SOPHY'S CLAIM EXAMINED AND CANVASSED.
"I take this moment," said Darrell, when left alone with Waife--(ah,
reader, let us keep to that familiar name to the last!)--"I take this
moment," said Darrell, "the first moment in which you can feel thoroughly
assured that no prejudice against yourself clouds my judgment in
reference to her whom you believe to be your grandchild, to commence, and
I trust to conclude forever, the subject which twice brought you within
these walls. On the night of your recent arrival here, you gave this
copy of a French woman's declaration, to the effect that two infants had
been placed out with her to nurse; that one of them was my poor
daughter's infant, who was about to be taken away from her; that the
other was confided to her by its parent, a French lady, whom she speaks
of as a very liberal and distinguished person, but whose name is not
stated in the paper."
WAIFE.--"The confession describes that lady as an artiste; distinguished
artiste is the expression-viz., a professional person--a painter--an
actress--a singer--or--"
DARRELL (drily).--"An opera-dancer! I understand the French word
perfectly. And I presume the name is not mentioned in the document, from
motives of delicacy; the child of a distinguished French artiste is not
necessarily born in wedlock. But this lady was very grateful to the
nurse for the care shown to her infant, who was very sickly; and promised
to take the nurse, and the nurse's husband also, into her service. The
nurse states that she herself was very poor; that the lady's offer
appeared to her like a permanent provision; that the life of this
artiste's infant was of the utmost value to her--the life of my poor
daughter's child of comparative insignificance. But the infant of the
artiste died, and the nurse's husband put it into his wife's head to tell
your son (then a widower, and who had seen so little of his child as to
be easily deceived), that it was his infant who died. The nurse shortly
afterwards removed to Paris, taking with her to the artiste's house the
child who in reality was my daughter's."
"It seems very probable, does it not--does it not?" said the ex-comedian
eagerly.
"It seems to me," replied the ex-lawyer, "very probable that a witness,
entering into court with the confession of one villanous falsehood, would
have little scruple to tell another. But I proceed. This rich and
liberal artiste dies; the nurse's conscience then suddenly awakens--she
sees Mr. Hammond--she informs him of the fraud she has practised. A lady
of rank, who had known Matilda, and had seen both the infants when both
were living under the nurse's charge, and observed them more attentively
than your son had done--corroborates the woman's story, stating that the
artiste's child had dark eyes instead of blue; that the artiste herself
was never deceived--but, having taken a great fancy to the spurious
infant, was willing to receive and cherish it as her own; and that she
knows several persons who will depose that they heard the artiste say
that the child was not her own. On this evidence your son takes to
himself this child--and this child is your Sophy--and you wish me to
acknowledge her as my daughter's offspring. Do not look me so earnestly
in the face, my dear and respected guest. It was when you read in my
face what my lips shrank from uttering that your emotions overcame your
strength, and your very mind deserted you. Now, be firmer. Your Sophy
has no need of me--she is under your charge, and your name is cleared.
She has found a friend--a protectress--in her own sex. Lady Montfort's
rank gives to her a position in the world as high as I could offer; and
as to mere pecuniary provision for her, make your mind easy--it shall be
secured. But bear with me when I add, resolutely and calmly, that this
nurse's attestation is to me a grosser and poorer attempt at imposture
than I had anticipated; and I am amazed that a man of your abilities
should have been contented to accept it."
"Oh, Mr. Darrell, don't say so! It was such a blessing to think, when my
son was lost to me, that I might fill up the void in my heart with an
innocent, loving child. Don't talk of my abilities. If you, whose
abilities none can question--if you had longed and yearned for such a
comforter--if you had wished--if you wished now this tale to be true, you
would have believed it too; you would believe it now--you would indeed.
Two men look so differently at the same story--one deeply interested that
it should be true--one determined, if possible, to find it false. Is it
not so?"
Darrell smiled slightly, but could not be induced to assent even to so
general a proposition. He felt as if he were pitted against a counsel
who would take advantage of every concession.
Waife continued. "And whatever seems most improbable in this confession,
is rendered probable at once--if--if--we may assume that my unhappy son,
tempted by the desire to--to--"
"Spare yourself--I understand-if your son wished to obtain his wife's
fortune, and therefore connived at the exchange of the infants, and was
therefore, too, enabled always to corroborate the story of the exchange
whenever it suited him to reclaim the infant, I grant this--and I grant
that the conjecture is sufficiently plausible to justify you in attaching
to it much weight. We will allow that it was his interest at one time to
represent his child, though living, as no more; but you must allow also
that he would have deemed it his interest later, to fasten upon me, as my
daughter's, a child to whom she never gave birth. Here we entangle
ourselves in a controversy without data, without facts. Let us close it.
Believe what you please. Why should I shake convictions that render you
happy? Be equally forbearing with me. I do full justice to your Sophy's
charming qualities. In herself, the proudest parent might rejoice to own
her; but I cannot acknowledge her to be the daughter of Matilda Darrell.
And the story that assured you she was your grandchild, still more
convinces me that she is not mine!"
"But be not thus inflexible, I implore you;--you can be so kind, so
gentle;--she would be such a blessing to you--later--perhaps--when I am
dead. I am pleading for your sake--I owe you so much! I should repay
you, if I could but induce you to inquire--and if inquiry should prove
that I am right."
"I have inquired sufficiently."
"'Then I'll go and find out the nurse. I'll question her. I'll--"
"Hold. Be persuaded! Hug your belief! Inquire no farther!"
"Why--why?"
Darrell was mute.
Waife passed and repassed his hand over his brow, and then cried
suddenly: "But if I could prove her not to be my grandchild, then she
might be happy!--then--then-ah, sir, young Haughton tells me that if she
were but the daughter of honest parents--no child of Jasper's, no
grandchild of mine--then you might not be too proud to bless her at least
as his bride! And, sir, the poor child loves the young man. How could
she help it? And, at her age, life without hope is either very short, or
very, very long! Let me inquire! I should be happy even to know that
she was not my grandchild. I should not love her less; and then she
would have others to love her when I am gone to Lizzy!"
Darrell was deeply moved. To him there was something in this old man-
ever forgetting himself, ever so hurried on by his heart--something, I
say, in this old man, before which Darrell felt his intellect subdued and
his pride silenced and abashed.
"Yes, sir," said Waife, musingly, "so let it be. I am well now. I will
go to France to-morrow."
Darrell nerved his courage. He had wished to spare Waife the pain which
his own persuasions caused to himself. Better now to be frank. He laid
his hand on Waife's shoulder, and looking him in the face, said solemnly:
"I entreat you not! Do you suppose that I would not resume inquiry in
person, nor pause till the truth were made amply clear, if I had not
strong reason to prefer doubt to certainty?"
"What do you mean, sir?"
"There is a woman whose career is, I believe, at this moment revived into
fresh notoriety as the heroine of some drama on the stage of Paris--a
woman who, when years paled her fame and reft her spoils, as a courtesan
renowned for the fools she had beggared, for the young hearts she had
corrupted, sought plunder still by crimes, to which law is less lenient;
charged with swindling, with fraud, with forgery, and at last more than
suspected as a practised poisoner, she escaped by suicide the judgment of
human tribunals."
"I know of whom you speak--that dreadful Gabrielle Desmarets, but for
whom my sacrifice to Jasper's future might not have been in vain! It was
to save Sophy from the chance of Jasper's ever placing her within reach
of that woman's example that I took her away."
"Is it not, then, better to forbear asking who were your Sophy's parents,
than to learn from inquiry that she is indeed your grandchild, and that
her mother was Gabrielle Desmarets?"
Waife uttered a cry like a shriek, and then sate voiceless and aghast.
At last he exclaimed: "I am certain it is not so! Did you ever see that
woman?"
"Never that I know of; but George tells me that he heard your son state
to you that she had made acquaintance with me under another name, and if
there was a design to employ her in confirmation of his tale--if he was
then speaking truth to you, doubtless this was the lady of rank referred
to in the nurse's confession--doubtless this was the woman once palmed
upon me as Matilda's confidante. In that case I have seen her. What
then?"
"Mother was not written on her face! She could never have been a mother.
Oh, you may smile, sir; but all my life I have been a reader of the human
face; and there is in the aspect of some women the barrenness as of
stone--no mother's throb in their bosom--no mother's kiss on their lips."
"I am a poor reader of women's faces," said Darrell; "but she must be very
unlike women in general, who allows you to know her a bit better if you
stood reading her face till doomsday. Besides, at the time you saw
Gabrielle Desmarets, her mode of life had perhaps given to her an aspect
not originally in her countenance. And I can only answer your poetic
conceit by a poetic illustration--Niobe turned to stone; but she had a
great many daughters before she petrified. Pardon me, if I would turn
off by a jest a thought that I see would shock you, as myself, if gravely
encouraged. Encourage it not. Let us suppose it only a chance that
inquiry might confirm this conjecture; but let us shun that chance.
Meanwhile, if inquiry is to be made, one more likely than either of us
to get at the truth has promised to make it, and sooner or later we may
learn from her the results--I mean that ill-fated Arabella Fossett, whom
you knew as Crane."
Waife was silent; but he kept turning in his hand, almost disconsolately,
the document which assoiled him from the felon's taint, and said at
length, as Darrell was about to leave, "And this thing is of no use to
her, then?"
Darrell came back to the old man's chair, and said softly: "Friend, do
not fancy that the young have only one path to happiness. You grieve
that I cannot consent to Lionel's marriage with your Sophy. Dismiss from
your mind the desire for the Impossible. Gently wean from hers what is
but a girl's first fancy."
"It is a girl's first love."
"And if it be," said Darrell, calmly, "no complaint more sure to yield to
change of air. I have known a girl as affectionate, as pure, as full of
all womanly virtues, as your Sophy (and I can give her no higher praise)
--loved more deeply than Lionel can love; professing, doubtless at the
time believing, that she also loved for life; betrothed too; faith
solemnised by promise; yet in less than a year she was another's wife.
Change of air, change of heart! I do not underrate the effect which a
young man, so winning as Lionel, would naturally produce on the fancy or
the feelings of a girl, who as yet, too, has seen no others; but
impressions in youth are characters in the sand. Grave them ever so
deeply, the tide rolls over them; and when the ebb shows the surface
again, the characters are gone, for the sands are shifted. Courage!
Lady Montfort will present to her others with forms as fair as Lionel's,
and as elegantly dressed. With so much in her own favour, there are
young patricians enough who will care not a rush what her birth;--young
lords--Lady Montfort knows well how fascinating young lords can be!
Courage! before a year is out, you will find new characters written on
the sand."
"You don't know Sophy, sir," said Waife, simply; "and I see you are
resolved not to know her. But you say Arabella Crane is to inquire; and
should the inquiry prove that she is no child of Gabrielle Desmarets--
that she is either your own grandchild or not mine--that--"
"Let me interrupt you. If there be a thing in the world that is cruel
and treacherous, it is a false hope! Crush out of every longing thought
the belief that this poor girl can prove to be one whom, with my consent,
my kinsman can woo to be his wife. Lionel Haughton is the sole kinsman
left to whom I can bequeath this roof-tree--these acres hallowed to me
because associated with my earliest lessons in honour and with the dreams
which directed my life. He must take with the heritage the name it
represents. In his children, that name of Darrell can alone live still
in the land. I say to you, that even were my daughter now in existence,
she would not succeed me--she would not inherit nor transmit that name.
Why?--not because I am incapable of a Christian's forgiveness, but
because I am not capable of a gentleman's treason to his ancestors and
himself;--because Matilda Darrell was false and perfidious; because she
was dead to honour, and therefore her birthright to a heritage of honour
was irrevocably forfeited. And since you compel me to speak rudely,
while in you I revere a man above the power of law to degrade--while,
could we pass a generation, and Sophy were your child by your Lizzy, I
should proudly welcome an alliance that made you and me as brothers--yet
I cannot contemplate--it is beyond my power--I cannot contemplate the
picture of Jasper Losely's daughter, even by my own child, the Mistress
in my father's home--the bearer of my father's name. 'Tis in vain to
argue. Grant me the slave of a prejudice--grant these ideas to be
antiquated bigotry--I am too old to change. I ask from others no
sacrifice which I have not borne. And whatever be Lionel's grief at my
resolve, grief will be my companion long after he has forgotten that he
mourned."