HARLEY STREET.
While I was thus passing my time at Fairburn, at work with my tutor, in
rides rendered doubly lonesome by contrast with those made so enjoyable
by the company of my friend, or in rambles about the solitary Chase, the
course of true love was running more smoothly in Harley Street than it
is fabled to do. During each of my visits there, I had perceived its
silent increase even more clearly than those between whom it was growing
up into the perfect flower, leaf by leaf, and bud by bud; they had
tended it together--Marmaduke and Lucy--until it was well nigh in
blossom, and yet they had not said to one another, and perhaps not even
to themselves, "Why, this is surely Love." Mr. Gerard had watched it,
not displeased, for he had found the young man all that my heart had
foretold that he would; Mr. Clint had seen it, and won by the strong
sense, as much as by the beauty of the gentle girl, forgot the
revolutionary stock of which she came. This, thought he, is the wife for
Marmaduke Heath; tender, but yet determined; dutiful, but indisposed to
submit to unauthorized dictation; as fearless as kind. In her, once
wedded to this young man, so morbid, so sensitive, so yielding, Sir
Massingberd would find, if it should be necessary, not only a foe,
resolute herself, but as firm as steel for him whom she had dowered with
her love. What Marmaduke's nature wanted, hers would supply. The keen
lawyer foresaw for that unhappy family, whose interests he and his had
had in keeping so many scores of years, a future such as had never been
promised before. It was an admission painful to me enough at that time,
but which I could not conceal from myself, that the real obstacle which
prevented the open recognition of attachment between these two young
people was Marmaduke himself. No girl more modest or less forward than
Lucy Gerard ever breathed, but I knew--ah, how well I knew!--that a word
from him would have brought the love-light to her eyes, which now lay
waiting but for it in the careful keeping of her maiden heart. But that
word had not been spoken. Perfect love, Marmaduke did not yet feel, for
he had not quite cast out fear. How can a man offer heart and hand to a
woman whom he does not feel certain that he can protect? It is for this
reason that marriage among slaves must for ever be a mockery. There
was, of course, no danger to Lucy Gerard in her marrying with Marmaduke,
although his uncle should storm "No" a thousand times; but the young man
felt that he was unworthy of her, while he entertained any terror of
him. It was wearing away; it was weakening day by day, through genial
influences, and the absence of all things which reminded him of Fairburn
and its master, but it was not dead yet. If by these words, I lead any
of my readers to suppose that Marmaduke Heath had the least resemblance
to that thing which is called a Coward, I have done my friend a grievous
wrong. Let me do away with the possibility of this most mistaken notion,
at once and for ever, by the recital of an event which, although it does
not come within the scope of the present narrative, nearly concerns one
of its most important characters.
After the peace in 1815, there were more officers--English and
French--killed in single combat in Paris than in any one of the most
bloody battles of the late war. This desire to exterminate individual
Englishmen extended over the whole of France. A certain gentleman of my
acquaintance, then a very young man, chanced to be passing through a
town in Normandy, where an assemblage was collected outside the office
of the mayor. This arose from the very uncommon circumstance that that
functionary had been appealed to by a post-captain in the English navy
to punish a bullying Frenchman, who had striven to fasten a quarrel upon
him, although entirely unprovoked on his part. Now-a-days, the captain
would have been held to have behaved rightly enough, perhaps, but in
those fire-eating times an honest man's life was at the mercy of every
worthless ruffian who chose to run an equal risk with him from powder
and bullet. The decision, wonderful to relate, was given by the mayor
against his compatriot, and the crowd were correspondingly enraged. My
friend, whose nationality was apparent, was hustled and ill-treated, and
one person, well-dressed, and evidently of good position, knocked his
hat off, observing at the same time: "You will complain of me to the
mayor for that."
"Certainly not," returned the young Englishman quietly, picking his hat
up, all broken and muddy, from the trampled ground: "I shall treat you
very differently."
"You will fight, will you? Come--I challenge you. Let us fight to-morrow
morning," exclaimed the bully, who was, as it turned out, a notorious
provincial duellist.
"Not to-morrow, but now," rejoined my friend; "I have no time to wait
here, for I must be in Paris on Tuesday."
"Then it will be in Père la Chaise," responded the other brutally.
There was no difficulty in procuring seconds, which were even more
plentiful in those parts than principals, and the whole party
immediately left the town for a wood outside its suburbs. The choice of
weapons of course lay with the Englishman.
"Which do you prefer," asked the Frenchman who acted as his friend upon
the occasion--"the pistol or the sword?"
"I have never fired a pistol in my life," replied the Englishman, "nor
handled a sword."
"Heavens!" cried his second, "what a barbarous education, what a
stupendous ignorance! You are as good as dead, I fear. I know not which
to recommend you. It is, however, at least sooner over with the
pistol."
"The pistol be it then," said the Englishman coolly. "I elect that only
one shall be loaded; and that we fire within four paces of one another.
We shall then have an equal chance."
The duellist turned pale as the death that threatened him, but he did
not venture to make any objection. It was manifest no other proposal
would have been fair. The seconds went apart, and placed powder and ball
in one weapon, powder only in the other. The combatants drew lots for
choice. The Frenchman won. The pistols were lying on a log of wood; he
advanced towards them, took one up in his hand, and retired with it,
then once more came back, and exchanged it for the other. He fancied
that the weapon was lighter than it should have been if it had a ball
within it. My friend's second objected strongly to this course; he
called it even unfair and shameful; he protested that the pistol taken
first ought to be retained. But the young Englishman, who was leaning
carelessly against a tree, exclaimed, "Let the gentleman have which he
likes. Whether he is right or not will be decided in a few seconds." So
the combatants were placed opposite to one another, and advanced to
within four paces. They raised their weapons; the word was given to
fire, and the Frenchman fell, pierced through the heart.
"His blood is upon his own head," exclaimed the other solemnly. "He was
brave enough to have been a better man." Then perceiving that his help
could be of no avail to his late antagonist, he lifted his battered hat
to the Frenchman that remained alive, and returning to his carriage,
immediately resumed his journey.
It is not possible, without putting some very strained and unusual
meaning on the word, to call the hero of such an adventure a coward; yet
the man who acted thus was Marmaduke Heath.
The above relation is but a clumsy method of proving him courageous, I
am well aware; but I really know not otherwise how to make him appear
so, slave, as it is seen he was, to terrors which must seem almost
imaginary. It is said that no man, however fearless, quite gets over his
awe of his schoolmaster. An exaggeration of this sentiment probably
possessed this unfortunate young man; added to which was the fact that
Sir Massingberd was his uncle, a family tie which was doubtless not
without its influence, notwithstanding Marmaduke's evil opinion of his
own race. I suspect, too, he entertained a morbid notion that his own
life and that of his relative were somehow bound up together in one;
and on the few occasions when I ever saw him moved to wrath, a
similarity--mental as well as physical--between him and his uncle became
apparent, which actually inspired him with a sort of awe and hatred of
_himself_. A noble mind more injured and misshapen by ill-training it
was impossible to imagine. For the last few months, however, as I have
said, it had been growing aright, and gaining strength and vigour. No
home--even Mr. Clint and my tutor felt that--could possibly be better
adapted for him than his present one; the society of Mr. Gerard, a man
independent almost to audacity, and despising the haughty and the strong
with a supreme contempt, was the very tonic he needed. Rarely, however,
was his uncle's name mentioned in his presence: at first, Mr. Gerard had
purposely spoken of Sir Massingberd lightly and jestingly, but it was
found that the subject had better be altogether avoided. It is ill to
jest upon earthquakes with one who, having but just recovered from
certain shocks of a volcanic nature, is not without apprehensions of
more to come. This anticipation turned out to be but too well grounded.
A day or two after my discovery of the baronet's poor gipsy-wife at
Fairburn, whose existence was well known, I found, to both the rector
and Mr. Clint, and of course to Marmaduke himself, the postman carried
misfortune from me to Harley Street, although I was myself as
unconscious of the fact as he. Marmaduke did not come in to luncheon
from his study, as usual, and Mr. Gerard was sent with a gay message to
him by Lucy, to bid him do so. He was not wanted, he was to be assured,
upon his own account at all, but she was dying to hear news of Peter,
whose handwriting she had perceived upon the letter that had been sent
in to him that morning. Mr. Gerard found the poor lad with his eyes
riveted upon an autograph that was not mine, and upon words that I would
rather have cut off my hand than knowingly have sent him:
"Nephew Marmaduke,--I am told, whether falsely or not, it does not
matter now, that you have not seen the letter which I previously sent to
you. I think you can scarcely have done so, or you would not have dared
to disobey my orders therein contained, but would have returned to
Fairburn long ago. At all events, you will read _this_ with your own
eyes, and beware how you hesitate to comply with it. _Return hither,
sir, at once._ It is idle to suppose that I wish you harm, as those you
are with would fain persuade you; but it is far worse than idle to
attempt to cross my will. Come back to Fairburn, and I will behave
towards you as though you had not acted in your late undutiful manner.
Delay to do so, and be sure that you will still have to return, but
under very different circumstances. Marmaduke Heath, you should know me
well by this time. When I say 'Come,' it is bad for the person to whom I
speak to reply, 'I will not come.' I give you twenty-four hours to
arrive here after the receipt of this letter; when these have elapsed
without my seeing you, I shall consider your absence to be equivalent to
a contumacious refusal. Then war will begin between us; and the strife
will be unequal, Nephew Marmaduke; although you had fifty men at your
back like lawyer Clint and this man Gerard, they could not keep you
from my arm. It will reach you wheresoever you are, at the time you
least suspect it, and from the quarter to which you have least looked.
However well it may seem to be with you, it will not be well. When you
think yourself safest, you will be most in danger. There is indeed but
one place of safety for you: come you home.
"MASSINGBERD HEATH."
The wily baronet had fooled me, and doubtless, when I rose to light the
taper, had substituted the above letter for that which he had persuaded
me to enclose to his unhappy nephew.