There was a thrill in the heart of Alice Herbert as she followed the
servant through the long passages of Danemore Castle, which sprang
neither from old associations nor from the solemn silence which reigned
through the whole building. Since she had last trod those long
corridors new feelings had taken possession of her bosom; new thoughts,
new hopes, new happiness, had arisen in her heart; and every pulse that
throbbed in that heart had some reference to the earnest affection
which now dwelt within her. As she passed along, then, following the
servant, who with slow and solemn steps led the way, she could not but
remember that she was probably in the same house with Henry Langford,
and a vague fancy that by some means she might see him, if it were but
for a moment, made her heart beat and her whole frame tremble.
The room to which she was led was vacant, and she sat down to meditate
over the past and the future, both of which had a world of absorbing
thoughts and feelings to engage her attention. But yet her eyes
wandered round the small chamber, which she had not visited for many
years, and she remarked that to the crucifix and missal which usually
lay upon a table near the window, marking the faith of the occupier of
that apartment, were now added the grinning skull and mouldy bones,
which may well serve as mementos of our mortality.
She had not been there long, however, when the slow stately step of
Mistress Bertha was heard near the door, and the next moment she
entered the room, gazing upon Alice with a calm, but somewhat sad,
expression of countenance, as she answered her salutation.
"Good morrow, Mistress Bertha," said the young lady; "I hope you have
been well since we last met, which is now a long time ago."
"Well, quite well, lady," replied Mistress Bertha; "it is a long time
ago; and many things have happened in the space between, which should
not have happened. Fate, however, has had its way. We must all fulfil
our destiny; and you and I, as well as others, are but working out what
is to come to pass."
"If you mean, Mistress Bertha," said Alice, "that I have not been here
of late so frequently as I used to be, I think, when you remember all
that has happened, you will not judge that I acted wrongly in making my
visits scarce at Danemore, where my father's reception has long been
cold."
"I blame you not, Mistress Alice: I blame you not," replied the
housekeeper. "What right have I to blame you? You liked him not; you
loved him not. That was not your fault, nor the poor boy's either. You
were fated for another, and that other fated to snatch from _him_ that
which he held dearest. We cannot control our liking and dislikings;
they are the work of destiny. There have been those who loved me that I
could never love, those who have treated me well and kindly, who
through long years befriended me, and with tenderness and affection did
all to win regard; and yet when they had done all, they failed; and,
seizing gladly on some rash word, some hasty burst of passion, I have
cast their benefits behind me, and left them, because I could not love
them. What right, then, should I have to blame others for feeling as I
have felt, and doing even less than I have done?"
"I am sure, Mistress Bertha," replied Alice, gently, "I am quite sure,
from what I know of you, that, though you might act sharply, you would
never act unjustly, and never be guilty of any degree of ingratitude,
though you almost accuse yourself of being so."
"You do not know, you do not know," replied the other; "I have been
guilty of ingratitude. I know, and acknowledge, and feel, that to her
who was kind to me from her youth, whose fathers had protected my
fathers, and whose generosity had raised me from low estate, I know and
feel that I was ungrateful; that I could not, that I did not, return
her love for love, and that I quitted her at the first rash and
thoughtless word. So far I did wrong, and felt evil: but I did no more;
my heart was not made, as many another is made, to hate because I knew
that I had wronged. I went upon my way and she upon hers, but I sought
for no opportunity of doing her ill. On the contrary, I would willingly
have atoned for what I had done by serving her in those matters where
she felt most deeply. I did serve her as far as I could; but there are
things which I must not do--no, not even now."
"I know not to what your words allude," replied Alice, speaking to her
gently and kindly, wishing to soothe rather than in any degree to
irritate one towards whom she had always experienced feelings of great
kindness, and even respect; for although Mistress Bertha, on many
occasions, had given way in her presence to the sharp and unruly temper
which evidently existed within her heart, yet the occasions on which it
had been exercised, Alice had always remarked, were those where there
was either an open and apparent, or a concealed but no less certain
cause, for the contempt or anger to which she yielded such unbridled
sway. "I know not to what your words allude, but I doubt not that you
judge of yourself harshly--too harshly. Mistress Bertha, as I have
often seen you do in regard to yourself before."
Bertha gave a melancholy smile, and shook her head, as she replied,
"Young lady, clear your mind of that great error; the greatest, the
most pernicious of the poisonous dainties with which human vanity feeds
itself in all this world of vain things! We never judge of ourselves
too harshly. The brightest and the best, the noblest and the most
generous, if they could but look into their own bosoms with eyes as
clear and righteous as those that gaze upon them from the sky, would
find therein a thousand dark forms and hideous errors, of which their
hearts accuse them now but little. Ay; and if in the whole course of
human actions we could see the current of our various motives separated
from each other, how much that is vile and impure should we find
mingling with all that we fancy bright and clear! No, no! man never
judges himself too harshly, let him judge as harshly as he will. God
sees and judges, not harshly, we hope, but in mercy; and yet, what sins
does not his eye discover, what punishments will he not have to
inflict!"
Alice was silent; but after a momentary pause Bertha resumed the
conversation nearly where she had first begun it. "I blame not you,"
she said, "young lady, for not loving one who loved you. It was not
destined so to be, though there may have been a feeling of pride, too,
in your dealings with him. The poor boy who is gone had not the eagle
eye and ruling look of this one--an eagle eye and ruling look gained
from a noble race in other lands; and well do I know how, with young
happy things like you, the eyes lead captive the imagination; ay, and
fix chains of iron upon the heart. Yet you judged well and nobly, too,
if I see aright. That face and form are but an image of a mind as
bright, and he has every right to have such a mind now that all that
was dark, and fierce, and harsh in the proud streams that mingle in his
veins has been purified, and tempered, and softened by long adversity."
"Of Of whom do you speak, Mistress Bertha?" demanded Alice, with a
conscious blush mantling in her cheek as she asked the question.
"Of whom do I speak!" echoed Bertha, gazing on her; "would you have me
think that you do not know of whom I speak?"
"No," answered Alice, blushing still more deeply; "no, Mistress Bertha,
I do not wish to deceive you. I know, at least I guess, you speak of
Captain Langford; but--but--"
Bertha gazed thoughtfully down upon the ground for a few moments; "I
had forgot," she said at length, "yet he did wisely--he always does
wisely! But I had not believed that there was a man who, in the
unchained moments of the heart's openness, would act so wisely and so
well! I understand you, sweet lady. You were not aware that I knew
rightly the story of your heart; and I knew it only by having divined
it. Yet to show you how well I have divined it, I will tell you the
motive that brought you hither with your father. You came with the view
of seeing him you love!"
The ingenuous colour once more rose warm in Alice's cheek; but she
replied, with that sparkling of truth and sincerity in her pure eyes
that there was no doubting one single word, "No, Mistress Bertha," she
said, "you are wrong. I come hither with no such motive, with no such
view. My father had business with the Earl, so painful, so irritating,
that I sought to accompany him, solely with the wish to soothe and calm
both; but I found as we rode along that Sir Walter's mind was already
prepared to treat all things gently and kindly, in consideration of
Lord Danemore's sad loss; and, therefore, I thought it better to come
to this room than to intrude upon the Earl's grief till I was quite
sure he would be well pleased to see me. But, on my word, the thought
of seeing Captain Langford never entered my mind till I was crossing
the hall to come hither. Then, indeed, remembering that he had been
brought hither, and having learned that he had been most wrongly
detained--at least all yesterday--I thought he might still be here, and
that, perhaps, I might see him. Nor will I deny, Mistress Bertha," she
added, "that I much wish to do so, if it be possible."
"I believe your whole tale, Alice Herbert," replied Bertha "I believe
it all and every word; for I have seen and watched you from your
childhood, and I know that you are truth itself. You shall see your
lover, Alice. You shall taste those few bright moments of stolen
happiness which are dear, all too dear, to every young heart like
thine."
"Nay, nay, Bertha," said Alice, in reply, "though I will not deny that
his society is happiness to me, I have a greater object in view; I have
to learn how I--I, his promised wife, may aid him at the present
painful moment. Nor, Bertha," she added, while at the very repetition
of the words her cheeks again grew red, "nor do I wish that the moments
spent with him should be stolen moments. I ask you openly, if it be
possible to let me see him and speak with him. I wish no concealment. I
seek not to hide either my regard for him, nor my interview with him.
Sure I am that my father would approve it, and I have none but him to
consider, in framing my actions."
Bertha gazed upon her glowing countenance and sparkling eyes, as she
raised them, full of timid eagerness, to her face, with a look of
pleasure not unmixed with surprise. "You are, indeed, a noble creature
and a lovely one," she said; "yours may well be called generous blood.
But it shall be as you wish; and yet be under no fear for your lover.
They cannot injure him! It is not his destiny. He is born for a very
different fate, and the fools who took him were only tools in Fortune's
hands, to cut a pathway for him to the point where he is now arrived.
Fear not. Alice, but come with me, and you shall see and speak with
him; alone, if you will."
"No, not alone!" said Alice, again colouring; "not alone! That were
needless--useless."
"Come with me, then." said Bertha, "come with me, then; though it is
little needful that you should see him, to take council with him for
his liberation. Ere to-morrow morning he will be free. They cannot hold
him there long. To think of holding him there at all is idle and empty;
and there is one of them, at least, that feels it to be so, though he
knows not well why."
As she spoke, she led the way out of the room in which they were, and
along the corridor towards the great hall. Alice made no reply, for her
heart beat so fast, and her limbs trembled so much, that she was glad
to take refuge in silence in order to hide her agitation. She knew that
she was going to do nothing but what was right. She felt that every
sensation of her heart, every purpose of her mind, was pure, and noble,
and good; and yet--why or wherefore she could not tell--there was
something in the act of thus going privately to see her lover in the
house of another, which made her tremble like a guilty creature, though
conscious of innocence in thought and deed. She looked anxiously at
each door as she passed, lest it should be opened, and some one issue
forth to interrupt her. She hurried her pace up the great staircase,
gazing round with feelings of apprehension she could not comprehend;
and when at length they reach the extremity of the building, and stood
before the last door upon that side, she was obliged to lay her hand on
Bertha's arm, and beg her to stop for a moment, in order to recover
breath, and gain some degree of command over herself.
At length she said, "Now, now I am ready," and Bertha opened the door
of the outer chamber. It was tenanted by a single servant, apparently
busy in the ordinary occupations of the day, putting this article of
furniture in one place, and that article in another, with that sort of
tardy diligence remarkable in houses where there are many servants and
but little to do.
He started, however, and turned round when he heard the door open; and
then advancing towards Bertha, he said, "My lord ordered me, Mistress
Bertha, not to give any one admission here;" he then added, in a low
sort of confidential tone, "The orders came early this morning for me
to hang about here, and when I had done with the rooms, to remain upon
the staircase, so as to make sure that the prisoner does not escape,
without locking the doors, however--though I don't see why my lord
should take such a round-about way, when by doing nothing but just
turning the key he could keep the young man in as long as he liked."
"The Earl has his reasons for all that he does," replied Bertha,
walking on. "You will do very right to stop every one; but of course
your lord's orders do not apply to me. Come with me, young lady; you
may be admitted, as I told you."
The man looked surprised and bewildered; for Mistress Bertha, as he
well knew, was not a person to be contradicted with impunity, and yet
he feared that he would be doing wrong in letting the two visitors
pass.
Half the advantages, however, which are gained in this world, either
over our adversaries or rivals, are obtained by taking advantage of
their astonishment; and before the man had time to make up his mind as
to what he ought rightly to do, Mistress Bertha and Alice had passed
him, and the door of the inner chamber was open.
Langford was sitting at the table, writing, and the sound of the
opening door made him raise his eyes. For a moment it seemed as if he
could scarcely believe that what he saw was real; but then a look of
joy and satisfaction, which would have repaid Alice well, had she had
to encounter a thousand dangers and difficulties in making her way to
visit him, spread over his countenance, and, rising up, he advanced to
meet her.
Without doubt or hesitation, he cast his arm around her, and pressed
his lip upon her cheek. "Thank you, dearest Alice, thank you," he said,
"this is, indeed, most kind and most good; how can I ever show myself
grateful enough for such a token of affection?"
Alice burst into tears. To see him sitting there--him whom she loved,
and honoured, and esteemed--a prisoner, and accused of dark crimes, had
wrung her heart almost to agony; but his words and his look, and the
tone of his voice, and the touch of his hand, and the pressure of his
lips, seemed to sever the bonds which held the varied emotions
struggling together in her breast, and they all burst forth together in
that profuse flood of tears.
"It is _we_ that must be grateful to you." she said, as soon as she
could speak; "it is we that must be grateful to you. I cannot help
suspecting, nay believing, that you are suffering in some degree on our
account; but for fear we should not have time to speak fully, let me
tell you, Langford, the principal object of my coming here. I was
afraid that you might not have means allowed you of communicating with
any of your friends, and, therefore, I was anxious to see you, to ask
what can be done for you, what lawyer can be sent for to you, or what
means can be taken to prove your innocence?"
"My Alice has never doubted my innocence, then?" said Langford, gazing
tenderly upon her. "I knew, I felt sure, she would not."
"Of anything like crime, Langford," she said, "I knew you were
innocent, perfectly innocent! I might imagine, indeed--for we women can
hardly judge or tell to what lengths you men may think the point of
honour should carry them--I might imagine, indeed, that you had taken
this unhappy young man's life in honourable quarrel: but even that I
did not believe."
"Oh, no!" replied Langford; "I should never have dreamt of such a
thing. Nothing could have provoked me to do so. Besides, Alice, did I
not give you my word? and believe me, dear Alice, believe me, now and
ever, that I look upon my word given to a woman as binding as my word
given to a man. Nay, if it were possible, I should say more binding.
because she has fewer means of enforcing its execution. No, no! dear
Alice, I parted with him in the park, within ten minutes after I left
you. It is true, he did try to provoke me to a quarrel, but I was not
to be provoked."
"I am ashamed of having doubted you, even in that, and for a moment,"
replied Alice; "but that doubt sprang solely from a belief that men
often think it a point of honour to conceal their intentions from women
in such matters as these, and believe themselves justified in using any
means to do so. But now, Langford, tell me quickly, what can be done to
prove you innocent? What is there that my father or myself can do to
free you from a situation so painful?"
"I know little," replied Langford, "that can be done under present
circumstances. It is their task to prove that I am guilty, more than
mine to show that I am innocent: but I hear steps upon the stairs. Who
have we here, I wonder?"
As he spoke, he opened the door into the other room, which Bertha had
closed behind her; and nearly at the same moment, as the reader may
have anticipated, the outer door at the top of the stairs was thrown
open, and the Earl of Danemore, with a countenance on which hung the
thunder-cloud of deep but suppressed wrath, strode in, followed closely
by Sir Walter Herbert.
The colour came and went rapidly in Alice's cheek, and her heart beat
very quick. The servant in the outer room looked tremblingly towards
Mistress Bertha; but Bertha herself remained totally unmoved, with her
long sinewy hands, clad in their white mittens, resting calmly upon
each other, and her dark eyes raised full upon the Earl, while not a
quiver of the lip nor a movement of the eyelids betrayed that she was
affected by any emotion whatsoever. Langford drew a little closer to
the side of Alice, while the Earl turned his first wrath upon the
servant.
His words were few and low, but they were fully indicative of what was
passing in his heart. "I commanded," he said, "that no one should be
admitted here! You have disobeyed my commands. Answer me not a word.
You have disobeyed my commands, and you shall have cause to remember it
to the last day of your life. Silence, I say! Get you gone, and send
hither Wilton and the other groom of the chambers. Madam." he
continued, advancing towards Alice, with a bitter and sarcastic sneer
curling his lip, "Madam, long as I have had the honour of your
acquaintance, I did not know that you were so skilful a tactician till
to-day. To engage me with your serviceable and convenient father, while
you came hither to lay your plans with a personage accused of the
murder of my son, is a stroke, indeed, worthy of a great
politician----"
Alice had turned pale when he first approached her; but at the words,
"your serviceable and convenient father," the blood rushed up into her
cheek; and though, while turning to look at Sir Walter, whose eyes were
beginning to flash with indignation, she suffered the Earl to finish
his sentence, she stopped him at the word "politician," by raising her
hand suddenly, and then replied at once, with her sweet musical voice
sounding strangely melodious after the harsh tone in which Lord
Danemore had been speaking--
"Forbear, my lord," she said, "forbear! Let me prevent you from using
any more words that you will be ashamed of and grieve for hereafter. My
motive in coming to this house to-day was anything but that which you
imply. I came, my lord, because I feared that my father, justly
irritated at some unworthy treatment, might act towards Lord Danemore
as Lord Danemore is now acting towards me: that is to say, might speak
angry words which he would soon be sorry for. I found, however, my
lord, that the kind gentleness of that father's heart was already
sufficient to make him forget the injuries which Lord Danemore sought
to inflict, in the sorrow which Lord Danemore now experiences; and,
though there was a time, my lord, when I believed that the voice of
Alice Herbert had some power to soothe, to tranquillize, and to console
you, I did not flatter myself that such was the case now, and I
remained in consequence without."
The Earl seemed somewhat moved. He had listened in silence, and drew
himself up to his full height, with an air of attention and thought.
When she paused, however, he demanded, but in a softer tone, "And your
coming here, madam--here, into this room--was, doubtless, perfectly
accidental; a singular coincidence brought you into the apartments of
this worthy gentleman."
"No, my lord," replied Alice, with a degree of calm dignity that set
his sneers at defiance, "quite on the contrary; as soon as I found that
Captain Langford was still here, I asked Mistress Bertha to conduct me
to see him, which, your lordship will perceive, was very natural," she
added, with the colour becoming deeper and deeper in her cheek, "if you
consider, first, that he was severely injured in my defence; next, that
I have promised him my hand; and, lastly, that I knew him to be both
unjustly charged with a great crime, and in the power of one who
sometimes suffers a nature, originally most noble, to be influenced too
much by strong passions; and a judgment, originally clear and right, to
be darkened and obscured by his own desires and prejudices. My lord,"
she added, "the tone which you are pleased to assume towards me obliges
me to speak candidly; I thought it very possible that, circumstanced as
he is, and in your power, this gentleman might meet with obstacles in
establishing his innocence, and in communicating with those who would
defend and advise him. Under these circumstances, I acted as I have
acted, in order to bear any communication from him, either to my
father, or to any other person with whom he might think fit to take
counsel."
"Madam," replied the Earl, with far less acerbity of manner than
before, "I find that you can judge severely, too. This gentleman shall
have every opportunity of proving his innocence."
"That, my lord, I will take care of," interrupted Sir Walter Herbert;
"for I certainly will not trust, in the case of my friend, to the
justice of those who, without a shadow of reason, first charged him
with a crime of which he is innocent, and then acted towards him as if
they had nearly proved him guilty."
"He shall have every opportunity of proving his innocence," reiterated
the Earl, sternly; "but Sir Walter Herbert is the man who judges too
hastily. But yesterday, I said to this same gentleman, this Captain
Langford, as he is pleased to call himself, that his bare word not to
quit these apartments was sufficient. To-day, I say that those bolts
and bars, strong as they are, are not too strong to guard him withal:
for I have not only received, as you well know, the confirmation of my
poor son's death, but I have it proved, beyond all doubt, by the
testimony of those who saw him, that the man who stands before us,
after separating from that son in the park, was seen by four different
people galloping up towards the very moor and at the very time at which
the unhappy boy was murdered. He shall have the full opportunity of
explaining or disproving this hereafter; at present he is a close
prisoner here, till he can be removed to-morrow to the county gaol."
Alice's cheek grew very pale as the Earl spoke; not that she for a
moment suffered her confidence in Langford's innocence to be shaken;
not that one doubt or one suspicion ever crossed her mind; but that the
words used by the Earl were such as to call up before the eye of
imagination every dark and painful object which could by any chance
connect itself with her lover's situation. The image of Langford, in
the county gaol, immured in a close, noisome cell, as a common felon,
together with all that she knew and all that she had heard of the
prisons of England--then a disgrace to the land--presented itself to
her mind, and made her heart sink within her.
The eyes of her lover, however, were upon her. He saw the colour fade
away in her cheek; he saw the anxious quivering of that beautiful lip
which had so lately spoken boldly in his defence; but Langford knew and
understood the heart whose treasured affection he had obtained, and
taking her hand in his, he pressed it to his lips, saying, "Fear not,
dear Alice! Let them do their worst. So confident am I in my own
innocence, and in the just laws of a free land, that not the slightest
apprehension crosses my mind, though I may see a disposition to deny me
justice. Strange, too, as it may seem to you, I am well contented to
remain in this house for some time longer; and perhaps," he added, "I
could, even by a single word, change entirely the feelings and views of
its noble owner."
"I may understand you better than you think, sir," replied the Earl,
gazing upon him with the same knitted brow; "I may know you better than
you believe; but you would find it difficult to change my views and
purposes. At present I have but to say that I cannot suffer Mistress
Alice Herbert to remain here any longer. Bertha," he continued, turning
to the housekeeper, you have done bitterly wrong in bringing her
hither. "I am willing to believe that you knew not how wrong; but I will
deal with you hereafter upon this matter."
"Earl of Danemore, I did right!" replied the woman, "and I tell you
that it is you who know not what you are doing; but the time will come
when you will repent."
The Earl's brow grew very dark, but he evidently made a great effort to
command his passions, and he only replied, "You have served me too
faithfully and too long for my anger to have way. But provoke me no
further, I am not in a mood to bear with your bold temper. Now, madam,"
he continued, turning to Alice, "we wait your pleasure."
Langford pressed her hand in his, and grasped that which Sir Walter
extended towards him; "Farewell," he said, "farewell, for the present.
It is useless to stay longer now. All that you can do for me is to
engage some person learned in the law to watch the proceedings against
me, in case I should not be liberated before to-morrow evening. I fear
nothing in the straightforward course of justice; but there are
circumstances in my situation and in my fate," and as he spoke he fixed
his eyes upon the Earl, "which may bring persecution upon me, though
they ought to have the most opposite effect."
The Earl returned his look stedfastly and sternly, then turned upon his
heel, and waving his hand ceremoniously towards the door, followed Sir
Walter and Alice out of the room. He found the servants that he had
sent for at the head of the stairs, and gave them charge to guard the
prisoner better than he had been previously guarded, to keep the door
constantly locked, and to remain, the one at watch on the outside of
the door, while the other kept guard at the foot of the stairs. He then
walked slowly down into the vestibule, and, in cold silence on all
parts, saw Sir Walter and his daughter mount their horses and depart.