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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7689.txt b/7689.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b9f3d3e --- /dev/null +++ b/7689.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3287 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook Lucretia, by Edward-Bulwer Lytton, Vol. 5 +#117 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 5. + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: March 2005 [EBook #7689] +[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, V5 *** + + + +This eBook was produced by Tapio Riikonen +and David Widger + + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE RAPE OF THE MATTRESS. + +That Mr. Grabman slept calmly that night is probable enough, for his gin- +bottle was empty the next morning; and it was with eyes more than usually +heavy that he dozily followed the movements of Beck, who, according to +custom, opened the shutters of the little den adjoining his sitting-room, +brushed his clothes, made his fire, set on the kettle to boil, and laid +his breakfast things, preparatory to his own departure to the duties of +the day. Stretching himself, however, and shaking off slumber, as the +remembrance of the enterprise he had undertaken glanced pleasantly across +him, Grabman sat up in his bed and said, in a voice that, if not maudlin, +was affectionate, and if not affectionate, was maudlin,-- + +"Beck, you are a good fellow. You have faults, you are human,--humanism +est errare; which means that you some times scorch my muffins. But, take +you all in all, you are a kind creature. Beck, I am going into the +country for some days. I shall leave my key in the hole in the wall,-- +you know; take care of it when you come in. You were out late last +night, my poor fellow. Very wrong! Look well to yourself, or who knows? +You may be clutched by that blackguard resurrection-man, No. 7. Well, +well, to think of that Jason's foolhardiness! But he's the worse devil +of the two. Eh! what was I saying? And always give a look into my room +every night before you go to roost. The place swarms with cracksmen, and +one can't be too cautious. Lucky dog, you, to have nothing to be robbed +of!" + +Beck winced at that last remark. Grabman did not seem to notice his +confusion, and proceeded, as he put on his stockings: "And, Beck, you are +a good fellow, and have served me faithfully; when I come back, I will +bring you something handsome,--a backey-box or--who knows?--a beautiful +silver watch. Meanwhile, I think--let me see--yes, I can give you this +elegant pair of small-clothes. Put out my best,--the black ones. And +now, Beck, I'll not keep you any longer." + +The poor sweep, with many pulls at his forelock, acknowledged the +munificent donation; and having finished all his preparations, hastened +first to his room, to examine at leisure, and with great admiration, the +drab small-clothes. "Room," indeed, we can scarcely style the wretched +enclosure which Beck called his own. It was at the top of the house, +under the roof, and hot--oh, so hot--in the summer! It had one small +begrimed window, through which the light of heaven never came, for the +parapet, beneath which ran the choked gutter, prevented that; but the +rain and the wind came in. So sometimes, through four glassless frames, +came a fugitive tom-cat. As for the rats, they held the place as their +own. Accustomed to Beck, they cared nothing for him. + +They were the Mayors of that Palace; he only le roi faineant. They ran +over his bed at night; he often felt them on his face, and was convinced +they would have eaten him, if there had been anything worth eating upon +his bones; still, perhaps out of precaution rather than charity, he +generally left them a potato or two, or a crust of bread, to take off the +edge of their appetites. But Beck was far better off than most who +occupied the various settlements in that Alsatia,--he had his room to +himself. That was necessary to his sole luxury,--the inspection of his +treasury, the safety of his mattress; for it he paid, without grumbling, +what he thought was a very high rent. To this hole in the roof there was +no lock,--for a very good reason, there was no door to it. You went up a +ladder, as you would go into a loft. Now, it had often been matter of +much intense cogitation to Beck whether or not he should have a door to +his chamber; and the result of the cogitation was invariably the same,-- +he dared not! What should he want with a door,--a door with a lock to +it? For one followed as a consequence to the other. Such a novel piece +of grandeur would be an ostentatious advertisement that he had something +to guard. He could have no pretence for it on the ground that he was +intruded on by neighbours; no step but his own was ever caught by him +ascending that ladder; it led to no other room. All the offices required +for the lodgment he performed himself. His supposed poverty was a better +safeguard than doors of iron. Besides this, a door, if dangerous, would +be superfluous; the moment it was suspected that Beck had something worth +guarding, that moment all the picklocks and skeleton keys in the +neighbourhood would be in a jingle. And a cracksman of high repute +lodged already on the ground-floor. So Beck's treasure, like the bird's +nest, was deposited as much out of sight as his instinct could contrive; +and the locks and bolts of civilized men were equally dispensed with by +bird and Beck. + +On a rusty nail the sweep suspended the drab small-clothes, stroked them +down lovingly, and murmured, "They be 's too good for I; I should like to +pop 'em! But vould n't that be a shame? Beck, be n't you be a +hungrateful beast to go for to think of nothin' but the tin, ven your +'art ought to varm with hemotion? I vill vear 'em ven I vaits on him. +Ven he sees his own smalls bringing in the muffins, he will say, 'Beck, +you becomes 'em!'" + +Fraught with this noble resolution, the sweep caught up his broom, crept +down the ladder, and with a furtive glance at the door of the room in +which the cracksman lived, let himself out and shambled his way to his +crossing. Grabman, in the mean while, dressed himself with more care +than usual, shaved his beard from a four days' crop, and while seated at +his breakfast, read attentively over the notes which Varney had left to +him, pausing at times to make his own pencil memoranda. He then packed +up such few articles as so moderate a worshipper of the Graces might +require, deposited them in an old blue brief-bag, and this done, he +opened his door, and creeping to the threshold, listened carefully. +Below, a few sounds might be heard,--here, the wail of a child; there, +the shrill scold of a woman in that accent above all others adapted to +scold,--the Irish. Farther down still, the deep bass oath of the +choleric resurrection-man; but above, all was silent. Only one floor +intervened between Grabman's apartment and the ladder that led to Beck's +loft. And the inmates of that room gave no sound of life. Grabman took +courage, and shuffling off his shoes, ascended the stairs; he passed the +closed door of the room above; he seized the ladder with a shaking hand; +he mounted, step after step; he stood in Beck's room. + +Now, O Nicholas Grabman! some moralists may be harsh enough to condemn +thee for what thou art doing,--kneeling yonder in the dim light, by that +curtainless pallet, with greedy fingers feeling here and there, and a +placid, self-hugging smile upon thy pale lips. That poor vagabond whom +thou art about to despoil has served thee well and faithfully, has borne +with thine ill-humours, thy sarcasms, thy swearings, thy kicks, and +buffets; often, when in the bestial sleep of drunkenness he has found +thee stretched helpless on thy floor, with a kindly hand he has moved +away the sharp fender, too near that knavish head, now bent on his ruin, +or closed the open window, lest the keen air, that thy breath tainted, +should visit thee with rheum and fever. Small has been his guerdon for +uncomplaining sacrifice of the few hours spared to this weary drudge from +his daily toil,--small, but gratefully received. And if Beck had been +taught to pray, he would have prayed for thee as for a good man, O +miserable sinner! And thou art going now, Nicholas Grabman, upon an +enterprise which promises thee large gains, and thy purse is filled; and +thou wantest nothing for thy wants or thy swinish luxuries. Why should +those shaking fingers itch for the poor beggar-man's hoards? + +But hadst thou been bound on an errand that would have given thee a +million, thou wouldst not have left unrifled that secret store which thy +prying eye had discovered, and thy hungry heart had coveted. No; since +one night,--fatal, alas! to the owner of loft and treasure, when, needing +Beck for some service, and fearing to call aloud (for the resurrection- +man in the floor below thee, whose oaths even now ascend to thine ear, +sleeps ill, and has threatened to make thee mute forever if thou +disturbest him in the few nights in which his dismal calling suffers him +to sleep at all), thou didst creep up the ladder, and didst see the +unconscious miser at his nightly work, and after the sight didst steal +down again, smiling,--no; since that night, no schoolboy ever more +rootedly and ruthlessly set his mind upon nest of linnet than thine was +set upon the stores in Beck's mattress. + +And yet why, O lawyer, should rigid moralists blame thee more than such +of thy tribe as live, honoured and respectable, upon the frail and the +poor? Who among them ever left loft or mattress while a rap could be +wrung from either? Matters it to Astraea whether the spoliation be made +thus nakedly and briefly, or by all the acknowledged forms in which, item +on item, six-and-eightpence on six-and-eightpence, the inexorable hand +closes at length on the last farthing of duped despair? Not--Heaven +forbid!--that we make thee, foul Nicholas Grabman, a type for all the +class called attorneys-at-law! Noble hearts, liberal minds, are there +amongst that brotherhood, we know and have experienced; but a type art +thou of those whom want and error and need have proved--alas! too well-- +the lawyers of the poor. And even while we write, and even while ye +read, many a Grabman steals from helpless toil the savings of a life. + +Ye poor hoards,--darling delights of your otherwise joyless owner,--how +easily has his very fondness made ye the prey of the spoiler! How +gleefully, when the pence swelled into a shilling, have they been +exchanged into the new bright piece of silver, the newest and brightest +that could be got; then the shillings into crowns, then the crowns into +gold,--got slyly and at a distance, and contemplated with what rapture; +so that at last the total lay manageable and light in its radiant +compass. And what a total! what a surprise to Grabman! Had it been but +a sixpence, he would have taken it; but to grasp sovereigns by the +handful, it was too much for him; and as he rose, he positively laughed, +from a sense of fun. + +But amongst his booty there was found one thing that specially moved his +mirth: it was a child's coral, with its little bells. Who could have +given Beck such a bauble, or how Beck could have refrained from turning +it into money, would have been a fit matter for speculation. But it was +not that at which Grabman chuckled; he laughed, first because it was an +emblem of the utter childishness and folly of the creature he was leaving +penniless, and secondly, because it furnished his ready wit with a +capital contrivance to shift Beck's indignation from his own shoulders to +a party more liable to suspicion. He left the coral on the floor near +the bed, stole down the ladder, reached his own room, took up his brief- +bag, locked his door, slipped the key in the rat-hole, where the trusty, +plundered Beck alone could find it, and went boldly downstairs; passing +successively the doors within which still stormed the resurrection-man, +still wailed the child, still shrieked the Irish shrew, he paused at the +ground-floor occupied by Bill the cracksman and his long-fingered, +slender, quick-eyed imps, trained already to pass through broken window- +panes, on their precocious progress to the hulks. + +The door was open, and gave a pleasant sight of the worthy family within. +Bill himself, a stout-looking fellow with a florid, jolly countenance, +and a pipe in his mouth, was sitting at his window, with his brawny legs +lolling on a table covered with the remains of a very tolerable +breakfast. Four small Bills were employed in certain sports which, no +doubt, according to the fashionable mode of education, instilled useful +lessons under the artful guise of playful amusement. Against the wall, +at one corner of the room, was affixed a row of bells, from which were +suspended exceedingly tempting apples by slender wires. Two of the boys +were engaged in the innocent entertainment of extricating the apples +without occasioning any alarm from the bells; a third was amusing himself +at a table, covered with mock rings and trinkets, in a way that seemed +really surprising; with the end of a finger, dipped probably in some +glutinous matter, he just touched one of the gewgaws, and lo, it +vanished!--vanished so magically that the quickest eye could scarcely +trace whither; sometimes up a cuff, sometimes into a shoe,--here, there, +anywhere, except back again upon the table. The fourth, an urchin +apparently about five years old,--he might be much younger, judging from +his stunted size; somewhat older, judging from the vicious acuteness of +his face,--on the floor under his father's chair, was diving his little +hand into the paternal pockets in search for a marble sportively hidden +in those capacious recesses. On the rising geniuses around him Bill the +cracksman looked, and his father's heart was proud. Pausing at the +threshold, Grabman looked in and said cheerfully, "Good-day to you; good- +day to you all, my little dears." + +"Ah, Grabman," said Bill, rising, and making a bow,--for Bill valued +himself much on his politeness,--"come to blow a cloud, eh? Bob," this +to the eldest born, "manners, sir; wipe your nose, and set a chair for +the gent." + +"Many thanks to you, Bill, but I can't stay now; I have a long journey to +take. But, bless my soul, how stupid I am! I have forgotten my clothes- +brush. I knew there was some thing on my mind all the way I was coming +downstairs. I was saying, 'Grabman, there is something forgotten! '" + +"I know what that 'ere feelin' is," said Bill, thoughtfully; "I had it +myself the night afore last; and sure enough, when I got to the ----. +But that's neither here nor there. Bob, run upstairs and fetch down Mr. +Grabman's clothes-brush. 'T is the least you can do for a gent who saved +your father from the fate of them 'ere innocent apples. Your fist, +Grabman. I have a heart in my buzzom; cut me open, and you will find +there `Halibi, and Grabman!' Give Bob your key." + +"The brush is not in my room," answered Grabman; "it is at the top of the +house, up the ladder, in Beck's loft,--Beck, the sweeper. The stupid dog +always keeps it there, and forgot to give it me. Sorry to occasion my +friend Bob so much trouble." + +"Bob has a soul above trouble; his father's heart beats in his buzzom. +Bob, track the dancers. Up like a lark, and down like a dump." + +Bob grinned, made a mow at Mr. Grabman, and scampered up the stairs. + +"You never attends our free-and-easy," said Bill; "but we toasts you with +three times three, and up standing. "'T is a hungrateful world! But +some men has a heart; and to those who has a heart, Grabman is a trump!" + +"I am sure, whenever I can do you a service, you may reckon on me. +Meanwhile, if you could get that cursed bullying fellow who lives under +me to be a little more civil, you would oblige me." + +"Under you? No. 7? No. 7, is it? Grabman, h-am I a man? Is this a h- +arm, and this a bunch of fives? I dares do all that does become a man; +but No. 7 is a body-snatcher! No. 7 has bullied me, and I bore it! No. +7 might whop me, and this h-arm would let him whop! He lives with graves +and churchyards and stiff 'uns, that damnable No. 7! Ask some'at else, +Grabman. I dares not touch No. 7 any more than the ghostesses." + +Grabman sneered as he saw that Bill, stout rogue as he was, turned pale +while he spoke; but at that moment Bob reappeared with the clothes-brush, +which the ex-attorney thrust into his pocket, and shaking Bill by the +hand, and patting Bob on the head, he set out on his journey. + +Bill reseated himself, muttering, "Bully a body-snatcher! Drot that +Grabman, does he want to get rid of poor Bill?" + +Meanwhile Bob exhibited slyly, to his second brother, the sight of Beck's +stolen coral. The children took care not to show it to their father. +They were already inspired by the laudable ambition to set up in business +on their own account. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +PERCIVAL VISITS LUCRETIA. + +Having once ascertained the house in which Helen lived, it was no +difficult matter for St. John to learn the name of the guardian whom Beck +had supposed to be her mother. No common delight mingled with Percival's +amaze when in that name he recognized one borne by his own kinswoman. +Very little indeed of the family history was known to him. Neither his +father nor his mother ever willingly conversed of the fallen heiress,--it +was a subject which the children had felt to be proscribed; but in the +neighbourhood, Percival had of course heard some mention of Lucretia as +the haughty and accomplished Miss Clavering, who had, to the astonishment +of all, stooped to a mesalliance with her uncle's French librarian. That +her loss of the St. John property, the succession of Percival's father, +were unexpected by the villagers and squires around, and perhaps set down +to the caprice of Sir Miles, or to an intellect impaired by apoplectic +attacks, it was not likely that he should have heard. The rich have the +polish of their education, and the poor that instinctive tact, so +wonderful amongst the agricultural peasantry, to prevent such unmannerly +disclosures or unwelcome hints; and both by rich and poor, the Vernon St. +Johns were too popular and respected for wanton allusions to subjects +calculated to pain them. All, therefore, that Percival knew of his +relation was that she had resided from infancy with Sir Miles; that after +their uncle's death she had married an inferior in rank, of the name of +Dalibard, and settled abroad; that she was a person of peculiar manners, +and, he had heard somewhere, of rare gifts. He had been unable to learn +the name of the young lady staying with Madame Dalibard; he had learned +only that she went by some other name, and was not the daughter of the +lady who rented the house. Certainly it was possible that this last +might not be his kinswoman, after all. The name, though strange to +English ears, and not common in France, was no sufficient warrant for +Percival's high spirits at the thought that he had now won legitimate and +regular access to the house; still, it allowed him to call, it furnished +a fair excuse for a visit. + +How long he was at his toilet that day, poor boy! How sedulously, with +comb and brush, he sought to smooth into straight precision that +luxuriant labyrinth of jetty curls, which had never cost him a thought +before! Gil Blas says that the toilet is a pleasure to the young, though +a labour to the old; Percival St. John's toilet was no pleasure to him +that anxious morning. + +At last he tore himself, dissatisfied and desperate, from the glass, +caught his hat and his whip, threw himself on his horse, and rode, at +first very fast, and at last very slowly, to the old, decayed, shabby, +neglected house that lay hid, like the poverty of fallen pride, amidst +the trim villas and smart cottages of fair and flourishing Brompton. + +The same servant who had opened the gate to Ardworth appeared to his +summons, and after eying him for some moments with a listless, stupid +stare, said: "You'll be after some mistake!" and turned away. + +"Stop, stop!" cried Percival, trying to intrude himself through the gate; +but the servant blocked up the entrance sturdily. "It is no mistake at +all, my good lady. I have come to see Madame Dalibard, my--my relation!" + +"Your relation!" and again the woman stared at Percival with a look +through the dull vacancy of which some distrust was dimly perceptible. +"Bide a bit there, and give us your name." + +Percival gave his card to the servant with his sweetest and most +persuasive smile. She took it with one hand, and with the other turned +the key in the gate, leaving Percival outside. It was five minutes +before she returned; and she then, with the same prim, smileless +expression of countenance, opened the gate and motioned him to follow. + +The kind-hearted boy sighed as he cast a glance at the desolate and +poverty-stricken appearance of the house, and thought within himself: +"Ah, pray Heaven she may be my relation; and then I shall have the right +to find her and that sweet girl a very different home!" The old woman +threw open the drawing-room door, and Percival was in the presence of his +deadliest foe! The armchair was turned towards the entrance, and from +amidst the coverings that hid the form, the remarkable countenance of +Madame Dalibard emerged, sharp and earnest, directly fronting the +intruder. + +"So," she said slowly, and, as it were, devouring him with her keen, +steadfast eyes,--"so you are Percival St. John! Welcome! I did not know +that we should ever meet. I have not sought you, you seek me! Strange-- +yes, strange--that the young and the rich should seek the suffering and +the poor!" + +Surprised and embarrassed by this singular greeting, Percival halted +abruptly in the middle of the room; and there was something inexpressibly +winning in his shy, yet graceful confusion. It seemed, with silent +eloquence, to apologize and to deprecate. And when, in his silvery +voice, scarcely yet tuned to the fulness of manhood, he said feelingly, +"Forgive me, madam, but my mother is not in England," the excuse evinced +such delicacy of idea, so exquisite a sense of high breeding, that the +calm assurance of worldly ease could not have more attested the chivalry +of the native gentleman. + +"I have nothing to forgive, Mr. St. John," said Lucretia, with a softened +manner. "Pardon me rather that my infirmities do not allow me to rise to +receive you. This seat,--here,--next to me. You have a strong likeness +to your father." + +Percival received this last remark as a compliment, and bowed. Then, as +he lifted his ingenuous brow, he took for the first time a steady view of +his new-found relation. The peculiarities of Lucretia's countenance in +youth had naturally deepened with middle age. The contour, always too +sharp and pronounced, was now strong and bony as a man's; the line +between the eyebrows was hollowed into a furrow. The eye retained its +old uneasy, sinister, sidelong glance, or at rare moments (as when +Percival entered), its searching penetration and assured command; but the +eyelids themselves, red and injected, as with grief or vigil, gave +something haggard and wild, whether to glance or gaze. Despite the +paralysis of the frame, the face, though pale and thin, showed no bodily +decay. A vigour surpassing the strength of woman might still be seen in +the play of the bold muscles, the firmness of the contracted lips. What +physicians call "vitality," and trace at once (if experienced) on the +physiognomy as the prognostic of long life, undulated restlessly in every +aspect of the face, every movement of those thin, nervous hands, which, +contrasting the rest of that motionless form, never seemed to be at rest. +The teeth were still white and regular, as in youth; and when they shone +out in speaking, gave a strange, unnatural freshness to a face otherwise +so worn. + +As Percival gazed, and, while gazing, saw those wandering eyes bent down, +and yet felt they watched him, a thrill almost of fear shot through his +heart. Nevertheless, so much more impressionable was he to charitable +and trustful than to suspicious and timid emotions that when Madame +Dalibard, suddenly looking up and shaking her head gently, said, "You see +but a sad wreck, young kinsman," all those instincts, which Nature itself +seemed to dictate for self-preservation, vanished into heavenly +tenderness and pity. + +"Ah!" he said, rising, and pressing one of those deadly hands in both his +own, while tears rose to his eyes,--"Ah! since you call me kinsman, I +have all a kinsman's privileges. You must have the best advice, the most +skilful surgeons. Oh, you will recover; you must not despond." + +Lucretia's lips moved uneasily. This kindness took her by surprise. She +turned desperately away from the human gleam that shot across the +sevenfold gloom of her soul. "Do not think of me," she said, with a +forced smile; "it is my peculiarity not to like allusion to myself, +though this time I provoked it. Speak to me of the old cedar-trees at +Laughton,--do they stand still? You are the master of Laughton now! It +is a noble heritage!" + +Then St. John, thinking to please her, talked of the old manor-house, +described the improvements made by his father, spoke gayly of those which +he himself contemplated; and as he ran on, Lucretia's brow, a moment +ruffled, grew smooth and smoother, and the gloom settled back upon her +soul. + +All at once she interrupted him. "How did you discover me? Was it +through Mr. Varney? I bade him not mention me: yet how else could you +learn?" As she spoke, there was an anxious trouble in her tone, which +increased while she observed that St. John looked confused. + +"Why," he began hesitatingly, and brushing his hat with his hand, "why-- +perhaps you may have heard from the--that is--I think there is a young +----. Ah, it is you, it is you! I see you once again!" And springing +up, he was at the side of Helen, who at that instant had entered the +room, and now, her eyes downcast, her cheeks blushing, her breast gently +heaving, heard, but answered not that passionate burst of joy. + +Startled, Madame Dalibard (her hands firmly grasping the sides of her +chair) contemplated the two. She had heard nothing, guessed nothing of +their former meeting. All that had passed before between them was +unknown to her. Yet there was evidence unmistakable, conclusive: the son +of her despoiler loved the daughter of her rival; and--if the virgin +heart speaks by the outward sign--those downcast eyes, those blushing +cheeks, that heaving breast, told that he did not love in vain! + +Before her lurid and murderous gaze, as if to defy her, the two +inheritors of a revenge unglutted by the grave stood, united mysteriously +together. Up, from the vast ocean of her hate, rose that poor isle of +love; there, unconscious of the horror around them, the victims found +their footing! How beautiful at that hour their youth; their very +ignorance of their own emotions; their innocent gladness; their sweet +trouble! The fell gazer drew a long breath of fiendlike complacency and +glee, and her hands opened wide, and then slowly closed, as if she felt +them in her grasp. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE ROSE BENEATH THE UPAS. + +And from that day Percival had his privileged entry into Madame +Dalibard's house. The little narrative of the circumstances connected +with his first meeting with Helen, partly drawn from Percival, partly +afterwards from Helen (with blushing and faltered excuses from the latter +for not having mentioned before an incident that might, perhaps +needlessly, vex or alarm her aunt in so delicate a state of health), was +received by Lucretia with rare graciousness. The connection, not only +between herself and Percival, but between Percival and Helen, was allowed +and even dwelt upon by Madame Dalibard as a natural reason for permitting +the artless intimacy which immediately sprang up between these young +persons. She permitted Percival to call daily, to remain for hours, to +share in their simple meals, to wander alone with Helen in the garden, +assist her to bind up the ragged flowers, and sit by her in the old ivy- +grown arbour when their work was done. She affected to look upon them +both as children, and to leave to them that happy familiarity which +childhood only sanctions, and compared to which the affection of maturer +years seems at once coarse and cold. + +As they grew more familiar, the differences and similarities in their +characters came out, and nothing more delightful than the harmony into +which even the contrasts blended ever invited the guardian angel to pause +and smile. As flowers in some trained parterre relieve each other, now +softening, now heightening, each several hue, till all unite in one +concord of interwoven beauty, so these two blooming natures, brought +together, seemed, where varying still, to melt and fuse their affluences +into one wealth of innocence and sweetness. Both had a native buoyancy +and cheerfulness of spirit, a noble trustfulness in others, a singular +candour and freshness of mind and feeling. But beneath the gayety of +Helen there was a soft and holy under-stream of thoughtful melancholy, a +high and religious sentiment, that vibrated more exquisitely to the +subtle mysteries of creation, the solemn unison between the bright world +without and the grave destinies of that world within (which is an +imperishable soul), than the lighter and more vivid youthfulness of +Percival had yet conceived. In him lay the germs of the active mortal +who might win distinction in the bold career we run upon the surface of +the earth. In her there was that finer and more spiritual essence which +lifts the poet to the golden atmosphere of dreams, and reveals in +glimpses to the saint the choral Populace of Heaven. We do not say that +Helen would ever have found the utterance of the poet, that her reveries, +undefined and unanalyzed, could have taken the sharp, clear form of +words; for to the poet practically developed and made manifest to the +world, many other gifts besides the mere poetic sense are needed,--stern +study, and logical generalization of scattered truths, and patient +observation of the characters of men, and the wisdom that comes from +sorrow and passion, and a sage's experience of things actual, embracing +the dark secrets of human infirmity and crime. But despite all that has +been said in disparagement or disbelief of "mute, inglorious Miltons," we +maintain that there are natures in which the divinest element of poetry +exists, the purer and more delicate for escaping from bodily form and +evaporating from the coarser vessels into which the poet, so called, must +pour the ethereal fluid. There is a certain virtue within us, +comprehending our subtlest and noblest emotions, which is poetry while +untold, and grows pale and poor in proportion as we strain it into poems. +Nay, it may be said of this airy property of our inmost being that, more +or less, it departs from us according as we give it forth into the world, +even, as only by the loss of its particles, the rose wastes its perfume +on the air. So this more spiritual sensibility dwelt in Helen as the +latent mesmerism in water, as the invisible fairy in an enchanted ring. +It was an essence or divinity, shrined and shrouded in herself, which +gave her more intimate and vital union with all the influences of the +universe, a companion to her loneliness, an angel hymning low to her own +listening soul. This made her enjoyment of Nature, in its merest +trifles, exquisite and profound; this gave to her tenderness of heart all +the delicious and sportive variety love borrows from imagination; this +lifted her piety above the mere forms of conventional religion, and +breathed into her prayers the ecstasy of the saint. + +But Helen was not the less filled with the sweet humanities of her age +and sex; her very gravity was tinged with rosy light, as a western cloud +with the sun. She had sportiveness and caprice, and even whim, as the +butterfly, though the emblem of the soul, still flutters wantonly over +every wild-flower, and expands its glowing wings on the sides of the +beaten road. And with a sense of weakness in the common world (growing +out of her very strength in nobler atmospheres), she leaned the more +trustfully on the strong arm of her young adorer, not fancying that the +difference between them arose from superiority in her; but rather as a +bird, once tamed, flies at the sight of the hawk to the breast of its +owner, so from each airy flight into the loftier heaven, let but the +thought of danger daunt her wing, and, as in a more powerful nature, she +took refuge on that fostering heart. + +The love between these children--for so, if not literally in years, in +their newness to all that steals the freshness and the dew from maturer +life they may be rightly called--was such as befitted those whose souls +have not forfeited the Eden. It was more like the love of fairies than +of human beings. They showed it to each other innocently and frankly; +yet of love as we of the grosser creation call it, with its impatient +pains and burning hopes, they never spoke nor dreamed. It was an +unutterable, ecstatic fondness, a clinging to each other in thought, +desire, and heart, a joy more than mortal in each other's presence; yet, +in parting, not that idle and empty sorrow which unfits the weak for the +homelier demands on time and life, and this because of the wondrous trust +in themselves and in the future, which made a main part of their +credulous, happy natures. Neither felt fear nor jealousy, or if jealousy +came, it was the pretty, childlike jealousies which have no sting,--of +the bird, if Helen listened to its note too long; of the flower, if +Percival left Helen's side too quickly to tie up its drooping petals or +refresh its dusty leaves. Close by the stir of the great city, with all +its fret and chafe and storm of life, in the desolate garden of that +sombre house, and under the withering eyes of relentless Crime, revived +the Arcady of old,--the scene vocal to the reeds of idyllist and +shepherd; and in the midst of the iron Tragedy, harmlessly and +unconsciously arose the strain of the Pastoral Music. + +It would be a vain effort to describe the state of Lucretia's mind while +she watched the progress of the affection she had favoured, and gazed on +the spectacle of the fearless happiness she had promoted. The image of a +felicity at once so great and so holy wore to her gloomy sight the aspect +of a mocking Fury. It rose in contrast to her own ghastly and crime- +stained life; it did not upbraid her conscience with guilt so loudly as +it scoffed at her intellect for folly. These children, playing on the +verge of life, how much more of life's true secret did they already know +than she, with all her vast native powers and wasted realms of blackened +and charred experience! For what had she studied, and schemed, and +calculated, and toiled, and sinned? As a conqueror stricken unto death +would render up all the regions vanquished by his sword for one drop of +water to his burning lips, how gladly would she have given all the +knowledge bought with blood and fire, to feel one moment as those +children felt! Then, from out her silent and grim despair, stood forth, +fierce and prominent, the great fiend, Revenge. + +By a monomania not uncommon to those who have made self the centre of +being, Lucretia referred to her own sullen history of wrong and passion +all that bore analogy to it, however distant. She had never been +enabled, without an intolerable pang of hate and envy, to contemplate +courtship and love in others. From the rudest shape to the most refined, +that master-passion in the existence, at least of woman,--reminding her +of her own brief episode of human tenderness and devotion,--opened every +wound and wrung every fibre of a heart that, while crime had indurated it +to most emotions, memory still left morbidly sensitive to one. But if +tortured by the sight of love in those who had had no connection with her +fate, who stood apart from her lurid orbit and were gazed upon only afar +(as a lost soul, from the abyss, sees the gleam of angels' wings within +some planet it never has explored), how ineffably more fierce and +intolerable was the wrath that seized her when, in her haunted +imagination, she saw all Susan's rapture at the vows of Mainwaring +mantling in Helen's face! All that might have disarmed a heart as hard, +but less diseased, less preoccupied by revenge, only irritated more the +consuming hate of that inexorable spirit. Helen's seraphic purity, her +exquisite, overflowing kindness, ever forgetting self, her airy +cheerfulness, even her very moods of melancholy, calm and seemingly +causeless as they were, perpetually galled and blistered that writhing, +preternatural susceptibility which is formed by the consciousness of +infamy, the dreary egotism of one cut off from the charities of the +world, with whom all mirth is sardonic convulsion, all sadness rayless +and unresigned despair. + +Of the two, Percival inspired her with feelings the most akin to +humanity. For him, despite her bitter memories of his father, she felt +something of compassion, and shrank from the touch of his frank hand in +remorse. She had often need to whisper to herself that his life was an +obstacle to the heritage of the son of whom, as we have seen, she was in +search, and whom, indeed, she believed she had already found in John +Ardworth; that it was not in wrath and in vengeance that this victim was +to be swept into the grave, but as an indispensable sacrifice to a +cherished object, a determined policy. As, in the studies of her youth, +she had adopted the Machiavelism of ancient State-craft as a rule +admissible in private life, so she seemed scarcely to admit as a crime +that which was but the removal of a barrier between her aim and her end. +Before she had become personally acquainted with Percival she had +rejected all occasion to know him. She had suffered Varney to call upon +him as the old protege of Sir Miles, and to wind into his intimacy, +meaning to leave to her accomplice, when the hour should arrive, the +dread task of destruction. This not from cowardice, for Gabriel had once +rightly described her when he said that if she lived with shadows she +could quell them, but simply because, more intellectually unsparing than +constitutionally cruel (save where the old vindictive memories thoroughly +unsexed her), this was a victim whose pangs she desired not to witness, +over whose fate it was no luxury to gloat and revel. She wished not to +see nor to know him living, only to learn that he was no more, and that +Helen alone stood between Laughton and her son. Now that he had himself, +as if with predestined feet, crossed her threshold, that he, like Helen, +had delivered himself into her toils, the hideous guilt, before removed +from her hands, became haunting, fronted her face to face, and filled her +with a superstitious awe. + +Meanwhile, her outward manner to both her meditated victims, if moody and +fitful at times, was not such as would have provoked suspicion even in +less credulous hearts. From the first entry of Helen under her roof she +had been formal and measured in her welcome,--kept her, as it were, +aloof, and affected no prodigal superfluity of dissimulation; but she had +never been positively harsh or unkind in word or in deed, and had coldly +excused herself for the repulsiveness of her manner. + +"I am irritable," she said, "from long suffering, I am unsocial from +habitual solitude; do not expect from me the fondness and warmth that +should belong to our relationship. Do not harass yourself with vain +solicitude for one whom all seeming attention but reminds more painfully +of infirmity, and who, even thus stricken down, would be independent of +all cares not bought and paid for. Be satisfied to live here in all +reasonable liberty, to follow your own habits and caprices uncontrolled. +Regard me but as a piece of necessary furniture. You can never displease +me but when you notice that I live and suffer." + +If Helen wept bitterly at these hard words when first spoken, it was not +with anger that her loving heart was so thrown back upon herself. On the +contrary, she became inspired with a compassion so great that it took the +character of reverence. She regarded this very coldness as a mournful +dignity. She felt grateful that one who could thus dispense with, should +yet have sought her. She had heard her mother say that she had been +under great obligations to Lucretia; and now, when she was forbidden to +repay them even by a kiss on those weary eyelids, a daughter's hand to +that sleepless pillow; when she saw that the barrier first imposed was +irremovable, that no time diminished the distance her aunt set between +them, that the least approach to the tenderness of service beyond the +most casual offices really seemed but to fret those excitable nerves, and +fever the hand that she ventured timorously to clasp,--she retreated into +herself with a sad amaze that increased her pity and heightened her +respect. To her, love seemed so necessary a thing in the helplessness of +human life, even when blessed with health and youth, that this rejection +of all love in one so bowed and crippled, struck her imagination as +something sublime in its dreary grandeur and stoic pride of independence. +She regarded it as of old a tender and pious nun would have regarded the +asceticism of some sanctified recluse,--as Theresa (had she lived in the +same age) might have regarded Saint Simeon Stylites existing aloft from +human sympathy on the roofless summit of his column of stone; and with +this feeling she sought to inspire Percival. He had the heart to enter +into her compassion, but not the imagination to sympathize with her +reverence. Even the repugnant awe that he had first conceived for Madame +Dalibard, so bold was he by temperament, he had long since cast off; he +recognized only the moroseness and petulance of an habitual invalid, and +shook playfully his glossy curls when Helen, with her sweet seriousness, +insisted on his recognizing more. + +To this house few, indeed, were the visitors admitted. The Miverses, +whom the benevolent officiousness of Mr. Fielden had originally sent +thither to see their young kinswoman, now and then came to press Helen to +join some party to the theatre or Vauxhall, or a picnic in Richmond Park; +but when they found their overtures, which had at first been politely +accepted by Madame Dalibard, were rejected, they gradually ceased their +visits, wounded and indignant. + +Certain it was that Lucretia had at one time eagerly caught at their +well-meant civilities to Helen,--now she as abruptly declined them. Why? +It would be hard to plumb into all the black secrets of that heart. It +would have been but natural to her, who shrank from dooming Helen to no +worse calamity than a virgin's grave, to have designed to throw her into +such uncongenial guidance, amidst all the manifold temptations of the +corrupt city,--to have suffered her to be seen and to be ensnared by +those gallants ever on the watch for defenceless beauty; and to contrast +with their elegance of mien and fatal flatteries the grossness of the +companions selected for her, and the unloving discomfort of the home into +which she had been thrown. But now that St. John had appeared, that +Helen's heart and fancy were steeled alike against more dangerous +temptation, the object to be obtained from the pressing courtesy of Mrs. +Mivers existed no more. The vengeance flowed into other channels. + +The only other visitors at the house were John Ardworth and Gabriel +Varney. + +Madame Dalibard watched vigilantly the countenance and manner of Ardworth +when, after presenting him to Percival, she whispered: "I am glad you +assured me as to your sentiments for Helen. She had found there the +lover you wished for her,--'gay and handsome as herself.'" + +And in the sudden paleness that overspread Ardworth's face, in his +compressed lips and convulsive start, she read with unspeakable rage the +untold secret of his heart, till the rage gave way to complacency at the +thought that the last insult to her wrongs was spared her,--that her son +(as son she believed he was) could not now, at least, be the successful +suitor of her loathed sister's loathed child. Her discovery, perhaps, +confirmed her in her countenance to Percival's progressive wooing, and +half reconciled her to the pangs it inflicted on herself. + +At the first introduction Ardworth had scarcely glanced at Percival. He +regarded him but as the sleek flutterer in the sunshine of fortune. And +for the idle, the gay, the fair, the well-dressed and wealthy, the sturdy +workman of his own rough way felt something of the uncharitable disdain +which the laborious have-nots too usually entertain for the prosperous +haves. But the moment the unwelcome intelligence of Madame Dalibard was +conveyed to him, the smooth-faced boy swelled into dignity and +importance. + +Yet it was not merely as a rival that that strong, manly heart, after the +first natural agony, regarded Percival. No, he looked upon him less with +anger than with interest,--as the one in whom Helen's happiness was +henceforth to be invested. And to Madame Dalibard's astonishment,--for +this nature was wholly new to her experience,--she saw him, even in that +first interview, composing his rough face to smiles, smoothing his bluff, +imperious accents into courtesy, listening patiently, watching benignly, +and at last thrusting his large hand frankly forth, griping Percival's +slender fingers in his own; and then, with an indistinct chuckle that +seemed half laugh and half groan, as if he did not dare to trust himself +further, he made his wonted unceremonious nod, and strode hurriedly from +the room. + +But he came again and again, almost daily, for about a fortnight. +Sometimes, without entering the house, he would join the young people in +the garden, assist them with awkward hands in their playful work on the +garden, or sit with them in the ivied bower; and warming more and more +each time he came, talk at last with the cordial frankness of an elder +brother. There was no disguise in this; he began to love Percival,--what +would seem more strange to the superficial, to admire him. Genius has a +quick perception of the moral qualities; genius, which, differing thus +from mere talent, is more allied to the heart than to the head, +sympathizes genially with goodness. Ardworth respected that young, +ingenuous, unpolluted mind; he himself felt better and purer in its +atmosphere. Much of the affection he cherished for Helen passed thus +beautifully and nobly into his sentiments for the one whom Helen not +unworthily preferred. And they grew so fond of him,--as the young and +gentle ever will grow fond of genius, however rough, once admitted to its +companionship! + +Percival by this time had recalled to his mind where he had first seen +that strong-featured, dark-browed countenance, and he gayly reminded +Ardworth of his discourtesy, on the brow of the hill which commanded the +view of London. That reminiscence made his new friend writhe; for then, +amidst all his ambitious visions of the future, he had seen Helen in the +distance,--the reward of every labour, the fairest star in his horizon. +But he strove stoutly against the regret of the illusion lost; the +vivendi causae were left him still, and for the nymph that had glided +from his clasp, he clung at least to the laurel that was left in her +place. In the folds of his robust fortitude Ardworth thus wrapped his +secret. Neither of his young playmates suspected it. He would have +disdained himself if he had so poisoned their pleasure. That he suffered +when alone, much and bitterly, is not to be denied; but in that masculine +and complete being, Love took but its legitimate rank amidst the passions +and cares of man. It soured no existence, it broke no heart; the wind +swept some blossoms from the bough, and tossed wildly the agitated +branches from root to summit, but the trunk stood firm. + +In some of these visits to Madame Dalibard's, Ardworth renewed with her +the more private conversation which had so unsettled his past convictions +as to his birth, and so disturbed the calm, strong currents of his mind. +He was chiefly anxious to learn what conjectures Madame Dalibard had +formed as to his parentage, and what ground there was for belief that he +was near in blood to herself, or that he was born to a station less +dependent on continuous exertion; but on these points the dark sibyl +preserved an obstinate silence. She was satisfied with the hints she had +already thrown out, and absolutely refused to say more till better +authorized by the inquiries she had set on foot. Artfully she turned +from these topics of closer and more household interest to those on which +she had previously insisted, connected with the general knowledge of +mankind, and the complicated science of practical life. To fire his +genius, wing his energies, inflame his ambition above that slow, +laborious drudgery to which he had linked the chances of his career, and +which her fiery and rapid intellect was wholly unable to comprehend--save +as a waste of life for uncertain and distant objects--became her task. +And she saw with delight that Ardworth listened to her more assentingly +than he had done at first. In truth, the pain shut within his heart, the +conflict waged keenly between his reason and his passion, unfitted him +for the time for mere mechanical employment, in which his genius could +afford him no consolation. Now, genius is given to man, not only to +enlighten others, but to comfort as well as to elevate himself. Thus, in +all the sorrows of actual existence, the man is doubly inclined to turn +to his genius for distraction. Harassed in this world of action, he +knocks at the gate of that world of idea or fancy which he is privileged +to enter; he escapes from the clay to the spirit. And rarely, till some +great grief comes, does the man in whom the celestial fire is lodged know +all the gift of which he is possessed. At last Ardworth's visits ceased +abruptly. He shut himself up once more in his chambers; but the law +books were laid aside. + +Varney, who generally contrived to call when Ardworth was not there, +seldom interrupted the lovers in their little paradise of the garden; but +he took occasion to ripen and cement his intimacy with Percival. +Sometimes he walked or (if St. John had his cabriolet) drove home and +dined with him, tete-a-tete, in Curzon Street; and as he made Helen his +chief subject of conversation, Percival could not but esteem him amongst +the most agreeable of men. With Helen, when Percival was not there, +Varney held some secret conferences,--secret even from Percival. Two or +three times, before the hour in which Percival was accustomed to come, +they had been out together; and Helen's face looked more cheerful than +usual on their return. It was not surprising that Gabriel Varney, so +displeasing to a man like Ardworth, should have won little less favour +with Helen than with Percival; for, to say nothing of an ease and suavity +of manner which stole into the confidence of those in whom to confide was +a natural propensity, his various acquisitions and talents, imposing from +the surface over which they spread, and the glitter which they made, had +an inevitable effect upon a mind so susceptible as Helen's to admiration +for art and respect for knowledge. But what chiefly conciliated her to +Varney, whom she regarded, moreover, as her aunt's most intimate friend, +was that she was persuaded he was unhappy, and wronged by the world of +fortune. Varney had a habit of so representing himself,--of dwelling +with a bitter eloquence, which his natural malignity made forcible, on +the injustice of the world to superior intellect. He was a great accuser +of Fate. It is the illogical weakness of some evil natures to lay all +their crimes, and the consequences of crime, upon Destiny. There was a +heat, a vigour, a rush of words, and a readiness of strong, if trite, +imagery in what Varney said that deceived the young into the monstrous +error that he was an enthusiast,--misanthropical, perhaps, but only so +from enthusiasm. How could Helen, whose slightest thought, when a star +broke forth from the cloud, or a bird sung suddenly from the copse, had +more of wisdom and of poetry than all Varney's gaudy and painted seemings +ever could even mimic,--how could she be so deceived? Yet so it was. +Here stood a man whose youth she supposed had been devoted to refined and +elevating pursuits, gifted, neglected, disappointed, solitary, and +unhappy. She saw little beyond. You had but to touch her pity to win +her interest and to excite her trust. Of anything further, even had +Percival never existed, she could not have dreamed. It was because a +secret and undefinable repugnance, in the midst of pity, trust, and +friendship, put Varney altogether out of the light of a possible lover, +that all those sentiments were so easily kindled. This repugnance arose +not from the disparity between their years; it was rather that nameless +uncongeniality which does not forbid friendship, but is irreconcilable +with love. To do Varney justice, he never offered to reconcile the two. +Not for love did he secretly confer with Helen; not for love did his +heart beat against the hand which reposed so carelessly on his murderous +arm. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE RATTLE OF THE SNAKE. + +The progress of affection between natures like those of Percival and +Helen, favoured by free and constant intercourse, was naturally rapid. +It was scarcely five weeks from the day he had first seen Helen, and he +already regarded her as his plighted bride. During the earlier days of +his courtship, Percival, enamoured and absorbed for the first time in his +life, did not hasten to make his mother the confidante of his happiness. +He had written but twice; and though he said briefly, in the second +letter, that he had discovered two relations, both interesting and one +charming, he had deferred naming them or entering into detail. This not +alone from that indescribable coyness which all have experienced in +addressing even those with whom they are most intimate, in the early, +half-unrevealed, and mystic emotions of first love, but because Lady +Diary's letters had been so full of her sister's declining health, of her +own anxieties and fears, that he had shrunk from giving her a new subject +of anxiety; and a confidence full of hope and joy seemed to him unfeeling +and unseasonable. He knew how necessarily uneasy and restless an avowal +that his heart was seriously engaged to one she had never seen, would +make that tender mother, and that his confession would rather add to her +cares than produce sympathy with his transports. But now, feeling +impatient for his mother's assent to the formal proposals which had +become due to Madame Dalibard and Helen, and taking advantage of the +letter last received from her, which gave more cheering accounts of her +sister, and expressed curiosity for further explanation as to his half +disclosure, he wrote at length, and cleared his breast of all its +secrets. It was the same day in which he wrote this confession and +pleaded his cause that we accompany him to the house of his sweet +mistress, and leave him by her side, in the accustomed garden. Within, +Madame Dalibard, whose chair was set by the window, bent over certain +letters, which she took, one by one, from her desk and read slowly, +lifting her eyes from time to time and glancing towards the young people +as they walked, hand in hand, round the small demesnes, now hid by the +fading foliage, now emerging into view. Those letters were the early +love-epistles of William Mainwaring. She had not recurred to them for +years. Perhaps she now felt that food necessary to the sustainment of +her fiendish designs. It was a strange spectacle to see this being, so +full of vital energy, mobile and restless as a serpent, condemned to that +helpless decrepitude, chained to the uneasy seat, not as in the resigned +and passive imbecility of extreme age, but rather as one whom in the +prime of life the rack has broken, leaving the limbs inert, the mind +active, the form as one dead, the heart with superabundant vigour,--a, +cripple's impotence and a Titan's will! What, in that dreary +imprisonment and amidst the silence she habitually preserved, passed +through the caverns of that breast, one can no more conjecture than one +can count the blasts that sweep and rage through the hollows of +impenetrable rock, or the elements that conflict in the bosom of the +volcano, everlastingly at work. She had read and replaced the letters, +and leaning her cheek on her hand, was gazing vacantly on the wall, when +Varney intruded on that dismal solitude. + +He closed the door after him with more than usual care; and drawing a +seat close to Lucretia, said, "Belle-mere, the time has arrived for you +to act; my part is wellnigh closed." + +"Ay," said Lucretia, wearily, "what is the news you bring?" + +"First," replied Varney, and as he spoke, he shut the window, as if his +whisper could possibly be heard without,--"first, all this business +connected with Helen is at length arranged. You know when, agreeably to +your permission, I first suggested to her, as it were casually, that you +were so reduced in fortune that I trembled to regard your future; that +you had years ago sacrificed nearly half your pecuniary resources to +maintain her parents,--she of herself reminded me that she was entitled, +when of age, to a sum far exceeding all her wants, and--" + +"That I might be a pensioner on the child of William Mainwaring and Susan +Mivers," interrupted Lucretia. "I know that, and thank her not. Pass +on." + +"And you know, too, that in the course of my conversation with the girl I +let out also incidentally that, even so, you were dependent on the +chances of her life; that if she died (and youth itself is mortal) before +she was of age, the sum left her by her grandfather would revert to her +father's family; and so, by hints, I drew her on to ask if there was no +mode by which, in case of her death, she might insure subsistence to you. +So that you see the whole scheme was made at her own prompting. I did +but, as a man of business, suggest the means,--an insurance on her life." + +"Varney, these details are hateful. I do not doubt that you have done +all to forestall inquiry and elude risk. The girl has insured her life +to the amount of her fortune?" + +"To that amount only? Pooh! Her death will buy more than that. As no +one single office will insure for more than 5,000 pounds, and as it was +easy to persuade her that such offices were liable to failure, and that +it was usual to insure in several, and for a larger amount than the sum +desired, I got her to enter herself at three of the principal offices. +The amount paid to us on her death will be 15,000 pounds. It will be +paid (and here I have followed the best legal advice) in trust to me for +your benefit. Hence, therefore, even if our researches fail us, if no +son of yours can be found, with sufficient evidence to prove, against the +keen interests and bought advocates of heirs-at-law, the right to +Laughton, this girl will repay us well, will replace what I have taken, +at the risk of my neck, perhaps,--certainly at the risk of the hulks,-- +from the capital of my uncle's legacy, will refund what we have spent on +the inquiry; and the residue will secure to you an independence sufficing +for your wants almost for life, and to me what will purchase with +economy," and Varney smiled, "a year or so of a gentleman's idle +pleasures. Are you satisfied thus far?" + +"She will die happy and innocent," muttered Lucretia, with the growl of +demoniac disappointment. + +"Will you wait, then, till my forgery is detected, and I have no power to +buy the silence of the trustees,--wait till I am in prison, and on a +trial for life and death? Reflect, every day, every hour, of delay is +fraught with peril. But if my safety is nothing compared to the +refinement of your revenge, will you wait till Helen marries Percival St. +John? You start! But can you suppose that this innocent love-play will +not pass rapidly to its denouement? It is but yesterday that Percival +confided to me that he should write this very day to his mother, and +communicate all his feelings and his hopes; that he waited but her assent +to propose formally for Helen. Now one of two things must happen. +Either this mother, haughty and vain as lady-mothers mostly are, may +refuse consent to her son's marriage with the daughter of a disgraced +banker and the niece of that Lucretia Dalibard whom her husband would not +admit beneath his roof--" + +"Hold, sir!" exclaimed Lucretia, haughtily; and amidst all the passions +that darkened her countenance and degraded her soul, some flash of her +ancestral spirit shot across her brow. But it passed quickly, and she +added, with fierce composure, "You are right; go on!" + +"Either-and pardon me for an insult that comes not from me--either this +will be the case: Lady Mary St. John will hasten back in alarm to London; +she exercises extraordinary control over her son; she may withdraw him +from us altogether, from me as well as you, and the occasion now +presented to us may be lost (who knows?) forever,--or she may be a weak +and fond woman; may be detained in Italy by her sister's illness; may be +anxious that the last lineal descendant of the St. Johns should marry +betimes, and, moved by her darling's prayers, may consent at once to the +union. Or a third course, which Percival thinks the most probable, and +which, though most unwelcome to us of all, I had wellnigh forgotten, may +be adopted. She may come to England, and in order to judge her son's +choice with her own eyes, may withdraw Helen from your roof to hers. At +all events, delays are dangerous,--dangerous, putting aside my personal +interest, and regarding only your own object,--may bring to our acts new +and searching eyes; may cut us off from the habitual presence either of +Percival or Helen, or both; or surround them, at the first breath of +illness, with prying friends and formidable precautions. The birds now +are in our hands. Why then open the cage and bid them fly, in order to +spread the net? This morning all the final documents with the Insurance +Companies are completed. It remains for me but to pay the first +quarterly premiums. For that I think I am prepared, without drawing +further on your hoards or my own scanty resources, which Grabman will +take care to drain fast enough." + +"And Percival St. John?" said Madame Dalibard. "We want no idle +sacrifices. If my son be not found, we need not that boy's ghost amongst +those who haunt us." + +"Surely not," said Varney; "and for my part, he may be more useful to me +alive than dead. There is no insurance on his life, and a rich friend +(credulous greenhorn that he is!) is scarcely of that flock of geese +which it were wise to slay from the mere hope of a golden egg. Percival +St. John is your victim, not mine; not till you give the order would I +lift a finger to harm him." + +"Yes, let him live, unless my son be found to me," said Madame Dalibard, +almost exultingly,--"let him live to forget yon fair-faced fool, leaning +now, see you, so delightedly on his arm, and fancying eternity in the +hollow vows of love; let him live to wrong and abandon her by +forgetfulness, though even in the grave; to laugh at his boyish dreams,-- +to sully her memory in the arms of harlots! Oh, if the dead can suffer, +let him live, that she may feel beyond the grave his inconstancy and his +fall. Methinks that that thought will comfort me if Vincent be no more, +and I stand childless in the world!" + +"It is so settled, then," said Varney, ever ready to clinch the business +that promised gold, and relieve his apprehensions of the detection of his +fraud. "And now to your noiseless hands, as soon as may be, I consign +the girl; she has lived long enough!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +LOVE AND INNOCENCE. + +During this conference between these execrable and ravening birds of +night and prey, Helen and her boy-lover were thus conversing in the +garden; while the autumn sun--for it was in the second week of October-- +broke pleasantly through the yellowing leaves of the tranquil shrubs, and +the flowers, which should have died with the gone summer, still fresh by +tender care, despite the lateness of the season, smiled gratefully as +their light footsteps passed. + +"Yes, Helen," said Percival,--"yes, you will love my mother, for she is +one of those people who seem to attract love, as if it were a property +belonging to them. Even my dog Beau (you know how fond Beau is of me!) +always nestles at her feet when we are at home. I own she has pride, but +it is a pride that never offended any one. You know there are some +flowers that we call proud. The pride of the flower is not more harmless +than my mother's. But perhaps pride is not the right word,--it is rather +the aversion to anything low or mean, the admiration for everything pure +and high. Ah, how that very pride--if pride it be--will make her love +you, my Helen!" + +"You need not tell me," said Helen, smiling seriously, "that I shall love +your mother,--I love her already; nay, from the first moment you said you +had a mother, my heart leaped to her. Your mother,--if ever you are +really jealous, it must be of her! But that she should love me,--that is +what I doubt and fear. For if you were my brother, Percival, I should be +so ambitious for you. A nymph must rise from the stream, a sylphid from +the rose, before I could allow another to steal you from my side. And if +I think I should feel this only as your sister, what can be precious +enough to satisfy a mother?" + +"You, and you only," answered Percival, with his blithesome laugh,--"you, +my sweet Helen, much better than nymph or sylphid, about whom, between +ourselves, I never cared three straws, even in a poem. How pleased you +will be with Laughton! Do you know, I was lying awake all last night to +consider what room you would like best for your own? And at last I have +decided. Come, listen,--it opens from the music-gallery that overhangs +the hall. From the window you overlook the southern side of the park, +and catch a view of the lake beyond. There are two niches in the wall,-- +one for your piano, one for your favourite books. It is just large +enough to hold four persons with ease,--our mother and myself, your aunt, +whom by that time we shall have petted into good humour; and if we can +coax Ardworth there,--the best good fellow that ever lived,--I think our +party will be complete. By the way, I am uneasy about Ardworth, it is so +long since we have seen him; I have called three times,--nay, five,--but +his odd-looking clerk always swears he is not at home. Tell me, Helen, +now you know him so well,--tell me how I can serve him? You know, I am +so terribly rich (at least, I shall be in a month or two), I can never +get through my money, unless my friends will help me. And is it not +shocking that that noble fellow should be so poor, and yet suffer me to +call him 'friend,' as if in friendship one man should want everything, +and the other nothing? Still, I don't know how to venture to propose. +Come, you understand me, Helen; let us lay our wise heads together and +make him well off, in spite of himself." + +It was in this loose boyish talk of Percival that he had found the way, +not only to Helen's heart, but to her soul. For in this she (grand, +undeveloped poetess!) recognized a nobler poetry than we chain to +rhythm,--the poetry of generous deeds. She yearned to kiss the warm hand +she held, and drew nearer to his side as she answered: "And sometimes, +dear, dear Percival, you wonder why I would rather listen to you than to +all Mr. Varney's bitter eloquence, or even to my dear cousin's aspiring +ambition. They talk well, but it is of themselves; while you--" + +Percival blushed, and checked her. + +"Well," she said,--"well, to your question. Alas! you know little of my +cousin if you think all our arts could decoy him out of his rugged +independence; and much as I love him, I could not wish it. But do not +fear for him; he is one of those who are born to succeed, and without +help." + +"How do you know that, pretty prophetess?" said Percival, with the +superior air of manhood. "I have seen more of the world than you have, +and I cannot see why Ardworth should succeed, as you call it; or, if so, +why he should succeed less if he swung his hammock in a better berth than +that hole in Gray's Inn, and would just let me keep him a cab and groom." + +Had Percival talked of keeping John Ardworth an elephant and a palaquin, +Helen could not have been more amused. She clapped her little hands in a +delight that provoked Percival, and laughed out loud. Then, seeing her +boy-lover's lip pouted petulantly, and his brow was overcast, she said, +more seriously,-- + +"Do you not know what it is to feel convinced of something which you +cannot explain? Well, I feel this as to my cousin's fame and fortunes. +Surely, too, you must feel it, you scarce know why, when he speaks of +that future which seems so dim and so far to me, as of something that +belonged to him." + +"Very true, Helen," said Percival; "he lays it out like the map of his +estate. One can't laugh when he says so carelessly: 'At such an age I +shall lead my circuit; at such an age I shall be rich; at such an age I +shall enter parliament; and beyond that I shall look as yet--no farther.' +And, poor fellow, then he will be forty-three! And in the mean while to +suffer such privations!" + +"There are no privations to one who lives in the future," said Helen, +with that noble intuition into lofty natures which at times flashed from +her childish simplicity, foreshadowing what, if Heaven spare her life, +her maturer intellect may develop; "for Ardworth there is no such thing +as poverty. He is as rich in his hopes as we are in--" She stopped +short, blushed, and continued, with downcast looks: "As well might you +pity me in these walks, so dreary without you. I do not live in them, I +live in my thoughts of you." + +Her voice trembled with emotion in those last words. She slid from +Percival's arm, and timidly sat down (and he beside her) on a little +mound under the single chestnut-tree, that threw its shade over the +garden. + +Both were silent for some moments,--Percival, with grateful ecstasy; +Helen, with one of those sudden fits of mysterious melancholy to which +her nature was so subjected. + +He was the first to speak. "Helen," he said gravely, "since I have known +you, I feel as if life were a more solemn thing than I ever regarded it +before. It seems to me as if a new and more arduous duty were added to +those for which I was prepared,--a duty, Helen, to become worthy of you! +Will you smile? No, you will not smile if I say I have had my brief +moments of ambition. Sometimes as a boy, with Plutarch in my hand, +stretched idly under the old cedar-trees at Laughton; sometimes as a +sailor, when, becalmed on the Atlantic, and my ears freshly filled with +tales of Collingwood and Nelson, I stole from my comrades and leaned +musingly over the boundless sea. But when this ample heritage passed to +me, when I had no more my own fortunes to make, my own rank to build up, +such dreams became less and less frequent. Is it not true that wealth +makes us contented to be obscure? Yes; I understand, while I speak, why +poverty itself befriends, not cripples, Ardworth's energies. But since I +have known you, dearest Helen, those dreams return more vividly than +ever. He who claims you should be--must be--something nobler than the +crowd. Helen,"--and he rose by an irresistible and restless impulse,--"I +shall not be contented till you are as proud of your choice as I of +mine!" + +It seemed, as Percival spoke and looked, as if boyhood were cast from him +forever. The unusual weight and gravity of his words, to which his tone +gave even eloquence; the steady flash of his dark eyes; his erect, +elastic form,--all had the dignity of man. Helen gazed on him silently, +and with a heart so full that words would not come, and tears overflowed +instead. + +That sight sobered him at once; he knelt down beside her, threw his arms +around her,--it was his first embrace,--and kissed the tears away. + +"How have I distressed you? Why do you weep?" + +"Let me weep on, Percival, dear Percival! These tears are like prayers,- +-they speak to Heaven--and of you!" + +A step came noiselessly over the grass, and between the lovers and the +sunlight stood Gabriel Varney. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +SUDDEN CELEBRITY AND PATIENT HOPE. + +Percival was unusually gloomy and abstracted in his way to town that day, +though Varney was his companion, and in the full play of those animal +spirits which he owed to his unrivalled physical organization and the +obtuseness of his conscience. Seeing, at length, that his gayety did not +communicate itself to Percival, he paused, and looked at him +suspiciously. A falling leaf startles the steed, and a shadow the guilty +man. + +"You are sad, Percival," he said inquiringly. "What has disturbed you?" + +"It is nothing,--or, at least, would seem nothing to you," answered +Percival, with an effort to smile, for I have heard you laugh at the +doctrine of presentiments. We sailors are more superstitious." + +"What presentiment can you possibly entertain?" asked Varney, more +anxiously than Percival could have anticipated. + +"Presentiments are not so easily defined, Varney. But, in truth, poor +Helen has infected me. Have you not remarked that, gay as she habitually +is, some shadow comes over her so suddenly that one cannot trace the +cause?" + +"My dear Percival," said Varney, after a short pause, "what you say does +not surprise me. It would be false kindness to conceal from you that I +have heard Madame Dalibard say that her mother was, when about her age, +threatened with consumptive symptoms; but she lived many years +afterwards. Nay, nay, rally yourself; Helen's appearance, despite the +extreme purity of her complexion, is not that of one threatened by the +terrible malady of our climate. The young are often haunted with the +idea of early death. As we grow older, that thought is less cherished; +in youth it is a sort of luxury. To this mournful idea (which you see +you have remarked as well as I) we must attribute not only Helen's +occasional melancholy, but a generosity of forethought which I cannot +deny myself the pleasure of communicating to you, though her delicacy +would be shocked at my indiscretion. You know how helpless her aunt is. +Well, Helen, who is entitled, when of age, to a moderate competence, has +persuaded me to insure her life and accept a trust to hold the moneys (if +ever unhappily due) for the benefit of my mother-in-law, so that Madame +Dalibard may not be left destitute if her niece die before she is twenty- +one. How like Helen, is it not?" + +Percival was too overcome to answer. + +Varney resumed: "I entreat you not to mention this to Helen; it would +offend her modesty to have the secret of her good deeds thus betrayed by +one to whom alone she confided them. I could not resist her entreaties, +though, entre nous, it cripples me not a little to advance for her the +necessary sums for the premiums. Apropos, this brings me to a point on +which I feel, as the vulgar idiom goes, 'very awkward,'--as I always do +in these confounded money-matters. But you were good enough to ask me to +paint you a couple of pictures for Laughton. Now, if you could let me +have some portion of the sum, whatever it be (for I don't price my +paintings to you), it would very much oblige me." + +Percival turned away his face as he wrung Varney's hand, and muttered, +with a choked voice: "Let me have my share in Helen's divine forethought. +Good Heavens! she, so young, to look thus beyond the grave, always for +others--for others!" + +Callous as the wretch was, Percival's emotion and his proposal struck +Varney with a sentiment like compunction. He had designed to appropriate +the lover's gold as it was now offered; but that Percival himself should +propose it, blind to the grave to which that gold paved the way, was a +horror not counted in those to which his fell cupidity and his goading +apprehensions had familiarized his conscience. + +"No," he said, with one of those wayward scruples to which the blackest +criminals are sometimes susceptible,--"no. I have promised Helen to +regard this as a loan to her, which she is to repay me when of age. What +you may advance me is for the pictures. I have a right to do as I please +with what is bought by my own labour. And the subjects of the pictures, +what shall they be?" + +"For one picture try and recall Helen's aspect and attitude when you came +to us in the garden, and entitle your subject: 'The Foreboding.'" + +"Hem!" said Varney, hesitatingly. "And the other subject?" + +"Wait for that till the joy-bells at Laughton have welcomed a bride, and +then--and then, Varney," added Percival, with something of his natural +joyous smile, "you must take the expression as you find it. Once under +my care, and, please Heaven, the one picture shall laughingly upbraid the +other!" + +As this was said, the cabriolet stopped at Percival's door. Varney dined +with him that day; and if the conversation flagged, it did not revert to +the subject which had so darkened the bright spirits of the host, and so +tried the hypocrisy of the guest. When Varney left, which he did as soon +as the dinner was concluded, Percival silently put a check into his +hands, to a greater amount than Varney had anticipated even from his +generosity. + +"This is for four pictures, not two," he said, shaking his head; and +then, with his characteristic conceit, he added: "Well, some years hence +the world shall not call them overpaid. Adieu, my Medici; a dozen such +men, and Art would revive in England." + +When he was left alone, Percival sat down, and leaning his face on both +hands, gave way to the gloom which his native manliness and the delicacy +that belongs to true affection had made him struggle not to indulge in +the presence of another. Never had he so loved Helen as in that hour; +never had he so intimately and intensely felt her matchless worth. The +image of her unselfish, quiet, melancholy consideration for that austere, +uncaressing, unsympathizing relation, under whose shade her young heart +must have withered, seemed to him filled with a celestial pathos. And he +almost hated Varney that the cynic painter could have talked of it with +that business-like phlegm. The evening deepened; the tranquil street +grew still; the air seemed close; the solitude oppressed him; he rose +abruptly, seized his hat, and went forth slowly, and still with a heavy +heart. + +As he entered Piccadilly, on the broad step of that house successively +inhabited by the Duke of Queensberry and Lord Hertford,--on the step of +that mansion up which so many footsteps light with wanton pleasure have +gayly trod, Percival's eye fell upon a wretched, squalid, ragged object, +doubled up, as it were, in that last despondency which has ceased to beg, +that has no care to steal, that has no wish to live. Percival halted, +and touched the outcast. + +"What is the matter, my poor fellow? Take care; the policeman will not +suffer you to rest here. Come, cheer up, I say! There is something to +find you a better lodging!" + +The silver fell unheeded on the stones. The thing of rags did not even +raise its head, but a low, broken voice muttered,-- + +"It be too late now; let 'em take me to prison, let 'em send me 'cross +the sea to Buttany, let 'em hang me, if they please. I be 's good for +nothin' now,--nothin'!" + +Altered as the voice was, it struck Percival as familiar. He looked down +and caught a view of the drooping face. "Up, man, up!" he said cheerily. +"See, Providence sends you an old friend in need, to teach you never to +despair again." + +The hearty accent, more than the words, touched and aroused the poor +creature. He rose mechanically, and a sickly, grateful smile passed over +his wasted features as he recognized St. John. + +"Come! how is this? I have always understood that to keep a crossing +was a flourishing trade nowadays." + +"I 'as no crossin'. I 'as sold her!" groaned Beck. "I be's good for +nothin' now but to cadge about the streets, and steal, and filch, and +hang like the rest on us! Thank you kindly, sir," and Beck pulled his +forelock, "but, please your honour, I vould rather make an ind on it!" + +"Pooh, pooh! didn't I tell you when you wanted a friend to come to me? +Why did you doubt me, foolish fellow? Pick up those shillings; get a bed +and a supper. Come and see me to-morrow at nine o'clock; you know +where,--the same house in Curzon Street; you shall tell me then your +whole story, and it shall go hard but I'll buy you another crossing, or +get you something just as good." + +Poor Beck swayed a moment or two on his slender legs like a drunken man, +and then, suddenly falling on his knees, he kissed the hem of his +benefactor's garment, and fairly wept. Those tears relieved him; they +seemed to wash the drought of despair from his heart. + +"Hush, hush! or we shall have a crowd round us. You'll not forget, my +poor friend, No.---- Curzon Street,--nine to-morrow. Make haste now, and +get food and rest; you look, indeed, as if you wanted them. Ah, would to +Heaven all the poverty in this huge city stood here in thy person, and we +could aid it as easily as I can thee!" + +Percival had moved on as he said those last words, and looking back, he +had the satisfaction to see that Beck was slowly crawling after him, and +had escaped the grim question of a very portly policeman, who had no +doubt expressed a natural indignation at the audacity of so ragged a +skeleton not keeping itself respectably at home in its churchyard. + +Entering one of the clubs in St. James's Street, Percival found a small +knot of politicians in eager conversation respecting a new book which had +been published but a day or two before, but which had already seized the +public attention with that strong grasp which constitutes always an era +in an author's life, sometimes an epoch in a nation's literature. The +newspapers were full of extracts from the work,--the gossips, of +conjecture as to the authorship. We need scarcely say that a book which +makes this kind of sensation must hit some popular feeling of the hour, +supply some popular want. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, therefore, +its character is political; it was so in the present instance. It may be +remembered that that year parliament sat during great part of the month +of October, that it was the year in which the Reform Bill was rejected by +the House of Lords, and that public feeling in our time had never been so +keenly excited. This work appeared during the short interval between the +rejection of the Bill and the prorogation of parliament [Parliament was +prorogued October 20th; the bill rejected by the Lords, October 8th]. +And what made it more remarkable was, that while stamped with the passion +of the time, there was a weight of calm and stern reasoning embodied in +its vigorous periods, which gave to the arguments of the advocate +something of the impartiality of the judge. Unusually abstracted and +unsocial,--for, despite his youth and that peculiar bashfulness before +noticed, he was generally alive enough to all that passed around him,-- +Percival paid little attention to the comments that circulated round the +easy-chairs in his vicinity, till a subordinate in the administration, +with whom he was slightly acquainted, pushed a small volume towards him +and said,--"You have seen this, of course, St. John? Ten to one you do +not guess the author. It is certainly not B----m, though the Lord +Chancellor has energy enough for anything. R---- says it has a touch of +S----r." + +"Could M----y have written it?" asked a young member of parliament, +timidly. + +"M----y! Very like his matchless style, to be sure! You can have read +very little of M----y, I should think," said the subordinate, with the +true sneer of an official and a critic. + +The young member could have slunk into a nutshell. Percival, with very +languid interest, glanced over the volume. But despite his mood, and his +moderate affection for political writings, the passage he opened upon +struck and seized him unawares. Though the sneer of the official was +just, and the style was not comparable to M----y's (whose is?), still, +the steady rush of strong words, strong with strong thoughts, heaped +massively together, showed the ease of genius and the gravity of thought. +The absence of all effeminate glitter, the iron grapple with the pith and +substance of the argument opposed, seemed familiar to Percival. He +thought he heard the deep bass of John Ardworth's earnest voice when some +truth roused his advocacy, or some falsehood provoked his wrath. He put +down the book, bewildered. Could it be the obscure, briefless lawyer in +Gray's Inn (that very morning the object of his young pity) who was thus +lifted into fame? He smiled at his own credulity. But he listened with +more attention to the enthusiastic praises that circled round, and the +various guesses which accompanied them. Soon, however, his former gloom +returned,--the Babel began to chafe and weary him. He rose, and went +forth again into the air. He strolled on without purpose, but +mechanically, into the street where he had first seen Helen. He paused a +few moments under the colonnade which faced Beck's old deserted crossing. +His pause attracted the notice of one of the unhappy beings whom we +suffer to pollute our streets and rot in our hospitals. She approached +and spoke to him,--to him whose heart was so full of Helen! He +shuddered, and strode on. At length he paused before the twin towers of +Westminster Abbey, on which the moon rested in solemn splendour; and in +that space one man only shared his solitude. A figure with folded arms +leaned against the iron rails near the statue of Canning, and his gaze +comprehended in one view the walls of the Parliament, in which all +passions wage their war, and the glorious abbey, which gives a Walhalla +to the great. The utter stillness of the figure, so in unison with the +stillness of the scene, had upon Percival more effect than would have +been produced by the most clamorous crowd. He looked round curiously as +he passed, and uttered an exclamation as he recognized John Ardworth. + +"You, Percival!" said Ardworth. "A strange meeting-place at this hour! +What can bring you hither?" + +"Only whim, I fear; and you?" as Percival linked his arm into Ardworth's. + +"Twenty years hence I will tell you what brought me hither!" answered +Ardworth, moving slowly back towards Whitehall. + +"If we are alive then!" + +"We live till our destinies below are fulfilled; till our uses have +passed from us in this sphere, and rise to benefit another. For the soul +is as a sun, but with this noble distinction,--the sun is confined in its +career; day after day it visits the same lands, gilds the same planets or +rather, as the astronomers hold, stands, the motionless centre of moving +worlds. But the soul, when it sinks into seeming darkness and the deep, +rises to new destinies, fresh regions unvisited before. What we call +Eternity, may be but an endless series of those transitions which men +call 'deaths,' abandonments of home after home, ever to fairer scenes and +loftier heights. Age after age, the spirit, that glorious Nomad, may +shift its tent, fated not to rest in the dull Elysium of the Heathen, but +carrying with it evermore its elements,--Activity and Desire. Why should +the soul ever repose? God, its Principle, reposes never. While we +speak, new worlds are sparkling forth, suns are throwing off their +nebulae, nebulae are hardening into worlds. The Almighty proves his +existence by creating. Think you that Plato is at rest, and Shakspeare +only basking on a sun-cloud? Labour is the very essence of spirit, as of +divinity; labour is the purgatory of the erring; it may become the hell +of the wicked, but labour is not less the heaven of the good!" + +Ardworth spoke with unusual earnestness and passion, and his idea of the +future was emblematic of his own active nature; for each of us is wisely +left to shape out, amidst the impenetrable mists, his own ideal of the +Hereafter. The warrior child of the biting North placed his Hela amid +snows, and his Himmel in the banquets of victorious war; the son of the +East, parched by relentless summer,--his hell amidst fire, and his +elysium by cooling streams; the weary peasant sighs through life for +rest, and rest awaits his vision beyond the grave; the workman of +genius,--ever ardent, ever young,--honours toil as the glorious +development of being, and springs refreshed over the abyss of the grave, +to follow, from star to star, the progress that seems to him at once the +supreme felicity and the necessary law. So be it with the fantasy of +each! Wisdom that is infallible, and love that never sleeps, watch over +the darkness, and bid darkness be, that we may dream! + +"Alas!" said the young listener, "what reproof do you not convey to +those, like me, who, devoid of the power which gives results to every +toil, have little left to them in life, but to idle life away. All have +not the gift to write, or harangue, or speculate, or--" + +"Friend," interrupted Ardworth, bluntly, "do not belie yourself. There +lives not a man on earth--out of a lunatic asylum--who has not in him the +power to do good. What can writers, haranguers, or speculators do more +than that? Have you ever entered a cottage, ever travelled in a coach, +ever talked with a peasant in the field, or loitered with a mechanic at +the loom, and not found that each of those men had a talent you had not, +knew some things you knew not? The most useless creature that ever +yawned at a club, or counted the vermin on his rags under the suns of +Calabria, has no excuse for want of intellect. What men want is not +talent, it is purpose,--in other words, not the power to achieve, but the +will to labour. You, Percival St. John,--you affect to despond, lest you +should not have your uses; you, with that fresh, warm heart; you, with +that pure enthusiasm for what is fresh and good; you, who can even admire +a thing like Varney, because, through the tawdry man, you recognize art +and skill, even though wasted in spoiling canvas; you, who have only to +live as you feel, in order to diffuse blessings all around you,--fie, +foolish boy! you will own your error when I tell you why I come from my +rooms at Gray's Inn to see the walls in which Hampden, a plain country +squire like you, shook with plain words the tyranny of eight hundred +years." + +"Ardworth, I will not wait your time to tell me what took you yonder. I +have penetrated a secret that you, not kindly, kept from me. This +morning you rose and found yourself famous; this evening you have come to +gaze upon the scene of the career to which that fame will more rapidly +conduct you--" + +"And upon the tomb which the proudest ambition I can form on earth must +content itself to win! A poor conclusion, if all ended here!" + +"I am right, however," said Percival, with boyish pleasure. "It is you +whose praises have just filled my ears. You, dear, dear Ardworth! How +rejoiced I am!" + +Ardworth pressed heartily the hand extended to him: "I should have +trusted you with my secret to-morrow, Percival; as it is, keep it for the +present. A craving of my nature has been satisfied, a grief has found +distraction. As for the rest, any child that throws a stone into the +water with all his force can make a splash; but he would be a fool indeed +if he supposed that the splash was a sign that he had turned a stream." + +Here Ardworth ceased abruptly; and Percival, engrossed by a bright idea, +which had suddenly occurred to him, exclaimed,-- + +"Ardworth, your desire, your ambition, is to enter parliament; there must +be a dissolution shortly,--the success of your book will render you +acceptable to many a popular constituency. All you can want is a sum for +the necessary expenses. Borrow that sum from me; repay me when you are +in the Cabinet, or attorney-general. It shall be so!" + +A look so bright that even by that dull lamplight the glow of the cheek, +the brilliancy of the eye were visible, flashed over Ardworth's face. He +felt at that moment what ambitious man must feel when the object he has +seen dimly and afar is placed within his grasp; but his reason was proof +even against that strong temptation. + +He passed his arm round the boy's slender waist, and drew him to his +heart with grateful affection as he replied,--"And what, if now in +parliament, giving up my career,--with no regular means of subsistence,-- +what could I be but a venal adventurer? Place would become so vitally +necessary to me that I should feed but a dangerous war between my +conscience and my wants. In chasing Fame, the shadow, I should lose the +substance, Independence. Why, that very thought would paralyze my +tongue. No, no, my generous friend. As labour is the arch elevator of +man, so patience is the essence of labour. First let me build the +foundation; I may then calculate the height of my tower. First let me be +independent of the great; I will then be the champion of the lowly. +Hold! Tempt me no more; do not lure me to the loss of self-esteem. And +now, Percival," resumed Ardworth, in the tone of one who wishes to plunge +into some utterly new current of thought, "let us forget for awhile these +solemn aspirations, and be frolicsome and human. 'Nemo mortalium omnibus +horis sapit.' 'Neque semper arcum tendit Apollo.' What say you to a +cigar?" + +Percival stared. He was not yet familiarized to the eccentric whims of +his friend. + +"Hot negus and a cigar!" repeated Ardworth, while a smile, full of +drollery, played round the corners of his lips and twinkled in his deep- +set eyes. + +"Are you serious?" + +"Not serious; I have been serious enough," and Ardworth sighed, "for the +last three weeks. Who goes 'to Corinth to be sage,' or to the Cider +Cellar to be serious?" + +"I subscribe, then, to the negus and cigar," said Percival, smiling; and +he had no cause to repent his compliance as he accompanied Ardworth to +one of the resorts favoured by that strange person in his rare hours of +relaxation. + +For, seated at his favourite table, which happened, luckily, to be +vacant, with his head thrown carelessly back, and his negus steaming +before him, John Ardworth continued to pour forth, till the clock struck +three, jest upon jest, pun upon pun, broad drollery upon broad drollery, +without flagging, without intermission, so varied, so copious, so ready, +so irresistible that Percival was transported out of all his melancholy +in enjoying, for the first time in his life, the exuberant gayety of a +grave mind once set free,--all its intellect sparkling into wit, all its +passion rushing into humour. And this was the man he had pitied, +supposed to have no sunny side to his life! How much greater had been +his compassion and his wonder if he could have known all that had passed, +within the last few weeks, through that gloomy, yet silent breast, which, +by the very breadth of its mirth, showed what must be the depth of its +sadness! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE LOSS OF THE CROSSING. + +Despite the lateness of the hour before he got to rest, Percival had +already breakfasted, when his valet informed him, with raised, +supercilious eyebrows, that an uncommon ragged sort of a person insisted +that he had been told to call. Though Beck had been at the house before, +and the valet had admitted him, so much thinner, so much more ragged was +he now, that the trim servant--no close observer of such folk--did not +recognize him. However, at Percival's order, too well-bred to show +surprise, he ushered Beck up with much civility; and St. John was +painfully struck with the ravages a few weeks had made upon the sweeper's +countenance. The lines were so deeply ploughed, the dry hair looked so +thin, and was so sown with gray that Beck might have beat all Farren's +skill in the part of an old man. + +The poor sweeper's tale, extricated from its peculiar phraseology, was +simple enough, and soon told. He had returned home at night to find his +hoards stolen, and the labour of his life overthrown. How he passed that +night he did not very well remember. We may well suppose that the little +reason he possessed was wellnigh bereft from him. No suspicion of the +exact thief crossed his perturbed mind. Bad as Grabman's character might +be, he held a respectable position compared with the other lodgers in the +house. Bill the cracksman, naturally and by vocation, suggested the hand +that had despoiled him: how hope for redress or extort surrender from +such a quarter? Mechanically, however, when the hour arrived to return +to his day's task, he stole down the stairs, and lo, at the very door of +the house Bill's children were at play, and in the hand of the eldest he +recognized what he called his "curril." + +"Your curril!" interrupted St. John. + +"Yes, curril,--vot the little 'uns bite afore they gets their teethin'." + +St. John smiled, and supposing that Beck had some time or other been +puerile enough to purchase such a bauble, nodded to him to continue. To +seize upon the urchin, and, in spite of kicks, bites, shrieks, or +scratches, repossess himself of his treasure, was the feat of a moment. +The brat's clamour drew out the father; and to him Beck (pocketing the +coral, that its golden bells might not attract the more experienced eye +and influence the more formidable greediness of the paternal thief) +loudly, and at first fearlessly, appealed. Him he charged and accused +and threatened with all vengeance, human and divine. Then, changing his +tone, he implored, he wept, he knelt. As soon as the startled cracksman +recovered his astonishment at such audacity, and comprehended the nature +of the charge against himself and his family, he felt the more indignant +from a strange and unfamiliar consciousness of innocence. Seizing Beck +by the nape of the neck, with a dexterous application of hand and foot he +sent him spinning into the kennel. + +"Go to Jericho, mud-scraper!" cried Bill, in a voice of thunder; "and if +ever thou sayst such a vopper agin,--'sparaging the characters of them +'ere motherless babes,--I'll seal thee up in a 'tato-sack, and sell thee +for fiv'pence to No. 7, the great body-snatcher. Take care how I ever +sets eyes agin on thy h-ugly mug!" + +With that Bill clapped to the door, and Beck, frightened out of his wits, +crawled from the kennel and, bruised and smarting, crept to his crossing. +But he was unable to discharge his duties that day; his ill-fed, +miserable frame was too weak for the stroke he had received. Long before +dusk he sneaked away, and dreading to return to his lodging, lest, since +nothing now was left worth robbing but his carcass, Bill might keep his +word and sell that to the body-snatcher, he took refuge under the only +roof where he felt he could sleep in safety. + +And here we must pause to explain. In our first introduction of Beck we +contented ourselves with implying to the ingenious and practised reader +that his heart might still be large enough to hold something besides his +crossing. Now, in one of the small alleys that have their vent in the +great stream of Fleet Street there dwelt an old widow-woman who eked out +her existence by charing,--an industrious, drudging creature, whose sole +occupation, since her husband, the journeyman bricklayer, fell from a +scaffold, and, breaking his neck, left her happily childless as well as +penniless, had been scrubbing stone floors and cleaning out dingy houses +when about to be let,--charing, in a word. And in this vocation had she +kept body and soul together till a bad rheumatism and old age had put an +end to her utilities and entitled her to the receipt of two shillings +weekly from parochial munificence. Between this old woman and Beck there +was a mysterious tie, so mysterious that he did not well comprehend it +himself. Sometimes he called her "mammy," sometimes "the h-old crittur." +But certain it is that to her he was indebted for that name which he +bore, to the puzzlement of St. Giles's. Becky Carruthers was the name of +the old woman; but Becky was one of those good creatures who are always +called by their Christian names, and never rise into the importance of +the surname and the dignity of "Mistress;" lopping off the last syllable +of the familiar appellation, the outcast christened himself "Beck." + +"And," said St. John, who in the course of question and answer had got +thus far into the marrow of the sweeper's narrative, "is not this good +woman really your mother?" + +"Mother!" echoed Beck, with disdain; "no, I 'as a gritter mother nor she. +Sint Poll's is my mother. But the h-old crittur tuk care on me." + +"I really don't understand you. St. Paul's is your mother? How?" + +Beck shook his head mysteriously, and without answering the question, +resumed the tale, which we must thus paraphrastically continue to +deliver. + +When he was a little more than six years old, Beck began to earn his own +livelihood, by running errands, holding horses, scraping together pence +and halfpence. Betimes, his passion for saving began; at first with a +good and unselfish motive,--that of surprising "mammy" at the week's end. +But when "mammy," who then gained enough for herself, patted his head and +called him "good boy," and bade him save for his own uses, and told him +what a great thing it would be if he could lay by a pretty penny against +he was a man, he turned miser on his own account; and the miserable +luxury grew upon him. At last, by the permission of the police +inspector, strengthened by that of the owner of the contiguous house, he +made his great step in life, and succeeded a deceased negro in the +dignity and emoluments of the memorable crossing. From that hour he felt +himself fulfilling his proper destiny. But poor Becky, alas! had already +fallen into the sere and yellow leaf; with her decline, her good +qualities were impaired. She took to drinking,--not to positive +intoxication, but to making herself "comfortable;" and, to satisfy her +craving, Beck, waking betimes one morning, saw her emptying his pockets. +Then he resolved, quietly and without upbraiding her, to remove to a +safer lodging. To save had become the imperative necessity of his +existence. But to do him justice, Beck had a glimmering sense of what +was due to the "h-old crittur." Every Saturday evening he called at her +house and deposited with her a certain sum, not large even in proportion +to his earnings, but which seemed to the poor ignorant miser, who grudged +every farthing to himself, an enormous deduction from his total, and a +sum sufficient for every possible want of humankind, even to satiety. +And now, in returning, despoiled of all save the few pence he had +collected that day, it is but fair to him to add that not his least +bitter pang was in the remembrance that this was the only Saturday on +which, for the first time, the weekly stipend would fail. + +But so ill and so wretched did he look when he reached her little room +that "mammy" forgot all thought of herself; and when he had told his +tale, so kind was her comforting, so unselfish her sympathy, that his +heart smote him for his old parsimony, for his hard resentment at her +single act of peculation. Had not she the right to all he made? But +remorse and grief alike soon vanished in the fever that now seized him; +for several days he was insensible; and when he recovered sufficiently to +be made aware of what was around him, he saw the widow seated beside him, +within four bare walls. Everything, except the bed he slept on, had been +sold to support him in his illness. As soon as he could totter forth, +Beck hastened to his crossing. Alas! it was preoccupied. His absence +had led to ambitious usurpation. A one-legged, sturdy sailor had mounted +his throne, and wielded his sceptre. The decorum of the street forbade +altercation to the contending parties; but the sailor referred discussion +to a meeting at a flash house in the Rookery that evening. There a jury +was appointed, and the case opened. By the conventional laws that +regulate this useful community, Beck was still in his rights; his +reappearance sufficed to restore his claims, and an appeal to the +policeman would no doubt re-establish his authority. But Beck was still +so ill and so feeble that he had a melancholy persuasion that he could +not suitably perform the duties of his office; and when the sailor, not a +bad fellow on the whole, offered to pay down on the nail what really +seemed a very liberal sum for Beck's peaceful surrender of his rights, +the poor wretch thought of the bare walls at his "mammy's," of the long, +dreary interval that must elapse, even if able to work, before the +furniture pawned could be redeemed by the daily profits of his post, and +with a groan he held out his hand and concluded the bargain. + +Creeping home to his "h-old crittur," he threw the purchase money into +her lap; then, broken-hearted and in despair, he slunk forth again in a +sort of vague, dreamy hope that the law, which abhors vagabonds, would +seize and finish him. + +When this tale was done, Percival did not neglect the gentle task of +admonition, which the poor sweeper's softened heart and dull remorse made +easier. He pointed out, in soft tones, how the avarice he had indulged +had been perhaps mercifully chastised, and drew no ineloquent picture of +the vicious miseries of the confirmed miser. Beck listened humbly and +respectfully; though so little did he understand of mercy and Providence +and vice that the diviner part of the homily was quite lost on him. +However, he confessed penitently that "the mattress had made him vorse +nor a beast to the h-old crittur;" and that "he was cured of saving to +the end of his days." + +"And now," said Percival, "as you really seem not strong enough to bear +this out-of-door work (the winter coming on, too), what say you to +entering into my service? I want some help in my stables. The work is +easy enough, and you are used to horses, you know, in a sort of a way." + +Beck hesitated, and looked a moment undecided. At last he said, "Please +your honour, if I bean't strong enough for the crossin', I 'se afeared +I'm too h-ailing to sarve you. And voud n't I be vorse nor a wiper to +take your vages and not vork for 'em h-as I h-ought?" + +"Pooh! we'll soon make you strong, my man. Take my advice; don't let +your head run on the crossing. That kind of industry exposes you to bad +company and bad thoughts." + +"That's vot it is, sir," said Beck, assentingly, laying his dexter +forefinger on his sinister palm. + +"Well! you are in my service, then. Go downstairs now and get your +breakfast; by and by you shall show me your 'mammy's' house, and we'll +see what can be done for her." + +Beck pressed his hands to his eyes, trying hard not to cry; but it was +too much for him; and as the valet, who appeared to Percival's summons, +led him down the stairs, his sobs were heard from attic to basement. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +NEWS FROM GRABMAN. + +That day, opening thus auspiciously to Beck, was memorable also to other +and more prominent persons in this history. + +Early in the forenoon a parcel was brought to Madame Dalibard which +contained Ardworth's already famous book, a goodly assortment of extracts +from the newspapers thereon, and the following letter from the young +author:-- + +You will see, by the accompanying packet, that your counsels have had +weight with me. I have turned aside in my slow, legitimate career. I +have, as you desired, made "men talk of me." What solid benefit I may +reap from this I know not. I shall not openly avow the book. Such +notoriety cannot help meat the Bar. But liberavi animam meam,--excuse my +pedantry,--I have let my soul free for a moment; I am now catching it +back to put bit and saddle on again. I will not tell you how you have +disturbed me, how you have stung me into this premature rush amidst the +crowd, how, after robbing me of name and father, you have driven me to +this experiment with my own mind, to see if I was deceived when I groaned +to myself, "The Public shall give you a name, and Fame shall be your +mother." I am satisfied with the experiment. I know better now what is +in me, and I have regained my peace of mind. If in the success of this +hasty work there be that which will gratify the interest you so kindly +take in me, deem that success your own; I owe it to you,--to your +revelations, to your admonitions. I wait patiently your own time for +further disclosures; till then, the wheel must work on, and the grist be +ground. Kind and generous friend, till now I would not wound you by +returning the sum you sent me,--nay, more, I knew I should please you by +devoting part of it to the risk of giving this essay to the world, and so +making its good fortune doubly your own work. Now, when the publisher +smiles, and the shopmen bow, and I am acknowledged to have a bank in my +brains,--now, you cannot be offended to receive it back. Adieu. When my +mind is in train again, and I feel my step firm on the old dull road, I +will come to see you. Till then, yours--by what name? Open the +Biographical Dictionary at hazard, and send me one. GRAY'S INN. + +Not at the noble thoughts and the deep sympathy with mankind that glowed +through that work, over which Lucretia now tremulously hurried, did she +feel delight. All that she recognized, or desired to recognize, were +those evidences of that kind of intellect which wins its way through the +world, and which, strong and unmistakable, rose up in every page of that +vigorous logic and commanding style. The book was soon dropped, thus +read; the newspaper extracts pleased even more. + +"This," she said audibly, in the freedom of her solitude, "this is the +son I asked for,--a son in whom I can rise; in whom I can exchange the +sense of crushing infamy for the old delicious ecstasy of pride! For +this son can I do too much? No; in what I may do for him methinks there +will be no remorse. And he calls his success mine,--mine!" Her nostrils +dilated, and her front rose erect. + +In the midst of this exultation Varney found her; and before he could +communicate the business which had brought him, he had to listen, which +he did with the secret, gnawing envy that every other man's success +occasioned him, to her haughty self-felicitations. + +He could not resist saying, with a sneer, when she paused, as if to ask +his sympathy,-- + +"All this is very fine, belle-mere; and yet I should hardly have thought +that coarse-featured, uncouth limb of the law, who seldom moves without +upsetting a chair, never laughs but the panes rattle in the window,--I +should hardly have thought him the precise person to gratify your pride, +or answer the family ideal of a gentleman and a St. John." + +"Gabriel," said Lucretia, sternly, "you have a biting tongue, and it is +folly in me to resent those privileges which our fearful connection gives +you. But this raillery--" + +"Come, come, I was wrong; forgive it!" interrupted Varney, who, +dreading nothing else, dreaded much the rebuke of his grim stepmother. + +"It is forgiven," said Lucretia, coldly, and with a slight wave of her +hand; then she added, with composure,-- + +"Long since--even while heiress of Laughton--I parted with mere pride in +the hollow seemings of distinction. Had I not, should I have stooped to +William Mainwaring? What I then respected, amidst all the degradations I +have known, I respect still,--talent, ambition, intellect, and will. Do +you think I would exchange these in a son of mine for the mere graces +which a dancing-master can sell him? Fear not. Let us give but wealth +to that intellect, and the world will see no clumsiness in the movements +that march to its high places, and hear no discord in the laugh that +triumphs over fools. But you have some news to communicate, or some +proposal to suggest." + +"I have both," said Varney. "In the first place, I have a letter from +Grabman!" + +Lucretia's eyes sparkled, and she snatched eagerly at the letter her son- +in-law drew forth. + +LIVERPOOL, October, 1831. + +JASON,--I think I am on the road to success. Having first possessed +myself of the fact, commemorated in the parish register, of the birth and +baptism of Alfred Braddell's son,--for we must proceed regularly in these +matters,--I next set my wits to work to trace that son's exodus from the +paternal mansion. I have hunted up an old woman-servant, Jane Prior, who +lived with the Braddells. She now thrives as a laundress; she is a rank +Puritan, and starches for the godly. She was at first very wary and +reserved in her communications; but by siding with her prejudices and +humours, and by the intercession of the Rev. Mr. Graves (of her own +persuasion), I have got her to open her lips. It seems that these +Braddells lived very unhappily; the husband, a pious dissenter, had +married a lady who turned out of a very different practice and belief. +Jane Prior pitied her master, and detested her mistress. Some +circumstances in the conduct of Mrs. Braddell made the husband, who was +then in his last illness, resolve, from a point of conscience, to save +his child from what he deemed the contamination of her precepts and +example. Mrs. Braddell was absent from Liverpool on a visit, which was +thought very unfeeling by the husband's friends; during this time +Braddell was visited constantly by a gentleman (Mr. Ardworth), who +differed from him greatly in some things, and seemed one of the carnal, +but with whom agreement in politics (for they were both great politicians +and republicans) seems to have established a link. One evening, when Mr. +Ardworth was in the house, Jane Prior, who was the only maidservant (for +they kept but two, and one had been just discharged), had been sent out +to the apothecary's. On her return, Jane Prior, going into the nursery, +missed the infant: she thought it was with her master; but coming into +his room, Mr. Braddell told her to shut the door, informed her that he +had intrusted the boy to Mr. Ardworth, to be brought up in a righteous +and pious manner, and implored and commanded her to keep this a secret +from his wife, whom he was resolved, indeed, if he lived, not to receive +back into his house. Braddell, however, did not survive more than two +days this event. On his death, Mrs. Braddell returned; but circumstances +connected with the symptoms of his malady, and a strong impression which +haunted himself, and with which he had infected Jane Prior, that he had +been poisoned, led to a posthumous examination of his remains. No trace +of poison was, however, discovered, and suspicions that had been directed +against his wife could not be substantiated by law; still, she was +regarded in so unfavourable a light by all who had known them both, she +met with such little kindness or sympathy in her widowhood, and had been +so openly denounced by Jane Prior, that it is not to be wondered at that +she left the place as soon as possible. The house, indeed, was taken +from her; for Braddell's affairs were found in such confusion, and his +embarrassments so great, that everything was seized and sold off,-- +nothing left for the widow nor for the child (if the last were ever +discovered.) + +As may be supposed, Mrs. Braddell was at first very clamorous for the +lost child; but Jane Prior kept her promise and withheld all clew to it, +and Mrs. Braddell was forced to quit the place, in ignorance of what had +become of it. Since then no one had heard of her; but Jane Prior says +that she is sure she has come to no good. Now, though much of this may +be, no doubt, familiar to you, dear Jason, it is right, when I put the +evidence before you, that you should know and guard against what to +expect; and in any trial at law to prove the identity of Vincent +Braddell, Jane Prior must be a principal witness, and will certainly not +spare poor Mrs. Braddell. For the main point, however,--namely, the +suspicion of poisoning her husband,--the inquest and verdict may set +aside all alarm. + +My next researches have been directed on the track of Walter Ardworth, +after leaving Liverpool, which (I find by the books at the inn where he +lodged and was known) he did in debt to the innkeeper, the very night he +received the charge of the child. Here, as yet, I am in fault; but I +have ascertained that a woman, one of the sect, of the name of Joplin, +living in a village fifteen miles from the town, had the care of some +infant, to replace her own, which she had lost. I am going to this +village to-morrow. But I cannot expect much in that quarter, since it +would seem at variance with your more probable belief that Walter +Ardworth took the child at once to Mr. Fielden's. However, you see I +have already gone very far in the evidence,--the birth of the child, the +delivery of the child to Ardworth. I see a very pretty case already +before us, and I do not now doubt for a moment of ultimate success. + Yours, N. GRABMAN. + +Lucretia read steadily, and with no change of countenance, to the last +line of the letter. Then, as she put it down on the table before her, +she repeated, with a tone of deep exultation: "No doubt of ultimate +success!" + +"You do not fear to brave all which the spite of this woman, Jane Prior, +may prompt her to say against you?" asked Varney. + +Lucretia's brow fell. "It is another torture," she said, "even to own my +marriage with a low-born hypocrite. But I can endure it for the cause," +she added, more haughtily. "Nothing can really hurt me in these obsolete +aspersions and this vague scandal. The inquest acquitted me, and the +world will be charitable to the mother of him who has wealth and rank and +that vigorous genius which, if proved in obscurity, shall command opinion +in renown." + +"You are now, then, disposed at once to proceed to action. For Helen all +is prepared,--the insurances are settled, the trust for which I hold them +on your behalf is signed and completed. But for Percival St. John I +await your directions. Will it be best first to prove your son's +identity, or when morally satisfied that that proof is forthcoming, to +remove betimes both the barriers to his inheritance? If we tarry for the +last, the removal of St. John becomes more suspicious than it does at a +time when you have no visible interest in his death. Besides, now we +have the occasion, or can make it, can we tell how long it will last? +Again, it will seem more natural that the lover should break his heart in +the first shock of--" + +"Ay," interrupted Lucretia, "I would have all thought and contemplation +of crime at an end when, clasping my boy to my heart, I can say, 'Your +mother's inheritance is yours.' I would not have a murder before my eyes +when they should look only on the fair prospects beyond. I would cast +back all the hideous images of horror into the rear of memory, so that +hope may for once visit me again undisturbed. No, Gabriel, were I to +speak forever, you would comprehend not what I grasp at in a son. It is +at a future! Rolling a stone over the sepulchre of the past, it is a +resurrection into a fresh world; it is to know again one emotion not +impure, one scheme not criminal,--it is, in a word, to cease to be as +myself, to think in another soul, to hear my heart beat in another form. +All this I covet in a son. And when all this should smile before me in +his image, shall I be plucked back again into my hell by the +consciousness that a new crime is to be done? No; wade quickly through +the passage of blood, that we may dry our garments and breathe the air +upon the bank where sun shines and flowers bloom!" + +"So be it, then," said Varney. "Before the week is out, I must be under +the same roof as St. John. Before the week is out, why not all meet in +the old halls of Laughton?" + +"Ay, in the halls of Laughton. On the hearth of our ancestors the deeds +done for our descendants look less dark." + +"And first, to prepare the way, Helen should sicken in these fogs of +London, and want change of air." + +"Place before me that desk. I will read William Mainwaring's letters +again and again, till from every shadow in the past a voice comes forth, +'The child of your rival, your betrayer, your undoer, stands between the +daylight and your son!'" + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +VARIETIES. + +Leaving the guilty pair to concert their schemes and indulge their +atrocious hopes, we accompany Percival to the hovel occupied by Becky +Carruthers. + +On following Beck into the room she rented, Percival was greatly +surprised to find, seated comfortably on the only chair to be seen, no +less a person than the worthy Mrs. Mivers. This good lady in her +spinster days had earned her own bread by hard work. She had captivated +Mr. Mivers when but a simple housemaid in the service of one of his +relations. And while this humble condition in her earlier life may +account for much in her language and manners which is nowadays +inconsonant with the breeding and education that characterize the wives +of opulent tradesmen, so perhaps the remembrance of it made her unusually +susceptible to the duties of charity. For there is no class of society +more prone to pity and relieve the poor than females in domestic service; +and this virtue Mrs. Mivers had not laid aside, as many do, as soon as +she was in a condition to practise it with effect. Mrs. Mivers blushed +scarlet on being detected in her visit of kindness, and hastened to +excuse herself by the information that she belonged to a society of +ladies for "The Bettering the Condition of the Poor," and that having +just been informed of Mrs. Becky's destitute state, she had looked in to +recommend her--a ventilator! + +"It is quite shocking to see how little the poor attends to the proper +wentilating their houses. No wonder there's so much typus about!" said +Mrs. Mivers. "And for one-and-sixpence we can introduce a stream of h- +air that goes up the chimbly, and carries away all that it finds!". + +"I 'umbly thank you, marm," said the poor bundle of rags that went by the +name of "Becky," as with some difficulty she contrived to stand in the +presence of the benevolent visitor; "but I am much afeard that the h-air +will make the rheumatiz very rumpatious!" + +"On the contrary, on the contrary," said Mrs. Mivers, triumphantly; and +she proceeded philosophically to explain that all the fevers, aches, +pains, and physical ills that harass the poor arise from the want of an +air-trap in the chimney and a perforated network in the window-pane. +Becky listened patiently; for Mrs. Mivers was only a philosopher in her +talk, and she had proved herself anything but a philosopher in her +actions, by the spontaneous present of five shillings, and the promise of +a basket of victuals and some good wine to keep the cold wind she invited +to the apartment out of the stomach. + +Percival imitated the silence of Becky, whose spirit was so bowed down by +an existence of drudgery that not even the sight of her foster-son could +draw her attention from the respect due to a superior. + +"And is this poor cranky-looking cretur your son, Mrs. Becky?" said the +visitor, struck at last by the appearance of the ex-sweeper as he stood +at the threshold, hat in hand. + +"No, indeed, marm," answered Becky; "I often says, says I: 'Child, you be +the son of Sint Poll's.'" + +Beck smiled proudly. + +"It was agin the grit church, marm ---- But it's a long story. My poor +good man had not a long been dead,--as good a man as hever lived, marm," +and Becky dropped a courtesy; "he fell off a scaffold, and pitched right +on his 'ead, or I should not have come on the parish, marm,--and that's +the truth on it!" + +"Very well, I shall call and hear all about it; a sad case, I dare say. +You see, your husband should have subscribed to our Loan Society, and +then they'd have found him a 'andsome coffin, and given three pounds to +his widder. But the poor are so benighted in these parts. I'm sure, +sir, I can't guess what brought you here; but that's no business of mine. +And how are all at Old Brompton?" Here Mrs. Mivers bridled indignantly. +"There was a time when Miss Mainwaring was very glad to come and chat +with Mr. M. and myself; but now 'rum has riz,' as the saying is,--not but +what I dare say it's not her fault, poor thing! That stiff aunt of +hers,--she need not look so high; pride and poverty, forsooth!" + +While delivering these conciliatory sentences, Mrs. Mivers had gathered +up her gown, and was evidently in the bustle of departure. As she now +nodded to Becky, Percival stepped up, and, with his irresistible smile, +offered her his arm. Much surprised and much flattered, Mrs. Mivers +accepted it. As she did so, he gently detained her while he said to +Becky,--"My good friend, I have brought you the poor lad to whom you have +been a mother, to tell you that good deeds find their reward sooner or +later. As for him, make yourself easy; he will inform you of the new +step he has taken, and for you, good, kind-hearted creature, thank the +boy you brought up if your old age shall be made easy and cheerful. Now, +Beck, silly lad, go and tell all to your nurse! Take care of this step, +Mrs. Mivers." + +As soon as he was in the street, Percival, who, if amused at the +ventilator, had seen the five shillings gleam on Becky's palm, and felt +that he had found under the puce-coloured gown a good woman's heart to +understand him, gave Mrs. Mivers a short sketch of poor Becky's history +and misfortunes, and so contrived to interest her in behalf of the nurse +that she willingly promised to become Percival's almoner, to execute his +commission, to improve the interior of Becky's abode, and distribute +weekly the liberal stipend he proposed to settle on the old widow. They +had grown, indeed, quite friendly and intimate by the time he reached the +smart plate-glazed mahogany-coloured facade within which the flourishing +business of Mr. Mivers was carried on; and when, knocking at the private +door, promptly opened by a lemon-coloured page, she invited him upstairs, +it so chanced that the conversation had slid off to Helen, and Percival +was sufficiently interested to bow assent and to enter. + +Though all the way up the stairs Mrs. Mivers, turning back at every other +step, did her best to impress upon her young visitor's mind the important +fact that they kept their household establishment at their "willer," and +that their apartments in Fleet Street were only a "conwenience," the +store set by the worthy housewife upon her goods and chattels was +sufficiently visible in the drugget that threaded its narrow way up the +gay Brussels stair-carpet, and in certain layers of paper which protected +from the profanation of immediate touch the mahogany hand-rail. And +nothing could exceed the fostering care exhibited in the drawing-room, +when the door thrown open admitted a view of its damask moreen curtains, +pinned back from such impertinent sunbeams as could force their way +through the foggy air of the east into the windows, and the ells of +yellow muslin that guarded the frames, at least, of a collection of +coloured prints and two kit-kat portraitures of Mr. Mivers and his lady +from the perambulations of the flies. + +But Percival's view of this interior was somewhat impeded by his portly +guide, who, uttering a little exclamation of surprise, stood motionless +on the threshold as she perceived Mr. Mivers seated by the hearth in +close conference with a gentleman whom she had never seen before. At +that hour it was so rare an event in the life of Mr. Mivers to be found +in the drawing-room, and that he should have an acquaintance unknown to +his helpmate was a circumstance so much rarer still, that Mrs. Mivers may +well be forgiven for keeping St. John standing at the door till she had +recovered her amaze. + +Meanwhile Mr. Mivers rose in some confusion, and was apparently about to +introduce his guest, when that gentleman coughed, and pinched the host's +arm significantly. Mr. Mivers coughed also, and stammered out: "A +gentleman, Mrs. M.,--a friend; stay with us a day or two. Much honoured, +hum!" + +Mrs. Mivers stared and courtesied, and stared again. But there was an +open, good-humoured smile in the face of the visitor, as he advanced and +took her hand, that attracted a heart very easily conciliated. Seeing +that that was no moment for further explanation, she plumped herself into +a seat and said,-- + +"But bless us and save us, I am keeping you standing, Mr. St. John!" + +"St. John!" repeated the visitor, with a vehemence that startled Mrs. +Mivers. "Your name is St. John, sir,--related to the St. Johns of +Laughton?" + +"Yes, indeed," answered Percival, with his shy, arch smile. "Laughton at +present has no worthier owner than myself." + +The gentleman made two strides to Percival and shook him heartily by the +hand. + +"This is pleasant indeed!" he exclaimed. "You must excuse my freedom; +but I knew well poor old Sir Miles, and my heart warms at the sight of +his representative." + +Percival glanced at his new acquaintance, and on the whole was +prepossessed in his favour. He seemed somewhere on the sunnier side of +fifty, with that superb yellow bronze of complexion which betokens long +residence under Eastern skies. Deep wrinkles near the eyes, and a dark +circle round them, spoke of cares and fatigue, and perhaps dissipation. +But he had evidently a vigour of constitution that had borne him passably +through all; his frame was wiry and nervous; his eye bright and full of +life; and there was that abrupt, unsteady, mercurial restlessness in his +movements and manner which usually accompanies the man whose sanguine +temperament prompts him to concede to the impulse, and who is blessed or +cursed with a superabundance of energy, according as circumstance may +favour or judgment correct that equivocal gift of constitution. + +Percival said something appropriate in reply to so much cordiality paid +to the account of the Sir Miles whom he had never seen, and seated +himself, colouring slightly under the influence of the fixed, pleased, +and earnest look still bent upon him. + +Searching for something else to say, Percival asked Mrs. Mivers if she +had lately seen John Ardworth. + +The guest, who had just reseated himself, turned his chair round at that +question with such vivacity that Mrs. Mivers heard it crack. Her chairs +were not meant for such usage. A shade fell over her rosy countenance as +she replied,-- + +"No, indeed (please, sir, them chairs is brittle)! No, he is like Madame +at Brompton, and seldom condescends to favour us now. It was but last +Sunday we asked him to dinner. I am sure he need not turn up his nose at +our roast beef and pudding!" + +Here Mr. Mivers was taken with a violent fit of coughing, which drew off +his wife's attention. She was afraid he had taken cold. + +The stranger took out a large snuff-box, inhaled a long pinch of snuff, +and said to St. John,-- + +"This Mr. John Ardworth, a pert enough jackanapes, I suppose,--a limb of +the law, eh?" + +"Sir," said Percival, gravely, "John Ardworth is my particular friend. +It is clear that you know very little of him." + +"That's true," said the stranger,--"'pon my life, that's very true. But +I suppose he's like all lawyers,--cunning and tricky, conceited and +supercilious, full of prejudice and cant, and a red-hot Tory into the +bargain. I know them, sir; I know them!" + +"Well," answered St. John, half gayly, half angrily, "your general +experience serves you very little here; for Ardworth is exactly the +opposite of all you have described." + +"Even in politics?" + +"Why, I fear he is half a Radical,--certainly more than a Whig," answered +St. John, rather mournfully; for his own theories were all the other way, +notwithstanding his unpatriotic forgetfulness of them in his offer to +assist Ardworth's entrance into parliament. + +"I am very glad to hear it," cried the stranger, again taking snuff. +"And this Madame at Brompton--perhaps I know her a little better than I +do young Mr. Ardworth--Mrs. Brad--I mean Madame Dalibard!" and the +stranger glanced at Mr. Mivers, who was slowly recovering from some +vigorous slaps on the back administered to him by his wife as a counter- +irritant to the cough. "Is it true that she has lost the use of her +limbs?" + +Percival shook his head. + +"And takes care of poor Helen Mainwaring the orphan? Well, well, that +looks amiable enough. I must see; I must see!" + +"Who shall I say inquired after her, when I see Madame Dalibard?" asked +Percival, with some curiosity. + +"Who? Oh, Mr. Tomkins. She will not recollect him, though,"--and the +stranger laughed, and Mr. Mivers laughed too; and Mrs. Mivers, who, +indeed, always laughed when other people laughed, laughed also. So +Percival thought he ought to laugh for the sake of good company, and all +laughed together as he arose and took leave. + +He had not, however, got far from the house, on his way to his cabriolet, +which he had left by Temple Bar, when, somewhat to his surprise, he found +Mr. Tomkins at his elbow. + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. St. John, but I have only just returned to +England, and on such occasions a man is apt to seem curious. This young +lawyer ---- You see the elder Ardworth, a good-for-nothing scamp, was a +sort of friend of mine,--not exactly friend, indeed, for, by Jove, I +think he was a worse friend to me than he was to anybody else; still I +had a foolish interest for him, and should be glad to hear something more +about any one bearing his name than I can coax out of that droll little +linen draper. You are really intimate with young Ardworth, eh?" + +"Intimate! poor fellow, he will not let any one be that; he works too +hard to be social. But I love him sincerely, and I admire him beyond +measure." + +"The dog has industry, then;--that's good. And does he make debts, like +that rascal, Ardworth senior?" + +"Really, sir, I must say this tone with respect to Mr. Ardworth's father- +-" + +"What the devil, sir! Do you take the father's part as well as the +son's?" + +"I don't know anything about Mr. Ardworth senior," said Percival, +pouting; "but I do know that my friend would not allow any one to speak +ill of his father in his presence; and I beg you, sir, to consider that +whatever would offend him must offend me." + +"Gad's my life! He's the luckiest young rogue to have such a friend. +Sir, I wish you a very good-day." + +Mr. Tomkins took off his hat, bowed, and passing St. John with a rapid +step, was soon lost to his eye amongst the crowd hurrying westward. + +But our business being now rather with him than Percival, we leave the +latter to mount his cabriolet, and we proceed with Mr. Mivers's mercurial +guest on his eccentric way through the throng. There was an odd mixture +of thoughtful abstraction and quick observation in the soliloquy in which +this gentleman indulged, as he walked briskly on. + +"A pretty young spark that St. John! A look of his father, but +handsomer, and less affected. I like him. Fine shop that, very! London +wonderfully improved. A hookah in that window,--God bless me!--a real +hookah! This is all very good news about that poor boy, very. After +all, he is not to blame if his mother was such a damnable--I must +contrive to see and judge of him myself as soon as possible. Can't trust +to others; too sharp for that. What an ugly dog that is, looking after +me! It is certainly a bailiff. Hang it, what do I care for bailiffs? +Hem, hem!" And the gentleman thrust his hands into his pockets, and +laughed, as the jingle of coin reached his ear through the din without. +"Well, I must make haste to decide; for really there is a very +troublesome piece of business before me. Plague take her, what can have +become of the woman? I shall have to hunt out a sharp lawyer. But +John's a lawyer himself. No, attorneys, I suppose, are the men. Gad! +they were sharp enough when they had to hunt me. What's that great bill +on the wall about? 'Down with the Lords!' Pooh, pooh! Master John Bull, +you love lords a great deal too much for that. A prettyish girl! +English women are very good-looking, certainly. That Lucretia, what +shall I do, if ---- Ah, time enough to think of her when I have got over +that mighty stiff if!" + +In such cogitations and mental remarks our traveller whiled away the time +till he found himself in Piccadilly. There, a publisher's shop (and he +had that keen eye for shops which betrays the stranger in London), with +its new publications exposed at the window, attracted his notice. +Conspicuous amongst the rest was the open title-page of a book, at the +foot of which was placed a placard with the enticing words, "FOURTH +EDITION; JUST OUT," in red capitals. The title of the work struck his +irritable, curious fancy; he walked into the shop, asked for the volume, +and while looking over the contents with muttered ejaculations, "Good! +capital! Why, this reminds one of Horne Tooke! What's the price? Very +dear; must have it though,--must. Ha, ha! home-thrust there!"--while +thus turning over the leaves, and rending them asunder with his +forefinger, regardless of the paper cutter extended to him by the +shopman, a gentleman, pushing by him, asked if the publisher was at home; +and as the shopman, bowing very low, answered "Yes," the new-comer darted +into a little recess behind the shop. Mr. Tomkins, who had looked up +very angrily on being jostled so unceremoniously, started and changed +colour when he saw the face of the offender. "Saints in heaven!" he +murmured almost audibly, "what a look of that woman; and yet--no--it is +gone!" + +"Who is that gentleman?" he asked abruptly, as he paid for his book. + +The shopman smiled, but answered, "I don't know, sir." + +"That's a lie! You would never bow so low to a man you did not know!" + +The shopman smiled again. "Why, sir, there are many who come to this +house who don't wish us to know them." + +"Ah, I understand; you are political publishers,--afraid of libels, I +dare say. Always the same thing in this cursed country; and then they +tell us we are 'free!' So I suppose that gentleman has written something +William Pitt does not like. But William Pitt--ha--he's dead! Very true, +so he is! Sir, this little book seems most excellent; but in my time, a +man would have been sent to Newgate for printing it." While thus running +on, Mr. Tomkins had edged himself pretty close to the recess within which +the last-comer had disappeared; and there, seated on a high stool, he +contrived to read and to talk at the same time, but his eye and his ear +were both turned every instant towards the recess. + +The shopman, little suspecting that in so very eccentric, garrulous a +person he was permitting a spy to encroach upon the secrets of the house, +continued to make up sundry parcels of the new publication which had so +enchanted his customer, while he expatiated on the prodigious sensation +the book had created, and while the customer himself had already caught +enough of the low conversation within the recess to be aware that the +author of the book was the very person who had so roused his curiosity. + +Not till that gentleman, followed to the door by the polite publisher, +had quitted the shop, did Mr. Tomkins put this volume in his pocket, and, +with a familiar nod at the shopman, take himself off. + +He was scarcely in the street when he saw Percival St. John leaning out +of his cabriolet and conversing with the author he had discovered. He +halted a moment irresolute; but the young man, in whom our reader +recognizes John Ardworth, declining St. John's invitation to accompany +him to Brompton, resumed his way through the throng; the cabriolet drove +on; and Mr. Tomkins, though with a graver mien and a steadier step, +continued his desultory rambles. Meanwhile, John Ardworth strode +gloomily back to his lonely chamber. + +There, throwing himself on the well-worn chair before the crowded desk, +he buried his face in his hands, and for some minutes he felt all that +profound despondency peculiar to those who have won fame, to add to the +dark volume of experience the conviction of fame's nothingness. For some +minutes he felt an illiberal and ungrateful envy of St. John, so fair, so +light-hearted, so favoured by fortune, so rich in friends,--in a mother's +love, and in Helen's half-plighted troth. And he, from his very birth, +cut off from the social ties of blood; no mother's kiss to reward the +toils or gladden the sports of childhood; no father's cheering word up +the steep hill of man! And Helen, for whose sake he had so often, when +his heart grew weary, nerved himself again to labour, saying, "Let me be +rich, let me be great, and then I will dare to tell Helen that I love +her!"--Helen smiling upon another, unconscious of his pangs! What could +fame bestow in compensation? What matter that strangers praised, and the +babble of the world's running stream lingered its brief moment round the +pebble in its way. In the bitterness of his mood, he was unjust to his +rival. All that exquisite but half-concealed treasure of imagination and +thought which lay beneath the surface of Helen's childlike smile he +believed that he alone--he, soul of power and son of genius--was worthy +to discover and to prize. In the pride not unfrequent with that +kingliest of all aristocracies, the Chiefs of Intellect, he forgot the +grandeur which invests the attributes of the heart; forgot that, in the +lists of love, the heart is at least the equal of the mind. In the +reaction that follows great excitement, Ardworth had morbidly felt, that +day, his utter solitude,--felt it in the streets through which he had +passed; in the home to which he had returned; the burning tears, shed for +the first time since childhood, forced themselves through his clasped +fingers. At length he rose, with a strong effort at self-mastery, some +contempt of his weakness, and much remorse at his ungrateful envy. He +gathered together the soiled manuscript and dingy proofs of his book, and +thrust them through the grimy bars of his grate; then, opening his desk, +he drew out a small packet, with tremulous fingers unfolding paper after +paper, and gazed, with eyes still moistened, on the relics kept till then +in the devotion of the only sentiment inspired by Eros that had ever, +perhaps, softened his iron nature. These were two notes from Helen, some +violets she had once given him, and a little purse she had knitted for +him (with a playful prophecy of future fortunes) when he had last left +the vicarage. Nor blame him, ye who, with more habitual romance of +temper, and richer fertility of imagination, can reconcile the tenderest +memories with the sternest duties, if he, with all his strength, felt +that the associations connected with those tokens would but enervate his +resolves and embitter his resignation. You can guess not the extent of +the sacrifice, the bitterness of the pang, when, averting his head, he +dropped those relics on the hearth. The evidence of the desultory +ambition, the tokens of the visionary love,--the same flame leaped up to +devour both! It was as the funeral pyre of his youth! + +"So," he said to himself, "let all that can divert me from the true ends +of my life consume! Labour, take back your son." + +An hour afterwards, and his clerk, returning home, found Ardworth +employed as calmly as usual on his Law Reports. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE INVITATION TO LAUGHTON. + +That day, when he called at Brompton, Percival reported to Madame +Dalibard his interview with the eccentric Mr. Tomkins. Lucretia seemed +chafed and disconcerted by the inquiries with which that gentleman had +honoured her, and as soon as Percival had gone, she sent for Varney. He +did not come till late; she repeated to him what St. John had said of the +stranger. Varney participated in her uneasy alarm. The name, indeed, +was unknown to them, nor could they conjecture the bearer of so ordinary +a patronymic; but there had been secrets enough in Lucretia's life to +render her apprehensive of encountering those who had known her in +earlier years; and Varney feared lest any rumour reported to St. John +might create his mistrust, or lessen the hold obtained upon a victim +heretofore so unsuspicious. They both agreed in the expediency of +withdrawing themselves and St. John as soon as possible from London, and +frustrating Percival's chance of closer intercourse with the stranger, +who had evidently aroused his curiosity. + +The next day Helen was much indisposed; and the symptoms grew so grave +towards the evening that Madame Dalibard expressed alarm, and willingly +suffered Percival (who had only been permitted to see Helen for a few +minutes, when her lassitude was so extreme that she was obliged to retire +to her room) to go in search of a physician. He returned with one of the +most eminent of the faculty. On the way to Brompton, in reply to the +questions of Dr. ---- , Percival spoke of the dejection to which Helen +was occasionally subject, and this circumstance confirmed Dr. ---- , +after he had seen his patient, in his view of the case. In addition to +some feverish and inflammatory symptoms which he trusted his +prescriptions would speedily remove, he found great nervous debility, and +willingly fell in with the casual suggestion of Varney, who was present, +that a change of air would greatly improve Miss Mainwaring's general +health, as soon as the temporary acute attack had subsided. He did not +regard the present complaint very seriously, and reassured poor Percival +by his cheerful mien and sanguine predictions. Percival remained at the +house the whole day, and had the satisfaction, before he left, of hearing +that the remedies had already abated the fever, and that Helen had fallen +into a profound sleep. Walking back to town with Varney, the last said +hesitatingly,-- + +"You were saying to me the other day that you feared you should have to +go for a few days both to Vernon Grange and to Laughton, as your steward +wished to point out to you some extensive alterations in the management +of your woods to commence this autumn. As you were so soon coming of +age, Lady Mary desired that her directions should yield to your own. +Now, since Helen is recommended change of air, why not invite Madame +Dalibard to visit you at one of these places? I would suggest Laughton. +My poor mother-in-law I know longs to revisit the scenes of her youth, +and you could not compliment or conciliate her more than by such an +invitation." + +"Oh," said Percival, joyfully, "it would realize the fondest dream of my +heart to see Helen under the old roof-tree of Laughton; but as my mother +is abroad, and there is therefore no lady to receive them, perhaps--" + +"Why," interrupted Varney, "Madame Dalibard herself is almost the very +person whom les bienseances might induce you to select to do the honours +of your house in Lady Mary's absence, not only as kinswoman to yourself, +but as the nearest surviving relative of Sir Miles,--the most immediate +descendant of the St. Johns; her mature years and decorum of life, her +joint kindred to Helen and yourself, surely remove every appearance of +impropriety." + +"If she thinks so, certainly; I am no accurate judge of such formalities. +You could not oblige me more, Varney, than in pre-obtaining her consent +to the proposal. Helen at Laughton! Oh, blissful thought!" + +"And in what air would she be so likely to revive?" said Varney; but his +voice was thick and husky. + +The ideas thus presented to him almost banished anxiety from Percival's +breast. In a thousand delightful shapes they haunted him during the +sleepless night; and when, the next morning, he found that Helen was +surprisingly better, he pressed his invitation upon Madame Dalibard with +a warmth that made her cheek yet more pale, and the hand, which the boy +grasped as he pleaded, as cold as the dead. But she briefly consented, +and Percival, allowed a brief interview with Helen, had the rapture to +see her smile in a delight as childlike as his own at the news he +communicated, and listen with swimming eye when he dwelt on the walks +they should take together amidst haunts to become henceforth dear to her +as to himself. Fairyland dawned before them. + +The visit of the physician justified Percival's heightened spirits. All +the acuter symptoms had vanished already. He sanctioned his patient's +departure from town as soon as Madame Dalibard's convenience would +permit, and recommended only a course of restorative medicines to +strengthen the nervous system, which was to commence with the following +morning, and be persisted in for some weeks. He dwelt much on the effect +to be derived from taking these medicines the first thing in the day, as +soon as Helen woke. Varney and Madame Dalibard exchanged a rapid glance. +Charmed with the success that in this instance had attended the skill of +the great physician, Percival, in his usual zealous benevolence, now +eagerly pressed upon Madame Dalibard the wisdom of consulting Dr. ---- +for her own malady; and the doctor, putting on his spectacles and drawing +his chair nearer to the frowning cripple, began to question her of her +state. But Madame Dalibard abruptly and discourteously put a stop to all +interrogatories: she had already exhausted all remedies art could +suggest; she had become reconciled to her deplorable infirmity, and lost +all faith in physicians. Some day or other she might try the baths at +Egra, but till then she must be permitted to suffer undisturbed. + +The doctor, by no means wishing to undertake a case of chronic paralysis, +rose smilingly, and with a liberal confession that the German baths were +sometimes extremely efficacious in such complaints, pressed Percival's +outstretched hand, then slipped his own into his pocket, and bowed his +way out of the room. + +Relieved from all apprehension, Percival very good-humouredly received +the hint of Madame Dalibard that the excitement through which she had +gone for the last twenty-four hours rendered her unfit for his society, +and went home to write to Laughton and prepare all things for the +reception of his guests. Varney accompanied him. Percival found Beck in +the hall, already much altered, and embellished, by a new suit of livery. +The ex-sweeper stared hard at Varney, who, without recognizing, in so +smart a shape, the squalid tatterdemalion who had lighted him up the +stairs to Mr. Grabman's apartments, passed him by into Percival's little +study, on the ground-floor. + +"Well, Beck," said Percival, ever mindful of others, and attributing his +groom's astonished gaze at Varney to his admiration of that gentleman's +showy exterior, "I shall send you down to the country to-morrow with two +of the horses; so you may have to-day to yourself to take leave of your +nurse. I flatter myself you will find her rooms a little more +comfortable than they were yesterday." + +Beck heard with a bursting heart; and his master, giving him a cheering +tap on the shoulder, left him to find his way into the streets and to +Becky's abode. + +He found, indeed, that the last had already undergone the magic +transformation which is ever at the command of godlike wealth. Mrs. +Mivers, who was naturally prompt and active, had had pleasure in +executing Percival's commission. Early in the morning, floors had been +scrubbed, the windows cleaned, the ventilator fixed; then followed +porters with chairs and tables, and a wonderful Dutch clock, and new +bedding, and a bright piece of carpet; and then came two servants +belonging to Mrs. Mivers to arrange the chattels; and finally, when all +was nearly completed, the Avatar of Mrs. Mivers herself, to give the last +finish with her own mittened hands and in her own housewifely apron. + +The good lady was still employed in ranging a set of teacups on the +shelves of the dresser when Beck entered; and his old nurse, in the +overflow of her gratitude, hobbled up to her foundling and threw her arms +round his neck. + +"That's right!" said Mrs. Mivers, good-humouredly, turning round, and +wiping the tear from her eye. "You ought to make much of him, poor lad,- +-he has turned out a godsend indeed; and, upon my word, he looks very +respectable in his new clothes. But what is this,--a child's coral?" as, +opening a drawer in the dresser, she discovered Beck's treasure. "Dear +me, it is a very handsome one; why, these bells look like gold!" and +suspicion of her protege's honesty for a moment contracted her thoughtful +brow. "However on earth did you come by this, Mrs. Becky?" + +"Sure and sartin," answered Becky, dropping her mutilated courtesy, "I +be's glad it be found now, instead of sum days afore, or I might have +been vicked enough to let it go with the rest to the pop-shop; and I'm +sure the times out of mind ven that 'ere boy was a h-urchin that I've +risted the timtashung and said, 'No, Becky Carruthers, that maun't go to +my h-uncle's!'" + +"And why not, my good woman?" + +"Lor' love you, marm, if that curril could speak, who knows vot it might +say,--eh, lad, who knows? You sees, marm, my good man had not a long +been dead; I could not a get no vork no vays. 'Becky Carruthers,' says +I, 'you must go out in the streets a begging!' I niver thought I should +a come to that. But my poor husband, you sees, marm, fell from a +scaffol',--as good a man as hever--" + +"Yes, yes, you told me all that before," said Mrs. Mivers, growing +impatient, and already diverted from her interest in the coral by a new +cargo, all bright from the tinman, which, indeed, no less +instantaneously, absorbed the admiration both of Beck and his nurse. And +what with the inspection of these articles, and the comments each +provoked, the coral rested in peace on the dresser till Mrs. Mivers, when +just about to renew her inquiries, was startled by the sound of the Dutch +clock striking four,--a voice which reminded her of the lapse of time and +her own dinner-hour. So, with many promises to call again and have a +good chat with her humble friend, she took her departure, amidst the +blessings of Becky, and the less noisy, but not less grateful, +salutations of Beck. + +Very happy was the evening these poor creatures passed together over +their first cup of tea from the new bright copper kettle and the almost +forgotten luxury of crumpets, in which their altered circumstances +permitted them without extravagance to indulge. In the course of +conversation Beck communicated how much he had been astonished by +recognizing the visitor of Grabman, the provoker of the irritable grave- +stealer, in the familiar companion of his master; and when Becky told him +how often, in the domestic experience her vocation of charing had +accumulated, she had heard of the ruin brought on rich young men by +gamblers and sharpers, Beck promised to himself to keep a sharp eye on +Grabman's showy acquaintance. "For master is but a babe, like," said he, +majestically; "and I'd be cut into mincemeat afore I'd let an 'air on his +'ead come to 'arm, if so be's h-as 'ow I could perwent it." + +We need not say that his nurse confirmed him in these good resolutions. + +"And now," said Beck, when the time came for parting, "you'll keep from +the gin-shop, old 'oman, and not shame the young master?" + +"Sartin sure," answered Becky; "it is only ven vun is down in the vorld +that vun goes to the Ticker-shop. Now, h-indeed,"--and she looked round +very proudly,--"I 'as a 'spectable stashion, and I vould n't go for to +lower it, and let 'em say that Becky Carruthers does not know how to +conduct herself. The curril will be safe enuff now; but p'r'aps you had +best take it yourself, lad." + +"Vot should I do vith it? I've had enuff of the 'sponsibility. Put it +up in a 'ankerchiff, and p'r'aps ven master gets married, and 'as a babby +vots teethin', he vil say, 'Thank ye, Beck, for your curril.' Vould not +that make us proud, mammy?" + +Chuckling heartily at that vision, Beck kissed his nurse, and trying hard +to keep himself upright, and do credit to the dignity of his cloth, +returned to his new room over the stables. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THE WAKING OF THE SERPENT. + +And how, O Poet of the sad belief, and eloquence "like ebony, at once +dark and splendid [It was said of Tertullian that "his style was like +ebony, dark and splendid"]," how couldst thou, august Lucretius, deem it +but sweet to behold from the steep the strife of the great sea, or, safe +from the peril, gaze on the wrath of the battle, or, serene in the +temples of the wise, look afar on the wanderings of human error? Is it +so sweet to survey the ills from which thou art delivered? Shall not the +strong law of SYMPATHY find thee out, and thy heart rebuke thy +philosophy? Not sweet, indeed, can be man's shelter in self when he says +to the storm, "I have no bark on the sea;" or to the gods of the battle, +"I have no son in the slaughter;" when he smiles unmoved upon Woe, and +murmurs, "Weep on, for these eyes know no tears;" when, unappalled, he +beholdeth the black deeds of crime, and cries to his conscience, "Thou +art calm." Yet solemn is the sight to him who lives in all life,--seeks +for Nature in the storm, and Providence in the battle; loses self in the +woe; probes his heart in the crime; and owns no philosophy that sets him +free from the fetters of man. Not in vain do we scan all the contrasts +in the large framework of civilized earth if we note "when the dust +groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together." Range, O +Art, through all space, clasp together in extremes, shake idle wealth +from its lethargy, and bid States look in hovels where the teacher is +dumb, and Reason unweeded runs to rot! Bid haughty Intellect pause in +its triumph, and doubt if intellect alone can deliver the soul from its +tempters! Only that lives uncorrupt which preserves in all seasons the +human affections in which the breath of God breathes and is. Go forth to +the world, O Art, go forth to the innocent, the guilty, the wise, and the +dull; go forth as the still voice of Fate! Speak of the insecurity even +of goodness below; carry on the rapt vision of suffering Virtue through +"the doors of the shadows of death;" show the dim revelation symbolled +forth in the Tragedy of old,--how incomplete is man's destiny, how +undeveloped is the justice divine, if Antigone sleep eternally in the +ribs of the rock, and Oedipus vanish forever in the Grove of the Furies. +Here below, "the waters are hid with a stone, and the face of the deep is +frozen;" but above liveth He "who can bind the sweet influence of the +Pleiades, and loose the bands of Orion." Go with Fate over the bridge, +and she vanishes in the land beyond the gulf! Behold where the Eternal +demands Eternity for the progress of His creatures and the vindication of +His justice! + +It was past midnight, and Lucretia sat alone in her dreary room; her head +buried on her bosom, her eyes fixed on the ground, her hands resting on +her knees,--it was an image of inanimate prostration and decrepitude that +might have moved compassion to its depth. The door opened, and Martha +entered, to assist Madame Dalibard, as usual, to retire to rest. Her +mistress slowly raised her eyes at the noise of the opening door, and +those eyes took their searching, penetrating acuteness as they fixed upon +the florid nor uncomely countenance of the waiting-woman. + +In her starched cap, her sober-coloured stuff gown, in her prim, quiet +manner and a certain sanctified demureness of aspect, there was something +in the first appearance of this woman that impressed you with the notion +of respectability, and inspired confidence in those steady good qualities +which we seek in a trusty servant. But more closely examined, an +habitual observer might have found much to qualify, perhaps to disturb, +his first prepossessions. The exceeding lowness of the forehead, over +which that stiff, harsh hair was so puritanically parted; the severe +hardness of those thin, small lips, so pursed up and constrained; even a +certain dull cruelty in those light, cold blue eyes,--might have caused +an uneasy sentiment, almost approaching to fear. The fat grocer's spoilt +child instinctively recoiled from her when she entered the shop to make +her household purchases; the old, gray-whiskered terrier dog at the +public-house slunk into the tap when she crossed the threshold. + +Madame Dalibard silently suffered herself to be wheeled into the +adjoining bedroom, and the process of disrobing was nearly completed +before she said abruptly,-- + +"So you attended Mr. Varney's uncle in his last illness. Did he suffer +much?" + +"He was a poor creature at best," answered Martha; "but he gave me a deal +of trouble afore he went. He was a scranny corpse when I strecked him +out." + +Madame Dalibard shrank from the hands at that moment employed upon +herself, and said,-- + +"It was not, then, the first corpse you have laid out for the grave?" + +"Not by many." + +"And did any of those you so prepared die of the same complaint?" + +"I can't say, I'm sure," returned Martha. "I never inquires how folks +die; my bizness was to nurse 'em till all was over, and then to sit up. +As they say in my country, 'Riving Pike wears a hood when the weather +bodes ill.'" [If Riving Pike do wear a hood, The day, be sure, +will ne'er be good. A Lancashire Distich.] + +"And when you sat up with Mr. Varney's uncle, did you feel no fear in the +dead of the night,--that corpse before you, no fear?" + +"Young Mr. Varney said I should come to no harm. Oh, he's a clever man! +What should I fear, ma'am?" answered Martha, with a horrid simplicity. + +"You have belonged to a very religious sect, I think I have heard you +say,--a sect not unfamiliar to me; a sect to which great crime is very +rarely known?" + +"Yes, ma'am, some of 'em be tame enough, but others be weel [whirlpool] +deep!" + +"You do not believe what they taught you?" + +"I did when I was young and silly." + +"And what disturbed your belief?" + +"Ma'am, the man what taught me, and my mother afore me, was the first I +ever kep' company with," answered Martha, without a change in her florid +hue, which seemed fixed in her cheek, as the red in an autumn leaf. +"After he had ruined me, as the girls say, he told me as how it was all +sham!" + +"You loved him, then?" + +"The man was well enough, ma'am, and he behaved handsome and got me a +husband. I've known better days." + +"You sleep well at night?" + +"Yes, ma'am, thank you; I loves my bed." + +"I have done with you," said Madame Dalibard, stifling a groan, as now, +placed in her bed, she turned to the wall. Martha extinguished the +candle, leaving it on the table by the bed, with a book and a box of +matches, for Madame Dalibard was a bad sleeper, and often read in the +night. She then drew the curtains and went her way. + +It might be an hour after Martha had retired to rest that a hand was +stretched from the bed, that the candle was lighted, and Lucretia +Dalibard rose; with a sudden movement she threw aside the coverings, and +stood in her long night-gear on the floor. Yes, the helpless, paralyzed +cripple rose, was on her feet,--tall, elastic, erect! It was as a +resuscitation from the grave. Never was change more startling than that +simple action effected,--not in the form alone, but the whole character +of the face. The solitary light streamed upward on a countenance on +every line of which spoke sinister power and strong resolve. If you had +ever seen her before in her false, crippled state, prostrate and +helpless, and could have seen her then,--those eyes, if haggard still, +now full of life and vigour; that frame, if spare, towering aloft in +commanding stature, perfect in its proportions as a Grecian image of +Nemesis,--your amaze would have merged into terror, so preternatural did +the transformation appear, so did aspect and bearing contradict the very +character of her sex, uniting the two elements most formidable in man or +in fiend,--wickedness and power. + +She stood a moment motionless, breathing loud, as if it were a joy to +breathe free from restraint; and then, lifting the light, and gliding to +the adjoining room, she unlocked a bureau in the corner, and bent over a +small casket, which she opened with a secret spring. + +Reader, cast back your eye to that passage in this history when Lucretia +Clavering took down the volume from the niche in the tapestried chamber +at Laughton, and numbered, in thought, the hours left to her uncle's +life. Look back on the ungrateful thought; behold how it has swelled and +ripened into the guilty deed! There, in that box, Death guards his +treasure crypt. There, all the science of Hades numbers its murderous +inventions. As she searched for the ingredients her design had pre- +selected, something heavier than those small packets she deranged fell to +the bottom of the box with a low and hollow sound. She started at the +noise, and then smiled, in scorn of her momentary fear, as she took up +the ring that had occasioned the sound,--a ring plain and solid, like +those used as signets in the Middle Ages, with a large dull opal in the +centre. What secret could that bauble have in common with its ghastly +companions in Death's crypt? This had been found amongst Olivier's +papers; a note in that precious manuscript, which had given to the hands +of his successors the keys of the grave, had discovered the mystery of +its uses. By the pressure of the hand, at the touch of a concealed +spring, a barbed point flew forth steeped in venom more deadly than the +Indian extracts from the bag of the cobar de capello,--a venom to which +no antidote is known, which no test can detect. It corrupts the whole +mass of the blood; it mounts in frenzy and fire to the brain; it rends +the soul from the body in spasm and convulsion. But examine the dead, +and how divine the effect of the cause! How go back to the records of +the Borgias, and amidst all the scepticisms of times in which, happily, +such arts are unknown, unsuspected, learn from the hero of Machiavel how +a clasp of the hand can get rid of a foe! Easier and more natural to +point to the living puncture in the skin, and the swollen flesh round it, +and dilate on the danger a rusty nail--nay, a pin--can engender when the +humours are peccant and the blood is impure! The fabrication of that +bauble, the discovery of Borgia's device, was the masterpiece in the +science of Dalibard,--a curious and philosophical triumph of research, +hitherto unused by its inventor and his heirs; for that casket is rich in +the choice of more gentle materials: but the use yet may come. As she +gazed on the ring, there was a complacent and proud expression on +Lucretia's face. + +"Dumb token of Caesar Borgia," she murmured,--"him of the wisest head and +the boldest hand that ever grasped at empire, whom Machiavel, the +virtuous, rightly praised as the model of accomplished ambition! Why +should I falter in the paths which he trod with his royal step, only +because my goal is not a throne? Every circle is as complete in itself, +whether rounding a globule or a star. Why groan in the belief that the +mind defiles itself by the darkness through which it glides on its +object, or the mire through which it ascends to the hill? Murderer as he +was, poisoner, and fratricide, did blood clog his intellect, or crime +impoverish the luxury of his genius? Was his verse less melodious [It is +well known that Caesar Borgia was both a munificent patron and an +exquisite appreciator of art; well known also are his powers of +persuasion but the general reader may not, perhaps, be acquainted with +the fact that this terrible criminal was also a poet], or his love of art +less intense, or his eloquence less persuasive, because he sought to +remove every barrier, revenge every wrong, crush every foe?" + +In the wondrous corruption to which her mind had descended, thus murmured +Lucretia. Intellect had been so long made her sole god that the very +monster of history was lifted to her reverence by his ruthless intellect +alone,--lifted in that mood of feverish excitement when conscience, often +less silenced, lay crushed, under the load of the deed to come, into an +example and a guide. + +Though at times, when looking back, oppressed by the blackest despair, no +remorse of the past ever weakened those nerves when the Hour called up +its demon, and the Will ruled the rest of the human being as a machine. + +She replaced the ring, she reclosed the casket, relocked its depository; +then passed again into the adjoining chamber. + +A few minutes afterwards, and the dim light that stole from the heavens +(in which the moon was partially overcast) through the casement on the +staircase rested on a shapeless figure robed in black from head to foot,- +-a figure so obscure and undefinable in outline, so suited to the gloom +in its hue, so stealthy and rapid in its movements, that had you started +from sleep and seen it on your floor, you would perforce have deemed that +your fancy had befooled you! + +Thus darkly, through the darkness, went the Poisoner to her prey. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUCRETIA, BY LYTTON, V5 *** + +****** This file should be named 7689.txt or 7689.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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