MADE THE SHUTTLECOCK OF FATE.
“Walter, I am going to leave you,” observed Lewis in a quiet, gentle
voice.
Walter, who was seated on a low stool playing with Faust, continued his
amusement, merely replying carelessly, “Are you?”
Lewis knew from the nature of the answer that the sound but not the
sense of his communication had reached his poor pupil’s understanding,
and yet the apparent indifference of the remark pained him; it seemed
as if all he loved were falling away from him. He had determined that
it would be better for Walter not to be told at once that he was leaving
never to return, but to allow the truth gradually to dawn upon him,
after he had practically tested his ability to do without him; still he
was anxious in some degree to prepare the poor boy’s mind to support the
severe grief which he feared his absence would occasion him. Accordingly
he returned to the attack.
“Look at me, Walter,” he said. Having caught his eye, he continued, “You
did not understand me, dear boy; I am going away--going to leave you for
a long time.”
“Ay? how long a time? a week?” inquired Walter.
“A great many weeks,” returned Lewis gravely, “and you must be very good
all the time, and do everything as you know I should wish you to do it
if I were here: do you understand me, and will you try?”
Walter nodded assent, paused, and then asked, “What will Faust do; may
he stay with me?”
Lewis did not answer. Give up Faust, the only thing that he had left to
love him! could he make this sacrifice?
“Because, if he may stay, I shall feel sure you will come back some
time or other; nobody can leave Faust and not come and see him again--at
least nobody who knows him and loves him as well as you and I do,”
pleaded Walter, throwing his arm round the dog’s neck.
I am inflicting injury enough on the poor boy as it is, reflected Lewis
sorrowfully; I must not deny him this thing, which he has set his heart
upon. Well, it only makes the sacrifice the more complete. “Walter, will
you be happy if I leave Faust with you?” he inquired gently.
“Oh, yes!” was the joyful reply, “quite happy till you come again.”
“Then he shall stay,” resumed Lewis; “remember he is your dog, I give
him to you.”
“Yes, he is my dog,” repeated Walter gleefully; “only till you come back
again though, you know,” he added, gazing wistfully at Lewis.
Poor Lewis! his heart was full, he could not trust himself to speak;
this little incident had appealed to the affectionate side of his
nature, and all but unmanned him. He approached Walter, swept back the
soft, fair hair from his forehead, and imprinted a kiss on it, patted
Faust’s shaggy head, and turning away abruptly, quitted the room.
Ere nightfall he had completed the few arrangements which his sudden
departure rendered necessary, and taking with him only a small
travelling valise which he slung across his shoulders, he waited till
the shades of evening had set in, and leaving directions with his ally
Robert, now invested with all the dignity and privileges of butler-hood,
in regard to his luggage, which he desired might be forwarded to a
certain address in London, he quitted Broadhurst alone and on foot.
The town of H---------- was situated about ten miles from the park gates
of Broadhurst, and thither did Lewis direct his steps. He paced along
mechanically, with a dull, heavy tread, as unlike his usual free elastic
bounding step as possible; he kept his eyes fixed on the road before
him, neither glancing to the right nor the left, and all his actions
appeared like those of one moving in a dream. The night was dry and
warm, and when Lewis had proceeded about six miles on his way the
moon came out and bathed hill and valley in a flood of silvery light.
Suddenly he paused, as the ruins of a picturesque old abbey, thrown
out in bold relief by a dark background of trees, became visible at a
turning of the road, and fixing his eyes on the time-worn structure,
gazed long and earnestly; then a new idea seemed to strike him, and
springing over a gate, he ascended with vigorous strides the green
hillside on which the ruin was situated. Passing beneath crumbling
arches and over the fallen stone-work covering old graves of a forgotten
generation, he reached a portion of the building which seemed in
somewhat better repair than the remainder. Having reached the upper end
of the chancel, he paused, and leaning his back against the broken
shaft of a pillar which had supported one of the arches, gave way to
the painful recollections which the place excited. The last time he had
visited that spot, Annie Grant had stood by his side, and as he taught
her how the mystic piety of our forefathers had striven to symbolise
the truths of Christianity in the cruciform cathedral, with its vaulted
arches and heaven-aspiring pinnacles, her soft blue eyes had looked into
his face with an expression of the respectful love we feel towards one
whom we deem better and wiser than ourselves. And now how cruel was the
contrast--how completely and painfully alone he felt. Then he longed
(who has not at some crisis of the inner-life?) so earnestly that he
almost fancied he possessed the power to separate mind and matter, and
flying in the spirit to her he loved, to learn whether she thought of
him and grieved for his absence. Pursuing the idea, he came to speculate
on many things. Had they yet told her he would not return? What reason
would the General assign for such an abrupt departure? Would she believe
his account, or would her heart divine the true cause? And if it did,
would she pity him?--strongest proof of love--he could bear the idea of
her pity.
[Illustration: 0370]
Poor Lewis! perhaps his greatest trial was this, that at the very moment
when he gave her up for ever, a latent sense of power told him that he
could have won her; this was indeed the “sorrow’s crown of sorrow”--the
bitterness of more than self-renunciation, for Annie, too, might
be rendered unhappy by his act. Then the future, the blank, fearful
future--what lay in store for him there? “Fresh sorrow--no” (and he
smiled as men on the rack have smiled when the tormentors have
outwitted themselves, and the numbness of approaching death has produced
insensibility to pain and robbed them of their victim), “he was dead
alike to sorrow as to joy;” but at the moment, as if to prove him weak
even in the _vis inertio_ of despair, the possibility of Annie’s union
with Lord Bellefield came before him like some hideous phantom, and
he was forced to own that there might be depths of misery awaiting
him greater than he had yet proved. And thus recalling the past
and imagining the future, he afflicted himself with griefs real and
visionary, till the moonbeams grew paler and altogether fled, and
the stars disappeared one by one, and the red glow of the eastern sky
proclaimed the coming day, and the sun arose glorious in his majesty,
and his earliest rays poured through the broken roof and fell in a
stream of golden light upon the ruined altar; then for the first time
that night Lewis thought of Rose, and of what her advice would have
been had she known of his unhappiness; and prostrating himself upon the
altar-step, he prayed long and fervently.
The reflection that when our sorrow has become too heavy for us to bear
there is One mighty to save, Himself in His earthly career a “Man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief,” who will strengthen us to support
them, must console the deepest mental anguish; and we do not believe
that any man has ever prayed truly and earnestly without receiving
comfort from so doing. For the very act recognises a belief in the
existence and faith in the benevolence of a Being, all powerful alike to
avert the evil we dread, and to bestow upon us the good we desire. And
Lewis, when he arose from his knees, did so refreshed in spirit, and
better fitted to do or to suffer, as he might be required by the changes
and chances of that portion of The Railroad of Life over which he had
yet to pass.
He reached the town of H-------- as the inhabitants, aroused from their
slumbers, were drowsily opening the shop-windows, and making his way to
a small, unobtrusive inn, breakfasted. Having ascertained at what hour
the last coach passed through for London, he left his valise under the
care of the waiter, and passing along several dirty, narrow streets, at
length reached a court, in one of the poorest and most wretched quarters
of the town. Here, after some trouble and a disagreeable amount of
threatening glances from sundry suspicious-looking characters, he
succeeded in discovering the abode of a certain Jerry Sullivan. This
worthy, having satisfied himself that Lewis was not a member of the
detective police, graciously accorded him an interview, wherein Lewis
explained to him that, in consequence of a communication made to him by
Hardy on his death-bed, he was anxious to investigate the contents of
a packet left in possession of his (Sullivan’s) maternal ancestor. This
fact, Mr. Sullivan, whose brogue was considerably stronger than his
regard for truth, immediately saw fit to deny, and was proceeding to
lament the death of his mother, which he averred had taken place that
day fortnight, when he was interrupted by the inopportune entrance
of the lady in question, who appeared by no means dead, but in a very
lively state of virtuous indignation. She immediately silenced her
mendacious offspring, and beckoning Lewis into a kind of den which she
inhabited, shut the door, and then questioned and cross-questioned him
as to his connection with Hardy. Having satisfied herself, by perusing
Hardy’s letter, that Lewis was no impostor, she unlocked an old trunk,
whence she produced a bundle of papers and a sheet of parchment.
“There,” she said, “that’s the will he spoke of, poor fellow, and them’s
the letters--and I only hope as you’ll be able to find the unfort’nate
childring, and that they will come into the money all right--it’s nigh
£100 year, I’m told.”
“Have you any idea whether Hardy had at all traced his daughter since
she left him?” inquired Lewis.
“No; he heard nothink of her, poor chap; he was a’most brokenhearted
about her, and that’s what drove him to the courses he took to. He
worn’t a reg’lar prig, bless yer; he did a little in the poarching line
wiles, but only for the sake o’ the sport, same as you gents--he wor
above them things altogether. But I knows more than he did about the
gal: there were a young ’ooman here a week ago as had seen her in
London, dressed out and riding about in a coach like a lady; but that
wor soon arter she fust went off with the young swell, and wor a kind of
new toy like.”
“And did not the girl know anything of her since?” inquired Lewis.
“Well, she know’d this much, that when the young lord went abroad with
his sister he made his valet stop behind and foller him in a few days
with Jane Hardy, arter which she in course lost sight of her; but she
thinks he’s left her over in them furring parts.”
“Them furring parts--that must mean Italy,” thought Lewis; and finding
the old woman had told him all she knew on the subject, he thanked
her for her information, secured the papers about his person, and was
preparing to depart, when his companion stopped him, and summoning
Jerry, whose main, if not only, virtue appeared to consist in filial
obedience, caused him to escort the “young gent” beyond the purlieus of
the miserable alley in which their abode was situated.
The visit had taken longer than Lewis had expected; and on his return
to the inn he found the coach would pass through in about half-an-hour.
Snatching a hasty meal, he placed the papers in his valise, and in a
few minutes was on his road to London. The coach stopped at an inn in
Holborn, and here Lewis, who, in his present state of mind, was anxious
to avoid a meeting with any of his friends, Frere himself not excepted,
determined for the next few days to take up his abode. Accordingly, he
engaged a sitting-room and bedroom, which, for the sake of privacy and
cheapness, were situated at the back of the house, at an altitude little
inferior to that of the neighbouring chimney-pots. Having established
himself in this uninviting residence, he sat down to try and arrange
some plan for the future. He felt that he ought to write to Rose and his
mother and acquaint them with his altered destiny; but to do so involved
an explanation which he shrank from attempting. He tried to read, but
the only book at hand was a volume of Schiller, and with a sickening
feeling of despair he threw it from him. At length he bethought him of
Hardy’s papers, and untying the string that bound them, he spread them
on the table before him. The will, which he first examined, appeared
formally drawn up, signed, and attested. The testator left property
worth, as far as Lewis could make out, about £100 a year to Jane and
Miles Hardy. Laying this aside, he turned over a mass of smaller papers,
old game certificates, receipts for rent, and among others a note
carefully preserved, endorsed in a bold free hand, “The first letter I
ever received from Harriet.” It was an invitation, coquettishly worded,
asking Hardy to join a party to the ---------- races, written by her
who had sinned so deeply, and had long since gone to give account of the
misery she had caused and suffered. Lewis could not look on this record
of an affection which even the greatest wrong woman can do to man had
been unable wholly to destroy, without the deepest commiseration.
Laying the note carefully aside, he took up the bundle of old letters,
and selecting one which was partially opened, glanced carelessly at its
contents. Why does he start and change colour as his eye falls upon the
handwriting? Why press his hand to his burning brow as the momentary
doubt crosses his mind whether all the mental anguish he has lately
suffered can have unsettled his brain, or whether that which he beholds
is indeed reality? Eagerly does he devour the contents of the epistle,
eagerly does he unfold letter after letter till not one of the packet
remains unperused. Again, sitting late into the night, does he read and
re-read them, then folding them carefully, paces up and down the room,
chafing at the lazy hours that drag their weary length and oppose a
barrier between his wishes and the coming day, when he may act and
resolve doubt into certainty. For the whole of that night, the second
during which he had never closed an eyelid, did he measure with
restless steps the narrow limits of the apartment. Leaving his breakfast
untasted, he hurried, at the earliest business hour, to the chambers
of the family solicitor; for half the morning did they remain closeted
together--together did they seek the office (yclept by Richard Frere a
den of thieves) of Messrs. Jones & Levi, the lawyers who, as the reader
may remember, addressed a mysterious letter to Lewis soon after his
first arrival at Broadhurst. Carefully did the astute man of law examine
and compare papers, and sift evidence, and draw out the crafty rogues
with whom he had to deal; and when he had gained all the information he
required, steadily and cautiously did he examine the affair in all its
bearings; nor was it till he had thoroughly made himself master of the
subject that he approached Lewis, and shaking him heartily by the hand,
exclaimed, “Well, my dear sir, as far as one can judge in this early
stage of the proceedings, I think you have a very good case; and I beg
to congratulate you on the prospect before you.”
And what, then, was this prospect, at the mere possibility of which
Lewis’s eye sparkled and his cheek glowed with the brightness of renewed
hope? It was the prospect of inheriting an ancient and honourable name,
of gaining a position which would render him not only equal but superior
in rank to Annie Grant, and of possessing an income beside which Lord
Bellefield’s fortune, impoverished by the turf and the gaming-table,
sank into comparative insignificance. One short year more for him to
prove his right before the eyes of men, and then, if Annie were but true
to her own heart, he would boldly enter the lists against his rival, and
in love or hate Lord Bellefield should find that he had met his match.
Well might his step be proud and his bearing joyous and elated, for in
twelve hours the whole aspect of life had become changed to him: such
shuttlecocks are we in the hands of Fate, as unthinking men term the
mysterious ordinances of the Omnipotent.
Had he known the contents of a letter which was even then awaiting him
at his banker’s, his new-found joy might have been lessened.