For thee I panted, thee I prized,
For thee I gladly sacrificed
Whate'er I loved before;
And shall I see thee start away,
And helpless, hopeless, hear thee say--
Farewell! we meet no more.
COWPER.
Eugene Trevor's first impulse was to step back shocked and amazed; but
the first paroxism of passion into which he had worked himself, in a
degree cooled by this unlooked for catastrophe, he felt that he had
acted in a weak and unreasonable manner.
Yes, to say that he stood there, looking on that good and gentle being,
whose pitiful condition only showed the climax to which he had
distressed and unnerved her guileless spirit, by the course of conduct
he had so unjustifiably pursued--the peace and happiness of whose life
he had so selfishly blighted.
That he had looked on her thus, and thought chiefly of himself, was but
too true a proof of the purity and genuineness of the feelings, which
had prompted him to press upon her their union in so urgent and
unjustifiable a manner.
Yes--dark and perplexing considerations as to the position of his own
affairs came crowding upon his mind. Mary's suspicions, nay, even
amounting to certainty, as to his brother's identity, he had himself
recklessly confirmed; but that mattered little, for suspicion once
awakened on the subject, the truth in any case, must sooner or later
have transpired.
No, he should have long ago have broken off with Mary, as his brother
had required; that would have been the only means of keeping that mad
enthusiast quiet till his father's death, and his own affairs
satisfactorily settled. What infatuation had kept him hankering after
that "mess of pottage," which after all, he felt had become far less
valuable to him, than all that had been risked through its cause. He had
been in love with Mary Seaham three years ago; then he was really and
truly in love--in love with her sweet youth--her gentle excellence; and
could he then have made her his wife without the trouble and annoyance
to which the engagement had since subjected him, he had little doubt
that the step would have been for his happiness and benefit; but as it
had turned out, he should have long since have given up the inauspicious
business--the strength and purity of his affection had not been such as
could stand the test of their protracted separation. The crystal stream
would soon have palled upon his vitiated taste, had it not been for the
excitement of opposition, and the triumph over his brother it procured
him.
Added to this, we must in justice say, there had ever remained in
Eugene's heart at all times--and under every circumstance, a sort of
fascinated feeling towards Mary which had never been wholly
extinguished--an influence over his nature wonderful even to himself.
But this was nothing to the disquieting fears which now assailed him for
the future; he could not well see his way before him, and
impatiently--with feelings in which every bad passion was combined, he
turned away from the poor girl, who lay there so wan and faded before
him; in this moment of excitement, considering her but as the source of
the disturbance and perplexity, in which through her, he had involved
himself. With but one more glance, therefore, at the pale, prostrate
form, he rang the bell with careless violence; and leaving the room,
contented himself with desiring the servant whom he met hurrying to obey
the summons, to send Miss Seaham's maid to her, and hastily quitted the
house.
In no happy mood of mind, Eugene Trevor regained his own hotel, and
having made inquiries as to conveyances, started by the night mail from
----, and reached Montrevor the following afternoon.
His first inquiry was for Marryott. He was told that she had expired
soon after his departure. "Had any one been with her?" he asked.
"No one; they had supposed her to be asleep for some hours; but at
length she had been found by the housemaid who took up her gruel, stiff
and cold."
Yes--the sin of that hardened and unrighteous woman had surely found her
out. The curse breathed from the pale, meek features of the corpse of
her, whose angel heart she had crushed and broken--whose death she had
rendered lone and desolate as her life, had come back "on her bosom
with reflected blight," she too had breathed forth her expiring sigh in
agony unrelieved.
But who wept over her remains--who cared for, who mourned her death? not
one within that mansion. Old Mr. Trevor heard of the event, with the
satisfaction of a child released from the dominion of a harsh attendant,
and took advantage of his disenthralment to creep from his chamber to
his study, to enjoy the long restricted luxury of gloating over his
beloved treasures; and from whence, overcome by that unwonted exertion,
he had but just been carried back to his chamber by his servant, who had
discovered him thus employed, when his son arrived.
Eugene's first act was to order the property of Marryott to be submitted
to his inspection, and he had but just satisfied himself of there being
no more forged notes in her possession, when the officers of the crown
employed to make inquiries into the business, arrived at Montrevor.
Their examination of the deceased's effects proved, of course, equally
unproductive, as was every inquiry which was afterwards made. A few
questions put to the bewildered Mr. Trevor, to whose presence Eugene
tremblingly admitted the officials, showed him incompetent to give any
available evidence. Their warrant went no further.
With the death of the self-accused offender, ended every possibility of
further enlightenment. She had gone to give an account of her actions to
a Judge from before whom all hearts are open and no secrets are hid; and
who require no human testimony to decide His just and terrible judgment.
They departed, and Eugene breathed more freely, though far was the
removal of this one weight of anxiety from leaving peace and comfort at
his heart. The gloom and darkness which brooded over the house of sin
and death, lay with a leaden weight upon his soul. For the first time he
seemed to be sensible of the foulness of the atmosphere in which for
years he had breathed so contentedly--the dark maze in which he had
entangled himself. Perhaps it was the influence of _her_ presence, which
even still, as it had ever done, exercised a power over his feelings--a
wish, a transitory yearning for better, purer things; for happiness such
as he had never tasted in his world of sensuality.
From whatever it might have arisen, certainly his was no enviable frame
of mind, and in the perplexity of the moment he was almost prompted to
relax his immediate hold of all his anxious schemes and purposes; put
his father under proper guardianship, and leaving the house, the
country, for a time, abandon the issue to the future--to fate. If the
old man died soon, well and good; he knew his present will would secure
him the bulk of his large and long accumulated unentailed property. If
he lingered on for years, why even then, he little feared his brother
taking advantage of his absence. No, not his brother perhaps, but his
friends. Might they not rise up in Eustace Trevor's behalf; and the old
man become, as in his present state he was likely to do, a ready tool in
their hands, to effect his ruin--for ruin to him any alteration in that
will must prove--that will made under his own auspices; at the same time
that the deed was executed, which in favour of his brother's alleged
incompetency, put all power into his hands, with regard to the
management of the entailed property.
No, he must retain his post even to the death, and above all he must
gain assurance as to the security of the deed, on which so much
depended, and which it had been necessary to humour the old man, at the
time, in the whim of keeping secreted in his own possession, without the
farther security of a copy--a legal expense against which, he had
strongly protested. There was another point too on which he was still
painfully anxious. Were the remainder of those forged notes, which his
father had evidently neglected to destroy, still in existence, and in
the same place from which the rest had been extracted?
With these thoughts on his mind, Eugene went to his father, and with the
usual address of which he was full master, broke to him the nature and
the cause of the intrusion with which he had that day been terrified and
annoyed--in short the whole history of Marryott's share in the forgery
case, the origin of which he recalled to his darkened recollection.
The old man was confounded and dismayed--his old panic as regarded his
son's youthful delinquency reviving in full force. He, however, held out
still, that the notes had been destroyed, and that Marryott must have
been a witch to have restored them to existence.
Eugene combated the folly of this idea, at the same time impressing upon
him the necessity of ascertaining the better security of any papers of
importance, than Marryott's abstraction of the forged notes, proved them
to be in at the present moment.
For that purpose he conducted the miserable old man to his study, or
rather private room; and with great difficulty induced him to go through
an examination under his inspection of all places he thought it likely,
the will and the remainder of the notes might be secreted.
But the old man's cunning avarice was a match for the younger one's
cupidity.
He had his own peculiar feelings with respect to the will. A jealous
tenacity in preserving to the last his power over the disposal of his
riches, however other powers might have departed from him, and as to
giving up his will to Eugene, that he would never do. He knew where it
lay snug and secret, and if Eugene treated him ill, and stole the money
over which even now his eyes gloated, and his hands passed so
graspingly, he knew what he could do, and as for the notes, he had in
truth forgotten that secret hiding-place.
So the search ended for that day without the desired results, for the
old man grew faint and feeble, and said he could do no more that time,
but would continue the search on the morrow, so, content for the
present, his son supported him back to his chamber. He did not leave his
bed for the following week, before the end of which period Mabel
Marryott was carried out to be buried. And there she lies--the same sun
which shines upon the evil and the good, gleams upon the decent stone
which perpetuates the dishonoured memory of the wicked--as upon the tomb
of mocking grandeur, in which the weary had found rest--that rest "which
remaineth for the people of God."