COMPRISING MANY NEEDFUL EXPLANATIONS ILLUSTRATIVE OF WISE SAWS; AS
FOR EXAMPLE, "HE THAT HATH AN ILL NAME IS HALF HANGED." "HE THAT
HATH BEEN BITTEN BY A SERPENT IS AFRAID OF A ROPE." "HE THAT LOOKS
FOR A STAR PUTS OUT HIS CANDLES;" AND, "WHEN GOD WILLS, ALL WINDS
BRING RAIN."
The reader has been already made aware how, by an impulse of womanhood
and humanity, Arabella Crane had been converted from a persecuting into a
tutelary agent in the destinies of Waife and Sophy. That evolution in
her moral being dated from the evening on which she had sought the
cripple's retreat, to warn him of Jasper's designs. We have seen by what
stratagem she had made it appear that Waife and his grandchild had sailed
beyond the reach of molestation; with what liberality she had advanced
the money that freed Sophy from the manager's claim; and how
considerately she had empowered her agent to give the reference which
secured to Waife the asylum in which we last beheld him. In a few stern
sentences she had acquainted Waife with her fearless inflexible resolve
to associate her fate henceforth with the life of his lawless son; and,
by rendering abortive all his evil projects of plunder, to compel him at
last to depend upon her for an existence neither unsafe nor sordid,
provided only that it were not dishonest. The moment that she revealed
that design, Waife's trust in her was won. His own heart enabled him to
comprehend the effect produced upon a character otherwise unamiable and
rugged, by the grandeur of self-immolation and the absorption of one
devoted heroic thought. In the strength and bitterness of passion which
thus pledged her existence to redeem another's, he obtained the key to
her vehement and jealous nature; saw why she had been so cruel to the
child of a rival; why she had conceived compassion for that child in
proportion as the father's unnatural indifference had quenched the anger
of her own self-love; and, above all, why, as the idea of reclaiming and
appropriating solely to herself the man who, for good or for evil, had
grown into the all-predominant object of her life, gained more and more
the mastery over her mind, it expelled the lesser and the baser passions,
and the old mean revenge against an infant faded away before the light of
that awakening conscience which is often rekindled from ashes by the
sparks of a single better and worthier thought. And in the resolute
design to reclaim Jasper Losely, Arabella came at once to a ground in
common with his father, with his child. Oh what, too, would the old man
owe to her, what would be his gratitude, his joy, if she not only guarded
his spotless Sophy, but saved from the bottomless abyss his guilty son!
Thus when Arabella Crane had, nearly five years before, sought Waife's
discovered hiding-place, near the old bloodstained Tower, mutual
interests and sympathies had formed between them a bond of alliance not
the less strong because rather tacitly acknowledged than openly
expressed. Arabella had written to Waife from the Continent, for the
first half-year pretty often, and somewhat sanguinely, as to the chance
of Losely's ultimate reformation. Then the intervals of silence became
gradually more prolonged, and the letters more brief. But still, whether
from the wish not unnecessarily to pain the old man, or, as would be more
natural to her character, which, even in its best aspects, was not
gentle, from a proud dislike to confess failure, she said nothing of the
evil courses which Jasper had renewed. Evidently she was always near
him. Evidently, by some means or another, his life, furtive and dark,
was ever under the glare of her watchful eyes.
Meanwhile Sophy had been presented to Caroline Montfort. As Waife had so
fondly anticipated, the lone childless lady had taken with kindness and
interest to the fair motherless child. Left to herself often for months
together in the grand forlorn house, Caroline soon found an object to her
pensive walks in the basket-maker's cottage. Sophy's charming face and
charming ways stole more and more into affections which were denied all
nourishment at home. She entered into Waife's desire to improve, by
education, so exquisite a nature; and, familiarity growing by degrees,
Sophy was at length coaxed up to the great house; and during the hours
which Waife devoted to his rambles (for even in his settled industry he
could not conquer his vagrant tastes, but would weave his reeds or osiers
as he sauntered through solitudes of turf or wood), became the docile
delighted pupil in the simple chintz room which Lady Montfort had
reclaimed from the desert of her surrounding palace. Lady Montfort was
not of a curious turn of mind; profoundly indifferent even to the gossip
of drawing-rooms, she had no rankling desire to know the secrets of
village hearthstones. Little acquainted even with the great world-
scarcely at all with any world below that in which she had her being,
save as she approached humble sorrows by delicate charity--the contrast
between Waife's calling and his conversation roused in her no vigilant
suspicions. A man of some education, and born in a rank that touched
upon the order of gentlemen, but of no practical or professional culture
--with whimsical tastes--with roving eccentric habits--had, in the course
of life, picked up much harmless wisdom, but, perhaps from want of
worldly prudence, failed of fortune. Contented with an obscure retreat
and a humble livelihood, he might naturally be loth to confide to others
the painful history of a descent in life. He might have relations in a
higher sphere, whom the confession would shame; he might be silent in the
manly pride which shrinks from alms and pity and a tale of fall. Nay,
grant the worst--grant that Waife had suffered in repute as well as
fortune--grant that his character had been tarnished by some plausible
circumstantial evidences which he could not explain away to the
satisfaction of friends or the acquittal of a short-sighted world--had
there not been, were there not always, many innocent men similarly
afflicted? And who could hear Waife talk, or look on his arch smile, and
not feel that he was innocent? So, at least, thought Caroline Montfort.
Naturally; for if, in her essentially woman-like character, there was one
all-pervading and all-predominant attribute, it was PITY. Lead Fate
placed her under circumstances fitted to ripen into genial development
all her exquisite forces of soul, her true post in this life would have
been that of the SOOTHER. What a child to some grief-worn father! What
a wife to some toiling, aspiring, sensitive man of genius! What a mother
to some suffering child! It seemed as if it were necessary to her to
have something to compassionate and foster. She was sad when there was
no one to comfort; but her smile was like a sunbeam from Eden when it
chanced on a sorrow it could brighten away. Out of this very sympathy
came her faults--faults of reasoning and judgment. Prudent in her own
chilling path through what the world calls temptations, because so
ineffably pure--because, to Fashion's light tempters, her very thought
was as closed, as
"Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,"
was the ear of Sabrina to the comrades of Comus,--yet place before her
some gentle scheme that seemed fraught with a blessing for others, and
straightway her fancy embraced it, prudence faded--she saw not the
obstacles, weighed not the chances against it. Charity to her did not
come alone, but with its sister twins, Hope and Faith.
Thus, benignly for the old man and the fair child, years rolled on till
Lord Montfort's sudden death, and his widow was called upon to exchange
Montfort Court (which passed to the new heir) for the distant jointure
House of Twickenham. By this time she had grown so attached to Sophy,
and Sophy so gratefully fond of her, that she proposed to Waife to take
his sweet grandchild as her permanent companion, complete her education,
and assure her future. This had been the old man's cherished day-dream;
but he had not contemplated its realisation until he himself were in the
grave. He turned pale, he staggered, when the proposal which would
separate him from his grandchild was first brought before him. But he
recovered ere Lady Montfort could be aware of the acuteness of the pang
she inflicted, and accepted the generous offer with warm protestations of
joy and gratitude. But Sophy! Sophy consent to leave her grandfather
afar and aged in his solitary cottage! Little did either of them know
Sophy, with her soft heart and determined soul, if they supposed such
egotism possible in her. Waife insisted--Waife was angry--Waife was
authoritative--Waife was imploring--Waife was pathetic--all in vain! But
to close every argument, the girl went boldly to Lady Montfort, and said:
"If I left him, his heart would break--never ask it." Lady Montfort
kissed Sophy tenderly as mother ever kissed a child for some sweet loving
trait of a noble nature, and said simply "But he shall not be left--he
shall come too."
She offered Waife rooms in her Twickenham house--she wished to collect
books--he should be librarian. The old man shivered and refused--refused
firmly. He had made a vow not to be a guest in any house. Finally, the
matter was compromised; Waife would remove to the neighbourhood of
Twickenham; there hire a cottage; there ply his art; and Sophy, living
with him, should spend part of each day with Lady Montfort as now.
So it was resolved. Waife consented to occupy a small house on the verge
of the grounds belonging to the jointure villa, on the condition of
paying rent for it. And George Morley insisted on the privilege of
preparing that house for his old teacher's reception, leaving it simple
and rustic to outward appearance, but fitting its pleasant chambers with
all that his knowledge of the old man's tastes and habits suggested for
comfort or humble luxury; a room for Sophy, hung with the prettiest
paper, all butterflies and flowers, commanding a view of the river.
Waife, despite his proud scruples, could not refuse such gifts from a man
whose fortune and career had been secured by his artful lessons. Indeed,
he had already permitted George to assist, though not largely, his own
efforts to repay the L100 advanced by Mrs. Crane. The years he had
devoted to a craft which his ingenuity made lucrative, had just enabled
the basketmaker, with his pupil's aid, to clear off that debt by
instalments. He had the satisfaction of thinking that it was his
industry that had replaced the sum to which his grandchild owed her
release from the execrable Rugge.
Lady Montfort's departure (which preceded Waife's by some weeks) was more
mourned by the poor in her immediate neighbourhood than by the wealthier
families who composed what a province calls its society; and the gloom
which that event cast over the little village round the kingly mansion
was increased when Waife and his grandchild left.
For the last three years, emboldened by Lady Montfort's protection, and
the conviction that he was no longer pursued or spied, the old man
relaxed his earlier reserved and secluded habits. Constitutionally
sociable, he had made acquaintance with his humbler neighbours; lounged
by their cottage palings in his rambles down the lanes; diverted their
children with Sir Isaac's tricks, or regaled them with nuts and apples
from his little orchard; giving to the more diligent labourers many a
valuable hint how to eke out the daily wage with garden produce, or bees,
or poultry; doctored farmer's cows; and even won the heart of the stud-
groom by a mysterious sedative ball, which had reduced to serene docility
a highly nervous and hitherto unmanageable four-year-old. Sophy had been
no less popular. No one grudged her the favour of Lady Montfort--no one
wondered at it. They were loved and honoured. Perhaps the happiest
years Waife had known since his young wife left the earth were passed in
the hamlet which he fancied her shade haunted; for was it not there--
there, in that cottage--there, in sight of those green osiers, that her
first modest virgin replies to his letters of love and hope that soothed
his confinement and animated him--till then little fond of sedentary
toils--to the very industry which, learned in sport, now gave
subsistence, and secured a home. To that home persecution had not
come--gossip had not pryed into its calm seclusion--even chance, when
threatening disclosure, had seemed to pass by innocuous. For once
--a year or so before he left--an incident had occurred which alarmed him
at the time, but led to no annoying results. The banks of the great
sheet of water in Montfort Park were occasionally made the scene of rural
picnics by the families of neighbouring farmers or tradesmen. One day
Waife, while carelessly fashioning his baskets on his favourite spot, was
recognised, on the opposite margin, by a party of such holiday-makers to
whom he himself had paid no attention. He was told the next day by the
landlady of the village inn, the main chimney of which he had undertaken
to cure of smoking, that a "lady" in the picnic symposium of the day
before had asked many questions about him and his grandchild, and had
seemed pleased to hear they were both so comfortably settled. The
"lady" had been accompanied by another "lady," and by two or three young
gentlemen. They had arrived in a "buss," which they had hired for the
occasion. They had come from Humberston the day after those famous races
which annually filled Humberston with strangers--the time of year in
which Rugge's grand theatrical exhibition delighted that ancient town.
From the description of the two ladies Waife suspected that they belonged
to Rugge's company.
But they had not claimed Waife as a ci-devant comrade; they had not
spoken of Sophy as the Phenomenon or the Fugitive. No molestation
followed this event; and, after all, the Remorseless Baron had no longer
any claim to the Persecuted Bandit or to Juliet Araminta.
But the ex-comedian is gone from the osiers--the hamlet. He is in his
new retreat by the lordly river--within an hour of the smoke and roar of
tumultuous London. He tries to look cheerful and happy, but his repose
is troubled--his heart is anxious. Ever since Sophy, on his account,
refused the offer which would have transferred her, not for a few daily
hours, but for habitual life, from a basketmaker's roof to all the
elegancies and refinements of a sphere in which, if freed from him, her
charms and virtues might win her some such alliance as seemed impossible,
while he was thus dragging her down to his own level,--ever since that
day the old man had said to himself, "I live too long." While Sophy was
by his side he appeared busy at his work and merry in his humour; the
moment she left him for Lady Montfort's house, the work dropped from his
hands, and he sank into moody thought.
Waife had written to Mrs. Crane (her address then was at Paris) on
removing to Twickenhain, and begged her to warn him should Jasper
meditate a return to England, by a letter directed to him at the General
Post-office, London. Despite his later trust in Mrs. Crane, he did not
deem it safe to confide to her Lady Montfort's offer to Sophy, or the
affectionate nature of that lady's intimacy with the girl now grown into
womanhood. With that insight into the human heart, which was in him not
so habitually clear and steadfast as to be always useful, but at times
singularly if erratically lucid, he could not feel assured that Arabella
Crane's ancient hate to Sophy (which, lessening in proportion to the
girl's destitution, had only ceased when the stern woman felt, with a
sentiment bordering on revenge, that it was to her that Sophy owed an
asylum obscure and humble) might not revive, if she learned that the
child of a detested rival was raised above the necessity of her
protection, and brought within view of that station so much Loftier than
her own, from which she had once rejoiced to know that the offspring of a
marriage which had darkened her life was excluded. For indeed it had
been only on Waife's promise that he would not repeat the attempt that
had proved so abortive, to enforce Sophy's claim on Guy Darrell, that
Arabella Crane had in the first instance resigned the child to his care.
His care--his--an attainted outcast! As long as Arabella Crane could see
in Sophy but an object of compassion, she might haughtily protect her;
but, could Sophy become an object of envy, would that protection last?
No, he did not venture to confide in Mrs. Crane further than to say that
he and Sophy had removed from Montfort village to the vicinity of London.
Time enough to say more when Mrs. Crane returned to England; and then,
not by letter, but in personal interview.
Once a month the old man went to London to inquire at the General Post-
office for any communications his correspondent might there address to
him. Only once, however, had he heard from Mrs. Crane since the
announcement of his migration, and her note of reply was extremely brief,
until in the fatal month of June, when Guy Darrell and Jasper Losely had
alike returned, and on the same day, to the metropolis; and then the old
man received from her a letter which occasioned him profound alarm. It
apprised him not only that his terrible son was in England--in London;
but that Jasper had discovered that the persons embarked for America were
not the veritable Waife and Sophy whose names they had assumed. Mrs.
Crane ended with these ominous words: "It is right to say now that he has
descended deeper and deeper. Could you see him, you would wonder that I
neither abandon him nor my resolve. He hates me worse than the gibbet.
To me and not to the gibbet he shall pass--fitting punishment to both.
I am in London, not in my old house, but near him. His confidant is my
hireling. His life and his projects are clear to my eyes--clear as if he
dwelt in glass. Sophy is now of an age in which, were she placed in the
care of some person whose respectability could not be impunged, she could
not be legally forced away against her will; but if under your roof,
those whom Jasper has induced to institute a search, that he has no means
to institute very actively himself, might make statements which (as you
are already aware) might persuade others, though well-meaning, to assist
him in separating her from you. He might publicly face even a police-
court, if he thus hoped to shame the rich man into buying off an
intolerable scandal. He might, in the first instance, and more probably,
decoy her into his power through stealth; and what might become of her
before she was recovered? Separate yourself from her for a time. It is
you, notwithstanding your arts of disguise, that can be the more easily
tracked. She, now almost a woman, will have grown out of recognition.
Place her in some secure asylum until, at least, you hear from me again."
Waife read and re-read this epistle (to which there was no direction that
enabled him to reply) in the private room of a little coffee-house to
which he had retired from the gaze and pressure of the street. The
determination he had long brooded over now began to take shape--to be
hurried on to prompt decision. On recovering his first shock, he formed
and matured his plans. That same evening he saw Lady Montfort. He felt
that the time had come when, for Sophy's sake, he must lift the veil from
the obloquy on his own name. To guard against the same concession to
Jasper's authority that had betrayed her at Gatesboro', it was necessary
that he should explain the mystery of Sophy's parentage and position to
Lady Montfort, and go through the anguish of denouncing his own son as
the last person to whose hands she should be consigned. He approached
this subject not only with a sense of profound humiliation, but with no
unreasonable fear lest Lady Montfort might at once decline a charge which
would possibly subject her retirement to a harassing invasion. But, to
his surprise as well as relief, no sooner had he named Sophy's parentage
than Lady Montfort evinced emotions of a joy which cast into the shade
all more painful or discreditable associations. "Henceforth, believe
me," she said, "your Sophy shall be my own child, my own treasured
darling!--no humble companion--my equal as well as my charge. Fear not
that any one shall tear her from me. You are right in thinking that my
roof should be her home--that she should have the rearing and the station
which she is entitled as well as fitted to adorn. But you must not part
from her. I have listened to your tale; my experience of you supplies
the defence you suppress--it reverses the judgment which has aspersed
you. And more ardently than before, I press on you a refuge in the Home
that will shelter your grandchild." Noble-hearted woman! and nobler for
her ignorance of the practical world, in the proposal which would have
blistered with scorching blushes the cheek of that Personification of all
"Solemn Plausibilities," the House of Vipont! Gentleman Waife was not
scamp enough to profit by the ignorance which sprang from generous
virtue. But, repressing all argument, and appearing to acquiesce in the
possibility of such an arrangement, he left her benevolent delight
unsaddened--and before the morning he was gone. Gone in stealth, and by
the starlight, as he had gone years ago from the bailiff's cottage-gone,
for Sophy, in waking, to find, as she had found before, farewell lines,
that commended hope and forbade grief. "It was," he wrote, "for both
their sakes that he had set out on a tour of pleasant adventure. He
needed it; he had felt his spirits droop of late in so humdrum and
settled a life. And there was danger abroad--danger that his brief
absence would remove. He had confided all his secrets to Lady Montfort;
she must look on that kind lady as her sole guardian till he return--as
return he surely would; and then they would live happy ever afterwards as
in fairy tales. He should never forgive her if she were silly enough to
fret for him. He should not be alone; Sir Isaac would take care of him.
He was not without plenty of money-savings of several months; if he
wanted more, he would apply to George Morley. He would write to her
occasionally; but she must not expect frequent letters; he might be away
for months--what did that signify? He was old enough to take care of
himself; she was no longer a child to cry her eyes out if she lost a
senseless toy, or a stupid old cripple. She was a young lady, and he
expected to find her a famous scholar when he returned." And so, with
all flourish and bravado, and suppressing every attempt at pathos, the
old man went his way, and Sophy, hurrying to Lady Montfort's, weeping,
distracted, imploring her to send in all directions to discover and bring
back the fugitive, was there detained a captive guest. But Waife left a
letter also for Lady Montfort, cautioning and adjuring her, as she valued
Sophy's safety from the scandal of Jasper's claim, not to make any
imprudent attempts to discover him. Such attempt would only create the
very publicity from the chance of which he was seeking to escape. The
necessity of this caution was so obvious that Lady Montfort could only
send her most confidential servant to inquire guardedly in the
neighbourhood, until she had summoned George Morley from Humberston,
and taken him into counsel. Waife had permitted her to relate to him,
on strict promise of secrecy, the tale he had confided to her. George
entered with the deepest sympathy into Sophy's distress; but he made her
comprehend the indiscretion and peril of any noisy researches. He
promised that he himself would spare no pains to ascertain the old man's
hiding-place, and see, at least, if he could not be persuaded either to
return or suffer her to join him, that he was not left destitute and
comfortless. Nor was this an idle promise. George, though his inquiries
were unceasing, crippled by the restraint imposed on them, was so acute
in divining, and so active in following up each clue to the wanderer's
artful doublings, that more than once he had actually come upon the
track, and found the very spot where Waife or Sir Isaac had been seen a
few days before. Still, up to the day on which Morley had last reported
progress, the ingenious ex-actor, fertile in all resources of stratagem
and disguise, had baffled his research. At first, however, Waife had
greatly relieved the minds of these anxious friends, and cheered even
Sophy's heavy heart, by letters, gay though brief. These letters having,
by their postmarks, led to his trace, he had stated, in apparent anger,
that reason for discontinuing them. And for the last six weeks no line
from him had been received. In fact, the old man, on resolving to
consummate his self-abnegation, strove more and more to wean his
grandchild's thoughts from his image. He deemed it so essential to her
whole future that, now she had found a home in so secure and so elevated
a sphere, she should gradually accustom herself to a new rank of life,
from which he was an everlasting exile; should lose all trace of his very
being; efface a connection that, ceasing to protect, could henceforth
only harm and dishonour her,--that he tried, as it were, to blot himself
out of the world which now smiled on her. He did not underrate her grief
in its first freshness; he knew that, could she learn where he was, all
else would be forgotten--she would insist on flying to him. But he
continually murmured to himself: "Youth is ever proverbially short of
memory; its sorrows poignant, but not enduring; now the wounds are
already scarring over--they will not reopen if they are left to heal."
He had, at first, thought of hiding somewhere not so far but that once
a-week, or once a-month, he might have stolen into the grounds, looked at
the house that held her--left, perhaps, in her walks some little token of
himself. But, on reflection, he felt that that luxury would be too
imprudent, and it ceased to tempt him in proportion as he reasoned
himself into the stern wisdom of avoiding all that could revive her grief
for him. At the commencement of this tale, in the outline given of that
grand melodrama in which Juliet Araminta played the part of the Bandit's
Child, her efforts to decoy pursuit from the lair of the persecuted Mime
were likened to the arts of the skylark to lure eye and hand from the
nest of his young. More appropriate that illustration now to the parent-
bird than then to the fledgling. Farther and farther from the nest in
which all his love was centred fled the old man. What if Jasper did
discover him now; that very discovery would mislead the pursuit from
Sophy. Most improbable that Losely would ever guess that they could
become separated; still more improbable, unless Waife, imprudently
lurking near her home, guided conjecture, that Losely should dream of
seeking under the roof of the lofty peeress the child that had fled from
Mr. Rugge.
Poor old man! his heart was breaking; but his soul was so brightly
comforted that there, where many, many long miles off, I see him
standing, desolate and patient, in the corner of yon crowded market-
place, holding Sir Isaac by slackened string with listless hand--Sir
Isaac unshorn, travel-stained, draggled, with drooping head and
melancholy eyes--yea, as I see him there, jostled by the crowd, to whom,
now and then, pointing to that huge pannier on his arm, filled with some
homely pedlar wares, he mechanically mutters, "Buy"--yea, I say, verily,
as I see him thus, I cannot draw near in pity--I see what the crowd does
not--the shadow of an angel's wing over his grey head; and I stand
reverentially aloof, with bated breath and bended knee.