I suppose I must be a very routine sort of creature, who loves to get
into a groove and never leave it. Indeed, I recognize this feature of my
disposition in the pleasure I feel in being left to myself, and my own
humdrum way of diverting my time. At all events, I grew to like my life
at Killyrotherum.
The monotony that would have driven most men to despair was to me
soothing and grateful.
A breezy walk with Lizzy down to the village after breakfast, where she
made whatever purchases the cares of household demanded, sufficed for
exercise. After that I wrote a little in my own room,--short, jotting
notes, that might serve to recall, on some future day, the scarcely
tinted surface of my quiet existence, and occasionally putting down such
points as puzzled me,--problems whose solution I must try to arrive at
with time and opportunity. Perhaps a brief glance at the pages of this
diary, as I open it at random, may serve to show how time went over with
me.
Here is an entry:--
_Friday, 17th November_.--Mem., to find out from D. D. the exact
explanation of his words last night, and which possibly fatigue may have
made obscure to me. Is it Sir Wm. Vernon or the Pope who is Antichrist?
Query: also, would not brass money be better than no halfpence? and are
not wooden shoes as good as bare feet?
Why does the parish clerk always bring up a chicken when he comes with a
message?
Lizzy did not own she made the beefsteak dumpling, but the maid seemed
to let the secret out by bringing in a little amethyst ring she had
forgotten on the kitchen table. I wish she knew that I 'd be glad she
could make dumplings. I am fond of dumplings. To try and tell her this.
Mrs. D. suspects Lizzy is attached to me. I don't think she approves of
it. D. D. would not object if I became an Orangeman. Query, what effect
would that have on my future career? Could I be an Orangeman without
being able to sing the “Boyne Water”? for I never could hum a tune in my
life. To inquire about this.
Who was the man who behaved badly to Lizzy? And how did he behave badly?
This is a very vital point, though not easy to come at.
_18th._--Lizzy likes--I may say loves--me. The avowal was made this
morning, when I was carrying up two pounds of sugar and one of soap from
the village. She said, “Oh, Mr. Gosslett, if you knew how unhappy I am!”
And I laid down the parcel, and, taking her hand in mine, said,
“Darling, tell me all!” and she grew very red and flurried, and said,
“Nonsense, don't be a fool! Take care Tobias don't run away with the
soap. I wanted to confide in you, to trust you. I don't want to--” And
there she fell a-crying, and sobbed all the way home, though I tried to
console her as well as the basket would permit me. Mem.--Not to be led
into any tendernesses till the marketing is brought home. Wonder does
Lizzy require me to fight the man who behaved badly? What on earth was
it he did?
A great discovery coming home from church to-day. D. D. asked me if
I had detected anything in his sermon of that morning which I could
possibly call violent, illiberal, or uncharitable. As I had not listened
to it, I was the better able to declare that there was not a word of it
I could object to. “Would you believe it, Gosslett,” said he,--and he
never had called me Gosslett before,--“that was the very sermon they
arraigned me for in the Queen's Bench; and that mild passage about the
Virgin Mary, you 'd imagine it was murder I was instilling. You heard
it to-day, and know if it's not true. Well, sir,” continued he, after
a pause, “Tom MacNamara blackguarded me for twenty minutes on it before
the whole court, screeching out, 'This is your parson! this is your
instructor of the poor man! your Christian guide! your comforter! These
are the teachings that are to wean the nation from bloodshed, and make
men obedient to the law and grateful for its protection!' Why do you
think he did this? Because I wouldn't give him my daughter,--a Papist
rascal as he is! That's the whole of it. I published my sermon and
sent it to the bishop, and he inhibited me! It was clear enough what he
meant; he wanted to be made archbishop, and he knew what would please
the Whigs. 'My Lord,' said I, 'these are the principles that placed
the Queen on the throne of this realm. If it was n't to crush Popery he
came, King William crossed the Boyne for nothing.'”
He went on thus till we reached home; but I had such a headache, from
his loud utterance, that I had to lie down and sleep it off.
_Monday, 31st_.--A letter from Aunt Morse. Very dry and cold. Asks if
I have sufficiently recovered from my late attack to be able to resume
habits of activity and industry? Why, she knows well enough I have
nothing to engage my activity and industry, for I will not be a
coal-heaver, let uncle say what he likes. Aunt surmises that possibly
some tender sentiment may be at the bottom of my attachment to Ireland,
and sternly recalls me to the fact that I am not the possessor of landed
property and an ancient family mansion in a good county. What can she
mean by these warnings? Was it not herself that I overheard asking my
uncle, “Would not he do for Lizzy?” How false women are! I wish I could
probe that secret about the man that behaved ill; there are so many ways
to behave ill, and to be behaved ill by. Shall I put a bold face on it,
and ask Lizzy?
Great news has the post brought. Sir Morris Stamer is going out Lord
High Commissioner to the Ionian Islands, and offers to take me as
private sec.
It is a brilliant position, and one to marry on. I shall ask Lizzy
to-day.
Wednesday, all settled;--but what have I not gone through these
last three days! She loves me to distraction; but she 'll tell
nothing,--nothing till we 're married. She says, and with truth,
“confidence is the nurse of love.” I wish she was n't so coy. I have not
even kissed her hand. She says Irish girls are all coy.
We are to run away, and be married at a place called Articlane. I don't
know why we run away; but this is another secret I 'm to hear later on.
Quiet and demure as she looks, Lizzy has a very decided disposition. She
overbears all opposition, and has a peremptory way of saying, “Don't be
a fool, G.!”--she won't call me Paul, only G.,--“and just do as I bade
you.” I hope she 'll explain why this is so,--after our marriage.
I'm getting terribly afraid of the step we're about to take. I feel
quite sure it was the Rev. Dan who shot the Papist on that anniversary
affair; and I know he'd shoot me if he thought I had wronged him. Is
there any way out of this embarrassment?
What a headache I have! We have been singing Orange songs for four
hours. I think I hear that odious shake on the word “ba-a-t-tle,” as it
rhymes to “rat--tie,” in old Dan's song. It goes through my brain still;
and tomorrow, at daybreak, we're to run away! Lizzy's bundle is here, in
my room; and Tom Ryan's boat is all ready under the rocks, and we're to
cross the bay. It sounds very rash when one comes to think of it. I'm
sure my Aunt Morse will never forgive it. But Lizzy, all so gentle and
docile as she seems, has a very peremptory way with her; and as she
promises to give me explanations for everything later on, I have agreed
to all. How it blows! There has not been so bad a night since I came
here. If it should be rough to-morrow morning, will she still insist on
going? I 'm a poor sort of sailor at the best of times; but if there's
a sea on, I shall be sick as a dog! And what a situation,--a seasick
bridegroom running off with bis bride! That was a crash! I thought the
old house was going clean away. The ploughs and harrows they 've put on
the roof to keep the slates down perform very wild antics in a storm.
I suppose this is the worst climate in Europe. D. D. said, yesterday,
that the length of the day made the only difference between summer and
winter; and, oh dear! what an advantage does this confer on winter?
Now to bed,--though I'm afraid not to sleep; amid such a racket and
turmoil, rest is out of the question. Who knows when, where, and how I
shall make the next entry in this book? But, as Mr. Dudgeon says, when
he finishes his tumbler, “Such is life! such is life!”
I wonder will Lizzy insist on going on if the weather continues like
this? I'm sure no boatman with a wife and family could be fairly asked
to go out in such a storm. I do not think I would have the right to
induce a poor man to peril his life, and the support of those who depend
upon him, for my own--what shall I call it?--my own gratification,--that
might be for a picnic;--my own,--no, not happiness, because that is a
term of time and continuity;--my own--There goes a chimney, as sure as
fate! How they sleep here through everything! There 's that fellow
who minds the cows snoring through it all in the loft overhead; and he
might, for all he knew, have been squashed under that fall of masonry.
Was that a tap at the door? I thought I heard it twice.
Yes, it was Lizzy. She had not been to bed. She went out as far as
the church rock to see the sea. She says it was grander than she could
describe. There is a faint moon, and the clouds are scudding along, as
though racing against the waves below; but I refuse to go out and
see it, all the same. I 'll turn in, and try to get some sleep before
morning.
I was sound asleep, though the noise of the storm was actually
deafening, when Lizzy again tapped at my door, and at last, opening it
slightly, pushed a lighted candle inside, and disappeared. If there be a
dreary thing in life, it is to get up before day of a dark, raw morning,
in a room destitute of all comfort and convenience, and proceed to wash
and dress in cold, gloom, and misery, with the consciousness that what
you are about to do not only might be safer and better undone, but may,
and not at all improbably will, turn out the rashest act of your life.
Over and over I said to myself, “If I were to tell her that I have a
foreboding,--a distinct foreboding of calamity; that I dreamed a dream,
and saw myself on a raft, while waves, mountain high, rose above me, and
depths yawned beneath,--dark, fathomless, and terrible,--would she mind
it?” I declare, on my sacred word of honor,--I declare I think she'd
laugh at me!
“Are you ready?” whispered a soft voice at the door; and I saw at once
my doom was pronounced.
Noiselessly, stealthily, we crept down the stairs, and, crossing the
little flagged kitchen, undid the heavy bars of the door. Shall I own
that a thought of treason shot through me as I stood with the great bolt
in my hands, and the idea flashed across me, “What if I were to let it
fall with a crash, and awake the household?” Did she divine what was
passing in my head, as she silently took the bar from me, and put it
away?
We were now in the open air, breasting a swooping nor'-wester that
chilled the very marrow of my bones. She led the way through the dark
night as though it were noonday, and I followed, tumbling over stones
and rocks and tufts of heather, and falling into holes, and scrambling
out again like one drunk. I could hear her laughing at me too,--she who
so seldom laughed; and it was with difficulty she could muster gravity
enough to say she hoped I had not hurt myself.
We gained the pier at last, and, guided by a lantern held by one of the
boatmen, we saw the boat bobbing and tossing some five feet down below.
Lizzy sprang in at once, amidst the applauding cheers of the crew; and
then several voices cried out, “Now, sir! Now, your honor!” while two
stout fellows pushed me vigorously, as though to throw me into the sea.
I struggled and fought manfully, but in vain. I was jerked off my legs,
and hurled headlong down, and found myself caught below by some strong
arms, though not until I had half sprained my wrist, and barked one of
my shins from knee to instep. These sufferings soon gave way to others,
as I became sea-sick, and lay at the bottom of the boat, praying we
might all go down, and end a misery I could no longer endure. That
spars struck me, and ballast rolled over me; that heavy-footed sailors
trampled me, and seemed to dance on me,--were things I minded not. Great
waves broke over the bows, and came in sheets of foam and water over
me. What cared I? I had that death-like sickness that makes all life
hideous, and I felt I had reached a depth of degradation and misery in
which there was only one desire,--that for death. That we succeeded in
clearing the point which formed one side of the bay was little short of
a miracle, and I remember the cheer the boatmen gave as the danger was
passed, and my last hope of our all going down left me. After this, I
know no more.
A wild confusion of voices, a sort of scuffling uproar, a grating sound,
and more feet dancing over me, aroused me. I looked up. It was dawn;
a gray murky streak lay towards the horizon, and sheets of rain were
carried swiftly on the winds. We were being dragged up on a low shingly
shore, and the men--up to their waists in water--were carrying the boat
along.
As I looked over the gunwale, I saw a huge strong fellow rush down the
slope, and breasting the waves as they beat, approach the boat.
Lizzy sprang into his arms at once, and he carried her back to land
triumphantly. I suppose at any other moment a pang of jealousy might
have shot through me. Much sea-sickness, like perfect love, overcometh
all things. I felt no more, as I gazed, than if it had been a bundle he
had been clasping to his bosom.
They lifted me up, and laid me on the shingle.
“Oh, do, Tom; he is such a good creature!” said a voice which, low as it
was, I heard distinctly.
“By all that's droll! this is the Cockney I met at Mor-risson's!” cried
a loud voice. I looked up; and there, bending over me, was Counsellor
MacNamara, the bland stranger I had fallen in with at Dublin.
“Are you able to get on your legs,” asked he, “or shall we have you
carried?”
“No,” said I, faintly; “I 'd rather lie here.”
“Oh, we can't leave him here, Tom; it's too cruel.”
“I tell you, Lizzy,” said he, impatiently, “there's not a minute to
lose.”
“Let them carry him, then,” said she, pleadingly.
I mildly protested my wish to live and die where I lay; but they carried
me up somewhere, and they put me to bed, and they gave me hot drinks,
and I fell into, not a sleep, but a trance, that lasted twenty-odd
hours.
“Faix! they had a narrow escape of it,” were the first intelligible
words I heard on awaking. “They were only just married and druv off when
old Dan Dudgeon came up, driving like mad. He was foaming with passion,
and said if he went to the gallows for it, he 'd shoot the rascal that
abused his hospitality and stole his daughter. The lady left this note
for your honor.”
It went thus:--
“Dear Mr. Gosslett,--You will, I well know, bear me no ill-will for the
little fraud I have practised on you. It was an old engagement, broken
off by a momentary imprudence on Tom's part; but as I knew he loved me,
it was forgiven. My father would not have ever consented to the match,
and we were driven to this strait. I entreat you to forgive and believe
me
“Most truly yours,
“Lizzy MacNamara.”
I stole quietly out of Ireland after this, and got over to the Isle
of Man, where I learned that my patron had thrown up his Ionian
appointment, and I was once again on the world.
CONFESSION THE LAST.
AS TO LAW.
I do not exactly know why I sit down to make this my last confession. I
can scarcely be a guide to any one. I even doubt if I can be a warning,
for when a man is as miserably unlucky as I have proved myself, the
natural inference is to regard him as the exception to the ordinary lot
of mortals,--a craft fated to founder ere it was launched. It's all very
well to deny the existence of such a thing as luck. It sounds splendidly
wise in the Latin moralist to say, “_Non numen habes fortuna si sit
prudentia_,” which is the old story of putting the salt on the bird's
tail over again, since, I say, we can always assume the “prudentia”
where there is the “fortuna,” and in the same way declare that the
unlucky man failed because he was deficient in that same gift of
foresight.
Few men knew life so thoroughly in every condition, and under every
aspect, as the first Napoleon, and he invariably asked, when inquiring
into the fitness of a man for a great command, “Is he lucky?” To my own
thinking, it would be as truthful to declare that there was no element
of luck in whist, as to say there was no such thing as luck in life.
Now, all the “prudentia” in the world will not give a man four by
honors; and though a good player may make a better fight with a bad
hand than an indifferent performer, there is that amount of badness
occasionally dealt out that no skill can compensate; and do what he may,
he must lose the game.
Now, I am by no means about to set up as a model of prudence, industry,
or perseverance; as little can I lay claim to anything like natural
ability or cleverness. I am essentially common-place,--one of those men
taken “ex medio acervo” of humanity, whose best boast is that they form
the staple of the race, and are the majority in all nations.
There is a very pleasant passage in Lockhart's Life of Scott. I cannot
lay my hand on it, and may spoil it in the attempt to quote, but the
purport is, that one day when Lockhart had used the word “vulgar” in
criticising the manners of some people they had been discussing,
Sir Walter rebuked him for the mistaken sense he had ascribed to the
expression. Vulgar, said he, is only common, and common means general;
and what is the general habit and usage of mankind has its base and
foundation in a feeling and sentiment that we must not lightly censure.
It is, at all events, human.
I wish I could give the text of the passage, for I see how lamentably I
have rendered it, but this was the meaning it conveyed to me, and I own
I have very often thought over it with comfort and with gratitude.
If the great thinkers--the men of lofty intellects and high-soaring
faculties--were but to know how, in vindicating the claims of every-day
people to respect and regard, in shielding them from the sneers of smart
men and the quips of witty men, they were doing a great and noble work,
for which millions of people like myself would bless them, I am certain
we should find many more such kindly utterances as that of the great Sir
Walter.
I ask pardon for my digression, so selfish as it is, and return to my
narrative.
After that famous “fiasco” I made in Ireland, I--as the cant phrase has
it--got dark for some time. My temper, which at first sustained me under
any amount of banter and ridicule, had begun to give way, and I avoided
my relations, who certainly never took any peculiar pains to treat me
with delicacy, or had the slightest hesitation in making me a butt for
very coarse jokes and very contemptible drollery.
I tried a number of things,--that is, I begun them. I begun to read for
the law; I begun a novel; I begun to attend divinity lectures; I got
a clerkship in a public office, as supernumerary; I was employed as
traveller to a house in the wooden-clock trade; I was secretary to
an Association for the Protection of Domestic Cats, and wrote the
prospectus for the “Cats' Home:” but it's no use entering into details.
I failed in all; and to such an extent of notoriety had my ill-fortune
now attained, that the very mention of my name in connection with a new
project would have sentenced it at once to ruin.
Over and over again have I heard my “friends,” when whispering together
over some new scheme, mutter, “Of course Paul is to have nothing to do
with it,” “Take care that Paul Gosslett is n't in it,” and such-like
intimations, that gave me the sensation of being a sort of moral
leper, whose mere presence was a calamity. The sense of being deemed
universally an unlucky fellow is one of the most depressing things
imaginable,--to feel that your presence is accounted an evil
agency,--and that your co-operation foreshadows failure,--goes a
considerable way towards accomplishing the prediction announced.
Though my uncle's stereotyped recommendation to become a coal-heaver was
not exactly to my taste, I had serious thoughts of buying a sack, and by
a little private practice discovering whether the profession might
not in the end become endurable. I was fairly at my wits'-end for
a livelihood; and the depression and misery my presence occasioned
wherever I went reacted on myself, and almost drove me to desperation.
I was actually so afraid of an evil temptation that I gave up my
little lodging that I was so fond of, near Putney, and went to live at
Hampstead, where there was no water deep enough to drown a rat. I also
forewent shaving, that I might banish my razors, and in all respects set
myself steadily to meet the accidents of life with as near an approach
to jollity as I could muster.
The simple pleasures of nature--the enjoyment of the fields and the wild
flowers; the calm contemplation of the rising or setting sun; the varied
forms of insect life; the many-tinted lichens; the ferns; the mosses
that clothe the banks of shady alleys; the limpid pools, starred and
broken by the dragon-fly, so full of their own especial charm for the
weary voluptuary sick of pampered pleasures and exotic luxuries--do
not appeal to the senses of the poor man with that wonderful force of
contrast which gives them all their excellence. I have seen an alderman
express himself in ecstasies over a roast potato, which certainly
would not have called forth the same show of appreciation from an Irish
peasant. We like what awakens a new sensation in us, what withdraws
us even in imagination from the routine of our daily lives. There is a
great self-esteem gratified when we say how simple we can be, how happy
in humility, how easily satisfied, and how little dependent on mere
luxury or wealth.
The postman who passed my window every morning had long ceased to be an
object of interest or anxiety to me; for others he brought tidings, good
or ill as it might be, but to me, forgotten and ignored of the world,
no news ever came; when one day, to my intense surprise, at first to my
perfect incredulity, I saw him draw forth a letter, and make a sign to
me to come down and take it. Yes, there it was, “Paul Gosslett, Esq.,
The Flaggers, Putney,” with “Try Sandpit Cottages, Hampstead,” in
another hand, in the corner. It was from my aunt, and ran thus:--
“The Briars, Rochester.
“Dear Paul,--I am rejoiced to say there is a good chance of a situation
for you with handsome pay and most agreeable duty. You are to come down
here at once, and see your uncle, but on no account let it be known that
I have mentioned to you the prospect of employment.
“Your affectionate aunt,
“Jane Morse.”
I took the morning train, and arrived at Rochester by nine o'clock,
remembering, not without pain, my last experiences of my uncle's
hospitality. I breakfasted at the inn, and only arrived at the house
when he had finished his morning meal, and was smoking his pipe in the
garden.
“What wind blows you down here, lad?” cried he. “Where are you bound for
now?”
“You forget, my dear,” said my aunt, “you told me, the other evening,
you would be glad to see Paul.”
“Humph!” said he, with a grunt. “I 've been a-think-ing over it since,
and I suspect it would n't do. He 'd be making a mess of it, the way he
does of everything; that blessed luck of his never leaves him, eh?”
Seeing that this was meant as an interrogation, I replied faintly: “You
're quite right, uncle. If I am to depend on my good fortune, it will be
a bad look-out for me.”
“Not that I value what is called luck a rush,” cried he, with energy. “I
have had luck, but I had energy, industry, thrift, and perseverance. If
I had waited for luck, I 'd have lived pretty much like yourself, and I
don't know anything to be very proud of in that, eh?”
“I am certainly not proud of my position, sir.”
“I don't understand what you mean by your position; but I know I 'd
have been a coal-heaver rather than live on my relations. I 'd have sold
sulphur matches, I 'd have been a porter!”
“Well, sir, I suppose I may come to something of that kind yet; a little
more of the courteous language I am now listening to will make the step
less difficult.”
“Eh?--What! I don't comprehend. Do you mean anything offensive?”
“No, dear, he does not,” broke in my aunt; “he only says he 'd do
anything rather than be a burden to his family, and I 'm sure he would;
he seems very sorry about all the trouble he has cost them.”
My uncle smoked on for several minutes without a word; at last he
came to the end of his pipe, and, having emptied the ashes, and gazed
ruefully at the bowl, he said: “There 's no more in the fellow than
in that pipe! Not a bit. I say,” cried he, aloud, and turning to me,
“you've had to my own knowledge as good as a dozen chances, and you've
never succeeded in one of them.”
“It's all true,” said I, sorrowfully.
“Owing to luck, of course,” said he, scornfully; “luck makes a man lazy,
keeps him in bed when he ought to be up and at work; luck makes him
idle, and gets him plucked for his examinations. I tell you this, sir: I
'd rather a man would give me a fillip on the nose than talk to me about
luck. If there's a word in the language I detest and hate, it is luck.”
“I'm not in love with it myself, sir,” said I, trying to smile.
“Did you ever hear of luck mending a man's shoes or paying his
washerwoman? Did luck ever buy a beefsteak, eh?”
“That might admit of discussion.”
“Then let me have no discussion. I like work, and I dislike wrangling.
Listen to me, and mend now, sir. I want an honest, sober, fixed
determination,--no caprice, no passing fancy. Do you believe you are
capable of turning over a new leaf, and sitting down steadily to the
business of life, like a patient, industrious, respectable man who
desires to earn his own bread, and not live on the earnings of others?”
“I hope so.” “Don't tell me of hope, sir. Say you will, or you will not”
“I will,” said I, resolutely.
“You will work hard, rise early, live frugally, give up dreaming about
this, that, or the other chance, and set to like a fellow that wants to
do his own work with his own hands?”
“I promise it all.”
My uncle was neither an agreeable nor a very clear exponent of
his views, and I shall save my reader and myself some time and
unpleasantness if I reduce the statement he made to me to a few words. A
company had been formed to start an hydropathic establishment on a small
river, a tributary of the Rhine,--the Lahn. They had acquired, at a
very cheap rate of purchase, an old feudal castle and its surrounding
grounds, and had converted the building into a most complete and
commodious residence, and the part which bordered the river into a
beautiful pleasure-ground. The tinted drawings which represented various
views of the castle and the terraced gardens, were something little
short of fairyland in captivation. Nor was the pictorial effect lessened
by the fact that figures on horseback and on foot, disporting in boats
or driving in carriages, gave a life and movement to the scene, and
imparted to it the animation and enjoyment of actual existence. The
place of director was vacant, and I was to be appointed to it. My
salary was to be three hundred a year, but my table, my horses, my
servants,--in fact, all my household, were to be maintained for me on
a liberal scale; and my duties were to be pretty much what I pleased to
make them. My small smattering of two or three languages--exalted by
my uncle into the reputation of a polyglot--had recommended me to the
“Direction;” and as my chief function was to entertain a certain number
of people twice or thrice a week at dinner, and suggest amusements to
fill up their time, it was believed that my faculties were up to the
level of such small requirements.
From the doctor down to the humblest menial all were to be under my
sway; and as the establishment numbered above a hundred officials, the
command was extensive, if not very dignified. I will own, frankly, I
was out of myself with joy at the prospect; nor could all the lowering
suggestions of my uncle, and the vulgar cautions he instilled, prevent
my feeling delighted with my good fortune. I need not say what resolves
I made; what oaths I registered in my own heart to be a good and
faithful steward, and while enjoying to the full the happiness of my
fortunate existence, to neglect no item of the interests confided to me.
All that I had imagined or dreamed of the place itself was as nothing to
the reality; nor shall I ever forget the sense of overwhelming delight
in which I stood on the crest of the hill that looked down over the
wooded glen and winding river, the deep-bosomed woods, the wandering
paths of lawn or of moss, the gently flowing stream in which the castle,
with its tall towers, was tremblingly reflected, seemed to me like a
princely possession, and, for once, I thought that Paul Gosslett had
become the favorite child of fortune, and asked myself what had I done
to deserve such luck as this?
If habit and daily use deaden the pangs of suffering, and enable us to
bear with more of patience the sorrows of adverse fortune, they, on the
other hand, serve to dull the generous warmth of that gratitude we first
feel for benefits, and render us comparatively indifferent to enjoyments
which, when first tasted, seemed the very ecstasy of bliss. I am sorry
to make this confession; sorry to admit that after some months at
“Lahneck,” I was, although very happy and satisfied, by no means so much
struck by the beauty of the place and the loveliness of the scenery as
on my first arrival, and listened to the raptures of the newcomers
with a sort of compassionate astonishment. Not but I was proud of
the pretentious edifice, proud of its lofty towers and battlemented
terraces, its immense proportion, and splendid extent. It was, besides,
a complete success as an enterprise. We were always full; applications
for rooms poured in incessantly, and when persons vacated their
quarters, any change of mind made restitution impossible. I believed
I liked the despotism I exercised; it was a small, commonplace sort
of sovereignty over bath-men and kitchen-folk, it is true; but in the
extent of my command I discovered a kind of dignity, and in the implicit
obedience and deference I felt something like princely sway.
As the host, too, I received a very flattering amount of homage;
foreigners always yield a willing respect to anything in authority,
and my own countrymen soon caught up the habit, as though it implied a
knowledge of life and the world. I had not the slightest suspicion
that my general manners or bearing were becoming affected by these
deferences, till I accidentally overheard a Cockney observe to his wife,
“I think he's pompious,” a censure that made me very unhappy, and led me
to much self-examination and reflection.
Had I really grown what the worthy citizen called “pom-pious,”--had I
become puffed up by prosperity, and over-exalted in self-conceit? If so,
it were time to look to this at once.
The directors, generally, were well pleased with me. Very gratifying
testimonials of their approval reached me; and it was only my uncle's
opposition prevented my salary being augmented. “Don't spoil the
fellow,” he said; “you'll have him betting on the Derby, or keeping a
yacht at Cowes, if you don't look out sharp. I 'd rather cut him down a
hundred than advance him fifty.” This fiat from my own flesh and blood
decided the matter. I sulked on this. I had grown prosperous enough to
feel indignant, and I resolved to afford myself the well-to-do luxury of
discontent. I was, therefore, discontented. I professed that to maintain
my position--whatever that meant--I was obliged to draw upon my own
private resources; and I went so far as to intimate to the visitors that
if I had n't been a man of some fortune the place would be my ruin!
Of course my hint got bruited about, and the people commonly said, “If
Gosslett goes, the whole concern will break up. They 'll not easily find
a man of good private fortune, willing to spend his money here, like
Gosslett,” and such like, till I vow and declare I began to believe my
own fiction, and regard it as an indelible fact. If my letter was not on
record, I would not now believe the fact; but the document exists, and
I have seen it, where I actually threaten to send my resignation if
something--I forget what--is not speedily conceded to my demands; and
it was only on receiving an admonition in the mild vein peculiar to my
uncle that I awoke to a sense of my peril, and of what became me.
I know that there are critics who, pronouncing upon this part of my
career, will opine that the Cockney was right, and that I had really
lost my head in my prosperity. I am not disposed to say now that there
might not have been some truth in this judgment. Things are generally
going on tolerably well with a man's material interests when he has time
to be dyspeptic. Doctors assure us that savage nations, amidst whom
the wants of life call for daily, hourly efforts, amidst whom all is
exigency, activity, and resource, have no dyspepsia. If, then, I had
reasoned on my condition,--which I did not,--I should have seen that
the world went too smoothly with me, and that, in consequence, my health
suffered. Just as the fish swallow stones to aid the digestion, we need
the accidents and frictions of life to triturate our moral pabulum, and
render it more easily assimilable to our constitutions. With dyspepsia
I grew dull, dispirited, and dissatisfied. I ceased to take pleasure in
all that formerly had interested me. I neglected duty, and regarded my
occupation with dislike. My house dinners, which once I took an especial
pride in, seeking not only that the wines and the cookery should be
excellent, but that their success as social gatherings should attract
notoriety, I now regarded with apathy. I took no pains about either
company or cookery, and, in consequence, contrarieties and bad contrasts
now prevailed, where, before, all had been in perfect keeping and
true artistic shading. My indolence and indifference extended to those
beneath me. Where all had once been order, discipline, and propriety,
there now grew up carelessness, disorder, and neglect. The complaints
of the visitors were incessant. My mornings were passed in reading. I
rarely replied to the representations and demands of outraged guests.
At last the public press became the channel of these complaints; and
“Publicola,” and “One who had Suffered,” and a number of similarly named
patriots declared that the hydropathic establishment at Lahneck was a
delusion and a sham; that it was a camp of confusion and mismanagement;
and that though a certain P. Gosslett was the nominal director, yet that
visitors of three months' standing averred they had never seen him,
and the popular belief was that he was a nervous invalid who accepted
a nominal duty in recompense for the benefit of air and climate to
himself. “How,” wrote one indignant correspondent of the Times,--“how
the company who instituted this enterprise, and started it on a scale
of really great proportions, can find it to their advantage to continue
this Mr. Gosslett in a post he so inadequately fills, is matter of
daily astonishment to those who have repaired to Lahneck for healthful
exercise and amusement, and only found there indifferent attendance and
universal inattention.”
From the day this appeared I was peppered at every post with letters
from the secretary, demanding explanations, reports, returns, what
not. The phrase, “The Managing Committee, who are hourly less and less
satisfied with Mr. Gosslett's conduct,” used to pass through all my
dreams.
As for my uncle, his remarks were less measured. One of his epistles--I
have it still by me--runs thus: “What do you mean? Are you only an
idiot, or is there some deeper rascality under all this misconduct?
Before I resigned my place at the Board, yesterday, I gave it as my
deliberate opinion that a warrant should be issued against you for fraud
and malversation, and that I would hail your conviction as the only
solace this nefarious concern could afford me. Never dare to address me
again. I have forbidden your aunt to utter your name in my presence.”
I don't know how it was, but I read this with as much unconcern as
though it had been an advertisement about the Sydenham trousers or
Glenfield starch. There must be a great dignity in a deranged digestion,
for it certainly raises one above all the smaller excitements and
conditions of passing events; and when, on the same morning that this
epistle arrived, the steward came to inform me that of three hundred and
twenty-four rooms twelve only were occupied, though this was what would
be called the height of the season, I blandly remarked, “Let us not be
impatient, Mr. Deechworth, they'll come yet.” This was in June; by July
the twelve diminished to eight. No new arrival came; and as August drew
to a close we had three! All September,--and the place was then in full
beauty,--the mountains glowing with purple and scarlet heath, the cactus
plants on the terrace in blossom, the Virginian acanthus hanging in
tangled masses of gorgeous flowers from every tree, the river ever
plashing with the leaping trout,--we had not one stranger within our
gates. My morning report ran, “Arrivals, none; departures, none; present
in house, none;” and when I put “Paul Gosslett” at the bottom of this, I
only wonder why I did not take a header into the Lahn!
As we had at this period eighty-four servants in the house, sixteen
horses in the stables, and a staff of thirty-two gardeners and boatmen,
not to speak of runners, commissionaires, and general loungers, I was
not amazed when a telegram came, in these words: “Close the house,
place Deechworth in charge, and come over to London.” To this I replied,
“Telegram received; compliance most undesirable. Autumn season just
opening. Place in full beauty.--P. G.” I will not weary the reader with
a mere commercial wrangle,--how the Committee reproached me, and how I
rejoined; how they called names, and I hinted at defamation; how they
issued an order for my dismissal, and I demurred, and demanded due
notice. We abused each other all September, and opened October in full
cry of mutual attack and defence. By this time, too, we were at law.
They applied for a “mandamus” to get rid of me, and my counsel argued
that I was without the four seas of the realm, and could not be
attacked. They tried to reach me by the statute of frauds; but there was
no treaty with Nassau, and I could not be touched. All this contention
and quarrelling was like sulphate of quinine to me,--I grew robust and
strong under the excitement, and discovered a lightness of heart and a
buoyancy of nature I had believed had long left me forever; and though
they stopped my salary and dishonored my drafts, I lived on fruit
and vegetables, and put the garrison on the same diet, with a liberal
allowance of wine, which more than reconciled them to the system.
So matters went on till the ninth of October,--a memorable day to me,
which I am not like to forget. It was near sunset, and I sat on the
terrace, enjoying the delicious softness of the evening air, and
watching the varying tints on the river, as the golden and green light
came slanting through the trees and fell upon the water, when I heard
the sound of wheels approaching. There had been a time when such sounds
would have awakened no attention, when arrivals poured in incessantly,
and the coming or the departing guest evoked nothing beyond the
courtesy of a greeting. Now, however, a visitor was an event; and as the
post-horses swept round the angle of the wood, and disappeared behind a
wing of the castle, I felt a strange sensation through my heart, and a
soft voice seemed to say, “Paul, Fate is dealing with you now.” I fell
into a revery, however, and soon forgot all about the arrival, till Mr.
Deech-worth came up with a card in his hand. “Do you know this name,
sir,--Mrs. Pultney Dacre? She has only her maid with her, but seems a
person of condition.” I shook my head in ignorance of the name, and he
went on: “She wants rooms on the ground floor, where she can walk out
into the garden; and I have thought of No. 4.”
“No. 4, Deechworth? that apartment costs sixty francs a day.”
“Well, sir, as there are few people now in the house,”--this was an
euphemism for none,--“I have said she might have the rooms for forty.”
“It may be done for one week,” said I, “but take care to caution her not
to mention it to her friends. We have trouble enough with those tiresome
people in London without this. What is she like?”
“A very handsome figure, sir; evidently young; but had a double veil
down, and I could n't see her face.”
“How long does she talk of staying?”
“A month, sir. A husband is expected back from India early in November,
and she is to wait for him here.”
“So,” said I, thoughtfully, and I am sure I cannot say why thoughtfully,
“she is waiting for her husband's arrival.”
“Those young women whose husbands are in India are always pretty;
haven't you remarked that, sir?”
“I can't say that I have, Deechworth. These are speculations of a kind
that do not occur to me. Let her have No. 4;” and with the air of one
who dismissed the theme, I waved my hand, and sent him away.
No. 4--for so the occupant was called, her name being entirely merged
in her number--never appeared in the grounds, nor showed in any way. The
small garden which belonged to her apartment had a separate enclosure
of its own, and within this she walked every evening. How she passed
her days I know not. I was told that she sang like an angel, but I never
heard her. She was, however, a most persistent bather. There was not
a douche in the establishment she did not try, and possibly, by way of
pastime, she was constantly experimenting on new modes and fashions of
bathing.
When the establishment had been crowded and in full work, I had my time
so completely occupied that I had little difficulty in keeping my mind
estranged from the gossip and tittle-tattle which beset such places; but
now, when the roof sheltered a single guest, it was wonderful how, in
spite of all my determination on the subject, I became perversely uneasy
to hear about her; to know whether she read or wrote; whether she got
letters or answered them; what she thought of the place; whether she was
or was not pleased with it; did she praise the camellias? What did she
think of the cook? She was evidently “gourmet,” and the little dinners
she ordered were remarkable for a taste and piquancy that stimulated my
curiosity; for there is something very significant in this phase of
the feminine nature; and when I heard she liked her ortolans “au beurre
d'anchois,” I confess I wanted much to see her.
This, evidently, was not an easy matter, for she courted retirement,
and her maid let it be known that if her mistress found herself in the
slightest degree molested by strangers, or her privacy invaded, she
would order her horses, and set off for somewhere else without
a moment's hesitation. I was obliged, therefore, to respect this
intimation. First of all, I felt that as long as No. 4 remained I was
sustained in my resolve not to close the establishment. I was like a
deposed monarch at whose residence one envoy still remained, and whose
sovereignty, therefore, was yet recognized, and I clung to this last
link that united me to the world of material interest with intense
eagerness.
I ventured to present Mr. Gosslett's respectful compliments in a small
note, and inquire if Mrs. Pultney Dacre would wish to see the Park, in
which case his phaeton and ponies were always at her disposal, as also
his boat if she felt disposed to take an airing on the river; but a few
lines declined these offers,--in very polite terms, it is true, yet in
a fashion that said, “No more of these attentions, Paul,”--at least, it
was thus I read her.
Although my contention with the company still continued, and some new
menace of law was sure to reach me by every second post, and my own
counsel feelingly warned me that I had n't an inch of ground to stand
on, and my costs when “cast” would be something overwhelming, I had
steeled myself so thoroughly to all consequences, had so resolved to
make the most of the present, that I read these minatory documents with
an unmoved heart, and a degree of placid composure that now strikes me
as something heroic.
I was sitting one evening in study, thinking over these things,--not
depressively, not desperately; for, strangely enough, since misfortune
had befallen me, I had acquired a most wonderful stock of equanimity;
but I was canvassing with myself what was to come next, when the fatal
hour struck, as strike it must, that sounded my expulsion from Eden,
when a gentle tap came to my door. I said, “Come in;” and Virginie,
Mrs. Dacre's French maid, entered. She was profuse of apologies for
“deranging” me. She was in despair at the bare thought of interrupting
I do not know what or which of my learned occupations, but her mistress
had had an accident!
“An accident!” I started as I repeated the word.
“Oh! it was not serious,” she said, with a sweet smile. “It was only
troublesome, as occurring in a remote spot, and to a person who, like
Madame, was of such refined delicacy, and who could not bear consulting
a strange physician,--her own doctor was on his way from India,”--she
went on rambling thus, so that it was with difficulty I learned at last,
that Madame, when feeding the gold-fish in the pond of the garden, had
stepped on the rock-work and turned her ankle. The pain was very great,
and Virginie feared something had been broken, though Madame was certain
it was a mere sprain; and now, as the doctor had been dismissed, Madame
wished to know where medical advice could be soonest obtained. I at once
declared I was fully competent to treat such an injury. I had studied
surgery, and could certainly pronounce whether the case was a grave one
or a mere passing accident. Virginie smiled dubiously.
“Monsieur was very young. Madame never consulted a doctor under
fifty-five or sixty.”
“Possibly,” suggested I, “in an ordinary case, and where there were time
and opportunity to choose; but here, and with an accident,--an accident
that, if neglected or improperly treated--”
“Ah, _mon Dieu!_” cried she, “don't say it! Don't say there might be
unhappy results; come at once and see her!” She almost dragged me along,
such was her impatience, to her mistress's room; and in less than a
minute I was standing beside a sofa in a half-darkened room, where a
lady lay, her face closely veiled, and a large shawl so enveloping her
that all guess as to her figure or probable age was impossible. A
light cambric handkerchief was spread over one foot, which rested on
a cushion, and this kerchief the maid hastily snatched away as I
approached, saying,--“Monsieur is a doctor himself, Madame, and will
cure you immediately.”
“Là!” cried she, pointing to the foot. “Là!”
And certainly I needed no more formal invitation to gaze on a foot and
ankle of such faultless mould and symmetry as never, even in the Greek
statues, had I seen equalled. Whether there had not been time for the
process of inflammation to have set up swelling or disfigurement, or
whether the injury itself had been less grave than might have been
apprehended, I am not able to say; but the beautiful proportions of that
rounded instep, the tapering of the foot, the hollowing of the sole, the
slightly mottled marble of the flesh, the blue veins swelling through
the transparent skin, were all uninjured and unmarred. Ivory itself
could not have been more smoothly turned than the ankle, nor of a more
dazzling whiteness. To have been permitted to kneel down and kiss that
foot, I would have sworn myself her slave forever. I suppose I must
have shown some signs of the rapture that was consuming me, for the maid
said,--“What does the man mean? has he lost his senses?”
“I must examine the part,” said I; and, kneeling down, I proceeded with
what I imagined to be a most chirurgical air, to investigate the injury.
As a worshipper might have touched a holy relic, I suffered my hand to
glide over that beautifully rounded instep, but all so delicately and
gently that I could not say whether the thrill that touch sent through
me was not the act of my own nerves. She seemed, however, to tremble;
her foot moved slightly, and a gentle action of her shoulders, like a
shudder, bespoke pain. It was the sort of movement that one might make
in being tickled; and as great agony causes this movement occasionally,
I said, “I trust I have not hurt you? I 'd not have done so for worlds.”
She took her handkerchief and pressed it to her face, and I thought she
sobbed; but she never said a word.
“Alors!” cried the maid. “What do you say is to be done?”
“Ice,” said I. “Iced water and perfect repose.”
“And where are we to get ice in this barbarous place?”
“Madame,” said I, “the place is less savage than you deem, and ice
shall be procured. There is a monastery at Offenbach where they have ice
throughout the year. I will despatch an estafette there at once.”
The lady bent forward, and whispered something in the maid's ear.
“Madame desires to thank you sincerely,” said the maid. “She is much
impressed by your consideration and kindness.”
“I will return in a couple of hours,” said I, with a most doctorial
sententiousness, and in reality eagerly desiring to be alone, and in
the privacy of my own room, before I should break out in those wild
ecstasies which I felt were struggling within me for utterance.
I sat down to make a clean breast of it in these confessions, but I must
ask my reader to let me pass over unrecorded the extravagances I gave
way to when once more alone.
There are men--I am one of them--who require, constitutionally require,
to be in love. That necessity which Don Quixote proclaimed to be a
condition of knightly existence,--the devotion to a mistress,--is an
essential to certain natures. This species of temperament pertained to
me in my boyhood. It has followed me through life with many pains and
suffering, but also with great compensations. I have ever been a poor
man,--my friends can tell that I have not been a lucky one,--and yet to
be rich and fortunate together, I would not resign that ecstasy, that
sentiment of love, which, though its object may have changed, has still
power to warm up the embers of my heart, and send through me a glow that
revives the days of my hot youth and my high hopes.
I was now in love, and cared as little for Boards of Directors and
resolutions passed in committee as for the ordinances of the Grand Lama.
It might rain mandamuses and warrants, they had no power to trouble me.
As I wended my way to No. 4 with my bowl of ice, I felt like a votary
bearing his offering to the shrine of his patron saint. My gift might
lie on the altar, but the incense of my devotion soared up to heaven.
I would gladly have visited her every hour, but she would only permit
me to come twice a day. I was also timid, and when Virginie said my
ten minutes was up I was dismissed. I tried to bribe Virginie, but the
unworthy creature imagined, with the levity of her nation, I had designs
on her own affections, and threatened to denounce me to her mistress,--a
menace which cost me much mortification and more money.
I don't know that the cure made great progress,--perhaps I have learned
since why this was so; at all events, I pursued my treatment with
assiduity, and was rewarded with a few soft-voiced words, as thus: “How
kind you are!” “What a gentle hand you have!” “How pleasant that ice
is!” At length she was able to move about the room. I wished to offer my
arm, but she declined. Virginie was strong enough to support her. How
I detested that woman! But for her, how many more opportunities had I
enjoyed of offering small services and attentions! Her very presence was
a perpetual restraint. She never took her eyes off me while I was in
the room with her mistress,--black-beady, inexpressive eyes for the most
part, but with something devilish in their inscrutability that always
frightened me. That she saw the passion that was consuming me, that she
read me in my alternate paroxysm of delight or despair, was plain enough
to me; but I could not make her my friend. She would take my presents
freely, but always with the air of one whose silence was worth buying
at any price, but whose co-operation or assistance no sum could compass.
Her very mode of accepting my gifts had something that smote terror into
me. She never thanked me, nor even affected gratitude. She would shake
her head mournfully and gloomily, as though matters had come to a pretty
pass between us, and as though some dreadful reckoning must one day be
expected to account for all this corruption. “Ah, Monsieur Gosslett,”
said she one day with a sigh, “what a precipice we are all standing
beside! Have you thought of the ruin you are leading us to?” These were
very strange words; and though I took my watch and chain from my pocket,
and gave them to her in order to induce her to explain her meaning,
she only burst into tears and rushed out of the room. Was I then the
happiest of mortals or the most wretched? Such was the problem that
drove sleep that long night from my eyelids, and found me still trying
to solve it when the day broke.
Days would often pass now without Mrs. Dacre permitting me to visit her,
and then Virginie significantly hinted that she was right in this,--that
it was for my good as well as her own, and so on. I mourned over my
banishment and bewailed it bitterly. “One would think, sir, you forget
my mistress was married,” said Virginie to me one day; and I protest it
was no more than the truth. I had completely, utterly forgotten it; and
the stern fact thus abruptly announced almost felled me to the earth.
Mrs. Dacre had promised to take a drive with me as soon as she felt
able to bear the motion of a carriage; but though I often recalled the
pledge, she found excuses of one kind or other to defer performance, and
as I now rarely saw her, she would write me a line, sometimes two lines,
on a scrap of paper, which Virginie would lay open on my table and
generally shake her head very meaningly as I read it.
If Mrs. Dacre's notes were very brief, they were not less
enigmatical,--she was the strangest writer that ever put pen to paper.
Thus, to give an instance: the ice application she always referred to
as “my coldness,” and she would say, “How long is your coldness to
continue? have I not had enough of it yet? This coldness is becoming
tiresome, and if it be continued, how am I to go out with you?” In
another note, referring to our intended drive, she says, “If it is a
question of running away, I must have a word to say first; for though
I believe you have no fears on that score, I am not so courageous.”
Virginie had been telling stories about my ponies; they were frisky,
it is true, and it was thus her mistress alluded to them. Some
disparagement of me as a whip provoked this remark from her: “As the
time draws nearer, I ask myself, Shall I trust myself to your guidance?
Who can say what may come of it?”
At last came this one line: “I have summoned up all my courage, and I
will go with you this evening. Come up at eight, and I will be ready.”
I ought to have mentioned before this that for nigh three weeks a
vulgar-looking man, middle-aged and robust, had come to take the waters;
and though he only spoke a few words of bad French, being English, had
continued to put himself on terms of intimacy with all the subordinates
of the household, and was constantly seen laughing with the boatmen and
trying to converse with the gardeners.
Deechworth had conceived suspicion about him from the first; he
connected him with the law proceedings that the company had instituted
against me, and warned me to be cautious of the man. His opinion was
that he belonged to the “Force.” “I know it, sir,” said he, “by his walk
and his laugh.” The detectives, according to Deechworth, have a laugh
quite peculiar to themselves; it never takes them off what they are
saying or thinking about In fact, it is like the bassoon in a band; it
serves just to mark the time while the air is being played by the other
instruments.
“I don't like that Mr. Bracken, sir,” Deechworth would say; “he ain't
here for no good, you'll see, sir;” and it is not improbable that I
should have perfectly agreed with this opinion if I had ever troubled
my head about him at all, but the fact was my mind was very differently
occupied. All Scotland Yard and Sir Richard himself might have been
domiciled at the establishment without their ever giving me a moment of
uneasy reflection.
Whether Mrs. Dacre's scruples were those of prudery or cowardice,
whether she dreaded me as a companion or feared me as a coachman, I
cannot say; but she constantly put off our intended drive, and though
occasionally the few words in which she made her apologies set my heart
half wild with delight, simply because I pleased to read them in a sense
of my own invention, yet I grew feverish and uneasy at these delays. At
last there came the one line in pencil, “I have made up my mind I will
go with you to-morrow evening.” It is in no extravagance or mock rapture
I say it, but in plain homely truth, I would not have changed that scrap
of paper for a check of ten thousand on Coutts.
It was my habit to lay all the little notes I received from her before
me on my writing-table, and as I passed them under review, to weave out
for myself a story of the progress of my love. The servants who waited
on me, and who alone entered my study, were foreigners, and ignorant
of English, so that I could permit myself this indulgence without
fear. Now, on the afternoon on which I had received the latest of
her despatches, I sauntered out into the wood to be alone with my own
thoughts, unmolested and undisturbed. I wandered on for hours, too happy
to count the time, and too deeply lost in my imaginings to remember
anything but my own fancies. What was to come of this strange imbroglio
in which I now stood; how was Fate about to deal with me? I had clearly
arrived at a point where the roads led right and left Which was I to
take, and which was the right one?
Thus canvassing and discussing with myself, it was very late ere I got
back to the castle; but I carried the key of a small portal gate that
admitted me to my own quarters unobserved, and I could enter or pass out
unnoticed. As I found myself in my study and lit my lamp, I turned to my
writing-table. I started with amazement on discovering that the
little notes and scraps of paper which bore Mrs. Dacre's writing had
disappeared. These, and a small notebook, a sort of diary of my own,
had been taken away; and that the act was not that of a common thief was
clear, from the fact that a valuable silver inkstand and an onyx
seal mounted in gold, and some other small objects of value lay about
untouched. A cold sweat broke over me as I stood there overwhelmed and
panic-stricken by this discovery. The terrors of a vague and undefined
danger loom over a man with an intensity far greater than the fears of a
known and palpable peril. I examined the fastenings of the door and the
windows to see whether force had been used, but there was no sign of
such. And as I had locked the door when leaving and found it locked on
my return, how had this thief found entrance except by a key? I rung the
bell; but the servants were all in bed, and it was long before any one
replied to my summons. Of course, servant-like, they had seen
nothing, heard nothing. I sent for Deechworth; he was asleep, and came
unwillingly and angry at being routed out of bed. He, too, knew nothing.
He questioned me closely as to whether I had seen the papers on my table
before I left home for my walk, and half vexed me by the pertinacity of
his examination, and, finally, by the way in which he depreciated the
value of my loss, and congratulated me on the circumstance that nothing
of real worth had been abstracted. This was too much for my patience,
and I declared that I had rather the thief had left me without a coat or
without a shilling than taken these precious scraps of paper. “Oh,” said
he, with a sort of sneer, “I had not the slightest suspicion of the
value you attached to them.” “Well, sir,” said I, losing all control
over my passion, “now that you see it, now that you hear it, now that
you know it, will you tell me at what price you will restore them to
me?”
“You mean that it was I who took them?” said he, quietly, and without
any show of warmth.
“I don't suppose you will deny it,” was my answer.
“That will do, Mr. Gosslett,” said he; “that's quite enough. I hope to
be able to teach you that it's one thing to defy a board of directors,
and it's another to defame a respectable man. I'll make you smart for
this, sir;” and with these words he turned away and left the room.
I don't know when or how the servants retired,--whether I dismissed
them, or whether they went of their own accord. I was like a madman.
My temper, excited to the last limits of reason, impelled me to this
or that act of insanity. At one moment I thought of hastening after
Deechworth, and, with a revolver in my hand, compelling him to give up
the stolen papers; and I shuddered as to what I should do if he refused.
At another, I determined to follow him, and offer him everything I had
in the world for them; for, all this time, I had worked myself up to the
conviction that he, and he alone, was the thief. Oh, thought I, if I had
but the aid of one of those clever fellows of the detective order, whose
skill wants but the faintest clew to trace out these mysteries! and,
suddenly, I bethought me of Mr. Bracken, whom Deechworth himself had
pronounced to be “one of the Force.”
I rung my bell, and desired Mr. Bracken might be sent to me. The
messenger was a long time absent, and came, at last, to say that Mr.
Bracken had left the castle that evening, and taken all his luggage with
him. The tidings struck me like a blow,--here, then, was the thief! And
for what purpose could such a theft have been accomplished? “Tell Mr.
Deechworth I want him,” cried I, being no less eager to make him my
deepest apologies for my false accusation than to consult his strong
common-sense in my difficulty.
The servant returned to say Mr. Deechworth had gone too. He had left the
castle almost immediately after our stormy interview, and was already
miles away on his road to the Rhine.
In my misery and desolation, in that abandonment to utter terror and
confusion in which, with the drowning instinct, one snatches at straws,
I sent to know if I could speak to Mrs. Dacre, or even her maid. How
shall I describe my horror as I heard that they also were gone! They
had left soon after Mr. Bracken; in fact, the post-horses that took them
away had passed Mr. Bracken at the gate of the park.
I know no more how the rest of the night was passed by me, how the hours
were spent till daybreak, than I could recount the incidents of delirium
in fever. I must have had something like a paroxysm of insanity, for I
appear to have rushed from room to room, calling for different people,
and in tones of heart-rending entreaty begging that I might not be
deserted. Towards morning I slept,--slept so soundly that the noises of
the house did not disturb me. It was late in the afternoon when I awoke.
The servant brought me my coffee and my letters; but I bade him leave
me, and fell off to sleep again. In this way, and with only such
sustenance as a cup of milk or coffee would afford, I passed fourteen
days, my state resembling that of a man laboring under concussion of
the brain; indeed, so closely did the symptoms resemble those of this
affection, that the doctor carefully examined my head to see whether I
had not incurred some actual injury. It was five weeks before I could
leave my bed, and crawl down with difficulty to my study. The table was
covered with the accumulated letters of thirty-odd posts, and I turned
over the envelopes, most of which indicated communications from the
company. There was also one in my uncle's hand. This I opened and read.
It was in these words:--
“So, sir, not satisfied with a life of indolence and dependence, you
have now added infamy to your worthlessness, and have not even spared
the members of your own family the contagion of your vice. If you can
give information as to the present abode of your wretched victim, do so,
as the last amends in your power, and the last act of reparation, before
you are consigned to that jail in which it is to be hoped you will end
your days.”
I read this till my head reeled. Who were the members of my family I had
contaminated or corrupted? Who was my wretched victim? And why I was to
die in prison I knew not. And the only conclusion I could draw from it
all was that my uncle was hopelessly mad, and ought to be shut up.
A strange-looking, coarse-papered document, that till then had escaped
my notice, now caught my eye. It was headed “Court of Probate and
Divorce,” and set forth that on a certain day in term the case of
“MacNamara _versus_ Mac-Namara, Gosslett, co-respondent,” would come on
for trial; the action being to obtain a rule _nisi_ for divorce, with
damages against the co-respondent.
A notice of service, duly signed by one of my own people, lay beside
this; so that at last I got a faint glimmering of what my uncle meant,
and clearly descried what was im plied by my “victim.”
I believe that most readers of the “Times” or the “Morning Post” could
finish my story; they, at all events, might detail the catastrophe
with more patience and temper than I could. The MacNamara divorce was a
nine-days' scandal. And “if the baseness of the black-hearted iniquity
of the degraded creature who crept into a family as a supplicant that
he might pollute it with dishonor; who tracked his victim, as the Indian
tracks his enemy, from lair to lair,--silent, stealthily, and
with savage intensity,--never faltering from any momentary pang of
conscience, nor hesitating in his vile purpose from any passing gleam of
virtue,--if this wretch, stigmatized by nature with a rotten heart, and
branded by a name that will sound appropriately in the annals of crime,
for he is called Gosslett,”--if all this, and a great deal more in the
same fashion, is not familiar to the reader, it is because he has not
carefully studied the Demosthenic orations of the Court of Arches. In
one word, I was supposed to have engaged the affections and seduced the
heart of Mrs. MacNamara, who was a cousin of my own, and the daughter of
the Rev. W. Dudgeon, in whose house I had been “brought up,” &c. I had
withdrawn her from her husband, and taken her to live with me at Lahneck
under the name of Dacre, where our course of life--openly, fearlessly
infamous--was proved by a host of witnesses; in particular, by a certain
Virginie, maid of the respondent, who deposed to having frequently found
me at her feet, and who confessed to have received costly presents
to seduce her into favoring the cause of the betrayer. Mr. Bracken,
a retired detective, who produced what were called the love-letters,
amused the jury considerably by his account of my mad freaks and
love-sick performances. As for Mrs. MacNamara herself, she entered
no appearance to the suit; and the decree _nisi_ was pronounced, with
damages of five thousand pounds, against Paul Gosslett, who, the counsel
declared, was in “a position to pay handsomely for his vices, and who
had ample means to afford himself the luxury of adultery.” I was told
that the mob were prepared to stone me if I had been seen; and that,
such was the popular excitement about me, a strong police force was
obliged to accompany a red-whiskered gentleman to his house because
there was a general impression abroad that he was Gosslett.
Of course I need not say I never ventured back to England; and I indite
this, my last confession, from a small village in Bohemia, where I live
in board--partial board it is--with a very humble family, who, though
not complimentary to me in many things, are profuse in the praises of my
appetite.
I rarely see an English newspaper; but a Galignani fell in my way about
a week ago, in which I read the marriage of Mrs. MacNamara with R. St.
John, Esq., the then Secretary of Legation at Rio. This piece of news
gave me much matter of reflection as to my unhappy victim, and has
also enabled me to unseal my lips about the bridegroom, of whom I knew
something once before.
The man who is always complaining is the terror of his friends; hence,
if nothing but bad luck attend we, I shall trouble the world no more
with my Confessions; if Fate, however, should be pleased to smile ever
so faintly on me, you shall hear once more from poor Paul Gosslett.
THE END.