The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Flower Of The Flock, Volume III (of III), by Pierce Egan This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: The Flower Of The Flock, Volume III (of III) Author: Pierce Egan Release Date: January 14, 2018 [EBook #56373] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK *** Produced by David Widger from page images generously provided by the Internet Archive
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.—HELEN GRAHAME’S DANGER.
CHAPTER III.—LOTTE’S FIRST LOVE.
CHAPTER IV.—MR. CHEWKLE’S MISSION
CHAPTER VI.—MR. CHEWKLE EXECUTES HIS MISSION.
CHAPTER VII.—THE ELOPEMENT—THE LONELY FLIGHT.
CHAPTER VIII.—THE ABDUCTION AND ITS PUNISHMENT.
CHAPTER IX.—THE REWARD OF FAITHFULNESS AND TRUTH.
CHAPTER X.—HOW LOTTE FULFILLED HER TRUST.
CHAPTER XI.—LOTTE CLINTON AND OLD WILTON.
CHAPTER XII.—THE DOWNFALL OF PRIDE.
CHAPTER XIV—THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
CHAPTER XV.—“COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE.”
CHAPTER XVI.—THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK.
She stood a moment as a Pythoness
Stands on her tripod, agonized and full
Of inspiration, gather’d from distress;
When all the heart-strings like wild horses pull
The heart asunder; then as more or less
Their speed abated, or their strength grew dull,
She sank down.
—Byron.
When Mr. Grahame had locked the door, he flung the key upon the table, and motioned his daughter to a seat. She silently declined to accept it.
He paced the library for a few minutes. His emotions were terrible, but they were the strugglings of pride, vain, haughty, ambitious pride, not such as he would have been justified in possessing.
Helen stood motionless and faint. She dreaded the demanded explanation, which seemed each instant to draw nearer. Her heart throbbed painfully, so painfully it seemed as though each throb, depriving her of life, would be the last.
At length Mr. Grahame confronted her.
“Helen!” he exclaimed, “what have you to offer in explanation of the degraded and scandalous conduct of which you have been guilty in flying from your home, and the audacious presumption you have exhibited in presenting yourself here again?”
Her bosom heaved, and her throat swelled, but she spoke not.
“I demand to know,” he continued, fiercely, “why you quitted position, family, a wealthy home, in a manner so disgracefully clandestine, so utterly reckless of the honour or the pride of our house; I claim to know what you have been doing during your absence; and why now, like some spectre, you suddenly appear among us to bring further shame and disgrace upon us. Speak!”
Her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth. The events of the last few months raced through her brain. Oh, how was she to acknowledge one incident, at least, to him?
She remained silent.
He bit his lips and seized her wrist harshly.
“You must, you shall speak,” he cried, hoarsely, “or I will find a way to make you, that shall bring you upon your bended knees in supplication to be spared the torture. Tell me, girl, for whom and with whom you fled from home?”
He committed an error when he, thus acting, sought to terrify her into an explanation. He only roused her proud nature. By a sudden motion, she flung his hand from her.
“I acted alone, and without being influenced by any person,” she replied firmly, even haughtily.
“Your motive?”
“You will learn it some day.”
“Now—now; I insist upon hearing it now.”
“No, it would be premature. Nothing is to be gained by the disclosure but pain; it is enough that I did what I have done under the promptings of my own will. I have taken the consequences, and I am prepared to endure them. I ask nothing of you but to be allowed to depart.”
“What language is this? Am I not your father?—have I no title to control your actions. Preposterous notion!—you will find your error and repent it sorely, bitterly.”
“I have done so,” she said, with an earnestness which struck him.
He paused for a moment, and gazed steadfastly at her.
“What means this alteration in you? Why are you so pallid and thin?” he asked, abruptly.
“I have been ill.”
“Ill?”
“Very ill.”
“Tell me,” he asked with a choking utterance; “with whom have you dwelt since you left this house?”
“A young girl.”
“A girl,” he echoed, in surprise.
This was a question he had feared to ask, and he anticipated from her a direct refusal to reply. He was amazed at the readiness with which she responded.
“Humble, sir,” she continued, in a thoughtful voice, which had a singular tone of sadness pervading it; “but a model of purity, innocence, and faithfulness!”
“You have been with her alone, up to the hour you came hither to-night?”
“With her alone.”
“Will you swear this?”
“In the face of Heaven, it is true, sir.”
Mr. Grahame paced the room again.
There was intense relief afforded to him by her replies, for, heartless and selfish, he cared little what she had suffered during what he considered to be her madly capricious act, so that she had not disgraced his name. He would have looked over even her self-degradation, if he had been sure that the crime was confined alone to her breast and that of the partner of her sin, and it would not interfere with his new-formed scheme.
“Helen,” he said, pausing abruptly before her, “you must give me your promise that you will some day explain the mystery which hangs over the interval of your flight from home, if I forbear to urge it now?”
“I do, sir,” she replied, in a low tone.
Again he took several turns across the room before he could bring out his proposition; but at length he stopped, and recommenced speaking.
“Helen,” he said, “you are unmarried.”
Had he struck her a blow upon the temple, it would have had less effect. She staggered and clung o the table.
“You are ill,” he said, hastily.
“No,” she answered, in a hollow tone, “proceed.”
“So far as I know,” he said, “you have had no offer for your hand—no suitor, who has distinctly proposed; many intimations, I know, have been made, but I have always turned a cold face upon them; for I would elevate you in rank and surround you with wealth. Such a chance offers itself for your acceptance now.”
She uttered a faint cry, and recoiled from him.
“Helen,” he said, sternly, “it is for you to repair the past, and the opportunity is within your grasp—beware how you fling it away.”
She tried to speak, but her voice failed her.
“You must not, and shall not now interpose your will between mine and a most important object I have in view,” he cried, sternly. “Listen—it is necessary that you should marry——”
“No—oh! no—no—no!” she gasped.
“I say,” continued her father, “that the necessity is imperious.
“I cannot.”
“You shall.”
“I dare not.”
“Dare not! Listen—hear what there is need for you to dare. Helen, I am a beggar!”
Helen almost shrieked; he uttered those words in a tone so frightful.
“Yes,” he repeated; “I stand on the verge of bankruptcy—beggary—God knows what horrors! you can save me.”
Helen clasped her hands, and sobbed convulsively.
“You, Helen, can, I swear to you, save me—your mother—the house itself, from destruction and disgrace. My Lord Elsingham, whom you met at dinner, is a peer of enormous wealth; he has just expressed himself greatly prepossessed in your favour. It rests with you to follow up this favourable impression, and he is your own—the coronet of a peeress will grace your temples. Your sister will, I trust, win the Duke; and in these two marriages we may defy fate itself. You, Helen, will prove my salvation! Do only but this, and the agony of the past will be compensated by the splendour of the future.”
It is not possible to depict Helen’s intense anguish on hearing this terrible revelation, or her horror to find that, even if prepared to sacrifice her heart to save her father’s credit, it would not now be possible to do so.
She clasped her hands, and fell upon her knees before him.
“Oh, sir! sir!” she moaned, in dire grief; “is there no other way to save you? None? None?”
“Not one loophole to creep out of,” he cried, hoarsely. “Wilton had promised to share with me the estates we both claim. He has recalled that promise, and vast sums are now demanded of me, which I cannot pay. If, however, it is known that you are about to become the bride of one of the wealthiest peers in the kingdom, the harpies will wait, and I shall be rescued.”
“Oh! avenging heaven!” she cried, “and I cannot do this to save them all!”
“Helen!” cried her father, gripping her wrist hard, and hissing in her ear, “you must do this, whatever may have happened! You must marry this peer. I ask you to reveal nothing. Keep your secret, but marry him you must, or ruin—disgrace—death—stares me in the face. Recover yourself—be composed, I leave you for a short time, or my absence will be remarked upon. When I come back, I shall find you cold, and firm, and calm—resolved, at any price to carry out what I demand of you. Not a word! not a word!”
As he spoke he put her from him. She would have clung entreatingly to him, not to exact from her a task so wholly impossible for her to fulfil.
He hurried out of the room, and locked the door without, leaving her a prisoner there.
In an agony of tears she reflected on her position.
“It cannot, must not, shall not be,” she moaned, wringing her hands while she spoke. “No; I will fly to Mr. Wilton. Lotte has spoken of his tenderness of heart. I will appeal to him, on my knees, to save my father; he will not resist my tears, my prayers. Yes, yes, I will go to him—but for this marriage, ugh!” She shuddered violently—“No, death—death rather than that.”
She tottered to the door and turned the handle, but it was fast. She pressed against it, but it would not yield.
She made to the window. She remembered the iron staircase which led into the garden. The window was unfastened, but she, alas, was in full dress. She cast her eyes to the door wistfully, and thought she perceived the handle move; she hurried to it, and, kneeling down, tried to peer through the keyhole.
She heard a soft, low voice breathe her name, and she knew who was without watching for her.
She whispered in a low voice—
“Eva, darling Eva, not a moment is to be lost; hasten with my bonnet and my mantle to the slope beneath the library window.”
“Helen, dearest,” murmured the soft, low voice, “oh, you will not leave us again?”
“Sweet sister Eva, if you love me, do what I ask. I will be more explicit when we are together below,” she urged, almost frantically. “If you love me, Eva—oh, if you love me, sweet Eva.”
“I will do what you wish, dear Helen,” replied her sister, softly. “I will be down on the slope within a few minutes.”
To Helen the very mention of such a time seemed an age. She tied her handkerchief about her neck, and stole softly to the window, which had several times admitted Chewkle to her father’s presence secretly.
She opened it gently and looked out. It seemed very dark, and she instinctively shuddered. She turned, and looked round the library hastily—all was perfectly silent; yet it seemed to her that the door would suddenly fly open, and her father, with angry aspect, appear and pursue her.
She stepped upon the narrow iron staircase, and closed the window after her; then she swiftly and noiselessly descended the steps, and stood shivering upon the grass slope.
She looked up at the house: lights blazed in all the windows; but in the garden, sombre darkness reigned. She listened intensely, for she fancied she heard a footfall upon the gravel path, but the sound was not repeated until she heard a light rustling noise; in another moment after this reached her ear she felt herself encircled in the arms of Evangeline, who had hastily thrown a large shawl over her head to protect herself from the cold.
Helen took from her hand the garments for which she had asked, and hastily attired herself.
“I dare not stay longer with you, my own darling Eva,” she whispered to her; “I have escaped, as you see now, from the library, in which papa had locked.”
“But why, Helen?” asked Evangeline.
“Ask me not now, love,” she returned, quickly; “some day you shall be made acquainted with the reason of my flight, and why I have returned only to leave you once more.”
“Oh! Helen, it seems so dreadful for you, who were the brightest ornament of our house, to become suddenly”—
“Its blot, its stain!” interrupted Helen, passionately.
“No, no, no,” interposed Evangeline, hastily. “I meant not that. Oh! pray, pray, Helen, remain with us now; everything will come bright again. If all the others look cold upon you at first, they will come round to regard you as they did ere you left us, and you know, Helen, that I will ever be fond and loving to you, if you will let me.”
Helen folded her to her heart, and kissed her wildly.
“It is in vain, Eva,” she presently replied, in a low but firm tone, “it cannot be. If I were to remain, my father would attempt to coerce me into an act which; weak and erring as I have been, I would die rather than consent to perform. Farewell! we shall meet again, Eva.”
“May I come to see you, Helen?” she asked, with great earnestness. “I am very sad and lonely at home here, and if I could only come at times to see and speak with you, it would make me so happy.”
“I will write to you, darling,” said Helen, hastily; “run back to your room, Eva, or you will be missed, and you will be suspected of aiding my departure. I would spare you a terrifying cross-examination, and the ill-treatment likely to result from it. Besides, dearest, if I remain longer it may prove the source of the greatest unhappiness to me.”
This latter argument had its full weight with Evangeline: she embraced her sister with ardent weeping tenderness, and, with many oft-repeated kisses, tore herself away.
Helen wept too, and convulsively. She stood motionless until after Evangeline had, with light fleeting step, entered the house, and then she prepared to hastily leave the garden by the servants’ entrance, with the impression that she should never more enter that house which had been her home from childhood.
She glided stealthily for a few paces, until she reached an angle of the walk, upon which a shadow from the house fell darkly. As she entered the gloom hastily, she ran into the arms of a man who had been standing silently there, and whom she had not seen until she found herself pressed vigorously to his breast.
“My dear Miss Grahame, I have been expecting you, and I must have a few delicious words with you,” whispered the voice of Lester Vane in her ear.
“Monster!” she cried, affrightedly; and by a desperate exertion, she broke from him and fled—she knew not where.
He followed her swiftly, and caught her as she reached the thicket, in which he had felt convinced, on his first visit, she met a lover, clandestinely.
He seized her by both wrists, and held her firmly.
“It is useless to struggle with me,” he exclaimed, in an undertone. “You can scream for help, if you will, and bring hither your proud parents; I shall not quit my hold of you until I resign you into the custody of your father, who does not contemplate your departure, as he has just informed Lord Elsingham that you will join us in the drawing-room, when he would have the opportunity of further examining those fascinating attractions which he admired so much at dinner.”
“Unhand me,” she cried, with intense anguish, acutely feeling the painful position in which she stood, and how much the man whom she now hated with an intense loathing had become, for the moment, the master of the situation.
“When you have listened quietly to what I have to propose to you,” he answered, calmly.
“What can you have to propose to me, but insults?” she replied, impatiently.
“I do not offer them as such,” he answered, with a slight shrug of the shoulders; “if you will persist in so considering them, of course I cannot help it.”
“In mercy let me depart; you do not know how desperate may be the consequences of detaining me here,” she cried, entreatingly.
“Listen to me, Miss Grahame,” he returned, in a cold tone, and with slow enunciation. “Listen to what I have to say, and here in this spot, for I could not have selected one more fitting for my present subject.”
She cast her eyes round her, oh heaven! too well she remembered it. She struggled madly to get free, but he held her with a cruel grip, and, half-fainting, she was compelled to pause.
“There is a strange mystery enshrouding your actions at this present moment,” he continued, between his set teeth, “that I know; further, I believe that I have penetrated to its inmost recesses. Helen Gra-hame, before you set eyes upon me, you loved another—-you met him clandestinely in this thicket.”
Again Helen struggled to set herself free, but in vain.
“It was his hand,” continued Vane, sternly, “which felled me to the earth, when I accidentally encountered him on this very spot. Let that pass. Helen Gra-hame, you loved that man. Yet you knowingly and deliberately employed all your stratagems, and turned upon me the full blaze of your charms, to capture my heart.”
She shuddered and cowered down.
“Your eye it was that sought mine, and when it encountered it, rested there. Your voice echoed mine—your smile was set playing for me—your hand rested on my arm, whenever opportunity offered. You were bland and tender to me, and coy by turns. I was never in your presence but you made me conscious of it by those peculiar artifices by which women attract men to their side. Loving another, Helen Grahame, you acted thus to me.”
“It is unmanly to taunt me thus!” she ejaculated, in hoarse, quivering accents.
“Unmanly!” he echoed; “was it not unmaidenly in you, with your heart safely lodged in another’s keeping, to make so desperate a venture for mine——and for what? To make it a toy, to break it, and cast it aside as worthless, even as a child does a bauble!”
He paused.
He could hear her hysteric breathing, but no pity was stirred in his merciless heart.
“Were you not young, beautiful, of proud birth? Ought you to wonder that you succeeded in your design—-that you have won my heart——”
“It is false! it is false! it is basely untrue!” she gasped, vehemently.
“I swear to its truth! or why do I care to see or speak with you again,” he replied with animation. “I repeat it, Helen Grahame—I love you. You exerted yourself to accomplish that achievement, and you succeeded, having no love to give back in return. What atonement have you to offer to me for having destroyed the brightest hope in my life?”
“In the fullness of an arrogant pride I have erred,” she replied, in a choking tone; “I am only too deeply conscious of my failings, and would gladly make reparation for all the wrong I have done, if in my power.”
“It is in your power,” he interrupted, excitedly, “I know you cannot give me a heart that has gone, or a love which has been won by another; but I know that, under peculiar circumstances, you are separated from him, from home, from the enjoyment of the position you once held, and you cannot be happy as you are now circumstanced. I would make you happy—I would surround you with all the luxuries of wealth, I would place in your grasp all the pleasures the world can afford you, and only ask in return, your society.”
“Oh, man! man! you make most barbarous use of your present advantage, to grossly and shamefully insult me,” she hissed, indignantly. “If I, in my wicked pride, have been guilty of the artifices with which you charge me, those artifices were expended upon a barren rock, upon which no flower grew. I tell you, man, you had no heart to lure, and your plea is as false as your present outrage is contemptible. Release me, or I will dare, by my screams, the very consequences you have pictured.”
Lester Vane suddenly started, as though he heard sounds of some one approaching.
“Hark!” he said, in a low tone; “if you would not be discovered, be silent.”
“I am careless now of discovery. Unhand me wretch!”
He still clutched her wrists, and she, exhausted by the scenes she had that night already gone through, together with her recent efforts to liberate herself, was now wholly powerless. He knew it, and availed himself of the advantage it gave him.
Unheeding her words, he listened for further sounds with breathless attention; but, whatever they might have been, they were not repeated, and he went on speaking—
“I have resolved not to leave you, Helen,” he said, with determined emphasis, “until I have your promise to consent to my proposition, and an earnest that you intend to keep your word.”
She sank upon her knees.
“Have mercy upon me; let me depart, or I shall swoon,” she ejaculated, in a feeble voice. “Oh! in mercy let me go.”
“Your promise,” he cried. “Let me give you the best reason to fall in with my arrangements. The name of him you loved was Hugh Riversdale—”
She leaped up.
“If you would not have me fall dead at your feet, let me go!” she exclaimed, frantically.
“Not till you hear from me,” he answered scornfully, “that knowing the fellow to be a beggarly clerk to a merchant, I called at the warehouse to make inquiries respecting him, and in proof of the estimation in which he was held in his own province, was told abruptly that he was dead—had died on his voyage out to India, and was thrown into the sea.”
Helen uttered a faint scream, and fell back lifeless.
The firm grip with which Lester Vane yet held her prevented her receiving injury in her fall.
When she was lifeless upon the green sward, he released her hands, repenting, at the moment, his precipitation.
He had no time for more.
He was suddenly seized by the throat, and dragged from the shadow into the open space, where there was light enough for him to distinguish features he had seen once before.
“Scoundrel!” cried his assailant, “we have met again—once before to your discomfiture; this time to the defeat of your base villany; beware, the third time it will be fatal to you!”
These words, forced between clenched teeth, were growled in his ears, and then it seemed that myriads of flashes of light dashed before his sight; he was hurled to the ground with tremendous violence, and he remembered no more.
The stranger bent tenderly over the prostrate form of Helen, raised her up gently, imprinted a passionate kiss upon her cold lips, and pressed her to his breast.
“Mine, mine only, my wife, let me see who will dare to take her from me now!”
As he muttered these words, he lifted her senseless form carefully and fondly in his arms, just as though she had been a child, and he bore her to the side of the ornamental water, where lay a boat.
In this he laid her gently down, covered her with a boat cloak, and rowed swiftly away with his prize.
“Who never loved, ne’er suffered; he feels nothing
Who nothing feels but for himself alone;
And when we feel for others, reason reels,
O’erloaded from her path, and man runs mad.
As love alone can exquisitely bless,
Love alone feels the marvellous of pain—
Opens new veins of torture in the soul,
And wakes the nerves where agonies are born.
Young.
Many a weary hour, on the night of Helen’s departure, did Lotte sit watching by her little charge while it slumbered, plying her ever-busy needle in making its clothes, with which it was very scantily provided.
Ever and anon she raised her eyes from her work, to gaze upon the sweet face of the little hapless innocent, or to listen to its breathing, soft and low, fearful that it might awake and weep, and she be unable to pacify it.
After ten o’clock had chimed, she began to find the hours pass slowly and painfully. Still, however, the child slept, and still she worked on. At length the deep tone of the church-clock bell gave forth the hour of one, and she became affrighted at Helen’s absence.
Her eyes ached painfully. She had worked many hours, and had continued to do so, if only to pass away the lone, long vigil she was keeping.
She had been weeping, too, for she was weak in body, and that created a depression of spirits which found relief only in tears. She was harrassed by strange fears and vague doubts. Why, why was Helen so long away? What could have happened?—some dreadful accident, perhaps—she thought of nothing but that; for what else would or could keep a young mother from her first-born in the very commencement of its babyhood. She grew sick at heart; for if her painful foreboding proved only true, what would be the result?
Hour after hour came and went; but though she listened to every footfall as it approached, and believed, until it went past the house, that it must be that of her late companion, she was disappointed in every instance. Helen came not.
Once or twice the little babe awoke and cried, but she knelt down by its side, laid her own soft, innocent cheek close to its little velvet face, and soothed its low, fretful sobbing again into slumber.
During the long night she was conscious of a strange tremulous motion in the room.
It was not that she shivered with the cold, or trembled from nervousness, but the sensation was that of vibration, as though heavy waggons were perpetually passing along the street, but making no sound.
Several times her attention was aroused by a loud clicking repeated at intervals. A peculiar, unusual sound it was, but she heeded it little. She reflected that in the many, many nights she had sat up to work, she had often heard unaccountable noises.
The blue dawn stole into the room through the window curtains, and paling the feeble ray of her solitary candle, found her wan and haggard, alone with the child. And now the little creature, needing nourishment, awoke, and cried piteously, and would not be pacified. Lotte was greatly distressed at first, and wept with the child, for she knew not what to do.
But she remembered that it did not become her in the position of trust in which she was placed to be faint of heart. It was necessary to be calm, composed, and collected, in order that she might deliberate upon the best course to pursue.
She paced the room with the child, and presently remembered that upon an upper floor there dwelt a young married woman, whose husband, a house-painter, was away engaged in his business at a gentleman’s mansion in the country. This young woman, Lotte knew had a child about three months old, and to her she resolved to go for advice and assistance in her almost distracting dilemma.
Strange, when she tried to open her room-door, it resisted her strongest efforts. At first she thought it was locked, but she perceived that at the top it pressed against the casing forcibly.
With a desperate wrench she forced it open, and made her way up the stairs, feeling the strange tremulous vibration more than ever. She found the room-door of the young person she sought much in the same condition as her own, and she perceived, on effecting a forcible entrance, that the tenant of the room was hastily dressing herself. She wore on her features a terrified expression, and when she saw Lotte she hastily inquired what had brought her there.
In a few brief words Lotte explained the condition in which she had been left with the infant. The young woman, with motherly instinct, at once took the child from Lotte, and quickly stilled its cries with nature’s nourishment, but, as she did so, she said with the same alarmed look in her eyes—
“What is the matter with the house?”
“The house!” echoed Lotte, every little incident connected with the sounds she had heard during the night in a moment flashed through her mind.
“Yes,” returned the young woman, “I seemed to have shaken and rocked in my bed all night; I have hardly slept a wink until I could bear it no—hark!”
A low, dull, heavy rumbling crash was plainly heard by both; the house seemed to swing backwards and forwards, both felt a frightful giddiness seize them, the flooring seemed to heave up with them, then followed a dull, heavy boom, and the house seemed to shake to the centre.
Both girls shrieked, for they saw fissures like forked lightning run down the walls, and at the same moment loud shouts rose up in the street, mingled with screams and cries for help, and then the house, though quieter, began again its tremulous motion.
“Merciful Heaven!” gasped Lotte, “a house has fallen down, and this will fall too!”
“Take my child!” cried the woman, hardly able to speak from a faintness which had seized her. “Let us run out into the street!”
It was following a natural impulse which had brought every one of the inmates from their beds, and hurried them into the street too. Lotte, still holding the woman’s child, found time to snatch up her mantle and bonnet, before she followed the example of the young woman.
A large number of persons had already assembled. Bricklayers were speedily at hand, a strong body of police were soon on the spot, and efforts were at once commenced to clear away the débris of the fallen house, under which many poor creatures were presumed to be buried.
The house in which Lotte had resided, and from which she had just escaped, was one of a block of eight. Erected before the Building Act came into operation, the wonder was, not that they should now have come down, but that they had not fallen before. The corner house, in its descent, dragged two others with it, leaving the rest in so tottering a condition, that none of the residents were allowed to return to them; men were however, appointed, under the police surveyor, to remove the most dangerous portions of the quivering walls, and the furniture in the dwellings, as soon as they were sufficiently supported to admit of men entering them with safety.
Lotte was thus once more thrown upon the world, under trying and painful circumstances. Worn out as she was, she did not, however, give way to helpless despair, but nerved herself for the task she saw she should have to undergo.
She returned to the young woman, and recovered Helen’s child, which she pressed to her own gentle bosom, and covered it carefully with her mantle. She then made her way to the police station, gave a general description of her little property to the inspector, told him she would send a person to fetch it, and then made her way at once whither she knew she should be befriended, and where she could obtain all assistance in rearing Helen’s child, until Helen came forward to claim it—if she ever came at all.
Lotte believed that she knew Helen’s true nature; and to know this was to make her convinced that scarcely anything short of death would have detained her from her child—that child born under such strange, mysterious, and unhappy circumstances.
Lotte, it need hardly be said, directed her footsteps to the residence of Mr. Bantom, or that she was there warmly welcomed; but after the first few words of greeting, she suddenly alighted upon a full comprehension of a startling difficulty in her position.
Helen had obtained from her a solemn promise not to disclose that she had become the mother of a child, unless with her sanction.
When Mrs. Bantom, in her fussiness and gladness at seeing Lotte, drew aside her mantle to take it off, she discovered the child.
“Dear heart!” she cried, with wondrous surprise; “what a blessed little babby!”
Then Mrs. Bantom turned her eyes upon Lotte, inquiringly, and on seeing her thin, alabaster face, she gave a gulp, and uttered an ejaculation.
The instant the worthy, humble creature gave vent thus to the suspicion that flashed through her mind, Lotte understood her position. It was impossible to keep down a scarlet flush that covered her neck and face, or to prevent it dying away, and leaving her face of a deathly hue, or to help feeling as if she should sink down upon the earth and die, almost happy in the notion that her spirit should be so released from this world of care and pain.
Mrs. Bantom noticed the spasm which passed over her features and said nothing, though she felt sorely—sorely grieved; but she removed Lotte’s cloak and bonnet, and forced her gently in a chair.
“You are ill, child, and weak,” said the good woman, in a husky voice; “and don’t ought to be out—in—in—-your condition.”
Lotte tried to speak, but her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth.
“Oh, my child—my child!” sobbed out Mrs. Bantom; “my poor motherless girl—what has happened? Tell me, child—all; I—I—won’t think harshly of you, nor speak unkindly to you; and I may help you—I may—with God’s help, I may.”
Poor Lotte! This undeserved suspicion was very hard to hear. She looked back through her past life, and felt that she ought not to have been thus mistrusted; but she recollected that Mrs. Bantom knew little more, of her than that she was a young girl, living quite alone, and was thus open to temptation, or to be led astray. It was natural she should harbour such a thought as that which now evidently possessed her mind; and, however much it might rankle in heart, Lotte forgave her.
As soon as she could speak, she said—
“Mrs. Bantom, you wrong me. This child is not mine. At present a mystery surrounds its birth, which I am not at liberty to explain. I thought, indeed, Mrs. Bantom, that I should not have had even to say so much to you; for, of all who know me, I should suspect you of being the last who could or would think so very ill of me.”
Mrs. Bantom was now all the other way. She was only too delighted to catch at the very smallest assurance of Lotte’s innocence, and she over and over again expressed her readiness and desire to be of service to her, and, in truth, she afforded her assistance she could not have dispensed with, inasmuch as the good lady had recently presented her husband with a tenth blessing, and she was, therefore, able to take the child of Helen Grahame, and nourish it as her own.
At the expiration of a fortnight, Lotte had sufficiently recovered, by care and self-attention, her strength, and, by the aid and help of Bantom, to instal herself once more in an apartment of her own—in a house, which, by the way, she satisfied herself was strongly built, and not likely to tumble down as soon as she took possession. She had, also, so far recovered her position, that the persons by whom (through the instrumentality of Flora Wilton) she had been formerly employed gave her again, upon application, so much work that she was enabled to employ an assistant, who could undertake the part of wet nurse as well, for Lotte would not part with the custody of Helen’s child under any advice, suggestion, or proposal.
She had heard nothing of Helen. She was wholly at a loss to conjecture what had become of her, and she meditated one evening a visit to her house in the Park, with a hope that she might gain some tidings of her.
With her brother as yet she had not communicated, but she had contrived, through Bantom—who, in his homely way, would perform any meed of service for her with the greatest cheerfulness, though he was not altogether a safe agent to employ on secret service—to ascertain that he was well, though perplexed and grieved at her mysterious absence.
All this time, had she thought of Mark Wilton?
Ah, yes! Not with any notion of a love-passage ever occurring between them during the vicissitudes and trials of her patiently endured life of toil, because, whenever such vision presented itself before her, she chased it away, as a mockery, a delusion, and a snare. No; she thought not of him as a lover in anticipation. She did not even think, in her heart, that he looked upon her in any other way than in a spirit of kindness—with perhaps more earnestness than men commonly look upon a pleasant female face. But she thought of him as one whom she would, of all men in the world, have soonest chosen to be her life-companion. Their stations being widely apart, she knew, or thought she knew, that an event so instinct with happiness could never, never come to pass.
She would sometimes squeeze her hands together, and sigh very deeply—some would say bitterly—as she ejaculated—
“How happy I am to think we do not meet! How very happy I ought to be that I do not see him often—I should so love him. And she who wins him, how beneficent will Heaven be to her.”
One evening, alone with the child, as she sat bending over it caressingly, and thinking thus, Mark Wilton stood before her.
She uttered a faint cry and rose to her feet. She knew not whether to welcome him frankly, or to wait until he spoke.
He recognised her embarrassment, and betrayed some confusion also, for he saw the child upon her knee. His colour went and came, and his heart heat violently. He did not look so pleasantly at her as before.
“I must beg to be excused for my intrusion,” he said, in a low grave tone; “I come, however, to prepare you for a visit from your brother. Are you prepared to face him?”
There was something in his tone and manner so harsh and changed from the style in which he had previously addressed her; so different, indeed, from the expression his face wore when, looking up, her eyes suddenly encountered his beaming on her, for no other word would fitly give their expression, that involuntarily she felt hurt and indignant.
A reproach was implied. She felt that she had deserved no reproach—at least from him. His curtness seemed to her out of place, and if she refused to think it impertinent, she felt that it was as unjust as it appeared unkind.
She turned her clear, intelligent eyes upon him, and while a roseate hue spread itself over her face, she responded to his words by the monosyllable, uttered in a tone of inquiry—
“Sir?”
Again he looked at the little laughing, dark-eyed babe which she held so lovingly in her arms, and his blood seemed to freeze in his veins.
“I really,” he said abruptly, “know not how to address you—I suppose by the married appellative.”
Lotte felt her face and forehead burn as if they were on fire. Her usually mild eye glittered like a diamond.
“I really cannot see, Mr. Wilton,” she answered, “the slightest necessity for your afflicting yourself with any supposition concerning one so humble as myself.”
He was nettled by her glance, and by the manner of her speech.
“It is easy to see,” he said, “that you have fled from your brother to form some connection of which you were convinced beforehand he would not approve, and that you still fear to face him by striving to keep your abode secret from him, or you are under the command to do so of the base, the contemptible, the—sneaking, the—the d——d scoundrel who has cajoled you into taking the most unhappy course you have adopted.”
He looked round fiercely, and spoke loudly, as though he anticipated the individual he had loaded with such strong epithets would step forth to answer for himself.
Lotte became as white as a sheet, and trembled in every limb. Her lips quivered so that she could not speak; but she pointed to the door with a frantic gesture, as if bidding him begone.
“No!” he said, with an angry frown on his flushed brow, “I shall not begone until I have seen the rascal who has so grossly deceived you. He shall well explain the motives which have led him to induce you to descend to such unworthy artifices——”
“Hold!” almost shrieked Lotte, as unconsciously she pressed Helen’s child to her bosom; an act he noted almost with fury. “How dare you thus speak to me?—I—I—Mr. Wilton—I would, out of the reverence in which I hold your gentle sister, for the benefits she has conferred on me—speak to you with respect—but this outrage—this attack upon me drives me from myself. I did not expect to be thus cruelly insulted—by—by you.”
A gush of tears checked further utterance, and her voice dropped at the last word.
Truly in her day-dreams she had never pictured his face turned upon her with an expression so harsh as that which now it bore; and when in her imaginings his voice breathed its soft, melodious accents in her ear, it had no such tone as this. Mark felt his breast aflame, when he saw her weep, and heard the acknowledgment implied in the reference to himself. He would have given worlds, even at that moment, to have been enabled to have folded his arms tenderly round her, and kissed away those tears, which he had himself brought into her sweet eyes.
But there was the little child, yet close hugged to her bosom. If she were a wife, he had, he felt, been scandalously cozened out of a priceless treasure; if she dare lay claim to no such title, he could never think of her more—unless to loathe her very name.
He assumed a cold manner, although his breast was as a seething caldron, and recommenced.
“You may place, madam, what interpretation you please upon my language; and I am equally at liberty to interpret your conduct.——”
“I deny your right to do any such thing!” she interrupted, vehemently; “you are here unbidden sir. If you bear a message from my brother to me, I ask of you only to deliver it to me—and to leave me; if you have no such message, I request you to depart at once?”
“But——” exclaimed Mark, as if to explain.
“I will hear from you, sir, nothing more than my brother’s words, if you have been entrusted with them,” persisted Lotte, indignantly.
“You shall have them,” said Mark, in a freezing tone; “still, I imagined, as a friend——
“A friend!” echoed Lotte, bitterly.
“A friend!” roared Mark, with a rather startling emphasis, forgetting his assumed coldness.
“I loved and esteemed your sister, sir, as a friend,” exclaimed Lotte, in a tone of earnest feeling. She bit her lips to repress the sob that gushed up to her throat—-“but you——”
“I am answered!” he exclaimed in a low tone as she paused. “I had a weak and foolish fancy that—but it is dissipated, gone—for ever. I see now I stand but in the light of a meddlesome intruder, and have no title to ask from you any explanation of your mysterious conduct.”
“None whatever!” said Lotte firmly.
“Enough, madam,” he returned in an icy tone. “I have but then to say that your brother having, by means he will himself explain, discovered your abode, will be here to night to see you.”
Lotte bowed, and remained silent.
Mark twisted his hat round and round, looked at the door and gazed wistfully at her, but she stood immoveable, she pressed the infant to her bosom, and she never once raised her eyes to his.
Her face was white as marble, yet he was sure he never saw her look so handsome—so beautifully interesting. Mark lingered. Could she be a guilty creature?
It seemed impossible. Yet that child! coupled with her sudden flight, her continued and inexplicable absence. What other interpretation could he put upon her conduct?
He gave a slight “Hem,” to clear his voice, and then said—
“You will see your brother when he comes, this evening?”
Her eyelids slightly trembled.
“Why do you ask that question?” she asked, sternly.
“Because,” he returned almost fiercely, “he will not come to you if you wish him not to do so, for then he will know that he should not come.”
Lotte seemed to feel that she should fall into an hysterical paroxysm if this interview were to be prolonged. Yet her pride would not suffer her to yield, or to make an observation which would take the form of an admission either for or against herself.
“I shall be at home,” she observed, laconically.
“Which is to imply that he may come or remain away at his own inclining?” said Mark between his teeth.
She bowed her head without reply.
He gave one wild glance at her.
“Guilty and hardened!” he muttered, and rushed from the room.
She sank half-lifeless upon the sofa.
Mark, with furious haste, made his way to the office of Lotte’s brother, and with a kind of incoherent burst of strange remarks, informed him that he had had an interview with his sister.
“Did she say she wished to see me?” inquired Charley, with a full certainty of an affirmative reply.
“No,” returned Mark, shortly.
Charley looked at him with wondering eyes.
“Had she a fe—female—a young lady with her?” he inquired, expecting that the presence of Helen Grahame might have been the occasion of her reservation.
“No,” returned Mark, in the same voice; “she had a child in her arms.”
He strode abruptly away as he concluded.
Charley staggered back. A bullet through his body could not have inflicted upon him a greater shock.
A thousand conjectures flashed through his mind; and he paced his room in perturbed agony. Who could give him an inkling of her betrayer?—for that she had been basely betrayed he was sure. He could think of no one to aid him but Vivian, and him he knew not where to find.
Yet he did meet with him, and that while on his frenzied way to see his sister.
In a few hurried, agonized words, he told Hal, who was unacquainted with Lotte’s absence, of his discovery of her abode, of Mark’s visit and its result.
“I know Lotte,” said Hal, with marked impressiveness, and a knitted brow. “I know and esteem Mark Wilton also. I have occasion to do so, Charley; but he or any man had better think well ere they utter one sentence or half a word to defame Lotte’s truth or purity in my hearing.”
“Do you not think, then——”
“For shame, Charley. By Heaven I would stake my life upon her virtue and her innocence!”
“But Mark——”
“Is hasty, impetuous—forms his conclusions too rashly. You are about to visit her—judge for yourself. There may be some mystery hanging over her movements, but she can, she will explain all. I would hazard all I might ever hope for in this world that you will prove her only like golden ore—the purer for the fiery ordeal she may have had to undergo.”
“God bless you, Hal, for those comforting words! they have relieved my heart of much bitter agony,” cried Charley, fervidly.
“Ay!” responded Hal, shrugging his shoulders, “but you should have had faith in Lotte. She deserves it if ever one of her sex did. I am on my way to meet Mark Wilton, and it shall go hard but I disabuse his mind of any false notions he may have taken into his head.”
Charley wrung his hand.
“I heard that you were going abroad, Hal; is this true?” he asked.
“It was my intention,” he said, hastily; “it may be necessary yet. A singular event has, however, occurred to detain me for the present in England, and of which I am not at liberty now to speak, but you will, no doubt, some day hear; and if you should not—well my fate will be of little consequence then to anybody—least of all to myself.”
He waved his hand hurriedly, and hastened away.
Charley watched him for a moment, thoughtfully, and then he proceeded to his sister’s quiet and humble lodging.
On reaching the house he found the street door ajar, and he entered without noise. Previous inquiries had made him acquainted with the room she occupied, and he stole up to it silently.
Her room-door was partly open, and lie peeped in.
He saw Lotte seated at work upon the sofa. At her knee was a bassinet, in which lay a sleeping child.
A pang shot through his frame, and every limb quivered.
Lotte looked paler and thinner than when last they parted, and she seemed to have been weeping. She did not raise her eyes from her work, but her needle went swiftly and continuously.
He glided into the room and stood before her; she heard him not, nor did she see him.
In a low tone he said—
“Lotte!”
She started, rose up with her face towards him, and remained motionless; but she bent upon him an intensely appealing look, which seemed to ask him to look down through her eyes to her heart and read her soul.
He did gaze into their clear depths, then he turned his eyes upon the child; once more he looked into her luminous orbs shining upon him like stars, and he opened wide his arms.
“My dear sister!” he exclaimed, with deep emotion.
From her bosom burst an hysterical cry. She sprang forward and laid her head upon his breast, sobbing as though her poor sorely tried heart would break.
Jul. Although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract to-night;
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say—it lightens. Sweet, good night!
This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
Good night—good night! as sweet repose and rest
Come to thy heart as that within my breast!
Rom. Oh! wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
Jul. What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?
Rom. The exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.
Jul. I gave thee mine before thou didst request it.
Shakspere.
So Hugh. Riversdale had returned home to England.
How did it come to pass?
The paragraph in the Times correctly detailed what had happened to him on his voyage out up to the moment of placing him insensible on board the “Ripon.”
What followed may be given in a few words.
He was borne to his berth, where he was immediately attended by two or three doctors, who, in addition to the regular medical officer, happened to be on board on their way out to India. He was speedily resuscitated, though not restored to consciousness, and eventually he became so ill that he was landed, under advice, at Malta, for it was considered that to prosecute his journey to India while so prostrated would only be to ensure his death.
Here he lay in a hospital, hovering on the confines of death; in the event of recovery the probabilities were great that insanity would take, during the remainder of his future life, the place of reason.
Events, however, frequently falsify predictions and upset the most careful calculations. A crisis in his illness arrived—passed—left him miserably weak, but with clear, sentient reasoning powers.
His uncle had read the paragraph in the newspaper, and having encountered it without preparation, it shocked him inexpressibly. It erased out of his heart many hard, cold, and worldly conceits and maxims of which he had made principles, and it placed gentler emotions there: feelings and intentions far more in accordance with the Divine precepts than had ever before had a place in his bosom.
He had no child, had never been married, and was enormously wealthy.
“Hugh is my own flesh and blood,” he said, in communing with himself upon this event. “I will treat him as my son: there is enough for him and me, and for the future we will live happily together. I will go to his mother at once.”
He did so, there to learn that Hugh’s indisposition to go to India and his act of folly were the consequences of love.
“He shall have the girl, if gold will buy her,” he exclaimed, with determined emphasis.
Mrs. Riversdale shook her head, but remained silent. She it was who, prevailed upon by the earnest entreaties of Hugh, was at Southampton to meet Helen if she had complied with the request of her son and joined him there.
The uncle, now bent upon Hugh’s happiness as a project, was not to be checked by Mrs. Riversdale’s despondent action, but entered into plans for its accomplishment with all the keenness of a commercial speculation. He feared to ask too much of Mrs. Riversdale, because he desired to hear nothing likely to check his enterprise, for such he made it. He therefore, as a preliminary step, despatched a messenger to bring Hugh home. He instructed him to stop at Malta, and to make inquiries respecting him, as it was not improbable he might have landed there to recruit his strength ere he went on to India.
There were some letters for Hugh which had arrived after his departure from London, and his uncle sent them by the messenger—a confidential clerk in the establishment—one who was personally attached to Hugh.
On the arrival of the messenger at Malta he quickly found young Riversdale, and executed his mission with a skill and a tact which had the most beneficial influence on the speedy restoration of Hugh to convalescence.
But what most called the latter’s recently feeble powers into stronger action, was an extraordinary letter which he received from a college friend, who at the Edinburgh University, where Hugh had been educated, was his chum.
This friend, destined for the church, was ordained before they parted, to seek his own path in life.
The letter ran thus—
“My dear friend Hugh,—I have most grievously, most momentously wronged you. I am aghast as I reflect upon what may be the consequences of an act intended only as a foolish amusement. Let me explain, and deal with me afterwards as gently in your thoughts as you may find it in your heart to do.
“You will remember at Christmas last we spent the holidays in the Highlands. We passed a week snowed up at the dwelling of the Ramsays, at Inverkeale. Other visitors were placed in the same predicament as ourselves. Among the guests were the Grahames, whom you had met before. One of that family, a girl of singular beauty, of wild spirits, as she ivas proud in demeanour, attracted much of your attention, and you were frequently rallied upon the disposition you evinced for her. Oh! unhappy circumstance. Oh! idle folly, which reflects only in the hour of repentance!
“Hugh Riversdale, remember that in one of the wild sallies of mirth, in which you to ere both called upon to endure a storm of raillery, it was laughingly proposed by a mirthful maiden present, that you should be wedded to Miss Grahame. Giving way to the frantic merriment by which you were both surrounded, you assented, and I was called upon to perform the ceremony. Without reflecting upon my most unpardonable and wicked imprudence, I undertook the office. Mark the terrible result.
“The marriage service was fully performed by me, an ordained priest. I omitted no portion. You both made the proper responses. You placed a wedding ring, obtained from a married lady, upon the finger of the thoughtless girl who confronted you, and fulfilled all the requirements of the contract—even to the drawing up of a certificate, which both signed, and which I now hold in my possession.
“At the time it was thought as much a piece of idle play as an acted charade. Alas! it is no such thing. Hugh Riversdale, Helen Grahame is your wife. In the sight of God you are married, and may form no other contract. It is true some legal forms were omitted, but that does not absolve you from the consequences of a joke which has become dread earnest. I leave to you the task of communicating with Miss Grahame; but if I do not hear from you on the expiration of a week from the date of your receipt of this note, I shall communicate with Mr. Grahame. I was guilty of the act of joining you in jest—but in the eyes of Heaven it was an act of marriage. Earnest reflection has impressed upon me the imperative necessity of doing my utmost to prevent aught sundering those whom God hath joined.”
The letter contained many further expressions of sorrow and penitence, and offered—if Hugh was still attached to Miss Grahame, and anything stood in the way of their re-union—to do his utmost to smoothe it away. “I estimate marriage as a sacrament,” he said, “and hold no divorce valid on earth but death.”
The feelings of Hugh Riversdale, on reading this communication, may be imagined. His stay in Malta was brief after this.
On his return to England his uncle made him a gentleman—that is to say, in one acceptation of the term; for he invested for him a very large sum of money, and thus presented him with a most handsome income, conveying and securing it to him and to his heirs for ever; because, having heard from him his love-story, he was resolved he should be in a position, when he claimed Helen Grahame, which was equal to her own.
Hugh, however, to his distraction, found, on immediate and anxious inquiry, that Helen had quitted her home under somewhat mysterious circumstances, and it was not known whither by any one whom he had questioned. He set a close watch upon her father’s house, and hunted in every direction for her without success, until the eventful night upon which she returned home.
He had full faith in the probability of her re-appearance in her father’s house; he had the most sanguine hopes that he should prevail upon her to quit it, and join him, never more to part. He provided a boat and a carriage, with fleet horses, should flight be necessary, and we have seen how he had occasion to use them.
He bore Helen’s inanimate form to his own house, and placed her in charge of his mother, while he went in quest of medical assistance. Helen was aroused from her long insensibility to exhibit only raving delirium; a violent attack of brain fever followed, and, when the violence of this had passed, she settled down into a state of low, dull insanity.
From the moment Hugh had taken her away to the hour that she recovered sufficient strength to be conveyed to one of the mildest parts of Devonshire, she had not once recognised him, nor uttered a sentence by which he could form a clue to her object in leaving home, or the evidently delicate state of health in which he found her. He was pained, saddened, almost broken-hearted, on finding that at the moment the cup of bliss was unexpectedly raised to his lips, it was likely to be dashed from them, either by the continuance of her aberration of intellect, or by her early death. There were faint hopes that, by the recovery of her health, her mind might be restored, but those hopes were faint indeed; and, under advice, he determined to try the effect of the soft air of Madeira. So he left England with her.
It can now be understood why she did not return to Lotte to claim her child.
In the meanwhile, explanations, secret and confidential, had taken place between Lotte and her brother. The former, though she religiously preserved Helen Grahame’s secret, quite gave her brother to understand that she was able to meet him without a blush upon her cheek, raised there by any sense of a blot upon her fair fame; and he was content to believe this, without pressing upon her any prying questions which would have embarrassed her to answer. She learned from him, however, that he had seen Evangeline Grahame several times. He was, therefore, able to inform her of Helen’s sudden appearance at her father’s house, of her subsequent disappearance with some strange man, who, having felled Lester Vane to the ground, when he endeavoured to intercept their flight, had borne her away. In spite of all attempts to discover them, they had not been heard of since.
Lotte, despite the aspect that Helen’s conduct wore, had faith in her still. She had many opportunities of judging her nature during the time that they had lived together; and though she could not help observing many defects in her composition, she was able to detect that they were more the result of a fostered pride and false education than any real failing or flaw in a true nobility of spirit. Of course, she was unable to fathom the cause for her absence and her silence, but she was convinced that she should see her again, and that, too, at the earliest moment the mother could command the opportunity to rejoin her child.
So she continued carefully to tend it, to cherish and fondle it, as though it were her own.
What rosy cheeks she had! what a soft, beaming expression lighted up her humid eyes! and what a pretty smile curled her small lips, as she thought, when pressing this little creature to her bosom, during the first period of its charge, that some day she might have as pretty a treasure to hold up to the fond kiss of the man she loved! But since her last interview with Mark Wilton, that thought, if it presented itself, was hastily dismissed with a tearful sigh.
She never expected to see him more, and she consigned to the tomb of other once-cherished hopes the visionary imaginings she had for a time so fondly conjured up, in spite of the jeers of her common sense, respecting him.
Yet he came again to see her, as before, unbidden; and, as before, unexpectedly.
Hal Vivian had seen him, and had listened quietly to a violent and incoherent string of complaints, observations, reproaches and charges against Lotte Clinton, from his lips; and when he had exhausted his subject, he reasoned with him quietly. He elicited from him that he had never made even an advance to Lotte beyond the limits of courtesy, and that she had, therefore, no right to divine or to perceive that he had formed a strong attachment for her; and that he had neither claim to interfere in her affairs, nor right to utter one harsh epithet respecting her. Hal thereupon told him firmly, that holding her in his high esteem—for he believed her character to be as noble as her nature was pure—he would not suffer any one, not even his nearest relative or dearest friend, to repeat, in his hearing, one word defamatory to her good name.
Mark, despite his own suspicions, his uneasy and unhappy forebodings and speculations, heard Vivian speak thus confidently with inward satisfaction; and having incoherently assented to all he advanced, with some lingering misgivings, he thought it perhaps would be as well if he never saw her more, and under that impression he went—direct to her abode, and again presented himself before her.
He found her at work—ever at work—but as his eye ran rapidly round the apartment, he detected the absence of the child. He cared not where it was, so that it was not where he held an interview with her.
Lotte was, indeed, surprised to see him enter; her heart commenced beating violently, and perhaps her cheeks and lips turned a little pale, but she did not betray any other emotion; on the contrary, she was very cold and distant in her manner, giving him somewhat decidedly to understand that his presence was an unlooked-for intrusion.
He bit his lips and felt angry—he thought she ought to have been glad to see him again, and he drew himself stiffly up. All he had arranged to say fled at once from his memory, and he felt himself completely in a false position.
As he did not speak, and Lotte thought she had waited long enough for him to commence, she inquired of him, in a voice slightly tremulous, the object of his visit. This she did in such a tone that it vibrated through his frame, and he replied instantly—
“I have felt, Miss Clinton, since our last interview, that I have a duty to perform to you. I have an apology to offer, and an acknowledgment to make. Our last meeting was very unsatisfactory”—he paused.
“To me!” ejaculated Lotte, thoughtfully.
“And to me!” he subjoined.
There was another pause, then he proceeded—
“I am impelled to say that, at our last interview, I, by implication, challenged you with conduct which I have since reason to believe was, on my part, a rash and hasty proceeding.”
“Rash and hasty, sir!” echoed Lotte, excitedly; “it was cruelly unjust.”
A gleam of satisfaction brightened Mark’s eyes, as she uttered those words, and he said, earnestly—
“Oh, Miss Clinton, do but assure me, solemnly, that I aspersed you unjustly in my words, and in my thoughts. You will, indeed, relieve a heavy burden from my heart.”
“Sir!” said Lotte, her voice once more trembling, “I have a sense of self-respect too acute to do anything of the kind. You know but little of me; I therefore forgive your harsh and unwarranted impressions, but I cannot, and will not, stoop to defend a fair name which never yet has deserved reproach.”
There was a proud nobleness in her mien, a clear unwavering expression of her eye, and as she concluded an unfaltering tone in her words which instantly carried conviction to Mark’s heart.
“Miss Clinton,” he responded, with considerable earnestness, “I believe you—from my soul I believe you. I do not know how sufficiently to reproach myself, or how urgently enough to plead to you to pardon my ungenerous and ignoble conduct to you when last we met. Upon my knees I will implore you to forgive me, for I now feel keenly how wantonly I insulted you, how inhumanly I wronged you.”
Lotte, with a beaming face, held out her hand.
“You did in truth wrong me,” she said, with a sweet smile, “but the best of us at times form erroneous impressions. Let us no more remember what has passed and never speak of it again.”
He took her hand and pressed it to his heart and, though she struggled a little to withdraw it, to his lips, and imprinted a passionate kiss upon it.
“Dear Miss Clinton,” he said, when he released her hand, “we must speak of it again, for at least I must offer an explanation of the cause of my behaviour, or else appear in your eyes little better than an incomprehensible madman.”
“No—oh, no!” laughed Lotte: “indeed, I am satisfied that you were troubled with some strange hallucination then, which has disappeared now, and I am quite content.”
“But I am not!” he said gravely.
“No?” she rejoined, in a tone of inquiry and with some little surprise.
“No?” he answered; and then added, with ardent warmth, “it is useless to disguise the true state of my feelings towards you. I love you, Lotte—I love you passionately, truthfully, and devotedly. I——”
He seemed for the moment as though the intensity of his feelings would choke him.
Lotte fell back a step, and the colour fled from her cheek. All in the room appeared to become dim to her eyes, and Mark’s form to grow hazy and indistinct.
He fell upon one knee before her, and caught her hand.
“Oh, Lotte!” he cried, “you can now understand how my heart was rent asunder when I came here, hopeful to gain your heart, and found you, as I believed, in the possession of another.”
“Pray rise, Mr. Wilton. Do not kneel to me; you distress me—indeed, indeed you do!” she exclaimed in a low tone, the last word becoming inaudible.
Mark rose up. He saw that she appeared faint and seemed tottering. It is not wonderful that he should slide gently his arm around that small waist, which never had been lovingly encircled by the arm of man before.
She was faint and full of tears, so the arm remained where it had been placed; and, somehow, her head rested upon his breast, while large glittering drops fell from her eyes to the ground.
Oh, the bliss of that moment! Never before in her life had she experienced any emotion equalling that exquisite felicity.
It was natural that the same impulse which drew Lotte to Mark’s breast should dictate to him to hold back, for an instant, that pretty head, and to press his lips upon her forehead.
It was Lotte’s first love-kiss.
She broke from him, startled, affrighted; ran, like a terrified fawn, to a chair, upon which she sank sobbing.
Mark followed her, and bent over her.
“Lotte,” he whispered, gently, in her ear, “do not weep, my own sweet little girl; I cannot bear to see you in tears. I love you, as I have confessed to you, fondly and dearly, and I would make you my own little wife, if you will have me.”
Lotte still wept, but it was with an intensity of happiness to which previously she had been an entire stranger.
Oh, those day dreams! those visions of Paradise, in which she had indulged to wake out of only with a sigh.
Were they, after all, to be realized, and should she really and truly have for her very own that handsome, manly fellow, now pleading his suit in her ear?
The vision was one of happiness to her indeed.
But she woke up from it. Her common sense presented itself coldly and gravely before her; it held up a mirror to her, in which she saw at a glance their respective social positions, and she saw that what she had just heard with such trembling delight was, after all, a dream, only to be added to others which had been dissipated.
She rose up, and turned her face towards him, bending upon him her now timid gaze.
“I must not listen to you, Mr. ‘Wilton,” she said, in a low, sad tone.
“No?” he cried, in a startled tone; “why not? You love another, Lotte, is that why?” he asked, excitedly.
She shook her head gently.
“No,” she replied.
He uttered an audible sigh of relief.
“That is glad tidings!” he ejaculated, with evident satisfaction, and added—“Before we proceed farther—before you say to me aught which may be unsatisfactory in my ears—let us, dear, dear Lotte, come to a decided understanding with each other. I love you, oh! so dearly. You have confessed to me you love no other man——”
“My brother!” said Lotte, archly—serious as she was at heart, she could not forbear the observation.
He waved his hand impatiently.
“Oh, Lotte! tell me, do you—at least, I should say, do you think you could be brought at some future time to love me?”
“Do not ask me, pray do not,” said Lotte, seriously and earnestly, in reply.
“Why not?” he asked, with surprise.
“Because,” she answered, “you have gone too far already for your own peace, and—I—I wish you to see—what you have overlooked—the difference between your position and mine.”
“What difference, Lotte?” he asked, almost sharply. “You are well born, of a long line of ancestry—so your sister has told me—you are now wealthy, and will be richer still; I am but a humble needlewoman, poor, my only dowry a pure name. You see I cannot be admitted into your family, or, if I were, it might be to meet with disdainful looks, and to hear, perhaps, contemptuous remarks which would break my heart. It will, therefore, be better that we should part now. I shall always think of you kindly, and—and——”
She could get no further, and placed her handkerchief before her eyes to conceal the emotion which the image of parting with him for ever created.
Mark waved his hand impetuously and stamped his foot impatiently.
“Lotte,” he said, “leave me to be the judge of what constitutes the difference in our social position. Mine, as yours, is the accident of birth, and in taking you to my bosom, your social condition can have no weight with me. In my hearing none will dare utter a derogatory word or bend a haughty look at my choice. Those who attempt it may be wealthy and purse-proud, but they would be so mean in soul I would not mix with them, and I should return their contempt with interest. I need, Lotte, a pure mind and a loving, faithful heart, to companion me through life, because my future happiness will be wholly dependent upon those qualities. I have mixed with many grades of people, and lived through some wild scenes, and I am somewhat unsettled in my nature. I require a gentle counsellor, one fond enough of me to make my home to me the centre of paradise on earth, while I endeavour to make her life as free from care and as full of unalloyed happiness as it is possible for such an one as myself to accomplish. You, Lotte, are the pure and loving woman upon whom my heart settles like the dove on the ark; mere worldly distinctions I despise. You have centred in your sweet self all I desire to possess.”
“I am very grateful to you, Mr. Wilton,” she responded.
He interrupted her.
“Mark! my name is Mark! do call me Mark!” he exclaimed earnestly.
It was strange to see how his fond eyes brought the colour in her cheeks. She smiled, but yet it was a saddened smile.
“I am grateful,” she repeated, “for your kindness, but you have failed to convince me that an alliance between us will be what is termed a fitting match. Your father——”
“Lotte! Lotte!” he interposed, “only answer me this. Could you be happy with me as my wife, irrespective of the considerations you suggest?”
She hesitated to answer, and cast her eyes upon the ground.
Once more he stole his arm about her waist, and bent his lips to her ear.
“Answer, Lotte, dearest; do not be cold or cruel to me. Could you be happy, if you were my wife?”
She turned her eyes full of tenderness upon his, and in the rich tones of a fall heart said—
“I could, indeed, Mark; in truth I could.”
“And love me, Lotte?”
“And love you, Mark; fondly, tenderly, dearly—very, very dearly.”
He pressed her to his heart.
“I ask no more,” he replied, with deep emotion. “We will settle the social distinctions after we are married.”
That night before he parted with her, he obtained from her a conditional assent to be his. The condition imposed by her was, that his father and his sister should give their consent to the union, and receive her as became the position of the wife of the eldest born of the house.
Mark placed the fulfilment of that condition in the rosiest light, and left her to depart for home on the following morning.
He arrived at his destination at a most critical moment in his father’s life.
Avaunt and quit my sight—let the earth hide thee!
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with.
Hence, horrible shadow,
Unreal mockery, hence!
You have displaced the mirth, broke the meeting
With most admir’d disorder.
Shakspere.
It is necessary to refer to the position in which Harry Vivian was placed by the conduct of Mr. Harper’s returned son.
Ejected with brutal coarseness from the establishment in Clerkenwell, his presence at Highbury was of course, out of the question.
His future was now in his own hands. Most men have latent energies; of these there is a class who can only have them elicited by the pressure of dire disaster; there is another class, in whom they spring into action at the first call of necessity; Harry Vivian was one of the latter. He had money by him. Mr. Harper had, early in life, taught him the advantages of spending less than he received; and funding the residue. This habit was grafted upon him in no miserly spirit; but that in the most important epoch of his life he should be able to determine the value of living within his income by the inestimable comfort enjoyed by all who are never in debt.
One night’s anxious deliberation and his course was clear to him. He was gifted with remarkable powers of perception. When he erred it was by accident—it was never by the failing of his understanding. He detected the right side of a question at the first glance, and though his decision was not formed without a careful consideration, he rarely had occasion to ignore his first impression.
He saw mapped out before him the order events would take, if he adopted an unworthy, clandestine, and mean course with regard to Flora Wilton. She could be his, and she would be, without her father’s consent, but, dearly as he wished for such a result, it would never, he felt, be productive to him or to her of that unalloyed happiness he so ardently longed to enjoy with her.
He saw clearly enough the probable result of straightforward, honourable and manly action; for no matter what the pangs they might be called upon to endure, or the self-sacrifices each might be compelled to make in the interval, the remainder of their life-companionship would be unclouded by a reflection that they had, in order to achieve the hope nearest and dearest to their heart, violated their truth, sullied their open sincerity, or forfeited their honour.
He saw, in their respective positions, Colonel Mires and the Honorable Lester Vane, and he examined their prospects as rival candidates for the hand of Flora Wilton.
The former he feared on no other grounds than that a vehement and passionate nature might hurry him to some deed of violence, out of his unbridled desire to make Flora his own. To prevent such an unwished-for event he resolved should be his especial duty.
Lester Vane he regarded as by far his most dangerous rival; and, from the first moment he beheld him, when he heard, to his dismay, the warm greetings of old Wilton, accompanied by his pressing invite to his mansion, he determined to ascertain as far as possible his antecedents. He saw that he was handsome, highborn, a welcomed guest, evidently much struck by Flora’s beauty, and quite ready to form an alliance with her; while Flora, under the strong pressure of her father’s earnest urgings, had but small plea to refuse accepting his offer.
“If he be unworthy, and I can prove him to be so,” reflected Hal, “I may save Flora from becoming the victim of her father’s unhesitating sacrifice of her to a phantasm, and to the cupidity of a needy adventurer.”
He did make close and acute inquiries, through a well-qualified agent, and he had in his possession a report carefully framed, which, at the proper time, he intended to produce and substantiate, in the strong expectation that the utter discomfiture of a scoundrel would be the inevitable consequence.
At the same time, though most ardently attached to Flora, he had no absurdly romantic imaginings in respect to his own claims to her hand; nor did he attempt to shut his eyes to the fact that the return of the younger Harper, coupled with the death of his deeply lamented uncle, almost completely robbed him of the small chance he had previously possessed.
His first step, after the night’s deliberation of which we have just spoken, was to write at length to Flora, to explain honestly and openly to her the situation in which circumstances had placed him. He detailed how his natural expectations had been abruptly shattered, and the stern necessity which henceforward would imperiously call upon him to supply, by the exercise of his own skill and industry, those resources with which his late uncle had so liberally and kindly intended to furnish him.
He made a clean breast, and disguised nothing; but his letter was not composed in a complaining or whining spirit; and while he dwelt upon his own ardent love for her, and alluded to the tender acknowledgments she had made to him, it was rather with a view to suggest to her that the change in his condition, since her admission of attachment, left her now free to act in the future disposal of her hand and person. This, he told her, he felt to be as a matter of justice and of right simply her due; but it was, also, only fair to himself to state that he did not abrogate one hope or aspiration in which she had hitherto held the first place.
He bade her be assured that he looked into the future firmly, confidently, and with unwavering faith. He asked no promise from her binding her to his future fortunes; he even said that he would think of her in no angry spirit if, after what had recently occurred to himself, she accepted the hand of one her equal in rank and wealth, however deep might be his sense of the loss he should sustain; and finally, that he should ever do his utmost to prove himself worthy of her favourable opinion, even as he should strive, by unabated self-exertion, to recover the position from which he had been so unexpectedly hurled.
The letter despatched, he pursued the course he proposed for himself to follow. Personal application to the first manufacturing goldsmiths in London proved to him that his devotion to his art, and the success which always attends a well-directed perseverance, met its proper reward. In quarters where he believed himself unknown, his skill in the manipulation and the finish of his designs was almost a byeword. He was gratified beyond measure to find that hours withheld from idleness, and dedicated to his advancement, had won for him a name, as a sculptor in the precious metal, earlier in life than could have been accomplished by any other means.
Employment was liberally given to him, and a high scale of remuneration awarded in payment. So far his affairs went well; but his hopes were but hopes coloured by a fervid and sanguine imagination. He was unconscious of the wide gulf which separated him—a young journeyman goldsmith—from the daughter of the representative of an ancient and wealthy house. Before his confident and imaginative eyes there did not present itself that long vista of years, through which, if unaided, he must pass to achieve the position which he himself felt it was fitting he should hold, before he could, in honesty and honour, ask Flora Wilton to become his wife.
He saw not foreshadowed in the task to which it was his intention to devote himself the incessant application and trying toil essential to success; he counted not upon exhaustion of energy, repeated and vexing though common disappointments and retarding circumstances, all to be surmounted before the goal he longed for could be reached. He saw no impediment which steadfast faith and unwavering perseverance might not overcome. He therefore entered upon his mission, not only to win wealth but to reap laurels, with a bold heart and a firm purpose, keeping ever in his eyes, as a tutelary spirit, the beautiful form of Flora Wilton, so that he might ever be conscious of the value of the prize for which he was contending, and never, never grow faint-hearted or weary while prosecuting his labour of love.
Flora Wilton received his letter. She perused it many times and with no little emotion. It came to her as a new opposition to her hopes, raised up in a most unexpected quarter, and, with womanly instinct, she perceived the important influence a knowledge of Hal’s sudden reducement to poverty would have upon her father’s aversion to a union between them; but she was woman enough, too, to feel that it strengthened her resistance to her father’s design.
She wept as she considered that this sudden change in his circumstances must afflict the high spirit of her lover, and she heartily wished that at the moment she had control of a fortune that she might place it at his disposal. There was no absolute engagement existing between them; so far it had been a mutual love-confession, springing out of an accidental circumstance, but Flora now construed it into one.
“Had he been wealthy and of high standing, what has passed between us might not be considered actually binding on the free action of either,” she ruminated “but now misfortune has overtaken him, I cannot in honour release him if I wished. I do not wish to do so—no, oh no, Hal—I love you so very, very dearly, I would sooner die now than we should be separated for ever, and both live on.”
She felt at a loss what steps to take in responding to the contents of the letter, because she was anxious to take the one which should be most cheering to him—that should not wound him by condolement—should express her sympathy and regret, and at the same time assure him that it should make no difference in the esteem—the profound esteem—she entertained for him.
She disliked the word “esteem;” it was cold and inexpressive, yet it was proper to think it as well as use it.
She felt herself to be in an embarrassing position. Her impulses suggested to her to write a long and loving letter to Vivian, but she was conscious of other considerations, which forbade her consulting only self in the matter.
Now it happened about this time that Mark Wilton made the discovery that no inconsiderable portion of his time was occupied in conjuring up the face and form of Lotte Clinton, and in framing small dramas, the incidents of which were strikingly romantic, and in which he and she played the principal parts. For many years Mark’s path in life had been rough hewn, and he had been compulsorily self-reliant. He could by no means brook trammels. He, therefore, acted as impulse directed, never believing that his father could or ought to have any further control over him. So, after making an imaginary better acquaintance with Lotte, passing through a number of visionary love-scenes, in which the young lady was supposed to display a vast deal of fond confidence, and to give faint utterance to the most pleasing open confessions, it is hardly surprising that he should come to the conclusion that she was precisely the person to become Mrs. Mark Wilton, and precisely the person who should become Mrs. Mark Wilton.
He had, nevertheless, his misgivings. They would obtrude, unwelcome enough in all conscience, and did not altogether agree with his proud, free sense of independence.
After the scene in which Hal Vivian was denied an alliance with his sister Flora, and forbidden to entertain in future any hope of her hand, he could hardly help perceiving that his father would insist upon having a voice respecting the admission of other new members to his family. He might, in spite of Mark’s assertion of his right to do as he pleased, in the grave and important act of choosing a wife, object to receive a needle, woman as a daughter-in-law, even though he had been in humble circumstances for a time himself, and, as was very likely he would, exhibit a very strong feeling in the matter, and deliver a no less strong opinion upon it. But though Mark felt this, he determined not to be guided by it. He had heard it said that, in the dance of life, it was a man’s duty to choose his own partner, and he believed in the truth of the aphorism—at all events, he did not want any M.C. to perform that office for him. He had funds of his own, independent of his father’s property, and he resolved that, all things agreeing, he would marry Lotte, in spite of his father’s opposition—always presuming that opposition rested solely on considerations of her previous position in life.
It may be understood that with these sentiments he sympathised with his sister, and after some communing with her, during which, with rosy cheeks and downcast eyes, she made frank acknowledgments, he undertook to proceed to London, ostensibly to convey a message from her to his early friend Harry Vivian, but really to “kill two birds with one stone,” the other bird being Lotte Clinton; though if he attempted to kill her at all, the only murderous weapon he intended to use would be kindness.
He only wanted an excuse for a journey to London, and his sister Flora afforded it to him.
Now he was very warmly attached to Hal Vivian. “They had been friends in youth,” when the brightest side of prosperity was turned towards Hal Vivian, but that fact had only seemed to render the latter more generous and self-sacrificing to Mark Wilton. Their friendship had, indeed, on both sides been characterised by the nobler qualities of human nature; unworldly, unselfish, and romantic in its constitution, and, framed of the materials to render it lasting, it was not of a kind to be lightly disturbed.
Mark knew his sister to be lovely, amiable, well-born, and richly dowered, but he knew no man whom he would sooner see her husband than Hal Vivian. Unaffected by the claims of rank and station, he bowed to those of sterling worth, embodied in high qualities of heart and mind. He believed the happiness of life to be associated with them, and as it was his intention to appeal to them to ensure him a passage to immortal life, through elysian fields on earth, he was well disposed to interest himself to bring about a marriage between Flora and Hal, even though his father was at present averse to it.
He went to London from Harleydale, with what result has been shown.
Previous to his departure from the Hall, Lester Vane, with the promise of an early return, had quitted it. Colonel Mires was also gone, and Nathan Gomer, with a few words of condolence to Flora, couched in mysterious language, had also disappeared from the house and neighbourhood. So at least both Flora and Mark concluded, for though there had been no leavetaking he was no longer visible in house or grounds.
When Mark left, therefore, old Wilton was once more alone with his daughter.
By tacit consent, no allusion was made to the subject of their interview in the library. When they met she was pale, silent, and abstracted; he moody and stern. He spoke to her in sharp, short sentences, and she answered him mostly in monosyllables.
They scarcely met but at meals; he confining himself, with but few exceptions, to his library, and she to visits to the glen where she had confessed to Hal her love for him, or to the solitude of her own chamber, that she might think only of him and those deep eyes which he had bent upon her so earnestly and so lovingly when last they parted.
There were, however, two arrivals in the vicinity of Harleydale after the departure of Mark, in the persons of Colonel Mires and Mr. Chewkle. Both were bent on mischief.
The latter, during the little affair of the benefit society, in which his personal liberty was at some hazard, had contracted the vice of hard drinking. He was always addicted to the “glass that inebriates” when it passes the “cheering” point, but it was an occasional indulgence only which had a very passable interval of sobriety; but now he carried a bottle—a bottle which he filled as soon after it was empty as possible, and emptied as soon after it was filled with a celerity remarkable as an accomplishment, but not, as such, commendable.
Mr. Chewkle, freely indulging his new habit on his way to Harleydale, arrived at his destination upon the eve of an attack of delirium tremens, which fit duly came off on the first evening of his arrival, in the parlour of the village inn, in the presence of a small assemblage of nightly frequenters, and resulted in great damage to visitors and furniture.
Mr. Chewkle, who had been engaged for a considerable portion of the evening in emptying glass after glass of brandy and water, suddenly fastened a fiery eye upon a gaunt tailor, who was employed in trying how long he could make a tumbler of gin and water last. In a little while he began to mutter inarticulate words of suppressed rage. Presently he leaped to his feet with an unearthly screech, and made a dash at the tailor. The latter, intensely horrified, threw a summersault, scrambled under the table, and so out at the door.
A tremendous uproar ensued. Everybody in an agony of fright made an effort to get out of the doorway at the same moment, and a jam resulted. Mr. Chewkle actively employed himself upon the body of fugitives with his chair, until the centre was forced, and the two sides burst outwards, leaving Chewkle in triumph to commit mad riot upon everything breakable within the room, until he fell in horrible convulsions upon the ground, after successive efforts to effect a breach through the wall with his head.
It was not until he remained perfectly motionless, giving no sign of life, save by a dreadful stertorous breathing, that it entered into the head of the frantically amazed landlord to send for a doctor.
Upon the arrival of that skilled personage the truth was revealed, and Mr. Chewkle was placed in bed; and as, on examining his pockets, a good round sum was found, a nurse was provided to attend on him. The landlord, upon considerations of safety as he suggested, took possession of the money, leaving the empty purse in Chewkle’s pocket, and did not forget immediately afterwards to take an inventory of the damage done by his infuriated guest.
Mr. Chewkle, during his illness, raved about Mr. Grahame and Mr. Wilton; frequently acting as though he had the throat of the latter gentleman compressed between his hands and was squeezing life out. He called on Mr. Grahame to pay him well for “the job,” and threatened, unless he received “more bunce,” that he would provide him with a hempen collar at Newgate.
All these ravings were treated as such, and taken no heed of by those who heard them, though they were remembered afterwards.
Mr. Chewkle, after a few days, became conscious of his position; within a week he had a rough notion of the havoc he had committed, from the landlord, who dropped in to see how he was getting on.
The devil’s money never does anyone any good.
Mr. Chewkle reflected upon the bill he should have to pay for breakage, for attendance, and lodging at the inn, for the doctor’s professional services, and for “extras,” the extent of which he could not foresee.
As a principle he determined not to pay a farthing for one solitary item.
How to get out of it?
It seemed strange to him that he had not been asked for any money; that was a fact which, though singular, was advantageous and cheering, and he determined if a proposition to pay, as he went on, should be made by the landlord, that he would show him his gold and silver, but make an excuse for not parting with a shilling until he was convalescent.
In less than a fortnight he felt himself to be so. The landlord seemed still good-humoured and confiding—most confiding—and Chewkle, by his boasts and promises, endeavoured to keep him so.
One night, Mr. Chewkle, finding the household buried in sleep, rose silently and dressed himself. He felt hastily in his pocket to see whether his purse was there, and chuckled as he felt it, for he was at the moment unconscious that there was nothing in it.
By the aid of the small night-lamp which burned in his room, he looked about for portable articles of value, but found none worth the taking. Leaving the light burning he then stole to the window, which was a lattice, opened it, and carefully got without, resting his toes on the stout stems of an old ivy which covered the walls. He closed the window after him, and descended with very little noise to the ground.
It was light enough to see Harleydale Woods in the distance, and for them he made swiftly, trusting to fortune for chances of encountering Wilton alone.
He felt uneasy at the delay occasioned by his illness, for he knew that Wilton’s death, under all the circumstances which had come to his ears, was of hourly importance to Grahame. He knew not, indeed, but that the lapse of time might have rendered his task useless, still he resolved to go on, and if he encountered the old man alone to address him, to elicit from him Grahame’s actual position, and then act as circumstances might dictate. He gained Harleydale Woods without being seen, chuckling at his successful escape, unconscious, in the midst of the hilarity with which he reflected on having done the landlord, that he had skilfully done himself.
Colonel Mires was at the same moment of time hiding in the woods, located at no great distance from Chewkle. His object, though baneful, was of a very different character to that of Grahame’s agent. His passion for Flora had brought him to spend the long nights watching at her window, and the days in vain search of her in hope of meeting her alone.
At first he had a scarcely defined purpose in this. He had a vague notion of declaring his passion to her, of imploring her upon his knees, even with tears, to grant to him her coveted hand. He conjured up promises he would make to her—an offer to be her devoted slave, to scour the earth to gratify her lightest wish, to minister to her pleasures, her caprices, her comforts, and secure to her constant happiness at any self-sacrifice. To proffer, indeed, impossibilities with unscrupulous recklessness, unheeding whether one of these inflated propositions would or could be realized, so that he induced her to become his—only his.
These intangible impressions conducted him to the vicinity of Flora’s dwelling; but in the secrecy arid solitude to which he for a time devoted himself he had the opportunity of reflection, and to separate the impossible from the probable.
His situation he found to be just this. He was inflamed with a passion for a girl who loved another, and whose father, if opposed to his daughter’s giving her hand to the man she loved, would certainly be averse to her bestowing it upon him. Especially as he had himself selected for her husband one of station, wealth, youth, and handsome exterior. It was simply assuring him that he had no chance of success whatever by fair means. Had he been in the western provinces of India, where he was for many years stationed, he would soon have settled the matter; as it was, he was in England, and abductions are not easy matters in this country.
Yet abduction seemed to be the only course open to him.
He bent his energies to the task of framing a plan, and he believed at last that he had succeeded in forming a scheme which was not susceptible of failure.
While Mr. Chewkle was raving in bed, he quitted Harleydale, to make and perfect arrangements, and having completed them, he returned to the wood to effect, if possible, a secret interview with Flora and carry out his project.
He had been two days on the watch, when Chewkle arrived in the wood from the inn. In the course of that morning they came, during a stealthy stroll, suddenly face to face.
Instantly their eyes met each seemed to feel the other was there for an improper purpose.
“Good mornin’, sir,” exclaimed Chewkle, with a playful nod.
The Colonel eyed him sternly.
“What are you here for?” he asked in a sharp tone.
Chewkle bent a keen glance upon him.
“I have as much right here as him—he’s after no good,” thought he. A rogue detects a rogue pretty-much as a detective does a thief, by the eye; and Chewkle after his inspection felt a little more at ease.
Mires repeated his question.
“That’s tellings,” answered Chewkle, putting his tongue in his cheek; “what are you here about, eh?” he inquired, somewhat impudently.
“Insolent scoundrel, how dare you put such a question to me?” exclaimed the Colonel, angrily.
“Oh!” returned Chewkle quickly, “I only returned the compliment. Look here, mister, I am old on the town and have forgotten more than a great many people will ever know, but I know this, that you are up to some dodge here”——
“Fellow!”
“Ah, yes! that’s very good acting, but it ain’t natural enough to satisfy me that I am wrong. Now I don’t mind dropping to you that I am down here on a spec, and, if it comes off right, it will be the making of me. So you see we had better try and help each other, than kick up a row, and bring about our ears a swarm of people we don’t want to see.”
There was something in what Chewkle said, as well as in his manner, which attracted the attention of Colonel Mires. He saw before him a fitting instrument for the commission of any act of rascality, and he came promptly to the conclusion that it would be better to enlist his services than to make an enemy of him. He, therefore, determined to fence with his questions for a short time before he came to an open understanding with him; and directly he proceeded to do this, Chewkle felt satisfied and at his ease. He parried the Colonel’s questions with the greatest ease, and artfully contrived to extract an admission from him which caused him to say——
“So you’ve come after young Miss Wilton, have you? You found another before you, eh? and you want to get hold of her on the sly, don’t you?”
The Colonel eyed him curiously, somewhat staggered at the observation, and said, quickly—
“You know the fellow Vivian, I suppose?”
“Vivian,” thought Chewkle, “Vivian—Wilton, Wilton—Vivian.” He rubbed his chin; presently he said—
“What, you mean Harper the goldsmith’s nevy?”
“The same.”
“I do—what then?”
“I presume you have come down on his business?”
“Well, you ain’t far out. He wants to get hold of Miss Wilton, too, you know.”
This was the merest surmise on the part of Chewkle. He knew that Harry Vivian was acquainted with the Wiltons; it was not difficult to guess pretty near the truth.
“I am aware of his insolent pretensions, as I am of the impossibility of their realization. I presume, as a man of the world, that service suits you best which pays you best.”
“A conjuring freelogonist couldn’t have told you my weakness better if he had his fingers on my bumps. That is my system.”
“Abandon the service you have undertaken, and serve me. Tell me what you receive, and I will double it.”
“You?”
“I will.”
“I am your humble servant.”
Chewkle rubbed his hands with ecstacy. He became a confirmed follower in the belief that “it is better to be born fortunate than rich.”
“Luck’s all,” he ejaculated, in a soliloquy, “and I’ve got it, I have.”
He at once proceeded to tell Colonel Mires a host of lies respecting his mission to Flora. Improbable, and exaggerated as they were, the Colonel, in his raging jealousy and passion, believed them, and readily responded to Chewkle’s request for an earnest of payment before he took a step in his service.
As soon as gold was once more in his purse, the unscrupulous agent declared himself ready to perform anything required of him, and the Colonel drew him by a circuitous path towards the narrow glen Flora was accustomed to visit. He pointed it out to him, and directed him how he might gain access to it unseen.
He had hardly done so when he clutched Chewkle by the arm, and pointed to the pathway leading to it—
“Look!” he exclaimed. “By Heaven, Miss Wilton is proceeding there. Hasten by the route I have described to you, and when she is seated, steal suddenly upon her so as to startle her, then tell her you are from Mr. Vivian’s aunt, and give her this letter. I know what the result will be—she will faint. I will be on the spot, and the rest is provided for. Quick! quick! follow that path, away with you!”
Chewkle, a little bewildered, took the letter and stole cautiously to the spot pointed out to him, while Colonel Mires, with an agitated manner, darted off in a different direction.
Why, man, she is mine own;
And I as rich in having such a jewel,
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
Shakspere.
Lester Vane, while he indulged his appetite for profligate pleasures or pursued with pertinacity a revengeful purpose, never lost sight of his personal interest, especially where that interest centred itself upon an object awakening his selfish desire.
He had a double motive in desiring to obtain the hand of Flora Wilton. He needed the income she would bring with her, and he coveted her beautiful self. He loved her, so far as he could love anything feminine apart from a lower emotion, intensely, and was, in fact, sufficiently fascinated by her charms to have married her had she been penniless, even if he had neglected and ill-treated her afterwards.
As she was circumstanced she was a valuable prize, for she had beauty and riches too. The combination was something rare; no one comprehended or appreciated that fact better than himself. How he would be envied when she was his—fortune and all. He never separated that consideration from the pictures his imagination sketched of the future. He dwelt upon the vision which saw him folding the fair creature to his heart, and placing the fortune she brought to his own credit at his own banker’s.
What he had learned and knew respecting Hal Vivian, he treated lightly—contemptuously; nevertheless, the figure of this young “pin-maker” would obtrude itself. Still he brushed the shadowy object from his sight with an impatient sneer, for he had faith in his own attractions; he thought it impossible that a gentle creature so simple, and certainly so impressionable, as Flora could resist him.
As yet he had not had a chance to play off upon her his attractions to win her. That odious Indian bore, as he deemed Mires, with his bright, tiger-like eyes, had always during his sojourn at Harleydale intruded himself just as he had brought up his artillery of glances, soft words, and tender empressement; and again, at the moment he had devised an excellent plan for flinging his Indian rival, the unexpected presence of Vivian, and the events it precipitated, drove him from the scene.
“Out of sight out of mind” was a favourite axiom with him. It was one he invariably acted upon in affairs of the heart, unless, as in the present instance, his personal interest was identified with his passion for the lady.
He, being thus banished from the object of his passionate and pecuniary hopes, reflected that the axiom he adopted as a principle might have a similar influence upon one whom he would rather have unconscious of the existence of the proverb, much less capable of its application.
To render such a contingency impossible, he addressed a letter to Mr. Wilton, penned with a full conviction that it would be laid before and perused by Flora.
It was well done, and admirably calculated to effect its object, if—ah, those “ifs!”—Flora’s love for Harry Vivian had been of a different complexion. He commenced by regretting that any event should have occasioned his premature departure from Harleydale; yet more did he regret the circumstances which had happened, because they were of a character to disturb the domestic peace of Mr. Wilton, and to inflict pain upon the gentle heart of his most charming daughter. He begged to be allowed to express the effect which those events had had upon himself. Here he grew elaborate and diffuse. He declared that he fully comprehended the position in which Flora stood with respect to Vivian. He was aware, he said, that the heart was not at the disposal, nor under the control of the will Love scorned common influences or restraint; he was himself an example of the fact. Until now he had not really understood the difference between loving and liking; until now he was not conscious how consummately predilection and admiration simulated love. In man’s nature this was an incontestable truth—he believed that it had its place in woman’s. He had witnessed and keenly appreciated the amiable sweetness of Miss Wilton’s disposition; he had discerned with pleasure her ready and generous gratefulness for any service tendered to her or actually rendered; he could, therefore, perfectly understand the influence a handsome youth would have upon her grateful sense of benefit received, in having saved her from death in a moment of frightful peril. This generous gratitude took the form of emotion very like love. Yet it was not love—oh, no! love was higher and holier in all its attributes. The emotion he had described was not ineradicable; nay, when its real nature was fairly and rigorously examined, its actual character would be detected. It was no desire of his that Miss Wilton should abate one jot of her gratefulness to Mr. Vivian for the daring act of gallantry by which he had rescued her from a most horrible death: nay, it would be his duty, as well as his pleasure, to respect and to share it even. He had no wish that Miss Wilton should be denied the society of Mr. Vivian whenever her father approved his visits. In short, he had only one desire, and that was to render her happiness, now and in the future, perfect and entire; and he had no fear of not accomplishing this, although Miss Wilton were not united with the present object of her choice.
More than this, indeed, he said, but enough has been given to show the purpose with which his communication was framed.
Mr. Wilton received the epistle upon the morning of the rencontre between Colonel Mires and Mr. Chewkle. He read it with feverish pleasure again and again. Then he rang his bell, and bade the servant who attended to request Miss Wilton to come to him immediately in his library.
Flora, with a beating heart, obeyed the summons. Interviews with her father in his library of late had not been pleasurable to her. He evidently regarded her as a rebel in captivity, himself being the stern judge before whom she was occasionally brought, in order that she might, with frowns, be lectured out of her contumacy. Unfortunately for the purpose he entertained, Flora’s nature was one not to be frowned either into or out of anything upon which she had decided a certain line of conduct was the proper path to pursue, and when he grew angry and wroth, and styled her stubborn, she felt an inward conviction that she was not obstinate, but firm in acting rightly.
On appearing before her father, he commanded rather than requested her to be seated. She obeyed; and then taking up Lester Vane’s letter, he handed it to her.
“Read that,” he said; and added, authoritatively, “attentively.”
She took the letter apprehensively, but felt relieved when she found the handwriting was unknown to her.
A few glances made her mistress of the name of the writer, and then it flashed across her mind that her father’s eyes would be bent keenly upon her face, and he would read every expression that her emotions raised during the perusal might place there. She set her teeth and lips closely together, contracted her brow and read slowly on to the end without losing a word or betraying any other sign than a slight curl of the upper lip. When she had finished its perusal, she returned it to her father without a word.
He waited for a minute expecting her to speak, but she continued silent. A flush mounted to his forehead, and his brow loured.
“What answer have you to make, Miss Wilton?” he asked, rather impetuously.
“I would rather be excused answering your question, sir,” she returned, in a low tone.
“No doubt you would,” he responded, promptly; “but I require you to answer me.”
“The letter is not addressed to me,” she said, coldly.
“No!” he rejoined, sharply; “but it makes most important references to you; it aptly describes the situation in which we are all placed, and appears to me to be conceived in the very noblest spirit.”
Flora’s lip curled most expressively.
“I say, in the very noblest spirit!” almost roared her father.
“And yet so transparent as to disclose the motives which originated and have governed its composition,” she observed, calmly.
“Motives—what motives?” repeated old Wilton, excitedly; “what other motive could Mr. Vane have than that of opening your—I had almost said wilfully—-blind eyes to your perverse error—to show you how mistaken you are in the insane impression you are fostering and cherishing in obstinate opposition to the wish nearest and dearest to my heart.”
“I do not acknowledge the correctness of Mr. Vane’s conclusions, in respect to the influences by which my conduct is controlled,” returned Flora, firmly. “I consider myself to be the best judge of the effect Mr. Vivian’s gallantry has produced upon my gratefulness.”
Mr. Wilton’s breath seemed taken away. He was something more than astonished, he was exasperated. He struck the library-table with his fist.
“You shall not decline Mr. Vane’s hand,” he cried, vehemently, “upon that subject I have made up my mind.”
“And I,” ejaculated Flora, decisively.
He rose up as these words fell from her lips. She rose up, too, and stood calmly and unshrinkingly before him. He looked into her clear, unwavering eyes, which bore his steadfast gaze without the smallest perceptible tremor in the lid. He saw written there in plain emphatic language the determination which would submit to death rather than yield to coercion. He saw there the unquailing spirit, glowing as in a garment of fire, though that eye still was soft and seemed so gentle in its blue loveliness.
He gasped twice or thrice—he did not sigh.
“Are you my daughter?” at length he uttered, hoarsely.
“I was,” she replied.
“Was!” he echoed, in a bewildered tone.
“When we were poor and struggling,” she continued, “and you were labouring—toiling for the bread we ate, you were my father, for then you were tender, kind, and thoughtful, in all that related to my welfare and to my happiness; then I was your daughter, your child, your own—own Flo’.”
She wiped the welling tears from her eyes.
“You smiled upon me benignly,” she continued, “you spoke to me in accents of soft lovingness, and you made my life, though poverty intermixed with our daily wants and wishes, one of quiet happiness, for you loved me then, and I—I—adored you.”
She paused for a moment. He listened with downcast eyes. She went on—
“Amid our trials, our toils, our sorrows, under our one great affliction—when—when my—my sainted mother——”
A sob burst from her quivering lips. The old man’s head bowed yet lower. Flora, with an effort, controlled her tears and went on.
“When she was taken from us, no sacrifice you could have asked of me I would have ever paused at to make you happy. I would have compressed my heart till it had been pulseless, rather than have interposed my happiness between you and your perfect content. I should have laid down my life with a cry of joy to have seen you without care. This, this, I would have done at a time when—if they would ever—selfish considerations would most have weighed with me, for any change out of our miserable destitution must have been productive of greater comfort at least. The scene, sir, has been changed; the rags of wretchedness have been flung aside, the poor abode has sunk in charred ruins. You are master of lordly domains, and revel in wealth, and—the relation previously subsisting between us has changed also. Almost immediately after our arrival here we ceased to be to each other as father and daughter.”
“Flora!”
“Or Miss Wilton—that name, sir, is more fitting from your lips now.”
“Do I dream?” cried Wilton, pressing the palms of his hands to his temples.
“No, sir!” she continued, in the same firm tone as before. “You are broad awake, the morning sun is now, at least, shining upon your eyes. You have seen me always passive and placid, yielding, and perhaps even, as the writer of yon well-dissembled epistle has flattered me by saying, displaying an amiable sweetness of disposition. In poverty, sir, you were gentle, yielding—oh, most amiable; but there you had an inner nature which has developed itself here at Harley-dale. I, too, sir, have an inner nature; it is developing itself now.”
“It is, indeed,” almost groaned Wilton, and then added, sternly, “to what end?”
“To this, sir,” replied Flora, as decisively as before.
“In this house, on these estates, you are the lordly patrician, lofty to me as to the beater of your game. I am received by you, addressed by you, retire from your presence as from that of the supreme head of the household alone.”
“Am I not?” he demanded.
“You are, sir; as such, I pay you homage,” she responded, “but you are my father no less, and in that capacity you have thought it proper to treat me as a stranger—would dispose of me as a lord of old would give in marriage the daughter of one of his serfs to a neighbour’s vassal.”
“Girl—girl, you are insane!” he cried, stamping his foot.
“If I were, sir, I should not see the change in you—-the bitter—bitter alteration. Oh, I have loved you so dearly, so truly, so fondly, when there were no trappings and riches to step in between our loving hearts. How I loathe this state which freezes our affections into ceremonious greetings; how I fling back Miss Wilton to your lips, sir, and how gladly would I take up poverty again, to be once more your own darling Flo’!”
She sank sobbing into a chair.
The old man felt a tugging at his heart-strings. He turned his eyes up to encounter those of his wife’s, looking down upon him from her portrait with a soft, sad expression, as though to remind him of her dying injunctions to cherish and make happy the little helpless innocent creatures she left behind her.
He tottered rather than walked to the side of his daughter. He placed his hand upon her shoulder.
“My sweet child, my own Flo’, there should be no division between us,” he said, in a voice quivering with emotion.
Flora flung herself upon his breast with a cry of joy, as the old tone of voice greeted her ears, and he bent over her, kissing her white forehead with his trembling lips.
Outwardly there was a reunion, and inwardly too, at least, so far as their true attachment for each other, uninfluenced by the particular cause of their recent estrangement, existed.
Flora had astonished her father; no wonder—she had surprised herself. The alteration in his manner since his return to Harleydale had been so remarkable that, while it pained her, it was incomprehensible to her. There was something so new in his hauteur and so bewildering in his grand patronising air, that she, whose memory of former grandeur was but a fleeting dream, and of their recent humble condition exceedingly vivid, felt distressed at the splendour by which she was surrounded so abruptly, and by homage which she was called upon to render as well as to receive. She wished to have been permitted to glide into her new position, and not at one bound spring from a child of poverty into the position of a duchess. She forgot that penury had been, as it were, her normal condition, that the change in her father was a resumption of his dignity, not a new manner founded upon a sudden accession of wealth. She had been uncomfortable in her isolation at Harleydale, for isolated she was. She had brooded over the changes which had occurred and those which threatened her. She had held self-communings and imaginary conversations, with what result we have seen.
Her inner nature had developed itself in one great explosion; it gave to both father and daughter a lesson.
Wilton, as he embraced his daughter, became conscious that her affectionate nature required something more tender in the mode of addressing her, and in the manner of acting towards her, than he had lately adopted. He perceived that gentle fondness would gain always the strongest influence over her, and he resolved on the instant to dispense with his loftiness in his interviews with her, and he hoped, in recovering the earnest affection she had always previously evinced, to steal from her a consent to wed the man he had selected for her husband.
She, too, at the moment had a thought that, with returning fondness, her father might be led to see Hal Vivian with, her eyes, and his strong opposition to their union might be made to pass away.
Neither, however, alluded to the subject; both knew it was not the time, yet each felt the impression strengthened that the resumption of their fond relations would tend to a result they both wished to see consummated, though so different in effect.
Wilton made no further remark upon Lester Vane’s epistle, nor did he hint that he still entertained a very high opinion of the spirit in which it was conceived, or that it was his intention to reply to it, and beg the writer to come down to Harleydale quietly, when, having the field to himself, he might endeavour, by gentle words and soft persuasions, to induce Flora to transfer her affection from young Vivian to him.
He addressed a few kind words to the yet tearful girl—endeavoured to chase away an impression that his restoration to his proper position lessened his natural affection for her—and dismissed her with a parental kiss, bidding her come to him again with brighter eyes and her own sweet smile, to cheer up the hours in which they were accustomed to meet, and which their late estrangement had made irksome and gloomy to both.
She quitted the library, her overcharged heart much relieved. She hastened to her chamber, but not to remain there. She quickly attired herself, for she wished to sit and think over the events of the morning, and the prospects they seemed to open up for her, at the spot where Hal had first poured the passionate words of love in her willing ears. There, and there only, could she find it in her heart to sit and think of him, and to fashion hopes of rosy aspect, and sigh forth tender aspirations for a union that was to be to her conception so happy—so very happy.
Flora was on her way to the little glen for this purpose when the baleful eye of Colonel Mires fell upon her. As she disappeared in the leafy opening, Mr. Chewkle followed her, according to the directions of his new employer, while the Colonel hurried away to set in action the train of arrangements he had with much cunning artifice devised, and now sought to bring to a successful issue.
Mr. Chewkle, following his instructions to the letter, turned into a shrubby alley, which Colonel Mires had omitted to tell him to pass, and instead, therefore, of directing his steps to the spot where Flora was sitting, he unconsciously hurried towards the village inn from which he had clandestinely bolted.
Colonel Mires, as he had arranged, appeared at the proper moment within the glen, but to his vexed surprise he saw Flora, with upturned face, sitting in a thoughtful attitude, and no Chewkle there.
He instantly surmised that a mistake had occurred, and he would have retired, but Flora heard his approaching step, and, on seeing him, she rose up suddenly, with the evident intention of hastily quitting the little fairy-like solitude.
Colonel Mires impulsively placed himself before her and intercepted her. He was conscious the moment had arrived for him to effect his plan, and make her compulsorily his bride or resign her for ever to the arms of another.
His heart, at the bare thought of the alternative, seemed to be plunged into the centre of a flaming furnace, and the sight of her exquisitely beautiful but certainly very much astonished features roused his worst passions, so as entirely to shut out the suggestions of caution, reason or justice.
“Pardon me, Miss Wilton,” he said, in a voice which actually trembled with excitement, “for appearing thus abruptly before you, as well as for desiring to detain you for a few minutes while I make a communication to you of an important character—at least to my future happiness.”
“Your pardon in return, Colonel Mires,” she interposed, frigidly; “any communication you may desire to make to me must be made at the Hall, and in presence of my father!”
“Ordinarily, Miss Wilton, such would be the proper mode, I confess; but there are occasions which override etiquette, and this is one of them.”
As Colonel Mires had always treated her with a profound and tender respect, no fear of him entered her mind. She disliked him because he had acted so rudely and contemptuously to Hal, and because his attentions to herself had become sufficiently marked to be offensive to her. She would not, therefore, have hesitated to remain if it had been a mere question of reliance upon his gentlemanly conduct; but the instinct of danger so quickly felt by women when there is real danger at hand raised in her a desire to be away from that lonely place, and, without replying to his observation, she moved on to depart. Once more he stayed her by intercepting her progress.
“Excuse me, Miss Wilton,” he said, “you must hear me.”
Her soft eye glittered, an angry expression appeared upon her fair face, so lovely, even in its ruffled aspect, as to make the heart of the Colonel ache with an intensity of passion.
“Colonel Mires,” she said, sternly, “you forget alike what is due to my position and your own.”
“Possibly, Miss Wilton!” he answered, rapidly. “I forget that—all, everything in the world, in your beautiful presence. You must have seen long since, Miss Wilton, how completely you have enslaved my heart, how entirely my whole being is absorbed by a devouring passion for you. In my words—in my looks—-in my manner, you must have observed how ardently I love you—you must perceive and comprehend that I cannot live without you. Oh, Miss Wilton, I am aware your imagination has been ensnared by a generous impulse in favour of another; but believe that he can never—would never perform one tithe of the devotions I will offer up at your shrine. He would not—no other being would so constantly and unceasingly worship you—so persistently consult your happiness and do so much to secure it as I; for, oh, no other can love you with the impetuous soul-worship which burns in my breast for you.”
“This language, in this place, is an insult to me, Colonel Mires. I demand to be allowed to depart,” cried Flora, as soon as she could recover from the bewilderment his torrent of passionate words occasioned her.
“I only ask Miss Wilton for one small word—tell me to hope—one kind look, and the displacement of that offended expression upon your face by a forgiving smile, for I do nought in offence but all in love.”
“I insist on not being detained, sir,” she cried, indignantly; “you must answer to my father, Colonel Mires, for this unmanly outrage.”
She sprang past him, and was about to rush from the spot, when Chewkle made his appearance, out of breath. He had been running; in his turn he intercepted her—“Beg pardon,” he said, almost inarticulately; “you are Miss Wilton, I b’lieve?”
“I am,” said Flora, readily, for even in this man she believed she should find a protector from the importunities of the now-detested Colonel Mires.
“That’s all right,” responded Mr. Chewkle, still panting. “I’ve been ’untin’ all over the grounds arter you, Miss, for I’ve a very pertikler dockyment to give into your ’ands alone.”
“A document into my hands—what do you mean, my good man?” she responded, with surprise.
“Yes, Miss, a letter,” he returned, with a kind of knowing nod.
Colonel Mires retired a few paces, as if animated by a well-bred desire not to play the part of an eavesdropper.
“Why did you not leave this communication at the Hall?” said Flora, with some misgiving. “Why take so much trouble to find me?”
“Because, as I told you, Miss, I was charged to give it into your ’ands only. You knows Mrs. Harper of Highbury, don’t you, Miss? aunt to poor young Mr. Vivian, poor fellow, poor fellow!”
Flora’s face blanched. His last sentence sounded like the sudden boom of a death-knell in her ear. She tried to speak but found it impossible to articulate a word.
Mr. Chewkle placed in her cold hand the letter he had received from Colonel Mires.
“That letter is from her,” he said; “she told me to give it to nobody but you, and I was to bring back your answer. Poor creature, she is distressed, she is!”
Flora had scarcely strength to tear open the letter. A terrible vision of something dreadful having happened, with which Hal was intimately connected, rose up before her, and it was not dissipated by finding the paper on which the communication was written was thickly bordered with black.
Her trembling eyes settled on the characters traced by a female hand. She read a few lines, uttered an agonized, suffocating cry, dropped the letter, staggered back a few steps, and fell into the ready arms of Colonel Mires lifeless.
“Fainted, by goles!” cried Mr. Chewkle.
“Quick, man, quick, assist me to bear her away from here,” cried the Colonel, in a state of excessive agitation—“quick, not an instant is to be lost.”
Mr. Chewkle complied, and together they bore her by a narrow avenue into a copse, and thence into a little country-lane, over which a canopy of trees arched from either side of the hedges that bordered it.
Near to a gap which had been purposely made in the hedge stood a close carriage, upon which was seated Colonel Mires’ Indian servant, and within it the man’s wife, an ayah, who had come over from India with a family at the same time Colonel Mires had returned to England.
Into this carriage Flora was placed, and Colonel Mires followed. There was a very brief conference between him and Mr. Chewkle—the rapid passing of a sum of money, and then, at a signal from Colonel Mires, who drew up the overlapping wooden blind, the carriage was driven swiftly away—a route through byways having been previously arranged; and Mr. Chewkle was left alone.
The commission agent looked at the money he had received with a smile, and then put it carefully away.
“Honesty’s a poor game after all,” he muttered, with a self-satisfied, half-triumphant air. “This sort of thing is the paying game,” he added, with a chuckle.
He forgot that the game had a heavy penalty attached to it, one indeed that he might be called upon to pay.
He sneaked back into the copse, and stealthily made his way to Harleydale Woods, remarking to himself—
“Now to make short work of old Wilton. The daughter is disposed of, the old man must foller, and I must touch some more of Grahame’s money. Business is business, and a ’ighly renoomerative business is pleasure—tip-top pleasure.”
At the moment that he, like a prowling wolf, was stealing beneath brake and covert, on an errand of murder, Mr. Wilton was preparing to take a walk alone to the very place where Chewkle was hiding, as though he knew the ruffian was secreting himself there, and it was his duty to place himself in his power.
Rosalind lacks, then, the love
That teaches thee that thou and I am one:
Shall we he sunder’d? Shall we part, sweet girl?
No; let my father seek another heir.
Therefore devise with me how we may fly,
Whither to go, and what to bear with us:
For by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
Say what thou canst, I’ll go along with thee.
—Shakspere.
Mark Wilton, during his last interviews with Lotte Clinton, and in the intervals that occurred between them, passed through a severe trial of his love. All the unfavourable points in the circumstances revolving round Lotte served, instead of cooling the ardent flame kindled in his breast, to make it burn more fiercely. They were so many small impediments which, apparently calculated to stop the progress of his passion, actually extended its area, and added to its depth.
Mark determined after the last interview with her to marry her.
He made his way down to Harleydale, absorbed in the purpose of bringing his father round to his way of thinking. He expected a very angry opposition, and he left London in a state of preparation for it. He commenced with a fierce altercation with a cab-driver, quarrelled with the money-taker at the railway station, and with fiery eyes and spluttering words informed the guard of the train that he would report him, because that functionary refused to admit him into a carriage already filled.
Fortunately the compartment into which he did defiantly thrust himself had no other passenger, and he was solus all the way to the station nearest to Harley-dale. He consequently, quite undisturbed, vehemently argued the case, every inch of the way, with an imaginary obstinate, obdurate parent, who was most absurdly hostile to his views.
By the time he reached Harleydale he had exhausted the discussion, triumphantly defeated the arguments of the phantom father, extorted from him a consent to the union between himself and Lotte, and had got so far as to hear the village bells ringing a joyous peal.
He was awakened to the reality of the case by ascending to the library at the Hall, and meeting his father just as he was issuing from it to place himself unconsciously within the reach and power of Mr. Chewkle.
Mark Wilton’s impetuous nature would brook no delay in bringing the subject nearest to his heart to an issue. The life he had passed on the islands of the South Pacific and in other wild regions, amid unlettered, impulsive men, had communicated to his character much of that hasty decision and impatience of delay peculiar to those who mix in the exciting scenes which abound in the warm climes of the tropics. He could not have endured to pass the day patiently away; dined with an appetite; discoursed on different topics with his father, and ultimately parted with him for the night with a formal notice that in the morning he wished to confer with and consult him upon an important subject connected with his settlement in life.
No. He had quite made up his mind to marry Lotte Clinton, whether his father consented or not; and, therefore, the sooner he knew what side his father ranged himself on—and adhered to—the better.
Mr. Wilton, having just parted with Flora, was most complacent. He, too, had been indulging in imaginary conversations, and a vision, wherein his daughter, overpowered by his affectionate conduct and his honeyed words, gave, at his suggestion, with graceful sweetness, her hand and heart to the Honorable Lester Vane. As he was mentally bestowing his benediction upon the kneeling pair, his eyes fell upon his son, Mark.
With a face radiant with smiles, and with a lofty air which suited the rather windy eloquence in which he indulged, he exclaimed—
“Ah! my dear boy, back from the great metropolis so soon; I am glad to see you, none the less because you are wearied of its turmoil, its driving, rushing, selfish careering, its hollowness and its heartlessness.”
“Nothing of the sort, sir,” said Mark, bluntly and a little eagerly, “I had an object in coming back; certainly, not one of those sentiments you have suggested induced me to leave London, of which, if I must speak the truth, I am infinitely more fond than of the country. But I see you are going out—anywhere particular?”
“No, Mark,” returned Wilton, with a mild, patronising manner, “merely for a stroll and the air. I have not stirred abroad for some days, and pedestrian exercise is necessary for health.”
“Very true, sir; I will accompany you if you will allow me; we can talk in the broad, free, fresh air as well as beneath the carved roof of your library!” said Mark, with some little force in his tone, as though urging a point.
“With all my heart,” said Mr. Wilton.
So together they left Harley dale Hall, and pursued their way to the woods, where Mr. Chewkle lay hidden.
As they sauntered slowly across the park, the old man replied to some questions respecting Flora which Mark put to him in so cheery a strain that the latter augured favourably of his cause. Because he perceived that a reconciliation had ensued between his sister and his father, and as he had the strongest faith in Flora’s adhesion to the choice of her heart, he concluded his father had made the necessary concession, and that his own path to Lotte’s hand was half-freed from the impediments he had conjectured he would place in it.
He at once cast about for an opening to broach the delicate subject; but his father saved him the trouble by plumply introducing it.
Mr. Wilton felt slightly hilarious; brightened hopes of his daughter’s marriage, assisted by the healthful fresh air playing round his brow, disposed him to be sprightly.
How perfectly unconscious he was of the bombardment he was about to receive, or of the animation with which he should return the fire!
He threw the first rocket into Mark’s entrenchment; it was returned with a live shell, which exploded the instant it reached Wilton’s faery fabric, and demolished it with one fatal crash.
“Well, Mark,” exclaimed the old man, as they went on, “pray what is the special, object which has brought you down to Harleydale post-haste from gay London—something important, of course?”
Mark nodded with an air of one who is impatient to communicate some weighty affair.
Old Wilton chuckled.
“A wife, Mark, eh?” he said, in a light, jesting tone, simply because it was the most improbable thing that occurred to him.
“Yes,” said Mark, with emphasis, surprised that his father should come to the point of their anticipated discussion without being, so far as he knew, prepared for it.
At first Wilton laughed, for he accepted the answer as one returned in the same spirit as that in which he put the question.
Then it struck him that there was a remarkable and decided emphasis in the tone of the affirmative which Mark had uttered. He gave an uneasy glance at his son’s features. He felt a cold perspiration steal slowly over him. His heart suddenly leaped, jumped, and ached so painfully that he stopped. What was coming?
Mark walked on thoughtfully; presently he missed his father from his side.
“Why do you pause?” he turned round and said; “you are not already tired—shall we go back?”
Old Wilton waved his hand impatiently—
“I am not tired,” he said, sharply, but rather huskily. “We will go on—but—a-hem—but, I quite presume that you understand my question to you, Mark, was put jestingly?”
“Jestingly!” echoed Mark. “Ah! but, father, I am very desirous that you should understand I replied in serious earnestness.”
“Explain!” exclaimed Mr. Wilton, his visage contracting, and wearing that hard expression which so chilled Flora’s warm affection for him.
“You remember the old house in Clerkenwell, where we lived in a very different state of things to this,” said Mark, and paused as he pointed around him.
“Go on,” responded his father, coldly.
“In that house”—he cleared his throat and raised his voice—“I say in that house, from whose burning ruins young Vivian saved my sister, your only daughter—-saved, too, the document by which alone you were enabled to enter on the possession of this property and leap from destitution into prosperity—correct me if I mistake aught.” He paused again.
Mr. Wilton maintained a grim silence.
Mark proceeded—
“In that house there dwelt a young girl, a tenant of yours—saved also by Hal from the flames—you remember her, father, do you not?”
Mr. Wilton bowed stiffly.
“Ah! how would it be possible to forget her charming face, having once seen it?” cried Mark, ardently.
“Proceed!” said Mr. Wilton, in a grating voice, with difficulty enunciating the word.
“What more need I say, sir?—she is my choice!” returned Mark plumply. and with a firm decision of manner.
The expression upon his father’s face was not lost upon him. He saw the opposition brewing, and he gathered his strength to meet the storm.
A kind of spasmodic yell burst from his father’s lips.
“Preposterous!” he cried, vehemently; “frantically, deliriously preposterous!”
“You are opposed, sir, to my making Lotte Clinton my wife?” exclaimed Mark, with a falling brow.
“Opposed!” echoed Wilton, with a sardonic grin; “opposed! Don’t talk of opposition, boy; the thing cannot be entertained for one moment.”
“Upon what grounds?” asked Mark, firmly.
Mr. Wilton waved his hand contemptuously, as though the subject altogether was beyond discussion. Mark was not so to be put off.
“You found her honest, sir!” exclaimed Mark, as he perceived his father declined to give his reasons for so strongly objecting to her.
“A beggar!” gasped the old man.
“Chaste!” persisted Mark, “A beggar!” screamed his father. “Industrious, willing, cheerful!” continued Mark, with stern emphasis and heightened colour.
“A beggar!” reiterated Wilton, foaming at the mouth.
“Handsome, intelligent, and good!” shouted Mark, elevating his voice to a pitch which o’er topped his father’s excited tone.
“Had she all the cardinal virtues and the beauty of a seraph, she is still a low-born beggar, and, therefore, cannot be admitted into my family, to mingle with its blood, to take her place by my children’s side as their equal!” cried Wilton, vehemently. “If she is in want, I will assist her cheerfully, gladly. If she wishes to be settled in life, choosing some honest young man, her equal, for her life-companion, I will present her with a dowry. Beyond that limit it is the most insane folly to expect me to move.”
“Am I to understand, sir, that virtue and truth, industry, purity, and integrity weigh nothing in the scale when placed against birth and station?” asked Mark, sternly.
“In such a case as this to which you would apply it, I say certainly not. The veriest rag-collector may possess all these qualifications, but, therefore, am I to admit her into my family as my daughter.”
“Yet your objection springs only from a sense of worldly distinctions.”
“A most refined sense, boy.”
“But after death, sir, at the great Judgment Day, what will weigh against the virtues I have named?—will birth and station cope with them then?”
Mark spoke with startling emphasis, for he wished that his words should have a strong effect upon his father.
For an instant the old man was staggered, but the next moment the idea that he was called upon to accept for his son’s bride a poor needlework girl, banished the sharp impression Mark’s suggestion had made, and he exclaimed, violently—
“I will not argue the monstrous proposition with you longer. I command you to speak upon it in my hearing no more.”
“We will settle it now, sir, if you please,” said Mark, in a firm, determined tone. “I hope you don’t quite overlook the fact, in your sense of your own grandeur, that my future happiness is involved in the event we are discussing, or that I am, therefore, entitled to a voice in the disposal of my own person; and while you are taking upon yourself to decide who shall not become a member of your family, you do not, I trust, forget that your decision may help to diminish its number.”
Old Wilton turned a fierce and angry glance upon his son.
“I do not forget that you are my son, and, while I live, dependent upon me,” he exclaimed, with enraged bitterness. “While such a condition of your affairs remains unchanged, I will control such suicidal acts as you meditate. I will compel you to obey me so long as I am master of your purse-strings.”
“Sir, sir!” cried Mark, with strong emotion, “the lesson of poverty and wretchedness has been lost upon you. You have passed through the furnace, yet your old dross clings to you. Listen to me—I am not dependent upon you; this strong right arm and Heaven’s bounteous generosity enabled me to wrest from the earth’s bosom a sum which to men with moderate wishes is an ample fortune. This money I brought to England to lift you and my sister out of your beggary, if you had needed its aid. You have not required it, and it yet stands in my name; I will henceforth use it for myself, leaving you to enjoy what you possess, but taking care to reap from my own wealth that happiness which you so selfishly deny me.”
He turned to move away, but the old man called to him, sharply—
“Mark, Mark, what is it you would do?”
Mark, faced round and gazed upon him with steadfast eyes. With unfaltering voice, he said—
“Make Lotte Clinton my wife.”
“Know you at what cost?” cried the old man, with inflamed eyes and clenched hands.
“Your favour, and my stipend,” replied Mark, firmly, “I sacrifice the two, but I regain my independence, and take to my heart the only woman I shall ever love.”
“You have omitted one thing, one tremendous item,” ejaculated old Wilton, with heaving chest—“my curse!”
“No,” cried Mark, in a clear firm tone, “that will never leave your lips. Sir, I have seen in my short life that curses, like birds, come home to roost. Do not you try the experiment.”
Mark once more turned to quit the spot.
“Mark, boy, wretch!” shrieked his father, “pause—you—you will not—dare—dare not marry the artful, designing, infamous creature who had infatuated—cozened you—”
“When you speak of her, use gentler terms, sir,” fiercely interrupted Mark. “She is entitled to the profoundest respect of the noblest man alive, and I will suffer no one to breathe a contumelious word respecting her in my hearing.”
“If you persist, my bitterest curse shall cling to your footsteps, and drag you down through palsying vice and debasing misery to perdition!” almost yelled Wilton.
“Pause!” interposed Mark, in a loud tone. “If you will curse me, wait until you return to your library. There, sir, alone with that exquisitely truthful representative of my sainted mother, sink upon your knees, and, with your eyes bent on her soft, loving, tender orbs, call down your curse upon me—if you have the heart to do it. Farewell, sir! When we meet again, you shall yourself appoint the interview.”
Once more he quitted him, with a rapid step, and Wilton staggered almost senseless back against the stem of a tree. The old man gasped for breath, and wrung his hands.
What! was there no condition in life exempt from disappointed hopes, from harassing cares? What! did not ample estates and a large income secure uninterrupted happiness?
In his dreams over his toiling labour, in the poverty-stricken home at Clerkenwell, memories of the past and anticipations of the future had built up for him a visionary state of untroubled serenity, should he ever again resume the position he had lost. With what pride he had, after his return to Harleydale, believed that it was secured to him. Where was it now?
How he had gloated over the knowledge that a worm, was eating up the very heart of Grahame’s happiness. Lo! a canker had commenced to corrode his own. Was this visitation the retributive wrath of an offended Deity at his towering pride of position and his selfish paternal despotism?
He felt his temples throb and ache, and his breast burn as he tried to thrust back the answer which sought to present itself.
He folded his arms, and plunged deeper into the wood.
He dared not face the portrait of his wife hanging in the library. It seemed to him that a voice would issue from those small lips and demand of him how he had kept his promise given to her in her dying moments to do his utmost to secure the happiness of his children.
As he struck into a bye-path a pistol-shot was fired; he uttered a cry of mortal agony and fell bleeding to the ground.
The next instant a figure emerged from the copse; it proved to be Mr. Chewkle. He bent over the prostrate form of Wilton.
“Only winged him arter all!” he exclaimed; “thought I’d covered him, too. Never mind, I’ll do the trick this time. You shall have it through the head and no mistake, old gel’man.”
He pointed the muzzle of a revolver to the temple of Wilton, but at the instant his finger pressed the trigger a pair of powerful hands seized him by the throat and dragged him back. The pistol was discharged, but the bullet, missing its destination, buried itself in the earth, a foot from Mr. Wilton’s head.
Chewkle uttered a yell of terror, startled by the suddenness of the attack upon him. His first impression was that he had been pounced upon by Nathan Gomer, and that his were the fingers—of solid, burnished gold, cold as death—which now clutched him by the throat, and his heart beat violently.
But his antagonist was certainly taller; and then it flashed through the mind of Mr. Chewkle that he was in the hands of one of Mr. Wilton’s gamekeepers.
The gallows, in an atmosphere of flame, presented itself before his eyes.
With a violent, enormous exertion of strength, under the influence of a sudden and maddening excitement, he flung off his captor and faced him.
It was no gamekeeper—no other than young Mr. Vivian.
Chewkle gave a growl of rage, and, with a fierce oath, fired his pistol suddenly at his youthful antagonist. The ball grazed Hal’s ear and caused him to stagger; but before Chewkle could repeat his shot, as he intended, Hal closed again with him and a deadly struggle once more commenced.
Twice did Chewkle, in the fearful wrestle between him and Hal, contrive to fire off the revolver, but without success; and at length Vivian’s youth, courage and skill prevailed over Chewkle’s powers, wasted by debauchery and his recent illness. Hal flung him with violence to the ground; and, kneeling on his chest, twisted, with a sudden wrench, the pistol out of his hand.
Almost at the same moment the head-gamekeeper and his assistant, with a couple of dogs, came crashing through the foliage, and took part in the proceedings. A few hasty words from Hal Vivian, and Chewkle was raised to his feet, his arms were strongly bound behind him, and he was given into the custody of the assistant-keeper, a tall, powerful fellow, who, with a strong grip upon Chewkle’s collar, and some very profane words in his mouth, dragged him, sullen and half-resisting, to the police-station in the village.
Hal Vivian and the head-keeper then raised old Wilton, and bore him to the Hall, still senseless and bleeding from the wound inflicted by the scoundrel Chewkle.
A medical man was summoned, and quickly made his appearance. He examined his patient, and relieved the minds of those gathered round him by informing them that Mr. Wilton’s arm had been broken by a bullet, but there was no immediate or probably real danger. The old man was placed in his bed, and the doctor proceeded to dress the wound.
In the meantime Flora Wilton was sent for, searched for, but the messenger, after half-an-hour’s absence, returned by saying he could not find her; she had been seen to enter the little glen skirting the park, but she was not there now.
Mark Wilton, too, had not returned to the Hall. He had been observed to hurry away towards the railway station, as if on his way back to London.
Young Vivian heard with a grave and anxious face that Flora was nowhere to be found; and as soon as he saw that old Wilton was in charge of persons who would pay him every attention and nurse him with care, he left his name and address in the charge of the housekeeper, proceeded to the police-station and there made a statement, fixing the crime of the attempted murder of Mr. Wilton on Chewke. He then hurried to a cottage in the village, where a paper was given to him by an old woman, and, having perused it with no little excitement, he ran to the village inn, where a sound, serviceable and swift horse was ready saddled awaiting his commands.
He had him brought out, and, after a few words to the landlord, he sprang into the saddle, and clapping spurs to the animal gallopped away, as if engaged upon a mission of life and death.
In the meanwhile, Mark Wilton, with a mind much perturbed and intent on rash proceedings, hastened to the railway station, without again entering his father’s house, even to see his sister. It happened that on reaching it, before there was time to reason or for his thoughts to cool, a train for London drew up at the station; he entered it, and was borne swiftly from Harleydale, having no knowledge or conception of the act of Mr. Chewkle, the condition in which it placed his father, or of what had happened to his sister.
That same evening he presented himself before Lotte Clinton. She was not a little astonished to see him. He had prepared her for a longer separation, but one glance at his handsome and expressive face informed her that something had happened unfavourable to his wishes.
She did not for an instant assume that he had been to Harleydale, but she rapidly concluded that some event had arisen which had shown him the disparity of their positions, and he had now come to break off the match he had so hurriedly and so impetuously desired to form.
A feeling of pain and disappointment gave her a sudden heartache, but she would not let her emotion become visible, for fear that it might deepen the gloom already heavy on his brow.
Mark laid down his hat, and silently gazed in Lotte’s inquiring eyes. Then he said—
“I am soon back, you see, Lotte.”
“Surely you have not been to Harleydale!” she exclaimed.
“Indeed, but I have,” he replied. “I have seen my father, too, and have fully discussed with him our intended marriage.”
Lotte looked at him with a sad and serious expression.
“He has forbidden it!” she exclaimed, with a countenance which grew gradually pale in spite of her effort to control her emotion.
“Forbidden it!” echoed Mark, evasively; “he has not the power to forbid it. I am my own master, Lotte, and am independent of him.”
“Oh! Mark, do not let there be any reserves or concealments between us; let me know the truth,” she urged; “indeed I am not afraid to hear it, if you will only speak it.”
“To you, Lotte,”’ responded Mark, “I am desirous of speaking and acting always only truthfully.”
“I do believe it!” she exclaimed, earnestly.
He took both her hands in his, and pressed them.
“When I do other,” he said, with emphasis, “turn your face from me, and speak to me never more.”
She returned the pressure of his hands, then she said to him, with downcast eyes and a slightly lowered tone—
“You have seen your father, Mark, and you have told him how much you have honoured me in selecting me to be your wife.”
“How much I am honoured by your consent to have me, my sweet Lotte,” interposed Mark, almost fiercely.
“Yes, Lotte, I told him all. I told him that my heart and happiness were bound up in you; that if I did not have you, neither wealth nor station would ever compensate me for your loss; that, in fact, they would only heighten my anguish and unhappiness, so I had determined to marry you—having your consent—and there was an end of the matter. So, in solemn truth and honour, I have; and here I am, Lotte, darling, for you to name the day.”
“But what said Mr. Wilton in reply?” asked Lotte, looking him steadfastly in the face.
Mark turned his eyes askance.
“What does it signify, Lotte,” he exclaimed, evasively, “what he said? My happiness is all invested in you; if you love me, yours is equally centred in me. I have enough to keep us both in comfort and happiness, and some day I shall be as wealthy as my father now is. Oh! Lotte, we will live with each other and for each other, you, my dear little wife, thinking of and caring only for your faithful husband, and I—I, Lotte, exhausting every plan to complete and perfect for you a peaceful, happy existence.”
“But, dear Mark, what said Mr. Wilton?” persisted Lotte, looking grave and even sad.
“He is an old man, Lotte, and obstinate,” replied Mark, with some little vehemence; “he is selfish, vain, arrogant, upstart——”
Lotte raised up her soft white hand to his mouth—
“Your father,” she said—“still your father.”
“Even so, Lotte; yet he, too, should remember that I am his son,” exclaimed Mark, with some excitement, “his son, Lotte, not his serf, his slave, his dog. He should recollect, Lotte, that my happiness is of as much importance to me as pride of position to him; and he should not overlook the fact that I don’t care a—that I don’t care that”—he snapped his fingers—“to be great and grande if I am to be unhappy in my elevation.”
“I am to understand by this,” said Lotte, very calmly, though sadly, “that he has refused to give his consent to receive me into his family, as your wife—you will not trifle with my feelings, Mark, on this point, I am sure.”
Mark remained silent.
She laid her hand upon his arm softly.
“Answer me, Mark!” she said, gently.
He looked into her soft appealing eyes, he passed his arm round her waist, and pressed her to his bosom.
“I will do or say aught you wish me, Lotte, but do not ask me to wound your feelings,” he said, in a low, earnest tone.
“Nay, it will pain me so much not to know the truth, for you know, Mark, I may conjecture much that was never said,” she responded; adding, “tell me, did he not decline to receive me as his daughter-in-law.”
Mark set his teeth.
In an almost inaudible voice, after some hesitation, he replied—
“He did.”
“His objection, Mark—fear not for me—my bruised heart has been too much accustomed to such trials, to faint under learning all he could say of me.”
“I cannot repeat his words!” cried Mark, with a burst of feeling.
Lotte still urged him.
“It is needful Mark, indeed, that I should know,” she said.
“Lotte,” exclaimed Mark, taking her hand and pressing it passionately to his lips, “remember, the words I may repeat have had—and never can have—any influence on me.”
“Of that I am sure,” she observed.
“His objection was that you were poor——”
“Yes,” said Lotte, as he paused. .
“And low-born,” added Mark, as though the words scorched his throat while finding utterance.
A flush of scarlet spread itself over Lotte’s features. She threw up her head with a haughty and indignant air, and her short upper lip trembled with an expression of offended pride.
She was about to utter a hasty reply, but she checked herself, disengaged herself from Mark’s encircling arms, and walked in silence to the further end of the room. She hid her face in her handkerchief; for a minute her whole frame seemed convulsed.
Mark watched her with eyes half-blinded by scalding tears, and it was only the endeavour to recover the power of speaking clearly that prevented him at once catching her in his arms, bid her banish from her mind all she had heard, and to consent, in spite of what his father had said, to become his bride at the earliest moment possible.
He knew not Lotte yet.
She was the first to recover calmness, and she returned to where he was standing.
“I understand your father’s weakness by my own.” she said. “I pardon the pain it has given me, for I am reminded, by my own poor indignation at being termed low-born, how natural his anger would be at the thought of one so humble as myself being elevated to his side, and made a member of his family, in opposition to all those prejudices of which station and affluence are so fruitful. Well, Heaven knows best. I bow to its decree. The dream, only too glorious to be realised, was sweet, very, very sweet, while it lasted, and I wake once more to be plain Lotte Clinton, the needle-worker——”
“To be my wife, Lotte,” cried Mark, passionately; “my wife, my adored, my honoured wife, Lotte——”
“Oh! Mark,” she said, in pleading earnestness, “remember our contract.”
“I remember, Lotte,” he said, “that I am human, that I have my passions and my failings, as others of my sex; but I hope I have, too, that broader view of life that makes virtue and worth the true nobility, and that I can appreciate it when it comes before me, as it has in you, Lotte. I have all my life—at least so long as I remember—lived in a sphere in which worth, and amiability, and virtue, shine most because they are surrounded by the worst temptations to which the higher qualifications can be subjected, and when they maintain themselves unsullied they are, in my eyes, the true and most fitting emblems of a real nobility. All I hope to find in woman I believe dwells in your clear soul, Lotte. I, feeling how rich you are in sterling virtues, ask no more, for you are wealthy enough in that. Well, what influence can the intemperate words of my father have hereafter upon my happiness? I shall ever love you. It shall be my study to retain your attachment; and, for the rest, it is all empty pomp and pride, which we can be very, very happy without.”
“It cannot be, Mark!” exclaimed Lotte, with a deep sigh.
“It cannot be?” echoed Mark, as though he had not heard aright.
“No; it must not be,” she said plaintively, but yet very firmly. “We must part, Mark. Oh! believe me grateful for your kindly expressed thoughts, and for the tender preference so dear, so very dear to my heart, which you have evinced for me. Believe that to have been your wife, Mark, would to me have proved the greatest felicity I can imagine on earth. Yet I cannot consent, even to secure my own happiness, to sow dissension in the hearts of others. I could not look at times, Mark, upon your brow, clouded sometimes by thoughts of home and those dwelling there, without feeling how deeply I have erred in causing strife to rise up between you and them.”
“Lotte, Lotte, do not drive me to distraction and despair!” cried Mark, passionately. “The world is wide: we will remove from the scene of my father’s pride and selfishness to some brighter land. I know many spots; surrounded by the clear blue waters of the vast Pacific, where we can settle down unfettered by the paltry worldly distinctions which agitate my father’s breast, and mindful only of that love which makes each to the other a world of treasure.”
Lotte’s eyes swam in tears.
“It may not be, Mark,” she said, decidedly, and then added with agonized earnestness: “I am so grateful, so deeply grateful for your affection. I will never, never suffer that gratitude to abate, nor will I ever cease to love you as now—most fervently for that I am parting with you; but, great as the grief I feel at our separation, Mark, it is less than the consciousness of what I had done in consenting to wed you in the face of the hostility of your father—nearest and dearest to you in blood and affection—would make me eternally suffer; for well I know that his peace of mind, yours, and that of the other members of your family, would all, more or less, be injured by my act. No, Mark, I will bear my trial—as—as—well as I can—all the lighter, because I have spared those who fondly love you, and you who love them, from tearing asunder those ties which bind you so closely together now.”
How her poor bosom heaved and her lips quivered as she said this.
“Lotte,” exclaimed Mark, with intense earnestness, “is my love for you— my future happiness—to weigh nothing in the considerations by which you are influenced to this harsh step?”
“Harsh, Mark; mostly to myself. I love you, Mark; let that be your solace. No other man; I swear, shall ever receive the hand you have kissed. You; after we have parted; you—will not forget me—no—no, I do not believe that—but you will meet with others in a higher sphere, beautiful, accomplished, and engaging, more than I can ever hope to be, and you——”
“Do not finish your sentence, Lotte,” cried Mark huskily. “You do not love me, or you would not permit such a thought to enter your brain,” he added reproachfully.
“Your doubt wounds my heart!” exclaimed Lotte, with evident pain. “I will not reiterate what I have confessed to you on that point. I will only add that I would have cheerfully married you, and joined in our mutual support by my own labour, if such had been needful; I would have done it with the proudest content, had circumstances been such that I could have entered your family as an equal. This cannot be. I see the disparity more strongly now, perhaps, than even he who has forbidden me to approach his affinity; but, Mark, I could not consent to become your wife and his daughter on other terms than your continued friendship with him, without incurring contumely myself. It is wholly impossible to change my opinions on this point; so Mark, dear Mark, let us bid each other farewell. I am faint—oppressed—ill. I would part with you at once——”
“And for ever!” said Mark, with burning eyes, as he forced the words through his teeth.
She bowed her head.
“For ever!” she repeated.
“Lotte!” he exclaimed, with intense excitement, “I cannot argue this point with you—I cannot. I will not bid you farewell—I dare not; yet, girl, we shall never, never meet again!”
He almost shrieked those last words, and rushed out of the room.
She would have followed him, but that she sank gasping and fainting upon the floor.
For now I stand as one upon a rock,
Environ’d with a wilderness of sea,
Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave;
Expecting ever when some envious surge
Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.
—Shakspere.
Mr. Grahame, after the departure of Chewkle, suffered the worst tortures of a terrible suspense. He had no peace night nor day within his house, or away from it. The second flight of Helen, and the narration given of it by Lester Vane, in terms calculated to excoriate the haughty man’s arrogant pride, were deprived of their more agonizing features by the greater evils that threatened him.
Already had Nathan Gomer so far kept his word, that he had caused process to be issued upon the sums last advanced: and Mr. Grahame had the inexpressible mortification of being served with a series of writs in his own library, and by no other person than Charles Clinton.
The firm with which he was connected had been instructed by Nathan Gomer, and the delicate task—a very painful one, as it proved—of serving process was entrusted to him, because Mr. Grahame had not responded to a request made to him to name a solicitor who would accept service for him.
Charley was quite aware of the desperate position of Mr. Grahame’s affairs, as well as of the internal misery raging in the bosom of one-half of the members of the family, and the inflated elevation of the other portion, ignorant, through the most blind fatuity, of the fearful precipice upon which they were already tottering.
His interviews with Evangeline had, since the second departure of Helen from home, been several; for she anxiously desired not only to learn the fate of her sister, but she formed a wild notion of leaving home herself, and living with Helen, whatever might be the circumstances in which she was placed.
She was wholly ignorant of the outer world; she had been brought up in strict home seclusion, and from the almost excessive amiability of her nature had been, as will have been seen, kept in the back ground, as a degenerate member of a proud race. Her impulses had been sneered at or sharply checked, but no attempt had been made to give them a direction. She was unhappy at home, and there seemed every probability to her that if she remained with her family she would continue to be treated ever the same—more, indeed, like an unwelcome dependant than a child, loving and loveable.
Now Helen—especially in her affliction—had been affectionate and tender in her behaviour to her, and had thus raised within her bosom a degree of attachment to her which would pause at no sacrifice to secure her happiness. She believed that if she were with Helen, she would be able to minister to her comforts, solace her griefs, and smoothe away by her loving gentleness many of her heart-cankering cares. At the same time she would be with one who would appreciate her acts, respond to them with warmth, and not repel the tributes of a most generous nature with the cold precepts of frigid pride.
So she formed a design to leave home too, that she might live with Helen; happier she felt she should be in privation and poverty with her, than surrounded by luxury and pomp at home, unaccompanied by a soft look or a kind word. In her deep anxiety to know where Helen had hidden herself, she applied, through the means agreed upon, to Charley Clinton to obtain the information. Well for her it was that his heart was full of manly honour, for he took no advantage of her formidable error in holding clandestine meetings with him. Well for her that the bland language addressed to her at various times by Lester Vane had not induced her to open her heart to him respecting her sister Helen, her own position at home, and the form her wishes had taken. The consequences of her unwitting error would have been evidenced in her certain ruin.
As it was, Charley Clinton fell in love with her, but he kept the knowledge of the fact confided to his own bosom. Firstly, he would not for the realization of his uttermost wishes have betrayed the confidence she reposed in him. Secondly, she appeared so elevated above him in position that, whatever might be his adoration of her, he saw it was not for him to plead a love-tale in her aristocratic ear. He treated her, therfore, with the very highest respect, the most thoughtful consideration, and the gentlest deference.
Evangeline appreciated his conduct to her fully. It was unusual and delicious. She so wished to be loved that she might prove how much she could love, and how pure and disinterested that love could be. She had no clear idea of the actual consequences of raising such an emotion in the breast of Charles Clinton. After the first two or three meetings, she began to ponder on the difference between his treatment of her and that of others. The servants of her father’s household, taking their tone from the conduct of Mr. and Mrs. Grahame, were less respectful or attentive to her than to any other member of the family. In the presence of all at home, she felt herself to be an intruder—some one who was of necessity obliged to be kept in the family, but most unwelcome, nevertheless.
In the society of Charles Clinton she was a wholly different being. She was elevated in her own estimation, for she saw that she was in his. She could perceive by his words, his looks, his manner, how highly he appreciated the affection she had displayed towards her sister Helen, and how his zeal and his behaviour, still tempered by the most respectful propriety towards her, increased. It was the first time she had experienced the gratification of being held in high estimation by any human creature. She was fascinated by it, and she desired heartily to retain that estimation. The desire to learn Helen’s fate began to be accompanied by the wish to learn it from no other lips than those of Charles Clinton. The hope that she should eventually be able to discover her sister and to reside with her, came to be interpenetrated by anticipations that Charles through his sister might be an occasional visitor at her new abode. His name, out of gratefulness for his exertions, took its place in her prayers. The intervals between their meetings grew fewer, and the term of the duration of the latter longer. Even those intervals were broken by correspondence, though neither in their interviews nor in their notes did one word of love arise.
Evangeline grew anxious and eager for the time of meeting after it had been appointed, and loth to part with Charley when the moment for separation arrived. She hung on his arm when they were about to part, and with a strange pleasure suffered her hand to linger in his when the word “farewell” was spoken; and as she felt his fingers tremble while they held hers, she seemed to know intuitively that they did so out of his great respect for her. A crimson hectic burned her cheek, as an unbidden but ungratified prompting rose up in her breast to kiss them, for their flattering testimony of his estimation of her.
Such was the position between Charles Clinton and Evangeline when he was called upon to proceed to the mansion in the Regent’s Park, to execute his—at all times unpleasant, and now from what had passed between him and the gentle girl—most painful task.
The whole establishment was brilliantly lighted up. A splendid dinner-party and rout was that evening to be given by the direction of Mrs. Grahame.
Mr. Grahame had demurred, alleging that circumstances would render it inconvenient to him; but as he had not revealed to his lady the true reason for not wishing the entertainment to be given, the lady treated his suggestions with contempt, and issued her invitations and her instructions for the feast.
The fact was, that the Duke of St. Allborne had been caught in the web of Margaret Grahame. She had met him at soirées, at balls, at entertainments, and frequently at the opera. She had paused at nothing to create in him a belief that he had obtained the most entire control over her affections. She flattered his vanity by making him imagine that she deemed him an Admirable Crichton, and his weaker and viler propensities by leading him to fancy that beneath her cold exterior there dwelt an ardent passion which would urge her to withhold scarcely any favour to him whom she so well affected.
The party given this night was solely on his account; a conference between mother and daughter having led to the belief on both sides that an éclaircissement could be brought about—that, in short, the Duke could be made successfully to acknowledge that he had been fairly hooked—that he was prepared to bestow the ring and coronet, and confess to captivity for life; his chains being those forged by Margaret Claverhouse Grahame.
Charley Clinton had at first some difficulty to obtain an interview with Mr. Grahame. The guests had not yet arrived, and Mr. Grahame was said to be very busy in his library. The usual method of palming had, however, the desired effect. After some pro and con., and when Mr. Grahame understood that the gentleman who desired to see him was from the solicitors of Nathan Gomer, he had a shrewd suspicion of the object of his visit, and to save any chance of exposure by refusing to see him, he ordered him to be admitted.
When Charley entered, Mr. Grahame received him in his haughtiest and grandest manner, and motioned him to a seat. Charley, however, declined it, and opened the purport of his visit in a manner which was calculated to have its weight with Grahame.
He did not for a moment assume that pecuniary inability to comply with the demand upon Mr. Grahame by Nathan Gomer was the true occasion of the issuing of process, but that some disputed point had led to a determination to proceed to a trial to decide the question at issue. Mr. Grahame, therefore, received the writs with more apparent complacency than he would have done; tendering, as an explanation for not writing in answer to the renewal of the application for a settlement of Nathan Gomer’s claim, that he had been out of town, an assertion which Charley knew to be false.
Mr. Grahame gave a scarcely perceptible shiver when he received the writs, but he made an unequivocal start, when Charley said—
“There is said to be in existence a deed, Mr. Grahame, professing to be a waiver in your favour to Mr. Wilton’s claim to the Eglinton estates, and bearing his signature. Can you throw any light upon the subject?”
“Pray, may I ask your reason for putting that question?” said Mr. Grahame, loftily.
“Mr. Wilton denies the signature, and has instructed us to discover the deed, if possible.”
Mr. Grahame felt the roots of his hair vibrate.
“Upon what ground do you assume such a deed to be in existence?” he asked, striving to appear calm.
“It is registered,” replied Clinton.
Mr. Grahame remained silent; his lips trembled; he could not have spoken if he would.
“There can be no doubt that there either is or was such a deed,” continued Charley, “or that, under the most positive and vehement denials of Mr. Wilton, the signature it bears is a forgery. It is assumed therefore, sir, directly by Mr. Wilton and indirectly by Mr. Nathan Gomer, that the instrument, being exclusively in your interest, could scarcely have had the false signature attached without your cognizance.”
Mr. Grahame felt as though a poisoned barb had pierced his soul. It was not alone that the surmise was just that he winced under the accusation, but his pride was acutely wounded at the readiness with which he was connected with an act so base.
With blanched cheeks, but a cold and haughty manner, he said, with knitted brows—
“When the deed of which you have spoken—if such there is—be produced, it will be time to discuss the truth or falsity of so foul an imputation.”
“When Mr. Wilton was sued by you, sir, for a large sum,” returned Charley, gravely, “the very instrument of which I speak was tendered to him to sign. He did not sign it, and yet that deed has been registered as being completed. I believe—though I cannot speak with exact certainty—that Mr. Nathan Gomer derived his information on this head from a scoundrel name d Chewkle.”
Mr. Grahame’s hair slowly lifted up.
“Chewkle?” he breathed faintly.
“Yes,” replied Charley, observing the ghastly paleness which had spread itself over Mr. Grahame’s visage; “a mercenary wretch, who would pause at no employment, however villanous. In proof of which I may tell you—although I may be stepping out of my path of strict duty in doing so—that a telegraphic message had just reached our office, with the terrible news that the ruffian Chewkle, of whom I have just spoken, encountering, early this morning, Mr. Wilton in the woods at Harley dale, discharged a pistol at him, and severely wounded him. He was seized in the attempt to consummate the murderous act, and is at the present moment in safe custody. It is expected he will make some important revelations.”
A rush of ringing sounds surged through Mr. Grahame’s brain; his eyes dilated, and glared at Charley with a frightful expression. The veins upon his temples swelled as though they would burst, and his throat expanded and contracted with a horrible spasmodic action.
Charley took a step towards him, alarmed by his agitation, but Mr. Grahame waved him imperiously off. He wiped the large drops of clammy perspiration, thickly clustered, from his brow, and in a hoarse voice said, hastily—
“But Wilton—Wilton—is he dead?”
“No,” returned Charley, trembling under a terrible suspicion; he yet lives. “The communication stated his wound to be severe, but not fatal. However, his son has just quitted London to proceed to his bedside, accompanied by an eminent surgeon——”
“His son—what son?” gasped Grahame, in a hollow tone,
“His eldest child, and only son. He has not long since returned to England from South America,” returned Charley. “I fortunately met with him on my way hither, and informed him of what had taken place. He at once proceeded to obtain a surgeon of great skill, and, upon securing his services, he intended that together they should immediately hasten to Harleydale.”
Mr. Grahame sank into a chair. It was plain he was in the throes of a violent spasm. Charley was pained to see his agonized prostration. He had already gone farther than, in his capacity, he ought strictly to have done. He knew that, for the advantage of his firm, he ought not to have revealed what he had disclosed; but it had been for Evangeline’s sake he had been thus communicative; and he was at the same time convinced that the actual interests of Wilton and Gomer had not been compromised by his act. In truth, he could not refrain from preparing Mr. Grahame, in some degree, for the bursting of the dense and threatening cloud hanging over his head.
He gazed with saddened commiseration upon the stupified man who sat before him, with clasped hands, gazing wildly into vacancy; and then in a soft, kindly tone, he said—
“I will no longer obtrude my presence, sir, upon you. I feel that it is as unwelcome as the tidings I have communicated. Yet, before I depart, permit me to suggest that your opposition to the claim of Mr. Nathan Gomer can be but of brief duration, while the expense of going to trial will be enormous. Mr. Gomer’s securities are so indisputable that a jury would be certain to give a verdict in his favour, and the Court would unhesitatingly grant instant execution. Pardon me, if I appear officious or impertinent by my suggestions; I have no such intent; I am only sincerely desirous of acquainting you with the aspect affairs are assuming; and I would so prepare you that you may know how to properly confront them.”
In Charley’s voice there was a tone of genuine sympathy which there was no mistaking or misunderstanding; and the heart of the criminal must have been callous indeed could it have resisted its softening influences. Mr. Grahame was too unused to it to remain unaffected by it. At one time he would have spurned its display, now it fell like balm upon his burning thoughts. He rose up suddenly and wrung Charley’s hand, and then, with an almost frantic gesture, he waved to him to leave.
Charley bowed and quitted the library with a heavy weight about his heart. As he closed the door and prepared to pass along the corridor, he paused for an instant.
“And this it is,” he muttered, “to live in splendour, in pomp, and proud luxury. How magnificent, how superb to gaze at! what foul festering corrosion beneath! How I have longed to achieve such a position as this! but oh, how I should shrink from it if it were to be only obtained on the conditions which are throttling the proud head of this house, and hurling him into earthly, if not eternal perdition.”
While the last words were on his lips he heard the rustling of silk in his vicinity. He stood aside to allow the coming female to pass, and almost the next instant he saw the fair sweet face of Evangeline looking up to his own. She stopped in evident surprise.
“You here, Mr. Clinton,” she said, in a low tone of astonishment; then she added, hastily, “have you heard anything of my sister Helen—have you come to bring me tidings of her?”
She was full dressed; her attire, mainly composed of faint blue, silver and lace, was eminently suited to her fair complexion; upon her head she wore a wreath of white star-like flowers, and in Charley’s eyes she seemed to be one of those exquisitely lovely fairy spirits of whom with such passionate interest he had read in German legends.
He sighed as he thought how hopelessly she was out of the pale of his companionship, but he concealed the emotion the thought occasioned. He merely raised his finger warningly, and said, in a very low voice—“I am most loth to affright or afflict you, dear Miss Grahame, but there is a storm hovering over your house; and, unless I am greatly deceived, it will burst with a terrible crash almost immediately. I cannot—dare not—explain myself, but I would have you prepared when the bolt does fall. I would have you call up your energies and sustain yourself under the trial. At least I would not have it descend upon you without preparation or warning. I cannot avert it, but I may be able to be of service in the hour of your affliction; you know how to summon me; fear not but I will appear at your bidding.”
He cast one passionate glance upon her beautiful countenance, overspread with a terrified amazement, and hurried away, for once more the rustling of silks announced the approach of females, and Evangeline almost ran into the reception-room, to avoid the scrutiny of her mother and sister.
The dinner party was large and brilliant. Mr. Grahame, dressed as it seemed with studied care, presided. The company were unusually animated. The Honorable Lester Vane was present, though uninvited by Mrs. Grahame or her husband; but the Duke of St. Allborne had been honoured with a carte-blanche for friends, who might add to the distinguished character of the assembly, and with a particular motive he had used his privilege to bring Vane with him. The latter accepted his offer, for he had his motives too, and despite the omission of his name from the list of the formally invited, he made his appearance. Looking Mrs. Grahame defiantly in the eyes, when she received him with stiff politeness, he deprecated in studied words—every one of which stung her to the quick—any apology for the oversight; as he expressed himself certain the unfortunate circumstances attendant upon the absence of her eldest daughter had naturally disturbed her usually calm and retentive memory.
He looked sallow and savage; his large dark eyes glittered like a tiger’s upon the spring. There was a dull red mark upon his forehead, where Hugh Rivers dale’s blow had fallen, when he felled him to the earth, and he apparently took no pains to conceal it. He seemed to wear it as a badge of distinction, that might attract all eyes and many questions, enabling him thus to answer them in terms which would tear all Mrs. Grahame’s panoply of pride into shreds, and trample them scornfully under foot.
How troubled she felt on seeing him!—how disqustedly she listened to his words!—with what sickening apprehension she gazed upon the cicatrised wound upon his forehead! She felt, as he passed into the room beyond, that her expectations of a proud triumph were likely to be turned into torturing anticipations of shame and degradation.
Her pride now changed her from a Juno to an Ate. There was no telling into what extravagances, during this man’s presence, it might hurry her.
As Lester Vane sauntered on, he caught sight of Evangeline, who looked pale and abstracted. He advanced towards her, and spoke to her with low musical tones. He bent his eyes upon her with the fascination of a serpent’s gaze, but she shrank from him in undisguised aversion—horrified aversion—there could certainly be no mistaking the expression; so decided was it in character, that he, in the fullness of his immeasurable conceit, actually looked over his shoulder, expecting there to see some hugely-moustached, be-whiskered object as the real cause of her disgust, but there was no one but himself to fasten upon, and he grated his teeth at the conviction.
“Sweet Miss Evangeline,” he lisped, “I hail our réunion with a gratification I am unable to express.”
He tendered his hand, but she recoiled from it and him as though he were indeed a noxious reptile. Helen had spoken of him to her in hot and blistering words. She now feared and loathed him.
She moved hastily to the side of her mother, and Lester Vane, muttering an oath, sallied into the reception-room.
The dinner was announced—was eaten; and, at a somewhat late hour, dancing commenced. Lester Vane sought Evangeline for a partner. She distinctly declined to dance with him, and he turned away infuriated.
Not that she danced at all: her brain was in a whirl of confusion. She was alarmed by the agitation displayed by her mother, who, flushed and excited as she had never seen her before, followed Lester Vane like a shadow; and, whenever he commenced conversation with a group of guests, interposed and broke it up, to follow him still.
She was much startled and nervously frightened, too, by her father’s aspect. He seemed to walk like a somnambulist through the saloons. He appeared to be wandering as in search of some one, and eventually he disappeared.
The admirable quadrille band played its most enlivening airs, and the dancing went on with spirit.
Evangeline looked among the dancers for her sister Margaret; for, in spite of her repellant coldness, she thought that she would lend an ear to her forebodings respecting both parents. Indeed, she was growing distracted; for, what with Charles Clinton’s vague warning, her father’s ghastly aberration, and her mother’s flushed excitement, she felt each coming instant would produce some event of a frightful kind.
But Margaret was not to be seen; Evangeline searched the saloons in vain.
No; she was in the garden, with a thick shawl muffled round her, listening to the pleadings of the Duke of St. Allborne.
What had they been saying to each other?
“The jeuce take the wauld!” cried the Duke. “You will be my Duchess some day, and you will be coawted and feted as othaw Duchesses and Countawesses have befaw you, who have had the spiwit to seize such a glowious oppawtunity as this!”
Margaret hesitated a moment.
The coronet danced in her eyes—to part with him now was to lose that bauble.
“I will go with you, St. Allborne,” she said, in a trembling tone.
“My angel!” said the Duke, enrapturedly.
The woman rose up in her heart at last. She laid upon his arm her gloved and jewelled hand.
“You will be faithful and kind to me, and always love me, St. Allborne?” she faltered; yet the words were uttered with anxious earnestness.
“Love you, my pwecious little wogue,” he responded, with nervous excitement, though he had no ultimate intention of keeping his promise, “why I adaw you now, and when you weveal to me the disintawested chawacter of youaw love faw me by living with me until the distwessing hut wigowous impediments to ouaw mawiage aw wemoved, what can I do but waw-ship you. Come, let us be off befaw we aw missed from the ball-woom.”
He folded her shawl tightly round her trembling frame, and, placing his arms close about her waist, he drew her to the same spot from whence Hugh Riversdale had conveyed her sister Helen away.
They stood upon the brink of the winding stream, so charming in its ornamental character, so facile for mischief. At a signal from the Duke, a boat swiftly appeared. A boat-cloak was handed up by the man in charge of the boat, and Margaret was closely muffled in it; she was then lifted into the small vessel, and the Duke stepped lightly in after her—one moment more, and the boat glided silently but swiftly away.
The lights streamed brilliantly from the windows of the villa mansion. Strains of joyous music issued from the crowded saloons, and in noisy hilarity the dancers whirled with rapid steps round the gorgeously decorated apartments. All within their scope seemed to be instinct with joy and happiness.
When the boat disappeared, there came from the shadow of the trees in the garden the figure of a man.
It was Mr. Grahame. He had wandered as in a dream from the heated rooms thronged with gay visitors, not one of whom he cared for or who cared for him, and while leaning thoughtfully, brooding over his desperate position, against a tree, he had witnessed the meeting of the Duke and his daughter Margaret.
He cared not to interrupt them, but glided back into his house like a thief; no one observed him enter. He slunk to his dressing-room; his valet was not there. He hastily divested himself of his full-dress habiliments, and put on some plain clothing. When thus attired he crept down the servants’ staircase, darted through the basement passage, and passed unobserved, by the servants’ entrance, into the front of his mansion, and made his way through the throng of carriages assembled there.
He went on through the Regent’s Park up towards Hampstead, passed over its dreary heath—the earth and shrubs looking black beneath the gloomy sky.
He paused when he reached the “Castle,” and turned his bloodshot eyes towards the spot he had left thus abruptly and secretly. He shuddered, and struck down the hill towards Hendon, passing, with shivering frame and tottering steps, along the narrow pathway between the prickly, scrubby heath-bushes.
“I have been advised,” he muttered, “never to inhale chloroform, as it would inevitably prove fatal to me. It is well my chemist included it in the articles in my medicine chest; it will afford me an easy release from life and its horrors, and, if I manage well, leave no clue to the manner of my death.”
At a lone spot, by the side of a pool, he sat him down, and bowing his head upon his knees, pressed his hands upon his scorching forehead, and wept scalding, bitter, bitter tears.
Thee will I bear to a lovely spot,
Where our hands shall be joined, and our sorrows forgot;
There thou yet shall be my bride.
Byron.
It is, unhappily, the nature of jealousy to magnify small things into great ones, and to build upon the flimsiest supposition a series of incidents inflaming to the brain of the jaundiced thinker, but which, nevertheless, have no foundation in fact. Unfortunately, the jealous too often act upon these probabilities as if they had really happened, and in the paroxysms of rage and agony created by unworthy visions, reason takes to flight, and the worst extravagances are the result.
This was the case with Colonel Mires. He had assumed interviews between Flora and young Vivian which had never taken place. His prurient mind, not improved by his residence in India, had wrought out love passages which had not occurred, and he groaned, gnashed his teeth, and even wept with agony.
That he passionately loved Flora, even unto frenzy, was beyond a doubt, and that it worked him up to a pitch of insanity is equally true, as his recent conduct proved. In India, in command of a native regiment, his power was great—he was, in a small sphere, a monarch; in England, he felt curbed, trammelled, shackled, and if he had not had an Indian servant, in close attendance, to expend that love and inordinate desire for supreme command upon, he would have been constantly committing some outrageous outbreak of temper, which, of necessity, would have often precipitated him into trouble.
He chafed at the restraint the state of society in England placed upon him; and when it was impossible to conceal from himself that he was the veriest slave to Flora’s beauty, he was infuriate to find that his wish, no less than his will, went for nothing in effecting a result in which the happiness or misery of his whole future life was involved.
The confession of love for Vivian, which Flora had made to her father, and the expressed determination of old Wilton to give her hand to the Honorable Lester Vane, scattered any floating delusive hopes he might have entertained. He saw that she could only become his by some bold act of villany, perpetrated regardless of all consequences attendant upon its frustration.
He formed a plan with subtlety, and made his arrangements with skill. He went over the whole distance between Harleydale and Southampton carefully, making a chart of the bye-ways. He provided relays of horses at unfrequented spots; and at every house, where it would be necessary to rest for the night or stay for refreshment, he palmed off on the host a story that his task was the distressing one of conveying a young lady, afflicted with raving insanity, to an asylum for lunatics. Every minute detail of the plan was carefully considered before adoption, and every possible contingency foreseen and provided against.
There was one exception!
It did not strike Colonel Mires that he was distrusted, suspected of evil machinations, and was, therefore, closely watched.
Such a probability was omitted from his calculations. How, in fact, was he to conjecture that Nathan Gomer, having perused his physiognomy carefully, while Vivian was replying to the charges he had made against him, had formed a conclusion most unfavourable to him; that, in short, the shrewd little man had believed he read in the workings of his features a strong determination to commit an evil deed, by which Vivian directly and Flora indirectly would be made to suffer.
Yet such was the fact; and Nathan Gomer was not the man to pause in doubt when he suspected evil. Having several agents in his pay, he instructed one upon whom he could rely, and from that moment Colonel Mires went nowhere abroad without an unknown attendant, of whose existence he was unconscious, but who dogged his footsteps with untiring pertinacity.
The scheme of the abduction was, therefore, by the revelations of his agent gradually unfolded to Nathan Gomer; who let the arrangements of the Colonel proceed until the culminating point was at hand; when he communicated with young Vivian; and placed in his hands the power—as he calculated—of appearing upon the scene at a moment of vital importance to Flora; and of appearing once more before old Wilton as the saviour of his daughter’s honour as he had been of her life.
Hal Vivian was visited by Nathan Gomer as he was making preparation to leave England; to fulfil a short engagement offered him on high terms in the United States, the acceptance of which had been pressed, upon him by the first manufacturing goldsmith in England. The communication he received altered his plan, although it happened that he reached Harleydale too late to prevent Flora being carried off; but yet in time to save the life of Wilton.
Thus it fell out. Upon reaching the village of Harleydale; he had an interview with Gomer’s agent, who told him that a close carriage belonging to Colonel Mires was in a bye-lane contiguous to Harleydale park; and the Colonel himself was somewhere up in the woods; lying in wait; it was supposed; for Flora; in order to carry his project into execution. It was arranged that the agent should watch the carriage; and Hal should go up into the woods and hunt up the Colonel. The result of this arrangement has been seen. He saved old Wilton from the murderous weapon of Chewkle, and the Colonel got safely off with Flora, for the agent had to rush back to the village, when he saw Flora conveyed senseless to the carriage, to mount a horse—already provided—to follow the vehicle, that he might, at the first place where assistance was to be obtained, stop the further progress of the outrage upon Miss Wilton’s liberty.
He left a note for Vivian, who obtained from it information of the direction he was to pursue; and though not much used to riding, his horsemanship, under the impulse which was almost maddening, would have done honour to a steeple-chase rider.
Colonel Mires had had the shrewdness to provide a pair of strong, fleet horses for the start. He instructed his coachman to do the first stage of ten miles at a hand gallop. The man obeyed, even though the roads were heavy, the ruts deep, and the carriage several times was within an ace of being overturned.
The second stage, with fresh horses, was performed in a similar manner, though at a less rate of speed, because the horses were not so good, and, being pushed, all but knocked up at their eighth mile. The third stage was commenced with another relay of horses, and proceeded much at the same rate on a fifteen-mile journey, unchecked and with undiminished speed.
No delay, except changing horses, had taken place from the moment of departure as yet; but the Colonel believing that, when he had placed thirty-five miles between him and Harleydale, accomplishing the distance in four hours, he might with safety pause for a short time in order to give his coachman rest; and himself obtain some refreshment. He determined to do so, and gave his Indian servant orders to that effect.
No pursuer as yet had appeared in sight, nor any sign that, even if Flora had been missed, a clue elucidating the mystery surrounding her abrupt disappearance had been obtained.
Indeed he expected none: in the first place there had not been time; in the second, he had so full a conviction of the successful secrecy of his operations, that he calculated upon being the very last person who would be charged with having anything to do with Flora’s abduction.
Flora had been, soon after the carriage was set in motion, restored by the attentions of the ayah to consciousness, and on opening her eyes gazed wildly round her. It was some little time before she could realise her position. At length the face of Colonel Mires and the motion of the vehicle in which she was seated, supported in the arms of the Indian woman, gave her some notion of her true situation, and rousing herself, she made an effort to recall the past, and then said to Colonel Mires——
“What is the meaning, sir, of this outrage?—how is it that I find myself alone with you and this Indian servant, torn from my home, and borne with frightful rapidity in an unknown direction?”
Colonel Mires turned his inflamed eyes upon her and, in a tone of passionate tenderness, replied—
“Ask your more than mortal beauty and your in difference to my almost more than mortal love for you. Oh! Flora, I cannot see you, cannot know you to be another’s; my adoration for you is without limit; and if I have resorted to a bold step, it is only because my passion for you would pause at nothing to ensure my happiness.”
“You have resorted to a mean and wicked artifice to place me in your power, Colonel Mires!” she exclaimed, awaiting his answer with an intensity of eagerness which it was somewhat remarkable he did not notice.
“All stratagems, it is said, are fair in love-matters,” he replied. “If I adopted one which has occasioned you pain, I regret its action, though I rejoice at its result, for it gave me you. Understand me, sweet Flora, you must be mine—it will be impossible for you to escape that issue; but I shall treat you with the greatest possible respect until we are united. Your dignity shall not be insulted, nor your modesty offended, by act, by word, or look. Every desire or wish you may form, save that of severing yourself from me, shall be gratified. I will be your slave, ministering to your will in all things, except in aught that would take you from me. You will find me scrupulously adhere to this promise in every respect. At the same time, let me inform you that any attempt to release yourself will be futile. My arrangements have been so made that all entreaties and appeals for assistance will be in vain. We are now on our way to Southampton, from thence, by packet, direct to Madeira. Only at appointed places shall we stay; and at each place the persons there are prepared to see with me a young lady of surpassing beauty, but a confirmed lunatic—insane upon the fancy that she is being forcibly abducted from home. I deem it advisable to make you thus much acquainted with my plan to spare you the agony of useless displays. At Funchal, I hope to induce you to become my wife—at least, I will ensure that you shall never be the bride of another.”
He ceased. Flora made no reply. The note which informed her of the sudden death of Mr. Vivian, professing to be written by Mrs. Harper, was a forgery, acknowledged to be such by the Colonel. She cared little for the rest; she had faith in being rescued, or in effecting an escape from the clutches of the scoundrel who had made her prisoner and was bearing her away. She could not conceive how one or the other could be accomplished, but she had no doubt that she would be set free before she was forced on board the ship of which he had spoken. Hal was not dead; she could bear all the rest with comparative equanimity.
As we have said, she did not reply to Mires nor afterwards speak a word in answer to any remark he made or question he put to her. She declined all refreshment, though he pressed her earnestly at the end of the third stage to partake of it, and resisted every inducement to utter a word.
They were well away on the fourth stage, still pursuing unfrequented bye-roads, when the Indian coachman suddenly put his head down to the window, and called, “Sahib!”
His tone was so urgent and startling that Colonel Mires leaped from the recumbent position in which he placed himself for the last hour, watching with an unswerving, ardent gaze the beautiful but saddened face of Flora. He bent his head towards his man, and with a brusque tone demanded what had occurred.
“We are pursued, sahib,” replied the Indian, very decisively.
“Pursued!” echoed the Colonel, rapidly; “by whom?”
The Indian pointed with his whip. They were passing over a hilly tract of land. At a distance of some four or five miles the road wound along a ridge which skirted a steep hill. Pursuing that road at a brisk pace were a couple of horsemen. Mires gazed at them intently; they appeared to him to be taking a course leading in an opposite direction to that in which his carriage was proceeding. He said as much.
The Indian gave a significant shake of the head.
“We came same road as dat, sahib; they are on our track—seen ’em dis half-hour coming same road as us. Tellee true, Sahib.”
The Colonel was, however, disposed to scout the notion that the horsemen were in pursuit of him. How was it possible, he mentally inquired, that any clue as yet could have been obtained to the cause of Flora’s disappearance, and the route he had taken in bearing her off. Suddenly he forced an oath through his teeth, and he broke out in a clammy perspiration. It occurred to him that the villain Chewkle might have betrayed him. No dependence could be placed on mercenaries Experience had taught him that fact: but, under any circumstances, he thought it unadvisable to give away even the shadow of a chance against him. He, therefore, called sharply to his Indian servant—
“Nanoo, push the horses into a smart gallop; we cannot have far to travel ere we reach the stage where we have arranged to rest for a few hours. We shall soon ascertain the purpose of those fellows; if they are really in pursuit, we will prepare for the worst, and stick at nothing. Should the consequences prove fatal to those who attempt to intercept us, the fault will be theirs. I have devoted myself to the accomplishment of my object, and bloodshed will not stay me in effecting it. Lash the horses—lash them—make them fly over the remaining distance—give the brutes the thong—away!”
The Indian obeyed; and the horses, under the application of the whip, administered with an unsparing and unpitying hand, plunged madly forward, snorting and chafing under the smarting cuts savagely dealt upon them.
Their route, now from a level road, lay suddenly down a hill with severe curves in it. Colonel Mires rose up in his seat and looked eagerly after the horsemen, and his brow clouded as he perceived them abruptly leave the main road, and, leaping their horses over a breast-hedge which lined it, strike across country directly towards him.
He sat down muttering an oath; and with indescribable horror Flora perceived him draw from beneath one of the seats a case which, on his opening it, disclosed a couple of handsomely-finished revolvers, each with a long polished single barrel. She saw him examine them carefully to insure their being ready for instant use, and she observed, with apprehension and disgust, that his contracted brows and clenched teeth indicated a most deadly determination.
She felt sick, faint, and dizzy with fear, her terror being proportionably increased by the frightful speed at which she could see, by the passing objects, and tell by the awful rocking, jumping motion of the carriage, they were being borne along.
The Colonel scarcely noticed the tremendous pace into which his servant had lashed the horses—he was in deep conjecture respecting his pursuers. He thought it not improbable Mark Wilton might be one; he hated him, for he had been treated by him with distrust and scarcely concealed dislike; he felt that it would cost him but little repugnance to shoot him; but then he was Flora’s brother, and his blood upon his hands was not calculated to prosper his wooing. Nevertheless, rather than resign Flora, he was resolved not to stop short even at that crime.
He was roused from his reverie by the horrified moans of the ayah, and the sudden outcries of his Indian attendant. He thrust his head out of the carriage window, and saw that the over-driven steeds had been lashed into frenzy, and in their progress down the hill their own impetus, added to the enormously accelerated velocity of the vehicle, unchecked by a drag, had urged them to a speed which was beyond their own control. Giving way to fright, they dashed blindly on, unheeding in their fearful wildness the check which the speedily-alarmed Indian attempted to impose on them the instant he found they were beyond command; but he discovered his mastery was gone, and he soon lost all presence of mind, and shrieked to his master that the horses were flying with them to destruction.
The ayah quickly added her shrieks to the yells of the completely scared Indian; and Mires, with no little consternation, saw the danger in which all were placed, but he was powerless to aid. To open the door and jump out would have been to court death; to remain where he was would be to incur injuries it was impossible to calculate upon. He pulled down the window behind the coachman, and commenced an attempt to crawl through the opening, to gain, if possible, a seat on the box, in the hope that, uniting his strength with that of the Indian, who still clung to the reins, the horses might be pulled up.
He had just advanced his head and shoulders through the window when the carriage was dashed with tremendous force against a tall thick-set hedge, and the Indian was swept like lightning from the box. The ayah shrieked frantically, and Flora at the shock fainted away. The horses plunged and kicked in the madness of terror, and tore the carriage wheels through the impediments opposed to their progress; they bounded forward in their impetuous career, and swept down the hill with more tremendous rapidity than ever. Within a hundred yards the road took a sharp, abrupt turn; facing the horses stood the stone ruins of an ancient building. Under no control, completely blind in their frantic terror, they kept on their distracted way, swerving only by their own infuriate motions, but turning not as the sharp wind of the road came upon them.
With a terrific crash they dashed into the ruins, killing themselves, and shattering the carriage to atoms in one fearful and fatal collision.
In the meantime the two horsemen, who, as it may be surmised, were Hal Vivian and Nathan Gomer’s agent, whom he had overtaken, were fast approaching the scene of the disastrous accident. The fugitives would have been overtaken before they had reached so far, but for the delay in getting fresh steeds. As it was, Hal was almost knocked up with fatigue, save that the intensity of his anxiety for Flora’s safety prevented his feeling the physical exhaustion he would otherwise have done. He would have kept on until he had dropped rather than risk the possibility of losing her by even a necessary delay for rest and refreshment.
Having, from the ridge spoken of, when the attention of Colonel Mires was first drawn to his pursuers; perceived the flying vehicle; at Hal’s bold suggestion, he and his companion leaped the hedge skirting the road; and made their way by the direct line instead of pursuing the circuitous path. The difficulties they had encountered were many, but nearly half the distance was saved; and they at length—after leaping gullies and hedges, wading streams, and forcing a way through part of a plantation, one tangle of undergrowth—emerged at the brow of the hill down which the carriage containing Flora had been whirled to annihilation.
At this spot there was a cross-road, but the fresh print of the carriage-wheels in the soft, sandy, moist soil directed them to the right route, and they spurred their steeds down the declivity, but with more caution than the miserable Nanoo had done. Suddenly Hal’s companion reined in his steed, and jumped off his horse. He picked up a whip, and held it up.
“Here is a sign we are on the right track,” he said, “the blacky has dropped his whip.”
On to his horse, and away again. Not more than a hundred yards further, both pulled in their steeds at one impulse. A garment lay in the middle of the road.
The agent again dismounted, and picked up a loose great-coat. Then he ran his eye along the road.
“My God!” he cried, “an accident has happened. Look at the swaying track of the wheels; their horses have bolted with them, and they have all been upset. Come on.”
He vaulted into his saddle as he spoke, and on they went again—Hal’s heart beating almost audibly, in fear that an accident could only be fraught with some frightful and fatal injury to Flora.
They had not proceeded far when the body of the Indian was discovered lifeless upon the roadway. He had been struck with tremendous violence by the arm of a tree, and hurled like lightning to the ground.
It was so evident that he was dead, that neither attempted to dismount, but both pressed on in silence. The agony of Vivian it is impossible to depict—large drops of cold perspiration stood upon his forehead, his features had become livid, and his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. His breast heaved, and his breath went and came in short spasms—he felt as if he should suffocate. A dreadful presentiment chilled his blood, and made his marrow almost freeze in his bones. He feared to encounter the sight he anticipated to be awaiting him, and yet he felt that his steed seemed only to proceed at too slow a pace.
And now they reached the ruins.
Hal uttered a cry of grief and consternation.
Upon the ground lay the shattered fragments of the carriage; amid the débris of broken wall and dismantled masses of stone were both horses, frightfully lacerated, and bleeding from the desperate wounds inflicted by their terrific collision.
The body of the carriage, which had been forced half through a low, dilapidated archway, appeared to have been, owing to some large blocks of stone on the ground beneath, crushed by the hyperthyrion of the ruined doorway, and compressed to almost half its natural height, the splintered fragments sticking out here and there showing how tremendous had been the collision, how frightful the destruction.
Both men leaped from their saddles in an instant, and fastening their horses hastily at a short distance from the spot—for both animals started and betrayed symptoms of terror, either at the scent of blood or the confusion before them—they hastened to the carriage.
The silence of the dead reigned around—not even a groan from within the jambed and crushed vehicle gave token of life still remaining in the frames of those whom Hal knew it yet contained.
With almost superhuman strength, Hal forced open the twisted, bent, and partly-shattered door. A hurried, sickening glance showed him the mangled body of Colonel Mires, half in the carriage and half buried in the broken box-seat, his head and shoulders hidden from view by the splinters and ruins of that part of the vehicle.
Doubled up at the bottom of the carriage appeared the forms of two senseless females; with a groan of acute agony, he wound his arms tenderly about one of them, and with great difficulty, because of his gentleness, he contrived to liberate her.
He bore her away from the spot, to a small patch of grass, and there gently laid her down, and bent over to see if any sign of life remained.
It was Flora whom he had thus rescued, and who, without a token of life, lay motionless—the very reality it seemed of death in as fair a form as was ever presented to mortal eye.
Hal knelt by her in a state of frenzy—his eyes inflamed, his throat swollen; he appeared the incarnation of despair. So intense was his emotion, that he was wholly without power to move.
The agent bent over the prostrate form of the senseless girl, and regarded her face with scrutinising eyes. He, though agitated, was of course not so deeply affected as his companion, and he exclaimed—
“She’s alive—she has only fainted, rub her hands briskly, she’ll come too directly—I don’t believe she is hurt, she has been frightened into a swoon.”
The man commenced actively chafing her hands as he spoke. Hal, who had seemed paralysed, now followed his example. The friction upon her palms and the cool air which played upon her pallid features had the desired effect, and shortly her eyelids began to work tremulously, then she uttered a deep-drawn sigh and opened her eyes.
With a sudden motion she rose half up, looked wildly round her, her dim sight took in the face of the agent; she turned from him with a shudder, and her eyes fell upon Hal’s intensely anxious face, within a foot of her own. A low cry escaped her lips.
“Hal! Hal!” she exclaimed, in a tone of doubt, yet of strong hope.
“It is even I, dear Flora,” he ejaculated, hoarsely, through his parched lips.
She flung her arms about his neck, and cried, passionately—
“Save me! save me! Hal, save me!”
“You are saved,” he murmured, almost inaudibly; and burying his face on her shoulder, gave way to a paroxysm of scalding tears.
It was but for a moment that this weakness overcame him. Had he not suffered the gush of emotion to have its course, he had fallen back in a fit.
He sprang to his feet, and raising up Flora, conducted her to his horse. He called to his companion the agent, and bade him remain at the scene of disaster until he sent up help to him; and, as there was yet some three miles to traverse before he could reach the house—a lone one—where it had been Colonel Mires’ intention to stay for some hours, if not all night, he mounted his horse, and placing Flora before him, went at an easy canter from the terrible spot.
Oh, that short ride of three miles. Never before did he experience such unalloyed happiness as he enjoyed during the brief term occupied in proceeding from the place of accident to the inn.
Flora, saved from a horrible death, was in his arms—his left encircled her small waist, and her two soft hands met and clasped about his neck. Her now flushed cheek rested against his, and her gentle eyes looked into his own with an expression of loving tenderness and a perfect sense of security.
She was unconscious as yet of the fate of Colonel Mires or his servants. She knew that she had been on the eve of some dreadful accident. She had a shadowy sense of a violent crash, but nothing more. She had no wish to learn what had really happened. It was enough to know that she had been wrested from the villanous custody of Colonel Mires and by Hal—that was all she cared for, she sought for no more information: and Vivian, who was pretty well acquainted with the details, forbore, in her highly nervous state, to shock her by repeating them to her.
On reaching the inn, Hal despatched the landlord and some men to the spot where Colonel Mires had met his fate; and upon making inquiries learned that at no great distance was the main coach-road, leading to Dorset, and there was a posting-house at which he could obtain a carriage and post-horses to return to Harleydale.
He was anxious to quit the inn, for Flora’s sake, before the dead bodies were brought in. He submitted to her that it would be desirable to return to Harleydale without delay, and she readily assented to anything which he believed to be for the best. Leaving his tired steed, and having procured a seat for both in a country grocer’s light cart, they were driven over to the roadside inn named, and there, having partaken of some slight refreshment, set out in a post-chaise on their return to Harleydale.
As yet Hal had not mentioned to Flora a word respecting the condition of her father. It was his intention, when her mind became more calm, to prepare her for the event which had taken place.
By mutual consent it seemed that they banished all unpleasant matters, and reverted to that which was alone of absorbing interest to both—their love for each other. Even this subject stole by degrees only into the first place in their conversation; and then Hal honestly and honourably placed before her his true position, together with the views of the future which he entertained, and what probation he must necessarily pass before he might dare to look for the realisation of the hope first in his heart of hearts. In doing this he sketched the relation in which she stood to him, pointed out how wide apart their present stations were, and his own keen sense of the fact, so that, should she bend obedient to her father’s anxious wish to wed her to one of her own rank, he felt it would be unmanly in him to blame her, that it would indeed be ungenerous to think even harshly of her for taking the step; and if—notwithstanding her present impressions—she fancied that she would eventually be happier in uniting herself with the object of her father’s choice, it would be his duty, loving her so truly as he did, to stand from her path, that she might ensure happiness on earth, no matter what might be his own fate.
Flora stayed his speech. She leaned her head upon his shoulder, and placed her hand in his—
“I love you Hal,” she said; “I answer all your suggestions and my father’s pleadings and commands in those words. I will give my hand to no other, if not to you; and, oh! Hal,” she cried, with an impetuous burst of feeling, “I will cast away all the wealth which is to be mine, the station and its luxuries, to share your fate, whatever it may be—if you will have me. I look with fright and horror upon any other future. I can endure anything with you, submit with a smile to the frowns of fate, bear cheerfully any ills which may arise—you know, Hal, poverty ought not to scare me—I can bear troubles and trials with you, I can bear nothing if I am to be torn from you and given to another.”
“My own darling Flora!” cried Hal, pressing her tenderly to his heart.
A flush of heat rushed to his forehead and his cheeks. His heart beat rapidly, for it occurred to him that he had but to ask her now to return no more to her father’s home, but to give to him at once her hand, and thus set the machinations or the claims of all other lovers at defiance.
It was a fearful moment of temptation.
He drew a long breath.
“Will you not, Flora, marry Lester Vane?” he said, in an undertone of deep earnestness.
“I will die first, Hal,” she replied, with equal fervour.
He pressed his hands to his throbbing temples. He laid his clenched fist upon his wildly-beating heart. He thought of Flora’s beauty and her tenderness. Then he thought, too, of her guileless innocence.
A fearful struggle ensued between love, honour and duty.
She would fly with him and give her hand to him at a word. That he knew.
He so adored her, and his chances of obtaining her, save by elopement, were so very, very remote.
The temptation was a sore one to wrestle with.
Work then with steadfast hope and hand;
Yoke goodwill to the sturdy plough;
Cut the deep furrow through the land;
On high the ridges throw.
So shall increase thy labours crown,
And joy bring in thy harvest home;
Yet faint not should thy fortunes frown,
Thy harvest is to come.
Constant in this, take heart and breath;
These cannot fail whate’er befall—.
Duty and Love, and Truth and Faith,
And Pure-Intent withal.
—Kington.
Mark Wilton, with the impetuosity natural to his character, had, after his last interview with Lotte Clinton, determined, on leaving her residence, that another twenty-four hours should close his account with England and all it contained.
The first ocean-going steamer bound for a distant port should convey him—no matter whither it was destined. A selfish, inexorable parent, a too-scrupulous love, he would leave behind him for ever; and in some wild, exciting service, under the flag of a nation on the other side of the globe, he resolved to endeavour to forget the cause of his present unhappiness.
In the heat of his wrath, against his parent especially, he encountered Charles Clinton, and from him learned that his father had been struck down by the bullet of an assassin, and, for all that was at the moment known, lay at the point of death.
The natural impulse of a generous and affectionate heart effected an instant revulsion of feeling, and the ocean-going steamer was at once abandoned for the train to Harleydale.
Before the night closed in he was, with an able surgeon, at his father’s bedside.
As he gazed upon the old man’s ashy face, his closed eyes, the furrowed wrinkles—traces of care and long suffering—all angry, rebellious animosity took wing; he knelt down by the couch, and, with falling tears, prayed earnestly for him against whom so few hours back his heart had been so fiercely moved.
The surgeon, after a careful examination, reported that the wound received by old Wilton, though severe, was neither fatal nor in itself dangerous, but the shock it had occasioned to the system of an aged and feeble man was essentially the latter; in fact, the prostration it had produced rendered his condition highly critical. The surgeon plainly said that extraordinary care and unceasing tending and nursing could alone save him; and he impressed it upon Mark’s mind that failure in the nurse’s duties would be fatal to his father.
It was necessary that Flora should be made acquainted with the directions of the surgeon; and Mark, surprised at not seeing her with her father, sent for her, believing that agony and fright had compelled her to retire to her chamber.
He was astounded to learn that she was not in the house. That she had quitted the Hall in the morning, and had not returned; and though messengers had been despatched in every direction in search of her, she could not only not be found, but no tidings could be gained of her.
This was a new blow to him. He felt distracted and bewildered; he could suggest to himself nothing to account for her absence but some frightful and fatal accident. He dare not leave his father’s side to search for her, and the people by whom he was attended or to whom he might apply appeared to have done all in their power, but in vain, to gain tidings of her.
While racking his brain to devise a means of instantly instituting a fresh search for her, his father roused himself from his previous lethargic condition, and gazed feebly around him: as his dull eyes fell upon Mark they brightened up, a smile of affection passed over his ghastly features, and he pressed the hand with which Mark clasped his.
Again his eyes wandered round the bedside twice ‘or thrice, then he turned to Mark with a disappointed look. His lips moved, and in a faint tone he murmured—“Flora.”
What was to be said?
With an air of embarrassment, Mark responded—
“She is in her room—she is not well—frightened, unable to support this shocking event.”
The old man shook his head feebly.
“I have been harsh and selfish to her,” he said. “I have endeavoured to enforce my will against her hopes of future happiness, and she does not forget it now.”
He turned his face away with an air of pain and sorrowful discontent.
“Beware of exciting his mind in any shape,” whispered the surgeon. “He is too exhausted to sustain it.”
Mark bent over his father, and whispered in his ear—
“Do not wrong Flora, dear sir,” he said; “she will be here shortly, and her absence shall be satisfactorily explained to you.”
As the surgeon imposed implicit silence, Mark sat down to reflect upon what course was to be pursued respecting Flora’s unaccountable disappearance. It suddenly occurred to him that his friend Harry Vivian would be the individual to apply to for assistance. There was no doubt on his mind that he would do his utmost to ascertain what had befallen her, and to restore her in safety, if such happy issue was to attend the mystery of her absence.
As soon as the suggestion presented itself, he despatched a servant to the station with a telegraphic message to Vivian, paying for the return message, instructing him to come down to Harleydale at once, even to engage a special train, the cost of which he, Mark, would defray, for the matter on which he desired to confer with him admitted of no delay.
An answer was received in a brief period, which ran thus—
“Vivian from home. Gone, not known where; return, not known token.”
This was a climax; and he reseated himself by the invalid’s bedside, his mind tortured by doubts respecting the fate of his father and of his sister, and agonized by his remembrances of his parting with Lotte Clinton.
The surgeon had retired for the night, having given his parting directions. Old Wilton lay in a motionless slumber, produced by an opiate. The old housekeeper flitted about the room like a phantom, and Mark, with folded arms and eyes fastened on vacancy, still continued successively calling up dreamy visions.
Inspired by a new hope, communicated to his heart by his father’s fond smile and affectionate manner to him he shaped out schemes to conquer his repugnance to marriage with Lotte Clinton. What if he were to present her with the whole of the money he had brought from abroad with him? A girl with a dowry of upwards of six thousand pounds was hardly one even for his father to reject.
But would she accept it, if he offered it to her!
This sempstress, so proud, so single-minded, so clear in her perceptions, so firm in her resolves, so undeviating in her spirit of rectitude.
Well, he might bestow it upon her anonymously, and then contrive an accidental meeting with her. He might——
Hark!
Carriage-wheels rolling over the gravelled path, and stopping before the hall-door.
Mark sprang to his feet. It must be Flora returned.
It was Flora and Hal too. He met them in the hall, both entering in with grave faces and soft step.
And the temptation?
It had been triumphed over. Hal had battled with it manfully; but love and passion, and fears of losing so dear a treasure, had fastened upon honour, and all but strangled it.
In his dire extremity, Hal called upon Flora, and unfolded the conflict going on within his heart to her view. He asked her for counsel and for argument to combat the incentives tugging at his heart-strings, urging him to do with her free consent what Colonel Mires had sought to do without it.
She could only weep and tremble; and alas!—for she, too, could not bear to think that they must part for ever—leave in his hands the momentous decision.
His honour was, however, of stubborn material; it continued its exertion in spite of the formidable antagonists it had to contend with, and there stepped to its aid at an opportune moment the remembrance of the wound inflicted on old Wilton by Chewkle.
Hal at once broke to Flora the event of the morning.
It saved them both.
They continued their journey to Harleydale, scarce a word passing between them.
When at the Hall they met Mark, Flora flung herself upon her brother’s neck, and sobbed—from more causes than one.
“Be not alarmed, Flo’, dear,” whispered Mark; “the surgeon says there is no danger. He only wants good nursing; you will do all that, I know.”
Flora almost sank to the earth.
“If I had left him!” she thought, and, only waving her hand to Hal, tottered to her father’s room.
“If I had induced her to fly with me,” thought Hal, and instinctively smote his breast.
Mark wrung his hand warmly.
“You have saved her,” he said; “from whom?”
“Mires,” replied Hal, laconically.
“And from myself,” he might have added.
Mark started in astonishment.
“From him?” he ejaculated. Then he said—“No matter whom—she is back safe again. You are pale and fagged; you must have some rest. I will hear you recount what has passed after you have risen in the morning.”
They separated; for Hal was only too glad to be alone—too glad to have the opportunity of making his acknowledgments of joy at having conquered his great temptation. And when he flung himself exhausted on his bed, Mark returned to his father’s room to find there Flora upon her knees in prayer, and ruthful, though silent, self-upbraiding.
Among the faithless faithful only she,
Among innumerable false, unmoved,
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,
Her loyalty she kept, her love, her zeal:
Nor number nor example with her wrought,
To swerve from truth or change her constant mind.
—Milton.
And now Lotte Clinton was again alone in the world—-again with her face confronting her situation, prepared to sustain her cross with the meek fortitude she had always hitherto displayed.
She had nourished in secret her hope that one day she should meet with some sound-hearted singleminded youth, who would love her for herself, and whom she should love, and heartily too, for the selfsame qualification. It was only the natural promptings of a young girl’s heart; it would, indeed, have been unnatural for her not to have entertained some such notion.
She had met the man who had gained her heart—her first love, her soul’s idolatry.
He was not the man she had pictured. She had never sketched out such a figure, such a face as Mark possessed. She had never, indeed, created a model. She had hoped only for a manly loving heart, and Mark presented himself, carrying off her affection by a coup de main, without any of those considerations she had deemed essential to love being consulted in the matter.
Oh, she loved him truly, dearly, faithfully, and with the most pure unselfishness. No greater happiness could she conceive than being his wife. Yet to her clear mind there were duties superior to her deep affection, and she bent to them. She swerved not from them, even though her heart broke in the task.
The night that Mark went away she prayed for his happiness with earnest sincerity, and though she might never, never see him more, and her future life be thus made sad and cheerless, she sent up an entreaty that their separation might never sit heavy on his heart.
A week had passed away. She was pale, and a dull settled expression had fastened itself upon her once lively, intelligent open face. She had not seen her brother Charley since Mark’s departure, and her only solace had been Helen Grahame’s child.
She had hitherto loved it—now she doated upon it. It seemed all that she had left to love, and to love her; for that the child was most fondly attached to her there could be no doubt. She had had him christened by the name of Hugh Riversdale Grahame, and she had stood as godmother to him, resolving to fulfill firmly, faithfully, and justly that sacred responsibility in the absence of his own mother, of whom, since the night she left her so strangely, she had nothing heard.
One morning she was seated alone; she had laid the little Hugh down in his tiny bed for his morning’s sleep, and she was bending over her work with her accustomed close application. She thought of Mark; it was not possible to keep down thoughts of him. He never would come back to her—there seemed little doubt of that. How, indeed, she hardly hoped for it, hardly wished for it; for, despite her adoration of him—-it was no less—she seemed to feel acutely disparity of their positions, and that it would have proved an effectual barrier to their peace if united. She thought of his parting words, and her eyes filled with tears. He would not bid her adieu—he felt their parting so deeply—yes, he loved her; she was sure of that, and an involuntary “God bless him,” escaped her lips as her head sank upon her bosom, and the fast falling tears bedewed the work in her trembling hands.
“Sweet! sweet! sweet!” chirruped the little canary.
“Dear little dick!” she thought, as the bird’s rapidly repeated call attracted her attention, “the little darling sees that I am sad and would comfort me.”
She raised her eyes, and, lo, a woman stood before her.
One glance—it was Helen Grahame.
With an almost suffocating cry, Lotte rose to her feet.
Helen clasped her hands and cowered before her.
“Oh, Lotte, Lotte,” she murmured.
Had she have spoken, and explained for a thousand years, she could not have so clearly convinced Lotte that her mysterious absence had been involuntary, as she did by the utterance of those two words.
“I see it all! I see it all!” she exclaimed, with
Jut quivering lips. “You are not to blame, Miss Grahame.”
Helen, with a gasp of ecstacy, caught Lotte in her arms. She embraced her passionately.
“Oh! Lotte, my sweet, faithful, enduring friend,” she sobbed, “what do I not owe to you? Only teach me how—in some way—I may try to repay you for all the suffering I have occasioned you; for your faithfulness; for your blessed charity; for your dear, dear womanly sympathies; and for that service, inestimable in its value, which—never, never fainting under its sharp exactions—you have rendered me. Oh! Lotte, my own darling Lotte, had you been my sister, a fond, unselfish sister, I might have expected some such ministering; but from you, on whom I had no claim—not even that of mere acquaintanceship—how can I sufficiently appreciate it?—how strive to evince to you the feeling it has raised up in my heart toward you. Heaven bless you, dearest! I will try to show you how I estimate you, for I am rich, Lotte, and—and I can look the world in the face now bravely—ay, like a queen—but not unless you share it with me. No, Lotte, my love, my truest, dearest friend! You shared with me all you had in the world when there was no prospect—ay! and no wish on your part that I should return it—and now I am wealthy again, you shall share it all with me. It is my husband’s wish—my husband, Lotte, my husband—my little child’s father, Lotte.”
Her voice sank low, and she hid her weeping eyes on Lotte’s neck.
What! not a word, Lotte—not one little word to say?
No—not one!
At another time, she would have pressed some composure into her service, had it been ever so small; now she could not keep back her deep emotion, nor enlist a word to express even one of the many thoughts crowding, crashing through her brain.
Her whole frame appeared convulsed; she staggered as if she would sink to the seat, but Helen clung to her, sustained her, laid her weeping face upon her bosom.
“Rest thou there, darling!” she murmured. “Oh, Lotte, I am so happy to hold you again in my arms—no more struggles with the world, Lotte; no more unthreading of the web of life with a threaded needle. Dry your tears, my own darling and true heart, for if one mortal can ensure another’s happiness, I will compass yours.”
Happiness, and parted for ever from Mark!
Lotte could not refrain weeping, and Helen, finding it was so, hushed her own quivering voice, and wiped the trembling lids of Lotte; and kissed her pale cheek and forehead, pressing her again and again to her heart.
Lotte at length summoned her old strength of purpose, and putting down with a firm hand the uprising thoughts of her still desolate and lonely condition in life, she strove to obey Helen’s injunctions to light up her sweet pleasant eyes with a smile; and, after one or two efforts, she cleared her aching throat so as to speak.
“In all sincerity,” she said, “I am happy, oh, very happy to see you again and to hear such glad tidings, but I—I am sure I ought not to be thus encircled by your kind arms. You overrate what I have done, and our stations——”
Helen placed her hands over her mouth.
“Do not pain my heart, Lotte; do not wound me. If you talk to me in that strain, I shall fear that the old contemptible pride I once possessed had made me act so as to cause you to believe that I am hollow and deceptive, and eaten up with a fatuity of which I have long known the worthlessness. You have taught me that difference of station is levelled by human worth—what do I say—oh, Lotte, no station is so high as that held by one in right of truth and honour and virtue. Station, Lotte! If it were of us two to kneel to the one most elevated and entitled to the exercise of a noble pride, it would be for me to bend my knee——”
Lotte placed her hand before Helen’s mouth.
“It is my turn now,” she said, with a playful smile—sad though its expression still was. “Pray, do not speak to me about myself,” she added, almost mournfully, “for, indeed, it makes me feel embarrassed and uncomfortable, but let us talk of him in search of whom, in spite of your tender and kind words to me, your anxious eyes are wandering—little pet.”
“My boy! my dear, dear boy! where is he?” said Helen, with a spasmodic action of her throat, as she clutched Lotte’s shoulder.
Lotte smiled again one of her old, sweet smiles.
“He is so well, and so beautiful,” she whispered, “and such a dear, dear little darling.”
She took Helen’s hand, and on tiptoe they went together into the adjoining room. In a small wicker berceaunette, daintily trimmed with white muslin and pink ribbons, which had cost Lotte at least a dozen dinners, if not more, lay, sleeping, Helen’s child.
Rosy-faced, handsome-featured, and healthy-looking, he lay there a very picture. He slept lightly and pleasantly, and seemed a very cherub of happiness.
The devoted attention paid to him was evidenced in his own appearance and in everything surrounding him.
Once again Helen caught Lotte in her arms and passionately kissed her and sobbed wildly. Then she released herself and suddenly hurried from the room, to Lotte’s intense surprise.
She was about to follow her when she saw her hastening back, light of foot, bringing with her a gentleman. Lotte was at no loss to guess who he was.
Helen led her husband to the side of the sleeping child. She pointed to it, and in low quivering tones she exclaimed—
“Thus has she fulfilled her trust!”
Hugh gazed on his child, and then he turned to Lotte. She could see his eyes were humid, He caught her hands and sank on his knees with a sudden impulse before her.
She started; and as he pressed his lips almost impetuously on her hands, she struggled to withdraw them, crying—
“Pray rise, sir, pray do; I entreat you to do so. You distress me—you pain me, indeed you do.”
But Hugh still detained her.
“Pardon me!” he said, speaking rapidly and earnestly. “The position is not derogatory to me; it is a tribute to your worth. This is no occasion for cold form. I kneel to you in intense thankfulness; it is the prompting—the outpouring of a full heart. You saved my Helen! she who is dearer to me than life itself; you have saved and tenderly nurtured our child! By these two acts you have also rescued me from destruction and eternal perdition. I kneel to you that I may give some sign of the keen sense of my indebtedness to you—that you may in the coming time feel entitled to the position in which it is my intention to place you—justly entitled without one shrinking impulse or doubting impression. On my knees I thank you”—he rose up—“in my heart I treasure the memory of your service, and by my future acts I will strive to show how deeply and dearly I estimate it.”
Lotte faltered out some confused response, and ran out of the room to conceal her emotion.
By this time the little fellow, nestled in the cradle, had opened his infantile eyes, and turning them upon his mother, smiled.
To be sure she caught him up enraptured, and pressing him to her heart covered him with a thousand kisses; and then he was called upon to undergo the same process at the hands and lips of his father.
Then they adjourned, bearing their little treasure with them, to the adjoining apartment, where they found Lotte trying to get up an appearance as though she had no notion of tears.
Ah! Helen watched her expressive face, perused its lineaments with attentive scrutiny, and she saw there written a sadness too deep and settled to be ousted by any attempt to smile and seem gratified and overjoyed at another’s happiness. Not but that Lotte was delighted at Helen’s evident felicity, yet the surrender of her young pure heart to one who was gone no more to return to her, was a grief which resisted all her efforts to bury it deep in her own bosom without leaving an outward sign to mark its grave.
Helen, so well versed in the language of Lotte’s heart, interpreted by her sweet sad eyes and the play of her features that there was hidden anguish which, at whatever cost of pain, she sought to conceal, so that it might not disturb her new-found happiness.
“I will probe to that deep-seated sorrow,” thought Helen, “and if it is to be rooted out, it shall have no long-continued home in her dear heart.”
She, however, said nothing upon that subject now. She explained those causes for her absence and silence which which the reader is acquainted, adding that the sea-voyage her husband had taken her had rapidly produced the desired effect, for they had scarcely landed when she was fully restored to her intellect, remembered all that had happened, and did not rest until she was on her homeward voyage—indeed, until she had discovered Lotte, and presented herself before her.
Mutual revelations were made. Lotte furnishing a history of what had happened to her since Helen had left her, omitting from the narration the character of Mark Wilton.
When all these recitals had ended, Helen made known her intention of not leaving the apartments in which they were sitting without Lotte.
The latter shook her head, with a sad smile on her face, as the announcement was made to her; but Helen, with great decision, declined to accept any denial from her.
“I am prepared for all your objections,” she said; “in fact, Lotte, I have invented some for you, and have discussed them with Hugh only to most triumphantly defeat them every one.”
Then she ran hastily over them, suggesting all that Lotte really did feel in opposition to the scheme, with much more, but only to answer and refute all the adverse arguments.
And so Lotte was to be a lady after all—to have a fortune, and ride in a carriage of her own.
The wealth to which Hugh had succeeded would enable him to settle upon her an amount that would do this without in any degree inconveniently trenching upon his very large resources; and as there was really no consistent argument she could offer for its rejection, she, with swimming eyes of gratefulness, expressed her thanks and her hopes to be proved worthy such generous liberality.
Perhaps there was some latent incentive which might have helped to overcome her indisposition to accept an obligation so great, and perhaps a flush heightened the hue of her features as a passing thought suggested the poor sempstress passing before the eyes of old Mr. Wilton in her own carriage, even though he refused to receive her into his family.
Helen kissed her cheek affectionately, and said, delightedly—
“There is nothing, then, to step in between our arrangement.”
“Except your humble servant,” said a strange voice.
Both females uttered a startled cry, and Hugh jumped up and turned upon the intruder.
It was Nathan Gomer who stood near the door.
The same strange, almost unearthly grin was upon his face as usual, and he chuckled as he observed the utter surprise with which he was regarded.
Neither Helen nor her husband knew him; the former gazed on him with terror, the latter with haughty indignation at what he considered rude audacity.
Lotte knew him in an instant, though she had seen him but once, when he suddenly appeared as the friend of Flora Wilton, in the old abode at Clerkenwell.
In an instant she felt sure that his visit was to her; and she had a strange presentiment that whatever he directed her to do she must perform.
All remained silent for a minute—then Nathan smiled.
“You seem slightly astonished,” he said; “didn’t expect to see me. Ha! ha! I’m fond of creating a sensation. You don’t know me,” he said, nodding to Helen. “You do,” he exclaimed to Lotte, “and I have business with you both. Firstly, Miss Clinton, understand that I have had your character painted to me in most glowing language by a young man—nay, never turn so crimson, for the young lady by your side has just described you in highly favourable terms, and it is not the custom for young ladies to fall into extravagancies of encomium upon individuals of their own sex; so you ought not to look so very rosy when you hear that a young man extolled your virtues, even more highly than he did your pretty face and form. I don’t expect you, however, to continue the colour on your brow when I say, that having investigated the truth of his allegations, I have found not one over estimated—that you are truly worthy of and deserving the reward which your friend at your side has offered to your superior merits——”
“If you knew how distasteful to my ears are these praises,” interrupted Lotte, gravely, “indeed, sir, you would not follow the example of generous people, whose extreme kindness of heart leads them to speak and to think far too highly of me. It is as if truthfulness, faithfulness and singleness of purpose were not common to us all.”
“Ah, yes, very good,” returned Nathan, “the only thing is, that the possession of all those qualities by one individual is uncommon—a leetle—-I say, rather uncommon. But I won’t, if you wish it, tell you what I think, but I will ask you if you will be guilty of one more act of unselfish service. You have just entered into an arrangement fraught with every possible comfort and happiness: I have come to place myself between you and the realization of immunity from care, privation, and unwearying toil. To be brief, Mr. Wilton, senior, has been wounded by an assassin, and lies helpless and delirious upon his bed at Harleydale. His daughter Flora—you know her well, of course—also has been placed in a position of danger, which, together with the shock occasioned by the attack on her father, has placed her on a bed of sickness. Mr. Wilton has none but hired nurses therefore. Now, Mr. Mark Wilton——”
Lotte turned pale at the name; Nathan saw it. He cleared his throat.
“I say that Mr. Mark Wilton bethought himself of you. I will not pretend to enter on all the incentives which induced him to request you to take the unthankful and trying office of nurse to his father—at least, in tending him more as a daughter”—he laid a strong emphasis on that word—“than as a nurse. No doubt he will satisfactorily explain himself to you; but I may say that, knowing all the circumstances, I feel that the request is a strong one, its compliance hardly to be expected, and that some more than common motive has led to the suggestion. However, as requested, I put the proposition to you; it is for you to accept or decline it.”
Before he had finished, ten thousand reasons why she should not go had flashed through her brain, yet the one soul-possessing idea—her love for Mark—determined her to comply with Mark’s wish.
She was one who never let the sun go down on her wrath. She had forgiven old Wilton’s harsh words although they had so pained her. Now she had no hope that all the attention, care, and service she might be called upon to bestow would remove his objections to her; nevertheless she should be able to do some good for Mark’s sake; and if the parting with him for ever took place beneath the roof of his father, it would not be embittered, at least, by the remembrance that she had granted the aid he had asked of her.
She wiped hastily from her eyelids the tears which memories awakened by Nathan Gomer had gathered there, and said to him simply—
“I will go with you, sir, to Harleydale.”
For a moment the nostrils of Nathan were widely inflated, and he gave a very perceptible gulp.
“Hem!” he ejaculated, clearing his throat. “We will be off in two hours from this, so, lassie, make your preparations, and only one box, if you please—I say, only one box.”
Then he turned to Helen, and said—
“Madam, I know you, though you are unacquainted with me. Pardon me if I tell you matters are going on sadly in your father’s house. The family pride has had a dreadful fall. Your father is absent, your sister Margaret has—I say your sister Margaret has left her home, and your mother is confined to her bed in serious illness, with Evangeline, your sister, as her sole attendant; for the myrmidons of the law are in the house, and the servants have decamped.”
Helen listened to him like one in a dream; then she turned to her husband, and said to him—
“Hugh, we will proceed there this moment.”
He silently, but readily acquiesced; and with a few hasty loving words to Lotte concerning the future, Helen embraced her and departed, taking Lotte’s “pet” with her and her husband.
Two hours subsequently, Lotte Clinton, in the careful charge of Nathan Gomer, was on her way to Harleydale, wondering what new trial fate had in store for her.
There is a kind of character in thy life,
That to the observer doth thy history
Fully unfold; thyself and thy belongings
Art not thine own so proper, as to waste
Thyself upon thy virtues, they or thee.
Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched
But to fine issues.
—Shakspere.
It is not easy to conceive nor to clearly explain the true motives which induced Lotte Clinton to give her assent to the unexpected proposition made to her by Nathan Gomer. In no view was it pleasing to her, or calculated to afford her aught but embarrassment pain—-perhaps ungenerous insult. What, indeed, was it less than insult to ask her to tend the man in his helplessness, who, in his strength and pride, had stigmatised her as low-born? Alas! she could not look upon the present request as a compliment to her—there was no phase in which it could take that shape. It held out no prospect of effecting the realization of what had once been—so recently too—afondly, though timidly cherished hope. There was no prospect indeed, but that she would be harassed by Mark’s appeals and urgings, and pained and sorely tried by the denials he would force from her lips.
What was she to expect when Mr. Wilton recovered his senses, and became conscious of her presence? Would he not believe that she had meanly and surreptitiously contrived to gain admission to his house during his prostration, with the object of availing herself of the opportunity to fix more indelibly his son’s passion for her in his heart? What would naturally be his conduct and his language to her under such an impression?
Respecting Flora she conjectured little. She knew her to be kind and gentle; but the same influences which had affected her father, when an alliance was the subject of consideration, might have their effect upon her too.
She wished Mark had not sent for her.
Yet, withal, she would not have rejected the entreaty for worlds. No! beset as the task would necessarily be—with possible vexations, trials and contumely, she determined to go through with it. Still she thought Mark should not have asked this of her.
To refuse was not, indeed, possible to her; no, even if it cost her that fortune and ease which Helen Riversdale had promised her.
She did not once ask herself—Why? If she would not have answered that question, who else should make the attempt?
She did not dream that Mark Wilton was wholly guiltless of the message Nathan Gomer conveyed to her, or that, in meeting with him, she should have to undergo an ordeal she could not, under the circumstances, have contemplated.
The journey to Harleydale was performed rapidly. Nathan Gomer rendered himself as amiable and as entertaining as he could, until Lotte thought it was a pity he was so short, so extremely yellow, and so ugly, for really he was a cheerful, kind-hearted, dear little old man. On reaching the Hall, Nathan learned that Mark was alone in one of the sitting-rooms, and, forbidding the servant to announce him—his usual custom—he took Lotte by the hand, and pressing it, as if to reassure her, he, with noiseless step, approached the room to which he had been directed.
He found the door ajar, and he peeped in. He raised his finger to Lotte to be silent; and, opening the door without a sound, he advanced with his trembling companion to the shoulder of Mark Wilton, who was seated, gazing abstractedly out of the window upon the lovely landscape which stretched far away into the distance.
Lotte did not like the process, but really Nathan had so much instinctive influence that she took part in the proceedings unresistingly and without remark.
She quickly wished she had not done so.
Mark, who was sitting with his arms folded, suddenly released them, pressed his hands forcibly together, and ejaculated—
“Oh! Lotte, Lotte! cruel girl, you have no faith in my endearing love. You have coldly sacrificed my heart—my life—to a chimera!”
Nathan instantly tapped him on the shoulder; he started up and turned round. Uttering an exclamation of astonishment, he staggered back several paces, for his rapid glance had fallen upon Lotte’s downcast and grave features.
“Bad practice, Master Mark, that of audibly soliloquising; it is a failing of mine,” exclaimed Nathan Gomer, sharply. “Take the results of my experience—-it has got me into scrapes which money has hardly succeeded in plucking me out of.”
“I am not dreaming!” cried Mark, pressing his hand to his forehead. Then he rushed forward and seized Lotte’s passive hand. “Oh, Lotte! sweet Lotte!” he cried, “to what happy turn of fate am I to attribute your dear presence here?”
With a crimsoned face she looked upon him, and said, faintly—
“Did you not expect me?”
“Much as I have wished for you, I could not,” he said, “after our last interview, expect the happiness of seeing you here.”
“Oh, sir!” said Lotte, turning with a face as white as death, to Nathan Gomer, “you could not have conceived the misery you have occasioned me, or you would never have placed me in so cruel a position as this.”
“You have no right to be miserable, and you shall not be miserable if I have any influence in the matter,” replied Nathan Gomer. “Mr. Mark did not expect to meet you here, because he was not consulted in the affair.”
Lotte turned her reproachful eyes upon him, and said—“But, sir”——
“I told you that it was his earnest request that you should, as his sister was very ill, come down here and take her place at the bedside of Mr. Wilton,” interrupted Nathan, speaking in rather a dogmatical tone. “Well, he did request you in his heart: I knew that, and made use of it. The fact is, Mr. Wilton the elder is a very obstinate old gentleman. A career of privation, instead of teaching him some useful lessons upon social relations, has hardened his heart, as prosperity does those of other men. I have a mind to teach him, with your aid, Miss Clinton, a lesson too. What that may be you will know in good time; but you, who I know never refused to do good to all within your reach, will not refuse me this request. By a subterfuge, which by-and-by you will pardon, I brought you here. By appealing to your unselfish nature, I hope to retain you here. Mr. Mark Wilton has a spirit too noble to take advantage of your presence to alter the respective positions in which you stand to each other. For the present he will see in you only his sister’s dear friend. He and you will, I trust, leave the rest to me. Under my guidance, I hope to bring present cross purposes to a happy unity. Will you, Mr. Mark, be so good as to lead Miss Clinton to your sister’s room, she is fatigued with her journey; and then be kind enough to return to me, for, though Dame Nature omitted to lengthen my proportions, she did not curtail my appetite, and before I commence other operations I would silence its admonitions.”
Mark took Lotte’s hand; his impulse was to press it, but he refrained. He led her from the room, and on his way, he said—
“Your presence here, Mi—Mi—Mi—hang it, I may say Lotte to my sister’s dear friend, and I must. So let me tell you, Lotte, your coming will light up this dull, gloomy old place with sunshine. It is, indeed; welcome to me, and you will find how dear it will be to Flo’. Let me say also, Lotte, I quite understand the peculiarity of the position in which Nathan Gomer has placed you, but I am sure it is for the best he has done it; besides, you know he can do just what he pleases here. Let me further beg you to discard all fear of being ill at ease, for nothing shall be left untried to make you happy and contented, even to my scrupulously fulfilling the suggestion of Nathan Gomer.”
He released her hand as he concluded, tapped sharply at his sister’s room-door, and with a beaming smile of happiness, such as had not for some time illumined his face, he quitted her, and, hurrying along the corridor, returned to Nathan Gomer.
In one statement Nathan Gomer had been truthful. Flora Wilton was really very ill; her nerves had been shattered by the horrible event in which she had taken part, and by the sight of the ghastly face of her father, as he lay motionless in his bed on her return to Harleydale after her abduction. For a day or two she had contrived to devote herself to watching and waiting upon him, but when fever and delirium—the effects of his wound—exhibited themselves, her strength gave way, her nervous system was prostrated, and the physician attending her father insisted upon her not only keeping her room, but her bed, to prevent fatal consequences following her efforts to continue her self-imposed and natural office of nurse.
The chamber door was opened by Flora’s maid, who, without a word, admitted Lotte, assuming her to be a friend of her young mistress, and the latter walked up to the bedside to announce herself.
She could not forget in doing so that night when, rescued from the commission of a great crime, Hal Vivian presented her to Flora. She was not likely to forget her reception then, still she was not prepared for the cry of delight that Flora uttered when her feeble eyes rested on her face; still less did she look for the passionate action with which Flora flung her arms about her neck and kissed her many times. She had some difficulty in preserving her composure, and exerted herself to calm down Flora’s excitement and soothe her emotion. When the maid, intuitively comprehending that her absence would be desirable, retired, Lotte sought to elicit an explanation of this display of joy at her appearance. The more striking it was to her, as she expected only to be welcomed with a quiet courtesy, tempered by the reserve which did not acknowledge an equality of position between them.
To find herself so pleasantly in error was agreeable enough, but she needed, nevertheless, a cause for conduct at least improbable; and which, in the circumstances in which she was placed, she could hardly help looking at as a little more extravagant than the occasion warranted—grateful, so very grateful as she was for it.
She had yet to understand Flora’s actual position; and when she did so, her wonder at her reception was considerably modified. Flora had not one friend of her own sex. When old Wilton came to Harleydale, it did not occur to him to invite to his new home the gentry of the vicinity. He preferred seclusion; Flora thus had not even a female acquaintance. The events by which she had been rapidly surrounded were all of a character to render communion with a female friend all but imperative: one in whom she could confide, with whom she could consult, became in her isolation a want necessary to her present happiness.
With each succeeding phase of circumstances her need grew greater, and never did she feel more keenly, than at the moment when Lotte arrived, the desolation of having no ear in which to pour her sorrows, no gentle eye to beam with sympathy upon her sadness, no tender voice to guide her in the path she ought to take.
Of all the world, Lotte Clinton was the being she would have selected to fill up the void. Of all faces in the world to shine upon her now in her tribulation, Lotte Clinton’s was the most welcome. She knew Lotte’s kindly nature, and she knew her self-reliance. She knew that she loved, and that a cloud had settled on that love. She had faith in her pure, bright spirit; in its independence, in her clear sense of rectitude, and in that unwavering resolve which would maintain her in acting up to its dictates.
Here was a mind to direct hers, a soul to sympathise with her, and a breast which she could safely make the repository of her secrets.
Gradually Flora revealed the want under which she had so long suffered, and was not long in putting Lotte into possession of the fact that she looked upon her in the light of a very dear, dear friend.
Lotte knew Hal Vivian. Ah! how that smoothed the path to many a revelation! and she listened with such deep attention and sympathy to Flora’s confession—-though she had not sought it—that, in the fulness of her heart at finding at last a comforter and a counsellor in one of her own sex and of her own age—of her own cast of thought and feeling—Flora kept back nothing; and ere Lotte that night for the first time stood in the sick chamber of old Wilton, she was in full possession of all that Flora had to reveal.
It was not without a trembling hesitation, a nervous sense that she was in a false position, that Lotte entered Mr. Wilton’s chamber, but she felt, nevertheless, that she was borne along by the stream of circumstances, and she could not resist the force of the current. The sight of the invalid, however—his moaning, ravings, and feeble motions—at once dissipated all her personal feelings, and she applied herself to the duties she had undertaken with a promptness and tact which showed how much a willing spirit can supply to compensate for a want of knowledge. Thoughtfully suggestive, tenderly considerate, unwearied in application to her task, she elicited the warmest encomiums from the physician, who, at the end of the week, told her, in the presence of Mark and Nathan Gomer, that Mr. Wilton, if his life was spared, would be as much indebted for his recovery to her assiduous care and faithful performance of instructions as he would be to his own skill.
Mark, who had preserved towards her a very quiet and respectful demeanour, and never breathed a word about his love in her ear, regarded her now with grateful and affectionate glances; while Nathan Gomer, with shining face, grinned and rubbed his hands delightedly.
So, for a short time, matters went on. Flora, who shared, too, no mean portion of Lotte’s attention, fast recovered strength, and felt more placid and calm than she had been since the change in her circumstances had taken place.
Harry Vivian was not at Harleydale; he had gone to the scene of Colonel Mires’ fatal accident to attend, with Nathan Gomer’s agent, a coroner’s inquest. He had previously attended a preliminary examination of Mr. Chewkle before a magistrate, on which occasion the extremely chapfallen criminal was remanded for the recovery of Mr. Wilton, who, it was stated at the time, would soon be sufficiently well to give evidence. But Mr. Wilton at first grew rapidly worse instead of better, and therefore Mr. Chewkle was again remanded for a somewhat longer term than before.
The return of Mr. Wilton’s reason found him terribly enfeebled; but the danger having been surmounted, the recovery of strength was but a question of time. And now commenced the real difficulty Lotte had to encounter.
Mr. Wilton, as soon as he began to recognise anything, noticed Lotte’s presence; and, on making a remark respecting it, was informed by the physician that it was a young lady who had kindly undertaken to tend him with that earnest care which could not be obtained, save in exceptional instances, from a hired nurse, and he spoke in warm and praiseful terms of the service she had rendered.
Wilton fancied he had seen her face somewhere, but could not remember where; it was a passing thought, and he did not ask her name, assuming that it was some new-formed friend of Flora’s, residing in their neighbourhood; in truth, he was glad to think so, and satisfied himself with the supposition, for he felt too ill to pursue inquiries.
He quickly felt the value of Lotte’s presence and her services; there were so many little nameless attentions, such a close regard for his comfort and immunity from pain, such a constant anticipation of his wishes and his wants, that at length he could scarcely bear her from his sight.
He began to get strength to talk, and he conversed with her or listened while she read to him, eliciting occasionally her opinions upon the subject he had selected, and he was pleased with the evidence she gave of a sensible and practical mind, as well as of a pure taste. Soon his conversation, chatty and familiar, began to revert to herself, and became embarrassingly personal. Still he did not identify her.
He knew, indeed, that her name was Clinton, but the name itself struck him no more than if it had been Brown or Thompson, at least in connection with the individual whom his son frantically, as he considered, designed to marry. In fact it was not likely to occur to him that a young damsel, against whose admission into his family he had so vehemently and determinedly set his face, should have absolutely taken possession of his sick chamber, to act a daughter’s part. And as he had adopted, as soon as he began to be sensible of her kind attention, the appellation of “my little nurse,” in addressing or speaking of her, the name of Clinton quickly left his memory.
Only from her hand would he take his medicine; she never made any mistake, or gave him more or less than he ought to have had, and if she was not there to administer it, he insisted that it was not the proper time to take it. She gave him his food; it was always correct as to its quality, quantity, and fitness. Hers was the first face to greet his opening eyes in the morning, the last upon whom they closed at night. Ay, even in the night, at times, he would wake and find the same pleasant, patient face hanging over him, and when he asked why she had not retired, she was always ready to answer him with a plea, that during the previous day she had observed him to be not so well, and as a restless night usually followed those symptoms of retrogression, she was merely at hand to administer to him some soothing medicine which the physician had provided for such contingencies.
Her hand alone could smooth and arrange his pillow to his satisfaction. She was never impatient under the caprices of his temper or his ever-varying whims. She moved always with such alacrity—so light of foot when requested to do anything for him. She submitted so gently and patiently to his querulous testiness, and bore his peevish remarks, as she had throughout executed the task allotted to her, without a cloud upon her brow or a ruffle on her equanimity. “Of course,” cry the selfish, shrugging their shoulders, “such conduct was eminently politic; she had a deep game to play, and had the shrewdness as well as the ability to understand the part assigned to her, and to perform it well.” But “far-seeing” people are not always correct in their assumptions, and in jumping to a conclusion sometimes arrive only at the mire of their own ungenerous instincts; being as far from the truth as they are from the possession of tenderness of heart or magnanimity of soul.
The policy of such conduct formed no element in Lotte’s demeanour or action; it was in fact the result of her organisation, having undertaken such a duty, to so fulfil it.
Mr. Wilton, now rapidly approaching a state of convalescence, began, to weary of his chamber, and to long to inhale the fresh air without his stately dwelling. He sketched out to Lotte walks upon the terrace, and of the pleasure he should enjoy in again being enabled to take them, and how much that pleasure would be enhanced by her favouring him with the support of her kind arm. He promised to enlighten her upon many subjects of science and art, of which she knew nothing, and he promised himself also the pleasure of listening to her simple but always pertinent and sensible remarks.
Flora, too, had recovered her strength and her spirits. Communion with Lotte had toned down the perturbation of her mind, and rendered her far more contented and hopeful than she had been for some time past.
Poor Lotte! her own heart-canker exhibited no sign. The acute agony of her own thoughts was never suffered to display any influence upon her actions or manner in the presence of others; it was only when alone, and offering up her prayers to Heaven for strength to sustain her in the performance of her duty to others, no less than to herself, that the convulsions of a poignant sorrow bore down all opposition, and prostrated her.
Poor Lotte! if she had entertained any misgivings, even during Mark’s most sanguine representations to her of becoming his wife, they resolved themselves into a certainty now. She had only to cast her eyes upon the picturesque antique hall, with its saloons and its galleries, its rich appointments, its paintings, and its sculptures—upon the terrace-garden, with its fountains, its flowers, its rare shrubs, its elegant exotics and trees, and smoothly gravelled serpentine paths—upon the park, with its slopes and undulations of green sward—upon the plantation, and the woods beyond, to feel that it was not for her, so humble in her position, to share these grand and beautiful things.
It was a sorrowful conviction, but she did not quarrel now with Mr. Wilton’s opposition to her becoming Mark’s wife; it seemed, indeed, merely natural, taking life as she had found it, that he should do so, and not unreasonable. And it was to bear this conviction without repining that she prayed earnestly, and wrestled with her wishes ardently.
Flora was no sooner able to quit her room than she applied herself to the task of relieving Lotte of some portion of her labours. She did this with affectionate willingness, for she was desirous that Lotte should, after such continuous confinement to a sick chamber, be enabled to obtain rest, and such personal enjoyment as the beauties and advantages of the place afforded; and by the time Mr. Wilton was prepared to make his first visit down stairs, Flora was sufficiently recovered to resume her place at his side, and take up the position Lotte had so generously and so well filled.
There was quite a little excitement when Mr. Wilton came down for the first time since his attack to his library. Flora’s arm was used by him for support, because Lotte had not made her appearance. The old man was disappointed, and inquired sharply why his “little nurse” was not present. Flora replied that she had not quitted her room yet—that she was unusually late this morning—that she would, after having congratulated him upon his returning to his old place in the house, hasten to her chamber to ascertain the cause of her non-appearance.
“The sooner the better,” said Wilton, drily.
Flora quitted the room; and Mark now offered his father his congratulations upon his having quitted his invalid chamber, and his reappearance in his library.
“Thank you—thank you,” responded his father, quickly; and added, somewhat peevishly, “I miss the congratulations of one who has done so much to restore me to my place here; I quite expected to have had her help to get here, or, at least, her pleasant face to welcome me.”
“She’s a tender, kind-hearted, good girl, sir,” said Mark, trying to curb enthusiasm of tone and manner.
“She’s an angel, sir!” cried Wilton, vehemently. “I repeat it—an angel. There, now, is a young, inestimable creature, who would—but we won’t recur to that now; another time. Well, well, Flo’, where is little nurse?” he cried, as Flora entered the library.
There was a grave expression on her face, and she held in her hand a letter.
Lotte had quitted Harleydale early that morning. Certainly, of the three, none appeared more completely thunderstruck at the circumstance than Mr. Wilton.
“Gone!” he cried; “left us without a word?” He looked fiercely at both son and daughter. “What is the meaning of so extraordinary an occurrence?” he continued. “She must have been, in some way, insulted—outraged—to have departed in so abrupt a manner. Whoever has dared to be guilty of aught which can have compelled her to act thus shall be visited by my most wrathful indignation.”
The old man spoke with great excitement. Flora, half-frightened at his manner, said, hurriedly—
“Here is a letter, father which she has left upon her toilet-table, addressed to me.”
“Read it,” cried Wilton, imperatively.
Flora opened the note, and, with genuine emotion, read the contents. They ran thus—
“My dear Miss Wilton,—-Do not think harshly of me for quitting you and your beautiful home thus abruptly, but, indeed, I could not summon fortitude enough to part with you for ever.”
[“For ever,” ejaculated Mark and his father in a breath. “With quivering lip. Flora repeated the word, and went on reading.]
“My mission is fulfilled. I was placed by your father’s bedside in the darkest hour of his danger, with no skill, but only a hopeful heart and willing spirit to help and guide me. It has pleased Heaven to place him on the threshold of health, and my services, with you by his side, are no longer needed, so I retire again into my own humble privacy——”
“But I won’t allow her to do anything of the kind,” roared old Wilton, excitedly.
“Hush, sir, for mercy sake, hush!” cried Mark; and, in an agitated manner, said to Flora, “Pray, go on.”
Flora brushed her tears away, and proceeded reading—
“I have imagined and feel rewarded by the thanks your generous heart and kind nature would prompt you to render me for what I have endeavoured to accomplish in my office of nurse. I have imagined those of the other members of your family, and so am amply repaid. You and they owe me nothing on that account; yet, if I might claim a favour quite to repay all obligation, it would be to ask of you all to forget me—or if you may not be able to remove all traces of her whose social grade renders her of little worth in the eyes of those in your position, from lingering in your memory, at least act as if I were no more remembered. Do not seek me, do not write to me more—”
Wilton uttered an ejaculation of wonder. Flora, with an unsteady voice, proceeded—
“I beg also to be spared from giving explanations, for what must seem strange conduct in the eyes of your parent, yourself—perhaps of others, but I trust you will rest content by the acknowledgment that I am weaker in spirit than I believed myself to le. That seeing hopes shown to be illusions and dreams dissipated by hard—perhaps cold facts, I am desirous of not having anything in future presented to my eyes to raise up recollections of my poor folly, but would pray to be permitted to pass my future life with resignation and in graceful obscurity. You may know all, or you may know nothing; in either case, I earnestly implore you to grant my request. And so, dear, dear Miss Wilton, unequal to the agony of parting with you personally, take now from me therefore, through the medium of this note, my farewell, and for ever. May the Almighty bless you, and those nearest and dearest to you—-”
“Ahem!” coughed a voice loudly preventing, by the interruption, Flora from adding the name appended to the note.
Old Wilton, whose eyes were riveted on Flora, turned sharply to the spot whence the sound proceeded, as did Mark and Flora. They beheld Nathan Gomer standing before them. He blew his nose almost fiercely, and we are not sure that his eyelids were not filled with water. He cleared his voice, which betrayed symptoms of huskiness, and muttering first something about “a plaguy cold,” he addressed Flora.
“I am sorry, Miss Wilton,” he said, “to interrupt you, or to intrude unannounced upon private family matters, but I have some very important business, which cannot be delayed, to transact with your good father, whom I congratulate upon being down here in his library once more. With the permission of yourself and your brother, I will proceed to my work at once.”
Both Flora and Mark were glad of the opportunity of retiring from the library, to confer together upon Lotte’s remarkable proceeding.
Flora was utterly overwhelmed with surprise at what had happened. Mark was not. He began to understand Lotte’s character better. Never did he honour her more highly, or love her more dearly than when he heard the contents of that letter, which he not only intended to read, but having obtained possession of, to keep.
When Mark and Flora had departed, old Wilton motioned to Nathan Gomer to be seated; all the time in a state of mystification and wonder at the behaviour of his pretty, kind, little nurse. There was something to unravel, he was sure of that. And, after all, who really was she, and why had she departed from his house in a manner so extraordinary?
“I say I hope you are satisfied now!” exclaimed Nathan Gomer, loudly repeating some words he had previously uttered. He had been talking for some little time, and Wilton had not heard a word.
The old man started, and apologised for his inattention.
“A singular circumstance has occurred beneath my roof to-day,” he said, “and it has surprised, mystified, and upset me—yes, much disturbed me, when I hoped to have been really more gratified and happy than I have been for a long time. When you have finished your communication, I will take your opinion upon the matter.”
Nathan Gomer peered under his eyebrows at him, and stroked his chin. He noted, with seeming pleasure, the vexed expression the old man’s features wore; but he made no allusion to it, nor even to the incident respecting which he was to be called upon to give his opinion. He said, in a dry manner—
“I stated to you the present position of Grahame, and I have come to consult with you upon our future course with respect to that unhappy man and his family.
“But I did not hear you, Gomer,” exclaimed Wilton, quickly; “pray repeat it! How stands now the proud man who would have destroyed me and mine?”
“Low, indeed; broken, beggared, and outcast!” returned Nathan, with emphasis.
A grim smile sat on Wilton’s features.
“Retribution!” he muttered, “retribution!”
“A heavy one, Eustace Wilton,” said Nathan, with a sharpness in his tone not usual with him. “He has been struck to the heart in his family as well as in his fortune. I have small pity for the man, for he paused not at the most foul crimes to accomplish his selfish ends; but I cannot look at the stain which has befallen the female members of the family without a feeling of pain and regret. They were, at least, innocent of harm to you, in thought or act.”
“My children were innocent of wrong to Grahame,” said Wilton, harshly, “but he spared them not.”
“You are not a Grahame!” cried Gomer, in a startling voice. “You do not take his infamous conduct as your standard of action—do you?”
Wilton shrank back, and felt the colour spring into his cheeks, as he beheld the glittering eyes of the little man fixed upon his features, as if to read, by their expression, what was passing in his heart.
With an effort he assumed a cold demeanour, and said—
“Tell me, what is the exact position of the family at the present moment?”
“I have done so,” said Gomer, with a manner as cold as his own. “I will repeat it. Grahame has fled, it is not known whither, although a hot search has been made for him. The sheriff is in possession of his house in London, at my suit. His eldest daughter fled from his house and became a mother before she knew she was a wife; his second daughter has eloped with the Duke of St. Allborne, and is now his kept mistress. The proud mother—the destroyer of her husband, and, so far as she could be, the cause of her children’s ruin—-is confined to her bed with a wasting illness and a crushed brain; she is a hopeless idiot. The son is in prison, arrested at the suit of a tailor, who has been discounting bills for him, which he has dishonoured. That is the condition of the proud Grahames. I ask you, are you satisfied? Are your feelings of revenge glutted by this wholesale wreck of the family?”
“There—there was, I think, another daughter,” said Wilton, in a low, hesitating tone. “You do not mention her.”
Nathan shrugged his shoulders, and said, tartly, “You mean the youngest, Evangeline, a simple, artless, innocent girl, with a foolishly affectionate nature She is pretty and engaging, and has been giving clandestine meetings to a young lawyer’s clerk. If he happens to be a scoundrel, it is not difficult to prophecy what will be her fate. Again I ask you, are you satisfied?”
Old Wilton rose up; he pressed his clenched fist upon his heart. In a hoarse voice, he exclaimed—
“I am shocked, I am horrified, Gomer. I contemplated this situation with a vile satisfaction. I am terrified at its realization. My vengeance! ugh! it is gorged. We must interpose—stay the further progress of their misery. We will save this child—this Evangeline, and rescue, too, the rest from destitution and perdition. Oh, pride! accursed pride! it has triumphed over the reason and the conscience of both Grahame and his wife. Had they listened to the gentle pleadings of nature, rather than to the dictates of an overweening, selfish, unfeeling, arrogant pride, home and family-might at this moment have been to them a source of the purest domestic felicity. What is it now?—I shudder to reflect upon it. The happiness of their children could never have been an element in their worldly calculations; on the contrary, they have trampled on the natural affections, and have considered their offspring rather as appendages to their state than as children part and parcel of themselves. Oh, it is terrible! it is terrible!”
“Ho! ho!” shouted Nathan Gomer; and springing up, he caught Wilton by the wrist, saying, with vehement earnestness, “‘Before all things, truth; and truth at all times!’ Why, pride does this for you, Wilton; pride makes you determine to trample on the natural affections. You—you would break your daughter’s heart rather than she should not give her hand to a most dishonourable Honourable. You would, at the inspiration of pride, stamp out her truthfulness, by compelling her to swear at the altar to love and honour a man she could never love and never honour. Pride urges you to crush all your only son’s hopes of earthly happiness, rather than he should mate with one who possesses a rare combination of human virtues, but is not garbed in fine linen, and cannot disport her dainty limbs in a handsome carriage. Go to! have you not one excuse for Grahame’s frailty?”
Old Wilton groaned aloud, and buried his face in his hands.
Invention is ashamed,
Against the proclamation of thy passion,
To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true;
But tell me then ’tis so;—for, look, thy cheeks
Confess it, th’ one to th’ other; and thine eyes
See it so grossly shown in thy behaviour,
That in their kind they speak it.
--Shakespere.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.
--Ibid.
The night of the great and last party at Grahame’s mansion in the Regent’s Park was, in the anticipation of Mrs. Grahame, to have proved a crowning triumph of calculation. Upon this night she expected the Duke of St. Allborne to propose to her daughter, Margaret. He did propose, and his offer was accepted, but not in accordance with Mrs. Grahame’s plan. This night of splendid triumph, as it was to have been, proved to her a night of horror. The presence of Lester Vane threw her into a state of nervous apprehension and agitation, for fear that he would disclose the conduct and disappearance of her daughter, Helen. She observed, however, with as much gratification as she could feel in such a condition of flurry and alarm, that the Duke maintained a position close to Margaret during the early part of the evening, and devoted himself to her. She saw them retire into the garden, and she believed her hopes would be fulfilled. She had no conception of what was about to happen.
The music played joyously, the dancers whirled around in festive enjoyment, and the absence of Lester Vane for a time gave to Mrs. Grahame’s perturbed mind great relief; but Lester Vane again returned, and in spite of her manouvres he contrived to elude the proximity to him which she strove to keep up. She was, however, once more soothed by seeing him depart. Shortly, however, after he had gone she noticed a decided movement in her guests; one by one they disappeared, and rapidly too. In corners of the handsome saloon groups gathered and stood whispering, until she approached them; then they separated, and coolly bowed to her as they passed, but they unmistakeably at the same time left the house.
Evangeline approached her, and whispered to her—
“What has happened to Margaret, mamma? and why do some of these haughty people speak in terms of contempt of her?”
A flash of lightning seemed to dart through Mrs. Grahame’s brain. The blood rushed back to her heart; her eyes seemed filled with blood; she gazed with hazy vision round the room—to do so was a tremendous effort, but, though it had slain her, she must have done it.
Margaret was not present, nor the Duke of St. Allborne. They must have been absent hours.
“Send your papa to me, Eva!” exclaimed Mrs. Grahame, in a broken, guttural voice.
“Papa has not been in the room for a long time,” she replied; “he quitted before Margaret went into the garden with the Duke.”
“Send servants into the garden, and bid your sister return instantly hither; let her know her absence has occasioned remark.”
Mrs. Grahame staggered to a seat as she spoke, and Evangeline quitted the saloon to obey her.
The unhappy woman sat alone—sick, dizzy, agonised.
After all, a volcano existed beneath the surface of ice.
No one came and sat down by her; her guests appeared to shun her. She heard one heartless woman exclaim, “A cold night for a journey, even with love to warm it.” She heard a man say, “I don’t dislike the spirit which made her go off with such éclat!” and another utter a taunt in reference to the boldness of St. Allborne. She had a dim comprehension of what it all meant, but was powerless to act. She was transfixed by a whirl of thoughts—horrifying thoughts; she lost consciousness of what was going on about her; she seemed to be burdened by a frightful nightmare, which, while it presented the most horrible visions to her distracted eyes, refused her the power to move a limb—she appeared frozen to her seat.
She was at length restored to the no less horrible reality, by Evangeline—who, rousing her by her tearful embrace, pointed out to her the fact that every guest was gone; that the most active search had failed to discover Margaret, and that Mr. Grahame was not in the house, though no one had seen him leave it.
Mrs. Grahame fell down in a swoon, and was borne to her bed insensible.
The next day she was a raving maniac, and subsequently the most terrible delirium gave place to a babbling idiocy.
Still nothing was heard of Mr. Grahame, nor Margaret, nor Helen. Evangeline alone had the trial to endure. She had the aid of a physician, and that of Mrs. Truebody, the nurse to her mother—that was all. Her father did not return. A week elapsed; still he came not, nor came there any communication from him.
A few days more, and Mr. Jukes made his appearance as representative of the Sheriff of Middlesex. Mr. Grahame had put in no appearance to the writs with which he had been served. Judgment went by default, and execution was obtained. Mr Jukes levied, and placed both Nutty and Sudds in possession.
Evangeline did not understand what it meant; and, in her distress, she thought of Charles Clinton. She wrote to him, and made an assignation with him; for she feared, she knew not wherefore, to ask him to come to the house.
The appointment was kept, and she told him all. She implored him to advise her how to act, and to explain to her how it was that strange, dirty men, could force themselves into the house, stay there, and it was not in her power to call in policemen and have them turned out. He made all clear to her; assigned the reason of the flight of her father to his fear of arrest for debt, or want of moral courage to face the disgrace of his fall being proclaimed to the world. He explained to her that, in a few days, the whole contents of the mansion would be sold, and that she and her mother would be turned, homeless and penniless, into the street. He counselled her to write to the wealthiest of her near relatives, lay bare all the facts, and ask them to come forward to assist her in her cruel and unhappy condition. He undertook to manage to delay the return of the writ of execution until she could get an answer; and, with soothing words and sanguine prophecies, with earnest entreaties to keep a good heart, he accompanied her to her home, and parted with her under a promise to meet again as soon as her application to her Scotch relations was answered.
In three days she received it. There was no delay in the reply. The cold-hearted and selfish, who spontaneously refuse to help those in distress, are usually prompt in announcing their purpose. Evangeline received a reply, expressing great surprise and indignation at what had happened, and, under the circumstances, at the application. If Mr. Grahame had not thought fit to provide for his children in his prosperity, it was not to be expected that his relations would do so in their distress. The writer lamented the events but hoped it would terminate less unfavourably than she had expected &c., &c.
She wept bitterly when she read the note; it almost broke her heart. She was frightened to distraction at the prospect before her. What could she do, not alone for herself, but for her most miserable parent?
She met Charley again; she could not speak to him, but sank upon his breast and wept. She seemed to him as a bird nestling in his bosom. Surely, he thought there is no worldly distinction between us now; and he would upon the impulse have pressed her to his heart.
No!
She was still as much his superior by birth and therefore by station as she had ever been. Her affliction instead of levelling her, he perceived, ought to elevate her in his respect. Now, least of all, was a time for him to break through the barrier which conventional usages placed between them; and he bowed to the dictates of his honour no less than his conscience, and his manner to her became more deferential and respectful than ever.
He listened, when she could speak, to her sorrowful communication silently; and he read the letter she handed to him with a bitter smile of contempt. Then he said to her—
“I at least have better news for you. I have communicated with the plaintiff in the suit against your father. I have stated to him the very, very painful position in which you are placed, and I urged upon him to delay for a short time the last proceedings in this unhappy affair. In a kind and feeling letter, I have his instructions to keep everything as it is until further notice. I am not to permit a single article in the household to be touched. I am to remove one of the men, and the one remaining is to be placed where he will not be seen; and I am further directed personally to see that the terrible condition of Mrs. Grahame is not injured by anything that may hereafter occur.”
Evangeline pressed his hand warmly. “Your intelligence is welcome indeed,” she said, with emotion; “I feared that we should be cast upon the wide world to perish, with no pitying soul to hold forth a hand to save us.”
“Yes, one—I hope one,” said Charley, gently. “Who?” she asked, in simple surprise.
He hesitated for a moment, and then he replied in a low tone, which gradually grew earnest—
“I could not have seen you placed in so distressful a position without proffering my humble aid. I would have done my best to have secured you from the worst pangs of friendless privation. My dear, dear sister Lotte would have welcomed you, and shared her home with you. It would have been a long remove from the splendour of your own, but in the sincerity of heart, and the earnestness of desire to make you happy, to have been found within its walls, it would at least have equalled it.”
Evangeline again pressed his hand, but her heart was too full to speak.
“I shall see you at your own abode to-morrow morning, Miss Grahame,” he said; “and be assured, so far as lies in my power, every effort to remove all trace of the presence of the individuals whose office is so offensive shall be made, so that, however unhappy the circumstances may be which still surround you, that annoyance shall be withdrawn from you.”
“I can never forget your kindness, Mr. Clinton,” murmured Evangeline. “I cannot hope to repay it but by offering up my prayers for your welfare and your happiness.”
As the last word escaped her lips, Evangeline was struck by the thought that the task of administering to that happiness would be delightful to the happy, happy woman to whom it would be entrusted. She sighed. Oh! that it might be her lot. But no! The frowns of fortune were upon their house, and she had but to look forward to a life of secret sorrow, passed in tending her mother through all the miserable phases of her terrible affliction, which the most eminent physicians had pronounced incurable.
She sighed again and cast her sweet eyes upon Charley. Ah! it was impossible for him to misunderstand the soft, dreamy expression of that gaze, but it was equally impossible for him to forget or abuse the confiding trustfulness she had reposed in him; therefore he preserved towards her still the same respectful, gentle deference he had shown hitherto.
There might perhaps, he thought, come a time when he could speak to her without impropriety the true language of his heart—could address her in the fervent terms which his deep devotion for her would be sure to suggest, but until that time she was to him a young and gentle lady in affliction, who in full confidence in his honour had applied to him for counsel and direction; and he revered his honour too religiously to evade its stern dictates at the promptings of a passionate love—even though there was the temptation of a sweet, yielding, loving nature, which saw not the wide gap in their social grade with the same eyes as he did to aid those promptings. No! he curbed his strong inclinings and contented himself—a melancholy content it was—with the reflection that if events favoured his wishes he should propose to her and wed her in honour, fairly anticipating the felicity which would possibly attend such an union. If, however, fate decided against him, he would devote himself only still closer to the abstruse study of the law; strive to make a happy lady of Lotte, and die a bachelor—for marry another than Evangeline he resolved never to do.
Conducting Evangeline like a preux chevalier attending a high-born dame to her castle home, he left her within sight of it, so that he might know she regained it unmolested; then he turned slowly away to go home and dream all kinds of lovely things about her.
Every day after this he visited the abode of Evangeline to carry out the instructions of Nathan Gomer. During one of these visits, while seated talking to Evangeline, who was looking tenderly into his clear, dark eyes, and listening in deep attention to the words which fell from his lips—not that they were of themselves of much interest, but there was a tone in the voice which uttered them that had a music in her ear far surpassing that ever given by instrument—the door suddenly opened and the rustling of silk was heard.
Both looked up; and Evangeline, with a cry of passionate joy, leaped from her seat and threw herself into the arms of a lady who stood upon the threshold.
“Helen!—dearest Helen!” she cried, with intense emotion; “Helen, Helen, such affliction, such trouble has befallen——”
She hid her face, sobbing upon her sister’s shoulder.
Charley glided at once out of the room; and the two sisters, after the first burst of emotion was over, sat down, and then Evangeline related, interrupted only with hysteric sobs, all that had happened, dwelling upon the mysterious absence of her father, of whom not a single trace had been discovered, though every effort had been made, and upon the pitiable condition to which their mother had been reduced.
Helen, in the midst of their talk, rose up, and said, with a strong inspiration of her breath—
“Evangeline, I will see my mother now. Lead me to her.”
Evangeline took her hand, and together they entered the darkened chamber where the wreck of the proud woman lay in hopeless imbecility.
Helen grew pale as ashes as she entered the room. Her heart throbbed painfully. She found herself face to face with old Mrs. Truebody; and, as the good old creature started and wrung her hands, she felt her breath come and go in short hysteric gasps.
With a strong effort she drew the curtain aside and beheld the white, pinched, and drawn features of her mother screwed up into a smile—such a smile! Anything more terribly vacant it is impossible to conceive. Her eyes, divested of all expression, roamed to and fro without any apparent object. She gibbered, and babbled, and clutched at the bedclothes with her fingers. Sometimes she nodded her head, and then a short, screeching laugh would be heard.
Helen, with a burst of anguish, fell upon her knees, and said, in accents of acute mental suffering—
“Mother! mother! look upon me—speak to me—I am Helen, your penitent child, come back to strive to compensate you for the pangs and shame I have occasioned you. Mother! for mercy sake recognise me! See, I am Helen—she of whom you were so proud, and who so crushed all the hopes you raised. Look at me; speak to me; if only to spurn me; but speak to me, mother—in the name of Heaven’s holy charity, speak to me!”
Mrs. Grahame at the sound of her voice, turned her head, but she only laughed vacantly, and nodded, and screeched again.
Helen wept frantically. She took her mother’s hand and kissed it wildly. She bent over her and caressed her in the throes of the deepest emotion, but without eliciting one single token of recognition.
Mrs. Truebody at length came forward and took Helen by the arm and waist—
“I pray you to retire, my dear young lady,” she said, speaking with firmness. “You are unintentionally only doing ill. Your unhappy mother is beyond all power of recognition. There is only one hope of a restoration of her senses, and that will be immediately preceding the moment when Heaven pleases to call her hence. Now you are disturbing and making her feverish, because she cannot understand your actions or comprehend your grief. You are injuring your own health, when its preservation is needful, and you are afflicting your dear young sister beyond her power to endure it. Pray, pray exert your self-command. I do assure you, Mi—madam, that your best fortitude and courage are needed now.”
With one agonised look at the expressionless face of her mother, Helen turned to depart. She caught Evangeline in her arms and kissed her tear-bedewed cheeks with fervent earnestness, and then, with her arm folded around her waist, she quitted the chamber. Not a word or look at Mrs. Truebody. She could not trust herself to say a word to her now. She had not forgotten her. She had prepared a suitable reward for her; but at this moment the sight of her face raised too many unhappy recollections for her to be able even to speak to her.
Once more alone in the sitting room, Helen inquired of Evangeline where her sister Margaret was, and upon what plea she had quitted the scene of affliction.
Evangeline simply recounted the circumstances connected with the mysterious elopement with the Duke of St. Allborne, and expressed her wonder that Margaret should not have stopped at home, and been married in the proper and usual fashion. Helen, with burning cheeks and suffocating emotion, rose up and paced the room, placing her hands upon her beating temples. Suddenly she turned round and said—
“Where was Malcolm, that he did not follow them?”
“Malcolm told me that the Honorable Mr. Vane advised him not to do so. He said that it was a mere romantic flight to Gretna Green, and that it would all come right at last.”
“Villain! atrocious villain!” muttered Helen; and then said, sharply, “but where is Malcolm now? Why should he, my poor Evangeline, have deserted you in this dreadful crisis?”
“He is in prison!” returned Evangeline, with, a shudder. “A gentle’—I—I mean it was explained to me that he had incurred debts and did not pay them, and therefore the creditor, by help of the law, put him into prison until he can make some arrangement.”
Helen clasped her hands.
“This is an abject fall for pride, indeed!” she exclaimed, with bitterness.
As her eye fell upon Evangeline’s sweet, artless face, in gratitude that at least she had escaped the heavy visitations which had fallen on the other members of her family, she observed that her skin—so rarely delicate and white in its accustomed aspect—was suffused with crimson, and that she seemed strangely confused.
“It was explained to me,” suddenly recurred to Helen, as a sentence Evangeline had uttered with some embarrassment. Then it flashed through her mind that she had found her tête-à-tête with a young and handsome man, whose face she did not at the moment recognise—like as he was, in his general contour, to Lotte Clinton.
A pang went to her heart. What! was not even her simple, innocent sister to be saved?
She sat her down and questioned Eva closely; she elicited from her a confession of all the clandestine meetings she had granted to Charles Clinton with the purpose of learning tidings of her sister, or of obtaining guidance and counsel under the great affliction with which the whole household was overwhelmed.
Helen wiped the clammy moisture from her brow and moistened her parched lips. She fixed her gaze upon Evangeline’s still crimsoned features and her downcast eyes, and then placing her cold hand upon her sister’s, and clutching it firmly, she said—
“Eva, you love this man!”
A thousand thousand thoughts rushed through Eva’s mind. Love him! in truth she did with her whole heart, her whole soul! Her cheeks burned more fiercely than ever. She threw herself upon her sister’s neck and hid her face, but did not utter a word.
Helen felt as if she should swoon away, but she conquered, by a powerful effort, her sudden sickening faintness, and releasing her sister’s arms from about her neck, she bade her be seated, and herself set the example.
She again took Evangeline’s hand in her own, and pressed it.
“Eva, darling,” she said, with fervent impressiveness, “I ask you—I implore you—to confide in me; to be truthful and unreserved. I will not judge you harshly; be this the proof. I have erred, sinfully, shamefully erred, and my grievous error has brought with it no light punishment. Listen! Like you, I was by accident thrown into the society of one who was personally and strikingly handsome, and whose tone of thought it seemed to me closely resembled my own in all things. As we were then situated, to have been constantly in each other’s society in the presence of friends would have excited remark. We were both young and sensitive, and were desirous of evading the jests of those by whom we were surrounded, especially as observations respecting our liking for each other were floating about among those who were eager to make most thoughtless use of them. As, however, we had a fondness for each other’s society, we eluded what we feared by contriving clandestine meetings. Alas! alas! Eva, the dreadful consequences of those secret meetings; the promptings of passion and love for each other, cast, in one fatal moment, the rules of purity and innocence aside, and I became the victim of my selfwill; a victim of that departure from truth and clear integrity which commits no action the light of day may not shine upon. Clandestine meetings forced upon me a dreadful secret; clandestine meetings made me fly my home; clandestine meetings plunged me into trial and affliction; horrors of which you can have no conception. Oh, my dear, dear Eva! by the mercy of Heaven, I have been relieved from the worse consequences of my sin and from the madness of an ignoble pride; let me implore you, upon my knees, no more to consent to a secret interview with anyone in man’s form again. What it may be necessary for him to say or you to hear, should be said, after he, in the face of all who are deeply interested in your welfare, has frankly acknowledged his affection for you and honourably asked permission to address you, that he may win and wear you before the whole world; then, indeed, he is worthy of your love; then, indeed, may you in secret listen to the ardent whispers of his passion. But oh, Eva, dear! not till then—not till then.”
Eva, still embarrassed and confused, only wept, and, in so doing, yet more affrighted Helen. She stole her arm about her waist, and said to her, in a low, soft voice—
“You love this person, Eva, whoever he may be, that I see; now tell me, darling, how and when he first declared his love for you, and induced you to give him your heart?”
Eva looked up a little surprised.
“He never declared any love for me Helen, dear,” she replied, faintly. “He does not love me; it is not likely he would.”
“Not love you?” asked Helen, with surprise.
“Oh, no!” she answered, “he never breathed one word about love to me.”
“But how has he treated you?” inquired Helen, with an astonished look.
“Gently and respectfully; oh, so very respectfully so painfully respectfully, Helen,” replied Evangeline, with more animation. “In all innocence, I am sure I arranged with him to meet me. I—I don’t think he asked me to do so—I am sure I do not recollect that he did. No, I was so very, very anxious to learn tidings of you, that, in fear of papa, I think I said I would come where I could hear what he had to communicate unheard by any one but myself. He always met me and treated me as one, oh, so far superior to himself; and now that we have all been thrown into such deep distress, he is yet more deferential and respectful than ever. Not distant, Helen, but as if he thought me a princess now, if I had been a lady before. Nay, he would not have deserted me and mamma, though we had have been thrust forth by the cruel officers into the street, for he said he would have provided a home for us”——
“A home!” echoed Helen, hoarsely; she believed the realization of her fears was coming now.
“Yes, with his sister Lotte—you know her well, Helen—she is very amiable, I believe; but you, who lived with her for some time, can best tell.”
Helen looked upon Eva perfectly astounded.
“This—this young man’s name is——?” she asked, pausing at the last word.
“Clinton,” replied Eva, softly.
Helen drew a long breath, rose and paced the room again. After a few turns, she took her sister in her arms, and said—
“He is worthy of your love, Eva; for I doubt not that you have won his heart”——
“Oh, Helen!”
“I think it is clear; and, in such a case, he has acted nobly. I owe a debt to his dear sister, which, though it is my intention to endeavour to acknowledge to the best of my ability, is yet one that can never be repaid; and for her loved and loving brother Charley—well, Eva, when this cloud which has settled upon our house has passed away—the storm is in its intensity now—we shall see, darling”——
There was a gentle knock at the door as she concluded; and, on the permission to enter being given, the subject of their conversation entered.
His face was pale, as though he had suffered a great shock; his mien was sad, even solemn. Both Eva and Helen noticed it; instantly, together, they exclaimed—“In Heaven’s name, what has happened?”
“I am the bearer of most distressing news to you, young ladies,” he replied, in a grave, subdued tone. “It costs me great pain to fulfil the office, but I have undertaken it, that the announcement may have nothing added to its poignancy by abrupt thoughtlessness.”
The two sisters clung to each other, and looked upon him affrighted.
“Let me prepare you,” he said, “to receive painful intelligence respecting your father.”
“Dead!” broke from Helen’s lips, with a groan.
Charley bowed his head; and the sisters burst into tears, though their lamentations bore no outward violence of gesture.
“It is not all,” said Charley, sadly; “since his mysterious disappearance an experienced detective was engaged to endeavour to find him, and, after most arduous labour, succeeded in tracing him to the vicinity of Hendon, where his body had been discovered lifeless upon the earth. Nothing was found upon him to tell who he was; and, after a coroner’s inquest was held, bills describing the body and the circumstances under which it had been found were put forth; one accidentally caught the eye of the detective, and he prosecuted inquiries in that neighbourhood. He found that interment had taken place under the direction of the parish authorities, and nothing, therefore, was left to identify the unknown but his clothes and a handkerchief. Mr. Grahame’s man has recognised them, and thus has placed beyond doubt his sad his dreadful fate.”
Both sisters were in a convulsion of grief, and Charley felt most distressed, for he knew not how to offer them consolation. But as he knew of the forged deed, and of the worst crime—the incitement of Chewkle to commit the murder of old Mr. Wilton, he could only say to them——
“Let it be some consolation to you, ladies, to know that, unhappy and dreadful as this event proves, it is better under all circumstances that it has so happened.” So, Grahame had after all died a pauper’s death and had received a pauper’s funeral. Such was the end of an imperious pride, unsustained by the principles of religion and morality.
Yet more grief for the afflicted girls.
Mrs. Truebody made her appearance abruptly in the room. She tottered rather than walked to the two sisters, yet weeping in each other’s arms. She pressed her hands lightly upon their shoulders and said, in weeping tones—-
“Dear, dear young ladies, the terrible intelligence you have just heard comes not alone—evils seldom do. The sad news I hear can but add to a grief, violent enough without it—of that I am aware, but it does not come without a consolation. If it has pleased Heaven to remove suddenly your afflicted mother from this world, it has released her also from suffering, and a calamity which must have been a grief to all who were near and dear to her. Poor, dear, afflicted young ladies, your mother is no more.”
Helen sank fainting on a chair.
Charley had already caught Evangeline in his arms, as she suddenly became bereft of all consciousness.
Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man’s erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is Pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Whatever Nature has in worth deny’d,
She gives in large recruits of needless Pride!
For, as in bodies thus in souls, we find
What wants in blood and spirits, swell’d with wind.
—Pope.
If Nathan Gomer had constructed a plan for the accomplishment of the matrimonial hopes of Flora and Mark Wilton, the reading a homily to Mr. Wilton, upon the cruelty of forcing the hand to be given without the heart, formed no portion of it. He was content with having produced a striking effect; and he suddenly—as abruptly as he had spoken—rose up and quitted the room.
He did not, however, remain away long; but returned to the library, accompanied by Mr. Wilton’s solicitor and old Josh Maybee.
During the interval of his absence, Mr. Wilton, shocked by the disclosures made by him respecting the fate of the Grahame family, had certainly had some grave reflections pass through his mind upon the mutability of human affairs, as well as upon the vanity of human pride; but these newly-awakened sentiments were quickly put to flight by an inspection of law papers placed before him by his solicitor, and by some revelations made by old Maybee, who also produced those documents which were needful to identify Wilton as the actual legal claimant to the Eglinton estates. He put in, as well, his own proofs of a title to a portion of the property in question, which Wilton directed his solicitor to examine with scrupulous closeness.
Deeds, plans, statements of accounts, registers, &c., were spread over the library table; and an abstract was handed to Wilton, which he devoured with avidity, for it gave him a more clear and definite notion of the value and extent of the property to which he was about to succeed than he had before been able to obtain.
The vastness of the possessions and the largeness of the revenues were made clear in this paper, and the contemplation of it fascinated him. He closed his eyes, and lo! a fair vision of a highly cultivated district was spread out before him. The woods and vales, the sloping hills, the park, the plantations, the pastures and farm-lands, the villages, and a numerous tenantry bowing to him as sole owner of this lordly domain, successively presented themselves to him.
When he opened his eyes again, the reflections inspired by Nathan Gomer’s observations were no more remembered. Once more he was inflated with vain glory; elated by his accession of wealth; unmindful of past services received; oppressed with a torrent of schemes of future grandeur; and more than ever unprepared to accept high moral principles and genuine personal worth in lieu of birth and rank, in whatever prospective matrimonial contract might be formed with any member of his family.
The perusal of that document was too much for his strength of mind. Evidences of its effects upon him were to be seen on his flushed cheek, in the excited, restless expression of his eye, and the dignified tone he gradually assumed to his “man of business.” Then, too, Josh Maybee, received by him in a frank, familiar manner, suddenly perceived that he was being patronised with the loftiest air imaginable, a style and manner which Wilton continued, when addressing him, with such unvaried uniformity, that the poor old fellow began to imagine and ultimately to believe that through a long course of years he must have been under the deepest obligations to him—barred windows, prison walls, and an age of griping penury, nevertheless—that he was now only too much honoured in being permitted to be the actual instrument of establishing the Wilton claim. He certainly felt mystified; but the imperial manner of Wilton towards him assured him that it must be all right.
Then, too, he was so graciously condescending to Nathan Gomer—waved his hand to him, and smiled as a sovereign, receiving homage while seated upon his throne. This last ebullition rather disconcerted Nathan; he grinned not pleasantly—more as a hyena preparing to spring upon a victim.
“Ho! ho!” screeched the little man, as he retired to a window, and looked out. “Ho! ho! he condescends to me—me, who have done so little for him. Ho! ho! so good of him—ho! ho! so beneficent of him. How prostrated with thankfulness I ought to be. I ain’t, not a bit of it, not a morsel; I must be a fiend of ingratitude. His heart, once as soft as pudding, is becoming steel; I’ll steep it in vinegar, and see whether that will dissolve it.”
He turned back to where Wilton was seated erect, listening to expositions made by his solicitor, and regarding with an attentive scrutiny some of the documents before him, especially those which had reference to the rent-roll.
Nathan’s features had assumed an expression such as they seldom wore—one hard, disagreeable, and unfriendly. He addressed the solicitor, suggesting that, in Mr. Wilton’s weak condition, it would be prudent to defer until the following day further proceedings. Such signatures as were immediately required he had obtained, “and altogether,” he said, looking hard at Wilton, “he thought a very satisfactory progress had been made.”
Wilton loftily assented, and as loftily begged Nathan Gomer to do the honours of the table for him to his man of business, and “that good creature Maybee,” as he did not then feel that he possessed the strength necessary for such proper courtesy—such very proper courtesy. Nathan displayed his teeth, and accepted the post of honour. He conducted the pair to the dining-room, where he introduced them to Mark Wilton and Flora. He whispered a few words into Mark’s ear, and then returned to the library.
Old Josh Maybee gazed after him as he disappeared, and said to Mark—
“An awfully singular, elderly little gentleman. Pray do you know who he really is?”
“Ay!” added the solicitor, musingly, “a singularly peculiar personage, indeed. I never could make out who he was, or is, or will turn out to be.”
“Strange little fellow enough,” responded Mark, “but you pose me when you ask me who he is. I often ask myself that question.”
“He appears to be very kind-hearted, and to have a generous spirit,” said Flora. “I should like to know who he really is. He comes and departs so mysteriously; he seems to be acquainted with everything that has happened or is about to take place; papa says he is very wealthy——”
“E—nor—mously wealthy,” chimed in the solicitor, speaking emphatically.
“He possesses great influence over individuals,” continued Flora, “and, seemingly, over circumstances. I have great faith in anything he may predict, and—and I really should like to know who he is.”
The object of their speculations was at this moment alone with Wilton; on entering the library, he strode rather than walked up to where Wilton was seated, still poring over the abstract. He threw himself into a seat with a sudden violence which made Wilton start, then to elevate his eyebrows, then to frown.
This person—this Mr. Gomer, was assuming a familiarity, which he now thought it would be proper to check. He screwed up his eyes and affected a distant manner.
“You have something to communicate to me, Gomer, I apprehend, by your speedy return,” he observed, with his eyes fixed upon the paper he held in his hand.
“I have, Wilton,” he said curtly; “a very good time too, I think, to say it, now that you are all but installed owner of your large property.”
Mr. Wilton coldly inclined his head.
“Proceed!” he exclaimed.
Nathan made a grimace.
“Hem!” he coughed, “the gap is wide which separates the Queen’s Bench from Eglinton Park, Mr. Wilton.”
Mr. Wilton’s cheek flushed at the suggestion. He coughed too.
“Um—a—Gomer,” he said, “those are contrasts which only vulgar minds draw. Wonder is the offspring of ignorance—um—a—don’t repeat, I pray, such observations.”
“And Pride is the parent of evil,” chuckled Gomer. “Ah, I used to write that in a copy-book. However, I have not come here to make reflections, or to bring disagreeable reminiscences before you. I came to inform you that, the day after to-morrow, you will have to appear against our cunning friend, Mr. Chewkle, who very nearly rendered the possession of the Eglinton estates a matter of no importance to you.”
“The atrocious assassin,” exclaimed Wilton. “I wonder how I escaped the villain’s bullet upon such favourable terms.”
“Do you not know?” asked Gomer, eyeing him keenly. “Um—a—well, by the providence of Heaven, his aim was bad, and my gamekeepers were at hand,” said Wilton, reflectively. “Truly it was a fortunate circumstance that they were near, or the wretch would have slain me. I have a faint remembrance of his kneeling upon my chest——”
“And of him whose hand clutched the scoundrel by the throat and dragged him off at the moment his hand was raised to terminate your existence?”
“Um—a—no, I do not recollect that. My senses left me: but I shall reward that individual liberally—in short I will place that matter in your hands, Gomer, to give to him whatever you may think will satisfy him—um—a—with my thanks.”
“Are you serious, Wilton?” asked Gomer, almost jeeringly.
“Sir!—-a—um-Mr. Gomer, pray inform me what there is in my manner or tone which implies that I have descended to jest on this subject?” exclaimed Mr. Wilton, with hauteur.
Nathan Gomer laughed and rubbed his hands.
“I asked the question because I suspect that you would not endorse my award,” he replied.
“I do not comprehend you, Mr. Gomer!” responded Wilton, still in the same distant tone. “If I appoint you to manage an affair for me, giving you a carte blanche to act in the matter, I consider it a reflection upon my honour to assume that I should be dissatisfied with your award.”
“Listen, Wilton!” exclaimed Gomer, striking the table a sharp, angry blow. “The individual who saved your life at the most critical instant of its jeopardy would spurn a money compensation.”
Mr. Wilton opened his half-closed eyes.
“I suspect that, although it was at the risk of his own life he saved yours, he attaches but little credit to his deed,” continued Gomer, “for he would have acted precisely in the same way to save the meanest wretch in existence.”
“Oh!—a—well, if he attaches no importance to the act,” said Wilton, shrugging his shoulders with the air of one who considered his dignity reflected on, “why of course, I——”
“Must!” suggested Gomer, with emphatic shrillness, “for his gallant rescue was everything in the world to you—children, Harleydale, Eglinton, all—all. Therefore, though he may view his conduct with disinterested eyes, you cannot, and you should reward him fittingly.”
“But—a—I must suggest that there is a wide distinction between the meanest wretch in existence and a—a—the owner of——”
“Yourself, you mean,” interrupted Gomer, bluntly; “that is exactly why you should reward him as becomes your position.”
“I empower you to do so,” said Wilton, with a most dignified gesture.
“Softly,” said Gomer. “You are also indebted to him, not only for the life, but the preservation of your daughter’s honour.”
Wilton started, and fixed upon him an incredulous stare.
“Your condition, after you received your wound, prevented your being told what really occasioned the illness of your daughter Flora,” said Gomer, impressively; “let me briefly explain. The details you shall be made acquainted with hereafter, Your late guest, Colonel Mires, who began life by plunging from gambling into forgery, and whom you saved from destruction by timely repairing the consequences of his crime, who, in turn, obtained Harleydale for you, conceived a passion for your daughter Flora——”
“I had some such suspicion,” ejaculated Wilton, looking aghast, as if he feared what was about to follow.
“He, sir, finding that the field was occupied,” continued Gomer—“that he should never gain your consent to marry her, nor her consent to have him, acted independently of both, and carried her off.”
“Carried her off?”
“Precisely. In accordance with a most skilfully devised plot he bore her off on the morning on which that knave Chewkle fired at you. The same active spirit that interfered so opportunely in your favour discovered the abduction, and pursued the ravisher. He succeeded in overtaking, in rescuing, and restoring your daughter safely to her home again.”
There was a pause for a minute.
Then Nathan Gomer said, drily—
“Not a fellow this to receive a money compensation.”
Mr. Wilton made two or three efforts to speak; at length, by a desperate exertion, he said—
“The name of this person—a—um—is——”
“Mr. Henry Vivian,” replied Nathan Gomer, in a clear, sonorous voice.
Mr. Wilton sank back in his chair.
Was it possible to be afflicted with more vexatious or annoying intelligence than this? Had it been anyone else, his liberality would have known no bounds; but to be indebted to this parvenu, who aspired to an alliance with his house, for the lives of himself and daughter was intolerable.
What to say—what to do, he could not conceive, his brain was in a whirl. He remained silent.
Nathan Gomer fixed his bright, dancing eyes upon him.
“My award, Wilton, to Mr. Vivian, for his earnest services to you and your daughter, would have been to bestow the hand of the damsel upon him, in accordance with the maxim, that the ‘brave deserve the fair.’ But I presume, as I said before, that you would not endorse my award, though I more than half suspect the young lady would herself do so with a ready pen.”
Wilton quitted his chair, and paced his room, a movement he usually resorted to when his mind was agitated; suddenly he paused and stood before Gomer, and said, in an excited manner—
“You were correct, Gomer, in supposing that I should not endorse any such award—perfectly correct; such a notion is preposterous, wild, romantic,—a—a—foolery. I—a—I am—a—on a ship with my daughter—-a—we both fall into the sea—a—a—a brave sailor jumps in and saves us both; am I—am I to give my daughter’s hand to that sailor. I admire him, I honour his bravery, and would reward it—a—but with my daughter’s hand—a—never. I never heard of anything so astoundingly—why—a—Gomer, you do not look much like a susceptible romantic personage, you can hardly feel it your business——”
“To make two young hearts beat in happy unison,” interrupted Gomer, sharply. “Yes, I do. Why not? Why should I not, eh? Permit me to ask why I should not? I can’t help my looks. A diamond, you know, has an ugly crust; but because I am a dwarf, and look as if I performed ablutions in turmeric, it does not necessarily follow that I should have a lump of granite for a heart.”
“But, Gomer, you are—a—rich—and a—a—man of the world—a—” responded Wilton.
“I am both,” answered Gomer, emphatically. “I am a man of the world, and I see that, like boys after butterflies, the majority of my kind pursue objects as gaudy and as useless when caught. I see the hollowness of most human purposes, the eagerness with which they are pursued, and the wretched, vexed vanities they prove to be when possessed. I am rich, Wilton; but I apprehend the true purpose of riches to be something different to self-deifying aggrandisement. The world is full of woe—the mission of wealth is to alleviate it: also, to assist and to elevate human worth, and to plant happiness where it has not been wont to bloom. Such have been the objects of my life-labours; and such, I trust, they will continue to be. I do not, however, pretend to attempt to control your actions, or guide you in the performance of your duties. That must be your own task. I simply reiterate what my award to Mr. Vivian would have been; and now I expect you will take upon yourself the office of acknowledging the debt of gratitude you owe to him—rather a heavy obligation to my thinking—and the consideration of the meet reward you will bestow upon him.”
Wilton, after a little reflection, said—
“It appears to me, in looking back on the past, Gomer, that—a—that you have exercised a considerable, I might say a very considerable influence over my actions, and have directed generally the course of my inclinations, a—a—and my intentions. Even now, a—though disclaiming such purpose, it seems to me that you are occupied—I—a—should say, actively occupied in forcing me to swallow a potion most repugnant to—a—to—to my nature, seeking to impel me by honeyed words concerning the good which a—a—must result from my acquiescence—a. Stay, don’t interrupt me now. I would fain acknowledge that you have hitherto shown the greatest interest in my personal affairs; that, I say, I think is undoubtedly clear. It is also plain and undeniable that your—a—um—your interference hitherto has been attended with the best possible result; that I admit. It might in the present instance—I say it might—I am by no means supposed to think it would, but it might operate beneficially if it succeeded in making me believe that it would be at least proper to bestow the hand of my daughter upon Mr. Vivian. But before I consent to re-open the case, and listen to a repetition of your arguments, be good enough to tell me who you are, and explain to me why you, a comparative stranger—merely the landlord of a house I once inhabited—should have mixed yourself up with my affairs, and now take upon yourself to direct me in the disposal of my children in marriage.”
Nathan Gomer rubbed his hands briskly over his chin and mouth, and champed with his teeth, as though his tongue and lips were parched. Presently he spoke; his voice grated harshly at first.
“Ha! ha! very true,” he said, with a grim chuckle; “I never reflected upon that very grave consideration—-my title to interfere in your affairs; it did not occur to me, I grant you I have been impertinent, officious. I ought to have left you to—no no”—he checked himself with a sudden dignity—“I must not permit myself to be betrayed into a weakness. Mr. Wilton, you have smitten me on one cheek; before I permit you to smite the other, I will inform you who I am, not at this moment, but at the proper time. It will come to your ears with sufficient speed when it does come. Farewell.”
“Hem—a—Gomer—stay!” cried Wilton, hurriedly. But Gomer was gone. The old man would have followed him, but a servant entered the library, followed by the Honorable Lester Vane.
Vane was dressed with studied elegance; his garb was in the highest style of fashion, and fitted him to perfection. Having quite recovered his health, of which, recently, he had purposely taken the greatest possible care, he looked, as he walked with an elevated gait—affected, and acquired by practice—a very handsome and polished specimen of the aristocracy.
Wilton was immediately struck by his appearance and manner. The words “Honorable Mr. Lester” rang in his ears, too, as the servant announced him. He had before noticed the superiority of mien and attire displayed by Vane, but, under existing circumstances, they now made a stronger impression than ever upon him.
Here evidently was the son-in-law proper to his own and his daughter’s condition in life. Nathan Gomer might preach as much as he pleased about two young hearts beating in happy unison, but was it possible that such would be the result of an unequal match? It was far more likely that Flora, wedded to a young, elegant fellow like Lester, and moving, after her marriage with him, in a high circle, would be much gayer and happier than if mated with one who had been accustomed only to the atmosphere of a workshop, and to mix with very moderate people. Wilton felt decided upon the point, and accordingly greeted Lester Vane with evident pleasure, which that astute personage responded to with consummate artifice. By his observations and his inquiries, he led Wilton to the conclusion that he possessed a noble spirit and unaffected kindness of heart. He even offered to give back to Wilton the promise he had received from him of Flora’s hand, and assured him, with well-simulated earnestness, that however deeply painful, and even heart-breaking, it might be to him to forego the honour of Miss Wilton’s alliance, he would rather sacrifice his eternal happiness than be the occasion of one moment’s grief to her. He had come down, he said, with the object of either being able to disabuse Flora’s mind of its false idea in respect to Vivian, and to win her love, or to resign her hand and retire from the field altogether—an alternative which old Wilton rather vehemently “pooh-poohed.”
The measured manner in which Vane expressed himself, and the earnestness which led old Wilton to be explicit in his views and wishes, occasioned some time to be consumed before the latter could fulfil his intention—floating through his mind all the while he was talking with his new guest—not to suffer Gomer abruptly to depart, and in anger, too. So, as soon as he could conveniently take the opportunity, he rang his bell, and bade his servant acquaint Mr. Gomer that he should be glad of a few words with him.
“He’s gone, sir, and taken t’other old gentleman with him,” replied the man.
“The other old gentleman?” repeated Mr. Wilton, with surprise.
“Yes, sir, one of they two that came with him, sir,” replied the man.
“Which?” asked Wilton, startled.
“I don’t know which,” replied the man, with a stupid expression of countenance; “but Mr. Mark, he do, sir; because Mr. Gomer spoke to him before he left the hall, sir.”
“Send Mr. Mark to me!” exclaimed Mr. Wilton, sharply.
The man disappeared, and, in a few minutes, Mark Wilton made his appearance. He greeted Lester Vane with stern and haughty coldness—conduct his father viewed with irritation, though he made no remark then in reference to it, but confined himself to the matter upon which he had sent for him.
“I hear, Mark,” he said “that Gomer has left the Hall for the railway station, is it so?”
“Surely, sir,” answered Mark, with surprise, “you are aware of that fact. He informed me that he had parted with you.”
“Parted with me?”
“Yes, sir; he expressed himself, I thought, rather emphatically; but he appeared to be in a very great hurry, and took that singular companion of his, Mr. Maybee, with him.”
“Maybee!” echoed Wilton, in a tone of alarm.
He looked hastily over the papers still on the table, but all the documents which Maybee had produced needful to support Wilton’s claim to the large estates in Chancery were yet there. What, then, could Gomer mean by withdrawing him?
“My solicitor is still here,” he exclaimed, addressing Mark.
“I left him in conversation with my sister, sir,” replied Mark.
“He will dine with us—in fact he does not return to London until the morning,” said his father. “Mr. Vane will also be our guest for a—for a—for the present. You will conduct him to your sister and Mr. Charlock, my excellent man of business—quite a gentleman, I assure you, Mr. Vane.”
The “Honorable” bowed.
“A wealthy man, and of high standing in his profession,” added Mr. Wilton.
Vane bowed again.
“I have a high esteem for men of the legal profession,” he said; “they are agreeable company—they are acute men, intelligent, full of anecdote, and, from the very character of their position and acquirements, respectable.”
Mr. Wilton rubbed his hands, he was pleased with the reply.
“I am desirous of a little quiet just now,” he observed; “I shall therefore have an hour or so to myself in my sanctum here alone, but I will join you at dinner. It was not my intention to have done so, but I feel equal now to the pleasure I shall enjoy. Mark, I place Mr. Vane under your charge; I am sure you will pay him every attention.”
Mark made a cold inclination of the head and left the library, followed by Vane, who perceived his coolness, but he had too great a game at stake to appear to do so, or to appear to be affected by it. He himself assumed a proud nonchalant air, and took his way after Mark Wilton, who walked with a quick step at an easy, leisurely pace.
Mark again wondered where he had seen Vane and under what circumstances. He felt morally convinced that they had met before, and that the impressions left behind were not favourable to Lester. In vain he endeavoured to solve the difficulty; his memory would not serve him in this.
Again Lester Vane and Flora were face to face, but under different conditions. She received him—although her heart beat, for she knew he was her father’s favoured suitor for her hand—with a quiet, firm manner, as though his arrival was an incident of ordinary character; and she listened to his well-turned hyperboles, as if they were but common-places. She replied by a silent inclination of the head, and resumed her conversation with Mr. Charlock with an unembarrassed ease which affected Vane more keenly than any studied slight would have done. He could have supplied a motive for that, and have surmounted, or have attempted to have surmounted it hopefully, for it would have shown to him that he was not an object of indifference; but to be received as Flora had met him was to satisfy him that she was in no doubt as to the disposal of her preference, or that it would be adhered to.
He felt by her manner that he was accepted by her as a guest of her father’s, whose coming and going could have no influence or effect upon her.
He mentally determined to change this state of things at any risk.
“Her uncouth booby of a brother cuts me,” he mused.
“I care nothing for that—but she shall not do so with impunity. I will have her. No risk shall daunt me, no obstacle deter me, for it is not alone her wealth I need, but I have conceived a passion for her.”
Such were his thoughts as he gazed upon her while she was speaking to her father’s solicitor. She was so beautiful, so very, very beautiful, that the more his eyes perused her fair lineaments, the more deep became his determination not to be shaken off.
But she never turned her eyes towards him; and when, by her quietly dropping her share in the conversation, it rested between him and Mr. Charlock, she silently glided from the room.
Had it not been for the presence of Mr. Charlock, Mark would have followed her example; as it was, he spoke but seldom to Vane, who treated him with corresponding carelessness.
It was a relief to Mark when they separated to dress for dinner; and on reassembling, Flora did not appear. She complained of not being well, and they had to proceed without her. Mark confined his observations to Mr. Charlock; and Mr. Wilton, irritated, angry, and feverish, was compelled to keep Vane in countenance as well as he could.
The task was too much for him; and he found himself compelled from weakness to retire to his chamber the moment the cloth was cleared. The solicitor was an abstemious and an early man; and as he was compelled to quit Harleydale for London at an early hour in the morning, he rose from the table almost as soon as the wine was circulated; after a short interview with Mr. Wilton, and obtaining possession of all the valuable legal papers, he retired to rest.
Mark and Vane were thus left alone. A silence of at least ten minutes elapsed. Neither spoke. Several times Vane had cast furtive glances at Mark, and felt convinced he was thinking about him.
Presently, he placed his hand upon the decanter before him, and said—
“A little wine with you would be very agreeable, Mr. Wilton.”
Mark bowed slightly, and sipped his wine.
Again a silence ensued; and soon Mark’s thoughts were far away. Lotte’s quiet, pale, sad face rose up before him, and her thoughtful eyes seemed to be turned appealingly upon him for help and aid.
Suddenly a flush of heat passed across his features, his eye kindled brightly, and his brow lowered.
He turned to Lester Vane, and in a sharp tone said—
“We have met before.”
Vane looked at him, somewhat surprised at the suddenness of his remark and at its tone. With equal quickness, it occurred to him that Mark recollected only at this moment the scene in Hyde Park. He was prepared for what was coming, and replied, quietly—
“Unquestionably, on my last visit here.”
“Before, sir, we encountered each other in this house. Look at my face well, sir; listen to the tone of my voice; and then tell me if your memory does not furnish you with the circumstances under which we, on a former occasion, confronted each other.”
Vane returned calmly his angry gaze; and, with a most collected manner, replied—
“But for your earnestness, Mr. Wilton, I should imagine you were jesting. Upon my honour I am unconscious of having had the satisfaction of meeting you previous to our introduction here.”
“We met, sir, in Hyde Park one evening——” commenced Mark, rather impetuously.
Vane stayed him.
“Your pardon, Mr. Wilton,” he said; “in what month?”
Mark replied promptly. Vane shook his head coolly, and returned—
“I was not in London; I was in Oxford.”
“In Oxford?” cried Mark, as if he could not believe his ears.
“In Oxford,” repeated Vane, slowly enunciating his words. “I give you my word such is the fact, and if the occasion to which you may refer be of importance to you, I will, in order to set you right on the matter, produce, within a few days, proofs that I am simply stating—what, as a gentleman, I have a claim my bare word should guarantee—the truth.”
Mark swallowed a glass of wine. He could say no more at present. He felt convinced that Vane was the man he had seen in companionship with those who had insulted Lotte, and he determined to pursue the subject until he had either proved him a liar and a debauchee, or confess that, in this instance at least, he was mis taken. He took the first opportunity of excusing himself, and left Vane alone.
Alone to reflect on his position, to examine carefully the opposition he should have to contend with, from what quarter it would proceed, what would be its power, and how it was to be crushed.
“I must learn more before I can proceed upon my course,” he muttered. “One thing is clear: this wilful beauty has given herself, heart and soul, to that fellow Vivian, and I have no other rival to fear. It will not be so difficult to dispose of him if I have time; I must have time. Yet my necessities push me on to a coup-de-main. I will wait and see what to-morrow brings forth. A day may do much. One thing I swear, if I fail she shall never have him—never, never.”
His face assumed a demoniacal aspect. It was but a moment only that it was so ruffled; he heard an approaching footstep, and his features became placid and serene, as though there raged not beneath emotions of carking anxieties, of dread solicitude, and almost despairing apprehension.
Col. Lamb. Hold, sir! not so fast; you can’t pass.
Dr. Cant. Who, sir, shall dare to stop me?
Col. Lamb. Within there! [Enter Tipstaff.
Tipstaff. Is your name Cantwell, sir?
Dr. Cant. What if it be, sir?
Tipstaff. Then, sir, I have my lord chief justice’s warrant against you.
Dr. Cant. Against me?
Tipstaff. Yes, sir, for a cheat and impostor.
—Bickekstaff.
To-morrow brought with it to Lester Vane a long tête-à-tête with Mr. Wilton. Neither Flora nor Mark were visible to him, and Mr. Charlock had gone to London.
During this interview he learned, to his dismay, the whole of Colonel Mires’ proceedings, as Mark had that morning at his request detailed to his father all that had occurred in reference to the abduction of Flora. He learned the particulars of Chewkle’s murderous attempt, and that, in both cases, Harry Vivian had been the hero who had saved father and daughter.
It was information of a startling and a grave kind to him. He was quite enough master of woman’s character to comprehend how securely such acts would establish Vivian in Flora’s heart, and of human nature to know that if Wilton’s stumbling-block—pride—could be removed, he would, in all other respects, delight in Vivian as a son-in-law.
For, although angry and irritated with him for what he considered the presumption of aspiring to his daughter’s hand, yet Wilton never failed to speak of him in all respects as in a high degree worthy his regard and esteem. Lester Vane, therefore, saw that Vivian was his great obstruction, and that he must be cleared from his path before he could himself make the least advance.
He determined, upon reflection, to speak in high terms of him to Wilton, especially to Mark or Flora if he had the chance, and to congratulate Hal himself if he happened to meet with him, though it cost him an apology for his former insolence. He resolved, and wisely, to be governed in all he did by the form circumstances might take, and, without attempting to control them, to guide them into the direction he wished them to pursue. Above all, with grating teeth, he resolved to be effectually rid of his rival; not by the vulgar means of knife or poison—there were other ways of destroying him than that. He hoped to slay his moral character, and that he decided should be his first move when the right moment came to set it in motion.
Old Wilton had to attend at the Town Hall of a neighbouring borough to appear against Mr. Chewkle, and to give his evidence before the magistrates respecting the murderous attack he had made upon him.
He was aware that he should have to meet there Mr. Henry Vivian. To expatiate upon his timely interposition in his favour, to laud him for his pursuit of Colonel Mires, and the rescue of his daughter. He felt as he meditated on this that he ought to be grateful to him, and to display it; but then the exhibition of a generous warmth on his part might raise hopes he was most anxious to repress. So he was bewildered as to the part he ought to play.
Then, too, he was feverish and petulant; he missed Lotte’s gentle attentions.
Ah! in truth he sorely missed her.
From the moment she had quitted him nothing seemed to have gone right. He missed her every-ready offices, always performed so exactly as he wished them to be; he missed her soft voice, which had such power to soothe and allay his peevish fretfulness; and he missed her gentle smile, which had never failed to gladden his heart, and dispose it to a generous sympathy with the world and all whom it contained.
Never since her absence had he missed her so much as on the morning he had to face the fatigue of giving his evidence on the examination of Chewkle. He was so sure he should have been prepared to undergo the exertion by her admirable arrangements, and he was so convinced that she would, by her presence, have sustained him throughout his meeting with Vivian. But he had to do it all without her; for very obvious reasons he declined Flora’s offer to accompany him. He felt assured there was no advantage to be derived from giving her the opportunity of seeing young Vivian, if she did not speak to him—she had, in fact, seen him too often as it was.
So, accompanied by his son Mark and Lester Vane, he went to the Town Hall.
But ere he departed from his library he formed a design respecting Lotte—one he purposed keeping to himself until he could put it into execution.
He made a firm resolve to be no more placed in the predicament in which he felt himself to be that morning.
And so he reached the Town Hall, which was thronged with curious spectators. The attempt on Wilton’s life had been noised all over the county, and the gentry and farmers for miles round came to hear the examination.
They came to see, too, Mr. Wilton. His history was well known, as well as his understood successful claim to the Eglinton estates. Great curiosity was evinced to see the rich landed proprietor who had lived for years little better than a beggar in London.
Three was a somewhat anxious desire on the part of the fair sex, too, to have a peep at the young gentleman who had saved Mr. Wilton’s life. Report had declared him to be the very handsomest of fine young fellows; that Miss Wilton had fallen passionately in love with him, and was to be married to him in a month; that she had selected her trousseau, and was looking up her bridesmaids.
There was a very general morbid curiosity also to gaze on Mr. Chewkle.
Mr. Chewkle, whose race was run—Mr. Chewkle, who had possessed such faith in having the luck which was “all.” He possessed it no more: it had deserted him now. He knew it, and looked into the future with a vacant stare and blank despair.
When first made prisoner and incarcerated, he forwarded a letter to Mr. Grahame, in which he briefly stated that events had proved untoward, and called upon him to hasten to release him by some means from his dilemma.
No answer was returned to his epistle.
He wrote again, intimating that, unless his employer made his appearance, revelations would be made.
Still no answer. Chewkle was devoured with sickening anxiety, and dropped a line to his passionately attached friend Jukes, asking him to call upon Mr. Grahame, and wake him up. He gave him a few hints to use which would be likely to terrify the proud man, as coming from a stranger, and he signed himself “Old Chewk.” But Jukes was a rat who skulked from a sinking ship, so he burned the letter, and swore to himself that he had never received it.
Chewkle grew desperate at being thus deserted, and he gave Mr. Grahame, as he said, “one more chance;” in another and last epistle, he spoke out very plainly. He alluded to incitement to murder, of the forgery they had together committed, and he ended by informing Mr. Grahame that if he did not proceed instanter to “do the thing that was right,” he should make a clean breast of all. “And if I am lagged for life,” he said, “you shall go with me, even if we should be in the same gang, and chained together up to our buzzums in water, until one of us turns up his toes.” This more expressive than elegant epistle met with no better fate than the others.
Mr. Grahame was then where no missive or threat of Mr. Chewkle could reach him. Mr. Chewkle hoped against hope until the last moment; then he determined to give up Mr. Grahame’s name, and request of the authorities that that gentleman might be taken into custody. He did so on the morning of the examination, and was then informed that Mr. Grahame was dead, and also that the contents of his notes had been carefully perused before they had quitted the prison-doors.
Chewkle listened to this announcement with a spasm of agony. His future was before him—penal servitude for life, without a hope of escape.
So, when he appeared at the dock with haggard face, bloodshot eyes, shaggy brows, and stubbly beard, people in court shrunk back, and believed him quite capable of the crime with which he was charged.
The examination extended to no great length. Mr. Wilton, who acted the patrician with consummate art, gave his evidence in a somewhat stately and rambling manner; but Vivian, whose looks realised all the expectations of the fair owners of the many bright eyes turned upon him, recounted his share in the transaction with a clear conciseness and a modesty which elicited encomium from the counsel for the prosecution, and a compliment from the magistrates. Other evidence was produced; and Mr. Chewkle—who, under the advice of his solicitor, said nothing, and nothing exculpatory had he to say—was fully committed for trial at the next assizes, which, however, were not due for some two or three months to come. Mr. Chewkle was, therefore, consigned to gaol to await that period; and Mr. Wilton, attended by his son and Lester Vane, returned back to Harleydale Hall.
They did not encounter Mr. Vivian. He was nowhere to be seen—though Mark had looked for him, and Lester Vane too—until he was called upon to give his evidence, then he suddenly rose up in the vicinity of the witness-box, as if by magic, performed the duty required of him, and retired, to be no more visible to the eyes which searched for him that day.
All the way from Harleydale to the Town Hall, Mr. Wilton had been mentally occupied by him. He considered himself slighted—he, so wealthy, holding now such a position—he should be at least deputy-lieutenant for his county before long—and for this Vivian, this boy, not to appear before him and express—-well, Mr. Wilton could not define what sentiments Hal ought to have delivered himself of; he rested with feelings irritated and annoyed at his absence.
He let his feelings at last betray themselves. Mark looked at him with surprise.
“What, sir!” he said, curtly, “did you expect Mr. Vivian to hunt you out to present himself to you, hat in hand, and thank you for the honour of having been permitted to save your life, and Flora from worse than death.”’
“Ahem! Mark, you presume!” rejoined his father, fiercely.
Mark made no reply; and the rest of the journey home was made in silence.
Flora, sure that she should hear all that had transpired from Mark, kept her room on the plea of indisposition—a just one; for she, too, was feverish, excited, and certainly indisposed to meet Lester Vane, and to bevexed by his incessant stare and his unpleasing attention.
Old Wilton, on reaching Harleydale, again missed the face of his little pet-nurse. His house seemed a desert without her. His room seemed gloomy without the sunshine of her eyes or the music of her voice. He said nothing, but he speculated upon her condition.
“She is a young lady in reduced circumstances,” he thought. “I will make this a home for her. Flora will be married and away from me. Mark, among the splendid beauties of an elevated circle, will soon forget the artful sempstress who inveigled herself into his affections—he does not speak of her now, a good sign. He will marry, and have an establishment of his own. Then, then, I will place my little pet to preside over my household; I shall have all my wishes consulted, and all my requirements attended to. I will make an excuse to go to London. Flora knows her address, and I will go to her, and make short work of it. I am weary of this loneliness.”
He, however, wanted not an excuse to go to London. He was electrified by receiving a letter from his solicitor, who informed him that he had been served with a notice from a new claimant to the estates of the late Eglinton, and who was at once about to prosecute his claim, He advanced his title as a lineal descendant from an elder branch of the family, and, upon referring to the genealogical tree, the solicitor said he feared his claim was only too well founded. He, however, begged Mr. Wilton to come to London at once, and confer with him upon the course to be adopted in this singular and unexpected turn of affairs.
Wilton read and re-read this letter a dozen times. What! was the cup of grandeur to be dashed from his mouth while yet sparkling and bubbling on his lips. New claimant of an elder branch of the family! the very notion made him perspire; for he had at once a dim remembrance that Nathan Gomer had mentioned that fact, but had suggested that the descent was broken, or had disappeared, he could not now recollect, beyond that his singular little friend had assured him there was no occasion to fear any interposition from that quarter.
Yet here it was.
Upon an impulse, he swallowed humble pie, and wrote off to Nathan Gomer, asking him to come down at once to Harleydale, for he much needed the services of his well-tried and proved friend once more.
His letter was returned to him unopened.
What did this mean?
Who, after all, could Nathan Gomer be?
Another letter arrived from his solicitor, more urgent than before, calling for his immediate presence in London, and he had no alternative but to comply with its appeal.
He conferred with Mark, adopting a different manner and language towards him to that which he had lately used, and his son announced his intention to accompany him to London; as Flora could not well be left behind, it was decided that she should go with them too.
Mr. Wilton was, perforce, obliged to inform Lester Vane of the change in their arrangements; but he was warmly requested to make the house in Regent’s Park his own, as it were, while they remained in town.
The change did not suit Vane; he had several private reasons which rendered a return to London especially inconvenient; but he could only submit to the alteration, and offer to journey with them to the great metropolis, which offer Mr. Wilton accepted readily—-it was one which was not a little distasteful to Flora.
Once again their dwelling, adjoining Grahame’s, was tenanted by them, and, with no small pleasure, by two of the family. By Flora, because coming to London was to be where Hal dwelt—to breathe the same atmosphere with him—to be within reach any moment of his presence—to be within sound of his voice, within the beams from his eyes—to feel that she was under the shadow of his protection, and that his glance hovered over her path wheresoever she went—to preserve her from danger, and guard her from insult.
To Mark, the change was delicious, for he was near to Lotte; near to where he might, could, would, should, must see her again, to reason with her, combat her prejudices, and make a lady of her whether she would or no—do her principles a violence that he might, for so long as he should live, prove to her how dearly and devotedly he loved her.
Mr. Wilton’s interviews with his legal adviser, successively taking place day after day, were the reverse of satisfactory to him. He felt the estates he had so much coveted, and the near possession of which had so lifted him out of himself, slipping rapidly out of his fingers.
The new claimant, who seemed to be animated with a vindictive feeling against Wilton, bore the name of Eglinton. He pushed on his claim with all the speed of which the law would admit, and without omitting an opportunity or advantage it gave him. So clear at last did his case appear that Wilton’s own solicitor suggested an arrangement between the parties, by which the enormous expense of going into Court might be avoided.
At first, Mr. Eglinton refused any meeting, and insisted upon prosecuting his full right to the whole of the property; but he deferred the meeting for a fortnight—proceedings being, by mutual agreement, suspended during that period.
In the meanwhile, Lester Vane was a constant guest at Wilton’s residence. He came early in the morning, and seldom left until he could with decency no longer stay.
As Vane was the guest of his father, Mark could not interfere; but he gave that guest very little of his society, notwithstanding, the latter exerted himself with all his cunning to establish himself on a better footing with him. Nor did his well-dissembled conduct to Flora, his quiet hints in favour of Vivian, his deference to her wish, and his careful abstinence from even a show of love-making to her advance him in her good opinion; while, strange enough, old Wilton began to tire of him. He was so enwrapt in the disputed claims to the property he had so fully believed to be his, that it became irksome to him to have to keep up a conversation with Vane on subjects which possessed no kind of interest for him.
One sunny morning, as Vane was seated with Mr Wilton in his library, the servant of the latter brought in two cards upon a silver salver, and handed them to him. He looked at them, and with a sudden flush mounting to his cheeks, said—
“Show them in.”
Two gentlemen immediately afterwards entered the room, and Lester Vane rose to bow to them, as he heard Mr. Wilton say—
“Mr. Riversdale, Mr. Vivian, the Honorable Lester Vane.”
Lester almost fell back in his seat—not that he cared to meet Hal, but he had an instinctive dread of encountering Hugh Riversdale.
The latter had bidden him beware of their third encounter. It had now come to pass; what would be its result?
He clenched his hands firmly, and set his teeth together, but sought to make his face wear a cold, passionless expression.
Mr. Wilton motioned to his visitors to be seated. The eyes of both fell glittering upon Lester Vane; but they made no remark. They took their seats; and Mr. Wilton asked to what he had the honour of attributing the visit of Mr. Riversdale. He added, with a somewhat gracious manner—
“I rather anticipated the pleasure of seeing Mr. Vivian before this. I should have called upon or written to him, but I had not his new address.”
Vivian bowed, but made no reply.
“Mr. Wilton,” said Mr. Riversdale, “you are well acquainted, as a matter of course, with the unhappy circumstances connected with Mr. Grahame’s family; I need not, therefore, allude to them. I have sought you, sir, with a twofold purpose; firstly, to inform you that, as the husband of the late Mr. Grahame’s eldest daughter, I have taken upon myself the task of arranging her father’s affairs. I am aware that all his property is deeply mortgaged, and that he was largely indebted to a gentleman named Gomer, who still holds in possession the next house, and all it contains. Mr. Gomer is, I believe, the mortgagee, and I wish to ask a favour of you”——
At this instant, Lester Vane rose to leave the room, as though the business, being evidently private, it became him not to remain and listen.
Hugh Riversdale rose up too, and, with a stern look and voice, said——
“Be seated, sir. You are one of the objects of my visit here, and I cannot permit you to depart until I have stated it.”
Lester Vane shrugged his shoulders, and reseated himself with an air of nonchalance that he was far from feeling.
What was coming?
Hugh Riversdale continued speaking to Mr. Wilton.
“I am given to understand, sir, that you possess considerable influence with Mr. Gomer!” he said, “and I am here to ask you to bury whatever feeling of animosity you may have entertained for the deceased Mr. Grahame, and to prevail upon Mr. Gomer to meet me, with a view of so arranging his claim that something may be rescued out of the wreck for his son, and for his youngest daughter, Evangeline. In granting me this favour, you will be exhibiting that nobleness of spirit and disposition which distinguishes a Christian gentleman, and which I, on good authority, believe finds a home in your breast.”
Mr. Wilton gave a gulp.
The want of nobleness of spirit had lost him the friendship and countenance of Gomer.
Clearing his throat, he said—
“I sympathise most deeply with the misfortunes of Mr. Grahame’s family. Unhappily between us both a deadly feud existed, and Mr. Grahame fell in the struggle. If I can in any way repair or alleviate the evil which has fallen like a destroying thunderbolt upon his house, command me; but, I grieve to say, I now possess no influence over Mr. Gomer, if I ever did—in truth—I—a—there is a difference between us just now and we do not meet. I am sorry, therefore, I cannot help you in the quarter you wish; in any other I shall only be too happy.”
Hugh Riversdale thanked him warmly, and said—
“I may yet require your services, and I shall avail myself of them without fear.”
“Or favour,” added Wilton.
Making a suitable acknowledgment, Hugh then fixed upon Lester Vane a fierce glance of hatred, and addressing Mr. Wilton, while he pointed to the former, said—
“I now, sir, come to the second purpose of my visit. It identifies itself with that person seated by your side.”
Wilton turned with surprise, and looked first at Vane and then at Riversdale.
The face of Lester Vane was blanched, otherwise it exhibited no emotion whatever. A slight smile of defiance only curled his upper lip.
“He is a suitor for your daughter’s hand, and under your promise of its bestowal upon him?” commenced Hugh.
Wilton, with elevated eyebrows, assented.
“Sir, he is the son of a lord. Granted. But it is fit you should know that his father has for years lived abroad.”
“I am aware of that,” exclaimed Wilton, sharply.
“Are you also aware that it is because he cannot show his face to his creditors here in England; are you aware that your intended son-in-law is worse than a beggar; that he is far beyond his depth in debt, that he has already raised money upon your daughter’s expected dowry?”
Lester Vane’s face grew whiter, and his lips trembled. Hugh—keeping his bright eye fastened upon him—went on—
“Are you conscious, Mr. Wilton, that the Honorable Lester Vane is a blackleg, a sharper, with cards and false dice—a debauchee—a scoundrel—who, while he was professing the warmest attachment to Miss Wilton, strove, by the most infamous proposals, to ruin the daughter of the man at whose house he had been received with cordial hospitality—that he is a wretch so contemptible that words fail to express his true character? Are you aware, sir, that such is the man you have honoured with a place beneath your roof, and to whom you are eager to entrust the future happiness of your child?”
Mr. Wilton placed his hands to his forehead, bewildered.
He turned to Lester, and in a choking, gasping voice, he said—
“What—what have you to answer to these tremendous charges?”
“That they are, from first to last, false!” answered Vane, striving by a mighty effort to retain a cool self-possession; “wholly, abominably, maliciously false! The truth of the matter is, Mr. Wilton, some time—long before I saw your sweet daughter—the lady, now the wife of that fellow, betrayed a preference for me, which is the secret of”——
“Scoundrel! dare to breathe one word respecting that lady through your foul lips, and, notwithstanding Mr. Wilton’s presence, I will fling you through yon window down to the place beneath.”
“Mere vaunting braggadocio!” returned Vane, with a tremendous effort to appear cool. “Mr. Wilton, I shall commence an action of libel against this infernal slanderer; that will be my best answer to his lying-assertions.”
“There—there should be some proofs adduced to support such terrible charges,” observed Mr. Wilton to Hugh Riversdale, who was labouring under the most painful excitement.
“I am prepared to substantiate many of them by the very clearest evidence!” exclaimed Hal, producing a small packet of papers.
“A disinterested witness, truly!” exclaimed Vane forcing a laugh. “A concocted scheme, as you may perceive, Mr. Wilton; surely you are not prepared to condemn me upon such an infamous machination as this?”
The door at this moment opened, and Nathan Gomer entered, followed by a sturdy looking man.
He pointed to Lester Vane.
“There is your man, officer!” he exclaimed.
Lester Vane uttered an exclamation of fright; he darted from his chair and made for the open window. The height was something, but he paused not to think of it, and leaped out to the ground below.
“Villain! you shall not thus escape my rightful vengeance!” shouted Hugh Riversdale, and dashed after him.
The officer, however, sprang upon him, and seizing him by the collar, detained him.
“Hold, sir!” he cried; “there is a man below to prevent his escape. Besides, he must have broken his limbs, if he has not his head.”
Gomer stood watching excitedly the movements of Vane and Hugh, at the elbow of Wilton. The latter, with a sudden faintness, clutched at Gomer’s arm.
“Support me, or I shall swoon!” he exclaimed.
“No!” said Gomer, brusquely.
He pushed Hal towards him, adding—
“Here is the proper person.”
Mr. Wilton, almost insensible, sank on to the breast of Harry Vivian.
If this austere, unsociable life
Change not your offer made in heat of blood;
If frosts and fasts, hard lodging, and thin weeds,
Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
But that it bears this trial, and last love;
Then, at the expiration of the year,
Come challenge me.
—Shakspere.
The deadly faintness which had overcome Old Wilton, when he fell into the arms of Harry Vivian, increased, until it deprived him of all consciousness of what was passing around him.
Alarmed by an unusual disturbance in the house, both Mark and Flora hastened to the library in time to witness a scene to them incomprehensible.
Mr. Riversdale was struggling in the arms of an officer; Nathan Gomer was, as usual, unexpectedly present, giving instructions to a servant; Lester Vane had disappeared; and, oh! strangest sight of all, their father was leaning on the breast of Hal Vivian.
Yet an instant, and the whole scene was changed as at the stroke of a magician’s wand. Riversdale, officer, Nathan Gomer, and the servant, had disappeared from the room at one moment, and Hal Vivian was alone left to explain. Both hurriedly inquired of him what had happened; but he tenderly placed old Wilton in his library chair, and begged for some restoratives on the instant, for it was painfully apparent that the old man was in a swoon.
Flora hastened to obtain them, while Mark, in compliance with suggestions rapidly made by Hal, descended to the garden.
Upon Flora’s return, she, assisted by Vivian, applied some ammoniacal salts to her father’s nostrils, and bathed his temples with eau-de-cologne and water. In a short time the application proved successful; Wilton recovered sufficiently to gaze vacantly around him and utter a few incoherent remarks.
Flora twined her arms about his neck, and, with fond words and soothing tenderness, succeeded in calming down the violent perturbation which succeeded the recovery from his swoon.
Then he gazed, almost wildly, round him in search of the actors in the scene which had perfectly electrified and overwhelmed him.
They were gone.
The old man gave an involuntary groan, accompanied by a sudden shudder, then he asked—
“Where is Nathan Gomer?”
“Mark has just quitted the library to seek an interview with him,” replied Flora. “He will return with him, I have no doubt.”
“No, no,” said Wilton, soliloquizing. “He will come back no more—no more! From afar he will contemplate the destruction of hopes he assisted to raise, only the more completely to hurl them to the dust.”
“Dear sir!” exclaimed Flora, softly, “you have been startled and shocked by what has happened. Mr. Gomer, though strange in his manner, is at heart generous and noble; you wrong him, if you imagine he entertains any hostile feelings towards you.”
“How, can you tell?” inquired her father, sharply. “You know not who he is; you cannot, more than myself, even conjecture what influences have animated him in appearing as my friend, and acting as—as——”
He really could not get his lips to shape the word “enemy.”
“Acting still as your friend, I hope and believe,” observed Vivian, as the old man paused.
Wilton turned quickly, and gazed upon him with an air of surprise. He had not yet collected his scattered memories.
“Why are you here, sir?” he asked with knitted brow.
“Dear papa!” ejaculated Flora, with an appealing aspect, for she was grieved at the harshness of his tone of voice and the sternness of his manner. She remembered how much both were indebted to Vivian.
“Silence!” said her father, brusquely.
“Have you so soon forgotten the object of the visit of Mr. Riversdale and myself?” interrogated Vivian, gently.
Old Wilton placed his hands on his brow and reflected.
“True, I remember now,” he exclaimed, sarcastically. “You came hither to oust a rival”—he looked around the library—“and I presume you have succeeded to your satisfaction.”
“And to yours, I hope, sir,” responded Hal, calmly.
“To mine?—oh, of course to mine; to be sure, to mine and my daughter’s. You forgot her, did you not, Mr. Vivian?” he asked with a sneer.
“No, sir,” replied Hal, emphatically. “Miss Wilton was my first consideration in performing the duty I undertook.”
“Ah! to be sure; I had forgotten that,” said the old man, in the same jibing tone. “I ought to remember that you were not wholly disinterested in the part you have played.”
“Sir!” exclaimed Vivian, with dignity; “you would only do me justice if you were to charge me with being deeply interested in what I have performed; but, at the same time, I hope you will acquit me of being selfishly so. I hold the happiness of Miss Wilton, and the honour of yourself and house at too high a value to permit it to be shattered and degraded by so debased and so unworthy a scoundrel as the person who, guarded by officers, has so recently been conveyed hence. But do not misunderstand me, sir. I build up no claim to your consideration in what I have done; I ask for no acknowledgment or elevation to your favour in saving yourself and daughter from the machinations of an infamous schemer. Your good-will I will accept only when it is the offspring of your free inclination; I have not sought, nor would I ever seek, to purchase it at any other price. I love Miss Wilton, sir, I candidly admit—-most devotedly love her, and shall do so while I have life—but I never have, I never desired, and never would attempt to crawl by stealth or by any secret or unworthy agency into an alliance with her. I hold her in too high respect, and possess, sir, a too well-defined consciousness of what is due to my own honour, to be guilty of acts which bring their own punishment with them. Your unprincipled friend, Colonel Mires, did not scruple, while charging me with a basely underhand attempt to win your daughter’s affections, to arrange, and carry almost to fulfilment, a devilish scheme, which, if successful, would, while it utterly destroyed the happiness of your child, have ruined the plans you had formed and looked forward to complete. Then, he whom you had selected for the distinguished honour and inestimable happiness of receiving your daughter’s hand, is a worthless, depraved and penniless swindler. Sir, at least the very strictest and closest scrutiny into my nature and habits will absolve me from being capable of the baseness of the one, or guilty of the depravity of the other. It has been my great good fortune to rescue you in both instances; on the one hand from the agony of a shameful bereavement; on the other, from an awakening to a knowledge of the infamy brought upon your name, and the misery entailed upon your daughter by an alliance which henceforward the thought of having ever desired to contract will make your cheek burn with vexed mortification. In having performed this office, I hope to be understood as not having been influenced by one selfish thought, but animated only by a desire to guard and protect Miss Wilton from dangers she could scarcely avert from herself, and your name from the obloquy which would have fallen upon it. In achieving this I have been most importantly aided by Mr. Nathan Gomer, and to him your acknowledgments are due for the share he has taken in obtaining success. For myself, as I have said, I ignore them; and when I come forward, as I hope at no distant day to do, and ask of you your consent to sanction my union with your daughter, I trust, sir, you will then do me the justice to admit that while, in respect to income, I am not unjustified in preferring a claim, that I have not resorted at any time, or under any influences, to surreptitiously obtain that which you are free to give or to withhold.”
“Um! you admit that?” exclaimed Wilton, who had listened attentively to all that fell from his lips, and caught at the last expression.
“I can conscientiously acquit myself of having at any time attempted to subvert that right,” returned Vivian.
Old Wilton drew along breath, and then covered his face with his hands, in which attitude he sat for a few minutes, evidently plunged in a profound reverie.
Both Flora and Hal watched him attentively and anxiously; at length he raised his head, and, addressing Hal, he said—
“I cannot conceal from myself that I am indebted to you for my life; I am equally conscious that I must look upon you as the saviour of my daughter’s life and honour. They are heavy debts, and very difficult to repay”——
“Spare me acknowledgments, I beg of you,” interrupted Hal, a little impetuously. “I have told you, sir, already, that I neither desire nor claim them; and I most earnestly assure you, that the only reward I looked for I have reaped—my grateful satisfaction at having been successful.”
“Nevertheless, I feel that I owe to you something,” continued Wilton; “and in one way I can do a little towards confessing my obligation to you—and that is, by being candid with you. The world is full of disappointments—the sun resting on a valley field makes it appear a rich expanse of golden grain, but when we reach it, we find it a poor piece of grass land, thin, weedy, and worthless. Of such are some of our glowing expectations; they burn brightly in the eye of hope, but, like a brilliant flame consuming a flimsy material, realise nothing but ashes. I have had great hopes, high dreams, and proud anticipations—they have become nothing but dust. Now, Mr. Vivian, in the position in which I have been and am living, it is but natural, in suing for my daughter’s hand, you should expect with her at least a moderate fortune. She would have had a liberal dowry, but that expectations I have entertained will, to an almost inevitable certainty, not be realised. She will, therefore, have nothing from me upon her marriage—not a shilling. While she remains with me, of course she will share the comforts of the luxurious style in which we now live; but if she quits for a humbler position, she must accept its trials and its troubles, for no aid must she or her husband expect from me. One moment, Mr. Vivian,” he exclaimed, as Hal was about eagerly to offer some observation—“one moment more. I am informed your uncle’s son has returned from abroad, and has taken possession of everything—no will having been found—to the utter destruction of all the expectations you entertained of succeeding to his business and property. Is this true?”
“It is quite true!” replied Hal, firmly.
“You have, then, to depend alone upon your own exertions for the future?” continued Wilton.
“Entirely so,” responded Hal.
“How far, then, does the disinterested character of your love for my daughter extend?” inquired Wilton, fixing a steadfast look upon him.
“Thus far, sir: that as she, in all her sweet and pure integrity, is the only prize I covet, I shall be infinitely prouder and happier in taking her to my heart as my own beloved wife, dowerless, than did she have the settlement of a princess.”
How gratefully and fondly Flora’s eyes beamed on Hal’s animated face, as he, with enthusiastic emphasis, uttered those words.
“That I can well believe,” said Wilton, dryly. “The romance of youth is capable of all that; but, Mr. Vivian, can you transplant her to such a home as this or Harleydale? Can you provide her with a town house and a carriage, with a country mansion, with its well-ordered garden, spacious parks, surrounded by upland and dell, by sloping vales, meandering streams, by all the charming accessories and beauties of English landscape? Are you, I say, prepared to do this?”
Flora stole to her father’s side, and, placing her hand upon his shoulder gently, said, with a face of rosy hue—
“Papa, dearest, to me all those beauties would be as nothing if not shared by one—I—by—by those I—to whom I am attached!”
Her face, brilliant with blushes, sank upon his shoulder.
Mr. Wilton waved his hand.
“My proposition was to Mr. Vivian, and not to you!” he exclaimed. “Answer me, Mr. Vivian.”
“I cannot, sir, now do this,” replied Hal, firmly.
“Then how, sir, can you call your love for my daughter other than selfish?” cried Wilton, with apparent triumph. “Out of your exaggerated liking for her, you would remove her from a sphere in which she enjoys all the luxuries of comparative wealth into one in which they are all denied to her. You would transplant her from competence and ease, to surround her with wants, privations, and care. This is disinterested love, indeed, to sacrifice the everyday peace and comfort of the woman for whom you profess attachment in order that you may call her your own. Go to, sir, true love seeks to secure the entire happiness of the object of affection, it sacrifices its own wishes and aspirations, rather than a cloud should hang upon the loved one’s brow, a tear dim her eye, or the smile fade from her cheek. It elevates, sir—never seeks to reduce her chances of happiness; and rather frets itself out in silence and secrecy, than it would, by the gratification of its inclinations, jeopardise her future peace and contentment.”
“I admit, sir,” replied Hal, “the force of your argument, but I deny the truth of its intended conclusion. I yield to no being in the world in the disinterestedness of my passion for Miss Wilton. I would sacrifice my love and myself a thousand times rather than occasion her one moment’s care or privation. It is not, sir, because I cannot at first place her in the sphere she now so fairly and brightly adorns, that I must necessarily conduct her to a hovel in a bye-street. Something is due to my own sense of her worth and my own pride in preparing for her—if I were to be so blessed as to call her mine—a home as fitting to her beauty and goodness, as to the station she quitted to pass her life with me. I should, indeed, be wanting in true love if I did not endeavour to make the change as slight as indomitable perseverance and unflagging industry could accomplish. I agree, sir, that true love seeks to elevate the being it worships; but requited love will make a palace of a prison and gild the roof of a humble cottage, as though it were the fretted ceiling of a palace. Love sees through love’s eyes and with love’s urgings, and it seldom finds room for discontent if the heart it prizes remains true, faithful, and devoted to it. The great secret of a loving woman’s happiness, sir, consists not in the halls she treads, the terraced flower-garden she may pace, the high sphere in which she may have been born and lived, the accessories of wealth, its gaieties, or its pleasures. It is the discovery that the idol she was first induced to worship is not molten brass, but the pure gold for which she first accepted it. That her trusting faith has not been abused, that the ardent manner of him who won her heart has not waned, that the beaming look of fond affection remains unchanged, that the soft word has not grown harsh, and that the ever-watchful solicitude for her happiness remains as intact as when it first moved her gentle heart to respond to its generous tenderness. That loving, trusting heart that you would chain to its own sphere, would pine itself into the grave if, upon such a plea, it were confined to its halls, its gardens, parks, and extended landscape; but, believe me, it would not grieve if its lot, though cast in a lower sphere, rested on a manly, faithful, truthful nature, which never swerved from the deep and passionate affection it once professed. However, sir, at best we are but theorizing—I am content to abide the issue. I will not, I pledge my honour—my dearest possession—ask your permission to woo Miss Wilton until I am fairly in a social position which will give me some title to do so. Further, sir, if it be your wish, great as may be the pain and privation to me, I will not attempt to visit, or to see, or to speak with her in any manner which may infringe upon the relation in which we now stand to each other in the eyes of the world—acquaintances. I will not, if unprepared to urge my own claim, interfere with any offer which may be made for the honour of Miss Wilton’s hand, if that offer is in accordance with your wishes and not opposed to her future happiness. More I scarcely expect you will wish me to say; less, sir, I feel would be inconsistent with my own sense of what is just and honourable.”
Mr. Wilton extended his hand to Hal, saying—
“You have spoken frankly, and—and—a—I may as well say it as think it—nobly, Mr. Vivian. I am well satisfied and fully appreciate those sentiments which you have just uttered, and which I shall test, I honestly tell you. The result is for the future. Take, at present, your farewell of Flora; when we next meet, it will be as friends. Heaven shall decide whether it will be by a nearer and dearer title.”
Hal shook the extended hand warmly.
“I will not abuse any confidence you may be pleased to place in me, sir,” he replied. “But I, too, honestly tell you, that it will be the object of my most incessant perseverance and ardent ambition to change the title of friend into one nearer and dearer.”
Hal walked up to Flora. She was not contented with giving him one hand, but she placed both in his, and she looked up in his face with trusting confidence, and a sweet, loving expression in her eyes. A beaming aspect of hopefulness shone in her very lovely features which communicated its cheerful, sanguine anticipations to Hal.
“It shall go hard, dear Flora, but I win the wealth which shall make you mine,” he ejaculated, in fervent tones.
“Love gilds the humble roof, dear Hal,” she murmured; “anywhere, anywhere in the wide world, with your unfading, faithful love.”
“My undying, ever, ever faithful love,” he responded. “With my undying, ever, ever faithful love,” she echoed, as she pressed his hand, making him thrill with happiness.
And so they parted.
The ice about Mr. Wilton’s heart, in respect to their union, had begun to crack.
He gazed upon them very intently while they were conversing together, and he thought them certainly a very handsome young couple; and if personal attributes alone, were needful, a more fitting match could hardly be conceived.
Soon after Hal had quitted the house, Mark Wilton returned to the library to furnish his father with a brief narrative of what had taken place without the house, as well as in it, relative to the Honorable Lester Vane.
The miserable schemer’s affrighted leap had been attended with desperate results; fractured legs and arms attested the fearful violence with which he came to the ground; and he was conveyed, as soon as he was picked up, senseless to the nearest hospital, still in custody of an officer.
He was the mortgagor of an estate to Nathan Gomer, which had been already twice mortgaged to more than its value. The title-deeds he handed over were fresh ones he had had copied from the original draft, and were therefore fraudulent. The sight of Nathan Gomer, with an officer at his elbow, revealed to him the discovery that had been made; and, in his intense alarm, he leaped out of the window, in the hope of escape, but only to succeed in making himself a maimed cripple for life.
No one would desire to “break a butterfly on a wheel;” and by this event Hugh Riversdale considered his wife, Helen, avenged.
Mark introduced Nathan Gomer to Hugh, and they together left Wilton’s house for the residence of the deceased Grahame.
Wilton listened to the account of Lester Vane’s iniquity, and to his terrible accident, with a chastened spirit-He called Flora to him, and pressed her to his heart. “I have wronged you, Flo’, my darling,” he said with emotion. “I have been bitterly punished. Well, well; we will see if we cannot reward you with a young handsome fellow you would like better; well, well, we shall see how he behaves himself.”
“Dear, dear father,” murmured Flora, her eyes glistening with happiness at his words.
Old Wilton gazed fondly on her face, upturned to his; a gleam of pride shot forth from his eyes as he perused her exquisite features.
“Upon my word,” he said, with a chuckle, “that young fellow, Vivian, is a cunning dog, with excellent taste. He might journey many a weary mile ere he found a prettier face than yours, Flo’. Except,” he added, reflectively, “that he were to encounter my little pet nurse on his way. Hem! she had a pretty face that kind young friend of yours, eh, Flo’?”
“A dear, dear face!” responded Flora, warmly. She turned to Mark with an expressive twinkle in her eyes, and said, “you think so too, don’t you, Mark?”
“He!” ejaculated his father, with a kind of depreciatory grunt—“he’s but a poor judge.”
“Judge enough, at least,” cried Mark, rather hotly, “to think the face of your little pet nurse, as you call her, the brightest, sweetest, pleasantest, the most loveable under heaven.”
He looked fiercely and defiantly both at his sister and father, as though to challenge them to disprove him if they could. Flora smiled roguishly at him; and Wilton with evident satisfaction, for he little dreamed that the subject of his son’s encomium was that very “low-born beggar” he had so sternly objected to receive into his family.
“Why, Mark,” he exclaimed, with a chuckle, “you have more discrimination and taste than I gave you credit for. In this matter you judge justly, and with a very clear perception of the truth. I say, that when she comes before you, her face greets you like a burst of sunshine, it is radiant with a galaxy of glories, for it is cheerful, amiable, placid, gentle, good, generous, patient, unselfish—everything, in fact, that is estimable, and can make the female face divine.”
“Everything?” echoed Mark, emphatically.
“Everything?” repeated Flora, reflectively.
“Yes; every one of those beautiful qualities I have named beam in her fascinatingly expressive face!” exclaimed Wilton.
“And in her clear, earnest eyes?” said Mark.
“And in her eyes!” echoed his father.
“And in her smile!” suggested Flora.
“And in her smile,” repeated Wilton, slightly elevating his voice.
“Aha!” chuckled Mark—“Aha! aha!”
He was on the eve of making a great disclosure, but he restrained himself. He, however, rubbed his hands briskly with intense gratification; while Mr. Wilton felt his resolution to carry out his cherished and secretly formed design considerably strengthened by the very apparent good feeling entertained by his children towards the object of his hidden purpose.
The pleasure diffused by that conversation, somewhat further extended, seemed to compensate for the pain the previous incidents of the morning had occasioned.
Truly, the little episode was very agreeable—not the less so, perhaps, because the actual relation in which the subject of it stood to father and son did not transpire.
A few days subsequently, Mr. Wilton was startled by a note from Mr. Charlock. It had reference to the proposed meeting between Mr. Wilton and his solicitor, and the new claimant and his solicitor. It stated that Mr. Eglinton, having ascertained beyond a doubt the indisputable character of his claim, failed to see, upon reflection, any advantage in the suggested arrangements; he therefore announced his intention of withdrawing from it, and of leaving the legal proceedings to take their legitimate course. Mr. Charlock appended to this communication from the opposite party his own private opinion that, after a very keen and subtle examination of the new claims by a consultation of eminent counsel, there was no prospect of successfully resisting them; and, in the strict and conscientious performance of his duty, he advised, to save the enormous cost of going to trial, that Mr. Wilton should abandon those he had for years so pertinaciously urged.
Mr. Wilton perused this letter with much dissatisfaction, and without at all being convinced by its reasoning. No man, who for years has nursed a claim to property, real or fancied, is ready to yield it up on representations such as Mr. Charlock made to Mr. Wilton. If there is one thing in life’s transactions he clings to with more unyielding tenacity than another, it is a claim at law to property. To prosecute his claim, he will suffer himself to be denuded of all he possesses; he will part with everything he can lay his hands on—try solicitor after solicitor—abandon trade, profession, comparative independence—exhaust his means—yield up everything, in fact—but his claim; and when, after successive defeats, all possibility of continuing the struggle longer is taken from him, he has still faith in his right still an unshaken belief that he has not had justice dealt out to him, that judge, jury, and lawyers have been feeed, and have entered into a conspiracy to defraud him of what is lawfully his.
Old Wilton was no exception to the rule. It is true he had a misgiving about this claim, of which he had first heard from Nathan Gomer, but that individual had told him it was one which was never likely to be preferred, and he had, therefore, troubled himself no more about it. Nathan Gomer had spoken in very light terms about it, and no doubt justly. He began to surmise that Mr. Charlock was falling into his dotage when he recommended a client to resign claims acknowledged to be most powerful to property so large and valuable. He quickly found many reasons why he should contend for the prize, and, whether founded on sound conclusions or not, he adopted them. Who was this Mr. Eglinton who had so suddenly appeared? Where had he sprung from—where hidden himself—how could he identify himself? Ha! that was a point of very great importance! Had not he, Wilton, for years been kept from the enjoyment of his property, because of the difficulty of proving that he actually was the person he represented himself to be. In such manner did he argue the question with himself, and ultimately determine at any sacrifice to proceed in his suit, even if he had to change his “man of business” to accomplish his resolve.
First, however, he resolved upon a reconciliation with Nathan Gomer. He had at best but a hazy notion of the actual cause of difference existing between them. He, however, felt that he had himself been to blame, and from him the amende honorable ought to come. He determined that it should; but how communicate with Nathan. He had already had one letter written to him returned unopened. He was not anxious to repeat the experiment.
He luckily remembered that Flora stood very high in Nathan’s favour, that he had always evinced a nervous anxiety for her happiness; and therefore it was extremely probable that if she were to address to him a few lines requesting him to come again to visit the family on the same footing as of old, and convey a hint that her father regretted any unconsidered behaviour of his own which had tended to produce a rupture in the amiable relations in which they had always stood to each other, he would comply with her solicitation.
After carefully considering the point over, he sought his daughter, Flora, and conveyed to her his desire that she should write a note to Nathan Gomer, inviting him to return to his old position in their family. Wilton left to Flora the entire wording of the epistle. He merely wished her to express his own desire to meet Nathan again, and his regret that any misunderstanding should have occasioned their separation.
Flora was quite unconscious of the result attending this communication. If she had been, it is very probable that she would have infused into it all the ardour and fervour of which her nature was capable. As it was, she had a deep respect for the little man, and great faith in his promise to procure for her future life as much happiness as he might have it in his power to control.
Thus she composed her note to Nathan Gomer with sufficient eloquence and warmth to assure him that she was solicitous to see him again; and he was shrewd enough to comprehend also Wilton’s anxiety, by the medium he had employed to convey his wishes. In his dreary, dull old chamber he sat alone, and pondered over Flora’s note the long night through; and the following day she received a short but kind reply, to tell her that he yielded to her solicitation, and he would join them at dinner that day.
He came to his appointment. His manner and appearance exhibited no apparent difference to what they ordinarily wore. Yet Flora fancied she could detect an expression of satisfaction, if not pleasure, in his eyes, an evidence that he was no less gratified at the reunion than all present were.
When the cloth was cleared, and the servants had quitted the room, Wilton cleared his throat, and said—
“Ahem—a—Mr. Gomer—a—I take an early moment to say—a—that with no desire to intrude upon your time, which I—a—I know to be very valuable—I—a should be most glad of a little of your counsel and experience on a matter which very intimately and deeply—a—concerns my future prospects.”
“I shall be very happy, Wilton, to afford you any advice or assistance,” replied Nathan Gomer, gravely; “but before I attempt to do so, there are two points, I think, ought to be settled. First, who I really am, and by what right I have taken upon myself to interfere in your family affairs——”
Flora and Mark looked hard at each other; if ever here was a question possessing a vivid interest to them both, this was one.
“And, secondly,” continued Nathan Gomer, “that I consider my advice, if worth asking for, to be worth following. I therefore distinctly decline to give it unless you, having faith in the deep concern I entertain for your welfare and interests, pass to me your word of honour as a gentleman that you will accept it and carry it out.”
The first was a subject of eager curiosity to Wilton, and he was only too glad that Nathan had himself mooted it: but the second was a poser. Suppose he should advise as Charlock had done?
A rapid retrospective reflection, however, caused Wilton to believe that he might rely upon the sincerity of Nathan Gomer’s counsel, for he had proved its truth and its profound sagacity; so he assented, with a graceful manifestation, which Nathan accepted at pretty much its proper value.
“First, then,” he exclaimed, “to reveal to you who I am, and why I therefore have taken upon myself to advance your interests, and ensure the happiness of yourself and children.”
He drew a deep breath and placed his hand over his eyes.
Wilton, Mark, and Flora regarded him with breathless attention.
For a minute or so a profound silence reigned, broken only by the heavy inspirations of Nathan Gomer.
And from the prayer of Want, and plaint of Woe,
Oh! never, never turn away thine ear!
Forlorn is this bleak wilderness below
Oh! what were man, should Heaven refuse to hear?
To others do (the law is not severe)
What to thyself thou wishest to be done.
—Armstrong.
Nathan Gomer withdrew his hands from before his eyes.
A sharp spasm which had almost convulsed his frame had passed away, and he commenced his revelation.
He addressed himself to Wilton, rather than to his other auditors, and it soon became evident that his story possessed for the old man a most absorbing interest.
“I was separated from my family at a very early age,” he commenced, “being taken under the roof and tender care of a sister of my mother. My father was a wild, dissipated spendthrift, in perpetual pecuniary difficulties. My mother, a gentle, timid, tender creature, passed a life of incessant fright, care and distressing misery, after her union with him. She had been married to him some five years before I was born, and at that period she had reached the very climax of wretchedness with the miserable man to whom she was tied; a series of wild excesses drove him into an infuriated insanity, during a fearful paroxysm of which life was snatched from him. In my mother’s horror at this event, I was prematurely born. My mother never recovered the shock. Within two years of my father’s decease, she was placed in the same grave, and I was taken charge of by her sister.
“My boyhood was passed in comparative seclusion; for I was, from my earliest recollection, possessed of personal defects; and idle, thoughtless boys, when I appeared amongst them, found a delight in wounding my susceptibility, by jeering at me, mocking my stunted growth and my sallow visage. I was on that account kept as much within doors as possible, and was educated at home. I had kind instructors and an extensive library to consult, and naturally acquired a passion for reading, especially as legendary lore was rather an extensive element in the collection. I was, perhaps, the more urged to devote myself to books, because, by comparison, I became quite aware of my physical deficiencies, and because—with a kind motive—-my father’s terrible example was always held up in terrorem before me. So I became dull and thoughtful, and shunned society as much as it was possible for me to do, and I began to feel like Cain. Strangers met me with a smile of derision, or their lips were curled with scorn. I was bantered by my own kind; and was the scoff of the other sex. No wonder that I hated the human race; for it appeared to hate me. Even the servants of the house in which I lived made me the butt at which to level the shafts of their vulgar ridicule. How much of this I really deserved I do not now pretend to measure; but I hurled back the contumely I received with fierce; intemperate defiance. I spurned; and spat; and sneered; too; even though beneath that scornful rage my heart was breaking.
“I had nearly arrived at man’s estate; a dwarf still in stature, harbouring against the world the most rancorous animosity; when I became sensible that there was one gentle spirit who was out of the pale of my hate. Years before, a quiet, dove-like, mild girl was a frequent visitor at my aunt’s, and she was often invited when, in an irritated, turbulent mood, I wandered about threatening mischief to others as to myself. At first I repelled her, but somehow she discovered the way to soften my violence, and to lead my thoughts into a gentler train. As we grew up together, her influence over me increased, until her lightest wish became the law I implicitly obeyed. Her face and form were of faultless beauty, and her mind was not less perfect in purity and excellence. Her coming seemed to me as the opening of the gates of Paradise, in which I wandered with her—her going, as though I had been thrust back into darkness and gloom. In my most morose fits, her smiling eyes and soft words wooed me into placidity and to kinder thoughts of others. Her gentle touch unloosed my clenched hands, unlocked my hard-set teeth, and her appealing look toned down the bitterness of my heart against those who were, as it seemed to me, lashing me into fury.
“Lo! by chance I learned that she had been wooed and won by a youth of fairer proportions than myself, that tender words of affection had been poured into a not unwilling ear, and that she had promised to give her hand, with her heart in it, to him whose form and features had pleased her eye, and whose honied language had beguiled her of her love.
“I know not how to describe the overwhelming agony of my heart at the discovery. I brooded over it, nursed the most terrible schemes of vengeance on him who was thus about to rob me of the only being who had sympathised with me, had reasoned with me, and had brought me back from almost brute barbarism into the realms of a common humanity; who had extirpated many of my worst failings, and replaced them by implanting virtues resembling her own. I took the first opportunity of challenging her with the tale I had heard, and she at once, with blushing face, acknowledged its truth. Then, then, in frantic terms, I confessed the idolatry with which I worshipped her; then, by an involuntary exclamation, she revealed to me that she had done all for me in commiserating pity and nought in love. Oh! the intense torture of that admission!
“Our interview was long and agonising to me, and scarcely less painful to her—let me not further recur to it even at this moment, I——”
Nathan Gomer abruptly rose and paced the room, hiding his averted face in his handkerchief. Recovering himself by a strong effort he returned to his seat, and continued—
“I abruptly fled home and the neighbourhood; I never returned thither; I came to London, where I changed my name. A large legacy greeted my arrival. I hastened to secure it, and to commence to increase it by every art the usurer can employ. I hated my race; I knew no more certain way of feeding, ghoul-like, on their heart’s blood, than by lending money at usurious interest. Oh! but I have, like a miserable wretch that I was, gloated over the fearful agonies of a breaking heart, and in my dreary, solitary chamber I have yelled with triumphant delight over the mad despair of those I have helped to destruction.
“And so years went on. Gold showered on me from all sides. My aunt left her sole wealth to me; I converted her lands into coin, and lent it out. The proud bent like fawning spaniels at my feet—the humble knelt to me. The rich smiled and bowed to me. The high and the well-born sought—ugh! I might have surfeited myself with the ‘best society,’ yellow, ungainly dwarf though I happened to be.
“One night, alone in my dismal room, gloating over the feat of having that day planted my foot on a proud man’s neck, there suddenly came upon me the memory of the past. I was a boy again. She whom I had so loved in my youth, Flora Thorneley, stood before me; there, in her white girlish garb, bright, shining like a seraph, her soft, sad eyes bent upon me with a pitying expression, and her low, musical voice ringing in my ears—‘Thou hast broken thy promise,’ she said; ‘thou hast planted sorrow where thou mightest have sown joy; thou hast plunged into hopeless misery those whom thou mightest have lifted into happiness. Alas! alas!’ And then it seemed to me that I was alone and sightless.”
Wilton, with his hands compressed, had risen up as Gomer uttered the name, and he repeated—
“Flora Thorneley?”
“Even she whom you wedded!” exclaimed Nathan, with excitement; “even she. My first love and my last. Be seated, my story is drawing to a close.”
Wilton obeyed, but looked upon him with a gaze in which wonder, mystification and stupefaction were blended. A suggestion had presented itself to him which electrified him.
Nathan Gomer went on, regarded now by Flora and Mark with intense earnestness.
“I went down the following day to Harleydale,” he said, “and there learned the terrible circumstances which had driven you, Wilton, to leave there. I returned to London, and sought you out, but too late to be of the service I intended. I became your landlord, but not until she whom I sought had sunk into her grave. When this dreadful blow smote me, I registered a vow that I would strive to ensure the happiness of her children. I have striven to fulfil that vow, and I shall not cease in my efforts until it is accomplished, or my powers to act are stayed by the hand of the Inevitable.”
“You, then,” said Wilton, anxiously, “are not Nathan Gomer, but——”
“Allan Eliott Eglinton, claimant and heir-at-law to those estates which have been so long in Chancery, which, had you been just, might have been yours, but now must be mine. You now know, Wilton, who I am, and why I have spared neither time nor money to restore you to affluence. You, who beggared me of all I valued in the world—you, who so well remembered my services, and so liberally rewarded them.”
Wilton covered his eyes with his hands, and sank back in his chair with a groan.
Flora stole to the side of the dwarf, and knelt to him. She pointed to her father and then to heaven.
“Pardon him for her sake,” she said, in trembling accents.
He pressed her hands and raised her from her suppliant posture.
“For her dear sake,” he murmured, “all is forgiven.”
There was a moment’s silence; then Nathan Gomer said—
“Still there is something to clear up, Wilton. Be a man and attend to me, for the welfare of your children is now at stake. I have committed myself to the love-labour of securing their earthly happiness if within the compass of my power, and therefore I shall now proceed to renew the conversation which so abruptly parted us. I suggested that you should reward young Mr. Vivian with the hand of your daughter Flora, upon what I consider to be sound reasons. First, they love each other; that I expect, from past experience, you will admit is a strong element in producing happiness in wedded life. Secondly, Mr. Vivian possesses many admirable qualifications. He is high-spirited, honourable, generous, and capable of the most enduring attachment; he is brave, persevering, industrious; he is well educated, and in the event of reverses, can support his family by his remarkable skill; he has been—as far as resources go—so fortunate as to discover the will of Mr. Harper, which proved that very respectable and good man to have been infinitely richer than he had the credit of being. The provisions of the will leave a handsome stipend to the widow, a small income to the son—who, by the way, is on his death-bed, the results of excessive drinking—and the whole of the residue of his wealth to Mr. Henry Vivian. Now, Wilton, does your pride still step in between your daughter and her future happiness?”
Mr. Wilton held out his hand to Gomer.
“You have conquered me,” he said. “If Mr. Vivian is prepared to come forward to claim my daughter’s hand, I will no longer withhold my consent.”
“I am happy to hear it,” exclaimed Nathan, shaking his hand; adding, “and considering her narrow escape from frightful misery at the hands of an atrocious scoundrel who is likely henceforth to suffer for his misdeeds, I hardly expected you would withhold it. As for Mr. Vivian, we will soon ascertain his views on the matter.”
He rose and rang the bell. A servant appeared.
“Has Mr. Vivian arrived?” he inquired.
“He has this moment come,” returned the servant.
“Show him in,” said Nathan.
In another moment Hal made his appearance. Flora turned crimson and then pale, and then sank into a seat. Mark jumped up and shook him heartily by the hand.
“Now, Mr. Vivian,” exclaimed Nathan, with a chuckle and a grin, “I have paved the way for you, and if you still feel inclined to accept the hand of Miss Flora Wilton——”
“Accept, sir?” interrupted Hal, almost sharply.
“Well, sir,” grinned Nathan, “propose for the hand of Miss Wilton, sir, if you prefer that arrangement of expression, and propose at once.”
Hal quickly did this in language fervid and eloquent; and if language could be a test of sincerity, there was little reason for Flora to doubt the truth of his love.
Mr. Wilton, in reply, gave with nervous excitement of manner his consent, leaving the ratification of his promise to his daughter.
“She will refuse, decline, raise an obstacle!” exclaimed Nathan, vigorously; “if it is only to keep up the unities of the cross-purposes we have all been playing at.”
“Oh, no, no, no!” cried Flora, hurriedly and loudly. At a burst of laughter from Mark and Nathan, she buried her blushing face in her hands.
Hal was suffered to remove them, and to press them to his lips.
“You accept him?” cried Gomer, chuckling. “Eh, Flora! that is the proper form of expression, is it not?”
“Oh, I am so happy—so very, very happy,” she murmured, looking fondly at Hal.
Then she suddenly ran up to her father and kissed him, as if with passionate gratitude. Presently she stole round to where Nathan Gomer sat, and bending over him timidly, pressed her lips to his forehead.
An expression of intense emotion passed over that strange man’s features, his eyes filled with glittering tears, and his lips moved rapidly.
A moment’s stillness.
He rose up and took Flora’s hand. He placed it in Hal’s, and with a voice whose tones became rich from depth of feeling, he said—
“Take her, Mr. Vivian; you are the choice of her young heart, as she is of yours; your future happiness is in the keeping of both. Be you faithful to the trust now reposed in you; be you true to the love you now bear her. You have won her, now wear her as the richest jewel heaven and fortune can bestow upon you. Be gentle to her and tender with her, for she is a flower that will droop and perish under a cold aspect; and be sure that, for all the loving tenderness you may plant around her coming life, you will reap an abundant harvest of pure, enduring, devoted affection.”
“Oh! that I were worthy of this treasure, so great, so sacred, now entrusted to my keeping,” ejaculated Hal, in a quivering, ardent voice, as he drew Flora to his breast. “Have only faith in me. I would die rather than be the occasion of one sad thought to her.”
“Amen!” responded Nathan Gomer. “Understand me, young Mr. Vivian, though I help to hand over this treasure to you, I do not resign my self-constituted guardianship. Oh, but I shall be a very dragon of watchfulness still.”
A merry laugh followed this sally.
Then everybody seemed to know what was coming next.
Mr. Wilton’s face grew serious and its muscles set; he had made one sacrifice—somehow he continued to think so. He felt really that he ought to be excused from making another—certainly they were not small ones.
However, Nathan Gomer set boldly to work, and introduced the subject by addressing Mark.
“Pray, sir, having been a witness to your sister’s happiness in catching a husband, have you no yearnings to take unto yourself a wife?”
“I have for some time had the most ardent desire, sir,” responded Mark, quickly. “I have selected a young lady, but my father objects to my choice.”
“On what ground, Wilton,” inquired Nathan, rather magisterially.
Wilton declined discussing the topic; wished it to be deferred to a future period, but Nathan would on no account accede to it.
“I came here to perfect my reconciliation, and to leave to-night, if possible, a happy man, and I am not in a temper to be easily rebuffed,” he said. “Give your reasons?”
Wilton knew but little of the girl, he said, but that she was not of a station or by birth fitted to be the wife of his son.
Gomer scouted the notion.
“‘Honour and shame from no condition rise,’” he exclaimed. “So says the poet; surely no man better than you should know it, Wilton; and, by the bye, if you and I were to trace our ancestors back, we should no doubt find one a cattle-stealer, and the other a delver of potatoes. Come, Wilton, supposing her origin—which I assume you are in no condition to prove—is what you assert it to be, mean and low. What have you to assert further against her. She is pretty, amiable, self-reliant, proud-spirited, generous, and sympathetic to a fault; she is pure in mind, in soul and act; she has struggled through the stern meshes of adversity with a brave heart; she has never sacrificed her sense of self respect under the most seductive temptation; and she never drew back from an additional burden to her daily trials if she could in so doing rescue from misery a fellow-being. What, Wilton, though she has toiled—and nobly toiled with her needle—have you not slaved with your burnisher? Come, Wilton, pride is but a hollow phantom, a bad companion, and a worse friend—it never purchased human happiness yet. Human worth is far more valuable than all the wealth of the Indies amassed in one heap. This girl has a large share of that worth, and would make your son a happy man, if not a rich one. What say you, Mr. Vivian.”
“Say, sir, that no praise can exaggerate her merits,” replied Hal, with enthusiasm. “With my beloved Flora for my wife, and Lotte Clinton for my sister, there would be no man more justly proud than I in all Christendom.”
“I should think not,” replied Gomer.
Mr. Wilton coughed.
“Give me time,” he said; “give me time. I will see her—I know nothing of her yet.”
“Oh! he wants more evidence,” cried Gomer, ringing the bell with smartness. “He shall have it.”
A servant entered, and ushered in a lady.
“Mrs. Riversdale!” cried Nathan Gomer, loudly.
All knew that Mr. Grahame’s daughter, Helen, stood before them.
It was not difficult to guess that Nathan had made careful arrangements before he came that day, with a view to accomplish certain desired results.
Mrs. Hugh Riversdale was received with quiet but respectful attention. The unhappy circumstances connected with her family were known to all, were commiserated, and had created sincere sympathy in the breasts of all present.
Nathan Gomer did not permit their thoughts to dwell upon what had passed, but at once, in a courteous manner, addressed her.
“You very kindly volunteered to testify to the worth of Miss Lotte Clinton,” he said, “when and wherever I might request you to do so?”
“Or I could have the opportunity of doing so,” interposed Helen, emphatically.
Nathan said to her instantly—
“I wish you would give Mr. Wilton your impressions concerning her.”
If ever Helen Grahame spoke fervently, earnestly, passionately, she did so now. Oh! she found words inexpressive to record the obligations she was under to Lotte, or her daily increasing sense of their value, which had no measure of requital. Her ardour of expression, her tears, her emotion in making her acknowledgments of Lotte’s uniform, unselfish acts of kindness overwhelmed Wilton. He could not reply to her. The tears stood in his eyes.
Then Flora knelt at his feet, and she said—
“She watched in your sickness and prostration over you with tender patience and amiable sweetness. She soothed your anxiety and your pain by her attention when you were awake, her mild, kind eyes rarely left you when you slept. You, yourself, have said that her face greeted you like a burst of sunshine. That it was radiant with a galaxy of glories, for it was cheerful, amiable, placid, gentle, good——”
Wilton sprang up and said, in a hoarse, husky voice—
“Why, Mark—Mark, my boy, Miss Clinton, your—your choice is—is—-”
“Your own little pet nurse,” replied Mark, with evident excitement.
Mr. Wilton sank down in his seat again.
“I see it all,” he said; “I understand her better now. Mark, my son, the last shred of false pride has been wrested from me. I see the precipice on which I have been standing, and I draw back in thankfulness. If any persuasions of mine can induce Miss Clinton now to accept you I will use them until they become entreaties. She shall be yours; and happy you will be with her, unless you yourself destroy the felicity her gentleness will weave around you.”
So far all was well; and now Mark explained to him how he had sought to induce her to become his wife, and how she refused him, because she would not create dissension in his family, even though a life of sorrow was entailed on her by her own refusal. And Helen explained how she had declined her husband’s offer of an independence for a reason which she would not explain, but which really was, that if Mr. Wilton found that her means were far better than he had anticipated, he might consent to receive her into his family. She felt that thus Mark’s solicitations would be renewed; and as she was too high-spirited to enter his family by such a side-wind, she believed it would occasion her less pain to remain, unsought, in her old condition, than to have again to refuse Mark’s entreaties to become his. Besides, she loved him so dearly that she was afraid of her own strength to continue to say nay.
When Wilton heard all these things about her, he felt at once overjoyed and grieved. Glad that his son had made such a choice, pained that he had so harshly interfered to prevent the union. But he determined, as far as possible, to repair his conduct; and he expressed his intention of doing so without delay, and that very evening he decided on the course he should pursue.
On the morning following that eventful evening; Lotte was seated alone; as usual at work, and as usual thinking about Mark and Harleydale, and many other matters connected with him and his family. She knew the family were in town; and she was in the act of wishing that she could get an opportunity of gazing on Mark—dear, dear Mark—unseen, when she was startled by a gentle tap at her room-door.
She ran lightly to it and opened it, and found herself face to face with Mr. Wilton.
She uttered an exclamation of surprise, and blushed like a rose; then turned as pale as marble. She, however, asked Mr. Wilton into the room, and placed a chair for him.
“So,” he said, as he seated himself, “you little runaway, I have found you at last, have I? Pray, what have you to say in extenuation of deserting a poor crippled invalid without one word at parting? Tell me, had I so wearied, tired, exhausted you, that you ran away, worn out, determined to be no more troubled with such a plaguy old fellow as I?”
“No, sir; indeed I do assure you, no,” returned Lotte, embarrassed; “but——”
“You would not for worlds undertake the same office again, eh?” said Wilton, eyeing her askance.
“Indeed, I would, sir, cheerfully,” she replied, trembling like an aspen; “but——” Again she hesitated. She was unconscious that he now knew who his nurse was, and she did not like disguising the truth, but how to reveal it? She saw no way.
“But, indeed!” repeated Wilton. “Now listen to me. I have proved your value. You made yourself essential to my comfort, and I am quite lost without you. I, therefore, come now to offer you a home with my family, you to be, as you have been, my pet, confidential attendant.”
Lotte listened to him with undisguised fright.
“Oh, no—no, sir, no—no,” she replied hurriedly; “it cannot possibly be.”
“No!” he echoed. “Why not?—explain.”
“Pray, pardon my not answering that question. Do not ask me, sir!” she exclaimed, appealingly. “I mean not my refusal offensively; but, in truth, sir, it cannot be.”
“Not in that capacity, perhaps,” he said, rising up, and speaking with grave earnestness; “but will you not come back as—as—as my daughter?”
“Sir!” exclaimed Lotte, clutching at the table in her deep emotion.
“As the wife of my son, Mark Wilton,” he replied, with energy, “and my beloved, esteemed daughter.” He caught her in his arms, and pressed her to his breast. “I know all now; I honour you, my child,” he said, warmly; “the details of your past history have been made known to me, and I blush when I think how nobly you, an unassisted helpless girl, have sustained your integrity, your virtuous truthfulness, your self-respect, against all temptations and assaults, against which I, more fortified to withstand them, have fallen back. I should, my child, now be proud of you as a friend—I shall be prouder still of you as a daughter; ever, ever glad of your sweet presence in my household, recording few happier days in my past history than that which sees you wedded to my son.”
Poor Lotte! all her trials and her griefs were nothing to this. They needed courage to meet and firmness to bear them. This announcement by Wilton was the very bursting of a white cloud of happiness, and she could only sob passionately on his shoulder, without uttering one word in reply.
As soon as the old man, who was much affected, could recover his voice, he summoned an individual who was waiting without with most feverish impatience.
Mark entered, and pronounced her name; and she lifted her weeping face from his father’s shoulder, and, with a faint effort at a smile, tendered him her hand.
That instalment was insufficient for his requirements. He relieved his father of his charge, took her in his own arms and folded them about her.
And he whispered softly in her ear—
“Will you refuse to be mine now, dearest, dearest Lotte?”
“Oh, Mark,” she murmured, “my heart is so full, I cannot speak to you!”
“What! not one little word, Lotte?” he urged. “And see, here is Flora; will you not greet her as your sister?”
And, in truth, there was Flora, who, in her turn, took possession of Lotte; and Nathan Gomer, who had no intention of being out of the way where happiness was going on.
And now the question was put formally to Lotte, that she might no more have misgivings about the nature of her reception in Wilton’s family, whether she would accept Mark for her husband?
Lotte murmured something about consulting her brother Charley.
Such a notion was at once promptly and generally ignored; and so she said, clearly and earnestly, that to wed Mark would be the happiest event which could happen to her in her whole life.
Of course she was borne off in triumph to Wilton’s mansion in the Regent’s Park, where, to her satisfaction, she found assembled to meet her Helen Riversdale, and her husband, and Eva Grahame, and her brother Charley.
After the first greetings were over, Nathan Gomer commenced an oration, in which imprimis he gave a rough sketch of the wealth he possessed. He then stated that he had exchanged with Wilton the Eglinton estates for Harleydale Hall and Manor, and which he now presented to Lotte as a dower, that she might still preserve her noble spirit unchanged, for she would not come to her husband empty handed. To Flora he presented the estate on which her mother had been born, and in her youth lived. To Hugh Riversdale he presented the mortgage-deeds of a large proportion of the late Mr. Grahame’s estates; and the remainder he handed to Charles Clinton as a gift to him and to his bride-elect, Eva—for that union had been all arranged through the instrumentality of Helen, who had suffered too much misery herself to attempt to entail it upon her young and loving sister. Steps were taken to release Malcolm Grahame; and, as it was clear he was not fit for anything, it was determined to provide him with an appointment in a Government office.
Little more now remains to be told. Colonel Mires having met the fate he richly deserved, Mr. Chewkle was visited with poetical justice—unromantic and un-poetical enough to him. Before his trial he sent for Nathan Gomer; and the little man, anxious to get possession of the forged deed, visited him. At the interview that ensued Mr. Chewkle gave him the key of his effects, and stated how he wished them bestowed. He expressed contrition for his guilt, and promised, if he had the chance, he would reform.
At his trial, he was found guilty; and, owing to Mr. Wilton’s recommendation to mercy, for that he had been tempted by a bribe to undertake the crime, he was let off with twenty years’ penal servitude.
The forged deed was obtained, destroyed; and Mr. Chewkle’s effects distributed as he wished, with certain additions to his poor relatives, who were thus benefited by his roguery, in a way they could never have expected.
The fate of Margaret Grahame would have been a sad one, but for the timely interposition of Hugh Riversdale.
As soon as Nathan Gomer’s and his own arrangements were completed, he sought out the Duke of St. Allborne; but it was not until after incessant efforts, assisted by skilful aid, that he was able to meet and confront him. Then his proceedings with him were summary. He gave to the Duke the alternative of making Margaret his duchess, or of meeting him in mortal combat. As the Duke saw that Hugh was resolved and vindictive, and as it seemed more than probable he might fall in the encounter, he accepted the alternative, and quietly made Margaret his wife; taking her at once abroad to spend the honeymoon, where he introduced her into society, preparatory to bringing her to London to occupy the station in which he had now placed her.
Lester Vane, as soon as he had recovered the effects of his leap, took the benefit of the Insolvent Act, and became a confirmed blackleg.
In due course the three weddings were celebrated; and there exists no evidence to prove other than that the six individuals united by the nearest and dearest tie were, by that ceremony, made the very happiest beings in the world, and that they continued to be so for the term of their natural lives.
Eustace Wilton, after all, became lord of Eglinton and beneath his roof dwelt, in honour and peace, Nathan Gomer—he would be addressed by no other name. Together they argued, discussed, and contended, and were as happy as any two old gentlemen in the wide world could wish to be.
As the main incidents in this tale are founded upon facts, it will hardly be considered unnecessary to draw attention to the moral it is intended to convey.
A path of rectitude is laid down in social life for all alike, rich or poor, to pursue. It is beset with snares and pitfalls; with inducements, seductions, and temptations to turn aside almost at every step.
To adhere, however, to the fixed principle of acting rightly in every situation in life demands no common powers. A peculiar strength of mind, a clearness of perception to distinguish the real from the unreal, correct, which is something more than common, sense, and even a course of instruction, are deemed little less than essential to achieve the difficult task of pursuing that path unswervingly.
“It is one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall.”
When those who have been born in the lap of luxury, have been nurtured with tenderness, instructed with care, reared in plenty, surrounded by blessings, caressed with kindred’s holy affection, elevated above the incitements of want, and gifted with that knowledge of good and evil which is imparted by the cultivation of the mind and the aid of religion, yield to temptation, and fall away before seductive arts—what shall be said of her who, unaided by any of these advantages, passes through her path of fire uncharred? What is she among her human sisters, who, endowed alone with that fatal gift to the poor girl—fair looks, struggles with penury and starvation, toils from dawn far, far into the long night, with dim and weary eyelids, and aching fingers, endures the severest straits of destitution, arising from most scantily remunerated labour, yet faces her danger nobly—resists those fascinating temptations which are so terrible in their power to the beautiful but penniless of her sex—wrestles bravely with her narrowed means, and rising superior to all those allurements, which are aided by the urgings of grim want, preserves her purity and her self-respect unsullied, and her independence unabased?
What is she among women who, being driven by society itself—in its hunger on the one hand after wealth, and on the other after cheapness—into the very corner of desperation, comes from her crushing ordeal unbruised and undefiled?
Is she not a Flower of the Flock?
Oh! reader, look about you; there are many Lotte Clintons in the throes of mortal agony nearer to you than you suspect. If they are fainting under their burden, can you not afford them a little aid to surmount their miserable destitution, and lift them out of their despair?
Remember the dreadful alternative!
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