--Her Terrible Denunciation of Ambrose Gray.
The next morning, after breakfast, Lord Dunroe found Norton and M'Bride
in the stable yard, when the following conversation took place.
“Norton,” said his lordship, “I can't understand what they mean by the
postponement of this trial about the mare. I fear they will beat us, and
in that case it is better, perhaps, to compromise it. You know that that
attorney fellow Birney is engaged against us, and by all accounts he has
his wits about him.”
“Yes, my lord; but Birney is leaving home, going to France, and they
have succeeded in getting it postponed until the next term. My lord,
this is the man, M'Bride, that I told you of this morning. M'Bride,
have you brought those documents with you? I wish to show them to his
lordship, who, I think, you will find a more liberal purchaser than his
father.”
“What's that you said, sir,” asked M'Bride, with an appearance of deep
interest, “about Mr. Birney going to France?”
“This is no place to talk about these matters,” said his lordship;
“bring the man up to your own room, Norton, and I will join you there.
The thing, however, is a mere farce, and my father a fool, or he would
not give himself any concern about it. Bring him to your room, where I
will join you presently. But, observe me, Norton, none of these tricks
upon me in future. You said you got only twenty-five for the mare, and
now it appears you got exactly double the sum. Now, upon my honor, I
won't stand any more of this.”
“But, my lord,” replied Norton, laughing, “don't you see how badly
you reason? I got fifty for the mare; of this I gave your lordship
twenty-five--the balance I kept myself. Of course, then, you can fairly
say, or swear, if you like, that she brought you in nothing but the fair
value. In fact, I kept you completely out of the transaction; but, after
all, I only paid myself for the twenty-five I won off you.”
Dunroe was by no means in anything like good-humor this morning. The
hints which Norton had communicated to him at breakfast, respecting the
subject of M'Bride's private interviews with his father, had filled him
with more alarm than he wished to acknowledge. Neither, on the other
hand, had he any serious apprehensions, for, unhappily for himself, he
was one of those easy and unreflecting men who seldom look beyond the
present moment, and can never be brought to a reasonable consideration
of their own interests, until, perhaps, it is too late to secure them.
All we can communicate to the reader with respect to the conference
between these three redoubtable individuals is simply its results. On
that evening Norton and M'Bride started for France, with what object
will be seen hereafter, Birney having followed on the same route the
morning but one afterwards, for the purpose of securing the documents in
question.
Dunroe now more than ever felt the necessity of urging his marriage with
Lucy. He knew his father's honorable spirit too well to believe that
he would for one moment yield his consent to it under the circumstances
which were now pending. With the full knowledge of these circumstances
he was not acquainted. M'Bride had somewhat overstated the share of
confidence to which in this matter he had been admitted by his master.
His information, therefore, on the subject, was not so accurate as he
wished, although, from motives of dishonesty and a desire to sell his
documents to the best advantage, he made the most of the knowledge he
possessed. Be this as it may, Dunroe determined, as we said, to bring
about the nuptials without delay, and in this he was seconded by Sir
Thomas Gourlay himself, who also had his own motives for hastening them.
In fact, here were two men, each deliberately attempting to impose
upon the other, and neither possessed of one spark of honor or truth,
although the transaction between them was one of the most solemn
importance that can occur in the great business of life. The world,
however, is filled with similar characters; and not all the misery and
calamity that ensue from such fraudulent and dishonest practices will,
we fear, ever prevent the selfish and ambitious from pursuing the same
courses.
“Sir Thomas,” said Dunroe, in a conversation with the baronet held
on the very day after Norton and M'Bride had set out on their secret
expedition, “this marriage is unnecessarily delayed. I am anxious that
it should take place as soon as it possibly can.”
“But,” replied the baronet, “I have not been able to see your father on
the subject, in consequence of his illness.”
“It is not necessary,” replied his lordship. “You know what kind of a
man he is. In fact, I fear he is very nearly _non compos_ as it is.
He has got so confoundedly crotchety of late, that I should not feel
surprised if, under some whim or other, he set his face-against it
altogether. In fact, it is useless, and worse than useless, to consult
him at all about it. I move, therefore, that we go on without him.”
“I think you are right,” returned the other; “and I have not the
slightest objection: name the day. The contract is drawn up, and only
requires to be signed.”
“I should say, on Monday next,” replied his lordship; “but I fear we
will have objections and protestations from Miss Gourlay; and if so, how
are we to manage?”
“Leave the management of Miss Gourlay to me, my lord,” replied her
father. “I have managed her before and shall manage her now.”
His lordship had scarcely gone, when Lucy was immediately sent for, and
as usual found her father in the library.
“Lucy,” said he, with as much blandness of manner as he could assume,
“I have sent for you to say that you are called upon to make your father
happy at last.”
“And myself wretched forever, papa.”
“But your word, Lucy--your promise--your honor: remember that promise so
solemnly given; remember, too, your duty of obedience as a daughter.”
“Alas! I remember everything, papa; too keenly, too bitterly do I
remember all.”
“You will be prepared to marry Dunroe on Monday next. The affair will
be comparatively private. That is to say, we will ask nobody--no
dejeuner--no nonsense. The fewer the better at these matters. Would you
wish to see your brother--hem--I mean Mr. Gray?”
Lucy had been standing while he spoke; but she now staggered over to
a seat, on which she fell rather than sat. Her large, lucid eyes lost
their lustre; her frame quivered; her face became of an ashy paleness;
but still those eyes were bent upon her father.
“Papa,” she said, at length, in a low voice that breathed of horror, “do
not kill me.”
“Kill you, foolish girl! Now really, Lucy, this is extremely ridiculous
and vexatious too. Is not my daughter a woman of honor?”
“Papa,” she said, solemnly, going down upon her two knees, and joining
her lovely and snowy hands together, in an attitude of the most earnest
and heart-rending supplication; “papa, hear me. You have said that I
saved your life; be now as generous as I was--save mine.”
“Lucy,” he replied, “this looks like want of principle. You would
violate your promise. I should not wish Dunroe to hear this, or to know
it. He might begin to reason upon it, and to say that the woman who
could deliberately break a solemn promise might not hesitate at the
marriage vow. I do not apply this reasoning to you, but he or others
might. Of course, I expect that, as a woman of honor, you will keep
your word with me, and marry Dunroe on Monday. You will have no
trouble--everything shall be managed by them; a brilliant trousseau can
be provided as well afterwards as before.”
Lucy rose up; and as she did, the blood, which seemed to have previously
gathered, to her heart, now returned to her cheek, and began to mantle
upon it, whilst her figure, before submissive and imploring, dilated to
its full size.
“Father,” said she, “since you will not hear the voice of supplication,
hear that of reason and truth. Do not entertain a doubt, no, not for
a moment, that if I am urged--driven--to this marriage, hateful and
utterly detestable to me as it is, I shall hesitate to marry this man. I
say this, however, because I tell you that I am about to appeal to your
interest in my true happiness for the last time. Is it, then, kind; is
it fatherly in you, sir, to exact from me the fulfilment of a promise
given under circumstances that ought to touch your heart into a generous
perception of the sacrifice which in giving it I made for your sake
alone? You were ill, and laboring under the apprehension of sudden
death, principally, you said, in consequence of my refusal to become
the wife of that man. I saw this; and although the effort was infinitely
worse than death to me, I did not hesitate one moment in yielding up
what is at any time dearer to me than life--my happiness--that you might
be spared. Alas, my dear father, if you knew how painful it is to me to
be forced to plead all this in my own defence, you would, you must, pity
me. A generous heart, almost under any circumstances, scorns to plead
its own acts, especially when they are on the side of virtue. But I,
alas, am forced to it; am forced to do that which I would otherwise
scorn and blush to do.”
“Lucy,” replied her father, who felt in his ambitious and tyrannical
soul the full force, not only of what she said, but of the fraud he had
practised on her, but which she never suspected: “Lucy, my child, you
will drive me mad. Perhaps I am wrong; but at the same time my heart is
so completely fixed upon this marriage, that if it be not brought about
I feel I shall go insane. The value of life would be lost to me, and
most probably I shall die the dishonorable death of a suicide.”
“And have you no fear for me, my father--no apprehension that I may
escape from this my wretched destiny to the peace of the grave? But you
need not. Thank God, I trust and feel that my regard for His precepts,
and my perceptions of His providence, are too clear and too firm ever
to suffer me to fly like a coward from the post in life which He has
assigned me. But why, dear father, should you make me the miserable
victim of your ambition?--I am not ambitious.”
“I know you are not: I never could get an honorable ambition instilled
into you.”
“I am not mean, however--nay, I trust that I possess all that honest and
honorable pride which would prevent me from doing an unworthy act, or
one unbecoming either my sex or my position.”
“You would not break your word, for instance, nor render your father
wretched, insane, mad, or, perhaps, cause his dreadful malady to return.
No--no--but yet fine talking is a fine thing. Madam, cease to plead your
virtues to me, unless you prove that you possess them by keeping your
honorable engagement made to Lord Dunroe, through the sacred medium of
your own father. Whatever you may do, don't attempt to involve me in
your disgrace.”
“I am exhausted,” she said, “and cannot speak any longer; but I will not
despair of you, father. No, my dear papa,” she said, throwing her arms
about his neck, laying her head upon his bosom, and bursting into tears,
“I will not think that you could sacrifice your daughter. You will
relent for Lucy as Lucy did for you--but I feel weak. You know, papa,
how this fever on my spirits has worn me down; and, after all, the day
might come--and come with bitterness and remorse to your heart--when you
may be forced to feel that although you made your Lucy a countess she
did not remain a countess long.”
“What do you mean now?”
“Don't you see, papa, that my heart is breaking fast? If you will
not hear my words--if they cannot successfully plead for me--let my
declining health--let my pale and wasted cheek--let my want of spirits,
my want of appetite--and, above all, let that which you cannot see nor
feel--the sickness of my unhappy heart--plead for me. Permit me to go,
dear papa; and will you allow me to lean upon you to my own room?--for,
alas! I am not, after this painful excitement, able to go there myself.
Thank you, papa, thank you.”
He was thus compelled to give her his arm, and, in doing so, was
surprised to feel the extraordinary tremor by which her frame was
shaken. On reaching her room, she turned round, and laying her head,
with an affectionate and supplicating confidence, once more upon his
breast, she whispered with streaming eyes, “Alas! my dear papa, you
forget, in urging me to marry this hateful profligate, that my heart, my
affections, my love--in the fullest, and purest, and most disinterested
sense--are irrevocably fixed upon another; and Dunroe, all mean and
unmanly as he is, knows this.”
“He knows that--there, sit down--why do you tremble so?--Yes, but he
knows that what you consider an attachment is a mere girlish fancy, a
whimsical predilection that your own good-sense will show you the folly
of at a future time.”
“Recollect, papa, that he has been extravagant, and is said to be
embarrassed; the truth is, sir, that the man values not your daughter,
but the property to which he thinks he will become entitled, and which
I have no doubt will be very welcome to his necessities. I feel that I
speak truth, and as a test of his selfishness, it will be only necessary
to acquaint him with the reappearance of my brother--your son and
heir--and you will be no further troubled by his importunities.”
“Troubled by his importunity! Why, girl, it's I that am troubled with
apprehension lest he might discover the existence of your brother, and
draw off.”
One broad gaze of wonder and dismay she turned upon him, and her face
became crimsoned with shame. She then covered it with her open hands,
and, turning round, placed her head upon the end of the sofa, and moaned
with a deep and bursting anguish, on hearing this acknowledgment of
deliberate baseness from his own lips.
The baronet understood her feelings, and regretted the words he had
uttered, but he resolved to bear the matter out.
“Don't be surprised, Lucy,” he added, “nor alarmed at these sentiments;
for I tell you, that rather than be defeated in the object I propose for
your elevation in life, I would trample a thousand times upon all
the moral obligations that ever bound man. Put it down to what you
like--insanity--monomania, if you will--but so it is with me: I shall
work my purpose out, or either of us shall die for it; and from this
you may perceive how likely your resistance and obduracy are to become
available against the determination of such a man as I am. Compose
yourself, girl, and don't be a fool. The only way to get properly
through life is to accommodate ourselves to its necessities, or, in
other words, to have shrewdness and common sense, and foil the world, if
we can, at its own weapons. Give up your fine sentiment, I desire you,
and go down to the drawing-room, to receive your brother; hem will be
here very soon. I am going to the assizes, and shall not return till
about four o'clock. Come, come, all will end better than you imagine.”
The mention of her brother was anything but a comfort to Lucy. Her
father at first entertained apprehensions, as we have already said, that
this promising youth might support his sister in her aversion against
the marriage. Two or three conversations on the subject soon undeceived
him, however, in the view he had taken of his character; and Lucy
herself now dreaded him, on this subject, almost as much as she did her
father.
With respect to this same brother, it is scarcely necessary now to
say, that Lucy's feelings had undergone a very considerable change.
On hearing that he not only was in existence, but that she would soon
actually behold him, her impassioned imagination painted him as
she wished and hoped he might prove to be--that is, in the first
place--tall, elegant, handsome, and with a strong likeness to the mother
whom he had been said so much to resemble; and, in the next--oh, how her
trembling heart yearned to find him affectionate, tender, generous,
and full of all those noble and manly virtues on which might rest a
delightful sympathy, a pure and generous affection, and a tender and
trusting confidence between them. On casting her eyes upon him for the
first time, however, she felt at the moment like one disenchanted, or
awakening from some delightful illusion to a reality so much at variance
with the beau ideal of her imagination, as to occasion a feeling of
disappointment that amounted almost to pain. There stood before her
a young man, with a countenance so like her father's, that the fact
startled her. Still there was a difference, for--whether from the
consciousness of birth, or authority, or position in life--there was
something in her father's features that redeemed them from absolute
vulgarity. Here, however, although the resemblance was extraordinary,
and every feature almost identical, there might be read in the
countenance of her brother a low, commonplace expression, that looked as
if it were composed of effrontery, cunning, and profligacy. Lucy for
a moment shrank back from such a countenance, and the shock of
disappointment chilled the warmth with which she had been prepared
to receive him. But, then, her generous heart told her that she might
probably be prejudging the innocent--that neglect, want of education,
the influence of the world, and, worst of all, distress and suffering,
might have caused the stronger, more vulgar, and exceedingly
disagreeable expression which she saw before her; and the reader is
already aware of the consequences which these struggles, at their first
interview, had upon her. Subsequently to that, however, Mr. Ambrose,
in supporting his father's views, advanced principles in such complete
accordance with them, as to excite in his sister's breast, first a
deep regret that she could not love him as she had hoped to do; then
a feeling stronger than indifference itself, and ultimately one little
short of aversion. Her father had been now gone about half an hour, and
she hoped that her brother might not come, when a servant came to say
that Mr. Gray was in the drawing-room, and requested to see her.
She felt that the interview would be a painful one to her; but still he
was her brother, and she knew she could not avoid seeing him.
After the first salutations were over,
“What is the matter with you, Lucy?” he asked; “you look ill and
distressed. I suppose the old subject of the marriage--eh?”
“I trust it is one which you will not renew, Thomas. I entreat you to
spare me on it.”
“I am too much your friend to do so, Lucy. It is really inconceivable to
me why you should oppose it as you do. But the truth is, you don't know
the world, or you would think and act very differently.”
“Thomas,” she replied, whilst her eyes filled with tears, “I am almost
weary of life. There is not one living individual to whom I can turn for
sympathy or comfort. Papa has forbidden me to visit Lady Gourlay or Mrs.
Mainwaring; and I am now utterly friendless, with the exception of God
alone. But I will not despair--so long, at least, as reason is left to
me.”
“I assure you, Lucy, you astonish me. To you, whose imagination is
heated with a foolish passion for an adventurer whom no one knows, all
this suffering may seem very distressing and romantic; but to me, to my
father, and to the world, it looks like great folly--excuse me, Lucy--or
rather like great weakness of character, grounded upon strong obstinacy
of disposition. Believe me, if the world were to know this you would be
laughed at; and there is scarcely a mother or daughter, from the
cottage to the castle, that would not say, 'Lucy Gourlay is a poor,
inexperienced fool, who thinks she can find a world of angels, and
paragons, and purity to live in.'”
“But I care not for the world, Thomas; it is not my idol--I do not
worship it, nor shall I ever do so. I wish to guide myself by the voice
of my own conscience, by a sense of what is right and proper, and by the
principles of Christian truth.”
“These doctrines, Lucy, are very well for the closet; but they will
neyer do in life, for which they are little short of a disqualification.
Where, for instance, will you find them acted on? Not by people of
sense, I assure you. Now listen to me.”
“Spare me, if you please, Thomas, the advocacy of such principles. You
occasion me great pain--not so much on my own account as on yours--you
alarm me.”
“Don't be alarmed, I tell you; but listen to me, as I said. Here, now,
is this marriage: you don't love this Dunroe--you dislike, you detest
him. Very well. What the deuce has that to do with the prospects of your
own elevation in life? Think for yourself--become the centre of your own
world; make this Dunroe your footstool--put him under your foot, I say,
and mount by him; get a position in the world--play your game in it as
you see others do; and--”
“Pray, sir,” said Lucy, scarcely restraining her indignation, “where, or
when, or how did you come by these odious and detestable doctrines?”
“Faith, Lucy, from honest nature--from experience and observation. Is
there any man with a third idea, or that has the use of his eyes, who
does not know and see that this is the game of life? Dunroe, I dare say,
deserves your contempt; report goes, certainly, that he is a profligate;
but what ought especially to reconcile him to you is this simple
fact--that the man's a fool. Egad, I think that ought to satisfy you.”
Lucy rose up and went to the window, where she stood for some moments,
her eyes sparkling and scintillating, and her bosom heaving with a tide
of feelings which were repressed by a strong and exceedingly difficult
effort. She then returned to the sofa, her cheeks and temples in a
blaze, whilst ever and anon she eyed her brother as if from a new point
of view, or as if something sudden and exceedingly disagreeable had
struck her.
“You look at me very closely, Lucy,” said he, with a confident grin.
“I do,” she replied. “Proceed, sir.”
“I will. Well, as I was saying, you will find it remarkably comfortable
and convenient in many ways to be married to a fool: he will give you
very little trouble; fools are never suspicious, but, on the contrary,
distinguished for an almost sublime credulity. Then, again, you love
this other gentleman; and, with a fool for your husband, and the example
of the world before you, what the deuce difficulty can you see in the
match?”
Lucy rose up, and for a few moments the very force of her indignation
kept her silent; at length she spoke.
“Villain--impostor--cheat! you stand there convicted of an infamous
attempt to impose yourself on me as my legitimate brother--on my father
as his legitimate son; but know that I disclaim you, sir. What! the
fine and gentle blood of my blessed mother to flow in the veins of the
profligate monster who could give utterance to principles worthy of
hell itself, and attempt to pour them into the ears and heart of his own
sister! Sir, I feel, and I thank God for it, that you are not the son of
my blessed mother--no; but you stand there a false and spurious knave,
the dishonest instrument of some fraudulent conspiracy, concocted for
the purpose of putting you into a position of inheriting a name and
property to which you have no claim. I ought, on the moment I first
saw you, to have been guided by the instincts of my own heart, which
prompted me to recoil from and disclaim you. I know not, nor do I wish
to know, in what low haunts of vice and infamy you have been bred; but
one thing is certain, that, if it be within the limits of my power,
you shall be traced and unmasked. I now remember me that--that--there
existed an early scandal--yes, sir, I remember it, but I cannot even
repeat it; be assured, however, that this inhuman and devilish attempt
to poison my principles will prove the source of a retributive judgment
on your head. Begone, sir, and leave the house!”
The pallor of detected guilt, the consciousness that in this iniquitous
lecture he had overshot the mark, and made a grievous miscalculation in
pushing his detestable argument too far--but, above all, the startling
suspicions so boldly and energetically expressed by Lucy, the truth of
which, as well as the apprehensions that filled him of their discovery,
all united, made him feel as if he stood on the brink of a mine to which
the train had been already applied. And yet, notwithstanding all this,
such was the natural force of his effrontery--such the vulgar insolence
and bitter disposition of his nature, that, instead of soothing her
insulted feelings, or offering either explanation or apology, he could
not restrain an impudent exhibition of ill-temper.
“You forget yourself, Lucy,” he replied; “you have no authority to
order me out of this house, in which I stand much firmer than yourself.
Neither do I comprehend your allusions, nor regard your threats. The
proofs of my identity and legitimacy are abundant and irresistible. As
to the advice I gave you, I gave it like one who knows the world--”
“No, sir,” she replied, indignantly; “you gave it like a man who knows
only its vices. It is sickening to hear every profligate quote his own
experience of life, as if it were composed of nothing but crimes and
vices, simply because they constitute the guilty phase of it with
which he is acquainted. But the world, sir, is not the scene of general
depravity which these persons would present it. No: it is full of great
virtues, noble actions, high principles; and, what is better still, of
true religion and elevated humanity. What right, then, sir, have you to
libel a world which you do not understand? You are merely a portion of
its dregs, and I would as soon receive lessons in honesty from a
thief as principles for my guidance in it from you. As for me, I shall
disregard the proofs of your identity and legitimacy, which, however,
must be produced and investigated; for, from this moment, establish
them as you may, I shall never recognize you as a brother, as an
acquaintance, as a man, nor as anything but a selfish and abandoned
villain, who would have corrupted the principles of his sister.”
Without another word, or the slightest token of respect or courtesy,
she deliberately, and with an air of indignant scorn, walked out of the
drawing-room, leaving Mr. Ambrose Gray in a position which we dare say
nobody will envy him.