CAPÍTULO 15.

 

            AFTER Mr. Tresham had taken his leave, Lord Littmass remained much occupied in meditating upon the strange revolution that had taken place in James Maynard’s character. His eagerness and decision in regard to the money part of the business were something entirely opposed to the indifference on such points which had hitherto characterised his whole life; and were explicable to Lord Littmass only on the supposition that his surmise was correct; and that James, hitherto so careless about money, and devoted to science for its own sake, was now bending all his resolution and powers towards gaining an independent position.

 

            The stronger his conviction grew, the more anxious Lord Littmass became to get rid of him, without his again seeing Margaret. It was easy enough to prevent such an interview, but Lord Littmass was wise enough to know that to gain his end he must not appear to be acting any part in the matter. To interpose arbitrarily any obstacle, he was well aware, would only serve as a stimulus to love, and he was not the man to make a blunder of this kind. Even if Margaret did not care for James as he felt sure that James cared for her, it would be an almost infallible method of exciting her to rebel against such an interference with her disposal of her affections. At least, such would be the case with most girls, and Lord Littmass knew nothing of Margaret to make him suppose that she would act differently from others.

 

            And here it occurred to Lord Littmass that he was in reality a total stranger to his ward; that he had allowed her to grow up in complete ignorance of life and of the ties of human relationship; that he had supplied no possibility of personal affection, no motive for gratitude or obedience. He perceived, in short, that he had placed her in circumstances which forbade the development of any sense of obligation to which he could appeal in support of his authority or his wishes. Occupying

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the place of a parent, he had been to her a sort of distant overseer, who, connected with her by some invisible link, controlled her fate without any emotion on his side or reference to feeling on hers. He thus began now to think that be had too long adhered to the view be had taken in her childhood, respecting her delicacy of body and simplicity of mind, and that he had committed a serious blunder in dealing with her fortune upon the strength of his belief that an early termination of her life would relieve him from any possible embarrassment on that score. Little dreaming that he would ever be liable to be called to account, he had followed his ambitious and luxurious career, achieving fame and success by his talents and his lavishness, and contracting the debts which had swallowed up the trust committed to him.

 

            His anxieties on this head had been first awakened when his sister, Lady Primavera, proposed taking Margaret with her to Rome. He learnt then that the sickly child had become a fair though slender girl, and though different from others in character, very far removed from the condition of idiocy to which his imagination had always relegated her. Her illness and subsequent entrance into a Carmelite convent had renewed his hope of an early release from his responsibility: and it was with no small chagrin that he found himself compelled to consent to her release instead. The first sight of Margaret afterwards renewed his hopes, but only for them to be finally destroyed on his next view of her on his return to London, to which he came back expecting to anticipate James Maynard’s return to England. His chagrin was then redoubled. Not only was Margaret fast attaining the status of a healthy and beautiful woman, endowed with rare accomplishments, but James had established with her an intimacy and a friendship which threatened to thwart him in all his cherished schemes, and burst the bubble of his pride in its culminating hour. Such a dénouement must be prevented at all hazards, or Lord Littmass, the ornament of literature and delight of the fashionable world, would, instead of receiving honours from his sovereign’s hand, as a citizen distinguished alike for his genius and his worth, be exposed as a sham and a counterfeit, who compensated the brilliancy and rectitude of his external and visible life, by the secret rottenness of his interior.

 

            As thus in his vivid creative imagination the possible future grew distinct to his view, and he realised beforehand the supreme

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agony of his humiliation, and that through the agency of those whom he imagined he had long since consigned to nothingness, – her to the secure grave of an early death – him to the fast grip of collegiate celibacy, – he felt his whole frame collapse as if the circulation were suddenly arrested, and his heart forbidden to fulfil its functions. Gasping with difficulty for breath, he recalled himself sufficiently to be able to fight against the new enemy that had just revealed its presence in his frame. Gradually the strength of his will re-asserted itself, and forced the stricken heart to perform its duty, and propel the warm red life through its customary channels.

 

            ‘This, then, is to be the end,’ he mused, as, exhausted with the struggle for life, be lay back in his chair, half-fearing to move. ‘But it will not be yet, now that I know my danger. For the future I must keep emotion for my fictitious characters, without indulging in it myself. I wonder I never made any of them die of heart-spasm. It would be an easy way of getting rid of a troublesome personage, and I shall know by my own experience how to describe the symptoms. Ah, I remember now, my doctor once told me to beware of any indications of faintness, and gave me a cordial which he advised me to keep always within reach at night. He must have referred to an attack of this kind. I put the stuff away without thinking more about it. I will try it now.’

 

            Getting up to look for it in a drawer at the other end of the room, he was astonished at the feebleness that pervaded his entire system. He managed, however, to totter slowly across, supporting himself by the table, and presently, finding the cordial, placed the vial to his lips. For an instant the stimulant took away his breath, and then, as it drove the blood rapidly through his veins, be felt himself once more the hale, erect man, able to laugh at fate and brave despair itself.

 

            ‘No, no,’ he cried aloud. ‘Lord Littmass is not to be frightened by shadows. He still holds the threads, and the puppets shall dance as he pleases.’

 

 

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