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diff --git a/9755-0.txt b/9755-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..954292f --- /dev/null +++ b/9755-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,21283 @@ +Project Gutenberg’s Night and Morning, Complete, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost +no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use +it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this +eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Night and Morning, Complete + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: March 17, 2009 [EBook #9755] +Last Updated: August 28, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIGHT AND MORNING, COMPLETE +*** + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + +NIGHT AND MORNING + + +By Edward Bulwer Lytton + + + +CONTENTS + + + +PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1845. + + + +NIGHT AND MORNING. + + + +BOOK I. + +INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. + +CHAPTER II. + +CHAPTER III. + +CHAPTER IV. + +CHAPTER V. + +CHAPTER VI. + +CHAPTER VII. + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CHAPTER IX. + +CHAPTER X. + +CHAPTER XI. + + +BOOK II. + +CHAPTER I. + +CHAPTER II. + +CHAPTER III. + +CHAPTER IV. + +CHAPTER V. + +CHAPTER VI. + +CHAPTER VII. + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CHAPTER IX. + +CHAPTER X. + +CHAPTER XI. + +CHAPTER XII. + + +BOOK III. + +CHAPTER I. + +CHAPTER II. + +CHAPTER III. + +CHAPTER IV. + +CHAPTER V. + +CHAPTER VI. + +CHAPTER VII. + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CHAPTER IX. + +CHAPTER X. + +CHAPTER XI. + +CHAPTER XII. + +CHAPTER XIII. + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +BOOK IV. + +CHAPTER I. + +CHAPTER II. + +CHAPTER III. + +CHAPTER IV. + +CHAPTER V. + +CHAPTER VI. + +CHAPTER VII. + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +BOOK V. + +CHAPTER I. + +CHAPTER II. + +CHAPTER III. + +CHAPTER IV. + +CHAPTER V. + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII. + +CHAPTER VIII. + +CHAPTER IX. + +CHAPTER X. + +CHAPTER XI. + +CHAPTER XII. + +CHAPTER XIII. + +CHAPTER XIV. + +CHAPTER XV. + +CHAPTER XVI. + +CHAPTER XVII. + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +CHAPTER XIX. + +CHAPTER XX. + +CHAPTER XXI. + +CHAPTER XII. + +CHAPTER THE LAST. + + + +PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1845. + +Much has been written by critics, especially by those in Germany (the +native land of criticism), upon the important question, whether to +please or to instruct should be the end of Fiction--whether a moral +purpose is or is not in harmony with the undidactic spirit perceptible +in the higher works of the imagination. And the general result of the +discussion has been in favour of those who have contended that Moral +Design, rigidly so called, should be excluded from the aims of the Poet; +that his Art should regard only the Beautiful, and be contented with +the indirect moral tendencies, which can never fail the creation of the +Beautiful. Certainly, in fiction, to interest, to please, and sportively +to elevate--to take man from the low passions, and the miserable +troubles of life, into a higher region, to beguile weary and selfish +pain, to excite a genuine sorrow at vicissitudes not his own, to raise +the passions into sympathy with heroic struggles--and to admit the soul +into that serener atmosphere from which it rarely returns to ordinary +existence, without some memory or association which ought to enlarge the +domain of thought and exalt the motives of action;--such, without +other moral result or object, may satisfy the Poet,* and constitute the +highest and most universal morality he can effect. But subordinate to +this, which is not the duty, but the necessity, of all Fiction that +outlasts the hour, the writer of imagination may well permit to himself +other purposes and objects, taking care that they be not too sharply +defined, and too obviously meant to contract the Poet into the +Lecturer--the Fiction into the Homily. The delight in Shylock is not +less vivid for the Humanity it latently but profoundly inculcates; the +healthful merriment of the Tartufe is not less enjoyed for the exposure +of the Hypocrisy it denounces. We need not demand from Shakespeare or +from Moliere other morality than that which Genius unconsciously throws +around it--the natural light which it reflects; but if some great +principle which guides us practically in the daily intercourse with men +becomes in the general lustre more clear and more pronounced, we gain +doubly, by the general tendency and the particular result. + + + *[I use the word Poet in its proper sense, as applicable to any + writer, whether in verse or prose, who invents or creates.] + +Long since, in searching for new regions in the Art to which I am a +servant, it seemed to me that they might be found lying far, and rarely +trodden, beyond that range of conventional morality in which Novelist +after Novelist had entrenched himself--amongst those subtle recesses in +the ethics of human life in which Truth and Falsehood dwell undisturbed +and unseparated. The vast and dark Poetry around us--the Poetry of +Modern Civilisation and Daily Existence, is shut out from us in much, +by the shadowy giants of Prejudice and Fear. He who would arrive at the +Fairy Land must face the Phantoms. Betimes, I set myself to the task +of investigating the motley world to which our progress in humanity +has attained, caring little what misrepresentation I incurred, what +hostility I provoked, in searching through a devious labyrinth for the +foot-tracks of Truth. + +In the pursuit of this object, I am, not vainly, conscious that I have +had my influence on my time--that I have contributed, though humbly +and indirectly, to the benefits which Public Opinion has extorted from +Governments and Laws. While (to content myself with a single example) +the ignorant or malicious were decrying the moral of Paul Clifford, I +consoled myself with perceiving that its truths had stricken deep--that +many, whom formal essays might not reach, were enlisted by the picture +and the popular force of Fiction into the service of that large and +Catholic Humanity which frankly examines into the causes of crime, which +ameliorates the ills of society by seeking to amend the circumstances +by which they are occasioned; and commences the great work of justice +to mankind by proportioning the punishment to the offence. That work, +I know, had its share in the wise and great relaxation of our Criminal +Code--it has had its share in results yet more valuable, because leading +to more comprehensive reforms--viz., in the courageous facing of the +ills which the mock decorum of timidity would shun to contemplate, but +which, till fairly fronted, in the spirit of practical Christianity, sap +daily, more and more, the walls in which blind Indolence would protect +itself from restless Misery and rampant Hunger. For it is not till Art +has told the unthinking that nothing (rightly treated) is too low for +its breath to vivify and its wings to raise, that the Herd awaken from +their chronic lethargy of contempt, and the Lawgiver is compelled to +redress what the Poet has lifted into esteem. In thus enlarging the +boundaries of the Novelist, from trite and conventional to untrodden +ends, I have seen, not with the jealousy of an author, but with the +pride of an Originator, that I have served as a guide to later and abler +writers, both in England and abroad. If at times, while imitating, they +have mistaken me, I am not answerable for their errors; or if, more +often, they have improved where they borrowed, I am not envious of their +laurels. They owe me at least this, that I prepared the way for +their reception, and that they would have been less popular and more +misrepresented, if the outcry which bursts upon the first researches +into new directions had not exhausted its noisy vehemence upon me. + +In this Novel of Night and Morning I have had various ends in +view--subordinate, I grant, to the higher and more durable morality +which belongs to the Ideal, and instructs us playfully while it +interests, in the passions, and through the heart. First--to deal +fearlessly with that universal unsoundness in social justice which makes +distinctions so marked and iniquitous between Vice and Crime--viz., +between the corrupting habits and the violent act--which scarce touches +the former with the lightest twig in the fasces--which lifts against +the latter the edge of the Lictor’s axe. Let a child steal an apple in +sport, let a starveling steal a roll in despair, and Law conducts them +to the Prison, for evil commune to mellow them for the gibbet. But let +a man spend one apprenticeship from youth to old age in vice--let him +devote a fortune, perhaps colossal, to the wholesale demoralisation of +his kind--and he may be surrounded with the adulation of the so-called +virtuous, and be served upon its knee, by that Lackey--the Modern World! +I say not that Law can, or that Law should, reach the Vice as it does +the Crime; but I say, that Opinion may be more than the servile shadow +of Law. I impress not here, as in Paul Clifford, a material moral to +work its effect on the Journals, at the Hustings, through Constituents, +and on Legislation;--I direct myself to a channel less active, more +tardy, but as sure--to the Conscience--that reigns elder and superior to +all Law, in men’s hearts and souls;--I utter boldly and loudly a truth, +if not all untold, murmured feebly and falteringly before, sooner or +later it will find its way into the judgment and the conduct, and shape +out a tribunal which requires not robe or ermine. + +Secondly--in this work I have sought to lift the mask from the timid +selfishness which too often with us bears the name of Respectability. +Purposely avoiding all attraction that may savour of extravagance, +patiently subduing every tone and every hue to the aspect of those whom +we meet daily in our thoroughfares, I have shown in Robert Beaufort +the man of decorous phrase and bloodless action--the systematic +self-server--in whom the world forgive the lack of all that is generous, +warm, and noble, in order to respect the passive acquiescence in +methodical conventions and hollow forms. And how common such men are +with us in this century, and how inviting and how necessary their +delineation, may be seen in this,--that the popular and pre-eminent +Observer of the age in which we live has since placed their prototype in +vigorous colours upon imperishable canvas.--[Need I say that I allude to +the Pecksniff of Mr. Dickens?] + +There is yet another object with which I have identified my tale. I +trust that I am not insensible to such advantages as arise from +the diffusion of education really sound, and knowledge really +available;--for these, as the right of my countrymen, I have contended +always. But of late years there has been danger that what ought to be an +important truth may be perverted into a pestilent fallacy. Whether for +rich or for poor, disappointment must ever await the endeavour to give +knowledge without labour, and experience without trial. Cheap literature +and popular treatises do not in themselves suffice to fit the nerves +of man for the strife below, and lift his aspirations, in healthful +confidence above. He who seeks to divorce toil from knowledge deprives +knowledge of its most valuable property.--the strengthening of the +mind by exercise. We learn what really braces and elevates us only in +proportion to the effort it costs us. Nor is it in Books alone, nor in +Books chiefly, that we are made conscious of our strength as Men; Life +is the great Schoolmaster, Experience the mighty Volume. He who has made +one stern sacrifice of self has acquired more than he will ever glean +from the odds and ends of popular philosophy. And the man the least +scholastic may be more robust in the power that is knowledge, and +approach nearer to the Arch-Seraphim, than Bacon himself, if he cling +fast to two simple maxims--“Be honest in temptation, and in Adversity +believe in God.” Such moral, attempted before in Eugene Aram, I have +enforced more directly here; and out of such convictions I have +created hero and heroine, placing them in their primitive and natural +characters, with aid more from life than books,--from courage the one, +from affection the other--amidst the feeble Hermaphrodites of our sickly +civilisation;--examples of resolute Manhood and tender Womanhood. + +The opinions I have here put forth are not in fashion at this day. But I +have never consulted the popular any more than the sectarian, Prejudice. +Alone and unaided I have hewn out my way, from first to last, by the +force of my own convictions. The corn springs up in the field centuries +after the first sower is forgotten. Works may perish with the workman; +but, if truthful, their results are in the works of others, imitating, +borrowing, enlarging, and improving, in the everlasting Cycle of +Industry and Thought. + +Knelworth, 1845. NOTE TO THE PRESENT EDITION, 1851. + +I have nothing to add to the preceding pages, written six years ago, as +to the objects and aims of this work; except to say, and by no means +as a boast, that the work lays claims to one kind of interest which +I certainly never desired to effect for it--viz., in exemplifying the +glorious uncertainty of the Law. For, humbly aware of the blunders which +Novelists not belonging to the legal profession are apt to commit, when +they summon to the denouement of a plot the aid of a deity so mysterious +as Themis, I submitted to an eminent lawyer the whole case of “Beaufort +versus Beaufort,” as it stands in this Novel. And the pages which refer +to that suit were not only written from the opinion annexed to the brief +I sent in, but submitted to the eye of my counsel, and revised by +his pen.--(N.B. He was feed.) Judge then my dismay when I heard long +afterwards that the late Mr. O’Connell disputed the soundness of the +law I had thus bought and paid for! “Who shall decide when doctors +disagree?” All I can say is, that I took the best opinion that love +or money could get me; and I should add, that my lawyer, unawed by the +alleged ipse dixit of the great Agitator (to be sure, he is dead), still +stoutly maintains his own views of the question. + + + [I have, however, thought it prudent so far to meet the objection + suggested by Mr. O’Connell, as to make a slight alteration in this + edition, which will probably prevent the objection, if correct, + being of any material practical effect on the disposition of that + visionary El Dorado--the Beaufort Property.] + +Let me hope that the right heir will live long enough to come under the +Statute of Limitations. Possession is nine points of the law, and Time +may give the tenth. + +Kenbworth. + + + +NIGHT AND MORNING. + + + +BOOK I. + + + “Noch in meines Lebens Lenze + War ich and ich wandert’ aus, + Und der Jugend frohe Tanze + Liess ich in des Vaters Haus.” + + SCHILLER, Der Pilgrim. + + + +INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. + + + “Now rests our vicar. They who knew him best, + Proclaim his life to have been entirely rest; + Not one so old has left this world of sin, + More like the being that he entered in.”--CRABBE. + +In one of the Welsh counties is a small village called A----. It is +somewhat removed from the high road, and is, therefore, but little known +to those luxurious amateurs of the picturesque, who view nature through +the windows of a carriage and four. Nor, indeed, is there anything, +whether of scenery or association, in the place itself, sufficient to +allure the more sturdy enthusiast from the beaten tracks which tourists +and guide-books prescribe to those who search the Sublime and Beautiful +amidst the mountain homes of the ancient Britons. Still, on the whole, +the village is not without its attractions. It is placed in a small +valley, through which winds and leaps down many a rocky fall, a clear, +babbling, noisy rivulet, that affords excellent sport to the brethren +of the angle. Thither, accordingly, in the summer season occasionally +resort the Waltons of the neighbourhood--young farmers, retired traders, +with now and then a stray artist, or a roving student from one of the +universities. Hence the solitary hostelry of A----, being somewhat more +frequented, is also more clean and comfortable than could reasonably be +anticipated from the insignificance and remoteness of the village. + +At a time in which my narrative opens, the village boasted a sociable, +agreeable, careless, half-starved parson, who never failed to introduce +himself to any of the anglers who, during the summer months, passed +a day or two in the little valley. The Rev. Mr. Caleb Price had been +educated at the University of Cambridge, where he had contrived, in +three years, to run through a little fortune of L3500. It is true, +that he acquired in return the art of making milkpunch, the science +of pugilism, and the reputation of one of the best-natured, rattling, +open-hearted companions whom you could desire by your side in a tandem +to Newmarket, or in a row with the bargemen. By the help of these gifts +and accomplishments, he had not failed to find favour, while his money +lasted, with the young aristocracy of the “Gentle Mother.” And, though +the very reverse of an ambitious or calculating man, he had +certainly nourished the belief that some one of the “hats” or “tinsel +gowns”--i.e., young lords or fellow-commoners, with whom he was on such +excellent terms, and who supped with him so often, would do something +for him in the way of a living. But it so happened that when Mr. Caleb +Price had, with a little difficulty, scrambled through his degree, and +found himself a Bachelor of Arts and at the end of his finances, his +grand acquaintances parted from him to their various posts in the State +Militant of Life. And, with the exception of one, joyous and reckless +as himself, Mr. Caleb Price found that when Money makes itself wings +it flies away with our friends. As poor Price had earned no academical +distinction, so he could expect no advancement from his college; no +fellowship; no tutorship leading hereafter to livings, stalls, and +deaneries. Poverty began already to stare him in the face, when the only +friend who, having shared his prosperity, remained true to his adverse +fate,--a friend, fortunately for him, of high connections and brilliant +prospects--succeeded in obtaining for him the humble living of A----. +To this primitive spot the once jovial roisterer cheerfully +retired--contrived to live contented upon an income somewhat less than +he had formerly given to his groom--preached very short sermons to a +very scanty and ignorant congregation, some of whom only understood +Welsh--did good to the poor and sick in his own careless, slovenly +way--and, uncheered or unvexed by wife and children, he rose in summer +with the lark and in winter went to bed at nine precisely, to save coals +and candles. For the rest, he was the most skilful angler in the whole +county; and so willing to communicate the results of his experience as +to the most taking colour of the flies, and the most favoured haunts of +the trout--that he had given especial orders at the inn, that +whenever any strange gentleman came to fish, Mr. Caleb Price should be +immediately sent for. In this, to be sure, our worthy pastor had his +usual recompense. First, if the stranger were tolerably liberal, Mr. +Price was asked to dinner at the inn; and, secondly, if this failed, +from the poverty or the churlishness of the obliged party, Mr. Price +still had an opportunity to hear the last news--to talk about the +Great World--in a word, to exchange ideas, and perhaps to get an old +newspaper, or an odd number of a magazine. + +Now, it so happened that one afternoon in October, when the periodical +excursions of the anglers, becoming gradually rarer and more rare, had +altogether ceased, Mr. Caleb Price was summoned from his parlour in +which he had been employed in the fabrication of a net for his cabbages, +by a little white-headed boy, who came to say there was a gentleman at +the inn who wished immediately to see him--a strange gentleman, who had +never been there before. + +Mr. Price threw down his net, seized his hat, and, in less than five +minutes, he was in the best room of the little inn. + +The person there awaiting him was a man who, though plainly clad in +a velveteen shooting-jacket, had an air and mien greatly above those +common to the pedestrian visitors of A----. He was tall, and of one of +those athletic forms in which vigour in youth is too often followed +by corpulence in age. At this period, however, in the full prime of +manhood--the ample chest and sinewy limbs, seen to full advantage in +their simple and manly dress--could not fail to excite that popular +admiration which is always given to strength in the one sex as to +delicacy in the other. The stranger was walking impatiently to and fro +the small apartment when Mr. Price entered; and then, turning to +the clergyman a countenance handsome and striking, but yet more +prepossessing from its expression of frankness than from the regularity +of its features,--he stopped short, held out his hand, and said, with +a gay laugh, as he glanced over the parson’s threadbare and slovenly +costume, “My poor Caleb!--what a metamorphosis!--I should not have known +you again!” + +“What! you! Is it possible, my dear fellow?--how glad I am to see +you! What on earth can bring you to such a place? No! not a soul would +believe me if I said I had seen you in this miserable hole.” + +“That is precisely the reason why I am here. Sit down, Caleb, and we’ll +talk over matters as soon as our landlord has brought up the materials +for--” + +“The milk-punch,” interrupted Mr. Price, rubbing his hands. + +“Ah, that will bring us back to old times, indeed!” + +In a few minutes the punch was prepared, and after two or three +preparatory glasses, the stranger thus commenced: “My dear Caleb, I am +in want of your assistance, and above all of your secrecy.” + +“I promise you both beforehand. It will make me happy the rest of my +life to think I have served my patron--my benefactor--the only friend I +possess.” + +“Tush, man! don’t talk of that: we shall do better for you one of these +days. But now to the point: I have come here to be married--married, old +boy! married!” + +And the stranger threw himself back in his chair, and chuckled with the +glee of a schoolboy. + +“Humph!” said the parson, gravely. “It is a serious thing to do, and a +very odd place to come to.” + +“I admit both propositions: this punch is superb. To proceed. You know +that my uncle’s immense fortune is at his own disposal; if I disobliged +him, he would be capable of leaving all to my brother; I should +disoblige him irrevocably if he knew that I had married a tradesman’s +daughter; I am going to marry a tradesman’s daughter--a girl in a +million! the ceremony must be as secret as possible. And in this church, +with you for the priest, I do not see a chance of discovery.” + +“Do you marry by license?” + +“No, my intended is not of age; and we keep the secret even from her +father. In this village you will mumble over the bans without one of +your congregation ever taking heed of the name. I shall stay here a +month for the purpose. She is in London, on a visit to a relation in +the city. The bans on her side will be published with equal privacy in a +little church near the Tower, where my name will be no less unknown than +hers. Oh, I’ve contrived it famously!” + +“But, my dear fellow, consider what you risk.” + +“I have considered all, and I find every chance in my favour. The bride +will arrive here on the day of our wedding: my servant will be one +witness; some stupid old Welshman, as antediluvian as possible--I leave +it to you to select him--shall be the other. My servant I shall dispose +of, and the rest I can depend on.” + +“But--” + +“I detest buts; if I had to make a language, I would not admit such a +word in it. And now, before I run on about Catherine, a subject quite +inexhaustible, tell me, my dear friend, something about yourself.” + + + ....... + +Somewhat more than a month had elapsed since the arrival of the stranger +at the village inn. He had changed his quarters for the Parsonage--went +out but little, and then chiefly on foot excursions among the +sequestered hills in the neighbourhood. He was therefore but partially +known by sight, even in the village; and the visit of some old college +friend to the minister, though indeed it had never chanced before, +was not, in itself, so remarkable an event as to excite any particular +observation. The bans had been duly, and half audibly, hurried over, +after the service was concluded, and while the scanty congregation were +dispersing down the little aisle of the church,--when one morning a +chaise and pair arrived at the Parsonage. A servant out of livery leaped +from the box. The stranger opened the door of the chaise, and, uttering +a joyous exclamation, gave his arm to a lady, who, trembling and +agitated, could scarcely, even with that stalwart support, descend the +steps. “Ah!” she said, in a voice choked with tears, when they found +themselves alone in the little parlour,--“ah! if you knew how I have +suffered!” + +How is it that certain words, and those the homeliest, which the hand +writes and the eye reads as trite and commonplace expressions--when +spoken convey so much,--so many meanings complicated and refined? “Ah! +if you knew how I have suffered!” + +When the lover heard these words, his gay countenance fell; he drew +back--his conscience smote him: in that complaint was the whole history +of a clandestine love, not for both the parties, but for the woman--the +painful secrecy--the remorseful deceit--the shame--the fear--the +sacrifice. She who uttered those words was scarcely sixteen. It is an +early age to leave Childhood behind for ever! + +“My own love! you have suffered, indeed; but it is over now. + +“Over! And what will they say of me--what will they think of me at home? +Over! Ah!” + +“It is but for a short time; in the course of nature my uncle cannot +live long: all then will be explained. Our marriage once made public, +all connected with you will be proud to own you. You will have wealth, +station--a name among the first in the gentry of England. But, above +all, you will have the happiness to think that your forbearance for +a time has saved me, and, it may be, our children, sweet one!--from +poverty and--” + +“It is enough,” interrupted the girl; and the expression of her +countenance became serene and elevated. “It is for you--for your sake. +I know what you hazard: how much I must owe you! Forgive me, this is the +last murmur you shall ever hear from these lips.” + +An hour after these words were spoken, the marriage ceremony was +concluded. + +“Caleb,” said the bridegroom, drawing the clergyman aside as they were +about to re-enter the house, “you will keep your promise, I know; and +you think I may depend implicitly upon the good faith of the witness you +have selected?” + +“Upon his good faith?--no,” said Caleb, smiling, “but upon his deafness, +his ignorance, and his age. My poor old clerk! He will have forgotten +all about it before this day three months. Now I have seen your lady, +I no longer wonder that you incur so great a risk. I never beheld so +lovely a countenance. You will be happy!” And the village priest sighed, +and thought of the coming winter and his own lonely hearth. + +“My dear friend, you have only seen her beauty--it is her least charm. +Heaven knows how often I have made love; and this is the only woman I +have ever really loved. Caleb, there is an excellent living that adjoins +my uncle’s house. The rector is old; when the house is mine, you will +not be long without the living. We shall be neighbours, Caleb, and then +you shall try and find a bride for yourself. Smith,”--and the bridegroom +turned to the servant who had accompanied his wife, and served as a +second witness to the marriage,--“tell the post-boy to put to the horses +immediately.” + +“Yes, Sir. May I speak a word with you?” + +“Well, what?” + +“Your uncle, sir, sent for me to come to him, the day before we left +town.” + +“Aha!--indeed!” + +“And I could just pick up among his servants that he had some +suspicion--at least, that he had been making inquiries--and seemed very +cross, sir.” + +“You went to him?” + +“No, Sir, I was afraid. He has such a way with him;--whenever his eye +is fixed on mine, I always feel as if it was impossible to tell a lie; +and--and--in short, I thought it was best not to go.” + +“You did right. Confound this fellow!” muttered the bridegroom, turning +away; “he is honest, and loves me: yet, if my uncle sees him, he is +clumsy enough to betray all. Well, I always meant to get him out of the +way--the sooner the better. Smith!” + +“Yes, sir!” + +“You have often said that you should like, if you had some capital, to +settle in Australia. Your father is an excellent farmer; you are above +the situation you hold with me; you are well educated, and have some +knowledge of agriculture; you can scarcely fail to make a fortune as a +settler; and if you are of the same mind still, why, look you, I have +just L1000. at my bankers: you shall have half, if you like to sail by +the first packet.” + +“Oh, sir, you are too generous.” + +“Nonsense--no thanks--I am more prudent than generous; for I agree with +you that it is all up with me if my uncle gets hold of you. I dread my +prying brother, too; in fact, the obligation is on my side; only stay +abroad till I am a rich man, and my marriage made public, and then you +may ask of me what you will. It’s agreed, then; order the horses, we’ll +go round by Liverpool, and learn about the vessels. By the way, my good +fellow, I hope you see nothing now of that good-for-nothing brother of +yours?” + +“No, indeed, sir. It’s a thousand pities he has turned out so ill; for +he was the cleverest of the family, and could always twist me round his +little finger.” + +“That’s the very reason I mentioned him. If he learned our secret, he +would take it to an excellent market. Where is he?” + +“Hiding, I suspect, sir.” + +“Well, we shall put the sea between you and him! So now all’s safe.” + +Caleb stood by the porch of his house as the bride and bridegroom +entered their humble vehicle. Though then November, the day was +exquisitely mild and calm, the sky without a cloud, and even the +leafless trees seemed to smile beneath the cheerful sun. And the young +bride wept no more; she was with him she loved--she was his for ever. +She forgot the rest. The hope--the heart of sixteen--spoke brightly out +through the blushes that mantled over her fair cheeks. The bridegroom’s +frank and manly countenance was radiant with joy. As he waved his hand +to Caleb from the window the post-boy cracked his whip, the servant +settled himself on the dickey, the horses started off in a brisk +trot,--the clergyman was left alone. + +To be married is certainly an event in life; to marry other people is, +for a priest, a very ordinary occurrence; and yet, from that day, a +great change began to operate in the spirits and the habits of Caleb +Price. Have you ever, my gentle reader, buried yourself for some time +quietly in the lazy ease of a dull country-life? Have you ever become +gradually accustomed to its monotony, and inured to its solitude; and, +just at the time when you have half-forgotten the great world--that mare +magnum that frets and roars in the distance--have you ever received in +your calm retreat some visitor, full of the busy and excited life which +you imagined yourself contented to relinquish? If so, have you not +perceived, that, in proportion as his presence and communication either +revived old memories, or brought before you new pictures of “the bright +tumult” of that existence of which your guest made a part,--you began to +compare him curiously with yourself; you began to feel that what +before was to rest is now to rot; that your years are gliding from +you unenjoyed and wasted; that the contrast between the animal life of +passionate civilisation and the vegetable torpor of motionless seclusion +is one that, if you are still young, it tasks your philosophy to +bear,--feeling all the while that the torpor may be yours to your grave? +And when your guest has left you, when you are again alone, is the +solitude the same as it was before? + +Our poor Caleb had for years rooted his thoughts to his village. His +guest had been like the Bird in the Fairy Tale, settling upon the quiet +branches, and singing so loudly and so gladly of the enchanted skies +afar, that, when it flew away, the tree pined, nipped and withering in +the sober sun in which before it had basked contented. The guest was, +indeed, one of those men whose animal spirits exercise upon such as come +within their circle the influence and power usually ascribed only to +intellectual qualities. During the month he had sojourned with Caleb, +he had brought back to the poor parson all the gaiety of the brisk and +noisy novitiate that preceded the solemn vow and the dull retreat;--the +social parties, the merry suppers, the open-handed, open-hearted +fellowship of riotous, delightful, extravagant, thoughtless YOUTH. And +Caleb was not a bookman--not a scholar; he had no resources in himself, +no occupation but his indolent and ill-paid duties. The emotions, +therefore, of the Active Man were easily aroused within him. But if this +comparison between his past and present life rendered him restless +and disturbed, how much more deeply and lastingly was he affected by +a contrast between his own future and that of his friend! Not in those +points where he could never hope equality--wealth and station--the +conventional distinctions to which, after all, a man of ordinary sense +must sooner or later reconcile himself--but in that one respect wherein +all, high and low, pretend to the same rights--rights which a man of +moderate warmth of feeling can never willingly renounce--viz., a partner +in a lot however obscure; a kind face by a hearth, no matter how mean +it be! And his happier friend, like all men full of life, was full of +himself--full of his love, of his future, of the blessings of home, +and wife, and children. Then, too, the young bride seemed so fair, so +confiding, and so tender; so formed to grace the noblest or to cheer the +humblest home! And both were so happy, so all in all to each other, +as they left that barren threshold! And the priest felt all this, as, +melancholy and envious, he turned from the door in that November day, to +find himself thoroughly alone. He now began seriously to muse upon +those fancied blessings which men wearied with celibacy see springing, +heavenward, behind the altar. A few weeks afterwards a notable change +was visible in the good man’s exterior. He became more careful of his +dress, he shaved every morning, he purchased a crop-eared Welsh cob; and +it was soon known in the neighbourhood that the only journey the cob was +ever condemned to take was to the house of a certain squire, who, amidst +a family of all ages, boasted two very pretty marriageable daughters. +That was the second holy day-time of poor Caleb--the love-romance of his +life: it soon closed. On learning the amount of the pastor’s stipend the +squire refused to receive his addresses; and, shortly after, the girl +to whom he had attached himself made what the world calls a happy +match: and perhaps it was one, for I never heard that she regretted the +forsaken lover. Probably Caleb was not one of those whose place in a +woman’s heart is never to be supplied. The lady married, the world went +round as before, the brook danced as merrily through the village, +the poor worked on the week-days, and the urchins gambolled round the +gravestones on the Sabbath,--and the pastor’s heart was broken. He +languished gradually and silently away. The villagers observed that +he had lost his old good-humoured smile; that he did not stop every +Saturday evening at the carrier’s gate, to ask if there were any news +stirring in the town which the carrier weekly visited; that he did not +come to borrow the stray newspapers that now and then found their way +into the village; that, as he sauntered along the brookside, his clothes +hung loose on his limbs, and that he no longer “whistled as he went;” + alas, he was no longer “in want of thought!” By degrees, the walks +themselves were suspended; the parson was no longer visible: a stranger +performed his duties. + +One day, it might be some three years and more after the fatal visit I +have commemorated--one very wild rough day in early March, the postman, +who made the round of the district, rang at the parson’s bell. The +single female servant, her red hair loose on her neck, replied to the +call. + +“And how is the master?” + +“Very bad;” and the girl wiped her eyes. + +“He should leave you something handsome,” remarked the postman, kindly, +as he pocketed the money for the letter. + +The pastor was in bed--the boisterous wind rattled down the chimney and +shook the ill-fitting casement in its rotting frame. The clothes he +had last worn were thrown carelessly about, unsmoothed, unbrushed; the +scanty articles of furniture were out of their proper places; slovenly +discomfort marked the death-chamber. And by the bedside stood a +neighbouring clergyman, a stout, rustic, homely, thoroughly Welsh +priest, who might have sat for the portrait of Parson Adams. + +“Here’s a letter for you,” said the visitor. + +“For me!” echoed Caleb, feebly. “Ah--well--is it not very dark, or are +my eyes failing?” The clergyman and the servant drew aside the curtains +and propped the sick man up: he read as follows, slowly, and with +difficulty: + +“DEAR, CALEB,--At last I can do something for you. A friend of mine has +a living in his gift just vacant, worth, I understand, from three to +four hundred a year: pleasant neighbourhood--small parish. And my +friend keeps the hounds!--just the thing for you. He is, however, a +very particular sort of person--wants a companion, and has a horror of +anything evangelical; wishes, therefore, to see you before he decides. +If you can meet me in London, some day next month, I’ll present you to +him, and I have no doubt it will be settled. You must think it strange I +never wrote to you since we parted, but you know I never was a very good +correspondent; and as I had nothing to communicate advantageous to you +I thought it a sort of insult to enlarge on my own happiness, and so +forth. All I shall say on that score is, that I’ve sown my wild oats; +and that you may take my word for it, there’s nothing that can make a +man know how large the heart is, and how little the world, till he comes +home (perhaps after a hard day’s hunting) and sees his own fireside, and +hears one dear welcome; and--oh, by the way, Caleb, if you could but see +my boy, the sturdiest little rogue! But enough of this. All that vexes +me is, that I’ve never yet been able to declare my marriage: my uncle, +however, suspects nothing: my wife bears up against all, like an angel +as she is; still, in case of any accident, it occurs to me, now I’m +writing to you, especially if you leave the place, that it may be as +well to send me an examined copy of the register. In those remote places +registers are often lost or mislaid; and it may be useful hereafter, +when I proclaim the marriage, to clear up all doubt as to the fact. + +“Good-bye, old fellow, + +“Yours most truly, &c., &c.” + +“It comes too late,” sighed Caleb, heavily; and the letter fell from his +hands. There was a long pause. “Close the shutters,” said the sick man, +at last; “I think I could sleep: and--and--pick up that letter.” + +With a trembling, but eager gripe, he seized the paper, as a miser would +seize the deeds of an estate on which he has a mortgage. He smoothed +the folds, looked complacently at the well-known hand, smiled--a ghastly +smile! and then placed the letter under his pillow, and sank down; they +left him alone. He did not wake for some hours, and that good clergyman, +poor as himself, was again at his post. The only friendships that are +really with us in the hour of need are those which are cemented +by equality of circumstance. In the depth of home, in the hour of +tribulation, by the bed of death, the rich and the poor are seldom found +side by side. Caleb was evidently much feebler; but his sense seemed +clearer than it had been, and the instincts of his native kindness were +the last that left him. “There is something he wants me do for him,” he +muttered. + +“Ah! I remember: Jones, will you send for the parish register? It is +somewhere in the vestry-room, I think--but nothing’s kept properly. +Better go yourself--‘tis important.” + +Mr. Jones nodded, and sallied forth. The register was not in the vestry; +the church-wardens knew nothing about it; the clerk--a new clerk, who +was also the sexton, and rather a wild fellow--had gone ten miles off to +a wedding: every place was searched; till, at last, the book was found, +amidst a heap of old magazines and dusty papers, in the parlour of +Caleb himself. By the time it was brought to him, the sufferer was fast +declining; with some difficulty his dim eye discovered the place where, +amidst the clumsy pothooks of the parishioners, the large clear hand of +the old friend, and the trembling characters of the bride, looked forth, +distinguished. + +“Extract this for me, will you?” said Caleb. Mr. Jones obeyed. + +“Now, just write above the extract: + +“‘Sir,--By Mr. Price’s desire I send you the inclosed. He is too ill to +write himself. But he bids me say that he has never been quite the same +man since you left him; and that, if he should not get well again, still +your kind letter has made him easier in his mind.” + +Caleb stopped. + +“Go on.” + +“That is all I have to say: sign your name, and put the address--here +it is. Ah, the letter,” he muttered, “must not lie about! If anything +happens to me, it may get him into trouble.” + +And as Mr. Jones sealed his communication, Caleb feebly stretched his +wan hand, held the letter which had “come too late” over the flame of +the candle. As the blazing paper dropped on the carpetless floor, Mr. +Jones prudently set thereon the broad sole of his top-boot, and the +maidservant brushed the tinder into the grate. + +“Ah, trample it out:--hurry it amongst the ashes. The last as the rest,” + said Caleb, hoarsely. “Friendship, fortune, hope, love, life--a little +flame, and then--and then--” + +“Don’t be uneasy--it’s quite out!” said Mr. Jones. Caleb turned his face +to the wall. He lingered till the next day, when he passed insensibly +from sleep to death. As soon as the breath was out of his body, Mr. +Jones felt that his duty was discharged, that other duties called +him home. He promised to return to read the burial-service over the +deceased, gave some hasty orders about the plain funeral, and was +turning from the room, when he saw the letter he had written by Caleb’s +wish, still on the table. “I pass the post-office--I’ll put it in,” said +he to the weeping servant; “and just give me that scrap of paper.” So +he wrote on the scrap, “P. S. He died this morning at half-past twelve, +without pain.--M. J.;” and not taking the trouble to break the seal, +thrust the final bulletin into the folds of the letter, which he then +carefully placed in his vest pocket, and safely transferred to the post. +And that was all that the jovial and happy man, to whom the letter was +addressed, ever heard of the last days of his college friend. + +The living, vacant by the death of Caleb Price, was not so valuable as +to plague the patron with many applications. It continued vacant +nearly the whole of the six months prescribed by law. And the desolate +parsonage was committed to the charge of one of the villagers, who +had occasionally assisted Caleb in the care of his little garden. +The villager, his wife, and half-a-dozen noisy, ragged children, took +possession of the quiet bachelor’s abode. The furniture had been sold to +pay the expenses of the funeral, and a few trifling bills; and, save +the kitchen and the two attics, the empty house, uninhabited, was +surrendered to the sportive mischief of the idle urchins, who prowled +about the silent chambers in fear of the silence, and in ecstasy at the +space. The bedroom in which Caleb had died was, indeed, long held sacred +by infantine superstition. But one day the eldest boy having ventured +across the threshold, two cupboards, the doors standing ajar, attracted +the child’s curiosity. He opened one, and his exclamation soon brought +the rest of the children round him. Have you ever, reader, when a boy, +suddenly stumbled on that El Dorado, called by the grown-up folks a +lumber room? Lumber, indeed! what Virtu double-locks in cabinets is the +real lumber to the boy! Lumber, reader! to thee it was a treasury! +Now this cupboard had been the lumber-room in Caleb’s household. In an +instant the whole troop had thrown themselves on the motley contents. +Stray joints of clumsy fishing-rods; artificial baits; a pair of +worn-out top-boots, in which one of the urchins, whooping and shouting, +buried himself up to the middle; moth-eaten, stained, and ragged, +the collegian’s gown--relic of the dead man’s palmy time; a bag of +carpenter’s tools, chiefly broken; a cricket-bat; an odd boxing-glove; +a fencing-foil, snapped in the middle; and, more than all, some +half-finished attempts at rude toys: a boat, a cart, a doll’s house, in +which the good-natured Caleb had busied himself for the younger ones of +that family in which he had found the fatal ideal of his trite life. One +by one were these lugged forth from their dusty slumber-profane hands +struggling for the first right of appropriation. And now, revealed +against the wall, glared upon the startled violators of the sanctuary, +with glassy eyes and horrent visage, a grim monster. They huddled back +one upon the other, pale and breathless, till the eldest, seeing that +the creature moved not, took heart, approached on tip-toe-twice receded, +and twice again advanced, and finally drew out, daubed, painted, and +tricked forth in the semblance of a griffin, a gigantic kite. + +The children, alas! were not old and wise enough to knew all the dormant +value of that imprisoned aeronaut, which had cost Caleb many a dull +evening’s labour--the intended gift to the false one’s favourite +brother. But they guessed that it was a thing or spirit appertaining of +right to them; and they resolved, after mature consultation, to impart +the secret of their discovery to an old wooden-legged villager, who had +served in the army, who was the idol of all the children of the place, +and who, they firmly believed, knew everything under the sun, except the +mystical arts of reading and writing. Accordingly, having seen that the +coast was clear--for they considered their parents (as the children of +the hard-working often do) the natural foes to amusement--they carried +the monster into an old outhouse, and ran to the veteran to beg him to +come up slyly and inspect its properties. + +Three months after this memorable event, arrived the new pastor--a slim, +prim, orderly, and starch young man, framed by nature and trained by +practice to bear a great deal of solitude and starving. Two loving +couples had waited to be married till his Reverence should arrive. +The ceremony performed, where was the registry-book? The vestry was +searched--the church-wardens interrogated; the gay clerk, who, on the +demise of his deaf predecessor, had come into office a little before +Caleb’s last illness, had a dim recollection of having taken the +registry up to Mr. Price at the time the vestry-room was whitewashed. +The house was searched--the cupboard, the mysterious cupboard, was +explored. “Here it is, sir!” cried the clerk; and he pounced upon a +pale parchment volume. The thin clergyman opened it, and recoiled in +dismay--more than three-fourths of the leaves had been torn out. + +“It is the moths, sir,” said the gardener’s wife, who had not yet +removed from the house. + +The clergyman looked round; one of the children was trembling. “What +have you done to this book, little one?” + +“That book?--the--hi!--hi!--” + +“Speak the truth, and you sha’n’t be punished.” + +“I did not know it was any harm--hi!--hi!--” + +“Well, and--” + +“And old Ben helped us.” + +“Well?” + +“And--and--and--hi!--hi!--The tail of the kite, sir!--” + +“Where is the kite?” + +Alas! the kite and its tail were long ago gone to that undiscovered +limbo where all things lost, broken, vanished, and destroyed; things +that lose themselves--for servants are too honest to steal; things +that break themselves--for servants are too careful to break; find an +everlasting and impenetrable refuge. + +“It does not signify a pin’s head,” said the clerk; “the parish must +find a new ‘un!” + +“It is no fault of mine,” said the Pastor. “Are my chops ready?” + + + +CHAPTER II. + +“And soothed with idle dreams the frowning fate.”--CRABBE. + +“Why does not my father come back? what a time he has been away!” + +“My dear Philip, business detains him; but he will be here in a few +days--perhaps to-day!” + +“I should like him to see how much I am improved.” + +“Improved in what, Philip?” said the mother, with a smile. “Not Latin, I +am sure; for I have not seen you open a book since you insisted on poor +Todd’s dismissal.” + +“Todd! Oh, he was such a scrub, and spoke through his nose: what could +he know of Latin?” + +“More than you ever will, I fear, unless--” and here there was a certain +hesitation in the mother’s voice, “unless your father consents to your +going to school.” + +“Well, I should like to go to Eton! That’s the only school for a +gentleman. I’ve heard my father say so.” + +“Philip, you are too proud.”--“Proud! you often call me proud; but, +then, you kiss me when you do so. Kiss me now, mother.” + +The lady drew her son to her breast, put aside the clustering hair from +his forehead, and kissed him; but the kiss was sad, and the moment +after she pushed him away gently and muttered, unconscious that she was +overheard: + +“If, after all, my devotion to the father should wrong the children!” + +The boy started, and a cloud passed over his brow; but he said nothing. +A light step entered the room through the French casements that opened +on the lawn, and the mother turned to her youngest-born, and her eye +brightened. + +“Mamma! mamma! here is a letter for you. I snatched it from John: it is +papa’s handwriting.” + +The lady uttered a joyous exclamation, and seized the letter. The +younger child nestled himself on a stool at her feet, looking up +while she read it; the elder stood apart, leaning on his gun, and with +something of thought, even of gloom, upon his countenance. + +There was a strong contrast in the two boys. The elder, who was about +fifteen, seemed older than he was, not only from his height, but from +the darkness of his complexion, and a certain proud, nay, imperious, +expression upon features that, without having the soft and fluent +graces of childhood, were yet regular and striking. His dark-green +shooting-dress, with the belt and pouch, the cap, with its gold tassel +set upon his luxuriant curls, which had the purple gloss of the raven’s +plume, blended perhaps something prematurely manly in his own tastes, +with the love of the fantastic and the picturesque which bespeaks the +presiding genius of the proud mother. The younger son had scarcely told +his ninth year; and the soft, auburn ringlets, descending half-way down +the shoulders; the rich and delicate bloom that exhibits at once the +hardy health and the gentle fostering; the large deep-blue eyes; the +flexile and almost effeminate contour of the harmonious features; +altogether made such an ideal of childlike beauty as Lawrence had loved +to paint or Chantrey model. And the daintiest cares of a mother, who, +as yet, has her darling all to herself--her toy, her plaything--were +visible in the large falling collar of finest cambric, and the blue +velvet dress with its filigree buttons and embroidered sash. + +Both the boys had about them the air of those whom Fate ushers blandly +into life; the air of wealth, and birth, and luxury, spoiled and +pampered as if earth had no thorn for their feet, and heaven not a wind +to visit their young cheeks too roughly. The mother had been extremely +handsome; and though the first bloom of youth was now gone, she had +still the beauty that might captivate new love--an easier task than +to retain the old. Both her sons, though differing from each other, +resembled her; she had the features of the younger; and probably any one +who had seen her in her own earlier youth would have recognized in that +child’s gay yet gentle countenance the mirror of the mother when a girl. +Now, however, especially when silent or thoughtful, the expression of +her face was rather that of the elder boy;--the cheek, once so rosy was +now pale, though clear, with something which time had given, of pride +and thought, in the curved lip and the high forehead. One who could have +looked on her in her more lonely hours, might have seen that the pride +had known shame, and the thought was the shadow of the passions of fear +and sorrow. + +But now as she read those hasty, brief, but well-remembered +characters--read as one whose heart was in her eyes--joy and triumph +alone were visible in that eloquent countenance. Her eyes flashed, +her breast heaved; and at length, clasping the letter to her lips, she +kissed it again and again with passionate transport. Then, as her eyes +met the dark, inquiring, earnest gaze of her eldest born, she flung her +arms round him, and wept vehemently. + +“What is the matter, mamma, dear mamma?” said the youngest, pushing +himself between Philip and his mother. “Your father is coming back, +this day--this very hour;--and you--you--child--you, Philip--” Here sobs +broke in upon her words, and left her speechless. + +The letter that had produced this effect ran as follows: + +TO MRS MORTON, Fernside Cottage. + +“DEAREST KATE,--My last letter prepared you for the news I have now +to relate--my poor uncle is no more. Though I had seen little of him, +especially of late years, his death sensibly affected me; but I have at +least the consolation of thinking that there is nothing now to prevent +my doing justice to you. I am the sole heir to his fortune--I have it in +my power, dearest Kate, to offer you a tardy recompense for all you have +put up with for my sake;--a sacred testimony to your long forbearance, +your unreproachful love, your wrongs, and your devotion. Our children, +too--my noble Philip!--kiss them, Kate--kiss them for me a thousand +times. + +“I write in great haste--the burial is just over, and my letter will +only serve to announce my return. My darling Catherine, I shall be with +you almost as soon as these lines meet your eyes--those clear eyes, +that, for all the tears they have shed for my faults and follies, have +never looked the less kind. Yours, ever as ever, “PHILIP BEAUFORT. + +This letter has told its tale, and little remains to explain. Philip +Beaufort was one of those men of whom there are many in his peculiar +class of society--easy, thoughtless, good-humoured, generous, with +feelings infinitely better than his principles. + +Inheriting himself but a moderate fortune, which was three parts in the +hands of the Jews before he was twenty-five, he had the most brilliant +expectations from his uncle; an old bachelor, who, from a courtier, had +turned a misanthrope--cold--shrewd--penetrating--worldly--sarcastic--and +imperious; and from this relation he received, meanwhile, a handsome +and, indeed, munificent allowance. About sixteen years before the date +at which this narrative opens, Philip Beaufort had “run off,” as the +saying is, with Catherine Morton, then little more than a child,--a +motherless child--educated at a boarding-school to notions and desires +far beyond her station; for she was the daughter of a provincial +tradesman. And Philip Beaufort, in the prime of life, was possessed of +most of the qualities that dazzle the eyes and many of the arts that +betray the affections. It was suspected by some that they were privately +married: if so, the secret had been closely kept, and baffled all the +inquiries of the stern old uncle. Still there was much, not only in the +manner, at once modest and dignified, but in the character of Catherine, +which was proud and high-spirited, to give colour to the suspicion. +Beaufort, a man naturally careless of forms, paid her a marked and +punctilious respect; and his attachment was evidently one not only of +passion, but of confidence and esteem. Time developed in her mental +qualities far superior to those of Beaufort, and for these she had +ample leisure of cultivation. To the influence derived from her mind and +person she added that of a frank, affectionate, and winning disposition; +their children cemented the bond between them. Mr. Beaufort was +passionately attached to field sports. He lived the greater part of +the year with Catherine, at the beautiful cottage to which he had built +hunting stables that were the admiration of the county; and though the +cottage was near London, the pleasures of the metropolis seldom allured +him for more than a few days--generally but a few hours--at a time; and +he--always hurried back with renewed relish to what he considered his +home. + +Whatever the connection between Catherine and himself (and of the true +nature of that connection, the Introductory Chapter has made the reader +more enlightened than the world), her influence had, at least, weaned +from all excesses, and many follies, a man who, before he knew her, +had seemed likely, from the extreme joviality and carelessness of his +nature, and a very imperfect education, to contract whatever vices were +most in fashion as preservatives against ennui. And if their union had +been openly hallowed by the Church, Philip Beaufort had been universally +esteemed the model of a tender husband and a fond father. Ever, as he +became more and more acquainted with Catherine’s natural good qualities, +and more and more attached to his home, had Mr. Beaufort, with the +generosity of true affection, desired to remove from her the pain of +an equivocal condition by a public marriage. But Mr. Beaufort, +though generous, was not free from the worldliness which had met him +everywhere, amidst the society in which his youth had been spent. His +uncle, the head of one of those families which yearly vanish from the +commonalty into the peerage, but which once formed a distinguished +peculiarity in the aristocracy of England--families of ancient birth, +immense possessions, at once noble and untitled--held his estates by no +other tenure than his own caprice. Though he professed to like Philip, +yet he saw but little of him. When the news of the illicit connection +his nephew was reported to have formed reached him, he at first resolved +to break it off; but observing that Philip no longer gambled, nor ran +in debt, and had retired from the turf to the safer and more economical +pastimes of the field, he contented himself with inquiries which +satisfied him that Philip was not married; and perhaps he thought it, on +the whole, more prudent to wink at an error that was not attended by the +bills which had here-to-fore characterised the human infirmities of his +reckless nephew. He took care, however, incidentally, and in reference +to some scandal of the day, to pronounce his opinion, not upon the +fault, but upon the only mode of repairing it. + +“If ever,” said he, and he looked grimly at Philip while he spoke, “a +gentleman were to disgrace his ancestry by introducing into his family +one whom his own sister could not receive at her house, why, he ought +to sink to her level, and wealth would but make his disgrace the more +notorious. If I had an only son, and that son were booby enough to do +anything so discreditable as to marry beneath him, I would rather have +my footman for my successor. You understand, Phil!” + +Philip did understand, and looked round at the noble house and +the stately park, and his generosity was not equal to the trial. +Catherine--so great was her power over him--might, perhaps, have easily +triumphed over his more selfish calculations; but her love was too +delicate ever to breathe, of itself, the hope that lay deepest at her +heart. And her children!--ah! for them she pined, but for them she also +hoped. Before them was a long future, and she had all confidence in +Philip. Of late, there had been considerable doubts how far the elder +Beaufort would realise the expectations in which his nephew had been +reared. Philip’s younger brother had been much with the old gentleman, +and appeared to be in high favour: this brother was a man in every +respect the opposite to Philip--sober, supple, decorous, ambitious, with +a face of smiles and a heart of ice. + +But the old gentleman was taken dangerously ill, and Philip was summoned +to his bed of death. Robert, the younger brother, was there also, with +his wife (who he had married prudently) and his children (he had two, a +son and a daughter). Not a word did the uncle say as to the disposition +of his property till an hour before he died. And then, turning in his +bed, he looked first at one nephew, then at the other, and faltered out: + +“Philip, you are a scapegrace, but a gentleman! Robert, you are a +careful, sober, plausible man; and it is a great pity you were not in +business; you would have made a fortune!--you won’t inherit one, though +you think it: I have marked you, sir. Philip, beware of your brother. +Now let me see the parson.” + +The old man died; the will was read; and Philip succeeded to a rental of +L20,000. a-year; Robert, to a diamond ring, a gold repeater, L5,000. and +a curious collection of bottled snakes. + + + +CHAPTER III. + + + “Stay, delightful Dream; + + Let him within his pleasant garden walk; + Give him her arm--of blessings let them talk.”--CRABBE. + +“There, Robert, there! now you can see the new stables. By Jove, they +are the completest thing in the three kingdoms!” + +“Quite a pile! But is that the house? You lodge your horses more +magnificently than yourself.” + +“But is it not a beautiful cottage?--to be sure, it owes everything to +Catherine’s taste. Dear Catherine!” + +Mr. Robert Beaufort, for this colloquy took place between the brothers, +as their britska rapidly descended the hill, at the foot of which lay +Fernside Cottage and its miniature demesnes--Mr. Robert Beaufort pulled +his travelling cap over his brows, and his countenance fell, whether at +the name of Catherine, or the tone in which the name was uttered; and +there was a pause, broken by a third occupant of the britska, a youth of +about seventeen, who sat opposite the brothers. + +“And who are those boys on the lawn, uncle?” + +“Who are those boys?” It was a simple question, but it grated on the ear +of Mr. Robert Beaufort--it struck discord at his heart. “Who were those +boys?” as they ran across the sward, eager to welcome their father home; +the westering sun shining full on their joyous faces--their young forms +so lithe and so graceful--their merry laughter ringing in the still air. +“Those boys,” thought Mr. Robert Beaufort, “the sons of shame, rob mine +of his inheritance.” The elder brother turned round at his nephew’s +question, and saw the expression on Robert’s face. He bit his lip, and +answered, gravely: + +“Arthur, they are my children.” + +“I did not know you were married,” replied Arthur, bending forward to +take a better view of his cousins. + +Mr. Robert Beaufort smiled bitterly, and Philip’s brow grew crimson. + +The carriage stopped at the little lodge. Philip opened the door, and +jumped to the ground; the brother and his son followed. A moment more, +and Philip was locked in Catherine’s arms, her tears falling fast upon +his breast; his children plucking at his coat; and the younger one +crying in his shrill, impatient treble, “Papa! papa! you don’t see +Sidney, papa!” + +Mr. Robert Beaufort placed his hand on his son’s shoulder, and arrested +his steps, as they contemplated the group before them. + +“Arthur,” said he, in a hollow whisper, “those children are our disgrace +and your supplanters; they are bastards! bastards! and they are to be +his heirs!” + +Arthur made no answer, but the smile with which he had hitherto gazed on +his new relations vanished. + +“Kate,” said Mr. Beaufort, as he turned from Mrs. Morton, and lifted +his youngest-born in his arms, “this is my brother and his son: they are +welcome, are they not?” + +Mr. Robert bowed low, and extended his hand, with stiff affability, to +Mrs. Morton, muttering something equally complimentary and inaudible. + +The party proceeded towards the house. Philip and Arthur brought up the +rear. + +“Do you shoot?” asked Arthur, observing the gun in his cousin’s hand. + +“Yes. I hope this season to bag as many head as my father: he is a +famous shot. But this is only a single barrel, and an old-fashioned sort +of detonator. My father must get me one of the new gulls: I can’t afford +it myself.” + +“I should think not,” said Arthur, smiling. + +“Oh, as to that,” resumed Philip, quickly, and with a heightened colour, +“I could have managed it very well if I had not given thirty guineas for +a brace of pointers the other day: they are the best dogs you ever saw.” + +“Thirty guineas!” echoed Arthur, looking with native surprise at the +speaker; “why, how old are you?” + +“Just fifteen last birthday. Holla, John! John Green!” cried the young +gentleman in an imperious voice, to one of the gardeners, who was +crossing the lawn, “see that the nets are taken down to the lake +to-morrow, and that my tent is pitched properly, by the lime-trees, by +nine o’clock. I hope you will understand me this time: Heaven knows you +take a deal of telling before you understand anything!” + +“Yes, Mr. Philip,” said the man, bowing obsequiously; and then muttered, +as he went off, “Drat the nat’rel! He speaks to a poor man as if he +warn’t flesh and blood.” + +“Does your father keep hunters?” asked Philip. + +“No.” + +“Why?” + +“Perhaps one reason may be, that he is not rich enough.” + +“Oh! that’s a pity. Never mind, we’ll mount you, whenever you like to +pay us a visit.” + +Young Arthur drew himself up, and his air, naturally frank and gentle, +became haughty and reserved. Philip gazed on him, and felt offended; +he scarce knew why, but from that moment he conceived a dislike to his +cousin. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + + “For a man is helpless and vain, of a condition so exposed to + calamity that a raisin is able to kill him; any trooper out of the + Egyptian army--a fly can do it, when it goes on God’s errand.” + --JEREMY TAYLOR On the Deceitfulness of the Heart. + +The two brothers sat at their wine after dinner. Robert sipped claret, +the sturdy Philip quaffed his more generous port. Catherine and the boys +might be seen at a little distance, and by the light of a soft August +moon, among the shrubs and bosquets of the lawn. + +Philip Beaufort was about five-and-forty, tall, robust, nay, of great +strength of frame and limb; with a countenance extremely winning, not +only from the comeliness of its features, but its frankness, manliness, +and good nature. His was the bronzed, rich complexion, the inclination +towards embonpoint, the athletic girth of chest, which denote redundant +health, and mirthful temper, and sanguine blood. Robert, who had lived +the life of cities, was a year younger than his brother; nearly as tall, +but pale, meagre, stooping, and with a careworn, anxious, hungry look, +which made the smile that hung upon his lips seem hollow and artificial. +His dress, though plain, was neat and studied; his manner, bland and +plausible; his voice, sweet and low: there was that about him which, if +it did not win liking, tended to excite respect--a certain decorum, a +nameless propriety of appearance and bearing, that approached a little +to formality: his every movement, slow and measured, was that of one +who paced in the circle that fences round the habits and usages of the +world. + +“Yes,” said Philip, “I had always decided to take this step, whenever +my poor uncle’s death should allow me to do so. You have seen Catherine, +but you do not know half her good qualities: she would grace any +station; and, besides, she nursed me so carefully last year, when I +broke my collar-bone in that cursed steeple-chase. Egad, I am getting +too heavy and growing too old for such schoolboy pranks.” + +“I have no doubt of Mrs. Morton’s excellence, and I honour your motives; +still, when you talk of her gracing any station, you must not forget, +my dear brother, that she will be no more received as Mrs. Beaufort than +she is now as Mrs. Morton.” + +“But I tell you, Robert, that I am really married to her already; that +she would never have left her home but on that condition; that we were +married the very day we met after her flight.” + +Robert’s thin lips broke into a slight sneer of incredulity. “My dear +brother, you do right to say this--any man in your situation would say +the same. But I know that my uncle took every pains to ascertain if the +report of a private marriage were true.” + +“And you helped him in the search. Eh, Bob?” + +Bob slightly blushed. Philip went on. + +“Ha, ha! to be sure you did; you knew that such a discovery would have +done for me in the old gentleman’s good opinion. But I blinded you both, +ha, ha! The fact is, that we were married with the greatest privacy; +that even now, I own, it would be difficult for Catherine herself to +establish the fact, unless I wished it. I am ashamed to think that I +have never even told her where I keep the main proof of the marriage. I +induced one witness to leave the country, the other must be long +since dead: my poor friend, too, who officiated, is no more. Even +the register, Bob, the register itself, has been destroyed: and yet, +notwithstanding, I will prove the ceremony and clear up poor Catherine’s +fame; for I have the attested copy of the register safe and sound. +Catherine not married! why, look at her, man!” + +Mr. Robert Beaufort glanced at the window for a moment, but his +countenance was still that of one unconvinced. “Well, brother,” said he, +dipping his fingers in the water-glass, “it is not for me to contradict +you. It is a very curious tale--parson dead--witnesses missing. But +still, as I said before, if you are resolved on a public marriage, you +are wise to insist that there has been a previous private one. Yet, +believe me, Philip,” continued Robert, with solemn earnestness, “the +world--” + +“Damn the world! What do I care for the world! We don’t want to go to +routs and balls, and give dinners to fine people. I shall live much the +same as I have always done; only, I shall now keep the hounds--they are +very indifferently kept at present--and have a yacht; and engage the +best masters for the boys. Phil wants to go to Eton, but I know what +Eton is: poor fellow! his feelings might be hurt there, if others are as +sceptical as yourself. I suppose my old friends will not be less civil +now I have L20,000. a year. And as for the society of women, between you +and me, I don’t care a rush for any woman but Catherine: poor Katty!” + +“Well, you are the best judge of your own affairs: you don’t +misinterpret my motives?” + +“My dear Bob, no. I am quite sensible how kind it is in you--a man +of your starch habits and strict views, coming here to pay a mark of +respect to Kate (Mr. Robert turned uneasily in his chair)--even before +you knew of the private marriage, and I’m sure I don’t blame you for +never having done it before. You did quite right to try your chance with +my uncle.” + +Mr. Robert turned in his chair again, still more uneasily, and cleared +his voice as if to speak. But Philip tossed off his wine, and proceeded, +without heeding his brother,-- + +“And though the poor old man does not seem to have liked you the better +for consulting his scruples, yet we must make up for the partiality of +his will. Let me see--what with your wife’s fortune, you muster L2000. a +year?” + +“Only L1500., Philip, and Arthur’s education is growing expensive. Next +year he goes to college. He is certainly very clever, and I have great +hopes--” + +“That he will do Honour to us all--so have I. He is a noble young +fellow: and I think my Philip may find a great deal to learn from +him,--Phil is a sad idle dog; but with a devil of a spirit, and sharp +as a needle. I wish you could see him ride. Well, to return to Arthur. +Don’t trouble yourself about his education--that shall be my care. He +shall go to Christ Church--a gentleman-commoner, of course--and when he +is of age we’ll get him into parliament. Now for yourself, Bob. I shall +sell the town-house in Berkeley Square, and whatever it brings you shall +have. Besides that, I’ll add L1500. a year to your L1000.--so that’s +said and done. Pshaw! brothers should be brothers.--Let’s come out and +play with the boys!” + +The two Beauforts stepped through the open casement into the lawn. + +“You look pale, Bob--all you London fellows do. As for me, I feel as +strong as a horse: much better than when I was one of your gay dogs +straying loose about the town. ‘Gad, I have never had a moment’s ill +health, except from a fall now and then. I feel as if I should live for +ever, and that’s the reason why I could never make a will.” + +“Have you never, then, made your will?” + +“Never as yet. Faith, till now, I had little enough to leave. But now +that all this great Beaufort property is at my own disposal, I must +think of Kate’s jointure. By Jove! now I speak of it, I will ride +to----to-morrow, and consult the lawyer there both about the will and +the marriage. You will stay for the wedding?” + +“Why, I must go into ------shire to-morrow evening, to place Arthur with +his tutor. But I’ll return for the wedding, if you particularly wish it: +only Mrs. Beaufort is a woman of very strict--” + +“I--do particularly wish it,” interrupted Philip, gravely; “for I +desire, for Catherine’s sake, that you, my sole surviving relation, may +not seem to withhold your countenance from an act of justice to her. +And as for your wife, I fancy L1500. a year would reconcile her to my +marrying out of the Penitentiary.” + +Mr. Robert bowed his head, coughed huskily, and said, “I appreciate your +generous affection, Philip.” + +The next morning, while the elder parties were still over the +breakfast-table, the younger people were in the grounds; it was a lovely +day, one of the last of the luxuriant August--and Arthur, as he looked +round, thought he had never seen a more beautiful place. It was, indeed, +just the spot to captivate a youthful and susceptible fancy. The village +of Fernside, though in one of the counties adjoining Middlesex, and as +near to London as the owner’s passionate pursuits of the field would +permit, was yet as rural and sequestered as if a hundred miles distant +from the smoke of the huge city. Though the dwelling was called a +cottage, Philip had enlarged the original modest building into a villa +of some pretensions. On either side a graceful and well-proportioned +portico stretched verandahs, covered with roses and clematis; to the +right extended a range of costly conservatories, terminating in vistas +of trellis-work which formed those elegant alleys called roseries, and +served to screen the more useful gardens from view. The lawn, smooth and +even, was studded with American plants and shrubs in flower, and bounded +on one side by a small lake, on the opposite bank of which limes and +cedars threw their shadows over the clear waves. On the other side a +light fence separated the grounds from a large paddock, in which three +or four hunters grazed in indolent enjoyment. It was one of those +cottages which bespeak the ease and luxury not often found in more +ostentatious mansions--an abode which, at sixteen, the visitor +contemplates with vague notions of poetry and love--which, at forty, +he might think dull and d---d expensive--which, at sixty, he would +pronounce to be damp in winter, and full of earwigs in the summer. +Master Philip was leaning on his gun; Master Sidney was chasing a +peacock butterfly; Arthur was silently gazing on the shining lake and +the still foliage that drooped over its surface. In the countenance of +this young man there was something that excited a certain interest. He +was less handsome than Philip, but the expression of his face was more +prepossessing. There was something of pride in the forehead; but of good +nature, not unmixed with irresolution and weakness, in the curves of the +mouth. He was more delicate of frame than Philip; and the colour of his +complexion was not that of a robust constitution. His movements were +graceful and self-possessed, and he had his father’s sweetness of voice. +“This is really beautiful!--I envy you, cousin Philip.” + +“Has not your father got a country-house?” + +“No: we live either in London or at some hot, crowded watering-place.” + +“Yes; this is very nice during the shooting and hunting season. But my +old nurse says we shall have a much finer place now. I liked this very +well till I saw Lord Belville’s place. But it is very unpleasant not to +have the finest house in the county: _aut Caesar aut nullus_--that’s +my motto. Ah! do you see that swallow? I’ll bet you a guinea I hit it.” + “No, poor thing! don’t hurt it.” But ere the remonstrance was uttered, +the bird lay quivering on the ground. “It is just September, and one +must keep one’s hand in,” said Philip, as he reloaded his gun. + +To Arthur this action seemed a wanton cruelty; it was rather the wanton +recklessness which belongs to a wild boy accustomed to gratify the +impulse of the moment--the recklessness which is not cruelty in the boy, +but which prosperity may pamper into cruelty in the man. And scarce +had he reloaded his gun before the neigh of a young colt came from the +neighbouring paddock, and Philip bounded to the fence. “He calls me, +poor fellow; you shall see him feed from my hand. Run in for a piece +of bread--a large piece, Sidney.” The boy and the animal seemed to +understand each other. “I see you don’t like horses,” he said to Arthur. +“As for me, I love dogs, horses--every dumb creature.” + +“Except swallows.” said Arthur, with a half smile, and a little +surprised at the inconsistency of the boast. + +“Oh! that is short,--all fair: it is not to hurt the swallow--it is to +obtain skill,” said Philip, colouring; and then, as if not quite easy +with his own definition, he turned away abruptly. + +“This is dull work--suppose we fish. By Jove!” (he had caught his +father’s expletive) “that blockhead has put the tent on the wrong side +of the lake, after all. Holla, you, sir!” and the unhappy gardener +looked up from his flower-beds; “what ails you? I have a great mind to +tell my father of you--you grow stupider every day. I told you to put +the tent under the lime-trees.” + +“We could not manage it, sir; the boughs were in the way.” + +“And why did you not cut the boughs, blockhead?” + +“I did not dare do so, sir, without master’s orders,” said the man +doggedly. + +“My orders are sufficient, I should think; so none of your +impertinence,” cried Philip, with a raised colour; and lifting his hand, +in which he held his ramrod, he shook it menacingly over the gardener’s +head,--“I’ve a great mind to----” + +“What’s the matter, Philip?” cried the good-humoured voice of his +father. “Fie!” + +“This fellow does not mind what I say, sir.” + +“I did not like to cut the boughs of the lime-trees without your orders, +sir,” said the gardener. + +“No, it would be a pity to cut them. You should consult me there, Master +Philip;” and the father shook him by the collar with a good-natured, and +affectionate, but rough sort of caress. + +“Be quiet, father!” said the boy, petulantly and proudly; “or,” he +added, in a lower voice, but one which showed emotion, “my cousin may +think you mean less kindly than you always do, sir.” + +The father was touched: “Go and cut the lime-boughs, John; and always do +as Mr. Philip tells you.” + +The mother was behind, and she sighed audibly. “Ah! dearest, I fear you +will spoil him.” + +“Is he not your son? and do we not owe him the more respect for having +hitherto allowed others to--” + +He stopped, and the mother could say no more. And thus it was, that this +boy of powerful character and strong passions had, from motives the most +amiable, been pampered from the darling into the despot. + +“And now, Kate, I will, as I told you last night, ride over to ---- and +fix the earliest day for our public marriage: I will ask the lawyer to +dine here, to talk about the proper steps for proving the private one.” + +“Will that be difficult” asked Catherine, with natural anxiety. + +“No,--for if you remember, I had the precaution to get an examined copy +of the register; otherwise, I own to you, I should have been alarmed. +I don’t know what has become of Smith. I heard some time since from his +father that he had left the colony; and (I never told you before--it +would have made you uneasy) once, a few years ago, when my uncle again +got it into his head that we might be married, I was afraid poor Caleb’s +successor might, by chance, betray us. So I went over to A---- myself, +being near it when I was staying with Lord C----, in order to see how +far it might be necessary to secure the parson; and, only think! I found +an accident had happened to the register--so, as the clergyman could +know nothing, I kept my own counsel. How lucky I have the copy! No +doubt the lawyer will set all to rights; and, while I am making the +settlements, I may as well make my will. I have plenty for both boys, +but the dark one must be the heir. Does he not look born to be an eldest +son?” + +“Ah, Philip!” + +“Pshaw! one don’t die the sooner for making a will. Have I the air of a +man in a consumption?”--and the sturdy sportsman glanced complacently at +the strength and symmetry of his manly limbs. “Come, Phil, let’s go to +the stables. Now, Robert, I will show you what is better worth seeing +than those miserable flower-beds.” So saying, Mr. Beaufort led the +way to the courtyard at the back of the cottage. Catherine and Sidney +remained on the lawn; the rest followed the host. The grooms, of whom +Beaufort was the idol, hastened to show how well the horses had thriven +in his absence. + +“Do see how Brown Bess has come on, sir! but, to be sure, Master Philip +keeps her in exercise. Ah, sir, he will be as good a rider as your +honour, one of these days.” + +“He ought to be a better, Tom; for I think he’ll never have my weight to +carry. Well, saddle Brown Bess for Mr. Philip. What horse shall I take? +Ah! here’s my old friend, Puppet!” + +“I don’t know what’s come to Puppet, sir; he’s off his feed, and turned +sulky. I tried him over the bar yesterday; but he was quite restive +like.” + +“The devil he was! So, so, old boy, you shall go over the six-barred +gate to-day, or we’ll know why.” And Mr. Beaufort patted the sleek neck +of his favourite hunter. “Put the saddle on him, Tom.” + +“Yes, your honour. I sometimes think he is hurt in the loins somehow--he +don’t take to his leaps kindly, and he always tries to bite when we +bridles him. Be quiet, sir!” + +“Only his airs,” said Philip. “I did not know this, or I would have +taken him over the gate. Why did not you tell me, Tom?” + +“Lord love you, sir! because you have such a spurret; and if anything +had come to you--” + +“Quite right: you are not weight enough for Puppet, my boy; and he never +did like any one to back him but myself. What say you, brother, will you +ride with us?” + +“No, I must go to ---- to-day with Arthur. I have engaged the +post-horses at two o’clock; but I shall be with you to-morrow or the +day after. You see his tutor expects him; and as he is backward in his +mathematics, he has no time to lose.” + +“Well, then, good-bye, nephew!” and Beaufort slipped a pocket-book +into the boy’s hand. “Tush! whenever you want money, don’t trouble your +father--write to me--we shall be always glad to see you; and you must +teach Philip to like his book a little better--eh, Phil?” + +“No, father; I shall be rich enough to do without books,” said Philip, +rather coarsely; but then observing the heightened colour of his cousin, +he went up to him, and with a generous impulse said, “Arthur, you +admired this gun; pray accept it. Nay, don’t be shy--I can have as many +as I like for the asking: you’re not so well off, you know.” + +The intention was kind, but the manner was so patronising that Arthur +felt offended. He put back the gun, and said, drily, “I shall have no +occasion for the gun, thank you.” + +If Arthur was offended by the offer, Philip was much more offended by +the refusal. “As you like; I hate pride,” said he; and he gave the gun +to the groom as he vaulted into his saddle with the lightness of a young +Mercury. “Come, father!” + +Mr. Beaufort had now mounted his favourite hunter--a large, powerful +horse well known for its prowess in the field. The rider trotted him +once or twice through the spacious yard. + +“Nonsense, Tom: no more hurt in the loins than I am. Open that gate; +we will go across the paddock, and take the gate yonder--the old +six-bar--eh, Phil?” + +“Capital!--to be sure!--” + +The gate was opened--the grooms stood watchful to see the leap, and a +kindred curiosity arrested Robert Beaufort and his son. + +How well they looked! those two horsemen; the ease, lightness, spirit +of the one, with the fine-limbed and fiery steed that literally “bounded +beneath him as a barb”--seemingly as gay, as ardent, and as haughty +as the boyrider. And the manly, and almost herculean form of the elder +Beaufort, which, from the buoyancy of its movements, and the supple +grace that belongs to the perfect mastership of any athletic art, +possessed an elegance and dignity, especially on horseback, which rarely +accompanies proportions equally sturdy and robust. There was indeed +something knightly and chivalrous in the bearing of the elder +Beaufort--in his handsome aquiline features, the erectness of his mien, +the very wave of his hand, as he spurred from the yard. + +“What a fine-looking fellow my uncle is!” said Arthur, with involuntary +admiration. + +“Ay, an excellent life--amazingly strong!” returned the pale father, +with a slight sigh. + +“Philip,” said Mr. Beaufort, as they cantered across the paddock, “I +think the gate is too much for you. I will just take Puppet over, and +then we will open it for you.” + +“Pooh, my dear father! you don’t know how I’m improved!” And slackening +the rein, and touching the side of his horse, the young rider darted +forward and cleared the gate, which was of no common height, with an +ease that extorted a loud “bravo” from the proud father. + +“Now, Puppet,” said Mr. Beaufort, spurring his own horse. The animal +cantered towards the gate, and then suddenly turned round with an +impatient and angry snort. “For shame, Puppet!--for shame, old boy!” + said the sportsman, wheeling him again to the barrier. The horse shook +his head, as if in remonstrance; but the spur vigorously applied showed +him that his master would not listen to his mute reasonings. He bounded +forward--made at the gate--struck his hoofs against the top bar--fell +forward, and threw his rider head foremost on the road beyond. The +horse rose instantly--not so the master. The son dismounted, alarmed and +terrified. His father was speechless! and blood gushed from the mouth +and nostrils, as the head drooped heavily on the boy’s breast. The +bystanders had witnessed the fall--they crowded to the spot--they took +the fallen man from the weak arms of the son--the head groom examined +him with the eye of one who had picked up science from his experience in +such casualties. + +“Speak, brother!--where are you hurt?” exclaimed Robert Beaufort. + +“He will never speak more!” said the groom, bursting into tears. “His +neck is broken!” + +“Send for the nearest surgeon,” cried Mr. Robert. “Good God! boy! don’t +mount that devilish horse!” + +But Arthur had already leaped on the unhappy steed, which had been the +cause of this appalling affliction. “Which way?” + +“Straight on to ----, only two miles--every one knows Mr. Powis’s house. +God bless you!” said the groom. Arthur vanished. + +“Lift him carefully, and take him to the house,” said Mr. Robert. “My +poor brother! my dear brother!” + +He was interrupted by a cry, a single shrill, heartbreaking cry; and +Philip fell senseless to the ground. + +No one heeded him at that hour--no one heeded the fatherless BASTARD. +“Gently, gently,” said Mr. Robert, as he followed the servants and their +load. And he then muttered to himself, and his sallow cheek grew bright, +and his breath came short: “He has made no will--he never made a will.” + + + +CHAPTER V. + + + “Constance. O boy, then where art thou? + * * * * What becomes of me”--King John. + +It was three days after the death of Philip Beaufort--for the surgeon +arrived only to confirm the judgment of the groom: in the drawing-room +of the cottage, the windows closed, lay the body, in its coffin, the +lid not yet nailed down. There, prostrate on the floor, tearless, +speechless, was the miserable Catherine; poor Sidney, too young to +comprehend all his loss, sobbing at her side; while Philip apart, seated +beside the coffin, gazed abstractedly on that cold rigid face which had +never known one frown for his boyish follies. + +In another room, that had been appropriated to the late owner, called +his study, sat Robert Beaufort. Everything in this room spoke of +the deceased. Partially separated from the rest of the house, it +communicated by a winding staircase with a chamber above, to which +Philip had been wont to betake himself whenever he returned late, and +over-exhilarated, from some rural feast crowning a hard day’s hunt. +Above a quaint, old-fashioned bureau of Dutch workmanship (which Philip +had picked up at a sale in the earlier years of his marriage) was a +portrait of Catherine taken in the bloom of her youth. On a peg on the +door that led to the staircase, still hung his rough driving coat. The +window commanded the view of the paddock in which the worn-out hunter +or the unbroken colt grazed at will. Around the walls of the “study”--(a +strange misnomer!)--hung prints of celebrated fox-hunts and renowned +steeple-chases: guns, fishing-rods, and foxes’ brushes, ranged with a +sportsman’s neatness, supplied the place of books. On the mantelpiece +lay a cigar-case, a well-worn volume on the Veterinary Art, and the last +number of the Sporting Magazine. And in the room--thus witnessing of the +hardy, masculine, rural life, that had passed away--sallow, stooping, +town-worn, sat, I say, Robert Beaufort, the heir-at-law,--alone: for the +very day of the death he had remanded his son home with the letter that +announced to his wife the change in their fortunes, and directed her to +send his lawyer post-haste to the house of death. The bureau, and the +drawers, and the boxes which contained the papers of the deceased were +open; their contents had been ransacked; no certificate of the private +marriage, no hint of such an event; not a paper found to signify the +last wishes of the rich dead man. + +He had died, and made no sign. Mr. Robert Beaufort’s countenance was +still and composed. + +A knock at the door was heard; the lawyer entered. + +“Sir, the undertakers are here, and Mr. Greaves has ordered the bells to +be rung: at three o’clock he will read the service.” + +“I am obliged to you., Blackwell, for taking these melancholy offices on +yourself. My poor brother!--it is so sudden! But the funeral, you say, +ought to take place to-day?” + +“The weather is so warm,” said the lawyer, wiping his forehead. As he +spoke, the death-bell was heard. + +There was a pause. + +“It would have been a terrible shock to Mrs. Morton if she had been his +wife,” observed Mr. Blackwell. “But I suppose persons of that kind have +very little feeling. I must say that it was fortunate for the family +that the event happened before Mr. Beaufort was wheedled into so +improper a marriage.” + +“It was fortunate, Blackwell. Have you ordered the post-horses? I shall +start immediately after the funeral.” + +“What is to be done with the cottage, sir?” + +“You may advertise it for sale.” + +“And Mrs. Morton and the boys?” “Hum! we will consider. She was a +tradesman’s daughter. I think I ought to provide for her suitably, eh?” + +“It is more than the world could expect from you, sir; it is very +different from a wife.” + +“Oh, very!--very much so, indeed! Just ring for a lighted candle, we +will seal up these boxes. And--I think I could take a sandwich. Poor +Philip!” + +The funeral was over; the dead shovelled away. What a strange thing it +does seem, that that very form which we prized so charily, for which +we prayed the winds to be gentle, which we lapped from the cold in +our arms, from whose footstep we would have removed a stone, should be +suddenly thrust out of sight--an abomination that the earth must +not look upon--a despicable loathsomeness, to be concealed and to +be forgotten! And this same composition of bone and muscle that was +yesterday so strong--which men respected, and women loved, and children +clung to--to-day so lamentably powerless, unable to defend or protect +those who lay nearest to its heart; its riches wrested from it, its +wishes spat upon, its influence expiring with its last sigh! A breath +from its lips making all that mighty difference between what it was and +what it is! + +The post-horses were at the door as the funeral procession returned to +the house. + +Mr. Robert Beaufort bowed slightly to Mrs. Morton, and said, with his +pocket-handkerchief still before his eyes: + +“I will write to you in a few days, ma’am; you will find that I shall +not forget you. The cottage will be sold; but we sha’n’t hurry you. +Good-bye, ma’am; good-bye, my boys;” and he patted his nephews on the +head. + +Philip winced aside, and scowled haughtily at his uncle, who muttered +to himself, “That boy will come to no good!” Little Sidney put his hand +into the rich man’s, and looked up, pleadingly, into his face. “Can’t +you say something pleasant to poor mamma, Uncle Robert?” + +Mr. Beaufort hemmed huskily, and entered the britska--it had been his +brother’s: the lawyer followed, and they drove away. + +A week after the funeral, Philip stole from the house into the +conservatory, to gather some fruit for his mother; she had scarcely +touched food since Beaufort’s death. She was worn to a shadow; her +hair had turned grey. Now she had at last found tears, and she wept +noiselessly but unceasingly. + +The boy had plucked some grapes, and placed them carefully in his +basket: he was about to select a nectarine that seemed riper than the +rest, when his hand was roughly seized; and the gruff voice of John +Green, the gardener, exclaimed: + +“What are you about, Master Philip? you must not touch them ‘ere fruit!” + +“How dare you, fellow!” cried the young gentleman, in a tone of equal +astonishment and, wrath. + +“None of your airs, Master Philip! What I means is, that some great +folks are coming too look at the place tomorrow; and I won’t have my +show of fruit spoiled by being pawed about by the like of you; so, +that’s plain, Master Philip!” + +The boy grew very pale, but remained silent. The gardener, delighted to +retaliate the insolence he had received, continued: + +“You need not go for to look so spiteful, master; you are not the great +man you thought you were; you are nobody now, and so you will find ere +long. So, march out, if you please: I wants to lock up the glass.” + +As he spoke, he took the lad roughly by the arm; but Philip, the most +irascible of mortals, was strong for his years, and fearless as a young +lion. He caught up a watering-pot, which the gardener had deposited +while he expostulated with his late tyrant and struck the man across the +face with it so violently and so suddenly, that he fell back over the +beds, and the glass crackled and shivered under him. Philip did not wait +for the foe to recover his equilibrium; but, taking up his grapes, and +possessing himself quietly of the disputed nectarine, quitted the spot; +and the gardener did not think it prudent to pursue him. To boys, under +ordinary circumstances--boys who have buffeted their way through a +scolding nursery, a wrangling family, or a public school--there would +have been nothing in this squabble to dwell on the memory or vibrate on +the nerves, after the first burst of passion: but to Philip Beaufort it +was an era in life; it was the first insult he had ever received; it was +his initiation into that changed, rough, and terrible career, to which +the spoiled darling of vanity and love was henceforth condemned. His +pride and his self-esteem had incurred a fearful shock. He entered the +house, and a sickness came over him; his limbs trembled; he sat down in +the hall, and, placing the fruit beside him, covered his face with his +hands and wept. Those were not the tears of a boy, drawn from a shallow +source; they were the burning, agonising, reluctant tears, that men +shed, wrung from the heart as if it were its blood. He had never been +sent to school, lest he should meet with mortification. He had had +various tutors, trained to show, rather than to exact, respect; one +succeeding another, at his own whim and caprice. His natural quickness, +and a very strong, hard, inquisitive turn of mind, had enabled +him, however, to pick up more knowledge, though of a desultory and +miscellaneous nature, than boys of his age generally possess; and his +roving, independent, out-of-door existence had served to ripen his +understanding. He had certainly, in spite of every precaution, arrived +at some, though not very distinct, notion of his peculiar position; but +none of its inconveniences had visited him till that day. He began +now to turn his eyes to the future; and vague and dark forebodings--a +consciousness of the shelter, the protector, the station, he had lost +in his father’s death--crept coldly, over him. While thus musing, a ring +was heard at the bell; he lifted his head; it was the postman with a +letter. Philip hastily rose, and, averting his face, on which the tears +were not dried, took the letter; and then, snatching up his little +basket of fruit, repaired to his mother’s room. + +The shutters were half closed on the bright day--oh, what a mockery is +there in the smile of the happy sun when it shines on the wretched! Mrs. +Morton sat, or rather crouched, in a distant corner; her streaming eyes +fixed on vacancy; listless, drooping; a very image of desolate woe; and +Sidney was weaving flower-chains at her feet. + +“Mamma!--mother!” whispered Philip, as he threw his arms round her neck; +“look up! look up!--my heart breaks to see you. Do taste this fruit: you +will die too, if you go on thus; and what will become of us--of Sidney?” + +Mrs. Morton did look up vaguely into his face, and strove to smile. + +“See, too, I have brought you a letter; perhaps good news; shall I break +the seal?” + +Mrs. Morton shook her head gently, and took the letter--alas! how +different from that one which Sidney had placed in her hands not +two short weeks since--it was Mr. Robert Beaufort’s handwriting. She +shuddered, and laid it down. And then there suddenly, and for the first +time, flashed across her the sense of her strange position--the dread of +the future. What were her sons to be henceforth? + +What herself? Whatever the sanctity of her marriage, the law might fail +her. At the disposition of Mr. Robert Beaufort the fate of three lives +might depend. She gasped for breath; again took up the letter; and +hurried over the contents: they ran thus: + +“DEAR MADAM,--Knowing that you must naturally be anxious as to the +future prospects of your children and yourself, left by my poor brother +destitute of all provision, I take the earliest opportunity which it +seems to me that propriety and decorum allow, to apprise you of my +intentions. I need not say that, properly speaking, you can have no kind +of claim upon the relations of my late brother; nor will I hurt your +feelings by those moral reflections which at this season of sorrow +cannot, I hope, fail involuntarily to force themselves upon you. +Without more than this mere allusion to your peculiar connection with my +brother, I may, however, be permitted to add that that connection tended +very materially to separate him from the legitimate branches of his +family; and in consulting with them as to a provision for you and your +children, I find that, besides scruples that are to be respected, some +natural degree of soreness exists upon their minds. Out of regard, +however, to my poor brother (though I saw very little of him of late +years), I am willing to waive those feelings which, as a father and a +husband, you may conceive that I share with the rest of my family. You +will probably now decide on living with some of your own relations; and +that you may not be entirely a burden to them, I beg to say that I shall +allow you a hundred a year; paid, if you prefer it, quarterly. You may +also select such articles of linen and plate as you require for your own +use. With regard to your sons, I have no objection to place them at a +grammar-school, and, at a proper age, to apprentice them to any trade +suitable to their future station, in the choice of which your own family +can give you the best advice. If they conduct themselves properly, +they may always depend on my protection. I do not wish to hurry your +movements; but it will probably be painful to you to remain longer than +you can help in a place crowded with unpleasant recollections; and as +the cottage is to be sold--indeed, my brother-in-law, Lord Lilburne, +thinks it would suit him--you will be liable to the interruption of +strangers to see it; and your prolonged residence at Fernside, you must +be sensible, is rather an obstacle to the sale. I beg to inclose you a +draft for L100. to pay any present expenses; and to request, when you +are settled, to know where the first quarter shall be paid. + +“I shall write to Mr. Jackson (who, I think, is the bailiff) to detail +my instructions as to selling the crops, &c., and discharging the +servants; so that you may have no further trouble. + + + “I am, Madam, + “Your obedient Servant, + “ROBERT BEAUFORT. + “Berkeley Square, September 12th, 18--.” + +The letter fell from Catherine’s hands. Her grief was changed to +indignation and scorn. + +“The insolent!” she exclaimed, with flashing eyes. “This to me!--to +me--the wife, the lawful wife of his brother! the wedded mother of his +brother’s children!” + +“Say that again, mother! again--again!” cried Philip, in a loud voice. +“His wife--wedded!” + +“I swear it,” said Catherine, solemnly. “I kept the secret for your +father’s sake. Now for yours, the truth must be proclaimed.” + +“Thank God! thank God!” murmured Philip, in a quivering voice, throwing +his arms round his brother, “We have no brand on our names, Sidney.” + +At those accents, so full of suppressed joy and pride, the mother felt +at once all that her son had suspected and concealed. She felt that +beneath his haughty and wayward character there had lurked delicate and +generous forbearance for her; that from his equivocal position his very +faults might have arisen; and a pang of remorse for her long sacrifice +of the children to the father shot through her heart. It was followed +by a fear, an appalling fear, more painful than the remorse. The proofs +that were to clear herself and them! The words of her husband, that last +awful morning, rang in her ear. The minister dead; the witness absent; +the register lost! But the copy of that register!--the copy! might not +that suffice? She groaned, and closed her eyes as if to shut out the +future: then starting up, she hurried from the room, and went straight +to Beaufort’s study. As she laid her hand on the latch of the door, she +trembled and drew back. But care for the living was stronger at that +moment than even anguish for the dead: she entered the apartment; she +passed with a firm step to the bureau. It was locked; Robert Beaufort’s +seal upon the lock:--on every cupboard, every box, every drawer, the +same seal that spoke of rights more valued than her own. But Catherine +was not daunted: she turned and saw Philip by her side; she pointed to +the bureau in silence; the boy understood the appeal. He left the +room, and returned in a few moments with a chisel. The lock was broken: +tremblingly and eagerly Catherine ransacked the contents; opened paper +after paper, letter after letter, in vain: no certificate, no will, +no memorial. Could the brother have abstracted the fatal proof? A word +sufficed to explain to Philip what she sought for; and his search was +more minute than hers. Every possible receptacle for papers in that +room, in the whole house, was explored, and still the search was +fruitless. + +Three hours afterwards they were in the same room in which Philip had +brought Robert Beaufort’s letter to his mother. Catherine was seated, +tearless, but deadly pale with heart-sickness and dismay. + +“Mother,” said Philip, “may I now read the letter?” Yes, boy; and decide +for us all. She paused, and examined his face as he read. He felt her +eye was upon him, and restrained his emotions as he proceeded. When he +had done, he lifted his dark gaze upon Catherine’s watchful countenance. + +“Mother, whether or not we obtain our rights, you will still refuse this +man’s charity? I am young--a boy; but I am strong and active. I will +work for you day and night. I have it in me--I feel it; anything rather +than eating his bread.” + +“Philip! Philip! you are indeed my son; your father’s son! And have you +no reproach for your mother, who so weakly, so criminally, concealed +your birthright, till, alas! discovery may be too late? Oh! reproach me, +reproach me! it will be kindness. No! do not kiss me! I cannot bear it. +Boy! boy! if as my heart tells me, we fail in proof, do you understand +what, in the world’s eye, I am; what you are?” + +“I do!” said Philip, firmly; and he fell on his knees at her feet.” + Whatever others call you, you are a mother, and I your son. You are, in +the judgment of Heaven, my father’s Wife, and I his Heir.” + +Catherine bowed her head, and with a gush of tears fell into his arms. +Sidney crept up to her, and forced his lips to her cold cheek. “Mamma! +what vexes you? Mamma, mamma!” + +“Oh, Sidney! Sidney! How like his father! Look at him, Philip! Shall we +do right to refuse him even this pittance? Must he be a beggar too?” + +“Never beggar,” said Philip, with a pride that showed what hard lessons +he had yet to learn. “The lawful sons of a Beaufort were not born to beg +their bread!” + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + + “The storm above, and frozen world below. + + The olive bough + Faded and cast upon the common wind, + And earth a doveless ark.”--LAMAN BLANCHARD. + +Mr. Robert Beaufort was generally considered by the world a very worthy +man. He had never committed any excess--never gambled nor incurred +debt--nor fallen into the warm errors most common with his sex. He was +a good husband--a careful father--an agreeable neighbour--rather +charitable than otherwise, to the poor. He was honest and methodical +in his dealings, and had been known to behave handsomely in different +relations of life. Mr. Robert Beaufort, indeed, always meant to do what +was right--in the eyes of the world! He had no other rule of action but +that which the world supplied; his religion was decorum--his sense of +honour was regard to opinion. His heart was a dial to which the world +was the sun: when the great eye of the public fell on it, it answered +every purpose that a heart could answer; but when that eye was +invisible, the dial was mute--a piece of brass and nothing more. + +It is just to Robert Beaufort to assure the reader that he wholly +disbelieved his brother’s story of a private marriage. He considered +that tale, when heard for the first time, as the mere invention (and a +shallow one) of a man wishing to make the imprudent step he was about to +take as respectable as he could. The careless tone of his brother when +speaking upon the subject--his confession that of such a marriage there +were no distinct proofs, except a copy of a register (which copy Robert +had not found)--made his incredulity natural. He therefore deemed +himself under no obligation of delicacy or respect, to a woman through +whose means he had very nearly lost a noble succession--a woman who had +not even borne his brother’s name--a woman whom nobody knew. Had Mrs. +Morton been Mrs. Beaufort, and the natural sons legitimate children, +Robert Beaufort, supposing their situation of relative power and +dependence to have been the same, would have behaved with careful +and scrupulous generosity. The world would have said, “Nothing can be +handsomer than Mr. Robert Beaufort’s conduct!” Nay, if Mrs. Morton had +been some divorced wife of birth and connections, he would have made +very different dispositions in her favour: he would not have allowed the +connections to call him shabby. But here he felt that, all circumstances +considered, the world, if it spoke at all (which it would scarce think +it worth while to do), would be on his side. An artful woman--low-born, +and, of course, low-bred--who wanted to inveigle her rich and careless +paramour into marriage; what could be expected from the man she had +sought to injure--the rightful heir? Was it not very good in him to do +anything for her, and, if he provided for the children suitably to the +original station of the mother, did he not go to the very utmost of +reasonable expectation? He certainly thought in his conscience, such as +it was, that he had acted well--not extravagantly, not foolishly; but +well. He was sure the world would say so if it knew all: he was not +bound to do anything. He was not, therefore, prepared for Catherine’s +short, haughty, but temperate reply to his letter: a reply which +conveyed a decided refusal of his offers--asserted positively her +own marriage, and the claims of her children--intimated legal +proceedings--and was signed in the name of Catherine Beaufort. Mr. +Beaufort put the letter in his bureau, labelled, “Impertinent answer +from Mrs. Morton, Sept. 14,” and was quite contented to forget the +existence of the writer, until his lawyer, Mr. Blackwell, informed him +that a suit had been instituted by Catherine. + +Mr. Robert turned pale, but Blackwell composed him. + +“Pooh, sir! you have nothing to fear. It is but an attempt to extort +money: the attorney is a low practitioner, accustomed to get up bad +cases: they can make nothing of it.” + +This was true: whatever the rights of the case, poor Catherine had no +proofs--no evidence--which could justify a respectable lawyer to advise +her proceeding to a suit. She named two witnesses of her marriage--one +dead, the other could not be heard of. She selected for the alleged +place in which the ceremony was performed a very remote village, in +which it appeared that the register had been destroyed. No attested copy +thereof was to be found, and Catherine was stunned on hearing that, +even if found, it was doubtful whether it could be received as evidence, +unless to corroborate actual personal testimony. It so happened that +when Philip, many years ago, had received a copy, he had not shown it to +Catherine, nor mentioned Mr. Jones’s name as the copyist. In fact, then +only three years married to Catherine, his worldly caution had not yet +been conquered by confident experience of her generosity. As for the +mere moral evidence dependent on the publication of her bans in London, +that amounted to no proof whatever; nor, on inquiry at A----, did the +Welsh villagers remember anything further than that, some fifteen years +ago, a handsome gentleman had visited Mr. Price, and one or two rather +thought that Mr. Price had married him to a lady from London; evidence +quite inadmissible against the deadly, damning fact, that, for fifteen +years, Catherine had openly borne another name, and lived with Mr. +Beaufort ostensibly as his mistress. Her generosity in this destroyed +her case. Nevertheless, she found a low practitioner, who took her +money and neglected her cause; so her suit was heard and dismissed +with contempt. Henceforth, then, indeed, in the eyes of the law and the +public, Catherine was an impudent adventurer, and her sons were nameless +outcasts. + +And now relieved from all fear, Mr. Robert Beaufort entered upon the +full enjoyment of his splendid fortune. + +The house in Berkeley Square was furnished anew. Great dinners and gay +routs were given in the ensuing spring. Mr. and Mrs. Beaufort became +persons of considerable importance. The rich man had, even when poor, +been ambitious; his ambition now centred in his only son. Arthur had +always been considered a boy of talents and promise; to what might he +not now aspire? The term of his probation with the tutor was abridged, +and Arthur Beaufort was sent at once to Oxford. + +Before he went to the university, during a short preparatory visit to +his father, Arthur spoke to him of the Mortons. “What has become of +them, sir? and what have you done for them?” + +“Done for them!” said Mr. Beaufort, opening his eyes. “What should I do +for persons who have just been harassing me with the most unprincipled +litigation? My conduct to them has been too generous: that is, all +things considered. But when you are my age you will find there is very +little gratitude in the world, Arthur.” + +“Still, sir,” said Arthur, with the good nature that belonged to him: +“still, my uncle was greatly attached to them; and the boys, at least, +are guiltless.” + +“Well, well!” replied Mr. Beaufort, a little impatiently; “I believe +they want for nothing: I fancy they are with the mother’s relations. +Whenever they address me in a proper manner they shall not find me +revengeful or hardhearted; but, since we are on this topic,” continued +the father smoothing his shirt-frill with a care that showed his decorum +even in trifles, “I hope you see the results of that kind of connection, +and that you will take warning by your poor uncle’s example. And now let +us change the subject; it is not a very pleasant one, and, at your age, +the less your thoughts turn on such matters the better.” + +Arthur Beaufort, with the careless generosity of youth, that gauges +other men’s conduct by its own sentiments, believed that his father, +who had never been niggardly to himself, had really acted as his words +implied; and, engrossed by the pursuits of the new and brilliant career +opened, whether to his pleasures or his studies, suffered the objects of +his inquiries to pass from his thoughts. + +Meanwhile, Mrs. Morton, for by that name we must still call her, and her +children, were settled in a small lodging in a humble suburb; situated +on the high road between Fernside and the metropolis. She saved from +her hopeless law-suit, after the sale of her jewels and ornaments, a +sufficient sum to enable her, with economy, to live respectably for a +year or two at least, during which time she might arrange her plans for +the future. She reckoned, as a sure resource, upon the assistance of her +relations; but it was one to which she applied with natural shame and +reluctance. She had kept up a correspondence with her father during his +life. To him, she never revealed the secret of her marriage, though she +did not write like a person conscious of error. Perhaps, as she always +said to her son, she had made to her husband a solemn promise never to +divulge or even hint that secret until he himself should authorise its +disclosure. For neither he nor Catherine ever contemplated separation +or death. Alas! how all of us, when happy, sleep secure in the dark +shadows, which ought to warn us of the sorrows that are to come! Still +Catherine’s father, a man of coarse mind and not rigid principles, did +not take much to heart that connection which he assumed to be illicit. +She was provided for, that was some comfort: doubtless Mr. Beaufort +would act like a gentleman, perhaps at last make her an honest woman and +a lady. Meanwhile, she had a fine house, and a fine carriage, and fine +servants; and so far from applying to him for money, was constantly +sending him little presents. But Catherine only saw, in his permission +of her correspondence, kind, forgiving, and trustful affection, and she +loved him tenderly: when he died, the link that bound her to her family +was broken. Her brother succeeded to the trade; a man of probity and +honour, but somewhat hard and unamiable. In the only letter she had +received from him--the one announcing her father’s death--he told her +plainly, and very properly, that he could not countenance the life she +led; that he had children growing up--that all intercourse between them +was at an end, unless she left Mr. Beaufort; when, if she sincerely +repented, he would still prove her affectionate brother. + +Though Catherine had at the time resented this letter as unfeeling--now, +humbled and sorrow-stricken, she recognised the propriety of principle +from which it emanated. Her brother was well off for his station--she +would explain to him her real situation--he would believe her story. +She would write to him, and beg him at least to give aid to her poor +children. + +But this step she did not take till a considerable portion of her +pittance was consumed--till nearly three parts of a year since +Beaufort’s death had expired--and till sundry warnings, not to be +lightly heeded, had made her forebode the probability of an early death +for herself. From the age of sixteen, when she had been placed by Mr. +Beaufort at the head of his household, she had been cradled, not in +extravagance, but in an easy luxury, which had not brought with it +habits of economy and thrift. She could grudge anything to herself, but +to her children--his children, whose every whim had been anticipated, +she had not the heart to be saving. She could have starved in a garret +had she been alone; but she could not see them wanting a comfort +while she possessed a guinea. Philip, to do him justice, evinced a +consideration not to have been expected from his early and arrogant +recklessness. But Sidney, who could expect consideration from such a +child? What could he know of the change of circumstances--of the value +of money? Did he seem dejected, Catherine would steal out and spend a +week’s income on the lapful of toys which she brought home. Did he seem +a shade more pale--did he complain of the slightest ailment, a doctor +must be sent for. Alas! her own ailments, neglected and unheeded, were +growing beyond the reach of medicine. Anxious-- fearful--gnawed by +regret for the past--the thought of famine in the future--she daily +fretted and wore herself away. She had cultivated her mind during her +secluded residence with Mr. Beaufort, but she had learned none of the +arts by which decayed gentlewomen keep the wolf from the door; no little +holiday accomplishments, which, in the day of need turn to useful trade; +no water-colour drawings, no paintings on velvet, no fabrications +of pretty gewgaws, no embroidery and fine needlework. She was +helpless--utterly helpless; if she had resigned herself to the thought +of service, she would not have had the physical strength for a place of +drudgery, and where could she have found the testimonials necessary for +a place of trust? A great change, at this time, was apparent in Philip. +Had he fallen, then, into kind hands, and under guiding eyes, his +passions and energies might have ripened into rare qualities and great +virtues. But perhaps as Goethe has somewhere said, “Experience, after +all, is the best teacher.” He kept a constant guard on his vehement +temper--his wayward will; he would not have vexed his mother for the +world. But, strange to say (it was a great mystery in the woman’s +heart), in proportion as he became more amiable, it seemed that his +mother loved him less. Perhaps she did not, in that change, recognise +so closely the darling of the old time; perhaps the very weaknesses and +importunities of Sidney, the hourly sacrifices the child entailed upon +her, endeared the younger son more to her from that natural sense of +dependence and protection which forms the great bond between mother and +child; perhaps too, as Philip had been one to inspire as much pride as +affection, so the pride faded away with the expectations that had +fed it, and carried off in its decay some of the affection that was +intertwined with it. However this be, Philip had formerly appeared the +more spoiled and favoured of the two: and now Sidney seemed all in all. +Thus, beneath the younger son’s caressing gentleness, there grew up a +certain regard for self; it was latent, it took amiable colours; it had +even a certain charm and grace in so sweet a child, but selfishness +it was not the less. In this he differed from his brother. Philip +was self-willed: Sidney self-loving. A certain timidity of character, +endearing perhaps to the anxious heart of a mother, made this fault in +the younger boy more likely to take root. For, in bold natures, there is +a lavish and uncalculating recklessness which scorns self unconsciously +and though there is a fear which arises from a loving heart, and is but +sympathy for others--the fear which belongs to a timid character is +but egotism--but, when physical, the regard for one’s own person: when +moral, the anxiety for one’s own interests. + +It was in a small room in a lodging-house in the suburb of H---- that +Mrs. Morton was seated by the window, nervously awaiting the knock +of the postman, who was expected to bring her brother’s reply to her +letter. It was therefore between ten and eleven o’clock--a morning in +the merry month of June. It was hot and sultry, which is rare in an +English June. A flytrap, red, white, and yellow, suspended from the +ceiling, swarmed with flies; flies were on the ceiling, flies buzzed at +the windows; the sofa and chairs of horsehair seemed stuffed with +flies. There was an air of heated discomfort in the thick, solid moreen +curtains, in the gaudy paper, in the bright-staring carpet, in the +very looking-glass over the chimney-piece, where a strip of mirror lay +imprisoned in an embrace of frame covered with yellow muslin. We may +talk of the dreariness of winter; and winter, no doubt, is desolate: but +what in the world is more dreary to eyes inured to the verdure and bloom +of Nature--, + +“The pomp of groves and garniture of fields,” --than a close room in a +suburban lodging-house; the sun piercing every corner; nothing fresh, +nothing cool, nothing fragrant to be seen, felt, or inhaled; all dust, +glare, noise, with a chandler’s shop, perhaps, next door? Sidney armed +with a pair of scissors, was cutting the pictures out of a story-book, +which his mother had bought him the day before. Philip, who, of late, +had taken much to rambling about the streets--it may be, in hopes of +meeting one of those benevolent, eccentric, elderly gentlemen, he had +read of in old novels, who suddenly come to the relief of distressed +virtue; or, more probably, from the restlessness that belonged to his +adventurous temperament;--Philip had left the house since breakfast. + +“Oh! how hot this nasty room is!” exclaimed Sidney, abruptly, looking +up from his employment. “Sha’n’t we ever go into the country, again, +mamma?” + +“Not at present, my love.” + +“I wish I could have my pony; why can’t I have my pony, mamma?” + +“Because,--because--the pony is sold, Sidney.” + +“Who sold it?” + +“Your uncle.” + +“He is a very naughty man, my uncle: is he not? But can’t I have another +pony? It would be so nice, this fine weather!” + +“Ah! my dear, I wish I could afford it: but you shall have a ride this +week! Yes,” continued the mother, as if reasoning with herself, in +excuse of the extravagance, “he does not look well: poor child! he must +have exercise.” + +“A ride!--oh! that is my own kind mamma!” exclaimed Sidney, clapping +his hands. “Not on a donkey, you know!--a pony. The man down the street, +there, lets ponies. I must have the white pony with the long tail. But, +I say, mamma, don’t tell Philip, pray don’t; he would be jealous.” + +“No, not jealous, my dear; why do you think so?” + +“Because he is always angry when I ask you for anything. It is very +unkind in him, for I don’t care if he has a pony, too,--only not the +white one.” + +Here the postman’s knock, loud and sudden, started Mrs. Morton from her +seat. + +She pressed her hands tightly to her heart, as if to still its beating, +and went tremulously to the door; thence to the stairs, to anticipate +the lumbering step of the slipshod maidservent. + +“Give it me, Jane; give it me!” + +“One shilling and eightpence--double charged--if you please, ma’am! +Thank you.” + +“Mamma, may I tell Jane to engage the pony?” + +“Not now, my love; sit down; be quiet: I--I am not well.” + +Sidney, who was affectionate and obedient, crept back peaceably to the +window, and, after a short, impatient sigh, resumed the scissors and the +story-book. I do not apologise to the reader for the various letters I +am obliged to lay before him; for character often betrays itself more +in letters than in speech. Mr. Roger Morton’s reply was couched in these +terms,-- + +“DEAR CATHERINE, I have received your letter of the 14th inst., and +write per return. I am very much grieved to hear of your afflictions; +but, whatever you say, I cannot think the late Mr. Beaufort acted like +a conscientious man, in forgetting to make his will, and leaving his +little ones destitute. It is all very well to talk of his intentions; +but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And it is hard upon +me, who have a large family of my own, and get my livelihood by honest +industry, to have a rich gentleman’s children to maintain. As for your +story about the private marriage, it may or not be. Perhaps you were +taken in by that worthless man, for a real marriage it could not be. +And, as you say, the law has decided that point; therefore, the less you +say on the matter the better. It all comes to the same thing. People are +not bound to believe what can’t be proved. And even if what you say is +true, you are more to be blamed than pitied for holding your tongue so +many years, and discrediting an honest family, as ours has always been +considered. I am sure my wife would not have thought of such a thing for +the finest gentleman that ever wore shoe-leather. However, I don’t want +to hurt your feelings; and I am sure I am ready to do whatever is right +and proper. You cannot expect that I should ask you to my house. My +wife, you know, is a very religious woman--what is called evangelical; +but that’s neither here nor there: I deal with all people, churchmen and +dissenters--even Jews,--and don’t trouble my head much about differences +in opinion. I dare say there are many ways to heaven; as I said, the +other day, to Mr. Thwaites, our member. But it is right to say my wife +will not hear of your coming here; and, indeed, it might do harm to +my business, for there are several elderly single gentlewomen, who buy +flannel for the poor at my shop, and they are very particular; as they +ought to be, indeed: for morals are very strict in this county, +and particularly in this town, where we certainly do pay very high +church-rates. Not that I grumble; for, though I am as liberal as any +man, I am for an established church; as I ought to be, since the dean +is my best customer. With regard to yourself I inclose you L10., and you +will let me know when it is gone, and I will see what more I can do. You +say you are very poorly, which I am sorry to hear; but you must pluck +up your spirits, and take in plain work; and I really think you ought +to apply to Mr. Robert Beaufort. He bears a high character; and +notwithstanding your lawsuit, which I cannot approve of, I dare say he +might allow you L40. or L50. a-year, if you apply properly, which would +be the right thing in him. So much for you. As for the boys--poor, +fatherless creatures!--it is very hard that they should be so punished +for no fault of their own; and my wife, who, though strict, is a +good-hearted woman, is ready and willing to do what I wish about them. +You say the eldest is near sixteen and well come on in his studies. I +can get him a very good thing in a light genteel way. My wife’s brother, +Mr. Christopher Plaskwith, is a bookseller and stationer with pretty +practice, in R----. He is a clever man, and has a newspaper, which he +kindly sends me every week; and, though it is not my county, it has some +very sensible views and is often noticed in the London papers, as ‘our +provincial contemporary.’--Mr. Plaskwith owes me some money, which I +advanced him when he set up the paper; and he has several times most +honestly offered to pay me, in shares in the said paper. But, as the +thing might break, and I don’t like concerns I don’t understand, I have +not taken advantage of his very handsome proposals. Now, Plaskwith wrote +me word, two days ago, that he wanted a genteel, smart lad, as assistant +and ‘prentice, and offered to take my eldest boy; but we can’t spare +him. I write to Christopher by this post; and if your youth will run +down on the top of the coach, and inquire for Mr. Plaskwith--the fare is +trifling--I have no doubt he will be engaged at once. But you will say, +‘There’s the premium to consider!’ No such thing; Kit will set off the +premium against his debt to me; so you will have nothing to pay. ‘Tis a +very pretty business; and the lad’s education will get him on; so that’s +off your mind. As to the little chap, I’ll take him at once. You say he +is a pretty boy; and a pretty boy is always a help in a linendraper’s +shop. He shall share and share with my own young folks; and Mrs. Morton +will take care of his washing and morals. I conclude--(this is Mrs. M’s. +suggestion)--that he has had the measles, cowpock, and whooping-cough, +which please let me know. If he behave well, which, at his age, we can +easily break him into, he is settled for life. So now you have got rid +of two mouths to feed, and have nobody to think of but yourself, which +must be a great comfort. Don’t forget to write to Mr. Beaufort; and if +he don’t do something for you he’s not the gentleman I take him for; but +you are my own flesh and blood, and sha’n’t starve; for, though I don’t +think it right in a man in business to encourage what’s wrong, yet, when +a person’s down in the world, I think an ounce of help is better than a +pound of preaching. My wife thinks otherwise, and wants to send you some +tracts; but every body can’t be as correct as some folks. However, as +I said before, that’s neither here nor there. Let me know when your boy +comes down, and also about the measles, cowpock, and whooping-cough; +also if all’s right with Mr. Plaskwith. So now I hope you will feel more +comfortable; and remain, + + + “Dear Catherine, + “Your forgiving and affectionate brother, + “ROGER MORTON. + “High Street, N----, June 13.” + +“P.S.--Mrs. M. says that she will be a mother to your little boy, and +that you had better mend up all his linen before you send him.” + +As Catherine finished this epistle, she lifted her eyes and beheld +Philip. He had entered noiselessly, and he remained silent, leaning +against the wall, and watching the face of his mother, which crimsoned +with painful humiliation while she read. Philip was not now the trim +and dainty stripling first introduced to the reader. He had outgrown his +faded suit of funereal mourning; his long-neglected hair hung elf-like +and matted down his cheeks; there was a gloomy look in his bright dark +eyes. Poverty never betrays itself more than in the features and form of +Pride. It was evident that his spirit endured, rather than accommodated +itself to, his fallen state; and, notwithstanding his soiled and +threadbare garments, and a haggardness that ill becomes the years of +palmy youth, there was about his whole mien and person a wild and savage +grandeur more impressive than his former ruffling arrogance of manner. + +“Well, mother,” said he, with a strange mixture of sternness in his +countenance and pity in his voice; “well, mother, and what says your +brother?” + +“You decided for us once before, decide again. But I need not ask you; +you would never--” + +“I don’t know,” interrupted Philip, vaguely; “let me see what we are to +decide on.” + +Mrs. Morton was naturally a woman of high courage and spirit, but +sickness and grief had worn down both; and though Philip was but +sixteen, there is something in the very nature of woman--especially in +trouble--which makes her seek to lean on some other will than her own. +She gave Philip the letter, and went quietly to sit down by Sidney. + +“Your brother means well,” said Philip, when he had concluded the +epistle. + +“Yes, but nothing is to be done; I cannot, cannot send poor Sidney +to--to--” and Mrs. Morton sobbed. + +“No, my dear, dear mother, no; it would be terrible, indeed, to part +you and him. But this bookseller--Plaskwith--perhaps I shall be able to +support you both.” + +“Why, you do not think, Philip, of being an apprentice!--you, who have +been so brought up--you, who are so proud!” + +“Mother, I would sweep the crossings for your sake! Mother, for your +sake I would go to my uncle Beaufort with my hat in my hand, for +halfpence. Mother, I am not proud--I would be honest, if I can--but when +I see you pining away, and so changed, the devil comes into me, and I +often shudder lest I should commit some crime--what, I don’t know!” + +“Come here, Philip--my own Philip--my son, my hope, my firstborn!”--and +the mother’s heart gushed forth in all the fondness of early days. +“Don’t speak so terribly, you frighten me!” + +She threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him soothingly. He laid +his burning temples on her bosom, and nestled himself to her, as he +had been wont to do, after some stormy paroxysm of his passionate and +wayward infancy. So there they remained--their lips silent, their hearts +speaking to each other--each from each taking strange succour and holy +strength--till Philip rose, calm, and with a quiet smile, “Good-bye, +mother; I will go at once to Mr. Plaskwith.” + +“But you have no money for the coach-fare; here, Philip,” and she +placed her purse in his hand, from which he reluctantly selected a few +shillings. “And mind, if the man is rude and you dislike him--mind, you +must not subject yourself to insolence and mortification.” + +“Oh, all will go well, don’t fear,” said Philip, cheerfully, and he left +the house. + +Towards evening he had reached his destination. The shop was of +goodly exterior, with a private entrance; over the shop was written, +“Christopher Plaskwith, Bookseller and Stationer:” on the private door +a brass plate, inscribed with “R---- and ---- Mercury Office, Mr. +Plaskwith.” Philip applied at the private entrance, and was shown by +a “neat-handed Phillis” into a small office-room. In a few minutes the +door opened, and the bookseller entered. + +Mr. Christopher Plaskwith was a short, stout man, in drab-coloured +breeches, and gaiters to match; a black coat and waistcoat; he wore a +large watch-chain, with a prodigious bunch of seals, alternated by +small keys and old-fashioned mourning-rings. His complexion was pale +and sodden, and his hair short, dark, and sleek. The bookseller valued +himself on a likeness to Buonaparte; and affected a short, brusque, +peremptory manner, which he meant to be the indication of the vigorous +and decisive character of his prototype. + +“So you are the young gentleman Mr. Roger Morton recommends?” Here Mr. +Plaskwith took out a huge pocketbook, slowly unclasped it, staring hard +at Philip, with what he designed for a piercing and penetrative survey. + +“This is the letter--no! this is Sir Thomas Champerdown’s order for +fifty copies of the last Mercury, containing his speech at the county +meeting. Your age, young man?--only sixteen?--look older;--that’s not +it--that’s not it--and this is it!--sit down. Yes, Mr. Roger +Morton recommends you--a relation--unfortunate circumstances--well +educated--hum! Well, young man, what have you to say for yourself?” + +“Sir?” + +“Can you cast accounts?--know bookkeeping?” + +“I know something of algebra, sir.” + +“Algebra!--oh, what else?” + +“French and Latin.” + +“Hum!--may be useful. Why do you wear your hair so long?--look at mine. +What’s your name?” + +“Philip Morton.” + +“Mr. Philip Morton, you have an intelligent countenance--I go a great +deal by countenances. You know the terms?--most favourable to you. No +premium--I settle that with Roger. I give board and bed--find your own +washing. Habits regular--‘prenticeship only five years; when over, must +not set up in the same town. I will see to the indentures. When can you +come?” + +“When you please, sir.” + +“Day after to-morrow, by six o’clock coach.” + +“But, sir,” said Philip, “will there be no salary? something, ever so +small, that I could send to my another?” + +“Salary, at sixteen?--board and bed--no premium! Salary, what for? +‘Prentices have no salary!--you will have every comfort.” + +“Give me less comfort, that I may give my mother more;--a little money, +ever so little, and take it out of my board: I can do with one meal a +day, sir.” + +The bookseller was moved: he took a huge pinch of snuff out of his +waistcoat pocket, and mused a moment. He then said, as he re-examined +Philip: + +“Well, young man, I’ll tell you what we will do. You shall come +here first upon trial;--see if we like each other before we sign the +indentures; allow you, meanwhile, five shillings a week. If you show +talent, will see if I and Roger can settle about some little allowance. +That do, eh?” + +“I thank you, sir, yes,” said Philip, gratefully. “Agreed, then. Follow +me--present you to Mrs. P.” Thus saying, Mr. Plaskwith returned the +letter to the pocket-book, and the pocket-book to the pocket; and, +putting his arms behind his coat tails, threw up his chin, and strode +through the passage into a small parlour, that locked upon a small +garden. Here, seated round the table, were a thin lady, with a squint +(Mrs. Plaskwith), two little girls, the Misses Plaskwith, also with +squints, and pinafores; a young man of three or four-and-twenty, in +nankeen trousers, a little the worse for washing, and a black velveteen +jacket and waistcoat. This young gentleman was very much freckled; wore +his hair, which was dark and wiry, up at one side, down at the other; +had a short thick nose; full lips; and, when close to him, smelt of +cigars. Such was Mr. Plimmins, Mr. Plaskwith’s factotum, foreman in the +shop, assistant editor to the Mercury. Mr. Plaskwith formally went the +round of the introduction; Mrs. P. nodded her head; the Misses P. nudged +each other, and grinned; Mr. Plimmins passed his hand through his hair, +glanced at the glass, and bowed very politely. + +“Now, Mrs. P., my second cup, and give Mr. Morton his dish of tea. Must +be tired, sir--hot day. Jemima, ring--no, go to the stairs and call out +‘more buttered toast.’ That’s the shorter way--promptitude is my rule in +life, Mr. Morton. Pray-hum, hum--have you ever, by chance, studied the +biography of the great Napoleon Buonaparte?” + +Mr. Plimmins gulped down his tea, and kicked Philip under the table. +Philip looked fiercely at the foreman, and replied, sullenly, “No, sir.” + +“That’s a pity. Napoleon Buonaparte was a very great man,--very! You +have seen his cast?--there it is, on the dumb waiter! Look at it! see a +likeness, eh?” + +“Likeness, sir? I never saw Napoleon Buonaparte.” + +“Never saw him! No, just look round the room. Who does that bust put you +in mind of? who does it resemble?” + +Here Mr. Plaskwith rose, and placed himself in an attitude; his hand in +his waistcoat, and his face pensively inclined towards the tea-table. +“Now fancy me at St. Helena; this table is the ocean. Now, then, who is +that cast like, Mr. Philip Morton?” + +“I suppose, sir, it is like you!” + +“Ah, that it is! strikes every one! Does it not, Mrs. P., does it not? +And when you have known me longer, you will find a moral similitude--a +moral, sir! Straightforward--short--to the point--bold--determined!” + +“Bless me, Mr. P.!” said Mrs. Plaskwith, very querulously, “do make +haste with your tea; the young gentleman, I suppose, wants to go home, +and the coach passes in a quarter of an hour.” + +“Have you seen Kean in Richard the Third, Mr. Morton?” asked Mr. +Plimmins. + +“I have never seen a play.” + +“Never seen a play! How very odd!” + +“Not at all odd, Mr. Plimmins,” said the stationer. “Mr. Morton has +known troubles--so hand him the hot toast.” + +Silent and morose, but rather disdainful than sad, Philip listened to +the babble round him, and observed the ungenial characters with which +he was to associate. He cared not to please (that, alas! had never been +especially his study); it was enough for him if he could see, stretching +to his mind’s eye beyond the walls of that dull room, the long vistas +into fairer fortune. At sixteen, what sorrow can freeze the Hope, or +what prophetic fear whisper, “Fool!” to the Ambition? He would bear back +into ease and prosperity, if not into affluence and station, the dear +ones left at home. From the eminence of five shillings a week, he looked +over the Promised Land. + +At length, Mr. Plaskwith, pulling out his watch, said, “Just in time +to catch the coach; make your bow and be off--smart’s the word!” Philip +rose, took up his hat, made a stiff bow that included the whole group, +and vanished with his host. + +Mrs. Plaskwith breathed more easily when he was gone. “I never seed +a more odd, fierce, ill-bred-looking young man! I declare I am quite +afraid of him. What an eye he has!” + +“Uncommonly dark; what I may say gipsy-like,” said Mr. Plimmins. + +“He! he! You always do say such good things, Plimmins. Gipsy-like, he! +he! So he is! I wonder if he can tell fortunes?” + +“He’ll be long before he has a fortune of his own to tell. Ha! ha!” said +Plimmins. + +“He! he! how very good! you are so pleasant, Plimmins.” + +While these strictures on his appearance were still going on, Philip had +already ascended the roof of the coach; and, waving his hand, with the +condescension of old times, to his future master, was carried away by +the “Express” in a whirlwind of dust. + +“A very warm evening, sir,” said a passenger seated at his right; +puffing, while he spoke, from a short German pipe, a volume of smoke in +Philip’s face. + +“Very warm. Be so good as to smoke into the face of the gentleman on the +other side of you,” returned Philip, petulantly. + +“Ho, ho!” replied the passenger, with a loud, powerful laugh--the laugh +of a strong man. “You don’t take to the pipe yet; you will by and by, +when you have known the cares and anxieties that I have gone through. +A pipe!--it is a great soother!--a pleasant comforter! Blue devils fly +before its honest breath! It ripens the brain--it opens the heart; and +the man who smokes thinks like a sage and acts like a Samaritan!” + +Roused from his reverie by this quaint and unexpected declamation, +Philip turned his quick glance at his neighbour. He saw a man of great +bulk and immense physical power--broad-shouldered--deep-chested--not +corpulent, but taking the same girth from bone and muscle that a +corpulent man does from flesh. He wore a blue coat--frogged, braided, +and buttoned to the throat. A broad-brimmed straw hat, set on one side, +gave a jaunty appearance to a countenance which, notwithstanding its +jovial complexion and smiling mouth, had, in repose, a bold and decided +character. It was a face well suited to the frame, inasmuch as it +betokened a mind capable of wielding and mastering the brute physical +force of body;--light eyes of piercing intelligence; rough, but resolute +and striking features, and a jaw of iron. There was thought, there was +power, there was passion in the shaggy brow, the deep-ploughed lines, +the dilated, nostril and the restless play of the lips. Philip looked +hard and grave, and the man returned his look. + +“What do you think of me, young gentleman?” asked the passenger, as he +replaced the pipe in his mouth. “I am a fine-looking man, am I not?” + +“You seem a strange one.” + +“Strange!--Ay, I puzzle you, as I have done, and shall do, many. You +cannot read me as easily as I can read you. Come, shall I guess at your +character and circumstances? You are a gentleman, or something like it, +by birth;--that the tone of your voice tells me. You are poor, devilish +poor;--that the hole in your coat assures me. You are proud, fiery, +discontented, and unhappy;--all that I see in your face. It was because +I saw those signs that I spoke to you. I volunteer no acquaintance with +the happy.” + +“I dare say not; for if you know all the unhappy you must have a +sufficiently large acquaintance,” returned Philip. + +“Your wit is beyond your years! What is your calling, if the question +does not offend you?” + +“I have none as yet,” said Philip, with a slight sigh, and a deep blush. + +“More’s the pity!” grunted the smoker, with a long emphatic nasal +intonation. “I should have judged that you were a raw recruit in the +camp of the enemy.” + +“Enemy! I don’t understand you.” + +“In other words, a plant growing out of a lawyer’s desk. I will explain. +There is one class of spiders, industrious, hard-working octopedes, who, +out of the sweat of their brains (I take it, by the by, that a spider +must have a fine craniological development), make their own webs and +catch their flies. There is another class of spiders who have no stuff +in them wherewith to make webs; they, therefore, wander about, looking +out for food provided by the toil of their neighbours. Whenever they +come to the web of a smaller spider, whose larder seems well supplied, +they rush upon his domain--pursue him to his hole--eat him up if they +can--reject him if he is too tough for their maws, and quietly possess +themselves of all the legs and wings they find dangling in his meshes: +these spiders I call enemies--the world calls them lawyers!” + +Philip laughed: “And who are the first class of spiders?” + +“Honest creatures who openly confess that they live upon flies. Lawyers +fall foul upon them, under pretence of delivering flies from their +clutches. They are wonderful blood-suckers, these lawyers, in spite of +all their hypocrisy. Ha! ha! ho! ho!” + +And with a loud, rough chuckle, more expressive of malignity than mirth, +the man turned himself round, applied vigorously to his pipe, and sank +into a silence which, as mile after mile glided past the wheels, he +did not seem disposed to break. Neither was Philip inclined to be +communicative. Considerations for his own state and prospects swallowed +up the curiosity he might otherwise have felt as to his singular +neighbour. He had not touched food since the early morning. Anxiety had +made him insensible to hunger, till he arrived at Mr. Plaskwith’s; +and then, feverish, sore, and sick at heart, the sight of the luxuries +gracing the tea-table only revolted him. He did not now feel hunger, but +he was fatigued and faint. For several nights the sleep which youth can +so ill dispense with had been broken and disturbed; and now, the +rapid motion of the coach, and the free current of a fresher and more +exhausting air than he had been accustomed to for many months, began to +operate on his nerves like the intoxication of a narcotic. His eyes grew +heavy; indistinct mists, through which there seemed to glare the various +squints of the female Plaskwiths, succeeded the gliding road and the +dancing trees. His head fell on his bosom; and thence, instinctively +seeking the strongest support at hand, inclined towards the stout +smoker, and finally nestled itself composedly on that gentleman’s +shoulder. The passenger, feeling this unwelcome and unsolicited weight, +took the pipe, which he had already thrice refilled, from his lips, +and emitted an angry and impatient snort; finding that this produced no +effect, and that the load grew heavier as the boy’s sleep grew deeper, +he cried, in a loud voice, “Holla! I did not pay my fare to be your +bolster, young man!” and shook himself lustily. Philip started, and +would have fallen sidelong from the coach, if his neighbour had not +griped him hard with a hand that could have kept a young oak from +falling. + +“Rouse yourself!--you might have had an ugly tumble.” Philip muttered +something inaudible, between sleeping and waking, and turned his dark +eyes towards the man; in that glance there was so much unconscious, +but sad and deep reproach, that the passenger felt touched and ashamed. +Before however, he could say anything in apology or conciliation, Philip +had again fallen asleep. But this time, as if he had felt and resented +the rebuff he had received, he inclined his head away from his +neighbour, against the edge of a box on the roof--a dangerous pillow, +from which any sudden jolt might transfer him to the road below. + +“Poor lad!--he looks pale!” muttered the man, and he knocked the weed +from his pipe, which he placed gently in his pocket. “Perhaps the smoke +was too much for him--he seems ill and thin,” and he took the boy’s long +lean fingers in his own. “His cheek is hollow!--what do I know but it +may be with fasting? Pooh! I was a brute. Hush, coachee, hush! don’t +talk so loud, and be d---d to you--he will certainly be off!” and the +man softly and creepingly encircled the boy’s waist with his huge arm. + +“Now, then, to shift his head; so-so,--that’s right.” Philip’s sallow +cheek and long hair were now tenderly lapped on the soliloquist’s +bosom. “Poor wretch! he smiles; perhaps he is thinking of home, and the +butterflies he ran after when he was an urchin--they never come back, +those days;--never--never--never! I think the wind veers to the east; he +may catch cold;”--and with that, the man, sliding the head for a moment, +and with the tenderness of a woman, from his breast to his shoulder, +unbuttoned his coat (as he replaced the weight, no longer unwelcomed, in +its former part), and drew the lappets closely round the slender +frame of the sleeper, exposing his own sturdy breast--for he wore no +waistcoat--to the sharpening air. Thus cradled on that stranger’s bosom, +wrapped from the present and dreaming perhaps--while a heart scorched +by fierce and terrible struggles with life and sin made his pillow--of a +fair and unsullied future, slept the fatherless and friendless boy. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + + “Constance. My life, my joy, my food, my all the world, + My widow-comfort.”--King John. + +Amidst the glare of lamps--the rattle of carriages--the lumbering +of carts and waggons--the throng, the clamour, the reeking life and +dissonant roar of London, Philip woke from his happy sleep. He woke +uncertain and confused, and saw strange eyes bent on him kindly and +watchfully. + +“You have slept well, my lad!” said the passenger, in the deep ringing +voice which made itself heard above all the noises around. + +“And you have suffered me to incommode you thus!” said Philip, with more +gratitude in his voice and look than, perhaps, he had shown to any one +out of his own family since his birth. + +“You have had but little kindness shown you, my poor boy, if you think +so much of this.” + +“No--all people were very kind to me once. I did not value it then.” + Here the coach rolled heavily down the dark arch of the inn-yard. + +“Take care of yourself, my boy! You look ill;” and in the dark the man +slipped a sovereign into Philip’s hand. + +“I don’t want money. Though I thank you heartily all the same; it would +be a shame at my age to be a beggar. But can you think of an employment +where I can make something?--what they offer me is so trifling. I have a +mother and a brother--a mere child, sir--at home.” + +“Employment!” repeated the man; and as the coach now stopped at the +tavern door, the light of the lamp fell full on his marked face. “Ay, I +know of employment; but you should apply to some one else to obtain it +for you! As for me, it is not likely that we shall meet again!” + +“I am sorry for that!--What and who are you?” asked Philip, with a rude +and blunt curiosity. + +“Me!” returned the passenger, with his deep laugh. “Oh! I know some +people who call me an honest fellow. Take the employment offered you, +no matter how trifling the wages--keep out of harm’s way. Good night to +you!” + +So saying, he quickly descended from the roof, and, as he was directing +the coachman where to look for his carpetbag, Philip saw three or four +well-dressed men make up to him, shake him heartily by the hand, and +welcome him with great seeming cordiality. + +Philip sighed. “He has friends,” he muttered to himself; and, paying his +fare, he turned from the bustling yard, and took his solitary way home. + +A week after his visit to R----, Philip was settled on his probation at +Mr. Plaskwith’s, and Mrs. Morton’s health was so decidedly worse, that +she resolved to know her fate, and consult a physician. The oracle was +at first ambiguous in its response. But when Mrs. Morton said firmly, +“I have duties to perform; upon your candid answer rest my Plans with +respect to my children--left, if I die suddenly, destitute in the +world,”--the doctor looked hard in her face, saw its calm resolution, +and replied frankly: + +“Lose no time, then, in arranging your plans; life is uncertain +with all--with you, especially; you may live some time yet, but your +constitution is much shaken--I fear there is water on the chest. No, +ma’am--no fee. I will see you again.” + +The physician turned to Sidney, who played with his watch-chain, and +smiled up in his face. + +“And that child, sir?” said the mother, wistfully, forgetting the dread +fiat pronounced against herself,--“he is so delicate!” + +“Not at all, ma’am,--a very fine little fellow;” and the doctor patted +the boy’s head, and abruptly vanished. + +“Ah! mamma, I wish you would ride--I wish you would take the white +pony!” + +“Poor boy! poor boy!” muttered the mother; “I must not be selfish.” She +covered her face with her hands, and began to think! + +Could she, thus doomed, resolve on declining her brother’s offer? Did it +not, at least, secure bread and shelter to her child? When she was dead, +might not a tie, between the uncle and nephew, be snapped asunder? Would +he be as kind to the boy as now when she could commend him with her own +lips to his care--when she could place that precious charge into his +hands? With these thoughts, she formed one of those resolutions which +have all the strength of self-sacrificing love. She would put the boy +from her, her last solace and comfort; she would die alone,--alone! + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + + “Constance. When I shall meet him in the court of heaven, I shall + not know him.”--King John. + +One evening, the shop closed and the business done, Mr. Roger Morton +and his family sat in that snug and comfortable retreat which generally +backs the warerooms of an English tradesman. Happy often, and indeed +happy, is that little sanctuary, near to, and yet remote from, the +toil and care of the busy mart from which its homely ease and peaceful +security are drawn. Glance down those rows of silenced shops in a town +at night, and picture the glad and quiet groups gathered within, over +that nightly and social meal which custom has banished from the more +indolent tribes who neither toil nor spin. Placed between the two +extremes of life, the tradesman, who ventures not beyond his means, +and sees clear books and sure gains, with enough of occupation to give +healthful excitement, enough of fortune to greet each new-born child +without a sigh, might be envied alike by those above and those below his +state--if the restless heart of men ever envied Content! + +“And so the little boy is not to come?” said Mrs. Morton as she crossed +her knife and fork, and pushed away her plate, in token that she had +done supper. + +“I don’t know.--Children, go to bed; there--there--that will do. Good +night!--Catherine does not say either yes or no. She wants time to +consider.” + +“It was a very handsome offer on our part; some folks never know when +they are well off.” + +“That is very true, my dear, and you are a very sensible person. Kate +herself might have been an honest woman, and, what is more, a very +rich woman, by this time. She might have married Spencer, the young +brewer--an excellent man, and well to do!” + +“Spencer! I don’t remember him.” + +“No: after she went off, he retired from business, and left the place. +I don’t know what’s become of him. He was mightily taken with her, to be +sure. She was uncommonly handsome, my sister Catherine.” + +“Handsome is as handsome does, Mr. Morton,” said the wife, who was very +much marked with the small-pox. “We all have our temptations and trials; +this is a vale of tears, and without grace we are whited sepulchers.” + +Mr. Morton mixed his brandy and water, and moved his chair into its +customary corner. + +“You saw your brother’s letter,” said he, after a pause; “he gives young +Philip a very good character.” + +“The human heart is very deceitful,” replied Mrs. Morton, who, by the +way, spoke through her nose. “Pray Heaven he may be what he seems; but +what’s bred in the bone comes out in the flesh.” + +“We must hope the best,” said Mr. Morton, mildly; “and--put another lump +into the grog, my dear.” + +“It is a mercy, I’m thinking, that we didn’t have the other little boy. +I dare say he has never even been taught his catechism: them people +don’t know what it is to be a mother. And, besides, it would have been +very awkward, Mr. M.; we could never have said who he was: and I’ve no +doubt Miss Pryinall would have been very curious.” + +“Miss Pryinall be ----!” Mr. Morton checked himself, took a large +draught of the brandy and water, and added, “Miss Pryinall wants to have +a finger in everybody’s pie.” + +“But she buys a deal of flannel, and does great good to the town; it was +she who found out that Mrs. Giles was no better than she should be.” + +“Poor Mrs. Giles!--she came to the workhouse.” + +“Poor Mrs. Giles, indeed! I wonder, Mr. Morton, that you, a married man +with a family, should say, poor Mrs. Giles!” + +“My dear, when people who have been well off come to the workhouse, they +may be called poor:--but that’s neither here nor there; only, if the boy +does come to us, we must look sharp upon Miss Pryinall.” + +“I hope he won’t come,--it will be very unpleasant. And when a man has +a wife and family, the less he meddles with other folks and their little +ones, the better. For as the Scripture says, ‘A man shall cleave to his +wife and--’” + +Here a sharp, shrill ring at the bell was heard, and Mrs. Morton broke +off into: + +“Well! I declare! at this hour; who can that be? And all gone to bed! Do +go and see, Mr. Morton.” + +Somewhat reluctantly and slowly, Mr. Morton rose; and, proceeding to the +passage, unbarred the door. A brief and muttered conversation followed, +to the great irritability of Mrs. Morton, who stood in the passage--the +candle in her hand. + +“What is the matter, Mr. M.?” + +Mr. Morton turned back, looking agitated. + +“Where’s my hat? oh, here. My sister is come, at the inn.” + +“Gracious me! She does not go for to say she is your sister?” + +“No, no: here’s her note--calls herself a lady that’s ill. I shall be +back soon.” + +“She can’t come here--she sha’n’t come here, Mr. M. I’m an honest +woman--she can’t come here. You understand--” + +Mr. Morton had naturally a stern countenance, stern to every one but his +wife. The shrill tone to which he was so long accustomed jarred then on +his heart as well as his ear. He frowned: + +“Pshaw! woman, you have no feeling!” said he, and walked out of the +house, pulling his hat over his brows. That was the only rude speech +Mr. Morton had ever made to his better half. She treasured it up in her +heart and memory; it was associated with the sister and the child; and +she was not a woman who ever forgave. + +Mr. Morton walked rapidly through the still, moon-lit streets, till he +reached the inn. A club was held that night in one of the rooms below; +and as he crossed the threshold, the sound of “hip-hip-hurrah!” mingled +with the stamping of feet and the jingling of glasses, saluted his +entrance. He was a stiff, sober, respectable man,--a man who, except at +elections--he was a great politician--mixed in none of the revels of his +more boisterous townsmen. The sounds, the spot, were ungenial to him. He +paused, and the colour of shame rose to his brow. He was ashamed to be +there--ashamed to meet the desolate and, as he believed, erring sister. + +A pretty maidservant, heated and flushed with orders and compliments, +crossed his path with a tray full of glasses. + +“There’s a lady come by the Telegraph?” + +“Yes, sir, upstairs, No. 2, Mr. Morton.” + +Mr. Morton! He shrank at the sound of his own name. + +“My wife’s right,” he muttered. “After all, this is more unpleasant than +I thought for.” + +The slight stairs shook under his hasty tread. He opened the door of No. +2, and that Catherine, whom he had last seen at her age of gay sixteen, +radiant with bloom, and, but for her air of pride, the model for a +Hebe,--that Catherine, old ere youth was gone, pale, faded, the dark +hair silvered over, the cheeks hollow, and the eye dim,--that Catherine +fell upon his breast! + +“God bless you, brother! How kind to come! How long since we have met!” + +“Sit down, Catherine, my dear sister. You are faint--you are very much +changed--very. I should not have known you.” + +“Brother, I have brought my boy; it is painful to part from +him--very--very painful: but it is right, and God’s will be done.” She +turned, as she spoke, towards a little, deformed rickety dwarf of a +sofa, that seemed to hide itself in the darkest corner of the low, +gloomy room; and Morton followed her. With one hand she removed the +shawl that she had thrown over the child, and placing the forefinger of +the other upon her lips--lips that smiled then--she whispered,--“We will +not wake him, he is so tired. But I would not put him to bed till you +had seen him.” + +And there slept poor Sidney, his fair cheek pillowed on his arm; the +soft, silky ringlets thrown from the delicate and unclouded brow; +the natural bloom increased by warmth and travel; the lovely face so +innocent and hushed; the breathing so gentle and regular, as if never +broken by a sigh. + +Mr. Morton drew his hand across his eyes. + +There was something very touching in the contrast between that wakeful, +anxious, forlorn woman, and the slumber of the unconscious boy. And +in that moment, what breast upon which the light of Christian pity--of +natural affection, had ever dawned, would, even supposing the world’s +judgment were true, have recalled Catherine’s reputed error? There is +so divine a holiness in the love of a mother, that no matter how the +tie that binds her to the child was formed, she becomes, as it were, +consecrated and sacred; and the past is forgotten, and the world and its +harsh verdicts swept away, when that love alone is visible; and the God, +who watches over the little one, sheds His smile over the human deputy, +in whose tenderness there breathes His own! + +“You will be kind to him--will you not?” said Mrs. Morton; and the +appeal was made with that trustful, almost cheerful tone which implies, +‘Who would not be kind to a thing so fair and helpless?’ “He is very +sensitive and very docile; you will never have occasion to say a hard +word to him--never! you have children of your own, brother.” + +“He is a beautiful boy--beautiful. I will be a father to him!” + +As he spoke,--the recollection of his wife--sour, querulous, +austere--came over him, but he said to himself, “She must take to such +a child,--women always take to beauty.” He bent down and gently pressed +his lips to Sidney’s forehead: Mrs. Morton replaced the shawl, and drew +her brother to the other end of the room. + +“And now,” she said, colouring as she spoke, “I must see your wife, +brother: there is so much to say about a child that only a woman will +recollect. Is she very good-tempered and kind, your wife? You know I +never saw her; you married after--after I left.” + +“She is a very worthy woman,” said Mr. Morton, clearing his throat, “and +brought me some money; she has a will of her own, as most women have; +but that’s neither here nor there--she is a good wife as wives go; and +prudent and painstaking--I don’t know what I should do without her.” + +“Brother, I have one favour to request--a great favour.” + +“Anything I can do in the way of money?” + +“It has nothing to do with money. I can’t live long--don’t shake your +head--I can’t live long. I have no fear for Philip, he has so much +spirit--such strength of character--but that child! I cannot bear to +leave him altogether; let me stay in this town--I can lodge anywhere; +but to see him sometimes--to know I shall be in reach if he is ill--let +me stay here--let me die here!” + +“You must not talk so sadly--you are young yet--younger than I am--I +don’t think of dying.” + +“Heaven forbid! but--” + +“Well--well,” interrupted Mr. Morton, who began to fear his feelings +would hurry him into some promise which his wife would not suffer him to +keep; “you shall talk to Margaret,--that is Mrs. Morton--I will get her +to see you--yes, I think I can contrive that; and if you can arrange +with her to stay,--but you see, as she brought the money, and is a very +particular woman--” + +“I will see her; thank you--thank you; she cannot refuse me.” + +“And, brother,” resumed Mrs. Morton, after a short pause, and speaking +in a firm voice--“and is it possible that you disbelieve my story?--that +you, like all the rest, consider my children the sons of shame?” + +There was an honest earnestness in Catherine’s voice, as she spoke, +that might have convinced many. But Mr. Morton was a man of facts, a +practical man--a man who believed that law was always right, and that +the improbable was never true. + +He looked down as he answered, “I think you have been a very ill-used +woman, Catherine, and that is all I can say on the matter; let us drop +the subject.” + +“No! I was not ill-used; my husband--yes, my husband--was noble and +generous from first to last. It was for the sake of his children’s +prospects--for the expectations they, through him, might derive from his +proud uncle--that he concealed our marriage. Do not blame Philip--do not +condemn the dead.” + +“I don’t want to blame any one,” said Mr. Morton, rather angrily; “I am +a plain man--a tradesman, and can only go by what in my class seems fair +and honest, which I can’t think Mr. Beaufort’s conduct was, put it how +you will; if he marries you as you think, he gets rid of a witness, he +destroys a certificate, and he dies without a will. How ever, all that’s +neither here nor there. You do quite right not to take the name of +Beaufort, since it is an uncommon name, and would always make the story +public. Least said, soonest mended. You must always consider that your +children will be called natural children, and have their own way to +make. No harm in that! Warm day for your journey.” Catherine sighed, and +wiped her eyes; she no longer reproached the world, since the son of her +own mother disbelieved her. + +The relations talked together for some minutes on the past--the present; +but there was embarrassment and constraint on both sides--it was so +difficult to avoid one subject; and after sixteen years of absence, +there is little left in common, even between those who once played +together round their parent’s knees. Mr. Morton was glad at last to find +an excuse in Catherine’s fatigue to leave her. “Cheer up, and take a +glass of something warm before you go to bed. Good night!” these were +his parting words. + +Long was the conference, and sleepless the couch, of Mr. and Mrs. +Morton. At first that estimable lady positively declared she would not +and could not visit Catherine (as to receiving her, that was out of the +question). But she secretly resolved to give up that point in order to +insist with greater strength upon another--viz., the impossibility of +Catherine remaining in the town; such concession for the purpose of +resistance being a very common and sagacious policy with married ladies. +Accordingly, when suddenly, and with a good grace, Mrs. Morton appeared +affected by her husband’s eloquence, and said, “Well, poor thing! if she +is so ill, and you wish it so much, I will call to-morrow,” Mr. Morton +felt his heart softened towards the many excellent reasons which his +wife urged against allowing Catherine to reside in the town. He was +a political character--he had many enemies; the story of his seduced +sister, now forgotten, would certainly be raked up; it would affect his +comfort, perhaps his trade, certainly his eldest daughter, who was +now thirteen; it would be impossible then to adopt the plan hitherto +resolved upon--of passing off Sidney as the legitimate orphan of a +distant relation; it would be made a great handle for gossip by Miss +Pryinall. Added to all these reasons, one not less strong occurred to +Mr. Morton himself--the uncommon and merciless rigidity of his wife +would render all the other women in the town very glad of any topic that +would humble her own sense of immaculate propriety. Moreover, he +saw that if Catherine did remain, it would be a perpetual source of +irritation in his own home; he was a man who liked an easy life, and +avoided, as far as possible, all food for domestic worry. And thus, when +at length the wedded pair turned back to back, and composed themselves +to sleep, the conditions of peace were settled, and the weaker party, +as usual in diplomacy, sacrificed to the interests of the united +powers. After breakfast the next morning, Mrs. Morton sallied out on +her husband’s arm. Mr. Morton was rather a handsome man, with an air +and look grave, composed, severe, that had tended much to raise his +character in the town. + +Mrs. Morton was short, wiry, and bony. She had won her husband by making +desperate love to him, to say nothing of a dower that enabled him to +extend his business, new-front, as well as new-stock his shop, and +rise into the very first rank of tradesmen in his native town. He still +believed that she was excessively fond of him--a common delusion of +husbands, especially when henpecked. Mrs. Morton was, perhaps, fond of +him in her own way; for though her heart was not warm, there may be a +great deal of fondness with very little feeling. The worthy lady was now +clothed in her best. She had a proper pride in showing the rewards that +belong to female virtue. Flowers adorned her Leghorn bonnet, and her +green silk gown boasted four flounces,--such, then, was, I am told, the +fashion. She wore, also, a very handsome black shawl, extremely heavy, +though the day was oppressively hot, and with a deep border; a smart +sevigni brooch of yellow topazes glittered in her breast; a huge gilt +serpent glared from her waistband; her hair, or more properly speaking +her front, was tortured into very tight curls, and her feet into very +tight half-laced boots, from which the fragrance of new leather had not +yet departed. It was this last infliction, for _il faut souffrir pour +etre belle_, which somewhat yet more acerbated the ordinary acid of +Mrs. Morton’s temper. The sweetest disposition is ruffled when the shoe +pinches; and it so happened that Mrs. Roger Morton was one of those +ladies who always have chilblains in the winter and corns in the summer. +“So you say your sister is a beauty?” + +“Was a beauty, Mrs. M.,--was a beauty. People alter.” + +“A bad conscience, Mr. Morton, is--” + +“My dear, can’t you walk faster?” + +“If you had my corns, Mr. Morton, you would not talk in that way!” + +The happy pair sank into silence, only broken by sundry “How d’ye dos?” + and “Good mornings!” interchanged with their friends, till they arrived +at the inn. + +“Let us go up quickly,” said Mrs. Morton. + +And quiet--quiet to gloom, did the inn, so noisy overnight, seem by +morning. The shutters partially closed to keep out the sun--the taproom +deserted--the passage smelling of stale smoke--an elderly dog, lazily +snapping at the flies, at the foot of the staircase--not a soul to be +seen at the bar. The husband and wife, glad to be unobserved, crept on +tiptoe up the stairs, and entered Catherine’s apartment. + +Catherine was seated on the sofa, and Sidney-dressed, like Mrs. Roger +Morton, to look his prettiest, nor yet aware of the change that awaited +his destiny, but pleased at the excitement of seeing new friends, as +handsome children sure of praise and petting usually are--stood by her +side. + +“My wife--Catherine,” said Mr. Morton. Catherine rose eagerly, and +gazed searchingly on her sister-in-law’s hard face. She swallowed the +convulsive rising at her heart as she gazed, and stretched out both +her hands, not so much to welcome as to plead. Mrs. Roger Morton drew +herself up, and then dropped a courtesy--it was an involuntary piece of +good breeding--it was extorted by the noble countenance, the matronly +mien of Catherine, different from what she had anticipated--she dropped +the courtesy, and Catherine took her hand and pressed it. + +“This is my son;” she turned away her head. Sidney advanced towards his +protectress who was to be, and Mrs. Roger muttered: + +“Come here, my dear! A fine little boy!” + +“As fine a child as ever I saw!” said Mr. Morton, heartily, as he took +Sidney on his lap, and stroked down his golden hair. + +This displeased Mrs. Roger Morton, but she sat herself down, and said it +was “very warm.” + +“Now go to that lady, my dear,” said Mr. Morton. “Is she not a very nice +lady?--don’t you think you shall like her very much?” + +Sidney, the best-mannered child in the world, went boldly up to Mrs. +Morton, as he was bid. Mrs. Morton was embarrassed. Some folks are so +with other folk’s children: a child either removes all constraint from +a party, or it increases the constraint tenfold. Mrs. Morton, however, +forced a smile, and said, “I have a little boy at home about your age.” + +“Have you?” exclaimed Catherine, eagerly; and as if that confession +made them friends at once, she drew a chair close to her +sister-in-law’s,--“My brother has told you all?” + +“Yes, ma’am.” + +“And I shall stay here--in the town somewhere--and see him sometimes?” + +Mrs. Roger Morton glanced at her husband--her husband glanced at the +door--and Catherine’s quick eye turned from one to the other. + +“Mr. Morton will explain, ma’ am,” said the wife. + +“E-hem!--Catherine, my dear, I am afraid that is out of the question,” + began Mr. Morton, who, when fairly put to it, could be business-like +enough. “You see bygones are bygones, and it is no use raking them up. +But many people in the town will recollect you.” + +“No one will see me--no one, but you and Sidney.” + +“It will be sure to creep out; won’t it, Mrs. Morton?” + +“Quite sure. Indeed, ma’am, it is impossible. Mr. Morton is so very +respectable, and his neighbours pay so much attention to all he does; +and then, if we have an election in the autumn, you see, ma’am, he has a +great stake in the place, and is a public character.” + +“That’s neither here nor there,” said Mr. Morton. “But I say, Catherine, +can your little boy go into the other room for a moment? Margaret, +suppose you take him and make friends.” + +Delighted to throw on her husband the burden of explanation, which she +had originally meant to have all the importance of giving herself in her +most proper and patronising manner, Mrs. Morton twisted her fingers +into the boy’s hand, and, opening the door that communicated with the +bedroom, left the brother and sister alone. And then Mr. Morton, with +more tact and delicacy than might have been expected from him, began to +soften to Catherine the hardship of the separation he urged. He dwelt +principally on what was best for the child. Boys were so brutal in their +intercourse with each other. He had even thought it better represent +Philip to Mr. Plaskwith as a more distant relation than he was; and he +begged, by the by, that Catherine would tell Philip to take the hint. +But as for Sidney, sooner or later, he would go to a day-school--have +companions of his own age--if his birth were known, he would be exposed +to many mortifications--so much better, and so very easy, to bring him +up as the lawful, that is the legal, offspring of some distant relation. + +“And,” cried poor Catherine, clasping her bands, “when I am dead, is +he never to know that I was his mother?” The anguish of that question +thrilled the heart of the listener. He was affected below all the +surface that worldly thoughts and habits had laid, stratum by stratum, +over the humanities within. He threw his arms round Catherine, and +strained her to his breast: + +“No, my sister--my poor sister--he shall know it when he is old enough +to understand, and to keep his own secret. He shall know, too, how we +all loved and prized you once; how young you were, how flattered and +tempted; how you were deceived, for I know that--on my soul I do--I know +it was not your fault. He shall know, too, how fondly you loved your +child, and how you sacrificed, for his sake, the very comfort of being +near him. He shall know it all--all--” + +“My brother--my brother, I resign him--I am content. God reward you. I +will go--go quickly. I know you will take care of him now.” + +“And you see,” resumed Mr. Morton, re-settling himself, and wiping his +eyes, “it is best, between you and me, that Mrs. Morton should have her +own way in this. She is a very good woman--very; but it’s prudent not to +vex her. You may come in now, Mrs. Morton.” + +Mrs. Morton and Sidney reappeared. + +“We have settled it all,” said the husband. “When can we have him?” + +“Not to-day,” said Mrs. Roger Morton; “you see, ma’am, we must get his +bed ready, and his sheets well aired: I am very particular.” + +“Certainly, certainly. Will he sleep alone?--pardon me.” + +“He shall have a room to himself,” said Mr. Morton. “Eh, my dear? Next +to Martha’s. Martha is our parlourmaid--very good-natured girl, and fond +of children.” + +Mrs. Morton looked grave, thought a moment, and said, “Yes, he can have +that room.” + +“Who can have that room?” asked Sidney, innocently. “You, my dear,” + replied Mr. Morton. + +“And where will mamma sleep? I must sleep near mamma.” + +“Mamma is going away,” said Catherine, in a firm voice, in which the +despair would only have been felt by the acute ear of sympathy,--“going +away for a little time: but this gentleman and lady will be very--very +kind to you.” + +“We will do our best, ma’am,” said Mrs. Morton. + +And as she spoke, a sudden light broke on the boy’s mind--he uttered a +loud cry, broke from his aunt, rushed to his mother’s breast, and hid +his face there, sobbing bitterly. + +“I am afraid he has been very much spoiled,” whispered Mrs. Roger +Morton. “I don’t think we need stay longer--it will look suspicious. +Good morning, ma’am: we shall be ready to-morrow.” + +“Good-bye, Catherine,” said Mr. Morton; and he added, as he kissed her, +“Be of good heart, I will come up by myself and spend the evening with +you.” + +It was the night after this interview. Sidney had gone to his new home; +they had been all kind to him--Mr. Morton, the children, Martha the +parlour-maid. Mrs. Roger herself had given him a large slice of bread +and jam, but had looked gloomy all the rest of the evening: because, +like a dog in a strange place, he refused to eat. His little heart was +full, and his eyes, swimming with tears, were turned at every moment +to the door. But he did not show the violent grief that might have been +expected. His very desolation, amidst the unfamiliar faces, awed and +chilled him. But when Martha took him to bed, and undressed him, and he +knelt down to say his prayers, and came to the words, “Pray God bless +dear mamma, and make me a good child,” his heart could contain its load +no longer, and he sobbed with a passion that alarmed the good-natured +servant. She had been used, however, to children, and she soothed and +caressed him, and told him of all the nice things he would do, and the +nice toys he would have; and at last, silenced, if not convinced, his +eyes closed, and, the tears yet wet on their lashes, he fell asleep. + +It had been arranged that Catherine should return home that night by a +late coach, which left the town at twelve. It was already past eleven. +Mrs. Morton had retired to bed; and her husband, who had, according to +his wont, lingered behind to smoke a cigar over his last glass of brandy +and water, had just thrown aside the stump, and was winding up his +watch, when he heard a low tap at his window. He stood mute and alarmed, +for the window opened on a back lane, dark and solitary at night, and, +from the heat of the weather, the iron-cased shutter was not yet closed; +the sound was repeated, and he heard a faint voice. He glanced at +the poker, and then cautiously moved to the window, and looked +forth,--“Who’s there?” + +“It is I--it is Catherine! I cannot go without seeing my boy. I must see +him--I must, once more!” + +“My dear sister, the place is shut up--it is impossible. God bless me, +if Mrs. Morton should hear you!” + +“I have walked before this window for hours--I have waited till all +is hushed in your house, till no one, not even a menial, need see the +mother stealing to the bed of her child. Brother, by the memory of our +own mother, I command you to let me look, for the last time, upon my +boy’s face!” + +As Catherine said this, standing in that lonely street--darkness and +solitude below, God and the stars above--there was about her a majesty +which awed the listener. Though she was so near, her features were +not very clearly visible; but her attitude--her hand raised aloft--the +outline of her wasted but still commanding form, were more impressive +from the shadowy dimness of the air. + +“Come round, Catherine,” said Mr. Morton after a pause; “I will admit +you.” + +He shut the window, stole to the door, unbarred it gently, and admitted +his visitor. He bade her follow him; and, shading the light with his +hand, crept up the stairs. Catherine’s step made no sound. + +They passed, unmolested, and unheard, the room in which the wife was +drowsily reading, according to her custom before she tied her nightcap +and got into bed, a chapter in some pious book. They ascended to the +chamber where Sidney lay; Morton opened the door cautiously, and stood +at the threshold, so holding the candle that its light might not wake +the child, though it sufficed to guide Catherine to the bed. The room +was small, perhaps close, but scrupulously clean; for cleanliness was +Mrs. Roger Morton’s capital virtue. The mother, with a tremulous hand, +drew aside the white curtains, and checked her sobs as she gazed on the +young quiet face that was turned towards her. She gazed some moments in +passionate silence; who shall say, beneath that silence, what thoughts, +what prayers moved and stirred! + +Then bending down, with pale, convulsive lips she kissed the little +hands thrown so listlessly on the coverlet of the pillow on which the +head lay. After this she turned her face to her brother with a mute +appeal in her glance, took a ring from her finger--a ring that had never +till then left it--the ring which Philip Beaufort had placed there the +day after that child was born. “Let him wear this round his neck,” said +she, and stopped, lest she should sob aloud, and disturb the boy. In +that gift she felt as if she invoked the father’s spirit to watch over +the friendless orphan; and then, pressing together her own hands firmly, +as we do in some paroxysm of great pain, she turned from the room, +descended the stairs, gained the street, and muttered to her brother, “I +am happy now; peace be on these thresholds!” Before he could answer she +was gone. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + + “Thus things are strangely wrought, + While joyful May doth last; + Take May in Time--when May is gone + The pleasant time is past.”--RICHARD EDWARDS. + From the Paradise of Dainty Devices. + +It was that period of the year when, to those who look on the surface of +society, London wears its most radiant smile; when shops are gayest, +and trade most brisk; when down the thoroughfares roll and glitter the +countless streams of indolent and voluptuous life; when the upper class +spend, and the middle class make; when the ball-room is the Market of +Beauty, and the club-house the School for Scandal; when the hells yawn +for their prey, and opera-singers and fiddlers--creatures hatched from +gold, as the dung-flies from the dung--swarm, and buzz, and fatten, +round the hide of the gentle Public. In the cant phase, it was “the +London season.” And happy, take it altogether, happy above the rest of +the year, even for the hapless, is that period of ferment and fever. +It is not the season for duns, and the debtor glides about with a less +anxious eye; and the weather is warm, and the vagrant sleeps, unfrozen, +under the starlit portico; and the beggar thrives, and the thief +rejoices--for the rankness of the civilisation has superfluities +clutched by all. And out of the general corruption things sordid and +things miserable crawl forth to bask in the common sunshine--things that +perish when the first autumn winds whistle along the melancholy city. It +is the gay time for the heir and the beauty, and the statesman and the +lawyer, and the mother with her young daughters, and the artist with his +fresh pictures, and the poet with his new book. It is the gay time, too, +for the starved journeyman, and the ragged outcast that with long stride +and patient eyes follows, for pence, the equestrian, who bids him go and +be d---d in vain. It is a gay time for the painted harlot in a +crimson pelisse; and a gay time for the old hag that loiters about the +thresholds of the gin-shop, to buy back, in a draught, the dreams of +departed youth. It is gay, in fine, as the fulness of a vast city is +ever gay--for Vice as for Innocence, for Poverty as for Wealth. And the +wheels of every single destiny wheel on the merrier, no matter whether +they are bound to Heaven or to Hell. + +Arthur Beaufort, the young heir, was at his father’s house. He was fresh +from Oxford, where he had already discovered that learning is not better +than house and land. Since the new prospects opened to him, Arthur +Beaufort was greatly changed. Naturally studious and prudent, had his +fortunes remained what they had been before his uncle’s death, he would +probably have become a laborious and distinguished man. But though his +abilities were good, he had not those restless impulses which belong to +Genius--often not only its glory, but its curse. The Golden Rod cast +his energies asleep at once. Good-natured to a fault, and somewhat +vacillating in character, he adopted the manner and the code of the +rich young idlers who were his equals at College. He became, like +them, careless, extravagant, and fond of pleasure. This change, if it +deteriorated his mind, improved his exterior. It was a change that +could not but please women; and of all women his mother the most. Mrs. +Beaufort was a lady of high birth; and in marrying her, Robert had hoped +much from the interest of her connections; but a change in the ministry +had thrown her relations out of power; and, beyond her dowry, he +obtained no worldly advantage with the lady of his mercenary choice. +Mrs. Beaufort was a woman whom a word or two will describe. She was +thoroughly commonplace--neither bad nor good, neither clever nor silly. +She was what is called well-bred; that is, languid, silent, perfectly +dressed, and insipid. Of her two children, Arthur was almost the +exclusive favourite, especially after he became the heir to such +brilliant fortunes. For she was so much the mechanical creature of the +world, that even her affection was warm or cold in proportion as the +world shone on it. Without being absolutely in love with her husband, +she liked him--they suited each other; and (in spite of all the +temptations that had beset her in their earlier years, for she had been +esteemed a beauty--and lived, as worldly people must do, in circles +where examples of unpunished gallantry are numerous and contagious) her +conduct had ever been scrupulously correct. She had little or no feeling +for misfortunes with which she had never come into contact; for those +with which she had--such as the distresses of younger sons, or the +errors of fashionable women, or the disappointments of “a proper +ambition”--she had more sympathy than might have been supposed, and +touched on them with all the tact of well-bred charity and ladylike +forbearance. Thus, though she was regarded as a strict person in point +of moral decorum, yet in society she was popular--as women at once +pretty and inoffensive generally are. + +To do Mrs. Beaufort justice, she had not been privy to the letter her +husband wrote to Catherine, although not wholly innocent of it. The fact +is, that Robert had never mentioned to her the peculiar circumstances +that made Catherine an exception from ordinary rules--the generous +propositions of his brother to him the night before his death; and, +whatever his incredulity as to the alleged private marriage, the perfect +loyalty and faith that Catherine had borne to the deceased,--he had +merely observed, “I must do something, I suppose, for that woman; she +very nearly entrapped my poor brother into marrying her; and he would +then, for what I know, have cut Arthur out of the estates. Still, I must +do something for her--eh?” + +“Yes, I think so. What was she?--very low?” + +“A tradesman’s daughter.” + +“The children should be provided for according to the rank of the +mother; that’s the general rule in such cases: and the mother should +have about the same provision she might have looked for if she had +married a tradesman and been left a widow. I dare say she was a very +artful kind of person, and don’t deserve anything; but it is always +handsomer, in the eyes of the world, to go by the general rules people +lay down as to money matters.” + +So spoke Mrs. Beaufort. She concluded her husband had settled the +matter, and never again recurred to it. Indeed, she had never liked the +late Mr. Beaufort, whom she considered mauvais ton. + +In the breakfast-room at Mr. Beaufort’s, the mother and son were seated; +the former at work, the latter lounging by the window: they were not +alone. In a large elbow-chair sat a middle-aged man, listening, or +appearing to listen, to the prattle of a beautiful little girl--Arthur +Beaufort’s sister. This man was not handsome, but there was a certain +elegance in his air, and a certain intelligence in his countenance, +which made his appearance pleasing. He had that kind of eye which is +often seen with red hair--an eye of a reddish hazel, with very long +lashes; the eyebrows were dark, and clearly defined; and the short +hair showed to advantage the contour of a small well-shaped head. His +features were irregular; the complexion had been sanguine, but was +now faded, and a yellow tinge mingled with the red. His face was more +wrinkled, especially round the eyes--which, when he laughed, were +scarcely visible--than is usual even in men ten years older. But his +teeth were still of a dazzling whiteness; nor was there any trace of +decayed health in his countenance. He seemed one who had lived hard; +but who had much yet left in the lamp wherewith to feed the wick. At +the first glance he appeared slight, as he lolled listlessly in his +chair--almost fragile. But, at a nearer examination, you perceived that, +in spite of the small extremities and delicate bones, his frame was +constitutionally strong. Without being broad in the shoulders, he was +exceedingly deep in the chest--deeper than men who seemed giants by his +side; and his gestures had the ease of one accustomed to an active life. +He had, indeed, been celebrated in his youth for his skill in athletic +exercises, but a wound, received in a duel many years ago, had rendered +him lame for life--a misfortune which interfered with his former habits, +and was said to have soured his temper. This personage, whose position +and character will be described hereafter, was Lord Lilburne, the +brother of Mrs. Beaufort. + +“So, Camilla,” said Lord Lilburne to his niece, as carelessly, not +fondly, he stroked down her glossy ringlets, “you don’t like Berkeley +Square as you did Gloucester Place.” + +“Oh, no! not half so much! You see I never walk out in the fields,--[Now +the Regent’s Park.]--nor make daisy-chains at Primrose Hill. I don’t +know what mamma means,” added the child, in a whisper, “in saying we are +better off here.” + +Lord Lilburne smiled, but the smile was a half sneer. “You will know +quite soon enough, Camilla; the understandings of young ladies grow up +very quickly on this side of Oxford Street. Well, Arthur, and what are +your plans to-day?” + +“Why,” said Arthur, suppressing a yawn, “I have promised to ride out +with a friend of mine, to see a horse that is for sale somewhere in the +suburbs.” + +As he spoke, Arthur rose, stretched himself, looked in the glass, and +then glanced impatiently at the window. + +“He ought to be here by this time.” + +“He! who?” said Lord Lilburne, “the horse or the other animal--I mean +the friend?” + +“The friend,” answered Arthur, smiling, but colouring while he smiled, +for he half suspected the quiet sneer of his uncle. + +“Who is your friend, Arthur?” asked Mrs. Beaufort, looking up from her +work. + +“Watson, an Oxford man. By the by, I must introduce him to you.” + +“Watson! what Watson? what family of Watson? Some Watsons are good and +some are bad,” said Mrs. Beaufort, musingly. + +“Then they are very unlike the rest of mankind,” observed Lord Lilburne, +drily. + +“Oh! my Watson is a very gentlemanlike person, I assure you,” said +Arthur, half-laughing, “and you need not be ashamed of him.” Then, +rather desirous of turning the conversation, he continued, “So my father +will be back from Beaufort Court to-day?” + +“Yes; he writes in excellent spirits. He says the rents will bear +raising at least ten per cent., and that the house will not require much +repair.” + +Here Arthur threw open the window. + +“Ah, Watson! how are you? How d’ye do, Marsden? Danvers, too! that’s +capital! the more the merrier! I will be down in an instant. But would +you not rather come in?” + +“An agreeable inundation,” murmured Lord Lilburne. “Three at a time: he +takes your house for Trinity College.” + +A loud, clear voice, however, declined the invitation; the horses were +heard pawing without. Arthur seized his hat and whip, and glanced to his +mother and uncle, smilingly. “Good-bye! I shall be out till dinner. +Kiss me, my pretty Milly!” And as his sister, who had run to the window, +sickening for the fresh air and exercise he was about to enjoy, now +turned to him wistful and mournful eyes, the kind-hearted young man took +her in his arms, and whispered while he kissed her: + +“Get up early to-morrow, and we’ll have such a nice walk together.” + +Arthur was gone: his mother’s gaze had followed his young and graceful +figure to the door. + +“Own that he is handsome, Lilburne. May I not say more:--has he not the +proper air?” + +“My dear sister, your son will be rich. As for his air, he has plenty of +airs, but wants graces.” + +“Then who could polish him like yourself?” + +“Probably no one. But had I a son--which Heaven forbid!--he should +not have me for his Mentor. Place a young man--(go and shut the door, +Camilla!)--between two vices--women and gambling, if you want to polish +him into the fashionable smoothness. Entre nous, the varnish is a little +expensive!” + +Mrs. Beaufort sighed. Lord Lilburne smiled. He had a strange pleasure in +hurting the feelings of others. Besides, he disliked youth: in his own +youth he had enjoyed so much that he grew sour when he saw the young. + +Meanwhile Arthur Beaufort and his friends, careless of the warmth of +the day, were laughing merrily, and talking gaily, as they made for the +suburb of H----. + +“It is an out-of-the-way place for a horse, too,” said Sir Harry +Danvers. + +“But I assure you,” insisted Mr. Watson, earnestly, “that my groom, who +is a capital judge, says it is the cleverest hack he ever mounted. It +has won several trotting matches. It belonged to a sporting tradesman, +now done up. The advertisement caught me.” + +“Well,” said Arthur, gaily, “at all events the ride is delightful. What +weather! You must all dine with me at Richmond to-morrow--we will row +back.” + +“And a little chicken-hazard, at the M---, afterwards,” said Mr. +Marsden, who was an elder, not a better, man than the rest--a handsome, +saturnine man--who had just left Oxford, and was already known on the +turf. + +“Anything you please,” said Arthur, making his horse curvet. + +Oh, Mr. Robert Beaufort! Mr. Robert Beaufort! could your prudent, +scheming, worldly heart but feel what devil’s tricks your wealth was +playing with a son who if poor had been the pride of the Beauforts! +On one side of our pieces of old we see the saint trampling down the +dragon. False emblem! Reverse it on the coin! In the real use of the +gold, it is the dragon who tramples down the saint! But on--on! the day +is bright and your companions merry; make the best of your green years, +Arthur Beaufort! + +The young men had just entered the suburb of H---, and were spurring +on four abreast at a canter. At that time an old man, feeling his +way before him with a stick,--for though not quite blind, he saw +imperfectly,--was crossing the road. Arthur and his friends, in loud +converse, did not observe the poor passenger. He stopped abruptly, +for his ear caught the sound of danger--it was too late: Mr. Marsden’s +horse, hard-mouthed, and high-stepping, came full against him. Mr. +Marsden looked down: + +“Hang these old men! always in the way,” said he, plaintively, and in +the tone of a much-injured person, and, with that, Mr. Marsden rode on. +But the others, who were younger--who were not gamblers--who were not +yet grinded down into stone by the world’s wheels--the others halted. +Arthur Beaufort leaped from his horse, and the old man was already +in his arms; but he was severely hurt. The blood trickled from his +forehead; he complained of pains in his side and limbs. + +“Lean on me, my poor fellow! Do you live far off? I will take you home.” + +“Not many yards. This would not have happened if I had had my dog. Never +mind, sir, go your way. It is only an old man--what of that? I wish I +had my dog.” + +“I will join you,” said Arthur to his friends; “my groom has the +direction. I will just take the poor old man home, and send for a +surgeon. I shall not be long.” + +“So like you, Beaufort: the best fellow in the world!” said Mr. Watson, +with some emotion. “And there’s Marsden positively, dismounted, +and looking at his horse’s knees as if they could be hurt! Here’s a +sovereign for you, my man.” + +“And here’s another,” said Sir Harry; “so that’s settled. Well, you will +join us, Beaufort? You see the yard yonder. We’ll wait twenty minutes +for you. Come on, Watson.” The old man had not picked up the sovereigns +thrown at his feet, neither had he thanked the donors. And on his +countenance there was a sour, querulous, resentful expression. + +“Must a man be a beggar because he is run over, or because he is half +blind?” said he, turning his dim, wandering eyes painfully towards +Arthur. “Well, I wish I had my dog!” + +“I will supply his place,” said Arthur, soothingly. “Come, lean on +me--heavier; that’s right. You are not so bad,--eh?” + +“Um!--the sovereigns!--it is wicked to leave them in the kennel!” + +Arthur smiled. “Here they are, sir.” + +The old man slid the coins into his pocket, and Arthur continued to +talk, though he got but short answers, and those only in the way of +direction, till at last the old man stopped at the door of a small house +near the churchyard. + +After twice ringing the bell, the door was opened by a middle-aged +woman, whose appearance was above that of a common menial; dressed, +somewhat gaily for her years, in a cap seated very far back on a black +touroet, and decorated with red ribands, an apron made out of an Indian +silk handkerchief, a puce-coloured sarcenet gown, black silk stockings, +long gilt earrings, and a watch at her girdle. + +“Bless us and save us, sir! What has happened?” exclaimed this worthy +personage, holding up her hands. + +“Pish! I am faint: let me in. I don’t want your aid any more, sir. Thank +you. Good day!” + +Not discouraged by this farewell, the churlish tone of which fell +harmless on the invincibly sweet temper of Arthur, the young man +continued to assist the sufferer along the narrow passage into a little +old-fashioned parlour; and no sooner was the owner deposited on his +worm-eaten leather chair than he fainted away. On reaching the house, +Arthur had sent his servant (who had followed him with the horses) +for the nearest surgeon; and while the woman was still employed, after +taking off the sufferer’s cravat, in burning feathers under his nose, +there was heard a sharp rap and a shrill ring. Arthur opened the door, +and admitted a smart little man in nankeen breeches and gaiters. He +bustled into the room. + +“What’s this--bad accident--um--um! Sad thing, very sad. Open the +window. A glass of water--a towel.” + +“So--so: I see--I see--no fracture--contusion. Help him off with his +coat. Another chair, ma’am; put up his poor legs. What age is he, +ma’am?--Sixty-eight! Too old to bleed. Thank you. How is it, sir? +Poorly, to be sure: will be comfortable presently--faintish still? Soon +put all to rights.” + +“Tray! Tray! Where’s my dog, Mrs. Boxer?” + +“Lord, sir, what do you want with your dog now? He is in the back-yard.” + +“And what business has my dog in the back-yard?” almost screamed the +sufferer, in accents that denoted no diminution of vigour. “I thought +as soon as my back was turned my dog would be ill-used! Why did I go +without my dog? Let in my dog directly, Mrs. Boxer!” + +“All right, you see, sir,” said the apothecary, turning to Beaufort--“no +cause for alarm--very comforting that little passion--does him +good--sets one’s mind easy. How did it happen? Ah, I understand! knocked +down--might have been worse. Your groom (sharp fellow!) explained in a +trice, sir. Thought it was my old friend here by the description. Worthy +man--settled here a many year--very odd--eccentric (this in a whisper). +Came off instantly: just at dinner--cold lamb and salad. ‘Mrs. Perkins,’ +says I, ‘if any one calls for me, I shall be at No. 4, Prospect Place.’ +Your servant observed the address, sir. Oh, very sharp fellow! See how +the old gentleman takes to his dog--fine little dog--what a stump of a +tail! Deal of practice--expect two accouchements every hour. Hot weather +for childbirth. So says I to Mrs. Perkins, ‘If Mrs. Plummer is taken, or +Mrs. Everat, or if old Mr. Grub has another fit, send off at once to No. +4. Medical men should be always in the way--that’s my maxim. Now, sir, +where do you feel the pain?” + +“In my ears, sir.” + +“Bless me, that looks bad. How long have you felt it?” + +“Ever since you have been in the room.” + +“Oh! I take. Ha! ha!--very eccentric--very!” muttered the apothecary, +a little disconcerted. “Well, let him lie down, ma’am. I’ll send him a +little quieting draught to be taken directly--pill at night, aperient +in the morning. If wanted, send for me--always to be found. Bless me, +that’s my boy Bob’s ring. Please to open the door, ma’ am. Know his +ring--very peculiar knack of his own. Lay ten to one it is Mrs. Plummer, +or perhaps, Mrs. Everat--her ninth child in eight years--in the grocery +line. A woman in a thousand, sir!” + +Here a thin boy, with very short coat-sleeves, and very large hands, +burst into the room with his mouth open. “Sir--Mr. Perkins--sir!” + +“I know--I know--coming. Mrs. Plummer or Mrs. Everat?” + +“No, sir; it be the poor lady at Mrs. Lacy’s; she be taken desperate. +Mrs. Lacy’s girl has just been over to the shop, and made me run here to +you, sir.” + +“Mrs. Lacy’s! oh, I know. Poor Mrs. Morton! Bad case--very bad--must be +off. Keep him quiet, ma’am. Good day! Look in to-morrow--nine o’clock. +Put a little lint with the lotion on the head, ma’am. Mrs. Morton! Ah! +bad job that.” + +Here the apothecary had shuffled himself off to the street door, when +Arthur laid his hand on his arm. + +“Mrs. Morton! Did you say Morton, sir? What kind of a person--is she +very ill?” + +“Hopeless case, sir--general break-up. Nice woman--quite the lady--known +better days, I’m sure.” + +“Has she any children--sons?” + +“Two--both away now--fine lads--quite wrapped up in them--youngest +especially.” + +“Good heavens! it must be she--ill, and dying, and destitute, +perhaps,”--exclaimed Arthur, with real and deep feeling; “I will go with +you, sir. I fancy that I know this lady--that,” he added generously, “I +am related to her.” + +“Do you?--glad to hear it. Come along, then; she ought to have some one +near her besides servants: not but what Jenny, the maid, is uncommonly +kind. Dr. -----, who attends her sometimes, said to me, says he, ‘It is +the mind, Mr. Perkins; I wish we could get back her boys.” + +“And where are they?” + +“‘Prenticed out, I fancy. Master Sidney--” + +“Sidney!” + +“Ah! that was his name--pretty name. D’ye know Sir Sidney +Smith?--extraordinary man, sir! Master Sidney was a beautiful +child--quite spoiled. She always fancied him ailing--always sending +for me. ‘Mr. Perkins,’ said she, ‘there’s something the matter with +my child; I’m sure there is, though he won’t own it. He has lost his +appetite--had a headache last night.’ ‘Nothing the matter, ma’am,’ says +I; ‘wish you’d think more of yourself.’ + +“These mothers are silly, anxious, poor creatures. Nater, sir, +Nater--wonderful thing--Nater!--Here we are.” + +And the apothecary knocked at the private door of a milliner and +hosier’s shop. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +“Thy child shall live, and I will see it nourished.”--Titus Andronicus. + +As might be expected, the excitement and fatigue of Catherine’s journey +to N---- had considerably accelerated the progress of disease. And when +she reached home, and looked round the cheerless rooms all solitary, all +hushed--Sidney gone, gone from her for ever, she felt, indeed, as if +the last reed on which she had leaned was broken, and her business upon +earth was done. Catherine was not condemned to absolute poverty--the +poverty which grinds and gnaws, the poverty of rags and famine. She had +still left nearly half of such portion of the little capital, realised +by the sale of her trinkets, as had escaped the clutch of the law; and +her brother had forced into her hands a note for L20. with an assurance +that the same sum should be paid to her half-yearly. Alas! there was +little chance of her needing it again! She was not, then, in want of +means to procure the common comforts of life. But now a new passion had +entered into her breast--the passion of the miser; she wished to hoard +every sixpence as some little provision for her children. What was the +use of her feeding a lamp nearly extinguished, and which was fated to be +soon broken up and cast amidst the vast lumber-house of Death? She would +willingly have removed into a more homely lodging, but the servant of +the house had been so fond of Sidney--so kind to him. She clung to +one familiar face on which there seemed to live the reflection of her +child’s. But she relinquished the first floor for the second; and there, +day by day, she felt her eyes grow heavier and heavier beneath the +clouds of the last sleep. Besides the aid of Mr. Perkins, a kind enough +man in his way, the good physician whom she had before consulted, +still attended her, and refused his fee. Shocked at perceiving that she +rejected every little alleviation of her condition, and wishing at least +to procure for her last hours the society of one of her sons, he had +inquired the address of the elder; and on the day preceding the one in +which Arthur discovered her abode, he despatched to Philip the following +letter: + +“SIR:--Being called in to attend your mother in a lingering illness, +which I fear may prove fatal, I think it my duty to request you to come +to her as soon as you receive this. Your presence cannot but be a great +comfort to her. The nature of her illness is such that it is impossible +to calculate exactly how long she may be spared to you; but I am sure +her fate might be prolonged, and her remaining days more happy, if +she could be induced to remove into a better air and a more quiet +neighbourhood, to take more generous sustenance, and, above all, if her +mind could be set more at ease as to your and your brother’s prospects. +You must pardon me if I have seemed inquisitive; but I have sought to +draw from your mother some particulars as to her family and connections, +with a wish to represent to them her state of mind. She is, however, +very reserved on these points. If, however, you have relations well to +do in the world, I think some application to them should be made. I fear +the state of her affairs weighs much upon your poor mother’s mind; and +I must leave you to judge how far it can be relieved by the good feeling +of any persons upon whom she may have legitimate claims. At all events, +I repeat my wish that you should come to her forthwith. + + + “I am, &c.” + +After the physician had despatched this letter, a sudden and marked +alteration for the worse took place in his patient’s disorder; and in +the visit he had paid that morning, he saw cause to fear that her hours +on earth would be much fewer than he had before anticipated. He had left +her, however, comparatively better; but two hours after his departure, +the symptoms of her disease had become very alarming, and the +good-natured servant girl, her sole nurse, and who had, moreover, the +whole business of the other lodgers to attend to, had, as we have seen, +thought it necessary to summon the apothecary in the interval that must +elapse before she could reach the distant part of the metropolis in +which Dr. ---- resided. + +On entering the chamber, Arthur felt all the remorse, which of right +belonged to his father, press heavily on his soul. What a contrast, that +mean and solitary chamber, and its comfortless appurtenances, to the +graceful and luxurious abode where, full of health and hope, he had last +beheld her, the mother of Philip Beaufort’s children! He remained silent +till Mr. Perkins, after a few questions, retired to send his drugs. He +then approached the bed; Catherine, though very weak and suffering much +pain, was still sensible. She turned her dim eyes on the young man; but +she did not recognise his features. + +“You do not remember me?” said he, in a voice struggling with tears: “I +am Arthur--Arthur Beaufort.” Catherine made no answer. + +“Good Heavens! Why do I see you here? I believed you with your +friends--your children provided for--as became my father to do. He +assured me that you were so.” Still no answer. + +And then the young man, overpowered with the feelings of a sympathising +and generous nature, forgetting for a while Catherine’s weakness, poured +forth a torrent of inquiries, regrets, and self-upbraidings, which +Catherine at first little heeded. But the name of her children, repeated +again and again, struck upon that chord which, in a woman’s heart, is +the last to break; and she raised herself in her bed, and looked at her +visitor wistfully. + +“Your father,” she said, then--“your father was unlike my Philip; but +I see things differently now. For me, all bounty is too late; but my +children--to-morrow they may have no mother. The law is with you, +but not justice! You will be rich and powerful;--will you befriend my +children?” + +“Through life, so help me Heaven!” exclaimed Arthur, falling on his +knees beside the bed. + +What then passed between them it is needless to detail; for it was +little, save broken repetitions of the same prayer and the same +response. But there was so much truth and earnestness in Arthur’s voice +and countenance, that Catherine felt as if an angel had come there to +administer comfort. And when late in the day the physician entered, +he found his patient leaning on the breast of her young visitor, and +looking on his face with a happy smile. + +The physician gathered enough from the appearance of Arthur and the +gossip of Mr. Perkins, to conjecture that one of the rich relations he +had attributed to Catherine was arrived. Alas! for her it was now indeed +too late! + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + + “D’ye stand amazed?--Look o’er thy head, Maximinian! + Look to the terror which overhangs thee.” + BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: The Prophetess. + +Phillip had been five weeks in his new home: in another week, he was to +enter on his articles of apprenticeship. With a stern, unbending gloom +of manner, he had commenced the duties of his novitiate. He submitted to +all that was enjoined him. He seemed to have lost for ever the wild and +unruly waywardness that had stamped his boyhood; but he was never seen +to smile--he scarcely ever opened his lips. His very soul seemed to have +quitted him with its faults; and he performed all the functions of his +situation with the quiet listless regularity of a machine. Only when the +work was done and the shop closed, instead of joining the family circle +in the back parlour, he would stroll out in the dusk of the evening, +away from the town, and not return till the hour at which the family +retired to rest. Punctual in all he did, he never exceeded that hour. He +had heard once a week from his mother; and only on the mornings in +which he expected a letter, did he seem restless and agitated. Till +the postman entered the shop, he was as pale as death--his hands +trembling--his lips compressed. When he read the letter he became +composed for Catherine sedulously concealed from her son the state of +her health: she wrote cheerfully, besought him to content himself with +the state into which he had fallen, and expressed her joy that in his +letters he intimated that content; for the poor boy’s letters were not +less considerate than her own. On her return from her brother, she had +so far silenced or concealed her misgivings as to express satisfaction +at the home she had provided for Sidney; and she even held out hopes +of some future when, their probation finished and their independence +secured, she might reside with her sons alternately. These hopes +redoubled Philip’s assiduity, and he saved every shilling of his weekly +stipend; and sighed as he thought that in another week his term of +apprenticeship would commence, and the stipend cease. + +Mr. Plaskwith could not but be pleased on the whole with the diligence +of his assistant, but he was chafed and irritated by the sullenness of +his manner. As for Mrs. Plaskwith, poor woman! she positively detested +the taciturn and moody boy, who never mingled in the jokes of the +circle, nor played with the children, nor complimented her, nor added, +in short, anything to the sociability of the house. Mr. Plimmins, who +had at first sought to condescend, next sought to bully; but the +gaunt frame and savage eye of Philip awed the smirk youth, in spite of +himself; and he confessed to Mrs. Plaskwith that he should not like +to meet “the gipsy,” alone, on a dark night; to which Mrs. Plaskwith +replied, as usual, “that Mr. Plimmins always did say the best things in +the world!” + +One morning, Philip was sent a few miles into the country, to assist in +cataloguing some books in the library of Sir Thomas Champerdown--that +gentleman, who was a scholar, having requested that some one acquainted +with the Greek character might be sent to him, and Philip being the only +one in the shop who possessed such knowledge. + +It was evening before he returned. Mr. and Mrs. Plaskwith were both in +the shop as he entered--in fact, they had been employed in talking him +over. + +“I can’t abide him!” cried Mrs. Plaskwith. “If you choose to take him +for good, I sha’n’t have an easy moment. I’m sure the ‘prentice that cut +his master’s throat at Chatham, last week, was just like him.” + +“Pshaw! Mrs. P.,” said the bookseller, taking a huge pinch of snuff, +as usual, from his waistcoat pocket. “I myself was reserved when I was +young; all reflective people are. I may observe, by the by, that it was +the case with Napoleon Buonaparte: still, however, I must own he is a +disagreeable youth, though he attends to his business.” + +“And how fond of money he is!” remarked Mrs. Plaskwith, “he won’t buy +himself a new pair of shoes!--quite disgraceful! And did you see what a +look he gave Plimmins, when he joked about his indifference to his sole? +Plimmins always does say such good things!” + +“He is shabby, certainly,” said the bookseller; “but the value of a book +does not always depend on the binding.” + +“I hope he is honest!” observed Mrs. Plaskwith;--and here Philip +entered. + +“Hum,” said Mr. Plaskwith; “you have had a long day’s work: but I +suppose it will take a week to finish?” + +“I am to go again to-morrow morning, sir: two days more will conclude +the task.” + +“There’s a letter for you,” cried Mrs. Plaskwith; “you owes me for it.” + +“A letter!” It was not his mother’s hand--it was a strange writing--he +gasped for breath as he broke the seal. It was the letter of the +physician. + +His mother, then, was ill--dying--wanting, perhaps, the necessaries of +life. She would have concealed from him her illness and her poverty. His +quick alarm exaggerated the last into utter want;--he uttered a cry that +rang through the shop, and rushed to Mr. Plaskwith. + +“Sir, sir! my mother is dying! She is poor, poor, perhaps +starving;--money, money!--lend me money!--ten pounds!--five!--I will +work for you all my life for nothing, but lend me the money!” + +“Hoity-toity!” said Mrs. Plaskwith, nudging her husband--“I told you +what would come of it: it will be ‘money or life’ next time.” + +Philip did not heed or hear this address; but stood immediately before +the bookseller, his hands clasped--wild impatience in his eyes. Mr. +Plaskwith, somewhat stupefied, remained silent. + +“Do you hear me?--are you human?” exclaimed Philip, his emotion +revealing at once all the fire of his character. “I tell you my mother +is dying; I must go to her! Shall I go empty-handed? Give me money!” + +Mr. Plaskwith was not a bad-hearted man; but he was a formal man, and +an irritable one. The tone his shopboy (for so he considered Philip) +assumed to him, before his own wife too (examples are very dangerous), +rather exasperated than moved him. + +“That’s not the way to speak to your master:--you forget yourself, young +man!” + +“Forget!--But, sir, if she has not necessaries--if she is starving?” + +“Fudge!” said Plaskwith. “Mr. Morton writes me word that he has provided +for your mother! Does he not, Hannah?” + +“More fool he, I’m sure, with such a fine family of his own! Don’t look +at me in that way, young man; I won’t take it--that I won’t! I declare +my blood friz to see you!” + +“Will you advance me money?--five pounds--only five pounds, Mr. +Plaskwith?” + +“Not five shillings! Talk to me in this style!--not the man for it, +sir!--highly improper. Come, shut up the shop, and recollect yourself; +and, perhaps, when Sir Thomas’s library is done, I may let you go to +town. You can’t go to-morrow. All a sham, perhaps; eh, Hannah?” + +“Very likely! Consult Plimmins. Better come away now, Mr. P. He looks +like a young tiger.” + +Mrs. Plaskwith quitted the shop for the parlour. Her husband, putting +his hands behind his back, and throwing back his chin, was about to +follow her. Philip, who had remained for the last moment mute and white +as stone, turned abruptly; and his grief taking rather the tone of rage +than supplication, he threw himself before his master, and, laying his +hand on his shoulder, said: + +“I leave you--do not let it be with a curse. I conjure you, have mercy +on me!” + +Mr. Plaskwith stopped; and had Philip then taken but a milder tone, all +had been well. But, accustomed from childhood to command--all his fierce +passions loose within him--despising the very man he thus implored--the +boy ruined his own cause. Indignant at the silence of Mr. Plaskwith, +and too blinded by his emotions to see that in that silence there was +relenting, he suddenly shook the little man with a vehemence that almost +overset him, and cried: + +“You, who demand for five years my bones and blood--my body and soul--a +slave to your vile trade--do you deny me bread for a mother’s lips?” + +Trembling with anger, and perhaps fear, Mr. Plaskwith extricated himself +from the gripe of Philip, and, hurrying from the shop, said, as he +banged the door: + +“Beg my pardon for this to-night, or out you go to-morrow, neck and +crop! Zounds! a pretty pass the world’s come to! I don’t believe a word +about your mother. Baugh!” + +Left alone, Philip remained for some moments struggling with his +wrath and agony. He then seized his hat, which he had thrown off on +entering--pressed it over his brows--turned to quit the shop--when his +eye fell upon the till. Plaskwith had left it open, and the gleam of the +coin struck his gaze--that deadly smile of the arch tempter. Intellect, +reason, conscience--all, in that instant, were confusion and chaos. He +cast a hurried glance round the solitary and darkening room--plunged his +hand into the drawer, clutched he knew not what--silver or gold, as it +came uppermost--and burst into a loud and bitter laugh. The laugh itself +startled him--it did not sound like his own. His face fell, and his +knees knocked together--his hair bristled--he felt as if the very fiend +had uttered that yell of joy over a fallen soul. + +“No--no--no!” he muttered; “no, my mother,--not even for thee!” And, +dashing the money to the ground, he fled, like a maniac, from the house. + +At a later hour that same evening, Mr. Robert Beaufort returned from his +country mansion to Berkeley Square. He found his wife very uneasy and +nervous about the non-appearance of their only son. Arthur had sent home +his groom and horses about seven o’clock, with a hurried scroll, written +in pencil on a blank page torn from his pocket-book, and containing only +these words,-- + +“Don’t wait dinner for me--I may not be home for some hours. I have met +with a melancholy adventure. You will approve what I have done when we +meet.” + +This note a little perplexed Mr. Beaufort; but, as he was very hungry, +he turned a deaf ear both to his wife’s conjectures and his own +surmises, till he had refreshed himself; and then he sent for the groom, +and learned that, after the accident to the blind man, Mr. Arthur +had been left at a hosier’s in H----. This seemed to him extremely +mysterious; and, as hour after hour passed away, and still Arthur came +not, he began to imbibe his wife’s fears, which were now wound up almost +to hysterics; and just at midnight he ordered his carriage, and taking +with him the groom as a guide, set off to the suburban region. Mrs. +Beaufort had wished to accompany him; but the husband observing that +young men would be young men, and that there might possibly be a lady +in the case, Mrs. Beaufort, after a pause of thought, passively agreed +that, all things considered, she had better remain at home. No lady +of proper decorum likes to run the risk of finding herself in a +false position. Mr. Beaufort accordingly set out alone. Easy was the +carriage--swift were the steeds--and luxuriously the wealthy man was +whirled along. Not a suspicion of the true cause of Arthur’s detention +crossed him; but he thought of the snares of London--or artful females +in distress; “a melancholy adventure” generally implies love for +the adventure, and money for the melancholy; and Arthur was +young--generous--with a heart and a pocket equally open to imposition. +Such scrapes, however, do not terrify a father when he is a man of the +world, so much as they do an anxious mother; and, with more curiosity +than alarm, Mr. Beaufort, after a short doze, found himself before the +shop indicated. + +Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, the door to the private +entrance was ajar,--a circumstance which seemed very suspicious to Mr. +Beaufort. He pushed it open with caution and timidity--a candle placed +upon a chair in the narrow passage threw a sickly light over the flight +of stairs, till swallowed up by the deep shadow from the sharp angle +made by the ascent. Robert Beaufort stood a moment in some doubt whether +to call, to knock, to recede, or to advance, when a step was heard upon +the stairs above--it came nearer and nearer--a figure emerged from the +shadow of the last landing-place, and Mr. Beaufort, to his great joy, +recognised his son. + +Arthur did not, however, seem to perceive his father; and was about to +pass him, when Mr. Beaufort laid his hand on his arm. + +“What means all this, Arthur? What place are you in? How you have +alarmed us!” + +Arthur cast a look upon his father of sadness and reproach. + +“Father,” he said, in a tone that sounded stern--almost commanding--“I +will show you where I have been; follow me--nay, I say, follow.” + +He turned, without another word re-ascended the stairs; and Mr. +Beaufort, surprised and awed into mechanical obedience, did as his son +desired. At the landing-place of the second floor, another long-wicked, +neglected, ghastly candle emitted its cheerless ray. It gleamed through +the open door of a small bedroom to the left, through which Beaufort +perceived the forms of two women. One (it was the kindly maidservant) +was seated on a chair, and weeping bitterly; the other (it was a +hireling nurse, in the first and last day of her attendance) was +unpinning her dingy shawl before she lay down to take a nap. She turned +her vacant, listless face upon the two men, put on a doleful smile, and +decently closed the door. + +“Where are we, I say, Arthur?” repeated Mr. Beaufort. Arthur took his +father’s hand-drew him into a room to the right--and taking up the +candle, placed it on a small table beside a bell, and said, “Here, +sir--in the presence of Death!” + +Mr. Beaufort cast a hurried and fearful glance on the still, wan, serene +face beneath his eyes, and recognised in that glance the features of the +neglected and the once adored Catherine. + +“Yes--she, whom your brother so loved--the mother of his children--died +in this squalid room, and far from her sons, in poverty, in sorrow! died +of a broken heart! Was that well, father? Have you in this nothing to +repent?” + +Conscience-stricken and appalled, the worldly man sank down on a seat +beside the bed, and covered his face with his hands. + +“Ay,” continued Arthur, almost bitterly--“ay, we, his nearest of +kin--we, who have inherited his lands and gold--we have been thus +heedless of the great legacy your brother bequeathed to us:--the +things dearest to him--the woman he loved--the children his death cast, +nameless and branded, on the world. Ay, weep, father: and while you +weep, think of the future, of reparation. I have sworn to that clay +to befriend her sons; join you, who have all the power to fulfil the +promise--join in that vow: and may Heaven not visit on us both the woes +of this bed of death!” + +“I did not know--I--I--” faltered Mr. Beaufort. + +“But we should have known,” interrupted Arthur, mournfully. “Ah, my dear +father! do not harden your heart by false excuses. The dead still speaks +to you, and commends to your care her children. My task here is done: O +sir! yours is to come. I leave you alone with the dead.” + +So saying, the young man, whom the tragedy of the scene had worked into +a passion and a dignity above his usual character, unwilling to trust +himself farther to his emotions, turned abruptly from the room, fled +rapidly down the stairs and left the house. As the carriage and liveries +of his father met his eye, he groaned; for their evidences of comfort +and wealth seemed a mockery to the deceased: he averted his face and +walked on. Nor did he heed or even perceive a form that at that instant +rushed by him--pale, haggard, breathless--towards the house which he had +quitted, and the door of which he left open, as he had found it--open, +as the physician had left it when hurrying, ten minutes before the +arrival of Mr. Beaufort, from the spot where his skill was impotent. +Wrapped in gloomy thought, alone, and on foot--at that dreary hour, and +in that remote suburb--the heir of the Beauforts sought his splendid +home. Anxious, fearful, hoping, the outcast orphan flew on to the +death-room of his mother. + +Mr. Beaufort, who had but imperfectly heard Arthur’s parting accents, +lost and bewildered by the strangeness of his situation, did not at +first perceive that he was left alone. Surprised, and chilled by the +sudden silence of the chamber, he rose, withdrew his hands from his +face, and again he saw that countenance so mute and solemn. He cast his +gaze round the dismal room for Arthur; he called his name--no answer +came; a superstitious tremor seized upon him; his limbs shook; he sank +once more on his seat, and closed his eyes: muttering, for the first +time, perhaps, since his childhood, words of penitence and prayer. He +was roused from this bitter self-abstraction by a deep groan. It seemed +to come from the bed. Did his ears deceive him? Had the dead found a +voice? He started up in an agony of dread, and saw opposite to him the +livid countenance of Philip Morton: the Son of the Corpse had replaced +the Son of the Living Man! The dim and solitary light fell upon that +countenance. There, all the bloom and freshness natural to youth seemed +blasted! There, on those wasted features, played all the terrible power +and glare of precocious passions,--rage, woe, scorn, despair. Terrible +is it to see upon the face of a boy the storm and whirlwind that should +visit only the strong heart of man! + +“She is dead!--dead! and in your presence!” shouted Philip, with his +wild eyes fixed upon the cowering uncle; “dead with--care, perhaps with +famine. And you have come to look upon your work!” + +“Indeed,” said Beaufort, deprecatingly, “I have but just arrived: I +did not know she had been ill, or in want, upon my honour. This is all +a--a--mistake: I--I--came in search of--of--another--” + +“You did not, then, come to relieve her?” said Philip, very calmly. “You +had not learned her suffering and distress, and flown hither in the hope +that there was yet time to save her? You did not do this? Ha! ha!--why +did I think it?” + +“Did any one call, gentlemen?” said a whining voice at the door; and the +nurse put in her head. + +“Yes--yes--you may come in,” said Beaufort, shaking with nameless and +cowardly apprehension; but Philip had flown to the door, and, gazing on +the nurse, said, + +“She is a stranger! see, a stranger! The son now has assumed his post. +Begone, woman!” And he pushed her away, and drew the bolt across the +door. + +And then there looked upon him, as there had looked upon his reluctant +companion, calm and holy, the face of the peaceful corpse. He burst into +tears, and fell on his knees so close to Beaufort that he touched him; +he took up the heavy hand, and covered it with burning kisses. + +“Mother! mother! do not leave me! wake, smile once more on your son! +I would have brought you money, but I could not have asked for your +blessing, then; mother, I ask it now!” + +“If I had but known--if you had but written to me, my dear young +gentleman--but my offers had been refused, and--” + +“Offers of a hireling’s pittance to her; to her for whom my father +would have coined his heart’s blood into gold! My father’s wife!--his +wife!--offers--” + +He rose suddenly, folded his arms, and facing Beaufort, with a fierce +determined brow, said: + +“Mark me, you hold the wealth that I was trained from my cradle to +consider my heritage. I have worked with these hands for bread, and +never complained, except to my own heart and soul. I never hated, and +never cursed you--robber as you were--yes, robber! For, even were there +no marriage save in the sight of God, neither my father, nor Nature, +nor Heaven, meant that you should seize all, and that there should be +nothing due to the claims of affection and blood. He was not the less +my father, even if the Church spoke not on my side. Despoiler of the +orphan, and derider of human love, you are not the less a robber though +the law fences you round, and men call you honest! But I did not hate +you for this. Now, in the presence of my dead mother--dead, far from +both her sons--now I abhor and curse you. You may think yourself safe +when you quit this room--safe, and from my hatred you may be so but +do not deceive yourself. The curse of the widow and the orphan shall +pursue--it shall cling to you and yours--it shall gnaw your heart in the +midst of splendour--it shall cleave to the heritage of your son! There +shall be a deathbed yet, beside which you shall see the spectre of her, +now so calm, rising for retribution from the grave! These words--no, you +never shall forget them--years hence they shall ring in your ears, +and freeze the marrow of your bones! And now begone, my father’s +brother--begone from my mother’s corpse to your luxurious home!” + +He opened the door, and pointed to the stairs. Beaufort, without a word, +turned from the room and departed. He heard the door closed and locked +as he descended the stairs; but he did not hear the deep groans and +vehement sobs in which the desolate orphan gave vent to the anguish +which succeeded to the less sacred paroxysm of revenge and wrath. + + + +BOOK II. + + + +CHAPTER I. + + + “Incubo. Look to the cavalier. What ails he? + . . . . . + Hostess. And in such good clothes, too!” + BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: Love’s Pilgrimage. + + “Theod. I have a brother--there my last hope!. + Thus as you find me, without fear or wisdom, + I now am only child of Hope and Danger.”--Ibid. + +The time employed by Mr. Beaufort in reaching his home was haunted +by gloomy and confused terrors. He felt inexplicably as if the +denunciations of Philip were to visit less himself than his son. +He trembled at the thought of Arthur meeting this strange, wild, +exasperated scatterling--perhaps on the morrow--in the very height of +his passions. And yet, after the scene between Arthur and himself, he +saw cause to fear that he might not be able to exercise a sufficient +authority over his son, however naturally facile and obedient, to +prevent his return to the house of death. In this dilemma he resolved, +as is usual with cleverer men, even when yoked to yet feebler helpmates, +to hear if his wife had anything comforting or sensible to say upon the +subject. Accordingly, on reaching Berkeley Square, he went straight +to Mrs. Beaufort; and having relieved her mind as to Arthur’s safety, +related the scene in which he had been so unwilling an actor. With +that more lively susceptibility which belongs to most women, however +comparatively unfeeling, Mrs. Beaufort made greater allowance than +her husband for the excitement Philip had betrayed. Still Beaufort’s +description of the dark menaces, the fierce countenance, the +brigand-like form, of the bereaved son, gave her very considerable +apprehensions for Arthur, should the young men meet; and she willingly +coincided with her husband in the propriety of using all means of +parental persuasion or command to guard against such an encounter. But, +in the meanwhile, Arthur returned not, and new fears seized the anxious +parents. He had gone forth alone, in a remote suburb of the metropolis, +at a late hour, himself under strong excitement. He might have returned +to the house, or have lost his way amidst some dark haunts of violence +and crime; they knew not where to send, or what to suggest. Day already +began to dawn, and still he came not. A length, towards five o’clock, a +loud rap was heard at the door, and Mr. Beaufort, hearing some bustle +in the hall, descended. He saw his son borne into the hall from +a hackney-coach by two strangers, pale, bleeding, and apparently +insensible. His first thought was that he had been murdered by Philip. +He uttered a feeble cry, and sank down beside his son. + +“Don’t be darnted, sir,” said one of the strangers, who seemed an +artisan; “I don’t think he be much hurt. You sees he was crossing the +street, and the coach ran against him; but it did not go over his head; +it be only the stones that makes him bleed so: and that’s a mercy.” + +“A providence, sir,” said the other man; “but Providence watches over us +all, night and day, sleep or wake. Hem! We were passing at the time from +the meeting--the Odd Fellows, sir--and so we took him, and got him a +coach; for we found his card in his pocket. He could not speak just +then; but the rattling of the coach did him a deal of good, for he +groaned--my eyes! how he groaned! did he not, Burrows?” + +“It did one’s heart good to hear him.” + +“Run for Astley Cooper--you--go to Brodie. Good Heavens! he is dying. Be +quick--quick!” cried Mr. Beaufort to his servants, while Mrs. Beaufort, +who had now gained the spot, with greater presence of mind had Arthur +conveyed into a room. + +“It is a judgment upon me,” groaned Beaufort, rooted to the stone of his +hall, and left alone with the strangers. “No, sir, it is not a judgment, +it is a providence,” said the more sanctimonious and better dressed of +the two men “for, put the question, if it had been a judgment, the wheel +would have gone over him--but it didn’t; and, whether he dies or not, I +shall always say that if that’s not a providence, I don’t know what is. +We have come a long way, sir; and Burrows is a poor man, though I’m well +to do.” + +This hint for money restored Beaufort to his recollection; he put his +purse into the nearest hand outstretched to clutch it, and muttered +forth something like thanks. + +“Sir, may the Lord bless you! and I hope the young gentleman will do +well. I am sure you have cause to be thankful that he was within an +inch of the wheel; was he not, Burrows? Well, it’s enough to convert a +heathen. But the ways of Providence are mysterious, and that’s the truth +of it. Good night, sir.” + +Certainly it did seem as if the curse of Philip was already at its work. +An accident almost similar to that which, in the adventure of the blind +man, had led Arthur to the clue of Catherine, within twenty-four hours +stretched Arthur himself upon his bed. The sorrow Mr. Beaufort had not +relieved was now at his own hearth. But there were parents and nurses, +and great physicians, and skilful surgeons, and all the army that +combine against Death, and there were ease, and luxury, and kind eyes, +and pitying looks, and all that can take the sting from pain. And thus, +the very night on which Catherine had died, broken down, and worn out, +upon a strange breast, with a feeless doctor, and by the ray of a single +candle, the heir to the fortunes once destined to her son wrestled also +with the grim Tyrant, who seemed, however, scared from his prey by the +arts and luxuries which the world of rich men raises up in defiance of +the grave. + +Arthur, was, indeed, very seriously injured; one of his ribs was broken, +and he had received two severe contusions on the head. To insensibility +succeeded fever, followed by delirium. He was in imminent danger +for several days. If anything could console his parents for such an +affliction, it was the thought that, at least, he was saved from the +chance of meeting Philip. + +Mr. Beaufort, in the instinct of that capricious and fluctuating +conscience which belongs to weak minds, which remains still, and +drooping, and lifeless, as a flag on a masthead during the calm of +prosperity, but flutters, and flaps, and tosses when the wind blows and +the wave heaves, thought very acutely and remorsefully of the condition +of the Mortons, during the danger of his own son. So far, indeed, from +his anxiety for Arthur monopolising all his care, it only sharpened his +charity towards the orphans; for many a man becomes devout and good when +he fancies he has an Immediate interest in appeasing Providence. +The morning after Arthur’s accident, he sent for Mr. Blackwell. He +commissioned him to see that Catherine’s funeral rites were performed +with all due care and attention; he bade him obtain an interview +with Philip, and assure the youth of Mr. Beaufort’s good and friendly +disposition towards him, and to offer to forward his views in any course +of education he might prefer, or any profession he might adopt; and he +earnestly counselled the lawyer to employ all his tact and delicacy +in conferring with one of so proud and fiery a temper. Mr. Blackwell, +however, had no tact or delicacy to employ: he went to the house +of mourning, forced his way to Philip, and the very exordium of his +harangue, which was devoted to praises of the extraordinary generosity +and benevolence of his employer, mingled with condescending admonitions +towards gratitude from Philip, so exasperated the boy, that Mr. +Blackwell was extremely glad to get out of the house with a whole skin. +He, however, did not neglect the more formal part of his mission; but +communicated immediately with a fashionable undertaker, and gave orders +for a very genteel funeral. He thought after the funeral that Philip +would be in a less excited state of mind, and more likely to hear +reason; he, therefore, deferred a second interview with the orphan till +after that event; and, in the meanwhile, despatched a letter to Mr. +Beaufort, stating that he had attended to his instructions; that the +orders for the funeral were given; but that at present Mr. Philip +Morton’s mind was a little disordered, and that he could not calmly +discuss the plans for the future suggested by Mr. Beaufort. He did +not doubt, however, that in another interview all would be arranged +according to the wishes his client had so nobly conveyed to him. Mr. +Beaufort’s conscience on this point was therefore set at rest. It was +a dull, close, oppressive morning, upon which the remains of Catherine +Morton were consigned to the grave. With the preparations for the +funeral Philip did not interfere; he did not inquire by whose orders all +that solemnity of mutes, and coaches, and black plumes, and crape bands, +was appointed. If his vague and undeveloped conjecture ascribed this +last and vain attention to Robert Beaufort, it neither lessened the +sullen resentment he felt against his uncle, nor, on the other hand, did +he conceive that he had a right to forbid respect to the dead, though he +might reject service for the survivor. Since Mr. Blackwell’s visit, he +had remained in a sort of apathy or torpor, which seemed to the people +of the house to partake rather of indifference than woe. + +The funeral was over, and Philip had returned to the apartments occupied +by the deceased; and now, for the first time, he set himself to examine +what papers, &c., she had left behind. In an old escritoire, he found, +first, various packets of letters in his father’s handwriting, the +characters in many of them faded by time. He opened a few; they were +the earliest love-letters. He did not dare to read above a few lines; so +much did their living tenderness, and breathing, frank, hearty passion, +contrast with the fate of the adored one. In those letters, the very +heart of the writer seemed to beat! Now both hearts alike were stilled! +And GHOST called vainly unto GHOST! + +He came, at length, to a letter in his mother’s hand, addressed to +himself, and dated two days before her death. He went to the window and +gasped in the mists of the sultry air for breath. Below were heard the +noises of London; the shrill cries of itinerant vendors, the rolling +carts, the whoop of boys returned for a while from school. Amidst all +these rose one loud, merry peal of laughter, which drew his attention +mechanically to the spot whence it came; it was at the threshold of +a public-house, before which stood the hearse that had conveyed his +mother’s coffin, and the gay undertakers, halting there to refresh +themselves. He closed the window with a groan, retired to the farthest +corner of the room, and read as follows: + +“MY DEAREST PHILIP,--When you read this, I shall be no more. You and +poor Sidney will have neither father nor mother, nor fortune, nor name. +Heaven is more just than man, and in Heaven is my hope for you. You, +Philip, are already past childhood; your nature is one formed, I think, +to wrestle successfully with the world. Guard against your own passions, +and you may bid defiance to the obstacles that will beset your path in +life. And lately, in our reverses, Philip, you have so subdued those +passions, so schooled the pride and impetuosity of your childhood, that +I have contemplated your prospects with less fear than I used to do, +even when they seemed so brilliant. Forgive me, my dear child, if I have +concealed from you my state of health, and if my death be a sudden +and unlooked-for shock. Do not grieve for me too long. For myself, +my release is indeed escape from the prison-house and the chain--from +bodily pain and mental torture, which may, I fondly hope, prove some +expiation for the errors of a happier time. For I did err, when, even +from the least selfish motives, I suffered my union with your father to +remain concealed, and thus ruined the hopes of those who had rights upon +me equal even to his. But, O Philip! beware of the first false steps +into deceit; beware, too, of the passions, which do not betray their +fruit till years and years after the leaves that look so green and the +blossoms that seem so fair. + +“I repeat my solemn injunction--Do not grieve for me; but strengthen +your mind and heart to receive the charge that I now confide to you--my +Sidney, my child, your brother! He is so soft, so gentle, he has been so +dependent for very life upon me, and we are parted now for the first and +last time. He is with strangers; and--and--O Philip, Philip! watch +over him for the love you bear, not only to him, but to me! Be to him a +father as well as a brother. Put your stout heart against the world, +so that you may screen him, the weak child, from its malice. He has not +your talents nor strength of character; without you he is nothing. Live, +toil, rise for his sake not less than your own. If you knew how this +heart beats as I write to you, if you could conceive what comfort I +take for him from my confidence in you, you would feel a new spirit--my +spirit--my mother-spirit of love, and forethought, and vigilance, enter +into you while you read. See him when I am gone--comfort and soothe him. +Happily he is too young yet to know all his loss; and do not let him +think unkindly of me in the days to come, for he is a child now, and +they may poison his mind against me more easily than they can yours. +Think, if he is unhappy hereafter, he may forget how I loved him, he may +curse those who gave him birth. Forgive me all this, Philip, my son, and +heed it well. + +“And now, where you find this letter, you will see a key; it opens a +well in the bureau in which I have hoarded my little savings. You will +see that I have not died in poverty. Take what there is; young as you +are, you may want it more now than hereafter. But hold it in trust for +your brother as well as yourself. If he is harshly treated (and you will +go and see him, and you will remember that he would writhe under what +you might scarcely feel), or if they overtask him (he is so young to +work), yet it may find him a home near you. God watch over and guard you +both! You are orphans now. But HE has told even the orphans to call him +‘Father!’” + +When he had read this letter, Philip Morton fell upon his knees, and +prayed. + + + +CHAPTER II. + + + “His curse! Dost comprehend what that word means? + Shot from a father’s angry breath.” + JAMES SHIRLEY: The Brothers. + + “This term is fatal, and affrights me.”--Ibid. + + “Those fond philosophers that magnify + Our human nature...... + Conversed but little with the world-they knew not + The fierce vexation of community!”--Ibid. + +After he had recovered his self-possession, Philip opened the well of +the bureau, and was astonished and affected to find that Catherine had +saved more than L100. Alas! how much must she have pinched herself +to have hoarded this little treasure! After burning his father’s +love-letters, and some other papers, which he deemed useless, he made +up a little bundle of those trifling effects belonging to the deceased, +which he valued as memorials and relies of her, quitted the apartment, +and descended to the parlour behind the shop. On the way he met with the +kind servant, and recalling the grief that she had manifested for his +mother since he had been in the house, he placed two sovereigns in her +hand. “And now,” said he, as the servant wept while he spoke, “now I can +bear to ask you what I have not before done. How did my poor mother die? +Did she suffer much?--or--or--” + +“She went off like a lamb, sir,” said the girl, drying her eyes. “You +see the gentleman had been with her all the day, and she was much more +easy and comfortable in her mind after he came.” + +“The gentleman! Not the gentleman I found here?” + +“Oh, dear no! Not the pale middle-aged gentleman nurse and I saw go down +as the clock struck two. But the young, soft-spoken gentleman who came +in the morning, and said as how he was a relation. He stayed with her +till she slept; and, when she woke, she smiled in his face--I shall +never forget that smile--for I was standing on the other side, as +it might be here, and the doctor was by the window, pouring out the +doctor’s stuff in the glass; and so she looked on the young gentleman, +and then looked round at us all, and shook her head very gently, but did +not speak. And the gentleman asked her how she felt, and she took both +his hands and kissed them; and then he put his arms round and raised her +up to take the physic like, and she said then, ‘You will never forget +them?’ and he said, ‘Never.’ I don’t know what that meant, sir!” + +“Well, well--go on.” + +“And her head fell back on his buzzom, and she looked so happy; and, +when the doctor came to the bedside, she was quite gone.” + +“And the stranger had my post! No matter; God bless him--God bless him. +Who was he? what was his name?” + +“I don’t know, sir; he did not say. He stayed after the doctor went, and +cried very bitterly; he took on more than you did, sir.” + +“And the other gentleman came just as he was a-going, and they did not +seem to like each other; for I heard him through the wall, as nurse and +I were in the next room, speak as if he was scolding; but he did not +stay long.” + +“And has never been seen since?” + +“No, sir. Perhaps missus can tell you more about him. But won’t you take +something, sir? Do--you look so pale.” + +Philip, without speaking, pushed her gently aside, and went slowly down +the stairs. He entered the parlour, where two or three children were +seated, playing at dominoes; he despatched one for their mother, the +mistress of the shop, who came in, and dropped him a courtesy, with a +very grave, sad face, as was proper. + +“I am going to leave your house, ma’am; and I wish to settle any little +arrears of rent, &c.” + +“O sir! don’t mention it,” said the landlady; and, as she spoke, she +took a piece of paper from her bosom, very neatly folded, and laid it on +the table. “And here, sir,” she added, taking from the same depository +a card,--“here is the card left by the gentleman who saw to the funeral. +He called half an hour ago, and bade me say, with his compliments, that +he would wait on you to-morrow at eleven o’clock. So I hope you won’t go +yet: for I think he means to settle everything for you; he said as much, +sir.” + +Philip glanced over the card, and read, “Mr. George Blackwell, Lincoln’s +Inn.” His brow grew dark--he let the card fall on the ground, put his +foot on it with a quiet scorn, and muttered to himself, “The lawyer +shall not bribe me out of my curse!” He turned to the total of the +bill--not heavy, for poor Catherine had regularly defrayed the expense +of her scanty maintenance and humble lodging--paid the money, and, as +the landlady wrote the receipt, he asked, “Who was the gentleman--the +younger gentleman--who called in the morning of the day my mother died?” + +“Oh, sir! I am so sorry I did not get his name. Mr. Perkins said that he +was some relation. Very odd he has never been since. But he’ll be sure +to call again, sir; you had much better stay here.” + +“No: it does not signify. All that he could do is done. But stay, give +him this note, if he should call.” + +Philip, taking the pen from the landlady’s hand, hastily wrote (while +Mrs. Lacy went to bring him sealing-wax and a light) these words: + +“I cannot guess who you are: they say that you call yourself a relation; +that must be some mistake. I knew not that my poor mother had relations +so kind. But, whoever you be, you soothed her last hours--she died in +your arms; and if ever--years, long years hence--we should chance to +meet, and I can do anything to aid another, my blood, and my life, and +my heart, and my soul, all are slaves to your will. If you be really +of her kindred, I commend to you my brother: he is at ----, with Mr. +Morton. If you can serve him, my mother’s soul will watch over you as +a guardian angel. As for me, I ask no help from any one: I go into +the world and will carve out my own way. So much do I shrink from the +thought of charity from others, that I do not believe I could bless you +as I do now if your kindness to me did not close with the stone upon my +mother’s grave. PHILIP.” + +He sealed this letter, and gave it to the woman. + +“Oh, by the by,” said she, “I had forgot; the Doctor said that if you +would send for him, he would be most happy to call on you, and give you +any advice.” + +“Very well.” + +“And what shall I say to Mr. Blackwell?” + +“That he may tell his employer to remember our last interview.” + +With that Philip took up his bundle and strode from the house. He went +first to the churchyard, where his mother’s remains had been that day +interred. It was near at hand, a quiet, almost a rural, spot. The gate +stood ajar, for there was a public path through the churchyard, and +Philip entered with a noiseless tread. It was then near evening; the sun +had broken out from the mists of the earlier day, and the wistering rays +shone bright and holy upon the solemn place. + +“Mother! mother!” sobbed the orphan, as he fell prostrate before that +fresh green mound: “here--here I have come to repeat my oath, to swear +again that I will be faithful to the charge you have entrusted to your +wretched son! And at this hour I dare ask if there be on this earth one +more miserable and forlorn?” + +As words to this effect struggled from his lips, a loud, shrill +voice--the cracked, painful voice of weak age wrestling with strong +passion, rose close at hand. + +“Away, reprobate! thou art accursed!” + +Philip started, and shuddered as if the words were addressed to himself, +and from the grave. But, as he rose on his knee, and tossing the +wild hair from his eyes, looked confusedly round, he saw, at a short +distance, and in the shadow of the wall, two forms; the one, an old man +with grey hair, who was seated on a crumbling wooden tomb, facing the +setting sun; the other, a man apparently yet in the vigour of life, +who appeared bent as in humble supplication. The old man’s hands were +outstretched over the head of the younger, as if suiting terrible action +to the terrible words, and, after a moment’s pause--a moment, but it +seemed far longer to Philip--there was heard a deep, wild, ghastly howl +from a dog that cowered at the old man’s feet; a howl, perhaps of fear +at the passion of his master, which the animal might associate with +danger. + +“Father! father!” said the suppliant reproachfully, “your very dog +rebukes your curse.” + +“Be dumb! My dog! What hast thou left me on earth but him? Thou hast +made me loathe the sight of friends, for thou hast made me loathe mine +own name. Thou hast covered it with disgrace,--thou hast turned mine +old age into a by-word,--thy crimes leave me solitary in the midst of my +shame!” + +“It is many years since we met, father; we may never meet again--shall +we part thus?” + +“Thus, aha!” said the old man in a tone of withering sarcasm! “I +comprehend,--you are come for money!” + +At this taunt the son started as if stung by a serpent; raised his head +to its full height, folded his arms, and replied: + +“Sir, you wrong me: for more than twenty years I have maintained +myself--no matter how, but without taxing you;--and now, I felt remorse +for having suffered you to discard me,--now, when you are old and +helpless, and, I heard, blind: and you might want aid, even from your +poor good-for-nothing son. But I have done. Forget,--not my sins, but +this interview. Repeal your curse, father; I have enough on my head +without yours; and so--let the son at least bless the father who curses +him. Farewell!” + +The speaker turned as he thus said, with a voice that trembled at the +close, and brushed rapidly by Philip, whom he did not, however, appear +to perceive; but Philip, by the last red beam of the sun, saw again that +marked storm-beaten face which it was difficult, once seen, to forget, +and recognised the stranger on whose breast he had slept the night of +his fatal visit to R----. + +The old man’s imperfect vision did not detect the departure of his son, +but his face changed and softened as the latter strode silently through +the rank grass. + +“William!” he said at last, gently; “William!” and the tears rolled +down his furrowed cheeks; “my son!” but that son was gone--the old man +listened for reply--none came. “He has left me--poor William!--we shall +never meet again;” and he sank once more on the old tombstone, dumb, +rigid, motionless--an image of Time himself in his own domain of Graves. +The dog crept closer to his master, and licked his hand. Philip stood +for a moment in thoughtful silence: his exclamation of despair had been +answered as by his better angel. There was a being more miserable than +himself; and the Accursed would have envied the Bereaved! + +The twilight had closed in; the earliest star--the star of Memory and +Love, the Hesperus hymned by every poet since the world began--was fair +in the arch of heaven, as Philip quitted the spot, with a spirit more +reconciled to the future, more softened, chastened, attuned to gentle +and pious thoughts than perhaps ever yet had made his soul dominant +over the deep and dark tide of his gloomy passions. He went thence to +a neighbouring sculptor, and paid beforehand for a plain tablet to be +placed above the grave he had left. He had just quitted that shop, in +the same street, not many doors removed from the house in which his +mother had breathed her last. He was pausing by a crossing, irresolute +whether to repair at once to the home assigned to Sidney, or to seek +some shelter in town for that night, when three men who were on the +opposite side of the way suddenly caught sight of him. + +“There he is--there he is! Stop, sir!--stop!” + +Philip heard these words, looked up, and recognised the voice and the +person of Mr. Plaskwith; the bookseller was accompanied by Mr. Plimmins, +and a sturdy, ill-favoured stranger. + +A nameless feeling of fear, rage, and disgust seized the unhappy boy, +and at the same moment a ragged vagabond whispered to him, “Stump it, my +cove; that’s a Bow Street runner.” + +Then there shot through Philip’s mind the recollection of the money he +had seized, though but to dash away; was he now--he, still to his own +conviction, the heir of an ancient and spotless name--to be hunted as a +thief; or, at the best, what right over his person and his liberty had +he given to his taskmaster? Ignorant of the law--the law only seemed to +him, as it ever does to the ignorant and the friendless--a Foe. Quicker +than lightning these thoughts, which it takes so many words to describe, +flashed through the storm and darkness of his breast; and at the very +instant that Mr. Plimmins had laid hands on his shoulder his resolution +was formed. The instinct of self beat loud at his heart. With a bound--a +spring that sent Mr. Plimmins sprawling in the kennel, he darted across +the road, and fled down an opposite lane. + +“Stop him! stop!” cried the bookseller, and the officer rushed after +him with almost equal speed. Lane after lane, alley after alley, fled +Philip; dodging, winding, breathless, panting; and lane after lane, and +alley after alley, thickened at his heels the crowd that pursued. The +idle and the curious, and the officious,--ragged boys, ragged men, from +stall and from cellar, from corner and from crossing, joined in that +delicious chase, which runs down young Error till it sinks, too often, +at the door of the gaol or the foot of the gallows. But Philip slackened +not his pace; he began to distance his pursuers. He was now in a street +which they had not yet entered--a quiet street, with few, if any, shops. +Before the threshold of a better kind of public-house, or rather tavern, +to judge by its appearance, lounged two men; and while Philip flew on, +the cry of “Stop him!” had changed as the shout passed to new voices, +into “Stop the thief!”--that cry yet howled in the distance. One of the +loungers seized him: Philip, desperate and ferocious, struck at him with +all his force; but the blow was scarcely felt by that Herculean frame. + +“Pish!” said the man, scornfully; “I am no spy; if you run from justice, +I would help you to a sign-post.” + +Struck by the voice, Philip looked hard at the speaker. It was the voice +of the Accursed Son. + +“Save me! you remember me?” said the orphan, faintly. “Ah! I think I do; +poor lad! Follow me--this way!” The stranger turned within the tavern, +passed the hall through a sort of corridor that led into a back yard +which opened upon a nest of courts or passages. + +“You are safe for the present; I will take you where you can tell me all +at your ease--See!” As he spoke they emerged into an open street, +and the guide pointed to a row of hackney coaches. “Be quick--get in. +Coachman, drive fast to ---” + +Philip did not hear the rest of the direction. + +Our story returns to Sidney. + + + +CHAPTER III. + + + “Nous vous mettrons a couvert, + Repondit le pot de fer + Si quelque matiere dure + Vous menace d’aventure, + Entre deux je passerai, + Et du coup vous sauverai. + ........ + Le pot de terre en souffre!”--LA FONTAINE. + + [“We, replied the Iron Pot, will shield you: should any hard + substance menace you with danger, I’ll intervene, and save you + from the shock. + ......... The Earthen Pot was the sufferer!] + +“SIDNEY, come here, sir! What have you been at? you have torn your frill +into tatters! How did you do this? Come sir, no lies.” + +“Indeed, ma’am, it was not my fault. I just put my head out of the +window to see the coach go by, and a nail caught me here.” + +“Why, you little plague! you have scratched yourself--you are always in +mischief. What business had you to look after the coach?” + +“I don’t know,” said Sidney, hanging his head ruefully. “La, +mother!” cried the youngest of the cousins, a square-built, ruddy, +coarse-featured urchin, about Sidney’s age, “La, mother, he never see a +coach in the street when we are at play but he runs arter it.” + +“After, not arter,” said Mr. Roger Morton, taking the pipe from his +mouth. + +“Why do you go after the coaches, Sidney?” said Mrs. Morton; “it is very +naughty; you will be run over some day.” + +“Yes, ma’am,” said Sidney, who during the whole colloquy had been +trembling from head to foot. + +“‘Yes ma’am,’ and ‘no, ma’am:’ you have no more manners than a cobbler’s +boy.” + +“Don’t tease the child, my dear; he is crying,” said Mr. Morton, more +authoritatively than usual. “Come here, my man!” and the worthy uncle +took him in his lap and held his glass of brandy-and-water to his lips; +Sidney, too frightened to refuse, sipped hurriedly, keeping his large +eyes fixed on his aunt, as children do when they fear a cuff. + +“You spoil the boy more than do your own flesh and blood,” said Mrs. +Morton, greatly displeased. + +Here Tom, the youngest-born before described, put his mouth to his +mother’s ear, and whispered loud enough to be heard by all: “He runs +arter the coach ‘cause he thinks his ma may be in it. Who’s home-sick, I +should like to know? Ba! Baa!” + +The boy pointed his finger over his mother’s shoulder, and the other +children burst into a loud giggle. + +“Leave the room, all of you,--leave the room!” said Mr. Morton, rising +angrily and stamping his foot. + +The children, who were in great awe of their father, huddled and hustled +each other to the door; but Tom, who went last, bold in his mother’s +favour, popped his head through the doorway, and cried, “Good-bye, +little home-sick!” + +A sudden slap in the face from his father changed his chuckle into a +very different kind of music, and a loud indignant sob was heard without +for some moments after the door was closed. + +“If that’s the way you behave to your children, Mr. Morton, I vow you +sha’n’t have any more if I can help it. Don’t come near me--don’t touch +me!” and Mrs. Morton assumed the resentful air of offended beauty. + +“Pshaw!” growled the spouse, and he reseated himself and resumed his +pipe. There was a dead silence. Sidney crouched near his uncle, looking +very pale. Mrs. Morton, who was knitting, knitted away with the excited +energy of nervous irritation. + +“Ring the bell, Sidney,” said Mr. Morton. The boy obeyed--the +parlour-maid entered. “Take Master Sidney to his room; keep the boys +away from him, and give him a large slice of bread and jam, Martha.” + +“Jam, indeed!--treacle,” said Mrs. Morton. + +“Jam, Martha,” repeated the uncle, authoritatively. “Treacle!” + reiterated the aunt. + +“Jam, I say!” + +“Treacle, you hear: and for that matter, Martha has no jam to give!” + +The husband had nothing more to say. + +“Good night, Sidney; there’s a good boy, go and kiss your aunt and make +your bow; and I say, my lad, don’t mind those plagues. I’ll talk to them +to-morrow, that I will; no one shall be unkind to you in my house.” + +Sidney muttered something, and went timidly up to Mrs. Morton. His look +so gentle and subdued; his eyes full of tears; his pretty mouth which, +though silent, pleaded so eloquently; his willingness to forgive, and +his wish to be forgiven, might have melted many a heart harder, +perhaps, than Mrs. Morton’s. But there reigned what are worse than +hardness,--prejudice and wounded vanity--maternal vanity. His contrast +to her own rough, coarse children grated on her, and set the teeth of +her mind on edge. + +“There, child, don’t tread on my gown: you are so awkward: say your +prayers, and don’t throw off the counterpane! I don’t like slovenly +boys.” + +Sidney put his finger in his mouth, drooped, and vanished. + +“Now, Mrs. M.,” said Mr. Morton, abruptly, and knocking out the ashes +of his pipe; “now Mrs. M., one word for all: I have told you that I +promised poor Catherine to be a father to that child, and it goes to my +heart to see him so snubbed. Why you dislike him I can’t guess for the +life of me. I never saw a sweeter-tempered child.” + +“Go on, sir, go on: make your personal reflections on your own lawful +wife. They don’t hurt me--oh no, not at all! Sweet-tempered, indeed; I +suppose your own children are not sweet-tempered?” + +“That’s neither here nor there,” said Mr. Morton: “my own children are +such as God made them, and I am very well satisfied.” + +“Indeed you may be proud of such a family; and to think of the pains I +have taken with them, and how I have saved you in nurses, and the bad +times I have had; and now, to find their noses put out of joint by that +little mischief-making interloper--it is too bad of you, Mr. Morton; you +will break my heart--that you will!” + +Mrs. Morton put her handkerchief to her eyes and sobbed. The husband was +moved: he got up and attempted to take her hand. “Indeed, Margaret, I +did not mean to vex you.” + +“And I who have been such a fa--fai--faithful wi--wi--wife, and brought +you such a deal of mon--mon--money, and always stud--stud--studied your +interests; many’s the time when you have been fast asleep that I have +sat up half the night--men--men--mending the house linen; and you have +not been the same man, Roger, since that boy came!” + +“Well, well” said the good man, quite overcome, and fairly taking her +round the waist and kissing her; “no words between us; it makes life +quite unpleasant. If it pains you to have Sidney here, I will put him +to some school in the town, where they’ll be kind to him. Only, if +you would, Margaret, for my sake--old girl! come, now! there’s a +darling!--just be more tender with him. You see he frets so after his +mother. Think how little Tom would fret if he was away from you! Poor +little Tom!” + +“La! Mr. Morton, you are such a man!--there’s no resisting your ways! +You know how to come over me, don’t you?” + +And Mrs. Morton smiled benignly, as she escaped from his conjugal arms +and smoothed her cap. + +Peace thus restored, Mr. Morton refilled his pipe, and the good lady, +after a pause, resumed, in a very mild, conciliatory tone: + +“I’ll tell you what it is, Roger, that vexes me with that there child. +He is so deceitful, and he does tell such fibs!” + +“Fibs! that is a very bad fault,” said Mr. Morton, gravely. “That must +be corrected.” + +“It was but the other day that I saw him break a pane of glass in the +shop; and when I taxed him with it, he denied it;--and with such a face! +I can’t abide storytelling.” + +“Let me know the next story he tells; I’ll cure him,” said Mr. Morton, +sternly. “You now how I broke Tom of it. Spare the rod, and spoil the +child. And where I promised to be kind to the boy, of course I did not +mean that I was not to take care of his morals, and see that he grew up +an honest man. Tell truth and shame the devil--that’s my motto.” + +“Spoke like yourself, Roger,” said Mrs. Morton, with great animation. +“But you see he has not had the advantage of such a father as you. I +wonder your sister don’t write to you. Some people make a great fuss +about their feelings; but out of sight out of mind.” + +“I hope she is not ill. Poor Catherine! she looked in a very bad way +when she was here,” said Morton; and he turned uneasily to the fireplace +and sighed. + +Here the servant entered with the supper-tray, and the conversation fell +upon other topics. + +Mrs. Roger Morton’s charge against Sidney was, alas! too true. He had +acquired, under that roof, a terrible habit of telling stories. He had +never incurred that vice with his mother, because then and there he had +nothing to fear; now, he had everything to fear;--the grim aunt--even +the quiet, kind, cold, austere uncle--the apprentices--the strange +servants--and, oh! more than all, those hardeyed, loud-laughing +tormentors, the boys of his own age! Naturally timid, severity made him +actually a coward; and when the nerves tremble, a lie sounds as surely +as, when I vibrate that wire, the bell at the end of it will ring. +Beware of the man who has been roughly treated as a child. + +The day after the conference just narrated, Mr. Morton, who was subject +to erysipelas, had taken a little cooling medicine. He breakfasted, +therefore, later than usual--after the rest of the family; and at this +meal pour lui soulager he ordered the luxury of a muffin. Now it so +chanced that he had only finished half the muffin, and drunk one cup +of tea, when he was called into the shop by a customer of great +importance--a prosy old lady, who always gave her orders with remarkable +precision, and who valued herself on a character for affability, which +she maintained by never buying a penny riband without asking the shopman +how all his family were, and talking news about every other family in +the place. At the time Mr. Morton left the parlour, Sidney and Master +Tom were therein, seated on two stools, and casting up division sums +on their respective slates--a point of education to which Mr. Morton +attended with great care. As soon as his father’s back was turned, +Master Tom’s eyes wandered from the slate to the muffin, as it leered +at him from the slop-basin. Never did Pythian sibyl, seated above the +bubbling spring, utter more oracular eloquence to her priest, than +did that muffin--at least the parts of it yet extant--utter to the +fascinated senses of Master Tom. First he sighed; then he moved round +on his stool; then he got up; then he peered at the muffin from a +respectful distance; then he gradually approached, and walked round, and +round, and round it--his eyes getting bigger and bigger; then he peeped +through the glass-door into the shop, and saw his father busily engaged +with the old lady; then he began to calculate and philosophise, perhaps +his father had done breakfast; perhaps he would not come back at all; if +he came back, he would not miss one corner of the muffin; and if he +did miss it, why should Tom be supposed to have taken it? As he thus +communed with himself, he drew nearer into the fatal vortex, and at last +with a desperate plunge, he seized the triangular temptation,-- + + + “And ere a man had power to say ‘Behold!’ + The jaws of Thomas had devoured it up.” + +Sidney, disturbed from his studies by the agitation of his companion, +witnessed this proceeding with great and conscientious alarm. “O Tom!” + said he, “what will your papa say?” + +“Look at that!” said Tom, putting his fist under Sidney’s reluctant +nose. “If father misses it, you’ll say the cat took it. If you don’t--my +eye, what a wapping I’ll give you!” + +Here Mr. Morton’s voice was heard wishing the lady “Good morning!” and +Master Tom, thinking it better to leave the credit of the invention +solely to Sidney, whispered, “Say I’m gone up stairs for my +pocket-hanker,” and hastily absconded. + +Mr. Morton, already in a very bad humour, partly at the effects of the +cooling medicine, partly at the suspension of his breakfast, stalked +into the parlour. His tea-the second cup already poured out, was cold. +He turned towards the muffin, and missed the lost piece at a glance. + +“Who has been at my muffin?” said he, in a voice that seemed to Sidney +like the voice he had always supposed an ogre to possess. “Have you, +Master Sidney?” + +“N--n--no, sir; indeed, sir!” + +“Then Tom has. Where is he?” + +“Gone up stairs for his handkerchief, sir.” + +“Did he take my muffin? Speak the truth!” + +“No, sir; it was the--it was the--the cat, sir!” + +“O you wicked, wicked boy!” cried Mrs. Morton, who had followed her +husband into the parlour; “the cat kittened last night, and is locked up +in the coal-cellar!” + +“Come here, Master Sidney! No! first go down, Margaret, and see if the +cat is in the cellar: it might have got out, Mrs. M.,” said Mr. Morton, +just even in his wrath. + +Mrs. Morton went, and there was a dead silence, except indeed in +Sidney’s heart, which beat louder than a clock ticks. Mr. Morton, +meanwhile, went to a little cupboard;--while still there, Mrs. Morton +returned: the cat was in the cellar--the key turned on her--in no mood +to eat muffins, poor thing!--she would not even lap her milk! like her +mistress, she had had a very bad time! + +“Now come here, sir,” said Mr. Morton, withdrawing himself from the +cupboard, with a small horsewhip in his hand, “I will teach you how to +speak the truth in future! Confess that you have told a lie!” + +“Yes, sir, it was a lie! Pray--pray forgive me: but Tom made me!” + +“What! when poor Tom is up-stairs? worse and worse!” said Mrs. Morton, +lifting up her hands and eyes. “What a viper!” + +“For shame, boy,--for shame! Take that--and that--and that--” + +Writhing--shrinking, still more terrified than hurt, the poor child +cowered beneath the lash. + +“Mamma! mamma!” he cried at last, “Oh, why--why did you leave me?” + +At these words Mr. Morton stayed his hand, the whip fell to the ground. + +“Yet it is all for the boy’s good,” he muttered. “There, child, I hope +this is the last time. There, you are not much hurt. Zounds, don’t cry +so!” + +“He will alarm the whole street,” said Mrs. Morton; “I never see such a +child! Here, take this parcel to Mrs. Birnie’s--you know the house--only +next street, and dry your eyes before you get there. Don’t go through +the shop; this way out.” + +She pushed the child, still sobbing with a vehemence that she could not +comprehend, through the private passage into the street, and returned to +her husband. + +“You are convinced now, Mr. M.?” + +“Pshaw! ma’am; don’t talk. But, to be sure, that’s how I cured Tom of +fibbing.--The tea’s as cold as a stone!” + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + + “Le bien nous le faisons: le mal c’est la Fortune. + On a toujours raison, le Destin toujours tort.”--LA FONTAINE. + + [The Good, we effect ourselves; the Evil is the handiwork of + Fortune. Mortals are always in the right, Destiny always in the + wrong.] + +Upon the early morning of the day commemorated by the historical events +of our last chapter, two men were deposited by a branch coach at the +inn of a hamlet about ten miles distant from the town in which Mr. Roger +Morton resided. Though the hamlet was small, the inn was large, for +it was placed close by a huge finger-post that pointed to three great +roads: one led to the town before mentioned; another to the heart of a +manufacturing district; and a third to a populous seaport. The weather +was fine, and the two travellers ordered breakfast to be taken into an +arbour in the garden, as well as the basins and towels necessary for +ablution. The elder of the travellers appeared to be unequivocally +foreign; you would have guessed him at once for a German. He wore, what +was then very uncommon in this country, a loose, brown linen blouse, +buttoned to the chin, with a leathern belt, into which were stuck a +German meerschaum and a tobacco-pouch. He had very long flaxen hair, +false or real, that streamed half-way down his back, large light +mustaches, and a rough, sunburnt complexion, which made the fairness of +the hair more remarkable. He wore an enormous pair of green spectacles, +and complained much in broken English of the weakness of his eyes. All +about him, even to the smallest minutiae, indicated the German; not only +the large muscular frame, the broad feet, and vast though well-shaped +hands, but the brooch--evidently purchased of a Jew in some great +fair--stuck ostentatiously and superfluously into his stock; the quaint, +droll-looking carpet-bag, which he refused to trust to the boots; and +the great, massive, dingy ring which he wore on his forefinger. The +other was a slender, remarkably upright and sinewy youth, in a blue +frock, over which was thrown a large cloak, a travelling cap, with a +shade that concealed all of the upper part of his face, except a dark +quick eye of uncommon fire; and a shawl handkerchief, which was equally +useful in concealing the lower part of the countenance. On descending +from the coach, the German with some difficulty made the ostler +understand that he wanted a post-chaise in a quarter of an hour; and +then, without entering the house, he and his friend strolled to the +arbour. While the maid-servant was covering the table with bread, +butter, tea, eggs, and a huge round of beef, the German was busy in +washing his hands, and talking in his national tongue to the young man, +who returned no answer. But as soon as the servant had completed her +operations the foreigner turned round, and observing her eyes fixed on +his brooch with much female admiration, he made one stride to her. + +“Der Teufel, my goot Madchen--but you are von var pretty--vat you call +it?” and he gave her, as he spoke, so hearty a smack that the girl was +more flustered than flattered by the courtesy. + +“Keep yourself to yourself, sir!” said she, very tartly, for +chambermaids never like to be kissed by a middle-aged gentleman when +a younger one is by: whereupon the German replied by a pinch,--it is +immaterial to state the exact spot to which that delicate caress was +directed. But this last offence was so inexpiable, that the +“Madchen” bounced off with a face of scarlet, and a “Sir, you are no +gentleman--that’s what you arn’t!” The German thrust his head out of +the arbour, and followed her with a loud laugh; then drawing himself +in again, he said in quite another accent, and in excellent English, +“There, Master Philip, we have got rid of the girl for the rest of +the morning, and that’s exactly what I wanted to do--women’s wits are +confoundedly sharp. Well, did I not tell you right, we have baffled all +the bloodhounds!” + +“And here, then, Gawtrey, we are to part,” said Philip, mournfully. + +“I wish you would think better of it, my boy,” returned Mr. Gawtrey, +breaking an egg; “how can you shift for yourself--no kith nor kin, not +even that important machine for giving advice called a friend--no, not +a friend, when I am gone? I foresee how it must end. [D--- it, salt +butter, by Jove!]” + +“If I were alone in the world, as I have told you again and again, +perhaps I might pin my fate to yours. But my brother!” + +“There it is, always wrong when we act from our feelings. My whole life, +which some day or other I will tell you, proves that. Your brother--bah! +is he not very well off with his own uncle and aunt?--plenty to eat and +drink, I dare say. Come, man, you must be as hungry as a hawk--a slice +of the beef? Let well alone, and shift for yourself. What good can you +do your brother?” + +“I don’t know, but I must see him; I have sworn it.” + +“Well, go and see him, and then strike across the country to me. I will +wait a day for you,--there now!” + +“But tell me first,” said Philip, very earnestly, and fixing his dark +eyes on his companion,--“tell me--yes, I must speak frankly--tell me, +you who would link my fortunes with your own,--tell me, what and who are +you?” + +Gawtrey looked up. + +“What do you suppose?” said he, dryly. + +“I fear to suppose anything, lest I wrong you; but the strange place to +which you took me the evening on which you saved me from pursuit, the +persons I met there--” + +“Well-dressed, and very civil to you?” + +“True! but with a certain wild looseness in their talk that--But I have +no right to judge others by mere appearance. Nor is it this that has +made me anxious, and, if you will, suspicious.” + +“What then?” + +“Your dress--your disguise.” + +“Disguised yourself!--ha! ha! Behold the world’s charity! You fly +from some danger, some pursuit, disguised--you, who hold yourself +guiltless--I do the same, and you hold me criminal--a robber, perhaps--a +murderer it may be! I will tell you what I am: I am a son of Fortune, +an adventurer; I live by my wits--so do poets and lawyers, and all the +charlatans of the world; I am a charlatan--a chameleon. ‘Each man in +his time plays many parts:’ I play any part in which Money, the +Arch-Manager, promises me a livelihood. Are you satisfied?” + +“Perhaps,” answered the boy, sadly, “when I know more of the world, I +shall understand you better. Strange--strange, that you, out of all men, +should have been kind to me in distress!” + +“Not at all strange. Ask the beggar whom he gets the most pence +from--the fine lady in her carriage--the beau smelling of eau de +Cologne? Pish! the people nearest to being beggars themselves keep the +beggar alive. You were friendless, and the man who has all earth for +a foe befriends you. It is the way of the world, sir,--the way of the +world. Come, eat while you can; this time next year you may have no beef +to your bread.” + +Thus masticating and moralising at the same time, Mr. Gawtrey at last +finished a breakfast that would have astonished the whole Corporation +of London; and then taking out a large old watch, with an enamelled +back--doubtless more German than its master--he said, as he lifted up +his carpet-bag, “I must be off--tempos fugit, and I must arrive just in +time to nick the vessels. Shall get to Ostend, or Rotterdam, safe and +snug; thence to Paris. How my pretty Fan will have grown! Ah, you don’t +know Fan--make you a nice little wife one of these days! Cheer up, man, +we shall meet again. Be sure of it; and hark ye, that strange place, as +you call it, where I took you,--you can find it again?” + +“Not I.” + +“Here, then, is the address. Whenever you want me, go there, ask to see +Mr. Gregg--old fellow with one eye, you recollect--shake him by the +hand just so--you catch the trick--practise it again. No, the forefinger +thus, that’s right. Say ‘blater,’ no more--‘blater;’--stay, I will write +it down for you; and then ask for William Gawtrey’s direction. He will +give it you at once, without questions--these signs understood; and if +you want money for your passage, he will give you that also, with advice +into the bargain. Always a warm welcome with me. And so take care of +yourself, and good-bye. I see my chaise is at the door.” + +As he spoke, Gawtrey shook the young man’s hand with cordial vigour, and +strode off to his chaise, muttering, “Money well laid out--fee money; I +shall have him, and, Gad, I like him,--poor devil!” + + + +CHAPTER V. + + + “He is a cunning coachman that can turn well in a narrow room.” + Old Play: from Lamb’s Specimens. + + “Here are two pilgrims, + And neither knows one footstep of the way.” + HEYWOOD’s Duchess of Suffolk, Ibid. + +The chaise had scarce driven from the inn-door when a coach stopped to +change horses on its last stage to the town to which Philip was, bound. +The name of the destination, in gilt letters on the coach-door, caught +his eye, as he walked from the arbour towards the road, and in a few +moments he was seated as the fourth passenger in the “Nelson Slow and +Sure.” From under the shade of his cap, he darted that quick, quiet +glance, which a man who hunts, or is hunted,--in other words, who +observes, or shuns,--soon acquires. At his left hand sat a young woman +in a cloak lined with yellow; she had taken off her bonnet and pinned +it to the roof of the coach, and looked fresh and pretty in a silk +handkerchief, which she had tied round her head, probably to serve as a +nightcap during the drowsy length of the journey. Opposite to her was +a middle-aged man of pale complexion, and a grave, pensive, studious +expression of face; and vis-a-vis to Philip sat an overdressed, showy, +very good-looking man of about two or three and forty. This gentleman +wore auburn whiskers, which met at the chin; a foraging cap, with a +gold tassel; a velvet waistcoat, across which, in various folds, hung a +golden chain, at the end of which dangled an eye-glass, that from time +to time he screwed, as it were, into his right eye; he wore, also, a +blue silk stock, with a frill much crumpled, dirty kid gloves, and over +his lap lay a cloak lined with red silk. As Philip glanced towards this +personage, the latter fixed his glass also at him, with a scrutinising +stare, which drew fire from Philip’s dark eyes. The man dropped his +glass, and said in a half provincial, half haw-haw tone, like the stage +exquisite of a minor theatre, “Pawdon me, and split legs!” therewith +stretching himself between Philip’s limbs in the approved fashion of +inside passengers. A young man in a white great-coat now came to the +door with a glass of warm sherry and water. + +“You must take this--you must now; it will keep the cold out,” (the day +was broiling,) said he to the young woman. + +“Gracious me!” was the answer, “but I never drink wine of a morning, +James; it will get into my head.” + +“To oblige me!” said the young man, sentimentally; whereupon the young +lady took the glass, and looking very kindly at her Ganymede, said, +“Your health!” and sipped, and made a wry face--then she looked at the +passengers, tittered, and said, “I can’t bear wine!” and so, very slowly +and daintily, sipped up the rest. A silent and expressive squeeze of +the hand, on returning the glass, rewarded the young man, and proved the +salutary effect of his prescription. + +“All right!” cried the coachman: the ostler twitched the cloths from +the leaders, and away went the “Nelson Slow and Sure,” with as much +pretension as if it had meant to do the ten miles in an hour. The +pale gentleman took from his waistcoat pocket a little box containing +gum-arabic, and having inserted a couple of morsels between his lips, +he next drew forth a little thin volume, which from the manner the lines +were printed was evidently devoted to poetry. + +The smart gentleman, who since the episode of the sherry and water +had kept his glass fixed upon the young lady, now said, with a genteel +smirk: + +“That young gentleman seems very auttentive, miss!” + +“He is a very good young man, sir, and takes great care of me.” + +“Not your brother, miss,--eh?” + +“La, sir--why not?” + +“No faumily likeness--noice-looking fellow enough! But your oiyes and +mouth--ah, miss!” + +Miss turned away her head, and uttered with pert vivacity: “I never +likes compliments, sir! But the young man is not my brother.” + +“A sweetheart,--eh? Oh fie, miss! Haw! haw!” and the auburn-whiskered +Adonis poked Philip in the knee with one hand, and the pale gentleman +in the ribs with the other. The latter looked up, and reproachfully; the +former drew in his legs, and uttered an angry ejaculation. + +“Well, sir, there is no harm in a sweetheart, is there?” + +“None in the least, ma’am; I advoise you to double the dose. We often +hear of two strings to a bow. Daun’t you think it would be noicer to +have two beaux to your string?” As he thus wittily expressed himself, +the gentleman took off his cap, and thrust his fingers through a very +curling and comely head of hair; the young lady looked at him with +evident coquetry, and said, “How you do run on, you gentlemen!” + +“I may well run on, miss, as long as I run aufter you,” was the gallant +reply. + +Here the pale gentleman, evidently annoyed by being talked across, shut +his book up, and looked round. His eye rested on Philip, who, whether +from the heat of the day or from the forgetfulness of thought, had +pushed his cap from his brows; and the gentleman, after staring at him +for a few moments with great earnestness, sighed so heavily that it +attracted the notice of all the passengers. + +“Are you unwell, sir?” asked the young lady, compassionately. + +“A little pain in my side, nothing more!” + +“Chaunge places with me, sir,” cried the Lothario, officiously. “Now +do!” The pale gentleman, after a short hesitation, and a bashful excuse, +accepted the proposal. In a few moments the young lady and the beau +were in deep and whispered conversation, their heads turned towards the +window. The pale gentleman continued to gaze at Philip, till the latter, +perceiving the notice he excited, coloured, and replaced his cap over +his face. + +“Are you going to N----? asked the gentleman, in a gentle, timid voice. + +“Yes!” + +“Is it the first time you have ever been there?” + +“Sir!” returned Philip, in a voice that spoke surprise and distaste at +his neighbour’s curiosity. + +“Forgive me,” said the gentleman, shrinking back; “but you remind me +of-of--a family I once knew in the town. Do you know--the--the Mortons?” + +One in Philip’s situation, with, as he supposed, the officers of justice +in his track (for Gawtrey, for reasons of his own, rather encouraged +than allayed his fears), might well be suspicious. He replied therefore +shortly, “I am quite a stranger to the town,” and ensconced himself in +the corner, as if to take a nap. Alas! that answer was one of the many +obstacles he was doomed to build up between himself and a fairer fate. + +The gentleman sighed again, and never spoke more to the end of the +journey. When the coach halted at the inn,--the same inn which had +before given its shelter to poor Catherine,--the young man in the white +coat opened the door, and offered his arm to the young lady. + +“Do you make any stay here, sir?” said she to the beau, as she unpinned +her bonnet from the roof. + +“Perhaps so; I am waiting for my phe-a-ton, which my faellow is to bring +down,--tauking a little tour.” + +“We shall be very happy to see you, sir!” said the young lady, on whom +the phe-a-ton completed the effect produced by the gentleman’s previous +gallantries; and with that she dropped into his hand a very neat card, +on which was printed, “Wavers and Snow, Staymakers, High Street.” + +The beau put the card gracefully into his pocket--leaped from the +coach--nudged aside his rival of the white coat, and offered his arm to +the lady, who leaned on it affectionately as she descended. + +“This gentleman has been so perlite to me, James,” said she. James +touched his hat; the beau clapped him on the shoulder,--“Ah! you are +not a hauppy man,--are you? Oh no, not at all a hauppy man!--Good day to +you! Guard, that hat-box is mine!” + +While Philip was paying the coachman, the beau passed, and whispered +him-- + +“Recollect old Gregg--anything on the lay here--don’t spoil my sport if +we meet!” and bustled off into the inn, whistling “God save the king!” + +Philip started, then tried to bring to mind the faces which he had seen +at the “strange place,” and thought he recalled the features of his +fellow-traveller. However, he did not seek to renew the acquaintance, +but inquired the way to Mr. Morton’s house, and thither he now +proceeded. + +He was directed, as a short cut, down one of those narrow passages at +the entrance of which posts are placed as an indication that they +are appropriated solely to foot-passengers. A dead white wall, which +screened the garden of the physician of the place, ran on one side; a +high fence to a nursery-ground was on the other; the passage was lonely, +for it was now the hour when few persons walk either for business or +pleasure in a provincial town, and no sound was heard save the fall of +his own step on the broad flagstones. At the end of the passage in the +main street to which it led, he saw already the large, smart, showy +shop, with the hot sum shining full on the gilt letters that conveyed +to the eyes of the customer the respectable name of “Morton,”--when +suddenly the silence was broken by choked and painful sobs. He turned, +and beneath a compo portico, jutting from the wall, which adorned the +physician’s door, he saw a child seated on the stone steps weeping +bitterly--a thrill shot through Philip’s heart! Did he recognise, +disguised as it was by pain and sorrow, that voice? He paused, and laid +his hand on the child’s shoulder: “Oh, don’t--don’t--pray don’t--I am +going, I am indeed:” cried the child, quailing, and still keeping his +hands clasped before his face. + +“Sidney!” said Philip. The boy started to his feet, uttered a cry of +rapturous joy, and fell upon his brother’s breast. + +“O Philip!--dear, dear Philip! you are come to take me away back to my +own--own mamma; I will be so good, I will never tease her again,--never, +never! I have been so wretched!” + +“Sit down, and tell me what they have done to you,” said Philip, +checking the rising heart that heaved at his mother’s name. + +So, there they sat, on the cold stone under the stranger’s porch, these +two orphans: Philip’s arms round his brother’s waist, Sidney leaning +on his shoulder, and imparting to him--perhaps with pardonable +exaggeration, all the sufferings he had gone through; and, when he came +to that morning’s chastisement, and showed the wale across the little +hands which he had vainly held up in supplication, Philip’s passion +shook him from limb to limb. His impulse was to march straight into +Mr. Morton’s shop and gripe him by the throat; and the indignation he +betrayed encouraged Sidney to colour yet more highly the tale of his +wrongs and pain. + +When he had done, and clinging tightly to his brother’s broad chest, +said-- + +“But never mind, Philip; now we will go home to mamma.” + +Philip replied-- + +“Listen to me, my dear brother. We cannot go back to our mother. I will +tell you why, later. We are alone in the world--we two! If you will come +with me--God help you!--for you will have many hardships: we shall have +to work and drudge, and you may be cold and hungry, and tired, very +often, Sidney,--very, very often! But you know that, long ago, when I +was so passionate, I never was wilfully unkind to you; and I declare +now, that I would bite out my tongue rather than it should say a harsh +word to you. That is all I can promise. Think well. Will you never miss +all the comforts you have now?” + +“Comforts!” repeated Sidney, ruefully, and looking at the wale over his +hands. “Oh! let--let--let me go with you, I shall die if I stay here. I +shall indeed--indeed!” + +“Hush!” said Philip; for at that moment a step was heard, and the pale +gentleman walked slowly down the passage, and started, and turned his +head wistfully as he looked at the boys. + +When he was gone. Philip rose. + +“It is settled, then,” said he, firmly. “Come with me at once. You shall +return to their roof no more. Come, quick: we shall have many miles to +go to-night.” + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + + “He comes-- + Yet careless what he brings; his one concern + Is to conduct it to the destined inn; + And having dropp’d the expected bag, pass on-- + To him indifferent whether grief or joy.” + COWPER: Description of the Postman. + +The pale gentleman entered Mr. Morton’s shop; and, looking round him, +spied the worthy trader showing shawls to a young lady just married. He +seated himself on a stool, and said to the bowing foreman-- + +“I will wait till Mr. Morton is disengaged.” + +The young lady having closely examined seven shawls, and declared they +were beautiful, said, “she would think of it,” and walked away. Mr. +Morton now approached the stranger. + +“Mr. Morton,” said the pale gentleman; “you are very little altered. You +do not recollect me?” + +“Bless me, Mr. Spencer! is it really you? Well, what a time since we +met! I am very glad to see you. And what brings you to N----? Business?” + +“Yes, business. Let us go within?” + +Mr. Morton led the way to the parlour, where Master Tom, reperched +on the stool, was rapidly digesting the plundered muffin. Mr. Morton +dismissed him to play, and the pale gentleman took a chair. + +“Mr. Morton,” said he, glancing over his dress, “you see I am in +mourning. It is for your sister. I never got the better of that early +attachment--never.” + +“My sister! Good Heavens!” said Mr. Morton, turning very pale; “is she +dead? Poor Catherine!--and I not know of it! When did she die?” + +“Not many days since; and--and--” said Mr. Spencer, greatly affected, “I +fear in want. I had been abroad for some months: on my return last week, +looking over the newspapers (for I always order them to be filed), I +read the short account of her lawsuit against Mr. Beaufort, some time +back. I resolved to find her out. I did so through the solicitor she +employed: it was too late; I arrived at her lodgings two days after +her--her burial. I then determined to visit poor Catherine’s brother, +and learn if anything could be done for the children she had left +behind.” + +“She left but two. Philip, the elder, is very comfortably placed at +R----; the younger has his home with me; and Mrs. Morton is a moth--that +is to say, she takes great pains with him. Ehem! And my poor--poor +sister!” + +“Is he like his mother?” + +“Very much, when she was young--poor dear Catherine!” + +“What age is he?” + +“About ten, perhaps; I don’t know exactly; much younger than the other. +And so she’s dead!” + +“Mr. Morton, I am an old bachelor” (here a sickly smile crossed Mr. +Spencer’s face); “a small portion of my fortune is settled, it is true, +on my relations; but the rest is mine, and I live within my income. +The elder of these boys is probably old enough to begin to take care of +himself. But, the younger--perhaps you have a family of your own, and +can spare him!” + +Mr. Morton hesitated, and twitched up his trousers. “Why,” said he, +“this is very kind in you. I don’t know--we’ll see. The boy is out now; +come and dine with us at two--pot-luck. Well, so she is no more! Heigho! +Meanwhile, I’ll talk it over with Mrs. M.” + +“I will be with you,” said Mr. Spencer, rising. + +“Ah!” sighed Mr. Morton, “if Catherine had but married you she would +have been a happy woman.” + +“I would have tried to make her so,” said Mr. Spencer, as he turned away +his face and took his departure. + +Two o’clock came; but no Sidney. They had sent to the place whither +he had been despatched; he had never arrived there. Mr. Morton grew +alarmed; and, when Mr. Spencer came to dinner, his host was gone in +search of the truant. He did not return till three. Doomed that day to +be belated both at breakfast and dinner, this decided him to part with +Sidney whenever he should be found. Mrs. Morton was persuaded that the +child only sulked, and would come back fast enough when he was hungry. +Mr. Spencer tried to believe her, and ate his mutton, which was burnt to +a cinder; but when five, six, seven o’clock came, and the boy was still +missing,--even Mrs. Morton agreed that it was high time to institute +a regular search. The whole family set off different ways. It was ten +o’clock before they were reunited; and then all the news picked up was, +that a boy, answering Sidney’s description, had been seen with a young +man in three several parts of the town; the last time at the outskirts, +on the high road towards the manufacturing districts. These tidings so +far relieved Mr. Morton’s mind that he dismissed the chilling fear that +had crept there,--that Sidney might have drowned himself. Boys will +drown themselves sometimes! The description of the young man coincided +so remarkably with the fellow-passenger of Mr. Spencer, that he did not +doubt it was the same; the more so when he recollected having seen +him with a fair-haired child under the portico; and yet more, when he +recalled the likeness to Catherine that had struck him in the coach, and +caused the inquiry that had roused Philip’s suspicion. The mystery +was thus made clear--Sidney had fled with his brother. Nothing more, +however, could be done that night. The next morning, active measures +should be devised; and when the morning came, the mail brought to Mr. +Morton the two following letters. The first was from Arthur Beaufort. + +“SIR,--I have been prevented by severe illness from writing to you +before. I can now scarcely hold a pen; but the instant my health is +recovered I shall be with you at N ----, on her deathbed, the mother of +the boy under your charge, Sidney Morton, committed him solemnly to +me. I make his fortunes my care, and shall hasten to claim him at your +kindly hands. But the elder son,--this poor Philip, who has suffered so +unjustly,--for our lawyer has seen Mr. Plaskwith, and heard the whole +story--what has become of him? All our inquiries have failed to track +him. Alas, I was too ill to institute them myself while it was yet time. +Perhaps he may have sought shelter, with you, his uncle; if so, assure +him that he is in no danger from the pursuit of the law,--that his +innocence is fully recognised; and that my father and myself implore him +to accept our affection. I can write no more now; but in a few days I +shall hope to see you. + + + “I am, sir, &c., + “ARTHUR BEAUFORT. + “Berkely Square.” + +The second letter was from Mr. Plaskwith, and ran thus: + +“DEAR MORTON,--Something very awkward has happened,--not my fault, and +very unpleasant for me. Your relation, Philip, as I wrote you word, was +a painstaking lad, though odd and bad mannered,--for want, perhaps, poor +boy! of being taught better, and Mrs. P. is, you know, a very genteel +woman--women go too much by manners--so she never took much to him. +However, to the point, as the French emperor used to say: one evening +he asked me for money for his mother, who, he said, was ill, in a very +insolent way: I may say threatening. It was in my own shop, and before +Plimmins and Mrs. P.; I was forced to answer with dignified rebuke, +and left the shop. When I returned, he was gone, and some +shillings-fourteen, I think, and three sovereigns--evidently from the +till, scattered on the floor. Mrs. P. and Mr. Plimmins were very much +frightened; thought it was clear I was robbed, and that we were to +be murdered. Plimmins slept below that night, and we borrowed butcher +Johnson’s dog. Nothing happened. I did not think I was robbed; because +the money, when we came to calculate, was all right. I know human +nature. He had thought to take it, but repented--quite clear. However, I +was naturally very angry, thought he’d comeback again--meant to +reprove him properly--waited several days--heard nothing of him--grew +uneasy--would not attend longer to Mrs. P.; for, as Napoleon Buonaparte +observed, ‘women are well in their way, not in ours.’ Made Plimmins go +with me to town--hired a Bow Street runner to track him out--cost me +L1. 1s, and two glasses of brandy and water. Poor Mrs. Morton was just +buried--quite shocked! Suddenly saw the boy in the streets. Plimmins +rushed forward in the kindest way--was knocked down--hurt his arm--paid +2s. 6d. for lotion. Philip ran off, we ran after him--could not find +him. Forced to return home. Next day, a lawyer from a Mr. Beaufort--Mr. +George Blackwell, a gentlemanlike man called. Mr. Beaufort will do +anything for him in reason. Is there anything more I can do? I really am +very uneasy about the lad, and Mrs. P. and I have a tiff about it: but +that’s nothing--thought I had best write to you for instructions. + + + “Yours truly, + “C. PLASHWITH. + +“P. S.--Just open my letter to say, Bow Street officer just been +here--has found out that the boy has been seen with a very suspicious +character: they think he has left London. Bow Street officer wants to go +after him--very expensive: so now you can decide.” + +Mr. Spencer scarcely listened to Mr. Plaskwith’s letter, but of +Arthur’s he felt jealous. He would fain have been the only protector to +Catherine’s children; but he was the last man fitted to head the search, +now so necessary to prosecute with equal tact and energy. + +A soft-hearted, soft-headed man, a confirmed valtudinarian, a +day-dreamer, who had wasted away his life in dawdling and maundering +over Simple Poetry, and sighing over his unhappy attachment; no child, +no babe, was more thoroughly helpless than Mr. Spencer. + +The task of investigation devolved, therefore, on Mr. Morton, and he +went about it in a regular, plain, straightforward way. Hand-bills +were circulated, constables employed, and a lawyer, accompanied by Mr. +Spencer, despatched to the manufacturing districts: towards which the +orphans had been seen to direct their path. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + + “Give the gentle South + Yet leave to court these sails.” + BEAUMONT AND FLLTCHER: Beggar’s Bush. + + “Cut your cloth, sir, + According to your calling.”--Ibid. + +Meanwhile the brothers were far away, and He who feeds the young ravens +made their paths pleasant to their feet. Philip had broken to Sidney +the sad news of their mother’s death, and Sidney had wept with bitter +passion. But children,--what can they know of death? Their tears over +graves dry sooner than the dews. It is melancholy to compare the depth, +the endurance, the far-sighted, anxious, prayerful love of a parent, +with the inconsiderate, frail, and evanescent affection of the infant, +whose eyes the hues of the butterfly yet dazzle with delight. It was the +night of their flight, and in the open air, when Philip (his arms round +Sidney’s waist) told his brother-orphan that they were motherless. And +the air was balmy, the skies filled with the effulgent presence of the +August moon; the cornfields stretched round them wide and far, and not +a leaf trembled on the beech-tree beneath which they had sought shelter. +It seemed as if Nature herself smiled pityingly on their young sorrow, +and said to them, “Grieve not for the dead: I, who live for ever, I will +be your mother!” + +They crept, as the night deepened, into the warmer sleeping-place +afforded by stacks of hay, mown that summer and still fragrant. And +the next morning the birds woke them betimes, to feel that Liberty, at +least, was with them, and to wander with her at will. + +Who in his boyhood has not felt the delight of freedom and adventure? to +have the world of woods and sward before him--to escape restriction--to +lean, for the first time, on his own resources--to rejoice in the wild +but manly luxury of independence--to act the Crusoe--and to fancy a +Friday in every footprint--an island of his own in every field? Yes, in +spite of their desolation, their loss, of the melancholy past, of the +friendless future, the orphans were happy--happy in their youth--their +freedom--their love--their wanderings in the delicious air of the +glorious August. Sometimes they came upon knots of reapers lingering in +the shade of the hedge-rows over their noonday meal; and, grown sociable +by travel, and bold by safety, they joined and partook of the rude fare +with the zest of fatigue and youth. Sometimes, too, at night, they saw, +gleam afar and red by the woodside, the fires of gipsy tents. But these, +with the superstition derived from old nursery-tales, they scrupulously +shunned, eying them with a mysterious awe! What heavenly twilights +belong to that golden month!--the air so lucidly serene, as the purple +of the clouds fades gradually away, and up soars, broad, round, intense, +and luminous, the full moon which belongs to the joyous season! The +fields then are greener than in the heats of July and June,--they have +got back the luxury of a second spring. And still, beside the paths of +the travellers, lingered on the hedges the clustering honeysuckle--the +convolvulus glittered in the tangles of the brake--the hardy heathflower +smiled on the green waste. + +And ever, at evening, they came, field after field, upon those circles +which recall to children so many charmed legends, and are fresh and +frequent in that month--the Fairy Rings! They thought, poor boys! that +it was a good omen, and half fancied that the Fairies protected them, as +in the old time they had often protected the desolate and outcast. + +They avoided the main roads, and all towns, with suspicious care. But +sometimes they paused, for food and rest, at the obscure hostel of some +scattered hamlet: though, more often, they loved to spread the simple +food they purchased by the way under some thick tree, or beside a stream +through whose limpid waters they could watch the trout glide and play. +And they often preferred the chance shelter of a haystack, or a shed, to +the less romantic repose offered by the small inns they alone dared +to enter. They went in this much by the face and voice of the host or +hostess. Once only Philip had entered a town, on the second day of their +flight, and that solely for the purchase of ruder clothes, and a change +of linen for Sidney, with some articles and implements of use +necessary in their present course of shift and welcome hardship. A wise +precaution; for, thus clad, they escaped suspicion. + +So journeying, they consumed several days; and, having taken a direction +quite opposite to that which led to the manufacturing districts, whither +pursuit had been directed, they were now in the centre of another +county--in the neighbourhood of one of the most considerable towns of +England; and here Philip began to think their wanderings ought to +cease, and it was time to settle on some definite course of life. He +had carefully hoarded about his person, and most thriftily managed, +the little fortune bequeathed by his mother. But Philip looked on this +capital as a deposit sacred to Sidney; it was not to be spent, but kept +and augmented--the nucleus for future wealth. Within the last few weeks +his character was greatly ripened, and his powers of thought enlarged. +He was no more a boy,--he was a man: he had another life to take care +of. He resolved, then, to enter the town they were approaching, and to +seek for some situation by which he might maintain both. Sidney was very +loath to abandon their present roving life; but he allowed that the warm +weather could not always last, and that in winter the fields would be +less pleasant. He, therefore, with a sigh, yielded to his brother’s +reasonings. + +They entered the fair and busy town of one day at noon; and, after +finding a small lodging, at which he deposited Sidney, who was fatigued +with their day’s walk, Philip sallied forth alone. + +After his long rambling, Philip was pleased and struck with the broad +bustling streets, the gay shops--the evidences of opulence and trade. He +thought it hard if he could not find there a market for the health and +heart of sixteen. He strolled slowly and alone along the streets, till +his attention was caught by a small corner shop, in the window of which +was placed a board, bearing this inscription: + +“OFFICE FOR EMPLOYMENT.--RECIPROCAL ADVANTAGE. + +“Mr. John Clump’s bureau open every day, from ten till four. Clerks, +servants, labourers, &c., provided with suitable situations. Terms +moderate. N.B.--The oldest established office in the town. + +“Wanted, a good cook. An under gardener.” + +What he sought was here! Philip entered, and saw a short fat man with +spectacles, seated before a desk, poring upon the well-filled leaves of +a long register. + +“Sir,” said Philip, “I wish for a situation. I don’t care what.” + +“Half-a-crown for entry, if you please. That’s right. Now for +particulars. Hum!--you don’t look like a servant!” + +“No; I wish for any place where my education can be of use. I can read +and write; I know Latin and French; I can draw; I know arithmetic and +summing.” + +“Very well; very genteel young man--prepossessing appearance (that’s a +fudge!), highly educated; usher in a school, eh?” + +“What you like.” + +“References?” + +“I have none.” + +“Eh!--none?” and Mr. Clump fixed his spectacles full upon Philip. + +Philip was prepared for the question, and had the sense to perceive that +a frank reply was his best policy. “The fact is,” said he boldly, “I was +well brought up; my father died; I was to be bound apprentice to a trade +I disliked; I left it, and have now no friends.” + +“If I can help you, I will,” said Mr. Clump, coldly. “Can’t promise +much. If you were a labourer, character might not matter; but educated +young men must have a character. Hands always more useful than head. +Education no avail nowadays; common, quite common. Call again on +Monday.” + +Somewhat disappointed and chilled, Philip turned from the bureau; but he +had a strong confidence in his own resources, and recovered his spirits +as he mingled with the throng. He passed, at length, by a livery-stable, +and paused, from old associations, as he saw a groom in the mews +attempting to manage a young, hot horse, evidently unbroken. The master +of the stables, in a green short jacket and top-boots, with a long +whip in his hand, was standing by, with one or two men who looked like +horsedealers. + +“Come off, clumsy! you can’t manage that I ‘ere fine hanimal,” cried the +liveryman. “Ah! he’s a lamb, sir, if he were backed properly. But I +has not a man in the yard as can ride since Will died. Come off, I say, +lubber!” + +But to come off, without being thrown off, was more easily said than +done. The horse was now plunging as if Juno had sent her gadfly to him; +and Philip, interested and excited, came nearer and nearer, till he +stood by the side of the horse-dealers. The other ostlers ran to the +help of their comrade, who at last, with white lips and shaking knees, +found himself on terra firma; while the horse, snorting hard, and +rubbing his head against the breast and arms of the ostler, who held him +tightly by the rein, seemed to ask, in his own way, “Are there any more +of you?” + +A suspicion that the horse was an old acquaintance crossed Philip’s +mind; he went up to him, and a white spot over the left eye confirmed +his doubts. It had been a foal reserved and reared for his own riding! +one that, in his prosperous days, had ate bread from his hand, and +followed him round the paddock like a dog; one that he had mounted in +sport, without saddle, when his father’s back was turned; a friend, +in short, of the happy Lang syne;--nay, the very friend to whom he had +boasted his affection, when, standing with Arthur Beaufort under the +summer sky, the whole world seemed to him full of friends. He put his +hand on the horse’s neck, and whispered, “Soho! So, Billy!” and the +horse turned sharp round with a quick joyous neigh. + +“If you please, sir,” said Philip, appealing to the liveryman, “I will +undertake to ride this horse, and take him over yon leaping-bar. Just +let me try him.” + +“There’s a fine-spirited lad for you!” said the liveryman, much pleased +at the offer. “Now, gentlemen, did I not tell you that ‘ere hanimal had +no vice if he was properly managed?” + +The horse-dealers shook their heads. + +“May I give him some bread first?” asked Philip; and the ostler was +despatched to the house. Meanwhile the animal evinced various signs +of pleasure and recognition, as Philip stroked and talked to him; and, +finally, when he ate the bread from the young man’s hand, the whole yard +seemed in as much delight and surprise as if they had witnessed one of +Monsieur Van Amburgh’s exploits. + +And now, Philip, still caressing the horse, slowly and cautiously +mounted; the animal made one bound half-across the yard--a bound which +sent all the horse-dealers into a corner--and then went through his +paces, one after the other, with as much ease and calm as if he had been +broken in at Mr. Fozard’s to carry a young lady. And when he crowned all +by going thrice over the leaping-bar, and Philip, dismounting, threw the +reins to the ostler, and turned triumphantly to the horse-dealer, that +gentleman slapped him on the back, and said, emphatically, “Sir, you are +a man! and I am proud to see you here.” + +Meanwhile the horse-dealers gathered round the animal; looked at his +hoofs, felt his legs, examined his windpipe, and concluded the bargain, +which, but for Philip, would have been very abruptly broken off. When +the horse was led out of the yard, the liveryman, Mr. Stubmore, turned +to Philip, who, leaning against the wall, followed the poor animal with +mournful eyes. + +“My good sir, you have sold that horse for me--that you have! Anything +as I can do for you? One good turn de serves another. Here’s a brace of +shiners.” + +“Thank you, sir! I want no money, but I do want some employment. I can +be of use to you, perhaps, in your establishment. I have been brought up +among horses all my life.” + +“Saw it, sir! that’s very clear. I say, that ‘ere horse knows you!” and +the dealer put his finger to his nose. + +“Quite right to be mum! He was bred by an old customer of mine--famous +rider!--Mr. Beaufort. Aha! that’s where you knew him, I s’pose. Were you +in his stables?” + +“Hem--I knew Mr. Beaufort well.” + +“Did you? You could not know a better man. Well, I shall be very glad +to engage you, though you seem by your hands to be a bit of a +gentleman--eh? Never mind; don’t want you to groom!--but superintend +things. D’ye know accounts, eh?” + +“Yes.” + +“Character?” + +Philip repeated to Mr. Stubmore the story he had imparted to Mr. Clump. +Somehow or other, men who live much with horses are always more lax in +their notions than the rest of mankind. Mr. Stubmore did not seem to +grow more distant at Philip’s narration. + +“Understand you perfectly, my man. Brought up with them ‘ere fine +creturs, how could you nail your nose to a desk? I’ll take you without +more palaver. What’s your name?” + +“Philips.” + +“Come to-morrow, and we’ll settle about wages. Sleep here?” + +“No. I have a brother whom I must lodge with, and for whose sake I wish +to work. I should not like him to be at the stables--he is too young. +But I can come early every day, and go home late.” + +“Well, just as you like, my man. Good day.” + +And thus, not from any mental accomplishment--not from the result of his +intellectual education, but from the mere physical capacity and brute +habit of sticking fast on his saddle, did Philip Morton, in this great, +intelligent, gifted, civilised, enlightened community of Great Britain, +find the means of earning his bread without stealing it. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + + “Don Salluste (souriunt). Je paire + Que vous ne pensiez pas a moi?”--Ruy Blas. + + “Don Salluste. Cousin! + Don Cesar. De vos bienfaits je n’aurai nulle envie, + Tant que je trouverai vivant ma libre vie.”--Ibid. + + Don Sallust (smiling). I’ll lay a wager you won’t think of me? + Don Sallust. Cousin! + Don Caesar. I covet not your favours, so but I lead an independent + life. + +Phillip’s situation was agreeable to his habits. His great courage and +skill in horsemanship were not the only qualifications useful to Mr. +Stubmore: his education answered a useful purpose in accounts, and +his manners and appearance were highly to the credit of the yard. The +customers and loungers soon grew to like Gentleman Philips, as he was +styled in the establishment. Mr. Stubmore conceived a real affection for +him. So passed several weeks; and Philip, in this humble capacity, might +have worked out his destinies in peace and comfort, but for a new +cause of vexation that arose in Sidney. This boy was all in all to his +brother. For him he had resisted the hearty and joyous invitations +of Gawtrey (whose gay manner and high spirits had, it must be owned, +captivated his fancy, despite the equivocal mystery of the man’s +avocations and condition); for him he now worked and toiled, cheerful +and contented; and him he sought to save from all to which he subjected +himself. He could not bear that that soft and delicate child should ever +be exposed to the low and menial associations that now made up his +own life--to the obscene slang of grooms and ostlers--to their coarse +manners and rough contact. He kept him, therefore, apart and aloof in +their little lodging, and hoped in time to lay by, so that Sidney might +ultimately be restored, if not to his bright original sphere, at least +to a higher grade than that to which Philip was himself condemned. But +poor Sidney could not bear to be thus left alone--to lose sight of his +brother from daybreak till bed-time--to have no one to amuse him; +he fretted and pined away: all the little inconsiderate selfishness, +uneradicated from his breast by his sufferings, broke out the more, the +more he felt that he was the first object on earth to Philip. Philip, +thinking he might be more cheerful at a day-school, tried the experiment +of placing him at one where the boys were much of his own age. But +Sidney, on the third day, came back with a black eye, and he would +return no more. Philip several times thought of changing their lodging +for one where there were young people. But Sidney had taken a fancy to +the kind old widow who was their landlady, and cried at the thought of +removal. Unfortunately, the old woman was deaf and rheumatic; and though +she bore teasing ad libitum, she could not entertain the child long on +a stretch. Too young to be reasonable, Sidney could not, or would not, +comprehend why his brother was so long away from him; and once he said, +peevishly,-- + +“If I had thought I was to be moped up so, I would not have left Mrs. +Morton. Tom was a bad boy, but still it was somebody to play with. I +wish I had not gone away with you!” + +This speech cut Philip to the heart. What, then, he had taken from the +child a respectable and safe shelter--the sure provision of a life--and +the child now reproached him! When this was said to him, the tears +gushed from his eyes. “God forgive me, Sidney,” said he, and turned +away. + +But then Sidney, who had the most endearing ways with him, seeing his +brother so vexed, ran up and kissed him, and scolded himself for being +naughty. Still the words were spoken, and their meaning rankled deep. +Philip himself, too, was morbid in his excessive tenderness for this +boy. There is a certain age, before the love for the sex commences, when +the feeling of friendship is almost a passion. You see it constantly +in girls and boys at school. It is the first vague craving of the heart +after the master food of human life--Love. It has its jealousies, and +humours, and caprices, like love itself. Philip was painfully acute to +Sidney’s affection, was jealous of every particle of it. He dreaded lest +his brother should ever be torn from him. + +He would start from his sleep at night, and go to Sidney’s bed to see +that he was there. He left him in the morning with forebodings--he +returned in the dark with fear. Meanwhile the character of this young +man, so sweet and tender to Sidney, was gradually becoming more hard and +stern to others. He had now climbed to the post of command in that rude +establishment; and premature command in any sphere tends to make men +unsocial and imperious. + +One day Mr. Stubmore called him into his own countinghouse, where stood +a gentleman, with one hand in his coatpocket, the other tapping his whip +against his boot. + +“Philips, show this gentleman the brown mare. She is a beauty in +harness, is she not? This gentleman wants a match for his pheaton.” + +“She must step very hoigh,” said the gentleman, turning round: and +Philip recognised the beau in the stage-coach. The recognition was +simultaneous. The beau nodded, then whistled, and winked. + +“Come, my man, I am at your service,” said he. + +Philip, with many misgivings, followed him across the yard. The +gentleman then beckoned him to approach. + +“You, sir,--moind, I never peach--setting up here in the honest line? +Dull work, honesty,--eh?” + +“Sir, I really don’t know you.” + +“Daun’t you recollect old Greggs, the evening you came there with jolly +Bill Gawtrey? Recollect that, eh?” Philip was mute. + +“I was among the gentlemen in the back parlour who shook you by the +hand. Bill’s off to France, then. I am tauking the provinces. I want a +good horse--the best in the yard, moind! Cutting such a swell here! My +name is Captain de Burgh Smith--never moind yours, my fine faellow. Now, +then, out with your rattlers, and keep your tongue in your mouth.” + +Philip mechanically ordered out the brown mare, which Captain Smith did +not seem much to approve of; and, after glancing round the stables with +great disdain of the collection, he sauntered out of the yard without +saying more to Philip, though he stopped and spoke a few sentences to +Mr. Stubmore. Philip hoped he had no design of purchasing, and that +he was rid, for the present, of so awkward a customer. Mr. Stubmore +approached Philip. + +“Drive over the greys to Sir John,” said he. “My lady wants a pair to +job. A very pleasant man, that Captain Smith. I did not know you had +been in a yard before--says you were the pet at Elmore’s in London. +Served him many a day. Pleasant, gentlemanlike man!” + +“Y-e-s!” said Philip, hardly knowing what he said, and hurrying back +into the stables to order out the greys. The place to which he was bound +was some miles distant, and it was sunset when he returned. As he drove +into the main street, two men observed him closely. + +“That is he! I am almost sure it is,” said one. “Oh! then it’s all +smooth sailing,” replied the other. + +“But, bless my eyes! you must be mistaken! See whom he’s talking to +now!” + +At that moment Captain de Burgh Smith, mounted on the brown mare, +stopped Philip. + +“Well, you see, I’ve bought her,--hope she’ll turn out well. What do you +really think she’s worth? Not to buy, but to sell?” + +“Sixty guineas.” + +“Well, that’s a good day’s work; and I owe it to you. The old faellow +would not have trusted me if you had not served me at Elmore’s--ha! ha! +If he gets scent and looks shy at you, my lad, come to me. I’m at the +Star Hotel for the next few days. I want a tight faellow like you, and +you shall have a fair percentage. I’m none of your stingy ones. I say, I +hope this devil is quiet? She cocks up her ears dawmnably!” + +“Look you, sir!” said Philip, very gravely, and rising up in his break; +“I know very little of you, and that little is not much to your credit. +I give you fair warning that I shall caution my employer against you.” + +“Will you, my fine faellow? then take care of yourself.” + +“Stay, and if you dare utter a word against me,” said Philip, with +that frown to which his swarthy complexion and flashing eyes gave an +expression of fierce power beyond his years, “you will find that, as +I am the last to care for a threat, so I am the first to resent an +injury!” + +Thus saying, he drove on. Captain Smith affected a cough, and put his +brown mare into a canter. The two men followed Philip as he drove into +the yard. + +“What do you know against the person he spoke to?” said one of them. + +“Merely that he is one of the cunningest swells on this side the Bay,” + returned the other. “It looks bad for your young friend.” + +The first speaker shook his head and made no reply. + +On gaining the yard, Philip found that Mr. Stubmore had gone out, and +was not expected home till the next day. He had some relations who were +farmers, whom he often visited; to them he was probably gone. + +Philip, therefore, deferring his intended caution against the gay +captain till the morrow, and musing how the caution might be most +discreetly given, walked homeward. He had just entered the lane that led +to his lodgings, when he saw the two men I have spoken of on the other +side of the street. The taller and better-dressed of the two left his +comrade; and crossing over to Philip, bowed, and thus accosted him,-- + +“Fine evening, Mr. Philip Morton. I am rejoiced to see you at last. You +remember me--Mr. Blackwell, Lincoln’s Inn.” + +“What is your business?” said Philip, halting, and speaking short and +fiercely. + +“Now don’t be in a passion, my dear sir,--now don’t. I am here on behalf +of my clients, Messrs. Beaufort, sen. and jun. I have had such work to +find you! Dear, dear! but you are a sly one! Ha! ha! Well, you see we +have settled that little affair of Plaskwith’s for you (might have been +ugly), and now I hope you will--” + +“To your business, sir! What do you want with me?” + +“Why, now, don’t be so quick! ‘Tis not the way to do business. Suppose +you step to my hotel. A glass of wine now, Mr. Philip! We shall soon +understand each other.” + +“Out of my path, or speak plainly!” + +Thus put to it, the lawyer, casting a glance at his stout companion, who +appeared to be contemplating the sunset on the other side of the way, +came at once to the marrow of his subject. + +“Well, then,--well, my say is soon said. Mr. Arthur Beaufort takes a +most lively interest in you; it is he who has directed this inquiry. He +bids me say that he shall be most happy--yes, most happy--to serve you +in anything; and if you will but see him, he is in the town, I am sure +you will be charmed with him--most amiable young man!” + +“Look you, sir,” said Philip, drawing himself up “neither from father, +nor from son, nor from one of that family, on whose heads rest the +mother’s death and the orphans’ curse, will I ever accept boon or +benefit--with them, voluntarily, I will hold no communion; if they force +themselves in my path, let them beware! I am earning my bread in the way +I desire--I am independent--I want them not. Begone!” + +With that, Philip pushed aside the lawyer and strode on rapidly. Mr. +Blackwell, abashed and perplexed, returned to his companion. + +Philip regained his home, and found Sidney stationed at the window +alone, and with wistful eyes noting the flight of the grey moths as they +darted to and fro, across the dull shrubs that, variegated with lines +for washing, adorned the plot of ground which the landlady called a +garden. The elder brother had returned at an earlier hour than usual, +and Sidney did not at first perceive him enter. When he did he clapped +his hands, and ran to him. + +“This is so good in you, Philip. I have been so dull; you will come and +play now?” + +“With all my heart--where shall we play?” said Philip, with a cheerful +smile. + +“Oh, in the garden!--it’s such a nice time for hide and seek.” + +“But is it not chill and damp for you?” said Philip. + +“There now; you are always making excuses. I see you don’t like it. I +have no heart to play now.” + +Sidney seated himself and pouted. + +“Poor Sidney! you must be dull without me. Yes, let us play; but put on +this handkerchief;” and Philip took off his own cravat and tied it round +his brother’s neck, and kissed him. + +Sidney, whose anger seldom lasted long, was reconciled; and they went +into the garden to play. It was a little spot, screened by an old +moss-grown paling, from the neighbouring garden on the one side and +a lane on the other. They played with great glee till the night grew +darker and the dews heavier. + +“This must be the last time,” cried Philip. “It is my turn to hide.” + +“Very well! Now, then.” + +Philip secreted himself behind a poplar; and as Sidney searched for him, +and Philip stole round and round the tree, the latter, happening to look +across the paling, saw the dim outline of a man’s figure in the lane, +who appeared watching them. A thrill shot across his breast. These +Beauforts, associated in his thoughts with every evil omen and augury, +had they set a spy upon his movements? He remained erect and gazing +at the form, when Sidney discovered, and ran up to him, with his noisy +laugh. + +As the child clung to him, shouting with gladness, Philip, unheeding his +playmate, called aloud and imperiously to the stranger-- + +“What are you gaping at? Why do you stand watching us?” + +The man muttered something, moved on, and disappeared. “I hope there +are no thieves here! I am so much afraid of thieves,” said Sidney, +tremulously. + +The fear grated on Philip’s heart. Had he not himself, perhaps, been +judged and treated as a thief? He said nothing, but drew his brother +within; and there, in their little room, by the one poor candle, it was +touching and beautiful to see these boys--the tender patience of the +elder lending itself to every whim of the younger--now building +houses with cards--now telling stories of fairy and knight-errant--the +sprightliest he could remember or invent. At length, as all was over, +and Sidney was undressing for the night, Philip, standing apart, said to +him, in a mournful voice:-- + +“Are you sad now, Sidney?” + +“No! not when you are with me--but that is so seldom.” + +“Do you read none of the story-books I bought for you?” + +“Sometimes! but one can’t read all day.” + +“Ah! Sidney, if ever we should part, perhaps you will love me no +longer!” + +“Don’t say so,” said Sidney. “But we sha’n’t part, Philip?” + +Philip sighed, and turned away as his brother leaped into bed. Something +whispered to him that danger was near; and as it was, could Sidney grow +up, neglected and uneducated; was it thus that he was to fulfil his +trust? + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + + “But oh, what storm was in that mind!”--CRABBE. Ruth + +While Philip mused, and his brother fell into the happy sleep of +childhood, in a room in the principal hotel of the town sat three +persons, Arthur Beaufort, Mr. Spencer, and Mr. Blackwell. + +“And so,” said the first, “he rejected every overture from the +Beauforts?” + +“With a scorn I cannot convey to you!” replied the lawyer. “But the fact +is, that he is evidently a lad of low habits; to think of his being a +sort of helper to a horse dealer! I suppose, sir, he was always in the +stables in his father’s time. Bad company depraves the taste very soon; +but that is not the worst. Sharp declares that the man he was talking +with, as I told you, is a common swindler. Depend on it, Mr. Arthur, he +is incorrigible; all we can do is to save the brother.” + +“It is too dreadful to contemplate!” said Arthur, who, still ill and +languid, reclined on a sofa. + +“It is, indeed,” said Mr. Spencer; “I am sure I should not know what to +do with such a character; but the other poor child, it would be a mercy +to get hold of him.” + +“Where is Mr. Sharp?” asked Arthur. + +“Why,” said the lawyer, “he has followed Philip at a distance to find +out his lodgings, and learn if his brother is with him. Oh! here he is!” + and Blackwell’s companion in the earlier part of the evening entered. + +“I have found him out, sir,” said Mr. Sharp, wiping his forehead. “What +a fierce ‘un he is! I thought he would have had a stone at my head; but +we officers are used to it; we does our duty, and Providence makes our +heads unkimmon hard!” + +“Is the child with him?” asked Mr. Spencer. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“A little, quiet, subdued boy?” asked the melancholy inhabitant of the +Lakes. + +“Quiet! Lord love you! never heard a noisier little urchin! There they +were, romping and romping in the garden, like a couple of gaol birds.” + +“You see,” groaned Mr. Spencer, “he will make that poor child as bad as +himself.” + +“What shall us do, Mr. Blackwell?” asked Sharp, who longed for his +brandy and water. + +“Why, I was thinking you might go to the horse-dealer the first thing in +the morning; find out whether Philip is really thick with the swindler; +and, perhaps, Mr. Stubmore may have some influence with him, if, without +saying who he is--” + +“Yes,” interrupted Arthur, “do not expose his name.” + +“You could still hint that he ought to be induced to listen to his +friends and go with them. Mr. Stubmore may be a respectable man, and---” + +“I understand,” said Sharp; “I have no doubt as how I can settle it. We +learns to know human natur in our profession;--‘cause why? we gets at +its blind side. Good night, gentlemen!” + +“You seem very pale, Mr. Arthur; you had better go to bed; you promised +your father, you know.” + +“Yes, I am not well; I will go to bed;” and Arthur rose, lighted his +candle, and sought his room. + +“I will see Philip to-morrow,” he said to himself; “he will listen to +me.” + +The conduct of Arthur Beaufort in executing the charge he had undertaken +had brought into full light all the most amiable and generous part +of his character. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, he had +expressed so much anxiety as to the fate of the orphans, that to quiet +him his father was forced to send for Mr. Blackwell. The lawyer had +ascertained, through Dr. ----, the name of Philip’s employer at R----. +At Arthur’s request he went down to Mr. Plaskwith; and arriving there +the day after the return of the bookseller, learned those particulars +with which Mr. Plaskwith’s letter to Roger Morton has already made +the reader acquainted. The lawyer then sent for Mr. Sharp, the +officer before employed, and commissioned him to track the young man’s +whereabout. That shrewd functionary soon reported that a youth every way +answering to Philip’s description had been introduced the night of the +escape by a man celebrated, not indeed for robberies, or larcenies, or +crimes of the coarser kind, but for address in all that more large and +complex character which comes under the denomination of living upon +one’s wits, to a polite rendezvous frequented by persons of a similar +profession. Since then, however, all clue of Philip was lost. But +though Mr. Blackwell, in the way of his profession, was thus publicly +benevolent towards the fugitive, he did not the less privately represent +to his patrons, senior and junior, the very equivocal character that +Philip must be allowed to bear. Like most lawyers, hard upon all who +wander from the formal tracks, he unaffectedly regarded Philip’s flight +and absence as proofs of a reprobate disposition; and this conduct +was greatly aggravated in his eyes by Mr. Sharp’s report, by which it +appeared that after his escape Philip had so suddenly, and, as it +were, so naturally, taken to such equivocal companionship. Mr. Robert +Beaufort, already prejudiced against Philip, viewed matters in the same +light as the lawyer; and the story of his supposed predilections reached +Arthur’s ears in so distorted a shape, that even he was staggered and +revolted:--still Philip was so young--Arthur’s oath to the orphans’ +mother so recent--and if thus early inclined to wrong courses, should +not every effort be made to lure him back to the straight path? With +these views and reasonings, as soon as he was able, Arthur himself +visited Mrs. Lacy, and the note from Philip, which the good lady put +into his hands, affected him deeply, and confirmed all his previous +resolutions. Mrs. Lacy was very anxious to get at his name; but Arthur, +having heard that Philip had refused all aid from his father and Mr. +Blackwell, thought that the young man’s pride might work equally against +himself, and therefore evaded the landlady’s curiosity. He wrote the +next day the letter we have seen, to Mr. Roger Morton, whose address +Catherine had given to him; and by return of post came a letter from the +linendraper narrating the flight of Sidney, as it was supposed with his +brother. This news so excited Arthur that he insisted on going down to +N---- at once, and joining in the search. His father, alarmed for his +health, positively refused; and the consequence was an increase of +fever, a consultation with the doctors, and a declaration that Mr. +Arthur was in that state that it would be dangerous not to let him have +his own way, Mr. Beaufort was forced to yield, and with Blackwell +and Mr. Sharp accompanied his son to N----. The inquiries, hitherto +fruitless, then assumed a more regular and business-like character. +By little and little they came, through the aid of Mr. Sharp, upon the +right clue, up to a certain point. But here there was a double scent: +two youths answering the description, had been seen at a small village; +then there came those who asserted that they had seen the same youths +at a seaport in one direction; others, who deposed to their having taken +the road to an inland town in the other. This had induced Arthur and his +father to part company. Mr. Beaufort, accompanied by Roger Morton, +went to the seaport; and Arthur, with Mr. Spencer and Mr. Sharp, more +fortunate, tracked the fugitives to their retreat. As for Mr. Beaufort, +senior, now that his mind was more at ease about his son, he was +thoroughly sick of the whole thing; greatly bored by the society of +Mr. Morton; very much ashamed that he, so respectable and great a man, +should be employed on such an errand; more afraid of, than pleased with, +any chance of discovering the fierce Philip; and secretly resolved upon +slinking back to London at the first reasonable excuse. + +The next morning Mr. Sharp entered betimes Mr. Stubmore’s +counting-house. In the yard he caught a glimpse of Philip, and managed +to keep himself unseen by that young gentleman. + +“Mr. Stubmore, I think?” + +“At your service, sir.” + +Mr. Sharp shut the glass door mysteriously, and lifting up the corner +of a green curtain that covered the panes, beckoned to the startled +Stubmore to approach. + +“You see that ‘ere young man in the velveteen jacket? you employs him?” + +“I do, sir; he’s my right hand.” + +“Well, now, don’t be frightened, but his friends are arter him. He has +got into bad ways, and we want you to give him a little good advice.” + +“Pooh! I know he has run away, like a fine-spirited lad as he is; and +as long as he likes to stay with me, they as comes after him may get a +ducking in the horse-trough!” + +“Be you a father? a father of a family, Mr. Stubmore?” said Sharp, +thrusting his hands into his breeches pockets, swelling out his stomach, +and pursing up his lips with great solemnity. + +“Nonsense! no gammon with me! Take your chaff to the goslings. I tells +you I can’t do without that ‘ere lad. Every man to himself.” + +“Oho!” thought Sharp, “I must change the tack.” + +“Mr. Stubmore,” said he, taking a stool, “you speaks like a sensible +man. No one can reasonably go for to ask a gentleman to go for to +inconvenience hisself. But what do you know of that ‘ere youngster. Had +you a carakter with him?” + +“What’s that to you?” + +“Why, it’s more to yourself, Mr. Stubmore; he is but a lad, and if he +goes back to his friends they may take care of him, but he got into +a bad set afore he come here. Do you know a good-looking chap with +whiskers, who talks of his pheaton, and was riding last night on a brown +mare?” + +“Y--e--s!” said Mr. Stubmore, growing rather pale, “and I knows the +mare, too. Why, sir, I sold him that mare!” + +“Did he pay you for her?” + +“Why, to be sure, he gave me a cheque on Coutts.” + +“And you took it! My eyes! what a flat!” Here Mr. Sharp closed the orbs +he had invoked, and whistled with that self-hugging delight which men +invariably feel when another man is taken in. + +Mr. Stubmore became evidently nervous. + +“Why, what now;--you don’t think I’m done? I did not let him have the +mare till I went to the hotel,--found he was cutting a great dash there, +a groom, a pheaton, and a fine horse, and as extravagant as the devil!” + +“O Lord!--O Lord! what a world this is! What does he call his-self?” + +“Why, here’s the cheque--George Frederick de--de Burgh Smith.” + +“Put it in your pipe, my man,--put it in your pipe--not worth a d---!” + +“And who the deuce are you, sir?” bawled out Mr. Stubmore, in an equal +rage both with himself and his guest. + +“I, sir,” said the visitor, rising with great dignity,--“I, sir, am of +the great Bow Street Office, and my name is John Sharp!” + +Mr. Stubmore nearly fell off his stool, his eyes rolled in his head, and +his teeth chattered. Mr. Sharp perceived the advantage he had gained, +and continued,-- + +“Yes, sir; and I could have much to say against that chap, who is +nothing more or less than Dashing Jerry, as has ruined more girls and +more tradesmen than any lord in the land. And so I called to give you +a bit of caution; for, says I to myself, ‘Mr. Stubmore is a respectable +man.’” + +“I hope I am, sir,” said the crestfallen horse-dealer; “that was always +my character.” + +“And the father of a family?” + +“Three boys and a babe at the buzzom,” said Mr. Stubmore pathetically. + +“And he sha’n’t be taken in if I can help it! That ‘ere young man as I +am arter, you see, knows Captain Smith--ha! ha!--smell a rat now--eh?” + +“Captain Smith said he knew him--the wiper--and that’s what made me so +green.” + +“Well, we must not be hard on the youngster: ‘cause why? he has friends +as is gemmen. But you tell him to go back to his poor dear relations, +and all shall be forgiven; and say as how you won’t keep him; and if he +don’t go back, he’ll have to get his livelihood without a carakter; and +use your influence with him like a man and a Christian, and what’s more, +like the father of a family--Mr. Stubmore--with three boys and a babe at +the buzzom. You won’t keep him now?” + +“Keep him! I have had a precious escape. I’d better go and see after the +mare.” + +“I doubt if you’ll find her: the Captain caught a sight of me this +morning. Why, he lodges at our hotel. He’s off by this time!” + +“And why the devil did you let him go?” + +“‘Cause I had no writ agin him!” said the Bow Street officer; and he +walked straight out of the counting-office, satisfied that he had “done +the job.” + +To snatch his hat--to run to the hotel--to find that Captain Smith had +indeed gone off in his phaeton, bag and baggage, the same as he came, +except that he had now two horses to the phaeton instead of one--having +left with the landlord the amount of his bill in another cheque upon +Coutts--was the work of five minutes with Mr. Stubmore. He returned +home, panting and purple with indignation and wounded feeling. + +“To think that chap, whom I took into my yard like a son, should have +connived at this! ‘Tain’t the money--‘tis the willany that ‘flicts me!” + muttered Mr. Stubmore, as he re-entered the mews. + +Here he came plump upon Philip, who said-- + +“Sir, I wished to see you, to say that you had better take care of +Captain Smith.” + +“Oh, you did, did you, now he’s gone? ‘sconded off to America, I dare +say, by this time. Now look ye, young man; your friends are after you, I +won’t say anything agin you; but you go back to them--I wash my hands +of you. Quite too much for me. There’s your week, and never let me catch +you in my yard agin, that’s all!” + +Philip dropped the money which Stubmore had put into his hand. “My +friends!--friends have been with you, have they? I thought so--I thank +them. And so you part with me? Well, you have been very kind, very kind; +let us part kindly;” and he held out his hand. + +Mr. Stubmore was softened--he touched the hand held out to him, and +looked doubtful a moment; but Captain de Burgh Smith’s cheque for eighty +guineas suddenly rose before his eyes. He turned on his heel abruptly, +and said, over his shoulder: + +“Don’t go after Captain Smith (he’ll come to the gallows); mend your +ways, and be ruled by your poor dear relatives, whose hearts you are +breaking.” + +“Captain Smith! Did my relations tell you?” + +“Yes--yes--they told me all--that is, they sent to tell me; so you see +I’m d---d soft not to lay hold of you. But, perhaps, if they be gemmen, +they’ll act as sich, and cash me this here cheque!” + +But the last words were said to air. Philip had rushed from the yard. + +With a heaving breast, and every nerve in his body quivering with wrath, +the proud, unhappy boy strode through the gay streets. They had betrayed +him then, these accursed Beauforts! they circled his steps with schemes +to drive him like a deer into the snare of their loathsome charity! The +roof was to be taken from his head--the bread from his lips--so that +he might fawn at their knees for bounty. “But they shall not break my +spirit, nor steal away my curse. No, my dead mother, never!” + +As he thus muttered, he passed through a patch of waste land that led +to the row of houses in which his lodging was placed. And here a voice +called to him, and a hand was laid on his shoulder. He turned, and +Arthur Beaufort, who had followed him from the street, stood behind him. +Philip did not, at the first glance, recognise his cousin; illness had +so altered him, and his dress was so different from that in which he had +first and last beheld him. The contrast between the two young men +was remarkable. Philip was clad in a rough garb suited to his late +calling--a jacket of black velveteen, ill-fitting and ill-fashioned, +loose fustian trousers, coarse shoes, his hat set deep over his pent +eyebrows, his raven hair long and neglected. He was just at that age +when one with strong features and robust frame is at the worst in point +of appearance--the sinewy proportions not yet sufficiently fleshed, and +seeming inharmonious and undeveloped; precisely in proportion, perhaps, +to the symmetry towards which they insensibly mature: the contour of +the face sharpened from the roundness of boyhood, and losing its bloom +without yet acquiring that relief and shadow which make the expression +and dignity of the masculine countenance. Thus accoutred, thus gaunt, +and uncouth, stood Morton. Arthur Beaufort, always refined in his +appearance, seemed yet more so from the almost feminine delicacy which +ill-health threw over his pale complexion and graceful figure; that sort +of unconscious elegance which belongs to the dress of the rich when +they are young--seen most in minutiae--not observable, perhaps, by +themselves-marked forcibly and painfully the distinction of rank between +the two. That distinction Beaufort did not feel; but at a glance it was +visible to Philip. + +The past rushed back on him. The sunny lawn--the gun offered and +rejected--the pride of old, much less haughty than the pride of to-day. + +“Philip,” said Beaufort, feebly, “they tell me you will not accept any +kindness from me or mine. Ah! if you knew how we have sought you!” + +“Knew!” cried Philip, savagely, for that unlucky sentence recalled to +him his late interview with his employer, and his present destitution. +“Knew! And why have you dared to hunt me out, and halloo me down?--why +must this insolent tyranny, that assumes the right over these limbs +and this free will, betray and expose me and my wretchedness wherever I +turn?” + +“Your poor mother--” began Beaufort. + +“Name her not with your lips--name her not!” cried Philip, growing livid +with his emotions. “Talk not of the mercy--the forethought--a Beaufort +could show to her and her offspring! I accept it not--I believe it not. +Oh, yes! you follow me now with your false kindness; and why? Because +your father--your vain, hollow, heartless father--” + +“Hold!” said Beaufort, in a tone of such reproach, that it startled the +wild heart on which it fell; “it is my father you speak of. Let the son +respect the son.” + +“No--no--no! I will respect none of your race. I tell you your father +fears me. I tell you that my last words to him ring in his ears! My +wrongs! Arthur Beaufort, when you are absent I seek to forget them; in +your abhorred presence they revive--they--” + +He stopped, almost choked with his passion; but continued instantly, +with equal intensity of fervour: + +“Were yon tree the gibbet, and to touch your hand could alone save me +from it, I would scorn your aid. Aid! The very thought fires my +blood and nerves my hand. Aid! Will a Beaufort give me back my +birthright--restore my dead mother’s fair name? Minion!--sleek, dainty, +luxurious minion!--out of my path! You have my fortune, my station, my +rights; I have but poverty, and hate, and disdain. I swear, again and +again, that you shall not purchase these from me.” + +“But, Philip--Philip,” cried Beaufort, catching his arm; “hear one--hear +one who stood by your--” + +The sentence that would have saved the outcast from the demons that were +darkening and swooping round his soul, died upon the young Protector’s +lips. Blinded, maddened, excited, and exasperated, almost out of +humanity itself, Philip fiercely--brutally--swung aside the enfeebled +form that sought to cling to him, and Beaufort fell at his feet. Morton +stopped--glared at him with clenched hands and a smiling lip, sprung +over his prostrate form, and bounded to his home. + +He slackened his pace as he neared the house, and looked behind; but +Beaufort had not followed him. He entered the house, and found Sidney +in the room, with a countenance so much more gay than that he had lately +worn, that, absorbed as he was in thought and passion, it yet did not +fail to strike him. + +“What has pleased you, Sidney?” The child smiled. + +“Ah! it is a secret--I was not to tell you. But I’m sure you are not the +naughty boy he says you are.” + +“He!--who?” + +“Don’t look so angry, Philip: you frighten me!” + +“And you torture me. Who could malign one brother to the other?” + +“Oh! it was all meant very kindly--there’s been such a nice, dear, +good gentleman here, and he cried when he saw me, and said he knew dear +mamma. Well, and he has promised to take me home with him and give me a +pretty pony--as pretty--as pretty--oh, as pretty as it can be got! And +he is to call again and tell me more: I think he is a fairy, Philip.” + +“Did he say that he was to take me, too, Sidney?” said Morton, seating +himself, and looking very pale. At that question Sidney hung his head. + +“No, brother--he says you won’t go, and that you are a bad boy--and that +you associate with wicked people--and that you want to keep me shut up +here and not let any one be good to me. But I told him I did not believe +that--yes, indeed, I told him so.” + +And Sidney endeavoured caressingly to withdraw the hands that his +brother placed before his face. + +Morton started up, and walked hastily to and fro the room. “This,” + thought he, “is another emissary of the Beauforts’--perhaps the lawyer: +they will take him from me--the last thing left to love and hope for. I +will foil them.” + +“Sidney,” he said aloud, “we must go hence today, this very hour--nay, +instantly.” + +“What! away from this nice, good gentleman?” + +“Curse him! yes, away from him. Do not cry--it is of no use--you must +go.” + +This was said more harshly than Philip had ever yet spoken to Sidney; +and when he had said it, he left the room to settle with the landlady, +and to pack up their scanty effects. In another hour, the brothers had +turned their backs on the town. + + + +CHAPTER X. + + + “I’ll carry thee + In sorrow’s arms to welcome Misery.” + + HEYWOOD’s Duchess of Sufolk. + + “Who’s here besides foul weather?” + SHAKSPEARE Lear. + +The sun was as bright and the sky as calm during the journey of the +orphans as in the last. They avoided, as before, the main roads, +and their way lay through landscapes that might have charmed a +Gainsborough’s eye. Autumn scattered its last hues of gold over the +various foliage, and the poppy glowed from the hedges, and the wild +convolvuli, here and there, still gleamed on the wayside with a parting +smile. + +At times, over the sloping stubbles, broke the sound of the sportsman’s +gun; and ever and anon, by stream and sedge, they startled the shy wild +fowl, just come from the far lands, nor yet settled in the new haunts +too soon to be invaded. + +But there was no longer in the travellers the same hearts that had made +light of hardship and fatigue. Sidney was no longer flying from a harsh +master, and his step was not elastic with the energy of fear that looked +behind, and of hope that smiled before. He was going a toilsome, weary +journey, he knew not why nor whither; just, too, when he had made +a friend, whose soothing words haunted his childish fancy. He was +displeased with Philip, and in sullen and silent thoughtfulness slowly +plodded behind him; and Morton himself was gloomy, and knew not where in +the world to seek a future. + +They arrived at dusk at a small inn, not so far distant from the town +they had left as Morton could have wished; but the days were shorter +than in their first flight. + +They were shown into a small sanded parlour, which Sidney eyed with +great disgust; nor did he seem more pleased with the hacked and jagged +leg of cold mutton, which was all that the hostess set before them for +supper. Philip in vain endeavoured to cheer him up, and ate to set +him the example. He felt relieved when, under the auspices of a +good-looking, good-natured chambermaid, Sidney retired to rest, and he +was left in the parlour to his own meditations. Hitherto it had been a +happy thing for Morton that he had had some one dependent on him; that +feeling had given him perseverance, patience, fortitude, and hope. But +now, dispirited and sad, he felt rather the horror of being responsible +for a human life, without seeing the means to discharge the trust. +It was clear, even to his experience, that he was not likely to find +another employer as facile as Mr. Stubmore; and wherever he went, he +felt as if his Destiny stalked at his back. He took out his little +fortune and spread it on the table, counting it over and over; it had +remained pretty stationary since his service with Mr. Stubmore, for +Sidney had swallowed up the wages of his hire. While thus employed, the +door opened, and the chambermaid, showing in a gentleman, said, “We have +no other room, sir.” + +“Very well, then,--I’m not particular; a tumbler of braundy and water, +stiffish, cold without, the newspaper--and a cigar. You’ll excuse +smoking, sir?” + +Philip looked up from his hoard, and Captain de Burgh Smith stood before +him. + +“Ah!” said the latter, “well met!” And closing the door, he took off +his great-coat, seated himself near Philip, and bent both his eyes +with considerable wistfulness on the neat rows into which Philip’s +bank-notes, sovereigns, and shillings were arrayed. + +“Pretty little sum for pocket money; caush in hand goes a great way, +properly invested. You must have been very lucky. Well, so I suppose you +are surprised to see me here without my pheaton?” + +“I wish I had never seen you at all,” replied Philip, uncourteously, and +restoring his money to his pocket; “your fraud upon Mr. Stubmore, and +your assurance that you knew me, have sent me adrift upon the world.” + +“What’s one man’s meat is another man’s poison,” said the captain, +philosophically; “no use fretting, care killed a cat. I am as badly off +as you; for, hang me, if there was not a Bow Street runner in the town. +I caught his eye fixed on me like a gimlet: so I bolted--went to N----, +left my pheaton and groom there for the present, and have doubled back, +to bauffle pursuit, and cut across the country. You recollect that noice +girl we saw in the coach; ‘gad, I served her spouse that is to be a +praetty trick! Borrowed his money under pretence of investing it in the +New Grand Anti-Dry-Rot Company; cool hundred--it’s only just gone, sir.” + +Here the chambermaid entered with the brandy and water, the newspaper, +and cigar,--the captain lighted the last, took a deep sup from the +beverage, and said, gaily: + +“Well, now, let us join fortunes; we are both, as you say, ‘adrift.’ +Best way to staund the breeze is to unite the caubles.” + +Philip shook his head, and, displeased with his companion, sought his +pillow. He took care to put his money under his head, and to lock his +door. + +The brothers started at daybreak; Sidney was even more discontented than +on the previous day. The weather was hot and oppressive; they rested for +some hours at noon, and in the cool of the evening renewed their way. +Philip had made up his mind to steer for a town in the thick of a +hunting district, where he hoped his equestrian capacities might again +befriend him; and their path now lay through a chain of vast dreary +commons, which gave them at least the advantage to skirt the road-side +unobserved. But, somehow or other, either Philip had been misinformed as +to an inn where he had proposed to pass the night, or he had missed it; +for the clouds darkened, and the sun went down, and no vestige of human +habitation was discernible. + +Sidney, footsore and querulous, began to weep, and declare that he could +stir no further; and while Philip, whose iron frame defied fatigue, +compassionately paused to rest his brother, a low roll of thunder broke +upon the gloomy air. “There will be a storm,” said he, anxiously. “Come +on--pray, Sidney, come on.” + +“It is so cruel in you, brother Philip,” replied Sidney, sobbing. “I +wish I had never--never gone with you.” + +A flash of lightning, that illuminated the whole heavens, lingered round +Sidney’s pale face as he spoke; and Philip threw himself instinctively +on the child, as if to protect him even from the wrath of the +unshelterable flame. Sidney, hushed and terrified, clung to his +brother’s breast; after a pause, he silently consented to resume their +journey. But now the storm came nearer and nearer to the wanderers. +The darkness grew rapidly more intense, save when the lightning lit up +heaven and earth alike with intolerable lustre. And when at length the +rain began to fall in merciless and drenching torrents, even Philip’s +brave heart failed him. How could he ask Sidney to proceed, when they +could scarcely see an inch before them?--all that could now be done was +to gain the high-road, and hope for some passing conveyance. With fits +and starts, and by the glare of the lightning, they obtained their +object; and stood at last on the great broad thoroughfare, along which, +since the day when the Roman carved it from the waste, Misery hath +plodded, and Luxury rolled, their common way. + +Philip had stripped handkerchief, coat, vest, all to shelter Sidney; +and he felt a kind of strange pleasure through the dark, even to hear +Sidney’s voice wail and moan. But that voice grew more languid and +faint--it ceased--Sidney’s weight hung heavy--heavier on the fostering +arm. + +“For Heaven’s sake, speak!--speak, Sidney!--only one word--I will carry +you in my arms!” + +“I think I am dying,” replied Sidney, in a low murmur; “I am so tired +and worn out I can go no further--I must lie here.” And he sank at once +upon the reeking grass beside the road. At this time the rain +gradually relaxed, the clouds broke away--a grey light succeeded to the +darkness--the lightning was more distant; and the thunder rolled onward +in its awful path. Kneeling on the ground, Philip supported his brother +in his arms, and cast his pleading eyes upward to the softening terrors +of the sky. A star, a solitary star--broke out for one moment, as if to +smile comfort upon him, and then vanished. But lo! in the distance there +suddenly gleamed a red, steady light, like that in some solitary window; +it was no will-o’-the-wisp, it was too stationary--human shelter was +then nearer than he had thought for. He pointed to the light, and +whispered, “Rouse yourself, one struggle more--it cannot be far off.” + +“It is impossible--I cannot stir,” answered Sidney: and a sudden flash +of lightning showed his countenance, ghastly, as if with the damps of +Death. What could the brother do?--stay there, and see the boy perish +before his eyes? leave him on the road and fly to the friendly light? +The last plan was the sole one left, yet he shrank from it in greater +terror than the first. Was that a step that he heard across the road? He +held his breath to listen--a form became dimly visible--it approached. + +Philip shouted aloud. + +“What now?” answered the voice, and it seemed familiar to Morton’s ear. +He sprang forward; and putting his face close to the wayfarer, thought +to recognise the features of Captain de Burgh Smith. The Captain, whose +eyes were yet more accustomed to the dark, made the first overture. + +“Why, my lad, is it you then? ‘Gad, you froightened me!” + +Odious as this man had hitherto been to Philip, he was as welcome to him +as daylight now; he grasped his hand,--“My brother--a child--is here, +dying, I fear, with cold and fatigue; he cannot stir. Will you stay with +him--support him--but for a few moments, while I make to yon light? See, +I have money--plenty of money!” + +“My good lad, it is very ugly work staying here at this hour: +still--where’s the choild?” + +“Here, here! make haste, raise him! that’s right! God bless you! I shall +be back ere you think me gone.” + +He sprang from the road, and plunged through the heath, the furze, +the rank glistening pools, straight towards the light--as the swimmer +towards the shore. + +The captain, though a rogue, was human; and when life--an innocent +life--is at stake, even a rogue’s heart rises up from its weedy bed. +He muttered a few oaths, it is true, but he held the child in his arms; +and, taking out a little tin case, poured some brandy down Sidney’s +throat and then, by way of company, down his own. The cordial revived +the boy; he opened his eyes, and said, “I think I can go on now, +Philip.” + + + ........ + +We must return to Arthur Beaufort. He was naturally, though gentle, a +person of high spirit and not without pride. He rose from the ground +with bitter, resentful feelings and a blushing cheek, and went his way +to the hotel. Here he found Mr. Spencer just returned from his visit +to Sidney. Enchanted with the soft and endearing manners of his lost +Catherine’s son, and deeply affected with the resemblance the child bore +to the mother as he had seen her last at the gay and rosy age of +fair sixteen, his description of the younger brother drew Beaufort’s +indignant thoughts from the elder. He cordially concurred with Mr. +Spencer in the wish to save one so gentle from the domination of one so +fierce; and this, after all, was the child Catherine had most strongly +commended to him. She had said little of the elder; perhaps she had been +aware of his ungracious and untractable nature, and, as it seemed to +Arthur Beaufort, his predilections for a coarse and low career. + +“Yes,” said he, “this boy, then, shall console me for the perverse +brutality of the other. He shall indeed drink of my cup, and eat of my +bread, and be to me as a brother.” + +“What!” said Mr. Spencer, changing countenance, “you do not intend to +take Sidney to live with you. I meant him for my son--my adopted son.” + +“No; generous as you are,” said Arthur, pressing his hand, “this charge +devolves on me--it is my right. I am the orphan’s relation--his mother +consigned him to me. But he shall be taught to love you not the less.” + +Mr. Spencer was silent. He could not bear the thought of losing Sidney +as an inmate of his cheerless home, a tender relic of his early love. +From that moment he began to contemplate the possibility of securing +Sidney to himself, unknown to Beaufort. + +The plans both of Arthur and Spencer were interrupted by the sudden +retreat of the brothers. They determined to depart different ways in +search of them. Spencer, as the more helpless of the two, obtained the +aid of Mr. Sharp; Beaufort departed with the lawyer. + +Two travellers, in a hired barouche, were slowly dragged by a pair of +jaded posters along the commons I have just described. + +“I think,” said one, “that the storm is very much abated; heigho! what +an unpleasant night!” + +“Unkimmon ugly, sir,” answered the other; “and an awful long stage, +eighteen miles. These here remote places are quite behind the age, +sir--quite. However, I think we shall kitch them now.” + +“I am very much afraid of that eldest boy, Sharp. He seems a dreadful +vagabond.” + +“You see, sir, quite hand in glove with Dashing Jerry; met in the same +inn last night--preconcerted, you may be quite shure. It would be the +best day’s job I have done this many a day to save that ‘ere little +fellow from being corrupted. You sees he is just of a size to be useful +to these bad karakters. If they took to burglary, he would be a treasure +to them--slip him through a pane of glass like a ferret, sir.” + +“Don’t talk of it, Sharp,” said Mr. Spencer, with a groan; “and +recollect, if we get hold of him, that you are not to say a word to Mr. +Beaufort.” + +“I understand, sir; and I always goes with the gemman who behaves most +like a gemman.” + +Here a loud halloo was heard close by the horses’ heads. “Good Heavens, +if that is a footpad!” said Mr. Spencer, shaking violently. + +“Lord, sir, I have my barkers with me. Who’s there?” The barouche +stopped--a man came to the window. “Excuse me, sir,” said the stranger; +“but there is a poor boy here so tired and ill that I fear he will never +reach the next town, unless you will koindly give him a lift.” + +“A poor boy!” said Mr. Spencer, poking his head over the head of Mr. +Sharp. “Where?” + +“If you would just drop him at the King’s Awrms it would be a chaurity,” + said the man. + +Sharp pinched Mr. Spencer in his shoulder. “That’s Dashing Jerry; I’ll +get out.” So saying, he opened the door, jumped into the road, and +presently reappeared with the lost and welcome Sidney in his arms. +“Ben’t this the boy?” he whispered to Mr. Spencer; and, taking the lamp +from the carriage, he raised it to the child’s face. + +“It is! it is! God be thanked!” exclaimed the worthy man. + +“Will you leave him at the King’s Awrms?--we shall be there in an hour +or two,” cried the Captain. + +“We! Who’s we?” said Sharp, gruffly. “Why, myself and the choild’s +brother.” + +“Oh!” said Sharp, raising the lantern to his own face; “you knows me, +I think, Master Jerry? Let me kitch you again, that’s all. And give +my compliments to your ‘sociate, and say, if he prosecutes this here +hurchin any more, we’ll settle his bizness for him; and so take a hint +and make yourself scarce, old boy!” + +With that Mr. Sharp jumped into the barouche, and bade the postboy drive +on as fast as he could. + +Ten minutes after this abduction, Philip, followed by two labourers, +with a barrow, a lantern, and two blankets, returned from the hospitable +farm to which the light had conducted him. The spot where he had left +Sidney, and which he knew by a neighbouring milestone, was vacant; he +shouted an alarm, and the Captain answered from the distance of some +threescore yards. Philip came to him. “Where is my brother?” + +“Gone away in a barouche and pair. Devil take me if I understand it.” + And the Captain proceeded to give a confused account of what had passed. + +“My brother! my brother! they have torn thee from me, then;” cried +Philip, and he fell to the earth insensible. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + + “Vous me rendrez mon frere!” + CASIMER DELAVIGNE: Les Enfans d’Edouard. + + [You shall restore me my brother!] + +One evening, a week after this event, a wild, tattered, haggard youth +knocked at the door of Mr. Robert Beaufort. The porter slowly presented +himself. + +“Is your master at home? I must see him instantly.” + +“That’s more than you can, my man; my master does not see the like +of you at this time of night,” replied the porter, eying the ragged +apparition before him with great disdain. + +“See me he must and shall,” replied the young man; and as the porter +blocked up the entrance, he grasped his collar with a hand of iron, +swung him, huge as he was, aside, and strode into the spacious hall. + +“Stop! stop!” cried the porter, recovering himself. “James! John! here’s +a go!” + +Mr. Robert Beaufort had been back in town several days. Mrs. Beaufort, +who was waiting his return from his club, was in the dining-room. +Hearing a noise in the hall, she opened the door, and saw the strange +grim figure I have described, advancing towards her. “Who are you?” said +she; “and what do you want?” + +“I am Philip Morton. Who are you?” + +“My husband,” said Mrs. Beaufort, shrinking into the parlour, while +Morton followed her and closed the door, “my husband, Mr. Beaufort, is +not at home.” + +“You are Mrs. Beaufort, then! Well, you can understand me. I want my +brother. He has been basely reft from me. Tell me where he is, and I +will forgive all. Restore him to me, and I will bless you and yours.” + And Philip fell on his knees and grasped the train of her gown. “I know +nothing of your brother, Mr. Morton,” cried Mrs. Beaufort, surprised +and alarmed. “Arthur, whom we expect every day, writes us word that all +search for him has been in vain.” + +“Ha! you admit the search?” cried Morton, rising and clenching his +hands. “And who else but you or yours would have parted brother and +brother? Answer me where he is. No subterfuge, madam: I am desperate!” + +Mrs. Beaufort, though a woman of that worldly coldness and indifference +which, on ordinary occasions, supply the place of courage, was extremely +terrified by the tone and mien of her rude guest. She laid her hand +on the bell; but Morton seized her arm, and, holding it sternly, said, +while his dark eyes shot fire through the glimmering room, “I will +not stir hence till you have told me. Will you reject my gratitude, my +blessing? Beware! Again, where have you hid my brother?” + +At that instant the door opened, and Mr. Robert Beaufort entered. The +lady, with a shriek of joy, wrenched herself from Philip’s grasp, and +flew to her husband. + +“Save me from this ruffian!” she said, with an hysterical sob. + +Mr. Beaufort, who had heard from Blackwell strange accounts of Philip’s +obdurate perverseness, vile associates, and unredeemable character, was +roused from his usual timidity by the appeal of his wife. + +“Insolent reprobate!” he said, advancing to Philip; “after all the +absurd goodness of my son and myself; after rejecting all our offers, +and persisting in your miserable and vicious conduct, how dare you +presume to force yourself into this house? Begone, or I will send for +the constables to remove YOU! + +“Man, man,” cried Philip, restraining the fury that shook him from head +to foot, “I care not for your threats--I scarcely hear your abuse--your +son, or yourself, has stolen away my brother: tell me only where he is; +let me see him once more. Do not drive me hence, without one word of +justice, of pity. I implore you--on my knees I implore you--yes, I,--I +implore you, Robert Beaufort, to have mercy on your brother’s son. Where +is Sidney?” Like all mean and cowardly men, Robert Beaufort was rather +encouraged than softened by Philip’s abrupt humility. + +“I know nothing of your brother; and if this is not all some villainous +trick--which it may be--I am heartily rejoiced that he, poor child! is +rescued from the contamination of such a companion,” answered Beaufort. + +“I am at your feet still; again, for the last time, clinging to you a +suppliant: I pray you to tell me the truth.” + +Mr. Beaufort, more and more exasperated by Morton’s forbearance, +raised his hand as if to strike; when, at that moment, one hitherto +unobserved--one who, terrified by the scene she had witnessed but could +not comprehend, had slunk into a dark corner of the room,--now came from +her retreat. And a child’s soft voice was heard, saying: + +“Do not strike him, papa!--let him have his brother!” Mr. Beaufort’s arm +fell to his side: kneeling before him, and by the outcast’s side, was +his own young daughter; she had crept into the room unobserved, when her +father entered. Through the dim shadows, relieved only by the red and +fitful gleam of the fire, he saw her fair meek face looking up wistfully +at his own, with tears of excitement, and perhaps of pity--for children +have a quick insight into the reality of grief in those not far removed +from their own years--glistening in her soft eyes. Philip looked round +bewildered, and he saw that face which seemed to him, at such a time, +like the face of an angel. + +“Hear her!” he murmured: “Oh, hear her! For her sake, do not sever one +orphan from the other!” + +“Take away that child, Mrs. Beaufort,” cried Robert, angrily. “Will you +let her disgrace herself thus? And you, sir, begone from this roof; and +when you can approach me with due respect, I will give you, as I said I +would, the means to get an honest living.” + +Philip rose; Mrs. Beaufort had already led away her daughter, and she +took that opportunity of sending in the servants: their forms filled up +the doorway. + +“Will you go?” continued Mr. Beaufort, more and more emboldened, as he +saw the menials at hand, “or shall they expel you?” + +“It is enough, sir,” said Philip, with a sudden calm and dignity that +surprised and almost awed his uncle. “My father, if the dead yet watch +over the living, has seen and heard you. There will come a day for +justice. Out of my path, hirelings!” + +He waved his arm, and the menials shrank back at his tread, stalked +across the inhospitable hall, and vanished. When he had gained the +street, he turned and looked up at the house. His dark and hollow eyes, +gleaming through the long and raven hair that fell profusely over his +face, had in them an expression of menace almost preternatural, from its +settled calmness; the wild and untutored majesty which, though rags and +squalor, never deserted his form, as it never does the forms of men +in whom the will is strong and the sense of injustice deep; the +outstretched arm the haggard, but noble features; the bloomless and +scathed youth, all gave to his features and his stature an aspect awful +in its sinister and voiceless wrath. There he stood a moment, like one +to whom woe and wrong have given a Prophet’s power, guiding the eye of +the unforgetful Fate to the roof of the Oppressor. Then slowly, and with +a half smile, he turned away, and strode through the streets till he +arrived at one of the narrow lanes that intersect the more equivocal +quarters of the huge city. He stopped at the private entrance of a small +pawnbroker’s shop; the door was opened by a slipshod boy; he ascended +the dingy stairs till he came to the second floor; and there, in a small +back room, he found Captain de Burgh Smith, seated before a table with +a couple of candles on it, smoking a cigar, and playing at cards by +himself. + +“Well, what news of your brother, Bully Phil?” + +“None: they will reveal nothing.” + +“Do you give him up?” + +“Never! My hope now is in you.” + +“Well, I thought you would be driven to come to me, and I will do +something for you that I should not loike to do for myself. I told you +that I knew the Bow Street runner who was in the barouche. I will find +him out--Heaven knows that is easily done; and, if you can pay well, you +will get your news.” + +“You shall have all I possess, if you restore my brother. See what it +is, one hundred pounds--it was his fortune. It is useless to me without +him. There, take fifty now, and if--” + +Philip stopped, for his voice trembled too much to allow him farther +speech. Captain Smith thrust the notes into his pocket, and said-- + +“We’ll consider it settled.” + +Captain Smith fulfilled his promise. He saw the Bow Street officer. Mr. +Sharp had been bribed too high by the opposite party to tell tales, and +he willingly encouraged the suspicion that Sidney was under the care +of the Beauforts. He promised, however, for the sake of ten guineas, +to procure Philip a letter from Sidney himself. This was all he would +undertake. + +Philip was satisfied. At the end of another week, Mr. Sharp transmitted +to the Captain a letter, which he, in his turn, gave to Philip. It ran +thus, in Sidney’s own sprawling hand: + +“DEAR BROTHER PHILIP,--I am told you wish to know how I am, and therfore +take up my pen, and assure you that I write all out of my own head. I +am very Comfortable and happy--much more so than I have been since poor +deir mama died; so I beg you won’t vex yourself about me: and pray don’t +try and Find me out, For I would not go with you again for the world. +I am so much better Off here. I wish you would be a good boy, and leave +off your Bad ways; for I am sure, as every one says, I don’t know what +would have become of me if I had staid with you. Mr. [the Mr. half +scratched out] the gentleman I am with, says if you turn out Properly, +he will be a friend to you, Too; but he advises you to go, like a Good +boy, to Arthur Beaufort, and ask his pardon for the past, and then +Arthur will be very kind to you. I send you a great Big sum of L20., and +the gentleman says he would send more, only it might make you naughty, +and set up. I go to church now every Sunday, and read good books, and +always pray that God may open your eyes. I have such a Nice Pony, with +such a long tale. So no more at present from your affectionate brother, +SIDNEY MORTON.” + +Oct. 8, 18-- + +“Pray, pray don’t come after me Any more. You know I neerly died of it, +but for this deir good gentleman I am with.” + +So this, then, was the crowning reward of all his sufferings and all +his love! There was the letter, evidently undictated, with its errors +of orthography, and in the child’s rough scrawl; the serpent’s tooth +pierced to the heart, and left there its most lasting venom. + +“I have done with him for ever,” said Philip, brushing away the bitter +tears. “I will molest him no farther; I care no more to pierce this +mystery. Better for him as it is--he is happy! Well, well, and I--I will +never care for a human being again.” + +He bowed his head over his hands; and when he rose, his heart felt to +him like stone. It seemed as if Conscience herself had fled from his +soul on the wings of departed Love. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + + “But you have found the mountain’s top--there sit + On the calm flourishing head of it; + And whilst with wearied steps we upward go, + See us and clouds below.”--COWLEY. + +It was true that Sidney was happy in his new home, and thither we must +now trace him. + +On reaching the town where the travellers in the barouche had been +requested to leave Sidney, “The King’s Arms” was precisely the inn +eschewed by Mr. Spencer. While the horses were being changed, he +summoned the surgeon of the town to examine the child, who had already +much recovered; and by stripping his clothes, wrapping him in warm +blankets, and administering cordials, he was permitted to reach another +stage, so as to baffle pursuit that night; and in three days Mr. Spencer +had placed his new charge with his maiden sisters, a hundred and fifty +miles from the spot where he had been found. He would not take him to +his own home yet. He feared the claims of Arthur Beaufort. He artfully +wrote to that gentleman, stating that he had abandoned the chase of +Sidney in despair, and desiring to know if he had discovered him; and a +bribe of L300. to Mr. Sharp with a candid exposition of his reasons +for secreting Sidney--reasons in which the worthy officer professed to +sympathise--secured the discretion of his ally. But he would not deny +himself the pleasure of being in the same house with Sidney, and was +therefore for some months the guest of his sisters. At length he heard +that young Beaufort had been ordered abroad for his health, and he +then deemed it safe to transfer his new idol to his Lares by the lakes. +During this interval the current of the younger Morton’s life had indeed +flowed through flowers. At his age the cares of females were almost a +want as well as a luxury, and the sisters spoiled and petted him as much +as any elderly nymphs in Cytherea ever petted Cupid. They were good, +excellent, high-nosed, flat-bosomed spinsters, sentimentally fond of +their brother, whom they called “the poet,” and dotingly attached to +children. The cleanness, the quiet, the good cheer of their neat abode, +all tended to revive and invigorate the spirits of their young guest, +and every one there seemed to vie which should love him the most. Still +his especial favourite was Mr. Spencer: for Spencer never went out +without bringing back cakes and toys; and Spencer gave him his pony; and +Spencer rode a little crop-eared nag by his side; and Spencer, in short, +was associated with his every comfort and caprice. He told them his +little history; and when he said how Philip had left him alone for long +hours together, and how Philip had forced him to his last and nearly +fatal journey, the old maids groaned, and the old bachelor sighed, and +they all cried in a breath, that “Philip was a very wicked boy.” It was +not only their obvious policy to detach him from his brother, but it was +their sincere conviction that they did right to do so. Sidney began, it +is true, by taking Philip’s part; but his mind was ductile, and he still +looked back with a shudder to the hardships he had gone through: and +so by little and little he learned to forget all the endearing and +fostering love Philip had evinced to him; to connect his name with dark +and mysterious fears; to repeat thanksgivings to Providence that he was +saved from him; and to hope that they might never meet again. In fact, +when Mr. Spencer learned from Sharp that it was through Captain Smith, +the swindler, that application had been made by Philip for news of his +brother, and having also learned before, from the same person, that +Philip had been implicated in the sale of a horse, swindled, if not +stolen, he saw every additional reason to widen the stream that flowed +between the wolf and the lamb. The older Sidney grew, the better he +comprehended and appreciated the motives of his protector--for he was +brought up in a formal school of propriety and ethics, and his mind +naturally revolted from all images of violence or fraud. Mr. Spencer +changed both the Christian and the surname of his protege, in order to +elude the search whether of Philip, the Mortons, or the Beauforts, and +Sidney passed for his nephew by a younger brother who had died in India. + +So there, by the calm banks of the placid lake, amidst the fairest +landscapes of the Island Garden, the youngest born of Catherine passed +his tranquil days. The monotony of the retreat did not fatigue a spirit +which, as he grew up, found occupation in books, music, poetry, and the +elegances of the cultivated, if quiet, life within his reach. To the +rough past he looked back as to an evil dream, in which the image of +Philip stood dark and threatening. His brother’s name as he grew older +he rarely mentioned; and if he did volunteer it to Mr. Spencer, the +bloom on his cheek grew paler. The sweetness of his manners, his fair +face and winning smile, still continued to secure him love, and to +screen from the common eye whatever of selfishness yet lurked in his +nature. And, indeed, that fault in so serene a career, and with friends +so attached, was seldom called into action. So thus was he severed +from both the protectors, Arthur and Philip, to whom poor Catherine had +bequeathed him. + +By a perverse and strange mystery, they, to whom the charge was most +intrusted were the very persons who were forbidden to redeem it. On +our death-beds when we think we have provided for those we leave +behind--should we lose the last smile that gilds the solemn agony, if we +could look one year into the Future? + +Arthur Beaufort, after an ineffectual search for Sidney, heard, on +returning to his home, no unexaggerated narrative of Philip’s visit, and +listened, with deep resentment, to his mother’s distorted account of the +language addressed to her. It is not to be surprised that, with all +his romantic generosity, he felt sickened and revolted at violence that +seemed to him without excuse. Though not a revengeful character, he had +not that meekness which never resents. He looked upon Philip Morton as +upon one rendered incorrigible by bad passions and evil company. +Still Catherine’s last request, and Philip’s note to him, the Unknown +Comforter, often recurred to him, and he would have willingly yet aided +him had Philip been thrown in his way. But as it was, when he looked +around, and saw the examples of that charity that begins at home, +in which the world abounds, he felt as if he had done his duty; and +prosperity having, though it could not harden his heart, still sapped +the habits of perseverance, so by little and little the image of +the dying Catherine, and the thought of her sons, faded from his +remembrance. And for this there was the more excuse after the receipt of +an anonymous letter, which relieved all his apprehensions on behalf of +Sidney. The letter was short, and stated simply that Sidney Morton had +found a friend who would protect him throughout life; but who would not +scruple to apply to Beaufort if ever he needed his assistance. So one +son, and that the youngest and the best loved, was safe. And the other, +had he not chosen his own career? Alas, poor Catherine! when you fancied +that Philip was the one sure to force his way into fortune, and Sidney +the one most helpless, how ill did you judge of the human heart! It +was that very strength of Philip’s nature which tempted the winds that +scattered the blossoms, and shook the stem to its roots; while the +lighter and frailer nature bent to the gale, and bore transplanting to a +happier soil. If a parent read these pages, let him pause and think well +on the characters of his children; let him at once fear and hope the +most for the one whose passions and whose temper lead to a struggle with +the world. That same world is a tough wrestler, and has a bear’s gripe. + +Meanwhile, Arthur Beaufort’s own complaints, which grew serious and +menaced consumption, recalled his thoughts more and more every day to +himself. He was compelled to abandon his career at the University, +and to seek for health in the softer breezes of the South. His parents +accompanied him to Nice; and when, at the end of a few months, he was +restored to health, the desire of travel seized the mind and attracted +the fancy of the young heir. His father and mother, satisfied with +his recovery, and not unwilling that he should acquire the polish of +Continental intercourse, returned to England; and young Beaufort, with +gay companions and munificent income, already courted, spoiled, and +flattered, commenced his tour with the fair climes of Italy. + +So, O dark mystery of the Moral World!--so, unlike the order of the +External Universe, glide together, side by side, the shadowy steeds +of NIGHT AND MORNING. Examine life in its own world; confound not that +world, the inner one, the practical one, with the more visible, yet +airier and less substantial system, doing homage to the sun, to whose +throne, afar in the infinite space, the human heart has no wings to +flee. In life, the mind and the circumstance give the true seasons, and +regulate the darkness and the light. Of two men standing on the same +foot of earth, the one revels in the joyous noon, the other shudders +in the solitude of night. For Hope and Fortune, the day-star is ever +shining. For Care and Penury, Night changes not with the ticking of the +clock, nor with the shadow on the dial. Morning for the heir, night for +the houseless, and God’s eye over both. + + + +BOOK III. + + + +CHAPTER I. + + + “The knight of arts and industry, + And his achievements fair.” + THOMSON’S Castle of Indolence: Explanatory Verse to Canto II. + +In a popular and respectable, but not very fashionable quartier in +Paris, and in the tolerably broad and effective locale of the Rue ----, +there might be seen, at the time I now treat of, a curious-looking +building, that jutted out semicircularly from the neighbouring shops, +with plaster pilasters and compo ornaments. The virtuosi of the quartier +had discovered that the building was constructed in imitation of an +ancient temple in Rome; this erection, then fresh and new, reached only +to the entresol. The pilasters were painted light green and gilded +in the cornices, while, surmounting the architrave, were three little +statues--one held a torch, another a bow, and a third a bag; they were +therefore rumoured, I know not with what justice, to be the artistical +representatives of Hymen, Cupid and Fortune. + +On the door was neatly engraved, on a brass plate, the following +inscription: + + + “MONSIEUR LOVE, ANGLAIS, + A L’ENTRESOL.” + +And if you had crossed the threshold and mounted the stairs, and gained +that mysterious story inhabited by Monsieur Love, you would have seen, +upon another door to the right, another epigraph, informing those +interested in the inquiry that the bureau, of M. Love was open daily +from nine in the morning to four in the afternoon. + +The office of M. Love--for office it was, and of a nature not +unfrequently designated in the “petites affiches” of Paris--had been +established about six months; and whether it was the popularity of the +profession, or the shape of the shop, or the manners of M. Love himself, +I cannot pretend to say, but certain it is that the Temple of Hymen--as +M. Love classically termed it--had become exceedingly in vogue in the +Faubourg St.--. It was rumoured that no less than nine marriages in the +immediate neighbourhood had been manufactured at this fortunate office, +and that they had all turned out happily except one, in which the bride +being sixty, and the bridegroom twenty-four, there had been rumours of +domestic dissension; but as the lady had been delivered,--I mean of her +husband, who had drowned himself in the Seine, about a month after the +ceremony, things had turned out in the long run better than might have +been expected, and the widow was so little discouraged; that she had +been seen to enter the office already--a circumstance that was greatly +to the credit of Mr. Love. + +Perhaps the secret of Mr. Love’s success, and of the marked superiority +of his establishment in rank and popularity over similar ones, consisted +in the spirit and liberality with which the business was conducted. +He seemed resolved to destroy all formality between parties who might +desire to draw closer to each other, and he hit upon the lucky device +of a table d’hote, very well managed, and held twice a-week, and often +followed by a soiree dansante; so that, if they pleased, the aspirants +to matrimonial happiness might become acquainted without _gene_. As +he himself was a jolly, convivial fellow of much _savoir vivre_, it is +astonishing how well he made these entertainments answer. Persons who +had not seemed to take to each other in the first distant interview grew +extremely enamoured when the corks of the champagne--an extra of course +in the abonnement--bounced against the wall. Added to this, Mr. Love +took great pains to know the tradesmen in his neighbourhood; and, what +with his jokes, his appearance of easy circumstances, and the fluency +with which he spoke the language, he became a universal favourite. Many +persons who were uncommonly starched in general, and who professed to +ridicule the bureau, saw nothing improper in dining at the table d’hote. +To those who wished for secrecy he was said to be wonderfully discreet; +but there were others who did not affect to conceal their discontent at +the single state: for the rest, the entertainments were so contrived as +never to shock the delicacy, while they always forwarded the suit. + +It was about eight o’clock in the evening, and Mr. Love was still seated +at dinner, or rather at dessert, with a party of guests. His apartments, +though small, were somewhat gaudily painted and furnished, and his +dining-room was decorated a la Turque. The party consisted--first, of +a rich epicier, a widower, Monsieur Goupille by name, an eminent man in +the Faubourg; he was in his grand climacteric, but still belhomme; wore +a very well-made peruque of light auburn, with tight pantaloons, which +contained a pair of very respectable calves; and his white neckcloth +and his large frill were washed and got up with especial care. Next to +Monsieur Goupille sat a very demure and very spare young lady of about +two-and-thirty, who was said to have saved a fortune--Heaven knows +how--in the family of a rich English milord, where she had officiated +as governess; she called herself Mademoiselle Adele de Courval, and was +very particular about the de, and very melancholy about her ancestors. +Monsieur Goupille generally put his finger through his peruque, and fell +away a little on his left pantaloon when he spoke to Mademoiselle de +Courval, and Mademoiselle de Courval generally pecked at her bouquet +when she answered Monsieur Goupille. On the other side of this young +lady sat a fine-looking fair man--M. Sovolofski, a Pole, buttoned up to +the chin, and rather threadbare, though uncommonly neat. He was +flanked by a little fat lady, who had been very pretty, and who kept a +boarding-house, or pension, for the English, she herself being English, +though long established in Paris. Rumour said she had been gay in her +youth, and dropped in Paris by a Russian nobleman, with a very pretty +settlement, she and the settlement having equally expanded by time and +season: she was called Madame Beavor. On the other side of the table was +a red-headed Englishman, who spoke very little French; who had been told +that French ladies were passionately fond of light hair; and who, having +L2000. of his own, intended to quadruple that sum by a prudent marriage. +Nobody knew what his family was, but his name was Higgins. His neighbour +was an exceedingly tall, large-boned Frenchman, with a long nose and +a red riband, who was much seen at Frascati’s, and had served under +Napoleon. Then came another lady, extremely pretty, very piquante, and +very gay, but past the premiere jeunesse, who ogled Mr. Love more than +she did any of his guests: she was called Rosalie Caumartin, and was at +the head of a large bon-bon establishment; married, but her husband had +gone four years ago to the Isle of France, and she was a little doubtful +whether she might not be justly entitled to the privileges of a widow. +Next to Mr. Love, in the place of honour, sat no less a person than the +Vicomte de Vaudemont, a French gentleman, really well-born, but whose +various excesses, added to his poverty, had not served to sustain that +respect for his birth which he considered due to it. He had already +been twice married; once to an Englishwoman, who had been decoyed by the +title; by this lady, who died in childbed, he had one son; a fact which +he sedulously concealed from the world of Paris by keeping the unhappy +boy--who was now some eighteen or nineteen years old--a perpetual exile +in England. Monsieur de Vaudemont did not wish to pass for more than +thirty, and he considered that to produce a son of eighteen would be to +make the lad a monster of ingratitude by giving the lie every hour to +his own father! In spite of this precaution the Vicomte found great +difficulty in getting a third wife--especially as he had no actual +land and visible income; was, not seamed, but ploughed up, with the +small-pox; small of stature, and was considered more than un peu +bete. He was, however, a prodigious dandy, and wore a lace frill +and embroidered waistcoat. Mr. Love’s vis-a-vis was Mr. Birnie, an +Englishman, a sort of assistant in the establishment, with a hard, dry, +parchment face, and a remarkable talent for silence. The host himself +was a splendid animal; his vast chest seemed to occupy more space at the +table than any four of his guests, yet he was not corpulent or unwieldy; +he was dressed in black, wore a velvet stock very high, and four gold +studs glittered in his shirt-front; he was bald to the crown, which made +his forehead appear singularly lofty, and what hair he had left was +a little greyish and curled; his face was shaved smoothly, except a +close-clipped mustache; and his eyes, though small, were bright and +piercing. Such was the party. + +“These are the best bon-bons I ever ate,” said Mr. Love, glancing at +Madame Caumartin. “My fair friends, have compassion on the table of a +poor bachelor.” + +“But you ought not to be a bachelor, Monsieur Lofe,” replied the fair +Rosalie, with an arch look; “you who make others marry, should set the +example.” + +“All in good time,” answered Mr. Love, nodding; “one serves one’s +customers to so much happiness that one has none left for one’s self.” + +Here a loud explosion was heard. Monsieur Goupille had pulled one of the +bon-bon crackers with Mademoiselle Adele. + +“I’ve got the motto!--no--Monsieur has it: I’m always unlucky,” said the +gentle Adele. + +The epicier solemnly unrolled the little slip of paper; the print was +very small, and he longed to take out his spectacles, but he thought +that would make him look old. However, he spelled through the motto with +some difficulty:-- + + + “Comme elle fait soumettre un coeur, + En refusant son doux hommage, + On peut traiter la coquette en vainqueur; + De la beauty modeste on cherit l’esclavage.” + + [The coquette, who subjugates a heart, yet refuses its tender + homage, one may treat as a conqueror: of modest beauty we cherish + the slavery.] + +“I present it to Mademoiselle,” said he, laying the motto solemnly in +Adele’s plate, upon a little mountain of chestnut-husks. + +“It is very pretty,” said she, looking down. + +“It is very a propos,” whispered the epicier, caressing the peruque a +little too roughly in his emotion. Mr. Love gave him a kick under the +table, and put his finger to his own bald head, and then to his nose, +significantly. The intelligent epicier smoothed back the irritated +peruque. + +“Are you fond of bon-bons, Mademoiselle Adele? I have a very fine stock +at home,” said Monsieur Goupille. Mademoiselle Adele de Courval sighed: +“Helas! they remind me of happier days, when I was a petite and my +dear grandmamma took me in her lap and told me how she escaped the +guillotine: she was an emigree, and you know her father was a marquis.” + +The epicier bowed and looked puzzled. He did not quite see the +connection between the bon-bons and the guillotine. “You are triste, +Monsieur,” observed Madame Beavor, in rather a piqued tone, to the Pole, +who had not said a word since the roti. + +“Madame, an exile is always triste: I think of my pauvre pays.” + +“Bah!” cried Mr. Love. “Think that there is no exile by the side of a +belle dame.” + +The Pole smiled mournfully. + +“Pull it,” said Madame Beavor, holding a cracker to the patriot, and +turning away her face. + +“Yes, madame; I wish it were a cannon in defence of La Pologne.” + +With this magniloquent aspiration, the gallant Sovolofski pulled +lustily, and then rubbed his fingers, with a little grimace, observing +that crackers were sometimes dangerous, and that the present combustible +was d’une force immense. + + + “Helas! J’ai cru jusqu’a ce jour + Pouvoir triompher de l’amour,” + + [Alas! I believed until to-day that I could triumph over love.] + +said Madame Beavor, reading the motto. “What do you say to that?” + +“Madame, there is no triumph for La Pologne!” Madame Beavor uttered a +little peevish exclamation, and glanced in despair at her red-headed +countryman. “Are you, too, a great politician, sir?” said she in +English. + +“No, mem!--I’m all for the ladies.” + +“What does he say?” asked Madame Caumartin. + +“Monsieur Higgins est tout pour les dames.” + +“To be sure he is,” cried Mr. Love; “all the English are, especially +with that coloured hair; a lady who likes a passionate adorer should +always marry a man with gold-coloured hair--always. What do you say, +Mademoiselle Adele?” + +“Oh, I like fair hair,” said Mademoiselle, looking bashfully askew +at Monsieur Goupille’s peruque. “Grandmamma said her papa--the +marquis--used yellow powder: it must have been very pretty.” + +“Rather a la sucre d’ orge,” remarked the epicier, smiling on the right +side of his mouth, where his best teeth were. Mademoiselle de Courval +looked displeased. “I fear you are a republican, Monsieur Goupille.” + +“I, Mademoiselle. No; I’m for the Restoration;” and again the +epicier perplexed himself to discover the association of idea between +republicanism and sucre d’orge. + +“Another glass of wine. Come, another,” said Mr. Love, stretching across +the Vicomte to help Madame Canmartin. + +“Sir,” said the tall Frenchman with the riband, eying the epicier +with great disdain, “you say you are for the Restoration--I am for the +Empire--Moi!” + +“No politics!” cried Mr. Love. “Let us adjourn to the salon.” + +The Vicomte, who had seemed supremely ennuye during this dialogue, +plucked Mr. Love by the sleeve as he rose, and whispered petulantly, “I +do not see any one here to suit me, Monsieur Love--none of my rank.” + +“Mon Dieu!” answered Mr. Love: “point d’ argent point de Suisse. I +could introduce you to a duchess, but then the fee is high. There’s +Mademoiselle de Courval--she dates from the Carlovingians.” + +“She is very like a boiled sole,” answered the Vicomte, with a wry face. +“Still--what dower has she?” + +“Forty thousand francs, and sickly,” replied Mr. Love; “but she likes a +tall man, and Monsieur Goupille is--” + +“Tall men are never well made,” interrupted the Vicomte, angrily; and +he drew himself aside as Mr. Love, gallantly advancing, gave his arm to +Madame Beavor, because the Pole had, in rising, folded both his own arms +across his breast. + +“Excuse me, ma’am,” said Mr. Love to Madame Beavor, as they adjourned to +the salon, “I don’t think you manage that brave man well.” + +“Ma foi, comme il est ennuyeux avec sa Pologne,” replied Madame Beavor, +shrugging her shoulders. + +“True; but he is a very fine-shaped man; and it is a comfort to think +that one will have no rival but his country. Trust me, and encourage him +a little more; I think he would suit you to a T.” + +Here the attendant engaged for the evening announced Monsieur and Madame +Giraud; whereupon there entered a little--little couple, very fair, very +plump, and very like each other. This was Mr. Love’s show couple--his +decoy ducks--his last best example of match-making; they had been +married two months out of the bureau, and were the admiration of the +neighbourhood for their conjugal affection. As they were now united, +they had ceased to frequent the table d’hote; but Mr. Love often invited +them after the dessert, pour encourager les autres. + +“My dear friends,” cried Mr. Love, shaking each by the hand, “I am +ravished to see you. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Monsieur +and Madame Giraud, the happiest couple in Christendom;--if I had done +nothing else in my life but bring them together I should not have lived +in vain!” + +The company eyed the objects of this eulogium with great attention. + +“Monsieur, my prayer is to deserve my bonheur,” said Monsieur Giraud. + +“Cher ange!” murmured Madame: and the happy pair seated themselves next +to each other. + +Mr. Love, who was all for those innocent pastimes which do away with +conventional formality and reserve, now proposed a game at “Hunt the +Slipper,” which was welcomed by the whole party, except the Pole and the +Vicomte; though Mademoiselle Adele looked prudish, and observed to the +epicier, “that Monsieur Lofe was so droll, but she should not have liked +her pauvre grandmaman to see her.” + +The Vicomte had stationed himself opposite to Mademoiselle de Courval, +and kept his eyes fixed on her very tenderly. + +“Mademoiselle, I see, does not approve of such bourgeois diversions,” + said he. + +“No, monsieur,” said the gentle Adele. “But I think we must sacrifice +our own tastes to those of the company.” + +“It is a very amiable sentiment,” said the epicier. + +“It is one attributed to grandmamma’s papa, the Marquis de Courval. It +has become quite a hackneyed remark since,” said Adele. + +“Come, ladies,” said the joyous Rosalie; “I volunteer my slipper.” + +“Asseyez-vous donc,” said Madame Beavor to the Pole. “Have you no games +of this sort in Poland?” + +“Madame, La Pologne is no more,” said the Pole. “But with the swords of +her brave--” + +“No swords here, if you please,” said Mr. Love, putting his vast hands +on the Pole’s shoulder, and sinking him forcibly down into the circle +now formed. + +The game proceeded with great vigour and much laughter from Rosalie, Mr. +Love, and Madame Beavor, especially whenever the last thumped the Pole +with the heel of the slipper. Monsieur Giraud was always sure that +Madame Giraud had the slipper about her, which persuasion on his part +gave rise to many little endearments, which are always so innocent among +married people. The Vicomte and the epicier were equally certain the +slipper was with Mademoiselle Adele, who defended herself with much +more energy than might have been supposed in one so gentle. The epicier, +however, grew jealous of the attentions of his noble rival, and told +him that he gene’d mademoiselle; whereupon the Vicomte called him an +impertinent; and the tall Frenchman, with the riband, sprang up and +said: + +“Can I be of any assistance, gentlemen?” + +Therewith Mr. Love, the great peacemaker, interposed, and reconciling +the rivals, proposed to change the game to Colin Maillard-Anglice, +“Blind Man’s Buff.” Rosalie clapped her hands, and offered herself to be +blindfolded. The tables and chairs were cleared away; and Madame Beaver +pushed the Pole into Rosalie’s arms, who, having felt him about the face +for some moments, guessed him to be the tall Frenchman. During this time +Monsieur and Madame Giraud hid themselves behind the window-curtain. + +“Amuse yourself, _mon ami_,” said Madame Beaver, to the liberated Pole. + +“Ah, madame,” sighed Monsieur Sovolofski, “how can I be gay! All +my property confiscated by the Emperor of Russia! Has La Pologne no +Brutus?” + +“I think you are in love,” said the host, clapping him on the back. + +“Are you quite sure,” whispered the Pole to the matchmaker, “that Madame +Beavor has vingt mille livres de rentes?” + +“Not a sous less.” + +The Pole mused, and, glancing at Madame Beavor, said, “And yet, madame, +your charming gaiety consoles me amidst all my suffering;” upon which +Madame Beavor called him “flatterer,” and rapped his knuckles with her +fan; the latter proceeding the brave Pole did not seem to like, for he +immediately buried his hands in his trousers’ pockets. + +The game was now at its meridian. Rosalie was uncommonly active, and +flew about here and there, much to the harassment of the Pole, who +repeatedly wiped his forehead, and observed that it was warm work, +and put him in mind of the last sad battle for La Pologne. Monsieur +Goupille, who had lately taken lessons in dancing, and was vain of his +agility--mounted the chairs and tables, as Rosalie approached--with +great grace and gravity. It so happened that, in these saltations, +he ascended a stool near the curtain behind which Monsieur and Madame +Giraud were ensconced. Somewhat agitated by a slight flutter behind +the folds, which made him fancy, on the sudden panic, that Rosalie was +creeping that way, the epicier made an abrupt pirouette, and the hook on +which the curtains were suspended caught his left coat-tail, + + + “The fatal vesture left the unguarded side;” + +just as he turned to extricate the garment from that dilemma, Rosalie +sprang upon him, and naturally lifting her hands to that height where +she fancied the human face divine, took another extremity of Monsieur +Goupille’s graceful frame thus exposed, by surprise. + +“I don’t know who this is. Quelle drole de visage!” muttered Rosalie. + +“Mais, madame,” faltered Monsieur Goupille, looking greatly +disconcerted. + +The gentle Adele, who did not seem to relish this adventure, came to the +relief of her wooer, and pinched Rosalie very sharply in the arm. + +“That’s not fair. But I will know who this is,” cried Rosalie, angrily; +“you sha’n’t escape!” + +A sudden and universal burst of laughter roused her suspicions--she drew +back--and exclaiming, “Mais quelle mauvaise plaisanterie; c’est trop +fort!” applied her fair hand to the place in dispute, with so hearty +a good-will, that Monsieur Goupille uttered a dolorous cry, and +sprang from the chair leaving the coat-tail (the cause of all his woe) +suspended upon the hook. + +It was just at this moment, and in the midst of the excitement caused by +Monsieur Goupille’s misfortune, that the door opened, and the attendant +reappeared, followed by a young man in a large cloak. + +The new-comer paused at the threshold, and gazed around him in evident +surprise. + +“Diable!” said Mr. Love, approaching, and gazing hard at the stranger. +“Is it possible?--You are come at last? Welcome!” + +“But,” said the stranger, apparently still bewildered, “there is some +mistake; you are not--” + +“Yes, I am Mr. Love!--Love all the world over. How is our friend +Gregg?--told you to address yourself to Mr. Love,--eh?--Mum!--Ladies +and gentlemen, an acquisition to our party. Fine fellow, eh?--Five feet +eleven without his shoes,--and young enough to hope to be thrice married +before he dies. When did you arrive?” + +“To-day.” + +And thus, Philip Morton and Mr. William Gawtrey met once more. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +“Happy the man who, void of care and strife, In silken or in leathern +purse retains A splendid shilling!”--The Splendid Shilling. + +“And wherefore should they take or care for thought, The unreasoning +vulgar willingly obey, And leaving toil and poverty behind. Run forth by +different ways, the blissful boon to find.” WEST’S Education. + +“Poor, boy! your story interests me. The events are romantic, but the +moral is practical, old, everlasting--life, boy, life. Poverty by itself +is no such great curse; that is, if it stops short of starving. And +passion by itself is a noble thing, sir; but poverty and passion +together--poverty and feeling--poverty and pride--the poverty one is +not born to,--but falls into;--and the man who ousts you out of your +easy-chair, kicking you with every turn he takes, as he settles himself +more comfortably--why there’s no romance in that--hard every-day life, +sir! Well, well:--so after your brother’s letter you resigned yourself +to that fellow Smith.” + +“No; I gave him my money, not my soul. I turned from his door, with +a few shillings that he himself thrust into my hand, and walked on--I +cared not whither--out of the town, into the fields--till night came; +and then, just as I suddenly entered on the high-road, many miles away, +the moon rose; and I saw, by the hedge-side, something that seemed +like a corpse; it was an old beggar, in the last state of raggedness, +disease, and famine. He had laid himself down to die. I shared with him +what I had, and helped him to a little inn. As he crossed the threshold, +he turned round and blessed me. Do you know, the moment I heard that +blessing a stone seemed rolled away from my heart? I said to myself, +‘What then! even I can be of use to some one; and I am better off than +that old man, for I have youth and health.’ As these thoughts stirred in +me, my limbs, before heavy with fatigue, grew light; a strange kind of +excitement seized me. I ran on gaily beneath the moonlight that smiled +over the crisp, broad road. I felt as if no house, not even a palace, +were large enough for me that night. And when, at last, wearied out, I +crept into a wood, and laid myself down to sleep, I still murmured to +myself, ‘I have youth and health.’ But, in the morning, when I rose, I +stretched out my arms, and missed my brother!... In two or three days I +found employment with a farmer; but we quarrelled after a few weeks; for +once he wished to strike me; and somehow or other I could work, but not +serve. Winter had begun when we parted.--Oh, such a winter!--Then--then +I knew what it was to be houseless. How I lived for some months--if to +live it can be called--it would pain you to hear, and humble me to tell. +At last, I found myself again in London; and one evening, not many days +since, I resolved at last--for nothing else seemed left, and I had not +touched food for two days--to come to you.” + +“And why did that never occur to you before?”! + +“Because,” said Philip, with a deep blush,--“because I trembled at the +power over my actions and my future life that I was to give to one, whom +I was to bless as a benefactor, yet distrust as a guide.” + +“Well,” said Love, or Gawtrey, with a singular mixture of irony and +compassion in his voice; “and it was hunger, then, that terrified you at +last even more than I?” + +“Perhaps hunger--or perhaps rather the reasoning that comes from hunger. +I had not, I say, touched food for two days; and I was standing on +that bridge, from which on one side you see the palace of a head of the +Church, on the other the towers of the Abbey, within which the men I +have read of in history lie buried. It was a cold, frosty evening, and +the river below looked bright with the lamps and stars. I leaned, weak +and sickening, against the wall of the bridge; and in one of the arched +recesses beside me a cripple held out his hat for pence. I envied +him!--he had a livelihood; he was inured to it, perhaps bred to it; he +had no shame. By a sudden impulse, I, too, turned abruptly round--held +out my hand to the first passenger, and started at the shrillness of my +own voice, as it cried ‘Charity.’” + +Gawtrey threw another log on the fire, looked complacently round the +comfortable room, and rubbed his hands. The young man continued,-- + +“‘You should be ashamed of yourself--I’ve a great mind to give you to +the police,’ was the answer, in a pert and sharp tone. I looked up, and +saw the livery my father’s menials had worn. I had been begging my +bread from Robert Beaufort’s lackey! I said nothing; the man went on his +business on tiptoe, that the mud might not splash above the soles of his +shoes. Then, thoughts so black that they seemed to blot out every star +from the sky--thoughts I had often wrestled against, but to which I now +gave myself up with a sort of mad joy--seized me: and I remembered you. +I had still preserved the address you gave me; I went straight to the +house. Your friend, on naming you, received me kindly, and +without question placed food before me--pressed on me clothing and +money--procured me a passport--gave me your address--and now I am +beneath your roof. Gawtrey, I know nothing yet of the world but the dark +side of it. I know not what to deem you--but as you alone have been +kind to me, so it is to your kindness rather than your aid, that I now +cling--your kind words and kind looks--yet--” he stopped short, and +breathed hard. + +“Yet you would know more of me. Faith, my boy, I cannot tell you more at +this moment. I believe, to speak fairly, I don’t live exactly within the +pale of the law. But I’m not a villain! I never plundered my friend and +called it play!--I never murdered my friend and called it honour!--I +never seduced my friend’s wife and called it gallantry!” As Gawtrey +said this, he drew the words out, one by one, through his grinded teeth, +paused and resumed more gaily: “I struggle with Fortune; voila tout! I +am not what you seem to suppose--not exactly a swindler, certainly not a +robber! But, as I before told you, I am a charlatan, so is every man who +strives to be richer or greater than he is. + +“I, too, want kindness as much as you do. My bread and my cup are at +your service. I will try and keep you unsullied, even by the clean +dirt that now and then sticks to me. On the other hand, youth, my young +friend, has no right to play the censor; and you must take me as you +take the world, without being over-scrupulous and dainty. My present +vocation pays well; in fact, I am beginning to lay by. My real name +and past life are thoroughly unknown, and as yet unsuspected, in this +quartier; for though I have seen much of Paris, my career hitherto has +passed in other parts of the city;--and for the rest, own that I am well +disguised! What a benevolent air this bald forehead gives me--eh? True,” + added Gawtrey, somewhat more seriously, “if I saw how you could support +yourself in a broader path of life than that in which I pick out my own +way, I might say to you, as a gay man of fashion might say to some sober +stripling--nay, as many a dissolute father says (or ought to say) to his +son, ‘It is no reason you should be a sinner, because I am not a saint.’ +In a word, if you were well off in a respectable profession, you might +have safer acquaintances than myself. But, as it is, upon my word as a +plain man, I don’t see what you can do better.” Gawtrey made this speech +with so much frankness and ease, that it seemed greatly to relieve the +listener, and when he wound up with, “What say you? In fine, my life is +that of a great schoolboy, getting into scrapes for the fun of it, and +fighting his way out as he best can!--Will you see how you like it?” + Philip, with a confiding and grateful impulse, put his hand into +Gawtrey’s. The host shook it cordially, and, without saying another +word, showed his guest into a little cabinet where there was a sofa-bed, +and they parted for the night. The new life upon which Philip Morton +entered was so odd, so grotesque, and so amusing, that at his age it +was, perhaps, natural that he should not be clear-sighted as to its +danger. + +William Gawtrey was one of those men who are born to exert a certain +influence and ascendency wherever they may be thrown; his vast strength, +his redundant health, had a power of themselves--a moral as well as +physical power. He naturally possessed high animal spirits, beneath +the surface of which, however, at times, there was visible a certain +undercurrent of malignity and scorn. He had evidently received a +superior education, and could command at will the manner of a man not +unfamiliar with a politer class of society. From the first hour that +Philip had seen him on the top of the coach on the R---- road, this man +had attracted his curiosity and interest; the conversation he had heard +in the churchyard, the obligations he owed to Gawtrey in his escape from +the officers of justice, the time afterwards passed in his society +till they separated at the little inn, the rough and hearty kindliness +Gawtrey had shown him at that period, and the hospitality extended to +him now,--all contributed to excite his fancy, and in much, indeed very +much, entitled this singular person to his gratitude. Morton, in a word, +was fascinated; this man was the only friend he had made. I have not +thought it necessary to detail to the reader the conversations that had +taken place between them, during that passage of Morton’s life when he +was before for some days Gawtrey’s companion; yet those conversations +had sunk deep in his mind. He was struck, and almost awed, by the +profound gloom which lurked under Gawtrey’s broad humour--a gloom, not +of temperament, but of knowledge. His views of life, of human justice +and human virtue, were (as, to be sure, is commonly the case with men +who have had reason to quarrel with the world) dreary and despairing; +and Morton’s own experience had been so sad, that these opinions were +more influential than they could ever have been with the happy. However +in this, their second reunion, there was a greater gaiety than in +their first; and under his host’s roof Morton insensibly, but rapidly, +recovered something of the early and natural tone of his impetuous and +ardent spirits. Gawtrey himself was generally a boon companion; their +society, if not select, was merry. When their evenings were disengaged, +Gawtrey was fond of haunting cafes and theatres, and Morton was his +companion; Birnie (Mr. Gawtrey’s partner) never accompanied them. +Refreshed by this change of life, the very person of this young man +regained its bloom and vigour, as a plant, removed from some choked +atmosphere and unwholesome soil, where it had struggled for light +and air, expands on transplanting; the graceful leaves burst from the +long-drooping boughs, and the elastic crest springs upward to the sun +in the glory of its young prime. If there was still a certain fiery +sternness in his aspect, it had ceased, at least, to be haggard +and savage, it even suited the character of his dark and expressive +features. He might not have lost the something of the tiger in his +fierce temper, but in the sleek hues and the sinewy symmetry of the +frame he began to put forth also something of the tiger’s beauty. + +Mr. Birnie did not sleep in the house, he went home nightly to a lodging +at some little distance. We have said but little about this man, for, to +all appearance, there was little enough to say; he rarely opened his own +mouth except to Gawtrey, with whom Philip often observed him engaged in +whispered conferences, to which he was not admitted. His eye, however, +was less idle than his lips; it was not a bright eye: on the contrary, +it was dull, and, to the unobservant, lifeless, of a pale blue, with a +dim film over it--the eye of a vulture; but it had in it a calm, heavy, +stealthy watchfulness, which inspired Morton with great distrust and +aversion. Mr. Birnie not only spoke French like a native, but all his +habits, his gestures, his tricks of manner, were French; not the French +of good society, but more idiomatic, as it were, and popular. He was +not exactly a vulgar person, he was too silent for that, but he was +evidently of low extraction and coarse breeding; his accomplishments +were of a mechanical nature; he was an extraordinary arithmetician, he +was a very skilful chemist, and kept a laboratory at his lodgings--he +mended his own clothes and linen with incomparable neatness. Philip +suspected him of blacking his own shoes, but that was prejudice. Once +he found Morton sketching horses’ heads--pour se desennuyer; and he made +some short criticisms on the drawings, which showed him well acquainted +with the art. Philip, surprised, sought to draw him into conversation; +but Birnie eluded the attempt, and observed that he had once been an +engraver. + +Gawtrey himself did not seem to know much of the early life of this +person, or at least he did not seem to like much to talk of him. The +footstep of Mr. Birnie was gliding, noiseless, and catlike; he had no +sociality in him--enjoyed nothing--drank hard--but was never drunk. +Somehow or other, he had evidently over Gawtrey an influence little +less than that which Gawtrey had over Morton, but it was of a different +nature: Morton had conceived an extraordinary affection for his friend, +while Gawtrey seemed secretly to dislike Birnie, and to be glad whenever +he quitted his presence. It was, in truth, Gawtrey’s custom when Birnie +retired for the night, to rub his hands, bring out the punchbowl, +squeeze the lemons, and while Philip, stretched on the sofa, listened to +him, between sleep and waking, to talk on for the hour together, +often till daybreak, with that bizarre mixture of knavery and feeling, +drollery and sentiment, which made the dangerous charm of his society. + +One evening as they thus sat together, Morton, after listening for some +time to his companion’s comments on men and things, said abruptly,-- + +“Gawtrey! there is so much in you that puzzles me, so much which I find +it difficult to reconcile with your present pursuits, that, if I ask +no indiscreet confidence, I should like greatly to hear some account of +your early life. It would please me to compare it with my own; when I am +your age, I will then look back and see what I owed to your example.” + +“My early life! well--you shall hear it. It will put you on your guard, +I hope, betimes against the two rocks of youth--love and friendship.” + Then, while squeezing the lemon into his favourite beverage, which +Morton observed he made stronger than usual, Gawtrey thus commenced: + + + THE HISTORY OF A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING. + + + +CHAPTER III. + + + “All his success must on himself depend, + He had no money, counsel, guide, or friend; + With spirit high John learned the world to brave, + And in both senses was a ready knave.”--CRABBE. + +“My grandfather sold walking-sticks and umbrellas in the little passage +by Exeter ‘Change; he was a man of genius and speculation. As soon as he +had scraped together a little money, he lent it to some poor devil with +a hard landlord, at twenty per cent., and made him take half the loan +in umbrellas or bamboos. By these means he got his foot into the ladder, +and climbed upward and upward, till, at the age of forty, he had amassed +L5,000. He then looked about for a wife. An honest trader in the Strand, +who dealt largely in cotton prints, possessed an only daughter; this +young lady had a legacy, from a great-aunt, of L3,220., with a small +street in St. Giles’s, where the tenants paid weekly (all thieves or +rogues--all, so their rents were sure). Now my grandfather conceived a +great friendship for the father of this young lady; gave him a hint as +to a new pattern in spotted cottons; enticed him to take out a patent, +and lent him L700. for the speculation; applied for the money at the +very moment cottons were at their worst, and got the daughter instead of +the money,--by which exchange, you see, he won L2,520., to say nothing +of the young lady. My grandfather then entered into partnership with the +worthy trader, carried on the patent with spirit, and begat two sons. +As he grew older, ambition seized him; his sons should be gentlemen--one +was sent to College, the other put into a marching regiment. My +grandfather meant to die worth a plum; but a fever he caught in visiting +his tenants in St. Giles’s prevented him, and he only left L20,000. +equally divided between the sons. My father, the College man” (here +Gawtrey paused a moment, took a large draught of the punch, and resumed +with a visible effort)--“my father, the College man, was a person of +rigid principles--bore an excellent character--had a great regard for +the world. He married early and respectably. I am the sole fruit of +that union; he lived soberly, his temper was harsh and morose, his home +gloomy; he was a very severe father, and my mother died before I was +ten years old. When I was fourteen, a little old Frenchman came to +lodge with us; he had been persecuted under the old regime for being a +philosopher; he filled my head with odd crotchets which, more or less, +have stuck there ever since. At eighteen I was sent to St. John’s +College, Cambridge. My father was rich enough to have let me go up in +the higher rank of a pensioner, but he had lately grown avaricious; he +thought that I was extravagant; he made me a sizar, perhaps to spite me. +Then, for the first time, those inequalities in life which the Frenchman +had dinned into my ears met me practically. A sizar! another name for a +dog! I had such strength, health, and spirits, that I had more life +in my little finger than half the fellow-commoners--genteel, +spindle-shanked striplings, who might have passed for a collection of +my grandfather’s walking-canes--bad in their whole bodies. And I often +think,” continued Gawtrey, “that health and spirits have a great deal +to answer for! When we are young we so far resemble savages who are +Nature’s young people--that we attach prodigious value to physical +advantages. My feats of strength and activity--the clods I thrashed--and +the railings I leaped--and the boat-races I won--are they not written +in the chronicle of St. John’s? These achievements inspired me with an +extravagant sense of my own superiority; I could not but despise the +rich fellows whom I could have blown down with a sneeze. Nevertheless, +there was an impassable barrier between me and them--a sizar was not a +proper associate for the favourites of fortune! But there was one young +man, a year younger myself, of high birth, and the heir to considerable +wealth, who did not regard me with the same supercilious insolence as +the rest; his very rank, perhaps, made him indifferent to the little +conventional formalities which influence persons who cannot play at +football with this round world; he was the wildest youngster in the +university--lamp-breaker--tandem-driver--mob-fighter--a very devil in +short--clever, but not in the reading line--small and slight, but brave +as a lion. Congenial habits made us intimate, and I loved him like a +brother--better than a brother--as a dog loves his master. In all our +rows I covered him with my body. He had but to say to me, ‘Leap into the +water,’ and I would not have stopped to pull off my coat. In short, +I loved him as a proud man loves one who stands betwixt him and +contempt,--as an affectionate man loves one who stands between him +and solitude. To cut short a long story: my friend, one dark night, +committed an outrage against discipline, of the most unpardonable +character. There was a sanctimonious, grave old fellow of the College, +crawling home from a tea-party; my friend and another of his set seized, +blindfolded, and handcuffed this poor wretch, carried him, vi et armis, +back to the house of an old maid whom he had been courting for the last +ten years, fastened his pigtail (he wore a long one) to the knocker, and +so left him. You may imagine the infernal hubbub which his attempts +to extricate himself caused in the whole street; the old maid’s old +maidservant, after emptying on his head all the vessels of wrath she +could lay her hand to, screamed, ‘Rape and murder!’ The proctor and +his bull-dogs came up, released the prisoner, and gave chase to the +delinquents, who had incautiously remained near to enjoy the sport. The +night was dark and they reached the College in safety, but they had been +tracked to the gates. For this offence I was expelled.” + +“Why, you were not concerned in it?” said Philip. + +“No; but I was suspected and accused. I could have got off by betraying +the true culprits, but my friend’s father was in public life--a stern, +haughty old statesman; my friend was mortally afraid of him--the only +person he was afraid of. If I had too much insisted on my innocence, I +might have set inquiry on the right track. In fine, I was happy to prove +my friendship for him. He shook me most tenderly by the hand on parting, +and promised never to forget my generous devotion. I went home in +disgrace: I need not tell you what my father said to me: I do not think +he ever loved me from that hour. Shortly after this my uncle, George +Gawtrey, the captain, returned from abroad; he took a great fancy to me, +and I left my father’s house (which had grown insufferable) to live +with him. He had been a very handsome man--a gay spendthrift; he had +got through his fortune, and now lived on his wits--he was a professed +gambler. His easy temper, his lively humour, fascinated me; he knew +the world well; and, like all gamblers, was generous when the dice were +lucky,--which, to tell you the truth, they generally were, with a man +who had no scruples. Though his practices were a little suspected, +they had never been discovered. We lived in an elegant apartment, mixed +familiarly with men of various ranks, and enjoyed life extremely. I +brushed off my college rust, and conceived a taste for expense: I knew +not why it was, but in my new existence every one was kind to me; and +I had spirits that made me welcome everywhere. I was a scamp--but a +frolicsome scamp--and that is always a popular character. As yet I +was not dishonest, but saw dishonesty round me, and it seemed a very +pleasant, jolly mode of making money; and now I again fell into contact +with the young heir. My college friend was as wild in London as he had +been at Cambridge; but the boy-ruffian, though not then twenty years of +age, had grown into the man-villain.” + +Here Gawtrey paused, and frowned darkly. + +“He had great natural parts, this young man--much wit, readiness, and +cunning, and he became very intimate with my uncle. He learned of him +how to play the dice, and a pack the cards--he paid him L1,000. for the +knowledge!” + +“How! a cheat? You said he was rich.” + +“His father was very rich, and he had a liberal allowance, but he was +very extravagant; and rich men love gain as well as poor men do! He had +no excuse but the grand excuse of all vice--SELFISHNESS. Young as he was +he became the fashion, and he fattened upon the plunder of his equals, +who desired the honour of his acquaintance. Now, I had seen my uncle +cheat, but I had never imitated his example; when the man of fashion +cheated, and made a jest of his earnings and my scruples--when I saw +him courted, flattered, honoured, and his acts unsuspected, because his +connections embraced half the peerage, the temptation grew strong, but +I still resisted it. However, my father always said I was born to be a +good-for-nothing, and I could not escape my destiny. And now I suddenly +fell in love--you don’t know what that is yet--so much the better for +you. The girl was beautiful, and I thought she loved me--perhaps she +did--but I was too poor, so her friends said, for marriage. We courted, +as the saying is, in the meanwhile. It was my love for her, my wish to +deserve her, that made me iron against my friend’s example. I was fool +enough to speak to him of Mary--to present him to her--this ended in her +seduction.” (Again Gawtrey paused, and breathed hard.) “I discovered the +treachery--I called out the seducer--he sneered, and refused to fight +the low-born adventurer. I struck him to the earth--and then we fought. +I was satisfied by a ball through my side! but he,” added Gawtrey, +rubbing his hands, and with a vindictive chuckle,--“He was a cripple +for life! When I recovered I found that my foe, whose sick-chamber was +crowded with friends and comforters, had taken advantage of my illness +to ruin my reputation. He, the swindler, accused me of his own crime: +the equivocal character of my uncle confirmed the charge. Him, his own +high-born pupil was enabled to unmask, and his disgrace was visited on +me. I left my bed to find my uncle (all disguise over) an avowed partner +in a hell, and myself blasted alike in name, love, past, and future. +And then, Philip--then I commenced that career which I have trodden +since--the prince of good-fellows and good-for-nothings, with ten +thousand aliases, and as many strings to my bow. Society cast me off +when I was innocent. Egad, I have had my revenge on society since!--Ho! +ho! ho!” + +The laugh of this man had in it a moral infection. There was a sort of +glorying in its deep tone; it was not the hollow hysteric of shame and +despair--it spoke a sanguine joyousness! William Gawtrey was a man whose +animal constitution had led him to take animal pleasure in all things: +he had enjoyed the poisons he had lived on. + +“But your father--surely your father--” + +“My father,” interrupted Gawtrey, “refused me the money (but a small +sum) that, once struck with the strong impulse of a sincere penitence, +I begged of him, to enable me to get an honest living in a humble trade. +His refusal soured the penitence--it gave me an excuse for my career and +conscience grapples to an excuse as a drowning wretch to a straw. And +yet this hard father--this cautious, moral, money-loving man, three +months afterwards, suffered a rogue--almost a stranger--to decoy +him into a speculation that promised to bring him fifty per cent. He +invested in the traffic of usury what had sufficed to save a hundred +such as I am from perdition, and he lost it all. It was nearly his whole +fortune; but he lives and has his luxuries still: he cannot speculate, +but he can save: he cared not if I starved, for he finds an hourly +happiness in starving himself.” + +“And your friend,” said Philip, after a pause in which his young +sympathies went dangerously with the excuses for his benefactor; “what +has become of him, and the poor girl?” + +“My friend became a great man; he succeeded to his father’s peerage--a +very ancient one--and to a splendid income. He is living still. Well, +you shall hear about the poor girl! We are told of victims of seduction +dying in a workhouse or on a dunghill, penitent, broken-hearted, and +uncommonly ragged and sentimental. It may be a frequent case, but it is +not the worst. It is worse, I think, when the fair, penitent, innocent, +credulous dupe becomes in her turn the deceiver--when she catches vice +from the breath upon which she has hung--when she ripens, and mellows, +and rots away into painted, blazing, staring, wholesale harlotry--when, +in her turn, she ruins warm youth with false smiles and long bills--and +when worse--worse than all--when she has children, daughters perhaps, +brought up to the same trade, cooped, plumper, for some hoary lecher, +without a heart in their bosoms, unless a balance for weighing money may +be called a heart. Mary became this; and I wish to Heaven she had rather +died in an hospital! Her lover polluted her soul as well as her beauty: +he found her another lover when he was tired of her. When she was at the +age of thirty-six I met her in Paris, with a daughter of sixteen. I was +then flush with money, frequenting salons, and playing the part of +a fine gentleman. She did not know me at first; and she sought my +acquaintance. For you must know, my young friend,” said Gawtrey, +abruptly breaking off the thread of his narrative, “that I am not +altogether the low dog you might suppose in seeing me here. At +Paris--ah! you don’t know Paris--there is a glorious ferment in society +in which the dregs are often uppermost! I came here at the Peace, and +here have I resided the greater part of each year ever since. The vast +masses of energy and life, broken up by the great thaw of the Imperial +system, floating along the tide, are terrible icebergs for the vessel +of the state. Some think Napoleonism over--its effects are only begun. +Society is shattered from one end to the other, and I laugh at the +little rivets by which they think to keep it together. + + + [This passage was written at a period when the dynasty of Louis + Philippe seemed the most assured, and Napoleonism was indeed + considered extinct.] + +“But to return. Paris, I say, is the atmosphere for adventurers--new +faces and new men are so common here that they excite no impertinent +inquiry, it is so usual to see fortunes made in a day and spent in a +month; except in certain circles, there is no walking round a man’s +character to spy out where it wants piercing! Some lean Greek poet +put lead in his pockets to prevent being blown away;--put gold in your +pockets, and at Paris you may defy the sharpest wind in the world,--yea, +even the breath of that old AEolus--Scandal! Well, then, I had money--no +matter how I came by it--and health, and gaiety; and I was well received +in the coteries that exist in all capitals, but mostly in France, where +pleasure is the cement that joins many discordant atoms. Here, I say, +I met Mary and her daughter, by my old friend--the daughter, still +innocent, but, sacra! in what an element of vice! We knew each other’s +secrets, Mary and I, and kept them: she thought me a greater knave than +I was, and she intrusted to me her intention of selling her child to a +rich English marquis. On the other hand, the poor girl confided to me +her horror of the scenes she witnessed and the snares that surrounded +her. What do you think preserved her pure from all danger? Bah! you will +never guess! It was partly because, if example corrupts, it as often +deters, but principally because she loved. A girl who loves one +man purely has about her an amulet which defies the advances of +the profligate. There was a handsome young Italian, an artist, who +frequented the house--he was the man. I had to choose, then, between +mother and daughter: I chose the last.” + +Philip seized hold of Gawtrey’s hand, grasped it warmly, and the +good-for-nothing continued-- + +“Do you know, that I loved that girl as well as I had ever loved the +mother, though in another way; she was what I fancied the mother to be; +still more fair, more graceful, more winning, with a heart as full of +love as her mother’s had been of vanity. I loved that child as if she +had been my own daughter. I induced her to leave her mother’s house--I +secreted her--I saw her married to the man she loved--I gave her away, +and saw no more of her for several months.” + +“Why?” + +“Because I spent them in prison! The young people could not live upon +air; I gave them what I had, and in order to do more I did something +which displeased the police; I narrowly escaped that time; but I +am popular--very popular, and with plenty of witnesses, not +over-scrupulous, I got off! When I was released, I would not go to see +them, for my clothes were ragged: the police still watched me, and I +would not do them harm in the world! Ay, poor wretches! they struggled +so hard: he could got very little by his art, though, I believe, he was +a cleverish fellow at it, and the money I had given them could not last +for ever. They lived near the Champs Elysees, and at night I used to +steal out and look at them through the window. They seemed so happy, and +so handsome, and so good; but he looked sickly, and I saw that, like all +Italians, he languished for his own warm climate. But man is born to act +as well as to contemplate,” pursued Gawtrey, changing his tone into +the allegro; “and I was soon driven into my old ways, though in a lower +line. I went to London, just to give my reputation an airing, and when I +returned, pretty flush again, the poor Italian was dead, and Fanny was a +widow, with one boy, and enceinte with a second child. So then I sought +her again, for her mother had found her out, and was at her with her +devilish kindness; but Heaven was merciful, and took her away from +both of us: she died in giving birth to a girl, and her last words +were uttered to me, imploring me--the adventurer--the charlatan--the +good-for-nothing--to keep her child from the clutches of her own mother. +Well, sir, I did what I could for both the children; but the boy was +consumptive, like his father, and sleeps at Pere-la-Chaise. The girl is +here--you shall see her some day. Poor Fanny! if ever the devil will +let me, I shall reform for her sake. Meanwhile, for her sake I must get +grist for the mill. My story is concluded, for I need not tell you all +of my pranks--of all the parts I have played in life. I have never been +a murderer, or a burglar, or a highway robber, or what the law calls a +thief. I can only say, as I said before, I have lived upon my wits, and +they have been a tolerable capital on the whole. I have been an actor, +a money-lender, a physician, a professor of animal magnetism (that was +lucrative till it went out of fashion, perhaps it will come in again); I +have been a lawyer, a house-agent, a dealer in curiosities and china; I +have kept a hotel; I have set up a weekly newspaper; I have seen almost +every city in Europe, and made acquaintance with some of its gaols; but +a man who has plenty of brains generally falls on his legs.” + +“And your father?” said Philip; and here he spoke to Gawtrey of the +conversation he had overheard in the churchyard, but on which a scruple +of natural delicacy had hitherto kept him silent. + +“Well, now,” said his host, while a slight blush rose to his cheeks, +“I will tell you, that though to my father’s sternness and avarice I +attribute many of my faults, I yet always had a sort of love for him; +and when in London I accidentally heard that he was growing blind, and +living with an artful old jade of a housekeeper, who might send him to +rest with a dose of magnesia the night after she had coaxed him to make +a will in her favour. I sought him out--and--but you say you heard what +passed.” + +“Yes; and I heard him also call you by name, when it was too late, and I +saw the tears on his cheeks.” + +“Did you? Will you swear to that?” exclaimed Gawtrey, with vehemence: +then, shading his brow with his band, he fell into a reverie that lasted +some moments. + +“If anything happen to me, Philip,” he said, abruptly, “perhaps he may +yet be a father to poor Fanny; and if he takes to her, she will repay +him for whatever pain I may, perhaps, have cost him. Stop! now I think +of it, I will write down his address for you--never forget it--there! It +is time to go to bed.” + +Gawtrey’s tale made a deep impression on Philip. He was too young, too +inexperienced, too much borne away by the passion of the narrator, to +see that Gawtrey had less cause to blame Fate than himself. True, he had +been unjustly implicated in the disgrace of an unworthy uncle, but he +had lived with that uncle, though he knew him to be a common cheat; +true, he had been betrayed by a friend, but he had before known that +friend to be a man without principle or honour. But what wonder that an +ardent boy saw nothing of this--saw only the good heart that had saved +a poor girl from vice, and sighed to relieve a harsh and avaricious +parent? Even the hints that Gawtrey unawares let fall of practices +scarcely covered by the jovial phrase of “a great schoolboy’s scrapes,” + either escaped the notice of Philip, or were charitably construed by +him, in the compassion and the ignorance of a young, hasty, and grateful +heart. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + + “And she’s a stranger + Women--beware women.”--MIDDLETON. + + “As we love our youngest children best, + So the last fruit of our affection, + Wherever we bestow it, is most strong; + Since ‘tis indeed our latest harvest-home, + Last merriment ‘fore winter!” + WEBSTER, Devil’s Law Case. + + “I would fain know what kind of thing a man’s heart is? + I will report it to you; ‘tis a thing framed + With divers corners!”--ROWLEY. + +I have said that Gawtrey’s tale made a deep impression on Philip;--that +impression was increased by subsequent conversations, more frank even +than their talk had hitherto been. There was certainly about this man +a fatal charm which concealed his vices. It arose, perhaps, from the +perfect combinations of his physical frame--from a health which made +his spirits buoyant and hearty under all circumstances--and a blood +so fresh, so sanguine, that it could not fail to keep the pores of the +heart open. But he was not the less--for all his kindly impulses and +generous feelings, and despite the manner in which, naturally anxious to +make the least unfavourable portrait of himself to Philip, he softened +and glossed over the practices of his life--a thorough and complete +rogue, a dangerous, desperate, reckless daredevil. It was easy to see +when anything crossed him, by the cloud on his shaggy brow, by the +swelling of the veins on the forehead, by the dilation of the broad +nostril, that he was one to cut his way through every obstacle to an +end,--choleric, impetuous, fierce, determined. Such, indeed, were the +qualities that made him respected among his associates, as his +more bland and humorous ones made him beloved. He was, in fact, the +incarnation of that great spirit which the laws of the world raise up +against the world, and by which the world’s injustice on a large scale +is awfully chastised; on a small scale, merely nibbled at and harassed, +as the rat that gnaws the hoof of the elephant:--the spirit which, on a +vast theatre, rises up, gigantic and sublime, in the heroes of war and +revolution--in Mirabeaus, Marats, Napoleons: on a minor stage, it shows +itself in demagogues, fanatical philosophers, and mob-writers; and on +the forbidden boards, before whose reeking lamps outcasts sit, at once +audience and actors, it never produced a knave more consummate in +his part, or carrying it off with more buskined dignity, than +William Gawtrey. I call him by his aboriginal name; as for his other +appellations, Bacchus himself had not so many! + +One day, a lady, richly dressed, was ushered by Mr. Birnie into the +bureau of Mr. Love, alias Gawtrey. Philip was seated by the window, +reading, for the first time, the Candide,--that work, next to Rasselas, +the most hopeless and gloomy of the sports of genius with mankind. +The lady seemed rather embarrassed when she perceived Mr. Love was not +alone. She drew back, and, drawing her veil still more closely round +her, said, in French: + +“Pardon me, I would wish a private conversation.” Philip rose to +withdraw, when the lady, observing him with eyes whose lustre shone +through the veil, said gently: “But perhaps the young gentleman is +discreet.” + +“He is not discreet, he is discretion!--my adopted son. You may confide +in him--upon my honour you may, madam!” and Mr. Love placed his hand on +his heart. + +“He is very young,” said the lady, in a tone of involuntary compassion, +as, with a very white hand, she unclasped the buckle of her cloak. + +“He can the better understand the curse of celibacy,” returned Mr. Love, +smiling. + +The lady lifted part of her veil, and discovered a handsome mouth, and a +set of small, white teeth; for she, too, smiled, though gravely, as she +turned to Morton, and said-- + +“You seem, sir, more fitted to be a votary of the temple than one of its +officers. However, Monsieur Love, let there be no mistake between us; +I do not come here to form a marriage, but to prevent one. I understand +that Monsieur the Vicomte de Vaudemont has called into request your +services. I am one of the Vicomte’s family; we are all anxious that +he should not contract an engagement of the strange and, pardon me, +unbecoming character, which must stamp a union formed at a public +office.” + +“I assure you, madam,” said Mr. Love, with dignity, “that we have +contributed to the very first--” + +“Mon Dieu!” interrupted the lady, with much impatience, “spare me a +eulogy on your establishment: I have no doubt it is very respectable; +and for grisettes and epiciers may do extremely well. But the Vicomte +is a man of birth and connections. In a word, what he contemplates +is preposterous. I know not what fee Monsieur Love expects; but if +he contrive to amuse Monsieur de Vaudemont, and to frustrate every +connection he proposes to form, that fee, whatever it may be, shall be +doubled. Do you understand me?” + +“Perfectly, madam; yet it is not your offer that will bias me, but the +desire to oblige so charming a lady.” + +“It is agreed, then?” said the lady, carelessly; and as she spoke she +again glanced at Philip. + +“If madame will call again, I will inform her of my plans,” said Mr. +Love. + +“Yes, I will call again. Good morning!” As she rose and passed Philip, +she wholly put aside her veil, and looked at him with a gaze entirely +free from coquetry, but curious, searching, and perhaps admiring--the +look that an artist may give to a picture that seems of more value than +the place where he finds it would seem to indicate. The countenance of +the lady herself was fair and noble, and Philip felt a strange thrill at +his heart as, with a slight inclination of her head, she turned from the +room. + +“Ah!” said Gawtrey, laughing, “this is not the first time I have been +paid by relations to break off the marriages I had formed. Egad! if one +could open a bureau to make married people single, one would soon be +a Croesus! Well, then, this decides me to complete the union between +Monsieur Goupille and Mademoiselle de Courval. I had balanced a little +hitherto between the epicier and the Vicomte. Now I will conclude +matters. Do you know, Phil, I think you have made a conquest?” + +“Pooh!” said Philip, colouring. + +In effect, that very evening Mr. Love saw both the epicier and Adele, +and fixed the marriage-day. As Monsieur Goupille was a person of great +distinction in the Faubourg, this wedding was one upon which Mr. Love +congratulated himself greatly; and he cheerfully accepted an invitation +for himself and his partners to honour the noces with their presence. + +A night or two before the day fixed for the marriage of Monsieur +Goupille and the aristocratic Adele, when Mr. Birnie had retired, +Gawtrey made his usual preparations for enjoying himself. But this time +the cigar and the punch seemed to fail of their effect. Gawtrey remained +moody and silent; and Morton was thinking of the bright eyes of the +lady who was so much interested against the amours of the Vicomte de +Vaudemont. + +At last, Gawtrey broke silence: + +“My young friend,” said he, “I told you of my little protege; I have +been buying toys for her this morning; she is a beautiful creature; +to-morrow is her birthday--she will then be six years old. But--but--” + here Gawtrey sighed--“I fear she is not all right here,” and he touched +his forehead. + +“I should like much to see her,” said Philip, not noticing the latter +remark. + +“And you shall--you shall come with me to-morrow. Heigho! I should not +like to die, for her sake!” + +“Does her wretched relation attempt to regain her?” + +“Her relation! No; she is no more--she died about two years since! Poor +Mary! I--well, this is folly. But Fanny is at present in a convent; they +are all kind to her, but then I pay well; if I were dead, and the pay +stopped,--again I ask, what would become of her, unless, as I before +said, my father--” + +“But you are making a fortune now?” + +“If this lasts--yes; but I live in fear--the police of this cursed city +are lynx-eyed; however, that is the bright side of the question.” + +“Why not have the child with you, since you love her so much? She would +be a great comfort to you.” + +“Is this a place for a child--a girl?” said Gawtrey, stamping his foot +impatiently. “I should go mad if I saw that villainous deadman’s eye +bent upon her!” + +“You speak of Birnie. How can you endure him?” + +“When you are my age you will know why we endure what we dread--why +we make friends of those who else would be most horrible foes: no, +no--nothing can deliver me of this man but Death. And--and--” added +Gawtrey, turning pale, “I cannot murder a man who eats my bread. +There are stronger ties, my lad, than affection, that bind men, like +galley-slaves, together. He who can hang you puts the halter round your +neck and leads you by it like a dog.” + +A shudder came over the young listener. And what dark secrets, known +only to those two, had bound, to a man seemingly his subordinate and +tool, the strong will and resolute temper of William Gawtrey? + +“But, begone, dull care!” exclaimed Gawtrey, rousing himself. “And, +after all, Birnie is a useful fellow, and dare no more turn against me +than I against him! Why don’t you drink more? + + + “Oh! have you e’er heard of the famed Captain Wattle?” + +and Gawtrey broke out into a loud Bacchanalian hymn, in which Philip +could find no mirth, and from which the songster suddenly paused to +exclaim:-- + +“Mind you say nothing about Fanny to Birnie; my secrets with him are not +of that nature. He could not hurt her, poor lamb! it is true--at least, +as far as I can foresee. But one can never feel too sure of one’s lamb, +if one once introduces it to the butcher!” + +The next day being Sunday, the bureau was closed, and Philip and +Gawtrey repaired to the convent. It was a dismal-looking place as to +the exterior; but, within, there was a large garden, well kept, and, +notwithstanding the winter, it seemed fair and refreshing, compared with +the polluted streets. The window of the room into which they were shown +looked upon the green sward, with walls covered with ivy at the farther +end. And Philip’s own childhood came back to him as he gazed on the +quiet of the lonely place. + +The door opened--an infant voice was heard, a voice of glee--of rapture; +and a child, light and beautiful as a fairy, bounded to Gawtrey’s +breast. + +Nestling there, she kissed his face, his hands, his clothes, with a +passion that did not seem to belong to her age, laughing and sobbing +almost at a breath. + +On his part, Gawtrey appeared equally affected: he stroked down her hair +with his huge hand, calling her all manner of pet names, in a tremulous +voice that vainly struggled to be gay. + +At length he took the toys he had brought with him from his capacious +pockets, and strewing them on the floor, fairly stretched his vast bulk +along; while the child tumbled over him, sometimes grasping at the toys, +and then again returning to his bosom, and laying her head there, looked +up quietly into his eyes, as if the joy were too much for her. + +Morton, unheeded by both, stood by with folded arms. He thought of his +lost and ungrateful brother, and muttered to himself: + +“Fool! when she is older, she will forsake him!” + +Fanny betrayed in her face the Italian origin of her father. She had +that exceeding richness of complexion which, though not common even +in Italy, is only to be found in the daughters of that land, and which +harmonised well with the purple lustre of her hair, and the full, clear +iris of the dark eyes. Never were parted cherries brighter than her +dewy lips; and the colour of the open neck and the rounded arms was of +a whiteness still more dazzling, from the darkness of the hair and the +carnation of the glowing cheek. + +Suddenly Fanny started from Gawtrey’s arms, and running up to Morton, +gazed at him wistfully, and said, in French: + +“Who are you? Do you come from the moon? I think you do.” Then, stopping +abruptly, she broke into a verse of a nursery-song, which she chaunted +with a low, listless tone, as if she were not conscious of the sense. As +she thus sang, Morton, looking at her, felt a strange and painful doubt +seize him. The child’s eyes, though soft, were so vacant in their gaze. + +“And why do I come from the moon?” said he. + +“Because you look sad and cross. I don’t like you--I don’t like the +moon; it gives me a pain here!” and she put her hand to her temples. +“Have you got anything for Fanny--poor, poor Fanny?” and, dwelling on +the epithet, she shook her head mournfully. + +“You are rich, Fanny, with all those toys.” + +“Am I? Everybody calls me poor Fanny--everybody but papa;” and she ran +again to Gawtrey, and laid her head on his shoulder. + +“She calls me papa!” said Gawtrey, kissing her; “you hear it? Bless +her!” + +“And you never kiss any one but Fanny--you have no other little girl?” + said the child, earnestly, and with a look less vacant than that which +had saddened Morton. + +“No other--no--nothing under heaven, and perhaps above it, but you!” and +he clasped her in his arms. “But,” he added, after a pause--“but mind +me, Fanny, you must like this gentleman. He will be always good to you: +and he had a little brother whom he was as fond of as I am of you.” + +“No, I won’t like him--I won’t like anybody but you and my sister!” + +“Sister!--who is your sister?” + +The child’s face relapsed into an expression almost of idiotcy. “I don’t +know--I never saw her. I hear her sometimes, but I don’t understand +what she says.--Hush! come here!” and she stole to the window on tiptoe. +Gawtrey followed and looked out. + +“Do you hear her, now?” said Fanny. “What does she say?” + +As the girl spoke, some bird among the evergreens uttered a shrill, +plaintive cry, rather than song--a sound which the thrush occasionally +makes in the winter, and which seems to express something of fear, and +pain, and impatience. “What does she say?--can you tell me?” asked the +child. + +“Pooh! that is a bird; why do you call it your sister?” + +“I don’t know!--because it is--because it--because--I don’t know--is it +not in pain?--do something for it, papa!” + +Gawtrey glanced at Morton, whose face betokened his deep pity, and +creeping up to him, whispered,-- + +“Do you think she is really touched here? No, no,--she will outgrow +it--I am sure she will!” + +Morton sighed. + +Fanny by this time had again seated herself in the middle of the floor, +and arranged her toys, but without seeming to take pleasure in them. + +At last Gawtrey was obliged to depart. The lay sister, who had charge +of Fanny, was summoned into the parlour; and then the child’s manner +entirely changed; her face grew purple--she sobbed with as much anger as +grief. “She would not leave papa--she would not go--that she would not!” + +“It is always so,” whispered Gawtrey to Morton, in an abashed and +apologetic voice. “It is so difficult to get away from her. Just go and +talk with her while I steal out.” + +Morton went to her, as she struggled with the patient good-natured +sister, and began to soothe and caress her, till she turned on him her +large humid eyes, and said, mournfully, + +“Tu es mechant, tu. Poor Fanny!” + +“But this pretty doll--” began the sister. The child looked at it +joylessly. + +“And papa is going to die!” + +“Whenever Monsieur goes,” whispered the nun, “she always says that he +is dead, and cries herself quietly to sleep; when Monsieur returns, she +says he is come to life again. Some one, I suppose, once talked to her +about death; and she thinks when she loses sight of any one, that that +is death.” + +“Poor child!” said Morton, with a trembling voice. + +The child looked up, smiled, stroked his cheek with her little hand, and +said: + +“Thank you!--Yes! poor Fanny! Ah, he is going--see!--let me go too--tu +es mechant.” + +“But,” said Morton, detaining her gently, “do you know that you give +him pain?--you make him cry by showing pain yourself. Don’t make him so +sad!” + +The child seemed struck, hung down her head for a moment, as if in +thought, and then, jumping from Morton’s lap, ran to Gawtrey, put up her +pouting lips, and said: + +“One kiss more!” + +Gawtrey kissed her, and turned away his head. + +“Fanny is a good girl!” and Fanny, as she spoke, went back to Morton, +and put her little fingers into her eyes, as if either to shut out +Gawtrey’s retreat from her sight, or to press back her tears. + +“Give me the doll now, sister Marie.” + +Morton smiled and sighed, placed the child, who struggled no more, in +the nun’s arms, and left the room; but as he closed the door he looked +back, and saw that Fanny had escaped from the sister, thrown herself on +the floor, and was crying, but not loud. + +“Is she not a little darling?” said Gawtrey, as they gained the street. + +“She is, indeed, a most beautiful child!” + +“And you will love her if I leave her penniless,” said Gawtrey, +abruptly. “It was your love for your mother and your brother that made +me like you from the first. Ay,” continued Gawtrey, in a tone of great +earnestness, “ay, and whatever may happen to me, I will strive and keep +you, my poor lad, harmless; and what is better, innocent even of such +matters as sit light enough on my own well-seasoned conscience. In turn, +if ever you have the power, be good to her,--yes, be good to her! and I +won’t say a harsh word to you if ever you like to turn king’s evidence +against myself.” + +“Gawtrey!” said Morton, reproachfully, and almost fiercely. + +“Bah!--such things are! But tell me honestly, do you think she is very +strange--very deficient?” + +“I have not seen enough of her to judge,” answered Morton, evasively. + +“She is so changeful,” persisted Gawtrey. “Sometimes you would say +that she was above her age, she comes out with such thoughtful, clever +things; then, the next moment, she throws me into despair. These nuns +are very skilful in education--at least they are said to be so. The +doctors give me hope, too. You see, her poor mother was very unhappy +at the time of her birth--delirious, indeed: that may account for it. I +often fancy that it is the constant excitement which her state occasions +me that makes me love her so much. You see she is one who can never +shift for herself. I must get money for her; I have left a little +already with the superior, and I would not touch it to save myself from +famine! If she has money people will be kind enough to her. And then,” + continued Gawtrey, “you must perceive that she loves nothing in the +world but me--me, whom nobody else loves! Well--well, now to the shop +again!” + +On returning home the bonne informed them that a lady had called, and +asked both for Monsieur Love and the young gentleman, and seemed much +chagrined at missing both. By the description, Morton guessed she was +the fair incognita, and felt disappointed at having lost the interview. + + + +CHAPTER V. + + + “The cursed carle was at his wonted trade, + Still tempting heedless men into his snare, + In witching wise, as I before have said; + But when he saw, in goodly gear array’d, + The grave majestic knight approaching nigh, + His countenance fell.”--THOMSON, Castle of Indolence. + +The morning rose that was to unite Monsieur Goupille with Mademoiselle +Adele de Courval. The ceremony was performed, and bride and bridegroom +went through that trying ordeal with becoming gravity. Only the elegant +Adele seemed more unaffectedly agitated than Mr. Love could well account +for; she was very nervous in church, and more often turned her eyes to +the door than to the altar. Perhaps she wanted to run away; but it was +either too late or too early for the proceeding. The rite performed, +the happy pair and their friends adjourned to the Cadran Bleu, that +restaurant so celebrated in the festivities of the good citizens of +Paris. Here Mr. Love had ordered, at the epicier’s expense, a most +tasteful entertainment. + +“Sacre! but you have not played the economist, Monsieur Lofe,” said +Monsieur Goupille, rather querulously, as he glanced at the long room +adorned with artificial flowers, and the table a cingitante couverts. + +“Bah!” replied Mr. Love, “you can retrench afterwards. Think of the +fortune she brought you.” + +“It is a pretty sum, certainly,” said Monsieur Goupille, “and the notary +is perfectly satisfied.” + +“There is not a marriage in Paris that does me more credit,” said Mr. +Love; and he marched off to receive the compliments and congratulations +that awaited him among such of the guests as were aware of his good +offices. The Vicomte de Vaudemont was of course not present. He had +not been near Mr. Love since Adele had accepted the epicier. But Madame +Beavor, in a white bonnet lined with lilac, was hanging, sentimentally, +on the arm of the Pole, who looked very grand with his white favour; and +Mr. Higgins had been introduced, by Mr. Love, to a little dark Creole, +who wore paste diamonds, and had very languishing eyes; so that Mr. +Love’s heart might well swell with satisfaction at the prospect of +the various blisses to come, which might owe their origin to his +benevolence. In fact, that archpriest of the Temple of Hymen was never +more great than he was that day; never did his establishment seem more +solid, his reputation more popular, or his fortune more sure. He was the +life of the party. + +The banquet over, the revellers prepared for a dance. Monsieur Goupille, +in tights, still tighter than he usually wore, and of a rich nankeen, +quite new, with striped silk stockings, opened the ball with the lady of +a rich patissier in the same Faubourg; Mr. Love took out the bride. The +evening advanced; and after several other dances of ceremony, Monsieur +Goupille conceived himself entitled to dedicate one to connubial +affection. A country-dance was called, and the epicier claimed the fair +hand of the gentle Adele. About this time, two persons not hitherto +perceived had quietly entered the room, and, standing near the doorway, +seemed examining the dancers, as if in search for some one. They bobbed +their heads up and down, to and fro stopped--now stood on tiptoe. The +one was a tall, large-whiskered, fair-haired man; the other, a little, +thin, neatly-dressed person, who kept his hand on the arm of his +companion, and whispered to him from time to time. The whiskered +gentleman replied in a guttural tone, which proclaimed his origin to be +German. The busy dancers did not perceive the strangers. The bystanders +did, and a hum of curiosity circled round; who could they be?--who had +invited them?--they were new faces in the Faubourg--perhaps relations to +Adele? + +In high delight the fair bride was skipping down the middle, while +Monsieur Goupille, wiping his forehead with care, admired her agility; +when, to and behold! the whiskered gentleman I have described abruptly +advanced from his companion, and cried: + +“La voila!--sacre tonnerre!” + +At that voice--at that apparition, the bride halted; so suddenly indeed, +that she had not time to put down both feet, but remained with one high +in the air, while the other sustained itself on the light fantastic toe. +The company naturally imagined this to be an operatic flourish, which +called for approbation. Monsieur Love, who was thundering down behind +her, cried, “Bravo!” and as the well-grown gentleman had to make a sweep +to avoid disturbing her equilibrium, he came full against the whiskered +stranger, and sent him off as a bat sends a ball. + +“Mon Dieu!” cried Monsieur Goupille. “Ma douce amie--she has fainted +away!” And, indeed, Adele had no sooner recovered her, balance, than +she resigned it once more into the arms of the startled Pole, who was +happily at hand. + +In the meantime, the German stranger, who had saved himself from falling +by coming with his full force upon the toes of Mr. Higgins, again +advanced to the spot, and, rudely seizing the fair bride by the arm, +exclaimed,-- + +“No sham if you please, madame--speak! What the devil have you done with +the money?” + +“Really, sir,” said Monsieur Goupille, drawing tip his cravat, “this +is very extraordinary conduct! What have you got to say to this lady’s +money?--it is my money now, sir!” + +“Oho! it is, is it? We’ll soon see that. Approchez donc, Monsieur +Favart, faites votre devoir.” + +At these words the small companion of the stranger slowly sauntered to +the spot, while at the sound of his name and the tread of his step, the +throng gave way to the right and left. For Monsieur Favart was one of +the most renowned chiefs of the great Parisian police--a man worthy to +be the contemporary of the illustrious Vidocq. + +“Calmez vous, messieurs; do not be alarmed, ladies,” said this +gentleman, in the mildest of all human voices; and certainly no oil +dropped on the waters ever produced so tranquillising an effect as that +small, feeble, gentle tenor. The Pole, in especial, who was holding the +fair bride with both his arms, shook all over, and seemed about to let +his burden gradually slide to the floor, when Monsieur Favart, looking +at him with a benevolent smile, said-- + +“Aha, mon brave! c’est toi. Restez donc. Restez, tenant toujours la +dame!” + +The Pole, thus condemned, in the French idiom, “always to hold the +dame,” mechanically raised the arms he had previously dejected, and the +police officer, with an approving nod of the head, said,-- + +“Bon! ne bougez point,--c’est ca!” + +Monsieur Goupille, in equal surprise and indignation to see his better +half thus consigned, without any care to his own marital feelings, +to the arms of another, was about to snatch her from the Pole, when +Monsieur Favart, touching him on the breast with his little finger, +said, in the suavest manner,-- + +“Mon bourgeois, meddle not with what does not concern you!” + +“With what does not concern me!” repeated Monsieur Goupille, drawing +himself up to so great a stretch that he seemed pulling off his tights +the wrong way. “Explain yourself, if you please! This lady is my wife!” + +“Say that again,--that’s all!” cried the whiskered stranger, in most +horrible French, and with a furious grimace, as he shook both his fists +just under the nose of the epicier. + +“Say it again, sir,” said Monsieur Goupille, by no means daunted; “and +why should not I say it again? That lady is my wife!” + +“You lie!--she is mine!” cried the German; and bending down, he caught +the fair Adele from the Pole with as little ceremony as if she had never +had a great-grandfather a marquis, and giving her a shake that might +have roused the dead, thundered out,-- + +“Speak! Madame Bihl! Are you my wife or not?” + +“Monstre!” murmured Adele, opening her eyes. + +“There--you hear--she owns me!” said the German, appealing to the +company with a triumphant air. + +“C’est vrai!” said the soft voice of the policeman. “And now, pray don’t +let us disturb your amusements any longer. We have a fiacre at the door. +Remove your lady, Monsieur Bihl.” + +“Monsieur Lofe!--Monsieur Lofe!” cried, or rather screeched the epicier, +darting across the room, and seizing the chef by the tail of his coat, +just as he was half way through the door, “come back! Quelle mauvaise +plaisanterie me faites-vous ici? Did you not tell me that lady was +single? Am I married or not: Do I stand on my head or my heels?” + +“Hush-hush! mon bon bourgeois!” whispered Mr. Love; “all shall be +explained to-morrow!” + +“Who is this gentleman?” asked Monsieur Favart, approaching Mr. Love, +who, seeing himself in for it, suddenly jerked off the epicier, thrust +his hands down into his breeches’ pockets, buried his chin in his +cravat, elevated his eyebrows, screwed in his eyes, and puffed out his +cheeks, so that the astonished Monsieur Goupille really thought himself +bewitched, and literally did not recognise the face of the match-maker. + +“Who is this gentleman?” repeated the little officer, standing beside, +or rather below, Mr. Love, and looking so diminutive by the contrast +that you might have fancied that the Priest of Hymen had only to breathe +to blow him away. + +“Who should he be, monsieur?” cried, with great pertness, Madame Rosalie +Caumartin, coming to the relief, with the generosity of her sex.--“This +is Monsieur Lofe--Anglais celebre. What have you to say against him?” + +“He has got five hundred francs of mine!” cried the epicier. + +The policeman scanned Mr. Love, with great attention. “So you are in +Paris again?--Hein!--vous jouez toujours votre role! + +“Ma foi!” said Mr. Love, boldly; “I don’t understand what monsieur +means; my character is well known--go and inquire it in London--ask +the Secretary of Foreign Affairs what is said of me--inquire of my +Ambassador--demand of my--” + +“Votre passeport, monsieur?” + +“It is at home. A gentleman does not carry his passport in his pocket +when he goes to a ball!” + +“I will call and see it--au revoir! Take my advice and leave Paris; I +think I have seen you somewhere!” + +“Yet I have never had the honour to marry monsieur!” said Mr. Love, with +a polite bow. + +In return for his joke, the policeman gave Mr. Love one look--it was a +quiet look, very quiet; but Mr. Love seemed uncommonly affected by it; +he did not say another word, but found himself outside the house in a +twinkling. Monsieur Favart turned round and saw the Pole making himself +as small as possible behind the goodly proportions of Madame Beavor. + +“What name does that gentleman go by?” + +“So--vo--lofski, the heroic Pole,” cried Madame Beavor, with sundry +misgivings at the unexpected cowardice of so great a patriot. + +“Hein! take care of yourselves, ladies. I have nothing against that +person this time. But Monsieur Latour has served his apprenticeship at +the galleys, and is no more a Pole than I am a Jew.” + +“And this lady’s fortune!” cried Monsieur Groupille, pathetically; “the +settlements are all made--the notaries all paid. I am sure there must be +some mistake.” + +Monsieur Bihl, who had by this time restored his lost Helen to her +senses, stalked up to the epicier, dragging the lady along with him. + +“Sir, there is no mistake! But, when I have got the money, if you like +to have the lady you are welcome to her.” + +“Monstre!” again muttered the fair Adele. + +“The long and the short of it,” said Monsieur Favart, “is that Monsieur +Bihl is a brave garcon, and has been half over the world as a courier.” + +“A courier!” exclaimed several voices. + +“Madame was nursery-governess to an English milord. They married, and +quarrelled--no harm in that, mes amis; nothing more common. Monsieur +Bihl is a very faithful fellow; nursed his last master in an illness +that ended fatally, because he travelled with his doctor. Milord left +him a handsome legacy--he retired from service, and fell ill, perhaps +from idleness or beer. Is not that the story, Monsieur Bihl?” + +“He was always drunk--the wretch!” sobbed Adele. “That was to drown +my domestic sorrows,” said the German; “and when I was sick in my bed, +madame ran off with my money. Thanks to monsieur, I have found both, and +I wish you a very good night.” + +“Dansez-vous toujours, mes amis,” said the officer, bowing. And +following Adele and her spouse, the little man left the room--where +he had caused, in chests so broad and limbs so doughty, much the same +consternation as that which some diminutive ferret occasions in a burrow +of rabbits twice his size. + +Morton had outstayed Mr. Love. But he thought it unnecessary to linger +long after that gentleman’s departure; and, in the general hubbub that +ensued, he crept out unperceived, and soon arrived at the bureau. +He found Mr. Love and Mr. Birnie already engaged in packing up their +effects. + +“Why--when did you leave?” said Morton to Mr. Birnie. + +“I saw the policeman enter.” + +“And why the deuce did not you tell us?” said Gawtrey. + +“Every man for himself. Besides, Mr. Love was dancing,” replied Mr. +Birnie, with a dull glance of disdain. “Philosophy,” muttered Gawtrey, +thrusting his dresscoat into his trunk; then, suddenly changing his +voice, “Ha! ha! it was a very good joke after all--own I did it well. +Ecod! if he had not given me that look, I think I should have turned the +tables on him. But those d---d fellows learn of the mad doctors how to +tame us. Faith, my heart went down to my shoes--yet I’m no coward!” + +“But, after all, he evidently did not know you,” said Morton; “and +what has he to say against you? Your trade is a strange one, but not +dishonest. Why give up as if---” + +“My young friend,” interrupted Gawtrey, “whether the officer comes after +us or not, our trade is ruined; that infernal Adele, with her fabulous +grandmaman, has done for us. Goupille will blow the temple about our +ears. No help for it--eh, Birnie?” + +“None.” + +“Go to bed, Philip: we’ll call thee at daybreak, for we must make clear +work before our neighbours open their shutters.” + +Reclined, but half undressed, on his bed in the little cabinet, Morton +revolved the events of the evening. The thought that he should see no +more of that white hand and that lovely mouth, which still haunted his +recollection as appertaining to the incognita, greatly indisposed him +towards the abrupt flight intended by Gawtrey, while (so much had his +faith in that person depended upon respect for his confident daring, and +so thoroughly fearless was Morton’s own nature) he felt himself greatly +shaken in his allegiance to the chief, by recollecting the effect +produced on his valour by a single glance from the instrument of law. +He had not yet lived long enough to be aware that men are sometimes +the Representatives of Things; that what the scytale was to the Spartan +hero, a sheriff’s writ often is to a Waterloo medallist: that a Bow +Street runner will enter the foulest den where Murder sits with his +fellows, and pick out his prey with the beck of his forefinger. That, +in short, the thing called LAW, once made tangible and present, rarely +fails to palsy the fierce heart of the thing called CRIME. For Law is +the symbol of all mankind reared against One Foe--the Man of Crime. Not +yet aware of this truth, nor, indeed, in the least suspecting Gawtrey of +worse offences than those of a charlatanic and equivocal profession, the +young man mused over his protector’s cowardice in disdain and wonder: +till, wearied with conjectures, distrust, and shame at his own strange +position of obligation to one whom he could not respect, he fell asleep. + +When he woke, he saw the grey light of dawn that streamed cheerlessly +through his shutterless window, struggling with the faint ray of a +candle that Gawtrey, shading with his hand, held over the sleeper. He +started up, and, in the confusion of waking and the imperfect light by +which he beheld the strong features of Gawtrey, half imagined it was a +foe who stood before him. + +“Take care, man,” said Gawtrey, as Morton, in this belief, grasped his +arm. “You have a precious rough gripe of your own. Be quiet, will you? I +have a word to say to you.” Here Gawtrey, placing the candle on a chair, +returned to the door and closed it. + +“Look you,” he said in a whisper, “I have nearly run through my circle +of invention, and my wit, fertile as it is, can present to me little +encouragement in the future. The eyes of this Favart once on me, every +disguise and every double will not long avail. I dare not return to +London: I am too well known in Brussels, Berlin, and Vienna--” + +“But,” interrupted Morton, raising himself on his arm, and fixing his +dark eyes upon his host,--“but you have told me again and again that you +have committed no crime; why then be so fearful of discovery?” + +“Why,” repeated Gawtrey, with a slight hesitation which he instantly +overcame, “why! have not you yourself learned that appearances have the +effect of crimes?--were you not chased as a thief when I rescued you +from your foe, the law?--are you not, though a boy in years, under +an alias, and an exile from your own land? And how can you put these +austere questions to me, who am growing grey in the endeavour to extract +sunbeams from cucumbers--subsistence from poverty? I repeat that there +are reasons why I must avoid, for the present, the great capitals. I +must sink in life, and take to the provinces. Birnie is sanguine as +ever; but he is a terrible sort of comforter! Enough of that. Now to +yourself: our savings are less than you might expect; to be sure, Birnie +has been treasurer, and I have laid by a little for Fanny, which I will +rather starve than touch. There remain, however, 150 napoleons, and our +effects, sold at a fourth their value, will fetch 150 more. Here is your +share. I have compassion on you. I told you I would bear you harmless +and innocent. Leave us while yet time.” + +It seemed, then, to Morton that Gawtrey had divined his thoughts of +shame and escape of the previous night; perhaps Gawtrey had: and such is +the human heart, that, instead of welcoming the very release he had half +contemplated, now that it was offered him, Philip shrank from it as a +base desertion. + +“Poor Gawtrey!” said he, pushing back the canvas bag of gold held out to +him, “you shall not go over the world, and feel that the orphan you fed +and fostered left you to starve with your money in his pocket. When you +again assure me that you have committed no crime, you again remind me +that gratitude has no right to be severe upon the shifts and errors of +its benefactor. If you do not conform to society, what has society done +for me? No! I will not forsake you in a reverse. Fortune has given you a +fall. What, then, courage, and at her again!” + +These last words were said so heartily and cheerfully as Morton sprang +from the bed, that they inspirited Gawtrey, who had really desponded of +his lot. + +“Well,” said he, “I cannot reject the only friend left me; and while +I live--. But I will make no professions. Quick, then, our luggage is +already gone, and I hear Birnie grunting the rogue’s march of retreat.” + +Morton’s toilet was soon completed, and the three associates bade adieu +to the bureau. + +Birnie, who was taciturn and impenetrable as ever, walked a little +before as guide. They arrived, at length, at a serrurier’s shop, placed +in an alley near the Porte St. Denis. The serrurier himself, a tall, +begrimed, blackbearded man, was taking the shutters from his shop as +they approached. He and Birnie exchanged silent nods; and the former, +leaving his work, conducted them up a very filthy flight of stairs to an +attic, where a bed, two stools, one table, and an old walnut-tree bureau +formed the sole articles of furniture. Gawtrey looked rather ruefully +round the black, low, damp walls, and said in a crestfallen tone: + +“We were better off at the Temple of Hymen. But get us a bottle of wine, +some eggs, and a frying-pan. By Jove, I am a capital hand at an omelet!” + +The serrurier nodded again, grinned, and withdrew. + +“Rest here,” said Birnie, in his calm, passionless voice, that seemed to +Morton, however, to assume an unwonted tone of command. “I will go and +make the best bargain I can for our furniture, buy fresh clothes, and +engage our places for Tours.” + +“For Tours?” repeated Morton. + +“Yes, there are some English there; one can live wherever there are +English,” said Gawtrey. + +“Hum!” grunted Birnie, drily, and, buttoning up his coat, he walked +slowly away. + +About noon he returned with a bundle of clothes, which Gawtrey, who +always regained his elasticity of spirit wherever there was fair play +to his talents, examined with great attention, and many exclamations of +“Bon!--c’est va.” + +“I have done well with the Jew,” said Birnie, drawing from his coat +pocket two heavy bags. “One hundred and eighty napoleons. We shall +commence with a good capital.” + +“You are right, my friend,” said Gawtrey. + +The serrurier was then despatched to the best restaurant in the +neighbourhood, and the three adventurers made a less Socratic dinner +than might have been expected. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + + “Then out again he flies to wing his marry round.” + THOMPSON’S Castle of Indolence. + + “Again he gazed, ‘It is,’ said he, ‘the same; + There sits he upright in his seat secure, + As one whose conscience is correct and pure.’”--CRABBE. + +The adventurers arrived at Tours, and established themselves there in a +lodging, without any incident worth narrating by the way. + +At Tours Morton had nothing to do but take his pleasure and enjoy +himself. He passed for a young heir; Gawtrey for his tutor--a doctor in +divinity; Birnie for his valet. The task of maintenance fell on Gawtrey, +who hit off his character to a hair; larded his grave jokes with +university scraps of Latin; looked big and well-fed; wore knee-breeches +and a shovel hat; and played whist with the skill of a veteran vicar. By +his science in that game he made, at first, enough; at least, to defray +their weekly expenses. But, by degrees, the good people at Tours, +who, under pretence of health, were there for economy, grew shy of so +excellent a player; and though Gawtrey always swore solemnly that he +played with the most scrupulous honour (an asseveration which Morton, +at least, implicitly believed), and no proof to the contrary was ever +detected, yet a first-rate card-player is always a suspicious character, +unless the losing parties know exactly who he is. The market fell off, +and Gawtrey at length thought it prudent to extend their travels. + +“Ah!” said Mr. Gawtrey, “the world nowadays has grown so ostentatious +that one cannot travel advantageously without a post-chariot and four +horses.” At length they found themselves at Milan, which at that time +was one of the El Dorados for gamesters. Here, however, for want of +introductions, Mr. Gawtrey found it difficult to get into society. +The nobles, proud and rich, played high, but were circumspect in their +company; the bourgeoisie, industrious and energetic, preserved much +of the old Lombard shrewdness; there were no tables d’hote and public +reunions. Gawtrey saw his little capital daily diminishing, with the +Alps at the rear and Poverty in the van. At length, always on the qui +vive, he contrived to make acquaintance with a Scotch family of great +respectability. He effected this by picking up a snuff-box which the +Scotchman had dropped in taking out his handkerchief. This politeness +paved the way to a conversation in which Gawtrey made himself so +agreeable, and talked with such zest of the Modern Athens, and the +tricks practised upon travellers, that he was presented to Mrs. +Macgregor; cards were interchanged, and, as Mr. Gawtrey lived in +tolerable style, the Macgregors pronounced him “a vara genteel mon.” + Once in the house of a respectable person, Gawtrey contrived to turn +himself round and round, till he burrowed a hole into the English circle +then settled in Milan. His whist-playing came into requisition, and once +more Fortune smiled upon Skill. + +To this house the pupil one evening accompanied the tutor. When the +whist party, consisting of two tables, was formed, the young man found +himself left out with an old gentleman, who seemed loquacious and +good-natured, and who put many questions to Morton, which he found +it difficult to answer. One of the whist tables was now in a state of +revolution, viz., a lady had cut out and a gentleman cut in, when the +door opened, and Lord Lilburne was announced. + +Mr. Macgregor, rising, advanced with great respect to this personage. + +“I scarcely ventured to hope you would coom, Lord Lilburne, the night is +so cold.” + +“You did not allow sufficiently, then, for the dulness of my solitary +inn and the attractions of your circle. Aha! whist, I see.” + +“You play sometimes?” + +“Very seldom, now; I have sown all my wild oats, and even the ace of +spades can scarcely dig them out again.” + +“Ha! ha! vara gude.” + +“I will look on;” and Lord Lilburne drew his chair to the table, exactly +opposite to Mr. Gawtrey. + +The old gentleman turned to Philip. + +“An extraordinary man, Lord Lilburne; you have heard of him, of course?” + +“No, indeed; what of him?” asked the young man, rousing himself. + +“What of him?” said the old gentleman, with a smile; “why the +newspapers, if you ever read them, will tell you enough of the elegant, +the witty Lord Lilburne; a man of eminent talent, though indolent. He +was wild in his youth, as clever men often are; but, on attaining his +title and fortune, and marrying into the family of the then premier, he +became more sedate. They say he might make a great figure in politics if +he would. He has a very high reputation--very. People do say that he +is still fond of pleasure; but that is a common failing amongst the +aristocracy. Morality is only found in the middle classes, young +gentleman. It is a lucky family, that of Lilburne; his sister, Mrs. +Beaufort--” + +“Beaufort!” exclaimed Morton, and then muttered to himself, “Ah, +true--true; I have heard the name of Lilburne before.” + +“Do you know the Beauforts? Well, you remember how luckily Robert, +Lilburne’s brother-in-law, came into that fine property just as his +predecessor was about to marry a--” + +Morton scowled at his garrulous acquaintance, and stalked abruptly to +the card table. + +Ever since Lord Lilburne had seated himself opposite to Mr. Gawtrey, +that gentleman had evinced a perturbation of manner that became obvious +to the company. He grew deadly pale, his hands trembled, he moved +uneasily in his seat, he missed deal, he trumped his partner’s best +diamond; finally he revoked, threw down his money, and said, with a +forced smile, “that the heat of the room overcame him.” As he rose Lord +Lilburne rose also, and the eyes of both met. Those of Lilburne were +calm, but penetrating and inquisitive in their gaze; those of Gawtrey +were like balls of fire. He seemed gradually to dilate in his height, +his broad chest expanded, he breathed hard. + +“Ah, Doctor,” said Mr. Macgregor, “let me introduce you to Lord +Lilburne.” + +The peer bowed haughtily; Mr. Gawtrey did not return the salutation, +but with a sort of gulp, as if he were swallowing some burst of passion, +strode to the fire, and then, turning round, again fixed his gaze upon +the new guest. + +Lilburne, however, who had never lost his self-composure at this strange +rudeness, was now quietly talking with their host. + +“Your Doctor seems an eccentric man--a little absent--learned, I +suppose. Have you been to Como, yet?” + +Mr. Gawtrey remained by the fire beating the devil’s tattoo upon the +chimney-piece, and ever and anon turning his glance towards Lilburne, +who seemed to have forgotten his existence. + +Both these guests stayed till the party broke up; Mr. Gawtrey apparently +wishing to outstay Lord Lilburne; for, when the last went down-stairs, +Mr. Gawtrey, nodding to his comrade and giving a hurried bow to the +host, descended also. As they passed the porter’s lodge, they found +Lilburne on the step of his carriage; he turned his head abruptly, and +again met Mr. Gawtrey’s eye; paused a moment, and whispered over his +shoulder: + +“So we remember each other, sir? Let us not meet again; and, on that +condition, bygones are bygones.” + +“Scoundrel!” muttered Gawtrey, clenching his fists; but the peer had +sprung into his carriage with a lightness scarcely to be expected from +his lameness, and the wheels whirled within an inch of the soi-disant +doctor’s right pump. + +Gawtrey walked on for some moments in great excitement; at length he +turned to his companion,-- + +“Do you guess who Lord Lilburne is? I will tell you my first foe +and Fanny’s grandfather! Now, note the justice of Fate: here is this +man--mark well--this man who commenced life by putting his faults on my +own shoulders! From that little boss has fungused out a terrible hump. +This man who seduced my affianced bride, and then left her whole soul, +once fair and blooming--I swear it--with its leaves fresh from the dews +of heaven, one rank leprosy, this man who, rolling in riches, learned to +cheat and pilfer as a boy learns to dance and play the fiddle, and (to +damn me, whose happiness he had blasted) accused me to the world of his +own crime!--here is this man who has not left off one vice, but added +to those of his youth the bloodless craft of the veteran knave;--here +is this man, flattered, courted, great, marching through lanes of bowing +parasites to an illustrious epitaph and a marble tomb, and I, a rogue +too, if you will, but rogue for my bread, dating from him my errors +and my ruin! I--vagabond--outcast--skulking through tricks to avoid +crime--why the difference? Because one is born rich and the other +poor--because he has no excuse for crime, and therefore no one suspects +him!” + +The wretched man (for at that moment he was wretched) paused breathless +from his passionate and rapid burst, and before him rose in its marble +majesty, with the moon full upon its shining spires--the wonder of +Gothic Italy--the Cathedral Church of Milan. + +“Chafe not yourself at the universal fate,” said the young man, with +a bitter smile on his lips and pointing to the cathedral; “I have not +lived long, but I have learned already enough to know this,-- he who +could raise a pile like that, dedicated to Heaven, would be honoured as +a saint; he who knelt to God by the roadside under a hedge would be sent +to the house of correction as a vagabond. The difference between man +and man is money, and will be, when you, the despised charlatan, and +Lilburne, the honoured cheat, have not left as much dust behind you as +will fill a snuff-box. Comfort yourself, you are in the majority.” + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + + “A desert wild + Before them stretched bare, comfortless, and vast, + With gibbets, bones, and carcasses defiled.” + THOMPSON’S Castle of Indolenece. + +Mr. Gawtrey did not wish to give his foe the triumph of thinking he had +driven him from Milan; he resolved to stay and brave it out; but when +he appeared in public, he found the acquaintances he had formed bow +politely, but cross to the other side of the way. No more invitations +to tea and cards showered in upon the jolly parson. He was puzzled, for +people, while they shunned him, did not appear uncivil. He found out at +last that a report was circulated that he was deranged; though he could +not trace this rumour to Lord Lilburne, he was at no loss to guess from +whom it had emanated. His own eccentricities, especially his recent +manner at Mr. Macgregor’s, gave confirmation to the charge. Again the +funds began to sink low in the canvas bags, and at length, in despair, +Mr. Gawtrey was obliged to quit the field. They returned to France +through Switzerland--a country too poor for gamesters; and ever since +the interview with Lilburne, a great change had come over Gawtrey’s gay +spirit: he grew moody and thoughtful, he took no pains to replenish the +common stock, he talked much and seriously to his young friend of poor +Fanny, and owned that he yearned to see her again. The desire to return +to Paris haunted him like a fatality; he saw the danger that awaited +him there, but it only allured him the more, as the candle does the moth +whose wings it has singed. Birnie, who, in all their vicissitudes and +wanderings, their ups and downs, retained the same tacit, immovable +demeanour, received with a sneer the orders at last to march back upon +the French capital. “You would never have left it, if you had taken my +advice,” he said, and quitted the room. + +Mr. Gawtrey gazed after him and muttered, “Is the die then cast?” + +“What does he mean?” said Morton. + +“You will know soon,” replied Gawtrey, and he followed Birnie; and from +that time the whispered conferences with that person, which had seemed +suspended during their travels, were renewed. + + + .......... + +One morning, three men were seen entering Paris on foot through the +Porte St. Denis. It was a fine day in spring, and the old city looked +gay with its loitering passengers and gaudy shops, and under that clear +blue exhilarating sky so peculiar to France. + +Two of these men walked abreast, the other preceded them a few steps. +The one who went first--thin, pale, and threadbare--yet seemed to suffer +the least from fatigue; he walked with a long, swinging, noiseless +stride, looking to the right and left from the corners of his eyes. Of +the two who followed, one was handsome and finely formed, but of swarthy +complexion, young, yet with a look of care; the other, of sturdy frame, +leaned on a thick stick, and his eyes were gloomily cast down. + +“Philip,” said the last, “in coming back to Paris--I feel that I am +coming back to my grave!” + +“Pooh--you were equally despondent in our excursions elsewhere.” + +“Because I was always thinking of poor Fanny, and +because--because--Birnie was ever at me with his horrible temptations!” + +“Birnie! I loathe the man! Will you never get rid of him?” + +“I cannot! Hush! he will hear us. How unlucky we have been! and now +without a sou in our pockets--here the dunghill--there the gaol! We are +in his power at last!” + +“His power! what mean you?” + +“What ho! Birnie!” cried Gawtrey, unheeding Morton’s question. “Let us +halt and breakfast: I am tired.” + +“You forget!--we have no money till we make it,” returned Birnie, +coldly.--“Come to the serrurier’s he will trust us.” + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + + “Gaunt Beggary and Scorn with many bell-hounds more.” + THOMSON’S Castle of Indolence. + + “The other was a fell, despiteful fiend.”--Ibid. + + “Your happiness behold! then straight a wand + He waved, an anti-magic power that hath + Truth from illusive falsehood to command.”--Ibid. + + “But what for us, the children of despair, + Brought to the brink of hell--what hope remains? + RESOLVE, RESOLVE!”--Ibid. + +It may be observed that there are certain years in which in a civilised +country some particular crime comes into vogue. It flares its season, +and then burns out. Thus at one time we have Burking--at another, +Swingism--now, suicide is in vogue--now, poisoning tradespeople in +apple-dumplings--now, little boys stab each other with penknives--now, +common soldiers shoot at their sergeants. Almost every year there is one +crime peculiar to it; a sort of annual which overruns the country but +does not bloom again. Unquestionably the Press has a great deal to +do with these epidemics. Let a newspaper once give an account of some +out-of-the-way atrocity that has the charm of being novel, and certain +depraved minds fasten to it like leeches. They brood over and revolve +it--the idea grows up, a horrid phantasmalian monomania; and all of a +sudden, in a hundred different places, the one seed sown by the leaden +types springs up into foul flowering. + + + [An old Spanish writer, treating of the Inquisition, has some very + striking remarks on the kind of madness which, whenever some + terrible notoriety is given to a particular offence, leads persons + of distempered fancy to accuse themselves of it. He observes that + when the cruelties of the Inquisition against the imaginary crime of + sorcery were the most barbarous, this singular frenzy led numbers to + accuse themselves of sorcery. The publication and celebrity of the + crime begat the desire of the crime.] + +But if the first reported aboriginal crime has been attended with +impunity, how much more does the imitative faculty cling to it. +Ill-judged mercy falls, not like dew, but like a great heap of manure, +on the rank deed. + +Now it happened that at the time I write of, or rather a little before, +there had been detected and tried in Paris a most redoubted coiner. He +had carried on the business with a dexterity that won admiration even +for the offence; and, moreover, he had served previously with some +distinction at Austerlitz and Marengo. The consequence was that the +public went with instead of against him, and his sentence was transmuted +to three years’ imprisonment by the government. For all governments in +free countries aspire rather to be popular than just. + +No sooner was this case reported in the journals--and even the gravest +took notice, of it (which is not common with the scholastic journals +of France)--no sooner did it make a stir and a sensation, and cover the +criminal with celebrity, than the result became noticeable in a very +large issue of false money. + +Coining in the year I now write of was the fashionable crime. The police +were roused into full vigour: it became known to them that there was one +gang in especial who cultivated this art with singular success. Their +coinage was, indeed, so good, so superior to all their rivals, that it +was often unconsciously preferred by the public to the real mintage. At +the same time they carried on their calling with such secrecy that they +utterly baffled discovery. + +An immense reward was offered by the bureau to any one who would +betray his accomplices, and Monsieur Favart was placed at the head of a +commission of inquiry. This person had himself been a faux monnoyer, and +was an adept in the art, and it was he who had discovered the redoubted +coiner who had brought the crime into such notoriety. Monsieur Favart +was a man of the most vigilant acuteness, the most indefatigable +research, and of a courage which; perhaps, is more common than we +suppose. It is a popular error to suppose that courage means courage in +everything. Put a hero on board ship at a five-barred gate, and, if he +is not used to hunting, he will turn pale; put a fox-hunter on one of +the Swiss chasms, over which the mountaineer springs like a roe, and +his knees will knock under him. People are brave in the dangers to which +they accustom themselves, either in imagination or practice. + +Monsieur Favart, then, was a man of the most daring bravery in facing +rogues and cut-throats. He awed them with his very eye; yet he had been +known to have been kicked down-stairs by his wife, and when he was drawn +into the grand army, he deserted the eve of his first battle. Such, as +moralists say, is the inconsistency of man! + +But Monsieur Favart was sworn to trace the coiners, and he had never +failed yet in any enterprise he undertook. One day he presented +himself to his chief with a countenance so elated that that penetrating +functionary said to him at once-- + +“You have heard of our messieurs!” + +“I have: I am to visit them to-night.” + +“Bravo! How many men will you take?” + +“From twelve to twenty to leave without on guard. But I must enter +alone. Such is the condition: an accomplice who fears his own throat too +much to be openly a betrayer will introduce me to the house--nay, to the +very room. By his description it is necessary I should know the exact +locale in order to cut off retreat; so to-morrow night I shall surround +the beehive and take the honey.” + +“They are desperate fellows, these coiners, always; better be cautious.” + +“You forget I was one of them, and know the masonry.” About the same +time this conversation was going on at the bureau of the police, in +another part of the town Morton and Gawtrey were seated alone. It +is some weeks since they entered Paris, and spring has mellowed into +summer. + +The house in which they lodged was in the lordly quartier of the +Faubourg St. Germain; the neighbouring streets were venerable with +the ancient edifices of a fallen noblesse; but their tenement was in a +narrow, dingy lane, and the building itself seemed beggarly and ruinous. +The apartment was in an attic on the sixth story, and the window, placed +at the back of the lane, looked upon another row of houses of a better +description, that communicated with one of the great streets of the +quartier. The space between their abode and their opposite neighbours +was so narrow that the sun could scarcely pierce between. In the height +of summer might be found there a perpetual shade. + +The pair were seated by the window. Gawtrey, well-dressed, +smooth-shaven, as in his palmy time; Morton, in the same garments with +which he had entered Paris, weather-stained and ragged. Looking +towards the casements of the attic in the opposite house, Gawtrey +said, mutteringly, “I wonder where Birnie has been, and why he has not +returned. I grow suspicious of that man.” + +“Suspicious of what?” asked Morton. “Of his honesty? Would he rob you?” + +“Rob me! Humph--perhaps! but you see I am in Paris, in spite of the +hints of the police; he may denounce me.” + +“Why, then, suffer him to lodge away from you?” + +“Why? because, by having separate houses there are two channels of +escape. A dark night, and a ladder thrown across from window to window, +he is with us, or we with him.” + +“But wherefore such precautions? You blind--you deceive me; what have +you done?--what is your employment now? You are mute. Hark you, Gawtrey. +I have pinned my fate to you--I am fallen from hope itself! At times +it almost makes me mad to look back--and yet you do not trust me. Since +your return to Paris you are absent whole nights--often days; you are +moody and thoughtful--yet, whatever your business, it seems to bring you +ample returns.” + +“You think that,” said Gawtrey, mildly, and with a sort of pity in his +voice; “yet you refuse to take even the money to change those rags.” + +“Because I know not how the money was gained. Ah, Gawtrey, I am not too +proud for charity, but I am for--” He checked the word uppermost in his +thoughts, and resumed-- + +“Yes; your occupations seem lucrative. It was but yesterday Birnie gave +me fifty napoleons, for which he said you wished change in silver.” + +“Did he? The ras-- Well! and you got change for them?” + +“I know not why, but I refused.” + +“That was right, Philip. Do nothing that man tells you.” + +“Will you, then, trust me? You are engaged in some horrible traffic! it +may be blood! I am no longer a boy--I have a will of my own--I will not +be silently and blindly entrapped to perdition. If I march thither, +it shall be with my own consent. Trust me, and this day, or we part +to-morrow.” + +“Be ruled. Some secrets it is better not to know.” + +“It matters not. I have come to my decision--I ask yours.” + +Gawtrey paused for some moments in deep thought. At last he lifted his +eyes to Philip, and replied: + +“Well, then, if it must be. Sooner or later it must have been so; and I +want a confidant. You are bold, and will not shrink. You desire to know +my occupation--will you witness it to-night?” + +“I am prepared: to-night!” + +Here a step was heard on the stairs--a knock at the door--and Birnie +entered. + +He drew aside Gawtrey, and whispered him, as usual, for some moments. + +Gawtrey nodded his head, and then said aloud-- + +“To-morrow we shall talk without reserve before my young friend. +To-night he joins us.” + +“To-night!--very well,” said Birnie, with his cold sneer. “He must take +the oath; and you, with your life, will be responsible for his honesty?” + +“Ay! it is the rule.” + +“Good-bye, then, till we meet,” said Birnie, and withdrew. + +“I wonder,” said Gawtrey, musingly, and between his grinded teeth, +“whether I shall ever have a good fair shot at that fellow? Ho! ho!” and +his laugh shook the walls. + +Morton looked hard at Gawtrey, as the latter now sank down in his +chair, and gazed with a vacant stare, that seemed almost to partake +of imbecility, upon the opposite wall. The careless, reckless, jovial +expression, which usually characterised the features of the man, had for +some weeks given place to a restless, anxious, and at times ferocious +aspect, like the beast that first finds a sport while the hounds are yet +afar, and his limbs are yet strong, in the chase which marks him for +his victim, but grows desperate with rage and fear as the day nears its +close, and the death-dogs pant hard upon his track. But at that moment +the strong features, with their gnarled muscle and iron sinews, seemed +to have lost every sign both of passion and the will, and to be locked +in a stolid and dull repose. At last he looked up at Morton, and said, +with a smile like that of an old man in his dotage-- + +“I’m thinking that my life has been one mistake! I had talents--you +would not fancy it--but once I was neither a fool nor a villain! Odd, +isn’t it? Just reach me the brandy.” + +But Morton, with a slight shudder, turned and left the room. + +He walked on mechanically, and gained, at last, the superb Quai that +borders the Seine; there, the passengers became more frequent; gay +equipages rolled along; the white and lofty mansions looked fair and +stately in the clear blue sky of early summer; beside him flowed the +sparkling river, animated with the painted baths that floated on its +surface: earth was merry and heaven serene his heart was dark through +all: Night within--Morning beautiful without! At last he paused by +that bridge, stately with the statues of those whom the caprice of time +honours with a name; for though Zeus and his gods be overthrown, while +earth exists will live the worship of Dead Men;--the bridge by which you +pass from the royal Tuileries, or the luxurious streets beyond the Rue +de Rivoli, to the Senate of the emancipated People, and the gloomy and +desolate grandeur of the Faubourg St. Germain, in whose venerable haunts +the impoverished descendants of the old feudal tyrants, whom the birth +of the Senate overthrew, yet congregate;--the ghosts of departed powers +proud of the shadows of great names. As the English outcast paused +midway on the bridge, and for the first time lifting his head from +his bosom, gazed around, there broke at once on his remembrance that +terrible and fatal evening, when, hopeless, friendless, desperate, he +had begged for charity of his uncle’s hireling, with all the feelings +that then (so imperfectly and lightly touched on in his brief narrative +to Gawtrey) had raged and blackened in his breast, urging to the +resolution he had adopted, casting him on the ominous friendship of the +man whose guidance he even then had suspected and distrusted. The spot +in either city had a certain similitude and correspondence each with +each: at the first he had consummated his despair of human destinies--he +had dared to forget the Providence of God--he had arrogated his fate to +himself: by the first bridge he had taken his resolve; by the last he +stood in awe at the result--stood no less poor--no less abject--equally +in rags and squalor; but was his crest as haughty and his eye as +fearless, for was his conscience as free and his honour as unstained? +Those arches of stone--those rivers that rolled between, seemed to him +then to take a more mystic and typical sense than belongs to the outer +world--they were the bridges to the Rivers of his Life. Plunged in +thoughts so confused and dim that he could scarcely distinguish, +through the chaos, the one streak of light which, perhaps, heralded +the reconstruction or regeneration of the elements of his soul;--two +passengers halted, also by his side. + +“You will be late for the debate,” said one of them to the other. “Why +do you stop?” + +“My friend,” said the other, “I never pass this spot without recalling +the time when I stood here without a son, or, as I thought, a chance of +one, and impiously meditated self-destruction.” + +“You!--now so rich--so fortunate in repute and station--is it possible? +How was it? A lucky chance?--a sudden legacy?” + +“No: Time, Faith, and Energy--the three Friends God has given to the +Poor!” + +The men moved on; but Morton, who had turned his face towards them, +fancied that the last speaker fixed on him his bright, cheerful eye, +with a meaning look; and when the man was gone, he repeated those words, +and hailed them in his heart of hearts as an augury from above. + +Quickly, then, and as if by magic, the former confusion of his mind +seemed to settle into distinct shapes of courage and resolve. “Yes,” he +muttered; “I will keep this night’s appointment--I will learn the secret +of these men’s life. In my inexperience and destitution, I have suffered +myself to be led hitherto into a partnership, if not with vice and +crime, at least with subterfuge and trick. I awake from my reckless +boyhood--my unworthy palterings with my better self. If Gawtrey be as I +dread to find him--if he be linked in some guilty and hateful traffic; +with that loathsome accomplice--I will--” He paused, for his heart +whispered, “Well, and even so,--the guilty man clothed and fed thee!” + “I will,” resumed his thought, in answer to his heart--“I will go on +my knees to him to fly while there is yet time, to +work--beg--starve--perish even--rather than lose the right to look man +in the face without a blush, and kneel to his God without remorse!” + +And as he thus ended, he felt suddenly as if he himself were restored to +the perception and the joy of the Nature and the World around him; the +NIGHT had vanished from his soul--he inhaled the balm and freshness +of the air--he comprehended the delight which the liberal June was +scattering over the earth--he looked above, and his eyes were suffused +with pleasure, at the smile of the soft blue skies. The MORNING became, +as it were, a part of his own being; and he felt that as the world in +spite of the storms is fair, so in spite of evil God is good. He walked +on--he passed the bridge, but his step was no more the same,--he forgot +his rags. Why should he be ashamed? And thus, in the very flush of this +new and strange elation and elasticity of spirit, he came unawares upon +a group of young men, lounging before the porch of one of the chief +hotels in that splendid Rue de Rivoli, wherein Wealth and the English +have made their homes. A groom, mounted, was leading another horse +up and down the road, and the young men were making their comments of +approbation upon both the horses, especially the one led, which was, +indeed, of uncommon beauty and great value. Even Morton, in whom the +boyish passion of his earlier life yet existed, paused to turn his +experienced and admiring eye upon the stately shape and pace of the +noble animal, and as he did so, a name too well remembered came upon his +ear. + +“Certainly, Arthur Beaufort is the most enviable fellow in Europe.” + +“Why, yes,” said another of the young men; “he has plenty of money--is +good-looking, devilish good-natured, clever, and spends like a prince.” + +“Has the best horses!” + +“The best luck at roulette!” + +“The prettiest girls in love with him!” + +“And no one enjoys life more. Ah! here he is!” + +The group parted as a light, graceful figure came out of a jeweller’s +shop that adjoined the hotel, and halted gaily amongst the loungers. +Morton’s first impulse was to hurry from the spot; his second impulse +arrested his step, and, a little apart, and half-hid beneath one of the +arches of the colonnade which adorns the street, the Outcast gazed upon +the Heir. There was no comparison in the natural personal advantages of +the two young men; for Philip Morton, despite all the hardships of his +rough career, had now grown up and ripened into a rare perfection +of form and feature. His broad chest, his erect air, his lithe and +symmetrical length of limb, united, happily, the attributes of activity +and strength; and though there was no delicacy of youthful bloom upon +his dark cheek, and though lines which should have come later marred +its smoothness with the signs of care and thought, yet an expression of +intelligence and daring, equally beyond his years, and the evidence of +hardy, abstemious, vigorous health, served to show to the full advantage +the outline of features which, noble and regular, though stern and +masculine, the artist might have borrowed for his ideal of a young +Spartan arming for his first battle. Arthur, slight to feebleness, and +with the paleness, partly of constitution, partly of gay excess, on +his fair and clear complexion, had features far less symmetrical and +impressive than his cousin: but what then? All that are bestowed by +elegance of dress, the refinements of luxurious habit, the nameless +grace that comes from a mind and a manner polished, the one by literary +culture, the other by social intercourse, invested the person of the +heir with a fascination that rude Nature alone ever fails to give. And +about him there was a gaiety, an airiness of spirit, an atmosphere of +enjoyment which bespoke one who is in love with life. + +“Why, this is lucky! I’m so glad to see you all!” said Arthur Beaufort, +with that silver-ringing tone and charming smile which are to the happy +spring of man what its music and its sunshine are to the spring of +earth. “You must dine with me at Verey’s. I want something to rouse me +to-day; for I did not get home from the Salon* till four this morning.” + + + *[The most celebrated gaming-house in Paris in the day before + gaming-houses were suppressed by the well-directed energy of the + government.] + +“But you won?” + +“Yes, Marsden. Hang it! I always win: I who could so well afford to +lose: I’m quite ashamed of my luck!” + +“It is easy to spend what one wins,” observed Mr. Marsden, +sententiously; “and I see you have been at the jeweller’s! A present for +Cecile? Well, don’t blush, my dear fellow. What is life without women?” + +“And wine?” said a second. “And play?” said a third. “And wealth?” said +a fourth. + +“And you enjoy them all! Happy fellow!” said a fifth. The Outcast pulled +his hat over his brows, and walked away. + +“This dear Paris,” said Beaufort, as his eye carelessly and +unconsciously followed the dark form retreating through the +arches;--“this dear Paris! I must make the most of it while I stay! I +have only been here a few weeks, and next week I must go.” + +“Pooh--your health is better: you don’t look like the same man.” + +“You think so really? Still I don’t know: the doctors say that I must +either go to the German waters--the season is begun--or--” + +“Or what?” + +“Live less with such pleasant companions, my dear fellow! But as you +say, what is life without--” + +“Women!” + +“Wine!” + +“Play!” + +“Wealth!” + +“Ha! ha. ‘Throw physic to the dogs: I’ll none of it!’” + +And Arthur leaped lightly on his saddle, and as he rode gaily on, +humming the favourite air of the last opera, the hoofs of his horse +splashed the mud over a foot-passenger halting at the crossing. Morton +checked the fiery exclamation rising to his lips; and gazing after +the brilliant form that hurried on towards the Champs Elysees, his eye +caught the statues on the bridge, and a voice, as of a cheering angel, +whispered again to his heart, “TIME, FAITH, ENERGY!” + +The expression of his countenance grew calm at once, and as he continued +his rambles it was with a mind that, casting off the burdens of the +past, looked serenely and steadily on the obstacles and hardships of +the future. We have seen that a scruple of conscience or of pride, not +without its nobleness, had made him refuse the importunities of Gawtrey +for less sordid raiment; the same feeling made it his custom to avoid +sharing the luxurious and dainty food with which Gawtrey was wont +to regale himself. For that strange man, whose wonderful felicity of +temperament and constitution rendered him, in all circumstances, keenly +alive to the hearty and animal enjoyments of life, would still emerge, +as the day declined, from their wretched apartment, and, trusting to his +disguises, in which indeed he possessed a masterly art, repair to one of +the better description of restaurants, and feast away his cares for the +moment. William Gawtrey would not have cared three straws for the +curse of Damocles. The sword over his head would never have spoiled his +appetite! He had lately, too, taken to drinking much more deeply than he +had been used to do--the fine intellect of the man was growing thickened +and dulled; and this was a spectacle that Morton could not bear to +contemplate. Yet so great was Gawtrey’s vigour of health, that, after +draining wine and spirits enough to have despatched a company of +fox-hunters, and after betraying, sometimes in uproarious glee, +sometimes in maudlin self-bewailings, that he himself was not quite +invulnerable to the thyrsus of the god, he would--on any call on his +energies, or especially before departing on those mysterious expeditions +which kept him from home half, and sometimes all, the night--plunge his +head into cold water--drink as much of the lymph as a groom would have +shuddered to bestow on a horse--close his eyes in a doze for half an +hour, and wake, cool, sober, and collected, as if he had lived according +to the precepts of Socrates or Cornaro! + +But to return to Morton. It was his habit to avoid as much as possible +sharing the good cheer of his companion; and now, as he entered the +Champs Elysees, he saw a little family, consisting of a young mechanic, +his wife, and two children, who, with that love of harmless recreation +which yet characterises the French, had taken advantage of a holiday in +the craft, and were enjoying their simple meal under the shadow of the +trees. Whether in hunger or in envy, Morton paused and contemplated the +happy group. Along the road rolled the equipages and trampled the steeds +of those to whom all life is a holiday. There, was Pleasure--under those +trees was Happiness. One of the children, a little boy of about six +years old, observing the attitude and gaze of the pausing wayfarer, ran +to him, and holding up a fragment of a coarse kind of cake, said to him, +willingly, “Take it--I have had enough!” The child reminded Morton of +his brother--his heart melted within him--he lifted the young Samaritan +in his arms, and as he kissed him, wept. + +The mother observed and rose also. She laid her hand on his own: “Poor +boy! why do you weep?--can we relieve you?” + +Now that bright gleam of human nature, suddenly darting across the +sombre recollections and associations of his past life, seemed to Morton +as if it came from Heaven, in approval and in blessing of this attempt +at reconciliation to his fate. + +“I thank you,” said he, placing the child on the ground, and passing his +hand over his eyes,--“I thank you--yes! Let me sit down amongst you.” + And he sat down, the child by his side, and partook of their fare, and +was merry with them,--the proud Philip!--had he not begun to discover +the “precious jewel” in the “ugly and venomous” Adversity? + +The mechanic, though a gay fellow on the whole, was not without some of +that discontent of his station which is common with his class; he vented +it, however, not in murmurs, but in jests. He was satirical on the +carriages and the horsemen that passed; and, lolling on the grass, +ridiculed his betters at his ease. + +“Hush!” said his wife, suddenly; “here comes Madame de Merville;” and +rising as she spoke, she made a respectful inclination of her head +towards an open carriage that was passing very slowly towards the town. + +“Madame de Merville!” repeated the husband, rising also, and lifting his +cap from his head. “Ah! I have nothing to say against her!” + +Morton looked instinctively towards the carriage, and saw a fair +countenance turned graciously to answer the silent salutations of the +mechanic and his wife--a countenance that had long haunted his +dreams, though of late it had faded away beneath harsher thoughts--the +countenance of the stranger whom he had seen at the bureau of Gawtrey, +when that worthy personage had borne a more mellifluous name. He started +and changed colour: the lady herself now seemed suddenly to recognise +him; for their eyes met, and she bent forward eagerly. She pulled the +check-string--the carriage halted--she beckoned to the mechanic’s wife, +who went up to the roadside. + +“I worked once for that lady,” said the man with a tone of feeling; “and +when my wife fell ill last winter she paid the doctors. Ah, she is an +angel of charity and kindness!” + +Morton scarcely heard this eulogium, for he observed, by something eager +and inquisitive in the face of Madame de Merville, and by the sudden +manner in which the mechanic’s helpmate turned her head to the spot in +which he stood, that he was the object of their conversation. Once +more he became suddenly aware of his ragged dress, and with a natural +shame--a fear that charity might be extended to him from her--he +muttered an abrupt farewell to the operative, and without another glance +at the carriage, walked away. + +Before he had got many paces, the wife however came up to him, +breathless. “Madame de Merville would speak to you, sir!” she said, with +more respect than she had hitherto thrown into her manner. Philip paused +an instant, and again strode on-- + +“It must be some mistake,” he said, hurriedly: “I have no right to +expect such an honour.” + +He struck across the road, gained the opposite side, and had vanished +from Madame de Merville’s eyes, before the woman regained the carriage. +But still that calm, pale, and somewhat melancholy face, presented +itself before him; and as he walked again through the town, sweet and +gentle fancies crowded confusedly on his heart. On that soft summer day, +memorable for so many silent but mighty events in that inner life which +prepares the catastrophes of the outer one; as in the region, of which +Virgil has sung, the images of men to be born hereafter repose or +glide--on that soft summer day, he felt he had reached the age when +Youth begins to clothe in some human shape its first vague ideal of +desire and love. + +In such thoughts, and still wandering, the day wore away, till he found +himself in one of the lanes that surround that glittering Microcosm of +the vices, the frivolities, the hollow show, and the real beggary of the +gay City--the gardens and the galleries of the Palais Royal. Surprised +at the lateness of the hour, it was then on the stroke of seven, he +was about to return homewards, when the loud voice of Gawtrey sounded +behind, and that personage, tapping him on the back, said,-- + +“Hollo, my young friend, well met! This will be a night of trial to you. +Empty stomachs produce weak nerves. Come along! you must dine with me. +A good dinner and a bottle of old wine--come! nonsense, I say you shall +come! Vive la joie!” + +While speaking, he had linked his arm in Morton’s, and hurried him on +several paces in spite of his struggles; but just as the words Vive la +joie left his lips, he stood still and mute, as if a thunderbolt had +fallen at his feet; and Morton felt that heavy arm shiver and tremble +like a leaf. He looked up, and just at the entrance of that part of the +Palais Royal in which are situated the restaurants of Verey and Vefour, +he saw two men standing but a few paces before them, and gazing full on +Gawtrey and himself. + +“It is my evil genius,” muttered Gawtrey, grinding his teeth. + +“And mine!” said Morton. + +The younger of the two men thus apostrophised made a step towards +Philip, when his companion drew him back and whispered,--“What are you +about--do you know that young man?” + +“He is my cousin; Philip Beaufort’s natural son!” + +“Is he? then discard him for ever. He is with the most dangerous knave +in Europe!” + +As Lord Lilburne--for it was he--thus whispered his nephew, Gawtrey +strode up to him; and, glaring full in his face, said in a deep and +hollow tone,--“There is a hell, my lord,--I go to drink to our meeting!” + Thus saying, he took off his hat with a ceremonious mockery, and +disappeared within the adjoining restaurant, kept by Vefour. + +“A hell!” said Lilburne, with his frigid smile; “the rogue’s head runs +upon gambling-houses!” + +“And I have suffered Philip again to escape me,” said Arthur, in +self-reproach: for while Gawtrey had addressed Lord Lilburne, Morton had +plunged back amidst the labyrinth of alleys. “How have I kept my oath?” + +“Come! your guests must have arrived by this time. As for that wretched +young man, depend upon it that he is corrupted body and soul.” + +“But he is my own cousin.” + +“Pooh! there is no relationship in natural children: besides, he will +find you out fast enough. Ragged claimants are not long too proud to +beg.” + +“You speak in earnest?” said Arthur, irresolutely. “Ay! trust my +experience of the world--Allons!” + +And in a cabinet of the very restaurant, adjoining that in which the +solitary Gawtrey gorged his conscience, Lilburne, Arthur, and their gay +friends, soon forgetful of all but the roses of the moment, bathed their +airy spirits in the dews of the mirthful wine. Oh, extremes of life! Oh, +Night! Oh, Morning! + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +“Meantime a moving scene was open laid, That lazar house.”--THOMSON’S +Castle of Indolence. + +It was near midnight. At the mouth of the lane in which Gawtrey resided +there stood four men. Not far distant, in the broad street at angles +with the lane, were heard the wheels of carriages and the sound of +music. A lady, fair in form, tender of heart, stainless in repute, was +receiving her friends! + +“Monsieur Favart,” said one of the men to the smallest of the four; “you +understand the conditions--20,000 francs and a free pardon?” + +“Nothing more reasonable--it is understood. Still I confess that I +should like to have my men close at hand. I am not given to fear; but +this is a dangerous experiment.” + +“You knew the danger beforehand and subscribed to it: you must enter +alone with me, or not at all. Mark you, the men are sworn to murder him +who betrays them. Not for twenty times 20,000 francs would I have them +know me as the informer. My life were not worth a day’s purchase. Now, +if you feel secure in your disguise, all is safe. You will have seen +them at their work--you will recognise their persons--you can depose +against them at the trial--I shall have time to quit France.” + +“Well, well! as you please.” + +“Mind, you must wait in the vault with them till they separate. We have +so planted your men that whatever street each of the gang takes in going +home, he can be seized quietly and at once. The bravest and craftiest of +all, who, though he has but just joined, is already their captain;--him, +the man I told you of, who lives in the house, you must take after his +return, in his bed. It is the sixth story to the right, remember: here +is the key to his door. He is a giant in strength; and will never be +taken alive if up and armed.” + +“Ah, I comprehend!--Gilbert” (and Favart turned to one of his companions +who had not yet spoken) “take three men besides yourself, according to +the directions I gave you,--the porter will admit you, that’s arranged. +Make no noise. If I don’t return by four o’clock, don’t wait for me, +but proceed at once. Look well to your primings. Take him alive, if +possible--at the worst, dead. And now--mon ami--lead on!” + +The traitor nodded, and walked slowly down the street. Favart, pausing, +whispered hastily to the man whom he had called Gilbert,-- + +“Follow me close--get to the door of the cellar-place eight men within +hearing of my whistle--recollect the picklocks, the axes. If you hear +the whistle, break in; if not, I’m safe, and the first orders to seize +the captain in his room stand good.” + +So saying, Favart strode after his guide. The door of a large, but +ill-favoured-looking house stood ajar--they entered-passed unmolested +through a court-yard--descended some stairs; the guide unlocked the door +of a cellar, and took a dark lantern from under his cloak. As he drew +up the slide, the dim light gleamed on barrels and wine-casks, which +appeared to fill up the space. Rolling aside one of these, the guide +lifted a trap-door, and lowered his lantern. “Enter,” said he; and the +two men disappeared. + + + ........ + +The coiners were at their work. A man, seated on a stool before a desk, +was entering accounts in a large book. That man was William Gawtrey. +While, with the rapid precision of honest mechanics, the machinery of +the Dark Trade went on in its several departments. Apart--alone--at +the foot of a long table, sat Philip Morton. The truth had exceeded his +darkest suspicions. He had consented to take the oath not to divulge +what was to be given to his survey; and when, led into that vault, the +bandage was taken from his eyes, it was some minutes before he could +fully comprehend the desperate and criminal occupations of the wild +forms amidst which towered the burly stature of his benefactor. As the +truth slowly grew upon him, he shrank from the side of Gawtrey; but, +deep compassion for his friend’s degradation swallowing up the horror of +the trade, he flung himself on one of the rude seats, and felt that the +bond between them was indeed broken, and that the next morning he should +be again alone in the world. Still, as the obscene jests, the fearful +oaths, that from time to time rang through the vault, came on his ear, +he cast his haughty eye in such disdain over the groups, that Gawtrey, +observing him, trembled for his safety; and nothing but Philip’s sense +of his own impotence, and the brave, not timorous, desire not to perish +by such hands, kept silent the fiery denunciations of a nature still +proud and honest, that quivered on his lips. All present were armed with +pistols and cutlasses except Morton, who suffered the weapons presented +to him to lie unheeded on the table. + +“Courage, mes amis!” said Gawtrey, closing his book,--“Courage!--a few +months more, and we shall have made enough to retire upon, and enjoy +ourselves for the rest of the days. Where is Birnie?” + +“Did he not tell you?” said one of the artisans, looking up. “He has +found out the cleverest hand in France, the very fellow who helped +Bouchard in all his five-franc pieces. He has promised to bring him +to-night.” + +“Ay, I remember,” returned Gawtrey, “he told me this morning,--he is a +famous decoy!” + +“I think so, indeed!” quoth a coiner; “for he caught you, the best +head to our hands that ever les industriels were blessed with--sacre +fichtre!” + +“Flatterer!” said Gawtrey, coming from the desk to the table, and +pouring out wine from one of the bottles into a huge flagon--“To your +healths!” + +Here the door slided back, and Birnie glided in. + +“Where is your booty, mon brave?” said Gawtrey. “We only coin money; you +coin men, stamp with your own seal, and send them current to the devil!” + +The coiners, who liked Birnie’s ability (for the ci-devant engraver was +of admirable skill in their craft), but who hated his joyless manners, +laughed at this taunt, which Birnie did not seem to heed, except by a +malignant gleam of his dead eye. + +“If you mean the celebrated coiner, Jacques Giraumont, he waits without. +You know our rules. I cannot admit him without leave.” + +“Bon! we give it,--eh, messieurs?” said Gawtrey. “Ay-ay,” cried several +voices. “He knows the oath, and will hear the penalty.” + +“Yes, he knows the oath,” replied Birnie, and glided back. + +In a moment more he returned with a small man in a mechanic’s blouse. +The new comer wore the republican beard and moustache--of a sandy +grey--his hair was the same colour; and a black patch over one eye +increased the ill-favoured appearance of his features. + +“Diable! Monsieur Giraumont! but you are more like Vulcan than Adonis!” + said Gawtrey. + +“I don’t know anything about Vulcan, but I know how to make five-franc +pieces,” said Monsieur Giraumont, doggedly. + +“Are you poor?” + +“As a church mouse! The only thing belonging to a church, since the +Bourbons came back, that is poor!” + +At this sally, the coiners, who had gathered round the table, uttered +the shout with which, in all circumstances, Frenchmen receive a bon mot. + +“Humph!” said Gawtrey. “Who responds with his own life for your +fidelity?” + +“I,” said Birnie. + +“Administer the oath to him.” + +Suddenly four men advanced, seized the visitor, and bore him from the +vault into another one within. After a few moments they returned. + +“He has taken the oath and heard the penalty.” + +“Death to yourself, your wife, your son, and your grandson, if you +betray us!” + +“I have neither son nor grandson; as for my wife, Monsieur le Capitaine, +you offer a bribe instead of a threat when you talk of her death.” + +“Sacre! but you will be an addition to our circle, mon brave!” said +Gawtrey, laughing; while again the grim circle shouted applause. + +“But I suppose you care for your own life.” + +“Otherwise I should have preferred starving to coming here,” answered +the laconic neophyte. + +“I have done with you. Your health!” + +On this the coiners gathered round Monsieur Giraumont, shook him by the +hand, and commenced many questions with a view to ascertain his skill. + +“Show me your coinage first; I see you use both the die and the +furnace. Hem! this piece is not bad--you have struck it from an iron +die?--right--it makes the impression sharper than plaster of Paris. But +you take the poorest and the most dangerous part of the trade in taking +the home market. I can put you in a way to make ten times as much--and +with safety. Look at this!”--and Monsieur Giraumont took a forged +Spanish dollar from his pocket, so skilfully manufactured that the +connoisseurs were lost in admiration--“you may pass thousands of these +all over Europe, except France, and who is ever to detect you? But it +will require better machinery than you have here.” + +Thus conversing, Monsieur Giraumont did not perceive that Mr. Gawtrey +had been examining him very curiously and minutely. But Birnie had noted +their chief’s attention, and once attempted to join his new ally, when +Gawtrey laid his hand on his shoulder, and stopped him. + +“Do not speak to your friend till I bid you, or--” he stopped short, and +touched his pistols. + +Birnie grew a shade more pale, but replied with his usual sneer: + +“Suspicious!--well, so much the better!” and seating himself carelessly +at the table, lighted his pipe. + +“And now, Monsieur Giraumont,” said Gawtrey, as he took the head of +the table, “come to my right hand. A half-holiday in your honour. Clear +these infernal instruments; and more wine, mes amis!” + +The party arranged themselves at the table. Among the desperate there +is almost invariably a tendency to mirth. A solitary ruffian, indeed, is +moody, but a gang of ruffians are jovial. The coiners talked and laughed +loud. Mr. Birnie, from his dogged silence, seemed apart from the rest, +though in the centre. For in a noisy circle a silent tongue builds a +wall round its owner. But that respectable personage kept his furtive +watch upon Giraumont and Gawtrey, who appeared talking together, very +amicably. The younger novice of that night, equally silent, seated +towards the bottom of the table, was not less watchful than Birnie. An +uneasy, undefinable foreboding had come over him since the entrance +of Monsieur Giraumont; this had been increased by the manner of Mr. +Gawtrey. His faculty of observation, which was very acute, had detected +something false in the chief’s blandness to their guest--something +dangerous in the glittering eye that Gawtrey ever, as he spoke to +Giraumont, bent on that person’s lips as he listened to his reply. For, +whenever William Gawtrey suspected a man, he watched not his eyes, but +his lips. + +Waked from his scornful reverie, a strange spell chained Morton’s +attention to the chief and the guest, and he bent forward, with parted +mouth and straining ear, to catch their conversation. + +“It seems to me a little strange,” said Mr. Gawtrey, raising his voice +so as to be heard by the party, “that a coiner so dexterous as Monsieur +Giraumont should not be known to any of us except our friend Birnie.” + +“Not at all,” replied Giraumont; “I worked only with Bouchard and +two others since sent to the galleys. We were but a small +fraternity--everything has its commencement.” + +“C’est juste: buvez, donc, cher ami!” + +The wine circulated. Gawtrey began again: + +“You have had a bad accident, seemingly, Monsieur Giraumont. How did you +lose your eye?” + +“In a scuffle with the gens d’ armes the night Bouchard was taken and I +escaped. Such misfortunes are on the cards.” + +“C’est juste: buvez, donc, Monsieur Giraumont!” + +Again there was a pause, and again Gawtrey’s deep voice was heard. + +“You wear a wig, I think, Monsieur Giraumont? To judge by your eyelashes +your own hair has been a handsomer colour.” + +“We seek disguise, not beauty, my host; and the police have sharp eyes.” + +“C’est juste: buvez, donc-vieux Renard! When did we two meet last?” + +“Never, that I know of.” + +“Ce n’est pas vrai! buvez, donc, MONSIEUR FAVART!” + +At the sound of that name the company started in dismay and confusion, +and the police officer, forgetting himself for the moment, sprang from +his seat, and put his right hand into his blouse. + +“Ho, there!--treason!” cried Gawtrey, in a voice of thunder; and he +caught the unhappy man by the throat. It was the work of a moment. +Morton, where he sat, beheld a struggle--he heard a death-cry. He +saw the huge form of the master-coiner rising above all the rest, as +cutlasses gleamed and eyes sparkled round. He saw the quivering and +powerless frame of the unhappy guest raised aloft in those mighty arms, +and presently it was hurled along the table-bottles crashing--the board +shaking beneath its weight--and lay before the very eyes of Morton, a +distorted and lifeless mass. At the same instant Gawtrey sprang upon the +table, his black frown singling out from the group the ashen, cadaverous +face of the shrinking traitor. Birnie had darted from the table--he was +half-way towards the sliding door--his face, turned over his shoulder, +met the eyes of the chief. + +“Devil!” shouted Gawtrey, in his terrible voice, which the echoes of the +vault gave back from side to side. “Did I not give thee up my soul that +thou mightest not compass my death? Hark ye! thus die my slavery and +all our secrets!” The explosion of his pistol half swallowed up the last +word, and with a single groan the traitor fell on the floor, pierced +through the brain--then there was a dead and grim hush as the smoke +rolled slowly along the roof of the dreary vault. + +Morton sank back on his seat, and covered his face with his hands. The +last seal on the fate of THE MAN OF CRIME was set; the last wave in the +terrible and mysterious tide of his destiny had dashed on his soul +to the shore whence there is no return. Vain, now and henceforth, the +humour, the sentiment, the kindly impulse, the social instincts which +had invested that stalwart shape with dangerous fascination, which had +implied the hope of ultimate repentance, of redemption even in this +world. The HOUR and the CIRCUMSTANCE had seized their prey; and the +self-defence, which a lawless career rendered a necessity, left the +eternal die of blood upon his doom! + +“Friends, I have saved you,” said Gawtrey, slowly gazing on the corpse +of his second victim, while he turned the pistol to his belt. “I have +not quailed before this man’s eye” (and he spurned the clay of the +officer as he spoke with a revengeful scorn) “without treasuring up +its aspect in my heart of hearts. I knew him when he entered--knew him +through his disguise--yet, faith, it was a clever one! Turn up his face +and gaze on him now; he will never terrify us again, unless there be +truth in ghosts!” + +Murmuring and tremulous the coiners scrambled on the table and examined +the dead man. From this task Gawtrey interrupted them, for his quick eye +detected, with the pistols under the policeman’s blouse, a whistle of +metal of curious construction, and he conjectured at once that danger +was at hand. + +“I have saved you, I say, but only for the hour. This deed cannot sleep. +See, he had help within call! The police knew where to look for their +comrade--we are dispersed. Each for himself. Quick, divide the spoils! +Sauve qui peat!” + +Then Morton heard where he sat, his hands still clasped before his face, +a confused hubbub of voices, the jingle of money, the scrambling of +feet, the creaking of doors. All was silent! + +A strong grasp drew his hands from his eyes. + +“Your first scene of life against life,” said Gawtrey’s voice, which +seemed fearfully changed to the ear that heard it. “Bah! what would you +think of a battle? Come to our eyrie: the carcasses are gone.” + +Morton looked fearfully round the vault. He and Gawtrey were alone. His +eyes sought the places where the dead had lain--they were removed--no +vestige of the deeds, not even a drop of blood. + +“Come, take up your cutlass, come!” repeated the voice of the chief, as +with his dim lantern--now the sole light of the vault--he stood in the +shadow of the doorway. + +Morton rose, took up the weapon mechanically, and followed that terrible +guide, mute and unconscious, as a Soul follows a Dream through the House +of Sleep! + + + +CHAPTER X. + + + “Sleep no more!”--Macbeth + +After winding through gloomy and labyrinthine passages, which conducted +to a different range of cellars from those entered by the unfortunate +Favart, Gawtrey emerged at the foot of a flight of stairs, which, dark, +narrow, and in many places broken, had been probably appropriated to +servants of the house in its days of palmier glory. By these steps the +pair regained their attic. Gawtrey placed the lantern on the table and +seated himself in silence. Morton, who had recovered his self-possession +and formed his resolution, gazed on him for some moments, equally +taciturn. At length he spoke: + +“Gawtrey!” + +“I bade you not call me by that name,” said the coiner; for we need +scarcely say that in his new trade he had assumed a new appellation. + +“It is the least guilty one by which I have known you,” returned Morton, +firmly. “It is for the last time I call you by it! I demanded to see by +what means one to whom I had entrusted my fate supported himself. I have +seen,” continued the young man, still firmly, but with a livid cheek and +lip, “and the tie between us is rent for ever. Interrupt me not! it is +not for me to blame you. I have eaten of your bread and drunk of your +cup. Confiding in you too blindly, and believing that you were at +least free from those dark and terrible crimes for which there is no +expiation--at least in this life--my conscience seared by distress, my +very soul made dormant by despair, I surrendered myself to one leading a +career equivocal, suspicious, dishonourable perhaps, but still not, as +I believed, of atrocity and bloodshed. I wake at the brink of the +abyss--my mother’s hand beckons to me from the grave; I think I hear her +voice while I address you--I recede while it is yet time--we part, and +for ever!” + +Gawtrey, whose stormy passion was still deep upon his soul, had listened +hitherto in sullen and dogged silence, with a gloomy frown on his +knitted brow; he now rose with an oath-- + +“Part! that I may let loose on the world a new traitor! Part! when you +have seen me fresh from an act that, once whispered, gives me to the +guillotine! Part--never! at least alive!” + +“I have said it,” said Morton, folding his arms calmly; “I say it to +your face, though I might part from you in secret. Frown not on me, man +of blood! I am fearless as yourself! In another minute I am gone.” + +“Ah! is it so?” said Gawtrey; and glancing round the room, which +contained two doors, the one concealed by the draperies of a bed, +communicating with the stairs by which they had entered, the other with +the landing of the principal and common flight: he turned to the former, +within his reach, which he locked, and put the key into his pocket, and +then, throwing across the latter a heavy swing bar, which fell into +its socket with a harsh noise,--before the threshold he placed his vast +bulk, and burst into his loud, fierce laugh: “Ho! ho! Slave and fool, +once mine, you were mine body and soul for ever!” + +“Tempter, I defy you! stand back!” And, firm and dauntless, Morton laid +his hand on the giant’s vest. + +Gawtrey seemed more astonished than enraged. He looked hard at his +daring associate, on whose lip the down was yet scarcely dark. + +“Boy,” said he, “off! do not rouse the devil in me again! I could crush +you with a hug.” + +“My soul supports my body, and I am armed,” said Morton, laying hand on +his cutlass. “But you dare not harm me, nor I you; bloodstained as you +are, you gave me shelter and bread; but accuse me not that I will save +my soul while it is yet time!--Shall my mother have blessed me in vain +upon her death-bed?” + +Gawtrey drew back, and Morton, by a sudden impulse, grasped his hand. + +“Oh! hear me--hear me!” he cried, with great emotion. “Abandon this +horrible career; you have been decoyed and betrayed to it by one who can +deceive or terrify you no more! Abandon it, and I will never desert you. +For her sake--for your Fanny’s sake--pause, like me, before the gulf +swallow us. Let us fly!--far to the New World--to any land where our +thews and sinews, our stout hands and hearts, can find an honest mart. +Men, desperate as we are, have yet risen by honest means. Take her, your +orphan, with us. We will work for her, both of us. Gawtrey! hear me. It +is not my voice that speaks to you--it is your good angel’s!” + +Gawtrey fell back against the wall, and his chest heaved. + +“Morton,” he said, with choked and tremulous accent, “go now; leave me +to my fate! I have sinned against you--shamefully sinned. It seemed to +me so sweet to have a friend; in your youth and character of mind there +was so much about which the tough strings of my heart wound themselves, +that I could not bear to lose you--to suffer you to know me for what I +was. I blinded--I deceived you as to my past deeds; that was base in me: +but I swore to my own heart to keep you unexposed to every danger, and +free from every vice that darkened my own path. I kept that oath till +this night, when, seeing that you began to recoil from me, and dreading +that you should desert me, I thought to bind you to me for ever by +implicating you in this fellowship of crime. I am punished, and justly. +Go, I repeat--leave me to the fate that strides nearer and nearer to me +day by day. You are a boy still--I am no longer young. Habit is a second +nature. Still--still I could repent--I could begin life again. But +repose!--to look back--to remember--to be haunted night and day with +deeds that shall meet me bodily and face to face on the last day--” + +“Add not to the spectres! Come--fly this night--this hour!” + +Gawtrey paused, irresolute and wavering, when at that moment he heard +steps on the stairs below. He started--as starts the boar caught in his +lair--and listened, pale and breathless. + +“Hush!--they are on us!--they come!” as he whispered, the key from +without turned in the wards--the door shook. “Soft! the bar preserves us +both--this way.” And the coiner crept to the door of the private stairs. +He unlocked and opened it cautiously. A man sprang through the aperture: + +“Yield!--you are my prisoner!” + +“Never!” cried Gawtrey, hurling back the intruder, and clapping to the +door, though other and stout men were pressing against it with all their +power. + +“Ho! ho! Who shall open the tiger’s cage?” + +At both doors now were heard the sound of voices. “Open in the king’s +name, or expect no mercy!” + +“Hist!” said Gawtrey. “One way yet--the window--the rope.” + +Morton opened the casement--Gawtrey uncoiled the rope. The dawn was +breaking; it was light in the streets, but all seemed quiet without. +The doors reeled and shook beneath the pressure of the pursuers. Gawtrey +flung the rope across the street to the opposite parapet; after two or +three efforts, the grappling-hook caught firm hold--the perilous path +was made. + +“On!--quick!--loiter not!” whispered Gawtrey; “you are active--it seems +more dangerous than it is--cling with both hands--shut your eyes. +When on the other side--you see the window of Birnie’s room,--enter +it--descend the stairs--let yourself out, and you are safe.” + +“Go first,” said Morton, in the same tone: “I will not leave you now: +you will be longer getting across than I shall. I will keep guard till +you are over.” + +“Hark! hark!--are you mad? You keep guard! what is your strength to +mine? Twenty men shall not move that door, while my weight is against +it. Quick, or you destroy us both! Besides, you will hold the rope for +me, it may not be strong enough for my bulk in itself. Stay!--stay one +moment. If you escape, and I fall--Fanny--my father, he will take care +of her,--you remember--thanks! Forgive me all! Go; that’s right!” + +With a firm impulse, Morton threw himself on the dreadful bridge; it +swung and crackled at his weight. Shifting his grasp rapidly--holding +his breath--with set teeth-with closed eyes--he moved on--he gained the +parapet--he stood safe on the opposite side. And now, straining his eyes +across, he saw through the open casement into the chamber he had just +quitted. Gawtrey was still standing against the door to the principal +staircase, for that of the two was the weaker and the more assailed. +Presently the explosion of a fire-arm was heard; they had shot through +the panel. Gawtrey seemed wounded, for he staggered forward, and uttered +a fierce cry; a moment more, and he gained the window--he seized the +rope--he hung over the tremendous depth! Morton knelt by the parapet, +holding the grappling-hook in its place, with convulsive grasp, and +fixing his eyes, bloodshot with fear and suspense, on the huge bulk that +clung for life to that slender cord! + +“Le voiles! Le voiles!” cried a voice from the opposite side. Morton +raised his gaze from Gawtrey; the casement was darkened by the forms of +his pursuers--they had burst into the room--an officer sprang upon the +parapet, and Gawtrey, now aware of his danger, opened his eyes, and as +he moved on, glared upon the foe. The policeman deliberately raised his +pistol--Gawtrey arrested himself--from a wound in his side the blood +trickled slowly and darkly down, drop by drop, upon the stones +below; even the officers of law shuddered as they eyed him--his hair +bristling--his cheek white--his lips drawn convulsively from his teeth, +and his eyes glaring from beneath the frown of agony and menace in which +yet spoke the indomitable power and fierceness of the man. His look, so +fixed--so intense--so stern, awed the policeman; his hand trembled as +he fired, and the ball struck the parapet an inch below the spot where +Morton knelt. An indistinct, wild, gurgling sound-half-laugh, half-yell +of scorn and glee, broke from Gawtrey’s lips. He swung himself +on--near--near--nearer--a yard from the parapet. + +“You are saved!” cried Morton; when at the moment a volley burst from +the fatal casement--the smoke rolled over both the fugitives--a groan, +or rather howl, of rage, and despair, and agony, appalled even the +hardest on whose ear it came. Morton sprang to his feet and looked +below. He saw on the rugged stones far down, a dark, formless, +motionless mass--the strong man of passion and levity--the giant who had +played with life and soul, as an infant with the baubles that it prizes +and breaks--was what the Caesar and the leper alike are, when the clay +is without God’s breath--what glory, genius, power, and beauty, would be +for ever and for ever, if there were no God! + +“There is another!” cried the voice of one of the pursuers. “Fire!” + +“Poor Gawtrey!” muttered Philip. “I will fulfil your last wish;” and +scarcely conscious of the bullet that whistled by him, he disappeared +behind the parapet. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + + “Gently moved + By the soft wind of whispering silks.”--DECKER. + +The reader may remember that while Monsieur Favart and Mr. Birnie were +holding commune in the lane, the sounds of festivity were heard from a +house in the adjoining street. To that house we are now summoned. + +At Paris, the gaieties of balls, or soirees, are, I believe, very rare +in that period of the year in which they are most frequent in London. +The entertainment now given was in honour of a christening; the lady who +gave it, a relation of the new-born. + +Madame de Merville was a young widow; even before her marriage she had +been distinguished in literature; she had written poems of more than +common excellence; and being handsome, of good family, and large +fortune, her talents made her an object of more interest than they might +otherwise have done. Her poetry showed great sensibility and tenderness. +If poetry be any index to the heart, you would have thought her one +to love truly and deeply. Nevertheless, since she married--as girls in +France do--not to please herself, but her parents, she made a mariage de +convenance. Monsieur de Merville was a sober, sensible man, past middle +age. Not being fond of poetry, and by no means coveting a professional +author for his wife, he had during their union, which lasted four years, +discouraged his wife’s liaison with Apollo. But her mind, active and +ardent, did not the less prey upon itself. At the age of four-and-twenty +she became a widow, with an income large even in England for a single +woman, and at Paris constituting no ordinary fortune. Madame de +Merville, however, though a person of elegant taste, was neither +ostentatious nor selfish; she had no children, and she lived quietly in +apartments, handsome, indeed, but not more than adequate to the small +establishment which--where, as on the Continent, the costly convenience +of an entire house is not usually incurred--sufficed for her retinue. +She devoted at least half her income, which was entirely at her own +disposal, partly to the aid of her own relations, who were not rich, and +partly to the encouragement of the literature she cultivated. Although +she shrank from the ordeal of publication, her poems and sketches of +romance were read to her own friends, and possessed an eloquence seldom +accompanied with so much modesty. Thus, her reputation, though not blown +about the winds, was high in her own circle, and her position in fashion +and in fortune made her looked up to by her relations as the head of her +family; they regarded her as femme superieure, and her advice with them +was equivalent to a command. Eugenie de Merville was a strange mixture +of qualities at once feminine and masculine. On the one hand, she had +a strong will, independent views, some contempt for the world, and +followed her own inclinations without servility to the opinion of +others; on the other hand, she was susceptible, romantic, of a +sweet, affectionate, kind disposition. Her visit to M. Love, however +indiscreet, was not less in accordance with her character than her +charity to the mechanic’s wife; masculine and careless where an +eccentric thing was to be done--curiosity satisfied, or some object in +female diplomacy achieved--womanly, delicate, and gentle, the instant +her benevolence was appealed to or her heart touched. She had now been +three years a widow, and was consequently at the age of twenty-seven. +Despite the tenderness of her poetry and her character, her reputation +was unblemished. She had never been in love. People who are much +occupied do not fall in love easily; besides, Madame de Merville +was refining, exacting, and wished to find heroes where she only met +handsome dandies or ugly authors. Moreover, Eugenie was both a vain and +a proud person--vain of her celebrity and proud of her birth. She was +one whose goodness of heart made her always active in promoting the +happiness of others. She was not only generous and charitable, but +willing to serve people by good offices as well as money. Everybody +loved her. The new-born infant, to whose addition to the Christian +community the fete of this night was dedicated, was the pledge of a +union which Madame de Merville had managed to effect between two young +persons, first cousins to each other, and related to herself. There had +been scruples of parents to remove--money matters to adjust--Eugenie had +smoothed all. The husband and wife, still lovers, looked up to her as +the author, under Heaven, of their happiness. + +The gala of that night had been, therefore, of a nature more than +usually pleasurable, and the mirth did not sound hollow, but wrung from +the heart. Yet, as Eugenie from time to time contemplated the young +people, whose eyes ever sought each other--so fair, so tender, and so +joyous as they seemed--a melancholy shadow darkened her brow, and she +sighed involuntarily. Once the young wife, Madame d’Anville, approaching +her timidly, said: + +“Ah! my sweet cousin, when shall we see you as happy as ourselves? There +is such happiness,” she added, innocently, and with a blush, “in being +a mother!--that little life all one’s own--it is something to think of +every hour!” + +“Perhaps,” said Eugenie, smiling, and seeking to turn the conversation +from a subject that touched too nearly upon feelings and thoughts her +pride did not wish to reveal--“perhaps it is you, then, who have made +our cousin, poor Monsieur de Vaudemont, so determined to marry? Pray, +be more cautious with him. How difficult I have found it to prevent his +bringing into our family some one to make us all ridiculous!” + +“True,” said Madame d’Anville, laughing. “But then, the Vicomte is so +poor, and in debt. He would fall in love, not with the demoiselle, but +the dower. A propos of that, how cleverly you took advantage of his +boastful confession to break off his liaisons with that bureau de +mariage.” + +“Yes; I congratulate myself on that manoeuvre. Unpleasant as it was to +go to such a place (for, of course, I could not send for Monsieur Love +here), it would have been still more unpleasant to have received such +a Madame de Vaudemont as our cousin would have presented to us. Only +think--he was the rival of an epicier! I heard that there was some +curious denouement to the farce of that establishment; but I could never +get from Vaudemont the particulars. He was ashamed of them, I fancy.” + +“What droll professions there are in Paris!” said Madame d’Anville. “As +if people could not marry without going to an office for a spouse as we +go for a servant! And so the establishment is broken up? And you never +again saw that dark, wild-looking boy who so struck your fancy that you +have taken him as the original for the Murillo sketch of the youth in +that charming tale you read to us the other evening? Ah! cousin, I +think you were a little taken with him. The bureau de mariage had its +allurements for you as well as for our poor cousin!” The young mother +said this laughingly and carelessly. + +“Pooh!” returned Madame de Merville, laughing also; but a slight blush +broke over her natural paleness. “But a propos of the Vicomte. You +know how cruelly he has behaved to that poor boy of his by his English +wife--never seen him since he was an infant--kept him at some school in +England; and all because his vanity does not like the world to know that +he has a son of nineteen! Well, I have induced him to recall this poor +youth.” + +“Indeed! and how?” + +“Why,” said Eugenie, with a smile, “he wanted a loan, poor man, and I +could therefore impose conditions by way of interest. But I also managed +to conciliate him to the proposition, by representing that, if the young +man were good-looking, he might, himself, with our connections, &c., +form an advantageous marriage; and that in such a case, if the father +treated him now justly and kindly, he would naturally partake with the +father whatever benefits the marriage might confer.” + +“Ah! you are an excellent diplomatist, Eugenie; and you turn people’s +heads by always acting from your heart. Hush! here comes the Vicomte!” + +“A delightful ball,” said Monsieur de Vaudemont, approaching the +hostess. “Pray, has that young lady yonder, in the pink dress, any +fortune? She is pretty--eh? You observe she is looking at me--I mean at +us!” + +“My dear cousin, what a compliment you pay to marriage! You have had two +wives, and you are ever on the qui vive for a third!” + +“What would you have me do?--we cannot resist the overtures of your +bewitching sex. Hum--what fortune has she?” + +“Not a sou; besides, she is engaged.” + +“Oh! now I look at her, she is not pretty--not at all. I made a mistake. +I did not mean her; I meant the young lady in blue.” + +“Worse and worse--she is married already. Shall I present you?” + +“Ah, Monsieur de Vaudemont,” said Madame d’Anville; “have you found out +a new bureau de mariage?” + +The Vicomte pretended not to hear that question. But, turning to +Eugenie, took her aside, and said, with an air in which he endeavoured +to throw a great deal of sorrow, “You know, my dear cousin, that, to +oblige you, I consented to send for my son, though, as I always said, +it is very unpleasant for a man like me, in the prime of life, to hawk +about a great boy of nineteen or twenty. People soon say, ‘Old Vaudemont +and younq Vaudemont.’ However, a father’s feelings are never appealed to +in vain.” (Here the Vicomte put his handkerchief to his eyes, and after +a pause, continued,)--“I sent for him--I even went to your old bonne, +Madame Dufour, to make a bargain for her lodgings, and this day--guess +my grief--I received a letter sealed with black. My son is dead!--a +sudden fever--it is shocking!” + +“Horrible! dead!--your own son, whom you hardly ever saw--never since he +was an Infant!” + +“Yes, that softens the blow very much. And now you see I must marry. If +the boy had been good-looking, and like me, and so forth, why, as you +observed, he might have made a good match, and allowed me a certain sum, +or we could have all lived together.” + +“And your son is dead, and you come to a ball!” + +“Je suis philosophe,” said the Vicomte, shrugging his shoulders. “And, +as you say, I never saw him. It saves me seven hundred francs a-year. +Don’t say a word to any one--I sha’n’t give out that he is dead, poor +fellow! Pray be discreet: you see there are some ill-natured people who +might think it odd I do not shut myself up. I can wait till Paris is +quite empty. It would be a pity to lose any opportunity at present, for +now, you see, I must marry!” And the philosophe sauntered away. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + + GUIOMAR. + “Those devotions I am to pay + Are written in my heart, not in this book.” + + Enter RUTILIO. + “I am pursued--all the ports are stopped too, + Not any hope to escape--behind, before me, + On either side, I am beset.” + BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, The Custom of the Country + +The party were just gone--it was already the peep of day--the wheels of +the last carriage had died in the distance. + +Madame de Merville had dismissed her woman, and was seated in her own +room, leaning her head musingly on her hand. + +Beside her was the table that held her MSS. and a few books, amidst +which were scattered vases of flowers. On a pedestal beneath the window +was placed a marble bust of Dante. Through the open door were seen in +perspective two rooms just deserted by her guests; the lights still +burned in the chandeliers and girandoles, contending with the daylight +that came through the half-closed curtains. The person of the inmate was +in harmony with the apartment. It was characterised by a certain grace +which, for want of a better epithet, writers are prone to call classical +or antique. Her complexion, seeming paler than usual by that light, was +yet soft and delicate--the features well cut, but small and womanly. +About the face there was that rarest of all charms, the combination of +intellect with sweetness; the eyes, of a dark blue, were thoughtful, +perhaps melancholy, in their expression; but the long dark lashes, and +the shape of the eyes, themselves more long than full, gave to their +intelligence a softness approaching to languor, increased, perhaps, by +that slight shadow round and below the orbs which is common with those +who have tasked too much either the mind or the heart. The contour of +the face, without being sharp or angular, had yet lost a little of +the roundness of earlier youth; and the hand on which she leaned was, +perhaps, even too white, too delicate, for the beauty which belongs to +health; but the throat and bust were of exquisite symmetry. + +“I am not happy,” murmured Eugenie to herself; “yet I scarce know why. +Is it really, as we women of romance have said till the saying is worn +threadbare, that the destiny of women is not fame but love. Strange, +then, that while I have so often pictured what love should be, I have +never felt it. And now,--and now,” she continued, half rising, and +with a natural pang--“now I am no longer in my first youth. If I loved, +should I be loved again? How happy the young pair seemed--they are never +alone!” + +At this moment, at a distance, was heard the report of fire-arms--again! +Eugenie started, and called to her servant, who, with one of the +waiters hired for the night, was engaged in removing, and nibbling as +he removed, the remains of the feast. “What is that, at this hour?--open +the window and look out!” + +“I can see nothing, madame.” + +“Again--that is the third time. Go into the street and look--some one +must be in danger.” + +The servant and the waiter, both curious, and not willing to part +company, ran down the stairs, and thence into the street. + +Meanwhile, Morton, after vainly attempting Birnie’s window, which the +traitor had previously locked and barred against the escape of his +intended victim, crept rapidly along the roof, screened by the parapet +not only from the shot but the sight of the foe. But just as he gained +the point at which the lane made an angle with the broad street it +adjoined, he cast his eyes over the parapet, and perceived that one +of the officers had ventured himself to the fearful bridge; he was +pursued--detection and capture seemed inevitable. He paused, and +breathed hard. He, once the heir to such fortunes, the darling of such +affections!--he, the hunted accomplice of a gang of miscreants! That was +the thought that paralysed--the disgrace, not the danger. But he was in +advance of the pursuer--he hastened on--he turned the angle--he heard a +shout behind from the opposite side--the officer had passed the bridge: +“it is but one man as yet,” thought he, and his nostrils dilated and his +hands clenched as he glided on, glancing at each casement as he passed. + +Now as youth and vigour thus struggled against Law for life, near at +hand Death was busy with toil and disease. In a miserable grabat, +or garret, a mechanic, yet young, and stricken by a lingering malady +contracted by the labour of his occupation, was slowly passing from that +world which had frowned on his cradle, and relaxed not the gloom of its +aspect to comfort his bed of Death. Now this man had married for love, +and his wife had loved him; and it was the cares of that early marriage +which had consumed him to the bone. But extreme want, if long continued, +eats up love when it has nothing else to eat. And when people are very +long dying, the people they fret and trouble begin to think of that too +often hypocritical prettiness of phrase called “a happy release.” So the +worn-out and half-famished wife did not care three straws for the dying +husband, whom a year or two ago she had vowed to love and cherish in +sickness and in health. But still she seemed to care, for she moaned, +and pined, and wept, as the man’s breath grew fainter and fainter. + +“Ah, Jean!” said she, sobbing, “what will become of me, a poor lone +widow, with nobody to work for my bread?” And with that thought she took +on worse than before. + +“I am stifling,” said the dying man, rolling round his ghastly +eyes. “How hot it is! Open the window; I should like to see the +light--daylight once again.” + +“Mon Dieu! what whims he has, poor man!” muttered the woman, without +stirring. + +The poor wretch put out his skeleton hand and clutched his wife’s arm. + +“I sha’n’t trouble you long, Marie! Air--air!” + +“Jean, you will make yourself worse--besides, I shall catch my death of +cold. I have scarce a rag on, but I will just open the door.” + +“Pardon me,” groaned the sufferer; “leave me, then.” Poor fellow! +perhaps at that moment the thought of unkindness was sharper than the +sharp cough which brought blood at every paroxysm. He did not like her +so near him, but he did not blame her. Again, I say,--poor fellow! The +woman opened the door, went to the other side of the room, and sat down +on an old box and began darning an old neck-handkerchief. The silence +was soon broken by the moans of the fast-dying man, and again he +muttered, as he tossed to and fro, with baked white lips: + +“Je m’etoufee!--Air!” + +There was no resisting that prayer, it seemed so like the last. The wife +laid down the needle, put the handkerchief round her throat, and opened +the window. + +“Do you feel easier now?” + +“Bless you, Marie--yes; that’s good--good. It puts me in mind of old +days, that breath of air, before we came to Paris. I wish I could work +for you now, Marie.” + +“Jean! my poor Jean!” said the woman, and the words and the voice took +back her hardening heart to the fresh fields and tender thoughts of the +past time. And she walked up to the bed, and he leaned his temples, damp +with livid dews, upon her breast. + +“I have been a sad burden to you, Marie; we should not have married so +soon; but I thought I was stronger. Don’t cry; we have no little ones, +thank God. It will be much better for you when I am gone.” + +And so, word after word gasped out--he stopped suddenly, and seemed to +fall asleep. + +The wife then attempted gently to lay him once more on his pillow--the +head fell back heavily--the jaw had dropped--the teeth were set--the +eyes were open and like the stone--the truth broke on her! + +“Jean--Jean! My God, he is dead! and I was unkind to him at the last!” + With these words she fell upon the corpse, happily herself insensible. + +Just at that moment a human face peered in at the window. Through that +aperture, after a moment’s pause, a young man leaped lightly into the +room. He looked round with a hurried glance, but scarcely noticed the +forms stretched on the pallet. It was enough for him that they seemed +to sleep, and saw him not. He stole across the room, the door of which +Marie had left open, and descended the stairs. He had almost gained +the courtyard into which the stairs had conducted, when he heard voices +below by the porter’s lodge. + +“The police have discovered a gang of coiners!” + +“Coiners!” + +“Yes, one has been shot dead! I have seen his body in the kennel; +another has fled along the roofs--a desperate fellow! We were to watch +for him. Let us go up-stairs and get on the roof and look out.” + +By the hum of approval that followed this proposition, Morton judged +rightly that it had been addressed to several persons whom curiosity +and the explosion of the pistols had drawn from their beds, and who were +grouped round the porter’s lodge. What was to be done?--to advance was +impossible: and was there yet time to retreat?--it was at least the only +course left him; he sprang back up the stairs; he had just gained the +first flight when he heard steps descending; then, suddenly, it flashed +across him that he had left open the window above--that, doubtless, by +that imprudent oversight the officer in pursuit had detected a clue +to the path he had taken. What was to be done?--die as Gawtrey had +done!--death rather than the galleys. As he thus resolved, he saw to the +right the open door of an apartment in which lights still glimmered +in their sockets. It seemed deserted--he entered boldly and at once, +closing the door after him. Wines and viands still left on the table; +gilded mirrors, reflecting the stern face of the solitary intruder; +here and there an artificial flower, a knot of riband on the floor, all +betokening the gaieties and graces of luxurious life--the dance, the +revel, the feast--all this in one apartment!--above, in the same house, +the pallet--the corpse--the widow--famine and woe! Such is a great city! +such, above all, is Paris! where, under the same roof, are gathered such +antagonist varieties of the social state! Nothing strange in this; it +is strange and sad that so little do people thus neighbours know of each +other, that the owner of those rooms had a heart soft to every distress, +but she did not know the distress so close at hand. The music that had +charmed her guests had mounted gaily to the vexed ears of agony and +hunger. Morton passed the first room--a second--he came to a third, +and Eugenie de Merville, looking up at that instant, saw before her +an apparition that might well have alarmed the boldest. His head was +uncovered--his dark hair shadowed in wild and disorderly profusion the +pale face and features, beautiful indeed, but at that moment of the +beauty which an artist would impart to a young gladiator--stamped +with defiance, menace, and despair. The disordered garb--the fierce +aspect--the dark eyes, that literally shone through the shadows of the +room--all conspired to increase the terror of so abrupt a presence. + +“What are you?--What do you seek here?” said she, falteringly, placing +her hand on the bell as she spoke. Upon that soft hand Morton laid his +own. + +“I seek my life! I am pursued! I am at your mercy! I am innocent! Can +you save me?” + +As he spoke, the door of the outer room beyond was heard to open, and +steps and voices were at hand. + +“Ah!” he exclaimed, recoiling as he recognised her face. “And is it to +you that I have fled?” + +Eugenie also recognised the stranger; and there was something in their +relative positions--the suppliant, the protectress--that excited both +her imagination and her pity. A slight colour mantled to her cheeks--her +look was gentle and compassionate. + +“Poor boy! so young!” she said. “Hush!” + +She withdrew her hand from his, retired a few steps, lifted a curtain +drawn across a recess--and pointing to an alcove that contained one of +those sofa-beds common in French houses, added in a whisper,-- + +“Enter--you are saved.” + +Morton obeyed, and Eugenie replaced the curtain. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + + GUIOMAR. + “Speak! What are you?” + + RUTILIO. + “Gracious woman, hear me. I am a stranger: + And in that I answer all your demands.” + Custom of the Country. + +Eugenie replaced the curtain. And scarcely had she done so ere the steps +in the outer room entered the chamber where she stood. Her servant was +accompanied by two officers of the police. + +“Pardon, madame,” said one of the latter; “but we are in pursuit of +a criminal. We think he must have entered this house through a window +above while your servant was in the street. Permit us to search?” + +“Without doubt,” answered Eugenie, seating herself. “If he has entered, +look in the other apartments. I have not quitted this room.” + +“You are right. Accept our apologies.” + +And the officers turned back to examine every corner where the fugitive +was not. For in that, the scouts of Justice resembled their mistress: +when does man’s justice look to the right place? + +The servant lingered to repeat the tale he had heard--the sight he had +seen. When, at that instant, he saw the curtain of the alcove slightly +stirred. He uttered an exclamation--sprung to the bed--his hand touched +the curtain--Eugenie seized his arm. She did not speak; but as he turned +his eyes to her, astonished, he saw that she trembled, and that her +cheek was as white as marble. + +“Madame,” he said, hesitating, “there is some one hid in the recess.” + +“There is! Be silent!” + +A suspicion flashed across the servant’s mind. The pure, the proud, the +immaculate Eugenie! + +“There is!--and in madame’s chamber!” he faltered unconsciously. + +Eugenie’s quick apprehensions seized the foul thought. Her eyes +flashed--her cheek crimsoned. But her lofty and generous nature +conquered even the indignant and scornful burst that rushed to her lips. +The truth!--could she trust the man? A doubt--and the charge of the +human life rendered to her might be betrayed. Her colour fell--tears +gushed to her eyes. + +“I have been kind to you, Francois. Not a word.” + +“Madame confides in me--it is enough,” said the Frenchman, bowing, with +a slight smile on his lips; and he drew back respectfully. + +One of the police officers re-entered. + +“We have done, madame; he is not here. Aha! that curtain!” + +“It is madame’s bed,” said Francois. “But I have looked behind.” + +“I am most sorry to have disarranged you,” said the policeman, satisfied +with the answer; “but we shall have him yet.” And he retired. + +The last footsteps died away, the last door of the apartments closed +behind the officers, and Eugenie and her servant stood alone gazing on +each other. + +“You may retire,” said she at last; and taking her purse from the table, +she placed it in his hands. + +The man took it, with a significant look. “Madame may depend on my +discretion.” + +Eugenie was alone again. Those words rang in her ear,--Eugenie de +Merville dependent on the discretion of her lackey! She sunk into her +chair, and, her excitement succeeded by exhaustion, leaned her face on +her hands, and burst into tears. She was aroused by a low voice; she +looked up, and the young man was kneeling at her feet. + +“Go--go!” she said: “I have done for you all I can.” + +“You heard--you heard--my own hireling, too! At the hazard of my own +good name you are saved. Go!” + +“Of your good name!”--for Eugenie forgot that it was looks, not words, +that had so wrung her pride--“Your good name,” he repeated: and +glancing round the room--the toilette, the curtain, the recess he had +quitted--all that bespoke that chastest sanctuary of a chaste woman, +which for a stranger to enter is, as it were, to profane--her meaning +broke on him. “Your good name--your hireling! No, madame,--no!” And +as he spoke, he rose to his feet. “Not for me, that sacrifice! Your +humanity shall not cost you so dear. Ho, there! I am the man you seek.” + And he strode to the door. + +Eugenie was penetrated with the answer. She sprung to him--she grasped +his garments. + +“Hush! hush!--for mercy’s sake! What would you do? Think you I could +ever be happy again, if the confidence you placed in me were betrayed? +Be calm--be still. I knew not what I said. It will be easy to undeceive +the man--later--when you are saved. And you are innocent,--are you not?” + +“Oh, madame,” said Morton, “from my soul I say it, I am innocent--not of +poverty--wretchedness--error--shame; I am innocent of crime. May Heaven +bless you!” + +And as he reverently kissed the hand laid on his arm, there was +something in his voice so touching, in his manner something so above his +fortunes, that Eugenie was lost in her feelings of compassion, surprise, +and something, it might be, of admiration in her wonder. + +“And, oh!” he said, passionately, gazing on her with his dark, brilliant +eyes, liquid with emotion, “you have made my life sweet in saving it. +You--you--of whom, ever since the first time, almost the sole time, +I beheld you--I have so often mused and dreamed. Henceforth, whatever +befall me, there will be some recollections that will--that--” + +He stopped short, for his heart was too full for words; and the silence +said more to Eugenie than if all the eloquence of Rousseau had glowed +upon his tongue. + +“And who, and what are you?” she asked, after a pause. + +“An exile--an orphan--an outcast! I have no name! Farewell!” + +“No--stay yet--the danger is not past. Wait till my servant is gone to +rest; I hear him yet. Sit down--sit down. And whither would you go?” + +“I know not.” + +“Have you no friends?” + +“Gone.” + +“No home?” + +“None.” + +“And the police of Paris so vigilant!” cried Eugenie, wringing her +hands. “What is to be done? I shall have saved you in vain--you will be +discovered! Of what do they charge you? Not robbery--not--” + +And she, too, stopped short, for she did not dare to breathe the black +word, “Murder!” + +“I know not,” said Morton, putting his hand to his forehead, “except of +being friends with the only man who befriended me--and they have killed +him!” + +“Another time you shall tell me all.” + +“Another time!” he exclaimed, eagerly--“shall I see you again?” + +Eugenie blushed beneath the gaze and the voice of joy. “Yes,” she said; +“yes. But I must reflect. Be calm be silent. Ah!--a happy thought!” + +She sat down, wrote a hasty line, sealed, and gave it to Morton. + +“Take this note, as addressed, to Madame Dufour; it will provide you +with a safe lodging. She is a person I can depend on--an old servant who +lived with my mother, and to whom I have given a small pension. She +has a lodging--it is lately vacant--I promised to procure her a +tenant--go--say nothing of what has passed. I will see her, and arrange +all. Wait!--hark!--all is still. I will go first, and see that no one +watches you. Stop,” (and she threw open the window, and looked into the +court.) “The porter’s door is open--that is fortunate! Hurry on, and God +be with you!” + +In a few minutes Morton was in the streets. It was still early--the +thoroughfares deserted-none of the shops yet open. The address on the +note was to a street at some distance, on the other side of the Seine. +He passed along the same Quai which he had trodden but a few hours +since--he passed the same splendid bridge on which he had stood +despairing, to quit it revived--he gained the Rue Faubourg St. Honore. A +young man in a cabriolet, on whose fair cheek burned the hectic of +late vigils and lavish dissipation, was rolling leisurely home from +the gaming-house, at which he had been more than usually fortunate--his +pockets were laden with notes and gold. He bent forwards as Morton +passed him. Philip, absorbed in his reverie, perceived him not, and +continued his way. The gentleman turned down one of the streets to the +left, stopped, and called to the servant dozing behind his cabriolet. + +“Follow that passenger! quietly--see where he lodges; be sure to find +out and let me know. I shall go home without you.” With that he drove +on. + +Philip, unconscious of the espionage, arrived at a small house in a +quiet but respectable street, and rang the bell several times before at +last he was admitted by Madame Dufour herself, in her nightcap. The old +woman looked askant and alarmed at the unexpected apparition. But the +note seemed at once to satisfy her. She conducted him to an apartment +on the first floor, small, but neatly and even elegantly furnished, +consisting of a sitting-room and a bedchamber, and said, quietly,-- + +“Will they suit monsieur?” + +To monsieur they seemed a palace. Morton nodded assent. + +“And will monsieur sleep for a short time?” + +“Yes.” + +“The bed is well aired. The rooms have only been vacant three days +since. Can I get you anything till your luggage arrives?” + +“No.” + +The woman left him. He threw off his clothes--flung himself on the +bed--and did not wake till noon. + +When his eyes unclosed--when they rested on that calm chamber, with its +air of health, and cleanliness, and comfort, it was long before he could +convince himself that he was yet awake. He missed the loud, deep +voice of Gawtrey--the smoke of the dead man’s meerschaum--the gloomy +garret--the distained walls--the stealthy whisper of the loathed Birnie; +slowly the life led and the life gone within the last twelve hours grew +upon his struggling memory. He groaned, and turned uneasily round, when +the door slightly opened, and he sprung up fiercely,-- + +“Who is there?” + +“It is only I, sir,” answered Madame Dufour. “I have been in three times +to see if you were stirring. There is a letter I believe for you, sir; +though there is no name to it,” and she laid the letter on the chair +beside him. Did it come from her--the saving angel? He seized it. The +cover was blank; it was sealed with a small device, as of a ring seal. +He tore it open, and found four billets de banque for 1,000 francs +each,--a sum equivalent in our money to about L160. + +“Who sent this, the--the lady from whom I brought the note?” + +“Madame de Merville? certainly not, sir,” said Madame Dufour, who, with +the privilege of age, was now unscrupulously filling the water-jugs and +settling the toilette-table. “A young man called about two hours after +you had gone to bed; and, describing you, inquired if you lodged here, +and what your name was. I said you had just arrived, and that I did +not yet know your name. So he went away, and came again half an hour +afterwards with this letter, which he charged me to deliver to you +safely.” + +“A young man--a gentleman?” + +“No, sir; he seemed a smart but common sort of lad.” For the +unsophisticated Madame Dufour did not discover in the plain black frock +and drab gaiters of the bearer of that letter the simple livery of an +English gentleman’s groom. + +Whom could it come from, if not from Madame de Merville? Perhaps one of +Gawtrey’s late friends. A suspicion of Arthur Beaufort crossed him, but +he indignantly dismissed it. Men are seldom credulous of what they are +unwilling to believe. What kindness had the Beauforts hitherto shown +him?--Left his mother to perish broken-hearted--stolen from him his +brother, and steeled, in that brother, the only heart wherein he had a +right to look for gratitude and love! No, it must be Madame de Merville. +He dismissed Madame Dufour for pen and paper--rose--wrote a letter to +Eugenie--grateful, but proud, and inclosed the notes. He then summoned +Madame Dufour, and sent her with his despatch. + +“Ah, madame,” said the ci-devant bonne, when she found herself in +Eugenie’s presence. “The poor lad! how handsome he is, and how shameful +in the Vicomte to let him wear such clothes!” + +“The Vicomte!” + +“Oh, my dear mistress, you must not deny it. You told me, in your note, +to ask him no questions, but I guessed at once. The Vicomte told me +himself that he should have the young gentleman over in a few days. You +need not be ashamed of him. You will see what a difference clothes will +make in his appearance; and I have taken it on myself to order a tailor +to go to him. The Vicomte--must pay me.” + +“Not a word to the Vicomte as yet. We will surprise him,” said Eugenie, +laughing. + +Madame de Merville had been all that morning trying to invent some story +to account for her interest in the lodger, and now how Fortune favoured +her! + +“But is that a letter for me?” + +“And I had almost forgot it,” said Madame Dufour, as she extended the +letter. + +Whatever there had hitherto been in the circumstances connected with +Morton, that had roused the interest and excited the romance of Eugenie +de Merville, her fancy was yet more attracted by the tone of the letter +she now read. For though Morton, more accustomed to speak than to write +French, expressed himself with less precision, and a less euphuistic +selection of phrase, than the authors and elegans who formed her usual +correspondents; there was an innate and rough nobleness--a strong +and profound feeling in every line of his letter, which increased her +surprise and admiration. + +“All that surrounds him--all that belongs to him, is strangeness and +mystery!” murmured she; and she sat down to reply. + +When Madame Dufour departed with that letter, Eugenie remained silent +and thoughtful for more than an hour, Morton’s letter before her; and +sweet, in their indistinctness, were the recollections and the images +that crowded on her mind. + +Morton, satisfied by the earnest and solemn assurances of Eugenie that +she was not the unknown donor of the sum she reinclosed, after puzzling +himself in vain to form any new conjectures as to the quarter whence it +came, felt that under his present circumstances it would be an absurd +Quixotism to refuse to apply what the very Providence to whom he had +anew consigned himself seemed to have sent to his aid. And it placed +him, too, beyond the offer of all pecuniary assistance from one from +whom he could least have brooked to receive it. He consented, therefore, +to all that the loquacious tailor proposed to him. And it would have +been difficult to have recognised the wild and frenzied fugitive in the +stately form, with its young beauty and air of well-born pride, which +the next day sat by the side of Eugenie. And that day he told his sad +and troubled story, and Eugenie wept: and from that day he came daily; +and two weeks--happy, dreamlike, intoxicating to both--passed by; and as +their last sun set, he was kneeling at her feet, and breathing to one to +whom the homage of wit, and genius, and complacent wealth had hitherto +been vainly proffered, the impetuous, agitated, delicious secrets of +the First Love. He spoke, and rose to depart for ever--when the look and +sigh detained him. + +The next day, after a sleepless night, Eugenie de Merville sent for the +Vicomte de Vaudemont. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + + “A silver river small + In sweet accents + Its music vents; + The warbling virginal + To which the merry birds do sing, + Timed with stops of gold the silver string.” + Sir Richard Fanshawe. + +One evening, several weeks after the events just commemorated, a +stranger, leading in his hand, a young child, entered the churchyard +of H----. The sun had not long set, and the short twilight of deepening +summer reigned in the tranquil skies; you might still hear from the +trees above the graves the chirp of some joyous bird;--what cared he, +the denizen of the skies, for the dead that slept below?--what did +he value save the greenness and repose of the spot,--to him alike +the garden or the grave! As the man and the child passed, the robin, +scarcely scared by their tread from the long grass beside one of the +mounds, looked at them with its bright, blithe eye. It was a famous plot +for the robin--the old churchyard! That domestic bird--“the friend of +man,” as it has been called by the poets--found a jolly supper among the +worms! + +The stranger, on reaching the middle of the sacred ground, paused and +looked round him wistfully. He then approached, slowly and hesitatingly, +an oblong tablet, on which were graven, in letters yet fresh and new, +these words:-- + + + TO THE + MEMORY OF ONE CALUMNIATED AND WRONGED + THIS BURIAL-STONE IS DEDICATED + BY HER SON. + +Such, with the addition of the dates of birth and death, was the tablet +which Philip Morton had directed to be placed over his mother’s bones; +and around it was set a simple palisade, which defended it from the +tread of the children, who sometimes, in defiance of the beadle, played +over the dust of the former race. + +“Thy son!” muttered the stranger, while the child stood quietly by +his side, pleased by the trees, the grass, the song of the birds, and +reeking not of grief or death,--“thy son!--but not thy favoured son--thy +darling--thy youngest born; on what spot of earth do thine eyes look +down on him? Surely in heaven thy love has preserved the one whom on +earth thou didst most cherish, from the sufferings and the trials that +have visited the less-favoured outcast. Oh, mother--mother!--it was not +his crime--not Philip’s--that he did not fulfil to the last the trust +bequeathed to him! Happier, perhaps, as it is! And, oh, if thy memory be +graven as deeply in my brother’s heart as my own, how often will it warn +and save him! That memory!--it has been to me the angel of my life! +To thee--to thee, even in death, I owe it, if, though erring, I am not +criminal,--if I have lived with the lepers, and am still undefiled!” His +lips then were silent--not his heart! + +After a few minutes thus consumed he turned to the child, and said, +gently and in a tremulous voice, “Fanny, you have been taught to +pray--you will live near this spot,--will you come sometimes here and +pray that you may grow up good and innocent, and become a blessing to +those who love you?” + +“Will papa ever come to hear me pray?” + +That sad and unconscious question went to the heart of Morton. The child +could not comprehend death. He had sought to explain it, but she had +been accustomed to consider her protector dead when he was absent from +her, and she still insisted that he must come again to life. And that +man of turbulence and crime, who had passed unrepentant, unabsolved, +from sin to judgment: it was an awful question, “If he should hear her +pray?” + +“Yes!” said he, after a pause,--“yes, Fanny, there is a Father who will +hear you pray; and pray to Him to be merciful to those who have been +kind to you. Fanny, you and I may never meet again!” + +“Are you going to die too? Mechant, every one dies to Fanny!” and, +clinging to him endearingly, she put up her lips to kiss him. He took +her in his arms: and, as a tear fell upon her rosy cheek, she said, +“Don’t cry, brother, for I love you.” + +“Do you, dear Fanny? Then, for my sake, when you come to this place, if +any one will give you a few flowers, scatter them on that stone. And now +we will go to one whom you must love also, and to whom, as I have told +you, he sends you; he who--Come!” + +As he thus spoke, and placed Fanny again on the ground, he was startled +to see: precisely on the spot where he had seen before the like +apparition--on the same spot where the father had cursed the son, the +motionless form of an old man. Morton recognised, as if by an instinct +rather than by an effort of the memory, the person to whom he was bound. + +He walked slowly towards him; but Fanny abruptly left his side, lured by +a moth that flitted duskily over the graves. + +“Your name, sir, I think, is Simon Gawtrey?” said Morton. “I have came +to England in quest of you.” + +“Of me?” said the old man, half rising, and his eyes, now completely +blind, rolled vacantly over Morton’s person--“Of me?--for what?--Who are +you?--I don’t know your voice!” + +“I come to you from your son!” + +“My son!” exclaimed the old man, with great vehemence,--“the +reprobate!--the dishonoured!--the infamous!--the accursed--” + +“Hush! you revile the dead!” + +“Dead!” muttered the wretched father, tottering back to the seat he had +quitted,--“dead!” and the sound of his voice was so full of anguish, +that the dog at his feet, which Morton had not hitherto perceived, +echoed it with a dismal cry, that recalled to Philip the awful day in +which he had seen the son quit the father for the last time on earth. + +The sound brought Fanny to the spot; and, with a laugh of delight, which +made to it a strange contrast, she threw herself on the grass beside the +dog and sought to entice it to play. So there, in that place of death, +were knit together the four links in the Great Chain;--lusty and +blooming life--desolate and doting age--infancy, yet scarce conscious of +a soul--and the dumb brute, that has no warrant of a Hereafter! + +“Dead!--dead!” repeated the old man, covering his sightless balls with +his withered hands. “Poor William!” + +“He remembered you to the last. He bade me seek you out--he bade me +replace the guilty son with a thing pure and innocent, as he had been +had he died in his cradle--a child to comfort your old age! Kneel, +Fanny, I have found you a father who will cherish you--(oh! you will, +sir, will you not?)--as he whom you may see no more!” + +There was something in Morton’s voice so solemn, that it awed and +touched both the old man and the infant; and Fanny, creeping to the +protector thus assigned to her, and putting her little hands confidingly +on his knees, said-- + +“Fanny will love you if papa wished it. Kiss Fanny.” + +“Is it his child--his?” said the blind man, sobbing. “Come to my heart; +here--here! O God, forgive me!” Morton did not think it right at that +moment to undeceive him with regard to the poor child’s true connexion +with the deceased: and he waited in silence till Simon, after a burst of +passionate grief and tenderness, rose, and still clasping the child to +his breast, said-- + +“Sir, forgive me!--I am a very weak old man--I have many thanks to +give--I have much, too, to learn. My poor son! he did not die in +want,--did he?” + +The particulars of Gawtrey’s fate, with his real name and the various +aliases he had assumed, had appeared in the French journals, had been +partially copied into the English; and Morton had expected to have +been saved the painful narrative of that fearful death; but the utter +seclusion of the old man, his infirmity, and his estranged habits, had +shut him out from the intelligence that it now devolved on Philip to +communicate. Morton hesitated a little before he answered: + +“It is late now; you are not yet prepared to receive this poor infant at +your home, nor to hear the details I have to state. I arrived in England +but to-day. I shall lodge in the neighbourhood, for it is dear to me. +If I may feel sure, then, that you will receive and treasure this sacred +and last deposit bequeathed to you by your unhappy son, I will bring my +charge to you to-morrow, and we will then, more calmly than we can now, +talk over the past.” + +“You do not answer my question,” said Simon, passionately; “answer that, +and I will wait for the rest. They call me a miser! Did I send out my +only child to starve? Answer that!” + +“Be comforted. He did not die in want; and he has even left some little +fortune for Fanny, which I was to place in your hands.” + +“And he thought to bribe the old miser to be human! Well--well--well--I +will go home.” + +“Lean on me!” + +The dog leapt playfully on his master as the latter rose, and Fanny slid +from Simon’s arms to caress and talk to the animal in her own way. As +they slowly passed through the churchyard Simon muttered incoherently to +himself for several paces, and Morton would not disturb, since he could +not comfort, him. + +At last he said abruptly, “Did my son repent?” + +“I hoped,” answered Morton, evasively, “that, had his life been spared, +he would have amended!” + +“Tush, sir!--I am past seventy; we repent!--we never amend!” And Simon +again sunk into his own dim and disconnected reveries. + +At length they arrived at the blind man’s house. The door was opened to +them by an old woman of disagreeable and sinister aspect, dressed out +much too gaily for the station of a servant, though such was her reputed +capacity; but the miser’s affliction saved her from the chance of his +comment on her extravagance. As she stood in the doorway with a candle +in her hand, she scanned curiously, and with no welcoming eye, her +master’s companions. + +“Mrs. Boxer, my son is dead!” said Simon, in a hollow voice. + +“And a good thing it is, then, sir!” + +“For shame, woman!” said Morton, indignantly. + +“Hey-dey! sir! whom have we got here?” + +“One,” said Simon, sternly, “whom you will treat with respect. He brings +me a blessing to lighten my loss. One harsh word to this child, and you +quit my house!” + +The woman looked perfectly thunderstruck; but, recovering herself, she +said, whiningly-- + +“I! a harsh word to anything my dear, kind master cares for. And, Lord, +what a sweet pretty creature it is! Come here, my dear!” + +But Fanny shrunk back, and would not let go Philip’s hand. + +“To-morrow, then,” said Morton; and he was turning away, when a sudden +thought seemed to cross the old man,-- + +“Stay, sir--stay! I--I--did my son say I was rich? I am very, very +poor--nothing in the house, or I should have been robbed long ago!” + +“Your son told me to bring money, not to ask for it!” + +“Ask for it! No; but,” added the old man, and a gleam of cunning +intelligence shot over his face,--“but he had got into a bad set. +Ask!--No!--Put up the door-chain, Mrs. Boxer!” + +It was with doubt and misgivings that Morton, the next day, consigned +the child, who had already nestled herself into the warmest core of +his heart, to the care of Simon. Nothing short of that superstitious +respect, which all men owe to the wishes of the dead, would have made +him select for her that asylum; for Fate had now, in brightening his +own prospects, given him an alternative in the benevolence of Madame de +Merville. But Gawtrey had been so earnest on the subject, that he felt +as if he had no right to hesitate. And was it not a sort of atonement to +any faults the son might have committed against the parent, to place by +the old man’s hearth so sweet a charge? + +The strange and peculiar mind and character of Fanny made him, however, +yet more anxious than otherwise he might have been. She certainly +deserved not the harsh name of imbecile or idiot, but she was different +from all other children; she felt more acutely than most of her age, but +she could not be taught to reason. There was something either oblique +or deficient in her intellect, which justified the most melancholy +apprehensions; yet often, when some disordered, incoherent, inexplicable +train of ideas most saddened the listener, it would be followed by +fancies so exquisite in their strangeness, or feelings so endearing in +their tenderness, that suddenly she seemed as much above, as before she +seemed below, the ordinary measure of infant comprehension. She was like +a creature to which Nature, in some cruel but bright caprice, has given +all that belongs to poetry, but denied all that belongs to the common +understanding necessary to mankind; or, as a fairy changeling, not, +indeed, according to the vulgar superstition, malignant and deformed, +but lovelier than the children of men, and haunted by dim and struggling +associations of a gentler and fairer being, yet wholly incapable to +learn the dry and hard elements which make up the knowledge of actual +life. + +Morton, as well as he could, sought to explain to Simon the +peculiarities in Fanny’s mental constitution. He urged on him the +necessity of providing for her careful instruction, and Simon promised +to send her to the best school the neighbourhood could afford; but, as +the old man spoke, he dwelt so much on the supposed fact that Fanny was +William’s daughter, and with his remorse, or affection, there ran so +interwoven a thread of selfishness and avarice, that Morton thought it +would be dangerous to his interest in the child to undeceive his error. +He, therefore,--perhaps excusably enough--remained silent on that +subject. + +Gawtrey had placed with the superior of the convent, together with an +order to give up the child to any one who should demand her in his true +name, which he confided to the superior, a sum of nearly L300., which he +solemnly swore had been honestly obtained, and which, in all his shifts +and adversities, he had never allowed himself to touch. This sum, with +the trifling deduction made for arrears due to the convent, Morton now +placed in Simon’s hands. The old man clutched the money, which was +for the most in French gold, with a convulsive gripe: and then, as if +ashamed of the impulse, said-- + +“But you, sir--will any sum--that is, any reasonable sum--be of use to +you?” + +“No! and if it were, it is neither yours nor mine--it is hers. Save it +for her, and add to it what you can.” + +While this conversation took place, Fanny had been consigned to the care +of Mrs. Boxer, and Philip now rose to see and bid her farewell before he +departed. + +“I may come again to visit you, Mr. Gawtrey; and I pray Heaven to +find that you and Fanny have been a mutual blessing to each other. Oh, +remember how your son loved her!” + +“He had a good heart, in spite of all his sins. Poor William!” said +Simon. + +Philip Morton heard, and his lip curled with a sad and a just disdain. + +If when, at the age of nineteen, William Gawtrey had quitted his +father’s roof, the father had then remembered that the son’s heart was +good,--the son had been alive still, an honest and a happy man. Do ye +not laugh, O ye all-listening Fiends! when men praise those dead whose +virtues they discovered not when alive? It takes much marble to build +the sepulchre--how little of lath and plaster would have repaired the +garret! + +On turning into a small room adjoining the parlour in which Gawtrey +sat, Morton found Fanny standing gloomily by a dull, soot-grimed window, +which looked out on the dead walls of a small yard. Mrs. Boxer, seated +by a table, was employed in trimming a cap, and putting questions to +Fanny in that falsetto voice of endearment in which people not used to +children are apt to address them. + +“And so, my dear, they’ve never taught you to read or write? You’ve been +sadly neglected, poor thing!” + +“We must do our best to supply the deficiency,” said Morton, as he +entered. + +“Bless me, sir, is that you?” and the gouvernante bustled up and dropped +a low courtesy; for Morton, dressed then in the garb of a gentleman, was +of a mien and person calculated to strike the gaze of the vulgar. + +“Ah, brother!” cried Fanny, for by that name he had taught her to call +him; and she flew to his side. “Come away--it’s ugly there--it makes me +cold.” + +“My child, I told you you must stay; but I shall hope to see you again +some day. Will you not be kind to this poor creature, ma’am? Forgive me, +if I offended you last night, and favour me by accepting this, to show +that we are friends.” As he spoke, he slid his purse into the woman’s +hand. “I shall feel ever grateful for whatever you can do for Fanny.” + +“Fanny wants nothing from any one else; Fanny wants her brother.” + +“Sweet child! I fear she don’t take to me. Will you like me, Miss +Fanny?” + +“No! get along!” + +“Fie, Fanny--you remember you did not take to me at first. But she is so +affectionate, ma’am; she never forgets a kindness.” + +“I will do all I can to please her, sir. And so she is really master’s +grandchild?” The woman fixed her eyes, as she spoke, so intently on +Morton, that he felt embarrassed, and busied himself, without answering, +in caressing and soothing Fanny, who now seemed to awake to the +affliction about to visit her; for though she did not weep--she very +rarely wept--her slight frame trembled--her eyes closed--her cheeks, +even her lips, were white--and her delicate hands were clasped tightly +round the neck of the one about to abandon her to strange breasts. + +Morton was greatly moved. “One kiss, Fanny! and do not forget me when we +meet again.” + +The child pressed her lips to his cheek, but the lips were cold. He put +her down gently; she stood mute and passive. + +“Remember that he wished me to leave you here,” whispered Morton, using +an argument that never failed. “We must obey him; and so--God bless you, +Fanny!” + +He rose and retreated to the door; the child unclosed her eyes, and +gazed at him with a strained, painful, imploring gaze; her lips moved, +but she did not speak. Morton could not bear that silent woe. He sought +to smile on her consolingly; but the smile would not come. He closed the +door, and hurried from the house. + +From that day Fanny settled into a kind of dreary, inanimate stupor, +which resembled that of the somnambulist whom the magnetiser forgets +to waken. Hitherto, with all the eccentricities or deficiencies of her +mind, had mingled a wild and airy gaiety. That was vanished. She spoke +little--she never played--no toys could lure her--even the poor dog +failed to win her notice. If she was told to do anything she stared +vacantly and stirred not. She evinced, however, a kind of dumb regard to +the old blind man; she would creep to his knees and sit there for +hours, seldom answering when he addressed her, but uneasy, anxious, and +restless, if he left her. + +“Will you die too?” she asked once; the old man understood her not, and +she did not try to explain. Early one morning, some days after Morton +was gone, they missed her: she was not in the house, nor the dull yard +where she was sometimes dismissed and told to play--told in vain. In +great alarm the old man accused Mrs. Boxer of having spirited her away, +and threatened and stormed so loudly that the woman, against her will, +went forth to the search. At last she found the child in the churchyard, +standing wistfully beside a tomb. + +“What do you here, you little plague?” said Mrs. Boxer, rudely seizing +her by the arm. + +“This is the way they will both come back some day! I dreamt so!” + +“If ever I catch you here again!” said the housekeeper, and, wiping her +brow with one hand, she struck the child with the other. Fanny had never +been struck before. She recoiled in terror and amazement, and, for the +first time since her arrival, burst into tears. + +“Come--come, no crying! and if you tell master I’ll beat you within +an inch of your life!” So saying, she caught Fanny in her arms, and, +walking about, scolding and menacing, till she had frightened back the +child’s tears, she returned triumphantly to the house, and bursting into +the parlour, exclaimed, “Here’s the little darling, sir!” + +When old Simon learned where the child had been found he was glad; for +it was his constant habit, whenever the evening was fine, to glide out +to that churchyard--his dog his guide--and sit on his one favourite +spot opposite the setting sun. This, not so much for the sanctity of +the place, or the meditations it might inspire, as because it was the +nearest, the safest, and the loneliest spot in the neighbourhood of his +home, where the blind man could inhale the air and bask in the light of +heaven. Hitherto, thinking it sad for the child, he had never taken +her with him; indeed, at the hour of his monotonous excursion she had +generally been banished to bed. Now she was permitted to accompany him; +and the old man and the infant would sit there side by side, as Age and +Infancy rested side by side in the graves below. The first symptom of +childlike interest and curiosity that Fanny betrayed was awakened by the +affliction of her protector. One evening, as they thus sat, she made him +explain what the desolation of blindness is. She seemed to +comprehend him, though he did not seek to adapt his complaints to her +understanding. + +“Fanny knows,” said she, touchingly; “for she, too, is blind here;” and +she pressed her hands to her temples. Notwithstanding her silence and +strange ways, and although he could not see the exquisite loveliness +which Nature, as in remorseful pity, had lavished on her outward form, +Simon soon learned to love her better than he had ever loved yet: for +they most cold to the child are often dotards to the grandchild. For +her even his avarice slept. Dainties, never before known at his sparing +board, were ordered to tempt her appetite, toy-shops ransacked to amuse +her indolence. He was long, however, before he could prevail on himself +to fulfil his promise to Morton, and rob himself of her presence. +At length, however, wearied with Mrs. Boxer’s lamentations at her +ignorance, and alarmed himself at some evidences of helplessness, which +made him dread to think what her future might be when left alone in +life, he placed her at a day-school in the suburb. Here Fanny, for a +considerable time, justified the harshest assertions of her stupidity. +She could not even keep her eyes two minutes together on the page from +which she was to learn the mysteries of reading; months passed before +she mastered the alphabet, and, a month after, she had again forgot it, +and the labour was renewed. The only thing in which she showed ability, +if so it might be called, was in the use of the needle. The sisters of +the convent had already taught her many pretty devices in this art; +and when she found that at the school they were admired--that she was +praised instead of blamed--her vanity was pleased, and she learned +so readily all that they could teach in this not unprofitable +accomplishment, that Mrs. Boxer slyly and secretly turned her tasks +to account and made a weekly perquisite of the poor pupil’s industry. +Another faculty she possessed, in common with persons usually deficient, +and with the lower species--viz., a most accurate and faithful +recollection of places. At first Mrs. Boxer had been duly sent, morning, +noon, and evening, to take her to, or bring her from, the school; but +this was so great a grievance to Simon’s solitary superintendent, and +Fanny coaxed the old man so endearingly to allow her to go and return +alone, that the attendance, unwelcome to both, was waived. Fanny exulted +in this liberty; and she never, in going or in returning, missed passing +through the burial-ground, and gazing wistfully at the tomb from which +she yet believed Morton would one day reappear. With his memory she +cherished also that of her earlier and more guilty protector; but they +were separate feelings, which she distinguished in her own way. + +“Papa had given her up. She knew that he would not have sent her away, +far--far over the great water, if he had meant to see Fanny again; but +her brother was forced to leave her--he would come to life one day, and +then they should live together!” + +One day, towards the end of autumn, as her schoolmistress, a good woman +on the whole, but who had not yet had the wit to discover by what chords +to tune the instrument, over which so wearily she drew her unskilful +hand--one day, we say, the schoolmistress happened to be dressed for +a christening party to which she was invited in the suburb; and, +accordingly, after the morning lessons, the pupils were to be dismissed +to a holiday. As Fanny now came last, with the hopeless spelling-book, +she stopped suddenly short, and her eyes rested with avidity upon a +large bouquet of exotic flowers, with which the good lady had enlivened +the centre of the parted kerchief, whose yellow gauze modestly veiled +that tender section of female beauty which poets have likened to hills +of snow--a chilling simile! It was then autumn; and field, and even +garden flowers were growing rare. + +“Will you give me one of those flowers?” said Fanny, dropping her book. + +“One of these flowers, child! why?” + +Fanny did not answer; but one of the elder and cleverer girls said-- + +“Oh! she comes from France, you know, ma’am, and the Roman Catholics put +flowers, and ribands, and things, over the graves; you recollect, ma’am, +we were reading yesterday about Pere-la-Chaise?” + +“Well! what then?” + +“And Miss Fanny will do any kind of work for us if we will give her +flowers.” + +“My brother told me where to put them;--but these pretty flowers, I +never had any like them; they may bring him back again! I’ll be so good +if you’ll give me one, only one!” + +“Will you learn your lesson if I do, Fanny?” + +“Oh! yes! Wait a moment!” + +And Fanny stole back to her desk, put the hateful book resolutely before +her, pressed both hands tightly on her temples,--Eureka! the chord was +touched; and Fanny marched in triumph through half a column of hostile +double syllables! + +From that day the schoolmistress knew how to stimulate her, and Fanny +learned to read: her path to knowledge thus literally strewn with +flowers! Catherine, thy children were far off, and thy grave looked gay! + +It naturally happened that those short and simple rhymes, often sacred, +which are repeated in schools as helps to memory, made a part of her +studies; and no sooner had the sound of verse struck upon her fancy than +it seemed to confuse and agitate anew all her senses. It was like the +music of some breeze, to which dance and tremble all the young leaves +of a wild plant. Even when at the convent she had been fond of repeating +the infant rhymes with which they had sought to lull or to amuse her, +but now the taste was more strongly developed. She confounded, however, +in meaningless and motley disorder, the various snatches of song +that came to her ear, weaving them together in some form which she +understood, but which was jargon to all others; and often, as she went +alone through the green lanes or the bustling streets, the passenger +would turn in pity and fear to hear her half chant--half murmur--ditties +that seemed to suit only a wandering and unsettled imagination. And as +Mrs. Boxer, in her visits to the various shops in the suburb, took +care to bemoan her hard fate in attending to a creature so evidently +moon-stricken, it was no wonder that the manner and habits of the child, +coupled with that strange predilection to haunt the burial-ground, which +is not uncommon with persons of weak and disordered intellect; confirmed +the character thus given to her. + +So, as she tripped gaily and lightly along the thoroughfares, the +children would draw aside from her path, and whisper with superstitious +fear mingled with contempt, “It’s the idiot girl!”--Idiot--how much more +of heaven’s light was there in that cloud than in the rushlights +that, flickering in sordid chambers, shed on dull things the dull +ray--esteeming themselves as stars! + +Months--years passed--Fanny was thirteen, when there dawned a new era to +her existence. Mrs. Boxer had never got over her first grudge to Fanny. +Her treatment of the poor girl was always harsh, and sometimes cruel. +But Fanny did not complain, and as Mrs. Boxer’s manner to her before +Simon was invariably cringing and caressing, the old man never guessed +the hardships his supposed grandchild underwent. There had been scandal +some years back in the suburb about the relative connexion of the master +and the housekeeper; and the flaunting dress of the latter, something +bold in her regard, and certain whispers that her youth had not been +vowed to Vesta, confirmed the suspicion. The only reason why we do not +feel sure that the rumour was false is this,--Simon Gawtrey had been +so hard on the early follies of his son! Certainly, at all events, the +woman had exercised great influence over the miser before the arrival +of Fanny, and she had done much to steel his selfishness against the +ill-fated William. And, as certainly, she had fully calculated on +succeeding to the savings, whatever they might be, of the miser, +whenever Providence should be pleased to terminate his days. She knew +that Simon had, many years back, made his will in her favour; she knew +that he had not altered that will: she believed, therefore, that in +spite of all his love for Fanny, he loved his gold so much more, that he +could not accustom himself to the thought of bequeathing it to hands too +helpless to guard the treasure. This had in some measure reconciled +the housekeeper to the intruder; whom, nevertheless, she hated as a dog +hates another dog, not only for taking his bone, but for looking at it. + +But suddenly Simon fell ill. His age made it probable he would die. He +took to his bed--his breathing grew fainter and fainter--he seemed dead. +Fanny, all unconscious, sat by his bedside as usual, holding her breath +not to waken him. Mrs. Boxer flew to the bureau--she unlocked it--she +could not find the will; but she found three bags of bright gold +guineas: the sight charmed her. She tumbled them forth on the distained +green cloth of the bureau--she began to count them; and at that moment, +the old man, as if there were a secret magnetism between himself and +the guineas, woke from his trance. His blindness saved him the pain +that might have been fatal, of seeing the unhallowed profanation; but he +heard the chink of the metal. The very sound restored his strength. +But the infirm are always cunning--he breathed not a suspicion. “Mrs. +Boxer,” said he, faintly, “I think I could take some broth.” Mrs. Boxer +rose in great dismay, gently re-closed the bureau, and ran down-stairs +for the broth. Simon took the occasion to question Fanny; and no sooner +had he learnt the operation of the heir-expectant, than he bade the girl +first lock the bureau and bring him the key, and next run to a lawyer +(whose address he gave her), and fetch him instantly. + +With a malignant smile the old man took the broth from his +handmaid,--“Poor Boxer, you are a disinterested creature,” said he, +feebly; “I think you will grieve when I go.” + +Mrs. Boxer sobbed, and before she had recovered, the lawyer entered. +That day a new will was made; and the lawyer politely informed Mrs. +Boxer that her services would be dispensed with the next morning, when +he should bring a nurse to the house. Mrs. Boxer heard, and took her +resolution. As soon as Simon again fell asleep, she crept into +the room--led away Fanny--locked her up in her own +chamber--returned--searched for the key of the bureau, which she found +at last under Simon’s pillow--possessed herself of all she could lay her +hands on--and the next morning she had disappeared forever! Simon’s loss +was greater than might have been supposed; for, except a trifling sum in +the savings bank, he, like many other misers, kept all he had, in notes +or specie, under his own lock and key. His whole fortune, indeed, was +far less than was supposed: for money does not make money unless it is +put out to interest,--and the miser cheated himself. Such portion as was +in bank-notes Mrs. Boxer probably had the prudence to destroy; for those +numbers which Simon could remember were never traced; the gold, who +could swear to? Except the pittance in the savings bank, and whatever +might be the paltry worth of the house he rented, the father who had +enriched the menial to exile the son was a beggar in his dotage. This +news, however, was carefully concealed from him by the advice of the +doctor, whom, on his own responsibility, the lawyer introduced, till +he had recovered sufficiently to bear the shock without danger; and the +delay naturally favoured Mrs. Boxer’s escape. + +Simon remained for some moments perfectly stunned and speechless when +the news was broken to him. Fanny, in alarm at his increasing paleness, +sprang to his breast. He pushed her away,--“Go--go--go, child,” he said; +“I can’t feed you now. Leave me to starve.” + +“To starve!” said Fanny, wonderingly; and she stole away, and sat +herself down as if in deep thought. She then crept up to the lawyer +as he was about to leave the room, after exhausting his stock of +commonplace consolation; and putting her hand in his, whispered, “I want +to talk to you--this way:”--She led him through the passage into the +open air. “Tell me,” she said, “when poor people try not to starve, +don’t they work?” + +“My dear, yes.” + +“For rich people buy poor people’s work?” + +“Certainly, my dear; to be sure.” + +“Very well. Mrs. Boxer used to sell my work. Fanny will feed grandpapa! +Go and tell him never to say ‘starve’ again.” + +The good-natured lawyer was moved. “Can you work, indeed, my poor girl? +Well, put on your bonnet, and come and talk to my wife.” + +And that was the new era in Fanny’s existence! Her schooling was +stopped. But now life schooled her. Necessity ripened her intellect. And +many a hard eye moistened,--as, seeing her glide with her little basket +of fancy work along the streets, still murmuring her happy and bird-like +snatches of unconnected song--men and children alike said with respect, +in which there was now no contempt, “It’s the idiot girl who supports +her blind grandfather!” They called her idiot still! + + + +BOOK IV. + + + +CHAPTER I. + + + “O that sweet gleam of sunshine on the lake!” + WILSON’S City of the Plague + +If, reader, you have ever looked through a solar microscope at the +monsters in a drop of water, perhaps you have wondered to yourself how +things so terrible have been hitherto unknown to you--you have felt a +loathing at the limpid element you hitherto deemed so pure--you have +half fancied that you would cease to be a water-drinker; yet, the next +day you have forgotten the grim life that started before you, with its +countless shapes, in that teeming globule; and, if so tempted by your +thirst, you have not shrunk from the lying crystal, although myriads of +the horrible Unseen are mangling, devouring, gorging each other in the +liquid you so tranquilly imbibe; so is it with that ancestral and master +element called Life. Lapped in your sleek comforts, and lolling on the +sofa of your patent conscience--when, perhaps for the first time, you +look through the glass of science upon one ghastly globule in the waters +that heave around, that fill up, with their succulence, the pores of +earth, that moisten every atom subject to your eyes or handled by your +touch--you are startled and dismayed; you say, mentally, “Can such +things be? I never dreamed of this before! I thought what was +invisible to me was non-existent in itself--I will remember this dread +experiment.” The next day the experiment is forgotten.--The Chemist may +purify the Globule--can Science make pure the World? + +Turn we now to the pleasant surface, seen in the whole, broad and fair +to the common eye. Who would judge well of God’s great designs, if he +could look on no drop pendent from the rose-tree, or sparkling in the +sun, without the help of his solar microscope? + +It is ten years after the night on which William Gawtrey perished:--I +transport you, reader, to the fairest scenes in England,--scenes +consecrated by the only true pastoral poetry we have known to +Contemplation and Repose. + +Autumn had begun to tinge the foliage on the banks of Winandermere. It +had been a summer of unusual warmth and beauty; and if that year you +had visited the English lakes, you might, from time to time, amidst the +groups of happy idlers you encountered, have singled out two persons +for interest, or, perhaps, for envy. Two who might have seemed to you in +peculiar harmony with those serene and soft retreats, both young--both +beautiful. Lovers you would have guessed them to be; but such lovers +as Fletcher might have placed under the care of his “Holy +Shepherdess”--forms that might have reclined by + + + “The virtuous well, about whose flowery banks + The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds + By the pale moonshine.” + +For in the love of those persons there seemed a purity and innocence +that suited well their youth and the character of their beauty. Perhaps, +indeed, on the girl’s side, love sprung rather from those affections +which the spring of life throws upward to the surface, as the spring of +earth does its flowers, than from that concentrated and deep absorption +of self in self, which alone promises endurance and devotion, and of +which first love, or rather the first fancy, is often less susceptible +than that which grows out of the more thoughtful fondness of maturer +years. Yet he, the lover, was of so rare and singular a beauty, that he +might well seem calculated to awake, to the utmost, the love which wins +the heart through the eyes. + +But to begin at the beginning. A lady of fashion had, in the autumn +previous to the year in which our narrative re-opens, taken, with her +daughter, a girl then of about eighteen, the tour of the English lakes. +Charmed by the beauty of Winandermere, and finding one of the most +commodious villas on its banks to be let, they had remained there all +the winter. In the early spring a severe illness had seized the elder +lady, and finding herself, as she slowly recovered, unfit for the +gaieties of a London season, nor unwilling, perhaps,--for she had been +a beauty in her day--to postpone for another year the debut of her +daughter, she had continued her sojourn, with short intervals of +absence, for a whole year. Her husband, a busy man of the world, with +occupation in London, and fine estates in the country, joined them +only occasionally, glad to escape the still beauty of landscapes which +brought him no rental, and therefore afforded no charm to his eye. + +In the first month of their arrival at Winandermere, the mother and +daughter had made an eventful acquaintance in the following manner. + +One evening, as they were walking on their lawn, which sloped to the +lake, they heard the sound of a flute, played with a skill so exquisite +as to draw them, surprised and spellbound, to the banks. The musician +was a young man, in a boat, which he had moored beneath the trees of +their demesne. He was alone, or, rather, he had one companion, in a +large Newfoundland dog, that sat watchful at the helm of the boat, +and appeared to enjoy the music as much as his master. As the ladies +approached the spot, the dog growled, and the young man ceased, though +without seeing the fair causes of his companion’s displeasure. The sun, +then setting, shone full on his countenance as he looked round; and that +countenance was one that might have haunted the nymphs of Delos; the +face of Apollo, not as the hero, but the shepherd--not of the bow, +but of the lute--not the Python-slayer, but the young dreamer by shady +places--he whom the sculptor has portrayed leaning idly against the +tree--the boy-god whose home is yet on earth, and to whom the Oracle and +the Spheres are still unknown. + +At that moment the dog leaped from the boat, and the elder lady uttered +a faint cry of alarm, which, directing the attention of the musician, +brought him also ashore. He called off his dog, and apologised, with a +not ungraceful mixture of diffidence and ease, for his intrusion. He was +not aware the place was inhabited--it was a favourite haunt of his--he +lived near. The elder lady was pleased with his address, and struck with +his appearance. There was, indeed, in his manner that indefinable charm, +which is more attractive than mere personal appearance, and which +can never be imitated or acquired. They parted, however, without +establishing any formal acquaintance. A few days after, they met at +dinner at a neighbouring house, and were introduced by name. That of the +young man seemed strange to the ladies; not so theirs to him. He turned +pale when he heard it, and remained silent and aloof the rest of the +evening. They met again and often; and for some weeks--nay, even for +months--he appeared to avoid, as much as possible, the acquaintance so +auspiciously begun; but, by little and little, the beauty of the younger +lady seemed to gain ground on his diffidence or repugnance. Excursions +among the neighbouring mountains threw them together, and at last he +fairly surrendered himself to the charm he had at first determined to +resist. + +This young man lived on the opposite side of the lake, in a quiet +household, of which he was the idol. His life had been one of almost +monastic purity and repose; his tastes were accomplished, his character +seemed soft and gentle; but beneath that calm exterior, flashes of +passion--the nature of the poet, ardent and sensitive--would break forth +at times. He had scarcely ever, since his earliest childhood, quitted +those retreats; he knew nothing of the world, except in books--books +of poetry and romance. Those with whom he lived--his relations, an old +bachelor, and the cold bachelor’s sisters, old maids--seemed equally +innocent and inexperienced. It was a family whom the rich respected and +the poor loved--inoffensive, charitable, and well off. To whatever their +easy fortune might be, he appeared the heir. The name of this young +man was Charles Spencer; the ladies were Mrs. Beaufort, and Camilla her +daughter. + +Mrs. Beaufort, though a shrewd woman, did not at first perceive any +danger in the growing intimacy between Camilla and the younger Spencer. +Her daughter was not her favourite--not the object of her one thought or +ambition. Her whole heart and soul were wrapped in her son Arthur, who +lived principally abroad. Clever enough to be considered capable, when +he pleased, of achieving distinction, good-looking enough to be thought +handsome by all who were on the qui vive for an advantageous match, +good-natured enough to be popular with the society in which he lived, +scattering to and fro money without limit,--Arthur Beaufort, at the +age of thirty, had established one of those brilliant and evanescent +reputations, which, for a few years, reward the ambition of the fine +gentleman. It was precisely the reputation that the mother could +appreciate, and which even the more saving father secretly admired, +while, ever respectable in phrase, Mr. Robert Beaufort seemed openly to +regret it. This son was, I say, everything to them; they cared little, +in comparison, for their daughter. How could a daughter keep up the +proud name of Beaufort? However well she might marry, it was another +house, not theirs, which her graces and beauty would adorn. Moreover, +the better she might marry the greater her dowry would naturally +be,--the dowry, to go out of the family! And Arthur, poor fellow! was +so extravagant, that really he would want every sixpence. Such was the +reasoning of the father. The mother reasoned less upon the matter. Mrs. +Beaufort, faded and meagre, in blonde and cashmere, was jealous of +the charms of her daughter; and she herself, growing sentimental +and lachrymose as she advanced in life, as silly women often do, had +convinced herself that Camilla was a girl of no feeling. + +Miss Beaufort was, indeed, of a character singularly calm and placid; it +was the character that charms men in proportion, perhaps, to their own +strength and passion. She had been rigidly brought up--her affections +had been very early chilled and subdued; they moved, therefore, now, +with ease, in the serene path of her duties. She held her parents, +especially her father, in reverential fear, and never dreamed of the +possibility of resisting one of their wishes, much less their commands. +Pious, kind, gentle, of a fine and never-ruffled temper, Camilla, an +admirable daughter, was likely to make no less admirable a wife; you +might depend on her principles, if ever you could doubt her affection. +Few girls were more calculated to inspire love. You would scarcely +wonder at any folly, any madness, which even a wise man might commit +for her sake. This did not depend on her beauty alone, though she was +extremely lovely rather than handsome, and of that style of loveliness +which is universally fascinating: the figure, especially as to the arms, +throat, and bust, was exquisite; the mouth dimpled; the teeth dazzling; +the eyes of that velvet softness which to look on is to love. But her +charm was in a certain prettiness of manner, an exceeding innocence, +mixed with the most captivating, because unconscious, coquetry. With all +this, there was a freshness, a joy, a virgin and bewitching candour in +her voice, her laugh--you might almost say in her very movements. Such +was Camilla Beaufort at that age. Such she seemed to others. To her +parents she was only a great girl rather in the way. To Mrs. Beaufort a +rival, to Mr. Beaufort an encumbrance on the property. + + + +CHAPTER II. + + + * * * “The moon + Saddening the solemn night, yet with that sadness + Mingling the breath of undisturbed Peace.” + WILSON: City of the Plague + + * * * “Tell me his fate. + Say that he lives, or say that he is dead + But tell me--tell me! + * * * * * * + I see him not--some cloud envelopes him.”--Ibid. + +One day (nearly a year after their first introduction) as with a party +of friends Camilla and Charles Spencer were riding through those wild +and romantic scenes which lie between the sunny Winandermere and the +dark and sullen Wastwater, their conversation fell on topics more +personal than it had hitherto done, for as yet, if they felt love, they +had never spoken of it. + +The narrowness of the path allowed only two to ride abreast, and the two +to whom I confine my description were the last of the little band. + +“How I wish Arthur were here!” said Camilla; “I am sure you would like +him.” + +“Are you? He lives much in the world--the world of which I know nothing. +Are we then characters to suit each other?” + +“He is the kindest--the best of human beings!” said Camilla, rather +evasively, but with more warmth than usually dwelt in her soft and low +voice. + +“Is he so kind?” returned Spencer, musingly. “Well, it may be so. And +who would not be kind to you? Ah! it is a beautiful connexion that of +brother and sister--I never had a sister!” + +“Have you then a brother?” asked Camilla, in some surprise, and turning +her ingenuous eyes full on her companion. + +Spencer’s colour rose--rose to his temples: his voice trembled as he +answered, “No;--no brother!” then, speaking in a rapid and hurried +tone, he continued, “My life has been a strange and lonely one. I am an +orphan. I have mixed with few of my own age: my boyhood and youth have +been spent in these scenes; my education such as Nature and books could +bestow, with scarcely any guide or tutor save my guardian--the dear old +man! Thus the world, the stir of cities, ambition, enterprise,--all +seem to me as things belonging to a distant land to which I shall never +wander. Yet I have had my dreams, Miss Beaufort; dreams of which these +solitudes still form a part--but solitudes not unshared. And lately I +have thought that those dreams might be prophetic. And you--do you love +the world?” + +“I, like you, have scarcely tried it,” said Camilla, with a sweet laugh. +“but I love the country better,--oh! far better than what little I have +seen of towns. But for you,” she continued with a charming hesitation, +“a man is so different from us,--for you to shrink from the world--you, +so young and with talents too--nay, it is true!--it seems to me +strange.” + +“It may be so, but I cannot tell you what feelings of dread--what vague +forebodings of terror seize me if I carry my thoughts beyond these +retreats. Perhaps my good guardian--” + +“Your uncle?” interrupted Camilla. + +“Ay, my uncle--may have contributed to engender feelings, as you say, +strange at my age; but still--” + +“Still what!” + +“My earlier childhood,” continued Spencer, breathing hard and turning +pale, “was not spent in the happy home I have now; it was passed in a +premature ordeal of suffering and pain. Its recollections have left a +dark shadow on my mind, and under that shadow lies every thought that +points towards the troublous and labouring career of other men. But,” + he resumed after a pause, and in a deep, earnest, almost solemn +voice,--“but after all, is this cowardice or wisdom? I find no +monotony--no tedium in this quiet life. Is there not a certain +morality--a certain religion in the spirit of a secluded and country +existence? In it we do not know the evil passions which ambition and +strife are said to arouse. I never feel jealous or envious of other men; +I never know what it is to hate; my boat, my horse, our garden, music, +books, and, if I may dare to say so, the solemn gladness that comes from +the hopes of another life,--these fill up every hour with thoughts +and pursuits, peaceful, happy, and without a cloud, till of late, +when--when--” + +“When what?” said Camilla, innocently. + +“When I have longed, but did not dare to ask another, if to share such a +lot would content her!” + +He bent, as he spoke, his soft blue eyes full upon the blushing face of +her whom he addressed, and Camilla half smiled and half sighed: + +“Our companions are far before us,” said she, turning away her face, +“and see, the road is now smooth.” She quickened her horse’s pace as +she said this; and Spencer, too new to women to interpret favourably +her evasion of his words and looks, fell into a profound silence which +lasted during the rest of their excursion. + +As towards the decline of day he bent his solitary way home, emotions +and passions to which his life had hitherto been a stranger, and which, +alas! he had vainly imagined a life so tranquil would everlastingly +restrain, swelled his heart. + +“She does not love me,” he muttered, half aloud; “she will leave me, and +what then will all the beauty of the landscape seem in my eyes? And how +dare I look up to her? Even if her cold, vain mother--her father, the +man, they say, of forms and scruples, were to consent, would they not +question closely of my true birth and origin? And if the one blot were +overlooked, is there no other? His early habits and vices, his?--a +brother’s--his unknown career terminating at any day, perhaps, in shame, +in crime, in exposure, in the gibbet,--will they overlook this?” As he +spoke, he groaned aloud, and, as if impatient to escape himself, spurred +on his horse and rested not till he reached the belt of trim and sober +evergreens that surrounded his hitherto happy home. + +Leaving his horse to find its way to the stables, the young man passed +through rooms, which he found deserted, to the lawn on the other side, +which sloped to the smooth waters of the lake. + +Here, seated under the one large tree that formed the pride of the lawn, +over which it cast its shadow broad and far, he perceived his guardian +poring idly over an oft-read book, one of those books of which literary +dreamers are apt to grow fanatically fond--books by the old English +writers, full of phrases and conceits half quaint and half sublime, +interspersed with praises of the country, imbued with a poetical rather +than orthodox religion, and adorned with a strange mixture of monastic +learning and aphorisms collected from the weary experience of actual +life. + +To the left, by a greenhouse, built between the house and the lake, +might be seen the white dress and lean form of the eldest spinster +sister, to whom the care of the flowers--for she had been early crossed +in love--was consigned; at a little distance from her, the other two +were seated at work, and conversing in whispers, not to disturb their +studious brother, no doubt upon the nephew, who was their all in all. It +was the calmest hour of eve, and the quiet of the several forms, +their simple and harmless occupations--if occupations they might be +called--the breathless foliage rich in the depth of summer; behind, the +old-fashioned house, unpretending, not mean, its open doors and windows +giving glimpses of the comfortable repose within; before, the lake, +without a ripple and catching the gleam of the sunset clouds,--all made +a picture of that complete tranquillity and stillness, which sometimes +soothes and sometimes saddens us, according as we are in the temper to +woo CONTENT. + +The young man glided to his guardian and touched his shoulder,--“Sir, +may I speak to you?--Hush! they need not see us now! it is only you I +would speak with.” + +The elder Spencer rose; and, with his book still in his hand, moved side +by side with his nephew under the shadow of the tree and towards a walk +to the right, which led for a short distance along the margin of the +lake, backed by the interlaced boughs of a thick copse. + +“Sir!” said the young man, speaking first, and with a visible effort, +“your cautions have been in vain! I love this girl--this daughter of the +haughty Beauforts! I love her--better than life I love her!” + +“My poor boy,” said the uncle tenderly, and with a simple fondness +passing his arm over the speaker’s shoulder, “do not think I can chide +you--I know what it is to love in vain!” + +“In vain!--but why in vain?” exclaimed the younger Spencer, with a +vehemence that had in it something of both agony and fierceness. “She +may love me--she shall love me!” and almost for the first time in his +life, the proud consciousness of his rare gifts of person spoke in his +kindled eye and dilated stature. “Do they not say that Nature has been +favourable to me?--What rival have I here?--Is she not young?--And +(sinking his voice till it almost breathed like music) is not love +contagious?” + +“I do not doubt that she may love you--who would not?--but--but--the +parents, will they ever consent?” + +“Nay!” answered the lover, as with that inconsistency common to passion, +he now argued stubbornly against those fears in another to which he had +just before yielded in himself,--“Nay!--after all, am I not of their own +blood?--Do I not come from the elder branch?--Was I not reared in equal +luxury and with higher hopes?--And my mother--my poor mother--did +she not to the last maintain our birthright--her own honour?--Has not +accident or law unjustly stripped us of our true station?--Is it not for +us to forgive spoliation?--Am I not, in fact, the person who descends, +who forgets the wrongs of the dead--the heritage of the living?” + +The young man had never yet assumed this tone--had never yet shown that +he looked back to the history connected with his birth with the feelings +of resentment and the remembrance of wrong. It was a tone contrary +to his habitual calm and contentment--it struck forcibly on his +listener--and the elder Spencer was silent for some moments before he +replied, “If you feel thus (and it is natural), you have yet stronger +reason to struggle against this unhappy affection.” + +“I have been conscious of that, sir,” replied the young man, mournfully. +“I have struggled!--and I say again it is in vain! I turn, then, to face +the obstacles! My birth--let us suppose that the Beauforts overlook it. +Did you not tell me that Mr. Beaufort wrote to inform you of the abrupt +and intemperate visit of my brother--of his determination never to +forgive it? I think I remember something of this years ago.” + +“It is true!” said the guardian; “and the conduct of that brother is, +in fact, the true cause why you never ought to reassume your proper +name!--never to divulge it, even to the family with whom you connect +yourself by marriage; but, above all, to the Beauforts, who for that +cause, if that cause alone, would reject your suit.” + +The young man groaned--placed one hand before his eyes, and with the +other grasped his guardian’s arm convulsively, as if to check him from +proceeding farther; but the good man, not divining his meaning, and +absorbed in his subject, went on, irritating the wound he had touched. + +“Reflect!--your brother in boyhood--in the dying hours of his mother, +scarcely saved from the crime of a thief, flying from a friendly pursuit +with a notorious reprobate; afterwards implicated in some discreditable +transaction about a horse, rejecting all--every hand that could save +him, clinging by choice to the lowest companions and the meanest-habits, +disappearing from the country, and last seen, ten years ago--the beard +not yet on his chin--with that same reprobate of whom I have spoken, in +Paris; a day or so only before his companion, a coiner--a murderer--fell +by the hands of the police! You remember that when, in your seventeenth +year, you evinced some desire to retake your name--nay, even to re-find +that guilty brother--I placed before you, as a sad and terrible duty, +the newspaper that contained the particulars of the death and the +former adventures of that wretched accomplice, the notorious Gawtrey. +And,--telling you that Mr. Beaufort had long since written to inform me +that his own son and Lord Lilburne had seen your brother in company with +the miscreant just before his fate--nay, was, in all probability, the +very youth described in the account as found in his chamber and +escaping the pursuit--I asked you if you would now venture to leave that +disguise--that shelter under which you would for ever be safe from the +opprobrium of the world--from the shame that, sooner or later, your +brother must bring upon your name!” + +“It is true--it is true!” said the pretended nephew, in a tone of great +anguish, and with trembling lips which the blood had forsaken. “Horrible +to look either to his past or his future! But--but--we have heard of +him no more--no one ever has learned his fate. Perhaps--perhaps” (and he +seemed to breathe more freely)--“my brother is no more!” + +And poor Catherine--and poor Philip---had it come to this? Did the +one brother feel a sentiment of release, of joy, in conjecturing the +death--perhaps the death of violence and shame--of his fellow-orphan? +Mr. Spencer shook his head doubtingly, but made no reply. The young +man sighed heavily, and strode on for several paces in advance of his +protector, then, turning back, he laid his hand on his shoulder. + +“Sir,” he said in a low voice and with downcast eyes, “you are right: +this disguise--this false name--must be for ever borne! Why need +the Beauforts, then, ever know who and what I am? Why not as your +nephew--nephew to one so respected and exemplary--proffer my claims and +plead my cause?” + +“They are proud--so it is said--and worldly;--you know my family was in +trade--still--but--” and here Mr. Spencer broke off from a tone of doubt +into that of despondency, “but, recollect, though Mrs. Beaufort may +not remember the circumstance, both her husband and her son have seen +me--have known my name. Will they not suspect, when once introduced to +you, the stratagem that has been adopted?--Nay, has it not been from +that very fear that you have wished me to shun the acquaintance of the +family? Both Mr. Beaufort and Arthur saw you in childhood, and their +suspicion once aroused, they may recognise you at once; your features +are developed, but not altogether changed. Come, come!--my adopted, my +dear son, shake off this fantasy betimes: let us change the scene: I +will travel with you--read with you--go where--” + +“Sir--sir!” exclaimed the lover, smiting his breast, “you are ever +kind, compassionate, generous; but do not--do not rob me of hope. I have +never--thanks to you--felt, save in a momentary dejection, the curse of +my birth. Now how heavily it falls! Where shall I look for comfort?” + +As he spoke, the sound of a bell broke over the translucent air and the +slumbering lake: it was the bell that every eve and morn summoned that +innocent and pious family to prayer. The old man’s face changed as he +heard it--changed from its customary indolent, absent, listless aspect, +into an expression of dignity, even of animation. + +“Hark!” he said, pointing upwards; “Hark! it chides you. Who shall say, +‘Where shall I look for comfort’ while God is in the heavens?” + +The young man, habituated to the faith and observance of religion, till +they had pervaded his whole nature, bowed his head in rebuke; a few +tears stole from his eyes. + +“You are right, father--,” he said tenderly, giving emphasis to the +deserved and endearing name. “I am comforted already!” + +So, side by side, silently and noiselessly, the young and the old man +glided back to the house. When they gained the quiet room in which the +family usually assembled, the sisters and servants were already gathered +round the table. They knelt as the loiterers entered. It was the wonted +duty of the younger Spencer to read the prayers; and, as he now did so, +his graceful countenance more hushed, his sweet voice more earnest than +usual, in its accents: who that heard could have deemed the heart within +convulsed by such stormy passions? Or was it not in that hour--that +solemn commune--soothed from its woe? O beneficent Creator! thou who +inspirest all the tribes of earth with the desire to pray, hast Thou +not, in that divinest instinct, bestowed on us the happiest of Thy +gifts? + + + +CHAPTER III. + + + “Bertram. I mean the business is not ended, as fearing to hear of + it hereafter. + + “1st Soldier. Do you know this Captain Dumain?” + All’s Well that Ends Well. + +One evening, some weeks after the date of the last chapter, Mr. Robert +Beaufort sat alone in his house in Berkeley Square. He had arrived that +morning from Beaufort Court, on his way to Winandermere, to which he +was summoned by a letter from his wife. That year was an agitated and +eventful epoch in England; and Mr. Beaufort had recently gone through +the bustle of an election--not, indeed, contested; for his popularity +and his property defied all rivalry in his own county. + +The rich man had just dined, and was seated in lazy enjoyment by the +side of the fire, which he had had lighted, less for the warmth--though +it was then September--than for the companionship;--engaged in finishing +his madeira, and, with half-closed eyes, munching his devilled biscuits. +“I am sure,” he soliloquised while thus employed, “I don’t know +exactly what to do,--my wife ought to decide matters where the girl is +concerned; a son is another affair--that’s the use of a wife. Humph!” + +“Sir,” said a fat servant, opening the door, “a gentleman wishes to see +you upon very particular business.” + +“Business at this hour! Tell him to go to Mr. Blackwell.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Stay! perhaps he is a constituent, Simmons. Ask him if he belongs to +the county.” + +“Yes, Sir.” + +“A great estate is a great plague,” muttered Mr. Beaufort; “so is a +great constituency. It is pleasanter, after all, to be in the House of +Lords. I suppose I could if I wished; but then one must rat--that’s a +bore. I will consult Lilburne. Humph!” + +The servant re-appeared. “Sir, he says he does belong to the county.” + +“Show him in!--What sort of a person?” + +“A sort of gentleman, sir; that is,” continued the butler, mindful of +five shillings just slipped within his palm by the stranger, “quite the +gentleman.” + +“More wine, then--stir up the fire.” + +In a few moments the visitor was ushered into the apartment. He was +a man between fifty and sixty, but still aiming at the appearance of +youth. His dress evinced military pretensions; consisting of a blue +coat, buttoned up to the chin, a black stock, loose trousers of the +fashion called Cossacks, and brass spurs. He wore a wig, of great +luxuriance in curl and rich auburn in hue; with large whiskers of the +same colour slightly tinged with grey at the roots. By the imperfect +light of the room it was not perceptible that the clothes were somewhat +threadbare, and that the boots, cracked at the side, admitted glimpses +of no very white hosiery within. Mr. Beaufort, reluctantly rising from +his repose and gladly sinking back to it, motioned to a chair, and put +on a doleful and doubtful semi-smile of welcome. The servant placed the +wine and glasses before the stranger;--the host and visitor were alone. + +“So, sir,” said Mr. Beaufort, languidly, “you are from ------shire; I +suppose about the canal,--may I offer you a glass of wine?” + +“Most hauppy, sir--your health!” and the stranger, with evident +satisfaction, tossed off a bumper to so complimentary a toast. + +“About the canal?” repeated Mr. Beaufort. + +“No, sir, no! You parliament gentlemen must hauve a vaust deal of +trouble on your haunds--very foine property I understaund yours is, sir. +Sir, allow me to drink the health of your good lady!” + +“I thank you, Mr.--, Mr.--, what did you say your name was?--I beg you a +thousand pardons.” + +“No offaunce in the least, sir; no ceremony with me--this is perticler +good madeira!” + +“May I ask how I can serve you?” said Mr. Beaufort, struggling between +the sense of annoyance and the fear to be uncivil. “And pray, had I the +honour of your vote in the last election!” + +“No, sir, no! It’s mauny years since I have been in your part of the +world, though I was born there.” + +“Then I don’t exactly see--” began Mr. Beaufort, and stopped with +dignity. + +“Why I call on you,” put in the stranger, tapping his boots with his +cane; and then recognising the rents, he thrust both feet under the +table. + +“I don’t say that; but at this hour I am seldom at leisure--not but what +I am always at the service of a constituent, that is, a voter! Mr.--, I +beg your pardon, I did not catch your name.” + +“Sir,” said the stranger, helping himself to a third glass of wine; +“here’s a health to your young folk! And now to business.” Here the +visitor, drawing his chair nearer to his host, assuming a more grave +aspect, and dropping something of his stilted pronunciation, continued, +“You had a brother?” + +“Well, sir,” said Mr. Beaufort, with a very changed countenance. + +“And that brother had a wife!” + +Had a cannon gone off in the ear of Mr. Robert Beaufort, it could not +have shocked or stunned him more than that simple word with which his +companion closed his sentence. He fell back in his chair--his lips +apart, his eyes fixed on the stranger. He sought to speak, but his +tongue clove to his mouth. + +“That wife had two sons, born in wedlock!” + +“It is false!” cried Mr. Beaufort, finding a voice at length, and +springing to his feet. “And who are you, sir? and what do you mean by--” + +“Hush!” said the stranger, perfectly unconcerned, and regaining the +dignity of his haw-haw enunciation, “better not let the servants hear +aunything. For my pawt, I think servants hauve the longest pair of ears +of auny persons, not excepting jauckasses; their ears stretch from the +pauntry to the parlour. Hush, sir!--perticler good madeira, this!” + +“Sir!” said Mr. Beaufort, struggling to preserve, or rather recover, his +temper, “your conduct is exceedingly strange; but allow me to say that +you are wholly misinformed. My brother never did marry; and if you have +anything to say on behalf of those young men--his natural sons--I refer +you to my solicitor, Mr. Blackwell, of Lincoln’s Inn. I wish you a good +evening.” + +“Sir!--the same to you--I won’t trouble you auny farther; it was only +out of koindness I called--I am not used to be treated so--sir, I am +in his maujesty’s service--sir, you will foind that the witness of the +marriage is forthcoming; you will think of me then, and, perhaps, +be sorry. But I’ve done, ‘Your most obedient humble, sir!’” And the +stranger, with a flourish of his hand, turned to the door. At the sight +of this determination on the part of his strange guest, a cold, uneasy, +vague presentiment seized Mr. Beaufort. There, not flashed, but rather +froze, across him the recollection of his brother’s emphatic but +disbelieved assurances--of Catherine’s obstinate assertion of her son’s +alleged rights--rights which her lawsuit, undertaken on her own behalf, +had not compromised;--a fresh lawsuit might be instituted by the son, +and the evidence which had been wanting in the former suit might be +found at last. With this remembrance and these reflections came a +horrible train of shadowy fears,--witnesses, verdict, surrender, +spoliation--arrears--ruin! + +The man, who had gained the door, turned back and looked at him with a +complacent, half-triumphant leer upon his impudent, reckless face. + +“Sir,” then said Mr. Beaufort, mildly, “I repeat that you had better see +Mr. Blackwell.” + +The tempter saw his triumph. “I have a secret to communicate which it is +best for you to keep snug. How mauny people do you wish me to see about +it? Come, sir, there is no need of a lawyer; or, if you think so, tell +him yourself. Now or never, Mr. Beaufort.” + +“I can have no objection to hear anything you have to say, sir,” said +the rich man, yet more mildly than before; and then added, with a forced +smile, “though my rights are already too confirmed to admit of a doubt.” + +Without heeding the last assertion, the stranger coolly walked back, +resumed his seat, and, placing both arms on the table and looking Mr. +Beaufort full in the face, thus proceeded,-- + +“Sir, of the marriage between Philip Beaufort and Catherine Morton there +were two witnesses: the one is dead, the other went abroad--the last is +alive still!” + +“If so,” said Mr. Beaufort, who, not naturally deficient in cunning and +sense, felt every faculty now prodigiously sharpened, and was resolved +to know the precise grounds for alarm,--“if so, why did not the man--it +was a servant, sir, a man-servant, whom Mrs. Morton pretended to rely +on--appear on the trial?” + +“Because, I say, he was abroad and could not be found; or, the search +after him miscaurried, from clumsy management and a lack of the rhino.” + +“Hum!” said Mr. Beaufort--“one witness--one witness, observe, there is +only one!--does not alarm me much. It is not what a man deposes, it is +what a jury believe, sir! Moreover, what has become of the young men? +They have never been heard of for years. They are probably dead; if so, +I am heir-at-law!” + +“I know where one of them is to be found at all events.” + +“The elder?--Philip?” asked Mr. Beaufort anxiously, and with a fearful +remembrance of the energetic and vehement character prematurely +exhibited by his nephew. + +“Pawdon me! I need not aunswer that question.” + +“Sir! a lawsuit of this nature, against one in possession, is very +doubtful, and,” added the rich man, drawing himself up--“and, perhaps +very expensive!” + +“The young man I speak of does not want friends, who will not grudge the +money.” + +“Sir!” said Mr. Beaufort, rising and placing his back to the fire--“sir! +what is your object in this communication? Do you come, on the part of +the young man, to propose a compromise? If so, be plain!” + +“I come on my own pawt. It rests with you to say if the young men shall +never know it!” + +“And what do you want?” + +“Five hundred a year as long as the secret is kept.” + +“And how can you prove that there is a secret, after all?” + +“By producing the witness if you wish.” + +“Will he go halves in the L500. a year?” asked Mr. Beaufort artfully. + +“That is moy affair, sir,” replied the stranger. + +“What you say,” resumed Mr. Beaufort, “is so extraordinary--so +unexpected, and still, to me, seems so improbable, that I must have time +to consider. If you will call on me in a week, and produce your facts, I +will give you my answer. I am not the man, sir, to wish to keep any +one out of his true rights, but I will not yield, on the other hand, to +imposture.” + +“If you don’t want to keep them out of their rights, I’d best go and +tell my young gentlemen,” said the stranger, with cool impudence. + +“I tell you I must have time,” repeated Beaufort, disconcerted. +“Besides, I have not myself alone to look to, sir,” he added, with +dignified emphasis--“I am a father!” + +“This day week I will call on you again. Good evening, Mr. Beaufort!” + +And the man stretched out his hand with an air of amicable +condescension. The respectable Mr. Beaufort changed colour, hesitated, +and finally suffered two fingers to be enticed into the grasp of the +visitor, whom he ardently wished at that bourne whence no visitor +returns. + +The stranger smiled, stalked to the door, laid his finger on his lip, +winked knowingly, and vanished, leaving Mr. Beaufort a prey to such +feelings of uneasiness, dread, and terror, as may be experienced by a +man whom, on some inch or two of slippery rock, the tides have suddenly +surrounded. + +He remained perfectly still for some moments, and then glancing round +the dim and spacious room, his eyes took in all the evidences of luxury +and wealth which it betrayed. Above the huge sideboard, that on festive +days groaned beneath the hoarded weight of the silver heirlooms of the +Beauforts, hung, in its gilded frame, a large picture of the family +seat, with the stately porticoes--the noble park--the groups of +deer; and around the wall, interspersed here and there with ancestral +portraits of knight and dame, long since gathered to their rest, were +placed masterpieces of the Italian and Flemish art, which generation +after generation had slowly accumulated, till the Beaufort Collection +had become the theme of connoisseurs and the study of young genius. + +The still room, the dumb pictures--even the heavy sideboard seemed to +gain voice, and speak to him audibly. He thrust his hand into the folds +of his waistcoat, and griped his own flesh convulsively; then, striding +to and fro the apartment, he endeavoured to re-collect his thoughts. + +“I dare not consult Mrs. Beaufort,” he muttered; “no--no,--she is a +fool! Besides, she’s not in the way. No time to lose--I will go to +Lilburne.” + +Scarce had that thought crossed him than he hastened to put it into +execution. He rang for his hat and gloves and sallied out on foot +to Lord Lilburne’s house in Park Lane,--the distance was short, and +impatience has long strides. + +He knew Lord Lilburne was in town, for that personage loved London for +its own sake; and even in September he would have said with the old Duke +of Queensberry, when some one observed that London was very empty--“Yes; +but it is fuller than the country.” + +Mr. Beaufort found Lord Lilburne reclined on a sofa, by the open +window of his drawing-room, beyond which the early stars shone upon the +glimmering trees and silver turf of the deserted park. Unlike the simple +dessert of his respectable brother-in-law, the costliest fruits, the +richest wines of France, graced the small table placed beside his sofa; +and as the starch man of forms and method entered the room at one door, +a rustling silk, that vanished through the aperture of another, seemed +to betray tokens of a tete-a-tete, probably more agreeable to Lilburne +than the one with which only our narrative is concerned. + +It would have been a curious study for such men as love to gaze upon the +dark and wily features of human character, to have watched the +contrast between the reciter and the listener, as Beaufort, with much +circumlocution, much affected disdain and real anxiety, narrated the +singular and ominous conversation between himself and his visitor. + +The servant, in introducing Mr. Beaufort, had added to the light of the +room; and the candles shone full on the face and form of Mr. Beaufort. +All about that gentleman was so completely in unison with the world’s +forms and seemings, that there was something moral in the very sight +of him! Since his accession of fortune he had grown less pale and less +thin; the angles in his figure were filled up. On his brow there was +no trace of younger passion. No able vice had ever sharpened the +expression--no exhausting vice ever deepened the lines. He was the +beau-ideal of a county member,--so sleek, so staid, so business-like; +yet so clean, so neat, so much the gentleman. And now there was a kind +of pathos in his grey hairs, his nervous smile, his agitated hands, his +quick and uneasy transition of posture, the tremble of his voice. He +would have appeared to those who saw, but heard not, The Good Man in +trouble. Cold, motionless, speechless, seemingly apathetic, but in truth +observant, still reclined on the sofa, his head thrown back, but one +eye fixed on his companion, his hands clasped before him, Lord Lilburne +listened; and in that repose, about his face, even about his person, +might be read the history of how different a life and character! What +native acuteness in the stealthy eye! What hardened resolve in the full +nostril and firm lips! What sardonic contempt for all things in the +intricate lines about the mouth. What animal enjoyment of all things so +despised in that delicate nervous system, which, combined with original +vigour of constitution, yet betrayed itself in the veins on the hands +and temples, the occasional quiver of the upper lip! His was the frame +above all others the most alive to pleasure--deep-chested, compact, +sinewy, but thin to leanness--delicate in its texture and extremities, +almost to effeminacy. The indifference of the posture, the very habit +of the dress--not slovenly, indeed, but easy, loose, careless--seemed to +speak of the man’s manner of thought and life--his profound disdain of +externals. + +Not till Beaufort had concluded did Lord Lilburne change his position or +open his lips; and then, turning to his brother-in-law his calm face, he +said drily,-- + +“I always thought your brother had married that woman; he was the sort +of man to do it. Besides, why should she have gone to law without a +vestige of proof, unless she was convinced of her rights? Imposture +never proceeds without some evidence. Innocence, like a fool as it is, +fancies it has only to speak to be believed. But there is no cause for +alarm.” + +“No cause!--And yet you think there was a marriage.” + +“It is quite clear,” continued Lilburne, without heeding this +interruption; “that the man, whatever his evidence, has not got +sufficient proofs. If he had, he would go to the young men rather than +you: it is evident that they would promise infinitely larger rewards +than he could expect from yourself. Men are always more generous with +what they expect than with what they have. All rogues know this. ‘Tis +the way Jews and usurers thrive upon heirs rather than possessors; ‘tis +the philosophy of post-obits. I dare say the man has found out the real +witness of the marriage, but ascertained, also, that the testimony +of that witness would not suffice to dispossess you. He might be +discredited--rich men have a way sometimes of discrediting +poor witnesses. Mind, he says nothing of the lost copy of the +register--whatever may be the value of that document, which I am +not lawyer enough to say--of any letters of your brother avowing the +marriage. Consider, the register itself is destroyed--the clergyman +dead. Pooh! make yourself easy.” + +“True,” said Mr. Beaufort, much comforted; “what a memory you have!” + +“Naturally. Your wife is my sister--I hate poor relations--and I was +therefore much interested in your accession and your lawsuit. No--you +may feel--at rest on this matter, so far as a successful lawsuit is +concerned. The next question is, Will you have a lawsuit at all? and +is it worth while buying this fellow? That I can’t say unless I see him +myself.” + +“I wish to Heaven you would!” + +“Very willingly: ‘tis a sort of thing I like--I’m fond of dealing with +rogues--it amuses me. This day week? I’ll be at your house--your proxy; +I shall do better than Blackwell. And since you say you are wanted at +the Lakes, go down, and leave all to me.” + +“A thousand thanks. I can’t say how grateful I am. You certainly are the +kindest and cleverest person in the world.” + +“You can’t think worse of the world’s cleverness and kindness than I +do,” was Lilburne’s rather ambiguous answer to the compliment. “But why +does my sister want to see you?” + +“Oh, I forgot!--here is her letter. I was going to ask your advice in +this too.” + +Lord Lilburne took the letter, and glanced over it with the rapid eye of +a man accustomed to seize in everything the main gist and pith. + +“An offer to my pretty niece--Mr. Spencer--requires no fortune--his +uncle will settle all his own--(poor silly old man!) All! Why that’s +only L1000. a year. You don’t think much of this, eh? How my sister can +even ask you about it puzzles me.” + +“Why, you see, Lilburne,” said Mr. Beaufort, rather embarrassed, “there +is no question of fortune--nothing to go out of the family; and, really, +Arthur is so expensive, and, if she were to marry well, I could not give +her less than fifteen or twenty thousand pounds.” + +“Aha!--I see--every man to his taste: here a daughter--there a dowry. +You are devilish fond of money, Beaufort. Any pleasure in avarice,--eh?” + +Mr. Beaufort coloured very much at the remark and the question, and, +forcing a smile, said,-- + +“You are severe. But you don’t know what it is to be father to a young +man.” + +“Then a great many young women have told me sad fibs! But you are right +in your sense of the phrase. No, I never had an heir apparent, thank +Heaven! No children imposed upon me by law--natural enemies, to count +the years between the bells that ring for their majority, and those that +will toll for my decease. It is enough for me that I have a brother and +a sister--that my brother’s son will inherit my estates--and that, in +the meantime, he grudges me every tick in that clock. What then? If he +had been my uncle, I had done the same. Meanwhile, I see as little of +him as good breeding will permit. On the face of a rich man’s heir is +written the rich man’s memento mori! But revenons a nos moutons. Yes, if +you give your daughter no fortune, your death will be so much the more +profitable to Arthur!” + +“Really, you take such a very odd view of the matter,” said Mr. +Beaufort, exceedingly shocked. “But I see you don’t like the marriage; +perhaps you are right.” + +“Indeed, I have no choice in the matter; I never interfere between +father and children. If I had children myself, I will, however, tell +you, for your comfort, that they might marry exactly as they pleased--I +would never thwart them. I should be too happy to get them out of my +way. If they married well, one would have all the credit; if ill, one +would have an excuse to disown them. As I said before, I dislike poor +relations. Though if Camilla lives at the Lakes when she is married, it +is but a letter now and then; and that’s your wife’s trouble, not yours. +But, Spencer--what Spencer!--what family? Was there not a Mr. Spencer +who lived at Winandermere--who----” + +“Who went with us in search of these boys, to be sure. Very likely the +same--nay, he must be so. I thought so at the first.” + +“Go down to the Lakes to-morrow. You may hear something about your +nephews;” at that word Mr. Beaufort winced. + +“‘Tis well to be forearmed.” + +“Many thanks for all your counsel,” said Beaufort, rising, and glad to +escape; for though both he and his wife held the advice of Lord Lilburne +in the highest reverence, they always smarted beneath the quiet and +careless stings which accompanied the honey. Lord Lilburne was singular +in this,--he would give to any one who asked it, but especially a +relation, the best advice in his power; and none gave better, that is, +more worldly advice. Thus, without the least benevolence, he was often +of the greatest service; but he could not help mixing up the draught +with as much aloes and bitter-apple as possible. His intellect delighted +in exhibiting itself even gratuitously. His heart equally delighted +in that only cruelty which polished life leaves to its tyrants towards +their equals,--thrusting pins into the feelings and breaking self-love +upon the wheel. But just as Mr. Beaufort had drawn on his gloves and +gained the doorway, a thought seemed to strike Lord Lilburne: + +“By the by,” he said, “you understand that when I promised I would try +and settle the matter for you, I only meant that I would learn the exact +causes you have for alarm on the one hand, or for a compromise with +this fellow on the other. If the last be advisable you are aware that I +cannot interfere. I might get into a scrape; and Beaufort Court is not +my property.” + +“I don’t quite understand you.” + +“I am plain enough, too. If there is money to be given it is given in +order to defeat what is called justice--to keep these nephews of yours +out of their inheritance. Now, should this ever come to light, it would +have an ugly appearance. They who risk the blame must be the persons who +possess the estate.” + +“If you think it dishonourable or dishonest--” said Beaufort, +irresolutely. + +“I! I never can advise as to the feelings; I can only advise as to the +policy. If you don’t think there ever was a marriage, it may, still, be +honest in you to prevent the bore of a lawsuit.” + +“But if he can prove to me that they were married?” + +“Pooh!” said Lilburne, raising his eyebrows with a slight expression of +contemptuous impatience; “it rests on yourself whether or not he prove +it to YOUR satisfaction! For my part, as a third person, I am persuaded +the marriage did take place. But if I had Beaufort Court, my convictions +would be all the other way. You understand. I am too happy to serve you. +But no man can be expected to jeopardise his character, or coquet with +the law, unless it be for his own individual interest. Then, of +course, he must judge for himself. Adieu! I expect some friends +foreigners--Carlists--to whist. You won’t join them?” + +“I never play, you know. You will write to me at Winandermere: and, at +all events, you will keep off the man till I return?” + +“Certainly.” + +Beaufort, whom the latter part of the conversation had comforted far +less than the former, hesitated, and turned the door-handle three or +four times; but, glancing towards his brother-in-law, he saw in that +cold face so little sympathy in the struggle between interest and +conscience, that he judged it best to withdraw at once. + +As soon as he was gone, Lilburne summoned his valet, who had lived +with him many years, and who was his confidant in all the adventurous +gallantries with which he still enlivened the autumn of his life. + +“Dykeman,” said he, “you have let out that lady?” + +“Yes, my lord.” + +“I am not at home if she calls again. She is stupid; she cannot get +the girl to come to her again. I shall trust you with an adventure, +Dykeman--an adventure that will remind you of our young days, man. This +charming creature--I tell you she is irresistible--her very oddities +bewitch me. You must--well, you look uneasy. What would you say?” + +“My lord, I have found out more about her--and--and----” + +“Well, well.” + +The valet drew near and whispered something in his master’s ear. + +“They are idiots who say it, then,” answered Lilburne. “And,” faltered +the man, with the shame of humanity on his face, “she is not worthy your +lordship’s notice--a poor--” + +“Yes, I know she is poor; and, for that reason, there can be no +difficulty, if the thing is properly managed. You never, perhaps, heard +of a certain Philip, king of Macedon; but I will tell you what he once +said, as well as I can remember it: ‘Lead an ass with a pannier of gold; +send the ass through the gates of a city, and all the sentinels will +run away.’ Poor!--where there is love, there is charity also, Dykeman. +Besides--” + +Here Lilburne’s countenance assumed a sudden aspect of dark and angry +passion,--he broke off abruptly, rose, and paced the room, muttering +to himself. Suddenly he stopped, and put his hand to his hip, as an +expression of pain again altered the character of his face. + +“The limb pains me still! Dykeman--I was scarce twenty-one--when I +became a cripple for life.” He paused, drew a long breath, smiled, +rubbed his hands gently, and added: “Never fear--you shall be the ass; +and thus Philip of Macedon begins to fill the pannier.” And he tossed +his purse into the hands of the valet, whose face seemed to lose its +anxious embarrassment at the touch of the gold. Lilburne glanced at him +with a quiet sneer: “Go!--I will give you my orders when I undress.” + +“Yes!” he repeated to himself, “the limb pains me still. But he +died!--shot as a man would shoot a jay or a polecat! + +“I have the newspaper still in that drawer. He died an outcast--a +felon--a murderer! And I blasted his name--and I seduced his +mistress--and I--am John Lord Lilburne!” + +About ten o’clock, some half-a-dozen of those gay lovers of London, +who, like Lilburne, remain faithful to its charms when more vulgar +worshippers desert its sunburnt streets--mostly single men--mostly men +of middle age--dropped in. And soon after came three or four high-born +foreigners, who had followed into England the exile of the unfortunate +Charles X. Their looks, at once proud and sad--their moustaches curled +downward--their beards permitted to grow--made at first a strong +contrast with the smooth gay Englishmen. But Lilburne, who was fond +of French society, and who, when he pleased, could be courteous and +agreeable, soon placed the exiles at their ease; and, in the excitement +of high play, all differences of mood and humour speedily vanished. +Morning was in the skies before they sat down to supper. + +“You have been very fortunate to-night, milord,” said one of the +Frenchmen, with an envious tone of congratulation. + +“But, indeed,” said another, who, having been several times his host’s +partner, had won largely, “you are the finest player, milord, I ever +encountered.” + +“Always excepting Monsieur Deschapelles and--,” replied Lilburne, +indifferently. And, turning the conversation, he asked one of the +guests why he had not introduced him to a French officer of merit and +distinction; “With whom,” said Lord Lilburne, “I understand that you are +intimate, and of whom I hear your countrymen very often speak.” + +“You mean De Vaudemont. Poor fellow!” said a middle-aged Frenchman, of a +graver appearance than the rest. + +“But why ‘poor fellow!’ Monsieur de Liancourt?” + +“He was rising so high before the revolution. There was not a braver +officer in the army. But he is but a soldier of fortune, and his career +is closed.” + +“Till the Bourbons return,” said another Carlist, playing with his +moustache. + +“You will really honour me much by introducing me to him,” said Lord +Lilburne. “De Vaudemont--it is a good name,--perhaps, too, he plays at +whist.” + +“But,” observed one of the Frenchmen, “I am by no means sure that he has +the best right in the world to the name. ‘Tis a strange story.” + +“May I hear it?” asked the host. + +“Certainly. It is briefly this: There was an old Vicomte de Vaudemont +about Paris; of good birth, but extremely poor--a mauvais sujet. He had +already had two wives, and run through their fortunes. Being old and +ugly, and men who survive two wives having a bad reputation among +marriageable ladies at Paris, he found it difficult to get a third. +Despairing of the noblesse he went among the bourgeoisie with that hope. +His family were kept in perpetual fear of a ridiculous mesalliance. +Among these relations was Madame de Merville, whom you may have heard +of.” + +“Madame de Merville! Ah, yes! Handsome, was she not?” + +“It is true. Madame de Merville, whose failing was pride, was known more +than once to have bought off the matrimonial inclinations of the amorous +vicomte. Suddenly there appeared in her circles a very handsome young +man. He was presented formally to her friends as the son of the Vicomte +de Vaudemont by his second marriage with an English lady, brought up in +England, and now for the first time publicly acknowledged. Some scandal +was circulated--” + +“Sir,” interrupted Monsieur de Liancourt, very gravely, “the scandal was +such as all honourable men must stigmatise and despise--it was only to +be traced to some lying lackey--a scandal that the young man was already +the lover of a woman of stainless reputation the very first day that he +entered Paris! I answer for the falsity of that report. But that report +I own was one that decided not only Madame de Merville, who was a +sensitive--too sensitive a person, but my friend young Vaudemont, to +a marriage, from the pecuniary advantages of which he was too +high-spirited not to shrink.” + +“Well,” said Lord Lilburne, “then this young De Vaudemont married Madame +de Merville?” + +“No,” said Liancourt somewhat sadly, “it was not so decreed; for +Vaudemont, with a feeling which belongs to a gentleman, and which I +honour, while deeply and gratefully attached to Madame de Merville, +desired that he might first win for himself some honourable distinction +before he claimed a hand to which men of fortunes so much higher had +aspired in vain. I am not ashamed,” he added, after a slight pause, “to +say that I had been one of the rejected suitors, and that I still revere +the memory of Eugenie de Merville. The young man, therefore, was to have +entered my regiment. Before, however, he had joined it, and while yet +in the full flush of a young man’s love for a woman formed to excite the +strongest attachment, she--she---” The Frenchman’s voice trembled, and +he resumed with affected composure: “Madame de Merville, who had the +best and kindest heart that ever beat in a human breast, learned one day +that there was a poor widow in the garret of the hotel she inhabited who +was dangerously ill--without medicine and without food--having lost +her only friend and supporter in her husband some time before. In +the impulse of the moment, Madame de Merville herself attended this +widow--caught the fever that preyed upon her--was confined to her bed +ten days--and died as she had lived, in serving others and forgetting +self.--And so much, sir, for the scandal you spoke of!” + +“A warning,” observed Lord Lilburne, “against trifling with one’s health +by that vanity of parading a kind heart, which is called charity. If +charity, mon cher, begins at home, it is in the drawing-room, not the +garret!” + +The Frenchman looked at his host in some disdain, bit his lip, and was +silent. + +“But still,” resumed Lord Lilburne, “still it is so probable that your +old vicomte had a son; and I can so perfectly understand why he did not +wish to be embarrassed with him as long as he could help it, that I +do not understand why there should be any doubt of the younger De +Vaudemont’s parentage.” + +“Because,” said the Frenchman who had first commenced the +narrative,--“because the young man refused to take the legal steps +to proclaim his birth and naturalise himself a Frenchman; because, no +sooner was Madame de Merville dead than he forsook the father he had so +newly discovered--forsook France, and entered with some other officers, +under the brave, &m------ in the service of one of the native princes of +India.” + +“But perhaps he was poor,” observed Lord Lilburne. “A father is a very +good thing, and a country is a very good thing, but still a man must +have money; and if your father does not do much for you, somehow or +other, your country generally follows his example.” + +“My lord,” said Liancourt, “my friend here has forgotten to say that +Madame de Merville had by deed of gift; (though unknown to her lover), +before her death, made over to young Vaudemont the bulk of her fortune; +and that, when he was informed of this donation after her decease, and +sufficiently recovered from the stupor of his grief, he summoned her +relations round him, declared that her memory was too dear to him for +wealth to console him for her loss, and reserving to himself but a +modest and bare sufficiency for the common necessaries of a gentleman, +he divided the rest amongst them, and repaired to the East; not only to +conquer his sorrow by the novelty and stir of an exciting life, but to +carve out with his own hand the reputation of an honourable and brave +man. My friend remembered the scandal long buried--he forgot the +generous action.” + +“Your friend, you see, my dear Monsieur de Liancourt,” remarked +Lilburne, “is more a man of the world than you are!” + +“And I was just going to observe,” said the friend thus referred to, +“that that very action seemed to confirm the rumour that there had been +some little manoeuvring as to this unexpected addition to the name of De +Vaudemont; for, if himself related to Madame de Merville, why have such +scruples to receive her gift?” + +“A very shrewd remark,” said Lord Lilburne, looking with some respect at +the speaker; “and I own that it is a very unaccountable proceeding, and +one of which I don’t think you or I would ever have been guilty. Well, +and the old Vicomte?” + +“Did not live long!” said the Frenchman, evidently gratified by his +host’s compliment, while Liancourt threw himself back in his chair in +grave displeasure. “The young man remained some years in India, and when +he returned to Paris, our friend here, Monsieur de Liancourt (then in +favour with Charles X.), and Madame de Merville’s relations took him +up. He had already acquired a reputation in this foreign service, and he +obtained a place at the court, and a commission in the king’s guards. +I allow that he would certainly have made a career, had it not been for +the Three Days. As it is, you see him in London, like the rest of us, an +exile!” + +“And I suppose, without a sous.” + +“No, I believe that he had still saved, and even augmented, in India, +the portion he allotted to himself from Madame de Merville’s bequest.” + +“And if he don’t play whist, he ought to play it,” said Lilburne. “You +have roused my curiosity; I hope you will let me make his acquaintance, +Monsieur de Liancourt. I am no politician, but allow me to propose this +toast, ‘Success to those who have the wit to plan, and the strength to +execute.’ In other words, ‘the Right Divine!’” + +Soon afterwards the guests retired. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +“Ros. Happily, he’s the second time come to them.”--Hamlet. + +It was the evening after that in which the conversations recorded in +our last chapter were held;--evening in the quiet suburb of H------. The +desertion and silence of the metropolis in September had extended to +its neighbouring hamlets;--a village in the heart of the country could +scarcely have seemed more still; the lamps were lighted, many of the +shops already closed, a few of the sober couples and retired spinsters +of the place might, here and there, be seen slowly wandering +homeward after their evening walk: two or three dogs, in spite of the +prohibitions of the magistrates placarded on the walls,--(manifestoes +which threatened with death the dogs, and predicted more than ordinary +madness to the public,)--were playing in the main road, disturbed from +time to time as the slow coach, plying between the city and the suburb, +crawled along the thoroughfare, or as the brisk mails whirled rapidly +by, announced by the cloudy dust and the guard’s lively horn. Gradually +even these evidences of life ceased--the saunterers disappeared, the +mails had passed, the dogs gave place to the later and more stealthy +perambulations of their feline successors “who love the moon.” At +unfrequent intervals, the more important shops--the linen-drapers’, the +chemists’, and the gin-palace--still poured out across the shadowy +road their streams of light from windows yet unclosed: but with these +exceptions, the business of the place stood still. + +At this time there emerged from a milliner’s house (shop, to outward +appearance, it was not, evincing its gentility and its degree above the +Capelocracy, to use a certain classical neologism, by a brass plate on +an oak door, whereon was graven, “Miss Semper, Milliner and Dressmaker, +from Madame Devy,”)--at this time, I say, and from this house there +emerged the light and graceful form of a young female. She held in her +left hand a little basket, of the contents of which (for it was empty) +she had apparently just disposed; and, as she stepped across the +road, the lamplight fell on a face in the first bloom of youth, and +characterised by an expression of childlike innocence and candour. It +was a face regularly and exquisitely lovely, yet something there was +in the aspect that saddened you; you knew not why, for it was not sad +itself; on the contrary, the lips smiled and the eyes sparkled. As she +now glided along the shadowy street with a light, quick step, a man, +who had hitherto been concealed by the portico of an attorney’s house, +advanced stealthily, and followed her at a little distance. Unconscious +that she was dogged, and seemingly fearless of all danger, the girl went +lightly on, swinging her basket playfully to and fro, and chaunting, in +a low but musical tone, some verses that seemed rather to belong to the +nursery than to that age which the fair singer had attained. + +As she came to an angle which the main street formed with a lane, narrow +and partially lighted, a policeman, stationed there, looked hard at her, +and then touched his hat with an air of respect, in which there seemed +also a little of compassion. + +“Good night to you,” said the girl, passing him, and with a frank, gay +tone. + +“Shall I attend you home, Miss?” said the man. + +“What for? I am very well!” answered the young woman, with an accent and +look of innocent surprise. + +Just at this time the man, who had hitherto followed her, gained the +spot, and turned down the lane. + +“Yes,” replied the policeman; “but it is getting dark, Miss.” + +“So it is every night when I walk home, unless there’s a +moon.--Good-bye.--The moon,” she repeated to herself, as she walked on, +“I used to be afraid of the moon when I was a little child;” and then, +after a pause, she murmured, in a low chaunt: + + + “‘The moon she is a wandering ghost, + That walks in penance nightly; + How sad she is, that wandering moon, + For all she shines so brightly! + + “‘I watched her eyes when I was young, + Until they turned my brain, + And now I often weep to think + ‘Twill ne’er be right again.’” + +As the murmur of these words died at a distance down the lane in which +the girl had disappeared, the policeman, who had paused to listen, shook +his head mournfully, and said, while he moved on,-- + +“Poor thing! they should not let her always go about by herself; and +yet, who would harm her?” + +Meanwhile the girl proceeded along the lane, which was skirted by small, +but not mean houses, till it terminated in a cross-stile that admitted +into a church yard. Here hung the last lamp in the path, and a few +dim stars broke palely over the long grass, and scattered gravestones, +without piercing the deep shadow which the church threw over a large +portion of the sacred ground. Just as she passed the stile, the man, +whom we have before noticed, and who had been leaning, as if waiting for +some one, against the pales, approached, and said gently,-- + +“Ah, Miss! it is a lone place for one so beautiful as you are to be +alone. You ought never to be on foot.” + +The girl stopped, and looked full, but without any alarm in her eyes, +into the man’s face. + +“Go away!” she said, with a half-peevish, half-kindly tone of command. +“I don’t know you.” + +“But I have been sent to speak to you by one who does know you, +Miss--one who loves you to distraction--he has seen you before at Mrs. +West’s. He is so grieved to think you should walk--you ought, he says, +to have every luxury--that he has sent his carriage for you. It is on +the other side of the yard. Do come now;” and he laid his hand, though +very lightly, on her arm. + +“At Mrs. West’s!” she said; and, for the first time, her voice and look +showed fear. “Go away directly! How dare you touch me!” + +“But, my dear Miss, you have no idea how my employer loves you, and how +rich he is. See, he has sent you all this money; it is gold--real gold. +You may have what you like, if you will but come. Now, don’t be silly, +Miss.” The girl made no answer, but, with a sudden spring, passed +the man, and ran lightly and rapidly along the path, in an opposite +direction from that to which the tempter had pointed, when inviting her +to the carriage. The man, surprised, but not baffled, reached her in an +instant, and caught hold of her dress. + +“Stay! you must come--you must!” he said, threateningly; and, loosening +his grasp on her shawl, he threw his arm round her waist. + +“Don’t!” cried the girl, pleadingly, and apparently subdued, turning +her fair, soft face upon her pursuer, and clasping her hands. “Be quiet! +Fanny is silly! No one is ever rude to poor Fanny!” + +“And no one will be rude to you, Miss,” said the man, apparently +touched; “but I dare not go without you. You don’t know what you refuse. +Come;” and he attempted gently to draw her back. + +“No, no!” said the girl, changing from supplication to anger, and +raising her voice into a loud shriek, “No! I will--” + +“Nay, then,” interrupted the man, looking round anxiously, and, with +a quick and dexterous movement he threw a large handkerchief over her +face, and, as he held it fast to her lips with one hand, he lifted +her from the ground. Still violently struggling, the girl contrived to +remove the handkerchief, and once more her shriek of terror rang through +the violated sanctuary. + +At that instant a loud deep voice was heard, “Who calls?” And a tall +figure seemed to rise, as from the grave itself, and emerge from the +shadow of the church. A moment more, and a strong gripe was laid on the +shoulder of the ravisher. “What is this? On God’s ground, too! Release +her, wretch!” + +The man, trembling, half with superstitious, half with bodily fear, let +go his captive, who fell at once at the knees of her deliverer. “Don’t +you hurt me too,” she said, as the tears rolled down her eyes. “I am a +good girl--and my grandfather’s blind.” + +The stranger bent down and raised her; then looking round for the +assailant with an eye whose dark fire shone through the gloom, he +perceived the coward stealing off. He disdained to pursue. + +“My poor child,” said he, with that voice which the strong assume to the +weak--the man to some wounded infant--the voice of tender superiority +and compassion, “there is no cause for fear now. Be soothed. Do you live +near? Shall I see you home?” + +“Thank you! That’s kind. Pray do!” And, with an infantine confidence +she took his hand, as a child does that of a grown-up person;--so they +walked on together. + +“And,” said the stranger, “do you know that man? Has he insulted you +before?” + +“No--don’t talk of him: ce me fait mal!” And she put her hand to her +forehead. + +The French was spoken with so French an accent, that, in some curiosity, +the stranger cast his eye over her plain dress. + +“You speak French well.” + +“Do I? I wish I knew more words--I only recollect a few. When I am very +happy or very sad they come into my head. But I am happy now. I like +your voice--I like you--Oh! I have dropped my basket!” + +“Shall I go back for it, or shall I buy you another?” + +“Another!--Oh, no! come back for it. How kind you are!--Ah! I see it!” + and she broke away and ran forward to pick it up. + +When she had recovered it, she laughed--she spoke to it--she kissed it. + +Her companion smiled as he said: “Some sweetheart has given you that +basket--it seems but a common basket too.” + +“I have had it--oh, ever since--since--I don’t know how long! It came +with me from France--it was full of little toys. They are gone--I am so +sorry!” + +“How old are you?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“My pretty one,” said the stranger, with deep pity in his rich voice, +“your mother should not let you go out alone at this hour.” + +“Mother!--mother!” repeated the girl, in a tone of surprise. + +“Have you no mother?” + +“No! I had a father once. But he died, they say. I did not see him die. +I sometimes cry when I think that I shall never, never see him again! +But,” she said, changing her accent from melancholy almost to joy, “he +is to have a grave here like the other girl’s fathers--a fine stone upon +it--and all to be done with my money!” + +“Your money, my child?” + +“Yes; the money I make. I sell my work and take the money to my +grandfather; but I lay by a little every week for a gravestone for my +father.” + +“Will the gravestone be placed in that churchyard?” They were now in +another lane; and, as he spoke, the stranger checked her, and bending +down to look into her face, he murmured to himself, “Is it possible?--it +must be--it must!” + +“Yes! I love that churchyard--my brother told me to put flowers there; +and grandfather and I sit there in the summer, without speaking. But I +don’t talk much, I like singing better:-- + + + “‘All things that good and harmless are + Are taught, they say, to sing + The maiden resting at her work, + The bird upon the wing; + The little ones at church, in prayer; + The angels in the sky + The angels less when babes are born + Than when the aged die.’” + +And unconscious of the latent moral, dark or cheering, according as we +estimate the value of this life, couched in the concluding rhyme, Fanny +turned round to the stranger, and said, “Why should the angels be glad +when the aged die?” + +“That they are released from a false, unjust, and miserable world, in +which the first man was a rebel, and the second a murderer!” muttered +the stranger between his teeth, which he gnashed as he spoke. + +The girl did not understand him: she shook her head gently, and made no +reply. A few moments, and she paused before a small house. + +“This is my home.” + +“It is so,” said her companion, examining the exterior of the house with +an earnest gaze; “and your name is Fanny.” + +“Yes--every one knows Fanny. Come in;” and the girl opened the door with +a latch-key. + +The stranger bowed his stately height as he crossed the low threshold +and followed his guide into a little parlour. Before a table on which +burned dimly, and with unheeded wick, a single candle, sat a man of +advanced age; and as he turned his face to the door, the stranger saw +that he was blind. + +The girl bounded to his chair, passed her arms round the old man’s neck, +and kissed his forehead; then nestling herself at his feet, and leaning +her clasped hands caressingly on his knee, she said,-- + +“Grandpapa, I have brought you somebody you must love. He has been so +kind to Fanny.” + +“And neither of you can remember me!” said the guest. + +The old man, whose dull face seemed to indicate dotage, half raised +himself at the sound of the stranger’s voice. “Who is that?” said he, +with a feeble and querulous voice. “Who wants me?” + +“I am the friend of your lost son. I am he who, ten years go, brought +Fanny to your roof, and gave her to your care--your son’s last charge. +And you blessed your son, and forgave him, and vowed to be a father to +his Fanny.” The old man, who had now slowly risen to his feet, trembled +violently, and stretched out his hands. + +“Come near--near--let me put my hands on your head. I cannot see you; +but Fanny talks of you, and prays for you; and Fanny--she has been an +angel to me!” + +The stranger approached and half knelt as the old man spread his hands +over his head, muttering inaudibly. Meanwhile Fanny, pale as death--her +lips apart--an eager, painful expression on her face--looked inquiringly +on the dark, marked countenance of the visitor, and creeping towards him +inch by inch, fearfully touched his dress--his arms--his countenance. + +“Brother,” she said at last, doubtingly and timidly, “Brother, I thought +I could never forget you! But you are not like my brother; you are +older;--you are--you are!--no! no! you are not my brother!” + +“I am much changed, Fanny; and you too!” + +He smiled as he spoke; and the smile--sweet and pitying--thoroughly +changed the character of his face, which was ordinarily stern, grave, +and proud. + +“I know you now!” exclaimed Fanny, in a tone of wild joy. “And you come +back from that grave! My flowers have brought you back at last! I knew +they would! Brother! Brother!” + +And she threw herself on his breast and burst into passionate tears. +Then, suddenly drawing herself back, she laid her finger on his arm, and +looked up at him beseechingly. + +“Pray, now, is he really dead? He, my father!--he, too, was lost like +you. Can’t he come back again as you have done?” + +“Do you grieve for him still, then? Poor girl!” said the stranger, +evasively, and seating himself. Fanny continued to listen for an answer +to her touching question; but finding that none was given, she stole +away to a corner of the room, and leaned her face on her hands, and +seemed to think--till at last, as she so sat, the tears began to flow +down her cheeks, and she wept, but silently and unnoticed. + +“But, sir,” said the guest, after a short pause, “how is this? Fanny +tells me she supports you by her work. Are you so poor, then? Yet I left +you your son’s bequest; and you, too, I understood, though not rich, +were not in want!” + +“There was a curse on my gold,” said the old man, sternly. “It was +stolen from us.” + +There was another pause. Simon broke it. + +“And you, young man--how has it fared with you? You have prospered, I +hope.” + +“I am as I have been for years--alone in the world, without kindred and +without friends. But, thanks to Heaven, I am not a beggar!” + +“No kindred and no friends!” repeated the old man. “No father--no +brother--no wife--no sister!” + +“None! No one to care whether I live or die,” answered the stranger, +with a mixture of pride and sadness in his voice. “But, as the song has +it-- + + + “‘I care for nobody--no, not I, + For nobody cares for me!’” + +There was a certain pathos in the mockery with which he repeated +the homely lines, although, as he did, he gathered himself up, as if +conscious of a certain consolation and reliance on the resources not +dependent on others which he had found in his own strong limbs and his +own stout heart. + +At that moment he felt a soft touch upon his hand, and he saw Fanny +looking at him through the tears that still flowed. + +“You have no one to care for you? Don’t say so! Come and live with us, +brother; we’ll care for you. I have never forgotten the flowers--never! +Do come! Fanny shall love you. Fanny can work for three!” + +“And they call her an idiot!” mumbled the old man, with a vacant smile +on his lips. + +“My sister! You shall be my sister! Forlorn one--whom even Nature has +fooled and betrayed! Sister!--we, both orphans! Sister!” exclaimed that +dark, stern man, passionately, and with a broken voice; and he opened +his arms, and Fanny, without a blush or a thought of shame, threw +herself on his breast. He kissed her forehead with a kiss that was, +indeed, pure and holy as a brother’s: and Fanny felt that he had left +upon her cheek a tear that was not her own. + +“Well,” he said, with an altered voice, and taking the old man’s hand, +“what say you? Shall I take up my lodging with you? I have a little +money; I can protect and aid you both. I shall be often away--in London +or else where--and will not intrude too much on you. But you blind, and +she--(here he broke off the sentence abruptly and went on)--you should +not be left alone. And this neighbourhood, that burial-place, are dear +to me. I, too, Fanny, have lost a parent; and that grave--” + +He paused, and then added, in a trembling voice, “And you have placed +flowers over that grave?” + +“Stay with us,” said the blind man; “not for our sake, but your own. The +world is a bad place. I have been long sick of the world. Yes! come and +live near the burial-ground--the nearer you are to the grave, the safer +you are;--and you have a little money, you say!” + +“I will come to-morrow, then. I must return now. Tomorrow, Fanny, we +shall meet again.” + +“Must you go?” said Fanny, tenderly. “But you will come again; you know +I used to think every one died when he left me. I am wiser now. Yet +still, when you do leave me, it is true that you die for Fanny!” + +At this moment, as the three persons were grouped, each had assumed +a posture of form, an expression of face, which a painter of fitting +sentiment and skill would have loved to study. The visitor had gained +the door; and as he stood there, his noble height--the magnificent +strength and health of his manhood in its full prime--contrasted alike +the almost spectral debility of extreme age and the graceful delicacy +of Fanny--half girl, half child. There was something foreign in his +air--and the half military habit, relieved by the red riband of the +Bourbon knighthood. His complexion was dark as that of a Moor, and +his raven hair curled close to the stately head. The +soldier-moustache--thick, but glossy as silk-shaded the firm lip; and +the pointed beard, assumed by the exiled Carlists, heightened the effect +of the strong and haughty features and the expression of the martial +countenance. + +But as Fanny’s voice died on his ear, he half averted that proud face; +and the dark eyes--almost Oriental in their brilliancy and depth of +shade--seemed soft and humid. And there stood Fanny, in a posture +of such unconscious sadness--such childlike innocence; her arms +drooping--her face wistfully turned to his--and a half smile upon the +lips, that made still more touching the tears not yet dried upon her +cheeks. While thin, frail, shadowy, with white hair and furrowed cheeks, +the old man fixed his sightless orbs on space; and his face, usually +only animated from the lethargy of advancing dotage by a certain +querulous cynicism, now grew suddenly earnest, and even thoughtful, as +Fanny spoke of Death! + + + +CHAPTER V. + + + “Ulyss. Time hath a wallet at his back + Wherein he puts alms for oblivion. + * * Perseverance, dear my lord, + Keeps honour bright.”--Troilus and Cressida. + +I have not sought--as would have been easy, by a little ingenuity in the +earlier portion of this narrative--whatever source of vulgar interest +might be derived from the mystery of names and persons. As in Charles +Spencer the reader is allowed at a glance to detect Sidney Morton, so in +Philip de Vaudemont (the stranger who rescued Fanny) the reader at once +recognises the hero of my tale; but since neither of these young men has +a better right to the name resigned than to the name adopted, it will be +simpler and more convenient to designate them by those appellations by +which they are now known to the world. In truth, Philip de Vaudemont was +scarcely the same being as Philip Morton. In the short visit he had +paid to the elder Gawtrey, when he consigned Fanny to his charge, he had +given no name; and the one he now took (when, towards the evening of the +next day he returned to Simon’s house) the old man heard for the first +time. Once more sunk into his usual apathy, Simon did not express any +surprise that a Frenchman should be so well acquainted with English--he +scarcely observed that the name was French. Simon’s age seemed daily to +bring him more and more to that state when life is mere mechanism, and +the soul, preparing for its departure, no longer heeds the tenement that +crumbles silently and neglected into its lonely dust. Vaudemont came +with but little luggage (for he had an apartment also in London), and +no attendant,--a single horse was consigned to the stables of an inn at +hand, and he seemed, as soldiers are, more careful for the comforts of +the animal than his own. There was but one woman servant in the humble +household, who did all the ruder work, for Fanny’s industry could afford +it. The solitary servant and the homely fare sufficed for the simple and +hardy adventurer. + +Fanny, with a countenance radiant with joy, took his hand and led him to +his room. Poor child! with that instinct of woman which never deserted +her, she had busied herself the whole day in striving to deck the +chamber according to her own notions of comfort. She had stolen from +her little hoard wherewithal to make some small purchases, on which the +Dowbiggin of the suburb had been consulted. And what with flowers on the +table, and a fire at the hearth, the room looked cheerful. + +She watched him as he glanced around, and felt disappointed that he +did not utter the admiration she expected. Angry at last with the +indifference which, in fact, as to external accommodation, was habitual +to him, she plucked his sleeve, and said,-- + +“Why don’t you speak? Is it not nice?--Fanny did her best.” + +“And a thousand thanks to Fanny! It is all I could wish.” + +“There is another room, bigger than this, but the wicked woman who +robbed us slept there; and besides, you said you liked the churchyard. +See!” and she opened the window and pointed to the church-tower rising +dark against the evening sky. + +“This is better than all!” said Vaudemont; and he looked out from the +window in a silent reverie, which Fanny did not disturb. + +And now he was settled! From a career so wild, agitated, and various, +the adventurer paused in that humble resting-nook. But quiet is not +repose--obscurity is not content. Often as, morn and eve, he looked +forth upon the spot, where his mother’s heart, unconscious of love and +woe, mouldered away, the indignant and bitter feelings of the wronged +outcast and the son who could not clear the mother’s name swept away the +subdued and gentle melancholy into which time usually softens regret for +the dead, and with which most of us think of the distant past, and the +once joyous childhood! + +In this man’s breast lay, concealed by his external calm, those memories +and aspirations which are as strong as passions. In his earlier years, +when he had been put to hard shifts for existence, he had found no +leisure for close and brooding reflection upon that spoliation of just +rights--that calumny upon his mother’s name, which had first brought +the Night into his Morning. His resentment towards the Beauforts, it is +true, had ever been an intense but a fitful and irregular passion. It +was exactly in proportion as, by those rare and romantic incidents which +Fiction cannot invent, and which Narrative takes with diffidence from +the great Store-house of Real Life, his steps had ascended in the social +ladder--that all which his childhood had lost--all which the robbers +of his heritage had gained, the grandeur and the power of WEALTH--above +all, the hourly and the tranquil happiness of a stainless name, became +palpable and distinct. He had loved Eugenie as a boy loves for the first +time an accomplished woman. He regarded her, so refined--so gentle--so +gifted, with the feelings due to a superior being, with an eternal +recollection of the ministering angel that had shone upon him when +he stood on the dark abyss. She was the first that had redeemed his +fate--the first that had guided aright his path--the first that had +tamed the savage at his breast:--it was the young lion charmed by the +eyes of Una. The outline of his story had been truly given at Lord +Lilburne’s. Despite his pride, which revolted from such obligations to +another, and a woman--which disliked and struggled against a disguise +which at once and alone saved him from the detection of the past and the +terrors of the future--he had yielded to her, the wise and the gentle, +as one whose judgment he could not doubt; and, indeed, the slanderous +falsehoods circulated by the lackey, to whose discretion, the night of +Gawtrey’s death, Eugenie had preferred to confide her own honour, rather +than another’s life, had (as Liancourt rightly stated) left Philip no +option but that which Madame de Merville deemed the best, whether for +her happiness or her good name. Then had followed a brief season--the +holiday of his life--the season of young hope and passion, of brilliancy +and joy, closing by that abrupt death which again left him lonely in the +world. + +When, from the grief that succeeded to the death of Eugenie, he woke to +find himself amidst the strange faces and exciting scenes of an Oriental +court, he turned with hard and disgustful contempt from Pleasure, as an +infidelity to the dead. Ambition crept over him--his mind hardened +as his cheek bronzed under those burning suns--his hardy frame, +his energies prematurely awakened, his constitutional disregard to +danger,--made him a brave and skilful soldier. He acquired reputation +and rank. But, as time went on, the ambition took a higher flight--he +felt his sphere circumscribed; the Eastern indolence that filled up the +long intervals between Eastern action chafed a temper never at rest: +he returned to France: his reputation, Liancourt’s friendship, and the +relations of Eugenie--grateful, as has before been implied, for +the generosity with which he surrendered the principal part of her +donation--opened for him a new career, but one painful and galling. In +the Indian court there was no question of his birth--one adventurer was +equal with the rest. But in Paris, a man attempting to rise provoked all +the sarcasm of wit, all the cavils of party; and in polished and civil +life, what valour has weapons against a jest? Thus, in civilisation, +all the passions that spring from humiliated self-love and baffled +aspiration again preyed upon his breast. He saw, then, that the more he +struggled from obscurity, the more acute would become research into his +true origin; and his writhing pride almost stung to death his ambition. +To succeed in life by regular means was indeed difficult for this man; +always recoiling from the name he bore--always strong in the hope yet +to regain that to which he conceived himself entitled--cherishing that +pride of country which never deserts the native of a Free State, +however harsh a parent she may have proved; and, above all, whatever +his ambition and his passions, taking, from the very misfortunes he had +known, an indomitable belief in the ultimate justice of Heaven;--he had +refused to sever the last ties that connected him with his lost heritage +and his forsaken land--he refused to be naturalised--to make the name +he bore legally undisputed--he was contented to be an alien. Neither was +Vaudemont fitted exactly for that crisis in the social world when the +men of journals and talk bustle aside the men of action. He had not +cultivated literature, he had no book-knowledge--the world had been his +school, and stern life his teacher. Still, eminently skilled in those +physical accomplishments which men admire and soldiers covet, calm and +self-possessed in manner, of great personal advantages, of much ready +talent and of practised observation in character, he continued to breast +the obstacles around him, and to establish himself in the favour of +those in power. It was natural to a person so reared and circumstanced +to have no sympathy with what is called the popular cause. He was no +citizen in the state--he was a stranger in the land. He had suffered +and still suffered too much from mankind to have that philanthropy, +sometimes visionary but always noble, which, in fact, generally springs +from the studies we cultivate, not in the forum, but the closet. Men, +alas! too often lose the Democratic Enthusiasm in proportion as they +find reason to suspect or despise their kind. And if there were not +hopes for the Future, which this hard, practical daily life does not +suffice to teach us, the vision and the glory that belong to the Great +Popular Creed, dimmed beneath the injustice, the follies, and the vices +of the world as it is, would fade into the lukewarm sectarianism of +temporary Party. Moreover, Vaudemont’s habits of thought and reasoning +were those of the camp, confirmed by the systems familiar to him in the +East: he regarded the populace as a soldier enamoured of discipline and +order usually does. His theories, therefore, or rather his ignorance of +what is sound in theory, went with Charles the Tenth in his excesses, +but not with the timidity which terminated those excesses by +dethronement and disgrace. Chafed to the heart, gnawed with proud grief, +he obeyed the royal mandates, and followed the exiled monarch: his hopes +overthrown, his career in France annihilated forever. But on entering +England, his temper, confident and ready of resource, fastened itself +on new food. In the land where he had no name he might yet rebuild his +fortunes. It was an arduous effort--an improbable hope; but the words +heard by the bridge of Paris--words that had often cheered him in his +exile through hardships and through dangers which it is unnecessary to +our narrative to detail--yet rung again in his ear, as he leaped on his +native land,--“Time, Faith, Energy.” + +While such his character in the larger and more distant relations +of life, in the closer circles of companionship many rare and +noble qualities were visible. It is true that he was stern, perhaps +imperious--of a temper that always struggled for command; but he was +deeply susceptible of kindness, and, if feared by those who opposed, +loved by those who served him. About his character was that mixture of +tenderness and fierceness which belonged, of old, to the descriptions of +the warrior. Though so little unlettered, Life had taught him a certain +poetry of sentiment and idea--More poetry, perhaps, in the silent +thoughts that, in his happier moments, filled his solitude, than in half +the pages that his brother had read and written by the dreaming lake. A +certain largeness of idea and nobility of impulse often made him act +the sentiments of which bookmen write. With all his passions, he held +licentiousness in disdain; with all his ambition for the power of +wealth, he despised its luxury. Simple, masculine, severe, abstemious, +he was of that mould in which, in earlier times, the successful men of +action have been cast. But to successful action, circumstance is more +necessary than to triumphant study. + +It was to be expected that, in proportion as he had been familiar with +a purer and nobler life, he should look with great and deep +self-humiliation at his early association with Gawtrey. He was in this +respect more severe on himself than any other mind ordinarily just and +candid would have been,--when fairly surveying the circumstances of +penury, hunger, and despair, which had driven him to Gawtrey’s roof, the +imperfect nature of his early education, the boyish trust and affection +he had felt for his protector, and his own ignorance of, and exemption +from, all the worst practices of that unhappy criminal. But still, when, +with the knowledge he had now acquired, the man looked calmly back, his +cheek burned with remorseful shame at his unreflecting companionship in +a life of subterfuge and equivocation, the true nature of which, the +boy (so circumstanced as we have shown him) might be forgiven for not +at that time comprehending. Two advantages resulted, however, from the +error and the remorse: first, the humiliation it brought curbed, in some +measure, a pride that might otherwise have been arrogant and unamiable, +and, secondly, as I have before intimated, his profound gratitude to +Heaven for his deliverance from the snares that had beset his youth gave +his future the guide of an earnest and heartfelt faith. He acknowledged +in life no such thing as accident. Whatever his struggles, whatever his +melancholy, whatever his sense of worldly wrong, he never despaired; for +nothing now could shake his belief in one directing Providence. + +The ways and habits of Vaudemont were not at discord with those of the +quiet household in which he was now a guest. Like most men of strong +frames, and accustomed to active, not studious pursuits, he rose +early;--and usually rode to London, to come back late at noon to their +frugal meal. And if again, perhaps after the hour when Fanny and Simon +retired, he would often return to London, his own pass-key re-admitted +him, at whatever time he came back, without disturbing the sleep of +the household. Sometimes, when the sun began to decline, if the air was +warm, the old man would crawl out, leaning on that strong arm, through +the neighbouring lanes, ever returning through the lonely burial-ground; +or when the blind host clung to his fireside, and composed himself to +sleep, Philip would saunter forth along with Fanny; and on the days when +she went to sell her work, or select her purchases, he always made a +point of attending her. And her cheek wore a flush of pride when she saw +him carrying her little basket, or waiting without, in musing patience, +while she performed her commissions in the shops. Though in reality +Fanny’s intellect was ripening within, yet still the surface often +misled the eye as to the depths. It was rather that something yet held +back the faculties from their growth than that the faculties themselves +were wanting. Her weakness was more of the nature of the infant’s than +of one afflicted with incurable imbecility. For instance, she managed +the little household with skill and prudence; she could calculate in her +head, as rapidly as Vaudemont himself, the arithmetic necessary to her +simple duties; she knew the value of money, which is more than some +of us wise folk do. Her skill, even in her infancy so remarkable, +in various branches of female handiwork, was carried, not only by +perseverance, but by invention and peculiar talent, to a marvellous and +exquisite perfection. Her embroidery, especially in what was then more +rare than at present, viz., flowers on silk, was much in request among +the great modistes of London, to whom it found its way through the +agency of Miss Semper. So that all this had enabled her, for years, +to provide every necessary comfort of life for herself and her blind +protector. And her care for the old man was beautiful in its minuteness, +its vigilance. Wherever her heart was interested, there never seemed +a deficiency of mind. Vaudemont was touched to see how much of +affectionate and pitying respect she appeared to enjoy in the +neighbourhood, especially among the humbler classes--even the beggar who +swept the crossings did not beg of her, but bade God bless her as she +passed; and the rude, discontented artisan would draw himself from the +wall and answer, with a softened brow, the smile with which the harmless +one charmed his courtesy. In fact, whatever attraction she took from +her youth, her beauty, her misfortune, and her affecting industry, was +heightened, in the eyes of the poorer neighbours, by many little traits +of charity and kindness; many a sick child had she tended, and many a +breadless board had stolen something from the stock set aside for her +father’s grave. + +“Don’t you think,” she once whispered to Vaudemont, “that God attends to +us more if we are good to those who are sick and hungry?” + +“Certainly we are taught to think so.” + +“Well, I’ll tell you a secret--don’t tell again. Grandpapa once said +that my father had done bad things; now, if Fanny is good to those she +can help, I think that God will hear her more kindly when she prays him +to forgive what her father did. Do you think so too? Do say--you are so +wise!” + +“Fanny, you are wiser than all of us; and I feel myself better and +happier when I hear you speak.” + +There were, indeed, many moments when Vaudemont thought that her +deficiencies of intellect might have been repaired, long since, by +skilful culture and habitual companionship with those of her own age; +from which companionship, however, Fanny, even when at school, had +shrunk aloof. At other moments there was something so absent and +distracted about her, or so fantastic and incoherent, that Vaudemont, +with the man’s hard, worldly eye, read in it nothing but melancholy +confusion. Nevertheless, if the skein of ideas was entangled, each +thread in itself was a thread of gold. + +Fanny’s great object--her great ambition--her one hope--was a tomb for +her supposed father. Whether from some of that early religion attached +to the grave, which is most felt in Catholic countries, and which she +had imbibed at the convent; or from her residence so near the burial +ground, and the affection with which she regarded the spot;--whatever +the cause, she had cherished for some years, as young maidens usually +cherish the desire of the Altar--the dream of the Gravestone. But +the hoard was amassed so slowly;--now old Gawtrey was attacked by +illness;--now there was some little difficulty in the rent; now some +fluctuation in the price of work; and now, and more often than all, some +demand on her charity, which interfered with, and drew from, the pious +savings. This was a sentiment in which her new friend sympathised +deeply; for he, too, remembered that his first gold had bought that +humble stone which still preserved upon the earth the memory of his +mother. + +Meanwhile, days crept on, and no new violence was offered to Fanny. +Vaudemont learned, then, by little and little--and Fanny’s account was +very confused--the nature of the danger she had run. + +It seemed that one day, tempted by the fineness of the weather up +the road that led from the suburb farther into the country, Fanny was +stopped by a gentleman in a carriage, who accosted her, as she said, +very kindly: and after several questions, which she answered with her +usual unsuspecting innocence, learned her trade, insisted on purchasing +some articles of work which she had at the moment in her basket, and +promised to procure her a constant purchaser, upon much better terms +than she had hitherto obtained, if she would call at the house of a Mrs. +West, about a mile from the suburb towards London. This she promised +to do, and this she did, according to the address he gave her. She was +admitted to a lady more gaily dressed than Fanny had ever seen a lady +before,--the gentleman was also present,--they both loaded her with +compliments, and bought her work at a price which seemed about to +realise all the hopes of the poor girl as to the gravestone for William +Gawtrey,--as if his evil fate pursued that wild man beyond the grave, +and his very tomb was to be purchased by the gold of the polluter! The +lady then appointed her to call again; but, meanwhile, she met Fanny +in the streets, and while she was accosting her, it fortunately chanced +that Miss Semper the milliner passed that way--turned round, looked hard +at the lady, used very angry language to her, seized Fanny’s hand, led +her away while the lady slunk off; and told her that the said lady was a +very bad woman, and that Fanny must never speak to her again. Fanny +most cheerfully promised this. And, in fact, the lady, probably afraid, +whether of the mob or the magistrates, never again came near her. + +“And,” said Fanny, “I gave the money they had both given to me to Miss +Semper, who said she would send it back.” + +“You did right, Fanny; and as you made one promise to Miss Semper, so +you must make me one--never to stir from home again without me or some +other person. No, no other person--only me. I will give up everything +else to go with you.” + +“Will you? Oh, yes. I promise! I used to like going alone, but that was +before you came, brother.” + +And as Fanny kept her promise, it would have been a bold gallant indeed +who would have ventured to molest her by the side of that stately and +strong protector. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + + “Timon. Each thing’s a thief + The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power + Have unchecked theft. + + The sweet degrees that this brief world affords, + To such as may the passive drugs of it + Freely command.”--Timon of Athens. + +On the day and at the hour fixed for the interview with the stranger who +had visited Mr. Beaufort, Lord Lilburne was seated in the library of +his brother-in-law; and before the elbow-chair, on which he lolled +carelessly, stood our old friend Mr. Sharp, of Bow Street notability. + +“Mr. Sharp,” said the peer, “I have sent for you to do me a little +favour. I expect a man here who professes to give Mr. Beaufort, my +brother-in-law, some information about a lawsuit. It is necessary +to know the exact value of his evidence. I wish you to ascertain all +particulars about him. Be so good as to seat yourself in the porter’s +chair in the hall; note him when he enters, unobserved yourself--but as +he is probably a stranger to you, note him still more when he leaves +the house; follow him at a distance; find out where he lives, whom he +associates with, where he visits, their names and directions, what his +character and calling are;--in a word, everything you can, and report +to me each evening. Dog him well, never lose sight of him--you will be +handsomely paid. You understand?” + +“Ah!” said Mr. Sharp, “leave me alone, my lord. Been employed before by +your lordship’s brother-in-law. We knows what’s what.” + +“I don’t doubt it. To your post--I expect him every moment.” + +And, in fact, Mr. Sharp had only just ensconced himself in the porter’s +chair when the stranger knocked at the door--in another moment he was +shown in to Lord Lilburne. + +“Sir,” said his lordship, without rising, “be so good as to take a +chair. Mr. Beaufort is obliged to leave town--he has asked me to see +you--I am one of his family--his wife is my sister--you may be as frank +with me as with him,--more so, perhaps.” + +“I beg the fauvour of your name, sir,” said the stranger, adjusting his +collar. + +“Yours first--business is business.” + +“Well, then, Captain Smith.” + +“Of what regiment?” + +“Half-pay.” + +“I am Lord Lilburne. Your name is Smith--humph!” added the peer, looking +over some notes before him. “I see it is also the name of the witness +appealed to by Mrs. Morton--humph!” + +At this remark, and still more at the look which accompanied it, the +countenance, before impudent and complacent, of Captain Smith fell into +visible embarrassment; he cleared his throat and said, with a little +hesitation,-- + +“My lord, that witness is living!” + +“No doubt of it--witnesses never die where property is concerned and +imposture intended.” + +At this moment the servant entered, and placed a little note, quaintly +folded, before Lord Lilburne. He glanced at it in surprise--opened, and +read as follows, in pencil,-- + +“My LORD,--I knows the man; take caer of him; he is as big a roge as +ever stept; he was transported some three year back, and unless his time +has been shortened by the Home, he’s absent without leve. We used +to call him Dashing Jerry. That ere youngster we went arter, by Mr. +Bofort’s wish, was a pall of his. Scuze the liberty I take. + +“J. SHARP.” + +While Lord Lilburne held this effusion to the candle, and spelled his +way through it, Captain Smith, recovering his self-composure, thus +proceeded: + +“Imposture, my lord! imposture! I really don’t understand. Your lordship +really seems so suspicious, that it is quite uncomfortable. I am sure it +is all the same to me; and if Mr. Beaufort does not think proper to see +me himself, why I’d best make my bow.” + +And Captain Smith rose. + +“Stay a moment, sir. What Mr. Beaufort may yet do, I cannot say; but +I know this, you stand charged of a very grave offence, and if your +witness or witnesses--you may have fifty, for what I care--are equally +guilty, so much the worse for them.” + +“My lord, I really don’t comprehend.” + +“Then I will be more plain. I accuse you of devising an infamous +falsehood for the purpose of extorting money. Let your witnesses appear +in court, and I promise that you, they, and the young man, Mr. Morton, +whose claim they set up, shall be indicted for conspiracy--conspiracy, +if accompanied (as in the case of your witnesses) with perjury, of the +blackest die. Mr. Smith, I know you; and, before ten o’clock to-morrow, +I shall know also if you had his majesty’s leave to quit the colonies! +Ah! I am plain enough now, I see.” + +And Lord Lilburne threw himself back in his chair, and coldly +contemplated the white face and dismayed expression of the crestfallen +captain. That most worthy person, after a pause of confusion, amaze, +and fear, made an involuntary stride, with a menacing gesture, towards +Lilburne; the peer quietly placed his hand on the bell. + +“One moment more,” said the latter; “if I ring this bell, it is to place +you in custody. Let Mr. Beaufort but see you here once again--nay, let +him but hear another word of this pretended lawsuit--and you return to +the colonies. Pshaw! Frown not at me, sir! A Bow Street officer is in +the hall. Begone!--no, stop one moment, and take a lesson in life. Never +again attempt to threaten people of property and station. Around every +rich man is a wall--better not run your head against it.” + +“But I swear solemnly,” cried the knave, with an emphasis so startling +that it carried with it the appearance of truth, “that the marriage did +take place.” + +“And I say, no less solemnly, that any one who swears it in a court of +law shall be prosecuted for perjury! Bah! you are a sorry rogue, after +all!” + +And with an air of supreme and half-compassionate contempt, Lord +Lilburne turned away and stirred the fire. Captain Smith muttered +and fumbled a moment with his gloves, then shrugged his shoulders and +sneaked out. + +That night Lord Lilburne again received his friends, and amongst +his guests came Vaudemont. Lilburne was one who liked the study of +character, especially the character of men wrestling against the world. +Wholly free from every species of ambition, he seemed to reconcile +himself to his apathy by examining into the disquietude, the +mortification, the heart’s wear and tear, which are the lot of the +ambitious. Like the spider in his hole, he watched with hungry pleasure +the flies struggling in the web; through whose slimy labyrinth he walked +with an easy safety. Perhaps one reason why he loved gaming was less +from the joy of winning than the philosophical complacency with which he +feasted on the emotions of those who lost; always serene, and, except +in debauch, always passionless,--Majendie, tracing the experiments of +science in the agonies of some tortured dog, could not be more rapt +in the science, and more indifferent to the dog, than Lord Lilburne, +ruining a victim, in the analysis of human passions,--stoical in the +writhings of the wretch whom he tranquilly dissected. He wished to win +money of Vaudemont--to ruin this man, who presumed to be more generous +than other people--to see a bold adventurer submitted to the wheel +of the Fortune which reigns in a pack of cards;--and all, of course, +without the least hate to the man whom he then saw for the first time. +On the contrary, he felt a respect for Vaudemont. Like most worldly men, +Lord Lilburne was prepossessed in favour of those who seek to rise in +life: and like men who have excelled in manly and athletic exercises, +he was also prepossessed in favour of those who appeared fitted for the +same success. + +Liancourt took aside his friend, as Lord Lilburne was talking with his +other guests:-- + +“I need not caution you, who never play, not to commit yourself to Lord +Lilburne’s tender mercies; remember, he is an admirable player.” + +“Nay,” answered Vaudemont, “I want to know this man: I have reasons, +which alone induce me to enter his house. I can afford to venture +something, because I wish to see if I can gain something for one dear to +me. And for the rest (he muttered)--I know him too well not to be on +my guard.” With that he joined Lord Lilburne’s group, and accepted the +invitation to the card-table. At supper, Vaudemont conversed more than +was habitual to him; he especially addressed himself to his host, and +listened, with great attention, to Lilburne’s caustic comments upon +every topic successively started. And whether it was the art of De +Vaudemont, or from an interest that Lord Lilburne took in studying +what was to him a new character,--or whether that, both men excelling +peculiarly in all masculine accomplishments, their conversation was of +a nature that was more attractive to themselves than to others; it so +happened that they were still talking while the daylight already peered +through the window-curtains. + +“And I have outstayed all your guests,” said De Vaudemont, glancing +round the emptied room. + +“It is the best compliment you could pay me. Another night we can +enliven our tete-a-tete with ecarte; though at your age, and with your +appearance, I am surprised, Monsieur de Vaudemont, that you are fond of +play: I should have thought that it was not in a pack of cards that +you looked for hearts. But perhaps you are _blase _betimes of the _beau +sexe_.” + +“Yet your lordship’s devotion to it is, perhaps, as great now as ever?” + +“Mine?--no, not as ever. To different ages different degrees. At your +age I wooed; at mine I purchase--the better plan of the two: it does not +take up half so much time.” + +“Your marriage, I think, Lord Lilburne, was not blessed with children. +Perhaps sometimes you feel the want of them?” + +“If I did, I could have them by the dozen. Other ladies have been more +generous in that department than the late Lady Lilburne, Heaven rest +her!” + +“And,” said Vaudemont, fixing his eyes with some earnestness on his +host, “if you were really persuaded that you had a child, or perhaps a +grandchild--the mother one whom you loved in your first youth--a +child affectionate, beautiful, and especially needing your care and +protection, would you not suffer that child, though illegitimate, to +supply to you the want of filial affection?” + +“Filial affection, mon cher!” repeated Lord Lilburne, “needing my care +and protection! Pshaw! In other words, would I give board and lodging +to some young vagabond who was good enough to say he was son to Lord +Lilburne?” + +“But if you were convinced that the claimant were your son, or +perhaps your daughter--a tenderer name of the two, and a more helpless +claimant?” + +“My dear Monsieur de Vaudemont, you are doubtless a man of gallantry and +of the world. If the children whom the law forces on one are, nine times +out of ten, such damnable plagues, judge if one would father those whom +the law permits us to disown! Natural children are the pariahs of the +world, and I--am one of the Brahmans.” + +“But,” persisted Vaudemont, “forgive me if I press the question farther. +Perhaps I seek from your wisdom a guide to my own conduct;--suppose, +then, a man had loved, had wronged, the mother;--suppose that in the +child he saw one who, without his aid, might be exposed to every curse +with which the pariahs (true, the pariahs!) of the world are too +often visited, and who with his aid might become, as age advanced, his +companion, his nurse, his comforter--” + +“Tush!” interrupted Lilburne, with some impatience; “I know not how our +conversation fell on such a topic--but if you really ask my opinion in +reference to any case in practical life, you shall have it. Look you, +then Monsieur de Vaudemont, no man has studied the art of happiness more +than I have; and I will tell you the great secret--have as few ties as +possible. Nurse!--pooh! you or I could hire one by the week a thousand +times more useful and careful than a bore of a child. Comforter!--a man +of mind never wants comfort. And there is no such thing as sorrow while +we have health and money, and don’t care a straw for anybody in the +world. If you choose to love people, their health and circumstances, if +either go wrong, can fret you: that opens many avenues to pain. Never +live alone, but always feel alone. You think this unamiable: possibly. +I am no hypocrite, and, for my part, I never affect to be anything but +what I am--John Lilburne.” + +As the peer thus spoke, Vaudemont, leaning against the door, +contemplated him with a strange mixture of interest and disgust. “And +John Lilburne is thought a great man, and William Gawtrey was a great +rogue. You don’t conceal your heart?--no, I understand. Wealth and power +have no need of hypocrisy: you are the man of vice--Gawtrey, the man of +crime. You never sin against the law--he was a felon by his trade. And +the felon saved from vice the child, and from want the grandchild (Your +flesh and blood) whom you disown: which will Heaven consider the worse +man? No, poor Fanny, I see I am wrong. If he would own you, I would not +give you up to the ice of such a soul:--better the blind man than the +dead heart!” + +“Well, Lord Lilburne,” said De Vaudemont aloud, shaking off his reverie, +“I must own that your philosophy seems to me the wisest for yourself. +For a poor man it might be different--the poor need affection.” + +“Ay, the poor, certainly,” said Lord Lilburne, with an air of +patronising candour. + +“And I will own farther,” continued De Vaudemont, “that I have willingly +lost my money in return for the instruction I have received in hearing +you converse.” + +“You are kind: come and take your revenge next Thursday. Adieu.” + +As Lord Lilburne undressed, and his valet attended him, he said to that +worthy functionary,-- + +“So you have not been able to make out the name of the stranger--the new +lodger you tell me of?” + +“No, my lord. They only say he is a very fine-looking man.” + +“You have not seen him?” + +“No, my lord. What do you wish me now to do?” + +“Humph! Nothing at this moment! You manage things so badly, you might +get me into a scrape. I never do anything which the law or the police, +or even the news papers, can get hold of. I must think of some other +way--humph! I never give up what I once commence, and I never fail +in what I undertake! If life had been worth what fools trouble it +with--business and ambition--I suppose I should have been a great man +with a very bad liver--ha ha! I alone, of all the world, ever found out +what the world was good for! Draw the curtains, Dykeman.” + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + + “Org. Welcome, thou ice that sitt’st about his heart + No heat can ever thaw thee!”--FORD: Broken Heart. + + “Nearch. Honourable infamy!”--Ibid. + + “Amye. Her tenderness hath yet deserved no rigour, + So to be crossed by fate!” + + “Arm. You misapply, sir, + With favour let me speak it, what Apollo + Hath clouded in dim sense!”--Ibid. + +If Vaudemont had fancied that, considering the age and poverty of Simon, +it was his duty to see whether Fanny’s not more legal, but more natural +protector were, indeed, the unredeemed and unmalleable egotist which +Gawtrey had painted him, the conversation of one night was sufficient to +make him abandon for ever the notion of advancing her claims upon Lord +Lilburne. But Philip had another motive in continuing his acquaintance +with that personage. The sight of his mother’s grave had recalled to +him the image of that lost brother over whom he had vowed to watch. And, +despite the deep sense of wronged affection with which he yet remembered +the cruel letter that had contained the last tidings of Sidney, Philip’s +heart clung with undying fondness to that fair shape associated with all +the happy recollections of childhood; and his conscience as well as his +love asked him, each time that he passed the churchyard, “Will you +make no effort to obey that last prayer of the mother who consigned her +darling to your charge?” Perhaps, had Philip been in want, or had the +name he now bore been sullied by his conduct, he might have shrunk from +seeking one whom he might injure, but could not serve. But though not +rich, he had more than enough for tastes as hardy and simple as any to +which soldier of fortune ever limited his desires. And he thought, with +a sentiment of just and noble pride, that the name which Eugenie had +forced upon him had been borne spotless as the ermine through the trials +and vicissitudes he had passed since he had assumed it. Sidney could +give him nothing, and therefore it was his duty to seek Sidney out. Now, +he had always believed in his heart that the Beauforts were acquainted +with a secret which he more and more pined to penetrate. He would, for +Sidney’s sake, smother his hate to the Beauforts; he would not reject +their acquaintance if thrown in his way; nay, secure in his change of +name and his altered features, from all suspicion on their part, he +would seek that acquaintance in order to find his brother and fulfil +Catherine’s last commands. His intercourse with Lilburne would +necessarily bring him easily into contact with Lilburne’s family. And in +this thought he did not reject the invitations pressed on him. He felt, +too, a dark and absorbing interest in examining a man who was in +himself the incarnation of the World--the World of Art--the World as +the Preacher paints it--the hollow, sensual, sharp-witted, self-wrapped +WORLD--the World that is all for this life, and thinks of no Future and +no God! + +Lord Lilburne was, indeed, a study for deep contemplation. A study to +perplex the ordinary thinker, and task to the utmost the analysis +of more profound reflection. William Gawtrey had possessed no common +talents; he had discovered that his life had been one mistake; Lord +Lilburne’s intellect was far keener than Gawtrey’s, and he had never +made, and if he had lived to the age of Old Parr, never would have made +a similar discovery. He never wrestled against a law, though he slipped +through all laws! And he knew no remorse, for he knew no fear. Lord +Lilburne had married early, and long survived, a lady of fortune, the +daughter of the then Premier--the best match, in fact, of his day. And +for one very brief period of his life he had suffered himself to enter +into the field of politics the only ambition common with men of +equal rank. He showed talents that might have raised one so gifted by +circumstance to any height, and then retired at once into his old habits +and old system of pleasure. “I wished to try,” said he once, “if fame +was worth one headache, and I have convinced myself that the man who can +sacrifice the bone in his mouth to the shadow of the bone in the water +is a fool.” From that time he never attended the House of Lords, +and declared himself of no political opinions one way or the other. +Nevertheless, the world had a general belief in his powers, and +Vaudemont reluctantly subscribed to the world’s verdict. Yet he had +done nothing, he had read but little, he laughed at the world to its +face,--and that last was, after all, the main secret of his ascendancy +over those who were drawn into his circle. That contempt of the world +placed the world at his feet. His sardonic and polished indifference, +his professed code that there was no life worth caring for but his own +life, his exemption from all cant, prejudice, and disguise, the frigid +lubricity with which he glided out of the grasp of the Conventional, +whenever it so pleased him, without shocking the Decorums whose sense is +in their ear, and who are not roused by the deed but by the noise,--all +this had in it the marrow and essence of a system triumphant with the +vulgar; for little minds give importance to the man who gives importance +to nothing. Lord Lilburne’s authority, not in matters of taste alone, +but in those which the world calls judgment and common sense, was +regarded as an oracle. He cared not a straw for the ordinary baubles +that attract his order; he had refused both an earldom and the garter, +and this was often quoted in his honour. But you only try a man’s virtue +when you offer him something that he covets. The earldom and the garter +were to Lord Lilburne no more tempting inducements than a doll or a +skipping-rope; had you offered him an infallible cure for the gout, or +an antidote against old age, you might have hired him as your lackey +on your own terms. Lord Lilburne’s next heir was the son of his only +brother, a person entirely dependent on his uncle. Lord Lilburne allowed +him L1000. a year and kept him always abroad in a diplomatic situation. +He looked upon his successor as a man who wanted power, but not +inclination, to become his assassin. + +Though he lived sumptuously and grudged himself nothing, Lord Lilburne +was far from an extravagant man; he might, indeed, be considered close; +for he knew how much of comfort and consideration he owed to his money, +and valued it accordingly; he knew the best speculations and the best +investments. If he took shares in an American canal, you might be +sure that the shares would soon be double in value; if he purchased an +estate, you might be certain it was a bargain. This pecuniary tact and +success necessarily augmented his fame for wisdom. + +He had been in early life a successful gambler, and some suspicions of +his fair play had been noised abroad; but, as has been recently seen in +the instance of a man of rank equal to Lilburne’s, though, perhaps, of +less acute if more cultivated intellect, it is long before the pigeon +will turn round upon a falcon of breed and mettle. The rumours, indeed, +were so vague as to carry with them no weight. During the middle of his +career, when in the full flush of health and fortune, he had renounced +the gaming-table. Of late years, as advancing age made time more heavy, +he had resumed the resource, and with all his former good luck. The +money-market, the table, the sex, constituted the other occupations and +amusements with which Lord Lilburne filled up his rosy leisure. + +Another way by which this man had acquired reputation for ability was +this,--he never pretended to any branch of knowledge of which he was +ignorant, any more than to any virtue in which he was deficient. Honesty +itself was never more free from quackery or deception than was this +embodied and walking Vice. If the world chose to esteem him, he did not +buy its opinion by imposture. No man ever saw Lord Lilburne’s name in a +public subscription, whether for a new church, or a Bible Society, or +a distressed family, no man ever heard of his doing one generous, +benevolent, or kindly action,--no man was ever startled by one +philanthropic, pious, or amiable sentiment from those mocking lips. Yet, +in spite of all this, John Lord Lilburne was not only esteemed but liked +by the world, and set up in the chair of its Rhadamanthuses. In a word, +he seemed to Vaudemont, and he was so in reality, a brilliant example of +the might of Circumstance--an instance of what may be done in the way +of reputation and influence by a rich, well-born man to whom the will +a kingdom is. A little of genius, and Lord Lilburne would have made his +vices notorious and his deficiencies glaring; a little of heart, and +his habits would have led him into countless follies and discreditable +scrapes. It was the lead and the stone that he carried about him that +preserved his equilibrium, no matter which way the breeze blew. But +all his qualities, positive or negative, would have availed him nothing +without that position which enabled him to take his ease in that inn, +the world--which presented, to every detection of his want of intrinsic +nobleness, the irreproachable respectability of a high name, a splendid +mansion, and a rent-roll without a flaw. Vaudemont drew comparisons +between Lilburne and Gawtrey, and he comprehended at last, why one was a +low rascal and the other a great man. + +Although it was but a few days after their first introduction to +each other, Vaudemont had been twice to Lord Lilburne’s, and their +acquaintance was already on an easy footing--when one afternoon as the +former was riding through the streets towards H----, he met the peer +mounted on a stout cob, which, from its symmetrical strength, pure +English breed, and exquisite grooming, showed something of those +sporting tastes for which, in earlier life, Lord Lilburne had been +noted. + +“Why, Monsieur de Vaudemont, what brings you to this part of the +town?--curiosity and the desire to explore?” + +“That might be natural enough in me; but you, who know London so well; +rather what brings you here?” + +“Why I am returned from a long ride. I have had symptoms of a fit of +the gout, and been trying to keep it off by exercise. I have been to +a cottage that belongs to me, some miles from the town--a pretty place +enough, by the way--you must come and see me there next month. I shall +fill the house for a battue! I have some tolerable covers--you are a +good shot, I suppose?” + +“I have not practised, except with a rifle, for some years.” + +“That’s a pity; for as I think a week’s shooting once a year quite +enough, I fear that your visit to me at Fernside may not be sufficiently +long to put your hand in.” + +“Fernside!” + +“Yes; is the name familiar to you?” + +“I think I have heard it before. Did your lordship purchase or inherit +it?” + +“I bought it of my brother-in-law. It belonged to his brother--a gay, +wild sort of fellow, who broke his neck over a six-barred gate; through +that gate my friend Robert walked the same day into a very fine estate!” + +“I have heard so. The late Mr. Beaufort, then, left no children?” + +“Yes; two. But they came into the world in the primitive way in which +Mr. Owen wishes us all to come--too naturally for the present state of +society, and Mr. Owen’s parallelogram was not ready for them. By +the way, one of them disappeared at Paris--you never met with him, I +suppose?” + +“Under what name?” + +“Morton.” + +“Morton! hem! What Christian name?” + +“Philip.” + +“Philip! no. But did Mr. Beaufort do nothing for the young men? I think +I have heard somewhere that he took compassion on one of them.” + +“Have you? Ah, my brother-in-law is precisely one of those excellent men +of whom the world always speaks well. No; he would very willingly have +served either or both the boys, but the mother refused all his overtures +and went to law, I fancy. The elder of these bastards turned out a sad +fellow, and the younger,--I don’t know exactly where he is, but no doubt +with one of his mother’s relations. You seem to interest yourself in +natural children, my dear Vaudemont?” + +“Perhaps you have heard that people have doubted if I were a natural +son?” + +“Ah! I understand now. But are you going?--I was in hopes you would have +turned back my way, and--” + +“You are very good; but I have a particular appointment, and I am now +too late. Good morning, Lord Lilburne.” Sidney with one of his mother’s +relations! Returned, perhaps, to the Mortons! How had he never before +chanced on a conjecture so probable? He would go at once!--that very +night he would go to the house from which he had taken his brother. At +least, and at the worst, they might give him some clue. + +Buoyed with this hope and this resolve, he rode hastily to H-----, to +announce to Simon and Fanny that he should not return to them, perhaps, +for two or three days. As he entered the suburb, he drew up by the +statuary of whom he had purchased his mother’s gravestone. + +The artist of the melancholy trade was at work in his yard. + +“Ho! there!” said Vaudemont, looking over the low railing; “is the tomb +I have ordered nearly finished?” + +“Why, sir, as you were so anxious for despatch, and as it would take a +long time to get a new one ready, I thought of giving you this, which is +finished all but the inscription. It was meant for Miss Deborah Primme; +but her nephew and heir called on me yesterday to say, that as the +poor lady died worth less by L5,000. than he had expected, he thought +a handsome wooden tomb would do as well, if I could get rid of this for +him. It is a beauty, sir. It will look so cheerful--” + +“Well, that will do: and you can place it now where I told you.” + +“In three days, sir.” + +“So be it.” And he rode on, muttering, “Fanny, your pious wish will be +fulfilled. But flowers,--will they suit that stone?” + +He put up his horse, and walked through the lane to Simon’s. + +As he approached the house, he saw Fanny’s bright eyes at the window. +She was watching his return. She hastened to open the door to him, and +the world’s wanderer felt what music there is in the footstep, what +summer there is in the smile, of Welcome! + +“My dear Fanny,” he said, affected by her joyous greeting, “it makes my +heart warm to see you. I have brought you a present from town. When +I was a boy, I remember that my poor mother was fond of singing some +simple songs, which often, somehow or other, come back to me, when I see +and hear you. I fancied you would understand and like them as well at +least as I do--for Heaven knows (he added to himself) my ear is dull +enough generally to the jingle of rhyme.” And he placed in her hands a +little volume of those exquisite songs, in which Burns has set Nature to +music. + +“Oh! you are so kind, brother,” said Fanny, with tears swimming in her +eyes, and she kissed the book. + +After their simple meal, Vaudemont broke to Fanny and Simon the +intelligence of his intended departure for a few days. Simon heard it +with the silent apathy into which, except on rare occasions, his life +had settled. But Fanny turned away her face and wept. + +“It is but for a day or two, Fanny.” + +“An hour is very--very long sometimes,” said the girl, shaking her head +mournfully. + +“Come, I have a little time yet left, and the air is mild, you have not +been out to-day, shall we walk--” + +“Hem!” interrupted Simon, clearing his throat, and seeming to start +into sudden animation; “had not you better settle the board and lodging +before you go?” + +“Oh, grandfather!” cried Fanny, springing to her feet, with such a blush +upon her face. + +“Nay, child,” said Vaudemont, laughingly; “your grandfather only +anticipates me. But do not talk of board and lodging; Fanny is as a +sister to me, and our purse is in common.” + +“I should like to feel a sovereign--just to feel it,” muttered Simon, +in a sort of apologetic tone, that was really pathetic; and as Vaudemont +scattered some coins on the table, the old man clawed them up, chuckling +and talking to himself; and, rising with great alacrity, hobbled out of +the room like a raven carrying some cunning theft to its hiding-place. + +This was so amusing to Vaudemont that he burst out fairly into an +uncontrollable laughter. Fanny looked at him, humbled and wondering for +some moments; and then, creeping to him, put her hand gently on his arm +and said-- + +“Don’t laugh--it pains me. It was not nice in grand papa; but--but, it +does not mean anything. It--it--don’t laugh--Fanny feels so sad!” + +“Well, you are right. Come, put on your bonnet, we will go out.” + +Fanny obeyed; but with less ready delight than usual. And they took +their way through lanes over which hung, still in the cool air, the +leaves of the yellow autumn. + +Fanny was the first to break silence. + +“Do you know,” she said, timidly, “that people here think me very +silly?--do you think so too?” + +Vaudemont was startled by the simplicity of the question, and hesitated. +Fanny looked up in his dark face anxiously and inquiringly. + +“Well,” she said, “you don’t answer?” + +“My dear Fanny, there are some things in which I could wish you less +childlike and, perhaps, less charming. Those strange snatches of song, +for instance!” + +“What! do you not like me to sing? It is my way of talking.” + +“Yes; sing, pretty one! But sing something that we can understand,--sing +the songs I have given you, if you will. And now, may I ask why you put +to me that question?” + +“I have forgotten,” said Fanny, absently, and looking down. + +Now, at that instant, as Philip Vaudemont bent over the exceeding +sweetness of that young face, a sudden thrill shot through his heart, +and he, too, became silent, and lost in thought. Was it possible that +there could creep into his breast a wilder affection for this creature +than that of tenderness and pity? He was startled as the idea crossed +him. He shrank from it as a profanation--as a crime--as a frenzy. He +with his fate so uncertain and chequered--he to link himself with one +so helpless--he to debase the very poetry that clung to the mental +temperament of this pure being, with the feelings which every fair face +may awaken to every coarse heart--to love Fanny! No, it was impossible! +For what could he love in her but beauty, which the very spirit had +forgotten to guard? And she--could she even know what love was? He +despised himself for even admitting such a thought; and with that iron +and hardy vigour which belonged to his mind, resolved to watch closely +against every fancy that would pass the fairy boundary which separated +Fanny from the world of women. + +He was roused from this self-commune by an abrupt exclamation from his +companion. + +“Oh! I recollect now why I asked you that question. There is one thing +that always puzzles me--I want you to explain it. Why does everything in +life depend upon money? You see even my poor grandfather forgot how +good you are to us both, when--when Ah! I don’t understand--it pains--it +puzzles me!” + +“Fanny, look there--no, to the left--you see that old woman, in rags, +crawling wearily along; turn now to the right--you see that fine house +glancing through the trees, with a carriage and four at the gates? The +difference between that old woman and the owner of that house is--Money; +and who shall blame your grandfather for liking Money?” + +Fanny understood; and while the wise man thus moralised, the girl, whom +his very compassion so haughtily contemned, moved away to the old woman +to do her little best to smooth down those disparities from which wisdom +and moralising never deduct a grain! Vaudemont felt this as he saw her +glide towards the beggar; but when she came bounding back to him, she +had forgotten his dislike to her songs, and was chaunting, in the glee +of the heart that a kind act had made glad, one of her own impromptu +melodies. + +Vaudemont turned away. Poor Fanny had unconsciously decided his +self-conquest; she guessed not what passed within him, but she suddenly +recollected--what he had said to her about her songs, and fancied him +displeased. + +“Ah I will never do it again. Brother, don’t turn away!” + +“But we must go home. Hark! the clock strikes seven--I have no time to +lose. And you will promise me never to stir out till I return?” + +“I shall have no heart to stir out,” said Fanny, sadly; and then in a +more cheerful voice, she added, “And I shall sing the songs you like +before you come back again!” + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + + “Well did they know that service all by rote; + + Some singing loud as if they had complained, + Some with their notes another manner feigned.” + CHAUCER: Pie Cuckoo and the Nightingale, + modernised by WORDSWORTH.--HORNE’s Edition. + +And once more, sweet Winandermere, we are on the banks of thy happy +lake! The softest ray of the soft clear sun of early autumn trembled +on the fresh waters, and glanced through the leaves of the limes and +willows that were reflected--distinct as a home for the Naiads--beneath +the limpid surface. You might hear in the bushes the young blackbirds +trilling their first untutored notes. And the graceful dragon-fly, his +wings glittering in the translucent sunshine, darted to and fro--the +reeds gathered here and there in the mimic bays that broke the shelving +marge of the grassy shore. + +And by that grassy shore, and beneath those shadowy limes, sat the young +lovers. It was the very place where Spencer had first beheld Camilla. +And now they were met to say, “Farewell!” + +“Oh, Camilla!” said he, with great emotion, and eyes that swam in tears, +“be firm--be true. You know how my whole life is wrapped up in your +love. You go amidst scenes where all will tempt you to forget me. I +linger behind in those which are consecrated by your remembrance, which +will speak to me every hour of you. Camilla, since you do love me--you +do--do you not?--since you have confessed it--since your parents have +consented to our marriage, provided only that your love last (for of +mine there can be no doubt) for one year--one terrible year--shall I not +trust you as truth itself? And yet how darkly I despair at times!” + +Camilla innocently took the hands that, clasped together, were raised to +her, as if in supplication, and pressed them kindly between her own. + +“Do not doubt me--never doubt my affection. Has not my father consented? +Reflect, it is but a year’s delay!” + +“A year!--can you speak thus of a year--a whole year? Not to see--not to +hear you for a whole year, except in my dreams! And, if at the end your +parents waver? Your father--I distrust him still. If this delay is +but meant to wean you from me,--if, at the end, there are new excuses +found,--if they then, for some cause or other not now foreseen, still +refuse their assent? You--may I not still look to you?” + +Camilla sighed heavily; and turning her meek face on her lover, said, +timidly, “Never think that so short a time can make me unfaithful, and +do not suspect that my father will break his promise.” + +“But, if he does, you will still be mine.” + +“Ah, Charles, how could you esteem me as a wife if I were to tell you I +could forget I am a daughter?” + +This was said so touchingly, and with so perfect a freedom from all +affectation, that her lover could only reply by covering her hand +with his kisses. And it was not till after a pause that he continued +passionately,-- + +“You do but show me how much deeper is my love than yours. You can never +dream how I love you. But I do not ask you to love me as well--it would +be impossible. My life from my earliest childhood has been passed in +these solitudes;--a happy life, though tranquil and monotonous, till +you suddenly broke upon it. You seemed to me the living form of the very +poetry I had worshipped--so bright--so heavenly--I loved you from the +very first moment that we met. I am not like other men of my age. I have +no pursuit--no occupation--nothing to abstract me from your thought. And +I love you so purely--so devotedly, Camilla. I have never known even a +passing fancy for another. You are the first--the only woman--it +ever seemed to me possible to love. You are my Eve--your presence my +paradise! Think how sad I shall be when you are gone--how I shall visit +every spot your footstep has hallowed--how I shall count every moment +till the year is past!” + +While he thus spoke, he had risen in that restless agitation which +belongs to great emotion; and Camilla now rose also, and said +soothingly, as she laid her hand on his shoulder with tender but modest +frankness: + +“And shall I not also think of you? I am sad to feel that you will be so +much alone--no sister--no brother!” + +“Do not grieve for that. The memory of you will be dearer to me than +comfort from all else. And you will be true!” + +Camilla made no answer by words, but her eyes and her colour spoke. And +in that moment, while plighting eternal truth, they forgot that they +were about to part! + +Meanwhile, in a room in the house which, screened by the foliage, was +only partially visible where the lovers stood, sat Mr. Robert Beaufort +and Mr. Spencer. + +“I assure you, sir,” said the former, “that I am not insensible to the +merits of your nephew and to the very handsome proposals you make, still +I cannot consent to abridge the time I have named. They are both very +young. What is a year?” + +“It is a long time when it is a year of suspense,” said the recluse, +shaking his head. + +“It is a longer time when it is a year of domestic dissension and +repentance. And it is a very true proverb, ‘Marry in haste and repent at +leisure.’ No! If at the end of the year the young people continue of the +same mind, and no unforeseen circumstances occur--” + +“No unforeseen circumstances, Mr. Beaufort!--that is a new condition--it +is a very vague phrase.” + +“My dear sir, it is hard to please you. Unforeseen circumstances,” said +the wary father, with a wise look, “mean circumstances that we don’t +foresee at present. I assure you that I have no intention to trifle with +you, and I shall be sincerely happy in so respectable a connexion.” + +“The young people may write to each other?” + +“Why, I’ll consult Mrs. Beaufort. At all events, it must not be very +often, and Camilla is well brought up, and will show all the letters to +her mother. I don’t much like a correspondence of that nature. It often +leads to unpleasant results; if, for instance--” + +“If what?” + +“Why, if the parties change their minds, and my girl were to marry +another. It is not prudent in matters of business, my dear sir, to put +down anything on paper that can be avoided.” + +Mr. Spencer opened his eyes. “Matters of business, Mr. Beaufort!” + +“Well, is not marriage a matter of business, and a very grave matter +too? More lawsuits about marriage and settlements, &c., than I like to +think of. But to change the subject. You have never heard anything more +of those young men, you say?” + +“No,” said Mr. Spencer, rather inaudibly, and looking down. + +“And it is your firm impression that the elder one, Philip, is dead?” + +“I don’t doubt it.” + +“That was a very vexatious and improper lawsuit their mother brought +against me. Do you know that some wretched impostor, who, it appears, is +a convict broke loose before his time, has threatened me with another, +on the part of one of those young men? You never heard anything of +it--eh?” + +“Never, upon my honour.” + +“And, of course, you would not countenance so villanous an attempt?” + +“Certainly not.” + +“Because that would break off our contract at once. But you are too much +a gentleman and a man of honour. Forgive me so improper a question. As +for the younger Mr. Morton, I have no ill-feeling against him. But the +elder! Oh, a thorough reprobate! a very alarming character! I could have +nothing to do with any member of the family while the elder lived; it +would only expose me to every species of insult and imposition. And now +I think we have left our young friends alone long enough. + +“But stay, to prevent future misunderstanding, I may as well read over +again the heads of the arrangement you honour me by proposing. You agree +to settle your fortune after your decease, amounting to L23,000. and +your house, with twenty-five acres one rood and two poles, more or less, +upon your nephew and my daughter, jointly--remainder to their children. +Certainly, without offence, in a worldly point of view, Camilla might do +better; still, you are so very respectable, and you speak so handsomely, +that I cannot touch upon that point; and I own, that though there is a +large nominal rent-roll attached to Beaufort Court (indeed, there is not +a finer property in the county), yet there are many incumbrances, and +ready money would not be convenient to me. Arthur--poor fellow, a very +fine young man, sir,--is, as I have told you in perfect confidence, a +little imprudent and lavish; in short, your offer to dispense with any +dowry is extremely liberal, and proves your nephew is actuated by no +mercenary feelings: such conduct prepossesses me highly in your favour +and his too.” + +Mr. Spencer bowed, and the great man rising, with a stiff affectation of +kindly affability, put his arm into the uncle’s, and strolled with him +across the lawn towards the lovers. And such is life--love on the lawn +and settlements in the parlour. + +The lover was the first to perceive the approach of the elder parties. +And a change came over his face as he saw the dry aspect and marked +the stealthy stride of his future father-in-law; for then there flashed +across him a dreary reminiscence of early childhood; the happy evening +when, with his joyous father, that grave and ominous aspect was first +beheld; and then the dismal burial, the funereal sables, the carriage at +the door, and he himself clinging to the cold uncle to ask him to say a +word of comfort to the mother, who now slept far away. “Well, my young +friend,” said Mr. Beaufort, patronisingly, “your good uncle and myself +are quite agreed--a little time for reflection, that’s all. Oh! I don’t +think the worse of you for wishing to abridge it. But papas must be +papas.” + +There was so little jocular about that sedate man, that this attempt +at jovial good humour seemed harsh and grating--the hinges of that wily +mouth wanted oil for a hearty smile. + +“Come, don’t be faint-hearted, Mr. Charles. ‘Faint heart,’--you know the +proverb. You must stay and dine with us. We return to-morrow to town. +I should tell you, that I received this morning a letter from my son +Arthur, announcing his return from Baden, so we must give him the +meeting--a very joyful one you may guess. We have not seen him these +three years. Poor fellow! he says he has been very ill and the waters +have ceased to do him any good. But a little quiet and country air at +Beaufort Court will set him up, I hope.” + +Thus running on about his son, then about his shooting--about Beaufort +Court and its splendours--about parliament and its fatigues--about +the last French Revolution, and the last English election--about +Mrs. Beaufort and her good qualities and bad health--about, in short, +everything relating to himself, some things relating to the public, +and nothing that related to the persons to whom his conversation was +directed, Mr. Robert Beaufort wore away half an hour, when the Spencer’s +took their leave, promising to return to dinner. + +“Charles,” said Mr. Spencer, as the boat, which the young man rowed, +bounded over the water towards their quiet home; “Charles, I dislike +these Beauforts!” + +“Not the daughter?” + +“No, she is beautiful, and seems good; not so handsome as your poor +mother, but who ever was?”--here Mr. Spencer sighed, and repeated some +lines from Shenstone. + +“Do you think Mr. Beaufort suspects in the least who I am?” + +“Why, that puzzles me; I rather think he does.” + +“And that is the cause of the delay? I knew it.” + +“No, on the contrary, I incline to think he has some kindly feeling to +you, though not to your brother, and that it is such a feeling that made +him consent to your marriage. He sifted me very closely as to what I +knew of the young Mortons--observed that you were very handsome, and +that he had fancied at first that he had seen you before.” + +“Indeed!” + +“Yes: and looked hard at me while he spoke; and said more than once, +significantly, ‘So his name is Charles?’ He talked about some attempt +at imposture and litigation, but that was, evidently, merely invented +to sound me about your brother--whom, of course, he spoke ill +of--impressing on me three or four times that he would never have +anything to say to any of the family while Philip lived.” + +“And you told him,” said the young man, hesitatingly, and with a deep +blush of shame over his face, “that you were persuaded--that is, that +you believed Philip was--was--” + +“Was dead! Yes--and without confusion. For the more I reflect, the more +I think he must be dead. At all events, you may be sure that he is dead +to us, that we shall never hear more of him.” + +“Poor Philip!” + +“Your feelings are natural; they are worthy of your excellent heart; but +remember, what would have become of you if you had stayed with him!” + +“True!” said the brother, with a slight shudder--“a career of +suffering--crime--perhaps the gibbet! Ah! what do I owe you?” + +The dinner-party at Mr. Beaufort’s that day was constrained and +formal, though the host, in unusual good humour, sought to make himself +agreeable. Mrs. Beaufort, languid and afflicted with headache, said +little. The two Spencers were yet more silent. But the younger sat next +to her he loved; and both hearts were full: and in the evening they +contrived to creep apart into a corner by the window, through which the +starry heavens looked kindly on them. They conversed in whispers, with +long pauses between each: and at times Camilla’s tears flowed silently +down her cheeks, and were followed by the false smiles intended to cheer +her lover. + +Time did not fly, but crept on breathlessly and heavily. And then came +the last parting--formal, cold--before witnesses. But the lover could +not restrain his emotion, and the hard father heard his suppressed sob +as he closed the door. + +It will now be well to explain the cause of Mr. Beaufort’s heightened +spirits, and the motives of his conduct with respect to his daughter’s +suitor. + +This, perhaps, can be best done by laying before the reader the +following letters that passed between Mr. Beaufort and Lord Lilburne. + +From LORD LILBURNE to ROBERT BEAUFORT, ESQ., M.P. + +“DEAR BEAUFORT,--I think I have settled, pretty satisfactorily, your +affair with your unwelcome visitor. The first thing it seemed to me +necessary to do, was to learn exactly what and who he was, and with what +parties that could annoy you he held intercourse. I sent for Sharp, the +Bow Street officer, and placed him in the hall to mark, and afterwards +to dog and keep watch on your new friend. The moment the latter entered +I saw at once, from his dress and his address, that he was a ‘scamp;’ +and thought it highly inexpedient to place you in his power by any money +transactions. While talking with him, Sharp sent in a billet containing +his recognition of our gentleman as a transported convict. + +“I acted accordingly; soon saw, from the fellow’s manner, that he had +returned before his time; and sent him away with a promise, which you +may be sure he believes will be kept, that if he molest you farther, +he shall return to the colonies, and that if his lawsuit proceed, his +witness or witnesses shall be indicted for conspiracy and perjury. Make +your mind easy so far. For the rest, I own to you that I think what he +says probable enough: but my object in setting Sharp to watch him is +to learn what other parties he sees. And if there be really anything +formidable in his proofs or witnesses, it is with those other parties I +advise you to deal. Never transact business with the go between, if you +can with the principal. Remember, the two young men are the persons to +arrange with after all. They must be poor, and therefore easily dealt +with. For, if poor, they will think a bird in the hand worth two in the +bush of a lawsuit. + +“If, through Mr. Spencer, you can learn anything of either of the young +men, do so; and try and open some channel, through which you can always +establish a communication with them, if necessary. Perhaps, by learning +their early history, you may learn something to put them into your +power. + +“I have had a twinge of the gout this morning, and am likely, I fear, to +be laid up for some weeks. + +“Yours truly, + +“LILBURNE. + +“P.S.--Sharp has just been here. He followed the man who calls himself +‘Captain Smith’ to a house in Lambeth, where he lodges, and from which +he did not stir till midnight, when Sharp ceased his watch. On renewing +it this morning, he found that the captain had gone off, to what place +Sharp has not yet discovered. + +“Burn this immediately.” + +From ROBERT BEAUFORT, ESQ., M.P., to the LORD LILBURNE. + +“DEAR, LILBURNE,--Accept my warmest thanks for your kindness; you +have done admirably, and I do not see that I have anything further to +apprehend. I suspect that it was an entire fabrication on that man’s +part, and your firmness has foiled his wicked designs. Only think, +I have discovered--I am sure of it--one of the Mortons; and he, too, +though the younger, yet, in all probability, the sole pretender the +fellow could set up. You remember that the child Sidney had disappeared +mysteriously,--you remember also, how much that Mr. Spencer had +interested himself in finding out the same Sidney. Well,--this gentleman +at the Lakes is, as we suspected, the identical Mr. Spencer, and his +soi-disant nephew, Camilla’s suitor, is assuredly no other than the lost +Sidney. The moment I saw the young man I recognised him, for he is very +little altered, and has a great look of his mother into the bargain. +Concealing my more than suspicions, I, however, took care to sound Mr. +Spencer (a very poor soul), and his manner was so embarrassed as to +leave no doubt of the matter; but in asking him what he had heard of +the brothers, I had the satisfaction of learning that, in all human +probability, the elder is dead: of this Mr. Spencer seems convinced. +I also assured myself that neither Spencer nor the young man had the +remotest connection with our Captain Smith, nor any idea of litigation. +This is very satisfactory, you will allow. And now, I hope you will +approve of what I have done. I find that young Morton, or Spencer, as +he is called, is desperately enamoured of Camilla; he seems a meek, +well-conditioned, amiable young man; writes poetry;--in short, rather +weak than otherwise. I have demanded a year’s delay, to allow mutual +trial and reflection. This gives us the channel for constant information +which you advise me to establish, and I shall have the opportunity to +learn if the impostor makes any communication to them, or if there be +any news of the brother. If by any trick or chicanery (for I will never +believe that there was a marriage) a lawsuit that might be critical +or hazardous can be cooked up, I can, I am sure, make such terms with +Sidney, through his love for my daughter, as would effectively and +permanently secure me from all further trouble and machinations in +regard to my property. And if, during the year, we convince ourselves +that, after all, there is not a leg of law for any claimant to stand on, +I may be guided by other circumstances how far I shall finally accept +or reject the suit. That must depend on any other views we may then form +for Camilla; and I shall not allow a hint of such an engagement to get +abroad. At the worst, as Mr. Spencer’s heir, it is not so very bad a +match, seeing that they dispense with all marriage portion, &c.--a proof +how easily they can be managed. I have not let Mr. Spencer see that +I have discovered his secret--I can do that or not, according to +circumstances hereafter; neither have I said anything of my discovery +to Mrs. B., or Camilla. At present, ‘Least said soonest mended.’ I +heard from Arthur to-day. He is on his road home, and we hasten to town, +sooner than we expected, to meet him. He complains still of his health. +We shall all go down to Beaufort Court. I write this at night, the +pretended uncle and sham nephew having just gone. But though we start +to-morrow, you will get this a day or two before we arrive, as Mrs. +Beaufort’s health renders short stages necessary. I really do hope that +Arthur, also, will not be an invalid, poor fellow! one in a family is +quite enough; and I find Mrs. Beaufort’s delicacy very inconvenient, +especially in moving about and in keeping up one’s county connexions. A +young man’s health, however, is soon restored. I am very sorry to hear +of your gout, except that it carries off all other complaints. I am +very well, thank Heaven; indeed, my health has been much better of late +years: Beaufort Court agrees with me so well! The more I reflect, the +more I am astonished at the monstrous and wicked impudence of that +fellow--to defraud a man out of his own property! You are quite +right,--certainly a conspiracy. + +“Yours truly, “R. B.” + +“P. S.--I shall keep a constant eye on the Spencers. + +“Burn this immediately.” + +After he had written and sealed this letter, Mr. Beaufort went to bed +and slept soundly. + +And the next day that place was desolate, and the board on the lawn +announced that it was again to be let. But thither daily, in rain or +sunshine, came the solitary lover, as a bird that seeks its young in the +deserted nest:--Again and again he haunted the spot where he had strayed +with the lost one,--and again and again murmured his passionate vows +beneath the fast-fading limes. Are those vows destined to be ratified or +annulled? Will the absent forget, or the lingerer be consoled? Had the +characters of that young romance been lightly stamped on the fancy where +once obliterated they are erased for ever,--or were they graven deep in +those tablets where the writing, even when invisible, exists still, and +revives, sweet letter by letter, when the light and the warmth borrowed +from the One Bright Presence are applied to the faithful record? There +is but one Wizard to disclose that secret, as all others,--the old +Grave-digger, whose Churchyard is the Earth,--whose trade is to find +burial-places for Passions that seemed immortal,--disinterring the +ashes of some long-crumbling Memory--to hollow out the dark bed of +some new-perished Hope:--He who determines all things, and prophesies +none,--for his oracles are uncomprehended till the doom is sealed--He +who in the bloom of the fairest affection detects the hectic that +consumes it, and while the hymn rings at the altar, marks with his +joyless eye the grave for the bridal vow.--Wherever is the sepulchre, +there is thy temple, O melancholy Time! + + + +BOOK V. + + + +CHAPTER I. + + + “Per ambages et ministeria deorum.”--PETRONTUS. + + [Through the mysteries and ministerings of the gods.] + +Mr. Roger Morton was behind his counter one drizzling, melancholy day. +Mr. Roger Morton, alderman, and twice mayor of his native town, was a +thriving man. He had grown portly and corpulent. The nightly potations +of brandy and water, continued year after year with mechanical +perseverance, had deepened the roses on his cheek. Mr. Roger Morton was +never intoxicated--he “only made himself comfortable.” His constitution +was strong; but, somehow or other, his digestion was not as good as it +might be. He was certain that something or other disagreed with him. +He left off the joint one day--the pudding another. Now he avoided +vegetables as poison--and now he submitted with a sigh to the doctor’s +interdict of his cigar. Mr. Roger Morton never thought of leaving +off the brandy and water: and he would have resented as the height of +impertinent insinuation any hint upon that score to a man of so sober +and respectable a character. + +Mr. Roger Morton was seated--for the last four years, ever since his +second mayoralty, he had arrogated to himself the dignity of a chair. He +received rather than served his customers. The latter task was left to +two of his sons. For Tom, after much cogitation, the profession of +an apothecary had been selected. Mrs. Morton observed, that it was a +genteel business, and Tom had always been a likely lad. And Mr. Roger +considered that it would be a great comfort and a great saving to have +his medical adviser in his own son. + +The other two sons and the various attendants of the shop were plying +the profitable trade, as customer after customer, with umbrellas and in +pattens, dropped into the tempting shelter--when a man, meanly dressed, +and who was somewhat past middle age, with a careworn, hungry face, +entered timidly. He waited in patience by the crowded counter, elbowed +by sharp-boned and eager spinsters--and how sharp the elbows of +spinsters are, no man can tell who has not forced his unwelcome way +through the agitated groups in a linendraper’s shop!--the man, I say, +waited patiently and sadly, till the smallest of the shopboys turned +from a lady, who, after much sorting and shading, had finally decided on +two yards of lilac-coloured penny riband, and asked, in an insinuating +professional tone,-- + +“What shall I show you, sir?” + +“I wish to speak to Mr. Morton. Which is he?” + +“Mr. Morton is engaged, sir. I can give you what you want.” + +“No--it is a matter of business--important business.” The boy eyed the +napless and dripping hat, the gloveless hands, and the rusty neckcloth +of the speaker; and said, as he passed his fingers through a profusion +of light curls “Mr. Morton don’t attend much to business himself now; +but that’s he. Any cravats, sir?” + +The man made no answer, but moved where, near the window, and chatting +with the banker of the town (as the banker tried on a pair of beaver +gloves), sat still--after due apology for sitting--Mr. Roger Morton. + +The alderman lowered his spectacles as he glanced grimly at the lean +apparition that shaded the spruce banker, and said,-- + +“Do you want me, friend?” + +“Yes, sir, if you please;” and the man took off his shabby hat, and +bowed low. + +“Well, speak out. No begging petition, I hope?” + +“No, sir! Your nephews--” + +The banker turned round, and in his turn eyed the newcomer. The +linendraper started back. + +“Nephews!” he repeated, with a bewildered look. “What does the man mean? +Wait a bit.” + +“Oh, I’ve done!” said the banker, smiling. “I am glad to find we agree +so well upon this question: I knew we should. Our member will never suit +us if he goes on in this way. Trade must take care of itself. Good day +to You!” + +“Nephews!” repeated Mr. Morton, rising, and beckoning to the man to +follow him into the back parlour, where Mrs. Morton sat casting up the +washing bills. + +“Now,” said the husband, closing the door, “what do you mean, my good +fellow?” + +“Sir, what I wish to ask you is--if you can tell me what has become +of--of the young Beau--, that is, of your sister’s sons. I understand +there were two--and I am told that--that they are both dead. Is it so?” + +“What is that to you, friend?” + +“An please you, sir, it is a great deal to them!” + +“Yes--ha! ha! it is a great deal to everybody whether they are alive or +dead!” Mr. Morton, since he had been mayor, now and then had his joke. +“But really--” + +“Roger!” said Mrs. Morton, under her breath--“Roger!” + +“Yes, my dear.” + +“Come this way--I want to speak to you about this bill.” The husband +approached, and bent over his wife. “Who’s this man?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“Depend on it, he has some claim to make--some bills or something. Don’t +commit yourself--the boys are dead for what we know!” + +Mr. Morton hemmed and returned to his visitor. + +“To tell you the truth, I am not aware of what has become of the young +men.” + +“Then they are not dead--I thought not!” exclaimed the man, joyously. + +“That’s more than I can say. It’s many years since I lost sight of the +only one I ever saw; and they may be both dead for what I know.” + +“Indeed!” said the man. “Then you can give me no kind of--of--hint like, +to find them out?” + +“No. Do they owe you anything?” + +“It does not signify talking now, sir. I beg your pardon.” + +“Stay--who are you?” + +“I am a very poor man, sir.” + +Mr. Morton recoiled. + +“Poor! Oh, very well--very well. You have done with me now. Good +day--good day. I’m busy.” + +The stranger pecked for a moment at his hat--turned the handle of the +door--peered under his grey eyebrows at the portly trader, who, with +both hands buried in his pockets, his mouth pursed up, like a man about +to say “No” fidgeted uneasily behind Mrs. Morton’s chair. He sighed, +shook his head, and vanished. + +Mrs. Morton rang the bell--the maid-servant entered. “Wipe the carpet, +Jenny;--dirty feet! Mr. Morton, it’s a Brussels!” + +“It was not my fault, my dear. I could not talk about family matters +before the whole shop. Do you know, I’d quite forgot those poor boys. +This unsettles me. Poor Catherine! she was so fond of them. A pretty boy +that Sidney, too. What can have become of them? My heart rebukes me. I +wish I had asked the man more.” + +“More!--why he was just going to beg.” + +“Beg--yes--very true!” said Mr. Morton, pausing irresolutely; and then, +with a hearty tone, he cried out, “And, damme, if he had begged, I could +afford him a shilling! I’ll go after him.” So saying, he hastened back +through the shop, but the man was gone--the rain was falling, Mr. Morton +had his thin shoes on--he blew his nose, and went back to the counter. +But, there, still rose to his memory the pale face of his dead sister; +and a voice murmured in his ear, “Brother, where is my child?” + +“Pshaw! it is not my fault if he ran away. Bob, go and get me the county +paper.” + +Mr. Morton had again settled himself, and was deep in a trial for +murder, when another stranger strode haughtily into the shop. The +new-comer, wrapped in a pelisse of furs, with a thick moustache, and +an eye that took in the whole shop, from master to boy, from ceiling to +floor, in a glance, had the air at once of a foreigner and a soldier. +Every look fastened on him, as he paused an instant, and then walking up +to the alderman, said,-- + +“Sir, you are doubtless Mr. Morton?” + +“At your commands, sir,” said Roger, rising involuntarily. + +“A word with you, then, on business.” + +“Business!” echoed Mr. Morton, turning rather pale, for he began to +think himself haunted; “anything in my line, sir? I should be--” + +The stranger bent down his tall stature, and hissed into Mr. Morton’s +foreboding ear: + +“Your nephews!” + +Mr. Morton was literally dumb-stricken. Yes, he certainly was haunted! +He stared at this second questioner, and fancied that there was +something very supernatural and unearthly about him. He was so tall, and +so dark, and so stern, and so strange. Was it the Unspeakable himself +come for the linendraper? Nephews again! The uncle of the babes in the +wood could hardly have been more startled by the demand! + +“Sir,” said Mr. Morton at last, recovering his dignity and somewhat +peevishly,--“sir, I don’t know why people should meddle with my family +affairs. I don’t ask other folks about their nephews. I have no nephew +that I know of.” + +“Permit me to speak to you, alone, for one instant.” Mr. Morton sighed, +hitched up his trousers, and led the way to the parlour, where Mrs. +Morton, having finished the washing bills, was now engaged in tying +certain pieces of bladder round certain pots of preserves. The eldest +Miss Morton, a young woman of five or six-and-twenty, who was about to +be very advantageously married to a young gentleman who dealt in coals +and played the violin (for N----- was a very musical town), had +just joined her for the purpose of extorting “The Swiss Boy, with +variations,” out of a sleepy little piano, that emitted a very painful +cry under the awakening fingers of Miss Margaret Morton. + +Mr. Morton threw open the door with a grunt, and the stranger pausing +at the threshold, the full flood of sound (key C) upon which “the Swiss +Boy” was swimming along, “kine” and all, for life and death, came splash +upon him. + +“Silence! can’t you?” cried the father, putting one hand to his ear, +while with the other he pointed to a chair; and as Mrs. Morton looked +up from the preserves with that air of indignant suffering with which +female meekness upbraids a husband’s wanton outrage, Mr. Roger added, +shrugging his shoulders,-- + +“My nephews again, Mrs. K!” + +Miss Margaret turned round, and dropped a courtesy. Mrs. Morton gently +let fall a napkin over the preserves, and muttered a sort of salutation, +as the stranger, taking off his hat, turned to mother and daughter one +of those noble faces in which Nature has written her grant and warranty +of the lordship of creation. + +“Pardon me,” he said, “if I disturb you. But my business will be short. +I have come to ask you, sir, frankly, and as one who has a right to ask +it, what tidings you can give me of Sidney Morton?” + +“Sir, I know nothing whatever about him. He was taken from my house, +about twelve years since, by his brother. Myself, and the two Mr. +Beauforts, and another friend of the family, went in search of them +both. My search failed.” + +“And theirs?” + +“I understood from Mr. Beaufort that they had not been more successful. +I have had no communication with those gentlemen since. But that’s +neither here nor there. In all probability, the elder of the boys--who, +I fear, was a sad character--corrupted and ruined his brother; and, by +this time, Heaven knows what and where they are.” + +“And no one has inquired of you since--no one has asked the brother of +Catherine Morton, nay, rather of Catherine Beaufort--where is the child +intrusted to your care?” + +This question, so exactly similar to that which his superstition +had rung on his own ears, perfectly appalled the worthy alderman. He +staggered back-stared at the marked and stern face that lowered upon +him--and at last cried,-- + +“For pity’s sake, sir, be just! What could I do for one who left me of +his own accord?--” + +“The day you had beaten him like a dog. You see, Mr. Morton, I know +all.” + +“And what are you?” said Mr. Morton, recovering his English courage, and +feeling himself strangely browbeaten in his own house;--“What and +who are you, that you thus take the liberty to catechise a man of my +character and respectability?” + +“Twice mayor--” began Mrs. Morton. + +“Hush, mother!” whispered Miss Margaret,--“don’t work him up.” + +“I repeat, sir, what are you?” + +“What am I?--your nephew! Who am I? Before men, I bear a name that I +have assumed, and not dishonoured--before Heaven I am Philip Beaufort!” + +Mrs. Morton dropped down upon her stool. Margaret murmured “My cousin!” + in a tone that the ear of the musical coal-merchant might not have +greatly relished. And Mr. Morton, after a long pause, came up with a +frank and manly expression of joy, and said:-- + +“Then, sir, I thank Heaven, from my heart, that one of my sister’s +children stands alive before me!” + +“And now, again, I--I whom you accuse of having corrupted and ruined +him--him for whom I toiled and worked--him, who was to me, then, as a +last surviving son to some anxious father--I, from whom he was reft and +robbed--I ask you again for Sidney--for my brother!” + +“And again, I say, that I have no information to give you--that--Stay +a moment--stay. You must pardon what I have said of you before you +made yourself known. I went but by the accounts I had received from Mr. +Beaufort. Let me speak plainly; that gentleman thought, right or wrong, +that it would be a great thing to separate your brother from you. He may +have found him--it must be so--and kept his name and condition concealed +from us all, lest you should detect it. Mrs. M., don’t you think so?” + +“I’m sure I’m so terrified I don’t know what to think,” said Mrs. +Morton, putting her hand to her forehead, and see-sawing herself to and +fro upon her stool. + +“But since they wronged you--since you--you seem so very--very--” + +“Very much the gentleman,” suggested Miss Margaret. “Yes, so much the +gentleman;--well off, too, I should hope, sir,”--and the experienced +eye of Mr. Morton glanced at the costly sables that lined the +pelisse,--“there can be no difficulty in your learning from Mr. Beaufort +all that you wish to know. And pray, sir, may I ask, did you send any +one here to-day to make the very inquiry you have made?” + +“I?--No. What do you mean?” + +“Well, well--sit down--there may be something in all this that you may +make out better than I can.” + +And as Philip obeyed, Mr. Morton, who was really and honestly rejoiced +to see his sister’s son alive and apparently thriving, proceeded to +relate pretty exactly the conversation he had held with the previous +visitor. Philip listened earnestly and with attention. Who could this +questioner be? Some one who knew his birth--some one who sought him +out?--some one, who--Good Heavens! could it be the long-lost witness of +the marriage? + +As soon as that idea struck him, he started from his seat and entreated +Morton to accompany him in search of the stranger. “You know not,” he +said, in a tone impressed with that energy of will in which lay the +talent of his mind,--“you know not of what importance this may be to +my prospects--to your sister’s fair name. If it should be the witness +returned at last! Who else, of the rank you describe, would be +interested in such inquiries? Come!” + +“What witness?” said Mrs. Morton, fretfully. “You don’t mean to come +over us with the old story of the marriage?” + +“Shall your wife slander your own sister, sir? A marriage there was--God +yet will proclaim the right--and the name of Beaufort shall be yet +placed on my mother’s gravestone. Come!” + +“Here are your shoes and umbrella, pa,” cried Miss Margaret, inspired by +Philip’s earnestness. + +“My fair cousin, I guess,” and as the soldier took her hand, he kissed +the unreluctant cheek--turned to the door--Mr. Morton placed his arm in +his, and the next moment they were in the street. + +When Catherine, in her meek tones, had said, “Philip Beaufort was my +husband,” Roger Morton had disbelieved her. And now one word from the +son, who could, in comparison, know so little of the matter, had +almost sufficed to convert and to convince the sceptic. Why was this? +Because--Man believes the Strong! + + + +CHAPTER II. + + + “--Quid Virtus et quid Sapientia possit + Utile proposuit nobis exemplar Ulssem.” HOR. + + [“He has proposed to us Ulysses as a useful example of how + much may be accomplished by Virtue and Wisdom.”] + +Meanwhile the object of their search, on quitting Mr. Morton’s shop, had +walked slowly and sadly on, through the plashing streets, till he came +to a public house in the outskirts and on the high road to London. Here +he took shelter for a short time, drying himself by the kitchen fire, +with the license purchased by fourpenny-worth of gin; and having learned +that the next coach to London would not pass for some hours, he finally +settled himself in the Ingle, till the guard’s horn should arouse him. +By the same coach that the night before had conveyed Philip to N----, +had the very man he sought been also a passenger! + +The poor fellow was sickly and wearied out: he had settled into a doze, +when he was suddenly wakened by the wheels of a coach and the trampling +of horses. Not knowing how long he had slept, and imagining that the +vehicle he had awaited was at the door, he ran out. It was a coach +coming from London, and the driver was joking with a pretty barmaid who, +in rather short petticoats, was fielding up to him the customary glass. +The man, after satisfying himself that his time was not yet come, was +turning back to the fire, when a head popped itself out of the window, +and a voice cried, “Stars and garters! Will--so that’s you!” At the +sound of the voice the man halted abruptly, turned very pale, and his +limbs trembled. The inside passenger opened the door, jumped out with +a little carpet-bag in his hand, took forth a long leathern purse +from which he ostentatiously selected the coins that paid his fare and +satisfied the coachman, and then, passing his arm through that of the +acquaintance he had discovered, led him back into the house. + +“Will--Will,” he whispered, “you have been to the Mortons. Never +moind--let’s hear all. Jenny or Dolly, or whatever your sweet praetty +name is--a private room and a pint of brandy, my dear. Hot water and +lots of the grocery. That’s right.” + +And as soon as the pair found themselves, with the brandy before them, +in a small parlour with a good fire, the last comer went to the door, +shut it cautiously, flung his bag under the table, took off his gloves, +spread himself wider and wider before the fire, until he had entirely +excluded every ray from his friend, and then suddenly turning so that +the back might enjoy what the front had gained, he exclaimed. + +“Damme, Will, you’re a praetty sort of a broather to give me the slip in +that way. But in this world every man for his-self!” + +“I tell you,” said William, with something like decision in his voice, +“that I will not do any wrong to these young men if they live.” + +“Who asks you to do a wrong to them?--booby! Perhaps I may be the +best friend they may have yet--ay, or you too, though you’re the +ungratefulest whimsicallist sort of a son of a gun that ever I came +across. Come, help yourself, and don’t roll up your eyes in that way, +like a Muggletonian asoide of a Fye-Fye!” + +Here the speaker paused a moment, and with a graver and more natural +tone of voice proceeded: + +“So you did not believe me when I told you that these brothers were +dead, and you have been to the Mortons to learn more?” + +“Yes.” + +“Well, and what have you learned?” + +“Nothing. Morton declares that he does not know that they are alive, but +he says also that he does not know that they are dead.” + +“Indeed,” said the other, listening with great attention; “and you +really think that he does not know anything about them?” + +“I do, indeed.” + +“Hum! Is he a sort of man who would post down the rhino to help the +search?” + +“He looked as if he had the yellow fever when I said I was poor,” + returned William, turning round, and trying to catch a glimpse at the +fire, as he gulped his brandy and water. + +“Then I’ll be d---d if I run the risk of calling. I have done some +things in this town by way of business before now; and though it’s +a long time ago, yet folks don’t forget a haundsome man in a +hurry--especially if he has done ‘em! Now, then, listen to me. You see, +I have given this matter all the ‘tention in my power. ‘If the lads be +dead,’ said I to you, ‘it is no use burning one’s fingers by holding +a candle to bones in a coffin. But Mr. Beaufort need not know they are +dead, and we’ll see what we can get out of him; and if I succeeds, as +I think I shall, you and I may hold up our heads for the rest of our +life.’ Accordingly, as I told you, I went to Mr. Beaufort, and--‘Gad, +I thought we had it all our own way. But since I saw you last, there’s +been the devil and all. When I called again, Will, I was shown in to an +old lord, sharp as a gimblet. Hang me, William, if he did not frighten +me out of my seven senses!” + +Here Captain Smith (the reader has, no doubt, already discovered that +the speaker was no less a personage) took three or four nervous strides +across the room, returned to the table, threw himself in a chair, placed +one foot on one hob, and one on the other, laid his finger on his nose, +and, with a significant wink, said in a whisper, “Will, he knew I +had been lagged! He not only refused to hear all I had to say, but +threatened to prosecute--persecute, hang, draw, and quarter us both, if +we ever dared to come out with the truth.” + +“But what’s the good of the truth if the boys are dead?” said William, +timidly. + +The captain, without heeding this question, continued, as he stirred the +sugar in his glass, “Well, out I sneaked, and as soon as I had got to +my own door I turned round and saw Sharp the runner on the other side of +the way--I felt deuced queer. However, I went in, sat down, and began +to think. I saw that it was up with us, so far as the old uns were +concerned; and it might be worth while to find out if the young uns +really were dead.” + +“Then you did not know that after all! I thought so. Oh, Jerry!” + +“Why, look you, man, it was not our interest to take their side if we +could make our bargain out of the other. ‘Cause why? You are only one +witness--you are a good fellow, but poor, and with very shaky nerves, +Will. You does not know what them big wigs are when a man’s caged in a +witness-box--they flank one up, and they flank one down, and they bully +and bother, till one’s like a horse at Astley’s dancing on hot iron. +If your testimony broke down, why it would be all up with the case, +and what then would become of us? Besides,” added the captain, with +dignified candour, “I have been lagged, it’s no use denying it; I am +back before my time. Inquiries about your respectability would soon +bring the bulkies about me. And you would not have poor Jerry sent back +to that d---d low place on t’other side of the herring-pond, would you?” + +“Ah, Jerry!” said William, kindly placing his hand in his brother’s, +“you know I helped you to escape; I left all to come over with you.” + +“So you did, and you’re a good fellow; though as to leaving all, why you +had got rid of all first. And when you told me about the marriage, did +not I say that I saw our way to a snug thing for life? But to return +to my story. There is a danger in going with the youngsters. But since, +Will,--since nothing but hard words is to be got on the other side, +we’ll do our duty, and I’ll find them out, and do the best I can for +us--that is, if they be yet above ground. And now I’ll own to you that I +think I knows that the younger one is alive.” + +“You do?” + +“Yes! But as he won’t come in for anything unless his brother is dead, +we must have a hunt for the heir. Now I told you that, many years ago, +there was a lad with me, who, putting all things together--seeing how +the Beauforts came after him, and recollecting different things he let +out at the time--I feel pretty sure is your old master’s Hopeful. I know +that poor Will Gawtrey gave this lad the address of Old Gregg, a friend +of mine. So after watching Sharp off the sly, I went that very night, or +rather at two in the morning, to Gregg’s house, and, after brushing +up his memory, I found that the lad had been to him, and gone over +afterwards to Paris in search of Gawtrey, who was then keeping a +matrimony shop. As I was not rich enough to go off to Paris in a +pleasant, gentlemanlike way, I allowed Gregg to put me up to a noice +quiet little bit of business. Don’t shake your head--all safe--a rural +affair! That took some days. You see it has helped to new rig me,” and +the captain glanced complacently over a very smart suit of clothes. +“Well, on my return I went to call on you, but you had flown. I half +suspected you might have gone to the mother’s relations here; and I +thought, at all events, that I could not do better than go myself and +see what they knew of the matter. From what you say I feel I had better +now let that alone, and go over to Paris at once; leave me alone to +find out. And faith, what with Sharp and the old lord, the sooner I quit +England the better.” + +“And you really think you shall get hold of them after all? Oh, never +fear my nerves if I’m once in the right; it’s living with you, and +seeing you do wrong, and hearing you talk wickedly, that makes me +tremble.” + +“Bother!” said the captain, “you need not crow over me. Stand up, Will; +there now, look at us two in the glass! Why, I look ten years younger +than you do, in spite of all my troubles. I dress like a gentleman, as +I am; I have money in my pocket; I put money in yours; without me you’d +starve. Look you, you carried over a little fortune to Australia--you +married--you farmed--you lived honestly, and yet that d---d +shilly-shally disposition of yours, ‘ticed into one speculation to-day, +and scared out of another to-morrow, ruined you!” + +“Jerry! Jerry!” cried William, writhing; “don’t--don’t.” + +“But it’s all true, and I wants to cure you of preaching. And then, +when you were nearly run out, instead of putting a bold face on it, and +setting your shoulder to the wheel, you gives it up--you sells what you +have--you bolts over, wife and all, to Boston, because some one tells +you you can do better in America--you are out of the way when a search +is made for you--years ago when you could have benefited yourself and +your master’s family without any danger to you or me--nobody can find +you; ‘cause why, you could not bear that your old friends in England, or +in the colony either, should know that you were turned a slave-driver in +Kentucky. You kick up a mutiny among the niggers by moaning over them, +instead of keeping ‘em to it--you get kicked out yourself--your wife +begs you to go back to Australia, where her relations will do something +for you--you work your passage out, looking as ragged as a colt +from grass--wife’s uncle don’t like ragged nephews-in-law--wife dies +broken-hearted--and you might be breaking stones on the roads with the +convicts, if I, myself a convict, had not taken compassion on you. Don’t +cry, Will, it is all for your own good--I hates cant! Whereas I, my own +master from eighteen, never stooped to serve any other--have dressed +like a gentleman--kissed the pretty girls--drove my pheaton--been in all +the papers as ‘the celebrated Dashing Jerry’--never wanted a guinea in +my pocket, and even when lagged at last, had a pretty little sum in +the colonial bank to lighten my misfortunes. I escape,--I bring you +over--and here I am, supporting you, and in all probability, the one on +whom depends the fate of one of the first families in the country. And +you preaches at me, do you? Look you, Will;--in this world, honesty’s +nothing without force of character! And so your health!” + +Here the captain emptied the rest of the brandy into his glass, drained +it at a draught, and, while poor William was wiping his eyes with a +ragged blue pocket-handkerchief, rang the bell, and asked what coaches +would pass that way to -----, a seaport town at some distance. On +hearing that there was one at six o’clock, the captain ordered the best +dinner the larder would afford to be got ready as soon as possible; and, +when they were again alone, thus accosted his brother:-- + +“Now you go back to town--here are four shiners for you. Keep +quiet--don’t speak to a soul--don’t put your foot in it, that’s all I +beg, and I’ll find out whatever there is to be found. It is damnably out +of my way embarking at -----, but I had best keep clear of Lunnon. And I +tell you what, if these youngsters have hopped the twig, there’s another +bird on the bough that may prove a goldfinch after all--Young Arthur +Beaufort: I hear he is a wild, expensive chap, and one who can’t live +without lots of money. Now, it’s easy to frighten a man of that sort, +and I sha’n’t have the old lord at his elbow.” + +“But I tell you, that I only care for my poor master’s children.” + +“Yes; but if they are dead, and by saying they are alive, one can make +old age comfortable, there’s no harm in it--eh?” + +“I don’t know,” said William, irresolutely. “But certainly it is a hard +thing to be so poor at my time of life; and so honest a man as I’ve +been, too!” + +Captain Smith went a little too far when he said that “honesty’s nothing +without force of character.” Still, Honesty has no business to be +helpless and draggle-tailed;--she must be active and brisk, and make use +of her wits; or, though she keep clear or the prison, ‘tis no very great +wonder if she fall on the parish. + + + +CHAPTER III. + + + “Mitis.--This Macilente, signior, begins to be more sociable on + a sudden.” Every Man out of his Humour. + + “Punt. Signior, you are sufficiently instructed. + + “Fast. Who, I, sir?”--Ibid. + +After spending the greater part of the day in vain inquiries and a vain +search, Philip and Mr. Morton returned to the house of the latter. + +“And now,” said Philip, “all that remains to be done is this: first +give to the police of the town a detailed description of the man; and +secondly, let us put an advertisement both in the county journal and in +some of the London papers, to the effect, that if the person who called +on you will take the trouble to apply again, either personally or by +letter, he may obtain the information sought for. In case he does, +I will trouble you to direct him to--yes--to Monsieur de Vaudemont, +according to this address.” + +“Not to you, then?” + +“It is the same thing,” replied Philip, drily. “You have confirmed my +suspicions, that the Beauforts know some thing of my brother. What did +you say of some other friend of the family who assisted in the search?” + +“Oh,--a Mr. Spencer! an old acquaintance of your mother’s.” Here Mr. +Morton smiled, but not being encouraged in a joke, went on, “However, +that’s neither here nor there; he certainly never found out your +brother. For I have had several letters from him at different times, +asking if any news had been heard of either of you.” + +And, indeed, Spencer had taken peculiar pains to deceive the Mortons, +whose interposition he feared little less than that of the Beauforts. + +“Then it can be of no use to apply to him,” said Philip, carelessly, not +having any recollection of the name of Spencer, and therefore attaching +little importance to the mention of him. + +“Certainly, I should think not. Depend on it, Mr. Beaufort must know.” + +“True,” said Philip. “And I have only to thank you for your kindness, +and return to town.” + +“But stay with us this day--do--let me feel that we are friends. I +assure you poor Sidney’s fate has been a load on my mind ever since he +left. You shall have the bed he slept in, and over which your mother +bent when she left him and me for the last time.” + +These words were said with so much feeling, that the adventurer wrung +his uncle’s hand, and said, “Forgive me, I wronged you--I will be your +guest.” + +Mrs. Morton, strange to say, evinced no symptoms of ill-humour at the +news of the proffered hospitality. In fact, Miss Margaret had been +so eloquent in Philip’s praise during his absence, that she suffered +herself to be favourably impressed. Her daughter, indeed, had obtained a +sort of ascendency over Mrs. M. and the whole house, ever since she +had received so excellent an offer. And, moreover, some people are like +dogs--they snarl at the ragged and fawn on the well-dressed. Mrs. Morton +did not object to a nephew de facto, she only objected to a nephew in +forma pauperis. The evening, therefore, passed more cheerfully than +might have been anticipated, though Philip found some difficulty in +parrying the many questions put to him on the past. He contented himself +with saying, as briefly as possible, that he had served in a foreign +service, and acquired what sufficed him for an independence; and then, +with the ease which a man picks up in the great world, turned the +conversation to the prospects of the family whose guest he was. Having +listened with due attention to Mrs. Morton’s eulogies on Tom, who had +been sent for, and who drank the praises on his own gentility into a +very large pair of blushing ears,--also, to her self-felicitations on +Miss Margaret’s marriage,--item, on the service rendered to the town by +Mr. Roger, who had repaired the town-hall in his first mayoralty at his +own expense,--item, to a long chronicle of her own genealogy, how she +had one cousin a clergyman, and how her great-grandfather had been +knighted,--item, to the domestic virtues of all her children,--item, to +a confused explanation of the chastisement inflicted on Sidney, which +Philip cut short in the middle; he asked, with a smile, what had become +of the Plaskwiths. “Oh!” said Mrs. Morton, “my brother Kit has retired +from business. His son-in-law, Mr. Plimmins, has succeeded.” + +“Oh, then, Plimmins married one of the young ladies?” + +“Yes, Jane--she had a sad squint!--Tom, there is nothing to laugh +at,--we are all as God made us,--‘Handsome is as handsome does,’--she +has had three little uns!” + +“Do they squint too?” asked Philip; and Miss Margaret giggled, and Tom +roared, and the other young men roared too. Philip had certainly said +something very witty. + +This time Mrs. Morton administered no reproof; but replied pensively + +“Natur is very mysterious--they all squint!” + +Mr. Morton conducted Philip to his chamber. There it was, fresh, clean, +unaltered--the same white curtains, the same honeysuckle paper as when +Catherine had crept across the threshold. + +“Did Sidney ever tell you that his mother placed a ring round his neck +that night?” asked Mr. Morton. + +“Yes; and the dear boy wept when he said that he had slept too soundly +to know that she was by his side that last, last time. The ring--oh, +how well I remember it! she never put it off till then; and often in the +fields--for we were wild wanderers together in that day--often when his +head lay on my shoulder, I felt that ring still resting on his heart, +and fancied it was a talisman--a blessing. Well, well-good night to +you!” And he shut the door on his uncle, and was alone. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + + “The Man of Law,....... + And a great suit is like to be between them.” + BEN JONSON: Staple of News. + +On arriving in London, Philip went first to the lodging he still +kept there, and to which his letters were directed; and, among some +communications from Paris, full of the politics and the hopes of the +Carlists, he found the following note from Lord Lilburne:-- + +“DEAR SIR,--When I met you the other day I told you I had been +threatened with the gout. The enemy has now taken possession of the +field. I am sentenced to regimen and the sofa. But as it is my rule in +life to make afflictions as light as possible, so I have asked a few +friends to take compassion on me, and help me ‘to shuffle off this +mortal coil’ by dealing me, if they can, four by honours. Any time +between nine and twelve to-night, or to-morrow night, you will find me +at home; and if you are not better engaged, suppose you dine with me +to-day--or rather dine opposite to me--and excuse my Spartan broth. You +will meet (besides any two or three friends whom an impromptu invitation +may find disengaged) my sister, with Beaufort and their daughter: they +only arrived in town this morning, and are kind enough ‘to nurse me,’ as +they call it,--that is to say, their cook is taken ill! + + + “Yours, + + “LILBURNE +“Park Lane, Sept. --” + +“The Beauforts. Fate favors me--I will go. The date is for to-day.” + +He sent off a hasty line to accept the invitation, and finding he had a +few hours yet to spare, he resolved to employ them in consultation with +some lawyer as to the chances of ultimately regaining his inheritance--a +hope which, however wild, he had, since his return to his native shore, +and especially since he had heard of the strange visit made to Roger +Morton, permitted himself to indulge. With this idea he sallied out, +meaning to consult Liancourt, who, having a large acquaintance among +the English, seemed the best person to advise him as to the choice of +a lawyer at once active and honest,--when he suddenly chanced upon that +gentleman himself. + +“This is lucky, my dear Liancourt. I was just going to your lodgings.” + +“And I was coming to yours to know if you dine with Lord Lilburne. He +told me he had asked you. I have just left him. And, by the sofa of +Mephistopheles, there was the prettiest Margaret you ever beheld.” + +“Indeed!--Who?” + +“He called her his niece; but I should doubt if he had any relation on +this side the Styx so human as a niece.” + +“You seem to have no great predilection for our host.” + +“My dear Vaudemont, between our blunt, soldierly natures, and those +wily, icy, sneering intellects, there is the antipathy of the dog to the +cat.” + +“Perhaps so on our side, not on his--or why does he invite us?” + +“London is empty; there is no one else to ask. We are new faces, new +minds to him. We amuse him more than the hackneyed comrades he has worn +out. Besides, he plays--and you, too. Fie on you!” + +“Liancourt, I had two objects in knowing that man, and I pay to the toll +for the bridge. When I cease to want the passage, I shall cease to pay +the toll.” + +“But the bridge may be a draw-bridge, and the moat is devilish deep +below. Without metaphor, that man may ruin you before you know where you +are.” + +“Bah! I have my eyes open. I know how much to spend on the rogue whose +service I hire as a lackey’s; and I know also where to stop. Liancourt,” + he added, after a short pause, and in a tone deep with suppressed +passion, “when I first saw that man, I thought of appealing to his heart +for one who has a claim on it. That was a vain hope. And then there came +upon me a sterner and deadlier thought--the scheme of the Avenger! This +Lilburne--this rogue whom the world sets up to worship--ruined, body +and soul ruined--one whose name the world gibbets with scorn! Well, I +thought to avenge that man. In his own house--amidst you all--I thought +to detect the sharper, and brand the cheat!” + +“You startle me!--It has been whispered, indeed, that Lord Lilburne +is dangerous,--but skill is dangerous. To cheat!--an Englishman!--a +nobleman!--impossible!” + +“Whether he do or not,” returned Vaudemont, in a calmer tone, “I have +foregone the vengeance, because he is--” + +“Is what?” + +“No matter,” said Vaudemont aloud, but he added to himself,--“Because he +is the grandfather of Fanny!” + +“You are very enigmatical to-day.” + +“Patience, Liancourt; I may solve all the riddles that make up my +life, yet. Bear with me a little longer. And now can you help me to a +lawyer?--a man experienced, indeed, and of repute, but young, active, +not overladen with business;--I want his zeal and his time, for a hazard +that your monopolists of clients may not deem worth their devotion.” + +“I can recommend you, then, the very man you require. I had a suit +some years ago at Paris, for which English witnesses were necessary. +My avocat employed a solicitor here whose activity in collecting my +evidence gained my cause. I will answer for his diligence and his +honesty.” + +“His address?” + +“Mr. Barlow--somewhere by the Strand--let me see--Essex-yes, Essex +Street.” + +“Then good-bye to you for the present.--You dine at Lord Lilburne’s +too?” + +“Yes. Adieu till then.” + +Vaudemont was not long before he arrived at Mr. Barlow’s; a brass-plate +announced to him the house. He was shown at once into a parlour, +where he saw a man whom lawyers would call young, and spinsters +middle-aged--viz., about two-and-forty; with a bold, resolute, +intelligent countenance, and that steady, calm, sagacious eye, which +inspires at once confidence and esteem. + +Vaudemont scanned him with the look of one who has been accustomed +to judge mankind--as a scholar does books--with rapidity because with +practice. He had at first resolved to submit to him the heads of +his case without mentioning names, and, in fact, he so commenced his +narrative; but by degrees, as he perceived how much his own earnestness +arrested and engrossed the interest of his listener, he warmed into +fuller confidence, and ended by a full disclosure, and a caution as to +the profoundest secrecy in case, if there were no hope to recover his +rightful name, he might yet wish to retain, unannoyed by curiosity or +suspicion, that by which he was not discreditably known. + +“Sir,” said Mr. Barlow, after assuring him of the most scrupulous +discretion,--“sir, I have some recollection of the trial instituted by +your mother, Mrs. Beaufort”--and the slight emphasis he laid on that +name was the most grateful compliment he could have paid to the truth +of Philip’s recital. “My impression is, that it was managed in a very +slovenly manner by her lawyer; and some of his oversights we may repair +in a suit instituted by yourself. But it would be absurd to conceal from +you the great difficulties that beset us--your mother’s suit, designed +to establish her own rights, was far easier than that which you must +commence--viz., an action for ejectment against a man who has been some +years in undisturbed possession. Of course, until the missing witness is +found out, it would be madness to commence litigation. And the question, +then, will be, how far that witness will suffice? It is true, that one +witness of a marriage, if the others are dead, is held sufficient by +law. But I need not add, that that witness must be thoroughly credible. +In suits for real property, very little documentary or secondary +evidence is admitted. I doubt even whether the certificate of the +marriage on which--in the loss or destruction of the register--you lay +so much stress, would be available in itself. But if an examined copy, +it becomes of the last importance, for it will then inform us of the +name of the person who extracted and examined it. Heaven grant it may +not have been the clergyman himself who performed the ceremony, and who, +you say, is dead; if some one else, we should then have a second, no +doubt credible and most valuable witness. The document would thus become +available as proof, and, I think, that we should not fail to establish +our case.” + +“But this certificate, how is it ever to be found? I told you we had +searched everywhere in vain.” + +“True; but you say that your mother always declared that the late Mr. +Beaufort had so solemnly assured her, even just prior to his decease, +that it was in existence, that I have no doubt as to the fact. It may be +possible, but it is a terrible insinuation to make, that if Mr. Robert +Beaufort, in examining the papers of the deceased, chanced upon a +document so important to him, he abstracted or destroyed it. If this +should not have been the case (and Mr. Robert Beaufort’s moral character +is unspotted--and we have no right to suppose it), the probability is, +either that it was intrusted to some third person, or placed in +some hidden drawer or deposit, the secret of which your father never +disclosed. Who has purchased the house you lived in?” + +“Fernside? Lord Lilburne. Mrs. Robert Beaufort’s brother.” + +“Humph--probably, then, he took the furniture and all. Sir, this is a +matter that requires some time for close consideration. With your leave, +I will not only insert in the London papers an advertisement to the +effect that you suggested to Mr. Roger Morton (in case you should have +made a right conjecture as to the object of the man who applied to him), +but I will also advertise for the witness himself. William Smith, you +say, his name is. Did the lawyer employed by Mrs. Beaufort send to +inquire for him in the colony?” + +“No; I fear there could not have been time for that. My mother was so +anxious and eager, and so convinced of the justice of her case--” + +“That’s a pity; her lawyer must have been a sad driveller.” + +“Besides, now I remember, inquiry was made of his relations in England. +His father, a farmer, was then alive; the answer was that he had +certainly left Australia. His last letter, written two years before that +date, containing a request for money, which the father, himself made a +bankrupt by reverses, could not give, had stated that he was about to +seek his fortune elsewhere--since then they had heard nothing of him.” + +“Ahem! Well, you will perhaps let me know where any relations of his +are yet to be found, and I will look up the former suit, and go into +the whole case without delay. In the meantime, you do right, sir--if you +will allow me to say it--not to disclose either your own identity or a +hint of your intentions. It is no use putting suspicion on its guard. +And my search for this certificate must be managed with the greatest +address. But, by the way--speaking of identity--there can be no +difficulty, I hope, in proving yours.” + +Philip was startled. “Why, I am greatly altered.” + +“But probably your beard and moustache may contribute to that change; +and doubtless, in the village where you lived, there would be many with +whom you were in sufficient intercourse, and on whose recollection, +by recalling little anecdotes and circumstances with which no one but +yourself could be acquainted, your features would force themselves along +with the moral conviction that the man who spoke to them could be no +other but Philip Morton--or rather Beaufort.” + +“You are right; there must be many such. There was not a cottage in the +place where I and my dogs were not familiar and half domesticated.” + +“All’s right, so far, then. But I repeat, we must not be too sanguine. +Law is not justice--” + +“But God is,” said Philip; and he left the room. + + + +CHAPTER V. + + + “Volpone. A little in a mist, but not dejected; + Never--but still myself.” + BEN JONSON: Volpone. + + “Peregrine. Am I enough disguised? + Mer. Ay. I warrant you. + Per. Save you, fair lady.”--Ibid. + +It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. The ill wind that had blown +gout to Lord Lilburne had blown Lord Lilburne away from the injury he +had meditated against what he called “the object of his attachment.” How +completely and entirely, indeed, the state of Lord Lilburne’s feelings +depended on the state of his health, may be seen in the answer he gave +to his valet, when, the morning after the first attack of the gout, +that worthy person, by way of cheering his master, proposed to ascertain +something as to the movements of one with whom Lord Lilburne professed +to be so violently in love,--“Confound you, Dykeman!” exclaimed the +invalid,--“why do you trouble me about women when I’m in this condition? +I don’t care if they were all at the bottom of the sea! Reach me the +colchicum! I must keep my mind calm.” + +Whenever tolerably well, Lord Lilburne was careless of his health; the +moment he was ill, Lord Lilburne paid himself the greatest possible +attention. Though a man of firm nerves, in youth of remarkable daring, +and still, though no longer rash, of sufficient personal courage, he was +by no means fond of the thought of death--that is, of his own death. +Not that he was tormented by any religious apprehensions of the Dread +Unknown, but simply because the only life of which he had any experience +seemed to him a peculiarly pleasant thing. He had a sort of instinctive +persuasion that John Lord Lilburne would not be better off anywhere +else. Always disliking solitude, he disliked it more than ever when +he was ill, and he therefore welcomed the visit of his sister and the +gentle hand of his pretty niece. As for Beaufort, he bored the sufferer; +and when that gentleman, on his arrival, shutting out his wife and +daughter, whispered to Lilburne, “Any more news of that impostor?” + Lilburne answered peevishly, “I never talk about business when I have +the gout! I have set Sharp to keep a lookout for him, but he has learned +nothing as yet. And now go to your club. You are a worthy creature, +but too solemn for my spirits just at this moment. I have a few people +coming to dine with me, your wife will do the honors, and--you can +come in the evening.” Though Mr. Robert Beaufort’s sense of importance +swelled and chafed at this very unceremonious conge, he forced a smile, +and said:-- + +“Well, it is no wonder you are a little fretful with the gout. I have +plenty to do in town, and Mrs. Beaufort and Camilla can come back +without waiting for me.” + +“Why, as your cook is ill, and they can’t dine at a club, you may as +well leave them here till I am a little better; not that I care, for I +can hire a better nurse than either of them.” + +“My dear Lilburne, don’t talk of hiring nurses; certainly, I am too +happy if they can be of comfort to you.” + +“No! on second thoughts, you may take back your wife, she’s always +talking of her own complaints, and leave me Camilla: you can’t want her +for a few days.” + +“Just as you like. And you really think I have managed as well as I +could about this young man,--eh?” + +“Yes--yes! And so you go to Beaufort Court in a few days?” + +“I propose doing so. I wish you were well enough to come.” + +“Um! Chambers says that it would be a very good air for me--better +than Fernside; and as to my castle in the north, I would as soon go to +Siberia. Well, if I get better, I will pay you a visit, only you always +have such a stupid set of respectable people about you. I shock them, +and they oppress me.” + +“Why, as I hope soon to see Arthur, I shall make it as agreeable to him +as I can, and I shall be very much obliged to you if you would invite a +few of your own friends.” + +“Well, you are a good fellow, Beaufort, and I will take you at your +word; and, since one good turn deserves another, I have now no scruples +in telling you that I feel quite sure that you will have no further +annoyance from this troublesome witness-monger.” + +“In that case,” said Beaufort, “I may pick up a better match for +Camilla! Good-bye, my dear Lilburne.” + +“Form and Ceremony of the world!” snarled the peer, as the door closed +on his brother-in-law, “ye make little men very moral, and not a bit the +better for being so.” + +It so happened that Vaudemont arrived before any of the other guests +that day, and during the half hour which Dr. Chambers assigned to his +illustrious patient, so that, when he entered, there were only Mrs. +Beaufort and Camilla in the drawing-room. + +Vaudemont drew back involuntarily as he recognized in the faded +countenance of the elder lady, features associated with one of the dark +passages in his earlier life; but Mrs. Beaufort’s gracious smile, +and urbane, though languid welcome, sufficed to assure him that the +recognition was not mutual. He advanced, and again stopped short, as his +eye fell upon that fair and still childlike form, which had once knelt +by his side and pleaded, with the orphan, for his brother. While he +spoke to her, many recollections, some dark and stern--but those, at +least, connected with Camilla, soft and gentle--thrilled through his +heart. Occupied as her own thoughts and feelings necessarily were with +Sidney, there was something in Vaudemont’s appearance--his manner, his +voice--which forced upon Camilla a strange and undefined interest; and +even Mrs. Beaufort was roused from her customary apathy, as she glanced +at that dark and commanding face with something between admiration and +fear. Vaudemont had scarcely, however, spoken ten words, when some other +guests were announced, and Lord Lilburne was wheeled in upon his +sofa shortly afterwards. Vaudemont continued, however, seated next to +Camilla, and the embarrassment he had at first felt disappeared. He +possessed, when he pleased, that kind of eloquence which belongs to +men who have seen much and felt deeply, and whose talk has not been +frittered down to the commonplace jargon of the world. His very +phraseology was distinct and peculiar, and he had that rarest of all +charms in polished life, originality both of thought and of manner. +Camilla blushed, when she found at dinner that he placed himself by her +side. That evening De Vaudemont excused himself from playing, but the +table was easily made without him, and still he continued to converse +with the daughter of the man whom he held as his worst foe. By degrees, +he turned the conversation into a channel that might lead him to the +knowledge he sought. + +“It was my fate,” said he, “once to become acquainted with an intimate +friend of the late Mr. Beaufort. Will you pardon me if I venture to +fulfil a promise I made to him, and ask you to inform me what has become +of a--a--that is, of Sidney Morton?” + +“Sidney Morton! I don’t even remember the name. Oh, yes! I have heard +it,” added Camilla, innocently, and with a candour that showed how +little she knew of the secrets of the family; “he was one of two poor +boys in whom my brother felt a deep interest--some relations to my +uncle. Yes--yes! I remember now. I never knew Sidney, but I once did see +his brother.” + +“Indeed! and you remember--” + +“Yes! I was very young then. I scarcely recollect what passed, it was +all so confused and strange; but, I know that I made papa very angry, +and I was told never to mention the name of Morton again. I believe they +behaved very ill to papa.” + +“And you never learned--never!--the fate of either--of Sidney?” + +“Never!” + +“But your father must know?” + +“I think not; but tell me,”--said Camilla, with girlish and unaffected +innocence, “I have always felt anxious to know,--what and who were those +poor boys?” + +What and who were they? So deep, then, was the stain upon their name, +that the modest mother and the decorous father had never even said to +that young girl, “They are your cousins--the children of the man in +whose gold we revel!” + +Philip bit his lip, and the spell of Camilla’s presence seemed vanished. +He muttered some inaudible answer, turned away to the card-table, and +Liancourt took the chair he had left vacant. + +“And how does Miss Beaufort like my friend Vaudemont? I assure you that +I have seldom seen him so alive to the fascination of female beauty!” + +“Oh!” said Camilla, with her silver laugh, “your nation spoils us +for our own countrymen. You forget how little we are accustomed to +flattery.” + +“Flattery! what truth could flatter on the lips of an exile? But you +don’t answer my question--what think you of Vaudemont? Few are more +admired. He is handsome!” + +“Is he?” said Camilla, and she glanced at Vaudemont, as he stood at a +little distance, thoughtful and abstracted. Every girl forms to herself +some untold dream of that which she considers fairest. And Vaudemont had +not the delicate and faultless beauty of Sidney. There was nothing that +corresponded to her ideal in his marked features and lordly shape! But +she owned, reluctantly to herself, that she had seldom seen, among the +trim gallants of everyday life, a form so striking and impressive. The +air, indeed, was professional--the most careless glance could detect the +soldier. But it seemed the soldier of an elder age or a wilder clime. He +recalled to her those heads which she had seen in the Beaufort Gallery +and other Collections yet more celebrated--portraits by Titian of those +warrior statesman who lived in the old Republics of Italy in a perpetual +struggle with their kind--images of dark, resolute, earnest men. +Even whatever was intellectual in his countenance spoke, as in those +portraits, of a mind sharpened rather in active than in studious +life;--intellectual, not from the pale hues, the worn exhaustion, and +the sunken cheek of the bookman and dreamer, but from its collected and +stern repose, the calm depth that lay beneath the fire of the eyes, and +the strong will that spoke in the close full lips, and the high but not +cloudless forehead. + +And, as she gazed, Vaudemont turned round--her eyes fell beneath his, +and she felt angry with herself that she blushed. Vaudemont saw the +downcast eye, he saw the blush, and the attraction of Camilla’s presence +was restored. He would have approached her, but at that moment Mr. +Beaufort himself entered, and his thoughts went again into a darker +channel. + +“Yes,” said Liancourt, “you must allow Vaudemont looks what he is--a +noble fellow and a gallant soldier. Did you never hear of his battle +with the tigress? It made a noise in India. I must tell it you as I have +heard it.” + +And while Laincourt was narrating the adventure, whatever it was, to +which he referred, the card-table was broken up, and Lord Lilburne, +still reclining on his sofa, lazily introduced his brother-in-law to +such of the guests as were strangers to him--Vaudemont among the rest. +Mr. Beaufort had never seen Philip Morton more than three times; once +at Fernside, and the other times by an imperfect light, and when his +features were convulsed by passion, and his form disfigured by his +dress. Certainly, therefore, had Robert Beaufort even possessed that +faculty of memory which is supposed to belong peculiarly to kings and +princes, and which recalls every face once seen, it might have tasked +the gift to the utmost to have detected, in the bronzed and decorated +foreigner to whom he was now presented, the features of the wild and +long-lost boy. But still some dim and uneasy presentiment, or some +struggling and painful effort of recollection, was in his mind, as he +spoke to Vaudemont, and listened to the cold calm tone of his reply. + +“Who do you say that Frenchman is?” he whispered to his brother-in-law, +as Vaudemont turned away. + +“Oh! a cleverish sort of adventurer--a gentleman; he plays.--He has +seen a good deal of the world--he rather amuses me--different from other +people. I think of asking him to join our circle at Beaufort Court.” + +Mr. Beaufort coughed huskily, but not seeing any reasonable objection +to the proposal, and afraid of rousing the sleeping hyaena of Lord +Lilburne’s sarcasm, he merely said:-- + +“Any one you like to invite:” and looking round for some one on whom to +vent his displeasure, perceived Camilla still listening to Liancourt. +He stalked up to her, and as Liancourt, seeing her rise, rose also and +moved away, he said peevishly, “You will never learn to conduct yourself +properly; you are to be left here to nurse and comfort your uncle, and +not to listen to the gibberish of every French adventurer. Well, Heaven +be praised, I have a son--girls are a great plague!” + +“So they are, Mr. Beaufort,” sighed his wife, who had just joined +him, and who was jealous of the preference Lilburne had given to her +daughter. + +“And so selfish,” added Mrs. Beaufort; “they only care for their own +amusements, and never mind how uncomfortable their parents are for want +of them.” + +“Oh! dear mamma, don’t say so--let me go home with you--I’ll speak to my +uncle!” + +“Nonsense, child! Come along, Mr. Beaufort;” and the affectionate +parents went out arm in arm. They did not perceive that Vaudemont had +been standing close behind them; but Camilla, now looking up with tears +in her eyes, again caught his gaze: he had heard all. + +“And they ill-treat her,” he muttered: “that divides her from them!--she +will be left here--I shall see her again.” As he turned to depart, +Lilburne beckoned to him. + +“You do not mean to desert our table?” + +“No: but I am not very well to-night--to-morrow, if you will allow me.” + +“Ay, to-morrow; and if you can spare an hour in the morning it will be a +charity. You see,” he added in a whisper, “I have a nurse, though I have +no children. D’ye think that’s love? Bah! sir--a legacy! Good night.” + +“No--no--no!” said Vaudemont to himself, as he walked through the +moonlit streets. “No! though my heart burns,--poor murdered felon!--to +avenge thy wrongs and thy crimes, revenge cannot come from me--he is +Fanny’s grandfather and--Camilla’s uncle!” + +And Camilla, when that uncle had dismissed her for the night, sat down +thoughtfully in her own room. The dark eyes of Vaudemont seemed still +to shine on her; his voice yet rung in her ear; the wild tales of daring +and danger with which Liancourt had associated his name yet haunted her +bewildered fancy--she started, frightened at her own thoughts. She took +from her bosom some lines that Sidney had addressed to her, and, as she +read and re-read, her spirit became calmed to its wonted and faithful +melancholy. Vaudemont was forgotten, and the name of Sidney yet murmured +on her lips, when sleep came to renew the image of the absent one, and +paint in dreams the fairy land of a happy Future! + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + “Ring on, ye bells--most pleasant is your chime!” + WILSON. Isle of Palms. + + “O fairy child! What can I wish for thee?”--Ibid. + +Vaudemont remained six days in London without going to H----, and on +each of those days he paid a visit to Lord Lilburne. On the seventh day, +the invalid being much better, though still unable to leave his room, +Camilla returned to Berkeley Square. On the same day, Vaudemont went +once more to see Simon and poor Fanny. + +As he approached the door, he heard from the window, partially opened, +for the day was clear and fine, Fanny’s sweet voice. She was chaunting +one of the simple songs she had promised to learn by heart; and +Vaudemont, though but a poor judge of the art, was struck and affected +by the music of the voice and the earnest depth of the feeling. He +paused opposite the window and called her by her name. Fanny looked +forth joyously, and ran, as usual, to open the door to him. + +“Oh! you have been so long away; but I already know many of the songs: +they say so much that I always wanted to say!” + +Vaudemont smiled, but languidly. + +“How strange it is,” said Fanny, musingly, “that there should be so much +in a piece of paper! for, after all,” pointing to the open page of her +book, “this is but a piece of paper--only there is life in it!” + +“Ay,” said Vaudemont, gloomily, and far from seizing the subtle +delicacy of Fanny’s thought--her mind dwelling upon Poetry, and his upon +Law,--“ay, and do you know that upon a mere scrap of paper, if I could +but find it, may depend my whole fortune, my whole happiness, all that I +care for in life?” + +“Upon a scrap of paper? Oh! how I wish I could find it! Ah! you look as +if you thought I should never be wise enough for that!” + +Vaudemont, not listening to her, uttered a deep sigh. Fanny approached +him timidly. + +“Do not sigh, brother,--I can’t bear to hear you sigh. You are changed. +Have you, too, not been happy?” + +“Happy, Fanny! yes, lately very happy--too happy!” + +“Happy, have you? and I--” the girl stopped short--her tone had been +that of sadness and reproach, and she stopped--why, she knew not, but +she felt her heart sink within her. Fanny suffered him to pass her, and +he went straight to his room. Her eyes followed him wistfully: it was +not his habit to leave her thus abruptly. The family meal of the day +was over; and it was an hour before Vaudemont descended to the parlour. +Fanny had put aside the songs; she had no heart to recommence those +gentle studies that had been so sweet,--they had drawn no pleasure, no +praise from him. She was seated idly and listlessly beside the silent +old man, who every day grew more and more silent still. She turned +her head as Vaudemont entered, and her pretty lip pouted as that of +a neglected child. But he did not heed it, and the pout vanished, and +tears rushed to her eyes. + +Vaudemont was changed. His countenance was thoughtful and overcast. His +manner abstracted. He addressed a few words to Simon, and then, seating +himself by the window, leant his cheek on his hand, and was soon lost in +reverie. Fanny, finding that he did not speak, and after stealing many a +long and earnest glance at his motionless attitude and gloomy brow, rose +gently, and gliding to him with her light step, said, in a trembling +voice,-- + +“Are you in pain, brother?” + +“No, pretty one!” + +“Then why won’t you speak to Fanny? Will you not walk with her? Perhaps +my grandfather will come too.” + +“Not this evening. I shall go out; but it will be alone.” + +“Where? Has not Fanny been good? I have not been out since you left us. +And the grave--brother!--I sent Sarah with the flowers--but--” + +Vaudemont rose abruptly. The mention of the grave brought back his +thoughts from the dreaming channel into which they had flowed. Fanny, +whose very childishness had once so soothed him, now disturbed; he felt +the want of that complete solitude which makes the atmosphere of growing +passion: he muttered some scarcely audible excuse, and quitted the +house. Fanny saw him no more that evening. He did not return till +midnight. But Fanny did not sleep till she heard his step on the stairs, +and his chamber door close: and when she did sleep, her dreams were +disturbed and painful. The next morning, when they met at breakfast (for +Vaudemont did not return to London), her eyes were red and heavy, +and her cheek pale. And, still buried in meditation, Vaudemont’s eye, +usually so kind and watchful, did not detect those signs of a grief that +Fanny could not have explained. After breakfast, however, he asked +her to walk out; and her face brightened as she hastened to put on her +bonnet, and take her little basket full of fresh flowers which she had +already sent Sarah forth to purchase. + +“Fanny,” said Vaudemont, as leaving the house, he saw the basket on +her arm, “to-day you may place some of those flowers on another +tombstone!--Poor child, what natural goodness there is in that +heart!--what pity that--” + +He paused. Fanny looked delightedly in his face. “You were praising +me--you! And what is a pity, brother?” + +While she spoke, the sound of the joy-bells was heard near at hand. + +“Hark!” said Vaudemont, forgetting her question--and almost +gaily--“Hark!--I accept the omen. It is a marriage peal!” + +He quickened his steps, and they reached the churchyard. + +There was a crowd already assembled, and Vaudemont and Fanny paused; +and, leaning over the little gate, looked on. + +“Why are these people here, and why does the bell ring so merrily?” + +“There is to be a wedding, Fanny.” + +“I have heard of a wedding very often,” said Fanny, with a pretty look +of puzzlement and doubt, “but I don’t know exactly what it means. Will +you tell me?--and the bells, too!” + +“Yes, Fanny, those bells toll but three times for man! The first time, +when he comes into the world; the last time, when he leaves it; the time +between when he takes to his side a partner in all the sorrows--in +all the joys that yet remain to him; and who, even when the last bell +announces his death to this earth, may yet, for ever and ever, be +his partner in that world to come--that heaven, where they who are as +innocent as you, Fanny, may hope to live and to love each other in a +land in which there are no graves!” + +“And this bell?” + +“Tolls for that partnership--for the wedding!” + +“I think I understand you;--and they who are to be wed are happy?” + +“Happy, Fanny, if they love, and their love continue. Oh! conceive the +happiness to know some one person dearer to you than your own self--some +one breast into which you can pour every thought, every grief, every +joy! One person, who, if all the rest of the world were to calumniate +or forsake you, would never wrong you by a harsh thought or an unjust +word,--who would cling to you the closer in sickness, in poverty, in +care,--who would sacrifice all things to you, and for whom you would +sacrifice all--from whom, except by death, night or day, you must be +never divided--whose smile is ever at your hearth--who has no tears +while you are well and happy, and your love the same. Fanny, such is +marriage, if they who marry have hearts and souls to feel that there +is no bond on earth so tender and so sublime. There is an opposite +picture;--I will not draw that! And as it is, Fanny, you cannot +understand me!” + +He turned away:--and Fanny’s tears were falling like rain upon the grass +below;--he did not see them! He entered the churchyard; for the bell now +ceased. The ceremony was to begin. He followed the bridal party into +the church, and Fanny, lowering her veil, crept after him, awed and +trembling. + +They stood, unobserved, at a little distance, and heard the service. + +The betrothed were of the middle class of life, young, both comely; and +their behaviour was such as suited the reverence and sanctity of the +rite. Vaudemont stood looking on intently, with his arms folded on his +breast. Fanny leant behind him, and apart from all, against one of the +pews. And still in her hand, while the priest was solemnising +Marriage, she held the flowers intended for the Grave. Even to that +MORNING--hushed, calm, earliest, with her mysterious and unconjectured +heart--her shape brought a thought of NIGHT! + +When the ceremony was over--when the bride fell on her mother’s breast +and wept; and then, when turning thence, her eyes met the bridegroom’s, +and the tears were all smiled away--when, in that one rapid interchange +of looks, spoke all that holy love can speak to love, and with timid +frankness she placed her hand in his to whom she had just vowed her +life,--a thrill went through the hearts of those present. Vaudemont +sighed heavily. He heard his sigh echoed; but by one that had in its +sound no breath of pain; he turned; Fanny had raised her veil; her eyes +met his, moistened, but bright, soft, and her cheeks were rosy-red. +Vaudemont recoiled before that gaze, and turned from the church. The +persons interested retired to the vestry to sign their names in the +registry; the crowd dispersed, and Vaudemont and Fanny stood alone in +the burial-ground. + +“Look, Fanny,” said the former, pointing to a tomb that stood far +from his mother’s (for those ashes were too hallowed for such a +neighbourhood). “Look yonder; it is a new tomb. Fanny, let us approach +it. Can you read what is there inscribed?” + +The inscription was simply this: + + + TO W-- + G-- + MAN SEES THE DEED + GOD THE CIRCUMSTANCE. + JUDGE NOT, + THAT YE BE NOT JUDGED. + +“Fanny, this tomb fulfils your pious wish: it is to the memory of +him whom you called your father. Whatever was his life here--whatever +sentence it hath received, Heaven, at least, will not condemn your +piety, if you honour one who was good to you, and place flowers, however +idle, even over that grave.” + +“It is his--my father’s--and you have thought of this for me!” said +Fanny, taking his hand, and sobbing. “And I have been thinking that you +were not so kind to me as you were!” + +“Have I not been so kind to you? Nay, forgive me, I am not happy.” + +“Not?--you said yesterday you had been too happy.” + +“To remember happiness is not to be happy, Fanny.” + +“That’s true--and--” + +Fanny stopped; and, as she bent over the tomb, musing, Vaudemont, +willing to leave her undisturbed, and feeling bitterly how little his +conscience could vindicate, though it might find palliation for, the +dark man who slept not there--retired a few paces. + +At this time the new-married pair, with their witnesses, the clergyman, +&c., came from the vestry, and crossed the path. Fanny, as she turned +from the tomb, saw them, and stood still, looking earnestly at the +bride. + +“What a lovely face!” said the mother. “Is it--yes it is--the poor idiot +girl.” + +“Ah!” said the bridegroom, tenderly, “and she, Mary, beautiful as she +is, she can never make another as happy as you have made me.” + +Vaudemont heard, and his heart felt sad. “Poor Fanny!--And yet, but for +that affliction--I might have loved her, ere I met the fatal face of the +daughter of my foe!” And with a deep compassion, an inexpressible and +holy fondness, he moved to Fanny. + +“Come, my child; now let us go home.” + +“Stay,” said Fanny--“you forget.” And she went to strew the flowers +still left over Catherine’s grave. + +“Will my mother,” thought Vaudemont, “forgive me, if I have other +thoughts than hate and vengeance for that house which builds its +greatness over her slandered name?” He groaned:--and that grave had lost +its melancholy charm. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + + “Of all men, I say, + That dare, for ‘tis a desperate adventure, + Wear on their free necks the yoke of women, + Give me a soldier.”--Knight of Malta. + + “So lightly doth this little boat + Upon the scarce-touch’d billows float; + So careless doth she seem to be, + Thus left by herself on the homeless sea, + To lie there with her cheerful sail, + Till Heaven shall send some gracious gale.” + WILSON: Isle of Palms. + +Vaudemont returned that evening to London, and found at his lodgings +a note from Lord Lilburne, stating that as his gout was now somewhat +mitigated, his physician had recommended him to try change of air--that +Beaufort Court was in one of the western counties, in a genial +climate--that he was therefore going thither the next day for a short +time--that he had asked some of Monsieur de Vaudemont’s countrymen, and +a few other friends, to enliven the circle of a dull country-house--that +Mr. and Mrs. Beaufort would be delighted to see Monsieur de Vaudemont +also--and that his compliance with their invitation would be a charity +to Monsieur de Vaudemont’s faithful and obliged, LILBURNE. + +The first sensation of Vaudemont on reading this effusion was delight. +“I shall see her,” he cried; “I shall be under the same roof!” But the +glow faded at once from his cheek;--the roof!--what roof? Be the guest +where he held himself the lord!--be the guest of Robert Beaufort!--Was +that all? Did he not meditate the deadliest war which civilised life +admits of--the War of Law--war for name, property, that very hearth, +with all its household gods, against this man--could he receive his +hospitality? “And what then!” he exclaimed, as he paced to and fro the +room,--“because her father wronged me, and because I would claim mine +own--must I therefore exclude from my thoughts, from my sight, an image +so fair and gentle;--the one who knelt by my side, an infant, to that +hard man?--Is hate so noble a passion that it is not to admit one +glimpse of Love?--Love! what word is that? Let me beware in time!” He +paused in fierce self-contest, and, throwing open the window, gasped for +air. The street in which he lodged was situated in the neighbourhood of +St. James’s; and, at that very moment, as if to defeat all opposition, +and to close the struggle, Mrs. Beaufort’s barouche drove by, Camilla +at her side. Mrs. Beaufort, glancing up; languidly bowed; and Camilla +herself perceived him, and he saw her change colour as she inclined +her head. He gazed after them almost breathless, till the carriage +disappeared; and then reclosing the window, he sat down to collect his +thoughts, and again to reason with himself. But still, as he reasoned, +he saw ever before him that blush and that smile. At last he sprang +up, and a noble and bright expression elevated the character of his +face,--“Yes, if I enter that house, if I eat that man’s bread, and drink +of his cup, I must forego, not justice--not what is due to my mother’s +name--but whatever belongs to hate and vengeance. If I enter that +house--and if Providence permit me the means whereby to regain my +rights, why she--the innocent one--she may be the means of saving her +father from ruin, and stand like an angel by that boundary where justice +runs into revenge!--Besides, is it not my duty to discover Sidney? Here +is the only clue I shall obtain.” With these thoughts he hesitated no +more--he decided he would not reject this hospitality, since it might +be in his power to pay it back ten thousandfold. “And who knows,” he +murmured again, “if Heaven, in throwing this sweet being in my way, +might not have designed to subdue and chasten in me the angry passions I +have so long fed on? I have seen her,--can I now hate her father?” + +He sent off his note accepting the invitation. When he had done so, was +he satisfied? He had taken as noble and as large a view of the duties +thereby imposed on him as he well could take: but something whispered +at his heart, “There is weakness in thy generosity--Darest thou love the +daughter of Robert Beaufort?” And his heart had no answer to this voice. + +The rapidity with which love is ripened depends less upon the actual +number of years that have passed over the soil in which the seed is +cast, than upon the freshness of the soil itself. A young man who lives +the ordinary life of the world, and who fritters away, rather than +exhausts, his feelings upon a variety of quick succeeding subjects--the +Cynthias of the minute--is not apt to form a real passion at the first +sight. Youth is inflammable only when the heart is young! + +There are certain times of life when, in either sex, the affections +are prepared, as it were, to be impressed with the first fair face that +attracts the fancy and delights the eye. Such times are when the heart +has been long solitary, and when some interval of idleness and rest +succeeds to periods of harsher and more turbulent excitement. It was +precisely such a period in the life of Vaudemont. Although his ambition +had been for many years his dream, and his sword his mistress, yet +naturally affectionate, and susceptible of strong emotion, he had often +repined at his lonely lot. By degrees the boy’s fantasy and reverence +which had wound themselves round the image of Eugenie subsided into that +gentle and tender melancholy which, perhaps by weakening the strength +of the sterner thoughts, leaves us inclined rather to receive, than to +resist, a new attachment;--and on the verge of the sweet Memory trembles +the sweet Hope. The suspension of his profession, his schemes, his +struggles, his career, left his passions unemployed. Vaudemont was thus +unconsciously prepared to love. As we have seen, his first and earliest +feelings directed themselves to Fanny. But he had so immediately +detected the clanger, and so immediately recoiled from nursing those +thoughts and fancies, without which love dies for want of food, for a +person to whom he ascribed the affliction of an imbecility which would +give to such a sentiment all the attributes either of the weakest +rashness or of dishonour approaching to sacrilege--that the wings of the +deity were scared away the instant their very shadow fell upon his mind. +And thus, when Camilla rose upon him his heart was free to receive her +image. Her graces, her accomplishments, a certain nameless charm that +invested her, pleased him even more than her beauty; the recollections +connected with that first time in which he had ever beheld her, were +also grateful and endearing; the harshness with which her parents spoke +to her moved his compassion, and addressed itself to a temper peculiarly +alive to the generosity that leans towards the weak and the wronged; +the engaging mixture of mildness and gaiety with which she tended +her peevish and sneering uncle, convinced him of her better and more +enduring qualities of disposition and womanly heart. And even--so +strange and contradictory are our feelings--the very remembrance that +she was connected with a family so hateful to him made her own image the +more bright from the darkness that surrounded it. For was it not with +the daughter of his foe that the lover of Verona fell in love at first +sight? And is not that a common type of us all--as if Passion delighted +in contradictions? As the Diver, in Schiller’s exquisite ballad, +fastened upon the rock of coral in the midst of the gloomy sea, so we +cling the more gratefully to whatever of fair thought and gentle shelter +smiles out to us in the depths of Hate and Strife. + +But, perhaps, Vaudemont would not so suddenly and so utterly have +rendered himself to a passion that began, already, completely to master +his strong spirit, if he had not, from Camilla’s embarrassment, her +timidity, her blushes, intoxicated himself with the belief that his +feelings were not unshared. And who knows not that such a belief, once +cherished, ripens our own love to a development in which hours are as +years? + +It was, then, with such emotions as made him almost insensible to every +thought but the luxury of breathing the same air as his cousin, which +swept from his mind the Past, the Future--leaving nothing but a joyous, +a breathless PRESENT on the Face of Time, that he repaired to Beaufort +Court. He did not return to H---- before he went, but he wrote to Fanny +a short and hurried line to explain that he might be absent for some +days at least, and promised to write again, if he should be detained +longer than he anticipated. + +In the meanwhile, one of those successive revolutions which had marked +the eras in Fanny’s moral existence took its date from that last time +they had walked and conversed together. + +The very evening of that day, some hours after Philip was gone, and +after Simon had retired to rest, Fanny was sitting before the dying fire +in the little parlour in an attitude of deep and pensive reverie. The +old woman-servant, Sarah, who, very different from Mrs. Boxer, loved +Fanny with her whole heart, came into the room as was her wont before +going to bed, to see that the fire was duly out, and all safe: and as +she approached the hearth, she started to see Fanny still up. + +“Dear heart alive!” she said; “why, Miss Fanny, you will catch your +death of cold,--what are you thinking about?” + +“Sit down, Sarah; I want to speak to you.” Now, though Fanny was +exceedingly kind, and attached to Sarah, she was seldom communicative +to her, or indeed to any one. It was usually in its own silence and +darkness that that lovely mind worked out its own doubts. + +“Do you, my sweet young lady? I’m sure anything I can do--” and Sarah +seated herself in her master’s great chair, and drew it close to Fanny. +There was no light in the room but the expiring fire, and it threw +upward a pale glimmer on the two faces bending over it,--the one so +strangely beautiful, so smooth, so blooming, so exquisite in its youth +and innocence,--the other withered, wrinkled, meagre, and astute. It was +like the Fairy and the Witch together. + +“Well, miss,” said the crone, observing that, after a considerable +pause, Fanny was still silent,--“Well--” + +“Sarah, I have seen a wedding!” + +“Have you?” and the old woman laughed. “Oh! I heard it was to be +to-day!--young Waldron’s wedding! Yes, they have been long sweethearts.” + +“Were you ever married, Sarah?” + +“Lord bless you,--yes! and a very good husband I had, poor man! But he’s +dead these many years; and if you had not taken me, I must have gone to +the workhus.” + +“He is dead! Wasn’t it very hard to live after that, Sarah?” + +“The Lord strengthens the hearts of widders!” observed Sarah, +sanctimoniously. + +“Did you marry your brother, Sarah?” said Fanny, playing with the corner +of her apron. + +“My brother!” exclaimed the old woman, aghast. “La! miss, you must not +talk in that way,--it’s quite wicked and heathenish! One must not marry +one’s brother!” + +“No!” said Fanny, tremblingly, and turning very pale, even by that +light. “No!--are you sure of that?” + +“It is the wickedest thing even to talk about, my dear young +mistress;--but you’re like a babby unborn!” + +Fanny was silent for some moments. At length she said, unconscious that +she was speaking aloud, “But he is not my brother, after all!” + +“Oh, miss, fie! Are you letting your pretty head run on the handsome +gentleman. You, too,--dear, dear! I see we’re all alike, we poor femel +creturs! You! who’d have thought it? Oh, Miss Fanny!--you’ll break your +heart if you goes for to fancy any such thing.” + +“Any what thing?” + +“Why, that that gentleman will marry you!--I’m sure, tho’ he’s so simple +like, he’s some great gentleman! They say his hoss is worth a hundred +pounds! Dear, dear! why didn’t I ever think of this before? He must be a +very wicked man. I see, now, why he comes here. I’ll speak to him, that +I will!--a very wicked man!” + +Sarah was startled from her indignation by Fanny’s rising suddenly, +and standing before her in the flickering twilight, almost like a shape +transformed,--so tall did she seem, so stately, so dignified. + +“Is it of him that you are speaking?” said she, in a voice of calm but +deep resentment--“of him! If so, Sarah, we two can live no more in the +same house.” + +And these words were said with a propriety and collectedness that even, +through all her terrors, showed at once to Sarah how much they now +wronged Fanny who had suffered their lips to repeat the parrot-cry of +the “idiot girl!” + +“O! gracious me!--miss--ma’am--I am so sorry--I’d rather bite out my +tongue than say a word to offend you; it was only my love for you, dear +innocent creature that you are!” and the honest woman sobbed with real +passion as she clasped Fanny’s hand. “There have been so many young +persons, good and harmless, yes, even as you are, ruined. But you don’t +understand me. Miss Fanny! hear me; I must try and say what I would say. +That man, that gentleman--so proud, so well-dressed, so grand-like, will +never marry you, never--never. And if ever he says he does love you, and +you say you love him, and you two don’t marry, you will be ruined and +wicked, and die--die of a broken heart!” + +The earnestness of Sarah’s manner subdued and almost awed Fanny. She +sank down again in her chair, and suffered the old woman to caress and +weep over her hand for some moments in a silence that concealed the +darkest and most agitated feelings Fanny’s life had hitherto known. At +length she said:-- + +“Why may he not marry me if he loves me?--he is not my brother,--indeed +he is not! I’ll never call him so again.” + +“He cannot marry you,” said Sarah, resolved, with a sort of rude +nobleness, to persevere in what she felt to be a duty; “I don’t say +anything about money, because that does not always signify. But he +cannot marry you, because--because people who are hedicated one way +never marry those who are hedicated and brought up in another. A +gentleman of that kind requires a wife to know--oh--to know ever so +much; and you--” + +“Sarah,” interrupted Fanny, rising again, but this time with a smile +on her face, “don’t say anything more about it; I forgive you, if you +promise never to speak unkindly of him again--never--never--never, +Sarah!” + +“But may I just tell him that--that--” + +“That what?” + +“That you are so young and innocent, and has no pertector like; and that +if you were to love him it would be a shame in him--that it would!” + +And then (oh, no, Fanny, there was nothing clouded now in your +reason!)--and then the woman’s alarm, the modesty, the instinct, the +terror came upon her:-- + +“Never! never! I will not love him, I do not love him, indeed, Sarah. +If you speak to him, I will never look you in the face again. It is all +past--all, dear Sarah!” + +She kissed the old woman; and Sarah, fancying that her sagacity +and counsel had prevailed, promised all she was asked; so they went +up-stairs together--friends. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + + “As the wind + Sobs, an uncertain sweetness comes from out + The orange-trees. + + Rise up, Olympia.--She sleeps soundly. Ho! + Stirring at last.” BARRY CORNWALL. + +The next day, Fanny was seen by Sarah counting the little hoard that she +had so long and so painfully saved for her benefactor’s tomb. The money +was no longer wanted for that object. Fanny had found another; she said +nothing to Sarah or to Simon. But there was a strange complacent smile +upon her lip as she busied herself in her work, that puzzled the old +woman. Late at noon came the postman’s unwonted knock at the door. A +letter!--a letter for Miss Fanny. A letter!--the first she had ever +received in her life! And it was from him!--and it began with “Dear +Fanny.” Vaudemont had called her “dear Fanny” a hundred times, and the +expression had become a matter of course. But “Dear Fanny” seemed +so very different when it was written. The letter could not well be +shorter, nor, all things considered, colder. But the girl found no fault +with it. It began with “Dear Fanny,” and it ended with “yours truly.” + “--Yours truly--mine truly--and how kind to write at all!” Now it so +happened that Vaudemont, having never merged the art of the penman +into that rapid scrawl into which people, who are compelled to +write hurriedly and constantly, degenerate, wrote a remarkably good +hand,--bold, clear, symmetrical--almost too good a hand for one who was +not to make money by caligraphy. And after Fanny had got the words by +heart, she stole gently to a cupboard and took forth some specimens of +her own hand, in the shape of house and work memoranda, and extracts +which, the better to help her memory, she had made from the poem-book +Vaudemont had given her. She gravely laid his letter by the side of +these specimens, and blushed at the contrast; yet, after all, her own +writing, though trembling and irresolute, was far from a bad or vulgar +hand. But emulation was now fairly roused within her. Vaudemont, +pre-occupied by more engrossing thoughts, and indeed, forgetting a +danger which had seemed so thoroughly to have passed away, did not in +his letter caution Fanny against going out alone. She remarked this; and +having completely recovered her own alarm at the attempt that had been +made on her liberty, she thought she was now released from her promise +to guard against a past and imaginary peril. So after dinner she slipped +out alone, and went to the mistress of the school where she had received +her elementary education. She had ever since continued her acquaintance +with that lady, who, kindhearted, and touched by her situation, often +employed her industry, and was far from blind to the improvement that +had for some time been silently working in the mind of her old pupil. + +Fanny had a long conversation with this lady, and she brought back a +bundle of books. The light might have been seen that night, and many +nights after, burning long and late from her little window. And having +recovered her old freedom of habits, which Simon, poor man, did not +notice, and which Sarah, thinking that anything was better than moping +at home, did not remonstrate against, Fanny went out regularly for two +hours, or sometimes for even a longer period, every evening after +old Simon had composed himself to the nap that filled up the interval +between dinner and tea. + +In a very short time--a time that with ordinary stimulants would have +seemed marvellously short--Fanny’s handwriting was not the same thing; +her manner of talking became different; she no longer called herself +“Fanny” when she spoke; the music of her voice was more quiet and +settled; her sweet expression of face was more thoughtful; the eyes +seemed to have deepened in their very colour; she was no longer heard +chaunting to herself as she tripped along. The books that she nightly +fed on had passed into her mind; the poetry that had ever unconsciously +sported round her young years began now to create poetry in herself. +Nay, it might almost have seemed as if that restless disorder of the +intellect, which the dullards had called Idiotcy, had been the wild +efforts, not of Folly, but of GENIUS seeking to find its path and outlet +from the cold and dreary solitude to which the circumstances of her +early life had compelled it. + +Days, even weeks, passed--she never spoke of Vaudemont. And once, when +Sarah, astonished and bewildered by the change in her young mistress, +asked: + +“When does the gentleman come back?” + +Fanny answered, with a mysterious smile, “Not yet, I hope,--not quite +yet!” + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + + “Thierry. I do begin + To feel an alteration in my nature, + And in his full-sailed confidence a shower + Of gentle rain, that falling on the fire + Hath quenched it. + + How is my heart divided + Between the duty of a son and love!” + BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: Thierry and Theodorat. + +Vaudemont had now been a month at Beaufort Court. The scene of a +country-house, with the sports that enliven it, and the accomplishments +it calls forth, was one in which he was well fitted to shine. He +had been an excellent shot as a boy; and though long unused to the +fowling-piece, had, in India, acquired a deadly precision with the +rifle; so that a very few days of practice in the stubbles and covers of +Beaufort Court made his skill the theme of the guests and the admiration +of the keepers. Hunting began, and--this pursuit, always so strong a +passion in the active man, and which, to the turbulence and agitation of +his half-tamed breast, now excited by a kind of frenzy of hope and fear, +gave a vent and release--was a sport in which he was yet more fitted to +excel. His horsemanship, his daring, the stone walls he leaped and the +floods through which he dashed, furnished his companions with wondering +tale and comment on their return home. Mr. Marsden, who, with some other +of Arthur’s early friends, had been invited to Beaufort Court, in order +to welcome its expected heir, and who retained all the prudence which +had distinguished him of yore, when having ridden over old Simon he +dismounted to examine the knees of his horse;--Mr. Marsden, a skilful +huntsman, who rode the most experienced horses in the world, and who +generally contrived to be in at the death without having leaped over +anything higher than a hurdle, suffering the bolder quadruped (in case +what is called the “knowledge of the country”--that is, the knowledge of +gaps and gates--failed him) to perform the more dangerous feats alone, +as he quietly scrambled over or scrambled through upon foot, and +remounted the well-taught animal when it halted after the exploit, +safe and sound;--Mr. Marsden declared that he never saw a rider with +so little judgment as Monsieur de Vaudemont, and that the devil was +certainly in him. + +This sort of reputation, commonplace and merely physical as it was in +itself, had a certain effect upon Camilla; it might be an effect +of fear. I do not say, for I do not know, what her feelings towards +Vaudemont exactly were. As the calmest natures are often those the +most hurried away by their contraries, so, perhaps, he awed and dazzled +rather than pleased her;--at least, he certainly forced himself on her +interest. Still she would have started in terror if any one had said to +her, “Do you love your betrothed less than when you met by that happy +lake?”--and her heart would have indignantly rebuked the questioner. The +letters of her lover were still long and frequent; hers were briefer and +more subdued. But then there was constraint in the correspondence--it +was submitted to her mother. Whatever might be Vaudemont’s manner to +Camilla whenever occasion threw them alone together, he certainly did +not make his attentions glaring enough to be remarked. His eye watched +her rather than his lip addressed; he kept as much aloof as possible +from the rest of her family, and his customary bearing was silent even +to gloom. But there were moments when he indulged in a fitful exuberance +of spirits, which had something strained and unnatural. He had outlived +Lord Lilburne’s short liking; for since he had resolved no longer to +keep watch on that noble gamester’s method of play, he played but +little himself; and Lord Lilburne saw that he had no chance of ruining +him--there was, therefore, no longer any reason to like him. But this +was not all; when Vaudemont had been at the house somewhat more than two +weeks, Lilburne, petulant and impatient, whether at his refusals to +join the card-table, or at the moderation with which, when he did, he +confined his ill-luck to petty losses, one day limped up to him, as he +stood at the embrasure of the window, gazing on the wide lands beyond, +and said:-- + +“Vaudemont, you are bolder in hunting, they tell me, than you are at +whist.” + +“Honours don’t tell against one--over a hedge!” + +“What do you mean?” said Lilburne, rather haughtily. + +Vaudemont was, at that moment, in one of those bitter moods when the +sense of his situation, the sight of the usurper in his home, often +swept away the gentler thoughts inspired by his fatal passion. And the +tone of Lord Lilburne, and his loathing to the man, were too much for +his temper. + +“Lord Lilburne,” he said, and his lip curled, “if you had been born +poor, you would have made a great fortune--you play luckily.” + +“How am I to take this, sir?” + +“As you please,” answered Vaudemont, calmly, but with an eye of fire. +And he turned away. + +Lilburne remained on the spot very thoughtful: “Hum! he suspects me. +I cannot quarrel on such ground--the suspicion itself dishonours me--I +must seek another.” + +The next day, Lilburne, who was familiar with Mr. Harsden (though the +latter gentleman never played at the same table), asked that prudent +person after breakfast if he happened to have his pistols with him. + +“Yes; I always take them into the country--one may as well practise when +one has the opportunity. Besides, sportsmen are often quarrelsome; and +if it is known that one shoots well,--it keeps one out of quarrels!” + +“Very true,” said Lilburne, rather admiringly. “I have made the same +remark myself when I was younger. I have not shot with a pistol for +some years. I am well enough now to walk out with the help of a stick. +Suppose we practise for half-an-hour or so.” + +“With all my heart,” said Mr. Marsden. + +The pistols were brought, and they strolled forth;--Lord Lilburne found +his hand out. + +“As I never hunt now,” said the peer, and he gnashed his teeth, and +glanced at his maimed limb; “for though lameness would not prevent my +keeping my seat, violent exercise hurts my leg; and Brodie says any +fresh accident might bring on tic douloureux;--and as my gout does +not permit me to join the shooting parties at present, it would be a +kindness in you to lend me your pistols--it would while away an hour or +so; though, thank Heaven, my duelling days are over!” + +“Certainly,” said Mr. Marsden; and the pistols were consigned to Lord +Lilburne. + +Four days from the date, as Mr. Marsden, Vaudemont, and some other +gentlemen were making for the covers, they came upon Lord Lilburne, +who, in a part of the park not within sight or sound of the house, was +amusing himself with Mr. Marsden’s pistols, which Dykeman was at hand to +load for him. + +He turned round, not at all disconcerted by the interruption. + +“You have no idea how I’ve improved, Marsden:--just see!” and he pointed +to a glove nailed to a tree. “I’ve hit that mark twice in five times; +and every time I have gone straight enough along the line to have killed +my man.” + +“Ay, the mark itself does not so much signify,” said Mr. Marsden, “at +least, not in actual duelling--the great thing is to be in the line.” + +While he spoke, Lord Lilburne’s ball went a third time through the +glove. His cold bright eye turned on Vaudemont, as he said, with a +smile,-- + +“They tell me you shoot well with a fowling-piece, my dear +Vaudemont--are you equally adroit with a pistol?” + +“You may see, if you like; but you take aim, Lord Lilburne; that would +be of no use in English duelling. Permit me.” + +He walked to the glove, and tore from it one of the fingers, which he +fastened separately to the tree, took the pistol from Dykeman as he +walked past him, gained the spot whence to fire, turned at once round, +without apparent aim, and the finger fell to the ground. + +Lilburne stood aghast. + +“That’s wonderful!” said Marsden; “quite wonderful. Where the devil did +you get such a knack?--for it is only knack after all!” + +“I lived for many years in a country where the practice was +constant, where all that belongs to rifle-shooting was a necessary +accomplishment--a country in which man had often to contend against the +wild beast. In civilised states, man himself supplies the place of the +wild beast--but we don’t hunt him!--Lord Lilburne” (and this was added +with a smiling and disdainful whisper), “you must practise a little +more.” + +But, disregardful of the advice, from that day Lord Lilburne’s morning +occupation was gone. He thought no longer of a duel with Vaudemont. As +soon as the sportsman had left him, he bade Dykeman take up the pistols, +and walked straight home into the library, where Robert Beaufort, who +was no sportsman, generally spent his mornings. + +He flung himself into an arm-chair, and said, as he stirred the fire +with unusual vehemence,-- + +“Beaufort, I’m very sorry I asked you to invite Vaudemont. He’s a +very ill-bred, disagreeable fellow!” Beaufort threw down his steward’s +account-book, on which he was employed, and replied,-- + +“Lilburne, I have never had an easy moment since that man has been in +the house. As he was your guest, I did not like to speak before, but +don’t you observe--you must observe--how like he is to the old family +portraits? The more I have examined him, the more another resemblance +grows upon me. In a word,” said Robert, pausing and breathing hard, “if +his name were not Vaudemont--if his history were not, apparently, so +well known, I should say--I should swear, that it is Philip Morton who +sleeps under this roof!” + +“Ha!” said Lilburne, with an earnestness that surprised Beaufort, who +expected to have heard his brother-in-law’s sneering sarcasm at his +fears; “the likeness you speak of to the old portraits did strike me; +it struck Marsden, too, the other day, as we were passing through the +picture-gallery; and Marsden remarked it aloud to Vaudemont. I remember +now that he changed countenance and made no answer. Hush! hush! hold +your tongue, let me think--let me think. This Philip--yes--yes--I and +Arthur saw him with--with Gawtrey--in Paris--” + +“Gawtrey! was that the name of the rogue he was said to--” + +“Yes--yes--yes. Ah! now I guess the meaning of those looks--those +words,” muttered Lilburne between his teeth. “This pretension to the +name of Vaudemont was always apocryphal--the story always but half +believed--the invention of a woman in love with him--the claim on your +property is made at the very time he appears in England. Ha! Have you a +newspaper there? Give it me. No! ‘tis not in this paper. Ring the bell +for the file!” + +“What’s the matter? you terrify me!” gasped out Mr. Beaufort, as he rang +the bell. + +“Why! have you not seen an advertisement repeated several times within +the last month?” + +“I never read advertisements; except in the county paper, if land is to +be sold.” + +“Nor I often; but this caught my eye. John” (here the servant entered), +“bring the file of the newspapers. The name of the witness whom Mrs. +Morton appealed to was Smith, the same name as the captain; what was the +Christian name?” + +“I don’t remember.” + +“Here are the papers--shut the door--and here is the advertisement: ‘If +Mr. William Smith, son of Jeremiah Smith, who formerly rented the farm +of Shipdale-Bury, under the late Right Hon. Charles Leopold Beaufort +(that’s your uncle), and who emigrated in the year 18-- to Australia, +will apply to Mr. Barlow, Solicitor, Essex Street, Strand, he will hear +of something to his advantage.’” + +“Good Heavens! why did not you mention this to me before?” + +“Because I did not think it of any importance. In the first place, there +might be some legacy left to the man, quite distinct from your business. +Indeed, that was the probable supposition;--or even if connected with +the claim, such an advertisement might be but a despicable attempt to +frighten you. Never mind--don’t look so pale--after all, this is a proof +that the witness is not found--that Captain Smith is neither the Smith, +nor has discovered where the Smith is!” + +“True!” observed Mr. Beaufort: “true--very true!” + +“Humph!” said Lord Lilburne, who was still rapidly glancing over the +file--“Here is another advertisement which I never saw before: this +looks suspicious: ‘If the person who called on the -- of September, +on Mr. Morton, linendraper, &c., of N----, will renew his application +personally or by letter, he may now obtain the information he sought +for.’” + +“Morton!--the woman’s brother! their uncle! it is too clear!” + +“But what brings this man, if he be really Philip Morton, what brings +him here!--to spy or to threaten?” + +“I will get him out of the house this day.” + +“No--no; turn the watch upon himself. I see now; he is attracted by +your daughter; sound her quietly; don’t tell her to discourage his +confidences; find out if he ever speaks of these Mortons. Ha! I +recollect--he has spoken to me of the Mortons, but vaguely--I +forget what. Humph! this is a man of spirit and daring--watch him, I +say,--watch him! When does Arthur came back?” + +“He has been travelling so slowly, for he still complains of his health, +and has had relapses; but he ought to be in Paris this week, perhaps he +is there now. Good Heavens! he must not meet this man!” + +“Do what I tell you! get out all from your daughter. Never fear: he can +do nothing against you except by law. But if he really like Camilla--” + +“He!--Philip Morton--the adventurer--the--” + +“He is the eldest son: remember you thought even of accepting the +second. He--nay find the witness--he may win his suit; if he likes +Camilla, there may be a compromise.” + +Mr. Beaufort felt as if turned to ice. + +“You think him likely to win this infamous suit, then?” he faltered. + +“Did not you guard against the possibility by securing the brother? More +worth while to do it with this man. Hark ye! the politics of private are +like those of public life,--when the state can’t crush a demagogue, it +should entice him over. If you can ruin this dog” (and Lilburne stamped +his foot fiercely, forgetful of the gout), “ruin him! hang him! If you +can’t” (and here with a wry face he caressed the injured foot), “if you +can’t [‘sdeath, what a twinge!), and he can ruin you,--bring him into +the family, and make his secret ours! I must go and lie down--I have +overexcited myself.” + +In great perplexity Beaufort repaired at once to Camilla. His nervous +agitation betrayed itself, though he smiled a ghastly smile, and +intended to be exceeding cool and collected. His questions, which +confused and alarmed her, soon drew out the fact that the very first +time Vaudemont had been introduced to her he had spoken of the Mortons; +and that he had often afterwards alluded to the subject, and seemed at +first strongly impressed with the notion that the younger brother was +under Beaufort’s protection; though at last he appeared reluctantly +convinced of the contrary. Robert, however agitated, preserved at least +enough of his natural slyness not to let out that he suspected Vaudemont +to be Philip Morton himself, for he feared lest his daughter should +betray that suspicion to its object. + +“But,” he said, with a look meant to win confidence, “I dare say he +knows these young men. I should like myself to know more about them. +Learn all you can, and tell me, and, I say--I say, Camilla,--he! he! +he!--you have made a conquest, you little flirt, you! Did he, this +Vaudemont, ever say how much he admired you?” + +“He!--never!” said Camilla, blushing, and then turning pale. + +“But he looks it. Ah! you say nothing, then. Well, well, don’t +discourage him; that is to say,--yes, don’t discourage him. Talk to him +as much as you can,--ask him about his own early life. I’ve a particular +wish to know--‘tis of great importance to me.” + +“But, my dear father,” said Camilla, trembling and thoroughly +bewildered, “I fear this man,--I fear--I fear--” + +Was she going to add, “I fear myself?” I know not; but she stopped +short, and burst into tears. + +“Hang these girls!” muttered Mr. Beaufort, “always crying when they +ought to be of use to one. Go down, dry your eyes, do as I tell +you,--get all you can from him. Fear him!--yes, I dare say she does!” + muttered the poor man, as he closed the door. + +From that time what wonder that Camilla’s manner to Vaudemont was yet +more embarrassed than ever: what wonder that he put his own heart’s +interpretation on that confusion. Beaufort took care to thrust her more +often than before in his way; he suddenly affected a creeping, fawning +civility to Vaudemont; he was sure he was fond of music; what did he +think of that new air Camilla was so fond of? He must be a judge of +scenery, he who had seen so much: there were beautiful landscapes in +the neighbourhood, and, if he would forego his sports, Camilla drew +prettily, had an eye for that sort of thing, and was so fond of riding. + +Vaudemont was astonished at this change, but his delight was greater +than the astonishment. He began to perceive that his identity was +suspected; perhaps Beaufort, more generous than he had deemed him, meant +to repay every early wrong or harshness by one inestimable blessing. +The generous interpret motives in extremes--ever too enthusiastic or +too severe. Vaudemont felt as if he had wronged the wronger; he began to +conquer even his dislike to Robert Beaufort. For some days he was thus +thrown much with Camilla; the questions her father forced her to put +to him, uttered tremulously and fearfully, seemed to him proof of +her interest in his fate. His feelings to Camilla, so sudden in +their growth--so ripened and so favoured by the Sub-Ruler of the +world--CIRCUMSTANCE--might not, perhaps, have the depth and the +calm completeness of that, One True Love, of which there are many +counterfeits,--and which in Man, at least, possibly requires the touch +and mellowness, if not of time, at least of many memories--of perfect +and tried conviction of the faith, the worth, the value and the beauty +of the heart to which it clings;--but those feelings were, nevertheless, +strong, ardent, and intense. He believed himself beloved--he was in +Elysium. But he did not yet declare the passion that beamed in his eyes. +No! he would not yet claim the hand of Camilla Beaufort, for he imagined +the time would soon come when he could claim it, not as the inferior or +the suppliant, but as the lord of her father’s fate. + + + +CHAPTER X. + + + “Here’s something got amongst us!”--Knight of Malta. + +Two or three nights after his memorable conversation with Robert +Beaufort, as Lord Lilburne was undressing, he said to his valet: + +“Dykeman, I am getting well.” + +“Indeed, my lord, I never saw your lordship look better.” + +“There you lie. I looked better last year--I looked better the year +before--and I looked better and better every year back to the age of +twenty-one! But I’m not talking of looks, no man with money wants looks. +I am talking of feelings. I feel better. The gout is almost gone. I have +been quiet now for a month--that’s a long time--time wasted when, at +my age, I have so little time to waste. Besides, as you know, I am very +much in love!” + +“In love, my lord? I thought that you told me never to speak of--” + +“Blockhead! what the deuce was the good of speaking about it when I was +wrapped in flannels! I am never in love when I am ill--who is? I am well +now, or nearly so; and I’ve had things to vex me--things to make this +place very disagreeable; I shall go to town, and before this day week, +perhaps, that charming face may enliven the solitude of Fernside. I +shall look to it myself now. I see you’re going to say something. Spare +yourself the trouble! nothing ever goes wrong if I myself take it in +hand.” + +The next day Lord Lilburne, who, in truth, felt himself uncomfortable +and _gene_ in the presence of Vaudemont; who had won as much as the +guests at Beaufort Court seemed inclined to lose; and who made it +the rule of his life to consult his own pleasure and amusement before +anything else, sent for his post-horses, and informed his brother-in-law +of his departure. + +“And you leave me alone with this man just when I am convinced that he +is the person we suspected! My dear Lilburne, do stay till he goes.” + +“Impossible! I am between fifty and sixty--every moment is precious at +that time of life. Besides, I’ve said all I can say; rest quiet--act on +the defensive--entangle this cursed Vaudemont, or Morton, or whoever he +be, in the mesh of your daughter’s charms, and then get rid of him, not +before. This can do no harm, let the matter turn out how it will. +Read the papers; and send for Blackwell if you want advice on any new +advertisements. I don’t see that anything more is to be done at present. +You can write to me; I shall be at Park Lane or Fernside. Take care of +yourself. You’re a lucky fellow--you never have the gout! Good-bye.” + +And in half an hour Lord Lilburne was on the road to London. + +The departure of Lilburne was a signal to many others, especially and +naturally to those he himself had invited. He had not announced to such +visitors his intention of going till his carriage was at the door. This +might be delicacy or carelessness, just as people chose to take it: and +how they did take it, Lord Lilburne, much too selfish to be well-bred, +did not care a rush. The next day half at least of the guests were +gone; and even Mr. Marsden, who had been specially invited on Arthur’s +account, announced that he should go after dinner! he always travelled +by night--he slept well on the road--a day was not lost by it. + +“And it is so long since you saw Arthur,” said Mr. Beaufort, in +remonstrance, “and I expect him every day.” + +“Very sorry--best fellow in the world--but the fact is, that I am +not very well myself. I want a little sea air; I shall go to Dover +or Brighton. But I suppose you will have the house full again about +Christmas; in that case I shall be delighted to repeat my visit.” + +The fact was, that Mr. Marsden, without Lilburne’s intellect on the one +hand, or vices on the other, was, like that noble sensualist, one of +the broken pieces of the great looking-glass “SELF.” He was noticed in +society as always haunting the places where Lilburne played at cards, +carefully choosing some other table, and as carefully betting upon +Lilburne’s side. The card-tables were now broken up; Vaudemont’s +superiority in shooting, and the manner in which he engrossed the talk +of the sportsmen, displeased him. He was bored--he wanted to be off--and +off he went. Vaudemont felt that the time was come for him to depart, +too; Robert Beaufort--who felt in his society the painful fascination +of the bird with the boa, who hated to see him there, and dreaded to +see him depart, who had not yet extracted all the confirmation of his +persuasions that he required, for Vaudemont easily enough parried +the artless questions of Camilla--pressed him to stay with so eager a +hospitality, and made Camilla herself falter out, against her will, +and even against her remonstrances--(she never before had dared to +remonstrate with either father or mother),--“Could not you stay a few +days longer?”--that Vaudemont was too contented to yield to his own +inclinations; and so for some little time longer he continued to +move before the eyes of Mr. Beaufort--stern, sinister, silent, +mysterious--like one of the family pictures stepped down from its frame. +Vaudemont wrote, however, to Fanny, to excuse his delay; and anxious +to hear from her as to her own and Simon’s health, bade her direct her +letter to his lodging in London (of which he gave her the address), +whence, if he still continued to defer his departure, it would be +forwarded to him. He did not do this, however, till he had been at +Beaufort Court several days after Lilburne’s departure, and till, in +fact, two days before the eventful one which closed his visit. + +The party, now greatly diminished; were at breakfast, when the servant +entered, as usual, with the letter-bag. Mr. Beaufort, who was always +important and pompous in the small ceremonials of life, unlocked the +precious deposit with slow dignity, drew forth the newspapers, which he +threw on the table, and which the gentlemen of the party eagerly seized; +then, diving out one by one, jerked first a letter to Camilla, next a +letter to Vaudemont, and, thirdly, seized a letter for himself. + +“I beg that there may be no ceremony, Monsieur de Vaudemont: pray excuse +me and follow my example: I see this letter is from my son;” and he +broke the seal. + +The letter ran thus: + +“MY DEAR FATHER,--Almost as soon as you receive this, I shall be with +you. Ill as I am, I can have no peace till I see and consult you. The +most startling--the most painful intelligence has just been conveyed to +me. It is of a nature not to bear any but personal communication. + + + “Your affectionate son, + “ARTHUR BEAUFORT. +“Boulogne. + +“P.S.--This will go by the same packet-boat that I shall take myself, +and can only reach you a few hours before I arrive.” + +Mr. Beaufort’s trembling hand dropped the letter--he grasped the elbow +of the chair to save himself from falling. It was clear!--the same +visitor who had persecuted himself had now sought his son! He grew +sick, his son might have heard the witness--might be convinced. His son +himself now appeared to him as a foe--for the father dreaded the son’s +honour! He glanced furtively round the table, till his eye rested on +Vaudemont, and his terror was redoubled, for Vaudemont’s face, usually +so calm, was animated to an extraordinary degree, as he now lifted it +from the letter he had just read. Their eyes met. Robert Beaufort looked +on him as a prisoner at the bar looks on the accusing counsel, when he +first commences his harangue. + +“Mr. Beaufort,” said the guest, “the letter you have given me summons me +to London on important business, and immediately. Suffer me to send for +horses at your earliest convenience.” + +“What’s the matter?” said the feeble and seldom heard voice of Mrs. +Beaufort. “What’s the matter, Robert?--is Arthur coming?” + +“He comes to-day,” said the father, with a deep sigh; and Vaudemont, +at that moment rising from his half-finished breakfast, with a bow that +included the group, and with a glance that lingered on Camilla, as she +bent over her own unopened letter (a letter from Winandermere, the seal +of which she dared not yet to break), quitted the room. He hastened to +his own chamber, and strode to and fro with a stately step--the step +of the Master--then, taking forth the letter, he again hurried over its +contents. They ran thus: + +DEAR, Sir,--At last the missing witness has applied to me. He proves +to be, as you conjectured, the same person who had called on Mr. Roger +Morton; but as there are some circumstances on which I wish to take your +instructions without a moment’s delay, I shall leave London by the mail, +and wait you at D---- (at the principal inn), which is, I understand, +twenty miles on the high road from Beaufort Court. + + + “I have the honor to be, sir, + “Yours, &c., + “JOHN BARLOW. + +Vaudemont was yet lost in the emotions that this letter aroused, when +they came to announce that his chaise was arrived. As he went down the +stairs he met Camilla, who was on the way to her own room. + +“Miss Beaufort,” said he, in a low and tremulous voice, “in wishing you +farewell I may not now say more. I leave you, and, strange to say, I +do not regret it, for I go upon an errand that may entitle me to return +again, and speak those thoughts which are uppermost in my soul even at +this moment.” + +He raised her hand to his lips as he spoke, and at that moment Mr. +Beaufort looked from the door of his own room, and cried, “Camilla.” + She was too glad to escape. Philip gazed after her light form for an +instant, and then hurried down the stairs. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + + “Longueville.--What! are you married, Beaufort? + Beaufort.--Ay, as fast + As words, and hands, and hearts, and priest, + Could make us.”--BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: Noble Gentleman. + +In the parlour of the inn at D------ sat Mr. John Barlow. He had just +finished his breakfast, and was writing letters and looking over papers +connected with his various business--when the door was thrown open, and +a gentleman entered abruptly. + +“Mr. Beaufort,” said the lawyer rising, “Mr. Philip Beaufort--for such I +now feel you are by right--though,” he added, with his usual formal and +quiet smile, “not yet by law; and much--very much, remains to be done +to make the law and the right the same;--I congratulate you on having +something at last to work on. I had begun to despair of finding +our witness, after a month’s advertising; and had commenced other +investigations, of which I will speak to you presently, when yesterday, +on my return to town from an errand on your business, I had the pleasure +of a visit from William Smith himself.--My dear sir, do not yet be too +sanguine.--It seems that this poor fellow, having known misfortune, was +in America when the first fruitless inquiries were made. Long after this +he returned to the colony, and there met with a brother, who, as I drew +from him, was a convict. He helped the brother to escape. They both came +to England. William learned from a distant relation, who lent him +some little money, of the inquiry that had been set on foot for him; +consulted his brother, who desired him to leave all to his management. +The brother afterwards assured him that you and Mr. Sidney were both +dead; and it seems (for the witness is simple enough to allow me to +extract all) this same brother then went to Mr. Beaufort to hold out +the threat of a lawsuit, and to offer the sale of the evidence yet +existing--” + +“And Mr. Beaufort?” + +“I am happy to say, seems to have spurned the offer. Meanwhile William, +incredulous of his brother’s report, proceeded to N----, learned nothing +from Mr. Morton, met his brother again--and the brother (confessing that +he had deceived him in the assertion that you and Mr. Sidney were dead) +told him that he had known you in earlier life, and set out to Paris to +seek you--” + +“Known me?--To Paris?” + +“More of this presently. William returned to town, living hardly and +penuriously on the little his brother bestowed on him, too melancholy +and too poor for the luxury of a newspaper, and never saw our +advertisement, till, as luck would have it, his money was out; he had +heard nothing further of his brother, and he went for new assistance +to the same relation who had before aided him. This relation, to his +surprise, received the poor man very kindly, lent him what he wanted, +and then asked him if he had not seen our advertisement. The newspaper +shown him contained both the advertisements--that relating to Mr. +Morton’s visitor, that containing his own name. He coupled them both +together--called on me at once. I was from town on your business. He +returned to his own home; the next morning (yesterday morning) came a +letter from his brother, which I obtained from him at last, and with +promises that no harm should happen to the writer on account of it.” + +Vaudemont took the letter and read as follows: + +“DEAR WILLIAM,--No go about the youngster I went after: all researches +in vane. Paris develish expensive. Never mind, I have sene the +other--the young B--; different sort of fellow from his father--very +ill--frightened out of his wits--will go off to the governor, take me +with him as far as Bullone. I think we shall settel it now. Mind as +I saide before, don’t put your foot in it. I send you a Nap in the +Seele--all I can spare. + + + “Yours, + “JEREMIAH SMITH. + +“Direct to me, Monsieur Smith--always a safe name--Ship Inn, Bullone.” + +“Jeremiah--Smith--Jeremiah!” + +“Do you know the name then?” said Mr. Barlow. “Well; the poor man owns +that he was frightened at his brother--that he wished to do what is +right--that he feared his brother would not let him--that your father +was very kind to him--and so he came off at once to me; and I was very +luckily at home to assure him that the heir was alive, and prepared to +assert his rights. Now then, Mr. Beaufort, we have the witness, but will +that suffice us? I fear not. Will the jury believe him with no other +testimony at his back? Consider!--When he was gone I put myself in +communication with some officers at Bow Street about this brother of +his--a most notorious character, commonly called in the police slang +Dashing Jerry--” + +“Ah! Well, proceed!” + +“Your one witness, then, is a very poor, penniless man, his brother a +rogue, a convict: this witness, too, is the most timid, fluctuating, +irresolute fellow I ever saw; I should tremble for his testimony against +a sharp, bullying lawyer. And that, sir, is all at present we have to +look to.” + +“I see--I see. It is dangerous--it is hazardous. But truth is truth; +justice--justice! I will run the risk.” + +“Pardon me, if I ask, did you ever know this brother?--were you ever +absolutely acquainted with him--in the same house?” + +“Many years since--years of early hardship and trial--I was acquainted +with him--what then?” + +“I am sorry to hear it,” and the lawyer looked grave. “Do you not see +that if this witness is browbeat--is disbelieved, and if it be shown +that you, the claimant, was--forgive my saying it--intimate with a +brother of such a character, why the whole thing might be made to look +like perjury and conspiracy. If we stop here it is an ugly business!” + +“And is this all you have to say to me? The witness is found--the only +surviving witness--the only proof I ever shall or ever can obtain, +and you seek to terrify me--me too--from using the means for redress +Providence itself vouchsafes me--Sir, I will not hear you!” + +“Mr. Beaufort, you are impatient--it is natural. But if we go to +law--that is, should I have anything to do with it, wait--wait till your +case is good. And hear me yet. This is not the only proof--this is not +the only witness; you forget that there was an examined copy of the +register; we may yet find that copy, and the person who copied it may +yet be alive to attest it. Occupied with this thought, and weary of +waiting the result of our advertisement, I resolved to go into the +neighbourhood of Fernside; luckily, there was a gentleman’s seat to +be sold in the village. I made the survey of this place my apparent +business. After going over the house, I appeared anxious to see how far +some alterations could be made--alterations to render it more like Lord +Lilburne’s villa. This led me to request a sight of that villa--a crown +to the housekeeper got me admittance. The housekeeper had lived with +your father, and been retained by his lordship. I soon, therefore, knew +which were the rooms the late Mr. Beaufort had principally occupied; +shown into his study, where it was probable he would keep his papers, I +inquired if it were the same furniture (which seemed likely enough from +its age and fashion) as in your father’s time: it was so; Lord Lilburne +had bought the house just as it stood, and, save a few additions in the +drawing-room, the general equipment of the villa remained unaltered. +You look impatient!--I’m coming to the point. My eye fell upon an +old-fashioned bureau--” + +“But we searched every drawer in that bureau!” + +“Any secret drawers?” + +“Secret drawers! No! there were no secret drawers that I ever heard of!” + +Mr. Barlow rubbed his hands and mused a moment. + +“I was struck with that bureau; for any father had had one like it. It +is not English--it is of Dutch manufacture.” + +“Yes, I have heard that my father bought it at a sale, three or four +years after his marriage.” + +“I learned this from the housekeeper, who was flattered by my admiring +it. I could not find out from her at what sale it had been purchased, +but it was in the neighbourhood she was sure. I had now a date to go +upon; I learned, by careless inquiries, what sales near Fernside had +taken place in a certain year. A gentleman had died at that date whose +furniture was sold by auction. With great difficulty, I found that his +widow was still alive, living far up the country: I paid her a visit; +and, not to fatigue you with too long an account, I have only to say +that she not only assured me that she perfectly remembered the bureau, +but that it had secret drawers and wells, very curiously contrived; +nay, she showed me the very catalogue in which the said receptacles are +noticed in capitals, to arrest the eye of the bidder, and increase the +price of the bidding. That your father should never have revealed where +he stowed this document is natural enough, during the life of his uncle; +his own life was not spared long enough to give him much opportunity +to explain afterwards, but I feel perfectly persuaded in my mind--that +unless Mr. Robert Beaufort discovered that paper amongst the others +he examined--in one of those drawers will be found all we want to +substantiate your claims. This is the more likely from your father never +mentioning, even to your mother apparently, the secret receptacles in +the bureau. Why else such mystery? The probability is that he received +the document either just before or at the time he purchased the bureau, +or that he bought it for that very purpose: and, having once deposited +the paper in a place he deemed secure from curiosity--accident, +carelessness, policy, perhaps, rather shame itself (pardon me) for the +doubt of your mother’s discretion, that his secrecy seemed to imply, +kept him from ever alluding to the circumstance, even when the intimacy +of after years made him more assured of your mother’s self-sacrificing +devotion to his interests. At his uncle’s death he thought to repair +all!” + +“And how, if that be true--if that Heaven which has delivered me +hitherto from so many dangers, has, in the very secrecy of my poor +father, saved my birthright front the gripe of the usurper--how, I say, +is---” + +“The bureau to pass into our possession? That is the difficulty. But we +must contrive it somehow, if all else fail us; meanwhile, as I now feel +sure that there has been a copy of that register made, I wish to know +whether I should not immediately cross the country into Wales, and see +if I can find any person in the neighbourhood of A----- who did examine +the copy taken: for, mark you, the said copy is only of importance as +leading to the testimony of the actual witness who took it.” + +“Sir,” said Vaudemont, heartily shaking Mr. Barlow by the hand, “forgive +my first petulance. I see in you the very man I desired and wanted--your +acuteness surprises and encourages me. Go to Wales, and God speed you!” + +“Very well!--in five minutes I shall be off. Meanwhile, see the witness +yourself; the sight of his benefactor’s son will do more to keep him +steady than anything else. There’s his address, and take care not to +give him money. And now I will order my chaise--the matter begins to +look worth expense. Oh! I forgot to say that Monsieur Liancourt called +on you yesterday about his own affairs. He wishes much to consult you. +I told him you would probably be this evening in town, and he said he +would wait you at your lodging.” + +“Yes--I will lose not a moment in going to London, and visiting our +witness. And he saw my mother at the altar! My poor mother--Ah, how +could my father have doubted her!” and as he spoke, he blushed for the +first time with shame at that father’s memory. He could not yet conceive +that one so frank, one usually so bold and open, could for years have +preserved from the woman who had sacrificed all to him, a secret to her +so important! That was, in fact, the only blot on his father’s honour--a +foul and grave blot it was. Heavily had the punishment fallen on those +whom the father loved best! Alas, Philip had not yet learned what +terrible corrupters are the Hope and the Fear of immense Wealthy, +even to men reputed the most honourable, if they have been reared and +pampered in the belief that wealth is the Arch blessing of life. Rightly +considered, in Philip Beaufort’s solitary meanness lay the vast moral of +this world’s darkest truth! + +Mr. Barlow was gone. Philip was about to enter his own chaise, when a +dormeuse-and-four drove up to the inn-door to change horses. A young man +was reclining, at his length, in the carriage, wrapped in cloaks, and +with a ghastly paleness--the paleness of long and deep disease upon his +cheeks. He turned his dim eye with, perhaps, a glance of the sick man’s +envy on that strong and athletic, form, majestic with health and vigour, +as it stood beside the more humble vehicle. Philip did not, however, +notice the new arrival; he sprang into the chaise, it rattled on, and +thus, unconsciously, Arthur Beaufort and his cousin had again met. To +which was now the Night--to which the Morning? + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + + “Bakam. Let my men guard the walls. + Syana. And mine the temple.”--The Island Princess. + +While thus eventfully the days and the weeks had passed for Philip, no +less eventfully, so far as the inner life is concerned, had they glided +away for Fanny. She had feasted in quiet and delighted thought on the +consciousness that she was improving--that she was growing worthier +of him--that he would perceive it on his return. Her manner was more +thoughtful, more collected--less childish, in short, than it had been. +And yet, with all the stir and flutter of the aroused intellect, the +charm of her strange innocence was not scared away. She rejoiced in the +ancient liberty she had regained of going out and coming back when she +pleased; and as the weather was too cold ever to tempt Simon from his +fireside, except, perhaps, for half-an-hour in the forenoon, so the +hours of dusk, when he least missed her, were those which she chiefly +appropriated for stealing away to the good school-mistress, and growing +wiser and wiser every day in the ways of God and the learning of His +creatures. The schoolmistress was not a brilliant woman. Nor was it +accomplishments of which Fanny stood in need, so much as the opening +of her thoughts and mind by profitable books and rational conversation. +Beautiful as were all her natural feelings, the schoolmistress had now +little difficulty in educating feelings up to the dignity of principles. + +At last, hitherto patient under the absence of one never absent from her +heart, Fanny received from him the letter he had addressed to her +two days before he quitted Beaufort Court;--another letter--a second +letter--a letter to excuse himself for not coming before--a letter +that gave her an address that asked for a reply. It was a morning of +unequalled delight approaching to transport. And then the excitement of +answering the letter--the pride of showing how she was improved, what an +excellent hand she now wrote! She shut herself up in her room: she +did not go out that day. She placed the paper before her, and, to her +astonishment, all that she had to say vanished from her mind at once. +How was she even to begin? She had always hitherto called him “Brother.” + Ever since her conversation with Sarah she felt that she could not call +him that name again for the world--no, never! But what should she call +him--what could she call him? He signed himself “Philip.” She knew that +was his name. She thought it a musical name to utter, but to write it! +No! some instinct she could not account for seemed to whisper that +it was improper--presumptuous, to call him “Dear Philip.” Had Burns’s +songs--the songs that unthinkingly he had put into her hand, and told +her to read--songs that comprise the most beautiful love-poems in the +world--had they helped to teach her some of the secrets of her own +heart? And had timidity come with knowledge? Who shall say--who guess +what passed within her? Nor did Fanny herself, perhaps, know her own +feelings: but write the words “Dear Philip” she could not. And the whole +of that day, though she thought of nothing else, she could not even get +through the first line to her satisfaction. The next morning she sat +down again. It would be so unkind if she did not answer immediately: she +must answer. She placed his letter before her--she resolutely began. +But copy after copy was made and torn. And Simon wanted her--and Sarah +wanted her--and there were bills to be paid; and dinner was over before +her task was really begun. But after dinner she began in good earnest. + +“How kind in you to write to me” (the difficulty of any name was +dispensed with by adopting none), “and to wish to know about my dear +grandfather! He is much the same, but hardly ever walks out now, and I +have had a good deal of time to myself. I think something will surprise +you, and make you smile, as you used to do at first, when you come +back. You must not be angry with me that I have gone out by myself very +often--every day, indeed. I have been so safe. Nobody has ever offered +to be rude again to Fanny” (the word “Fanny” was carefully scratched out +with a penknife, and me substituted). “But you shall know all when you +come. And are you sure you are well--quite--quite well? Do you never +have the headaches you complained of sometimes? Do say this! Do you walk +out-every day? Is there any pretty churchyard near you now? Whom do you +walk with? + +“I have been so happy in putting the flowers on the two graves. But I +still give yours the prettiest, though the other is so dear to me. I +feel sad when I come to the last, but not when I look at the one I have +looked at so long. Oh, how good you were! But you don’t like me to thank +you.” + +“This is very stupid!” cried Fanny, suddenly throwing down her pen; “and +I don’t think I am improved at it;” and she half cried with vexation. +Suddenly a bright idea crossed her. In the little parlour where the +schoolmistress privately received her, she had seen among the books, +and thought at the time how useful it might be to her if ever she had to +write to Philip, a little volume entitled, The Complete Letter +Writer. She knew by the title-page that it contained models for every +description of letter--no doubt it would contain the precise thing that +would suit the present occasion. She started up at the notion. She would +go--she could be back to finish the letter before post-time. She put on +her bonnet--left the letter, in her haste, open on the table--and just +looking into the parlour in her way to the street door, to convince +herself that Simon was asleep, and the wire-guard was on the fire, she +hurried to the kind schoolmistress. + +One of the fogs that in autumn gather sullenly over London and its +suburbs covered the declining day with premature dimness. It grew darker +and darker as she proceeded, but she reached the house in safety. She +spent a quarter of an hour in timidly consulting her friend about all +kinds of letters except the identical one that she intended to write, +and having had it strongly impressed on her mind that if the letter was +to a gentleman at all genteel, she ought to begin “Dear Sir,” and end +with “I have the honour to remain;” and that he would be everlastingly +offended if she did not in the address affix “Esquire” to his name +(that, was a great discovery),--she carried off the precious volume, and +quitted the house. There was a wall that, bounding the demesnes of the +school, ran for some short distance into the main street. The increasing +fog, here, faintly struggled against the glimmer of a single lamp at +some little distance. Just in this spot, her eye was caught by a dark +object in the road, which she could scarcely perceive to be a carriage, +when her hand was seized, and a voice said in her ear:-- + +“Ah! you will not be so cruel to me, I hope, as you were to my +messenger! I have come myself for you.” + +She turned in great alarm, but the darkness prevented her recognising +the face of him who thus accosted her. “Let me go!” she cried,--“let me +go!” + +“Hush! hush! No--no. Come with me. You shall have a +house--carriage--servants! You shall wear silk gowns and jewels! You +shall be a great lady!” + +As these various temptations succeeded in rapid course each new struggle +of Fanny, a voice from the coach-box said in a low tone,-- + +“Take care, my lord, I see somebody coming--perhaps a policeman!” + +Fanny heard the caution, and screamed for rescue. + +“Is it so?” muttered the molester. And suddenly Fanny felt her voice +checked--her head mantled--her light form lifted from the ground. She +clung--she struggled it was in vain. It was the affair of a moment: she +felt herself borne into the carriage--the door closed--the stranger was +by her side, and his voice said:-- + +“Drive on, Dykeman. Fast! fast!” + +Two or three minutes, which seemed to her terror as ages, elapsed, when +the gag and the mantle were gently removed, and the same voice (she +still could not see her companion) said in a very mild tone:-- + +“Do not alarm yourself; there is no cause,--indeed there is not. I would +not have adopted this plan had there been any other--any gentler one. +But I could not call at your own house--I knew no other where to meet +you. + +“This was the only course left to me--indeed it was. I made myself +acquainted with your movements. Do not blame me, then, for prying into +your footsteps. I watched for you all last night--you did not come out. +I was in despair. At last I find you. Do not be so terrified: I will not +even touch your hand if you do not wish it.” + +As he spoke, however, he attempted to touch it, and was repulsed with +an energy that rather disconcerted him. The poor girl recoiled from him +into the farthest corner of that prison in speechless horror--in the +darkest confusion of ideas. She did not weep--she did not sob--but +her trembling seemed to shake the very carriage. The man continued to +address, to expostulate, to pray, to soothe. + +His manner was respectful. His protestations that he would not harm her +for the world were endless. + +“Only just see the home I can give you; for two days--for one day. Only +just hear how rich I can make you and your grandfather, and then if you +wish to leave me, you shall.” + +More, much more, to this effect, did he continue to pour forth, without +extracting any sound from Fanny but gasps as for breath, and now and +then a low murmur: + +“Let me go, let me go! My grandfather, my blind grandfather!” + +And finally tears came to her relief, and she sobbed with a passion that +alarmed, and perhaps even touched her companion, cynical and icy as +he was. Meanwhile the carriage seemed to fly. Fast as two horses, +thorough-bred, and almost at full speed, could go, they were whirled +along, till about an hour, or even less, from the time in which she had +been thus captured, the carriage stopped. + +“Are we here already?” said the man, putting his head out of the window. +“Do then as I told you. Not to the front door; to my study.” + +In two minutes more the carriage halted again, before a building which +looked white and ghostlike through the mist. The driver dismounted, +opened with a latch-key a window-door, entered for a moment to light +the candles in a solitary room from a fire that blazed on the hearth, +reappeared, and opened the carriage-door. It was with a difficulty for +which they were scarcely prepared that they were enabled to get Fanny +from the carriage. No soft words, no whispered prayers could draw her +forth; and it was with no trifling address, for her companion sought +to be as gentle as the force necessary to employ would allow, that he +disengaged her hands from the window-frame, the lining, the cushions, to +which they clung; and at last bore her into the house. The driver closed +the window again as he retreated, and they were alone. Fanny then cast +a wild, scarce conscious glance over the apartment. It was small and +simply furnished. Opposite to her was an old-fashioned bureau, one of +those quaint, elaborate monuments of Dutch ingenuity, which, during +the present century, the audacious spirit of curiosity-vendors has +transplanted from their native receptacles, to contrast, with grotesque +strangeness, the neat handiwork of Gillow and Seddon. It had a +physiognomy and character of its own--this fantastic foreigner! Inlaid +with mosaics, depicting landscapes and animals; graceless in form +and fashion, but still picturesque, and winning admiration, when more +closely observed, from the patient defiance of all rules of taste +which had formed its cumbrous parts into one profusely ornamented and +eccentric whole. It was the more noticeable from its total want of +harmony with the other appurtenances of the room, which bespoke +the tastes of the plain English squire. Prints of horses and hunts, +fishing-rods and fowling-pieces, carefully suspended, decorated the +walls. Not, however, on this notable stranger from the sluggish land +rested the eye of Fanny. That, in her hurried survey, was arrested only +by a portrait placed over the bureau--the portrait of a female in the +bloom of life; a face so fair, a brow so candid, and eyes so pure, a +lip so rich in youth and joy--that as her look lingered on the features +Fanny felt comforted, felt as if some living protectress were there. The +fire burned bright and merrily; a table, spread as for dinner, was drawn +near it. To any other eye but Fanny’s the place would have seemed a +picture of English comfort. At last her looks rested on her companion. +He had thrown himself, with a long sigh, partly of fatigue, partly of +satisfaction, on one of the chairs, and was contemplating her as she +thus stood and gazed, with an expression of mingled curiosity and +admiration; she recognised at once her first, her only persecutor. She +recoiled, and covered her face with her hands. The man approached her:-- + +“Do not hate me, Fanny,--do not turn away. Believe me, though I have +acted thus violently, here all violence will cease. I love you, but I +will not be satisfied till you love me in return. I am not young, and +I am not handsome, but I am rich and great, and I can make those whom I +love happy,--so happy, Fanny!” + +But Fanny had turned away, and was now busily employed in trying to +re-open the door at which she had entered. Failing in this, she suddenly +darted away, opened the inner door, and rushed into the passage with a +loud cry. Her persecutor stifled an oath, and sprung after and arrested +her. He now spoke sternly, and with a smile and a frown at once:-- + +“This is folly;--come back, or you will repent it! I have promised you, +as a gentleman--as a nobleman, if you know what that is--to respect you. +But neither will I myself be trifled with nor insulted. There must be no +screams!” + +His look and his voice awed Fanny in spite of her bewilderment and her +loathing, and she suffered herself passively to be drawn into the room. +He closed and bolted the door. She threw herself on the ground in one +corner, and moaned low but piteously. He looked at her musingly for some +moments, as he stood by the fire, and at last went to the door, opened +it, and called “Harriet” in a low voice. Presently a young woman, of +about thirty, appeared, neatly but plainly dressed, and of a countenance +that, if not very winning, might certainly be called very handsome. +He drew her aside for a few moments, and a whispered conference was +exchanged. He then walked gravely up to Fanny “My young friend,” said +he, “I see my presence is too much for you this evening. This young +woman will attend you--will get you all you want. She can tell you, too, +that I am not the terrible sort of person you seem to suppose. I shall +see you to-morrow.” So saying, he turned on his heel and walked out. + +Fanny felt something like liberty, something like joy, again. She rose, +and looked so pleadingly, so earnestly, so intently into the woman’s +face, that Harriet turned away her bold eyes abashed; and at this moment +Dykeman himself looked into the room. + +“You are to bring us in dinner here yourself, uncle; and then go to my +lord in the drawing-room.” + +Dykeman looked pleased, and vanished. Then Harriet came up and took +Fanny’s hand, and said, kindly,-- + +“Don’t be frightened. I assure you, half the girls in London would give +I don’t know what to be in your place. My lord never will force you to +do anything you don’t like--it’s not his way; and he’s the kindest and +best man,--and so rich; he does not know what to do with his money!” + +To all this Fanny made but one answer,--she threw herself suddenly upon +the woman’s breast, and sobbed out: “My grandfather is blind, he cannot +do without me--he will die--die. Have you nobody you love, too? Let me +go--let me out! What can they want with me?--I never did harm to any +one.” + +“And no one will harm you;--I swear it!” said Harriet, earnestly. “I see +you don’t know my lord. But here’s the dinner; come, and take a bit of +something, and a glass of wine.” + +Fanny could not touch anything except a glass of water, and that nearly +choked her. But at last, as she recovered her senses, the absence of +her tormentor--the presence of a woman--the solemn assurances of Harriet +that, if she did not like to stay there, after a day or two, she should +go back, tranquillised her in some measure. She did not heed the artful +and lengthened eulogiums that the she-tempter then proceeded to pour +forth upon the virtues, and the love, and the generosity, and, above +all, the money of my lord. She only kept repeating to herself, “I shall +go back in a day or two.” At length, Harriet, having eaten and drunk as +much as she could by her single self, and growing wearied with efforts +from which so little resulted, proposed to Fanny to retire to rest. +She opened a door to the right of the fireplace, and lighted her up a +winding staircase to a pretty and comfortable chamber, where she offered +to help her to undress. Fanny’s complete innocence, and her utter +ignorance of the precise nature of the danger that awaited her, though +she fancied it must be very great and very awful, prevented her quite +comprehending all that Harriet meant to convey by her solemn assurances +that she should not be disturbed. But she understood, at least, that +she was not to see her hateful gaoler till the next morning; and when +Harriet, wishing her “good night,” showed her a bolt to her door, she +was less terrified at the thought of being alone in that strange place. +She listened till Harriet’s footsteps had died away, and then, with a +beating heart, tried to open the door; it was locked from without. She +sighed heavily. The window?--alas! when she had removed the shutter, +there was another one barred from without, which precluded all hope +there; she had no help for it but to bolt her door, stand forlorn and +amazed at her own condition, and, at last, falling on her knees, to +pray, in her own simple fashion, which since her recent visits to the +schoolmistress had become more intelligent and earnest, to Him from whom +no bolts and no bars can exclude the voice of the human heart. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + + “In te omnis domus inclinata recumbit.”--VIRGIL. + + [On thee the whole house rests confidingly.] + +Lord Lilburne, seated before a tray in the drawing-room, was finishing +his own solitary dinner, and Dykeman was standing close behind him, +nervous and agitated. The confidence of many years between the master +and the servant--the peculiar mind of Lilburne, which excluded him from +all friendship with his own equals--had established between the two +the kind of intimacy so common with the noble and the valet of the old +French regime, and indeed, in much Lilburne more resembled the men of +that day and land, than he did the nobler and statelier being which +belongs to our own. But to the end of time, whatever is at once vicious, +polished, and intellectual, will have a common likeness. + +“But, my lord,” said Dykeman, “just reflect. This girl is so well known +in the place; she will be sure to be missed; and if any violence is +done to her, it’s a capital crime, my lord--a capital crime. I know they +can’t hang a great lord like you, but all concerned in it may----” + +Lord Lilburne interrupted the speaker by, “Give me some wine and hold +your tongue!” Then, when he had emptied his glass, he drew himself +nearer to the fire, warmed his hands, mused a moment, and turned round +to his confidant:-- + +“Dykeman,” said he, “though you’re an ass and a coward, and you don’t +deserve that I should be so condescending, I will relieve your fears +at once. I know the law better than you can, for my whole life has been +spent in doing exactly as I please, without ever putting myself in the +power of LAW, which interferes with the pleasures of other men. You are +right in saying violence would be a capital crime. Now the difference +between vice and crime is this: Vice is what parsons write sermons +against, Crime is what we make laws against. I never committed a crime +in all my life,--at an age between fifty and sixty--I am not going to +begin. Vices are safe things; I may have my vices like other men: but +crimes are dangerous things--illegal things--things to be carefully +avoided. Look you” (and here the speaker, fixing his puzzled listener +with his eye, broke into a grin of sublime mockery), “let me suppose you +to be the World--that cringing valet of valets, the WORLD! I should say +to you this, ‘My dear World, you and I understand each other well,--we +are made for each other,--I never come in your way, nor you in mine. If +I get drunk every day in my own room, that’s vice, you can’t touch me; +if I take an extra glass for the first time in my life, and knock +down the watchman, that’s a crime which, if I am rich, costs me one +pound--perhaps five pounds; if I am poor, sends me to the treadmill. If +I break the hearts of five hundred old fathers, by buying with gold +or flattery the embraces of five hundred young daughters, that’s +vice,--your servant, Mr. World! If one termagant wench scratches my +face, makes a noise, and goes brazen-faced to the Old Bailey to swear to +her shame, why that’s crime, and my friend, Mr. World, pulls a hemp-rope +out of his pocket.’ Now, do you understand? Yes, I repeat,” he added, +with a change of voice, “I never committed a crime in my life,--I have +never even been accused of one,--never had an action of crim. con.--of +seduction against me. I know how to manage such matters better. I was +forced to carry off this girl, because I had no other means of courting +her. To court her is all I mean to do now. I am perfectly aware that +an action for violence, as you call it, would be the more disagreeable, +because of the very weakness of intellect which the girl is said to +possess, and of which report I don’t believe a word. I shall most +certainly avoid even the remotest appearance that could be so construed. +It is for that reason that no one in the house shall attend the girl +except yourself and your niece. Your niece I can depend on, I know; I +have been kind to her; I have got her a good husband; I shall get her +husband a good place;--I shall be godfather to her first child. To be +sure, the other servants will know there’s a lady in the house, but to +that they are accustomed; I don’t set up for a Joseph. They need know +no more, unless you choose to blab it out. Well, then, supposing that at +the end of a few days, more or less, without any rudeness on my part, a +young woman, after seeing a few jewels, and fine dresses, and a pretty +house, and being made very comfortable, and being convinced that her +grandfather shall be taken care of without her slaving herself to death, +chooses of her own accord to live with me, where’s the crime, and who +can interfere with it?” + +“Certainly, my lord, that alters the case,” said Dykeman, considerably +relieved. “But still,” he added, anxiously, “if the inquiry is made,--if +before all this is settled, it is found out where she is?” + +“Why then no harm will be done--no violence will be committed. Her +grandfather,--drivelling and a miser, you say--can be appeased by a +little money, and it will be nobody’s business, and no case can be made +of it. Tush! man! I always look before I leap! People in this world are +not so charitable as you suppose. What more natural than that a poor and +pretty girl--not as wise as Queen Elizabeth--should be tempted to pay a +visit to a rich lover! + +“All they can say of the lover is, that he is a very gay man or a very +bad man, and that’s saying nothing new of me. But don’t think it will +be found out. Just get me that stool; this has been a very troublesome +piece of business--rather tried me. I am not so young as I was. Yes, +Dykeman, something which that Frenchman Vaudemont, or Vautrien, or +whatever his name is, said to me once, has a certain degree of truth. I +felt it in the last fit of the gout, when my pretty niece was smoothing +my pillows. A nurse, as we grow older, may be of use to one. I wish to +make this girl like me, or be grateful to me. I am meditating a longer +and more serious attachment than usual,--a companion!” + +“A companion, my lord, in that poor creature!--so ignorant--so +uneducated!” + +“So much the better. This world palls upon me,” said Lilburne, almost +gloomily. “I grow sick of the miserable quackeries--of the piteous +conceits that men, women, and children call ‘knowledge,’ I wish to catch +a glimpse of nature before I die. This creature interests me, and that +is something in this life. Clear those things away, and leave me.” + +“Ay!” muttered Lilburne, as he bent over the fire alone, “when I first +heard that that girl was the granddaughter of Simon Gawtrey, and, +therefore, the child of the man whom I am to thank that I am a cripple, +I felt as if love to her were a part of that hate which I owe to him; a +segment in the circle of my vengeance. But now, poor child! + +“I forget all this. I feel for her, not passion, but what I never felt +before, affection. I feel that if I had such a child, I could understand +what men mean when they talk of the tenderness of a father. I have not +one impure thought for that girl--not one. But I would give thousands +if she could love me. Strange! strange! in all this I do not recognise +myself!” + +Lord Lilburne retired to rest betimes that night; he slept sound; rose +refreshed at an earlier hour than usual; and what he considered a fit of +vapours of the previous night was passed away. He looked with eagerness +to an interview with Fanny. Proud of his intellect, pleased in any of +those sinister exercises of it which the code and habits of his life so +long permitted to him, he regarded the conquest of his fair adversary +with the interest of a scientific game. Harriet went to Fanny’s room to +prepare her to receive her host; and Lord Lilburne now resolved to make +his own visit the less unwelcome by reserving for his especial gift +some showy, if not valuable, trinkets, which for similar purposes never +failed the depositories of the villa he had purchased for his pleasures. +He, recollected that these gewgaws were placed in the bureau in the +study; in which, as having a lock of foreign and intricate workmanship, +he usually kept whatever might tempt cupidity in those frequent absences +when the house was left guarded but by two women servants. Finding that +Fanny had not yet quitted her own chamber, while Harriet went up to +attend and reason with her, he himself limped into the study below, +unlocked the bureau, and was searching in the drawers, when he heard the +voice of Fanny above, raised a little as if in remonstrance or entreaty; +and he paused to listen. He could not, however, distinguish what was +said; and in the meanwhile, without attending much to what he was about, +his hands were still employed in opening and shutting the drawers, +passing through the pigeon-holes, and feeling for a topaz brooch, which +he thought could not fail of pleasing the unsophisticated eyes of Fanny. +One of the recesses was deeper than the rest; he fancied the brooch +was there; he stretched his hand into the recess; and, as the room was +partially darkened by the lower shutters from without, which were still +unclosed to prevent any attempted escape of his captive, he had only +the sense of touch to depend on; not finding the brooch, he stretched on +till he came to the extremity of the recess, and was suddenly sensible +of a sharp pain; the flesh seemed caught as in a trap; he drew back +his finger with sudden force and a half-suppressed exclamation, and he +perceived the bottom or floor of the pigeon-hole recede, as if sliding +back. His curiosity was aroused; he again felt warily and cautiously, +and discovered a very slight inequality and roughness at the extremity +of the recess. He was aware instantly that there was some secret spring; +he pressed with some force on the spot, and he felt the board give way; +he pushed it back towards him, and it slid suddenly with a whirring +noise, and left a cavity below exposed to his sight. He peered in, and +drew forth a paper; he opened it at first carelessly, for he was still +trying to listen to Fanny. His eye ran rapidly over a few preliminary +lines till it rested on what follows: + +“Marriage. The year 18-- + +“No. 83, page 21. + +“Philip Beaufort, of this parish of A-----, and Catherine Morton, of the +parish of St. Botolph, Aldgate, London, were married in this church by +banns, this 12th day of November, in the year one thousand eight hundred +and ----’ by me, + + + “CALEB PRICE, Vicar. + +“This marriage was solemnised between us, + + + “PHILIP BEAUFORT. + “CATHERINE MORTON. + + +“In the presence of “DAVID APREECE. + “WILLIAM SMITH. + +“The above is a true copy taken from the registry of marriages, in +A-----parish, this 19th day of March, 18--, by me, + + + “MORGAN JONES, Curate of C-------.” + + [This is according to the form customary at the date at which the + copy was made. There has since been an alteration.] + +Lord Lilburne again cast his eye over the lines prefixed to this +startling document, which, being those written at Caleb’s desire, by Mr. +Jones to Philip Beaufort, we need not here transcribe to the reader. At +that instant Harriet descended the stairs, and came into the room; she +crept up on tiptoe to Lilburne, and whispered,-- + +“She is coming down, I think; she does not know you are here.” + +“Very well--go!” said Lord Lilburne. And scarce had Harriet left the +room, when a carriage drove furiously to the door, and Robert Beaufort +rushed into the study. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + + “Gone, and none know it. + + How now?--What news, what hopes and steps discovered!” + BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: The Pilgrim. + +When Philip arrived at his lodgings in town it was very late, but he +still found Liancourt waiting the chance of his arrival. The Frenchman +was full of his own schemes and projects. He was a man of high repute +and connections; negotiations for his recall to Paris had been entered +into; he was divided between a Quixotic loyalty and a rational prudence; +he brought his doubts to Vaudemont. Occupied as he was with thoughts of +so important and personal a nature, Philip could yet listen patiently +to his friend, and weigh with him the pros and cons. And after having +mutually agreed that loyalty and prudence would both be best consulted +by waiting a little, to see if the nation, as the Carlists yet fondly +trusted, would soon, after its first fever, offer once more the throne +and the purple to the descendant of St. Louis, Liancourt, as he lighted +his cigar to walk home, said, “A thousand thanks to you, my dear friend: +and how have you enjoyed yourself in your visit? I am not surprised or +jealous that Lilburne did not invite me, as I do not play at cards, and +as I have said some sharp things to him!” + +“I fancy I shall have the same disqualifications for another +invitation,” said Vaudemont, with a severe smile. “I may have much to +disclose to you in a few days. At present my news is still unripe. And +have you seen anything of Lilburne? He left us some days since. Is he in +London?” + +“Yes; I was riding with our friend Henri, who wished to try a new +horse off the stones, a little way into the country yesterday. We went +through------and H----. Pretty places, those. Do you know them?” + +“Yes; I know H----.” + +“And just at dusk, as we were spurring back to town, whom should I see +walking on the path of the high-road but Lord Lilburne himself! I could +hardly believe my eyes. I stopped, and, after asking him about you, +I could not help expressing my surprise to see him on foot at such a +place. You know the man’s sneer. ‘A Frenchman so gallant as Monsieur de +Liancourt,’ said he, ‘need not be surprised at much greater miracles; +the iron moves to the magnet: I have a little adventure here. Pardon me +if I ask you to ride on.’ Of course I wished him good day; and a little +farther up the road I saw a dark plain chariot, no coronet, no arms, no +footman only the man on the box, but the beauty of the horses assured me +it must belong to Lilburne. Can you conceive such absurdity in a man of +that age--and a very clever fellow too? Yet, how is it that one does not +ridicule it in Lilburne, as one would in another man between fifty and +sixty?” + +“Because one does not ridicule,--one loathes-him.” + +“No; that’s not it. The fact is that one can’t fancy Lilburne old. His +manner is young--his eye is young. I never saw any one with so much +vitality. ‘The bad heart and the good digestion’--the twin secrets for +wearing well, eh!” + +“Where did you meet him--not near H----?” + +“Yes; close by. Why? Have you any adventure there too? Nay, forgive me; +it was but a jest. Good night!” + +Vaudemont fell into an uneasy reverie: he could not divine exactly +why he should be alarmed; but he was alarmed at Lilburne being in the +neighbourhood of H----. It was the foot of the profane violating the +sanctuary. An undefined thrill shot through him, as his mind coupled +together the associations of Lilburne and Fanny; but there was no ground +for forebodings. Fanny did not stir out alone. An adventure, too--pooh! +Lord Lilburne must be awaiting a willing and voluntary appointment, most +probably from some one of the fair but decorous frailties of London. +Lord Lilburne’s more recent conquests were said to be among those of his +own rank; suburbs are useful for such assignations. Any other thought +was too horrible to be contemplated. He glanced to the clock; it was +three in the morning. He would go to H---- early, even before he sought +out Mr. William Smith. With that resolution, and even his hardy frame +worn out by the excitement of the day, he threw himself on his bed and +fell asleep. + +He did not wake till near nine, and had just dressed, and hurried over +his abstemious breakfast, when the servant of the house came to tell him +that an old woman, apparently in great agitation, wished to see him. +His head was still full of witnesses and lawsuits; and he was vaguely +expecting some visitor connected with his primary objects, when Sarah +broke into the room. She cast a hurried, suspicious look round her, and +then throwing herself on her knees to him, “Oh!” she cried, “if you have +taken that poor young thing away, God forgive you. Let her come back +again. It shall be all hushed up. Don’t ruin her! don’t, that’s a dear +good gentleman!” + +“Speak plainly, woman--what do you mean?” cried Philip, turning pale. + +A very few words sufficed for an explanation: Fanny’s disappearance the +previous night; the alarm of Sarah at her non-return; the apathy of old +Simon, who did not comprehend what had happened, and quietly went to +bed; the search Sarah had made during half the night; the intelligence +she had picked up, that the policeman, going his rounds, had heard a +female shriek near the school; but that all he could perceive through +the mist was a carriage driving rapidly past him; Sarah’s suspicions +of Vaudemont confirmed in the morning, when, entering Fanny’s room, she +perceived the poor girl’s unfinished letter with his own, the clue to +his address that the letter gave her; all this, ere she well understood +what she herself was talking about,--Vaudemont’s alarm seized, and the +reflection of a moment construed: the carriage; Lilburne seen lurking in +the neighbourhood the previous day; the former attempt;--all flashed on +him with an intolerable glare. While Sarah was yet speaking, he rushed +from the house, he flew to Lord Lilburne’s in Park Lane; he composed his +manner, he inquired calmly. His lordship had slept from home; he was, +they believed, at Fernside: Fernside! H---- was on the direct way to +that villa. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed since he heard the story +ere he was on the road, with such speed as the promise of a guinea a +mile could extract from the spurs of a young post-boy applied to the +flanks of London post-horses. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + + “Ex humili magna ad fastigia rerum + Extollit.”--JUVENAL. + + [Fortune raises men from low estate to the very + summit of prosperity.] + +When Harriet had quitted Fanny, the waiting-woman, craftily wishing to +lure her into Lilburne’s presence, had told her that the room below +was empty; and the captive’s mind naturally and instantly seized on the +thought of escape. After a brief breathing pause, she crept noiselessly +down the stairs, and gently opened the door; and at the very instant she +did so, Robert Beaufort entered from the other door; she drew back in +terror, when, what was her astonishment in hearing a name uttered that +spell-bound her--the last name she could have expected to hear; for +Lilburne, the instant he saw Beaufort, pale, haggard, agitated, rush +into the room, and bang the door after him, could only suppose that +something of extraordinary moment had occurred with regard to the +dreaded guest, and cried: + +“You come about Vaudemont! Something has happened about Vaudemont! about +Philip! What is it? Calm yourself.” + +Fanny, as the name was thus abruptly uttered, actually thrust her +face through the door; but she again drew back, and, all her senses +preternaturally quickened at that name, while she held the door almost +closed, listened with her whole soul in her ears. + +The faces of both the men were turned from her, and her partial entry +had not been perceived. + +“Yes,” said Robert Beaufort, leaning his weight, as if ready to sink to +the ground, upon Lilburne’s shoulder, “Yes; Vaudemont, or Philip, for +they are one,--yes, it is about that man I have come to consult you. +Arthur has arrived.” + +“Well?” + +“And Arthur has seen the wretch who visited us, and the rascal’s manner +has so imposed on him, so convinced him that Philip is the heir to all +our property, that he has come over-ill, ill--I fear” (added Beaufort, +in a hollow voice), “dying, to--to--” + +“To guard against their machinations?” + +“No, no, no--to say that if such be the case, neither honour nor +conscience will allow us to resist his rights. He is so obstinate in +this matter; his nerves so ill bear reasoning and contradiction, that I +know not what to do--” + +“Take breath--go on.” + +“Well, it seems that this man found out Arthur almost as soon as my son +arrived at Paris--that he has persuaded Arthur that he has it in his +power to prove the marriage--that he pretended to be very impatient +for a decision--that Arthur, in order to gain time to see me, affected +irresolution--took him to Boulogne, for the rascal does not dare to +return to England--left him there; and now comes back, my own son, as +my worst enemy, to conspire against me for my property! I could not +have kept my temper if I had stayed. But that’s not all--that’s not the +worst: Vaudemont left me suddenly in the morning on the receipt of a +letter. In taking leave of Camilla he let fall hints which fill me with +fear. Well, I inquired his movements as I came along; he had stopped +at D----, had been closeted for above an hour with a man whose name the +landlord of the inn knew, for it was on his carpet-bag--the name was +Barlow. You remember the advertisements! Good Heavens! what is to be +done? I would not do anything unhandsome or dishonest. But there never +was a marriage. I never will believe there was a marriage--never!” + +“There was a marriage, Robert Beaufort,” said Lord Lilburne, almost +enjoying the torture he was about to inflict; “and I hold here a paper +that Philip Vaudemont--for so we will yet call him--would give his right +hand to clutch for a moment. I have but just found it in a secret cavity +in that bureau. Robert, on this paper may depend the fate, the fortune, +the prosperity, the greatness of Philip Vaudemont;--or his poverty, his +exile, his ruin. See!” + +Robert Beaufort glanced over the paper held out to him--dropped it +on the floor--and staggered to a seat. Lilburne coolly replaced the +document in the bureau, and, limping to his brother-in-law, said with a +smile,-- + +“But the paper is in my possession--I will not destroy it. No; I have no +right to destroy it. Besides, it would be a crime; but if I give it to +you, you can do with it as you please.” + +“O Lilburne, spare me--spare me. I meant to be an honest man. I--I--” + And Robert Beaufort sobbed. Lilburne looked at him in scornful surprise. + +“Do not fear that I shall ever think worse of you; and who else will +know it? Do not fear me. No;--I, too, have reasons to hate and to +fear this Philip Vaudemont; for Vaudemont shall be his name, and not +Beaufort, in spite of fifty such scraps of paper! He has known a man--my +worst foe--he has secrets of mine--of my past--perhaps of my present: +but I laugh at his knowledge while he is a wandering adventurer;--I +should tremble at that knowledge if he could thunder it out to the world +as Philip Beaufort of Beaufort Court! There, I am candid with you. Now +hear my plan. Prove to Arthur that his visitor is a convicted felon, by +sending the officers of justice after him instantly--off with him again +to the Settlements. Defy a single witness--entrap Vaudemont back to +France and prove him (I think I will prove him such--I think so--with +a little money and a little pains)--prove him the accomplice of William +Gawtrey, a coiner and a murderer! Pshaw! take yon paper. Do with it as +you will--keep it--give it to Arthur--let Philip Vaudemont have it, and +Philip Vaudemont will be rich and great, the happiest man between earth +and paradise! On the other hand, come and tell me that you have lost +it, or that I never gave you such a paper, or that no such paper ever +existed; and Philip Vaudemont may live a pauper, and die, perhaps, a +slave at the galleys! Lose it, I say,--lose it,--and advise with me upon +the rest.” + +Horror-struck, bewildered, the weak man gazed upon the calm face of the +Master-villain, as the scholar of the old fables might have gazed on +the fiend who put before him worldly prosperity here and the loss of +his soul hereafter. He had never hitherto regarded Lilburne in his true +light. He was appalled by the black heart that lay bare before him. + +“I can’t destroy it--I can’t,” he faltered out; “and if I did, out of +love for Arthur,--don’t talk of galleys,--of vengeance--I--I--” + +“The arrears of the rents you have enjoyed will send you to gaol for +your life. No, no; don’t destroy the paper.” + +Beaufort rose with a desperate effort; he moved to the bureau. Fanny’s +heart was on her lips;--of this long conference she had understood only +the one broad point on which Lilburne had insisted with an emphasis that +could have enlightened an infant; and he looked on Beaufort as an infant +then--On that paper rested Philip Vaudemont’s fate--happiness if saved, +ruin if destroyed; Philip--her Philip! And Philip himself had said to +her once--when had she ever forgotten his words? and now how those words +flashed across her--Philip himself had said to her once, “Upon a scrap +of paper, if I could but find it, may depend my whole fortune, my whole +happiness, all that I care for in life.”--Robert Beaufort moved to the +bureau--he seized the document--he looked over it again, hurriedly, and +ere Lilburne, who by no means wished to have it destroyed in his own +presence, was aware of his intention--he hastened with tottering steps +to the hearth-averted his eyes, and cast it on the fire. At that instant +something white--he scarce knew what, it seemed to him as a spirit, as a +ghost--darted by him, and snatched the paper, as yet uninjured, from +the embers! There was a pause for the hundredth part of a moment:--a +gurgling sound of astonishment and horror from Beaufort--an exclamation +from Lilburne--a laugh from Fanny, as, her eyes flashing light, with a +proud dilation of stature, with the paper clasped tightly to her bosom, +she turned her looks of triumph from one to the other. The two men +were both too amazed, at the instant, for rapid measures. But Lilburne, +recovering himself first, hastened to her; she eluded his grasp--she +made towards the door to the passage; when Lilburne, seriously alarmed, +seized her arm;-- + +“Foolish child!--give me that paper!” + +“Never but with my life!” And Fanny’s cry for help rang through the +house. + +“Then--” the speech died on his lips, for at that instant a rapid stride +was heard without--a momentary scuffle--voices in altercation;--the +door gave way as if a battering ram had forced it;--not so much thrown +forward as actually hurled into the room, the body of Dykeman fell +heavily, like a dead man’s, at the very feet of Lord Lilburne--and +Philip Vaudemont stood in the doorway! + +The grasp of Lilburne on Fanny’s arm relaxed, and the girl, with +one bound, sprung to Philip’s breast. “Here, here!” she cried, “take +it--take it!” and she thrust the paper into his hand. “Don’t let them +have it--read it--see it--never mind me!” But Philip, though his hand +unconsciously closed on the precious document, did mind Fanny; and in +that moment her cause was the only one in the world to him. + +“Foul villain!” he said, as he strode to Lilburne, while Fanny still +clung to his breast: “Speak!--speak!--is--she--is she?--man--man, +speak!--you know what I would say!--She is the child of your own +daughter--the grandchild of that Mary whom you dishonoured--the child +of the woman whom William Gawtrey saved from pollution! Before he died, +Gawtrey commended her to my care!--O God of Heaven!--speak!--I am not +too late!” + +The manner, the words, the face of Philip left Lilburne terror-stricken +with conviction. But the man’s crafty ability, debased as it was, +triumphed even over remorse for the dread guilt meditated,--over +gratitude for the dread guilt spared. He glanced at Beaufort--at +Dykeman, who now, slowly recovering, gazed at him with eyes that +seemed starting from their sockets; and lastly fixed his look on Philip +himself. There were three witnesses--presence of mind was his great +attribute. + +“And if, Monsieur de Vaudemont, I knew, or, at least, had the firmest +persuasion that Fanny was my grandchild, what then? Why else should she +be here?--Pooh, sir! I am an old man.” + +Philip recoiled a step in wonder; his plain sense was baffled by the +calm lie. He looked down at Fanny, who, comprehending nothing of what +was spoken, for all her faculties, even her very sense of sight and +hearing, were absorbed in her impatient anxiety for him, cried out: + +“No harm has come to Fanny--none: only frightened. Read!--Read!--Save +that paper!--You know what you once said about a mere scrap of paper! +Come away! Come!” + +He did now cast his eyes on the paper he held. That was an awful moment +for Robert Beaufort--even for Lilburne! To snatch the fatal document +from that gripe! They would as soon have snatched it from a tiger! He +lifted his eyes--they rested on his mother’s picture! Her lips smiled on +him! He turned to Beaufort in a state of emotion too exulting, too blest +for vulgar vengeance--for vulgar triumph--almost for words. + +“Look yonder, Robert Beaufort--look!” and he pointed to the picture. +“Her name is spotless! I stand again beneath a roof that was my +father’s,--the Heir of Beaufort! We shall meet before the justice of our +country. For you, Lord Lilburne, I will believe you: it is too horrible +to doubt even your intentions. If wrong had chanced to her, I would have +rent you where you stand, limb from limb. And thank her”,--(for Lilburne +recovered at this language the daring of his youth, before calculation, +indolence, and excess had dulled the edge of his nerves; and, unawed by +the height, and manhood, and strength of his menacer, stalked haughtily +up to him)--“and thank your relationship to her,” said Philip, sinking +his voice into a whisper, “that I do not brand you as a pilferer and a +cheat! Hush, knave!--hush, pupil of George Gawtrey!--there are no duels +for me but with men of honour!” + +Lilburne now turned white, and the big word stuck in his throat. In +another instant Fanny and her guardian had quitted the house. + +“Dykeman,” said Lord Lilburne after a long silence, “I shall ask you +another time how you came to admit that impertinent person. At present, +go and order breakfast for Mr. Beaufort.” + +As soon as Dykeman, more astounded, perhaps, by his lord’s coolness than +even by the preceding circumstances, had left the study, Lilburne came +up to Beaufort,--who seemed absolutely stricken as if by palsy,--and +touching him impatiently and rudely, said,-- + +“‘Sdeath, man!--rouse yourself! There is not a moment to be lost! I have +already decided on what you are to do. This paper is not worth a rush, +unless the curate who examined it will depose to that fact. He is a +curate--a Welsh curate;--you are yet Mr. Beaufort, a rich and a great +man. The curate, properly managed, may depose to the contrary; and then +we will indict them all for forgery and conspiracy. At the worst, you +can, no doubt, get the parson to forget all about it--to stay away. His +address was on the certificate: + +“--C-----. Go yourself into Wales without an instant’s delay-- Then, +having arranged with Mr. Jones, hurry back, cross to Boulogne, and buy +this convict and his witnesses, buy them! That, now, is the only thing. +Quick! quick!--quick! Zounds, man! if it were my affair, my estate, I +would not care a pin for that fragment of paper; I should rather rejoice +at it. I see how it could be turned against them! Go!” + +“No, no; I am not equal to it! Will you manage it? will you? Half my +estate!--all! Take it: but save--” + +“Tut!” interrupted Lord Lilburne, in great disdain. “I am as rich as I +want to be. Money does not bribe me. I manage this! I! Lord Lilburne. I! +Why, if found out, it is subornation of witnesses. It is exposure--it is +dishonour--it is ruin. What then? You should take the risk--for you must +meet ruin if you do not. I cannot. I have nothing to gain!” + +“I dare not!--I dare not!” murmured Beaufort, quite spirit-broken. +“Subornation, dishonour, exposure!--and I, so respectable--my +character!--and my son against me, too!--my son, in whom I lived again! +No, no; let them take all! Let them take it! Ha! ha! let them take it! +Good-day to you.” + +“Where are you going?” + +“I shall consult Mr. Blackwell, and I’ll let you know.” And Beaufort +walked tremulously back to his carriage. “Go to his lawyer!” growled +Lilburne. “Yes, if his lawyer can help him to defraud men lawfully, +he’ll defraud them fast enough. That will be the respectable way of +doing it! Um!--This may be an ugly business for me--the paper found +here--if the girl can depose to what she heard, and she must have heard +something.--No, I think the laws of real property will hardly allow her +evidence; and if they do--Um!--My granddaughter--is it possible!--And +Gawtrey rescued her mother, my child, from her own mother’s vices! I +thought my liking to that girl different from any other I have ever +felt: it was pure--it was!--it was pity--affection. And I must never see +her again--must forget the whole thing! And I am growing old--and I +am childless--and alone!” He paused, almost with a groan: and then +the expression of his face changing to rage, he cried out, “The man +threatened me, and I was a coward! What to do?--Nothing! The defensive +is my line. I shall play no more.--I attack no one. Who will accuse Lord +Lilburne? Still, Robert is a fool. I must not leave him to himself. Ho! +there! Dykeman!--the carriage! I shall go to London.” + +Fortunate, no doubt, it was for Philip that Mr. Beaufort was not +Lord Lilburne. For all history teaches us--public and private +history--conquerors--statesmen--sharp hypocrites and brave +designers--yes, they all teach us how mighty one man of great intellect +and no scruple is against the justice of millions! The One Man +moves--the Mass is inert. Justice sits on a throne. Roguery never +rests,--Activity is the lever of Archimedes. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + + “Quam inulta injusta ac prava fiunt moribus.”--TULL. + + [How many unjust and vicious actions are perpetrated + under the name of morals.] + + “Volat ambiguis + Mobilis alis Hera.”--SENECA. + + [The hour flies moving with doubtful wings.] + +Mr. Robert Beaufort sought Mr. Blackwell, and long, rambling, and +disjointed was his narrative. Mr. Blackwell, after some consideration, +proposed to set about doing the very things that Lilburne had proposed +at once to do. But the lawyer expressed himself legally and covertly, so +that it did not seem to the sober sense of Mr. Beaufort at all the +same plan. He was not the least alarmed at what Mr. Blackwell proposed, +though so shocked at what Lilburne dictated. Blackwell would go the next +day into Wales--he would find out Mr. Jones--he would sound him! Nothing +was more common with people of the nicest honour, than just to get a +witness out of the way! Done in election petitions, for instance, every +day. + +“True,” said Mr. Beaufort, much relieved. + +Then, after having done that, Mr. Blackwell would return to town, and +cross over to Boulogne to see this very impudent person whom Arthur +(young men were so apt to be taken in!) had actually believed. He had +no doubt he could settle it all. Robert Beaufort returned to Berkeley +Square actually in spirits. There he found Lilburne, who, on reflection, +seeing that Blackwell was at all events more up to the business than his +brother, assented to the propriety of the arrangement. + +Mr. Blackwell accordingly did set off the next day. That next day, +perhaps, made all the difference. Within two hours from his gaining the +document so important, Philip, without any subtler exertion of intellect +than the decision of a plain, bold sense, had already forestalled both +the peer and the lawyer. He had sent down Mr. Barlow’s head clerk to his +master in Wales with the document, and a short account of the manner +in which it had been discovered. And fortunate, indeed, was it that the +copy had been found; for all the inquiries of Mr. Barlow at A---- +had failed, and probably would have failed, without such a clue, in +fastening upon any one probable person to have officiated as Caleb +Price’s amanuensis. The sixteen hours’ start Mr. Barlow gained over +Blackwell enabled the former to see Mr. Jones--to show him his own +handwriting--to get a written and witnessed attestation from which the +curate, however poor, and however tempted, could never well have +escaped (even had he been dishonest, which he was not), of his perfect +recollection of the fact of making an extract from the registry at +Caleb’s desire, though he owned he had quite forgotten the names he +extracted till they were again placed before him. Barlow took care to +arouse Mr. Jones’s interest in the case--quitted Wales--hastened over to +Boulogne--saw Captain Smith, and without bribes, without threats, but +by plainly proving to that worthy person that he could not return to +England nor see his brother without being immediately arrested; that his +brother’s evidence was already pledged on the side of truth; and that by +the acquisition of new testimony there could be no doubt that the +suit would be successful--he diverted the captain from all disposition +towards perfidy, convinced him on which side his interest lay, and saw +him return to Paris, where very shortly afterwards he disappeared for +ever from this world, being forced into a duel, much against his will +(with a Frenchman whom he had attempted to defraud), and shot through +the lungs. Thus verifying a favourite maxim of Lord Lilburne’s, viz. +that it does not do, in the long run, for little men to play the Great +Game! + +On the same day that Blackwell returned, frustrated in his half-and-half +attempts to corrupt Mr. Jones, and not having been able even to discover +Mr. Smith, Mr. Robert Beaufort received a notice of an Action for +Ejectment to be brought by Philip Beaufort at the next Assizes. And, +to add to his afflictions, Arthur, whom he had hitherto endeavoured to +amuse by a sort of ambiguous shilly-shally correspondence, became so +alarmingly worse, that his mother brought him up to town for advice. +Lord Lilburne was, of course, sent for; and on learning all, his counsel +was prompt. + +“I told you before that this man loves your daughter. See if you can +effect a compromise. The lawsuit will be ugly, and probably ruinous. He +has a right to claim six years’ arrears--that is above L100,000. Make +yourself his father-in-law, and me his uncle-in-law; and, since we can’t +kill the wasp, we may at least soften the venom of his sting.” + +Beaufort, still perplexed, irresolute, sought his son; and, for the +first time, spoke to him frankly--that is, frankly for Robert Beaufort! +He owned that the copy of the register had been found by Lilburne in a +secret drawer. He made the best of the story Lilburne himself furnished +him with (adhering, of course, to the assertion uttered or insinuated +to Philip) in regard to Fanny’s abduction and interposition; he said +nothing of his attempt to destroy the paper. Why should he? By admitting +the copy in court--if so advised--he could get rid of Fanny’s evidence +altogether; even without such concession, her evidence might possibly +be objected to or eluded. He confessed that he feared the witness who +copied the register and the witness to the marriage were alive. And then +he talked pathetically of his desire to do what was right, his dread of +slander and misinterpretation. He said nothing of Sidney, and his belief +that Sidney and Charles Spencer were the same; because, if his daughter +were to be the instrument for effecting a compromise, it was clear that +her engagement with Spencer must be cancelled and concealed. And luckily +Arthur’s illness and Camilla’s timidity, joined now to her father’s +injunctions not to excite Arthur in his present state with any +additional causes of anxiety, prevented the confidence that might +otherwise have ensued between the brother and sister. And Camilla, +indeed, had no heart for such a conference. How, when she looked on +Arthur’s glassy eye, and listened to his hectic cough, could she talk +to him of love and marriage? As to the automaton, Mrs. Beaufort, Robert +made sure of her discretion. + +Arthur listened attentively to his father’s communication; and the +result of that interview was the following letter from Arthur to his +cousin: + +“I write to you without fear of misconstruction; for I write to you +unknown to all my family, and I am the only one of them who can have no +personal interest in the struggle about to take place between my father +and yourself. Before the law can decide between you, I shall be in my +grave. I write this from the Bed of Death. Philip, I write this--I, who +stood beside a deathbed more sacred to you than mine--I, who received +your mother’s last sigh. And with that sigh there was a smile that +lasted when the sigh was gone: for I promised to befriend her children. +Heaven knows how anxiously I sought to fulfil that solemn vow! Feeble +and sick myself, I followed you and your brother with no aim, no prayer, +but this,--to embrace you and say, ‘Accept a new brother in me.’ I spare +you the humiliation, for it is yours, not mine, of recalling what passed +between us when at last we met. Yet, I still sought to save, at least, +Sidney,--more especially confided to my care by his dying mother. He +mysteriously eluded our search; but we had reason, by a letter received +from some unknown hand, to believe him saved and provided for. Again I +met you at Paris. I saw you were poor. Judging from your associate, I +might with justice think you depraved. Mindful of your declaration +never to accept bounty from a Beaufort, and remembering with natural +resentment the outrage I had before received from you, I judged it vain +to seek and remonstrate with you, but I did not judge it vain to aid. I +sent you, anonymously, what at least would suffice, if absolute poverty +had subjected you to evil courses, to rescue you from them it your +heart were so disposed. Perhaps that sum, trifling as it was, may have +smoothed your path and assisted your career. And why tell you all this +now? To dissuade from asserting rights you conceive to be just?--Heaven +forbid! If justice is with you, so also is the duty due to your mother’s +name. But simply for this: that in asserting such rights, you content +yourself with justice, not revenge--that in righting yourself, you do +not wrong others. If the law should decide for you, the arrears you +could demand would leave my father and sister beggars. This may be +law--it would not be justice; for my father solemnly believed himself, +and had every apparent probability in his favour, the true heir of +the wealth that devolved upon him. This is not all. There may be +circumstances connected with the discovery of a certain document that, +if authentic, and I do not presume to question it, may decide the +contest so far as it rests on truth; circumstances which might seem +to bear hard upon my father’s good name and faith. I do not know +sufficiently of law to say how far these could be publicly urged, or, if +urged, exaggerated and tortured by an advocate’s calumnious ingenuity. +But again, I say justice, and not revenge! And with this I conclude, +inclosing to you these lines, written in your own hand, and leaving you +the arbiter of their value. + + + “ARTHUR BEAUFORT.” + +The lines inclosed were these, a second time placed before the reader + + + “I cannot guess who you are. They say that you call yourself a + relation; that must be some mistake. I knew not that my poor mother + had relations so kind. But, whoever you be, you soothed her last + hours--she died in your arms; and if ever-years, long years, hence-- + we should chance to meet, and I can do anything to aid another, my + blood, and my life, and my heart, and my soul, all are slaves to + your will! If you be really of her kindred I commend to you my + brother; he is at ---- with Mr. Morton. If you can serve him, my + mother’s soul will watch over you as a guardian angel. As for me, I + ask no help from any one; I go into the world, and will carve out my + own way. So much do I shrink from the thought of charity from + others, that I do not believe I could bless you as I do now, if your + kindness to me did not close with the stone upon my mother’s grave. + + PHILIP.” + +This letter was sent to the only address of Monsieur de Vaudemont which +the Beauforts knew, viz., his apartments in town, and he did not receive +it the day it was sent. + +Meanwhile Arthur Beaufort’s malady continued to gain ground rapidly. +His father, absorbed in his own more selfish fears (though, at the first +sight of Arthur, overcome by the alteration of his appearance), had +ceased to consider his illness fatal. In fact, his affection for Arthur +was rather one of pride than love: long absence had weakened the ties +of early custom. He prized him as an heir rather than treasured him as +a son. It almost seemed that as the Heritage was in danger, so the Heir +became less dear: this was only because he was less thought of. Poor +Mrs. Beaufort, yet but partially acquainted with the terrors of her +husband, still clung to hope for Arthur. Her affection for him brought +out from the depths of her cold and insignificant character qualities +that had never before been apparent. She watched--she nursed--she tended +him. The fine lady was gone; nothing but the mother was left behind. + +With a delicate constitution, and with an easy temper, which yielded to +the influence of companions inferior to himself, except in bodily vigour +and more sturdy will, Arthur Beaufort had been ruined by prosperity. +His talents and acquirements, if not first-rate, at least far above +mediocrity, had only served to refine his tastes, not to strengthen his +mind. His amiable impulses, his charming disposition and sweet temper, +had only served to make him the dupe of the parasites that feasted on +the lavish heir. His heart, frittered away in the usual round of light +intrigues and hollow pleasures, had become too sated and exhausted for +the redeeming blessings of a deep and a noble love. He had so lived for +Pleasure that he had never known Happiness. His frame broke by excesses +in which his better nature never took delight, he came home--to hear of +ruin and to die! + +It was evening in the sick-room. Arthur had risen from the bed to which, +for some days, he had voluntarily taken, and was stretched on the sofa +before the fire. Camilla was leaning over him, keeping in the shade, +that he might not see the tears which she could not suppress. His mother +had been endeavouring to amuse him, as she would have amused herself, by +reading aloud one of the light novels of the hour; novels that paint the +life of the higher classes as one gorgeous holyday. + +“My dear mother,” said the patient querulously, “I have no interest +in these false descriptions of the life I have led. I know that life’s +worth. Ah! had I been trained to some employment, some profession! had +I--well--it is weak to repine. Mother, tell me, you have seen Mons. de +Vaudemont: is he strong and healthy?” + +“Yes; too much so. He has not your elegance, dear Arthur.” + +“And do you admire him, Camilla? Has no other caught your heart or your +fancy?” + +“My dear Arthur,” interrupted Mrs. Beaufort, “you forget that Camilla +is scarcely out; and of course a young girl’s affections, if she’s well +brought up, are regulated by the experience of her parents. It is time +to take the medicine: it certainly agrees with you; you have more colour +to-day, my dear, dear son.” + +While Mrs. Beaufort was pouring out the medicine, the door gently +opened, and Mr. Robert Beaufort appeared; behind him there rose a taller +and a statelier form, but one which seemed more bent, more humbled, +more agitated. Beaufort advanced. Camilla looked up and turned pale. The +visitor escaped from Mr. Beaufort’s grasp on his arm; he came forward, +trembling, he fell on his knees beside Arthur, and seizing his hand, +bent over, it in silence. But silence so stormy! silence more impressive +than all words his breast heaved, his whole frame shook. Arthur guessed +at once whom he saw, and bent down gently as if to raise his visitor. + +“Oh! Arthur! Arthur!” then cried Philip; “forgive me! My mother’s +comforter--my cousin--my brother! Oh! brother, forgive me!” + +And as he half rose, Arthur stretched out his arms, and Philip clasped +him to his breast. + +It is in vain to describe the different feelings that agitated those who +beheld; the selfish congratulations of Robert, mingled with a better and +purer feeling; the stupor of the mother; the emotions that she herself +could not unravel, which rooted Camilla to the spot. + +“You own me, then,--you own me!” cried Philip. “You accept the +brotherhood that my mad passions once rejected! And you, too--you, +Camilla--you who once knelt by my side, under this very roof--do you +remember me now? Oh, Arthur! that letter--that letter!--yes, indeed, +that aid which I ascribed to any one--rather than to you--made the date +of a fairer fortune. I may have owed to that aid the very fate that has +preserved me till now; the very name which I have not discredited. No, +no; do not think you can ask me a favour; you can but claim your due. +Brother! my dear brother!” + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + + “Warwick.--Exceeding well! his cares are now all over.” + --Henry IV. + +The excitement of this interview soon overpowering Arthur, Philip, +in quitting the room with Mr. Beaufort, asked a conference with that +gentleman; and they went into the very parlour from which the rich man +had once threatened to expel the haggard suppliant. Philip glanced round +the room, and the whole scene came again before him. After a pause, he +thus began,-- + +“Mr. Beaufort, let the Past be forgotten. We may have need of mutual +forgiveness, and I, who have so wronged your noble son, am willing +to suppose that I misjudged you. I cannot, it is true, forego this +lawsuit.” + +Mr. Beaufort’s face fell. + +“I have no right to do so. I am the trustee of my father’s honour and my +mother’s name: I must vindicate both: I cannot forego this lawsuit. But +when I once bowed myself to enter your house--then only with a hope, +where now I have the certainty of obtaining my heritage--it was with the +resolve to bury in oblivion every sentiment that would transgress the +most temperate justice. Now, I will do more. If the law decide against +me, we are as we were; if with me--listen: I will leave you the lands +of Beaufort, for your life and your son’s. I ask but for me and for mine +such a deduction from your wealth as will enable me, should my brother +be yet living, to provide for him; and (if you approve the choice, which +out of all earth I would desire to make) to give whatever belongs to +more refined or graceful existence than I myself care for,--to her whom +I would call my wife. Robert Beaufort, in this room I once asked you +to restore to me the only being I then loved: I am now again your +suppliant; and this time you have it in your power to grant my prayer. +Let Arthur be, in truth, my brother: give me, if I prove myself, as I +feel assured, entitled to hold the name my father bore, give me your +daughter as my wife; give me Camilla, and I will not envy you the lands +I am willing for myself to resign; and if they pass to any children, +those children will be your daughter’s!” + +The first impulse of Mr. Beaufort was to grasp the hand held out to +him; to pour forth an incoherent torrent of praise and protestation, +of assurances that he could not hear of such generosity, that what was +right was right, that he should be proud of such a son-in-law, and much +more in the same key. And in the midst of this, it suddenly occurred to +Mr. Beaufort, that if Philip’s case were really as good as he said it +was, he could not talk so coolly of resigning the property it would +secure him for the term of a life (Mr. Beaufort thought of his own) so +uncommonly good, to say nothing of Arthur’s. At this notion, he thought +it best not to commit himself too far; drew in as artfully as he could, +until he could consult Lord Lilburne and his lawyer; and recollecting +also that he had a great deal to manage with respect to Camilla and her +prior attachment, he began to talk of his distress for Arthur, of the +necessity of waiting a little before Camilla was spoken to, while so +agitated about her brother, of the exceedingly strong case which his +lawyer advised him he possessed--not but what he would rather rest the +matter on justice than law--and that if the law should be with him, +he would not the less (provided he did not force his daughter’s +inclinations, of which, indeed, he had no fear) be most happy to bestow +her hand on his brother’s nephew, with such a portion as would be most +handsome to all parties. + +It often happens to us in this world, that when we come with our heart +in our hands to some person or other,--when we pour out some generous +burst of feeling so enthusiastic and self-sacrificing, that a bystander +would call us fool and Quixote;--it often, I say, happens to us, to find +our warm self suddenly thrown back upon our cold self; to discover that +we are utterly uncomprehended, and that the swine who would have munched +up the acorn does not know what to make of the pearl. That sudden ice +which then freezes over us, that supreme disgust and despair almost +of the whole world, which for the moment we confound with the one +worldling--they who have felt, may reasonably ascribe to Philip. He +listened to Mr. Beaufort in utter and contemptuous silence, and then +replied only,-- + +“Sir, at all events this is a question for law to decide. If it decide +as you think, it is for you to act; if as I think, it is for me. Till +then I will speak to you no more of your daughter, or my intentions. +Meanwhile, all I ask is the liberty to visit your son. I would not be +banished from his sick-room!” + +“My dear nephew!” cried Mr. Beaufort, again alarmed, “consider this +house as your home.” + +Philip bowed and retreated to the door, followed obsequiously by his +uncle. + +It chanced that both Lord Lilburne and Mr. Blackwell were of the same +mind as to the course advisable for Mr. Beaufort now to pursue. Lord +Lilburne was not only anxious to exchange a hostile litigation for +an amicable lawsuit, but he was really eager to put the seal of +relationship upon any secret with regard to himself that a man who might +inherit L20,000. a year--a dead shot, and a bold tongue--might think +fit to disclose. This made him more earnest than he otherwise might have +been in advice as to other people’s affairs. He spoke to Beaufort as a +man of the world--to Blackwell as a lawyer. + +“Pin the man down to his generosity,” said Lilburne, “before he gets +the property. Possession makes a great change in a man’s value of money. +After all, you can’t enjoy the property when you’re dead: he gives it +next to Arthur, who is not married; and if anything happen to Arthur, +poor fellow, why, in devolving on your daughter’s husband and children, +it goes in the right line. Pin him down at once: get credit with the +world for the most noble and disinterested conduct, by letting your +counsel state that the instant you discovered the lost document you +wished to throw no obstacle in the way of proving the marriage, and that +the only thing to consider is, if the marriage be proved; if so, you +will be the first to rejoice, &c. &c. You know all that sort of humbug +as well as any man!” + +Mr. Blackwell suggested the same advice, though in different +words--after taking the opinions of three eminent members of the bar; +those opinions, indeed, were not all alike--one was adverse to Mr. +Robert Beaufort’s chance of success, one was doubtful of it, the +third maintained that he had nothing to fear from the action--except, +possibly, the ill-natured construction of the world. Mr. Robert Beaufort +disliked the idea of the world’s ill-nature, almost as much as he +did that of losing his property. And when even this last and more +encouraging authority, learning privately from Mr. Blackwell that +Arthur’s illness was of a nature to terminate fatally, observed, “that a +compromise with a claimant, who was at all events Mr. Beaufort’s nephew, +by which Mr. Beaufort could secure the enjoyment of the estates to +himself for life, and to his son for life also, should not (whatever +his probabilities of legal success) be hastily rejected--unless he had +a peculiar affection for a very distant relation--who, failing Mr. +Beaufort’s male issue and Philip’s claim, would be heir-at-law, but +whose rights would cease if Arthur liked to cut off the entail.” + +Mr. Beaufort at once decided. He had a personal dislike to that distant +heir-at-law; he had a strong desire to retain the esteem of the world; +he had an innate conviction of the justice of Philip’s claim; he had a +remorseful recollection of his brother’s generous kindness to himself; +he preferred to have for his heir, in case of Arthur’s decease, a nephew +who would marry his daughter, than a remote kinsman. And should, after +all, the lawsuit fail to prove Philip’s right, he was not sorry to have +the estate in his own power by Arthur’s act in cutting off the entail. +Brief; all these reasons decided him. He saw Philip--he spoke to +Arthur--and all the preliminaries, as suggested above, were arranged +between the parties. The entail was cut off, and Arthur secretly +prevailed upon his father, to whom, for the present, the fee-simple thus +belonged, to make a will, by which he bequeathed the estates to Philip, +without reference to the question of his legitimacy. Mr. Beaufort felt +his conscience greatly eased after this action--which, too, he could +always retract if he pleased; and henceforth the lawsuit became but a +matter of form, so far as the property it involved was concerned. + +While these negotiations went on, Arthur continued gradually to decline. +Philip was with him always. The sufferer took a strange liking to this +long-dreaded relation, this man of iron frame and thews. In Philip +there was so much of life, that Arthur almost felt as if in his presence +itself there was an antagonism to death. And Camilla saw thus her +cousin, day by day, hour by hour, in that sick chamber, lending himself, +with the gentle tenderness of a woman, to soften the pang, to arouse the +weariness, to cheer the dejection. Philip never spoke to her of love: +in such a scene that had been impossible. She overcame in their mutual +cares the embarrassment she had before felt in his presence; whatever +her other feelings, she could not, at least, but be grateful to one so +tender to her brother. Three letters of Charles Spencer’s had been, in +the afflictions of the house, only answered by a brief line. She now +took the occasion of a momentary and delusive amelioration in Arthur’s +disease to write to him more at length. She was carrying, as usual, the +letter to her mother, when Mr. Beaufort met her, and took the letter +from her hand. He looked embarrassed for a moment, and bade her follow +him into his study. It was then that Camilla learned, for the first +time, distinctly, the claims and rights of her cousin; then she learned +also at what price those rights were to be enforced with the least +possible injury to her father. Mr. Beaufort naturally put the case +before her in the strongest point of the dilemma. He was to be +ruined--utterly ruined; a pauper, a beggar, if Camilla did not save +him. The master of his fate demanded his daughter’s hand. Habitually +subservient to even a whim of her parents, this intelligence, the +entreaty, the command with which it was accompanied, overwhelmed her. +She answered but by tears; and Mr. Beaufort, assured of her submission, +left her, to consider of the tone of the letter he himself should write +to Mr. Spencer. He had sat down to this very task when he was summoned +to Arthur’s room. His son was suddenly taken worse: spasms that +threatened immediate danger convulsed and exhausted him, and when these +were allayed, he continued for three days so feeble that Mr. Beaufort, +his eyes now thoroughly opened to the loss that awaited him, had no +thoughts even for worldly interests. + +On the night of the third day, Philip, Robert Beaufort, his wife, his +daughter, were grouped round the death-bed of Arthur. The sufferer had +just wakened from sleep, and he motioned to Philip to raise him. Mr. +Beaufort started, as by the dim light he saw his son in the arms of +Catherine’s! and another Chamber of Death seemed, shadow-like, to +replace the one before him. Words, long since uttered, knelled in his +ear: “There shall be a death-bed yet beside which you shall see the +spectre of her, now so calm, rising for retribution from the grave!” His +blood froze, his hair stood erect; he cast a hurried, shrinking glance +round the twilight of the darkened room: and with a feeble cry covered +his white face with his trembling hands! But on Arthur’s lips there was +a serene smile; he turned his eyes from Philip to Camilla, and murmured, +“She will repay you!” A pause, and the mother’s shriek rang through the +room! Robert Beaufort raised his face from his hands. His son was dead! + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + + “Jul. And what reward do you propose? + + It must be my love.”--The Double Marriage. + +While these events, dark, hurried, and stormy, had befallen the family +of his betrothed, Sidney Beaufort continued his calm life by the banks +of the lovely lake. After a few weeks, his confidence in Camilla’s +fidelity overbore all his apprehensions and forebodings. Her letters, +though constrained by the inspection to which they were submitted, gave +him inexpressible consolation and delight. He began, however, early to +fancy that there was a change in their tone. The letters seemed to shun +the one subject to which all others were as nought; they turned rather +upon the guests assembled at Beaufort Court; and why I know not,--for +there was nothing in them to authorise jealousy--the brief words devoted +to Monsieur de Vaudemont filled him with uneasy and terrible suspicion. +He gave vent to these feelings, as fully as he dared do, under the +knowledge that his letter would be seen; and Camilla never again even +mentioned the name of Vaudemont. Then there was a long pause; then her +brother’s arrival and illness were announced; then, at intervals, but a +few hurried lines; then a complete, long, dreadful silence, and lastly, +with a deep black border and a solemn black seal, came the following +letter from Mr. Beaufort: + +“MY DEAR SIR,--I have the unutterable grief to announce to you and your +worthy uncle the irreparable loss I have sustained in the death of my +only son. It is a month to day since he departed this life. He died, +sir, as a Christian should die--humbly, penitently--exaggerating the few +faults of his short life, but--(and here the writer’s hypocrisy, +though so natural to him--was it, that he knew not that he was +hypocritical?--fairly gave way before the real and human anguish, for +which there is no dictionary!) but I cannot pursue this theme! + +“Slowly now awakening to the duties yet left me to discharge, I cannot +but be sensible of the material difference in the prospects of my +remaining child. Miss Beaufort is now the heiress to an ancient name and +a large fortune. She subscribes with me to the necessity of consulting +those new considerations which so melancholy an event forces upon her +mind. The little fancy--or liking--(the acquaintance was too short for +more) that might naturally spring up between two amiable young persons +thrown together in the country, must be banished from our thoughts. As a +friend, I shall be always happy to hear of your welfare; and should you +ever think of a profession in which I can serve you, you may command my +utmost interest and exertions. I know, my young friend, what you will +feel at first, and how disposed you will be to call me mercenary and +selfish. Heaven knows if that be really my character! But at your age, +impressions are easily effaced; and any experienced friend of the world +will assure you that, in the altered circumstances of the case, I have +no option. All intercourse and correspondence, of course, cease with +this letter,--until, at least, we may all meet, with no sentiments but +those of friendship and esteem. I desire my compliments to your worthy +uncle, in which Mrs. and Miss Beaufort join; and I am sure you will +be happy to hear that my wife and daughter, though still in great +affliction, have suffered less in health than I could have ventured to +anticipate. + +“Believe me, dear Sir, + +“Yours sincerely, + +“ROBERT BEAUFORT. + +“To C. SPENCER, Esq., Jun.” + +When Sidney received this letter, he was with Mr. Spencer, and the +latter read it over the young man’s shoulder, on which he leant +affectionately. When they came to the concluding words, Sidney turned +round with a vacant look and a hollow smile. “You see, sir,” he said, +“you see---” + +“My boy--my son--you bear this as you ought. Contempt will soon +efface--” + +Sidney started to his feet, and his whole countenance was changed. + +“Contempt--yes, for him! But for her--she knows it not--she is no party +to this--I cannot believe it--I will not! I--I----” and he rushed out +of the room. He was absent till nightfall, and when he returned, he +endeavoured to appear calm--but it was in vain. + +The next day brought him a letter from Camilla, written unknown to +her parents,--short, it is true (confirming the sentence of separation +contained in her father’s), and imploring him not to reply to it,--but +still so full of gentle and of sorrowful feeling, so evidently worded +in the wish to soften the anguish she inflicted, that it did more than +soothe--it even administered hope. + +Now when Mr. Robert Beaufort had recovered the ordinary tone of his mind +sufficiently to indite the letter Sidney had just read, he had become +fully sensible of the necessity of concluding the marriage between +Philip and Camilla before the publicity of the lawsuit. The action for +the ejectment could not take place before the ensuing March or April. He +would waive the ordinary etiquette of time and mourning to arrange all +before. Indeed, he lived in hourly fear lest Philip should discover +that he had a rival in his brother, and break off the marriage, with +its contingent advantages. The first announcement of such a suit in the +newspapers might reach the Spencers; and if the young man were, as he +doubted not, Sidney Beaufort, would necessarily bring him forward, and +ensure the dreaded explanation. Thus apprehensive and ever scheming, +Robert Beaufort spoke to Philip so much, and with such apparent feeling, +of his wish to gratify, at the earliest possible period, the last wish +of his son, in the union now arranged--he spoke, with such seeming +consideration and good sense, of the avoidance of all scandal and +misinterpretation in the suit itself, which suit a previous marriage +between the claimant and his daughter would show at once to be of so +amicable a nature,--that Philip, ardently in love as he was, could not +but assent to any hastening of his expected happiness compatible with +decorum. As to any previous publicity by way of newspaper comment, he +agreed with Mr. Beaufort in deprecating it. But then came the question, +What name was he to bear in the interval? + +“As to that,” said Philip, somewhat proudly, “when, after my mother’s +suit in her own behalf, I persuaded her not to bear the name of +Beaufort, though her due--and for my own part, I prized her own modest +name, which under such dark appearances was in reality spotless--as much +as the loftier one which you bear and my father bore;--so I shall not +resume the name the law denies me till the law restores it to me. Law +alone can efface the wrong which law has done me.” + +Mr. Beaufort was pleased with this reasoning (erroneous though it was), +and he now hoped that all would be safely arranged. + +That a girl so situated as Camilla, and of a character not energetic +or profound, but submissive, dutiful, and timid, should yield to the +arguments of her father, the desire of her dying brother--that she +should not dare to refuse to become the instrument of peace to a divided +family, the saving sacrifice to her father’s endangered fortunes--that, +in fine, when, nearly a month after Arthur’s death, her father, leading +her into the room, where Philip waited her footstep with a beating +heart, placed her hand in his--and Philip falling on his knees said, +“May I hope to retain this hand for life?”--she should falter out such +words as he might construe into not reluctant acquiescence; that all +this should happen is so natural that the reader is already prepared +for it. But still she thought with bitter and remorseful feelings of him +thus deliberately and faithlessly renounced. She felt how deeply he had +loved her--she knew how fearful would be his grief. She looked sad and +thoughtful; but her brother’s death was sufficient in Philip’s eyes to +account for that. The praises and gratitude of her father, to whom she +suddenly seemed to become an object of even greater pride and affection +than ever Arthur had been--the comfort of a generous heart, that takes +pleasure in the very sacrifice it makes--the acquittal of her conscience +as to the motives of her conduct--began, however, to produce their +effect. Nor, as she had lately seen more of Philip, could she be +insensible of his attachment--of his many noble qualities--of the pride +which most women might have felt in his addresses, when his rank was +once made clear; and as she had ever been of a character more regulated +by duty than passion, so one who could have seen what was passing in +her mind would have had little fear for Philip’s future happiness in her +keeping--little fear but that, when once married to him, her affections +would have gone along with her duties; and that if the first love +were yet recalled, it would be with a sigh due rather to some romantic +recollection than some continued regret. Few of either sex are ever +united to their first love; yet married people jog on, and call each +other “my dear” and “my darling” all the same. It might be, it is true, +that Philip would be scarcely loved with the intenseness with which he +loved; but if Camilla’s feelings were capable of corresponding to the +ardent and impassioned ones of that strong and vehement nature--such +feelings were not yet developed in her. The heart of the woman might +still be half concealed in the vale of the virgin innocence. Philip +himself was satisfied--he believed that he was beloved: for it is the +property of love, in a large and noble heart, to reflect itself, and to +see its own image in the eyes on which it looks. As the Poet gives ideal +beauty and excellence to some ordinary child of Eve, worshipping less +the being that is than the being he imagines and conceives--so Love, +which makes us all poets for a while, throws its own divine light over +a heart perhaps really cold; and becomes dazzled into the joy of a false +belief by the very lustre with which it surrounds its object. + +The more, however, Camilla saw of Philip, the more (gradually +overcoming her former mysterious and superstitious awe of him) she grew +familiarised to his peculiar cast of character and thought, so the more +she began to distrust her father’s assertion, that he had insisted on +her hand as a price--a bargain--an equivalent for the sacrifice of a +dire revenge. And with this thought came another. Was she worthy of this +man?--was she not deceiving him? Ought she not to say, at least, that +she had known a previous attachment, however determined she might be +to subdue it? Often the desire for this just and honourable confession +trembled on her lips, and as often was it checked by some chance +circumstance or some maiden fear. Despite their connection, there was +not yet between them that delicious intimacy which ought to accompany +the affiance of two hearts and souls. The gloom of the house; the +restraint on the very language of love imposed by a death so recent +and so deplored, accounted in much for this reserve. And for the +rest, Robert Beaufort prudently left them very few and very brief +opportunities to be alone. + +In the meantime, Philip (now persuaded that the Beauforts were ignorant +of his brother’s fate) had set Mr. Barlow’s activity in search +of Sidney; and his painful anxiety to discover one so dear and so +mysteriously lost was the only cause of uneasiness apparent in the +brightening Future. While these researches, hitherto fruitless, were +being made, it so happened, as London began now to refill, and gossip +began now to revive, that a report got abroad, no one knew how (probably +from the servants) that Monsieur de Vaudemont, a distinguished French +officer, was shortly to lead the daughter and sole heiress of Robert +Beaufort, Esq., M.P., to the hymeneal altar; and that report very +quickly found its way into the London papers: from the London papers +it spread to the provincial--it reached the eyes of Sidney in his now +gloomy and despairing solitude. The day that he read it he disappeared. + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + + “Jul.... Good lady, love him! + You have a noble and an honest gentleman. + I ever found him so. + Love him no less than I have done, and serve him, + And Heaven shall bless you--you shall bless my ashes.” + BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: The Double Marriage. + +We have been too long absent from Fanny; it is time to return to her. +The delight she experienced when Philip made her understand all the +benefits, the blessings, that her courage, nay, her intellect, had +bestowed upon him, the blushing ecstasy with which she heard (as they +returned to H----, the eventful morning of her deliverance, side by +side, her hand clasped in his, and often pressed to his grateful lips) +his praises, his thanks, his fear for her safety, his joy at regaining +her--all this amounted to a bliss, which, till then, she could not have +conceived that life was capable of bestowing. And when he left her at +H----, to hurry to his lawyer’s with the recovered document, it was but +for an hour. He returned, and did not quit her for several days. And in +that time he became sensible of her astonishing, and, to him, it seemed +miraculous, improvement in all that renders Mind the equal to Mind; +miraculous, for he guessed not the Influence that makes miracles its +commonplace. And now he listened attentively to her when she conversed; +he read with her (though reading was never much in his vocation), his +unfastidious ear was charmed with her voice, when it sang those simple +songs; and his manner (impressed alike by gratitude for the signal +service rendered to him, and by the discovery that Fanny was no longer +a child, whether in mind or years), though not less gentle than before, +was less familiar, less superior, more respectful, and more earnest. +It was a change which raised her in her own self-esteem. Ah, those were +rosy days for Fanny! + +A less sagacious judge of character than Lilburne would have formed +doubts perhaps of the nature of Philip’s interest in Fanny. But he +comprehended at once the fraternal interest which a man like Philip +might well take in a creature like Fanny, if commended to his care by a +protector whose doom was so awful as that which had ingulfed the life +of William Gawtrey. Lilburne had some thoughts at first of claiming +her, but as he had no power to compel her residence with him, he did not +wish, on consideration, to come again in contact with Philip upon ground +so full of humbling recollections as that still overshadowed by the +images of Gawtrey and Mary. He contented himself with writing an artful +letter to Simon, stating that from Fanny’s residence with Mr. Gawtrey, +and from her likeness to her mother, whom he had only seen as a child, +he had conjectured the relationship she bore to himself; and having +obtained other evidence of that fact (he did not say what or where), he +had not scrupled to remove her to his roof, meaning to explain all to +Mr. Simon Gawtrey the next day. This letter was accompanied by one from +a lawyer, informing Simon Gawtrey that Lord Lilburne would pay L200. a +year, in quarterly payments, to his order; and that he was requested to +add, that when the young lady he had so benevolently reared came of age, +or married, an adequate provision would be made for her. Simon’s mind +blazed up at this last intelligence, when read to him, though he neither +comprehended nor sought to know why Lord Lilburne should be so generous, +or what that noble person’s letter to himself was intended to convey. +For two days, he seemed restored to vigorous sense; but when he had +once clutched the first payment made in advance, the touch of the money +seemed to numb him back to his lethargy: the excitement of desire died +in the dull sense of possession. + +And just at that time Fanny’s happiness came to a close. Philip received +Arthur Beaufort’s letter; and now ensued long and frequent absences; and +on his return, for about an hour or so at a time, he spoke of sorrow and +death; and the books were closed and the songs silenced. All fear for +Fanny’s safety was, of course, over; all necessity for her work; their +little establishment was increased. She never stirred out without Sarah; +yet she would rather that there had been some danger on her account for +him to guard against, or some trial that his smile might soothe. +His prolonged absences began to prey upon her--the books ceased to +interest--no study filled up the dreary gap--her step grew listless--her +cheek pale--she was sensible at last that his presence had become +necessary to her very life. One day, he came to the house earlier than +usual, and with a much happier and serener expression of countenance +than he had worn of late. + +Simon was dozing in his chair, with his old dog, now scarce vigorous +enough to bark, curled up at his feet. Neither man nor dog was more as +a witness to what was spoken than the leathern chair, or the hearth-rug, +on which they severally reposed. + +There was something which, in actual life, greatly contributed to the +interest of Fanny’s strange lot, but which, in narration, I feel +I cannot make sufficiently clear to the reader. And this was her +connection and residence with that old man. Her character forming, as +his was completely gone; here, the blank becoming filled--there, the +page fading to a blank. It was the utter, total Deathliness-in-Life of +Simon, that, while so impressive to see, renders it impossible to bring +him before the reader in his full force of contrast to the young Psyche. +He seldom spoke--often, not from morning till night; he now seldom +stirred. It is in vain to describe the indescribable: let the reader +draw the picture for himself. And whenever (as I sometimes think he +will, after he has closed this book) he conjures up the idea he attaches +to the name of its heroine, let him see before her, as she glides +through the humble room--as she listens to the voice of him she +loves--as she sits musing by the window, with the church spire just +visible--as day by day the soul brightens and expands within her--still +let the reader see within the same walls, greyhaired, blind, dull to all +feeling, frozen to all life, that stony image of Time and Death! Perhaps +then he may understand why they who beheld the real and living Fanny +blooming under that chill and mass of shadow, felt that her grace, her +simplicity, her charming beauty, were raised by the contrast, till +they grew associated with thoughts and images, mysterious and profound, +belonging not more to the lovely than to the sublime. + +So there sat the old man; and Philip, though aware of his presence, +speaking as if he were alone with Fanny, after touching on more casual +topics, thus addressed her: + +“My true and my dear friend, it is to you that I shall owe, not only my +rights and fortune, but the vindication of my mother’s memory. You have +not only placed flowers upon that gravestone, but it is owing to you, +under Providence, that it will be inscribed at last with the Name which +refutes all calumny. Young and innocent as you now are, my gentle and +beloved benefactress, you cannot as yet know what a blessing it will be +to me to engrave that Name upon that simple stone. Hereafter, when you +yourself are a wife, a mother, you will comprehend the service you have +rendered to the living and the dead!” + +He stopped--struggling with the rush of emotions that overflowed his +heart. Alas, THE DEAD! what service can we render to them?--what availed +it now, either to the dust below, or to the immortality above, that the +fools and knaves of this world should mention the Catherine whose life +was gone, whose ears were deaf, with more or less respect? There is +in calumny that poison that, even when the character throws off the +slander, the heart remains diseased beneath the effect. They say that +truth comes sooner or later; but it seldom comes before the soul, +passing from agony to contempt, has grown callous to men’s judgments. +Calumniate a human being in youth--adulate that being in age;--what has +been the interval? Will the adulation atone either for the torture, or +the hardness which the torture leaves at last? And if, as in Catherine’s +case (a case, how common!), the truth come too late--if the tomb is +closed--if the heart you have wrung can be wrung no more--why the truth +is as valueless as the epitaph on a forgotten Name! Some such conviction +of the hollowness of his own words, when he spoke of service to the +dead, smote upon Philip’s heart, and stopped the flow of his words. + +Fanny, conscious only of his praise, his thanks, and the tender +affection of his voice, stood still silent--her eyes downcast, her +breast heaving. + +Philip resumed: + +“And now, Fanny, my honoured sister, I would thank you for more, were it +possible, even than this. I shall owe to you not only name and fortune, +but happiness. It is from the rights to which you have assisted me, and +which will shortly be made clear, that I am able to demand a hand I have +so long coveted--the hand of one as dear to me as you are. In a word, +the time has, this day, been fixed, when I shall have a home to offer +to you and to this old man--when I can present to you a sister who will +prize you as I do: for I love you so dearly--I owe you so much--that +even that home would lose half its smiles if you were not there. Do you +understand me, Fanny? The sister I speak of will be my wife!” + +The poor girl who heard this speech of most cruel tenderness did not +fall, or faint, or evince any outward emotion, except in a deadly +paleness. She seemed like one turned to stone. Her very breath forsook +her for some moments, and then came back with a long deep sigh. She laid +her hand lightly on his arm, and said calmly: + +“Yes--I understand. We once saw a wedding. You are to be married--I +shall see yours!” + +“You shall; and, later, perhaps, I may see your own.” + +“I have a brother. Ah! if I could but find him--younger than I +am--beautiful almost as you!” + +“You will be happy,” said Fanny, still calmly. + +“I have long placed my hopes of happiness in such a union! Stay, where +are you going?” + +“To pray for you,” said Fanny, with a smile, in which there was +something of the old vacancy, as she walked gently from the room. Philip +followed her with moistened eyes. Her manner might have deceived one +more vain. He soon after quitted the house, and returned to town. + +Three hours after, Sarah found Fanny stretched on the floor of her own +room--so still--so white--that, for some moments, the old woman thought +life was gone. She recovered, however, by degrees; and, after putting +her hands to her eyes, and muttering some moments, seemed much as usual, +except that she was more silent, and that her lips remained colourless, +and her hands cold like stone. + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + + “Vec. Ye see what follows. + Duke. O gentle sir! this shape again!”--The Chances. + +That evening Sidney Beaufort arrived in London. It is the nature of +solitude to make passions calm on the surface--agitated in the deeps. +Sidney had placed his whole existence in one object. When the letter +arrived that told him to hope no more, he was at first rather sensible +of the terrible and dismal blank--the “void abyss”--to which all his +future was suddenly changed, than roused to vehement and turbulent +emotion. But Camilla’s letter had, as we have seen, raised his courage +and animated his heart. To the idea of her faith he still clung with +the instinct of hope in the midst of despair. The tidings that she +was absolutely betrothed to another, and in so short a time since her +rejection of him, let loose from all restraint his darker and more +tempestuous passions. In a state of mind bordering upon frenzy, he +hurried to London--to seek her--to see her; with what intent--what hope, +if hope there were--he himself could scarcely tell. But what man who has +loved with fervour and trust will be contented to receive the sentence +of eternal separation except from the very lips of the one thus +worshipped and thus foresworn? + +The day had been intensely cold. Towards evening the snow fell fast and +heavily. Sidney had not, since a child, been before in London; and the +immense City, covered with a wintry and icy mist, through which the +hurrying passengers and the slow-moving vehicles passed, spectre-like, +along the dismal and slippery streets--opened to the stranger no +hospitable arms. He knew not a step of the way--he was pushed to and +fro--his scarce intelligible questions impatiently answered--the snow +covered him--the frost pierced to his veins. At length a man, more +kindly than the rest, seeing that he was a stranger to London, procured +him a hackney-coach, and directed the driver to the distant quarter +of Berkeley Square. The snow balled under the hoofs of the horses--the +groaning vehicle proceeded at the pace of a hearse. At length, and +after a period of such suspense, and such emotion, as Sidney never +in after-life could recall without a shudder, the coach stopped--the +benumbed driver heavily descended--the sound of the knocker knelled loud +through the muffled air--and the light from Mr. Beaufort’s hall glared +full upon the dizzy eyes of the visitor. He pushed aside the porter, and +sprang into the hall. Luckily, one of the footmen who had attended Mrs. +Beaufort to the Lakes recognised him; and, in answer to his breathless +inquiry, said,-- + +“Why, indeed, Mr. Spencer, Miss Beaufort is at home--up-stairs in the +drawing-room, with master and mistress, and Monsieur de Vaudemont; +but--” + +Sidney waited no more. He bounded up the stairs--he opened the +first door that presented itself to him, and burst, unannounced and +unlooked-for, upon the eyes of the group seated within. He saw not the +terrified start of Mr. Robert Beaufort--he heeded not the faint, nervous +exclamation of the mother--he caught not the dark and wondering glace of +the stranger seated beside Camilla--he saw but Camilla herself, and in a +moment he was at her feet. + +“Camilla, I am here!--I, who love you so--I, who have nothing in the +world but you! I am here--to learn from you, and you alone, if I am +indeed abandoned--if you are indeed to be another’s!” + +He had dashed his hat from his brow as he sprang forward; his long fair +hair, damp with the snows, fell disordered over his forehead; his eyes +were fixed, as for life and death, upon the pale face and trembling +lips of Camilla. Robert Beaufort, in great alarm, and well aware of the +fierce temper of Philip, anticipative of some rash and violent impulse, +turned his glance upon his destined son-in-law. But there was no angry +pride in the countenance he there beheld. Philip had risen, but his +frame was bent--his knees knocked together--his lips were parted--his +eyes were staring full upon the face of the kneeling man. + +Suddenly Camilla, sharing her father’s fear, herself half rose, and +with an unconscious pathos, stretched one hand, as if to shelter, over +Sidney’s head, and looked to Philip. Sidney’s eyes followed hers. He +sprang to his feet. + +“What, then, it is true! And this is the man for whom I am abandoned! +But unless you--you, with your own lips, tell me that you love me no +more--that you love another--I will not yield you but with life.” + +He stalked sternly and impetuously up to Philip, who recoiled as his +rival advanced. The characters of the two men seemed suddenly changed. +The timid dreamer seemed dilated into the fearless soldier. The soldier +seemed shrinking--quailing--into nameless terror. Sidney grasped that +strong arm, as Philip still retreated, with his slight and delicate +fingers, grasped it with violence and menace; and frowning into the face +from which the swarthy blood was scared away, said, in a hollow whisper: + +“Do you hear me? Do you comprehend me? I say that she shall not be +forced into a marriage at which I yet believe her heart rebels. My claim +is holier than yours. Renounce her, or win her but with my blood.” + +Philip did not apparently hear the words thus addressed to him. His +whole senses seemed absorbed in the one sense of sight. He continued to +gaze upon the speaker, till his eye dropped on the hand that yet griped +his arm. And as he thus looked, he uttered an inarticulate cry. He +caught the hand in his own, and pointed to a ring on the finger, but +remained speechless. Mr. Beaufort approached, and began some stammered +words of soothing to Sidney, but Philip motioned him to be silent, and, +at last, as if by a violent effort, gasped forth, not to Sidney, but to +Beaufort,-- + +“His name?--his name?” + +“It is Mr. Spencer--Mr. Charles Spencer,” cried Beaufort. “Listen to me, +I will explain all--I--” + +“Hush, hush! cried Philip; and turning to Sidney, he put his hand on his +shoulder, and looking him full in the face, said,-- + +“Have you not known another name? Are you not--yes, it is so--it is--it +is! Follow me--follow!” + +And still retaining his grasp, and leading Sidney, who was now subdued, +awed, and a prey to new and wild suspicions, he moved on gently, stride +by stride--his eyes fixed on that fair face--his lips muttering--till +the closing door shut both forms from the eyes of the three there left. + +It was the adjoining room into which Philip led his rival. It was lit +but by a small reading-lamp, and the bright, steady blaze of the fire; +and by this light they both continued to gaze on each other, as if +spellbound, in complete silence. At last Philip, by an irresistible +impulse, fell upon Sidney’s bosom, and, clasping him with convulsive +energy, gasped out: + +“Sidney!--Sidney!--my mother’s son!” + +“What!” exclaimed Sidney, struggling from the embrace, and at last +freeing himself; “it is you, then!--you, my own brother! You, who have +been hitherto the thorn in my path, the cloud in my fate! You, who are +now come to make me a wretch for life! I love that woman, and you tear +her from me! You, who subjected my infancy to hardship, and, but for +Providence, might have degraded my youth, by your example, into shame +and guilt!” + +“Forbear!--forbear!” cried Philip, with a voice so shrill in its agony, +that it smote the hearts of those in the adjoining chamber like the +shriek of some despairing soul. They looked at each other, but not one +had the courage to break upon the interview. + +Sidney himself was appalled by the sound. He threw himself on a seat, +and, overcome by passions so new to him, by excitement so strange, hid +his face, and sobbed as a child. + +Philip walked rapidly to and fro the room for some moments; at length he +paused opposite to Sidney, and said, with the deep calmness of a wronged +and goaded spirit: + +“Sidney Beaufort, hear me! When my mother died she confided you to +my care, my love, and my protection. In the last lines that her hand +traced, she bade me think less of myself than of you; to be to you as a +father as well as brother. The hour that I read that letter I fell on +my knees, and vowed that I would fulfil that injunction--that I would +sacrifice my very self, if I could give fortune or happiness to you. And +this not for your sake alone, Sidney; no! but as my mother--our wronged, +our belied, our broken-hearted mother!--O Sidney, Sidney! have you no +tears for her, too?” He passed his hand over his own eyes for a moment, +and resumed: “But as our mother, in that last letter, said to me, ‘let +my love pass into your breast for him,’ so, Sidney, so, in all that I +could do for you, I fancied that my mother’s smile looked down upon +me, and that in serving you it was my mother whom I obeyed. Perhaps, +hereafter, Sidney, when we talk over that period of my earlier life when +I worked for you, when the degradation you speak of (there was no crime +in it!)--was borne cheerfully for your sake, and yours the holiday +though mine the task--perhaps, hereafter, you will do me more justice. +You left me, or were reft from me, and I gave all the little fortune +that my mother had bequeathed us, to get some tidings from you. I +received your letter--that bitter letter--and I cared not then that I +was a beggar, since I was alone. You talk of what I have cost you--you +talk! and you now ask me to--to--Merciful Heaven! let me +understand you--do you love Camilla? Does she love you? +Speak--speak--explain--what, new agony awaits me?” + +It was then that Sidney, affected and humbled, amidst all his more +selfish sorrows, by his brother’s language and manner, related, as +succinctly as he could, the history of his affection for Camilla, the +circumstances of their engagement, and ended by placing before him the +letter he had received from Mr. Beaufort. + +In spite of all his efforts for self-control, Philip’s anguish was so +great, so visible, that Sidney, after looking at his working features, +his trembling hands, for a moment, felt all the earlier parts of his +nature melt in a flow of generous sympathy and remorse. He flung himself +on the breast from which he had shrunk before, and cried,-- + +“Brother, brother! forgive me; I see how I have wronged you. If she has +forgotten me, if she love you, take her and be happy!” + +Philip returned his embrace, but without warmth, and then moved away; +and, again, in great disorder, paced the room. His brother only heard +disjointed exclamations that seemed to escape him unawares: “They said +she loved me! Heaven give me strength! Mother--mother! let me fulfil my +vow! Oh, that I had died ere this!” He stopped at last, and the large +dews rolled down his forehead. “Sidney!” said he, “there is a mystery +here that I comprehend not. But my mind now is very confused. If she +loves you--if!--is it possible for a woman to love two? Well, well, I go +to solve the riddle: wait here!” + +He vanished into the next room, and for nearly half an hour Sidney was +alone. He heard through the partition murmured voices; he caught more +clearly the sound of Camilla’s sobs. The particulars of that interview +between Philip and Camilla, alone at first (afterwards Mr. Robert +Beaufort was re-admitted), Philip never disclosed, nor could Sidney +himself ever obtain a clear account from Camilla, who could not recall +it, even years after, without great emotion. But at last the door was +opened, and Philip entered, leading Camilla by the hand. His face was +calm, and there was a smile on his lips; a greater dignity than even +that habitual to him was diffused over his whole person. Camilla was +holding her handkerchief to her eyes and weeping passionately. Mr. +Beaufort followed them with a mortified and slinking air. + +“Sidney,” said Philip, “it is past. All is arranged. I yield to your +earlier, and therefore better, claim. Mr. Beaufort consents to your +union. He will tell you, at some fitter time, that our birthright is +at last made clear, and that there is no blot on the name we shall +hereafter bear. Sidney, embrace your bride!” + +Amazed, delighted, and still half incredulous, Sidney seized and kissed +the hand of Camilla; and as he then drew her to his breast, she said, as +she pointed to Philip:-- + +“Oh! if you do love me as you say, see in him the generous, the noble--” + Fresh sobs broke off her speech; but as Sidney sought again to take her +hand, she whispered, with a touching and womanly sentiment, “Ah! respect +him: see!--” and Sidney, looking then at his brother, saw, that though +he still attempted to smile, his lip writhed, and his features were +drawn together, as one whose frame is wrung by torture, but who +struggles not to groan. + +He flew to Philip, who, grasping his hand, held him back, and said,-- + +“I have fulfilled my vow! I have given you up the only blessing my +life has known. Enough, you are happy, and I shall be so too, when God +pleases to soften this blow. And now you must not wonder or blame +me, if, though so lately found, I leave you for a while. Do me one +kindness,--you, Sidney--you, Mr. Beaufort. Let the marriage take place +at H----, in the village church by which my mother sleeps; let it be +delayed till the suit is terminated: by that time I shall hope to meet +you all--to meet you, Camilla, as I ought to meet my brother’s wife; +till then, my presence will not sadden your happiness. Do not seek to +see me; do not expect to hear from me. Hist! be silent, all of you; my +heart is yet bruised and sore. O THOU,” and here, deepening his voice, +he raised his arms, “Thou who hast preserved my youth from such snares +and such peril, who hast guided my steps from the abyss to which they +wandered, and beneath whose hand I now bow, grateful if chastened, +receive this offering, and bless that union! Fare ye well.” + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + + “Heaven’s airs amid the harpstrings dwell; + And we wish they ne’er may fade; + They cease; and the soul is a silent cell, + Where music never played. + Dream follows dream through the long night-hours.” + WILSON: The Past, a poem. + +The self-command which Philip had obtained for a while deserted him when +he was without the house. His mind felt broken up into chaos; he hurried +on, mechanically, on foot; he passed street upon street, now solitary +and deserted, as the lamps gleamed upon the thick snow. The city was +left behind him. He paused not, till, breathless, and exhausted in +spirit if not in frame, he reached the churchyard where Catherine’s dust +reposed. The snow had ceased to fall, but it lay deep over the graves; +the yew-trees, clad in their white shrouds, gleamed ghost-like through +the dimness. Upon the rail that fenced the tomb yet hung a wreath that +Fanny’s hand had placed there. But the flowers were hid; it was a wreath +of snow! Through the intervals of the huge and still clouds, there +gleamed a few melancholy stars. The very calm of the holy spot seemed +unutterably sad. The Death of the year overhung the Death of man. And as +Philip bent over the tomb, within and without all was ICE and NIGHT! + +For hours he remained on that spot, alone with his grief and absorbed in +his prayer. Long past midnight Fanny heard his step on the stairs, and +the door of his chamber close with unwonted violence. She heard, too, +for some time, his heavy tread on the floor, till suddenly all was +silent. The next morning, when, at the usual hour, Sarah entered to +unclose the shutters and light the fire, she was startled by wild +exclamations and wilder laughter. The fever had mounted to the brain--he +was delirious. + +For several weeks Philip Beaufort was in imminent danger; for a +considerable part of that time he was unconscious; and when the peril +was past, his recovery was slow and gradual. It was the only illness +to which his vigorous frame had ever been subjected: and the fever +had perhaps exhausted him more than it might have done one in whose +constitution the disease had encountered less resistance. His brother; +imagining he had gone abroad, was unacquainted with his danger. None +tended his sick-bed save the hireling nurse, the feed physician, and the +unpurchasable heart of the only being to whom the wealth and rank of the +Heir of Beaufort Court were as nothing. Here was reserved for him Fate’s +crowning lesson, in the vanity of those human wishes which anchor in +gold and power. For how many years had the exile and the outcast pined +indignantly for his birthright?--Lo! it was won: and with it came the +crushed heart and the smitten frame. As he slowly recovered sense and +reasoning, these thoughts struck him forcibly. He felt as if he were +rightly punished in having disdained, during his earlier youth, +the enjoyments within his reach. Was there nothing in the glorious +health--the unconquerable hope--the heart, if wrung, and chafed, and +sorely tried, free at least from the direst anguish of the passions, +disappointed and jealous love? Though now certain, if spared to the +future, to be rich, powerful, righted in name and honour, might he not +from that sick-bed envy his earlier past? even when with his brother +orphan he wandered through the solitary fields, and felt with what +energies we are gifted when we have something to protect; or when, +loving and beloved, he saw life smile out to him in the eyes of Eugenie; +or when, after that melancholy loss, he wrestled boldly, and breast to +breast with Fortune, in a far land, for honour and independence? There +is something in severe illness, especially if it be in violent contrast +to the usual strength of the body, which has often the most salutary +effect upon the mind; which often, by the affliction of the frame, +roughly wins us from the too morbid pains of the heart! which makes us +feel that, in mere LIFE, enjoyed as the robust enjoy it, God’s Great +Principle of Good breathes and moves. We rise thus from the sick-bed +softened and humbled, and more disposed to look around us for such +blessings as we may yet command. + +The return of Philip, his danger, the necessity of exertion, of tending +him, had roused Fanny from a state which might otherwise have been +permanently dangerous to the intellect so lately ripened within her. +With what patience, with what fortitude, with what unutterable thought +and devotion, she fulfilled that best and holiest woman’s duty--let the +man whose struggle with life and death has been blessed with the vigil +that wakes and saves, imagine to himself. And in all her anxiety and +terror, she had glimpses of a happiness which it seemed to her almost +criminal to acknowledge. For, even in his delirium, her voice seemed to +have some soothing influence over him, and he was calmer while she was +by. And when at last he was conscious, her face was the first he saw, +and her name the first which his lips uttered. As then he grew gradually +stronger, and the bed was deserted for the sofa, he took more than the +old pleasure in hearing her read to him; which she did with a feeling +that lecturers cannot teach. And once, in a pause from this occupation, +he spoke to her frankly,--he sketched his past history--his last +sacrifice. And Fanny, as she wept, learned that he was no more +another’s! + +It has been said that this man, naturally of an active and impatient +temperament, had been little accustomed to seek those resources which +are found in books. But somehow in that sick chamber--it was Fanny’s +voice--the voice of her over whose mind he had once so haughtily +lamented, that taught him how much of aid and solace the Herd of Men +derive from the Everlasting Genius of the Few. + +Gradually, and interval by interval, moment by moment, thus drawn +together, all thought beyond shut out (for, however crushing for the +time the blow that had stricken Philip from health and reason, he +was not that slave to a guilty fancy, that he could voluntarily +indulge--that he would not earnestly seek to shun--all sentiments +that yet turned with unholy yearning towards the betrothed of his +brother);--gradually, I say, and slowly, came those progressive and +delicious epochs which mark a revolution in the affections:--unspeakable +gratitude, brotherly tenderness, the united strength of compassion +and respect that he had felt for Fanny seemed, as he gained health, to +mellow into feelings yet more exquisite and deep. He could no longer +delude himself with a vain and imperious belief that it was a defective +mind that his heart protected; he began again to be sensible to the rare +beauty of that tender face--more lovely, perhaps, for the paleness that +had replaced its bloom. The fancy that he had so imperiously checked +before--before he saw Camilla, returned to him, and neither pride nor +honour had now the right to chase the soft wings away. One evening, +fancying himself alone, he fell into a profound reverie; he awoke with +a start, and the exclamation, “was it true love that I ever felt for +Camilla, or a passion, a frenzy, a delusion?” + +His exclamation was answered by a sound that seemed both of joy and +grief. He looked up, and saw Fanny before him; the light of the moon, +just risen, fell full on her form, but her hands were clasped before her +face; he heard her sob. + +“Fanny, dear Fanny!” he cried, and sought to throw himself from the sofa +to her feet. But she drew herself away, and fled from the chamber silent +as a dream. + +Philip rose, and, for the first time since his illness, walked, but with +feeble steps, to and fro the room. With what different emotions from +those in which last, in fierce and intolerable agony, he had paced that +narrow boundary! Returning health crept through his veins--a serene, +a kindly, a celestial joy circumfused his heart. Had the time yet come +when the old Florimel had melted into snow; when the new and the true +one, with its warm life, its tender beauty, its maiden wealth of love, +had risen before his hopes? He paused before the window; the spot within +seemed so confined, the night without so calm and lovely, that he forgot +his still-clinging malady, and unclosed the casement: the air came soft +and fresh upon his temples, and the church-tower and spire, for the +first time, did not seem to him to rise in gloom against the heavens. +Even the gravestone of Catherine, half in moonlight, half in shadow, +appeared to him to wear a smile. His mother’s memory was become linked +with the living Fanny. + +“Thou art vindicated--thy Sidney is happy,” he murmured: “to her the +thanks!” + +Fair hopes, and soft thoughts busy within him, he remained at the +casement till the increasing chill warned him of the danger he incurred. + +The next day, when the physician visited him, he found the fever had +returned. For many days, Philip was again in danger--dull, unconscious +even of the step and voice of Fanny. + +He woke at last as from a long and profound sleep; woke so refreshed, +so revived, that he felt at once that some great crisis had been passed, +and that at length he had struggled back to the sunny shores of Life. + +By his bedside sat Liancourt, who, long alarmed at his disappearance, +had at last contrived, with the help of Mr. Barlow, to trace him to +Gawtrey’s house, and had for several days taken share in the vigils of +poor Fanny. + +While he was yet explaining all this to Philip, and congratulating +him on his evident recovery, the physician entered to confirm the +congratulation. In a few days the invalid was able to quit his room, and +nothing but change of air seemed necessary for his convalescence. It was +then that Liancourt, who had for two days seemed impatient to unburden +himself of some communication, thus addressed him:-- + +“My--My dear friend, I have learned now your story from Barlow, who +called several times during your relapse; and who is the more anxious +about you, as the time for the decision of your case now draws near. The +sooner you quit this house the better.” + +“Quit this house! and why? Is there not one in this house to whom I owe +my fortune and my life?” + +“Yes; and for that reason I say, ‘Go hence:’ it is the only return you +can make her.” + +“Pshaw!--speak intelligibly.” + +“I will,” said Liancourt, gravely. “I have been a watcher with her +by your sick-bed, and I know what you must feel already:--nay, I must +confess that even the old servant has ventured to speak to me. You have +inspired that poor girl with feelings dangerous to her peace.” + +“Ha!” cried Philip, with such joy that Liancourt frowned, and said, +“Hitherto I have believed you too honourable to--” + +“So you think she loves me?” interrupted Philip. “Yes; what then? You, +the heir of Beaufort Court, of a rental of L20,000. a year,--of an +historical name,--you cannot marry this poor girl?” + +“Well!--I will consider what you say, and, at all events, I will leave +the house to attend the result of the trial. Let us talk no more on the +subject now.” + +Philip had the penetration to perceive that Liancourt, who was greatly +moved by the beauty, the innocence, and the unprotected position of +Fanny, had not confined caution to himself; that with his characteristic +well-meaning bluntness, and with the license of a man somewhat advanced +in years, he had spoken to Fanny herself: for Fanny now seemed to shun +Philip,--her eyes were heavy, her manner was embarrassed. He saw the +change, but it did not grieve him; he hailed the omens which he drew +from it. + +And at last he and Liancourt went. He was absent three weeks, during +which time the formality of the friendly lawsuit was decided in the +plaintiff’s favour; and the public were in ecstasies at the noble +and sublime conduct of Mr. Robert Beaufort: who, the moment he had +discovered a document which he might so easily have buried for ever in +oblivion, voluntarily agreed to dispossess himself of estates he had so +long enjoyed, preferring conscience to lucre. Some persons observed that +it was reported that Mr. Philip Beaufort had also been generous--that he +had agreed to give up the estates for his uncle’s life, and was only +in the meanwhile to receive a fourth of the revenues. But the universal +comment was, “He could not have done less!” Mr. Robert Beaufort was, as +Lord Lilburne had once observed, a man who was born, made, and reared +to be spoken well of by the world; and it was a comfort to him now, +poor man, to feel that his character was so highly estimated. If +Philip should live to the age of one hundred, he will never become so +respectable and popular a man with the crowd as his worthy uncle. But +does it much matter? Philip returned to H---- the eve before the day +fixed for the marriage of his brother and Camilla. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + + From Night, Sunshine and Day arose--HES + +The sun of early May shone cheerfully over the quiet suburb of H----. In +the thoroughfares life was astir. It was the hour of noon--the hour at +which commerce is busy, and streets are full. The old retired trader, +eying wistfully the rolling coach or the oft-pausing omnibus, was +breathing the fresh and scented air in the broadest and most crowded +road, from which, afar in the distance, rose the spires of the +metropolis. The boy let loose from the day-school was hurrying home +to dinner, his satchel on his back: the ballad-singer was sending her +cracked whine through the obscurer alleys, where the baker’s boy, with +puddings on his tray, and the smart maid-servant, despatched for porter, +paused to listen. And round the shops where cheap shawls and cottons +tempted the female eye, many a loitering girl detained her impatient +mother, and eyed the tickets and calculated her hard-gained savings for +the Sunday gear. And in the corners of the streets steamed the itinerant +kitchens of the piemen, and rose the sharp cry, “All hot! all hot!” in +the ear of infant and ragged hunger. And amidst them all rolled on some +lazy coach of ancient merchant or withered maiden, unconscious of any +life but that creeping through their own languid veins. And before the +house in which Catherine died, there loitered many stragglers, gossips, +of the hamlet, subscribers to the news-room hard by, to guess, and +speculate, and wonder why, from the church behind, there rose the merry +peal of the marriage-bell! + +At length along the broad road leading from the great city, there were +seen rapidly advancing three carriages of a very different fashion from +those familiar to the suburb. On they came; swiftly they whirled round +the angle that conducted to the church; the hoofs of the gay steeds +ringing cheerily on the ground; the white favours of the servants +gleaming in the sun. Happy is the bride the sun shines on! And when the +carriages had thus vanished, the scattered groups melted into one crowd, +and took their way to the church. They stood idling without in the +burial-ground; many of them round the fence that guarded from +their footsteps Catherine’s lonely grave. All in nature was glad, +exhilarating, and yet serene; a genial freshness breathed through the +soft air; not a cloud was to be seen in the smiling azure; even the old +dark yews seemed happy in their everlasting verdure. The bell ceased, +and then even the crowd grew silent; and not a sound was heard in that +solemn spot to whose demesnes are consecrated alike the Birth, the +Marriage, and the Death. + +At length there came forth from the church door the goodly form of a +rosy beadle. Approaching the groups, he whispered the better-dressed +and commanded the ragged, remonstrated with the old and lifted his cane +against the young; and the result of all was, that the churchyard, not +without many a murmur and expostulation, was cleared, and the crowd fell +back in the space behind the gates of the principal entrance, where they +swayed and gaped and chattered round the carriages, which were to bear +away the bridal party. + +Within the church, as the ceremony was now concluded, Philip Beaufort +conducted, hand-in-hand, silently along the aisle, his brother’s wife. + +Leaning on his stick, his cold sneer upon his thin lip, Lord Lilburne +limped, step by step, with the pair, though a little apart from them, +glancing from moment to moment at the face of Philip Beaufort, where he +had hoped to read a grief that he could not detect. Lord Lilburne had +carefully refrained from an interview with Philip till that day, and +he now only came to the wedding as a surgeon goes to an hospital, to +examine a disease he had been told would be great and sore: he was +disappointed. Close behind followed Sidney, radiant with joy, and bloom, +and beauty; and his kind guardian, the tears rolling down his eyes, +murmured blessings as he looked upon him. Mrs. Beaufort had declined +attending the ceremony--her nerves were too weak--but, behind, at a +longer interval, came Robert Beaufort, sober, staid, collected as ever +to outward seeming; but a close observer might have seen that his eye +had lost its habitual complacent cunning, that his step was more +heavy, his stoop more joyless. About his air there was a some thing +crestfallen. The consciousness of acres had passed away from his portly +presence. He was no longer a possessor, but a pensioner. The rich man, +who had decided as he pleased on the happiness of others, was a cipher; +he had ceased to have any interest in anything. What to him the marriage +of his daughter now? Her children would not be the heirs of Beaufort. +As Camilla kindly turned round, and through happy tears waited for his +approach, to clasp his hand, he forced a smile, but it was sickly and +piteous. He longed to creep away, and be alone. + +“My father!” said Camilla, in her sweet low voice; and she extricated +herself from Philip, and threw herself on his breast. + +“She is a good child,” said Robert Beaufort vacantly, and, turning +his dry eyes to the group, he caught instinctively at his customary +commonplaces;--“and a good child, Mr. Sidney, makes a good wife!” + +The clergyman bowed as if the compliment were addressed to himself: he +was the only man there whom Robert Beaufort could now deceive. + +“My sister,” said Philip Beaufort, as once more leaning on his arm, they +paused before the church door, “may Sidney love and prize you as--as +I would have done; and believe me, both of you, I have no regret, no +memory, that wounds me now.” + +He dropped the hand, and motioned to her father to load her to the +carriage. Then winding his arm into Sidney’s, he said,-- + +“Wait till they are gone: I have one word yet with you. Go on, +gentlemen.” + +The clergyman bowed, and walked through the churchyard. But Lilburne, +pausing and surveying Philip Beaufort, said to him, whisperingly,-- + +“And so much for feeling--the folly! So much for generosity--the +delusion! Happy man!” + +“I am thoroughly happy, Lord Lilburne.” + +“Are you?--Then, it was neither feeling nor generosity; and we were +taken in! Good day.” With that he limped slowly to the gate. + +Philip answered not the sarcasm even by a look. For at that moment a +loud shout was set up by the mob without--they had caught a glimpse of +the bride. + +“Come, Sidney, this way.” he said; “I must not detain you long.” + +Arm in arm they passed out of the church, and turned to the spot hard +by, where the flowers smiled up to them from the stone on their mother’s +grave. + +The old inscription had been effaced, and the name of CATHERINE BEAUFORT +was placed upon the stone. “Brother,” said Philip, “do not forget this +grave: years hence, when children play around your own hearth. Observe, +the name of Catherine Beaufort is fresher on the stone than the dates +of birth and death--the name was only inscribed there to-day--your +wedding-day. Brother, by this grave we are now indeed united.” + +“Oh, Philip!” cried Sidney, in deep emotion, clasping the hand stretched +out to him; “I feel, I feel how noble, how great you are--that you have +sacrificed more than I dreamed of--” + +“Hush!” said Philip, with a smile. “No talk of this. I am happier than +you deem me. Go back now--she waits you.” + +“And you?--leave you!--alone!” + +“Not alone,” said Philip, pointing to the grave. + +Scarce had he spoken when, from the gate, came the shrill, clear voice +of Lord Lilburne,-- + +“We wait for Mr. Sidney Beaufort.” + +Sidney passed his hand over his eyes, wrung the hand of his brother once +more, and in a moment was by Camilla’s side. + +Another shout--the whirl of the wheels--the trampling of feet--the +distant hum and murmur--and all was still. The clerk returned to lock up +the church--he did not observe where Philip stood in the shadow of the +wall--and went home to talk of the gay wedding, and inquire at what +hour the funeral of the young woman; his next-door neighbour, would take +place the next day. + +It might be a quarter of an hour after Philip was thus left--nor had he +moved from the spot--when he felt his sleeve pulled gently. He turned +round and saw before him the wistful face of Fanny! + +“So you would not come to the wedding?” said he. + +“No. But I fancied you might be here alone--and sad.” + +“And you will not even wear the dress I gave you?” + +“Another time. Tell me, are you unhappy?” + +“Unhappy, Fanny! No; look around. The very burial-ground has a smile. +See the laburnums clustering over the wall, listen to the birds on the +dark yews above, and yonder see even the butterfly has settled upon her +grave! + +“I am not unhappy.” As he thus spoke he looked at her earnestly, +and taking both her hands in his, drew her gently towards him, and +continued: “Fanny, do you remember, that, leaning over that gate, I once +spoke to you of the happiness of marriage where two hearts are united? +Nay, Fanny, nay, I must go on. It was here in this spot,--it was here +that I first saw you on my return to England. I came to seek the dead, +and I have thought since, it was my mother’s guardian spirit that drew +me hither to find you--the living! And often afterwards, Fanny, you +would come with me here, when, blinded and dull as I was, I came to +brood and to repine, insensible of the treasures even then perhaps +within my reach. But, best as it was: the ordeal through which I have +passed has made me more grateful for the prize I now dare to hope for. +On this grave your hand daily renewed the flowers. By this grave, the +link between the Time and the Eternity, whose lessons we have read +together, will you consent to record our vows? Fanny, dearest, fairest, +tenderest, best, I love you, and at last as alone you should be +loved!--I woo you as my wife! Mine, not for a season, but for ever--for +ever, even when these graves are open, and the World shrivels like a +scroll. Do you understand me?--do you heed me?--or have I dreamed that +that--” + +He stopped short--a dismay seized him at her silence. Had he been +mistaken in his divine belief!--the fear was momentary: for Fanny, who +had recoiled as he spoke, now placing her hands to her temples, gazing +on him, breathlessly and with lips apart, as if, indeed, with great +effort and struggle her modest spirit conceived the possibility of the +happiness that broke upon it, advanced timidly, her face suffused in +blushes; and, looking into his eyes, as if she would read into his very +soul, said, with an accent, the intenseness of which showed that her +whole fate hung on his answer,-- + +“But this is pity?--they have told you that I--in short, you are +generous--you--you--Oh, deceive me not! Do you love her still?--Can +you--do you love the humble, foolish Fanny?” + +“As God shall judge me, sweet one, I am sincere! I have survived a +passion--never so deep, so tender, so entire as that I now feel for you! +And, oh, Fanny, hear this true confession. It was you--you to whom my +heart turned before I saw Camilla!--against that impulse I struggled in +the blindness of a haughty error!” + +Fanny uttered a low and suppressed cry of delight and rapture. Philip +passionately continued,-- + +“Fanny, make blessed the life you have saved. Fate destined us for +each other. Fate for me has ripened your sweet mind. Fate for you has +softened this rugged heart. We may have yet much to bear and much to +learn. We will console and teach each other!” + +He drew her to his breast as he spoke--drew her trembling, blushing, +confused, but no more reluctant; and there, by the GRAVE that had been +so memorable a scene in their common history, were murmured those +vows in which all this world knows of human happiness is treasured and +recorded--love that takes the sting from grief, and faith that gives +eternity to love. All silent, yet all serene around them! Above, the +heaven,--at their feet, the grave:--For the love, the grave!--for the +faith, the heaven! + + + +CHAPTER THE LAST. + + + “A labore reclinat otium.”--HORAT. + + [Leisure unbends itself from labour.] + +I feel that there is some justice in the affection the general reader +entertains for the old-fashioned and now somewhat obsolete custom, of +giving to him, at the close of a work, the latest news of those who +sought his acquaintance through its progress. + +The weak but well-meaning Smith, no more oppressed by the evil +influence of his brother, has continued to pass his days in comfort and +respectability on the income settled on him by Philip Beaufort. Mr. and +Mrs. Roger Morton still live, and have just resigned their business to +their eldest son; retiring themselves to a small villa adjoining the +town in which they had made their fortune. Mrs. Morton is very apt, when +she goes out to tea, to talk of her dear deceased sister-in-law, the +late Mrs. Beaufort, and of her own remarkable kindness to her nephew +when a little boy. She observes that, in fact, the young men owe +everything to Mr. Roger and herself; and, indeed, though Sidney was +never of a grateful disposition, and has not been near her since, yet +the elder brother, the Mr. Beaufort, always evinces his respect to them +by the yearly present of a fat buck. She then comments on the ups and +downs of life; and observes that it is a pity her son Tom preferred the +medical profession to the church. Their cousin, Mr. Beaufort, has two +livings. To all this Mr. Roger says nothing, except an occasional “Thank +Heaven, I want no man’s help! I am as well to do as my neighbours. But +that’s neither here nor there.” + +There are some readers--they who do not thoroughly consider the truths +of this life--who will yet ask, “But how is Lord Lilburne punished?” + Punished?--ay, and indeed, how? The world, and not the poet, must answer +that question. Crime is punished from without. If Vice is punished, it +must be from within. The Lilburnes of this hollow world are not to be +pelted with the soft roses of poetical justice. They who ask why he is +not punished may be the first to doff the hat to the equipage in which +my lord lolls through the streets! The only offence he habitually +committed of a nature to bring the penalties of detection, he renounced +the moment he perceived there was clanger of discovery! he gambled no +more after Philip’s hint. He was one of those, some years after, most +bitter upon a certain nobleman charged with unfair play--one of those +who took the accusation as proved; and whose authority settled all +disputes thereon. + +But, if no thunderbolt falls on Lord Lilburne’s head--if he is fated +still to eat, and drink, and to die on his bed, he may yet taste the +ashes of the Dead Sea fruit which his hands have culled. He is +grown old. His infirmities increase upon him; his sole resources of +pleasure--the senses--are dried up. For him there is no longer savour +in the viands, or sparkle in the wine,--man delights him not, nor woman +neither. He is alone with Old Age, and in the sight of Death. + +With the exception of Simon, who died in his chair not many days after +Sidney’s marriage, Robert Beaufort is the only one among the more +important agents left at the last scene of this history who has passed +from our mortal stage. + +After the marriage of his daughter he for some time moped and drooped. +But Philip learned from Mr. Blackwell of the will that Robert had made +previously to the lawsuit; and by which, had the lawsuit failed, +his rights would yet have been preserved to him. Deeply moved by a +generosity he could not have expected from his uncle, and not pausing +to inquire too closely how far it was to be traced to the influence of +Arthur, Philip so warmly expressed his gratitude, and so surrounded +Mr. Beaufort with affectionate attentions, that the poor man began to +recover his self-respect,--began even to regard the nephew he had so +long dreaded, as a son,--to forgive him for not marrying Camilla. And, +perhaps, to his astonishment, an act in his life for which the customs +of the world (that never favour natural ties not previously sanctioned +by the legal) would have rather censured than praised, became his +consolation; and the memory he was most proud to recall. He gradually +recovered his spirits; he was very fond of looking over that will: he +carefully preserved it: he even flattered himself that it was necessary +to preserve Philip from all possible litigation hereafter; for if the +estates were not legally Philip’s, why, then, they were his to dispose +of as he pleased. He was never more happy than when his successor was by +his side; and was certainly a more cheerful and, I doubt not, a better +man--during the few years in which he survived the law-suit--than ever +he had been before. He died--still member for the county, and still +quoted as a pattern to county members--in Philip’s arms; and on his lips +there was a smile that even Lilburne would have called sincere. + +Mrs. Beaufort, after her husband’s death, established herself in +London; and could never be persuaded to visit Beaufort Court. She took a +companion, who more than replaced, in her eyes, the absence of Camilla. + +And Camilla-Spencer-Sidney. They live still by the gentle Lake, happy in +their own serene joys and graceful leisure; shunning alike ambition and +its trials, action and its sharp vicissitudes; envying no one, covetous +of nothing; making around them, in the working world, something of the +old pastoral and golden holiday. If Camilla had at one time wavered in +her allegiance to Sidney, her good and simple heart has long since been +entirely regained by his devotion; and, as might be expected from her +disposition, she loved him better after marriage than before. + +Philip had gone through severer trials than Sidney. But, had their +earlier fates been reversed, and that spirit, in youth so haughty and +self-willed, been lapped in ease and luxury, would Philip now be a +better or a happier man? Perhaps, too, for a less tranquil existence +than his brother, Philip yet may be reserved; but, in proportion to the +uses of our destiny, do we repose or toil: he who never knows pain knows +but the half of pleasure. The lot of whatever is most noble on the earth +below falls not amidst the rosy Gardels of the Epicurean. We may envy +the man who enjoys and rests; but the smile of Heaven settles rather on +the front of him who labours and aspires. + +And did Philip ever regret the circumstances that had given him Fanny +for the partner of his life? To some who take their notions of the +Ideal from the conventional rules of romance, rather than from their +own perceptions of what is true, this narrative would have been more +pleasing had Philip never loved but Fanny. But all that had led to that +love had only served to render it more enduring and concentred. Man’s +strongest and worthiest affection is his last--is the one that unites +and embodies all his past dreams of what is excellent--the one from +which Hope springs out the brighter from former disappointments--the one +in which the MEMORIES are the most tender and the most abundant--the one +which, replacing all others, nothing hereafter can replace. + + + ...... + +And now ere the scene closes, and the audience, whom perhaps the actors +may have interested for a while, disperse, to forget amidst the pursuits +of actual life the Shadows that have amused an hour, or beguiled a care, +let the curtain fall on one happy picture:-- + +It is some years after the marriage of Philip and Fanny. It is a summer +morning. In a small old-fashioned room at Beaufort Court, with its +casements open to the gardens, stood Philip, having just entered; and +near the window sat Fanny, his boy by her side. She was at the mother’s +hardest task--the first lessons to the first-born child; and as the boy +looked up at her sweet earnest face with a smile of intelligence on +his own, you might have seen at a glance how well understood were the +teacher and the pupil. Yes: whatever might have been wanting in the +Virgin to the full development of mind, the cares of the mother had +supplied. When a being was born to lean on her alone--dependent on +her providence for life--then hour after hour, step after step, in the +progress of infant destinies, had the reason of the mother grown in the +child’s growth, adapting itself to each want that it must foresee, and +taking its perfectness and completion from the breath of the New Love! + +The child caught sight of Philip and rushed to embrace him. + +“See!” whispered Fanny, as she also hung upon him, and strange +recollections of her own mysterious childhood crowded upon her,--“See,” + whispered she, with a blush half of shame and half of pride, “the poor +idiot girl is the teacher of your child!” + +“And,” answered Philip, “whether for child or mother, what teacher is +like Love?” + +Thus saying, he took the boy into his arms; and, as he bent over those +rosy cheeks, Fanny saw, from the movement of his lips and the moisture +in his eyes, that he blessed God. He looked upon the mother’s face, he +glanced round on the flowers and foliage of the luxurious summer, and +again he blessed God: And without and within, it was Light and MORNING! + +THE END. + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Night and Morning, Complete, by +Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIGHT AND MORNING, COMPLETE *** + +***** This file should be named 9755-0.txt or 9755-0.zip ***** This and +all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/9/7/5/9755/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be +renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one +owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and +you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission +and without paying copyright royalties. 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