RICHARD THORNTON’S PROMISE.
Eleanor Vane looked very sadly at all the common everyday sights
connected with the domestic economy of the Pilasters, when she went
back to Bloomsbury after her interview with Mrs. Bannister. She had
only lived a year and a half in that humble locality, but it was in
her nature to become quickly attached to places as well as persons,
and she had grown very fond of the Pilasters. Everybody about the
place knew her and loved her. The horses looked out of their open
stable-doors as she passed; the dogs came tumbling from their kennels,
dragging half-a-dozen yards of rusty iron chain and a heap of straw at
their heels, to greet her as she went by; the chimney-sweeps’ children
courted her notice; and at all the little shops where she had been wont
to give orders and pay bills for the Signora, the simple tradespeople
tendered her their admiration and homage. Her beauty was a pride to the
worthy citizens of the Pilasters. Could all Bloomsbury, from Dudley
Street to the Squares, produce sunnier golden hair, or brighter grey
eyes than were to be seen under the shadow of the dilapidated colonnade
when Eleanor Vane went by?
In this atmosphere of love and admiration, the girl had been very
happy. She had one of those natures in which there lies a wondrous
power of assimilation with the manners and habits of others. She was
never out of place; she was never in the way. She was not ambitious.
Her sunny temperament was the centre of perpetual peace and happiness,
only to be disturbed by very terrible thunderclaps of sorrow. She had
been very happy with the Signora; and to-day she looked sadly round
the little sitting-room, her eyes resting now on the old piano, now on
a shelf of tattered books—romances dear to Richard and herself, and
not too well treated by either—now on the young man’s flaming _magnum
opus_, the picture she had loved to criticise and abuse in mischievous
enjoyment of the painter’s anguish. As she looked at these things, and
remembered how soon she must go away from them, the slow tears trickled
down her cheeks, and she stood despondent on the gloomy threshold of
her new life.
She had found the familiar rooms empty upon her return from Bayswater,
for the Signora was away teaching beyond the regions of the New Road,
and Richard was hard at work at the Phœnix, where there were always new
pieces to be produced and new scenes to be painted. Eleanor had the
little sitting-room all to herself; she took off her bonnet and sat
down upon the old-fashioned chintz-covered sofa. She buried her head in
the cushions and tried to think.
The prospect of a new existence, which would have been delightful to
most girls of her age, was utterly distasteful to her. Her nature was
adhesive; she would have gone to the farthest end of the world with
her father, if he had lived, or with Richard and the Signora, whom she
loved only less than she had loved him. But to sever every tie, and go
out alone into the world, with nothing between her and desolation, was
unspeakably terrible to this affectionate, impulsive girl.
If it had been simply a question of her own advantage, if by the
sacrifice of her own advancement, her every prospect in life, she might
have stayed with the friends she loved, she would not have hesitated
for a moment. But it was not so. Mrs. Bannister had clearly told her
that she was a burden upon these generous people, who had sheltered and
succoured her in her hour of misery. The cruel word pauperism had been
flung in her teeth, and with a racking brain this poor girl set herself
to calculate how much her maintenance cost her friends, and how much
she was able to contribute out of her own pitiful earnings.
Alas! the balance told against her when the sum was done. Her earnings
were very, very small as yet, not because her talent was unappreciated,
but because her pupils were poor; and a music-mistress whose address
was Bloomsbury Pilasters could scarcely demand high payment for her
services, or hope to obtain a very aristocratic connection.
No; Mrs. Bannister—stern, uncompromising, and disagreeable as the
truth itself—had no doubt been right. Her duty lay before her, plainly
indicated by that unpleasant monitor. She was bound to leave these dear
friends, and to go out into the world to fight a lonely battle for
herself.
“I may be able to do something for them,” she thought; and this thought
was the only gleam of light which illumined the darkness of her
sorrow. “I may be able to save money enough to buy the Signora a black
silk dress, and Richard a meerschaum. I should so like to buy Dick a
meerschaum; I know the one he’d like—a bull-dog’s head, with a silver
collar round the neck. We looked at it one night at a shop in Holborn.”
She rose from the sofa at last with an aching heart and troubled
brain, when the early shadows of the spring twilight were gathering
in the room. She made up the fire and swept the hearth, and arranged
the tea-things on the comfortable round table, and then sat down on a
low stool by the fender to toast great rounds of bread, which would
be as nothing in comparison to Richard’s all-devouring capacity after
a hard day’s work in the scene-room at the Phœnix. How pleasant it
was to perform all these little familiar offices of love and duty!
How sorrowfully she looked back to her simple, free-and-easy life,
now that she was to go amongst strangers who would exact all manner
of ceremonious observances from her! The Bohemianism of her existence
had been its greatest charm; and this poor benighted girl trembled at
the prospect of a life in which she would have to go through all those
terrible performances which she had read of, fearfully and wonderingly,
in certain erudite essays upon Etiquette, but which had never yet come
within the range of her experiences.
“It is my duty to go away from them,” she kept saying to herself; “it
is my duty to go away.”
She had schooled herself in this difficult duty by the time her friends
came home, and she told them very quietly that she had seen Mrs.
Bannister, and had agreed to accept her patronage and services.
“I am going to be a sort of companion or musical governess—I scarcely
know which—to a young lady at a country house called Hazlewood,” she
said. “Don’t think I am not sorry to leave you, dear Signora, but
Hortensia says it is better that I should do so.”
“And don’t think that I am not sorry to lose you, Nelly, when I tell
you that I think your sister is right,” the Signora answered gently, as
she kissed her protégée.
Perhaps Eleanor was a little disappointed at this reply. She little
dreamed how often Eliza Picirillo had struggled against the selfishness
of her affection before she had grown thus resigned to this parting.
Mr. Richard Thornton groaned aloud.
“I shall go out and pull down a couple of the Pilasters, and bury
myself under them, à la Samson,” he said, piteously. “What is to
become of us without you, Eleanor? Who will come over to the Phœnix,
and applaud my great scenes with the ferule of an umbrella? Who’ll cut
up half-quartern loaves into toast when I am hungry, or have Welsh
rarebits in readiness on the hob when I come home late at night? Who’ll
play Mendelssohn’s ‘Songs without Words’ to me, and darn my stockings,
and sew buttons—absurd institutions, invented by ignorant people, who
have never known the blessing of pins—upon my shirts? Who’ll abuse me
when I go unshaven, or recommend blacking as an embellishment for my
boots? Who’ll career in and out of the room with a dirty white French
poodle at her heels, looking like a fair-haired Esmeralda with a
curly-coated goat? What are we to do without you, Eleanor?”
There was a sharp pain at poor Dick’s heart as he apostrophized his
adopted sister. Were his feelings quite brotherly? Was there no twinge
of the fatal torture so common to mankind mingled with this young
man’s feelings as he looked at the beautiful face opposite to him, and
remembered how soon it would have vanished from that shabby chamber,
leaving only dismal emptiness behind?
The Signora looked at her nephew and sighed. Yes, it was far better
that Eleanor should go away. She could never have grown to love this
honest-hearted, candid, slovenly scene-painter, whose coat was a
perfect landscape in distemper by reason of the many-coloured splashes
which adorned it.
“My poor Dick would have fallen in love with her, and would have broken
his good honest heart,” Eliza Picirillo said. “I’m very glad she’s
going away.”
So from the road which Destiny had appointed for her to tread, there
was not one voice to call Eleanor Vane aside. The affectionate and the
indifferent alike conspired to urge her onward. It was only her own
inclination that would have held her back.
“If I could have stayed in London,” she thought, “there might have been
some chance of my meeting that man. All scamps and villains come to
hide themselves in London. But in a quiet country village I shall be
buried alive. When I pass the threshold of Mrs. Darrell’s house, I bid
good-bye to the hope of crossing that man’s pathway.”
The letter came very quickly from Mrs. Bannister. Mrs. Darrell had
accepted her dear friend’s recommendation, and was ready to receive
Miss Vincent. It was under this name the stockbroker’s widow had
introduced her half-sister to the notice of her friend.
“You will receive a salary of thirty pounds a year,” Hortensia
Bannister wrote, “and your duties will be very light. Do not forget
that your name at Hazlewood is to be Vincent, and that you are
carefully to avoid all reference to your father. You will be amongst
people who knew him well, and must therefore be on your guard. I
have described you as the orphan daughter of a gentleman who died in
reduced circumstances, and have thus strictly adhered to the truth. No
questions will be asked of you, as Mrs. Darrell is satisfied with my
recommendation, and is too well bred to feel any vulgar curiosity as to
your past history. I send you, per parcel delivery, a box of dresses
and other wearing apparel, which will be of use to you. I also send
you five pounds for such little extra expenditure as may be necessary.
Hazlewood is thirty miles from London, and about seven from Windsor.
You will go down by the Great Western, and stop at Slough, where a
conveyance will meet you; but I will write further upon this matter
before you go. Mrs. Darrell has kindly accorded you a fortnight’s delay
for such preparations as you may require to make. You will be expected
at Hazlewood on the 6th of April.
“I have only one other remark to make. I know that your father
cherished a foolish notion upon the subject of the Woodlands property.
Pray bear in mind that no such idea has ever been entertained by me.
I know the Darrell family quite well enough to feel assured that they
will take care of their own rights, which I am content to acknowledge.
Remember, therefore, that I have no wish or expectation with regard to
Maurice de Crespigny’s will; but it is, on the other hand, perfectly
true, that in his youth he did make a solemn promise that, in the event
of his dying a bachelor, he would leave that money to my father or his
heirs.”
Eleanor Vane took very little notice of this final paragraph in her
sister’s letter. Who cared for Maurice de Crespigny’s fortune? What was
the good of it _now_? It could not bring her father back to life; it
could not blot out that quiet, unwitnessed death-scene in the Parisian
café; it could not rehabilitate the broken name, or restore the
shattered life. What could it matter who inherited the useless dross?
The fortnight passed in a feverish unsatisfactory manner. Richard and
the Signora took care to conceal the poignancy of their regret at
parting with the girl who had brought such new brightness into their
narrow lives. Eleanor wept by stealth; dropping many bitter tears over
her work, as she remodelled Mrs. Bannister’s silk dresses, reducing
those garments to the dimensions of her own girlish figure. The last
night came by-and-by, the night of the 5th of April, the eve of a
sorrowful parting, and the beginning of a new existence.
It happened to be a Sunday evening, and Eleanor and Richard walked
out together in the quiet Bloomsbury streets while the bells were
ringing for evening service, and the lamps glimmering dimly from the
church windows. They chose the loneliest streets in the old-fashioned
middle-class quarter. Eleanor was very pale, very silent. This evening
walk had been her express desire, and Richard watched her wonderingly.
Her face had an expression which he remembered in the Rue de
l’Archevêque, when he had told her the story of her father’s death—an
unnaturally rigid look, strangely opposed to the changeful brightness
common to that youthful countenance.
They had strolled slowly hither and thither in the deserted streets
for some time. The bells had ceased ringing, and the church-goers had
all disappeared. The grey twilight was stealing into the streets and
squares, and the lights began to shine out from the lower windows.
“How quiet you are, Nelly,” Richard said at last; “why were you so
anxious that we should come put together alone, my dear? I fancied you
had something particular to say to me.”
“I have something particular to say.”
“What about?” asked Mr. Thornton.
He looked thoughtfully at his companion. He could only see her
profile—that clearly-defined, almost classical outline—for she had not
turned towards him when she spoke. Her grey eyes looked straight before
her into empty space, and her lips were tightly compressed.
“You love me, don’t you, Richard?” she asked presently, with a
suddenness that startled the scene-painter.
Poor Dick blushed crimson at that alarming inquiry. How could she be so
cruel as to ask him such a question? For the last fortnight he had been
fighting with himself—sturdily and honestly—in the heroic desire to put
away this one fatal thought from his mind; and now the girl for whose
sake he had been doing battle with his own selfishness, struck the
tenderest of all chords with her ignorant hand, and wounded her victim
to the very quick.
But Miss Vane had no consciousness of the mischief she had done.
Coquetry was an unknown science to this girl of seventeen. In all
matters connected with that womanly accomplishment she was as much a
child, now that her seventeenth birthday was past, as she had been in
the old days at Chelsea when she had upset Richard’s colour-boxes and
made grotesque copies of his paintings.
“I know you love me, Dick,” she continued, “quite as much as if I were
your real sister, instead of a poor desolate girl who flung herself
upon you and yours in the day of her affliction. I know you love me,
Dick, and would do almost anything for my sake, and I wanted to speak
to you to-night alone, because I am going to say something that would
distress the dear Signora, if she were to hear it.”
“What is it, my dear?”
“You remember the story of my father’s death?”
“Only too well, Eleanor.”
“And you remember the vow I made when you told me that story, Richard?”
The young man hesitated.
“Yes, I do remember, Nelly,” he said, after a pause; “but I had hoped
that you had forgotten that foolish vow. For it was foolish, you know,
my dear, as well as unwomanly,” the young man added, gravely.
Eleanor’s eyes flashed defiance upon her friend, as she turned to him
for the first time that evening.
“Yes,” she cried, “you thought that I had forgotten, because I was
not always talking of that man who caused my father’s death! You
thought my sorrow for my father was only childish grief, that was to
be forgotten when I turned my back upon the country where he lies in
his abandoned grave—his unconsecrated grave! You thought that nobody
would ever try to avenge the poor, lonely old man’s murder—for it was a
murder, Richard Thornton! What did the wretch who robbed him care for
the anguish of the heart he broke? What did he care what became of his
victim? It was as base and cruel a murder as was ever done upon this
earth, Richard, though the world would not call it by that name.”
“Eleanor, my dear Eleanor! why do you talk of these things?”
The girl’s voice had risen with the vehemence of her passion, and
Richard Thornton dreaded the effect which this kind of conversation
might have upon her excitable nature.
“Nelly, my dear,” he said, “it would be better to forget all this. What
good can you do by cherishing these painful recollections? You are
never likely to meet this man; you do not even know his name. He was a
scamp and an adventurer, no doubt; he may be dead by this time. He may
have done something to bring himself within the power of the law, and
he may be in prison, or transported.”
“He may have done something to bring himself within the power of the
law,” repeated Eleanor. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that he may have committed some crime for which he could be
punished.”
“Could he be punished by the law for having cheated my father at cards?”
“That sort of charge is always difficult to be proved, Nell; impossible
to be proved after the fact. No, I’m afraid the law could never touch
him for that.”
“But if he were to commit some other crime, he might be punished?”
“Of course.”
“If I met him, Richard,” cried Eleanor Vane, with a dangerous light
kindling in her eyes, “I would try and lure him on to commit some
crime, and then turn round upon him and say, ‘The law of the land
could not avenge my father’s death, but it can punish you for a lesser
crime. I have twisted the law to my own purpose, and made it redress my
father’s wrongs.’”
Richard Thornton started aghast at his companion.
“Why, Eleanor,” he exclaimed, “you talk like a Red Indian! This is
quite shocking! You frighten me, really; you do, indeed.”
“I am sorry for that, Richard,” Miss Vane answered, meekly. She was a
child in all things which concerned her affections alone. “I wouldn’t
grieve you or the dear Signora for the world. But there are some
things that are stronger than ourselves, Richard; and the oath that
I took a year and a half ago, in the Rue de l’Archevêque, is one of
those things. I have never forgotten, Dick. Night after night—though
I’ve been happy and light-hearted enough in the day, for I could not
be otherwise than happy with you and the Signora—night after night I
have lain awake thinking of my father’s death. If that death had been
a common one; if he had died in my arms at the will of God, instead
of by the cruelty of a wretch, my grief might have worn itself out
by this time. But as it is, I cannot forget—I cannot forgive. If all
the Christian people in the world were to talk to me, I could never
have one merciful feeling towards this man. If he were going to be
hung to-morrow, I should be glad, and could walk barefoot to the
place of his execution to see him suffer. There is no treachery that
I should think base if employed against him. There is no slow torture
I could inflict upon him that would seem cruel enough to satisfy
my hatred of him. Think what a helpless old man my father was; a
broken-down gentleman; the sort of man whom everybody pities, whom
everybody respects. Remember this; and then remember the cold-blooded
deliberation of the wretch who cheated him out of the money which was
more than money to him—which represented honour—honesty—his child’s
future—all he valued. Remember the remorseless cruelty of the wretch
who looked on while this helpless old man suffered a slow agony of six
or seven hours’ duration, and then left him alone in his despair. Think
of this, Richard Thornton, and don’t wonder any longer if my feelings
towards this man are not _Christian-like_.”
“My dear Eleanor, if I regret the vehemence of your feeling upon this
subject, I do not defend the man whose treachery hurried your father to
his unhappy death; I only wish to convince you of the folly you commit
in cherishing these ideas of vengeance and retribution. Life is not
a three-volume novel or a five-act play, you know, Nelly. The sudden
meetings and strange coincidences common in novels are not very general
in our everyday existence. It is not at all likely that in the whole
course of your life you will ever again encounter this man. From the
moment of your father’s death all clue to him was lost; for it was only
your father who could have told us who and what he was, or, at least,
who and what he represented himself to be. He is lost in the vast
chaos of humanity now, my dear, and you have not the frailest clue by
which you might hope to find him. For Heaven’s sake, then, abandon all
thought of an impossible revenge! Have you forgotten the words we heard
in the Epistle a few weeks ago—‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith
the Lord’? If the melodramatic revenge of the stage is not practicable
in real life, we know at least, my dear—for you see we have it from
very high authority—that wicked deeds do not go unpunished. Far away
at the remotest limits of the earth, this man, whom your puny efforts
would be powerless to injure, may suffer for his crime. Try and think
of this, Eleanor.”
“_I cannot_,” answered the girl. “The letter which my father wrote me
before he died was a direct charge which I will never disobey. The only
inheritance I received from him was that letter—that letter in which
he told me to avenge his death. I dare say you think me mad as well as
wicked, Richard; but, in spite of all you have said, _I believe that I
shall meet that man!_”
The scene-painter sighed and relapsed into despondent silence. How
could he argue with this girl? What could he do but love and admire
her, and entrust himself to her direction if she had need of a slave?
While he was thinking this, Eleanor clasped both her hands upon his arm
and looked up earnestly in his face.
“Richard,” she said, in a low voice, “I think you would serve me if you
had the power.”
“I would go through fire and water to do so, Nelly.”
“I want you to help me in this matter. You know as little of this man
as I do, but you are much cleverer than me. You mix with other people
and see something of the world; not much, I know, but still a great
deal more than I do. I am going away into a quiet country place, where
there is no possible chance of meeting this man; you will stay in
London”——
“Where I may brush against him in the streets any day, Nell, without
being a shade the wiser as to his identity. My dear child, for any
practical purpose you will be as near the man in Berkshire as I shall
be in Bloomsbury. Don’t let’s talk of him any longer, Nelly. I can’t
tell you how this subject distresses me.”
“I won’t leave off talking of him,” said the young lady, resolutely,
“until you have made me a promise.”
“What promise?”
“That if ever you do come across any clue which may lead to the
identification of the man I want to find, you will follow it up,
patiently and faithfully, sparing neither trouble nor cost. For my
sake, Richard, for my sake, will you promise?”
“I will, my dear,” Mr. Thornton answered. “I do promise, and I will
keep my promise honestly if ever the chance of doing so should come to
me. But I must tell you frankly, Nell, I don’t believe it ever will.”
“Bless you for the promise, notwithstanding, Richard,” Eleanor said,
warmly. “It has made me much happier. There will be two people
henceforth, instead of one, set against this man.”
A dark frown overshadowed her face. It seemed as if she had uttered
those last few words in the form of a threat and a defiance, which the
man, whoever he was, and wherever he was, might hear.
“You know all the strange things they say now about second-sight,
clairvoyance, odic force, magnetic attraction—all sorts of long words
whose meaning I don’t understand, Richard. I wonder sometimes if this
man _knows_ that I hate him, and that I am watching for him, thinking
of him, praying to meet him day and night. Perhaps he does know this,
and will hold himself on his guard against me, and try and avoid me.”
Richard shrank from entering upon this subject; the conversation had
been altogether disagreeable to him. There was a horrible discrepancy
between this girl’s innocent youthful beauty and all this determined
talk of fierce and eager vengeance, which would have been more natural
to a Highland or Corsican chieftain than to a young lady of seventeen.
It was dark now, and they went back to the Pilasters, where Eliza
Picirillo was spending that last night very mournfully. The shabby room
was only illumined by the glimmer of a low fire, for the Signora had
not cared to light the candles until her two children came home. She
had been sitting by the dingy window watching for their return, and had
fallen asleep in the darkness.
There is no need to dwell upon that last night. It was like the eves of
all partings, very sad, very uncomfortable. Everything was disorganized
by that approaching sorrow. Conversation was desultory and forced, and
Richard was glad to be employed in cording Eleanor’s boxes. She had
two trunks now, and had a wardrobe that seemed to her magnificent, so
liberally had Mrs. Bannister bestowed her cast-off dresses upon her
half-sister.
So the last night passed away, the April morning came, and Eleanor’s
new life began.