A SOLEMN APPEAL.
A few days passed away in Dalton Hall, and Edith began to understand
perfectly the nature of the restraint to which she was subjected. That
restraint involved nothing of the nature of violence. No rude or uncivil
word was spoken to her. Wiggins and Mrs. Dunbar had professed even
affection for her, and the two servants never failed to be as respectful
as they could. Her restraint was a certain environment, so as to prevent
her from leaving the park grounds. She felt walled in by a barrier
which she could not pass, but within this barrier liberty of movement
was allowed. At the same time, she knew that she was watched; and since
her first discovery of Hugo on her track, she felt sure that if she ever
went any where he would stealthily follow, and not allow her to go out
of sight. Whether he would lift his hand to prevent actual escape, if
the chance should present itself, was a thing which she could not
answer, nor did she feel inclined to try it as yet.
During the few days that followed her first memorable experience she
made no further attempt to escape, or even to search out a way of
escape. What had become of Miss Plympton she did not know, and could
only imagine. She still indulged the hope, however, that Miss Plympton
was at Dalton, and looked forward with confidence to see her coming to
Dalton Hall, accompanied by the officers of the law, to effect her
deliverance. It was this hope that now sustained her, and prevented her
from sinking into despair.
Of Wiggins during these few days she saw nothing more than a distant
glimpse. She remained in the room which she first occupied during the
greater part of the time. Nor did she see much of Mrs. Dunbar. From an
occasional remark she gathered that she was cleaning the drawing-room or
dusting it; but in this Edith now took no interest whatever. The Hall
was now a prison-house, and the few plans which she had been making at
first were now thrown aside and forgotten. Mrs. Dunbar brought her her
meals at regular intervals, but Edith never took the slightest notice of
her. She could not help observing at times in Mrs. Dunbar's manner, and
especially in her look, a whole world of sorrowful sympathy, but after
her unmistakable championship of Wiggins, she could not feel the
slightest confidence in her.
At length one morning Wiggins once more called upon her. She was seated
near the window when she heard a knock. The door was already open, and
turning, she saw Wiggins. She bowed slightly, but said nothing, and
Wiggins bowed in return, after which he entered and seated himself,
fixing his solemn eyes upon her in his usual way.
“It is a matter of great regret,” said he, “that I am forced to give
pain to one for whom I entertain so much kindness, and even, let me add,
affection. Had you made your return to this place a little less
abruptly, you would have found, I am sure, a different reception, and
your position would have been less unpleasant.”
“Would you have allowed me my liberty,” asked Edith, “and the society of
my friends, if I had delayed longer before my return? If so, let me go
back now, and I will give you notice before coming here again.”
Wiggins shook his head mournfully.
“I am one,” said he, “who has had deeper sorrows than usually fall to
the lot of man; yet none, I assure you--no, not one--has ever caused me
more pain than my present false position toward you. Can you not place
some confidence in me, and think that this is all for--for your good?”
“You speak so plaintively,” said Edith, “that I should be touched, if
your words were not belied by your acts. What do you think can
compensate for the loss of liberty? Were you ever imprisoned? Did you
ever have a jailer over you? Did you ever know what it was to be shut in
with walls over which you could not pass, and to know that the jailer's
eyes were always upon you? Wait till you have felt all this, and then
you will understand how empty and idle all your present words must be.”
While she said these words Wiggins sat as if he had been turned to
stone. His eyes were fixed on her with a look of utter horror. His
hands trembled. As she stopped he shuddered, and hastily looked behind
him. Then another shudder passed through him. At last with a violent
effort, he recovered something of his former calm.
“God grant,” said he, “that you may never know what I have known of all
that which you now mention!”
His voice trembled as he spoke these words, and when he had said them he
relapsed into silence.
“Since you have invoked the name of the Deity,” said Edith, solemnly,
“if you have any reverence for your Maker, I ask you now, in His name,
by what right you keep me here.”
“I am your--guardian,” said Wiggins, slowly; “your--guardian; yes,” he
added, thoughtfully, “that is the word.”
“My guardian! Who made you my guardian? Who had the right to put you
over me?”
Wiggins paused, and raised his head, which had been bent forward for a
few moments past, looked at Edith with a softer light in his solemn
eyes, and said, in a low voice, which had a wonderful sweetness in its
intonation,
“Your father.”
Edith looked at him earnestly for a moment, affected in spite of herself
by his look and by his voice; but suddenly the remembrance of her wrongs
drove off completely her momentary emotion.
“Do you think my father would have made you my guardian,” said she, “if
he had suspected what you were going to do with me?”
“I solemnly assure you that he did know, and that he did approve.”
At this Edith smiled. Wiggins now seemed too methodical for a madman,
and she began to understand that he was assuming these solemn airs, so
as to make an impression upon her. Having made up her mind to this, she
determined to question him further, so as to see what more he proposed
to do.
“Your father,” said Wiggins, “was my friend; and I will do for you
whatever I would have done for him.”
“I have no doubt of that,” said Edith. “Indeed, you are doing for me
now precisely what I have reason to understand you did for him.”
“I do not comprehend you,” said Wiggins.
“It is of no consequence,” said Edith. “We will let it pass. Let us
return to the subject. You assert that you are my guardian. Does that
give you the right to be my jailer--to confine me here, to cut me off
from all my friends?”
“You use harsh words,” said Wiggins; “but nevertheless it is a fact that
the law does allow the guardian this power. It regards him in the place
of a parent. All that a father can do, a guardian can do. As a father
can restrain a child, so can a guardian, if he deems such restraint
necessary. Moreover, if the ward should escape, the law will hand him
back to his guardian, just as it would hand, back a child to its
father.”
Not one word of this did Edith believe, and so it made no impression.
Having already got the idea in her mind that Wiggins was melodramatic,
and playing a part, she had no doubt that his words would be regulated
by the same desire that governed his acts, and would be spoken
exclusively with the view of producing an impression upon herself. She
therefore looked at him with unchanged feelings, and instantly replied:
“It would be very fortunate for you if it were so, but for my part I
think better of the law. At the same time, since you claim all this
authority over me, I should like to know how long you think this power
will last. You do not seem to think that I am of age.”
“That matters not,” said Wiggins. “My control over the estates and, my
guardianship over you are of such a nature that they can not cease till
your marriage.”
“Oh, then,” said Edith, “according to that, I ought to try to get
married as soon as possible. And this, I suppose, is your sole reason
for shutting me up?”
Wiggins said nothing, but sat looking gloomily at her.
By his last words Edith now found what appeared to her a clew to his
whole plan. He was, or pretended to be, her guardian; he had been
appointed, or pretended to have been appointed, by her father. It might
have been so. Edith could well imagine how in previous years he had made
this false friend his executor and the guardian of his child; and then,
in the anguish of the trial and of the punishment, forgotten to annul
the deed; or Wiggins may have forged the document himself. If he really
was the false friend who had betrayed her father, and who had committed
that forgery for which her father innocently suffered, then he might
easily forge such a document as this in her father's name.
Such was her conclusion from his words though she did not think fit to
say as much to him. What she did say, however, seemed to have affected
him, for he did not speak for some time.
“You have no conception,” said he at length, “of the torment that some
of your careless words cause. You do not know what you do, or what you
say. There is something that I can not tell, whatever be the price of
silence--something that concerns you and me, and your father, and two
great houses--and it is this that makes me dumb, and forces me to stand
in this false position. You look upon me as the crafty, scheming
steward--one who is your pitiless jailer--and I have to bear it. But
there is something which I can say--and I warn you, or rather I implore
you, not to disbelieve me; I entreat you to let my words have some
weight. I declare to you, then, by all that is most sacred among men,
that this restraint which I ask you to undergo is out of no selfish
desire, no avarice, no lack of honor for you, and--affection, but
because of a plan which I have, the success of which concerns all of us,
and you not the least.”
Edith listened to this without emotion, though at another time the
solemnity of such an appeal could not have failed to enforce belief. But
now Wiggins seemed only melodramatic, and every word seemed false.
“What plan?” she asked.
“It is this,” said, Wiggins, looking all around with his usual cautions
vigilance, and drawing nearer to her. “Your father's name is a
dishonored one--the name you bear is covered with the stain of infamy.
What would you not give if his memory could be redeemed from wrong; if
even at this late hour his character could be vindicated? You have, I
am sure, a noble and a devoted heart. You would be willing to do much
for this. But what I ask of you is very little. I ask only silence and
seclusion. If you should consent to this, my work may be done before
very long; and then, whatever may be your feelings toward me, I shall
feel that I have done my work, and nothing further that this world may
do, whether of good or evil, shall be able to affect me. I ask
this--more, I entreat it of you, I implore you, in the sacred name of an
injured father, by all his unmerited wrongs and sufferings, to unite
with me in this holy purpose, and help me to accomplish it. Do not be
deceived by appearances. Believe me, I entreat you, for your father's
sake.”
Never were words spoken with greater apparent earnestness than these;
and never was any voice or manner more solemn and impressive. Yet upon
Edith no more effect was produced than before. When she had asked him
what his plan was, she had been prepared for this, or something like it.
She saw now that the mode by which he tried to work upon her was by
adopting the solemn and the pathetic style. The consequence was that
every gesture, every intonation, every look, seemed artificial, hollow,
and insincere. For never could she forget the one fatal fact that this
was her jailer, and that she was a helpless prisoner. More than this, he
had as good as asserted his intention of keeping her a prisoner till her
marriage, which, under such circumstances, meant simply till her death.
Not for one instant could he be brought to consent to relax the
strictness of his control over her. For such a man to make such an
appeal as this was idle; and she found herself wondering, before he had
got half through, why he should take the trouble to try to deceive her.
When he had finished she did not care to answer him, or to tell him what
was on her, mind. She was averse to quarrels, scenes, or anything
approaching to scolding or empty threats. What she did say, therefore,
was; perfectly commonplace, but for that reason perhaps all the more
disappointing to the man who had made such an appeal to her.
“What you say,” said she, “does not require any answer. It is as though
I should ask you to submit to imprisonment for an indefinite period, or
for life, for instance, for the sake of a friend. And you would not
think such a request very reasonable. What I require of you is, not idle
words, but liberty. When you ask me to believe you, you must first gain
my confidence by treating me with common justice. Or if you will not
release me, let me at least see my friends. That is not much. I have
only one friend--Miss Plympton.”
“You appear to think more of this Miss Plympton than you do of your own
father,” said Wiggins, gloomily.
“What I think of my father is of no consequence to you,” said Edith;
“but as to Miss Plympton, she took me as a dying gift from my dear
mamma, and has loved me with a mother's love ever since, and is the only
mother I have known since childhood. When you turned her away from my
gates you did an injury to both of us which makes all your protestations
of honesty useless. But she is not under your control, and you may be
sure that she will exert herself on my behalf. It seems to me that you
have not considered what the result will be if she comes back in the
name of the law.”
“I have considered every thing,” said Wiggins. Then, after a pause, he
added, “So you love Miss Plympton very dearly?”
“Very, very dearly!”
“And her words would have great weight with you?”
“Very great weight.'
“If, now, she should tell you that you might put confidence in me, you
would feel more inclined to do so?”
Edith hesitated at this; but the thought occurred to her of Miss
Plympton's detestation of Wiggins, and the utter impossibility of a
change of opinion on her part.
“If Miss Plympton should put confidence in you,” said she, “I should
indeed feel my own opinions changed.”
Upon this Wiggins sat meditating profoundly for a short time.
“Suppose, now,” said he at length, “that you should receive a note from
Miss Plympton in which she should give you a more favorable opinion of
me, would you accept it from her?”
“I certainly should be happy to get any thing of that kind from her,”
said Edith.
“Well,” said Wiggins, “I had not intended to take any one into my
confidence, certainly not any stranger, and that stranger woman; but I
am so unable to tell you all, and at the same time I long so to have
your confidence, that I may possibly decide to see Miss Plympton myself.
If I do, rest assured her opinion of me will change. This will endanger
the success of my plan; but I must run the risk--yes, whatever it is;
for if this goes on, I must even give up the plan itself, and with it
all my hopes for myself--and for you.”
These last words Wiggins spoke in a low voice, half to himself, and with
his eyes turned to the ground. Edith heard the words, but thought
nothing of the meaning of them. To her, every thing was done for effect,
nothing was sincere. If she did not understand the meaning of some of
his words, she did not trouble herself to try to, but dismissed them
from her thoughts as merely affectations. As to his allusion to Miss
Plympton, and his idea of visiting her, Edith did not for a moment
imagine that he meant it. She thought that this was of a piece with the
rest.
With these last words Wiggins arose from his chair, and with a slight
bow to Edith, took his departure. The interview had been a singular one,
and the manner of entreaty which Wiggins had adopted toward her served
to perplex her still more. It was part of the system which he had
originated, by which she was never treated in any other way than with
the utmost apparent respect and consideration, but in reality guarded as
a prisoner with the most sleepless vigilance.
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