The Finger of Fate: A Romance

The pony, but slightly injured, was got upon its feet; the page, half-drowned, was hoisted back to his pinnacle; and the carriage, with its frightened occupants, conducted safely to the shore.

Everybody left the ground with the belief that Miss Belle Mainwaring would at some day, not far distant, become Mrs Henry Harding. More especially did the country people believe it, and were delighted with the idea; for with them – as is generally the case – the younger brother was the favourite.

Chapter Six

The Gathering Cloud

At Beechwood Park there was comfort of every kind; but not that perfect tranquillity which its owner had counted upon, on retiring to this fair residence to pass the remainder of his days.

With his property all was well. Since his purchase of the estate – like other lands around – it had nearly doubled in value; and, so far as fortune was concerned, there was no source of uneasiness. But there was something else – something dearer to him than his houses and lands. Anxiety had arisen from the conduct of his sons. Notwithstanding their apparent cordiality in his presence, on both sides assumed, he had found reasons for believing there was no fraternal affection, but, instead, a tacit enmity between them. This was more openly exhibited on the part of the younger, but it was deep-rooted in the heart of his first-born. Henry, of a generous, forgiving nature, could at any time during college days have been induced to forego it, had his brother met him but half-way in any measure of reconciliation. But this Nigel never desired to do; and the early estrangement had now deepened into hostility – the cause, of course, being their rivalry in love.

It was a long time before the General knew of the dangerous cloud that was looming up on the horizon of his tranquil life. He had taken it for granted that his sons, like most of the young men so circumstanced, before thinking of marriage, would want to see something of the world. It did not occur to him that, in the eyes of an ardent youth, beautiful Belle Mainwaring was a world in herself, after seeing whom, all earth besides might present but a dull, prosaic aspect.

It was not this, however, that at first troubled the spirit of the retired officer, but only the behaviour of his boys. With Nigel’s he was contented enough. Than it, nothing could be more satisfactory, except in the estrangement towards his brother, and an occasional exhibition of ill-feeling which the father could not fail to perceive. It was Henry’s conduct that formed the chief source of the General’s anxiety – his extravagant habits, his proneness to dissipation, and once un apparent disobedience of paternal orders, which, though only in some trivial affair of expenditure, had been exaggerated by the secret representations of his elder brother into a matter of momentous importance. The counsels of the parent, not having been seriously taken to heart, soon became chidings; and these, in their turn, being alike unheeded, assumed the form of threats and hints about disinheritance.

Henry, who now deemed himself a man, met such reminders with a spirit of independence that only irritated his father to a still greater degree. In this unhappy way were things going on, when the General was made aware of a matter more affecting the future welfare of his son than all the dissipations and disobediences of which he had been guilty. It was his partiality for Miss Mainwaring. Of Nigel’s inclining toward the same quarter, he knew nothing; nor, indeed, did others; though almost everybody in the neighbourhood had long been aware of her conquest over Henry.

It was shortly after the incident at the stag-hunt that the General became apprised of it. That affair had led him to reflect; and, although proud of the gallantry his son had displayed, the old soldier saw in it a danger far greater than that of the struggle through which he had so conspicuously passed.

He was led to make inquiries, which resulted in a discovery giving him the greatest uneasiness. This arose from the fact, that he knew the antecedents of Mrs Mainwaring. He had known both her husband and herself in India; and this knowledge, so far from inspiring him with respect for the relict of his late brother-officer, had impressed him with the very opposite opinion. With the character of the daughter, he was, of course, less acquainted. The latter had grown up during a long period of separation; but from what he had seen and heard of her, since his arrival in England, and from what he was every day seeing and hearing, he had come to the conclusion, that it was a case of “like mother, like daughter.”

And, if so, it would not suit his views, that she should become daughter-in-law to him.

The thought filled him with serious alarm; and he at once set about concocting some scheme to counteract the danger. How was he to proceed? Deny his son the privilege of keeping company with her? Lay an embargo on his visits to the villa-cottage of the widow, which he now learned had been of late suspiciously frequent? It was a question whether his commands would be submitted to, and this thought still further irritated him.

Over the widow herself he had no authority, in any way. Though her cottage stood close to his park, it was not his property; her landlord was a lawyer, of little respect in the neighbourhood; and it would have served no purpose even could he have, himself, given her notice to quit. Things had already gone too far for such strategy as that.

As for the damsel herself, she was not going to hide her beautiful face from the gaze of his son, solely to accommodate him. It might not appear any more in his own dining, or drawing-room; but there were other places where it could be seen in all its bewitching beauty – in the church, or the hunting-field, – in the ball-room, and every day along the green lanes that encompassed Beechwood Park; there might it be seen, smiling coquettishly under the rim of a prettily-trimmed hat.

The old soldier was too skilled a tactician to believe, that any benefit could be obtained from an attack so open to repulses, and these of the most humiliating character. Some stratagem must be resorted to; and to the conception of this he determined to devote all the energies of his nature.

He had already, in his mind, the glimmering of a scheme that promised success; and this imparted a ray of comfort, that kept him from going quite out of his senses.

Chapter Seven

Plotters for Fortune

The stag-hunt, at which Henry Harding had exhibited such gallant courage, had been the very last of the season; and, soon after, spring stole over the shire of Bucks, clothing its beechen forests and grassy glades in a new livery of the gayest green. The crake had come into the cornfield, the cuckoo winged her way across the common, uttering her soft monotonous notes, and the nightingale had once more taken possession of the coppice, from whence, through the livelong night, pealed forth its incomparable song. It was the month of May – that sweet season when all nature seems to submit itself to the tender inclinings of love; when not only the shy birds of the air, but the chased creatures of the earth – alike tamed and emboldened by its influence – stray beyond the safety of their coverts in pursuit of those pleasures at other seasons denied them.

Whether the love-month has any influence on the passions of the human species, is a disputed question. Perhaps, in man’s primitive state, such may have been the case, and Nature’s suggestiveness may have extended also to him. But at whatever season affection may spring up between two young hearts, surely this is the time of the year that Nature has designed it to reach maturity.

It seemed so in the case of Henry Harding. In the month of May his passion for Belle Mainwaring had reached the point that should end in a declaration; and upon this he had determined. With the outside world it was still a question whether his love was reciprocated, though it was generally thought that the coquette had been at length captured, and by Henry Harding. The eligibility of the match favoured this view of the case, though, to say the truth, not more than the personal appearance of the man.

At this time the younger son of General Harding was just entering upon manhood, and possessed a face and figure alike manly and graceful. The only blemish that could be brought against him was of a moral nature – as already mentioned, a proneness to dissipation. But time might remedy this; and even as things stood it did not so materially damage him in the eyes of his lady acquaintances – more than one of whom would have been willing to take Miss Mainwaring’s chances. The light in which Belle regarded him may be best learnt from a conversation that, about this time, took place. It was over the breakfast-table in her mother’s cottage, the speakers being her mother and herself.

“And you would marry him?” interrogated Mrs Mainwaring, after some remark that had introduced the name of Henry Harding.

“I would, mamma; and, with your leave, I will.”

“What about his leave?”

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Belle with a confident air. “I think I may count upon that. He has as good as given it.”

“Already! But has he really declared himself – in words I mean?”

“Not exactly in words. But, dear ma, since I suppose you will insist upon knowing my secrets before giving your consent, I may as well tell you all about it. He intends to declare himself soon; this very day if I am not astray in my chronology.”

“What reason have you for thinking so?”

“Only his having hinted that he had something important to say to me – time fixed for a call he is to make this afternoon. What else could it be?”

Mrs Mainwaring made no reply, but sat thoughtful, as if not altogether pleased with the communication her daughter had made.

“I hope, dear mamma, you are contented?”

“With what, my child?”

“With – with – well, to have Henry Harding for your son-in-law. Does it satisfy you?”

“My dearest child,” answered the Indian officer’s widow, with that cautious air peculiar to her country – she was Scotch. “It is a serious question this; very serious, and requires careful consideration. You know how very straitened are our circumstances – how your poor dear father left little to support us – having but little to leave?”

“I should think I do know,” peevishly interposed Belle. “Twice turning my ball dresses, and then dyeing them into wearing silks, has taught me all that. But what has it to do with my marrying Henry Harding? All the more reason why I should. He, at all events, is not likely to be troubled with straitened circumstances.”

“I am not so sure of that, my child.”

“Ah! you know something about his expectations then? Something you have not told me? Is it so, mamma?”

“I know very little. I wish it were otherwise, and I could be sure.”

“But his father is rich. There are but two sons; and you have already told me that the estate is not entailed, or whatever you call it. Of course he will divide it equally between them. Half would satisfy me.”

“And me too, child, if we were sure of half. But there lies the difficulty. It is the fact of the estate not being entailed that makes it. Were that done, there would be none.”

“Then I could marry Henry?”

“No, Nigel.”

“Oh, mamma! what do you mean?”

“The estate would then be Nigel’s by the simple law of entail. As it is now, it is all uncertain how they will inherit. It will depend on the will. It may go by a caprice of their father – and I know General Harding well enough to believe him capable of such caprice.”

In her turn Belle became silent and thoughtful.

“There is reason to fear,” continued the match-making, perhaps match-spoiling, mother, “that the General may leave Henry nothing, or at most only a maintenance. He is certainly very much dissatisfied with his conduct, and for a long time has been vainly endeavouring to change it. I won’t say the young man is loose in his habits; if he were, I would not hear of him for your husband. No, my child, poor as we are, it needn’t come to that.”

As the widow said this she looked half interrogatively towards her daughter, who replied with a smile of assenting significance.

“Henry Harding,” continued the cautious mother, “is too generous – too profuse in his expenditures.”