Produced by David Widger
NIGHT AND MORNING
By Edward Bulwer Lytton
CONTENTS
PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1845.
NIGHT AND MORNING.
BOOK I.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
BOOK V.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER THE LAST.
PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1845.
Much has been written by critics, especially by those in Germany (the
native land of criticism), upon the important question, whether to
please or to instruct should be the end of Fiction--whether a moral
purpose is or is not in harmony with the undidactic spirit perceptible
in the higher works of the imagination. And the general result of the
discussion has been in favour of those who have contended that Moral
Design, rigidly so called, should be excluded from the aims of the Poet;
that his Art should regard only the Beautiful, and be contented with
the indirect moral tendencies, which can never fail the creation of the
Beautiful. Certainly, in fiction, to interest, to please, and sportively
to elevate--to take man from the low passions, and the miserable
troubles of life, into a higher region, to beguile weary and selfish
pain, to excite a genuine sorrow at vicissitudes not his own, to raise
the passions into sympathy with heroic struggles--and to admit the soul
into that serener atmosphere from which it rarely returns to ordinary
existence, without some memory or association which ought to enlarge the
domain of thought and exalt the motives of action;--such, without
other moral result or object, may satisfy the Poet,* and constitute the
highest and most universal morality he can effect. But subordinate to
this, which is not the duty, but the necessity, of all Fiction that
outlasts the hour, the writer of imagination may well permit to himself
other purposes and objects, taking care that they be not too sharply
defined, and too obviously meant to contract the Poet into the
Lecturer--the Fiction into the Homily. The delight in Shylock is not
less vivid for the Humanity it latently but profoundly inculcates; the
healthful merriment of the Tartufe is not less enjoyed for the exposure
of the Hypocrisy it denounces. We need not demand from Shakespeare or
from Moliere other morality than that which Genius unconsciously throws
around it--the natural light which it reflects; but if some great
principle which guides us practically in the daily intercourse with men
becomes in the general lustre more clear and more pronounced, we gain
doubly, by the general tendency and the particular result.
*[I use the word Poet in its proper sense, as applicable to any
writer, whether in verse or prose, who invents or creates.]
Long since, in searching for new regions in the Art to which I am a
servant, it seemed to me that they might be found lying far, and rarely
trodden, beyond that range of conventional morality in which Novelist
after Novelist had entrenched himself--amongst those subtle recesses in
the ethics of human life in which Truth and Falsehood dwell undisturbed
and unseparated. The vast and dark Poetry around us--the Poetry of
Modern Civilisation and Daily Existence, is shut out from us in much,
by the shadowy giants of Prejudice and Fear. He who would arrive at the
Fairy Land must face the Phantoms. Betimes, I set myself to the task
of investigating the motley world to which our progress in humanity
has attained, caring little what misrepresentation I incurred, what
hostility I provoked, in searching through a devious labyrinth for the
foot-tracks of Truth.
In the pursuit of this object, I am, not vainly, conscious that I have
had my influence on my time--that I have contributed, though humbly
and indirectly, to the benefits which Public Opinion has extorted from
Governments and Laws. While (to content myself with a single example)
the ignorant or malicious were decrying the moral of Paul Clifford, I
consoled myself with perceiving that its truths had stricken deep--that
many, whom formal essays might not reach, were enlisted by the picture
and the popular force of Fiction into the service of that large and
Catholic Humanity which frankly examines into the causes of crime, which
ameliorates the ills of society by seeking to amend the circumstances
by which they are occasioned; and commences the great work of justice
to mankind by proportioning the punishment to the offence. That work,
I know, had its share in the wise and great relaxation of our Criminal
Code--it has had its share in results yet more valuable, because leading
to more comprehensive reforms--viz., in the courageous facing of the
ills which the mock decorum of timidity would shun to contemplate, but
which, till fairly fronted, in the spirit of practical Christianity, sap
daily, more and more, the walls in which blind Indolence would protect
itself from restless Misery and rampant Hunger. For it is not till Art
has told the unthinking that nothing (rightly treated) is too low for
its breath to vivify and its wings to raise, that the Herd awaken from
their chronic lethargy of contempt, and the Lawgiver is compelled to
redress what the Poet has lifted into esteem. In thus enlarging the
boundaries of the Novelist, from trite and conventional to untrodden
ends, I have seen, not with the jealousy of an author, but with the
pride of an Originator, that I have served as a guide to later and abler
writers, both in England and abroad. If at times, while imitating, they
have mistaken me, I am not answerable for their errors; or if, more
often, they have improved where they borrowed, I am not envious of their
laurels. They owe me at least this, that I prepared the way for
their reception, and that they would have been less popular and more
misrepresented, if the outcry which bursts upon the first researches
into new directions had not exhausted its noisy vehemence upon me.
In this Novel of Night and Morning I have had various ends in
view--subordinate, I grant, to the higher and more durable morality
which belongs to the Ideal, and instructs us playfully while it
interests, in the passions, and through the heart. First--to deal
fearlessly with that universal unsoundness in social justice which makes
distinctions so marked and iniquitous between Vice and Crime--viz.,
between the corrupting habits and the violent act--which scarce touches
the former with the lightest twig in the fasces--which lifts against
the latter the edge of the Lictor’s axe. Let a child steal an apple in
sport, let a starveling steal a roll in despair, and Law conducts them
to the Prison, for evil commune to mellow them for the gibbet. But let
a man spend one apprenticeship from youth to old age in vice--let him
devote a fortune, perhaps colossal, to the wholesale demoralisation of
his kind--and he may be surrounded with the adulation of the so-called
virtuous, and be served upon its knee, by that Lackey--the Modern World!
I say not that Law can, or that Law should, reach the Vice as it does
the Crime; but I say, that Opinion may be more than the servile shadow
of Law. I impress not here, as in Paul Clifford, a material moral to
work its effect on the Journals, at the Hustings, through Constituents,
and on Legislation;--I direct myself to a channel less active, more
tardy, but as sure--to the Conscience--that reigns elder and superior to
all Law, in men’s hearts and souls;--I utter boldly and loudly a truth,
if not all untold, murmured feebly and falteringly before, sooner or
later it will find its way into the judgment and the conduct, and shape
out a tribunal which requires not robe or ermine.
Secondly--in this work I have sought to lift the mask from the timid
selfishness which too often with us bears the name of Respectability.
Purposely avoiding all attraction that may savour of extravagance,
patiently subduing every tone and every hue to the aspect of those whom
we meet daily in our thoroughfares, I have shown in Robert Beaufort
the man of decorous phrase and bloodless action--the systematic
self-server--in whom the world forgive the lack of all that is generous,
warm, and noble, in order to respect the passive acquiescence in
methodical conventions and hollow forms. And how common such men are
with us in this century, and how inviting and how necessary their
delineation, may be seen in this,--that the popular and pre-eminent
Observer of the age in which we live has since placed their prototype in
vigorous colours upon imperishable canvas.--[Need I say that I allude to
the Pecksniff of Mr. Dickens?]
There is yet another object with which I have identified my tale. I
trust that I am not insensible to such advantages as arise from
the diffusion of education really sound, and knowledge really
available;--for these, as the right of my countrymen, I have contended
always. But of late years there has been danger that what ought to be an
important truth may be perverted into a pestilent fallacy. Whether for
rich or for poor, disappointment must ever await the endeavour to give
knowledge without labour, and experience without trial. Cheap literature
and popular treatises do not in themselves suffice to fit the nerves
of man for the strife below, and lift his aspirations, in healthful
confidence above. He who seeks to divorce toil from knowledge deprives
knowledge of its most valuable property.--the strengthening of the
mind by exercise. We learn what really braces and elevates us only in
proportion to the effort it costs us. Nor is it in Books alone, nor in
Books chiefly, that we are made conscious of our strength as Men; Life
is the great Schoolmaster, Experience the mighty Volume. He who has made
one stern sacrifice of self has acquired more than he will ever glean
from the odds and ends of popular philosophy. And the man the least
scholastic may be more robust in the power that is knowledge, and
approach nearer to the Arch-Seraphim, than Bacon himself, if he cling
fast to two simple maxims--“Be honest in temptation, and in Adversity
believe in God.” Such moral, attempted before in Eugene Aram, I have
enforced more directly here; and out of such convictions I have
created hero and heroine, placing them in their primitive and natural
characters, with aid more from life than books,--from courage the one,
from affection the other--amidst the feeble Hermaphrodites of our sickly
civilisation;--examples of resolute Manhood and tender Womanhood.
The opinions I have here put forth are not in fashion at this day. But I
have never consulted the popular any more than the sectarian, Prejudice.
Alone and unaided I have hewn out my way, from first to last, by the
force of my own convictions. The corn springs up in the field centuries
after the first sower is forgotten. Works may perish with the workman;
but, if truthful, their results are in the works of others, imitating,
borrowing, enlarging, and improving, in the everlasting Cycle of
Industry and Thought.
Knelworth, 1845. NOTE TO THE PRESENT EDITION, 1851.
I have nothing to add to the preceding pages, written six years ago, as
to the objects and aims of this work; except to say, and by no means
as a boast, that the work lays claims to one kind of interest which
I certainly never desired to effect for it--viz., in exemplifying the
glorious uncertainty of the Law. For, humbly aware of the blunders which
Novelists not belonging to the legal profession are apt to commit, when
they summon to the denouement of a plot the aid of a deity so mysterious
as Themis, I submitted to an eminent lawyer the whole case of “Beaufort
versus Beaufort,” as it stands in this Novel. And the pages which refer
to that suit were not only written from the opinion annexed to the brief
I sent in, but submitted to the eye of my counsel, and revised by
his pen.--(N.B. He was feed.) Judge then my dismay when I heard long
afterwards that the late Mr. O’Connell disputed the soundness of the
law I had thus bought and paid for! “Who shall decide when doctors
disagree?” All I can say is, that I took the best opinion that love
or money could get me; and I should add, that my lawyer, unawed by the
alleged ipse dixit of the great Agitator (to be sure, he is dead), still
stoutly maintains his own views of the question.
[I have, however, thought it prudent so far to meet the objection
suggested by Mr. O’Connell, as to make a slight alteration in this
edition, which will probably prevent the objection, if correct,
being of any material practical effect on the disposition of that
visionary El Dorado--the Beaufort Property.]
Let me hope that the right heir will live long enough to come under the
Statute of Limitations. Possession is nine points of the law, and Time
may give the tenth.
Kenbworth.
NIGHT AND MORNING.
BOOK I.
“Noch in meines Lebens Lenze
War ich and ich wandert’ aus,
Und der Jugend frohe Tanze
Liess ich in des Vaters Haus.”
SCHILLER, Der Pilgrim.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
“Now rests our vicar. They who knew him best,
Proclaim his life to have been entirely rest;
Not one so old has left this world of sin,
More like the being that he entered in.”--CRABBE.
In one of the Welsh counties is a small village called A----. It is
somewhat removed from the high road, and is, therefore, but little known
to those luxurious amateurs of the picturesque, who view nature through
the windows of a carriage and four. Nor, indeed, is there anything,
whether of scenery or association, in the place itself, sufficient to
allure the more sturdy enthusiast from the beaten tracks which tourists
and guide-books prescribe to those who search the Sublime and Beautiful
amidst the mountain homes of the ancient Britons. Still, on the whole,
the village is not without its attractions. It is placed in a small
valley, through which winds and leaps down many a rocky fall, a clear,
babbling, noisy rivulet, that affords excellent sport to the brethren
of the angle. Thither, accordingly, in the summer season occasionally
resort the Waltons of the neighbourhood--young farmers, retired traders,
with now and then a stray artist, or a roving student from one of the
universities. Hence the solitary hostelry of A----, being somewhat more
frequented, is also more clean and comfortable than could reasonably be
anticipated from the insignificance and remoteness of the village.
At a time in which my narrative opens, the village boasted a sociable,
agreeable, careless, half-starved parson, who never failed to introduce
himself to any of the anglers who, during the summer months, passed
a day or two in the little valley. The Rev. Mr. Caleb Price had been
educated at the University of Cambridge, where he had contrived, in
three years, to run through a little fortune of L3500. It is true,
that he acquired in return the art of making milkpunch, the science
of pugilism, and the reputation of one of the best-natured, rattling,
open-hearted companions whom you could desire by your side in a tandem
to Newmarket, or in a row with the bargemen. By the help of these gifts
and accomplishments, he had not failed to find favour, while his money
lasted, with the young aristocracy of the “Gentle Mother.” And, though
the very reverse of an ambitious or calculating man, he had
certainly nourished the belief that some one of the “hats” or “tinsel
gowns”--i.e., young lords or fellow-commoners, with whom he was on such
excellent terms, and who supped with him so often, would do something
for him in the way of a living. But it so happened that when Mr. Caleb
Price had, with a little difficulty, scrambled through his degree, and
found himself a Bachelor of Arts and at the end of his finances, his
grand acquaintances parted from him to their various posts in the State
Militant of Life. And, with the exception of one, joyous and reckless
as himself, Mr. Caleb Price found that when Money makes itself wings
it flies away with our friends. As poor Price had earned no academical
distinction, so he could expect no advancement from his college; no
fellowship; no tutorship leading hereafter to livings, stalls, and
deaneries. Poverty began already to stare him in the face, when the only
friend who, having shared his prosperity, remained true to his adverse
fate,--a friend, fortunately for him, of high connections and brilliant
prospects--succeeded in obtaining for him the humble living of A----.
To this primitive spot the once jovial roisterer cheerfully
retired--contrived to live contented upon an income somewhat less than
he had formerly given to his groom--preached very short sermons to a
very scanty and ignorant congregation, some of whom only understood
Welsh--did good to the poor and sick in his own careless, slovenly
way--and, uncheered or unvexed by wife and children, he rose in summer
with the lark and in winter went to bed at nine precisely, to save coals
and candles. For the rest, he was the most skilful angler in the whole
county; and so willing to communicate the results of his experience as
to the most taking colour of the flies, and the most favoured haunts of
the trout--that he had given especial orders at the inn, that
whenever any strange gentleman came to fish, Mr. Caleb Price should be
immediately sent for. In this, to be sure, our worthy pastor had his
usual recompense. First, if the stranger were tolerably liberal, Mr.
Price was asked to dinner at the inn; and, secondly, if this failed,
from the poverty or the churlishness of the obliged party, Mr. Price
still had an opportunity to hear the last news--to talk about the
Great World--in a word, to exchange ideas, and perhaps to get an old
newspaper, or an odd number of a magazine.
Now, it so happened that one afternoon in October, when the periodical
excursions of the anglers, becoming gradually rarer and more rare, had
altogether ceased, Mr. Caleb Price was summoned from his parlour in
which he had been employed in the fabrication of a net for his cabbages,
by a little white-headed boy, who came to say there was a gentleman at
the inn who wished immediately to see him--a strange gentleman, who had
never been there before.
Mr. Price threw down his net, seized his hat, and, in less than five
minutes, he was in the best room of the little inn.
The person there awaiting him was a man who, though plainly clad in
a velveteen shooting-jacket, had an air and mien greatly above those
common to the pedestrian visitors of A----. He was tall, and of one of
those athletic forms in which vigour in youth is too often followed
by corpulence in age. At this period, however, in the full prime of
manhood--the ample chest and sinewy limbs, seen to full advantage in
their simple and manly dress--could not fail to excite that popular
admiration which is always given to strength in the one sex as to
delicacy in the other. The stranger was walking impatiently to and fro
the small apartment when Mr. Price entered; and then, turning to
the clergyman a countenance handsome and striking, but yet more
prepossessing from its expression of frankness than from the regularity
of its features,--he stopped short, held out his hand, and said, with
a gay laugh, as he glanced over the parson’s threadbare and slovenly
costume, “My poor Caleb!--what a metamorphosis!--I should not have known
you again!”
“What! you! Is it possible, my dear fellow?--how glad I am to see
you! What on earth can bring you to such a place? No! not a soul would
believe me if I said I had seen you in this miserable hole.”
“That is precisely the reason why I am here. Sit down, Caleb, and we’ll
talk over matters as soon as our landlord has brought up the materials
for--”
“The milk-punch,” interrupted Mr. Price, rubbing his hands.
“Ah, that will bring us back to old times, indeed!”
In a few minutes the punch was prepared, and after two or three
preparatory glasses, the stranger thus commenced: “My dear Caleb, I am
in want of your assistance, and above all of your secrecy.”
“I promise you both beforehand. It will make me happy the rest of my
life to think I have served my patron--my benefactor--the only friend I
possess.”
“Tush, man! don’t talk of that: we shall do better for you one of these
days. But now to the point: I have come here to be married--married, old
boy! married!”
And the stranger threw himself back in his chair, and chuckled with the
glee of a schoolboy.
“Humph!” said the parson, gravely. “It is a serious thing to do, and a
very odd place to come to.”
“I admit both propositions: this punch is superb. To proceed. You know
that my uncle’s immense fortune is at his own disposal; if I disobliged
him, he would be capable of leaving all to my brother; I should
disoblige him irrevocably if he knew that I had married a tradesman’s
daughter; I am going to marry a tradesman’s daughter--a girl in a
million! the ceremony must be as secret as possible. And in this church,
with you for the priest, I do not see a chance of discovery.”
“Do you marry by license?”
“No, my intended is not of age; and we keep the secret even from her
father. In this village you will mumble over the bans without one of
your congregation ever taking heed of the name. I shall stay here a
month for the purpose. She is in London, on a visit to a relation in
the city. The bans on her side will be published with equal privacy in a
little church near the Tower, where my name will be no less unknown than
hers. Oh, I’ve contrived it famously!”
“But, my dear fellow, consider what you risk.”
“I have considered all, and I find every chance in my favour. The bride
will arrive here on the day of our wedding: my servant will be one
witness; some stupid old Welshman, as antediluvian as possible--I leave
it to you to select him--shall be the other. My servant I shall dispose
of, and the rest I can depend on.”
“But--”
“I detest buts; if I had to make a language, I would not admit such a
word in it. And now, before I run on about Catherine, a subject quite
inexhaustible, tell me, my dear friend, something about yourself.”
.......
Somewhat more than a month had elapsed since the arrival of the stranger
at the village inn. He had changed his quarters for the Parsonage--went
out but little, and then chiefly on foot excursions among the
sequestered hills in the neighbourhood. He was therefore but partially
known by sight, even in the village; and the visit of some old college
friend to the minister, though indeed it had never chanced before,
was not, in itself, so remarkable an event as to excite any particular
observation. The bans had been duly, and half audibly, hurried over,
after the service was concluded, and while the scanty congregation were
dispersing down the little aisle of the church,--when one morning a
chaise and pair arrived at the Parsonage. A servant out of livery leaped
from the box. The stranger opened the door of the chaise, and, uttering
a joyous exclamation, gave his arm to a lady, who, trembling and
agitated, could scarcely, even with that stalwart support, descend the
steps. “Ah!” she said, in a voice choked with tears, when they found
themselves alone in the little parlour,--“ah! if you knew how I have
suffered!”
How is it that certain words, and those the homeliest, which the hand
writes and the eye reads as trite and commonplace expressions--when
spoken convey so much,--so many meanings complicated and refined? “Ah!
if you knew how I have suffered!”
When the lover heard these words, his gay countenance fell; he drew
back--his conscience smote him: in that complaint was the whole history
of a clandestine love, not for both the parties, but for the woman--the
painful secrecy--the remorseful deceit--the shame--the fear--the
sacrifice. She who uttered those words was scarcely sixteen. It is an
early age to leave Childhood behind for ever!
“My own love! you have suffered, indeed; but it is over now.
“Over! And what will they say of me--what will they think of me at home?
Over! Ah!”
“It is but for a short time; in the course of nature my uncle cannot
live long: all then will be explained. Our marriage once made public,
all connected with you will be proud to own you. You will have wealth,
station--a name among the first in the gentry of England. But, above
all, you will have the happiness to think that your forbearance for
a time has saved me, and, it may be, our children, sweet one!--from
poverty and--”
“It is enough,” interrupted the girl; and the expression of her
countenance became serene and elevated. “It is for you--for your sake.
I know what you hazard: how much I must owe you! Forgive me, this is the
last murmur you shall ever hear from these lips.”
An hour after these words were spoken, the marriage ceremony was
concluded.
“Caleb,” said the bridegroom, drawing the clergyman aside as they were
about to re-enter the house, “you will keep your promise, I know; and
you think I may depend implicitly upon the good faith of the witness you
have selected?”
“Upon his good faith?--no,” said Caleb, smiling, “but upon his deafness,
his ignorance, and his age. My poor old clerk! He will have forgotten
all about it before this day three months. Now I have seen your lady,
I no longer wonder that you incur so great a risk. I never beheld so
lovely a countenance. You will be happy!” And the village priest sighed,
and thought of the coming winter and his own lonely hearth.
“My dear friend, you have only seen her beauty--it is her least charm.
Heaven knows how often I have made love; and this is the only woman I
have ever really loved. Caleb, there is an excellent living that adjoins
my uncle’s house. The rector is old; when the house is mine, you will
not be long without the living. We shall be neighbours, Caleb, and then
you shall try and find a bride for yourself. Smith,”--and the bridegroom
turned to the servant who had accompanied his wife, and served as a
second witness to the marriage,--“tell the post-boy to put to the horses
immediately.”
“Yes, Sir. May I speak a word with you?”
“Well, what?”
“Your uncle, sir, sent for me to come to him, the day before we left
town.”
“Aha!--indeed!”
“And I could just pick up among his servants that he had some
suspicion--at least, that he had been making inquiries--and seemed very
cross, sir.”
“You went to him?”
“No, Sir, I was afraid. He has such a way with him;--whenever his eye
is fixed on mine, I always feel as if it was impossible to tell a lie;
and--and--in short, I thought it was best not to go.”
“You did right. Confound this fellow!” muttered the bridegroom, turning
away; “he is honest, and loves me: yet, if my uncle sees him, he is
clumsy enough to betray all. Well, I always meant to get him out of the
way--the sooner the better. Smith!”
“Yes, sir!”
“You have often said that you should like, if you had some capital, to
settle in Australia. Your father is an excellent farmer; you are above
the situation you hold with me; you are well educated, and have some
knowledge of agriculture; you can scarcely fail to make a fortune as a
settler; and if you are of the same mind still, why, look you, I have
just L1000. at my bankers: you shall have half, if you like to sail by
the first packet.”
“Oh, sir, you are too generous.”
“Nonsense--no thanks--I am more prudent than generous; for I agree with
you that it is all up with me if my uncle gets hold of you. I dread my
prying brother, too; in fact, the obligation is on my side; only stay
abroad till I am a rich man, and my marriage made public, and then you
may ask of me what you will. It’s agreed, then; order the horses, we’ll
go round by Liverpool, and learn about the vessels. By the way, my good
fellow, I hope you see nothing now of that good-for-nothing brother of
yours?”
“No, indeed, sir. It’s a thousand pities he has turned out so ill; for
he was the cleverest of the family, and could always twist me round his
little finger.”
“That’s the very reason I mentioned him. If he learned our secret, he
would take it to an excellent market. Where is he?”
“Hiding, I suspect, sir.”
“Well, we shall put the sea between you and him! So now all’s safe.”
Caleb stood by the porch of his house as the bride and bridegroom
entered their humble vehicle. Though then November, the day was
exquisitely mild and calm, the sky without a cloud, and even the
leafless trees seemed to smile beneath the cheerful sun. And the young
bride wept no more; she was with him she loved--she was his for ever.
She forgot the rest. The hope--the heart of sixteen--spoke brightly out
through the blushes that mantled over her fair cheeks. The bridegroom’s
frank and manly countenance was radiant with joy. As he waved his hand
to Caleb from the window the post-boy cracked his whip, the servant
settled himself on the dickey, the horses started off in a brisk
trot,--the clergyman was left alone.
To be married is certainly an event in life; to marry other people is,
for a priest, a very ordinary occurrence; and yet, from that day, a
great change began to operate in the spirits and the habits of Caleb
Price. Have you ever, my gentle reader, buried yourself for some time
quietly in the lazy ease of a dull country-life? Have you ever become
gradually accustomed to its monotony, and inured to its solitude; and,
just at the time when you have half-forgotten the great world--that mare
magnum that frets and roars in the distance--have you ever received in
your calm retreat some visitor, full of the busy and excited life which
you imagined yourself contented to relinquish? If so, have you not
perceived, that, in proportion as his presence and communication either
revived old memories, or brought before you new pictures of “the bright
tumult” of that existence of which your guest made a part,--you began to
compare him curiously with yourself; you began to feel that what
before was to rest is now to rot; that your years are gliding from
you unenjoyed and wasted; that the contrast between the animal life of
passionate civilisation and the vegetable torpor of motionless seclusion
is one that, if you are still young, it tasks your philosophy to
bear,--feeling all the while that the torpor may be yours to your grave?
And when your guest has left you, when you are again alone, is the
solitude the same as it was before?
Our poor Caleb had for years rooted his thoughts to his village. His
guest had been like the Bird in the Fairy Tale, settling upon the quiet
branches, and singing so loudly and so gladly of the enchanted skies
afar, that, when it flew away, the tree pined, nipped and withering in
the sober sun in which before it had basked contented. The guest was,
indeed, one of those men whose animal spirits exercise upon such as come
within their circle the influence and power usually ascribed only to
intellectual qualities. During the month he had sojourned with Caleb,
he had brought back to the poor parson all the gaiety of the brisk and
noisy novitiate that preceded the solemn vow and the dull retreat;--the
social parties, the merry suppers, the open-handed, open-hearted
fellowship of riotous, delightful, extravagant, thoughtless YOUTH. And
Caleb was not a bookman--not a scholar; he had no resources in himself,
no occupation but his indolent and ill-paid duties. The emotions,
therefore, of the Active Man were easily aroused within him. But if this
comparison between his past and present life rendered him restless
and disturbed, how much more deeply and lastingly was he affected by
a contrast between his own future and that of his friend! Not in those
points where he could never hope equality--wealth and station--the
conventional distinctions to which, after all, a man of ordinary sense
must sooner or later reconcile himself--but in that one respect wherein
all, high and low, pretend to the same rights--rights which a man of
moderate warmth of feeling can never willingly renounce--viz., a partner
in a lot however obscure; a kind face by a hearth, no matter how mean
it be! And his happier friend, like all men full of life, was full of
himself--full of his love, of his future, of the blessings of home,
and wife, and children. Then, too, the young bride seemed so fair, so
confiding, and so tender; so formed to grace the noblest or to cheer the
humblest home! And both were so happy, so all in all to each other,
as they left that barren threshold! And the priest felt all this, as,
melancholy and envious, he turned from the door in that November day, to
find himself thoroughly alone. He now began seriously to muse upon
those fancied blessings which men wearied with celibacy see springing,
heavenward, behind the altar. A few weeks afterwards a notable change
was visible in the good man’s exterior. He became more careful of his
dress, he shaved every morning, he purchased a crop-eared Welsh cob; and
it was soon known in the neighbourhood that the only journey the cob was
ever condemned to take was to the house of a certain squire, who, amidst
a family of all ages, boasted two very pretty marriageable daughters.
That was the second holy day-time of poor Caleb--the love-romance of his
life: it soon closed. On learning the amount of the pastor’s stipend the
squire refused to receive his addresses; and, shortly after, the girl
to whom he had attached himself made what the world calls a happy
match: and perhaps it was one, for I never heard that she regretted the
forsaken lover. Probably Caleb was not one of those whose place in a
woman’s heart is never to be supplied. The lady married, the world went
round as before, the brook danced as merrily through the village,
the poor worked on the week-days, and the urchins gambolled round the
gravestones on the Sabbath,--and the pastor’s heart was broken. He
languished gradually and silently away. The villagers observed that
he had lost his old good-humoured smile; that he did not stop every
Saturday evening at the carrier’s gate, to ask if there were any news
stirring in the town which the carrier weekly visited; that he did not
come to borrow the stray newspapers that now and then found their way
into the village; that, as he sauntered along the brookside, his clothes
hung loose on his limbs, and that he no longer “whistled as he went;”
alas, he was no longer “in want of thought!” By degrees, the walks
themselves were suspended; the parson was no longer visible: a stranger
performed his duties.
One day, it might be some three years and more after the fatal visit I
have commemorated--one very wild rough day in early March, the postman,
who made the round of the district, rang at the parson’s bell. The
single female servant, her red hair loose on her neck, replied to the
call.
“And how is the master?”
“Very bad;” and the girl wiped her eyes.
“He should leave you something handsome,” remarked the postman, kindly,
as he pocketed the money for the letter.
The pastor was in bed--the boisterous wind rattled down the chimney and
shook the ill-fitting casement in its rotting frame. The clothes he
had last worn were thrown carelessly about, unsmoothed, unbrushed; the
scanty articles of furniture were out of their proper places; slovenly
discomfort marked the death-chamber. And by the bedside stood a
neighbouring clergyman, a stout, rustic, homely, thoroughly Welsh
priest, who might have sat for the portrait of Parson Adams.
“Here’s a letter for you,” said the visitor.
“For me!” echoed Caleb, feebly. “Ah--well--is it not very dark, or are
my eyes failing?” The clergyman and the servant drew aside the curtains
and propped the sick man up: he read as follows, slowly, and with
difficulty:
“DEAR, CALEB,--At last I can do something for you. A friend of mine has
a living in his gift just vacant, worth, I understand, from three to
four hundred a year: pleasant neighbourhood--small parish. And my
friend keeps the hounds!--just the thing for you. He is, however, a
very particular sort of person--wants a companion, and has a horror of
anything evangelical; wishes, therefore, to see you before he decides.
If you can meet me in London, some day next month, I’ll present you to
him, and I have no doubt it will be settled. You must think it strange I
never wrote to you since we parted, but you know I never was a very good
correspondent; and as I had nothing to communicate advantageous to you
I thought it a sort of insult to enlarge on my own happiness, and so
forth. All I shall say on that score is, that I’ve sown my wild oats;
and that you may take my word for it, there’s nothing that can make a
man know how large the heart is, and how little the world, till he comes
home (perhaps after a hard day’s hunting) and sees his own fireside, and
hears one dear welcome; and--oh, by the way, Caleb, if you could but see
my boy, the sturdiest little rogue! But enough of this. All that vexes
me is, that I’ve never yet been able to declare my marriage: my uncle,
however, suspects nothing: my wife bears up against all, like an angel
as she is; still, in case of any accident, it occurs to me, now I’m
writing to you, especially if you leave the place, that it may be as
well to send me an examined copy of the register. In those remote places
registers are often lost or mislaid; and it may be useful hereafter,
when I proclaim the marriage, to clear up all doubt as to the fact.
“Good-bye, old fellow,
“Yours most truly, &c., &c.”
“It comes too late,” sighed Caleb, heavily; and the letter fell from his
hands. There was a long pause. “Close the shutters,” said the sick man,
at last; “I think I could sleep: and--and--pick up that letter.”
With a trembling, but eager gripe, he seized the paper, as a miser would
seize the deeds of an estate on which he has a mortgage. He smoothed
the folds, looked complacently at the well-known hand, smiled--a ghastly
smile! and then placed the letter under his pillow, and sank down; they
left him alone. He did not wake for some hours, and that good clergyman,
poor as himself, was again at his post. The only friendships that are
really with us in the hour of need are those which are cemented
by equality of circumstance. In the depth of home, in the hour of
tribulation, by the bed of death, the rich and the poor are seldom found
side by side. Caleb was evidently much feebler; but his sense seemed
clearer than it had been, and the instincts of his native kindness were
the last that left him. “There is something he wants me do for him,” he
muttered.
“Ah! I remember: Jones, will you send for the parish register? It is
somewhere in the vestry-room, I think--but nothing’s kept properly.
Better go yourself--‘tis important.”
Mr. Jones nodded, and sallied forth. The register was not in the vestry;
the church-wardens knew nothing about it; the clerk--a new clerk, who
was also the sexton, and rather a wild fellow--had gone ten miles off to
a wedding: every place was searched; till, at last, the book was found,
amidst a heap of old magazines and dusty papers, in the parlour of
Caleb himself. By the time it was brought to him, the sufferer was fast
declining; with some difficulty his dim eye discovered the place where,
amidst the clumsy pothooks of the parishioners, the large clear hand of
the old friend, and the trembling characters of the bride, looked forth,
distinguished.
“Extract this for me, will you?” said Caleb. Mr. Jones obeyed.
“Now, just write above the extract:
“‘Sir,--By Mr. Price’s desire I send you the inclosed. He is too ill to
write himself. But he bids me say that he has never been quite the same
man since you left him; and that, if he should not get well again, still
your kind letter has made him easier in his mind.”
Caleb stopped.
“Go on.”
“That is all I have to say: sign your name, and put the address--here
it is. Ah, the letter,” he muttered, “must not lie about! If anything
happens to me, it may get him into trouble.”
And as Mr. Jones sealed his communication, Caleb feebly stretched his
wan hand, held the letter which had “come too late” over the flame of
the candle. As the blazing paper dropped on the carpetless floor, Mr.
Jones prudently set thereon the broad sole of his top-boot, and the
maidservant brushed the tinder into the grate.
“Ah, trample it out:--hurry it amongst the ashes. The last as the rest,”
said Caleb, hoarsely. “Friendship, fortune, hope, love, life--a little
flame, and then--and then--”
“Don’t be uneasy--it’s quite out!” said Mr. Jones. Caleb turned his face
to the wall. He lingered till the next day, when he passed insensibly
from sleep to death. As soon as the breath was out of his body, Mr.
Jones felt that his duty was discharged, that other duties called
him home. He promised to return to read the burial-service over the
deceased, gave some hasty orders about the plain funeral, and was
turning from the room, when he saw the letter he had written by Caleb’s
wish, still on the table. “I pass the post-office--I’ll put it in,” said
he to the weeping servant; “and just give me that scrap of paper.” So
he wrote on the scrap, “P. S. He died this morning at half-past twelve,
without pain.--M. J.;” and not taking the trouble to break the seal,
thrust the final bulletin into the folds of the letter, which he then
carefully placed in his vest pocket, and safely transferred to the post.
And that was all that the jovial and happy man, to whom the letter was
addressed, ever heard of the last days of his college friend.
The living, vacant by the death of Caleb Price, was not so valuable as
to plague the patron with many applications. It continued vacant
nearly the whole of the six months prescribed by law. And the desolate
parsonage was committed to the charge of one of the villagers, who
had occasionally assisted Caleb in the care of his little garden.
The villager, his wife, and half-a-dozen noisy, ragged children, took
possession of the quiet bachelor’s abode. The furniture had been sold to
pay the expenses of the funeral, and a few trifling bills; and, save
the kitchen and the two attics, the empty house, uninhabited, was
surrendered to the sportive mischief of the idle urchins, who prowled
about the silent chambers in fear of the silence, and in ecstasy at the
space. The bedroom in which Caleb had died was, indeed, long held sacred
by infantine superstition. But one day the eldest boy having ventured
across the threshold, two cupboards, the doors standing ajar, attracted
the child’s curiosity. He opened one, and his exclamation soon brought
the rest of the children round him. Have you ever, reader, when a boy,
suddenly stumbled on that El Dorado, called by the grown-up folks a
lumber room? Lumber, indeed! what Virtu double-locks in cabinets is the
real lumber to the boy! Lumber, reader! to thee it was a treasury!
Now this cupboard had been the lumber-room in Caleb’s household. In an
instant the whole troop had thrown themselves on the motley contents.
Stray joints of clumsy fishing-rods; artificial baits; a pair of
worn-out top-boots, in which one of the urchins, whooping and shouting,
buried himself up to the middle; moth-eaten, stained, and ragged,
the collegian’s gown--relic of the dead man’s palmy time; a bag of
carpenter’s tools, chiefly broken; a cricket-bat; an odd boxing-glove;
a fencing-foil, snapped in the middle; and, more than all, some
half-finished attempts at rude toys: a boat, a cart, a doll’s house, in
which the good-natured Caleb had busied himself for the younger ones of
that family in which he had found the fatal ideal of his trite life. One
by one were these lugged forth from their dusty slumber-profane hands
struggling for the first right of appropriation. And now, revealed
against the wall, glared upon the startled violators of the sanctuary,
with glassy eyes and horrent visage, a grim monster. They huddled back
one upon the other, pale and breathless, till the eldest, seeing that
the creature moved not, took heart, approached on tip-toe-twice receded,
and twice again advanced, and finally drew out, daubed, painted, and
tricked forth in the semblance of a griffin, a gigantic kite.
The children, alas! were not old and wise enough to knew all the dormant
value of that imprisoned aeronaut, which had cost Caleb many a dull
evening’s labour--the intended gift to the false one’s favourite
brother. But they guessed that it was a thing or spirit appertaining of
right to them; and they resolved, after mature consultation, to impart
the secret of their discovery to an old wooden-legged villager, who had
served in the army, who was the idol of all the children of the place,
and who, they firmly believed, knew everything under the sun, except the
mystical arts of reading and writing. Accordingly, having seen that the
coast was clear--for they considered their parents (as the children of
the hard-working often do) the natural foes to amusement--they carried
the monster into an old outhouse, and ran to the veteran to beg him to
come up slyly and inspect its properties.
Three months after this memorable event, arrived the new pastor--a slim,
prim, orderly, and starch young man, framed by nature and trained by
practice to bear a great deal of solitude and starving. Two loving
couples had waited to be married till his Reverence should arrive.
The ceremony performed, where was the registry-book? The vestry was
searched--the church-wardens interrogated; the gay clerk, who, on the
demise of his deaf predecessor, had come into office a little before
Caleb’s last illness, had a dim recollection of having taken the
registry up to Mr. Price at the time the vestry-room was whitewashed.
The house was searched--the cupboard, the mysterious cupboard, was
explored. “Here it is, sir!” cried the clerk; and he pounced upon a
pale parchment volume. The thin clergyman opened it, and recoiled in
dismay--more than three-fourths of the leaves had been torn out.
“It is the moths, sir,” said the gardener’s wife, who had not yet
removed from the house.
The clergyman looked round; one of the children was trembling. “What
have you done to this book, little one?”
“That book?--the--hi!--hi!--”
“Speak the truth, and you sha’n’t be punished.”
“I did not know it was any harm--hi!--hi!--”
“Well, and--”
“And old Ben helped us.”
“Well?”
“And--and--and--hi!--hi!--The tail of the kite, sir!--”
“Where is the kite?”
Alas! the kite and its tail were long ago gone to that undiscovered
limbo where all things lost, broken, vanished, and destroyed; things
that lose themselves--for servants are too honest to steal; things
that break themselves--for servants are too careful to break; find an
everlasting and impenetrable refuge.
“It does not signify a pin’s head,” said the clerk; “the parish must
find a new ‘un!”
“It is no fault of mine,” said the Pastor. “Are my chops ready?”
CHAPTER II.
“And soothed with idle dreams the frowning fate.”--CRABBE.
“Why does not my father come back? what a time he has been away!”
“My dear Philip, business detains him; but he will be here in a few
days--perhaps to-day!”
“I should like him to see how much I am improved.”
“Improved in what, Philip?” said the mother, with a smile. “Not Latin, I
am sure; for I have not seen you open a book since you insisted on poor
Todd’s dismissal.”
“Todd! Oh, he was such a scrub, and spoke through his nose: what could
he know of Latin?”
“More than you ever will, I fear, unless--” and here there was a certain
hesitation in the mother’s voice, “unless your father consents to your
going to school.”
“Well, I should like to go to Eton! That’s the only school for a
gentleman. I’ve heard my father say so.”
“Philip, you are too proud.”--“Proud! you often call me proud; but,
then, you kiss me when you do so. Kiss me now, mother.”
The lady drew her son to her breast, put aside the clustering hair from
his forehead, and kissed him; but the kiss was sad, and the moment
after she pushed him away gently and muttered, unconscious that she was
overheard:
“If, after all, my devotion to the father should wrong the children!”
The boy started, and a cloud passed over his brow; but he said nothing.
A light step entered the room through the French casements that opened
on the lawn, and the mother turned to her youngest-born, and her eye
brightened.
“Mamma! mamma! here is a letter for you. I snatched it from John: it is
papa’s handwriting.”
The lady uttered a joyous exclamation, and seized the letter. The
younger child nestled himself on a stool at her feet, looking up
while she read it; the elder stood apart, leaning on his gun, and with
something of thought, even of gloom, upon his countenance.
There was a strong contrast in the two boys. The elder, who was about
fifteen, seemed older than he was, not only from his height, but from
the darkness of his complexion, and a certain proud, nay, imperious,
expression upon features that, without having the soft and fluent
graces of childhood, were yet regular and striking. His dark-green
shooting-dress, with the belt and pouch, the cap, with its gold tassel
set upon his luxuriant curls, which had the purple gloss of the raven’s
plume, blended perhaps something prematurely manly in his own tastes,
with the love of the fantastic and the picturesque which bespeaks the
presiding genius of the proud mother. The younger son had scarcely told
his ninth year; and the soft, auburn ringlets, descending half-way down
the shoulders; the rich and delicate bloom that exhibits at once the
hardy health and the gentle fostering; the large deep-blue eyes; the
flexile and almost effeminate contour of the harmonious features;
altogether made such an ideal of childlike beauty as Lawrence had loved
to paint or Chantrey model. And the daintiest cares of a mother, who,
as yet, has her darling all to herself--her toy, her plaything--were
visible in the large falling collar of finest cambric, and the blue
velvet dress with its filigree buttons and embroidered sash.
Both the boys had about them the air of those whom Fate ushers blandly
into life; the air of wealth, and birth, and luxury, spoiled and
pampered as if earth had no thorn for their feet, and heaven not a wind
to visit their young cheeks too roughly. The mother had been extremely
handsome; and though the first bloom of youth was now gone, she had
still the beauty that might captivate new love--an easier task than
to retain the old. Both her sons, though differing from each other,
resembled her; she had the features of the younger; and probably any one
who had seen her in her own earlier youth would have recognized in that
child’s gay yet gentle countenance the mirror of the mother when a girl.
Now, however, especially when silent or thoughtful, the expression of
her face was rather that of the elder boy;--the cheek, once so rosy was
now pale, though clear, with something which time had given, of pride
and thought, in the curved lip and the high forehead. One who could have
looked on her in her more lonely hours, might have seen that the pride
had known shame, and the thought was the shadow of the passions of fear
and sorrow.
But now as she read those hasty, brief, but well-remembered
characters--read as one whose heart was in her eyes--joy and triumph
alone were visible in that eloquent countenance. Her eyes flashed,
her breast heaved; and at length, clasping the letter to her lips, she
kissed it again and again with passionate transport. Then, as her eyes
met the dark, inquiring, earnest gaze of her eldest born, she flung her
arms round him, and wept vehemently.
“What is the matter, mamma, dear mamma?” said the youngest, pushing
himself between Philip and his mother. “Your father is coming back,
this day--this very hour;--and you--you--child--you, Philip--” Here sobs
broke in upon her words, and left her speechless.
The letter that had produced this effect ran as follows:
TO MRS MORTON, Fernside Cottage.
“DEAREST KATE,--My last letter prepared you for the news I have now
to relate--my poor uncle is no more. Though I had seen little of him,
especially of late years, his death sensibly affected me; but I have at
least the consolation of thinking that there is nothing now to prevent
my doing justice to you. I am the sole heir to his fortune--I have it in
my power, dearest Kate, to offer you a tardy recompense for all you have
put up with for my sake;--a sacred testimony to your long forbearance,
your unreproachful love, your wrongs, and your devotion. Our children,
too--my noble Philip!--kiss them, Kate--kiss them for me a thousand
times.
“I write in great haste--the burial is just over, and my letter will
only serve to announce my return. My darling Catherine, I shall be with
you almost as soon as these lines meet your eyes--those clear eyes,
that, for all the tears they have shed for my faults and follies, have
never looked the less kind. Yours, ever as ever, “PHILIP BEAUFORT.
This letter has told its tale, and little remains to explain. Philip
Beaufort was one of those men of whom there are many in his peculiar
class of society--easy, thoughtless, good-humoured, generous, with
feelings infinitely better than his principles.
Inheriting himself but a moderate fortune, which was three parts in the
hands of the Jews before he was twenty-five, he had the most brilliant
expectations from his uncle; an old bachelor, who, from a courtier, had
turned a misanthrope--cold--shrewd--penetrating--worldly--sarcastic--and
imperious; and from this relation he received, meanwhile, a handsome
and, indeed, munificent allowance. About sixteen years before the date
at which this narrative opens, Philip Beaufort had “run off,” as the
saying is, with Catherine Morton, then little more than a child,--a
motherless child--educated at a boarding-school to notions and desires
far beyond her station; for she was the daughter of a provincial
tradesman. And Philip Beaufort, in the prime of life, was possessed of
most of the qualities that dazzle the eyes and many of the arts that
betray the affections. It was suspected by some that they were privately
married: if so, the secret had been closely kept, and baffled all the
inquiries of the stern old uncle. Still there was much, not only in the
manner, at once modest and dignified, but in the character of Catherine,
which was proud and high-spirited, to give colour to the suspicion.
Beaufort, a man naturally careless of forms, paid her a marked and
punctilious respect; and his attachment was evidently one not only of
passion, but of confidence and esteem. Time developed in her mental
qualities far superior to those of Beaufort, and for these she had
ample leisure of cultivation. To the influence derived from her mind and
person she added that of a frank, affectionate, and winning disposition;
their children cemented the bond between them. Mr. Beaufort was
passionately attached to field sports. He lived the greater part of
the year with Catherine, at the beautiful cottage to which he had built
hunting stables that were the admiration of the county; and though the
cottage was near London, the pleasures of the metropolis seldom allured
him for more than a few days--generally but a few hours--at a time; and
he--always hurried back with renewed relish to what he considered his
home.
Whatever the connection between Catherine and himself (and of the true
nature of that connection, the Introductory Chapter has made the reader
more enlightened than the world), her influence had, at least, weaned
from all excesses, and many follies, a man who, before he knew her,
had seemed likely, from the extreme joviality and carelessness of his
nature, and a very imperfect education, to contract whatever vices were
most in fashion as preservatives against ennui. And if their union had
been openly hallowed by the Church, Philip Beaufort had been universally
esteemed the model of a tender husband and a fond father. Ever, as he
became more and more acquainted with Catherine’s natural good qualities,
and more and more attached to his home, had Mr. Beaufort, with the
generosity of true affection, desired to remove from her the pain of
an equivocal condition by a public marriage. But Mr. Beaufort,
though generous, was not free from the worldliness which had met him
everywhere, amidst the society in which his youth had been spent. His
uncle, the head of one of those families which yearly vanish from the
commonalty into the peerage, but which once formed a distinguished
peculiarity in the aristocracy of England--families of ancient birth,
immense possessions, at once noble and untitled--held his estates by no
other tenure than his own caprice. Though he professed to like Philip,
yet he saw but little of him. When the news of the illicit connection
his nephew was reported to have formed reached him, he at first resolved
to break it off; but observing that Philip no longer gambled, nor ran
in debt, and had retired from the turf to the safer and more economical
pastimes of the field, he contented himself with inquiries which
satisfied him that Philip was not married; and perhaps he thought it, on
the whole, more prudent to wink at an error that was not attended by the
bills which had here-to-fore characterised the human infirmities of his
reckless nephew. He took care, however, incidentally, and in reference
to some scandal of the day, to pronounce his opinion, not upon the
fault, but upon the only mode of repairing it.
“If ever,” said he, and he looked grimly at Philip while he spoke, “a
gentleman were to disgrace his ancestry by introducing into his family
one whom his own sister could not receive at her house, why, he ought
to sink to her level, and wealth would but make his disgrace the more
notorious. If I had an only son, and that son were booby enough to do
anything so discreditable as to marry beneath him, I would rather have
my footman for my successor. You understand, Phil!”
Philip did understand, and looked round at the noble house and
the stately park, and his generosity was not equal to the trial.
Catherine--so great was her power over him--might, perhaps, have easily
triumphed over his more selfish calculations; but her love was too
delicate ever to breathe, of itself, the hope that lay deepest at her
heart. And her children!--ah! for them she pined, but for them she also
hoped. Before them was a long future, and she had all confidence in
Philip. Of late, there had been considerable doubts how far the elder
Beaufort would realise the expectations in which his nephew had been
reared. Philip’s younger brother had been much with the old gentleman,
and appeared to be in high favour: this brother was a man in every
respect the opposite to Philip--sober, supple, decorous, ambitious, with
a face of smiles and a heart of ice.
But the old gentleman was taken dangerously ill, and Philip was summoned
to his bed of death. Robert, the younger brother, was there also, with
his wife (who he had married prudently) and his children (he had two, a
son and a daughter). Not a word did the uncle say as to the disposition
of his property till an hour before he died. And then, turning in his
bed, he looked first at one nephew, then at the other, and faltered out:
“Philip, you are a scapegrace, but a gentleman! Robert, you are a
careful, sober, plausible man; and it is a great pity you were not in
business; you would have made a fortune!--you won’t inherit one, though
you think it: I have marked you, sir. Philip, beware of your brother.
Now let me see the parson.”
The old man died; the will was read; and Philip succeeded to a rental of
L20,000. a-year; Robert, to a diamond ring, a gold repeater, L5,000. and
a curious collection of bottled snakes.
CHAPTER III.
“Stay, delightful Dream;
Let him within his pleasant garden walk;
Give him her arm--of blessings let them talk.”--CRABBE.
“There, Robert, there! now you can see the new stables. By Jove, they
are the completest thing in the three kingdoms!”
“Quite a pile! But is that the house? You lodge your horses more
magnificently than yourself.”
“But is it not a beautiful cottage?--to be sure, it owes everything to
Catherine’s taste. Dear Catherine!”
Mr. Robert Beaufort, for this colloquy took place between the brothers,
as their britska rapidly descended the hill, at the foot of which lay
Fernside Cottage and its miniature demesnes--Mr. Robert Beaufort pulled
his travelling cap over his brows, and his countenance fell, whether at
the name of Catherine, or the tone in which the name was uttered; and
there was a pause, broken by a third occupant of the britska, a youth of
about seventeen, who sat opposite the brothers.
“And who are those boys on the lawn, uncle?”
“Who are those boys?” It was a simple question, but it grated on the ear
of Mr. Robert Beaufort--it struck discord at his heart. “Who were those
boys?” as they ran across the sward, eager to welcome their father home;
the westering sun shining full on their joyous faces--their young forms
so lithe and so graceful--their merry laughter ringing in the still air.
“Those boys,” thought Mr. Robert Beaufort, “the sons of shame, rob mine
of his inheritance.” The elder brother turned round at his nephew’s
question, and saw the expression on Robert’s face. He bit his lip, and
answered, gravely:
“Arthur, they are my children.”
“I did not know you were married,” replied Arthur, bending forward to
take a better view of his cousins.
Mr. Robert Beaufort smiled bitterly, and Philip’s brow grew crimson.
The carriage stopped at the little lodge. Philip opened the door, and
jumped to the ground; the brother and his son followed. A moment more,
and Philip was locked in Catherine’s arms, her tears falling fast upon
his breast; his children plucking at his coat; and the younger one
crying in his shrill, impatient treble, “Papa! papa! you don’t see
Sidney, papa!”
Mr. Robert Beaufort placed his hand on his son’s shoulder, and arrested
his steps, as they contemplated the group before them.
“Arthur,” said he, in a hollow whisper, “those children are our disgrace
and your supplanters; they are bastards! bastards! and they are to be
his heirs!”
Arthur made no answer, but the smile with which he had hitherto gazed on
his new relations vanished.
“Kate,” said Mr. Beaufort, as he turned from Mrs. Morton, and lifted
his youngest-born in his arms, “this is my brother and his son: they are
welcome, are they not?”
Mr. Robert bowed low, and extended his hand, with stiff affability, to
Mrs. Morton, muttering something equally complimentary and inaudible.
The party proceeded towards the house. Philip and Arthur brought up the
rear.
“Do you shoot?” asked Arthur, observing the gun in his cousin’s hand.
“Yes. I hope this season to bag as many head as my father: he is a
famous shot. But this is only a single barrel, and an old-fashioned sort
of detonator. My father must get me one of the new gulls: I can’t afford
it myself.”
“I should think not,” said Arthur, smiling.
“Oh, as to that,” resumed Philip, quickly, and with a heightened colour,
“I could have managed it very well if I had not given thirty guineas for
a brace of pointers the other day: they are the best dogs you ever saw.”
“Thirty guineas!” echoed Arthur, looking with native surprise at the
speaker; “why, how old are you?”
“Just fifteen last birthday. Holla, John! John Green!” cried the young
gentleman in an imperious voice, to one of the gardeners, who was
crossing the lawn, “see that the nets are taken down to the lake
to-morrow, and that my tent is pitched properly, by the lime-trees, by
nine o’clock. I hope you will understand me this time: Heaven knows you
take a deal of telling before you understand anything!”
“Yes, Mr. Philip,” said the man, bowing obsequiously; and then muttered,
as he went off, “Drat the nat’rel! He speaks to a poor man as if he
warn’t flesh and blood.”
“Does your father keep hunters?” asked Philip.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Perhaps one reason may be, that he is not rich enough.”
“Oh! that’s a pity. Never mind, we’ll mount you, whenever you like to
pay us a visit.”
Young Arthur drew himself up, and his air, naturally frank and gentle,
became haughty and reserved. Philip gazed on him, and felt offended;
he scarce knew why, but from that moment he conceived a dislike to his
cousin.
CHAPTER IV.
“For a man is helpless and vain, of a condition so exposed to
calamity that a raisin is able to kill him; any trooper out of the
Egyptian army--a fly can do it, when it goes on God’s errand.”
--JEREMY TAYLOR On the Deceitfulness of the Heart.
The two brothers sat at their wine after dinner. Robert sipped claret,
the sturdy Philip quaffed his more generous port. Catherine and the boys
might be seen at a little distance, and by the light of a soft August
moon, among the shrubs and bosquets of the lawn.
Philip Beaufort was about five-and-forty, tall, robust, nay, of great
strength of frame and limb; with a countenance extremely winning, not
only from the comeliness of its features, but its frankness, manliness,
and good nature. His was the bronzed, rich complexion, the inclination
towards embonpoint, the athletic girth of chest, which denote redundant
health, and mirthful temper, and sanguine blood. Robert, who had lived
the life of cities, was a year younger than his brother; nearly as tall,
but pale, meagre, stooping, and with a careworn, anxious, hungry look,
which made the smile that hung upon his lips seem hollow and artificial.
His dress, though plain, was neat and studied; his manner, bland and
plausible; his voice, sweet and low: there was that about him which, if
it did not win liking, tended to excite respect--a certain decorum, a
nameless propriety of appearance and bearing, that approached a little
to formality: his every movement, slow and measured, was that of one
who paced in the circle that fences round the habits and usages of the
world.
“Yes,” said Philip, “I had always decided to take this step, whenever
my poor uncle’s death should allow me to do so. You have seen Catherine,
but you do not know half her good qualities: she would grace any
station; and, besides, she nursed me so carefully last year, when I
broke my collar-bone in that cursed steeple-chase. Egad, I am getting
too heavy and growing too old for such schoolboy pranks.”
“I have no doubt of Mrs. Morton’s excellence, and I honour your motives;
still, when you talk of her gracing any station, you must not forget,
my dear brother, that she will be no more received as Mrs. Beaufort than
she is now as Mrs. Morton.”
“But I tell you, Robert, that I am really married to her already; that
she would never have left her home but on that condition; that we were
married the very day we met after her flight.”
Robert’s thin lips broke into a slight sneer of incredulity. “My dear
brother, you do right to say this--any man in your situation would say
the same. But I know that my uncle took every pains to ascertain if the
report of a private marriage were true.”
“And you helped him in the search. Eh, Bob?”
Bob slightly blushed. Philip went on.
“Ha, ha! to be sure you did; you knew that such a discovery would have
done for me in the old gentleman’s good opinion. But I blinded you both,
ha, ha! The fact is, that we were married with the greatest privacy;
that even now, I own, it would be difficult for Catherine herself to
establish the fact, unless I wished it. I am ashamed to think that I
have never even told her where I keep the main proof of the marriage. I
induced one witness to leave the country, the other must be long
since dead: my poor friend, too, who officiated, is no more. Even
the register, Bob, the register itself, has been destroyed: and yet,
notwithstanding, I will prove the ceremony and clear up poor Catherine’s
fame; for I have the attested copy of the register safe and sound.
Catherine not married! why, look at her, man!”
Mr. Robert Beaufort glanced at the window for a moment, but his
countenance was still that of one unconvinced. “Well, brother,” said he,
dipping his fingers in the water-glass, “it is not for me to contradict
you. It is a very curious tale--parson dead--witnesses missing. But
still, as I said before, if you are resolved on a public marriage, you
are wise to insist that there has been a previous private one. Yet,
believe me, Philip,” continued Robert, with solemn earnestness, “the
world--”
“Damn the world! What do I care for the world! We don’t want to go to
routs and balls, and give dinners to fine people. I shall live much the
same as I have always done; only, I shall now keep the hounds--they are
very indifferently kept at present--and have a yacht; and engage the
best masters for the boys. Phil wants to go to Eton, but I know what
Eton is: poor fellow! his feelings might be hurt there, if others are as
sceptical as yourself. I suppose my old friends will not be less civil
now I have L20,000. a year. And as for the society of women, between you
and me, I don’t care a rush for any woman but Catherine: poor Katty!”
“Well, you are the best judge of your own affairs: you don’t
misinterpret my motives?”
“My dear Bob, no. I am quite sensible how kind it is in you--a man
of your starch habits and strict views, coming here to pay a mark of
respect to Kate (Mr. Robert turned uneasily in his chair)--even before
you knew of the private marriage, and I’m sure I don’t blame you for
never having done it before. You did quite right to try your chance with
my uncle.”
Mr. Robert turned in his chair again, still more uneasily, and cleared
his voice as if to speak. But Philip tossed off his wine, and proceeded,
without heeding his brother,--
“And though the poor old man does not seem to have liked you the better
for consulting his scruples, yet we must make up for the partiality of
his will. Let me see--what with your wife’s fortune, you muster L2000. a
year?”
“Only L1500., Philip, and Arthur’s education is growing expensive. Next
year he goes to college. He is certainly very clever, and I have great
hopes--”
“That he will do Honour to us all--so have I. He is a noble young
fellow: and I think my Philip may find a great deal to learn from
him,--Phil is a sad idle dog; but with a devil of a spirit, and sharp
as a needle. I wish you could see him ride. Well, to return to Arthur.
Don’t trouble yourself about his education--that shall be my care. He
shall go to Christ Church--a gentleman-commoner, of course--and when he
is of age we’ll get him into parliament. Now for yourself, Bob. I shall
sell the town-house in Berkeley Square, and whatever it brings you shall
have. Besides that, I’ll add L1500. a year to your L1000.--so that’s
said and done. Pshaw! brothers should be brothers.--Let’s come out and
play with the boys!”
The two Beauforts stepped through the open casement into the lawn.
“You look pale, Bob--all you London fellows do. As for me, I feel as
strong as a horse: much better than when I was one of your gay dogs
straying loose about the town. ‘Gad, I have never had a moment’s ill
health, except from a fall now and then. I feel as if I should live for
ever, and that’s the reason why I could never make a will.”
“Have you never, then, made your will?”
“Never as yet. Faith, till now, I had little enough to leave. But now
that all this great Beaufort property is at my own disposal, I must
think of Kate’s jointure. By Jove! now I speak of it, I will ride
to----to-morrow, and consult the lawyer there both about the will and
the marriage. You will stay for the wedding?”
“Why, I must go into ------shire to-morrow evening, to place Arthur with
his tutor. But I’ll return for the wedding, if you particularly wish it:
only Mrs. Beaufort is a woman of very strict--”
“I--do particularly wish it,” interrupted Philip, gravely; “for I
desire, for Catherine’s sake, that you, my sole surviving relation, may
not seem to withhold your countenance from an act of justice to her.
And as for your wife, I fancy L1500. a year would reconcile her to my
marrying out of the Penitentiary.”
Mr. Robert bowed his head, coughed huskily, and said, “I appreciate your
generous affection, Philip.”
The next morning, while the elder parties were still over the
breakfast-table, the younger people were in the grounds; it was a lovely
day, one of the last of the luxuriant August--and Arthur, as he looked
round, thought he had never seen a more beautiful place. It was, indeed,
just the spot to captivate a youthful and susceptible fancy. The village
of Fernside, though in one of the counties adjoining Middlesex, and as
near to London as the owner’s passionate pursuits of the field would
permit, was yet as rural and sequestered as if a hundred miles distant
from the smoke of the huge city. Though the dwelling was called a
cottage, Philip had enlarged the original modest building into a villa
of some pretensions. On either side a graceful and well-proportioned
portico stretched verandahs, covered with roses and clematis; to the
right extended a range of costly conservatories, terminating in vistas
of trellis-work which formed those elegant alleys called roseries, and
served to screen the more useful gardens from view. The lawn, smooth and
even, was studded with American plants and shrubs in flower, and bounded
on one side by a small lake, on the opposite bank of which limes and
cedars threw their shadows over the clear waves. On the other side a
light fence separated the grounds from a large paddock, in which three
or four hunters grazed in indolent enjoyment. It was one of those
cottages which bespeak the ease and luxury not often found in more
ostentatious mansions--an abode which, at sixteen, the visitor
contemplates with vague notions of poetry and love--which, at forty,
he might think dull and d---d expensive--which, at sixty, he would
pronounce to be damp in winter, and full of earwigs in the summer.
Master Philip was leaning on his gun; Master Sidney was chasing a
peacock butterfly; Arthur was silently gazing on the shining lake and
the still foliage that drooped over its surface. In the countenance of
this young man there was something that excited a certain interest. He
was less handsome than Philip, but the expression of his face was more
prepossessing. There was something of pride in the forehead; but of good
nature, not unmixed with irresolution and weakness, in the curves of the
mouth. He was more delicate of frame than Philip; and the colour of his
complexion was not that of a robust constitution. His movements were
graceful and self-possessed, and he had his father’s sweetness of voice.
“This is really beautiful!--I envy you, cousin Philip.”
“Has not your father got a country-house?”
“No: we live either in London or at some hot, crowded watering-place.”
“Yes; this is very nice during the shooting and hunting season. But my
old nurse says we shall have a much finer place now. I liked this very
well till I saw Lord Belville’s place. But it is very unpleasant not to
have the finest house in the county: _aut Caesar aut nullus_--that’s
my motto. Ah! do you see that swallow? I’ll bet you a guinea I hit it.”
“No, poor thing! don’t hurt it.” But ere the remonstrance was uttered,
the bird lay quivering on the ground. “It is just September, and one
must keep one’s hand in,” said Philip, as he reloaded his gun.
To Arthur this action seemed a wanton cruelty; it was rather the wanton
recklessness which belongs to a wild boy accustomed to gratify the
impulse of the moment--the recklessness which is not cruelty in the boy,
but which prosperity may pamper into cruelty in the man. And scarce
had he reloaded his gun before the neigh of a young colt came from the
neighbouring paddock, and Philip bounded to the fence. “He calls me,
poor fellow; you shall see him feed from my hand. Run in for a piece
of bread--a large piece, Sidney.” The boy and the animal seemed to
understand each other. “I see you don’t like horses,” he said to Arthur.
“As for me, I love dogs, horses--every dumb creature.”
“Except swallows.” said Arthur, with a half smile, and a little
surprised at the inconsistency of the boast.
“Oh! that is short,--all fair: it is not to hurt the swallow--it is to
obtain skill,” said Philip, colouring; and then, as if not quite easy
with his own definition, he turned away abruptly.
“This is dull work--suppose we fish. By Jove!” (he had caught his
father’s expletive) “that blockhead has put the tent on the wrong side
of the lake, after all. Holla, you, sir!” and the unhappy gardener
looked up from his flower-beds; “what ails you? I have a great mind to
tell my father of you--you grow stupider every day. I told you to put
the tent under the lime-trees.”
“We could not manage it, sir; the boughs were in the way.”
“And why did you not cut the boughs, blockhead?”
“I did not dare do so, sir, without master’s orders,” said the man
doggedly.
“My orders are sufficient, I should think; so none of your
impertinence,” cried Philip, with a raised colour; and lifting his hand,
in which he held his ramrod, he shook it menacingly over the gardener’s
head,--“I’ve a great mind to----”
“What’s the matter, Philip?” cried the good-humoured voice of his
father. “Fie!”
“This fellow does not mind what I say, sir.”
“I did not like to cut the boughs of the lime-trees without your orders,
sir,” said the gardener.
“No, it would be a pity to cut them. You should consult me there, Master
Philip;” and the father shook him by the collar with a good-natured, and
affectionate, but rough sort of caress.
“Be quiet, father!” said the boy, petulantly and proudly; “or,” he
added, in a lower voice, but one which showed emotion, “my cousin may
think you mean less kindly than you always do, sir.”
The father was touched: “Go and cut the lime-boughs, John; and always do
as Mr. Philip tells you.”
The mother was behind, and she sighed audibly. “Ah! dearest, I fear you
will spoil him.”
“Is he not your son? and do we not owe him the more respect for having
hitherto allowed others to--”
He stopped, and the mother could say no more. And thus it was, that this
boy of powerful character and strong passions had, from motives the most
amiable, been pampered from the darling into the despot.
“And now, Kate, I will, as I told you last night, ride over to ---- and
fix the earliest day for our public marriage: I will ask the lawyer to
dine here, to talk about the proper steps for proving the private one.”
“Will that be difficult” asked Catherine, with natural anxiety.
“No,--for if you remember, I had the precaution to get an examined copy
of the register; otherwise, I own to you, I should have been alarmed.
I don’t know what has become of Smith. I heard some time since from his
father that he had left the colony; and (I never told you before--it
would have made you uneasy) once, a few years ago, when my uncle again
got it into his head that we might be married, I was afraid poor Caleb’s
successor might, by chance, betray us. So I went over to A---- myself,
being near it when I was staying with Lord C----, in order to see how
far it might be necessary to secure the parson; and, only think! I found
an accident had happened to the register--so, as the clergyman could
know nothing, I kept my own counsel. How lucky I have the copy! No
doubt the lawyer will set all to rights; and, while I am making the
settlements, I may as well make my will. I have plenty for both boys,
but the dark one must be the heir. Does he not look born to be an eldest
son?”
“Ah, Philip!”
“Pshaw! one don’t die the sooner for making a will. Have I the air of a
man in a consumption?”--and the sturdy sportsman glanced complacently at
the strength and symmetry of his manly limbs. “Come, Phil, let’s go to
the stables. Now, Robert, I will show you what is better worth seeing
than those miserable flower-beds.” So saying, Mr. Beaufort led the
way to the courtyard at the back of the cottage. Catherine and Sidney
remained on the lawn; the rest followed the host. The grooms, of whom
Beaufort was the idol, hastened to show how well the horses had thriven
in his absence.
“Do see how Brown Bess has come on, sir! but, to be sure, Master Philip
keeps her in exercise. Ah, sir, he will be as good a rider as your
honour, one of these days.”
“He ought to be a better, Tom; for I think he’ll never have my weight to
carry. Well, saddle Brown Bess for Mr. Philip. What horse shall I take?
Ah! here’s my old friend, Puppet!”
“I don’t know what’s come to Puppet, sir; he’s off his feed, and turned
sulky. I tried him over the bar yesterday; but he was quite restive
like.”
“The devil he was! So, so, old boy, you shall go over the six-barred
gate to-day, or we’ll know why.” And Mr. Beaufort patted the sleek neck
of his favourite hunter. “Put the saddle on him, Tom.”
“Yes, your honour. I sometimes think he is hurt in the loins somehow--he
don’t take to his leaps kindly, and he always tries to bite when we
bridles him. Be quiet, sir!”
“Only his airs,” said Philip. “I did not know this, or I would have
taken him over the gate. Why did not you tell me, Tom?”
“Lord love you, sir! because you have such a spurret; and if anything
had come to you--”
“Quite right: you are not weight enough for Puppet, my boy; and he never
did like any one to back him but myself. What say you, brother, will you
ride with us?”
“No, I must go to ---- to-day with Arthur. I have engaged the
post-horses at two o’clock; but I shall be with you to-morrow or the
day after. You see his tutor expects him; and as he is backward in his
mathematics, he has no time to lose.”
“Well, then, good-bye, nephew!” and Beaufort slipped a pocket-book
into the boy’s hand. “Tush! whenever you want money, don’t trouble your
father--write to me--we shall be always glad to see you; and you must
teach Philip to like his book a little better--eh, Phil?”
“No, father; I shall be rich enough to do without books,” said Philip,
rather coarsely; but then observing the heightened colour of his cousin,
he went up to him, and with a generous impulse said, “Arthur, you
admired this gun; pray accept it. Nay, don’t be shy--I can have as many
as I like for the asking: you’re not so well off, you know.”
The intention was kind, but the manner was so patronising that Arthur
felt offended. He put back the gun, and said, drily, “I shall have no
occasion for the gun, thank you.”
If Arthur was offended by the offer, Philip was much more offended by
the refusal. “As you like; I hate pride,” said he; and he gave the gun
to the groom as he vaulted into his saddle with the lightness of a young
Mercury. “Come, father!”
Mr. Beaufort had now mounted his favourite hunter--a large, powerful
horse well known for its prowess in the field. The rider trotted him
once or twice through the spacious yard.
“Nonsense, Tom: no more hurt in the loins than I am. Open that gate;
we will go across the paddock, and take the gate yonder--the old
six-bar--eh, Phil?”
“Capital!--to be sure!--”
The gate was opened--the grooms stood watchful to see the leap, and a
kindred curiosity arrested Robert Beaufort and his son.
How well they looked! those two horsemen; the ease, lightness, spirit
of the one, with the fine-limbed and fiery steed that literally “bounded
beneath him as a barb”--seemingly as gay, as ardent, and as haughty
as the boyrider. And the manly, and almost herculean form of the elder
Beaufort, which, from the buoyancy of its movements, and the supple
grace that belongs to the perfect mastership of any athletic art,
possessed an elegance and dignity, especially on horseback, which rarely
accompanies proportions equally sturdy and robust. There was indeed
something knightly and chivalrous in the bearing of the elder
Beaufort--in his handsome aquiline features, the erectness of his mien,
the very wave of his hand, as he spurred from the yard.
“What a fine-looking fellow my uncle is!” said Arthur, with involuntary
admiration.
“Ay, an excellent life--amazingly strong!” returned the pale father,
with a slight sigh.
“Philip,” said Mr. Beaufort, as they cantered across the paddock, “I
think the gate is too much for you. I will just take Puppet over, and
then we will open it for you.”
“Pooh, my dear father! you don’t know how I’m improved!” And slackening
the rein, and touching the side of his horse, the young rider darted
forward and cleared the gate, which was of no common height, with an
ease that extorted a loud “bravo” from the proud father.
“Now, Puppet,” said Mr. Beaufort, spurring his own horse. The animal
cantered towards the gate, and then suddenly turned round with an
impatient and angry snort. “For shame, Puppet!--for shame, old boy!”
said the sportsman, wheeling him again to the barrier. The horse shook
his head, as if in remonstrance; but the spur vigorously applied showed
him that his master would not listen to his mute reasonings. He bounded
forward--made at the gate--struck his hoofs against the top bar--fell
forward, and threw his rider head foremost on the road beyond. The
horse rose instantly--not so the master. The son dismounted, alarmed and
terrified. His father was speechless! and blood gushed from the mouth
and nostrils, as the head drooped heavily on the boy’s breast. The
bystanders had witnessed the fall--they crowded to the spot--they took
the fallen man from the weak arms of the son--the head groom examined
him with the eye of one who had picked up science from his experience in
such casualties.
“Speak, brother!--where are you hurt?” exclaimed Robert Beaufort.
“He will never speak more!” said the groom, bursting into tears. “His
neck is broken!”
“Send for the nearest surgeon,” cried Mr. Robert. “Good God! boy! don’t
mount that devilish horse!”
But Arthur had already leaped on the unhappy steed, which had been the
cause of this appalling affliction. “Which way?”
“Straight on to ----, only two miles--every one knows Mr. Powis’s house.
God bless you!” said the groom. Arthur vanished.
“Lift him carefully, and take him to the house,” said Mr. Robert. “My
poor brother! my dear brother!”
He was interrupted by a cry, a single shrill, heartbreaking cry; and
Philip fell senseless to the ground.
No one heeded him at that hour--no one heeded the fatherless BASTARD.
“Gently, gently,” said Mr. Robert, as he followed the servants and their
load. And he then muttered to himself, and his sallow cheek grew bright,
and his breath came short: “He has made no will--he never made a will.”
CHAPTER V.
“Constance. O boy, then where art thou?
* * * * What becomes of me”--King John.
It was three days after the death of Philip Beaufort--for the surgeon
arrived only to confirm the judgment of the groom: in the drawing-room
of the cottage, the windows closed, lay the body, in its coffin, the
lid not yet nailed down. There, prostrate on the floor, tearless,
speechless, was the miserable Catherine; poor Sidney, too young to
comprehend all his loss, sobbing at her side; while Philip apart, seated
beside the coffin, gazed abstractedly on that cold rigid face which had
never known one frown for his boyish follies.
In another room, that had been appropriated to the late owner, called
his study, sat Robert Beaufort. Everything in this room spoke of
the deceased. Partially separated from the rest of the house, it
communicated by a winding staircase with a chamber above, to which
Philip had been wont to betake himself whenever he returned late, and
over-exhilarated, from some rural feast crowning a hard day’s hunt.
Above a quaint, old-fashioned bureau of Dutch workmanship (which Philip
had picked up at a sale in the earlier years of his marriage) was a
portrait of Catherine taken in the bloom of her youth. On a peg on the
door that led to the staircase, still hung his rough driving coat. The
window commanded the view of the paddock in which the worn-out hunter
or the unbroken colt grazed at will. Around the walls of the “study”--(a
strange misnomer!)--hung prints of celebrated fox-hunts and renowned
steeple-chases: guns, fishing-rods, and foxes’ brushes, ranged with a
sportsman’s neatness, supplied the place of books. On the mantelpiece
lay a cigar-case, a well-worn volume on the Veterinary Art, and the last
number of the Sporting Magazine. And in the room--thus witnessing of the
hardy, masculine, rural life, that had passed away--sallow, stooping,
town-worn, sat, I say, Robert Beaufort, the heir-at-law,--alone: for the
very day of the death he had remanded his son home with the letter that
announced to his wife the change in their fortunes, and directed her to
send his lawyer post-haste to the house of death. The bureau, and the
drawers, and the boxes which contained the papers of the deceased were
open; their contents had been ransacked; no certificate of the private
marriage, no hint of such an event; not a paper found to signify the
last wishes of the rich dead man.
He had died, and made no sign. Mr. Robert Beaufort’s countenance was
still and composed.
A knock at the door was heard; the lawyer entered.
“Sir, the undertakers are here, and Mr. Greaves has ordered the bells to
be rung: at three o’clock he will read the service.”
“I am obliged to you., Blackwell, for taking these melancholy offices on
yourself. My poor brother!--it is so sudden! But the funeral, you say,
ought to take place to-day?”
“The weather is so warm,” said the lawyer, wiping his forehead. As he
spoke, the death-bell was heard.
There was a pause.
“It would have been a terrible shock to Mrs. Morton if she had been his
wife,” observed Mr. Blackwell. “But I suppose persons of that kind have
very little feeling. I must say that it was fortunate for the family
that the event happened before Mr. Beaufort was wheedled into so
improper a marriage.”
“It was fortunate, Blackwell. Have you ordered the post-horses? I shall
start immediately after the funeral.”
“What is to be done with the cottage, sir?”
“You may advertise it for sale.”
“And Mrs. Morton and the boys?” “Hum! we will consider. She was a
tradesman’s daughter. I think I ought to provide for her suitably, eh?”
“It is more than the world could expect from you, sir; it is very
different from a wife.”
“Oh, very!--very much so, indeed! Just ring for a lighted candle, we
will seal up these boxes. And--I think I could take a sandwich. Poor
Philip!”
The funeral was over; the dead shovelled away. What a strange thing it
does seem, that that very form which we prized so charily, for which
we prayed the winds to be gentle, which we lapped from the cold in
our arms, from whose footstep we would have removed a stone, should be
suddenly thrust out of sight--an abomination that the earth must
not look upon--a despicable loathsomeness, to be concealed and to
be forgotten! And this same composition of bone and muscle that was
yesterday so strong--which men respected, and women loved, and children
clung to--to-day so lamentably powerless, unable to defend or protect
those who lay nearest to its heart; its riches wrested from it, its
wishes spat upon, its influence expiring with its last sigh! A breath
from its lips making all that mighty difference between what it was and
what it is!
The post-horses were at the door as the funeral procession returned to
the house.
Mr. Robert Beaufort bowed slightly to Mrs. Morton, and said, with his
pocket-handkerchief still before his eyes:
“I will write to you in a few days, ma’am; you will find that I shall
not forget you. The cottage will be sold; but we sha’n’t hurry you.
Good-bye, ma’am; good-bye, my boys;” and he patted his nephews on the
head.
Philip winced aside, and scowled haughtily at his uncle, who muttered
to himself, “That boy will come to no good!” Little Sidney put his hand
into the rich man’s, and looked up, pleadingly, into his face. “Can’t
you say something pleasant to poor mamma, Uncle Robert?”
Mr. Beaufort hemmed huskily, and entered the britska--it had been his
brother’s: the lawyer followed, and they drove away.
A week after the funeral, Philip stole from the house into the
conservatory, to gather some fruit for his mother; she had scarcely
touched food since Beaufort’s death. She was worn to a shadow; her
hair had turned grey. Now she had at last found tears, and she wept
noiselessly but unceasingly.
The boy had plucked some grapes, and placed them carefully in his
basket: he was about to select a nectarine that seemed riper than the
rest, when his hand was roughly seized; and the gruff voice of John
Green, the gardener, exclaimed:
“What are you about, Master Philip? you must not touch them ‘ere fruit!”
“How dare you, fellow!” cried the young gentleman, in a tone of equal
astonishment and, wrath.
“None of your airs, Master Philip! What I means is, that some great
folks are coming too look at the place tomorrow; and I won’t have my
show of fruit spoiled by being pawed about by the like of you; so,
that’s plain, Master Philip!”
The boy grew very pale, but remained silent. The gardener, delighted to
retaliate the insolence he had received, continued:
“You need not go for to look so spiteful, master; you are not the great
man you thought you were; you are nobody now, and so you will find ere
long. So, march out, if you please: I wants to lock up the glass.”
As he spoke, he took the lad roughly by the arm; but Philip, the most
irascible of mortals, was strong for his years, and fearless as a young
lion. He caught up a watering-pot, which the gardener had deposited
while he expostulated with his late tyrant and struck the man across the
face with it so violently and so suddenly, that he fell back over the
beds, and the glass crackled and shivered under him. Philip did not wait
for the foe to recover his equilibrium; but, taking up his grapes, and
possessing himself quietly of the disputed nectarine, quitted the spot;
and the gardener did not think it prudent to pursue him. To boys, under
ordinary circumstances--boys who have buffeted their way through a
scolding nursery, a wrangling family, or a public school--there would
have been nothing in this squabble to dwell on the memory or vibrate on
the nerves, after the first burst of passion: but to Philip Beaufort it
was an era in life; it was the first insult he had ever received; it was
his initiation into that changed, rough, and terrible career, to which
the spoiled darling of vanity and love was henceforth condemned. His
pride and his self-esteem had incurred a fearful shock. He entered the
house, and a sickness came over him; his limbs trembled; he sat down in
the hall, and, placing the fruit beside him, covered his face with his
hands and wept. Those were not the tears of a boy, drawn from a shallow
source; they were the burning, agonising, reluctant tears, that men
shed, wrung from the heart as if it were its blood. He had never been
sent to school, lest he should meet with mortification. He had had
various tutors, trained to show, rather than to exact, respect; one
succeeding another, at his own whim and caprice. His natural quickness,
and a very strong, hard, inquisitive turn of mind, had enabled
him, however, to pick up more knowledge, though of a desultory and
miscellaneous nature, than boys of his age generally possess; and his
roving, independent, out-of-door existence had served to ripen his
understanding. He had certainly, in spite of every precaution, arrived
at some, though not very distinct, notion of his peculiar position; but
none of its inconveniences had visited him till that day. He began
now to turn his eyes to the future; and vague and dark forebodings--a
consciousness of the shelter, the protector, the station, he had lost
in his father’s death--crept coldly, over him. While thus musing, a ring
was heard at the bell; he lifted his head; it was the postman with a
letter. Philip hastily rose, and, averting his face, on which the tears
were not dried, took the letter; and then, snatching up his little
basket of fruit, repaired to his mother’s room.
The shutters were half closed on the bright day--oh, what a mockery is
there in the smile of the happy sun when it shines on the wretched! Mrs.
Morton sat, or rather crouched, in a distant corner; her streaming eyes
fixed on vacancy; listless, drooping; a very image of desolate woe; and
Sidney was weaving flower-chains at her feet.
“Mamma!--mother!” whispered Philip, as he threw his arms round her neck;
“look up! look up!--my heart breaks to see you. Do taste this fruit: you
will die too, if you go on thus; and what will become of us--of Sidney?”
Mrs. Morton did look up vaguely into his face, and strove to smile.
“See, too, I have brought you a letter; perhaps good news; shall I break
the seal?”
Mrs. Morton shook her head gently, and took the letter--alas! how
different from that one which Sidney had placed in her hands not
two short weeks since--it was Mr. Robert Beaufort’s handwriting. She
shuddered, and laid it down. And then there suddenly, and for the first
time, flashed across her the sense of her strange position--the dread of
the future. What were her sons to be henceforth?
What herself? Whatever the sanctity of her marriage, the law might fail
her. At the disposition of Mr. Robert Beaufort the fate of three lives
might depend. She gasped for breath; again took up the letter; and
hurried over the contents: they ran thus:
“DEAR MADAM,--Knowing that you must naturally be anxious as to the
future prospects of your children and yourself, left by my poor brother
destitute of all provision, I take the earliest opportunity which it
seems to me that propriety and decorum allow, to apprise you of my
intentions. I need not say that, properly speaking, you can have no kind
of claim upon the relations of my late brother; nor will I hurt your
feelings by those moral reflections which at this season of sorrow
cannot, I hope, fail involuntarily to force themselves upon you.
Without more than this mere allusion to your peculiar connection with my
brother, I may, however, be permitted to add that that connection tended
very materially to separate him from the legitimate branches of his
family; and in consulting with them as to a provision for you and your
children, I find that, besides scruples that are to be respected, some
natural degree of soreness exists upon their minds. Out of regard,
however, to my poor brother (though I saw very little of him of late
years), I am willing to waive those feelings which, as a father and a
husband, you may conceive that I share with the rest of my family. You
will probably now decide on living with some of your own relations; and
that you may not be entirely a burden to them, I beg to say that I shall
allow you a hundred a year; paid, if you prefer it, quarterly. You may
also select such articles of linen and plate as you require for your own
use. With regard to your sons, I have no objection to place them at a
grammar-school, and, at a proper age, to apprentice them to any trade
suitable to their future station, in the choice of which your own family
can give you the best advice. If they conduct themselves properly,
they may always depend on my protection. I do not wish to hurry your
movements; but it will probably be painful to you to remain longer than
you can help in a place crowded with unpleasant recollections; and as
the cottage is to be sold--indeed, my brother-in-law, Lord Lilburne,
thinks it would suit him--you will be liable to the interruption of
strangers to see it; and your prolonged residence at Fernside, you must
be sensible, is rather an obstacle to the sale. I beg to inclose you a
draft for L100. to pay any present expenses; and to request, when you
are settled, to know where the first quarter shall be paid.
“I shall write to Mr. Jackson (who, I think, is the bailiff) to detail
my instructions as to selling the crops, &c., and discharging the
servants; so that you may have no further trouble.
“I am, Madam,
“Your obedient Servant,
“ROBERT BEAUFORT.
“Berkeley Square, September 12th, 18--.”
The letter fell from Catherine’s hands. Her grief was changed to
indignation and scorn.
“The insolent!” she exclaimed, with flashing eyes. “This to me!--to
me--the wife, the lawful wife of his brother! the wedded mother of his
brother’s children!”
“Say that again, mother! again--again!” cried Philip, in a loud voice.
“His wife--wedded!”
“I swear it,” said Catherine, solemnly. “I kept the secret for your
father’s sake. Now for yours, the truth must be proclaimed.”
“Thank God! thank God!” murmured Philip, in a quivering voice, throwing
his arms round his brother, “We have no brand on our names, Sidney.”
At those accents, so full of suppressed joy and pride, the mother felt
at once all that her son had suspected and concealed. She felt that
beneath his haughty and wayward character there had lurked delicate and
generous forbearance for her; that from his equivocal position his very
faults might have arisen; and a pang of remorse for her long sacrifice
of the children to the father shot through her heart. It was followed
by a fear, an appalling fear, more painful than the remorse. The proofs
that were to clear herself and them! The words of her husband, that last
awful morning, rang in her ear. The minister dead; the witness absent;
the register lost! But the copy of that register!--the copy! might not
that suffice? She groaned, and closed her eyes as if to shut out the
future: then starting up, she hurried from the room, and went straight
to Beaufort’s study. As she laid her hand on the latch of the door, she
trembled and drew back. But care for the living was stronger at that
moment than even anguish for the dead: she entered the apartment; she
passed with a firm step to the bureau. It was locked; Robert Beaufort’s
seal upon the lock:--on every cupboard, every box, every drawer, the
same seal that spoke of rights more valued than her own. But Catherine
was not daunted: she turned and saw Philip by her side; she pointed to
the bureau in silence; the boy understood the appeal. He left the
room, and returned in a few moments with a chisel. The lock was broken:
tremblingly and eagerly Catherine ransacked the contents; opened paper
after paper, letter after letter, in vain: no certificate, no will,
no memorial. Could the brother have abstracted the fatal proof? A word
sufficed to explain to Philip what she sought for; and his search was
more minute than hers. Every possible receptacle for papers in that
room, in the whole house, was explored, and still the search was
fruitless.
Three hours afterwards they were in the same room in which Philip had
brought Robert Beaufort’s letter to his mother. Catherine was seated,
tearless, but deadly pale with heart-sickness and dismay.
“Mother,” said Philip, “may I now read the letter?” Yes, boy; and decide
for us all. She paused, and examined his face as he read. He felt her
eye was upon him, and restrained his emotions as he proceeded. When he
had done, he lifted his dark gaze upon Catherine’s watchful countenance.
“Mother, whether or not we obtain our rights, you will still refuse this
man’s charity? I am young--a boy; but I am strong and active. I will
work for you day and night. I have it in me--I feel it; anything rather
than eating his bread.”
“Philip! Philip! you are indeed my son; your father’s son! And have you
no reproach for your mother, who so weakly, so criminally, concealed
your birthright, till, alas! discovery may be too late? Oh! reproach me,
reproach me! it will be kindness. No! do not kiss me! I cannot bear it.
Boy! boy! if as my heart tells me, we fail in proof, do you understand
what, in the world’s eye, I am; what you are?”
“I do!” said Philip, firmly; and he fell on his knees at her feet.”
Whatever others call you, you are a mother, and I your son. You are, in
the judgment of Heaven, my father’s Wife, and I his Heir.”
Catherine bowed her head, and with a gush of tears fell into his arms.
Sidney crept up to her, and forced his lips to her cold cheek. “Mamma!
what vexes you? Mamma, mamma!”
“Oh, Sidney! Sidney! How like his father! Look at him, Philip! Shall we
do right to refuse him even this pittance? Must he be a beggar too?”
“Never beggar,” said Philip, with a pride that showed what hard lessons
he had yet to learn. “The lawful sons of a Beaufort were not born to beg
their bread!”
CHAPTER VI.
“The storm above, and frozen world below.
The olive bough
Faded and cast upon the common wind,
And earth a doveless ark.”--LAMAN BLANCHARD.
Mr. Robert Beaufort was generally considered by the world a very worthy
man. He had never committed any excess--never gambled nor incurred
debt--nor fallen into the warm errors most common with his sex. He was
a good husband--a careful father--an agreeable neighbour--rather
charitable than otherwise, to the poor. He was honest and methodical
in his dealings, and had been known to behave handsomely in different
relations of life. Mr. Robert Beaufort, indeed, always meant to do what
was right--in the eyes of the world! He had no other rule of action but
that which the world supplied; his religion was decorum--his sense of
honour was regard to opinion. His heart was a dial to which the world
was the sun: when the great eye of the public fell on it, it answered
every purpose that a heart could answer; but when that eye was
invisible, the dial was mute--a piece of brass and nothing more.
It is just to Robert Beaufort to assure the reader that he wholly
disbelieved his brother’s story of a private marriage. He considered
that tale, when heard for the first time, as the mere invention (and a
shallow one) of a man wishing to make the imprudent step he was about to
take as respectable as he could. The careless tone of his brother when
speaking upon the subject--his confession that of such a marriage there
were no distinct proofs, except a copy of a register (which copy Robert
had not found)--made his incredulity natural. He therefore deemed
himself under no obligation of delicacy or respect, to a woman through
whose means he had very nearly lost a noble succession--a woman who had
not even borne his brother’s name--a woman whom nobody knew. Had Mrs.
Morton been Mrs. Beaufort, and the natural sons legitimate children,
Robert Beaufort, supposing their situation of relative power and
dependence to have been the same, would have behaved with careful
and scrupulous generosity. The world would have said, “Nothing can be
handsomer than Mr. Robert Beaufort’s conduct!” Nay, if Mrs. Morton had
been some divorced wife of birth and connections, he would have made
very different dispositions in her favour: he would not have allowed the
connections to call him shabby. But here he felt that, all circumstances
considered, the world, if it spoke at all (which it would scarce think
it worth while to do), would be on his side. An artful woman--low-born,
and, of course, low-bred--who wanted to inveigle her rich and careless
paramour into marriage; what could be expected from the man she had
sought to injure--the rightful heir? Was it not very good in him to do
anything for her, and, if he provided for the children suitably to the
original station of the mother, did he not go to the very utmost of
reasonable expectation? He certainly thought in his conscience, such as
it was, that he had acted well--not extravagantly, not foolishly; but
well. He was sure the world would say so if it knew all: he was not
bound to do anything. He was not, therefore, prepared for Catherine’s
short, haughty, but temperate reply to his letter: a reply which
conveyed a decided refusal of his offers--asserted positively her
own marriage, and the claims of her children--intimated legal
proceedings--and was signed in the name of Catherine Beaufort. Mr.
Beaufort put the letter in his bureau, labelled, “Impertinent answer
from Mrs. Morton, Sept. 14,” and was quite contented to forget the
existence of the writer, until his lawyer, Mr. Blackwell, informed him
that a suit had been instituted by Catherine.
Mr. Robert turned pale, but Blackwell composed him.
“Pooh, sir! you have nothing to fear. It is but an attempt to extort
money: the attorney is a low practitioner, accustomed to get up bad
cases: they can make nothing of it.”
This was true: whatever the rights of the case, poor Catherine had no
proofs--no evidence--which could justify a respectable lawyer to advise
her proceeding to a suit. She named two witnesses of her marriage--one
dead, the other could not be heard of. She selected for the alleged
place in which the ceremony was performed a very remote village, in
which it appeared that the register had been destroyed. No attested copy
thereof was to be found, and Catherine was stunned on hearing that,
even if found, it was doubtful whether it could be received as evidence,
unless to corroborate actual personal testimony. It so happened that
when Philip, many years ago, had received a copy, he had not shown it to
Catherine, nor mentioned Mr. Jones’s name as the copyist. In fact, then
only three years married to Catherine, his worldly caution had not yet
been conquered by confident experience of her generosity. As for the
mere moral evidence dependent on the publication of her bans in London,
that amounted to no proof whatever; nor, on inquiry at A----, did the
Welsh villagers remember anything further than that, some fifteen years
ago, a handsome gentleman had visited Mr. Price, and one or two rather
thought that Mr. Price had married him to a lady from London; evidence
quite inadmissible against the deadly, damning fact, that, for fifteen
years, Catherine had openly borne another name, and lived with Mr.
Beaufort ostensibly as his mistress. Her generosity in this destroyed
her case. Nevertheless, she found a low practitioner, who took her
money and neglected her cause; so her suit was heard and dismissed
with contempt. Henceforth, then, indeed, in the eyes of the law and the
public, Catherine was an impudent adventurer, and her sons were nameless
outcasts.
And now relieved from all fear, Mr. Robert Beaufort entered upon the
full enjoyment of his splendid fortune.
The house in Berkeley Square was furnished anew. Great dinners and gay
routs were given in the ensuing spring. Mr. and Mrs. Beaufort became
persons of considerable importance. The rich man had, even when poor,
been ambitious; his ambition now centred in his only son. Arthur had
always been considered a boy of talents and promise; to what might he
not now aspire? The term of his probation with the tutor was abridged,
and Arthur Beaufort was sent at once to Oxford.
Before he went to the university, during a short preparatory visit to
his father, Arthur spoke to him of the Mortons. “What has become of
them, sir? and what have you done for them?”
“Done for them!” said Mr. Beaufort, opening his eyes. “What should I do
for persons who have just been harassing me with the most unprincipled
litigation? My conduct to them has been too generous: that is, all
things considered. But when you are my age you will find there is very
little gratitude in the world, Arthur.”
“Still, sir,” said Arthur, with the good nature that belonged to him:
“still, my uncle was greatly attached to them; and the boys, at least,
are guiltless.”
“Well, well!” replied Mr. Beaufort, a little impatiently; “I believe
they want for nothing: I fancy they are with the mother’s relations.
Whenever they address me in a proper manner they shall not find me
revengeful or hardhearted; but, since we are on this topic,” continued
the father smoothing his shirt-frill with a care that showed his decorum
even in trifles, “I hope you see the results of that kind of connection,
and that you will take warning by your poor uncle’s example. And now let
us change the subject; it is not a very pleasant one, and, at your age,
the less your thoughts turn on such matters the better.”
Arthur Beaufort, with the careless generosity of youth, that gauges
other men’s conduct by its own sentiments, believed that his father,
who had never been niggardly to himself, had really acted as his words
implied; and, engrossed by the pursuits of the new and brilliant career
opened, whether to his pleasures or his studies, suffered the objects of
his inquiries to pass from his thoughts.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Morton, for by that name we must still call her, and her
children, were settled in a small lodging in a humble suburb; situated
on the high road between Fernside and the metropolis. She saved from
her hopeless law-suit, after the sale of her jewels and ornaments, a
sufficient sum to enable her, with economy, to live respectably for a
year or two at least, during which time she might arrange her plans for
the future. She reckoned, as a sure resource, upon the assistance of her
relations; but it was one to which she applied with natural shame and
reluctance. She had kept up a correspondence with her father during his
life. To him, she never revealed the secret of her marriage, though she
did not write like a person conscious of error. Perhaps, as she always
said to her son, she had made to her husband a solemn promise never to
divulge or even hint that secret until he himself should authorise its
disclosure. For neither he nor Catherine ever contemplated separation
or death. Alas! how all of us, when happy, sleep secure in the dark
shadows, which ought to warn us of the sorrows that are to come! Still
Catherine’s father, a man of coarse mind and not rigid principles, did
not take much to heart that connection which he assumed to be illicit.
She was provided for, that was some comfort: doubtless Mr. Beaufort
would act like a gentleman, perhaps at last make her an honest woman and
a lady. Meanwhile, she had a fine house, and a fine carriage, and fine
servants; and so far from applying to him for money, was constantly
sending him little presents. But Catherine only saw, in his permission
of her correspondence, kind, forgiving, and trustful affection, and she
loved him tenderly: when he died, the link that bound her to her family
was broken. Her brother succeeded to the trade; a man of probity and
honour, but somewhat hard and unamiable. In the only letter she had
received from him--the one announcing her father’s death--he told her
plainly, and very properly, that he could not countenance the life she
led; that he had children growing up--that all intercourse between them
was at an end, unless she left Mr. Beaufort; when, if she sincerely
repented, he would still prove her affectionate brother.
Though Catherine had at the time resented this letter as unfeeling--now,
humbled and sorrow-stricken, she recognised the propriety of principle
from which it emanated. Her brother was well off for his station--she
would explain to him her real situation--he would believe her story.
She would write to him, and beg him at least to give aid to her poor
children.
But this step she did not take till a considerable portion of her
pittance was consumed--till nearly three parts of a year since
Beaufort’s death had expired--and till sundry warnings, not to be
lightly heeded, had made her forebode the probability of an early death
for herself. From the age of sixteen, when she had been placed by Mr.
Beaufort at the head of his household, she had been cradled, not in
extravagance, but in an easy luxury, which had not brought with it
habits of economy and thrift. She could grudge anything to herself, but
to her children--his children, whose every whim had been anticipated,
she had not the heart to be saving. She could have starved in a garret
had she been alone; but she could not see them wanting a comfort
while she possessed a guinea. Philip, to do him justice, evinced a
consideration not to have been expected from his early and arrogant
recklessness. But Sidney, who could expect consideration from such a
child? What could he know of the change of circumstances--of the value
of money? Did he seem dejected, Catherine would steal out and spend a
week’s income on the lapful of toys which she brought home. Did he seem
a shade more pale--did he complain of the slightest ailment, a doctor
must be sent for. Alas! her own ailments, neglected and unheeded, were
growing beyond the reach of medicine. Anxious-- fearful--gnawed by
regret for the past--the thought of famine in the future--she daily
fretted and wore herself away. She had cultivated her mind during her
secluded residence with Mr. Beaufort, but she had learned none of the
arts by which decayed gentlewomen keep the wolf from the door; no little
holiday accomplishments, which, in the day of need turn to useful trade;
no water-colour drawings, no paintings on velvet, no fabrications
of pretty gewgaws, no embroidery and fine needlework. She was
helpless--utterly helpless; if she had resigned herself to the thought
of service, she would not have had the physical strength for a place of
drudgery, and where could she have found the testimonials necessary for
a place of trust? A great change, at this time, was apparent in Philip.
Had he fallen, then, into kind hands, and under guiding eyes, his
passions and energies might have ripened into rare qualities and great
virtues. But perhaps as Goethe has somewhere said, “Experience, after
all, is the best teacher.” He kept a constant guard on his vehement
temper--his wayward will; he would not have vexed his mother for the
world. But, strange to say (it was a great mystery in the woman’s
heart), in proportion as he became more amiable, it seemed that his
mother loved him less. Perhaps she did not, in that change, recognise
so closely the darling of the old time; perhaps the very weaknesses and
importunities of Sidney, the hourly sacrifices the child entailed upon
her, endeared the younger son more to her from that natural sense of
dependence and protection which forms the great bond between mother and
child; perhaps too, as Philip had been one to inspire as much pride as
affection, so the pride faded away with the expectations that had
fed it, and carried off in its decay some of the affection that was
intertwined with it. However this be, Philip had formerly appeared the
more spoiled and favoured of the two: and now Sidney seemed all in all.
Thus, beneath the younger son’s caressing gentleness, there grew up a
certain regard for self; it was latent, it took amiable colours; it had
even a certain charm and grace in so sweet a child, but selfishness
it was not the less. In this he differed from his brother. Philip
was self-willed: Sidney self-loving. A certain timidity of character,
endearing perhaps to the anxious heart of a mother, made this fault in
the younger boy more likely to take root. For, in bold natures, there is
a lavish and uncalculating recklessness which scorns self unconsciously
and though there is a fear which arises from a loving heart, and is but
sympathy for others--the fear which belongs to a timid character is
but egotism--but, when physical, the regard for one’s own person: when
moral, the anxiety for one’s own interests.
It was in a small room in a lodging-house in the suburb of H---- that
Mrs. Morton was seated by the window, nervously awaiting the knock
of the postman, who was expected to bring her brother’s reply to her
letter. It was therefore between ten and eleven o’clock--a morning in
the merry month of June. It was hot and sultry, which is rare in an
English June. A flytrap, red, white, and yellow, suspended from the
ceiling, swarmed with flies; flies were on the ceiling, flies buzzed at
the windows; the sofa and chairs of horsehair seemed stuffed with
flies. There was an air of heated discomfort in the thick, solid moreen
curtains, in the gaudy paper, in the bright-staring carpet, in the
very looking-glass over the chimney-piece, where a strip of mirror lay
imprisoned in an embrace of frame covered with yellow muslin. We may
talk of the dreariness of winter; and winter, no doubt, is desolate: but
what in the world is more dreary to eyes inured to the verdure and bloom
of Nature--,
“The pomp of groves and garniture of fields,” --than a close room in a
suburban lodging-house; the sun piercing every corner; nothing fresh,
nothing cool, nothing fragrant to be seen, felt, or inhaled; all dust,
glare, noise, with a chandler’s shop, perhaps, next door? Sidney armed
with a pair of scissors, was cutting the pictures out of a story-book,
which his mother had bought him the day before. Philip, who, of late,
had taken much to rambling about the streets--it may be, in hopes of
meeting one of those benevolent, eccentric, elderly gentlemen, he had
read of in old novels, who suddenly come to the relief of distressed
virtue; or, more probably, from the restlessness that belonged to his
adventurous temperament;--Philip had left the house since breakfast.
“Oh! how hot this nasty room is!” exclaimed Sidney, abruptly, looking
up from his employment. “Sha’n’t we ever go into the country, again,
mamma?”
“Not at present, my love.”
“I wish I could have my pony; why can’t I have my pony, mamma?”
“Because,--because--the pony is sold, Sidney.”
“Who sold it?”
“Your uncle.”
“He is a very naughty man, my uncle: is he not? But can’t I have another
pony? It would be so nice, this fine weather!”
“Ah! my dear, I wish I could afford it: but you shall have a ride this
week! Yes,” continued the mother, as if reasoning with herself, in
excuse of the extravagance, “he does not look well: poor child! he must
have exercise.”
“A ride!--oh! that is my own kind mamma!” exclaimed Sidney, clapping
his hands. “Not on a donkey, you know!--a pony. The man down the street,
there, lets ponies. I must have the white pony with the long tail. But,
I say, mamma, don’t tell Philip, pray don’t; he would be jealous.”
“No, not jealous, my dear; why do you think so?”
“Because he is always angry when I ask you for anything. It is very
unkind in him, for I don’t care if he has a pony, too,--only not the
white one.”
Here the postman’s knock, loud and sudden, started Mrs. Morton from her
seat.
She pressed her hands tightly to her heart, as if to still its beating,
and went tremulously to the door; thence to the stairs, to anticipate
the lumbering step of the slipshod maidservent.
“Give it me, Jane; give it me!”
“One shilling and eightpence--double charged--if you please, ma’am!
Thank you.”
“Mamma, may I tell Jane to engage the pony?”
“Not now, my love; sit down; be quiet: I--I am not well.”
Sidney, who was affectionate and obedient, crept back peaceably to the
window, and, after a short, impatient sigh, resumed the scissors and the
story-book. I do not apologise to the reader for the various letters I
am obliged to lay before him; for character often betrays itself more
in letters than in speech. Mr. Roger Morton’s reply was couched in these
terms,--
“DEAR CATHERINE, I have received your letter of the 14th inst., and
write per return. I am very much grieved to hear of your afflictions;
but, whatever you say, I cannot think the late Mr. Beaufort acted like
a conscientious man, in forgetting to make his will, and leaving his
little ones destitute. It is all very well to talk of his intentions;
but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And it is hard upon
me, who have a large family of my own, and get my livelihood by honest
industry, to have a rich gentleman’s children to maintain. As for your
story about the private marriage, it may or not be. Perhaps you were
taken in by that worthless man, for a real marriage it could not be.
And, as you say, the law has decided that point; therefore, the less you
say on the matter the better. It all comes to the same thing. People are
not bound to believe what can’t be proved. And even if what you say is
true, you are more to be blamed than pitied for holding your tongue so
many years, and discrediting an honest family, as ours has always been
considered. I am sure my wife would not have thought of such a thing for
the finest gentleman that ever wore shoe-leather. However, I don’t want
to hurt your feelings; and I am sure I am ready to do whatever is right
and proper. You cannot expect that I should ask you to my house. My
wife, you know, is a very religious woman--what is called evangelical;
but that’s neither here nor there: I deal with all people, churchmen and
dissenters--even Jews,--and don’t trouble my head much about differences
in opinion. I dare say there are many ways to heaven; as I said, the
other day, to Mr. Thwaites, our member. But it is right to say my wife
will not hear of your coming here; and, indeed, it might do harm to
my business, for there are several elderly single gentlewomen, who buy
flannel for the poor at my shop, and they are very particular; as they
ought to be, indeed: for morals are very strict in this county,
and particularly in this town, where we certainly do pay very high
church-rates. Not that I grumble; for, though I am as liberal as any
man, I am for an established church; as I ought to be, since the dean
is my best customer. With regard to yourself I inclose you L10., and you
will let me know when it is gone, and I will see what more I can do. You
say you are very poorly, which I am sorry to hear; but you must pluck
up your spirits, and take in plain work; and I really think you ought
to apply to Mr. Robert Beaufort. He bears a high character; and
notwithstanding your lawsuit, which I cannot approve of, I dare say he
might allow you L40. or L50. a-year, if you apply properly, which would
be the right thing in him. So much for you. As for the boys--poor,
fatherless creatures!--it is very hard that they should be so punished
for no fault of their own; and my wife, who, though strict, is a
good-hearted woman, is ready and willing to do what I wish about them.
You say the eldest is near sixteen and well come on in his studies. I
can get him a very good thing in a light genteel way. My wife’s brother,
Mr. Christopher Plaskwith, is a bookseller and stationer with pretty
practice, in R----. He is a clever man, and has a newspaper, which he
kindly sends me every week; and, though it is not my county, it has some
very sensible views and is often noticed in the London papers, as ‘our
provincial contemporary.’--Mr. Plaskwith owes me some money, which I
advanced him when he set up the paper; and he has several times most
honestly offered to pay me, in shares in the said paper. But, as the
thing might break, and I don’t like concerns I don’t understand, I have
not taken advantage of his very handsome proposals. Now, Plaskwith wrote
me word, two days ago, that he wanted a genteel, smart lad, as assistant
and ‘prentice, and offered to take my eldest boy; but we can’t spare
him. I write to Christopher by this post; and if your youth will run
down on the top of the coach, and inquire for Mr. Plaskwith--the fare is
trifling--I have no doubt he will be engaged at once. But you will say,
‘There’s the premium to consider!’ No such thing; Kit will set off the
premium against his debt to me; so you will have nothing to pay. ‘Tis a
very pretty business; and the lad’s education will get him on; so that’s
off your mind. As to the little chap, I’ll take him at once. You say he
is a pretty boy; and a pretty boy is always a help in a linendraper’s
shop. He shall share and share with my own young folks; and Mrs. Morton
will take care of his washing and morals. I conclude--(this is Mrs. M’s.
suggestion)--that he has had the measles, cowpock, and whooping-cough,
which please let me know. If he behave well, which, at his age, we can
easily break him into, he is settled for life. So now you have got rid
of two mouths to feed, and have nobody to think of but yourself, which
must be a great comfort. Don’t forget to write to Mr. Beaufort; and if
he don’t do something for you he’s not the gentleman I take him for; but
you are my own flesh and blood, and sha’n’t starve; for, though I don’t
think it right in a man in business to encourage what’s wrong, yet, when
a person’s down in the world, I think an ounce of help is better than a
pound of preaching. My wife thinks otherwise, and wants to send you some
tracts; but every body can’t be as correct as some folks. However, as
I said before, that’s neither here nor there. Let me know when your boy
comes down, and also about the measles, cowpock, and whooping-cough;
also if all’s right with Mr. Plaskwith. So now I hope you will feel more
comfortable; and remain,
“Dear Catherine,
“Your forgiving and affectionate brother,
“ROGER MORTON.
“High Street, N----, June 13.”
“P.S.--Mrs. M. says that she will be a mother to your little boy, and
that you had better mend up all his linen before you send him.”
As Catherine finished this epistle, she lifted her eyes and beheld
Philip. He had entered noiselessly, and he remained silent, leaning
against the wall, and watching the face of his mother, which crimsoned
with painful humiliation while she read. Philip was not now the trim
and dainty stripling first introduced to the reader. He had outgrown his
faded suit of funereal mourning; his long-neglected hair hung elf-like
and matted down his cheeks; there was a gloomy look in his bright dark
eyes. Poverty never betrays itself more than in the features and form of
Pride. It was evident that his spirit endured, rather than accommodated
itself to, his fallen state; and, notwithstanding his soiled and
threadbare garments, and a haggardness that ill becomes the years of
palmy youth, there was about his whole mien and person a wild and savage
grandeur more impressive than his former ruffling arrogance of manner.
“Well, mother,” said he, with a strange mixture of sternness in his
countenance and pity in his voice; “well, mother, and what says your
brother?”
“You decided for us once before, decide again. But I need not ask you;
you would never--”
“I don’t know,” interrupted Philip, vaguely; “let me see what we are to
decide on.”
Mrs. Morton was naturally a woman of high courage and spirit, but
sickness and grief had worn down both; and though Philip was but
sixteen, there is something in the very nature of woman--especially in
trouble--which makes her seek to lean on some other will than her own.
She gave Philip the letter, and went quietly to sit down by Sidney.
“Your brother means well,” said Philip, when he had concluded the
epistle.
“Yes, but nothing is to be done; I cannot, cannot send poor Sidney
to--to--” and Mrs. Morton sobbed.
“No, my dear, dear mother, no; it would be terrible, indeed, to part
you and him. But this bookseller--Plaskwith--perhaps I shall be able to
support you both.”
“Why, you do not think, Philip, of being an apprentice!--you, who have
been so brought up--you, who are so proud!”
“Mother, I would sweep the crossings for your sake! Mother, for your
sake I would go to my uncle Beaufort with my hat in my hand, for
halfpence. Mother, I am not proud--I would be honest, if I can--but when
I see you pining away, and so changed, the devil comes into me, and I
often shudder lest I should commit some crime--what, I don’t know!”
“Come here, Philip--my own Philip--my son, my hope, my firstborn!”--and
the mother’s heart gushed forth in all the fondness of early days.
“Don’t speak so terribly, you frighten me!”
She threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him soothingly. He laid
his burning temples on her bosom, and nestled himself to her, as he
had been wont to do, after some stormy paroxysm of his passionate and
wayward infancy. So there they remained--their lips silent, their hearts
speaking to each other--each from each taking strange succour and holy
strength--till Philip rose, calm, and with a quiet smile, “Good-bye,
mother; I will go at once to Mr. Plaskwith.”
“But you have no money for the coach-fare; here, Philip,” and she
placed her purse in his hand, from which he reluctantly selected a few
shillings. “And mind, if the man is rude and you dislike him--mind, you
must not subject yourself to insolence and mortification.”
“Oh, all will go well, don’t fear,” said Philip, cheerfully, and he left
the house.
Towards evening he had reached his destination. The shop was of
goodly exterior, with a private entrance; over the shop was written,
“Christopher Plaskwith, Bookseller and Stationer:” on the private door
a brass plate, inscribed with “R---- and ---- Mercury Office, Mr.
Plaskwith.” Philip applied at the private entrance, and was shown by
a “neat-handed Phillis” into a small office-room. In a few minutes the
door opened, and the bookseller entered.
Mr. Christopher Plaskwith was a short, stout man, in drab-coloured
breeches, and gaiters to match; a black coat and waistcoat; he wore a
large watch-chain, with a prodigious bunch of seals, alternated by
small keys and old-fashioned mourning-rings. His complexion was pale
and sodden, and his hair short, dark, and sleek. The bookseller valued
himself on a likeness to Buonaparte; and affected a short, brusque,
peremptory manner, which he meant to be the indication of the vigorous
and decisive character of his prototype.
“So you are the young gentleman Mr. Roger Morton recommends?” Here Mr.
Plaskwith took out a huge pocketbook, slowly unclasped it, staring hard
at Philip, with what he designed for a piercing and penetrative survey.
“This is the letter--no! this is Sir Thomas Champerdown’s order for
fifty copies of the last Mercury, containing his speech at the county
meeting. Your age, young man?--only sixteen?--look older;--that’s not
it--that’s not it--and this is it!--sit down. Yes, Mr. Roger
Morton recommends you--a relation--unfortunate circumstances--well
educated--hum! Well, young man, what have you to say for yourself?”
“Sir?”
“Can you cast accounts?--know bookkeeping?”
“I know something of algebra, sir.”
“Algebra!--oh, what else?”
“French and Latin.”
“Hum!--may be useful. Why do you wear your hair so long?--look at mine.
What’s your name?”
“Philip Morton.”
“Mr. Philip Morton, you have an intelligent countenance--I go a great
deal by countenances. You know the terms?--most favourable to you. No
premium--I settle that with Roger. I give board and bed--find your own
washing. Habits regular--‘prenticeship only five years; when over, must
not set up in the same town. I will see to the indentures. When can you
come?”
“When you please, sir.”
“Day after to-morrow, by six o’clock coach.”
“But, sir,” said Philip, “will there be no salary? something, ever so
small, that I could send to my another?”
“Salary, at sixteen?--board and bed--no premium! Salary, what for?
‘Prentices have no salary!--you will have every comfort.”
“Give me less comfort, that I may give my mother more;--a little money,
ever so little, and take it out of my board: I can do with one meal a
day, sir.”
The bookseller was moved: he took a huge pinch of snuff out of his
waistcoat pocket, and mused a moment. He then said, as he re-examined
Philip:
“Well, young man, I’ll tell you what we will do. You shall come
here first upon trial;--see if we like each other before we sign the
indentures; allow you, meanwhile, five shillings a week. If you show
talent, will see if I and Roger can settle about some little allowance.
That do, eh?”
“I thank you, sir, yes,” said Philip, gratefully. “Agreed, then. Follow
me--present you to Mrs. P.” Thus saying, Mr. Plaskwith returned the
letter to the pocket-book, and the pocket-book to the pocket; and,
putting his arms behind his coat tails, threw up his chin, and strode
through the passage into a small parlour, that locked upon a small
garden. Here, seated round the table, were a thin lady, with a squint
(Mrs. Plaskwith), two little girls, the Misses Plaskwith, also with
squints, and pinafores; a young man of three or four-and-twenty, in
nankeen trousers, a little the worse for washing, and a black velveteen
jacket and waistcoat. This young gentleman was very much freckled; wore
his hair, which was dark and wiry, up at one side, down at the other;
had a short thick nose; full lips; and, when close to him, smelt of
cigars. Such was Mr. Plimmins, Mr. Plaskwith’s factotum, foreman in the
shop, assistant editor to the Mercury. Mr. Plaskwith formally went the
round of the introduction; Mrs. P. nodded her head; the Misses P. nudged
each other, and grinned; Mr. Plimmins passed his hand through his hair,
glanced at the glass, and bowed very politely.
“Now, Mrs. P., my second cup, and give Mr. Morton his dish of tea. Must
be tired, sir--hot day. Jemima, ring--no, go to the stairs and call out
‘more buttered toast.’ That’s the shorter way--promptitude is my rule in
life, Mr. Morton. Pray-hum, hum--have you ever, by chance, studied the
biography of the great Napoleon Buonaparte?”
Mr. Plimmins gulped down his tea, and kicked Philip under the table.
Philip looked fiercely at the foreman, and replied, sullenly, “No, sir.”
“That’s a pity. Napoleon Buonaparte was a very great man,--very! You
have seen his cast?--there it is, on the dumb waiter! Look at it! see a
likeness, eh?”
“Likeness, sir? I never saw Napoleon Buonaparte.”
“Never saw him! No, just look round the room. Who does that bust put you
in mind of? who does it resemble?”
Here Mr. Plaskwith rose, and placed himself in an attitude; his hand in
his waistcoat, and his face pensively inclined towards the tea-table.
“Now fancy me at St. Helena; this table is the ocean. Now, then, who is
that cast like, Mr. Philip Morton?”
“I suppose, sir, it is like you!”
“Ah, that it is! strikes every one! Does it not, Mrs. P., does it not?
And when you have known me longer, you will find a moral similitude--a
moral, sir! Straightforward--short--to the point--bold--determined!”
“Bless me, Mr. P.!” said Mrs. Plaskwith, very querulously, “do make
haste with your tea; the young gentleman, I suppose, wants to go home,
and the coach passes in a quarter of an hour.”
“Have you seen Kean in Richard the Third, Mr. Morton?” asked Mr.
Plimmins.
“I have never seen a play.”
“Never seen a play! How very odd!”
“Not at all odd, Mr. Plimmins,” said the stationer. “Mr. Morton has
known troubles--so hand him the hot toast.”
Silent and morose, but rather disdainful than sad, Philip listened to
the babble round him, and observed the ungenial characters with which
he was to associate. He cared not to please (that, alas! had never been
especially his study); it was enough for him if he could see, stretching
to his mind’s eye beyond the walls of that dull room, the long vistas
into fairer fortune. At sixteen, what sorrow can freeze the Hope, or
what prophetic fear whisper, “Fool!” to the Ambition? He would bear back
into ease and prosperity, if not into affluence and station, the dear
ones left at home. From the eminence of five shillings a week, he looked
over the Promised Land.
At length, Mr. Plaskwith, pulling out his watch, said, “Just in time
to catch the coach; make your bow and be off--smart’s the word!” Philip
rose, took up his hat, made a stiff bow that included the whole group,
and vanished with his host.
Mrs. Plaskwith breathed more easily when he was gone. “I never seed
a more odd, fierce, ill-bred-looking young man! I declare I am quite
afraid of him. What an eye he has!”
“Uncommonly dark; what I may say gipsy-like,” said Mr. Plimmins.
“He! he! You always do say such good things, Plimmins. Gipsy-like, he!
he! So he is! I wonder if he can tell fortunes?”
“He’ll be long before he has a fortune of his own to tell. Ha! ha!” said
Plimmins.
“He! he! how very good! you are so pleasant, Plimmins.”
While these strictures on his appearance were still going on, Philip had
already ascended the roof of the coach; and, waving his hand, with the
condescension of old times, to his future master, was carried away by
the “Express” in a whirlwind of dust.
“A very warm evening, sir,” said a passenger seated at his right;
puffing, while he spoke, from a short German pipe, a volume of smoke in
Philip’s face.
“Very warm. Be so good as to smoke into the face of the gentleman on the
other side of you,” returned Philip, petulantly.
“Ho, ho!” replied the passenger, with a loud, powerful laugh--the laugh
of a strong man. “You don’t take to the pipe yet; you will by and by,
when you have known the cares and anxieties that I have gone through.
A pipe!--it is a great soother!--a pleasant comforter! Blue devils fly
before its honest breath! It ripens the brain--it opens the heart; and
the man who smokes thinks like a sage and acts like a Samaritan!”
Roused from his reverie by this quaint and unexpected declamation,
Philip turned his quick glance at his neighbour. He saw a man of great
bulk and immense physical power--broad-shouldered--deep-chested--not
corpulent, but taking the same girth from bone and muscle that a
corpulent man does from flesh. He wore a blue coat--frogged, braided,
and buttoned to the throat. A broad-brimmed straw hat, set on one side,
gave a jaunty appearance to a countenance which, notwithstanding its
jovial complexion and smiling mouth, had, in repose, a bold and decided
character. It was a face well suited to the frame, inasmuch as it
betokened a mind capable of wielding and mastering the brute physical
force of body;--light eyes of piercing intelligence; rough, but resolute
and striking features, and a jaw of iron. There was thought, there was
power, there was passion in the shaggy brow, the deep-ploughed lines,
the dilated, nostril and the restless play of the lips. Philip looked
hard and grave, and the man returned his look.
“What do you think of me, young gentleman?” asked the passenger, as he
replaced the pipe in his mouth. “I am a fine-looking man, am I not?”
“You seem a strange one.”
“Strange!--Ay, I puzzle you, as I have done, and shall do, many. You
cannot read me as easily as I can read you. Come, shall I guess at your
character and circumstances? You are a gentleman, or something like it,
by birth;--that the tone of your voice tells me. You are poor, devilish
poor;--that the hole in your coat assures me. You are proud, fiery,
discontented, and unhappy;--all that I see in your face. It was because
I saw those signs that I spoke to you. I volunteer no acquaintance with
the happy.”
“I dare say not; for if you know all the unhappy you must have a
sufficiently large acquaintance,” returned Philip.
“Your wit is beyond your years! What is your calling, if the question
does not offend you?”
“I have none as yet,” said Philip, with a slight sigh, and a deep blush.
“More’s the pity!” grunted the smoker, with a long emphatic nasal
intonation. “I should have judged that you were a raw recruit in the
camp of the enemy.”
“Enemy! I don’t understand you.”
“In other words, a plant growing out of a lawyer’s desk. I will explain.
There is one class of spiders, industrious, hard-working octopedes, who,
out of the sweat of their brains (I take it, by the by, that a spider
must have a fine craniological development), make their own webs and
catch their flies. There is another class of spiders who have no stuff
in them wherewith to make webs; they, therefore, wander about, looking
out for food provided by the toil of their neighbours. Whenever they
come to the web of a smaller spider, whose larder seems well supplied,
they rush upon his domain--pursue him to his hole--eat him up if they
can--reject him if he is too tough for their maws, and quietly possess
themselves of all the legs and wings they find dangling in his meshes:
these spiders I call enemies--the world calls them lawyers!”
Philip laughed: “And who are the first class of spiders?”
“Honest creatures who openly confess that they live upon flies. Lawyers
fall foul upon them, under pretence of delivering flies from their
clutches. They are wonderful blood-suckers, these lawyers, in spite of
all their hypocrisy. Ha! ha! ho! ho!”
And with a loud, rough chuckle, more expressive of malignity than mirth,
the man turned himself round, applied vigorously to his pipe, and sank
into a silence which, as mile after mile glided past the wheels, he
did not seem disposed to break. Neither was Philip inclined to be
communicative. Considerations for his own state and prospects swallowed
up the curiosity he might otherwise have felt as to his singular
neighbour. He had not touched food since the early morning. Anxiety had
made him insensible to hunger, till he arrived at Mr. Plaskwith’s;
and then, feverish, sore, and sick at heart, the sight of the luxuries
gracing the tea-table only revolted him. He did not now feel hunger, but
he was fatigued and faint. For several nights the sleep which youth can
so ill dispense with had been broken and disturbed; and now, the
rapid motion of the coach, and the free current of a fresher and more
exhausting air than he had been accustomed to for many months, began to
operate on his nerves like the intoxication of a narcotic. His eyes grew
heavy; indistinct mists, through which there seemed to glare the various
squints of the female Plaskwiths, succeeded the gliding road and the
dancing trees. His head fell on his bosom; and thence, instinctively
seeking the strongest support at hand, inclined towards the stout
smoker, and finally nestled itself composedly on that gentleman’s
shoulder. The passenger, feeling this unwelcome and unsolicited weight,
took the pipe, which he had already thrice refilled, from his lips,
and emitted an angry and impatient snort; finding that this produced no
effect, and that the load grew heavier as the boy’s sleep grew deeper,
he cried, in a loud voice, “Holla! I did not pay my fare to be your
bolster, young man!” and shook himself lustily. Philip started, and
would have fallen sidelong from the coach, if his neighbour had not
griped him hard with a hand that could have kept a young oak from
falling.
“Rouse yourself!--you might have had an ugly tumble.” Philip muttered
something inaudible, between sleeping and waking, and turned his dark
eyes towards the man; in that glance there was so much unconscious,
but sad and deep reproach, that the passenger felt touched and ashamed.
Before however, he could say anything in apology or conciliation, Philip
had again fallen asleep. But this time, as if he had felt and resented
the rebuff he had received, he inclined his head away from his
neighbour, against the edge of a box on the roof--a dangerous pillow,
from which any sudden jolt might transfer him to the road below.
“Poor lad!--he looks pale!” muttered the man, and he knocked the weed
from his pipe, which he placed gently in his pocket. “Perhaps the smoke
was too much for him--he seems ill and thin,” and he took the boy’s long
lean fingers in his own. “His cheek is hollow!--what do I know but it
may be with fasting? Pooh! I was a brute. Hush, coachee, hush! don’t
talk so loud, and be d---d to you--he will certainly be off!” and the
man softly and creepingly encircled the boy’s waist with his huge arm.
“Now, then, to shift his head; so-so,--that’s right.” Philip’s sallow
cheek and long hair were now tenderly lapped on the soliloquist’s
bosom. “Poor wretch! he smiles; perhaps he is thinking of home, and the
butterflies he ran after when he was an urchin--they never come back,
those days;--never--never--never! I think the wind veers to the east; he
may catch cold;”--and with that, the man, sliding the head for a moment,
and with the tenderness of a woman, from his breast to his shoulder,
unbuttoned his coat (as he replaced the weight, no longer unwelcomed, in
its former part), and drew the lappets closely round the slender
frame of the sleeper, exposing his own sturdy breast--for he wore no
waistcoat--to the sharpening air. Thus cradled on that stranger’s bosom,
wrapped from the present and dreaming perhaps--while a heart scorched
by fierce and terrible struggles with life and sin made his pillow--of a
fair and unsullied future, slept the fatherless and friendless boy.
CHAPTER VII.
“Constance. My life, my joy, my food, my all the world,
My widow-comfort.”--King John.
Amidst the glare of lamps--the rattle of carriages--the lumbering
of carts and waggons--the throng, the clamour, the reeking life and
dissonant roar of London, Philip woke from his happy sleep. He woke
uncertain and confused, and saw strange eyes bent on him kindly and
watchfully.
“You have slept well, my lad!” said the passenger, in the deep ringing
voice which made itself heard above all the noises around.
“And you have suffered me to incommode you thus!” said Philip, with more
gratitude in his voice and look than, perhaps, he had shown to any one
out of his own family since his birth.
“You have had but little kindness shown you, my poor boy, if you think
so much of this.”
“No--all people were very kind to me once. I did not value it then.”
Here the coach rolled heavily down the dark arch of the inn-yard.
“Take care of yourself, my boy! You look ill;” and in the dark the man
slipped a sovereign into Philip’s hand.
“I don’t want money. Though I thank you heartily all the same; it would
be a shame at my age to be a beggar. But can you think of an employment
where I can make something?--what they offer me is so trifling. I have a
mother and a brother--a mere child, sir--at home.”
“Employment!” repeated the man; and as the coach now stopped at the
tavern door, the light of the lamp fell full on his marked face. “Ay, I
know of employment; but you should apply to some one else to obtain it
for you! As for me, it is not likely that we shall meet again!”
“I am sorry for that!--What and who are you?” asked Philip, with a rude
and blunt curiosity.
“Me!” returned the passenger, with his deep laugh. “Oh! I know some
people who call me an honest fellow. Take the employment offered you,
no matter how trifling the wages--keep out of harm’s way. Good night to
you!”
So saying, he quickly descended from the roof, and, as he was directing
the coachman where to look for his carpetbag, Philip saw three or four
well-dressed men make up to him, shake him heartily by the hand, and
welcome him with great seeming cordiality.
Philip sighed. “He has friends,” he muttered to himself; and, paying his
fare, he turned from the bustling yard, and took his solitary way home.
A week after his visit to R----, Philip was settled on his probation at
Mr. Plaskwith’s, and Mrs. Morton’s health was so decidedly worse, that
she resolved to know her fate, and consult a physician. The oracle was
at first ambiguous in its response. But when Mrs. Morton said firmly,
“I have duties to perform; upon your candid answer rest my Plans with
respect to my children--left, if I die suddenly, destitute in the
world,”--the doctor looked hard in her face, saw its calm resolution,
and replied frankly:
“Lose no time, then, in arranging your plans; life is uncertain
with all--with you, especially; you may live some time yet, but your
constitution is much shaken--I fear there is water on the chest. No,
ma’am--no fee. I will see you again.”
The physician turned to Sidney, who played with his watch-chain, and
smiled up in his face.
“And that child, sir?” said the mother, wistfully, forgetting the dread
fiat pronounced against herself,--“he is so delicate!”
“Not at all, ma’am,--a very fine little fellow;” and the doctor patted
the boy’s head, and abruptly vanished.
“Ah! mamma, I wish you would ride--I wish you would take the white
pony!”
“Poor boy! poor boy!” muttered the mother; “I must not be selfish.” She
covered her face with her hands, and began to think!
Could she, thus doomed, resolve on declining her brother’s offer? Did it
not, at least, secure bread and shelter to her child? When she was dead,
might not a tie, between the uncle and nephew, be snapped asunder? Would
he be as kind to the boy as now when she could commend him with her own
lips to his care--when she could place that precious charge into his
hands? With these thoughts, she formed one of those resolutions which
have all the strength of self-sacrificing love. She would put the boy
from her, her last solace and comfort; she would die alone,--alone!
CHAPTER VIII.
“Constance. When I shall meet him in the court of heaven, I shall
not know him.”--King John.
One evening, the shop closed and the business done, Mr. Roger Morton
and his family sat in that snug and comfortable retreat which generally
backs the warerooms of an English tradesman. Happy often, and indeed
happy, is that little sanctuary, near to, and yet remote from, the
toil and care of the busy mart from which its homely ease and peaceful
security are drawn. Glance down those rows of silenced shops in a town
at night, and picture the glad and quiet groups gathered within, over
that nightly and social meal which custom has banished from the more
indolent tribes who neither toil nor spin. Placed between the two
extremes of life, the tradesman, who ventures not beyond his means,
and sees clear books and sure gains, with enough of occupation to give
healthful excitement, enough of fortune to greet each new-born child
without a sigh, might be envied alike by those above and those below his
state--if the restless heart of men ever envied Content!
“And so the little boy is not to come?” said Mrs. Morton as she crossed
her knife and fork, and pushed away her plate, in token that she had
done supper.
“I don’t know.--Children, go to bed; there--there--that will do. Good
night!--Catherine does not say either yes or no. She wants time to
consider.”
“It was a very handsome offer on our part; some folks never know when
they are well off.”
“That is very true, my dear, and you are a very sensible person. Kate
herself might have been an honest woman, and, what is more, a very
rich woman, by this time. She might have married Spencer, the young
brewer--an excellent man, and well to do!”
“Spencer! I don’t remember him.”
“No: after she went off, he retired from business, and left the place.
I don’t know what’s become of him. He was mightily taken with her, to be
sure. She was uncommonly handsome, my sister Catherine.”
“Handsome is as handsome does, Mr. Morton,” said the wife, who was very
much marked with the small-pox. “We all have our temptations and trials;
this is a vale of tears, and without grace we are whited sepulchers.”
Mr. Morton mixed his brandy and water, and moved his chair into its
customary corner.
“You saw your brother’s letter,” said he, after a pause; “he gives young
Philip a very good character.”
“The human heart is very deceitful,” replied Mrs. Morton, who, by the
way, spoke through her nose. “Pray Heaven he may be what he seems; but
what’s bred in the bone comes out in the flesh.”
“We must hope the best,” said Mr. Morton, mildly; “and--put another lump
into the grog, my dear.”
“It is a mercy, I’m thinking, that we didn’t have the other little boy.
I dare say he has never even been taught his catechism: them people
don’t know what it is to be a mother. And, besides, it would have been
very awkward, Mr. M.; we could never have said who he was: and I’ve no
doubt Miss Pryinall would have been very curious.”
“Miss Pryinall be ----!” Mr. Morton checked himself, took a large
draught of the brandy and water, and added, “Miss Pryinall wants to have
a finger in everybody’s pie.”
“But she buys a deal of flannel, and does great good to the town; it was
she who found out that Mrs. Giles was no better than she should be.”
“Poor Mrs. Giles!--she came to the workhouse.”
“Poor Mrs. Giles, indeed! I wonder, Mr. Morton, that you, a married man
with a family, should say, poor Mrs. Giles!”
“My dear, when people who have been well off come to the workhouse, they
may be called poor:--but that’s neither here nor there; only, if the boy
does come to us, we must look sharp upon Miss Pryinall.”
“I hope he won’t come,--it will be very unpleasant. And when a man has
a wife and family, the less he meddles with other folks and their little
ones, the better. For as the Scripture says, ‘A man shall cleave to his
wife and--’”
Here a sharp, shrill ring at the bell was heard, and Mrs. Morton broke
off into:
“Well! I declare! at this hour; who can that be? And all gone to bed! Do
go and see, Mr. Morton.”
Somewhat reluctantly and slowly, Mr. Morton rose; and, proceeding to the
passage, unbarred the door. A brief and muttered conversation followed,
to the great irritability of Mrs. Morton, who stood in the passage--the
candle in her hand.
“What is the matter, Mr. M.?”
Mr. Morton turned back, looking agitated.
“Where’s my hat? oh, here. My sister is come, at the inn.”
“Gracious me! She does not go for to say she is your sister?”
“No, no: here’s her note--calls herself a lady that’s ill. I shall be
back soon.”
“She can’t come here--she sha’n’t come here, Mr. M. I’m an honest
woman--she can’t come here. You understand--”
Mr. Morton had naturally a stern countenance, stern to every one but his
wife. The shrill tone to which he was so long accustomed jarred then on
his heart as well as his ear. He frowned:
“Pshaw! woman, you have no feeling!” said he, and walked out of the
house, pulling his hat over his brows. That was the only rude speech
Mr. Morton had ever made to his better half. She treasured it up in her
heart and memory; it was associated with the sister and the child; and
she was not a woman who ever forgave.
Mr. Morton walked rapidly through the still, moon-lit streets, till he
reached the inn. A club was held that night in one of the rooms below;
and as he crossed the threshold, the sound of “hip-hip-hurrah!” mingled
with the stamping of feet and the jingling of glasses, saluted his
entrance. He was a stiff, sober, respectable man,--a man who, except at
elections--he was a great politician--mixed in none of the revels of his
more boisterous townsmen. The sounds, the spot, were ungenial to him. He
paused, and the colour of shame rose to his brow. He was ashamed to be
there--ashamed to meet the desolate and, as he believed, erring sister.
A pretty maidservant, heated and flushed with orders and compliments,
crossed his path with a tray full of glasses.
“There’s a lady come by the Telegraph?”
“Yes, sir, upstairs, No. 2, Mr. Morton.”
Mr. Morton! He shrank at the sound of his own name.
“My wife’s right,” he muttered. “After all, this is more unpleasant than
I thought for.”
The slight stairs shook under his hasty tread. He opened the door of No.
2, and that Catherine, whom he had last seen at her age of gay sixteen,
radiant with bloom, and, but for her air of pride, the model for a
Hebe,--that Catherine, old ere youth was gone, pale, faded, the dark
hair silvered over, the cheeks hollow, and the eye dim,--that Catherine
fell upon his breast!
“God bless you, brother! How kind to come! How long since we have met!”
“Sit down, Catherine, my dear sister. You are faint--you are very much
changed--very. I should not have known you.”
“Brother, I have brought my boy; it is painful to part from
him--very--very painful: but it is right, and God’s will be done.” She
turned, as she spoke, towards a little, deformed rickety dwarf of a
sofa, that seemed to hide itself in the darkest corner of the low,
gloomy room; and Morton followed her. With one hand she removed the
shawl that she had thrown over the child, and placing the forefinger of
the other upon her lips--lips that smiled then--she whispered,--“We will
not wake him, he is so tired. But I would not put him to bed till you
had seen him.”
And there slept poor Sidney, his fair cheek pillowed on his arm; the
soft, silky ringlets thrown from the delicate and unclouded brow;
the natural bloom increased by warmth and travel; the lovely face so
innocent and hushed; the breathing so gentle and regular, as if never
broken by a sigh.
Mr. Morton drew his hand across his eyes.
There was something very touching in the contrast between that wakeful,
anxious, forlorn woman, and the slumber of the unconscious boy. And
in that moment, what breast upon which the light of Christian pity--of
natural affection, had ever dawned, would, even supposing the world’s
judgment were true, have recalled Catherine’s reputed error? There is
so divine a holiness in the love of a mother, that no matter how the
tie that binds her to the child was formed, she becomes, as it were,
consecrated and sacred; and the past is forgotten, and the world and its
harsh verdicts swept away, when that love alone is visible; and the God,
who watches over the little one, sheds His smile over the human deputy,
in whose tenderness there breathes His own!
“You will be kind to him--will you not?” said Mrs. Morton; and the
appeal was made with that trustful, almost cheerful tone which implies,
‘Who would not be kind to a thing so fair and helpless?’ “He is very
sensitive and very docile; you will never have occasion to say a hard
word to him--never! you have children of your own, brother.”
“He is a beautiful boy--beautiful. I will be a father to him!”
As he spoke,--the recollection of his wife--sour, querulous,
austere--came over him, but he said to himself, “She must take to such
a child,--women always take to beauty.” He bent down and gently pressed
his lips to Sidney’s forehead: Mrs. Morton replaced the shawl, and drew
her brother to the other end of the room.
“And now,” she said, colouring as she spoke, “I must see your wife,
brother: there is so much to say about a child that only a woman will
recollect. Is she very good-tempered and kind, your wife? You know I
never saw her; you married after--after I left.”
“She is a very worthy woman,” said Mr. Morton, clearing his throat, “and
brought me some money; she has a will of her own, as most women have;
but that’s neither here nor there--she is a good wife as wives go; and
prudent and painstaking--I don’t know what I should do without her.”
“Brother, I have one favour to request--a great favour.”
“Anything I can do in the way of money?”
“It has nothing to do with money. I can’t live long--don’t shake your
head--I can’t live long. I have no fear for Philip, he has so much
spirit--such strength of character--but that child! I cannot bear to
leave him altogether; let me stay in this town--I can lodge anywhere;
but to see him sometimes--to know I shall be in reach if he is ill--let
me stay here--let me die here!”
“You must not talk so sadly--you are young yet--younger than I am--I
don’t think of dying.”
“Heaven forbid! but--”
“Well--well,” interrupted Mr. Morton, who began to fear his feelings
would hurry him into some promise which his wife would not suffer him to
keep; “you shall talk to Margaret,--that is Mrs. Morton--I will get her
to see you--yes, I think I can contrive that; and if you can arrange
with her to stay,--but you see, as she brought the money, and is a very
particular woman--”
“I will see her; thank you--thank you; she cannot refuse me.”
“And, brother,” resumed Mrs. Morton, after a short pause, and speaking
in a firm voice--“and is it possible that you disbelieve my story?--that
you, like all the rest, consider my children the sons of shame?”
There was an honest earnestness in Catherine’s voice, as she spoke,
that might have convinced many. But Mr. Morton was a man of facts, a
practical man--a man who believed that law was always right, and that
the improbable was never true.
He looked down as he answered, “I think you have been a very ill-used
woman, Catherine, and that is all I can say on the matter; let us drop
the subject.”
“No! I was not ill-used; my husband--yes, my husband--was noble and
generous from first to last. It was for the sake of his children’s
prospects--for the expectations they, through him, might derive from his
proud uncle--that he concealed our marriage. Do not blame Philip--do not
condemn the dead.”
“I don’t want to blame any one,” said Mr. Morton, rather angrily; “I am
a plain man--a tradesman, and can only go by what in my class seems fair
and honest, which I can’t think Mr. Beaufort’s conduct was, put it how
you will; if he marries you as you think, he gets rid of a witness, he
destroys a certificate, and he dies without a will. How ever, all that’s
neither here nor there. You do quite right not to take the name of
Beaufort, since it is an uncommon name, and would always make the story
public. Least said, soonest mended. You must always consider that your
children will be called natural children, and have their own way to
make. No harm in that! Warm day for your journey.” Catherine sighed, and
wiped her eyes; she no longer reproached the world, since the son of her
own mother disbelieved her.
The relations talked together for some minutes on the past--the present;
but there was embarrassment and constraint on both sides--it was so
difficult to avoid one subject; and after sixteen years of absence,
there is little left in common, even between those who once played
together round their parent’s knees. Mr. Morton was glad at last to find
an excuse in Catherine’s fatigue to leave her. “Cheer up, and take a
glass of something warm before you go to bed. Good night!” these were
his parting words.
Long was the conference, and sleepless the couch, of Mr. and Mrs.
Morton. At first that estimable lady positively declared she would not
and could not visit Catherine (as to receiving her, that was out of the
question). But she secretly resolved to give up that point in order to
insist with greater strength upon another--viz., the impossibility of
Catherine remaining in the town; such concession for the purpose of
resistance being a very common and sagacious policy with married ladies.
Accordingly, when suddenly, and with a good grace, Mrs. Morton appeared
affected by her husband’s eloquence, and said, “Well, poor thing! if she
is so ill, and you wish it so much, I will call to-morrow,” Mr. Morton
felt his heart softened towards the many excellent reasons which his
wife urged against allowing Catherine to reside in the town. He was
a political character--he had many enemies; the story of his seduced
sister, now forgotten, would certainly be raked up; it would affect his
comfort, perhaps his trade, certainly his eldest daughter, who was
now thirteen; it would be impossible then to adopt the plan hitherto
resolved upon--of passing off Sidney as the legitimate orphan of a
distant relation; it would be made a great handle for gossip by Miss
Pryinall. Added to all these reasons, one not less strong occurred to
Mr. Morton himself--the uncommon and merciless rigidity of his wife
would render all the other women in the town very glad of any topic that
would humble her own sense of immaculate propriety. Moreover, he
saw that if Catherine did remain, it would be a perpetual source of
irritation in his own home; he was a man who liked an easy life, and
avoided, as far as possible, all food for domestic worry. And thus, when
at length the wedded pair turned back to back, and composed themselves
to sleep, the conditions of peace were settled, and the weaker party,
as usual in diplomacy, sacrificed to the interests of the united
powers. After breakfast the next morning, Mrs. Morton sallied out on
her husband’s arm. Mr. Morton was rather a handsome man, with an air
and look grave, composed, severe, that had tended much to raise his
character in the town.
Mrs. Morton was short, wiry, and bony. She had won her husband by making
desperate love to him, to say nothing of a dower that enabled him to
extend his business, new-front, as well as new-stock his shop, and
rise into the very first rank of tradesmen in his native town. He still
believed that she was excessively fond of him--a common delusion of
husbands, especially when henpecked. Mrs. Morton was, perhaps, fond of
him in her own way; for though her heart was not warm, there may be a
great deal of fondness with very little feeling. The worthy lady was now
clothed in her best. She had a proper pride in showing the rewards that
belong to female virtue. Flowers adorned her Leghorn bonnet, and her
green silk gown boasted four flounces,--such, then, was, I am told, the
fashion. She wore, also, a very handsome black shawl, extremely heavy,
though the day was oppressively hot, and with a deep border; a smart
sevigni brooch of yellow topazes glittered in her breast; a huge gilt
serpent glared from her waistband; her hair, or more properly speaking
her front, was tortured into very tight curls, and her feet into very
tight half-laced boots, from which the fragrance of new leather had not
yet departed. It was this last infliction, for _il faut souffrir pour
etre belle_, which somewhat yet more acerbated the ordinary acid of
Mrs. Morton’s temper. The sweetest disposition is ruffled when the shoe
pinches; and it so happened that Mrs. Roger Morton was one of those
ladies who always have chilblains in the winter and corns in the summer.
“So you say your sister is a beauty?”
“Was a beauty, Mrs. M.,--was a beauty. People alter.”
“A bad conscience, Mr. Morton, is--”
“My dear, can’t you walk faster?”
“If you had my corns, Mr. Morton, you would not talk in that way!”
The happy pair sank into silence, only broken by sundry “How d’ye dos?”
and “Good mornings!” interchanged with their friends, till they arrived
at the inn.
“Let us go up quickly,” said Mrs. Morton.
And quiet--quiet to gloom, did the inn, so noisy overnight, seem by
morning. The shutters partially closed to keep out the sun--the taproom
deserted--the passage smelling of stale smoke--an elderly dog, lazily
snapping at the flies, at the foot of the staircase--not a soul to be
seen at the bar. The husband and wife, glad to be unobserved, crept on
tiptoe up the stairs, and entered Catherine’s apartment.
Catherine was seated on the sofa, and Sidney-dressed, like Mrs. Roger
Morton, to look his prettiest, nor yet aware of the change that awaited
his destiny, but pleased at the excitement of seeing new friends, as
handsome children sure of praise and petting usually are--stood by her
side.
“My wife--Catherine,” said Mr. Morton. Catherine rose eagerly, and
gazed searchingly on her sister-in-law’s hard face. She swallowed the
convulsive rising at her heart as she gazed, and stretched out both
her hands, not so much to welcome as to plead. Mrs. Roger Morton drew
herself up, and then dropped a courtesy--it was an involuntary piece of
good breeding--it was extorted by the noble countenance, the matronly
mien of Catherine, different from what she had anticipated--she dropped
the courtesy, and Catherine took her hand and pressed it.
“This is my son;” she turned away her head. Sidney advanced towards his
protectress who was to be, and Mrs. Roger muttered:
“Come here, my dear! A fine little boy!”
“As fine a child as ever I saw!” said Mr. Morton, heartily, as he took
Sidney on his lap, and stroked down his golden hair.
This displeased Mrs. Roger Morton, but she sat herself down, and said it
was “very warm.”
“Now go to that lady, my dear,” said Mr. Morton. “Is she not a very nice
lady?--don’t you think you shall like her very much?”
Sidney, the best-mannered child in the world, went boldly up to Mrs.
Morton, as he was bid. Mrs. Morton was embarrassed. Some folks are so
with other folk’s children: a child either removes all constraint from
a party, or it increases the constraint tenfold. Mrs. Morton, however,
forced a smile, and said, “I have a little boy at home about your age.”
“Have you?” exclaimed Catherine, eagerly; and as if that confession
made them friends at once, she drew a chair close to her
sister-in-law’s,--“My brother has told you all?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And I shall stay here--in the town somewhere--and see him sometimes?”
Mrs. Roger Morton glanced at her husband--her husband glanced at the
door--and Catherine’s quick eye turned from one to the other.
“Mr. Morton will explain, ma’ am,” said the wife.
“E-hem!--Catherine, my dear, I am afraid that is out of the question,”
began Mr. Morton, who, when fairly put to it, could be business-like
enough. “You see bygones are bygones, and it is no use raking them up.
But many people in the town will recollect you.”
“No one will see me--no one, but you and Sidney.”
“It will be sure to creep out; won’t it, Mrs. Morton?”
“Quite sure. Indeed, ma’am, it is impossible. Mr. Morton is so very
respectable, and his neighbours pay so much attention to all he does;
and then, if we have an election in the autumn, you see, ma’am, he has a
great stake in the place, and is a public character.”
“That’s neither here nor there,” said Mr. Morton. “But I say, Catherine,
can your little boy go into the other room for a moment? Margaret,
suppose you take him and make friends.”
Delighted to throw on her husband the burden of explanation, which she
had originally meant to have all the importance of giving herself in her
most proper and patronising manner, Mrs. Morton twisted her fingers
into the boy’s hand, and, opening the door that communicated with the
bedroom, left the brother and sister alone. And then Mr. Morton, with
more tact and delicacy than might have been expected from him, began to
soften to Catherine the hardship of the separation he urged. He dwelt
principally on what was best for the child. Boys were so brutal in their
intercourse with each other. He had even thought it better represent
Philip to Mr. Plaskwith as a more distant relation than he was; and he
begged, by the by, that Catherine would tell Philip to take the hint.
But as for Sidney, sooner or later, he would go to a day-school--have
companions of his own age--if his birth were known, he would be exposed
to many mortifications--so much better, and so very easy, to bring him
up as the lawful, that is the legal, offspring of some distant relation.
“And,” cried poor Catherine, clasping her bands, “when I am dead, is
he never to know that I was his mother?” The anguish of that question
thrilled the heart of the listener. He was affected below all the
surface that worldly thoughts and habits had laid, stratum by stratum,
over the humanities within. He threw his arms round Catherine, and
strained her to his breast:
“No, my sister--my poor sister--he shall know it when he is old enough
to understand, and to keep his own secret. He shall know, too, how we
all loved and prized you once; how young you were, how flattered and
tempted; how you were deceived, for I know that--on my soul I do--I know
it was not your fault. He shall know, too, how fondly you loved your
child, and how you sacrificed, for his sake, the very comfort of being
near him. He shall know it all--all--”
“My brother--my brother, I resign him--I am content. God reward you. I
will go--go quickly. I know you will take care of him now.”
“And you see,” resumed Mr. Morton, re-settling himself, and wiping his
eyes, “it is best, between you and me, that Mrs. Morton should have her
own way in this. She is a very good woman--very; but it’s prudent not to
vex her. You may come in now, Mrs. Morton.”
Mrs. Morton and Sidney reappeared.
“We have settled it all,” said the husband. “When can we have him?”
“Not to-day,” said Mrs. Roger Morton; “you see, ma’am, we must get his
bed ready, and his sheets well aired: I am very particular.”
“Certainly, certainly. Will he sleep alone?--pardon me.”
“He shall have a room to himself,” said Mr. Morton. “Eh, my dear? Next
to Martha’s. Martha is our parlourmaid--very good-natured girl, and fond
of children.”
Mrs. Morton looked grave, thought a moment, and said, “Yes, he can have
that room.”
“Who can have that room?” asked Sidney, innocently. “You, my dear,”
replied Mr. Morton.
“And where will mamma sleep? I must sleep near mamma.”
“Mamma is going away,” said Catherine, in a firm voice, in which the
despair would only have been felt by the acute ear of sympathy,--“going
away for a little time: but this gentleman and lady will be very--very
kind to you.”
“We will do our best, ma’am,” said Mrs. Morton.
And as she spoke, a sudden light broke on the boy’s mind--he uttered a
loud cry, broke from his aunt, rushed to his mother’s breast, and hid
his face there, sobbing bitterly.
“I am afraid he has been very much spoiled,” whispered Mrs. Roger
Morton. “I don’t think we need stay longer--it will look suspicious.
Good morning, ma’am: we shall be ready to-morrow.”
“Good-bye, Catherine,” said Mr. Morton; and he added, as he kissed her,
“Be of good heart, I will come up by myself and spend the evening with
you.”
It was the night after this interview. Sidney had gone to his new home;
they had been all kind to him--Mr. Morton, the children, Martha the
parlour-maid. Mrs. Roger herself had given him a large slice of bread
and jam, but had looked gloomy all the rest of the evening: because,
like a dog in a strange place, he refused to eat. His little heart was
full, and his eyes, swimming with tears, were turned at every moment
to the door. But he did not show the violent grief that might have been
expected. His very desolation, amidst the unfamiliar faces, awed and
chilled him. But when Martha took him to bed, and undressed him, and he
knelt down to say his prayers, and came to the words, “Pray God bless
dear mamma, and make me a good child,” his heart could contain its load
no longer, and he sobbed with a passion that alarmed the good-natured
servant. She had been used, however, to children, and she soothed and
caressed him, and told him of all the nice things he would do, and the
nice toys he would have; and at last, silenced, if not convinced, his
eyes closed, and, the tears yet wet on their lashes, he fell asleep.
It had been arranged that Catherine should return home that night by a
late coach, which left the town at twelve. It was already past eleven.
Mrs. Morton had retired to bed; and her husband, who had, according to
his wont, lingered behind to smoke a cigar over his last glass of brandy
and water, had just thrown aside the stump, and was winding up his
watch, when he heard a low tap at his window. He stood mute and alarmed,
for the window opened on a back lane, dark and solitary at night, and,
from the heat of the weather, the iron-cased shutter was not yet closed;
the sound was repeated, and he heard a faint voice. He glanced at
the poker, and then cautiously moved to the window, and looked
forth,--“Who’s there?”
“It is I--it is Catherine! I cannot go without seeing my boy. I must see
him--I must, once more!”
“My dear sister, the place is shut up--it is impossible. God bless me,
if Mrs. Morton should hear you!”
“I have walked before this window for hours--I have waited till all
is hushed in your house, till no one, not even a menial, need see the
mother stealing to the bed of her child. Brother, by the memory of our
own mother, I command you to let me look, for the last time, upon my
boy’s face!”
As Catherine said this, standing in that lonely street--darkness and
solitude below, God and the stars above--there was about her a majesty
which awed the listener. Though she was so near, her features were
not very clearly visible; but her attitude--her hand raised aloft--the
outline of her wasted but still commanding form, were more impressive
from the shadowy dimness of the air.
“Come round, Catherine,” said Mr. Morton after a pause; “I will admit
you.”
He shut the window, stole to the door, unbarred it gently, and admitted
his visitor. He bade her follow him; and, shading the light with his
hand, crept up the stairs. Catherine’s step made no sound.
They passed, unmolested, and unheard, the room in which the wife was
drowsily reading, according to her custom before she tied her nightcap
and got into bed, a chapter in some pious book. They ascended to the
chamber where Sidney lay; Morton opened the door cautiously, and stood
at the threshold, so holding the candle that its light might not wake
the child, though it sufficed to guide Catherine to the bed. The room
was small, perhaps close, but scrupulously clean; for cleanliness was
Mrs. Roger Morton’s capital virtue. The mother, with a tremulous hand,
drew aside the white curtains, and checked her sobs as she gazed on the
young quiet face that was turned towards her. She gazed some moments in
passionate silence; who shall say, beneath that silence, what thoughts,
what prayers moved and stirred!
Then bending down, with pale, convulsive lips she kissed the little
hands thrown so listlessly on the coverlet of the pillow on which the
head lay. After this she turned her face to her brother with a mute
appeal in her glance, took a ring from her finger--a ring that had never
till then left it--the ring which Philip Beaufort had placed there the
day after that child was born. “Let him wear this round his neck,” said
she, and stopped, lest she should sob aloud, and disturb the boy. In
that gift she felt as if she invoked the father’s spirit to watch over
the friendless orphan; and then, pressing together her own hands firmly,
as we do in some paroxysm of great pain, she turned from the room,
descended the stairs, gained the street, and muttered to her brother, “I
am happy now; peace be on these thresholds!” Before he could answer she
was gone.
CHAPTER IX.
“Thus things are strangely wrought,
While joyful May doth last;
Take May in Time--when May is gone
The pleasant time is past.”--RICHARD EDWARDS.
From the Paradise of Dainty Devices.
It was that period of the year when, to those who look on the surface of
society, London wears its most radiant smile; when shops are gayest,
and trade most brisk; when down the thoroughfares roll and glitter the
countless streams of indolent and voluptuous life; when the upper class
spend, and the middle class make; when the ball-room is the Market of
Beauty, and the club-house the School for Scandal; when the hells yawn
for their prey, and opera-singers and fiddlers--creatures hatched from
gold, as the dung-flies from the dung--swarm, and buzz, and fatten,
round the hide of the gentle Public. In the cant phase, it was “the
London season.” And happy, take it altogether, happy above the rest of
the year, even for the hapless, is that period of ferment and fever.
It is not the season for duns, and the debtor glides about with a less
anxious eye; and the weather is warm, and the vagrant sleeps, unfrozen,
under the starlit portico; and the beggar thrives, and the thief
rejoices--for the rankness of the civilisation has superfluities
clutched by all. And out of the general corruption things sordid and
things miserable crawl forth to bask in the common sunshine--things that
perish when the first autumn winds whistle along the melancholy city. It
is the gay time for the heir and the beauty, and the statesman and the
lawyer, and the mother with her young daughters, and the artist with his
fresh pictures, and the poet with his new book. It is the gay time, too,
for the starved journeyman, and the ragged outcast that with long stride
and patient eyes follows, for pence, the equestrian, who bids him go and
be d---d in vain. It is a gay time for the painted harlot in a
crimson pelisse; and a gay time for the old hag that loiters about the
thresholds of the gin-shop, to buy back, in a draught, the dreams of
departed youth. It is gay, in fine, as the fulness of a vast city is
ever gay--for Vice as for Innocence, for Poverty as for Wealth. And the
wheels of every single destiny wheel on the merrier, no matter whether
they are bound to Heaven or to Hell.
Arthur Beaufort, the young heir, was at his father’s house. He was fresh
from Oxford, where he had already discovered that learning is not better
than house and land. Since the new prospects opened to him, Arthur
Beaufort was greatly changed. Naturally studious and prudent, had his
fortunes remained what they had been before his uncle’s death, he would
probably have become a laborious and distinguished man. But though his
abilities were good, he had not those restless impulses which belong to
Genius--often not only its glory, but its curse. The Golden Rod cast
his energies asleep at once. Good-natured to a fault, and somewhat
vacillating in character, he adopted the manner and the code of the
rich young idlers who were his equals at College. He became, like
them, careless, extravagant, and fond of pleasure. This change, if it
deteriorated his mind, improved his exterior. It was a change that
could not but please women; and of all women his mother the most. Mrs.
Beaufort was a lady of high birth; and in marrying her, Robert had hoped
much from the interest of her connections; but a change in the ministry
had thrown her relations out of power; and, beyond her dowry, he
obtained no worldly advantage with the lady of his mercenary choice.
Mrs. Beaufort was a woman whom a word or two will describe. She was
thoroughly commonplace--neither bad nor good, neither clever nor silly.
She was what is called well-bred; that is, languid, silent, perfectly
dressed, and insipid. Of her two children, Arthur was almost the
exclusive favourite, especially after he became the heir to such
brilliant fortunes. For she was so much the mechanical creature of the
world, that even her affection was warm or cold in proportion as the
world shone on it. Without being absolutely in love with her husband,
she liked him--they suited each other; and (in spite of all the
temptations that had beset her in their earlier years, for she had been
esteemed a beauty--and lived, as worldly people must do, in circles
where examples of unpunished gallantry are numerous and contagious) her
conduct had ever been scrupulously correct. She had little or no feeling
for misfortunes with which she had never come into contact; for those
with which she had--such as the distresses of younger sons, or the
errors of fashionable women, or the disappointments of “a proper
ambition”--she had more sympathy than might have been supposed, and
touched on them with all the tact of well-bred charity and ladylike
forbearance. Thus, though she was regarded as a strict person in point
of moral decorum, yet in society she was popular--as women at once
pretty and inoffensive generally are.
To do Mrs. Beaufort justice, she had not been privy to the letter her
husband wrote to Catherine, although not wholly innocent of it. The fact
is, that Robert had never mentioned to her the peculiar circumstances
that made Catherine an exception from ordinary rules--the generous
propositions of his brother to him the night before his death; and,
whatever his incredulity as to the alleged private marriage, the perfect
loyalty and faith that Catherine had borne to the deceased,--he had
merely observed, “I must do something, I suppose, for that woman; she
very nearly entrapped my poor brother into marrying her; and he would
then, for what I know, have cut Arthur out of the estates. Still, I must
do something for her--eh?”
“Yes, I think so. What was she?--very low?”
“A tradesman’s daughter.”
“The children should be provided for according to the rank of the
mother; that’s the general rule in such cases: and the mother should
have about the same provision she might have looked for if she had
married a tradesman and been left a widow. I dare say she was a very
artful kind of person, and don’t deserve anything; but it is always
handsomer, in the eyes of the world, to go by the general rules people
lay down as to money matters.”
So spoke Mrs. Beaufort. She concluded her husband had settled the
matter, and never again recurred to it. Indeed, she had never liked the
late Mr. Beaufort, whom she considered mauvais ton.
In the breakfast-room at Mr. Beaufort’s, the mother and son were seated;
the former at work, the latter lounging by the window: they were not
alone. In a large elbow-chair sat a middle-aged man, listening, or
appearing to listen, to the prattle of a beautiful little girl--Arthur
Beaufort’s sister. This man was not handsome, but there was a certain
elegance in his air, and a certain intelligence in his countenance,
which made his appearance pleasing. He had that kind of eye which is
often seen with red hair--an eye of a reddish hazel, with very long
lashes; the eyebrows were dark, and clearly defined; and the short
hair showed to advantage the contour of a small well-shaped head. His
features were irregular; the complexion had been sanguine, but was
now faded, and a yellow tinge mingled with the red. His face was more
wrinkled, especially round the eyes--which, when he laughed, were
scarcely visible--than is usual even in men ten years older. But his
teeth were still of a dazzling whiteness; nor was there any trace of
decayed health in his countenance. He seemed one who had lived hard;
but who had much yet left in the lamp wherewith to feed the wick. At
the first glance he appeared slight, as he lolled listlessly in his
chair--almost fragile. But, at a nearer examination, you perceived that,
in spite of the small extremities and delicate bones, his frame was
constitutionally strong. Without being broad in the shoulders, he was
exceedingly deep in the chest--deeper than men who seemed giants by his
side; and his gestures had the ease of one accustomed to an active life.
He had, indeed, been celebrated in his youth for his skill in athletic
exercises, but a wound, received in a duel many years ago, had rendered
him lame for life--a misfortune which interfered with his former habits,
and was said to have soured his temper. This personage, whose position
and character will be described hereafter, was Lord Lilburne, the
brother of Mrs. Beaufort.
“So, Camilla,” said Lord Lilburne to his niece, as carelessly, not
fondly, he stroked down her glossy ringlets, “you don’t like Berkeley
Square as you did Gloucester Place.”
“Oh, no! not half so much! You see I never walk out in the fields,--[Now
the Regent’s Park.]--nor make daisy-chains at Primrose Hill. I don’t
know what mamma means,” added the child, in a whisper, “in saying we are
better off here.”
Lord Lilburne smiled, but the smile was a half sneer. “You will know
quite soon enough, Camilla; the understandings of young ladies grow up
very quickly on this side of Oxford Street. Well, Arthur, and what are
your plans to-day?”
“Why,” said Arthur, suppressing a yawn, “I have promised to ride out
with a friend of mine, to see a horse that is for sale somewhere in the
suburbs.”
As he spoke, Arthur rose, stretched himself, looked in the glass, and
then glanced impatiently at the window.
“He ought to be here by this time.”
“He! who?” said Lord Lilburne, “the horse or the other animal--I mean
the friend?”
“The friend,” answered Arthur, smiling, but colouring while he smiled,
for he half suspected the quiet sneer of his uncle.
“Who is your friend, Arthur?” asked Mrs. Beaufort, looking up from her
work.
“Watson, an Oxford man. By the by, I must introduce him to you.”
“Watson! what Watson? what family of Watson? Some Watsons are good and
some are bad,” said Mrs. Beaufort, musingly.
“Then they are very unlike the rest of mankind,” observed Lord Lilburne,
drily.
“Oh! my Watson is a very gentlemanlike person, I assure you,” said
Arthur, half-laughing, “and you need not be ashamed of him.” Then,
rather desirous of turning the conversation, he continued, “So my father
will be back from Beaufort Court to-day?”
“Yes; he writes in excellent spirits. He says the rents will bear
raising at least ten per cent., and that the house will not require much
repair.”
Here Arthur threw open the window.
“Ah, Watson! how are you? How d’ye do, Marsden? Danvers, too! that’s
capital! the more the merrier! I will be down in an instant. But would
you not rather come in?”
“An agreeable inundation,” murmured Lord Lilburne. “Three at a time: he
takes your house for Trinity College.”
A loud, clear voice, however, declined the invitation; the horses were
heard pawing without. Arthur seized his hat and whip, and glanced to his
mother and uncle, smilingly. “Good-bye! I shall be out till dinner.
Kiss me, my pretty Milly!” And as his sister, who had run to the window,
sickening for the fresh air and exercise he was about to enjoy, now
turned to him wistful and mournful eyes, the kind-hearted young man took
her in his arms, and whispered while he kissed her:
“Get up early to-morrow, and we’ll have such a nice walk together.”
Arthur was gone: his mother’s gaze had followed his young and graceful
figure to the door.
“Own that he is handsome, Lilburne. May I not say more:--has he not the
proper air?”
“My dear sister, your son will be rich. As for his air, he has plenty of
airs, but wants graces.”
“Then who could polish him like yourself?”
“Probably no one. But had I a son--which Heaven forbid!--he should
not have me for his Mentor. Place a young man--(go and shut the door,
Camilla!)--between two vices--women and gambling, if you want to polish
him into the fashionable smoothness. Entre nous, the varnish is a little
expensive!”
Mrs. Beaufort sighed. Lord Lilburne smiled. He had a strange pleasure in
hurting the feelings of others. Besides, he disliked youth: in his own
youth he had enjoyed so much that he grew sour when he saw the young.
Meanwhile Arthur Beaufort and his friends, careless of the warmth of
the day, were laughing merrily, and talking gaily, as they made for the
suburb of H----.
“It is an out-of-the-way place for a horse, too,” said Sir Harry
Danvers.
“But I assure you,” insisted Mr. Watson, earnestly, “that my groom, who
is a capital judge, says it is the cleverest hack he ever mounted. It
has won several trotting matches. It belonged to a sporting tradesman,
now done up. The advertisement caught me.”
“Well,” said Arthur, gaily, “at all events the ride is delightful. What
weather! You must all dine with me at Richmond to-morrow--we will row
back.”
“And a little chicken-hazard, at the M---, afterwards,” said Mr.
Marsden, who was an elder, not a better, man than the rest--a handsome,
saturnine man--who had just left Oxford, and was already known on the
turf.
“Anything you please,” said Arthur, making his horse curvet.
Oh, Mr. Robert Beaufort! Mr. Robert Beaufort! could your prudent,
scheming, worldly heart but feel what devil’s tricks your wealth was
playing with a son who if poor had been the pride of the Beauforts!
On one side of our pieces of old we see the saint trampling down the
dragon. False emblem! Reverse it on the coin! In the real use of the
gold, it is the dragon who tramples down the saint! But on--on! the day
is bright and your companions merry; make the best of your green years,
Arthur Beaufort!
The young men had just entered the suburb of H---, and were spurring
on four abreast at a canter. At that time an old man, feeling his
way before him with a stick,--for though not quite blind, he saw
imperfectly,--was crossing the road. Arthur and his friends, in loud
converse, did not observe the poor passenger. He stopped abruptly,
for his ear caught the sound of danger--it was too late: Mr. Marsden’s
horse, hard-mouthed, and high-stepping, came full against him. Mr.
Marsden looked down:
“Hang these old men! always in the way,” said he, plaintively, and in
the tone of a much-injured person, and, with that, Mr. Marsden rode on.
But the others, who were younger--who were not gamblers--who were not
yet grinded down into stone by the world’s wheels--the others halted.
Arthur Beaufort leaped from his horse, and the old man was already
in his arms; but he was severely hurt. The blood trickled from his
forehead; he complained of pains in his side and limbs.
“Lean on me, my poor fellow! Do you live far off? I will take you home.”
“Not many yards. This would not have happened if I had had my dog. Never
mind, sir, go your way. It is only an old man--what of that? I wish I
had my dog.”
“I will join you,” said Arthur to his friends; “my groom has the
direction. I will just take the poor old man home, and send for a
surgeon. I shall not be long.”
“So like you, Beaufort: the best fellow in the world!” said Mr. Watson,
with some emotion. “And there’s Marsden positively, dismounted,
and looking at his horse’s knees as if they could be hurt! Here’s a
sovereign for you, my man.”
“And here’s another,” said Sir Harry; “so that’s settled. Well, you will
join us, Beaufort? You see the yard yonder. We’ll wait twenty minutes
for you. Come on, Watson.” The old man had not picked up the sovereigns
thrown at his feet, neither had he thanked the donors. And on his
countenance there was a sour, querulous, resentful expression.
“Must a man be a beggar because he is run over, or because he is half
blind?” said he, turning his dim, wandering eyes painfully towards
Arthur. “Well, I wish I had my dog!”
“I will supply his place,” said Arthur, soothingly. “Come, lean on
me--heavier; that’s right. You are not so bad,--eh?”
“Um!--the sovereigns!--it is wicked to leave them in the kennel!”
Arthur smiled. “Here they are, sir.”
The old man slid the coins into his pocket, and Arthur continued to
talk, though he got but short answers, and those only in the way of
direction, till at last the old man stopped at the door of a small house
near the churchyard.
After twice ringing the bell, the door was opened by a middle-aged
woman, whose appearance was above that of a common menial; dressed,
somewhat gaily for her years, in a cap seated very far back on a black
touroet, and decorated with red ribands, an apron made out of an Indian
silk handkerchief, a puce-coloured sarcenet gown, black silk stockings,
long gilt earrings, and a watch at her girdle.
“Bless us and save us, sir! What has happened?” exclaimed this worthy
personage, holding up her hands.
“Pish! I am faint: let me in. I don’t want your aid any more, sir. Thank
you. Good day!”
Not discouraged by this farewell, the churlish tone of which fell
harmless on the invincibly sweet temper of Arthur, the young man
continued to assist the sufferer along the narrow passage into a little
old-fashioned parlour; and no sooner was the owner deposited on his
worm-eaten leather chair than he fainted away. On reaching the house,
Arthur had sent his servant (who had followed him with the horses)
for the nearest surgeon; and while the woman was still employed, after
taking off the sufferer’s cravat, in burning feathers under his nose,
there was heard a sharp rap and a shrill ring. Arthur opened the door,
and admitted a smart little man in nankeen breeches and gaiters. He
bustled into the room.
“What’s this--bad accident--um--um! Sad thing, very sad. Open the
window. A glass of water--a towel.”
“So--so: I see--I see--no fracture--contusion. Help him off with his
coat. Another chair, ma’am; put up his poor legs. What age is he,
ma’am?--Sixty-eight! Too old to bleed. Thank you. How is it, sir?
Poorly, to be sure: will be comfortable presently--faintish still? Soon
put all to rights.”
“Tray! Tray! Where’s my dog, Mrs. Boxer?”
“Lord, sir, what do you want with your dog now? He is in the back-yard.”
“And what business has my dog in the back-yard?” almost screamed the
sufferer, in accents that denoted no diminution of vigour. “I thought
as soon as my back was turned my dog would be ill-used! Why did I go
without my dog? Let in my dog directly, Mrs. Boxer!”
“All right, you see, sir,” said the apothecary, turning to Beaufort--“no
cause for alarm--very comforting that little passion--does him
good--sets one’s mind easy. How did it happen? Ah, I understand! knocked
down--might have been worse. Your groom (sharp fellow!) explained in a
trice, sir. Thought it was my old friend here by the description. Worthy
man--settled here a many year--very odd--eccentric (this in a whisper).
Came off instantly: just at dinner--cold lamb and salad. ‘Mrs. Perkins,’
says I, ‘if any one calls for me, I shall be at No. 4, Prospect Place.’
Your servant observed the address, sir. Oh, very sharp fellow! See how
the old gentleman takes to his dog--fine little dog--what a stump of a
tail! Deal of practice--expect two accouchements every hour. Hot weather
for childbirth. So says I to Mrs. Perkins, ‘If Mrs. Plummer is taken, or
Mrs. Everat, or if old Mr. Grub has another fit, send off at once to No.
4. Medical men should be always in the way--that’s my maxim. Now, sir,
where do you feel the pain?”
“In my ears, sir.”
“Bless me, that looks bad. How long have you felt it?”
“Ever since you have been in the room.”
“Oh! I take. Ha! ha!--very eccentric--very!” muttered the apothecary,
a little disconcerted. “Well, let him lie down, ma’am. I’ll send him a
little quieting draught to be taken directly--pill at night, aperient
in the morning. If wanted, send for me--always to be found. Bless me,
that’s my boy Bob’s ring. Please to open the door, ma’ am. Know his
ring--very peculiar knack of his own. Lay ten to one it is Mrs. Plummer,
or perhaps, Mrs. Everat--her ninth child in eight years--in the grocery
line. A woman in a thousand, sir!”
Here a thin boy, with very short coat-sleeves, and very large hands,
burst into the room with his mouth open. “Sir--Mr. Perkins--sir!”
“I know--I know--coming. Mrs. Plummer or Mrs. Everat?”
“No, sir; it be the poor lady at Mrs. Lacy’s; she be taken desperate.
Mrs. Lacy’s girl has just been over to the shop, and made me run here to
you, sir.”
“Mrs. Lacy’s! oh, I know. Poor Mrs. Morton! Bad case--very bad--must be
off. Keep him quiet, ma’am. Good day! Look in to-morrow--nine o’clock.
Put a little lint with the lotion on the head, ma’am. Mrs. Morton! Ah!
bad job that.”
Here the apothecary had shuffled himself off to the street door, when
Arthur laid his hand on his arm.
“Mrs. Morton! Did you say Morton, sir? What kind of a person--is she
very ill?”
“Hopeless case, sir--general break-up. Nice woman--quite the lady--known
better days, I’m sure.”
“Has she any children--sons?”
“Two--both away now--fine lads--quite wrapped up in them--youngest
especially.”
“Good heavens! it must be she--ill, and dying, and destitute,
perhaps,”--exclaimed Arthur, with real and deep feeling; “I will go with
you, sir. I fancy that I know this lady--that,” he added generously, “I
am related to her.”
“Do you?--glad to hear it. Come along, then; she ought to have some one
near her besides servants: not but what Jenny, the maid, is uncommonly
kind. Dr. -----, who attends her sometimes, said to me, says he, ‘It is
the mind, Mr. Perkins; I wish we could get back her boys.”
“And where are they?”
“‘Prenticed out, I fancy. Master Sidney--”
“Sidney!”
“Ah! that was his name--pretty name. D’ye know Sir Sidney
Smith?--extraordinary man, sir! Master Sidney was a beautiful
child--quite spoiled. She always fancied him ailing--always sending
for me. ‘Mr. Perkins,’ said she, ‘there’s something the matter with
my child; I’m sure there is, though he won’t own it. He has lost his
appetite--had a headache last night.’ ‘Nothing the matter, ma’am,’ says
I; ‘wish you’d think more of yourself.’
“These mothers are silly, anxious, poor creatures. Nater, sir,
Nater--wonderful thing--Nater!--Here we are.”
And the apothecary knocked at the private door of a milliner and
hosier’s shop.
CHAPTER X.
“Thy child shall live, and I will see it nourished.”--Titus Andronicus.
As might be expected, the excitement and fatigue of Catherine’s journey
to N---- had considerably accelerated the progress of disease. And when
she reached home, and looked round the cheerless rooms all solitary, all
hushed--Sidney gone, gone from her for ever, she felt, indeed, as if
the last reed on which she had leaned was broken, and her business upon
earth was done. Catherine was not condemned to absolute poverty--the
poverty which grinds and gnaws, the poverty of rags and famine. She had
still left nearly half of such portion of the little capital, realised
by the sale of her trinkets, as had escaped the clutch of the law; and
her brother had forced into her hands a note for L20. with an assurance
that the same sum should be paid to her half-yearly. Alas! there was
little chance of her needing it again! She was not, then, in want of
means to procure the common comforts of life. But now a new passion had
entered into her breast--the passion of the miser; she wished to hoard
every sixpence as some little provision for her children. What was the
use of her feeding a lamp nearly extinguished, and which was fated to be
soon broken up and cast amidst the vast lumber-house of Death? She would
willingly have removed into a more homely lodging, but the servant of
the house had been so fond of Sidney--so kind to him. She clung to
one familiar face on which there seemed to live the reflection of her
child’s. But she relinquished the first floor for the second; and there,
day by day, she felt her eyes grow heavier and heavier beneath the
clouds of the last sleep. Besides the aid of Mr. Perkins, a kind enough
man in his way, the good physician whom she had before consulted,
still attended her, and refused his fee. Shocked at perceiving that she
rejected every little alleviation of her condition, and wishing at least
to procure for her last hours the society of one of her sons, he had
inquired the address of the elder; and on the day preceding the one in
which Arthur discovered her abode, he despatched to Philip the following
letter:
“SIR:--Being called in to attend your mother in a lingering illness,
which I fear may prove fatal, I think it my duty to request you to come
to her as soon as you receive this. Your presence cannot but be a great
comfort to her. The nature of her illness is such that it is impossible
to calculate exactly how long she may be spared to you; but I am sure
her fate might be prolonged, and her remaining days more happy, if
she could be induced to remove into a better air and a more quiet
neighbourhood, to take more generous sustenance, and, above all, if her
mind could be set more at ease as to your and your brother’s prospects.
You must pardon me if I have seemed inquisitive; but I have sought to
draw from your mother some particulars as to her family and connections,
with a wish to represent to them her state of mind. She is, however,
very reserved on these points. If, however, you have relations well to
do in the world, I think some application to them should be made. I fear
the state of her affairs weighs much upon your poor mother’s mind; and
I must leave you to judge how far it can be relieved by the good feeling
of any persons upon whom she may have legitimate claims. At all events,
I repeat my wish that you should come to her forthwith.
“I am, &c.”
After the physician had despatched this letter, a sudden and marked
alteration for the worse took place in his patient’s disorder; and in
the visit he had paid that morning, he saw cause to fear that her hours
on earth would be much fewer than he had before anticipated. He had left
her, however, comparatively better; but two hours after his departure,
the symptoms of her disease had become very alarming, and the
good-natured servant girl, her sole nurse, and who had, moreover, the
whole business of the other lodgers to attend to, had, as we have seen,
thought it necessary to summon the apothecary in the interval that must
elapse before she could reach the distant part of the metropolis in
which Dr. ---- resided.
On entering the chamber, Arthur felt all the remorse, which of right
belonged to his father, press heavily on his soul. What a contrast, that
mean and solitary chamber, and its comfortless appurtenances, to the
graceful and luxurious abode where, full of health and hope, he had last
beheld her, the mother of Philip Beaufort’s children! He remained silent
till Mr. Perkins, after a few questions, retired to send his drugs. He
then approached the bed; Catherine, though very weak and suffering much
pain, was still sensible. She turned her dim eyes on the young man; but
she did not recognise his features.
“You do not remember me?” said he, in a voice struggling with tears: “I
am Arthur--Arthur Beaufort.” Catherine made no answer.
“Good Heavens! Why do I see you here? I believed you with your
friends--your children provided for--as became my father to do. He
assured me that you were so.” Still no answer.
And then the young man, overpowered with the feelings of a sympathising
and generous nature, forgetting for a while Catherine’s weakness, poured
forth a torrent of inquiries, regrets, and self-upbraidings, which
Catherine at first little heeded. But the name of her children, repeated
again and again, struck upon that chord which, in a woman’s heart, is
the last to break; and she raised herself in her bed, and looked at her
visitor wistfully.
“Your father,” she said, then--“your father was unlike my Philip; but
I see things differently now. For me, all bounty is too late; but my
children--to-morrow they may have no mother. The law is with you,
but not justice! You will be rich and powerful;--will you befriend my
children?”
“Through life, so help me Heaven!” exclaimed Arthur, falling on his
knees beside the bed.
What then passed between them it is needless to detail; for it was
little, save broken repetitions of the same prayer and the same
response. But there was so much truth and earnestness in Arthur’s voice
and countenance, that Catherine felt as if an angel had come there to
administer comfort. And when late in the day the physician entered,
he found his patient leaning on the breast of her young visitor, and
looking on his face with a happy smile.
The physician gathered enough from the appearance of Arthur and the
gossip of Mr. Perkins, to conjecture that one of the rich relations he
had attributed to Catherine was arrived. Alas! for her it was now indeed
too late!
CHAPTER XI.
“D’ye stand amazed?--Look o’er thy head, Maximinian!
Look to the terror which overhangs thee.”
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: The Prophetess.
Phillip had been five weeks in his new home: in another week, he was to
enter on his articles of apprenticeship. With a stern, unbending gloom
of manner, he had commenced the duties of his novitiate. He submitted to
all that was enjoined him. He seemed to have lost for ever the wild and
unruly waywardness that had stamped his boyhood; but he was never seen
to smile--he scarcely ever opened his lips. His very soul seemed to have
quitted him with its faults; and he performed all the functions of his
situation with the quiet listless regularity of a machine. Only when the
work was done and the shop closed, instead of joining the family circle
in the back parlour, he would stroll out in the dusk of the evening,
away from the town, and not return till the hour at which the family
retired to rest. Punctual in all he did, he never exceeded that hour. He
had heard once a week from his mother; and only on the mornings in
which he expected a letter, did he seem restless and agitated. Till
the postman entered the shop, he was as pale as death--his hands
trembling--his lips compressed. When he read the letter he became
composed for Catherine sedulously concealed from her son the state of
her health: she wrote cheerfully, besought him to content himself with
the state into which he had fallen, and expressed her joy that in his
letters he intimated that content; for the poor boy’s letters were not
less considerate than her own. On her return from her brother, she had
so far silenced or concealed her misgivings as to express satisfaction
at the home she had provided for Sidney; and she even held out hopes
of some future when, their probation finished and their independence
secured, she might reside with her sons alternately. These hopes
redoubled Philip’s assiduity, and he saved every shilling of his weekly
stipend; and sighed as he thought that in another week his term of
apprenticeship would commence, and the stipend cease.
Mr. Plaskwith could not but be pleased on the whole with the diligence
of his assistant, but he was chafed and irritated by the sullenness of
his manner. As for Mrs. Plaskwith, poor woman! she positively detested
the taciturn and moody boy, who never mingled in the jokes of the
circle, nor played with the children, nor complimented her, nor added,
in short, anything to the sociability of the house. Mr. Plimmins, who
had at first sought to condescend, next sought to bully; but the
gaunt frame and savage eye of Philip awed the smirk youth, in spite of
himself; and he confessed to Mrs. Plaskwith that he should not like
to meet “the gipsy,” alone, on a dark night; to which Mrs. Plaskwith
replied, as usual, “that Mr. Plimmins always did say the best things in
the world!”
One morning, Philip was sent a few miles into the country, to assist in
cataloguing some books in the library of Sir Thomas Champerdown--that
gentleman, who was a scholar, having requested that some one acquainted
with the Greek character might be sent to him, and Philip being the only
one in the shop who possessed such knowledge.
It was evening before he returned. Mr. and Mrs. Plaskwith were both in
the shop as he entered--in fact, they had been employed in talking him
over.
“I can’t abide him!” cried Mrs. Plaskwith. “If you choose to take him
for good, I sha’n’t have an easy moment. I’m sure the ‘prentice that cut
his master’s throat at Chatham, last week, was just like him.”
“Pshaw! Mrs. P.,” said the bookseller, taking a huge pinch of snuff,
as usual, from his waistcoat pocket. “I myself was reserved when I was
young; all reflective people are. I may observe, by the by, that it was
the case with Napoleon Buonaparte: still, however, I must own he is a
disagreeable youth, though he attends to his business.”
“And how fond of money he is!” remarked Mrs. Plaskwith, “he won’t buy
himself a new pair of shoes!--quite disgraceful! And did you see what a
look he gave Plimmins, when he joked about his indifference to his sole?
Plimmins always does say such good things!”
“He is shabby, certainly,” said the bookseller; “but the value of a book
does not always depend on the binding.”
“I hope he is honest!” observed Mrs. Plaskwith;--and here Philip
entered.
“Hum,” said Mr. Plaskwith; “you have had a long day’s work: but I
suppose it will take a week to finish?”
“I am to go again to-morrow morning, sir: two days more will conclude
the task.”
“There’s a letter for you,” cried Mrs. Plaskwith; “you owes me for it.”
“A letter!” It was not his mother’s hand--it was a strange writing--he
gasped for breath as he broke the seal. It was the letter of the
physician.
His mother, then, was ill--dying--wanting, perhaps, the necessaries of
life. She would have concealed from him her illness and her poverty. His
quick alarm exaggerated the last into utter want;--he uttered a cry that
rang through the shop, and rushed to Mr. Plaskwith.
“Sir, sir! my mother is dying! She is poor, poor, perhaps
starving;--money, money!--lend me money!--ten pounds!--five!--I will
work for you all my life for nothing, but lend me the money!”
“Hoity-toity!” said Mrs. Plaskwith, nudging her husband--“I told you
what would come of it: it will be ‘money or life’ next time.”
Philip did not heed or hear this address; but stood immediately before
the bookseller, his hands clasped--wild impatience in his eyes. Mr.
Plaskwith, somewhat stupefied, remained silent.
“Do you hear me?--are you human?” exclaimed Philip, his emotion
revealing at once all the fire of his character. “I tell you my mother
is dying; I must go to her! Shall I go empty-handed? Give me money!”
Mr. Plaskwith was not a bad-hearted man; but he was a formal man, and
an irritable one. The tone his shopboy (for so he considered Philip)
assumed to him, before his own wife too (examples are very dangerous),
rather exasperated than moved him.
“That’s not the way to speak to your master:--you forget yourself, young
man!”
“Forget!--But, sir, if she has not necessaries--if she is starving?”
“Fudge!” said Plaskwith. “Mr. Morton writes me word that he has provided
for your mother! Does he not, Hannah?”
“More fool he, I’m sure, with such a fine family of his own! Don’t look
at me in that way, young man; I won’t take it--that I won’t! I declare
my blood friz to see you!”
“Will you advance me money?--five pounds--only five pounds, Mr.
Plaskwith?”
“Not five shillings! Talk to me in this style!--not the man for it,
sir!--highly improper. Come, shut up the shop, and recollect yourself;
and, perhaps, when Sir Thomas’s library is done, I may let you go to
town. You can’t go to-morrow. All a sham, perhaps; eh, Hannah?”
“Very likely! Consult Plimmins. Better come away now, Mr. P. He looks
like a young tiger.”
Mrs. Plaskwith quitted the shop for the parlour. Her husband, putting
his hands behind his back, and throwing back his chin, was about to
follow her. Philip, who had remained for the last moment mute and white
as stone, turned abruptly; and his grief taking rather the tone of rage
than supplication, he threw himself before his master, and, laying his
hand on his shoulder, said:
“I leave you--do not let it be with a curse. I conjure you, have mercy
on me!”
Mr. Plaskwith stopped; and had Philip then taken but a milder tone, all
had been well. But, accustomed from childhood to command--all his fierce
passions loose within him--despising the very man he thus implored--the
boy ruined his own cause. Indignant at the silence of Mr. Plaskwith,
and too blinded by his emotions to see that in that silence there was
relenting, he suddenly shook the little man with a vehemence that almost
overset him, and cried:
“You, who demand for five years my bones and blood--my body and soul--a
slave to your vile trade--do you deny me bread for a mother’s lips?”
Trembling with anger, and perhaps fear, Mr. Plaskwith extricated himself
from the gripe of Philip, and, hurrying from the shop, said, as he
banged the door:
“Beg my pardon for this to-night, or out you go to-morrow, neck and
crop! Zounds! a pretty pass the world’s come to! I don’t believe a word
about your mother. Baugh!”
Left alone, Philip remained for some moments struggling with his
wrath and agony. He then seized his hat, which he had thrown off on
entering--pressed it over his brows--turned to quit the shop--when his
eye fell upon the till. Plaskwith had left it open, and the gleam of the
coin struck his gaze--that deadly smile of the arch tempter. Intellect,
reason, conscience--all, in that instant, were confusion and chaos. He
cast a hurried glance round the solitary and darkening room--plunged his
hand into the drawer, clutched he knew not what--silver or gold, as it
came uppermost--and burst into a loud and bitter laugh. The laugh itself
startled him--it did not sound like his own. His face fell, and his
knees knocked together--his hair bristled--he felt as if the very fiend
had uttered that yell of joy over a fallen soul.
“No--no--no!” he muttered; “no, my mother,--not even for thee!” And,
dashing the money to the ground, he fled, like a maniac, from the house.
At a later hour that same evening, Mr. Robert Beaufort returned from his
country mansion to Berkeley Square. He found his wife very uneasy and
nervous about the non-appearance of their only son. Arthur had sent home
his groom and horses about seven o’clock, with a hurried scroll, written
in pencil on a blank page torn from his pocket-book, and containing only
these words,--
“Don’t wait dinner for me--I may not be home for some hours. I have met
with a melancholy adventure. You will approve what I have done when we
meet.”
This note a little perplexed Mr. Beaufort; but, as he was very hungry,
he turned a deaf ear both to his wife’s conjectures and his own
surmises, till he had refreshed himself; and then he sent for the groom,
and learned that, after the accident to the blind man, Mr. Arthur
had been left at a hosier’s in H----. This seemed to him extremely
mysterious; and, as hour after hour passed away, and still Arthur came
not, he began to imbibe his wife’s fears, which were now wound up almost
to hysterics; and just at midnight he ordered his carriage, and taking
with him the groom as a guide, set off to the suburban region. Mrs.
Beaufort had wished to accompany him; but the husband observing that
young men would be young men, and that there might possibly be a lady
in the case, Mrs. Beaufort, after a pause of thought, passively agreed
that, all things considered, she had better remain at home. No lady
of proper decorum likes to run the risk of finding herself in a
false position. Mr. Beaufort accordingly set out alone. Easy was the
carriage--swift were the steeds--and luxuriously the wealthy man was
whirled along. Not a suspicion of the true cause of Arthur’s detention
crossed him; but he thought of the snares of London--or artful females
in distress; “a melancholy adventure” generally implies love for
the adventure, and money for the melancholy; and Arthur was
young--generous--with a heart and a pocket equally open to imposition.
Such scrapes, however, do not terrify a father when he is a man of the
world, so much as they do an anxious mother; and, with more curiosity
than alarm, Mr. Beaufort, after a short doze, found himself before the
shop indicated.
Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, the door to the private
entrance was ajar,--a circumstance which seemed very suspicious to Mr.
Beaufort. He pushed it open with caution and timidity--a candle placed
upon a chair in the narrow passage threw a sickly light over the flight
of stairs, till swallowed up by the deep shadow from the sharp angle
made by the ascent. Robert Beaufort stood a moment in some doubt whether
to call, to knock, to recede, or to advance, when a step was heard upon
the stairs above--it came nearer and nearer--a figure emerged from the
shadow of the last landing-place, and Mr. Beaufort, to his great joy,
recognised his son.
Arthur did not, however, seem to perceive his father; and was about to
pass him, when Mr. Beaufort laid his hand on his arm.
“What means all this, Arthur? What place are you in? How you have
alarmed us!”
Arthur cast a look upon his father of sadness and reproach.
“Father,” he said, in a tone that sounded stern--almost commanding--“I
will show you where I have been; follow me--nay, I say, follow.”
He turned, without another word re-ascended the stairs; and Mr.
Beaufort, surprised and awed into mechanical obedience, did as his son
desired. At the landing-place of the second floor, another long-wicked,
neglected, ghastly candle emitted its cheerless ray. It gleamed through
the open door of a small bedroom to the left, through which Beaufort
perceived the forms of two women. One (it was the kindly maidservant)
was seated on a chair, and weeping bitterly; the other (it was a
hireling nurse, in the first and last day of her attendance) was
unpinning her dingy shawl before she lay down to take a nap. She turned
her vacant, listless face upon the two men, put on a doleful smile, and
decently closed the door.
“Where are we, I say, Arthur?” repeated Mr. Beaufort. Arthur took his
father’s hand-drew him into a room to the right--and taking up the
candle, placed it on a small table beside a bell, and said, “Here,
sir--in the presence of Death!”
Mr. Beaufort cast a hurried and fearful glance on the still, wan, serene
face beneath his eyes, and recognised in that glance the features of the
neglected and the once adored Catherine.
“Yes--she, whom your brother so loved--the mother of his children--died
in this squalid room, and far from her sons, in poverty, in sorrow! died
of a broken heart! Was that well, father? Have you in this nothing to
repent?”
Conscience-stricken and appalled, the worldly man sank down on a seat
beside the bed, and covered his face with his hands.
“Ay,” continued Arthur, almost bitterly--“ay, we, his nearest of
kin--we, who have inherited his lands and gold--we have been thus
heedless of the great legacy your brother bequeathed to us:--the
things dearest to him--the woman he loved--the children his death cast,
nameless and branded, on the world. Ay, weep, father: and while you
weep, think of the future, of reparation. I have sworn to that clay
to befriend her sons; join you, who have all the power to fulfil the
promise--join in that vow: and may Heaven not visit on us both the woes
of this bed of death!”
“I did not know--I--I--” faltered Mr. Beaufort.
“But we should have known,” interrupted Arthur, mournfully. “Ah, my dear
father! do not harden your heart by false excuses. The dead still speaks
to you, and commends to your care her children. My task here is done: O
sir! yours is to come. I leave you alone with the dead.”
So saying, the young man, whom the tragedy of the scene had worked into
a passion and a dignity above his usual character, unwilling to trust
himself farther to his emotions, turned abruptly from the room, fled
rapidly down the stairs and left the house. As the carriage and liveries
of his father met his eye, he groaned; for their evidences of comfort
and wealth seemed a mockery to the deceased: he averted his face and
walked on. Nor did he heed or even perceive a form that at that instant
rushed by him--pale, haggard, breathless--towards the house which he had
quitted, and the door of which he left open, as he had found it--open,
as the physician had left it when hurrying, ten minutes before the
arrival of Mr. Beaufort, from the spot where his skill was impotent.
Wrapped in gloomy thought, alone, and on foot--at that dreary hour, and
in that remote suburb--the heir of the Beauforts sought his splendid
home. Anxious, fearful, hoping, the outcast orphan flew on to the
death-room of his mother.
Mr. Beaufort, who had but imperfectly heard Arthur’s parting accents,
lost and bewildered by the strangeness of his situation, did not at
first perceive that he was left alone. Surprised, and chilled by the
sudden silence of the chamber, he rose, withdrew his hands from his
face, and again he saw that countenance so mute and solemn. He cast his
gaze round the dismal room for Arthur; he called his name--no answer
came; a superstitious tremor seized upon him; his limbs shook; he sank
once more on his seat, and closed his eyes: muttering, for the first
time, perhaps, since his childhood, words of penitence and prayer. He
was roused from this bitter self-abstraction by a deep groan. It seemed
to come from the bed. Did his ears deceive him? Had the dead found a
voice? He started up in an agony of dread, and saw opposite to him the
livid countenance of Philip Morton: the Son of the Corpse had replaced
the Son of the Living Man! The dim and solitary light fell upon that
countenance. There, all the bloom and freshness natural to youth seemed
blasted! There, on those wasted features, played all the terrible power
and glare of precocious passions,--rage, woe, scorn, despair. Terrible
is it to see upon the face of a boy the storm and whirlwind that should
visit only the strong heart of man!
“She is dead!--dead! and in your presence!” shouted Philip, with his
wild eyes fixed upon the cowering uncle; “dead with--care, perhaps with
famine. And you have come to look upon your work!”
“Indeed,” said Beaufort, deprecatingly, “I have but just arrived: I
did not know she had been ill, or in want, upon my honour. This is all
a--a--mistake: I--I--came in search of--of--another--”
“You did not, then, come to relieve her?” said Philip, very calmly. “You
had not learned her suffering and distress, and flown hither in the hope
that there was yet time to save her? You did not do this? Ha! ha!--why
did I think it?”
“Did any one call, gentlemen?” said a whining voice at the door; and the
nurse put in her head.
“Yes--yes--you may come in,” said Beaufort, shaking with nameless and
cowardly apprehension; but Philip had flown to the door, and, gazing on
the nurse, said,
“She is a stranger! see, a stranger! The son now has assumed his post.
Begone, woman!” And he pushed her away, and drew the bolt across the
door.
And then there looked upon him, as there had looked upon his reluctant
companion, calm and holy, the face of the peaceful corpse. He burst into
tears, and fell on his knees so close to Beaufort that he touched him;
he took up the heavy hand, and covered it with burning kisses.
“Mother! mother! do not leave me! wake, smile once more on your son!
I would have brought you money, but I could not have asked for your
blessing, then; mother, I ask it now!”
“If I had but known--if you had but written to me, my dear young
gentleman--but my offers had been refused, and--”
“Offers of a hireling’s pittance to her; to her for whom my father
would have coined his heart’s blood into gold! My father’s wife!--his
wife!--offers--”
He rose suddenly, folded his arms, and facing Beaufort, with a fierce
determined brow, said:
“Mark me, you hold the wealth that I was trained from my cradle to
consider my heritage. I have worked with these hands for bread, and
never complained, except to my own heart and soul. I never hated, and
never cursed you--robber as you were--yes, robber! For, even were there
no marriage save in the sight of God, neither my father, nor Nature,
nor Heaven, meant that you should seize all, and that there should be
nothing due to the claims of affection and blood. He was not the less
my father, even if the Church spoke not on my side. Despoiler of the
orphan, and derider of human love, you are not the less a robber though
the law fences you round, and men call you honest! But I did not hate
you for this. Now, in the presence of my dead mother--dead, far from
both her sons--now I abhor and curse you. You may think yourself safe
when you quit this room--safe, and from my hatred you may be so but
do not deceive yourself. The curse of the widow and the orphan shall
pursue--it shall cling to you and yours--it shall gnaw your heart in the
midst of splendour--it shall cleave to the heritage of your son! There
shall be a deathbed yet, beside which you shall see the spectre of her,
now so calm, rising for retribution from the grave! These words--no, you
never shall forget them--years hence they shall ring in your ears,
and freeze the marrow of your bones! And now begone, my father’s
brother--begone from my mother’s corpse to your luxurious home!”
He opened the door, and pointed to the stairs. Beaufort, without a word,
turned from the room and departed. He heard the door closed and locked
as he descended the stairs; but he did not hear the deep groans and
vehement sobs in which the desolate orphan gave vent to the anguish
which succeeded to the less sacred paroxysm of revenge and wrath.
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
“Incubo. Look to the cavalier. What ails he?
. . . . .
Hostess. And in such good clothes, too!”
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: Love’s Pilgrimage.
“Theod. I have a brother--there my last hope!.
Thus as you find me, without fear or wisdom,
I now am only child of Hope and Danger.”--Ibid.
The time employed by Mr. Beaufort in reaching his home was haunted
by gloomy and confused terrors. He felt inexplicably as if the
denunciations of Philip were to visit less himself than his son.
He trembled at the thought of Arthur meeting this strange, wild,
exasperated scatterling--perhaps on the morrow--in the very height of
his passions. And yet, after the scene between Arthur and himself, he
saw cause to fear that he might not be able to exercise a sufficient
authority over his son, however naturally facile and obedient, to
prevent his return to the house of death. In this dilemma he resolved,
as is usual with cleverer men, even when yoked to yet feebler helpmates,
to hear if his wife had anything comforting or sensible to say upon the
subject. Accordingly, on reaching Berkeley Square, he went straight
to Mrs. Beaufort; and having relieved her mind as to Arthur’s safety,
related the scene in which he had been so unwilling an actor. With
that more lively susceptibility which belongs to most women, however
comparatively unfeeling, Mrs. Beaufort made greater allowance than
her husband for the excitement Philip had betrayed. Still Beaufort’s
description of the dark menaces, the fierce countenance, the
brigand-like form, of the bereaved son, gave her very considerable
apprehensions for Arthur, should the young men meet; and she willingly
coincided with her husband in the propriety of using all means of
parental persuasion or command to guard against such an encounter. But,
in the meanwhile, Arthur returned not, and new fears seized the anxious
parents. He had gone forth alone, in a remote suburb of the metropolis,
at a late hour, himself under strong excitement. He might have returned
to the house, or have lost his way amidst some dark haunts of violence
and crime; they knew not where to send, or what to suggest. Day already
began to dawn, and still he came not. A length, towards five o’clock, a
loud rap was heard at the door, and Mr. Beaufort, hearing some bustle
in the hall, descended. He saw his son borne into the hall from
a hackney-coach by two strangers, pale, bleeding, and apparently
insensible. His first thought was that he had been murdered by Philip.
He uttered a feeble cry, and sank down beside his son.
“Don’t be darnted, sir,” said one of the strangers, who seemed an
artisan; “I don’t think he be much hurt. You sees he was crossing the
street, and the coach ran against him; but it did not go over his head;
it be only the stones that makes him bleed so: and that’s a mercy.”
“A providence, sir,” said the other man; “but Providence watches over us
all, night and day, sleep or wake. Hem! We were passing at the time from
the meeting--the Odd Fellows, sir--and so we took him, and got him a
coach; for we found his card in his pocket. He could not speak just
then; but the rattling of the coach did him a deal of good, for he
groaned--my eyes! how he groaned! did he not, Burrows?”
“It did one’s heart good to hear him.”
“Run for Astley Cooper--you--go to Brodie. Good Heavens! he is dying. Be
quick--quick!” cried Mr. Beaufort to his servants, while Mrs. Beaufort,
who had now gained the spot, with greater presence of mind had Arthur
conveyed into a room.
“It is a judgment upon me,” groaned Beaufort, rooted to the stone of his
hall, and left alone with the strangers. “No, sir, it is not a judgment,
it is a providence,” said the more sanctimonious and better dressed of
the two men “for, put the question, if it had been a judgment, the wheel
would have gone over him--but it didn’t; and, whether he dies or not, I
shall always say that if that’s not a providence, I don’t know what is.
We have come a long way, sir; and Burrows is a poor man, though I’m well
to do.”
This hint for money restored Beaufort to his recollection; he put his
purse into the nearest hand outstretched to clutch it, and muttered
forth something like thanks.
“Sir, may the Lord bless you! and I hope the young gentleman will do
well. I am sure you have cause to be thankful that he was within an
inch of the wheel; was he not, Burrows? Well, it’s enough to convert a
heathen. But the ways of Providence are mysterious, and that’s the truth
of it. Good night, sir.”
Certainly it did seem as if the curse of Philip was already at its work.
An accident almost similar to that which, in the adventure of the blind
man, had led Arthur to the clue of Catherine, within twenty-four hours
stretched Arthur himself upon his bed. The sorrow Mr. Beaufort had not
relieved was now at his own hearth. But there were parents and nurses,
and great physicians, and skilful surgeons, and all the army that
combine against Death, and there were ease, and luxury, and kind eyes,
and pitying looks, and all that can take the sting from pain. And thus,
the very night on which Catherine had died, broken down, and worn out,
upon a strange breast, with a feeless doctor, and by the ray of a single
candle, the heir to the fortunes once destined to her son wrestled also
with the grim Tyrant, who seemed, however, scared from his prey by the
arts and luxuries which the world of rich men raises up in defiance of
the grave.
Arthur, was, indeed, very seriously injured; one of his ribs was broken,
and he had received two severe contusions on the head. To insensibility
succeeded fever, followed by delirium. He was in imminent danger
for several days. If anything could console his parents for such an
affliction, it was the thought that, at least, he was saved from the
chance of meeting Philip.
Mr. Beaufort, in the instinct of that capricious and fluctuating
conscience which belongs to weak minds, which remains still, and
drooping, and lifeless, as a flag on a masthead during the calm of
prosperity, but flutters, and flaps, and tosses when the wind blows and
the wave heaves, thought very acutely and remorsefully of the condition
of the Mortons, during the danger of his own son. So far, indeed, from
his anxiety for Arthur monopolising all his care, it only sharpened his
charity towards the orphans; for many a man becomes devout and good when
he fancies he has an Immediate interest in appeasing Providence.
The morning after Arthur’s accident, he sent for Mr. Blackwell. He
commissioned him to see that Catherine’s funeral rites were performed
with all due care and attention; he bade him obtain an interview
with Philip, and assure the youth of Mr. Beaufort’s good and friendly
disposition towards him, and to offer to forward his views in any course
of education he might prefer, or any profession he might adopt; and he
earnestly counselled the lawyer to employ all his tact and delicacy
in conferring with one of so proud and fiery a temper. Mr. Blackwell,
however, had no tact or delicacy to employ: he went to the house
of mourning, forced his way to Philip, and the very exordium of his
harangue, which was devoted to praises of the extraordinary generosity
and benevolence of his employer, mingled with condescending admonitions
towards gratitude from Philip, so exasperated the boy, that Mr.
Blackwell was extremely glad to get out of the house with a whole skin.
He, however, did not neglect the more formal part of his mission; but
communicated immediately with a fashionable undertaker, and gave orders
for a very genteel funeral. He thought after the funeral that Philip
would be in a less excited state of mind, and more likely to hear
reason; he, therefore, deferred a second interview with the orphan till
after that event; and, in the meanwhile, despatched a letter to Mr.
Beaufort, stating that he had attended to his instructions; that the
orders for the funeral were given; but that at present Mr. Philip
Morton’s mind was a little disordered, and that he could not calmly
discuss the plans for the future suggested by Mr. Beaufort. He did
not doubt, however, that in another interview all would be arranged
according to the wishes his client had so nobly conveyed to him. Mr.
Beaufort’s conscience on this point was therefore set at rest. It was
a dull, close, oppressive morning, upon which the remains of Catherine
Morton were consigned to the grave. With the preparations for the
funeral Philip did not interfere; he did not inquire by whose orders all
that solemnity of mutes, and coaches, and black plumes, and crape bands,
was appointed. If his vague and undeveloped conjecture ascribed this
last and vain attention to Robert Beaufort, it neither lessened the
sullen resentment he felt against his uncle, nor, on the other hand, did
he conceive that he had a right to forbid respect to the dead, though he
might reject service for the survivor. Since Mr. Blackwell’s visit, he
had remained in a sort of apathy or torpor, which seemed to the people
of the house to partake rather of indifference than woe.
The funeral was over, and Philip had returned to the apartments occupied
by the deceased; and now, for the first time, he set himself to examine
what papers, &c., she had left behind. In an old escritoire, he found,
first, various packets of letters in his father’s handwriting, the
characters in many of them faded by time. He opened a few; they were
the earliest love-letters. He did not dare to read above a few lines; so
much did their living tenderness, and breathing, frank, hearty passion,
contrast with the fate of the adored one. In those letters, the very
heart of the writer seemed to beat! Now both hearts alike were stilled!
And GHOST called vainly unto GHOST!
He came, at length, to a letter in his mother’s hand, addressed to
himself, and dated two days before her death. He went to the window and
gasped in the mists of the sultry air for breath. Below were heard the
noises of London; the shrill cries of itinerant vendors, the rolling
carts, the whoop of boys returned for a while from school. Amidst all
these rose one loud, merry peal of laughter, which drew his attention
mechanically to the spot whence it came; it was at the threshold of
a public-house, before which stood the hearse that had conveyed his
mother’s coffin, and the gay undertakers, halting there to refresh
themselves. He closed the window with a groan, retired to the farthest
corner of the room, and read as follows:
“MY DEAREST PHILIP,--When you read this, I shall be no more. You and
poor Sidney will have neither father nor mother, nor fortune, nor name.
Heaven is more just than man, and in Heaven is my hope for you. You,
Philip, are already past childhood; your nature is one formed, I think,
to wrestle successfully with the world. Guard against your own passions,
and you may bid defiance to the obstacles that will beset your path in
life. And lately, in our reverses, Philip, you have so subdued those
passions, so schooled the pride and impetuosity of your childhood, that
I have contemplated your prospects with less fear than I used to do,
even when they seemed so brilliant. Forgive me, my dear child, if I have
concealed from you my state of health, and if my death be a sudden
and unlooked-for shock. Do not grieve for me too long. For myself,
my release is indeed escape from the prison-house and the chain--from
bodily pain and mental torture, which may, I fondly hope, prove some
expiation for the errors of a happier time. For I did err, when, even
from the least selfish motives, I suffered my union with your father to
remain concealed, and thus ruined the hopes of those who had rights upon
me equal even to his. But, O Philip! beware of the first false steps
into deceit; beware, too, of the passions, which do not betray their
fruit till years and years after the leaves that look so green and the
blossoms that seem so fair.
“I repeat my solemn injunction--Do not grieve for me; but strengthen
your mind and heart to receive the charge that I now confide to you--my
Sidney, my child, your brother! He is so soft, so gentle, he has been so
dependent for very life upon me, and we are parted now for the first and
last time. He is with strangers; and--and--O Philip, Philip! watch
over him for the love you bear, not only to him, but to me! Be to him a
father as well as a brother. Put your stout heart against the world,
so that you may screen him, the weak child, from its malice. He has not
your talents nor strength of character; without you he is nothing. Live,
toil, rise for his sake not less than your own. If you knew how this
heart beats as I write to you, if you could conceive what comfort I
take for him from my confidence in you, you would feel a new spirit--my
spirit--my mother-spirit of love, and forethought, and vigilance, enter
into you while you read. See him when I am gone--comfort and soothe him.
Happily he is too young yet to know all his loss; and do not let him
think unkindly of me in the days to come, for he is a child now, and
they may poison his mind against me more easily than they can yours.
Think, if he is unhappy hereafter, he may forget how I loved him, he may
curse those who gave him birth. Forgive me all this, Philip, my son, and
heed it well.
“And now, where you find this letter, you will see a key; it opens a
well in the bureau in which I have hoarded my little savings. You will
see that I have not died in poverty. Take what there is; young as you
are, you may want it more now than hereafter. But hold it in trust for
your brother as well as yourself. If he is harshly treated (and you will
go and see him, and you will remember that he would writhe under what
you might scarcely feel), or if they overtask him (he is so young to
work), yet it may find him a home near you. God watch over and guard you
both! You are orphans now. But HE has told even the orphans to call him
‘Father!’”
When he had read this letter, Philip Morton fell upon his knees, and
prayed.
CHAPTER II.
“His curse! Dost comprehend what that word means?
Shot from a father’s angry breath.”
JAMES SHIRLEY: The Brothers.
“This term is fatal, and affrights me.”--Ibid.
“Those fond philosophers that magnify
Our human nature......
Conversed but little with the world-they knew not
The fierce vexation of community!”--Ibid.
After he had recovered his self-possession, Philip opened the well of
the bureau, and was astonished and affected to find that Catherine had
saved more than L100. Alas! how much must she have pinched herself
to have hoarded this little treasure! After burning his father’s
love-letters, and some other papers, which he deemed useless, he made
up a little bundle of those trifling effects belonging to the deceased,
which he valued as memorials and relies of her, quitted the apartment,
and descended to the parlour behind the shop. On the way he met with the
kind servant, and recalling the grief that she had manifested for his
mother since he had been in the house, he placed two sovereigns in her
hand. “And now,” said he, as the servant wept while he spoke, “now I can
bear to ask you what I have not before done. How did my poor mother die?
Did she suffer much?--or--or--”
“She went off like a lamb, sir,” said the girl, drying her eyes. “You
see the gentleman had been with her all the day, and she was much more
easy and comfortable in her mind after he came.”
“The gentleman! Not the gentleman I found here?”
“Oh, dear no! Not the pale middle-aged gentleman nurse and I saw go down
as the clock struck two. But the young, soft-spoken gentleman who came
in the morning, and said as how he was a relation. He stayed with her
till she slept; and, when she woke, she smiled in his face--I shall
never forget that smile--for I was standing on the other side, as
it might be here, and the doctor was by the window, pouring out the
doctor’s stuff in the glass; and so she looked on the young gentleman,
and then looked round at us all, and shook her head very gently, but did
not speak. And the gentleman asked her how she felt, and she took both
his hands and kissed them; and then he put his arms round and raised her
up to take the physic like, and she said then, ‘You will never forget
them?’ and he said, ‘Never.’ I don’t know what that meant, sir!”
“Well, well--go on.”
“And her head fell back on his buzzom, and she looked so happy; and,
when the doctor came to the bedside, she was quite gone.”
“And the stranger had my post! No matter; God bless him--God bless him.
Who was he? what was his name?”
“I don’t know, sir; he did not say. He stayed after the doctor went, and
cried very bitterly; he took on more than you did, sir.”
“And the other gentleman came just as he was a-going, and they did not
seem to like each other; for I heard him through the wall, as nurse and
I were in the next room, speak as if he was scolding; but he did not
stay long.”
“And has never been seen since?”
“No, sir. Perhaps missus can tell you more about him. But won’t you take
something, sir? Do--you look so pale.”
Philip, without speaking, pushed her gently aside, and went slowly down
the stairs. He entered the parlour, where two or three children were
seated, playing at dominoes; he despatched one for their mother, the
mistress of the shop, who came in, and dropped him a courtesy, with a
very grave, sad face, as was proper.
“I am going to leave your house, ma’am; and I wish to settle any little
arrears of rent, &c.”
“O sir! don’t mention it,” said the landlady; and, as she spoke, she
took a piece of paper from her bosom, very neatly folded, and laid it on
the table. “And here, sir,” she added, taking from the same depository
a card,--“here is the card left by the gentleman who saw to the funeral.
He called half an hour ago, and bade me say, with his compliments, that
he would wait on you to-morrow at eleven o’clock. So I hope you won’t go
yet: for I think he means to settle everything for you; he said as much,
sir.”
Philip glanced over the card, and read, “Mr. George Blackwell, Lincoln’s
Inn.” His brow grew dark--he let the card fall on the ground, put his
foot on it with a quiet scorn, and muttered to himself, “The lawyer
shall not bribe me out of my curse!” He turned to the total of the
bill--not heavy, for poor Catherine had regularly defrayed the expense
of her scanty maintenance and humble lodging--paid the money, and, as
the landlady wrote the receipt, he asked, “Who was the gentleman--the
younger gentleman--who called in the morning of the day my mother died?”
“Oh, sir! I am so sorry I did not get his name. Mr. Perkins said that he
was some relation. Very odd he has never been since. But he’ll be sure
to call again, sir; you had much better stay here.”
“No: it does not signify. All that he could do is done. But stay, give
him this note, if he should call.”
Philip, taking the pen from the landlady’s hand, hastily wrote (while
Mrs. Lacy went to bring him sealing-wax and a light) these words:
“I cannot guess who you are: they say that you call yourself a relation;
that must be some mistake. I knew not that my poor mother had relations
so kind. But, whoever you be, you soothed her last hours--she died in
your arms; and if ever--years, long years hence--we should chance to
meet, and I can do anything to aid another, my blood, and my life, and
my heart, and my soul, all are slaves to your will. If you be really
of her kindred, I commend to you my brother: he is at ----, with Mr.
Morton. If you can serve him, my mother’s soul will watch over you as
a guardian angel. As for me, I ask no help from any one: I go into
the world and will carve out my own way. So much do I shrink from the
thought of charity from others, that I do not believe I could bless you
as I do now if your kindness to me did not close with the stone upon my
mother’s grave. PHILIP.”
He sealed this letter, and gave it to the woman.
“Oh, by the by,” said she, “I had forgot; the Doctor said that if you
would send for him, he would be most happy to call on you, and give you
any advice.”
“Very well.”
“And what shall I say to Mr. Blackwell?”
“That he may tell his employer to remember our last interview.”
With that Philip took up his bundle and strode from the house. He went
first to the churchyard, where his mother’s remains had been that day
interred. It was near at hand, a quiet, almost a rural, spot. The gate
stood ajar, for there was a public path through the churchyard, and
Philip entered with a noiseless tread. It was then near evening; the sun
had broken out from the mists of the earlier day, and the wistering rays
shone bright and holy upon the solemn place.
“Mother! mother!” sobbed the orphan, as he fell prostrate before that
fresh green mound: “here--here I have come to repeat my oath, to swear
again that I will be faithful to the charge you have entrusted to your
wretched son! And at this hour I dare ask if there be on this earth one
more miserable and forlorn?”
As words to this effect struggled from his lips, a loud, shrill
voice--the cracked, painful voice of weak age wrestling with strong
passion, rose close at hand.
“Away, reprobate! thou art accursed!”
Philip started, and shuddered as if the words were addressed to himself,
and from the grave. But, as he rose on his knee, and tossing the
wild hair from his eyes, looked confusedly round, he saw, at a short
distance, and in the shadow of the wall, two forms; the one, an old man
with grey hair, who was seated on a crumbling wooden tomb, facing the
setting sun; the other, a man apparently yet in the vigour of life,
who appeared bent as in humble supplication. The old man’s hands were
outstretched over the head of the younger, as if suiting terrible action
to the terrible words, and, after a moment’s pause--a moment, but it
seemed far longer to Philip--there was heard a deep, wild, ghastly howl
from a dog that cowered at the old man’s feet; a howl, perhaps of fear
at the passion of his master, which the animal might associate with
danger.
“Father! father!” said the suppliant reproachfully, “your very dog
rebukes your curse.”
“Be dumb! My dog! What hast thou left me on earth but him? Thou hast
made me loathe the sight of friends, for thou hast made me loathe mine
own name. Thou hast covered it with disgrace,--thou hast turned mine
old age into a by-word,--thy crimes leave me solitary in the midst of my
shame!”
“It is many years since we met, father; we may never meet again--shall
we part thus?”
“Thus, aha!” said the old man in a tone of withering sarcasm! “I
comprehend,--you are come for money!”
At this taunt the son started as if stung by a serpent; raised his head
to its full height, folded his arms, and replied:
“Sir, you wrong me: for more than twenty years I have maintained
myself--no matter how, but without taxing you;--and now, I felt remorse
for having suffered you to discard me,--now, when you are old and
helpless, and, I heard, blind: and you might want aid, even from your
poor good-for-nothing son. But I have done. Forget,--not my sins, but
this interview. Repeal your curse, father; I have enough on my head
without yours; and so--let the son at least bless the father who curses
him. Farewell!”
The speaker turned as he thus said, with a voice that trembled at the
close, and brushed rapidly by Philip, whom he did not, however, appear
to perceive; but Philip, by the last red beam of the sun, saw again that
marked storm-beaten face which it was difficult, once seen, to forget,
and recognised the stranger on whose breast he had slept the night of
his fatal visit to R----.
The old man’s imperfect vision did not detect the departure of his son,
but his face changed and softened as the latter strode silently through
the rank grass.
“William!” he said at last, gently; “William!” and the tears rolled
down his furrowed cheeks; “my son!” but that son was gone--the old man
listened for reply--none came. “He has left me--poor William!--we shall
never meet again;” and he sank once more on the old tombstone, dumb,
rigid, motionless--an image of Time himself in his own domain of Graves.
The dog crept closer to his master, and licked his hand. Philip stood
for a moment in thoughtful silence: his exclamation of despair had been
answered as by his better angel. There was a being more miserable than
himself; and the Accursed would have envied the Bereaved!
The twilight had closed in; the earliest star--the star of Memory and
Love, the Hesperus hymned by every poet since the world began--was fair
in the arch of heaven, as Philip quitted the spot, with a spirit more
reconciled to the future, more softened, chastened, attuned to gentle
and pious thoughts than perhaps ever yet had made his soul dominant
over the deep and dark tide of his gloomy passions. He went thence to
a neighbouring sculptor, and paid beforehand for a plain tablet to be
placed above the grave he had left. He had just quitted that shop, in
the same street, not many doors removed from the house in which his
mother had breathed her last. He was pausing by a crossing, irresolute
whether to repair at once to the home assigned to Sidney, or to seek
some shelter in town for that night, when three men who were on the
opposite side of the way suddenly caught sight of him.
“There he is--there he is! Stop, sir!--stop!”
Philip heard these words, looked up, and recognised the voice and the
person of Mr. Plaskwith; the bookseller was accompanied by Mr. Plimmins,
and a sturdy, ill-favoured stranger.
A nameless feeling of fear, rage, and disgust seized the unhappy boy,
and at the same moment a ragged vagabond whispered to him, “Stump it, my
cove; that’s a Bow Street runner.”
Then there shot through Philip’s mind the recollection of the money he
had seized, though but to dash away; was he now--he, still to his own
conviction, the heir of an ancient and spotless name--to be hunted as a
thief; or, at the best, what right over his person and his liberty had
he given to his taskmaster? Ignorant of the law--the law only seemed to
him, as it ever does to the ignorant and the friendless--a Foe. Quicker
than lightning these thoughts, which it takes so many words to describe,
flashed through the storm and darkness of his breast; and at the very
instant that Mr. Plimmins had laid hands on his shoulder his resolution
was formed. The instinct of self beat loud at his heart. With a bound--a
spring that sent Mr. Plimmins sprawling in the kennel, he darted across
the road, and fled down an opposite lane.
“Stop him! stop!” cried the bookseller, and the officer rushed after
him with almost equal speed. Lane after lane, alley after alley, fled
Philip; dodging, winding, breathless, panting; and lane after lane, and
alley after alley, thickened at his heels the crowd that pursued. The
idle and the curious, and the officious,--ragged boys, ragged men, from
stall and from cellar, from corner and from crossing, joined in that
delicious chase, which runs down young Error till it sinks, too often,
at the door of the gaol or the foot of the gallows. But Philip slackened
not his pace; he began to distance his pursuers. He was now in a street
which they had not yet entered--a quiet street, with few, if any, shops.
Before the threshold of a better kind of public-house, or rather tavern,
to judge by its appearance, lounged two men; and while Philip flew on,
the cry of “Stop him!” had changed as the shout passed to new voices,
into “Stop the thief!”--that cry yet howled in the distance. One of the
loungers seized him: Philip, desperate and ferocious, struck at him with
all his force; but the blow was scarcely felt by that Herculean frame.
“Pish!” said the man, scornfully; “I am no spy; if you run from justice,
I would help you to a sign-post.”
Struck by the voice, Philip looked hard at the speaker. It was the voice
of the Accursed Son.
“Save me! you remember me?” said the orphan, faintly. “Ah! I think I do;
poor lad! Follow me--this way!” The stranger turned within the tavern,
passed the hall through a sort of corridor that led into a back yard
which opened upon a nest of courts or passages.
“You are safe for the present; I will take you where you can tell me all
at your ease--See!” As he spoke they emerged into an open street,
and the guide pointed to a row of hackney coaches. “Be quick--get in.
Coachman, drive fast to ---”
Philip did not hear the rest of the direction.
Our story returns to Sidney.
CHAPTER III.
“Nous vous mettrons a couvert,
Repondit le pot de fer
Si quelque matiere dure
Vous menace d’aventure,
Entre deux je passerai,
Et du coup vous sauverai.
........
Le pot de terre en souffre!”--LA FONTAINE.
[“We, replied the Iron Pot, will shield you: should any hard
substance menace you with danger, I’ll intervene, and save you
from the shock.
......... The Earthen Pot was the sufferer!]
“SIDNEY, come here, sir! What have you been at? you have torn your frill
into tatters! How did you do this? Come sir, no lies.”
“Indeed, ma’am, it was not my fault. I just put my head out of the
window to see the coach go by, and a nail caught me here.”
“Why, you little plague! you have scratched yourself--you are always in
mischief. What business had you to look after the coach?”
“I don’t know,” said Sidney, hanging his head ruefully. “La,
mother!” cried the youngest of the cousins, a square-built, ruddy,
coarse-featured urchin, about Sidney’s age, “La, mother, he never see a
coach in the street when we are at play but he runs arter it.”
“After, not arter,” said Mr. Roger Morton, taking the pipe from his
mouth.
“Why do you go after the coaches, Sidney?” said Mrs. Morton; “it is very
naughty; you will be run over some day.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Sidney, who during the whole colloquy had been
trembling from head to foot.
“‘Yes ma’am,’ and ‘no, ma’am:’ you have no more manners than a cobbler’s
boy.”
“Don’t tease the child, my dear; he is crying,” said Mr. Morton, more
authoritatively than usual. “Come here, my man!” and the worthy uncle
took him in his lap and held his glass of brandy-and-water to his lips;
Sidney, too frightened to refuse, sipped hurriedly, keeping his large
eyes fixed on his aunt, as children do when they fear a cuff.
“You spoil the boy more than do your own flesh and blood,” said Mrs.
Morton, greatly displeased.
Here Tom, the youngest-born before described, put his mouth to his
mother’s ear, and whispered loud enough to be heard by all: “He runs
arter the coach ‘cause he thinks his ma may be in it. Who’s home-sick, I
should like to know? Ba! Baa!”
The boy pointed his finger over his mother’s shoulder, and the other
children burst into a loud giggle.
“Leave the room, all of you,--leave the room!” said Mr. Morton, rising
angrily and stamping his foot.
The children, who were in great awe of their father, huddled and hustled
each other to the door; but Tom, who went last, bold in his mother’s
favour, popped his head through the doorway, and cried, “Good-bye,
little home-sick!”
A sudden slap in the face from his father changed his chuckle into a
very different kind of music, and a loud indignant sob was heard without
for some moments after the door was closed.
“If that’s the way you behave to your children, Mr. Morton, I vow you
sha’n’t have any more if I can help it. Don’t come near me--don’t touch
me!” and Mrs. Morton assumed the resentful air of offended beauty.
“Pshaw!” growled the spouse, and he reseated himself and resumed his
pipe. There was a dead silence. Sidney crouched near his uncle, looking
very pale. Mrs. Morton, who was knitting, knitted away with the excited
energy of nervous irritation.
“Ring the bell, Sidney,” said Mr. Morton. The boy obeyed--the
parlour-maid entered. “Take Master Sidney to his room; keep the boys
away from him, and give him a large slice of bread and jam, Martha.”
“Jam, indeed!--treacle,” said Mrs. Morton.
“Jam, Martha,” repeated the uncle, authoritatively. “Treacle!”
reiterated the aunt.
“Jam, I say!”
“Treacle, you hear: and for that matter, Martha has no jam to give!”
The husband had nothing more to say.
“Good night, Sidney; there’s a good boy, go and kiss your aunt and make
your bow; and I say, my lad, don’t mind those plagues. I’ll talk to them
to-morrow, that I will; no one shall be unkind to you in my house.”
Sidney muttered something, and went timidly up to Mrs. Morton. His look
so gentle and subdued; his eyes full of tears; his pretty mouth which,
though silent, pleaded so eloquently; his willingness to forgive, and
his wish to be forgiven, might have melted many a heart harder,
perhaps, than Mrs. Morton’s. But there reigned what are worse than
hardness,--prejudice and wounded vanity--maternal vanity. His contrast
to her own rough, coarse children grated on her, and set the teeth of
her mind on edge.
“There, child, don’t tread on my gown: you are so awkward: say your
prayers, and don’t throw off the counterpane! I don’t like slovenly
boys.”
Sidney put his finger in his mouth, drooped, and vanished.
“Now, Mrs. M.,” said Mr. Morton, abruptly, and knocking out the ashes
of his pipe; “now Mrs. M., one word for all: I have told you that I
promised poor Catherine to be a father to that child, and it goes to my
heart to see him so snubbed. Why you dislike him I can’t guess for the
life of me. I never saw a sweeter-tempered child.”
“Go on, sir, go on: make your personal reflections on your own lawful
wife. They don’t hurt me--oh no, not at all! Sweet-tempered, indeed; I
suppose your own children are not sweet-tempered?”
“That’s neither here nor there,” said Mr. Morton: “my own children are
such as God made them, and I am very well satisfied.”
“Indeed you may be proud of such a family; and to think of the pains I
have taken with them, and how I have saved you in nurses, and the bad
times I have had; and now, to find their noses put out of joint by that
little mischief-making interloper--it is too bad of you, Mr. Morton; you
will break my heart--that you will!”
Mrs. Morton put her handkerchief to her eyes and sobbed. The husband was
moved: he got up and attempted to take her hand. “Indeed, Margaret, I
did not mean to vex you.”
“And I who have been such a fa--fai--faithful wi--wi--wife, and brought
you such a deal of mon--mon--money, and always stud--stud--studied your
interests; many’s the time when you have been fast asleep that I have
sat up half the night--men--men--mending the house linen; and you have
not been the same man, Roger, since that boy came!”
“Well, well” said the good man, quite overcome, and fairly taking her
round the waist and kissing her; “no words between us; it makes life
quite unpleasant. If it pains you to have Sidney here, I will put him
to some school in the town, where they’ll be kind to him. Only, if
you would, Margaret, for my sake--old girl! come, now! there’s a
darling!--just be more tender with him. You see he frets so after his
mother. Think how little Tom would fret if he was away from you! Poor
little Tom!”
“La! Mr. Morton, you are such a man!--there’s no resisting your ways!
You know how to come over me, don’t you?”
And Mrs. Morton smiled benignly, as she escaped from his conjugal arms
and smoothed her cap.
Peace thus restored, Mr. Morton refilled his pipe, and the good lady,
after a pause, resumed, in a very mild, conciliatory tone:
“I’ll tell you what it is, Roger, that vexes me with that there child.
He is so deceitful, and he does tell such fibs!”
“Fibs! that is a very bad fault,” said Mr. Morton, gravely. “That must
be corrected.”
“It was but the other day that I saw him break a pane of glass in the
shop; and when I taxed him with it, he denied it;--and with such a face!
I can’t abide storytelling.”
“Let me know the next story he tells; I’ll cure him,” said Mr. Morton,
sternly. “You now how I broke Tom of it. Spare the rod, and spoil the
child. And where I promised to be kind to the boy, of course I did not
mean that I was not to take care of his morals, and see that he grew up
an honest man. Tell truth and shame the devil--that’s my motto.”
“Spoke like yourself, Roger,” said Mrs. Morton, with great animation.
“But you see he has not had the advantage of such a father as you. I
wonder your sister don’t write to you. Some people make a great fuss
about their feelings; but out of sight out of mind.”
“I hope she is not ill. Poor Catherine! she looked in a very bad way
when she was here,” said Morton; and he turned uneasily to the fireplace
and sighed.
Here the servant entered with the supper-tray, and the conversation fell
upon other topics.
Mrs. Roger Morton’s charge against Sidney was, alas! too true. He had
acquired, under that roof, a terrible habit of telling stories. He had
never incurred that vice with his mother, because then and there he had
nothing to fear; now, he had everything to fear;--the grim aunt--even
the quiet, kind, cold, austere uncle--the apprentices--the strange
servants--and, oh! more than all, those hardeyed, loud-laughing
tormentors, the boys of his own age! Naturally timid, severity made him
actually a coward; and when the nerves tremble, a lie sounds as surely
as, when I vibrate that wire, the bell at the end of it will ring.
Beware of the man who has been roughly treated as a child.
The day after the conference just narrated, Mr. Morton, who was subject
to erysipelas, had taken a little cooling medicine. He breakfasted,
therefore, later than usual--after the rest of the family; and at this
meal pour lui soulager he ordered the luxury of a muffin. Now it so
chanced that he had only finished half the muffin, and drunk one cup
of tea, when he was called into the shop by a customer of great
importance--a prosy old lady, who always gave her orders with remarkable
precision, and who valued herself on a character for affability, which
she maintained by never buying a penny riband without asking the shopman
how all his family were, and talking news about every other family in
the place. At the time Mr. Morton left the parlour, Sidney and Master
Tom were therein, seated on two stools, and casting up division sums
on their respective slates--a point of education to which Mr. Morton
attended with great care. As soon as his father’s back was turned,
Master Tom’s eyes wandered from the slate to the muffin, as it leered
at him from the slop-basin. Never did Pythian sibyl, seated above the
bubbling spring, utter more oracular eloquence to her priest, than
did that muffin--at least the parts of it yet extant--utter to the
fascinated senses of Master Tom. First he sighed; then he moved round
on his stool; then he got up; then he peered at the muffin from a
respectful distance; then he gradually approached, and walked round, and
round, and round it--his eyes getting bigger and bigger; then he peeped
through the glass-door into the shop, and saw his father busily engaged
with the old lady; then he began to calculate and philosophise, perhaps
his father had done breakfast; perhaps he would not come back at all; if
he came back, he would not miss one corner of the muffin; and if he
did miss it, why should Tom be supposed to have taken it? As he thus
communed with himself, he drew nearer into the fatal vortex, and at last
with a desperate plunge, he seized the triangular temptation,--
“And ere a man had power to say ‘Behold!’
The jaws of Thomas had devoured it up.”
Sidney, disturbed from his studies by the agitation of his companion,
witnessed this proceeding with great and conscientious alarm. “O Tom!”
said he, “what will your papa say?”
“Look at that!” said Tom, putting his fist under Sidney’s reluctant
nose. “If father misses it, you’ll say the cat took it. If you don’t--my
eye, what a wapping I’ll give you!”
Here Mr. Morton’s voice was heard wishing the lady “Good morning!” and
Master Tom, thinking it better to leave the credit of the invention
solely to Sidney, whispered, “Say I’m gone up stairs for my
pocket-hanker,” and hastily absconded.
Mr. Morton, already in a very bad humour, partly at the effects of the
cooling medicine, partly at the suspension of his breakfast, stalked
into the parlour. His tea-the second cup already poured out, was cold.
He turned towards the muffin, and missed the lost piece at a glance.
“Who has been at my muffin?” said he, in a voice that seemed to Sidney
like the voice he had always supposed an ogre to possess. “Have you,
Master Sidney?”
“N--n--no, sir; indeed, sir!”
“Then Tom has. Where is he?”
“Gone up stairs for his handkerchief, sir.”
“Did he take my muffin? Speak the truth!”
“No, sir; it was the--it was the--the cat, sir!”
“O you wicked, wicked boy!” cried Mrs. Morton, who had followed her
husband into the parlour; “the cat kittened last night, and is locked up
in the coal-cellar!”
“Come here, Master Sidney! No! first go down, Margaret, and see if the
cat is in the cellar: it might have got out, Mrs. M.,” said Mr. Morton,
just even in his wrath.
Mrs. Morton went, and there was a dead silence, except indeed in
Sidney’s heart, which beat louder than a clock ticks. Mr. Morton,
meanwhile, went to a little cupboard;--while still there, Mrs. Morton
returned: the cat was in the cellar--the key turned on her--in no mood
to eat muffins, poor thing!--she would not even lap her milk! like her
mistress, she had had a very bad time!
“Now come here, sir,” said Mr. Morton, withdrawing himself from the
cupboard, with a small horsewhip in his hand, “I will teach you how to
speak the truth in future! Confess that you have told a lie!”
“Yes, sir, it was a lie! Pray--pray forgive me: but Tom made me!”
“What! when poor Tom is up-stairs? worse and worse!” said Mrs. Morton,
lifting up her hands and eyes. “What a viper!”
“For shame, boy,--for shame! Take that--and that--and that--”
Writhing--shrinking, still more terrified than hurt, the poor child
cowered beneath the lash.
“Mamma! mamma!” he cried at last, “Oh, why--why did you leave me?”
At these words Mr. Morton stayed his hand, the whip fell to the ground.
“Yet it is all for the boy’s good,” he muttered. “There, child, I hope
this is the last time. There, you are not much hurt. Zounds, don’t cry
so!”
“He will alarm the whole street,” said Mrs. Morton; “I never see such a
child! Here, take this parcel to Mrs. Birnie’s--you know the house--only
next street, and dry your eyes before you get there. Don’t go through
the shop; this way out.”
She pushed the child, still sobbing with a vehemence that she could not
comprehend, through the private passage into the street, and returned to
her husband.
“You are convinced now, Mr. M.?”
“Pshaw! ma’am; don’t talk. But, to be sure, that’s how I cured Tom of
fibbing.--The tea’s as cold as a stone!”
CHAPTER IV.
“Le bien nous le faisons: le mal c’est la Fortune.
On a toujours raison, le Destin toujours tort.”--LA FONTAINE.
[The Good, we effect ourselves; the Evil is the handiwork of
Fortune. Mortals are always in the right, Destiny always in the
wrong.]
Upon the early morning of the day commemorated by the historical events
of our last chapter, two men were deposited by a branch coach at the
inn of a hamlet about ten miles distant from the town in which Mr. Roger
Morton resided. Though the hamlet was small, the inn was large, for
it was placed close by a huge finger-post that pointed to three great
roads: one led to the town before mentioned; another to the heart of a
manufacturing district; and a third to a populous seaport. The weather
was fine, and the two travellers ordered breakfast to be taken into an
arbour in the garden, as well as the basins and towels necessary for
ablution. The elder of the travellers appeared to be unequivocally
foreign; you would have guessed him at once for a German. He wore, what
was then very uncommon in this country, a loose, brown linen blouse,
buttoned to the chin, with a leathern belt, into which were stuck a
German meerschaum and a tobacco-pouch. He had very long flaxen hair,
false or real, that streamed half-way down his back, large light
mustaches, and a rough, sunburnt complexion, which made the fairness of
the hair more remarkable. He wore an enormous pair of green spectacles,
and complained much in broken English of the weakness of his eyes. All
about him, even to the smallest minutiae, indicated the German; not only
the large muscular frame, the broad feet, and vast though well-shaped
hands, but the brooch--evidently purchased of a Jew in some great
fair--stuck ostentatiously and superfluously into his stock; the quaint,
droll-looking carpet-bag, which he refused to trust to the boots; and
the great, massive, dingy ring which he wore on his forefinger. The
other was a slender, remarkably upright and sinewy youth, in a blue
frock, over which was thrown a large cloak, a travelling cap, with a
shade that concealed all of the upper part of his face, except a dark
quick eye of uncommon fire; and a shawl handkerchief, which was equally
useful in concealing the lower part of the countenance. On descending
from the coach, the German with some difficulty made the ostler
understand that he wanted a post-chaise in a quarter of an hour; and
then, without entering the house, he and his friend strolled to the
arbour. While the maid-servant was covering the table with bread,
butter, tea, eggs, and a huge round of beef, the German was busy in
washing his hands, and talking in his national tongue to the young man,
who returned no answer. But as soon as the servant had completed her
operations the foreigner turned round, and observing her eyes fixed on
his brooch with much female admiration, he made one stride to her.
“Der Teufel, my goot Madchen--but you are von var pretty--vat you call
it?” and he gave her, as he spoke, so hearty a smack that the girl was
more flustered than flattered by the courtesy.
“Keep yourself to yourself, sir!” said she, very tartly, for
chambermaids never like to be kissed by a middle-aged gentleman when
a younger one is by: whereupon the German replied by a pinch,--it is
immaterial to state the exact spot to which that delicate caress was
directed. But this last offence was so inexpiable, that the
“Madchen” bounced off with a face of scarlet, and a “Sir, you are no
gentleman--that’s what you arn’t!” The German thrust his head out of
the arbour, and followed her with a loud laugh; then drawing himself
in again, he said in quite another accent, and in excellent English,
“There, Master Philip, we have got rid of the girl for the rest of
the morning, and that’s exactly what I wanted to do--women’s wits are
confoundedly sharp. Well, did I not tell you right, we have baffled all
the bloodhounds!”
“And here, then, Gawtrey, we are to part,” said Philip, mournfully.
“I wish you would think better of it, my boy,” returned Mr. Gawtrey,
breaking an egg; “how can you shift for yourself--no kith nor kin, not
even that important machine for giving advice called a friend--no, not
a friend, when I am gone? I foresee how it must end. [D--- it, salt
butter, by Jove!]”
“If I were alone in the world, as I have told you again and again,
perhaps I might pin my fate to yours. But my brother!”
“There it is, always wrong when we act from our feelings. My whole life,
which some day or other I will tell you, proves that. Your brother--bah!
is he not very well off with his own uncle and aunt?--plenty to eat and
drink, I dare say. Come, man, you must be as hungry as a hawk--a slice
of the beef? Let well alone, and shift for yourself. What good can you
do your brother?”
“I don’t know, but I must see him; I have sworn it.”
“Well, go and see him, and then strike across the country to me. I will
wait a day for you,--there now!”
“But tell me first,” said Philip, very earnestly, and fixing his dark
eyes on his companion,--“tell me--yes, I must speak frankly--tell me,
you who would link my fortunes with your own,--tell me, what and who are
you?”
Gawtrey looked up.
“What do you suppose?” said he, dryly.
“I fear to suppose anything, lest I wrong you; but the strange place to
which you took me the evening on which you saved me from pursuit, the
persons I met there--”
“Well-dressed, and very civil to you?”
“True! but with a certain wild looseness in their talk that--But I have
no right to judge others by mere appearance. Nor is it this that has
made me anxious, and, if you will, suspicious.”
“What then?”
“Your dress--your disguise.”
“Disguised yourself!--ha! ha! Behold the world’s charity! You fly
from some danger, some pursuit, disguised--you, who hold yourself
guiltless--I do the same, and you hold me criminal--a robber, perhaps--a
murderer it may be! I will tell you what I am: I am a son of Fortune,
an adventurer; I live by my wits--so do poets and lawyers, and all the
charlatans of the world; I am a charlatan--a chameleon. ‘Each man in
his time plays many parts:’ I play any part in which Money, the
Arch-Manager, promises me a livelihood. Are you satisfied?”
“Perhaps,” answered the boy, sadly, “when I know more of the world, I
shall understand you better. Strange--strange, that you, out of all men,
should have been kind to me in distress!”
“Not at all strange. Ask the beggar whom he gets the most pence
from--the fine lady in her carriage--the beau smelling of eau de
Cologne? Pish! the people nearest to being beggars themselves keep the
beggar alive. You were friendless, and the man who has all earth for
a foe befriends you. It is the way of the world, sir,--the way of the
world. Come, eat while you can; this time next year you may have no beef
to your bread.”
Thus masticating and moralising at the same time, Mr. Gawtrey at last
finished a breakfast that would have astonished the whole Corporation
of London; and then taking out a large old watch, with an enamelled
back--doubtless more German than its master--he said, as he lifted up
his carpet-bag, “I must be off--tempos fugit, and I must arrive just in
time to nick the vessels. Shall get to Ostend, or Rotterdam, safe and
snug; thence to Paris. How my pretty Fan will have grown! Ah, you don’t
know Fan--make you a nice little wife one of these days! Cheer up, man,
we shall meet again. Be sure of it; and hark ye, that strange place, as
you call it, where I took you,--you can find it again?”
“Not I.”
“Here, then, is the address. Whenever you want me, go there, ask to see
Mr. Gregg--old fellow with one eye, you recollect--shake him by the
hand just so--you catch the trick--practise it again. No, the forefinger
thus, that’s right. Say ‘blater,’ no more--‘blater;’--stay, I will write
it down for you; and then ask for William Gawtrey’s direction. He will
give it you at once, without questions--these signs understood; and if
you want money for your passage, he will give you that also, with advice
into the bargain. Always a warm welcome with me. And so take care of
yourself, and good-bye. I see my chaise is at the door.”
As he spoke, Gawtrey shook the young man’s hand with cordial vigour, and
strode off to his chaise, muttering, “Money well laid out--fee money; I
shall have him, and, Gad, I like him,--poor devil!”
CHAPTER V.
“He is a cunning coachman that can turn well in a narrow room.”
Old Play: from Lamb’s Specimens.
“Here are two pilgrims,
And neither knows one footstep of the way.”
HEYWOOD’s Duchess of Suffolk, Ibid.
The chaise had scarce driven from the inn-door when a coach stopped to
change horses on its last stage to the town to which Philip was, bound.
The name of the destination, in gilt letters on the coach-door, caught
his eye, as he walked from the arbour towards the road, and in a few
moments he was seated as the fourth passenger in the “Nelson Slow and
Sure.” From under the shade of his cap, he darted that quick, quiet
glance, which a man who hunts, or is hunted,--in other words, who
observes, or shuns,--soon acquires. At his left hand sat a young woman
in a cloak lined with yellow; she had taken off her bonnet and pinned
it to the roof of the coach, and looked fresh and pretty in a silk
handkerchief, which she had tied round her head, probably to serve as a
nightcap during the drowsy length of the journey. Opposite to her was
a middle-aged man of pale complexion, and a grave, pensive, studious
expression of face; and vis-a-vis to Philip sat an overdressed, showy,
very good-looking man of about two or three and forty. This gentleman
wore auburn whiskers, which met at the chin; a foraging cap, with a
gold tassel; a velvet waistcoat, across which, in various folds, hung a
golden chain, at the end of which dangled an eye-glass, that from time
to time he screwed, as it were, into his right eye; he wore, also, a
blue silk stock, with a frill much crumpled, dirty kid gloves, and over
his lap lay a cloak lined with red silk. As Philip glanced towards this
personage, the latter fixed his glass also at him, with a scrutinising
stare, which drew fire from Philip’s dark eyes. The man dropped his
glass, and said in a half provincial, half haw-haw tone, like the stage
exquisite of a minor theatre, “Pawdon me, and split legs!” therewith
stretching himself between Philip’s limbs in the approved fashion of
inside passengers. A young man in a white great-coat now came to the
door with a glass of warm sherry and water.
“You must take this--you must now; it will keep the cold out,” (the day
was broiling,) said he to the young woman.
“Gracious me!” was the answer, “but I never drink wine of a morning,
James; it will get into my head.”
“To oblige me!” said the young man, sentimentally; whereupon the young
lady took the glass, and looking very kindly at her Ganymede, said,
“Your health!” and sipped, and made a wry face--then she looked at the
passengers, tittered, and said, “I can’t bear wine!” and so, very slowly
and daintily, sipped up the rest. A silent and expressive squeeze of
the hand, on returning the glass, rewarded the young man, and proved the
salutary effect of his prescription.
“All right!” cried the coachman: the ostler twitched the cloths from
the leaders, and away went the “Nelson Slow and Sure,” with as much
pretension as if it had meant to do the ten miles in an hour. The
pale gentleman took from his waistcoat pocket a little box containing
gum-arabic, and having inserted a couple of morsels between his lips,
he next drew forth a little thin volume, which from the manner the lines
were printed was evidently devoted to poetry.
The smart gentleman, who since the episode of the sherry and water
had kept his glass fixed upon the young lady, now said, with a genteel
smirk:
“That young gentleman seems very auttentive, miss!”
“He is a very good young man, sir, and takes great care of me.”
“Not your brother, miss,--eh?”
“La, sir--why not?”
“No faumily likeness--noice-looking fellow enough! But your oiyes and
mouth--ah, miss!”
Miss turned away her head, and uttered with pert vivacity: “I never
likes compliments, sir! But the young man is not my brother.”
“A sweetheart,--eh? Oh fie, miss! Haw! haw!” and the auburn-whiskered
Adonis poked Philip in the knee with one hand, and the pale gentleman
in the ribs with the other. The latter looked up, and reproachfully; the
former drew in his legs, and uttered an angry ejaculation.
“Well, sir, there is no harm in a sweetheart, is there?”
“None in the least, ma’am; I advoise you to double the dose. We often
hear of two strings to a bow. Daun’t you think it would be noicer to
have two beaux to your string?” As he thus wittily expressed himself,
the gentleman took off his cap, and thrust his fingers through a very
curling and comely head of hair; the young lady looked at him with
evident coquetry, and said, “How you do run on, you gentlemen!”
“I may well run on, miss, as long as I run aufter you,” was the gallant
reply.
Here the pale gentleman, evidently annoyed by being talked across, shut
his book up, and looked round. His eye rested on Philip, who, whether
from the heat of the day or from the forgetfulness of thought, had
pushed his cap from his brows; and the gentleman, after staring at him
for a few moments with great earnestness, sighed so heavily that it
attracted the notice of all the passengers.
“Are you unwell, sir?” asked the young lady, compassionately.
“A little pain in my side, nothing more!”
“Chaunge places with me, sir,” cried the Lothario, officiously. “Now
do!” The pale gentleman, after a short hesitation, and a bashful excuse,
accepted the proposal. In a few moments the young lady and the beau
were in deep and whispered conversation, their heads turned towards the
window. The pale gentleman continued to gaze at Philip, till the latter,
perceiving the notice he excited, coloured, and replaced his cap over
his face.
“Are you going to N----? asked the gentleman, in a gentle, timid voice.
“Yes!”
“Is it the first time you have ever been there?”
“Sir!” returned Philip, in a voice that spoke surprise and distaste at
his neighbour’s curiosity.
“Forgive me,” said the gentleman, shrinking back; “but you remind me
of-of--a family I once knew in the town. Do you know--the--the Mortons?”
One in Philip’s situation, with, as he supposed, the officers of justice
in his track (for Gawtrey, for reasons of his own, rather encouraged
than allayed his fears), might well be suspicious. He replied therefore
shortly, “I am quite a stranger to the town,” and ensconced himself in
the corner, as if to take a nap. Alas! that answer was one of the many
obstacles he was doomed to build up between himself and a fairer fate.
The gentleman sighed again, and never spoke more to the end of the
journey. When the coach halted at the inn,--the same inn which had
before given its shelter to poor Catherine,--the young man in the white
coat opened the door, and offered his arm to the young lady.
“Do you make any stay here, sir?” said she to the beau, as she unpinned
her bonnet from the roof.
“Perhaps so; I am waiting for my phe-a-ton, which my faellow is to bring
down,--tauking a little tour.”
“We shall be very happy to see you, sir!” said the young lady, on whom
the phe-a-ton completed the effect produced by the gentleman’s previous
gallantries; and with that she dropped into his hand a very neat card,
on which was printed, “Wavers and Snow, Staymakers, High Street.”
The beau put the card gracefully into his pocket--leaped from the
coach--nudged aside his rival of the white coat, and offered his arm to
the lady, who leaned on it affectionately as she descended.
“This gentleman has been so perlite to me, James,” said she. James
touched his hat; the beau clapped him on the shoulder,--“Ah! you are
not a hauppy man,--are you? Oh no, not at all a hauppy man!--Good day to
you! Guard, that hat-box is mine!”
While Philip was paying the coachman, the beau passed, and whispered
him--
“Recollect old Gregg--anything on the lay here--don’t spoil my sport if
we meet!” and bustled off into the inn, whistling “God save the king!”
Philip started, then tried to bring to mind the faces which he had seen
at the “strange place,” and thought he recalled the features of his
fellow-traveller. However, he did not seek to renew the acquaintance,
but inquired the way to Mr. Morton’s house, and thither he now
proceeded.
He was directed, as a short cut, down one of those narrow passages at
the entrance of which posts are placed as an indication that they
are appropriated solely to foot-passengers. A dead white wall, which
screened the garden of the physician of the place, ran on one side; a
high fence to a nursery-ground was on the other; the passage was lonely,
for it was now the hour when few persons walk either for business or
pleasure in a provincial town, and no sound was heard save the fall of
his own step on the broad flagstones. At the end of the passage in the
main street to which it led, he saw already the large, smart, showy
shop, with the hot sum shining full on the gilt letters that conveyed
to the eyes of the customer the respectable name of “Morton,”--when
suddenly the silence was broken by choked and painful sobs. He turned,
and beneath a compo portico, jutting from the wall, which adorned the
physician’s door, he saw a child seated on the stone steps weeping
bitterly--a thrill shot through Philip’s heart! Did he recognise,
disguised as it was by pain and sorrow, that voice? He paused, and laid
his hand on the child’s shoulder: “Oh, don’t--don’t--pray don’t--I am
going, I am indeed:” cried the child, quailing, and still keeping his
hands clasped before his face.
“Sidney!” said Philip. The boy started to his feet, uttered a cry of
rapturous joy, and fell upon his brother’s breast.
“O Philip!--dear, dear Philip! you are come to take me away back to my
own--own mamma; I will be so good, I will never tease her again,--never,
never! I have been so wretched!”
“Sit down, and tell me what they have done to you,” said Philip,
checking the rising heart that heaved at his mother’s name.
So, there they sat, on the cold stone under the stranger’s porch, these
two orphans: Philip’s arms round his brother’s waist, Sidney leaning
on his shoulder, and imparting to him--perhaps with pardonable
exaggeration, all the sufferings he had gone through; and, when he came
to that morning’s chastisement, and showed the wale across the little
hands which he had vainly held up in supplication, Philip’s passion
shook him from limb to limb. His impulse was to march straight into
Mr. Morton’s shop and gripe him by the throat; and the indignation he
betrayed encouraged Sidney to colour yet more highly the tale of his
wrongs and pain.
When he had done, and clinging tightly to his brother’s broad chest,
said--
“But never mind, Philip; now we will go home to mamma.”
Philip replied--
“Listen to me, my dear brother. We cannot go back to our mother. I will
tell you why, later. We are alone in the world--we two! If you will come
with me--God help you!--for you will have many hardships: we shall have
to work and drudge, and you may be cold and hungry, and tired, very
often, Sidney,--very, very often! But you know that, long ago, when I
was so passionate, I never was wilfully unkind to you; and I declare
now, that I would bite out my tongue rather than it should say a harsh
word to you. That is all I can promise. Think well. Will you never miss
all the comforts you have now?”
“Comforts!” repeated Sidney, ruefully, and looking at the wale over his
hands. “Oh! let--let--let me go with you, I shall die if I stay here. I
shall indeed--indeed!”
“Hush!” said Philip; for at that moment a step was heard, and the pale
gentleman walked slowly down the passage, and started, and turned his
head wistfully as he looked at the boys.
When he was gone. Philip rose.
“It is settled, then,” said he, firmly. “Come with me at once. You shall
return to their roof no more. Come, quick: we shall have many miles to
go to-night.”
CHAPTER VI.
“He comes--
Yet careless what he brings; his one concern
Is to conduct it to the destined inn;
And having dropp’d the expected bag, pass on--
To him indifferent whether grief or joy.”
COWPER: Description of the Postman.
The pale gentleman entered Mr. Morton’s shop; and, looking round him,
spied the worthy trader showing shawls to a young lady just married. He
seated himself on a stool, and said to the bowing foreman--
“I will wait till Mr. Morton is disengaged.”
The young lady having closely examined seven shawls, and declared they
were beautiful, said, “she would think of it,” and walked away. Mr.
Morton now approached the stranger.
“Mr. Morton,” said the pale gentleman; “you are very little altered. You
do not recollect me?”
“Bless me, Mr. Spencer! is it really you? Well, what a time since we
met! I am very glad to see you. And what brings you to N----? Business?”
“Yes, business. Let us go within?”
Mr. Morton led the way to the parlour, where Master Tom, reperched
on the stool, was rapidly digesting the plundered muffin. Mr. Morton
dismissed him to play, and the pale gentleman took a chair.
“Mr. Morton,” said he, glancing over his dress, “you see I am in
mourning. It is for your sister. I never got the better of that early
attachment--never.”
“My sister! Good Heavens!” said Mr. Morton, turning very pale; “is she
dead? Poor Catherine!--and I not know of it! When did she die?”
“Not many days since; and--and--” said Mr. Spencer, greatly affected, “I
fear in want. I had been abroad for some months: on my return last week,
looking over the newspapers (for I always order them to be filed), I
read the short account of her lawsuit against Mr. Beaufort, some time
back. I resolved to find her out. I did so through the solicitor she
employed: it was too late; I arrived at her lodgings two days after
her--her burial. I then determined to visit poor Catherine’s brother,
and learn if anything could be done for the children she had left
behind.”
“She left but two. Philip, the elder, is very comfortably placed at
R----; the younger has his home with me; and Mrs. Morton is a moth--that
is to say, she takes great pains with him. Ehem! And my poor--poor
sister!”
“Is he like his mother?”
“Very much, when she was young--poor dear Catherine!”
“What age is he?”
“About ten, perhaps; I don’t know exactly; much younger than the other.
And so she’s dead!”
“Mr. Morton, I am an old bachelor” (here a sickly smile crossed Mr.
Spencer’s face); “a small portion of my fortune is settled, it is true,
on my relations; but the rest is mine, and I live within my income.
The elder of these boys is probably old enough to begin to take care of
himself. But, the younger--perhaps you have a family of your own, and
can spare him!”
Mr. Morton hesitated, and twitched up his trousers. “Why,” said he,
“this is very kind in you. I don’t know--we’ll see. The boy is out now;
come and dine with us at two--pot-luck. Well, so she is no more! Heigho!
Meanwhile, I’ll talk it over with Mrs. M.”
“I will be with you,” said Mr. Spencer, rising.
“Ah!” sighed Mr. Morton, “if Catherine had but married you she would
have been a happy woman.”
“I would have tried to make her so,” said Mr. Spencer, as he turned away
his face and took his departure.
Two o’clock came; but no Sidney. They had sent to the place whither
he had been despatched; he had never arrived there. Mr. Morton grew
alarmed; and, when Mr. Spencer came to dinner, his host was gone in
search of the truant. He did not return till three. Doomed that day to
be belated both at breakfast and dinner, this decided him to part with
Sidney whenever he should be found. Mrs. Morton was persuaded that the
child only sulked, and would come back fast enough when he was hungry.
Mr. Spencer tried to believe her, and ate his mutton, which was burnt to
a cinder; but when five, six, seven o’clock came, and the boy was still
missing,--even Mrs. Morton agreed that it was high time to institute
a regular search. The whole family set off different ways. It was ten
o’clock before they were reunited; and then all the news picked up was,
that a boy, answering Sidney’s description, had been seen with a young
man in three several parts of the town; the last time at the outskirts,
on the high road towards the manufacturing districts. These tidings so
far relieved Mr. Morton’s mind that he dismissed the chilling fear that
had crept there,--that Sidney might have drowned himself. Boys will
drown themselves sometimes! The description of the young man coincided
so remarkably with the fellow-passenger of Mr. Spencer, that he did not
doubt it was the same; the more so when he recollected having seen
him with a fair-haired child under the portico; and yet more, when he
recalled the likeness to Catherine that had struck him in the coach, and
caused the inquiry that had roused Philip’s suspicion. The mystery
was thus made clear--Sidney had fled with his brother. Nothing more,
however, could be done that night. The next morning, active measures
should be devised; and when the morning came, the mail brought to Mr.
Morton the two following letters. The first was from Arthur Beaufort.
“SIR,--I have been prevented by severe illness from writing to you
before. I can now scarcely hold a pen; but the instant my health is
recovered I shall be with you at N ----, on her deathbed, the mother of
the boy under your charge, Sidney Morton, committed him solemnly to
me. I make his fortunes my care, and shall hasten to claim him at your
kindly hands. But the elder son,--this poor Philip, who has suffered so
unjustly,--for our lawyer has seen Mr. Plaskwith, and heard the whole
story--what has become of him? All our inquiries have failed to track
him. Alas, I was too ill to institute them myself while it was yet time.
Perhaps he may have sought shelter, with you, his uncle; if so, assure
him that he is in no danger from the pursuit of the law,--that his
innocence is fully recognised; and that my father and myself implore him
to accept our affection. I can write no more now; but in a few days I
shall hope to see you.
“I am, sir, &c.,
“ARTHUR BEAUFORT.
“Berkely Square.”
The second letter was from Mr. Plaskwith, and ran thus:
“DEAR MORTON,--Something very awkward has happened,--not my fault, and
very unpleasant for me. Your relation, Philip, as I wrote you word, was
a painstaking lad, though odd and bad mannered,--for want, perhaps, poor
boy! of being taught better, and Mrs. P. is, you know, a very genteel
woman--women go too much by manners--so she never took much to him.
However, to the point, as the French emperor used to say: one evening
he asked me for money for his mother, who, he said, was ill, in a very
insolent way: I may say threatening. It was in my own shop, and before
Plimmins and Mrs. P.; I was forced to answer with dignified rebuke,
and left the shop. When I returned, he was gone, and some
shillings-fourteen, I think, and three sovereigns--evidently from the
till, scattered on the floor. Mrs. P. and Mr. Plimmins were very much
frightened; thought it was clear I was robbed, and that we were to
be murdered. Plimmins slept below that night, and we borrowed butcher
Johnson’s dog. Nothing happened. I did not think I was robbed; because
the money, when we came to calculate, was all right. I know human
nature. He had thought to take it, but repented--quite clear. However, I
was naturally very angry, thought he’d comeback again--meant to
reprove him properly--waited several days--heard nothing of him--grew
uneasy--would not attend longer to Mrs. P.; for, as Napoleon Buonaparte
observed, ‘women are well in their way, not in ours.’ Made Plimmins go
with me to town--hired a Bow Street runner to track him out--cost me
L1. 1s, and two glasses of brandy and water. Poor Mrs. Morton was just
buried--quite shocked! Suddenly saw the boy in the streets. Plimmins
rushed forward in the kindest way--was knocked down--hurt his arm--paid
2s. 6d. for lotion. Philip ran off, we ran after him--could not find
him. Forced to return home. Next day, a lawyer from a Mr. Beaufort--Mr.
George Blackwell, a gentlemanlike man called. Mr. Beaufort will do
anything for him in reason. Is there anything more I can do? I really am
very uneasy about the lad, and Mrs. P. and I have a tiff about it: but
that’s nothing--thought I had best write to you for instructions.
“Yours truly,
“C. PLASHWITH.
“P. S.--Just open my letter to say, Bow Street officer just been
here--has found out that the boy has been seen with a very suspicious
character: they think he has left London. Bow Street officer wants to go
after him--very expensive: so now you can decide.”
Mr. Spencer scarcely listened to Mr. Plaskwith’s letter, but of
Arthur’s he felt jealous. He would fain have been the only protector to
Catherine’s children; but he was the last man fitted to head the search,
now so necessary to prosecute with equal tact and energy.
A soft-hearted, soft-headed man, a confirmed valtudinarian, a
day-dreamer, who had wasted away his life in dawdling and maundering
over Simple Poetry, and sighing over his unhappy attachment; no child,
no babe, was more thoroughly helpless than Mr. Spencer.
The task of investigation devolved, therefore, on Mr. Morton, and he
went about it in a regular, plain, straightforward way. Hand-bills
were circulated, constables employed, and a lawyer, accompanied by Mr.
Spencer, despatched to the manufacturing districts: towards which the
orphans had been seen to direct their path.
CHAPTER VII.
“Give the gentle South
Yet leave to court these sails.”
BEAUMONT AND FLLTCHER: Beggar’s Bush.
“Cut your cloth, sir,
According to your calling.”--Ibid.
Meanwhile the brothers were far away, and He who feeds the young ravens
made their paths pleasant to their feet. Philip had broken to Sidney
the sad news of their mother’s death, and Sidney had wept with bitter
passion. But children,--what can they know of death? Their tears over
graves dry sooner than the dews. It is melancholy to compare the depth,
the endurance, the far-sighted, anxious, prayerful love of a parent,
with the inconsiderate, frail, and evanescent affection of the infant,
whose eyes the hues of the butterfly yet dazzle with delight. It was the
night of their flight, and in the open air, when Philip (his arms round
Sidney’s waist) told his brother-orphan that they were motherless. And
the air was balmy, the skies filled with the effulgent presence of the
August moon; the cornfields stretched round them wide and far, and not
a leaf trembled on the beech-tree beneath which they had sought shelter.
It seemed as if Nature herself smiled pityingly on their young sorrow,
and said to them, “Grieve not for the dead: I, who live for ever, I will
be your mother!”
They crept, as the night deepened, into the warmer sleeping-place
afforded by stacks of hay, mown that summer and still fragrant. And
the next morning the birds woke them betimes, to feel that Liberty, at
least, was with them, and to wander with her at will.
Who in his boyhood has not felt the delight of freedom and adventure? to
have the world of woods and sward before him--to escape restriction--to
lean, for the first time, on his own resources--to rejoice in the wild
but manly luxury of independence--to act the Crusoe--and to fancy a
Friday in every footprint--an island of his own in every field? Yes, in
spite of their desolation, their loss, of the melancholy past, of the
friendless future, the orphans were happy--happy in their youth--their
freedom--their love--their wanderings in the delicious air of the
glorious August. Sometimes they came upon knots of reapers lingering in
the shade of the hedge-rows over their noonday meal; and, grown sociable
by travel, and bold by safety, they joined and partook of the rude fare
with the zest of fatigue and youth. Sometimes, too, at night, they saw,
gleam afar and red by the woodside, the fires of gipsy tents. But these,
with the superstition derived from old nursery-tales, they scrupulously
shunned, eying them with a mysterious awe! What heavenly twilights
belong to that golden month!--the air so lucidly serene, as the purple
of the clouds fades gradually away, and up soars, broad, round, intense,
and luminous, the full moon which belongs to the joyous season! The
fields then are greener than in the heats of July and June,--they have
got back the luxury of a second spring. And still, beside the paths of
the travellers, lingered on the hedges the clustering honeysuckle--the
convolvulus glittered in the tangles of the brake--the hardy heathflower
smiled on the green waste.
And ever, at evening, they came, field after field, upon those circles
which recall to children so many charmed legends, and are fresh and
frequent in that month--the Fairy Rings! They thought, poor boys! that
it was a good omen, and half fancied that the Fairies protected them, as
in the old time they had often protected the desolate and outcast.
They avoided the main roads, and all towns, with suspicious care. But
sometimes they paused, for food and rest, at the obscure hostel of some
scattered hamlet: though, more often, they loved to spread the simple
food they purchased by the way under some thick tree, or beside a stream
through whose limpid waters they could watch the trout glide and play.
And they often preferred the chance shelter of a haystack, or a shed, to
the less romantic repose offered by the small inns they alone dared
to enter. They went in this much by the face and voice of the host or
hostess. Once only Philip had entered a town, on the second day of their
flight, and that solely for the purchase of ruder clothes, and a change
of linen for Sidney, with some articles and implements of use
necessary in their present course of shift and welcome hardship. A wise
precaution; for, thus clad, they escaped suspicion.
So journeying, they consumed several days; and, having taken a direction
quite opposite to that which led to the manufacturing districts, whither
pursuit had been directed, they were now in the centre of another
county--in the neighbourhood of one of the most considerable towns of
England; and here Philip began to think their wanderings ought to
cease, and it was time to settle on some definite course of life. He
had carefully hoarded about his person, and most thriftily managed,
the little fortune bequeathed by his mother. But Philip looked on this
capital as a deposit sacred to Sidney; it was not to be spent, but kept
and augmented--the nucleus for future wealth. Within the last few weeks
his character was greatly ripened, and his powers of thought enlarged.
He was no more a boy,--he was a man: he had another life to take care
of. He resolved, then, to enter the town they were approaching, and to
seek for some situation by which he might maintain both. Sidney was very
loath to abandon their present roving life; but he allowed that the warm
weather could not always last, and that in winter the fields would be
less pleasant. He, therefore, with a sigh, yielded to his brother’s
reasonings.
They entered the fair and busy town of one day at noon; and, after
finding a small lodging, at which he deposited Sidney, who was fatigued
with their day’s walk, Philip sallied forth alone.
After his long rambling, Philip was pleased and struck with the broad
bustling streets, the gay shops--the evidences of opulence and trade. He
thought it hard if he could not find there a market for the health and
heart of sixteen. He strolled slowly and alone along the streets, till
his attention was caught by a small corner shop, in the window of which
was placed a board, bearing this inscription:
“OFFICE FOR EMPLOYMENT.--RECIPROCAL ADVANTAGE.
“Mr. John Clump’s bureau open every day, from ten till four. Clerks,
servants, labourers, &c., provided with suitable situations. Terms
moderate. N.B.--The oldest established office in the town.
“Wanted, a good cook. An under gardener.”
What he sought was here! Philip entered, and saw a short fat man with
spectacles, seated before a desk, poring upon the well-filled leaves of
a long register.
“Sir,” said Philip, “I wish for a situation. I don’t care what.”
“Half-a-crown for entry, if you please. That’s right. Now for
particulars. Hum!--you don’t look like a servant!”
“No; I wish for any place where my education can be of use. I can read
and write; I know Latin and French; I can draw; I know arithmetic and
summing.”
“Very well; very genteel young man--prepossessing appearance (that’s a
fudge!), highly educated; usher in a school, eh?”
“What you like.”
“References?”
“I have none.”
“Eh!--none?” and Mr. Clump fixed his spectacles full upon Philip.
Philip was prepared for the question, and had the sense to perceive that
a frank reply was his best policy. “The fact is,” said he boldly, “I was
well brought up; my father died; I was to be bound apprentice to a trade
I disliked; I left it, and have now no friends.”
“If I can help you, I will,” said Mr. Clump, coldly. “Can’t promise
much. If you were a labourer, character might not matter; but educated
young men must have a character. Hands always more useful than head.
Education no avail nowadays; common, quite common. Call again on
Monday.”
Somewhat disappointed and chilled, Philip turned from the bureau; but he
had a strong confidence in his own resources, and recovered his spirits
as he mingled with the throng. He passed, at length, by a livery-stable,
and paused, from old associations, as he saw a groom in the mews
attempting to manage a young, hot horse, evidently unbroken. The master
of the stables, in a green short jacket and top-boots, with a long
whip in his hand, was standing by, with one or two men who looked like
horsedealers.
“Come off, clumsy! you can’t manage that I ‘ere fine hanimal,” cried the
liveryman. “Ah! he’s a lamb, sir, if he were backed properly. But I
has not a man in the yard as can ride since Will died. Come off, I say,
lubber!”
But to come off, without being thrown off, was more easily said than
done. The horse was now plunging as if Juno had sent her gadfly to him;
and Philip, interested and excited, came nearer and nearer, till he
stood by the side of the horse-dealers. The other ostlers ran to the
help of their comrade, who at last, with white lips and shaking knees,
found himself on terra firma; while the horse, snorting hard, and
rubbing his head against the breast and arms of the ostler, who held him
tightly by the rein, seemed to ask, in his own way, “Are there any more
of you?”
A suspicion that the horse was an old acquaintance crossed Philip’s
mind; he went up to him, and a white spot over the left eye confirmed
his doubts. It had been a foal reserved and reared for his own riding!
one that, in his prosperous days, had ate bread from his hand, and
followed him round the paddock like a dog; one that he had mounted in
sport, without saddle, when his father’s back was turned; a friend,
in short, of the happy Lang syne;--nay, the very friend to whom he had
boasted his affection, when, standing with Arthur Beaufort under the
summer sky, the whole world seemed to him full of friends. He put his
hand on the horse’s neck, and whispered, “Soho! So, Billy!” and the
horse turned sharp round with a quick joyous neigh.
“If you please, sir,” said Philip, appealing to the liveryman, “I will
undertake to ride this horse, and take him over yon leaping-bar. Just
let me try him.”
“There’s a fine-spirited lad for you!” said the liveryman, much pleased
at the offer. “Now, gentlemen, did I not tell you that ‘ere hanimal had
no vice if he was properly managed?”
The horse-dealers shook their heads.
“May I give him some bread first?” asked Philip; and the ostler was
despatched to the house. Meanwhile the animal evinced various signs
of pleasure and recognition, as Philip stroked and talked to him; and,
finally, when he ate the bread from the young man’s hand, the whole yard
seemed in as much delight and surprise as if they had witnessed one of
Monsieur Van Amburgh’s exploits.
And now, Philip, still caressing the horse, slowly and cautiously
mounted; the animal made one bound half-across the yard--a bound which
sent all the horse-dealers into a corner--and then went through his
paces, one after the other, with as much ease and calm as if he had been
broken in at Mr. Fozard’s to carry a young lady. And when he crowned all
by going thrice over the leaping-bar, and Philip, dismounting, threw the
reins to the ostler, and turned triumphantly to the horse-dealer, that
gentleman slapped him on the back, and said, emphatically, “Sir, you are
a man! and I am proud to see you here.”
Meanwhile the horse-dealers gathered round the animal; looked at his
hoofs, felt his legs, examined his windpipe, and concluded the bargain,
which, but for Philip, would have been very abruptly broken off. When
the horse was led out of the yard, the liveryman, Mr. Stubmore, turned
to Philip, who, leaning against the wall, followed the poor animal with
mournful eyes.
“My good sir, you have sold that horse for me--that you have! Anything
as I can do for you? One good turn de serves another. Here’s a brace of
shiners.”
“Thank you, sir! I want no money, but I do want some employment. I can
be of use to you, perhaps, in your establishment. I have been brought up
among horses all my life.”
“Saw it, sir! that’s very clear. I say, that ‘ere horse knows you!” and
the dealer put his finger to his nose.
“Quite right to be mum! He was bred by an old customer of mine--famous
rider!--Mr. Beaufort. Aha! that’s where you knew him, I s’pose. Were you
in his stables?”
“Hem--I knew Mr. Beaufort well.”
“Did you? You could not know a better man. Well, I shall be very glad
to engage you, though you seem by your hands to be a bit of a
gentleman--eh? Never mind; don’t want you to groom!--but superintend
things. D’ye know accounts, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Character?”
Philip repeated to Mr. Stubmore the story he had imparted to Mr. Clump.
Somehow or other, men who live much with horses are always more lax in
their notions than the rest of mankind. Mr. Stubmore did not seem to
grow more distant at Philip’s narration.
“Understand you perfectly, my man. Brought up with them ‘ere fine
creturs, how could you nail your nose to a desk? I’ll take you without
more palaver. What’s your name?”
“Philips.”
“Come to-morrow, and we’ll settle about wages. Sleep here?”
“No. I have a brother whom I must lodge with, and for whose sake I wish
to work. I should not like him to be at the stables--he is too young.
But I can come early every day, and go home late.”
“Well, just as you like, my man. Good day.”
And thus, not from any mental accomplishment--not from the result of his
intellectual education, but from the mere physical capacity and brute
habit of sticking fast on his saddle, did Philip Morton, in this great,
intelligent, gifted, civilised, enlightened community of Great Britain,
find the means of earning his bread without stealing it.
CHAPTER VIII.
“Don Salluste (souriunt). Je paire
Que vous ne pensiez pas a moi?”--Ruy Blas.
“Don Salluste. Cousin!
Don Cesar. De vos bienfaits je n’aurai nulle envie,
Tant que je trouverai vivant ma libre vie.”--Ibid.
Don Sallust (smiling). I’ll lay a wager you won’t think of me?
Don Sallust. Cousin!
Don Caesar. I covet not your favours, so but I lead an independent
life.
Phillip’s situation was agreeable to his habits. His great courage and
skill in horsemanship were not the only qualifications useful to Mr.
Stubmore: his education answered a useful purpose in accounts, and
his manners and appearance were highly to the credit of the yard. The
customers and loungers soon grew to like Gentleman Philips, as he was
styled in the establishment. Mr. Stubmore conceived a real affection for
him. So passed several weeks; and Philip, in this humble capacity, might
have worked out his destinies in peace and comfort, but for a new
cause of vexation that arose in Sidney. This boy was all in all to his
brother. For him he had resisted the hearty and joyous invitations
of Gawtrey (whose gay manner and high spirits had, it must be owned,
captivated his fancy, despite the equivocal mystery of the man’s
avocations and condition); for him he now worked and toiled, cheerful
and contented; and him he sought to save from all to which he subjected
himself. He could not bear that that soft and delicate child should ever
be exposed to the low and menial associations that now made up his
own life--to the obscene slang of grooms and ostlers--to their coarse
manners and rough contact. He kept him, therefore, apart and aloof in
their little lodging, and hoped in time to lay by, so that Sidney might
ultimately be restored, if not to his bright original sphere, at least
to a higher grade than that to which Philip was himself condemned. But
poor Sidney could not bear to be thus left alone--to lose sight of his
brother from daybreak till bed-time--to have no one to amuse him;
he fretted and pined away: all the little inconsiderate selfishness,
uneradicated from his breast by his sufferings, broke out the more, the
more he felt that he was the first object on earth to Philip. Philip,
thinking he might be more cheerful at a day-school, tried the experiment
of placing him at one where the boys were much of his own age. But
Sidney, on the third day, came back with a black eye, and he would
return no more. Philip several times thought of changing their lodging
for one where there were young people. But Sidney had taken a fancy to
the kind old widow who was their landlady, and cried at the thought of
removal. Unfortunately, the old woman was deaf and rheumatic; and though
she bore teasing ad libitum, she could not entertain the child long on
a stretch. Too young to be reasonable, Sidney could not, or would not,
comprehend why his brother was so long away from him; and once he said,
peevishly,--
“If I had thought I was to be moped up so, I would not have left Mrs.
Morton. Tom was a bad boy, but still it was somebody to play with. I
wish I had not gone away with you!”
This speech cut Philip to the heart. What, then, he had taken from the
child a respectable and safe shelter--the sure provision of a life--and
the child now reproached him! When this was said to him, the tears
gushed from his eyes. “God forgive me, Sidney,” said he, and turned
away.
But then Sidney, who had the most endearing ways with him, seeing his
brother so vexed, ran up and kissed him, and scolded himself for being
naughty. Still the words were spoken, and their meaning rankled deep.
Philip himself, too, was morbid in his excessive tenderness for this
boy. There is a certain age, before the love for the sex commences, when
the feeling of friendship is almost a passion. You see it constantly
in girls and boys at school. It is the first vague craving of the heart
after the master food of human life--Love. It has its jealousies, and
humours, and caprices, like love itself. Philip was painfully acute to
Sidney’s affection, was jealous of every particle of it. He dreaded lest
his brother should ever be torn from him.
He would start from his sleep at night, and go to Sidney’s bed to see
that he was there. He left him in the morning with forebodings--he
returned in the dark with fear. Meanwhile the character of this young
man, so sweet and tender to Sidney, was gradually becoming more hard and
stern to others. He had now climbed to the post of command in that rude
establishment; and premature command in any sphere tends to make men
unsocial and imperious.
One day Mr. Stubmore called him into his own countinghouse, where stood
a gentleman, with one hand in his coatpocket, the other tapping his whip
against his boot.
“Philips, show this gentleman the brown mare. She is a beauty in
harness, is she not? This gentleman wants a match for his pheaton.”
“She must step very hoigh,” said the gentleman, turning round: and
Philip recognised the beau in the stage-coach. The recognition was
simultaneous. The beau nodded, then whistled, and winked.
“Come, my man, I am at your service,” said he.
Philip, with many misgivings, followed him across the yard. The
gentleman then beckoned him to approach.
“You, sir,--moind, I never peach--setting up here in the honest line?
Dull work, honesty,--eh?”
“Sir, I really don’t know you.”
“Daun’t you recollect old Greggs, the evening you came there with jolly
Bill Gawtrey? Recollect that, eh?” Philip was mute.
“I was among the gentlemen in the back parlour who shook you by the
hand. Bill’s off to France, then. I am tauking the provinces. I want a
good horse--the best in the yard, moind! Cutting such a swell here! My
name is Captain de Burgh Smith--never moind yours, my fine faellow. Now,
then, out with your rattlers, and keep your tongue in your mouth.”
Philip mechanically ordered out the brown mare, which Captain Smith did
not seem much to approve of; and, after glancing round the stables with
great disdain of the collection, he sauntered out of the yard without
saying more to Philip, though he stopped and spoke a few sentences to
Mr. Stubmore. Philip hoped he had no design of purchasing, and that
he was rid, for the present, of so awkward a customer. Mr. Stubmore
approached Philip.
“Drive over the greys to Sir John,” said he. “My lady wants a pair to
job. A very pleasant man, that Captain Smith. I did not know you had
been in a yard before--says you were the pet at Elmore’s in London.
Served him many a day. Pleasant, gentlemanlike man!”
“Y-e-s!” said Philip, hardly knowing what he said, and hurrying back
into the stables to order out the greys. The place to which he was bound
was some miles distant, and it was sunset when he returned. As he drove
into the main street, two men observed him closely.
“That is he! I am almost sure it is,” said one. “Oh! then it’s all
smooth sailing,” replied the other.
“But, bless my eyes! you must be mistaken! See whom he’s talking to
now!”
At that moment Captain de Burgh Smith, mounted on the brown mare,
stopped Philip.
“Well, you see, I’ve bought her,--hope she’ll turn out well. What do you
really think she’s worth? Not to buy, but to sell?”
“Sixty guineas.”
“Well, that’s a good day’s work; and I owe it to you. The old faellow
would not have trusted me if you had not served me at Elmore’s--ha! ha!
If he gets scent and looks shy at you, my lad, come to me. I’m at the
Star Hotel for the next few days. I want a tight faellow like you, and
you shall have a fair percentage. I’m none of your stingy ones. I say, I
hope this devil is quiet? She cocks up her ears dawmnably!”
“Look you, sir!” said Philip, very gravely, and rising up in his break;
“I know very little of you, and that little is not much to your credit.
I give you fair warning that I shall caution my employer against you.”
“Will you, my fine faellow? then take care of yourself.”
“Stay, and if you dare utter a word against me,” said Philip, with
that frown to which his swarthy complexion and flashing eyes gave an
expression of fierce power beyond his years, “you will find that, as
I am the last to care for a threat, so I am the first to resent an
injury!”
Thus saying, he drove on. Captain Smith affected a cough, and put his
brown mare into a canter. The two men followed Philip as he drove into
the yard.
“What do you know against the person he spoke to?” said one of them.
“Merely that he is one of the cunningest swells on this side the Bay,”
returned the other. “It looks bad for your young friend.”
The first speaker shook his head and made no reply.
On gaining the yard, Philip found that Mr. Stubmore had gone out, and
was not expected home till the next day. He had some relations who were
farmers, whom he often visited; to them he was probably gone.
Philip, therefore, deferring his intended caution against the gay
captain till the morrow, and musing how the caution might be most
discreetly given, walked homeward. He had just entered the lane that led
to his lodgings, when he saw the two men I have spoken of on the other
side of the street. The taller and better-dressed of the two left his
comrade; and crossing over to Philip, bowed, and thus accosted him,--
“Fine evening, Mr. Philip Morton. I am rejoiced to see you at last. You
remember me--Mr. Blackwell, Lincoln’s Inn.”
“What is your business?” said Philip, halting, and speaking short and
fiercely.
“Now don’t be in a passion, my dear sir,--now don’t. I am here on behalf
of my clients, Messrs. Beaufort, sen. and jun. I have had such work to
find you! Dear, dear! but you are a sly one! Ha! ha! Well, you see we
have settled that little affair of Plaskwith’s for you (might have been
ugly), and now I hope you will--”
“To your business, sir! What do you want with me?”
“Why, now, don’t be so quick! ‘Tis not the way to do business. Suppose
you step to my hotel. A glass of wine now, Mr. Philip! We shall soon
understand each other.”
“Out of my path, or speak plainly!”
Thus put to it, the lawyer, casting a glance at his stout companion, who
appeared to be contemplating the sunset on the other side of the way,
came at once to the marrow of his subject.
“Well, then,--well, my say is soon said. Mr. Arthur Beaufort takes a
most lively interest in you; it is he who has directed this inquiry. He
bids me say that he shall be most happy--yes, most happy--to serve you
in anything; and if you will but see him, he is in the town, I am sure
you will be charmed with him--most amiable young man!”
“Look you, sir,” said Philip, drawing himself up “neither from father,
nor from son, nor from one of that family, on whose heads rest the
mother’s death and the orphans’ curse, will I ever accept boon or
benefit--with them, voluntarily, I will hold no communion; if they force
themselves in my path, let them beware! I am earning my bread in the way
I desire--I am independent--I want them not. Begone!”
With that, Philip pushed aside the lawyer and strode on rapidly. Mr.
Blackwell, abashed and perplexed, returned to his companion.
Philip regained his home, and found Sidney stationed at the window
alone, and with wistful eyes noting the flight of the grey moths as they
darted to and fro, across the dull shrubs that, variegated with lines
for washing, adorned the plot of ground which the landlady called a
garden. The elder brother had returned at an earlier hour than usual,
and Sidney did not at first perceive him enter. When he did he clapped
his hands, and ran to him.
“This is so good in you, Philip. I have been so dull; you will come and
play now?”
“With all my heart--where shall we play?” said Philip, with a cheerful
smile.
“Oh, in the garden!--it’s such a nice time for hide and seek.”
“But is it not chill and damp for you?” said Philip.
“There now; you are always making excuses. I see you don’t like it. I
have no heart to play now.”
Sidney seated himself and pouted.
“Poor Sidney! you must be dull without me. Yes, let us play; but put on
this handkerchief;” and Philip took off his own cravat and tied it round
his brother’s neck, and kissed him.
Sidney, whose anger seldom lasted long, was reconciled; and they went
into the garden to play. It was a little spot, screened by an old
moss-grown paling, from the neighbouring garden on the one side and
a lane on the other. They played with great glee till the night grew
darker and the dews heavier.
“This must be the last time,” cried Philip. “It is my turn to hide.”
“Very well! Now, then.”
Philip secreted himself behind a poplar; and as Sidney searched for him,
and Philip stole round and round the tree, the latter, happening to look
across the paling, saw the dim outline of a man’s figure in the lane,
who appeared watching them. A thrill shot across his breast. These
Beauforts, associated in his thoughts with every evil omen and augury,
had they set a spy upon his movements? He remained erect and gazing
at the form, when Sidney discovered, and ran up to him, with his noisy
laugh.
As the child clung to him, shouting with gladness, Philip, unheeding his
playmate, called aloud and imperiously to the stranger--
“What are you gaping at? Why do you stand watching us?”
The man muttered something, moved on, and disappeared. “I hope there
are no thieves here! I am so much afraid of thieves,” said Sidney,
tremulously.
The fear grated on Philip’s heart. Had he not himself, perhaps, been
judged and treated as a thief? He said nothing, but drew his brother
within; and there, in their little room, by the one poor candle, it was
touching and beautiful to see these boys--the tender patience of the
elder lending itself to every whim of the younger--now building
houses with cards--now telling stories of fairy and knight-errant--the
sprightliest he could remember or invent. At length, as all was over,
and Sidney was undressing for the night, Philip, standing apart, said to
him, in a mournful voice:--
“Are you sad now, Sidney?”
“No! not when you are with me--but that is so seldom.”
“Do you read none of the story-books I bought for you?”
“Sometimes! but one can’t read all day.”
“Ah! Sidney, if ever we should part, perhaps you will love me no
longer!”
“Don’t say so,” said Sidney. “But we sha’n’t part, Philip?”
Philip sighed, and turned away as his brother leaped into bed. Something
whispered to him that danger was near; and as it was, could Sidney grow
up, neglected and uneducated; was it thus that he was to fulfil his
trust?
CHAPTER IX.
“But oh, what storm was in that mind!”--CRABBE. Ruth
While Philip mused, and his brother fell into the happy sleep of
childhood, in a room in the principal hotel of the town sat three
persons, Arthur Beaufort, Mr. Spencer, and Mr. Blackwell.
“And so,” said the first, “he rejected every overture from the
Beauforts?”
“With a scorn I cannot convey to you!” replied the lawyer. “But the fact
is, that he is evidently a lad of low habits; to think of his being a
sort of helper to a horse dealer! I suppose, sir, he was always in the
stables in his father’s time. Bad company depraves the taste very soon;
but that is not the worst. Sharp declares that the man he was talking
with, as I told you, is a common swindler. Depend on it, Mr. Arthur, he
is incorrigible; all we can do is to save the brother.”
“It is too dreadful to contemplate!” said Arthur, who, still ill and
languid, reclined on a sofa.
“It is, indeed,” said Mr. Spencer; “I am sure I should not know what to
do with such a character; but the other poor child, it would be a mercy
to get hold of him.”
“Where is Mr. Sharp?” asked Arthur.
“Why,” said the lawyer, “he has followed Philip at a distance to find
out his lodgings, and learn if his brother is with him. Oh! here he is!”
and Blackwell’s companion in the earlier part of the evening entered.
“I have found him out, sir,” said Mr. Sharp, wiping his forehead. “What
a fierce ‘un he is! I thought he would have had a stone at my head; but
we officers are used to it; we does our duty, and Providence makes our
heads unkimmon hard!”
“Is the child with him?” asked Mr. Spencer.
“Yes, sir.”
“A little, quiet, subdued boy?” asked the melancholy inhabitant of the
Lakes.
“Quiet! Lord love you! never heard a noisier little urchin! There they
were, romping and romping in the garden, like a couple of gaol birds.”
“You see,” groaned Mr. Spencer, “he will make that poor child as bad as
himself.”
“What shall us do, Mr. Blackwell?” asked Sharp, who longed for his
brandy and water.
“Why, I was thinking you might go to the horse-dealer the first thing in
the morning; find out whether Philip is really thick with the swindler;
and, perhaps, Mr. Stubmore may have some influence with him, if, without
saying who he is--”
“Yes,” interrupted Arthur, “do not expose his name.”
“You could still hint that he ought to be induced to listen to his
friends and go with them. Mr. Stubmore may be a respectable man, and---”
“I understand,” said Sharp; “I have no doubt as how I can settle it. We
learns to know human natur in our profession;--‘cause why? we gets at
its blind side. Good night, gentlemen!”
“You seem very pale, Mr. Arthur; you had better go to bed; you promised
your father, you know.”
“Yes, I am not well; I will go to bed;” and Arthur rose, lighted his
candle, and sought his room.
“I will see Philip to-morrow,” he said to himself; “he will listen to
me.”
The conduct of Arthur Beaufort in executing the charge he had undertaken
had brought into full light all the most amiable and generous part
of his character. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, he had
expressed so much anxiety as to the fate of the orphans, that to quiet
him his father was forced to send for Mr. Blackwell. The lawyer had
ascertained, through Dr. ----, the name of Philip’s employer at R----.
At Arthur’s request he went down to Mr. Plaskwith; and arriving there
the day after the return of the bookseller, learned those particulars
with which Mr. Plaskwith’s letter to Roger Morton has already made
the reader acquainted. The lawyer then sent for Mr. Sharp, the
officer before employed, and commissioned him to track the young man’s
whereabout. That shrewd functionary soon reported that a youth every way
answering to Philip’s description had been introduced the night of the
escape by a man celebrated, not indeed for robberies, or larcenies, or
crimes of the coarser kind, but for address in all that more large and
complex character which comes under the denomination of living upon
one’s wits, to a polite rendezvous frequented by persons of a similar
profession. Since then, however, all clue of Philip was lost. But
though Mr. Blackwell, in the way of his profession, was thus publicly
benevolent towards the fugitive, he did not the less privately represent
to his patrons, senior and junior, the very equivocal character that
Philip must be allowed to bear. Like most lawyers, hard upon all who
wander from the formal tracks, he unaffectedly regarded Philip’s flight
and absence as proofs of a reprobate disposition; and this conduct
was greatly aggravated in his eyes by Mr. Sharp’s report, by which it
appeared that after his escape Philip had so suddenly, and, as it
were, so naturally, taken to such equivocal companionship. Mr. Robert
Beaufort, already prejudiced against Philip, viewed matters in the same
light as the lawyer; and the story of his supposed predilections reached
Arthur’s ears in so distorted a shape, that even he was staggered and
revolted:--still Philip was so young--Arthur’s oath to the orphans’
mother so recent--and if thus early inclined to wrong courses, should
not every effort be made to lure him back to the straight path? With
these views and reasonings, as soon as he was able, Arthur himself
visited Mrs. Lacy, and the note from Philip, which the good lady put
into his hands, affected him deeply, and confirmed all his previous
resolutions. Mrs. Lacy was very anxious to get at his name; but Arthur,
having heard that Philip had refused all aid from his father and Mr.
Blackwell, thought that the young man’s pride might work equally against
himself, and therefore evaded the landlady’s curiosity. He wrote the
next day the letter we have seen, to Mr. Roger Morton, whose address
Catherine had given to him; and by return of post came a letter from the
linendraper narrating the flight of Sidney, as it was supposed with his
brother. This news so excited Arthur that he insisted on going down to
N---- at once, and joining in the search. His father, alarmed for his
health, positively refused; and the consequence was an increase of
fever, a consultation with the doctors, and a declaration that Mr.
Arthur was in that state that it would be dangerous not to let him have
his own way, Mr. Beaufort was forced to yield, and with Blackwell
and Mr. Sharp accompanied his son to N----. The inquiries, hitherto
fruitless, then assumed a more regular and business-like character.
By little and little they came, through the aid of Mr. Sharp, upon the
right clue, up to a certain point. But here there was a double scent:
two youths answering the description, had been seen at a small village;
then there came those who asserted that they had seen the same youths
at a seaport in one direction; others, who deposed to their having taken
the road to an inland town in the other. This had induced Arthur and his
father to part company. Mr. Beaufort, accompanied by Roger Morton,
went to the seaport; and Arthur, with Mr. Spencer and Mr. Sharp, more
fortunate, tracked the fugitives to their retreat. As for Mr. Beaufort,
senior, now that his mind was more at ease about his son, he was
thoroughly sick of the whole thing; greatly bored by the society of
Mr. Morton; very much ashamed that he, so respectable and great a man,
should be employed on such an errand; more afraid of, than pleased with,
any chance of discovering the fierce Philip; and secretly resolved upon
slinking back to London at the first reasonable excuse.
The next morning Mr. Sharp entered betimes Mr. Stubmore’s
counting-house. In the yard he caught a glimpse of Philip, and managed
to keep himself unseen by that young gentleman.
“Mr. Stubmore, I think?”
“At your service, sir.”
Mr. Sharp shut the glass door mysteriously, and lifting up the corner
of a green curtain that covered the panes, beckoned to the startled
Stubmore to approach.
“You see that ‘ere young man in the velveteen jacket? you employs him?”
“I do, sir; he’s my right hand.”
“Well, now, don’t be frightened, but his friends are arter him. He has
got into bad ways, and we want you to give him a little good advice.”
“Pooh! I know he has run away, like a fine-spirited lad as he is; and
as long as he likes to stay with me, they as comes after him may get a
ducking in the horse-trough!”
“Be you a father? a father of a family, Mr. Stubmore?” said Sharp,
thrusting his hands into his breeches pockets, swelling out his stomach,
and pursing up his lips with great solemnity.
“Nonsense! no gammon with me! Take your chaff to the goslings. I tells
you I can’t do without that ‘ere lad. Every man to himself.”
“Oho!” thought Sharp, “I must change the tack.”
“Mr. Stubmore,” said he, taking a stool, “you speaks like a sensible
man. No one can reasonably go for to ask a gentleman to go for to
inconvenience hisself. But what do you know of that ‘ere youngster. Had
you a carakter with him?”
“What’s that to you?”
“Why, it’s more to yourself, Mr. Stubmore; he is but a lad, and if he
goes back to his friends they may take care of him, but he got into
a bad set afore he come here. Do you know a good-looking chap with
whiskers, who talks of his pheaton, and was riding last night on a brown
mare?”
“Y--e--s!” said Mr. Stubmore, growing rather pale, “and I knows the
mare, too. Why, sir, I sold him that mare!”
“Did he pay you for her?”
“Why, to be sure, he gave me a cheque on Coutts.”
“And you took it! My eyes! what a flat!” Here Mr. Sharp closed the orbs
he had invoked, and whistled with that self-hugging delight which men
invariably feel when another man is taken in.
Mr. Stubmore became evidently nervous.
“Why, what now;--you don’t think I’m done? I did not let him have the
mare till I went to the hotel,--found he was cutting a great dash there,
a groom, a pheaton, and a fine horse, and as extravagant as the devil!”
“O Lord!--O Lord! what a world this is! What does he call his-self?”
“Why, here’s the cheque--George Frederick de--de Burgh Smith.”
“Put it in your pipe, my man,--put it in your pipe--not worth a d---!”
“And who the deuce are you, sir?” bawled out Mr. Stubmore, in an equal
rage both with himself and his guest.
“I, sir,” said the visitor, rising with great dignity,--“I, sir, am of
the great Bow Street Office, and my name is John Sharp!”
Mr. Stubmore nearly fell off his stool, his eyes rolled in his head, and
his teeth chattered. Mr. Sharp perceived the advantage he had gained,
and continued,--
“Yes, sir; and I could have much to say against that chap, who is
nothing more or less than Dashing Jerry, as has ruined more girls and
more tradesmen than any lord in the land. And so I called to give you
a bit of caution; for, says I to myself, ‘Mr. Stubmore is a respectable
man.’”
“I hope I am, sir,” said the crestfallen horse-dealer; “that was always
my character.”
“And the father of a family?”
“Three boys and a babe at the buzzom,” said Mr. Stubmore pathetically.
“And he sha’n’t be taken in if I can help it! That ‘ere young man as I
am arter, you see, knows Captain Smith--ha! ha!--smell a rat now--eh?”
“Captain Smith said he knew him--the wiper--and that’s what made me so
green.”
“Well, we must not be hard on the youngster: ‘cause why? he has friends
as is gemmen. But you tell him to go back to his poor dear relations,
and all shall be forgiven; and say as how you won’t keep him; and if he
don’t go back, he’ll have to get his livelihood without a carakter; and
use your influence with him like a man and a Christian, and what’s more,
like the father of a family--Mr. Stubmore--with three boys and a babe at
the buzzom. You won’t keep him now?”
“Keep him! I have had a precious escape. I’d better go and see after the
mare.”
“I doubt if you’ll find her: the Captain caught a sight of me this
morning. Why, he lodges at our hotel. He’s off by this time!”
“And why the devil did you let him go?”
“‘Cause I had no writ agin him!” said the Bow Street officer; and he
walked straight out of the counting-office, satisfied that he had “done
the job.”
To snatch his hat--to run to the hotel--to find that Captain Smith had
indeed gone off in his phaeton, bag and baggage, the same as he came,
except that he had now two horses to the phaeton instead of one--having
left with the landlord the amount of his bill in another cheque upon
Coutts--was the work of five minutes with Mr. Stubmore. He returned
home, panting and purple with indignation and wounded feeling.
“To think that chap, whom I took into my yard like a son, should have
connived at this! ‘Tain’t the money--‘tis the willany that ‘flicts me!”
muttered Mr. Stubmore, as he re-entered the mews.
Here he came plump upon Philip, who said--
“Sir, I wished to see you, to say that you had better take care of
Captain Smith.”
“Oh, you did, did you, now he’s gone? ‘sconded off to America, I dare
say, by this time. Now look ye, young man; your friends are after you, I
won’t say anything agin you; but you go back to them--I wash my hands
of you. Quite too much for me. There’s your week, and never let me catch
you in my yard agin, that’s all!”
Philip dropped the money which Stubmore had put into his hand. “My
friends!--friends have been with you, have they? I thought so--I thank
them. And so you part with me? Well, you have been very kind, very kind;
let us part kindly;” and he held out his hand.
Mr. Stubmore was softened--he touched the hand held out to him, and
looked doubtful a moment; but Captain de Burgh Smith’s cheque for eighty
guineas suddenly rose before his eyes. He turned on his heel abruptly,
and said, over his shoulder:
“Don’t go after Captain Smith (he’ll come to the gallows); mend your
ways, and be ruled by your poor dear relatives, whose hearts you are
breaking.”
“Captain Smith! Did my relations tell you?”
“Yes--yes--they told me all--that is, they sent to tell me; so you see
I’m d---d soft not to lay hold of you. But, perhaps, if they be gemmen,
they’ll act as sich, and cash me this here cheque!”
But the last words were said to air. Philip had rushed from the yard.
With a heaving breast, and every nerve in his body quivering with wrath,
the proud, unhappy boy strode through the gay streets. They had betrayed
him then, these accursed Beauforts! they circled his steps with schemes
to drive him like a deer into the snare of their loathsome charity! The
roof was to be taken from his head--the bread from his lips--so that
he might fawn at their knees for bounty. “But they shall not break my
spirit, nor steal away my curse. No, my dead mother, never!”
As he thus muttered, he passed through a patch of waste land that led
to the row of houses in which his lodging was placed. And here a voice
called to him, and a hand was laid on his shoulder. He turned, and
Arthur Beaufort, who had followed him from the street, stood behind him.
Philip did not, at the first glance, recognise his cousin; illness had
so altered him, and his dress was so different from that in which he had
first and last beheld him. The contrast between the two young men
was remarkable. Philip was clad in a rough garb suited to his late
calling--a jacket of black velveteen, ill-fitting and ill-fashioned,
loose fustian trousers, coarse shoes, his hat set deep over his pent
eyebrows, his raven hair long and neglected. He was just at that age
when one with strong features and robust frame is at the worst in point
of appearance--the sinewy proportions not yet sufficiently fleshed, and
seeming inharmonious and undeveloped; precisely in proportion, perhaps,
to the symmetry towards which they insensibly mature: the contour of
the face sharpened from the roundness of boyhood, and losing its bloom
without yet acquiring that relief and shadow which make the expression
and dignity of the masculine countenance. Thus accoutred, thus gaunt,
and uncouth, stood Morton. Arthur Beaufort, always refined in his
appearance, seemed yet more so from the almost feminine delicacy which
ill-health threw over his pale complexion and graceful figure; that sort
of unconscious elegance which belongs to the dress of the rich when
they are young--seen most in minutiae--not observable, perhaps, by
themselves-marked forcibly and painfully the distinction of rank between
the two. That distinction Beaufort did not feel; but at a glance it was
visible to Philip.
The past rushed back on him. The sunny lawn--the gun offered and
rejected--the pride of old, much less haughty than the pride of to-day.
“Philip,” said Beaufort, feebly, “they tell me you will not accept any
kindness from me or mine. Ah! if you knew how we have sought you!”
“Knew!” cried Philip, savagely, for that unlucky sentence recalled to
him his late interview with his employer, and his present destitution.
“Knew! And why have you dared to hunt me out, and halloo me down?--why
must this insolent tyranny, that assumes the right over these limbs
and this free will, betray and expose me and my wretchedness wherever I
turn?”
“Your poor mother--” began Beaufort.
“Name her not with your lips--name her not!” cried Philip, growing livid
with his emotions. “Talk not of the mercy--the forethought--a Beaufort
could show to her and her offspring! I accept it not--I believe it not.
Oh, yes! you follow me now with your false kindness; and why? Because
your father--your vain, hollow, heartless father--”
“Hold!” said Beaufort, in a tone of such reproach, that it startled the
wild heart on which it fell; “it is my father you speak of. Let the son
respect the son.”
“No--no--no! I will respect none of your race. I tell you your father
fears me. I tell you that my last words to him ring in his ears! My
wrongs! Arthur Beaufort, when you are absent I seek to forget them; in
your abhorred presence they revive--they--”
He stopped, almost choked with his passion; but continued instantly,
with equal intensity of fervour:
“Were yon tree the gibbet, and to touch your hand could alone save me
from it, I would scorn your aid. Aid! The very thought fires my
blood and nerves my hand. Aid! Will a Beaufort give me back my
birthright--restore my dead mother’s fair name? Minion!--sleek, dainty,
luxurious minion!--out of my path! You have my fortune, my station, my
rights; I have but poverty, and hate, and disdain. I swear, again and
again, that you shall not purchase these from me.”
“But, Philip--Philip,” cried Beaufort, catching his arm; “hear one--hear
one who stood by your--”
The sentence that would have saved the outcast from the demons that were
darkening and swooping round his soul, died upon the young Protector’s
lips. Blinded, maddened, excited, and exasperated, almost out of
humanity itself, Philip fiercely--brutally--swung aside the enfeebled
form that sought to cling to him, and Beaufort fell at his feet. Morton
stopped--glared at him with clenched hands and a smiling lip, sprung
over his prostrate form, and bounded to his home.
He slackened his pace as he neared the house, and looked behind; but
Beaufort had not followed him. He entered the house, and found Sidney
in the room, with a countenance so much more gay than that he had lately
worn, that, absorbed as he was in thought and passion, it yet did not
fail to strike him.
“What has pleased you, Sidney?” The child smiled.
“Ah! it is a secret--I was not to tell you. But I’m sure you are not the
naughty boy he says you are.”
“He!--who?”
“Don’t look so angry, Philip: you frighten me!”
“And you torture me. Who could malign one brother to the other?”
“Oh! it was all meant very kindly--there’s been such a nice, dear,
good gentleman here, and he cried when he saw me, and said he knew dear
mamma. Well, and he has promised to take me home with him and give me a
pretty pony--as pretty--as pretty--oh, as pretty as it can be got! And
he is to call again and tell me more: I think he is a fairy, Philip.”
“Did he say that he was to take me, too, Sidney?” said Morton, seating
himself, and looking very pale. At that question Sidney hung his head.
“No, brother--he says you won’t go, and that you are a bad boy--and that
you associate with wicked people--and that you want to keep me shut up
here and not let any one be good to me. But I told him I did not believe
that--yes, indeed, I told him so.”
And Sidney endeavoured caressingly to withdraw the hands that his
brother placed before his face.
Morton started up, and walked hastily to and fro the room. “This,”
thought he, “is another emissary of the Beauforts’--perhaps the lawyer:
they will take him from me--the last thing left to love and hope for. I
will foil them.”
“Sidney,” he said aloud, “we must go hence today, this very hour--nay,
instantly.”
“What! away from this nice, good gentleman?”
“Curse him! yes, away from him. Do not cry--it is of no use--you must
go.”
This was said more harshly than Philip had ever yet spoken to Sidney;
and when he had said it, he left the room to settle with the landlady,
and to pack up their scanty effects. In another hour, the brothers had
turned their backs on the town.
CHAPTER X.
“I’ll carry thee
In sorrow’s arms to welcome Misery.”
HEYWOOD’s Duchess of Sufolk.
“Who’s here besides foul weather?”
SHAKSPEARE Lear.
The sun was as bright and the sky as calm during the journey of the
orphans as in the last. They avoided, as before, the main roads,
and their way lay through landscapes that might have charmed a
Gainsborough’s eye. Autumn scattered its last hues of gold over the
various foliage, and the poppy glowed from the hedges, and the wild
convolvuli, here and there, still gleamed on the wayside with a parting
smile.
At times, over the sloping stubbles, broke the sound of the sportsman’s
gun; and ever and anon, by stream and sedge, they startled the shy wild
fowl, just come from the far lands, nor yet settled in the new haunts
too soon to be invaded.
But there was no longer in the travellers the same hearts that had made
light of hardship and fatigue. Sidney was no longer flying from a harsh
master, and his step was not elastic with the energy of fear that looked
behind, and of hope that smiled before. He was going a toilsome, weary
journey, he knew not why nor whither; just, too, when he had made
a friend, whose soothing words haunted his childish fancy. He was
displeased with Philip, and in sullen and silent thoughtfulness slowly
plodded behind him; and Morton himself was gloomy, and knew not where in
the world to seek a future.
They arrived at dusk at a small inn, not so far distant from the town
they had left as Morton could have wished; but the days were shorter
than in their first flight.
They were shown into a small sanded parlour, which Sidney eyed with
great disgust; nor did he seem more pleased with the hacked and jagged
leg of cold mutton, which was all that the hostess set before them for
supper. Philip in vain endeavoured to cheer him up, and ate to set
him the example. He felt relieved when, under the auspices of a
good-looking, good-natured chambermaid, Sidney retired to rest, and he
was left in the parlour to his own meditations. Hitherto it had been a
happy thing for Morton that he had had some one dependent on him; that
feeling had given him perseverance, patience, fortitude, and hope. But
now, dispirited and sad, he felt rather the horror of being responsible
for a human life, without seeing the means to discharge the trust.
It was clear, even to his experience, that he was not likely to find
another employer as facile as Mr. Stubmore; and wherever he went, he
felt as if his Destiny stalked at his back. He took out his little
fortune and spread it on the table, counting it over and over; it had
remained pretty stationary since his service with Mr. Stubmore, for
Sidney had swallowed up the wages of his hire. While thus employed, the
door opened, and the chambermaid, showing in a gentleman, said, “We have
no other room, sir.”
“Very well, then,--I’m not particular; a tumbler of braundy and water,
stiffish, cold without, the newspaper--and a cigar. You’ll excuse
smoking, sir?”
Philip looked up from his hoard, and Captain de Burgh Smith stood before
him.
“Ah!” said the latter, “well met!” And closing the door, he took off
his great-coat, seated himself near Philip, and bent both his eyes
with considerable wistfulness on the neat rows into which Philip’s
bank-notes, sovereigns, and shillings were arrayed.
“Pretty little sum for pocket money; caush in hand goes a great way,
properly invested. You must have been very lucky. Well, so I suppose you
are surprised to see me here without my pheaton?”
“I wish I had never seen you at all,” replied Philip, uncourteously, and
restoring his money to his pocket; “your fraud upon Mr. Stubmore, and
your assurance that you knew me, have sent me adrift upon the world.”
“What’s one man’s meat is another man’s poison,” said the captain,
philosophically; “no use fretting, care killed a cat. I am as badly off
as you; for, hang me, if there was not a Bow Street runner in the town.
I caught his eye fixed on me like a gimlet: so I bolted--went to N----,
left my pheaton and groom there for the present, and have doubled back,
to bauffle pursuit, and cut across the country. You recollect that noice
girl we saw in the coach; ‘gad, I served her spouse that is to be a
praetty trick! Borrowed his money under pretence of investing it in the
New Grand Anti-Dry-Rot Company; cool hundred--it’s only just gone, sir.”
Here the chambermaid entered with the brandy and water, the newspaper,
and cigar,--the captain lighted the last, took a deep sup from the
beverage, and said, gaily:
“Well, now, let us join fortunes; we are both, as you say, ‘adrift.’
Best way to staund the breeze is to unite the caubles.”
Philip shook his head, and, displeased with his companion, sought his
pillow. He took care to put his money under his head, and to lock his
door.
The brothers started at daybreak; Sidney was even more discontented than
on the previous day. The weather was hot and oppressive; they rested for
some hours at noon, and in the cool of the evening renewed their way.
Philip had made up his mind to steer for a town in the thick of a
hunting district, where he hoped his equestrian capacities might again
befriend him; and their path now lay through a chain of vast dreary
commons, which gave them at least the advantage to skirt the road-side
unobserved. But, somehow or other, either Philip had been misinformed as
to an inn where he had proposed to pass the night, or he had missed it;
for the clouds darkened, and the sun went down, and no vestige of human
habitation was discernible.
Sidney, footsore and querulous, began to weep, and declare that he could
stir no further; and while Philip, whose iron frame defied fatigue,
compassionately paused to rest his brother, a low roll of thunder broke
upon the gloomy air. “There will be a storm,” said he, anxiously. “Come
on--pray, Sidney, come on.”
“It is so cruel in you, brother Philip,” replied Sidney, sobbing. “I
wish I had never--never gone with you.”
A flash of lightning, that illuminated the whole heavens, lingered round
Sidney’s pale face as he spoke; and Philip threw himself instinctively
on the child, as if to protect him even from the wrath of the
unshelterable flame. Sidney, hushed and terrified, clung to his
brother’s breast; after a pause, he silently consented to resume their
journey. But now the storm came nearer and nearer to the wanderers.
The darkness grew rapidly more intense, save when the lightning lit up
heaven and earth alike with intolerable lustre. And when at length the
rain began to fall in merciless and drenching torrents, even Philip’s
brave heart failed him. How could he ask Sidney to proceed, when they
could scarcely see an inch before them?--all that could now be done was
to gain the high-road, and hope for some passing conveyance. With fits
and starts, and by the glare of the lightning, they obtained their
object; and stood at last on the great broad thoroughfare, along which,
since the day when the Roman carved it from the waste, Misery hath
plodded, and Luxury rolled, their common way.
Philip had stripped handkerchief, coat, vest, all to shelter Sidney;
and he felt a kind of strange pleasure through the dark, even to hear
Sidney’s voice wail and moan. But that voice grew more languid and
faint--it ceased--Sidney’s weight hung heavy--heavier on the fostering
arm.
“For Heaven’s sake, speak!--speak, Sidney!--only one word--I will carry
you in my arms!”
“I think I am dying,” replied Sidney, in a low murmur; “I am so tired
and worn out I can go no further--I must lie here.” And he sank at once
upon the reeking grass beside the road. At this time the rain
gradually relaxed, the clouds broke away--a grey light succeeded to the
darkness--the lightning was more distant; and the thunder rolled onward
in its awful path. Kneeling on the ground, Philip supported his brother
in his arms, and cast his pleading eyes upward to the softening terrors
of the sky. A star, a solitary star--broke out for one moment, as if to
smile comfort upon him, and then vanished. But lo! in the distance there
suddenly gleamed a red, steady light, like that in some solitary window;
it was no will-o’-the-wisp, it was too stationary--human shelter was
then nearer than he had thought for. He pointed to the light, and
whispered, “Rouse yourself, one struggle more--it cannot be far off.”
“It is impossible--I cannot stir,” answered Sidney: and a sudden flash
of lightning showed his countenance, ghastly, as if with the damps of
Death. What could the brother do?--stay there, and see the boy perish
before his eyes? leave him on the road and fly to the friendly light?
The last plan was the sole one left, yet he shrank from it in greater
terror than the first. Was that a step that he heard across the road? He
held his breath to listen--a form became dimly visible--it approached.
Philip shouted aloud.
“What now?” answered the voice, and it seemed familiar to Morton’s ear.
He sprang forward; and putting his face close to the wayfarer, thought
to recognise the features of Captain de Burgh Smith. The Captain, whose
eyes were yet more accustomed to the dark, made the first overture.
“Why, my lad, is it you then? ‘Gad, you froightened me!”
Odious as this man had hitherto been to Philip, he was as welcome to him
as daylight now; he grasped his hand,--“My brother--a child--is here,
dying, I fear, with cold and fatigue; he cannot stir. Will you stay with
him--support him--but for a few moments, while I make to yon light? See,
I have money--plenty of money!”
“My good lad, it is very ugly work staying here at this hour:
still--where’s the choild?”
“Here, here! make haste, raise him! that’s right! God bless you! I shall
be back ere you think me gone.”
He sprang from the road, and plunged through the heath, the furze,
the rank glistening pools, straight towards the light--as the swimmer
towards the shore.
The captain, though a rogue, was human; and when life--an innocent
life--is at stake, even a rogue’s heart rises up from its weedy bed.
He muttered a few oaths, it is true, but he held the child in his arms;
and, taking out a little tin case, poured some brandy down Sidney’s
throat and then, by way of company, down his own. The cordial revived
the boy; he opened his eyes, and said, “I think I can go on now,
Philip.”
........
We must return to Arthur Beaufort. He was naturally, though gentle, a
person of high spirit and not without pride. He rose from the ground
with bitter, resentful feelings and a blushing cheek, and went his way
to the hotel. Here he found Mr. Spencer just returned from his visit
to Sidney. Enchanted with the soft and endearing manners of his lost
Catherine’s son, and deeply affected with the resemblance the child bore
to the mother as he had seen her last at the gay and rosy age of
fair sixteen, his description of the younger brother drew Beaufort’s
indignant thoughts from the elder. He cordially concurred with Mr.
Spencer in the wish to save one so gentle from the domination of one so
fierce; and this, after all, was the child Catherine had most strongly
commended to him. She had said little of the elder; perhaps she had been
aware of his ungracious and untractable nature, and, as it seemed to
Arthur Beaufort, his predilections for a coarse and low career.
“Yes,” said he, “this boy, then, shall console me for the perverse
brutality of the other. He shall indeed drink of my cup, and eat of my
bread, and be to me as a brother.”
“What!” said Mr. Spencer, changing countenance, “you do not intend to
take Sidney to live with you. I meant him for my son--my adopted son.”
“No; generous as you are,” said Arthur, pressing his hand, “this charge
devolves on me--it is my right. I am the orphan’s relation--his mother
consigned him to me. But he shall be taught to love you not the less.”
Mr. Spencer was silent. He could not bear the thought of losing Sidney
as an inmate of his cheerless home, a tender relic of his early love.
From that moment he began to contemplate the possibility of securing
Sidney to himself, unknown to Beaufort.
The plans both of Arthur and Spencer were interrupted by the sudden
retreat of the brothers. They determined to depart different ways in
search of them. Spencer, as the more helpless of the two, obtained the
aid of Mr. Sharp; Beaufort departed with the lawyer.
Two travellers, in a hired barouche, were slowly dragged by a pair of
jaded posters along the commons I have just described.
“I think,” said one, “that the storm is very much abated; heigho! what
an unpleasant night!”
“Unkimmon ugly, sir,” answered the other; “and an awful long stage,
eighteen miles. These here remote places are quite behind the age,
sir--quite. However, I think we shall kitch them now.”
“I am very much afraid of that eldest boy, Sharp. He seems a dreadful
vagabond.”
“You see, sir, quite hand in glove with Dashing Jerry; met in the same
inn last night--preconcerted, you may be quite shure. It would be the
best day’s job I have done this many a day to save that ‘ere little
fellow from being corrupted. You sees he is just of a size to be useful
to these bad karakters. If they took to burglary, he would be a treasure
to them--slip him through a pane of glass like a ferret, sir.”
“Don’t talk of it, Sharp,” said Mr. Spencer, with a groan; “and
recollect, if we get hold of him, that you are not to say a word to Mr.
Beaufort.”
“I understand, sir; and I always goes with the gemman who behaves most
like a gemman.”
Here a loud halloo was heard close by the horses’ heads. “Good Heavens,
if that is a footpad!” said Mr. Spencer, shaking violently.
“Lord, sir, I have my barkers with me. Who’s there?” The barouche
stopped--a man came to the window. “Excuse me, sir,” said the stranger;
“but there is a poor boy here so tired and ill that I fear he will never
reach the next town, unless you will koindly give him a lift.”
“A poor boy!” said Mr. Spencer, poking his head over the head of Mr.
Sharp. “Where?”
“If you would just drop him at the King’s Awrms it would be a chaurity,”
said the man.
Sharp pinched Mr. Spencer in his shoulder. “That’s Dashing Jerry; I’ll
get out.” So saying, he opened the door, jumped into the road, and
presently reappeared with the lost and welcome Sidney in his arms.
“Ben’t this the boy?” he whispered to Mr. Spencer; and, taking the lamp
from the carriage, he raised it to the child’s face.
“It is! it is! God be thanked!” exclaimed the worthy man.
“Will you leave him at the King’s Awrms?--we shall be there in an hour
or two,” cried the Captain.
“We! Who’s we?” said Sharp, gruffly. “Why, myself and the choild’s
brother.”
“Oh!” said Sharp, raising the lantern to his own face; “you knows me,
I think, Master Jerry? Let me kitch you again, that’s all. And give
my compliments to your ‘sociate, and say, if he prosecutes this here
hurchin any more, we’ll settle his bizness for him; and so take a hint
and make yourself scarce, old boy!”
With that Mr. Sharp jumped into the barouche, and bade the postboy drive
on as fast as he could.
Ten minutes after this abduction, Philip, followed by two labourers,
with a barrow, a lantern, and two blankets, returned from the hospitable
farm to which the light had conducted him. The spot where he had left
Sidney, and which he knew by a neighbouring milestone, was vacant; he
shouted an alarm, and the Captain answered from the distance of some
threescore yards. Philip came to him. “Where is my brother?”
“Gone away in a barouche and pair. Devil take me if I understand it.”
And the Captain proceeded to give a confused account of what had passed.
“My brother! my brother! they have torn thee from me, then;” cried
Philip, and he fell to the earth insensible.
CHAPTER XI.
“Vous me rendrez mon frere!”
CASIMER DELAVIGNE: Les Enfans d’Edouard.
[You shall restore me my brother!]
One evening, a week after this event, a wild, tattered, haggard youth
knocked at the door of Mr. Robert Beaufort. The porter slowly presented
himself.
“Is your master at home? I must see him instantly.”
“That’s more than you can, my man; my master does not see the like
of you at this time of night,” replied the porter, eying the ragged
apparition before him with great disdain.
“See me he must and shall,” replied the young man; and as the porter
blocked up the entrance, he grasped his collar with a hand of iron,
swung him, huge as he was, aside, and strode into the spacious hall.
“Stop! stop!” cried the porter, recovering himself. “James! John! here’s
a go!”
Mr. Robert Beaufort had been back in town several days. Mrs. Beaufort,
who was waiting his return from his club, was in the dining-room.
Hearing a noise in the hall, she opened the door, and saw the strange
grim figure I have described, advancing towards her. “Who are you?” said
she; “and what do you want?”
“I am Philip Morton. Who are you?”
“My husband,” said Mrs. Beaufort, shrinking into the parlour, while
Morton followed her and closed the door, “my husband, Mr. Beaufort, is
not at home.”
“You are Mrs. Beaufort, then! Well, you can understand me. I want my
brother. He has been basely reft from me. Tell me where he is, and I
will forgive all. Restore him to me, and I will bless you and yours.”
And Philip fell on his knees and grasped the train of her gown. “I know
nothing of your brother, Mr. Morton,” cried Mrs. Beaufort, surprised
and alarmed. “Arthur, whom we expect every day, writes us word that all
search for him has been in vain.”
“Ha! you admit the search?” cried Morton, rising and clenching his
hands. “And who else but you or yours would have parted brother and
brother? Answer me where he is. No subterfuge, madam: I am desperate!”
Mrs. Beaufort, though a woman of that worldly coldness and indifference
which, on ordinary occasions, supply the place of courage, was extremely
terrified by the tone and mien of her rude guest. She laid her hand
on the bell; but Morton seized her arm, and, holding it sternly, said,
while his dark eyes shot fire through the glimmering room, “I will
not stir hence till you have told me. Will you reject my gratitude, my
blessing? Beware! Again, where have you hid my brother?”
At that instant the door opened, and Mr. Robert Beaufort entered. The
lady, with a shriek of joy, wrenched herself from Philip’s grasp, and
flew to her husband.
“Save me from this ruffian!” she said, with an hysterical sob.
Mr. Beaufort, who had heard from Blackwell strange accounts of Philip’s
obdurate perverseness, vile associates, and unredeemable character, was
roused from his usual timidity by the appeal of his wife.
“Insolent reprobate!” he said, advancing to Philip; “after all the
absurd goodness of my son and myself; after rejecting all our offers,
and persisting in your miserable and vicious conduct, how dare you
presume to force yourself into this house? Begone, or I will send for
the constables to remove YOU!
“Man, man,” cried Philip, restraining the fury that shook him from head
to foot, “I care not for your threats--I scarcely hear your abuse--your
son, or yourself, has stolen away my brother: tell me only where he is;
let me see him once more. Do not drive me hence, without one word of
justice, of pity. I implore you--on my knees I implore you--yes, I,--I
implore you, Robert Beaufort, to have mercy on your brother’s son. Where
is Sidney?” Like all mean and cowardly men, Robert Beaufort was rather
encouraged than softened by Philip’s abrupt humility.
“I know nothing of your brother; and if this is not all some villainous
trick--which it may be--I am heartily rejoiced that he, poor child! is
rescued from the contamination of such a companion,” answered Beaufort.
“I am at your feet still; again, for the last time, clinging to you a
suppliant: I pray you to tell me the truth.”
Mr. Beaufort, more and more exasperated by Morton’s forbearance,
raised his hand as if to strike; when, at that moment, one hitherto
unobserved--one who, terrified by the scene she had witnessed but could
not comprehend, had slunk into a dark corner of the room,--now came from
her retreat. And a child’s soft voice was heard, saying:
“Do not strike him, papa!--let him have his brother!” Mr. Beaufort’s arm
fell to his side: kneeling before him, and by the outcast’s side, was
his own young daughter; she had crept into the room unobserved, when her
father entered. Through the dim shadows, relieved only by the red and
fitful gleam of the fire, he saw her fair meek face looking up wistfully
at his own, with tears of excitement, and perhaps of pity--for children
have a quick insight into the reality of grief in those not far removed
from their own years--glistening in her soft eyes. Philip looked round
bewildered, and he saw that face which seemed to him, at such a time,
like the face of an angel.
“Hear her!” he murmured: “Oh, hear her! For her sake, do not sever one
orphan from the other!”
“Take away that child, Mrs. Beaufort,” cried Robert, angrily. “Will you
let her disgrace herself thus? And you, sir, begone from this roof; and
when you can approach me with due respect, I will give you, as I said I
would, the means to get an honest living.”
Philip rose; Mrs. Beaufort had already led away her daughter, and she
took that opportunity of sending in the servants: their forms filled up
the doorway.
“Will you go?” continued Mr. Beaufort, more and more emboldened, as he
saw the menials at hand, “or shall they expel you?”
“It is enough, sir,” said Philip, with a sudden calm and dignity that
surprised and almost awed his uncle. “My father, if the dead yet watch
over the living, has seen and heard you. There will come a day for
justice. Out of my path, hirelings!”
He waved his arm, and the menials shrank back at his tread, stalked
across the inhospitable hall, and vanished. When he had gained the
street, he turned and looked up at the house. His dark and hollow eyes,
gleaming through the long and raven hair that fell profusely over his
face, had in them an expression of menace almost preternatural, from its
settled calmness; the wild and untutored majesty which, though rags and
squalor, never deserted his form, as it never does the forms of men
in whom the will is strong and the sense of injustice deep; the
outstretched arm the haggard, but noble features; the bloomless and
scathed youth, all gave to his features and his stature an aspect awful
in its sinister and voiceless wrath. There he stood a moment, like one
to whom woe and wrong have given a Prophet’s power, guiding the eye of
the unforgetful Fate to the roof of the Oppressor. Then slowly, and with
a half smile, he turned away, and strode through the streets till he
arrived at one of the narrow lanes that intersect the more equivocal
quarters of the huge city. He stopped at the private entrance of a small
pawnbroker’s shop; the door was opened by a slipshod boy; he ascended
the dingy stairs till he came to the second floor; and there, in a small
back room, he found Captain de Burgh Smith, seated before a table with
a couple of candles on it, smoking a cigar, and playing at cards by
himself.
“Well, what news of your brother, Bully Phil?”
“None: they will reveal nothing.”
“Do you give him up?”
“Never! My hope now is in you.”
“Well, I thought you would be driven to come to me, and I will do
something for you that I should not loike to do for myself. I told you
that I knew the Bow Street runner who was in the barouche. I will find
him out--Heaven knows that is easily done; and, if you can pay well, you
will get your news.”
“You shall have all I possess, if you restore my brother. See what it
is, one hundred pounds--it was his fortune. It is useless to me without
him. There, take fifty now, and if--”
Philip stopped, for his voice trembled too much to allow him farther
speech. Captain Smith thrust the notes into his pocket, and said--
“We’ll consider it settled.”
Captain Smith fulfilled his promise. He saw the Bow Street officer. Mr.
Sharp had been bribed too high by the opposite party to tell tales, and
he willingly encouraged the suspicion that Sidney was under the care
of the Beauforts. He promised, however, for the sake of ten guineas,
to procure Philip a letter from Sidney himself. This was all he would
undertake.
Philip was satisfied. At the end of another week, Mr. Sharp transmitted
to the Captain a letter, which he, in his turn, gave to Philip. It ran
thus, in Sidney’s own sprawling hand:
“DEAR BROTHER PHILIP,--I am told you wish to know how I am, and therfore
take up my pen, and assure you that I write all out of my own head. I
am very Comfortable and happy--much more so than I have been since poor
deir mama died; so I beg you won’t vex yourself about me: and pray don’t
try and Find me out, For I would not go with you again for the world.
I am so much better Off here. I wish you would be a good boy, and leave
off your Bad ways; for I am sure, as every one says, I don’t know what
would have become of me if I had staid with you. Mr. [the Mr. half
scratched out] the gentleman I am with, says if you turn out Properly,
he will be a friend to you, Too; but he advises you to go, like a Good
boy, to Arthur Beaufort, and ask his pardon for the past, and then
Arthur will be very kind to you. I send you a great Big sum of L20., and
the gentleman says he would send more, only it might make you naughty,
and set up. I go to church now every Sunday, and read good books, and
always pray that God may open your eyes. I have such a Nice Pony, with
such a long tale. So no more at present from your affectionate brother,
SIDNEY MORTON.”
Oct. 8, 18--
“Pray, pray don’t come after me Any more. You know I neerly died of it,
but for this deir good gentleman I am with.”
So this, then, was the crowning reward of all his sufferings and all
his love! There was the letter, evidently undictated, with its errors
of orthography, and in the child’s rough scrawl; the serpent’s tooth
pierced to the heart, and left there its most lasting venom.
“I have done with him for ever,” said Philip, brushing away the bitter
tears. “I will molest him no farther; I care no more to pierce this
mystery. Better for him as it is--he is happy! Well, well, and I--I will
never care for a human being again.”
He bowed his head over his hands; and when he rose, his heart felt to
him like stone. It seemed as if Conscience herself had fled from his
soul on the wings of departed Love.
CHAPTER XII.
“But you have found the mountain’s top--there sit
On the calm flourishing head of it;
And whilst with wearied steps we upward go,
See us and clouds below.”--COWLEY.
It was true that Sidney was happy in his new home, and thither we must
now trace him.
On reaching the town where the travellers in the barouche had been
requested to leave Sidney, “The King’s Arms” was precisely the inn
eschewed by Mr. Spencer. While the horses were being changed, he
summoned the surgeon of the town to examine the child, who had already
much recovered; and by stripping his clothes, wrapping him in warm
blankets, and administering cordials, he was permitted to reach another
stage, so as to baffle pursuit that night; and in three days Mr. Spencer
had placed his new charge with his maiden sisters, a hundred and fifty
miles from the spot where he had been found. He would not take him to
his own home yet. He feared the claims of Arthur Beaufort. He artfully
wrote to that gentleman, stating that he had abandoned the chase of
Sidney in despair, and desiring to know if he had discovered him; and a
bribe of L300. to Mr. Sharp with a candid exposition of his reasons
for secreting Sidney--reasons in which the worthy officer professed to
sympathise--secured the discretion of his ally. But he would not deny
himself the pleasure of being in the same house with Sidney, and was
therefore for some months the guest of his sisters. At length he heard
that young Beaufort had been ordered abroad for his health, and he
then deemed it safe to transfer his new idol to his Lares by the lakes.
During this interval the current of the younger Morton’s life had indeed
flowed through flowers. At his age the cares of females were almost a
want as well as a luxury, and the sisters spoiled and petted him as much
as any elderly nymphs in Cytherea ever petted Cupid. They were good,
excellent, high-nosed, flat-bosomed spinsters, sentimentally fond of
their brother, whom they called “the poet,” and dotingly attached to
children. The cleanness, the quiet, the good cheer of their neat abode,
all tended to revive and invigorate the spirits of their young guest,
and every one there seemed to vie which should love him the most. Still
his especial favourite was Mr. Spencer: for Spencer never went out
without bringing back cakes and toys; and Spencer gave him his pony; and
Spencer rode a little crop-eared nag by his side; and Spencer, in short,
was associated with his every comfort and caprice. He told them his
little history; and when he said how Philip had left him alone for long
hours together, and how Philip had forced him to his last and nearly
fatal journey, the old maids groaned, and the old bachelor sighed, and
they all cried in a breath, that “Philip was a very wicked boy.” It was
not only their obvious policy to detach him from his brother, but it was
their sincere conviction that they did right to do so. Sidney began, it
is true, by taking Philip’s part; but his mind was ductile, and he still
looked back with a shudder to the hardships he had gone through: and
so by little and little he learned to forget all the endearing and
fostering love Philip had evinced to him; to connect his name with dark
and mysterious fears; to repeat thanksgivings to Providence that he was
saved from him; and to hope that they might never meet again. In fact,
when Mr. Spencer learned from Sharp that it was through Captain Smith,
the swindler, that application had been made by Philip for news of his
brother, and having also learned before, from the same person, that
Philip had been implicated in the sale of a horse, swindled, if not
stolen, he saw every additional reason to widen the stream that flowed
between the wolf and the lamb. The older Sidney grew, the better he
comprehended and appreciated the motives of his protector--for he was
brought up in a formal school of propriety and ethics, and his mind
naturally revolted from all images of violence or fraud. Mr. Spencer
changed both the Christian and the surname of his protege, in order to
elude the search whether of Philip, the Mortons, or the Beauforts, and
Sidney passed for his nephew by a younger brother who had died in India.
So there, by the calm banks of the placid lake, amidst the fairest
landscapes of the Island Garden, the youngest born of Catherine passed
his tranquil days. The monotony of the retreat did not fatigue a spirit
which, as he grew up, found occupation in books, music, poetry, and the
elegances of the cultivated, if quiet, life within his reach. To the
rough past he looked back as to an evil dream, in which the image of
Philip stood dark and threatening. His brother’s name as he grew older
he rarely mentioned; and if he did volunteer it to Mr. Spencer, the
bloom on his cheek grew paler. The sweetness of his manners, his fair
face and winning smile, still continued to secure him love, and to
screen from the common eye whatever of selfishness yet lurked in his
nature. And, indeed, that fault in so serene a career, and with friends
so attached, was seldom called into action. So thus was he severed
from both the protectors, Arthur and Philip, to whom poor Catherine had
bequeathed him.
By a perverse and strange mystery, they, to whom the charge was most
intrusted were the very persons who were forbidden to redeem it. On
our death-beds when we think we have provided for those we leave
behind--should we lose the last smile that gilds the solemn agony, if we
could look one year into the Future?
Arthur Beaufort, after an ineffectual search for Sidney, heard, on
returning to his home, no unexaggerated narrative of Philip’s visit, and
listened, with deep resentment, to his mother’s distorted account of the
language addressed to her. It is not to be surprised that, with all
his romantic generosity, he felt sickened and revolted at violence that
seemed to him without excuse. Though not a revengeful character, he had
not that meekness which never resents. He looked upon Philip Morton as
upon one rendered incorrigible by bad passions and evil company.
Still Catherine’s last request, and Philip’s note to him, the Unknown
Comforter, often recurred to him, and he would have willingly yet aided
him had Philip been thrown in his way. But as it was, when he looked
around, and saw the examples of that charity that begins at home,
in which the world abounds, he felt as if he had done his duty; and
prosperity having, though it could not harden his heart, still sapped
the habits of perseverance, so by little and little the image of
the dying Catherine, and the thought of her sons, faded from his
remembrance. And for this there was the more excuse after the receipt of
an anonymous letter, which relieved all his apprehensions on behalf of
Sidney. The letter was short, and stated simply that Sidney Morton had
found a friend who would protect him throughout life; but who would not
scruple to apply to Beaufort if ever he needed his assistance. So one
son, and that the youngest and the best loved, was safe. And the other,
had he not chosen his own career? Alas, poor Catherine! when you fancied
that Philip was the one sure to force his way into fortune, and Sidney
the one most helpless, how ill did you judge of the human heart! It
was that very strength of Philip’s nature which tempted the winds that
scattered the blossoms, and shook the stem to its roots; while the
lighter and frailer nature bent to the gale, and bore transplanting to a
happier soil. If a parent read these pages, let him pause and think well
on the characters of his children; let him at once fear and hope the
most for the one whose passions and whose temper lead to a struggle with
the world. That same world is a tough wrestler, and has a bear’s gripe.
Meanwhile, Arthur Beaufort’s own complaints, which grew serious and
menaced consumption, recalled his thoughts more and more every day to
himself. He was compelled to abandon his career at the University,
and to seek for health in the softer breezes of the South. His parents
accompanied him to Nice; and when, at the end of a few months, he was
restored to health, the desire of travel seized the mind and attracted
the fancy of the young heir. His father and mother, satisfied with
his recovery, and not unwilling that he should acquire the polish of
Continental intercourse, returned to England; and young Beaufort, with
gay companions and munificent income, already courted, spoiled, and
flattered, commenced his tour with the fair climes of Italy.
So, O dark mystery of the Moral World!--so, unlike the order of the
External Universe, glide together, side by side, the shadowy steeds
of NIGHT AND MORNING. Examine life in its own world; confound not that
world, the inner one, the practical one, with the more visible, yet
airier and less substantial system, doing homage to the sun, to whose
throne, afar in the infinite space, the human heart has no wings to
flee. In life, the mind and the circumstance give the true seasons, and
regulate the darkness and the light. Of two men standing on the same
foot of earth, the one revels in the joyous noon, the other shudders
in the solitude of night. For Hope and Fortune, the day-star is ever
shining. For Care and Penury, Night changes not with the ticking of the
clock, nor with the shadow on the dial. Morning for the heir, night for
the houseless, and God’s eye over both.
BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
“The knight of arts and industry,
And his achievements fair.”
THOMSON’S Castle of Indolence: Explanatory Verse to Canto II.
In a popular and respectable, but not very fashionable quartier in
Paris, and in the tolerably broad and effective locale of the Rue ----,
there might be seen, at the time I now treat of, a curious-looking
building, that jutted out semicircularly from the neighbouring shops,
with plaster pilasters and compo ornaments. The virtuosi of the quartier
had discovered that the building was constructed in imitation of an
ancient temple in Rome; this erection, then fresh and new, reached only
to the entresol. The pilasters were painted light green and gilded
in the cornices, while, surmounting the architrave, were three little
statues--one held a torch, another a bow, and a third a bag; they were
therefore rumoured, I know not with what justice, to be the artistical
representatives of Hymen, Cupid and Fortune.
On the door was neatly engraved, on a brass plate, the following
inscription:
“MONSIEUR LOVE, ANGLAIS,
A L’ENTRESOL.”
And if you had crossed the threshold and mounted the stairs, and gained
that mysterious story inhabited by Monsieur Love, you would have seen,
upon another door to the right, another epigraph, informing those
interested in the inquiry that the bureau, of M. Love was open daily
from nine in the morning to four in the afternoon.
The office of M. Love--for office it was, and of a nature not
unfrequently designated in the “petites affiches” of Paris--had been
established about six months; and whether it was the popularity of the
profession, or the shape of the shop, or the manners of M. Love himself,
I cannot pretend to say, but certain it is that the Temple of Hymen--as
M. Love classically termed it--had become exceedingly in vogue in the
Faubourg St.--. It was rumoured that no less than nine marriages in the
immediate neighbourhood had been manufactured at this fortunate office,
and that they had all turned out happily except one, in which the bride
being sixty, and the bridegroom twenty-four, there had been rumours of
domestic dissension; but as the lady had been delivered,--I mean of her
husband, who had drowned himself in the Seine, about a month after the
ceremony, things had turned out in the long run better than might have
been expected, and the widow was so little discouraged; that she had
been seen to enter the office already--a circumstance that was greatly
to the credit of Mr. Love.
Perhaps the secret of Mr. Love’s success, and of the marked superiority
of his establishment in rank and popularity over similar ones, consisted
in the spirit and liberality with which the business was conducted.
He seemed resolved to destroy all formality between parties who might
desire to draw closer to each other, and he hit upon the lucky device
of a table d’hote, very well managed, and held twice a-week, and often
followed by a soiree dansante; so that, if they pleased, the aspirants
to matrimonial happiness might become acquainted without _gene_. As
he himself was a jolly, convivial fellow of much _savoir vivre_, it is
astonishing how well he made these entertainments answer. Persons who
had not seemed to take to each other in the first distant interview grew
extremely enamoured when the corks of the champagne--an extra of course
in the abonnement--bounced against the wall. Added to this, Mr. Love
took great pains to know the tradesmen in his neighbourhood; and, what
with his jokes, his appearance of easy circumstances, and the fluency
with which he spoke the language, he became a universal favourite. Many
persons who were uncommonly starched in general, and who professed to
ridicule the bureau, saw nothing improper in dining at the table d’hote.
To those who wished for secrecy he was said to be wonderfully discreet;
but there were others who did not affect to conceal their discontent at
the single state: for the rest, the entertainments were so contrived as
never to shock the delicacy, while they always forwarded the suit.
It was about eight o’clock in the evening, and Mr. Love was still seated
at dinner, or rather at dessert, with a party of guests. His apartments,
though small, were somewhat gaudily painted and furnished, and his
dining-room was decorated a la Turque. The party consisted--first, of
a rich epicier, a widower, Monsieur Goupille by name, an eminent man in
the Faubourg; he was in his grand climacteric, but still belhomme; wore
a very well-made peruque of light auburn, with tight pantaloons, which
contained a pair of very respectable calves; and his white neckcloth
and his large frill were washed and got up with especial care. Next to
Monsieur Goupille sat a very demure and very spare young lady of about
two-and-thirty, who was said to have saved a fortune--Heaven knows
how--in the family of a rich English milord, where she had officiated
as governess; she called herself Mademoiselle Adele de Courval, and was
very particular about the de, and very melancholy about her ancestors.
Monsieur Goupille generally put his finger through his peruque, and fell
away a little on his left pantaloon when he spoke to Mademoiselle de
Courval, and Mademoiselle de Courval generally pecked at her bouquet
when she answered Monsieur Goupille. On the other side of this young
lady sat a fine-looking fair man--M. Sovolofski, a Pole, buttoned up to
the chin, and rather threadbare, though uncommonly neat. He was
flanked by a little fat lady, who had been very pretty, and who kept a
boarding-house, or pension, for the English, she herself being English,
though long established in Paris. Rumour said she had been gay in her
youth, and dropped in Paris by a Russian nobleman, with a very pretty
settlement, she and the settlement having equally expanded by time and
season: she was called Madame Beavor. On the other side of the table was
a red-headed Englishman, who spoke very little French; who had been told
that French ladies were passionately fond of light hair; and who, having
L2000. of his own, intended to quadruple that sum by a prudent marriage.
Nobody knew what his family was, but his name was Higgins. His neighbour
was an exceedingly tall, large-boned Frenchman, with a long nose and
a red riband, who was much seen at Frascati’s, and had served under
Napoleon. Then came another lady, extremely pretty, very piquante, and
very gay, but past the premiere jeunesse, who ogled Mr. Love more than
she did any of his guests: she was called Rosalie Caumartin, and was at
the head of a large bon-bon establishment; married, but her husband had
gone four years ago to the Isle of France, and she was a little doubtful
whether she might not be justly entitled to the privileges of a widow.
Next to Mr. Love, in the place of honour, sat no less a person than the
Vicomte de Vaudemont, a French gentleman, really well-born, but whose
various excesses, added to his poverty, had not served to sustain that
respect for his birth which he considered due to it. He had already
been twice married; once to an Englishwoman, who had been decoyed by the
title; by this lady, who died in childbed, he had one son; a fact which
he sedulously concealed from the world of Paris by keeping the unhappy
boy--who was now some eighteen or nineteen years old--a perpetual exile
in England. Monsieur de Vaudemont did not wish to pass for more than
thirty, and he considered that to produce a son of eighteen would be to
make the lad a monster of ingratitude by giving the lie every hour to
his own father! In spite of this precaution the Vicomte found great
difficulty in getting a third wife--especially as he had no actual
land and visible income; was, not seamed, but ploughed up, with the
small-pox; small of stature, and was considered more than un peu
bete. He was, however, a prodigious dandy, and wore a lace frill
and embroidered waistcoat. Mr. Love’s vis-a-vis was Mr. Birnie, an
Englishman, a sort of assistant in the establishment, with a hard, dry,
parchment face, and a remarkable talent for silence. The host himself
was a splendid animal; his vast chest seemed to occupy more space at the
table than any four of his guests, yet he was not corpulent or unwieldy;
he was dressed in black, wore a velvet stock very high, and four gold
studs glittered in his shirt-front; he was bald to the crown, which made
his forehead appear singularly lofty, and what hair he had left was
a little greyish and curled; his face was shaved smoothly, except a
close-clipped mustache; and his eyes, though small, were bright and
piercing. Such was the party.
“These are the best bon-bons I ever ate,” said Mr. Love, glancing at
Madame Caumartin. “My fair friends, have compassion on the table of a
poor bachelor.”
“But you ought not to be a bachelor, Monsieur Lofe,” replied the fair
Rosalie, with an arch look; “you who make others marry, should set the
example.”
“All in good time,” answered Mr. Love, nodding; “one serves one’s
customers to so much happiness that one has none left for one’s self.”
Here a loud explosion was heard. Monsieur Goupille had pulled one of the
bon-bon crackers with Mademoiselle Adele.
“I’ve got the motto!--no--Monsieur has it: I’m always unlucky,” said the
gentle Adele.
The epicier solemnly unrolled the little slip of paper; the print was
very small, and he longed to take out his spectacles, but he thought
that would make him look old. However, he spelled through the motto with
some difficulty:--
“Comme elle fait soumettre un coeur,
En refusant son doux hommage,
On peut traiter la coquette en vainqueur;
De la beauty modeste on cherit l’esclavage.”
[The coquette, who subjugates a heart, yet refuses its tender
homage, one may treat as a conqueror: of modest beauty we cherish
the slavery.]
“I present it to Mademoiselle,” said he, laying the motto solemnly in
Adele’s plate, upon a little mountain of chestnut-husks.
“It is very pretty,” said she, looking down.
“It is very a propos,” whispered the epicier, caressing the peruque a
little too roughly in his emotion. Mr. Love gave him a kick under the
table, and put his finger to his own bald head, and then to his nose,
significantly. The intelligent epicier smoothed back the irritated
peruque.
“Are you fond of bon-bons, Mademoiselle Adele? I have a very fine stock
at home,” said Monsieur Goupille. Mademoiselle Adele de Courval sighed:
“Helas! they remind me of happier days, when I was a petite and my
dear grandmamma took me in her lap and told me how she escaped the
guillotine: she was an emigree, and you know her father was a marquis.”
The epicier bowed and looked puzzled. He did not quite see the
connection between the bon-bons and the guillotine. “You are triste,
Monsieur,” observed Madame Beavor, in rather a piqued tone, to the Pole,
who had not said a word since the roti.
“Madame, an exile is always triste: I think of my pauvre pays.”
“Bah!” cried Mr. Love. “Think that there is no exile by the side of a
belle dame.”
The Pole smiled mournfully.
“Pull it,” said Madame Beavor, holding a cracker to the patriot, and
turning away her face.
“Yes, madame; I wish it were a cannon in defence of La Pologne.”
With this magniloquent aspiration, the gallant Sovolofski pulled
lustily, and then rubbed his fingers, with a little grimace, observing
that crackers were sometimes dangerous, and that the present combustible
was d’une force immense.
“Helas! J’ai cru jusqu’a ce jour
Pouvoir triompher de l’amour,”
[Alas! I believed until to-day that I could triumph over love.]
said Madame Beavor, reading the motto. “What do you say to that?”
“Madame, there is no triumph for La Pologne!” Madame Beavor uttered a
little peevish exclamation, and glanced in despair at her red-headed
countryman. “Are you, too, a great politician, sir?” said she in
English.
“No, mem!--I’m all for the ladies.”
“What does he say?” asked Madame Caumartin.
“Monsieur Higgins est tout pour les dames.”
“To be sure he is,” cried Mr. Love; “all the English are, especially
with that coloured hair; a lady who likes a passionate adorer should
always marry a man with gold-coloured hair--always. What do you say,
Mademoiselle Adele?”
“Oh, I like fair hair,” said Mademoiselle, looking bashfully askew
at Monsieur Goupille’s peruque. “Grandmamma said her papa--the
marquis--used yellow powder: it must have been very pretty.”
“Rather a la sucre d’ orge,” remarked the epicier, smiling on the right
side of his mouth, where his best teeth were. Mademoiselle de Courval
looked displeased. “I fear you are a republican, Monsieur Goupille.”
“I, Mademoiselle. No; I’m for the Restoration;” and again the
epicier perplexed himself to discover the association of idea between
republicanism and sucre d’orge.
“Another glass of wine. Come, another,” said Mr. Love, stretching across
the Vicomte to help Madame Canmartin.
“Sir,” said the tall Frenchman with the riband, eying the epicier
with great disdain, “you say you are for the Restoration--I am for the
Empire--Moi!”
“No politics!” cried Mr. Love. “Let us adjourn to the salon.”
The Vicomte, who had seemed supremely ennuye during this dialogue,
plucked Mr. Love by the sleeve as he rose, and whispered petulantly, “I
do not see any one here to suit me, Monsieur Love--none of my rank.”
“Mon Dieu!” answered Mr. Love: “point d’ argent point de Suisse. I
could introduce you to a duchess, but then the fee is high. There’s
Mademoiselle de Courval--she dates from the Carlovingians.”
“She is very like a boiled sole,” answered the Vicomte, with a wry face.
“Still--what dower has she?”
“Forty thousand francs, and sickly,” replied Mr. Love; “but she likes a
tall man, and Monsieur Goupille is--”
“Tall men are never well made,” interrupted the Vicomte, angrily; and
he drew himself aside as Mr. Love, gallantly advancing, gave his arm to
Madame Beavor, because the Pole had, in rising, folded both his own arms
across his breast.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” said Mr. Love to Madame Beavor, as they adjourned to
the salon, “I don’t think you manage that brave man well.”
“Ma foi, comme il est ennuyeux avec sa Pologne,” replied Madame Beavor,
shrugging her shoulders.
“True; but he is a very fine-shaped man; and it is a comfort to think
that one will have no rival but his country. Trust me, and encourage him
a little more; I think he would suit you to a T.”
Here the attendant engaged for the evening announced Monsieur and Madame
Giraud; whereupon there entered a little--little couple, very fair, very
plump, and very like each other. This was Mr. Love’s show couple--his
decoy ducks--his last best example of match-making; they had been
married two months out of the bureau, and were the admiration of the
neighbourhood for their conjugal affection. As they were now united,
they had ceased to frequent the table d’hote; but Mr. Love often invited
them after the dessert, pour encourager les autres.
“My dear friends,” cried Mr. Love, shaking each by the hand, “I am
ravished to see you. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Monsieur
and Madame Giraud, the happiest couple in Christendom;--if I had done
nothing else in my life but bring them together I should not have lived
in vain!”
The company eyed the objects of this eulogium with great attention.
“Monsieur, my prayer is to deserve my bonheur,” said Monsieur Giraud.
“Cher ange!” murmured Madame: and the happy pair seated themselves next
to each other.
Mr. Love, who was all for those innocent pastimes which do away with
conventional formality and reserve, now proposed a game at “Hunt the
Slipper,” which was welcomed by the whole party, except the Pole and the
Vicomte; though Mademoiselle Adele looked prudish, and observed to the
epicier, “that Monsieur Lofe was so droll, but she should not have liked
her pauvre grandmaman to see her.”
The Vicomte had stationed himself opposite to Mademoiselle de Courval,
and kept his eyes fixed on her very tenderly.
“Mademoiselle, I see, does not approve of such bourgeois diversions,”
said he.
“No, monsieur,” said the gentle Adele. “But I think we must sacrifice
our own tastes to those of the company.”
“It is a very amiable sentiment,” said the epicier.
“It is one attributed to grandmamma’s papa, the Marquis de Courval. It
has become quite a hackneyed remark since,” said Adele.
“Come, ladies,” said the joyous Rosalie; “I volunteer my slipper.”
“Asseyez-vous donc,” said Madame Beavor to the Pole. “Have you no games
of this sort in Poland?”
“Madame, La Pologne is no more,” said the Pole. “But with the swords of
her brave--”
“No swords here, if you please,” said Mr. Love, putting his vast hands
on the Pole’s shoulder, and sinking him forcibly down into the circle
now formed.
The game proceeded with great vigour and much laughter from Rosalie, Mr.
Love, and Madame Beavor, especially whenever the last thumped the Pole
with the heel of the slipper. Monsieur Giraud was always sure that
Madame Giraud had the slipper about her, which persuasion on his part
gave rise to many little endearments, which are always so innocent among
married people. The Vicomte and the epicier were equally certain the
slipper was with Mademoiselle Adele, who defended herself with much
more energy than might have been supposed in one so gentle. The epicier,
however, grew jealous of the attentions of his noble rival, and told
him that he gene’d mademoiselle; whereupon the Vicomte called him an
impertinent; and the tall Frenchman, with the riband, sprang up and
said:
“Can I be of any assistance, gentlemen?”
Therewith Mr. Love, the great peacemaker, interposed, and reconciling
the rivals, proposed to change the game to Colin Maillard-Anglice,
“Blind Man’s Buff.” Rosalie clapped her hands, and offered herself to be
blindfolded. The tables and chairs were cleared away; and Madame Beaver
pushed the Pole into Rosalie’s arms, who, having felt him about the face
for some moments, guessed him to be the tall Frenchman. During this time
Monsieur and Madame Giraud hid themselves behind the window-curtain.
“Amuse yourself, _mon ami_,” said Madame Beaver, to the liberated Pole.
“Ah, madame,” sighed Monsieur Sovolofski, “how can I be gay! All
my property confiscated by the Emperor of Russia! Has La Pologne no
Brutus?”
“I think you are in love,” said the host, clapping him on the back.
“Are you quite sure,” whispered the Pole to the matchmaker, “that Madame
Beavor has vingt mille livres de rentes?”
“Not a sous less.”
The Pole mused, and, glancing at Madame Beavor, said, “And yet, madame,
your charming gaiety consoles me amidst all my suffering;” upon which
Madame Beavor called him “flatterer,” and rapped his knuckles with her
fan; the latter proceeding the brave Pole did not seem to like, for he
immediately buried his hands in his trousers’ pockets.
The game was now at its meridian. Rosalie was uncommonly active, and
flew about here and there, much to the harassment of the Pole, who
repeatedly wiped his forehead, and observed that it was warm work,
and put him in mind of the last sad battle for La Pologne. Monsieur
Goupille, who had lately taken lessons in dancing, and was vain of his
agility--mounted the chairs and tables, as Rosalie approached--with
great grace and gravity. It so happened that, in these saltations,
he ascended a stool near the curtain behind which Monsieur and Madame
Giraud were ensconced. Somewhat agitated by a slight flutter behind
the folds, which made him fancy, on the sudden panic, that Rosalie was
creeping that way, the epicier made an abrupt pirouette, and the hook on
which the curtains were suspended caught his left coat-tail,
“The fatal vesture left the unguarded side;”
just as he turned to extricate the garment from that dilemma, Rosalie
sprang upon him, and naturally lifting her hands to that height where
she fancied the human face divine, took another extremity of Monsieur
Goupille’s graceful frame thus exposed, by surprise.
“I don’t know who this is. Quelle drole de visage!” muttered Rosalie.
“Mais, madame,” faltered Monsieur Goupille, looking greatly
disconcerted.
The gentle Adele, who did not seem to relish this adventure, came to the
relief of her wooer, and pinched Rosalie very sharply in the arm.
“That’s not fair. But I will know who this is,” cried Rosalie, angrily;
“you sha’n’t escape!”
A sudden and universal burst of laughter roused her suspicions--she drew
back--and exclaiming, “Mais quelle mauvaise plaisanterie; c’est trop
fort!” applied her fair hand to the place in dispute, with so hearty
a good-will, that Monsieur Goupille uttered a dolorous cry, and
sprang from the chair leaving the coat-tail (the cause of all his woe)
suspended upon the hook.
It was just at this moment, and in the midst of the excitement caused by
Monsieur Goupille’s misfortune, that the door opened, and the attendant
reappeared, followed by a young man in a large cloak.
The new-comer paused at the threshold, and gazed around him in evident
surprise.
“Diable!” said Mr. Love, approaching, and gazing hard at the stranger.
“Is it possible?--You are come at last? Welcome!”
“But,” said the stranger, apparently still bewildered, “there is some
mistake; you are not--”
“Yes, I am Mr. Love!--Love all the world over. How is our friend
Gregg?--told you to address yourself to Mr. Love,--eh?--Mum!--Ladies
and gentlemen, an acquisition to our party. Fine fellow, eh?--Five feet
eleven without his shoes,--and young enough to hope to be thrice married
before he dies. When did you arrive?”
“To-day.”
And thus, Philip Morton and Mr. William Gawtrey met once more.
CHAPTER II.
“Happy the man who, void of care and strife, In silken or in leathern
purse retains A splendid shilling!”--The Splendid Shilling.
“And wherefore should they take or care for thought, The unreasoning
vulgar willingly obey, And leaving toil and poverty behind. Run forth by
different ways, the blissful boon to find.” WEST’S Education.
“Poor, boy! your story interests me. The events are romantic, but the
moral is practical, old, everlasting--life, boy, life. Poverty by itself
is no such great curse; that is, if it stops short of starving. And
passion by itself is a noble thing, sir; but poverty and passion
together--poverty and feeling--poverty and pride--the poverty one is
not born to,--but falls into;--and the man who ousts you out of your
easy-chair, kicking you with every turn he takes, as he settles himself
more comfortably--why there’s no romance in that--hard every-day life,
sir! Well, well:--so after your brother’s letter you resigned yourself
to that fellow Smith.”
“No; I gave him my money, not my soul. I turned from his door, with
a few shillings that he himself thrust into my hand, and walked on--I
cared not whither--out of the town, into the fields--till night came;
and then, just as I suddenly entered on the high-road, many miles away,
the moon rose; and I saw, by the hedge-side, something that seemed
like a corpse; it was an old beggar, in the last state of raggedness,
disease, and famine. He had laid himself down to die. I shared with him
what I had, and helped him to a little inn. As he crossed the threshold,
he turned round and blessed me. Do you know, the moment I heard that
blessing a stone seemed rolled away from my heart? I said to myself,
‘What then! even I can be of use to some one; and I am better off than
that old man, for I have youth and health.’ As these thoughts stirred in
me, my limbs, before heavy with fatigue, grew light; a strange kind of
excitement seized me. I ran on gaily beneath the moonlight that smiled
over the crisp, broad road. I felt as if no house, not even a palace,
were large enough for me that night. And when, at last, wearied out, I
crept into a wood, and laid myself down to sleep, I still murmured to
myself, ‘I have youth and health.’ But, in the morning, when I rose, I
stretched out my arms, and missed my brother!... In two or three days I
found employment with a farmer; but we quarrelled after a few weeks; for
once he wished to strike me; and somehow or other I could work, but not
serve. Winter had begun when we parted.--Oh, such a winter!--Then--then
I knew what it was to be houseless. How I lived for some months--if to
live it can be called--it would pain you to hear, and humble me to tell.
At last, I found myself again in London; and one evening, not many days
since, I resolved at last--for nothing else seemed left, and I had not
touched food for two days--to come to you.”
“And why did that never occur to you before?”!
“Because,” said Philip, with a deep blush,--“because I trembled at the
power over my actions and my future life that I was to give to one, whom
I was to bless as a benefactor, yet distrust as a guide.”
“Well,” said Love, or Gawtrey, with a singular mixture of irony and
compassion in his voice; “and it was hunger, then, that terrified you at
last even more than I?”
“Perhaps hunger--or perhaps rather the reasoning that comes from hunger.
I had not, I say, touched food for two days; and I was standing on
that bridge, from which on one side you see the palace of a head of the
Church, on the other the towers of the Abbey, within which the men I
have read of in history lie buried. It was a cold, frosty evening, and
the river below looked bright with the lamps and stars. I leaned, weak
and sickening, against the wall of the bridge; and in one of the arched
recesses beside me a cripple held out his hat for pence. I envied
him!--he had a livelihood; he was inured to it, perhaps bred to it; he
had no shame. By a sudden impulse, I, too, turned abruptly round--held
out my hand to the first passenger, and started at the shrillness of my
own voice, as it cried ‘Charity.’”
Gawtrey threw another log on the fire, looked complacently round the
comfortable room, and rubbed his hands. The young man continued,--
“‘You should be ashamed of yourself--I’ve a great mind to give you to
the police,’ was the answer, in a pert and sharp tone. I looked up, and
saw the livery my father’s menials had worn. I had been begging my
bread from Robert Beaufort’s lackey! I said nothing; the man went on his
business on tiptoe, that the mud might not splash above the soles of his
shoes. Then, thoughts so black that they seemed to blot out every star
from the sky--thoughts I had often wrestled against, but to which I now
gave myself up with a sort of mad joy--seized me: and I remembered you.
I had still preserved the address you gave me; I went straight to the
house. Your friend, on naming you, received me kindly, and
without question placed food before me--pressed on me clothing and
money--procured me a passport--gave me your address--and now I am
beneath your roof. Gawtrey, I know nothing yet of the world but the dark
side of it. I know not what to deem you--but as you alone have been
kind to me, so it is to your kindness rather than your aid, that I now
cling--your kind words and kind looks--yet--” he stopped short, and
breathed hard.
“Yet you would know more of me. Faith, my boy, I cannot tell you more at
this moment. I believe, to speak fairly, I don’t live exactly within the
pale of the law. But I’m not a villain! I never plundered my friend and
called it play!--I never murdered my friend and called it honour!--I
never seduced my friend’s wife and called it gallantry!” As Gawtrey
said this, he drew the words out, one by one, through his grinded teeth,
paused and resumed more gaily: “I struggle with Fortune; voila tout! I
am not what you seem to suppose--not exactly a swindler, certainly not a
robber! But, as I before told you, I am a charlatan, so is every man who
strives to be richer or greater than he is.
“I, too, want kindness as much as you do. My bread and my cup are at
your service. I will try and keep you unsullied, even by the clean
dirt that now and then sticks to me. On the other hand, youth, my young
friend, has no right to play the censor; and you must take me as you
take the world, without being over-scrupulous and dainty. My present
vocation pays well; in fact, I am beginning to lay by. My real name
and past life are thoroughly unknown, and as yet unsuspected, in this
quartier; for though I have seen much of Paris, my career hitherto has
passed in other parts of the city;--and for the rest, own that I am well
disguised! What a benevolent air this bald forehead gives me--eh? True,”
added Gawtrey, somewhat more seriously, “if I saw how you could support
yourself in a broader path of life than that in which I pick out my own
way, I might say to you, as a gay man of fashion might say to some sober
stripling--nay, as many a dissolute father says (or ought to say) to his
son, ‘It is no reason you should be a sinner, because I am not a saint.’
In a word, if you were well off in a respectable profession, you might
have safer acquaintances than myself. But, as it is, upon my word as a
plain man, I don’t see what you can do better.” Gawtrey made this speech
with so much frankness and ease, that it seemed greatly to relieve the
listener, and when he wound up with, “What say you? In fine, my life is
that of a great schoolboy, getting into scrapes for the fun of it, and
fighting his way out as he best can!--Will you see how you like it?”
Philip, with a confiding and grateful impulse, put his hand into
Gawtrey’s. The host shook it cordially, and, without saying another
word, showed his guest into a little cabinet where there was a sofa-bed,
and they parted for the night. The new life upon which Philip Morton
entered was so odd, so grotesque, and so amusing, that at his age it
was, perhaps, natural that he should not be clear-sighted as to its
danger.
William Gawtrey was one of those men who are born to exert a certain
influence and ascendency wherever they may be thrown; his vast strength,
his redundant health, had a power of themselves--a moral as well as
physical power. He naturally possessed high animal spirits, beneath
the surface of which, however, at times, there was visible a certain
undercurrent of malignity and scorn. He had evidently received a
superior education, and could command at will the manner of a man not
unfamiliar with a politer class of society. From the first hour that
Philip had seen him on the top of the coach on the R---- road, this man
had attracted his curiosity and interest; the conversation he had heard
in the churchyard, the obligations he owed to Gawtrey in his escape from
the officers of justice, the time afterwards passed in his society
till they separated at the little inn, the rough and hearty kindliness
Gawtrey had shown him at that period, and the hospitality extended to
him now,--all contributed to excite his fancy, and in much, indeed very
much, entitled this singular person to his gratitude. Morton, in a word,
was fascinated; this man was the only friend he had made. I have not
thought it necessary to detail to the reader the conversations that had
taken place between them, during that passage of Morton’s life when he
was before for some days Gawtrey’s companion; yet those conversations
had sunk deep in his mind. He was struck, and almost awed, by the
profound gloom which lurked under Gawtrey’s broad humour--a gloom, not
of temperament, but of knowledge. His views of life, of human justice
and human virtue, were (as, to be sure, is commonly the case with men
who have had reason to quarrel with the world) dreary and despairing;
and Morton’s own experience had been so sad, that these opinions were
more influential than they could ever have been with the happy. However
in this, their second reunion, there was a greater gaiety than in
their first; and under his host’s roof Morton insensibly, but rapidly,
recovered something of the early and natural tone of his impetuous and
ardent spirits. Gawtrey himself was generally a boon companion; their
society, if not select, was merry. When their evenings were disengaged,
Gawtrey was fond of haunting cafes and theatres, and Morton was his
companion; Birnie (Mr. Gawtrey’s partner) never accompanied them.
Refreshed by this change of life, the very person of this young man
regained its bloom and vigour, as a plant, removed from some choked
atmosphere and unwholesome soil, where it had struggled for light
and air, expands on transplanting; the graceful leaves burst from the
long-drooping boughs, and the elastic crest springs upward to the sun
in the glory of its young prime. If there was still a certain fiery
sternness in his aspect, it had ceased, at least, to be haggard
and savage, it even suited the character of his dark and expressive
features. He might not have lost the something of the tiger in his
fierce temper, but in the sleek hues and the sinewy symmetry of the
frame he began to put forth also something of the tiger’s beauty.
Mr. Birnie did not sleep in the house, he went home nightly to a lodging
at some little distance. We have said but little about this man, for, to
all appearance, there was little enough to say; he rarely opened his own
mouth except to Gawtrey, with whom Philip often observed him engaged in
whispered conferences, to which he was not admitted. His eye, however,
was less idle than his lips; it was not a bright eye: on the contrary,
it was dull, and, to the unobservant, lifeless, of a pale blue, with a
dim film over it--the eye of a vulture; but it had in it a calm, heavy,
stealthy watchfulness, which inspired Morton with great distrust and
aversion. Mr. Birnie not only spoke French like a native, but all his
habits, his gestures, his tricks of manner, were French; not the French
of good society, but more idiomatic, as it were, and popular. He was
not exactly a vulgar person, he was too silent for that, but he was
evidently of low extraction and coarse breeding; his accomplishments
were of a mechanical nature; he was an extraordinary arithmetician, he
was a very skilful chemist, and kept a laboratory at his lodgings--he
mended his own clothes and linen with incomparable neatness. Philip
suspected him of blacking his own shoes, but that was prejudice. Once
he found Morton sketching horses’ heads--pour se desennuyer; and he made
some short criticisms on the drawings, which showed him well acquainted
with the art. Philip, surprised, sought to draw him into conversation;
but Birnie eluded the attempt, and observed that he had once been an
engraver.
Gawtrey himself did not seem to know much of the early life of this
person, or at least he did not seem to like much to talk of him. The
footstep of Mr. Birnie was gliding, noiseless, and catlike; he had no
sociality in him--enjoyed nothing--drank hard--but was never drunk.
Somehow or other, he had evidently over Gawtrey an influence little
less than that which Gawtrey had over Morton, but it was of a different
nature: Morton had conceived an extraordinary affection for his friend,
while Gawtrey seemed secretly to dislike Birnie, and to be glad whenever
he quitted his presence. It was, in truth, Gawtrey’s custom when Birnie
retired for the night, to rub his hands, bring out the punchbowl,
squeeze the lemons, and while Philip, stretched on the sofa, listened to
him, between sleep and waking, to talk on for the hour together,
often till daybreak, with that bizarre mixture of knavery and feeling,
drollery and sentiment, which made the dangerous charm of his society.
One evening as they thus sat together, Morton, after listening for some
time to his companion’s comments on men and things, said abruptly,--
“Gawtrey! there is so much in you that puzzles me, so much which I find
it difficult to reconcile with your present pursuits, that, if I ask
no indiscreet confidence, I should like greatly to hear some account of
your early life. It would please me to compare it with my own; when I am
your age, I will then look back and see what I owed to your example.”
“My early life! well--you shall hear it. It will put you on your guard,
I hope, betimes against the two rocks of youth--love and friendship.”
Then, while squeezing the lemon into his favourite beverage, which
Morton observed he made stronger than usual, Gawtrey thus commenced:
THE HISTORY OF A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING.
CHAPTER III.
“All his success must on himself depend,
He had no money, counsel, guide, or friend;
With spirit high John learned the world to brave,
And in both senses was a ready knave.”--CRABBE.
“My grandfather sold walking-sticks and umbrellas in the little passage
by Exeter ‘Change; he was a man of genius and speculation. As soon as he
had scraped together a little money, he lent it to some poor devil with
a hard landlord, at twenty per cent., and made him take half the loan
in umbrellas or bamboos. By these means he got his foot into the ladder,
and climbed upward and upward, till, at the age of forty, he had amassed
L5,000. He then looked about for a wife. An honest trader in the Strand,
who dealt largely in cotton prints, possessed an only daughter; this
young lady had a legacy, from a great-aunt, of L3,220., with a small
street in St. Giles’s, where the tenants paid weekly (all thieves or
rogues--all, so their rents were sure). Now my grandfather conceived a
great friendship for the father of this young lady; gave him a hint as
to a new pattern in spotted cottons; enticed him to take out a patent,
and lent him L700. for the speculation; applied for the money at the
very moment cottons were at their worst, and got the daughter instead of
the money,--by which exchange, you see, he won L2,520., to say nothing
of the young lady. My grandfather then entered into partnership with the
worthy trader, carried on the patent with spirit, and begat two sons.
As he grew older, ambition seized him; his sons should be gentlemen--one
was sent to College, the other put into a marching regiment. My
grandfather meant to die worth a plum; but a fever he caught in visiting
his tenants in St. Giles’s prevented him, and he only left L20,000.
equally divided between the sons. My father, the College man” (here
Gawtrey paused a moment, took a large draught of the punch, and resumed
with a visible effort)--“my father, the College man, was a person of
rigid principles--bore an excellent character--had a great regard for
the world. He married early and respectably. I am the sole fruit of
that union; he lived soberly, his temper was harsh and morose, his home
gloomy; he was a very severe father, and my mother died before I was
ten years old. When I was fourteen, a little old Frenchman came to
lodge with us; he had been persecuted under the old regime for being a
philosopher; he filled my head with odd crotchets which, more or less,
have stuck there ever since. At eighteen I was sent to St. John’s
College, Cambridge. My father was rich enough to have let me go up in
the higher rank of a pensioner, but he had lately grown avaricious; he
thought that I was extravagant; he made me a sizar, perhaps to spite me.
Then, for the first time, those inequalities in life which the Frenchman
had dinned into my ears met me practically. A sizar! another name for a
dog! I had such strength, health, and spirits, that I had more life
in my little finger than half the fellow-commoners--genteel,
spindle-shanked striplings, who might have passed for a collection of
my grandfather’s walking-canes--bad in their whole bodies. And I often
think,” continued Gawtrey, “that health and spirits have a great deal
to answer for! When we are young we so far resemble savages who are
Nature’s young people--that we attach prodigious value to physical
advantages. My feats of strength and activity--the clods I thrashed--and
the railings I leaped--and the boat-races I won--are they not written
in the chronicle of St. John’s? These achievements inspired me with an
extravagant sense of my own superiority; I could not but despise the
rich fellows whom I could have blown down with a sneeze. Nevertheless,
there was an impassable barrier between me and them--a sizar was not a
proper associate for the favourites of fortune! But there was one young
man, a year younger myself, of high birth, and the heir to considerable
wealth, who did not regard me with the same supercilious insolence as
the rest; his very rank, perhaps, made him indifferent to the little
conventional formalities which influence persons who cannot play at
football with this round world; he was the wildest youngster in the
university--lamp-breaker--tandem-driver--mob-fighter--a very devil in
short--clever, but not in the reading line--small and slight, but brave
as a lion. Congenial habits made us intimate, and I loved him like a
brother--better than a brother--as a dog loves his master. In all our
rows I covered him with my body. He had but to say to me, ‘Leap into the
water,’ and I would not have stopped to pull off my coat. In short,
I loved him as a proud man loves one who stands betwixt him and
contempt,--as an affectionate man loves one who stands between him
and solitude. To cut short a long story: my friend, one dark night,
committed an outrage against discipline, of the most unpardonable
character. There was a sanctimonious, grave old fellow of the College,
crawling home from a tea-party; my friend and another of his set seized,
blindfolded, and handcuffed this poor wretch, carried him, vi et armis,
back to the house of an old maid whom he had been courting for the last
ten years, fastened his pigtail (he wore a long one) to the knocker, and
so left him. You may imagine the infernal hubbub which his attempts
to extricate himself caused in the whole street; the old maid’s old
maidservant, after emptying on his head all the vessels of wrath she
could lay her hand to, screamed, ‘Rape and murder!’ The proctor and
his bull-dogs came up, released the prisoner, and gave chase to the
delinquents, who had incautiously remained near to enjoy the sport. The
night was dark and they reached the College in safety, but they had been
tracked to the gates. For this offence I was expelled.”
“Why, you were not concerned in it?” said Philip.
“No; but I was suspected and accused. I could have got off by betraying
the true culprits, but my friend’s father was in public life--a stern,
haughty old statesman; my friend was mortally afraid of him--the only
person he was afraid of. If I had too much insisted on my innocence, I
might have set inquiry on the right track. In fine, I was happy to prove
my friendship for him. He shook me most tenderly by the hand on parting,
and promised never to forget my generous devotion. I went home in
disgrace: I need not tell you what my father said to me: I do not think
he ever loved me from that hour. Shortly after this my uncle, George
Gawtrey, the captain, returned from abroad; he took a great fancy to me,
and I left my father’s house (which had grown insufferable) to live
with him. He had been a very handsome man--a gay spendthrift; he had
got through his fortune, and now lived on his wits--he was a professed
gambler. His easy temper, his lively humour, fascinated me; he knew
the world well; and, like all gamblers, was generous when the dice were
lucky,--which, to tell you the truth, they generally were, with a man
who had no scruples. Though his practices were a little suspected,
they had never been discovered. We lived in an elegant apartment, mixed
familiarly with men of various ranks, and enjoyed life extremely. I
brushed off my college rust, and conceived a taste for expense: I knew
not why it was, but in my new existence every one was kind to me; and
I had spirits that made me welcome everywhere. I was a scamp--but a
frolicsome scamp--and that is always a popular character. As yet I
was not dishonest, but saw dishonesty round me, and it seemed a very
pleasant, jolly mode of making money; and now I again fell into contact
with the young heir. My college friend was as wild in London as he had
been at Cambridge; but the boy-ruffian, though not then twenty years of
age, had grown into the man-villain.”
Here Gawtrey paused, and frowned darkly.
“He had great natural parts, this young man--much wit, readiness, and
cunning, and he became very intimate with my uncle. He learned of him
how to play the dice, and a pack the cards--he paid him L1,000. for the
knowledge!”
“How! a cheat? You said he was rich.”
“His father was very rich, and he had a liberal allowance, but he was
very extravagant; and rich men love gain as well as poor men do! He had
no excuse but the grand excuse of all vice--SELFISHNESS. Young as he was
he became the fashion, and he fattened upon the plunder of his equals,
who desired the honour of his acquaintance. Now, I had seen my uncle
cheat, but I had never imitated his example; when the man of fashion
cheated, and made a jest of his earnings and my scruples--when I saw
him courted, flattered, honoured, and his acts unsuspected, because his
connections embraced half the peerage, the temptation grew strong, but
I still resisted it. However, my father always said I was born to be a
good-for-nothing, and I could not escape my destiny. And now I suddenly
fell in love--you don’t know what that is yet--so much the better for
you. The girl was beautiful, and I thought she loved me--perhaps she
did--but I was too poor, so her friends said, for marriage. We courted,
as the saying is, in the meanwhile. It was my love for her, my wish to
deserve her, that made me iron against my friend’s example. I was fool
enough to speak to him of Mary--to present him to her--this ended in her
seduction.” (Again Gawtrey paused, and breathed hard.) “I discovered the
treachery--I called out the seducer--he sneered, and refused to fight
the low-born adventurer. I struck him to the earth--and then we fought.
I was satisfied by a ball through my side! but he,” added Gawtrey,
rubbing his hands, and with a vindictive chuckle,--“He was a cripple
for life! When I recovered I found that my foe, whose sick-chamber was
crowded with friends and comforters, had taken advantage of my illness
to ruin my reputation. He, the swindler, accused me of his own crime:
the equivocal character of my uncle confirmed the charge. Him, his own
high-born pupil was enabled to unmask, and his disgrace was visited on
me. I left my bed to find my uncle (all disguise over) an avowed partner
in a hell, and myself blasted alike in name, love, past, and future.
And then, Philip--then I commenced that career which I have trodden
since--the prince of good-fellows and good-for-nothings, with ten
thousand aliases, and as many strings to my bow. Society cast me off
when I was innocent. Egad, I have had my revenge on society since!--Ho!
ho! ho!”
The laugh of this man had in it a moral infection. There was a sort of
glorying in its deep tone; it was not the hollow hysteric of shame and
despair--it spoke a sanguine joyousness! William Gawtrey was a man whose
animal constitution had led him to take animal pleasure in all things:
he had enjoyed the poisons he had lived on.
“But your father--surely your father--”
“My father,” interrupted Gawtrey, “refused me the money (but a small
sum) that, once struck with the strong impulse of a sincere penitence,
I begged of him, to enable me to get an honest living in a humble trade.
His refusal soured the penitence--it gave me an excuse for my career and
conscience grapples to an excuse as a drowning wretch to a straw. And
yet this hard father--this cautious, moral, money-loving man, three
months afterwards, suffered a rogue--almost a stranger--to decoy
him into a speculation that promised to bring him fifty per cent. He
invested in the traffic of usury what had sufficed to save a hundred
such as I am from perdition, and he lost it all. It was nearly his whole
fortune; but he lives and has his luxuries still: he cannot speculate,
but he can save: he cared not if I starved, for he finds an hourly
happiness in starving himself.”
“And your friend,” said Philip, after a pause in which his young
sympathies went dangerously with the excuses for his benefactor; “what
has become of him, and the poor girl?”
“My friend became a great man; he succeeded to his father’s peerage--a
very ancient one--and to a splendid income. He is living still. Well,
you shall hear about the poor girl! We are told of victims of seduction
dying in a workhouse or on a dunghill, penitent, broken-hearted, and
uncommonly ragged and sentimental. It may be a frequent case, but it is
not the worst. It is worse, I think, when the fair, penitent, innocent,
credulous dupe becomes in her turn the deceiver--when she catches vice
from the breath upon which she has hung--when she ripens, and mellows,
and rots away into painted, blazing, staring, wholesale harlotry--when,
in her turn, she ruins warm youth with false smiles and long bills--and
when worse--worse than all--when she has children, daughters perhaps,
brought up to the same trade, cooped, plumper, for some hoary lecher,
without a heart in their bosoms, unless a balance for weighing money may
be called a heart. Mary became this; and I wish to Heaven she had rather
died in an hospital! Her lover polluted her soul as well as her beauty:
he found her another lover when he was tired of her. When she was at the
age of thirty-six I met her in Paris, with a daughter of sixteen. I was
then flush with money, frequenting salons, and playing the part of
a fine gentleman. She did not know me at first; and she sought my
acquaintance. For you must know, my young friend,” said Gawtrey,
abruptly breaking off the thread of his narrative, “that I am not
altogether the low dog you might suppose in seeing me here. At
Paris--ah! you don’t know Paris--there is a glorious ferment in society
in which the dregs are often uppermost! I came here at the Peace, and
here have I resided the greater part of each year ever since. The vast
masses of energy and life, broken up by the great thaw of the Imperial
system, floating along the tide, are terrible icebergs for the vessel
of the state. Some think Napoleonism over--its effects are only begun.
Society is shattered from one end to the other, and I laugh at the
little rivets by which they think to keep it together.
[This passage was written at a period when the dynasty of Louis
Philippe seemed the most assured, and Napoleonism was indeed
considered extinct.]
“But to return. Paris, I say, is the atmosphere for adventurers--new
faces and new men are so common here that they excite no impertinent
inquiry, it is so usual to see fortunes made in a day and spent in a
month; except in certain circles, there is no walking round a man’s
character to spy out where it wants piercing! Some lean Greek poet
put lead in his pockets to prevent being blown away;--put gold in your
pockets, and at Paris you may defy the sharpest wind in the world,--yea,
even the breath of that old AEolus--Scandal! Well, then, I had money--no
matter how I came by it--and health, and gaiety; and I was well received
in the coteries that exist in all capitals, but mostly in France, where
pleasure is the cement that joins many discordant atoms. Here, I say,
I met Mary and her daughter, by my old friend--the daughter, still
innocent, but, sacra! in what an element of vice! We knew each other’s
secrets, Mary and I, and kept them: she thought me a greater knave than
I was, and she intrusted to me her intention of selling her child to a
rich English marquis. On the other hand, the poor girl confided to me
her horror of the scenes she witnessed and the snares that surrounded
her. What do you think preserved her pure from all danger? Bah! you will
never guess! It was partly because, if example corrupts, it as often
deters, but principally because she loved. A girl who loves one
man purely has about her an amulet which defies the advances of
the profligate. There was a handsome young Italian, an artist, who
frequented the house--he was the man. I had to choose, then, between
mother and daughter: I chose the last.”
Philip seized hold of Gawtrey’s hand, grasped it warmly, and the
good-for-nothing continued--
“Do you know, that I loved that girl as well as I had ever loved the
mother, though in another way; she was what I fancied the mother to be;
still more fair, more graceful, more winning, with a heart as full of
love as her mother’s had been of vanity. I loved that child as if she
had been my own daughter. I induced her to leave her mother’s house--I
secreted her--I saw her married to the man she loved--I gave her away,
and saw no more of her for several months.”
“Why?”
“Because I spent them in prison! The young people could not live upon
air; I gave them what I had, and in order to do more I did something
which displeased the police; I narrowly escaped that time; but I
am popular--very popular, and with plenty of witnesses, not
over-scrupulous, I got off! When I was released, I would not go to see
them, for my clothes were ragged: the police still watched me, and I
would not do them harm in the world! Ay, poor wretches! they struggled
so hard: he could got very little by his art, though, I believe, he was
a cleverish fellow at it, and the money I had given them could not last
for ever. They lived near the Champs Elysees, and at night I used to
steal out and look at them through the window. They seemed so happy, and
so handsome, and so good; but he looked sickly, and I saw that, like all
Italians, he languished for his own warm climate. But man is born to act
as well as to contemplate,” pursued Gawtrey, changing his tone into
the allegro; “and I was soon driven into my old ways, though in a lower
line. I went to London, just to give my reputation an airing, and when I
returned, pretty flush again, the poor Italian was dead, and Fanny was a
widow, with one boy, and enceinte with a second child. So then I sought
her again, for her mother had found her out, and was at her with her
devilish kindness; but Heaven was merciful, and took her away from
both of us: she died in giving birth to a girl, and her last words
were uttered to me, imploring me--the adventurer--the charlatan--the
good-for-nothing--to keep her child from the clutches of her own mother.
Well, sir, I did what I could for both the children; but the boy was
consumptive, like his father, and sleeps at Pere-la-Chaise. The girl is
here--you shall see her some day. Poor Fanny! if ever the devil will
let me, I shall reform for her sake. Meanwhile, for her sake I must get
grist for the mill. My story is concluded, for I need not tell you all
of my pranks--of all the parts I have played in life. I have never been
a murderer, or a burglar, or a highway robber, or what the law calls a
thief. I can only say, as I said before, I have lived upon my wits, and
they have been a tolerable capital on the whole. I have been an actor,
a money-lender, a physician, a professor of animal magnetism (that was
lucrative till it went out of fashion, perhaps it will come in again); I
have been a lawyer, a house-agent, a dealer in curiosities and china; I
have kept a hotel; I have set up a weekly newspaper; I have seen almost
every city in Europe, and made acquaintance with some of its gaols; but
a man who has plenty of brains generally falls on his legs.”
“And your father?” said Philip; and here he spoke to Gawtrey of the
conversation he had overheard in the churchyard, but on which a scruple
of natural delicacy had hitherto kept him silent.
“Well, now,” said his host, while a slight blush rose to his cheeks,
“I will tell you, that though to my father’s sternness and avarice I
attribute many of my faults, I yet always had a sort of love for him;
and when in London I accidentally heard that he was growing blind, and
living with an artful old jade of a housekeeper, who might send him to
rest with a dose of magnesia the night after she had coaxed him to make
a will in her favour. I sought him out--and--but you say you heard what
passed.”
“Yes; and I heard him also call you by name, when it was too late, and I
saw the tears on his cheeks.”
“Did you? Will you swear to that?” exclaimed Gawtrey, with vehemence:
then, shading his brow with his band, he fell into a reverie that lasted
some moments.
“If anything happen to me, Philip,” he said, abruptly, “perhaps he may
yet be a father to poor Fanny; and if he takes to her, she will repay
him for whatever pain I may, perhaps, have cost him. Stop! now I think
of it, I will write down his address for you--never forget it--there! It
is time to go to bed.”
Gawtrey’s tale made a deep impression on Philip. He was too young, too
inexperienced, too much borne away by the passion of the narrator, to
see that Gawtrey had less cause to blame Fate than himself. True, he had
been unjustly implicated in the disgrace of an unworthy uncle, but he
had lived with that uncle, though he knew him to be a common cheat;
true, he had been betrayed by a friend, but he had before known that
friend to be a man without principle or honour. But what wonder that an
ardent boy saw nothing of this--saw only the good heart that had saved
a poor girl from vice, and sighed to relieve a harsh and avaricious
parent? Even the hints that Gawtrey unawares let fall of practices
scarcely covered by the jovial phrase of “a great schoolboy’s scrapes,”
either escaped the notice of Philip, or were charitably construed by
him, in the compassion and the ignorance of a young, hasty, and grateful
heart.
CHAPTER IV.
“And she’s a stranger
Women--beware women.”--MIDDLETON.
“As we love our youngest children best,
So the last fruit of our affection,
Wherever we bestow it, is most strong;
Since ‘tis indeed our latest harvest-home,
Last merriment ‘fore winter!”
WEBSTER, Devil’s Law Case.
“I would fain know what kind of thing a man’s heart is?
I will report it to you; ‘tis a thing framed
With divers corners!”--ROWLEY.
I have said that Gawtrey’s tale made a deep impression on Philip;--that
impression was increased by subsequent conversations, more frank even
than their talk had hitherto been. There was certainly about this man
a fatal charm which concealed his vices. It arose, perhaps, from the
perfect combinations of his physical frame--from a health which made
his spirits buoyant and hearty under all circumstances--and a blood
so fresh, so sanguine, that it could not fail to keep the pores of the
heart open. But he was not the less--for all his kindly impulses and
generous feelings, and despite the manner in which, naturally anxious to
make the least unfavourable portrait of himself to Philip, he softened
and glossed over the practices of his life--a thorough and complete
rogue, a dangerous, desperate, reckless daredevil. It was easy to see
when anything crossed him, by the cloud on his shaggy brow, by the
swelling of the veins on the forehead, by the dilation of the broad
nostril, that he was one to cut his way through every obstacle to an
end,--choleric, impetuous, fierce, determined. Such, indeed, were the
qualities that made him respected among his associates, as his
more bland and humorous ones made him beloved. He was, in fact, the
incarnation of that great spirit which the laws of the world raise up
against the world, and by which the world’s injustice on a large scale
is awfully chastised; on a small scale, merely nibbled at and harassed,
as the rat that gnaws the hoof of the elephant:--the spirit which, on a
vast theatre, rises up, gigantic and sublime, in the heroes of war and
revolution--in Mirabeaus, Marats, Napoleons: on a minor stage, it shows
itself in demagogues, fanatical philosophers, and mob-writers; and on
the forbidden boards, before whose reeking lamps outcasts sit, at once
audience and actors, it never produced a knave more consummate in
his part, or carrying it off with more buskined dignity, than
William Gawtrey. I call him by his aboriginal name; as for his other
appellations, Bacchus himself had not so many!
One day, a lady, richly dressed, was ushered by Mr. Birnie into the
bureau of Mr. Love, alias Gawtrey. Philip was seated by the window,
reading, for the first time, the Candide,--that work, next to Rasselas,
the most hopeless and gloomy of the sports of genius with mankind.
The lady seemed rather embarrassed when she perceived Mr. Love was not
alone. She drew back, and, drawing her veil still more closely round
her, said, in French:
“Pardon me, I would wish a private conversation.” Philip rose to
withdraw, when the lady, observing him with eyes whose lustre shone
through the veil, said gently: “But perhaps the young gentleman is
discreet.”
“He is not discreet, he is discretion!--my adopted son. You may confide
in him--upon my honour you may, madam!” and Mr. Love placed his hand on
his heart.
“He is very young,” said the lady, in a tone of involuntary compassion,
as, with a very white hand, she unclasped the buckle of her cloak.
“He can the better understand the curse of celibacy,” returned Mr. Love,
smiling.
The lady lifted part of her veil, and discovered a handsome mouth, and a
set of small, white teeth; for she, too, smiled, though gravely, as she
turned to Morton, and said--
“You seem, sir, more fitted to be a votary of the temple than one of its
officers. However, Monsieur Love, let there be no mistake between us;
I do not come here to form a marriage, but to prevent one. I understand
that Monsieur the Vicomte de Vaudemont has called into request your
services. I am one of the Vicomte’s family; we are all anxious that
he should not contract an engagement of the strange and, pardon me,
unbecoming character, which must stamp a union formed at a public
office.”
“I assure you, madam,” said Mr. Love, with dignity, “that we have
contributed to the very first--”
“Mon Dieu!” interrupted the lady, with much impatience, “spare me a
eulogy on your establishment: I have no doubt it is very respectable;
and for grisettes and epiciers may do extremely well. But the Vicomte
is a man of birth and connections. In a word, what he contemplates
is preposterous. I know not what fee Monsieur Love expects; but if
he contrive to amuse Monsieur de Vaudemont, and to frustrate every
connection he proposes to form, that fee, whatever it may be, shall be
doubled. Do you understand me?”
“Perfectly, madam; yet it is not your offer that will bias me, but the
desire to oblige so charming a lady.”
“It is agreed, then?” said the lady, carelessly; and as she spoke she
again glanced at Philip.
“If madame will call again, I will inform her of my plans,” said Mr.
Love.
“Yes, I will call again. Good morning!” As she rose and passed Philip,
she wholly put aside her veil, and looked at him with a gaze entirely
free from coquetry, but curious, searching, and perhaps admiring--the
look that an artist may give to a picture that seems of more value than
the place where he finds it would seem to indicate. The countenance of
the lady herself was fair and noble, and Philip felt a strange thrill at
his heart as, with a slight inclination of her head, she turned from the
room.
“Ah!” said Gawtrey, laughing, “this is not the first time I have been
paid by relations to break off the marriages I had formed. Egad! if one
could open a bureau to make married people single, one would soon be
a Croesus! Well, then, this decides me to complete the union between
Monsieur Goupille and Mademoiselle de Courval. I had balanced a little
hitherto between the epicier and the Vicomte. Now I will conclude
matters. Do you know, Phil, I think you have made a conquest?”
“Pooh!” said Philip, colouring.
In effect, that very evening Mr. Love saw both the epicier and Adele,
and fixed the marriage-day. As Monsieur Goupille was a person of great
distinction in the Faubourg, this wedding was one upon which Mr. Love
congratulated himself greatly; and he cheerfully accepted an invitation
for himself and his partners to honour the noces with their presence.
A night or two before the day fixed for the marriage of Monsieur
Goupille and the aristocratic Adele, when Mr. Birnie had retired,
Gawtrey made his usual preparations for enjoying himself. But this time
the cigar and the punch seemed to fail of their effect. Gawtrey remained
moody and silent; and Morton was thinking of the bright eyes of the
lady who was so much interested against the amours of the Vicomte de
Vaudemont.
At last, Gawtrey broke silence:
“My young friend,” said he, “I told you of my little protege; I have
been buying toys for her this morning; she is a beautiful creature;
to-morrow is her birthday--she will then be six years old. But--but--”
here Gawtrey sighed--“I fear she is not all right here,” and he touched
his forehead.
“I should like much to see her,” said Philip, not noticing the latter
remark.
“And you shall--you shall come with me to-morrow. Heigho! I should not
like to die, for her sake!”
“Does her wretched relation attempt to regain her?”
“Her relation! No; she is no more--she died about two years since! Poor
Mary! I--well, this is folly. But Fanny is at present in a convent; they
are all kind to her, but then I pay well; if I were dead, and the pay
stopped,--again I ask, what would become of her, unless, as I before
said, my father--”
“But you are making a fortune now?”
“If this lasts--yes; but I live in fear--the police of this cursed city
are lynx-eyed; however, that is the bright side of the question.”
“Why not have the child with you, since you love her so much? She would
be a great comfort to you.”
“Is this a place for a child--a girl?” said Gawtrey, stamping his foot
impatiently. “I should go mad if I saw that villainous deadman’s eye
bent upon her!”
“You speak of Birnie. How can you endure him?”
“When you are my age you will know why we endure what we dread--why
we make friends of those who else would be most horrible foes: no,
no--nothing can deliver me of this man but Death. And--and--” added
Gawtrey, turning pale, “I cannot murder a man who eats my bread.
There are stronger ties, my lad, than affection, that bind men, like
galley-slaves, together. He who can hang you puts the halter round your
neck and leads you by it like a dog.”
A shudder came over the young listener. And what dark secrets, known
only to those two, had bound, to a man seemingly his subordinate and
tool, the strong will and resolute temper of William Gawtrey?
“But, begone, dull care!” exclaimed Gawtrey, rousing himself. “And,
after all, Birnie is a useful fellow, and dare no more turn against me
than I against him! Why don’t you drink more?
“Oh! have you e’er heard of the famed Captain Wattle?”
and Gawtrey broke out into a loud Bacchanalian hymn, in which Philip
could find no mirth, and from which the songster suddenly paused to
exclaim:--
“Mind you say nothing about Fanny to Birnie; my secrets with him are not
of that nature. He could not hurt her, poor lamb! it is true--at least,
as far as I can foresee. But one can never feel too sure of one’s lamb,
if one once introduces it to the butcher!”
The next day being Sunday, the bureau was closed, and Philip and
Gawtrey repaired to the convent. It was a dismal-looking place as to
the exterior; but, within, there was a large garden, well kept, and,
notwithstanding the winter, it seemed fair and refreshing, compared with
the polluted streets. The window of the room into which they were shown
looked upon the green sward, with walls covered with ivy at the farther
end. And Philip’s own childhood came back to him as he gazed on the
quiet of the lonely place.
The door opened--an infant voice was heard, a voice of glee--of rapture;
and a child, light and beautiful as a fairy, bounded to Gawtrey’s
breast.
Nestling there, she kissed his face, his hands, his clothes, with a
passion that did not seem to belong to her age, laughing and sobbing
almost at a breath.
On his part, Gawtrey appeared equally affected: he stroked down her hair
with his huge hand, calling her all manner of pet names, in a tremulous
voice that vainly struggled to be gay.
At length he took the toys he had brought with him from his capacious
pockets, and strewing them on the floor, fairly stretched his vast bulk
along; while the child tumbled over him, sometimes grasping at the toys,
and then again returning to his bosom, and laying her head there, looked
up quietly into his eyes, as if the joy were too much for her.
Morton, unheeded by both, stood by with folded arms. He thought of his
lost and ungrateful brother, and muttered to himself:
“Fool! when she is older, she will forsake him!”
Fanny betrayed in her face the Italian origin of her father. She had
that exceeding richness of complexion which, though not common even
in Italy, is only to be found in the daughters of that land, and which
harmonised well with the purple lustre of her hair, and the full, clear
iris of the dark eyes. Never were parted cherries brighter than her
dewy lips; and the colour of the open neck and the rounded arms was of
a whiteness still more dazzling, from the darkness of the hair and the
carnation of the glowing cheek.
Suddenly Fanny started from Gawtrey’s arms, and running up to Morton,
gazed at him wistfully, and said, in French:
“Who are you? Do you come from the moon? I think you do.” Then, stopping
abruptly, she broke into a verse of a nursery-song, which she chaunted
with a low, listless tone, as if she were not conscious of the sense. As
she thus sang, Morton, looking at her, felt a strange and painful doubt
seize him. The child’s eyes, though soft, were so vacant in their gaze.
“And why do I come from the moon?” said he.
“Because you look sad and cross. I don’t like you--I don’t like the
moon; it gives me a pain here!” and she put her hand to her temples.
“Have you got anything for Fanny--poor, poor Fanny?” and, dwelling on
the epithet, she shook her head mournfully.
“You are rich, Fanny, with all those toys.”
“Am I? Everybody calls me poor Fanny--everybody but papa;” and she ran
again to Gawtrey, and laid her head on his shoulder.
“She calls me papa!” said Gawtrey, kissing her; “you hear it? Bless
her!”
“And you never kiss any one but Fanny--you have no other little girl?”
said the child, earnestly, and with a look less vacant than that which
had saddened Morton.
“No other--no--nothing under heaven, and perhaps above it, but you!” and
he clasped her in his arms. “But,” he added, after a pause--“but mind
me, Fanny, you must like this gentleman. He will be always good to you:
and he had a little brother whom he was as fond of as I am of you.”
“No, I won’t like him--I won’t like anybody but you and my sister!”
“Sister!--who is your sister?”
The child’s face relapsed into an expression almost of idiotcy. “I don’t
know--I never saw her. I hear her sometimes, but I don’t understand
what she says.--Hush! come here!” and she stole to the window on tiptoe.
Gawtrey followed and looked out.
“Do you hear her, now?” said Fanny. “What does she say?”
As the girl spoke, some bird among the evergreens uttered a shrill,
plaintive cry, rather than song--a sound which the thrush occasionally
makes in the winter, and which seems to express something of fear, and
pain, and impatience. “What does she say?--can you tell me?” asked the
child.
“Pooh! that is a bird; why do you call it your sister?”
“I don’t know!--because it is--because it--because--I don’t know--is it
not in pain?--do something for it, papa!”
Gawtrey glanced at Morton, whose face betokened his deep pity, and
creeping up to him, whispered,--
“Do you think she is really touched here? No, no,--she will outgrow
it--I am sure she will!”
Morton sighed.
Fanny by this time had again seated herself in the middle of the floor,
and arranged her toys, but without seeming to take pleasure in them.
At last Gawtrey was obliged to depart. The lay sister, who had charge
of Fanny, was summoned into the parlour; and then the child’s manner
entirely changed; her face grew purple--she sobbed with as much anger as
grief. “She would not leave papa--she would not go--that she would not!”
“It is always so,” whispered Gawtrey to Morton, in an abashed and
apologetic voice. “It is so difficult to get away from her. Just go and
talk with her while I steal out.”
Morton went to her, as she struggled with the patient good-natured
sister, and began to soothe and caress her, till she turned on him her
large humid eyes, and said, mournfully,
“Tu es mechant, tu. Poor Fanny!”
“But this pretty doll--” began the sister. The child looked at it
joylessly.
“And papa is going to die!”
“Whenever Monsieur goes,” whispered the nun, “she always says that he
is dead, and cries herself quietly to sleep; when Monsieur returns, she
says he is come to life again. Some one, I suppose, once talked to her
about death; and she thinks when she loses sight of any one, that that
is death.”
“Poor child!” said Morton, with a trembling voice.
The child looked up, smiled, stroked his cheek with her little hand, and
said:
“Thank you!--Yes! poor Fanny! Ah, he is going--see!--let me go too--tu
es mechant.”
“But,” said Morton, detaining her gently, “do you know that you give
him pain?--you make him cry by showing pain yourself. Don’t make him so
sad!”
The child seemed struck, hung down her head for a moment, as if in
thought, and then, jumping from Morton’s lap, ran to Gawtrey, put up her
pouting lips, and said:
“One kiss more!”
Gawtrey kissed her, and turned away his head.
“Fanny is a good girl!” and Fanny, as she spoke, went back to Morton,
and put her little fingers into her eyes, as if either to shut out
Gawtrey’s retreat from her sight, or to press back her tears.
“Give me the doll now, sister Marie.”
Morton smiled and sighed, placed the child, who struggled no more, in
the nun’s arms, and left the room; but as he closed the door he looked
back, and saw that Fanny had escaped from the sister, thrown herself on
the floor, and was crying, but not loud.
“Is she not a little darling?” said Gawtrey, as they gained the street.
“She is, indeed, a most beautiful child!”
“And you will love her if I leave her penniless,” said Gawtrey,
abruptly. “It was your love for your mother and your brother that made
me like you from the first. Ay,” continued Gawtrey, in a tone of great
earnestness, “ay, and whatever may happen to me, I will strive and keep
you, my poor lad, harmless; and what is better, innocent even of such
matters as sit light enough on my own well-seasoned conscience. In turn,
if ever you have the power, be good to her,--yes, be good to her! and I
won’t say a harsh word to you if ever you like to turn king’s evidence
against myself.”
“Gawtrey!” said Morton, reproachfully, and almost fiercely.
“Bah!--such things are! But tell me honestly, do you think she is very
strange--very deficient?”
“I have not seen enough of her to judge,” answered Morton, evasively.
“She is so changeful,” persisted Gawtrey. “Sometimes you would say
that she was above her age, she comes out with such thoughtful, clever
things; then, the next moment, she throws me into despair. These nuns
are very skilful in education--at least they are said to be so. The
doctors give me hope, too. You see, her poor mother was very unhappy
at the time of her birth--delirious, indeed: that may account for it. I
often fancy that it is the constant excitement which her state occasions
me that makes me love her so much. You see she is one who can never
shift for herself. I must get money for her; I have left a little
already with the superior, and I would not touch it to save myself from
famine! If she has money people will be kind enough to her. And then,”
continued Gawtrey, “you must perceive that she loves nothing in the
world but me--me, whom nobody else loves! Well--well, now to the shop
again!”
On returning home the bonne informed them that a lady had called, and
asked both for Monsieur Love and the young gentleman, and seemed much
chagrined at missing both. By the description, Morton guessed she was
the fair incognita, and felt disappointed at having lost the interview.
CHAPTER V.
“The cursed carle was at his wonted trade,
Still tempting heedless men into his snare,
In witching wise, as I before have said;
But when he saw, in goodly gear array’d,
The grave majestic knight approaching nigh,
His countenance fell.”--THOMSON, Castle of Indolence.
The morning rose that was to unite Monsieur Goupille with Mademoiselle
Adele de Courval. The ceremony was performed, and bride and bridegroom
went through that trying ordeal with becoming gravity. Only the elegant
Adele seemed more unaffectedly agitated than Mr. Love could well account
for; she was very nervous in church, and more often turned her eyes to
the door than to the altar. Perhaps she wanted to run away; but it was
either too late or too early for the proceeding. The rite performed,
the happy pair and their friends adjourned to the Cadran Bleu, that
restaurant so celebrated in the festivities of the good citizens of
Paris. Here Mr. Love had ordered, at the epicier’s expense, a most
tasteful entertainment.
“Sacre! but you have not played the economist, Monsieur Lofe,” said
Monsieur Goupille, rather querulously, as he glanced at the long room
adorned with artificial flowers, and the table a cingitante couverts.
“Bah!” replied Mr. Love, “you can retrench afterwards. Think of the
fortune she brought you.”
“It is a pretty sum, certainly,” said Monsieur Goupille, “and the notary
is perfectly satisfied.”
“There is not a marriage in Paris that does me more credit,” said Mr.
Love; and he marched off to receive the compliments and congratulations
that awaited him among such of the guests as were aware of his good
offices. The Vicomte de Vaudemont was of course not present. He had
not been near Mr. Love since Adele had accepted the epicier. But Madame
Beavor, in a white bonnet lined with lilac, was hanging, sentimentally,
on the arm of the Pole, who looked very grand with his white favour; and
Mr. Higgins had been introduced, by Mr. Love, to a little dark Creole,
who wore paste diamonds, and had very languishing eyes; so that Mr.
Love’s heart might well swell with satisfaction at the prospect of
the various blisses to come, which might owe their origin to his
benevolence. In fact, that archpriest of the Temple of Hymen was never
more great than he was that day; never did his establishment seem more
solid, his reputation more popular, or his fortune more sure. He was the
life of the party.
The banquet over, the revellers prepared for a dance. Monsieur Goupille,
in tights, still tighter than he usually wore, and of a rich nankeen,
quite new, with striped silk stockings, opened the ball with the lady of
a rich patissier in the same Faubourg; Mr. Love took out the bride. The
evening advanced; and after several other dances of ceremony, Monsieur
Goupille conceived himself entitled to dedicate one to connubial
affection. A country-dance was called, and the epicier claimed the fair
hand of the gentle Adele. About this time, two persons not hitherto
perceived had quietly entered the room, and, standing near the doorway,
seemed examining the dancers, as if in search for some one. They bobbed
their heads up and down, to and fro stopped--now stood on tiptoe. The
one was a tall, large-whiskered, fair-haired man; the other, a little,
thin, neatly-dressed person, who kept his hand on the arm of his
companion, and whispered to him from time to time. The whiskered
gentleman replied in a guttural tone, which proclaimed his origin to be
German. The busy dancers did not perceive the strangers. The bystanders
did, and a hum of curiosity circled round; who could they be?--who had
invited them?--they were new faces in the Faubourg--perhaps relations to
Adele?
In high delight the fair bride was skipping down the middle, while
Monsieur Goupille, wiping his forehead with care, admired her agility;
when, to and behold! the whiskered gentleman I have described abruptly
advanced from his companion, and cried:
“La voila!--sacre tonnerre!”
At that voice--at that apparition, the bride halted; so suddenly indeed,
that she had not time to put down both feet, but remained with one high
in the air, while the other sustained itself on the light fantastic toe.
The company naturally imagined this to be an operatic flourish, which
called for approbation. Monsieur Love, who was thundering down behind
her, cried, “Bravo!” and as the well-grown gentleman had to make a sweep
to avoid disturbing her equilibrium, he came full against the whiskered
stranger, and sent him off as a bat sends a ball.
“Mon Dieu!” cried Monsieur Goupille. “Ma douce amie--she has fainted
away!” And, indeed, Adele had no sooner recovered her, balance, than
she resigned it once more into the arms of the startled Pole, who was
happily at hand.
In the meantime, the German stranger, who had saved himself from falling
by coming with his full force upon the toes of Mr. Higgins, again
advanced to the spot, and, rudely seizing the fair bride by the arm,
exclaimed,--
“No sham if you please, madame--speak! What the devil have you done with
the money?”
“Really, sir,” said Monsieur Goupille, drawing tip his cravat, “this
is very extraordinary conduct! What have you got to say to this lady’s
money?--it is my money now, sir!”
“Oho! it is, is it? We’ll soon see that. Approchez donc, Monsieur
Favart, faites votre devoir.”
At these words the small companion of the stranger slowly sauntered to
the spot, while at the sound of his name and the tread of his step, the
throng gave way to the right and left. For Monsieur Favart was one of
the most renowned chiefs of the great Parisian police--a man worthy to
be the contemporary of the illustrious Vidocq.
“Calmez vous, messieurs; do not be alarmed, ladies,” said this
gentleman, in the mildest of all human voices; and certainly no oil
dropped on the waters ever produced so tranquillising an effect as that
small, feeble, gentle tenor. The Pole, in especial, who was holding the
fair bride with both his arms, shook all over, and seemed about to let
his burden gradually slide to the floor, when Monsieur Favart, looking
at him with a benevolent smile, said--
“Aha, mon brave! c’est toi. Restez donc. Restez, tenant toujours la
dame!”
The Pole, thus condemned, in the French idiom, “always to hold the
dame,” mechanically raised the arms he had previously dejected, and the
police officer, with an approving nod of the head, said,--
“Bon! ne bougez point,--c’est ca!”
Monsieur Goupille, in equal surprise and indignation to see his better
half thus consigned, without any care to his own marital feelings,
to the arms of another, was about to snatch her from the Pole, when
Monsieur Favart, touching him on the breast with his little finger,
said, in the suavest manner,--
“Mon bourgeois, meddle not with what does not concern you!”
“With what does not concern me!” repeated Monsieur Goupille, drawing
himself up to so great a stretch that he seemed pulling off his tights
the wrong way. “Explain yourself, if you please! This lady is my wife!”
“Say that again,--that’s all!” cried the whiskered stranger, in most
horrible French, and with a furious grimace, as he shook both his fists
just under the nose of the epicier.
“Say it again, sir,” said Monsieur Goupille, by no means daunted; “and
why should not I say it again? That lady is my wife!”
“You lie!--she is mine!” cried the German; and bending down, he caught
the fair Adele from the Pole with as little ceremony as if she had never
had a great-grandfather a marquis, and giving her a shake that might
have roused the dead, thundered out,--
“Speak! Madame Bihl! Are you my wife or not?”
“Monstre!” murmured Adele, opening her eyes.
“There--you hear--she owns me!” said the German, appealing to the
company with a triumphant air.
“C’est vrai!” said the soft voice of the policeman. “And now, pray don’t
let us disturb your amusements any longer. We have a fiacre at the door.
Remove your lady, Monsieur Bihl.”
“Monsieur Lofe!--Monsieur Lofe!” cried, or rather screeched the epicier,
darting across the room, and seizing the chef by the tail of his coat,
just as he was half way through the door, “come back! Quelle mauvaise
plaisanterie me faites-vous ici? Did you not tell me that lady was
single? Am I married or not: Do I stand on my head or my heels?”
“Hush-hush! mon bon bourgeois!” whispered Mr. Love; “all shall be
explained to-morrow!”
“Who is this gentleman?” asked Monsieur Favart, approaching Mr. Love,
who, seeing himself in for it, suddenly jerked off the epicier, thrust
his hands down into his breeches’ pockets, buried his chin in his
cravat, elevated his eyebrows, screwed in his eyes, and puffed out his
cheeks, so that the astonished Monsieur Goupille really thought himself
bewitched, and literally did not recognise the face of the match-maker.
“Who is this gentleman?” repeated the little officer, standing beside,
or rather below, Mr. Love, and looking so diminutive by the contrast
that you might have fancied that the Priest of Hymen had only to breathe
to blow him away.
“Who should he be, monsieur?” cried, with great pertness, Madame Rosalie
Caumartin, coming to the relief, with the generosity of her sex.--“This
is Monsieur Lofe--Anglais celebre. What have you to say against him?”
“He has got five hundred francs of mine!” cried the epicier.
The policeman scanned Mr. Love, with great attention. “So you are in
Paris again?--Hein!--vous jouez toujours votre role!
“Ma foi!” said Mr. Love, boldly; “I don’t understand what monsieur
means; my character is well known--go and inquire it in London--ask
the Secretary of Foreign Affairs what is said of me--inquire of my
Ambassador--demand of my--”
“Votre passeport, monsieur?”
“It is at home. A gentleman does not carry his passport in his pocket
when he goes to a ball!”
“I will call and see it--au revoir! Take my advice and leave Paris; I
think I have seen you somewhere!”
“Yet I have never had the honour to marry monsieur!” said Mr. Love, with
a polite bow.
In return for his joke, the policeman gave Mr. Love one look--it was a
quiet look, very quiet; but Mr. Love seemed uncommonly affected by it;
he did not say another word, but found himself outside the house in a
twinkling. Monsieur Favart turned round and saw the Pole making himself
as small as possible behind the goodly proportions of Madame Beavor.
“What name does that gentleman go by?”
“So--vo--lofski, the heroic Pole,” cried Madame Beavor, with sundry
misgivings at the unexpected cowardice of so great a patriot.
“Hein! take care of yourselves, ladies. I have nothing against that
person this time. But Monsieur Latour has served his apprenticeship at
the galleys, and is no more a Pole than I am a Jew.”
“And this lady’s fortune!” cried Monsieur Groupille, pathetically; “the
settlements are all made--the notaries all paid. I am sure there must be
some mistake.”
Monsieur Bihl, who had by this time restored his lost Helen to her
senses, stalked up to the epicier, dragging the lady along with him.
“Sir, there is no mistake! But, when I have got the money, if you like
to have the lady you are welcome to her.”
“Monstre!” again muttered the fair Adele.
“The long and the short of it,” said Monsieur Favart, “is that Monsieur
Bihl is a brave garcon, and has been half over the world as a courier.”
“A courier!” exclaimed several voices.
“Madame was nursery-governess to an English milord. They married, and
quarrelled--no harm in that, mes amis; nothing more common. Monsieur
Bihl is a very faithful fellow; nursed his last master in an illness
that ended fatally, because he travelled with his doctor. Milord left
him a handsome legacy--he retired from service, and fell ill, perhaps
from idleness or beer. Is not that the story, Monsieur Bihl?”
“He was always drunk--the wretch!” sobbed Adele. “That was to drown
my domestic sorrows,” said the German; “and when I was sick in my bed,
madame ran off with my money. Thanks to monsieur, I have found both, and
I wish you a very good night.”
“Dansez-vous toujours, mes amis,” said the officer, bowing. And
following Adele and her spouse, the little man left the room--where
he had caused, in chests so broad and limbs so doughty, much the same
consternation as that which some diminutive ferret occasions in a burrow
of rabbits twice his size.
Morton had outstayed Mr. Love. But he thought it unnecessary to linger
long after that gentleman’s departure; and, in the general hubbub that
ensued, he crept out unperceived, and soon arrived at the bureau.
He found Mr. Love and Mr. Birnie already engaged in packing up their
effects.
“Why--when did you leave?” said Morton to Mr. Birnie.
“I saw the policeman enter.”
“And why the deuce did not you tell us?” said Gawtrey.
“Every man for himself. Besides, Mr. Love was dancing,” replied Mr.
Birnie, with a dull glance of disdain. “Philosophy,” muttered Gawtrey,
thrusting his dresscoat into his trunk; then, suddenly changing his
voice, “Ha! ha! it was a very good joke after all--own I did it well.
Ecod! if he had not given me that look, I think I should have turned the
tables on him. But those d---d fellows learn of the mad doctors how to
tame us. Faith, my heart went down to my shoes--yet I’m no coward!”
“But, after all, he evidently did not know you,” said Morton; “and
what has he to say against you? Your trade is a strange one, but not
dishonest. Why give up as if---”
“My young friend,” interrupted Gawtrey, “whether the officer comes after
us or not, our trade is ruined; that infernal Adele, with her fabulous
grandmaman, has done for us. Goupille will blow the temple about our
ears. No help for it--eh, Birnie?”
“None.”
“Go to bed, Philip: we’ll call thee at daybreak, for we must make clear
work before our neighbours open their shutters.”
Reclined, but half undressed, on his bed in the little cabinet, Morton
revolved the events of the evening. The thought that he should see no
more of that white hand and that lovely mouth, which still haunted his
recollection as appertaining to the incognita, greatly indisposed him
towards the abrupt flight intended by Gawtrey, while (so much had his
faith in that person depended upon respect for his confident daring, and
so thoroughly fearless was Morton’s own nature) he felt himself greatly
shaken in his allegiance to the chief, by recollecting the effect
produced on his valour by a single glance from the instrument of law.
He had not yet lived long enough to be aware that men are sometimes
the Representatives of Things; that what the scytale was to the Spartan
hero, a sheriff’s writ often is to a Waterloo medallist: that a Bow
Street runner will enter the foulest den where Murder sits with his
fellows, and pick out his prey with the beck of his forefinger. That,
in short, the thing called LAW, once made tangible and present, rarely
fails to palsy the fierce heart of the thing called CRIME. For Law is
the symbol of all mankind reared against One Foe--the Man of Crime. Not
yet aware of this truth, nor, indeed, in the least suspecting Gawtrey of
worse offences than those of a charlatanic and equivocal profession, the
young man mused over his protector’s cowardice in disdain and wonder:
till, wearied with conjectures, distrust, and shame at his own strange
position of obligation to one whom he could not respect, he fell asleep.
When he woke, he saw the grey light of dawn that streamed cheerlessly
through his shutterless window, struggling with the faint ray of a
candle that Gawtrey, shading with his hand, held over the sleeper. He
started up, and, in the confusion of waking and the imperfect light by
which he beheld the strong features of Gawtrey, half imagined it was a
foe who stood before him.
“Take care, man,” said Gawtrey, as Morton, in this belief, grasped his
arm. “You have a precious rough gripe of your own. Be quiet, will you? I
have a word to say to you.” Here Gawtrey, placing the candle on a chair,
returned to the door and closed it.
“Look you,” he said in a whisper, “I have nearly run through my circle
of invention, and my wit, fertile as it is, can present to me little
encouragement in the future. The eyes of this Favart once on me, every
disguise and every double will not long avail. I dare not return to
London: I am too well known in Brussels, Berlin, and Vienna--”
“But,” interrupted Morton, raising himself on his arm, and fixing his
dark eyes upon his host,--“but you have told me again and again that you
have committed no crime; why then be so fearful of discovery?”
“Why,” repeated Gawtrey, with a slight hesitation which he instantly
overcame, “why! have not you yourself learned that appearances have the
effect of crimes?--were you not chased as a thief when I rescued you
from your foe, the law?--are you not, though a boy in years, under
an alias, and an exile from your own land? And how can you put these
austere questions to me, who am growing grey in the endeavour to extract
sunbeams from cucumbers--subsistence from poverty? I repeat that there
are reasons why I must avoid, for the present, the great capitals. I
must sink in life, and take to the provinces. Birnie is sanguine as
ever; but he is a terrible sort of comforter! Enough of that. Now to
yourself: our savings are less than you might expect; to be sure, Birnie
has been treasurer, and I have laid by a little for Fanny, which I will
rather starve than touch. There remain, however, 150 napoleons, and our
effects, sold at a fourth their value, will fetch 150 more. Here is your
share. I have compassion on you. I told you I would bear you harmless
and innocent. Leave us while yet time.”
It seemed, then, to Morton that Gawtrey had divined his thoughts of
shame and escape of the previous night; perhaps Gawtrey had: and such is
the human heart, that, instead of welcoming the very release he had half
contemplated, now that it was offered him, Philip shrank from it as a
base desertion.
“Poor Gawtrey!” said he, pushing back the canvas bag of gold held out to
him, “you shall not go over the world, and feel that the orphan you fed
and fostered left you to starve with your money in his pocket. When you
again assure me that you have committed no crime, you again remind me
that gratitude has no right to be severe upon the shifts and errors of
its benefactor. If you do not conform to society, what has society done
for me? No! I will not forsake you in a reverse. Fortune has given you a
fall. What, then, courage, and at her again!”
These last words were said so heartily and cheerfully as Morton sprang
from the bed, that they inspirited Gawtrey, who had really desponded of
his lot.
“Well,” said he, “I cannot reject the only friend left me; and while
I live--. But I will make no professions. Quick, then, our luggage is
already gone, and I hear Birnie grunting the rogue’s march of retreat.”
Morton’s toilet was soon completed, and the three associates bade adieu
to the bureau.
Birnie, who was taciturn and impenetrable as ever, walked a little
before as guide. They arrived, at length, at a serrurier’s shop, placed
in an alley near the Porte St. Denis. The serrurier himself, a tall,
begrimed, blackbearded man, was taking the shutters from his shop as
they approached. He and Birnie exchanged silent nods; and the former,
leaving his work, conducted them up a very filthy flight of stairs to an
attic, where a bed, two stools, one table, and an old walnut-tree bureau
formed the sole articles of furniture. Gawtrey looked rather ruefully
round the black, low, damp walls, and said in a crestfallen tone:
“We were better off at the Temple of Hymen. But get us a bottle of wine,
some eggs, and a frying-pan. By Jove, I am a capital hand at an omelet!”
The serrurier nodded again, grinned, and withdrew.
“Rest here,” said Birnie, in his calm, passionless voice, that seemed to
Morton, however, to assume an unwonted tone of command. “I will go and
make the best bargain I can for our furniture, buy fresh clothes, and
engage our places for Tours.”
“For Tours?” repeated Morton.
“Yes, there are some English there; one can live wherever there are
English,” said Gawtrey.
“Hum!” grunted Birnie, drily, and, buttoning up his coat, he walked
slowly away.
About noon he returned with a bundle of clothes, which Gawtrey, who
always regained his elasticity of spirit wherever there was fair play
to his talents, examined with great attention, and many exclamations of
“Bon!--c’est va.”
“I have done well with the Jew,” said Birnie, drawing from his coat
pocket two heavy bags. “One hundred and eighty napoleons. We shall
commence with a good capital.”
“You are right, my friend,” said Gawtrey.
The serrurier was then despatched to the best restaurant in the
neighbourhood, and the three adventurers made a less Socratic dinner
than might have been expected.
CHAPTER VI.
“Then out again he flies to wing his marry round.”
THOMPSON’S Castle of Indolence.
“Again he gazed, ‘It is,’ said he, ‘the same;
There sits he upright in his seat secure,
As one whose conscience is correct and pure.’”--CRABBE.
The adventurers arrived at Tours, and established themselves there in a
lodging, without any incident worth narrating by the way.
At Tours Morton had nothing to do but take his pleasure and enjoy
himself. He passed for a young heir; Gawtrey for his tutor--a doctor in
divinity; Birnie for his valet. The task of maintenance fell on Gawtrey,
who hit off his character to a hair; larded his grave jokes with
university scraps of Latin; looked big and well-fed; wore knee-breeches
and a shovel hat; and played whist with the skill of a veteran vicar. By
his science in that game he made, at first, enough; at least, to defray
their weekly expenses. But, by degrees, the good people at Tours,
who, under pretence of health, were there for economy, grew shy of so
excellent a player; and though Gawtrey always swore solemnly that he
played with the most scrupulous honour (an asseveration which Morton,
at least, implicitly believed), and no proof to the contrary was ever
detected, yet a first-rate card-player is always a suspicious character,
unless the losing parties know exactly who he is. The market fell off,
and Gawtrey at length thought it prudent to extend their travels.
“Ah!” said Mr. Gawtrey, “the world nowadays has grown so ostentatious
that one cannot travel advantageously without a post-chariot and four
horses.” At length they found themselves at Milan, which at that time
was one of the El Dorados for gamesters. Here, however, for want of
introductions, Mr. Gawtrey found it difficult to get into society.
The nobles, proud and rich, played high, but were circumspect in their
company; the bourgeoisie, industrious and energetic, preserved much
of the old Lombard shrewdness; there were no tables d’hote and public
reunions. Gawtrey saw his little capital daily diminishing, with the
Alps at the rear and Poverty in the van. At length, always on the qui
vive, he contrived to make acquaintance with a Scotch family of great
respectability. He effected this by picking up a snuff-box which the
Scotchman had dropped in taking out his handkerchief. This politeness
paved the way to a conversation in which Gawtrey made himself so
agreeable, and talked with such zest of the Modern Athens, and the
tricks practised upon travellers, that he was presented to Mrs.
Macgregor; cards were interchanged, and, as Mr. Gawtrey lived in
tolerable style, the Macgregors pronounced him “a vara genteel mon.”
Once in the house of a respectable person, Gawtrey contrived to turn
himself round and round, till he burrowed a hole into the English circle
then settled in Milan. His whist-playing came into requisition, and once
more Fortune smiled upon Skill.
To this house the pupil one evening accompanied the tutor. When the
whist party, consisting of two tables, was formed, the young man found
himself left out with an old gentleman, who seemed loquacious and
good-natured, and who put many questions to Morton, which he found
it difficult to answer. One of the whist tables was now in a state of
revolution, viz., a lady had cut out and a gentleman cut in, when the
door opened, and Lord Lilburne was announced.
Mr. Macgregor, rising, advanced with great respect to this personage.
“I scarcely ventured to hope you would coom, Lord Lilburne, the night is
so cold.”
“You did not allow sufficiently, then, for the dulness of my solitary
inn and the attractions of your circle. Aha! whist, I see.”
“You play sometimes?”
“Very seldom, now; I have sown all my wild oats, and even the ace of
spades can scarcely dig them out again.”
“Ha! ha! vara gude.”
“I will look on;” and Lord Lilburne drew his chair to the table, exactly
opposite to Mr. Gawtrey.
The old gentleman turned to Philip.
“An extraordinary man, Lord Lilburne; you have heard of him, of course?”
“No, indeed; what of him?” asked the young man, rousing himself.
“What of him?” said the old gentleman, with a smile; “why the
newspapers, if you ever read them, will tell you enough of the elegant,
the witty Lord Lilburne; a man of eminent talent, though indolent. He
was wild in his youth, as clever men often are; but, on attaining his
title and fortune, and marrying into the family of the then premier, he
became more sedate. They say he might make a great figure in politics if
he would. He has a very high reputation--very. People do say that he
is still fond of pleasure; but that is a common failing amongst the
aristocracy. Morality is only found in the middle classes, young
gentleman. It is a lucky family, that of Lilburne; his sister, Mrs.
Beaufort--”
“Beaufort!” exclaimed Morton, and then muttered to himself, “Ah,
true--true; I have heard the name of Lilburne before.”
“Do you know the Beauforts? Well, you remember how luckily Robert,
Lilburne’s brother-in-law, came into that fine property just as his
predecessor was about to marry a--”
Morton scowled at his garrulous acquaintance, and stalked abruptly to
the card table.
Ever since Lord Lilburne had seated himself opposite to Mr. Gawtrey,
that gentleman had evinced a perturbation of manner that became obvious
to the company. He grew deadly pale, his hands trembled, he moved
uneasily in his seat, he missed deal, he trumped his partner’s best
diamond; finally he revoked, threw down his money, and said, with a
forced smile, “that the heat of the room overcame him.” As he rose Lord
Lilburne rose also, and the eyes of both met. Those of Lilburne were
calm, but penetrating and inquisitive in their gaze; those of Gawtrey
were like balls of fire. He seemed gradually to dilate in his height,
his broad chest expanded, he breathed hard.
“Ah, Doctor,” said Mr. Macgregor, “let me introduce you to Lord
Lilburne.”
The peer bowed haughtily; Mr. Gawtrey did not return the salutation,
but with a sort of gulp, as if he were swallowing some burst of passion,
strode to the fire, and then, turning round, again fixed his gaze upon
the new guest.
Lilburne, however, who had never lost his self-composure at this strange
rudeness, was now quietly talking with their host.
“Your Doctor seems an eccentric man--a little absent--learned, I
suppose. Have you been to Como, yet?”
Mr. Gawtrey remained by the fire beating the devil’s tattoo upon the
chimney-piece, and ever and anon turning his glance towards Lilburne,
who seemed to have forgotten his existence.
Both these guests stayed till the party broke up; Mr. Gawtrey apparently
wishing to outstay Lord Lilburne; for, when the last went down-stairs,
Mr. Gawtrey, nodding to his comrade and giving a hurried bow to the
host, descended also. As they passed the porter’s lodge, they found
Lilburne on the step of his carriage; he turned his head abruptly, and
again met Mr. Gawtrey’s eye; paused a moment, and whispered over his
shoulder:
“So we remember each other, sir? Let us not meet again; and, on that
condition, bygones are bygones.”
“Scoundrel!” muttered Gawtrey, clenching his fists; but the peer had
sprung into his carriage with a lightness scarcely to be expected from
his lameness, and the wheels whirled within an inch of the soi-disant
doctor’s right pump.
Gawtrey walked on for some moments in great excitement; at length he
turned to his companion,--
“Do you guess who Lord Lilburne is? I will tell you my first foe
and Fanny’s grandfather! Now, note the justice of Fate: here is this
man--mark well--this man who commenced life by putting his faults on my
own shoulders! From that little boss has fungused out a terrible hump.
This man who seduced my affianced bride, and then left her whole soul,
once fair and blooming--I swear it--with its leaves fresh from the dews
of heaven, one rank leprosy, this man who, rolling in riches, learned to
cheat and pilfer as a boy learns to dance and play the fiddle, and (to
damn me, whose happiness he had blasted) accused me to the world of his
own crime!--here is this man who has not left off one vice, but added
to those of his youth the bloodless craft of the veteran knave;--here
is this man, flattered, courted, great, marching through lanes of bowing
parasites to an illustrious epitaph and a marble tomb, and I, a rogue
too, if you will, but rogue for my bread, dating from him my errors
and my ruin! I--vagabond--outcast--skulking through tricks to avoid
crime--why the difference? Because one is born rich and the other
poor--because he has no excuse for crime, and therefore no one suspects
him!”
The wretched man (for at that moment he was wretched) paused breathless
from his passionate and rapid burst, and before him rose in its marble
majesty, with the moon full upon its shining spires--the wonder of
Gothic Italy--the Cathedral Church of Milan.
“Chafe not yourself at the universal fate,” said the young man, with
a bitter smile on his lips and pointing to the cathedral; “I have not
lived long, but I have learned already enough to know this,-- he who
could raise a pile like that, dedicated to Heaven, would be honoured as
a saint; he who knelt to God by the roadside under a hedge would be sent
to the house of correction as a vagabond. The difference between man
and man is money, and will be, when you, the despised charlatan, and
Lilburne, the honoured cheat, have not left as much dust behind you as
will fill a snuff-box. Comfort yourself, you are in the majority.”
CHAPTER VII.
“A desert wild
Before them stretched bare, comfortless, and vast,
With gibbets, bones, and carcasses defiled.”
THOMPSON’S Castle of Indolenece.
Mr. Gawtrey did not wish to give his foe the triumph of thinking he had
driven him from Milan; he resolved to stay and brave it out; but when
he appeared in public, he found the acquaintances he had formed bow
politely, but cross to the other side of the way. No more invitations
to tea and cards showered in upon the jolly parson. He was puzzled, for
people, while they shunned him, did not appear uncivil. He found out at
last that a report was circulated that he was deranged; though he could
not trace this rumour to Lord Lilburne, he was at no loss to guess from
whom it had emanated. His own eccentricities, especially his recent
manner at Mr. Macgregor’s, gave confirmation to the charge. Again the
funds began to sink low in the canvas bags, and at length, in despair,
Mr. Gawtrey was obliged to quit the field. They returned to France
through Switzerland--a country too poor for gamesters; and ever since
the interview with Lilburne, a great change had come over Gawtrey’s gay
spirit: he grew moody and thoughtful, he took no pains to replenish the
common stock, he talked much and seriously to his young friend of poor
Fanny, and owned that he yearned to see her again. The desire to return
to Paris haunted him like a fatality; he saw the danger that awaited
him there, but it only allured him the more, as the candle does the moth
whose wings it has singed. Birnie, who, in all their vicissitudes and
wanderings, their ups and downs, retained the same tacit, immovable
demeanour, received with a sneer the orders at last to march back upon
the French capital. “You would never have left it, if you had taken my
advice,” he said, and quitted the room.
Mr. Gawtrey gazed after him and muttered, “Is the die then cast?”
“What does he mean?” said Morton.
“You will know soon,” replied Gawtrey, and he followed Birnie; and from
that time the whispered conferences with that person, which had seemed
suspended during their travels, were renewed.
..........
One morning, three men were seen entering Paris on foot through the
Porte St. Denis. It was a fine day in spring, and the old city looked
gay with its loitering passengers and gaudy shops, and under that clear
blue exhilarating sky so peculiar to France.
Two of these men walked abreast, the other preceded them a few steps.
The one who went first--thin, pale, and threadbare--yet seemed to suffer
the least from fatigue; he walked with a long, swinging, noiseless
stride, looking to the right and left from the corners of his eyes. Of
the two who followed, one was handsome and finely formed, but of swarthy
complexion, young, yet with a look of care; the other, of sturdy frame,
leaned on a thick stick, and his eyes were gloomily cast down.
“Philip,” said the last, “in coming back to Paris--I feel that I am
coming back to my grave!”
“Pooh--you were equally despondent in our excursions elsewhere.”
“Because I was always thinking of poor Fanny, and
because--because--Birnie was ever at me with his horrible temptations!”
“Birnie! I loathe the man! Will you never get rid of him?”
“I cannot! Hush! he will hear us. How unlucky we have been! and now
without a sou in our pockets--here the dunghill--there the gaol! We are
in his power at last!”
“His power! what mean you?”
“What ho! Birnie!” cried Gawtrey, unheeding Morton’s question. “Let us
halt and breakfast: I am tired.”
“You forget!--we have no money till we make it,” returned Birnie,
coldly.--“Come to the serrurier’s he will trust us.”
CHAPTER VIII.
“Gaunt Beggary and Scorn with many bell-hounds more.”
THOMSON’S Castle of Indolence.
“The other was a fell, despiteful fiend.”--Ibid.
“Your happiness behold! then straight a wand
He waved, an anti-magic power that hath
Truth from illusive falsehood to command.”--Ibid.
“But what for us, the children of despair,
Brought to the brink of hell--what hope remains?
RESOLVE, RESOLVE!”--Ibid.
It may be observed that there are certain years in which in a civilised
country some particular crime comes into vogue. It flares its season,
and then burns out. Thus at one time we have Burking--at another,
Swingism--now, suicide is in vogue--now, poisoning tradespeople in
apple-dumplings--now, little boys stab each other with penknives--now,
common soldiers shoot at their sergeants. Almost every year there is one
crime peculiar to it; a sort of annual which overruns the country but
does not bloom again. Unquestionably the Press has a great deal to
do with these epidemics. Let a newspaper once give an account of some
out-of-the-way atrocity that has the charm of being novel, and certain
depraved minds fasten to it like leeches. They brood over and revolve
it--the idea grows up, a horrid phantasmalian monomania; and all of a
sudden, in a hundred different places, the one seed sown by the leaden
types springs up into foul flowering.
[An old Spanish writer, treating of the Inquisition, has some very
striking remarks on the kind of madness which, whenever some
terrible notoriety is given to a particular offence, leads persons
of distempered fancy to accuse themselves of it. He observes that
when the cruelties of the Inquisition against the imaginary crime of
sorcery were the most barbarous, this singular frenzy led numbers to
accuse themselves of sorcery. The publication and celebrity of the
crime begat the desire of the crime.]
But if the first reported aboriginal crime has been attended with
impunity, how much more does the imitative faculty cling to it.
Ill-judged mercy falls, not like dew, but like a great heap of manure,
on the rank deed.
Now it happened that at the time I write of, or rather a little before,
there had been detected and tried in Paris a most redoubted coiner. He
had carried on the business with a dexterity that won admiration even
for the offence; and, moreover, he had served previously with some
distinction at Austerlitz and Marengo. The consequence was that the
public went with instead of against him, and his sentence was transmuted
to three years’ imprisonment by the government. For all governments in
free countries aspire rather to be popular than just.
No sooner was this case reported in the journals--and even the gravest
took notice, of it (which is not common with the scholastic journals
of France)--no sooner did it make a stir and a sensation, and cover the
criminal with celebrity, than the result became noticeable in a very
large issue of false money.
Coining in the year I now write of was the fashionable crime. The police
were roused into full vigour: it became known to them that there was one
gang in especial who cultivated this art with singular success. Their
coinage was, indeed, so good, so superior to all their rivals, that it
was often unconsciously preferred by the public to the real mintage. At
the same time they carried on their calling with such secrecy that they
utterly baffled discovery.
An immense reward was offered by the bureau to any one who would
betray his accomplices, and Monsieur Favart was placed at the head of a
commission of inquiry. This person had himself been a faux monnoyer, and
was an adept in the art, and it was he who had discovered the redoubted
coiner who had brought the crime into such notoriety. Monsieur Favart
was a man of the most vigilant acuteness, the most indefatigable
research, and of a courage which; perhaps, is more common than we
suppose. It is a popular error to suppose that courage means courage in
everything. Put a hero on board ship at a five-barred gate, and, if he
is not used to hunting, he will turn pale; put a fox-hunter on one of
the Swiss chasms, over which the mountaineer springs like a roe, and
his knees will knock under him. People are brave in the dangers to which
they accustom themselves, either in imagination or practice.
Monsieur Favart, then, was a man of the most daring bravery in facing
rogues and cut-throats. He awed them with his very eye; yet he had been
known to have been kicked down-stairs by his wife, and when he was drawn
into the grand army, he deserted the eve of his first battle. Such, as
moralists say, is the inconsistency of man!
But Monsieur Favart was sworn to trace the coiners, and he had never
failed yet in any enterprise he undertook. One day he presented
himself to his chief with a countenance so elated that that penetrating
functionary said to him at once--
“You have heard of our messieurs!”
“I have: I am to visit them to-night.”
“Bravo! How many men will you take?”
“From twelve to twenty to leave without on guard. But I must enter
alone. Such is the condition: an accomplice who fears his own throat too
much to be openly a betrayer will introduce me to the house--nay, to the
very room. By his description it is necessary I should know the exact
locale in order to cut off retreat; so to-morrow night I shall surround
the beehive and take the honey.”
“They are desperate fellows, these coiners, always; better be cautious.”
“You forget I was one of them, and know the masonry.” About the same
time this conversation was going on at the bureau of the police, in
another part of the town Morton and Gawtrey were seated alone. It
is some weeks since they entered Paris, and spring has mellowed into
summer.
The house in which they lodged was in the lordly quartier of the
Faubourg St. Germain; the neighbouring streets were venerable with
the ancient edifices of a fallen noblesse; but their tenement was in a
narrow, dingy lane, and the building itself seemed beggarly and ruinous.
The apartment was in an attic on the sixth story, and the window, placed
at the back of the lane, looked upon another row of houses of a better
description, that communicated with one of the great streets of the
quartier. The space between their abode and their opposite neighbours
was so narrow that the sun could scarcely pierce between. In the height
of summer might be found there a perpetual shade.
The pair were seated by the window. Gawtrey, well-dressed,
smooth-shaven, as in his palmy time; Morton, in the same garments with
which he had entered Paris, weather-stained and ragged. Looking
towards the casements of the attic in the opposite house, Gawtrey
said, mutteringly, “I wonder where Birnie has been, and why he has not
returned. I grow suspicious of that man.”
“Suspicious of what?” asked Morton. “Of his honesty? Would he rob you?”
“Rob me! Humph--perhaps! but you see I am in Paris, in spite of the
hints of the police; he may denounce me.”
“Why, then, suffer him to lodge away from you?”
“Why? because, by having separate houses there are two channels of
escape. A dark night, and a ladder thrown across from window to window,
he is with us, or we with him.”
“But wherefore such precautions? You blind--you deceive me; what have
you done?--what is your employment now? You are mute. Hark you, Gawtrey.
I have pinned my fate to you--I am fallen from hope itself! At times
it almost makes me mad to look back--and yet you do not trust me. Since
your return to Paris you are absent whole nights--often days; you are
moody and thoughtful--yet, whatever your business, it seems to bring you
ample returns.”
“You think that,” said Gawtrey, mildly, and with a sort of pity in his
voice; “yet you refuse to take even the money to change those rags.”
“Because I know not how the money was gained. Ah, Gawtrey, I am not too
proud for charity, but I am for--” He checked the word uppermost in his
thoughts, and resumed--
“Yes; your occupations seem lucrative. It was but yesterday Birnie gave
me fifty napoleons, for which he said you wished change in silver.”
“Did he? The ras-- Well! and you got change for them?”
“I know not why, but I refused.”
“That was right, Philip. Do nothing that man tells you.”
“Will you, then, trust me? You are engaged in some horrible traffic! it
may be blood! I am no longer a boy--I have a will of my own--I will not
be silently and blindly entrapped to perdition. If I march thither,
it shall be with my own consent. Trust me, and this day, or we part
to-morrow.”
“Be ruled. Some secrets it is better not to know.”
“It matters not. I have come to my decision--I ask yours.”
Gawtrey paused for some moments in deep thought. At last he lifted his
eyes to Philip, and replied:
“Well, then, if it must be. Sooner or later it must have been so; and I
want a confidant. You are bold, and will not shrink. You desire to know
my occupation--will you witness it to-night?”
“I am prepared: to-night!”
Here a step was heard on the stairs--a knock at the door--and Birnie
entered.
He drew aside Gawtrey, and whispered him, as usual, for some moments.
Gawtrey nodded his head, and then said aloud--
“To-morrow we shall talk without reserve before my young friend.
To-night he joins us.”
“To-night!--very well,” said Birnie, with his cold sneer. “He must take
the oath; and you, with your life, will be responsible for his honesty?”
“Ay! it is the rule.”
“Good-bye, then, till we meet,” said Birnie, and withdrew.
“I wonder,” said Gawtrey, musingly, and between his grinded teeth,
“whether I shall ever have a good fair shot at that fellow? Ho! ho!” and
his laugh shook the walls.
Morton looked hard at Gawtrey, as the latter now sank down in his
chair, and gazed with a vacant stare, that seemed almost to partake
of imbecility, upon the opposite wall. The careless, reckless, jovial
expression, which usually characterised the features of the man, had for
some weeks given place to a restless, anxious, and at times ferocious
aspect, like the beast that first finds a sport while the hounds are yet
afar, and his limbs are yet strong, in the chase which marks him for
his victim, but grows desperate with rage and fear as the day nears its
close, and the death-dogs pant hard upon his track. But at that moment
the strong features, with their gnarled muscle and iron sinews, seemed
to have lost every sign both of passion and the will, and to be locked
in a stolid and dull repose. At last he looked up at Morton, and said,
with a smile like that of an old man in his dotage--
“I’m thinking that my life has been one mistake! I had talents--you
would not fancy it--but once I was neither a fool nor a villain! Odd,
isn’t it? Just reach me the brandy.”
But Morton, with a slight shudder, turned and left the room.
He walked on mechanically, and gained, at last, the superb Quai that
borders the Seine; there, the passengers became more frequent; gay
equipages rolled along; the white and lofty mansions looked fair and
stately in the clear blue sky of early summer; beside him flowed the
sparkling river, animated with the painted baths that floated on its
surface: earth was merry and heaven serene his heart was dark through
all: Night within--Morning beautiful without! At last he paused by
that bridge, stately with the statues of those whom the caprice of time
honours with a name; for though Zeus and his gods be overthrown, while
earth exists will live the worship of Dead Men;--the bridge by which you
pass from the royal Tuileries, or the luxurious streets beyond the Rue
de Rivoli, to the Senate of the emancipated People, and the gloomy and
desolate grandeur of the Faubourg St. Germain, in whose venerable haunts
the impoverished descendants of the old feudal tyrants, whom the birth
of the Senate overthrew, yet congregate;--the ghosts of departed powers
proud of the shadows of great names. As the English outcast paused
midway on the bridge, and for the first time lifting his head from
his bosom, gazed around, there broke at once on his remembrance that
terrible and fatal evening, when, hopeless, friendless, desperate, he
had begged for charity of his uncle’s hireling, with all the feelings
that then (so imperfectly and lightly touched on in his brief narrative
to Gawtrey) had raged and blackened in his breast, urging to the
resolution he had adopted, casting him on the ominous friendship of the
man whose guidance he even then had suspected and distrusted. The spot
in either city had a certain similitude and correspondence each with
each: at the first he had consummated his despair of human destinies--he
had dared to forget the Providence of God--he had arrogated his fate to
himself: by the first bridge he had taken his resolve; by the last he
stood in awe at the result--stood no less poor--no less abject--equally
in rags and squalor; but was his crest as haughty and his eye as
fearless, for was his conscience as free and his honour as unstained?
Those arches of stone--those rivers that rolled between, seemed to him
then to take a more mystic and typical sense than belongs to the outer
world--they were the bridges to the Rivers of his Life. Plunged in
thoughts so confused and dim that he could scarcely distinguish,
through the chaos, the one streak of light which, perhaps, heralded
the reconstruction or regeneration of the elements of his soul;--two
passengers halted, also by his side.
“You will be late for the debate,” said one of them to the other. “Why
do you stop?”
“My friend,” said the other, “I never pass this spot without recalling
the time when I stood here without a son, or, as I thought, a chance of
one, and impiously meditated self-destruction.”
“You!--now so rich--so fortunate in repute and station--is it possible?
How was it? A lucky chance?--a sudden legacy?”
“No: Time, Faith, and Energy--the three Friends God has given to the
Poor!”
The men moved on; but Morton, who had turned his face towards them,
fancied that the last speaker fixed on him his bright, cheerful eye,
with a meaning look; and when the man was gone, he repeated those words,
and hailed them in his heart of hearts as an augury from above.
Quickly, then, and as if by magic, the former confusion of his mind
seemed to settle into distinct shapes of courage and resolve. “Yes,” he
muttered; “I will keep this night’s appointment--I will learn the secret
of these men’s life. In my inexperience and destitution, I have suffered
myself to be led hitherto into a partnership, if not with vice and
crime, at least with subterfuge and trick. I awake from my reckless
boyhood--my unworthy palterings with my better self. If Gawtrey be as I
dread to find him--if he be linked in some guilty and hateful traffic;
with that loathsome accomplice--I will--” He paused, for his heart
whispered, “Well, and even so,--the guilty man clothed and fed thee!”
“I will,” resumed his thought, in answer to his heart--“I will go on
my knees to him to fly while there is yet time, to
work--beg--starve--perish even--rather than lose the right to look man
in the face without a blush, and kneel to his God without remorse!”
And as he thus ended, he felt suddenly as if he himself were restored to
the perception and the joy of the Nature and the World around him; the
NIGHT had vanished from his soul--he inhaled the balm and freshness
of the air--he comprehended the delight which the liberal June was
scattering over the earth--he looked above, and his eyes were suffused
with pleasure, at the smile of the soft blue skies. The MORNING became,
as it were, a part of his own being; and he felt that as the world in
spite of the storms is fair, so in spite of evil God is good. He walked
on--he passed the bridge, but his step was no more the same,--he forgot
his rags. Why should he be ashamed? And thus, in the very flush of this
new and strange elation and elasticity of spirit, he came unawares upon
a group of young men, lounging before the porch of one of the chief
hotels in that splendid Rue de Rivoli, wherein Wealth and the English
have made their homes. A groom, mounted, was leading another horse
up and down the road, and the young men were making their comments of
approbation upon both the horses, especially the one led, which was,
indeed, of uncommon beauty and great value. Even Morton, in whom the
boyish passion of his earlier life yet existed, paused to turn his
experienced and admiring eye upon the stately shape and pace of the
noble animal, and as he did so, a name too well remembered came upon his
ear.
“Certainly, Arthur Beaufort is the most enviable fellow in Europe.”
“Why, yes,” said another of the young men; “he has plenty of money--is
good-looking, devilish good-natured, clever, and spends like a prince.”
“Has the best horses!”
“The best luck at roulette!”
“The prettiest girls in love with him!”
“And no one enjoys life more. Ah! here he is!”
The group parted as a light, graceful figure came out of a jeweller’s
shop that adjoined the hotel, and halted gaily amongst the loungers.
Morton’s first impulse was to hurry from the spot; his second impulse
arrested his step, and, a little apart, and half-hid beneath one of the
arches of the colonnade which adorns the street, the Outcast gazed upon
the Heir. There was no comparison in the natural personal advantages of
the two young men; for Philip Morton, despite all the hardships of his
rough career, had now grown up and ripened into a rare perfection
of form and feature. His broad chest, his erect air, his lithe and
symmetrical length of limb, united, happily, the attributes of activity
and strength; and though there was no delicacy of youthful bloom upon
his dark cheek, and though lines which should have come later marred
its smoothness with the signs of care and thought, yet an expression of
intelligence and daring, equally beyond his years, and the evidence of
hardy, abstemious, vigorous health, served to show to the full advantage
the outline of features which, noble and regular, though stern and
masculine, the artist might have borrowed for his ideal of a young
Spartan arming for his first battle. Arthur, slight to feebleness, and
with the paleness, partly of constitution, partly of gay excess, on
his fair and clear complexion, had features far less symmetrical and
impressive than his cousin: but what then? All that are bestowed by
elegance of dress, the refinements of luxurious habit, the nameless
grace that comes from a mind and a manner polished, the one by literary
culture, the other by social intercourse, invested the person of the
heir with a fascination that rude Nature alone ever fails to give. And
about him there was a gaiety, an airiness of spirit, an atmosphere of
enjoyment which bespoke one who is in love with life.
“Why, this is lucky! I’m so glad to see you all!” said Arthur Beaufort,
with that silver-ringing tone and charming smile which are to the happy
spring of man what its music and its sunshine are to the spring of
earth. “You must dine with me at Verey’s. I want something to rouse me
to-day; for I did not get home from the Salon* till four this morning.”
*[The most celebrated gaming-house in Paris in the day before
gaming-houses were suppressed by the well-directed energy of the
government.]
“But you won?”
“Yes, Marsden. Hang it! I always win: I who could so well afford to
lose: I’m quite ashamed of my luck!”
“It is easy to spend what one wins,” observed Mr. Marsden,
sententiously; “and I see you have been at the jeweller’s! A present for
Cecile? Well, don’t blush, my dear fellow. What is life without women?”
“And wine?” said a second. “And play?” said a third. “And wealth?” said
a fourth.
“And you enjoy them all! Happy fellow!” said a fifth. The Outcast pulled
his hat over his brows, and walked away.
“This dear Paris,” said Beaufort, as his eye carelessly and
unconsciously followed the dark form retreating through the
arches;--“this dear Paris! I must make the most of it while I stay! I
have only been here a few weeks, and next week I must go.”
“Pooh--your health is better: you don’t look like the same man.”
“You think so really? Still I don’t know: the doctors say that I must
either go to the German waters--the season is begun--or--”
“Or what?”
“Live less with such pleasant companions, my dear fellow! But as you
say, what is life without--”
“Women!”
“Wine!”
“Play!”
“Wealth!”
“Ha! ha. ‘Throw physic to the dogs: I’ll none of it!’”
And Arthur leaped lightly on his saddle, and as he rode gaily on,
humming the favourite air of the last opera, the hoofs of his horse
splashed the mud over a foot-passenger halting at the crossing. Morton
checked the fiery exclamation rising to his lips; and gazing after
the brilliant form that hurried on towards the Champs Elysees, his eye
caught the statues on the bridge, and a voice, as of a cheering angel,
whispered again to his heart, “TIME, FAITH, ENERGY!”
The expression of his countenance grew calm at once, and as he continued
his rambles it was with a mind that, casting off the burdens of the
past, looked serenely and steadily on the obstacles and hardships of
the future. We have seen that a scruple of conscience or of pride, not
without its nobleness, had made him refuse the importunities of Gawtrey
for less sordid raiment; the same feeling made it his custom to avoid
sharing the luxurious and dainty food with which Gawtrey was wont
to regale himself. For that strange man, whose wonderful felicity of
temperament and constitution rendered him, in all circumstances, keenly
alive to the hearty and animal enjoyments of life, would still emerge,
as the day declined, from their wretched apartment, and, trusting to his
disguises, in which indeed he possessed a masterly art, repair to one of
the better description of restaurants, and feast away his cares for the
moment. William Gawtrey would not have cared three straws for the
curse of Damocles. The sword over his head would never have spoiled his
appetite! He had lately, too, taken to drinking much more deeply than he
had been used to do--the fine intellect of the man was growing thickened
and dulled; and this was a spectacle that Morton could not bear to
contemplate. Yet so great was Gawtrey’s vigour of health, that, after
draining wine and spirits enough to have despatched a company of
fox-hunters, and after betraying, sometimes in uproarious glee,
sometimes in maudlin self-bewailings, that he himself was not quite
invulnerable to the thyrsus of the god, he would--on any call on his
energies, or especially before departing on those mysterious expeditions
which kept him from home half, and sometimes all, the night--plunge his
head into cold water--drink as much of the lymph as a groom would have
shuddered to bestow on a horse--close his eyes in a doze for half an
hour, and wake, cool, sober, and collected, as if he had lived according
to the precepts of Socrates or Cornaro!
But to return to Morton. It was his habit to avoid as much as possible
sharing the good cheer of his companion; and now, as he entered the
Champs Elysees, he saw a little family, consisting of a young mechanic,
his wife, and two children, who, with that love of harmless recreation
which yet characterises the French, had taken advantage of a holiday in
the craft, and were enjoying their simple meal under the shadow of the
trees. Whether in hunger or in envy, Morton paused and contemplated the
happy group. Along the road rolled the equipages and trampled the steeds
of those to whom all life is a holiday. There, was Pleasure--under those
trees was Happiness. One of the children, a little boy of about six
years old, observing the attitude and gaze of the pausing wayfarer, ran
to him, and holding up a fragment of a coarse kind of cake, said to him,
willingly, “Take it--I have had enough!” The child reminded Morton of
his brother--his heart melted within him--he lifted the young Samaritan
in his arms, and as he kissed him, wept.
The mother observed and rose also. She laid her hand on his own: “Poor
boy! why do you weep?--can we relieve you?”
Now that bright gleam of human nature, suddenly darting across the
sombre recollections and associations of his past life, seemed to Morton
as if it came from Heaven, in approval and in blessing of this attempt
at reconciliation to his fate.
“I thank you,” said he, placing the child on the ground, and passing his
hand over his eyes,--“I thank you--yes! Let me sit down amongst you.”
And he sat down, the child by his side, and partook of their fare, and
was merry with them,--the proud Philip!--had he not begun to discover
the “precious jewel” in the “ugly and venomous” Adversity?
The mechanic, though a gay fellow on the whole, was not without some of
that discontent of his station which is common with his class; he vented
it, however, not in murmurs, but in jests. He was satirical on the
carriages and the horsemen that passed; and, lolling on the grass,
ridiculed his betters at his ease.
“Hush!” said his wife, suddenly; “here comes Madame de Merville;” and
rising as she spoke, she made a respectful inclination of her head
towards an open carriage that was passing very slowly towards the town.
“Madame de Merville!” repeated the husband, rising also, and lifting his
cap from his head. “Ah! I have nothing to say against her!”
Morton looked instinctively towards the carriage, and saw a fair
countenance turned graciously to answer the silent salutations of the
mechanic and his wife--a countenance that had long haunted his
dreams, though of late it had faded away beneath harsher thoughts--the
countenance of the stranger whom he had seen at the bureau of Gawtrey,
when that worthy personage had borne a more mellifluous name. He started
and changed colour: the lady herself now seemed suddenly to recognise
him; for their eyes met, and she bent forward eagerly. She pulled the
check-string--the carriage halted--she beckoned to the mechanic’s wife,
who went up to the roadside.
“I worked once for that lady,” said the man with a tone of feeling; “and
when my wife fell ill last winter she paid the doctors. Ah, she is an
angel of charity and kindness!”
Morton scarcely heard this eulogium, for he observed, by something eager
and inquisitive in the face of Madame de Merville, and by the sudden
manner in which the mechanic’s helpmate turned her head to the spot in
which he stood, that he was the object of their conversation. Once
more he became suddenly aware of his ragged dress, and with a natural
shame--a fear that charity might be extended to him from her--he
muttered an abrupt farewell to the operative, and without another glance
at the carriage, walked away.
Before he had got many paces, the wife however came up to him,
breathless. “Madame de Merville would speak to you, sir!” she said, with
more respect than she had hitherto thrown into her manner. Philip paused
an instant, and again strode on--
“It must be some mistake,” he said, hurriedly: “I have no right to
expect such an honour.”
He struck across the road, gained the opposite side, and had vanished
from Madame de Merville’s eyes, before the woman regained the carriage.
But still that calm, pale, and somewhat melancholy face, presented
itself before him; and as he walked again through the town, sweet and
gentle fancies crowded confusedly on his heart. On that soft summer day,
memorable for so many silent but mighty events in that inner life which
prepares the catastrophes of the outer one; as in the region, of which
Virgil has sung, the images of men to be born hereafter repose or
glide--on that soft summer day, he felt he had reached the age when
Youth begins to clothe in some human shape its first vague ideal of
desire and love.
In such thoughts, and still wandering, the day wore away, till he found
himself in one of the lanes that surround that glittering Microcosm of
the vices, the frivolities, the hollow show, and the real beggary of the
gay City--the gardens and the galleries of the Palais Royal. Surprised
at the lateness of the hour, it was then on the stroke of seven, he
was about to return homewards, when the loud voice of Gawtrey sounded
behind, and that personage, tapping him on the back, said,--
“Hollo, my young friend, well met! This will be a night of trial to you.
Empty stomachs produce weak nerves. Come along! you must dine with me.
A good dinner and a bottle of old wine--come! nonsense, I say you shall
come! Vive la joie!”
While speaking, he had linked his arm in Morton’s, and hurried him on
several paces in spite of his struggles; but just as the words Vive la
joie left his lips, he stood still and mute, as if a thunderbolt had
fallen at his feet; and Morton felt that heavy arm shiver and tremble
like a leaf. He looked up, and just at the entrance of that part of the
Palais Royal in which are situated the restaurants of Verey and Vefour,
he saw two men standing but a few paces before them, and gazing full on
Gawtrey and himself.
“It is my evil genius,” muttered Gawtrey, grinding his teeth.
“And mine!” said Morton.
The younger of the two men thus apostrophised made a step towards
Philip, when his companion drew him back and whispered,--“What are you
about--do you know that young man?”
“He is my cousin; Philip Beaufort’s natural son!”
“Is he? then discard him for ever. He is with the most dangerous knave
in Europe!”
As Lord Lilburne--for it was he--thus whispered his nephew, Gawtrey
strode up to him; and, glaring full in his face, said in a deep and
hollow tone,--“There is a hell, my lord,--I go to drink to our meeting!”
Thus saying, he took off his hat with a ceremonious mockery, and
disappeared within the adjoining restaurant, kept by Vefour.
“A hell!” said Lilburne, with his frigid smile; “the rogue’s head runs
upon gambling-houses!”
“And I have suffered Philip again to escape me,” said Arthur, in
self-reproach: for while Gawtrey had addressed Lord Lilburne, Morton had
plunged back amidst the labyrinth of alleys. “How have I kept my oath?”
“Come! your guests must have arrived by this time. As for that wretched
young man, depend upon it that he is corrupted body and soul.”
“But he is my own cousin.”
“Pooh! there is no relationship in natural children: besides, he will
find you out fast enough. Ragged claimants are not long too proud to
beg.”
“You speak in earnest?” said Arthur, irresolutely. “Ay! trust my
experience of the world--Allons!”
And in a cabinet of the very restaurant, adjoining that in which the
solitary Gawtrey gorged his conscience, Lilburne, Arthur, and their gay
friends, soon forgetful of all but the roses of the moment, bathed their
airy spirits in the dews of the mirthful wine. Oh, extremes of life! Oh,
Night! Oh, Morning!
CHAPTER IX.
“Meantime a moving scene was open laid, That lazar house.”--THOMSON’S
Castle of Indolence.
It was near midnight. At the mouth of the lane in which Gawtrey resided
there stood four men. Not far distant, in the broad street at angles
with the lane, were heard the wheels of carriages and the sound of
music. A lady, fair in form, tender of heart, stainless in repute, was
receiving her friends!
“Monsieur Favart,” said one of the men to the smallest of the four; “you
understand the conditions--20,000 francs and a free pardon?”
“Nothing more reasonable--it is understood. Still I confess that I
should like to have my men close at hand. I am not given to fear; but
this is a dangerous experiment.”
“You knew the danger beforehand and subscribed to it: you must enter
alone with me, or not at all. Mark you, the men are sworn to murder him
who betrays them. Not for twenty times 20,000 francs would I have them
know me as the informer. My life were not worth a day’s purchase. Now,
if you feel secure in your disguise, all is safe. You will have seen
them at their work--you will recognise their persons--you can depose
against them at the trial--I shall have time to quit France.”
“Well, well! as you please.”
“Mind, you must wait in the vault with them till they separate. We have
so planted your men that whatever street each of the gang takes in going
home, he can be seized quietly and at once. The bravest and craftiest of
all, who, though he has but just joined, is already their captain;--him,
the man I told you of, who lives in the house, you must take after his
return, in his bed. It is the sixth story to the right, remember: here
is the key to his door. He is a giant in strength; and will never be
taken alive if up and armed.”
“Ah, I comprehend!--Gilbert” (and Favart turned to one of his companions
who had not yet spoken) “take three men besides yourself, according to
the directions I gave you,--the porter will admit you, that’s arranged.
Make no noise. If I don’t return by four o’clock, don’t wait for me,
but proceed at once. Look well to your primings. Take him alive, if
possible--at the worst, dead. And now--mon ami--lead on!”
The traitor nodded, and walked slowly down the street. Favart, pausing,
whispered hastily to the man whom he had called Gilbert,--
“Follow me close--get to the door of the cellar-place eight men within
hearing of my whistle--recollect the picklocks, the axes. If you hear
the whistle, break in; if not, I’m safe, and the first orders to seize
the captain in his room stand good.”
So saying, Favart strode after his guide. The door of a large, but
ill-favoured-looking house stood ajar--they entered-passed unmolested
through a court-yard--descended some stairs; the guide unlocked the door
of a cellar, and took a dark lantern from under his cloak. As he drew
up the slide, the dim light gleamed on barrels and wine-casks, which
appeared to fill up the space. Rolling aside one of these, the guide
lifted a trap-door, and lowered his lantern. “Enter,” said he; and the
two men disappeared.
........
The coiners were at their work. A man, seated on a stool before a desk,
was entering accounts in a large book. That man was William Gawtrey.
While, with the rapid precision of honest mechanics, the machinery of
the Dark Trade went on in its several departments. Apart--alone--at
the foot of a long table, sat Philip Morton. The truth had exceeded his
darkest suspicions. He had consented to take the oath not to divulge
what was to be given to his survey; and when, led into that vault, the
bandage was taken from his eyes, it was some minutes before he could
fully comprehend the desperate and criminal occupations of the wild
forms amidst which towered the burly stature of his benefactor. As the
truth slowly grew upon him, he shrank from the side of Gawtrey; but,
deep compassion for his friend’s degradation swallowing up the horror of
the trade, he flung himself on one of the rude seats, and felt that the
bond between them was indeed broken, and that the next morning he should
be again alone in the world. Still, as the obscene jests, the fearful
oaths, that from time to time rang through the vault, came on his ear,
he cast his haughty eye in such disdain over the groups, that Gawtrey,
observing him, trembled for his safety; and nothing but Philip’s sense
of his own impotence, and the brave, not timorous, desire not to perish
by such hands, kept silent the fiery denunciations of a nature still
proud and honest, that quivered on his lips. All present were armed with
pistols and cutlasses except Morton, who suffered the weapons presented
to him to lie unheeded on the table.
“Courage, mes amis!” said Gawtrey, closing his book,--“Courage!--a few
months more, and we shall have made enough to retire upon, and enjoy
ourselves for the rest of the days. Where is Birnie?”
“Did he not tell you?” said one of the artisans, looking up. “He has
found out the cleverest hand in France, the very fellow who helped
Bouchard in all his five-franc pieces. He has promised to bring him
to-night.”
“Ay, I remember,” returned Gawtrey, “he told me this morning,--he is a
famous decoy!”
“I think so, indeed!” quoth a coiner; “for he caught you, the best
head to our hands that ever les industriels were blessed with--sacre
fichtre!”
“Flatterer!” said Gawtrey, coming from the desk to the table, and
pouring out wine from one of the bottles into a huge flagon--“To your
healths!”
Here the door slided back, and Birnie glided in.
“Where is your booty, mon brave?” said Gawtrey. “We only coin money; you
coin men, stamp with your own seal, and send them current to the devil!”
The coiners, who liked Birnie’s ability (for the ci-devant engraver was
of admirable skill in their craft), but who hated his joyless manners,
laughed at this taunt, which Birnie did not seem to heed, except by a
malignant gleam of his dead eye.
“If you mean the celebrated coiner, Jacques Giraumont, he waits without.
You know our rules. I cannot admit him without leave.”
“Bon! we give it,--eh, messieurs?” said Gawtrey. “Ay-ay,” cried several
voices. “He knows the oath, and will hear the penalty.”
“Yes, he knows the oath,” replied Birnie, and glided back.
In a moment more he returned with a small man in a mechanic’s blouse.
The new comer wore the republican beard and moustache--of a sandy
grey--his hair was the same colour; and a black patch over one eye
increased the ill-favoured appearance of his features.
“Diable! Monsieur Giraumont! but you are more like Vulcan than Adonis!”
said Gawtrey.
“I don’t know anything about Vulcan, but I know how to make five-franc
pieces,” said Monsieur Giraumont, doggedly.
“Are you poor?”
“As a church mouse! The only thing belonging to a church, since the
Bourbons came back, that is poor!”
At this sally, the coiners, who had gathered round the table, uttered
the shout with which, in all circumstances, Frenchmen receive a bon mot.
“Humph!” said Gawtrey. “Who responds with his own life for your
fidelity?”
“I,” said Birnie.
“Administer the oath to him.”
Suddenly four men advanced, seized the visitor, and bore him from the
vault into another one within. After a few moments they returned.
“He has taken the oath and heard the penalty.”
“Death to yourself, your wife, your son, and your grandson, if you
betray us!”
“I have neither son nor grandson; as for my wife, Monsieur le Capitaine,
you offer a bribe instead of a threat when you talk of her death.”
“Sacre! but you will be an addition to our circle, mon brave!” said
Gawtrey, laughing; while again the grim circle shouted applause.
“But I suppose you care for your own life.”
“Otherwise I should have preferred starving to coming here,” answered
the laconic neophyte.
“I have done with you. Your health!”
On this the coiners gathered round Monsieur Giraumont, shook him by the
hand, and commenced many questions with a view to ascertain his skill.
“Show me your coinage first; I see you use both the die and the
furnace. Hem! this piece is not bad--you have struck it from an iron
die?--right--it makes the impression sharper than plaster of Paris. But
you take the poorest and the most dangerous part of the trade in taking
the home market. I can put you in a way to make ten times as much--and
with safety. Look at this!”--and Monsieur Giraumont took a forged
Spanish dollar from his pocket, so skilfully manufactured that the
connoisseurs were lost in admiration--“you may pass thousands of these
all over Europe, except France, and who is ever to detect you? But it
will require better machinery than you have here.”
Thus conversing, Monsieur Giraumont did not perceive that Mr. Gawtrey
had been examining him very curiously and minutely. But Birnie had noted
their chief’s attention, and once attempted to join his new ally, when
Gawtrey laid his hand on his shoulder, and stopped him.
“Do not speak to your friend till I bid you, or--” he stopped short, and
touched his pistols.
Birnie grew a shade more pale, but replied with his usual sneer:
“Suspicious!--well, so much the better!” and seating himself carelessly
at the table, lighted his pipe.
“And now, Monsieur Giraumont,” said Gawtrey, as he took the head of
the table, “come to my right hand. A half-holiday in your honour. Clear
these infernal instruments; and more wine, mes amis!”
The party arranged themselves at the table. Among the desperate there
is almost invariably a tendency to mirth. A solitary ruffian, indeed, is
moody, but a gang of ruffians are jovial. The coiners talked and laughed
loud. Mr. Birnie, from his dogged silence, seemed apart from the rest,
though in the centre. For in a noisy circle a silent tongue builds a
wall round its owner. But that respectable personage kept his furtive
watch upon Giraumont and Gawtrey, who appeared talking together, very
amicably. The younger novice of that night, equally silent, seated
towards the bottom of the table, was not less watchful than Birnie. An
uneasy, undefinable foreboding had come over him since the entrance
of Monsieur Giraumont; this had been increased by the manner of Mr.
Gawtrey. His faculty of observation, which was very acute, had detected
something false in the chief’s blandness to their guest--something
dangerous in the glittering eye that Gawtrey ever, as he spoke to
Giraumont, bent on that person’s lips as he listened to his reply. For,
whenever William Gawtrey suspected a man, he watched not his eyes, but
his lips.
Waked from his scornful reverie, a strange spell chained Morton’s
attention to the chief and the guest, and he bent forward, with parted
mouth and straining ear, to catch their conversation.
“It seems to me a little strange,” said Mr. Gawtrey, raising his voice
so as to be heard by the party, “that a coiner so dexterous as Monsieur
Giraumont should not be known to any of us except our friend Birnie.”
“Not at all,” replied Giraumont; “I worked only with Bouchard and
two others since sent to the galleys. We were but a small
fraternity--everything has its commencement.”
“C’est juste: buvez, donc, cher ami!”
The wine circulated. Gawtrey began again:
“You have had a bad accident, seemingly, Monsieur Giraumont. How did you
lose your eye?”
“In a scuffle with the gens d’ armes the night Bouchard was taken and I
escaped. Such misfortunes are on the cards.”
“C’est juste: buvez, donc, Monsieur Giraumont!”
Again there was a pause, and again Gawtrey’s deep voice was heard.
“You wear a wig, I think, Monsieur Giraumont? To judge by your eyelashes
your own hair has been a handsomer colour.”
“We seek disguise, not beauty, my host; and the police have sharp eyes.”
“C’est juste: buvez, donc-vieux Renard! When did we two meet last?”
“Never, that I know of.”
“Ce n’est pas vrai! buvez, donc, MONSIEUR FAVART!”
At the sound of that name the company started in dismay and confusion,
and the police officer, forgetting himself for the moment, sprang from
his seat, and put his right hand into his blouse.
“Ho, there!--treason!” cried Gawtrey, in a voice of thunder; and he
caught the unhappy man by the throat. It was the work of a moment.
Morton, where he sat, beheld a struggle--he heard a death-cry. He
saw the huge form of the master-coiner rising above all the rest, as
cutlasses gleamed and eyes sparkled round. He saw the quivering and
powerless frame of the unhappy guest raised aloft in those mighty arms,
and presently it was hurled along the table-bottles crashing--the board
shaking beneath its weight--and lay before the very eyes of Morton, a
distorted and lifeless mass. At the same instant Gawtrey sprang upon the
table, his black frown singling out from the group the ashen, cadaverous
face of the shrinking traitor. Birnie had darted from the table--he was
half-way towards the sliding door--his face, turned over his shoulder,
met the eyes of the chief.
“Devil!” shouted Gawtrey, in his terrible voice, which the echoes of the
vault gave back from side to side. “Did I not give thee up my soul that
thou mightest not compass my death? Hark ye! thus die my slavery and
all our secrets!” The explosion of his pistol half swallowed up the last
word, and with a single groan the traitor fell on the floor, pierced
through the brain--then there was a dead and grim hush as the smoke
rolled slowly along the roof of the dreary vault.
Morton sank back on his seat, and covered his face with his hands. The
last seal on the fate of THE MAN OF CRIME was set; the last wave in the
terrible and mysterious tide of his destiny had dashed on his soul
to the shore whence there is no return. Vain, now and henceforth, the
humour, the sentiment, the kindly impulse, the social instincts which
had invested that stalwart shape with dangerous fascination, which had
implied the hope of ultimate repentance, of redemption even in this
world. The HOUR and the CIRCUMSTANCE had seized their prey; and the
self-defence, which a lawless career rendered a necessity, left the
eternal die of blood upon his doom!
“Friends, I have saved you,” said Gawtrey, slowly gazing on the corpse
of his second victim, while he turned the pistol to his belt. “I have
not quailed before this man’s eye” (and he spurned the clay of the
officer as he spoke with a revengeful scorn) “without treasuring up
its aspect in my heart of hearts. I knew him when he entered--knew him
through his disguise--yet, faith, it was a clever one! Turn up his face
and gaze on him now; he will never terrify us again, unless there be
truth in ghosts!”
Murmuring and tremulous the coiners scrambled on the table and examined
the dead man. From this task Gawtrey interrupted them, for his quick eye
detected, with the pistols under the policeman’s blouse, a whistle of
metal of curious construction, and he conjectured at once that danger
was at hand.
“I have saved you, I say, but only for the hour. This deed cannot sleep.
See, he had help within call! The police knew where to look for their
comrade--we are dispersed. Each for himself. Quick, divide the spoils!
Sauve qui peat!”
Then Morton heard where he sat, his hands still clasped before his face,
a confused hubbub of voices, the jingle of money, the scrambling of
feet, the creaking of doors. All was silent!
A strong grasp drew his hands from his eyes.
“Your first scene of life against life,” said Gawtrey’s voice, which
seemed fearfully changed to the ear that heard it. “Bah! what would you
think of a battle? Come to our eyrie: the carcasses are gone.”
Morton looked fearfully round the vault. He and Gawtrey were alone. His
eyes sought the places where the dead had lain--they were removed--no
vestige of the deeds, not even a drop of blood.
“Come, take up your cutlass, come!” repeated the voice of the chief, as
with his dim lantern--now the sole light of the vault--he stood in the
shadow of the doorway.
Morton rose, took up the weapon mechanically, and followed that terrible
guide, mute and unconscious, as a Soul follows a Dream through the House
of Sleep!
CHAPTER X.
“Sleep no more!”--Macbeth
After winding through gloomy and labyrinthine passages, which conducted
to a different range of cellars from those entered by the unfortunate
Favart, Gawtrey emerged at the foot of a flight of stairs, which, dark,
narrow, and in many places broken, had been probably appropriated to
servants of the house in its days of palmier glory. By these steps the
pair regained their attic. Gawtrey placed the lantern on the table and
seated himself in silence. Morton, who had recovered his self-possession
and formed his resolution, gazed on him for some moments, equally
taciturn. At length he spoke:
“Gawtrey!”
“I bade you not call me by that name,” said the coiner; for we need
scarcely say that in his new trade he had assumed a new appellation.
“It is the least guilty one by which I have known you,” returned Morton,
firmly. “It is for the last time I call you by it! I demanded to see by
what means one to whom I had entrusted my fate supported himself. I have
seen,” continued the young man, still firmly, but with a livid cheek and
lip, “and the tie between us is rent for ever. Interrupt me not! it is
not for me to blame you. I have eaten of your bread and drunk of your
cup. Confiding in you too blindly, and believing that you were at
least free from those dark and terrible crimes for which there is no
expiation--at least in this life--my conscience seared by distress, my
very soul made dormant by despair, I surrendered myself to one leading a
career equivocal, suspicious, dishonourable perhaps, but still not, as
I believed, of atrocity and bloodshed. I wake at the brink of the
abyss--my mother’s hand beckons to me from the grave; I think I hear her
voice while I address you--I recede while it is yet time--we part, and
for ever!”
Gawtrey, whose stormy passion was still deep upon his soul, had listened
hitherto in sullen and dogged silence, with a gloomy frown on his
knitted brow; he now rose with an oath--
“Part! that I may let loose on the world a new traitor! Part! when you
have seen me fresh from an act that, once whispered, gives me to the
guillotine! Part--never! at least alive!”
“I have said it,” said Morton, folding his arms calmly; “I say it to
your face, though I might part from you in secret. Frown not on me, man
of blood! I am fearless as yourself! In another minute I am gone.”
“Ah! is it so?” said Gawtrey; and glancing round the room, which
contained two doors, the one concealed by the draperies of a bed,
communicating with the stairs by which they had entered, the other with
the landing of the principal and common flight: he turned to the former,
within his reach, which he locked, and put the key into his pocket, and
then, throwing across the latter a heavy swing bar, which fell into
its socket with a harsh noise,--before the threshold he placed his vast
bulk, and burst into his loud, fierce laugh: “Ho! ho! Slave and fool,
once mine, you were mine body and soul for ever!”
“Tempter, I defy you! stand back!” And, firm and dauntless, Morton laid
his hand on the giant’s vest.
Gawtrey seemed more astonished than enraged. He looked hard at his
daring associate, on whose lip the down was yet scarcely dark.
“Boy,” said he, “off! do not rouse the devil in me again! I could crush
you with a hug.”
“My soul supports my body, and I am armed,” said Morton, laying hand on
his cutlass. “But you dare not harm me, nor I you; bloodstained as you
are, you gave me shelter and bread; but accuse me not that I will save
my soul while it is yet time!--Shall my mother have blessed me in vain
upon her death-bed?”
Gawtrey drew back, and Morton, by a sudden impulse, grasped his hand.
“Oh! hear me--hear me!” he cried, with great emotion. “Abandon this
horrible career; you have been decoyed and betrayed to it by one who can
deceive or terrify you no more! Abandon it, and I will never desert you.
For her sake--for your Fanny’s sake--pause, like me, before the gulf
swallow us. Let us fly!--far to the New World--to any land where our
thews and sinews, our stout hands and hearts, can find an honest mart.
Men, desperate as we are, have yet risen by honest means. Take her, your
orphan, with us. We will work for her, both of us. Gawtrey! hear me. It
is not my voice that speaks to you--it is your good angel’s!”
Gawtrey fell back against the wall, and his chest heaved.
“Morton,” he said, with choked and tremulous accent, “go now; leave me
to my fate! I have sinned against you--shamefully sinned. It seemed to
me so sweet to have a friend; in your youth and character of mind there
was so much about which the tough strings of my heart wound themselves,
that I could not bear to lose you--to suffer you to know me for what I
was. I blinded--I deceived you as to my past deeds; that was base in me:
but I swore to my own heart to keep you unexposed to every danger, and
free from every vice that darkened my own path. I kept that oath till
this night, when, seeing that you began to recoil from me, and dreading
that you should desert me, I thought to bind you to me for ever by
implicating you in this fellowship of crime. I am punished, and justly.
Go, I repeat--leave me to the fate that strides nearer and nearer to me
day by day. You are a boy still--I am no longer young. Habit is a second
nature. Still--still I could repent--I could begin life again. But
repose!--to look back--to remember--to be haunted night and day with
deeds that shall meet me bodily and face to face on the last day--”
“Add not to the spectres! Come--fly this night--this hour!”
Gawtrey paused, irresolute and wavering, when at that moment he heard
steps on the stairs below. He started--as starts the boar caught in his
lair--and listened, pale and breathless.
“Hush!--they are on us!--they come!” as he whispered, the key from
without turned in the wards--the door shook. “Soft! the bar preserves us
both--this way.” And the coiner crept to the door of the private stairs.
He unlocked and opened it cautiously. A man sprang through the aperture:
“Yield!--you are my prisoner!”
“Never!” cried Gawtrey, hurling back the intruder, and clapping to the
door, though other and stout men were pressing against it with all their
power.
“Ho! ho! Who shall open the tiger’s cage?”
At both doors now were heard the sound of voices. “Open in the king’s
name, or expect no mercy!”
“Hist!” said Gawtrey. “One way yet--the window--the rope.”
Morton opened the casement--Gawtrey uncoiled the rope. The dawn was
breaking; it was light in the streets, but all seemed quiet without.
The doors reeled and shook beneath the pressure of the pursuers. Gawtrey
flung the rope across the street to the opposite parapet; after two or
three efforts, the grappling-hook caught firm hold--the perilous path
was made.
“On!--quick!--loiter not!” whispered Gawtrey; “you are active--it seems
more dangerous than it is--cling with both hands--shut your eyes.
When on the other side--you see the window of Birnie’s room,--enter
it--descend the stairs--let yourself out, and you are safe.”
“Go first,” said Morton, in the same tone: “I will not leave you now:
you will be longer getting across than I shall. I will keep guard till
you are over.”
“Hark! hark!--are you mad? You keep guard! what is your strength to
mine? Twenty men shall not move that door, while my weight is against
it. Quick, or you destroy us both! Besides, you will hold the rope for
me, it may not be strong enough for my bulk in itself. Stay!--stay one
moment. If you escape, and I fall--Fanny--my father, he will take care
of her,--you remember--thanks! Forgive me all! Go; that’s right!”
With a firm impulse, Morton threw himself on the dreadful bridge; it
swung and crackled at his weight. Shifting his grasp rapidly--holding
his breath--with set teeth-with closed eyes--he moved on--he gained the
parapet--he stood safe on the opposite side. And now, straining his eyes
across, he saw through the open casement into the chamber he had just
quitted. Gawtrey was still standing against the door to the principal
staircase, for that of the two was the weaker and the more assailed.
Presently the explosion of a fire-arm was heard; they had shot through
the panel. Gawtrey seemed wounded, for he staggered forward, and uttered
a fierce cry; a moment more, and he gained the window--he seized the
rope--he hung over the tremendous depth! Morton knelt by the parapet,
holding the grappling-hook in its place, with convulsive grasp, and
fixing his eyes, bloodshot with fear and suspense, on the huge bulk that
clung for life to that slender cord!
“Le voiles! Le voiles!” cried a voice from the opposite side. Morton
raised his gaze from Gawtrey; the casement was darkened by the forms of
his pursuers--they had burst into the room--an officer sprang upon the
parapet, and Gawtrey, now aware of his danger, opened his eyes, and as
he moved on, glared upon the foe. The policeman deliberately raised his
pistol--Gawtrey arrested himself--from a wound in his side the blood
trickled slowly and darkly down, drop by drop, upon the stones
below; even the officers of law shuddered as they eyed him--his hair
bristling--his cheek white--his lips drawn convulsively from his teeth,
and his eyes glaring from beneath the frown of agony and menace in which
yet spoke the indomitable power and fierceness of the man. His look, so
fixed--so intense--so stern, awed the policeman; his hand trembled as
he fired, and the ball struck the parapet an inch below the spot where
Morton knelt. An indistinct, wild, gurgling sound-half-laugh, half-yell
of scorn and glee, broke from Gawtrey’s lips. He swung himself
on--near--near--nearer--a yard from the parapet.
“You are saved!” cried Morton; when at the moment a volley burst from
the fatal casement--the smoke rolled over both the fugitives--a groan,
or rather howl, of rage, and despair, and agony, appalled even the
hardest on whose ear it came. Morton sprang to his feet and looked
below. He saw on the rugged stones far down, a dark, formless,
motionless mass--the strong man of passion and levity--the giant who had
played with life and soul, as an infant with the baubles that it prizes
and breaks--was what the Caesar and the leper alike are, when the clay
is without God’s breath--what glory, genius, power, and beauty, would be
for ever and for ever, if there were no God!
“There is another!” cried the voice of one of the pursuers. “Fire!”
“Poor Gawtrey!” muttered Philip. “I will fulfil your last wish;” and
scarcely conscious of the bullet that whistled by him, he disappeared
behind the parapet.
CHAPTER XI.
“Gently moved
By the soft wind of whispering silks.”--DECKER.
The reader may remember that while Monsieur Favart and Mr. Birnie were
holding commune in the lane, the sounds of festivity were heard from a
house in the adjoining street. To that house we are now summoned.
At Paris, the gaieties of balls, or soirees, are, I believe, very rare
in that period of the year in which they are most frequent in London.
The entertainment now given was in honour of a christening; the lady who
gave it, a relation of the new-born.
Madame de Merville was a young widow; even before her marriage she had
been distinguished in literature; she had written poems of more than
common excellence; and being handsome, of good family, and large
fortune, her talents made her an object of more interest than they might
otherwise have done. Her poetry showed great sensibility and tenderness.
If poetry be any index to the heart, you would have thought her one
to love truly and deeply. Nevertheless, since she married--as girls in
France do--not to please herself, but her parents, she made a mariage de
convenance. Monsieur de Merville was a sober, sensible man, past middle
age. Not being fond of poetry, and by no means coveting a professional
author for his wife, he had during their union, which lasted four years,
discouraged his wife’s liaison with Apollo. But her mind, active and
ardent, did not the less prey upon itself. At the age of four-and-twenty
she became a widow, with an income large even in England for a single
woman, and at Paris constituting no ordinary fortune. Madame de
Merville, however, though a person of elegant taste, was neither
ostentatious nor selfish; she had no children, and she lived quietly in
apartments, handsome, indeed, but not more than adequate to the small
establishment which--where, as on the Continent, the costly convenience
of an entire house is not usually incurred--sufficed for her retinue.
She devoted at least half her income, which was entirely at her own
disposal, partly to the aid of her own relations, who were not rich, and
partly to the encouragement of the literature she cultivated. Although
she shrank from the ordeal of publication, her poems and sketches of
romance were read to her own friends, and possessed an eloquence seldom
accompanied with so much modesty. Thus, her reputation, though not blown
about the winds, was high in her own circle, and her position in fashion
and in fortune made her looked up to by her relations as the head of her
family; they regarded her as femme superieure, and her advice with them
was equivalent to a command. Eugenie de Merville was a strange mixture
of qualities at once feminine and masculine. On the one hand, she had
a strong will, independent views, some contempt for the world, and
followed her own inclinations without servility to the opinion of
others; on the other hand, she was susceptible, romantic, of a
sweet, affectionate, kind disposition. Her visit to M. Love, however
indiscreet, was not less in accordance with her character than her
charity to the mechanic’s wife; masculine and careless where an
eccentric thing was to be done--curiosity satisfied, or some object in
female diplomacy achieved--womanly, delicate, and gentle, the instant
her benevolence was appealed to or her heart touched. She had now been
three years a widow, and was consequently at the age of twenty-seven.
Despite the tenderness of her poetry and her character, her reputation
was unblemished. She had never been in love. People who are much
occupied do not fall in love easily; besides, Madame de Merville
was refining, exacting, and wished to find heroes where she only met
handsome dandies or ugly authors. Moreover, Eugenie was both a vain and
a proud person--vain of her celebrity and proud of her birth. She was
one whose goodness of heart made her always active in promoting the
happiness of others. She was not only generous and charitable, but
willing to serve people by good offices as well as money. Everybody
loved her. The new-born infant, to whose addition to the Christian
community the fete of this night was dedicated, was the pledge of a
union which Madame de Merville had managed to effect between two young
persons, first cousins to each other, and related to herself. There had
been scruples of parents to remove--money matters to adjust--Eugenie had
smoothed all. The husband and wife, still lovers, looked up to her as
the author, under Heaven, of their happiness.
The gala of that night had been, therefore, of a nature more than
usually pleasurable, and the mirth did not sound hollow, but wrung from
the heart. Yet, as Eugenie from time to time contemplated the young
people, whose eyes ever sought each other--so fair, so tender, and so
joyous as they seemed--a melancholy shadow darkened her brow, and she
sighed involuntarily. Once the young wife, Madame d’Anville, approaching
her timidly, said:
“Ah! my sweet cousin, when shall we see you as happy as ourselves? There
is such happiness,” she added, innocently, and with a blush, “in being
a mother!--that little life all one’s own--it is something to think of
every hour!”
“Perhaps,” said Eugenie, smiling, and seeking to turn the conversation
from a subject that touched too nearly upon feelings and thoughts her
pride did not wish to reveal--“perhaps it is you, then, who have made
our cousin, poor Monsieur de Vaudemont, so determined to marry? Pray,
be more cautious with him. How difficult I have found it to prevent his
bringing into our family some one to make us all ridiculous!”
“True,” said Madame d’Anville, laughing. “But then, the Vicomte is so
poor, and in debt. He would fall in love, not with the demoiselle, but
the dower. A propos of that, how cleverly you took advantage of his
boastful confession to break off his liaisons with that bureau de
mariage.”
“Yes; I congratulate myself on that manoeuvre. Unpleasant as it was to
go to such a place (for, of course, I could not send for Monsieur Love
here), it would have been still more unpleasant to have received such
a Madame de Vaudemont as our cousin would have presented to us. Only
think--he was the rival of an epicier! I heard that there was some
curious denouement to the farce of that establishment; but I could never
get from Vaudemont the particulars. He was ashamed of them, I fancy.”
“What droll professions there are in Paris!” said Madame d’Anville. “As
if people could not marry without going to an office for a spouse as we
go for a servant! And so the establishment is broken up? And you never
again saw that dark, wild-looking boy who so struck your fancy that you
have taken him as the original for the Murillo sketch of the youth in
that charming tale you read to us the other evening? Ah! cousin, I
think you were a little taken with him. The bureau de mariage had its
allurements for you as well as for our poor cousin!” The young mother
said this laughingly and carelessly.
“Pooh!” returned Madame de Merville, laughing also; but a slight blush
broke over her natural paleness. “But a propos of the Vicomte. You
know how cruelly he has behaved to that poor boy of his by his English
wife--never seen him since he was an infant--kept him at some school in
England; and all because his vanity does not like the world to know that
he has a son of nineteen! Well, I have induced him to recall this poor
youth.”
“Indeed! and how?”
“Why,” said Eugenie, with a smile, “he wanted a loan, poor man, and I
could therefore impose conditions by way of interest. But I also managed
to conciliate him to the proposition, by representing that, if the young
man were good-looking, he might, himself, with our connections, &c.,
form an advantageous marriage; and that in such a case, if the father
treated him now justly and kindly, he would naturally partake with the
father whatever benefits the marriage might confer.”
“Ah! you are an excellent diplomatist, Eugenie; and you turn people’s
heads by always acting from your heart. Hush! here comes the Vicomte!”
“A delightful ball,” said Monsieur de Vaudemont, approaching the
hostess. “Pray, has that young lady yonder, in the pink dress, any
fortune? She is pretty--eh? You observe she is looking at me--I mean at
us!”
“My dear cousin, what a compliment you pay to marriage! You have had two
wives, and you are ever on the qui vive for a third!”
“What would you have me do?--we cannot resist the overtures of your
bewitching sex. Hum--what fortune has she?”
“Not a sou; besides, she is engaged.”
“Oh! now I look at her, she is not pretty--not at all. I made a mistake.
I did not mean her; I meant the young lady in blue.”
“Worse and worse--she is married already. Shall I present you?”
“Ah, Monsieur de Vaudemont,” said Madame d’Anville; “have you found out
a new bureau de mariage?”
The Vicomte pretended not to hear that question. But, turning to
Eugenie, took her aside, and said, with an air in which he endeavoured
to throw a great deal of sorrow, “You know, my dear cousin, that, to
oblige you, I consented to send for my son, though, as I always said,
it is very unpleasant for a man like me, in the prime of life, to hawk
about a great boy of nineteen or twenty. People soon say, ‘Old Vaudemont
and younq Vaudemont.’ However, a father’s feelings are never appealed to
in vain.” (Here the Vicomte put his handkerchief to his eyes, and after
a pause, continued,)--“I sent for him--I even went to your old bonne,
Madame Dufour, to make a bargain for her lodgings, and this day--guess
my grief--I received a letter sealed with black. My son is dead!--a
sudden fever--it is shocking!”
“Horrible! dead!--your own son, whom you hardly ever saw--never since he
was an Infant!”
“Yes, that softens the blow very much. And now you see I must marry. If
the boy had been good-looking, and like me, and so forth, why, as you
observed, he might have made a good match, and allowed me a certain sum,
or we could have all lived together.”
“And your son is dead, and you come to a ball!”
“Je suis philosophe,” said the Vicomte, shrugging his shoulders. “And,
as you say, I never saw him. It saves me seven hundred francs a-year.
Don’t say a word to any one--I sha’n’t give out that he is dead, poor
fellow! Pray be discreet: you see there are some ill-natured people who
might think it odd I do not shut myself up. I can wait till Paris is
quite empty. It would be a pity to lose any opportunity at present, for
now, you see, I must marry!” And the philosophe sauntered away.
CHAPTER XII.
GUIOMAR.
“Those devotions I am to pay
Are written in my heart, not in this book.”
Enter RUTILIO.
“I am pursued--all the ports are stopped too,
Not any hope to escape--behind, before me,
On either side, I am beset.”
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, The Custom of the Country
The party were just gone--it was already the peep of day--the wheels of
the last carriage had died in the distance.
Madame de Merville had dismissed her woman, and was seated in her own
room, leaning her head musingly on her hand.
Beside her was the table that held her MSS. and a few books, amidst
which were scattered vases of flowers. On a pedestal beneath the window
was placed a marble bust of Dante. Through the open door were seen in
perspective two rooms just deserted by her guests; the lights still
burned in the chandeliers and girandoles, contending with the daylight
that came through the half-closed curtains. The person of the inmate was
in harmony with the apartment. It was characterised by a certain grace
which, for want of a better epithet, writers are prone to call classical
or antique. Her complexion, seeming paler than usual by that light, was
yet soft and delicate--the features well cut, but small and womanly.
About the face there was that rarest of all charms, the combination of
intellect with sweetness; the eyes, of a dark blue, were thoughtful,
perhaps melancholy, in their expression; but the long dark lashes, and
the shape of the eyes, themselves more long than full, gave to their
intelligence a softness approaching to languor, increased, perhaps, by
that slight shadow round and below the orbs which is common with those
who have tasked too much either the mind or the heart. The contour of
the face, without being sharp or angular, had yet lost a little of
the roundness of earlier youth; and the hand on which she leaned was,
perhaps, even too white, too delicate, for the beauty which belongs to
health; but the throat and bust were of exquisite symmetry.
“I am not happy,” murmured Eugenie to herself; “yet I scarce know why.
Is it really, as we women of romance have said till the saying is worn
threadbare, that the destiny of women is not fame but love. Strange,
then, that while I have so often pictured what love should be, I have
never felt it. And now,--and now,” she continued, half rising, and
with a natural pang--“now I am no longer in my first youth. If I loved,
should I be loved again? How happy the young pair seemed--they are never
alone!”
At this moment, at a distance, was heard the report of fire-arms--again!
Eugenie started, and called to her servant, who, with one of the
waiters hired for the night, was engaged in removing, and nibbling as
he removed, the remains of the feast. “What is that, at this hour?--open
the window and look out!”
“I can see nothing, madame.”
“Again--that is the third time. Go into the street and look--some one
must be in danger.”
The servant and the waiter, both curious, and not willing to part
company, ran down the stairs, and thence into the street.
Meanwhile, Morton, after vainly attempting Birnie’s window, which the
traitor had previously locked and barred against the escape of his
intended victim, crept rapidly along the roof, screened by the parapet
not only from the shot but the sight of the foe. But just as he gained
the point at which the lane made an angle with the broad street it
adjoined, he cast his eyes over the parapet, and perceived that one
of the officers had ventured himself to the fearful bridge; he was
pursued--detection and capture seemed inevitable. He paused, and
breathed hard. He, once the heir to such fortunes, the darling of such
affections!--he, the hunted accomplice of a gang of miscreants! That was
the thought that paralysed--the disgrace, not the danger. But he was in
advance of the pursuer--he hastened on--he turned the angle--he heard a
shout behind from the opposite side--the officer had passed the bridge:
“it is but one man as yet,” thought he, and his nostrils dilated and his
hands clenched as he glided on, glancing at each casement as he passed.
Now as youth and vigour thus struggled against Law for life, near at
hand Death was busy with toil and disease. In a miserable grabat,
or garret, a mechanic, yet young, and stricken by a lingering malady
contracted by the labour of his occupation, was slowly passing from that
world which had frowned on his cradle, and relaxed not the gloom of its
aspect to comfort his bed of Death. Now this man had married for love,
and his wife had loved him; and it was the cares of that early marriage
which had consumed him to the bone. But extreme want, if long continued,
eats up love when it has nothing else to eat. And when people are very
long dying, the people they fret and trouble begin to think of that too
often hypocritical prettiness of phrase called “a happy release.” So the
worn-out and half-famished wife did not care three straws for the dying
husband, whom a year or two ago she had vowed to love and cherish in
sickness and in health. But still she seemed to care, for she moaned,
and pined, and wept, as the man’s breath grew fainter and fainter.
“Ah, Jean!” said she, sobbing, “what will become of me, a poor lone
widow, with nobody to work for my bread?” And with that thought she took
on worse than before.
“I am stifling,” said the dying man, rolling round his ghastly
eyes. “How hot it is! Open the window; I should like to see the
light--daylight once again.”
“Mon Dieu! what whims he has, poor man!” muttered the woman, without
stirring.
The poor wretch put out his skeleton hand and clutched his wife’s arm.
“I sha’n’t trouble you long, Marie! Air--air!”
“Jean, you will make yourself worse--besides, I shall catch my death of
cold. I have scarce a rag on, but I will just open the door.”
“Pardon me,” groaned the sufferer; “leave me, then.” Poor fellow!
perhaps at that moment the thought of unkindness was sharper than the
sharp cough which brought blood at every paroxysm. He did not like her
so near him, but he did not blame her. Again, I say,--poor fellow! The
woman opened the door, went to the other side of the room, and sat down
on an old box and began darning an old neck-handkerchief. The silence
was soon broken by the moans of the fast-dying man, and again he
muttered, as he tossed to and fro, with baked white lips:
“Je m’etoufee!--Air!”
There was no resisting that prayer, it seemed so like the last. The wife
laid down the needle, put the handkerchief round her throat, and opened
the window.
“Do you feel easier now?”
“Bless you, Marie--yes; that’s good--good. It puts me in mind of old
days, that breath of air, before we came to Paris. I wish I could work
for you now, Marie.”
“Jean! my poor Jean!” said the woman, and the words and the voice took
back her hardening heart to the fresh fields and tender thoughts of the
past time. And she walked up to the bed, and he leaned his temples, damp
with livid dews, upon her breast.
“I have been a sad burden to you, Marie; we should not have married so
soon; but I thought I was stronger. Don’t cry; we have no little ones,
thank God. It will be much better for you when I am gone.”
And so, word after word gasped out--he stopped suddenly, and seemed to
fall asleep.
The wife then attempted gently to lay him once more on his pillow--the
head fell back heavily--the jaw had dropped--the teeth were set--the
eyes were open and like the stone--the truth broke on her!
“Jean--Jean! My God, he is dead! and I was unkind to him at the last!”
With these words she fell upon the corpse, happily herself insensible.
Just at that moment a human face peered in at the window. Through that
aperture, after a moment’s pause, a young man leaped lightly into the
room. He looked round with a hurried glance, but scarcely noticed the
forms stretched on the pallet. It was enough for him that they seemed
to sleep, and saw him not. He stole across the room, the door of which
Marie had left open, and descended the stairs. He had almost gained
the courtyard into which the stairs had conducted, when he heard voices
below by the porter’s lodge.
“The police have discovered a gang of coiners!”
“Coiners!”
“Yes, one has been shot dead! I have seen his body in the kennel;
another has fled along the roofs--a desperate fellow! We were to watch
for him. Let us go up-stairs and get on the roof and look out.”
By the hum of approval that followed this proposition, Morton judged
rightly that it had been addressed to several persons whom curiosity
and the explosion of the pistols had drawn from their beds, and who were
grouped round the porter’s lodge. What was to be done?--to advance was
impossible: and was there yet time to retreat?--it was at least the only
course left him; he sprang back up the stairs; he had just gained the
first flight when he heard steps descending; then, suddenly, it flashed
across him that he had left open the window above--that, doubtless, by
that imprudent oversight the officer in pursuit had detected a clue
to the path he had taken. What was to be done?--die as Gawtrey had
done!--death rather than the galleys. As he thus resolved, he saw to the
right the open door of an apartment in which lights still glimmered
in their sockets. It seemed deserted--he entered boldly and at once,
closing the door after him. Wines and viands still left on the table;
gilded mirrors, reflecting the stern face of the solitary intruder;
here and there an artificial flower, a knot of riband on the floor, all
betokening the gaieties and graces of luxurious life--the dance, the
revel, the feast--all this in one apartment!--above, in the same house,
the pallet--the corpse--the widow--famine and woe! Such is a great city!
such, above all, is Paris! where, under the same roof, are gathered such
antagonist varieties of the social state! Nothing strange in this; it
is strange and sad that so little do people thus neighbours know of each
other, that the owner of those rooms had a heart soft to every distress,
but she did not know the distress so close at hand. The music that had
charmed her guests had mounted gaily to the vexed ears of agony and
hunger. Morton passed the first room--a second--he came to a third,
and Eugenie de Merville, looking up at that instant, saw before her
an apparition that might well have alarmed the boldest. His head was
uncovered--his dark hair shadowed in wild and disorderly profusion the
pale face and features, beautiful indeed, but at that moment of the
beauty which an artist would impart to a young gladiator--stamped
with defiance, menace, and despair. The disordered garb--the fierce
aspect--the dark eyes, that literally shone through the shadows of the
room--all conspired to increase the terror of so abrupt a presence.
“What are you?--What do you seek here?” said she, falteringly, placing
her hand on the bell as she spoke. Upon that soft hand Morton laid his
own.
“I seek my life! I am pursued! I am at your mercy! I am innocent! Can
you save me?”
As he spoke, the door of the outer room beyond was heard to open, and
steps and voices were at hand.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, recoiling as he recognised her face. “And is it to
you that I have fled?”
Eugenie also recognised the stranger; and there was something in their
relative positions--the suppliant, the protectress--that excited both
her imagination and her pity. A slight colour mantled to her cheeks--her
look was gentle and compassionate.
“Poor boy! so young!” she said. “Hush!”
She withdrew her hand from his, retired a few steps, lifted a curtain
drawn across a recess--and pointing to an alcove that contained one of
those sofa-beds common in French houses, added in a whisper,--
“Enter--you are saved.”
Morton obeyed, and Eugenie replaced the curtain.
CHAPTER XIII.
GUIOMAR.
“Speak! What are you?”
RUTILIO.
“Gracious woman, hear me. I am a stranger:
And in that I answer all your demands.”
Custom of the Country.
Eugenie replaced the curtain. And scarcely had she done so ere the steps
in the outer room entered the chamber where she stood. Her servant was
accompanied by two officers of the police.
“Pardon, madame,” said one of the latter; “but we are in pursuit of
a criminal. We think he must have entered this house through a window
above while your servant was in the street. Permit us to search?”
“Without doubt,” answered Eugenie, seating herself. “If he has entered,
look in the other apartments. I have not quitted this room.”
“You are right. Accept our apologies.”
And the officers turned back to examine every corner where the fugitive
was not. For in that, the scouts of Justice resembled their mistress:
when does man’s justice look to the right place?
The servant lingered to repeat the tale he had heard--the sight he had
seen. When, at that instant, he saw the curtain of the alcove slightly
stirred. He uttered an exclamation--sprung to the bed--his hand touched
the curtain--Eugenie seized his arm. She did not speak; but as he turned
his eyes to her, astonished, he saw that she trembled, and that her
cheek was as white as marble.
“Madame,” he said, hesitating, “there is some one hid in the recess.”
“There is! Be silent!”
A suspicion flashed across the servant’s mind. The pure, the proud, the
immaculate Eugenie!
“There is!--and in madame’s chamber!” he faltered unconsciously.
Eugenie’s quick apprehensions seized the foul thought. Her eyes
flashed--her cheek crimsoned. But her lofty and generous nature
conquered even the indignant and scornful burst that rushed to her lips.
The truth!--could she trust the man? A doubt--and the charge of the
human life rendered to her might be betrayed. Her colour fell--tears
gushed to her eyes.
“I have been kind to you, Francois. Not a word.”
“Madame confides in me--it is enough,” said the Frenchman, bowing, with
a slight smile on his lips; and he drew back respectfully.
One of the police officers re-entered.
“We have done, madame; he is not here. Aha! that curtain!”
“It is madame’s bed,” said Francois. “But I have looked behind.”
“I am most sorry to have disarranged you,” said the policeman, satisfied
with the answer; “but we shall have him yet.” And he retired.
The last footsteps died away, the last door of the apartments closed
behind the officers, and Eugenie and her servant stood alone gazing on
each other.
“You may retire,” said she at last; and taking her purse from the table,
she placed it in his hands.
The man took it, with a significant look. “Madame may depend on my
discretion.”
Eugenie was alone again. Those words rang in her ear,--Eugenie de
Merville dependent on the discretion of her lackey! She sunk into her
chair, and, her excitement succeeded by exhaustion, leaned her face on
her hands, and burst into tears. She was aroused by a low voice; she
looked up, and the young man was kneeling at her feet.
“Go--go!” she said: “I have done for you all I can.”
“You heard--you heard--my own hireling, too! At the hazard of my own
good name you are saved. Go!”
“Of your good name!”--for Eugenie forgot that it was looks, not words,
that had so wrung her pride--“Your good name,” he repeated: and
glancing round the room--the toilette, the curtain, the recess he had
quitted--all that bespoke that chastest sanctuary of a chaste woman,
which for a stranger to enter is, as it were, to profane--her meaning
broke on him. “Your good name--your hireling! No, madame,--no!” And
as he spoke, he rose to his feet. “Not for me, that sacrifice! Your
humanity shall not cost you so dear. Ho, there! I am the man you seek.”
And he strode to the door.
Eugenie was penetrated with the answer. She sprung to him--she grasped
his garments.
“Hush! hush!--for mercy’s sake! What would you do? Think you I could
ever be happy again, if the confidence you placed in me were betrayed?
Be calm--be still. I knew not what I said. It will be easy to undeceive
the man--later--when you are saved. And you are innocent,--are you not?”
“Oh, madame,” said Morton, “from my soul I say it, I am innocent--not of
poverty--wretchedness--error--shame; I am innocent of crime. May Heaven
bless you!”
And as he reverently kissed the hand laid on his arm, there was
something in his voice so touching, in his manner something so above his
fortunes, that Eugenie was lost in her feelings of compassion, surprise,
and something, it might be, of admiration in her wonder.
“And, oh!” he said, passionately, gazing on her with his dark, brilliant
eyes, liquid with emotion, “you have made my life sweet in saving it.
You--you--of whom, ever since the first time, almost the sole time,
I beheld you--I have so often mused and dreamed. Henceforth, whatever
befall me, there will be some recollections that will--that--”
He stopped short, for his heart was too full for words; and the silence
said more to Eugenie than if all the eloquence of Rousseau had glowed
upon his tongue.
“And who, and what are you?” she asked, after a pause.
“An exile--an orphan--an outcast! I have no name! Farewell!”
“No--stay yet--the danger is not past. Wait till my servant is gone to
rest; I hear him yet. Sit down--sit down. And whither would you go?”
“I know not.”
“Have you no friends?”
“Gone.”
“No home?”
“None.”
“And the police of Paris so vigilant!” cried Eugenie, wringing her
hands. “What is to be done? I shall have saved you in vain--you will be
discovered! Of what do they charge you? Not robbery--not--”
And she, too, stopped short, for she did not dare to breathe the black
word, “Murder!”
“I know not,” said Morton, putting his hand to his forehead, “except of
being friends with the only man who befriended me--and they have killed
him!”
“Another time you shall tell me all.”
“Another time!” he exclaimed, eagerly--“shall I see you again?”
Eugenie blushed beneath the gaze and the voice of joy. “Yes,” she said;
“yes. But I must reflect. Be calm be silent. Ah!--a happy thought!”
She sat down, wrote a hasty line, sealed, and gave it to Morton.
“Take this note, as addressed, to Madame Dufour; it will provide you
with a safe lodging. She is a person I can depend on--an old servant who
lived with my mother, and to whom I have given a small pension. She
has a lodging--it is lately vacant--I promised to procure her a
tenant--go--say nothing of what has passed. I will see her, and arrange
all. Wait!--hark!--all is still. I will go first, and see that no one
watches you. Stop,” (and she threw open the window, and looked into the
court.) “The porter’s door is open--that is fortunate! Hurry on, and God
be with you!”
In a few minutes Morton was in the streets. It was still early--the
thoroughfares deserted-none of the shops yet open. The address on the
note was to a street at some distance, on the other side of the Seine.
He passed along the same Quai which he had trodden but a few hours
since--he passed the same splendid bridge on which he had stood
despairing, to quit it revived--he gained the Rue Faubourg St. Honore. A
young man in a cabriolet, on whose fair cheek burned the hectic of
late vigils and lavish dissipation, was rolling leisurely home from
the gaming-house, at which he had been more than usually fortunate--his
pockets were laden with notes and gold. He bent forwards as Morton
passed him. Philip, absorbed in his reverie, perceived him not, and
continued his way. The gentleman turned down one of the streets to the
left, stopped, and called to the servant dozing behind his cabriolet.
“Follow that passenger! quietly--see where he lodges; be sure to find
out and let me know. I shall go home without you.” With that he drove
on.
Philip, unconscious of the espionage, arrived at a small house in a
quiet but respectable street, and rang the bell several times before at
last he was admitted by Madame Dufour herself, in her nightcap. The old
woman looked askant and alarmed at the unexpected apparition. But the
note seemed at once to satisfy her. She conducted him to an apartment
on the first floor, small, but neatly and even elegantly furnished,
consisting of a sitting-room and a bedchamber, and said, quietly,--
“Will they suit monsieur?”
To monsieur they seemed a palace. Morton nodded assent.
“And will monsieur sleep for a short time?”
“Yes.”
“The bed is well aired. The rooms have only been vacant three days
since. Can I get you anything till your luggage arrives?”
“No.”
The woman left him. He threw off his clothes--flung himself on the
bed--and did not wake till noon.
When his eyes unclosed--when they rested on that calm chamber, with its
air of health, and cleanliness, and comfort, it was long before he could
convince himself that he was yet awake. He missed the loud, deep
voice of Gawtrey--the smoke of the dead man’s meerschaum--the gloomy
garret--the distained walls--the stealthy whisper of the loathed Birnie;
slowly the life led and the life gone within the last twelve hours grew
upon his struggling memory. He groaned, and turned uneasily round, when
the door slightly opened, and he sprung up fiercely,--
“Who is there?”
“It is only I, sir,” answered Madame Dufour. “I have been in three times
to see if you were stirring. There is a letter I believe for you, sir;
though there is no name to it,” and she laid the letter on the chair
beside him. Did it come from her--the saving angel? He seized it. The
cover was blank; it was sealed with a small device, as of a ring seal.
He tore it open, and found four billets de banque for 1,000 francs
each,--a sum equivalent in our money to about L160.
“Who sent this, the--the lady from whom I brought the note?”
“Madame de Merville? certainly not, sir,” said Madame Dufour, who, with
the privilege of age, was now unscrupulously filling the water-jugs and
settling the toilette-table. “A young man called about two hours after
you had gone to bed; and, describing you, inquired if you lodged here,
and what your name was. I said you had just arrived, and that I did
not yet know your name. So he went away, and came again half an hour
afterwards with this letter, which he charged me to deliver to you
safely.”
“A young man--a gentleman?”
“No, sir; he seemed a smart but common sort of lad.” For the
unsophisticated Madame Dufour did not discover in the plain black frock
and drab gaiters of the bearer of that letter the simple livery of an
English gentleman’s groom.
Whom could it come from, if not from Madame de Merville? Perhaps one of
Gawtrey’s late friends. A suspicion of Arthur Beaufort crossed him, but
he indignantly dismissed it. Men are seldom credulous of what they are
unwilling to believe. What kindness had the Beauforts hitherto shown
him?--Left his mother to perish broken-hearted--stolen from him his
brother, and steeled, in that brother, the only heart wherein he had a
right to look for gratitude and love! No, it must be Madame de Merville.
He dismissed Madame Dufour for pen and paper--rose--wrote a letter to
Eugenie--grateful, but proud, and inclosed the notes. He then summoned
Madame Dufour, and sent her with his despatch.
“Ah, madame,” said the ci-devant bonne, when she found herself in
Eugenie’s presence. “The poor lad! how handsome he is, and how shameful
in the Vicomte to let him wear such clothes!”
“The Vicomte!”
“Oh, my dear mistress, you must not deny it. You told me, in your note,
to ask him no questions, but I guessed at once. The Vicomte told me
himself that he should have the young gentleman over in a few days. You
need not be ashamed of him. You will see what a difference clothes will
make in his appearance; and I have taken it on myself to order a tailor
to go to him. The Vicomte--must pay me.”
“Not a word to the Vicomte as yet. We will surprise him,” said Eugenie,
laughing.
Madame de Merville had been all that morning trying to invent some story
to account for her interest in the lodger, and now how Fortune favoured
her!
“But is that a letter for me?”
“And I had almost forgot it,” said Madame Dufour, as she extended the
letter.
Whatever there had hitherto been in the circumstances connected with
Morton, that had roused the interest and excited the romance of Eugenie
de Merville, her fancy was yet more attracted by the tone of the letter
she now read. For though Morton, more accustomed to speak than to write
French, expressed himself with less precision, and a less euphuistic
selection of phrase, than the authors and elegans who formed her usual
correspondents; there was an innate and rough nobleness--a strong
and profound feeling in every line of his letter, which increased her
surprise and admiration.
“All that surrounds him--all that belongs to him, is strangeness and
mystery!” murmured she; and she sat down to reply.
When Madame Dufour departed with that letter, Eugenie remained silent
and thoughtful for more than an hour, Morton’s letter before her; and
sweet, in their indistinctness, were the recollections and the images
that crowded on her mind.
Morton, satisfied by the earnest and solemn assurances of Eugenie that
she was not the unknown donor of the sum she reinclosed, after puzzling
himself in vain to form any new conjectures as to the quarter whence it
came, felt that under his present circumstances it would be an absurd
Quixotism to refuse to apply what the very Providence to whom he had
anew consigned himself seemed to have sent to his aid. And it placed
him, too, beyond the offer of all pecuniary assistance from one from
whom he could least have brooked to receive it. He consented, therefore,
to all that the loquacious tailor proposed to him. And it would have
been difficult to have recognised the wild and frenzied fugitive in the
stately form, with its young beauty and air of well-born pride, which
the next day sat by the side of Eugenie. And that day he told his sad
and troubled story, and Eugenie wept: and from that day he came daily;
and two weeks--happy, dreamlike, intoxicating to both--passed by; and as
their last sun set, he was kneeling at her feet, and breathing to one to
whom the homage of wit, and genius, and complacent wealth had hitherto
been vainly proffered, the impetuous, agitated, delicious secrets of
the First Love. He spoke, and rose to depart for ever--when the look and
sigh detained him.
The next day, after a sleepless night, Eugenie de Merville sent for the
Vicomte de Vaudemont.
CHAPTER XIV.
“A silver river small
In sweet accents
Its music vents;
The warbling virginal
To which the merry birds do sing,
Timed with stops of gold the silver string.”
Sir Richard Fanshawe.
One evening, several weeks after the events just commemorated, a
stranger, leading in his hand, a young child, entered the churchyard
of H----. The sun had not long set, and the short twilight of deepening
summer reigned in the tranquil skies; you might still hear from the
trees above the graves the chirp of some joyous bird;--what cared he,
the denizen of the skies, for the dead that slept below?--what did
he value save the greenness and repose of the spot,--to him alike
the garden or the grave! As the man and the child passed, the robin,
scarcely scared by their tread from the long grass beside one of the
mounds, looked at them with its bright, blithe eye. It was a famous plot
for the robin--the old churchyard! That domestic bird--“the friend of
man,” as it has been called by the poets--found a jolly supper among the
worms!
The stranger, on reaching the middle of the sacred ground, paused and
looked round him wistfully. He then approached, slowly and hesitatingly,
an oblong tablet, on which were graven, in letters yet fresh and new,
these words:--
TO THE
MEMORY OF ONE CALUMNIATED AND WRONGED
THIS BURIAL-STONE IS DEDICATED
BY HER SON.
Such, with the addition of the dates of birth and death, was the tablet
which Philip Morton had directed to be placed over his mother’s bones;
and around it was set a simple palisade, which defended it from the
tread of the children, who sometimes, in defiance of the beadle, played
over the dust of the former race.
“Thy son!” muttered the stranger, while the child stood quietly by
his side, pleased by the trees, the grass, the song of the birds, and
reeking not of grief or death,--“thy son!--but not thy favoured son--thy
darling--thy youngest born; on what spot of earth do thine eyes look
down on him? Surely in heaven thy love has preserved the one whom on
earth thou didst most cherish, from the sufferings and the trials that
have visited the less-favoured outcast. Oh, mother--mother!--it was not
his crime--not Philip’s--that he did not fulfil to the last the trust
bequeathed to him! Happier, perhaps, as it is! And, oh, if thy memory be
graven as deeply in my brother’s heart as my own, how often will it warn
and save him! That memory!--it has been to me the angel of my life!
To thee--to thee, even in death, I owe it, if, though erring, I am not
criminal,--if I have lived with the lepers, and am still undefiled!” His
lips then were silent--not his heart!
After a few minutes thus consumed he turned to the child, and said,
gently and in a tremulous voice, “Fanny, you have been taught to
pray--you will live near this spot,--will you come sometimes here and
pray that you may grow up good and innocent, and become a blessing to
those who love you?”
“Will papa ever come to hear me pray?”
That sad and unconscious question went to the heart of Morton. The child
could not comprehend death. He had sought to explain it, but she had
been accustomed to consider her protector dead when he was absent from
her, and she still insisted that he must come again to life. And that
man of turbulence and crime, who had passed unrepentant, unabsolved,
from sin to judgment: it was an awful question, “If he should hear her
pray?”
“Yes!” said he, after a pause,--“yes, Fanny, there is a Father who will
hear you pray; and pray to Him to be merciful to those who have been
kind to you. Fanny, you and I may never meet again!”
“Are you going to die too? Mechant, every one dies to Fanny!” and,
clinging to him endearingly, she put up her lips to kiss him. He took
her in his arms: and, as a tear fell upon her rosy cheek, she said,
“Don’t cry, brother, for I love you.”
“Do you, dear Fanny? Then, for my sake, when you come to this place, if
any one will give you a few flowers, scatter them on that stone. And now
we will go to one whom you must love also, and to whom, as I have told
you, he sends you; he who--Come!”
As he thus spoke, and placed Fanny again on the ground, he was startled
to see: precisely on the spot where he had seen before the like
apparition--on the same spot where the father had cursed the son, the
motionless form of an old man. Morton recognised, as if by an instinct
rather than by an effort of the memory, the person to whom he was bound.
He walked slowly towards him; but Fanny abruptly left his side, lured by
a moth that flitted duskily over the graves.
“Your name, sir, I think, is Simon Gawtrey?” said Morton. “I have came
to England in quest of you.”
“Of me?” said the old man, half rising, and his eyes, now completely
blind, rolled vacantly over Morton’s person--“Of me?--for what?--Who are
you?--I don’t know your voice!”
“I come to you from your son!”
“My son!” exclaimed the old man, with great vehemence,--“the
reprobate!--the dishonoured!--the infamous!--the accursed--”
“Hush! you revile the dead!”
“Dead!” muttered the wretched father, tottering back to the seat he had
quitted,--“dead!” and the sound of his voice was so full of anguish,
that the dog at his feet, which Morton had not hitherto perceived,
echoed it with a dismal cry, that recalled to Philip the awful day in
which he had seen the son quit the father for the last time on earth.
The sound brought Fanny to the spot; and, with a laugh of delight, which
made to it a strange contrast, she threw herself on the grass beside the
dog and sought to entice it to play. So there, in that place of death,
were knit together the four links in the Great Chain;--lusty and
blooming life--desolate and doting age--infancy, yet scarce conscious of
a soul--and the dumb brute, that has no warrant of a Hereafter!
“Dead!--dead!” repeated the old man, covering his sightless balls with
his withered hands. “Poor William!”
“He remembered you to the last. He bade me seek you out--he bade me
replace the guilty son with a thing pure and innocent, as he had been
had he died in his cradle--a child to comfort your old age! Kneel,
Fanny, I have found you a father who will cherish you--(oh! you will,
sir, will you not?)--as he whom you may see no more!”
There was something in Morton’s voice so solemn, that it awed and
touched both the old man and the infant; and Fanny, creeping to the
protector thus assigned to her, and putting her little hands confidingly
on his knees, said--
“Fanny will love you if papa wished it. Kiss Fanny.”
“Is it his child--his?” said the blind man, sobbing. “Come to my heart;
here--here! O God, forgive me!” Morton did not think it right at that
moment to undeceive him with regard to the poor child’s true connexion
with the deceased: and he waited in silence till Simon, after a burst of
passionate grief and tenderness, rose, and still clasping the child to
his breast, said--
“Sir, forgive me!--I am a very weak old man--I have many thanks to
give--I have much, too, to learn. My poor son! he did not die in
want,--did he?”
The particulars of Gawtrey’s fate, with his real name and the various
aliases he had assumed, had appeared in the French journals, had been
partially copied into the English; and Morton had expected to have
been saved the painful narrative of that fearful death; but the utter
seclusion of the old man, his infirmity, and his estranged habits, had
shut him out from the intelligence that it now devolved on Philip to
communicate. Morton hesitated a little before he answered:
“It is late now; you are not yet prepared to receive this poor infant at
your home, nor to hear the details I have to state. I arrived in England
but to-day. I shall lodge in the neighbourhood, for it is dear to me.
If I may feel sure, then, that you will receive and treasure this sacred
and last deposit bequeathed to you by your unhappy son, I will bring my
charge to you to-morrow, and we will then, more calmly than we can now,
talk over the past.”
“You do not answer my question,” said Simon, passionately; “answer that,
and I will wait for the rest. They call me a miser! Did I send out my
only child to starve? Answer that!”
“Be comforted. He did not die in want; and he has even left some little
fortune for Fanny, which I was to place in your hands.”
“And he thought to bribe the old miser to be human! Well--well--well--I
will go home.”
“Lean on me!”
The dog leapt playfully on his master as the latter rose, and Fanny slid
from Simon’s arms to caress and talk to the animal in her own way. As
they slowly passed through the churchyard Simon muttered incoherently to
himself for several paces, and Morton would not disturb, since he could
not comfort, him.
At last he said abruptly, “Did my son repent?”
“I hoped,” answered Morton, evasively, “that, had his life been spared,
he would have amended!”
“Tush, sir!--I am past seventy; we repent!--we never amend!” And Simon
again sunk into his own dim and disconnected reveries.
At length they arrived at the blind man’s house. The door was opened to
them by an old woman of disagreeable and sinister aspect, dressed out
much too gaily for the station of a servant, though such was her reputed
capacity; but the miser’s affliction saved her from the chance of his
comment on her extravagance. As she stood in the doorway with a candle
in her hand, she scanned curiously, and with no welcoming eye, her
master’s companions.
“Mrs. Boxer, my son is dead!” said Simon, in a hollow voice.
“And a good thing it is, then, sir!”
“For shame, woman!” said Morton, indignantly.
“Hey-dey! sir! whom have we got here?”
“One,” said Simon, sternly, “whom you will treat with respect. He brings
me a blessing to lighten my loss. One harsh word to this child, and you
quit my house!”
The woman looked perfectly thunderstruck; but, recovering herself, she
said, whiningly--
“I! a harsh word to anything my dear, kind master cares for. And, Lord,
what a sweet pretty creature it is! Come here, my dear!”
But Fanny shrunk back, and would not let go Philip’s hand.
“To-morrow, then,” said Morton; and he was turning away, when a sudden
thought seemed to cross the old man,--
“Stay, sir--stay! I--I--did my son say I was rich? I am very, very
poor--nothing in the house, or I should have been robbed long ago!”
“Your son told me to bring money, not to ask for it!”
“Ask for it! No; but,” added the old man, and a gleam of cunning
intelligence shot over his face,--“but he had got into a bad set.
Ask!--No!--Put up the door-chain, Mrs. Boxer!”
It was with doubt and misgivings that Morton, the next day, consigned
the child, who had already nestled herself into the warmest core of
his heart, to the care of Simon. Nothing short of that superstitious
respect, which all men owe to the wishes of the dead, would have made
him select for her that asylum; for Fate had now, in brightening his
own prospects, given him an alternative in the benevolence of Madame de
Merville. But Gawtrey had been so earnest on the subject, that he felt
as if he had no right to hesitate. And was it not a sort of atonement to
any faults the son might have committed against the parent, to place by
the old man’s hearth so sweet a charge?
The strange and peculiar mind and character of Fanny made him, however,
yet more anxious than otherwise he might have been. She certainly
deserved not the harsh name of imbecile or idiot, but she was different
from all other children; she felt more acutely than most of her age, but
she could not be taught to reason. There was something either oblique
or deficient in her intellect, which justified the most melancholy
apprehensions; yet often, when some disordered, incoherent, inexplicable
train of ideas most saddened the listener, it would be followed by
fancies so exquisite in their strangeness, or feelings so endearing in
their tenderness, that suddenly she seemed as much above, as before she
seemed below, the ordinary measure of infant comprehension. She was like
a creature to which Nature, in some cruel but bright caprice, has given
all that belongs to poetry, but denied all that belongs to the common
understanding necessary to mankind; or, as a fairy changeling, not,
indeed, according to the vulgar superstition, malignant and deformed,
but lovelier than the children of men, and haunted by dim and struggling
associations of a gentler and fairer being, yet wholly incapable to
learn the dry and hard elements which make up the knowledge of actual
life.
Morton, as well as he could, sought to explain to Simon the
peculiarities in Fanny’s mental constitution. He urged on him the
necessity of providing for her careful instruction, and Simon promised
to send her to the best school the neighbourhood could afford; but, as
the old man spoke, he dwelt so much on the supposed fact that Fanny was
William’s daughter, and with his remorse, or affection, there ran so
interwoven a thread of selfishness and avarice, that Morton thought it
would be dangerous to his interest in the child to undeceive his error.
He, therefore,--perhaps excusably enough--remained silent on that
subject.
Gawtrey had placed with the superior of the convent, together with an
order to give up the child to any one who should demand her in his true
name, which he confided to the superior, a sum of nearly L300., which he
solemnly swore had been honestly obtained, and which, in all his shifts
and adversities, he had never allowed himself to touch. This sum, with
the trifling deduction made for arrears due to the convent, Morton now
placed in Simon’s hands. The old man clutched the money, which was
for the most in French gold, with a convulsive gripe: and then, as if
ashamed of the impulse, said--
“But you, sir--will any sum--that is, any reasonable sum--be of use to
you?”
“No! and if it were, it is neither yours nor mine--it is hers. Save it
for her, and add to it what you can.”
While this conversation took place, Fanny had been consigned to the care
of Mrs. Boxer, and Philip now rose to see and bid her farewell before he
departed.
“I may come again to visit you, Mr. Gawtrey; and I pray Heaven to
find that you and Fanny have been a mutual blessing to each other. Oh,
remember how your son loved her!”
“He had a good heart, in spite of all his sins. Poor William!” said
Simon.
Philip Morton heard, and his lip curled with a sad and a just disdain.
If when, at the age of nineteen, William Gawtrey had quitted his
father’s roof, the father had then remembered that the son’s heart was
good,--the son had been alive still, an honest and a happy man. Do ye
not laugh, O ye all-listening Fiends! when men praise those dead whose
virtues they discovered not when alive? It takes much marble to build
the sepulchre--how little of lath and plaster would have repaired the
garret!
On turning into a small room adjoining the parlour in which Gawtrey
sat, Morton found Fanny standing gloomily by a dull, soot-grimed window,
which looked out on the dead walls of a small yard. Mrs. Boxer, seated
by a table, was employed in trimming a cap, and putting questions to
Fanny in that falsetto voice of endearment in which people not used to
children are apt to address them.
“And so, my dear, they’ve never taught you to read or write? You’ve been
sadly neglected, poor thing!”
“We must do our best to supply the deficiency,” said Morton, as he
entered.
“Bless me, sir, is that you?” and the gouvernante bustled up and dropped
a low courtesy; for Morton, dressed then in the garb of a gentleman, was
of a mien and person calculated to strike the gaze of the vulgar.
“Ah, brother!” cried Fanny, for by that name he had taught her to call
him; and she flew to his side. “Come away--it’s ugly there--it makes me
cold.”
“My child, I told you you must stay; but I shall hope to see you again
some day. Will you not be kind to this poor creature, ma’am? Forgive me,
if I offended you last night, and favour me by accepting this, to show
that we are friends.” As he spoke, he slid his purse into the woman’s
hand. “I shall feel ever grateful for whatever you can do for Fanny.”
“Fanny wants nothing from any one else; Fanny wants her brother.”
“Sweet child! I fear she don’t take to me. Will you like me, Miss
Fanny?”
“No! get along!”
“Fie, Fanny--you remember you did not take to me at first. But she is so
affectionate, ma’am; she never forgets a kindness.”
“I will do all I can to please her, sir. And so she is really master’s
grandchild?” The woman fixed her eyes, as she spoke, so intently on
Morton, that he felt embarrassed, and busied himself, without answering,
in caressing and soothing Fanny, who now seemed to awake to the
affliction about to visit her; for though she did not weep--she very
rarely wept--her slight frame trembled--her eyes closed--her cheeks,
even her lips, were white--and her delicate hands were clasped tightly
round the neck of the one about to abandon her to strange breasts.
Morton was greatly moved. “One kiss, Fanny! and do not forget me when we
meet again.”
The child pressed her lips to his cheek, but the lips were cold. He put
her down gently; she stood mute and passive.
“Remember that he wished me to leave you here,” whispered Morton, using
an argument that never failed. “We must obey him; and so--God bless you,
Fanny!”
He rose and retreated to the door; the child unclosed her eyes, and
gazed at him with a strained, painful, imploring gaze; her lips moved,
but she did not speak. Morton could not bear that silent woe. He sought
to smile on her consolingly; but the smile would not come. He closed the
door, and hurried from the house.
From that day Fanny settled into a kind of dreary, inanimate stupor,
which resembled that of the somnambulist whom the magnetiser forgets
to waken. Hitherto, with all the eccentricities or deficiencies of her
mind, had mingled a wild and airy gaiety. That was vanished. She spoke
little--she never played--no toys could lure her--even the poor dog
failed to win her notice. If she was told to do anything she stared
vacantly and stirred not. She evinced, however, a kind of dumb regard to
the old blind man; she would creep to his knees and sit there for
hours, seldom answering when he addressed her, but uneasy, anxious, and
restless, if he left her.
“Will you die too?” she asked once; the old man understood her not, and
she did not try to explain. Early one morning, some days after Morton
was gone, they missed her: she was not in the house, nor the dull yard
where she was sometimes dismissed and told to play--told in vain. In
great alarm the old man accused Mrs. Boxer of having spirited her away,
and threatened and stormed so loudly that the woman, against her will,
went forth to the search. At last she found the child in the churchyard,
standing wistfully beside a tomb.
“What do you here, you little plague?” said Mrs. Boxer, rudely seizing
her by the arm.
“This is the way they will both come back some day! I dreamt so!”
“If ever I catch you here again!” said the housekeeper, and, wiping her
brow with one hand, she struck the child with the other. Fanny had never
been struck before. She recoiled in terror and amazement, and, for the
first time since her arrival, burst into tears.
“Come--come, no crying! and if you tell master I’ll beat you within
an inch of your life!” So saying, she caught Fanny in her arms, and,
walking about, scolding and menacing, till she had frightened back the
child’s tears, she returned triumphantly to the house, and bursting into
the parlour, exclaimed, “Here’s the little darling, sir!”
When old Simon learned where the child had been found he was glad; for
it was his constant habit, whenever the evening was fine, to glide out
to that churchyard--his dog his guide--and sit on his one favourite
spot opposite the setting sun. This, not so much for the sanctity of
the place, or the meditations it might inspire, as because it was the
nearest, the safest, and the loneliest spot in the neighbourhood of his
home, where the blind man could inhale the air and bask in the light of
heaven. Hitherto, thinking it sad for the child, he had never taken
her with him; indeed, at the hour of his monotonous excursion she had
generally been banished to bed. Now she was permitted to accompany him;
and the old man and the infant would sit there side by side, as Age and
Infancy rested side by side in the graves below. The first symptom of
childlike interest and curiosity that Fanny betrayed was awakened by the
affliction of her protector. One evening, as they thus sat, she made him
explain what the desolation of blindness is. She seemed to
comprehend him, though he did not seek to adapt his complaints to her
understanding.
“Fanny knows,” said she, touchingly; “for she, too, is blind here;” and
she pressed her hands to her temples. Notwithstanding her silence and
strange ways, and although he could not see the exquisite loveliness
which Nature, as in remorseful pity, had lavished on her outward form,
Simon soon learned to love her better than he had ever loved yet: for
they most cold to the child are often dotards to the grandchild. For
her even his avarice slept. Dainties, never before known at his sparing
board, were ordered to tempt her appetite, toy-shops ransacked to amuse
her indolence. He was long, however, before he could prevail on himself
to fulfil his promise to Morton, and rob himself of her presence.
At length, however, wearied with Mrs. Boxer’s lamentations at her
ignorance, and alarmed himself at some evidences of helplessness, which
made him dread to think what her future might be when left alone in
life, he placed her at a day-school in the suburb. Here Fanny, for a
considerable time, justified the harshest assertions of her stupidity.
She could not even keep her eyes two minutes together on the page from
which she was to learn the mysteries of reading; months passed before
she mastered the alphabet, and, a month after, she had again forgot it,
and the labour was renewed. The only thing in which she showed ability,
if so it might be called, was in the use of the needle. The sisters of
the convent had already taught her many pretty devices in this art;
and when she found that at the school they were admired--that she was
praised instead of blamed--her vanity was pleased, and she learned
so readily all that they could teach in this not unprofitable
accomplishment, that Mrs. Boxer slyly and secretly turned her tasks
to account and made a weekly perquisite of the poor pupil’s industry.
Another faculty she possessed, in common with persons usually deficient,
and with the lower species--viz., a most accurate and faithful
recollection of places. At first Mrs. Boxer had been duly sent, morning,
noon, and evening, to take her to, or bring her from, the school; but
this was so great a grievance to Simon’s solitary superintendent, and
Fanny coaxed the old man so endearingly to allow her to go and return
alone, that the attendance, unwelcome to both, was waived. Fanny exulted
in this liberty; and she never, in going or in returning, missed passing
through the burial-ground, and gazing wistfully at the tomb from which
she yet believed Morton would one day reappear. With his memory she
cherished also that of her earlier and more guilty protector; but they
were separate feelings, which she distinguished in her own way.
“Papa had given her up. She knew that he would not have sent her away,
far--far over the great water, if he had meant to see Fanny again; but
her brother was forced to leave her--he would come to life one day, and
then they should live together!”
One day, towards the end of autumn, as her schoolmistress, a good woman
on the whole, but who had not yet had the wit to discover by what chords
to tune the instrument, over which so wearily she drew her unskilful
hand--one day, we say, the schoolmistress happened to be dressed for
a christening party to which she was invited in the suburb; and,
accordingly, after the morning lessons, the pupils were to be dismissed
to a holiday. As Fanny now came last, with the hopeless spelling-book,
she stopped suddenly short, and her eyes rested with avidity upon a
large bouquet of exotic flowers, with which the good lady had enlivened
the centre of the parted kerchief, whose yellow gauze modestly veiled
that tender section of female beauty which poets have likened to hills
of snow--a chilling simile! It was then autumn; and field, and even
garden flowers were growing rare.
“Will you give me one of those flowers?” said Fanny, dropping her book.
“One of these flowers, child! why?”
Fanny did not answer; but one of the elder and cleverer girls said--
“Oh! she comes from France, you know, ma’am, and the Roman Catholics put
flowers, and ribands, and things, over the graves; you recollect, ma’am,
we were reading yesterday about Pere-la-Chaise?”
“Well! what then?”
“And Miss Fanny will do any kind of work for us if we will give her
flowers.”
“My brother told me where to put them;--but these pretty flowers, I
never had any like them; they may bring him back again! I’ll be so good
if you’ll give me one, only one!”
“Will you learn your lesson if I do, Fanny?”
“Oh! yes! Wait a moment!”
And Fanny stole back to her desk, put the hateful book resolutely before
her, pressed both hands tightly on her temples,--Eureka! the chord was
touched; and Fanny marched in triumph through half a column of hostile
double syllables!
From that day the schoolmistress knew how to stimulate her, and Fanny
learned to read: her path to knowledge thus literally strewn with
flowers! Catherine, thy children were far off, and thy grave looked gay!
It naturally happened that those short and simple rhymes, often sacred,
which are repeated in schools as helps to memory, made a part of her
studies; and no sooner had the sound of verse struck upon her fancy than
it seemed to confuse and agitate anew all her senses. It was like the
music of some breeze, to which dance and tremble all the young leaves
of a wild plant. Even when at the convent she had been fond of repeating
the infant rhymes with which they had sought to lull or to amuse her,
but now the taste was more strongly developed. She confounded, however,
in meaningless and motley disorder, the various snatches of song
that came to her ear, weaving them together in some form which she
understood, but which was jargon to all others; and often, as she went
alone through the green lanes or the bustling streets, the passenger
would turn in pity and fear to hear her half chant--half murmur--ditties
that seemed to suit only a wandering and unsettled imagination. And as
Mrs. Boxer, in her visits to the various shops in the suburb, took
care to bemoan her hard fate in attending to a creature so evidently
moon-stricken, it was no wonder that the manner and habits of the child,
coupled with that strange predilection to haunt the burial-ground, which
is not uncommon with persons of weak and disordered intellect; confirmed
the character thus given to her.
So, as she tripped gaily and lightly along the thoroughfares, the
children would draw aside from her path, and whisper with superstitious
fear mingled with contempt, “It’s the idiot girl!”--Idiot--how much more
of heaven’s light was there in that cloud than in the rushlights
that, flickering in sordid chambers, shed on dull things the dull
ray--esteeming themselves as stars!
Months--years passed--Fanny was thirteen, when there dawned a new era to
her existence. Mrs. Boxer had never got over her first grudge to Fanny.
Her treatment of the poor girl was always harsh, and sometimes cruel.
But Fanny did not complain, and as Mrs. Boxer’s manner to her before
Simon was invariably cringing and caressing, the old man never guessed
the hardships his supposed grandchild underwent. There had been scandal
some years back in the suburb about the relative connexion of the master
and the housekeeper; and the flaunting dress of the latter, something
bold in her regard, and certain whispers that her youth had not been
vowed to Vesta, confirmed the suspicion. The only reason why we do not
feel sure that the rumour was false is this,--Simon Gawtrey had been
so hard on the early follies of his son! Certainly, at all events, the
woman had exercised great influence over the miser before the arrival
of Fanny, and she had done much to steel his selfishness against the
ill-fated William. And, as certainly, she had fully calculated on
succeeding to the savings, whatever they might be, of the miser,
whenever Providence should be pleased to terminate his days. She knew
that Simon had, many years back, made his will in her favour; she knew
that he had not altered that will: she believed, therefore, that in
spite of all his love for Fanny, he loved his gold so much more, that he
could not accustom himself to the thought of bequeathing it to hands too
helpless to guard the treasure. This had in some measure reconciled
the housekeeper to the intruder; whom, nevertheless, she hated as a dog
hates another dog, not only for taking his bone, but for looking at it.
But suddenly Simon fell ill. His age made it probable he would die. He
took to his bed--his breathing grew fainter and fainter--he seemed dead.
Fanny, all unconscious, sat by his bedside as usual, holding her breath
not to waken him. Mrs. Boxer flew to the bureau--she unlocked it--she
could not find the will; but she found three bags of bright gold
guineas: the sight charmed her. She tumbled them forth on the distained
green cloth of the bureau--she began to count them; and at that moment,
the old man, as if there were a secret magnetism between himself and
the guineas, woke from his trance. His blindness saved him the pain
that might have been fatal, of seeing the unhallowed profanation; but he
heard the chink of the metal. The very sound restored his strength.
But the infirm are always cunning--he breathed not a suspicion. “Mrs.
Boxer,” said he, faintly, “I think I could take some broth.” Mrs. Boxer
rose in great dismay, gently re-closed the bureau, and ran down-stairs
for the broth. Simon took the occasion to question Fanny; and no sooner
had he learnt the operation of the heir-expectant, than he bade the girl
first lock the bureau and bring him the key, and next run to a lawyer
(whose address he gave her), and fetch him instantly.
With a malignant smile the old man took the broth from his
handmaid,--“Poor Boxer, you are a disinterested creature,” said he,
feebly; “I think you will grieve when I go.”
Mrs. Boxer sobbed, and before she had recovered, the lawyer entered.
That day a new will was made; and the lawyer politely informed Mrs.
Boxer that her services would be dispensed with the next morning, when
he should bring a nurse to the house. Mrs. Boxer heard, and took her
resolution. As soon as Simon again fell asleep, she crept into
the room--led away Fanny--locked her up in her own
chamber--returned--searched for the key of the bureau, which she found
at last under Simon’s pillow--possessed herself of all she could lay her
hands on--and the next morning she had disappeared forever! Simon’s loss
was greater than might have been supposed; for, except a trifling sum in
the savings bank, he, like many other misers, kept all he had, in notes
or specie, under his own lock and key. His whole fortune, indeed, was
far less than was supposed: for money does not make money unless it is
put out to interest,--and the miser cheated himself. Such portion as was
in bank-notes Mrs. Boxer probably had the prudence to destroy; for those
numbers which Simon could remember were never traced; the gold, who
could swear to? Except the pittance in the savings bank, and whatever
might be the paltry worth of the house he rented, the father who had
enriched the menial to exile the son was a beggar in his dotage. This
news, however, was carefully concealed from him by the advice of the
doctor, whom, on his own responsibility, the lawyer introduced, till
he had recovered sufficiently to bear the shock without danger; and the
delay naturally favoured Mrs. Boxer’s escape.
Simon remained for some moments perfectly stunned and speechless when
the news was broken to him. Fanny, in alarm at his increasing paleness,
sprang to his breast. He pushed her away,--“Go--go--go, child,” he said;
“I can’t feed you now. Leave me to starve.”
“To starve!” said Fanny, wonderingly; and she stole away, and sat
herself down as if in deep thought. She then crept up to the lawyer
as he was about to leave the room, after exhausting his stock of
commonplace consolation; and putting her hand in his, whispered, “I want
to talk to you--this way:”--She led him through the passage into the
open air. “Tell me,” she said, “when poor people try not to starve,
don’t they work?”
“My dear, yes.”
“For rich people buy poor people’s work?”
“Certainly, my dear; to be sure.”
“Very well. Mrs. Boxer used to sell my work. Fanny will feed grandpapa!
Go and tell him never to say ‘starve’ again.”
The good-natured lawyer was moved. “Can you work, indeed, my poor girl?
Well, put on your bonnet, and come and talk to my wife.”
And that was the new era in Fanny’s existence! Her schooling was
stopped. But now life schooled her. Necessity ripened her intellect. And
many a hard eye moistened,--as, seeing her glide with her little basket
of fancy work along the streets, still murmuring her happy and bird-like
snatches of unconnected song--men and children alike said with respect,
in which there was now no contempt, “It’s the idiot girl who supports
her blind grandfather!” They called her idiot still!
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
“O that sweet gleam of sunshine on the lake!”
WILSON’S City of the Plague
If, reader, you have ever looked through a solar microscope at the
monsters in a drop of water, perhaps you have wondered to yourself how
things so terrible have been hitherto unknown to you--you have felt a
loathing at the limpid element you hitherto deemed so pure--you have
half fancied that you would cease to be a water-drinker; yet, the next
day you have forgotten the grim life that started before you, with its
countless shapes, in that teeming globule; and, if so tempted by your
thirst, you have not shrunk from the lying crystal, although myriads of
the horrible Unseen are mangling, devouring, gorging each other in the
liquid you so tranquilly imbibe; so is it with that ancestral and master
element called Life. Lapped in your sleek comforts, and lolling on the
sofa of your patent conscience--when, perhaps for the first time, you
look through the glass of science upon one ghastly globule in the waters
that heave around, that fill up, with their succulence, the pores of
earth, that moisten every atom subject to your eyes or handled by your
touch--you are startled and dismayed; you say, mentally, “Can such
things be? I never dreamed of this before! I thought what was
invisible to me was non-existent in itself--I will remember this dread
experiment.” The next day the experiment is forgotten.--The Chemist may
purify the Globule--can Science make pure the World?
Turn we now to the pleasant surface, seen in the whole, broad and fair
to the common eye. Who would judge well of God’s great designs, if he
could look on no drop pendent from the rose-tree, or sparkling in the
sun, without the help of his solar microscope?
It is ten years after the night on which William Gawtrey perished:--I
transport you, reader, to the fairest scenes in England,--scenes
consecrated by the only true pastoral poetry we have known to
Contemplation and Repose.
Autumn had begun to tinge the foliage on the banks of Winandermere. It
had been a summer of unusual warmth and beauty; and if that year you
had visited the English lakes, you might, from time to time, amidst the
groups of happy idlers you encountered, have singled out two persons
for interest, or, perhaps, for envy. Two who might have seemed to you in
peculiar harmony with those serene and soft retreats, both young--both
beautiful. Lovers you would have guessed them to be; but such lovers
as Fletcher might have placed under the care of his “Holy
Shepherdess”--forms that might have reclined by
“The virtuous well, about whose flowery banks
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds
By the pale moonshine.”
For in the love of those persons there seemed a purity and innocence
that suited well their youth and the character of their beauty. Perhaps,
indeed, on the girl’s side, love sprung rather from those affections
which the spring of life throws upward to the surface, as the spring of
earth does its flowers, than from that concentrated and deep absorption
of self in self, which alone promises endurance and devotion, and of
which first love, or rather the first fancy, is often less susceptible
than that which grows out of the more thoughtful fondness of maturer
years. Yet he, the lover, was of so rare and singular a beauty, that he
might well seem calculated to awake, to the utmost, the love which wins
the heart through the eyes.
But to begin at the beginning. A lady of fashion had, in the autumn
previous to the year in which our narrative re-opens, taken, with her
daughter, a girl then of about eighteen, the tour of the English lakes.
Charmed by the beauty of Winandermere, and finding one of the most
commodious villas on its banks to be let, they had remained there all
the winter. In the early spring a severe illness had seized the elder
lady, and finding herself, as she slowly recovered, unfit for the
gaieties of a London season, nor unwilling, perhaps,--for she had been
a beauty in her day--to postpone for another year the debut of her
daughter, she had continued her sojourn, with short intervals of
absence, for a whole year. Her husband, a busy man of the world, with
occupation in London, and fine estates in the country, joined them
only occasionally, glad to escape the still beauty of landscapes which
brought him no rental, and therefore afforded no charm to his eye.
In the first month of their arrival at Winandermere, the mother and
daughter had made an eventful acquaintance in the following manner.
One evening, as they were walking on their lawn, which sloped to the
lake, they heard the sound of a flute, played with a skill so exquisite
as to draw them, surprised and spellbound, to the banks. The musician
was a young man, in a boat, which he had moored beneath the trees of
their demesne. He was alone, or, rather, he had one companion, in a
large Newfoundland dog, that sat watchful at the helm of the boat,
and appeared to enjoy the music as much as his master. As the ladies
approached the spot, the dog growled, and the young man ceased, though
without seeing the fair causes of his companion’s displeasure. The sun,
then setting, shone full on his countenance as he looked round; and that
countenance was one that might have haunted the nymphs of Delos; the
face of Apollo, not as the hero, but the shepherd--not of the bow,
but of the lute--not the Python-slayer, but the young dreamer by shady
places--he whom the sculptor has portrayed leaning idly against the
tree--the boy-god whose home is yet on earth, and to whom the Oracle and
the Spheres are still unknown.
At that moment the dog leaped from the boat, and the elder lady uttered
a faint cry of alarm, which, directing the attention of the musician,
brought him also ashore. He called off his dog, and apologised, with a
not ungraceful mixture of diffidence and ease, for his intrusion. He was
not aware the place was inhabited--it was a favourite haunt of his--he
lived near. The elder lady was pleased with his address, and struck with
his appearance. There was, indeed, in his manner that indefinable charm,
which is more attractive than mere personal appearance, and which
can never be imitated or acquired. They parted, however, without
establishing any formal acquaintance. A few days after, they met at
dinner at a neighbouring house, and were introduced by name. That of the
young man seemed strange to the ladies; not so theirs to him. He turned
pale when he heard it, and remained silent and aloof the rest of the
evening. They met again and often; and for some weeks--nay, even for
months--he appeared to avoid, as much as possible, the acquaintance so
auspiciously begun; but, by little and little, the beauty of the younger
lady seemed to gain ground on his diffidence or repugnance. Excursions
among the neighbouring mountains threw them together, and at last he
fairly surrendered himself to the charm he had at first determined to
resist.
This young man lived on the opposite side of the lake, in a quiet
household, of which he was the idol. His life had been one of almost
monastic purity and repose; his tastes were accomplished, his character
seemed soft and gentle; but beneath that calm exterior, flashes of
passion--the nature of the poet, ardent and sensitive--would break forth
at times. He had scarcely ever, since his earliest childhood, quitted
those retreats; he knew nothing of the world, except in books--books
of poetry and romance. Those with whom he lived--his relations, an old
bachelor, and the cold bachelor’s sisters, old maids--seemed equally
innocent and inexperienced. It was a family whom the rich respected and
the poor loved--inoffensive, charitable, and well off. To whatever their
easy fortune might be, he appeared the heir. The name of this young
man was Charles Spencer; the ladies were Mrs. Beaufort, and Camilla her
daughter.
Mrs. Beaufort, though a shrewd woman, did not at first perceive any
danger in the growing intimacy between Camilla and the younger Spencer.
Her daughter was not her favourite--not the object of her one thought or
ambition. Her whole heart and soul were wrapped in her son Arthur, who
lived principally abroad. Clever enough to be considered capable, when
he pleased, of achieving distinction, good-looking enough to be thought
handsome by all who were on the qui vive for an advantageous match,
good-natured enough to be popular with the society in which he lived,
scattering to and fro money without limit,--Arthur Beaufort, at the
age of thirty, had established one of those brilliant and evanescent
reputations, which, for a few years, reward the ambition of the fine
gentleman. It was precisely the reputation that the mother could
appreciate, and which even the more saving father secretly admired,
while, ever respectable in phrase, Mr. Robert Beaufort seemed openly to
regret it. This son was, I say, everything to them; they cared little,
in comparison, for their daughter. How could a daughter keep up the
proud name of Beaufort? However well she might marry, it was another
house, not theirs, which her graces and beauty would adorn. Moreover,
the better she might marry the greater her dowry would naturally
be,--the dowry, to go out of the family! And Arthur, poor fellow! was
so extravagant, that really he would want every sixpence. Such was the
reasoning of the father. The mother reasoned less upon the matter. Mrs.
Beaufort, faded and meagre, in blonde and cashmere, was jealous of
the charms of her daughter; and she herself, growing sentimental
and lachrymose as she advanced in life, as silly women often do, had
convinced herself that Camilla was a girl of no feeling.
Miss Beaufort was, indeed, of a character singularly calm and placid; it
was the character that charms men in proportion, perhaps, to their own
strength and passion. She had been rigidly brought up--her affections
had been very early chilled and subdued; they moved, therefore, now,
with ease, in the serene path of her duties. She held her parents,
especially her father, in reverential fear, and never dreamed of the
possibility of resisting one of their wishes, much less their commands.
Pious, kind, gentle, of a fine and never-ruffled temper, Camilla, an
admirable daughter, was likely to make no less admirable a wife; you
might depend on her principles, if ever you could doubt her affection.
Few girls were more calculated to inspire love. You would scarcely
wonder at any folly, any madness, which even a wise man might commit
for her sake. This did not depend on her beauty alone, though she was
extremely lovely rather than handsome, and of that style of loveliness
which is universally fascinating: the figure, especially as to the arms,
throat, and bust, was exquisite; the mouth dimpled; the teeth dazzling;
the eyes of that velvet softness which to look on is to love. But her
charm was in a certain prettiness of manner, an exceeding innocence,
mixed with the most captivating, because unconscious, coquetry. With all
this, there was a freshness, a joy, a virgin and bewitching candour in
her voice, her laugh--you might almost say in her very movements. Such
was Camilla Beaufort at that age. Such she seemed to others. To her
parents she was only a great girl rather in the way. To Mrs. Beaufort a
rival, to Mr. Beaufort an encumbrance on the property.
CHAPTER II.
* * * “The moon
Saddening the solemn night, yet with that sadness
Mingling the breath of undisturbed Peace.”
WILSON: City of the Plague
* * * “Tell me his fate.
Say that he lives, or say that he is dead
But tell me--tell me!
* * * * * *
I see him not--some cloud envelopes him.”--Ibid.
One day (nearly a year after their first introduction) as with a party
of friends Camilla and Charles Spencer were riding through those wild
and romantic scenes which lie between the sunny Winandermere and the
dark and sullen Wastwater, their conversation fell on topics more
personal than it had hitherto done, for as yet, if they felt love, they
had never spoken of it.
The narrowness of the path allowed only two to ride abreast, and the two
to whom I confine my description were the last of the little band.
“How I wish Arthur were here!” said Camilla; “I am sure you would like
him.”
“Are you? He lives much in the world--the world of which I know nothing.
Are we then characters to suit each other?”
“He is the kindest--the best of human beings!” said Camilla, rather
evasively, but with more warmth than usually dwelt in her soft and low
voice.
“Is he so kind?” returned Spencer, musingly. “Well, it may be so. And
who would not be kind to you? Ah! it is a beautiful connexion that of
brother and sister--I never had a sister!”
“Have you then a brother?” asked Camilla, in some surprise, and turning
her ingenuous eyes full on her companion.
Spencer’s colour rose--rose to his temples: his voice trembled as he
answered, “No;--no brother!” then, speaking in a rapid and hurried
tone, he continued, “My life has been a strange and lonely one. I am an
orphan. I have mixed with few of my own age: my boyhood and youth have
been spent in these scenes; my education such as Nature and books could
bestow, with scarcely any guide or tutor save my guardian--the dear old
man! Thus the world, the stir of cities, ambition, enterprise,--all
seem to me as things belonging to a distant land to which I shall never
wander. Yet I have had my dreams, Miss Beaufort; dreams of which these
solitudes still form a part--but solitudes not unshared. And lately I
have thought that those dreams might be prophetic. And you--do you love
the world?”
“I, like you, have scarcely tried it,” said Camilla, with a sweet laugh.
“but I love the country better,--oh! far better than what little I have
seen of towns. But for you,” she continued with a charming hesitation,
“a man is so different from us,--for you to shrink from the world--you,
so young and with talents too--nay, it is true!--it seems to me
strange.”
“It may be so, but I cannot tell you what feelings of dread--what vague
forebodings of terror seize me if I carry my thoughts beyond these
retreats. Perhaps my good guardian--”
“Your uncle?” interrupted Camilla.
“Ay, my uncle--may have contributed to engender feelings, as you say,
strange at my age; but still--”
“Still what!”
“My earlier childhood,” continued Spencer, breathing hard and turning
pale, “was not spent in the happy home I have now; it was passed in a
premature ordeal of suffering and pain. Its recollections have left a
dark shadow on my mind, and under that shadow lies every thought that
points towards the troublous and labouring career of other men. But,”
he resumed after a pause, and in a deep, earnest, almost solemn
voice,--“but after all, is this cowardice or wisdom? I find no
monotony--no tedium in this quiet life. Is there not a certain
morality--a certain religion in the spirit of a secluded and country
existence? In it we do not know the evil passions which ambition and
strife are said to arouse. I never feel jealous or envious of other men;
I never know what it is to hate; my boat, my horse, our garden, music,
books, and, if I may dare to say so, the solemn gladness that comes from
the hopes of another life,--these fill up every hour with thoughts
and pursuits, peaceful, happy, and without a cloud, till of late,
when--when--”
“When what?” said Camilla, innocently.
“When I have longed, but did not dare to ask another, if to share such a
lot would content her!”
He bent, as he spoke, his soft blue eyes full upon the blushing face of
her whom he addressed, and Camilla half smiled and half sighed:
“Our companions are far before us,” said she, turning away her face,
“and see, the road is now smooth.” She quickened her horse’s pace as
she said this; and Spencer, too new to women to interpret favourably
her evasion of his words and looks, fell into a profound silence which
lasted during the rest of their excursion.
As towards the decline of day he bent his solitary way home, emotions
and passions to which his life had hitherto been a stranger, and which,
alas! he had vainly imagined a life so tranquil would everlastingly
restrain, swelled his heart.
“She does not love me,” he muttered, half aloud; “she will leave me, and
what then will all the beauty of the landscape seem in my eyes? And how
dare I look up to her? Even if her cold, vain mother--her father, the
man, they say, of forms and scruples, were to consent, would they not
question closely of my true birth and origin? And if the one blot were
overlooked, is there no other? His early habits and vices, his?--a
brother’s--his unknown career terminating at any day, perhaps, in shame,
in crime, in exposure, in the gibbet,--will they overlook this?” As he
spoke, he groaned aloud, and, as if impatient to escape himself, spurred
on his horse and rested not till he reached the belt of trim and sober
evergreens that surrounded his hitherto happy home.
Leaving his horse to find its way to the stables, the young man passed
through rooms, which he found deserted, to the lawn on the other side,
which sloped to the smooth waters of the lake.
Here, seated under the one large tree that formed the pride of the lawn,
over which it cast its shadow broad and far, he perceived his guardian
poring idly over an oft-read book, one of those books of which literary
dreamers are apt to grow fanatically fond--books by the old English
writers, full of phrases and conceits half quaint and half sublime,
interspersed with praises of the country, imbued with a poetical rather
than orthodox religion, and adorned with a strange mixture of monastic
learning and aphorisms collected from the weary experience of actual
life.
To the left, by a greenhouse, built between the house and the lake,
might be seen the white dress and lean form of the eldest spinster
sister, to whom the care of the flowers--for she had been early crossed
in love--was consigned; at a little distance from her, the other two
were seated at work, and conversing in whispers, not to disturb their
studious brother, no doubt upon the nephew, who was their all in all. It
was the calmest hour of eve, and the quiet of the several forms,
their simple and harmless occupations--if occupations they might be
called--the breathless foliage rich in the depth of summer; behind, the
old-fashioned house, unpretending, not mean, its open doors and windows
giving glimpses of the comfortable repose within; before, the lake,
without a ripple and catching the gleam of the sunset clouds,--all made
a picture of that complete tranquillity and stillness, which sometimes
soothes and sometimes saddens us, according as we are in the temper to
woo CONTENT.
The young man glided to his guardian and touched his shoulder,--“Sir,
may I speak to you?--Hush! they need not see us now! it is only you I
would speak with.”
The elder Spencer rose; and, with his book still in his hand, moved side
by side with his nephew under the shadow of the tree and towards a walk
to the right, which led for a short distance along the margin of the
lake, backed by the interlaced boughs of a thick copse.
“Sir!” said the young man, speaking first, and with a visible effort,
“your cautions have been in vain! I love this girl--this daughter of the
haughty Beauforts! I love her--better than life I love her!”
“My poor boy,” said the uncle tenderly, and with a simple fondness
passing his arm over the speaker’s shoulder, “do not think I can chide
you--I know what it is to love in vain!”
“In vain!--but why in vain?” exclaimed the younger Spencer, with a
vehemence that had in it something of both agony and fierceness. “She
may love me--she shall love me!” and almost for the first time in his
life, the proud consciousness of his rare gifts of person spoke in his
kindled eye and dilated stature. “Do they not say that Nature has been
favourable to me?--What rival have I here?--Is she not young?--And
(sinking his voice till it almost breathed like music) is not love
contagious?”
“I do not doubt that she may love you--who would not?--but--but--the
parents, will they ever consent?”
“Nay!” answered the lover, as with that inconsistency common to passion,
he now argued stubbornly against those fears in another to which he had
just before yielded in himself,--“Nay!--after all, am I not of their own
blood?--Do I not come from the elder branch?--Was I not reared in equal
luxury and with higher hopes?--And my mother--my poor mother--did
she not to the last maintain our birthright--her own honour?--Has not
accident or law unjustly stripped us of our true station?--Is it not for
us to forgive spoliation?--Am I not, in fact, the person who descends,
who forgets the wrongs of the dead--the heritage of the living?”
The young man had never yet assumed this tone--had never yet shown that
he looked back to the history connected with his birth with the feelings
of resentment and the remembrance of wrong. It was a tone contrary
to his habitual calm and contentment--it struck forcibly on his
listener--and the elder Spencer was silent for some moments before he
replied, “If you feel thus (and it is natural), you have yet stronger
reason to struggle against this unhappy affection.”
“I have been conscious of that, sir,” replied the young man, mournfully.
“I have struggled!--and I say again it is in vain! I turn, then, to face
the obstacles! My birth--let us suppose that the Beauforts overlook it.
Did you not tell me that Mr. Beaufort wrote to inform you of the abrupt
and intemperate visit of my brother--of his determination never to
forgive it? I think I remember something of this years ago.”
“It is true!” said the guardian; “and the conduct of that brother is,
in fact, the true cause why you never ought to reassume your proper
name!--never to divulge it, even to the family with whom you connect
yourself by marriage; but, above all, to the Beauforts, who for that
cause, if that cause alone, would reject your suit.”
The young man groaned--placed one hand before his eyes, and with the
other grasped his guardian’s arm convulsively, as if to check him from
proceeding farther; but the good man, not divining his meaning, and
absorbed in his subject, went on, irritating the wound he had touched.
“Reflect!--your brother in boyhood--in the dying hours of his mother,
scarcely saved from the crime of a thief, flying from a friendly pursuit
with a notorious reprobate; afterwards implicated in some discreditable
transaction about a horse, rejecting all--every hand that could save
him, clinging by choice to the lowest companions and the meanest-habits,
disappearing from the country, and last seen, ten years ago--the beard
not yet on his chin--with that same reprobate of whom I have spoken, in
Paris; a day or so only before his companion, a coiner--a murderer--fell
by the hands of the police! You remember that when, in your seventeenth
year, you evinced some desire to retake your name--nay, even to re-find
that guilty brother--I placed before you, as a sad and terrible duty,
the newspaper that contained the particulars of the death and the
former adventures of that wretched accomplice, the notorious Gawtrey.
And,--telling you that Mr. Beaufort had long since written to inform me
that his own son and Lord Lilburne had seen your brother in company with
the miscreant just before his fate--nay, was, in all probability, the
very youth described in the account as found in his chamber and
escaping the pursuit--I asked you if you would now venture to leave that
disguise--that shelter under which you would for ever be safe from the
opprobrium of the world--from the shame that, sooner or later, your
brother must bring upon your name!”
“It is true--it is true!” said the pretended nephew, in a tone of great
anguish, and with trembling lips which the blood had forsaken. “Horrible
to look either to his past or his future! But--but--we have heard of
him no more--no one ever has learned his fate. Perhaps--perhaps” (and he
seemed to breathe more freely)--“my brother is no more!”
And poor Catherine--and poor Philip---had it come to this? Did the
one brother feel a sentiment of release, of joy, in conjecturing the
death--perhaps the death of violence and shame--of his fellow-orphan?
Mr. Spencer shook his head doubtingly, but made no reply. The young
man sighed heavily, and strode on for several paces in advance of his
protector, then, turning back, he laid his hand on his shoulder.
“Sir,” he said in a low voice and with downcast eyes, “you are right:
this disguise--this false name--must be for ever borne! Why need
the Beauforts, then, ever know who and what I am? Why not as your
nephew--nephew to one so respected and exemplary--proffer my claims and
plead my cause?”
“They are proud--so it is said--and worldly;--you know my family was in
trade--still--but--” and here Mr. Spencer broke off from a tone of doubt
into that of despondency, “but, recollect, though Mrs. Beaufort may
not remember the circumstance, both her husband and her son have seen
me--have known my name. Will they not suspect, when once introduced to
you, the stratagem that has been adopted?--Nay, has it not been from
that very fear that you have wished me to shun the acquaintance of the
family? Both Mr. Beaufort and Arthur saw you in childhood, and their
suspicion once aroused, they may recognise you at once; your features
are developed, but not altogether changed. Come, come!--my adopted, my
dear son, shake off this fantasy betimes: let us change the scene: I
will travel with you--read with you--go where--”
“Sir--sir!” exclaimed the lover, smiting his breast, “you are ever
kind, compassionate, generous; but do not--do not rob me of hope. I have
never--thanks to you--felt, save in a momentary dejection, the curse of
my birth. Now how heavily it falls! Where shall I look for comfort?”
As he spoke, the sound of a bell broke over the translucent air and the
slumbering lake: it was the bell that every eve and morn summoned that
innocent and pious family to prayer. The old man’s face changed as he
heard it--changed from its customary indolent, absent, listless aspect,
into an expression of dignity, even of animation.
“Hark!” he said, pointing upwards; “Hark! it chides you. Who shall say,
‘Where shall I look for comfort’ while God is in the heavens?”
The young man, habituated to the faith and observance of religion, till
they had pervaded his whole nature, bowed his head in rebuke; a few
tears stole from his eyes.
“You are right, father--,” he said tenderly, giving emphasis to the
deserved and endearing name. “I am comforted already!”
So, side by side, silently and noiselessly, the young and the old man
glided back to the house. When they gained the quiet room in which the
family usually assembled, the sisters and servants were already gathered
round the table. They knelt as the loiterers entered. It was the wonted
duty of the younger Spencer to read the prayers; and, as he now did so,
his graceful countenance more hushed, his sweet voice more earnest than
usual, in its accents: who that heard could have deemed the heart within
convulsed by such stormy passions? Or was it not in that hour--that
solemn commune--soothed from its woe? O beneficent Creator! thou who
inspirest all the tribes of earth with the desire to pray, hast Thou
not, in that divinest instinct, bestowed on us the happiest of Thy
gifts?
CHAPTER III.
“Bertram. I mean the business is not ended, as fearing to hear of
it hereafter.
“1st Soldier. Do you know this Captain Dumain?”
All’s Well that Ends Well.
One evening, some weeks after the date of the last chapter, Mr. Robert
Beaufort sat alone in his house in Berkeley Square. He had arrived that
morning from Beaufort Court, on his way to Winandermere, to which he
was summoned by a letter from his wife. That year was an agitated and
eventful epoch in England; and Mr. Beaufort had recently gone through
the bustle of an election--not, indeed, contested; for his popularity
and his property defied all rivalry in his own county.
The rich man had just dined, and was seated in lazy enjoyment by the
side of the fire, which he had had lighted, less for the warmth--though
it was then September--than for the companionship;--engaged in finishing
his madeira, and, with half-closed eyes, munching his devilled biscuits.
“I am sure,” he soliloquised while thus employed, “I don’t know
exactly what to do,--my wife ought to decide matters where the girl is
concerned; a son is another affair--that’s the use of a wife. Humph!”
“Sir,” said a fat servant, opening the door, “a gentleman wishes to see
you upon very particular business.”
“Business at this hour! Tell him to go to Mr. Blackwell.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stay! perhaps he is a constituent, Simmons. Ask him if he belongs to
the county.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“A great estate is a great plague,” muttered Mr. Beaufort; “so is a
great constituency. It is pleasanter, after all, to be in the House of
Lords. I suppose I could if I wished; but then one must rat--that’s a
bore. I will consult Lilburne. Humph!”
The servant re-appeared. “Sir, he says he does belong to the county.”
“Show him in!--What sort of a person?”
“A sort of gentleman, sir; that is,” continued the butler, mindful of
five shillings just slipped within his palm by the stranger, “quite the
gentleman.”
“More wine, then--stir up the fire.”
In a few moments the visitor was ushered into the apartment. He was
a man between fifty and sixty, but still aiming at the appearance of
youth. His dress evinced military pretensions; consisting of a blue
coat, buttoned up to the chin, a black stock, loose trousers of the
fashion called Cossacks, and brass spurs. He wore a wig, of great
luxuriance in curl and rich auburn in hue; with large whiskers of the
same colour slightly tinged with grey at the roots. By the imperfect
light of the room it was not perceptible that the clothes were somewhat
threadbare, and that the boots, cracked at the side, admitted glimpses
of no very white hosiery within. Mr. Beaufort, reluctantly rising from
his repose and gladly sinking back to it, motioned to a chair, and put
on a doleful and doubtful semi-smile of welcome. The servant placed the
wine and glasses before the stranger;--the host and visitor were alone.
“So, sir,” said Mr. Beaufort, languidly, “you are from ------shire; I
suppose about the canal,--may I offer you a glass of wine?”
“Most hauppy, sir--your health!” and the stranger, with evident
satisfaction, tossed off a bumper to so complimentary a toast.
“About the canal?” repeated Mr. Beaufort.
“No, sir, no! You parliament gentlemen must hauve a vaust deal of
trouble on your haunds--very foine property I understaund yours is, sir.
Sir, allow me to drink the health of your good lady!”
“I thank you, Mr.--, Mr.--, what did you say your name was?--I beg you a
thousand pardons.”
“No offaunce in the least, sir; no ceremony with me--this is perticler
good madeira!”
“May I ask how I can serve you?” said Mr. Beaufort, struggling between
the sense of annoyance and the fear to be uncivil. “And pray, had I the
honour of your vote in the last election!”
“No, sir, no! It’s mauny years since I have been in your part of the
world, though I was born there.”
“Then I don’t exactly see--” began Mr. Beaufort, and stopped with
dignity.
“Why I call on you,” put in the stranger, tapping his boots with his
cane; and then recognising the rents, he thrust both feet under the
table.
“I don’t say that; but at this hour I am seldom at leisure--not but what
I am always at the service of a constituent, that is, a voter! Mr.--, I
beg your pardon, I did not catch your name.”
“Sir,” said the stranger, helping himself to a third glass of wine;
“here’s a health to your young folk! And now to business.” Here the
visitor, drawing his chair nearer to his host, assuming a more grave
aspect, and dropping something of his stilted pronunciation, continued,
“You had a brother?”
“Well, sir,” said Mr. Beaufort, with a very changed countenance.
“And that brother had a wife!”
Had a cannon gone off in the ear of Mr. Robert Beaufort, it could not
have shocked or stunned him more than that simple word with which his
companion closed his sentence. He fell back in his chair--his lips
apart, his eyes fixed on the stranger. He sought to speak, but his
tongue clove to his mouth.
“That wife had two sons, born in wedlock!”
“It is false!” cried Mr. Beaufort, finding a voice at length, and
springing to his feet. “And who are you, sir? and what do you mean by--”
“Hush!” said the stranger, perfectly unconcerned, and regaining the
dignity of his haw-haw enunciation, “better not let the servants hear
aunything. For my pawt, I think servants hauve the longest pair of ears
of auny persons, not excepting jauckasses; their ears stretch from the
pauntry to the parlour. Hush, sir!--perticler good madeira, this!”
“Sir!” said Mr. Beaufort, struggling to preserve, or rather recover, his
temper, “your conduct is exceedingly strange; but allow me to say that
you are wholly misinformed. My brother never did marry; and if you have
anything to say on behalf of those young men--his natural sons--I refer
you to my solicitor, Mr. Blackwell, of Lincoln’s Inn. I wish you a good
evening.”
“Sir!--the same to you--I won’t trouble you auny farther; it was only
out of koindness I called--I am not used to be treated so--sir, I am
in his maujesty’s service--sir, you will foind that the witness of the
marriage is forthcoming; you will think of me then, and, perhaps,
be sorry. But I’ve done, ‘Your most obedient humble, sir!’” And the
stranger, with a flourish of his hand, turned to the door. At the sight
of this determination on the part of his strange guest, a cold, uneasy,
vague presentiment seized Mr. Beaufort. There, not flashed, but rather
froze, across him the recollection of his brother’s emphatic but
disbelieved assurances--of Catherine’s obstinate assertion of her son’s
alleged rights--rights which her lawsuit, undertaken on her own behalf,
had not compromised;--a fresh lawsuit might be instituted by the son,
and the evidence which had been wanting in the former suit might be
found at last. With this remembrance and these reflections came a
horrible train of shadowy fears,--witnesses, verdict, surrender,
spoliation--arrears--ruin!
The man, who had gained the door, turned back and looked at him with a
complacent, half-triumphant leer upon his impudent, reckless face.
“Sir,” then said Mr. Beaufort, mildly, “I repeat that you had better see
Mr. Blackwell.”
The tempter saw his triumph. “I have a secret to communicate which it is
best for you to keep snug. How mauny people do you wish me to see about
it? Come, sir, there is no need of a lawyer; or, if you think so, tell
him yourself. Now or never, Mr. Beaufort.”
“I can have no objection to hear anything you have to say, sir,” said
the rich man, yet more mildly than before; and then added, with a forced
smile, “though my rights are already too confirmed to admit of a doubt.”
Without heeding the last assertion, the stranger coolly walked back,
resumed his seat, and, placing both arms on the table and looking Mr.
Beaufort full in the face, thus proceeded,--
“Sir, of the marriage between Philip Beaufort and Catherine Morton there
were two witnesses: the one is dead, the other went abroad--the last is
alive still!”
“If so,” said Mr. Beaufort, who, not naturally deficient in cunning and
sense, felt every faculty now prodigiously sharpened, and was resolved
to know the precise grounds for alarm,--“if so, why did not the man--it
was a servant, sir, a man-servant, whom Mrs. Morton pretended to rely
on--appear on the trial?”
“Because, I say, he was abroad and could not be found; or, the search
after him miscaurried, from clumsy management and a lack of the rhino.”
“Hum!” said Mr. Beaufort--“one witness--one witness, observe, there is
only one!--does not alarm me much. It is not what a man deposes, it is
what a jury believe, sir! Moreover, what has become of the young men?
They have never been heard of for years. They are probably dead; if so,
I am heir-at-law!”
“I know where one of them is to be found at all events.”
“The elder?--Philip?” asked Mr. Beaufort anxiously, and with a fearful
remembrance of the energetic and vehement character prematurely
exhibited by his nephew.
“Pawdon me! I need not aunswer that question.”
“Sir! a lawsuit of this nature, against one in possession, is very
doubtful, and,” added the rich man, drawing himself up--“and, perhaps
very expensive!”
“The young man I speak of does not want friends, who will not grudge the
money.”
“Sir!” said Mr. Beaufort, rising and placing his back to the fire--“sir!
what is your object in this communication? Do you come, on the part of
the young man, to propose a compromise? If so, be plain!”
“I come on my own pawt. It rests with you to say if the young men shall
never know it!”
“And what do you want?”
“Five hundred a year as long as the secret is kept.”
“And how can you prove that there is a secret, after all?”
“By producing the witness if you wish.”
“Will he go halves in the L500. a year?” asked Mr. Beaufort artfully.
“That is moy affair, sir,” replied the stranger.
“What you say,” resumed Mr. Beaufort, “is so extraordinary--so
unexpected, and still, to me, seems so improbable, that I must have time
to consider. If you will call on me in a week, and produce your facts, I
will give you my answer. I am not the man, sir, to wish to keep any
one out of his true rights, but I will not yield, on the other hand, to
imposture.”
“If you don’t want to keep them out of their rights, I’d best go and
tell my young gentlemen,” said the stranger, with cool impudence.
“I tell you I must have time,” repeated Beaufort, disconcerted.
“Besides, I have not myself alone to look to, sir,” he added, with
dignified emphasis--“I am a father!”
“This day week I will call on you again. Good evening, Mr. Beaufort!”
And the man stretched out his hand with an air of amicable
condescension. The respectable Mr. Beaufort changed colour, hesitated,
and finally suffered two fingers to be enticed into the grasp of the
visitor, whom he ardently wished at that bourne whence no visitor
returns.
The stranger smiled, stalked to the door, laid his finger on his lip,
winked knowingly, and vanished, leaving Mr. Beaufort a prey to such
feelings of uneasiness, dread, and terror, as may be experienced by a
man whom, on some inch or two of slippery rock, the tides have suddenly
surrounded.
He remained perfectly still for some moments, and then glancing round
the dim and spacious room, his eyes took in all the evidences of luxury
and wealth which it betrayed. Above the huge sideboard, that on festive
days groaned beneath the hoarded weight of the silver heirlooms of the
Beauforts, hung, in its gilded frame, a large picture of the family
seat, with the stately porticoes--the noble park--the groups of
deer; and around the wall, interspersed here and there with ancestral
portraits of knight and dame, long since gathered to their rest, were
placed masterpieces of the Italian and Flemish art, which generation
after generation had slowly accumulated, till the Beaufort Collection
had become the theme of connoisseurs and the study of young genius.
The still room, the dumb pictures--even the heavy sideboard seemed to
gain voice, and speak to him audibly. He thrust his hand into the folds
of his waistcoat, and griped his own flesh convulsively; then, striding
to and fro the apartment, he endeavoured to re-collect his thoughts.
“I dare not consult Mrs. Beaufort,” he muttered; “no--no,--she is a
fool! Besides, she’s not in the way. No time to lose--I will go to
Lilburne.”
Scarce had that thought crossed him than he hastened to put it into
execution. He rang for his hat and gloves and sallied out on foot
to Lord Lilburne’s house in Park Lane,--the distance was short, and
impatience has long strides.
He knew Lord Lilburne was in town, for that personage loved London for
its own sake; and even in September he would have said with the old Duke
of Queensberry, when some one observed that London was very empty--“Yes;
but it is fuller than the country.”
Mr. Beaufort found Lord Lilburne reclined on a sofa, by the open
window of his drawing-room, beyond which the early stars shone upon the
glimmering trees and silver turf of the deserted park. Unlike the simple
dessert of his respectable brother-in-law, the costliest fruits, the
richest wines of France, graced the small table placed beside his sofa;
and as the starch man of forms and method entered the room at one door,
a rustling silk, that vanished through the aperture of another, seemed
to betray tokens of a tete-a-tete, probably more agreeable to Lilburne
than the one with which only our narrative is concerned.
It would have been a curious study for such men as love to gaze upon the
dark and wily features of human character, to have watched the
contrast between the reciter and the listener, as Beaufort, with much
circumlocution, much affected disdain and real anxiety, narrated the
singular and ominous conversation between himself and his visitor.
The servant, in introducing Mr. Beaufort, had added to the light of the
room; and the candles shone full on the face and form of Mr. Beaufort.
All about that gentleman was so completely in unison with the world’s
forms and seemings, that there was something moral in the very sight
of him! Since his accession of fortune he had grown less pale and less
thin; the angles in his figure were filled up. On his brow there was
no trace of younger passion. No able vice had ever sharpened the
expression--no exhausting vice ever deepened the lines. He was the
beau-ideal of a county member,--so sleek, so staid, so business-like;
yet so clean, so neat, so much the gentleman. And now there was a kind
of pathos in his grey hairs, his nervous smile, his agitated hands, his
quick and uneasy transition of posture, the tremble of his voice. He
would have appeared to those who saw, but heard not, The Good Man in
trouble. Cold, motionless, speechless, seemingly apathetic, but in truth
observant, still reclined on the sofa, his head thrown back, but one
eye fixed on his companion, his hands clasped before him, Lord Lilburne
listened; and in that repose, about his face, even about his person,
might be read the history of how different a life and character! What
native acuteness in the stealthy eye! What hardened resolve in the full
nostril and firm lips! What sardonic contempt for all things in the
intricate lines about the mouth. What animal enjoyment of all things so
despised in that delicate nervous system, which, combined with original
vigour of constitution, yet betrayed itself in the veins on the hands
and temples, the occasional quiver of the upper lip! His was the frame
above all others the most alive to pleasure--deep-chested, compact,
sinewy, but thin to leanness--delicate in its texture and extremities,
almost to effeminacy. The indifference of the posture, the very habit
of the dress--not slovenly, indeed, but easy, loose, careless--seemed to
speak of the man’s manner of thought and life--his profound disdain of
externals.
Not till Beaufort had concluded did Lord Lilburne change his position or
open his lips; and then, turning to his brother-in-law his calm face, he
said drily,--
“I always thought your brother had married that woman; he was the sort
of man to do it. Besides, why should she have gone to law without a
vestige of proof, unless she was convinced of her rights? Imposture
never proceeds without some evidence. Innocence, like a fool as it is,
fancies it has only to speak to be believed. But there is no cause for
alarm.”
“No cause!--And yet you think there was a marriage.”
“It is quite clear,” continued Lilburne, without heeding this
interruption; “that the man, whatever his evidence, has not got
sufficient proofs. If he had, he would go to the young men rather than
you: it is evident that they would promise infinitely larger rewards
than he could expect from yourself. Men are always more generous with
what they expect than with what they have. All rogues know this. ‘Tis
the way Jews and usurers thrive upon heirs rather than possessors; ‘tis
the philosophy of post-obits. I dare say the man has found out the real
witness of the marriage, but ascertained, also, that the testimony
of that witness would not suffice to dispossess you. He might be
discredited--rich men have a way sometimes of discrediting
poor witnesses. Mind, he says nothing of the lost copy of the
register--whatever may be the value of that document, which I am
not lawyer enough to say--of any letters of your brother avowing the
marriage. Consider, the register itself is destroyed--the clergyman
dead. Pooh! make yourself easy.”
“True,” said Mr. Beaufort, much comforted; “what a memory you have!”
“Naturally. Your wife is my sister--I hate poor relations--and I was
therefore much interested in your accession and your lawsuit. No--you
may feel--at rest on this matter, so far as a successful lawsuit is
concerned. The next question is, Will you have a lawsuit at all? and
is it worth while buying this fellow? That I can’t say unless I see him
myself.”
“I wish to Heaven you would!”
“Very willingly: ‘tis a sort of thing I like--I’m fond of dealing with
rogues--it amuses me. This day week? I’ll be at your house--your proxy;
I shall do better than Blackwell. And since you say you are wanted at
the Lakes, go down, and leave all to me.”
“A thousand thanks. I can’t say how grateful I am. You certainly are the
kindest and cleverest person in the world.”
“You can’t think worse of the world’s cleverness and kindness than I
do,” was Lilburne’s rather ambiguous answer to the compliment. “But why
does my sister want to see you?”
“Oh, I forgot!--here is her letter. I was going to ask your advice in
this too.”
Lord Lilburne took the letter, and glanced over it with the rapid eye of
a man accustomed to seize in everything the main gist and pith.
“An offer to my pretty niece--Mr. Spencer--requires no fortune--his
uncle will settle all his own--(poor silly old man!) All! Why that’s
only L1000. a year. You don’t think much of this, eh? How my sister can
even ask you about it puzzles me.”
“Why, you see, Lilburne,” said Mr. Beaufort, rather embarrassed, “there
is no question of fortune--nothing to go out of the family; and, really,
Arthur is so expensive, and, if she were to marry well, I could not give
her less than fifteen or twenty thousand pounds.”
“Aha!--I see--every man to his taste: here a daughter--there a dowry.
You are devilish fond of money, Beaufort. Any pleasure in avarice,--eh?”
Mr. Beaufort coloured very much at the remark and the question, and,
forcing a smile, said,--
“You are severe. But you don’t know what it is to be father to a young
man.”
“Then a great many young women have told me sad fibs! But you are right
in your sense of the phrase. No, I never had an heir apparent, thank
Heaven! No children imposed upon me by law--natural enemies, to count
the years between the bells that ring for their majority, and those that
will toll for my decease. It is enough for me that I have a brother and
a sister--that my brother’s son will inherit my estates--and that, in
the meantime, he grudges me every tick in that clock. What then? If he
had been my uncle, I had done the same. Meanwhile, I see as little of
him as good breeding will permit. On the face of a rich man’s heir is
written the rich man’s memento mori! But revenons a nos moutons. Yes, if
you give your daughter no fortune, your death will be so much the more
profitable to Arthur!”
“Really, you take such a very odd view of the matter,” said Mr.
Beaufort, exceedingly shocked. “But I see you don’t like the marriage;
perhaps you are right.”
“Indeed, I have no choice in the matter; I never interfere between
father and children. If I had children myself, I will, however, tell
you, for your comfort, that they might marry exactly as they pleased--I
would never thwart them. I should be too happy to get them out of my
way. If they married well, one would have all the credit; if ill, one
would have an excuse to disown them. As I said before, I dislike poor
relations. Though if Camilla lives at the Lakes when she is married, it
is but a letter now and then; and that’s your wife’s trouble, not yours.
But, Spencer--what Spencer!--what family? Was there not a Mr. Spencer
who lived at Winandermere--who----”
“Who went with us in search of these boys, to be sure. Very likely the
same--nay, he must be so. I thought so at the first.”
“Go down to the Lakes to-morrow. You may hear something about your
nephews;” at that word Mr. Beaufort winced.
“‘Tis well to be forearmed.”
“Many thanks for all your counsel,” said Beaufort, rising, and glad to
escape; for though both he and his wife held the advice of Lord Lilburne
in the highest reverence, they always smarted beneath the quiet and
careless stings which accompanied the honey. Lord Lilburne was singular
in this,--he would give to any one who asked it, but especially a
relation, the best advice in his power; and none gave better, that is,
more worldly advice. Thus, without the least benevolence, he was often
of the greatest service; but he could not help mixing up the draught
with as much aloes and bitter-apple as possible. His intellect delighted
in exhibiting itself even gratuitously. His heart equally delighted
in that only cruelty which polished life leaves to its tyrants towards
their equals,--thrusting pins into the feelings and breaking self-love
upon the wheel. But just as Mr. Beaufort had drawn on his gloves and
gained the doorway, a thought seemed to strike Lord Lilburne:
“By the by,” he said, “you understand that when I promised I would try
and settle the matter for you, I only meant that I would learn the exact
causes you have for alarm on the one hand, or for a compromise with
this fellow on the other. If the last be advisable you are aware that I
cannot interfere. I might get into a scrape; and Beaufort Court is not
my property.”
“I don’t quite understand you.”
“I am plain enough, too. If there is money to be given it is given in
order to defeat what is called justice--to keep these nephews of yours
out of their inheritance. Now, should this ever come to light, it would
have an ugly appearance. They who risk the blame must be the persons who
possess the estate.”
“If you think it dishonourable or dishonest--” said Beaufort,
irresolutely.
“I! I never can advise as to the feelings; I can only advise as to the
policy. If you don’t think there ever was a marriage, it may, still, be
honest in you to prevent the bore of a lawsuit.”
“But if he can prove to me that they were married?”
“Pooh!” said Lilburne, raising his eyebrows with a slight expression of
contemptuous impatience; “it rests on yourself whether or not he prove
it to YOUR satisfaction! For my part, as a third person, I am persuaded
the marriage did take place. But if I had Beaufort Court, my convictions
would be all the other way. You understand. I am too happy to serve you.
But no man can be expected to jeopardise his character, or coquet with
the law, unless it be for his own individual interest. Then, of
course, he must judge for himself. Adieu! I expect some friends
foreigners--Carlists--to whist. You won’t join them?”
“I never play, you know. You will write to me at Winandermere: and, at
all events, you will keep off the man till I return?”
“Certainly.”
Beaufort, whom the latter part of the conversation had comforted far
less than the former, hesitated, and turned the door-handle three or
four times; but, glancing towards his brother-in-law, he saw in that
cold face so little sympathy in the struggle between interest and
conscience, that he judged it best to withdraw at once.
As soon as he was gone, Lilburne summoned his valet, who had lived
with him many years, and who was his confidant in all the adventurous
gallantries with which he still enlivened the autumn of his life.
“Dykeman,” said he, “you have let out that lady?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I am not at home if she calls again. She is stupid; she cannot get
the girl to come to her again. I shall trust you with an adventure,
Dykeman--an adventure that will remind you of our young days, man. This
charming creature--I tell you she is irresistible--her very oddities
bewitch me. You must--well, you look uneasy. What would you say?”
“My lord, I have found out more about her--and--and----”
“Well, well.”
The valet drew near and whispered something in his master’s ear.
“They are idiots who say it, then,” answered Lilburne. “And,” faltered
the man, with the shame of humanity on his face, “she is not worthy your
lordship’s notice--a poor--”
“Yes, I know she is poor; and, for that reason, there can be no
difficulty, if the thing is properly managed. You never, perhaps, heard
of a certain Philip, king of Macedon; but I will tell you what he once
said, as well as I can remember it: ‘Lead an ass with a pannier of gold;
send the ass through the gates of a city, and all the sentinels will
run away.’ Poor!--where there is love, there is charity also, Dykeman.
Besides--”
Here Lilburne’s countenance assumed a sudden aspect of dark and angry
passion,--he broke off abruptly, rose, and paced the room, muttering
to himself. Suddenly he stopped, and put his hand to his hip, as an
expression of pain again altered the character of his face.
“The limb pains me still! Dykeman--I was scarce twenty-one--when I
became a cripple for life.” He paused, drew a long breath, smiled,
rubbed his hands gently, and added: “Never fear--you shall be the ass;
and thus Philip of Macedon begins to fill the pannier.” And he tossed
his purse into the hands of the valet, whose face seemed to lose its
anxious embarrassment at the touch of the gold. Lilburne glanced at him
with a quiet sneer: “Go!--I will give you my orders when I undress.”
“Yes!” he repeated to himself, “the limb pains me still. But he
died!--shot as a man would shoot a jay or a polecat!
“I have the newspaper still in that drawer. He died an outcast--a
felon--a murderer! And I blasted his name--and I seduced his
mistress--and I--am John Lord Lilburne!”
About ten o’clock, some half-a-dozen of those gay lovers of London,
who, like Lilburne, remain faithful to its charms when more vulgar
worshippers desert its sunburnt streets--mostly single men--mostly men
of middle age--dropped in. And soon after came three or four high-born
foreigners, who had followed into England the exile of the unfortunate
Charles X. Their looks, at once proud and sad--their moustaches curled
downward--their beards permitted to grow--made at first a strong
contrast with the smooth gay Englishmen. But Lilburne, who was fond
of French society, and who, when he pleased, could be courteous and
agreeable, soon placed the exiles at their ease; and, in the excitement
of high play, all differences of mood and humour speedily vanished.
Morning was in the skies before they sat down to supper.
“You have been very fortunate to-night, milord,” said one of the
Frenchmen, with an envious tone of congratulation.
“But, indeed,” said another, who, having been several times his host’s
partner, had won largely, “you are the finest player, milord, I ever
encountered.”
“Always excepting Monsieur Deschapelles and--,” replied Lilburne,
indifferently. And, turning the conversation, he asked one of the
guests why he had not introduced him to a French officer of merit and
distinction; “With whom,” said Lord Lilburne, “I understand that you are
intimate, and of whom I hear your countrymen very often speak.”
“You mean De Vaudemont. Poor fellow!” said a middle-aged Frenchman, of a
graver appearance than the rest.
“But why ‘poor fellow!’ Monsieur de Liancourt?”
“He was rising so high before the revolution. There was not a braver
officer in the army. But he is but a soldier of fortune, and his career
is closed.”
“Till the Bourbons return,” said another Carlist, playing with his
moustache.
“You will really honour me much by introducing me to him,” said Lord
Lilburne. “De Vaudemont--it is a good name,--perhaps, too, he plays at
whist.”
“But,” observed one of the Frenchmen, “I am by no means sure that he has
the best right in the world to the name. ‘Tis a strange story.”
“May I hear it?” asked the host.
“Certainly. It is briefly this: There was an old Vicomte de Vaudemont
about Paris; of good birth, but extremely poor--a mauvais sujet. He had
already had two wives, and run through their fortunes. Being old and
ugly, and men who survive two wives having a bad reputation among
marriageable ladies at Paris, he found it difficult to get a third.
Despairing of the noblesse he went among the bourgeoisie with that hope.
His family were kept in perpetual fear of a ridiculous mesalliance.
Among these relations was Madame de Merville, whom you may have heard
of.”
“Madame de Merville! Ah, yes! Handsome, was she not?”
“It is true. Madame de Merville, whose failing was pride, was known more
than once to have bought off the matrimonial inclinations of the amorous
vicomte. Suddenly there appeared in her circles a very handsome young
man. He was presented formally to her friends as the son of the Vicomte
de Vaudemont by his second marriage with an English lady, brought up in
England, and now for the first time publicly acknowledged. Some scandal
was circulated--”
“Sir,” interrupted Monsieur de Liancourt, very gravely, “the scandal was
such as all honourable men must stigmatise and despise--it was only to
be traced to some lying lackey--a scandal that the young man was already
the lover of a woman of stainless reputation the very first day that he
entered Paris! I answer for the falsity of that report. But that report
I own was one that decided not only Madame de Merville, who was a
sensitive--too sensitive a person, but my friend young Vaudemont, to
a marriage, from the pecuniary advantages of which he was too
high-spirited not to shrink.”
“Well,” said Lord Lilburne, “then this young De Vaudemont married Madame
de Merville?”
“No,” said Liancourt somewhat sadly, “it was not so decreed; for
Vaudemont, with a feeling which belongs to a gentleman, and which I
honour, while deeply and gratefully attached to Madame de Merville,
desired that he might first win for himself some honourable distinction
before he claimed a hand to which men of fortunes so much higher had
aspired in vain. I am not ashamed,” he added, after a slight pause, “to
say that I had been one of the rejected suitors, and that I still revere
the memory of Eugenie de Merville. The young man, therefore, was to have
entered my regiment. Before, however, he had joined it, and while yet
in the full flush of a young man’s love for a woman formed to excite the
strongest attachment, she--she---” The Frenchman’s voice trembled, and
he resumed with affected composure: “Madame de Merville, who had the
best and kindest heart that ever beat in a human breast, learned one day
that there was a poor widow in the garret of the hotel she inhabited who
was dangerously ill--without medicine and without food--having lost
her only friend and supporter in her husband some time before. In
the impulse of the moment, Madame de Merville herself attended this
widow--caught the fever that preyed upon her--was confined to her bed
ten days--and died as she had lived, in serving others and forgetting
self.--And so much, sir, for the scandal you spoke of!”
“A warning,” observed Lord Lilburne, “against trifling with one’s health
by that vanity of parading a kind heart, which is called charity. If
charity, mon cher, begins at home, it is in the drawing-room, not the
garret!”
The Frenchman looked at his host in some disdain, bit his lip, and was
silent.
“But still,” resumed Lord Lilburne, “still it is so probable that your
old vicomte had a son; and I can so perfectly understand why he did not
wish to be embarrassed with him as long as he could help it, that I
do not understand why there should be any doubt of the younger De
Vaudemont’s parentage.”
“Because,” said the Frenchman who had first commenced the
narrative,--“because the young man refused to take the legal steps
to proclaim his birth and naturalise himself a Frenchman; because, no
sooner was Madame de Merville dead than he forsook the father he had so
newly discovered--forsook France, and entered with some other officers,
under the brave, &m------ in the service of one of the native princes of
India.”
“But perhaps he was poor,” observed Lord Lilburne. “A father is a very
good thing, and a country is a very good thing, but still a man must
have money; and if your father does not do much for you, somehow or
other, your country generally follows his example.”
“My lord,” said Liancourt, “my friend here has forgotten to say that
Madame de Merville had by deed of gift; (though unknown to her lover),
before her death, made over to young Vaudemont the bulk of her fortune;
and that, when he was informed of this donation after her decease, and
sufficiently recovered from the stupor of his grief, he summoned her
relations round him, declared that her memory was too dear to him for
wealth to console him for her loss, and reserving to himself but a
modest and bare sufficiency for the common necessaries of a gentleman,
he divided the rest amongst them, and repaired to the East; not only to
conquer his sorrow by the novelty and stir of an exciting life, but to
carve out with his own hand the reputation of an honourable and brave
man. My friend remembered the scandal long buried--he forgot the
generous action.”
“Your friend, you see, my dear Monsieur de Liancourt,” remarked
Lilburne, “is more a man of the world than you are!”
“And I was just going to observe,” said the friend thus referred to,
“that that very action seemed to confirm the rumour that there had been
some little manoeuvring as to this unexpected addition to the name of De
Vaudemont; for, if himself related to Madame de Merville, why have such
scruples to receive her gift?”
“A very shrewd remark,” said Lord Lilburne, looking with some respect at
the speaker; “and I own that it is a very unaccountable proceeding, and
one of which I don’t think you or I would ever have been guilty. Well,
and the old Vicomte?”
“Did not live long!” said the Frenchman, evidently gratified by his
host’s compliment, while Liancourt threw himself back in his chair in
grave displeasure. “The young man remained some years in India, and when
he returned to Paris, our friend here, Monsieur de Liancourt (then in
favour with Charles X.), and Madame de Merville’s relations took him
up. He had already acquired a reputation in this foreign service, and he
obtained a place at the court, and a commission in the king’s guards.
I allow that he would certainly have made a career, had it not been for
the Three Days. As it is, you see him in London, like the rest of us, an
exile!”
“And I suppose, without a sous.”
“No, I believe that he had still saved, and even augmented, in India,
the portion he allotted to himself from Madame de Merville’s bequest.”
“And if he don’t play whist, he ought to play it,” said Lilburne. “You
have roused my curiosity; I hope you will let me make his acquaintance,
Monsieur de Liancourt. I am no politician, but allow me to propose this
toast, ‘Success to those who have the wit to plan, and the strength to
execute.’ In other words, ‘the Right Divine!’”
Soon afterwards the guests retired.
CHAPTER IV.
“Ros. Happily, he’s the second time come to them.”--Hamlet.
It was the evening after that in which the conversations recorded in
our last chapter were held;--evening in the quiet suburb of H------. The
desertion and silence of the metropolis in September had extended to
its neighbouring hamlets;--a village in the heart of the country could
scarcely have seemed more still; the lamps were lighted, many of the
shops already closed, a few of the sober couples and retired spinsters
of the place might, here and there, be seen slowly wandering
homeward after their evening walk: two or three dogs, in spite of the
prohibitions of the magistrates placarded on the walls,--(manifestoes
which threatened with death the dogs, and predicted more than ordinary
madness to the public,)--were playing in the main road, disturbed from
time to time as the slow coach, plying between the city and the suburb,
crawled along the thoroughfare, or as the brisk mails whirled rapidly
by, announced by the cloudy dust and the guard’s lively horn. Gradually
even these evidences of life ceased--the saunterers disappeared, the
mails had passed, the dogs gave place to the later and more stealthy
perambulations of their feline successors “who love the moon.” At
unfrequent intervals, the more important shops--the linen-drapers’, the
chemists’, and the gin-palace--still poured out across the shadowy
road their streams of light from windows yet unclosed: but with these
exceptions, the business of the place stood still.
At this time there emerged from a milliner’s house (shop, to outward
appearance, it was not, evincing its gentility and its degree above the
Capelocracy, to use a certain classical neologism, by a brass plate on
an oak door, whereon was graven, “Miss Semper, Milliner and Dressmaker,
from Madame Devy,”)--at this time, I say, and from this house there
emerged the light and graceful form of a young female. She held in her
left hand a little basket, of the contents of which (for it was empty)
she had apparently just disposed; and, as she stepped across the
road, the lamplight fell on a face in the first bloom of youth, and
characterised by an expression of childlike innocence and candour. It
was a face regularly and exquisitely lovely, yet something there was
in the aspect that saddened you; you knew not why, for it was not sad
itself; on the contrary, the lips smiled and the eyes sparkled. As she
now glided along the shadowy street with a light, quick step, a man,
who had hitherto been concealed by the portico of an attorney’s house,
advanced stealthily, and followed her at a little distance. Unconscious
that she was dogged, and seemingly fearless of all danger, the girl went
lightly on, swinging her basket playfully to and fro, and chaunting, in
a low but musical tone, some verses that seemed rather to belong to the
nursery than to that age which the fair singer had attained.
As she came to an angle which the main street formed with a lane, narrow
and partially lighted, a policeman, stationed there, looked hard at her,
and then touched his hat with an air of respect, in which there seemed
also a little of compassion.
“Good night to you,” said the girl, passing him, and with a frank, gay
tone.
“Shall I attend you home, Miss?” said the man.
“What for? I am very well!” answered the young woman, with an accent and
look of innocent surprise.
Just at this time the man, who had hitherto followed her, gained the
spot, and turned down the lane.
“Yes,” replied the policeman; “but it is getting dark, Miss.”
“So it is every night when I walk home, unless there’s a
moon.--Good-bye.--The moon,” she repeated to herself, as she walked on,
“I used to be afraid of the moon when I was a little child;” and then,
after a pause, she murmured, in a low chaunt:
“‘The moon she is a wandering ghost,
That walks in penance nightly;
How sad she is, that wandering moon,
For all she shines so brightly!
“‘I watched her eyes when I was young,
Until they turned my brain,
And now I often weep to think
‘Twill ne’er be right again.’”
As the murmur of these words died at a distance down the lane in which
the girl had disappeared, the policeman, who had paused to listen, shook
his head mournfully, and said, while he moved on,--
“Poor thing! they should not let her always go about by herself; and
yet, who would harm her?”
Meanwhile the girl proceeded along the lane, which was skirted by small,
but not mean houses, till it terminated in a cross-stile that admitted
into a church yard. Here hung the last lamp in the path, and a few
dim stars broke palely over the long grass, and scattered gravestones,
without piercing the deep shadow which the church threw over a large
portion of the sacred ground. Just as she passed the stile, the man,
whom we have before noticed, and who had been leaning, as if waiting for
some one, against the pales, approached, and said gently,--
“Ah, Miss! it is a lone place for one so beautiful as you are to be
alone. You ought never to be on foot.”
The girl stopped, and looked full, but without any alarm in her eyes,
into the man’s face.
“Go away!” she said, with a half-peevish, half-kindly tone of command.
“I don’t know you.”
“But I have been sent to speak to you by one who does know you,
Miss--one who loves you to distraction--he has seen you before at Mrs.
West’s. He is so grieved to think you should walk--you ought, he says,
to have every luxury--that he has sent his carriage for you. It is on
the other side of the yard. Do come now;” and he laid his hand, though
very lightly, on her arm.
“At Mrs. West’s!” she said; and, for the first time, her voice and look
showed fear. “Go away directly! How dare you touch me!”
“But, my dear Miss, you have no idea how my employer loves you, and how
rich he is. See, he has sent you all this money; it is gold--real gold.
You may have what you like, if you will but come. Now, don’t be silly,
Miss.” The girl made no answer, but, with a sudden spring, passed
the man, and ran lightly and rapidly along the path, in an opposite
direction from that to which the tempter had pointed, when inviting her
to the carriage. The man, surprised, but not baffled, reached her in an
instant, and caught hold of her dress.
“Stay! you must come--you must!” he said, threateningly; and, loosening
his grasp on her shawl, he threw his arm round her waist.
“Don’t!” cried the girl, pleadingly, and apparently subdued, turning
her fair, soft face upon her pursuer, and clasping her hands. “Be quiet!
Fanny is silly! No one is ever rude to poor Fanny!”
“And no one will be rude to you, Miss,” said the man, apparently
touched; “but I dare not go without you. You don’t know what you refuse.
Come;” and he attempted gently to draw her back.
“No, no!” said the girl, changing from supplication to anger, and
raising her voice into a loud shriek, “No! I will--”
“Nay, then,” interrupted the man, looking round anxiously, and, with
a quick and dexterous movement he threw a large handkerchief over her
face, and, as he held it fast to her lips with one hand, he lifted
her from the ground. Still violently struggling, the girl contrived to
remove the handkerchief, and once more her shriek of terror rang through
the violated sanctuary.
At that instant a loud deep voice was heard, “Who calls?” And a tall
figure seemed to rise, as from the grave itself, and emerge from the
shadow of the church. A moment more, and a strong gripe was laid on the
shoulder of the ravisher. “What is this? On God’s ground, too! Release
her, wretch!”
The man, trembling, half with superstitious, half with bodily fear, let
go his captive, who fell at once at the knees of her deliverer. “Don’t
you hurt me too,” she said, as the tears rolled down her eyes. “I am a
good girl--and my grandfather’s blind.”
The stranger bent down and raised her; then looking round for the
assailant with an eye whose dark fire shone through the gloom, he
perceived the coward stealing off. He disdained to pursue.
“My poor child,” said he, with that voice which the strong assume to the
weak--the man to some wounded infant--the voice of tender superiority
and compassion, “there is no cause for fear now. Be soothed. Do you live
near? Shall I see you home?”
“Thank you! That’s kind. Pray do!” And, with an infantine confidence
she took his hand, as a child does that of a grown-up person;--so they
walked on together.
“And,” said the stranger, “do you know that man? Has he insulted you
before?”
“No--don’t talk of him: ce me fait mal!” And she put her hand to her
forehead.
The French was spoken with so French an accent, that, in some curiosity,
the stranger cast his eye over her plain dress.
“You speak French well.”
“Do I? I wish I knew more words--I only recollect a few. When I am very
happy or very sad they come into my head. But I am happy now. I like
your voice--I like you--Oh! I have dropped my basket!”
“Shall I go back for it, or shall I buy you another?”
“Another!--Oh, no! come back for it. How kind you are!--Ah! I see it!”
and she broke away and ran forward to pick it up.
When she had recovered it, she laughed--she spoke to it--she kissed it.
Her companion smiled as he said: “Some sweetheart has given you that
basket--it seems but a common basket too.”
“I have had it--oh, ever since--since--I don’t know how long! It came
with me from France--it was full of little toys. They are gone--I am so
sorry!”
“How old are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“My pretty one,” said the stranger, with deep pity in his rich voice,
“your mother should not let you go out alone at this hour.”
“Mother!--mother!” repeated the girl, in a tone of surprise.
“Have you no mother?”
“No! I had a father once. But he died, they say. I did not see him die.
I sometimes cry when I think that I shall never, never see him again!
But,” she said, changing her accent from melancholy almost to joy, “he
is to have a grave here like the other girl’s fathers--a fine stone upon
it--and all to be done with my money!”
“Your money, my child?”
“Yes; the money I make. I sell my work and take the money to my
grandfather; but I lay by a little every week for a gravestone for my
father.”
“Will the gravestone be placed in that churchyard?” They were now in
another lane; and, as he spoke, the stranger checked her, and bending
down to look into her face, he murmured to himself, “Is it possible?--it
must be--it must!”
“Yes! I love that churchyard--my brother told me to put flowers there;
and grandfather and I sit there in the summer, without speaking. But I
don’t talk much, I like singing better:--
“‘All things that good and harmless are
Are taught, they say, to sing
The maiden resting at her work,
The bird upon the wing;
The little ones at church, in prayer;
The angels in the sky
The angels less when babes are born
Than when the aged die.’”
And unconscious of the latent moral, dark or cheering, according as we
estimate the value of this life, couched in the concluding rhyme, Fanny
turned round to the stranger, and said, “Why should the angels be glad
when the aged die?”
“That they are released from a false, unjust, and miserable world, in
which the first man was a rebel, and the second a murderer!” muttered
the stranger between his teeth, which he gnashed as he spoke.
The girl did not understand him: she shook her head gently, and made no
reply. A few moments, and she paused before a small house.
“This is my home.”
“It is so,” said her companion, examining the exterior of the house with
an earnest gaze; “and your name is Fanny.”
“Yes--every one knows Fanny. Come in;” and the girl opened the door with
a latch-key.
The stranger bowed his stately height as he crossed the low threshold
and followed his guide into a little parlour. Before a table on which
burned dimly, and with unheeded wick, a single candle, sat a man of
advanced age; and as he turned his face to the door, the stranger saw
that he was blind.
The girl bounded to his chair, passed her arms round the old man’s neck,
and kissed his forehead; then nestling herself at his feet, and leaning
her clasped hands caressingly on his knee, she said,--
“Grandpapa, I have brought you somebody you must love. He has been so
kind to Fanny.”
“And neither of you can remember me!” said the guest.
The old man, whose dull face seemed to indicate dotage, half raised
himself at the sound of the stranger’s voice. “Who is that?” said he,
with a feeble and querulous voice. “Who wants me?”
“I am the friend of your lost son. I am he who, ten years go, brought
Fanny to your roof, and gave her to your care--your son’s last charge.
And you blessed your son, and forgave him, and vowed to be a father to
his Fanny.” The old man, who had now slowly risen to his feet, trembled
violently, and stretched out his hands.
“Come near--near--let me put my hands on your head. I cannot see you;
but Fanny talks of you, and prays for you; and Fanny--she has been an
angel to me!”
The stranger approached and half knelt as the old man spread his hands
over his head, muttering inaudibly. Meanwhile Fanny, pale as death--her
lips apart--an eager, painful expression on her face--looked inquiringly
on the dark, marked countenance of the visitor, and creeping towards him
inch by inch, fearfully touched his dress--his arms--his countenance.
“Brother,” she said at last, doubtingly and timidly, “Brother, I thought
I could never forget you! But you are not like my brother; you are
older;--you are--you are!--no! no! you are not my brother!”
“I am much changed, Fanny; and you too!”
He smiled as he spoke; and the smile--sweet and pitying--thoroughly
changed the character of his face, which was ordinarily stern, grave,
and proud.
“I know you now!” exclaimed Fanny, in a tone of wild joy. “And you come
back from that grave! My flowers have brought you back at last! I knew
they would! Brother! Brother!”
And she threw herself on his breast and burst into passionate tears.
Then, suddenly drawing herself back, she laid her finger on his arm, and
looked up at him beseechingly.
“Pray, now, is he really dead? He, my father!--he, too, was lost like
you. Can’t he come back again as you have done?”
“Do you grieve for him still, then? Poor girl!” said the stranger,
evasively, and seating himself. Fanny continued to listen for an answer
to her touching question; but finding that none was given, she stole
away to a corner of the room, and leaned her face on her hands, and
seemed to think--till at last, as she so sat, the tears began to flow
down her cheeks, and she wept, but silently and unnoticed.
“But, sir,” said the guest, after a short pause, “how is this? Fanny
tells me she supports you by her work. Are you so poor, then? Yet I left
you your son’s bequest; and you, too, I understood, though not rich,
were not in want!”
“There was a curse on my gold,” said the old man, sternly. “It was
stolen from us.”
There was another pause. Simon broke it.
“And you, young man--how has it fared with you? You have prospered, I
hope.”
“I am as I have been for years--alone in the world, without kindred and
without friends. But, thanks to Heaven, I am not a beggar!”
“No kindred and no friends!” repeated the old man. “No father--no
brother--no wife--no sister!”
“None! No one to care whether I live or die,” answered the stranger,
with a mixture of pride and sadness in his voice. “But, as the song has
it--
“‘I care for nobody--no, not I,
For nobody cares for me!’”
There was a certain pathos in the mockery with which he repeated
the homely lines, although, as he did, he gathered himself up, as if
conscious of a certain consolation and reliance on the resources not
dependent on others which he had found in his own strong limbs and his
own stout heart.
At that moment he felt a soft touch upon his hand, and he saw Fanny
looking at him through the tears that still flowed.
“You have no one to care for you? Don’t say so! Come and live with us,
brother; we’ll care for you. I have never forgotten the flowers--never!
Do come! Fanny shall love you. Fanny can work for three!”
“And they call her an idiot!” mumbled the old man, with a vacant smile
on his lips.
“My sister! You shall be my sister! Forlorn one--whom even Nature has
fooled and betrayed! Sister!--we, both orphans! Sister!” exclaimed that
dark, stern man, passionately, and with a broken voice; and he opened
his arms, and Fanny, without a blush or a thought of shame, threw
herself on his breast. He kissed her forehead with a kiss that was,
indeed, pure and holy as a brother’s: and Fanny felt that he had left
upon her cheek a tear that was not her own.
“Well,” he said, with an altered voice, and taking the old man’s hand,
“what say you? Shall I take up my lodging with you? I have a little
money; I can protect and aid you both. I shall be often away--in London
or else where--and will not intrude too much on you. But you blind, and
she--(here he broke off the sentence abruptly and went on)--you should
not be left alone. And this neighbourhood, that burial-place, are dear
to me. I, too, Fanny, have lost a parent; and that grave--”
He paused, and then added, in a trembling voice, “And you have placed
flowers over that grave?”
“Stay with us,” said the blind man; “not for our sake, but your own. The
world is a bad place. I have been long sick of the world. Yes! come and
live near the burial-ground--the nearer you are to the grave, the safer
you are;--and you have a little money, you say!”
“I will come to-morrow, then. I must return now. Tomorrow, Fanny, we
shall meet again.”
“Must you go?” said Fanny, tenderly. “But you will come again; you know
I used to think every one died when he left me. I am wiser now. Yet
still, when you do leave me, it is true that you die for Fanny!”
At this moment, as the three persons were grouped, each had assumed
a posture of form, an expression of face, which a painter of fitting
sentiment and skill would have loved to study. The visitor had gained
the door; and as he stood there, his noble height--the magnificent
strength and health of his manhood in its full prime--contrasted alike
the almost spectral debility of extreme age and the graceful delicacy
of Fanny--half girl, half child. There was something foreign in his
air--and the half military habit, relieved by the red riband of the
Bourbon knighthood. His complexion was dark as that of a Moor, and
his raven hair curled close to the stately head. The
soldier-moustache--thick, but glossy as silk-shaded the firm lip; and
the pointed beard, assumed by the exiled Carlists, heightened the effect
of the strong and haughty features and the expression of the martial
countenance.
But as Fanny’s voice died on his ear, he half averted that proud face;
and the dark eyes--almost Oriental in their brilliancy and depth of
shade--seemed soft and humid. And there stood Fanny, in a posture
of such unconscious sadness--such childlike innocence; her arms
drooping--her face wistfully turned to his--and a half smile upon the
lips, that made still more touching the tears not yet dried upon her
cheeks. While thin, frail, shadowy, with white hair and furrowed cheeks,
the old man fixed his sightless orbs on space; and his face, usually
only animated from the lethargy of advancing dotage by a certain
querulous cynicism, now grew suddenly earnest, and even thoughtful, as
Fanny spoke of Death!
CHAPTER V.
“Ulyss. Time hath a wallet at his back
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion.
* * Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright.”--Troilus and Cressida.
I have not sought--as would have been easy, by a little ingenuity in the
earlier portion of this narrative--whatever source of vulgar interest
might be derived from the mystery of names and persons. As in Charles
Spencer the reader is allowed at a glance to detect Sidney Morton, so in
Philip de Vaudemont (the stranger who rescued Fanny) the reader at once
recognises the hero of my tale; but since neither of these young men has
a better right to the name resigned than to the name adopted, it will be
simpler and more convenient to designate them by those appellations by
which they are now known to the world. In truth, Philip de Vaudemont was
scarcely the same being as Philip Morton. In the short visit he had
paid to the elder Gawtrey, when he consigned Fanny to his charge, he had
given no name; and the one he now took (when, towards the evening of the
next day he returned to Simon’s house) the old man heard for the first
time. Once more sunk into his usual apathy, Simon did not express any
surprise that a Frenchman should be so well acquainted with English--he
scarcely observed that the name was French. Simon’s age seemed daily to
bring him more and more to that state when life is mere mechanism, and
the soul, preparing for its departure, no longer heeds the tenement that
crumbles silently and neglected into its lonely dust. Vaudemont came
with but little luggage (for he had an apartment also in London), and
no attendant,--a single horse was consigned to the stables of an inn at
hand, and he seemed, as soldiers are, more careful for the comforts of
the animal than his own. There was but one woman servant in the humble
household, who did all the ruder work, for Fanny’s industry could afford
it. The solitary servant and the homely fare sufficed for the simple and
hardy adventurer.
Fanny, with a countenance radiant with joy, took his hand and led him to
his room. Poor child! with that instinct of woman which never deserted
her, she had busied herself the whole day in striving to deck the
chamber according to her own notions of comfort. She had stolen from
her little hoard wherewithal to make some small purchases, on which the
Dowbiggin of the suburb had been consulted. And what with flowers on the
table, and a fire at the hearth, the room looked cheerful.
She watched him as he glanced around, and felt disappointed that he
did not utter the admiration she expected. Angry at last with the
indifference which, in fact, as to external accommodation, was habitual
to him, she plucked his sleeve, and said,--
“Why don’t you speak? Is it not nice?--Fanny did her best.”
“And a thousand thanks to Fanny! It is all I could wish.”
“There is another room, bigger than this, but the wicked woman who
robbed us slept there; and besides, you said you liked the churchyard.
See!” and she opened the window and pointed to the church-tower rising
dark against the evening sky.
“This is better than all!” said Vaudemont; and he looked out from the
window in a silent reverie, which Fanny did not disturb.
And now he was settled! From a career so wild, agitated, and various,
the adventurer paused in that humble resting-nook. But quiet is not
repose--obscurity is not content. Often as, morn and eve, he looked
forth upon the spot, where his mother’s heart, unconscious of love and
woe, mouldered away, the indignant and bitter feelings of the wronged
outcast and the son who could not clear the mother’s name swept away the
subdued and gentle melancholy into which time usually softens regret for
the dead, and with which most of us think of the distant past, and the
once joyous childhood!
In this man’s breast lay, concealed by his external calm, those memories
and aspirations which are as strong as passions. In his earlier years,
when he had been put to hard shifts for existence, he had found no
leisure for close and brooding reflection upon that spoliation of just
rights--that calumny upon his mother’s name, which had first brought
the Night into his Morning. His resentment towards the Beauforts, it is
true, had ever been an intense but a fitful and irregular passion. It
was exactly in proportion as, by those rare and romantic incidents which
Fiction cannot invent, and which Narrative takes with diffidence from
the great Store-house of Real Life, his steps had ascended in the social
ladder--that all which his childhood had lost--all which the robbers
of his heritage had gained, the grandeur and the power of WEALTH--above
all, the hourly and the tranquil happiness of a stainless name, became
palpable and distinct. He had loved Eugenie as a boy loves for the first
time an accomplished woman. He regarded her, so refined--so gentle--so
gifted, with the feelings due to a superior being, with an eternal
recollection of the ministering angel that had shone upon him when
he stood on the dark abyss. She was the first that had redeemed his
fate--the first that had guided aright his path--the first that had
tamed the savage at his breast:--it was the young lion charmed by the
eyes of Una. The outline of his story had been truly given at Lord
Lilburne’s. Despite his pride, which revolted from such obligations to
another, and a woman--which disliked and struggled against a disguise
which at once and alone saved him from the detection of the past and the
terrors of the future--he had yielded to her, the wise and the gentle,
as one whose judgment he could not doubt; and, indeed, the slanderous
falsehoods circulated by the lackey, to whose discretion, the night of
Gawtrey’s death, Eugenie had preferred to confide her own honour, rather
than another’s life, had (as Liancourt rightly stated) left Philip no
option but that which Madame de Merville deemed the best, whether for
her happiness or her good name. Then had followed a brief season--the
holiday of his life--the season of young hope and passion, of brilliancy
and joy, closing by that abrupt death which again left him lonely in the
world.
When, from the grief that succeeded to the death of Eugenie, he woke to
find himself amidst the strange faces and exciting scenes of an Oriental
court, he turned with hard and disgustful contempt from Pleasure, as an
infidelity to the dead. Ambition crept over him--his mind hardened
as his cheek bronzed under those burning suns--his hardy frame,
his energies prematurely awakened, his constitutional disregard to
danger,--made him a brave and skilful soldier. He acquired reputation
and rank. But, as time went on, the ambition took a higher flight--he
felt his sphere circumscribed; the Eastern indolence that filled up the
long intervals between Eastern action chafed a temper never at rest:
he returned to France: his reputation, Liancourt’s friendship, and the
relations of Eugenie--grateful, as has before been implied, for
the generosity with which he surrendered the principal part of her
donation--opened for him a new career, but one painful and galling. In
the Indian court there was no question of his birth--one adventurer was
equal with the rest. But in Paris, a man attempting to rise provoked all
the sarcasm of wit, all the cavils of party; and in polished and civil
life, what valour has weapons against a jest? Thus, in civilisation,
all the passions that spring from humiliated self-love and baffled
aspiration again preyed upon his breast. He saw, then, that the more he
struggled from obscurity, the more acute would become research into his
true origin; and his writhing pride almost stung to death his ambition.
To succeed in life by regular means was indeed difficult for this man;
always recoiling from the name he bore--always strong in the hope yet
to regain that to which he conceived himself entitled--cherishing that
pride of country which never deserts the native of a Free State,
however harsh a parent she may have proved; and, above all, whatever
his ambition and his passions, taking, from the very misfortunes he had
known, an indomitable belief in the ultimate justice of Heaven;--he had
refused to sever the last ties that connected him with his lost heritage
and his forsaken land--he refused to be naturalised--to make the name
he bore legally undisputed--he was contented to be an alien. Neither was
Vaudemont fitted exactly for that crisis in the social world when the
men of journals and talk bustle aside the men of action. He had not
cultivated literature, he had no book-knowledge--the world had been his
school, and stern life his teacher. Still, eminently skilled in those
physical accomplishments which men admire and soldiers covet, calm and
self-possessed in manner, of great personal advantages, of much ready
talent and of practised observation in character, he continued to breast
the obstacles around him, and to establish himself in the favour of
those in power. It was natural to a person so reared and circumstanced
to have no sympathy with what is called the popular cause. He was no
citizen in the state--he was a stranger in the land. He had suffered
and still suffered too much from mankind to have that philanthropy,
sometimes visionary but always noble, which, in fact, generally springs
from the studies we cultivate, not in the forum, but the closet. Men,
alas! too often lose the Democratic Enthusiasm in proportion as they
find reason to suspect or despise their kind. And if there were not
hopes for the Future, which this hard, practical daily life does not
suffice to teach us, the vision and the glory that belong to the Great
Popular Creed, dimmed beneath the injustice, the follies, and the vices
of the world as it is, would fade into the lukewarm sectarianism of
temporary Party. Moreover, Vaudemont’s habits of thought and reasoning
were those of the camp, confirmed by the systems familiar to him in the
East: he regarded the populace as a soldier enamoured of discipline and
order usually does. His theories, therefore, or rather his ignorance of
what is sound in theory, went with Charles the Tenth in his excesses,
but not with the timidity which terminated those excesses by
dethronement and disgrace. Chafed to the heart, gnawed with proud grief,
he obeyed the royal mandates, and followed the exiled monarch: his hopes
overthrown, his career in France annihilated forever. But on entering
England, his temper, confident and ready of resource, fastened itself
on new food. In the land where he had no name he might yet rebuild his
fortunes. It was an arduous effort--an improbable hope; but the words
heard by the bridge of Paris--words that had often cheered him in his
exile through hardships and through dangers which it is unnecessary to
our narrative to detail--yet rung again in his ear, as he leaped on his
native land,--“Time, Faith, Energy.”
While such his character in the larger and more distant relations
of life, in the closer circles of companionship many rare and
noble qualities were visible. It is true that he was stern, perhaps
imperious--of a temper that always struggled for command; but he was
deeply susceptible of kindness, and, if feared by those who opposed,
loved by those who served him. About his character was that mixture of
tenderness and fierceness which belonged, of old, to the descriptions of
the warrior. Though so little unlettered, Life had taught him a certain
poetry of sentiment and idea--More poetry, perhaps, in the silent
thoughts that, in his happier moments, filled his solitude, than in half
the pages that his brother had read and written by the dreaming lake. A
certain largeness of idea and nobility of impulse often made him act
the sentiments of which bookmen write. With all his passions, he held
licentiousness in disdain; with all his ambition for the power of
wealth, he despised its luxury. Simple, masculine, severe, abstemious,
he was of that mould in which, in earlier times, the successful men of
action have been cast. But to successful action, circumstance is more
necessary than to triumphant study.
It was to be expected that, in proportion as he had been familiar with
a purer and nobler life, he should look with great and deep
self-humiliation at his early association with Gawtrey. He was in this
respect more severe on himself than any other mind ordinarily just and
candid would have been,--when fairly surveying the circumstances of
penury, hunger, and despair, which had driven him to Gawtrey’s roof, the
imperfect nature of his early education, the boyish trust and affection
he had felt for his protector, and his own ignorance of, and exemption
from, all the worst practices of that unhappy criminal. But still, when,
with the knowledge he had now acquired, the man looked calmly back, his
cheek burned with remorseful shame at his unreflecting companionship in
a life of subterfuge and equivocation, the true nature of which, the
boy (so circumstanced as we have shown him) might be forgiven for not
at that time comprehending. Two advantages resulted, however, from the
error and the remorse: first, the humiliation it brought curbed, in some
measure, a pride that might otherwise have been arrogant and unamiable,
and, secondly, as I have before intimated, his profound gratitude to
Heaven for his deliverance from the snares that had beset his youth gave
his future the guide of an earnest and heartfelt faith. He acknowledged
in life no such thing as accident. Whatever his struggles, whatever his
melancholy, whatever his sense of worldly wrong, he never despaired; for
nothing now could shake his belief in one directing Providence.
The ways and habits of Vaudemont were not at discord with those of the
quiet household in which he was now a guest. Like most men of strong
frames, and accustomed to active, not studious pursuits, he rose
early;--and usually rode to London, to come back late at noon to their
frugal meal. And if again, perhaps after the hour when Fanny and Simon
retired, he would often return to London, his own pass-key re-admitted
him, at whatever time he came back, without disturbing the sleep of
the household. Sometimes, when the sun began to decline, if the air was
warm, the old man would crawl out, leaning on that strong arm, through
the neighbouring lanes, ever returning through the lonely burial-ground;
or when the blind host clung to his fireside, and composed himself to
sleep, Philip would saunter forth along with Fanny; and on the days when
she went to sell her work, or select her purchases, he always made a
point of attending her. And her cheek wore a flush of pride when she saw
him carrying her little basket, or waiting without, in musing patience,
while she performed her commissions in the shops. Though in reality
Fanny’s intellect was ripening within, yet still the surface often
misled the eye as to the depths. It was rather that something yet held
back the faculties from their growth than that the faculties themselves
were wanting. Her weakness was more of the nature of the infant’s than
of one afflicted with incurable imbecility. For instance, she managed
the little household with skill and prudence; she could calculate in her
head, as rapidly as Vaudemont himself, the arithmetic necessary to her
simple duties; she knew the value of money, which is more than some
of us wise folk do. Her skill, even in her infancy so remarkable,
in various branches of female handiwork, was carried, not only by
perseverance, but by invention and peculiar talent, to a marvellous and
exquisite perfection. Her embroidery, especially in what was then more
rare than at present, viz., flowers on silk, was much in request among
the great modistes of London, to whom it found its way through the
agency of Miss Semper. So that all this had enabled her, for years,
to provide every necessary comfort of life for herself and her blind
protector. And her care for the old man was beautiful in its minuteness,
its vigilance. Wherever her heart was interested, there never seemed
a deficiency of mind. Vaudemont was touched to see how much of
affectionate and pitying respect she appeared to enjoy in the
neighbourhood, especially among the humbler classes--even the beggar who
swept the crossings did not beg of her, but bade God bless her as she
passed; and the rude, discontented artisan would draw himself from the
wall and answer, with a softened brow, the smile with which the harmless
one charmed his courtesy. In fact, whatever attraction she took from
her youth, her beauty, her misfortune, and her affecting industry, was
heightened, in the eyes of the poorer neighbours, by many little traits
of charity and kindness; many a sick child had she tended, and many a
breadless board had stolen something from the stock set aside for her
father’s grave.
“Don’t you think,” she once whispered to Vaudemont, “that God attends to
us more if we are good to those who are sick and hungry?”
“Certainly we are taught to think so.”
“Well, I’ll tell you a secret--don’t tell again. Grandpapa once said
that my father had done bad things; now, if Fanny is good to those she
can help, I think that God will hear her more kindly when she prays him
to forgive what her father did. Do you think so too? Do say--you are so
wise!”
“Fanny, you are wiser than all of us; and I feel myself better and
happier when I hear you speak.”
There were, indeed, many moments when Vaudemont thought that her
deficiencies of intellect might have been repaired, long since, by
skilful culture and habitual companionship with those of her own age;
from which companionship, however, Fanny, even when at school, had
shrunk aloof. At other moments there was something so absent and
distracted about her, or so fantastic and incoherent, that Vaudemont,
with the man’s hard, worldly eye, read in it nothing but melancholy
confusion. Nevertheless, if the skein of ideas was entangled, each
thread in itself was a thread of gold.
Fanny’s great object--her great ambition--her one hope--was a tomb for
her supposed father. Whether from some of that early religion attached
to the grave, which is most felt in Catholic countries, and which she
had imbibed at the convent; or from her residence so near the burial
ground, and the affection with which she regarded the spot;--whatever
the cause, she had cherished for some years, as young maidens usually
cherish the desire of the Altar--the dream of the Gravestone. But
the hoard was amassed so slowly;--now old Gawtrey was attacked by
illness;--now there was some little difficulty in the rent; now some
fluctuation in the price of work; and now, and more often than all, some
demand on her charity, which interfered with, and drew from, the pious
savings. This was a sentiment in which her new friend sympathised
deeply; for he, too, remembered that his first gold had bought that
humble stone which still preserved upon the earth the memory of his
mother.
Meanwhile, days crept on, and no new violence was offered to Fanny.
Vaudemont learned, then, by little and little--and Fanny’s account was
very confused--the nature of the danger she had run.
It seemed that one day, tempted by the fineness of the weather up
the road that led from the suburb farther into the country, Fanny was
stopped by a gentleman in a carriage, who accosted her, as she said,
very kindly: and after several questions, which she answered with her
usual unsuspecting innocence, learned her trade, insisted on purchasing
some articles of work which she had at the moment in her basket, and
promised to procure her a constant purchaser, upon much better terms
than she had hitherto obtained, if she would call at the house of a Mrs.
West, about a mile from the suburb towards London. This she promised
to do, and this she did, according to the address he gave her. She was
admitted to a lady more gaily dressed than Fanny had ever seen a lady
before,--the gentleman was also present,--they both loaded her with
compliments, and bought her work at a price which seemed about to
realise all the hopes of the poor girl as to the gravestone for William
Gawtrey,--as if his evil fate pursued that wild man beyond the grave,
and his very tomb was to be purchased by the gold of the polluter! The
lady then appointed her to call again; but, meanwhile, she met Fanny
in the streets, and while she was accosting her, it fortunately chanced
that Miss Semper the milliner passed that way--turned round, looked hard
at the lady, used very angry language to her, seized Fanny’s hand, led
her away while the lady slunk off; and told her that the said lady was a
very bad woman, and that Fanny must never speak to her again. Fanny
most cheerfully promised this. And, in fact, the lady, probably afraid,
whether of the mob or the magistrates, never again came near her.
“And,” said Fanny, “I gave the money they had both given to me to Miss
Semper, who said she would send it back.”
“You did right, Fanny; and as you made one promise to Miss Semper, so
you must make me one--never to stir from home again without me or some
other person. No, no other person--only me. I will give up everything
else to go with you.”
“Will you? Oh, yes. I promise! I used to like going alone, but that was
before you came, brother.”
And as Fanny kept her promise, it would have been a bold gallant indeed
who would have ventured to molest her by the side of that stately and
strong protector.
CHAPTER VI.
“Timon. Each thing’s a thief
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
Have unchecked theft.
The sweet degrees that this brief world affords,
To such as may the passive drugs of it
Freely command.”--Timon of Athens.
On the day and at the hour fixed for the interview with the stranger who
had visited Mr. Beaufort, Lord Lilburne was seated in the library of
his brother-in-law; and before the elbow-chair, on which he lolled
carelessly, stood our old friend Mr. Sharp, of Bow Street notability.
“Mr. Sharp,” said the peer, “I have sent for you to do me a little
favour. I expect a man here who professes to give Mr. Beaufort, my
brother-in-law, some information about a lawsuit. It is necessary
to know the exact value of his evidence. I wish you to ascertain all
particulars about him. Be so good as to seat yourself in the porter’s
chair in the hall; note him when he enters, unobserved yourself--but as
he is probably a stranger to you, note him still more when he leaves
the house; follow him at a distance; find out where he lives, whom he
associates with, where he visits, their names and directions, what his
character and calling are;--in a word, everything you can, and report
to me each evening. Dog him well, never lose sight of him--you will be
handsomely paid. You understand?”
“Ah!” said Mr. Sharp, “leave me alone, my lord. Been employed before by
your lordship’s brother-in-law. We knows what’s what.”
“I don’t doubt it. To your post--I expect him every moment.”
And, in fact, Mr. Sharp had only just ensconced himself in the porter’s
chair when the stranger knocked at the door--in another moment he was
shown in to Lord Lilburne.
“Sir,” said his lordship, without rising, “be so good as to take a
chair. Mr. Beaufort is obliged to leave town--he has asked me to see
you--I am one of his family--his wife is my sister--you may be as frank
with me as with him,--more so, perhaps.”
“I beg the fauvour of your name, sir,” said the stranger, adjusting his
collar.
“Yours first--business is business.”
“Well, then, Captain Smith.”
“Of what regiment?”
“Half-pay.”
“I am Lord Lilburne. Your name is Smith--humph!” added the peer, looking
over some notes before him. “I see it is also the name of the witness
appealed to by Mrs. Morton--humph!”
At this remark, and still more at the look which accompanied it, the
countenance, before impudent and complacent, of Captain Smith fell into
visible embarrassment; he cleared his throat and said, with a little
hesitation,--
“My lord, that witness is living!”
“No doubt of it--witnesses never die where property is concerned and
imposture intended.”
At this moment the servant entered, and placed a little note, quaintly
folded, before Lord Lilburne. He glanced at it in surprise--opened, and
read as follows, in pencil,--
“My LORD,--I knows the man; take caer of him; he is as big a roge as
ever stept; he was transported some three year back, and unless his time
has been shortened by the Home, he’s absent without leve. We used
to call him Dashing Jerry. That ere youngster we went arter, by Mr.
Bofort’s wish, was a pall of his. Scuze the liberty I take.
“J. SHARP.”
While Lord Lilburne held this effusion to the candle, and spelled his
way through it, Captain Smith, recovering his self-composure, thus
proceeded:
“Imposture, my lord! imposture! I really don’t understand. Your lordship
really seems so suspicious, that it is quite uncomfortable. I am sure it
is all the same to me; and if Mr. Beaufort does not think proper to see
me himself, why I’d best make my bow.”
And Captain Smith rose.
“Stay a moment, sir. What Mr. Beaufort may yet do, I cannot say; but
I know this, you stand charged of a very grave offence, and if your
witness or witnesses--you may have fifty, for what I care--are equally
guilty, so much the worse for them.”
“My lord, I really don’t comprehend.”
“Then I will be more plain. I accuse you of devising an infamous
falsehood for the purpose of extorting money. Let your witnesses appear
in court, and I promise that you, they, and the young man, Mr. Morton,
whose claim they set up, shall be indicted for conspiracy--conspiracy,
if accompanied (as in the case of your witnesses) with perjury, of the
blackest die. Mr. Smith, I know you; and, before ten o’clock to-morrow,
I shall know also if you had his majesty’s leave to quit the colonies!
Ah! I am plain enough now, I see.”
And Lord Lilburne threw himself back in his chair, and coldly
contemplated the white face and dismayed expression of the crestfallen
captain. That most worthy person, after a pause of confusion, amaze,
and fear, made an involuntary stride, with a menacing gesture, towards
Lilburne; the peer quietly placed his hand on the bell.
“One moment more,” said the latter; “if I ring this bell, it is to place
you in custody. Let Mr. Beaufort but see you here once again--nay, let
him but hear another word of this pretended lawsuit--and you return to
the colonies. Pshaw! Frown not at me, sir! A Bow Street officer is in
the hall. Begone!--no, stop one moment, and take a lesson in life. Never
again attempt to threaten people of property and station. Around every
rich man is a wall--better not run your head against it.”
“But I swear solemnly,” cried the knave, with an emphasis so startling
that it carried with it the appearance of truth, “that the marriage did
take place.”
“And I say, no less solemnly, that any one who swears it in a court of
law shall be prosecuted for perjury! Bah! you are a sorry rogue, after
all!”
And with an air of supreme and half-compassionate contempt, Lord
Lilburne turned away and stirred the fire. Captain Smith muttered
and fumbled a moment with his gloves, then shrugged his shoulders and
sneaked out.
That night Lord Lilburne again received his friends, and amongst
his guests came Vaudemont. Lilburne was one who liked the study of
character, especially the character of men wrestling against the world.
Wholly free from every species of ambition, he seemed to reconcile
himself to his apathy by examining into the disquietude, the
mortification, the heart’s wear and tear, which are the lot of the
ambitious. Like the spider in his hole, he watched with hungry pleasure
the flies struggling in the web; through whose slimy labyrinth he walked
with an easy safety. Perhaps one reason why he loved gaming was less
from the joy of winning than the philosophical complacency with which he
feasted on the emotions of those who lost; always serene, and, except
in debauch, always passionless,--Majendie, tracing the experiments of
science in the agonies of some tortured dog, could not be more rapt
in the science, and more indifferent to the dog, than Lord Lilburne,
ruining a victim, in the analysis of human passions,--stoical in the
writhings of the wretch whom he tranquilly dissected. He wished to win
money of Vaudemont--to ruin this man, who presumed to be more generous
than other people--to see a bold adventurer submitted to the wheel
of the Fortune which reigns in a pack of cards;--and all, of course,
without the least hate to the man whom he then saw for the first time.
On the contrary, he felt a respect for Vaudemont. Like most worldly men,
Lord Lilburne was prepossessed in favour of those who seek to rise in
life: and like men who have excelled in manly and athletic exercises,
he was also prepossessed in favour of those who appeared fitted for the
same success.
Liancourt took aside his friend, as Lord Lilburne was talking with his
other guests:--
“I need not caution you, who never play, not to commit yourself to Lord
Lilburne’s tender mercies; remember, he is an admirable player.”
“Nay,” answered Vaudemont, “I want to know this man: I have reasons,
which alone induce me to enter his house. I can afford to venture
something, because I wish to see if I can gain something for one dear to
me. And for the rest (he muttered)--I know him too well not to be on
my guard.” With that he joined Lord Lilburne’s group, and accepted the
invitation to the card-table. At supper, Vaudemont conversed more than
was habitual to him; he especially addressed himself to his host, and
listened, with great attention, to Lilburne’s caustic comments upon
every topic successively started. And whether it was the art of De
Vaudemont, or from an interest that Lord Lilburne took in studying
what was to him a new character,--or whether that, both men excelling
peculiarly in all masculine accomplishments, their conversation was of
a nature that was more attractive to themselves than to others; it so
happened that they were still talking while the daylight already peered
through the window-curtains.
“And I have outstayed all your guests,” said De Vaudemont, glancing
round the emptied room.
“It is the best compliment you could pay me. Another night we can
enliven our tete-a-tete with ecarte; though at your age, and with your
appearance, I am surprised, Monsieur de Vaudemont, that you are fond of
play: I should have thought that it was not in a pack of cards that
you looked for hearts. But perhaps you are _blase _betimes of the _beau
sexe_.”
“Yet your lordship’s devotion to it is, perhaps, as great now as ever?”
“Mine?--no, not as ever. To different ages different degrees. At your
age I wooed; at mine I purchase--the better plan of the two: it does not
take up half so much time.”
“Your marriage, I think, Lord Lilburne, was not blessed with children.
Perhaps sometimes you feel the want of them?”
“If I did, I could have them by the dozen. Other ladies have been more
generous in that department than the late Lady Lilburne, Heaven rest
her!”
“And,” said Vaudemont, fixing his eyes with some earnestness on his
host, “if you were really persuaded that you had a child, or perhaps a
grandchild--the mother one whom you loved in your first youth--a
child affectionate, beautiful, and especially needing your care and
protection, would you not suffer that child, though illegitimate, to
supply to you the want of filial affection?”
“Filial affection, mon cher!” repeated Lord Lilburne, “needing my care
and protection! Pshaw! In other words, would I give board and lodging
to some young vagabond who was good enough to say he was son to Lord
Lilburne?”
“But if you were convinced that the claimant were your son, or
perhaps your daughter--a tenderer name of the two, and a more helpless
claimant?”
“My dear Monsieur de Vaudemont, you are doubtless a man of gallantry and
of the world. If the children whom the law forces on one are, nine times
out of ten, such damnable plagues, judge if one would father those whom
the law permits us to disown! Natural children are the pariahs of the
world, and I--am one of the Brahmans.”
“But,” persisted Vaudemont, “forgive me if I press the question farther.
Perhaps I seek from your wisdom a guide to my own conduct;--suppose,
then, a man had loved, had wronged, the mother;--suppose that in the
child he saw one who, without his aid, might be exposed to every curse
with which the pariahs (true, the pariahs!) of the world are too
often visited, and who with his aid might become, as age advanced, his
companion, his nurse, his comforter--”
“Tush!” interrupted Lilburne, with some impatience; “I know not how our
conversation fell on such a topic--but if you really ask my opinion in
reference to any case in practical life, you shall have it. Look you,
then Monsieur de Vaudemont, no man has studied the art of happiness more
than I have; and I will tell you the great secret--have as few ties as
possible. Nurse!--pooh! you or I could hire one by the week a thousand
times more useful and careful than a bore of a child. Comforter!--a man
of mind never wants comfort. And there is no such thing as sorrow while
we have health and money, and don’t care a straw for anybody in the
world. If you choose to love people, their health and circumstances, if
either go wrong, can fret you: that opens many avenues to pain. Never
live alone, but always feel alone. You think this unamiable: possibly.
I am no hypocrite, and, for my part, I never affect to be anything but
what I am--John Lilburne.”
As the peer thus spoke, Vaudemont, leaning against the door,
contemplated him with a strange mixture of interest and disgust. “And
John Lilburne is thought a great man, and William Gawtrey was a great
rogue. You don’t conceal your heart?--no, I understand. Wealth and power
have no need of hypocrisy: you are the man of vice--Gawtrey, the man of
crime. You never sin against the law--he was a felon by his trade. And
the felon saved from vice the child, and from want the grandchild (Your
flesh and blood) whom you disown: which will Heaven consider the worse
man? No, poor Fanny, I see I am wrong. If he would own you, I would not
give you up to the ice of such a soul:--better the blind man than the
dead heart!”
“Well, Lord Lilburne,” said De Vaudemont aloud, shaking off his reverie,
“I must own that your philosophy seems to me the wisest for yourself.
For a poor man it might be different--the poor need affection.”
“Ay, the poor, certainly,” said Lord Lilburne, with an air of
patronising candour.
“And I will own farther,” continued De Vaudemont, “that I have willingly
lost my money in return for the instruction I have received in hearing
you converse.”
“You are kind: come and take your revenge next Thursday. Adieu.”
As Lord Lilburne undressed, and his valet attended him, he said to that
worthy functionary,--
“So you have not been able to make out the name of the stranger--the new
lodger you tell me of?”
“No, my lord. They only say he is a very fine-looking man.”
“You have not seen him?”
“No, my lord. What do you wish me now to do?”
“Humph! Nothing at this moment! You manage things so badly, you might
get me into a scrape. I never do anything which the law or the police,
or even the news papers, can get hold of. I must think of some other
way--humph! I never give up what I once commence, and I never fail
in what I undertake! If life had been worth what fools trouble it
with--business and ambition--I suppose I should have been a great man
with a very bad liver--ha ha! I alone, of all the world, ever found out
what the world was good for! Draw the curtains, Dykeman.”
CHAPTER VII.
“Org. Welcome, thou ice that sitt’st about his heart
No heat can ever thaw thee!”--FORD: Broken Heart.
“Nearch. Honourable infamy!”--Ibid.
“Amye. Her tenderness hath yet deserved no rigour,
So to be crossed by fate!”
“Arm. You misapply, sir,
With favour let me speak it, what Apollo
Hath clouded in dim sense!”--Ibid.
If Vaudemont had fancied that, considering the age and poverty of Simon,
it was his duty to see whether Fanny’s not more legal, but more natural
protector were, indeed, the unredeemed and unmalleable egotist which
Gawtrey had painted him, the conversation of one night was sufficient to
make him abandon for ever the notion of advancing her claims upon Lord
Lilburne. But Philip had another motive in continuing his acquaintance
with that personage. The sight of his mother’s grave had recalled to
him the image of that lost brother over whom he had vowed to watch. And,
despite the deep sense of wronged affection with which he yet remembered
the cruel letter that had contained the last tidings of Sidney, Philip’s
heart clung with undying fondness to that fair shape associated with all
the happy recollections of childhood; and his conscience as well as his
love asked him, each time that he passed the churchyard, “Will you
make no effort to obey that last prayer of the mother who consigned her
darling to your charge?” Perhaps, had Philip been in want, or had the
name he now bore been sullied by his conduct, he might have shrunk from
seeking one whom he might injure, but could not serve. But though not
rich, he had more than enough for tastes as hardy and simple as any to
which soldier of fortune ever limited his desires. And he thought, with
a sentiment of just and noble pride, that the name which Eugenie had
forced upon him had been borne spotless as the ermine through the trials
and vicissitudes he had passed since he had assumed it. Sidney could
give him nothing, and therefore it was his duty to seek Sidney out. Now,
he had always believed in his heart that the Beauforts were acquainted
with a secret which he more and more pined to penetrate. He would, for
Sidney’s sake, smother his hate to the Beauforts; he would not reject
their acquaintance if thrown in his way; nay, secure in his change of
name and his altered features, from all suspicion on their part, he
would seek that acquaintance in order to find his brother and fulfil
Catherine’s last commands. His intercourse with Lilburne would
necessarily bring him easily into contact with Lilburne’s family. And in
this thought he did not reject the invitations pressed on him. He felt,
too, a dark and absorbing interest in examining a man who was in
himself the incarnation of the World--the World of Art--the World as
the Preacher paints it--the hollow, sensual, sharp-witted, self-wrapped
WORLD--the World that is all for this life, and thinks of no Future and
no God!
Lord Lilburne was, indeed, a study for deep contemplation. A study to
perplex the ordinary thinker, and task to the utmost the analysis
of more profound reflection. William Gawtrey had possessed no common
talents; he had discovered that his life had been one mistake; Lord
Lilburne’s intellect was far keener than Gawtrey’s, and he had never
made, and if he had lived to the age of Old Parr, never would have made
a similar discovery. He never wrestled against a law, though he slipped
through all laws! And he knew no remorse, for he knew no fear. Lord
Lilburne had married early, and long survived, a lady of fortune, the
daughter of the then Premier--the best match, in fact, of his day. And
for one very brief period of his life he had suffered himself to enter
into the field of politics the only ambition common with men of
equal rank. He showed talents that might have raised one so gifted by
circumstance to any height, and then retired at once into his old habits
and old system of pleasure. “I wished to try,” said he once, “if fame
was worth one headache, and I have convinced myself that the man who can
sacrifice the bone in his mouth to the shadow of the bone in the water
is a fool.” From that time he never attended the House of Lords,
and declared himself of no political opinions one way or the other.
Nevertheless, the world had a general belief in his powers, and
Vaudemont reluctantly subscribed to the world’s verdict. Yet he had
done nothing, he had read but little, he laughed at the world to its
face,--and that last was, after all, the main secret of his ascendancy
over those who were drawn into his circle. That contempt of the world
placed the world at his feet. His sardonic and polished indifference,
his professed code that there was no life worth caring for but his own
life, his exemption from all cant, prejudice, and disguise, the frigid
lubricity with which he glided out of the grasp of the Conventional,
whenever it so pleased him, without shocking the Decorums whose sense is
in their ear, and who are not roused by the deed but by the noise,--all
this had in it the marrow and essence of a system triumphant with the
vulgar; for little minds give importance to the man who gives importance
to nothing. Lord Lilburne’s authority, not in matters of taste alone,
but in those which the world calls judgment and common sense, was
regarded as an oracle. He cared not a straw for the ordinary baubles
that attract his order; he had refused both an earldom and the garter,
and this was often quoted in his honour. But you only try a man’s virtue
when you offer him something that he covets. The earldom and the garter
were to Lord Lilburne no more tempting inducements than a doll or a
skipping-rope; had you offered him an infallible cure for the gout, or
an antidote against old age, you might have hired him as your lackey
on your own terms. Lord Lilburne’s next heir was the son of his only
brother, a person entirely dependent on his uncle. Lord Lilburne allowed
him L1000. a year and kept him always abroad in a diplomatic situation.
He looked upon his successor as a man who wanted power, but not
inclination, to become his assassin.
Though he lived sumptuously and grudged himself nothing, Lord Lilburne
was far from an extravagant man; he might, indeed, be considered close;
for he knew how much of comfort and consideration he owed to his money,
and valued it accordingly; he knew the best speculations and the best
investments. If he took shares in an American canal, you might be
sure that the shares would soon be double in value; if he purchased an
estate, you might be certain it was a bargain. This pecuniary tact and
success necessarily augmented his fame for wisdom.
He had been in early life a successful gambler, and some suspicions of
his fair play had been noised abroad; but, as has been recently seen in
the instance of a man of rank equal to Lilburne’s, though, perhaps, of
less acute if more cultivated intellect, it is long before the pigeon
will turn round upon a falcon of breed and mettle. The rumours, indeed,
were so vague as to carry with them no weight. During the middle of his
career, when in the full flush of health and fortune, he had renounced
the gaming-table. Of late years, as advancing age made time more heavy,
he had resumed the resource, and with all his former good luck. The
money-market, the table, the sex, constituted the other occupations and
amusements with which Lord Lilburne filled up his rosy leisure.
Another way by which this man had acquired reputation for ability was
this,--he never pretended to any branch of knowledge of which he was
ignorant, any more than to any virtue in which he was deficient. Honesty
itself was never more free from quackery or deception than was this
embodied and walking Vice. If the world chose to esteem him, he did not
buy its opinion by imposture. No man ever saw Lord Lilburne’s name in a
public subscription, whether for a new church, or a Bible Society, or
a distressed family, no man ever heard of his doing one generous,
benevolent, or kindly action,--no man was ever startled by one
philanthropic, pious, or amiable sentiment from those mocking lips. Yet,
in spite of all this, John Lord Lilburne was not only esteemed but liked
by the world, and set up in the chair of its Rhadamanthuses. In a word,
he seemed to Vaudemont, and he was so in reality, a brilliant example of
the might of Circumstance--an instance of what may be done in the way
of reputation and influence by a rich, well-born man to whom the will
a kingdom is. A little of genius, and Lord Lilburne would have made his
vices notorious and his deficiencies glaring; a little of heart, and
his habits would have led him into countless follies and discreditable
scrapes. It was the lead and the stone that he carried about him that
preserved his equilibrium, no matter which way the breeze blew. But
all his qualities, positive or negative, would have availed him nothing
without that position which enabled him to take his ease in that inn,
the world--which presented, to every detection of his want of intrinsic
nobleness, the irreproachable respectability of a high name, a splendid
mansion, and a rent-roll without a flaw. Vaudemont drew comparisons
between Lilburne and Gawtrey, and he comprehended at last, why one was a
low rascal and the other a great man.
Although it was but a few days after their first introduction to
each other, Vaudemont had been twice to Lord Lilburne’s, and their
acquaintance was already on an easy footing--when one afternoon as the
former was riding through the streets towards H----, he met the peer
mounted on a stout cob, which, from its symmetrical strength, pure
English breed, and exquisite grooming, showed something of those
sporting tastes for which, in earlier life, Lord Lilburne had been
noted.
“Why, Monsieur de Vaudemont, what brings you to this part of the
town?--curiosity and the desire to explore?”
“That might be natural enough in me; but you, who know London so well;
rather what brings you here?”
“Why I am returned from a long ride. I have had symptoms of a fit of
the gout, and been trying to keep it off by exercise. I have been to
a cottage that belongs to me, some miles from the town--a pretty place
enough, by the way--you must come and see me there next month. I shall
fill the house for a battue! I have some tolerable covers--you are a
good shot, I suppose?”
“I have not practised, except with a rifle, for some years.”
“That’s a pity; for as I think a week’s shooting once a year quite
enough, I fear that your visit to me at Fernside may not be sufficiently
long to put your hand in.”
“Fernside!”
“Yes; is the name familiar to you?”
“I think I have heard it before. Did your lordship purchase or inherit
it?”
“I bought it of my brother-in-law. It belonged to his brother--a gay,
wild sort of fellow, who broke his neck over a six-barred gate; through
that gate my friend Robert walked the same day into a very fine estate!”
“I have heard so. The late Mr. Beaufort, then, left no children?”
“Yes; two. But they came into the world in the primitive way in which
Mr. Owen wishes us all to come--too naturally for the present state of
society, and Mr. Owen’s parallelogram was not ready for them. By
the way, one of them disappeared at Paris--you never met with him, I
suppose?”
“Under what name?”
“Morton.”
“Morton! hem! What Christian name?”
“Philip.”
“Philip! no. But did Mr. Beaufort do nothing for the young men? I think
I have heard somewhere that he took compassion on one of them.”
“Have you? Ah, my brother-in-law is precisely one of those excellent men
of whom the world always speaks well. No; he would very willingly have
served either or both the boys, but the mother refused all his overtures
and went to law, I fancy. The elder of these bastards turned out a sad
fellow, and the younger,--I don’t know exactly where he is, but no doubt
with one of his mother’s relations. You seem to interest yourself in
natural children, my dear Vaudemont?”
“Perhaps you have heard that people have doubted if I were a natural
son?”
“Ah! I understand now. But are you going?--I was in hopes you would have
turned back my way, and--”
“You are very good; but I have a particular appointment, and I am now
too late. Good morning, Lord Lilburne.” Sidney with one of his mother’s
relations! Returned, perhaps, to the Mortons! How had he never before
chanced on a conjecture so probable? He would go at once!--that very
night he would go to the house from which he had taken his brother. At
least, and at the worst, they might give him some clue.
Buoyed with this hope and this resolve, he rode hastily to H-----, to
announce to Simon and Fanny that he should not return to them, perhaps,
for two or three days. As he entered the suburb, he drew up by the
statuary of whom he had purchased his mother’s gravestone.
The artist of the melancholy trade was at work in his yard.
“Ho! there!” said Vaudemont, looking over the low railing; “is the tomb
I have ordered nearly finished?”
“Why, sir, as you were so anxious for despatch, and as it would take a
long time to get a new one ready, I thought of giving you this, which is
finished all but the inscription. It was meant for Miss Deborah Primme;
but her nephew and heir called on me yesterday to say, that as the
poor lady died worth less by L5,000. than he had expected, he thought
a handsome wooden tomb would do as well, if I could get rid of this for
him. It is a beauty, sir. It will look so cheerful--”
“Well, that will do: and you can place it now where I told you.”
“In three days, sir.”
“So be it.” And he rode on, muttering, “Fanny, your pious wish will be
fulfilled. But flowers,--will they suit that stone?”
He put up his horse, and walked through the lane to Simon’s.
As he approached the house, he saw Fanny’s bright eyes at the window.
She was watching his return. She hastened to open the door to him, and
the world’s wanderer felt what music there is in the footstep, what
summer there is in the smile, of Welcome!
“My dear Fanny,” he said, affected by her joyous greeting, “it makes my
heart warm to see you. I have brought you a present from town. When
I was a boy, I remember that my poor mother was fond of singing some
simple songs, which often, somehow or other, come back to me, when I see
and hear you. I fancied you would understand and like them as well at
least as I do--for Heaven knows (he added to himself) my ear is dull
enough generally to the jingle of rhyme.” And he placed in her hands a
little volume of those exquisite songs, in which Burns has set Nature to
music.
“Oh! you are so kind, brother,” said Fanny, with tears swimming in her
eyes, and she kissed the book.
After their simple meal, Vaudemont broke to Fanny and Simon the
intelligence of his intended departure for a few days. Simon heard it
with the silent apathy into which, except on rare occasions, his life
had settled. But Fanny turned away her face and wept.
“It is but for a day or two, Fanny.”
“An hour is very--very long sometimes,” said the girl, shaking her head
mournfully.
“Come, I have a little time yet left, and the air is mild, you have not
been out to-day, shall we walk--”
“Hem!” interrupted Simon, clearing his throat, and seeming to start
into sudden animation; “had not you better settle the board and lodging
before you go?”
“Oh, grandfather!” cried Fanny, springing to her feet, with such a blush
upon her face.
“Nay, child,” said Vaudemont, laughingly; “your grandfather only
anticipates me. But do not talk of board and lodging; Fanny is as a
sister to me, and our purse is in common.”
“I should like to feel a sovereign--just to feel it,” muttered Simon,
in a sort of apologetic tone, that was really pathetic; and as Vaudemont
scattered some coins on the table, the old man clawed them up, chuckling
and talking to himself; and, rising with great alacrity, hobbled out of
the room like a raven carrying some cunning theft to its hiding-place.
This was so amusing to Vaudemont that he burst out fairly into an
uncontrollable laughter. Fanny looked at him, humbled and wondering for
some moments; and then, creeping to him, put her hand gently on his arm
and said--
“Don’t laugh--it pains me. It was not nice in grand papa; but--but, it
does not mean anything. It--it--don’t laugh--Fanny feels so sad!”
“Well, you are right. Come, put on your bonnet, we will go out.”
Fanny obeyed; but with less ready delight than usual. And they took
their way through lanes over which hung, still in the cool air, the
leaves of the yellow autumn.
Fanny was the first to break silence.
“Do you know,” she said, timidly, “that people here think me very
silly?--do you think so too?”
Vaudemont was startled by the simplicity of the question, and hesitated.
Fanny looked up in his dark face anxiously and inquiringly.
“Well,” she said, “you don’t answer?”
“My dear Fanny, there are some things in which I could wish you less
childlike and, perhaps, less charming. Those strange snatches of song,
for instance!”
“What! do you not like me to sing? It is my way of talking.”
“Yes; sing, pretty one! But sing something that we can understand,--sing
the songs I have given you, if you will. And now, may I ask why you put
to me that question?”
“I have forgotten,” said Fanny, absently, and looking down.
Now, at that instant, as Philip Vaudemont bent over the exceeding
sweetness of that young face, a sudden thrill shot through his heart,
and he, too, became silent, and lost in thought. Was it possible that
there could creep into his breast a wilder affection for this creature
than that of tenderness and pity? He was startled as the idea crossed
him. He shrank from it as a profanation--as a crime--as a frenzy. He
with his fate so uncertain and chequered--he to link himself with one
so helpless--he to debase the very poetry that clung to the mental
temperament of this pure being, with the feelings which every fair face
may awaken to every coarse heart--to love Fanny! No, it was impossible!
For what could he love in her but beauty, which the very spirit had
forgotten to guard? And she--could she even know what love was? He
despised himself for even admitting such a thought; and with that iron
and hardy vigour which belonged to his mind, resolved to watch closely
against every fancy that would pass the fairy boundary which separated
Fanny from the world of women.
He was roused from this self-commune by an abrupt exclamation from his
companion.
“Oh! I recollect now why I asked you that question. There is one thing
that always puzzles me--I want you to explain it. Why does everything in
life depend upon money? You see even my poor grandfather forgot how
good you are to us both, when--when Ah! I don’t understand--it pains--it
puzzles me!”
“Fanny, look there--no, to the left--you see that old woman, in rags,
crawling wearily along; turn now to the right--you see that fine house
glancing through the trees, with a carriage and four at the gates? The
difference between that old woman and the owner of that house is--Money;
and who shall blame your grandfather for liking Money?”
Fanny understood; and while the wise man thus moralised, the girl, whom
his very compassion so haughtily contemned, moved away to the old woman
to do her little best to smooth down those disparities from which wisdom
and moralising never deduct a grain! Vaudemont felt this as he saw her
glide towards the beggar; but when she came bounding back to him, she
had forgotten his dislike to her songs, and was chaunting, in the glee
of the heart that a kind act had made glad, one of her own impromptu
melodies.
Vaudemont turned away. Poor Fanny had unconsciously decided his
self-conquest; she guessed not what passed within him, but she suddenly
recollected--what he had said to her about her songs, and fancied him
displeased.
“Ah I will never do it again. Brother, don’t turn away!”
“But we must go home. Hark! the clock strikes seven--I have no time to
lose. And you will promise me never to stir out till I return?”
“I shall have no heart to stir out,” said Fanny, sadly; and then in a
more cheerful voice, she added, “And I shall sing the songs you like
before you come back again!”
CHAPTER VIII.
“Well did they know that service all by rote;
Some singing loud as if they had complained,
Some with their notes another manner feigned.”
CHAUCER: Pie Cuckoo and the Nightingale,
modernised by WORDSWORTH.--HORNE’s Edition.
And once more, sweet Winandermere, we are on the banks of thy happy
lake! The softest ray of the soft clear sun of early autumn trembled
on the fresh waters, and glanced through the leaves of the limes and
willows that were reflected--distinct as a home for the Naiads--beneath
the limpid surface. You might hear in the bushes the young blackbirds
trilling their first untutored notes. And the graceful dragon-fly, his
wings glittering in the translucent sunshine, darted to and fro--the
reeds gathered here and there in the mimic bays that broke the shelving
marge of the grassy shore.
And by that grassy shore, and beneath those shadowy limes, sat the young
lovers. It was the very place where Spencer had first beheld Camilla.
And now they were met to say, “Farewell!”
“Oh, Camilla!” said he, with great emotion, and eyes that swam in tears,
“be firm--be true. You know how my whole life is wrapped up in your
love. You go amidst scenes where all will tempt you to forget me. I
linger behind in those which are consecrated by your remembrance, which
will speak to me every hour of you. Camilla, since you do love me--you
do--do you not?--since you have confessed it--since your parents have
consented to our marriage, provided only that your love last (for of
mine there can be no doubt) for one year--one terrible year--shall I not
trust you as truth itself? And yet how darkly I despair at times!”
Camilla innocently took the hands that, clasped together, were raised to
her, as if in supplication, and pressed them kindly between her own.
“Do not doubt me--never doubt my affection. Has not my father consented?
Reflect, it is but a year’s delay!”
“A year!--can you speak thus of a year--a whole year? Not to see--not to
hear you for a whole year, except in my dreams! And, if at the end your
parents waver? Your father--I distrust him still. If this delay is
but meant to wean you from me,--if, at the end, there are new excuses
found,--if they then, for some cause or other not now foreseen, still
refuse their assent? You--may I not still look to you?”
Camilla sighed heavily; and turning her meek face on her lover, said,
timidly, “Never think that so short a time can make me unfaithful, and
do not suspect that my father will break his promise.”
“But, if he does, you will still be mine.”
“Ah, Charles, how could you esteem me as a wife if I were to tell you I
could forget I am a daughter?”
This was said so touchingly, and with so perfect a freedom from all
affectation, that her lover could only reply by covering her hand
with his kisses. And it was not till after a pause that he continued
passionately,--
“You do but show me how much deeper is my love than yours. You can never
dream how I love you. But I do not ask you to love me as well--it would
be impossible. My life from my earliest childhood has been passed in
these solitudes;--a happy life, though tranquil and monotonous, till
you suddenly broke upon it. You seemed to me the living form of the very
poetry I had worshipped--so bright--so heavenly--I loved you from the
very first moment that we met. I am not like other men of my age. I have
no pursuit--no occupation--nothing to abstract me from your thought. And
I love you so purely--so devotedly, Camilla. I have never known even a
passing fancy for another. You are the first--the only woman--it
ever seemed to me possible to love. You are my Eve--your presence my
paradise! Think how sad I shall be when you are gone--how I shall visit
every spot your footstep has hallowed--how I shall count every moment
till the year is past!”
While he thus spoke, he had risen in that restless agitation which
belongs to great emotion; and Camilla now rose also, and said
soothingly, as she laid her hand on his shoulder with tender but modest
frankness:
“And shall I not also think of you? I am sad to feel that you will be so
much alone--no sister--no brother!”
“Do not grieve for that. The memory of you will be dearer to me than
comfort from all else. And you will be true!”
Camilla made no answer by words, but her eyes and her colour spoke. And
in that moment, while plighting eternal truth, they forgot that they
were about to part!
Meanwhile, in a room in the house which, screened by the foliage, was
only partially visible where the lovers stood, sat Mr. Robert Beaufort
and Mr. Spencer.
“I assure you, sir,” said the former, “that I am not insensible to the
merits of your nephew and to the very handsome proposals you make, still
I cannot consent to abridge the time I have named. They are both very
young. What is a year?”
“It is a long time when it is a year of suspense,” said the recluse,
shaking his head.
“It is a longer time when it is a year of domestic dissension and
repentance. And it is a very true proverb, ‘Marry in haste and repent at
leisure.’ No! If at the end of the year the young people continue of the
same mind, and no unforeseen circumstances occur--”
“No unforeseen circumstances, Mr. Beaufort!--that is a new condition--it
is a very vague phrase.”
“My dear sir, it is hard to please you. Unforeseen circumstances,” said
the wary father, with a wise look, “mean circumstances that we don’t
foresee at present. I assure you that I have no intention to trifle with
you, and I shall be sincerely happy in so respectable a connexion.”
“The young people may write to each other?”
“Why, I’ll consult Mrs. Beaufort. At all events, it must not be very
often, and Camilla is well brought up, and will show all the letters to
her mother. I don’t much like a correspondence of that nature. It often
leads to unpleasant results; if, for instance--”
“If what?”
“Why, if the parties change their minds, and my girl were to marry
another. It is not prudent in matters of business, my dear sir, to put
down anything on paper that can be avoided.”
Mr. Spencer opened his eyes. “Matters of business, Mr. Beaufort!”
“Well, is not marriage a matter of business, and a very grave matter
too? More lawsuits about marriage and settlements, &c., than I like to
think of. But to change the subject. You have never heard anything more
of those young men, you say?”
“No,” said Mr. Spencer, rather inaudibly, and looking down.
“And it is your firm impression that the elder one, Philip, is dead?”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“That was a very vexatious and improper lawsuit their mother brought
against me. Do you know that some wretched impostor, who, it appears, is
a convict broke loose before his time, has threatened me with another,
on the part of one of those young men? You never heard anything of
it--eh?”
“Never, upon my honour.”
“And, of course, you would not countenance so villanous an attempt?”
“Certainly not.”
“Because that would break off our contract at once. But you are too much
a gentleman and a man of honour. Forgive me so improper a question. As
for the younger Mr. Morton, I have no ill-feeling against him. But the
elder! Oh, a thorough reprobate! a very alarming character! I could have
nothing to do with any member of the family while the elder lived; it
would only expose me to every species of insult and imposition. And now
I think we have left our young friends alone long enough.
“But stay, to prevent future misunderstanding, I may as well read over
again the heads of the arrangement you honour me by proposing. You agree
to settle your fortune after your decease, amounting to L23,000. and
your house, with twenty-five acres one rood and two poles, more or less,
upon your nephew and my daughter, jointly--remainder to their children.
Certainly, without offence, in a worldly point of view, Camilla might do
better; still, you are so very respectable, and you speak so handsomely,
that I cannot touch upon that point; and I own, that though there is a
large nominal rent-roll attached to Beaufort Court (indeed, there is not
a finer property in the county), yet there are many incumbrances, and
ready money would not be convenient to me. Arthur--poor fellow, a very
fine young man, sir,--is, as I have told you in perfect confidence, a
little imprudent and lavish; in short, your offer to dispense with any
dowry is extremely liberal, and proves your nephew is actuated by no
mercenary feelings: such conduct prepossesses me highly in your favour
and his too.”
Mr. Spencer bowed, and the great man rising, with a stiff affectation of
kindly affability, put his arm into the uncle’s, and strolled with him
across the lawn towards the lovers. And such is life--love on the lawn
and settlements in the parlour.
The lover was the first to perceive the approach of the elder parties.
And a change came over his face as he saw the dry aspect and marked
the stealthy stride of his future father-in-law; for then there flashed
across him a dreary reminiscence of early childhood; the happy evening
when, with his joyous father, that grave and ominous aspect was first
beheld; and then the dismal burial, the funereal sables, the carriage at
the door, and he himself clinging to the cold uncle to ask him to say a
word of comfort to the mother, who now slept far away. “Well, my young
friend,” said Mr. Beaufort, patronisingly, “your good uncle and myself
are quite agreed--a little time for reflection, that’s all. Oh! I don’t
think the worse of you for wishing to abridge it. But papas must be
papas.”
There was so little jocular about that sedate man, that this attempt
at jovial good humour seemed harsh and grating--the hinges of that wily
mouth wanted oil for a hearty smile.
“Come, don’t be faint-hearted, Mr. Charles. ‘Faint heart,’--you know the
proverb. You must stay and dine with us. We return to-morrow to town.
I should tell you, that I received this morning a letter from my son
Arthur, announcing his return from Baden, so we must give him the
meeting--a very joyful one you may guess. We have not seen him these
three years. Poor fellow! he says he has been very ill and the waters
have ceased to do him any good. But a little quiet and country air at
Beaufort Court will set him up, I hope.”
Thus running on about his son, then about his shooting--about Beaufort
Court and its splendours--about parliament and its fatigues--about
the last French Revolution, and the last English election--about
Mrs. Beaufort and her good qualities and bad health--about, in short,
everything relating to himself, some things relating to the public,
and nothing that related to the persons to whom his conversation was
directed, Mr. Robert Beaufort wore away half an hour, when the Spencer’s
took their leave, promising to return to dinner.
“Charles,” said Mr. Spencer, as the boat, which the young man rowed,
bounded over the water towards their quiet home; “Charles, I dislike
these Beauforts!”
“Not the daughter?”
“No, she is beautiful, and seems good; not so handsome as your poor
mother, but who ever was?”--here Mr. Spencer sighed, and repeated some
lines from Shenstone.
“Do you think Mr. Beaufort suspects in the least who I am?”
“Why, that puzzles me; I rather think he does.”
“And that is the cause of the delay? I knew it.”
“No, on the contrary, I incline to think he has some kindly feeling to
you, though not to your brother, and that it is such a feeling that made
him consent to your marriage. He sifted me very closely as to what I
knew of the young Mortons--observed that you were very handsome, and
that he had fancied at first that he had seen you before.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes: and looked hard at me while he spoke; and said more than once,
significantly, ‘So his name is Charles?’ He talked about some attempt
at imposture and litigation, but that was, evidently, merely invented
to sound me about your brother--whom, of course, he spoke ill
of--impressing on me three or four times that he would never have
anything to say to any of the family while Philip lived.”
“And you told him,” said the young man, hesitatingly, and with a deep
blush of shame over his face, “that you were persuaded--that is, that
you believed Philip was--was--”
“Was dead! Yes--and without confusion. For the more I reflect, the more
I think he must be dead. At all events, you may be sure that he is dead
to us, that we shall never hear more of him.”
“Poor Philip!”
“Your feelings are natural; they are worthy of your excellent heart; but
remember, what would have become of you if you had stayed with him!”
“True!” said the brother, with a slight shudder--“a career of
suffering--crime--perhaps the gibbet! Ah! what do I owe you?”
The dinner-party at Mr. Beaufort’s that day was constrained and
formal, though the host, in unusual good humour, sought to make himself
agreeable. Mrs. Beaufort, languid and afflicted with headache, said
little. The two Spencers were yet more silent. But the younger sat next
to her he loved; and both hearts were full: and in the evening they
contrived to creep apart into a corner by the window, through which the
starry heavens looked kindly on them. They conversed in whispers, with
long pauses between each: and at times Camilla’s tears flowed silently
down her cheeks, and were followed by the false smiles intended to cheer
her lover.
Time did not fly, but crept on breathlessly and heavily. And then came
the last parting--formal, cold--before witnesses. But the lover could
not restrain his emotion, and the hard father heard his suppressed sob
as he closed the door.
It will now be well to explain the cause of Mr. Beaufort’s heightened
spirits, and the motives of his conduct with respect to his daughter’s
suitor.
This, perhaps, can be best done by laying before the reader the
following letters that passed between Mr. Beaufort and Lord Lilburne.
From LORD LILBURNE to ROBERT BEAUFORT, ESQ., M.P.
“DEAR BEAUFORT,--I think I have settled, pretty satisfactorily, your
affair with your unwelcome visitor. The first thing it seemed to me
necessary to do, was to learn exactly what and who he was, and with what
parties that could annoy you he held intercourse. I sent for Sharp, the
Bow Street officer, and placed him in the hall to mark, and afterwards
to dog and keep watch on your new friend. The moment the latter entered
I saw at once, from his dress and his address, that he was a ‘scamp;’
and thought it highly inexpedient to place you in his power by any money
transactions. While talking with him, Sharp sent in a billet containing
his recognition of our gentleman as a transported convict.
“I acted accordingly; soon saw, from the fellow’s manner, that he had
returned before his time; and sent him away with a promise, which you
may be sure he believes will be kept, that if he molest you farther,
he shall return to the colonies, and that if his lawsuit proceed, his
witness or witnesses shall be indicted for conspiracy and perjury. Make
your mind easy so far. For the rest, I own to you that I think what he
says probable enough: but my object in setting Sharp to watch him is
to learn what other parties he sees. And if there be really anything
formidable in his proofs or witnesses, it is with those other parties I
advise you to deal. Never transact business with the go between, if you
can with the principal. Remember, the two young men are the persons to
arrange with after all. They must be poor, and therefore easily dealt
with. For, if poor, they will think a bird in the hand worth two in the
bush of a lawsuit.
“If, through Mr. Spencer, you can learn anything of either of the young
men, do so; and try and open some channel, through which you can always
establish a communication with them, if necessary. Perhaps, by learning
their early history, you may learn something to put them into your
power.
“I have had a twinge of the gout this morning, and am likely, I fear, to
be laid up for some weeks.
“Yours truly,
“LILBURNE.
“P.S.--Sharp has just been here. He followed the man who calls himself
‘Captain Smith’ to a house in Lambeth, where he lodges, and from which
he did not stir till midnight, when Sharp ceased his watch. On renewing
it this morning, he found that the captain had gone off, to what place
Sharp has not yet discovered.
“Burn this immediately.”
From ROBERT BEAUFORT, ESQ., M.P., to the LORD LILBURNE.
“DEAR, LILBURNE,--Accept my warmest thanks for your kindness; you
have done admirably, and I do not see that I have anything further to
apprehend. I suspect that it was an entire fabrication on that man’s
part, and your firmness has foiled his wicked designs. Only think,
I have discovered--I am sure of it--one of the Mortons; and he, too,
though the younger, yet, in all probability, the sole pretender the
fellow could set up. You remember that the child Sidney had disappeared
mysteriously,--you remember also, how much that Mr. Spencer had
interested himself in finding out the same Sidney. Well,--this gentleman
at the Lakes is, as we suspected, the identical Mr. Spencer, and his
soi-disant nephew, Camilla’s suitor, is assuredly no other than the lost
Sidney. The moment I saw the young man I recognised him, for he is very
little altered, and has a great look of his mother into the bargain.
Concealing my more than suspicions, I, however, took care to sound Mr.
Spencer (a very poor soul), and his manner was so embarrassed as to
leave no doubt of the matter; but in asking him what he had heard of
the brothers, I had the satisfaction of learning that, in all human
probability, the elder is dead: of this Mr. Spencer seems convinced.
I also assured myself that neither Spencer nor the young man had the
remotest connection with our Captain Smith, nor any idea of litigation.
This is very satisfactory, you will allow. And now, I hope you will
approve of what I have done. I find that young Morton, or Spencer, as
he is called, is desperately enamoured of Camilla; he seems a meek,
well-conditioned, amiable young man; writes poetry;--in short, rather
weak than otherwise. I have demanded a year’s delay, to allow mutual
trial and reflection. This gives us the channel for constant information
which you advise me to establish, and I shall have the opportunity to
learn if the impostor makes any communication to them, or if there be
any news of the brother. If by any trick or chicanery (for I will never
believe that there was a marriage) a lawsuit that might be critical
or hazardous can be cooked up, I can, I am sure, make such terms with
Sidney, through his love for my daughter, as would effectively and
permanently secure me from all further trouble and machinations in
regard to my property. And if, during the year, we convince ourselves
that, after all, there is not a leg of law for any claimant to stand on,
I may be guided by other circumstances how far I shall finally accept
or reject the suit. That must depend on any other views we may then form
for Camilla; and I shall not allow a hint of such an engagement to get
abroad. At the worst, as Mr. Spencer’s heir, it is not so very bad a
match, seeing that they dispense with all marriage portion, &c.--a proof
how easily they can be managed. I have not let Mr. Spencer see that
I have discovered his secret--I can do that or not, according to
circumstances hereafter; neither have I said anything of my discovery
to Mrs. B., or Camilla. At present, ‘Least said soonest mended.’ I
heard from Arthur to-day. He is on his road home, and we hasten to town,
sooner than we expected, to meet him. He complains still of his health.
We shall all go down to Beaufort Court. I write this at night, the
pretended uncle and sham nephew having just gone. But though we start
to-morrow, you will get this a day or two before we arrive, as Mrs.
Beaufort’s health renders short stages necessary. I really do hope that
Arthur, also, will not be an invalid, poor fellow! one in a family is
quite enough; and I find Mrs. Beaufort’s delicacy very inconvenient,
especially in moving about and in keeping up one’s county connexions. A
young man’s health, however, is soon restored. I am very sorry to hear
of your gout, except that it carries off all other complaints. I am
very well, thank Heaven; indeed, my health has been much better of late
years: Beaufort Court agrees with me so well! The more I reflect, the
more I am astonished at the monstrous and wicked impudence of that
fellow--to defraud a man out of his own property! You are quite
right,--certainly a conspiracy.
“Yours truly, “R. B.”
“P. S.--I shall keep a constant eye on the Spencers.
“Burn this immediately.”
After he had written and sealed this letter, Mr. Beaufort went to bed
and slept soundly.
And the next day that place was desolate, and the board on the lawn
announced that it was again to be let. But thither daily, in rain or
sunshine, came the solitary lover, as a bird that seeks its young in the
deserted nest:--Again and again he haunted the spot where he had strayed
with the lost one,--and again and again murmured his passionate vows
beneath the fast-fading limes. Are those vows destined to be ratified or
annulled? Will the absent forget, or the lingerer be consoled? Had the
characters of that young romance been lightly stamped on the fancy where
once obliterated they are erased for ever,--or were they graven deep in
those tablets where the writing, even when invisible, exists still, and
revives, sweet letter by letter, when the light and the warmth borrowed
from the One Bright Presence are applied to the faithful record? There
is but one Wizard to disclose that secret, as all others,--the old
Grave-digger, whose Churchyard is the Earth,--whose trade is to find
burial-places for Passions that seemed immortal,--disinterring the
ashes of some long-crumbling Memory--to hollow out the dark bed of
some new-perished Hope:--He who determines all things, and prophesies
none,--for his oracles are uncomprehended till the doom is sealed--He
who in the bloom of the fairest affection detects the hectic that
consumes it, and while the hymn rings at the altar, marks with his
joyless eye the grave for the bridal vow.--Wherever is the sepulchre,
there is thy temple, O melancholy Time!
BOOK V.
CHAPTER I.
“Per ambages et ministeria deorum.”--PETRONTUS.
[Through the mysteries and ministerings of the gods.]
Mr. Roger Morton was behind his counter one drizzling, melancholy day.
Mr. Roger Morton, alderman, and twice mayor of his native town, was a
thriving man. He had grown portly and corpulent. The nightly potations
of brandy and water, continued year after year with mechanical
perseverance, had deepened the roses on his cheek. Mr. Roger Morton was
never intoxicated--he “only made himself comfortable.” His constitution
was strong; but, somehow or other, his digestion was not as good as it
might be. He was certain that something or other disagreed with him.
He left off the joint one day--the pudding another. Now he avoided
vegetables as poison--and now he submitted with a sigh to the doctor’s
interdict of his cigar. Mr. Roger Morton never thought of leaving
off the brandy and water: and he would have resented as the height of
impertinent insinuation any hint upon that score to a man of so sober
and respectable a character.
Mr. Roger Morton was seated--for the last four years, ever since his
second mayoralty, he had arrogated to himself the dignity of a chair. He
received rather than served his customers. The latter task was left to
two of his sons. For Tom, after much cogitation, the profession of
an apothecary had been selected. Mrs. Morton observed, that it was a
genteel business, and Tom had always been a likely lad. And Mr. Roger
considered that it would be a great comfort and a great saving to have
his medical adviser in his own son.
The other two sons and the various attendants of the shop were plying
the profitable trade, as customer after customer, with umbrellas and in
pattens, dropped into the tempting shelter--when a man, meanly dressed,
and who was somewhat past middle age, with a careworn, hungry face,
entered timidly. He waited in patience by the crowded counter, elbowed
by sharp-boned and eager spinsters--and how sharp the elbows of
spinsters are, no man can tell who has not forced his unwelcome way
through the agitated groups in a linendraper’s shop!--the man, I say,
waited patiently and sadly, till the smallest of the shopboys turned
from a lady, who, after much sorting and shading, had finally decided on
two yards of lilac-coloured penny riband, and asked, in an insinuating
professional tone,--
“What shall I show you, sir?”
“I wish to speak to Mr. Morton. Which is he?”
“Mr. Morton is engaged, sir. I can give you what you want.”
“No--it is a matter of business--important business.” The boy eyed the
napless and dripping hat, the gloveless hands, and the rusty neckcloth
of the speaker; and said, as he passed his fingers through a profusion
of light curls “Mr. Morton don’t attend much to business himself now;
but that’s he. Any cravats, sir?”
The man made no answer, but moved where, near the window, and chatting
with the banker of the town (as the banker tried on a pair of beaver
gloves), sat still--after due apology for sitting--Mr. Roger Morton.
The alderman lowered his spectacles as he glanced grimly at the lean
apparition that shaded the spruce banker, and said,--
“Do you want me, friend?”
“Yes, sir, if you please;” and the man took off his shabby hat, and
bowed low.
“Well, speak out. No begging petition, I hope?”
“No, sir! Your nephews--”
The banker turned round, and in his turn eyed the newcomer. The
linendraper started back.
“Nephews!” he repeated, with a bewildered look. “What does the man mean?
Wait a bit.”
“Oh, I’ve done!” said the banker, smiling. “I am glad to find we agree
so well upon this question: I knew we should. Our member will never suit
us if he goes on in this way. Trade must take care of itself. Good day
to You!”
“Nephews!” repeated Mr. Morton, rising, and beckoning to the man to
follow him into the back parlour, where Mrs. Morton sat casting up the
washing bills.
“Now,” said the husband, closing the door, “what do you mean, my good
fellow?”
“Sir, what I wish to ask you is--if you can tell me what has become
of--of the young Beau--, that is, of your sister’s sons. I understand
there were two--and I am told that--that they are both dead. Is it so?”
“What is that to you, friend?”
“An please you, sir, it is a great deal to them!”
“Yes--ha! ha! it is a great deal to everybody whether they are alive or
dead!” Mr. Morton, since he had been mayor, now and then had his joke.
“But really--”
“Roger!” said Mrs. Morton, under her breath--“Roger!”
“Yes, my dear.”
“Come this way--I want to speak to you about this bill.” The husband
approached, and bent over his wife. “Who’s this man?”
“I don’t know.”
“Depend on it, he has some claim to make--some bills or something. Don’t
commit yourself--the boys are dead for what we know!”
Mr. Morton hemmed and returned to his visitor.
“To tell you the truth, I am not aware of what has become of the young
men.”
“Then they are not dead--I thought not!” exclaimed the man, joyously.
“That’s more than I can say. It’s many years since I lost sight of the
only one I ever saw; and they may be both dead for what I know.”
“Indeed!” said the man. “Then you can give me no kind of--of--hint like,
to find them out?”
“No. Do they owe you anything?”
“It does not signify talking now, sir. I beg your pardon.”
“Stay--who are you?”
“I am a very poor man, sir.”
Mr. Morton recoiled.
“Poor! Oh, very well--very well. You have done with me now. Good
day--good day. I’m busy.”
The stranger pecked for a moment at his hat--turned the handle of the
door--peered under his grey eyebrows at the portly trader, who, with
both hands buried in his pockets, his mouth pursed up, like a man about
to say “No” fidgeted uneasily behind Mrs. Morton’s chair. He sighed,
shook his head, and vanished.
Mrs. Morton rang the bell--the maid-servant entered. “Wipe the carpet,
Jenny;--dirty feet! Mr. Morton, it’s a Brussels!”
“It was not my fault, my dear. I could not talk about family matters
before the whole shop. Do you know, I’d quite forgot those poor boys.
This unsettles me. Poor Catherine! she was so fond of them. A pretty boy
that Sidney, too. What can have become of them? My heart rebukes me. I
wish I had asked the man more.”
“More!--why he was just going to beg.”
“Beg--yes--very true!” said Mr. Morton, pausing irresolutely; and then,
with a hearty tone, he cried out, “And, damme, if he had begged, I could
afford him a shilling! I’ll go after him.” So saying, he hastened back
through the shop, but the man was gone--the rain was falling, Mr. Morton
had his thin shoes on--he blew his nose, and went back to the counter.
But, there, still rose to his memory the pale face of his dead sister;
and a voice murmured in his ear, “Brother, where is my child?”
“Pshaw! it is not my fault if he ran away. Bob, go and get me the county
paper.”
Mr. Morton had again settled himself, and was deep in a trial for
murder, when another stranger strode haughtily into the shop. The
new-comer, wrapped in a pelisse of furs, with a thick moustache, and
an eye that took in the whole shop, from master to boy, from ceiling to
floor, in a glance, had the air at once of a foreigner and a soldier.
Every look fastened on him, as he paused an instant, and then walking up
to the alderman, said,--
“Sir, you are doubtless Mr. Morton?”
“At your commands, sir,” said Roger, rising involuntarily.
“A word with you, then, on business.”
“Business!” echoed Mr. Morton, turning rather pale, for he began to
think himself haunted; “anything in my line, sir? I should be--”
The stranger bent down his tall stature, and hissed into Mr. Morton’s
foreboding ear:
“Your nephews!”
Mr. Morton was literally dumb-stricken. Yes, he certainly was haunted!
He stared at this second questioner, and fancied that there was
something very supernatural and unearthly about him. He was so tall, and
so dark, and so stern, and so strange. Was it the Unspeakable himself
come for the linendraper? Nephews again! The uncle of the babes in the
wood could hardly have been more startled by the demand!
“Sir,” said Mr. Morton at last, recovering his dignity and somewhat
peevishly,--“sir, I don’t know why people should meddle with my family
affairs. I don’t ask other folks about their nephews. I have no nephew
that I know of.”
“Permit me to speak to you, alone, for one instant.” Mr. Morton sighed,
hitched up his trousers, and led the way to the parlour, where Mrs.
Morton, having finished the washing bills, was now engaged in tying
certain pieces of bladder round certain pots of preserves. The eldest
Miss Morton, a young woman of five or six-and-twenty, who was about to
be very advantageously married to a young gentleman who dealt in coals
and played the violin (for N----- was a very musical town), had
just joined her for the purpose of extorting “The Swiss Boy, with
variations,” out of a sleepy little piano, that emitted a very painful
cry under the awakening fingers of Miss Margaret Morton.
Mr. Morton threw open the door with a grunt, and the stranger pausing
at the threshold, the full flood of sound (key C) upon which “the Swiss
Boy” was swimming along, “kine” and all, for life and death, came splash
upon him.
“Silence! can’t you?” cried the father, putting one hand to his ear,
while with the other he pointed to a chair; and as Mrs. Morton looked
up from the preserves with that air of indignant suffering with which
female meekness upbraids a husband’s wanton outrage, Mr. Roger added,
shrugging his shoulders,--
“My nephews again, Mrs. K!”
Miss Margaret turned round, and dropped a courtesy. Mrs. Morton gently
let fall a napkin over the preserves, and muttered a sort of salutation,
as the stranger, taking off his hat, turned to mother and daughter one
of those noble faces in which Nature has written her grant and warranty
of the lordship of creation.
“Pardon me,” he said, “if I disturb you. But my business will be short.
I have come to ask you, sir, frankly, and as one who has a right to ask
it, what tidings you can give me of Sidney Morton?”
“Sir, I know nothing whatever about him. He was taken from my house,
about twelve years since, by his brother. Myself, and the two Mr.
Beauforts, and another friend of the family, went in search of them
both. My search failed.”
“And theirs?”
“I understood from Mr. Beaufort that they had not been more successful.
I have had no communication with those gentlemen since. But that’s
neither here nor there. In all probability, the elder of the boys--who,
I fear, was a sad character--corrupted and ruined his brother; and, by
this time, Heaven knows what and where they are.”
“And no one has inquired of you since--no one has asked the brother of
Catherine Morton, nay, rather of Catherine Beaufort--where is the child
intrusted to your care?”
This question, so exactly similar to that which his superstition
had rung on his own ears, perfectly appalled the worthy alderman. He
staggered back-stared at the marked and stern face that lowered upon
him--and at last cried,--
“For pity’s sake, sir, be just! What could I do for one who left me of
his own accord?--”
“The day you had beaten him like a dog. You see, Mr. Morton, I know
all.”
“And what are you?” said Mr. Morton, recovering his English courage, and
feeling himself strangely browbeaten in his own house;--“What and
who are you, that you thus take the liberty to catechise a man of my
character and respectability?”
“Twice mayor--” began Mrs. Morton.
“Hush, mother!” whispered Miss Margaret,--“don’t work him up.”
“I repeat, sir, what are you?”
“What am I?--your nephew! Who am I? Before men, I bear a name that I
have assumed, and not dishonoured--before Heaven I am Philip Beaufort!”
Mrs. Morton dropped down upon her stool. Margaret murmured “My cousin!”
in a tone that the ear of the musical coal-merchant might not have
greatly relished. And Mr. Morton, after a long pause, came up with a
frank and manly expression of joy, and said:--
“Then, sir, I thank Heaven, from my heart, that one of my sister’s
children stands alive before me!”
“And now, again, I--I whom you accuse of having corrupted and ruined
him--him for whom I toiled and worked--him, who was to me, then, as a
last surviving son to some anxious father--I, from whom he was reft and
robbed--I ask you again for Sidney--for my brother!”
“And again, I say, that I have no information to give you--that--Stay
a moment--stay. You must pardon what I have said of you before you
made yourself known. I went but by the accounts I had received from Mr.
Beaufort. Let me speak plainly; that gentleman thought, right or wrong,
that it would be a great thing to separate your brother from you. He may
have found him--it must be so--and kept his name and condition concealed
from us all, lest you should detect it. Mrs. M., don’t you think so?”
“I’m sure I’m so terrified I don’t know what to think,” said Mrs.
Morton, putting her hand to her forehead, and see-sawing herself to and
fro upon her stool.
“But since they wronged you--since you--you seem so very--very--”
“Very much the gentleman,” suggested Miss Margaret. “Yes, so much the
gentleman;--well off, too, I should hope, sir,”--and the experienced
eye of Mr. Morton glanced at the costly sables that lined the
pelisse,--“there can be no difficulty in your learning from Mr. Beaufort
all that you wish to know. And pray, sir, may I ask, did you send any
one here to-day to make the very inquiry you have made?”
“I?--No. What do you mean?”
“Well, well--sit down--there may be something in all this that you may
make out better than I can.”
And as Philip obeyed, Mr. Morton, who was really and honestly rejoiced
to see his sister’s son alive and apparently thriving, proceeded to
relate pretty exactly the conversation he had held with the previous
visitor. Philip listened earnestly and with attention. Who could this
questioner be? Some one who knew his birth--some one who sought him
out?--some one, who--Good Heavens! could it be the long-lost witness of
the marriage?
As soon as that idea struck him, he started from his seat and entreated
Morton to accompany him in search of the stranger. “You know not,” he
said, in a tone impressed with that energy of will in which lay the
talent of his mind,--“you know not of what importance this may be to
my prospects--to your sister’s fair name. If it should be the witness
returned at last! Who else, of the rank you describe, would be
interested in such inquiries? Come!”
“What witness?” said Mrs. Morton, fretfully. “You don’t mean to come
over us with the old story of the marriage?”
“Shall your wife slander your own sister, sir? A marriage there was--God
yet will proclaim the right--and the name of Beaufort shall be yet
placed on my mother’s gravestone. Come!”
“Here are your shoes and umbrella, pa,” cried Miss Margaret, inspired by
Philip’s earnestness.
“My fair cousin, I guess,” and as the soldier took her hand, he kissed
the unreluctant cheek--turned to the door--Mr. Morton placed his arm in
his, and the next moment they were in the street.
When Catherine, in her meek tones, had said, “Philip Beaufort was my
husband,” Roger Morton had disbelieved her. And now one word from the
son, who could, in comparison, know so little of the matter, had
almost sufficed to convert and to convince the sceptic. Why was this?
Because--Man believes the Strong!