RESOLVED.
Launcelot Darrell had not sailed for Calcutta in the _Princess Alice_.
This point once established, it was utterly vain for Richard Thornton
to argue against that indomitable belief which had taken possession of
Eleanor Vane’s mind, respecting the identity between the man who had
won her father’s money at écarté, and Mrs. Darrell’s only son.
“I tell you, Richard,” she said, when the scene-painter argued with
her, “that nothing but proof positive of Launcelot Darrell’s absence
in India at the date of my father’s death would have dispossessed me
of the idea that flashed upon me on the day I left Berkshire. He was
not in India at that time. He deceived his mother and his friends. He
remained in Europe; and led, no doubt, an idle, dissipated life. He
must have lived by his wits, for he had no money from his mother—no
one to help him—no profession to support him. What is more likely
than that he went to Paris,—the paradise of scoundrels, I have heard
you say, Richard,—under an assumed name? What more likely? Why, _he
was there_! The man I saw on the boulevard, and the man I saw in the
Windsor street, are one and the same. You cannot argue me out of that
conviction, Richard Thornton, for it is the truth. It is the truth, and
it shall be the business of my life to prove that it is so.”
“And what then, Eleanor?” Mr. Thornton asked, gravely. “Supposing
you can prove this; by such evidences as will be very difficult to
get at—by such an investigation as will waste your life, blight your
girlhood, warp your nature, unsex your mind, and transform you from a
candid and confiding woman into an amateur detective. Suppose you do
all this,—and you little guess, my dear, the humiliating falsehoods,
the pitiful deceptions, the studied basenesses, you must practise
if you are to tread that sinuous pathway,—what then? What good is
effected; what end is gained? Are you any nearer to the accomplishment
of the vow you uttered in the Rue de l’Archevêque?”
“What do you mean, Richard?”
“I mean that to prove this man’s guilt is not to avenge your father’s
death. Neither you nor the law has any power to punish him. He may or
may not have cheated your poor father. At this distance of time you can
prove nothing; except that he played écarté in the private room of a
café, and that he won all your father’s money. He would only laugh in
your face, my poor Nelly, if you were to bring such a charge as this
against him.”
“If I can once prove that, which I now believe as firmly as if every
mortal proof had demonstrated its truth, I know how to punish Launcelot
Darrell,” replied the girl.
“You know how to punish him?”
“Yes. His uncle—that is to say, his great-uncle—Maurice de Crespigny,
was my father’s firmest friend. I need not tell you that story, Dick,
for you have heard it often enough from my poor father’s own lips.
Launcelot Darrell hopes to inherit the old man’s money, and is, I
believe, likely enough to do so. But if I could prove to the old
man that my father died a melancholy and untimely death through his
nephew’s treachery, Launcelot Darrell would never receive a sixpence
of that money. I know how eagerly he looks forward to it, though he
affects indifference.”
“And you would do this, Eleanor?” asked Richard, staring aghast at his
companion. “You would betray the secrets of this young man’s youth to
his uncle, and compass his ruin by that revelation?”
“I would do what I swore to do in the Rue de l’Archevêque—I would
avenge my father’s death. The last words my poor father ever wrote
appealed to me to do that. I have never forgotten those words. There
may have been a deeper treachery in that night’s work than you or I
knew of, Richard. Launcelot Darrell knew who my father was; he knew
of the friendship between him and Mr. de Crespigny. How do we know
that he did not try to goad the poor old man to that last act of his
despair?—how do we know that he did not plan those losses at cards, in
order to remove his uncle’s friend from his pathway? O God! Richard, if
I thought that——!”
The girl rose from her chair in a sudden tumult of passion, with her
hands clenched and her eyes flashing.
“If I could think that his treachery went beyond the baseness of
cheating my father of his money for the money’s sake, I would take
_his_ life for that dear life as freely and as unhesitatingly as I lift
my hand up now.”
She raised her clenched hand towards the ceiling as she spoke, as
if to register some unuttered vow. Then, turning abruptly to the
scene-painter, she said, almost imploringly,——
“It can’t be, Richard; he cannot have been so base as that! He held my
hand in his only a few days ago. I would cut off that hand if I could
think that Launcelot Darrell had planned my father’s death.”
“But you cannot think it, my dear Eleanor,” Richard answered,
earnestly. “How should the young man know that your father would take
his loss so deeply to heart? We none of us calculate the consequences
of our sins, my dear. If this man cheated, he cheated because he wanted
money. For Heaven’s sake, Nelly, leave him and his sin in the hands of
Providence! The future is not a blank sheet of paper, for us to write
any story we please upon, but a wonderful chart, mapped out by a Divine
and unerring Hand. Launcelot Darrell will not go unpunished, my dear.
‘My faith is strong in Time,’ as the poet says. Leave the young man to
time—and to Providence.”
Eleanor Vane shook her head, smiling bitterly at her friend’s
philosophy. Poor mad Constance’s reply always rose, in some shape
or other, to the girl’s lips in answer to Richard’s arguments. The
Cardinal reasons with wonderful discretion, but the bereaved mother
utters one sentence that is more powerful than all the worthy man’s
moralities: “He talks to me that never had a son!”
“It is no use preaching to me,” Miss Vane said. “If _your_ father had
died by this man’s treachery, you would not feel so charitably disposed
towards him. I _will_ keep the promise made three years ago. I _will_
prove Launcelot Darrell’s guilt; and that guilt shall stand between him
and Maurice de Crespigny’s fortune.”
“You forget one point in this business, Eleanor.”
“What point?”
“It may take you a very long time to obtain the proof you want. Mr.
de Crespigny is an old man and an invalid. He may make a will in Mr.
Darrell’s favour and die before you are in a position to tell him of
his nephew’s treachery to your poor father.”
Eleanor was silent for a few moments. Her arched brows contracted, and
her mouth grew compressed and rigid.
“I must go back to Hazlewood, Dick,” she said, slowly. “Yes, you are
right; there is no time to be lost. I _must_ go back to Hazlewood.”
“That is not very practicable, is it, Nell?”
“I _must_ go back, if I go in some disguise—if I go and hide myself in
the village, and watch Launcelot Darrell when he least thinks he is
observed. I don’t care how I go, Richard, but I must be there. It can
only be from the discoveries I make in the present that I shall be able
to trace my way back to the history of the past. I must go there!”
“And begin at once upon the business of a detective? Eleanor, you shall
not do this, if I can prevent you.”
Richard Thornton’s unavowed love gave him a certain degree of authority
over the impulsive girl. There is always a dignity and power in every
feeling that is really true. Throughout the story of Notre Dame de
Paris, the hunchback’s love for Esmeralda is never once contemptible.
It is only Phœbus, handsome, glittering, and false, who provokes our
scorn.
Eleanor Vane did not rebel against the young man’s tone of authority.
“Oh, Dick, Dick!” she cried, piteously, “I know how wicked I am. I have
been nothing but a trouble to you and the dear Signora. But I cannot
forget my father’s death—I cannot forget the letter he wrote to me. I
must be true to the vow I made then, Richard, if I sacrifice my life in
keeping my word.”
Eliza Picirillo came in before the scene-painter could reply to this
speech. It had been agreed between the two young people that the
Signora should know nothing of Miss Vane’s discoveries; so Eleanor and
Richard saluted the music-mistress in that strain of factitious gaiety
generally adopted under such circumstances.
Signora Picirillo’s perceptions were perhaps a little blunted by the
wear-and-tear of half-a-dozen hours’ labour amongst her out-door
pupils; and as Eleanor bustled about the room preparing the tea-table
and making the tea, the good music-mistress fully believed in her
protégée’s simulated liveliness. When the table had been cleared, and
Richard had gone to smoke his short meerschaum amongst the damp straw
and invalid cabs in the promenade before the Pilasters, Eleanor seated
herself at the piano, in order to escape the necessity of conversation.
Her fingers flew over the keys in a thousand complexities of harmony,
but her mind, for ever true to one idea, brooded upon the dark scheme
of vengeance which she had planned for herself.
“Come what may,” she thought again and again, “at any price I must go
back to Hazlewood.”