HUSBAND AND WIFE.
“It is now the middle of February,” said Despard, after a long pause, in
which he had given himself up to the strange reflections which the diary
was calculated to excite. “If Louis Brandon left Australia when he was
called he must be in England now.”
“You are calm,” said Mrs. Thornton. “Have you nothing more to say than
that?”
Despard looked at her earnestly. “Do you ask me such a question? It is
a story so full of anguish that the heart might break out of pure
sympathy, but what words could be found? I have nothing to say. I am
speechless. My God! what horror thou dost permit!”
“But something must be done,” said Mrs. Thornton, impetuously.
“Yes,” said Despard, slowly, “but what? If we could reach our hands over
the grave and bring back those who have passed away, then the soul of
Edith might find peace; but now--now--we can give her no peace. She only
wishes to die. Yet something must be done, and the first thing is to
find Louis Brandon. I will start for London to-night. I will go and seek
him, not for Edith’s sake but for his own, that I may save one at least
of this family. For her there is no comfort. Our efforts are useless
there. If we could give her the greatest earthly happiness it would be
poor and mean, and still she would sigh after that starry companionship
from which her soul has been withdrawn.”
“Then you believe it.”
“Don’t you?”
“Of course; but I did not know that you would.”
“Why not? and if I did not believe it this at least would be plain,
that she herself believes it. And even if it be a hallucination, it is
a sublime one, and so vivid that it is the same to her as a reality. Let
it be only a dream that has taken place--still that dream has made all
other things dim, indistinct, and indifferent to her.”
“No one but you would read Paolo’s diary without thinking him insane.”
Despard smiled. “Even that would be nothing to me. Some people think
that a great genius must be insane.
‘Great wits are sure to madness near allied,’
you know. For my part, I consider Paolo the sublimest of men. When I saw
him last I was only a boy, and he came with his seraphic face and his
divine music to give me an inspiration which has biased my life ever
since. I have only known one spirit like his among those whom I have
met.”
An indescribable sadness passed over his face. “But now,” he continued,
suddenly, “I suppose Thornton must see my uncle’s letter. His legal
mind may discern some things which the law may do in this case. Edith is
beyond all consolation from human beings, and still farther beyond all
help from English law. But if Louis Brandon can be found the law may
exert itself in his favor. In this respect be may be useful, and I have
no doubt he would take up the case earnestly, out of his strong sense of
justice.”
When Thornton came in to dinner Despard handed him his uncle’s letter.
The lawyer read it with deep attention, and without a word.
Mrs. Thornton looked agitated--sometimes resting her head on her hand,
at others looking fixedly at her husband. As soon as he had finished she
said, in a calm, measured tone:
“I did not know before that Brandon of Brandon Hall and all his family
had perished so miserably.”
Thornton started, and looked at her earnestly. She returned his gaze
with unutterable sadness in her eyes.
“He saved my father’s life,” said she. “He benefited him greatly. Your
father also was under slight obligations to him. I thought that things
like these constituted a faint claim on one’s gratitude, so that if
one were exposed to misfortune he might not be altogether destitute of
friends.”
Thornton looked uneasy as his wife spoke.
“My dear,” said he, “you do not understand.”
“True,” she answered; “for this thing is almost incredible. If my
father’s friend has died in misery, unpitied and unwept, forsaken by
all, do I not share the guilt of ingratitude? How can I absolve myself
from blame?”
“Set your mind at rest. You never knew any thing about it. I told you
nothing on the subject.”
“Then you knew it!”
“Stop! You can not understand this unless I explain it. You are stating
bald facts; but these facts, painful as they are, are very much modified
by circumstances.”
“Well, then, I hope you will tell me all, without reserve, for I wish to
know how it is that this horror has happened, and I have stood idly and
coldly aloof. My God!” she cried, in Italian; “did _he_ not--did _they_
not in their last moments think of me, and wonder how they could have
been betrayed by Langhetti’s daughter!”
“My dear, be calm, I pray. You are blaming yourself unjustly, I assure
you.”
Despard was ghastly pale as this conversation went on. He turned his
face away.
“Ralph Brandon,” began Thornton, “was a man of many high qualities,
but of unbounded pride, and utterly impracticable. He was no judge
of character, and therefore was easily deceived. He was utterly
inexperienced in business, and he was always liable to be led astray
by any sudden impulse. Somehow or other a man named Potts excited
his interest about twelve or fifteen years ago. He was a mere vulgar
adventurer; but Brandon became infatuated with him, and actually
believed that this man was worthy to be intrusted with the management
of large business transactions. The thing went on for years. His friends
all remonstrated with him. I, in particular, went there to explain to
him that the speculation in which he was engaged could not result in any
thing except loss. But he resented all interference, and I had to leave
him to himself.
“His son Louis was a boy full of energy and fire. The family were all
indignant at the confidence which Ralph Brandon put in this Potts--Louis
most of all. One day he met Potts. Words passed between them, and Louis
struck the scoundrel. Potts complained. Brandon had his son up on the
spot; and after listening to his explanations gave him the alternative
either to apologise to Potts or to leave the house forever. Louis
indignantly denounced Potts to his father as a swindler. Brandon ordered
him to his room, and gave him a week to decide.
“The servants whispered till the matter was noised abroad. The county
gentry had a meeting about it, and felt so strongly that they did an
unparalleled thing. They actually waited on him to assure him that Potts
was unworthy of trust, and to urge him not to treat his son so harshly.
All Brandon’s pride was roused at this. He said words to the deputation
which cut him off forever from their sympathy, and they left in a rage.
Mrs. Brandon wrote to me, and I went there. I found Brandon inflexible.
I urged him to give his son a longer time, to send him to the army for
a while, to do any thing rather than eject him. He refused to change his
sentence. Then I pointed out the character of Potts, and told him many
things that I had heard. At this he hinted that I wished to have the
management of his business, and was actuated by mercenary motive. Of
course, after this insult, nothing more was to be said. I went home and
tried to forget all about the Brandons. At the end of the week Louis
refused to apologize, and left his father forever.”
“Did you see Louis?”
“I saw him before that insult to ask if he would apologize.”
“Did you try to make him apologize?” asked Mrs. Thornton, coldly.
“Yes. But he looked at me with such an air that I had to apologize
myself for hinting at such a thing. He was as inflexible as his father.”
“How else could he have been?”
“Well, each might have yielded a little. It does not do to be so
inflexible if one would succeed in life.”
“No,” said Mrs. Thornton. “Success must be gained by flexibility. The
martyrs were all inflexible, and they were all unsuccessful.”
Thornton looked at his wife hastily. Despard’s hand trembled, and his
face grew paler still with a more livid pallor.
“Did you try to do any thing for the ruined son?”
“How could I, after that insult?”
“Could you not have got him a government office, or purchased a
commission for him in the army?”
“He would not have taken it from me.”
“You could have co-operated with his mother, and done it in her name.”
“I could not enter the house after being insulted.”
“You could have written. From what I have heard of Brandon, he was just
the man who would have blessed any one who would interpose to save his
son.”
“His son did not wish to be saved. He has all his father’s
inflexibility, but an intellect as clear as that of the most practical
man. He has a will of iron, dauntless resolution, and an implacable
temper. At the same time he has the open generosity and the tender heart
of his father.”
“Had his father a tender heart?”
“So tender and affectionate that this sacrifice of his son must have
overwhelmed him with the deepest sorrow.”
“Did you ever after make any advances to any of them?”
“No, never. I never went near the house.”
“Did you ever visit any of the county gentry to see if something could
be done?”
“No. It would have been useless. Besides, the very mention of his name
would have been resented. I should have had to fling myself headlong
against the feelings of the whole public. And no man has any right to do
that.”
“No,” said Mrs. Thornton. “No man has. That was another mistake that the
martyrs made. They would fling themselves against public opinion.”
“All men can not be martyrs. Besides, the cases are not analogous.”
Thornton spoke calmly and dispassionately.
“True. It is absurd in me; but I admire one who has for a moment
forgotten his own interests or safety in thinking of others.”
“That does very well for poetry, but not in real life.”
“In _real life_, such as that on board the _Tecumseh_?” murmured Mrs.
Thornton, with drooping eyelids.
“You are getting excited, my dear,” said Thornton, patiently, with the
air of a wise father who overlooks the petulance of his child. “I
will go on. I had business on the Continent when poor Brandon’s ruin
occurred. You were with me, my dear, at Berlin when I heard about it. I
felt shocked, but not surprised. I feared that it would come to that.”
“You showed no emotion in particular.”
“No; I was careful not to trouble you.”
“You were in Berlin three months. Was it at the beginning or end of your
stay?”
“At the beginning.”
“And you staid?”
“I had business which I could not leave.”
“Would you have been ruined if you had left?”
“Well, no--not exactly ruined, but it would have entailed serious
consequences.”
“Would those consequences have been as serious as the _Tecumseh_
tragedy?”
“My dear, in business there are rules which a man is not permitted to
neglect. There are duties and obligations which are imperative. The code
of honor there is as delicate, yet as rigid, as elsewhere.”
“And yet there are times when all obligations of this sort are weakened.
When friends die, this is recognized. Why should it not be so when they
are in danger of a fate worse than death?”
Thornton elevated his eyebrows, and made no reply.
“You must have heard about it in March, then?”
“Yes, at the end of January. His ruin took place in December, 1845. It
was the middle of May before I got home. I then, toward the end of the
month, sent my clerk to Brandon village to make inquiries. He brought
word of the death of Brandon, and the departure of his family to parts
unknown.”
[Illustration: “THEN, COVERING HER FACE WITH HER HANDS, SHE BURST INTO
AN AGONY OF TEARS.”]
“Did he make no particular inquiries?”
“No.”
“And you said not a word to me!”
“I was afraid of agitating you, my dear.”
“And therefore you have secured for me unending self-reproach.”
“Why so? Surely you are blaming yourself without a shadow of a cause.”
“I will tell you why. I dare say I feel unnecessarily on the subject,
but I can not help it. It is a fact that Brandon was always impulsive
and culpably careless about himself. It is to this quality, strangely
enough, that I owe my father’s life, and my own comfort for many years.
Paolo also owes as much as I. Mr. Brandon, with a friend of his, was
sailing through the Mediterranean in his own yacht, making occasional
tours into the country at every place where they happened to land, and
at last they came to Girgenti, with the intention of examining the ruins
of Agrigentum. This was in 1818, four years before I was born. My father
was stopping at Girgenti, with his wife and Paolo, who was then six
years old. My father had been very active under the reign of Murat, and
had held a high post in his government. This made him suspected after
Murat’s overthrow.
“On the day that these Englishmen visited Girgenti, a woman in deep
distress came to see them, along with a little boy. It was my mother and
Paolo. She flung herself on the floor at their feet, and prayed them to
try and help her husband, who had been arrested on a charge of treason
and was now in prison. He was suspected of belonging to the Carbonari,
who were just beginning to resume their secret plots, and were showing
great activity. My father belonged to the innermost degree, and had
been betrayed by a villain named Cigole. My mother did not tell them all
this, but merely informed them of his danger.
“At first they did not know what to do, but the prayers of my mother
moved their hearts. They went to see the captain of the guard, and tried
to bribe him, but without effect. They found out, however, where my
father was confined, and resolved upon a desperate plan. They put my
mother and Paolo on board of the yacht, and by paying a heavy bribe
obtained permission to visit my father in prison. Brandon’s friend was
about the same height as my father. When they reached his cell they
urged my father to exchange clothes with him and escape. At first he
positively refused, but when assured that Brandon’s friend, being an
Englishman, would be set free in a few days, he consented. Brandon then
took him away unnoticed, put him on board of the yacht, and sailed to
Marseilles, where he gave him money enough to get to England, and told
him to stop at Brandon Hall till he himself arrived. He then sailed back
to see about his friend.
“He found out nothing about him for some time. At last he induced the
British embassador to take the matter in hand, and he did so with such
effect that the prisoner was liberated. He had been treated with some
severity at first, but he was young, and the government was persuaded to
look upon it as a youthful freak. Brandon’s powerful influence with the
British embassador obtained his unconditional release.
“My father afterward obtained a situation here at Holby, where he was
organist till he died. Through all his life he never ceased to receive
kindness and delicate acts of attention from Brandon. When in his last
sickness Brandon came and staid with him till the end. He then wished to
do something for Paolo, but Paolo preferred seeking his own fortune in
his own way.”
Mrs. Thornton ended her little narrative, to which Despard had listened
with the deepest attention.
“Who was Brandon’s friend?” asked Despard.
“He was a British officer,” said Mrs. Thornton. “For fear of dragging in
his government, and perhaps incurring dismissal from the army, he gave
an assumed name--Mountjoy. This was the reason why Brandon was so long
in finding him.”
“Did your father not know it?”
“On the passage Brandon kept it secret, and after his friend’s
deliverance he came to see my father under his assumed name. My father
always spoke of him as Mountjoy. After a time he heard that he was
dead.”
“I can tell you his true name,” said Mr. Thornton. “There is no reason
why you should not know it.”
“What?”
“Lionel Despard--your father, and Ralph Brandon’s bosom friend.”
Despard looked transfixed. Mrs. Thornton gazed at her husband, and gave
an unutterable look at Despard, then, covering her face with her hands,
she burst into an agony of tears.
“My God,” cried Despard, passing his hand over his forehead, “my father
died when I was a child, and nobody was ever able to tell me any thing
about him. And Brandon was his friend. He died thus, and his family have
perished thus, while I have known nothing and done nothing.”
“You at least are not to blame,” said Thornton, calmly, “for you had
scarcely heard of Brandon’s name. You were in the north of England when
this happened, and knew nothing whatever about it.”
That evening Despard went home with a deeper trouble in his heart.
He was not seen at the Grange for a month. At the end of that time he
returned. He had been away to London during the whole interval.
As Mrs. Thornton entered to greet him her whole face was overspread with
an expression of radiant joy. He took both her hands in his and pressed
them without a word. “Welcome back,” she murmured--“you have been gone a
long time.”
“Nothing but an overpowering sense of duty could have kept me away so
long,” said he, in a deep, low voice.
A few similar commonplaces followed; but with these two the tone of the
voice invested the feeblest commonplaces with some hidden meaning.
At last she asked: “Tell me what success you had?” He made no reply;
but taking a paper from his pocket opened it, and pointed to a marked
paragraph. This was the month of March. The paper was dated January 14,
1847. The paragraph was as follows:
“DISTRESSING CASUALTY.--The ship _Java_, which left Sydney on the 5th
of August last, reports a stormy passage. On the 12th of September a
distressing casualty occurred. They were in S. lat. 11° 1’ 22”, E. long.
105° 6’ 36”, when a squall suddenly struck the ship. A passenger, Louis
Brandon, Esq., of the firm of Compton & Brandon, Sydney, was standing
by the lee-quarter as the squall struck, and, distressing to narrate, he
was hurled violently overboard. It was impossible to do any thing, as
a monsoon was beginning, which raged for twenty-four hours. Mr. Brandon
was coming to England on business.
“The captain reports a sand-bank in the latitude and longitude indicated
above, which he names ‘Coffin Island,’ from a rock of peculiar shape at
the eastern extremity. Ships will do well in future to give this place a
wide berth.”
Deep despondency came over Mrs. Thornton’s face as she read this. “We
can do nothing,” said she, mournfully. “He is gone. It is better for
him. We must now wait till we hear more from Paolo. I will write to him
at once.”
“And I will write to my uncle.”
There was a long silence. “Do you know,” said Despard, finally, “that I
have been thinking much about my father of late. It seems very strange
to me that my uncle never told me about that Sicilian affair before.
Perhaps he did not wish me to know it, for fear that through all my life
I should brood over thoughts of that noble heart lost to me forever.
But I intend to write to him, and obtain afresh the particulars of his
death. I wish to know more about my mother. No one was ever in such
ignorance of his parents as I have been. They merely told me that my
father and mother died suddenly in India, and left me an orphan at the
age of seven under the care of Mr. Henry Thornton. They never told me
that Brandon was a very dear friend of his. I have thought also of the
circumstances of his death, and they all seem confused. Some say he died
in Calcutta, others say in China, and Mr. Thornton once said in Manilla.
There is some mystery about it.”
“When Brandon was visiting my father,” said Mrs. Thornton, “you were
at school, and he never saw you. I think he thought you were Henry
Despard’s son.”
“There’s some mystery about it,” said Despard, thoughtfully.
When Mr. Thornton came in that night he read a few extracts from the
London paper which he had just received. One was as follows:
“FOUNDERED AT SEA.--The ship _H. B. Smith_, from Calcutta, which arrived
yesterday, reports that on the 28th January they picked up a ship’s
long-boat near the Cape Verd Islands. It was floating bottom upward. On
the stern was painted the word _Falcon_. The ship _Falcon_ has now been
expected for two months, and it is feared from this that she may have
foundered at sea. The _Falcon_ was on her way from Sydney to London, and
belonged to Messrs. Kingwood, Flaxman, & Co.”