People are early in the country--"early to bed, early to rise." It was
just ten by Minnie's hall clock as Mrs. Gillett became confidential to
herself, and at that hour another person, some distance from Gatestone,
was struggling with the voices of nature and truth united, which rung
the word "shame" in his ears--this was the squire. He sat alone. All the
servants had retired; his own man even dismissed. He sat in a small
study adjoining his bedroom--not that he studied much, but the room had
so been planned and arranged, and so he left it. A few additions of his
own had been made, such as a brace of favourite pistols, a gun or two,
spurs, whips, fishing-rods, and their accompaniments; the books on their
neglected shelves were as silent memory. They spoke to no one; no one
sought or conversed with them; their thoughts were sealed within their
own breasts--like glowing eyes gazing on the sightless, no looks lit up
to meet their glances. Beautiful, cheering things, among which we might
live alone for ever, nor feel our loneliness. _Man_ would perhaps sink
off into drowsy rest; but the _soul_ creeping forth, cheered by the
stillness, could seek its companions in those leaves clinging together
with the damp of years, and live with them in long ages gone by, when
they were permitted to speak above the mere practical spirits of the
present day. Poetry was there in sorrowing maidenhood, as she glanced
upwards at an old mandolin with chords, suspended against the wall, the
loving once, now dumb suitor, who has sung her praises, and wooed her to
smile! It was strange that old mandolin should be still there: it was
the one on which Miles's mother had often played and sung to him in
infancy and boyhood! It was strange, then, that Marmaduke Burton should
sit, as he sat on that evening, facing it. While he turned over piles of
gloomy-looking papers and parchments, his brow was scowling, more so
than usual; his face, that cold, livid colour, which the warm heart
never avows as its index. At his feet lay an uncouth-looking bulldog; he
seldom was seen without this companion. Somehow, if the dog were absent,
Marmaduke became uneasy; cowards seldom rely upon themselves alone.
Every paper, as it passed through his hands, was carefully examined, and
then as carefully folded up and placed within a large drawer by his
side, evidently one of some old cabinet. "Nothing," he whispered to
himself. "Dalby said there was nothing--no proof; for, after all, I
would not have it on my conscience to say, I _knew_ there was proof, and
withheld it. 'Tis not for me to _search_ for writings or witnesses
_against_ myself," this was added after a thoughtful pause. After awhile
he continued, "Besides, it is scarcely probable that old Tremenhere ever
married that poor Spanish girl; those girls at Gibraltar are not of
very noted virtue. I should have been a fool indeed, to sit down quietly
and allow another to enjoy mine by right, from a mere idea of honour.
Had he succeeded, he would not have shared with me. I _did_ offer him a
competency," all this time he had been assorting the papers. "Nothing
here," he continued. "What's this? oh! a letter from old Tremenhere,
written after his mar--after his connection" (he corrected himself)
"with that woman Helene Nunoz, he, evidently being here, and she still
abroad, in Paris--eh? not Gibraltar. What says he?" For some moments he
attentively read. "I have seen two or three of his letters," he said
thoughtfully, "among old papers, and in all he speaks of one 'Estree.'
Who can he be? here it is again." He read aloud a passage, accentuating
every word, and dwelling on his own final comment thoughtfully for some
moments. "'Do you see D'Estree often? Is he kind as ever to my Helena?
his child, as he calls her. I should much like _ours_ to be christened
by him; might he not be induced to return with us?' This must have been
some clergyman or priest," was the thoughtful comment. At that moment
his dog arose uneasily from the carpet at his feet, and walked towards
the door. "What's the matter, Viper?" asked his master, starting
timidly. "Look to it, dog--good dog;" but the dog returned quietly to
its former place, and Marmaduke concluded the letter, which only spoke
of love, and regret at absence. In the concluding lines again Viper
moved to the door, and snuffed the air beneath the crevice. His master
grew uneasy; he watched the dog, and, while doing so, tore up the
letter he held, and flung it into a basket beneath the table. Viper
moved about whining, not in anger, but more in satisfaction and
impatience of restraint. The squire arose, and somewhat nervously
approached the door. These letters had unnerved him; his hand was on the
lock, the dog sprung up with pleasure; another hand turned the handle
from the outside, it opened, and Mary Burns entered. As she did so, the
dog fawned upon her.
"I might have guessed it!" ejaculated Marmaduke, falling back and
scowling upon her. "Only you would Viper meet in such a manner; the
dog's faithful to old acquaintance, I see." She stood quite still,
silent, and very pale. "Down, poor animal, down!" she whispered at last
to the dog, which was jumping up to caress her hand.
"I have yet to learn why you are here?" asked Marmaduke, sullenly, "and
how?"
"I came to restore you this," she uttered, holding up a key in her hand;
"this will explain how I am here."
"Oh, true! I had forgotten you came through the quiet gate leading by
the shrubbery; I trust the reminiscence of the past, which such a walk
must inevitably have awakened, procured you pleasure?"
"Sneer on, Marmaduke Burton! I came prepared to suffer all to-night. I
came to restore you this, and also to implore a favour at your hands?"
"At mine! what can I do for you? I thought the hour of solicitation had
passed between us--will you not be seated?" He offered her a chair; she
appeared choking with emotion; and yet, though almost powerless to
stand, waved her hand in token of dissent, as he pushed a seat towards
her, and merely laid one hand upon the back of it for support.
"As you will," he said coldly, noticing the action; "and perhaps you
will pardon my asking you as much as possible to abridge this visit; you
see I am engaged." He pointed to the table of papers.
"I come," she said at last with great effort, "to implore one favour at
your hands, as some mitigation of the deep remorse I feel. Miles
Tremenhere is here--I do beseech you," here she clasped her hands, "not
to make my burthen heavier to bear, by seeking to injure him farther."
"Woman!" he cried, standing erect before her, "do you remember to whom
you are speaking? How have I injured him? Am I not heir--lawful
heir--here? I wish to hear no more; go, you have chosen to place a
barrier yourself between us--henceforth, 'tis as you have willed it. I
offered you independence and oblivion of all, away from this, and you
have refused, so you must take the consequences."
"I beseech you!" she exclaimed again, not heeding his words, "to have
pity on that man, for the sake of his mother, who was one to me."
"That is perceptible," he said scornfully, "in the good fruit of her
cultivation--vice seldom produces----"
"Hold!" she cried, springing towards him, and grasping his arm; "revile
me as you will, but not her--she was pure as an angel, and you know it!
And I adjure you by the wrong you have done her son--to spare him now;
let him go in peace."
"Woman, I bid you go," he cried, shaking her touch from him, "before my
patience becomes exhausted; what am I doing, or going to do to that man?
Let him go as he will, I shall not molest him unless he cross my path;
then woe betide him, whatever may be done, I'll do, nor ask whether he
be relative or stranger."
"I only pray you," she continued, "should he seek you, as I fear he may,
to be temperate, remembering what you were to each other, what you are
in blood." She tried to soothe; had that not been the case, she would
have fearlessly spoken all her thought of his treachery.
"Why do you think he will seek me?" he asked, and the eye, ever
uncertain in its glance, shrunk from her's. He began to dread a possible
meeting.
"Because, because!" she hesitated a moment; then, by an effort over her
emotion, added more resolutely, "because he knows _all_, and Miles is
not one silently to pass over wrong to one he once loved and respected."
"Oh, that's it--is it?" Rising, he advanced a step towards the trembling
woman; but suddenly paused, and hastily turned round. "What was that?"
he exclaimed, looking fixedly at a door behind him, at which Viper had
sprung growling.
The study had two doors in it, one leading through the corridor--the one
by which Mary had entered; the other leading to a dressing-room,
adjoining Marmaduke's bedroom--it was at this one the dog lay growling.
"Curse that dog!" he cried angrily, "he makes one fanciful and nervous.
Did you hear any thing?"
"Nothing," she rejoined, trembling with a strange tremor.
Marmaduke turned paler too than even he generally was--it was a coward
pallor. Reaching a book from the table, he flung it at Viper, who
startled, but not cowed, sprung under the table, upsetting the basket as
he did so, which contained the torn papers; and then, as his master
turned away, he returned again to his post at the door, and commenced
scratching and growling at it. Marmaduke uttered a deep oath, and,
seizing the animal by the throat, hastily opened the door leading
towards the corridor, and flung him out. As he turned his back, a
sudden, uncontrollable impulse seized Mary to stoop, and, unseen by him,
grasp and conceal a paper which had fallen from the basket as Viper
upset it. She felt that any thing written by that man might be of value
to Miles; moreover, she saw how he (Marmaduke) had been employed with
old papers and parchments, which made the one she held possibly more
valuable.
"Now," he said, closing the door, "let us have a few final words, and
then leave me; and if we meet again at your seeking, it will be a day of
sorrow to you. I wish to do you no injury, for I liked you once--do not
mistake," he hastily added, seeing she was about to speak; "I never
_loved_ you--no, that was man's right of speech when I said so; we are
bound to employ the same weapons others use against ourselves."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean lying and deceit. You never loved _me_--_I_ never had that
feeling for you; you have this evening shown me why you became mine. He
had loved you, and then forsook--revenge dictated the act which made you
give me a claim to call you mine; dislike to every thing fostering
affection for that impostor and base-born hound, made me resolve to win
you, and well have I succeeded! False to his affection for you, which
you have confessed, and thereby made me doubly glad in having ruined
you! false to me, if he so please it, I doubt not. Take back that garden
key, woman, how do you know but that this impostor may some day be
master here, and you require it for your secret visits to the
manor-house? Verily, you love the place! feline in your affections, 'tis
the place, not person, you care for!" As he concluded, he drew the
deep-drawn breath of a man suffocating with overwhelming thoughts,
bursting like deadly missiles from a shell, scattering death around;
for, as he discharged them forth, the woman, stricken with shame and
sorrow, cowered down, and buried her face in her hands. Marmaduke's deep
sigh, as he concluded, was echoed by one still deeper--it was a groan,
and came from the doorway leading into the dressing-room; he had but
time to turn half round, when a heavy hand was on his arm.
"Unsay those words, 'impostor' and 'base-born hound,'" said Miles
Tremenhere ('twas he) beneath his breath; "or the world shall add the
other to them, and a _true_ one, 'avenger;'--as I am a living man this
night, unless you do, or you, or I shall not quit this room alive!"
The presence even of that trembling woman imparted a feeling of
protection to Marmaduke's coward heart. By a sudden jerk he disengaged
his arm, and with one stride reached the opposite door. To think and do
had been the work of an instant, the coward's self-shield through
another. With a trembling hand he opened the door, and called "Viper,"
and the dog sprang in. No word was needed; the brave brute knew all
enemies to his master, and a second spring would have brought him to
Miles's throat, had that man not, foreseeing treachery, been on his
guard. With one blow of his small, but muscular fist, he felled the
animal, and, before it could recover itself, his hand grasped its
throat; the woman shrieked--a true woman's heart is tender to every
living thing. "Spare it, Miles!" she cried. "Poor, faithful brute!"
But Miles had no thought otherwise; while Marmaduke stood in a species
of panic, which rendered further effort for an instant vain, the other
strode to the door near which he stood, and, flinging the dog forth,
calmly turned the key, and placed it in his pocket. This act alarmed
Marmaduke; there is something to the cowardly man fearful in the calm of
a resolute one. He turned hastily to fly, his hand was on the lock of
the door leading to the corridor, but another's reached his before he
turned it, and, without one uttered word, he felt his nerveless grasp
withdrawn. The key grated in the lock beneath Miles's fingers; he saw
him, too, with perfect composure, look around, and then, a feat of
child's play to him, tear down the bell-rope, to prevent the possibility
of Marmaduke's summoning assistance; this done, Miles turned calmly
round to where his cousin stood. Mary had dropped, powerless to stand,
in a chair, and, with eyes distended by terror, watched every movement
of the quiet desperation Miles portrayed.
"Now," he said, in untrembling resolution, as he fixed his eyes on his
cousin, the stern brow knit over their intense gaze, "retraction full,
and immediate!"
"Of what?" asked the other, endeavouring to seem calm and unconscious.
"Of 'impostor,' and 'base-born hound!'"
"Do you call it a noble act, to enter, as you have done this evening
here, with the connivance of that traitress, and play eavesdropper?"
cried Marmaduke, endeavouring to evade the demand of _retraction_ of his
tongue's hasty aspersion.
"Tis false, that too!" answered Miles. "I followed this girl, 'tis true;
I feared she might be again led to attempt suicide,--I saw her enter by
the shrubbery gate,--strangely enough, I, too, had purposed visiting you
this night by that entrance, to which I also have a key," (he held one
up as he spoke,) "mine, since when we often entered thereby together,
cousin Marmaduke. But I had intended my visit to have been made some
hours later, deeming that possibly the hospitable lord of the
manor-house might keep open house for his numerous friends, whose
pleasures I would not have interrupted for worlds. My business is of a
private nature; but, as she entered, I followed, and, knowing all the
intricacies of the old place, why, I came by the private stair to the
adjoining rooms; these rooms were mine!"
The man's voice slightly trembled as he uttered these words; for, in
looking round, his eye rested on the old mandolin; it awakened a chord
in his heart, not like its own--broken. Marmaduke perceived this
emotion, and deemed it an advantage gained, not having seen whence arose
that softened tone; but Mary had seen, and her eye following his, the
tears gathered in a heavy cloud over her vision, as she looked up to the
thing to which she had often danced, a light-hearted child; for her
heart was now as powerless of joy as the mandolin of tone; error and
death had worked their will in stilling both.
"I should like much to know why you are here? why you purposed coming?"
inquired Marmaduke, gaining courage.
"Before I reply to that," answered Miles, himself once more, "I must
have retraction. I tell you so; so let it be quickly done, for she heard
it,--to her you shall unsay it, and then our interview must be alone."
"I will not leave you, Miles," uttered the girl, clasping his hand,
which hung down, as she crept beside him; but he neither heard nor saw
her.
"When I came to this neighbourhood again," said Miles, "it was not to
seek you; it was for one reason only--to visit in peace some old haunts,
old friends. I yet have a few left--on all, I found _your_ hand. He who
knew me from childhood, my father's respected tenant, you have striven
to drive forth--and, look there," he pointed to Mary; "this is your work
too, cowardly villain, to war with a woman, and urge her to destruction
by goading her to madness with falsehood and calumny; but this must pass
awhile. First you shall clear from your lip by retraction the words you
have said of my sainted mother; your act has, _for awhile_--mind I say
only _for awhile_--cast a slur upon her fame; but the lion only
slumbers, cousin Marmaduke--he will awake soon. But this night was the
first time you ever, in my hearing, uttered the words to blast her;
indeed, until to-night you have kept hidden from my vengeance. When you
commenced your worthy suit against me, after the first day you left
others to complete it, and fled, hidden like a reptile in sunlight,--you
came forth at night to spread your venom around; but for all that, a day
of retribution will come, only for to-night, I demand retraction."
Marmaduke felt chilled: there was something fearful in Miles's resolute
calmness.
"If," he said, yet not daring to look up, "you will go and take that
woman in peace (for I would not have it known, for many reasons, that
_she_ had been here,) I will say this, that I ought perhaps not to have
spoken before her of family affairs."
"Man!" cried Miles, in a voice of thunder, "say all was a lie, an
invention; it will not take your devil-bought position here from you,
but retract every word _you shall_!"
"Hush!" whispered Marmaduke, as the other strode towards him, putting up
his hands to ward off his coming; "hush! some one may hear us, and
report this visit."
"Whom does he fear?" asked Miles, turning to Mary.
"He fears lest Miss Dalzell should be informed, probably," uttered the
shrinking woman.
"Miss Dalzell!" cried Miles, awakening as from a dream; "she will
_never_ become the wife of this man; it would be profaning a creature
stainless as the created day, before man made it blush for his sin; or
looks and words only rank as liars."
Marmaduke glared on him, but durst not speak; he was awed by his
cousin's sternness.
"Speak!" commanded Miles again impatiently; "I have yet a task to
perform before we part, so hasten this; she must not see the rest. Come,
man!" he uttered contemptuously, as the other visibly trembled, "speak
the words: I promise you, reckless as _I_ am of life, I have no purpose
of taking yours, _if you speak_." There was that about him which
terrified the other; it was the first time they had met out of court
since the suit.
"I spoke hastily, angrily," stammered Marmaduke at last, his eyes bent
on the ground, one of his hands nervously turning a letter on the table,
the other in his bosom; "but this woman goaded me to it."
"'Tis well," uttered Miles scornfully, "well done, to accuse another to
shield our own fault. You know my mother to have been pure as ever woman
was, only the _law_ wanted proof."
"I believe she was a good woman," ejaculated the other, fearing some
snare before witnesses.
"Fellow," cried Miles, seeing his hesitation, "I am not here to catch
you in your words: you have calumniated, you shall restore; you have
lied, you shall unlie. Do you not know in your heart that, though proof
be wanting, my mother was a wife?" He made a movement towards where his
cousin stood.
"I believe it," fell from the lips of the awed coward; "but you know the
law will have----"
"Enough!" exclaimed Miles, waving his hand contemptuously. "I have
devoted my life, with all its energies, to prove her to have been such,
not for the sake of the land and tenements around us, but to rebuild in
splendour an angel's darkened fame. Now, Mary, you have heard his
retraction, leave us awhile, I will rejoin you before you have quitted
the grounds."
"Let me stay, I beseech you, Miles," she whispered, her frame trembling
with fear as he approached to put her forth.
"There can be no secrets she may not hear," hazarded Marmaduke, in
terror himself at the idea of being alone with Miles. All the fear he
had experienced as a boy of the other, when as children they quarrelled,
stood before him, for Miles was of strong build, and great stature; he
seemed to tower above his cousin, though actually less in height. A
strange expression passed over Miles's face, as he looked from the one
to the other.
"Well," he said, and a grim smile stole across his lip, and then
disappeared--a mere phantom--"perhaps it is just it should be so. The
man who honourably offends us, we meet in honourable fight; the cur
which, coward like, yelps at and tears our heels, what does it deserve?
A cur's chastisement," he added, not waiting for a reply. Before
Marmaduke had time to think, or the woman had time to rush between them,
Miles seized him by the collar, and at the same moment, drawing a
thickly knotted whip from his pocket, with all the force of his vigorous
arm, he applied the lash over the other's shoulders. Mary shrieked in
terror, and sunk fainting on her chair.
"Howl like a hound in your craven fear!" shouted Miles, as his cousin
groaned and writhed beneath the lash, helpless in that strong hand.
"Come Mary, girl, look up; this is for your wrong, a coward's act--a
cur's punishment. There," he continued, flinging him almost lifeless
from him at last, and panting himself with the effort. "You'll remember
the first meeting with Miles Tremenhere;--one thing more," he took down
his mother's mandolin from its place. "Poor, senseless thing," he said,
"yet speaking words of love to me, you have been made to look on
desecrating words, deeds, and thoughts, in this man's presence. You have
lost your purity, like all of us, since _she_ left you!" In his
bitterness he forgot the suffering woman, who was weeping bitterly
beside him. "Desecrated no more, speechless henceforth, and mute to all
of the ruin around you!" he put the thing, which seemed as a breathing
creature to him, beneath his foot, and with one stamp of his heel it
flew into pieces. Crash after crash succeeded, until only a mass lay
without shape on the floor. Marmaduke was speechless with terror and
pain.
"Come Mary, my girl, look up now!" said Miles, kindly taking her hand.
"I have avenged you as well as I can; he will not forget us--come!"
And, almost carrying the terror-stricken girl, he passed out by the
corridor, carefully locking the door on the other side, to avoid
interruption, and so he quitted his own halls.