THE LOVER AND THE UNCLE.
A few minutes brought Arthur to the residence of Lady Hatfield; and his
hand was already upon the knocker, when a sudden idea struck him—and he
asked himself, "How can I demand admission to the bed-chamber of
Georgiana?"
The madness of his project now being evident to him, he mournfully
turned away, when the door suddenly opened, and a tall, stout,
fine-looking man, dressed as a country squire, issued from the house.
Lord Ellingham immediately recognised Sir Ralph Walsingham, Georgiana's
uncle, with whom he was well acquainted. The baronet also perceived the
Earl; and they shook each other cordially by the hand.
"Were you about to call?" inquired Sir Ralph.
"I was," answered Lord Ellingham. "Hearing of Lady Hatfield's illness——"
"She is better—much better," interrupted the baronet. "I have just left
her; and she has not long awoke from a profound and refreshing slumber."
"I am delighted to hear these tidings," said the nobleman.
The servant, seeing that Sir Ralph had stopped to converse with the
Earl, still kept the door open; and, as Arthur had admitted that he was
about to call, there was now no alternative save for him to leave his
card.
The baronet then took his arm; and they walked away together.
"Georgiana is a singular being," observed Sir Ralph; "and although she
is my niece, yet there are times when I hardly know what to make of her.
She is too intellectual—too steady—to be capricious; and still——"
"My dear Sir Ralph," interrupted the Earl, "you have touched upon the
very topic concerning which I longed to speak the moment I met you. Will
you accompany me to my abode, and favour me for a short period with your
attention to what I am so anxious to confide to you?"
"With pleasure," was the reply. "But I have already learnt from
Georgiana's lips the principal fact to which your lordship doubtless
alludes; and it was indeed for the purpose of introducing the subject
that I ere now made the remark relative to the occasional
incomprehensibility of her character. Let us not, however, continue the
discourse in the public street."
The nobleman and the baronet speedily reached the mansion of the former
in Pall-Mall West; and when they were seated in an elegantly furnished
apartment, with a bottle of claret before them, they renewed the
conversation.
"Georgiana," said the baronet, "has informed me that your lordship has
honoured her by the offer of your hand; and I need hardly assure you how
rejoiced I should feel to welcome as a relative one whom I already
esteem as a friend. But—to my inexpressible surprise—I find that—that——"
"That she has refused me," exclaimed the Earl;—"refused me without
assigning any reason."
"I cannot think how it is to be accounted for," continued the baronet;
"but Georgiana has invariably manifested a repugnance to the topic of
marriage whenever I have urged it upon her. Of course, as her uncle—and
double her age, my lord—I can give her advice just as if I were her
father; and for some years past I have recommended her to consider well
the propriety of obtaining a legal protector, her natural ones being no
more. But all my reasoning has proved unavailing; and if your lordship
cannot persuade my obstinate niece," he added, with a sly laugh, "then
no one must hope to do so."
"I will frankly admit to you," said the Earl, "that my happiness depends
on your niece's decision. I am no hero of romance—but I entertain so
sincere, so ardent an affection for Lady Hatfield, that my life will be
embittered by a perseverance in her refusal to allow me to call her
mine."
"She will not persist in this folly—she cannot," exclaimed Sir Ralph
emphatically. "It is a mere whim—a caprice; and indeed I have often
thought that her disposition has somewhat altered ever since a dreadful
fright which she sustained six or seven years ago——"
"Ah!" said the Earl. "What was the nature of the incident to which you
allude?"
"I must tell your lordship," returned the baronet,—"unless, indeed, you
are already acquainted with the fact,—that Hampshire was for three or
four years—between 1818 and 1821 or 22—the scene of the exploits of a
celebrated highwayman——"
"You allude to the Black Mask, no doubt?" interrupted Lord Ellingham
interrogatively.
"Precisely so," answered the baronet. "The Black Mask—as the villain was
called—was one of the most desperate robbers that ever infested the
highways. He would stop the stage-coach as readily as he would a single
traveller on horseback; and such was his valour as well as his
extraordinary skill, that he defied all attempts to capture him."
"I remember reading his exploits at the time," said the Earl. "The most
conflicting accounts were reported concerning him. Some declared he was
an old man—others that he was quite young; but I believe that all agreed
in ascribing to him a more forbearing disposition than usually
characterises persons of his class."
"I will even go so far as to assert that there was something chivalrous
in his character," exclaimed the baronet. "He invariably assured
travellers whom he stopped, that he should be grieved to harm them; but
that if they provoked him by resistance, he would not hesitate to punish
them severely. If he fell in with a carriage containing ladies, he never
attempted to rifle them of their jewellery and trinkets, but contented
himself with simply demanding their purses. Those being surrendered, he
would gallop away. I never heard of any unnecessary violence—nor of any
act of cruelty which he perpetrated. Neither did I ever meet a soul who
could give anything like a credible description of his countenance. The
invariable black mask which concealed his features, and from the use of
which he derived his name, seemed a portion of himself; and although
gossips did now and then tell strange tales about his appearance, they
were all too contradictory to allow a scintillation of the real truth to
transpire."
"But in what manner was the Black Mask connected with the fright which
Lady Hatfield experienced some years ago?" asked the Earl impatiently.
"You are perhaps aware that the late Earl and Countess of Mauleverer
possessed a country-seat between Winchester and New Alresford—not very
far distant from Walsingham Manor, my own rural abode," said Sir Ralph.
"It must have been seven years ago that Georgiana, who always preferred
Mauleverer Lodge to the town-mansion—even during the London season,—was
staying alone there—I mean so far alone, that at the time there were no
other persons at the Lodge save the servants. Well, one night the Black
Mask broke into the place—the only time he was ever known to commit a
burglary—and such was the fright which Georgiana experienced, that for
weeks and months afterwards her family frequently trembled lest her
reason had received a shock."
"It must indeed have been an alarming situation for a young lady—alone,
as it were, in a spacious and secluded country dwelling——"
"And Georgiana was but eighteen, I think, at the time," interrupted Sir
Ralph Walsingham. "She certainly experienced a dreadful fright; and
although, thank God! her reason is as unimpaired as ever it was, still
we cannot say that the sudden shock might not have produced some strange
effect which may probably account for the otherwise inexplicable
whimsicality—for I can denominate it nothing else——"
"Oh! I thank you, my dear Sir Ralph, for this explanation," cried Lord
Ellingham, in the joy of reviving hope. "Yes—I see it all: your niece
experienced a shock which has produced a species of idiosyncratic effect
upon her; but the constant kindness—the unwearied attention of one who
loves her, and whom she loves in return, will restore her mind to its
vigorous and healthy condition. To-morrow will I visit her again:—Oh!
how unkind—how ungenerous of me to remain away so long!"
There was a pause, during which Arthur gave way to all the bright
allurements of the pleasing vision which he now conjured up to his
imagination.
At length Sir Ralph Walsingham felt the silence to be irksome and
awkward; and he ventured to break it.
"We were talking just now, my lord," he said, "of the famous highwayman
known as the Black Mask. He disappeared from Hampshire very suddenly;
and the old women declared that his time being out, he was carried off
by the Devil, who had protected him against all the devices and snares
imagined by the authorities to capture him."
"And perhaps the highwayman who robbed Lady Hatfield the other day,"
observed Lord Ellingham, "may be the very one who rendered himself so
notorious in Hampshire a few years ago?"
"Your lordship judges by the fact that the scoundrel who stopped my
niece near Hounslow wore a black mask," said the baronet; "but the
generality of robbers on the high roads adopt that mode of disguise.
Thank heaven! public depredators of the kind are becoming very scarce in
this country!"
In such conversation did the nobleman and the baronet while away the
time until eleven o'clock, when the latter took his leave, and Arthur
retired to his chamber to dream of the charming but incomprehensible
lady who had obtained such empire over his soul.