THE WORLD.
“’Tis an atrocious world!”—_Bulwer._
The news of the arrest of a bride at the altar, upon one of the gravest
charges, and that bride, the beautiful and gifted Estelle Morelle, the
star of fashion, the patroness of art and literature, the only daughter
and heiress of the oldest and wealthiest baronet in the West of England,
and the wife of one of the most distinguished among the young rising
members of the house of Peers—fell like a thunderbolt upon the world,
and spread like a conflagration through society. The story was
everywhere received with incredulous amazement. The very enormity of the
offense charged upon one so high and pure, stupefied belief. Even the
reporters and “item” hunters of the press, feared, for a time, to deal
directly with the question; and compromised the matter by obscure hints,
and initials, instead of proper names. The most daring “sensationists”
among the country editors were held in check, not only by the judicious
limitation of the _license_ of the press which exists in England, but
also by deep respect for, and perhaps awe of the principal parties
concerned. For the characters and influence of Sir Park Morelle and of
the Viscount Montressor were not only paramount in their respective
counties of Devon and Dorset, but superior throughout the West of
England.
The affair was canvassed with never flagging interest by people of every
rank in society.
Upon the evening of the arrest, the large kitchen of the “Morelle Arms,”
the Inn at Hyde, where small farmers, artizans and laborers most did
“congregate,” was the scene of a considerable excitement upon the
subject.
Along on benches placed each side a strong oaken table, sat perhaps a
dozen rough-looking countrymen, clad in frieze coats or in smock frocks,
and having clay pipes between their lips, and pewter pots of foaming
“arf-’n-arf” before them. In an arm-chair at the head of the table, sat
John Oates the baker, like a self-installed moderator of the feast,
while at the foot, on an oaken stool, was perched Peter Barktree,
under-gamekeeper from Horsford.
The fat little landlady was ever bustling in and out, between the
kitchen and the adjoining bar, pausing now and then to catch a word of
fresh news upon the all-engrossing subject which they were discussing
with so much zest.
“Wot’s been done with un?” inquired Bob Sounds, the well-digger, of his
next neighbor, Peter Barktree, who having come in from Horsford, might
be expected to know something satisfactory.
“Ay mon, wot’s been done with un?” echoed all the others.
“_Oie_ dunnoa. How should _Oie_ know, only wot Bill Moines sayt? Bill
Moines as works on the Yew-tree farrum at Horsford telled _Oie_ how zhe
was zent off to the county jail. But _Oie_ dunnoa, how zhould _Oie_
knoa?” replied this specimen of either stupefaction or caution—it was
hard to tell which.
“Humph! how zhould Bill Moines knoa, an he did wurruk on the Horsford
farrum?” queried a doubter.
“_Oie_ dunnoa. He wur up to the great house and saw the carridges drive
off mebbe; but I dunnoa; how zhould _Oie_ knoa?”
“Bill Moines loied, and Peter Barktree nows nowt on it. John Howe, the
constable, toolde me as his worship had sent un off with his ruverence
Muster Oldfield to stay tull the triall,” said the baker from the head
of the table; and having taken the pipe quite out of his mouth to
deliver this judgment, he now to save time immediately replaced it and
smoked the faster.
“Wot time will the trial be!—Quardar Zezzions!”
“Noo, mon, (puff,) it’s a piece of wurruk for his ludship, (puff, puff,)
and wull coome before the Zizes, (puff, puff, puff,) and they will be
open next week,” replied the competent baker and dictator, smoking
vigorously between his oracular words.
“And wot will they do with zhe!”
“Saying it goo agin un, zend un to the tre’d’ll.”[2]
Footnote 2:
Treadmill.
“Noo they wull not, nuther. It’s boogmy wot they zent Tom Sawyers acroos
the water for. And they wull zend un to Bootany Bay coolonies,” said an
artizan who had not before spoken.
“Oy, but they wull ne’er do the loike of that to zhe, Tom.”
“And whoy zhouldn’t they do it to zhe as well as to another, Bill
Stiggins, if zhe _be_ hoigh quality? Boogmy’s boogmy the wurruld over;
and wot’s boogmy fur poor folk is boogmy for quality folk, and noa
summat else with a foiner name; and wot’s Boot’ny Bay for poor folk,
zhould be Boot’ny Bay for quality folk, and noa soome foiner place loike
Lunnun town,” persisted this determined radical.
“Oy, oy, Tom! zo we zay. Wot’s law for the poor zhould be law for the
quality. A health to Tom Stallins! Here, Mother Higgins, more ale! Wot’s
Boot’ny Bay for poor Tom Sawyers, zhoold be Boot’ny Bay for—”
“Hold your blaspheming tongues of ye! Botany Bay, indeed! They’d never
send the likes of her ladyship to prison for one minute, no matter what
she was left to her own devises to do, let alone Botany Bay. Is her
blessed ladyship, Tom Sawyers, ye brutes? Shame on ye! And she the
sweetest angel as ever went without wings. Shame on ye! And she
educating all yer children, and clothing all yer old mothers, and
lifting half the burden of life from your good-for-naught shoulders ever
since she came home these ten years back—shame on ye! I say again, ye
great, stupid, unfeeling brute beasts! to take her sweet name on yer
lips!” exclaimed the little landlady, unable longer to repress her
indignation at hearing her “angel’s” calamity thus freely discussed, and
therefore quite ready to sacrifice her interests to her feelings, and
offend every guest in her kitchen.
“Coom, coom, Mother Higgins, dooant thee get hoigh with us. Give us
zoome more ale,” replied the baker, holding his pewter pot up for
replenishment.
“Well, then, keep a civil tongue in yer heads, and know who ye’d be
talking about, ye stupid loons, ye! That French frog-eater as the Evil
One has sot on to pretend to her dear ladyship, has no more right to
lift his eye to _her_ than old Bony has to the crown of England.”
Speaking of “Bony” probably suggested battle, for the honest woman went
on to say, “And more betoken, they do tell me how the Frenchman stole
her from a boarding-school while she was a child; and if so be he should
get her _now_, it would cause a war with France.”
“Chut, dame; wot do thee knoa aboot politics and war? and whoy should ’s
majesty go to war aboot two yoong uns as doant know their own moinds?
Speak wot thee knows on, dame,” said Tom Stallins.
“Oy, but the dame be roight! Master Stubbins, his ludship’s oon mon,
says how his ludship, Lud Muntresser, do stick to it as the Frenchman
had noo roight to coome here giving trooble; and his ludship wull stand
by the lady, een noo that her oon fayther and moother hev cast un off,
and more zhame for um,” said Mr. Stiggins.
“Ay will he, I’ll warrant ye! And a right noble gentleman he is,”
exclaimed the landlady.
“Zo he is! zo he is! and here’s to Lud Muntrussor!” agreed the baker,
tossing off the foaming bumper just placed in his hand by the dame. And
similar discussions to this were taking place in every ale-house,
tap-room, and tavern-kitchen in the three counties, as far as the news
had flown.
* * * * *
The morning after the preliminary examination, the elegant boudoir of
Lady Bannerman was half-filled with morning callers, who had “just
happened in” to hear a true, authentic report from first quarters of
this most wonderful of scandals. Ladies whose charms had long been
thrown in the shade by the peerless beauty and genius of Estelle
Morelle, now canvassed without mercy her sudden fall.
“Sweet Providence, what a coming down! What a thunderbolt to the whole
family! Arrested at the altar upon a charge of——! Was such a thing ever
heard of!” exclaimed the Honorable Mrs. Howard Kennaugh.
“Hush-sh! my dearest love; pray do not specify the offense in the
presence of my daughters—the dear girls are so unsophisticated—their
minds are so pu-err, I am perhaps just a little prudish in speaking
before them,” cooed Lady Bannerman.
“What a crushing blow to Sir Parke’s pride,” said Lady Mary Monson.
“What a shock to Montressor,” drawled Mrs. Bute Trevor.
“But what a life of deception that creature must have led, to have
deceived her parents and her betrothed so effectually,” said Mrs. Howard
Kennaugh.
“And what could she have _expected_ other than, sooner or later, just
such a denouement as the present?” inquired Lady Monson.
“Oh, you see, my dear, the fellow was in a foreign prison; she never
expected him to get free; and when he returned so very inopportunely,
why she affected to have believed him dead,” explained Lady Bannerman.
“Oh, the unprincipled wretch! What a happy thing for you and your sweet
daughters, my dear Lady Bannerman, that you were never on visiting terms
with the family at the Hall, and will not have the awkwardness of
breaking with them as some of us shall,” said Mrs. Bute Trevor.
“A very happy circumstance, indeed, I assure you; I esteem it, madam,”
returned her deceitful ladyship, who, even at that darkest moment, would
have given the largest diamond in her parure to be placed on the dinner
list of Lady Morelle, and deemed the honor cheaply purchased.
“They say that Miss Morelle, Madame L’Orient, or Lady Montressor,
whichever she may properly be named, for really one does scarcely know
how to choose among her various _aliases_, has been cast off by her
parents. What do you think of it, Mrs. Kennaugh?” asked Mrs. Bute
Trevor.
“Oh, dear, I think it no wonder! she had deceived them so deeply, and
shocked them so dreadfully! If they could only cast off the cleaving
dishonor with the daughter, it were better.”
“Ah, but that will _cling_; I wonder if they will be visited by any
one?” suggested Lady Monson.
“Really, it is impossible to say. As far as our family are concerned, if
we had ever been on visiting terms with them, it would be out of the
question for us to continue an acquaintance with a set so seriously
compromised,” said Lady Bannerman.
“Gracious Heaven, only to reflect upon it! One can scarcely realize such
horrors,” said Mrs. Howard Kennaugh.
“When does the trial come on?” inquired Mrs. Bute Trevor.
“As soon as the Easter Assizes are open at Exeter. The case will come up
before the new judge, Sir James Allan Parke.”
“Sir James Allan Parke, my dear? And he is the new judge! Why, is he not
a relative of Sir Parke Morelle? Maternal uncle, or cousin, or something
of the sort? It will be a strange beginning to have to try his own
relative, will it not?”
“That trial will be a solemn farce, of course; nobody expects conviction
for _her_.”
“But, just Heaven, will the acquittal of the court remove the dishonor
that will attach to herself and all her family?”
“Of course it cannot restore her to the social position that she has
forfeited.”
“To think of Estelle Morelle in the prisoner’s dock!” exclaimed Mrs.
Howard Kennaugh, who seemed to have an attraction toward the most
painful and humiliating points of the case.
“Yes! and then if she _should_ happen to be convicted,” suggested Lady
Bannerman.
“What would be done with her?”
“She would be sent to the convict colonies. It is a transportable
offense.”
“Ugh! I suppose in that case her parents would never show their faces in
England again.”
“They will go abroad in _any_ case, of course. For my part, I think that
inasmuch as the girl has been arraigned, she had just as well be
condemned. It can make but little difference, and to ship her to
Australia will end the difficulty, and be a sort of way of providing for
her. Her parents are going East, and Lord Montressor has applied for an
Ambassadorship to America.”
“Mamma, dear, do you know I think _that must_ be a mistake? For I heard
from Mrs. Burgess, the niece of the Bishop of Exeter, that his lordship
intended to assert and stand upon the legality of his marriage, and to
sustain his lady,” said Miss Bannerman, upon whom all eyes were now
turned in astonishment at this annunciation.
“Louise, my dear, we must not believe half that we hear.”
“But, dearest mamma, his lordship really _did_ place her under the
protection of Mr. Oldfield to await the event of the trial.”
“Ridiculous, my love. His lordship had nothing to do with it; Mr.
Oldfield took the poor lost creature into his house as an act of
Christian charity. You know, my sweet, that a _clergyman_ can do any
thing of that sort, which no one else could dare to do; because his holy
cloth will ‘cover a multitude of sins’—_of others_.”
“But, dearest mamma, Mrs. Burgess told me that it was _all_ his
lordship’s doings, and that in placing her under the protection of Mr.
Oldfield, he gave him and his family to understand that she must be
addressed only by the name and title that he had bestowed upon her, and
that he chose to consider her own.”
“Perfectly preposterous, my darling girl! a peer of Lord Montressor’s
exalted rank compromise himself with a questionable woman? Perfectly
preposterous!”
“But, mamma dear, he is said to be devotedly attached to her!”
“Tut, tut, tut, my best Louisa, pray do not be absurd! Lord Montressor
attached to _her_ in view of all that is past, and present, and to come?
Preposterous! Perfectly preposterous!”
And—“Preposterous! Perfectly preposterous!” was echoed by all the ladies
present.
And this scene was but a type of a score of other such scenes then
transpiring in the boudoirs and drawing-rooms of Devon, Dorset, and
Somerset, where this subject was discussed as far as the news had
spread. But, notwithstanding the ladies had characterized the idea as
“preposterous,” the fact was now forced upon their convictions, that
Lord Montressor did mean to spread the aegis of his powerful name and
protection over Estelle during her terrible ordeal.
It became known, as every thing even of the most secret nature does, in
some mysterious manner, that Lord Montressor had called upon Sir Parke
Morelle in behalf of his daughter.
* * * * *
Lord Montressor in fact suffered one night to pass, during which he
hoped Sir Parke Morelle might recover from the first madness of rage
into which he had been thrown by this terrible shock to his pride and
affection, and then his Lordship had called at Hyde Hall and requested a
private audience with the Baronet. He was shown into the superb library
where he found Sir Parke reclining in a luxurious arm-chair with a
reading stand beside him, and engaged in reading, or in pretending to do
so.
Lord Montressor advanced with serene gravity, offering his hand.
Sir Parke arose to welcome him, and stood, slightly bent, trembling and
leaning for support with one hand upon the chair. The Baronet had aged
twenty years in less than twenty hours.
“Good-morning, Sir Parke.”
“Good-morning, my lord. Pray be seated.”
Lord Montressor waived his hand, nodded, took the indicated chair, and
when Sir Parke Morelle had resumed his seat, said,—
“I called this morning, Sir Parke, believing that you would be pleased
to hear favorable news relating to Lady Montressor.”
The Baronet’s face suddenly blanched, his lips worked, his brow
gathered, but his over-mastering pride soon controlled every betrayal of
emotion, and he inquired, coolly—
“News relating to——_whom_, my lord?”
“To your daughter, sir.”
“Your Lordship labors under some serious mistake. _I have no daughter_,”
said the Baronet, sternly.
“No daughter? That is very sorrowful, if true; you lately gloried in the
loveliest daughter in all Devon.”
“We will not speak of her, if you please, my lord,” said the baronet
haughtily.
“Be it so, I will drop the subject of _your daughter_; but will you,
sir, on your part, be so courteous as to permit me to speak for a few
moments of, _my wife_?”
“I was not aware, Lord Montressor, that you _had_ a wife.”
“Then I have the honor of informing you of that fact. Yes, sir, I have
the loveliest wife, as _you_ had the loveliest daughter, in all Devon; I
have not lost her; and it is of _her_ that I come here to talk.”
“My lord! with all deference to your lordship, I must inform you that
_I_ do not _know_ Lady Montressor; nor is it convenient just at present
to form her ladyship’s acquaintance. We are about to leave England for
some time, my lord.”
“Sir Parke!” said Lord Montressor, very gravely, “let us leave this
unworthy word-fencing, and talk of this matter as Christian _men_ should
discuss it—shall we not?”
The baronet’s countenance was working again; he sought to control its
emotions; he sought to repress the feelings that were swelling in his
bosom; he was “very vilely proud,” but his pride was scarcely proof
against the earnest goodness of Lord Montressor’s nature.
His lordship saw this advantage and pursued it.
“If you will exercise the moral heroism of looking this dark matter
steadily in the face, you will understand it better—summon patience and
strength, while I tell you as much, and no more than it is requisite you
should know, of the present position of affairs relating to—my wife.”
Then Lord Montressor commenced, and while the baronet listened with his
chin upon his breast, and his hand thrust into his bosom, told with all
possible delicacy what had passed, and concluded by saying—
“Thus the law and the testimony, as understood by the most eminent
barrister in the kingdom, hold Estelle to have been, while yet an
infant, the victim of a conspiracy, and entirely set aside the _quasi_
marriage of the child, in favor of the real marriage of the woman.
Therefore, sir, I shall use the power with which the law undoubtedly
invests me to protect and defend Estelle in her present straits, and
when these shall be safely past, leaving the conduct of her future life
to be decided by her own conscience and moral free agency.”
Leaning his head upon his thin worn hand, Sir Parke turned his glance
wistfully upon the face of Lord Montressor. His lordship’s calm,
self-possessed independence of thought and action amazed this
world-worshiper. But Sir Parke’s thoughts, affections, and activities
revolved in a very contracted orbit—from pride to self-interest, and
from self-interest around again to pride—and as neither of these
passions could in any degree be gratified by any sort of relations with
Estelle, he judging the motives of others by his own, could not at all
understand the grounds of Lord Montressor’s action. But then the
humanity, liberality and independence of Lord Montressor had often
suggested the suspicion to the baronet that his lordship was a little
wrongheaded upon some subjects, and that was the only way, he thought,
to explain his present otherwise inexplicable conduct. When Lord
Montressor paused, he spoke, though somewhat off the point.
“Since we _are_ discussing this subject, which you have rather
ungenerously forced upon me, my lord, I must use the opportunity
afforded me of assuring your lordship that at the time of your betrothal
to Miss Morelle, neither Lady Morelle nor myself had the slightest
grounds for suspicion that there had existed on the side of the young
lady, a previous entanglement.”
“I am assured of that, Sir Parke; though I myself had been duly advised
of all this by Estelle, who would have placed a like confidence in her
father had she dared.”
As much as Sir Parke was surprised by this avowal, he was much too
guarded to permit his astonishment to appear; while Lord Montressor
proceeded to say:—
“But, this is not the point, sir; what I wished to inquire is
whether—now that you are made acquainted with the position of
affairs—you will assist me in sustaining Estelle.” There was a pause.
For a few minutes pride and affection had a mighty struggle in the bosom
of the Baronet, though no one could have guessed it from his calm
exterior, and then he replied, slowly:—
“Assuredly not, my lord. You, from the infatuation of passion, and Mr.
Oldfield, from Christian charity, may unite to protect and defend her;
and the literal construction of the statute may save her from the
ultimate consequences of her folly, but Estelle has fallen, and no
fallen woman must dare to call me father, or look to me for aid and
countenance.”
An indignant rejoinder rose to Lord Montressor’s lips; he was tempted to
inquire of him by whose culpable neglect it was that the child of seven
years had been left to grow up under the sole charge of an unprincipled
and intriguing French governess, who ended by entrapping and nearly
destroying her pupil; to ascribe all the wretchedness that had ensued to
his own failure in parental duty, and to hurl the charge of dishonor
back into the teeth of the cold, hard, haughty man who had made it; but
“He who ruleth his own spirit is mightier than he who taketh a city,”
and Lord Montressor forbore by angry words to widen the breach between
father and daughter.
“God give you a more humane heart, Sir Parke,” he said. “When do you
leave England?”
“Within ten days,” answered the baronet.
“He wishes to escape before the opening of the Assizes. Well, well, be
it so! only with augmented earnestness let me pray God to purify my
heart from every earthly passion, and every selfish motive, that I may
be the fitter champion of His poor child, whose earthly father and
mother have forsaken her,” thought Lord Montressor. Then he
inquired—since they were so soon to leave England—whether he might not
be permitted to pay his respects to Lady Morelle.
But the baronet prayed that he would excuse her ladyship, who had not
yet recovered the severe shock her nerves had sustained in this affair.
Lord Montressor then left his compliments and best wishes for Lady
Morelle, and arose and took leave.
Worldly pride was the governing passion of Sir Parke and Lady Morelle.
Just so long as their only daughter had been an object of pride to them,
they had idolized her; now, however, when reproach had fallen upon her
youthful head, and she had become, though undeservedly, an object of
animadversion, they were the first to reject and disown her; as had new
honors, however unmerited, crowned her they would have been the first to
applaud.