the blackness
about the mouth, and the foam that gathered at its
corners, as he stood grinding his teeth in silence,
were horrible to behold. At last he exclaimed, “I
will know the truth,” and rushed from the room.

I afterward learned that he had found Charles,
and wrung from him the whole story, which he had
probably heard from his mother.