MUTUAL EXPLANATIONS, AND THE VISIT TO THE RUINS.
During the next hour, Charles informed Flora of the whole particulars
of his forcible abduction; and to his surprise he heard, of course,
for the first time, of those letters, purporting to be written by him,
which endeavoured to give so bad an aspect to the fact of his sudden
disappearance from Bannerworth Hall.
Flora would insist upon the admiral, Henry, and the rest of the family,
hearing all that Charles had to relate concerning Mr. Marchdale; for
well she knew that her mother, from early associations, was so far
impressed in the favour of that hypocritical personage, that nothing
but damning facts, much to his prejudice, would suffice to convince her
of the character he really was.
But she was open to conviction, and when she really found what a
villain she had cherished and given her confidence to, she shed
abundance of tears, and blamed herself exceedingly as the cause of some
of the misfortunes which had fallen upon her children.
“Very good,” said the admiral; “I ain’t surprised a bit. I knew he was
a vagabond from the first time I clapped eyes upon him. There was a
down look about the fellow’s figure-head that I didn’t like, and be
hanged to him, but I never thought he would have gone the length he has
done. And so you say you’ve got him safe in the ruins, Charles?”
“I have, indeed, uncle.”
“And then there let him remain, and a good place, too, for him.”
“No, uncle, no. I’m sure you speak without thought. I intend to release
him in a few hours, when I have rested from my fatigues. He could not
come to any harm if he were to go without food entirely for the time
that I leave him; but even that he will not do, for there is bread and
water in the dungeon.”
“Bread and water! that’s too good for him. But, however, Charles, when
you go to let him out, I’ll go with you, just to tell him what I think
of him, the vagabond.”
“He must suffer amazingly, for no doubt knowing well, as he does, his
own infamous intentions, he will consider that if I were to leave him
to starve to death, I should be but retailing upon him the injuries he
would have inflicted upon me.”
“The worst of it is,” said the admiral, “I can’t think what to do with
him.”
“Do nothing, uncle, but just let him go; it will be a sufficient
punishment for such a man to feel that, instead of succeeding in his
designs, he has only brought upon himself the bitterest contempt of
those whom he would fain have injured. I can have no desire for revenge
on such a man as Marchdale.”
“You are right, Charles,” said Flora; “let him go, and let him go
with a feeling that he has acquired the contempt of those whose best
opinions might have been his for a far less amount of trouble than he
has taken to acquire their worst.”
Excitement had kept up Charles to this point, but now, when he arose
and expressed his intention of going to the ruins, for the purpose
of releasing Marchdale, he exhibited such unequivocal symptoms of
exhaustion and fatigue that neither his uncle nor Flora would permit
him to go, so, in deference to them, he gave up the point, and
commissioned the admiral and Jack, with Henry, to proceed to the place,
and give the villain his freedom; little suspecting what had occurred
since he had himself left the neighbourhood of those ruins.
Of course Charles Holland couldn’t be at all accountable for the work
of the elements, and it was not for him to imagine that when he left
Marchdale in the dungeon that so awful a catastrophe as that we have
recorded to the reader was to ensue.
The distance to the ruins was not so great from this cottage even as it
was from Bannerworth Hall, provided those who went knew the most direct
and best road to take; so that the admiral was not gone above a couple
of hours, and when he returned he sat down and looked at Charles with
such a peculiar expression, that the latter could not for the life of
him tell what to make of it.
“Something has happened, uncle,” he said, “I am certain; tell me at
once what it is.”
“Oh! nothing, nothing,” said the admiral, “of any importance.”
“Is that what you call your feelings?” said Jack Pringle. “Can’t you
tell him as there came on a squall last night, and the ruins have come
in with a dab upon old Marchdale, crushing his guts, so that we smelt
him as soon as we got nigh at hand?”
“Good God!” said Charles, “has such a catastrophe occurred?”
“Yes, Charles, that’s just about the catastrophe that has occurred.
He’s dead; and rum enough it is that it should happen on the very night
that you escaped.”
“Rum!” said Jack, suddenly; “my eye, who mentions rum? What a singular
sort of liquor rum must be. I heard of a chap as used to be fond of it
once on board a ship; I wonder if there’s any in the house.”
“No!” said the admiral; “but there’s a fine pump of spring water
outside if you feel a little thirsty, Jack; and I’ll engage it shall do
you more good than all the rum in the world.”
“Uncle,” said Charles, “I’m glad to hear you make that observation.”
“What for?”
“Why, to deal candidly with you, uncle, Jack informed me that you had
lately taken quite a predilection for drinking.”
“Me!” cried the admiral; “why the infernal rascal, I’ve had to threaten
him with his discharge a dozen times, at least, on that very ground,
and no other.”
“There’s somebody calling me,” said Jack. “I’m a coming! I’m a coming!”
and, so he bolted out of the room, just in time to escape an inkstand,
which the admiral caught up and flung after him.
“I’ll strike that rascal off the ship’s books this very day,” muttered
Admiral Bell. “The drunken vagabond, to pretend that I take anything,
when all the while it’s himself!”
“Well, well, I ought certainly to have suspected the quarter from
whence the intelligence came; but he told it to me so circumstantially,
and with such an apparent feeling of regret for the weakness into which
he said you had fallen, that I really thought there might be some truth
in it.”
“The rascal! I’ve done with him from this moment; I have put up with
too much from him for years past.”
“I think now that you have given him a great deal of liberty, and that,
with a great deal more he has taken, makes up an amount which you find
it difficult to endure.”
“And I won’t endure it.”
“Let me talk to him, and I dare say I shall be able to convince him
that he goes too far, and when he finds that such is the case he will
mend.”
“Speak to him, if you like, but I have done with such a mutinous
rascal, I have. You can take him into your service, if you like, till
you get tired of him; and that won’t be very long.”
“Well, well, we shall see. Jack will apologise to you I have no doubt;
and then I shall intercede for him, and advise you to give him another
trial.”
“If you get him into the apology, then there’s no doubt about me giving
him another trial. But I know him too well for that; he’s as obstinate
as a mule, he is, and you won’t get a civil word out of him; but never
mind that, now. I tell you what, Master Charley, it will take a good
lot of roast beef to get up your good looks again.”
“It will, indeed, uncle; and I require, now, rest, for I am thoroughly
exhausted. The great privations I have undergone, and the amount
of mental excitement which I have experienced, in consequence of
the sudden and unexpected release from a fearful confinement, have
greatly weakened all my energies. A few hours’ sleep will make quite a
different being of me.”
“Well, my boy, you know best,” returned the admiral; “and I’ll take
care, if you sleep till to-morrow, that you sha’n’t be disturbed. So
now be off to bed at once.”
The young man shook his uncle’s hand in a cordial manner, and then
repaired to the apartment which had been provided for him.
Charles Holland did, indeed, stand in need of repose; and for the first
time now for many days he laid down with serenity at his heart, and
slept for many hours. And was there not now a great and a happy change
in Flora Bannerworth! As if by magic, in a few short hours, much of
the bloom of her before-fading beauty returned to her. Her step again
recovered its springy lightness; again she smiled upon her mother, and
suffered herself to talk of a happy future; for the dread even of the
vampyre’s visitations had faded into comparative insignificance against
the heart’s deep dejection which had come over her at the thought that
Charles Holland must surely be murdered, or he would have contrived to
come to her.
And what a glorious recompense she had now for the trusting confidence
with which she had clung to a conviction of his truth! Was it not
great, now, to feel that when he was condemned by others, and when
strong and unimpeachable evidence seemed to be against him, she had
clung to him and declared her faith in his honour, and wept for him
instead of condemning?
Yes, Flora; you were of that order of noble minds that, where once
confidence is given, give it fully and completely, and will not harbour
a suspicion of the faith of the loved one, a happy disposition when
verified, as in this instance, by an answering truthfulness.
But when such a heart trusts not with judgment—when that pure, exalted,
and noble confidence is given to an object unworthy of it—then comes,
indeed, the most fearful of all mental struggles; and if the fond
heart, that has hugged to its inmost core so worthless a treasure, do
not break in the effort to discard it, we may well be surprised at the
amount of fortitude that has endured so much.
Although the admiral had said but little concerning the fearful end
Marchdale had come to, it really did make some impression upon him;
and, much as he held in abhorrence the villany of Marchdale’s conduct,
he would gladly in his heart have averted the fate from him that he had
brought upon himself.
On the road to the ruins, he calculated upon taking a different kind of
vengeance.
When they had got some distance from the cottage, Admiral Bell made
a proposal to Henry to be his second while he fought Marchdale, but
Henry would not hear of it for a moment.
“My dear sir,” he said, “could I, do you think, stand by and see a
valuable, revered, and a respected life like yours exposed to any
hazard merely upon the chance of punishing a villain? No, no; Marchdale
is too base now to be met in honourable encounter. If he is dealt with
in any way let it be by the laws.”
This was reasonable enough, and after some argument the admiral
coincided in it, and then they began to wonder how, without Charles,
they should be able to get an entrance to the dungeons, for it had been
his intention originally, had he not felt so fatigued, to go with them.
As soon, however, as they got tolerably near to the ruins, they saw
what had happened. Neither spoke, but they quickened their pace, and
soon stood close to the mass of stone-work which now had assumed so
different a shape to what it had a few short hours before.
It needed little examination to let them feel certain that whoever
might have been in any of the underground dungeons must have been
crushed to death.
“Heaven have mercy upon his soul!” said Henry.
“Amen!” said the admiral.
They both turned away, and for some time they neither of them spoke,
for their thoughts were full of reflection upon the horrible death
which Marchdale must have endured. At length the admiral said—
“Shall we tell this or not?”
“Tell it at once,” said Henry; “let us have no secrets.”
“Good. Then I will not make one you may depend. I only wish that while
he was about it, Charley could have popped that rascal Varney as well
in the dungeon, and then there would have been an end and a good
riddance of them both.”