THE MEETING OF CHARLES AND FLORA.
Charles Holland followed Jack Pringle for some time in silence from
Bannerworth Hall; his mind was too full of thought concerning the past
to allow him to indulge in much of that kind of conversation in which
Jack Pringle might be fully considered to be a proficient.
As for Jack, somehow or another, he had felt his dignity offended in
the garden of Bannerworth Hall, and he had made up his mind, as he
afterwards stated in his own phraseology, not to speak to nobody till
somebody spoke to him.
A growing anxiety, however, to ascertain from one who had seen her
lately, how Flora had borne his absence, at length induced Charles
Holland to break his self-imposed silence.
“Jack,” he said, “you have had the happiness of seeing her lately, tell
me, does Flora Bannerworth look as she was wont to look, or have all
the roses faded from her cheeks?”
“Why, as for the roses,” said Jack, “I’m blowed if I can tell, and
seeing as how she don’t look at me much, I doesn’t know nothing about
her; I can tell you something, though, about the old admiral that will
make you open your eyes.”
“Indeed, Jack, and what may that be?”
“Why, he’s took to drink, and gets groggy about every day of his life,
and the most singular thing is, that when that’s the case with the old
man, he says it’s me.”
“Indeed, Jack! taken to drinking has my poor old uncle, from grief, I
suppose, Jack, at my disappearance.”
“No, I don’t think it’s grief,” said Jack; “it strikes me it’s
rum-and-water.”
“Alas, alas, I never could have imagined he could have fallen into that
habit of yours; he always seemed so far from anything of this kind.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” said Jack, “I know’d you’d be astonished. It will be
the death of him, that’s my opinion; and the idea, you know, Master
Charles, of accusing me when he gets drunk himself.”
“I believe that is a common delusion of intemperate persons,” said
Charles.
“Is it, sir; well, it’s a very awkward thing, because you know, sir, as
well as most people, that I’m not the fellow to take a drop too much.”
“I cannot say, Jack, that I know so much, for I have certainly heard my
uncle accuse you of intoxication.”
“Lor’, sir, that was all just on account of his trying it hisself; he
was a thinking on it then, and wanted to see how I’d take it.”
“But tell me of Flora; are you quite certain that she has had no more
alarms from Varney?”
“What, that ere vampyre fellow? not a bit of it, your honour. Lor’
bless you, he must have found out by some means or another that I was
on the look out, and that did the business. He’ll never come near Miss
Flora again, I’ll be bound, though to be sure we moved away from the
Hall on account of him; but not that I saw the good of cruising out of
one’s own latitude, but somehow or another you see the doctor and the
admiral got it into their heads to establish a sort of blockade, and
the idea of the thing was to sail away in the night quite quiet, and
after that take up a position that would come across the enemy on the
larboard tack, if so be as he made his appearance.”
“Oh, you allude to watching the Hall, I presume?”
“Ay, ay, sir, just so; but would you believe it, Master Charlie, the
admiral and the doctor got so blessed drunk that I could do nothing
with ’em.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, they did indeed, and made all kinds of queer mistakes, so that
the end of all that was, that the vampyre did come; but he got away
again.”
“He did come then; Sir Francis Varney came again after the house was
presumed to be deserted?”
“He did, sir.”
“That is very strange; what on earth could have been his object? This
affair is most inexplicably mysterious. I hope the distance, Jack,
is not far that you’re taking me, for I’m incapable of enduring much
fatigue.”
“Not a great way, your honour; keep two points to the westward, and
sail straight on; we’ll soon come to port. My eye, won’t there be a
squall when you get in. I expect as Miss Flora will drop down as dead
as a herring, for she doesn’t think you’re above the hatches.”
“A good thought, Jack; my sudden appearance may produce alarm. When we
reach the place of abode of the Bannerworths, you shall precede me, and
prepare them in some measure for my reception.”
“Very good, sir; do you see that there little white cottage a-head,
there in the offing?”
“Yes, yes; is that the place?”
“Yes, your honour, that’s the port to which we are bound.”
“Well, then, Jack, you hasten a-head, and see Miss Flora, and be
sure you prepare her gently and by degrees, you know, Jack, for my
appearance, so that she shall not be alarmed.”
“Ay, ay, sir, I understand; you wait here, and I’ll go and do it; there
would be a squall if you were to make your appearance, sir, all at
once. She looks upon you as safely lodged in Davy’s locker; she minds
me, all the world, of a girl I knew at Portsmouth, called Bet Bumplush.
She was one of your delicate little creatures as don’t live long in
this here world; no, blow me; when I came home from a eighteen months’
cruise, once I seed her drinking rum out of a quart pot, so I says,
‘Hilloa, what cheer?’ And only to think now of the wonderful effect
that there had upon her; with that very pot she gives the fellow as was
standing treat a knobber on the head as lasted him three weeks. She
was too good for this here world, she was, and too rummantic. ‘Go to
blazes,’ she says to him, ‘here’s Jack Pringle come home.’”
“Very romantic indeed,” said Charles.
“Yes, I believe you, sir; and that puts me in mind of Miss Flora and
you.”
“An extremely flattering comparison. Of course I feel much obliged.”
“Oh, don’t name it, sir. The British tar as can’t oblige a
feller-cretor is unworthy to tread the quarter-deck, or to bear a hand
to the distress of a woman.”
“Very well,” said Charles. “Now, as we are here, precede me, if you
please, and let me beg of you to be especially cautious in your manner
of announcing me.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” said Jack; and away he walked towards the cottage,
leaving Charles some distance behind.
Flora and the admiral were sitting together conversing. The old man,
who loved her as if she had been a child of his own, was endeavouring,
to the extent of his ability, to assuage the anguish of her thoughts,
which at that moment chanced to be bent upon Charles Holland.
“Nevermind, my dear,” he said; “he’ll turn up some of these days, and
when he does, I sha’n’t forget to tell him that it was you who stood
out for his honesty and truth, when every one else was against him,
including myself, an old wretch that I was.”
“Oh, sir, how could you for one moment believe that those letters could
have been written by your nephew Charles? They carried, sir, upon the
face of them their own refutation; and I’m only surprised that for one
instant you, or any one who knew him, could have believed him capable
of writing them.”
“Avast, there,” said the admiral; “that’ll do. I own you got the better
of the old sailor there. I think you and Jack Pringle were the only two
persons who stood out from the first.”
“Then I honour Jack for doing so.”
“And here he is,” said the admiral, “and you’d better tell him. The
mutinous rascal! he wants all the honour he can get, as a set-off
against his drunkenness and other bad habits.”
Jack walked into the room, looked about him in silence for a moment,
thrust his hands in his breeches pockets, and gave a long whistle.
“What’s the matter now?” said the admiral.
“D—me, if Charles Holland ain’t outside, and I’ve come to prepare you
for the blessed shock,” said Jack. “Don’t faint either of you, because
I’m only going to let you know it by degrees, you know.”
A shriek burst from Flora’s lips, and she sprung to the door of the
apartment.
“What!” cried the admiral, “my nephew—my nephew Charles! Jack, you
rascal, if you’re joking, it’s the last joke you shall make in this
world; and if it’s true, I—I—I’m an old fool, that’s all.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” said Jack; “didn’t you know that afore?”
“Charles—Charles!” cried Flora. He heard the voice. Her name escaped
his lips, and rang with a pleasant echo through the house.
In another moment he was in the room, and had clasped her to his breast.
“My own—my beautiful—my true!”
“Charles, dear Charles!”
[Illustration: Admiral Bell and Jack Pringle witness the reunion of
Flora and Charles.]
“Oh, Flora, what have I not endured since last we met; but this repays
me—more than repays me for all.”
“What is the past now,” cried Flora—“what are all its miseries placed
against this happy, happy moment?”
“D—me, nobody thinks of me,” said the admiral.
“My dear uncle,” said Charles, looking over Flora’s shoulder, as he
still held her in his arms, “is that you?”
“Yes, yes, swab, it is me, and you know it; but give us your five,
you mutinous vagabond; and I tell you what, I’ll do you the greatest
favour I’ve had an opportunity of doing you some time—I’ll leave you
alone, you dog. Come along, Jack.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” said Jack; and away they went out of the apartment.
And now those two loving hearts were alone—they who had been so long
separated by malignant destiny, once again were heart to heart, looking
into each other’s faces with all the beaming tenderness of an affection
of the truest, holiest character.
The admiral had done a favour to them both to leave them alone,
although we much doubt whether his presence, or the presence of the
whole world, would have had the effect of controlling one generous
sentiment of noble feeling.
They would have forgotten everything but that they were together,
and that once again each looked into the other’s eyes with all the
tenderness of a love purer and higher than ordinarily belongs to mortal
affections.
Language was weak to give utterance to the full gust of happy feelings
that now were theirs. It was ecstasy enough to feel, to know that the
evil fortune which had so long separated them, depriving each existence
of its sunniest aspect, was over. It was enough for Charles Holland to
feel that she loved him still. It was enough for Flora Bannerworth to
know, as she looked into his beaming countenance, that that love was
not misplaced, but was met by feelings such as she herself would have
dictated to be the inhabitants of the heart of him whom she would have
chosen from the mass of mankind as her own.
“Flora—dear Flora,” said Charles, “and you have never doubted me?”
“I’ve never doubted, Charles, Heaven or you. To doubt one would have
been to doubt both.”
“Generous and best of girls, what must you have thought of my enforced
absence! Oh! Flora, I was unjust enough to your truth to make my
greatest pang the thought that you might doubt me, and cast me from
your heart for ever.”
“Ah! Charles, you ought to have known me better. I stood amid sore
temptation to do so much. There were those who would have urged me on
to think that you had cast me from your heart for ever. There were
those ready and willing to place the worst construction upon your
conduct, and with a devilish ingenuity to strive to make me participate
in such a feeling; but, no, Charles, no—I loved you, and I trusted you,
and I could not so far belie my own judgment as to tell you other than
what you always seemed to my young fancy.”
“And you are right, my Flora, right; and is it not a glorious triumph
to see that love—that sentiment of passion—has enabled you to have so
enduring and so noble a confidence in aught human?”
“Ay, Charles, it is the sentiment of passion, for our love has been
more a sentiment than a passion. I would fain think that we had loved
each other with an affection not usually known, appreciated, or
understood, and so, in the vanity of my best affections, I would strive
to think them something exclusive, and beyond the common feelings of
humanity.”
“And you are right, my Flora; such love as yours is the exception;
there may be preferences, there may be passions, and there may be
sentiments, but never, never, surely, was there a heart like yours.”
“Nay, Charles, now you speak from a too poetical fancy; but is it
possible that I have had you here so long, with your hand clasped in
mine, and asked you not the causes of your absence?”
“Oh, Flora, I have suffered much—much physically, but more mentally. It
was the thought of you that was at once the bane and the antidote of my
existence.”
“Indeed, Charles! Did I present myself in such contradictory colours to
you?”
“Yes, dearest, as thus. When I thought of you, sometimes, in the deep
seclusion of a dungeon, that thought almost goaded me to madness,
because it brought with it the conviction—a conviction peculiar to a
lover—that none could so effectually stand between you and all evil as
myself.”
“Yes, yes, Charles; most true.”
“It seemed to me as if all the world in arms could not have protected
you so well as this one heart, clad in the triple steel of its
affections, could have shielded you from evil.”
“Ay, Charles; and then I was the bane of your existence, because I
filled you with apprehension?”
“For a time, dearest; and then came the antidote; for when exhausted
alike in mind and body—when lying helpless, with chains upon my
limbs—when expecting death at every visit of those who had dragged me
from light and from liberty, and from love; it was but the thought of
thy beauty and thy affection that nerved me, and gave me a hope even
amidst the cruellest disasters.”
“And then—and then, Charles?”
“You were my blessing, as you have ever been—as you are, and as you
will ever be—my own Flora, my beautiful—my true!”
We won’t go so far as to say it is the fact; but, from a series of
singular sounds which reached even to the passage of the cottage,
we have our own private opinion to the effect, that Charles began
kissing Flora at the top of her forehead, and never stopped, somehow
or another, till he got down to her chin—no, not her chin—her sweet
lips—he could not get past them. Perhaps it was wrong; but we can’t
help it—we are faithful chroniclers. Reader, if you be of the sterner
sex, what would you have done?—if of the gentler, what would you have
permitted?