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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/7690.txt b/7690.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..983f965 --- /dev/null +++ b/7690.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3518 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook Lucretia, by Edward-Bulwer Lytton, Vol. 6 +#118 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 6. + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: March 2005 [EBook #7690] +[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, V6 *** + + + +This eBook was produced by Tapio Riikonen +and David Widger + + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +RETROSPECT. + +We have now arrived at that stage in this history when it is necessary to +look back on the interval in Lucretia's life,--between the death of +Dalibard, and her reintroduction in the second portion of our tale. + +One day, without previous notice or warning, Lucretia arrived at William +Mainwaring's house; she was in the deep weeds of widowhood, and that garb +of mourning sufficed to add Susan's tenderest commiseration to the warmth +of her affectionate welcome. Lucretia appeared to have forgiven the +past, and to have conquered its more painful recollections; she was +gentle to Susan, though she rather suffered than returned her caresses; +she was open and frank to William. Both felt inexpressibly grateful for +her visit, the forgiveness it betokened, and the confidence it implied. +At this time no condition could be more promising and prosperous than +that of the young banker. From the first the most active partner in the +bank, he had now virtually almost monopolized the business. The senior +partner was old and infirm; the second had a bucolic turn, and was much +taken up by the care of a large farm he had recently purchased; so that +Mainwaring, more and more trusted and honoured, became the sole managing +administrator of the firm. Business throve in his able hands; and with +patient and steady perseverance there was little doubt but that, before +middle age was attained, his competence would have swelled into a fortune +sufficient to justify him in realizing the secret dream of his heart,-- +the parliamentary representation of the town, in which he had already +secured the affection and esteem of the inhabitants. + +It was not long before Lucretia detected the ambition William's industry +but partially concealed; it was not long before, with the ascendency +natural to her will and her talents, she began to exercise considerable, +though unconscious, influence over a man in whom a thousand good +qualities and some great talents were unhappily accompanied by infirm +purpose and weak resolutions. The ordinary conversation of Lucretia +unsettled his mind and inflamed his vanity,--a conversation able, +aspiring, full both of knowledge drawn from books and of that experience +of public men which her residence in Paris (whereon, with its new and +greater Charlemagne, the eyes of the world were turned) had added to her +acquisitions in the lore of human life. Nothing more disturbs a mind +like William Mainwaring's than that species of eloquence which rebukes +its patience in the present by inflaming all its hopes in the future. +Lucretia had none of the charming babble of women, none of that tender +interest in household details, in the minutiae of domestic life, which +relaxes the intellect while softening the heart. Hard and vigorous, her +sentences came forth in eternal appeal to the reason, or address to the +sterner passions in which love has no share. Beside this strong thinker, +poor Susan's sweet talk seemed frivolous and inane. Her soft hold upon +Mainwaring loosened. He ceased to consult her upon business; he began to +repine that the partner of his lot could have little sympathy with his +dreams. More often and more bitterly now did his discontented glance, in +his way homeward, rove to the rooftops of the rural member for the town; +more eagerly did he read the parliamentary debates; more heavily did he +sigh at the thought of eloquence denied a vent, and ambition delayed in +its career. + +When arrived at this state of mind, Lucretia's conversation took a more +worldly, a more practical turn. Her knowledge of the speculators of +Paris instructed her pictures of bold ingenuity creating sudden wealth; +she spoke of fortunes made in a day,--of parvenus bursting into +millionnaires; of wealth as the necessary instrument of ambition, as the +arch ruler of the civilized world. Never once, be it observed, in these +temptations, did Lucretia address herself to the heart; the ordinary +channels of vulgar seduction were disdained by her. She would not have +stooped so low as Mainwaring's love, could she have commanded or allured +it; she was willing to leave to Susan the husband reft from her own +passionate youth, but leave him with the brand on his brow and the worm +at his heart,--a scoff and a wreck. + +At this time there was in that market-town one of those adventurous, +speculative men, who are the more dangerous impostors because imposed +upon by their own sanguine chimeras, who have a plausibility in their +calculations, an earnestness in their arguments, which account for the +dupes they daily make in our most sober and wary of civilized +communities. Unscrupulous in their means, yet really honest in the +belief that their objects can be attained, they are at once the rogues +and fanatics of Mammon. This person was held to have been fortunate in +some adroit speculations in the corn trade, and he was brought too +frequently into business with Mainwaring not to be a frequent visitor at +the house. In him Lucretia saw the very instrument of her design. She +led him on to talk of business as a game, of money as a realizer of cent +per cent; she drew him into details, she praised him, she admired. In +his presence she seemed only to hear him; in his absence, musingly, she +started from silence to exclaim on the acuteness of his genius and the +accuracy of his figures. Soon the tempter at Mainwaring's heart gave +signification to these praises, soon this adventurer became his most +intimate friend. Scarcely knowing why, never ascribing the change to her +sister, poor Susan wept, amazed at Mainwaring's transformation. No care +now for the new books from London, or the roses in the garden; the music +on the instrument was unheeded. Books, roses, music,--what are those +trifles to a man thinking upon cent per cent? Mainwaring's very +countenance altered; it lost its frank, affectionate beauty: sullen, +abstracted, morose, it showed that some great care was at the core. Then +Lucretia herself began grievingly to notice the change to Susan; +gradually she altered her tone with regard to the speculator, and hinted +vague fears, and urged Susan's remonstrance and warning. As she had +anticipated, warning and remonstrance came in vain to the man who, +comparing Lucretia's mental power to Susan's, had learned to despise the +unlearned, timid sense of the latter. + +It is unnecessary to trace this change in Mainwaring step by step, or to +measure the time which sufficed to dazzle his reason and blind his +honour. In the midst of schemes and hopes which the lust of gold now +pervaded came a thunderbolt. An anonymous letter to the head partner of +the bank provoked suspicions that led to minute examination of the +accounts. It seemed that sums had been irregularly advanced (upon bills +drawn by men of straw) to the speculator by Mainwaring; and the +destination of these sums could be traced to gambling operations in trade +in which Mainwaring had a private interest and partnership. So great, as +we have said, had been the confidence placed in William's abilities and +honour that the facilities afforded him in the disposal of the joint +stock far exceeded those usually granted to the partner of a firm, and +the breach of trust appeared the more flagrant from the extent of the +confidence misplaced. Meanwhile, William Mainwaring, though as yet +unconscious of the proceedings of his partners, was gnawed by anxiety and +remorse, not unmixed with hope. He depended upon the result of a bold +speculation in the purchase of shares in a Canal Company, a bill for +which was then before parliament, with (as he was led to believe) a +certainty of success. The sums he had, on his own responsibility, +abstracted from the joint account were devoted to this adventure. But, +to do him justice, he never dreamed of appropriating the profits +anticipated to himself. Though knowing that the bills on which the +moneys had been advanced were merely nominal deposits, he had confidently +calculated on the certainty of success for the speculations to which the +proceeds so obtained were devoted, and he looked forward to the moment +when he might avow what he had done, and justify it by doubling the +capital withdrawn. But to his inconceivable horror, the bill of the +Canal Company was rejected in the Lords; the shares bought at a premium +went down to zero; and to add to his perplexity, the speculator abruptly +disappeared from the town. In this crisis he was summoned to meet his +indignant associates. + +The evidence against him was morally damning, if not legally conclusive. +The unhappy man heard all in the silence of despair. Crushed and +bewildered, he attempted no defence. He asked but an hour to sum up the +losses of the bank and his own; they amounted within a few hundreds to +the 10,000 pounds he had brought to the firm, and which, in the absence +of marriage-settlements, was entirely at his own disposal. This sum he +at once resigned to his associates, on condition that they should defray +from it his personal liabilities. The money thus repaid, his partners +naturally relinquished all further inquiry. They were moved by pity for +one so gifted and so fallen,--they even offered him a subordinate but +lucrative situation in the firm in which he had been partner; but +Mainwaring wanted the patience and resolution to work back the redemption +of his name,--perhaps, ultimately, of his fortunes. In the fatal anguish +of his shame and despair, he fled from the town; his flight confirmed +forever the rumours against him,--rumours worse than the reality. It was +long before he even admitted Susan to the knowledge of the obscure refuge +he had sought; there, at length, she joined him. Meanwhile, what did +Lucretia? She sold nearly half of her own fortune, constituted +principally of the moiety of her portion which, at Dalibard's death, had +passed to herself as survivor, and partly of the share in her deceased +husband's effects which the French law awarded to her, and with the +proceeds of this sum she purchased an annuity for her victims. Was this +strange generosity the act of mercy, the result of repentance? No; it +was one of the not least subtle and delicious refinements of her revenge. +To know him who had rejected her, the rival who had supplanted, the +miserable pensioners of her bounty, was dear to her haughty and +disdainful hate. The lust of power, ever stronger in her than avarice, +more than reconciled her to the sacrifice of gold. Yes, here she, the +despised, the degraded, had power still; her wrath had ruined the +fortunes of her victim, blasted the repute, embittered and desolated +evermore the future,--now her contemptuous charity fed the wretched lives +that she spared in scorn. She had no small difficulty, it is true, in +persuading Susan to accept this sacrifice, and she did so only by +sustaining her sister's belief that the past could yet be retrieved, that +Mainwaring's energies could yet rebuild their fortunes, and that as the +annuity was at any time redeemable, the aid therefore was only temporary. +With this understanding, Susan, overwhelmed with gratitude, weeping and +broken-hearted, departed to join the choice of her youth. As the men +deputed by the auctioneer to arrange and ticket the furniture for sale +entered the desolate house, Lucretia then, with the step of a conqueror, +passed from the threshold. + +"Ah!" she murmured, as she paused, and gazed on the walls, "ah, they were +happy when I first entered those doors,--happy in each other's tranquil +love; happier still when they deemed I had forgiven the wrong and abjured +the past! How honoured was then their home! How knew I then, for the +first time, what the home of love can be! And who had destroyed for me, +upon all the earth, a home like theirs? They on whom that home smiled +with its serene and taunting peace! I--I, the guest! I--I, the +abandoned, the betrayed,--what dark memories were on my soul, what a hell +boiled within my bosom! Well might those memories take each a voice to +accuse them; well, from that hell, might rise the Alecto! Their lives +were in my power, my fatal dowry at my command,--rapid death, or slow, +consuming torture; but to have seen each cheer the other to the grave, +lighting every downward step with the eyes of love,--vengeance so urged +would have fallen only on myself! Ha! deceiver, didst thou plume +thyself, forsooth, on spotless reputation? Didst thou stand, me by thy +side, amongst thy perjured household gods and talk of honour? Thy home, +it is reft from thee; thy reputation, it is a, scoff; thine honour, it is +a ghost that shall haunt thee! Thy love, can it linger yet? Shall the +soft eyes of thy wife not burn into thy heart, and shame turn love into +loathing? Wrecks of my vengeance, minions of my bounty, I did well to +let ye live; I shake the dust from my feet on your threshold. Live on, +homeless, hopeless, and childless! The curse is fulfilled!" + +From that hour Lucretia never paused from her career to inquire further +of her victims; she never entered into communication with either. They +knew not her address nor her fate, nor she theirs. As she had reckoned, +Mainwaring made no effort to recover himself from his fall. All the high +objects that had lured his ambition were gone from him evermore. No +place in the State, no authority in the senate, awaits in England the man +with a blighted name. For the lesser objects of life he had no heart and +no care. They lived in obscurity in a small village in Cornwall till the +Peace allowed them to remove to France; the rest of their fate is known. + +Meanwhile, Lucretia removed to one of those smaller Londons, resorts of +pleasure and idleness, with which rich England abounds, and in which +widows of limited income can make poverty seem less plebeian. And now, +to all those passions that had hitherto raged within her, a dismal apathy +succeeded. It was the great calm in her sea of life. The winds fell, +and the sails drooped. Her vengeance satisfied, that which she had made +so preternaturally the main object of existence, once fulfilled, left her +in youth objectless. + +She strove at first to take pleasure in the society of the place; but its +frivolities and pettiness of purpose soon wearied that masculine and +grasping mind, already made insensible to the often healthful, often +innocent, excitement of trifles, by the terrible ordeal it had passed. +Can the touch of the hand, scorched by the burning iron, feel pleasure in +the softness of silk, or the light down of the cygnet's plume? She next +sought such relief as study could afford; and her natural bent of +thought, and her desire to vindicate her deeds to herself, plunged her +into the fathomless abyss of metaphysical inquiry with the hope to +confirm into positive assurance her earlier scepticism,--with the +atheist's hope to annihilate the soul, and banish the presiding God. But +no voice that could satisfy her reason came from those dreary deeps; +contradiction on contradiction met her in the maze. Only when, wearied +with book-lore, she turned her eyes to the visible Nature, and beheld +everywhere harmony, order, system, contrivance, art, did she start with +the amaze and awe of instinctive conviction, and the natural religion +revolted from her cheerless ethics. Then came one of those sudden +reactions common with strong passions and exploring minds, but more +common with women, however manlike, than with men. Had she lived in +Italy then, she had become a nun; for in this woman, unlike Varney and +Dalibard, the conscience could never be utterly silenced. In her choice +of evil, she found only torture to her spirit in all the respites +afforded to the occupations it indulged. When employed upon ill, remorse +gave way to the zest of scheming; when the ill was done, remorse came +with the repose. + +It was in this peculiar period of her life that Lucretia, turning +everywhere, and desperately, for escape from the past, became acquainted +with some members of one of the most rigid of the sects of Dissent. At +first she permitted herself to know and commune with these persons from a +kind of contemptuous curiosity; she desired to encourage, in +contemplating them, her experience of the follies of human nature: but in +that crisis of her mind, in those struggles of her reason, whatever +showed that which she most yearned to discover,--namely, earnest faith, +rooted and genuine conviction, whether of annihilation or of immortality, +a philosophy that might reconcile her to crime by destroying the +providence of good, or a creed that could hold out the hope of redeeming +the past and exorcising sin by the mystery of a Divine sacrifice,--had +over her a power which she had not imagined or divined. Gradually the +intense convictions of her new associates disturbed and infected her. +Their affirmations that as we are born in wrath, so sin is our second +nature, our mysterious heritage, seemed, to her understanding, willing to +be blinded, to imply excuses for her past misdeeds. Their assurances +that the worst sinner may become the most earnest saint; that through but +one act of the will, resolute faith, all redemption is to be found,-- +these affirmations and these assurances, which have so often restored the +guilty and remodelled the human heart, made a salutary, if brief, +impression upon her. Nor were the lives of these Dissenters (for the +most part austerely moral), nor the peace and self-complacency which they +evidently found in the satisfaction of conscience and fulfilment of duty, +without an influence over her that for a while both chastened and +soothed. + +Hopeful of such a convert, the good teachers strove hard to confirm the +seeds springing up from the granite and amidst the weeds; and amongst +them came one man more eloquent, more seductive, than the rest,--Alfred +Braddell. This person, a trader at Liverpool, was one of those strange +living paradoxes that can rarely be found out of a commercial community. +He himself had been a convert to the sect, and like most converts, he +pushed his enthusiasm into the bigotry of the zealot; he saw no salvation +out of the pale into which he had entered. But though his belief was +sincere, it did not genially operate on his practical life; with the most +scrupulous attention to forms, he had the worldliness and cunning of the +carnal. He had abjured the vices of the softer senses, but not that +which so seldom wars on the decorums of outer life. He was essentially a +money-maker,--close, acute, keen, overreaching. Good works with him were +indeed as nothing,--faith the all in all. He was one of the elect, and +could not fall. Still, in this man there was all the intensity which +often characterizes a mind in proportion to the narrowness of its +compass; that intensity gave fire to his gloomy eloquence, and strength +to his obstinate will. He saw Lucretia, and his zeal for her conversion +soon expanded into love for her person; yet that love was secondary to +his covetousness. Though ostensibly in a flourishing business, he was +greatly distressed for money to carry on operations which swelled beyond +the reach of his capital; his fingers itched for the sum which Lucretia +had still at her disposal. But the seeming sincerity of the man, the +persuasion of his goodness, his reputation for sanctity, deceived her; +she believed herself honestly and ardently beloved, and by one who could +guide her back, if not to happiness, at least to repose. She herself +loved him not,--she could love no more. But it seemed to her a luxury to +find some one she could trust, she could honour. If you had probed into +the recesses of her mind at that time, you would have found that no +religious belief was there settled,--only the desperate wish to believe; +only the disturbance of all previous infidelity; only a restless, gnawing +desire to escape from memory, to emerge from the gulf. In this troubled, +impatient disorder of mind and feeling, she hurried into a second +marriage as fatal as the first. + +For a while she bore patiently all the privations of that ascetic +household, assisted in all those external formalities, centred all her +intellect within that iron range of existence. But no grace descended on +her soul,--no warm ray unlocked the ice of the well. Then, gradually +becoming aware of the niggardly meanness, of the harsh, uncharitable +judgments, of the decorous frauds that, with unconscious hypocrisy, her +husband concealed beneath the robes of sanctity, a weary disgust stole +over her,--it stole, it deepened, it increased; it became intolerable +when she discovered that Braddell had knowingly deceived her as to his +worldly substance. In that mood in which she had rushed into these +ominous nuptials, she had had no thought for vulgar advantages; had +Braddell been a beggar, she had married him as rashly. But he, with the +inability to comprehend a nature like hers,--dim not more to her terrible +vices than to the sinister grandeur which made their ordinary +atmosphere,--had descended cunningly to address the avarice he thought as +potent in others as himself, to enlarge on the worldly prosperity with +which Providence had blessed him; and now she saw that her dowry alone +had saved the crippled trader from the bankrupt list. With this revolting +discovery, with the scorn it produced, vanished all Lucretia's unstable +visions of reform. She saw this man a saint amongst his tribe, and would +not believe in the virtues of his brethren, great and unquestionable as +they might have been proved to a more dispassionate and humbler inquirer. +The imposture she detected she deemed universal in the circle in which +she dwelt; and Satan once more smiled upon the subject he regained. +Lucretia became a mother; but their child formed no endearing tie between +the ill-assorted pair,--it rather embittered their discord. Dimly even +then, as she bent over the cradle, that vision, which now, in the old +house at Brompton, haunted her dreams and beckoned her over seas of blood +into the fancied future, was foreshadowed in the face of her infant son. +To be born again in that birth, to live only in that life, to aspire as +man may aspire, in that future man whom she would train to knowledge and +lead to power,--these were the feelings with which that sombre mother +gazed upon her babe. The idea that the low-born, grovelling father had +the sole right over that son's destiny, had the authority to cabin his +mind in the walls of form, bind him down to the sordid apprenticeship, +debased, not dignified, by the solemn mien, roused her indignant wrath; +she sickened when Braddell touched her child. All her pride of +intellect, that had never slept, all her pride of birth, long dormant, +woke up to protect the heir of her ambition, the descendant of her race, +from the defilement of the father's nurture. Not long after her +confinement, she formed a plan for escape; she disappeared from the house +with her child. Taking refuge in a cottage, living on the sale of the +few jewels she possessed, she was for some weeks almost happy. But +Braddell, less grieved by the loss than shocked by the scandal, was +indefatigable in his researches,--he discovered her retreat. The scene +between them was terrible. There was no resisting the power which all +civilized laws give to the rights of husband and father. Before this +man, whom she scorned so unutterably, Lucretia was impotent. Then all +the boiling passions long suppressed beneath that command of temper. +which she owed both to habitual simulation and intense disdain, rushed +forth. Then she appalled the impostor with her indignant denunciations +of his hypocrisy, his meanness, and his guile. Then, throwing off the +mask she had worn, she hurled her anathema on his sect, on his faith, +with the same breath that smote his conscience and left it wordless. She +shocked all the notions he sincerely entertained, and he stood awed by +accusations from a blasphemer whom he dared not rebuke. His rage broke +at length from his awe. Stung, maddened by the scorn of himself, his +blood fired into juster indignation by her scoff at his creed, he lost +all self-possession and struck her to the ground. In the midst of shame +and dread at disclosure of his violence, which succeeded the act so +provoked, he was not less relieved than amazed when Lucretia, rising +slowly, laid her hand gently on his arm and said, "Repent not, it is +passed; fear not, I will be silent! Come, you are the stronger,--you +prevail. I will follow my child to your home." + +In this unexpected submission in one so imperious, Braddell's imperfect +comprehension of character saw but fear, and his stupidity exulted in his +triumph. Lucretia returned with him. A few days afterwards Braddell +became ill; the illness increased,--slow, gradual, wearying. It broke +his spirit with his health; and then the steadfast imperiousness of +Lucretia's stern will ruled and subjugated him. He cowered beneath her +haughty, searching gaze, he shivered at her sidelong, malignant glance; +but with this fear came necessarily hate, and this hate, sometimes +sufficing to vanquish the fear, spitefully evinced itself in thwarting +her legitimate control over her infant. He would have it (though he had +little real love for children) constantly with him, and affected to +contradict all her own orders to the servants, in the sphere in which +mothers arrogate most the right. Only on these occasions sometimes would +Lucretia lose her grim self-control, and threaten that her child yet +should be emancipated from his hands, should yet be taught the scorn for +hypocrites which he had taught herself. These words sank deep, not only +in the resentment, but in the conscience, of the husband. Meanwhile, +Lucretia scrupled not to evince her disdain of Braddell by markedly +abstaining from all the ceremonies she had before so rigidly observed. +The sect grew scandalized. Braddell did not abstain from making known +his causes of complaint. The haughty, imperious woman was condemned in +the community, and hated in the household. + +It was at this time that Walter Ardworth, who was then striving to eke +out his means by political lectures (which in the earlier part of the +century found ready audience) in our great towns, came to Liverpool. +Braddell and Ardworth had been schoolfellows, and even at school embryo +politicians of congenial notions; and the conversion of the former to one +of the sects which had grown out of the old creeds, that, under Cromwell, +had broken the sceptre of the son of Belial and established the +Commonwealth of Saints, had only strengthened the republican tenets of +the sour fanatic. Ardworth called on Braddell, and was startled to find +in his schoolfellow's wife the niece of his benefactor, Sir Miles St. +John. Now, Lucretia had never divulged her true parentage to her +husband. In a union so much beneath her birth, she had desired to +conceal from all her connections the fall of the once-honoured heiress. +She had descended, in search of peace, to obscurity; but her pride +revolted from the thought that her low-born husband might boast of her +connections and parade her descent to his level. Fortunately, as she +thought, she received Ardworth before he was admitted to her husband, who +now, growing feebler and feebler, usually kept his room. She stooped to +beseech Ardworth not to reveal her secret; and he, comprehending her +pride, as a man well-born himself, and pitying her pain, readily gave his +promise. At the first interview, Braddell evinced no pleasure in the +sight of his old schoolfellow. It was natural enough that one so precise +should be somewhat revolted by one so careless of all form. But when +Lucretia imprudently evinced satisfaction at his surly remarks on his +visitor; when he perceived that it would please her that he should not +cultivate the acquaintance offered him,--he was moved, by the spirit of +contradiction, and the spiteful delight even in frivolous annoyance, to +conciliate and court the intimacy he had at first disdained: and then, by +degrees, sympathy in political matters and old recollections of sportive, +careless boyhood cemented the intimacy into a more familiar bond than the +sectarian had contracted really with any of his late associates. + +Lucretia regarded this growing friendship with great uneasiness; the +uneasiness increased to alarm when one day, in the presence of Ardworth, +Braddell, writhing with a sudden spasm, said: "I cannot account for these +strange seizures; I think verily I am poisoned!" and his dull eye rested +on Lucretia's pallid brow. She was unusually thoughtful for some days +after this remark; and one morning she informed her husband that she had +received the intelligence that a relation, from whom she had pecuniary +expectations, was dangerously ill, and requested his permission to visit +this sick kinsman, who dwelt in a distant county. Braddell's eyes +brightened at the thought of her absence; with little further questioning +he consented; and Lucretia, sure perhaps that the barb was in the side of +her victim, and reckoning, it may be, on greater freedom from suspicion +if her husband died in her absence, left the house. It was, indeed, to +the neighbourhood of her kindred that she went. In a private +conversation with Ardworth, when questioning him of his news of the +present possessor of Laughton, he had informed her that he had heard +accidentally that Vernon's two sons (Percival was not then born) were +sickly; and she went into Hampshire secretly and unknown, to see what +were really the chances that her son might yet become the lord of her +lost inheritance. + +During this absence, Braddell, now gloomily aware that his days were +numbered, resolved to put into practice the idea long contemplated, and +even less favoured by his spite than justified by the genuine convictions +of his conscience. Whatever his faults, sincere at least in his +religious belief, he might well look with dread to the prospect of the +training and education his son would receive from the hands of a mother +who had blasphemed his sect and openly proclaimed her infidelity. By +will, it is true, he might create a trust, and appoint guardians to his +child. But to have lived under the same roof with his wife,--nay, to +have carried her back to that roof when she had left it,--afforded tacit +evidence that whatever the disagreement between them, her conduct could +hardly have merited her exclusion from the privileges of a mother. The +guardianship might therefore avail little to frustrate Lucretia's +indirect contamination, if not her positive control. Besides, where +guardians are appointed, money must be left; and Braddell knew that at +his death his assets would be found insufficient for his debts. Who +would be guardian to a penniless infant? He resolved, therefore, to send +his child from his roof to some place where, if reared humbly, it might +at least be brought up in the right faith,--some place which might defy +the search and be beyond the perversion of the unbelieving mother. He +looked round, and discovered no instrument for his purpose that seemed so +ready as Walter Ardworth; for by this time he had thoroughly excited the +pity and touched the heart of that good-natured, easy man. His +representations of the misconduct of Lucretia were the more implicitly +believed by one who had always been secretly prepossessed against her; +who, admitted to household intimacy, was an eye-witness to her hard +indifference to her husband's sufferings; who saw in her very request not +to betray her gentle birth, the shame she felt in her election; who +regarded with indignation her unfeeling desertion of Braddell in his last +moments, and who, besides all this, had some private misfortunes of his +own which made him the more ready listener to themes on the faults of +women; and had already, by mutual confidences, opened the hearts of the +two ancient schoolfellows to each other's complaints and wrongs. The +only other confidant in the refuge selected for the child was a member of +the same community as Braddell, who kindly undertook to search for a +pious, godly woman, who, upon such pecuniary considerations as Braddell, +by robbing his creditors, could afford to bestow, would permanently offer +to the poor infant a mother's home and a mother's care. When this woman +was found, Braddell confided his child to Ardworth, with such a sum as he +could scrape together for its future maintenance. And to Ardworth, +rather than to his fellow-sectarian, this double trust was given, because +the latter feared scandal and misrepresentation if he should be +ostensibly mixed up in so equivocal a charge. Poor and embarrassed as +Walter Ardworth was, Braddell did not for once misinterpret character +when he placed the money in his hands; and this because the characters we +have known in transparent boyhood we have known forever. Ardworth was +reckless, and his whole life had been wrecked, his whole nature +materially degraded, by the want of common thrift and prudence. His own +money slipped through his fingers and left him surrounded by creditors, +whom, rigidly speaking, he thus defrauded; but direct dishonesty was as +wholly out of the chapter of his vices as if he had been a man of the +strictest principles and the steadiest honour. + +The child was gone, the father died, Lucretia returned, as we have seen +in Grabman's letter, to the house of death, to meet suspicion, and cold +looks, and menial accusations, and an inquest on the dead; but through +all this the reft tigress mourned her stolen whelp. As soon as all +evidence against her was proved legally groundless, and she had leave to +depart, she searched blindly and frantically for her lost child; but in +vain. The utter and penniless destitution in which she was left by her +husband's decease did not suffice to terminate her maddening chase. On +foot she wandered from village to village, and begged her way wherever a +false clew misled her steps. + +At last, in reluctant despair, she resigned the pursuit, and found +herself one day in the midst of the streets of London, half-famished and +in rags; and before her suddenly, now grown into vigorous youth,-- +blooming, sleek, and seemingly prosperous,--stood Gabriel Varney. By her +voice, as she approached and spoke, he recognized his stepmother; and +after a short pause of hesitation, he led her to his home. It is not our +purpose (for it is not necessary to those passages of their lives from +which we have selected the thread of our tale) to follow these two, thus +united, through their general career of spoliation and crime. Birds of +prey, they searched in human follies and human errors for their food: +sometimes severed, sometimes together, their interests remained one. +Varney profited by the mightier and subtler genius of evil to which he +had leashed himself; for, caring little for luxuries, and dead to the +softer senses, she abandoned to him readily the larger share of their +plunder. Under a variety of names and disguises, through a succession of +frauds, some vast and some mean, but chiefly on the Continent, they had +pursued their course, eluding all danger and baffling all law. + +Between three and four years before this period, Varney's uncle, the +painter, by one of those unexpected caprices of fortune which sometimes +find heirs to a millionnaire at the weaver's loom or the labourer's +plough, had suddenly, by the death of a very distant kinsman whom he had +never seen, come into possession of a small estate, which he sold for +6,000 pounds. Retiring from all his profession, he lived as comfortably +as his shattered constitution permitted upon the interest of this sum; +and he wrote to his nephew, then at Paris, to communicate the good news +and offer the hospitality of his hearth. Varney hastened to London. +Shortly afterwards a nurse, recommended as an experienced, useful person +in her profession, by Nicholas Grabman, who in many a tortuous scheme had +been Gabriel's confederate, was installed in the poor painter's house. +From that time his infirmities increased. He died, as his doctor said, +"by abstaining from the stimulants to which his constitution had been so +long accustomed;" and Gabriel Varney was summoned to the reading of the +will. To his inconceivable disappointment, instead of bequeathing to his +nephew the free disposal of his 6,000 pounds, that sum was assigned to +trustees for the benefit of Gabriel and his children yet unborn,--"An +inducement," said the poor testator, tenderly, "for the boy to marry and +reform!" So that the nephew could only enjoy the interest, and had no +control over the capital. The interest of 6,000 pounds invested in the +Bank of England was flocci nauci to the voluptuous spendthrift, Gabriel +Varney. + +Now, these trustees were selected from the painter's earlier and more +respectable associates, who had dropped him, it is true, in his days of +beggary and disrepute, but whom the fortune that made him respectable had +again conciliated. One of these trustees had lately retired to pass the +remainder of his days at Boulogne; the other was a hypochondriacal +valetudinarian,--neither of them, in short, a man of business. Gabriel +was left to draw out the interest of the money as it became periodically +due at the Bank of England. In a few months the trustee settled at +Boulogne died; the trust, of course, lapsed to Mr. Stubmore, the +valetudinarian survivor. Soon pinched by extravagances, and emboldened +by the character and helpless state of the surviving trustee, Varney +forged Mr. Stubmore's signature to an order on the bank to sell out such +portion of the capital as his wants required. The impunity of one +offence begot courage for others, till the whole was well-nigh expended. +Upon these sums Varney had lived very pleasantly, and he saw with a deep +sigh the approaching failure of so facile a resource. + +In one of the melancholy moods engendered by this reflection, Varney +happened to be in the very town in France in which the Mainwarings, in +their later years, had taken refuge, and from which Helen had been +removed to the roof of Mr. Fielden. By accident he heard the name, and, +his curiosity leading to further inquiries, learned that Helen was made +an heiress by the will of her grandfather. With this knowledge came a +thought of the most treacherous, the most miscreant, and the vilest crime +that even he yet had perpetrated; so black was it that for a while he +absolutely struggled against it. But in guilt there seems ever a +Necessity that urges on, step after step, to the last consummation. +Varney received a letter to inform him that the last surviving trustee +was no more, that the trust was therefore now centred in his son and +heir, that that gentleman was at present very busy in settling his own +affairs and examining into a very mismanaged property in Devonshire which +had devolved upon him, but that he hoped in a few months to discharge, +more efficiently than his father had done, the duties of trustee, and +that some more profitable investment than the Bank of England would +probably occur. + +This new trustee was known personally to Varney,--a contemporary of his +own, and in earlier youth a pupil to his uncle. But, since then, he had +made way in life, and retired from the profession of art. This younger +Stubmore he knew to be a bustling, officious man of business, somewhat +greedy and covetous, but withal somewhat weak of purpose, good-natured in +the main, and with a little lukewarm kindness for Gabriel, as a quondam +fellow-pupil. That Stubmore would discover the fraud was evident; that +he would declare it, for his own sake, was evident also; that the bank +would prosecute, that Varney would be convicted, was no less surely to be +apprehended. There was only one chance left to the forger: if he could +get into his hands, and in time, before Stubmore's bustling interference, +a sum sufficient to replace what had been fraudulently taken, he might +easily manage, he thought, to prevent the forgery ever becoming known. +Nay, if Stubmore, roused into strict personal investigation by the new +power of attorney which a new investment in the bank would render +necessary, should ascertain what had occurred, his liabilities being now +indemnified, and the money replaced, Varney thought he could confidently +rely on his ci-devant fellow-pupil's assent to wink at the forgery and +hush up the matter. But this was his only chance. How was the money to +be gained? He thought of Helen's fortune, and the last scruple gave way +to the imminence of his peril and the urgency of his fears. + +With this decision, he repaired to Lucretia, whose concurrence was +necessary to his designs. Long habits of crime had now deepened still +more the dark and stern colour of that dread woman's sombre nature. But +through all that had ground the humanity from her soul, one human +sentiment, fearfully tainted and adulterated as it was, still struggled +for life,--the memory of the mother. It was by this, her least criminal +emotion, that Varney led her to the worst of her crimes. He offered to +sell out the remainder of the trust-money by a fresh act of forgery, to +devote such proceeds to the search for her lost Vincent; he revived the +hopes she had long since gloomily relinquished, till she began to +conceive the discovery easy and certain. He then brought before her the +prospect of that son's succession to Laughton: but two lives now between +him and those broad lands,--those two lives associated with just cause of +revenge. Two lives! Lucretia till then did not know that Susan had left +a child, that a pledge of those nuptials, to which she imputed all her +infamy, existed to revive a jealousy never extinguished, appeal to the +hate that had grown out of her love. More readily than Varney had +anticipated, and with fierce exultation, she fell into his horrible +schemes. + +Thus had she returned to England and claimed the guardianship of her +niece. Varney engaged a dull house in the suburb, and looking out for a +servant not likely to upset and betray, found the nurse who had watched +over his uncle's last illness; but Lucretia, according to her invariable +practice, rejected all menial accomplices, reposed no confidence in the +tools of her black deeds. Feigning an infirmity that would mock all +suspicion of the hand that mixed the draught, and the step that stole to +the slumber, she defied the justice of earth, and stood alone under the +omniscience of Heaven. + +Various considerations had delayed the execution of the atrocious deed so +coldly contemplated. Lucretia herself drew back, perhaps more daunted by +conscience than she herself was distinctly aware, and disguising her +scruples in those yet fouler refinements of hoped revenge which her +conversations with Varney have betrayed to the reader. The failure of +the earlier researches for the lost Vincent, the suspended activity of +Stubmore, left the more impatient murderer leisure to make the +acquaintance of St. John, steal into the confidence of Helen, and render +the insurances on the life of the latter less open to suspicion than if +effected immediately on her entrance into that shamble-house, and before +she could be supposed to form that affection for her aunt which made +probable so tender a forethought. These causes of delay now vanished, +the Parcae closed the abrupt woof, and lifted the impending shears. + +Lucretia had long since dropped the name of Braddell. She shrank from +proclaiming those second spousals, sullied by the degradation to which +they had exposed her, and the suspicions implied in the inquest on her +husband, until the hour for acknowledging her son should arrive. She +resumed, therefore, the name of Dalibard, and by that we will continue to +call her. Nor was Varney uninfluential in dissuading her from +proclaiming her second marriage till occasion necessitated. If the son +were discovered, and proofs of his birth in the keeping of himself and +his accomplice, his avarice naturally suggested the expediency of +wringing from that son some pledge of adequate reward on succession to an +inheritance which they alone could secure to him; out of this fancied +fund not only Grabman, but his employer, was to be paid. The concealment +of the identity between Mrs. Braddell and Madame Dalibard might +facilitate such an arrangement. This idea Varney locked as yet in his +own breast. He did not dare to speak to Lucretia of the bargain he +ultimately meditated with her son. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +MR. GRABMAN'S ADVENTURES. + +The lackeys in their dress liveries stood at the porch of Laughton as the +postilions drove rapidly along the road, sweeping through venerable +groves, tinged with the hues of autumn, up to that stately pile. From +the window of the large, cumbrous vehicle which Percival, mindful of +Madame Dalibard's infirmity, had hired for her special accommodation, +Lucretia looked keenly. On the slope of the hill grouped the deer, and +below, where the lake gleamed, the swan rested on the wave. Farther on +to the left, gaunt and stag-headed, rose, living still, from the depth of +the glen, Guy's memorable oak. Coming now in sight, though at a +distance, the gray church-tower emerged from the surrounding masses of +solemn foliage. Suddenly the road curves round, and straight before her +(the rooks cawing above the turrets, the sun reflected from the vanes) +Lucretia gazes on the halls of Laughton. And didst thou not, O Guy's +oak, murmur warning from thine oracular hollows? And thou who sleepest +below the church-tower, didst thou not turn, Miles St. John, in thy +grave, when, with such tender care, the young lord of Laughton bore that +silent guest across his threshold, and with credulous, moistened eyes, +welcomed Treason and Murder to his hearth? + +There, at the porch, paused Helen, gazing with the rapt eye of the +poetess on the broad landscape, checkered by the vast shadows cast from +the setting sun. There, too, by her side lingered Varney, with an +artist's eye for the stately scene, till a thought, not of art, changed +the face of the earth, and the view without mirrored back the Golgotha of +his soul. + +Leave them thus; we must hurry on. + +One day a traveller stopped his gig at a public-house in a village in +Lancashire. He chucked the rein to the hostler, and in reply to a +question what oats should be given to the horse, said, "Hay and water; +the beast is on job." Then sauntering to the bar, he called for a glass +of raw brandy for himself; and while the host drew the spirit forth from +the tap, he asked carelessly if some years ago a woman of the name of +Joplin had not resided in the village. + +"It is strange," said the host, musingly. "What is strange?" + +"Why, we have just had a gent asking the same question. I have only been +here nine year come December; but my old hostler was born in the village, +and never left it. So the gent had in the hostler, and he is now gone +into the village to pick up what else he can learn." + +This intelligence seemed to surprise and displease the traveller. + +"What the deuce!" he muttered; "does Jason mistrust me? Has he set +another dog on the scent? Humph!" He drained off his brandy, and +sallied forth to confer with the hostler. + +"Well, my friend," said Mr. Grabman,--for the traveller was no other than +that worthy,--"well, so you remember Mrs. Joplin more than twenty years +ago, eh?" + +"Yees, I guess; more than twenty years since she left the pleck +[Lancashire and Yorkshire synonym for place]." + +"Ah, she seems to have been a restless body. She had a child with her?" + +"Yees, I moind that." + +"And I dare say you heard her say the child was not her own,--that she +was paid well for it, eh?" + +"Noa; my missus did not loike me to chaffer much with neighbour Joplin, +for she was but a bad 'un,--pretty fease, too. She lived agin the wogh +[Anglice, wall] yonder, where you see that gent coming out." + +"Oho! that is the gent who was asking after Mrs. Joplin?" + +"Yes; and he giv' me half-a-croon!" said the clever hostler, holding out +his hand. + +Mr. Grabman, too thoughtful, too jealous of his rival, to take the hint +at that moment, darted off, as fast as his thin legs could carry him, +towards the unwelcome interferer in his own business. + +Approaching the gentleman,--a tall, powerful-looking young man,--he +somewhat softened his tone, and mechanically touched his hat as he said,- +- + +"What, sir, are you, too, in search of Mrs. Joplin?" + +"Sir, I am," answered the young man, eying Grabman deliberately; "and +you, I suppose, are the person I have found before me on the same +search,--first at Liverpool; next at C----, about fifteen miles from that +town; thirdly, at I----; and now we meet here. You have had the start of +me. What have you learned?" + +Mr. Grabman smiled. "Softly, sir, softly. May I first ask--since open +questioning seems the order of the day--whether I have the honour to +address a brother practitioner,--one of the law, sir, one of the law?" + +"I am one of the law." + +Mr. Grabman bowed and scowled. + +"And may I make bold to ask the name of your client?" + +"Certainly you may ask. Every man has a right to ask what he pleases, in +a civil way." + +"But you'll not answer? Deep! Oh, I understand! Very good. But I am +deep too, sir. You know Mr. Varney, I suppose?" + +The gentleman looked surprised. His bushy brows met over his steady, +sagacious eyes; but after a moment's pause the expression of his face +cleared up. + +"It is as I thought," he said, half to himself. "Who else could have had +an interest in similar inquiries?--Sir," he added, with a quick and +decided tone, "you are doubtless employed by Mr. Varney on behalf of +Madame Dalibard and in search of evidence connected with the loss of an +unhappy infant. I am on the same quest, and for the same end. The +interests of your client are mine. Two heads are better than one; let us +unite our ingenuity and endeavours." + +"And share the pec, I suppose?" said Grabman, dryly, buttoning up his +pockets. + +"Whatever fee you may expect you will have, anyhow, whether I assist you +or not. I expect no fee, for mine is a personal interest, which I serve +gratuitously; but I can undertake to promise you, on my own part, more +than the ordinary professional reward for your co-operation." + +"Well, sir," said Grabman, mollified, "you speak very much like a +gentleman. My feelings were hurt at first, I own. I am hasty, but I can +listen to reason. Will you walk back with me to the house you have just +left? And suppose we then turn in and have a chop together, and compare +notes." + +"Willingly," answered the tall stranger, and the two inquisitors amicably +joined company. The result of their inquiries was not, however, very +satisfactory. No one knew whither Mrs. Joplin had gone, though all +agreed it was in company with a man of bad character and vagrant habits; +all agreed, too, in the vague recollection of the child, and some +remembered that it was dressed in clothes finer than would have been +natural to an infant legally and filially appertaining to Mrs. Joplin. +One old woman remembered that on her reproaching Mrs. Joplin for some act +of great cruelty to the poor babe, she replied that it was not her flesh +and blood, and that if she had not expected more than she had got, she +would never have undertaken the charge. On comparing the information +gleaned at the previous places of their research, they found an entire +agreement as to the character personally borne by Mrs. Joplin. At the +village to which their inquiry had been first directed, she was known as +a respectable, precise young woman, one of a small congregation of rigid +Dissenters. She had married a member of the sect, and borne him a child, +which died two weeks after birth. She was then seen nursing another +infant, though how she came by it none knew. Shortly after this, her +husband, a journeyman carpenter of good repute, died; but to the surprise +of the neighbours, Mrs. Joplin continued to live as comfortably as +before, and seemed not to miss the wages of her husband,--nay, she rather +now, as if before kept back by the prudence of the deceased, launched +into a less thrifty mode of life, and a gayety of dress at variance both +with the mourning her recent loss should have imposed, and the austere +tenets of her sect. This indecorum excited angry curiosity, and drew +down stern remonstrance. Mrs. Joplin, in apparent disgust at this +intermeddling with her affairs, withdrew from the village to a small +town, about twenty miles distant, and there set up a shop. But her moral +lapse became now confirmed; her life was notoriously abandoned, and her +house the resort of all the reprobates of the place. Whether her means +began to be exhausted, or the scandal she provoked attracted the notice +of the magistrates and imposed a check on her course, was not very +certain, but she sold off her goods suddenly, and was next tracked to the +village in which Mr. Grabman met his new coadjutor; and there, though her +conduct was less flagrant, and her expenses less reckless, she made but a +very unfavourable impression, which was confirmed by her flight with an +itinerant hawker of the lowest possible character. Seated over their +port wine, the two gentlemen compared their experiences, and consulted on +the best mode of remending the broken thread of their research; when Mr. +Grabman said coolly, "But, after all, I think it most likely that we are +not on the right scent. This bantling may not be the one we search for." + +"Be not misled by that doubt. To arrive at the evidence we desire, we +must still track this wretched woman." + +"You are certain of that?" + +"Certain." + +"Hem! Did you ever hear of a Mr. Walter Ardworth?" + +"Yes, what of him?" + +"Why, he can best tell us where to look for the child." + +"I am sure he would counsel as I do." + +"You know him, then?" + +"I do." + +"What, he lives still?" + +"I hope so." + +"Can you bring me across him?" + +"If necessary." + +"And that young man, who goes by his name, brought up by Mr. Fielden?" + +"Well, sir?" + +"Is he not the son of Mr. Braddell?" + +The stranger was silent, and, shading his face with his hand, seemed +buried in thought. He then rose, took up his candle, and said quietly,-- + +"Sir, I wish you good-evening. I have letters to write in my own room. +I will consider by to-morrow, if you stay till then, whether we can +really aid each other further, or whether we should pursue our researches +separately." With these words he closed the door; and Mr. Grabman +remained baffled and bewildered. + +However, he too had a letter to write; so, calling for pen, ink, and +paper, and a pint of brandy, he indited his complaints and his news to +Varney. + +"Jason, (he began) are you playing me false? Have you set another man on +the track with a view to bilk me of my promised fee? Explain, or I throw +up the business." + +Herewith, Mr. Grabman gave a minute description of the stranger, and +related pretty accurately what had passed between that gentleman and +himself. He then added the progress of his own inquiries, and renewed, +as peremptorily as he dared, his demand for candour and plain dealing. +Now, it so happened that in stumbling upstairs to bed, Mr. Grabman passed +the room in which his mysterious fellow-seeker was lodged, and as is the +usage in hotels, a pair of boots stood outside the door, to be cleaned +betimes in the morning. Though somewhat drunk, Grabman still preserved +the rays of his habitual astuteness. A clever and a natural idea shot +across his brain, illuminating the fumes of the brandy; he stooped, and +while one hand on the wall steadied his footing, with the other he fished +up a boot, and peering within, saw legibly written: "John Ardworth, Esq., +Gray's Inn." At that sight he felt what a philosopher feels at the +sudden elucidation of a troublesome problem. Downstairs again tottered +Grabman, re-opened his letter, and wrote,-- + +"P.S.--I have wronged you, Jason, by my suspicions; never mind,-- +jubilate! This interloper who made me so jealous, who think you it is? +Why, young Ardworth himself,--that is, the lad who goes by such name. +Now, is it not clear? Of course no one else has such interest in +learning his birth as the lost child himself,--here he is! If old +Ardworth lives (as he says), old Ardworth has set him to work on his own +business. But then, that Fielden,--rather a puzzler that! Yet--no. Now +I understand,--old Ardworth gave the boy to Mrs. Joplin, and took it away +from her again when he went to the parson's. Now, certainly, it may be +quite necessary to prove,--first, that the boy he took from Mr. +Braddell's he gave to Mrs. Joplin; secondly, that the boy he left with +Mr. Fielden was the same that he took again from that woman: therefore, +the necessity of finding out Mother Joplin, an essential witness. Q. E. +D., Master Jason!" + +It was not till the sun had been some hours risen that Mr. Grabman +imitated that luminary's example. When he did so, he found, somewhat to +his chagrin, that John Ardworth had long been gone. In fact, whatever +the motive that had led the latter on the search, he had succeeded in +gleaning from Grabman all that that person could communicate, and their +interview had inspired him with such disgust of the attorney, and so +small an opinion of the value of his co-operation (in which last belief, +perhaps, he was mistaken), that he had resolved to continue his inquiries +alone, and had already, in his early morning's walk through the village, +ascertained that the man with whom Mrs. Joplin had quitted the place had +some time after been sentenced to six months' imprisonment in the county +jail. Possibly the prison authorities might know something to lead to +his discovery, and through him the news of his paramour might be gained. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +MORE OF MRS. JOPLIN. + +One day, at the hour of noon, the court boasting the tall residence of +Mr. Grabman was startled from the quiet usually reigning there at broad +daylight by the appearance of two men, evidently no inhabitants of the +place. The squalid, ill-favoured denizens lounging before the doors +stared hard, and at the fuller view of one of the men, most of them +retreated hastily within. Then, in those houses, you might have heard a +murmur of consternation and alarm. The ferret was in the burrow,--a Bow- +Street officer in the court! The two men paused, looked round, and +stopping before the dingy towerlike house, selected the bell which +appealed to the inmates of the ground-floor, to the left. At that +summons Bill the cracksman imprudently presented a full view of his +countenance through his barred window; he drew it back with astonishing +celerity, but not in time to escape the eye of the Bow-Street runner. + +"Open the door, Bill,--there's nothing to fear; I have no summons against +you, 'pon honour. You know I never deceive. Why should I? Open the +door, I say." + +No answer. + +The officer tapped with his cane at the foul window. + +"Bill, there's a gentleman who comes to you for information, and he will +pay for it handsomely." + +Bill again appeared at the casement, and peeped forth very cautiously +through the bars. + +"Bless my vitals, Mr. R----, and it is you, is it? What were you saying +about paying handsomely?" + +"That your evidence is wanted,--not against a pal, man. It will hurt no +one, and put at least five guineas in your pocket." + +"Ten guineas," said the Bow-Street officer's companion. "You be's a man +of honour, Mr. R----!" said Bill, emphatically; "and I scorns to doubt +you, so here goes." + +With that he withdrew from the window, and in another minute or so the +door was opened, and Bill, with a superb bow, asked his visitors into his +room. + +In the interval, leisure had been given to the cracksman to remove all +trace of the wonted educational employment of his hopeful children. The +urchins were seated on the floor playing at push-pin; and the Bow-Street +officer benignly patted a pair of curly heads as he passed them, drew a +chair to the table, and wiping his forehead, sat down, quite at home. +Bill then deliberately seated himself, and unbuttoning his waistcoat, +permitted the butt-ends of a brace of pistols to be seen by his guests. +Mr. R----'s companion seemed very unmoved by this significant action. He +bent one inquiring, steady look on the cracksman, which, as Bill +afterwards said, went through him "like a gimlet through a penny," and +taking out a purse, through the network of which the sovereigns gleamed +pleasantly, placed it on the table and said,-- + +"This purse is yours if you will tell me what has become of a woman named +Joplin, with whom you left the village of ----, in Lancashire, in the +year 18--." + +"And," put in Mr. R----, "the gentleman wants to know, with no view of +harming the woman. It will be to her own advantage to inform us where +she is." + +"'Pon honour again?" said Bill. + +"'Pon honour!" + +"Well, then, I has a heart in my buzzom, and if so be I can do a good +turn to the 'oman wot I has loved and kep' company with, why not?" + +"Why not, indeed?" said Mr. R----. "And as we want to learn, not only +what has become of Mrs. Joplin, but what she did with the child she +carried off from ----, begin at the beginning and tell us all you know." + +Bill mused. "How much is there in the pus?" + +"Eighteen sovereigns." + +"Make it twenty--you nod--twenty then? A bargain! Now I'll go on right +ahead. You see as how, some months arter we--that is, Peggy Joplin and +self--left ----, I was put in quod in Lancaster jail; so I lost sight of +the blowen. When I got out and came to Lunnun, it was a matter of seven +year afore, all of a sudding, I came bang up agin her,--at the corner of +Common Garden. 'Why, Bill!' says she. 'Why, Peggy!' says I; and we +bussed each other like winky. 'Shall us come together agin?' says she. +'Why, no,' says I; 'I has a wife wots a good 'un, and gets her bread by +setting up as a widder with seven small childern. By the by, Peg, what's +a come of your brat?' for as you says, sir, Peg had a child put out to +her to nurse. Lor', how she cuffed it! 'The brat!' says she, laughing +like mad, 'oh, I got rid o' that when you were in jail, Bill.' 'As how?' +says I. 'Why, there was a woman begging agin St. Poll's churchyard; so I +purtended to see a frind at a distance: "'Old the babby a moment," says +I, puffing and panting, "while I ketches my friend yonder." So she 'olds +the brat, and I never sees it agin; and there's an ind of the bother!' +'But won't they ever ax for the child,--them as giv' it you?' 'Oh, no,' +says Peg, 'they left it too long for that, and all the tin was agone; and +one mouth is hard enough to feed in these days,--let by other folks' +bantlings.' 'Well,' says I, 'where do you hang out? I'll pop in, in a +friendly way.' So she tells me,--som'ere in Lambeth,--I forgets +hexactly; and many's the good piece of work we ha' done togither." + +"And where is she now?" asked Mr. R----'s companion. + +"I doesn't know purcisely, but I can com' at her. You see, when my poor +wife died, four year com' Chris'mas, and left me with as fine a famuly, +though I says it, as h-old King Georgy himself walked afore, with his +gold-'eaded cane, on the terris at Vindsor,--all heights and all h-ages +to the babby in arms (for the little 'un there warn't above a year old, +and had been a brought up upon spoon-meat, with a dash o' blueruin to +make him slim and ginteel); as for the bigger 'uns wot you don't see, +they be doin' well in forin parts, Mr. R----!" + +Mr. R. smiled significantly. + +Bill resumed. "Where was I? Oh, when my wife died, I wanted sum 'un to +take care of the childern, so I takes Peg into the 'ous. But Lor'! how +she larrupped 'em,--she has a cruel heart, has n't she, Bob? Bob is a +'cute child, Mr. R----. Just as I was a thinking of turning her out +neck an' crop, a gemman what lodges aloft, wot be a laryer, and wot had +just saved my nick, Mr. R----, by proving a h-alibi, said, 'That's a tidy +body, your Peg!' (for you see he was often a wisiting here, an' h-indeed, +sin' then, he has taken our third floor, No. 9); 'I've been a speakin' to +her, and I find she has been a nuss to the sick. I has a frind wots a h- +uncle that's ill: can you spare her, Bill, to attind him?' That I can,' +says I; 'anything to obleedge.' So Peg packs off, bag and baggidge." + +"And what was the sick gentleman's name?" asked Mr. R----'s companion. + +"It was one Mr. Warney,--a painter, wot lived at Clap'am. Since thin +I've lost sight of Peg; for we had 'igh words about the childern, and she +was a spiteful 'oman. But you can larn where she be at Mr. Warney's, if +so be he's still above ground." + +"And did this woman still go by the name of Joplin?" + +Bill grinned: "She warn't such a spooney as that,--that name was in your +black books too much, Mr. R----, for a 'spectable nuss for sick bodies; +no, she was then called Martha Skeggs, what was her own mother's name +afore marriage. Anything more, gemman?" + +"I am satisfied," said the younger visitor, rising; "there is the purse, +and Mr. R---- will bring you ten sovereigns in addition. Good-day to +you." + +Bill, with superabundant bows and flourishes, showed his visitors out, +and then, in high glee, he began to romp with his children; and the whole +family circle was in a state of uproarious enjoyment when the door flew +open, and in entered Grabman, his brief-bag in hand, dust-soiled and +unshaven. + +"Aha, neighbour! your servant, your servant; just come back! Always so +merry; for the life of me, I couldn't help looking in! Dear me, Bill, +why, you're in luck!" and Mr. Grabman pointed to a pile of sovereigns +which Bill had emptied from the purse to count over and weigh on the tip +of his forefinger. + +"Yes," said Bill, sweeping the gold into his corduroy pocket; "and who do +you think brought me these shiners? Why, who but old Peggy, the 'oman +wot you put out at Clapham." + +"Well, never mind Peggy, now, Bill; I want to ask you what you have done +with Margaret Joplin, whom, sly seducer that you are, you carried off +from--" + +"Why, man, Peggy be Joplin, and Joplin be Peggy! And it's for that piece +of noos that I got all them pretty new picters of his Majesty Bill,--my +namesake, God bliss 'im!" + +"D--n," exclaimed Grabman, aghast; "the young chap's spoiling my game +again!" And seizing up his brief-bag, he darted out of the house, in the +hope to arrive at least at Clapham before his competitors. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +BECK'S DISCOVERY. + +Under the cedar-trees at Laughton sat that accursed and abhorrent being +who sat there, young, impassioned, hopeful, as Lucretia Clavering,--under +the old cedar-trees, which, save that their vast branches cast an +imperceptibly broader shade over the mossy sward, the irrevocable winters +had left the same. Where, through the nether boughs the autumn sunbeams +came aslant, the windows, enriched by many a haughty scutcheon, shone +brightly against the western rays. From the flower-beds in the quaint +garden near at hand, the fresh yet tranquil air wafted faint perfumes +from the lingering heliotrope and fading rose. The peacock perched +dozily on the heavy balustrade; the blithe robin hopped busily along the +sun-track on the lawn; in the distance the tinkling bells of the flock, +the plaining low of some wandering heifer, while breaking the silence, +seemed still to blend with the repose. All images around lent themselves +to complete that picture of stately calm which is the character of those +old mansion-houses, which owner after owner has loved and heeded, leaving +to them the graces of antiquity, guarding them from the desolation of +decay. + +Alone sat Lucretia under the cedar-trees, and her heart made dismal +contrast to the noble tranquillity that breathed around. From whatever +softening or repentant emotions which the scene of her youth might first +have awakened; from whatever of less unholy anguish which memory might +have caused when she first, once more, sat under those remembered boughs, +and, as a voice from a former world, some faint whisper of youthful love +sighed across the waste and ashes of her devastated soul,--from all such +rekindled humanities in the past she had now, with gloomy power, wrenched +herself away. Crime such as hers admits not long the sentiment that +softens remorse of gentler error. If there wakes one moment from the +past the warning and melancholy ghost, soon from that abyss rises the +Fury with the lifted scourge, and hunts on the frantic footsteps towards +the future. In the future, the haggard intellect of crime must live, +must involve itself mechanically in webs and meshes, and lose past and +present in the welcome atmosphere of darkness. + +Thus while Lucretia sat, and her eyes rested upon the halls of her youth, +her mind overleaped the gulf that yet yawned between her and the object +on which she was bent. Already, in fancy, that home was hers again, its +present possessor swept away, the interloping race of Vernon ending in +one of those abrupt lines familiar to genealogists, which branch out +busily from the main tree, as if all pith and sap were monopolized by +them, continue for a single generation, and then shrink into a printer's +bracket with the formal laconism, "Died without issue." Back, then, in +the pedigree would turn the eye of some curious descendant, and see the +race continue in the posterity of Lucretia Clavering. + +With all her ineffable vices, mere cupidity had not, as we have often +seen, been a main characteristic of this fearful woman; and in her design +to endow, by the most determined guilt, her son with the heritage of her +ancestors, she had hitherto looked but little to mere mercenary +advantages for herself: but now, in the sight of that venerable and broad +domain, a covetousness, absolute in itself, broke forth. Could she have +gained it for her own use rather than her son's, she would have felt a +greater zest in her ruthless purpose. She looked upon the scene as a +deposed monarch upon his usurped realm,--it was her right. The early +sense of possession in that inheritance returned to her. + +Reluctantly would she even yield her claims to her child. Here, too, in +this atmosphere she tasted once more what had long been lost to her,--the +luxury of that dignified respect which surrounds the well-born. Here she +ceased to be the suspected adventuress, the friendless outcast, the needy +wrestler with hostile fortune, the skulking enemy of the law. She rose +at once, and without effort, to her original state,--the honoured +daughter of an illustrious house. The homeliest welcome that greeted her +from some aged but unforgotten villager, the salutation of homage, the +bated breath of humble reverence,--even trifles like these were dear to +her, and made her the more resolute to retain them. In her calm, +relentless onward vision she saw herself enshrined in those halls, ruling +in the delegated authority of her son, safe evermore from prying +suspicion and degrading need and miserable guilt for miserable objects. +Here, but one great crime, and she resumed the majesty of her youth! +While thus dwelling on the future, her eye did not even turn from those +sunlit towers to the forms below, and more immediately inviting its +survey. On the very spot where, at the opening of this tale, sat Sir +Miles St. John sharing his attention between his dogs and his guest, sat +now Helen Mainwaring; against the balustrade where had lounged Charles +Vernon, leaned Percival St. John; and in the same place where he had +stationed himself that eventful evening, to distort, in his malignant +sketch, the features of his father, Gabriel Varney, with almost the same +smile of irony upon his lips, was engaged in transferring to his canvas a +more faithful likeness of the heir's intended bride. Helen's +countenance, indeed, exhibited comparatively but little of the ravages +which the pernicious aliment, administered so noiselessly, made upon the +frame. The girl's eye, it is true, had sunk, and there was a languid +heaviness in its look; but the contour of the cheek was so naturally +rounded, and the features so delicately fine, that the fall of the +muscles was less evident; and the bright, warm hue of the complexion, and +the pearly sparkle of the teeth, still gave a fallacious freshness to the +aspect. But as yet the poisoners had forborne those ingredients which +invade the springs of life, resorting only to such as undermine the +health and prepare the way to unsuspected graves. Out of the infernal +variety of the materials at their command, they had selected a mixture +which works by sustaining perpetual fever; which gives little pain, +little suffering, beyond that of lassitude and thirst; which wastes like +consumption, and yet puzzles the physician, by betraying few or none of +its ordinary symptoms. But the disorder as yet was not incurable,--its +progress would gradually cease with the discontinuance of the venom. + +Although October was far advanced, the day was as mild and warm as +August. But Percival, who had been watching Helen's countenance with the +anxiety of love and fear, now proposed that the sitting should be +adjourned. The sun was declining, and it was certainly no longer safe +for Helen to be exposed to the air without exercise. He proposed that +they should walk through the garden, and Helen, rising cheerfully, placed +her hand on his arm. But she had scarcely descended the steps of the +terrace when she stopped short and breathed hard and painfully. The +spasm was soon over, and walking slowly on, they passed Lucretia with a +brief word or two, and were soon out of sight amongst the cedars. + +"Lean more on my arm, Helen," said Percival. "How strange it is that the +change of air has done so little for you, and our country doctor still +less! I should feel miserable indeed if Simmons, whom my mother always +considered very clever, did not assure me that there was no ground for +alarm,--that these symptoms were only nervous. Cheer up, Helen; sweet +love, cheer up!" + +Helen raised her face and strove to smile; but the tears stood in her +eyes. "It would be hard to die now, Percival!" she said falteringly. + +"To die--oh, Helen! No; we must not stay here longer,--the air is +certainly too keen for you. Perhaps your aunt will go to Italy. Why not +all go there, and seek my mother? And she will nurse you, Helen, and- +and--" He could not trust his voice farther. + +Helen pressed his arm tenderly. "Forgive me, dear Percival, it is but at +moments that I feel so despondent; now, again, it is past. Ah, I so long +to see your mother! When shall you hear from her? Are you not too +sanguine? Do you really feel sure she will consent to so lowly a +choice?" + +"Never doubt her affection, her appreciation of you," answered Percival, +gladly, and hoping that Helen's natural anxiety might be the latent cause +of her dejected spirits; "often, when talking of the future, under these +very cedars, my mother has said: 'You have no cause to marry for +ambition,--marry only for your happiness.' She never had a daughter: in +return for all her love, I shall give her that blessing." + +Thus talking, the lovers rambled on till the sun set, and then, returning +to the house, they found that Varney and Madame Dalibard had preceded +them. That evening Helen's spirits rose to their natural buoyancy, and +Percival's heart was once more set at ease by her silvery laugh. + +When, at their usual early hour, the rest of the family retired to sleep, +Percival remained in the drawing-room to write again, and at length, to +Lady Mary and Captain Greville. While thus engaged, his valet entered to +say that Beck, who had been out since the early morning, in search of a +horse that had strayed from one of the pastures, had just returned with +the animal, who had wandered nearly as far as Southampton. + +"I am glad to hear it," said Percival, abstractedly, and continuing his +letter. + +The valet still lingered. Percival looked up in surprise. "If you +please, sir, you said you particularly wished to see Beck when he came +back." + +"I--oh, true! Tell him to wait; I will speak to him by and by. You need +not sit up for me; let Beck attend to the bell." + +The valet withdrew. Percival continued his letter, and filled page after +page and sheet after sheet; and when at length the letters, not +containing a tithe of what he wished to convey, were brought to a close, +he fell into a revery that lasted till the candles burned low, and the +clock from the turret tolled one. Starting up in surprise at the lapse +of time, Percival then, for the first time, remembered Beck, and rang the +bell. + +The ci-devant sweeper, in his smart livery, appeared at the door. + +"Beck, my poor fellow, I am ashamed to have kept you waiting so long; but +I received a letter this morning which relates to you. Let me see,--I +left it in my study upstairs. Ah, you'll never find the way; follow me,- +-I have some questions to put to you." + +"Nothin' agin my carakter, I hopes, your honour," said Beck, timidly. + +"Oh, no!" + +"Noos of the mattris, then?" exclaimed Beck, joyfully. + +"Nor that either," answered Percival, laughing, as he lighted the chamber +candlestick, and, followed by Beck, ascended the grand staircase to a +small room which, as it adjoined his sleeping apartment, he had +habitually used as his morning writing-room and study. + +Percival had, indeed, received that day a letter which had occasioned him +much surprise; it was from John Ardworth, and ran thus:-- + +MY DEAR PERCIVAL,--It seems that you have taken into your service a young +man known only by the name of Beck. Is he now with you at Laughton? If +so, pray retain him, and suffer him to be in readiness to come to me at a +day's notice if wanted, though it is probable enough that I may rather +come to you. At present, strange as it may seem to you, I am detained in +London by business connected with that important personage. Will you ask +him carelessly, as it were, in the mean while; the following questions:-- + +First, how did he become possessed of a certain child's coral which he +left at the house of one Becky Carruthers, in Cole's Building? + +Secondly, is he aware of any mark on his arm,--if so, will he describe +it? + +Thirdly, how long has he known the said Becky Carruthers? + +Fourthly, does he believe her to be honest and truthful? + +Take a memorandum of his answers, and send it to me. I am pretty well +aware of what they are likely to be; but I desire you to put the +questions, that I may judge if there be any discrepancy between his +statement and that of Mrs. Carruthers. I have much to tell you, and am +eager to receive your kind congratulations upon an event that has given +me more happiness than the fugitive success of my little book. Tenderest +regards to Helen; and hoping soon to see you, Ever +affectionately yours. + +P.S.--Say not a word of the contents of this letter to Madame Dalibard, +Helen, or to any one except Beck. Caution him to the same discretion. +If you can't trust to his silence, send him to town. + +When the post brought this letter, Beck was already gone on his errand, +and after puzzling himself with vague conjectures, Percival's mind had +been naturally too absorbed with his anxieties for Helen to recur much to +the subject. + +Now, refreshing his memory with the contents of the letter, he drew pen +and ink before him, put the questions seriatim, noted down the answers as +desired, and smiling at Beck's frightened curiosity to know who could +possibly care about such matters, and feeling confident (from that very +fright) of his discretion, dismissed the groom to his repose. + +Beck had never been in that part of the house before; and when he got +into the corridor he became bewildered, and knew not which turn to take, +the right or the left. He had no candle with him; but the moon came +clear through a high and wide skylight: the light, however, gave him no +guide. While pausing, much perplexed, and not sure that he should even +know again the door of the room he had just quitted, if venturing to +apply to his young master for a clew through such a labyrinth, he was +inexpressibly startled and appalled by a sudden apparition. A door at +one end of the corridor opened noiselessly, and a figure, at first +scarcely distinguishable, for it was robed from head to foot in a black, +shapeless garb, scarcely giving even the outline of the human form, stole +forth. Beck rubbed his eyes and crept mechanically close within the +recess of one of the doors that communicated with the passage. The +figure advanced a few steps towards him; and what words can describe his +astonishment when he beheld thus erect, and in full possession of +physical power and motion, the palsied cripple whose chair he had often +seen wheeled into the garden, and whose unhappy state was the common +topic of comment in the servants' hall! Yes, the moon from above shone +full upon that face which never, once seen, could be forgotten. And it +seemed more than mortally stern and pale, contrasted with the sable of +the strange garb, and beheld by that mournful light. Had a ghost, +indeed, risen from the dead, it could scarcely have appalled him more. +Madame Dalibard did not see the involuntary spy; for the recess in which +he had crept was on that side of the wall on which the moon's shadow was +cast. With a quick step she turned into another room, opposite that which +she had quitted, the door of which stood ajar, and vanished noiselessly +as she had appeared. + +Taught suspicion by his earlier acquaintance with the "night-side" of +human nature, Beck had good cause for it here. This detection of an +imposture most familiar to his experience,--that of a pretended cripple; +the hour of the night; the evil expression on the face of the deceitful +guest; Madame Dalibard's familiar intimacy and near connection with +Varney,--Varney, the visitor to Grabman, who received no visitors but +those who desire, not to go to law, but to escape from its penalties; +Varney, who had dared to brave the resurrection man in his den, and who +seemed so fearlessly at home in abodes where nought but poverty could +protect the honest; Varney now, with that strange woman, an inmate of a +house in which the master was so young, so inexperienced, so liable to be +duped by his own generous nature,--all these ideas, vaguely combined, +inspired Beck with as vague a terror. Surely something, he knew not +what, was about to be perpetrated against his benefactor,--some scheme of +villany which it was his duty to detect. He breathed hard, formed his +resolves, and stealing on tiptoe, followed the shadowy form of the +poisoner through the half-opened doorway. The shutters of the room of +which he thus crossed the threshold were not closed,--the moon shone in +bright and still. He kept his body behind the door, peeping in with +straining, fearful stare. He saw Madame Dalibard standing beside a bed +round which the curtains were closed,--standing for a moment or so +motionless, and as if in the act of listening, with one hand on a table +beside the bed. He then saw her take from the folds of her dress +something white and glittering, and pour from it what appeared to him but +a drop or two, cautiously, slowly, into a phial on the table, from which +she withdrew the stopper; that done, she left the phial where she had +found it, again paused a moment, and turned towards the door. Beck +retreated hastily to his former hiding-place, and gained it in time. +Again the shadowy form passed him, and again the white face in the white +moonlight froze his blood with its fell and horrible expression. He +remained cowering and shrinking against the wall for some time, striving +to collect his wits, and considering what he should do. His first +thought was to go at once and inform St. John of what he had witnessed. +But the poor have a proverbial dread of deposing aught against a +superior. Madame Dalibard would deny his tale, the guest would be +believed against the menial,--he would be but dismissed with ignominy. +At that idea, he left his hiding-place, and crept along the corridor, in +the hope of finding some passage at the end which might lead to the +offices. But when he arrived at the other extremity, he was only met by +great folding-doors, which evidently communicated with the state +apartments; he must retrace his steps. He did so; and when he came to +the door which Madame Dalibard had entered, and which still stood ajar, +he had recovered some courage, and with courage, curiosity seized him. +For what purpose could the strange woman seek that room at night thus +feloniously? What could she have poured, and with such stealthy caution, +into the phial? Naturally and suddenly the idea of poison flashed across +him. Tales of such crime (as, indeed, of all crime) had necessarily +often thrilled the ear of the vagrant fellow-lodger with burglars and +outlaws. But poison to whom? Could it be meant for his benefactor? +Could St. John sleep in that room? Why not? The woman had sought the +chamber before her young host had retired to rest, and mingled her potion +with some medicinal draught. All fear vanished before the notion of +danger to his employer. He stole at once through the doorway, and +noiselessly approached the table on which yet lay the phial. His hand +closed on it firmly. He resolved to carry it away, and consider next +morning what next to do. At all events, it might contain some proof to +back his tale and justify his suspicions. When he came once more into +the corridor, he made a quick rush onwards, and luckily arrived at the +staircase. There the blood-red stains reflected on the stone floors from +the blazoned casements daunted him little less than the sight at which +his hair still bristled. He scarcely drew breath till he had got into +his own little crib, in the wing set apart for the stable-men, when, at +length, he fell into broken and agitated sleep,--the visions of all that +had successively disturbed him waking, united confusedly, as in one +picture of gloom and terror. He thought that he was in his old loft in +St. Giles's, that the Gravestealer was wrestling with Varney for his +body, while he himself, lying powerless on his pallet, fancied he should +be safe as long as he could retain, as a talisman, his child's coral, +which he clasped to his heart. Suddenly, in that black, shapeless garb, +in which he had beheld her, Madame Dalibard bent over him with her stern, +colourless face, and wrenched from him his charm. Then, ceasing his +struggle with his horrible antagonist, Varney laughed aloud, and the +Gravestealer seized him in his deadly arms. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +THE TAPESTRY CHAMBER. + +When Beck woke the next morning, and gradually recalled all that had so +startled and appalled him the previous night, the grateful creature felt, +less by the process of reason than by a brute instinct, that in the +mysterious resuscitation and nocturnal wanderings of the pretended +paralytic, some danger menaced his master; he became anxious to learn +whether it was really St. John's room Madame Dalibard stealthily visited. +A bright idea struck him; and in the course of the day, at an hour when +the family were out of doors, he contrived to coax the good-natured +valet, who had taken him under his special protection, to show him over +the house. He had heard the other servants say there was such a power of +fine things that a peep into the rooms was as good as a show, and the +valet felt pride in being cicerone even to Beck. After having stared +sufficiently at the banquet-hall and the drawing-room, the armour, the +busts, and the pictures, and listened, open-mouthed, to his guide's +critical observations, Beck was led up the great stairs into the old +family picture-gallery, and into Sir Miles's ancient room at the end, +which had been left undisturbed, with the bed still in the angle; on +returning thence, Beck found himself in the corridor which communicated +with the principal bedrooms, in which he had lost himself the night +before. + +"And vot room be that vith the littul vite 'ead h-over the door?" asked +Beck, pointing to the chamber from which Madame Dalibard had emerged. + +"That white head, Master Beck, is Floorer the goddess; but a heathen like +you knows nothing about goddesses. Floorer has a half-moon in her hair, +you see, which shows that the idolatrous Turks worship her; for the +Turkish flag is a half-moon, as I have seen at Constantinople. I have +travelled, Beck." + +"And vot room be it? Is it the master's?" persisted Beck. + +"No, the pretty young lady, Miss Mainwaring, has it at present. There is +nothing to see in it. But that one opposite," and the valet advanced to +the door through which Madame Dalibard had disappeared,--"that is +curious; and as Madame is out, we may just take a peep." He opened the +door gently, and Beck looked in. "This, which is called the turret- +chamber, was Madame's when she was a girl, I have heard old Bessy say; so +Master pops her there now. For my part, I'd rather sleep in your little +crib than have those great gruff-looking figures staring at me by the +firelight, and shaking their heads with every wind on a winter's night." +And the valet took a pinch of snuff as he drew Beck's attention to the +faded tapestry on the walls. As they spoke, the draught between the door +and the window caused the gloomy arras to wave with a life-like motion; +and to those more superstitious than romantic, the chamber had certainly +no inviting aspect. + +"I never sees these old tapestry rooms," said the valet, "without +thinking of the story of the lady who, coming from a ball and taking off +her jewels, happened to look up, and saw an eye in one of the figures +which she felt sure was no peeper in worsted." + +"Vot vos it, then?" asked Beck, timidly lifting up the hangings, and +noticing that there was a considerable space between them and the wall, +which was filled up in part by closets and wardrobes set into the walls, +with intervals more than deep enough for the hiding-place of a man. + +"Why," answered the valet, "it was a thief. He had come for the jewels; +but the lady had the presence of mind to say aloud, as if to herself, +that she had forgotten something, slipped out of the room, locked the +door, called up the servants, and the thief--who was no less a person +than the under-butler--was nabbed." + +"And the French 'oman sleeps 'ere?" said Beck, musingly. + +"French 'oman! Master Beck, nothing's so vulgar as these nicknames in a +first-rate sitivation. It is all very well when one lives with +skinflints, but with such a master as our'n, respect's the go. Besides, +Madame is not a French 'oman; she is one of the family,--and as old a +family it is, too, as e'er a lord's in the three kingdoms. But come, +your curiosity is satisfied now, and you must trot back to your horses." + +As Beck returned to the stables, his mind yet more misgave him as to the +criminal designs of his master's visitor. It was from Helen's room that +the false cripple had walked, and the ill health of the poor young lady +was a general subject of compassionate comment. But Madame Dalibard was +Helen's relation: from what motive could she harbour an evil thought +against her own niece? But still, if those drops were poured into the +healing draught for good, why so secretly? Once more he revolved the +idea of speaking to St. John: an accident dissuaded him from this +intention,--the only proof to back his tale was the mysterious phial he +had carried away; but unluckily, forgetting that it was in his pocket, at +a time when he flung off his coat to groom one of the horses, the bottle +struck against the corn-bin and broke; all the contents were spilt. This +incident made him suspend his intention, and wait till he could obtain +some fresh evidence of evil intentions. The day passed without any other +noticeable occurrence. The doctor called, found Helen somewhat better, +and ascribed it to his medicines, especially to the effect of his tonic +draught the first thing in the morning. Helen smiled. "Nay, Doctor," +said she, "this morning, at least, it was forgotten. I did not find it +by my bedside. Don't tell my aunt; she would be so angry." The doctor +looked rather discomposed. + +"Well," said he, soon recovering his good humour, "since you are +certainly better to-day without the draught, discontinue it also to- +morrow. I will make an alteration for the day after." So that night +Madame Dalibard visited in vain her niece's chamber: Helen had a +reprieve. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE SHADES ON THE DIAL. + +The following morning was indeed eventful to the family at Laughton; and +as if conscious of what it brought forth, it rose dreary and sunless. +One heavy mist covered all the landscape, and a raw, drizzling rain fell +pattering through the yellow leaves. + +Madame Dalibard, pleading her infirmities, rarely left her room before +noon, and Varney professed himself very irregular in his hours of rising; +the breakfast, therefore, afforded no social assembly to the family, but +each took that meal in the solitude of his or her own chamber. Percival, +in whom all habits partook of the healthfulness and simplicity of his +character, rose habitually early, and that day, in spite of the weather, +walked forth betimes to meet the person charged with the letters from the +post. He had done so for the last three or four days, impatient to hear +from his mother, and calculating that it was full time to receive the +expected answer to his confession and his prayer. He met the messenger +at the bottom of the park, not far from Guy's Oak. This day he was not +disappointed. The letter-bag contained three letters for himself,--two +with the foreign postmark, the third in Ardworth's hand. It contained +also a letter for Madame Dalibard, and two for Varney. + +Leaving the messenger to take these last to the Hall, Percival, with his +own prizes, plunged into the hollow of the glen before him, and, seating +himself at the foot of Guy's Oak, through the vast branches of which the +rain scarcely came, and only in single, mournful drops, he opened first +the letter in his mother's hand, and read as follows:-- + +MY DEAR, DEAR SON,--How can I express to you the alarm your letter has +given to me! So these, then, are the new relations you have discovered! +I fondly imagined that you were alluding to some of my own family, and +conjecturing who, amongst my many cousins, could have so captivated your +attention. These the new relations,--Lucretia Dalibard, Helen +Mainwaring! Percival, do you not know ---- No, you cannot know that +Helen Mainwaring is the daughter of a disgraced man, of one who (more +than suspected of fraud in the bank in which he was a partner) left his +country, condemned even by his own father. If you doubt this, you have +but to inquire at ----, not ten miles from Laughton, where the elder +Mainwaring resided. Ask there what became of William Mainwaring. And +Lucretia, you do not know that the dying prayer of her uncle, Sir Miles +St. John, was that she might never enter the house he bequeathed to your +father. Not till after my poor Charles's death did I know the exact +cause for Sir Miles's displeasure, though confident it was just; but then +amongst his papers I found the ungrateful letter which betrayed thoughts +so dark and passions so unwomanly that I blushed for my sex to read it. +Could it be possible that that poor old man's prayers were unheeded, that +that treacherous step could ever cross your threshold, that that cruel +eye, which read with such barbarous joy the ravages of death on a +benefactor's face, could rest on the hearth by which your frank, truthful +countenance has so often smiled away my tears, I should feel indeed as if +a thunder-cloud hung over the roof. No, if you marry the niece, the aunt +must be banished from your house. Good heavens! and it is the daughter +of William Mainwaring, the niece and ward of Lucretia Dalibard, to whom +you have given your faithful affection, whom you single from the world as +your wife! Oh, my son,--my beloved, my sole surviving child,--do not +think that I blame you, that my heart does not bleed while I write thus; +but I implore you on my knees to pause at least, to suspend this +intercourse till I myself can reach England. And what then? Why, then, +Percival, I promise, on my part, that I will see your Helen with +unprejudiced eyes, that I will put away from me, as far as possible, all +visions of disappointed pride,--the remembrance of faults not her own,-- +and if she be as you say and think, I will take her to my heart and call +her 'Daughter.' Are you satisfied? If so, come to me,--come at once, and +take comfort from your mother's lip. How I long to be with you while you +read this; how I tremble at the pain I so rudely give you! But my poor +sister still chains me here, I dare not leave her, lest I should lose her +last sigh. Come then, come; we will console each other. Your +fond (how fond!) and sorrowing mother, MARY +ST. JOHN. SORRENTO, October 3, 1831. + +P.S.--You see by this address that we have left Pisa for this place, +recommended by our physician; hence an unhappy delay of some days in my +reply. Ah, Percival, how sleepless will be my pillow till I hear from +you! + +Long, very long, was it before St. John, mute and overwhelmed with the +sudden shock of his anguish, opened his other letters. The first was +from Captain Greville. + +What trap have you fallen into, foolish boy? That you would get into +some silly scrape or another, was natural enough. But a scrape for life, +sir,--that is serious! But--God bless you for your candour, my Percival; +you have written to us in time--you are old-fashioned enough to think +that a mother's consent is necessary to a young man's union; and you have +left it in our power to save you yet. It is not every boyish fancy that +proves to be true love. But enough of this preaching; I shall do better +than write scolding letters,--I shall come and scold you in person. My +servant is at this very moment packing my portmanteau, the laquais-de- +place is gone to Naples for my passport. Almost as soon as you receive +this I shall be with you; and if I am a day or two later than the mail, +be patient: do not commit yourself further. Break your heart if you +please, but don't implicate your honour. I shall come at once to Curzon +Street. Adieu! H. GREVILLE. + +Ardworth's letter was shorter than the others,--fortunately so, for +otherwise it had been unread:-- + +If I do not come to you myself the day after you receive this, dear +Percival,--which, indeed, is most probable,--I shall send you my proxy, +in one whom, for my sake, I know that you will kindly welcome. He will +undertake my task, and clear up all the mysteries with which, I trust, my +correspondence has thoroughly bewildered your lively imagination. + Yours ever, JOHN +ARDWORTH. GRAY'S INN. + +Little indeed did Percival's imagination busy itself with the mysteries +of Ardworth's correspondence. His mind scarcely took in the sense of the +words over which his eye mechanically wandered. + +And the letter which narrated the visit of Madame Dalibard to the house +thus solemnly interdicted to her step was on its way to his mother,--nay, +by this time would almost have reached her! Greville was on the road,-- +nay, as his tutor's letter had been forwarded from London, might perhaps +be in Curzon Street that day. How desirable to see him before he could +reach Laughton, to prepare him for Madame Dalibard's visit, for Helen's +illness, explain the position in which he was involved, and conciliate +the old soldier's rough, kind heart to his love and his distress. + +He did not dread the meeting with Greville,--he yearned for it. He +needed an adviser, a confidant, a friend. To dismiss abruptly his guests +from his house,--impossible; to abandon Helen because of her father's +crime or her aunt's fault (whatever that last might be, and no clear +detail of it was given),--that never entered his thoughts! Pure and +unsullied, the starry face of Helen shone the holier for the cloud around +it. An inexpressible and chivalrous compassion mingled with his love and +confirmed his faith. She, poor child, to suffer for the deeds of +others,--no. What availed his power as man, and dignity as gentleman, if +they could not wrap in their own shelter the one by whom such shelter was +now doubly needed? Thus, amidst all his emotions, firm and resolved at +least on one point, and beginning already to recover the hope of his +sanguine nature, from his reliance on his mother's love, on the promises +that softened her disclosures and warnings, and on his conviction that +Helen had only to be seen for every scruple to give way, Percival +wandered back towards the house, and coming abruptly on the terrace, he +encountered Varney, who was leaning motionless against the balustrades, +with an open letter in his hand. Varney was deadly pale, and there was +the trace of some recent and gloomy agitation in the relaxed muscles of +his cheeks, usually so firmly rounded. But Percival did not heed his +appearance as he took him gravely by the arm, and leading him into the +garden, said, after a painful pause,-- + +"Varney, I am about to ask you two questions, which your close connection +with Madame Dalibard may enable you to answer, but in which, from obvious +motives, I must demand the strictest confidence. You will not hint to +her or to Helen what I am about to say?" + +Varney stared uneasily on Percival's serious countenance, and gave the +promise required. + +"First, then, for what offence was Madame Dalibard expelled her uncle's +house,--this house of Laughton? + +"Secondly, what is the crime with which Mr. Mainwaring, Helen's father, +is charged?" + +"With regard to the first," said Varney, recovering his composure, "I +thought I had already told you that Sir Miles was a proud man, and that +in consequence of discovering a girlish flirtation between his niece +Lucretia (now Madame Dalibard) and Mainwaring, who afterwards jilted her +for Helen's mother, he altered his will; 'expelled her his house' is too +harsh a phrase. This is all I know. With regard to the second question, +no crime was ever brought home to William Mainwaring; he was suspected of +dealing improperly with the funds of the bank, and he repaid the alleged +deficit by the sacrifice of all he possessed." + +"This is the truth?" exclaimed Percival, joyfully. + +"The plain truth, I believe; but why these questions at this moment? Ah, +you too, I see, have had letters,--I understand. Lady Mary gives these +reasons for withholding her consent." + +"Her consent is not withheld," answered Percival; "but shall I own it? +Remember, I have your promise not to wound and offend Madame Dalibard by +the disclosure: my mother does refer to the subjects I have alluded to, +and Captain Greville, my old friend and tutor, is on his way to England; +perhaps to-morrow he may arrive at Laughton." + +"Ha!" said Varney, startled, "to-morrow! And what sort of a man is this +Captain Greville?" + +"The best man possible for such a case as mine,--kind-hearted, yet cool, +sagacious; the finest observer, the quickest judge of character,--nothing +escapes him. Oh, one interview will suffice to show him all Helen's +innocent and matchless excellence." + +"To-morrow! this man comes to-morrow!" + +"All that I fear is,--for he is rather rough and blunt in his manner,-- +all that I fear is his first surprise, and, dare I say displeasure, at +seeing this poor Madame Dalibard, whose faults, I fear, were graver than +you suppose, at the house from which her uncle--to whom, indeed, I owe +this inheritance--" + +"I see, I see!" interrupted Varney, quickly. "And Madame Dalibard is the +most susceptible of women,--so well-born and so poor, so gifted and so +helpless; it is natural. Can you not write, and put off this Captain +Greville for a few days,--until, indeed, I can find some excuse for +terminating our visit?" + +"But my letter may be hardly in time to reach him; he may be in town to- +day." + +"Go then to town at once; you can be back late at night, or at least to- +morrow. Anything better than wounding the pride of a woman on whom, +after all, you must depend for free and open intercourse with Helen." + +"That is exactly what I thought of; but what excuse--" + +"Excuse,--a thousand! Every man coming of age into such a property has +business with his lawyers. Or why not say simply that you want to meet a +friend of yours who has just left your mother in Italy? In short, any +excuse suffices, and none can be offensive." + +"I will order my carriage instantly." + +"Right!" exclaimed Varney; and his eye followed the receding form of +Percival with a mixture of fierce exultation and anxious fear. Then, +turning towards the window of the turret-chamber in which Madame Dalibard +reposed, and seeing it still closed, he muttered an impatient oath; but +even while he did so, the shutters were slowly opened, and a footman, +stepping from the porch, approached Varney with a message that Madame +Dalibard would see him in five minutes, if he would then have the +goodness to ascend to her room. + +Before that time was well expired, Varney was in the chamber. Madame +Dalibard was up and in her chair; and the unwonted joy which her +countenance evinced was in strong contrast with the sombre shade upon her +son-in-law's brow, and the nervous quiver of his lip. + +"Gabriel," she said, as he drew near to her, "my son is found!" + +"I know it," he answered petulantly. "You! From whom?" + +"From Grabman." + +"And I from a still better authority,--from Walter Ardworth himself. He +lives; he will restore my child!" She extended a letter while she spoke. +He, in return, gave her, not that still crumpled in his hand, but one +which he drew from his breast. These letters severally occupied both, +begun and finished almost in the same moment. + +That from Grabman ran thus:-- + +DEAR JASON,--Toss up your hat and cry 'hip, hip!' At last, from person +to person, I have tracked the lost Vincent Braddell. He lives still! We +can maintain his identity in any court of law. Scarce in time for the +post, I have not a moment for further particulars. I shall employ the +next two days in reducing all the evidence to a regular digest, which I +will despatch to you. Meanwhile, prepare, as soon as may be, to put me +in possession of my fee,--5000 pounds; and my expedition merits something +more. Yours, + NICHOLAS GRABMAN. + +The letter from Ardworth was no less positive:-- + +MADAM,--In obedience to the commands of a dying friend, I took charge of +his infant and concealed its existence from his mother,--yourself. On +returning to England, I need not say that I was not unmindful of my +trust. Your son lives; and after mature reflection I have resolved to +restore him to your arms. In this I have been decided by what I have +heard, from one whom I can trust, of your altered habits, your decorous +life, your melancholy infirmities, and the generous protection you have +given to the orphan of my poor cousin Susan, my old friend Mainwaring. +Alfred Braddell himself, if it be permitted to him to look down and read +my motives, will pardon me, I venture to feel assured, this departure +from his injunctions. Whatever the faults which displeased him, they +have been amply chastised. And your son, grown to man, can no longer be +endangered by example, in tending the couch, or soothing the repentance +of his mother. + +These words are severe; but you will pardon them in him who gives you +back your child. I shall venture to wait on you in person, with such +proofs as may satisfy you as to the identity of your son. I count on +arriving at Laughton to-morrow. Meanwhile, I simply sign myself by a +name in which you will recognize the kinsman to one branch of your +family, and the friend of your dead husband. + J. WALTER ARDWORTH. + +CRAVEN HOTEL, October, 1831. + + +"Well, and are you not rejoiced?" said Lucretia, gazing surprised on +Varney's sullen and unsympathizing face. + +"No! because time presses; because, even while discovering your son, you +may fail in securing his heritage; because, in the midst of your triumph, +I see Newgate opening to myself. Look you, I too have had my news,--less +pleasing than yours. This Stubmore (curse him!) writes me word that he +shall certainly be in town next month at farthest, and that he meditates, +immediately on his arrival, transferring the legacy from the Bank of +England to an excellent mortgage of which he has heard. Were it not for +this scheme of ours, nothing would be left for me but flight and exile." + +"A month,--that is a long time. Do you think, now that my son is found, +and that son like John Ardworth (for there can be no doubt that my +surmise was right), with genius to make station the pedestal to the power +I dreamed of in my youth, but which my sex forbade me to attain,--do you +think I will keep him a month from his inheritance? Before the month is +out, you shall replace what you have taken, and buy your trustee's +silence, if need be, either from the sums you have insured, or from the +rents of Laughton." + +"Lucretia," said Varney, whose fresh colours had grown livid, "what is to +be done must be done at once. Percival St. John has heard from his +mother. Attend." And Varney rapidly related the questions St. John had +put to him, the dreaded arrival of Captain Greville, the danger of so +keen an observer, the necessity, at all events, of abridging their visit, +the urgency of hastening the catastrophe to its close. + +Lucretia listened in ominous and steadfast silence. + +"But," she said at last, "you have persuaded St. John to give this man +the meeting in London,--to put off his visit for the time. St. John will +return to us to-morrow. Well, and if he finds his Helen is no more! Two +nights ago I, for the first time, mingled in the morning draught that +which has no antidote and no cure. This night two drops more, and St. +John will return to find that Death is in the house before him. And then +for himself,--the sole remaining barrier between my son and this +inheritance,--for himself, why, grief sometimes kills suddenly; and there +be drugs whose effect simulates the death-stroke of grief." + +"Yet, yet, this rapidity, if necessary, is perilous. Nothing in Helen's +state forbodes sudden death by natural means. The strangeness of two +deaths, both so young; Greville in England, if not here,--hastening down +to examine, to inquire. With such prepossessions against you, there must +be an inquest." + +"Well, and what can be discovered? It was I who shrank before,--it is I +who now urge despatch. I feel as in my proper home in these halls. I +would not leave them again but to my grave. I stand on the hearth of my +youth; I fight for my rights and my son's! Perish those who oppose me!" + +A fell energy and power were in the aspect of the murderess as she thus +spoke; and while her determination awed the inferior villany of Varney, +it served somewhat to mitigate his fears. + +As in more detail they began to arrange their execrable plans, Percival, +while the horses were being harnessed to take him to the nearest post- +town, sought Helen, and found her in the little chamber which he had +described and appropriated as her own, when his fond fancy had sketched +the fair outline of the future. + +This room had been originally fitted up for the private devotions of the +Roman Catholic wife of an ancestor in the reign of Charles II; and in a +recess, half veiled by a curtain, there still stood that holy symbol +which, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, no one sincerely penetrated +with the solemn pathos of sacred history can behold unmoved,--the Cross +of the Divine Agony. Before this holy symbol Helen stood in earnest +reverence. She did not kneel (for the forms of the religion in which she +had been reared were opposed to that posture of worship before the graven +image), but you could see in that countenance, eloquent at once with the +enthusiasm and the meekness of piety, that the soul was filled with the +memories and the hopes which, age after age, have consoled the sufferer +and inspired the martyr. The soul knelt to the idea, if the knee bowed +not to the image, embracing the tender grandeur of the sacrifice and the +vast inheritance opened to faith in the redemption. + +The young man held his breath while he gazed. He was moved, and he was +awed. Slowly Helen turned towards him, and, smiling sweetly, held out to +him her hand. They seated themselves in silence in the depth of the +overhanging casement; and the mournful character of the scene without, +where dimly, through the misty rains, gloomed the dark foliage of the +cedars, made them insensibly draw closer to each other in the instinct of +love when the world frowns around it. Percival wanted the courage to say +that he had come to take farewell, though but for a day, and Helen spoke +first. + +"I cannot guess why it is, Percival, but I am startled at the change I +feel in myself--no, not in health, dear Percival; I mean in mind--during +the last few months,--since, indeed, we have known each other. I +remember so well the morning in which my aunt's letter arrived at the +dear vicarage. We were returning from the village fair, and my good +guardian was smiling at my notions of the world. I was then so giddy and +light and thoughtless, everything presented itself to me in such gay +colours, I scarcely believed in sorrow. And now I feel as if I were +awakened to a truer sense of nature,--of the ends of our being here; I +seem to know that life is a grave and solemn thing. Yet I am not less +happy, Percival. No, I think rather that I knew not true happiness till +I knew you. I have read somewhere that the slave is gay in his holiday +from toil; if you free him, if you educate him, the gayety vanishes, and +he cares no more for the dance under the palm-tree. But is he less +happy? So it is with me!" + +"My sweet Helen, I would rather have one gay smile of old, the arch, +careless laugh which came so naturally from those rosy lips, than hear +you talk of happiness with that quiver in your voice,--those tears in +your eyes." + +"Yet gayety," said Helen, thoughtfully, and in the strain of her pure, +truthful poetry of soul, "is only the light impression of the present +moment,--the play of the mere spirits; and happiness seems a forethought +of the future, spreading on, far and broad, over all time and space." + +"And you live, then, in the future at last; you have no misgivings now, +my Helen? Well, that comforts me. Say it, Helen,--say the future will +be ours!" + +"It will, it will,--forever and forever," said Helen, earnestly; and her +eyes involuntarily rested on the Cross. + +In his younger spirit and less imaginative nature Percival did not +comprehend the depth of sadness implied in Helen's answer; taking it +literally, he felt as if a load were lifted from his heart, and kissing +with rapture the hand he held, he exclaimed: "Yes, this shall soon, oh, +soon be mine! I fear nothing while you hope. You cannot guess how those +words have cheered me; for I am leaving you, though but for a few hours, +and I shall repeat those words, for they will ring in my ear, in my +heart, till we meet again." + +"Leaving me!" said Helen, turning pale, and her clasp on his hand +tightening. Poor child, she felt mysteriously a sentiment of protection +in his presence. + +"But at most for a day. My old tutor, of whom we have so often +conversed, is on his way to England,--perhaps even now in London. He has +some wrong impressions against your aunt; his manner is blunt and rough. +It is necessary that I should see him before he comes hither,--you know +how susceptible is your aunt's pride,--just to prepare him for meeting +her. You understand?" + +"What impressions against my aunt? Does he even know her?" asked Helen. +And if such a sentiment as suspicion could cross that candid innocence of +mind, that sentiment towards this stern relation whose arms had never +embraced her, whose lips had never spoken of the past, whose history was +as a sealed volume, disturbed and disquieted her. + +"It is because he has never known her that he does her wrong. Some old +story of her indiscretion as a girl, of her uncle's displeasure,--what +matters now?" said Percival, shrinking sensitively from one disclosure +that might wound Helen in her kinswoman. "Meanwhile, dearest, you will +be prudent,--you will avoid this damp air, and keep quietly at home, and +amuse yourself, sweet fancier of the future, in planning how to improve +these old halls when they and their unworthy master are your own. God +bless you, God guard you, Helen!" + +He rose, and with that loyal chivalry of love which felt respect the more +for the careless guardianship to which his Helen was intrusted, he +refrained from that parting kiss which their pure courtship warranted, +for which his lip yearned. But as he lingered, an irresistible impulse +moved Helen's heart. Mechanically she opened her arms, and her head sank +upon his shoulder. In that embrace they remained some moments silent, +and an angel might unreprovingly have heard their hearts beat through the +stillness. + +At length Percival tore himself from those arms which relaxed their +imploring hold reluctantly; she heard his hurried step descend the +stairs, and in a moment more the roll of the wheels in the court without; +a dreary sense, as of some utter desertion, some everlasting bereavement, +chilled and appalled her. She stood motionless, as if turned to stone, +on the floor; suddenly the touch of something warm on her hand, a +plaining whine, awoke her attention; Percival's favourite dog missed his +master, and had slunk for refuge to her. The dread sentiment of +loneliness vanished in that humble companionship; and seating herself on +the ground, she took the dog in her arms, and bending over it, wept in +silence. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +MURDER, TOWARDS HIS DESIGN, MOVES LIKE A GHOST. + +The reader will doubtless have observed the consummate art with which the +poisoner had hitherto advanced upon her prey. The design conceived from +afar, and executed with elaborate stealth, defied every chance of +detection against which the ingenuity of practised villany could guard. +Grant even that the deadly drugs should betray the nature of the death +they inflicted, that by some unconjectured secret in the science of +chemistry the presence of those vegetable compounds which had hitherto +baffled every known and positive test in the posthumous examination of +the most experienced surgeons, should be clearly ascertained, not one +suspicion seemed likely to fall upon the ministrant of death. The +medicines were never brought to Madame Dalibard, were never given by her +hand; nothing ever tasted by the victim could be tracked to her aunt. +The helpless condition of the cripple, which Lucretia had assumed, +forbade all notion even of her power of movement. Only in the dead of +night when, as she believed, every human eye that could watch her was +sealed in sleep, and then in those dark habiliments which (even as might +sometimes happen, if the victim herself were awake) a chance ray of light +struggling through chink or shutter could scarcely distinguish from the +general gloom, did she steal to the chamber and infuse the colourless and +tasteless liquid [The celebrated acqua di Tufania (Tufania water) was +wholly without taste or colour] in the morning draught, meant to bring +strength and healing. Grant that the draught was untouched, that it was +examined by the surgeon, that the fell admixture could be detected, +suspicion would wander anywhere rather than to that crippled and helpless +kinswoman who could not rise from her bed without aid. + +But now this patience was to be abandoned, the folds of the serpent were +to coil in one fell clasp upon its prey. + +Fiend as Lucretia had become, and hardened as were all her resolves by +the discovery of her son, and her impatience to endow him with her +forfeited inheritance, she yet shrank from the face of Helen that day; on +the excuse of illness, she kept her room, and admitted only Varney, who +stole in from time to time, with creeping step and haggard countenance, +to sustain her courage or his own. And every time he entered, he found +Lucretia sitting with Walter Ardworth's open letter in her hand, and +turning with a preternatural excitement that seemed almost like +aberration of mind, from the grim and horrid topic which he invited, to +thoughts of wealth and power and triumph and exulting prophecies of the +fame her son should achieve. He looked but on the blackness of the gulf, +and shuddered; her vision overleaped it, and smiled on the misty palaces +her fancy built beyond. + +Late in the evening, before she retired to rest, Helen knocked gently at +her aunt's door. A voice, quick and startled, bade her enter; she came +in, with her sweet, caressing look, and took Lucretia's hand, which +struggled from the clasp. Bending over that haggard brow, she said +simply, yet to Lucretia's ear the voice seemed that of command, "Let me +kiss you this night!" and her lips pressed that brow. The murderess +shuddered, and closed her eyes; when she opened them, the angel visitor +was gone. + +Night deepened and deepened into those hours from the first of which we +number the morn, though night still is at her full. Moonbeam and +starbeam came through the casements shyly and fairylike as on that night +when the murderess was young and crimeless, in deed, if not in thought,-- +that night when, in the book of Leechcraft, she meted out the hours in +which the life of her benefactor might still interpose between her +passion and its end. Along the stairs, through the hall, marched the +armies of light, noiseless and still and clear as the judgments of God +amidst the darkness and shadow of mortal destinies. In one chamber +alone, the folds, curtained close, forbade all but a single ray; that ray +came direct as the stream from a lantern; as the beam reflected back from +an eye,--as an eye it seemed watchful and steadfast through the dark; it +shot along the floor,--it fell at the foot of the bed. + +Suddenly, in the exceeding hush, there was a strange and ghastly sound,-- +it was the howl of a dog! Helen started from her sleep. Percival's dog +had followed her into her room; it had coiled itself, grateful for the +kindness, at the foot of the bed. Now it was on the pillow, she felt its +heart beat against her hand,--it was trembling; its hairs bristled up, +and the howl changed into a shrill bark of terror and wrath. Alarmed, +she looked round; quickly between her and that ray from the crevice a +shapeless darkness passed, and was gone, so undistinguishable, so without +outline, that it had no likeness of any living form; like a cloud, like a +thought, like an omen, it came in gloom, and it vanished. + +Helen was seized with a superstitious terror; the dog continued to +tremble and growl low. All once more was still; the dog sighed itself to +rest. The stillness, the solitude, the glimmer of the moon,--all +contributed yet more to appall the enfeebled nerves of the listening, +shrinking girl. At length she buried her face under the clothes, and +towards daybreak fell into a broken, feverish sleep, haunted with +threatening dreams. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE MESSENGER SPEEDS. + +Towards the afternoon of the following day, an elderly gentleman was +seated in the coffee-room of an hotel at Southampton, engaged in writing +a letter, while the waiter in attendance was employed on the wires that +fettered the petulant spirit contained in a bottle of Schweppe's soda- +water. There was something in the aspect of the old gentleman, and in +the very tone of his voice, that inspired respect, and the waiter had +cleared the other tables of their latest newspapers to place before him. +He had only just arrived by the packet from Havre, and even the +newspapers had not been to him that primary attraction they generally +constitute to the Englishman returning to his bustling native land, +which, somewhat to his surprise, has contrived to go on tolerably well +during his absence. + +We use our privilege of looking over his shoulder while he writes:-- + +Here I am, then, dear Lady Mary, at Southampton, and within an easy drive +of the old Hall. A file of Galignani's journals, which I found on the +road between Marseilles and Paris, informed me, under the head of +"fashionable movements," that Percival St. John, Esquire, was gone to his +seat at Laughton. According to my customary tactics of marching at once +to the seat of action, I therefore made direct for Havre, instead of +crossing from Calais, and I suppose I shall find our young gentleman +engaged in the slaughter of hares and partridges. You see it is a good +sign that he can leave London. Keep up your spirits, my dear friend. If +Perce has been really duped and taken in,--as all you mothers are so apt +to fancy,--rely upon an old soldier to defeat the enemy and expose the +ruse. But if, after all, the girl is such as he describes and believes,- +-innocent, artless, and worthy his affection,--oh, then I range myself, +with your own good heart, upon his side. Never will I run the risk of +unsettling a man's whole character for life by wantonly interfering with +his affections. But there we are agreed. + +In a few hours I shall be with our dear boy, and his whole heart will +come out clear and candid as when it beat under his midshipman's true- +blue. In a day or two I shall make him take me to town, to introduce me +to the whole nest of them. Then I shall report progress. Adieu, till +then! Kind regards to your poor sister. I think we shall have a mild +winter. Not one warning twinge as yet of the old rheumatism. Ever your +devoted old friend and preux chevalier, + H. GREVILLE. + +The captain had completed his letter, sipped his soda-water, and was +affixing to his communication his seal, when he heard the rattle of a +post-chaise without. Fancying it was the one he had ordered, he went to +the open window which looked on the street; but the chaise contained +travellers, only halting to change horses. Somewhat to his surprise, and +a little to his chagrin,--for the captain did not count on finding +company at the Hall,--he heard one of the travellers in the chaise ask +the distance to Laughton. The countenance of the questioner was not +familiar to him. But leaving the worthy captain to question the +landlord, without any satisfactory information, and to hasten the chaise +for himself, we accompany the travellers on their way to Laughton. There +were but two,--the proper complement of a post-chaise,--and they were +both of the ruder sex. The elder of the two was a man of middle age, but +whom the wear and tear of active life had evidently advanced towards the +state called elderly. But there was still abundant life in his quick, +dark eye; and that mercurial youthfulness of character which in some +happy constitutions seems to defy years and sorrow, evinced itself in a +rapid play of countenance and as much gesticulation as the narrow +confines of the vehicle and the position of a traveller will permit. The +younger man, far more grave in aspect and quiet in manner, leaned back in +the corner with folded arms, and listened with respectful attention to +his companion. + +"Certainly, Dr. Johnson is right,--great happiness in an English post- +chaise properly driven; more exhilarating than a palanquin. 'Post +equitem sedet atra cura,'--true only of such scrubby hacks as old Horace +could have known. Black Care does not sit behind English posters, eh, my +boy?" As he spoke this, the gentleman had twice let down the glass of +the vehicle, and twice put it up again. + +"Yet," he resumed, without noticing the brief, good-humoured reply of his +companion,--"yet this is an anxious business enough that we are about. I +don't feel quite easy in my conscience. Poor Braddell's injunctions were +very strict, and I disobey them. It is on your responsibility, John!" + +"I take it without hesitation. All the motives for so stern a severance +must have ceased, and is it not a sufficient punishment to find in that +hoped-for son a--" + +"Poor woman!" interrupted the elder gentleman, in whom we begin to +recognize the soi-disant Mr. Tomkins; "true, indeed, too true. How well +I remember the impression Lucretia Clavering first produced on me; and to +think of her now as a miserable cripple! By Jove, you are right, sir! +Drive on, post-boy, quick, quick!" + +There was a short silence. + +The elder gentleman abruptly put his hand upon his companion's arm. + +"What consummate acuteness; what patient research you have shown! What +could I have done in this business without you? How often had that +garrulous Mrs. Mivers bored me with Becky Carruthers, and the coral, and +St. Paul's, and not a suspicion came across me,--a word was sufficient +for you. And then to track this unfeeling old Joplin from place to place +till you find her absolutely a servant under the very roof of Mrs. +Braddell herself! Wonderful! Ah, boy, you will be an honour to the law +and to your country. And what a hard-hearted rascal you must think me to +have deserted you so long." + +"My dear father," said John Ardworth, tenderly, "your love now +recompenses me for all. And ought I not rather to rejoice not to have +known the tale of a mother's shame until I could half forget it on a +father's breast?" + +"John," said the elder Ardworth, with a choking voice, "I ought to wear +sackcloth all my life for having given you such a mother. When I think +what I have suffered from the habit of carelessness in those confounded +money-matters ('irritamenta malorum,' indeed!), I have only one +consolation,--that my patient, noble son is free from my vice. You would +not believe what a well-principled, honourable fellow I was at your age; +and yet, how truly I said to my poor friend William Mainwaring one day at +Laughton (I remember it now) 'Trust me with anything else but half-a- +guinea!' Why, sir, it was that fault that threw me into low company,-- +that brought me in contact with my innkeeper's daughter at Limerick. I +fell in love, and I married (for, with all my faults, I was never a +seducer, John). I did not own my marriage; why should I?--my relatives +had cut me already. You were born, and, hunted poor devil as I was, I +forgot all by your cradle. Then, in the midst of my troubles, that +ungrateful woman deserted me; then I was led to believe that it was not +my own son whom I had kissed and blessed. Ah, but for that thought +should I have left you as I did? And even in infancy, you had the +features only of your mother. Then, when the death of the adulteress set +me free, and years afterwards, in India, I married again and had new +ties, my heart grew still harder to you. I excused myself by knowing +that at least you were cared for, and trained to good by a better guide +than I. But when, by so strange a hazard, the very priest who had +confessed your mother on her deathbed (she was a Catholic) came to India, +and (for he had known me at Limerick) recognized my altered person, and +obeying his penitent's last injunctions, assured me that you were my +son,--oh, John, then, believe me, I hastened back to England on the wings +of remorse! Love you, boy! I have left at Madras three children, young +and fair, by a woman now in heaven, who never wronged me, and, by my +soul, John Ardworth, you are dearer to me than all!" + +The father's head drooped on his son's breast as he spoke; then, dashing +away his tears, he resumed,-- + +"Ah, why would not Braddell permit me, as I proposed, to find for his son +the same guardianship as that to which I intrusted my own? But his +bigotry besotted him; a clergyman of the High Church,--that was worse +than an atheist. I had no choice left to me but the roof of that she- +hypocrite. Yet I ought to have come to England when I heard of the +child's loss, braved duns and all; but I was money-making, money-making,- +-retribution for money-wasting; and--well, it's no use repenting! And-- +and there is the lodge, the park, the old trees! Poor Sir Miles!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE SPY FLIES. + +Meanwhile at Laughton there was confusion and alarm. Helen had found +herself more than usually unwell in the morning; towards noon, the maid +who attended her informed Madame Dalibard that she was afraid the poor +young lady had much fever, and inquired if the doctor should be sent for. +Madame Dalibard seemed surprised at the intelligence, and directed her +chair to be wheeled into her niece's room, in order herself to judge of +Helen's state. The maid, sure that the doctor would be summoned, +hastened to the stables, and seeing Beck, instructed him to saddle one of +the horses and to await further orders. Beck kept her a few moments +talking while he saddled his horse, and then followed her into the house, +observing that it would save time if he were close at hand. + +"That is quite true," said the maid, "and you may as well wait in the +corridor. Madame may wish to speak to you herself, and give you her own +message or note to the doctor." + +Beck, full of gloomy suspicions, gladly obeyed, and while the maid +entered the sick-chamber, stood anxiously without. Presently Varney +passed him, and knocked at Helen's door; the maid half-opened it. + +"How is Miss Mainwaring?" said he, eagerly. + +"I fear she is worse, sir; but Madame Dalibard does not think there is +any danger." + +"No danger! I am glad; but pray ask Madame Dalibard to let me see her +for a few moments in her own room. If she come out, I will wheel her +chair to it. Whether there is danger or not, we had better send for +other advice than this country doctor, who has perhaps mistaken the case; +tell her I am very uneasy, and beg her to join me immediately." + +"I think you are quite right, sir," said the maid, closing the door. + +Varney then, turning round for the first time, noticed Beck, and said +roughly,-- + +"What do you do here? Wait below till you are sent for." + +Beck pulled his forelock, and retreated back, not in the direction of the +principal staircase, but towards that used by the servants, and which his +researches into the topography of the mansion had now made known to him. +To gain these back stairs he had to pass Lucretia's room; the door stood +ajar; Varney's face was turned from him. Beck breathed hard, looked +round, then crept within, and in a moment was behind the folds of the +tapestry. + +Soon the chair in which sat Madame Dalibard was drawn by Varney himself +into the room. + +Shutting the door with care, and turning the key, Gabriel said, with low, +suppressed passion,-- + +"Well; your mind seems wandering,--speak!" + +"It is strange," said Lucretia, in hollow tones, "can Nature turn +accomplice, and befriend us here?" + +"Nature! did you not last night administer the--" + +"No," interrupted Lucretia. "No; she came into the room, she kissed me +here,--on the brow that even then was meditating murder. The kiss +burned; it burns still,--it eats into the brain like remorse. But I did +not yield; I read again her false father's protestation of love; I read +again the letter announcing the discovery of my son, and remorse lay +still. I went forth as before, I stole into her chamber, I had the fatal +crystal in my hand--" + +"Well, well!" + +"And suddenly there came the fearful howl of a dog, and the dog's fierce +eyes glared on me. I paused, I trembled; Helen started, woke, called +aloud. I turned and fled. The poison was not given." + +Varney ground his teeth. "But this illness! Ha! the effect, perhaps, of +the drops administered two nights ago." + +"No; this illness has no symptoms like those the poison should bequeath,- +-it is but natural fever, a shock on the nerves; she told me she had been +wakened by the dog's howl, and seen a dark form, like a thing from the +grave, creeping along the floor. But she is really ill; send for the +physician; there is nothing in her illness to betray the hand of man. Be +it as it may,--that kiss still burns; I will stir in this no more. Do +what you will yourself!" + +"Fool, fool!" exclaimed Varney, almost rudely grasping her arm. +"Remember how much we have yet to prepare for, how much to do,--and the +time so short! Percival's return,--perhaps this Greville's arrival. +Give me the drugs; I will mix them for her in the potion the physician +sends. And when Percival returns,--his Helen dead or dying,--I will +attend on him! Silent still? Recall your son! Soon you will clasp him +in your arms as a beggar, or as the lord of Laughton!" + +Lucretia shuddered, but did not rise; she drew forth a ring of keys from +her bosom, and pointed towards a secretary. Varney snatched the keys, +unlocked the secretary, seized the fatal casket, and sat down quietly +before it. + +When the dire selections were made, and secreted about his person, Varney +rose, approached the fire, and blew the wood embers to a blaze. + +"And now," he said, with his icy irony of smile, "we may dismiss these +useful instruments,--perhaps forever. Though Walter Ardworth, in +restoring your son, leaves us dependent on that son's filial affection, +and I may have, therefore, little to hope for from the succession, to +secure which I have risked and am again to risk my life, I yet trust to +that influence which you never fail to obtain over others. I take it for +granted that when these halls are Vincent Braddell's, we shall have no +need of gold, nor of these pale alchemies. Perish, then, the mute +witnesses of our acts, the elements we have bowed to our will! No poison +shall be found in our hoards! Fire, consume your consuming children!" + +As he spoke, he threw upon the hearth the contents of the casket, and set +his heel upon the logs. A bluish flame shot up, breaking into countless +sparks, and then died. + +Lucretia watched him without speaking. + +In coming back towards the table, Varney felt something hard beneath his +tread; he stooped, and picked up the ring which has before been described +as amongst the ghastly treasures of the casket, and which had rolled on +the floor almost to Lucretia's feet, as he had emptied the contents on +the hearth. + +"This, at least, need tell no tales," said he; "a pity to destroy so rare +a piece of workmanship,--one, too, which we never can replace!" + +"Ay," said Lucretia, abstractedly; "and if detection comes, it may secure +a refuge from the gibbet. Give me the ring." + +"A refuge more terrible than the detection," said Varney,--"beware of +such a thought," as Lucretia, taking it from his hand, placed the ring on +her finger. + +"And now I leave you for a while to recollect yourself,--to compose your +countenance and your thoughts. I will send for the physician." + +Lucretia, with her eyes fixed on the floor, did not heed him, and he +withdrew. + +So motionless was her attitude, so still her very breathing, that the +unseen witness behind the tapestry, who, while struck with horror at what +he had overheard (the general purport of which it was impossible that he +could misunderstand), was parched with impatience to escape to rescue his +beloved master from his impending fate, and warn him of the fate hovering +nearer still over Helen, ventured to creep along the wall to the +threshold, to peer forth from the arras, and seeing her eyes still +downcast, to emerge, and place his hand on the door. At that very moment +Lucretia looked up, and saw him gliding from the tapestry; their eyes +met: his were fascinated as the bird's by the snake's. At the sight, all +her craft, her intellect, returned. With a glance, she comprehended the +terrible danger that awaited her. Before he was aware of her movement, +she was at his side; her hand on his own, her voice in his ear. + +"Stir not a step, utter not a sound, or you are--" + +Beck did not suffer her to proceed. With the violence rather of fear +than of courage, he struck her to the ground; but she clung to him still, +and though rendered for the moment speechless by the suddenness of the +blow, her eyes took an expression of unspeakable cruelty and fierceness. +He struggled with all his might to shake her off; as he did so, she +placed feebly her other hand upon the wrist of the lifted arm that had +smitten her, and he felt a sharp pain, as if the nails had fastened into +the flesh. This but exasperated him to new efforts. He extricated +himself from her grasp, which relaxed as her lips writhed into a smile of +scorn and triumph, and, spurning her while she lay before the threshold, +he opened the door, sprang forward, and escaped. No thought had he of +tarrying in that House of Pelops, those human shambles, of denouncing +Murder in its lair; to fly to reach his master, warn, and shield him,-- +that was the sole thought which crossed his confused, bewildered brain. + +It might be from four to five minutes that Lucretia, half-stunned, half- +senseless, lay upon those floors,--for besides the violence of her fall, +the shock of the struggle upon nerves weakened by the agony of +apprehension, occasioned by the imminent and unforeseen chance of +detection, paralyzed her wondrous vigour of mind and frame,--when Varney +entered. + +"They tell me she sleeps," he said, in hoarse, muttered accents, before +he saw the prostrate form at his very feet. But Varney's step, Varney's +voice, had awakened Lucretia's reason to consciousness and the sense of +peril. Rising, though with effort, she related hurriedly what had +passed. + +"Fly, fly!" she gasped, as she concluded. "Fly, to detain, to secrete, +this man somewhere for the next few hours. Silence him but till then; I +have done the rest!" and her finger pointed to the fatal ring. Varney +waited for no further words; he hurried out, and made at once to the +stables: his shrewdness conjectured that Beck would carry his tale +elsewhere. The groom was already gone (his fellows said) without a word, +but towards the lodge that led to the Southampton road. Varney ordered +the swiftest horse the stables held to be saddled, and said, as he sprang +on his back,-- + +"I, too, must go towards Southampton. The poor young lady! I must +prepare your master,--he is on his road back to us;" and the last word +was scarce out of his lips as the sparks flew from the flints under the +horse's hoofs, and he spurred from the yard. + +As he rode at full speed through the park, the villain's mind sped more +rapidly than the animal he bestrode,--sped from fear to hope, hope to +assurance. Grant that the spy lived to tell his tale,--incoherent, +improbable as the tale would be,--who would believe it? How easy to meet +tale by tale! The man must own that he was secreted behind the +tapestry,--wherefore but to rob? Detected by Madame Dalibard, he had +coined this wretched fable. And the spy, too, could not live through the +day; he bore Death with him as he rode, he fed its force by his speed, +and the effects of the venom itself would be those of frenzy. Tush! his +tale, at best, would seem but the ravings of delirium. Still, it was +well to track him where he went,--delay him, if possible; and Varney's +spurs plunged deep and deeper into the bleeding flanks: on desperately +scoured the horse. He passed the lodge; he was on the road; a chaise and +pair dashed by him; he heard not a voice exclaim "Varney!" he saw not the +wondering face of John Ardworth; bending over the tossing mane, he was +deaf, he was blind, to all without and around. A milestone glides by, +another, and a third. Ha! his eyes can see now. The object of his chase +is before him,--he views distinctly, on the brow of yon hill, the horse +and the rider, spurring fast, like himself. They descend the hill, horse +and horseman, and are snatched from his sight. Up the steep strains the +pursuer. He is at the summit. He sees the fugitive before him, almost +within hearing. Beck has slackened his steed; he seems swaying to and +fro in the saddle. Ho, ho! the barbed ring begins to work in his veins. +Varney looks round,--not another soul is in sight; a deep wood skirts the +road. Place and time seem to favour; Beck has reined in his horse,--he +bends low over the saddle, as if about to fall. Varney utters a half- +suppressed cry of triumph, shakes his reins, and spurs on, when suddenly- +-by the curve of the road, hid before--another chaise comes in sight, +close where Beck had wearily halted. + +The chaise stops; Varney pulls in, and draws aside to the hedgerow. Some +one within the vehicle is speaking to the fugitive! May it not be St. +John himself? To his rage and his terror, he sees Beck painfully +dismount from his horse, sees him totter to the door of the chaise, sees +a servant leap from the box and help him up the step, sees him enter. It +must be Percival on his return,--Percival, to whom he tells that story of +horror! Varney's brute-like courage forsook him; his heart was appalled. +In one of those panics so common with that boldness which is but animal, +his sole thought became that of escape. He turned his horse's head to +the fence, forced his way desperately through the barrier, made into the +wood, and sat there, cowering and listening, till in another minute he +heard the wheels rattle on, and the horses gallop hard down the hill +towards the park. + +The autumn wind swept through the trees, it shook the branches of the +lofty ash that overhung the Accursed One. What observer of Nature knows +not that peculiar sound which the ash gives forth in the blast? Not the +solemn groan of the oak, not the hollow murmur of the beech, but a shrill +wail, a shriek as of a human voice in sharp anguish. Varney shuddered, +as if he had heard the death-cry of his intended victim. Through briers +and thickets, torn by the thorns, bruised by the boughs, he plunged +deeper and deeper into the wood, gained at length the main path cut +through it, found himself in a lane, and rode on, careless whither, till +he had reached a small town, about ten miles from Laughton, where he +resolved to wait till his nerves had recovered their tone, and he could +more calmly calculate the chances of safety. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +LUCRETIA REGAINS HER SON. + +It seemed as if now, when danger became most imminent and present, that +that very danger served to restore to Lucretia Dalibard her faculties, +which during the earlier day had been steeped in a kind of dreary stupor. +The absolute necessity of playing out her execrable part with all +suitable and consistent hypocrisy, braced her into iron. But the +disguise she assumed was a supernatural effort, it stretched to cracking +every fibre of the brain; it seemed almost to herself as if, her object +once gained, either life or consciousness could hold out no more. + +A chaise stopped at the porch; two gentlemen descended. The elder paused +irresolutely, and at length, taking out a card, inscribed "Mr. Walter +Ardworth," said, "If Madame Dalibard can be spoken to for a moment, will +you give her this card?" + +The footman hesitatingly stared at the card, and then invited the +gentleman into the hall while he took up the message. Not long had the +visitor to wait, pacing the dark oak floors and gazing on the faded +banners, before the servant reappeared: Madame Dalibard would see him. +He followed his guide up the stairs, while his young companion turned +from the hall, and seated himself musingly on one of the benches on the +deserted terrace. + +Grasping the arms of her chair with both hands, her eyes fixed eagerly on +his face, Lucretia Dalibard awaited the welcome visitor. + +Prepared as he had been for change, Walter was startled by the ghastly +alteration in Lucretia's features, increased as it was at that moment by +all the emotions which raged within. He sank into the chair placed for +him opposite Lucretia, and clearing his throat, said falteringly,-- + +"I grieve indeed, Madame, that my visit, intended to bring but joy, +should chance thus inopportunely. The servant informed me as we came up +the stairs that your niece was ill; and I sympathize with your natural +anxiety,--Susan's only child, too; poor Susan!" + +"Sir," said Lucretia, impatiently, "these moments are precious. Sir, +sir, my son,--my son!" and her eyes glanced to the door. "You have +brought with you a companion,--does he wait without? My son!" + +"Madame, give me a moment's patience. I will be brief, and compress what +in other moments might be a long narrative into a few sentences." + +Rapidly then Walter Ardworth passed over the details, unnecessary now to +repeat to the reader,--the injunctions of Braddell, the delivery of the +child to the woman selected by his fellow-sectarian (who, it seemed, by +John Ardworth's recent inquiries, was afterwards expelled the community, +and who, there was reason to believe, had been the first seducer of the +woman thus recommended). No clew to the child's parentage had been given +to the woman with the sum intrusted for his maintenance, which sum had +perhaps been the main cause of her reckless progress to infamy and ruin. +The narrator passed lightly over the neglect and cruelty of the nurse, to +her abandonment of the child when the money was exhausted. Fortunately +she had overlooked the coral round its neck. By that coral, and by the +initials V. B., which Ardworth had had the precaution to have burned into +the child's wrist, the lost son had been discovered; the nurse herself +(found in the person of Martha Skeggs, Lucretia's own servant) had been +confronted with the woman to whom she gave the child, and recognized at +once. Nor had it been difficult to obtain from her the confession which +completed the evidence. + +"In this discovery," concluded Ardworth, "the person I employed met your +own agent, and the last links in the chain they traced together. But to +that person--to his zeal and intelligence--you owe the happiness I trust +to give you. He sympathized with me the more that he knew you +personally, felt for your sorrows, and had a lingering belief that you +supposed him to be the child you yearned for. Madame, thank my son for +the restoration of your own!" + +Without sound, Lucretia had listened to these details, though her +countenance changed fearfully as the narrator proceeded. But now she +groaned aloud and in agony. + +"Nay, Madame," said Ardworth, feelingly, and in some surprise, "surely +the discovery of your son should create gladder emotions! Though, +indeed, you will be prepared to find that the poor youth so reared wants +education and refinement, I have heard enough to convince me that his +dispositions are good and his heart grateful. Judge of this yourself; he +is in these walls, he is--" + +"Abandoned by a harlot,--reared by a beggar! My son!" interrupted +Lucretia, in broken sentences. "Well, sir, have you discharged your +task! Well have you replaced a mother!" Before Ardworth could reply, +loud and rapid steps were heard in the corridor, and a voice, cracked, +indistinct, but vehement. The door was thrown open, and, half-supported +by Captain Greville, half dragging him along, his features convulsed, +whether by pain or passion, the spy upon Lucretia's secrets, the +denouncer of her crime, tottered to the threshold. Pointing to where she +sat with his long, lean arm, Beck exclaimed, "Seize her! I 'cuse her, +face to face, of the murder of her niece,--of--of I told you, sir--I told +you--" + +"Madame," said Captain Greville, "you stand charged by this witness with +the most terrible of human crimes. I judge you not. Your niece, I +rejoice to bear, yet lives. Pray God that her death be not traced to +those kindred hands!" Turning her eyes from one to the other with a +wandering stare, Lucretia Dalibard remained silent. But there was still +scorn on her lip, and defiance on her brow. At last she said slowly, and +to Ardworth,-- + +"Where is my son? You say he is within these walls. Call him forth to +protect his mother! Give me at least my son,--my son!" + +Her last words were drowned by a fresh burst of fury from her denouncer. +In all the coarsest invective his education could supply, in all the +hideous vulgarities of his untutored dialect, in that uncurbed +licentiousness of tone, look, and manner which passion, once aroused, +gives to the dregs and scum of the populace, Beck poured forth his +frightful charges, his frantic execrations. In vain Captain Greville +strove to check him; in vain Walter Ardworth sought to draw him from the +room. But while the poor wretch--maddening not more with the +consciousness of the crime than with the excitement of the poison in his +blood--thus raved and stormed, a terrible suspicion crossed Walter +Ardworth; mechanically,--as his grasp was on the accuser's arm,--he bared +the sleeve, and on the wrist were the dark-blue letters burned into the +skin and bearing witness to his identity with the lost Vincent Braddell. + +"Hold, hold!" he exclaimed then; "hold, unhappy man!--it is your mother +whom you denounce!" + +Lucretia sprang up erect; her eyes seemed starting from her head. She +caught at the arm pointed towards her in wrath and menace, and there, +amidst those letters that proclaimed her son, was the small puncture, +surrounded by a livid circle, that announced her victim. In the same +instant she discovered her child in the man who was calling down upon her +head the hatred of Earth and the justice of Heaven, and knew herself his +murderess! + +She dropped the arm, and sank back on the chair; and whether the poison +had now reached to the vitals, or whether so unwonted a passion in so +frail a frame sufficed for the death-stroke, Beck himself, with a low, +suffocated cry, slid from the hand of Ardworth, and tottering a step or +so, the blood gushed from his mouth over Lucretia's robe; his head +drooped an instant, and, falling, rested first upon her lap, then struck +heavily upon the floor. The two men bent over him and raised him in +their arms; his eyes opened and closed, his throat rattled, and as he +fell back into their arms a corpse, a laugh rose close at hand,--it rang +through the walls, it was heard near and afar, above and below; not an +ear in that house that heard it not. In that laugh fled forever, till +the Judgment-day, from the blackened ruins of her lost soul, the reason +of the murderess-mother. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +THE LOTS VANISH WITHIN THE URN. + +Varney's self-commune restored to him his constitutional audacity. He +returned to Laughton towards the evening, and held a long conference with +Greville. Fortunately for him, perhaps, and happily for all, Helen had +lost all more dangerous symptoms; and the physician, who was in the +house, saw in her state nothing not easily to be accounted for by natural +causes. Percival had arrived, had seen Helen,--no wonder she was better! +Both from him and from Helen, Madame Dalibard's fearful condition was for +the present concealed. Ardworth's story, and the fact of Beck's identity +with Vincent Braddell, were also reserved for a later occasion. The tale +which Beck had poured into the ear of Greville (when, recognizing the St. +John livery, the captain stopped his chaise to inquire if Percival were +at the Hall, and when thrilled by the hideous import of his broken reply, +that gentleman had caused him to enter the vehicle to explain himself +further), Varney, with his wonted art and address, contrived to strip of +all probable semblance. Evidently the poor lad had been already +delirious; his story must be deemed the nightmare of his disordered +reason. Varney insisted upon surgical examination as to the cause of his +death. The membranes of the brain were found surcharged with blood, as +in cases of great mental excitement; the slight puncture in the wrist, +ascribed to the prick of a rusty nail, provoked no suspicion. If some +doubts remained still in Greville's acute mind, he was not eager to +express, still less to act upon them. Helen was declared to be out of +danger; Percival was safe,--why affix by minute inquiry into the alleged +guilt of Madame Dalibard (already so awfully affected by the death of her +son and by the loss of her reason) so foul a stain on the honoured family +of St. John? But Greville was naturally anxious to free the house as +soon as possible both of Varney and that ominous Lucretia, whose sojourn +under its roof seemed accursed. He therefore readily assented when +Varney proposed, as his obvious and personal duty, to take charge of his +mother-in-law, and remove her to London for immediate advice. + +At the dead of the black-clouded night, no moon and no stars, the son of +Olivier Dalibard bore away the form of the once-formidable Lucretia,--the +form, for the mind was gone; that teeming, restless, and fertile +intellect, which had carried along the projects with the preterhuman +energies of the fiend, was hurled into night and chaos. Manacled and +bound, for at times her paroxysms were terrible, and all partook of the +destructive and murderous character which her faculties, when present, +had betrayed, she was placed in the vehicle by the shrinking side of her +accomplice. + +Long before he arrived in London, Varney had got rid of his fearful +companion. His chaise had stopped at the iron gates of a large building +somewhat out of the main road, and the doors of the madhouse closed on +Lucretia Dalibard. + +Varney then hastened to Dover, with intention of flight into France; he +was just about to step into the vessel, when he was tapped rudely on the +shoulder, and a determined voice said, "Mr. Gabriel Varney, you are my +prisoner!" + +"For what? Some paltry debt?" said Varney, haughtily. + +"For forgery on the Bank of England!" + +Varney's hand plunged into his vest. The officer seized it in time, and +wrested the blade from his grasp. Once arrested for an offence it was +impossible to disprove, although the very smallest of which his +conscience might charge him, Varney sank into the blackest despair. +Though he had often boasted, not only to others, but to his own vain +breast, of the easy courage with which, when life ceased to yield +enjoyment, he could dismiss it by the act of his own will; though he had +possessed himself of Lucretia's murderous ring, and death, if fearful, +was therefore at his command,--self-destruction was the last thought that +occurred to him; that morbid excitability of fancy which, whether in his +art or in his deeds, had led him to strange delight in horror, now served +but to haunt him with the images of death in those ghastliest shapes +familiar to them who look only into the bottom of the charnel, and see +but the rat and the worm and the loathsome agencies of corruption. It +was not the despair of conscience that seized him, it was the abject +clinging to life; not the remorse of the soul,--that still slept within +him, too noble an agency for one so debased,--but the gross physical +terror. As the fear of the tiger, once aroused, is more paralyzing than +that of the deer, proportioned to the savageness of a disposition to +which fear is a novelty, so the very boldness of Varney, coming only from +the perfection of the nervous organization, and unsupported by one moral +sentiment, once struck down, was corrupted into the vilest cowardice. +With his audacity, his shrewdness forsook him. Advised by his lawyer to +plead guilty, he obeyed, and the sentence of transportation for life gave +him at first a feeling of reprieve; but when his imagination began to +picture, in the darkness of his cell, all the true tortures of that +penalty,--not so much, perhaps, to the uneducated peasant-felon, inured +to toil, and familiarized with coarse companionship, as to one pampered +like himself by all soft and half-womanly indulgences,--the shaven hair, +the convict's dress, the rigorous privation, the drudging toil, the +exile, seemed as grim as the grave. In the dotage of faculties smitten +into drivelling, he wrote to the Home Office, offering to disclose +secrets connected with crimes that had hitherto escaped or baffled +justice, on condition that his sentence might be repealed, or mitigated +into the gentler forms of ordinary transportation. No answer was +returned to him, but his letter provoked research. Circumstances +connected with his uncle's death, and with various other dark passages in +his life, sealed against him all hope of a more merciful sentence; and +when some acquaintances, whom his art had made for him, and who, while +grieving for his crime, saw in it some excuses (ignorant of his feller +deeds), sought to intercede in his behalf, the reply of the Home Office +was obvious: "He is a fortunate man to have been tried and condemned for +his least offence." Not one indulgence that could distinguish him from +the most execrable ruffian condemned to the same sentence was conceded. + +The idea of the gibbet lost all its horror. Here was a gibbet for every +hour. No hope,--no escape. Already that Future Doom which comprehends +the "Forever" opened upon him black and fathomless. The hour-glass was +broken up, the hand of the timepiece was arrested. The Beyond stretched +before him without limit, without goal,--on into Annihilation or into +Hell. + + + + +EPILOGUE TO PART THE SECOND. + +Stand, O Man! upon the hill-top in the stillness of the evening hour, and +gaze, not with joyous, but with contented eyes, upon the beautiful world +around thee. See where the mists, soft and dim, rise over the green +meadows, through which the rivulet steals its way. See where, broadest +and stillest, the wave expands to the full smile of the setting sun, and +the willow that trembles on the breeze, and the oak that stands firm in +the storm, are reflected back, peaceful both, from the clear glass of the +tides. See where, begirt by the gold of the harvests, and backed by the +pomp of a thousand groves, the roofs of the town bask, noiseless, in the +calm glow of the sky. Not a sound from those abodes floats in discord to +thine ear; only from the church-tower, soaring high above the rest, +perhaps faintly heard through the stillness, swells the note of the holy +bell. Along the mead low skims the swallow,--on the wave the silver +circlet, breaking into spray, shows the sport of the fish. See the +Earth, how serene, though all eloquent of activity and life! See the +Heavens, how benign, though dark clouds, by yon mountain, blend the +purple with the gold! Gaze contented, for Good is around thee,--not +joyous, for Evil is the shadow of Good! Let thy soul pierce through the +veil of the senses, and thy sight plunge deeper than the surface which +gives delight to thine eye. Below the glass of that river, the pike +darts on his prey; the circle in the wave, the soft plash amongst the +reeds, are but signs of Destroyer and Victim. In the ivy round the oak +by the margin, the owl hungers for the night, which shall give its beak +and its talons living food for its young; and the spray of the willow +trembles with the wing of the redbreast, whose bright eye sees the worm +on the sod. Canst thou count too, O Man! all the cares, all the sins, +that those noiseless rooftops conceal? With every curl of that smoke to +the sky, a human thought soars as dark, a human hope melts as briefly. +And the bell from the church-tower, that to thy ear gives but music, +perhaps knolls for the dead. The swallow but chases the moth, and the +cloud, that deepens the glory of the heaven and the sweet shadows on the +earth, nurses but the thunder that shall rend the grove, and the storm +that shall devastate the harvests. Not with fear, not with doubt, +recognize, O Mortal, the presence of Evil in the world. [Not, indeed, +that the evil here narrated is the ordinary evil of the world,--the +lesson it inculcates would be lost if so construed,--but that the mystery +of evil, whatever its degree, only increases the necessity of faith in +the vindication of the contrivance which requires infinity for its range, +and eternity for its consummation. It is in the existence of evil that +man finds his duties, and his soul its progress.] Hush thy heart in the +humbleness of awe, that its mirror may reflect as serenely the shadow as +the light. Vainly, for its moral, dost thou gaze on the landscape, if +thy soul puts no check on the dull delight of the senses. Two wings only +raise thee to the summit of Truth, where the Cherub shall comfort the +sorrow, where the Seraph shall enlighten the joy. Dark as ebon spreads +the one wing, white as snow gleams the other,--mournful as thy reason +when it descends into the deep; exulting as thy faith when it springs to +the day-star. + +Beck sleeps in the churchyard of Laughton. He had lived to frustrate the +monstrous design intended to benefit himself, and to become the +instrument, while the victim, of the dread Eumenides. That done, his +life passed with the crimes that had gathered around, out of the sight of +mortals. Helen slowly regained her health in the atmosphere of love and +happiness; and Lady Mary soon learned to forget the fault of the father +in the virtues of the child. Married to Percival, Helen fulfilled the +destinies of woman's genius, in calling forth into action man's earnest +duties. She breathed into Percival's warm, beneficent heart her own more +steadfast and divine intelligence. Like him she grew ambitious, by her +he became distinguished. While I write, fair children play under the +cedars of Laughton. And the husband tells the daughters to resemble +their mother; and the wife's highest praise to the boys is: "You have +spoken truth, or done good, like your father." + +John Ardworth has not paused in his career, nor belied the promise of his +youth. Though the elder Ardworth, partly by his own exertions, partly by +his second marriage with the daughter of the French merchant (through +whose agency he had corresponded with Fielden), had realized a moderate +fortune, it but sufficed for his own wants and for the children of his +later nuptials, upon whom the bulk of it was settled. Hence, happily +perhaps for himself and others, the easy circumstances of his father +allowed to John Ardworth no exemption from labour. His success in the +single episode from active life to literature did not intoxicate or +mislead him. He knew that his real element was not in the field of +letters, but in the world of men. Not undervaluing the noble destinies +of the author, he felt that those destinies, if realized to the utmost, +demanded powers other than his own, and that man is only true to his +genius when the genius is at home in his career. He would not renounce +for a brief celebrity distant and solid fame. He continued for a few +years in patience and privation and confident self-reliance to drudge on, +till the occupation for the intellect fed by restraint, and the learning +accumulated by study, came and found the whole man developed and +prepared. Then he rose rapidly from step to step; then, still retaining +his high enthusiasm, he enlarged his sphere of action from the cold +practice of law into those vast social improvements which law, rightly +regarded, should lead and vivify and create. Then, and long before the +twenty years he had imposed on his probation had expired, he gazed again +upon the senate and the abbey, and saw the doors of the one open to his +resolute tread, and anticipated the glorious sepulchre which heart and +brain should win him in the other. John Ardworth has never married. +When Percival rebukes him for his celibacy, his lip quivers slightly, and +he applies himself with more dogged earnestness to his studies or his +career. But he never complains that his lot is lonely or his affections +void. For him who aspires, and for him who loves, life may lead through +the thorns, but it never stops in the desert. + +On the minor personages involved in this history, there is little need to +dwell. Mr. Fielden, thanks to St. John, has obtained a much better +living in the rectory of Laughton, but has found new sources of pleasant +trouble for himself in seeking to drill into the mind of Percival's +eldest son the elements of Euclid, and the principles of Latin syntax. + +We may feel satisfied that the Miverses will go on much the same while +trade enriches without refining, and while, nevertheless, right feelings +in the common paths of duty may unite charitable emotions with graceless +language. + +We may rest assured that the poor widow who had reared the lost son of +Lucretia received from the bounty of Percival all that could comfort her +for his death. + +We have no need to track the dull crimes of Martha, or the quick, cunning +vices of Grabman, to their inevitable goals, in the hospital or the +prison, the dunghill or the gibbet. + +Of the elder Ardworth our parting notice may be less brief. We first saw +him in sanguine and generous youth, with higher principles and clearer +insight into honour than William Mainwaring. We have seen him next a +spendthrift and a fugitive, his principles debased and his honour dimmed. +He presents to us no uncommon example of the corruption engendered by +that vulgar self-indulgence which mortgages the morrow for the pleasures +of to-day. No Deity presides where Prudence is absent. Man, a world in +himself, requires for the development of his faculties patience, and for +the balance of his actions, order. Even where he had deemed himself most +oppressively made the martyr,--namely, in the profession of mere +political opinions,--Walter Ardworth had but followed out into theory the +restless, uncalculating impatience which had brought adversity on his +manhood, and, despite his constitutional cheerfulness, shadowed his age +with remorse. The death of the child committed to his charge long +(perhaps to the last) embittered his pride in the son whom, without merit +of his own, Providence had spared to a brighter fate. But for the faults +which had banished him his country, and the habits which had seared his +sense of duty, could that child have been so abandoned, and have so +perished? + +It remains only to cast our glance over the punishments which befell the +sensual villany of Varney, the intellectual corruption of his fell +stepmother. + +These two persons had made a very trade of those crimes to which man's +law awards death. They had said in their hearts that they would dare the +crime, but elude the penalty. By wonderful subtlety, craft, and +dexterity, which reduced guilt to a science, Providence seemed, as in +disdain of the vulgar instruments of common retribution, to concede to +them that which they had schemed for,--escape from the rope and gibbet. +Varney, saved from detection of his darker and more inexpiable crimes, +punished only for the least one, retained what had seemed to him the +master boon,--life. Safer still from the law, no mortal eye had plumbed +the profound night of Lucretia's awful guilt. Murderess of husband and +son, the blinded law bade her go unscathed, unsuspected. Direct, as from +heaven, without a cloud, fell the thunderbolt. Is the life they have +saved worth the prizing? Doth the chalice, unspilt on the ground, not +return to the hand? Is the sudden pang of the hangman more fearful than +the doom which they breathe and bear? Look, and judge. + +Behold that dark ship on the waters! Its burdens are not of Ormus and +Tyre. No goodly merchandise doth it waft over the wave, no blessing +cleaves to its sails; freighted with terror and with guilt, with remorse +and despair, or, more ghastly than either, the sullen apathy of souls +hardened into stone, it carries the dregs and offal of the old world to +populate the new. On a bench in that ship sit side by side two men, +companions assigned to each other. Pale, abject, cowering, all the +bravery rent from his garb, all the gay insolence vanished from his +brow,--can that hollow-eyed, haggard wretch be the same man whose senses +opened on every joy, whose nerves mocked at every peril? But beside him, +with a grin of vile glee on his features, all muscle and brawn in the +form, all malice, at once spiteful and dull, in the heavy eye, sits his +fit comrade, the Gravestealer! At the first glance each had recognized +each, and the prophecy and the vision rushed back upon the daintier +convict. If he seek to escape from him, the Gravestealer claims him as a +prey; he threatens him with his eye as a slave; he kicks him with his +hoof as they sit, and laughs at the writhings of the pain. Carry on your +gaze from the ship, hear the cry from the masthead, see the land arise +from the waste,--a land without hope. At first, despite the rigour of +the Home Office, the education and intelligence of Varney have their +price,--the sole crime for which he is convicted is not of the darkest. +He escapes from that hideous comrade; he can teach as a schoolmaster,-- +let his brain work, not his hands. But the most irredeemable of convicts +are ever those of nurture and birth and culture better than the ruffian +rest. You may enlighten the clod, but the meteor still must feed on the +marsh; and the pride and the vanity work where the crime itself seems to +lose its occasion. Ever avid, ever grasping, he falls, step by step, in +the foul sink, and the colony sees in Gabriel Varney its most pestilent +rogue. Arch-convict amidst convicts, doubly lost amongst the damned, +they banish him to the sternest of the penal settlements; they send him +forth with the vilest to break stones upon the roads. Shrivelled and +bowed and old prematurely, see that sharp face peering forth amongst that +gang, scarcely human, see him cringe to the lash of the scornful +overseer, see the pairs chained together, night and day! Ho, ho! his +comrade hath found him again,--the Artist and the Gravestealer leashed +together! Conceive that fancy so nurtured by habit, those tastes, so +womanized by indulgence,--the one suggesting the very horrors that are +not; the other revolting at all toil as a torture. + +But intellect, not all gone, though hourly dying heavily down to the +level of the brute, yet schemes for delivery and escape. Let the plot +ripen, and the heart bound; break his chain, set him free, send him forth +to the wilderness. Hark, the whoop of the wild men! See those things +that ape our species dance and gibber round the famishing, hunted wretch. +Hark, how he shrieks at the torture! How they tear and they pinch and +they burn and they rend him! They, too, spare his life,--it is charmed. +A Caliban amidst Calibans, they heap him with their burdens, and feed him +on their offal. Let him live; he loved life for himself; he has cheated +the gibbet,--LET HIM LIVE! Let him watch, let him once more escape; all +naked and mangled, let him wander back to the huts of his gang. Lo, +where he kneels, the foul tears streaming down, and cries aloud: "I have +broken all your laws, I will tell you all my crimes; I ask but one +sentence,--hang me up; let me die!" And from the gang groan many voices: +"Hang us up; let us die!" The overseer turns on his heel, and Gabriel +Varney again is chained to the laughing Gravestealer. + +You enter those gates so jealously guarded, you pass, with a quick beat +of the heart, by those groups on the lawn, though they are harmless; you +follow your guide through those passages; where the open doors will +permit, you see the emperor brandish his sceptre of straw, hear the +speculator counting his millions, sigh where the maiden sits smiling the +return of her shipwrecked lover, or gravely shake the head and hurry on +where the fanatic raves his Apocalypse, and reigns in judgment on the +world; you pass by strong gates into corridors gloomier and more remote. +Nearer and nearer you hear the yell and the oath and blaspheming curse; +you are in the heart of the madhouse, where they chain those at once +cureless and dangerous,--who have but sense enough left them to smite and +to throttle and to murder. Your guide opens that door, massive as a +wall; you see (as we, who narrate, have seen her) Lucretia Dalibard,--a +grisly, squalid, ferocious mockery of a human being, more appalling and +more fallen than Dante ever fabled in his spectres, than Swift ever +scoffed in his Yahoos! Only, where all other feature seems to have lost +its stamp of humanity, still burns with unquenchable fever the red, +devouring eye. That eye never seems to sleep, or in sleep, the lid never +closes over it. As you shrink from its light, it seems to you as if the +mind, that had lost coherence and harmony, still retained latent and +incommunicable consciousness as its curse. For days, for weeks, that +awful maniac will preserve obstinate, unbroken silence; but as the eye +never closes, so the hands never rest,--they open and grasp, as if at +some palpable object on which they close, vicelike, as a bird's talons on +its prey; sometimes they wander over that brow, where the furrows seem +torn as the thunder scars, as if to wipe from it a stain, or charm from +it a pang; sometimes they gather up the hem of that sordid robe, and +seem, for hours together, striving to rub from it a soil. Then, out from +prolonged silence, without cause or warning, will ring, peal after peal +(till the frame, exhausted with the effort sinks senseless into stupor), +the frightful laugh. But speech, intelligible and coherent, those lips +rarely yield. There are times, indeed, when the attendants are persuaded +that her mind in part returns to her; and those times experience has +taught them to watch with peculiar caution. The crisis evinces itself by +a change in the manner,--by a quick apprehension of all that is said; by +a straining, anxious look at the dismal walls; by a soft, fawning +docility; by murmured complaints of the chains that fetter; and (though, +as we have said, but very rarely) by prayers, that seem rational, for +greater ease and freedom. + +In the earlier time of her dread captivity, perhaps when it was believed +at the asylum that she was a patient of condition, with friends who cared +for her state, and would liberally reward her cure, they in those moments +relaxed her confinement, and sought the gentler remedies their art +employs; but then invariably, and, it was said, with a cunning that +surpassed all the proverbial astuteness of the mad, she turned this +indulgence to the most deadly uses,--she crept to the pallet of some +adjacent sufferer weaker than herself, and the shrieks that brought the +attendants into the cell scarcely saved the intended victim from her +hands. It seemed, in those imperfectly lucid intervals, as if the reason +only returned to guide her to destroy,--only to animate the broken +mechanism into the beast of prey. + +Years have now passed since her entrance within those walls. He who +placed her there never had returned. He had given a false name,--no clew +to him was obtained; the gold he had left was but the quarter's pay. +When Varney had been first apprehended, Percival requested the younger +Ardworth to seek the forger in prison, and to question him as to Madame +Dalibard; but Varney was then so apprehensive that, even if still insane, +her very ravings might betray his share in her crimes, or still more, if +she recovered, that the remembrance of her son's murder would awaken the +repentance and the confession of crushed despair, that the wretch had +judged it wiser to say that his accomplice was no more,--that her +insanity had already terminated in death. The place of her confinement +thus continued a secret locked in his own breast. Egotist to the last, +she was henceforth dead to him,--why not to the world? Thus the partner +of her crimes had cut off her sole resource, in the compassion of her +unconscious kindred; thus the gates of the living world were shut to her +evermore. Still, in a kind of compassion, or as an object of +experiment,--as a subject to be dealt with unscrupulously in that living +dissection-hall,--her grim jailers did not grudge her an asylum. But, +year after year, the attendance was more slovenly, the treatment more +harsh; and strange to say, while the features were scarcely recognizable, +while the form underwent all the change which the shape suffers when mind +deserts it, that prodigious vitality which belonged to the temperament +still survived. No signs of decay are yet visible. Death, as if +spurning the carcass, stands inexorably afar off. Baffler of man's law, +thou, too, hast escaped with life! Not for thee is the sentence, "Blood +for blood!" Thou livest, thou mayst pass the extremest boundaries of age. +Live on, to wipe the blood from thy robe,--LIVE ON! + +Not for the coarse object of creating an idle terror, not for the shock +upon the nerves and the thrill of the grosser interest which the +narrative of crime creates, has this book been compiled from the facts +and materials afforded to the author. When the great German poet +describes, in not the least noble of his lyrics, the sudden apparition of +some "Monster Fate" in the circles of careless Joy, he assigns to him who +teaches the world, through parable or song, the right to invoke the +spectre. It is well to be awakened at times from the easy commonplace +that surrounds our habitual life; to cast broad and steady and patient +light on the darker secrets of the heart,--on the vaults and caverns of +the social state over which we build the market-place and the palace. We +recover from the dread and the awe and the half-incredulous wonder, to +set closer watch upon our inner and hidden selves. In him who cultivates +only the reason, and suffers the heart and the spirit to lie waste and +dead, who schemes and constructs, and revolves round the axle of self, +unwarmed by the affections, unpoised by the attraction of right, lies the +germ Fate might ripen into the guilt of Olivier Dalibard. Let him who +but lives through the senses, spreads the wings of the fancy in the gaudy +glare of enjoyment corrupted, avid to seize, and impatient to toil, whose +faculties are curbed but to the range of physical perception, whose very +courage is but the strength of the nerves, who develops but the animal as +he stifles the man,--let him gaze on the villany of Varney, and startle +to see some magnified shadow of himself thrown dimly on the glass! Let +those who, with powers to command and passions to wing the powers, would +sweep without scruple from the aim to the end, who, trampling beneath +their footprint of iron the humanities that bloom up in their path, would +march to success with the proud stride of the destroyer, hear, in the +laugh of yon maniac murderess, the glee of the fiend they have wooed to +their own souls! Guard well, O Heir of Eternity, the portal of sin,--the +thought! From the thought to the deed, the subtler thy brain and the +bolder thy courage, the briefer and straighter is the way. Read these +pages in disdain of self-commune,--they shall revolt thee, not instruct; +read them, looking steadfastly within,--and how humble soever the art of +the narrator, the facts he narrates, like all history, shall teach by +example. Every human act, good or ill, is an angel to guide or to warn; +and the deeds of the worst have messages from Heaven to the listening +hearts of the best. Amidst the glens in the Apennine, in the lone wastes +of Calabria, the sign of the cross marks the spot where a deed of +violence has been done; on all that pass by the road, the symbol has +varying effect: sometimes it startles the conscience, sometimes it +invokes the devotion; the robber drops the blade, the priest counts the +rosary. So is it with the record of crime; and in the witness of Guilt, +Man is thrilled with the whisper of Religion. + + Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, + The fatal shadows that walk by us still. + FLETCHER. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUCRETIA, BY LYTTON, V6 *** + +****** This file should be named 7690.txt or 7690.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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