On the following Monday, Dr. Morgan's shabby man-servant opened the
door to a young man in whom he did not at first remember a former
visitor. A few days before, embrowned with healthful travel--serene
light in his eye, simple trust in his careless lip--Leonard Fairfield
had stood at that threshold. Now again he stood there pale and
haggard, with a cheek already hollowed into those deep anxious lines
that speak of working thoughts and sleepless nights; and a settled
sullen gloom resting heavily on his whole aspect.
"I call by appointment," said the boy testily, as the servant stood
irresolute. The man gave way. "Master is just called out to a patient;
please to wait, sir;" and he showed him into the little parlor. In a
few moments two other patients were admitted. These were women, and
they began talking very loud. They disturbed Leonard's unsocial
thoughts. He saw that the door into the Doctor's receiving-room was
half open, and, ignorant of the etiquette which holds such
_penetralia_ as sacred, he walked in to escape from the gossips. He
threw himself into the Doctor's own well-worn chair, and muttered to
himself, "Why did he tell me to come? What new can he think of for me?
And if a favor, should I take it? He has given me the means of bread
by work: that is all I have a right to ask from him, from any man--all
I should accept."
While thus soliloquizing, his eye fell on a letter lying open on the
table. He started. He recognized the handwriting--the same as the
letter which had enclosed L50 to his mother--the letter of his
grandparents. He saw his own name: he saw something more--words that
made his heart stand still, and his blood seem like ice in his veins.
As he thus stood aghast, a hand was laid on the letter, and a voice,
in an angry growl, muttered, "How dare you come into my room, and be
reading my letters? Er--r--r!"
Leonard placed his own hand on the Doctor's firmly, and said in a
fierce tone, "This letter relates to me--belongs to me--crushes me. I
have seen enough to know that. I demand to read all--learn all."
The Doctor looked round, and seeing the door into the waiting-room
still open, kicked it to with his foot, and then said, under his
breath, "What have you read? Tell me the truth."
"Two lines only, and I am called--I am called"--Leonard's frame shook
from head to foot, and the veins on his forehead swelled like cords.
He could not complete the sentence. It seemed as if an ocean was
rolling up through his brain, and roaring in his ears. The Doctor saw,
at a glance, that there was physical danger in his state, and hastily
and soothingly answered,--"Sit down, sit down--calm yourself--you
shall know all--read all--drink this water;" and he poured into a
tumbler of the pure liquid a drop or two from a tiny phial.
Leonard obeyed mechanically, for indeed he was no longer able to
stand. He closed his eyes, and for a minute or two life seemed to pass
from him; then he recovered, and saw the good Doctor's gaze fixed on
him with great compassion. He silently stretched forth his hand
towards the letter. "Wait a few moments," said the physician
judiciously, "and hear me meanwhile. It is very unfortunate you should
have seen a letter never meant for your eye, and containing allusions
to a secret you were never to have known. But, if I tell you more,
will you promise me, on your word of honor, that you will hold the
confidence sacred from Mrs. Fairfield, the Avenels--from all? I myself
am pledged to conceal a secret, which I can only share with you on the
same condition."
"There is nothing," announced Leonard indistinctly, and with a bitter
smile on his lip,--"nothing, it seems, that I should be proud to boast
of. Yes, I promise--the letter, the letter!"
The Doctor placed it in Leonard's right hand, and quietly slipped to
the wrist of the left his forefinger and thumb, as physicians are said
to do when a victim is stretched on the rack. "Pulse decreasing," he
muttered; "wonderful thing, _Aconite_!" Meanwhile Leonard read as
follows, faults in spelling and all:--
"Dr. MORGAN--Sir: I received your favur duly, and am glad to hear that
the pore boy is safe and Well. But he has been behaving ill, and
ungrateful to my good son Richard, who is a credit to the whole
Family, and has made himself a Gentleman, and Was very kind and good
to the boy, not knowing who and What he is--God forbid! I don't want
never to see him again--the boy. Pore John was ill and Restless for
days afterwards.--John is a pore cretur now, and has had paralytiks.
And he Talked of nothing but Nora--the boy's eyes were so like his
Mother's. I cannot, cannot see the Child of Shame. He can't cum
here--for our Lord's sake, sir, don't ask it--he can't, so Respectable
as we've always been!--and such disgrace! Base born--base born. Keep
him where he is, bind him prentis, I'll pay anything for That. You
says, sir, he's clever, and quick at learning; so did Parson Dale, and
wanted him to go to Collidge, and make a Figur--then all would cum
out. It would be my death, sir; I could not sleep in my grave, sir.
Nora that we were all so proud of. Sinful creturs that we are! Nora's
good name that we've saved now, gone, gone. And Richard, who is so
grand, and who was so fond of pore, pore Nora! He would not hold up
his Head again. Don't let him make a Figur in the world--let him be a
tradesman, as we were afore him--any trade he Takes to--and not cross
us no more while he lives. Then I shall pray for him, and wish him
happy. And have not we had enuff of bringing up children to be above
their birth? Nora, that I used to say was like the first lady o' the
land--oh, but we were rightly punished! So now, sir, I leave all to
you, and will pay all you want for the boy. And be Sure that the
secret's kep. For we have never heard from the father, and, at least,
no one knows that Nora has a living son but I and my daughter Jane,
and Parson Dale and you--and you Two are good Gentlemen--and Jane will
keep her word, and I am old, and shall be in my grave Soon, but I hope
it won't be while pore John needs me. What could he do without me? And
if _that_ got wind, it would kill me straght, sir. Pore John is a
helpless cretur, God bless him. So no more from your servant in all
dooty,
"M. AVENEL."
Leonard laid down this letter very calmly, and, except by a slight
heaving at his breast, and a death-like whiteness of his lips, the
emotions he felt were undetected. And it is a proof how much exquisite
goodness there was in his heart that the first words he spoke were,
"Thank Heaven!"
The Doctor did not expect that thanksgiving, and he was so startled
that he exclaimed, "For what?"
"I have nothing to pity or excuse in the woman I knew and honored as a
mother. I am not her son--her--"
He stopped short.
"No; but don't be hard on your true mother--poor Nora!"
Leonard staggered, and then burst into a sudden paroxysm of tears.
"Oh, my own mother!--my dead mother! Thou for whom I felt so
mysterious a love--thou, from whom I took this poet soul--pardon me,
pardon me! Hard on thee! Would that thou wert living yet, that I might
comfort thee! What thou must have suffered!"
These words were sobbed forth in broken gasps from the depth of his
heart. Then he caught up the letter again, and his thoughts were
changed as his eyes fell upon the writer's shame and fear, as it were,
of his very existence. All his native haughtiness returned to him. His
crest rose, his tears dried.--"Tell her," he said, with a stern
unfaltering voice--"tell Mrs. Avenel that she is obeyed--that I will
never seek her roof, never cross her path, never disgrace her wealthy
son. But tell her, also, that I will choose my own way in life--that I
will not take from her a bribe for concealment. Tell her that I am
nameless, and will yet make a name."
A name! Was this but an idle boast, or was it one of those flashes of
conviction which are never belied, lighting up our future for one
lurid instant, and then fading into darkness?
"I do not doubt it, my prave poy," said Dr. Morgan, growing
exceedingly Welsh in his excitement; "and perhaps you may find a
father, who--"
"Father--who is he--what is he? He lives then! But he has deserted
me--he must have betrayed her? I need him not. The law gives me no
father."
The last words were said with a return of bitter anguish; then in a
calmer tone, he resumed, "But I should know who he is--as another one
whose path I may not cross."
Dr. Morgan looked embarrassed, and paused in deliberation. "Nay," said
he at length, "as you know so much, it is surely best that you should
know all."
The Doctor then proceeded to detail, with some circumlocution, what we
will here repeat from his account more succinctly.
Nora Avenel, while yet very young, left her native village, or rather
the house of Lady Lansmere, by whom she had been educated and brought
up, in order to accept the place of governess or companion in London.
One evening she suddenly presented herself at her father's house, and
at the first sight of her mother's face she fell down insensible. She
was carried to bed. Dr. Morgan (then the chief medical practitioner of
the town) was sent for. That night Leonard came into the world, and
his mother died. She never recovered her senses, never spoke
intelligibly from the time she entered the house. "And never therefore
named your father," said Dr. Morgan. "We know not who he was."
"And how," cried Leonard, fiercely,--"how have they dared to slander
this dead mother? How knew they that I--was--was--was not the child of
wedlock?"
"There was no wedding-ring on Nora's finger--never any rumor of her
marriage--her strange and sudden appearance at her father's house--her
emotions on entrance, so unlike those natural to a wife returning to a
parent's home: these are all the evidence against her. But Mr. Avenel
deemed them strong, and so did I. You have a right to think we judged
too harshly--perhaps we did."
"And no inquiries were ever made?" said Leonard mournfully, and after
long silence--"no inquiries to learn who was the father of the
motherless child?"
"Inquiries!--Mrs. Avenel would have died first. Your grandmother's
nature is very rigid. Had she come from princes, from Cadwallader
himself," said the Welshman, "she could not more have shrunk from the
thought of dishonor. Even over her dead child, the child she had loved
the best, she thought but how to save that child's name and memory
from suspicion. There was luckily no servant in the house, only Mark
Fairfield and his wife (Nora's sister): they had arrived the same day
on a visit.
"Mrs. Fairfield was nursing her own infant, two or three months old;
she took charge of you; Nora was buried, and the secret kept. None out
of the family knew of it, but myself and the curate of the town--Mr.
Dale. The day after your birth, Mrs. Fairfield, to prevent discovery,
moved to a village at some distance. There her child died; and when
she returned to Hazeldean, where her husband was settled, you passed
as the son she had lost. Mark, I know, was a father to you, for he had
loved Nora; they had been children together."
"And she came to London--London is strong and cruel," muttered
Leonard. "She was friendless and deceived. I see all--I desire to know
no more. This father, he must indeed have been like those whom I have
read of in books. To love, to wrong her--_that_ I can conceive; but
then to leave, to abandon; no visit to her grave--no remorse--no
search for his own child. Well, well; Mrs. Avenel was right. Let us
think of _him_ no more."
The man-servant knocked at the door, and then put in his head. "Sir,
the ladies are getting very impatient, and say they'll go."
"Sir," said Leonard, with a strange calm return to the things about
him, "I ask your pardon for taking up your time so long. I go now. I
will never mention to my moth--I mean to Mrs. Fairfield--what I have
learned, nor to any one. I will work my way somehow. If Mr. Prickett
will keep me, I will stay with him at present; but I repeat, I cannot
take Mrs. Avenel's money and be bound apprentice. Sir, you have been
good and patient with me--Heaven reward you."
The Doctor was too moved to answer. He wrung Leonard's hand, and in
another minute the door closed upon the nameless boy. He stood alone
in the streets of London; and the sun flashed on him, red and
menacing, like the eye of a foe!