AN ECLAIRCISSEMENT.—THE INNOCENT TRIUMPHANT.
It is eleven o’clock, Mr. and Mrs. Lake are standing by one of the
windows at the hotel conversing in whispers, while the hopeful son is
brushing his hat.
“It is time, you think?” said Mrs. Lake.
“Yes,” was the reply. “and I will be off now at once, and depend upon
you following with Annetta to Mr. Miller’s.”
“That you may be sure of. She has had a refreshing night’s rest, and
this morning she eagerly enough caught at the proposal to take a drive
round the principal thoroughfares in the carriage we have hired so that
that is no longer a difficulty.”
“What is to be done if she rejects?”
Mr. Lake gave a jerk with his head in the direction of his son, to
signify that it was of him he talked.
“It can’t be helped if she does. Then I should say all we have to do,
is to persevere in making her out no child of Lord Lake’s, and wait
for his decease. We must be careful what we are about, though, or he
may take it into his head to make some ample provision for her, to the
decrease of his personal means, which I hope to see all ours.”
“The only way to stop that will be getting Miller and the pretended
father to make it as a complete part of the plan that Annetta herself
should seem latterly to have been a party to palming herself off upon
him as his daughter when she knew the contrary quite well.”
“Ah, if that could be done.”
“It must and shall; Miller’s ingenuity in such matters is immense. He
will accomplish anything in the world—aye seeming impossibilities—for
money.”
“He is just the man for us, so now be off with you at once, and expect
me in good time.”
In a few moments afterwards, Mr. Lake set off with this booby son to
the lawyer’s, enjoining him all the way as they went, to be especially
careful how he maintained the character of a disinterested suitor,
which had been marked out for him in the programme of the family
proceedings.
“Oh, never fear me, father.”
“Well, I hope that you will do and say the right things, and what is as
important, I hope you will do and say them at the right time, otherwise
you will spoil all.”
Thus armed at all points, as they thought, for conquest, old Lake and
young Lake, than whom all London could not have produced two more
unprincipled persons, arrived at Gray’s Inn, and were received in the
outer room of Mr. Miller’s chambers with every demonstration of respect.
“Walk in, gentlemen, walk in to the clients’ private-room if you
please,” said the clerk. “Mr. Miller left directions with me that when
you came, you should be shown in at once.”
All this was very gratifying indeed, and the solicitor was there,
seated in his easy chair, looking as full of serenity as possible, and
as if the least affair in the world was on _tapis_.
Scarcely had the usual salutations passed, when the clerk announced
Mrs. Lake and a young lady.
“My wife with Annetta!” exclaimed Lake; and in a moment his words were
verified by the appearance of the parties he had named.
“Tell me at once,” said Annetta, “why I am brought here?”
“My dear young lady,” said Mr. Miller, “if you will condescend to take
a seat, I will explain.”
“Be brief, sir.”
The party was seated, and then Mr. Miller, clearing his throat said,—
“Ahem! You are of course aware, miss, that great doubt arose in the
mind of Lord Lake with regard to your proper identity, and he sent you
over to this country from Italy with his brother and family, to have
those doubts resolved—ahem! They are resolved, and you are found to be
the daughter of a gentleman now in London.”
“The proofs, sir,” said Annetta, with a dignity and a calmness that
surprised the whole party.
“Ah, ah—the proofs. Let me see, oh yes; there are the papers. No. 1,
copy of a confession made by——”
“Stop, sir,” said young Lake, “stop. This is—it must be painful to
the feelings of this young lady, and very, very painful is it to my
feelings, for I have been long fervently attached to her, and let her
be whose daughter she may, she is to me all perfection. I love her and
would gladly make her my wife, let her be named whatever she may.”
“But she is destitute,—quite destitute,” said Miller.
“It don’t matter to me,” cried young Lake—he was playing his part
famously—“it don’t matter to me; I love her, and will work for her—she
shall never want while I have life-blood in my veins.”
“If this now were sincere,” said Annetta, “I should begin for the first
time to respect you. But you will excuse me for doubting it very much.
I likewise doubt much the pretended evidence that you bring forward
regarding my birth.”
A tremendous knock at the outer door of the chambers now disturbed
the party. An altercation was heard with the clerk—then a shout for
police, and a heavy fall as if somebody had been knocked down, and in
another moment the door of Mr. Miller’s private room was dashed open,
and Lieutenant Rankin, in his undress military uniform, stood upon the
threshold.
“Annetta!” he cried.
“Rankin—oh, George, George!” shrieked Annetta, and in another moment
she was in his arms.
“Here’s a go,” cried young Lake; “I say, young fellow, this won’t do.”
“Oh, George, George!” said Annetta, “they will have it that I am not my
own father’s child, that I am some nameless, houseless thing.”
“They lie, Annetta who say so,” replied the young soldier; “you shall
be mine, and the proudest that ever stepped shall treat you with
becoming respect, or shall rue the consequences.”
“Well, I think it’s time!” cried Mr. Miller in a marked manner, and
throwing open the door of an inner room, he added, “my Lord Lake, come
forth; no doubt you have heard all.” Lord Lake himself—the Mr. Blue
of the London Hotel, the sham confidential clerk of Miller—made his
appearance, to the utter confusion of the Lakes.
“My father,” said Annetta, “my dear father!”
[Illustration: Annetta greets her dear father.]
“Hold,” said Lord Lake, gravely, “I suspected, Annetta, from the first
that your birth was impugned by my brother from the most interested
motives, and I followed you from Italy—Mr. Miller disclosed all to me,
and the infamous plot is discovered.”
“Then I am your child?”
“Confusion,” muttered Lake, “death and the devil, what a _contre
temps_.”
“Stop,” added Lord Lake, “the strangest thing of all has yet to be
told. This plot to make out that you are not my child is but a plot,
but it is not baseless as to the fact. You are not my daughter. I have
by mere chance found out that lately, and I cannot provide for you, as
the resources I have must go to him who will inherit my title. What say
you, Master Lake, this girl with all her beauty is destitute, her name
is Smith—will you have her?”
“Not I in faith, thank you for nothing.”
“Will you, young soldier, knowing what she is?”
“Ay, will I with all my heart! she is the highest, brightest treasure
this world can offer me. Any name or no name—poor or rich—noble or
commoner—she is still my own dear girl, and her resting place shall be
my heart, the whole world shall not tear her from it.”
“God’s blessings on you,” cried Lord Lake, grasping his hands; “I did
but this to give yon shrinking coward a chance of creeping into favour
with me, because he boasted so of his disinterested affection a while
ago. She is my child, the Lady Annetta Lake—I never doubted it, and she
is yours—George Rankin, and you shall be the dear son of my adoption.”
“I say, father,” said young Lake, “I—I think we had better go.”
“Curse you all,” cried Lake, “and doubly curse you, lawyer Miller, you
have betrayed me; but I’ll be revenged.”
“Through the bars of a prison,” said the lawyer. “An officer is down
stairs to arrest you for two thousand pounds. Ha, ha, ha!”
• • • • •
Thus then was it that this episode in the life of Varney the Vampyre
terminated. But still he lived, and still there existed all the strange
and fearful mixture of good and evil that was in his disposition.
There he was yet upon the earth’s surface, looking like one of the
great world, and yet possessing so few feelings in common with its
inhabitants.
Surely to him there must have been periods of acute suffering, of
intense misery, such as would have sufficed to drive any ordinary mind
to distraction, and yet he lived, although one cannot, upon reviewing
his career, and considering what he was, consider that death would have
been other than a grateful release to him from intense suffering.
Perhaps, of all the suffering that, in consequence of his most awful
and singular existence, was inflicted upon human nature, he suffered
the most, for that he was a man of good intellect no one who has
followed us thus far can doubt, and one cannot help giving in almost at
times to as strange and fanciful theory of his own, namely that this
world was to him the place of perdition for crimes done in some other
sphere.
“It must be so!” he would say, “but as the Almighty Master of all
things is all merciful, as he is all powerful, the period of my
redemption will surely come at last.”
This was the most consolat thought that Varney could have, and it
showed that even yet there was a something akin to humanity lingering
in his heart.
This showed that despite the dreadful power he had—a power, as well as
an awful propensity—he had some yearnings after a better state.
What had he been? How did he become a vampyre? Did the voice of fond
affection ever thrill in his ears? Had little children ever climbed the
knee of that wretched man? Fearful questions, if he could have answered
them the affirmative—if he bore about with him, deep in his memory, a
remembrance of such joys gone by.