DINAH'S CONFESSION.
"It is an ill wind, they say, Geoffrey Moncton, which blows no good to
any one. Had the son of Sir Alexander Moncton lived, you would have
retained your original insignificance. It is from my guilt that you
derive a clear title to the lands and honours which by death he lost."
I know not why, but as she said this, a cold chill crept through me. I
almost wished that she would leave the terrible tale she had to tell
untold. I felt that whatever its import might be, that it boded me no
good. My situation was intensely exciting, and made me alive to the
most superstitious impressions. It was altogether the most important
epoch in my life.
Seated at the foot of that miserable bed, the ghastly face of the
wounded man, just revealed by the sickly light of a miserable candle,
looked stark, rigid, and ghost-like, to all outward appearance,
already dead. And that horrible hag, with her witch-like face, with
its grim smile, standing between me and the clear beams of the moon,
which bathed in a silvery light the floor of that squalid room, and
threw fantastic arabesques over the time-stained walls, glanced upon
me like some foul visitant from the infernal abyss.
The hour was solemn midnight, when the dead are said to awake in their
graves, and wander forth until the second crowing of the bird of dawn.
I felt its mysterious influence steal over my senses, and rob me of my
usual courage, and I leant forward, to shut out the ghastly scene, and
covered my face with my hands.
Every word which Dinah uttered fell upon my ear with terrible
distinctness, as she continued her revelations of the past.
"My daughter, Rachel, by some strange fatality had won the regard of
her delicate rival, Lady Moncton, who seemed to feel a perverse
pleasure in loading her with favours. Whether she knew of the
attachment which had existed between her and Sir Alexander is a
secret. Perhaps she did not, and was only struck with the beauty and
elegance of the huntsman's wife, which was certainly very unusual in a
person of her humble parentage. Be that as it may, she deemed her
worthy of the highest trust which one woman, can repose in
another--the charge of her infant son, and that son the heir of a vast
estate.
"Rachel was not insensible to the magnitude of the confidence reposed
in her; and for the first six months of the infant's life, she
performed her duty conscientiously, and bestowed upon her nurse-child
the most devoted care.
"Robert Moncton came to the Hall at this time to receive the rents of
the estate for Sir Alexander--for he was his man of business. He saw
the child, and perceived that it was a poor, fragile, puling thing;
the thought entered his wicked heart, that if this weakly scion of the
old family tree were removed, his son would be heir to the title and
lands of Moncton.
"I don't know what argument he made use of to win Rachel to his
purpose. I was living with him at the time as his housekeeper; for the
wife he had married was a poor, feeble-minded creature--the mere
puppet of his imperious will, and a very indifferent manager. But she
loved him, and at that period he was a very handsome man, and had the
art of hiding his tyrannical temper, by assuming before strangers a
pleasing, dignified manner, which imposed on every person who was not
acquainted with the secrets of the domestic prison-house.
"Rachel consented to make away with the child; but on the very night
she had set apart for the perpetration of the deed, God smote her own
lovely boy upon the breast, and the tears of the distracted mother
awoke in her mind a consciousness of the terrible sin she had
premeditated.
"To hearts like Robert Moncton's and mine this circumstance would not
have deterred us from our purpose; but Rachel was not like us,
hardened in guilt or bad, and unknown to us both she reared the young
heir of Moncton as her own.
"It was strange that neither of us suspected the fact.
"I might have known, from the natural antipathy I felt for the child,
that he was not of my flesh and blood; but God hid it from me, till
Rachel informed me on her death-bed of the deception she had
practised.
"It was an important secret, and I determined to make use of it to
extort money from Robert Moncton, when the child should be old enough
to attract his attention. I owed him a long grudge, and this gave me
power to render him restless and miserable. Thus I suffered George
Moncton to live, to obtain a two-fold object--the gratification of
Avarice and Revenge.
"In spite of neglect and harsh treatment, which were inseparable from
the deep-rooted hatred I bore him on his parents' account, the hand of
Heaven was extended over the injured child. He out-grew the feeble
delicacy of his infancy, and when he had attained his fourth year, was
a beautiful and intelligent boy.
"His father, as if compelled by powerful natural instinct, lavished
upon him the most abundant marks of favour. Lady Moncton's love was
that of a doting mother, which increased up to the period of her
death.
"The death of Lady Moncton, and that of Roger Mornington, followed
quickly upon each other, and all my old hopes revived, when Sir
Alexander renewed his attentions to my daughter. But vain are the
expectations of the wicked. Bitter experience has taught me (though it
took me a long life to learn that lesson) that man cannot contend with
God; and my beautiful Rachel died in her prime, just when my fondest
expectations seemed on the point of realization.
"Years fled on--years of burning disappointment and ungratified
passion. The little girl Rachel left to my care was handsome, clever
and affectionate, and I loved her with a fierce love, such as I never
felt before for anything of earth--and she loved me--a creature from
whose corrupted nature, all living things seemed to start with
abhorrence. I watched narrowly the young heir of Moncton, who led that
smiling rose-bud by the hand, and loved her too, but not as I could
have wished him to love her.
"Had I seen the least hope of his ever forming an attachment for his
beautiful playmate, how different would have been my conduct towards
him!
"Alice, was early made acquainted with the secret of his birth, and
was encouraged by me, to use every innocent blandishment towards him,
and even to hint that he was not her brother, in order to awaken a
tenderer passion in his breast.
"His heart remained as cold as ice. His affections for Alice never
exceeded the obligations of nature, due to her as his sister. They
were not formed for each other and, again disappointed in my ambitious
hopes, I vowed his destruction. At this time Sir Alexander sent him to
school at York, and the man who lies grovelling on that bed, was made
acquainted with his existence."
A heavy groan from Robert Moncton interrupted for a few minutes the
old woman's narrative. She rose from her seat, took the lamp from the
table, and bending over the sorry couch, regarded the rigid marble
features of my uncle, with the same keen scrutiny that she had looked
upon me in the garret of the old house in Hatton Garden.
"It was but a passing pang," said she, resuming her seat. "His ear is
closed to all intelligible sounds."
I thought otherwise, but after rocking herself to and fro on her seat
for a short space, she again fixed upon me her dark, searching, fiery
eyes, and resumed her tale:--
"Robert Moncton bore the intelligence with more temper than I
expected. Nor did he then propose any act of open violence towards the
innocent object of our mutual hatred, but determined to destroy him in
a more deliberate and less dangerous way. At that time I was not
myself eager for his death, for my poor deluded, lost Alice, had not
then formed the ill-fated attachment to Theophilus Moncton, which
terminated in her broken heart and early grave--and which, in fact,
has proved the destruction of all, and rendered the house of the
destroyer as desolate as my own.
"At first I could not believe that the attachment of my poor girl to
Theophilus was sincere, but when I was at length convinced that both
were in earnest, my long withered hopes revived. I saw her in idea,
already mistress of the Hall, and often in private called her Lady
Moncton.
"I despised the surly wretch, whom unfortunately she only loved too
well, and looked upon his union with my grandchild as a necessary
evil, through which she could alone reach the summit of my ambitious
wishes.
"In the meanwhile, Alice played her cards so well that she and her
lover were privately married--she binding herself by a solemn promise,
not to divulge the secret, even to me, until a fitting opportunity.
After a few months, her situation attracted my attention; and I
accused her of having been betrayed by her fashionable paramour.
"She denied the charge--was obstinate and violent, and much bitter
language passed between us. Just at this period, young Mornington
returned to us, a ruined man. He fell sick, and both Alice and myself
hoped that his disease would terminate fatally. In this we were
disappointed. He slowly and surely recovered in spite of our coldness
and neglect.
"Before he was able to leave his bed, Robert Moncton, who had
discovered his victim's retreat, paid us a visit. Me, he cajoled, by
promising to give his consent to his son's marriage with Alice, but
only on condition of our uniting to rid him for ever of the man who
stood between him and the long-coveted estates and title of Moncton.
I, for my part, was easily entreated, for our interests were too
closely united in his destruction, for me to raise any objections.
"Alice, however, was a novice in crime, and she resisted his arguments
with many tears, and it was not until he threatened to disinherit her
husband, if he ever dared to speak to her again, that she reluctantly
consented to administer the fatal draught which Robert prepared with
his own hands."
There was a long pause; I thought I heard the sound of horses' hoofs
in the distance. Dinah heard it too, and hastened to conclude her
narrative.
"Yes, George Moncton died in the bloom of life, the victim of
treachery from the very morning of his days. But the cry of the
innocent blood has gone up to the throne of God, and terrible
vengeance has pursued his murderers.
"When I discovered that Alice was the lawful wife of Theophilus
Moncton, and that the child she carried, if it proved a son, would be
Sir Alexander's heir, I made a journey to London, to communicate the
fact to Robert Moncton, and to force him to acknowledge her publicly
as his daughter-in-law.
"He would not believe me on my oath; and declared that it was only
another method to extort money. I produced the proofs. He vowed that
they were base forgeries, and tore the documents, trampling them under
his feet; and it was only when I threatened to expose the murder of
his cousin, that he condescended to listen to reason.
"It was then for the first time I heard of your existence, and a new
and unforeseen enemy seemed to start up and defy me to my teeth.
"Robert Moncton laughed at my fears, and told me how ingeniously he
had contrived to brand you with the stigma of illegitimacy. He could
not however lull my fears to rest, until I was satisfied that Walters
had really placed the stolen certificates in the iron chest in your
garret--and late as it was, we went to assure ourselves of the fact."
"Oh, how well I remember that dreadful visit," said I--"and the
horrible dream which preceded it."
"You were awake, then?"
"Yes--awake with my eyes shut--and heard all that passed."
"A true Moncton," and she shook her palsied head. "The devil is in you
all. You know then, that our search was fruitless, and I returned to
Moncton with the conviction, that we were destined to be defeated in
our machinations.
"Six months after these events, Alice gave birth to a son, and was
greatly cheered by the news, which reached her through one of the
servants at the Hall, that her husband had returned from Italy, and
was in London."
"The rest of her melancholy history is known to me," said I. "It was
my arm that lifted her from the water when she attempted to destroy
herself. Oh, miserable and guilty woman, what have you gained by all
your deep-laid schemes of villainy? As to you, Dinah North, the gibbet
awaits you--and your prospects beyond the grave are more terrible
still."
"Dinah North will never die beneath the gaze of an insolent mob," said
the old woman with a sullen laugh. "A few months ago, Geoffrey
Moncton, and I would have suffered the rack, before I would have
confessed to you aught that might render you a service, but the
kindness you showed to my unhappy grandchild, awoke in my breast a
feeling towards you foreign to my nature. I have been a terrible enemy
to your house. But you, at least, should regard me as a friend. Had
George Moncton lived, what would become of your claims to rank and
fortune?"
"Dinah, he does live!" and the conviction that I was penniless, a poor
dependent upon a noble house, instead of being the expectant heir,
pressed at that moment painfully on my heart. "See," I continued, as
the door opened, and George attended by several persons entered the
house, "he is here to assert his lawful claims. The grave has given up
its dead."
The same wild shriek which burst so frightfully on my ears, when
George first addressed the old woman, ran through the apartment.
"Constables, do your duty," said George. "Instantly secure that
woman."
As he spoke, the light was suddenly extinguished, and we were left in
darkness. Before the hurry and bustle of rekindling it was over, Dinah
North had disappeared, and all search after her proved fruitless.