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diff --git a/7688.txt b/7688.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b16ec5 --- /dev/null +++ b/7688.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3549 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook Lucretia, by Edward-Bulwer Lytton, Vol. 4 +#116 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: Lucretia, Volume 4. + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: March 2005 [EBook #7688] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on April 15, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUCRETIA, BY LYTTON, V4 *** + + + +This eBook was produced by Tapio Riikonen +and David Widger + + + + + +PART THE SECOND. + +PROLOGUE TO PART THE SECOND. + +The century has advanced. The rush of the deluge has ebbed back; the old +landmarks have reappeared; the dynasties Napoleon willed into life have +crumbled to the dust; the plough has passed over Waterloo; autumn after +autumn the harvests have glittered on that grave of an empire. Through +the immense ocean of universal change we look back on the single track +which our frail boat has cut through the waste. As a star shines +impartially over the measureless expanse, though it seems to gild but one +broken line into each eye, so, as our memory gazes on the past, the light +spreads not over all the breadth of the waste where nations have battled +and argosies gone down,--it falls narrow and confined along the single +course we have taken; we lean over the small raft on which we float, and +see the sparkles but reflected from the waves that it divides. + +On the terrace at Laughton but one step paces slowly. The bride clings +not now to the bridegroom's arm. Though pale and worn, it is still the +same gentle face; but the blush of woman's love has gone from it +evermore. + +Charles Vernon (to call him still by the name in which he is best known +to us) sleeps in the vault of the St. Johns. He had lived longer than he +himself had expected, than his physician had hoped,--lived, cheerful and +happy, amidst quiet pursuits and innocent excitements. Three sons had +blessed his hearth, to mourn over his grave. But the two elder were +delicate and sickly. They did not long survive him, and died within a +few months of each other. The third seemed formed of a different mould +and constitution from his brethren. To him descended the ancient +heritage of Laughton, and he promised to enjoy it long. + +It is Vernon's widow who walks alone in the stately terrace; sad still, +for she loved well the choice of her youth, and she misses yet the +children in the grave. From the date of Vernon's death, she wore +mourning without and within; and the sorrows that came later broke more +the bruised reed,--sad still, but resigned. One son survives, and earth +yet has the troubled hopes and the holy fears of affection. Though that +son be afar, in sport or in earnest, in pleasure or in toil, working out +his destiny as man, still that step is less solitary than it seems. When +does the son's image not walk beside the mother? Though she lives in +seclusion, though the gay world tempts no more, the gay world is yet +linked to her thoughts. From the distance she hears its murmurs in +music. Her fancy still mingles with the crowd, and follows on, to her +eye, outshining all the rest. Never vain in herself, she is vain now of +another; and the small triumphs of the young and well-born seem trophies +of renown to the eyes so tenderly deceived. + +In the old-fashioned market-town still the business goes on, still the +doors of the bank open and close every moment on the great day of the +week; but the names over the threshold are partially changed. The junior +partner is busy no more at the desk; not wholly forgotten, if his name +still is spoken, it is not with thankfulness and praise. A something +rests on the name,--that something which dims and attaints; not proven, +not certain, but suspected and dubious. The head shakes, the voice +whispers; and the attorney now lives in the solid red house at the verge +of the town. + +In the vicarage, Time, the old scythe-bearer, has not paused from his +work. Still employed on Greek texts, little changed, save that his hair +is gray and that some lines in his kindly face tell of sorrows as of +years, the vicar sits in his parlour; but the children no longer, blithe- +voiced and rose-cheeked, dart through the rustling espaliers. Those +children, grave men or staid matrons (save one whom Death chose, and +therefore now of all best beloved!) are at their posts in the world. The +young ones are flown from the nest, and, with anxious wings, here and +there, search food in their turn for their young. But the blithe voice +and rose-cheek of the child make not that loss which the hearth misses +the most. From childhood to manhood, and from manhood to departure, the +natural changes are gradual and prepared. The absence most missed is +that household life which presided, which kept things in order, and must +be coaxed if a chair were displaced. That providence in trifles, that +clasp of small links, that dear, bustling agency,--now pleased, now +complaining,--dear alike in each change of its humour; that active life +which has no self of its own; like the mind of a poet, though its prose +be the humblest, transferring self into others, with its right to be +cross, and its charter to scold; for the motive is clear,--it takes what +it loves too anxiously to heart. The door of the parlour is open, the +garden-path still passes before the threshold; but no step now has full +right to halt at the door and interrupt the grave thought on Greek texts; +no small talk on details and wise sayings chimes in with the wrath of +"Medea." The Prudent Genius is gone from the household; and perhaps as +the good scholar now wearily pauses, and looks out on the silent garden, +he would have given with joy all that Athens produced, from Aeschylus to +Plato, to hear again from the old familiar lips the lament on torn +jackets, or the statistical economy of eggs. + +But see, though the wife is no more, though the children have departed, +the vicar's home is not utterly desolate. See, along the same walk on +which William soothed Susan's fears and won her consent,--see, what fairy +advances? Is it Susan returned to youth? How like! Yet look again, and +how unlike! The same, the pure, candid regard; the same, the clear, +limpid blue of the eye; the same, that fair hue of the hair,--light, but +not auburn; more subdued, more harmonious than that equivocal colour +which too nearly approaches to red. But how much more blooming and +joyous than Susan's is that exquisite face in which all Hebe smiles +forth; how much airier the tread, light with health; how much rounder, if +slighter still, the wave of that undulating form! She smiles, her lips +move, she is conversing with herself; she cannot be all silent, even when +alone, for the sunny gladness of her nature must have vent like a bird's. +But do not fancy that that gladness speaks the levity which comes from +the absence of thought; it is rather from the depth of thought that it +springs, as from the depth of a sea comes its music. See, while she +pauses and listens, with her finger half-raised to her lip, as amidst +that careless jubilee of birds she hears a note more grave and +sustained,--the nightingale singing by day (as sometimes, though rarely, +he is heard,--perhaps because he misses his mate; perhaps because he sees +from his bower the creeping form of some foe to his race),--see, as she +listens now to that plaintive, low-chanted warble, how quickly the smile +is sobered, how the shade, soft and pensive, steals over the brow. It is +but the mystic sympathy with Nature that bestows the smile or the shade. +In that heart lightly moved beats the fine sense of the poet. It is the +exquisite sensibility of the nerves that sends its blithe play to those +spirits, and from the clearness of the atmosphere comes, warm and +ethereal, the ray of that light. + +And does the roof of the pastor give shelter to Helen Mainwaring's youth? +Has Death taken from her the natural protectors? Those forms which we +saw so full of youth and youth's heart in that very spot, has the grave +closed on them yet? Yet! How few attain to the age of the Psalmist! +Twenty-seven years have passed since that date: how often, in those +years, have the dark doors opened for the young as for the old! William +Mainwaring died first, careworn and shamebowed; the blot on his name had +cankered into his heart. Susan's life, always precarious, had struggled +on, while he lived, by the strong power of affection and will; she would +not die, for who then could console him? But at his death the power gave +way. She lingered, but lingered dyingly, for three years; and then, for +the first time since William's death, she smiled: that smile remained on +the lips of the corpse. They had had many trials, that young couple whom +we left so prosperous and happy. Not till many years after their +marriage had one sweet consoler been born to them. In the season of +poverty and shame and grief it came; and there was no pride on +Mainwaring's brow when they placed his first-born in his arms. By her +will, the widow consigned Helen to the joint guardianship of Mr. Fielden +and her sister; but the latter was abroad, her address unknown, so the +vicar for two years had had sole charge of the orphan. She was not +unprovided for. The sum that Susan brought to her husband had been long +since gone, it is true,--lost in the calamity which had wrecked William +Mainwaring's name and blighted his prospects; but Helen's grandfather, +the landagent, had died some time subsequent to that event, and, indeed, +just before William's death. He had never forgiven his son the stain on +his name,--never assisted, never even seen him since that fatal day; but +he left to Helen a sum of about 8,000 pounds; for she, at least, was +innocent. In Mr. Fielden's eyes, Helen was therefore an heiress. And +who amongst his small range of acquaintance was good enough for her?--not +only so richly portioned, but so lovely,--accomplished, too; for her +parents had of late years lived chiefly in France, and languages there +are easily learned, and masters cheap. Mr. Fielden knew but one, whom +Providence had also consigned to his charge,--the supposed son of his old +pupil Ardworth; but though a tender affection existed between the two +young persons, it seemed too like that of brother and sister to afford +much ground for Mr. Fielden's anxiety or hope. + +From his window the vicar observed the still attitude of the young orphan +for a few moments; then he pushed aside his books, rose, and approached +her. At the sound of his tread she woke from her revery and bounded +lightly towards him. + +"Ah, you would not see me before!" she said, in a voice in which there +was the slightest possible foreign accent, which betrayed the country in +which her childhood had been passed; "I peeped in twice at the window. I +wanted you so much to walk to the village. But you will come now, will +you not?" added the girl, coaxingly, as she looked up at him under the +shade of her straw hat. + +"And what do you want in the village, my pretty Helen?" + +"Why, you know it is fair day, and you promised Bessie that you would buy +her a fairing,--to say nothing of me." + +"Very true, and I ought to look in; it will help to keep the poor people +from drinking. A clergyman should mix with his parishioners in their +holidays. We must not associate our office only with grief and sickness +and preaching. We will go. And what fairing are you to have?" + +"Oh, something very brilliant, I promise you! I have formed grand +notions of a fair. I am sure it must be like the bazaars we read of last +night in that charming 'Tour in the East.'" + +The vicar smiled, half benignly, half anxiously. "My dear child, it is +so like you to suppose a village fair must be an Eastern bazaar. If you +always thus judge of things by your fancy, how this sober world will +deceive you, poor Helen!" + +"It is not my fault; ne me grondez pas, mechant," answered Helen, hanging +her head. "But come, sir, allow, at least, that if I let my romance, as +you call it, run away with me now and then, I can still content myself +with the reality. What, you shake your head still? Don't you remember +the sparrow?" + +"Ha! ha! yes,--the sparrow that the pedlar sold you for a goldfinch; and +you were so proud of your purchase, and wondered so much why you could +not coax the goldfinch to sing, till at last the paint wore away, and it +was only a poor little sparrow!" + +"Go on! Confess: did I fret then? Was I not as pleased with my dear +sparrow as I should have been with the prettiest goldfinch that ever +sang? Does not the sparrow follow me about and nestle on my shoulder, +dear little thing? And I was right after all; for if I had not fancied +it a goldfinch, I should not have bought it, perhaps. But now I would +not change it for a goldfinch,--no, not even for that nightingale I heard +just now. So let me still fancy the poor fair a bazaar; it is a double +pleasure, first to fancy the bazaar, and then to be surprised at the +fair." + +"You argue well," said the vicar, as they now entered the village; "I +really think, in spite of all your turn for poetry and Goldsmith and +Cowper, that you would take as kindly to mathematics as your cousin John +Ardworth, poor lad! + +"Not if mathematics have made him so grave, and so churlish, I was going +to say; but that word does him wrong, dear cousin, so kind and so rough!" + +"It is not mathematics that are to blame if he is grave and absorbed," +said the vicar, with a sigh; "it is the two cares that gnaw most,-- +poverty and ambition." + +"Nay, do not sigh; it must be such a pleasure to feel, as he does, that +one must triumph at last!" + +"Umph! John must have nearly reached London by this time," said Mr. +Fielden, "for he is a stout walker, and this is the third day since he +left us. Well, now that he is about fairly to be called to the Bar, I +hope that his fever will cool, and he will settle calmly to work. I have +felt great pain for him during this last visit." + +"Pain! But why?" + +"My dear, do you remember what I read to you both from Sir William Temple +the night before John left us?" + +Helen put her hand to her brow, and with a readiness which showed a +memory equally quick and retentive, replied, "Yes; was it not to this +effect? I am not sure of the exact words: 'To have something we have +not, and be something we are not, is the root of all evil.'" + +"Well remembered, my darling!" + +"Ah, but," said Helen, archly, "I remember too what my cousin replied: +'If Sir William Temple had practised his theory, he would not have been +ambassador at the Hague, or--" + +"Pshaw! the boy's always ready enough with his answers," interrupted Mr. +Fielden, rather petulantly. "There's the fair, my dear,--more in your +way, I see, than Sir William Temple's philosophy." + +And Helen was right; the fair was no Eastern bazaar, but how delighted +that young, impressionable mind was, notwithstanding,--delighted with the +swings and the roundabouts, the shows, the booths, even down to the gilt +gingerbread kings and queens! All minds genuinely poetical are +peculiarly susceptible to movement,--that is, to the excitement of +numbers. If the movement is sincerely joyous, as in the mirth of a +village holiday, such a nature shares insensibly in the joy; but if the +movement is a false and spurious gayety, as in a state ball, where the +impassive face and languid step are out of harmony with the evident +object of the scene, then the nature we speak of feels chilled and +dejected. Hence it really is that the more delicate and ideal order of +minds soon grow inexpressibly weary of the hack routine of what are +called fashionable pleasures. Hence the same person most alive to a +dance on the green, would be without enjoyment at Almack's. It was not +because one scene is a village green, and the other a room in King +Street, nor is it because the actors in the one are of the humble, in the +others of the noble class; but simply because the enjoyment in the first +is visible and hearty, because in the other it is a listless and +melancholy pretence. Helen fancied it was the swings and the booths that +gave her that innocent exhilaration,--it was not so; it was the +unconscious sympathy with the crowd around her. When the poetical nature +quits its own dreams for the actual world, it enters and transfuses +itself into the hearts and humours of others. The two wings of that +spirit which we call Genius are revery and sympathy. But poor little +Helen had no idea that she had genius. Whether chasing the butterfly or +talking fond fancies to her birds, or whether with earnest, musing eyes +watching the stars come forth, and the dark pine-trees gleam into silver; +whether with airy daydreams and credulous wonder poring over the magic +tales of Mirglip or Aladdin, or whether spellbound to awe by the solemn +woes of Lear, or following the blind great bard into "the heaven of +heavens, an earthly guest, to draw empyreal air,"--she obeyed but the +honest and varying impulse in each change of her pliant mood, and would +have ascribed with genuine humility to the vagaries of childhood that +prompt gathering of pleasure, that quick-shifting sport of the fancy by +which Nature binds to itself, in chains undulating as melody, the lively +senses of genius. + +While Helen, leaning on the vicar's arm, thus surrendered herself to the +innocent excitement of the moment, the vicar himself smiled and nodded to +his parishioners, or paused to exchange a friendly word or two with the +youngest or the eldest loiterers (those two extremes of mortality which +the Church so tenderly unites) whom the scene drew to its tempting +vortex, when a rough-haired lad, with a leather bag strapped across his +waist, turned from one of the gingerbread booths, and touching his hat, +said, "Please you, sir, I was a coming to your house with a letter." + +The vicar's correspondence was confined and rare, despite his distant +children, for letters but a few years ago were costly luxuries to persons +of narrow income, and therefore the juvenile letter-carrier who plied +between the post-town and the village failed to excite in his breast that +indignation for being an hour or more behind his time which would have +animated one to whom the post brings the usual event of the day. He took +the letter from the boy's hand, and paid for it with a thrifty sigh as he +glanced at a handwriting unfamiliar to him,--perhaps from some clergyman +poorer than himself. However, that was not the place to read letters, so +he put the epistle into his pocket, until Helen, who watched his +countenance to see when he grew tired of the scene, kindly proposed to +return home. As they gained a stile half-way, Mr. Fielden remembered his +letter, took it forth, and put on his spectacles. Helen stooped over the +bank to gather violets; the vicar seated himself on the stile. As he +again looked at the address, the handwriting, before unfamiliar, seemed +to grow indistinctly on his recollection. That bold, firm hand--thin and +fine as woman's, but large and regular as man's--was too peculiar to be +forgotten. He uttered a brief exclamation of surprise and recognition, +and hastily broke the seal. The contents ran thus:-- + +DEAR SIR,--So many years have passed since any communication has taken +place between us that the name of Lucretia Dalibard will seem more +strange to you than that of Lucretia Clavering. I have recently returned +to England after long residence abroad. I perceive by my deceased +sister's will that she has confided her only daughter to my guardianship, +conjointly with yourself. I am anxious to participate in that tender +charge. I am alone in the world,--an habitual sufferer; afflicted with a +partial paralysis that deprives me of the use of my limbs. In such +circumstances, it is the more natural that I should turn to the only +relative left me. My journey to England has so exhausted my strength, +and all movement is so painful, that I must request you to excuse me for +not coming in person for my niece. Your benevolence, however, will, I am +sure, prompt you to afford me the comfort of her society, and as soon as +you can, contrive some suitable arrangement for her journey. Begging you +to express to Helen, in my name, the assurance of such a welcome as is +due from me to my sister's child, and waiting with great anxiety your +reply, I am, dear Sir, Your very faithful servant, + LUCRETIA DALIBARD. + +P. S. I can scarcely venture to ask you to bring Helen yourself to town, +but I should be glad if other inducements to take the journey afforded me +the pleasure of seeing you once again. I am anxious, in addition to such +details of my late sister as you may be enabled to give me, to learn +something of the history of her connection with Mr. Ardworth, in whom I +felt much interested years ago, and who, I am recently informed, left an +infant, his supposed son, under your care. So long absent from England, +how much have I to learn, and how little the mere gravestones tell us of +the dead! + +While the vicar is absorbed in this letter, equally unwelcome and +unexpected; while, unconscious as the daughter of Ceres, gathering +flowers when the Hell King drew near, of the change that awaited her and +the grim presence that approached on her fate, Helen bends still over the +bank odorous with shrinking violets,--we turn where the new generation +equally invites our gaze, and make our first acquaintance with two +persons connected with the progress of our tale. + + The britzska stopped. The servant, who had been gradually accumulating +present dust and future rheumatisms on the "bad eminence" of a rumble- +tumble, exposed to the nipping airs of an English sky, leaped to the +ground and opened the carriage-door. + +"This is the best place for the view, sir,--a little to the right." + +Percival St. John threw aside his book (a volume of Voyages), whistled to +a spaniel dozing by his side, and descended lightly. Light was the step +of the young man, and merry was the bark of the dog, as it chased from +the road the startled sparrow, rising high into the clear air,-- +favourites of Nature both, man and dog. You had but to glance at +Percival St. John to know at once that he was of the race that toils not; +the assured step spoke confidence in the world's fair smile. No care for +the morrow dimmed the bold eye and the radiant bloom. + +About the middle height,--his slight figure, yet undeveloped, seemed not +to have attained to its full growth,--the darkening down only just shaded +a cheek somewhat sunburned, though naturally fair, round which locks +black as jet played sportively in the fresh air; about him altogether +there was the inexpressible charm of happy youth. He scarcely looked +sixteen, though above four years older; but for his firm though careless +step, and the open fearlessness of his frank eye, you might have almost +taken him for a girl in men's clothes,--not from effeminacy of feature, +but from the sparkling bloom of his youth, and from his unmistakable +newness to the cares and sins of man. A more delightful vision of +ingenuous boyhood opening into life under happy auspices never inspired +with pleased yet melancholy interest the eye of half-envious, half- +pitying age. + +"And that," mused Percival St. John,--"that is London! Oh for the Diable +Boiteux to unroof me those distant houses, and show me the pleasures that +lurk within! Ah, what long letters I shall have to write home! How the +dear old captain will laugh over them, and how my dear good mother will +put down her work and sigh! Home!--um, I miss it already. How strange +and grim, after all, the huge city seems!" + +His glove fell to the ground, and his spaniel mumbled it into shreds. +The young man laughed, and throwing himself on the grass, played gayly +with the dog. + +"Fie, Beau, sir, fie! gloves are indigestible. Restrain your appetite, +and we'll lunch together at the Clarendon." + +At this moment there arrived at the same patch of greensward a pedestrian +some years older than Percival St. John,--a tall, muscular, raw-boned, +dust-covered, travel-stained pedestrian; one of your pedestrians in good +earnest,--no amateur in neat gambroon manufactured by Inkson, who leaves +his carriage behind him and walks on with his fishing-rod by choice, but +a sturdy wanderer, with thick shoes and strapless trousers, a threadbare +coat and a knapsack at his back. Yet, withal, the young man had the air +of a gentleman,--not gentleman as the word is understood in St. James's, +the gentleman of the noble and idle class, but the gentleman as the title +is accorded, by courtesy, to all to whom both education and the habit of +mixing with educated persons gives a claim to the distinction and imparts +an air of refinement. The new-comer was strongly built, at once lean and +large,--far more strongly built than Percival St. John, but without his +look of cheerful and comely health. His complexion had not the florid +hues that should have accompanied that strength of body; it was pale, +though not sickly; the expression grave, the lines deep, the face +strongly marked. By his side trotted painfully a wiry, yellowish, +footsore Scotch terrier. Beau sprang from his master's caress, cocked +his handsome head on one side, and suspended in silent halt his right +fore-paw. Percival cast over his left shoulder a careless glance at the +intruder. The last heeded neither Beau nor Percival. He slipped his +knapsack to the ground, and the Scotch terrier sank upon it, and curled +himself up into a ball. The wayfarer folded his arms tightly upon his +breast, heaved a short, unquiet sigh, and cast over the giant city, from +under deep-pent, lowering brows, a look so earnest, so searching, so full +of inexpressible, dogged, determined power, that Percival, roused out of +his gay indifference, rose and regarded him with curious interest. + +In the mean while Beau had very leisurely approached the bilious-looking +terrier; and after walking three times round him, with a stare and a +small sniff of superb impertinence, halted with great composure, and +lifting his hind leg-- O Beau, Beau, Beau! your historian blushes for +your breeding, and, like Sterne's recording angel, drops a tear upon the +stain which washes it from the register--but not, alas, from the back of +the bilious terrier! The space around was wide, Beau; you had all the +world to choose: why select so specially for insult the single spot on +which reposed the wornout and unoffending? O dainty Beau! O dainty +world! Own the truth, both of ye. There is something irresistibly +provocative of insult in the back of a shabby-looking dog! The poor +terrier, used to affronts, raised its heavy eyelids, and shot the gleam +of just indignation from its dark eyes. But it neither stirred nor +growled, and Beau, extremely pleased with his achievement, wagged his +tail in triumph and returned to his master,--perhaps, in parliamentary +phrase, to "report proceedings and ask leave to sit again." + +"I wonder," soliloquized Percival St. John, "what that poor fellow is +thinking of? Perhaps he is poor; indeed, no doubt of it, now I look +again. And I so rich! I should like to-- Hem! let's see what he's made +of." + +Herewith Percival approached, and with all a boy's half-bashful, half- +saucy frankness, said: "A fine prospect, sir." The pedestrian started, +and threw a rapid glance over the brilliant figure that accosted him. +Percival St. John was not to be abashed by stern looks; but that glance +might have abashed many a more experienced man. The glance of a squire +upon a corn-law missionary, of a Crockford dandy upon a Regent Street +tiger, could not have been more disdainful. + +"Tush!" said the pedestrian, rudely, and turned upon his heel. + +Percival coloured, and--shall we own it?--was boy enough to double his +fist. Little would he have been deterred by the brawn of those great arms +and the girth of that Herculean chest, if he had been quite sure that it +was a proper thing to resent pugilistically so discourteous a +monosyllable. The "tush!" stuck greatly in his throat. But the man, now +removed to the farther verge of the hill, looked so tranquil and so lost +in thought that the short-lived anger died. + +"And after all, if I were as poor as he looks, I dare say I should be +just as proud," muttered Percival. "However, it's his own fault if he +goes to London on foot, when I might at least have given him a lift. +Come, Beau, sir." + +With his face still a little flushed, and his hat unconsciously cocked +fiercely on one side, Percival sauntered back to his britzska. + +As in a whirl of dust the light carriage was borne by the four posters +down the hill, the pedestrian turned for an instant from the view before +to the cloud behind, and muttered: "Ay, a fine prospect for the rich,--a +noble field for the poor!" The tone in which those words were said told +volumes; there spoke the pride, the hope, the energy, the ambition which +make youth laborious, manhood prosperous, age renowned. + +The stranger then threw himself on the sward, and continued his silent +and intent contemplation till the clouds grew red in the west. When, +then, he rose, his eye was bright, his mien erect, and a smile, playing +round his firm, full lips, stole the moody sternness from his hard face. +Throwing his knapsack once more on his back, John Ardworth went +resolutely on to the great vortex. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE CORONATION. + +The 8th of September, 1831, was a holiday in London. William the Fourth +received the crown of his ancestors in that mighty church in which the +most impressive monitors to human pomp are the monuments of the dead. +The dust of conquerors and statesmen, of the wise heads and the bold +hands that had guarded the thrones of departed kings, slept around; and +the great men of the Modern time were assembled in homage to the monarch +to whom the prowess and the liberty of generations had bequeathed an +empire in which the sun never sets. In the Abbey--thinking little of the +past, caring little for the future--the immense audience gazed eagerly on +the pageant that occurs but once in that division of history,--the +lifetime of a king. The assemblage was brilliant and imposing. The +galleries sparkled with the gems of women who still upheld the celebrity +for form and feature which, from the remotest times, has been awarded to +the great English race. Below, in their robes and coronets, were men who +neither in the senate nor the field have shamed their fathers. +Conspicuous amongst all for grandeur of mien and stature towered the +brothers of the king; while, commanding yet more the universal gaze, were +seen, here the eagle features of the old hero of Waterloo, and there the +majestic brow of the haughty statesman who was leading the people (while +the last of the Bourbons, whom Waterloo had restored to the Tuileries, +had left the orb and purple to the kindred house so fatal to his name) +through a stormy and perilous transition to a bloodless revolution and a +new charter. + +Tier upon tier, in the division set apart for them, the members of the +Lower House moved and murmured above the pageant; and the coronation of +the new sovereign was connected in their minds with the great measure +which, still undecided, made at that time a link between the People and +the King, and arrayed against both, if not, indeed, the real Aristocracy, +at least the Chamber recognized by the Constitution as its +representative. Without the space was one dense mass. Houses, from +balcony to balcony, window to window, were filled as some immense +theatre. Up, through the long thoroughfare to Whitehall, the eye saw +that audience,--A PEOPLE; and the gaze was bounded at the spot where +Charles the First had passed from the banquet-house to the scaffold. + +The ceremony was over, the procession had swept slowly by, the last huzza +had died away; and after staring a while upon Orator Hunt, who had +clambered up the iron palisade near Westminster Hall, to exhibit his +goodly person in his court attire, the serried crowds, hurrying from the +shower which then unseasonably descended, broke into large masses or +lengthening columns. + +In that part of London which may be said to form a boundary between its +old and its new world, by which, on the one hand, you pass to +Westminster, or through that gorge of the Strand which leads along +endless rows of shops that have grown up on the sites of the ancient +halls of the Salisburys and the Exeters, the Buckinghams and +Southamptons; to the heart of the City built around the primeval palace +of the "Tower;" while, on the other hand, you pass into the new city of +aristocracy and letters, of art and fashion, embracing the whilom chase +of Marylebone, and the once sedge-grown waters of Pimlico,--by this +ignoble boundary (the crossing from the Opera House, at the bottom of the +Haymarket, to the commencement of Charing Cross) stood a person whose +discontented countenance was in singular contrast with the general gayety +and animation of the day. This person, O gentle reader, this sour, +querulous, discontented person, was a king, too, in his own walk! None +might dispute it. He feared no rebel; he was harassed by no reform; he +ruled without ministers. Tools he had; but when worn out, he replaced +them without a pension or a sigh. He lived by taxes, but they were +voluntary; and his Civil List was supplied without demand for the redress +of grievances. This person, nevertheless, not deposed, was suspended +from his empire for the day. He was pushed aside; he was forgotten. He +was not distinct from the crowd. Like Titus, he had lost a day,--his +vocation was gone. This person was the Sweeper of the Crossing! + +He was a character. He was young, in the fairest prime of youth; but it +was the face of an old man on young shoulders. His hair was long, thin, +and prematurely streaked with gray; his face was pale and deeply +furrowed; his eyes were hollow, and their stare gleamed, cold and stolid, +under his bent and shaggy brows. The figure was at once fragile and +ungainly, and the narrow shoulders curved in a perpetual stoop. It was a +person, once noticed, that you would easily remember, and associate with +some undefined, painful impression. The manner was humble, but not meek; +the voice was whining, but without pathos. There was a meagre, +passionless dulness about the aspect, though at times it quickened into a +kind of avid acuteness. No one knew by what human parentage this +personage came into the world. He had been reared by the charity of a +stranger, crept through childhood and misery and rags mysteriously; and +suddenly succeeded an old defunct negro in the profitable crossing +whereat he is now standing. All education was unknown to him, so was all +love. In those festive haunts at St. Giles's where he who would see +"life in London" may often discover the boy who has held his horse in the +morning dancing merrily with his chosen damsel at night, our sweeper's +character was austere as Charles the Twelfth's. And the poor creature +had his good qualities. He was sensitively alive to kindness,--little +enough had been shown him to make the luxury the more prized from its +rarity! Though fond of money, he would part with it (we do not say +cheerfully, but part with it still),--not to mere want, indeed (for he +had been too pinched and starved himself, and had grown too obtuse to +pinching and to starving for the sensitiveness that prompts to charity), +but to any of his companions who had done him a good service, or who had +even warmed his dull heart by a friendly smile. He was honest, too,-- +honest to the backbone. You might have trusted him with gold untold. +Through the heavy clod which man's care had not moulded, nor books +enlightened, nor the priest's solemn lore informed, still natural rays +from the great parent source of Deity struggled, fitful and dim. He had +no lawful name; none knew if sponsors had ever stood security for his +sins at the sacred fount. But he had christened himself by the strange, +unchristian like name of "Beck." There he was, then, seemingly without +origin, parentage, or kindred tie,--a lonesome, squalid, bloodless thing, +which the great monster, London, seemed to have spawned forth of its own +self; one of its sickly, miserable, rickety offspring, whom it puts out +at nurse to Penury, at school to Starvation, and, finally, and literally, +gives them stones for bread, with the option of the gallows or the +dunghill when the desperate offspring calls on the giant mother for +return and home. + +And this creature did love something,--loved, perhaps, some fellow-being; +of that hereafter, when we dive into the secrets of his privacy. +Meanwhile, openly and frankly, he loved his crossing; he was proud of his +crossing; he was grateful to his crossing. God help thee, son of the +street, why not? He had in it a double affection,--that of serving and +being served. He kept the crossing, if the crossing kept him. He smiled +at times to himself when he saw it lie fair and brilliant amidst the mire +around; it bestowed on him a sense of property! What a man may feel for +a fine estate in a ring fence, Beck felt for that isthmus of the kennel +which was subject to his broom. The coronation had made one rebellious +spirit when it swept the sweeper from his crossing. + +He stood, then, half under the colonnade of the Opera House as the crowd +now rapidly grew thinner and more scattered: and when the last carriage +of a long string of vehicles had passed by, he muttered audibly,-- + +"It'll take a deal of pains to make she right agin!" + +"So you be's 'ere to-day, Beck!" said a ragamuffin boy, who, pushing and +scrambling through his betters, now halted, and wiped his forehead as he +looked at the sweeper. "Vy, ve are all out pleasuring. Vy von't you +come with ve? Lots of fun!" + +The sweeper scowled at the urchin, and made no answer, but began +sedulously to apply himself to the crossing. + +"Vy, there isn't another sweep in the streets, Beck. His Majesty King +Bill's currynation makes all on us so 'appy!" + +"It has made she unkimmon dirty!" returned Beck, pointing to the dingy +crossing, scarce distinguished from the rest of the road. + +The ragamuffin laughed. + +"But ve be's goin' to 'ave Reform now, Beck. The peopul's to have their +rights and libties, hand the luds is to be put down, hand beefsteaks is +to be a penny a pound, and--" + +"What good will that do to she?" + +"Vy, man, ve shall take turn about, and sum vun helse will sveep the +crossings, and ve shall ride in sum vun helse's coach and four, p'r'aps,- +-cos vy? ve shall hall be hequals!" + +"Hequals! I tells you vot, if you keeps jawing there, atween me and she, +I shall vop you, Joe,--cos vy? I be's the biggest!" was the answer of +Beck the sweeper to Joe the ragamuffin. + +The jovial Joe laughed aloud, snapped his fingers, threw up his ragged +cap with a shout for King Bill, and set off scampering and whooping to +join those festivities which Beck had so churlishly disdained. + +Time crept on; evening began to close in, and Beck was still at his +crossing, when a young gentleman on horseback, who, after seeing the +procession, had stolen away for a quiet ride in the suburbs, reined in +close by the crossing, and looking round, as for some one to hold his +horse, could discover no loiterer worthy that honour except the solitary +Beck. So young was the rider that he seemed still a boy. On his smooth +countenance all that most prepossesses in early youth left its witching +stamp. A smile, at once gay and sweet, played on his lips. There was a +charm, even in a certain impatient petulance, in his quick eye and the +slight contraction of his delicate brows. Almaviva might well have been +jealous of such a page. He was the beau-ideal of Cherubino. He held up +his whip, with an arch sign, to the sweeper. "Follow, my man," he said, +in a tone the very command of which sounded gentle, so blithe was the +movement of the lips, and so silvery the easy accent; and without +waiting, he cantered carelessly down Pall Mall. + +The sweeper cast a rueful glance at his melancholy domain. But he had +gained but little that day, and the offer was too tempting to be +rejected. He heaved a sigh, shouldered his broom, and murmuring to +himself that he would give her a last brush before he retired for the +night, he put his long limbs into that swinging, shambling trot which +characterizes the motion of those professional jackals who, having once +caught sight of a groomless rider, fairly hunt him down, and appear when +he least expects it, the instant he dismounts. The young rider lightly +swung himself from his sleek, high-bred gray at the door of one of the +clubs in St. James's Street, patted his horse's neck, chucked the rein to +the sweeper, and sauntered into the house, whistling musically,--if not +from want of thought, certainly from want of care. + +As he entered the club, two or three men, young indeed, but much older, +to appearance at least, than himself, who were dining together at the +same table, nodded to him their friendly greeting. + +"Ah, Perce," said one, "we have only just sat down; here is a seat for +you." + +The boy blushed shyly as he accepted the proposal, and the young men made +room for him at the table, with a smiling alacrity which showed that his +shyness was no hindrance to his popularity. + +"Who," said an elderly dandy, dining apart with one of his +contemporaries,--"who is that lad? One ought not to admit such mere boys +into the club." + +"He is the only surviving son of an old friend of ours," answered the +other, dropping his eyeglass,--"young Percival St. John." + +"St. John! What! Vernon St. John's son?" + +"Yes." + +"He has not his father's good air. These young fellows have a tone, a +something,--a want of self-possession, eh?" + +"Very true. The fact is, that Percival was meant for the navy, and even +served as a mid for a year or so. He was a younger son, then,--third, I +think. The two elder ones died, and Master Percival walked into the +inheritance. I don't think he is quite of age yet." + +"Of age! he does not look seventeen." + +"Oh, he is more than that; I remember him in his jacket at Laughton. A +fine property!" + +"Ay, I don't wonder those fellows are so civil to him. This claret is +corked! Everything is so bad at this d----d club,--no wonder, when a +troop of boys are let in! Enough to spoil any club; don't know Larose +from Lafitte! Waiter!" + +Meanwhile, the talk round the table at which sat Percival St. John was +animated, lively, and various,--the talk common with young idlers; of +horses, and steeplechases, and opera-dancers, and reigning beauties, and +good-humoured jests at each other. In all this babble there was a +freshness about Percival St. John's conversation which showed that, as +yet, for him life had the zest of novelty. He was more at home about +horses and steeplechases than about opera-dancers and beauties and the +small scandals of town. Talk on these latter topics did not seem to +interest him, on the contrary, almost to pain. Shy and modest as a girl, +he coloured or looked aside when his more hardened friends boasted of +assignations and love-affairs. Spirited, gay, and manly enough in all +really manly points, the virgin bloom of innocence was yet visible in his +frank, charming manner; and often, out of respect for his delicacy, some +hearty son of pleasure stopped short in his narrative, or lost the point +of his anecdote. And yet so lovable was Percival in his good humour, his +naivete, his joyous entrance into innocent joy, that his companions were +scarcely conscious of the gene and restraint he imposed on them. Those +merry, dark eyes and that flashing smile were conviviality of themselves. +They brought with them a contagious cheerfulness which compensated for +the want of corruption. + +Night had set in. St. John's companions had departed to their several +haunts, and Percival himself stood on the steps of the club, resolving +that he would join the crowds that swept through the streets to gaze on +the illuminations, when he perceived Beck (still at the rein of his +dozing horse), whom he had quite forgotten till that moment. Laughing at +his own want of memory, Percival put some silver into Beck's hand,--more +silver than Beck had ever before received for similar service,--and +said,-- + +"Well, my man, I suppose I can trust you to take my horse to his +stables,--No.----, the Mews, behind Curzon Street. Poor fellow, he wants +his supper,--and you, too, I suppose!" + +Beck smiled a pale, hungry smile, and pulled his forelock politely. + +"I can take the 'oss werry safely, your 'onor." + +"Take him, then, and good evening; but don't get on, for your life." + +"Oh, no, sir; I never gets on,--'t aint in my ways." + +And Beck slowly led the horse through the crowd, till he vanished from +Percival's eyes. + +Just then a man passing through the street paused as he saw the young +gentleman on the steps of the club, and said gayly, "Ah! how do you do? +Pretty faces in plenty out to-night. Which way are you going?" + +"That is more than I can tell you, Mr. Varney. I was just thinking which +turn to take,--the right or the left." + +"Then let me be your guide;" and Varney offered his arm. + +Percival accepted the courtesy, and the two walked on towards Piccadilly. +Many a kind glance from the milliners--and maid-servants whom the +illuminations drew abroad, roved, somewhat impartially, towards St. John +and his companion; but they dwelt longer on the last, for there at least +they were sure of a return. Varney, if not in his first youth, was still +in the prime of life, and Time had dealt with him so leniently that he +retained all the personal advantages of youth itself. His complexion +still was clear; and as only his upper lip, decorated with a slight +silken and well-trimmed mustache, was unshaven, the contour of the face +added to the juvenility of his appearance by the rounded symmetry it +betrayed. His hair escaped from his hat in fair unchanged luxuriance. +And the nervous figure, agile as a panther's, though broad-shouldered and +deep-chested, denoted all the slightness and elasticity of twenty-five, +combined with the muscular power of forty. His dress was rather +fantastic,--too showy for the good taste which is habitual to the English +gentleman,--and there was a peculiarity in his gait, almost approaching +to a strut, which bespoke a desire of effect, a consciousness of personal +advantages, equally opposed to the mien and manner of Percival's usual +companions; yet withal, even the most fastidious would have hesitated to +apply to Gabriel Varney the epithet of "vulgar." Many turned to look +again, but it was not to remark the dress or the slight swagger; an +expression of reckless, sinister power in the countenance, something of +vigour and determination even in that very walk, foppish as it would have +been in most, made you sink all observation of the mere externals, in a +sentiment of curiosity towards the man himself. He seemed a somebody,-- +not a somebody of conventional rank, but a somebody of personal +individuality; an artist, perhaps a poet, or a soldier in some foreign +service, but certainly a man whose name you would expect to have heard +of. Amongst the common mob of passengers he stood out in marked and +distinct relief. + +"I feel at home in a crowd," said Varney. "Do you understand me?" + +"I think so," answered Percival. "If ever I could become distinguished, +I, too, should feel at home in a crowd." + +"You have ambition, then; you mean to become distinguished?" asked +Varney, with a sharp, searching look. + +There was a deeper and steadier flash than usual from Percival's dark +eyes, and a manlier glow over his cheek, at Varney's question. But he +was slow in answering; and when he did so, his manner had all its wonted +mixture of graceful bashfulness and gay candour. + +"Our rise does not always depend on ourselves. We are not all born +great, nor do we all have 'greatness thrust on us.'" + +"One can be what one likes, with your fortune," said Varney; and there +was a growl of envy in his voice. + +"What, be a painter like you! Ha, ha!" + +"Faith," said Varney, "at least, if you could paint at all, you would +have what I have not,--praise and fame." + +Percival pressed kindly on Varney's arm. "Courage! you will get justice +some day." + +Varney shook his head. "Bah! there is no such thing as justice; all are +underrated or overrated. Can you name one man who you think is estimated +by the public at his precise value? As for present popularity, it +depends on two qualities, each singly, or both united,--cowardice and +charlatanism; that is, servile compliance with the taste and opinion of +the moment, or a quack's spasmodic efforts at originality. But why bore +you on such matters? There are things more attractive round us. A good +ankle that, eh? Why, pardon me, it is strange, but you don't seem to +care much for women?" + +"Oh, yes, I do," said Percival, with a sly demureness. "I am very fond +of--my mother!" + +"Very proper and filial," said Varney, laughing; "and does your love for +the sex stop there?" + +"Well, and in truth I fancy so,--pretty nearly. You know my grandmother +is not alive! But that is something really worth looking at!" And +Percival pointed, almost with a child's delight, at an illumination more +brilliant than the rest. + +"I suppose, when you come of age, you will have all the cedars at +Laughton hung with coloured lamps. Ah, you must ask me there some day; I +should so like to see the old place again." + +"You never saw it, I think you say, in my poor father's time?" + +"Never." + +"Yet you knew him." + +"But slightly." + +"And you never saw my mother?" + +"No; but she seems to have such influence over you that I am sure she +must be a very superior person,--rather proud, I suppose." + +"Proud, no,--that is, not exactly proud, for she is very meek and very +affable. But yet--" + +"'But yet--' You hesitate: she would not like you to be seen, perhaps, +walking in Piccadilly with Gabriel Varney, the natural son of old Sir +Miles's librarian,--Gabriel Varney the painter; Gabriel Varney the +adventurer!" + +"As long as Gabriel Varney is a man without stain on his character and +honour, my mother would only be pleased that I should know an able and +accomplished person, whatever his origin or parentage. But my mother +would be sad if she knew me intimate with a Bourbon or a Raphael, the +first in rank or the first in genius, if either prince or artist had +lost, or even sullied, his scutcheon of gentleman. In a word, she is +most sensitive as to honour and conscience; all else she disregards." + +"Hem!" Varney stooped down, as if examining the polish of his boot, while +he continued carelessly: "Impossible to walk the streets and keep one's +boots out of the mire. Well--and you agree with your mother?" + +"It would be strange if I did not. When I was scarcely four years old, +my poor father used to lead me through the long picture-gallery at +Laughton and say: 'Walk through life as if those brave gentlemen looked +down on you.' And," added St. John, with his ingenuous smile, "my mother +would put in her word,--'And those unstained women too, my Percival.'" + +There was something noble and touching in the boy's low accents as he +said this; it gave the key to his unusual modesty and his frank, +healthful innocence of character. + +The devil in Varney's lip sneered mockingly. + +"My young friend, you have never loved yet. Do you think you ever +shall?" + +"I have dreamed that I could love one day. But I can wait." + +Varney was about to reply, when he was accosted abruptly by three men of +that exaggerated style of dress and manner which is implied by the vulgar +appellation of "Tigrish." Each of the three men had a cigar in his +mouth, each seemed flushed with wine. One wore long brass spurs and +immense mustaches; another was distinguished by an enormous surface of +black satin cravat, across which meandered a Pactolus of gold chain; a +third had his coat laced and braided a la Polonaise, and pinched and +padded a la Russe, with trousers shaped to the calf of a sinewy leg, and +a glass screwed into his right eye. + +"Ah, Gabriel! ah, Varney! ah, prince of good fellows, well met! You sup +with us to-night at little Celeste's; we were just going in search of +you." + +"Who's your friend,--one of us?" whispered a second. And the third +screwed his arm tight and lovingly into Varney's. + +Gabriel, despite his habitual assurance, looked abashed foz a moment, and +would have extricated himself from cordialities not at that moment +welcome; but he saw that his friends were too far gone in their cups to +be easily shaken off, and he felt relieved when Percival, after a +dissatisfied glance at the three, said quietly: "I must detain you no +longer; I shall soon look in at your studio;" and without waiting for an +answer, slid off, and was lost among the crowd. + +Varney walked on with his new-found friends, unheeding for some moments +their loose remarks and familiar banter. At length he shook off his +abstraction, and surrendering himself to the coarse humours of his +companions, soon eclipsed them all by the gusto of his slang and the +mocking profligacy of his sentiments; for here he no longer played a +part, or suppressed his grosser instincts. That uncurbed dominion of the +senses, to which his very boyhood had abandoned itself, found a willing +slave in the man. Even the talents themselves that he displayed came +from the cultivation of the sensual. His eye, studying externals, made +him a painter,--his ear, quick and practised, a musician. His wild, +prodigal fancy rioted on every excitement, and brought him in a vast +harvest of experience in knowledge of the frailties and the vices on +which it indulged its vagrant experiments. Men who over-cultivate the +art that connects itself with the senses, with little counterpoise from +the reason and pure intellect, are apt to be dissipated and irregular in +their lives. This is frequently noticeable in the biographies of +musicians, singers, and painters; less so in poets, because he who deals +with words, not signs and tones, must perpetually compare his senses with +the pure images of which the senses only see the appearances,--in a word, +he must employ his intellect, and his self-education must be large and +comprehensive. But with most real genius, however fed merely by the +senses,--most really great painters, singers, and musicians, however +easily led astray into temptation,--the richness of the soil throws up +abundant good qualities to countervail or redeem the evil; they are +usually compassionate, generous, sympathizing. That Varney had not such +beauties of soul and temperament it is unnecessary to add,--principally, +it is true, because of his nurture, education, parental example, the +utter corruption in which his childhood and youth had passed; partly +because he had no real genius,---it was a false apparition of the divine +spirit, reflected from the exquisite perfection of his frame (which +rendered all his senses so vigorous and acute) and his riotous fancy and +his fitful energy, which was capable at times of great application, but +not of definite purpose or earnest study. All about him was flashy and +hollow. He had not the natural subtlety and depth of mind that had +characterized his terrible father. The graft of the opera-dancer was +visible on the stock of the scholar; wholly without the habits of method +and order, without the patience, without the mathematical calculating +brain of Dalibard, he played wantonly with the horrible and loathsome +wickedness of which Olivier had made dark and solemn study. Extravagant +and lavish, he spent money as fast as he gained it; he threw away all +chances of eminence and career. In the midst of the direst plots of his +villany or the most energetic pursuit of his art, the poorest excitement, +the veriest bauble would draw him aside. His heart was with Falri in the +sty, his fancy with Aladdin in the palace. To make a show was his +darling object; he loved to create effect by his person, his talk, his +dress, as well as by his talents. Living from hand to mouth, crimes +through which it is not our intention to follow him had at times made him +rich to-day, for vices to make him poor again to-morrow. What he called +"luck," or "his star," had favoured him,--he was not hanged!--he lived; +and as the greater part of his unscrupulous career had been conducted in +foreign lands and under other names, in his own name and in his own +country, though something scarcely to be defined, but equivocal and +provocative of suspicion, made him displeasing to the prudent, and +vaguely alarmed the experience of the sober, still, no positive +accusation was attached to the general integrity of his character, and +the mere dissipation of his habits was naturally little known out of his +familiar circle. Hence he had the most presumptuous confidence in +himself,--a confidence native to his courage, and confirmed by his +experience. His conscience was so utterly obtuse that he might almost be +said to present the phenomenon of a man without conscience at all. +Unlike Conrad, he did not "know himself a villain;" all that he knew of +himself was that he was a remarkably clever fellow, without prejudice or +superstition. That, with all his gifts, he had not succeeded better in +life, he ascribed carelessly to the surpassing wisdom of his philosophy. +He could have done better if he had enjoyed himself less; but was not +enjoyment the be-all and end-all of this little life? More often, +indeed, in the moods of his bitter envy, he would lay the fault upon the +world. How great he could have been, if he had been rich and high-born! +Oh, he was made to spend, not to save,--to command, not to fawn! He was +not formed to plod through the dull mediocrities of fortune; he must toss +up for the All or the Nothing! It was no control over himself that made +Varney now turn his thoughts from certain grave designs on Percival St. +John to the brutal debauchery of his three companions,--rather, he then +yielded most to his natural self. And when the morning star rose over +the night he passed with low profligates and venal nymphs; when over the +fragments on the board and emptied bottles and drunken riot dawn gleamed +and saw him in all the pride of his magnificent organization and the +cynicism of his measured vice, fair, fresh, and blooming amidst those +maudlin eyes and flushed cheeks and reeling figures, laughing hideously +over the spectacle he had provoked, and kicking aside, with a devil's +scorn, the prostrate form of the favoured partner whose head had rested +on his bosom, as alone with a steady step, he passed the threshold and +walked into the fresh, healthful air,--Gabriel Varney enjoyed the fell +triumph of his hell-born vanity, and revelled in his sentiment of +superiority and power. + +Meanwhile, on quitting Varney young Percival strolled on as the whim +directed him. Turning down the Haymarket, he gained the colonnade of the +Opera House. The crowd there was so dense that his footsteps were +arrested, and he leaned against one of the columns in admiration of the +various galaxies in view. In front blazed the rival stars of the United +Service Club and the Athenaeum; to the left, the quaint and peculiar +device which lighted up Northumberland House; to the right, the anchors, +cannons, and bombs which typified ingeniously the martial attributes of +the Ordnance Office. + +At that moment there were three persons connected with this narrative +within a few feet of each other, distinguished from the multitude by the +feelings with which each regarded the scene, and felt the jostle of the +crowd. Percival St. John, in whom the harmless sense of pleasure was yet +vivid and unsatiated, caught from the assemblage only that physical +hilarity which heightened his own spirits. If in a character as yet so +undeveloped, to which the large passions and stern ends of life were as +yet unknown, stirred some deeper and more musing thoughts and +speculations, giving gravity to the habitual smile on his rosy lip, and +steadying the play of his sparkling eyes, he would have been at a loss +himself to explain the dim sentiment and the vague desire. + +Screened by another column from the pressure of the mob, with his arms +folded on his breast, a man some few years older in point of time,--many +years older in point of character,--gazed (with thoughts how turbulent,-- +with ambition how profound!) upon the dense and dark masses that covered +space and street far as the eye could reach. He, indeed, could not have +said, with Varney, that he was "at home in a crowd." For a crowd did not +fill him with the sense of his own individual being and importance, but +grappled him to its mighty breast with the thousand tissues of a common +destiny. Who shall explain and disentangle those high and restless and +interwoven emotions with which intellectual ambition, honourable and +ardent, gazes upon that solemn thing with which, in which, for which it +lives and labours,--the Human Multitude? To that abstracted, solitary +man, the illumination, the festivity, the curiosity, the holiday, were +nothing, or but as fleeting phantoms and vain seemings. In his heart's +eye he saw before him but the PEOPLE, the shadow of an everlasting +audience,--audience at once and judge. + +And literally touching him as he stood, the ragged sweeper, who had +returned in vain to devote a last care to his beloved charge, stood +arrested with the rest, gazing joylessly on the blazing lamps, dead as +the stones he heeded, to the young vivacity of the one man, the solemn +visions of the other. So, O London, amidst the universal holiday to +monarch and to mob, in those three souls lived the three elements which, +duly mingled and administered, make thy vice and thy virtue, thy glory +and thy shame, thy labour and thy luxury; pervading the palace and the +street, the hospital and the prison,--enjoyment, which is pleasure; +energy, which is action; torpor, which is want! + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT. + +Suddenly across the gaze of Percival St. John there flashed a face that +woke him from his abstraction, as a light awakes the sleeper. It was as +a recognition of something seen dimly before,--a truth coming out from a +dream. It was not the mere beauty of that face (and beautiful it was) +that arrested his eye and made his heart beat more quickly, it was rather +that nameless and inexplicable sympathy which constitutes love at first +sight,--a sort of impulse and instinct common to the dullest as the +quickest, the hardest reason as the liveliest fancy. Plain Cobbett, +seeing before the cottage-door, at her homeliest of house-work, the girl +of whom he said, "That girl should be my wife," and Dante, first thrilled +by the vision of Beatrice,--are alike true types of a common experience. +Whatever of love sinks the deepest is felt at first sight; it streams on +us abrupt from the cloud, a lightning flash,--a destiny revealed to us +face to face. + +Now, there was nothing poetical in the place or the circumstance, still +less in the companionship in which this fair creature startled the virgin +heart of that careless boy; she was leaning on the arm of a stout, rosy- +faced matron in a puce-coloured gown, who was flanked on the other side +by a very small, very spare man, with a very wee face, the lower part of +which was enveloped in an immense belcher. Besides these two +incumbrances, the stout lady contrived to carry in her hands an umbrella, +a basket, and a pair of pattens. + +In the midst of the strange, unfamiliar emotion which his eye conveyed to +his heart, Percival's ear was displeasingly jarred by the loud, bluff, +hearty voice of the girl's female companion-- + +"Gracious me! if that is not John Ardworth. Who'd have thought it? Why, +John,--I say, John!" and lifting her umbrella horizontally, she poked +aside two city clerks in front of her, wheeled round the little man on +her left, upon whom the clerks simultaneously bestowed the appellation of +"feller," and driving him, as being the sharpest and thinnest wedge at +hand, through a dense knot of some half-a-dozen gapers, while, following +his involuntary progress, she looked defiance on the malcontents, she +succeeded in clearing her way to the spot where stood the young man she +had discovered. The ambitious dreamer, for it was he, thus detected and +disturbed, looked embarrassed for a moment as the stout lady, touching +him with the umbrella, said,-- + +"Well, I declare if this is not too bad! You sent word that you should +not be able to come out with us to see the 'luminations, and here you are +as large as life!" + +"I did not think, at the moment you wrote to me, that-" + +"Oh, stuff!" interrupted the stout woman, with a significant, good- +humoured shake of her head; "I know what's what. Tell the truth, and +shame the gentleman who objects to showing his feet. You are a wild +fellow, John Ardworth, you are! You like looking after the pretty faces, +you do, you do--ha, ha, ha! very natural! So did you once,--did not you, +Mr. Mivers, did not you, eh? Men must be men,--they always are men, and +it's my belief that men they always will be!" + +With this sage conjecture into the future, the lady turned to Mr. Mivers, +who, thus appealed to, extricated with some difficulty his chin from the +folds of his belcher, and putting up his small face, said, in a small +voice, "Yes, I was a wild fellow once; but you have tamed me, you have, +Mrs. M.!" + +And therewith the chin sank again into the belcher, and the small voice +died into a small sigh. + +The stout lady glanced benignly at her spouse, and then resuming her +address, to which Ardworth listened with a half-frown and a half-smile, +observed encouragingly,-- + +"Yes, there's nothing like a lawful wife to break a man in, as you will +find some day. Howsomever, your time's not come for the altar, so +suppose you give Helen your arm, and come with us." + +"Do," said Helen, in a sweet, coaxing voice. + +Ardworth bent down his rough, earnest face to Helen's, and an evident +pleasure relaxed its thoughtful lines. "I cannot resist you," he began, +and then he paused and frowned. "Pish!" he added, "I was talking folly; +but what head would not you turn? Resist you I must, for I am on my way +now to my drudgery. Ask me anything some years hence, when I have time +to be happy, and then see if I am the bear you now call me." + +"Well," said Mrs. Mivers, emphatically, "are you coming, or are you not? +Don't stand there shilly-shally." + +"Mrs. Mivers," returned Ardworth, with a kind of sly humour, "I am sure +you would be very angry with your husband's excellent shopmen if that was +the way they spoke to your customers. If some unhappy dropper-in,--some +lady who came to buy a yard or so of Irish,--was suddenly dazzled, as I +am, by a luxury wholly unforeseen and eagerly coveted,--a splendid lace +veil, or a ravishing cashmere, or whatever else you ladies desiderate,-- +and while she was balancing between prudence and temptation, your foreman +exclaimed: `Don't stand shilly-shally'--come, I put it to you." + +"Stuff!" said Mrs. Mivers. + +"Alas! unlike your imaginary customer (I hope so, at least, for the sake +of your till), prudence gets the better of me; unless," added Ardworth, +irresolutely, and glancing at Helen,--"unless, indeed, you are not +sufficiently protected, and--" + +"Purtected!" exclaimed Mrs. Mivers, in an indignant tone of astonishment, +and agitating the formidable umbrella; "as if I was not enough, with the +help of this here domestic commodity, to purtect a dozen such. +Purtected, indeed!" + +"John is right, Mrs. M.,--business is business," said Mr. Mivers. "Let +us move on; we stop the way, and those idle lads are listening to us, and +sniggering." + +"Sniggering!" exclaimed the gentle helpmate. "I should like to see those +who presume for to snigger;" and as she spoke, she threw a look of +defiance around her. Then, having thus satisfied her resentment, she +prepared to obey, as no doubt she always did, her lord and master. +Suddenly, with a practised movement, she wheeled round Mr. Mivers, and +taking care to protrude before him the sharp point of the umbrella, cut +her way through the crowd like the scythed car of the Ancient Britons, +and was soon lost amidst the throng, although her way might be guessed by +a slight ripple of peculiar agitation along the general stream, +accompanied by a prolonged murmur of reproach or expostulation which +gradually died in the distance. + +Ardworth gazed after the fair form of Helen with a look of regret; and +when it vanished, with a slight start and a suppressed sigh he turned +away, and with the long, steady stride of a strong man, cleared his path +through the Strand towards the printing-office of a journal on which he +was responsibly engaged. + +But Percival, who had caught much of the conversation that took place so +near him,--Percival, happy child of idleness and whim,--had no motive of +labour and occupation to stay the free impulse of his heart, and his +heart drew him on, with magnetic attraction, in the track of the first +being that had ever touched the sweet instincts of youth. + +Meanwhile, Mrs. Mivers was destined to learn--though perhaps the lesson +little availed her--that to get smoothly through this world it is +necessary to be supple as well as strong; and though, up to a certain +point, man or woman may force the way by poking umbrellas into people's +ribs and treading mercilessly upon people's toes, yet the endurance of +ribs and toes has its appointed limits. + +Helen, half terrified, also half amused by her companion's robust +resolution of purpose, had in Mrs. Mivers's general courage and success +that confidence which the weak repose in the strong; and though whenever +she turned her eyes from the illuminations, she besought Mrs. Mivers to +be more gentle, yet, seeing that they had gone safely from St. Paul's to +St. James's, she had no distinct apprehension of any practically ill +results from the energies she was unable to mitigate. But now, having +just gained the end of St. James's Street, Mrs. Mivers at last found her +match. The crowd here halted, thick and serried, to gaze in peace upon +the brilliant vista which the shops and clubs of that street presented. +Coaches and carriages had paused in their line, and immediately before +Mrs. Mivers stood three very thin, small women, whose dress bespoke them +to be of the humblest class. + +"Make way, there; make way, my good women, make way!" cried Mrs. Mivers, +equally disdainful of the size and the rank of the obstructing parties. + +"Arrah, and what shall we make way for the like of you, you old +busybody?" said one of the dames, turning round, and presenting a very +formidable squint to the broad optics of Mrs. Mivers. + +Without deigning a reply, Mrs. Mivers had recourse to her usual tactics. +Umbrella and husband went right between two of the feminine obstructives; +and to the inconceivable astonishment and horror of the assailant, +husband and umbrella instantly vanished. The three small furies had +pounced upon both. They were torn from their natural owner; they were +hurried away; the stream behind, long fretted at the path so abruptly +made amidst it, closed in, joyous, with a thousand waves. Mrs. Mivers +and Helen were borne forward in one way, the umbrella and the husband in +the other; in the distance a small voice was heard: "Don't you! don't! +Be quiet! Mrs.--Mrs. M.! Oh, oh, Mrs. M.!" At that last repetition of +the beloved and familiar initial, uttered in a tone of almost superhuman +anguish, the conjugal heart of Mrs. Mivers was afflicted beyond control. + +"Wait here a moment, my dear; I'll just give it them, that's all!" And in +another moment Mrs. Mivers was heard bustling, scolding, till all trace +of her whereabout was gone from the eyes of Helen. Thus left alone, in +exceeding shame and dismay, the poor girl cast a glance around. The +glance was caught by two young men, whose station, in these days when +dress is an equivocal designator of rank, could not be guessed by their +exterior. They might be dandies from the west,--they might be clerks +from the east. + +"By Jove," exclaimed one, "that's a sweet pretty girl!" and, by a sudden +movement of the crowd, they both found themselves close to Helen. + +"Are you alone, my dear?" said a voice rudely familiar. Helen made no +reply; the tone of the voice frightened her. A gap in the mob showed the +space towards Cleveland Row, which, leading to no illuminations, was +vacant and solitary. She instantly made towards this spot; the two men +followed her, the bolder and elder one occasionally trying to catch hold +of her arm. At last, as she passed the last house to the left, a house +then owned by one who, at once far-sighted and impetuous, affable and +haughty, characterized alike by solid virtues and brilliant faults, +would, but for hollow friends, have triumphed over countless foes, and +enjoyed at last that brief day of stormy power for which statesmen resign +the health of manhood and the hope of age,--as she passed that memorable +mansion, she suddenly perceived that the space before her had no +thoroughfare; and, while she paused in dismay, her pursuers blockaded her +escape. + +One of them now fairly seized her hand. "Nay, pretty one, why so cruel? +But one kiss,--only one!" He endeavoured to pass his arm round her waist +while he spoke. Helen eluded him, and darted forward, to find her way +stopped by her persecutor's companion, when, to her astonishment, a third +person gently pushed aside the form that impeded her path, approached, +and looking mute defiance at the unchivalric molesters, offered her his +arm. Helen gave but one timid, hurrying glance to her unexpected +protector; something in his face, his air, his youth, appealed at once to +her confidence. Mechanically, and scarce knowing what she did, she laid +her trembling hand on the arm held out to her. + +The two Lotharios looked foolish. One pulled up his shirt-collar, and +the other turned, with a forced laugh, on his heel. Boy as Percival +seemed, and little more than boy as he was, there was a dangerous fire in +his eye, and an expression of spirit and ready courage in his whole +countenance, which, if it did not awe his tall rivals, made them at least +unwilling to have a scene and provoke the interference of a policeman; +one of whom was now seen walking slowly up to the spot. They therefore +preserved a discomfited silence; and Percival St. John, with his heart +going ten knots a beat, sailed triumphantly off with his prize. + +Scarcely knowing whither he went, certainly forgetful of Mr. Mivers, in +his anxiety to escape at least from the crowd, Percival walked on till he +found himself with his fair charge under the trees of St. James's Park. + +Then Helen, recovering herself, paused, and said, alarmed: "But this is +not my way; I must go back to the street!" + +"How foolish I am! That is true," said Percival, looking confused. "I-- +I felt so happy to be with you, feel your hand on my arm, and think that +we were all by ourselves, that--that---But you have dropped your +flowers!" + +And as a bouquet Helen wore, dislodged somehow or other, fell to the +ground, both stooped to pick it up, and their hands met. At that touch, +Percival felt a strange tremble, which perhaps communicated itself (for +such things are contagious) to his fair companion. Percival had got the +nosegay, and seemed willing to detain it; for he bent his face +lingeringly over the flowers. At length he turned his bright, ingenuous +eyes to Helen, and singling one rose from the rest, said beseechingly: +"May I keep this? See, it is not so fresh as the others." + +"I am sure, sir," said Helen, colouring, and looking down, "I owe you so +much that I should be glad if a poor flower could repay it." + +"A poor flower! You don't know what a prize this is to me!" Percival +placed the rose reverently in his bosom, and the two moved back slowly, +as if reluctant both, through the old palace-court into the street. + +"Is that lady related to you?" asked Percival, looking another way, and +dreading the reply,--"not your mother, surely!" + +"Oh, no! I have no mother!" + +"Forgive me!" said Percival; for the tone of Helen's voice told him that +he had touched the spring of a household sorrow. "And," he added, with a +jealousy that he could scarcely restrain from making itself evident in +his accent, "that gentleman who spoke to you under the Colonnade,--I have +seen him before, but where I cannot remember. In fact, you have put +everything but yourself out of my head. Is he related to you?" + +"He is my cousin." + +"Cousin!" repeated Percival, pouting a little; and again there was +silence. + +"I don't know how it is," said Percival at last, and very gravely, as if +much perplexed by some abstruse thought, "but I feel as if I had known +you all my life. I never felt this for any one before." + +There was something so irresistibly innocent in the boy's serious, +wondering tone as he said these words that a smile, in spite of herself, +broke out amongst the thousand dimples round Helen's charming lips. +Perhaps the little witch felt a touch of coquetry for the first time. + +Percival, who was looking sidelong into her face, saw the smile, and +said, drawing up his head, and shaking back his jetty curls: "I dare say +you are laughing at me as a mere boy; but I am older than I look. I am +sure I am much older than you are. Let me see, you are seventeen, I +suppose?" + +Helen, getting more and more at her ease, nodded playful assent. + +"And I am not far from twenty-one. Ah, you may well look surprised, but +so it is. An hour ago I felt a mere boy; now I shall never feel a boy +again!" + +Once more there was a long pause, and before it was broken, they had +gained the very spot in which Helen had lost her friend. + +"Why, bless us and save us!" exclaimed a voice "loud as a trumpet," but +not "with a silver sound," "there you are, after all;" and Mrs. Mivers +(husband and umbrella both regained) planted herself full before them. + +"Oh, a pretty fright I have been in! And now to see you coming along as +cool as if nothing had happened; as if the humbrella had not lost its +hivory 'andle,--it's quite purvoking. Dear, dear, what we have gone +through! And who is this young gentleman, pray?" + +Helen whispered some hesitating explanation, which Mrs. Mivers did not +seem to receive as graciously as Percival, poor fellow, had a right to +expect. She stared him full in the face, and shook her head suspiciously +when she saw him a little confused by the survey. Then, tucking Helen +tightly under her arm, she walked back towards the Haymarket, merely +saying to Percival,-- + +"Much obligated, and good-night. I have a long journey to take to set +down this here young lady; and the best thing we can all do is to get +home as fast as we can, and have a refreshing cup of tea--that's my mind, +sir. Excuse me!" + +Thus abruptly dismissed, poor Percival gazed wistfully on his Helen as +she was borne along, and was somewhat comforted at seeing her look back +with (as he thought) a touch of regret in her parting smile. Then +suddenly it flashed across him how sadly he had wasted his time. Novice +that he was, he had not even learned the name and address of his new +acquaintance. At that thought he hurried on through the crowd, but only +reached the object of his pursuit just in time to see her placed in a +coach, and to catch a full view of the luxuriant proportions of Mrs. +Mivers as she followed her into the vehicle. + +As the lumbering conveyance (the only coach on the stand) heaved itself +into motion, Percival's eye fell on the sweeper, who was still leaning on +his broom, and who, in grateful recognition of the unwonted generosity +that had repaid his service, touched his ragged hat, and smiled drowsily +on his young customer. Love sharpens the wit and animates the timid; a +thought worthy of the most experienced inspired Percival St. John; he +hurried to the sweeper, laid his hand on his patchwork coat, and said +breathlessly,-- + +"You see that coach turning into the square? Follow it,--find out where +it sets down. There's a sovereign for you; another if you succeed. Call +and tell me your success. Number ---- Curzon Street! Off, like a shot!" + +The sweeper nodded and grinned; it was possibly not his first commission +of a similar kind. He darted down the street; and Percival, following +him with equal speed, had the satisfaction to see him, as the coach +traversed St. James's Square, comfortably seated on the footboard. + +Beck, dull clod, knew nothing, cared nothing, felt nothing as to the +motives or purpose of his employer. Honest love or selfish vice, it was +the same to him. He saw only the one sovereign which, with astounded +eyes, he still gazed at on his palm, and the vision of the sovereign that +was yet to come. + + "Scandit aeratas vitiosa naves + Cura; nee turmas equitum relinquit." + +It was the Selfishness of London, calm and stolid, whether on the track +of innocence or at the command of guile. + +At half-past ten o'clock Percival St. John was seated in his room, and +the sweeper stood at the threshold. Wealth and penury seemed brought +into visible contact in the persons of the visitor and the host. The +dwelling is held by some to give an index to the character of the owner; +if so, Percival's apartments differed much from those generally favoured +by young men of rank and fortune. On the one hand, it had none of that +affectation of superior taste evinced in marqueterie and gilding, or the +more picturesque discomfort of high-backed chairs and mediaeval +curiosities which prevails in the daintier abodes of fastidious +bachelors; nor, on the other hand, had it the sporting character which +individualizes the ruder juveniles qui gaudent equis, betrayed by +engravings of racers and celebrated fox-hunts, relieved, perhaps, if the +Nimrod condescend to a cross of the Lovelace, with portraits of +figurantes, and ideals of French sentiment entitled, "Le Soir," or "La +Reveillee," "L'Espoir," or "L'Abandon." But the rooms had a physiognomy +of their own, from their exquisite neatness and cheerful simplicity. The +chintz draperies were lively with gay flowers; books filled up the +niches; here and there were small pictures, chiefly sea-pieces,--well +chosen, well placed. + +There might, indeed, have been something almost effeminate in a certain +inexpressible purity of taste, and a cleanliness of detail that seemed +actually brilliant, had not the folding-doors allowed a glimpse of a +plainer apartment, with fencing-foils and boxing-gloves ranged on the +wall, and a cricket-bat resting carelessly in the corner. These gave a +redeeming air of manliness to the rooms; but it was the manliness of a +boy,--half-girl, if you please, in the purity of thought that pervaded +one room, all boy in the playful pursuits that were made manifest in the +other. Simple, however, as this abode really was, poor Beck had never +been admitted to the sight of anything half so fine. He stood at the +door for a moment, and stared about him, bewildered and dazzled. But his +natural torpor to things that concerned him not soon brought to him the +same stoicism that philosophy gives the strong; and after the first +surprise, his eye quietly settled on his employer. St. John rose eagerly +from the sofa, on which he had been contemplating the starlit treetops of +Chesterfield Gardens,-- + +"Well, well?" said Percival. + +"Hold Brompton," said Beck, with a brevity of word and clearness of +perception worthy a Spartan. + +"Old Brompton?" repeated Percival, thinking the reply the most natural in +the world. + +"In a big 'ous by hisself," continued Beck, "with a 'igh vall in front." + +"You would know it again?" + +"In course; he's so wery peculiar." + +"He,--who?" + +"Vy, the 'ous. The young lady got out, and the hold folks driv back. I +did not go arter them!" and Beck looked sly. + +"So! I must find out the name." + +"I axed at the public," said Beck, proud of his diplomacy. "They keeps a +sarvant vot takes half a pint at her meals. The young lady's mabe a +foriner." + +"A foreigner! Then she lives there with her mother?" + +"So they s'pose at the public." + +"And the name?" + +Beck shook his head. "'T is a French 'un, your honour; but the sarvant's +is Martha." + +"You must meet me at Brompton, near the turnpike, tomorrow, and show me +the house." + +"Vy, I's in bizness all day, please your honour." + +"In business?"' + +"I's the place of the crossing," said Beck, with much dignity; "but arter +eight I goes vere I likes." + +"To-morrow evening, then, at half-past eight, by the turnpike." + +Beck pulled his forelock assentingly. + +"There's the sovereign I promised you, my poor fellow; much good may it +do you. Perhaps you have some father or mother whose heart it will +glad." + +"I never had no such thing," replied Beck, turning the coin in his hand. + +"Well, don't spend it in drink." + +"I never drinks nothing but svipes." + +"Then," said Percival, laughingly, "what, my good friend, will you ever +do with your money?" + +Beck put his finger to his nose, sunk his voice into a whisper, and +replied solemnly: "I 'as a mattris." + +"A mistress," said Percival. "Oh, a sweetheart. Well, but if she's a +good girl, and loves you, she'll not let you spend your money on her." + +"I haint such a ninny as that," said Beck, with majestic contempt. "I +'spises the flat that is done brown by the blowens. I 'as a mattris." + +"A mattress! a mattress! Well, what has that to do with the money?" + +"Vy, I lines it." + +Percival looked puzzled. "Oh," said he, after a thoughtful pause, and in +a tone of considerable compassion, "I understand: you sew your money in +your mattress. My poor, poor lad, you can do better than that! There +are the savings banks." + +Beck looked frightened. "I 'opes your honour von't tell no vun. I 'opes +no vun von't go for to put my tin vere I shall know nothing vatsomever +about it. Now, I knows vere it is, and I lays on it." + +"Do you sleep more soundly when you lie on your treasure?" + +"No. It's hodd," said Beck, musingly, "but the more I lines it, the +vorse I sleeps." + +Percival laughed, but there was melancholy in his laughter; something in +the forlorn, benighted, fatherless, squalid miser went to the core of his +open, generous heart. + +"Do you ever read your Bible," said he, after a pause, "or even the +newspaper?" + +"I does not read nothing; cos vy? I haint been made a scholard, like +swell Tim, as was lagged for a forgery." + +"You go to church on a Sunday?" + +"Yes; I 'as a weekly hingagement at the New Road." + +"What do you mean?" + +"To see arter the gig of a gemman vot comes from 'Igate." + +Percival lifted his brilliant eyes, and they were moistened with a +heavenly dew, on the dull face of his fellow-creature. Beck made a +scrape, looked round, shambled back to the door, and ran home, through +the lamp-lit streets of the great mart of the Christian universe, to sew +the gold in his mattress. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +EARLY TRAINING FOR AN UPRIGHT GENTLEMAN. + +Percival St. John had been brought up at home under the eye of his mother +and the care of an excellent man who had been tutor to himself and his +brothers. The tutor was not much of a classical scholar, for in great +measure he had educated himself; and he who does so, usually lacks the +polish and brilliancy of one whose footsteps have been led early to the +Temple of the Muses. In fact, Captain Greville was a gallant soldier, +with whom Vernon St. John had been acquainted in his own brief military +career, and whom circumstances had so reduced in life as to compel him to +sell his commission and live as he could. He had always been known in +his regiment as a reading man, and his authority looked up to in all the +disputes as to history and dates, and literary anecdotes, which might +occur at the mess-table. Vernon considered him the most learned man of +his acquaintance; and when, accidentally meeting him in London, he +learned his fallen fortunes, he congratulated himself on a very brilliant +idea when he suggested that Captain Greville should assist him in the +education of his boys and the management of his estate. At first, all +that Greville modestly undertook, with respect to the former, and, +indeed, was expected to do, was to prepare the young gentlemen for Eton, +to which Vernon, with the natural predilection of an Eton man, destined +his sons. But the sickly constitutions of the two elder justified Lady +Mary in her opposition to a public school; and Percival conceived early +so strong an affection for a sailor's life that the father's intentions +were frustrated. The two elder continued their education at home, and +Percival, at an earlier age than usual, went to sea. The last was +fortunate enough to have for his captain one of that new race of naval +officers who, well educated and accomplished, form a notable contrast to +the old heroes of Smollett. Percival, however, had not been long in the +service before the deaths of his two elder brothers, preceded by that of +his father, made him the head of his ancient house, and the sole prop of +his mother's earthly hopes. He conquered with a generous effort the +passion for his noble profession, which service had but confirmed, and +returned home with his fresh, childlike nature uncorrupted, his +constitution strengthened, his lively and impressionable mind braced by +the experience of danger and the habits of duty, and quietly resumed his +reading under Captain Greville, who moved from the Hall to a small house +in the village. + +Now, the education he had received, from first to last, was less adapted +prematurely to quicken his intellect and excite his imagination than to +warm his heart and elevate, while it chastened, his moral qualities; for +in Lady Mary there was, amidst singular sweetness of temper, a high cast +of character and thought. She was not what is commonly called clever, +and her experience of the world was limited, compared to that of most +women of similar rank who pass their lives in the vast theatre of London. +But she became superior by a certain single-heartedness which made truth +so habitual to her that the light in which she lived rendered all objects +around her clear. One who is always true in the great duties of life is +nearly always wise. And Vernon, when he had fairly buried his faults, +had felt a noble shame for the excesses into which they had led him. +Gradually more and more wedded to his home, he dropped his old +companions. He set grave guard on his talk (his habits now required no +guard), lest any of the ancient levity should taint the ears of his +children. Nothing is more common in parents than their desire that their +children should escape their faults. We scarcely know ourselves till we +have children; and then, if we love them duly, we look narrowly into +failings that become vices, when they serve as examples to the young. + +The inborn gentleman, with the native courage and spirit and horror of +trick and falsehood which belong to that chivalrous abstraction, survived +almost alone in Vernon St. John; and his boys sprang up in the atmosphere +of generous sentiments and transparent truth. The tutor was in harmony +with the parents,--a soldier every inch of him; not a mere +disciplinarian, yet with a profound sense of duty, and a knowledge that +duty is to be found in attention to details. In inculcating the habit of +subordination, so graceful to the young, he knew how to make himself +beloved, and what is harder still, to be understood. The soul of this +poor soldier was white and unstained, as the arms of a maiden knight; it +was full of suppressed but lofty enthusiasm. He had been ill used, +whether by Fate or the Horse Guards; his career had been a failure; but +he was as loyal as if his hand held the field-marshal's truncheon, and +the garter bound his knee. He was above all querulous discontent. From +him, no less than from his parents, Percival caught, not only a spirit of +honour worthy the antiqua fides of the poets, but that peculiar +cleanliness of thought, if the expression may be used, which belongs to +the ideal of youthful chivalry. In mere booklearning, Percival, as may +be supposed, was not very extensively read; but his mind, if not largely +stored, had a certain unity of culture, which gave it stability and +individualized its operations. Travels, voyages, narratives of heroic +adventure, biographies of great men, had made the favourite pasture of +his enthusiasm. To this was added the more stirring, and, perhaps, the +more genuine order of poets who make you feel and glow, rather than doubt +and ponder. He knew at least enough of Greek to enjoy old Homer; and if +he could have come but ill through a college examination into Aeschylus +and Sophocles, he had dwelt with fresh delight on the rushing storm of +spears in the "Seven before Thebes," and wept over the heroic calamities +of Antigone. In science, he was no adept; but his clear good sense and +quick appreciation of positive truths had led him easily through the +elementary mathematics, and his somewhat martial spirit had made him +delight in the old captain's lectures on military tactics. Had he +remained in the navy, Percival St. John would doubtless have been +distinguished. His talents fitted him for straightforward, manly action; +and he had a generous desire of distinction, vague, perhaps, the moment +he was taken from his profession, and curbed by his diffidence in himself +and his sense of deficiencies in the ordinary routine of purely classical +education. Still, he had in him all the elements of a true man,--a man +to go through life with a firm step and a clear conscience and a gallant +hope. Such a man may not win fame,--that is an accident; but he must +occupy no despicable place in the movement of the world. + +It was at first intended to send Percival to Oxford; but for some reason +or other that design was abandoned. Perhaps Lady Mary, over cautious, as +mothers left alone sometimes are, feared the contagion to which a young +man of brilliant expectations and no studious turn is necessarily exposed +in all places of miscellaneous resort. So Percival was sent abroad for +two years, under the guardianship of Captain Greville. On his return, at +the age of nineteen, the great world lay before him, and he longed +ardently to enter. For a year Lady Mary's fears and fond anxieties +detained him at Laughton; but though his great tenderness for his mother +withheld Percival from opposing her wishes by his own, this interval of +inaction affected visibly his health and spirits. Captain Greville, a +man of the world, saw the cause sooner than Lady Mary, and one morning, +earlier than usual, he walked up to the Hall. + +The captain, with all his deference to the sex, was a plain man enough +when business was to be done. Like his great commander, he came to the +point in a few words. + +"My dear Lady Mary, our boy must go to London,--we are killing him here." + +"Mr. Greville!" cried Lady Mary, turning pale and putting aside her +embroidery,--"killing him?" + +"Killing the man in him. I don't mean to alarm you; I dare say his lungs +are sound enough, and that his heart would bear the stethoscope to the +satisfaction of the College of Surgeons. But, my dear ma'am, Percival is +to be a man; it is the man you are killing by keeping him tied to your +apron-string." + +"Oh, Mr. Greville, I am sure you don't wish to wound me, but--" + +"I beg ten thousand pardons. I am rough, but truth is rough sometimes." + +"It is not for my sake," said the mother, warmly, and with tears in her +eyes, "that I have wished him to be here. If he is dull, can we not fill +the house for him?" + +"Fill a thimble, my dear Lady Mary. Percival should have a plunge in the +ocean." + +"But he is so young yet,--that horrid London; such temptations,-- +fatherless, too!" + +"I have no fear of the result if Percival goes now, while his principles +are strong and his imagination is not inflamed; but if we keep him here +much longer against his bent, he will learn to brood and to muse, write +bad poetry perhaps, and think the world withheld from him a thousand +times more delightful than it is. This very dread of temptation will +provoke his curiosity, irritate his fancy, make him imagine the +temptation must be a very delightful thing. For the first time in my +life, ma'am, I have caught him sighing over fashionable novels, and +subscribing to the Southampton Circulating Library. Take my word for it, +it is time that Percival should begin life, and swim without corks." + +Lady Mary had a profound confidence in Greville's judgment and affection +for Percival, and, like a sensible woman, she was aware of her own +weakness. She remained silent for a few moments, and then said, with an +effort,-- + +"You know how hateful London is to me now,--how unfit I am to return to +the hollow forms of its society; still, if you think it right, I will +take a house for the season, and Percival can still be under our eye." + +"No, ma'am,--pardon me,--that will be the surest way to make him either +discontented or hypocritical. A young man of his prospects and temper +can hardly be expected to chime in with all our sober, old-fashioned +habits. You will impose on him--if he is to conform to our hours and +notions and quiet set--a thousand irksome restraints; and what will be +the consequence? In a year he will be of age, and can throw us off +altogether, if he pleases. I know the boy; don't seem to distrust him,-- +he may be trusted. You place the true restraint on temptation when you +say to him: 'We confide to you our dearest treasure,--your honour, your +morals, your conscience, yourself!'" + +"But at least you will go with him, if it must be so," said Lady Mary, +after a few timid arguments, from which, one by one, she was driven. + +"I! What for? To be a jest of the young puppies he must know; to make +him ashamed of himself and me,--himself as a milksop, and me as a dry +nurse?" + +"But this was not so abroad." + +"Abroad, ma'am, I gave him full swing I promise you; and when we went +abroad he was two years younger." + +"But he is a mere child still." + +"Child, Lady Mary! At his age I had gone through two sieges. There are +younger faces than his at a mess-room. Come, come! I know what you +fear,--he may commit some follies; very likely. He may be taken in, and +lose some money,--he can afford it, and he will get experience in return. +Vices he has none. I have seen him,--ay, with the vicious. Send him out +against the world like a saint of old, with his Bible in his hand, and no +spot on his robe. Let him see fairly what is, not stay here to dream of +what is not. And when he's of age, ma'am, we must get him an object, a +pursuit; start him for the county, and make him serve the State. He will +understand that business pretty well. Tush! tush! what is there to cry +at?" + +The captain prevailed. We don't say that his advice would have been +equally judicious for all youths of Percival's age; but he knew well the +nature to which he confided; he knew well how strong was that young heart +in its healthful simplicity and instinctive rectitude; and he appreciated +his manliness not too highly when he felt that all evident props and aids +would be but irritating tokens of distrust. + +And thus, armed only with letters of introduction, his mother's tearful +admonitions, and Greville's experienced warnings, Percival St. John was +launched into London life. After the first month or so, Greville came up +to visit him, do him sundry kind, invisible offices amongst his old +friends, help him to equip his apartments, and mount his stud; and wholly +satisfied with the result of his experiment, returned in high spirits, +with flattering reports, to the anxious mother. + +But, indeed, the tone of Percival's letters would have been sufficient to +allay even maternal anxiety. He did not write, as sons are apt to do, +short excuses for not writing more at length, unsatisfactory compressions +of details (exciting worlds of conjecture) into a hurried sentence. +Frank and overflowing, those delightful epistles gave accounts fresh from +the first impressions of all he saw and did. There was a racy, wholesome +gusto in his enjoyment of novelty and independence. His balls and his +dinners and his cricket at Lord's, his partners and his companions, his +general gayety, his occasional ennui, furnisbed ample materials to one +who felt he was corresponding with another heart, and had nothing to fear +or to conceal. + +But about two months before this portion of our narrative opens with the +coronation, Lady Mary's favourite sister, who had never married, and who, +by the death of her parents, was left alone in the worse than widowhood +of an old maid, had been ordered to Pisa for a complaint that betrayed +pulmonary symptoms; and Lady Mary, with her usual unselfishness, +conquered both her aversion to movement and her wish to be in reach of +her son, to accompany abroad this beloved and solitary relative. Captain +Greville was pressed into service as their joint cavalier. And thus +Percival's habitual intercourse with his two principal correspondents +received a temporary check. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +JOHN ARDWORTH. + +At noon the next day Beck, restored to his grandeur, was at the helm of +his state; Percival was vainly trying to be amused by the talk of two or +three loungers who did him the honour to smoke a cigar in his rooms; and +John Ardworth sat in his dingy cell in Gray's Inn, with a pile of law +books on the table, and the daily newspapers carpeting a footstool of +Hansard's Debates upon the floor,--no unusual combination of studies +amongst the poorer and more ardent students of the law, who often owe +their earliest, nor perhaps their least noble, earnings to employment in +the empire of the Press. By the power of a mind habituated to labour, +and backed by a frame of remarkable strength and endurance, Ardworth +grappled with his arid studies not the less manfully for a night mainly +spent in a printer's office, and stinted to less than four hours' actual +sleep. But that sleep was profound and refreshing as a peasant's. The +nights thus devoted to the Press (he was employed in the sub-editing of a +daily journal), the mornings to the law, he kept distinct the two +separate callings with a stern subdivision of labour which in itself +proved the vigour of his energy and the resolution of his will. Early +compelled to shift for himself and carve out his own way, he had obtained +a small fellowship at the small college in which he had passed his +academic career. Previous to his arrival in London, by contributions to +political periodicals and a high reputation at that noble debating +society in Cambridge which has trained some of the most eminent of living +public men [Amongst those whom the "Union" almost contemporaneously +prepared for public life, and whose distinction has kept the promise of +their youth, we may mention the eminent barristers, Messrs. Austin and +Cockburn; and amongst statesmen, Lord Grey, Mr. C. Buller, Mr. Charles +Villiers, and Mr. Macaulay. Nor ought we to forget those brilliant +competitors for the prizes of the University, Dr. Kennedy (now head- +master of Shrewsbury School) and the late Winthrop M. Praed.], he had +established a name which was immediately useful to him in obtaining +employment on the Press. Like most young men of practical ability, he +was an eager politician. The popular passion of the day kindled his +enthusiasm and stirred the depths of his soul with magnificent, though +exaggerated, hopes in the destiny of his race. He identified himself +with the people; his stout heart beat loud in their stormy cause. His +compositions, if they wanted that knowledge of men, that subtle +comprehension of the true state of parties, that happy temperance in +which the crowning wisdom of statesmen must consist,--qualities which +experience alone can give,--excited considerable attention by their bold +eloquence and hardy logic. They were suited to the time. But John +Ardworth had that solidity of understanding which betokens more than +talent, and which is the usual substratum of genius. He would not depend +alone on the precarious and often unhonoured toils of polemical +literature for that distinction on which he had fixed his steadfast +heart. Patiently he plodded on through the formal drudgeries of his new +profession, lighting up dulness by his own acute comprehension, weaving +complexities into simple system by the grasp of an intellect inured to +generalize, and learning to love even what was most distasteful, by the +sense of difficulty overcome, and the clearer vision which every step +through the mists and up the hill gave of the land beyond. Of what the +superficial are apt to consider genius, John Ardworth had but little. He +had some imagination (for a true thinker is never without that), but he +had a very slight share of fancy. He did not flirt with the Muses; on +the granite of his mind few flowers could spring. His style, rushing and +earnest, admitted at times of a humour not without delicacy,--though less +delicate than forcible and deep,--but it was little adorned with wit, and +still less with poetry. Yet Ardworth had genius, and genius ample and +magnificent. There was genius in that industrious energy so patient in +the conquest of detail, so triumphant in the perception of results. +There was genius in that kindly sympathy with mankind; genius in that +stubborn determination to succeed; genius in that vivid comprehension of +affairs, and the large interests of the world; genius fed in the labours +of the closet, and evinced the instant he was brought into contact with +men,--evinced in readiness of thought, grasp of memory, even in a rough, +imperious nature, which showed him born to speak strong truths, and in +their name to struggle and command. + +Rough was this man often in his exterior, though really gentle and kind- +hearted. John Ardworth had sacrificed to no Graces; he would have thrown +Lord Chesterfield into a fever. Not that he was ever vulgar, for +vulgarity implies affectation of refinement; but he talked loud and +laughed loud if the whim seized him, and rubbed his great hands with a +boyish heartiness of glee if he discomfited an adversary in argument. +Or, sometimes, he would sit abstracted and moody, and answer briefly and +boorishly those who interrupted him. Young men were mostly afraid of +him, though he wanted but fame to have a set of admiring disciples. Old +men censured his presumption and recoiled from the novelty of his ideas. +Women alone liked and appreciated him, as, with their finer insight into +character, they generally do what is honest and sterling. Some strange +failings, too, had John Ardworth,--some of the usual vagaries and +contradictions of clever men. As a system, he was rigidly abstemious. +For days together he would drink nothing but water, eat nothing but +bread, or hard biscuit, or a couple of eggs; then, having wound up some +allotted portion of work, Ardworth would indulge what he called a self- +saturnalia,--would stride off with old college friends to an inn in one +of the suburbs, and spend, as he said triumphantly, "a day of blessed +debauch!" Innocent enough, for the most part, the debauch was, +consisting in cracking jests, stringing puns, a fish dinner, perhaps, and +an extra bottle or two of fiery port. Sometimes this jollity, which was +always loud and uproarious, found its scene in one of the cider-cellars +or midnight taverns; but Ardworth's labours on the Press made that latter +dissipation extremely rare. These relaxations were always succeeded by a +mien more than usually grave, a manner more than usually curt and +ungracious, an application more than ever rigorous and intense. John +Ardworth was not a good-tempered man, but he was the best-natured man +that ever breathed. He was, like all ambitious persons, very much +occupied with self; and yet it would have been a ludicrous misapplication +of words to call him selfish. Even the desire of fame which absorbed him +was but a part of benevolence,--a desire to promote justice and to serve +his kind. + +John Ardworth's shaggy brows were bent over his open volumes when his +clerk entered noiselessly and placed on his table a letter which the +twopenny-postman had just delivered. With an impatient shrug of the +shoulders, Ardworth glanced towards the superscription; but his eye +became earnest and his interest aroused as he recognized the hand. +"Again!" he muttered. "What mystery is this? Who can feel such interest +in my fate?" He broke the seal and read as follows:-- + +Do you neglect my advice, or have you begun to act upon it? Are you +contented only with the slow process of mechanical application, or will +you make a triumphant effort to abridge your apprenticeship and emerge at +once into fame and power? I repeat that you fritter away your talents +and your opportunities upon this miserable task-work on a journal. I am +impatient for you. Come forward yourself, put your force and your +knowledge into some work of which the world may know the author. Day +after day I am examining into your destiny, and day after day I believe +more and more that you are not fated for the tedious drudgery to which +you doom your youth. I would have you great, but in the senate, not a +wretched casuist at the Bar. Appear in public as an individual +authority, not one of that nameless troop of shadows contemned while +dreaded as the Press. Write for renown. Go into the world, and make +friends. Soften your rugged bearing. Lift yourself above that herd whom +you call "the people." What if you are born of the noble class! What if +your career is as gentleman, not plebeian Want not for money. Use what I +send you as the young and the well-born should use it; or let it at least +gain you a respite from toils for bread, and support you in your struggle +to emancipate yourself from obscurity into fame. + YOUR UNKNOWN FRIEND + +A bank-note for 100 pounds dropped from the envelope as Ardworth silently +replaced the letter on the table. + +Thrice before had he received communications in the same handwriting, and +much to the same effect. Certainly, to a mind of less strength there +would have been something very unsettling in those vague hints of a +station higher than he owned, of a future at variance with the toilsome +lot he had drawn from the urn; but after a single glance over his lone +position in all its bearings and probable expectations, Ardworth's steady +sense shook off the slight disturbance such misty vaticinations had +effected. His mother's family was indeed unknown to him, he was even +ignorant of her maiden name. But that very obscurity seemed unfavourable +to much hope from such a quarter. The connections with the rich and +well-born are seldom left obscure. From his father's family he had not +one expectation. More had he been moved by exhortation now generally +repeated, but in a previous letter more precisely detailed; namely, to +appeal to the reading public in his acknowledged person, and by some +striking and original work. This idea he had often contemplated and +revolved; but partly the necessity of keeping pace with the many +exigencies of the hour had deterred him, and partly also the conviction +of his sober judgment that a man does himself no good at the Bar even by +the most brilliant distinction gained in discursive fields. He had the +natural yearning of the Restless Genius; and the Patient Genius (higher +power of the two) had suppressed the longing. Still, so far, the +whispers of his correspondent tempted and aroused. But hitherto he had +sought to persuade himself that the communications thus strangely forced +on him arose perhaps from idle motives,--a jest, it might be, of one of +his old college friends, or at best the vain enthusiasm of some more +credulous admirer. But the enclosure now sent to him forbade either of +these suppositions. Who that he knew could afford so costly a jest or so +extravagant a tribute? He was perplexed, and with his perplexity was +mixed a kind of fear. Plain, earnest, unromantic in the common +acceptation of the word, the mystery of this intermeddling with his fate, +this arrogation of the license to spy, the right to counsel, and the +privilege to bestow, gave him the uneasiness the bravest men may feel at +noises in the dark. That day he could apply no more, he could not settle +back to his Law Reports. He took two or three unquiet turns up and down +his smoke-dried cell, then locked up the letter and enclosure, seized his +hat, and strode, with his usual lusty, swinging strides, into the open +air. + +But still the letter haunted him. "And if," he said almost audibly,--"if +I were the heir to some higher station, why then I might have a heart +like idle men; and Helen, beloved Helen--" He paused, sighed, shook his +rough head, shaggy with neglected curls, and added: "As if even then I +could steal myself into a girl's good graces! Man's esteem I may +command, though poor; woman's love could I win, though rich? Pooh! pooh! +every wood does not make a Mercury; and faith, the wood I am made of will +scarcely cut up into a lover." + +Nevertheless, though thus soliloquizing, Ardworth mechanically bent his +way towards Brompton, and halted, half-ashamed of himself, at the house +where Helen lodged with her aunt. It was a building that stood apart +from all the cottages and villas of that charming suburb, half-way down a +narrow lane, and enclosed by high, melancholy walls, deep set in which a +small door, with the paint blistered and weather-stained, gave +unfrequented entrance to the demesne. A woman servant of middle age and +starched, puritanical appearance answered the loud ring of the bell, and +Ardworth seemed a privileged visitor, for she asked him no question as, +with a slight nod and a smileless, stupid expression in a face otherwise +comely, she led the way across a paved path, much weed-grown, to the +house. That house itself had somewhat of a stern and sad exterior. It +was not ancient, yet it looked old from shabbiness and neglect. The +vine, loosened from the rusty nails, trailed rankly against the wall, and +fell in crawling branches over the ground. The house had once been +whitewashed; but the colour, worn off in great patches, distained with +damp, struggled here and there with the dingy, chipped bricks beneath. +There was no peculiar want of what is called "tenantable repair;" the +windows were whole, and doubtless the roof sheltered from the rain. But +the woodwork that encased the panes was decayed, and houseleek covered +the tiles. Altogether, there was that forlorn and cheerless aspect about +the place which chills the visitor, he defines not why. And Ardworth +steadied his usual careless step, and crept, as if timidly, up the +creaking stairs. + +On entering the drawing-room, it seemed at first deserted; but the eye, +searching round, perceived something stir in the recess of a huge chair +set by the fireless hearth. And from amidst a mass of coverings a pale +face emerged, and a thin hand waved its welcome to the visitor. + +Ardworth approached, pressed the hand, and drew a seat near to the +sufferer's. + +"You are better, I hope?" he said cordially, and yet in a tone of more +respect than was often perceptible in his deep, blunt voice. + +"I am always the same," was the quiet answer; "come nearer still. Your +visits cheer me." + +And as these last words were said, Madame Dalibard raised herself from +her recumbent posture and gazed long upon Ardworth's face of power and +front of thought. "You overfatigue yourself, my poor kinsman," she said, +with a certain tenderness; "you look already too old for your young +years." + +"That's no disadvantage at the Bar." + +"Is the Bar your means, or your end?" + +"My dear Madame Dalibard, it is my profession." + +"No, your profession is to rise. John Ardworth," and the low voice +swelled in its volume, "you are bold, able, and aspiring; for this, I +love you,--love you almost--almost as a mother. Your fate," she +continued hurriedly, "interests me; your energies inspire me with +admiration. Often I sit here for hours, musing over your destiny to be, +so that at times I may almost say that in your life I live." + +Ardworth looked embarrassed, and with an awkward attempt at compliment he +began, hesitatingly: "I should think too highly of myself if I could +really believe that you--" + +"Tell me," interrupted Madame Dalibard,--"we have had many conversations +upon grave and subtle matters; we have disputed on the secret mysteries +of the human mind; we have compared our several experiences of outward +life and the mechanism of the social world,--tell me, then, and frankly, +what do you think of me? Do you regard me merely as your sex is apt to +regard the woman who aspires to equal men,--a thing of borrowed phrases +and unsound ideas, feeble to guide, and unskilled to teach; or do you +recognize in this miserable body a mind of force not unworthy yours, +ruled by an experience larger than your own?" + +"I think of you," answered Ardworth, frankly, "as the most remarkable +woman I have ever met. Yet--do not be angry--I do not like to yield to +the influence which you gain over me when we meet. It disturbs my +convictions, it disquiets my reason; I do not settle back to my life so +easily after your breath has passed over it." + +"And yet," said Lucretia, with a solemn sadness in her voice, "that +influence is but the natural power which cold maturity exercises on +ardent youth. It is my mournful ad vantage over you that disquiets your +happy calm. It is my experience that unsettles the fallacies which you +name 'convictions.' Let this pass. I asked your opinion of me, because +I wished to place at your service all that knowledge of life which I +possess. In proportion as you esteem me you will accept or reject my +counsels." + +"I have benefited by them already. It is the tone that you advised me to +assume that gave me an importance I had not before with that old +formalist whose paper I serve, and whose prejudices I shock; it is to +your criticisms that I owe the more practical turn of my writings, and +the greater hold they have taken on the public." + +"Trifles indeed, these," said Madame Dalibard, with a half smile. "Let +them at least induce you to listen to me if I propose to make your path +more pleasant, yet your ascent more rapid." + +Ardworth knit his brows, and his countenance assumed an expression of +doubt and curiosity. However, he only replied, with a blunt laugh,-- + +"You must be wise indeed if you have discovered a royal road to +distinction. + + 'Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb + The steep where + Fame's proud temple shines afar!' + +A more sensible exclamation than poets usually preface with their whining +'Ahs' and 'Ohs!'" + +"What we are is nothing," pursued Madame Dalibard; "what we seem is +much." + +Ardworth thrust his hands into his pockets and shook his head. The wise +woman continued, unheeding his dissent from her premises,-- + +"Everything you are taught to value has a likeness, and it is that +likeness which the world values. Take a man out of the streets, poor and +ragged, what will the world do with him? Send him to the workhouse, if +not to the jail. Ask a great painter to take that man's portrait,--rags, +squalor, and all,--and kings will bid for the picture. You would thrust +the man from your doors, you would place the portrait in your palaces. +It is the same with qualities; the portrait is worth more than the truth. +What is virtue without character? But a man without virtue may thrive on +a character! What is genius without success? But how often you bow to +success without genius! John Ardworth, possess yourself of the +portraits,--win the character; seize the success." + +"Madame," exclaimed Ardworth, rudely, "this is horrible!" + +"Horrible it may be," said Madame Dalibard, gently, and feeling, perhaps, +that she had gone too far; "but it is the world's judgment. Seem, then, +as well as be. You have virtue, as I believe. Well, wrap yourself in +it--in your closet. Go into the world, and earn character. If you have +genius, let it comfort you. Rush into the crowd, and get success." + +"Stop!" cried Ardworth; "I recognize you. How could I be so blind? It +is you who have written to me, and in the same strain; you have robbed +yourself,--you, poor sufferer,--to throw extravagance into these strong +hands. And why? What am I to you?" An expression of actual fondness +softened Lucretia's face as she looked up at him and replied: "I will +tell you hereafter what you are to me. First, I confess that it is I +whose letters have perplexed, perhaps offended you. The sum that I sent +I do not miss. I have more,--will ever have more at your command; never +fear. Yes, I wish you to go into the world, not as a dependant, but as +an equal to the world's favourites. I wish you to know more of men than +mere law-books teach you. I wish you to be in men's mouths, create a +circle that shall talk of young Ardworth; that talk would travel to those +who can advance your career. The very possession of money in certain +stages of life gives assurance to the manner, gives attraction to the +address." + +"But," said Ardworth, "all this is very well for some favourite of birth +and fortune; but for me--Yet speak, and plainly. You throw out hints +that I am what I know not, but something less dependent on his nerves and +his brain than is plain John Ardworth. What is it you mean?" + +Madame Dalibard bent her face over her breast, and rocking herself in her +chair, seemed to muse for some moments before she answered. + +"When I first came to England, some months ago, I desired naturally to +learn all the particulars of my family and kindred, from which my long +residence abroad had estranged me. John Walter Ardworth was related to +my half-sister; to me he was but a mere connection. However, I knew +something of his history, yet I did not know that he had a son. Shortly +before I came to England, I learned that one who passed for his son had +been brought up by Mr. Fielden, and from Mr. Fielden I have since learned +all the grounds for that belief from which you take the name of +Ardworth." + +Lucretia paused a moment; and after a glance at the impatient, wondering, +and eager countenance that bent intent upon her, she resumed: + +"Your reputed father was, you are doubtless aware, of reckless and +extravagant habits. He had been put into the army by my uncle, and he +entered the profession with the careless buoyancy of his sanguine nature. +I remember those days,--that day! Well, to return--where was I?--Walter +Ardworth had the folly to entertain strong notions of politics. He +dreamed of being a soldier, and yet persuaded himself to be a republican. +His notions, so hateful in his profession, got wind; he disguised +nothing, he neglected the portraits of things,--appearances. He excited +the rancour of his commanding officer; for politics then, more even than +now, were implacable ministrants to hate. Occasion presented itself. +During the short Peace of Amiens he had been recalled. He had to head a +detachment of soldiers against some mob,--in Ireland, I believe; he did +not fire on the mob, according to orders,--so, at least, it was said. +John Walter Ardworth was tried by a court-martial, and broke! But you +know all this, perhaps?" + +"My poor father! Only in part; I knew that he had been dismissed the +army,--I believed unjustly. He was a soldier, and yet he dared to think +for himself and be humane!" + +"But my uncle had left him a legacy; it brought no blessing,--none of +that old man's gold did. Where are they all now,--Dalibard, Susan, and +her fair-faced husband,--where? Vernon is in his grave,--but one son of +many left! Gabriel Varney lives, it is true, and I! But that gold,-- +yea, in our hands there was a curse on it! Walter Ardworth had his +legacy. His nature was gay; if disgraced in his profession, he found men +to pity and praise him,--Fools of Party like himself. He lived joyously, +drank or gamed, or lent or borrowed,--what matters the wherefore? He was +in debt; he lived at last a wretched, shifting, fugitive life, snatching +bread where he could, with the bailiffs at his heels. Then, for a short +time, we met again." + +Lucretia's brow grew black as night as her voice dropped at that last +sentence, and it was with a start that she continued,-- + +"In the midst of this hunted existence, Walter Ardworth appeared, late +one night, at Mr. Fielden's with an infant. He seemed--so says Mr. +Fielden--ill, worn, and haggard. He entered into no explanations with +respect to the child that accompanied him, and retired at once to rest. +What follows, Mr. Fielden, at my request, has noted down. Read, and see +what claim you have to the honourable parentage so vaguely ascribed to +you." + +As she spoke, Madame Dalibard opened a box on her table, drew forth a +paper in Fielden's writing, and placed it in Ardworth's hand. After some +preliminary statement of the writer's intimacy with the elder Ardworth, +and the appearance of the latter at his house, as related by Madame +Dalibard, etc., the document went on thus:-- + +The next day, when my poor guest was still in bed, my servant Hannah came +to advise me that two persons were without, waiting to see me. As is my +wont, I bade them be shown in. On their entrance (two rough, farmer- +looking men they were, who I thought might be coming to hire my little +pasture field), I prayed them to speak low, as a sick gentleman was just +overhead. Whereupon, and without saying a word further, the two +strangers made a rush from the room, leaving me dumb with amazement; in a +few moments I heard voices and a scuffle above. I recovered myself, and +thinking robbers had entered my peaceful house, I called out lustily, +when Hannah came in, and we both, taking courage, went upstairs, and +found that poor Walter was in the hands of these supposed robbers, who +in truth were but bailiffs. They would not trust him out of their sight +for a moment. However, he took it more pleasantly than I could have +supposed possible; prayed me in a whisper to take care of the child, and +I should soon hear from him again. In less than an hour he was gone. +Two days afterwards I received from him a hurried letter, without +address, of which this is a copy:-- + +DEAR FRIEND,--I slipped from the bailiffs, and here I am in a safe little +tavern in sight of the sea! Mother Country is a very bad parent to me! +Mother Brownrigg herself could scarcely be worse. I shall work out my +passage to some foreign land, and if I can recover my health (sea-air is +bracing), I don't despair of getting my bread honestly, somehow. If ever +I can pay my debts, I may return. But, meanwhile, my good old tutor, +what will you think of me? You to whom my sole return for so much pains, +taken in vain, is another mouth to feed! And no money to pay for the +board! Yet you'll not grudge the child a place at your table, will you? +No, nor kind, saving Mrs. Fielden either,--God bless her tender, +economical soul! You know quite enough of me to be sure that I shall +very soon either free you of the boy, or send you something to prevent +its being an encumbrance. I would say, love and pity the child for my +sake. But I own I feel---By Jove, I must be off; I hear the first signal +from the vessel that-- Yours in haste, + J. W. A. + +Young Ardworth stopped from the lecture, and sighed heavily. There +seemed to him in this letter worse than a mock gayety,--a certain levity +and recklessness which jarred on his own high principles. And the want +of affection for the child thus abandoned was evident,--not one fond +word. He resumed the statement with a gloomy and disheartened attention. + +This was all I heard from my poor, erring Walter for more than three +years; but I knew, in spite of his follies, that his heart was sound at +bottom (the son's eyes brightened here, and he kissed the paper), and the +child was no burden to us; we loved it, not only for Ardworth's sake, but +for its own, and for charity's and Christ's. Ardworth's second letter +was as follows:-- + +En iterum Crispinus! I am still alive, and getting on in the world,--ay, +and honestly too; I am no longer spending heedlessly; I am saving for my +debts, and I shall live, I trust, to pay off every farthing. First, for +my debt to you I send an order, not signed in my name, but equally valid, +on Messrs. Drummond, for 250 pounds. Repay yourself what the boy has +cost. Let him be educated to get his own living,--if clever, as a +scholar or a lawyer; if dull, as a tradesman. Whatever I may gain, he +will have his own way to make. I ought to tell you the story connected +with his birth; but it is one of pain and shame, and, on reflection, I +feel that I have no right to injure him by affixing to his early birth an +opprobrium of which he himself is guiltless. If ever I return to +England, you shall know all, and by your counsels I will abide. Love to +all your happy family. Your grateful + FRIEND AND PUPIL. + +From this letter I began to suspect that the poor boy was probably not +born in wedlock, and that Ardworth's silence arose from his compunction. +I conceived it best never to mention this suspicion to John himself as he +grew up. Why should I afflict him by a doubt from which his own father +shrank, and which might only exist in my own inexperienced and +uncharitable interpretation of some vague words? When John was fourteen, +I received from Messrs. Drummond a further sum of 500 pounds, but without +any line from Ardworth, and only to the effect that Messrs. Drummond were +directed by a correspondent in Calcutta to pay me the said sum on behalf +of expenses incurred for the maintenance of the child left to my charge +by John Walter Ardworth. My young pupil had been two years at the +University when I received the letter of which this is a copy:-- + +"How are you? Still well, still happy? Let me hope so! I have not +written to you, dear old friend, but I have not been forgetful of you; I +have inquired of you through my correspondents, and have learned, from +time to time, such accounts as satisfied my grateful affection for you. +I find that you have given the boy my name. Well, let him bear it,--it +is nothing to boast of such as it became in my person; but, mind, I do +not, therefore, acknowledge him as my son. I wish him to think himself +without parents, without other aid in the career of life than his own +industry and talent--if talent he has. Let him go through the healthful +probation of toil; let him search for and find independence. Till he is +of age, 150 pounds per annum will be paid quarterly to your account for +him at Messrs. Drummond's. If then, to set him up in any business or +profession, a sum of money be necessary, name the amount by a line, +signed A. B., Calcutta, to the care of Messrs. Drummond, and it will +reach and find me disposed to follow your instructions. But after that +time all further supply from me will cease. Do not suppose, because I +send this from India, that I am laden with rupees; all I can hope to +attain is a competence. That boy is not the only one who has claims to +share it. Even, therefore, if I had the wish to rear him to the +extravagant habits that ruined myself, I have not the power. Yes, let +him lean on his own strength. In the letter you send me, write fully of +your family, your sons, and write as to a man who can perhaps help them +in the world, and will be too happy thus in some slight degree to repay +all he owes you. You would smile approvingly if you saw me now,--a +steady, money-getting man, but still yours as ever." + +"P.S.--Do not let the boy write to me, nor give him this clew to my +address." + +On the receipt of this letter, I wrote fully to Ardworth about the +excellent promise and conduct of his poor neglected son. I told him +truly he was a son any father might be proud of, and rebuked, even to +harshness, Walter's unseemly tone respecting him. One's child is one's +child, however the father may have wronged the mother. To this letter I +never received any answer. When John was of age, and had made himself +independent of want by obtaining a college fellowship, I spoke to him +about his prospects. I told him that his father, though residing abroad +and for some reason keeping himself concealed, had munificently paid +hitherto for his maintenance, and would lay down what might be necessary +to start him in business, or perhaps place him in the army, but that his +father might be better pleased if he could show a love of independence, +and henceforth maintain himself. I knew the boy I spoke to! John +thought as I did, and I never applied for another donation to the elder +Ardworth. The allowance ceased; John since then has maintained himself. +I have heard no more from his father, though I have written often to the +address he gave me. I begin to fear that he is dead. I once went up to +town and saw one of the heads of Messrs. Drummond's firm, a very polite +gentleman, but he could give me no information, except that he obeyed +instructions from a correspondent at Calcutta,--one Mr. Macfarren. +Whereon I wrote to Mr. Macfarren, and asked him, as I thought very +pressingly, to tell me all he knew of poor Ardworth the elder. He +answered shortly that he knew of no such person at all, and that A. B. +was a French merchant, settled in Calcutta, who had been dead for above +two years. I now gave up all hopes of any further intelligence, and was +more convinced than ever that I had acted rightly in withholding from +poor John my correspondence with his father. The lad had been curious +and inquisitive naturally; but when I told him that I thought it my duty +to his father to be so reserved, he forebore to press me. I have only to +add, first, that by all the inquiries I could make of the surviving +members of Walter Ardworth's family, it seemed their full belief that he +had never been married, and therefore I fear we must conclude that he had +no legitimate children,--which may account for, though it cannot excuse, +his neglect; and secondly, with respect to the sums received on dear +John's account, I put them all by, capital and interest, deducting only +the expense of his first year at Cambridge (the which I could not defray +without injuring my own children), and it all stands in his name at +Messrs. Drummond's, vested in the Three per Cents. That I have not told +him of this was by my poor dear wife's advice; for she said, very +sensibly,--and she was a shrewd woman on money matters,--"If he knows he +has such a large sum all in the lump, who knows but he may grow idle and +extravagant, and spend it at once, like his father before him? Whereas, +some time or other he will want to marry, or need money for some +particular purpose,--then what a blessing it will be!" + +However, my dear madam, as you know the world better than I do, you can +now do as you please, both as to communicating to John all the +information herein contained as to his parentage, and as to apprising him +of the large sum of which he is lawfully possessed. + MATTHEW FIELDEN. + +P.S.--In justice to poor John Ardworth, and to show that whatever whim he +may have conceived about his own child, he had still a heart kind enough +to remember mine, though Heaven knows I said nothing about them in my +letters, my eldest boy received an offer of an excellent place in a West +India merchant's house, and has got on to be chief clerk; and my second +son was presented to a living of 117 pounds a year by a gentleman he +never heard of. Though I never traced these good acts to Ardworth, from +whom else could they come? + +Ardworth put down the paper without a word; and Lucretia, who had watched +him while he read, was struck with the self-control he evinced when he +came to the end of the disclosure. She laid her hand on his and said,-- + +"Courage! you have lost nothing!" + +"Nothing!" said Ardworth, with a bitter smile. "A father's love and a +father's name,--nothing!" + +"But," exclaimed Lucretia, "is this man your father? Does a father's +heart beat in one line of those hard sentences? No, no; it seems to me +probable,--it seems to me almost certain, that you are--" She stopped, +and continued, with a calmer accent, "near to my own blood. I am now in +England, in London, to prosecute the inquiry built upon that hope. If +so, if so, you shall--" Madame Dalibard again stopped abruptly, and +there was something terrible in the very exultation of her countenance. +She drew a long breath, and resumed, with an evident effort at self- +command, "If so, I have a right to the interest I feel for you. Suffer +me yet to be silent as to the grounds of my belief, and--and--love me a +little in the mean while!" + +Her voice trembled, as if with rushing tears, at these last words, and +there was almost an agony in the tone in which they were said, and in the +gesture of the clasped hands she held out to him. + +Much moved (amidst all his mingled emotions at the tale thus made known +to him) by the manner and voice of the narrator, Ardworth bent down and +kissed the extended hands. Then he rose abruptly, walked to and fro the +room, muttering to himself, paused opposite the window, threw it open, as +for air, and, indeed, fairly gasped for breath. When he turned round, +however, his face was composed, and folding his arms on his large breast +with a sudden action, he said aloud, and yet rather to himself than to +his listener,-- + +"What matter, after all, by what name men call our fathers? We ourselves +make our own fate! Bastard or noble, not a jot care I. Give me +ancestors, I will not disgrace them; raze from my lot even the very name +of father, and my sons shall have an ancestor in me!" + +As he thus spoke, there was a rough grandeur in his hard face and the +strong ease of his powerful form. And while thus standing and thus +looking, the door opened, and Varney walked in abruptly. + +These two men had met occasionally at Madame Dalibard's, but no intimacy +had been established between them. Varney was formal and distant to +Ardworth, and Ardworth felt a repugnance to Varney. With the instinct of +sound, sterling, weighty natures, he detected at once, and disliked +heartily, that something of gaudy, false, exaggerated, and hollow which +pervaded Gabriel Varney's talk and manner,--even the trick of his walk +and the cut of his dress. And Ardworth wanted that boyish and beautiful +luxuriance of character which belonged to Percival St. John, easy to +please and to be pleased, and expanding into the warmth of admiration for +all talent and all distinction. For art, if not the highest, Ardworth +cared not a straw; it was nothing to him that Varney painted and +composed, and ran showily through the jargon of literary babble, or toyed +with the puzzles of unsatisfying metaphysics. He saw but a charlatan, +and he had not yet learned from experience what strength and what danger +lie hid in the boa parading its colours in the sun, and shifting, in the +sensual sportiveness of its being, from bough to bough. + +Varney halted in the middle of the room as his eye rested first on +Ardworth, and then glanced towards Madame Dalibard. But Ardworth, jarred +from his revery or resolves by the sound of a voice discordant to his ear +at all times, especially in the mood which then possessed him, scarcely +returned Varney's salutation, buttoned his coat over his chest, seized +his hat, and upsetting two chairs, and very considerably disturbing the +gravity of a round table, forced his way to Madame Dalibard, pressed her +hand, and said in a whisper, "I shall see you again soon," and vanished. + +Varney, smoothing his hair with fingers that shone with rings, slid into +the seat next Madame Dalibard, which Ardworth had lately occupied, and +said: "If I were a Clytemnestra, I should dread an Orestes in such a +son!" + +Madame Dalibard shot towards the speaker one of the sidelong, suspicious +glances which of old had characterized Lucretia, and said,-- + +"Clytemnestra was happy! The Furies slept to her crime, and haunted but +the avenger." + +"Hist!" said Varney. + +The door opened, and Ardworth reappeared. + +"I quite forgot what I half came to know. How is Helen? Did she return +home safe?" + +"Safe--yes!" + +"Dear girl, I am glad to hear it! Where is she? Not gone to those +Miverses again? I am no aristocrat, but why should one couple together +refinement and vulgarity?" + +"Mr. Ardworth," said Madame Dalibard, with haughty coldness, "my niece is +under my care, and you will permit me to judge for myself how to +discharge the trust. Mr. Mivers is her own relation,--a nearer one than +you are." + +Not at all abashed by the rebuke, Ardworth said carelessly: "Well, I +shall talk to you again on that subject. Meanwhile, pray give my love to +her,--Helen, I mean." + +Madame Dalibard half rose in her chair, then sank back again, motioning +with her hand to Ardworth to approach. Varney rose and walked to the +window, as if sensible that something was about to be said not meant for +his ear. + +When Ardworth was close to her chair, Madame Dalibard grasped his hand +with a vigour that surprised him, and drawing him nearer still, whispered +as he bent down,-- + +"I will give Helen your love, if it is a cousin's, or, if you will, a +brother's love. Do you intend--do you feel--an other, a warmer love? +Speak, sir!" and drawing suddenly back, she gazed on his face with a +stern and menacing expression, her teeth set, and the lips firmly pressed +together. + +Ardworth, though a little startled, and half angry, answered with the +low, ironical laugh not uncommon to him, "Pish! you ladies are apt to +think us men much greater fools than we are. A briefless lawyer is not +very inflammable tinder. Yes, a cousin's love,--quite enough. Poor +little Helen! time enough to put other notions into her head; and then-- +she will have a sweetheart, gay and handsome like herself!" + +"Ay," said Madame Dalibard, with a slight smile, "ay, I am satisfied. +Come soon." + +Ardworth nodded, and hurried down the stairs. As he gained the door, he +caught sight of Helen at a distance, bending over a flower-bed in the +neglected garden. He paused, irresolute, a moment. "No," he muttered to +himself, "no; I am fit company only for myself! A long walk into the +fields, and then away with these mists round the Past and Future; the +Present at least is mine!" + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE WEAVERS AND THE WOOF. + +"And what," said Varney,--"what, while we are pursuing a fancied clew, +and seeking to provide first a name, and then a fortune for this young +lawyer,--what steps have you really taken to meet the danger that menaces +me,--to secure, if our inquiries fail, an independence for yourself? +Months have elapsed, and you have still shrunk from advancing the great +scheme upon which we built, when the daughter of Susan Mainwaring was +admitted to your hearth." + +"Why recall me, in these rare moments when I feel myself human still,-- +why recall me back to the nethermost abyss of revenge and crime? Oh, let +me be sure that I have still a son! Even if John Ardworth, with his +gifts and energies, be denied to me, a son, though in rags, I will give +him wealth!--a son, though ignorant as the merest boor, I will pour into +his brain my dark wisdom! A son! a son! my heart swells at the word. +Ah, you sneer! Yes, my heart swells, but not with the mawkish fondness +of a feeble mother. In a son, I shall live again,--transmigrate from +this tortured and horrible life of mine; drink back my youth. In him I +shall rise from my fall,--strong in his power, great in his grandeur. It +is because I was born a woman,--had woman's poor passions and infirm +weakness,--that I am what I am. I would transfer myself into the soul of +man,--man, who has the strength to act, and the privilege to rise. Into +the bronze of man's nature I would pour the experience which has broken, +with its fierce elements, the puny vessel of clay. Yes, Gabriel, in +return for all I have done and sacrificed for you, I ask but co-operation +in that one hope of my shattered and storm-beat being. Bear, forbear, +await; risk not that hope by some wretched, peddling crime which will +bring on us both detection,--some wanton revelry in guilt, which is not +worth the terror that treads upon its heels." + +"You forget," answered Varney, with a kind of submissive sullenness,--for +whatever had passed between these two persons in their secret and fearful +intimacy, there was still a power in Lucretia, surviving her fall amidst +the fiends, that impressed Varney with the only respect he felt for man +or woman,--"you forget strangely the nature of our elaborate and master +project when you speak of 'peddling crime,' or 'wanton revelry' in guilt! +You forget, too, how every hour that we waste deepens the peril that +surrounds me, and may sweep from your side the sole companion that can +aid you in your objects,--nay, without whom they must wholly fail. Let +me speak first of that most urgent danger, for your memory seems short +and troubled, since you have learned only to hope the recovery of your +son. If this man Stubmore, in whom the trust created by my uncle's will +is now vested, once comes to town, once begins to bustle about his +accursed projects of transferring the money from the Bank of England, I +tell you again and again that my forgery on the bank will be detected, +and that transportation will be the smallest penalty inflicted. Part of +the forgery, as you know, was committed on your behalf, to find the +moneys necessary for the research for your son,--committed on the clear +understanding that our project on Helen should repay me, should enable +me, perhaps undetected, to restore the sums illegally abstracted, or, at +the worst, to confess to Stubmore--whose character I well know--that, +oppressed by difficulties, I had yielded to temptation, that I had forged +his name (as I had forged his father's) as an authority to sell the +capital from the bank, and that now, in replacing the money, I repaid my +error and threw myself on his indulgence, on his silence. I say that I +know enough of the man to know that I should be thus cheaply saved, or at +the worst, I should have but to strengthen his compassion by a bribe to +his avarice; but if I cannot replace the money, I am lost." + +"Well, well," said Lucretia; "the money you shall have, let me but find +my son, and--" + +"Grant me patience!" cried Varney, impetuously. "But what can your son +do, if found, unless you endow him with the heritage of Laughton? To do +that, Helen, who comes next to Percival St. John in the course of the +entail, must cease to live! Have I not aided, am I not aiding you +hourly, in your grand objects? This evening I shall see a man whom I +have long lost sight of, but who has acquired in a lawyer's life the true +scent after evidence: if that evidence exist, it shall be found. I have +just learned his address. By tomorrow he shall be on the track. I have +stinted myself to save from the results of the last forgery the gold to +whet his zeal. For the rest, as I have said, your design involves the +removal of two lives. Already over the one more difficult to slay the +shadow creeps and the pall hangs. I have won, as you wished, and as was +necessary, young St. John's familiar acquaintance; when the hour comes, +he is in my hands." + +Lucretia smiled sternly. "So!" she said, between her ground teeth, "the +father forbade me the house that was my heritage! I have but to lift a +finger and breathe a word, and, desolate as I am, I thrust from that home +the son! The spoiler left me the world,--I leave his son the grave!" + +"But," said Varney, doggedly pursuing his dreadful object, "why force me +to repeat that his is not the only life between you and your son's +inheritance? St. John gone, Helen still remains. And what, if your +researches fail, are we to lose the rich harvest which Helen will yield +us,--a harvest you reap with the same sickle which gathers in your +revenge? Do you no longer see in Helen's face the features of her +mother? Is the perfidy of William Mainwaring forgotten or forgiven?" + +"Gabriel Varney," said Lucretia, in a hollow and tremulous voice, "when +in that hour in which my whole being was revulsed, and I heard the cord +snap from the anchor, and saw the demons of the storm gather round my +bark; when in that hour I stooped calmly down and kissed my rival's +brow,--I murmured an oath which seemed not inspired by my own soul, but +by an influence henceforth given to my fate: I vowed that the perfidy +dealt to me should be repaid; I vowed that the ruin of my own existence +should fall on the brow which I kissed. I vowed that if shame and +disgrace were to supply the inheritance I had forfeited, I would not +stand alone amidst the scorn of the pitiless world. In the vision of my +agony, I saw, afar, the altar dressed and the bride-chamber prepared; and +I breathed my curse, strong as prophecy, on the marriage-hearth and the +marriage-bed. Why dream, then, that I would rescue the loathed child of +that loathed union from your grasp? But is the time come? Yours may be +come: is mine?" + +Something so awful there was in the look of his accomplice, so intense in +the hate of her low voice, that Varney, wretch as he was, and +contemplating at that very hour the foulest and most hideous guilt, drew +back, appalled. + +Madame Dalibard resumed, and in a somewhat softer tone, but softened only +by the anguish of despair. + +"Oh, had it been otherwise, what might I have been! Given over from that +hour to the very incarnation of plotting crime, none to resist the evil +impulse of my own maddening heart, the partner, forced on me by fate, +leading me deeper and deeper into the inextricable hell,--from that hour +fraud upon fraud, guilt upon guilt, infamy heaped on infamy, till I stand +a marvel to myself that the thunderbolt falls not, that Nature thrusts +not from her breast a living outrage on all her laws! Was I not +justified in the desire of retribution? Every step that I fell, every +glance that I gave to the gulf below, increased but in me the desire for +revenge. All my acts had flowed from one fount: should the stream roll +pollution, and the fount spring pure?" + +"You have had your revenge on your rival and her husband." + +"I had it, and I passed on!" said Lucretia, with nostrils dilated as with +haughty triumph; "they were crushed, and I suffered them to live! Nay, +when, by chance, I heard of William Mainwaring's death, I bowed down my +head, and I almost think I wept. The old days came back upon me. Yes, I +wept! But I had not destroyed their love. No, no; there I had miserably +failed. A pledge of that love lived. I had left their hearth barren; +Fate sent them a comfort which I had not foreseen. And suddenly my hate +returned, my wrongs rose again, my vengeance was not sated. The love +that had destroyed more than my life,--my soul,--rose again and cursed me +in the face of Helen. The oath which I took when I kissed my rival's +brow, demanded another prey when I kissed the child of those nuptials." + +"You are prepared at last, then, to act?" cried Varney, in a tone of +savage joy. + +At that moment, close under the window, rose, sudden and sweet, the voice +of one singing,--the young voice of Helen. The words were so distinct +that they came to the ears of the dark-plotting and guilty pair. In the +song itself there was little to remark or peculiarly apposite to the +consciences of those who heard; yet in the extreme and touching purity of +the voice, and in the innocence of the general spirit of the words, trite +as might be the image they conveyed, there was something that contrasted +so fearfully their own thoughts and minds that they sat silent, looking +vacantly into each other's faces, and shrinking perhaps to turn their +eyes within themselves. + + HELEN'S HYMN. + + Ye fade, yet still how sweet, ye Flowers! Your scent outlives +the bloom! So, Father, may my mortal hours Grow sweeter towards +the tomb! + + In withered leaves a healing cure The simple gleaners find; +So may our withered hopes endure In virtues left behind! + + Oh, not to me be vainly given The lesson ye bestow, Of +thoughts that rise in sweets to Heaven, And turn to use below. + +The song died, but still the listeners remained silent, till at length, +shaking off the effect, with his laugh of discordant irony, Varney said,- +- + +"Sweet innocence, fresh from the nursery! Would it not be sin to suffer +the world to mar it? You hear the prayer: why not grant it, and let the +flower 'turn to use below'?" + +"Ah, but could it wither first!" muttered Lucretia, with an accent of +suppressed rage. "Do you think that her--that his--daughter is to me but +a vulgar life to be sacrificed merely for gold? Imagine away your sex, +man! Women only know what I--such as I, woman still--feel in the +presence of the pure! Do you fancy that I should not have held death a +blessing if death could have found me in youth such as Helen is? Ah, +could she but live to suffer! Die! Well, since it must be, since my son +requires the sacrifice, do as you will with the victim that death +mercifully snatches from my grasp. I could have wished to prolong her +life, to load it with some fragment of the curse her parents heaped upon +me,--baffled love, and ruin, and despair! I could have hoped, in this +division of the spoil, that mine had been the vengeance, if yours the +gold. You want the life, I the heart,--the heart to torture first; and +then--why then more willingly than I do now, could I have thrown the +carcass to the jackal!" + +"Listen!" began Varney; when the door opened and Helen herself stood +unconsciously smiling at the threshold. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE LAWYER AND THE BODY-SNATCHER. + +That same evening Beck, according to appointment, met Percival and showed +him the dreary-looking house which held the fair stranger who had so +attracted his youthful fancy. And Percival looked at the high walls with +the sailor's bold desire for adventure, while confused visions reflected +from plays, operas, and novels, in which scaling walls with rope-ladders +and dark-lanterns was represented as the natural vocation of a lover, +flitted across his brain; and certainly he gave a deep sigh as his +common-sense plucked him back from such romance. However, having now +ascertained the house, it would be easy to learn the name of its inmates, +and to watch or make his opportunity. As slowly and reluctantly he +walked back to the spot where he had left his cabriolet, he entered into +some desultory conversation with his strange guide; and the pity he had +before conceived for Beck increased upon him as he talked and listened. +This benighted mind, only illumined by a kind of miserable astuteness and +that "cunning of the belly" which is born of want to engender avarice; +this joyless temperament; this age in youth; this living reproach, rising +up from the stones of London against our social indifference to the souls +which wither and rot under the hard eyes of science and the deaf ears of +wealth,--had a pathos for his lively sympathies and his fresh heart. + +"If ever you want a friend, come to me," said St. John, abruptly. + +The sweeper stared, and a gleam of diviner nature, a ray of gratitude and +unselfish devotion, darted through the fog and darkness of his mind. He +stood, with his hat off, watching the wheels of the cabriolet as it bore +away the happy child of fortune, and then, shaking his head, as at some +puzzle that perplexed and defied his comprehension, strode back to the +town and bent his way homeward. + +Between two and three hours after Percival thus parted from the sweeper, +a man whose dress was little in accordance with the scene in which we +present him, threaded his way through a foul labyrinth of alleys in the +worst part of St. Giles's,--a neighbourhood, indeed, carefully shunned at +dusk by wealthy passengers; for here dwelt not only Penury in its +grimmest shape, but the desperate and dangerous guilt which is not to be +lightly encountered in its haunts and domiciles. Here children imbibe +vice with their mother's milk. Here Prostitution, commencing with +childhood, grows fierce and sanguinary in the teens, and leagues with +theft and murder. Here slinks the pickpocket, here emerges the burglar, +here skulks the felon. Yet all about and all around, here, too, may be +found virtue in its rarest and noblest form,--virtue outshining +circumstance and defying temptation; the virtue of utter poverty, which +groans, and yet sins not. So interwoven are these webs of penury and +fraud that in one court your life is not safe; but turn to the right +hand, and in the other, you might sleep safely in that worse than Irish +shealing, though your pockets were full of gold. Through these haunts +the ragged and penniless may walk unfearing, for they have nothing to +dread from the lawless,--more, perhaps, from the law; but the wealthy, +the respectable, the spruce, the dainty, let them beware the spot, unless +the policeman is in sight or day is in the skies! + +As this passenger, whose appearance, as we have implied, was certainly +not that of a denizen, turned into one of the alleys, a rough hand seized +him by the arm, and suddenly a group of girls and tatterdemalions issued +from a house, in which the lower shutters unclosed showed a light +burning, and surrounded him with a hoarse whoop. + +The passenger whispered a word in the ear of the grim blackguard who had +seized him, and his arm was instantly released. + +"Hist! a pal,--he has the catch," said the blackguard, surlily. The +group gave way, and by the light of the clear starlit skies, and a single +lamp hung at the entrance of the alley, gazed upon the stranger. But +they made no effort to detain him; and as he disappeared in the distant +shadows, hastened back into the wretched hostlery where they had been +merry-making. Meanwhile, the stranger gained a narrow court, and stopped +before a house in one of its angles,--a house taller than the rest, so +much taller than the rest that it had the effect of a tower; you would +have supposed it (perhaps rightly) to be the last remains of some ancient +building of importance, around which, as population thickened and fashion +changed, the huts below it had insolently sprung up. Quaint and massive +pilasters, black with the mire and soot of centuries, flanked the deep- +set door; the windows were heavy with mullions and transoms, and strongly +barred in the lower floor; but few of the panes were whole, and only here +and there had any attempt been made to keep out the wind and rain by +rags, paper, old shoes, old hats, and other ingenious contrivances. +Beside the door was conveniently placed a row of some ten or twelve bell- +pulls, appertaining no doubt to the various lodgments into which the +building was subdivided. The stranger did not seem very familiar with +the appurtenances of the place. He stood in some suspense as to the +proper bell to select; but at last, guided by a brass plate annexed to +one of the pulls, which, though it was too dark to decipher the +inscription, denoted a claim to superior gentility to the rest of that +nameless class, he hazarded a tug, which brought forth a 'larum loud +enough to startle the whole court from its stillness. + +In a minute or less, the casement in one of the upper stories opened, a +head peered forth, and one of those voices peculiar to low debauch--raw, +cracked, and hoarse--called out: "Who waits?" + +"Is it you, Grabman?" asked the stranger, dubiously. + +"Yes,--Nicholas Grabman, attorney-at-law, sir, at your service; and your +name?" + +"Jason," answered the stranger. + +"Ho, there! ho, Beck!" cried the cracked voice to some one within; "go +down and open the door." + +In a few moments the heavy portal swung and creaked and yawned sullenly, +and a gaunt form, half-undressed, with an inch of a farthing rushlight +glimmering through a battered lantern in its hand, presented itself to +Jason. The last eyed the ragged porter sharply. + +"Do you live here?" + +"Yes," answered Beck, with the cringe habitual to him. "H-up the ladder, +vith the rats, drat 'em." + +"Well, lead on; hold up the lantern. A devil of a dark place this!" +grumbled Jason, as he nearly stumbled over sundry broken chattels, and +gained a flight of rude, black, broken stairs, that creaked under his +tread. + +"'St! 'st!" said Beck between his teeth, as the stranger, halting at the +second floor, demanded, in no gentle tones, whether Mr. Grabman lived in +the chimney-pots. + +"'St! 'st! Don't make such a rumpus, or No. 7 will be at you." + +"What do I care for No. 7? And who the devil is No. 7?" + +"A body-snatcher!" whispered Beck, with a shudder. "He's a dillicut +sleeper,--can't abide having his night's rest sp'ilt. And he's the +houtrageoustest great cretur when he's h-up in his tantrums; it makes +your 'air stand on ind to 'ear him!" + +"I should like very much to hear him, then," said the stranger, +curiously. And while he spoke, the door of No. 7 opened abruptly. A +huge head, covered with matted hair, was thrust for a moment through the +aperture, and two dull eyes, that seemed covered with a film like that of +the birds which feed on the dead, met the stranger's bold, sparkling +orbs. + +"Hell and fury!" bawled out the voice of this ogre, like a clap of near +thunder, "if you two keep tramp, tramp, there close at my door, I'll make +you meat for the surgeons, b---- you!" + +"Stop a moment, my civil friend," said the stranger, advancing; "just +stand where you are: I should like to make a sketch of your head." + +That head protruded farther from the door, and with it an enormous bulk +of chest and shoulder. But the adventurous visitor was not to be +daunted. He took out, very coolly, a pencil and the back of a letter, +and began his sketch. + +The body-snatcher stared at him an instant in mute astonishment; but that +operation and the composure of the artist were so new to him that they +actually inspired him with terror. He slunk back, banged to the door; +and the stranger, putting up his implements, said, with a disdainful +laugh, to Beck, who had slunk away into a corner,-- + +"No. 7 knows well how to take care of No. 1. Lead on, and be quick, +then!" + +As they continued to mount, they heard the body-snatcher growling and +blaspheming in his den, and the sound made Beck clamber the quicker, till +at the next landing-place he took breath, threw open a door, and Jason, +pushing him aside, entered first. + +The interior of the room bespoke better circumstances than might have +been supposed from the approach; the floor was covered with sundry scraps +of carpet, formerly of different hues and patterns, but mellowed by time +into one threadbare mass of grease and canvas. There was a good fire on +the hearth, though the night was warm; there were sundry volumes piled +round the walls, in the binding peculiar to law books; in a corner stood +a tall desk, of the fashion used by clerks, perched on tall, slim legs, +and companioned by a tall, slim stool. On a table before the fire were +scattered the remains of the nightly meal,--broiled bones, the skeleton +of a herring; and the steam rose from a tumbler containing a liquid +colourless as water, but poisonous as gin. + +The room was squalid and dirty, and bespoke mean and slovenly habits; but +it did not bespeak penury and want, it had even an air of filthy comfort +of its own,--the comfort of the swine in its warm sty. The occupant of +the chamber was in keeping with the localities. Figure to yourself a man +of middle height, not thin, but void of all muscular flesh,--bloated, +puffed, unwholesome. He was dressed in a gray-flannel gown and short +breeches, the stockings wrinkled and distained, the feet in slippers. +The stomach was that of a portly man, the legs were those of a skeleton; +the cheeks full and swollen, like a ploughboy's, but livid, bespeckled, +of a dull lead-colour, like a patient in the dropsy. The head, covered +in patches with thin, yellowish hair, gave some promise of intellect, for +the forehead was high, and appeared still more so from partial baldness; +the eyes, embedded in fat and wrinkled skin, were small and lustreless, +but they still had that acute look which education and ability +communicate to the human orb; the mouth most showed the animal,--full- +lipped, coarse, and sensual; while behind one of two great ears stuck a +pen. + +You see before you, then, this slatternly figure,--slipshod, half- +clothed, with a sort of shabby demi-gentility about it, half ragamuffin, +half clerk; while in strong contrast appeared the new-comer, scrupulously +neat, new, with bright black-satin stock, coat cut jauntily to the waist, +varnished boots, kid gloves, and trim mustache. + +Behind this sleek and comely personage, on knock-knees, in torn shirt +open at the throat, with apathetic, listless, unlighted face, stood the +lean and gawky Beck. + +"Set a chair for the gentleman," said the inmate of the chamber to Beck, +with a dignified wave of the hand. + +"How do you do, Mr.--Mr.--humph--Jason? How do you do? Always smart and +blooming; the world thrives with you." + +"The world is a farm that thrives with all who till it properly, +Grabman," answered Jason, dryly; and with his handkerchief he carefully +dusted the chair, on which he then daintily deposited his person. + +"But who is your Ganymede, your valet, your gentleman-usher?" + +"Oh, a lad about town who lodges above and does odd jobs for me,--brushes +my coat, cleans my shoes, and after his day's work goes an errand now and +then. Make yourself scarce, Beck! Anatomy, vanish!" + +Beck grinned, nodded, pulled hard at a flake of his hair, and closed the +door. + +"One of your brotherhood, that?" asked Jason, carelessly. + +"He, oaf? No," said Grabman, with profound contempt in his sickly +visage. "He works for his bread,--instinct! Turnspits and truffle-dogs +and some silly men have it! What an age since we met! Shall I mix you a +tumbler?" + +"You know I never drink your vile spirits; though in Champagne and +Bordeaux I am any man's match." + +"And how the devil do you keep old black thoughts out of your mind by +those washy potations?" + +"Old black thoughts--of what?" + +"Of black actions, Jason. We have not met since you paid me for +recommending the nurse who attended your uncle in his last illness." + +"Well, poor coward?" + +Grabman knit his thin eyebrows and gnawed his blubber lips. + +"I am no coward, as you know." + +"Not when a thing is to be done, but after it is done. You brave the +substance, and tremble at the shadow. I dare say you see ugly goblins in +the dark, Grabman?" + +"Ay, ay; but it is no use talking to you. You call yourself Jason +because of your yellow hair, or your love for the golden fleece; but your +old comrades call you 'Rattlesnake,' and you have its blood, as its +venom." + +"And its charm, man," added Jason, with a strange smile, that, though +hypocritical and constrained, had yet a certain softness, and added +greatly to the comeliness of features which many might call beautiful, +and all would allow to be regular and symmetrical. "I shall find at +least ten love-letters on my table when I go home. But enough of these +fopperies, I am here on business." + +"Law, of course; I am your man. Who's the victim?" and a hideous grin on +Grabman's face contrasted the sleek smile that yet lingered upon his +visitor's. + +"No; something less hazardous, but not less lucrative than our old +practices. This is a business that may bring you hundreds, thousands; +that may take you from this hovel to speculate at the West End; that may +change your gin into Lafitte, and your herring into venison; that may +lift the broken attorney again upon the wheel,--again to roll down, it +may be; but that is your affair." + +"'Fore Gad, open the case," cried Grabman, eagerly, and shoving aside the +ignoble relics of his supper, he leaned his elbows on the table and his +chin on his damp palms, while eyes that positively brightened into an +expression of greedy and relentless intelligence were fixed upon his +visitor. + +"The case runs thus," said Jason. "Once upon a time there lived, at an +old house in Hampshire called Laughton, a wealthy baronet named St. John. +He was a bachelor, his estates at his own disposal. He had two nieces +and a more distant kinsman. His eldest niece lived with him,--she was +supposed to be destined for his heiress; circumstances needless to relate +brought upon this girl her uncle's displeasure,--she was dismissed his +house. Shortly afterwards he died, leaving to his kinsman--a Mr. Vernon- +-his estates, with remainder to Vernon's issue, and in default thereof, +first to the issue of the younger niece, next to that of the elder and +disinherited one. The elder married, and was left a widow without +children. She married again, and had a son. Her second husband, for +some reason or other, conceived ill opinions of his wife. In his last +illness (he did not live long) he resolved to punish the wife by robbing +the mother. He sent away the son, nor have we been able to discover him +since. It is that son whom you are to find." + +"I see, I see; go on," said Grabman. "This son is now the remainderman. +How lost? When? What year? What trace?" + +"Patience. You will find in this paper the date of the loss and the age +of the child, then a mere infant. Now for the trace. This husband--did +I tell you his name? No? Alfred Braddell--had one friend more intimate +than the rest,--John Walter Ardworth, a cashiered officer, a ruined man, +pursued by bill-brokers, Jews, and bailiffs. To this man we have lately +had reason to believe that the child was given. Ardworth, however, was +shortly afterwards obliged to fly his creditors. We know that he went to +India; but if residing there, it must have been under some new name, and +we fear he is now dead. All our inquiries, at least after this man, have +been fruitless. Before he went abroad, he left with his old tutor a +child corresponding in age to that of Mrs. Braddell's. In this child she +thinks she recognizes her son. All that you have to do is to trace his +identity by good legal evidence. Don't smile in that foolish way,--I +mean sound, bona fide evidence that will stand the fire of cross- +examination; you know what that is! You will therefore find out,--first, +whether Braddell did consign his child to Ardworth, and, if so, you must +then follow Ardworth, with that child in his keeping, to Matthew +Fielden's house, whose address you find noted in the paper I gave you, +together with many other memoranda as to Ardworth's creditors and those +whom he is likely to have come across." + +"John Ardworth, I see!" + +"John Walter Ardworth,--commonly called Walter; he, like me, perferred to +be known only by his second baptismal name. He, because of a favourite +Radical godfather; I, because Honore is an inconvenient Gallicism. And +perhaps when Honore Mirabeau (my godfather) went out of fashion with the +sans-culottes, my father thought Gabriel a safer designation. Now I have +told you all." + +"What is the mother's maiden name?" + +"Her maiden name was Clavering; she was married under that of Dalibard, +her first husband." + +"And," said Grabman, looking over the notes in the paper given to him, +"it is at Liverpool that the husband died, and whence the child was sent +away?" + +"It is so; to Liverpool you will go first. I tell you fairly, the task is +difficult, for hitherto it has foiled me. I knew but one man who, +without flattery, could succeed, and therefore I spared no pains to find +out Nicholas Grabman. You have the true ferret's faculty; you, too, are +a lawyer, and snuff evidence in every breath. Find us a son,--a legal +son,--a son to be shown in a court of law, and the moment he steps into +the lands and the Hall of Laughton, you have five thousand pounds." + +"Can I have a bond to that effect?" + +"My bond, I fear, is worth no more than my word. Trust to the last; if I +break it, you know enough of my secrets to hang me!" + +"Don't talk of hanging; I hate that subject. But stop. If found, does +this son succeed? Did this Mr. Vernon leave no heir; this other sister +continue single, or prove barren?" + +"Oh, true! He, Mr. Vernon, who by will took the name of St. John, he +left issue; but only one son still survives, a minor and unmarried. The +sister, too, left a daughter; both are poor, sickly creatures,--their +lives not worth a straw. Never mind them. You find Vincent Braddell, +and he will not be long out of his property, nor you out of your 5,000 +pounds! You see, under these circumstances a bond might become dangerous +evidence!" + +Grabman emitted a fearful and tremulous chuckle,--a laugh like the laugh +of a superstitious man when you talk to him of ghosts and churchyards. +He chuckled, and his hair bristled. But after a pause, in which he +seemed to wrestle with his own conscience, he said: "Well, well, you are +a strange man, Jason; you love your joke. I have nothing to do except to +find out this ultimate remainderman; mind that!" + +"Perfectly; nothing like subdivision of labour." + +"The search will be expensive." + +"There is oil for your wheels," answered Jason, putting a note-book into +his confidant's hands. "But mind you waste it not. No tricks, no false +play, with me; you know Jason, or, if you like the name better, you know +the Rattlesnake!" + +"I will account for every penny," said Grabman, eagerly, and clasping his +hands, while his pale face grew livid. + +"I do not doubt it, my quill-driver. Look sharp, start to-morrow. Get +thyself decent clothes, be sober, cleanly, and respectable. Act as a man +who sees before him 5,000 pounds. And now, light me downstairs." + +With the candle in his hand, Grabman stole down the rugged steps even +more timorously than Beck had ascended them, and put his finger to his +mouth as they came in the dread vicinity of No. 7. But Jason, or rather +Gabriel Varney, with that fearless, reckless bravado of temper which, +while causing half his guilt, threw at times a false glitter over its +baseness, piqued by the cowardice of his comrade, gave a lusty kick at +the closed door, and shouted out: "Old grave-stealer, come out, and let +me finish your picture. Out, out! I say, out!" Grabman left the candle +on the steps, and made but three bounds to his own room. + +At the third shout of his disturber the resurrection-man threw open his +door violently and appeared at the gap, the upward flare of the candle +showing the deep lines ploughed in his hideous face, and the immense +strength of his gigantic trunk and limbs. Slight, fair, and delicate as +he was, Varney eyed him deliberately, and trembled not. + +"What do you want with me?" said the terrible voice, tremulous with rage. + +"Only to finish your portrait as Pluto. He was the god of Hell, you +know." + +The next moment the vast hand of the ogre hung like a great cloud over +Gabriel Varney. This last, ever on his guard, sprang aside, and the +light gleamed on the steel of a pistol. "Hands off! Or--" + +The click of the pistol-cock finished the sentence. The ruffian halted. +A glare of disappointed fury gave a momentary lustre to his dull eyes. +"P'r'aps I shall meet you again one o' these days, or nights, and I shall +know ye in ten thousand." + +"Nothing like a bird in the hand, Master Grave-stealer. Where can we +ever meet again?" + +"P'r'aps in the fields, p'r'aps on the road, p'r'aps at the Old Bailey, +p'r'aps at the gallows, p'r'aps in the convict-ship. I knows what that +is! I was chained night and day once to a chap jist like you. Didn't I +break his spurit; didn't I spile his sleep! Ho, ho! you looks a bit less +varmently howdacious now, my flash cove!" + +Varney hitherto had not known one pang of fear, one quicker beat of the +heart before. But the image presented to his irritable fancy (always +prone to brood over terrors),--the image of that companion chained to him +night and day,--suddenly quelled his courage; the image stood before him +palpably like the Oulos Oneiros,--the Evil Dream of the Greeks. + +He breathed loud. The body-stealer's stupid sense saw that he had +produced the usual effect of terror, which gratified his brutal self- +esteem; he retreated slowly, inch by inch, to the door, followed by +Varney's appalled and staring eye, and closed it with such violence that +the candle was extinguished. + +Varney, not daring,--yes, literally not daring,--to call aloud to Grabman +for another light, crept down the dark stairs with hurried, ghostlike +steps; and after groping at the door-handle with one hand, while the +other grasped his pistol with a strain of horror, he succeeded at last in +winning access to the street, and stood a moment to collect himself in +the open air,--the damps upon his forehead, and his limbs trembling like +one who has escaped by a hairbreadth the crash of a falling house. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUCRETIA, BY LYTTON, V4 *** + +****** This file should be named 7688.txt or 7688.zip ****** + +This eBook was produced by Tapio Riikonen +and David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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