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Updated: April 30, 2025
The eldest, a lad in his teens, was traveling on the Continent with a tutor: the second, a boy who had been always delicate, was at home on account of his health. George Eildon was intimate with both, and loved them with a love as true as that he bore to Alice Garscube: it never occurred to him that they had come into the world to keep him out of his inheritance.
But they did not see the state of their only remaining son as Lady Arthur and others saw it; for, while it was commonly thought that he would hardly reach maturity, they were sanguine enough to believe that he was outgrowing the delicacy of his childhood. Lady Arthur asked George to return with her to Garscube Hall, but he said he could not possibly do so.
If you engage me, I think, so far as I know myself, you will not be disappointed. "I am," etc. etc. To which Lady Arthur: "So far as I can judge, you are the very thing I want. Come, and we shall not disagree about terms," etc. etc. Thus it came about that Miss Garscube was unusually lucky in the matter of her education and Miss Adamson in her engagement.
"I am going to work for my living," said George. "Very right," she said; "but, although I got better last year, I can't live for ever, and when I'm gone Alice will have the Garscube estates: I have always intended it." "Madam," said George, "do you not know that the great lexicographer has said in one of his admirable works, 'Let no man suffer his felicity to depend upon the death of his aunt'?"
Eildon left his cousin only to visit his mother and sisters for a day, and then returned to London; from which it appeared that he was not excessively anxious to visit Garscube Hall. But everything there went on as usual. The ladies painted, they went excursions, they wrote ballads; still, there was a sense of something being amiss the heart of their lives seemed dull in its beat.
But it was getting to the end of September, and he had paid no visit, when one day, as the ladies were sitting at luncheon, he came in, looking very white and agitated. They were all startled: Miss Garscube grew white also, and felt herself trembling. Lady Arthur rose hurriedly and said, "What is it, George? what's the matter?" "A strange thing has happened," he said.
The more Lady Arthur thought of having sent away such a matrimonial prize from her house, the more she was chagrined; the more Miss Garscube tried not to think of Mr. Eildon, the more her thoughts would run upon him; and even Miss Adamson, who had nothing to regret or reproach herself with, could not help being influenced by the change of atmosphere.
The pain was terrible. She forgot her conscience, how she had dealt treacherously for her good, as she believed, but still treacherously with Alice Garscube: she forgot everything but her own pain, and those about her thought that decidedly she was very eccentric at this time.
Lady Arthur did not think of her mother: she had lost her early, and besides, her thoughts and feelings had been all absorbed by her husband. Alice Garscube had never known her mother, and as she looked gravely at the girl who was crying behind her handkerchief, she envied her she had known her mother. As for Mr. Eildon, he had none but bright and happy thoughts connected with his mother.
He would have laughed at such an idea. Many people would have said that he was laughing on the wrong side of his mouth: the worldly never can understand the unworldly. Mr. Eildon gave Miss Garscube credit for being at least as unworldly as himself: he believed thoroughly in her genuineness, her fresh, unspotted nature; and, the wish being very strong, he believed that she had a kindness for him.
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