Book: Honor Edgeworth

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"I'll never forgive myself," she was saying, "to have forgotten your
birthday above everything else, and your dear kind father when he gave
you to me, a tiny thing in my arms, said, 'she will be a year the 24th
February, don't ever forget the day,' and there it slipped from me this
time and I never thought of it."

Honor flung her arms round the old creature's neck and drowned her
reproaches in a volley of kisses.

"Don't mind that Nanny dear, say you wish me a good Christian life for
the next year and you will have done your duty."

"God grant it you, my pretty child."

"Amen," answered Mr. Rayne's deep voice as he left the room.

Honor looked up surprised, but in a few moments her guardian returned
with a morocco jewel case in his hands. He placed it in hers, saying,
"My you live to wear it out in goodness and virtue, and may God spare
you from the snares of this wicked world."

With trembling fingers Honor opened the little box which revealed to
view a spangling collection of diamonds. It was an oval locket,
profusely set with diamonds with her initials turned artfully on the
surface. Inside were the miniature pictures of her father and mother.
She laid down the costly gift and went over to her benefactor with
tear-dimmed eyes. She put both her slender arms around his neck and
pressed one long fervent kiss upon the old man's brow.

"Are you determined, dear Mr. Rayne, to put me under an everlasting
obligation to you? Are you not satisfied with bestowing those tokens
that I might in time repay by constant love and care, without forcing
such a splendid gift as this on me? Really your kindness begins to make
me uncomfortable, for it is amounting to a debt I can never repay. And
where did you get these dear, dear pictures, and how did you have it
ready and all for my birthday?"

"Well, my dear, say we sit down and I'll answer all your questions to
the music of knives and forks. I have had a miniature likeness of your
father in my possession for many years, and it had often struck me, if I
could but procure one of your mother's too, how it would please me to
have them set together in a locket for you. The other day I was taken
nicely out of my dilemma by finding an old-fashioned locket of yours by
the fire in the library. I borrowed it for the short space of a few days
until I had copies taken from it, and then Nanette kindly slipped it
back into your jewel-case for me. I then ordered the little receptacle
that you have admired so much and I only received the whole last night.
Strangely enough too, that it should have come just in time. I would
have given it to you immediately anyway, because of something I am going
to discuss with you in the library after breakfast."

Honor was still looking intently down at the open case beside her plate
when he finished the last sentence, but she looked up suddenly as he
ceased, with a glance of eager inquiry in her eyes.

"It may startle you, Honor, or may not, but we'll see to that."

A little more rattling of plates and cutlery, a few more clouds of steam
from the rich coffee, a series of disconnected gay sentences and
ejaculations and the meal was over. The grave tones of Mr. Rayne's voice
filled the room in a prayer of thanksgiving, and with the last echo of
the "Amen," Honor and her guardian came out from the dining-room into
the library arm in arm.



CHAPTER X.


"Her life, I said
Will be a volume wherein I have read
But the first chapters, and no longer see
To read the rest of the dear history."
--_Longfellow_

Honor had just taken up her crocheting and was plying her needle busily
when Mr Rayne drew his heavy leathern chair opposite to the fire and
began:

"Well, my dear little girl, here you are a young woman all at once on my
hands, and to me you are yet the childish little thing you were three
years ago in the railway carriage at the Manchester Depot. But the world
won't see things to suit a short-sighted old bachelor like me, and
according to that omnipotent, omniscient world, it is now my duty to
introduce you into society, to bring you 'out' into Ottawa life, that
you may make a display of all the accomplishments which fortune has
bestowed upon you. I will introduce you to a world that will not
hesitate in appreciating all the physical, mental, and moral beauty, you
may choose to display in it. My duty will then be completed for another
while. Now what is your opinion on it? You will have Mrs. D'Alberg, my
widowed cousin from Guelph, to chaperone you, you have 'carte blanche'
as regards toilet expenditure, and my house is open and at your service
henceforth."

All along a smile of slow astonishment had been creeping over Honor's
beautiful face, but instead of any showy enthusiasm either way, as Mr.
Rayne had certainly expected, she straightened out the rosette of lace
work on her knee and clapped it with her little palm. Then drawing a
long breath she said:

"So! it has come to this. Well, my dear Mr. Rayne, if my position in
your house exacts an _entree_ into society, I most willingly go forth to
it, though had you never spoken of it, it had never entered my mind. I
am prejudiced, it is true, against society, but I defy its influence
over me. Every woman owes her mite to the social world, and consequently
I owe mine, so as soon as you wish it Mr. Rayne, I am yours to command."

She had scarcely finished the words when the door was flung open and the
words and air of "I'll live for love or die" filled the room. He was
just continuing "I'll live for lo--"

"O pardon, a hundred thousand times, Miss Edgeworth and uncle, I didn't
really think the room was inhabited at such an early hour in the
morning, but the fact that it is, only enchants me all the more, I
assure you."

"Well, well, Guy, you are a 'case.' How are you this morning? Have you
breakfasted?"

"Well, uncle, I thank you; and to your second kind query, I respectfully
beg to inform you that I helped to clear away Mrs. Best's table this
morning very perceptibly. Not that I had any particular relish for her
compositions--which were yesterday's lunch and last night's dinner done
over _a la Francay_--Rooshan-hash-up! but then a fellow by natural
instinct owes himself the indispensable duty of eating his breakfast,
and as a slave to duty, I, this morning, about an hour ago, ate my
breakfast."

"Well, for goodness sake! as a duty to your fellow-creatures talk sense.
Here, sit down," Mr. Rayne continued, rising himself, "I must excuse
myself for half-an-hour. I've not had a look at the _Citizen_ yet, and I
must be off soon to official duties."

Guy Elersley was well satisfied to be a substitute in Mr. Rayne's vacant
chair. He had not laid himself out for such good luck when he turned
into his uncle's on this eventful morning, so his appreciation was
consequently all the more vivid.

"You're bright and early, Honor, for a young lady on a winter morning,"
he said, as he drew his chair towards the fire.

"Not unusually so for Honor Edgeworth--and that means a young lady,
doesn't it?"

"That's right; snub a fellow right and left when he forgets to isolate
you from the whole living, breathing creation. Then you are not bright
and early--will that do?"

"My dear Mr. Elersley," said Honor, in a provokingly placid way, "don't
exert yourself so violently in contradicting your own free, unextracted
observations. You can amuse me in a dozen other different ways as well."

"Oh, bother! Come now, Honor, leave off that ice water business, and
give a fellow a word of welcome after being out in the cold. Put away
that bundle of thread you're fooling with there this half-hour. You have
not taken your eyes from off it yet, nor spoken a decent word since I
came in."

"Oh, dear!" said Honor, drawing a feigned sigh, "I suppose when a
child's spoiled it's spoiled, that's all, and you must humor it." "Now,"
folding up her work, "what have you to say worth the trouble you've
given me?"

"Oh nothing I could tell you would be that in your opinion. I was at a
big 'shine' last night at Miss Teazle's, and feasted my eyes on all
Ottawa has to show in the way of female loveliness."

"And you have come to spend the gush of your emotions consequent to such
a feast on me, have you?"

"No, Honor, I have not. I did see deuced pretty girls, but the emotion,
as you call it, vanished as I handed the last fair bundle of shawls into
her carriage. While the light burns, you know, the moth hangs around it,
but when the flame goes out, spent in a weary flicker, after 'braving
it' for a whole night, the moth goes to roost, when he has not been
singed, or otherwise personally damaged without insurance. Well, what
are you thinking of now? when you cross your arms, bury your gaze in the
fire and strike your slipper with such measured beat on the fender, I
know you're not paying much attention to what I am saying."

She drew a long breath as though no answer were required, and then in a
quiet, low tone she said,

"Guy, do not talk in that light way of any woman. I know what you men
have long accustomed yourselves to believe--that woman was made
purposely for your pleasure; 'Man for God only, _she_ for God in
him,'--but, all the same that does not exact the ratification of Heaven.
If my sisters of Ottawa society, with whom you one moment amuse
yourself, and the next amuse your listeners with a recital of their
follies, are weak enough to seek to gratify you and your kind, 'tis not
that such a weakness is a natural inheritance, for every woman who
realizes her true worth, knows what a grand mission is before her, and
consequently crushes such an absurd theory as fashionable women are
brought up to believe from their infancy. Perhaps I am too sensitive on
this point, if such a thing could be, but it is the awful wrong which is
being done to our sex that fires my indignation thus. And then there are
those poor deluded 'ornamental women' who sanction that outrage on their
own dignity by sitting with folded hands, taking in all the nonsense
which is dealt out to them when they should gather up their skirts and
shrink away from you as their inveterate enemies. False faces lead them
astray, but there are others who see behind them."

"Yes, by Jove! And you are one who can see through the hair of a
fellow's head. Well, Honor, it's plain to see, that you and I cannot
agree. There's an involuntary performance of 'rhyme' for you, excuse me
for so doing, but I could not withhold it. I said that we don't agree,
and it is true. You are quite too tremendously proper for me, and I am
just too 'galoptiously' awful for you. So begin to maul that wool over
again, and I'll go to my respectable office in the respectable Eastern
Block, and there I am sure of finding half-a-dozen eager friends with
their pens behind their ears wheeled around on their office stools,
quite ready to hear all the 'news' that you reject with such dignity."

"Then go. Sow your seed in fertile ground; but if you speak so lightly
of any woman in presence of an office full of men, as you do to me, I
cry,--shame on you and your listeners."

She had taken the soft bundle of crochet work in her lap again, and as
she bent her indignant face over its intricate stitches, Guy could not
help acknowledging to himself, that this was the fairest vision man had
ever beheld. How was it that her name never crossed his lips in fun? He
would have torn the tongue from its roots before uttering hers in jest.
He stood at the door, with the knob in his hand, trying to extract one
word of earnest friendship from her, but the serious frown never relaxed
itself on her brow, and her mouth was set and stern. He could not stand
this. He thought if it was only any other girl--any of Miss Teazle's
heroines, he could pooh-pooh it so easily, but Honor was not one of them
at all--his heart told him that. He left his place at the door and was
at her side instantly. She looked quietly up and said nothing. He felt
as though the words would not come, and the wee small voice said
"another time," so he merely reassumed his old way, and said:

"Good morning, Honor. Don't send a fellow off in the blues. Come now,
smile just the least little bit and speed me away with a charitable
word." Then the sweet red lips parted, and looking up from her work, she
said:

"I absolve you, Guy. Good morning."

"Well, I'll make hay while the sun shines, and be off, for if I delay a
minute I shall have a dozen more pardons to ask. By, bye!"

He closed the door and was gone, but though his hurried steps brought
him further and further away from the form he loved, yet his thoughts
were of her, his heart beat for her, and his memory dwelt upon each
little word she had spoken.

Honor sat as most of us do very often in our lives, with the same smile
on her face which had absolved Guy at parting. If we meet a friend and
are pleased, the smile of recognition lingers on our faces long after he
has passed. If we have heard a pleasant word, the gratification is
evident on our countenances, long after the words have died; and the
same with unpleasant or sorrowful things. I suppose our memory is
necessarily a slow faculty, and only revives the expression of our
emotion just as that caused by the first experience is dying away. Any
one could tell by Honor's face, that she was thinking of pleasant
things. Thence we may know it was no 'clairvoyant' tendency on the part
of Mr. Rayne, that on entering the room the ne moment, he exclaimed:

"So you're spinning your threads in the sunlight, my pet, are you?"

Honor started--"Sunlight? Yes, I think the sun will be up presently."

"Oh, you distracted child! I am talking of the sunlight of your
thoughts." Here both joined in a hearty laugh, and Mr. Rayne having
thrown aside the well dissected _Citizen_, re-deposited himself in the
arm-chair by Honor's side. He came too to make hay while the sun shone,
and the smile on Honor's face indicated that much.

"You see, that fellow Guy interrupted us just in the beginning of our
discourse--but perhaps it was just as well, for something has since
happened that throws a new light on the subject. With this morning's
mail came a document from Turin to me, from your father's bankers,
Honor. It seems from the copy of an original letter written by your
father, that he wished to test my friendship by holding me responsible
for his daughter's welfare and comfort, and he therefore apparently
represented you to me as entirely dependent on my bounty. Even as such,
it was an immense gratification to me to take you, and at the risk of
all I own nou I could not let you go, but it seems your diplomatic
father--and my best friend--had arranged it so, that if, after a short
period, I had performed the duties of a true friend towards you,
supplying you with the necessary comforts and wants out of my own
pocket, that on your birthday at the end of that time, which is to-day,
this document should be forarded to me. The surprising and intensely
gratifying news concerns only you, it makes not the slightest matter to
me," and so speaking, he handed her the least formidable looking letter
of a pile of correspondence. She read it with dilated eyes and confused
look generally, and laid it down only with this difference actually to
her, that she had in her own realization, in one short moment been
suddenly transformed from Mr. Rayne's dependent waif into a richly
endowed heiress, independent and free. A small change indeed for Honor
Edgeworth. It had not power to chisel in finer style the features of her
handsome face, nor the power to direct into her heart a purer, holier or
more worthy sense of duty than already reigned there. No, it could make
her no better. Hers was not a nature susceptible to the ready influences
of evil, and so she experienced none of that material delight which
generally is the result of such a change for the world's ordinary ones.
The only gratification it afforded her was, that now she could repay Mr.
Rayne for his untiring kindness, she could deck Nanette in "decent"
attire, and give such little alms as she longed to distribute with Mr.
Rayne's money. She folded the letter carefully back into its primitive
creases and handed it to Mr. Rayne, saying,

"I thought I should have had to repay your unlimited kindness to me by
love, sincerity and gratitude alone; and though this would have been an
easy debt to liquidate, so far as my sentiments went, yet, it seems
Providence has not tired of heaping favors upon my head, and I can add
to my other offering this new found treasure. But I think, Mr Rayne, had
this gold mine never opened beneath our feet, we would still be the same
to one another, I know"--and as she spoke she rose and threw herself
into the old man's arms--"you, who have been both parents to me when I
was alone and penniless, who surrounded me with comforts and luxuries,
cannot now be cold to me because I no longer need to be dependent. You
have made your home and your kind watchfulness a necessity to me, now
will you not let us be the same as ever with one another? I do not want
to be a rich heiress if I must thereby cease to be 'your own Honor,' and
'your own favorite.'"

The old man's eyes were wet with tears. He pressed the girlish figure
close to him and kissed the fair, flushed cheek.

"We will speak no more of it, darling," he said, "let it be as though
nothing had happened, only you must no longer hesitate to accept the
many little favors that, up to this, you persistently refused--
henceforth _I_ am _yours_ to command when you want something. But, about
your _debut_ child, I want you to consult some one else on that matter,
for you must be as fine to look at as all the rest. You can be ready as
soon as you please, for Mrs D'Alberg will be here shortly, I requested
an immediate answer."

Honor looked thoughtfully into the fire. "This is all so strange," she
said, "but Destiny is Destiny, I suppose, and Fate is Fate."



CHAPTER XI.


"A sadder and a wiser man
He rose the morrow--morn."
--Coleridge

"Well, I did not think this at the very worst," Mr. Rayne said over a
newly received letter to Honor. "Here's the long expected news from
Guelph, and my cousin says she would find it so convenient for you to go
up, just for a week and she would come back with you. There are so many
things for her to settle, and besides you would see a little bit of life
in the meantime. Now, how in the world are we going to live without
sunshine or daylight for a week, eh?"

"Oh, Mr. Rayne, you spoil me! But, does Mrs. D'Alberg really want me to
go to her? If it is not very far away, and you have no particular
objection, I think I'd rather like to go."

"Of course you would," echoed the generous words of Henry Rayne, "and
why would'nt you? I am too selfish to live. It will make a nice little
trip and you'll feel all the more refreshed when you get back. But,
think of how soon you must go--to-morrow morning at the latest, I tell
you. So, now be active, my dear. Run and tell Nanette to get your things
ready, and I'll drop a note to Guy to come and make himself useful."

Honor bounded off under the influence of the first experience of a new
anticipation--that of shifting the scenes, for no matter how short an
act. She was going among new faces for a little while. What a break in
the monotony of her present quiet life.

When the hastily written note reached Guy's boarding-house, he was
absent. It was as a rule rather hard to find Guy when he was wanting;
but, I doubt if he ever regretted his absence more than be did on this
particular night. I would not care to shock my innocent readers
unnecessarily by telling the hours that brought Guy Elersley to his room
that night, nor the circumstances that caused him to dream such
frightful things through his broken slumber. Some of them either from
having been there before or from close observation could suspect one of
Guy's worst failings at the sight of his dim sleepy eyes, his straggling
cravat and half-buttoned coat, as well as by the thick utterances he
hummed to himself, intended no doubt for the familiar strains of his
favorite "Warrior Bold" or "In the Gloaming," but, nevertheless
differing from them as much as they resembled them.

Oh, Guy! who, among your high-toned lady friends on Sparks Street
to-morrow will recognize in you the fast midnight rambler, that the pale
winter moon and the cold silent stars see in you to-night? You, the
brilliant one of Ottawa's best drawing-rooms, ejaculating all the hard
words you know, because you can't open the door with a lead pencil, nor
find the handle on the wrong side. How well you have learned the art of
veneering your character! Is it then such a breach of Christian charity
to discuss on open pages, Guy Elersley by daylight, and Guy Elersley by
lamplight? Any one given to moralizing, may surely ask the ladies of
Ottawa, if they have ever stopped to think those simple things over. If
all their acknowledged purity, dignity and womanly attraction were worth
no more than to lay them within the ready grasp of the sons of this
century of materialism! Do they never realize how infinitely superior
they are to the men of their own days, and do they ever treat them with
the contempt and indifference that are at best their due? If such were
indeed the case, woman would be more independent in her social standing
than she is to-day, but, I blush to say it--there are those among
Ottawa's fair ones, who are flattered by the attentions and compliments
of such as live these two lives of daylight and lamp-light;--flattered
that an arm should encircle their waists in the dance, which is unworthy
of cleaning the shoes they wear, or sweeping the ground they
tread,--flattered by the attentions and flighty words falling from lips
across whose threshold comes the foul breath of sin and dissipation.
Such is the dignity of the youth of our century; such is the brazen
insolence which causes them to establish themselves as the social equals
of well bred women.

Oh, for the long sought day of woman's emancipation, when she will be
free, in her own right, to scorn from the pedestal of her superiority,
the audacity of the man who shows himself by daylight to the world to be
that high society exacts from him, but whose superficial virtues set
with the evening sun, leaving in their temporary dwelling place, the
craving of material nature to be gratified. Such are the heroes of our
popular novels, such are the heroes of our actual society, such are our
male relatives, and yet women seem to be satisfied that things should
remain thus. If every woman would determine within herself to accomplish
the whole or part of the grand mission that is at the mercy of her own
hands, how soon would we have cause to rejoice and thank Providence for
the great reformation in morals which must be a necessary consequence of
such a determination?

Perhaps it is wandering too far away from a simple recital, and giving
more than its real depth to the tenor of our Ottawa society, to indulge
in this strain. If it be just as pleasant, we will return to Guy who has
gained admission by this time. He goes over to the table that stands
opposite his bedroom door. He has left matches and lamp convenient, and
proceeds to light them. The first thing which attracted his stupid
glance was the note in his uncle's handwriting, lying conspicuously on
the white linen cover. But this was, after Guy's nightly carousing--the
most usual thing in the world, and with a word that signified how
secondary his uncle's note was, beside the attempt to reach the bed, he
pushed it carelessly aside and proceeded to get himself out of his
clothes as well as his nervous limbs permitted him. We may be a "little
hard" on Guy's species _selon_ the current ideas of justice. We know
that many are addressed through Guy Elersley, and this indirect way is
adopted of telling them how far below the mark of feminine appreciation
they fall in attempting to throw dust in our eyes. As if every
circumstance of the times was not calculated to impress more firmly upon
us how unworthy the world is becoming of us. We may hold out our hands
one to another, for there is none else worthy to give the responsive
grasp. Young men of the nineteenth century, be assured that because you
are tolerated in society, and because ladies deign to blend their lives
in a measure with yours, it does not follow that they approve of the
masques you are wearing, and which deceive yourselves far more than they
do others. On the contrary, it foretells the advent of the day of our
freedom, for, in the performance of our respective social duties towards
you, we make the last acts of humiliation to complete the sacrifice
before the reward is given us. Of course, if we met Guy Elersley
to-morrow morning, the fetters of society would force us to feign an
utter ignorance of such a mode of living among our gentlemen friends. We
must take it for granted that from sunset till sunrise, Guy was not
"sleeping the sleep of the Bacchanal," and we need not fear that _he_
will betray himself.

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