That day, opening thus auspiciously to Beck, was memorable also to other
and more prominent persons in this history.
Early in the forenoon a parcel was brought to Madame Dalibard which
contained Ardworth’s already famous book, a goodly assortment of
extracts from the newspapers thereon, and the following letter from the
young author:--
You will see, by the accompanying packet, that your counsels have had
weight with me. I have turned aside in my slow, legitimate career. I
have, as you desired, made “men talk of me.” What solid benefit I
may reap from this I know not. I shall not openly avow the book. Such
notoriety cannot help meat the Bar. But liberavi animam meam,--excuse
my pedantry,--I have let my soul free for a moment; I am now catching
it back to put bit and saddle on again. I will not tell you how you have
disturbed me, how you have stung me into this premature rush amidst the
crowd, how, after robbing me of name and father, you have driven me
to this experiment with my own mind, to see if I was deceived when I
groaned to myself, “The Public shall give you a name, and Fame shall be
your mother.” I am satisfied with the experiment. I know better now what
is in me, and I have regained my peace of mind. If in the success of
this hasty work there be that which will gratify the interest you so
kindly take in me, deem that success your own; I owe it to you,--to your
revelations, to your admonitions. I wait patiently your own time for
further disclosures; till then, the wheel must work on, and the grist
be ground. Kind and generous friend, till now I would not wound you by
returning the sum you sent me,--nay, more, I knew I should please you by
devoting part of it to the risk of giving this essay to the world, and
so making its good fortune doubly your own work. Now, when the publisher
smiles, and the shopmen bow, and I am acknowledged to have a bank in my
brains,--now, you cannot be offended to receive it back. Adieu. When my
mind is in train again, and I feel my step firm on the old dull road,
I will come to see you. Till then, yours--by what name? Open the
Biographical Dictionary at hazard, and send me one. GRAY’S INN.
Not at the noble thoughts and the deep sympathy with mankind that glowed
through that work, over which Lucretia now tremulously hurried, did she
feel delight. All that she recognized, or desired to recognize, were
those evidences of that kind of intellect which wins its way through the
world, and which, strong and unmistakable, rose up in every page of that
vigorous logic and commanding style. The book was soon dropped, thus
read; the newspaper extracts pleased even more.
“This,” she said audibly, in the freedom of her solitude, “this is the
son I asked for,--a son in whom I can rise; in whom I can exchange the
sense of crushing infamy for the old delicious ecstasy of pride! For
this son can I do too much? No; in what I may do for him methinks there
will be no remorse. And he calls his success mine,--mine!” Her nostrils
dilated, and her front rose erect.
In the midst of this exultation Varney found her; and before he could
communicate the business which had brought him, he had to listen, which
he did with the secret, gnawing envy that every other man’s success
occasioned him, to her haughty self-felicitations.
He could not resist saying, with a sneer, when she paused, as if to ask
his sympathy,--
“All this is very fine, belle-mere; and yet I should hardly have thought
that coarse-featured, uncouth limb of the law, who seldom moves without
upsetting a chair, never laughs but the panes rattle in the window,--I
should hardly have thought him the precise person to gratify your pride,
or answer the family ideal of a gentleman and a St. John.”
“Gabriel,” said Lucretia, sternly, “you have a biting tongue, and it
is folly in me to resent those privileges which our fearful connection
gives you. But this raillery--”
“Come, come, I was wrong; forgive it!” interrupted Varney, who, dreading
nothing else, dreaded much the rebuke of his grim stepmother.
“It is forgiven,” said Lucretia, coldly, and with a slight wave of her
hand; then she added, with composure,--
“Long since--even while heiress of Laughton--I parted with mere pride in
the hollow seemings of distinction. Had I not, should I have stooped to
William Mainwaring? What I then respected, amidst all the degradations I
have known, I respect still,--talent, ambition, intellect, and will. Do
you think I would exchange these in a son of mine for the mere graces
which a dancing-master can sell him? Fear not. Let us give but wealth
to that intellect, and the world will see no clumsiness in the movements
that march to its high places, and hear no discord in the laugh that
triumphs over fools. But you have some news to communicate, or some
proposal to suggest.”
“I have both,” said Varney. “In the first place, I have a letter from
Grabman!”
Lucretia’s eyes sparkled, and she snatched eagerly at the letter her
son-in-law drew forth.
LIVERPOOL, October, 1831.
JASON,--I think I am on the road to success. Having first possessed
myself of the fact, commemorated in the parish register, of the birth
and baptism of Alfred Braddell’s son,--for we must proceed regularly in
these matters,--I next set my wits to work to trace that son’s exodus
from the paternal mansion. I have hunted up an old woman-servant, Jane
Prior, who lived with the Braddells. She now thrives as a laundress;
she is a rank Puritan, and starches for the godly. She was at first
very wary and reserved in her communications; but by siding with her
prejudices and humours, and by the intercession of the Rev. Mr. Graves
(of her own persuasion), I have got her to open her lips. It seems that
these Braddells lived very unhappily; the husband, a pious dissenter,
had married a lady who turned out of a very different practice and
belief. Jane Prior pitied her master, and detested her mistress. Some
circumstances in the conduct of Mrs. Braddell made the husband, who was
then in his last illness, resolve, from a point of conscience, to save
his child from what he deemed the contamination of her precepts and
example. Mrs. Braddell was absent from Liverpool on a visit, which
was thought very unfeeling by the husband’s friends; during this time
Braddell was visited constantly by a gentleman (Mr. Ardworth), who
differed from him greatly in some things, and seemed one of the
carnal, but with whom agreement in politics (for they were both great
politicians and republicans) seems to have established a link. One
evening, when Mr. Ardworth was in the house, Jane Prior, who was
the only maidservant (for they kept but two, and one had been just
discharged), had been sent out to the apothecary’s. On her return, Jane
Prior, going into the nursery, missed the infant: she thought it was
with her master; but coming into his room, Mr. Braddell told her to shut
the door, informed her that he had intrusted the boy to Mr. Ardworth,
to be brought up in a righteous and pious manner, and implored and
commanded her to keep this a secret from his wife, whom he was resolved,
indeed, if he lived, not to receive back into his house. Braddell,
however, did not survive more than two days this event. On his death,
Mrs. Braddell returned; but circumstances connected with the symptoms
of his malady, and a strong impression which haunted himself, and with
which he had infected Jane Prior, that he had been poisoned, led to a
posthumous examination of his remains. No trace of poison was, however,
discovered, and suspicions that had been directed against his wife could
not be substantiated by law; still, she was regarded in so unfavourable
a light by all who had known them both, she met with such little
kindness or sympathy in her widowhood, and had been so openly denounced
by Jane Prior, that it is not to be wondered at that she left the
place as soon as possible. The house, indeed, was taken from her; for
Braddell’s affairs were found in such confusion, and his embarrassments
so great, that everything was seized and sold off,--nothing left for the
widow nor for the child (if the last were ever discovered.)
As may be supposed, Mrs. Braddell was at first very clamorous for the
lost child; but Jane Prior kept her promise and withheld all clew to it,
and Mrs. Braddell was forced to quit the place, in ignorance of what had
become of it. Since then no one had heard of her; but Jane Prior says
that she is sure she has come to no good. Now, though much of this may
be, no doubt, familiar to you, dear Jason, it is right, when I put the
evidence before you, that you should know and guard against what
to expect; and in any trial at law to prove the identity of Vincent
Braddell, Jane Prior must be a principal witness, and will certainly
not spare poor Mrs. Braddell. For the main point, however,--namely, the
suspicion of poisoning her husband,--the inquest and verdict may set
aside all alarm.
My next researches have been directed on the track of Walter Ardworth,
after leaving Liverpool, which (I find by the books at the inn where he
lodged and was known) he did in debt to the innkeeper, the very night
he received the charge of the child. Here, as yet, I am in fault; but I
have ascertained that a woman, one of the sect, of the name of Joplin,
living in a village fifteen miles from the town, had the care of some
infant, to replace her own, which she had lost. I am going to this
village to-morrow. But I cannot expect much in that quarter, since
it would seem at variance with your more probable belief that Walter
Ardworth took the child at once to Mr. Fielden’s. However, you see I
have already gone very far in the evidence,--the birth of the child,
the delivery of the child to Ardworth. I see a very pretty case already
before us, and I do not now doubt for a moment of ultimate success.
Yours, N. GRABMAN.
Lucretia read steadily, and with no change of countenance, to the last
line of the letter. Then, as she put it down on the table before her,
she repeated, with a tone of deep exultation: “No doubt of ultimate
success!”
“You do not fear to brave all which the spite of this woman, Jane Prior,
may prompt her to say against you?” asked Varney.
Lucretia’s brow fell. “It is another torture,” she said, “even to own my
marriage with a low-born hypocrite. But I can endure it for the cause,”
she added, more haughtily. “Nothing can really hurt me in these obsolete
aspersions and this vague scandal. The inquest acquitted me, and the
world will be charitable to the mother of him who has wealth and rank
and that vigorous genius which, if proved in obscurity, shall command
opinion in renown.”
“You are now, then, disposed at once to proceed to action. For Helen
all is prepared,--the insurances are settled, the trust for which I hold
them on your behalf is signed and completed. But for Percival St. John
I await your directions. Will it be best first to prove your son’s
identity, or when morally satisfied that that proof is forthcoming, to
remove betimes both the barriers to his inheritance? If we tarry for the
last, the removal of St. John becomes more suspicious than it does at
a time when you have no visible interest in his death. Besides, now we
have the occasion, or can make it, can we tell how long it will last?
Again, it will seem more natural that the lover should break his heart
in the first shock of--”
“Ay,” interrupted Lucretia, “I would have all thought and contemplation
of crime at an end when, clasping my boy to my heart, I can say, ‘Your
mother’s inheritance is yours.’ I would not have a murder before my eyes
when they should look only on the fair prospects beyond. I would cast
back all the hideous images of horror into the rear of memory, so that
hope may for once visit me again undisturbed. No, Gabriel, were I to
speak forever, you would comprehend not what I grasp at in a son. It
is at a future! Rolling a stone over the sepulchre of the past, it is
a resurrection into a fresh world; it is to know again one emotion not
impure, one scheme not criminal,--it is, in a word, to cease to be as
myself, to think in another soul, to hear my heart beat in another form.
All this I covet in a son. And when all this should smile before me
in his image, shall I be plucked back again into my hell by the
consciousness that a new crime is to be done? No; wade quickly through
the passage of blood, that we may dry our garments and breathe the air
upon the bank where sun shines and flowers bloom!”
“So be it, then,” said Varney. “Before the week is out, I must be under
the same roof as St. John. Before the week is out, why not all meet in
the old halls of Laughton?”
“Ay, in the halls of Laughton. On the hearth of our ancestors the deeds
done for our descendants look less dark.”
“And first, to prepare the way, Helen should sicken in these fogs of
London, and want change of air.”
“Place before me that desk. I will read William Mainwaring’s letters
again and again, till from every shadow in the past a voice comes forth,
‘The child of your rival, your betrayer, your undoer, stands between the
daylight and your son!’”