THE WHEEL TURNS
“Thus artists melt the sullen ore of lead,
By heaping coals of fire upon its head.”
GOLDSMITH.
When the Countess of Dashleigh, with bitter words of reproach, had
departed from the cottage of Bardon, she left her late entertainers in
a state of mind little to be envied. The unfortunate Cecilia was for
the rest of the day much in the position of one who, with hands tied,
is caged up with a large hornet which has been irritated, and which
goes about buzzing with evident determination to find or to make a foe.
Everything went wrong with the doctor, and his daughter was the only
being within reach of the hornet’s sting!
Bardon’s temper broke out especially at dinner, where every little luxury
which had been prepared for Annabella served as a provocation to her
irritated host. The unfortunate chicken (a delicacy till lately almost
unknown at the little cottage), could not have been more denounced as
tough, tasteless, and uneatable, if it had been a roasted owl. The
tartlets (made surreptitiously by poor Cecilia in the absence of Mrs.
Bates) roused such an angry storm against all the inventors, makers, and
eaters of such abominable trash, that Cecilia silently resolved that they
should never appear on the table again; she would rather throw them into
the road! Miss Bardon’s gaily tinted bubble of grandeur had broken, and
left behind nothing but bitterness and—bills!
The fact was that Dr. Bardon was angry with himself, though a great deal
too proud to own it. He was haunted by the countenance of the unfortunate
Dashleigh as he last had seen it in the car, and had a strong persuasion
on his mind that the earl, in a fit of frenzy, would fling himself out
of the balloon, and be dashed to pieces in the fall! The subject of the
ascent of the _Eaglet_ was one so painful to Bardon that he would endure
no allusion to it; and Cecilia soon discovered that there was no method
of raising a storm so certain, as that of uttering aloud the conjectures
and apprehensions to which such an event naturally gave rise. Silence,
particularly on so interesting a subject, was a cruel penance to the poor
lady, to whom gossip was one of the few remaining pleasures of life, but
to that penance she was obliged to submit as being the lesser of two
evils.
The anxious vicar himself had not passed a more disturbed night with
the images of his child and his brother breaking his rest, than did the
proud old doctor. Conscience had at length made him miserable, although
it had not made him meek. He was no longer stormy, but he was sullen; and
he did not even choose to communicate to his daughter his intention of
calling on the Aumerles as soon as his breakfast should be concluded, in
order to inquire whether anything had been heard of the missing balloon.
The postman, who had just left at the vicarage “The Fairy Lake” for
the Countess of Dashleigh, now called at the cottage with a letter.
The doctor’s correspondents were so very few in number that such an
event was sufficiently rare to excite attention; and Bardon’s mind was
so pre-occupied with the idea of coming misfortune and death, that he
turned pale on seeing that the epistle directed to him was sealed and
deep-bordered with black.
Cecilia, who had her full allowance of natural curiosity, watched the
countenance of her father as he broke open and perused the letter.
She saw his colour return, while his eye-brows were elevated as if in
surprise; he read the epistle twice without comment, and then silently
handed it over to his daughter.
The letter was a formal notification from the executors of the late
Thomas Auger, Esq., that that gentleman had, by a will executed but a few
days previous to his decease, given and bequeathed the dwelling-house
called Nettleby Tower, and the land appertaining thereto, to Timon
Bardon, M.D., the only surviving son of their former proprietor; and that
he willed also that the said Timon Bardon should be paid from his estate
a sum equal to that which had been expended by him in his lawsuit with
the testator for the property above mentioned.
Cecilia, almost as much delighted as she was surprised, glanced up
eagerly at her father. She read no exultation in his countenance, but
rather a thoughtful sorrow, which his daughter could scarcely understand.
Could she have penetrated his reflections, they would have appeared
somewhat like the following: “Such, then, was the last act of the man
whom I hated, over the announcement of whose death I gloated with
malignant triumph! He remembered me on his death-bed; while struggling
with the last enemy, he sought to make reparation for a wrong committed
years ago, but never forgotten or forgiven by me. Through his sense of
justice, I am at length restored to the home and estate of my fathers.
Prosperity is sent to me, but through a channel so unexpected, and at a
moment so painful, that I scarcely know how to welcome it, for I feel as
though I did not deserve it.”
“Papa,” cried Cecilia, “do you not rejoice?”
Bardon turned silently away. To compare greater things with less, his
were something of the emotions of a child who has justly incurred a
parent’s displeasure, and who, while awaiting in a spirit of sullen
rebellion a further manifestation of wrath, is surprised by a sudden
token of love, unexpected as unmerited. The child, if a spark of
generous feeling be left in his nature, is more pained by the kindness
of his offended parent than he would have been by a sign of anger. His
heart is melted; his conscience is touched. Timon Bardon had hardened
his heart in adversity; he had girt on the panoply of pride; he had
gloried in his powers of endurance, as one ready to do battle with the
world, and to trample down all its frivolous distinctions. He had been
ever trying to conceal the fact that he was a sad and disappointed
man, both from himself and others, by affecting a contempt for all the
worldly advantages which Providence had seen fit to deny; but to have
these advantages suddenly restored to him, and at a period when he was
conscious,—could not but be conscious,—that he had merited a Father’s
chastening rod, had a much more softening effect upon him than would have
been produced by adversity’s heaviest stroke. The tidings which came in
the evening of the safety of the travellers in the _Eaglet_, gave a much
keener sense of pleasure to Bardon than had been produced by the news of
the morning.
And now we will return to the countess and her companions. The horses
of their carriage were urged to speed, yet were they barely in time to
catch the train, and the party had scarcely taken their seats before it
began to move on. Oh, how Annabella longed to give the wings of her own
impatience to the lagging engine! How her yearning spirit realized the
complaint,—
“Miles interminably spread,
Seem lengthening as I go!”
Night had closed around before the travellers reached the little station
which was nearest to the place of their destination,—a small, lonely post
at which the train merely stopped for two minutes to suffer the party to
alight.
“Can any conveyance be procured here?” asked Aumerle of the solitary
station official who was assisting to put down their luggage.
“No, sir,” was the unsatisfactory reply. “There was a chaise sent here
two hours ago for a gentleman who came by last train; nothing of the kind
is to be had here, unless it’s ordered aforehand from the town.”
“Is that chaise likely to return hither?”
“Can’t say, sir,” answered the man. “I believe that it took a doctor and
nurse to a place where a nobleman’s lying ill, who was picked up to-day
from the sea.”
“The sea!” echoed the astonished listeners.
“Fallen out of a balloon, as I understand,” said the man. “There was a
party of three, and they were all saved by one of our fishing-smacks that
was just coming in from a cruise.”
“Oh, guide us to the place where they are!” exclaimed the countess.
“Can’t leave the station, ma’am,” replied the official, looking with some
curiosity and interest on the pale, eager face on which the light of the
gas-lamp fell; “besides, I’ve not been long at this place, and don’t know
exactly where the cottage lies.”
“What are we to do?” exclaimed Ida.
“Now I think on it,” said the station-man, slowly, “the doctor asked me
when the last train would go back to Exeter to-night. I take it he’s
likely to return; and you could have the chaise that brings him.”
“When does that train pass?” inquired the vicar.
“Within an hour,” replied the man, glancing round at the large clock
behind him. “Will not the ladies walk into the waiting-room?—it is better
than standing out here on the platform.”
“It appears our best course,” said the vicar, addressing the countess,
“to await here the return of the doctor, and avail ourselves of the only
conveyance that seems likely to call here to-night.”
“Oh no, no!” exclaimed Annabella, wildly; “every minute of delay is an
age in purgatory! The doctor may never come. Augustine will not suffer
him to quit Dashleigh for an hour! I wait for no one; I will try to find
my way to the cottage;—I go at once, even if I go alone!”
As Annabella remained firm in her resolution, the party, after gleaning
such scanty information as the man at the station could give, and
procuring from him a lantern, set out on their dreary way. Perfect
darkness is seldom known in Devon on a night in May, but clouds and the
absence of the moon rendered the atmosphere unusually obscure. Strange
and phantom-like looked the black shadows of their own forms to the
travellers, as the glare of the lantern cast them on the chalky cliffs
that bordered their road. The path was rough and steep, strewn with stone
boulders here and there, which seemed to have rolled down from the rocky
heights above.
After a long, toilsome struggle up a gorge, where the countess much
needed the aid of the vicar’s arm, the party emerged on the summit of a
hill, whence in daylight they would have commanded an extensive prospect.
Now faint gleams of summer light alone revealed to them by glimpses what
appeared to be a wild, rocky valley, sloping down on the left to the sea,
the mournful murmur of whose billows came upon the sighing breeze. Viewed
by the imperfect light, the scene was very desolate and drear, and in its
gloomy sublimity struck a chill to the heart of Annabella.
“It is like the valley of the shadow of death!” she whispered to Ida
Aumerle.
“Even were it so, dearest,” was the reply, “is it not beyond the dark
valley that the land of promise lies?”
“To those who are sure of a welcome,” faltered forth the unhappy countess.
“I think that I hear the sound of wheels,” observed the vicar; “yes,—some
vehicle is evidently slowly ascending the steep hill before us.”
“Surely that of Dr. G—— upon its return,” suggested Ida.
The idea made all quicken their steps. Ida’s guess had been partially
correct; in front was the expected chaise, moving as if towards the
station.
As soon as the vehicle was sufficiently near, Mr. Aumerle hailed the
driver:—
“Whence do you come, my friend?”
“From Cliff Cottage,” replied a rough voice through the darkness, and
then the panting of a horse was heard.
“Is it the doctor?” exclaimed Annabella, pressing eagerly forward.
“No,” replied the voice. “A gentleman is ill; the doctor is staying the
night; I’m to return for him in the morning;” and the speaker cracked his
whip as a signal to the weary horse to move forward.
Arrangements were speedily made with the driver by Mr. Aumerle; the
conveyance was turned round at the first convenient spot, and in it the
ladies and the vicar were soon on their way to the cottage in which the
Earl of Dashleigh lay ill.
Few words were interchanged as the travellers descended the rough, and
almost precipitous road; indeed, the violent jolting would, under any
circumstances, have rendered conversation impossible. Progress was
necessarily slow, and it was some time before the party reached a lonely,
shingle-built cottage belonging to a fisherman, which stood almost on the
margin of the sea.
There was no need to knock at the low, rude door, for a quick ear within
had caught the sound of wheels, most unusual in that lonely spot, and the
vicar had scarcely had time to alight, before Mabel was in the arms of
her father!