Oh, love! no habitant of earth thou art--
An unseen seraph, we believe in thee,
A faith, whose martyrs are the broken heart,
But never yet hath seen, nor e’er shall see
The naked eye, thy form, as it should be;
The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven,
Even with its own desiring phantasy,
And to a thought such shape and image given,
As haunts, the unquench’d soul--parch’d, wearied, wrung, and riven.
-Childe Harold.
A sudden involuntary effort of the memory had nearly cost Flora Wilton
her life.
In that dreadful moment, when the house in which she had for years
resided was a prey to the raging flames, when her own escape--owing
to the fearful rapidity with which the fire gained ascendancy--was a
question of doubt, she had remembered a packet of papers, which her
father had given into her charge, with injunctions to preserve it, even
at the hazard of her life.
It had been placed by herself in a spot, which though secret, was yet
of easy access. To obtain it would be but the act of a minute; the
fire-escape conductor had yet to return to convey her from the burning
house, to the street below; and she made the attempt simultaneously with
the conception of the thought.
The room she entered was densely filled with smoke. She obtained the
object of her search. She remembered no more.
When again consciousness returned to her, she was in the arms of Hal,
high in the air, upon a dreadful slope, the ruddy glare of the roaring
flames making visible to her the frightful danger of her position. She
relapsed into insensibility, and when once more she opened her eyes, she
found herself in bed, the motherly face of an elderly woman bending over
her, and her wrist in the hand of a white-haired medical attendant, who
had himself applied the restoratives which had brought her back to life.
A thousand questions thronged to her lips, first wonder, then
incoherence, then, with an awakening sense of what had happened, her
desolate destitute condition burst with full force upon her, and she
fell into a passionate fit of weeping.
The soft, kindly voice of the woman at her side was addressed to her in
soothing tones, while the strictest injunctions fell from the lips of
the doctor, forbidding speech on either side. He recommended Flora
to commend herself to God, and then endeavour to sleep, under the
conviction that the fearful event in which she had borne so prominent a
part had not involved any loss of life.
Poor Flora! she had no words at command, no language in which to express
the emotions the horrors of the night had occasioned, and she obeyed the
doctor’s behest of silence simply because her tongue refused its office.
She listened to the exhortations addressed to her, and made a feeble
motion to the effect that she would endeavour to comply with the wishes
that had been expressed: and so she was left alone.
Where was she?
She cast her weeping eyes around; but, in the well-furnished room,
recognised no object that could enlighten her upon that point. By the
aid of the light of the candle, which had been left burning upon a
table, she could distinguish everything in the room plainly enough, but
there was nothing to tell her whose house she was within.
But she had a surmise. Women, quick at assumption, are rarely far wrong
in their suppositions.
Flora, when she opened her eyes to find herself at a dizzy height above
the uproar of the excited multitude assembled to witness the destruction
of the dwelling by the remorseless fire, saw, too, that she was in the
firm grasp of Harry Vivian. She remembered that now; and she was led to
believe, therefore, that she had been conveyed by him to the house of
his uncle, and that the kind and tender matron who had spoken to her
such words of tenderness was his aunt.
Her lip quivered as the thought passed through her mind, and
when--following the counsel of the doctor, no less than the dictates of
her own pure mind--she offered up a prayer of thankfulness to the Throne
of Grace for her escape, she invoked a blessing upon the head of him who
had perilled so much to accomplish the work of her deliverance.
It has been said that it is seldom a woman disposes of her own
heart--circumstances decide for her. One thing is certain--that she does
not long remain in ignorance when her heart has been made captive. A man
may for some time believe and assure himself that he only admires and
esteems some very pretty girl: an accident will, however, disclose to
him that he loves her. This is not the case with woman: a man upon whom
she casts at first an indifferent eye may possess attractions which,
gradually gaining her good will, ultimately win her affections; but her
heart will no sooner be his than she becomes cognizant of the fact, and
she takes her position accordingly.
Flora had been present many times when Hal Vivian had visited her father
upon business. She had been irresistibly struck by his handsome face
and well-formed figure, his pleasant expression of countenance, and his
mild, courteous manner; but, if she had then thought of him at all, it
was to consider him as an amiable young man--bearing the palm, perhaps,
from every other she had as yet seen--nothing more.
Now, as she sought to close her eyes in sleep, she saw vividly his face,
the bright red glow of the fire glaring upon it; she saw his glittering
eye, his contracted brow, his inflated nostril, and compressed lip, the
collective symbols of brave energy; she saw, too, that the contour was
handsome and noble--with an almost painful distinctness she perceived
that the daring effort of courage, which then so brilliantly animated
his fine face, was solely made to save her from a dreadful death.
While giving him full credit for the very noblest impulse, she had not
been true to her woman’s nature if she had not instinctively felt
that his arduous exertions received an impetus from some favourable
impression she had created upon him.
Indefinite, unacknowledged as this conception, in her agitated state,
really was, it was not without its influence in composing her to
slumber.
Her dead mother’s pale face seemed to look down upon her from its place
in heaven, gently and placidly. Her father’s countenance, quivering with
an agonised anxiety of expression, disturbed and sorrowful, oppressed
her, but the features of Hal floated before her vision, appearing to
grow brighter and brighter in her eyes, and to suggest a hopeful and
happy future.
It was broad daylight when she awoke. She turned her pained eyes around
her, and beheld at her side again that same kind, motherly face which
had been the first she looked upon the night before, when recovering
from insensibility. She was greeted with kind words as on the previous
occasion, and was permitted this time not only to recur mentally to
the sad event of the night before, but to obtain some control over her
natural emotions before a question was put to her, which called upon her
to utter a word. During this interval, she learned that all her surmises
had been founded on a true basis; that she was indebted to Hal Vivian
for an almost miraculous escape from a dreadful death, and that she had
been received and sheltered beneath the roof of Mr. Harper, where she
was assured that she was welcome to remain until some arrangements for
her comfort and convenience could be made.
Further, Flora was given to understand that the good Samaritan before
her was Mrs. Harper, who, though she had servants in the house, believed
that her own ministrations to the suffering girl would be attended with
more beneficial results than if she had delegated the task to others.
Mrs. Harper was a truly generous, kind-hearted woman, and her efforts to
serve others had, at least, the gratifying effect of rewarding herself,
for hitherto she had been so fortunate as not to misplace them, or throw
them away on unworthy objects. Her doves of pity and goodwill had always
brought her back an olive branch, and if they had not, it is doubtful
whether she would have ceased to render those services which came so
opportunely, and were so grateful to whoever needed them.
When Flora could command herself to speak, she, in warm and
eloquent terms, expressed her deep and earnest gratitude for that
self-sacrificing bravery which the nephew of Mrs. Harper had exhibited
in the behalf of herself, and to the goodness and charity of the old
lady, who, in her distress, had granted her so valuable an asylum.
“Don’t speak of it, my child,” returned Mrs. Harper. “For my part,
I wish my hospitality had been afforded to you under happier
circumstances. And as for Hal, Heaven bless us! I thought I should have
died when I saw him crawling with you up the roof of that horrible
old house over the way. I’m sure I never expected to see you come down
alive, either of you, and, in truth, I don’t believe you would if it
hadn’t been for those bold firemen, who, mercy on us! were up in the
flames, moving about like a parcel of demons in the fiery regions in the
play!”
Flora clasped her hands, and said sorrowfully--
“This perilling of life for me, and I can in no way repay it.”
“Tut, tut, my dear,” returned Mrs. Harper, “don’t think about
that--these men are paid for their work; it is their duty, and they are
used to it.”
“But Mr. Vivian?” suggested Flora.
“Just what I said, my dear,” observed Mrs. Harper, garrulously. “Hal is
neither paid for nor used to such work, but when I said so, he closed my
mouth with a kiss, and vowed that it was his duty that he had performed,
and if it was to do again he would not hesitate one minute to go through
all he did last night.”
“He is so noble!” said Flora, with the faintest of sighs.
“Poor fellow!” ejaculated Mrs. Harper. “He looks rather jaded this
morning, and so odd with his whiskers and eyebrows singed with the
fierce fire. Ah! it was a dreadful sight.”
“Dreadful!” exclaimed Flora, with a shudder.
“Yes, and he was so eager to know how you were,” continued Mrs. Harper,
“Dear me, what a many questions he asked me about you. Ah! well, I told
him you should yourself reply to him bye and bye.”
Flora was conscious of a rosy hue stealing into her cheek. She thought
of his deep, earnest eyes, and how steadfastly they would after the late
event settle upon hers, and how she would never be able to meet his,
though she had at other times and recently done so without even a
passing thought upon the matter.
Why was this? She sighed--perhaps she guessed.
It was some two or three days before she was enabled to grant an
interview to Hal, anxious as she was for the meeting. All her clothes
had been consumed by the fire, and Mrs. Harper’s dresses were “a world
too wide” for her.
Flora was not affected on the point of dress. She had no unnecessary or
false pride in that respect, but she had the natural regard to external
appearance, which every woman, young or old, unless utterly lost,
possesses; and, though she was not truly cognisant of the influence
a tasteful arrangement of well-fashioned garments would have in
heightening charms already of a very superior order, she had no desire
to present herself to Harry Vivian disguised in a dress sufficiently
capacious for Mrs. Harper, but in no degree contract-able to her
dimensions.
With most generous spirit and charming willingness, the old lady put
the powers of her draper and her dressmaker into active requisition, and
Flora was able to quit her room in the time mentioned.
She rapidly recovered her health and a certain serenity of mind. The
loss of all her father’s little property, buried among the charred ruins
opposite, was an evil to be regretted, but it was a fact which no grief
could disturb or obviate. A remedy was to be sought--something was to
be done for herself, probably for her father too, who, an inmate of a
prison, was scarcely likely to be able to help himself; and from the
moment she came to recognise and comprehend her position, her mind
busied itself in forming plans for the future, by which she should at
least be able to support him who had no one now in the wide, wide world
to look up to but herself.
She was hopeful and sanguine, but she knew very little of the world.
Old Mr. Harper knew a very great deal about it, plain and matter-of-fact
as he appeared. He had for some time past determined to have a country
house at Islington--in fact, had decided upon it, and was slowly
having it furnished. He pushed on the work now; for, after a very grave
consultation with Mrs. Harper, his wife, he decided that the poor girl,
bereaved of home by fire, and of a father by the law, could not turn out
into the streets. So, looking upon her as a trust confided to his care
by the Almighty, he resolved to take charge of her, house, feed, and
clothe her, until something was done in her behalf by such persons as
had a better title to perform the good work than himself.
Thus, at the end of a week, he calculated upon entering his new house at
Highbury, which he should leave in the morning and return to at night,
accompanied by his nephew, and he resolved that Flora Wilton should
become an inmate as well as those who constituted his family. He
absolutely chuckled to think what a delightful companion she would make
his wife, who, having lived so long in the old house in Clerkenwell,
would find the solitude of her new home, without such society as that
now ready for her, absolutely insupportable.
Mr. Harper confided to Hal the task of imparting to Flora his
intentions.
“She owes you something for the service you afforded her in escaping,”
said the old goldsmith, “and so if she raises any foolish objection,
the prompting of a reluctance to become burdensome, or any such stuff
as that--for she is just the sort of girl to show a great deal of pride,
you know--you will be able to combat her arguments and reason her out of
it.”
Hal’s face lighted up as though a sunbeam had made it radiant.
What happiness to have her dwelling at his home, her eyes to greet
him when he returned at night, and follow him when he departed in the
morning, her sweet-toned voice to welcome him and to speed him on his
way, her delicious presence to smoothe down the fatigues of his daily
labour, and to wile away imperceptibly hours which otherwise might drag
their slow length tediously along.
Harry Vivian, overflowing with Mr. Harper’s instructions and his own
emotions of delight, one morning by arrangement entered the room in
which Flora was seated alone, and advanced towards her shyly and slowly.
Flora, who, as the door opened, turned her gaze upon it as though she
Knew whose gentle hand was on the latch,
Ere the door had given him to her eyes,
as he made his way into the apartment, rose up. The colour fled from her
cheek, and she was seized with such a sudden and violent palpitation of
the heart that she was forced back into her chair again. She trembled
all over. Then her cheek flushed, and she felt once more impelled to
rise and hurry towards him to grasp his hand, and pour forth a torrent
of eloquent gratefulness. The emotion which she experienced was new and
strange to her; her every nerve thrilled rather with a sense of pleasure
rather than with any other feeling.
She was confused, dizzy. But withal, an overpowering gladness reigned
within her soul that he and she were once more face to face.
Ay, they were palm to palm, too. At first without a word. What could
they say? their hearts were too full for utterance; both remembered how
together they had trembled on the verge of eternity, and there was a
deep solemnity in the thought, which, for the moment, forbade speech.
Flora was the first--wonderful gift pertaining to woman--to recover her
self-possession. In words, low toned, but earnest and heartfelt, she
expressed her sense of the obligation she owed him, and though he,
recovering, too, his speech, would have stayed her, she was not to be so
checked, but gave utterance to all her full heart dictated.
“For my own life I am your debtor. I am sensible what I owe to you on
that account,” she observed, with much feeling, “and I can never, never
discharge the obligation; nay, perhaps I would not if I could,
for indeed, Mr. Vivian, after the brave and noble conduct you have
displayed, it affords me a gratification I have no words to describe, to
know that I shall henceforward be attached to you by ties of gratitude
which no adverse circumstances can ever sunder.”
Why did she suddenly turn so crimson, and look affrighted at the words
which she herself had uttered? Was it that Hal’s eye danced with joy, or
that he raised her hand to his lips, and pressed it with them?
Well, it matters not; her eye fell upon the ground, and her hand
remained within his; she did not offer to withdraw it, though he had
kissed it softly and tenderly it is true, but not without a little
_empressement_--if ever so little.
He had not seen her frightened look, but her words had made his heart
leap, and but that he had the proposition of his uncle to make, it is
not impossible that he would have responded to them by confessing that
her attachment, however ardent, was fully reciprocated by him. As it
was, he restrained himself.
“My dear Miss Wilton,” he said, in a somewhat tremulous tone, “do not
over-rate my services; I was excited by the occurrence, and acted upon
an impulse.”
“A noble one, Mr. Vivian.”
“But not uncommon. Thousands would have done as I have done, had they
similar opportunities, and I should have exerted myself equally had you
been an entire stranger to me.”
“That I believe,” said Flora, innocently and praise-fully.
“That is to say,” continued Hal, correcting himself, for he did not
quite like her to entertain that belief, “my impression is that I
should. I must acknowledge, Miss Wilton, that knowing you, as I have
had the honour of doing for some time, I had an additional incentive to
endeavour to snatch you from an awful death. I very much congratulate
myself that I succeeded, and I pray you to believe that you cannot be
more overjoyed at my good fortune than myself. Thank God, you are safe,
and I hope almost recovered from the fright. We will let the past go,
and cast an eye upon the future.”
“I have already done so,” interposed Flora.
“I do not dispute it, my dear Miss Wilton,” returned he, speaking
quietly yet firmly, as though to drown all opposition; “but my uncle has
been beforehand with you. He is a man of the world, and knows much;
he is a wealthy man, too, Miss Wilton, and can well afford to be kind,
considerate, and generous. He is quite alive to the very embarrassing
position in which the late sad disaster has placed you, and he is
anxious that you should not experience its inconvenience during the
interval which must elapse between any arrangements you may be able to
make hereafter for your future course. He has laid out his plans, with
which you are connected; he confesses that they are not without a little
selfishness in them, but he is wishful that you should overlook that,
and not offer any opposition to the proposal he has empowered me to make
to you.”
He, then, in the most delicate words he was able to employ, laid before
her his uncle’s plan, and begged her to assent to it.
To have refused, under present circumstances, would have been simply
a preposterous absurdity; she had no such notion, but she felt this
additional kindness most acutely.
She remained silent, because she felt that she should sob as she spoke,
if she attempted to give utterance to her feelings. She turned her large
eyes, suffused in tears, upon him--he was easily able to read their
language.
With instinctive delicacy, desirous of sparing her further distress from
painful recollections, he terminated the interview here.
In a rejoiced spirit he interpreted her look of overflowing gratitude as
an acceptance of his uncle’s liberal offer, and he once more pressed her
unreluctant hand, as, relieving her of any necessity for speaking, he
informed her that he should convey to his kind-hearted relative her
judicious decision upon the matter.
If he were not in love now, it is more than doubtful if ever he could
be.
During the period which had elapsed between the rescue and the present
moment, Flora had not, for an instant, forgotten her father.
The expression of dire misery which pervaded his features, when he
parted from her in custody of Messrs. Jukes and Sudds, remained present
to her as vividly as though it had been photographed upon her vision.
It haunted her, and added greatly to the sad impression with which the
recent occurrences and several afflicting events had clouded her young
life in the years immediately past.
She wished so much to see her father again, to be with him, to minister
to his wants and to his comforts, to both of which, she felt assured,
he had no one to attend, and must, therefore, be plunged into a state of
despairing wretchedness.
In accepting the offer of Mr. Harper, she saw--in no selfish or
narrow-minded spirit, that she would, in her present dreadful strait, be
at least provided with a home, until some means were obtained to place
her where she would be no longer a burden to Mr. Harper, and she had
not, therefore, hesitated thankfully to fall in with the arrangement
proposed.
Yet she desired to be the companion and loving attendant upon her father
in prison.
In prison!
How that dreadful word rang in her ears!
She had but a vague notion of that receptacle for vice, dishonesty, and
misfortune. She had no clear perception of the difference between the
debtor’s and the criminal’s place of incarceration. To her it was one
huge black building, frowning and grim in its aspect without; all cells,
chains, and torture within.
To some such a place she believed her father to have been borne. She
shrank not to share his captivity She had a sense that the air would be
foul, stifling, pestiferous, and the cell wanting the light of day. She
pictured four black, mildewed walls, a straw bed, always damp with slime
and dank with humid earth, a small wretched table, a pitcher of water,
and a lump of dark, noisome bread. She had heard of such places. There
might be some alleviation where the crime was only inability to pay,
but a prison was still a prison, and hopeful as she might be that his
condition was not so bad, yet she could see it in no other light.
To Mrs. Harper she revealed her wishes, but that good lady not only
had a difficulty in believing in its practicability, but even in its
propriety.
Mr. Harper was consulted, and he hastened to set Flora right.
“Do not suppose,” he said, “Miss Wilton, that I have overlooked the
situation of your father--common humanity would have forbidden that.
I made it my duty to send to him, as early as the gates of the
establishment where he is detained were open, on the morning after the
fire, to let him know that the sad disaster had happened, but that his
child was safe in my charge. I further caused him to be informed that
as soon as you were able to leave your chamber, you would go to him, and
explain all that I was unable to communicate.”
“Oh, sir! let me go to him at once,” cried Flora eagerly.
“If you feel strong enough, certainly,” replied Mr. Harper.
“Oh, sir! I am quite strong enough, quite--indeed I am. I so long to see
him; I have so much, so very much to say to him.”
“Be it so; Hal shall accompany you to protect you. You cannot go alone.”
“No?”
“No! it would not be well to do so. Through the agency of some unknown
friend, a writ of _habeas corpus_ has been obtained, and your father has
been removed from Whitecross Street to the Queen’s Prison--all of which
you do not understand. However, there he is, and the place is one of
which you can have no conception. The assemblage there is large, mixed,
and not scrupulous in its behaviour. You would be bewildered without
some one to make inquiries for you, and be, perhaps, rudely assailed by
the unreflecting or the callous and the impertinent. Yes; Hal shall go
with you, and you will, believe me, find the prison somewhat different
to the picture you have sketched in your imagination.”
Flora listened in silence, and acquiesced in the arrangement, not that
the disagreeable part of it would be the society of Hal--nay, she would
have gone with Jukes rather than not have gone at all, malicious ogre as
she considered him--but she would have preferred to have gone alone.
She felt an intuitive reluctance that Hal, whom she so much esteemed,
and whom, therefore, she would have wished to have seen her relatives
in their best light, should visit her father in a prison, and that the
visit should be paid with her.
But inexorable circumstances compelling, she set out with him, her
small hand resting upon his arm, and making him feel a far wealthier and
happier potentate than any monarch that ever reigned upon earth.