The Child Wife

Consent at Last

Since our last visit to it, Vernon Hall had changed from gay to grave.

Only in its interior. Outside, its fine façade presented the same cheerful front to its park; the Corinthian columns of its portico looked open and hospitable as ever.

As ever, elegant equipages came and went; but only to draw up, and remain for a moment in the sweep, while their occupants left cards, and made inquiries.

Inside there was silence. Servants glided about softly, or on tiptoe; opened and closed the doors gently, speaking in subdued tones.

It was a stillness, solemn and significant. It spoke of sickness in the house.

And there was sickness of the most serious kind – for it was known to be the precursor of death.

Sir George Vernon was dying.

It was an old malady – a disease of that organ, to which tropical climes are so fatal – in the East as in the West.

And in both had the baronet been exposed; for part of his earlier life had been spent in India.

Induration had been long going on. It was complete, and pronounced incurable. At the invalid’s urgent request, the doctors had told him the truth – warning him to prepare for death.

His last tour upon the Continent – whither he had gone with his daughter – had given the finishing blow to his strength; and he was now home again, so enfeebled that he could no longer take a walk, even along the soft, smooth turf of his own beautiful park.

By day most of his time was spent upon a sofa in his library, where he lay supported by pillows.

He had gone abroad with Blanche, in the hope of weaning her from that affection so freely confessed; and which had been ever since a sore trouble to his spirit.

How far he had succeeded might be learnt by looking in her sad thoughtful face; once blithe and cheerful; by noting a pallor in her cheek, erst red as the rose leaf; by listening to sighs, too painful to be suppressed; and, above all, to a conversation that occurred between her and her father not long after returning from that latest journey, that was to be the last of his life.

Sir George was in his library reclining, as was his wont. The sofa had been wheeled up to the window, that he might enjoy the charm of a splendid sunset: for it was a window facing west.

Blanche was beside him; though no words were passing between them. Having finished adjusting his pillow, she had taken a seat near the foot of the sofa, her eyes, like his, fixed on the far sunset – flushing the horizon with strata-clouds of crimson, purple, and gold.

It was mid-winter; but among the sheltered copses of Vernon Park there was slight sign of the season. With a shrubbery whose foliage never fell, and a grass ever green, the grounds immediately around the mansion might have passed for a picture of spring.

And there was bird music, the spring’s fit concomitant: the chaffinch chattering upon the taller trees, the blackbird with flutelike note fluttering low among laurels and laurustines, and the robin nearer the window warbling his sweet simple lay.

Here and there a bright-plumed pheasant might be seen shooting from copse to copse; or a hare, scared from her form, dashing down into the covert of the dale. Farther off on the pastures of the park could be seen sleek kine consorting with the antlered stag, both browsing tranquil and undisturbed. It was a fair prospect to look upon; and it should have been fairer in the eyes of one who was its proprietor.

But not so Sir George Vernon, who might fancy that he was looking at it for the last time. The thought could not fail to inspire painful reflections; and into a train of such had he fallen.

They took the shape of an inquiry: who was to succeed him in that fair inheritance, handed down from a long line of distinguished ancestors?

His daughter Blanche was to be his inheritor – since he had no son, no other child; and the entail of the estate ended with himself.

But Blanche might not long bear his name; and what other was she to bear? What escutcheon was to become quartered upon that of the Vernons?

He thought of Scudamore; he had been long thinking of it, hoping, wishing it; but now, in the hours darkened by approaching death, he had doubts whether this union of armorial bearings would ever be.

In earlier days he had resolved on its being so, and up to a late period. He had spoken of compulsion, such as he held by testamentary powers. He had even hinted it to Blanche herself. He had made discovery how idle such a course would be; and on this he was now reflecting. He might as well have thought of commanding yonder sun to cease from its setting, yonder stag to lay aside its grandeur, or the birds their soft beauty. You may soften an antipathy, but you cannot kill it; and, obedient child though she was, not even her father’s will, not all the powers upon earth, could have removed from Blanche Vernon’s mind the antipathy she had conceived for her cousin Scudamore.

In the same way you may thwart an affection, but not destroy it; and a similar influence would not have sufficed to chase from Blanche Vernon’s mind the memory of Captain Maynard. His image was still upon her heart, fresh as the first impression – fresh as in that hour when she stood holding his hand under the shade of the deodara! Her father appeared to know all this. If not, her pale cheek, day by day growing paler, should have admonished him. But he did know, or suspected it; and the time had come for him to be certain.

“Blanche!” he said, turning round, and tenderly gazing in her face.

“Father?” She pronounced the word interrogatively, thinking it was some request for service to the invalid. But she started as she met his glance. It meant something more!

“My daughter,” he said, “I shall not be much longer with you.”

“Dear father! do not say so!”

“It is true, Blanche. The doctors tell me I am dying; and I know it myself.”

“O father! dear father!” she exclaimed, springing forward from her seat, falling upon her knees beside the sofa, and covering his face with her tresses and tears.

“Do not weep, my child! However painful to think of it, these things must be. It is the fate of all to leave this world; and I could not hope to be exempted. It is but going to a better, where God Himself will be with us, and where we are told there is no more weeping. Come, child! compose yourself. Return to your seat, and listen; for I have something to say to you.”

Sobbingly she obeyed – sobbing as though her heart would break.

“When I’m gone,” he continued, after she had become a little calmer, “you, my daughter, will succeed to my estates. They are not of great value; for I regret to say there is a considerable mortgage upon them. Still, after all is paid off there will be a residue – sufficient for your maintenance in the position to which you have been accustomed.”

“Oh, father I do not speak of these things. It pains me!”

“But I must, Blanche; I must. It is necessary you should be made acquainted with them; and necessary, too, that I should know – ”

What was it necessary he should know? He had paused, as if afraid to declare it.

“What, papa?” asked she, looking interrogatively in his face, at the same time that a blush, rising upon her cheek, told she half divined it.

“What should you know?”

“My dear daughter!” he rejoined, shunning a direct answer. “It is but reasonable to suppose you will be some day changing your name. I should be unhappy to leave the world, thinking you would not; and I could leave it all the happier to think you will change it for one worthy of being adopted by the daughter of a Vernon – one borne by a man deserving to be my son!”

“Dear father?” cried she, once more sobbing spasmodically, “pray do not speak to me of this! I know whom you mean. Yes; I know it, I know it. O father, it can never be!”

She was thinking of the name Scudamore; and that it could never be here!

“Perhaps you are mistaken, my child. Perhaps I did not mean any name in particular.”

Her grand blue eyes, deeper blue under their bedewing of tears, turned inquiringly upon her father’s face.

She said nothing; but seemed waiting for him to further explain himself.

“My daughter,” he said, “I think I can guess what you meant by your last speech. You object to the name Scudamore? Is it not so?”

“Sooner than bear it, I shall be for ever content to keep my own – yours – throughout all my life. Dear father! I shall do anything to obey you – even this. Oh! you will not compel me to an act that would make me for ever unhappy? I do not, cannot love Frank Scudamore; and without love how could I – how could he – ”

The womanly instinct which had been guiding the young girl seemed suddenly to forsake her. The interrogatory ended in a convulsive sob; and once more she was weeping.