It was after dinner. The summer light had faded from the evening sky,
yet there were roses in the west, and a bright star following, like a
fair handmaid, upon Cynthia's footsteps through the sky. The curtains
were not drawn, and the purple hue of the past day spread through the
dining-room, mingling with the more powerful light of the lamps, like
calm, sad memories tempering present joys.
The party at Milford Castle consisted, as the reader knows, of ten
persons; and they were still seated round the table. Lady Anne was at
one end; her brother had assumed the other. The dessert, such as it
was at that season of the year, was still before them. The excellent
wine had once gone round; the commonplace chat of the dinner-table had
gradually subsided; and one of those fits of silence which very often
indicate expectation had fallen upon the whole party. The one who was
the most eager for the promised explanation was Sir Harry Henderson,
who said, after the silence had continued for perhaps half-a-minute--
"You promised us a history, my lord--or perhaps even I might call it a
romance, for certainly it savours of the romantic."
"It does, indeed," answered Henry; "but, like many another romantic
thing, it is very true. I think, however, although with my dear sister
and myself some painful memories may arise and some gloomy thoughts
may be awakened, it will be better to read you the letter of him who
knew the whole circumstances, from being the principal actor in them,
rather than give you my own version of the details. I will only
premise, that from this letter Lady Anne first learned that she had
ever had a brother. The demonstrable proofs were found in the cabinet,
which, as you have heard, was opened by her in the presence of Mr.
Hargrave."
Thus saying, he rose and rang the bell, ordering, when the servant
appeared, that a green box of papers should be brought him out of his
room. When it had been procured, he opened it, and took out a letter
from the top, containing several closely-written pages; and having
looked at it for a moment, he said--
"After the death of my father, the late Earl of Milford, this letter
was delivered by his executors to his daughter, Lady Anne, whom he
then believed to be his only surviving child. It contained the key of
the cabinet to which you have heard allusion made; and it bears,
marked upon the back, 'To be opened by my daughter, Lady Anne, when
she shall arrive at the age of one-and-twenty years--provided it
should please heaven that she should survive me.' The letter then
proceeds as follows:--
"'MY DEAREST CHILD,--You must have remarked that my health has been
gradually failing for some years. The medical men attribute this decay
to an accident I met with, which you well remember. I myself connect
it with a much more painful event, of which they know nothing. They
cannot, therefore, by any drugs, remedy the disease. I am now about to
unburden my whole heart, for the first time in my life, to you, for I
feel that I am soon about to be called hence; and though most
improbable events might occur, which would render the secret of my
early life important both to yourself and others, I know you, my
dearest child, well, thoroughly, entirely; and I can trust implicitly
both to your heart and to your understanding. You are too dutiful and
affectionate a child to blame your father severely, even if you find
he has committed some errors, or to scorn his injunctions, even if you
cannot always approve his conduct. Neither will I blame my own parent,
although we did not live on those terms of tender confidence in which
you and I have always dwelt together; but it is necessary that I
should speak of his character, to account for, if not to justify, my
own actions.
"'Let me tell you, then, my early history. I was my father's second
son, and never was loved as my elder brother was. That brother was
kind and good, and worthy of all affection; but even to him my father
was usually stern, and often even violent. To me my father's demeanour
was exceedingly harsh and imperious. Instant obedience to his lightest
word was exacted in all things, as was perhaps right and due; but no
command ever came unaccompanied by a threat, and no threat ever
remained unfulfilled, if the command was, even by mistake, disobeyed.
It seemed as if he wished to make fear supersede both affection and a
sense of duty--and he succeeded but too well. I learned to dread him;
and, even after my poor brother's death, that sad lesson was not
forgotten. As his heir, I was furnished with ample means, and received
a very good education; but before my brother's death I had been placed
at a somewhat inferior school, where I formed a very close intimacy
with a boy of the name of Hayley. You have often seen him as a man,
and must recollect him. He was weak, timid, and somewhat cowardly; but
I was in the custom of defending him from the attacks of older and
stronger boys, and we naturally learn to love what we protect. When I
afterwards went to Eton, Stephen Hayley followed me thither, and our
friendship continued unabated. Even when I was sent on a tour through
Europe, with a tutor, I regularly corresponded with Hayley, my new
rank as Lord Mellent making not the least change in our intimacy,
though he had now become a clerk in a great merchant's house. It was
not long after my return, and while I was still a student at Oxford,
that an event occurred, the consequences of which have chequered my
golden fate with shades unalterably dark. One day, in a country
village, where I had gone to study more quietly for my degree than I
could do elsewhere, I saw a girl of the most surpassing beauty that
can be conceived. The first meeting was merely accidental, but the
second was designed; for I eagerly inquired who she was, and finding
that her father was a wealthy and honest farmer, of the name of
Graves, I contrived to introduce myself to him as a person wishing to
purchase a horse. I soon made myself intimate in his family, and the
admiration I had conceived for his daughter ripened into the warmest
and truest love. She was as gentle and kind, as good and as graceful,
as she was beautiful; and, even had such a thing been possible, my
dearest Anne, which it was not, I would not have misled her for the
world. But my position was very difficult. I knew my father's proud
spirit and highly aristocratic feelings, and that his consent to my
marriage with a farmer's daughter was quite out of all hope. But I
loved her, and she loved me, and I told her all my difficulties. She,
and she alone, knew who I was; for I had given myself out as a
merchant, and the son of a merchant, to escape visits and civilities
which might be burdensome. We hesitated, we doubted long; but at
length passion triumphed over prudence, and she was persuaded to fly
with me and unite her fate to mine. We were married in secret, and
passed nearly a year in the fondest affection. All that she exacted
was permission to write to her father to assure him that she was a
wife. When the time approached, however, at which she was to give
birth to a child, fears assailed her, and remorse for having left her
parent's house. She made me promise that, if real danger occurred, I
would send for him with all speed, that she might receive his pardon
and his blessing before she died.
"'Danger did come, my child, and death; but she had the satisfaction
she sought. Her father and her husband were with her at the last hour,
and she died forgiven, leaving me with a poor, helpless infant. The
old man fled from the cottage almost in a state of madness, and my own
mind was so troubled that for three days I forgot all the dangers of
my situation. Those dangers were many, as I will soon explain to you;
and to avoid them I was obliged to leave that cottage with the child
as soon as the funeral was over, to consign the poor infant to the
charge of a nurse, and to appear in the gay world of London with a
calm face, and none of the external signs of that mourning which was
sincerely in my heart.
"'I must now go back to tell some other events which had occurred.
Like most young men of my day, I had been somewhat extravagant, and
had lived a good deal beyond the income which my father allowed me. My
debts amounted to between nine and ten thousand pounds when I first
met with poor Mary Graves. My creditors were importunate; I had not
the means of paying them; and, about seven months after my marriage,
one of them applied to my father. He sent for me, and sternly demanded
that I should give him an account of everything I owed. I did so; and,
to my surprise, I found him much less enraged than I could have
imagined. But it soon appeared that he had a project in his head which
would compel me to disobey and offend him. He asked me if I had ever
seen a young lady whom he named--in short, your own dear mother. I
told him I had not, but that I had always heard her highly spoken of.
He then informed me that he was acquainted with her father, and that,
as she was an only child and heiress of considerable wealth, he had
proposed to him a marriage between her and me. Your maternal
grandfather had consented, upon the condition that the marriage should
be agreeable to ourselves; and my father now said, "On condition of
your marrying this young lady, I will at once pay your debts and
settle a larger income upon you." I cannot minutely describe the scene
that ensued. Of course, I was obliged to refuse; and I did so
decidedly and at once. That was sufficient to excite great wrath; but
my father smothered it in a degree, and requested me at least to see
the young lady before I decided. I endeavoured, as humbly as I could,
to represent to him that, by pursuing such a course, and then refusing
to marry her, especially after what had taken place between him and
her father, I should be grossly wronging and insulting her. But now
the storm broke forth. He told me that a rumour had reached him, that
I was either keeping or had married some low woman; that he had
refused to believe such an assertion; but that my conduct gave such
strong confirmation to the report that he would take means to
ascertain, the fact; and if he found I had been guilty of so base a
dereliction of my duty to him, and of my rank and station in society,
he would cast me off for ever; would bequeath every farthing of the
property which he could alienate--and that was nearly the whole--to
strangers, and leave me what he justly called that most miserable of
wretches, a titled beggar. He would not hear me utter a word, but
drove me forth from his presence to seek comfort with my poor wife,
from whom I was obliged to conceal the sorrows which my marriage with
her had brought upon me.
"'Thus matters continued till her death--knowing that I was watched,
and obliged to have recourse to a thousand stratagems to conceal my
movements. Even after the poor girl's death, I knew my father too well
to doubt that, if he discovered I had a son by such a marriage, he
would carry his threat into execution; and in my difficulty and
distress I applied to my friend Hayley, made him my confidant, and
induced him to promise that he would acknowledge the child as his own
and superintend his education, till such time as I should be enabled
publicly to declare my marriage.
"'Some months after, I accidentally met with your mother in society,
found her beautiful, amiable, and in every respect agreeable to me,
and I took means to make myself agreeable to her. She was quite
unconscious of what had previously taken place, and gave such
encouragement as no well-educated woman would afford to a man whom she
would afterwards reject. Her father, however, who was well aware of
the whole, at first treated me very coldly; but as soon as I had made
up my mind to offer her my hand, I thought it right to have an
explanation with him; and I pointed out to him that I had acted
honourably towards his daughter, in refusing to be introduced to her
with such views, unless I were positively determined to carry them
out. I soon overcame all his prejudices. He became attached to me. His
daughter accepted my offered hand; and I wrote to my father, whom I
had not seen for some months, hoping that my obedience, tardy as it
was, would be accepted. He was not fond of writing, and he sent for me
to come to him. When I went, my treatment was that which might have
been shown towards a very lowly dependant. He told me that, if I
wished to show myself dutiful, my submission came too late; that now I
might marry your mother or not, as I pleased; that he approved of the
match, but did not require it; and that, although he would allow me an
income equal to my station and expectations, he would settle nothing
upon me. He added, in a low but very menacing tone, "I have my doubts,
young man--I have my doubts; and if ever I find that you have degraded
your name or rank, I will leave you without one penny of which I can
deprive you."
"'I was obliged to bear these tidings to my future father-in-law; but,
with a certain portion of ambition, he was a kind-hearted and
affectionate man. He knew that his daughter loved me. He felt
confident, from all he had seen, that I loved her, and his consent to
our marriage was given--unwillingly, indeed, for he was sufficiently
wealthy to look high for a match for his daughter, and to desire a
settlement proportionate to her fortune. However, all objections were
waived, and we were married. My allowance from my father was liberal.
Her fortune was large, and eight months after, it was trebled by the
death of her father. All that I possessed, however, and all that I
should ever possess, except a very small portion, depended upon the
earl's never discovering that I had contracted a previous marriage,
and had had a son by a plebeian wife. My dear boy therefore remained
under the care of Mr. Hayley, was brought home by him while yet almost
an infant, acknowledged as his son, educated with great care, and
displayed in person and mind, in character and demeanour----'
"But I need not read all that," said Henry. "After a few commendations
on my boyhood, the letter goes on thus:--
"'You have seen him often, my dear Anne. You know him well, for I
brought him up with you almost as a brother, intending to tell you
that he actually was so, before you reached the age of womanhood. I
loved him--oh, how dearly and how well! And you loved him too, I am
sure, with that fraternal love which was exactly what I desired. No
act, no thought, of his ever gave me a moment's pain; and without
wishing for my own father's death, I longed to be able to tell you and
your mother that this boy was my son.
"'At length I was suddenly summoned away to Belford, to attend upon my
father, who had been seized with severe illness. I could have wished
to remain in London or in its neighbourhood, for I knew that the
affairs of Mr. Hayley were getting into sad disorder. I had already
supplied him, more than once, with considerable sums of money, beyond
the expenses of my dear boy's education and maintenance; and a new
demand had been made upon my purse, accompanied by a vague and timid
threat.
"'However, I was obliged to set out. My father died a week or two
after; and I proceeded from Milford Castle to Caermarthen, to consign
his remains to the family vault. On my way back, my carriage was
overturned at the bridge at ----, and I was taken up insensible, with
concussion of the brain. I remained ill for several weeks, and my
recovery was slow and difficult. For a long time the medical men would
not suffer me to read or write at all; but at length, one morning,
after I had been permitted to go out once or twice, I took up the
newspaper on the breakfast-table, and was struck with horror and
dismay on reading a paragraph headed, "The Late Forgery." I cannot
dwell on the particulars even now, my dear child. Suffice it to say,
that that paragraph showed me that my son, your dear brother, had been
accused of forgery to a large amount; that he had fled from the
country, after having been traced down to Northumberland, and thence
to Caermarthen, in search of me, it seems; and that the officer who
had followed him to Ancona had there, by the monks, been shown a dead
body which they solemnly declared to be his. My feelings were almost
those of a madman. I knew my boy was not guilty. I saw it all in a
moment: that Hayley, a bankrupt gambler as he had proved, had
committed the forgery, and had induced the boy, who thought him his
father, to fly, in order to screen his supposed parent. At the same
time, a vague, wild hope--which haunts me yet--that my child might
still be alive, that the officer might have been deceived by a pious
fraud of the monks--took possession of my mind, and made me act upon
the moment with a degree of fierceness and resolution which perhaps I
might not have had the courage to display if I had paused to
deliberate. I sent for the man Hayley, with a threat that if he did
not come I would fetch him; and when he appeared before me, all pale
and trembling, I accused him at once of what he had done, as if I had
had a revelation of the whole facts. He was always a coward, and in
his attempts to deny and equivocate he betrayed himself; but I wrung
the whole from him, as if I had taken his false heart in my hand and
crushed out the only drops of truth it contained. I told him that if
he did not instantly, and at once, confess the whole, I would carry
him from my house to the office of the magistrate; that I would prove,
from his own letters to me, that he was a bankrupt and a beggar but a
few days before that forgery was committed; that I would make him
account for the possession of every penny which he had expended since,
and leave the keen hounds of justice to follow out the scent. He did
at length confess the whole, and put it down in writing, signing it in
my presence and that of Alsager, the butler, upon the condition that I
would not reveal the facts till after his death, unless my boy ever
appeared in England again.
"'My hopes of such being the case have daily decreased, but they
linger still. I have caused many inquiries to be made, and secret
investigations to be carried on; but the only fact I have been able to
discover, which keeps expectation alive, is that there were two lads,
nearly of the same age, in the convent, at the time my poor boy was
supposed to nave died at Ancona. In case he should appear again,
before you arrive at the age of one-and-twenty, I have besought my
dear old friend Charles Hargrave, of Detchton-Grieve, near Belford, to
watch carefully the events that take place in London; and if Henry
should come back, to desire you to open this letter at once. The
confession of Hayley, with several other papers concerning my private
marriage and the boy's birth and education, are in an ebony cabinet in
my dressing-room at Milford Castle. It is sealed up, with an order
written upon it, to the effect that it is only to be opened by
yourself, after you have reached the age of one-and-twenty.
"'And now, my dear child, farewell. These lines will not meet your
eyes till your father's are closed. I know I have no need to exhort
you to do justice to your brother, if ever you should find him; and if
you should not, to clear his memory, after Mr. Hayley's death. Your
mother's ample fortune will be sufficient provision for you, and the
estates of the family will descend to you, without being specially
mentioned in my will; but remember that you hold them in trust for
him, if ever he should reappear. Should such be the case, I trust that
the affection which existed between you and him, as boy and girl, may
be a blessing to you both in more mature years. And now, that heaven
may protect you, and send you a happier fate than mine, is the
sincerest prayer of
"'Your father,
"'MILFORD.'"
Henry's voice faltered as he read the latter sentences of his father's
letter to his sister, and there were tears in Lady Anne's bright eyes;
but those tears did not run over till old Mr. Hargrave laid his hand
upon hers, saying--
"Well and nobly, my dear child, have you fulfilled your excellent
father's last behest, and justified his judgment both of head and
heart."
"And I am a proud man," said Mr. Winkworth, looking at her through his
spectacles, which he had been wiping more than once, for some reason
or another; "for I shall one day call her child who has so brightly
performed her duty to a dead father and a living brother."
"Hush, hush, hush!" exclaimed Lady Anne, starting up: "you will drive
me away. Did you not promise, most faithless of Indians? You are as
bad as the man in the fairy tale."
"And as ugly," replied Mr. Winkworth, laughing; "but I fear, dear
lady, I shall never find a kind girl to restore me to my pristine form
again--though, if there be a sorceress upon earth who could do it, she
were Anne Mellent. Pray use your interest with her for me, my dear
lord, for I would fain have youth and beauty back, as they appeared
before they had been taken away by that fell enchanter, Time; and here
are two people in the room--my old acquaintance Hargrave and my dear
sister Lady Fleetwood--who can tell you that I was a very good-looking
fellow nine-and-twenty years ago, when I was called Charles Marston."
"Charles Marston!" exclaimed Lady Fleetwood, almost with a scream.
"You Charles Marston!"
"Yes, my dear Meg," replied Mr. Winkworth; "even your poor
brother-in-law."
"But, dear me!" cried Lady Fleetwood, "Scriven told me you were a
bankrupt, and Charles says you are very rich."
"Both, Meg--both," replied Mr. Winkworth. "There Scriven told truth,
and Charles too. Do you not know that I never did things like other
men? and when I was coming from India, as there were some dear friends
who owed me a couple of lacs, and were too gentlemanly to pay an old
friend, I made myself a bankrupt, that the task of suing them might
fall upon my assignees. I had the hint, by-the-way, from Grange, the
pastry-cook, who made himself a bankrupt every year, just to call in
his accounts; but I rather think I am capable of paying a hundred
shillings in the pound; and now all I have to say is--and I say it
deliberately before witnesses--if Lady Anne Mellent will condescend to
take up with a merchant, and does not object to old age, and is very
fond of a yellowish skin and a lean person, I am ready to marry her as
soon as this wound in my shoulder is quite well; and I will settle a
quarter of a million upon her on her wedding-day, whether she marries
me or----Well, well, my dear; I won't."
So complete was the surprise of all present, except Mr. Hargrave and
Lady Anne, that there was a dead silence for half-a-minute; and then
Lady Fleetwood, whose wit always fixed upon something collateral,
asked aloud--
"What are lacs?"
A burst of laughter followed, and perhaps it was the best way of
ending the explanation.
Lady Anne made good her retreat as fast as possible; and after the
gentlemen were left together, Henry laid before Mr. Hargrave and the
rest all the papers which went to prove his title--Lord Milford's
account of his private marriage, in a more detailed form than he had
given it to his daughter; the documents with which he had been
furnished by the monks at Ancona, to prove that he was Henry Hayley,
notwithstanding his long assumption of the name of Middleton; some
letters upon the subject from Don Balthazar de Xamorça; and, last, the
certificate of the marriage of Charles Mellent and Mary Graves, and
that of his own birth.
"For these latter papers," he said, "I am indebted to the activity and
intelligence of that worthy man, Joshua Brown; and by your permission,
gentlemen, I will have him in, and thank him, in your presence, for
all he has done for me."
The pedlar was soon introduced, and in graceful terms the young
nobleman expressed his gratitude, making him sit down beside him.
"There is a lady," said Henry, "who longs much to thank you, Mr.
Brown, and to-morrow, before breakfast, you must let me introduce you
to her. Will you take a glass of wine to drink her health?"
"Willingly, my lord," replied the pedlar, "for _my lord_ you are; but
yet I think you will find a little hitch somewhere that will want
making smooth."
"In good truth, my dear young friend, he is right," said Mr. Hargrave,
who had been looking carefully over the papers. "Here is every proof
that you passed as Henry Hayley; every proof that Milford was
privately married and had a son; every proof that he believed you to
be that son, and that Hayley told him so; but no legal proof whatever
that the boy who was given to the care of the nurse by your poor
father was the same that Mr. Hayley brought home and acknowledged as
his own."
"I've got it here, sir," said the pedlar, producing an old
pocket-book. "I told the young lord that he'd want more of my help;
so, between the time when I last saw him and the day I went to listen
at Lady Fleetwood's, I ran down to the part of the country where they
were married; for I recollected quite well having seen a pretty babby,
about that time, at Mrs. Goldie's, the grocer's widow's, with black
ribbons upon its little white frock; and I knew it was a nurse-child,
for she had none of her own--never had. She's alive to this day; and
there is her certificate that the child she delivered to Stephen
Hayley, Esq. was the child of Charles Mellent and Mary Graves. She has
got, moreover, the order, in Charles Mellent's own hand, to deliver
the child to Mr. Hayley, and Mr. Hayley's acknowledgment that he had
received it. She says, too, that with the child she gave him a gold
box, the top of which unscrews, and in it she put a paper, like a
careful old body as she is, with all the marks the child had upon it,
such as moles and spots, and such like, which most of us have more or
less."
"I've got the box!" cried Mr. Winkworth, _alias_ Marston, who had
broken off a conversation with his son to listen: "I owe that to the
care of my little man Jim. It was found in the goods and chattels of
poor Miss Hayley; but there is amongst her papers a memorandum,
written in one of her saner moods, stating that the box was brought
with the clothes of her brother's son, Henry Hayley, when he first
came home from the place where he was nursed, and that she always
preserved it carefully, in the hope that she might some time hear news
of the poor child's mother, who must have been of some rank, as there
is a coronet engraved upon the box."
"Bravo! bravo!" said Mr. Hargrave: "the only link wanting in the chain
seems to be supplied; and now I think we shall do, without any further
question."
And so think I, dear reader, too.
THE END.