The Lamplighter Part 51

"Nonsensical and false as such a rumour is, it will, if it should reach Miss Clinton, be a source of annoyance to her; and on that account, I regret the circ.u.mstances which have probably given rise to it."

"Do you refer to considerations of delicacy on the lady's part, or have you the modesty to believe that her pride would be wounded by having her name thus coupled with that of her father's junior partner, a young man hitherto unknown to fas.h.i.+onable circles? But, excuse me; perhaps I am stepping on dangerous ground."

"By no means, sir; you wrong me if you believe my pride to be of such a nature. But I have not only reference to both the motives you name, but to many others, when I a.s.sert my opinion of the resentment Miss Clinton would probably cherish if your remarks should reach her ears."

"Mr. Sullivan," said Mr. Amory, "are you sure you are not standing in your own light? Are you aware that undue modesty with false notions of refinement has oft prevented many a man's good fortune, and is likely to interfere with your own?"

"How so, sir? You speak in riddles, and I am ignorant of your meaning."

"Handsome young fellows, like you, can often command any amount of property for the asking; but many such chances rarely occur to one individual; and the world will laugh at you if you waste so fair an opportunity as you now have."

"Opportunity for what? You surely do not mean to advise me----"

"I do, though. I am older than you are, and I know something of the world. A fortune is not made in a day, nor is money to be despised. Mr.

Clinton's life is almost worn out in toiling after that wealth which will soon be the inheritance of his daughter. She is young, beautiful, and the pride of that high circle in which she moves. Both father and daughter smile upon you; you need not look disconcerted--I speak as between friends, and you know the truth of that which strangers have observed, and which I have frequently heard mentioned as beyond doubt.

Why do you hesitate!"

"Mr. Phillips," said Willie, with embarra.s.sment, "the comments of mere casual acquaintances, such as most of those with whom Miss Clinton a.s.sociated in Saratoga, are not to be depended upon. The relations in which I stand towards Mr. Clinton have been such as to draw me into constant intercourse with himself and his daughter. He is almost without relatives, has scarcely any trustworthy friend at command, and therefore appears to the world more favourably disposed towards me than would be found to be the case should I aspire to his daughter's hand. The lady, too, has so many admirers, that it would be vanity in me to believe----"

"Pooh, pooh!" exclaimed Mr. Phillips, "tell that, Sullivan, to a greater novice, a more unsophisticated individual, than I am! It is very becoming in you to say so; but a few reminders will hardly harm a youth who has such a low opinion of his own merits. Pray, who was the gentleman for whose society Miss Clinton was, a few nights since, so ready to forego the music of Alboni, the crowded hall, and the smiles of a train of adorers?"

Willie said, "I remember!--That, then, was one of the causes of suspicion. I was then a messenger merely, to summon Miss Isabel to the bedside of her father, by whom I had been watching for hours, and who, on awakening from a lethargic sleep, which alarmed the physician, eagerly inquired for his daughter, that I did not hesitate to interrupt the pleasure of the evening and call her to the post of duty in the cottage occupied by Mr. Clinton, at the extremity of the grounds, to which I accompanied her by moonlight."

Mr. Amory laughed, cast upon Willie that look of benignity which became his fine countenance, and exclaimed, "So much for watering-place gossip!

I must forbear speaking of any further evidences of a tender interest manifested by either of you. But believe, dear Sullivan, that though the young lady's heart be still, like her fortune, in the united keeping of herself and her father, there is nothing easier than for you to win and claim them both. You possess business talent indispensable to the elder party; if, with your handsome face, figure, and accomplishments, you cannot render yourself equally so to the younger, there is no one to blame but yourself."

Willie laughed. "If I had that object in view, I know of no one to whom I would so soon come for encouragement as to you, sir; but the flattering prospect you hold out is quite wasted upon me."

Mr. Amory said, "I cannot believe you will be so foolish as to neglect the opportunity of taking that stand in life to which your education and qualities ent.i.tle you. Your father was a respectable clergyman; you profited by every advantage in your youth, and have done yourself such credit in India as would enable you, with plenty of capital at command, to take the lead in a few years among mercantile men. A man just returned from a long residence abroad is thought to be an easy prey to the charms of the first of his fair countrywomen into whose society he may be thrown; and it can scarcely be wondered at, if you are subdued by such winning attractions as are rarely to be met with in this land of beautiful women. Nor can it be possible that you have for six years toiled beneath an Indian sun without learning to appreciate the looked-for but happy termination of your toils, whose crowning blessing will be the possession of your beautiful bride."

"Mr. Phillips," said Willie, speaking with decision and energy, which proved how heart-felt were the words he uttered, "I have not spent many of the best years of my life toiling beneath a burning sun, and in exile from all that I held most dear, without being sustained by high hopes, aims, and aspirations. But you misjudge me greatly if you believe that the ambition that has spurred me on can find its gratification in those rewards which you have so vividly presented to my imagination. No, sir!

believe me, I aspire to something higher yet, and should think my best efforts wasted if my hopes tended not to a still more glorious good."

"And to what quarter do you look for the fulfilment of such prospects?"

asked Mr. Amory.

"Not to the gay circles of fas.h.i.+on," replied Willie, "nor yet to that moneyed aristocracy which awards to each man his position in life. I do not depreciate an honourable standing in the eyes of my fellow-men; I am not blind to the advantages of wealth, or to the claims of grace and beauty; but these were not the things for which I left my home, and it is not to claim them that I have returned. Young as I am, I have seen enough of trial to believe that the only blessings worth striving for are something more enduring, more satisfying, than precarious wealth or fleeting smiles."

"To what, then, I ask, do you look forward?"

"To a _home_, and that not so much for myself as for another, with whom I hope to share it. A year since"--and Willie's lip trembled, his voice faltered--"there were others, besides that dear one whose image now fills my heart, whom I had fondly hoped, and should have rejoiced, to see reaping the fruits of my exertions. But we were not permitted to meet again; and now--but pardon me, sir; I would not trouble you with my private affairs."

"Go on," said Mr. Amory; "I deserve some confidence in return for the disinterested advice I have been giving you. Speak to me as to an old friend; I am much interested in what you say."

"It is long since I have spoken freely of myself," said Willie, "but frankness is natural to me, and, since you profess a desire to learn something of my aim in life, I know of no motive I have for reserve or concealment. But my position, sir, even as a child, was singular; and excuse me if I briefly refer to it. I could not have been more than twelve or fourteen years of age when I began to realise the necessity which rested upon me. My widowed mother and her aged father were the only relatives I knew. One was feeble, delicate, and unequal to active exertion; the other was old and poor, being wholly dependent upon a small salary for officiating as s.e.xton of a neighbouring church. Yet in spite of these circ.u.mstances they maintained me for several years in comfort and decency, and gave me an excellent education.

"At an age when kites and marbles are so engrossing, I had an earnest desire to relieve my mother and grandfather of a part of their care and labour; and I obtained a situation, in which I was well treated and well paid, and which I retained until the death of my excellent master. Then, for a time, I felt bitterly the want of employment, and became despondent; a state of mind which was fostered by constant a.s.sociation with my desponding grandfather, who, having met with great disappointment in life, encouraged me not, but was ever hinting at the probability of my failing in every scheme for advancement.

"I have since thought his doubtings answered a good purpose; for nothing so urged me on to efforts as the desire to prove the mistaken nature of his gloomy predictions, and few things have given me more satisfaction than the a.s.surances I have received during the past few years that he came at last to a full conviction that my prosperity was established, and that one of his ill-fated family was destined to escape the trials of poverty.

"My mother was a quiet, gentle woman, small in person, with great simplicity, and some reserve of manner. She loved me like her own soul; she taught me everything I know of goodness; there is no sacrifice I would not have made for her happiness. I would have died to save her life; but we shall never meet again in this world, and I--I--am learning to be resigned.

"For these two, and one other, whom I shall speak of presently, I was ready to go away, and strive, and suffer, and be patient. The opportunity came and I embraced it. And soon one great object of my ambition was won; I was able to earn a competency for myself and for them. And I began to look forward to a day when my long looked-for return should render our happiness complete. I little thought then that the sad tidings of my grandfather's death were on their way, and the news of my mother's slow but sure decline so soon to follow. But they are both gone; and I should now be so solitary as almost to long to follow them but for one other, whose love will bind me to earth so long as she is spared."

"And she?" exclaimed Mr. Amory, with an eagerness which Willie, engrossed with his own thoughts, did not observe.

"Is a young girl," continued Willie, "without family, wealth, or beauty; but with a spirit so elevated as to make her great--a heart so n.o.ble as to make her rich--a soul so pure as to make her beautiful."

Mr. Amory's fixed attention, his evident waiting to hear more, emboldened Willie to add: "There lived in the same house which my grandfather occupied an old man, a city lamplighter. He was poorer even than we were, but there never was a better or a kinder-hearted person in the world. One evening, when engaged in his round of duty, he picked up and brought home a little ragged child, whom a cruel woman had thrust into the street to perish with cold, or die a more lingering death in the almshouse; for nothing but such devoted care as she received from my mother and Uncle True (so we always called our old friend) could have saved the half-starved creature from the consequences of long exposure and ill-treatment. Through their unwearied watching and efforts she was spared, to repay in after years more than all the love bestowed upon her. She was then miserably thin, and plain in her appearance, besides being possessed of a violent temper, which she had never been taught to restrain, and a stubbornness which resulted from her having long lived in opposition to all the world.

"All this, however, did not repel Uncle True, under whose loving influence new virtues and capacities soon began to manifest themselves.

In the atmosphere of love in which she now lived she soon became a changed being; and when, in addition to the example and precepts taught her at home, a divine light was shed upon her life by one who, herself sitting in darkness, casts a halo forth from her own spirit to illumine those of all who are blessed with her presence, she became, what she has ever since been, a being to love and to trust for a lifetime. For myself, there were no bounds to the affection I soon came to cherish for the little girl, to whom I was first attracted by compa.s.sion merely.

"We were constantly together; we had no thoughts, no studies, no pleasures, sorrows, or interests that were not shared. I was her teacher, her protector, the partner of all her childish amus.e.m.e.nts; and she was by turns an advising and sympathising friend. In this latter character she was indispensable to me, for she had a hopeful nature, and a buoyancy of spirit which imparted itself to me. I well remember when my kind employer died, and I was plunged in grief and despair, the confidence and energy with which she, then very young, inspired me. The relation between her and Uncle True was beautiful. Boy as I was I could not but view with admiration the old man's devoted love for the adopted darling of his latter years (his birdie, as he always called her), and the grateful affection which she bore him in return.

"During the first few years she was wholly dependent upon him, and seemed only a fond, affectionate child; but a time came at last when the case was reversed, and the old man, stricken with disease, became infirm and helpless. It was then that the beauty of her woman's nature shone forth triumphant; and, oh! how gently, child as she was, she guided his steps as he descended to the grave. Often have I gone to his room at midnight, fearing lest he might be in need of care which she in her youth and inexperience would be unable to render; and never shall I forget the little figure seated calmly by his bedside, at an hour when many of her years would be shrinking from fears conjured up by the night and the darkness, with a lamp dimly burning on a table before her, and she herself, with his hand in hers, sweetly soothing his wakefulness by her loving words, or with her eyes bent upon her little Bible, reading to him holy lessons. But all her care could not prolong his life; and just before I went to India he died, blessing G.o.d for the peace imparted to him through his gentle nurse.

"It was my task to soothe our little Gerty's sorrows, and do what I could to comfort her, an office which, before I left the country, I was rejoiced to transfer to the willing hands of the excellent blind lady who had long befriended both her and Uncle True. Before I went away, I solemnly committed to Gerty, who had in one instance proved herself both willing and able, the care of my mother and grandfather. She promised to be faithful to her trust; and n.o.bly was that promise kept. In spite of the unkindness and deep displeasure of Mr. Graham (the blind lady's father), upon whose bounty she had for a long time been dependent, she devoted herself heart and hand to the fulfilment of duties which in her eyes were sacred and holy. In spite of suffering, labour, watching, and privation, she voluntarily forsook ease and pleasure, and spent day and night in the patient service of friends whom she loved with a greater love than a daughter's, for it was that of a saint."

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE EXAMINATION.

"Certainly," said Mr. Amory, "I can well understand that a man of a generous spirit could hardly fail to cherish a deep and lasting grat.i.tude for one who devoted herself so disinterestedly to a toilsome attendance upon the last hours of beloved friends, to whose wants he himself was prevented from ministering; and the warmth with which you eulogise this girl does you credit, Sullivan. She must be a young person of great excellence to have fulfilled so well a promise of such remote date that it would probably have been ignored by a less disinterested friend.

"I can hardly believe that a young man who has had the ambition to mark out, and the energy to pursue, such a course on the road to fortune as you have thus far successfully followed, can have made a serious resolve to unite himself and his prospects with an insignificant little playmate, of unacknowledged birth, without beauty or fortune, unless there is already an engagement, by which he is bound, or he allows himself to be drawn on to matrimony by the belief that the highest compliment he can pay (namely, the offer of himself) will alone cancel the immense obligations under which he labours. May I ask if you are already shackled by promises?"

"I am not," replied Willie.

"Then listen a moment. My motives are friendly when I beg you not to act rashly in a matter which will affect the happiness of your own life; and to hear, with patience, too, if you can, the few words which I have to say on the subject. You must mistake, my young friend, if you believe that the happiness of Gerty, as you call her--a very ugly name--can be insured, any more than your own, by an ill-a.s.sorted union, of which you will both find cause to repent. You have not seen her for six years, think then of all that has happened in the meantime, and beware of acting with precipitation. You have all this time been living abroad in active life, growing in knowledge of the world, and its various phases of society. In India you witnessed a mode of life wholly different from that which prevails with us, or in European cities; but the independence, both of character and manner, which you there acquired fitted you admirably for the polished sphere of Parisian life, to which you were so suddenly introduced, and in which you met with such marked success.

"Notwithstanding the privilege you enjoy of being presented in polite circles as the friend of a man so well known and so much respected as Mr. Clinton, you cannot have been insensible to the marked attentions bestowed upon you by American residents abroad, or unaware of the advantage you enjoyed, on your return home, from having been known as the object of such favour. Though I did not meet you in Paris, I was there at the same time, and became acquainted with facts which you would have too much modesty to acknowledge. It is also evident that your pride must have been flattered by the favourable reception you have met, both abroad and at home, especially from the young and beautiful women who have honoured you with their smiles, and among whom she whose name the crowd already a.s.sociates with your own stands preeminent.

"When I think of all this, and of those pecuniary hopes you may indulge, and imagine you flinging all these aside to chivalrously throw yourself at the feet of your mother's little nurse, I find it impossible to keep silent and avoid reminding you of the disappointment that must ensue on finding yourself at once and for ever shut out from partic.i.p.ation in pleasures which have been within your reach and voluntarily discarded.

You must remember that much of the consideration which is paid to a young bachelor of growing prospects ceases to be awarded to him after marriage, and is never extended to his bride, unless she be chosen from the select circles to which he aspires. This unportioned orphan with whom you propose to share your fate--this little patient school-mistress----"

"I did not tell you she had ever been a teacher!" exclaimed Willie, stopping short in his walk up and down the room--"I did not tell you anything of the sort! How did you know it?"

Mr. Amory, who had thus betrayed more knowledge than he had been supposed to possess, hesitated a moment, but quickly recovering himself answered, with apparent frankness, "To tell the truth, Sullivan, I have seen the girl in company with an old doctor."

"Dr. Jeremy?" asked Willie, quickly.

"The same."

"When did you see her? How did it happen?"