True to Herself. A romance

Book II

— continued. "TRUE TO HERSELF." CHAPTER TV. PAGE A SCHEMER AT BAY ...... 1 CHAPTEE V. A CRISIS . . . . . . . .11

CHAPTER VI. BARSTOFT

....... 22

CHAPTER VII. ON THE PIER

....... 35

CHAPTER VIII. MAD MINNIE

....... CONTENTS. IV

CHAPTER IX. PAGE AN OLD FRIEND

...... 58

CHAPTER X. MRS.

BARETTI ....... 72

Chapter VII. A Wolf On The Prowl . . . . .283

BOOK II.

— continued. " TRUE TO HERSELF.'

CHAPTER IV.

A SCHEMER AT BAT. It was a strange position for the four standing in the great drawing-room of Wolston House. In the minds of three at least, there was much of doubt and suspicion — more of mystery even than it was possible to fathom. Minnie Garth was more confused than the rest and suffered more; the presence of the dark-faced being in the room was not yet to be accounted for ; and the awful words which had es caped him were not to be reconciled with anything that was real or probable. Only an instant since Antonio had been whispering of love and of his confidence in the future, blessed by her confidence in him, of his courage to meet difficulties and subdue them, sustained by that courage of her own, which would share all troubles, until the better times for VOL. II. B both arrived. Which was the dream to Minnie Garth ; the lovers rhapsodising by the river's brink, or this scene upon which she had intruded ?

She was confused ; the real and the unreal were inextricably blended, and the man with the ringlets had spoken of terrible things — of a mercenary cal culation which had been made respecting her, and of his bitter disappointment now that she was poor. In her bewilderment she did not turn to Hester, but her hands clasped themselves round the arm of Antonio Baretti. " Your father ?" she asked, at last. " Yes, that is my father," replied Antonio, in a hard tone ; " you have heard me speak of him before — you know what I think of him — you see what he is." s» He made no attempt to lower his voice, and at the scornful ring in it, Paulo Baretti appeared to cower more. " What does it mean ?" she said, in an excited whisper. Neither Paulo Baretti nor his son essayed to offer an explanation ; it was Hester Deerham who an swered this question.

" It means this, Minnie," she said, " or I am once again sadly mistaken in my judgment; these two gentlemen have thought a great deal of your money, and but little of yourself." " This from you, Miss Deerham !" cried Antonio, in amazement ; " after all that has been said — after all that I have tried to prove." " And failed in," added Hester, " miserably failed in, despite your cunning and my readiness to believe the best of you. You," she said, turning suddenly to Paulo Baretti, " tell me that you and your son built upon twenty thousand pounds with the hand of Minnie Garth. Is that true ?" " Yes, it's true enough," answered the father, shortly. " Does the son deny this, or not ?" asked Hester. " I cannot submit to cross-questioning," said Antonio. " I dispute your right, Miss Deerham, to suspect me again."

" You built upon twenty thousand pounds with Minnie Garth ; it was the sum which tempted you, he says — your own father ! — and not that poor girl's innocence and love. And you were not satis fied with it or her on the night you sought her for a wife. Dispute my right or not, but answer, sir." Antonio Baretti paused to consider the position ; he was perplexed ; he could not see his way. If he had only explained a little while ago that which was impossible for him to gain credit for now ! If he had only owned that he had been a villain, and repented ; and that for the life before him he had only thought of happiness with Minnie. "Antonio," said a sweet, low voice at his side, " you can answer this, I know." " You believe in me — you trust in me, Minnie ?" " Yes," said Minnie. " Thank you ; that is well," he answered, pressing to his side the hands which still rested on his arm ; " the battle is not lost yet ; these two shall not have it all their own way, with you to give me strength."

He spoke as if Paulo Baretti and Hester Deerham were leagued together to mar their lovers' happiness ; and Hester became white with anger, or with fear for Minnie, and pressed her hands to her temples, as if to collect her thoughts to dismay this schemer utterly. " You — you have not answered," she cried. " My reply to every question that can be put to me is, that I love this girl," said Antonio, and he passed his arm round Minnie, and drew her to his side unresistingly. " That man, who has been my shadow and my curse, and you, who are my new enemy and accuser, have no right to sow suspicion between Minnie and me now. We have faith in each other ; be merciful, madam, and do not attempt to destroy it." He had spoken very proudly, but he looked almost beseechingly at Hester Deerham as he concluded.

Ee knew the power of her revelation, and feared it ; and she had lost all faith in him, and beheld at last only a clever adventurer who had played his part with well-feiguel earnestness, and thus deceived them all. At any sacrifice, even of her own self esteem, she must unmask him; for Minnie's sake, for John Garth's sake, and without consideration for her own past weakness. "It is too late to plead to me," said Hester. '• Every word and action of yours I doubt, as I have doubted every motive for your presence here. Minnie, that man does not reply to the question which I have put to him. I see it all. I believe in the father's disappointment that you are not rich, and in the mercenary calculation which led the son to propose to you." " You are unjust," said Minnie, in reply. " Unjust !" cried Hester ; " and you have known me all my life as a friend and a sister.

You are cruel to me ; you are cruelly deceived in him." " Cannot we talk this over quietly, all of us ?" suggested Paulo Baretti, in a low, sepulchral voice, and without looking up from his study of the carpet, " and come to some understanding as to what is best for her, and Tony, and me ? Can't we " " I will not have you speak !" shouted Antonio. " There is no understanding to arrive at. Leave this house at once." " Leave this house at your bidding !" cried Paulo, fiercely, in return. " No, that will not do. It is at your bidding that I am here." " Liar !" exclaimed his son. " You defy me,— you tell me that I lie !" shouted Paulo, with increasing rage, stamping with his feet again, and flourishing his arms wildly above his head. " Is it my own son who orders me from the house, when I would have counselled him, saved him, spilt my heart's blood for him ?

He turns against me when he is a beggar, and I am rich, and talks of his love for John Garth's daughter, — a beggar, like himself. He gives the lie to me !" " 1 give the lie to everything you say or do !" said Antonio. " I warn you that you are in danger in Wolston, — that you have risked too much in coming hither." Paulo looked defiantly at his son. " What have I risked ?" he asked. " I will tell you soon enough," said Antonio, after a moment's pause. " Now go." " No," said Paulo, doggedly. " You asked me to come, and I am here, — perhaps a little before my time, for she is not your wife, and there is no money to be shared from her marriage portion. But you defy me, of all men in the world ! You call me a liar, Tony ; when it was you who spoke of kflling yourself rather than of marrying the woman who is clinging to you ; who were sorry that you had asked her, on the night of the regatta, and told me so amongst the rushes on the other side of the long dyke.

Madre di Dio I this man calls me liar !" It was a genuine burst of indignation, and there was no acting in the rage of Paulo Baretti. He was deeply affected ; his pride had been humbled, his word had been doubted ; and all the passion in his Southern nature had once more been aroused. There was much that he could not understand, that he would not seek to fathom. He was only assured that, for reasons inexplicable and suicidal, his son Antonio had resolved upon marrying Minnie Garth. Since they had met last, Antonio had changed, turned against him, been cajoled by one or both of these pale-faced women, and he was left alone in the days of his prosperity, completely thrown over and despised in the hour of his greatest hopes. There was a dead silence after his accusation. Minnie looked for an instant nervously into her lover's face, and took courage again from the stern, set expression, which would not waver at these odious aspersions, which would give no sign of a refutation of the slander hurled against him.

" Have you done ?" said Antonio. " Yes, Tony," replied Baretti, less violently ; " I have done with you, if this is the end of my teaching, and the beginning of your madness. I have defended myself — I have answered. Now, marry that girl, if you are fool enough to take her, and she is simple enough to have you — marry, to both your misery, from which I will not rescue you. By all that's true on earth or in heaven, I will never help you, Tony." " Go," said Antonio ; " you have done all the harm in your power, and there is no one cares for your longer stay in this house." "By " then Paulo Baretti stopped, went to the little table, took therefrom his hat, and walked towards the door. " No one need believe me — I don't care," he said, with a forced laugh. " I can find friends, lots of them, to rally round me, and to stick to old Baretti when his own boy turns against him.

What the foul fiend should I care for any of you here ? But that woman — you, madam, I mean," he cried to Hester, " you believe me, don't you?" " Yes," said Hester, slowly ; " I believe every word that you have said." " There," said Baretti, with a short laugh, " that's good. By my soul," — and here he came across the room towards Hester Deerham, with his eyes pro truding, and his teeth gleaming, in the old wild-beast fashion in which he looked always the most for midable, despite his friendliness, — " I'll marry you for that, if you'll say ' yes.' Why shouldn't I ? I'm rich, so are you ; and we two would make as nice a couple as those idiots." " Don't come nearer to me !" cried Hester, re coiling. " Well, I won't," said he, suddenly stopping ; " but you — you do believe what I have said ?"

" Yes," she replied again. " Hester," cried Minnie, " you cannot, you will not believe in that bad man before Antonio's word ?" "Antonio Baretti has not denied the accusation, Minnie," replied Hester, coldly ; " and I would not believe him if he did." " Oh— Hetty— why ?" " Because he is wholly false, — because I see no truth or conscience in him ; and only wonder at the hidden motive which would at the last cruelly deceive you. Minnie," she murmured, "it is my greatest shame now that that man spoke of love to me only a year and a few months ago, and that I never told you — that he would have taken me for his wife, believing in my money and my credulity." " Antonio !" cried Minnie. Then her hands, for the first time, left the arm to which she had clung, and she shrunk back a step or two, but not wholly away from him.

"You will deny this — you will answer me, I know." The handsome face darkened still more, although for an instant the sternness of it vanished beneath her earnestness. He was baffled ; there would be no one a few minutes hence to believe in him — not even the fair girl whom he had learned to love. " I had better not answer, perhaps," he said, in a deep voice. " I ask for your consideration at another time, another place — not here." " Why not here ?" asked Minnie. " Here I ask still for the trust you have promised me," he replied. " I will trust you, Antonio, with all my heart, if you will say ' no ' to this," said Minnie — " say that it was a mistake — a misunderstanding — anything; for, oh, I have only you left in all the world !" It was a piteous wail of helplessness, and touched more than one in that room.

" Trust me now, Minnie — for mercy's sake, trust me !" cried Antonio, making one step towards her. She moved one step away as he advanced, and he saw the movement, and held back at once. " Is Hester right ?" she asked. " Did you — did you ever ask her to become your wife ?" " I did," he answered, slowly. " And yet I was the only woman whom you had loved, you said," she cried ; " oh, where am I to turn for truth, with all against me ? Oh, my poor father, if I had only you left now." She wrung her hands, and looked wildly round the room, as if he might be at hand, to save her from all who had deceived her, as if amidst the strange incidents of that day, John Garth's presence there, sudden and startling, would not have been out of place, and in her new misery might have saved her. She tottered like a child towards the couch, and sank down, with her arms spread over the scroll, and her forehead buried in them, and away from all who had played her false.

CHAPTER V.

A CRISIS. Antonio was at Minnie's side, and his voice was murmuring in her ears in the first moments of her despair. " Minnie, trust me — I love you," he said. She looked up with a half-uttered cry, and gazed eagerly into his face. " And it was not for the money's sake that you first thought of me ?" she said ; " you never met him," pointing to Paulo Baretti, " on that night and spoke of me — say that !" " Minnie, I met him," Antonio replied. " I was cruel enough to think of your money then, of Mr. Deerham's wish that I should save you from your father, and I was sorry to ensnare you suddenly, not guessing then that it was my greatest happiness that I had secured. There, Minnie, I have had the courage to confess this, when by a lie I might have balked the malice of these two. Have you the courage to believe me now that you are all the world to me ?"

He caught her hand in his, but she withdrew it hastily. As his last words fell upon her ears, she sat with a hard, cold face confronting him and his accusers. The past uncertainty was gone, the past weakness had followed it, and the woman's grief was for the afterwards, when these people should not be watching her. She was her father's child at last, and Hetty, regarding her anxiously, thought suddenly how like she was, with that resolute face, to him who had gone away in anger from the house. The pride of the Garths, of which the President of Alsako had spoken, was apparent then, and became her well in the hour of her emergency. " No, I have not the courage to believe in you," said Minnie, in answer to him. " But— " I have been treated like a child," she said, inter rupting him, " and it has been one record of dissimu lation.

You came here, Mr. Baretti, for an heiress, and failing Miss Deerham's favour, you turned to me, and, in my ignorance of the world, taught me to believe in you. You have had the manliness to confess that duplicity by which I was deceived, and I thank you for it, even at so late an hour as this, and wrung from you as it has been by these strange circumstances about us. I thank you — for you have saved me." " No, no ! I would save you, Minnie, now that it is in my power to make atonement for all the bitter past." " I am John Garth's daughter," she cried, " and can save myself. I do not want your pity ; aud your penitence for having tricked me into liking you, I shall not care to witness. I have not been treated well ; I resent it. I ask you, Mr. Baretti, to quit this house. That is the only favour which you can extend to me."

" At the last, when a word of yours might save us both, when I am true to you — you ask me to go away." " Oh, sir, I am true to myself," replied Minnie, "to my own pride, and my father's name, from which I was coward enough to hide once. I have awakened to much of stern reality, but I shall be a stronger woman presently for the lesson which you three have taught me. I shall rise to the position — not sink down too weak to bear all this. I am very strong, if you will only let me be." Still Antonio was persistent. He forgot his witnesses, and bent over her, begging her to think how much he loved her, and how she could save him by a word ; but his own words had broken the spell of the enchantment, and his eloquence was vain. The fair, pale face wavered no more ; and when he paused, she said, with a greater degree of firmness in her voice, " I have asked you to be merciful, and let me go.

I have no faith in you, or in the world about me, yet. I have but myself to trust in. Did you not hear me say so ?" Antonio moved away at last. Yes, she was true to herself. "You see to what you condemn me, Minnie, — what you hurl me back upon — in your decision ; and yet there is no mercy for an error long atoned for." " I pardon it," she said ; " there is mercy in that. I bear no hate against you ; but I despise the mean ness which would have made a slave of me. Is it generous to torture me by remaining here ?" " To leave you, and to go away with him — that is your wish ?" he asked, and his own face became very hard and resolute. " Anywhere, sir, so that your generosity spares me the pain of your presence." "To go away with him!" he repeated, pointing to his father ; " to accept his life as mine, and sink every good impulse which my present life has given birth to ; to become the man 1 was before I knew you, or believed in woman's power and affection to save me ?

That is condemnation, for without you I give up. All is at an end. I trust not if I turn away.' " I am not strong enough to save you, or weak enough to put faith in you again, Mr. Baretti," she said, slowly. " I am an inexperienced girl ; but I do not think it lies in man or woman's power to deceive me twice in life." " With you, then," said Antonio Baretti, passing to his father's side, and laying his hands upon his arm, " with you for guide and counsellor, and banker," he added, with a short, hard laugh, " we shall get on together pretty well." The father softened at once. He had been watching every movement, listening to every word, and the last decision made amends for all the past scorn and insults. He put his arm round his son's neck in a rough, bear-like fashion, and would have kissed him, had not Antonio suddenly shaken himself away from the caress.

" Are you mad ?" he asked, fiercely. " Yes, mad with joy at a son's repentance — like the man in the book — the Bible, wasn't it ?" cried his father. " Come on — let us leave these women to console each other. We have a big, bright world before us, where we shan't meet with black looks while the money lasts — and there's plenty of it. Miss Deerham — your obedient servant ; Miss Garth, — yours to command : my compliments to your estimable father, and " He was not permitted the privilege of completing his sentence — his voice suddenly left him, and there came a sense of suffocation at his throat, a loss of eyesight, a singing in his ears, followed by a giant's strength, which dragged him somewhere, and in some fashion, from the drawing-room. When he recovered, he was standing in the great hall of Wolston House, leaning against a hat-tree, with the sable collar of his coat torn, and trailing down his shoulder, and his son was glaring at him with a face of fury.

" I had forgotten what a fiend you were !" cried Antonio in his ears. " Now go away, without another word." " But you," said Paulo, — " you will not desert me ? You said that you were coming." " Stay for me without," said Antonio. " You will come !" shouted Paulo, exultantly. " What does it matter where I go, or with whom, after this accursed day ?" was the sharp answer. Antonio passed into the drawing-room again. Hester was standing where he had left her, with her hands supporting herself by the back of a rosewood chair, and her wistful face turned towards Minnie's, which was as white, and set, and angular, as he had seen it last. " I have come to say good-bye," he said. " For one instant more, bear with me — you two women, whose hate and scorn I have very dearly purchased. I may deserve them ; and this may be a fair conclu sion to an adventurer's scheming.

Miss Deerham — good-bye." He held his hand towards her, but she did not take it. " It is the last time I shall be able to offer it to you in all fairness," he said, "and in all forgiveness." " Forgiveness," murmured Hester, in reply. " You broke your word with me this morning," he said ; " and the result is a moral death. That is something to forgive, Miss Deerham." " You would have deceived her," said Hester. " I would have made her happy," he replied. " But you were right, perhaps, both of you, not to trust in me. I was a man without a character, after the whole truth was laid bare ; and there was no one to speak up for me save my own miserable self. Still the storm is over. I am baffled — at your mercy— and sinking away. Let me depart with the remem brance of a woman's forgiveness for my errors.

Let her take my hand, in sign of pardon, and so forget me ever afterwards." His hand was still held out very earnestly towards her, and the voice was deep and faltering, and strange. Hester was softened, and her hand went slowlv towards his. " Live to be a better and more honest man, Mr. Baretti," she said, as they shook hands. " Ah, madam," he answered, very bitterly, " there is no chance of that now." He went nearer to Minnie, sitting there very grave and still, sank down slowly at her feet, and took her hands in his and kissed them, leaving even his hot tears upon them without outwardly affecting her. VOL. II. o " Good-bye," he said, when he had risen again — " for ever, Minnie Garth, good-bye. You were too pure and good for me." He was gone the instant afterwards. The closing of the drawing-room door was followed by the noisy clanoina: of the outer door, which shut him from Wolston House for ever — shut him away with Paulo Baretti, into whose carriage he stepped mechanically, recking not of what he was doing, guessing not even all the harm in the father, or all the harm that might be done him.

It was an utter rout ; he was van quished, aud a prisoner. He was hopeless and despairing, and cared not what might happen to him from that day. He had made one strong effort in his life to become a better man, and here was the miserable and unprofitable result. As the carriage was borne rapidly away, Hester glanced towards it, and to the dark-faced figure within it ; but Minnie did not move her head. With her hands clasped together, her fingers interlaced, her white rigid face still looking as at a future which did not daunt her with its utter want of sympathy and love, she sat there as Antonio had left her. " Minnie," said Hetty, in a low, plaintive toue, " don't despair — don't give way ; it was all for the best, dear." But Minnie did not answer. She had not heard the words, or they had fallen without meaning on her ears, her own thoughts being very deep.

" You will keep strong — you will always, as you say, be true to yourself," said Hester, stealing to her side, and passing her arm round her. " This is a trouble from which many women suffer ; and the shock has only been more sudden because, until this day, it has been wholly unprepared for. It was best for him to go, and you to know the truth ; best for me, even at the eleventh hour, to tell you all, and leave you to judge of the honour of this man, and of the motives which kept him at your side." Still Minnie did not answer, and Hetty gazed with more anxiety into the unmoved face beside her. " Oh, Minnie," she continued, rapidly, " you must try to forgive me for all the harm that I have done, hoping and praying for the best, and only wishing to save you and prove his unworthiness. When I thought that I was wrong, and that I had been un generous to him, I kept silence ; and it was only to-day that I was sure it was his hope of money which had led him on to seek you.

Assured of that, I spoke, when months ago it would have been more merciful ; and you must not think — oh, you must never think — that I did not love you very much. Don't let this set us apart, even by a hair's breadth ; and if I have done wrong, dearest, in my narrow estimate of what was right, still forgive me, for old time's sake — for poor Greg's sake — for I was only a weak woman." Minnie was still unmoved, and Hester Deerham might have spoken to a statue for all the impression which her words had made. There was something awful and heart-chilling in Minnie's unnatural repose, in her strange apathy, and long look a-head beyond the present hour, wherein the blow had been struck, and resisted by this fair, fragile girl. Hester was alarmed — a sense of fear came to her that all was far from well, now that the worst was known, and the tempest had spent itself.

" Minnie, why don't you speak to me ?" cried Hester. Minnie spoke at last. She rose slowly to her feet, with the same far-seeing look in her deep eyes, and Hetty rose with her. " Don't try to stop me ! He is calling — I must go to him," she whispered. " Who is calling, dear ?" "John Garth — my father, whom every one is against. Every one is against the Garths, if you recollect, and we only stand by one another. There again — I am sure I hear him." " Oh, Minnie, Minnie, don't talk like this ! — don't look like this !" " Let me go !" she cried. " Don't hold my dress, or keep me from the only one who ever cared for me, and whose heart I tried to break. Oh, father, save me from this woman !" With a sudden movement she eluded Hettv's grasp, and went swiftly across the room towards the French windows of the garden.