STILL HUMAN.
Mr. Balfour atoned for his previous indifference to the wares of the
news-boy by sending him next morning to the station for all the local
papers. In each, as he expected, there was a paragraph headed
_Mysterious Disappearance_, and as lengthened an account as professional
ingenuity could devise of the unaccountable departure of Mr. Solomon Coe
from his house at Gethin. The missing man was "much respected;" and, "as
the prosperous owner of the Dunloppel mine, which had yielded so largely
for so many years, he could certainly not have been pressed by pecuniary
embarrassments, and therefore the idea of suicide was out of the
question." Unlikely as it seemed in the case of one who knew the country
so well, the most probable explanation of the affair was that the
unfortunate gentleman, in taking a walk by night along the cliff top,
must have slipped into the sea. The weather had been very rough of late
and the wind blowing from off the land, which would have accounted--if
this supposition was correct--for the body not having been washed
ashore. "In the mean time an active search was going on."
Balfour had resolved not to return to London for at least ten days. Mrs.
Coe and her son would, without doubt, be telegraphed for, and he could
not repair to their house in their absence. The idea of being under the
same roof alone with his mother was now repugnant to him. He felt that
he could not trust himself in such a position. It had been hard and
grievous, notwithstanding his resentment against her, to see her in
company with others, and her absence of late from table had been a great
relief to him. With his present feeling toward her it would be
impossible to maintain his incognito; and, if that was lost, his future
plans--to which he well knew she would oppose herself--would be rendered
futile. He had seen with rage and bitter jealousy that both Harry and
her boy, and especially the latter, were dear to her; and it was certain
she would interfere to protect them, for their sake as well as for his
own. He had other reasons also for not returning immediately to town. It
might hereafter be expedient to show that he _had_ really been to
Midlandshire, where he had given out he had designed to go; and,
moreover, though his purpose was relentless as respected Solomon, he did
not perhaps care to be in a house where hourly suggestions would be
dropped as to the whereabouts of his victim, or the fate that had
happened to him. Harry and her son might even not have gone to Gethin,
and in that case their apprehensions and surmises would have been
insupportable.
Richard was more human than he would fain believe himself to be. Though
he had gone to bed so inexorable of purpose, it had been somewhat shaken
through the long hours of a night in which he had slept but little, and
waked to think on what his feverish dreams had dwelt upon--the fate of
his unhappy foe, perishing slowly beside his useless treasure. More than
once, indeed, the impulse had been strong upon him that very morning to
send word anonymously where Solomon was to be found to the police at
Plymouth. Remorse had not as yet become chronic with him, but it seized
him by fits and starts.
There had been a time when he had looked (through his prison bars) on
all men with rage and hatred; but now he caught himself, as it were, at
attempts at self-justification with respect to the retribution he had
exacted even from his enemy. Had he not been rendered miserable, he
argued, supremely wretched, for more than half his lifetime, through
this man's agency? for it was certain that Solomon had sworn falsely, in
the spirit if not in the letter, and caused him to be convicted of a
crime which his rival was well aware he had not in intention committed.
His conduct toward him on the occasion of his arrest had also been most
brutal and insulting; while, after conviction had been obtained, this
wretch's malice, as Mr. Dodge had stated, had known no cessation. In the
arms of his young bride he had been deaf to the piteous cry of a mother
beseeching for her only son.
But, on the other hand, had not he (Richard) deeply wronged this man in
the first instance? Had he not robbed him--for so much at least must
Solomon have known--of the love of his promised wife? If happiness from
such an ill-assorted union was not to have been anticipated, still, had
he not rendered it impossible? If their positions had been reversed,
would not he have exacted expiation from such an offender to the
uttermost? He would doubtless have scorned to twist the law as Solomon
had done, and make it, as it were, the crooked instrument of his
revenge. He would not, of course, have evoked its aid at all. But was
that to be placed to his credit? He had put himself above the law
throughout his life; he had never acknowledged any authority save that
of his own selfish will; nay, he owned to himself that his bitterness
against his unhappy victim had been caused not so much by the wrong he
had suffered at his hands as by the contempt which he (Richard) had
entertained for him. Without materials such as his father had possessed
to back his pretensions he had imagined himself a sort of irresponsible
and sovereign being. (Such infatuation is by no means rare, nor confined
to despots and brigands, and when it exists in a poor man it is always
fatal to himself.) His education, if it could be called such, had
doubtless fostered this delusion; but Mr. Dodge was right; the Carew
blood had been as poison in his veins, and had destroyed him.
All this might be true; but such philosophy could scarcely now obtain a
hearing, while his enemy was dying of starvation in his living tomb. It
was in vain for him to repeat mechanically that he had also suffered a
sort of lingering death for twenty years. The present picture of his
rival's torments presented itself in colors so lively and terrible that
it blotted out the reminiscence of his own. The recollection of his
wrongs was no longer sufficient for his vindication. He therefore strove
to behold his victim in another light than as his private foe--as the
murderer of his friend Balfour, the history of whose end may here be
told.
On the night that Richard escaped from Lingmoor, it was Balfour, of
course, who assisted him, and who was awaiting him in person at the foot
of the prison wall. The old man's arms had received him as he slipped
down the rope; and the object at which the sentry had fired had been two
men, though in the misty night they had seemed but one. Balfour had been
mortally wounded, and it was with the utmost difficulty that, laden
with the burden of his dying friend, Richard had contrived to reach
Bergen Wood. As his own footsteps were alone to be traced along the
moor, the idea of another having accompanied his flight--though they
knew there was complicity--had not occurred to the authorities. Balfour
had hardly reached that wretched asylum when he expired, pressing
Richard's hand, and bidding him remember Earl Street, Spitalfields.
"What you find there is all yours, lad," was his dying testament and
last words of farewell. And over his dead body Richard swore anew his
vow of vengeance against the man that had thus, though indirectly,
deprived him of his only friend. He had watched by the dead body, on its
bed of rotten leaves, through that night and the whole of the next day;
then, changing clothes with it, he had fled under cover of the ensuing
darkness, and got away eventually to town.
He had found the house in Earl Street a wretched hovel, tenanted by a
few abjects, whom the money found on Balfour--which he had received on
leaving prison--was amply sufficient to buy out. Once alone in this
tenement, he had easily possessed himself of the spoil so long secreted,
and, furnished with it, he had hastened down to Crompton--the news of
Carew's death having reached London on the very day that he found
himself in a position to profit by it. The very plan which he had
suggested to Balfour, whose name he also assumed, he himself put into
execution. He made a private offer for the disused mine, which was
gladly accepted by those who had the disposal of the property, acting
under the advice of Parson Whymper. Trevethick, the only man that had
attached any importance to the possession of it, was dead; and it was
not likely that any one at the sale should bid one-half of the sum which
this stranger was prepared to give for the mere gratification of his
whim. The mine itself, indeed, had scarcely been mentioned in the
transaction; it merely formed a portion in the lot comprising the few
barren acres on which this capricious purchaser had expressed his fancy
to build a home. "Disposed of by private contract" was the marginal note
written in the auctioneer's catalogue which dashed Solomon's
long-cherished hopes to the ground.
Richard staid on in the neighborhood to attend the sale. It attracted an
immense concourse; and no less than a guinea a head was the price of
admission to those who explored the splendid halls of Crompton,
discussing the character of its late owner, and retailing wild stories
of his eccentricities. Poor Parson Whymper, who had not a shilling left
to him--for Carew had died intestate, though, thanks to him, not
absolutely a beggar--was perhaps the only person present who felt a
touch of regret. He had asked for his patron's signet-ring, as a
keepsake, and this request had been refused on the part of the
creditors; he wandered among the gay and jeering crowd like a ghost,
little thinking that the one man who looked at him with a glance of pity
was he whom he had once regarded as the heir of Crompton. It was the
general opinion now that the unhappy chaplain had been Carew's evil
genius, and had "led him on." Even Richard bestowed but that single
glance upon him; he _was_ looking in vain for the face that had so
terrible an interest for himself. He had not heard that Trevethick was
dead, but he knew it was so the instant that his eyes fell upon Solomon
Coe, and all his hate was at once transferred to his younger enemy. The
business upon which this man had come was as clear to him as though it
had been written on his forehead. The first gleam of pleasure which had
visited his dark soul for twenty years was the sight of Solomon's
countenance when, on the sixth day's sale, the auctioneer gave out that
lot 970 had been withdrawn. Solomon might have received the intimation
long before but for the cautious prudence which had prevented him from
making any inquiries upon the subject. For a minute or two he stood
stunned and silent, then hurriedly made his way to the rostrum. Richard,
who was sitting at the long table with the catalogue before him, kept
his eyes fixed upon its pages while the auctioneer pointed him out as
the purchaser of the lot in question. He knew the inquiry that was being
asked, and its reply; he knew whose burly form it was that thrust itself
the next minute in between him and his neighbor; every drop of blood in
his body, every hair on his head, seemed to be cognizant that the man he
hated most on earth was seated cheek by jowl with him--that the first
step in the road of retribution had been taken voluntarily by his victim
himself. The rest is soon told. Solomon at once commenced his clumsy
efforts at conciliation; and his endeavors to recommend himself to the
stranger's friendship were suffered quickly to bear fruit. He invited
him to his house in London, which, to Richard's astonishment and
indignation, he found to be his mother's home; and, in short, fell of
his own accord into the very snare which the other, had he had the
fixing of it, would himself have laid for him.
And now, as we have said, when all had gone exactly as Richard would
have had it go, and Solomon was being punished to the uttermost, the
executor of his doom was beginning to feel, if not compunction, at all
events remorse. No adequate retribution had indeed overtaken Harry. To
have made her a widow was, in fact, to have freed her from the yoke of a
harsh and unloved master; but the fact was, notwithstanding the perjury
of which he believed her to have been guilty, he had never hated her as
he had hated the other authors of his wrongs. She had once on the
rock-bound coast at Gethin preserved his life; she had accorded to his
passion all that woman can grant, and had reciprocated it; not even in
his fiercest hour of despair had he harbored the thought of raising his
hand against her; he had hated her, indeed, as his betrayer, and as
Solomon's wife, but never regarded her with that burning detestation
which he felt toward her husband. There was another motive also, though
he did not even admit it to himself, which, now that his chief foe was
expiating his offense, had no inconsiderable weight in the scale of
mercy as regarded the others.
His endeavors to win Charley's favor had had a reflex action. In spite
of himself, a certain good-will had grown up in him toward this boy,
whom his mission it was to ruin. If there had been less of his mother in
the lad's appearance, or any thing of his father in his character, his
heart might have been steeled against his youth and innocence of
transgression. As a mere son of Solomon Coe's he would have beheld in
him the whelp of a wolf, and treated him accordingly; but between the
wolf and his offspring there was evidently as little of affection as
there was of likeness. The very weaknesses of Charley's character--his
love of pleasure, his credulity, his wayward impulsiveness, of all which
Balfour had made use for his own purposes--were foreign to the nature of
the elder Coe; while the lad's high spirit, demonstrativeness, and
geniality were all his own. If he had one to guide as well as love
him--a woman with sound heart and brain, such as this Agnes Aird was
represented to be, what a happy future might be before this youth!
Without such a wise counselor, how easy it would be, and how likely, for
him to drift on the tide of self-will and self-indulgence to the devil!
The decision rested in Richard's own hands, he knew. Should he blast
this young life in the bud, in revenge for acts for which he was in no
way accountable, and which were already being so bitterly expiated? The
apprehension that Solomon might even yet be found alive perhaps alone
prevented Richard from resolving finally to molest Harry and her son no
further. If his victim should have been rescued, his enmity would have
doubtless blazed forth afresh against them as inextinguishable as ever,
but in the mean time it smouldered, and was dying out for want of fuel.
If he had no penitence with respect to the terrible retribution he had
already wrought, the idea of it disturbed him. If he had no scruples, he
had pangs: when all was over--in a day or two, for even so strong a man
as Solomon could scarcely hold out longer--he would doubtless cease to
be troubled with them; when he was once dead Richard did not fear his
ghost; but the thought of this perishing wretch at present haunted him.
He was still not far from Gethin, and its neighborhood was likely to
encourage such unpleasant feelings. He had only executed a righteous
judgment, since there was no law to right him; but even a judge would
avoid the vicinity of a gallows on which hangs a man on whom he had
passed sentence.
He would go into Midlandshire--where he was now supposed to be--until
the affair had blown over. That watching and waiting for the Thing to be
discovered would, he foresaw, be disagreeable, nervous work. And when it
happened, how full the newspapers would be of it! How Solomon got to the
place where he would be found would be as much a matter of marvel as the
object of his going there. If the copper lode--the existence of which
Richard did not doubt--were discovered, as it most likely would be when
the mine became the haunt of the curious and the morbid, it was only too
probable that public attention would be drawn to the owner. The
identification of Robert Balfour with the visitor who had visited
Turlock might then be established, whence would rise suspicion, and
perhaps discovery. Richard had no terrors upon his own account, but he
was solicitous to spare his mother this new shame. He had been hitherto
guiltless in her eyes, or, when blameworthy, the victim of
circumstances; but could her love for him survive the knowledge that he
was a murderer? But why encourage these morbid apprehensions? Was it not
just as likely that the Thing would never be discovered at all? Once set
upon a wrong scent, as folks already were, since the papers had
suggested the man was drowned, why should they ever hit upon the right
one? Wheal Danes had not been explored for half a century. Why should
not Solomon's bones lie there till the judgment-day?
At this point in his reflections the door opened--he was taking his
breakfast in a private sitting-room--and admitted, as he thought, the
waiter. Richard stood in such profound thought that it was almost
stupor, with his arms upon the mantel-piece, and his head resting on his
hands. He did not change his posture; but when the door closed, and
there was silence in place of the expected clatter of the breakfast
things, he turned about, and beheld Harry standing before him--in deep
black, and, as it seemed to him, in widow's weeds!