Cousin Henry

on her first arrival. Her stepmother would hardly speak to her, and the girls knew that she was in disgrace. There was Mr. Owen, willing enough, as the stepmother knew, to take Isabel away and relieve them all from this burden, and with the £4,000 Mr. Owen would, no doubt, be able at once to provide a home for her. But Mr. Owen could hardly do this without some help. And even though Mr. Owen should be so generous⁠—and thus justify the name of “softie” which Mrs. Brodrick would sometimes give him in discussing his character with her own daughters⁠—how preferable would it be to have a relation well-provided! To Mrs. Brodrick the girl’s objection was altogether unintelligible. The more of a Philistine Cousin Henry was, the more satisfaction should there be in fleecing him. To refuse a legacy because it was not formal was, to her thinking, an act of insanity. To have the payment of one refused to her because of informality would have been heartbreaking. But the making of such a difficulty as this she could not stomach. Could she have had her will, she would have been well pleased to whip the girl! Therefore Isabel’s new home was not pleasant to her.

At this time Mr. Owen was away, having gone for his holiday to the Continent. To all the Brodricks it was a matter of course that he would marry Isabel as soon as he came back. There was no doubt that he was “a softie.” But then how great is the difference between having a brother-in-law well off, and a relation tightly constrained by closely limited means! To refuse⁠—even to make a show of refusing⁠—those good things was a crime against the husband who was to have them. Such was the light in which Mrs. Brodrick looked at it. To Mr. Brodrick himself there was an obstinacy in it which was sickening to him. But to Isabel’s thinking the matter was very different. She was as firmly resolved that she would not marry Mr. Owen as that she would not take her cousin’s money;⁠—almost as firmly resolved.

Then there came the angry letter from Cousin Henry, containing two points which had to be considered. There was the offer to her to come to Llanfeare, and live there as though she was herself the owner. That, indeed, did not require much consideration. It was altogether out of the question, and only dwelt in her thoughts as showing how quickly the man had contrived to make himself odious to everyone about the place. His uncle, he said, had made the place a nest of hornets to him. Isabel declared that she knew why the place was a nest of hornets. There was no one about Llanfeare to whom so unmanly, so cringing, so dishonest a creature would not be odious. She could understand all that.

But then there was the other point, and on that her mind rested long.

“I think you ought to be ashamed of what you said to me⁠—so soon after the old man’s death.”

She sat long in silence thinking of it, meditating whether he had been true in that⁠—whether it did behove her to repent her harshness to the man. She remembered well her words;⁠—“We take presents from those we love, not from those we despise.”

They had been hard words⁠—quite unjustifiable unless he had made himself guilty of something worse than conduct that was simply despicable. Not because he had been a poor creature, not because he had tormented the old man’s last days by an absence of all generous feeling, not because he had been altogether unlike what, to her thinking, a Squire of Llanfeare should be, had she answered him with those crushing words. It was because at the moment she had believed him to be something infinitely worse than that.

Grounding her aversion on such evidence as she had⁠—on such evidence as she thought she had⁠—she had brought against him her heavy accusation. She could not tell him to his face that he had stolen the will, she could not accuse him of felony, but she had used such quick mode of expression as had come to her for assuring him that he stood as low in her esteem as a felon might stand. And this she had done when he was endeavouring to perform to her that which had been described to him as a duty! And now he had turned upon her and rebuked her⁠—rebuked her as he was again endeavouring to perform the same duty⁠—rebuked her as it was so natural that a man should do who had been subjected to so gross an affront!

She hated him, despised him, and in her heart condemned him. She still believed him to have been guilty. Had he not been guilty, the beads of perspiration would not have stood upon his brow; he would not have become now red, now pale, by sudden starts; he would not have quivered beneath her gaze when she looked into his face. He could not have been utterly mean as he was, had he not been guilty. But yet⁠—and now she saw it with her clear-seeing intellect, now that her passion was in abeyance⁠—she had not been entitled to accuse him to his face. If he were guilty, it was for others to find it out, and for others to accuse him. It had been for her as a lady, and as her uncle’s niece, to accept him in her uncle’s house as her uncle’s heir. No duty could have compelled her to love him, no duty would have required her to accept even his friendship. But she was aware that she had misbehaved herself in insulting him. She was ashamed of herself in that she had not been able to hide her feelings within her own high heart, but had allowed him to suppose that she had been angered because she had been deprived of her uncle’s wealth. Having so resolved, she wrote to him as follows: