ROBERT PENFOLD drew himself up to his full height and uttered these
strange words with a sad majesty that was very imposing. But General
Rolleston, steeled by experience of convicts, their plausibility and
their histrionic powers, was staggered only for a moment. He deigned no
reply; but told Helen that Captain Moreland was waiting for her, and she
had better go on board at once.
She stood like a statue.
"No, papa, I'll not turn my back on him till I know whether he is a felon
or a martyr."
"My poor child, has he caught you at once with a clever phrase? A judge
and a jury have settled that."
"They settled it as you would settle it, by refusing to hear me."
"Have I refused to hear you?" said Helen. "What do I care for steamboats
and captains? If I stay here to all eternity, I'll know from your own
lips and your own face whether you are a felon or a martyr. It is no
phrase, papa. He is a felon or a martyr; and I am a most unfortunate
girl, or else a base, disloyal one."
"Fiddle-dee," said General Rolleston, angrily. Then, looking at his
watch: "I give you five minutes to humbug us in--if you can."
Robert Penfold sighed patiently. But from that moment he ignored General
Rolleston and looked to Helen only. And she fixed her eyes upon his face
with a tenacity and an intensity of observation that surpassed anything
he had ever seen in his life. It dazzled him; but it did not dismay him.
"Miss Rolleston," said he, "my history can be told in the time my
prejudiced judge allows me. I am a clergyman, and a private tutor at
Oxford. One of my pupils was--Arthur Wardlaw. I took an interest in him
because my father, Michael Penfold, was in Wardlaw's employ. This Arthur
Wardlaw had a talent for mimicry; he mimicked one of the college officers
publicly and offensively, and was about to be expelled, and that would
have ruined his immediate prospects; for his father is just, but stern. I
fought hard for him, and, being myself popular with the authorities, I
got him off. He was grateful, or seemed to be, and we became greater
friends than ever. We confided in each other. He told me he was in debt
in Oxford, and much alarmed lest it should reach his father's ears, and
lose him the promised partnership. I told him I was desirous to buy a
small living near Oxford which was then vacant; but I had only saved 400
pounds, and the price was 1,000 pounds; I had no means of raising the
balance. Then he said, 'Borrow 2,000 pounds of my father; give me
fourteen hundred of it, and take your own time to repay the 600 pounds. I
shall be my father's partner in a month or two,' said he; 'you can pay us
back by instalments.' I thought this very kind of him. I did not want the
living for myself, but to give my dear father certain comforts and
country air every week; he needed it; he was born in the country. Well, I
came to London about this business; and a stranger called on me, and said
he came from Mr. Arthur Wardlaw, who was not well enough to come himself.
He produced a note of hand for 2,000 pounds, signed John Wardlaw, and
made me indorse it, and told me where to get it cashed; he would come
next day for Arthur Wardlaw's share of the money. Well, I suspected no
ill; would you? I went and got the note discounted, and locked the money
up. It was not my money; the greater part was Arthur Wardlaw's. That same
evening a policeman called, and asked several questions, which of course
I answered. He then got me out of the house on some pretense, and
arrested me as a forger."
"Oh!" cried Helen.
"I forgot the clergyman; I was a gentleman, and a man, insulted, and I
knocked the officer down directly. But his myrmidons overpowered me. I
was tried at the Central Criminal Court on two charges. First, the Crown
(as they call the attorney that draws the indictment) charged me with
forging the note of hand; and then with not forging it, but passing it,
well knowing that somebody else had forged it. Well, Undercliff, the
expert, swore positively that the forged note was not written by me; and
the Crown, as they call it, was defeated on that charge; but being proved
a liar in a court of justice did not abash my accuser; the second charge
was pressed with equal confidence. The note, you are to understand, was
forged--that admits of no doubt; and I passed it; the question was
whether I passed it _knowing it to be forged._ How was that to be
determined? And here it was that my own familiar friend, in whom I
trusted, destroyed me. Of course, as soon as I was put in prison, I wrote
and sent to Arthur Wardlaw. Would you believe it? he would not come to
me. He would not even write. Then, as the time drew near, I feared he was
a traitor. I treated him like one. I told my solicitor to drag him into
court as my witness, and make him tell the truth. The clerk went down
accordingly, and found he kept his door always locked; but the clerk
outwitted him, and served him with the subpoena in his bedroom, before he
could crawl under the bed. But he baffled us at last; he never appeared
in the witness-box; and when my counsel asked the court to imprison him,
his father swore he could not come; he was dying, and all out of sympathy
with me. Fine sympathy! that closed the lips, and concealed the truth;
one syllable of which would have saved his friend and benefactor from a
calamity worse than death. Is the truth poison, that to tell it makes a
sick man die? Is the truth hell, that a dying man refuses to speak it?
How can a man die better than speaking the truth? How can he die worse
than withholding it? I believe his sickness and his death were lies like
himself. For want of one word from Arthur Wardlaw to explain that I had
every reason to expect a note of hand from him, the jury condemned me.
They were twelve honest but shallow men--invited to go inside another
man's bosom, and guess what was there. They guessed that I knew and
understood a thing which to this hour I neither know nor understand, by
God!"
He paused a moment, then resumed:
"I believe they founded their conjecture on my knocking down the officer.
There was a reason for you! Why, forgers and their confederates are
reptiles, and have no fight in them. Experience proves this. But these
twelve men did not go by experience; they guessed, like babies, and,
after much hesitation, condemned me; but recommended me to mercy. Mercy!
What mercy did I deserve? Either I was innocent, or hanging was too good
for me. No; in their hearts they doubted my guilt; and their doubt took
that timid form instead of acquitting me. I was amazed at the verdict,
and asked leave to tell the judge why Arthur Wardlaw had defied the
court, and absented himself as my witness. Had the judge listened for one
minute, he would have seen I was innocent. But no. I was in England where
the mouth of the accused is stopped, if he is fool enough to employ
counsel. The judge stopped my mouth, as your father just now tried to
stop it; and they branded me as a felon.
"Up to that moment my life was honorable and worthy. Since that moment I
have never wronged a human creature. Men pass from virtue to vice, from
vice to crime; this is the ladder a soul goes down. But you are invited
to believe that I jumped from innocence into a filthy felony, and then
jumped back again none the worse, and was a gardener that fought for his
employer, and a lover that controlled his passion. It is a lie--a lie
that ought not to take in a child. But prejudice degrades a man below the
level of a child. I'll say no more; my patience is exhausted by wrongs
and insults. I am as honest a man as ever breathed; and the place where
we stand is mine, for I made it. Leave it and me this moment. Go to
England, and leave me where the animals, more reasonable than you, have
the sense to see my real character. I'll not sail in the same ship with
any man, nor any woman either, who can look me in the face and take me
for a felon."
He swelled and towered with the just wrath of an honest man driven to
bay; and his eye shot black lightning. He was sublime.
Helen cowered; but her spirited old father turned red, and said,
haughtily: "We take you at your word, and leave you, you insolent
vagabond! Follow me this instant, Helen!"
And he marched out of the cavern in a fury.
But, instead of following him, Helen stood stock-still, and cowered, and
cowered till she seemed sinking forward to the ground, and she got hold
of Robert Penfold's hand, and kissed it, and moaned over it.
"Martyr! Martyr!" she whispered, and still kissed his hand, like a slave
offering her master pity, and asking pardon.
"Martyr! Martyr! Every word is true--true as my love."
In this attitude, and with these words on her lips, they were surprised
by General Rolleston, who came back, astonished at his daughter not
following him. Judge of his amazement now.
"What does this mean?" he cried, turning pale with anger.
"It means that he has spoken the truth, and that I shall imitate him. He
is my martyr, and my love. When others cast shame on you, then it is time
for me to show my heart. James Seaton, I love you for your madness and
your devotion to her whom you had only seen at a distance. Ah! that was
love! John Hazel, I love you for all that has passed between us. What can
any other man be to me?--or woman to you? But, most of all, I love you,
Robert Penfold--my hero and my martyr. When I am told to your face that
you are a felon, then to your face I say you are my idol, my hero, and my
martyr. Love! the word is too tame, too common. I worship you, I adore
you! How beautiful you are when you are angry! How noble you are now you
forgive me! for you do forgive me, Robert; you must, you shall. No; you
will not send your Helen away from you for her one fault so soon
repented! Show me you forgive me; show me you love me still, almost as
much as I love you. He is crying. Oh, my darling, my darling, my
darling!" And she was round his neck in a moment, with tears and tender
kisses, the first she had ever given him.
Ask yourself whether they were returned.
A groan, or rather, we might say, a snort of fury, interrupted the most
blissful moment either of these young creatures had ever known. It came
from General Rolleston, now white with wrath and horror.
"You villain!" he cried.
Helen threw herself upon him, and put her hand before his mouth.
"Not a word more, or I shall forget I am your daughter. No one is to
blame but I. I love him. I made him love me. He has been trying hard not
to love me so much. But I am a woman; and could not deny myself the glory
and the joy of being loved better than woman was ever loved before. And
so I am; I am. Kill me, if you like; insult me, if you will. But not a
word against him, or I give him my hand, and we live and die together on
this island. Oh, papa! he has often saved that life you value so; and I
have saved his. He is all the world to me. Have pity on your child. Have
pity on him who carries my heart in his bosom!"
She flung herself on her knees, and strained him tight, and implored him,
with head thrown back, and little clutching hands, and eloquent eyes.
Ah! it is hard to resist the voice and look and clinging of a man's own
flesh and blood. Children are so strong--upon their knees. Their dear
faces, bright copies of our own, are just the height of our hearts then.
The old man was staggered, was almost melted. "Give me a moment to
think," said he, in a broken voice. "This blow takes my breath away."
Helen rose, and laid her head upon her father's shoulder, and still
pleaded for her love by her soft touch and her tears that now flowed
freely.
He turned to Penfold with all the dignity of age and station. "Mr.
Penfold," said he, with grave politeness, "after what my daughter has
said, I must treat you as a man of honor, or I must insult her. Well,
then, I expect you to show me you are what she thinks you, and are not
what a court of justice has proclaimed you. Sir, this young lady is
engaged with her own free will to a gentleman who is universally
esteemed, and has never been accused _to his face_ of any unworthy act.
Relying on her plighted word, the Wardlaws have fitted out a steamer and
searched the Pacific, and found her. Can you, as a man of honor, advise
her to stay here and compromise her own honor in every way? Ought she to
break faith with her betrothed on account of vague accusations made
behind his back?"
"It was only in self-defense I accused Mr. Arthur Wardlaw," said Robert
Penfold.
General Rolleston resumed:
"You said just now there are accusations which soil a man. If you were in
my place, would you let your daughter marry a man of honor, who had
unfortunately been found guilty of a felony?"
Robert groaned and hesitated, but he said, "No."
"Then what is to be done? She must either keep her plighted word, or else
break it. For whom? For a gentleman she esteems and loves, but cannot
marry. A leper may be a saint; but I would rather bury my child than
marry her to a leper. A convict may be a saint; but I'll kill her with my
own hand sooner than she shall marry a convict. And in your heart and
conscience you cannot blame me. Were you a father, you would do the same.
What then remains for her and me but to keep faith? and what can you do
better than leave her, and carry away her everlasting esteem and her
father's gratitude? It is no use being good by halves, or bad by halves.
You must either be a selfish villain, and urge her to abandon all shame,
and live here on this island with you forever, or you must be a brave and
honest man, and bow to a parting that is inevitable. Consider, sir; your
eloquence and her pity have betrayed this young lady into a confession
that separates you. Her enforced residence here with you has been
innocent. It would be innocent no longer, now she has been so mad as to
own she loves you. And I tell you frankly, if, after that confession, you
insist on going on board the steamer with her, I must take you; humanity
requires it; but, if I do, I shall hand you over to the law as a convict
escaped before his time. Perhaps I ought to do so as it is; but that is
not certain; I don't know to what country this island belongs. I may have
no right to capture you in strange dominions; but an English ship is
England--and if you set foot on the _Springbok_ you are lost. Now, then,
you are a man of honor; you love my child truly, and not selfishly--you
have behaved nobly until to-day; go one step farther on the right road;
call worldly honor and the God whose vows you have taken, sir, to your
aid, and do your duty."
"Oh, man, man!" cried Robert Penfold, "you ask more of me than flesh and
blood can bear. What shall I say? What shall I do?"
Helen replied, calmly: "Take my hand, and let us die together, since we
cannot live together with honor."
General Rolleston groaned. "For this, then, I have traversed one ocean,
and searched another, and found my child. I am nothing to her--nothing.
Oh, who would be a father!"
He sat down oppressed with shame and grief, and bowed his stately head in
manly but pathetic silence.
"Oh, papa, papa!" cried Helen, "forgive your ungrateful child!" And she
kneeled and sobbed, with her forehead on his knees.
Then Robert Penfold, in the midst of his own agony, found room in that
great suffering heart of his for pity. He knelt down himself, and prayed
for help in this bitter trial. He rose haggard with the struggle, but
languid and resigned, like one whose death-warrant has been read.
"Sir," said he, "there is but one way. You must take her home; and I
shall stay here."
"Leave you all alone on this island!" said Helen. "Never! If you stay
here, I shall stay to comfort you."
"I decline that offer. I am beyond the reach of comfort."
"Think what you do, Robert," said Helen, with unnatural calmness. "If you
have no pity on yourself, have pity on us. Would you rob me of the very
life you have taken such pains to save? My poor father will carry nothing
to England but my dead body. Long before we reach that country I loved so
well, and now hate it for its stupidity and cruelty to you, my soul will
have flown back to this island to watch over you, Robert. You bid me to
abandon you to solitude and despair. Neither of you two love me half as
much as I love you both."
General Rolleston sighed deeply. "If I thought that--" said he. Then, in
a faint voice, "My own courage fails me now. I look into my heart, and I
see that my child's life is dearer to me than all the world. She was
dying, they say. Suppose I send Moreland to the Continent for a
clergyman, and marry you. Then you can live on this island forever. Only
you must let me live here, too; for I could never show my face again in
England after acting so dishonorably. It will be a miserable end of a
life passed in honor; but I suppose it will not be for long. Shame can
kill as quickly as disappointed love."
"Robert, Robert!" cried Helen, in agony.
The martyr saw that he was master of the situation, and must be either
base or very noble--there was no middle way. He leaned his head on his
hands, and thought with all his might.
"Hush!" said Helen. "He is wiser than we are. Let him speak."
"If I thought you would pine and die upon the voyage, no power should
part us. But you are not such a coward. If my life depended on yours,
would you not live?"
"You know I would."
"When I was wrecked on White Water Island, you played the man. Not one
woman in a thousand could have launched a boat, and sailed it with a
boat-hook for a mast, and--"
Helen interrupted him. "It was nothing; I loved you. I love you better
now."
"I believe it, and therefore I ask you to rise above your sex once more,
and play the man for me. This time it is not my life you are to rescue,
but that which is more precious still--my good name."
"Ah! that would be worth living for!" cried Helen.
"You will find it very hard to do; but not harder for a woman than to
launch a boat, and sail her without a mast. See my father, Michael
Penfold. See Undercliff, the expert. See the solicitor, the counsel. Sift
the whole story; and, above all, find out why Arthur Wardlaw dared not
enter the witness-box. Be obstinate as a man; be supple as a woman; and
don't talk of dying when there is a friend to be rescued from dishonor by
living and working."
"Die! while I can rescue you from death or dishonor! I will not be so
base. Ah, Robert, Robert, how well you know me!"
"Yes, I do know you, Helen. I believe that great soul of yours will keep
your body strong to do this brave work for him you love, and who loves
you. And as for me, I am man enough to live for years upon this island,
if you will only promise me two things."
"I promise, then."
"Never to die, and never to marry Arthur Wardlaw, until you have reversed
that lying sentence which has blasted me. Lay your hand on your father's
head, and promise me that."
Helen laid her hand upon her father's head, and said: "I pledge my honor
not to die, if life is possible, and never to marry any man, until I have
reversed that lying sentence which has blasted the angel I love."
"And I pledge myself to help her," said General Rolleston, warmly, "for
now I _know_ you are a man of honor. I have too often been deceived by
eloquence to listen much to that. But now you have proved by your actions
what you are. You pass a forged check, knowing it to be forged! I'd stake
my salvation it's a lie. There's my hand. God comfort you! God reward
you, my noble fellow!"
"I hope He will, sir," sobbed Robert Penfold. "You are her father; and
you take my hand; perhaps that will be sweet to think of by and by; but
no joy can enter my heart now; it is broken. Take her away at once, sir.
Flesh is weak. My powers of endurance are exhausted."
General Rolleston acted promptly on this advice. He rolled up her rugs,
and the things she had made, and Robert had the courage to take them down
to the boat. Then he came back, and the general took her bag to the boat.
All this time the girl herself sat wringing her hands in anguish, and not
a tear. It was beyond that now.
As he passed Robert, the general said: "Take leave of her alone. I will
come for her in five minutes. You see how sure I feel you are a man of
honor."
When Robert went in, she rose and tottered to him, and fell on his neck.
She saw it was the death-bed of their love, and she kissed his eyes, and
clung to him. They moaned over each other, and clung to each other in
mute despair.
The general came back, and he and Robert took Helen, shivering and
fainting, to the boat. As the boat put off, she awoke from her stupor,
and put out her hands to Robert with one piercing cry.
They were parted.