to his friends of the description already mentioned, when showing them
Fanny's portrait, "isn't that a pretty girl, now? and am not I a lucky
fellow to have secured the affections of so charming a woman? What would
you give, you rogues, you, for such a creature as that for a wife?"
Then, holding the portrait aloft, "Come, say now, gentlemen, what would
you give for her, suppose I was willing to part with her; which,
perhaps, I am, if I could get a fair price for my right. Bid for her,
gentlemen, bid for her!" he would say, laughingly, and _affecting_ to
make a joke of the matter. "I will put her up to sale, and warrant the
stock to be equal to the sample!" "A thousand rupees!" "Thank you, John.
Very well for a beginning! Get on, gentlemen, get on." "Two thousand!
three thousand!" "That's it. Go it, my spirited lads, go it; but she's
worth six times the money yet." "Eight thousand! ten thousand!" "Ay, now
you get on bravely, and are approaching the mark, though still at a
great distance from it." "Fifteen thousand! twenty thousand!" "Very
well--twenty thousand! Twenty thousand, gentlemen! Will no one bid more!
Why, Tom, I thought you were a better judge of female beauty than to
allow such a bargain as this to slip through your fingers!" "Twenty-five
thousand!" "Well done, Tom; I knew you were a lad of spirit, and had
too much of the knight-errant in you to allow a fair lady like this to
be knocked down below her value. Twenty-five thousand rupees--once,
twice, thrice! There, down she goes--she's yours, Tom; pay me the money,
and I'll order her out for you by the first ship."
This was a scene of frequent occurrence in Raeburn's house, when a
number of young fellows had got together there, and something very like
it was repeated to each of them individually when they chanced to call
alone; particularly in the case of one of them--a Mr Cressingham, the
son of a gentleman who held one of the highest civil situations in
India, and who was enormously wealthy. This was Raeburn's friend, Tom,
as he familiarly called him; and to him he was especially eloquent and
importunate on the subject of Fanny's beauty.
"Well, hang me if she an't a devilish pretty creature that, after all!"
said Tom Cressingham to Raeburn, as they one day sat alone smoking their
hookahs in the apartment in which Fanny's portrait hung, and on which he
was listlessly gazing.
"That she is, Tom," replied Raeburn; "wouldn't you fancy such a girl as
that, now, for a wife, Tom?"
"Faith and I would, Harry; I'd give ten thousand rupees for such a
wife."
"You're coming down in your price, Tom," replied Raeburn; "you offered
twenty-five thousand for her the other night."
"Well, I don't know but I would give that sum for her, after all, Harry;
for she's certainly a delightful-looking creature. But why don't you
bring out the girl, and marry her at once yourself, Harry?"
"Umph!" ejaculated Raeburn, "that wouldn't be altogether so convenient
just now. You know I'm confoundedly in debt, Tom" (this was but too
true; for he was grossly dissipated, and was living in a style far
beyond his income), "and must clear my feet a bit before I think of
marrying. Besides, to tell you a secret, Tom, I don't care much about
standing to my Scotch bargain in that matter; and, to be plain with you,
I wish you, or some one else, would relieve me of it, by taking the girl
off my hands; giving me, of course, a handsome consideration for my
right in the property."
This was said jokingly; but it was very easy to see that the speaker
would not care to be thought serious; and this Cressingham perceived.
"Harry," he said, "are you in earnest?"
"To be sure I am," replied Raeburn; "never was more in earnest in my
life."
"Then I'm your man, Harry, if we can agree about the terms," rejoined
Cressingham. "What say you about the consideration."
"Why, I don't know; you see she is a very handsome girl, Tom; and, on
the word of a _gentleman_, I assure you, she is as amiable as she is
lovely."
"Well, at a word, Harry," said Cressingham, "I'll give you five thousand
pounds sterling money, the day that woman becomes my wife; you being at
the expense of bringing her out, and managing all that part of the
business."
"Done!" said Raeburn.
"Done!" said Cressingham. And they struck hands upon the bargain.
Raeburn's villany, good reader, is now before you fully and fairly. The
conversation just recorded was no joke, but, as he himself acknowledged,
downright earnest; and it will readily be conceded, we think, that a
piece of more heartless depravity is not upon record. Neither, we beg to
assure the reader, is this villany imaginary, nor the character of
Raeburn the invention of fancy. The villany was actually perpetrated,
and the villain actually lived.
Fanny's portrait had been sent for for the express purpose of turning it
to the account to which we have seen it applied. He had sent for it that
he might exhibit it as a sample of goods which he had to dispose of, and
which he meant to sell to the highest bidder; and it was with this
view--with the view of finding a purchaser--that he had hung the
portrait of his victim in a conspicuous place, and had urged on the
notice of his visiters the various beauties which it displayed.
To return to our tale. Raeburn and Cressingham--the latter, we need
hardly say, being nearly as unprincipled as the former--having come to
the understanding which we have just detailed, Raeburn insisted that
their bargain should be expressed on paper; that is, that Cressingham
should bind himself by a written document to fulfil his part of the
transaction--in other words, should bind himself to pay the L5000 on the
day Fanny became his wife; although with what face he could produce such
a document in a court of justice to enforce his claim, in the event of
Cressingham evading it, it certainly is not easy to conceive. But,
desirous of being secure in the meantime, on such a document as that
alluded to, he insisted; and it was instantly given him.
This part of the transaction settled, it was Raeburn's business to
manage the rest:--the first step of which was to get Fanny out; the
next, to get her palmed upon Cressingham; and he lost no time in setting
about it.
As the subsequent proceedings of the villain, however, will be more
strikingly exhibited by shifting the scene once more to Rose Vale, we
request the reader to accompany us thither for a moment.
The year had a good while expired, which Raeburn had fixed on, in his
last letter to Fanny, as the period when he should send for her to join
him at Calcutta; and the poor girl was looking fondly and anxiously for
the promised invitation; but, for several months, she was again doomed
to suffer all the pains of suspense and disappointment. From this,
however, she was at length relieved by the appearance of the
long-expected letter. This, like all its predecessors, was filled with
the most tender expressions of regard and esteem. "It is now," said the
writer, "with the most heartfelt--nay, this is far too tame a phrase--it
is with a delight, my beloved Fanny, which I cannot find language to
express--that I inform you, that the circumstances in which I now find
myself warrant me in inviting you out to share my fortunes. I enclose a
draft for L150, to defray the expense of your passage, and other
contingencies connected with it; and I beg of you, my dearest, dearest
Fanny, as you value my happiness, nay, my existence, to lose no time in
coming out to me; for I will be miserable till you arrive." To this was
added a great many particular directions, as to Fanny's best mode of
proceeding in the business of her embarkation; and again the writer
resumed the strain of adulation with which he had begun; and with this
strain, also, he finally ended.
As in the former case, Fanny instantly put this letter into the hands of
her brother Edward; and again she was disappointed to find that it was
read without the smallest appearance of satisfaction. Neither was it
much more gratifying to her father and younger brother. But their
feelings regarding it proceeded chiefly from their reluctance to part
with Fanny, and to her going alone on so long and dreary a voyage; but
neither they, nor Edward, even with his more serious grounds of
dissatisfaction, felt that they would be warranted in preventing Fanny
from availing herself of the apparent good fortune which she was now
invited to partake. They felt that it would be an act of injustice
towards the amiable girl, to exercise any such authority over her
fortunes and affections; and, therefore, though it was not without great
reluctance, they finally consented to her departure. This conceded, and
every necessary preparation for the voyage being in a few days
completed, Edward accompanied Fanny to London, saw her on board of an
East Indiaman that was about to sail for Calcutta, and having consigned
her to the care of the captain, bade her an affectionate adieu. In less
than an hour afterwards, the ship was under weigh; and Fanny Rutherford
had commenced her ill-starred voyage to the East.
On the ship's arrival at Calcutta, which she reached in safety and in
due course of time, amongst the first persons who came on board of her
were Raeburn and Cressingham. Fanny was down below in the cabin, and in
the act of packing a small trunk, preparatory to her going ashore, when
Raeburn entered. The moment the poor girl saw him, she flew towards him,
with an expression of the wildest delight. But, oh! fond and confiding
heart, what a shock was it to thee--what a withering sensation was
thine--when you found your warm and generous impulses received with a
cold and distant civility!--for in such manner did Raeburn now receive
the gentle, affectionate, and unsuspecting girl, who had crossed the
"rude ocean," left kindred and home, to follow his fortunes--the
fortunes of the man she loved--in a far distant land.
In this atrocious conduct of Raeburn's there was policy as well as
natural heartlessness; for he was desirous of disgusting her with his
coldness, and thus preparing the way for the addresses of Cressingham.
Of this part of the villain's design, Fanny was, of course, utterly
ignorant; but the quick discerning eye of love enabled her instantly to
detect the brutal and ungracious manner of Raeburn, so different from
what she had expected; and the discovery fell upon her spirit with the
most deadly effect. She, however, made no complaint; but it was evident
that the manner of her reception by her deceiver had sunk deep into her
heart. Poor Fanny proceeded with the packing of her little trunk in
silence--a silence interrupted only by an occasional sigh, long drawn,
and heavy laden with grief. Tears, too, might have been detected
stealing down her cheeks, were it not that she kept her head, purposely,
too closely over the trunk to permit their being seen. In the work, too,
in which she was employed, be it observed, Raeburn did not offer her the
smallest assistance, but continued walking up and down the cabin,
whistling carelessly, and looking at the prints with which the walls
were hung.
This was the scene, then, in the cabin, when Raeburn, after the lapse of
a quarter-an-hour or so from the time of his first descending, suddenly,
and without giving Fanny the least previous notice of his intention,
went to the foot of the cabin-stair, and called loudly on Cressingham,
who was on deck. Cressingham appeared at the cabin-door.
"Why don't you come down?" said Raeburn. And he followed up this query
with a significant wink.
"Why, I waited till I should be called," replied Cressingham, with a
knowing smile; at the same time commencing his descent into the cabin.
"Mr Cressingham, Fanny," said Raeburn, when the former came down--"a
very particular friend of mine."
Fanny, before raising her head from the trunk, hurriedly wiped her eyes,
and stood up to receive the stranger; but it was wholly out of the poor
girl's power thus suddenly to regain her composure, or to obliterate
from her countenance the traces of the miserable feelings with which her
soul was agonised. These remained but too plain; and were at once
detected by Cressingham, who, in place of being moved to compassion by
them for the unhappy girl, looked on them as welcome indications of
feelings that promised to favour his own advances; inasmuch as they
bespoke a dissatisfaction on the part of Fanny, at once with her
situation and with Raeburn.
It being now Cressingham's time to begin the performance of his part of
the nefarious plot, he advanced towards Miss Rutherford with one of his
most gracious looks, and welcomed her to Calcutta. Then, placing himself
in a chair directly opposite to her, and leaning forward towards her,
till he had nearly thrust his head into her face, he began a strain of
the most impertinent adulation, not unmingled with expressions of a less
harmless character. These last did not escape Fanny, who deeply felt the
insult they involved, although she was already too much humbled in
spirit to resent them.
When Cressingham had taken up the position described, and had begun the
nauseous badinage alluded to, Raeburn, on some trifling pretence, left
the cabin and went on deck. The motive for this proceeding will at once
present itself to the reader. Cressingham, finding himself thus left
alone with Fanny, was proceeding to use other liberties than those of
speech; and had already, with the most impudent familiarity, thrown one
of his arms around Miss Rutherford's neck, when, with a violent effort,
she extricated herself from him, and rushed, in a state of great
agitation and alarm, up the cabin-stair, calling on Henry, who was at
the moment standing at the stern of the vessel, and directly opposite
the cabin-door.
Guessing, or rather knowing very well, the cause of Fanny's outcry and
terror, he went towards her, and sternly and angrily asked her, "What
she made all this noise for!"
"O Henry! Henry!" exclaimed the agitated girl, "take me out of this,
take me out of this. Let us go on shore, Henry, directly. Do, do, let us
go on shore; for I will not go down into that cabin again."
"Pooh, you silly fool, you!" replied Raeburn, harshly. "What are you
afraid of? Don't you like Cressingham? He's an excellent fellow, only a
little rough or so, now and then; but not a pin the worse for that. Why,
he's one of the handsomest and richest fellows in Calcutta, and half the
girls in the town are cocking their caps at him."
"I have nothing to say to or of Mr Cressingham, Henry," replied Fanny.
"All that I ask of you is, to take me immediately ashore."
With this request Raeburn, seeing that it would not be advisable to push
matters further at that moment, sulkily complied. A boat was ordered
alongside. Fanny's luggage was placed in it, and she, Raeburn, and
Cressingham, were forthwith rowed on shore, where, the moment they
landed, the latter, after whispering something into Raeburn's ear, and
offering some ineffectual attempts at making his peace with Miss
Rutherford, left them.
Where, now, does the reader imagine, did Raeburn conduct the unhappy
victim of his villany. To his own splendid mansion? No. To a decent
hotel, then?--or, probably, he consigned her to the care of some
respectable female friend or acquaintance? Neither of these did the
heartless ruffian do. He took her to a mean lodging, in one of the
meanest parts of the town, pleading some lame apology for not taking her
to his own house; and there left her in the hands of strangers, without
a word of consolation or comfort, or of kindness. He said, however,
before going away, that he would again call in the evening, and would,
in the meantime, send a female domestic from his own house, to attend
her, together with some necessaries.
It would be a vain, an idle task, to attempt to describe what were the
unfortunate girl's feelings, now that the hideous truth, that she had
been deceived and betrayed, though with what view she could not
conjecture, stood undisguised before her. They were dreadful, too
excruciating, too exquisitely agonising, to be expressed in words or in
wailing. Their effect was to benumb every faculty, and to prostrate
every sense; and, as one thus afflicted, sat poor Fanny Rutherford in a
chair, at the window of her shabby apartment.
That evening, the first of her arrival, Raeburn, contrary to his
promise, did not again visit her; but Cressingham came in his place,
and dreadful was the result of this unwelcome visit on the poor girl's
frame. It instantly brought on a crisis in that disease of the mind
under which she was already labouring.
The moment he entered the apartment, she uttered a piercing shriek, and
rushed frantically to the furthest corner of the room, in the greatest
terror, calling on the intruder in the name of Heaven not to come near
her--not to approach her. "Leave me, leave me!" she exclaimed, in a tone
of bitter agony. "If there be the smallest portion of humanity in your
nature, you will leave me instantly. For the love of Heaven," she again
repeated, "and of all that you hold dear, leave me! I am deceived and
betrayed by him in whom I put all my earthly trust. Oh! my father, my
brothers, if ye knew of this. But you will never know it: for I will
never see you again. Never, never, never!"
The extreme agitation, the terror and outcries of the unfortunate girl,
at once arrested Cressingham's progress, and brought several persons
that were in the house around her; and by these last--Cressingham having
sneaked off, without saying a word--it was judged advisable to send
immediately for medical assistance, which was accordingly done. Nor was
it unnecessary; for a strong fever had already seized on the poor young
lady, and was rapidly exhausting her strength.
The medical gentleman sent for instantly attended, and ordered Miss
Rutherford to be put to bed. He then prescribed for her as for one whose
danger he considered imminent; and he was not mistaken. Deeply
interested in the unfortunate girl, from whom he had learned a good deal
of her melancholy story, the medical gentleman who had been called in
did all that man could do to arrest the progress of the fatal disease
under which she was labouring. Night and day he attended her, during her
severe but brief illness, and not only employed his own skill to save
her, but that of some of the most eminent of his professional brethren
in the town, whom he brought to his assistance.
But all human efforts were vain. From hour to hour, the fever went on,
increasing alarmingly, accompanied by a proportionable diminution of the
poor patient's strength, until, at length, the awful and fatal crisis
arrived. On the evening of the third day after her arrival in Calcutta,
Fanny Rutherford breathed her last, surrounded with strangers, and in a
foreign land.
But where was the master ruffian all this time? How was he employed, and
how did he feel, while this dreadful and affecting scene was enacting?
Why, he was giving himself very little concern about it, further than
that which proceeded from his fears for his L5000.
He had indeed called two or three times at Fanny's lodgings during her
illness, to inquire for her, and had even sent her some
cordials--cordials, alas! of which she had never partaken--from his own
house; but more than this he had not done, nor in any other way had he
evinced the smallest sympathy for the unhappy victim of his villany.
Raeburn knew that Fanny's illness was of a dangerous nature--but he had
no idea that it was to terminate as it did so soon; and it was under
this mistaken impression that he and Cressingham called at Fanny's
lodgings on the very evening on which she died, and, as it happened,
within a few minutes after that melancholy event had taken place.
Having tapped gently at the door, which was slowly opened to him by the
lodging-house-keeper herself--
"How is your patient to-night, lady?" he said, addressing the latter,
smilingly.
"She is well, sir--she is well," replied the woman, in whom Fanny's
gentle nature and hard fate--of which she, too, had gathered something
during the unfortunate girl's fits of delirium--had excited a strong
feeling of sympathy. "She is well!--she is well!" she said, wiping her
eyes with her apron as she spoke. "She's in heaven, sir!"
"What!" exclaimed Raeburn, in a tone of voice startling from its
hollowness, and becoming deadly pale; his mean and dastardly soul
instantly sinking under the weight of guilt with which he felt this
dreadful intelligence burdening it. "What! she's not dead?"
"But she is though," replied the woman; "and there's an avenging God
above that will seek out and make a terror and example of those who have
been the cause of this poor girl's death."
"What do you mean, woman?" said Raeburn, in an alarm which he could not
conceal, and which the slightest allusion to his villany was now
sufficient to excite to an overwhelming degree; "you do not mean to say
that she died by violence?"
"I know what I know, Mr Raeburn," rejoined the lodging-house-keeper,
"and that's all I have to say about the matter." And she turned into the
house.
Having by no means any wish to renew the conversation, Raeburn availed
himself of the opportunity presented by the woman's retiring into the
house, to sneak off, which he did, and joined his friend Cressingham,
who was waiting for him at a little distance.
"She's dead, Cressingham!--she's dead!" he said, in great agitation, as
he approached the latter.
"Dead!" exclaimed Cressingham--"is it possible? Why, then, Harry, your
L5000 are gone, and you have been a villain for nothing."
"A villain, did you say, Cressingham?" repeated Raeburn, his lips pale
and quivering as he spoke.
"Yes; surely a villain--a double-dyed villain!" reiterated the former.
"Did you ever imagine you were anything else? My share in the
transaction is bad enough--I allow it; but it's nothing to yours,
Raeburn--nothing; for I would assuredly have married the girl, if she
would have had me. My conduct in the business was perhaps that of a
profligate: but yours--yours, Raeburn--was unquestionably that,"
repeated Cressingham, coolly and considerately--"that of a double-dyed
villain." Saying this, he turned on his heel and left him.
The instances just mentioned were the first and the only ones in which
Raeburn had yet suffered the martyrdom of hearing the opinion of others
of his conduct with regard to Miss Rutherford; but this was a species of
torture to which he was now to be frequently exposed. On this very
occasion, he had not proceeded twenty yards from the place where
Cressingham had left him, when he encountered the medical gentleman who
had been attending his victim. This person, conjecturing, from the
direction whence Raeburn was coming, that he had been inquiring for his
patient, accosted him, and asked him how she was.
Raeburn, it will readily be believed, would have gone fifty miles
about--ay, even on his bare knees--rather than have exposed himself to
this meeting; but it had taken place, and he now, therefore, endeavoured
to suppress his agitation, and tried to look as composed as possible;
and it was with this forced and affected calmness that he replied to the
physician's inquiry, that his patient was dead.
"Dead!" said the kind-hearted man; "ah, poor girl! I knew it was at
hand, but I thought she might have lived for at least twenty-four hours
yet. Well, then," he went on, and now looking Raeburn sternly in the
face, "since it is so, I will tell you, Mr Raeburn, my opinion of what
your conduct has been in this most heartrending affair; for you are
deeply implicated in it. My opinion, then, is, sir, that it has been
most infamous, most atrocious; and, regarding yourself, sir, I certainly
think you one of the most heartless ruffians that ever lived."
"Ruffian, sir!" repeated Raeburn, affecting to feel insulted, although
he was quaking in every limb--"ruffian, sir! I shall have satisfaction
for this, sir, you may depend upon it."
"Satisfaction, you scoundrel!" exclaimed Dr Henderson--the name of
Fanny's medical attendant--"what right have you to satisfaction? Who
would condescend to fight such a dastardly and disgraceful villain as
you are? But, mark me, sir," he went on; "I know who the lady's friends
are; and you may depend upon it, I shall not lose a moment in writing to
inform them of everything connected with this shocking affair, and of
your conduct towards the deceased. Take my word for that, sir. And, sir,
not only will I do this, but I will inform every one I know of your
conduct, until you are scouted from all society."
To this Raeburn made no other reply than by turning on his heel, and
muttering the words, "Dr Henderson, you shall hear from me."
"Hear from you, you basest and most infamous of men!" said the doctor,
looking with an expression of the most profound contempt and hatred
after Raeburn, as he receded; "the less we hear of you or from you, the
better for yourself, you ruffian."