The Ruin at Night.—The Fire.—Gray’s Behaviour.—A Challenge.—Old
Westminster Again.
Ada made no remark upon these proceedings of Jacob Gray. She had made
up her mind to a particular course of action. She had wound up her
feelings and her courage to a certain pitch and she resolved not to say
another word to Jacob Gray, until she had an opportunity of acting, as
she had now considered it her sacred duty to act.
Gray himself seemed suspicious and annoyed at her pertinacious silence,
and he addressed her in a fawning, trembling voice, as if he would fain
restore her to her usual confidence in addressing him. The calm of
Ada’s manner alarmed him. He would ten times rather she had spoken to
him in terms of reproach and abhorrence; but now that she said nothing,
he trembled for what might be the nature of her thoughts regarding him.
“Ada,” he said, as he crept along by her side, or rather one pace
before her towards the inner side. “Ada, all that I have often pictured
to you of riches and honour shall soon be yours. You will enjoy all
that your young and ardent imagination can hope for; but there are some
few things yet to be done ere I can place you in such a position as
would make you the envy of all.”
These few things, in Jacob Gray’s mind, consisted in efficient
preparations for his own departure from England; the secreting of his
confession, and the extortion of a yet further sum of money from the
fears of Learmont.
“You do not hear me, Ada,” as she made no reply.
The young girl shuddered, and shrank from him as far as he would permit.
“You shrink from me now,” said Gray, “and yet I am the only person who
can and will place you in a position to enjoy every pleasure—to gratify
every taste. Ada, you will be much beholden now to Jacob Gray.”
Still Ada would not speak, and they were rapidly nearing some stairs,
at which plied wherries between Battersea and Westminster. Gray now
looked cautiously around him, and being quite satisfied that no one was
within heating, he stooped his mouth close to Ada’s ear, and said, in a
voice of suppressed yet violent passion,—
“Girl, I am a desperate man. Do not tempt me beyond what I can resist
to do a deed which I fain would not do. Hear me, Ada—I swear to have
your life if you play me false. Be obedient to what I shall command,
and all will be well; but have a care—have a care, for I am desperate,
and you know what I can do.”
Jacob Gray then walked on in silence until he reached the stalls, at
which there was no one but a boy, who immediately cried to him, “Boat,
your honour—going across, sir?”
“Yes,” said Gray.
The boy ran into the water to steady the beat while Gray handed in Ada,
who submitted passively. Then he stepped on board himself, and the boy,
clambering in after him, pushed the boat out into the stream.
“Where to, your honour?” said the boy, as he settled the sculls in the
rollocks, and gave, a sweep that turned the boat’s head from the shore.
“To the stairs at Westminster-bridge,” said Gray.
The boy nodded, and the boat, under his good management, was soon
gliding up the stream in the wished-for direction.
The sun was now rapidly sinking, and tall dark shadows lay upon the
surface of the Thames, making the waters look as if they were composed
of different kinds of fluids of varying colours and densities. Then the
last edge of the sun’s disc, which had been reposing on the horizon for
a moment, suddenly disappeared, and a cold wind on the instant swept
across the face of the river, curling it up into small wrinkles, and
giving a gentle, undulating motion to the boat.
Not a word was spoken, and the small wherry might have been occupied by
the dead, for all the signs of life or animation given by Gray or Ada.
That Gray’s thoughts partook of the apprehensive might have been
guessed by the nervous manner in which he clutched the side of the
boat, and the distracted movement of the fingers of his other hand with
which he held the collar of his cloak across the lower part of his face.
Ada was pale as a marble statue; but there was an intellectuality and
determination about her small, compressed lips and commanding brow that
would have won admiration from all, and enraptured a poet or a painter.
She sat calm and still. There was no nervousness, no trembling, no
alarm; and it was the absence of all those natural and feminine
feelings which cast a cold chill to the heart of Jacob Gray, and filled
him with a terror of he knew not what.
He could not for more than one instant of time keep his eyes off Ada’s
face. There was a something depicted there that while he dreaded, he
seemed, by some supernatural power, compelled to look upon. Like one
fascinated by the basilisk eye of a serpent, he could not withdraw his
gaze; although pale, firm, and slightly tinged with a death-like hue by
the strange colours that lingered in the sky from the sunset, that
young and lovely face brought to his recollection one which the mere
thought of was an agony, and the name of whom was engraven upon his
heart in undying letters of eternal flame.
The fresh breeze caught as it passed the long glossy ringlets of Ada’s
hair, and blew them in wanton playfulness across her face, but still
she moved not. The night darkened, and the shadows of the buildings and
shipping crossed her eyes, but she stirred not. Her whole soul, with
all its varied perceptions and powers seemed to be engrossed by some
one great idea that would admit of no sort of companionship, and for
the time reigned alone within the chambers of her brain.
Suddenly now the boy let his oars rest in the water, and the boat no
longer urged forward, moved but sluggishly. His eyes seemed to be fixed
on something. Now he lifted one hand and shaded them, while he looked
earnestly in the direction from whence he had been coming.
Gray for a moment did not seem conscious that the boat was making no
progress, but in fact slowly turning broadside to the stream, and Ada,
if she did notice it, preserved her silence and calmness, for she
neither moved nor spoke.
“Master,” cried the boy, suddenly, and Gray started as if he had been
suddenly aroused by a trumpet at his ear.
“What—a—what?” he cried. “Who spoke?”
“I spoke, sir,” said the boy. “There’s a famous fire out Battersea way.”
“A fire?” said Gray.
“Yes,” said the boy, and he pointed with his finger in the direction
from whence they came. “It’s a large fire; now it does burn, to be
sure. Look, sir, there!”
Gray turned half round upon his seat in the boat, and he saw that the
heavens were illuminated with a dull, red glare in the direction to
which the boy had pointed, and in that one particular spot there was a
concentrated body of light from whence shot up in the sky myriads of
bright sparks, and now and then a long tongue of flame which lit up the
house, the shipping, and the river, with a bright and transitory glow.
“It is—the house,” muttered Gray to himself; “my work prospers. Sir
Frederick Hartleton, I have but one more wish, and that is, that your
flesh was broiling in yon house along with your myrmidon whom you left
to his fate.”
“It’s a large fire,” remarked the boy. “A famous fire.”
“Yes,” said Gray, “a famous fire; can you tell where it is?”
“I think,” said the boy, “it lies somewhere over the marshes.”
“Indeed.”
“Yes; and I should say it was Forest’s old haunted house, only nobody
lives there but the ghosts.”
“Forest’s house,” repeated Gray, in an assumed careless tone. “Indeed I
should not wonder if you were right.”
“I hope it is,” said the boy. “It was an old miserable-looking place.
You’ve heard about it, sir?”
“A little—a little,” replied Gray.
“There was a murder there once,” said the boy.
“Yes,—yes, I—know,” said Gray.
“Forest, you see, sir, lived in the house. He built it, you see, sir,
and he wasn’t content with what he had, so he murdered a poor fellow,
who they say had a thousand pounds belonging to somebody who employed
him to collect rents, you see, sir.”
“Yes,” said Gray, licking his lips.
“Well, sir, Forest shot him.”
“Shot him? Oh, yes. He—he shot him.”
“He was hung, though,” added the boy, “and well he deserved it, too. My
grandfather saw him hung on the common, not a hundred feet from his own
door.—After that no one would live in the house, and, in course, old
Forest’s ghost, and, the man’s ghost that he killed, took to being
there. Well, it does flare now famously.”
The fire seemed now at its height, for the flames rose to a tremendous
height into the sky, and the roaring and crackling of the timbers could
be distinctly heard, even at that distance from the spot of the
conflagration.
Now and then a loud sound, resembling the discharge of artillery at a
distance, would come booming through the air, indicative of the fall of
some heavy part of the ancient building, and then the flame would be
smothered for a moment, and dense volumes of smoke terrifically red
from the glare beneath, would roll over the sky, to be succeeded again
by myriads of sparks, which would, in their turns, give place to the
long tongues of flame which shot up from the fallen mass, as it became
more thoroughly ignited.
Jacob Gray gazed intently on the scene for a few minutes, then turning
to the boy, he cried,—
“We are in haste.”
The lad resumed his oars, and struck them lazily into the glowing
stream, that looked like liquid fire from the bright reflection of the
sky, and once more the boat was making way towards Westminster.
Several times Gray glanced in the face of Ada, to note what effect the
burning of the old house had upon her imagination, but not a muscle
moved—all was as still and calm as before, and save that the reflection
from the reddened sky now cast a glow of more than earthly beauty over
her otherwise pale face, to look at her, she might have been supposed
some thing of Heaven, summoned by the small casualties and petty
commotions of this world, which she had but visited for a brief space,
for some specific purpose.
The boat glided on, and so intent was the boy upon the fire, that he
had several narrow escapes of running foul of barges and other
wherries, some of the latter of which were pulling down the stream on
purpose to look at the fire, which was causing a great deal of comment
and commotion among the gossips of ancient Westminster.
Many were the oaths levelled on the head of the boy, by parties who
were obliged to ship their oars suddenly to avoid a collision with his
boat, and it was not until this happened thrice, that he began to be a
little more careful, and look warily about him.
The stairs to which Gray directed the boy were through the bridge, and
the boat now reached the ancient structure, which looked beautiful and
brilliant from the reflection of the fire upon its many rough stones
and jagged points of architecture.
A wherry, in which sat one person besides the rower, now came rapidly
from under the same arch of the bridge, through which the boat
containing Ada and Gray was about to proceed.
“Hilloa!” cried the man, who was sitting in the boat. “Hilloa there!”
“Well, what now?” said the boy.
“None of your impertinence, youngster,” cried the man, showing a
constable’s staff, which Ada knew no more the meaning of than if he had
unfurled the banner of Mahomet.
“Well, sir,” said the boy, “I only want to land my passengers.”
“You may land your passengers, and be d—d,” replied the man in
authority.
“Thank you kindly sir,” replied the boy, promptly.
The rower in the other boat laughed at this, and the constable cried,—
“Come, come, none of this. How far have you pulled up the river, boy?”
“From Battersea.”
“Oh, hem! From Battersea?”
“I told you so.”
“Come, come, young fellow—no insolence. Where’s the fire?”
“I can’t say exactly.”
“Where do you think it is? You say you have pulled up from Battersea,
and the fire is at Battersea, we know.”
“I think it’s at old Forest’s haunted house,” said the boy.
“D—d if I didn’t think so,” cried the officer, who was no other than
our old friend Stephy; “I must go and see, though, notwithstanding.
Pull away, my man.”
The wherries shot past each other, and in a few moments more, Ada and
Gray stood on the top of the flight of stone steps conducting from the
river to Bridge-street.