INFATUATION.
Midnight. Pacing her chamber in her light dressing-robe, its open
sleeves thrown back from her restless hands, as if for coolness, was
the Lady Adela. Throughout the whole business she had never been so
terrified as now, had never before realized her dangerous position in
all its fulness. Her heart and her brow were alike beating with fever
heat.
On the Monday evening, for we must go back a day, after receiving the
news that her husband would probably not be home, as conveyed to her
by note from Mr. Howard, Adela did not spend quite the solitary hours
she had anticipated. Grace came to her: and though rather given to
calling Grace an "old lecturer," Adela was heartily glad to see her
now. The evening's solitude had only intensified her fears, and dismal
doubts chased each other through her mind.
Ever thoughtful and kind, though she did condemn Adela, Grace came to
bring her the tidings that Charles Cleveland would be discharged on
the morrow--for Lord Acorn, on his return from that afternoon's
interview with Mr. Howard, in Leadenhall Street, had spoken of the
release as an assured fact. The more bitter the condemnation by her
father and mother of Adela, and it really was bitter, the greater
need, thought Grace, that some one should stand by her: and here she
was, with her cheering news. And the relief it brought no pen can
express. Adela forgot her fears; ay, and her repentance. She became
her own light-headed self again, and provoked Grace by her saucy
words. In the great revulsion of feeling she almost forgot her
trouble; nay, resented it.
"What a shame!--to frighten me as papa and mamma did this afternoon! I
thought old Howard would not be quite a bear; and I knew my husband
had all power in his hand--if he chose to exercise it."
"Any way, Adela, he has exercised it. You have a husband in a
thousand. I do hope you will show your gratitude by behaving to him
well in future."
"I dare say! I did think of--what do you suppose I thought of doing,
Gracie? That if he proved obdurate, as papa hinted, I would win him
over by saying, 'Let us kiss and be friends.'"
"If you could have so won him."
"If!" retorted Adela, a mocking smile on her pretty lips. "You do
think he yet cares for me a little, Gracie; but you do not know how
much. I believe--now don't you start away at my irreverence!--that he
loves me better than Heaven. I shall not do it now."
"Do what?" asked Grace.
"Kiss and be friends. Neither the one nor the other. I shall abuse him
instead; reproach him for having stood out so long about that poor
wretched Charley: and I shall hold him at arm's-length, as before. The
time has not come for me to be reconciled to _him_."
"You do not mean it, Adela! You cannot be so wicked."
"Not mean it! You will see. So will he. Tra-la-la-la! Oh, what a
horrible nightmare it has been!--and what a mercy to awaken from it!"
She laid hold of her pretty gold-sprigged muslin dress with both
hands; she had not changed it; and waltzed across the room and back
again. Grace wondered whether she could be growing really heartless;
she was not born so: but of course it must be a glad relief.
The old proverb, "when the devil was sick," no doubt so well known to
the reader that it need not be quoted, is exemplified very often
indeed in our everyday life. With the removal of the danger, Adela no
longer remembered it had been there, only too willingly did she thrust
it away from her. She passed a good night, and the next day was seen
driving gaily in the Park and elsewhere with her friend the young Lady
Cust--who was just as frivolous as herself.
Evening came: Tuesday evening, please remember. Mr. Grubb did not come
home: neither had Adela heard from him: she supposed him to be still
at Blackheath, and sat down to dinner alone. She wondered whither
Charley had betaken himself off on his release: and whether he would
be likely to call upon her. She hoped not: her cheeks would take a
tinge of shame at facing him. Suppose he were to come in that evening!
Charley did not come. But Frances Chenevix did. Frances, very
downright, very outspoken, had been honestly indignant with Adela for
the part she had played, she had not scrupled to tell her so, and they
had quarrelled. Therefore Adela was not much pleased to see her. She
found that Frances had been dining at home, and had ordered the
carriage round here on her way back to Lady Sarah Hope's. It was about
nine o'clock.
"Is your husband at home?" she inquired of Adela, without any
circumlocution, when she entered the drawing-room.
"No. He has not been home since yesterday morning. I expect he is at
Blackheath with that wavering old mother of his, dying today and well
tomorrow," listlessly added Adela.
"Had he been at home I should have sent him round to the mother and
Grace; they are so frightfully uneasy."
"The mother?" repeated Adela. "Is she back already from the
Dunfords'?"
"She has not been to the Dunfords'," said Frances. "I suppose you know
of the dreadful turn affairs have taken with Charles Cleveland?"
Something like a drop of iced water seemed to trickle down Adela's
back. "I know nothing--I have heard nothing," she gasped. "Is Charles
not set at liberty?"
"Good gracious, no! And he is not going to be. The city magistrates
won't do it; they will commit him for trial."
It was as if a whole pailful of cold water were pouring down now. "Oh,
Frances, it cannot be true!"
"It is too true. Mr. Howard wrote this afternoon to tell papa that
Charles was remanded back to prison, and would be committed in the
morning. Papa went off at once to see about it, and mamma sent an
excuse to the Dunfords. I was to have dined quietly with Grace and
Mary this evening; and I heard all this when I arrived."
"And--is papa not back yet?" again gasped Adela.
"No; and mamma can hardly contain herself for uneasiness. For, of
course, you see what this implies?"
Adela was not sure whether she saw it or not. She only gazed at her
sister.
"It means that either Charles must suffer, or you, Adela, so far as
can be gathered from present aspects. And the question at home is--can
they allow him to suffer, even if he be willing, and the truth does
not transpire in other ways?"
"To--suffer?" hesitated Adela.
"To stand his trial."
"Why does not Mr. Grubb stop all this?" angrily flashed Adela, in her
sick tremor.
"Mr. Grubb would no doubt be only too glad to do it--and Mr. Howard
also would be now, but it is out of their hands. Once a magistrate
turns adverse, it is all up. Charley's lawyer impressed upon the
magistrate, one Sir Turtle Kite, that his client was not the
individual who was guilty: very well, said Sir Turtle, bring forward
the individual who was guilty, and he would release Charley; not
before. Adela, we have not seen the mother cry often, but she sobbed
tonight."
Suddenly, violently, almost as though she had caught the infection
from the words, Adela burst into a storm of sobs. The revulsion from
terror to ease had told upon her feelings the previous night, but not
as that of ease to terror was telling this. What now of her boastful,
saucy avowals to Grace?
Leaving her sister to digest the ill-starred news, Frances departed;
she could not keep the carriage longer, as it was wanted by Lady
Sarah. Adela sat up till past eleven, and then, shivering inwardly,
went to her room, but she was too uneasy to go to bed. Dismissing her
maid, she put on a dressing-gown--as was told at the beginning of the
chapter--and so prepared to pass the wretched night. Now pacing the
carpet in an agony, now gazing eagerly from the open window at every
cab that rattled across the square, lest happily it might bring her
husband. She could see no refuge anywhere but in him.
The intelligent reader has of course discerned that it was on this
same evening Lord Acorn was at Rosemary Lodge, making things right
with Sir Turtle Kite. About eleven o'clock the earl got home, bringing
with him his glad tidings. Lady Acorn, relieved of her fears, took up
her temper again, and was more wrathfully bitter against Adela than
ever. But Adela knew nothing of all this.
With the morning, Wednesday, Sir Turtle Kite appeared on the
magisterial bench, and the prisoner, Charles Cleveland, was brought
before him. As before, the proceedings were heard in private. Mr.
Grubb was present; had come up specially from Blackheath. He assured
Sir Turtle that the prisoner was wholly innocent, had been made the
unconscious dupe of another: upon which Sir Turtle, in a learned
speech that even his own legal clerk could make neither head nor tail
of, discharged the prisoner, and graciously informed him he left the
court "without a stain upon his character."
Charles looked half-dazed amidst the sea of faces around him: he made
his way to Mr. Grubb. "I thank you with my whole heart, sir," he
whispered deprecatingly. "I shall never forget your kindness."
"Let it be a warning to you for all your future life," was the grave,
kind answer.
The question flashed through Charley's mind--where was he to go? That
he had forfeited his post at Grubb and Howard's, and his residence in
Mr. Grubb's house, went without saying. At that moment Lord Acorn
advanced from some dark region of the outer passage.
"You are going down to Netherleigh this afternoon with your father,
Charles," said he. "But you can come home with me first and get some
lunch. Wait a minute. I want to speak to Mr. Grubb."
Mr. Grubb appeared to have vanished. Lord Acorn could not see him
anywhere. He wrote a line in pencil, asking him to dine with him that
day at seven o'clock, sent it to Leadenhall Street, and got into a cab
with Charley.
"Oh," said the Countess of Acorn, when she saw the ex-prisoner arrive,
"so you _are_ here, young man! It is more than I expected."
"And more than I did--since yesterday," confessed he.
"Pray what name do you give to that devoted chivalry of yours,
Charley?--the taking of another's sins upon your own shoulders?"
whispered Frances Chenevix, who happened to be at her father's. In
fact, Colonel Hope and Lady Sarah, outwardly anxious, and inwardly
scandalized at the whole affair, beginning with Adela and ending with
Charley, had despatched her to Chenevix House for any news there might
be.
"I don't know," answered Charley. "Perhaps you might call it
infatuation."
"That was just it," nodded Frances. "Don't you go and be an idiot
again. _That_ is my mother's best name for you."
Charles nodded assentingly. He saw the past in its true light now. He
was a changed man. His confinement and reflections in prison, combined
with the prospect of being condemned as a felon, from which he had
then seen no chance of escape except by his own confession, which he
had persistently resolved not to make, had added years to his
experience in life. He was a light-hearted, light-headed boy when he
entered Newgate; he came out of it older and graver than his years.
More severely than for aught else did he blame himself for having
responded in ever so slight a degree to the ridiculous flirtation
commenced by Lady Adela; and for having fallen into worshipping her
almost as he might have worshipped an angel; and he thanked God in his
heart, now, that he had never been betrayed into offering her a
disrespectful look or word. She belonged to her husband; not to him;
and to be disloyal to either of them Charley would have regarded as
the most consummate folly or sin.
Was he cured of that infatuation? Ay, he was. The heartless conduct of
Lady Adela, in leaving him to bear the brunt of the crime and the
disgrace that came of it, without giving heed or aid, had helped to
cure him. He had not wished that she should sacrifice her good name to
save his, though the whole sin lay with her; but he did think she
might have offered him one little word of sympathy. He lay languishing
within the walls of that awful prison for her sake, and she had never
conveyed to him, by note or message, so much as the intimation, I am
sorry for you. Charles Cleveland could not know that Adela had been
afraid to do it; afraid lest the smallest notice on her part should
lead to the betrayal of herself. What she would have done, what they
would all have done, had he really been committed to take his trial,
she does not know to this day. However, to him her silence had
appeared to be heartless indifference; and that, combined with his own
danger and his prolonged reflection, had served to change and cure
him.
"I am very thankful, Charles," breathed Grace, and the tears stood in
her eyes as she took his hand. "No one knows what trouble this has
been to me."
"I have more cause to be thankful than you, Grace; and I think I am,"
he answered. "It has been to me a life's lesson."
"Ay. You will not fall into mischief again, Charley?" she said, almost
entreatingly. "You will not lose your wits for a married woman, as you
did for Adela?"
"If ever again I get trapped by any woman, married or single, all
courtly smiles one day, when she wants to amuse herself and serve her
turn, and all careless neglect the next, like a confounded
weathercock, I'll give you leave to transport me to a penal settlement
in earnest," was Charley's wrathful interruption, the sense of his
wrongs pressing upon him sorely. "But let me thank _you_, Grace," he
added, his tone changing to one of deep feeling, "for all your care
and concern for me."
Charles could not eat any lunch, though the table was well spread. In
spite of his release from the great danger, he was altogether
miserable. Lady Acorn talked at him; Lady Frances, taking matters
lightly, after her custom, joked and laughed, and handed him all the
sweets upon the table, one dish after another. It was all one to
Charley: and perhaps he felt that he merited Lady Acorn's reproaches
more than he did the offered sweets. He had not yet seen his father
and his stepmother. For the past two or three days they had been
staying with their relative, the Earl of Cleveland; a confirmed
invalid, who lived in seclusion a few miles out of London.
They all departed for Netherleigh in the course of the afternoon:
the Rector, Lady Mary and the baby; Charles joining them at the
railway-station. What was to become of him in future? It was a
question he seriously put to himself. Surely he had bought experience,
if any young man ever had in this world; an experience that would
leave behind it its lasting and bitter pain.
Seven o'clock--nay, some fifteen minutes before it--brought Sir Turtle
Kite to the Earl of Acorn's. Sir Turtle enjoyed the visit and the
dinner immensely--though he frankly avowed his opinion that his own
port wine was the best. For once the earl's wife made herself
gracious; tart though she might be at other times, she knew something
of gratitude; and Grace, who made the fourth at table, could not keep
her heart's thankfulness out of her manner--for where should they all
have been without Sir Turtle?
But Mr. Grubb did not make his appearance. Neither had Lord Acorn
heard from him.