I beg Captain Moreton's pardon, I left him running across a field in
not the brightest possible night that ever shone. I should, at least,
have taken him safely home before now wherever that home might be,
which would be indeed difficult to say, for the home of Captain
Moreton was what people who pore over long lines of figures call a
_variable quantity_. However, there was once, at least there is
reported to have been once, for I do not take upon myself to answer
for the fact, a certain young person called Galanthis. She was a maid
of-all-work in a very reputable Greek family, and was called as a
witness in the famous crim. con. case of Amphitryon _versus_ Jupiter.
She proved herself very skilful in puzzling an examining counsel, and
there is an old nonsensical story of her having been changed into a
weasel to commemorate the various turnings and windings of her
prevarications. Nevertheless, not this convenient Abigail, nor any of
her pliant race, ever took more turnings and windings than did Captain
Moreton on the night after his escape from his prison in the vestry.
Every step of the country round he knew well, and up one narrow lane,
through this small field, along that wood path, by another short cut,
he went, sometimes walking and sometimes running, till at length he
came to a common of no very great extent, lying half-way, or nearly
so, between the town of Tarningham and the house called Burton's Inn.
The common was called Chandleigh Heath; and on the side next to the
inn was the village of Chandleigh, while between the heath and
Tarningham lay about two miles of well-cultivated but not very
populous fields and meadows. At an angle of the common a retired
hosier of Chandleigh had built himself a cottage--a cottage suited to
himself and his state--consisting of six rooms, all of minute size,
and he had, moreover, planted himself a garden, in which roses strove
with apple-trees and cherries. The hosier--as retired hosiers will
very often do--died one day, and left the cottage to his nephew, a
minor. The guardians strove to let the cottage furnished, but for
upwards of a year they strove in vain; its extremely retired situation
was against it, till one day it was suddenly tenanted, and right glad
were they to get a guinea a week and ask no questions. It was to this
retired cottage, then of the retired hosier, that Captain Moreton's
steps were ultimately bent, and as it had windows down to the ground
on the garden side, he chose that side, and went in at the window,
where, I forgot to remark, there were lights shining.
At a table in the room, with her foot upon a footstool, and a pillow
behind her back, sat a lady whom we have before described; and
certainly, to look at her face, handsome as it was, no one would have
fancied there was a fierce and fiery spirit beneath, so weak and, I
mar venture to call it, lackadaisical was the expression.
"Heaven, Moreton, how you startled me!" cried the lady: "where have
you been such a long time? You know I want society at night. It is
only at night I am half alive."
"Well," said Captain Moreton, with a laugh, "I have been half dead and
half buried; for I have been down into a vault and shut up in a vestry
as a close prisoner. I only got out by wrenching off the bars. Nobody
could see my face, however, so that is lucky; for they can but say I
was looking at a register by candlelight, and the old sexton will not
peach for his own sake."
"Still at those rash tricks, Moreton," said the lady, "it will end in
your getting hanged, depend upon it. I have been writing a poem called
'The Rash Man,' and I was just hanging him when you came in and
startled me."
"My rash tricks, as you call them, got you a thousand a year once,"
answered Moreton, sharply, "so, in pity, leave your stupid poetry,
Charlotte, and listen to what I have to say."
"Stupid poetry!" exclaimed the lady, angrily. "There was a time when
you did not call it so; and as for the thousand a year, it was more to
save yourself than to serve me that you fancied that scheme. You know
that I hated the pedantic boy, as virtuous as a young kid, and as
pious as his grandmother's prayer-book. Nothing would have induced me
to marry him if you had not represented--"
"Well, never mind all that," answered Captain Moreton, interrupting
her. "We have something else to think of now, Charlotte. I don't know
that it would not be better for me to be off, after all."
"Well, I am ready to go whenever you like," replied the lady. "I am
sure it is not very pleasant to stay in this place, seeing nobody and
hearing nothing; without opera, or concert, or coffee-house, or any
thing. I shall be very glad to go."
"Aye, aye, but that is a different matter," said Captain Moreton,
considerately. "I said it would be perhaps better for me to be off;
but I am quite sure it would be better for you to stay."
The lady looked at him for a moment or two with the eyes of a tiger.
If she had had a striped or spotted skin upon her back one would have
expected her to spring at his throat the next minute, but she had
acquired a habit of commanding her passions to a certain point, beyond
which, they indeed became totally ungovernable, but which was not yet
attained; and she contented herself with giving Captain Moreton one of
those _coups de patte_ with which she sometimes treated him. "So,
Moreton," she said, "you think that you can go away and leave me to
take care of myself, as you did some time ago; but you are mistaken,
my good friend. I have become wiser now, and I certainly shall not
suffer you."
"How will you stop me?" asked her companion, turning sharply upon her.
"As to stopping you," she replied, with a sneer, "I do not know that I
can. You are a strong man and I am a weak woman, and in a tussle you
would get the better; but I could bring you back, Moreton, you know,
if I did not stop you."
"How?" demanded he again, looking fiercely at her.
"By a magistrate's warrant, and half a dozen constables," answered the
lady. "You do not think I have had so much experience of your amiable
ways for nothing, or that I have not taken care to have proofs of a
good many little things that would make you very secure in any country
but America--that dear land of liberty, where fraud and felony find
refuge and protection."
"Do you mean to say that you would destroy me, woman?" exclaimed
Captain Moreton.
"Not exactly destroy you," replied his fair companion, "though you
would make a fine criminal under the beam. I have not seen an
execution for I do not know how long, and it is a fine sight, after
all--better than all the tragedies that ever were written. It is no
fun seeing men kill each other in jest: one knows that they come to
life again as soon as the curtain falls; but once hanging over the
drop, or lying on the guillotine, there's no coming to life any more.
I should like to see you hanged, Moreton, when you are hanged. You
would hang very well, I dare say."
She spoke in the quietest, most sugary tone possible, with a slight
smile upon her lip, and amused herself while she did so in sketching
with the pen and ink a man under a beam with a noose round his neck.
Captain Moreton gazed at her meanwhile with his teeth hard shut, and
not the most placable countenance in the world, as she brought vividly
up before his imagination all those things which crime is too much
accustomed and too willing to forget.
"And you, Charlotte, you would do this!" he exclaimed, at length: "but
it is all nonsense; and how you ever can talk of such things I cannot
imagine, when I merely spoke of going myself and leaving you for a
short time, for your own good."
"For my own good! Oh, yes; I have heard all that before, more than
twelve years ago," replied the lady. "I yielded to your notions of my
own good, then, and much good has come of it, to me, at least. So do
not talk of ever separating your fate from mine again, Moreton; for
were you to attempt it, I would do as I have said, depend upon it."
"It was your own good I thought about," replied Captain Moreton,
bitterly, "and that you will soon see when you hear the whole. Do you
not think if Lenham were to find out that you are living here with me,
there would soon be suits in the ecclesiastical courts for divorce and
all the rest?"
"Oh, you know, we talked about all that before," replied the lady,
"and took our precautions. You are here as my earliest friend,
assisting me to regain my rights, nothing more. All that was settled
long ago, and I see no reason for beginning it all over again."
"But there is a reason," answered Captain Moreton, "as you would have
heard before now if you would have let me speak; but you are so
diabolically hasty and violent. I brought you the best news you could
have, if you would but listen."
"Indeed!" said the lady, looking up from the pleasant sketch she was
finishing with an expression of greater interest, "what may that be?"
"Why, simply, that Lenham has proposed to Miss Slingsby," replied
Captain Moreton, "and they are to be married directly--as soon as that
fellow, Wittingham, is out of all danger."
Her eyes flashed at the intelligence, and her lip curled with a
triumphant smile as she inquired, "Where did you hear it? Who told
you? Are you sure?"
"Quite," answered Moreton, "I had it from old Slattery, the
apothecary, who knows the secrets of all the houses round. He told it
to me as a thing quite certain."
"Then I have him! Then I have him!" exclaimed his companion, joyfully;
"Oh, I will make him drink the very dregs of a bitterer cup than ever
he has held to my lips."
"But you must be very careful," said Captain Moreton, "not the
slightest indiscretion--not the slightest hint, remember, or all is
lost."
"I will be careful," she replied, "but yet all cannot be lost even if
he were to discover that I am alive. He has made the proposal to one
woman when he is already married. That would be disgrace enough to
blast and wither him like a leaf in the winter. I know him well enough
for that. For the first time he has given me the power of torturing
him, and I will work that engine till his cold heart cracks, let him
do what he will."
"Well, this was the reason I thought it would be better for me to be
off for a short time," said Captain Moreton, "though you must remain
here."
"I don't see that," cried the lady, "I won't have it."
Her companion had fallen into a fit of thought, however, as soon as
she had uttered the last words, and he did not seem to attend to her.
His thoughts, indeed, were busy with a former part of their
conversation. He felt that he was, as she said, in her power, and he
saw very well how sweetly and delicately she was inclined to use power
when she did possess it. He therefore asked himself if it might not be
as well to put some check upon her violence before it hurried her into
any thing that could not be repaired; for although Captain Moreton was
fond of a little vengeance himself, yet he loved security better, and
thought it would be poor consolation for being hanged that he had
spoiled all her fine schemes. He was still debating this point in his
own mind, when finding that he did not answer, she said,
"Do you hear? I say I will not have it, and you had better not talk of
it any more, for if I take it into my head that you are trying to get
off and leave me here, I will take very good care that your first walk
shall be into gaol."
"In which case," said Captain Moreton, coldly, "I would, by one word,
break the bond between you and Lenham, and send you to prison too. You
think that I am totally in your power, Madam; but let me tell you that
you are in mine also. Our confidence, it is true, has not been mutual,
but our secrets are so."
"What do you mean?" exclaimed the lady, turning deadly pale.
"I will tell you," replied her companion, "what I mean may be soon
hinted so that you can understand. When I first became acquainted with
you, my fair friend, you were twenty years of age. There were events
which happened when you were eighteen that you have always thought
comfortably hidden in your own bosom and that of one other. Let me now
tell you that they have never been concealed from me. You understand
me I see by your face, so no more of this. I shall not go because you
do not wish it, and I proposed it only for your good; but now let us
have some brandy-and-water, for the night is wonderfully cold for the
season."
The lady made no reply, but sat looking down at the table with
her cheek still white, and Moreton got up and rang the bell. A
woman-servant appeared, received his orders, and then went away, and
then turning to his companion, he pulled her cheek familiarly, saying,
"Come, Charlotte, let us have no more of all this; we had better get
on well together. Have any of the servants been into the room to-night
since I left you?"
The lady looked up with a sort of bewildered and absent air, saying,
"No, I think not--let me see. No, no. I have been sitting writing and
sleeping. I fell asleep for an hour, and then I wrote till you came
back. No one has been in, I am sure."
"While you were asleep they might," said Moreton, thoughtfully.
"No, no," she answered, "I should have heard them instantly; I wake in
a moment, you know, with the least sound. Nobody has been in the room
I will swear."
"Then you can swear, too, that I never left it," answered Moreton,
laughing, "I mean that I have been here or hereabouts all night, in
case it should be needed."
The lady did not seem at all shocked at the proposal, for she had no
great opinion of the sanctity of oaths, and when the servant returned
with all that Captain Moreton had demanded, he asked her sharply,
"Where were you, Kitty, when I rang about an hour ago?"
"Lord, Sir," replied the woman, "I had only run across to ask why they
had not sent my beer."
"Well, I wish you would take some other time for going on such
errands," replied Captain Moreton, and there the subject dropped.