aberration into vulgar and low humanity. His habitual contempt for his
kinsman returned; and with contempt came the natural indifference to the
sufferings of the thing to be put to use. It is contempt for the worm
that makes the angler fix it on the hook, and observe with complacency
that the vivacity of its wriggles will attract the bite. If the worm
could but make the angler respect, or even fear it, the barb would find
some other bait. Few anglers would impale an estimable silkworm, and
still fewer the anglers who would finger into service a formidable
hornet.
“Pooh, my--dear Frank,” said Randal; “I have given you my advice; you
reject it. Well, what then will you do?”
“I shall ask for leave of absence, and run away some where,” said Frank,
drying his tears. “I can’t face London; I can’t mix with others. I want
to be by myself, and wrestle with all that I feel here--in my heart.
Then I shall write to my mother, say the plain truth, and leave her to
judge as kindly of me as she can.”
“You are quite right. Yes, leave town! Why not go abroad? You have never
been abroad. New scenes will distract your mind. Run over to Paris.”
“Not to Paris--I don’t want gayeties; but I did intend to go abroad
somewhere,--any dull dismal hole of a place. Good-by! Don’t think of me
any more for the present.”
“But let me know where you go; and meanwhile I will see the squire.”
“Say as little of me as you can to him. I know you mean most kindly, but
oh, how I wish there never had been any third person between me and my
father! There: you may well snatch away your hand. What an ungrateful
wretch to you I am. I do believe I am the wickedest fellow. What! you
shake hands with me still! My dear Randal, you have the best heart--God
bless you!” Frank turned away, and disappeared within his dressing-room.
“They must be reconciled now, sooner or later,--squire and son,” said
Randal to himself, as he left the lodgings. “I don’t see how I can
prevent that,--the marchesa being withdrawn,--unless Frank does it for
me. But it is well he should be abroad,--something maybe made out
of that; meanwhile I may yet do all that I could reasonably hope
to do,--even if Frank had married Beatrice,--since he was not to be
disinherited. Get the squire to advance the money for the Thornhill
purchase, complete the affair; this marriage with Violante will help;
Levy must know that; secure the borough;--well thought of. I will go to
Avenel’s. By-the-by, by-the-by, the squire might as well keep me still
in the entail after Frank, supposing Frank die childless. This love
affair may keep him long from marrying. His hand was very hot,--a hectic
colour; those strong-looking fellows often go off in rapid decline,
especially if anything preys on their minds,--their minds are so very
small.
“Ah, the Hazeldean parson,--and with Avenel! That young man, too, who
is he? I have seen him before some where.--My dear Mr. Dale, this is
a pleasant surprise. I thought you had returned to Hazeldean with our
friend the squire?”
MR. DALE.--“The squire! Has he left town, and without telling me?”
RANDAL (taking aside the parson).--“He was anxious to get back to Mrs.
Hazeldean, who was naturally very uneasy about her son and this foolish
marriage; but I am happy to tell you that that marriage is effectually
and permanently broken off.”
MR. DALE.--“How, how? My poor friend told me he had wholly failed to
make any impression on Frank,--forbade me to mention the subject. I was
just going to see Frank myself. I always had some influence with him.
But, Mr. Leslie, explain this very sudden and happy event. The marriage
broken off!”
RANDAL.--“It is a long story, and I dare not tell you my humble share in
it. Nay, I must keep that secret. Frank might not forgive me. Suffice
it that you have my word that the fair Italian has left England, and
decidedly refused Frank’s addresses. But stay, take my advice, don’t
go to him; you see it was not only the marriage that has offended the
squire, but some pecuniary transactions,--an unfortunate post-obit bond
on the Casino property. Frank ought to be left to his own repentant
reflections. They will be most salutary; you know his temper,--he don’t
bear reproof; and yet it is better, on the other hand, not to let him
treat too lightly what has passed. Let us leave him to himself for a few
days He is in an excellent frame of mind.”
MR. DALE (shaking Randal’s hand warmly).--“You speak admirably--a
post-obit!--so often as he has heard his father’s opinion on such
transactions. No, I will not see him; I should be too angry--”
RANDAL (leading the parson back, resumes, after an exchange of
salutations with Avenel, who, meanwhile, had been conferring with his
nephew).--“You should not be so long away from your rectory, Mr. Dale.
What will your parish do without you?”
MR. DALE.--“The old fable of the wheel and the fly. I am afraid the
wheel rolls on the same. But if I am absent from my parish, I am still
in the company of one who does me honour as an old parishioner. You
remember Leonard Fairfield, your antagonist in the Battle of the
Stocks?”
MR. AVENEL.--“My nephew, I am proud to say, sir.” Randal bowed with
marked civility, Leonard with a reserve no less marked.
MR. AVENEL (ascribing his nephew’s reserve to shyness).--“You should be
friends, you two youngsters. Who knows but you may run together in the
same harness? Ah, that reminds me, Leslie, I have a word or two to say
to you. Your servant, Mr. Dale. Shall be happy to present you to
Mrs. Avenel. My card,--Eaton Square, Number --. You will call on me
to-morrow, Leonard. And mind, I shall be very angry if you persist in
your refusal. Such an opening!” Avenel took Randal’s arm, while the
parson and Leonard walked on.
“Any fresh hints as to Lansmere?” asked Randal.
“Yes; I have now decided on the plan of contest. You must fight two and
two,--you and Egerton against me and (if I can get him to stand, as I
hope) my nephew, Leonard.”
“What!” said Randal, alarmed; “then, after all, I can hope for no
support from you?”
“I don’t say that; but I have reason to think Lord L’Estrange will
bestir himself actively in favour of Egerton. If so, it will be a very
sharp contest; and I must manage the whole election on our side, and
unite all our shaky votes, which I can best do by standing myself in
the first instance, reserving it to after consideration whether I shall
throw up at the last; for I don’t particularly want to come in, as I
did a little time ago, before I had found out my nephew. Wonderful young
man! with such a head,--will do me credit in the rotten old House; and
I think I had best leave London, go to Screwstown, and look to my
business. No, if Leonard stand, I roust first see to get him in; and
next, to keep Egerton out. It will probably, therefore, end in the
return of one and one or either side, as we thought of before,--Leonard
on our side; and Egerton sha’n’t be the man on the other. You
understand?”
“I do, my dear Avenel. Of course, as I before said, I can’t dictate to
your party whom they should prefer,--Egerton or myself. And it will be
obvious to the public that your party would rather defeat so eminent an
adversary as Mr. Egerton than a tyro in politics like me. Of course I
cannot scheme for such a result; it would be misconstrued, and damage my
character. But I rely equally on your friendly promise.”
“Promise! No, I don’t promise. I must first see how the cat jumps; and
I don’t know yet how our friends may like you, nor how they can be
managed. All I can say is, that Audley Egerton sha’n’t be M.P. for
Lansmere. Meanwhile, you will take care not to commit yourself in
speaking so that our party can’t vote for you consistently; they must
count on having you--when you get into the House.”
“I am not a violent party-man at present,” answered Randal, prudently.
“And if public opinion prove on your side, it is the duty of a statesman
to go with the times.”
“Very sensibly said; and I have a private bill or two, and some other
little jobs, I want to get through the House, which we can discuss
later, should it come to a frank understanding between us. We must
arrange how to meet privately at Lansmere, if necessary. I’ll see to
that. I shall go down this week. I think of taking a hint from the free
and glorious land of America, and establishing secret caucuses. Nothing
like ‘em.”
“Caucuses?”
“Small sub-committees that spy on their men night and day, and don’t
suffer them to be intimidated to vote the other way.”
“You have an extraordinary head for public affairs, Avenel. You should
come into parliament yourself; your nephew is so very young.”
“So are you.”
“Yes; but I know the world. Does he?”
“The world knows him, though not by name, and he has been the making of
me.”
“How? You surprise me.”
Avenel first explained about the patent which Leonard had secured
to him; and next confided, upon honour, Leonard’s identity with the
anonymous author whom the parson had supposed to be Professor Moss.
Randal Leslie felt a jealous pang. What! then--had this village boy,
this associate of John Burley (literary vagabond, whom he supposed
had long since gone to the dogs, and been buried at the expense of the
parish)--had this boy so triumphed over birth, rearing, circumstance,
that, if Randal and Leonard had met together in any public place, and
Leonard’s identity with the rising author had been revealed, every eye
would have turned from Randal to gaze on Leonard? The common consent of
mankind would have acknowledged the supreme royalty of genius when it
once leaves its solitude, and strides into the world. What! was
this rude villager the child of Fame, who, without an effort, and
unconsciously, had inspired in the wearied heart of Beatrice di Negra
a love that Randal knew, by an instinct, no arts, no craft, could ever
create for him in the heart of woman? And now, did this same youth stand
on the same level in the ascent to power as he, the well-born Randal
Leslie, the accomplished protege of the superb Audley Egerton? Were they
to be rivals in the same arena of practical busy life? Randal gnawed his
quivering lip.
All the while, however, the young man whom he so envied was a prey to
sorrows deeper far than could ever find room or footing in the narrow
and stony heart of the unloving schemer.
As Leonard walked through the crowded streets with the friend and
monitor of his childhood, confiding the simple tale of his earlier
trials,--when, amidst the wreck of fortune and in despair of fame, the
Child-angel smiled by his side, like Hope,--all renown seemed to him so
barren, all the future so dark! His voice trembled, and his countenance
became so sad, that his benignant listener, divining that around the
image of Helen there clung some passionate grief that overshadowed all
worldly success, drew Leonard gently and gently on, till the young man,
long yearning for some confidant, told him all,--how, faithful through
long years to one pure and ardent memory, Helen had been seen once more,
the child ripened to woman, and the memory revealing itself as love.
The parson listened with a mild and thoughtful brow, which expanded into
a more cheerful expression as Leonard closed his story.
“I see no reason to despond,” said Mr. Dale. “You fear that Miss
Digby does not return your attachment; you dwell upon her reserve, her
distant, though kindly manner. Cheer up! All young ladies are under the
influence of what phrenologists call the organ of Secretiveness, when
they are in the society of the object of their preference. Just as you
describe Miss Digby’s manner to you, was my Carry’s manner to myself.”
The parson here indulged in a very appropriate digression upon female
modesty, which he wound up by asserting that that estimable virtue
became more and more influenced by the secretive organ, in proportion as
the favoured suitor approached near and nearer to a definite proposal.
It was the duty of a gallant and honourable lover to make that proposal
in distinct and orthodox form, before it could be expected that a young
lady should commit herself and the dignity of her sex by the slightest
hint as to her own inclinations.
“Next,” continued the parson, “you choose to torment yourself by
contrasting your own origin and fortunes with the altered circumstances
of Miss Digby,--the ward of Lord L’Estrange, the guest of Lady Lansmere.
You say that if Lord L’Estrange could have countenanced such a union,
he would have adopted a different tone with you,--sounded your heart,
encouraged your hopes, and so forth. I view things differently. I
have reason to do so; and from all you have told me of this nobleman’s
interest in your fate, I venture to make you this promise, that if Miss
Digby would accept your hand, Lord L’Estrange shall ratify her choice.”
“My dear Mr. Dale,” cried Leonard, transported, “you make me that
promise?”
“I do,--from what you have said, and from what I myself know of Lord
L’Estrange. Go, then, at once to Knightsbridge, see Miss Digby, show
her your heart, explain to her, if you will, your prospects, ask her
permission to apply to Lord L’Estrange (since he has constituted
himself her guardian); and if Lord L’Estrange hesitate,--which, if your
happiness be set on this union, I think he will not,--let me know, and
leave the rest to me.”
Leonard yielded himself to the parson’s persuasive eloquence. Indeed,
when he recalled to mind those passages in the manuscripts of the
ill-fated Nora, which referred to the love that Harley had once borne
to her,--for he felt convinced that Harley and the boy suitor of Nora’s
narrative were one and the same; and when all the interest that Harley
had taken in his own fortunes was explained by his relationship to her
(even when Lord L’Estrange had supposed it less close than he would now
discover it to be), the young man, reasoning by his own heart, could not
but suppose that the noble Harley would rejoice to confer happiness upon
the son of her, so beloved by his boyhood.
“And to thee, perhaps, O my mother!” thought Leonard, with swimming
eyes--“to thee, perhaps, even in thy grave, I shall owe the partner
of my life, as to the mystic breath of thy genius I owe the first pure
aspirations of my soul.”
It will be seen that Leonard had not confided to the parson his
discovery of Nora’s manuscripts, nor even his knowledge of his real
birth; for the proud son naturally shrank from any confidence that
implicated Nora’s fair name, until at least Harley, who, it was clear
from those papers, must have intimately known his father, should
perhaps decide the question which the papers themselves left so terribly
vague,--namely, whether he were the offspring of a legal marriage, or
Nora had been the victim of some unholy fraud.
While the parson still talked, and while Leonard still mused and
listened, their steps almost mechanically took the direction towards
Knightsbridge, and paused at the gates of Lord Lansmere’s house.
“Go in, my young friend; I will wait without to know the issue,” said
the parson, cheeringly. “Go, and with gratitude to Heaven, learn how to
bear the most precious joy that can befall mortal man; or how to submit
to youth’s sharpest sorrow, with the humble belief that even sorrow is
but some mercy concealed.”
CHAPTER XIII.
Leonard was shown into the drawing-room, and it so chanced that Helen
was there alone. The girl’s soft face was sadly changed, even
since Leonard had seen it last; for the grief of natures mild and
undemonstrative as hers, gnaws with quick ravages; but at Leonard’s
unexpected entrance, the colour rushed so vividly to the pale cheeks
that its hectic might be taken for the lustre of bloom and health. She
rose hurriedly, and in great confusion faltered out, “that she believed
Lady Lansmere was in her room,--she would go for her,” and moved towards
the door, without seeming to notice the hand tremulously held forth to
her; when Leonard exclaimed in uncontrollable emotions which pierced to
her very heart, in the keen accent of reproach,--
“Oh, Miss Digby--oh, Helen--is it thus that you greet me,--rather thus
that you shun me? Could I have foreseen this when we two orphans stood
by the mournful bridge,--so friendless, so desolate, and so clinging
each to each? Happy time!” He seized her hand suddenly as he spoke the
last words, and bowed his face over it.
“I must not hear you. Do not talk so, Leonard, you break my heart. Let
me go, let me go!”
“Is it that I am grown hateful to you; is it merely that you see my love
and would discourage it? Helen, speak to me,--speak!”
He drew her with tender force towards him; and, holding her firmly
by both hands, sought to gaze upon the face that she turned from
him,--turned in such despair.
“You do not know,” she said at last, struggling for composure,--“you do
not know the new claims on me, my altered position, how I am bound, or
you would be the last to speak thus to me, the first to give me courage,
and bid me--bid me--”
“Bid you what?”
“Feel nothing here but duty!” cried Helen, drawing from his clasp both
her hands, and placing them firmly on her breast.
“Miss Digby,” said Leonard, after a short pause of bitter reflection, in
which he wronged, while he thought to divine, her meaning, “you speak of
new claims on you, your altered position--I comprehend. You may retain
some tender remembrance of the past; but your duty now is to rebuke my
presumption. It is as I thought and feared. This vain reputation which
I have made is but a hollow sound,--it gives me no rank, assures me no
fortune. I have no right to look for the Helen of old in the Helen of
to-day. Be it so--forget what I have said, and forgive me.”
This reproach stung to the quick the heart to which it appealed. A flash
brightened the meek, tearful eyes, almost like the flash of resentment;
her lips writhed in torture, and she felt as if all other pain were
light compared with the anguish that Leonard could impute to her motives
which to her simple nature seemed so unworthy of her, and so galling to
himself.
A word rushed as by inspiration to her lip, and that word calmed and
soothed her.
“Brother!” she said touchingly, “brother!”
The word had a contrary effect on Leonard. Sweet as it was, tender as
the voice that spoke it, it imposed a boundary to affection, it came as
a knell to hope. He recoiled, shook his head mournfully: “Too late to
accept that tie,--too late even for friendship. Henceforth--for long
years to come--henceforth, till this heart has ceased to beat at your
name to thrill at your presence, we two--are strangers.”
“Strangers! Well--yes, it is right--it must be so; we must not meet. Oh,
Leonard Fairfield, who was it that in those days that you recall to me,
who was it that found you destitute and obscure; who, not degrading you
by charity, placed you in your right career; opened to you, amidst the
labyrinth in which you were well-nigh lost, the broad road to knowledge,
independence, fame? Answer me,--answer! Was it not the same who reared,
sheltered your sister orphan? If I could forget what I have owed to
him, should I not remember what he has done for you? Can I hear of your
distinction, and not remember it? Can I think how proud she may be who
will one day lean on your arm, and bear the name you have already raised
beyond all the titles of an hour,--can I think of this, and not remember
our common friend, benefactor, guardian? Would you forgive me, if I
failed to do so?”
“But,” faltered Leonard, fear mingling with the conjectures these words
called forth--“but is it that Lord L’Estrange would not consent to our
union? Or of what do you speak? You bewilder me.”
Helen felt for some moments as if it were impossible to reply; and the
words at length were dragged forth as if from the depth of her very
soul.
“He came to me, our noble friend. I never dreamed of it. He did not tell
me that he loved me. He told me that he was unhappy, alone; that in me,
and only in me, he could find a comforter, a soother--He, he! And I had
just arrived in England, was under his mother’s roof, had not then once
more seen you; and--and--what could I answer? Strengthen me, strengthen
me, you whom I look up to and revere. Yes, yes, you are right. We must
see each other no more. I am betrothed to another,--to him! Strengthen
me!”
All the inherent nobleness of the poet’s nature rose at once at this
appeal.
“Oh, Helen--sister--Miss Digby, forgive me. You need no strength from
me; I borrow it from you. I comprehend you, I respect. Banish all
thought of me. Repay our common benefactor. Be what he asks of you,--his
comforter, his soother; be more,--his pride and his joy. Happiness will
come to you, as it comes to those who confer happiness and forget self.
God comfort you in the passing struggle; God bless you, in the long
years to come. Sister, I accept the holy name now, and will claim it
hereafter, when I too can think more of others than myself.”
Helen had covered her face with her hands, sobbing; but with that soft,
womanly constraint which presses woe back into the heart. A strange
sense of utter solitude suddenly pervaded her whole being, and by that
sense of solitude she knew that he was gone.
CHAPTER XIV.
In another room in that same house sat, solitary as Helen, a stern,
gloomy, brooding man, in whom they who had best known him from his
childhood could scarcely have recognized a trace of the humane,
benignant, trustful, but wayward and varying Harley, Lord L’Estrange.
He had read that fragment of a memoir, in which, out of all the chasms
of his barren and melancholy past, there rose two malignant truths that
seemed literally to glare upon him with mocking and demon eyes. The
woman whose remembrance had darkened all the sunshine of his life had
loved another; the friend in whom he had confided his whole affectionate
loyal soul had been his perfidious rival. He had read from the first
word to the last, as if under a spell that held him breathless; and when
he closed the manuscript, it was without a groan or sigh; but over his
pale lips there passed that withering smile, which is as sure an index
of a heart overcharged with dire and fearful passions, as the arrowy
flash of the lightning is of the tempests that are gathered within the
cloud.
He then thrust the papers into his bosom, and, keeping his hand over
them, firmly clenched, he left the room, and walked slowly on towards
his father’s house. With every step by the way, his nature, in the war
of its elements, seemed to change and harden into forms of granite.
Love, humanity, trust, vanished away. Hate, revenge, misanthropy,
suspicion, and scorn of all that could wear the eyes of affection,
or speak with the voice of honour, came fast through the gloom of his
thoughts, settling down in the wilderness, grim and menacing as the
harpies of ancient song--
“Uncaeque manus, et pallida semper Ora.”
“Hands armed with fangs, and lips forever pale.”
Thus the gloomy man had crossed the threshold of his father’s house, and
silently entered the apartments still set apart for him. He had arrived
about an hour before Leonard; and as he stood by the hearth, with his
arms folded on his breast, and his eyes fixed lead-like on the ground,
his mother came in to welcome and embrace him. He checked her eager
inquiries after Violante, he recoiled from the touch of her hand.
“Hold, madam,” said he, startling her ear with the cold austerity of his
tone. “I cannot heed your questions,--I am filled with the question I
must put to yourself. You opposed my boyish love for Leonora Avenel. I
do not blame you,--all mothers of equal rank would have done the same.
Yet, had you not frustrated all frank intercourse with her, I might have
taken refusal from her own lips,--survived that grief, and now been a
happy man. Years since then have rolled away,--rolled over her quiet
slumbers, and my restless waking life. All this time were you aware that
Audley Egerton had been the lover of Leonora Avenel?”
“Harley, Harley! do not speak to me in that cruel voice, do not look at
me with those hard eyes!”
“You knew it, then,--you, my mother!” continued Harley, unmoved by her
rebuke; “and why did you never say, ‘Son, you are wasting the bloom
and uses of your life in sorrowful fidelity to a lie! You are lavishing
trust and friendship on a perfidious hypocrite.’”
“How could I speak to you thus; how could I dare to do so, seeing you
still so cherished the memory of that unhappy girl, still believed that
she had returned your affection? Had I said to you what I knew (but not
till after her death), as to her relations with Audley Egerton--”
“Well? You falter; go on; had you done so?”
“Would you have felt no desire for revenge? Might there not have been
strife between you, danger, bloodshed? Harley, Harley! Is not such
silence pardonable in a mother? And why deprive you too of the only
friend you seemed to prize; who alone had some influence over you; who
concurred with me in the prayer and hope, that some day you would find
a living partner worthy to replace this lost delusion, arouse your
faculties,--be the ornament your youth promised to your country? For you
wrong Audley,--indeed you do!”
“Wrong him! Ah, let me not do that. Proceed.”
“I do not excuse him his rivalship, nor his first concealment of it. But
believe me, since then, his genuine remorse, his anxious tenderness for
your welfare, his dread of losing your friendship--”
“Stop! It was doubtless Audley Egerton who induced you yourself to
conceal what you call his ‘relations’ with her whom I can now so calmly
name,--Leonora Avenel?”
“It was so, in truth; and from motives that--”
“Enough! let me hear no more.”
“But you will not think too sternly of what is past? You are about to
form new ties. You cannot be wild and wicked enough to meditate what
your brow seems to threaten. You cannot dream of revenge,--risk Audley’s
life or your own?”
“Tut, tut, tut! What cause here for duels? Single combats are out of
date; civilized men do not slay each other with sword and pistol. Tut!
revenge! Does it look like revenge, that one object which brings me
hither is to request my father’s permission to charge myself with the
care of Audley Egerton’s election? What he values most in the world is
his political position; and here his political existence is at stake.
You know that I have had through life the character of a weak, easy,
somewhat over-generous man. Such men are not revengeful. Hold! You lay
your hand on my arm,--I know the magic of that light touch, Mother;
but its power over me is gone. Countess of Lansmere, hear me! Ever from
infancy (save in that frantic passion for which I now despise myself), I
have obeyed you, I trust, as a duteous son. Now, our relative positions
are somewhat altered. I have the right to exact--I will not say to
command--the right which wrong and injury bestow upon all men. Madam,
the injured man has prerogatives that rival those of kings. I now
call upon you to question me no more; not again to breathe the name of
Leonora Avenel, unless I invite the subject; and not to inform Audley
Egerton by a hint, by a breath, that I have discovered--what shall I
call it?--his ‘pardonable deceit.’ Promise me this, by your affection
as mother, and on your faith as gentlewoman; or I declare solemnly, that
never in life will you look upon my face again.”
Haughty and imperious though the countess was, her spirit quailed before
Harley’s brow and voice.
“Is this my son,--this my gentle Harley?” she said falteringly. “Oh, put
your arms round my neck; let me feel that I have not lost my child!”
Harley looked softened, but he did not obey the pathetic prayer;
nevertheless, he held out his hand, and turning away his face, said, in
a milder voice, “Have I your promise?”
“You have, you have; but on condition that there pass no words between
you and Audley that can end but in the strife which--”
“Strife!” interrupted Harley. “I repeat that the idea of challenge and
duel between me and my friend from our school days, and on a quarrel
that we could explain to no seconds, would be a burlesque upon all that
is grave in the realities of life and feeling. I accept your promise and
seal it thus--”
He pressed his lips to his mother’s forehead, and passively received her
embrace.
“Hush,” he said, withdrawing from her arms, “I hear my father’s voice.”
Lord Lansmere threw open the door widely, and with a certain
consciousness that a door by which an Earl of Lansmere entered ought to
be thrown open widely. It could not have been opened with more majesty
if a huissier or officer of the Household had stood on either side. The
countess passed by her lord with a light step, and escaped.
“I was occupied with my architect in designs for the new infirmary, of
which I shall make a present to our county. I have only just heard that
you were here, Harley. What is all this about our fair Italian guest?
Is she not coming back to us? Your mother refers me to you for
explanations.”
“You shall have them later, my dear father; at present I can think only
of public affairs.”
“Public affairs! they are indeed alarming. I am rejoiced to hear you
express yourself so worthily. An awful crisis, Harley! And, gracious
Heaven! I have heard that a low man, who was born in Lansmere, but made
a fortune in America, is about to contest the borough. They tell me he
is one of the Avenels,--a born Blue; is it possible?”
“I have come here on that business. As a peer you cannot, of course,
interfere; but I propose, with your leave, to go down myself to
Lansmere, and undertake the superintendence of, the election. It would
be better, perhaps, if you were not present; it would give us more
liberty of action.”
“My dear Harley, shake hands; anything you please. You know how I have
wished to see you come forward, and take that part in life which becomes
your birth.”
“Ah, you think I have sadly wasted my existence hitherto.”
“To be frank with you, yes, Harley,” said the earl, with a pride that
was noble in its nature, and not without dignity in its expression. “The
more we take from our country, the more we owe to her. From the moment
you came into the world as the inheritor of lands and honours, you were
charged with a trust for the benefit of others, that it degrades one of
our order of gentleman not to discharge.”
Harley listened with a sombre brow, and made no direct reply.
“Indeed,” resumed the earl, “I would rather you were about to canvass
for yourself than for your friend Egerton. But I grant he is an example
that it is never too late to follow. Why, who that had seen you both
as youths, notwithstanding Audley had the advantage of being some
years your senior--who could have thought that he was the one to become
distinguished and eminent, and you to degenerate into the luxurious
idler, averse to all trouble and careless of all fame? You, with such
advantages, not only of higher fortunes, but, as every one said, of
superior talents; you, who had then so much ambition, so keen a desire
for glory, sleeping with Plutarch’s Lives under your pillow, and only,
my wild son, only too much energy. But you are a young man still; it is
not too late to redeem the years you have thrown away.”
“The years are nothing,--mere dates in an almanac; but the feelings,
what can give me back those?--the hope, the enthusiasm, the--No matter!
feelings do not, help men to rise in the world. Egerton’s feelings are
not too lively. What I might have been, leave it to me to remember; let
us talk of the example you set before me,--of Audley Egerton.”
“We must get him in,” said the earl, sinking his voice into a whisper.
“It is of more importance to him than I even thought for. But you know
his secrets. Why did you not confide to me frankly the state of his
affairs?”
“His affairs? Do you mean that they are seriously embarrassed? This
interests me much. Pray speak; what do you know?”
“He has discharged the greater part of his establishment. That in itself
is natural on quitting office; but still it set people talking; and it
has got wind that his estates are not only mortgaged for more than they
are worth, but that he has been living upon the discount of bills; in
short, he has been too intimate with a man whom we all know by sight,--a
man who drives the finest horses in London, and they tell me (but that
I cannot believe) lives in the familiar society of the young puppies
he snares to perdition. What’s the man’s name? Levy, is it not?--yes,
Levy.”
“I have seen Levy with him,” said Harley; and a sinister joy lighted up
his falcon eyes. “Levy--Levy--it is well.”
“I hear but the gossip of the clubs,” resumed the earl; “but they do say
that Levy makes little disguise of his power over our very distinguished
friend, and rather parades it as a merit with our party (and, indeed,
with all men--for Egerton has personal friends in every party) that he
keeps sundry bills locked up in his desk until Egerton is once more safe
in parliament. Nevertheless if, after all, our friend were to lose his
election, and Levy were then to seize on his effects, and proclaim his
ruin, it would seriously damage, perhaps altogether destroy, Audley’s
political career.”
“So I conclude,” said Harley. “A Charles Fox might be a gamester, and
a William Pitt be a pauper. But Audley Egerton is not of their giant
stature; he stands so high because he stands upon heaps of respectable
gold. Audley Egerton, needy and impoverished, out of parliament, and, as
the vulgar slang has it, out at elbows, skulking from duns, perhaps in
the Bench--”
“No, no; our party would never allow that; we would subscribe--”
“Worse than all, living as the pensioner of the party he aspired to
lead! You say truly, his political prospects would be blasted. A man
whose reputation lay in his outward respectability! Why, people would
say that Audley Egerton has been--a solemn lie; eh, my father?”
“How can you talk with such coolness of your friend? You need say
nothing to interest me in his election--if you mean that. Once in
parliament, he must soon again be in office,--and learn to live on
his salary. You must get him to submit to me the schedule of his
liabilities. I have a head for business, as you know. I will arrange his
affairs for him. And I will yet bet five to one, though I hate wagers,
that he will be prime minister in three years. He is not brilliant, it
is true; but just at this crisis we want a safe, moderate, judicious,
conciliatory man; and Audley has so much tact, such experience of the
House, such knowledge of the world, and,” added the earl, emphatically
summing up his eulogies, “he is so thorough a gentleman!”
“A thorough gentleman, as you say,--the soul of honour! But, my dear
father, it is your hour for riding; let me not detain you. It is
settled, then; you do not come yourself to Lansmere. You put the house
at my disposal, and allow me to invite Egerton, of course, and what
other guests I may please; in short, you leave all to me?”
“Certainly; and if you cannot get in your friend, who can? That borough,
it is an awkward, ungrateful place, and has been the plague of my life.
So much as I have spent there, too,--so much as I have done to its
trade!” And the earl, with an indignant sigh, left the room.
Harley seated himself deliberately at his writing-table, leaning his
face on his hand, and looking abstractedly into space from under knit
and lowering brows.
Harley L’Estrange was, as we have seen, a man singularly tenacious
of affections and impressions. He was a man, too, whose nature was
eminently bold, loyal, and candid; even the apparent whim and levity
which misled the world, both as to his dispositions and his powers,
might be half ascribed to that open temper which, in its over-contempt
for all that seemed to savour of hypocrisy, sported with forms and
ceremonials, and extracted humour, sometimes extravagant, sometimes
profound, from “the solemn plausibilities of the world.” The shock
he had now received smote the very foundations of his mind, and,
overthrowing all the airier structures which fancy and wit had built
upon its surface, left it clear as a new world for the operations of the
darker and more fearful passions. When a man of a heart so loving and
a nature so irregularly powerful as Harley’s suddenly and abruptly
discovers deceit where he had most confided, it is not (as with the
calmer pupils of that harsh teacher, Experience) the mere withdrawal
of esteem and affection from the one offender; it is, that trust in
everything seems gone; it is, that the injured spirit looks back to the
Past, and condemns all its kindlier virtues as follies that conduced
to its own woe; and looks on to the Future as to a journey beset with
smiling traitors, whom it must meet with an equal simulation, or
crush with a superior force. The guilt of treason to men like these
is incalculable,--it robs the world of all the benefits they would
otherwise have lavished as they passed; it is responsible for all the
ill that springs from the corruption of natures whose very luxuriance,
when the atmosphere is once tainted, does but diffuse disease,--even as
the malaria settles not over thin and barren soils, not over wastes that
have been from all time desolate, but over the places in which southern
suns had once ripened delightful gardens, or the sites of cities, in
which the pomp of palaces has passed away.
It was not enough that the friend of his youth, the confidant of his
love, had betrayed his trust,--been the secret and successful rival; not
enough that the woman his boyhood had madly idolized, and all the while
he had sought her traces with pining, remorseful heart-believing she
but eluded his suit from the emulation of a kindred generosity, desiring
rather to sacrifice her own love than to cost to his the sacrifice of
all which youth rashly scorns and the world so highly estimates,--not
enough that all this while her refuge had been the bosom of another.
This was not enough of injury. His whole life had been wasted on a
delusion; his faculties and aims, the wholesome ambition of lofty
minds, had been arrested at the very onset of fair existence; his
heart corroded by a regret for which there was no cause; his conscience
charged with the terror that his wild chase had urged a too tender
victim to the grave, over which he had mourned. What years that might
otherwise have been to himself so serene, to the world so useful, had
been consumed in objectless, barren, melancholy dreams! And all this
while to whom had his complaints been uttered?--to the man who knew
that his remorse was an idle spectre and his faithful sorrow a mocking
self-deceit. Every thought that could gall man’s natural pride, every
remembrance that could sting into revenge a heart that had loved too
deeply not to be accessible to hate, conspired to goad those maddening
Furies who come into every temple which is once desecrated by the
presence of the evil passions. In that sullen silence of the soul,
vengeance took the form of justice. Changed though his feelings towards
Leonora Avenel were, the story of her grief and her wrongs embittered
still more his wrath against his rival. The fragments of her memoir left
naturally on Harley’s mind the conviction that she had been the victim
of an infamous fraud, the dupe of a false marriage. His idol had not
only been stolen from the altar,--it had been sullied by the sacrifice;
broken with remorseless hand, and thrust into dishonoured clay;
mutilated, defamed; its very memory a thing of contempt to him who had
ravished it from worship. The living Harley and the dead Nora--both
called aloud to their joint despoiler, “Restore what thou hast taken
from us, or pay the forfeit!”
Thus, then, during the interview between Helen and Leonard, thus Harley
L’Estrange sat alone! and as a rude irregular lump of steel, when
wheeled round into rapid motion, assumes the form of the circle it
describes, so his iron purpose, hurried on by his relentless passion,
filled the space into which he gazed with optical delusions, scheme
after scheme revolving and consummating the circles that clasped a foe.
CHAPTER XV.
The entrance of a servant, announcing a name which Harley, in the
absorption of his gloomy revery, did not hear, was followed by that of a
person on whom he lifted his eyes in the cold and haughty surprise
with which a man much occupied greets and rebukes the intrusion of an
unwelcome stranger.
“It is so long since your Lordship has seen me,” said the visitor, with
mild dignity, “that I cannot wonder you do not recognize my person, and
have forgotten my name.”
“Sir,” answered Harley, with an impatient rudeness, ill in harmony with
the urbanity for which he was usually distinguished,--“sir, your person
is strange to me, and your name I did not hear; but, at all events, I am
not now at leisure to attend to you. Excuse my plainness.”
“Yet pardon me if I still linger. My name is Dale. I was formerly curate
at Lansmere; and I would speak to your Lordship in the name and the
memory of one once dear to you,--Leonora Avenel.”
HARLEY (after a short pause).--“Sir, I cannot conjecture your business.
But be seated. I remember you now, though years have altered both, and
I have since heard much in your favour from Leonard Fairfield. Still let
me pray, that you will be brief.”
MR. DALE.--“May I assume at once that you have divined the parentage
of the young man you call Fairfield? When I listened to his grateful
praises of your beneficence, and marked with melancholy pleasure
the reverence in which he holds you, my heart swelled within me. I
acknowledged the mysterious force of nature.”
HARLEY.--“Force of nature! You talk in riddles.”
MR. DALE (indignantly).--“Oh, my Lord, how can you so disguise your
better self? Surely in Leonard Fairfield you have long since recognized
the son of Nora Avenel?”
Harley passed his hand over his face. “Ah,” thought he, “she lived to
bear a son then,--a son to Egerton! Leonard is that son. I should have
known it by the likeness, by the fond foolish impulse that moved me to
him. This is why he confided to me these fearful memoirs. He seeks his
father,--he shall find him.”
MR. DALE (mistaking the cause of Harley’s silence).--“I honour your
compunction, my Lord. Oh, let your heart and your conscience continue to
speak to your worldly pride.”
HARLEY.--“My compunction, heart, conscience! Mr. Dale, you insult me!”
MR. DALE (sternly).--“Not so; I am fulfilling my mission, which bids me
rebuke the sinner. Leonora Avenel speaks in me, and commands the guilty
father to acknowledge the innocent child!”
Harley half rose, and his eyes literally flashed fire; but he calmed his
anger into irony. “Ha!” said he, with a sarcastic smile, “so you suppose
that I was the perfidious seducer of Nora Avenel,--that I am the callous
father of the child who came into the world without a name. Very well,
sir, taking these assumptions for granted, what is it you demand from me
on behalf of this young man?”
“I ask from you his happiness,” replied Mr. Dale, imploringly; and
yielding to the compassion with which Leonard inspired him, and
persuaded that Lord L’Estrange felt a father’s love for the boy whom
he had saved from the whirlpool of London, and guided to safety and
honourable independence, he here, with simple eloquence, narrated all
Leonard’s feelings for Helen,--his silent fidelity to her image, though
a child’s, his love when he again beheld her as a woman, the modest
fears which the parson himself had combated, the recommendation that Mr.
Dale had forced upon him, to confess his affection to Helen, and plead
his cause. “Anxious, as you may believe, for his success,” continued
the parson, “I waited without your gates till he came from Miss Digby’s
presence. And oh, my Lord, had you but seen his face!--such emotion and
such despair! I could not learn from him what had passed. He escaped
from me and rushed away. All that I could gather was from a few
broken words, and from those words I formed the conjecture (it may be
erroneous) that the obstacle to his happiness was not in Helen’s heart,
my Lord, but seemed to me as if it were in yourself. Therefore, when he
had vanished from my sight, I took courage, and came at, once to you.
If he be your son, and Helen Digby be your ward,--she herself an orphan,
dependent on your bounty,--why should they be severed? Equals in years,
united by early circumstance, congenial, it seems, in simple habits and
refined tastes,--what should hinder their union, unless it be the want
of fortune? And all men know your wealth, none ever questioned your
generosity. My Lord, my Lord, your look freezes me. If I have offended,
do not visit my offence on him,--on Leonard!”
“And so,” said Harley, still controlling his rage, “so this boy--whom,
as you say, I saved from that pitiless world which has engulfed many
a nobler genius--so, in return for all, he has sought to rob me of the
last affection, poor and lukewarm though it was, that remained to me
in life? He presume to lift his eyes to my affianced bride! He! And for
aught I know, steal from me her living heart, and leave to me her icy
hand!”
“Oh, my Lord, your affianced bride! I never dreamed of this. I implore
your pardon. The very thought is so terrible, so unnatural! the son to
woo the father’s! Oh, what sin have I fallen into! The sin was mine,--I
urged and persuaded him to it. He was ignorant as myself. Forgive him,
forgive him!”
“Mr. Dale,” said Harley, rising, and extending his hand, which the
poor parson felt himself--unworthy to take,--“Mr. Dale, you are a good
man,--if, indeed, this universe of liars contains some man who does not
cheat our judgment when we deem him honest. Allow me only to ask why you
consider Leonard Fairfield to be my son.”
“Was not your youthful admiration for poor Nora evident to me? Remember
I was a frequent guest at Lansmere Park; and it was so natural that you,
with all your brilliant gifts, should captivate her refined fancy, her
affectionate heart.”
“Natural--you think so,--go on.”
“Your mother, as became her, separated you. It was not unknown to me
that you still cherished a passion which your rank forbade to be lawful.
Poor girl! she left the roof of her protectress, Lady Jane. Nothing
was known of her till she came to her father’s house to give birth to a
child, and die. And the same day that dawned on her corpse, you hurried
from the place. Ah, no doubt your conscience smote you; you have never
returned to Lansmere since.”
Harley’s breast heaved, he waved his hand; the parson resumed,
“Whom could I suspect but you? I made inquiries: they confirmed my
suspicions.”
“Perhaps you inquired of my friend, Mr. Egerton? He was with me
when--when--as you say, I hurried from the place.”
“I did, my Lord.”
“And he?”
“Denied your guilt; but still, a man of honour so nice, of heart so
feeling, could not feign readily. His denial did not deceive me.”
“Honest man!” said Harley; and his hand griped at the breast over which
still rustled, as if with a ghostly sigh, the records of the dead. “He
knew she had left a son, too?”
“He did, my Lord; of course, I told him that.”
“The son whom I found starving in the streets of London! Mr. Dale,
as you see, your words move me very much. I cannot deny that he who
wronged, it may be with no common treachery, that young mother--for Nora
Avenel was not one to be lightly seduced into error--”
“Indeed, no!”
“And who then thought no more of the offspring of her anguish and
his own crime--I cannot deny that that man deserves some
chastisement,--should render some atonement. Am I not right here? Answer
with the plain speech which becomes your sacred calling.”
“I cannot say otherwise, my Lord,” replied the parson, pitying what
appeared to him such remorse. “But if he repent--”
“Enough,” interrupted Harley. “I now invite you to visit me at Lansmere;
give me your address, and I will apprise you of the day on which I will
request your presence. Leonard Fairfield shall find a father--I was
about to say, worthy of himself. For the rest--stay; reseat yourself.
For the rest”--and again the sinister smile broke from Harley’s eye and
lip--“I will not yet say whether I can, or ought to, resign to a younger
and fairer suitor the lady who has accepted my own hand. I have
no reason yet to believe that she prefers him. But what think you,
meanwhile, of this proposal? Mr. Avenel wishes his nephew to contest
the borough of Lansmere, has urged me to obtain the young man’s consent.
True, that he may thus endanger the seat of Mr. Audley Egerton. What
then? Mr. Audley Egerton is a great man, and may find another seat; that
should not stand in the way. Let Leonard obey his uncle. If he win the
election, why, he ‘ll be a more equal match, in the world’s eye, for
Miss Digby, that is, should she prefer him to myself; and if she do not,
still, in public life, there is a cure for all private sorrow. That is
a maxim of Mr. Audley Egerton’s; and he, you know, is a man not only
of the nicest honour, but the deepest worldly wisdom. Do you like my
proposition?”
“It seems to me most considerate, most generous.”
“Then you shall take to Leonard the lines I am about to write.”
LORD L’ESTRANGE TO LEONARD FAIRFIELD.
I have read the memoir you intrusted to me. I will follow up all
the clews that it gives me. Meanwhile I request you to suspend all
questions; forbear all reference to a subject which, as you may well
conjecture, is fraught with painful recollections to myself. At
this moment, too, I am compelled to concentre my thoughts upon
affairs of a public nature, and yet which may sensibly affect
yourself. There are reasons why I urge you to comply with your
uncle’s wish, and stand for the borough of Lansmere at the
approaching election. If the exquisite gratitude of your nature so
overrates what I may have done for you that you think you owe me
some obligations, you will richly repay them on the day in which I
bear you hailed as member for Lansmere. Relying on that generous
principle of self-sacrifice, which actuates all your conduct,
I shall count upon your surrendering your preference to private
life, and entering the arena of that noble ambition which has
conferred such dignity on the name of my friend Audley Egerton. He,
it is true, will be your opponent; but he is too generous not to
pardon my zeal for the interests of a youth whose career I am vain
enough to think that I have aided. And as Mr. Randal Leslie stands
in coalition with Egerton, and Mr. Avenel believes that two
candidates of the same party cannot both succeed, the result may be
to the satisfaction of all the feelings which I entertain for Audley
Egerton, and for you, who, I have reason to think, will emulate his
titles to my esteem.
Yours, L’ESTRANGE.
“There, Mr. Dale,” said Harley, sealing his letter, and giving it into
the parson’s hands,--“there, you shall deliver this note to your friend.
But no; upon second thoughts, since he does not yet know of your visit
to me, it is best that he should be still in ignorance of it. For should
Miss Digby resolve to abide by her present engagements, it were surely
kind to save Leonard the pain of learning that you had communicated
to me that rivalry he himself had concealed. Let all that has passed
between us be kept in strict confidence.”
“I will obey you, my Lord,” answered the parson, meekly, startled to
find that he who had come to arrogate authority was now submitting to
commands; and all at fault what judgment he could venture to pass upon
the man whom he had regarded as a criminal, who had not even denied the
crime imputed to him, yet who now impressed the accusing priest with
something of that respect which Mr. Dale had never before conceded but
to Virtue. Could he have then but looked into the dark and stormy heart,
which he twice misread!
“It is well,--very well,” muttered Harley, when the door had closed upon
the parson. “The viper and the viper’s brood! So it was this man’s son
that I led from the dire Slough of Despond; and the son unconsciously
imitates the father’s gratitude and honour--Ha, ha!” Suddenly the bitter
laugh was arrested; a flash of almost celestial joy darted through the
warring elements of storm and darkness. If Helen returned Leonard’s
affection, Harley L’Estrange was free! And through that flash the face
of Violante shone upon him as an angel’s. But the heavenly light and
the angel face vanished abruptly, swallowed up in the black abyss of the
rent and tortured soul.
“Fool!” said the unhappy man, aloud, in his anguish--“fool! what then?
Were I free, would it be to trust my fate again to falsehood? If, in all
the bloom and glory of my youth, I failed to win the heart of a village
girl; if, once more deluding myself, it is in vain that I have tended,
reared, cherished, some germ of woman’s human affection in the orphan
I saved from penury,--how look for love in the brilliant princess, whom
all the sleek Lotharios of our gaudy world will surround with their
homage when once she alights on their sphere! If perfidy be my
fate--what hell of hells, in the thought!--that a wife might lay her
head in my bosom, and--oh, horror! horror! No! I would not accept her
hand were it offered, nor believe in her love were it pledged to me.
Stern soul of mine, wise at last, love never more,--never more believe
in truth!”
CHAPTER XVI.
As Harley quitted the room, Helen’s pale sweet face looked forth from a
door in the same corridor. She advanced towards him timidly.
“May I speak with you?” she said, in almost inaudible accents; “I have
been listening for your footstep.”
Harley looked at her steadfastly. Then, without a word, he followed her
into the room she had left, and closed the door.
“I, too,” said he, “meant to seek an interview with yourself--but later.
You would speak to me, Helen,--say on. Ah, child, what mean you? Why
this?”--for Helen was kneeling at his feet.
“Let me kneel,” she said, resisting the hand that sought to raise her.
“Let me kneel till I have explained all, and perhaps won your pardon.
You said something the other evening. It has weighed on my heart and my
conscience ever since. You said ‘that I should have no secret from you;
for that, in our relation to each other, would be deceit.’ I have had
a secret; but oh, believe me! it was long ere it was clearly visible to
myself. You honoured me with a suit so far beyond my birth, my merits.
You said that I might console and comfort you. At those words, what
answer could I give,--I, who owe you so much more than a daughter’s
duty? And I thought that my affections were free,--that they would
obey that duty. But--but--but--” continued Helen, bowing her head still
lowlier, and in a voice far fainter--“I deceived myself. I again saw him
who had been all in the world to me, when the world was so terrible, and
then--and then--I trembled. I was terrified at my own memories, my own
thoughts. Still I struggled to banish the past, resolutely, firmly. Oh,
you believe me, do you not? And I hoped to conquer. Yet ever since those
words of yours, I felt that I ought to tell you even of the struggle.
This is the first time we have met since you spoke them. And now--now--I
have seen him again, and--and--though not by a word could she you
had deigned to woo as your bride encourage hope in another; though
there--there where you now stand--he bade me farewell, and we parted
as if forever,--yet--yet O Lord L’Estrange! in return for your
rank, wealth, your still nobler gifts of nature, what should I
bring?--Something more than gratitude, esteem; reverence,--at least an
undivided heart, filled with your image, and yours alone. And this I
cannot give. Pardon me,--not for what I say now, but for not saying it
before. Pardon me, O my benefactor, pardon me!”
“Rise, Helen,” said Harley, with relaxing brow, though still unwilling
to yield to one softer and holier emotion. “Rise!” And he lifted her up,
and drew her towards the light. “Let me look at your face. There seems
no guile here. These tears are surely honest. If I cannot be loved,
it is my fate, and not your crime. Now, listen to me. If you grant me
nothing else, will you give me the obedience which the ward owes to the
guardian, the child to the parent?”
“Yes, oh, yes!” murmured Helen.
“Then while I release you from all troth to me, I claim the right to
refuse, if I so please it, my assent to the suit of--of the person you
prefer. I acquit you of deceit, but I reserve to myself the judgment I
shall pass on him. Until I myself sanction that suit, will you promise
not to recall in any way the rejection which, if I understand you
rightly, you have given to it?”
“I promise.”
“And if I say to you, ‘Helen, this man is not worthy of you ’”
“No, no! do not say that,--I could not believe you.” Harley frowned, but
resumed calmly, “If, then, I say, ‘Ask me not wherefore, but I forbid
you to be the wife of Leonard Fairfield, I what would be your answer?’”
“Ah, my Lord, if you can but comfort him, do with me as you will! but do
not command me to break his heart.”
“Oh, silly child,” cried Harley, laughing scornfully, “hearts are not
found in the race from which that man sprang. But I take your promise,
with its credulous condition. Helen, I pity you. I have been as weak as
you, bearded man though I be. Some day or other, you and I may live
to laugh at the follies at which you weep now. I can give you no other
comfort, for I know of none.”
He moved to the door, and paused at the threshold: “I shall not see you
again for some days, Helen. Perhaps I may request my mother to join me
at Lansmere; if so, I shall pray you to accompany her. For the present,
let all believe that our position is unchanged. The time will soon come
when I may--”
Helen looked up wistfully through her tears.
“I may release you from all duties to me,” continued Harley, with
grave and severe coldness; “or I may claim your promise in spite of the
condition; for your lover’s heart will not be broken. Adieu!”
CHAPTER XVII.
As Harley entered London, he came suddenly upon Randal Leslie, who was
hurrying from Eaton Square, having not only accompanied Mr. Avenel
in his walk, but gone home with him, and spent half the day in that
gentleman’s society. He was now on his way to the House of Commons, at
which some disclosure as to the day for the dissolution of parliament
was expected.
“Lord L’Estrange,” said Randal, “I must stop you. I have been to
Norwood, and seen our noble friend. He has confided to me, of course,
all that passed. How can I express my gratitude to you! By what rare
talent, with what signal courage, you have saved the happiness--perhaps
even the honour--of my plighted bride!”
“Your bride! The duke, then, still holds to the promise you were
fortunate enough to obtain from Dr. Riccabocca?”
“He confirms that promise more solemnly than ever. You may well be
surprised at his magnanimity.”
“No; he is a philosopher,--nothing in him can surprise me. But he seemed
to think, when I saw him, that there were circumstances you might find
it hard to explain.”
“Hard! Nothing so easy. Allow me to tender to you the same explanations
which satisfied one whom philosophy itself has made as open to truth as
he is clear-sighted to imposture.”
“Another time, Mr. Leslie. If your bride’s father be satisfied, what
right have I to doubt? By the way, you stand for Lansmere. Do me the
favour to fix your quarters at the Park during the election. You will,
of course, accompany Mr. Egerton.”
“You are most kind,” answered Randal, greatly surprised.
“You accept? That is well. We shall then have ample opportunity for
those explanations which you honour me by offering; and, to make your
visit still more agreeable, I may perhaps induce our friends at Norwood
to meet you. Good-day.” Harley walked on, leaving Randal motionless in
amaze, but tormented with suspicion. What could such courtesies in Lord
L’Estrange portend? Surely no good.
“I am about to hold the balance of justice,” said Harley to himself. “I
will cast the light-weight of that knave into the scale. Violante never
can be mine; but I did not save her from a Peschiera to leave
her to a Randal Leslie. Ha, ha! Audley Egerton has some human
feeling,--tenderness for that youth whom he has selected from the world,
in which he left Nora’s child to the jaws of Famine. Through that side
I can reach at his heart, and prove him a fool like myself, where he
esteemed and confided! Good.”
Thus soliloquizing, Lord L’Estrange gained the corner of Bruton Street,
when he was again somewhat abruptly accosted.
“My dear Lord L’Estrange, let me shake you by the hand; for Heaven knows
when I may see you again, and you have suffered me to assist in one good
action.”
“Frank Hazeldean, I am pleased indeed to meet you. Why do you indulge in
that melancholy doubt as to the time when I may see you again?”
“I have just got leave of absence. I am not well, and I am rather
hipped, so I shall go abroad for a few weeks.”
In spite of himself, the sombre, brooding man felt interest and sympathy
in the dejection that was evident in Frank’s voice and countenance.
“Another dupe to affection,” thought he, as if in apology to
himself,--“of course, a dupe; he is honest and artless--at present.” He
pressed kindly on the arm which he had involuntarily twined within his
own. “I conceive how you now grieve, my young friend,” said he; “but you
will congratulate yourself hereafter on what this day seems to you an
affliction.”
“My dear Lord--”
“I am much older than you, but not old enough for such formal ceremony.
Pray call me L’Estrange.”
“Thank you; and I should indeed like to speak to you as a friend.
There is a thought on my mind which haunts me. I dare say it is foolish
enough, but I am sure you will not laugh at me. You heard what Madame di
Negra said to me last night. I have been trifled with and misled, but I
cannot forget so soon how dear to me that woman was. I am not going to
bore you with such nonsense; but from what I can understand, her
brother is likely to lose all his fortune; and, even if not, he is a sad
scoundrel. I cannot bear the thought that she should be so dependent
on him, that she may come to want. After all, there must be good in
her,--good in her to refuse my hand if she did not love me. A mercenary
woman so circumstanced would not have done that.”
“You are quite right. But do not torment yourself with such generous
fears. Madame di Negra shall not come to want, shall not be dependent on
her infamous brother. The first act of the Duke of Serrano, on regaining
his estates, will be a suitable provision for his kinswoman. I will
answer for this.”
“You take a load off my mind. I did mean to ask you to intercede with
Riccabocca,--that is, the duke (it is so hard to think he can be a
duke!)--I, alas! have nothing in my power to bestow upon Madame di
Negra. I may, indeed, sell my commission; but then I have a debt which
I long to pay off, and the sale of the commission would not suffice even
for that; and perhaps my father might be still more angry if I do sell
it. Well, good-by. I shall now go away happy,--that is, comparatively.
One must bear things like--a man!”
“I should like, however, to see you again before you go abroad. I will
call on you. Meanwhile, can you tell me the number of one Baron Levy? He
lives in this street, I know.”
“Levy! Oh, have no dealings with him, I advise, I entreat you! He is the
most plausible, dangerous rascal; and, for Heaven’s sake! pray be warned
by me, and let nothing entangle you into--a POST-OBIT!”
“Be re-assured, I am more accustomed to lend money than borrow it;
and as to a post-obit, I have a foolish prejudice against such
transactions.”
“Don’t call it foolish, L’Estrange; I honour you for it. How I wish I
had known you earlier--so few men of the world are like you. Even Randal
Leslie, who is so faultless in most things, and never gets into a scrape
himself, called my own scruples foolish. However--”
“Stay--Randal Leslie! What! He advised you to borrow on a post-obit, and
probably shared the loan with you?”
“Oh, no; not a shilling.”
“Tell me all about it, Frank. Perhaps, as I see that Levy is mixed up in
the affair, your information may be useful to myself, and put me on my
guard in dealing with that popular gentleman.”
Frank, who somehow or other felt himself quite at home with Harley,
and who, with all his respect for Randal Leslie’s talents, had a vague
notion that Lord L’Estrange was quite as clever, and, from his years
and experience, likely to be a safer and more judicious counsellor, was
noways loath to impart the confidence thus pressed for.
He told Harley of his debts, his first dealings with Levy, the unhappy
post-obit into which he had been hurried by the distress of Madame di
Negra; his father’s anger, his mother’s letter, his own feelings of
mingled shame and pride, which made him fear that repentance would but
seem self-interest, his desire to sell his commission, and let its sale
redeem in part the post-obit; in short, he made what is called a clean
breast of it. Randal Leslie was necessarily mixed up with this recital;
and the subtle cross-questionings of Harley extracted far more as to
that young diplomatist’s agency in all these melancholy concerns than
the ingenuous narrator himself was aware of.
“So then,” said Harley, “Mr. Leslie assured you of Madame di Negra’s
affection, when you yourself doubted of it?”
“Yes; she took him in, even more than she did me.”
“Simple Mr. Leslie! And the same kind friend?--who is related to you,
did you say?”
“His grandmother was a Hazeldean.”
“Humph. The same kind relation led you to believe that you could pay
off this bond with the marchesa’s portion, and that he could obtain the
consent of your parents to your marriage with that lady?”
“I ought to have known better; my father’s prejudices against foreigners
and Papists are so strong.”
“And now Mr. Leslie concurs with you, that it is best for you to
go abroad, and trust to his intercession with your father. He has
evidently, then, gained a great influence over Mr. Hazeldean.”
“My father naturally compares me with him,--he so clever, so promising,
so regular in his habits, and I such a reckless scapegrace.”
“And the bulk of your father’s property is unentailed; Mr. Hazeldean
might disinherit you?”
“I deserve it. I hope he will.”
“You have no brothers nor sisters,--no relation, perhaps, after your
parents, nearer to you than your excellent friend Mr. Randal Leslie?”
“No; that is the reason he is so kind to me, otherwise I am the last
person to suit him. You have no idea how well-informed and clever he
is,” added Frank, in a tone between admiration and awe.
“My dear Hazeldean, you will take my advice, will you not?”
“Certainly. You are too good.”
“Let all your family, Mr. Leslie included, suppose you to be gone
abroad; but stay quietly in England, and within a day’s journey of
Lansmere Park. I am obliged to go thither for the approaching election.
I may ask you to come over. I think I see a way to serve you; and if so,
you will soon hear from me. Now, Baron Levy’s number?”
“That is the house with the cabriolet at the door. How such a fellow can
have such a horse!--‘t is out of all keeping!”
“Not at all; horses are high-spirited, generous, unsuspicious animals.
They never know if it is a rogue who drives them. I have your promise,
then, and you will send me your address?”
“I will. Strange that I feel more confidence in you than I do even in
Randal. Do take care of Levy.”
Lord L’Estrange and Frank here shook hands, and Frank, with an anxious
groan, saw L’Estrange disappear within the portals of the sleek
destroyer.
CHAPTER XVII.
Lord L’Estrange followed the spruce servant into Baron Levy’s luxurious
study.
The baron looked greatly amazed at his unexpected visitor; but he got
up, handed a chair to my Lord with a low bow. “This is an honour,” said
he.
“You have a charming abode here,” said Lord L’Estrange, looking round.
“Very fine bronzes,--excellent taste. Your reception-rooms above are,
doubtless, a model to all decorators?”
“Would your Lordship condescend to see them?” said Levy, wondering, but
flattered.
“With the greatest pleasure.”
“Lights!” cried Levy, to the servant who answered his bell. “Lights in
the drawing-rooms,--it is growing dark.” Lord L’Estrange followed the
usurer upstairs; admired everything,--pictures, draperies, Sevres china,
to the very shape of the downy fauteuils, to the very pattern of the
Tournay carpets. Reclining then on one of the voluptuous sofas, Lord
L’Estrange said smilingly, “You are a wise man: there is no advantage in
being rich, unless one enjoys one’s riches.”
“My own maxim, Lord L’Estrange.”
“And it is something, too, to have a taste for good society. Small pride
would you have, my dear baron, in these rooms, luxurious though they
are, if filled with guests of vulgar exterior and plebeian manners.
It is only in the world in which we move that we find persons who
harmonize, as it were, with the porcelain of Sevres, and these sofas
that might have come from Versailles.”
“I own,” said Levy, “that I have what some may call a weakness in a
parvenu like myself. I have a love for the beau monde. It is indeed a
pleasure to me when I receive men like your Lordship.”
“But why call yourself a parvenu? Though you are contented to honour
the name of Levy, we, in society, all know that you are the son of a
long-descended English peer. Child of love, it is true; but the Graces
smile on those over whose birth Venus presided. Pardon my old-fashioned
mythological similes,--they go so well with these rooms--Louis Quinze.”
“Since you have touched on my birth,” said Levy, his colour rather
heightening, not with shame, but with pride, “I don’t deny that it has
had some effect on my habits and tastes in life. In fact--”
“In fact, own that you would be a miserable man, in spite of all your
wealth, if the young dandies, who throng to your banquets, were to cut
you dead in the streets; if, when your high-stepping horse stopped at
your club, the porter shut the door in your face; if, when you lounged
into the opera-pit, handsome dog that you are, each spendthrift rake
in ‘Fop’s Alley,’ who now waits but the scratch of your pen to endorse
billets doux with the charm that can chain to himself for a month some
nymph of the Ballet, spinning round in a whirlwind of tulle, would
shrink from the touch of your condescending forefinger with more dread
of its contact than a bailiff’s tap in the thick of Pall Mall
could inspire; if, reduced to the company of city clerks, parasite
led-captains--”
“Oh, don’t go on, my dear Lord,” cried Levy, laughing affectedly.
“Impossible though the picture be, it is really appalling. Cut me off
from May Fair and St. James’s, and I should go into my strong closet and
hang myself.”
“And yet, my dear baron, all this may happen if I have the whim just to
try; all this will happen, unless, ere I leave your house, you concede
the conditions I come here to impose.”
“My Lord!” exclaimed Levy, starting up, and pulling down his waistcoat
with nervous passionate fingers, “if you were not under my own roof, I
would--”
“Truce with mock heroics. Sit down, sir, sit down. I will briefly state
my threat, more briefly my conditions. You will be scarcely more prolix
in your reply. Your fortune I cannot touch, your enjoyment of it I
can destroy. Refuse my conditions, make me your enemy,--and war to the
knife! I will interrogate all the young dupes you have ruined. I will
learn the history of all the transactions by which you have gained the
wealth that it pleases you to spend in courting the society and sharing
the vices of men who--go with these rooms, Louis Quinze. Not a roguery
of yours shall escape me, down even to your last notable connivance with
an Italian reprobate for the criminal abduction of an heiress. All
these particulars I will proclaim in the clubs to which you have gained
admittance, in every club in London which you yet hope to creep into;
all these I will impart to some such authority in the Press as Mr. Henry
Norreys; all these I will, upon the voucher of my own name, have so
published in some journals of repute, that you must either tacitly
submit to the revelations that blast you, or bring before a court of
law actions that will convert accusations into evidence. It is but by
sufferance that you are now in society; you are excluded when one man
like me comes forth to denounce you. You try in vain to sneer at my
menace--your white lips show your terror. I have rarely in life drawn
any advantage from my rank and position; but I am thankful that they
give me the power to make my voice respected and my exposure triumphant.
Now, Baron Levy, will you go into your strong closet and hang yourself,
or will you grant me my very moderate conditions? You are silent. I will
relieve you, and state those conditions. Until the general election,
about to take place, is concluded, you will obey me to the letter in
all that I enjoin,--no demur and no scruple. And the first proof
of obedience I demand is, your candid disclosure of all Mr. Audley
Egerton’s pecuniary affairs.”
“Has my client, Mr. Egerton, authorized you to request of me that
disclosure?”
“On the contrary, all that passes between us you will conceal from your
client.”
“You would save him from ruin? Your trusty friend, Mr. Egerton!” said
the baron, with a livid sneer.
“Wrong again, Baron Levy. If I would save him from ruin, you are
scarcely the man I should ask to assist me.”
“Ah, I guess. You have learned how he--”
“Guess nothing, but obey in all things. Let us descend to your business
room.”
Levy said not a word until he had reconducted his visitor into his den
of destruction, all gleaming with spoliaria in rosewood. Then he said
this: “If, Lord L’Estrange, you seek but revenge on Audley Egerton, you
need not have uttered those threats. I too--hate the man.”
Harley looked at him wistfully, and the nobleman felt a pang that he
had debased himself into a single feeling which the usurer could
share. Nevertheless, the interview appeared to close with satisfactory
arrangements, and to produce amicable understanding. For as the baron
ceremoniously followed Lord L’Estrange through the hall, his noble
visitor said, with marked affability,
“Then I shall see you at Lansmere with Mr. Egerton, to assist in
conducting his election. It is a sacrifice of your time worthy of your
friendship; not a step farther, I beg. Baron, I have the honour to wish
you good-evening.”
As the street door opened on Lord L’Estrange he again found himself
face to face with Randal Leslie, whose hand was already lifted to the
knocker.
“Ha, Mr. Leslie!--you too a client of Baron Levy’s,--a very useful,
accommodating man.”
Randal stared and stammered. “I come in haste from the House of Commons
on Mr. Egerton’s business. Don’t you hear the newspaper vendors crying
out ‘Great News, Dissolution of Parliament’?”
“We are prepared. Levy himself consents to give us the aid of his
talents. Kindly, obliging, clever person!” Randal hurried into Levy’s
study, to which the usurer had shrunk back, and was now wiping his brow
with his scented handkerchief, looking heated and haggard, and very
indifferent to Randal Leslie.
“How is this?” cried Randal. “I come to tell you first of Peschiera’s
utter failure, the ridiculous coxcomb, and I meet at your door the
last man I thought to find there,--the man who foiled us all, Lord
L’Estrange. What brought him to you? Ah, perhaps his interest in
Egerton’s election?”
“Yes,” said Levy, sulkily. “I know all about Peschiera. I cannot talk to
you now; I must make arrangements for going to Lansmere.”
“But don’t forget my purchase from Thornhill. I shall have the money
shortly from a surer source than Peschiera.”
“The squire?”
“Or a rich father-in-law.”
In the mean while, as Lord L’Estrange entered Bond Street, his ears were
stunned by vociferous cries from the Stentors employed by “Standard,”
“Sun,” and “Globe,”
--“Great News! Dissolution of Parliament--Great News!” The gas-lamps
were lighted; a brown fog was gathering over the streets, blending
itself with the falling shades of night. The forms of men loomed large
through the mist. The lights from the shops looked red and lurid.
Loungers usually careless as to politics were talking eagerly and
anxiously of King, Lords, Commons, “Constitution at stake,” “Triumph
of liberal opinions,”--according to their several biases. Hearing, and
scorning--unsocial, isolated--walked on Harley L’Estrange. With his
direr passions had been roused up all the native powers that made
them doubly dangerous. He became proudly conscious of his own great
faculties, but exulted in them only so far as they could minister to the
purpose which had invoked them.
“I have constituted myself a Fate,” he said inly; “let the gods be but
neutral, while I weave the meshes. Then, as Fate itself when it has
fulfilled its mission, let me pass away into shadow, with the still and
lonely stride that none may follow,--
“‘Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness.’
“How weary I am of this world of men!” And again the cry “Great
News--National Crisis--Dissolution of Parliament--Great News!” rang
through the jostling throng. Three men, arm-in-arm, brushed by Harley,
and were stopped at the crossing by a file of carriages. The man in
the centre was Audley Egerton. His companions were an ex-minister like
himself, and one of those great proprietors who are proud of being above
office, and vain of the power to make and unmake Governments.
“You are the only man to lead us, Egerton,” said this last personage.
“Do but secure your seat, and as soon as this popular fever has passed
away, you must be something more than the leader of Opposition,--you
must be the first man in England.”
“Not a doubt of that,” chimed in the fellow ex-minister, a worthy man,
perfect red-tapist, but inaudible in the reporters’ gallery. “And your
election is quite safe, eh? All depends on that. You must not be thrown
out at such a time, even for a month or two. I hear that you will have
a contest--some townsmen of the borough, I think. But the Lansmere
interest must be all-powerful; and I suppose L’Estrange will come out
and canvass for you. You are not the man to have lukewarm friends!”
“Don’t be alarmed about my election. I am as sure of that as of
L’Estrange’s friendship.”
Harley heard, with a grim smile, and passing his hand within his vest,
laid it upon Nora’s memoir.
“What could we do in parliament without you?” said the great proprietor,
almost piteously.
“Rather what could I do without parliament? Public life is the only
existence I own. Parliament is all in all to me. But we may cross now.”
Harley’s eye glittered cold as it followed the tall form of the
statesman, towering high above all other passers-by. “Ay,” he muttered,
“ay, rest as sure of my friendship as I was of thine! And be Lansmere
our field of Philippi! There where thy first step was made in the only
life that thou own’st as existence, shall the ladder itself rot from
under thy footing. There, where thy softer victim slunk to death from
the deceit of thy love, shall deceit like thine own dig a grave for thy
frigid ambition. I borrow thy quiver of fraud; its still arrows shall
strike thee; and thou too shalt say, when the barb pierces home, ‘This
comes from the hand of a friend.’ Ay, at Lansmere, at Lansmere, shall
the end crown the whole! Go, and dot on the canvas the lines for a
lengthened perspective, where my eyes note already the vanishing point
of the picture.”
Then through the dull fog and under the pale gas-lights Harley
L’Estrange pursued his noiseless way, soon distinguished no more amongst
the various, motley, quick-succeeding groups, with their infinite
sub-divisions of thought, care, and passion; while, loud over all their
low murmurs, or silent hearts, were heard the tramp of horses and din of
wheels, and the vociferous discordant cry that had ceased to attract and
interest in the ears it vexed, “Great News, Great News--Dissolution of
Parliament--Great News!”
CHAPTER XIX.
The scene is at Lansmere Park,--a spacious pile, commenced in the reign
of Charles II.; enlarged and altered in the reign of Anne. Brilliant
interval in the History of our National Manners, when even the courtier
dreaded to be dull, and Sir Fopling raised himself on tiptoe to catch
the ear of a wit; when the names of Devonshire and Dorset, Halifax and
Carteret, Oxford and Bolingbroke, unite themselves, brotherlike, with
those of Hobbes and of Dryden, of Prior and Bentley, of Arbuthnot, Gay,
Pope, and Swift; and still, wherever we turn, to recognize some ideal of
great Lord or fine Gentleman, the Immortals of Literature stand by his
side.
The walls of the rooms at Lansmere were covered with the portraits of
those who illustrate that time which Europe calls the Age of Louis XIV.
A L’Estrange, who had lived through the reigns of four English princes
(and with no mean importance through all) had collected those likenesses
of noble contemporaries. As you passed through the chambers--opening one
on the other in that pomp of parade introduced with Charles II. from
the palaces of France, and retaining its mode till Versailles and the
Trianon passed, themselves, out of date--you felt you were in excellent
company. What saloons of our day, demeaned to tailed coats and white
waistcoats, have that charm of high breeding which speaks out from
the canvas of Kneller and Jervis, Vivien and Rigaud? And withal,
notwithstanding lace and brocade--the fripperies of artificial
costume--still those who give interest or charm to that day look from
their portraits like men,--raking or debonair, if you will, never
mincing nor feminine. Can we say as much of the portraits of Lawrence?
Gaze there on fair Marlborough; what delicate perfection of features,
yet how easy in boldness, how serene in the conviction of power! So
fair and so tranquil he might have looked through the cannon reek at
Ramillies and Blenheim, suggesting to Addison the image of an angel
of war. Ah, there, Sir Charles Sedley, the Lovelace of wits! Note
that strong jaw and marked brow; do you not recognize the courtier who
scorned to ask one favour of the king with whom he lived as an equal,
and who stretched forth the right hand of man to hurl from a throne the
king who had made his daughter--a countess?
[Sedley was so tenacious of his independence that when his affairs
were most embarrassed, he refused all pecuniary aid from Charles II.
His bitter sarcasm, in vindication of the part he took in the
deposition of James II., who had corrupted his daughter, and made
her Countess of Dorchester, is well known. “As the king has made my
daughter a countess, the least I can do, in common gratitude, is to
assist in making his Majesty’s daughter--a queen!”]
Perhaps, from his childhood thus surrounded by the haunting faces--that
spoke of their age as they looked from the walls--that age and those
portraits were not without influence on the character of Harley
L’Estrange. The whim and the daring, the passion for letters and
reverence for genius, the mixture of levity and strength, the polished
sauntering indolence, or the elastic readiness of energies once called
into action,--all might have found their prototypes in the lives which
those portraits rekindled. The deeper sentiment, the more earnest
nature, which in Harley L’Estrange were commingled with the attributes
common to a former age,--these, indeed, were of his own. Our age so
little comprehended, while it colours us from its atmosphere! so full of
mysterious and profound emotions, which our ancestors never knew!--will
those emotions be understood by our descendants?
In this stately house were now assembled, as Harley’s guests, many of
the more important personages whom the slow length of this story has
made familiar to the reader. The two candidates for the borough in the
True Blue interest,--Audley Egerton and Randal Leslie; and Levy,--chief
among the barons to whom modern society grants a seignorie of pillage,
which, had a baron of old ever ventured to arrogate, burgess and
citizen, socman and bocman, villein and churl, would have burned him
alive in his castle; the Duke di Serrano, still fondly clinging to his
title of Doctor and pet name of Riccabocca; Jemima, not yet with the
airs of a duchess, but robed in very thick silks, as the chrysalis state
of a duchess; Violante, too, was there, sadly against her will, and
shrinking as much as possible into the retirement of her own chamber.
The Countess of Lansmere had deserted her lord, in order to receive the
guests of her son; my lord himself, ever bent on being of use in some
part of his country, and striving hard to distract his interest from
his plague of a borough, had gone down into Cornwall to inquire into the
social condition of certain troglodytes who worked in some mines which
the earl had lately had the misfortune to wring from the Court of
Chancery, after a lawsuit commenced by his grandfather; and a Blue Book,
issued in the past session by order of parliament, had especially
quoted the troglodytes thus devolved on the earl as bipeds who were
in considerable ignorance of the sun, and had never been known to wash
their feet since the day when they came into the world,--their world
underground, chipped off from the Bottomless Pit!
With the countess came Helen Digby, of course; and Lady Lansmere, who
had hitherto been so civilly cold to the wife elect of her son, had,
ever since her interview with Harley at Knightsbridge, clung to Helen
with almost a caressing fondness. The stern countess was tamed by fear;
she felt that her own influence over Harley was gone; she trusted to
the influence of Helen--in case of what?--ay, what? It was because
the danger was not clear to her that her bold spirit trembled:
superstitions, like suspicions, are “as bats among birds, and fly by
twilight.” Harley had ridiculed the idea of challenge and strife between
Audley and himself; but still Lady Lansmere dreaded the fiery emotions
of the last, and the high spirit and austere self-respect which were
proverbial to the first. Involuntarily she strengthened her intimacy
with Helen. In case her alarm should appear justified, what mediator
could be so persuasive in appeasing the angrier passions, as one whom
courtship and betrothal sanctified to the gentlest?
On arriving at Lansmere, the countess, however, felt somewhat relieved.
Harley had received her, if with a manner less cordial and tender
than had hitherto distinguished it, still with easy kindness and calm
self-possession. His bearing towards Audley Egerton still more reassured
her: it was not marked by an exaggeration of familiarity or friendship,
which would at once have excited her apprehensions of some sinister
design,--nor; on the other hand, did it betray, by covert sarcasms, an
ill-suppressed resentment. It was exactly what, under the circumstances,
would have been natural to a man who had received an injury from an
intimate friend, which, in generosity or discretion, he resolved to
overlook, but which those aware of it could just perceive had cooled or
alienated the former affection. Indefatigably occupying himself with
all the details of the election, Harley had fair pretext for absenting
himself from Audley, who, really looking very ill, and almost worn out,
pleaded indisposition as an excuse for dispensing with the fatigues of
a personal canvass, and, passing much of his time in his own apartments,
left all the preparations for contest to his more active friends. It
was not till he had actually arrived at Lansmere that Audley became
acquainted with the name of his principal opponent. Richard Avenel! the
brother of Nora! rising up from obscurity, thus to stand front to front
against him in a contest on which all his fates were cast. Egerton
quailed as before an appointed avenger. He would fain have retired from
the field; he spoke to Harley.
“How can you support all the painful remembrances which the very name of
my antagonist must conjure up?”
“Did you not tell me,” answered Harley, “to strive against such
remembrances,--to look on them as sickly dreams? I am prepared to brave
them. Can you be more sensitive than I?”
Egerton durst not say more. He avoided all further reference to the
subject. The strife raged around him, and he shut himself out from
it,--shut himself up in solitude with his own heart. Strife enough
there! Once, late at night, he stole forth and repaired to Nora’s grave.
He stood there, amidst the rank grass and under the frosty starlight,
long, and in profound silence. His whole past life seemed to rise before
him; and, when he regained his lonely room, and strove to survey the
future, still he could behold only that past and that grave.
In thus declining all active care for an election, to his prospects so
important, Audley Egerton was considered to have excuse, not only in
the state of his health, but in his sense of dignity. A statesman so
eminent, of opinions so well known, of public services so incontestable,
might well be spared the personal trouble that falls upon obscurer
candidates. And besides, according to current report, and the judgment
of the Blue Committee, the return of Mr. Egerton was secure. But
though Audley himself was thus indulgently treated, Harley and the Blue
Committee took care to inflict double work upon Randal. That active
young spirit found ample materials for all its restless energies. Randal
Leslie was kept on his legs from sunrise to starlight. There does not
exist in the Three Kingdoms a constituency more fatiguing to a candidate
than that borough of Lansmere. As soon as you leave the High Street,
wherein, according to immemorial usage, the Blue canvasser is first
led, in order to put him into spirits for the toils that await him
(delectable, propitious, constitutional High Street, in which at least
two-thirds of the electors, opulent tradesmen employed at the Park,
always vote for “my lord’s man,” and hospitably prepare wine and cakes
in their tidy back-parlours!)--as soon as you quit this stronghold
of the party, labyrinths of lanes and defiles stretch away into the
farthest horizon; level ground is found nowhere; it is all up hill and
down hill,--now rough, craggy pavements that blister the feet, and at
the very first tread upon which all latent corns shook prophetically;
now deep, muddy ruts, into which you sink ankle-deep, oozing slush
creeping into the pores, and moistening the way for catarrh, rheum,
cough, sore throat, bronchitis, and phthisis; black sewers and drains
Acherontian, running before the thresholds, and so filling the homes
behind with effluvia, that, while one hand clasps the grimy paw of
the voter, the other instinctively guards from typhus and cholera your
abhorrent nose. Not in those days had mankind ever heard of a sanitary
reform! and, to judge of the slow progress which that reform seems
to make, sewer and drain would have been much the same if they had.
Scot-and-lot voters were the independent electors of Lansmere, with the
additional franchise of Freemen. Universal suffrage could scarcely more
efficiently swamp the franchises of men who care a straw what becomes of
Great Britain! With all Randal Leslie’s profound diplomacy, all his
art in talking over, deceiving, and (to borrow Dick Avenel’s vernacular
phrase) “humbugging” educated men, his eloquence fell flat upon minds
invulnerable to appeals, whether to State or to Church, to Reform or
to Freedom. To catch a Scot-and-lot voter by such frivolous
arguments--Randal Leslie might as well have tried to bring down a
rhinoceros by a pop-gun charged with split peas! The young man who so
firmly believed that “knowledge was power” was greatly disgusted. It was
here the ignorance that foiled him. When he got hold of a man with some
knowledge, Randal was pretty sure to trick him out of a vote.
Nevertheless, Randal Leslie walked and talked on, with most creditable
perseverance. The Blue Committee allowed that he was an excellent
canvasser. They conceived a liking for him, mingled with pity. For,
though sure of Egerton’s return, they regarded Randal’s as out of the
question. He was merely there to keep split votes from going to the
opposite side; to serve his patron, the ex-minister; shake the paws, and
smell the smells which the ex-minister was too great a man to shake
and to smell. But, in point of fact, none of that Blue Committee knew
anything of the prospects of the election. Harley received all the
reports of each canvass-day. Harley kept the canvass-book locked up from
all eyes but his own, or it might be Baron Levy’s, as Audley Egerton’s
confidential, if not strictly professional adviser, Baron Levy, the
millionaire, had long since retired from all acknowledged professions.
Randal, however--close, observant, shrewd--perceived that he himself
was much stronger than the Blue Committee believed; and, to his infinite
surprise, he owed that strength to Lord L’Estrange’s exertions on
his behalf. For though Harley, after the first day, on which he
ostentatiously showed himself in the High Street, did not openly canvass
with Randal, yet when the reports were brought in to him, and he saw the
names of the voters who gave one vote to Audley, and withheld the other
from Randal, he would say to Randal, dead beat as that young gentleman
was, “Slip out with me, the moment dinner is over, and before you go the
round of the public-houses; there are some voters we must get for you
to-night.” And sure enough a few kindly words from the popular heir
of the Lansmere baronies usually gained over the electors, from whom,
though Randal had proved that all England depended on their votes in his
favour, Randal would never have extracted more than a “Wu’ll, I shall
waute gin the Dauy coomes!” Nor was this all that Harley did for the
younger candidate. If it was quite clear that only one vote could be won
for the Blues, and the other was pledged to the Yellows, Harley would
say, “Then put it down to Mr. Leslie,”--a request the more readily
conceded, since Audley Egerton was considered so safe by the Blues, and
alone worth a fear by the Yellows.
Thus Randal, who kept a snug little canvass-book of his own, became
more and more convinced that he had a better chance than Egerton, even
without the furtive aid he expected from Avenel; and he could only
account for Harley’s peculiar exertions in his favour by supposing that
Harley, unpractised in elections, and deceived by the Blue Committee,
believed Egerton to be perfectly safe, and sought, for the honour of the
family interest, to secure both the seats.
Randal’s public cares thus deprived him of all opportunity of pressing
his courtship on Violante; and, indeed, if ever he did find a moment
in which he could steal to her reluctant side, Harley was sure to seize
that very moment to send him off to canvass an hesitating freeman, or
harangue in some public-house.
Leslie was too acute not to detect some motive hostile to his wooing,
however plausibly veiled in the guise of zeal for his election, in this
officiousness of Harley’s. But Lord L’Estrange’s manner to Violante was
so little like that of a jealous lover, and he was so well aware of her
engagement to Randal, that the latter abandoned the suspicion he had
before conceived, that Harley was his rival. And he was soon led to
believe that Lord L’Estrange had another, more disinterested, and
less formidable motive for thus stinting his opportunities to woo the
heiress.
“Mr. Leslie,” said Lord L’Estrange, one day, “the duke has confided to
me his regret at his daughter’s reluctance to ratify his own promise;
and knowing the warm interest I take in her welfare, for his sake and
her own; believing, also, that some services to herself, as well as
to the father she so loves, give me a certain influence over her
inexperienced judgment, he has even requested me to speak a word to her
in your behalf!”
“Ah, if you would!” said Randal, surprised.
“You must give me the power to do so. You were obliging enough to
volunteer to me the same explanations which you gave to the duke, his
satisfaction with which induced him to renew or confirm the promise of
his daughter’s hand. Should those explanations content me, as they did
him, I hold the duke bound to fulfil his engagement, and I am convinced
that his daughter would, in that case, not be inflexible to your suit.
But, till such explanations be given, my friendship for the father,
and my interest in the child, do not allow me to assist a cause which,
however, at present suffers little by delay.”
“Pray, listen at once to those explanations.”
“Nay, Mr. Leslie, I can now only think of the election. As soon as that
is over, rely on it you shall have the amplest opportunity to dispel any
doubts which your intimacy with Count di Peschiera and Madame di Negra
may have suggested.--a propos of the election, here is a list of voters
you must see at once in Fish Lane. Don’t lose a moment.”
In the mean while, Richard Avenel and Leonard had taken up their
quarters in the hotel appropriated to the candidates for the Yellows;
and the canvass on that side was prosecuted with all the vigour which
might be expected from operations conducted by Richard Avenel, and
backed by the popular feeling.
The rival parties met from time to time in the streets and lanes, in
all the pomp of war,--banners streaming, fifes resounding (for bands and
colours were essential proofs of public spirit, and indispensable
items in a candidate’s bills, in those good old days). When they thus
encountered, very distant bows were exchanged between the respective
chiefs; but Randal, contriving ever to pass close to Avenel, had ever
the satisfaction of perceiving that gentleman’s countenance contracted
into a knowing wink, as much as to say, “All right, in spite of this
tarnation humbug.”
But now that both parties were fairly in the field, to the private arts
of canvassing were added the public arts of oratory. The candidates had
to speak, at the close of each day’s canvass, out from wooden boxes,
suspended from the windows of their respective hotels, and which looked
like dens for the exhibition of wild beasts. They had to speak at
meetings of Committees, meetings of electors, go the nightly round of
enthusiastic public-houses, and appeal to the sense of an enlightened
people through wreaths of smoke and odours of beer.
The alleged indisposition of Audley Egerton had spared him the
excitement of oratory, as well as the fatigue of canvassing. The
practised debater had limited the display of his talents to a concise,
but clear and masterly exposition of his own views on the leading public
questions of the day, and the state of parties, which, on the day after
his arrival at Lansmere, was delivered at a meeting of his general
Committee, in the great room of their hotel, and which was then printed
and circulated amongst the voters.
Randal, though he expressed himself with more fluency and
self-possession than are usually found in the first attempts of a public
speaker, was not effective in addressing an unlettered crowd; for a
crowd of this kind is all heart--and we know that Randal Leslie’s heart
was as small as heart could be. If he attempted to speak at his
own intellectual level, he was so subtle and refining as to be
incomprehensible; if he fell into the fatal error--not uncommon to
inexperienced orators--of trying to lower himself to the intellectual
level of his audience, he was only elaborately stupid. No man can speak
too well for a crowd,--as no man can write too well for the stage; but
in neither case should he be rhetorical, or case in periods the dry
bones of reasoning. It is to the emotions or to the humours that the
speaker of a crowd must address himself; his eye must brighten with
generous sentiment, or his lip must expand in the play of animated fancy
or genial wit. Randal’s voice, too, though pliant and persuasive in
private conversation, was thin and poor when strained to catch the ear
of a numerous assembly. The falsehood of his nature seemed to come out
when he raised the tones which had been drilled into deceit. Men like
Randal Leslie may become sharp debaters, admirable special pleaders;
they can no more become orators than they can become poets. Educated
audiences are essential to them, and the smaller the audience (that is,
the more the brain supersedes the action of the heart) the better they
can speak.
Dick Avenel was generally very short and very pithy in his addresses.
He had two or three favourite topics, which always told. He was a
fellow-townsman,--a man who had made his own way in life; he wanted to
free his native place from aristocratic usurpation; it was the battle
of the electors, not his private cause, etc. He said little against
Randal,--“Pity a clever young man should pin his future to two yards of
worn-out red tape;” “He had better lay hold of the strong rope, which
the People, in compassion to his youth, were willing yet to throw out to
save him from sinking,” etc. But as for Audley Egerton, “the gentleman
who would not show, who was afraid to meet the electors, who could only
find his voice in a hole-and-corner meeting, accustomed all his venal
life to dark and nefarious jobs”--Dick, upon that subject, delivered
philippics truly Demosthenian. Leonard, on the contrary, never attacked
Harley’s friend, Mr. Egerton; but he was merciless against the youth who
had filched reputation from John Burley, and whom he knew that Harley
despised as heartily as himself. And Randal did not dare to retaliate
(though boiling over with indignant rage), for fear of offending
Leonard’s uncle. Leonard was unquestionably the popular speaker of the
three. Though his temperament was a writer’s, not an orator’s; though
he abhorred what he considered the theatrical exhibition of self, which
makes what is called “delivery” more effective than ideas; though he had
little interest at any time in party politics; though at this time
his heart was far away from the Blues and Yellows of Lansmere, sad and
forlorn,--yet, forced into action, the eloquence that was natural to his
conversation poured itself forth. He had warm blood in his veins;
and his dislike to Randal gave poignancy to his wit, and barbed his
arguments with impassioned invective. In fact, Leonard could conceive no
other motive for Lord L’Estrange’s request to take part in the election
than that nobleman’s desire to defeat the man whom they both regarded
as an impostor; and this notion was confirmed by some inadvertent
expressions which Avenel let fall, and which made Leonard suspect that,
if he were not in the field, Avenel would have exerted all his interest
to return Randal instead of Egerton. With Dick’s dislike to that
statesman Leonard found it impossible to reason; nor, on the other hand,
could all Dick’s scoldings or coaxings induce Leonard to divert his
siege on Randal to an assault upon the man who, Harley had often said,
was dear to him as a brother.
In the mean while, Dick kept the canvass-book of the Yellows as closely
as Harley kept that of the Blues; and in despite of many pouting fits
and gusts of displeasure, took precisely the same pains for Leonard as
Harley took for Randal. There remained, however, apparently unshaken by
the efforts on either side, a compact body of about a Hundred and Fifty
voters, chiefly freemen. Would they vote Yellow? Would they vote Blue?
No one could venture to decide; but they declared that they would all
vote the same way. Dick kept his secret “caucuses,” as he called them,
constantly nibbling at this phalanx. A hundred and fifty voters!--they
had the election in their hands! Never were hands so cordially shaken,
so caressingly clung to, so fondly lingered upon! But the votes
still stuck as firm to the hands as if a part of the skin, or of the
dirt,--which was much the same thing!
CHAPTER XX.