The Days of My Life: An Autobiography. Oliphant Margaret
Eh, Edgar! what, tired? you had better pluck up a spirit, or how am I to manage this worthy, disinterested uncle of yours?”
I could not let the man think I had heard him, but left the room to seek my father – what could he mean? I met my father at the door, and with a slight wave of his hand bidding me follow him, he went on before me to the dining parlor, the only other room we used; my excitement had deepened into painful anxiety – something was wrong– it was a new thought and a new emotion to me.
“What is the matter, papa?” I said, anxiously, “what is wrong? what has happened? do you think this is not my cousin, or are you angry that he has come? Father, you loved my uncle Brian, do you not love his son?”
“Hester!” said my father, turning away his troubled face from my gaze and the light, “I will not believe that this boy is my brother Brian’s son.”
“But he says he is, papa,” I answered, with eagerness; I did not believe in lying, and Edgar Southcote’s pale face was beyond the possibility of untruth.
“It is worth his while to say it,” my father exclaimed hurriedly; then a strange spasm of agitation crossed his face – he turned to me again as if with an irrestrainable impulse to confide his trouble to me. “Hester! Brian was my elder brother,” he said in a low, quick whisper, and almost stealthily. I did not comprehend him. I was only a child – the real cause of his distress never occurred to me.
“I know it would be very hard to take him home to Cottiswoode for a Southcote, and then to find out he was not uncle Brian’s son,” I said, looking up anxiously at my father, “and you know better than I, and remember my uncle; but papa —I believe him – see! I knew it – he is like that picture there!”
My father turned to the picture with a start of terror; it was an Edgar Southcote I was pointing to – a philosopher; one of the few of our house, who loved wisdom better than houses or lands, one who had died early after a sad short life. My father’s face burned as he looked at the picture; the refined visionary head drooping over a book, and the large delicate eyelids with their long lashes were so like, so very like! – it struck him in a moment. “Papa, I believe him,” I repeated very earnestly. My father started from me, and paced about the room in angry agitation.
“I have trained you to be mistress of Cottiswoode, Hester,” he said, when he returned to me. “I have taught you from your cradle to esteem above all things your name and your race – and now, and now, child, do you not understand me? if this boy is Brian’s son, Cottiswoode is his!”
It was like a flash of sudden lightning in the dark, revealing for an instant everything around, so terribly clear and visible – I could not speak at first. I felt as if the withering light had struck me, and I shivered and put forth all my strength to stand erect and still; then I felt my face burn as if my veins were bursting. “This was what he meant!”
“What, who meant? Who?” cried my father.
“You believe he is Edgar Southcote, papa?” said I, “you believe him as I do; I see it in your face – and the man sneers at you —you, father! because it is your interest to deny the boy. Let us go away, and leave him Cottiswoode if it is his; you would not do him wrong, you would not deny him his right – father, father, come away!”
And I saw him, a man whose calm was never broken by the usual excitements of life, a man so haughty and reserved that he never showed his emotions even to me – I saw him dash his clenched hand into the air with a fury and agony terrible to see. I could not move nor speak, I only stood and gazed at him, following his rapid movements as he went and came in his passion of excitement, pacing about the room; the every day good order and arrangement of every thing around us; the calm light of evening, which began to darken; the quiet house where there was no sound of disturbance, but only the softened hum of tranquil life – the trees rustling without, the grass growing, and night coming softly down out of the skies; nothing sympathized with his fiery passion, except his daughter who stood gazing at him, half a woman, half a child – and nothing at all in all the world sympathized with me.
Very gradually he calmed, and the paroxysm was over; then my father came to me, and put his hands on my shoulders, and looked into my strained eyes; I could not bear his gaze, though I had been gazing at him so long, and thick and heavy, my tears began to fall; then he stooped over me and kissed my brow. “My disinherited child!” that was all he said – and he left me and went away.
Then I sat down on the carpet by the low window, and cried – cried “as if my heart were breaking,” but hearts do not break that get relief in such a flood of child’s tears. I felt something in my hand as I put it up to my wet eyes. It was the bit of briony which I had carried unwittingly a long, long way, through all my first shock of trouble. Yes! there were the beautiful tinted berries in their clusters uninjured even by my hand – but the stem was crushed and broken, and could support them no longer; the sight of it roused me out of my vague but bitter distress – I spread it out upon my hand listlessly, and thought of the low hedge from which I had pulled it, a bank of flowers the whole summer through. It was our own land —our own land– was it ours no longer now?
In a very short time, I was disturbed by steps and voices, and my father came into the room with Edgar and his disagreeable companion; then came Whitehead, bringing in the urn and tea-tray, and I had to make tea for them. I did not speak at all, neither did my new cousin; and my father was polite, but very lofty and reserved, and behaved to Saville with such a grand courtesy, as a prince might have shown to a peasant; the man was overpowered and silenced by it, I saw, and could no longer be insolent, though he tried. My father took his cup of tea very slowly and deliberately, and then he rose and said, “I am quite at your service,” and Saville followed him out of the room.
We two were left together; my new cousin was about my own age I thought – though indeed he was older – but while I had the courage of health and high spirits, of an unreproved and almost uncontrolled childhood, the boy was timid as a weak frame, a susceptible temper, and a lonely orphanhood could make him. We sat far apart from each other, in the large dark room, and did not speak a word; a strange sudden bitterness and resentment against this intruder had come to my heart. I looked with contempt and dislike at his slight form and pallid face. I raised my own head with a double pride and haughtiness – this was the heir of Cottiswoode and of the Southcotes, this lad whose eye never kindled at sight of the old house – and I was disinherited!
It grew gradually dark, but I sat brooding in my bitterness and anger, and never thought of getting lights. The trees were stirring without, in the faint night wind which sighed about Cottiswoode, and I could see the pensive stars coming out one by one on the vast breadth of sky – but nothing stirred within. Edgar was at one end of the room, I at the other – he did not disturb me, and I never spoke to him, but involuntarily all this time, I was watching him – he could not raise his hand to his head but I saw it; he could not move upon his chair without my instant observation; for all so dark as the room was, and so absorbed in my own thoughts as was I.
At length my heart beat to see him rise and approach towards me. I was tempted to spring up, to denounce and defy the intruder, and leave him so – but I did not – I only rose and waited for him, leaning against the window. He came up with his soft step stealing through the darkness. “Cousin,” he said, in a low voice, which sounded very youthful, yet had a ring of manhood in it, too, “cousin, it is not Edgar Southcote who has come to Cottiswoode, but a great misfortune – what am I to do? – you took part with me, you believed me, Hester: tell me what I am to do to make myself something else than a calamity to my Uncle and to you?”
He spoke very earnestly, but his voice did not touch my heart, it only quickened my resentment. “Do nothing except justice,” said I, in my girlish, passionate way. “We are Southcotes, do you think we cannot bear a misfortune? but you do not know your race, nor what it is. If you are the heir of Cottiswoode do you think anything you could do, would make my father keep what is not his? No, you can do nothing except justice. My father is not a man to be pitied.”
“Nor do I mean to pity him,” said the boy, gently, “I respect my father’s brother, though my father’s brother doubts me. Will you throw me