THE CLERK’S STORY.
While Gilbert Thornleigh was employed in putting the case of Harley
Westford’s disappearance into the hands of the police, Clara sat in
her shabby lodging, brooding over the troubles which environed her,
until it seemed as if there was not one ray of sunshine to illumine
the darkness of her fate.
The mysterious disappearance of her daughter--her beloved Violet--was
almost more horrible to contemplate than the dark fate of her brave
and true-hearted husband.
Harley Westford might have died the victim of treachery--he might
have perished by the pitiless hand of the assassin; but the fate of
Violet might be something worse than death.
Shame--disgrace--degradation! These were the dangers which the mother
dreaded for the daughter she loved. And she was quite helpless. She
knew not what step to take--how to attempt a rescue of the lost girl.
Sorrows had crowded upon her with a bewildering rapidity, and the
sufferer succumbed beneath the force of a burden which hourly grew
heavier and harder to bear. The revelation made by Gilbert Thornleigh
had been the last overwhelming blow; and Clara Westford sat in a
listless attitude, helpless, nerveless, apathetic, like a creature
who had outlived all sense of sorrow. “Who am I? and where am I?” she
asked herself; “are these troubles real, or are they part of some
long feverish dream?”
There comes a stage in human sorrow when the sufferer seems to
lose all hold upon reality. The victim cannot understand why the
chastisement should be so heavy, the cup of anguish so bitter and so
deep. The brain refuses to grapple with the horrible realities that
crowd upon it. There is a merciful pause in life’s fever, a dull
apathy, which may perhaps be designed to save the anguish-stricken
sufferer from madness.
For Clara Westford this pause, this apathy, did not last long.
One joy, at least, was in store for the woman upon whom so many
sorrows had come with crushing force during the last twelve
months--one joy, so wild and deep in its intensity, that the
overwrought brain could scarcely sustain the sudden shock of so much
joy.
While Clara Westford sat by her bedside, with her head lying wearily
upon the pillow, her tearless eyes fixed on the dingy ceiling above
her with a blank unseeing stare, carriage-wheels sounded in the
street below, and a vehicle drew up close at hand.
The bedchamber opened out of the sitting-room, and the door of
communication between them was open. Clara rushed to the window, and
looked down into the street. Her heart throbbed tumultuously. She was
in that over-excited state in which every incident alarms the mind.
A very handsome close carriage, simple in its appointments, but drawn
by a superb pair of horses, was standing before the door of the
house. A bright face appeared at the window of the carriage--a lovely
face, framed in clustering golden hair; a face which seemed like that
of an angel to Clara Westford, for it was the face of her daughter.
A servant opened the door of the carriage, and Violet alighted.
She rushed into the house, and her mother heard the light familiar
footstep hurrying up the stairs.
She burst into a torrent of tears, the first she had shed since her
daughter’s disappearance, and in the next moment Violet was clasped
in her mother’s arms.
Clara Westford saw that this was no heart-broken, dishonoured girl,
who returned thus, radiant and smiling, to bury her beautiful face on
her mother’s breast, and to cry amidst her passionate sobs:
“Dear mother, I have come back to you! I have been rescued by a kind
and noble friend; and we shall be happy together once more.”
As she spoke the door was opened, and an elderly lady entered--a
lady with a pale gentle face that had once been beautiful, and
smoothly banded silver hair. This lady was the Dowager Marchioness of
Roxleydale.
“I have brought you back your daughter, Mrs. Westford,” said the
Marchioness; “and I feel that I deserve your thanks, for the treasure
I restore to you is a priceless one. If I have learnt to love this
dear girl in a few hours, how tenderly must you love her who have
known her for a lifetime!”
The mother’s heart was full to overflowing. She uttered no word
relating to Gilbert Thornleigh’s return, or to the ghastly mystery
involved in Captain Westford’s disappearance. Her child was restored
to her, and she taught herself to smile, while her heart was still
racked by anxiety, that no cloud should overshadow the joy of
Violet’s return.
The Marchioness did not remain long with the mother and daughter.
“I will not intrude upon your happiness,” she said; “but I shall
hope not to lose sight of this sweet girl, whom my son’s wicked
folly, instigated, I am sure, by bad advisers, has involved in so
much trouble. I shall pay some visits while I am in town, and return
to Essex this evening. But whenever I come to London I shall make
a point of calling upon you. Violet has told me a good deal of her
history; and if I can find any way of serving either herself or her
brother through the influence of my friends, I shall not be slow to
do so. In the mean time, she has given me a promise not to return
to the perilous life of a theatre, as with her attainments and
accomplishments, assisted by my hearty recommendation, she cannot
fail to obtain very remunerative employment as a daily governess.
There _are_ people in the world who know how to respect the ladies to
whom they intrust the education of their children. I shall make it my
business to find a lady in whose employment Violet will feel that she
is respected and esteemed.”
The Marchioness pressed Clara Westford’s hand, and kissed Violet
almost as affectionately as if the grateful girl had been indeed her
daughter.
When she was gone, the mother and child sat down side by side,
happy in the delight of being once more together; so happy in this,
that the wife forgot for a few moments the mystery of her husband’s
disappearance.
But that bitter memory was very swift to return; and it was only by
heroic self-control that Clara contrived to keep her daughter in
ignorance of the anxiety which was gnawing at her heart.
While they were sitting together, talking of Violet’s escape from
danger, and of the warm friend she had found at a moment when she
seemed to be surrounded by enemies, the servant of the house came
into the room, and handed a visiting-card to Mrs. Westford.
It was a dirty-looking, old-fashioned card, and upon it was inscribed
a name that seemed vaguely familiar to Clara:
MR. JACOB DANIELSON.
_Who entreats Mrs. Westford to grant him a
private interview._
These words were written in pencil below the name on the card.
“Danielson!” murmured the widow; “I have an idea that the name was
once familiar to me. And yet that may be only fancy--it is such a
common name.”
“The persing seemed very anxious to see you, mem,” said the girl who
had brought the card.
“What sort of person is he?”
“A little old man, mem; very shabby and common-looking, with a hump
on his pore old back, mem. He said he had somethink very particular
to tell you.”
“Something particular to tell me! If it should be--I will see him,
Susan,” exclaimed the widow, with sudden agitation. “Go to your room,
dear. I must see this man alone.”
The slipshod maid-of-all-work ran down stairs to admit the stranger;
and Clara Westford half led, half pushed Violet into the inner room,
before the anxious girl had time to inquire into the cause of her
mother’s agitation.
In the next minute Jacob Danielson entered the little sitting-room,
his hat in his hand, his head bent in a respectful attitude.
“What is your business, sir?” asked Clara Westford, looking at him
very anxiously.
“You do not remember me, madam?”
“Remember you? No!”
“And yet it is only a day or two since you saw me. I am Mr. Rupert
Godwin’s confidential clerk--the person of whom you and a young
sailor made some inquiries respecting your missing husband.”
“Yes, yes!” cried Clara eagerly; “I remember. And you have something
to tell me? For pity’s sake do not trifle with me! If you knew what I
suffer--”
“I have something to tell you, madam--I have much to tell you. But I
cannot yet give you any information about your husband. I came to you
to-day to make you the offer of my friendship. But perhaps you will
despise such an offer from such a person as I am?”
“Despise your friendship! No, indeed, Mr. Danielson; I am in too much
need of friends to despise the kindly feeling even of a stranger.”
“You are changed, Mrs. Westford,” murmured the old clerk; “very much
changed since I knew you.”
“Since you knew me!” exclaimed Clara. “Have we ever been known to
each other? Your name just now seemed familiar to me; but I have no
recollection of you.”
“No, Mrs. Westford!” cried Jacob Danielson, with a sudden burst of
passion; “you cannot remember me, because the stamp of degradation
is upon me. It is more than twenty years since I knew you. I was a
man then, with some remnant of self-respect, though the world had
begun to teach me how vile a thing I was, in my misshapen form,
my low birth, my hopeless poverty. But I was a man then, with a
man’s ambitious yearnings to climb some few steps of life’s great
ladder. Now you look only upon a degraded ruin--the hideous wreck
of that which was once a man. Mrs. Westford, do you remember, when
you were completing your education at your father’s country seat,
the humpbacked village schoolmaster who was employed to teach
you classics? Do you remember reading Virgil during the summer
afternoons, before you had grown too grand a lady to care about old
Latin fables?”
“I do remember the schoolmaster at the dear old park!” cried Clara.
“Yes; and he was called Danielson. I knew that the name was familiar
to me. And you are that very Mr. Danielson? Ah, then indeed you are
sadly changed. I should never have recognized you.”
“Yet I am not so much changed as the daughter of Sir John Ponsonby,”
said the clerk, with an intensity of bitterness, “if she can deign to
feel one spark of compassion for the wretch who stands before her.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Danielson? It has not been my habit to refuse
pity to anyone who needed it.”
“Indeed!” cried Jacob Danielson, with sudden vehemence. “Ah! I see
you have a convenient memory, Mrs. Westford. You have quite forgotten
the day on which the humpbacked scholar was beaten like a rebellious
hound at your bidding!”
“Beaten!” exclaimed Clara, “at my bidding! What, in Heaven’s name, do
you mean?”
“O, Mrs. Westford, you have indeed forgotten the past,” said the
clerk, in tones of quiet irony.
“I have forgotten nothing,” answered Clara. “Pray sit down quietly
and explain yourself. There must be some mistake in all this.”
The clerk dropped listlessly into a chair.
“It is so easy for the person who strikes the blow to forget,” he
murmured, “but not so easy for the victim on whom the blow falls.”
Clara looked at him, with perfect mystification in her countenance.
“I am weary of these enigmas,” she said coldly; “pray speak plainly,
Mr. Danielson.”
“I will,” answered the clerk; “I will go back to the day when you
were seventeen years of age--yes, it was your seventeenth birthday;
and I had been teaching you for a year then, and had found you the
brightest pupil whose apt intelligence ever sent a thrill of pride
through a master’s heart. It was your birthday. You and some happy
girls of your own age were to celebrate the day by a rustic _fête_.
You were busy, decorating your favourite rooms with garlands of
flowers, when I came that morning to give you your usual lesson. You
told me that you were to have a holiday--there were to be no studies
that day; but when I would have turned to leave you, Heaven knows how
sorrowfully, you called me back, and invited me--me, the humpbacked,
low-born, village schoolmaster--to share the day’s pleasure, to join
in the simple festival.
“Can I ever forget that day? Have I ever forgotten it? No, Mrs.
Westford, not once in all these long dreary years has the memory of
that bright summer morning faded away from me. I have drowned it in
fiery drink--I have maddened my miserable brains with brandy; but I
have never forgotten, and I never shall. Upon my deathbed the memory
of my youth’s one passion will haunt me still, as it has haunted me
all my life.
“I can see you now as I saw you that day, Clara. Ah, let me call you
Clara once more, as I did on that fatal day--as I have called you in
my dreams ever since, as I shall call you with my latest breath when
I die! What can it matter to you if such a wretch as I am insolent
in the madness of my idolatry? What am I but a worm beneath your
feet? Yes, Clara, I can see you now as I saw you then, with your soft
brown hair falling in ringlets to your waist, and shot with wandering
gleams of gold; your large dark eyes, blue with the serene azure
of the skies; your parted lips, more lovely than if they had been
sculptured out of coral. I had Catullus and Horace at my fingers’
ends in those days, and all manner of poetic fancies used to arise
in my mind as I looked at you. A garland of white lilies crowned
your brow; but the loveliest of them was not fairer than yourself.
You were pleased to be gracious to me; you bade me help you with the
baskets of June roses, the honeysuckle, the seringa, which you were
twining into wreaths and festoons to decorate your pretty rooms. The
proud baronet’s lovely daughter did not know that the humpbacked
schoolmaster was so mad, so presumptuous, as to love her with a
devotion which the fairest of womankind does not always inspire even
once in a lifetime--the devotion of the slavish idolater, who cries,
Give me leave only to lie upon the ground under your feet, that I may
be trampled out of life by the creature I adore!
“Clara!” cried the clerk, with subdued vehemence, “I went mad
altogether that day--I lost all consciousness of who and what I was.
I might have had the rank of a duke, the wealth of a millionnaire,
the beauty of an Adonis, for all the recollection I had of the
monstrous gulf that separated you and me. I remembered only that you
were beautiful, and that I loved you. In an evil moment my folly
reached its climax. I spoke. I told you all. In one instant I was
reminded of the audacity to which my wild passion had urged me. The
daughter of Sir John Ponsonby answered my mad burst of passionate
prayer with quiet dignity. She did not rebuke my presumption, but
she let me understand how much I had presumed. Had all ended here,
Clara, I could have borne my deserved humiliation, and I should have
cherished your image as that of the purest and best of womankind,
as well as the loveliest. But my punishment did not so end. Your
wrath was not appeased by my humble apology. I slunk away from you
abashed, repentant, and, as I thought, forgiven. You had deceived me
by an appearance of mercy which you did not feel. As I was crossing
the park, dejected, miserable, with my heart bleeding, and tears
that were not all unmanly in my eyes, I was pursued, seized roughly,
violently, by a couple of lacqueys, and dragged by brute force to
your father’s study, where the infuriated baronet sprang on me, and
horsewhipped me until I was unable to crawl from his presence. Then
only was his fury appeased. He sent for a surgeon, and under the
cover of night I was carried home to my lonely dwelling, where I
recovered from my wounds as I might, unnoticed and unaided--except by
a deaf old village crone who succoured me in my helplessness, and
never thought of questioning the nature of my illness, which I told
her arose from rheumatism.
“Call it cowardice, if you like; I sought no redress from the man
who had assaulted me; I kept the secret of my wrongs, and, as soon
as I was sufficiently recovered, I threw up my situation and came
to London, leaving my native place for ever, and leaving it a
heart-broken man.
“You had found it impossible to forgive the wretch who dared to
love you, Clara, and who in an evil hour told you of his love. You
urged your father to avenge a wrong which some women would have been
merciful enough to pardon--for even the love of a Caliban is a kind
of tribute.”
“It is false!” cried Mrs. Westford, with passionate energy; “I never
mentioned your name to my father on that day. I never knew until
this moment that you had suffered an indignity, such a cruel wrong,
at his hands. I remember, now, that my French governess was in the
conservatory adjoining the room in which we were standing when you
made that foolish avowal which I forgave as completely as I regretted
that it should have been spoken. She overheard all, and threatened
to tell my father. I implored her not to betray you, and I believed
until this moment that she had kept your secret. For myself, I should
have been the last to inflict humiliation upon a man whose learning
I respected, and for whose patient kindness as a tutor I had good
reason to be grateful.”
“Mrs. Westford, is this true?” asked the clerk earnestly.
“Look in my face, and doubt me if you can,” answered Clara.
“No, I cannot doubt you,” answered Danielson, with a burst of
emotion. “Truth beams from the eyes whose loveliness has haunted
me throughout a lifetime. O, how I have wronged you! But it is not
yet too late to repair that wrong; and it shall be repaired. Trust
in me, Clara Westford; you have found a friend who will restore you
your rights--an avenger who will bring your enemy, Rupert Godwin, to
justice.”