Chapter 21

THE McPHERSONS.

The room in which Hugh McPherson was lying was the largest, and coolest, and best furnished in the house, for since he had been confined to his bed Dorothy had brought into it everything she thought would make it more attractive and endurable to the fastidious invalid, who, on the June morning when his son was in the garden talking to Daisy Allen, was propped upon pillows scarcely whiter than his thin, worn face, and was speaking of Archie to his brother John, who was standing before him with folded arms, and a gloomy, troubled expression on his face. Just across the room, by an open window, sat Lady Jane, pretending to rearrange a bowl of roses on the table near her, but listening intently to the conversation between the two brothers.

"I don't know what will become of Archie," the sick man said, speaking very slowly. "I shall leave him nothing but Stoneleigh, with a mortgage on it for four hundred pounds, and a little annuity which came through his mother. Strange, that from dear little Dora, who, when I married her, had nothing but her sweet voice and sweeter face, the boy should inherit all the ready money he can ever have, unless you or our sister Betsey open your hearts to him. You used to fancy the boy, and talked once of adopting him, when I had that fever at Pau, and you came to see me."

Here Lady Jane's long neck arched itself more proudly, and John felt how intently she was awaiting his reply.

"Yes, Hugh," he said, "I like the boy. He is bright and intelligent; and I did think of adopting him once, but that was before Neil came. Now I have a son, which makes a difference. I cannot take Archie, or do very much for him either. You know I have very little money of my own, and I have no right to spend Lady Jane's."

Here the willowy figure near the window bent very low over the roses, as if satisfied with the turn matters were taking, as John went on:

"As his uncle and guardian, I will see to him, of course, and will write to our sister, asking her to do something for him. Perhaps she will invite him to come to her in America, and if so, what are your wishes? Shall I let him go?"

The invalid hesitated a moment, while his common sense fought with the old hereditary pride of blood and birth, which would keep one in the rank to which it had pleased God to call him, even if he starved there. The latter gained the victory, and Hugh replied:

I would rather Archie should not go to America if there is any other way. Betsey is very peculiar in her ideas, and would as soon apprentice him to a shoemaker as anything else. In the last letter I received from her, she advised me to put him to some trade, and to break stone myself on the highway, rather than do nothing. No, Archie must not go to America, he may marry well, if you and Lady Jane look after him; and you will, John. You will have a care for my boy when I am gone, and, oh, never, never let him go near the gaming-table. That has been my ruin. Keep him from that, whatever you do."

"Why not require a promise from him to that effect? He is a truthful boy; he will keep his word," John said, and Hugh replied:

"Yes, yes, that's it; strange I never thought of it before. I will send for him at once. Call Anthony to fetch him; and, oh, John, I owe Anthony fifty pounds; money borrowed at different times from his hard earnings. You will see that he is paid?"

"Yes," John answered, promptly; for Anthony, who had been at Stoneleigh since he was a boy, and had been so much to him, was his favorite, and should not suffer.

He would pay Anthony; but when his brother mentioned other debts owing to the trades-people in Bangor, and Beaumaris, and even Carnarvon, he objected, on the ground that he was not able, but said he would lay the matter before his sister Betsey, who was far richer than himself.

It was at this point that Archie appeared in the door, and after greeting his Uncle John and the Lady Jane with the grace and courtesy so natural to him, he went to his father's bedside, where he stopped suddenly, struck with an expression on the pinched, white face, which earlier in the morning had not been there.

"Father," he cried, while a great fear took possession of him, "what is it? Are you worse?"

"Yes, my son, weaker--that is all--and going from you very fast--before the day is over, perhaps--and I want to talk to you, Archie, and to tell you I have nothing to leave you but Stoneleigh, and that is mortgaged; nothing but the small annuity on your life from your mother's little fortune, which came too late to do her any good. Oh, Dora! who bore with me so patiently, and loved me through all--shall I find her, I wonder? She was so good, and I am so bad! And, Archie, my ruin has been the gaming-table, which you must avoid as you would the plague. Death and eternal ruin sit there side by side. Shun it, Archie, and promise me, as you hope for heaven, never to play for money--never!"

"But what shall I do?" Archie asked, remembering that he had intended to try his fortune at Monte Carlo, where he had heard such large sums were sometimes made. "What shall I do?"

"I don't know, my boy," the father replied. "There will be some way provided. Your Uncle John will look after you as your guardian, and your aunt in America will help. But promise, and I shall die happier."

And so, with no especial thought about it, except that his father wished it, Archie McPherson pledged himself never to play for money under any circumstances, and the father knew the boy would keep the pledge, and felt that his last hours of life ware easier; for those hours were his last, and when the sun went down the master of Stoneleigh lay dead in the room where he had blessed his son and commended him to the care of his brother and Anthony, feeling, certain that the latter would be truer to the trust than the former, in whom selfishness was the predominant trait.

It was a very quiet, unpretentious funeral; for John McPherson, who knew the expense of it would fall on himself, would have no unnecessary display, and the third day after his death Hugh McPherson was laid to rest by the side of the Dora he had often neglected, but always loved.

As soon as the funeral was over, John returned to London with Lady Jane, having first given Archie a great deal of good advice, to the effect, that he must do the best he could with what he had, and never spend a shilling unnecessarily, or forget that he was a McPherson.

On his arrival in London, John wrote to his sister in America, telling her of Hugh's death; of his poverty and his debts, and asking what she was willing to do for the boy who was left, as it were, upon the world. In due time the answer came, and was characteristic of the writer. She would pay the mortgage and the debts to the trades-people, rather than have the McPherson name disgraced, and she would take the boy and put him in a way to earn his own living at some honest and respectable occupation. If he did not choose to come, or her brother did not choose to send him on account of any foolish pride and prejudice against labor, then he might take care of him or the boy might starve for all of her. This letter John and Lady Jane read together, but did not consider for a moment. With a scornful toss of her head Lady Jane declared herself ready to give of her own means toward the maintenance of the boy, rather than to see a McPherson degraded to manual labor and thus disgrace her son Neil, the apple of her eye.

And so it was settled between them that Archie was to be kept in ignorance of his Aunt Betsey's offer, which the low taste he had inherited from his mother might possibly prompt him to accept. Meanwhile he was for the present to remain at Stoneleigh, where his living would cost a mere pittance, and where he would pursue his studies as heretofore, under the direction of a retired clergyman, who, for a nominal sum, took boys to educate. This sum, with other absolute necessaries, John undertook to pay, feeling when all the arrangements were made that he had done his duty to his brother's child, who was perfectly delighted to be left by himself at Stoneleigh, where he could do as he pleased with Anthony and Dorothy, and his teacher, too, for that matter, and where he was free to talk with and tease and at last make love to Daisy Allen, for his Uncle John paid but little attention to him beyond paying the sum he had pledged, and having him in his family at London and in Derbyshire, for a few weeks each year when it was most convenient.

Naturally he could not help falling in love with Daisy, who was the only girl he ever saw except the high-bred, milk-and-water misses whom he sometimes met in Lady Jane's drawing-room, and who, in point of beauty and grace and piquancy, could in no degree compare with the playmate of his childhood.

After the morning when Daisy kept the sun from him in the old yew-shaded garden, and he jestingly proposed to marry her, that she might take care of him, a change came over the girl, who began to develope the talent for intrigue in which she afterward became so successful. And as a preliminary step she made herself so necessary to Archie that his life without her would hardly have been endurable, and of his own accord he always shortened as much as possible, his visits to London, for he knew how bright was the face and how warm the welcome awaiting him at Stoneleigh.

And so it came about that when Daisy was sixteen and he was twenty, he offered himself to the girl, who pretended no surprise or reserve, but promptly answered yes, and then suggested that their engagement be kept a secret from every one until he came of age and could do as he pleased, for Daisy well knew the fierce opposition he would meet from his proud relatives, if once they knew that he had stooped to the daughter of a dressmaker. And so well did she manage the affair that not even Dorothy suspected the real state of affairs, until one morning, when Archie, who had been absent for two weeks on a tour through Scotland, astonished her by walking into the house with Daisy, whom he introduced as his wife and the mistress of Stoneleigh. She, too, had been to Scotland to visit some friends, and there the marriage was consummated, and Archie had some one to take care of him at last.

And when his uncle John wrote him a most angry letter denouncing him as his nephew, and cutting off his yearly allowance, which, though small, was still something to depend upon, Daisy rose to the situation and managed his annuity, and managed the household, and managed him, until enough was saved from their slender means to start on the campaign which she had planned for herself, and which she carried out so successfully.

The Continent was her chosen field of action, and Monte Carlo the point toward which she steadily set her face; until, at last, one Lovely October day, five months after her marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Archibald McPherson, of Stoneleigh, Wales, were registered at the Hotel d'Angleterre, and look possession of one of the cheapest rooms, until they could afford a better.

"It does not matter where we sleep, or where we eat, so long as we make a good appearance outside," she said to Archie, who shrank a little at first from the close, dreary room on the fifth floor, so different from his large, airy apartment at home, which though very plainly furnished, had about it an air of refinement and respectability in striking contrast to this ten by twelve hole, where Daisy made the most ravishing toilets of the simplest materials, with which to attract and ensnare any silly moth ready to singe its wings at her flame. She had settled the point that if Archie could not earn his living because he was a McPherson, she must do it for him. Five months had sufficed to show her that there was in him no capability or disposition for work, or business, or exertion of any kind. He was a great, good-natured, easy-going, indolent fellow, popular with everybody, and very fond, and very proud of, and very dependent upon her, with no grain of jealousy in his nature. So, when the English swells, of which there were many at Monte Carlo, flocked around her, attracted by her fresh young beauty and the girlish simplicity of her manners, she readily encouraged them; not because she cared particularly for their admiration, but because she meant to use them for her own purpose, and make them subservient to her interests.