--My imagination Carries no favour in it but Bertram's; I
am undone; there is no living, none, If Bertram be away.--
All's well that Ends Well.
At the hour which he had appointed the preceding evening, the
indefatigable lawyer was seated by a good fire, and a pair of wax
candles, with a velvet cap on his head, and a quilted silk
night-gown on his person, busy arranging his memoranda of proofs
and indications concerning the murder of Frank Kennedy. An express
had also been despatched to Mr. Mac-Morlan, requesting his
attendance at Woodbourne as soon as possible, on business of
importance. Dinmont, fatigued with the events of the evening
before, and finding the accommodations of Woodbourne much
preferable to those of Mac-Guffog, was in no hurry to rise. The
impatience of Bertram might have put him earlier in motion, but
Colonel Mannering had intimated an intention to visit him in his
apartment in the morning, and he did not choose to leave it. Before
this interview he had dressed himself, Barnes having, by his
master's orders, supplied him with every accommodation of linen,
etc., and now anxiously waited the promised visit of his landlord.
In a short time a gentle tap announced the Colonel, with whom
Bertram held a long and satisfactory conversation. Each, however,
concealed from the other one circumstance. Mannering could not
bring himself to acknowledge the astrological prediction; and
Bertram was, from motives which may be easily conceived, silent
respecting his love for Julia. In other respects, their
intercourse was frank and grateful to both, and had latterly, upon
the Colonel's part, even an approach to cordiality. Bertram
carefully measured his own conduct by that of his host, and seemed
rather to receive his offered kindness with gratitude and pleasure,
than to press for it with solicitation.
Miss Bertram was in the breakfast-parlour when Sampson shuffled in,
his face all radiant with smiles, a circumstance so uncommon, that
Lucy's first idea was, that somebody had been bantering him with an
imposition, which had thrown him into this ecstasy. Having sat for
some time, rolling his eyes and gaping with his mouth like the
great wooden head at Merlin's exhibition, he at length began--
"And what do you think of him, Miss Lucy?"
"Think of whom, Mr. Sampson?" asked the young lady.
"Of Har--no--of him that you know about?" again demanded the
Dominie.
"That I know about?" replied Lucy, totally at a loss to comprehend
his meaning.
"Yes, the stranger, you know, that came last evening in the post
vehicle--he who shot young Hazlewood--ha, ha, ho!" burst forth the
Dominie, with a laugh that sounded like neighing.
"Indeed, Mr. Sampson," said his pupil, "you have chosen a strange
subject for mirth--I think nothing about the man, only I hope the
outrage was accidental, and that we need not fear a repetition of
it."
"Accidental! ho, ho, ha!" again whinnied Sampson.
"Really, Mr. Sampson," said Lucy, somewhat piqued," you are
unusually gay this morning."
"Yes, of a surety I am I ha, ha, ho! face-ti-ous--ho, ho, ha!"
"So unusually facetious, my dear sir," pursued the young lady,
"that I would wish rather to know the meaning of your mirth, than
to be amused with its effects only."
"You shall know it, Miss Lucy," replied poor Abel Do you remember
your brother?"
"Good God! how can you ask me?--no one knows better than you, he
was lost the very day I was born."
"Very true, very true," answered the Dominie, saddening at the
recollection; "I was strangely oblivious--ay, ay--too true. But
you remember your worthy father?"
"How should you doubt it, Mr. Sampson? it is not so many weeks
since--"
"True, true--ay, too true," replied the Dominie, his Houyhnhnm
laugh sinking into a hysterical giggle,--"I will be facetious no
more under these remembrances--but look at that young man!"
Bertram at this instant entered the room. "Yes, look at him
well--he is your father's living image; and as God has deprived you
of your dear parents--O my children, love one another!"
"It is indeed my father's face and form," said Lucy, turning very
pale; Bertram ran to support her--the Dominie to fetch water to
throw upon her face (which in his haste he took from the boiling
tea-urn)--when fortunately her colour returning rapidly, saved her
from the application of this ill-judged remedy. "I conjure you yet
to tell me, Mr. Sampson," she said, in an interrupted, solemn
voice, is this my brother?"
"It is--it is!--Miss Lucy, it is little Harry Bertram, as sure as
God's sun is in that heaven!"
"And this is my sister?" said Bertram, giving way to all that
family affection, which had so long slumbered in his bosom for want
of an object to expand itself upon.
"lt is!--it is Miss Lucy Bertram," ejaculated Sampson, "whom by my
poor aid you will find perfect in the tongues of France, and Italy,
and even of Spain--in reading and writing her vernacular tongue,
and in arithmetic and bookkeeping by double and single entry--I say
nothing of her talents of shaping, and hemming, and governing a
household, which, to give every one their due, she acquired not
from me, but from the housekeeper--nor do I take merit for her
performance upon stringed instruments, whereunto the instructions
of an honourable young lady of virtue and modesty, and very
facetious withal--Miss Julia Mannering--hath not meanly
contributed--Suum cuique tribuilo."
"You, then," said Bertram to his sister, "are all that remains to
me!--Last night, but more fully this morning, Colonel Mannering
gave me an account of our family misfortunes, though without saying
I should find my sister here."
"That," said Lucy, "he left to this gentleman to tell you, one of
the kindest and most faithful of friends, who soothed my father's
long sickness, witnessed his dying moments, and amid the heaviest
clouds of fortune would not desert his orphan."
"God bless him for it!" said Bertram, shaking the Dominie's hand;"
he deserves the love with which I have always regarded even that
dim and imperfect shadow of his memory which my childhood
retained."
"And God bless you both, my dear children," said Sampson; "if it
had not been for your sake, I would have been contented (had
Heaven's pleasure so been) to lay my head upon the turf beside my
patron."
"But, I trust," said Bertram, "I am encouraged to hope we shall all
see better days. All our wrongs shall be redressed, since Heaven
has sent me means and friends to assert my right."
"Friends indeed!" echoed the Dominie, "and sent, as you truly say,
by Him, to whom I early taught you to look up as the source of all
that is good. There is the great Colonel Mannering from the
Eastern Indies, a man of war from his birth up-wards, but who is
not the less a man of great erudition, considering his imperfect
opportunities; and there is, moreover, the great advocate Mr.
Pleydell, who is also a man of great erudition, but who descendeth
to trifles unbeseeming thereof; and there is Mr. Andrew Dinmont,
whom I do not understand to have possession of much erudition, but
who, like the patriarchs of old, is cunning in that which belongeth
to flocks and herds--Lastly, there is even I myself, whose
opportunities of collecting erudition, as they have been greater
than those of the aforesaid valuable persons, have not, if it
becomes me to speak, been pretermitted by me, in so far as my poor
faculties have enabled me to profit by them. Of a surety, little
Harry, we must speedily resume our studies. I will begin from the
foundation--yes, I will reform your education upward from the true
knowledge of English grammar, even to that of the Hebrew or
Chaldaic tongue."
The reader may observe, that, upon this occasion, Sampson was
infinitely more profuse of words than he had hitherto exhibited
himself. The reason was, that in recovering his pupil his mind
went instantly back to their original connection, and he had in his
confusion of ideas, the strongest desire in the world to resume
spelling lessons and half-text with young Bertram. This was the
more ridiculous, as towards Lucy he assumed no snob powers of
tuition. But she had grown up under his eye, and had been
gradually emancipated from his government by increase in years and
knowledge, and a latent sense of his own inferior tact in manners,
whereas his first ideas went to take up Harry pretty nearly where
he had left him. From the same feelings of reviving authority, he
indulged himself in what was to him a profusion of language; and as
people seldom speak more than usual without exposing themselves, he
gave those whom he addressed plainly to understand, that while he
deferred implicitly to the opinions and commands, if they chose to
impose them, of almost every one whom he met with, it was under an
internal conviction, that in the article of Erudition, as he
usually pronounced the word, he was infinitely superior to them all
put together. At present, however, this intimation fell upon
heedless cars, for the brother and sister were too deeply engaged
in asking and receiving intelligence concerning their former
fortunes to attend much to the worthy Dominie.
When Colonel Mannering left Bertram, he went to Julia's
dressing-room, and dismissed her attendant. "My dear sir," she
said as he entered, "you have forgot our vigils last night, and
have hardly allowed me time to comb my hair, although you must be
sensible how it stood on end at the various wonders which took
place."
"It is with the inside of your head that I have some business at
present, Julia; I will return the outside to the care of your Mrs.
Mincing in a few minutes."
"Lord, papa," replied Miss Mannering, "think how entangled all my
ideas are, and you to propose to comb them out in a few minutes! If
Mrs. Mincing were to do so in her department, she would tear half
the hair out of my head."
"Well then, tell me," said the Colonel, "where the entanglement
lies, which I will try to extricate with due gentleness!"
"Oh, everywhere," said the young lady--"the whole is a wild dream."
"Well then, I will try to unriddle it." He gave a brief sketch of
the fate and prospects of Bertram, to which Julia listened with an
interest which she in vain endeavoured to disguise--"Well,"
concluded her father, "are your ideas on the subject more
luminous?"
"More confused than ever, my dear sir," said Julia. "Here is this
young man come from India, after he had been supposed dead, like
Aboulfouaris the great voyager to his sister Canzade and his
provident brother Hour. I am wrong id the story, I
believe--Canzade was his wife--but Lucy may represent the one, and
the Dominie the other. And then this lively crack-brained Scotch
lawyer appears like a pantomime at the end of a tragedy.--And then
how delightful it will be if Lucy gets back her fortune!"
"Now I think," said the Colonel, "that the most mysterious part of
the business is, that Miss Julia Mannering, who must have known her
father's anxiety about the fate of this young man Brown, or
Bertram, as we must now call him, should have met him when
Hazlewood's accident took place, and never once mentioned to her
father a word of the matter, but suffered the search to proceed
against this young gentleman as a suspicious character and
assassin."
Julia, much of whose courage had been hastily assumed to meet the
interview with her father, was now unable to rally herself; she
hung down her head in silence, after in vain attempting to utter a
denial that she recollected Brown when she met him.
"No answer--well, Julia," continued her father, gravely but kindly,
"allow me to ask you, Is this the only time you have seen Brown
since his return from India?--still no answer. I must then
naturally suppose that it is not the first time--Still no reply.
Julia Mannering, will you have the kindness to answer me? Was it
this young man who came under your window and conversed with you
during your residence at Mervyn Hall? Julia--I command I entreat
you to be candid."
Miss Mannering raised her head. "I have been, sir--I believe I am
still very foolish--and it is perhaps more hard upon me that I must
meet this gentleman, who has been, though not the cause entirely,
yet the accomplice of my folly, in your presence."--Here she made a
full stop.
"I am to understand, then," said Mannering, "that this was the
author of the serenade at Mervyn Hall?"
There was something in this allusive change of epithet, that gave
Julia a little more courage--"He was indeed, sir; and if I am very
wrong, as I have often thought, I have some apology."
"And what is that?" answered the Colonel, speaking quick, and with
something of harshness.
"I will not venture to name it, sir--but"--She opened a small
cabinet, and put some letters into his hands; "I will give you
these, that you may see how this intimacy began, and by whom it was
encouraged."
Mannering took the packet to the window--his pride forbade a more
distant retreat--he glanced at some passages of the letters with an
unsteady eye and an agitated mind--his stoicism, however, came in
time to his aid; that philosophy, which, rooted in pride, yet
frequently bears the fruits of virtue. He returned towards his
daughter with as firm an air as his feelings permitted him to
assume.
"There is great apology for you, Julia, as far as I can judge from
a glance at these letters--you have obeyed at least one parent. Let
us adopt a Scotch proverb the Dominie quoted the other day--'Let
bygones be bygones, and fair play for the future.'--I will never
upbraid you with your past want of confidence--do you judge of my
future intentions by my actions, of which hitherto you have surely
had no reason to complain. Keep these letters--they were never
intended for my eye, and I would not willingly read more of them
than I have done, at your desire and for your exculpation. And
now, are we friends? Or rather, do you understand me?"
"O my dear, generous father," said Julia, throwing herself into his
arms, "why have I ever for an instant misunderstood you?"
"No more of that, Julia," said the Colonel; "we have both been to
blame. He that is too proud to vindicate the affection and
confidence which he conceives should be given without solicitation,
must meet much, and perhaps deserved disappointment. It is enough
that one dearest and most regretted member of my family has gone to
the grave without knowing me; let me not lose the confidence of a
child, who ought to love me if she really loves herself."
"Oh! no danger--no fear!" answered Julia; "let me but have your
approbation and my own, and there is no role you can prescribe so
severe that I will not follow."
"Well, my love," kissing her forehead, "Itrust we shall not call
upon you for anything too heroic. With respect to this young
gentleman's addresses, I expect in the first place that all
clandestine correspondence--which no young woman can entertain for
a moment without lessening herself in her own eyes, and in those of
her lover--I request, I say, that clandestine correspondence of
every kind may be given up, and that you will refer Mr. Bertram to
me for the reason. You will naturally wish to know what is to be
the issue of such a reference. In the first place, I desire to
observe this young gentleman's character more closely than
circumstances, and perhaps my own prejudices, have permitted
formerly--I should also be glad to see his birth established. Not
that I am anxious about his getting the estate of Ellangowan,
though such a subject is held in absolute indifference nowhere
except in a novel; but certainly Henry Bertram, Heir of Ellangowan,
whether possessed of the property of his ancestors or not, is a
very different person from Vanbeest Brown, the son of nobody at
all. His fathers, Mr. Pleydell tells me, are distinguished in
history as following the banners of their native princes, while our
own fought at Cressy and Poictiers. In short, I neither give nor
withhold my approbation, but I expect you will redeem past errors;
and as you can now unfortunately only have recourse to one parent,
that you will show the duty of a child, by reposing that confidence
in me, which I will say my inclination to make you happy renders a
filial debt upon your part."
The first part of this speech affected Julia a good deal; the
comparative merit of the ancestors of the Bertrams and Mannerings
excited a secret smile, but the conclusion was such as to soften a
heart peculiarly open to the feelings of generosity. "No, my dear
sir," she said, extending her hand, "receive my faith, that from
this moment you shall be the first person consulted respecting what
shall pass in future between Brown--I mean Bertram, and me; and
that no engagement shall be undertaken by me, excepting what you
shall immediately know and approve of. May I ask--if Mr. Bertram
is to continue a guest at Woodbourne?"
"Certainly," said the Colonel, "while his affairs render it
advisable."
"Then, sir, you must be sensible, considering what is already past,
that he will expect some reason for my withdrawing--I believe I
must say the encouragement, which he may think I have given."
"I expect, Julia," answered Mannering, "that he will respect my
roof, and entertain some sense perhaps of the services I am
desirous to render him, and so will not insist upon any course of
conduct of which I might have reason to complain; and I expect of
you, that you will make him sensible of what is due to both."
"Then, sir, I understand you, and you shall be implicitly obeyed."
"Thank you, my love; my anxiety (kissing her) is on your
account.--Now wipe these witnesses from your eyes, and so to
breakfast."