Emilia's Inheritance

Front matter

EMILIA'S INHERITANCE. EMMA JANE WORBOISE, Author oj '"Mr. Montmorency's Money ," "Husbands and Wives" "Overdale,' "The House of Bondage " "Heart's- Ease in the Family" &*c.y &*c., £yc . " And should the twilight darken into night, And sorrow grow to anguish, be thou strong ; Thou art in God, and nothing can go wrong "Which a fresh life -pulse cannot set aright. That thou dost know the darkness, proves the light. Weep if thou wilt, but weep not all too long ; Or weep and work, for work will lead to song. But search thy heart, if hid from all thy sight There lie no cause for beauty's slow decay ; If for completeness and diviner youth, And not for very love, thou seek'st the truth ; If thou hast learned to give thyself away For love's own self, not for thyself, I say : Were God's love less, the world were lost, in sooth."

George Macdonald. *£axibaxi : JAMES CLARKE AND CO., 13, FLEET STREET, HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27 & 31. PATERNOSTER ROW. 1874. Contents. CHAP. PAGE I. The Sisters i n. Cousin Augusta 10 III. Home through the Woods 20 IV. The Coral Ornaments 31 V. Missing 41 VI. The " Gap " and the " Tangle " 52 VII. The Unbidden Guest 63 VIII. The Ladies' Court-Martial 73 IX. Brothers in Council 83 X. The Family Puzzle 93 XI. " Arriasrestas " 104 XII. A Meeting at the Cross Roads 114 XIII. Like a Thief in the Night 124 XIV. Soup " a la Crawford " '34 XV. Maid-of-all-Work 144 XVI. Inspector Corbett 153 XVII. A Mare's Nest 163 XVIII. Alone at the Tangle 173 XIX. An Old Feather l83 XX. On the Eve of Change i93 XXI. Emilia's Diary 202 XXII. Susan's Dream 211 XXIII, The De Rozas Jewels CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE XXIV. A Burglar's Accomplice 229 XXV.

Annie Cooper 238 XXVI. The Captain's Little Supper 248 XXVII. " What is it to Repent ? " 257 XXVIII. In the Dark 268 XXIX. A Woman of the People 279 XXX. On London Bridge 287 XXXI. Augusta's Letter 296 XXXII. Esta asks a Friend to Dinner 306 XXXIII. Susan's Blunder 316 XXXIV. At Lincoln's Inn 325 XXXV. The Lawyer's Assistants 335 XXXVI. Baffled 345 XXXVII. Columbine Gardens 355 XXXVIII. The Bible-Woman's Story 365 XXXIX. Found at Last 375 XL. News from South America 385 XLI. A Morning on the Sands 395 XLII. " Mr. Smith " 407 XLIII. The Captain's Confession 417 XLIV. The Downfall of Davalos 427 XLV. " Dust to Dust " 437 XL VI. Once more the Coral Ornaments 447 XL VII. An Old Friend 458 XL VIII. After Morning Service 467 XLIX. The S. Pablo Will 478 L. Martin's Letter 488 LI, All's Well that Ends Well #miim fs §w|mtam

Chapter I. The Sisters

" Has the second post come in ? " " I think not ; but what makes you so anxious about the letters this morning, Esta?" " As if you needed to ask ! Why, you ought to be ten times more excited than I am." " I really do not see why. And I assure you my feelings do not go beyond a little pleasant expectation. Just look at my drawing ; am I not making these hills unnaturally purple ? " " Not a bit of it ! We saw more vivid colouring than that when we were in Scotland last year. I should make it brighter; there is too much Prussian blue or cobalt ; it wants just the least little dash of scarlet lake." " Do you think so ? I like the more sober tint ; neutral shades, with just a little glow upon them, is what I prefer." "I know you do! It is just like you, Emmie! You ought to have belonged to the Society of Friends ; you would have made a lovely Quakeress."

"lam glad, nevertheless, to be — not a Quakeress. I had rather be what I am, with just a few ameliorations of my hard lot." " How the world would laugh at you, Emmie ! We, who know you, give you credit for all sincerity, but people generally, if they heard you bemoaning your cruel fate, would at once bring you in guilty of the most absurd affectation, or else they would set you down for a morbid, sentimental, hypochondriacal young lady of the Lydia Languish school." " They might if I were to speak out of my heart to them ; but I should not think of talking about myself before ' people generally.' " " That is well, for even I feel quite out of patience with you sometimes, Emmie. You are one of the richest young ladies in England — you are that enviable creature, a great heiress ! You are very pretty, and you have good health ; and mamma spoils you, and you may marry anybody who is not too much attached to his own family name.

In short, you are Miss Montmorency ; and that says all that can be said about it." " That is the very thing ! I know it is wrong to be dis contented with one's lot ; but I cannot help wishing — oh ! so earnestly — that dear, dear Percy had lived." " Of course we all wish that. It was the natural thing for him to be grandpapa's heir ; and there was never such a brother as Percy." "Or, if that might not be," continued Emilia, "I wish you had been the eldest daughter ; you would have played the part of the rich Miss Montmorency far better than I. I should have been quite contented with my dowry of ; and I should have had no responsibilities, and I might have lived my own life." " Really, Emilia, you do talk such nonsense that you put one out of all patience. You have had plenty of time to get used to your ' responsibilities,' whatever they may be, and there is nothing to prevent you living your own life that I can see, provided you are not fanciful and squeamish.

I would be Miss Montmorency with pleasure if I could ; but you see Providence ushered you into the world nearly two years before myself, and the laws of primogeniture must be respected. Otherwise, I should have enjoyed playing the grande Duchesse, as far as power, and wealth, and importance are concerned. How very odd it is, Emmie, that you and I — sisters, near of an age comparatively, brought up together, subjected to precisely the same influences — should be so very different. We are as unlike in mind as we are in person." And Estelle Montmorency, as she spoke, looked at her sister, and then glanced at herself in the large mirror close to which she stood. If what she saw there satisfied her, well, she must not be criticised as vain and foolish, for Estelle was wonderfully beautiful, and she was scarcely yet in the zenith of her charms ; while Emilia — gentle, refined, pensive, and of singularly pure complexion, was what most people would call — " so sweet-looking, and such a perfect lady."

But it is time to say who these young ladies are, and what the peculiar circumstances are which give to the elder sister a position and responsibilities so far exceeding those which fall to the share of the younger. Marmaduke and Cecily Montmorency, the parents of these young people, had married clandestinely, and much misery had been the result. Mr. Montmorency, pere, had never forgiven his erring son, till, worn out with privation and disappointment, the young man was on the brink of thegrave. When the rich man did at last relent it was too late ; luxury and plenty were unavailing to save one already stricken unto death. Marmaduke Montmorency died, leaving four children — a son of great promise, named Percy, and three girls, Emilia, Estelle, and Violet. There had been another boy — Arthur, the first-born of the young couple; but he was sickly and slightly deformed, and his frail young life was mercifully not prolonged beyond his ninth year.

The old man's hopes of an heir once more revived ; he was naturally cold, hard, and unforgiving, and filthy lucre had been his god all his days. In his extreme anger he had not simply disinherited his son Marmaduke, but he had sworn anawfuloaththatneitherhenor his wife Cecily should ever succeed to one penny of his own enormous wealth. When at length nature and the solicitations of friends triumphed he felt bound by his oath ; but he excused him self for sending a large sum of money to his dying son, with free promise of liberal supplies in the future, by re calling the fact that he had not sworn never to give him anything ; he had only vowed to himself that Marmaduke should never be helped by him, and such a vow might be broken. The child Percy, against whom no rash oath had been i — registered, became Mr. Montmorency's acknowledged heir, and a will was executed in his favour.

When Percy was in his nineteenth year his grandfather, whose mind had long been clouded by paralysis, died, and the young man entered on his vast inheritance, though, being a minor, his uncle Bevis acted as his guardian. The will — the famous will, which was to cause so much trouble and so many complications — was read the day after the funeral. Percy was heir to the great bulk of the Montmo rency property, and it had been his grandfather's darling wish that he should purchase a splendid estate, marry early, and, so to speak, resound the family, which had lapsed from its first honours and renown. To Percy's three sisters were left 5,000 each, to be paid to them unconditionally, as they successively became of age; and Emilia, as eldest daughter, inherited many of the jewels which had belonged to her richly-dowered Brazilian grandmother, Mr. Mont morency's first wife.

But after the will came a codicil, which provided for cer tain contingencies, in case of the young heir d) ing without issue. That the Montmorency money should not be severed from the Montmorency name was the old man's passionate desire ; and though he doubted not that his grandson would marry early, and become the father of male children, he, with the singular foresight and caution which had distinguished him from his boyhood, especially where money was concerned, determined to make such arrangements as should, in any case, prevent the Montmorency inheritance being diverted from the family name. The codicil, which revoked no clause of the will, pro vided for the future succession, in case of the death of Percy Montmorency childless. Percy did die childless. He survived his grandfather rather more than two years.

The very day on which he attained his majority, and entered upon the uncontrolled possession of his vast inheritance, he passed away to a far nobler heritage than that which came to him as Mr. Montmorency's heir. The day that saw him, for a few hours only, master of the accumulated wealth of nearly two centuries, opened to him the portals of that fairer, grander life beyond the grave, where there are treasures that can never fade away. And Emilia Montmorency, a pale, quiet girl of nineteen, who had, nevertheless, loved her one brother passionately. stood in his place. She succeeded to the Montmorency money, but under conditions ! She forfeited her inheritance if she were not married on or before her twenty-fifth birth day; also, if she married any person who objected to assume the name and arms of Montmorency.

And in case of such forfeiture, Estelle was to be the heiress, strictly bound by the same conditions, which, if she failed to com ply with, put her also aside in favour of her younger sister, Violet. Now, whether at the time of executing this remarkable codicil Mr. Montmorency's keen faculties were somewhat impaired by age and the creeping disease which had already seized upon him, or whether he deemed it sufficient to limit the succession so far and no farther — the common law of chances forbidding the probability of all four young people dying childless, or failing to comply with the con ditions — or whether the codicil was never quite finished, it is impossible to say. Both will and codicil were drawn up by the old man himself. A lawyer would certainly have urged upon him the necessity of greater distinctness in the clause which related to his youngest granddaughter, for, though remotest in succession, Violet, as being altogether untrammelled, might be considered as more favoured than her elder sisters.

If, through disinclination to marry, or marrying some one who declined to take the name of Montmorency, Emilia and Estelle were set aside, she be came sole heiress absolutely, and might marry Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones without any question of the adoption of name ; or she might, if it so pleased her, found a hospital or a sisterhood ; for, whether the old gentleman intended it or not, she was certainly free to will away the whole property to whomsoever she chose. All the elders of the house of Montmorency — Uncle Bevis and Aunt Bertha, Cecily herself, and her close friends the Thornhursts — had deplored the existence of this codicil, the provisions of which might cause painful entanglements, and even family discord. While Percy lived, no one thought much about Mr. Montmorency's will ; but when, by his death, the codicil became of importance, it occurred to several persons to wish most earnestly that it had never been drawn up, or that poor Percy's inheritance might have been equally divided between his three sisters, who would even then have been women of exceptionally large fortunes.

Regret, however, was useless ; there was the codicil, duly proved, and beyond dispute a binding, legal instrument. It remained only to guard, as far as might be, against such circumstances as could possibly tend to those very embarrassments which were so greatly to be depre cated. But Cecily felt her responsibility most deeply, and she could only trust in God so to order events that the end should be peace and happiness. She lived with her daughters in much retirement at Deepfields Court, about sixteen miles out of London, on the Surrey side. The estate really belonged to Emilia, but it was intended by the heiress, and by all three sisters, that it should become, by deed of gift, absolutely the pro perty of their mother as soon as Violet, being of age, should be competent to act on her own responsibility.

And Violet was now, when this story begins, seventeen and a-half, and scarcely emancipated from the school room. Though Estelle had said that her sister Emilia was " very pretty," I am not sure that such was actually the case. She was one of those people who may be lovely to a few, but who are not generally considered to possess any real claim to beauty. And yet it was a very sweet face, if a little sad, that bent, that sunny August morning, over the drawing-board. The features were regular and refined, the eyes grey and soft, the head well set upon the drooping shoulders, and the expression singularly pure and ingenuous. Truth was stamped upon every linea ment. But the gentle face was very pale ; save for the rosy lips it was absolutely colourless, giving an appearance of delicacy of health, which, however, was nothing more than appearance, for Emilia had scarcely known a day's illness since, at eight years old, she had had the measles favourably, and she was an excellent equestrian, and could take walks that tired her more robust-looking sisters and her vigorous cousin, Augusta Crawford.

A sort of grave sadness, that seemed quite natural to her, was probably the result of a most sorrowful childhood. Her first recollections were of sadly straitened circumstances. She could look back to a time when her father was slowly sinking into the grave, overcome by toil and suffering, and the sickness of hope deferred; of a time when they all lived in humble lodgings in Kingsland Road, and when " mamma" worked hard with her hands, and sighed and even wept over an empty purse. She could remember staying in the house because she had no shoes that were fit to walk out in, and longing in vain for a new warm frock when the cold weather set in ; and her best Sunday dress was only a poor, thin, worn-out alpaca, made up for her when it could no longer serve her mother. She could remember one dreadful night when her papa was brought home very ill in a cab, and when she and Percy had run through the rain and the mud of the miserable October evening all the way to Queen's Road, Dalston, to fetch Mr. Fortress, their kind friend and medical attendant.

Ah ! there was little thought of any body's heirship in those sad days of sickness unto death and pinching poverty. And even when help came, when they all rejoiced together over the relenting of the stern old man, who had seemed to the children hitherto a mighty, inexorable fate, there was the dread which Emmie, child as she was, shared with her mother and Percy, and with their faithful servant Susan — who served them for love and not for wage — that plenty and comfort had arrived too late — too late to save the one with whose precious life their own was so closely intertwined. And then came the days of alternate hope and fear — those strange, half-sad, half-happy days at Dover, where the last few months of poor 'Duke Montmo rency's life were spent ; and then the end — the sense of being fatherless, the funeral day, the mother's agony of grief — all were indelibly imprinted on the child's too fa\thful memory ; and she realised, even more than Percy, who was a year and eight months older than herself, the bitterness of that bereavement.

After Marmaduke's death they were all well cared for : as Susan said, "They had everything of the best, and wanted for nothing." The old man was lavish in his gifts even when his senses failed him ; and those who acted for him, even when he was no longer capable of making arrangements for himself, took all care that his heir and his daughter-in-law and granddaughters should be handsomely provided for. But the impressions of the past never seemed to fade from Emilia's mind, and the death of her dailing brother deepened the shade of sorrow and un-girlish gravity which rested on her fair young face. And yet she was happy, and her temper was of the sweetest ; it was that something seemed to be missing from her youth, something of the brightness and the buoyancy which ought to be inseparable from that charming age which, having passed childhood and early girlhood, stands upon the threshold of maturity.

For Emmie wanted only a week of attaining her majority. Utterly unlike the pale, pensive heiress was the beautiful Estelle, or Esta, as she was most frequently called in her own family. She was endowed with that rare beauty that dazzles all beholders — her bitterest enemy, if she had one, must have been constrained to own her exceeding loveli ness. She was a creature of light and sunshine, born, as it seemed, to inherit joy. She resembled neither of her parents, but was said to be the counterpart of her wealthy Brazilian grandmother, Anna de Rozas, when she came a bride to Easthambury. The pure olive complexion, the rich carnation tints, the wonderful dark eyes, the proud, faultless features, the queenlike/w<? of the whole graceful figure, even the liquid, melodious tones of voice, were as nearly as possible a repetition of what Mortimer Mont morency's first wife had been in the heyday of her youth and her surpassing beauty.

Esta had never dwelt on the sorrows of the past ; there were some painful passages which she could not but remember, and Percy's death was but a recent grief. Still it was not in her nature to dwell on the dark side, and, if saddened for awhile, she quickly recovered her gaiety, and danced and sang as if a cloud had never crossed her sky. A more complete contrast than the sisters presented cannot be imagined. Emilia pale and grave ; Esta with damask roses on her cheeks, and overflowing with mirth and mischief; Emilia serene and self-controlled; Esta flashing and changeable in all her moods, and impetuous to a fault ; Emilia loving retirement and content in ob scurity ; Esta panting for the pleasures of the outside world. Even in their dress and choice of daily occupation they differed widely.

As we see them talking together now, how unlike they are ! The actual mourning for their brother is laid aside, though colours have not yet been assumed by any of the ladies. Emilia wears a black-and-white morning dress of inexpensive material, and very simply made ; a black ribbon confines her abundant light brown hair ; her collar and cuffs are of fine, but plain, white cambric ; the only sign of wealth about her is a massive gold chain, and a costly little watch, sparkling with diamonds, which lies on the table before her. Estelle's dress is flounced and fashionably trimmed ; it is mauve and white — the mauve so bright, that in the sunlight it might, by persons unskilled in colours, be called pink ; ribbons of the same hue flutter in her hair, and at her shapely wrists, and everywhere about her, and a beautiful cluster of tea-roses just gathered, nestles among her luxuriant raven curls, and a gay chatelaine hangs dangling from her waist.

Brilliant colours suit Estelle Montmorency, and she knows it, and takes care to display them, though always in most perfect taste. Suddenly there comes in from the garden a sound of singing. A pure, silvery young voice is lilting out a popular operatic air. It comes nearer and nearer across the lawn, along the terrace, close to the open French window by which the room may be entered from without ; and Esta says, " Oh, here is Violet ; she has been watching for the postman, I dare say ; she was wild because we had no letter this morning, either from Aunt Bertha or from Lady Laura. Here she comes, and I do believe she has the letters in her hands." A lovely girl stood on the threshold, all smiles and arch glances, crying, " Now, what will you give me for news, St. Emmie and Queen Esta ? " She was not " all aglow," like Esta, nor lily pale like Emmie ; she was a perfect Hebe in appearance, with pretty rosy cheeks, red lips, sunny, nut-brown curls, and large, lustrous, violet-blue eyes, that accorded well with her fanciful, floral name.

She was just a bonnie English rosebud of a girl — sweet, healthy, petulant, and overflow ing with her girlish happiness ; for next week guests were expected at Deepfields Court. All the poor people and the villagers generally were to be entertained in tents ; and several state dinner-parties and a sort of ball were to celebrateEmilia's coming of age.and her own introduction, as a grown-up young lady, into society. The " news " was only to announce who was coming and who was not. To Esta and to Violet, at least, it seemed of the last importance. Emilia was as silent and tranquil as ever. Then the luncheon bell rang, and Violet whispered to Emmie, " I sent in such a lot of apricots for Esta, and late raspberries for mamma ; and there are those big gooseberries for you, and me, and Augusta."

Chapter II. Cousin Augusta

The three girls found their mother at the head of the table when they entered the dining-room, where the mid day meal was spread ; for they had loitered on the way to inspect some new foliage-plants which the gardener had just sent in. Mrs. Montmorency, who was little over forty, was still youthful-looking, and, but for her grown-up daughters, might — had she been so disposed — have passed for five or six years younger. Indeed, she was occasionally taken for the elder sister of her girls ; and Estelle used laughingly to warn Emmie that, if she persisted in looking so grave, strangers would very soon have a difficulty in deciding between Miss and Mrs. Montmorency! But Emilia only smiled, and remarked that mamma " did look young enough — sometimes — to be taken for her own daughter." At the table, eating buttered biscuits, sat another young lady.

She was tall, dark, and rather harsh-featured. She was scarcely a brunette ; she was what is commonly called swarthy. She had large, dark eyes, coarse black hair, thick eyebrows, which gave a remarkable heaviness to her face, and her cheek-bones were large, and far too promi nent for good looks ; and yet there was a strange, almost startling, likeness between her and the beautiful Estelle, though in what the likeness consisted it would be very hard to say. She was Augusta Crawford, the only cousin of whom the Montmorency girls could boast ; for of the four children born to rich, proud Mortimer Montmorency, of Cleavanger House, only Marmaduke — their father, and Charlotte — Augusta's mother — had lived to enter upon the married state. Julian, the younger son, had died, unmarried, in the Holy Land ; and the girl Clotilda had scarcely passed her sixteenth year, when, after long feebleness, she faded away without any apparent malady.

Marmaduke and Charlotte were Mr. Montmorency's children by his first marriage with the Brazilian Anna de Rozas ; and Charlotte, who inherited her mother's rich, southern beauty, together with her father's haughtiness and obstinacy of temper, made an infinitely worse marriage than her brother 'Duke. Rash, headstrong, and self-willed to a degree, Charlotte Montmorency and her of which her enraged father could not deprive her, became the prey of a base, specious, and altogether worthless swindler, who repre sented himself to the splendid heiress as her devoted lover, declaring that he was of excellent family, with good expectations of immense wealth, and no small chance of an ancient title, when two or three feeble lives should elapse. Charlotte listened and was lost. It was her first season, and she did not lack admirers — what beautiful girl with a fortune of ever was uncourted in the gay London world ? — but of all her suitors — and she might have been a duchess had she chosen to accept the ad dresses of a certain heavy, dull young nobleman, heir to a dukedom — she turned a listening ear to none, save to Captain Crawford — a spendthrift and a mere adventurer, with no income but what his wits secured him.

She eloped with him from the house of a friend, and was seen no more by her own people for many years, when at last she made her appearance — aged, shabby, flippant, and altogether sunk — as Madame de Champigny. The wretched couple had lived a life of misery and sin ; for Charlotte had gradually become her husband's tool and abettor, and she helped him in his iniquitous career with a zeal and a skill worthy of a better task. They became noted gamblers, this godless, heedless pair, and sometimes they " lived in clover," and enjoyed all the luxuries which money could purchase, regardless of the future ; and sometimes — very frequently indeed— they pined in utter wretchedness, not knowing whence the next meal was to be obtained. One week Charlotte and her degraded Captain partook of pate de foie-gras, and other costly delicacies — hot-house grapes, pines, and the choicest wines, in which the Captain was a connoisseur ; the next week they got what they could on credit, and the next they starved on dry crusts, and such coarse viands as only the sauce of keenest hunger could make tolerable.

Now and then it was worse than that even ; the dry crust, and the unwholesome sausage, and the greasy puree were not forthcoming, and Charlotte and her hapless brood knew as well as any Whitechapel beggar what it was to crave for food, and to be cold, and to lie hard, and to shiver from insuffi cient raiment. They lived in all sorts of places, under all sorts of aliases. There was scarcely a large town in France or in Germany which they had not visited, and they had been in hiding in London for months together, when the Continent became too hot to hold them, and the Captain, in various disguises, carried on his profession of fleecing all the silly sheep who could be duped by him. Then they went out to Australia, and I believe they lived at Melbourne, till Melbourne thrust them forth ; and afterwards at Adelaide, till there they forfeited the shelter which is due to honest citizens, and had to fly into the bush.

They went out to the colonies with four children, and Charlotte came back without her husband, and with only one child — her eldest, Augusta. The husband lived on, no one knew where, and no one greatly cared. The younger children had all died abroad, from absolute want of proper nourishment and comfortable shelter. They were not strong, and the rough life of the colonies, far away from civilised communities, was too much for them. "And so they died, poor things!" Augusta had said, when she told her dreadful tale ; " and I wished I had died too." Her unhappy mother still lived, the victim of hopeless insanity. She was under first-class medical care, and she enjoyed superior advantages, Bevis Montmorency being anxious that his unfortunate relative should enjoy every possible amelioration of her sad lot.