THE ONE CHANCE.
Eleanor Vane lay awake through the greater part of the night which
succeeded her interview with the shipbroker. She lay awake, trying
to fashion for herself some scheme by which she might go back to
Hazlewood. The discovery which she had to make, the proof positive
that she wanted to obtain of Launcelot Darrell’s guilt, could only be
procured by long and patient watching of the young man himself; the
evidence that was to condemn him must come from his own lips. Some
chance admission, some accidental word, might afford a clue that would
guide her back to the secret of the past. But to obtain this clue
she must be in intimate association with the man whom she suspected.
In the careless confidence of daily life, in the freedom of social
intercourse, a hundred chances might occur which could never be brought
about while the gates of Hazlewood were closed upon her.
There was one other chance, it was true. Launcelot Darrell had asked
her to become his wife. His love, however feeble to withstand the wear
and tear of time, must, for the moment at least, be real. A line from
her would no doubt bring him to her side. She could lure him on by
affecting to return his affection, and in the entire confidence of such
an association she might discover the truth.
No! not for the wide world—not even to be true to her dead father—could
she be so false to every sentiment of womanly honour!
“Richard was right,” she thought, as she dismissed this idea with a
humiliating sense of her own baseness in having even for one brief
moment entertained it. “He was right. What shame and degradation I must
wade through before I can keep my promise!”
And to keep her promise she must go back to Hazlewood. This was the
point to which she always returned. But was it possible for her to
regain her old position in Mrs. Darrell’s house? Would not Mrs. Darrell
take care to keep her away, having once succeeded in banishing her from
Launcelot’s society?
Miss Vane was not a good schemer. Transparent, ingenuous, and
impulsive, she had the will and the courage which would have prompted
her to denounce Launcelot Darrell as a traitor and a cheat; but she did
not possess one of the attributes which are necessary for the watcher
who hopes to trace a shameful secret through all the dark intricacies
of the hidden pathway that leads to it.
It was long after daylight when the young lady fell asleep, worn out,
harassed, and baffled. The night had brought no counsel. Eleanor Vane
dropped off into a fitful slumber, with a passionate prayer upon her
lips,—a prayer that Providence would set her in the way of bringing
vengeance upon her father’s destroyer.
She flung herself upon Providence—after the manner of a great many
persons—when she found her own intellect powerless to conduct her to
the end she wanted to gain.
Throughout the next day Miss Vane sat alone on the chintz-covered sofa
by the window, looking down at the children playing hop-scotch, and
gambling for marbles upon the rugged flags below; “weary of the rolling
hours,” and unable to bring herself to the frame of mind necessary
for the ordinary purposes of life. Upon any other occasion she would
have tried to do something whereby she might lighten the Signora’s
burden, being quite competent to take the pupils off her friend’s
hands; but to-day she had suffered Eliza Picirillo to trudge out under
the broiling August sky, through the stifling London streets, and had
made no attempt to lessen her labours. She seemed even incapable of
performing the little domestic offices which she had been in the habit
of doing. She let the London dust accumulate upon the piano; she left
the breakfast-table scattered with the débris of the morning’s meal;
she made no effort to collect the stray sheets of music, the open
books, the scraps of needlework that littered the room; but with her
elbow on the smoky sill of the window, and her head resting on her
hand, she sat, looking wearily out, with eyes that saw nothing but
vacancy.
Richard had gone out early, and neither he nor his aunt was expected to
return till dusk.
“I can have everything ready for them when they come back,” she
thought, looking listlessly at the unwashed tea-things, which seemed to
stare at her in mute reproachfulness; and then her eyes wandered back
to the sunny window, and her mind returned with a cruel constancy to
the one idea that occupied it.
Had she been really looking at the objects on which her eyes seemed
to be fixed, she must have been surprised by the advent of a tall
and rather distinguished-looking stranger, who made his way along
the straw-littered promenade, between the Colonnade and the stables,
erasing the chalk diagrams of the hop-scotch players with the soles
of his boots, and rendering himself otherwise objectionable to the
juvenile population.
This stranger came straight to the shop of the shoemaker with whom
Signora Picirillo lodged, and inquired for Miss Vincent.
The shoemaker had only heard Eleanor’s assumed name a day or two
before, when Laura’s letter had arrived at the Pilasters. He had a
vague idea that the beautiful golden-haired young woman, who had first
entered his dwelling in the early freshness of budding girlhood, was
going to distinguish herself as a great musical genius, and intended to
astonish the professional world under a false name.
“It’s Miss Eleanor you want, I suppose, sir?” the man said, in answer
to the stranger’s question.
“Miss Eleanor?—yes.”
“Then, if you’ll please to step up-stairs, sir. The young lady’s all
alone to-day, for Mr. Richard he’s over the water a scene-paintin’ away
for dear life, and the S’nora she’s out givin’ lessons so poor young
miss is alone, and dismal enough she must be, cooped in-doors this fine
weather. It’s bad enough when one’s obliged to it, you know, sir,” the
man added, rather obscurely. “Will you please to walk up, sir? It’s the
door facing you at the top of the stairs.”
The shoemaker opened a half-glass door communicating with a dingy back
parlour and a steep staircase that twisted corkscrew-wise up to the
first floor. The visitor waited for no further invitation, but ascended
the stairs in a few strides, and paused for a moment before the door of
Signora Picirillo’s sitting-room.
“He’s one of these here London managers, I dessay,” thought the simple
cordwainer, as he went back to his work. “Mr. Cromshaw come here one
day after Mr. Richard in a pheeaton and pair, and no end of diamond
rings and breastpins.”
Eleanor Vane had not noticed the stranger’s footsteps on the uncarpeted
stair, but she started when the door opened, and looked round. Her
unexpected visitor was Mr. Monckton.
She rose in confusion, and stood with her back to the window, looking
at the lawyer. She was too much absorbed by her one idea to be troubled
by the untidiness of the shabby chamber, by the disorder of her own
hair or dress, or by any of those external circumstances which are
generally so embarrassing to a woman. She only thought of Gilbert
Monckton as a link between herself and Hazlewood. She did not even
wonder why he had come to see her.
“I may find out something; I may learn something from him,” she thought.
Against the great purpose of her life, even this man, who of all others
she most respected and esteemed, sank into utter insignificance. She
never cared to consider what he might think. She only regarded him as
an instrument which might happen to be of use to her.
“You are very much surprised to see me, Miss Vincent,” the lawyer said,
holding out his hand.
The girl put her hand loosely in his, and Gilbert Monckton started
as he felt the feverish heat of the slim fingers that touched his so
lightly. He looked into Eleanor’s face. The excitement of the last
three days had left its traces on her countenance.
Mrs. Darrell had made a confidant of the lawyer. It had been absolutely
necessary to explain Eleanor’s absence. Mrs. Darrell had given her own
version of the business, telling the truth, with sundry reservations.
Miss Vincent was a handsome and agreeable girl, she said; it was of
vital consequence to Launcelot that he should not form any attachment
or entertain any passing fancy, that might militate against his future
prospects. An imprudent marriage had alienated her, Mrs. Darrell,
from her uncle, Maurice de Crespigny. An imprudent marriage might
ruin the young man’s chance of inheriting the Woodlands estate.
Under these circumstances it was advisable that Miss Vincent should
leave Hazlewood; and the young lady had very generously resigned her
situation upon the matter being put before her in a proper light.
Mrs. Darrell took very good care not to make any allusion to that
declaration of love which she had overheard through the half-open door
of her son’s painting-room.
Mr. Monckton had expressed no little vexation at the sudden departure
of his ward’s companion; but his annoyance was of course felt solely on
account of Miss Mason, who told him, with her eyes streaming, and her
voice half-choked with sobs, that she could never be happy without her
darling Eleanor.
The lawyer said very little in reply to these lamentations, but took
care to get Miss Vincent’s address from his ward, and on the day after
his visit to Hazlewood went straight from his office to the Pilasters.
Looking at the change in Eleanor Vane’s face, Mr. Monckton, began to
wonder very seriously if the departure from Hazlewood had been a matter
of indifference to her; and whether it might not be that Mrs. Darrell’s
alarms about her son’s possible admiration for the penniless companion
were founded on stronger grounds than the widow had cared to reveal to
him.
“I was afraid that Laura’s frivolous fancy might be caught by this
young fellow,” he thought, “but I could never have believed that this
girl, who has ten times Laura’s intellect, would fall in love with
Launcelot Darrell.”
He thought this, while Eleanor’s feverish hand lay, loose and passive,
in his own.
“It was not quite kind of you to leave Hazlewood without seeing me,
or consulting me, Miss Vincent,” he said: “you must remember that I
confided to you a trust.”
“A trust!”
“Yes. You promised that you would look after my foolish young ward, and
take care that she did not fall in love with Mr. Darrell.”
Mr. Monckton watched the girl’s face very closely while he pronounced
Launcelot Darrell’s name, but there was no revelation in that pale
and wearied countenance. The grey eyes returned his gaze frankly and
unhesitatingly. Their brightness was faded, but their innocent candour
remained, in all its virginal beauty.
“I tried to do what you wished,” Miss Vane answered. “I am afraid that
Laura does admire Mr. Darrell. But I can’t quite understand whether she
is serious or not, and in any case nothing I could say would influence
her much, though I know she loves me.”
“No, I suppose not,” said Mr. Monckton, rather bitterly; “women are
not easily to be influenced in these matters. A woman’s love is the
sublimation of selfishness, Miss Vincent. It is delightful to a woman
to throw herself away; and she is perfectly indifferent as to how many
unoffending victims she drags to destruction in her downfall. An Indian
woman sacrifices herself out of respect to her dead husband. An English
woman offers up her husband and children on the altar of a living
lover. Pardon me if I speak too plainly. We lawyers become acquainted
with strange stories. I should not at all wonder if my ward were to
insist upon making herself miserable for life because Launcelot Darrell
has a Grecian nose.”
Mr. Monckton seated himself, uninvited, by the table on which the
unwashed tea-things bore testimonies to Eleanor’s neglect. He looked
round the room, but not rudely; for in one brief observant glance he
was able to see everything, and to understand everything.
“Have you ever _lived_ here, Miss Vincent?” he asked.
“Yes; I lived here a year and a half before I went to Hazlewood. I
was very happy,” Eleanor added, hastily, as if in deprecation of the
lawyer’s look, which betrayed a half-compassionate interest. “My
friends are very good to me, and I never wish for a better home.”
“But you have been accustomed to a better home, in your childhood?”
“No, not very much better. I always lived in lodgings, with my poor
father.”
“Your father was not rich, then?”
“No, not at all rich.”
“He was a professional man, I suppose?”
“No, he had no profession. He had been rich—very rich—once.”
The colour rose to Eleanor’s face as she spoke, for she suddenly
recollected that she had a secret to keep. The lawyer might recognize
George Vane by this description, she thought.
Gilbert Monckton fancied that sudden blush arose from wounded pride.
“Forgive me for asking you so many questions, Miss Vincent,” he said,
gently. “I am very much interested in you. I have been very much
interested in you for a long time.”
He was silent for some minutes. Eleanor had resumed her seat near the
window, and sat in a thoughtful attitude, with her eyes cast upon
the ground. She was wondering how she was to make good use of this
interview, and discover as much as possible of Launcelot Darrell’s
antecedents.
“Will you forgive me if I ask you a few more questions, Miss Vincent?”
the lawyer asked, after this brief silence.
Eleanor raised her eyes, and looked him full in the face. That bright,
straight, unfaltering gaze was perhaps the greatest charm which Miss
Vane possessed. She had no reason to complain that Nature had gifted
her with a niggardly hand; she had beauty of feature, of outline, of
colour; but this exquisitely candid expression was a rarer beauty, and
a higher gift.
“Believe me,” said Mr. Monckton, “that I am actuated by no unworthy
motive when I ask you to deal frankly with me. You will understand,
by-and-by, why and by what right I presume to question you. In the
meantime I ask you to confide in me. You left Hazlewood at Mrs.
Darrell’s wish, did you not?”
“Yes: it was at her wish that I left.”
“Her son had made you an offer of his hand?”
The question would have brought a blush to the face of an ordinary
girl. But Eleanor Vane was removed from ordinary women by the
exceptional story of her life. From the moment of her discovery of
Launcelot Darrell’s identity, all thought of him as a lover, or an
admirer, had been blotted out of her mind. He was removed from other
men by the circumstances of his guilt; as she was set apart from other
women by the revengeful purpose in her breast.
“Yes,” she said. “Mr. Darrell asked me to be his wife.”
“And did you—did you refuse him?”
“No; I gave him no answer.”
“You did not love him, then?”
“Love him! Oh, no, no!”
Her eyes dilated with a look of surprise as she spoke, as if it was
most astounding to her that Gilbert Monckton should ask such a question.
“Perhaps you do not think Launcelot Darrell worthy of a good woman’s
love?”
“I do not,” answered Eleanor. “Don’t talk of him, please. At least, I
mean, don’t talk of him, and of love,” she added, hastily, remembering
that the very thing she wished was that the lawyer should talk of
Launcelot Darrell. “You—you must know a great deal of his youth. He was
idle and dissipated, was he not; and—and—a card-player?”
“A card-player?”
“Yes—a gambler; a man who plays cards for the sake of winning money?”
“I never heard any one say so. He was idle, no doubt, and loitered away
his time in London under the pretence of studying art; but I never
remember hearing that gambling was one of his vices. However, I don’t
come here to speak of him, but of you. What are you going to do, now
that you have left Hazlewood?”
Eleanor was cruelly embarrassed by this question. Her most earnest
wish was to return to Hazlewood, or at least to the neighbourhood of
Launcelot Darrell’s home. Absorbed by this wish, she had formed no
scheme for the future. She had not even remembered that she stood alone
in the world, with only a few pounds saved out of her slender salary,
unprovided with that which is the most necessary of all weapons in any
warfare, Money!
“I—I scarcely know what I shall do,” she said. “Mrs. Darrell promised
to procure me a situation.”
But as she spoke she remembered that to accept a situation of Mrs.
Darrell’s getting would be in some manner to eat bread provided by the
kinswoman of her father’s foe, and she made a mental vow to starve
rather than to receive the widow’s patronage.
“I do not put much confidence in Mrs. Darrell’s friendship when her own
end is gained,” Gilbert Monckton said, thoughtfully. “Ellen Darrell is
only capable of loving one person, and that person is, according to the
fashion of the world, the one who has used her worst. She loves her
son, Launcelot, and would sacrifice a hecatomb of her fellow-creatures
for his advantage. If she can get you a new home, I dare say she will
do so. If she cannot, she has succeeded in removing you from her son’s
pathway, and will trouble herself very little about your future.”
Eleanor Vane lifted her head with a sudden gesture of pride.
“I do not want Mrs. Darrell’s help,” she said.
“But you would not refuse the counsel, or even the help of any one you
liked, would you, Eleanor?” returned the lawyer. “You are very young,
very inexperienced,—the life at Hazlewood suited you, and it might
have gone on for years without danger of unhappiness or disquiet, but
for the coming of Launcelot Darrell. I have known you for a year and
a half, Miss Vincent, and I have watched you very closely. I think I
know you very well. Yes, if a lawyer’s powers of penetration and habit
of observation are to go for anything, I _must_ know you by this time.
I may have been an egregious fool twenty years ago; but I must be wise
enough now to understand a girl of eighteen.”
He said this rather as if reasoning with himself than talking to
Eleanor. Miss Vane looked at him, wondering what all this talk would
lead to, and what motive, under heaven, could have induced a lawyer of
high standing to leave his chambers in the middle of the business day,
for the purpose of sitting in a shabby lodging-house chamber, with his
elbow resting upon a dirty tablecloth amid the confusion of unwashed
breakfast cups and saucers.
“Eleanor Vincent,” Mr. Monckton said by-and-by, after a very long
pause, “country people are most intolerable gossips. You cannot have
lived at Hazlewood for a year and a half without having heard something
of my history.”
“Your history?”
“Yes, you heard that there was some secret trouble in the early part of
my life—that there were some unpleasant circumstances connected with my
purchase of Tolldale.”
Eleanor Vane was unskilled in the art of prevarication. She could not
give an evasive answer to a straight question.
“Yes,” she said, “I have heard people say that.”
“And you have no doubt heard them say that my trouble—like every other
trouble upon this earth, as it seems to me—was caused by a woman.”
“Yes, I heard that.”
“I was very young when that sorrow came to me, Eleanor Vincent, and
very ready to believe in a beautiful face. I was deceived. My story is
all told in those three words, and it is a very old story after all.
Great tragedies and epic poems have been written upon the same theme,
until it has become so hackneyed that I have no need to enlarge upon
it. I was deceived, Miss Vincent, and for twenty years I have profited
by that bitter lesson. Heaven help me if I feel inclined to forget it
now. I am forty years of age, but I do not think that the brightness of
my life has quite gone yet. Twenty years ago I was in love, and in the
ardour and freshness of my youth, I dare say I talked a great deal of
nonsense. I am in love once more, Eleanor. Will you forgive me if all
my faculty for sentimental talk is lost? Will you let me tell you, in
very few and simple words, that I love you; that I have loved you for a
long time; and that you will make me unspeakably happy if you can think
my earnest devotion worthy of some return?”
Every vestige of colour faded slowly from Eleanor’s face. There had
been a time—before the return of Launcelot Darrell—when a word of
praise, an expression of friendliness or regard from Gilbert Monckton,
had been very precious to her. She had never taken the trouble to
analyze her feelings. That time, before the coming of the young man,
had been the sunniest and most careless period of her youth. She had
during that interval been false to the memory of her father—she had
suffered herself to be happy. But now a gulf yawned between her and
that lapse of forgetfulness. She could not look back clearly; she
could not remember or recall her former feelings. Gilbert Monckton’s
offer might then have awakened some answering sentiment in her own
breast. Now his hand struck upon the slackened chords of a shattered
instrument; and there was no music to respond harmoniously to the
player’s touch.
“Can you love me, Eleanor? Can you love me?” the lawyer asked,
imploringly, taking the girl’s two hands in his own.
“Your heart is free: yes, I know that; and that at least is something.
Heaven forgive me if I try to bribe you. But my youth is passed, and I
can scarcely expect to be loved for myself alone. Think how dreary and
undefended your life must be, if you refuse my love and protection.
Think of that, Eleanor. Ah! if you knew what a woman is when thrown
upon the world _without_ the shelter of a husband’s love, you would
think seriously. I want you to be more than my wife, Eleanor. I want
you to be the guardian and protectress of that poor frivolous girl
whose future has been trusted to my care. I want you to come and live
at Tolldale, my darling, so as to be near that poor child at Hazlewood.”
Near Hazlewood! The hot blood rushed into Eleanor’s face at the sound
of those two words, then faded suddenly away and left her deadly white,
trembling and clinging to the back of her chair for support. To all
else that Gilbert Monckton had said she had listened in a dull stupor.
But now her intellect arose and grasped the full importance of the
lawyer’s supplication. In a moment she understood that the one chance
which of all other things upon this earth she had most desired, and
which of all other things had seemed farthest removed from her, was now
within her reach.
She might go back to Hazlewood. She might return as Gilbert Monckton’s
wife. She did not stop to consider how much was involved in this. It
was her nature to be ruled by impulse, and impulse only; and she had
yet to learn submission to a better guidance. She could go back to
Hazlewood. She would have returned there as a kitchen-maid, had the
opportunity of so doing offered itself to her; and she was ready to
return as Gilbert Monckton’s wife.
“My prayers have been heard,” she thought. “My prayers have been heard:
Providence will give me power to keep my promise. Providence will set
me face to face with that man.”
Eleanor Vane stood with her hands clasped upon the back of her
chair, thinking of this, and looking straight before her, in utter
unconsciousness of the earnest eyes that were fixed upon her face,
while the lawyer waited breathlessly to hear her decision.
“Eleanor,” he cried, entreatingly, “Eleanor, I have been deceived once;
do not let me be a woman’s dupe, now that there are streaks of grey
amongst my hair. I love you, my dear. I can make you independent and
secure; but I do not offer you a fortune or a position of sufficient
magnitude or grandeur to tempt an ambitious woman. For God’s sake do
not trifle with me. If you love me now, or can hope to love me in the
future, be my wife. But if any other image holds the smallest place in
your heart—if there is one memory, or one regret, that can come between
us, Eleanor, dismiss me from you unhesitatingly. It will be merciful to
me—to you also, perhaps, to do so. I have seen many a union in which
there has been love on one side, and indifference—or something worse
than indifference—upon the other. Eleanor, think of all this, and then
tell me, frankly, if you can be my wife.”
Eleanor Vane dimly comprehended that there was a depth of passionate
feeling beneath the quiet earnestness of the lawyer’s manner. She tried
to listen, she tried to understand; but she could not. The one idea
which held possession of her mind, kept that mind locked against every
other impression. It was not his love, it was not his name, or his
fortune, that Gilbert Monckton offered her—he offered her the chance of
returning to Hazlewood.
“You are very good to me,” she said. “I will be your wife. I will go
back to Hazlewood.”
She held out her hand to him. No trace of womanly confusion, or natural
coquetry, betrayed itself in her manner. Pale and absorbed, she held
out her hand, and offered up her Future as a small and unconsidered
matter, when set against the one idea of her life—the promise to her
dead father.