Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall,
Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.
TENNYSON.
The shades of evening were closing over Montrevor, and candles had just
been lighted in the library, earlier than usual, as it seemed, for the
completion of some urgent business with which its occupants were
employed.
There were three individuals seated round the writing-table: Mr. Trevor,
his son Eugene, and a third person, who, with pen in hand, with
parchment opened before him, looked what he really was--a lawyer. He
wrote some time in silence, the old man rocking himself backwards and
forwards in his chair, as if nervous and weary; and the other leaning
over the table, watching the proceedings of the scribe with anxious
interest plainly revealed in his dark, but handsome countenance. At
length, finishing with a flourish, the man of business looked up, and
asked for the witnesses.
Eugene Trevor was about hastily to rise and ring the bell, when, as if
by fortunate coincidence, Mabel Marryott entered the room.
"Oh, exactly; here is one, at any rate," he said, resuming his seat; and
the woman advancing, was directed by the lawyer to sign the papers on
which he had been occupied.
Marryott still held the pen in her hand, having accomplished the act,
and was glancing at her master's son with something of a congratulatory
leer upon her countenance, as he bent over eagerly towards the document,
whilst Mr. Trevor's shrill voice, at the same moment, was raised in
irritated inquiry, as to who was to be the other witness; exclaiming,
that they had better make haste and call some one else, and let the
business be at an end.
"No need of that--_I_ am here as witness!" exclaimed a deep, low voice,
whose thrilling tones burst upon the listeners' ears like thunder before
the lightning flash.
Three of the assembled party, at least--the father, the son and that
guilty woman--shrank from the fire of that dark, full eye, which glanced
accusingly down upon them; for Eustace Trevor stood suddenly in the
midst, at the very table round which was collected the startled group.
A faint shriek escaped the lips of Mr. Trevor, accompanied by the words:
"Secure him--he is mad!"
But no one stirred. There was something more powerful than the fear of
madness in their hearts, which kept the others rooted to the spot
whereon they sat or stood.
The lawyer indeed, as was most natural considering the reported facts on
which his late business had been founded, cast a timid glance towards
the door, and, had he dared, would have risen to seek that aid which he
concluded would be requisite.
There was besides something in the appearance of the unhappy man before
him, which accorded with Mr. A.'s preconceived idea of his circumstances
and condition--his countenance wild and haggard from the recent
excitement and exertion which had attended his escape, as well as from
the uneffaced effects of grief and illness--his disordered and unusual
appearance; and the lawyer turned a glance towards his brother, to
ascertain what was to be done; but Eugene sat shrinking and ashy pale,
endeavouring but in vain to meet with anything like composure, that
steadfast glance the _madman_ fixed upon his face.
A touch upon his arm, made Mr. A. look round. It was Mabel Marryott who
thus sought to attract his attention; and in obedience to her
significant glance, he was about to rise stealthily and leave the room,
when a voice of stern command detained him.
"Be so good, Sir, as to remain where you are for the present. I may be
allowed perhaps to glance my eye over this document, in which I have my
suspicions I am in no small degree concerned."
There was no resisting the tone in which these words were uttered. No
hand save one, and that a woman's, was raised to prevent the firm but
quiet movement with which the speaker stretched forth his hand and
lifted the parchment from the table--Mabel Marryott alone made a sharp
but ineffectual movement, as if with all the power of her malignant will
she would have secured the paper from the wronged one's grasp.
Perfect silence reigned whilst Eustace Trevor stood and read the paper
through from beginning to end--a deed which, under plea of his own
insanity and consequent incompetency, signed over to his brother Eugene,
as guardian and trustee, the whole management and power over the
entailed estate of Montrevor and the property appertaining thereto, at
such time as he, Eustace Trevor, as heir-at-law, should by the testator
Henry Trevor's death, come into nominal possession.
This, of course drawn out with legal amplitude and precision, Eustace
attentively perused; then, when some probably were expecting its
destruction, the document was calmly replaced upon the table.
"And now, Sir," turning to the lawyer, "you will perhaps do me the
favour to withdraw; and you, woman, I desire you to do the same."
It was wonderful to see the power which the calm and lofty indignation,
swelling in that wronged man's breast, seemed to exercise over the
minds of those who so late had triumphantly trampled upon his very
heart.
As for the lawyer, he hesitated not to rise, and prepare to obey that
implied command; for he saw that neither of his employers were inclined
to interfere.
The old man sat as one paralyzed, and the younger with compressed lips,
and contracted downcast brow, seemed to await in sullen silence and
discomfort the issue of the powerful scene; and Marryott even, though
she paused for a moment, considered better of it, and swept from the
apartment with the air of a Lady Macbeth. Those three were then left
together alone. The injured face to face with the foes of his own
household--his father and his brother!
What should he say to these? or rather to him--his brother? To the
other, he had long ceased to look but as on one who had forfeited all
right to the name of father. "For what one amongst ye, who if his son
ask a fish will he give him a serpent; or if he ask for bread will give
him a stone," and by what better manner of speech figure forth all that
old man had ever done by him, his luckless son? Nay, if this were
all--if he could but have paused here, and forgotten how that father had
played the part of husband to a sainted mother; but he looked not on
_him_ now--he looked only to him, that mother's son; from whom, in spite
of all he might have ever had to reprobate and forgive, it had not
entered into his thoughts to conceive cruel perfidy such as that, of
which since entering that room he had become but the more fully
convinced he had been made the victim; and the bitterness of
death--during that first instant that he thus stood reading in his
brother Eugene's sullen, downcast brow, a too certain confirmation of
his guilt--overwhelmed his soul.
But it passed over, and was gone; and a just and righteous indignation
re-asserted its dominion in its place.
"Eugene," he said, "that paper," and he pointed to the legal document
before him, "throws but too clear a light on the transactions of which I
have been made the victim. Oh, how could you allow that demon,
covetousness, to gain such empire over your heart? Cain, in the angry
passion of the moment, slew his brother; but you, in cold-blooded
calculation, could bend yourself to an act which time and
circumstances, perhaps remote, could alone turn to your advantage."
"Eustace!" stammered his brother; "I excuse this intemperate language on
your part, for of course you cannot appreciate the circumstances of the
case; but any one would be ready to justify the necessary, but painful,
course of conduct to which we were reduced. In whatever state of mind
you may be now, there are others to testify as to the fact--"
"Pshaw! justify--who will justify one, who, during the temporary
delirium of a brain fever, confined his own brother to a madhouse!
affixed to his name that stamp and stigma which must cling to it for the
remainder of his days; or, still more unwarrantable and cruel, the
evident attempts to detain him in that madhouse, long after any
reasonable possible excuse was afforded? But I can plainly read the
motive which thus influenced you--too plainly, alas! Eugene, two months
ago I had not conceived such conduct possible; but I know you _now_. I
think I can pretty well divine what has been the course of conduct you
have pursued; you have been to London, perhaps--"
He paused. There was no denial.
"You went to your clubs; and there very surely took means to establish
the fact of your eldest brother's melancholy condition--his insanity,
his confinement!"
Eugene Trevor in a hoarse and angry voice would have attempted some
reply, but Eustace's indignant voice overpowered him.
"And then you brought that man down," he continued, "to fill up the
measure of your iniquity, and one scratch of the pen alone was needed
now to make it good. Let it be done. That paper of his, that base and
villainous forgery, now lies before me at my mercy. But I scorn to touch
it. I treat it as it is--a worthless, valueless nothing. If I but chose
to follow your example--go, call my friends and neighbours about me,
declare before them all the unnatural fraud which has been practised
upon me; yes, show them this," and he bared his blackened, wounded
wrists, "and ring in their astounded ears, what, and _for what_, it
entered a brother's heart to conceive an act of such atrocity; then, do
you think that I could not manage to make those who knew, and cared for
me, credit my testimony before that of an abandoned woman and two
ignorant time-serving country doctors? Ask Dr. Miller, would he even
dare to say, my attack was anything but the temporary delirium of
fever?"
"Merciful heavens, Eugene!" murmured Mr. Trevor, trying in an under tone
to gain his younger son's attention, without being heard by the other.
"Is there no one at hand to stop him--to secure him?"
But Eustace caught the muttered syllables, and turned sternly round.
"No one, Sir; who will dare to do it? Think not that I entered _your_
house without precaution against what I there had every reason to
expect. These," drawing a brace of pistols from his pocket, "I found
opportunity to obtain; and should one of these poor trembling menials by
your orders, dare--"
"Eugene! Eugene! are they loaded? for the love of Heaven save me; he
will murder us all!" Mr. Trevor exclaimed in terror.
"Eustace! this is indeed madness!" the brother would have said, but
shame choked the words within his throat; "this violence is most
uncalled for. What motive could there now be on our part for having
recourse to such expedients as you seem to fear. I assure you, you are
quite at liberty to remain, or depart at your pleasure; and as for what
has been done, I am quite ready to answer for my conduct," he added
doggedly, "if you choose to drag the matter forward so publicly."
"Would you be so prepared, Eugene? Dare not repeat that falsehood,
wretched man. Fear not, I will not drag you forward to such a test. I
hate, I curse you not for what you have done, but the cause, the sin
which brought you to commit it. I do abhor, nay, I am sickened unto
death, of the very world in which I have suffered so much, and in which
sin so despicable and revolting can exist; still more with the home (if
it be not sacrilege to use that hallowed name in such a case) in which
it asserts such hateful power. The very air I breathe beneath it seems
to choke me; if all the gold which fills the coffers of its master were
laid in heaps before my feet, that would not make it tolerable to my
heart. Rejoice then, when I swear that never under this roof together
with you two--my most unnatural relations, shall I again set my foot. I
have borne and suffered too much within its walls. I willingly resign
all sonship, brotherhood, with those who have trampled on every human
tie. I leave you to carry out, as far as in you lies, your hearts'
desires. I shake the very dust off my feet, and depart. I leave this
place to-night, this country, perhaps, to-morrow, caring not that for
the present the stigma you have cast upon my name must remain. You, Sir,
should we never meet again on earth, may Heaven forgive! _You_, Eugene,
farewell; _we_ may meet again in this world, but never again as
brothers."
He turned, and was gone. None saw him depart. He went out into the dark
night; and many within that house who had heard of his startling
arrival, concluded that he had been secretly restored to the asylum from
which he had made his escape. Only a few days after, an old servant,
much attached to Mrs. Trevor and her second son, who on his dismissal
from Montrevor had served Eustace during his residence at Oxford,
appeared at the hall, with authority from his master to gather and pack
up all the effects belonging to him; and having done so without
molestation, he silently conveyed them away.
He threw no light upon the subject, or on his master's destination.
Indeed, it was soon afterwards ascertained, by those chiefly interested
in the matter, that he was equally ignorant on the point as themselves.
Eugene Trevor remained for some time at Montrevor, then returned to the
world, to find the general impression apparently continuing as it was
before, concerning the derangement and consequent confinement of his
brother. Then it was deemed advisable to report that the unhappy young
man was so far recovered, that he had gone abroad under proper
guardianship; and the world, too busy with its own affairs to keep up
any long-sustained interest or inquiry into the fate and fortune of
those removed out of their light, were contented to suppose this to be
the case; and when some years had run their course, as we have seen, and
nothing more had been seen or heard of the unhappy Eustace Trevor, many
gave him up as lost for ever to society, and Eugene, gay, prosperous,
and invested with all importance and privilege in his father's house,
had soon assumed in the eyes of the world a certain--though it might be
somewhat equivocal--position as heir, under some few restrictions, to
the property and estates of Montrevor.