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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/56371-0.zip b/56371-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 7fa3aaa..0000000 --- a/56371-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/56371-h.zip b/56371-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 0fd9721..0000000 --- a/56371-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..42bccb4 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #56371 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56371) diff --git a/old/56371-h.htm.2018-01-14 b/old/56371-h.htm.2018-01-14 deleted file mode 100644 index 0aa5d69..0000000 --- a/old/56371-h.htm.2018-01-14 +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11581 +0,0 @@ -<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
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- <head>
- <title>
- THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCKBy Pierce Egan
- </title>
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-
-
-<pre>
-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Flower Of The Flock, Volume I (of III), by
-Pierce Egan
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-Title: The Flower Of The Flock, Volume I (of III)
-
-Author: Pierce Egan
-
-Release Date: January 14, 2018 [EBook #56371]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger from page images generously
-provided by the Internet Archive
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
- <div style="height: 8em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h1>
- THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK
- </h1>
- <h2>
- By Pierce Egan
- </h2>
- <h3>
- Author Of “The Poor Girl,” &c., &c.
- </h3>
- <h3>
- In Three Volumes.
- </h3>
- <h3>
- Vol. I.
- </h3>
- <h4>
- London: Published By W. S. Johnson & Co.
- </h4>
- <h3>
- 1865
- </h3>
-<div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
- <img src="images/0005.jpg" alt="0005 " width="100%" /><br />
- </div>
-
-
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p>
- <b>CONTENTS</b><br /><span class="toc"><a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>THE
- FLOWER OF THE FLOCK</b> <br /> </a><br /><span class="toc"><a
- href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I.—THE SHADOW IN THE SUNSHINE. </a><br /><span
- class="toc"><a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II.—THE WORM UPON THE
- LEAF. </a><br /><span class="toc"><a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III.—POSSESSION
- DISTURBED. </a><br /><span class="toc"><a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV.—THE
- FORGERY. </a><br /><span class="toc"><a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V.—THE
- CONFLAGRATION. </a><br /><span class="toc"><a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER
- VI.—THE NOBLE GUESTS. </a><br /><span class="toc"><a
- href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII.—LOVE AWAKENING. </a><br /><span
- class="toc"><a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII.—THE PRISON. </a><br /><span
- class="toc"><a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX.—THE MYSTERY. </a><br /><span
- class="toc"><a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X.—THE INEXPLICABLE
- LIBERATION. </a><br /><span class="toc"><a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER
- XI.—SHADOWS. </a><br /><span class="toc"><a href="#link2HCH0012">
- CHAPTER XII.—A LIFE STRUGGLE. </a><br /><span class="toc"><a
- href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII.—THE FORGED DEED. </a><br /><span
- class="toc"><a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV.—LOVE AT FIRST
- SIGHT. </a><br /><span class="toc"><a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV.—THE
- PROPOSITION. </a><br /><span class="toc"><a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER
- XVI.—SELFISHNESS AND SORROW. </a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h1>
- THE FLOWER OF THE FLOCK
- </h1>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER I.—THE SHADOW IN THE SUNSHINE.
- </h2>
- <p class="indent20">
- And the sunlight clasps the earth. <br /><span class="indent30">—Shelley.
- <br /><br /><span class="indent15">From her chamber window he would catch
- <br /><span class="indent20">Her beauty faster than the falcon spies; <br /><span
- class="indent15">And constant as her vespers would he watch, <br /><span
- class="indent20">Because her face was turned to the same skies. <br /><span
- class="indent30">—Keats <br /><br /> </span></span></span></span></span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span> bright sunny
- morning, at the end of June, in busy, restless London. The overarching
- vault of heaven was filled with an atmosphere of golden hue. Sunshine was
- glowing upon cathedral turrets and upon the church spires, upon the
- pinnacles of lofty buildings, and the crowns of tall factory shafts. The
- bronzed and tarnished ball and cross of St. Paul’s, and the shaggy-crested
- Monument, which “like a tall bully lifts its head,” shone as if they had
- been newly gilded. There was sunshine upon chimney-pots and housetops,
- golden beams permeating the confined air in close garrets, through their
- narrow, half-closed windows; flooding wide streets, and illuminating
- pestiferous courts, where riotous hilarity sometimes, but joy never came.
- </p>
- <p>
- Sunshine blazed upon the broad and winding Thames, over whose flowing
- surface lazy barges dawdled, and panting river steamers raced, leaving in
- their sinuous paths myriads of scintillations—and rather an
- unpleasant odour as well. Sunshine was on the footways, and in the
- roadways, and in the gutters, making mirrors of small muddy pools.
- </p>
- <p>
- Sunshine there was for the ragged and the richly dressed; for the beggar
- and the prince alike; for the robust and, happily, for the sickly invalid.
- </p>
- <p>
- Sunshine everywhere, making brilliant the parks and open places, and
- interpenetrating all the foulest recesses of this huge city. Giving light
- where it was rarely seen, and rousing to a glad activity the teeming life
- already in its first throes of daily labour.
- </p>
- <p>
- Beautiful in this, the bright sunshine! but oh, yet more enchanting in the
- glory with which it invested the fair face of a young girl, peering out of
- the upper window of a house situated in one of the City’s closest streets.
- </p>
- <p>
- She stood there, gazing heavenward, her mild blue eyes bending beneath the
- influence of the golden glare of sunny-waves of light, yet seeming to
- revel in their luxuriance as though they spoke to her in fairy language of
- other and happier times and places now far away.
- </p>
- <p>
- Upon the opposite side of the street, in the shop of a working goldsmith,
- one John Harper, there stood a youth, an apprentice to the noble art of
- working in gold. The beauty and the clearness of the fair morning had
- elevated and refreshed his youthful spirits, but ah! how much greater
- their exhilaration when his upturned eyes were gladdened by the sight of
- that beautiful young girl, whose radiant face, and delicately modelled
- form, were brought out in brilliant relief by the dazzling sunbeams.
- </p>
- <p>
- It seemed to him that his brightest conceptions of the beautiful, his
- dreamy fashionings of a faultless ideal, combined with all his native and
- his acquired skill, had never yet enabled him to realise “a thing of
- beauty” to rival the perfect excellence and marvellous charms of that
- young face upon which his eager eyes were now fastened.
- </p>
- <p>
- Raphael, in his rarest art-performance had not in his belief attained the
- sentiment of angelic purity beaming in her features, nor had Carlo Dolci,
- in the loveliest Madonna he ever painted, anticipated it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Motionless he stood, and with suspended breath gazed upon her as though
- she were one lone bright star, shining unaccompanied in the vast field of
- the deep blue heavens, in the silent night, his mind the while lost in a
- maze of rapture and of wonder.
- </p>
- <p>
- Yet he had seen it often for years!
- </p>
- <p>
- And now he had a consciousness that a saddening gloom overspread the earth
- far and near. What made the surrounding space in a moment so sombre? Had a
- huge cloud suddenly sprung up from its sullen rest, and spreading itself
- enviously over the broad sky, absorbed the sunlight? Was the sunshine
- which had converted smoky London into a city of golden palaces abruptly
- withdrawn? No! sunbeams yet glanced upon the buildings, and danced upon
- the rippling waters, but the young maiden had disappeared from her window.
- She had suddenly fled from it, as a startled fawn would spring into a
- covert at the sound of the approaching footsteps of a hunter bent upon its
- destruction.
- </p>
- <p>
- So, though the sunshine was as brilliant as before—the whole
- universe, in the eyes of Harry Vivian, the young goldsmith, seemed plunged
- into a profound and solemn gloom—for she was no longer where he yet
- gazed.
- </p>
- <p>
- He felt oppressed in this glittering sunshine, which had no light for him,
- and he drew towards the outer door, that in the free fresh air he might
- breathe more freely. As he gained the threshold, he started, and an
- exclamation of surprise escaped his lips.
- </p>
- <p>
- Opposite, at the door of the house in which dwelt the young girl upon whom
- his eyes had gazed so fondly, stood a man who in costume and manner was
- the reverse of prepossessing. Who was he, and what could he want there?
- were questions which Harry at once put to himself. He had come on business—most
- disagreeable business—that was beyond a doubt, for there was nothing
- either in his garb or in his manner which betrayed the idle visitor.
- Harry, therefore, conceived it to be his especial duty—with rather
- questionable propriety, however—to observe his movements.
- </p>
- <p>
- He saw the man examine the house from the scraper at the door, to the
- parapet below the roof, and then make a peculiar sign to some person or
- persons, who lying <i>perdu</i>, prevented Harry from catching a glimpse
- of them. Then he gave a treble knock at the door, facing which he was
- standing. Young Vivian did not like that knock. It was not a peal of three
- distinct knocks for a third-floor lodger, nor was it the easy rat-tat-tat
- of a genteel visitor. No; it was a bad imitation of a postman’s knock,
- followed by a faltering, sneaking tap.
- </p>
- <p>
- Had any embarrassed individual, accustomed to visits from rent-distrainers
- or process-servers, heard that knock and caught sight of that man at his
- door, he would have instantly implored some other inmate of the house to
- tell the visitor that he had sailed to the furthest extremity of the
- Hudson Bay territory, and would never be home again.
- </p>
- <p>
- The fact was, it was not alone that the knock was a tell-tale, but the
- man’s dress also loudly proclaimed the purport of the visits he paid. Upon
- his head, slinking down to his eyebrows, was a hat which had long endured
- severe stress of weather, to its disadvantage. Upon his body—and
- that was his mark—he wore a loose brown great coat, styled by
- advertising tailors, “the sack,” It was dirty, discoloured, much worn at
- the pockets, and strongly impregnated with the odour of the cheapest and
- rankest tobacco.
- </p>
- <p>
- That coat, worn at the hottest end of June, betrayed him. It was his
- sign-board. A child brought up in that neighbourhood would have told you,
- by that coat, worn in the height of summer heats, the nature of his
- profession.
- </p>
- <p>
- The young goldsmith, on seeing him, held his breath; he had a conviction
- that the man’s errand would of necessity prove an unpleasant one; and,
- after a moment’s reflection, he stepped over the threshold of the
- shop-door, apparently engaged in looking up and down the street, but he
- never took his eye for an instant off the man in the dingy brown coat.
- </p>
- <p>
- That individual had just raised his extremely dirty fingers to repeat the
- offensive knock, when the street-door slowly opened, and an elderly,
- wan-faced man presented himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is her father,” muttered the young goldsmith, retiring within his
- shop, yet only a few paces, for—though uninfluenced by any meanly
- inquisitive motives—he felt constrained to watch the proceedings of
- the shabby, brown-coated personage.
- </p>
- <p>
- He observed the wan old man and his visitor engaged in rather a vigorous
- colloquy, conducted with brutal coarseness on the part of the man in the
- brown coat, and on the other side with the air of one upon whom some heavy
- and startling demand is made, which he is wholly unprepared or unable to
- meet.
- </p>
- <p>
- After some extravagant gestures had been exhibited by both persons, the
- individual in the dingy brown sack abruptly terminated it, by thrusting
- rudely back the pale-faced old man, springing past him, and ascending the
- stairs. Wringing his hands, with a distracted aspect, the old man
- staggered after him.
- </p>
- <p>
- The quick eye of Harry Vivian had detected the agonised bearing of the old
- man during the whole time he was in conversation with his unwelcome
- visitor. He had with pain perceived the emotion of horror which seemed to
- paralyse his limbs as he tottered up the stairs after the dusky fellow,
- and, with nervous apprehension, he wondered what scene was then being
- enacted in the apartments above.
- </p>
- <p>
- Was that fair young creature present? In all human probability she was.
- Possibly subjected to the coarse insults of the unprepossessing individual
- who had forced his way into her presence. The teeth of the youth set
- firmly together as the thought intruded itself, and he felt that it would
- prove an infinite comfort to him, if he detected the vulgar rascal in any
- act of insolence addressed to her, to grip him by the nape of the neck,
- and fling him out of the window into the street.
- </p>
- <p>
- At this moment, old Harper, the goldsmith, his master, and his uncle too,
- made his appearance from an inner workshop. Young Vivian, who was racking
- his brain for a scheme which should enable him to make one of the party
- opposite, turned quickly to him and said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, sir, I am glad you have come in! There is the silver race cup from
- Rixon’s, which ought to have been sent to the chaser’s; it has been
- overlooked. It is wanted home quickly. Don’t you think I had better run
- over with it at once to old Wilton?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wilton! No, Hal!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, sir. Why not?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He was so slow over the last things we gave him to chase. You ought to
- remember that, Hal, for you used to run over there constantly to urge him
- on, you know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal turned suddenly scarlet.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That won’t do,” continued the goldsmith; “so in future, I think we had
- better send all these jobs to old Verity, at the back of the Sessions
- House.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The perspiration stood in small globes on the forehead of young Vivian.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You forget, sir,” he said, with a pleading tone, “that Wilton has been
- long in failing health, that it is not so long since he lost his wife. Oh!
- sir, this is not a time to take his work away.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Harper gently stroked his chin.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, no, Hal, it is not,” he said, after a short pause; “but, at the
- same time, his unfortunate position is not an excuse we can offer to the
- firms who employ us for delay in the work with which we are entrusted; and
- it would be unfair to ourselves to allow the shortcomings of others to
- prove the occasion of loss of custom to us.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I will answer for Wilton’s punctuality this time,” urged Hal,
- eagerly; “and you know he is our best chaser. Shall I run over with it,
- and impress upon him that it is wanted as soon as it can be done?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well you may, Hal,” said the goldsmith; “but remember to point out to him
- the necessity for punctuality. Assure him that if there be any delay over
- the completion of this job, he may reckon it as the last he will have from
- us.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The apprentice, with a pleased smile, nodded his head, caught up the cup,
- which bore upon it a rare example of his own skill, and ran out of the
- shop.
- </p>
- <p>
- A moment more, and a sharp ringing knock was heard at the door of the
- house in which dwelt old Wilton the gold chaser.
- </p>
- <p>
- Another moment, and the apprentice stood within the chamber he had so
- longed to enter, and he became at once a spectator and a participator in a
- painful scene.
- </p>
- <p>
- The sounds of angry altercation caught his ear as he reached the room
- door, the gruff tone of voice of the unwelcome guest preponderating.
- Acting upon and animated by an impulse which he perhaps would not have
- cared to acknowledge even to himself, he did not pause to crave admission,
- but entered the room without displaying the courtesy of a preliminary
- knock.
- </p>
- <p>
- He saw before him old Wilton, and facing him the terror-dealing man in
- brown. They were at high words. On the appearance of Hal, both men became
- silent, and fixed their eyes intently and inquiringly upon him. They
- waited for him to speak.
- </p>
- <p>
- The apprentice cast his eyes quickly round the room, but the maiden he
- hoped to see was not there, and he drew breath. He perceived that he was
- expected to commence the conversation, and, clearing his voice, he said,
- hurriedly—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Wilton, I have some work here for you.” He put the silver cup upon
- the table. It will require your nicest skill, and the instructions are
- therefore rather elaborate, so, if you please, I will wait until you are
- disengaged before I”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “No! no! no!” exclaimed old Wilton, interrupting him, Snatching up the
- cup, he thrust it back into the arms of young Vivian—“take it away—take
- it away!” he added, almost frantically, “it must not remain here now. No!
- no! no!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why not?” asked the individual in the loose great coat, sharply.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Silence! speak not,” cried Wilton, hoarsely, glaring at him; and then
- turning to the apprentice, he ejaculated, with great excitement, “Go—go;
- I beg—I entreat you to go away. Pray, young sir, go!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But I interposes a objection,” intervened the former speaker, and,
- turning to Vivian, he said, with an assumption of authority—“You’ll
- be so kind as to put that ’ere piece o’ plate down where you put it
- jes’ now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Suppose I do not?” rejoined Vivian, sharply, turning his bright eye full
- upon the speaker, with an expression that savoured very strongly of a
- disposition to resist. The dirty man did not like the language it spake,
- but he affected not to be influenced by the threat it conveyed. He
- answered, temperately yet impressively—
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is jes’ what I don’t suppose. Look here, young genl’man, you don’t
- know me—my name’s Jukes!”
- </p>
- <p>
- It might have been Snooks, or Wiggins, or any other name not down in the
- category of the young man’s acquaintances or friends. The indifference he
- displayed on hearing it could not be greater if it had. He so expressed
- himself, for which Mr. Jukes rewarded him with a stare of astonishment,
- and whistled. Then he chuckled—
- </p>
- <p>
- “You’re in luck, you are,” he continued; “but then you are young, you’ll
- werry likely know me better some day. I’m a sheriff’s officer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Certainly the youth recognised the office if he did not the man’s name. A
- thrill ran through his frame as the fellow hissed the words between his
- teeth, and a sound like a low wail burst from the lips of old Wilton.
- </p>
- <p>
- The youth turned towards him, his bosom swelling with the generous
- impulses natural to his age, and, in tones of earnest sincerity, he
- exclaimed, “Can I, in any way, aid you, Mr. Wilton?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The tone, the look, the gesture of the warm-hearted youth needed nothing
- to commend them to the keen appreciation of the old gold-worker, and his
- eyes filled with tears as the generous proffer fell upon his ears, but he
- shook his head sorrowfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I thank you, Master Vivian,” he said; “but you cannot help me. No, you
- cannot aid me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You do not know, Mr. Wilton, what I might be able to accomplish, if you
- would give me the opportunity,” he urged.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, no,” replied the old man, “leave me to battle it out with this man as
- best I may.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And jes’ leave that cup afore you go,” exclaimed Mr. Jukes, addressing
- Vivian. “It’ll help the hassets.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I do not intend to go yet,” said Hal Vivian; “but when I do, believe me I
- shall take no instructions from you about the destination of this cup.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Jukes whistled shrilly by the united aid of his first and third
- fingers, and instantly the room door opened. A couple of yet shabbier and
- much dirtier personages than Mr. Jukes made their appearance. That
- individual waved his hand towards them, and performed the ceremony of
- introduction.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Nutty and Mr. Sudds, genl’men,” he said. “One on ’em, Mr.
- Nutty, I shall leave here in possession on a <i>fi. fa</i>., and Mr. Sudds
- will assist me in arresting Eustace Wilton on a <i>ca. sa.</i> and in
- taking on him a country walk to a spunging house.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Old Wilton turned as pale as death, and groaned in bitter anguish. Young
- Vivian felt a flush of heat pass over his frame.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can nothing be done?” he asked of Jukes, earnestly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Jukes raised his dirty hand to his mouth, and recklessly bit his foul
- thumb-nail. He plunged into a fit of reflection. Suddenly he raised his
- head, and said to his companions—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go outside a moment.”
- </p>
- <p>
- They obeyed him, and quitted the room. Then he said to the youth—
- </p>
- <p>
- “I hold warrants on two judgments against Wilton for one thousand pounds
- each. On the one I takes his traps, on the other I takes his body. So you
- see as he can’t satisfy ’em, young mister, he’ll be cleaned out,
- and become a reg’lar pauper, on the poor side, in quod; and he must rot in
- quod, for he can’t take the benefit of the hact, that I knows. That’s bad
- enuff, ain’t it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is horrible!” ejaculated Hal, with a glance of commiseration at the
- old man, who, with downcast eyes and set teeth, was listening to every
- word that fell from the man’s lips.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course it is,” repeated Mr. Jukes, with an air of triumph. “Now he may
- save himself from all this, and like the princesses and queen’s children
- in fairy tales, live happy ever arterwards, if he chooses not to be
- hobstinate.” Mr. Jukes spoke with emphasis. “I wants him jes’ to sign a
- little bit o’ paper. He has only to make a flourish with a pen, and there
- he is a free man agin with all his traps about him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Jukes paused. Young Vivian approached old Wilton.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your position is a grave one, Mr. Wilton,” he said: “let me respectfully
- suggest that if a simple signature will free you from two heavy claims”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Two thousand pounds, two <i>thousand</i> pounds!” interposed Jukes,
- elevating his voice as he repeated the amount of the sum.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Simple signature!—simple signature!” almost screamed the old man.
- “You do not know what you ask, young sir. Sign it. Never! I will starve,
- rot, die, first.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then you must starve, die, and rot,” roared Mr. Jukes, entirely losing
- his previous equanimity. “We’ll have no more o’ your nonsense. Hallo
- there! Sudds and Nutty, come in here, and let’s go to business; ketch ’old
- of Eustace Wilton there, Sudds; and you, Nutty, begin to take a hinventory
- of these ’ere chattels.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Had the men thus summoned to appear, indulged themselves while outside the
- door with the pastime of listening at the keyhole, they could hardly have
- made a quicker response, than they did to the call of Jukes.
- </p>
- <p>
- But as they entered the room by one door, a young girl ran into it by
- another, and cast her arms about the old gold-worker’s neck, saying, in an
- affrighted tone—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dear, dear father, who and why are these men here? why are you, in such
- grief?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The old man sank upon a seat; bowing his face upon the table and burying
- his hands in his gray hair, he sobbed with agony.
- </p>
- <p>
- The girl only tightened her loving embrace, and turned her face towards
- the ruffians who were about to jest at the situation.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was the young Madonna-faced maiden Vivian had seen at the window,
- seeming like a golden seraph in the sunshine.
- </p>
- <p>
- When Jukes perceived the exquisite countenance of Wilton’s daughter turned
- with an aspect of distressed inquiry towards him, he instinctively removed
- the hat of many showers from his dusty head, and made her a slight bow.
- His satellites also approached as near as they could to an imitation of
- his action, and stood still, instead of displaying, as they had intended,
- a vast amount of unnecessary activity.
- </p>
- <p>
- This respect was an instinctive tribute to her innocent loveliness. Purity
- commands reverence even as beauty does admiration.
- </p>
- <p>
- Vivian felt, with a rising in the throat, a sudden desire to produce from
- his pocket—which contained but a very few shillings—several
- thousand pounds, with which to pay off the debt, and then an almost
- irresistible inclination to trundle down the stairs, and out of the house,
- the three fellows whose presence created so much misery.
- </p>
- <p>
- He could do nothing, however, but clear his voice, and, addressing the
- young lady, say—
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is a most unhappy affair, Miss Wilton; and I regret very sincerely
- that it is in my power to do little either in the way of assistance or
- advice; but, with your permission, I will fetch over my uncle, Mr. Harper;
- he possesses vast experience, and no doubt he will show us a way out of
- this maze of difficulty and affliction.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He did not wait for her permission, but running across the road, returned
- the silver cup to its former place; and, in a few hurried, passionate
- words, explained to his uncle what had occurred. He succeeded in
- prevailing on him to return with him to Wilton’s apartments, in some vague
- hope that he would be able to suggest a mode by which the old man might be
- saved from destruction.
- </p>
- <p>
- A most painful scene followed the appearance of Mr. Harper. By pertinent
- questions, he elicited that, under circumstances which could not then be
- explained, Wilton had given bonds to the amount of two thousand pounds;
- that those bonds were over-due; that he had been sued for the recovery of
- the amount; that judgment had been obtained against him, and that
- execution had issued; but, withal, the man Jukes was empowered to withdraw
- arrest and execution, on the condition that Wilton signed a certain
- document which Jukes then had in his possession. This signature Wilton
- sternly and inflexibly refused to give; and when it was urged upon him to
- do so, for the sake of her who was wholly dependent upon him, he grew
- frenzied, and vowed that he would submit to death rather than comply. Mr.
- Harper, the goldsmith, finding that reasoning, expostulations,
- suggestions, and pleadings, were alike in vain, said there was no way to
- save him, and matters must take their course. Like a vulture pouncing upon
- its prey, Jukes seized upon the almost lifeless old man, and proceeded to
- drag him away. His daughter clung in horrified agony to him—in
- truth, it was a sad and painful sight. It was scarcely more than a year
- since death had ruthlessly torn her mother from this fair young child, and
- now it seemed as though the grim tyrant, in the person of Jukes, was
- robbing her of her father also.
- </p>
- <p>
- The old man’s knees trembled, and his under-jaw quivered, as though he had
- been smitten with the palsy. He embraced his daughter with frenzied
- emotion, and in tones of passionate grief, cried—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Flo’! Flo’! my own, my beautiful darling, I leave you but for a brief
- time. Bear up against this dreadful visitation as bravely as you can, my
- girl. It is for the sake of your brother and for you, darling, that I
- endure this misery; but have trust, my child, in an all-righteous Creator—happiness
- will come to us again some day, my child—some day.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will do my best, dear father, if you will take me with you,” murmured
- Flora, through her blinding tears: “I will strive to be brave, and to
- endure patiently and calmly; but oh! indeed, indeed it will terrible to be
- left here alone.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She flung herself upon his neck, and sobbed bitterly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Harper coughed, a watery mist shrouded everything from the sight of
- young Vivian, but Mr. Jukes, declaring that he had no warrant of arrest
- against any “gals,” turned spitefully on old Wilton, tore him from the
- agonised embrace of his weeping child, and bore him away. Mr. Harper
- followed them down the stairs, to see that no unnecessary harshness was
- employed in conveying the trembling prisoner into the street.
- </p>
- <p>
- When they were gone, Flora Wilton sank, half-fainting, into a chair, Hal
- approached her, and, in a gentle voice, he said to her—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your brother Mark and I were intimate friends, Miss Wilton, before he
- went abroad—will you not also look upon me as a friend? It is not in
- my power to do much, yet all that I can do to serve you shall be done with
- my whole heart. Pray believe me. I will not obtrude upon the very natural
- grief which now so heavily weighs you down, but I entreat you, when you
- may need aid not to forget me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora rose up. She turned her large, beautiful eyes—yet more
- lustrous from the tears which filled them—upon him, and with a
- quivering lip, murmured—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Mr. Vivian, kindness at a moment like this is doubly valuable. It has
- a language which of late has been very, very strange in our ears; and now
- that—that he—he is gone, I—I”—
- </p>
- <p>
- Her voice gradually became inaudible, as her features were overspread with
- a death-like paleness. She stretched out her small white hand, as though
- to feel for some place to lean upon for support. She appeared at a moment
- to have been stricken with blindness; she tottered, swayed, to and fro,
- and would have fallen heavily upon the ground but that Hal, with a sudden
- cry, caught her in his strong arms and saved her.
- </p>
- <p>
- The exclamation uttered by Vivian attracted the attention of Mr. Nutty. He
- was making out an inventory of the furniture in the room, and had just
- written down in a penny memorandum book, “4 ’orsaire cheers, 1
- tabbel,” when he heard the same voice cry—“Run for some water!
- Quick! Run!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He responded instantly:
- </p>
- <p>
- “Water be blowed; I can’t go for no water; I’m the man in possession.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER II.—THE WORM UPON THE LEAF.
- </h2>
- <p class="indent25">
- I’ll tell thee what, my friend, <br /><span class="indent15">He is a very
- serpent in my way; <br /><span class="indent15">And wheresoe’er this foot
- of mine doth tread <br /><span class="indent15">He lies before me. Dost
- thou understand me? <br /><span class="indent30">—Shakspere. <br /><br /></span></span></span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">S</span>unshine still!
- </p>
- <p>
- Sunbeams making a golden palace of a Gothic mansion in the Regent’s Park,
- gilding its fretted roof, its traceries, and its triple arched and
- ornamented windows, tinting the graceful trees which gently waved in the
- gardens before and behind it, scattering golden stars upon the lake, and
- investing the flowers and shrubs with a beauty which rendered the place
- around little less than an earthly paradise.
- </p>
- <p>
- Sunshine and sunbeams in all places without the walls of the mansion—shadows
- within.
- </p>
- <p>
- In a room, magnificently furnished, containing every appliance a morbid
- attention to personal comfort could need, or the invention of luxurious
- imagination could devise, were seated an elderly gentleman, his wife and
- three daughters.
- </p>
- <p>
- One of these girls was a beauty—all had pretensions to good looks,
- but she was strikingly handsome.
- </p>
- <p>
- The name of the owner of this mansion was Grahame. He was a pale,
- stern-looking man. A dress suit of black, and a white cravat, which seemed
- to have the effect of being unpleasantly and rather dangerously tight
- about his neck, added to the austerity of his aspect.
- </p>
- <p>
- His wife, an intensely proud woman, whose pride was apparent in her air,
- her dress, her features, sat like an imperious creature whose foible had
- no other quality than the worst species of haughtiness.
- </p>
- <p>
- Like the very frankest person in the world, she wore— <br /><br /><span
- class="indent20">Her heart upon her sleeve, </span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- and displayed its entire sentiment in the material of which her attire was
- made, in its fashion, and in the style in which it was worn. The jewellery
- upon her wrists, her arms, her fingers, about her neck, and at her waist,
- betrayed the only feeling of which she was capable. She lived, moved,
- breathed in an atmosphere of inordinate, unreasoning pride—no other;
- and the “people” who came in contact with her felt it before she uttered a
- word to or glanced at them. In her eyes they were pottery of the commonest
- earthen material, whilst the clay of which she was herself formed,
- produced a porcelain of the rarest kind. So she sat; to be looked at, not
- touched.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her husband, outwardly was of the same stamp.
- </p>
- <p>
- Within, he was begrimed with cowardly meanness, granite selfishness, a
- cringing obsequiousness to the wealthy and the powerful, and an icy
- haughtiness to all whom he understood to be his inferiors in position. By
- his standard, pride was measured as honour and nobility of soul, gold as
- the essence of all virtue.
- </p>
- <p>
- His daughters, brought up under such guidance, could hardly fail to be
- impregnated with the principles—or, rather, lack of principle—by
- which their parents were governed. Yet exercised upon the youngest, their
- influence failed to win a proselyte. Her organisation had not been adapted
- by nature to receive the impressions the authors of her being laboured to
- create, and, therefore, when she hazarded an opinion favourable to the
- purest sympathies of a kindly nature, or displayed an emotion which
- betrayed that she had a heart, she was called a fool, and treated as a
- pariah by the whole family. She had been christened Evangeline, but her
- imperial mamma frequently informed her it was a misnomer—that, in
- truth, her name should have been Gosling, which she had somewhere heard,
- meant a young goose, truly a young silly goose.
- </p>
- <p>
- The second daughter resembled her mother in all things—was, in fact,
- her counterpart; she even bore her dualistic name, Margaret Claverhouse,
- and like her maternal parent, was supremely proud and hateful in all her
- characteristics.
- </p>
- <p>
- The eldest girl, the beauty of the family, was composed of somewhat
- discordant elements. In person she was eminently attractive, her figure
- was tall and commanding, and its outline was as graceful as its air was
- majestic. Her face, as we have said, was extremely beautiful, but he must
- have a bold heart, who, falling in love with it, would woo her in the
- expectation that he could win her with ease and retain her by
- indifference. Her features were regular, her eyes large, glittering, and
- of that deep brown which is often mistaken for black; her eyelids were
- full, and her eyelashes so long as really to form a fringe to the lid. Her
- eyebrows were arched, her hair was darker than her eyes, and not less
- brilliant. Her mouth was small, yet it had a sensual fulness, no less
- apparent then the scornful curl which ever seemed to keep it in a state of
- unrest. As the hand of her maid was skilled, and incessantly in
- requisition, the arrangement of her tresses—that wondrous ornament
- to woman—may be said to have been faultless. Her attire was
- admirably chosen to assist her beauty, and its fit was a triumph of the <i>modiste’s</i>
- art. Her mother had instilled into her a belief that she was a queen of
- beauty, and she looked, thought, moved, as though she were an empress.
- </p>
- <p>
- As yet it was supposed that her affections had not been touched; from
- infancy she had been tutored to believe that to be human in feeling was to
- descend to the level of the common herd—that the world and what it
- contained were made for her, not she for the world. She was gifted with
- all the elements of which energy and passion are composed, and she was
- capable of loving with a force not often allotted even to woman; but her
- passions, her energies, her tenderness, had been rendered dormant by the
- counsels of worldly pride, as the warm, gushing, health-giving stream is
- converted by a slow frost into a silent, motionless block of ice.
- </p>
- <p>
- Should there come before her eyes the man whose physical beauty and whose
- mental intelligence woke up her heart from its icy dream into passionate
- life, and that love should prove to be unrequited—woe! woe! to her!
- and possibly to him! She had been named Helen after a maternal relative,
- from whom the most exaggerated expectations were entertained, and she bore
- it as though she, in virtue of it, already possessed the vast inheritance
- it was understood to foreshadow.
- </p>
- <p>
- This family were engaged—while the broad sunshine was gladdening the
- poor and the respectable, promenading in the park, into which the windows
- of the mansion looked—in discussing the conduct of the only son of
- the house of Grahame, who, instead of having obtained at college a “double
- first” for the honour of the family, had forwarded home a packet of
- tradesmen’s accounts, the gross total of which considerably exceeded the
- handsome allowance placed to his credit by his father. Mr. Grahame spoke
- with considerable dissatisfaction of the course his son must have pursued
- to have plunged thus largely into debt; and, though it was in accordance
- with his wish that his son had for his college companions and intimate
- acquaintances, the Duke of St. Allborne, the young Earl of Carlton, and
- the experienced Lord Suedmuch, yet he thought that even their intimacy, at
- the price his son had paid for it, or rather that which <i>he</i> was
- called upon to pay, much too dear, and he expressed himself on the subject
- with an emphasis which his pride rendered unusual.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs. Grahame turned upon him a sidelong glance with her half-closed eyes,
- and, said coldly and contemptuously—
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is a Grahame! The members of that race are not used to measure their
- wants, their pleasures, or even their caprices, by miserable
- considerations of economy. I said to Malcolm, when we parted—‘Remember,
- always, that you are a Grahame. If those with whom you associate act as
- though their wealth ran a stream whose source is inexhaustible, let your
- expenditure be no less illimitable than theirs, even to represent, in
- wealth, a river whose’”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Confluence is a sea of dissipation and of debt,” sharply exclaimed Mr.
- Grahame, taking a pinch of snuff out of a gold, diamond-studded snuff-box.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Grahame, your sense of the dignity of your position is becoming
- impaired,” responded the stately lady, wholly closing her eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, madam,” he returned, “pardon me, I simply, object to unnecessary and
- preposterous extravagance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- An expression of ineffable disdain passed over the lady’s features.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Claver’se Grahame,” she remarked, in a frigid tone, “have you, at a
- moment, become poor?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The face of Mr. Grahame instantly changed to a brilliant scarlet hue, then
- to a purple, finally it became livid. Globules of cold perspiration
- gathered thickly upon his brow. He thrust his chair back a few paces, and
- there was something of an affrighted expression in his eyes as he gazed
- upon hen. Her eyelids were yet close down over her pale gray eyes as he
- wiped the deathly damp from his brow.
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen Grahame turned her bright dark eyes upon him with a scornful look.
- In her estimation, the concentration of meanness of soul was to place a
- limit upon lavish expenditure. She did not utter a word, but she tried to
- balance in her own mind which of the two occasioned her father the most
- terror—her mother’s cold displeasure or Malcolm’s extravagance.
- </p>
- <p>
- Margaret thought with her sister that economy was but another word for a
- despicable narrowness of soul. Not but that she was economical enough when
- called upon for an exercise of charity; but for any selfish purpose, a
- compulsory contraction of expenditure would have been regarded by her as
- an example of the lowest and most vulgar niggardliness. She listened with
- disdain to her parent, and thought that it was incumbent upon her father
- to give like a Grahame, in order that her brother Malcolm should lavish it
- like a Grahame.
- </p>
- <p>
- Evangeline, to whom the conversation had been distressing observing that
- her father had become suddenly silent; raised her soft eyes and marked the
- expression that passed over his features. In alarm she hastily left her
- seat, and in a low, affectionate tone, said, as she took his hand and
- leaned over him—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dear sir, you are not well, you are agitated, can I”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Keep your seat, Evangeline;” he exclaimed hoarsely; as he drew his hand
- from her petulantly. “I am not agitated—I am well—you are
- obtrusive and impertinent.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Evangeline retreated to her place at the window; she took up the
- embroidery on which she had been engaged, and went on with it in silence,
- but a tear dropped upon her work; no one heeding the “young silly goose,”
- it passed unnoticed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs. Grahame spoke again.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Malcolm is coming home,” she said, “and he has invited two of his college
- companions—the young Duke of St. Allborne, and the Honourable Lester
- Vane to accompany him here on a visit. No doubt Mr. Grahame, you will not
- lose so valuable an opportunity to impress upon your son, in the presence
- of his spendthrift associates, that your narrow income forbids your
- meeting claims which”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Madam,” interrupted Mr. Grahame, tartly, “it is you who are losing a
- sense of your position now. Let us change the subject. I will speak with
- Malcolm upon his return. A proper maintenance of his position, and the
- honour of his House is one thing: a disreputable squandering of his income
- quite another. In that spirit I speak now—in that spirit will I
- address myself to him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who is the Honourable Lester Vane?” inquired Margaret Grahame of her
- mother.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A young man of an ancient and high family,” replied Mrs. Grahame—“immensely
- rich.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And very handsome,” exclaimed Helen; adding, “so at least Malcolm writes
- me. He praises him highly, declares that he possesses great personal
- attractions, and is sure—I—we shall all like him much.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He did not name him in the few lines he wrote to me,” said Margaret.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But he did to you, Eva, did he not?” remarked Helen, turning her
- brilliant eyes with a mocking glance upon her youngest sister.
- </p>
- <p>
- A gush of tears came again into the eyes of Evangeline. She did not raise
- them from her employment, that her emotion might be seen by her sisters.
- She answered with a quivering lip, and in a low, faltering tone.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I suppose Malcolm had not time to write to me. I have had no letter from
- him since he has been gone.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Margaret smiled. She was not accustomed to laugh.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You! Absurd! do you think he would write to you? what conceit!” she
- observed, with a gesture of contempt.
- </p>
- <p>
- What other feeling should she entertain for a sister who possessed merely
- the cardinal virtues, and was utterly deficient in an appreciation of
- worldly pomps and vanities?
- </p>
- <p>
- At this part of the conversation, there was a tap at the door of the
- apartment; it opened at the same moment, and an individual, attired in a
- suit of black of the most approved court dress cut, advanced into the
- room. The eyes of the family were turned upon him, but he scarcely
- appeared to be disposed to collapse under that honour. His neck was
- garnished with an unexceptionable cravat, which was arranged with such
- precision that it seemed to be wrought in alabaster and carved
- elaborately. His wig—for as he confessed to admiring <i>confreres</i>,
- he had dispensed with his “own ’air”—looked as though it had
- been subjected to a severe storm of whitewash and had been violently
- brushed. He approached his master, and, bending over him, said, in a
- confidential manner, yet with a gesture of grave but humble deference.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thet pesson is come, sir!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who?—what person?” inquired Mr. Grahame with the air of one who
- denied the right of any “person” to seek an audience with him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The pesson concerning which you gave me hin-structions, sir—I asked
- ’im into the libree, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Into my library, man?” cried Mr. Grahame, rising up, angrily. “Pray what
- does the fellow mean? How dare you ask any ‘person’ into my library
- without my instructions to that effect?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He said he were Mr. Chewkle, sir, and if you please to remember”——
- </p>
- <p>
- The face of Mr. Grahame turned as pale as death, and then changed to an
- intense crimson.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes!” he cried hurriedly, altering his tone; “return
- to him—say I will come to him immediately.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man bowed, and quitted the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame walked to the window and looked out into the sunlight. It lay
- upon the grassy lawn, upon the sloping meads, upon the waving trees, like
- gleaming gold dust. The soft breeze made the leaves flutter merrily, birds
- darted to and fro in the clear air, singing gaily, and brilliantly attired
- ladies and children moved over the open places in the broad park, animated
- by the beauty of the scene, and the glory of the sunshine. Mr. Grahame
- looked distastefully upon it, it ill-assorted with the feelings at war
- within his breast, and he turned from it with an impatient exclamation. He
- set his teeth together, drew a long breath, and, with his features more
- pallid than usual, strode out of the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs. Grahame—too much occupied with visions of her own dignity, when
- she thought at all, which was not often—took no notice of the
- disturbed manner of her husband. If she had seen it, she would not have
- credited the evidence of her own eyes. A Grahame disturbed or agitated,
- the thing was impossible.
- </p>
- <p>
- Neither did Helen, who was sketching fancy portraits of the Honourable
- Lester Vane; nor Margaret, who was not even troubled by an effort of
- imagination, observe him; but Evangeline perceived his inward
- perturbation, and not daring to offer a word, or breathe a hope that she
- might aid in alleviating it, sat sadly at her needlework, filled with a
- foreboding that something foreshadowed trial and affliction to the House.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame descended to his library. In one corner of it, upon the edge
- of a chair, under which his hat was placed, sat, with his knees close
- together, and his toes poised on the floor, a strange looking personage, a
- sort of hybrid between a fast banker’s clerk, and an undertaker.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was Mr. Chewkle.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Chewkle was an agent; a commission agent. He undertook any description
- of business, no matter what. He sold coals and coffee, he introduced
- distracted tradesmen to usurious bill-discounters. He offered two
- shillings and sixpence in the pound to indignant creditors for unhappy
- insolvents. He would supply you with a good article in tea, at two and
- eight. He raised money on mortgage and <i>post obit</i>, having a friend
- who did that sort of thing for spendthrifts who needed it.
- </p>
- <p>
- He laid out money on fancy horses for fast individuals, with imaginary
- betting-men, though the horses he backed for them were rarely landed
- winners at the post. He knew all the good investments in mines, and would
- obtain shares for anybody, at a comparatively low price, though some day
- they “might” be at fabulous premiums. He—but he would undertake
- anything whatever, clean or dirty, if paid his commission, and “ask no
- questions,” when the remunerator was liberal.
- </p>
- <p>
- He rose up as Mr. Grahame entered, and made him a bow.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good morning, Chewkle,” said Mr. Grahame, loftily; “well, what success?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We’ve got our man, safe, sir,” he replied, with a feeble grin.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Spunging-house, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And the family?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “At the apartments, sir, but we shall move the goods to-morrow, for sale
- by the sheriff, and then they must go out you know, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Into the streets.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Into the streets, sir, or the work’us. They’ve no resources, as I sees.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then, of course he has signed the undertaking?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A—a—not yet, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But he will?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I’m afraid not, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame had seated himself with the air of a Mogul emperor giving
- audience to a Hindoo slave. He rose to his feet as if a pistol-shot had
- been discharged at him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not! Nonsense!” he cried with fierce astonishment; “under such pressure,
- the man cannot possibly refuse.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But he does, sir, and swears he will not sign if he has to starve and rot
- in prison.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame passed his hand over his mouth, and gulped as if he would
- choke.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is to be done?” he asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do without it, sir,” suggested Chewkle, mildly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ridiculous! His signature must be to the deed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, sir,” said Mr. Chewkle, slowly, and looking carefully round the
- room to see that no other person was present, “so it may be there on the
- deed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame looked at him steadfastly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How?” he asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Chewkle reduced his voice to a whisper.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have got his name on a letter, I s’pose?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not very difficult to write like it, I fancy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Chewkle!” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, with dilated eyes, “what do you
- counsel?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing, sir. I merely suggests that if the signature must be there on
- the deed, no obstinate old fool should prevent its being placed there and,
- where money is not a hobject, it can easily be managed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame’s teeth chattered, as if he had been suddenly transported into
- a frosty atmosphere.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Chewkle,” he said, grimly, “do you know what the law declares such an act
- to be?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Chewkle nodded with perfect self-possession.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It must be done, sir,” he rejoined emphatically. “Your position depends
- on it. You must balance beggary, destitution, ruin, against rank, fortune,
- dignity”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Forgery!” groaned Mr. Grahame, sinking into his chair, and pressing his
- hands over his eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER III.—POSSESSION DISTURBED.
- </h2>
- <p class="indent10">
- <i>Duke</i>. You are welcome: take your place. <br /><span class="indent20">Are
- you acquainted with the difference <br /><span class="indent20">That holds
- this present question in the court? <br /><span class="indent10"><i>Por</i>.
- I am informed thoroughly of the cause, <br /><span class="indent20">Which
- is the merchant here and which is the Jew? <br /><span class="indent25">—Shakspere.
- <br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>n the dreams of
- Harry Vivian the delicate form and sweet, smiling face of Flora Wilton had
- appeared to him, and not unfrequently. But then she seemed ever to be some
- queen of faëryland, seated on a throne of gems of dazzling brilliancy, in
- floral realms of more exquisite beauty than mortal eye had ever beheld on
- earth, or waking fancy in its most gorgeous development could conceive.
- </p>
- <p>
- In his moments of romantic imaginings, when his mind was filled with her
- beauty, he certainly had sketched a few scenes comprising events in which
- both he and Flora figured. Still his ardent imagination had not carried
- him beyond the presentation of a flower, and the reward for the gift with
- which the soft grateful look from eyes, the loveliest in the world, would
- enrich him.
- </p>
- <p>
- He had never foreshadowed a time—for true love is ever subdued in
- action by the most genuine modesty—when he should within his arms,
- press to his throbbing heart the form which had in his eyes no equal, or
- that the face so rare in its perfection, should recline upon his shoulder,
- close to his lips.
- </p>
- <p>
- Yet so it chanced to be. Circumstances he could have never shaped had come
- to pass, and the bliss of entwining his arms about the small, delicate
- waist of Flora Wilton was bestowed upon him at a moment the most
- unexpected, when he was unprepared to welcome it and unable to enjoy it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Nay, rather than bliss, the emotion he experienced might be said to have
- been one of terror; not without its gratification, it is true, for he
- would not have resigned her, senseless as she was, to another for worlds.
- Still the deathly hue with which her features were overspread, the
- compressed lips, the closed eye, from which a tear had struggled, and,
- disengaging itself, lodged yet upon her cheek, made him fear that the
- frightful visitation which had so suddenly fallen upon her was a calamity
- greater than her gentle nature was able to sustain. He grew himself cold
- and faint as the supposition crossed him that, unless some sudden and
- energetic measures were adopted, she would pass from her swoon into the
- unawakening sleep of death.
- </p>
- <p>
- Unacquainted with anything pertaining to fainting fits, and under a strong
- impression that swooning and giving up the ghost were synonymous, his
- calls for water and for aid merged from the vehement into the frantic; he
- unheeded the representations made by Mr. Nutty that men in possession
- never quit the sight of goods placed in their charge until the amount they
- represent is satisfied; he threatened him most fiercely for not flying to
- execute his commands; but, at the close of a paroxysm of rage and
- agitation, he found Flora yet senseless in his arms, and Mr. Nutty dancing
- and declaiming, vowing that he would take the “lor” of “any willin as
- strove to hinterrupt him in his duty.”
- </p>
- <p>
- In the midst of this harangue by Mr. Nutty upon the majesty of his
- professional avocation, the door of the apartment opened, and a young girl
- glided in.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had met old Wilton on the stairs, in custody of the officers, and had
- seen him borne away. She had loitered outside of the door of the apartment—she
- heard the low, sobbing wail of the afflicted girl, whose tears were wrung
- from her by the terrifying conviction that her destruction was involved in
- the loss of her father. She heard, too, the calls of Vivian, together with
- the angry colloquy between him and Nutty, and then she decided on offering
- her assistance.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was only a cap-front maker, working for a wholesale house in the city,
- producing the fronts worn inside women’s bonnets, for sevenpence halfpenny
- per dozen. She rose at six in the morning, and worked until twelve at
- night, in order to complete two dozen per diem. Out of the sum thus
- realized weekly she had to live, pay her lodging, and find herself in
- clothes.
- </p>
- <p>
- So she had not much time on her hands, nor much money in her pocket, and
- was what the every-day world calls a person of no importance.
- </p>
- <p>
- But she had a heart—a gentle, compassionate, loving heart.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was a very pretty girl, though her complexion was something wan, and
- her eyelids were rather tinged with pink; but if these appearances
- detracted something from her prettiness, what did they not add to the
- interest and the sympathy raised in the beholder? They told of early
- rising and midnight toil, the rapid wearing out of young and beautiful
- human life, so that thousands of thoughtless beings of her own sex might
- set off to advantage their facial attractions—<i>CHEAPLY</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- Not to lengthen this digression—for we shall know much more of this
- young damsel by and by—Lotte Clinton, for that was her name, hearing
- the cry of young Vivian for water, entered the apartment, prepared to
- offer her services if they were likely to be required.
- </p>
- <p>
- She saw Flora Wilton lying in the arms of Hal Vivian, whose handsome face
- she recognised in an instant, for she had often observed it from her
- garret window upturned to the house in which she dwelt, though his look
- reached not so high as where she sat peering behind her mignionette and
- nasturtiums.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal knew her not, but just now she made her appearance, to his conception,
- as an angel newly come from Paradise.
- </p>
- <p>
- He turned his eager eyes upon her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Miss Wilton is in deep affliction,” he said, quickly, “she has fainted;
- will you be so good as to bring some water?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Place her in a chair,” said Lotte, softly, “she will be better there—she
- will have more air. I will run for water, and my smelling salts. Sometimes
- at night, I grow faint and dizzy, and cannot see my work, and they relieve
- me then wonderfully.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She said this as she hurried out of the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- Poor girl! She had but too often had occasion to use the stimulant for the
- purpose she named.
- </p>
- <p>
- Vivian almost unconsciously felt a reluctance to resign his beautiful
- burden, but he could not help seeing that the course proposed by Lotte was
- the proper one to be adopted; therefore he placed the yet lifeless Flora,
- with the tenderest carefulness, upon a chair, and supported her drooping
- head upon his breast.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lotte, swift of foot, had not been a minute obtaining the ammoniacal salts
- and a teacup with water in it. She did not possess a tumbler, for she
- could not afford herself beer, and the water she took at her dinner, or
- supper—when she could afford to indulge in the latter luxury—was
- as sweet to her out of a cup as a glass.
- </p>
- <p>
- She set to work, as a woman almost instinctively proceeds in these
- matters. While she had all that tender sympathy and commiseration which
- the condition of Flora could elicit from any one imbued with a generous
- susceptibility, she was endowed also with that species of calm
- self-possession and firm collectedness, so valuable in emergencies where
- human life is at stake.
- </p>
- <p>
- She set Vivian to work bathing with the cool water the white temples from
- which his trembling fingers had parted the long waving hair, while she
- herself applied the ammonia to the nostrils of Flora, and chafed her palms
- when the inhalation had done its work.
- </p>
- <p>
- Thus assaulted, nature returned to its duty, and reasserted its claims
- over the motionless system of the young girl, who gradually opened her
- eyes. Gazing wildly about her, she abruptly rose up from her seat, as
- though she had awakened out of some painful dream.
- </p>
- <p>
- The faces of Vivian and Lotte seemed to confuse her; but when her large,
- sad eyes fell upon the unattractive countenance of Mr. Nutty, turned upon
- her with an aspect in which the expression was undecided—as he was
- not certain whether the swoon was a sham or a fact—memory returned,
- and her bereavement, with the future and all the horrors of its
- uncertainty—save that the direst poverty must attend it—burst
- upon her.
- </p>
- <p>
- She wrung her hands in the fulness of her misery, and then she murmured
- through her blinding tears—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Almighty Father! support me now!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Lotte stole her arm about Flora’s waist, and whispered in her ear—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Cheer up, Miss Wilton! you have friends who will not desert you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where?” she asked, bitterly. “I know of no relative, save my father and
- my brother. My father is in prison, my brother is far, far away, and I am
- a homeless, helpless, hopeless outcast.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not hopeless!” exclaimed Vivian; “do not say that, Miss Wilton! Remember
- that I have told you, Mark and I were friends before he went away. I know
- him so well that I believe if any near and dear relative of mine were,
- during my absence, to fall into trouble and affliction, he would be the
- first to come forward and help her, and, as his friend, what he would do
- that ought I to do. I make no boast; but, oh! Miss Wilton, do not fear but
- that I will do my best, and that at least you shall not be helpless nor
- homeless while I can command a shilling, and have strength to work for
- one.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you are a dear fellow, and make me foolish enough to cry, and I wish
- you wouldn’t,” said Lotte, her eyes suffused with tears.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And, likewise, you are young and green—pea-green,” thought Mr.
- Nutty, as he put down in his inventory, “1 large spewn, 1 chimblee
- ornymint, and 1 arthwrugg.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora, with eyes beaming with gratitude, proffered her hand to Vivian, who
- took it and pressed it. It would have been a dear delight to him to have
- kissed it, but he felt that this was not a time for such a display of
- gallantry or feeling.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know not how to thank you, Mr. Vivian,” she said, in trembling accents,
- “but I fear I cannot, while I sincerely appreciate your generous offers of
- assistance to me, avail myself of them. Your friendship for my brother
- gives to me no claim upon your aid, neither does it entitle me to accept
- it; and, guided by the precepts and counsels my dear father has implanted
- in my mind, I seem clearly to comprehend that it would be—may I say—an
- indiscretion were I to act otherwise than in most grateful terms to
- decline what your disinterested generosity has prompted you to propose. I
- confess that I have been terribly shocked and shaken by what has occurred,
- but the nervous tremor I at this moment endure will pass away, and I shall
- look with fervent faith to a brighter time.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Young and green, too,” thought Mr. Nutty—“sap-green,” and placed in
- his inventory, “1 immidge—a figgur of Oap.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Lotte interposed, as Hal, with rather a disconcerted aspect, was about to
- urge her acceptance of his renewed offer.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let us see, Mr. Vivian,” she said to him, “what tomorrow will bring
- forth. At present everything is in confusion; by to-morrow we shall know
- the worst; what can be done, and what there will remain to do. Then Miss
- Wilton will be better able to judge in what you can be of service to her,
- and I have no doubt she will feel less reluctance to accept the kindly aid
- you have offered in such a friendly and worthy manner now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A sensible girl, that,” thought Mr. Nutty, “works for her livin’, an’ ’ard,
- too, I’ll be bound!” He put down at the same moment in his inventory, “a
- peece of clokk wurk wownd up and goen; 1 nutmy graytur; 1 coles scuddel.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal, seeing that the advice tendered by Lotte Clinton was acceptable to
- Flora, resolved to follow it, and turning to the former, he said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “You understand far better than I do the way to manage in such a matter as
- this. I am only anxious to be of service, and my intention is sincere. I
- may, by a want of tact, produce an effect entirely opposite to that which
- I most desire. You are intelligent and good natured——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you!” said Lotte, with a laugh.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are,” he repeated, “and I fancy you interpret justly my sincerity.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am sure I do,” she answered promptly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then I place myself in your hands; you will not leave Miss Wilton for the
- present?” he added.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not for a minute,” she replied.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are all that I could hope you to be,” he rejoined, “and if I can help
- you, you will send for me, won’t you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed I will!” responded Lotte.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bravo!” he cried. “Farewell, Miss Wilton—keep up your spirits;
- ‘When matters are at their worst they mend,’ you know, and surely your
- affairs could hardly be in a more unhappy predicament than at this moment.
- Preserve your faith in the goodness of God, and do not despair of the
- future.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora could not reply; she could only return the pressure of his hand, and
- then hide her face upon the neck of Lotte Clinton.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal then breathed a few words into the ear of Nutty to the effect that,
- though he was an officer of the law, engaged in one of its most unpleasant
- duties, it was quite possible for him to do his “spiriting gently,” but
- that if he should entertain a contrary opinion, and offer, or attempt to
- offer, to carry out in a spirit of hostility, arrogance, and coarseness,
- the part he had to perform, he might prepare himself for a reckoning, the
- settlement of which would not be in his favour.
- </p>
- <p>
- Nutty was too old a hand at his craft not to know that it was best to be
- civil, when as he, in rather free terms, said—“There was summat
- hanging to it;” or to hesitate to be a brute when the utter poverty of the
- poor creatures whose goods were seized rendered even his possession money
- a question of doubt.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the present case, he very sagaciously saw that if he acted in an
- apparently compassionate and considerate spirit to the daughter of old
- Wilton, and took care to let his behaviour come to the ears of young
- Vivian, his purse would be rendered all the heavier by it; but if he
- adopted an abrupt harshness of manner, terrified her, and permitted her to
- save no little trinket, upon which she set some priceless personal value,
- he might get a horse-whipping, inflicted with no light or unwilling hand.
- He took; therefore, the suggestion of Vivian in good part, winked his eyes
- significantly, jerked his thumb over his left shoulder, placed his thumb
- to his nose, fluttered his fingers, and otherwise bewildered the
- apprentice, who could only presume that these evolutions meant that his
- wishes should be complied with. He, therefore, thought it incumbent upon
- him, not only to seem to comprehend them, but to so far imitate them, by
- slapping his pocket, tapping the palm of his hand with one finger, and
- pointing to Nutty, so as to give that grubby individual to understand that
- if he behaved kindly, there <i>would</i> be something “hanging to it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Nutty smiled complacently, bent the most philanthropic and benevolent of
- glances upon Flora, nodded his head, and murmured, with a slight grin—
- </p>
- <p>
- “I knows all about it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Thus assured, Harry Vivian waved his hand towards Flora.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Keep up your spirits!” he cried; “all will go right yet.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Then, with an effort, he quitted the room, ran lightly down the stairs,
- and was soon in his uncle’s private room, engaged with him in earnest
- conversation.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the meantime, Lotte busied herself at the sacrifice of at least a dozen
- cap fronts, or rather half a dozen hours, to be replaced by six taken out
- of those devoted by her during the week to sleep, in conferring with Flora
- as to the course she would have to pursue when all the furniture was swept
- away, and she was left penniless and destitute.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you no relations in London?” inquired Lotte; “because if you have
- only one or two, I will pop on my bonnet and mantle, and run to them very
- quickly. Let them be who they may, they would surely afford you some
- help.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I never heard my father speak even of one in London or elsewhere,”
- returned Flora. “We have lived very secluded while here. We have not
- always lived thus. I can remember dwelling in a large house, with
- beautiful furniture, mirrors, chandeliers, and gorgeous decorations;
- lovely gardens, with fountains and flowers. But that is long, long ago. I
- know not when, I know not why, we left it, or when or how we came here. It
- seems to me that I awakened from a dream of faëryland, to find myself in
- these poor apartments, and my poor father destroying his life by the
- deadly closeness of his application to his labour.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know, then, of no relations you could ask to help you?” said Lotte.
- </p>
- <p>
- “None,” replied Flora.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nor friends whose assistance you might ask?” Flora shook her head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have you any money to go on with?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A little, which for safety is placed”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where I want to know nothing about it,” interposed Mr. Nutty, abruptly.
- “See here—when I put down in my hin-vent-ory any harticle, you
- daren’t touch it arterwards; leastwise, you must give it up as I’ve put it
- down; but you know you can do as you like with anything as I don’t put
- down. Do you tumble?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Nutty, having rather a mean opinion of the worldly experience of
- Flora, addressed his speech to Lotte, but that young lady, who had a
- shrewd guess at the intention sought to be conveyed in the first speech,
- did not comprehend quite clearly the last sentence, unless, as she
- conceived, the man had a notion that her professional avocation was
- dancing on horseback and leaping through hoops or over poles, held by
- colonels in the army of the Emperor of the Brazils. She, therefore,
- thanked him for the suggestion he offered, but at the same time mystified
- him by informing him that she had never been on horseback in her life.
- </p>
- <p>
- In a few whispers she made Flora understand Nutty’s meaning, and suggested
- that if there happened to be any article to which she attached any
- particular value, now was the time to transfer it to a place of safety,
- beyond the jurisdiction of Mr. Nutty.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora hesitated to avail herself of the offer—not so Lotte.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is my room,” she said; “no one can enter it unless I please: I have
- the key. You can put anything you like within it; and I should like to see
- any one dare to come in and attempt to take it out.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Still Flora hesitated.
- </p>
- <p>
- “These people seem to have the power to take all,” she observed, “and if
- they are justly entitled to their claim, it would be an act of dishonesty
- to keep anything back from them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Fiddle-de-dee, dear!” exclaimed Lotte. “You don’t know that they are
- justly entitled, and therefore you have the right to assume that they are
- not. They act, at all events, like hard-hearted brutes, and that is why <i>I</i>
- believe they have no more right to a single thing here than I have. So I
- should act just as if they had not. Now I will tell you what my advice is.
- You point out to me what you, in your heart, should like to save, and
- leave the rest to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That <i>is</i> a sensible gal,” muttered Nutty, as he entered in his
- inventory—“1 save-orl, a arm chare and 1 floured assik.”
- </p>
- <p>
- At this moment there was a gentle knock at the room door, and Mr. Nutty
- opened it about two inches, and peered through.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wot d’ye want?” said he gruffly, to some one without.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Miss Clinton—is she here?” asked a pleasant voice without.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don’t know her—don’t live here,” said Nutty, slamming the door to.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lotte screamed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Open it—open the door!” she cried; “it is my brother Charley.”
- </p>
- <p>
- In an instant she put Nutty aside, opened the door, and putting her head
- out, said, hastily—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come in, Charley; I am so glad you are here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Then followed a sound as of the chirruping of young sparrows. It was
- Charley and Lotte performing the usual act of grace on meeting each other,
- it being customary for the pair to kiss a dozen times in rapid succession—a
- quick fire, painful only to those who don’t participate.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lotte led forward her brother, a rather smartly-dressed young man, and
- introduced him to Flora, with a manner which plainly said—“Isn’t he
- a nice fellow?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora was, however, in no mood for introductions to strangers, she bowed,
- but did not speak.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Charley is a lawyer,” said Lotte, triumphantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora slightly bowed again, without comprehending that the fact would be
- of any advantage to her, and Mr. Nutty snorted as if he instantly smelt
- hostile opposition to his supremacy.
- </p>
- <p>
- The fact was, Charley was a lawyer’s clerk, on twenty-five shillings per
- week, but he had improved the opportunities he possessed by working very
- hard, reading up the best works on the study and practice of the law,
- making himself master of cases which were precedents, and, in fact, doing
- his best to fit himself either for the bar, if he could raise the
- necessary funds to be called to it, or to be a first-class solicitor.
- </p>
- <p>
- His principal object, as at present entertained by him, was to place his
- sister above the reach of want, and the necessity for her present
- life-destroying labour. He little knew how hard the work, how small the
- earnings. Out of his narrow weekly salary he contrived occasionally to
- make her little presents, and certainly he visited no place or person more
- regularly or more frequently than he did the humble abode of his sister.
- Not that he went much anywhere, for he well knew that eminence in the path
- he had marked out to pursue could not be achieved unless by an incessant
- and persevering study, which has destroyed more men than it has ever made
- great.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lotte knew of his devotion to his task—how he sat poring over
- dreadfully dry books, lighted in his task by the midnight oil, and
- supported in his trying work by the noble hope that he should be able some
- day to keep her like a lady.
- </p>
- <p>
- How dearly she loved him for it, no one could know but herself; and, in
- addition, she thought him the cleverest lawyer in existence, much worthier
- in respect of merit to preside over the bench of judges than the Lord
- Chief Justice himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- Therefore when she mentioned to Flora that he was a lawyer, she fully
- expected to see her leap with delight, and she felt disappointed that she
- did not.
- </p>
- <p>
- In order to prove his incontestable superiority, she, in rapid terms,
- explained to him what had occurred, and begged him to display the legal
- knowledge which she was sure he possessed, by ordering Mr. Nutty to quit
- the premises instanter, and to consider himself fortunate if he did so
- without receiving that shaking to which she fully believed he was
- entitled.
- </p>
- <p>
- Charley smiled and shook his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- But such was the influence of Flora’s loveliness on him, that, after one
- careful perusal of her fair lineaments, he needed no urging from his
- sister to render assistance if he could. He did not ask himself whether
- his exertions would be made in a deserving cause; he knew they would be
- performed on behalf of one possessing rare personal attractions, and under
- his first impressions that sufficed.
- </p>
- <p>
- He commenced action by questioning Mr. Nutty, who exhibited most restive
- indications under examination. Charley demanded to see the warrant under
- which Mr. Nutty held possession, which Mr. Nutty refused, but, under the
- bewildering, sharp, quick, and pertinent questions of the young lawyer, he
- let slip the fact that Mr. Jukes had gone away without lodging it with
- him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are not certain that Mr. Jukes has it, I dare be sworn!” cried
- Charley, looking at him, fixedly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh yes, I am—I’ll swear that!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Take my oath on it. I seed it in his hand, when he made the seizure, and
- he ort to a gev’ it me afore he went away.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But he did not!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No; he was so okkepied with his prisoner that he took it with him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then you must go after him!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, thank you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, you must! You have no warrant you know, therefore, you are <i>not</i>
- in <i>possession</i>. In point of fact and of law—you are guilty of
- an act of trespass. You had better go.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Shan’t budge a hinch.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then I shall make you! If you resist, I will fling you over the banisters
- to the passage below!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do not hurt him too much!” interposed Lotte, with a half-frightened look.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not if he goes quietly—but out he must go!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you uses wiolence, I’ll have the lor on you!” cried Nutty, in evident
- terror.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall only use the proper force to put you into the street, and, unless
- you at once disappear, I warn you you must take the consequences of the
- false position in which you know, as well as I do, your employer, through
- his negligence, has placed you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ain’t a’going!” cried Nutty, folding his arms, and placing his back
- against the wall.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well,” said Charley, “that is a point we have to determine.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He caught Mr. Nutty firmly by the wrist, and then giving his own hand an
- overturn, and Mr. Nutty’s an underturn, he, with his left hand seized him
- by his collar, and drew him at a rapid rate towards the door.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Nutty uttered a yell.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yah!” he cried, “le’go my arm, your’e dexlycatin’ on it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Charley, however, heeded him not, but put him outside the door on to the
- landing. The man in possession was thus no longer entitled to his
- cognomen.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER IV.—THE FORGERY.
- </h2>
- <p class="indent20">
- Would’st thou do such a deed for all the world? <br /><span class="indent20">Why,
- would not you? <br /><span class="indent20">No, by this heavenly light!
- </span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /> <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p class="indent20">
- By my troth, I think I should. <br /><span class="indent30">—Shakspere.
- <br /><br /></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">C</span>harley had barely
- re-entered the room when Mr. Jukes burst into it with a sudden crash,
- followed by Sudds and Nutty, A noisy and angry colloquy instantly ensued,
- but Charley was too well acquainted with the character of the men he had
- to deal with either to permit himself to be bullied or browbeaten, and he
- had no intention that they should maintain their standing upon illegal
- documents.
- </p>
- <p>
- Authorised by Flora Wilton, and in the name of her father, he demanded to
- see the warrant of execution upon the goods. Jukes refused; he had come
- back to take them away, and had a van at the door for that purpose.
- Charley, however, would on no account allow this. He defied Jukes to
- remove the furniture until the proper return had been made to the sheriff,
- or until the claims of the landlord had been satisfied. He interposed
- other legal objections, and raised points of a technical description on
- the face of the warrant, which Jukes had at length produced, until even
- that astute personage became mystified, and consented to leave things in
- <i>statu quo</i> until the morning, when, having obtained advice from the
- solicitor by whom he had been employed, he should be prepared to act with
- more determined vigour than now.
- </p>
- <p>
- It must be borne in mind that Mr. Jukes had been promised a handsome
- remuneration if he succeeded in obtaining old Wilton’s signature to a
- document confessed to be of great importance, and he knew that it was not
- exactly his best course to act in such a manner as to drive the man
- frenzied with rage by the harsh and heartless proceedings he was
- instructed to take. He was well aware that a strong pressure must be
- applied to bring the obstinate old gold-chaser to compliance with the
- demand now made upon him, but he was also shrewd enough to surmise that an
- overpressure would have the contrary effect to that desired, and, instead
- of disposing old Wilton to sign, would render him more firmly than ever
- fixed on his refusal.
- </p>
- <p>
- The warrant was, therefore, with due ceremony, handed to Mr. Nutty, and he
- was instructed to remain until either the claim, under which possession
- was held, had been paid, or he was directed to quit. He received it with a
- grim smile of satisfaction, and prepared to go on with his inventory with
- an inflexible resolve that the most treasured article of affection should
- not after this escape being recorded in his list.
- </p>
- <p>
- But even now things were not to remain as thus arranged. The door of the
- apartment, which had been closed, was once more unceremoniously thrown
- open.
- </p>
- <p>
- An old man, with a shrivelled face of a deep turmeric hue, as if the
- yellow jaundice had been for years his favourite complaint, stalked rather
- than walked into the room. He was a singular-looking man, with a certain
- peculiarity in his mien which would prevent the possibility of his going
- anywhere in society without his being stared at. He wore a violet-coloured
- cloth frock coat, a buff waistcoat, as yellow as his own face, and
- chocolate trousers, almost tight enough to be pantaloons; upon his feet,
- which were small, were polished boots, and upon his head a bright, black,
- carefully brushed beaver hat, very much turned up at the brim.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was followed by a small man, dressed all in black, save his cravat; his
- whiskers and his hair were <br /><br /><span class="indent15">White with the
- whiteness of what is dead, </span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- and formed a strange contrast to his garb.
- </p>
- <p>
- The yellow-visaged old gentleman, on gaining the middle of the room,
- turned a pair of jet black, brilliant eyes upon Mr. Jukes and smiled, not
- auspiciously but cynically, and yet triumphantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The wrong room?” ejaculated Mr. Jukes, suggestively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not at all,” replied the old man, exhibiting a row of teeth, which
- appeared ghastly in that golden visage. “My name is Nathan Gomer; this
- house is mine; I am the landlord, and my claim upon the contents of these
- apartments takes precedence of yours. I think it does—I say I
- believe it does.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you <i>are</i> the landlord?” said Mr. Jukes, eyeing him doubtfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can prove that, Jukes,” said the owner of the white whiskers. “You know
- me, Jukes?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I do, Mr. Graba,” responded Jukes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am Mr. Gomer’s agent.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And a sworn broker,” added Nathan Gomer. “Not less than one hundred
- pounds is owing to me for rent.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “For how long?” asked Jukes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Twelve months,” replied Nathan Gomer. “Mr. Wilton rented the whole house,
- and has not paid me the last year’s rent. There is not more than enough
- here to satisfy my claim. I think so—I say I believe there is not.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There isn’t,” gruffly muttered Jukes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Produce your warrant of execution upon these goods, Mr. Graba!” said Mr.
- Nathan Gomer. “I think you’ll find it formal and proper.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “P’raps <i>you’d</i> like to look at it?” said Mr. Jukes to Charley.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should,” he answered; “give it to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Nathan Gomer looked at him with inquiring eyes, and watched him read every
- word in the document with careful attention from the first to the last.
- </p>
- <p>
- When he had ended his perusal, Nathan Gomer smiled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing informal or contrary to law there?” he exclaimed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing!” said Charley with a sigh.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is dreadful!” murmured Lotte.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora, however, was not further distressed—at least she displayed no
- additional grief at this new incident. She had, in fact, been so stunned
- and overwhelmed by the first event of the morning—that which
- involved the compulsory absence of her father—that any circumstance
- of a minor description could neither add to nor diminish her sorrow.
- </p>
- <p>
- Nathan Gomer turned to Mr. Jukes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You can go,” he said “and you may take your myrmidons with you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And return the writ to the sheriff with nully bony on it, I s’pose?”
- exclaimed Mr. Jukes, chagrined.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Whatever you please,” returned Nathan; “my name, if it suits you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No thank ye. Your name will be handed in to Messrs. Squeege and Drain,
- solicitors, Old Jewry,” replied Jukes, with a most significant nod of the
- head, which implied a threat.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That will do as well,” said Nathan; “they know me; they stand indebted to
- me in a good round sum.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The nether jaw of Jukes slightly dropped; he gave a steadfast look at
- Nathan Gomer; his eyes then slowly ran round the room, and settled on
- Flora, who, pale as marble, stood as though she were in a trance, all
- unconscious of what was passing around her. He gazed at her thoughtfully
- for a moment. A sudden flash illumined his eyes, indicating that a new
- idea had taken possession of him, and then he turned to his followers and
- said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now then, Sudds; come along, Nutty, Good day, Mr. Gomer; it’s your turn
- this time.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good day—good day, Jukes—as you say, I think it is my turn
- this time—I believe I may say it is my turn this time,” answered
- Nathan, rubbing his hands.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Jukes hastened out of the room, closely attended by his satellites,
- Nutty looking especially chop-fallen, as his possession money would in all
- probability be returned “nully bony” as well as the writ.
- </p>
- <p>
- When these men had fairly slammed the street-door after them, and the
- sound had risen up through the house, Nathan Gomer, who had listened
- attentively for it, surveyed the persons of both Charley and Lotte, and
- then addressing Flora, said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Miss Wilton, are these young persons friends of yours?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora, upon hearing her name, started and slightly shuddered, as one
- rousing from a painful reverie: Lotte gave her no time to answer, for she
- said hastily—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, yes, sir; new friends, it is true; but not the less, disposed warmly
- to serve her in her present terrible affliction, so far as our humble
- means will permit.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And pray what are your means?” demanded Nathan.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lotte for a moment hung her head, and a bright flush mounted to her cheek
- and forehead, then she flung up her face, and with her clear bright eyes
- looked steadfastly at the little old man with the golden visage.
- </p>
- <p>
- In a few rapid words she sketched the position of herself and her brother,
- and the bright, youthful, sanguine hopes they both entertained of their
- future.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bravo Lotte—well said, my pet!” cried Charley, patting her
- affectionately and approvingly upon the shoulder. “And as for what I can
- do, why somehow I’ll see you through it; a book or two less, and a——”
- dinner, he was about to say, but he checked himself and substituted—“a
- pleasure the fewer I sha’n’t miss, and I would not forego the happiness of
- witnessing your gratification at being able to serve a friend in distress,
- for something far beyond such sacrifices as those.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bah!” cried Nathan Gomer to Lotte. “Your eighteen-pence a day, for
- eighteen hours at cap-front making”—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Two shillings sometimes!” she interposed, boastfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Two shillings always, if you will,” continued Nathan, “gives you no
- margin for doing anything but starving and slaving, if you pay your way—and
- you, my friend” he added, turning to Charley, “if you have made up your
- mind to achieve to the bar, have not a farthing to waste upon even the
- luxury of seeing your sister destroy herself, in an attempt to accomplish
- a feat which is not only impracticable, but impossible. No, no; go on as
- you have been going on, and let us see what time will bring forth.” He
- paused, and then after running his eye over the warrant, he addressed
- Flora, saying—“Miss Wilton, I place this warrant in your keeping—impressing
- upon you that you must always have it in your possession in safe custody,
- except when you leave home for a short time, then you must entrust it to
- some friend who will hold it here until your return. So long as you do
- this, no person like Jukes can disturb or remove your furniture. You will
- keep it until you see me again, or until you hear from me. I am a stranger
- to you, not prepossessing in my appearance, but I am not quite so
- hard-hearted as I have been represented to be, nor quite so selfish in my
- nature as you may hereafter be led to believe. Now mark what I say. You
- have been left in a position of great trust in the midst of a heavy
- calamity; much will be demanded of your energy and self reliance; remember
- ‘God helps those who help themselves’, therefore, while you are grateful
- for, place no reliance in, promises. Farewell!—we shall meet again.
- May it be when you will not need my assistance!”
- </p>
- <p>
- With a wave of the hand, he hurried out of the room, closely followed by
- Mr. Graba, leaving Flora, no less than Lotte, in a state of bewildered
- astonishment.
- </p>
- <p>
- Neither of the girls had seen Nathan Gomer before, and his sudden
- appearance, together with the power he had assumed, and the kindness,
- which in a cold abrupt manner he had displayed, completely astounded them;
- they knew not what to make of it, nor, so far as Lotte was concerned, how
- to talk enough about it.
- </p>
- <p>
- But though she talked briskly, she acted smartly, and rousing Flora into
- action, proceeded to “put things straight,” and to render the aspect of
- the place pretty much what it had been before Mr. Jukes made his most
- unwelcome appearance.
- </p>
- <p>
- Leaving her and Flora to the task to which they had devoted themselves,
- let us follow the movements of Nathan Gomer.
- </p>
- <p>
- He stood alone at the door of Mr. Grahame in the Regent’s Park, very
- shortly after he had quitted Wilton’s residence, and he sent in his card,
- in a rather peremptory manner, by the same individual who had announced
- Mr. Chewkle. He took no heed of the representations made to him that—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Grahame were engaged, and when he were engaged, his instructions was
- that no person should be admitted to interrupt him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Give him my card—he’ll see <i>me</i>,” said Nathan, emphatically.
- “If you refuse,” he added, as the man hesitated, “I will walk up into the
- library where you say he is engaged with some one, and obtain your
- dismissal by acquainting your master with your refusal to announce me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was something in the manner of Nathan that Whelks, the head footman,
- did not approve of, especially as he felt himself overawed by it, in spite
- of the affront to which he was called upon to submit. It was evident that
- in the eyes of the little visitor his importance was sadly underrated, and
- that he should have to put in his pocket the threat of dismissal which had
- been held out to him, and which, though he turned his nose up at it,
- caused him to take the card and proceed into the library, as the word “<i>forgery</i>”
- issued from his master’s lips.
- </p>
- <p>
- He took no heed of it, for his mind was filled with Nathan Gomer—not
- favourably.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sir! he exclaimed, in the affected strain he usually adopted when
- addressing his master, “ther is a pesson below”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “How dare you, scoundrel, intrude, when I am especially and privately
- engaged with any gentleman?” cried Mr. Grahame, leaping to his feet and
- speaking passionately, while his eyes sparkled with fury.
- </p>
- <p>
- Whelks started back, and his wig sent up a small cloud of flour. He was so
- startled by the sudden action of Mr. Grahame, that he could hear his own
- heart beat against his ribs.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I ask pardon, sir,” he faltered out, “but the pesson below”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Curse the person below!” cried Mr. Grahame, forgetting in his rage that
- dignified pride which never permitted an ebullition of anger.
- </p>
- <p>
- Whelks heartily echoed the sentiment, but dared not so express himself—he
- only bowed affirmatively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Have I not repeatedly told you, sir,” continued Mr. Grahame, sternly,
- “that I will only be seen by those of whom I have some knowledge, or whom
- I desire to see? Another infringement of my order, and you shall be
- summarily dismissed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It struck Whelks that his master spoke in much the same strain when he saw
- Chewkle; he, therefore, handed to him Nathan’s card.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame snatched the card from the salver, on which Whelks presented
- it, and on reading it, passed his hand over his face to hide any emotion
- which might betray itself. He sank down into his chair, and laid himself
- back, plunged in intense thought. Then he looked at the card, and appeared
- to read it a dozen times. At length he turned to Whelks, and said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Go! say I shall be happy to have the honour of receiving this gentleman.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Whelks, with an expression of surprise on a countenance incapable of
- displaying any very distinct phase of emotion, descended to the hall to
- obey his commands.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Chewkle,” said Mr. Grahame, when Whelks had disappeared, “may I ask
- you to favour me by stepping into this chamber for a few minutes? My
- visitor—a very wealthy and distinguished person, I assure you—will
- not detain me long, and then I shall have the pleasure of renewing our
- important conversation.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Chewkle expressed his happiness at having the opportunity of obliging
- Mr. Grahame in any fashion, and promptly dived into a small room
- overlooking the park, and connected with the library. He heard Mr. Grahame
- lock the door, securing him in his little retreat, but he carefully placed
- his ear to the keyhole, in anticipation of picking up something worth
- hearing and retaining—if he was paid handsomely for secrecy.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame had scarcely resumed his seat when Nathan Gomer entered the
- library. He returned the bow, graciously performed, with which he was
- greeted, and placing his hat and gloves upon a chair, seated himself upon
- another, and commenced speaking in rather a louder key than Mr. Grahame
- thought quite desirable.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Grahame,” he began, “we have not met before, but you are not
- unacquainted with my name.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, dear no—of course it is most familiar to me,” observed Mr.
- Grahame.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Or my money?” continued Nathan Gomer. “Assuredly not,” returned Mr.
- Grahame, a little confused.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have made me fresh proposals?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “For a short term—I hope you understand that!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Quite so. But I want to know upon what foundation you base your
- expectation of returning the sums demanded?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The whole, sole, entire possession of an enormous property; vast estates,
- yielding a splendid income, and a very considerable amount in cash, the
- accumulation of years.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is in Chancery!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A link is wanting, I think, to perfect your claim?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah! my dear sir, a mere nothing—such as it is, we are prepared to
- supply it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah! You are, eh?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, certainly.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are quite clear about that?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing was ever more certain.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hem! That is satisfactory, to be sure; but stay, is there not another
- person who has something to do with it?—one—one—dear me,
- what is his name!—one——Pshaw! how absurd in me to forget
- it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I know of no person, save myself, Mr. Gomer, who has the shadow of a
- claim to any portion of it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not a soul!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then I have been misinformed. I was given to understand that a person
- named—named—I do not often forget names—cannot you help
- me, Mr. Grahame, to the name of the individual who claims the property of
- which you have spoken, as well as you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who?—I, sir-no.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This was said with an air of offended dignity, and the manner of a man
- who, having made a positive assertion, sees that it is doubted, and wishes
- it to be thought that the incredulity is unjust.
- </p>
- <p>
- The glittering eye of Nathan Gomer seemed to play over every feature of
- Mr. Grahame’s countenance. Suddenly he said, with startling abruptness—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah! I remember it. I have it. Wilton is the name. Wilton, who follows the
- occupation of a gold-plate chaser. Has he not a claim—also wanting a
- link—to this property?”
- </p>
- <p>
- It might have been fancy, but the sound of a whistle appeared to issue
- from the vicinity of a key-hole in the door of the ante-chamber
- overlooking the park.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wilton! Wilton!” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, assuming an air of reflection, to
- hide his embarrassment. “Wilton! no, oh no! I know nothing of any such
- claim.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You do not!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nor the man himself?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A gold-worker, living in Clerkenwell?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly not. Where is Clerkenwell?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hem! ugh! ugh!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Nathan Gomer was seized with a cough. He rose up, took his hat and gloves,
- and put them on with slow precision.
- </p>
- <p>
- His glittering eye once more perused every feature in Mr. Grahame’s face.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Grahame,” he said, slowly, “you shall hear from me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Thank you, thank you, my dear sir,” replied Mr. Grahame, rubbing his
- hands. “Let me hope in a manner agreeable to my wishes and in accordance
- with your known liberality.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It will be one of two things, Mr. Grahame: either to comply with your
- proposition, or to issue process for the recovery of the money now due by
- you to me. Good morning, Mr. Grahame!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He seemed to glide out of the room down the staircase, and presented
- himself at the elbow of Whelks, before that personage had any conception
- that his services were required to show out the “little yellow ob-jek,
- which,” he was just informing the hall-porter, “he had a few minutes
- before shown in to the libree.”
- </p>
- <p>
- In a sharp, shrill, tone, Nathan requested to be let out, and ‘Whelks,
- taking upon himself the duty of the inert porter, threw open the
- street-door wide, and closed it with a loud bang, thankful, he knew not
- wherefore, that the “yaller objek” was out of the house.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame looked after Nathan as he moved rapidly but noiselessly down
- the stairs, and returned into the library, feeling that the interview had
- been of a very unsatisfactory character. He experienced an uneasy
- impression with respect to the inquiries made by Nathan Gomer respecting
- Wilton. He cursed the name of the old gold-chaser; but for him he might be
- in secure possession of the wealth he coveted, and which—there was
- no disguising it—he imperatively needed. The man’s obstinacy, while
- it did not benefit himself, was very likely to send him, Grahame, headlong
- to ruin for want of—what? Only a signature—a simple signature.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ah! Chewkle’s suggestion flashed through his brain. It was but to attach a
- name to a bond: who would know that he had done it but Chewkle? and would
- not money buy any man’s tongue? With Chewkle’s aid it might be done.
- </p>
- <p>
- Who else could know it?
- </p>
- <p>
- Wilton, starving, dying, in prison, shattered by grief, want, and toil;
- his children outcasts in the streets, driven, perhaps, into dens of
- infamy, how could they prosecute a claim against him? If they did, should
- he not have the wealth to defeat every such attempt? could he not buy off
- or suborn all witnesses against him? The possessions and the money he
- should acquire by that single signature would enable him to cope with the
- most greedy demands for bearing false witness. Shallow reasoning enough,
- but conclusive in his eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- His train of thought having conducted him to this point, the fact that he
- had Chewkle locked up in the small ante-chamber overlooking the park,
- presented itself. Had the man overheard what had transpired between him
- and Nathan Gomer? A flush of heat crossed his brow at the supposition. For
- the moment he forgot all the dictates of his pride, lost utterly his
- austere bearing, and crept on tip-toe to the door of the little chamber.
- He softly removed the key, and peered through the keyhole, but without
- catching sight of Mr. Chewkle.
- </p>
- <p>
- He replaced the key without a sound, and turning the well-oiled lock
- noiselessly, he flung the door open suddenly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Chewkle, with his arms folded, was standing in a contemplative
- attitude, gazing out of the window, and watching the sportive movements of
- some wild fowl upon the lake.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hem! a—Mr. Chewkle, I am at liberty now!” exclaimed Mr. Grahame,
- recovering his pompous manner, and feeling convinced that his conference
- with Nathan Gomer had not been overheard by the commission agent.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Chewkle professed himself to be quite ready to proceed to business,
- and begged Mr. Grahame, when he made apologies for detaining him while he
- transacted important matters, not to mention it. Indeed, there was no
- necessity, as Chewkle’s quick ear, applied in the right place, had heard
- every word that passed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And so the poor old fool, Wilton, continues obstinate, does he?”
- exclaimed Grahame to Chewkle, when they were both seated.“’Ard as
- hadamant,” returned Mr. Chewkle.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is only doing himself harm,” suggested Mr. Grahame.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And nobody else no good,” added Chewkle.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He certainly is not acting in a manner to entitle him to consideration,”
- observed Mr. Grahame, reflectively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not a bit of it,” responded Mr. Chewkle; “nothen is to be got out of ’is
- sort; you may as well try to get butter out o’ flint; so if I was you,
- sir, I should just say nothen to anybody—but me—and go an’ do
- it at once—now’s a good time—by-and-by never comes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame grew cold and white, and his teeth chattered. <i>FORGERY!</i>
- </p>
- <p>
- It was a tremendous act.
- </p>
- <p>
- The punishment, penal servitude for life.
- </p>
- <p>
- How the words rang in his ears!
- </p>
- <p>
- A moment more, and the threat of Nathan Gomer boomed through his brain
- like the minute guns of a ship of war announcing an approaching execution.
- “Issue process for the recovery of the money now due.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He shivered as though he had come out of a cold spring bath.
- </p>
- <p>
- He placed his trembling fingers upon the handle of a drawer, and opened
- it. He turned over some papers, and drew forth a letter. It bore the
- signature, “E. Wilton,” in a bold hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is his handwriting,” he said to Chewkle, in a hoarse voice, and
- with a sickly smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bless my wig!” said Mr. Chewkle, as he gazed on it with admiring eyes. “A
- prime clear sort of writing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He drew from his pocket a parchment.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is that?” inquired Mr. Grahame, with chattering teeth.
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>The</i> deed that Wilton wouldn’t sign,” responded Chewkle. “Have you
- got a piece of thin paper?” he asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame, with a beating heart and trembling hand, gave him half a
- sheet of thin post.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That will just do,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- He then put his hand into his side pocket and produced a small phial
- containing a thin fluid with a pink tinge; he produced a camel-hair
- pencil, and, steeping it in the liquid, painted over the back of that
- portion of the note which contained the signature of Wilton. Mr. Grahame,
- with eyes starting out of their sockets, watched him without breathing.
- After waiting for a minute, he examined Wilton’s sign-manual carefully,
- and then laying it upon the thin paper which he had previously damped, he
- slightly burnished the back, and there appeared upon the thin paper the
- signature of Wilton reversed. This he, in turn, laid upon the deed, on the
- place for the name of the person signing the deed to appear, and again
- using the burnisher with more firmness, he reproduced, though somewhat
- faintly, the name of Wilton upon the deed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now,” said he to Mr. Grahame, “there it is; you have only to mark over it
- carefully, and the name will be there with such exactness the man himself
- couldn’t swear it wasn’t his’n.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You do it, my good friend Chewkle—you take the pen and write over
- it,” gasped Grahame, convulsively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, no, I beg your pardon, I think I’ve done a good deal. The winnings
- will be yourn, and yourn must be the venter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But my hand trembles so.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, ring for a little brandy—that will put you to rights.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, no, I cannot do it!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very good. You know the konsequences o’ not doin’ it best, you know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Give me the pen!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That’s it—mind, gently does it!” advised Mr. Chewkle. “’Old
- your pen ’ard with your thum’ and press it against your middle
- finger top, and then you’ll mark it firmly. Steady she goes—that’s
- it—beautiful! Dot that <i>hi—l, t, o, n</i>—good! Now
- for that little bit o’ flourish—that’s it—it’s done, an’
- capitally you’ve done the <i>FORGERY!</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame uttered a groan, and sank back in his chair. Mr. Chewkle
- caught him with a sudden grip by the wrist.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is a dreadful secret I have of yourn,” he growled, “let me ’int
- to you that you’ll have to be generous to me to make me keep it dark.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Man! witness of my infamy, your most avaricious wishes shall be
- gratified,” hissed Mr. Grahame through his teeth. “You have only to be
- silent.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “As the grave,” said Chewkle, placing his finger to his lip.
- </p>
- <p>
- Suddenly Mr. Grahame uttered a shout of horror: his eye fell upon Nathan
- Gomer, who, a few paces from him, was standing watching him attentively.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My God! Mr. Gomer—how—what—why are you here?” he
- exclaimed, gasping for breath.
- </p>
- <p>
- Chewkle, in an instant, spread a newspaper, which was on the table, over
- the deed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do not alarm yourself, Mr. Grahame,” replied Nathan Gomer, with the
- coolest self-possession. “I merely returned to say, after a brief
- reflection, that I have decided on entertaining your proposals. You had
- better, therefore, put your solicitor in connection with mine. Good
- morning, Mr. Grahame.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Nathan’s eye glittered on Chewkle for an instant, so as to make that
- person feel most uncomfortable. Then he moved swiftly and noiselessly out
- of the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame, pale as death, sank back in his chair. Mr. Chewkle gazed in
- the direction which Nathan Gomer had taken, and ejaculated—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, I’m blowed!”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER V.—THE CONFLAGRATION.
- </h2>
- <p class="indent20">
- The wild confusion, and the swarthy glow <br /><span class="indent20">Of
- flames on high, and torches from below; <br /><span class="indent20">The
- shriek of terror and the mingling yell. </span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /> <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p class="indent20">
- He climbs the crackling stair—he bursts the door, <br /><span
- class="indent20">Nor feels his feet glow, scorching with the floor; <br /><span
- class="indent20">His breath choked, gasping with the volumed smoke, <br /><span
- class="indent20">But still from room to room his way he broke. <br /><span
- class="indent30">—Byron. <br /><br /></span></span></span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he events of the
- morning in which he had taken so prominent a part presented to Hal Vivian,
- when alone in his chamber, that evening, rather a wide field for
- contemplation. He was glad of the opportunity which the close of the day’s
- labour gave him to retire to the solitude of his neatly furnished bedroom,
- because, unobserved, he could there review the circumstances which had
- that day occurred, and give to them the colouring most agreeable to the
- feelings which had recently taken possession of him.
- </p>
- <p>
- He threw himself into an easy chair, and was quickly engaged in drawing
- deductions. Not for a second was the fair face of Flora absent from his
- vision. The rugged visage of Jukes, the grimy features of his satellites,
- the impassible countenance of Nathan Gomer, which seemed moulded out of
- fine gold, the bright, frank aspect of Lotte, by turns floated across his
- mental speculum, but never to displace that of Flora.
- </p>
- <p>
- Out of the past a future was to be formed; he tried to construct it, and
- in doing so set himself honestly to work to examine those feelings which
- prompted him so strongly to undertake the task.
- </p>
- <p>
- He sought to understand why he should interest himself at all in the
- affairs of the old gold-worker; what motives should have induced him to
- interfere and take part in what had happened that morning, or why he
- should be so very eager to effect certain happy results he had in
- contemplation, and the answer which constantly presented itself to these
- and other questions was—Flora Wilton!
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal Vivian was just out of his time; but a few days, and his— <br /><br /><span
- class="indent25">Seven long years were out. </span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- He was at that age in man when love partakes very strongly of the
- imaginative, and clothes the object of affection with an excellence and
- perfection which, though it be not always just, makes her whom he loves to
- him a <i>beau ideal.</i> Almost every youth creates in his mind a standard
- of perfect loveliness, and if he, perchance, meets with a face which
- presents some resemblance to the mental image he has formed, he at once
- proceeds to invest it with all the charms with which he has endowed the
- unreal. The maid is elected to the first place in his heart—she
- becomes his guiding influence—he busies himself by contemplating
- schemes of impossible delights for her, is anxious to be at her side
- whenever apart, and most loth, when with her, to tear himself from her.
- </p>
- <p>
- No doubt a very considerable amount of mental deception is practised
- during this phase of youthful existence, and when marriage has bestowed
- upon the lovesick swain the object he has so ardently coveted, he perhaps
- finds that he has been gazing through, what he now considers, the wrong
- end of the telescope.
- </p>
- <p>
- Harry Vivian was, however, like all youths of his age, in no condition to
- believe that the being he had made his representative angel could ever
- prove the reverse. He had always seen her mild and gentle, soft in manner,
- courteous in speech, amiable in expression, and exquisitely lovely in
- person. He could suppose no other side to the picture, and so, as she
- outwardly resembled an angel, he gave her credit for being inwardly a
- saint. His intimacy with her was slight, his opportunities of seeing her—save
- during the past year, when he had made them—had not been many; he
- had interchanged but few words with her, and they were of a very
- commonplace description. He had not hitherto thought of her, more than
- that she was a girl of rare and delicate beauty, whose features he should
- like to reproduce in some of the choice modellings of the precious metals
- entrusted to him, for it seemed to him that no artist, however marvellous
- his skill in delineating the female face divine, had ever succeeded in
- producing one so beautiful as her’s.
- </p>
- <p>
- Love had, however, taken no part in this admiration; he had gazed upon her
- and thought of her as he would have done of the best efforts of the
- greatest masters of art—“a thing of beauty,” but animated with life.
- Her sudden appearance at the window, the golden sunbeams falling on her
- face, her hair, her light dress, bringing her beauty out in strong relief
- from the dark chamber in which she stood, altered at one stroke the
- condition of his feelings.
- </p>
- <p>
- Passion sprang into life simultaneously with the glance he turned upon her—it
- intermingled with his admiration, and became love.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was not conscious of the change wrought within him when he
- instinctively surmised that trouble and trial hovered over her, and that
- he should take an active part in endeavouring to avert it. He had not a
- notion of it even when seated with Mr. Harper, his uncle, discoursing on
- the position of the Wilton family, he employed himself devising how the
- all but orphaned child of their skilled workman might be rescued from
- destitution.
- </p>
- <p>
- Here, in his chamber, alone in deep meditation and self-examination, it
- flashed through his mind. A sudden glow of heat pervaded his frame, and he
- sprang to his feet impulsively—a strange tremor thrilled through him—a
- feeling of apprehension crept over him—and a species of sadness
- oppressed him; wherefore, he could not comprehend. Here was food for
- contemplation, indeed; and he resumed his seat to pursue this new subject
- through its many ramifications until he should arrive at some kind of
- ultimate result.
- </p>
- <p>
- One fact followed from this discovery made by him. Up to this moment he
- had been, in his knowledge of the world, a mere boy. He was, at a moment,
- transformed into a man.
- </p>
- <p>
- He had “something to love,” and the affection was not of the same nature
- as that entertained for kith or kin. He had taken up a responsibility, and
- at once there was something to live for, work for, seek for, and to win.
- Fame, wealth, honour, were now worth striving to gain, because there was
- one, whose approbation he coveted, to share the wealth and honour to be
- secured by persevering energy and untiring ardour.
- </p>
- <p>
- In commencing his struggle with the world, here was an incentive to
- ambition beyond a mere love of art or the desire to excel, and a motive
- for reaping golden opinions beyond the common wish to become rich.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is true there was nothing in Flora’s manner to lead him to believe that
- he had created any such impression upon her as she had upon him, and the
- probabilities were that she did not see him in any other light than as a
- gentlemanly and good-hearted young man, who had been kind and considerate
- to her father in business, and singularly generous and friendly to her in
- her moment of trial. All this he quite understood; and, though he felt
- himself over head and ears in love with her, he did not deceive himself
- into any other notion than that to win her love his work was yet to
- commence, to be prosecuted with faithful perseverance, and in an honorable
- and unselfish spirit.
- </p>
- <p>
- As true love looks to marriage as its goal, so did that possessed by Hal;
- but romantic, generous, and noble-hearted as he was by nature, he had yet
- so much of the common leaven in him that it struck him it would be worth
- consideration to ascertain into what kind of family he should introduce
- himself by an alliance with Miss Wilton.
- </p>
- <p>
- His own position was very soon determined. He was the son of a deceased
- sister of Mr. Harper, the goldsmith—was apprenticed to him, and
- would, in all probability, be his heir, as his only son had turned out
- wild in his youth, and had, after the commission of some outrageous piece
- of profligacy, disappeared. It was supposed he had fled to India, but from
- his departure to the present hour he had not been heard of.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Harper had mentioned to Hal an intention that he had formed, of taking
- him into partnership with him, but he had decided first on subjecting him
- to a probation of a year or two, to try whether the promise of steadiness
- and sobriety, which his youth had given, would be realised.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal’s future might, consequently, be said to be formed for him; and it was
- into his uncle’s family he should introduce Miss Wilton as his wife, if
- ever the union took place. Therefore, while considering his own happiness,
- he felt it to be his duty not to overlook that of his uncle, who had
- behaved to him from his infancy as a tender, just, and generous father. It
- would be a task he should impose upon himself, to ascertain, as far as
- possible, the previous history of old Wilton. Not that he feared the
- result would turn out other than he could wish, but he could not conceal
- from himself that there was a mystery hanging over the old worker in gold,
- which it would be proper, if possible, to penetrate.
- </p>
- <p>
- Some years back Wilton had suddenly presented himself at the shop of Mr.
- Harper for employment in carving in gold. Inquiries elicited that he had
- not been bred to the business he professed, but was what might be termed a
- scientific amateur. Mr. Harper was struck by his language, and by his
- remarks upon the processes and art of modelling and chasing; and being
- much pressed at the time with an excess of business, he entrusted him with
- some valuable work—the more readily when he found that old Wilton
- resided exactly opposite to him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Wilton returned with his task accomplished in a manner greatly to Mr.
- Harper’s satisfaction, and from that time he had been employed by him. He
- always executed his work excellently, but he was not always punctual, and
- twice or thrice Mr. Harper, in anger, had threatened to discontinue
- employing him; but Wilton generally contrived to smooth away his
- irritation, and they went on as before.
- </p>
- <p>
- Nothing was known of him—whence, or when, or how, he came he seldom
- went out, and only worked for Mr. Harper. So much Hal knew—no one
- knew more—and yet they do know a good deal about each other in
- Clerkenwell. Hal resolved now that his knowledge should not sleep here,
- although at the present moment he could not see quite clearly his way to
- learn more.
- </p>
- <p>
- His future cogitations were terminated by a call to supper, and that meal
- being discussed, he retired to rest—to think again, as before, and
- to fall into a deep, heavy slumber.
- </p>
- <p>
- He dreamed.
- </p>
- <p>
- He thought he met with Flora in some leafy coppice and in secret, and
- that, while conversing with her in a strain of loving tenderness, they
- were interrupted by the tramp of a body of persons approaching. He fancied
- that he seized Flora in his arms, and fled with her, but was pursued, and
- that his pursuers shouted and uttered fierce threats. He looked back, and
- saw that old Wilton headed Jukes and his followers, as well as Nathan
- Gomer and his uncle, who seemed to be the most excited of the party, and
- called him by name loudly. Then, as he still fled, he observed that his
- pursuers were armed, and he heard his uncle call to them to fire upon him.
- </p>
- <p>
- He fled on; still his uncle’s voice shouted in his ear—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Fire! fire! fire!”
- </p>
- <p>
- At last he sprang up in his bed, suddenly awakened, and still the voice
- vehemently cried—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Fire! fire! fire!”
- </p>
- <p>
- A heavy hand beat violently against the panels of his chamber-door, and
- completely aroused him.
- </p>
- <p>
- He at once leaped to the floor, and unlocked his door. He found his uncle
- without, in a state of great excitement—he was half-dressed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Lord!” he cried; “I thought you would never wake; there is a fire;
- throw on your clothes, Hal, my boy!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A fire! where?” asked Hal, hastily.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Over the way,” returned Mr. Harper; “be quick! while I pacify your aunt,
- who is frightened to death.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He lit Hal’s candle as he spoke, and shuffled hastily away in his
- slippers.
- </p>
- <p>
- Over the way! Why Wilton’s house was over the way. Hal felt his blood rush
- violently through his veins. Over the way! What if it should be there? He
- drew on his clothes with hasty swiftness, and he heard the low, hoarse
- sounds of a gathering mob in the streets. The tramp of running feet, the
- violent knocking at doors, and the shouts of boys and men crying “Fire!”
- </p>
- <p>
- All that was absolutely essential to wear, but nothing that would impede
- his activity or application of strength, did Hal put on, and then he
- hurried to one of the front windows of the house and looked out.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is impossible to describe the sudden and violent shock that ran through
- his frame. Though he had thought it possible, he had not believed it
- probable that it could be Wilton’s abode which was on fire, yet his first
- glance told him that the lower part of that house was in flames.
- </p>
- <p>
- A mob had gathered round; an active policeman was pushing it about to
- clear the way for the inhabitants to bring out their furniture from the
- burning house—that is, if they had a chance to do aught beyond
- saving their lives.
- </p>
- <p>
- The door of the house was open, and volumes of smoke were pouring forth. A
- dull red flame, throwing a ruby glare, was to be seen gleaming through the
- windows of the kitchen and the parlour. The upper part of the house seemed
- lost in wreathing dull, gray, cloudy masses of vapour, which rolled up
- from the seat of the fire.
- </p>
- <p>
- Rising up above the hoarse roar of the assembled mob, came the shouts of
- those who were on their way with the first engine. It seemed to be the
- herald of succour, but, alas! it was only the parish-engine, brought up by
- an energetic beadle, four men, and about twenty dirty ragged boys.
- </p>
- <p>
- The turncock arrived with it, and he, though able in the daylight to find
- the plug-hole blindfold, could not without great difficulty discover it,
- with his eyes briskly exercised, at night.
- </p>
- <p>
- At lengthy when the parish engine, bravely foremost in the rank, was
- ready, a mass of volunteers sprang forward to pump it. Mr. Turncock
- succeeded in pulling up the plug, and saturating a dozen venturesome
- persons, who with engineering spirits watched the operation. The hose of
- the parish-engine was at once connected with the stream of water, and with
- a hurrah the volunteers began to work the handles of the pump, but though
- they were made to sound jar-jar, jar-jar, jar-jar, briskly, nothing came
- of it. The parish-engine, as it has ever been from the hour it was first
- invented to the present time, was found to be practicably useless. No
- water could be forced into the directing pipe to play upon the burning
- house.
- </p>
- <p>
- The flames grew fiercer, the smoke denser, and crackling sounds of wood
- splitting, and the sputtering of sparks, were more distinctly heard.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then there was suddenly a mighty cry from the mob.
- </p>
- <p>
- At the upper windows appeared, shrieking for aid, the forms of two young
- girls. They were in their night dresses, and had evidently only just been
- aroused. Three or four brave young fellows rushed into the passage of the
- house to ascend the stairs to save them, but a sheet of flame suddenly
- leaped forth, and drove them back scorched. Thus victorious, it seized the
- staircase in its blistering embrace, and hissed and sputtered as it danced
- and darted upwards, cutting off with a species of savage joy all means of
- egress by that route.
- </p>
- <p>
- Shouts were raised for the fire-escape, as the attempting rescuers were
- forced back by the blinding burst of flame into the streets, and
- preparations were made, if the worst came to the worst, to receive with as
- much safety as possible those who would be called upon to leap from the
- dizzy heights of the upper floor as a last desperate resort to save their
- otherwise doomed lives.
- </p>
- <p>
- A distant hubbub, growing louder as it drew near, announced the approach
- of the fire-escape. Its advent was hailed with lusty shouts, and fifty
- volunteers rushed to facilitate its arrival, but impeding and retarding
- its progress in their meritorious desire to get it up to the scene of
- disaster as quickly as possible.
- </p>
- <p>
- This was the state of things when Hal looked out of window to ascertain
- where the fire had broken out.
- </p>
- <p>
- A downward glance at the rolling masses of smoke, and intermittent flashes
- of forked flame; an upward glance at the windows, where, huddled together,
- were the shrinking, weeping, distracted females, and he was the next
- minute in front of the house making a mad attempt to ascend the burning
- staircase.
- </p>
- <p>
- The serpent-tongued fire had, however, obtained complete possession; it
- roared, and licked as it roared, every particle of woodwork within its
- reach, brightening up as if with ferocious glee as it gained strength, and
- sending forth showers of coruscations, sparkling and glittering, seemingly
- to mark as a festive occasion one of the most dreadful visitations to
- which human society is occasionally subjected.
- </p>
- <p>
- Blinded and suffocated, Hal was compelled to give back, to save the life
- which might yet be successfully employed in rescuing that of others.
- </p>
- <p>
- As he reached the doorway, the fire-escape came up, the conductor placed
- it against the wall; but before he could commence his perilous ascent, a
- light, youthful figure sprang past him on to the wheel, caught in his
- hands the nearest rundle of the ladder, and ran lightly upwards, followed
- by a cheer from the mob and a shout from the conductor to come down again;
- for inexperience, no matter how honorably influenced, is, in most cases, a
- sad marplot.
- </p>
- <p>
- In such emergencies, surrounded by frightful danger, exposed to fatal
- consequences by a false step or an error in judgment, the safety of
- valuable lives hanging upon a thread, experience allied to calmness, and
- cool self-reliance under the most trying contingencies, is essential to
- successful operation. In these cases, knowledge is indeed power. To know
- how to act and when to act, what to use and how to use it, with the
- necessary courage to do and dare all that may be required, is the battle,
- and victory rarely fails to follow it when it is properly conducted. It
- can be understood, therefore, why the conductor of the fire-escape, who
- had saved many lives, enraged at the act of Hal Vivian, shouted so
- vehemently to him to return.
- </p>
- <p>
- He knew by many instances that such a proceeding as that of which the
- youth was guilty, while it imperilled the rescue of those sought to be
- saved, added to the number he was called upon to preserve. His own life
- was always in jeopardy in the performance of his duty, to which he was
- quite equal, and it was vexing to find another placing himself in peril
- without occasion for it, and, in all probability, doing far more harm than
- good.
- </p>
- <p>
- Quick as he was in his chase after Hal, he failed to reach him before he
- was at the window, where clustered the affrighted girls. Ere he could
- clutch hold of him, Hal sprang on the window-sill, and was the next
- instant in the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was recognised immediately by those whom he came to deliver.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora, as she saw Hal’s form upon the edge of the window, and witnessed
- him bound into the room, uttered a cry of joy.
- </p>
- <p>
- As the light from the street flashed upon his animated excited
- countenance, her heart received upon it the impression of a face it was
- not likely to permit easily to be effaced.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Heaven reward you, Mr. Vivian!” she exclaimed, hysterically, “you have
- come to save us.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Or perish with you!” he replied, excitedly, “for I will not leave the
- room until you are all safely down.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “God bless you! God bless you!” sobbed Lotte Clinton, who, as white as
- death, was trembling like an aspen.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now then, young fellow,” cried the conductor, putting his head into the
- window, “since you are here, you must make yourself useful, and be as cool
- as a cowcumber. Recollect, we ain’t here to spend a week. Shut that door;
- look sharp, or you’ll all be stifled in a minute.”
- </p>
- <p>
- No sooner commanded than done.
- </p>
- <p>
- At the same instant the clattering of horses’ feet at full gallop over the
- ringing stones, the heavy rumble of whirling wheels, the rattling cheers
- of a mob which was fast growing into a multitude, announced the arrival of
- the first practicable fire-engine.
- </p>
- <p>
- By this time Lotte was placed within the cradle of the fire-escape, and
- was safely lowered down to those beneath.
- </p>
- <p>
- A roar of gratification burst from the lips of the spectators as they
- beheld one added to the list of the saved.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal watched until Lotte was lifted out of the escape, and then he turned
- to Flora, to request her to be in readiness to take her place in the
- little life-boat.
- </p>
- <p>
- It must be understood that these operations were performed with the utmost
- rapidity consistent with safety. The room was more than half filled by a
- dense smoke when Hal entered; and, although the door was since closed, it
- had streamed in through crannies and chinks so as to fill it—the
- open window rather holding it in the room than suffering it to escape.
- </p>
- <p>
- When Lotte and her companion, the conductor of the fire-escape departed,
- the atmosphere had become heated and stifling. It was also so thick that
- scarcely a thing a foot off could be distinguished. Hal’s astonishment and
- alarm can be imagined when, on the return of the cradle, he spoke to Flora
- and received no answer.
- </p>
- <p>
- But a moment past and she was at his elbow; she was now gone—he
- could not see her—he called to her, but received no reply. He felt
- about the room, but he was nearly suffocated, without succeeding in
- finding her. He heard the roaring of the flames beneath him: the smoke
- grew each moment thicker and denser: large drops of perspiration poured
- from him: instinctively he cowered to the floor and spread his hands in
- all directions, afraid to open his mouth for fear of being stifled.
- </p>
- <p>
- The conductor of the fire-escape now poked his head into the window, and
- shouted for the pair to save their lives while they had a chance, but he
- received no answer.
- </p>
- <p>
- He leaped into the room, and threw himself on the floor, groping about
- upon his hands and knees. He uttered a shrill cry, but met with no
- response. He persevered as long as he could breathe, but without meeting
- the bodies of either the youth or the maiden.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was his impression that, overpowered by the smoke they had sunk
- senseless upon the floor, but he could nowhere find them, and at last
- mystified, and all but suffocated, he was compelled to retreat to the
- window.
- </p>
- <p>
- The fire was at the door of the room, shooting its long forks of flame
- into the old wood of which it was composed, and with such intense heat,
- that it was quickly one mass of flame, and sputtering sparks.
- </p>
- <p>
- With a heavy heart, the conductor got out of the room, on to his machine,
- and he was barely upon it, when a long blast of flame followed him with
- the speed of lightning, and darted out of both windows, cracking and
- smashing the fragile glass panes, causing them to fly in all directions,
- playing fantastically over, and wreathing up the architraves of the
- windows, lighting up as it did so the excited faces of the swaying,
- yelling mob below.
- </p>
- <p>
- The conductor slid down the escape, and communicated the appalling
- intelligence, that in the burning rooms above were two miserable young
- creatures who, by the time he was relating the occurrence, had become
- shapeless, blackened, charred masses of human clay.
- </p>
- <p>
- The scene had now grown intensely exciting; more engines had arrived, and
- hundreds of persons were added to those already assembled. A body of
- policemen were employed in forcing the turbulent crowd back, so as to give
- the firemen room for their exertions. The street was turned into a river,
- and the fire brigade—accoutred like the heavy dragoons of a former
- period—were plashing through the muddy stream, getting their engines
- into working order with the systematic, and, as it appeared to the anxious
- gazers, the rather apathetic regularity of organised action.
- </p>
- <p>
- Frantic occupiers of adjoining houses were flinging out their furniture—their
- little all, and that uninsured. The beds and chairs, tables and drawers,
- formed, as they were brought, or thrown, hastily into the streets, a
- motley jumble—some of them being borne away by active parties, never
- more to be returned to the original owner.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Two persons burned to death!” was a cry which ran through the crowd, and
- was again and again re-echoed by the individuals of which it was formed, a
- thrill of horror accompanying it wherever it went.
- </p>
- <p>
- An explosion, and up shot a body of flame into the air, attended by a
- shower of sparks, fragments of burning wood, and flaming articles, the
- volumes of smoke, of gold and rose-blush tint rolling away, painfully
- contrasting with the violet-hued heavens.
- </p>
- <p>
- The roof was gone!
- </p>
- <p>
- A brilliant glare was thrown over all objects, far and near, making the
- place around as light as day.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lo! a sudden and tremendous cry burst from the agitated multitude,
- pressing, crowding, and crushing upon the foot and roadways.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There! there!—look there!” burst from a thousand throats, and as
- many hands pointed to a particular spot.
- </p>
- <p>
- The adjoining house to Wilton’s—now a burning mass—had a tall,
- irregular, but pointed roof, as though two rooms had been built above the
- old roof of much less dimensions than those beneath, at the smallest
- possible cost, and with an utter disregard of architectural rule.
- </p>
- <p>
- Up the jagged side of this slanting erection a human figure was observed
- climbing slowly, his arm encircling a form all in white. His position was
- terrifyingly dangerous—the least slip, and he, together with his
- burden, would be precipitated into the burning ruins, still roaring,
- spluttering, and flaming below him.
- </p>
- <p>
- He lay almost flat upon his face on the rough tiles, his right hand
- grasping the carved edge of the angle of the roof. Gradually he worked his
- hand upwards, and by a tremendous exertion of strength, he drew himself
- and his companion up a foot at each movement. It was desperate labour—a
- fearful struggle with death. It seemed to those who gazed upon him a mere
- impossibility that he could save himself and the girl whom he still
- clutched round the waist.
- </p>
- <p>
- On he went slowly, the bright flames lighting him in his task, but
- reducing his strength by the intense heat they threw out. He succeeded in
- getting one leg across the angle of the roof, but in doing so he slipped
- back at least two feet.
- </p>
- <p>
- A shriek of horror burst from the crowd, and rose up in the air like a
- death-wail.
- </p>
- <p>
- The youth did not yet despair, but with desperate exertion he arrested his
- descent with his knees.
- </p>
- <p>
- He paused but a moment, and renewed his efforts to ascend, using his knees
- now to enable him to maintain his position on the roof, while he elevated
- his body so as to extend his reach until he obtained a hold higher than
- before, that he might thus ultimately gain a place of comparative safety.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was Hal Vivian who was with Flora Wilton in this frightful situation.
- He had crawled in search of her into an adjoining apartment to that which
- he had entered from the street. She had hurried thither to save something
- to which she knew her father attached great importance, but, overpowered
- by the smoke, she had, after securing it, fallen senseless.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal fortunately found her as soon as he got into the room, and the
- reflection from the fire below enabled him just to see the window. He tore
- it open, and saw that the parapet adjoined the roof of the next house.
- </p>
- <p>
- He sprang on to it, and commenced the perilous task of endeavouring to
- escape a horrible death, and of saving, with his own, a life he esteemed
- far more valuable.
- </p>
- <p>
- The falling roof of the house he had just quitted, when it sank with its
- dreadful crash, was within an ace of taking him with it. It was a fearful
- moment, but he surmounted it, and attempted to proceed at the instant the
- crowd caught sight of him. He heard not their cry, saw nothing, thought
- not of aught but the endeavour to reach a place of safety with her. He
- strained every nerve and sinew to accomplish his object, but human
- endurance, though backed by the urgings and influence of a strong will,
- has its limits.
- </p>
- <p>
- He now reached that point when, with sickening dismay, he found his
- strength failing him, and although his firmness and determination were
- unshaken, his power to go on was departing. To slacken his tenacious hold
- was to be hurled into the yawning gulph of fire behind him. He knew this
- well; that knowledge had as yet sustained him, and he clung to the roof
- still with desperation, resolved, notwithstanding the quivering of his
- fingers, the agonising aching of the arm which supported Flora, and the
- trembling of his knees, to continue to the last his exertions to save the
- maiden, or to pass out of life with her.
- </p>
- <p>
- Slowly rising up, as before, he made a clutch at the top of the roof, and
- caught it, but he found that, beyond drawing himself and the form of the
- senseless girl a little higher, he could do no more. It required an effort
- of unusual strength to reach the summit, where he believed he could remain
- safe until rescued, and that effort exhausted nature was incapable of
- making. Nay, he felt that he could but a few minutes longer cling there,
- and if some Heaven-sent aid did not reach him, his almost superhuman
- exertions would have been made in vain.
- </p>
- <p>
- He remained motionless, trying to recover his spent breath, and, while in
- this position, the hoarse cries of the people thronging in the streets
- reached his ears, and seemed to rouse him from his slowly approaching
- listless inanition. He breathed a prayer; a thought what Flora yet might
- be to him, and what that great world, of which he had yet seen so little,
- might have in store for him, flashed through his brain. The effect upon
- him was like the sound of a trumpet to the soldier at the moment of some
- fearful charge, in which death is the alternative of glory.
- </p>
- <p>
- He drew himself upwards, struggling with the obstacles which seemed to try
- and force him backwards, and, almost with a scream upon his lips, he found
- himself oscillating upon the spot he had with such trying exertion sought
- to reach, exhausted, and unable to make another effort.
- </p>
- <p>
- A shadow fell upon him; he turned his feeble eyes upon the occasion of it,
- and saw one of the fire brigade, who, having laid a short ladder against
- the side of the roof, had mounted it and reached him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Behind this man rose up the helmet of a second fireman, closely following
- his comrade in his work of mercy.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal knew at a glance that Flora and himself were saved. He no longer
- strove to continue the battle with fate, and did not attempt to resist the
- embrace of insensibility as he felt the grip of the fireman upon his
- collar, and heard undistinguishable words fall from him greeting him.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER VI.—THE NOBLE GUESTS.
- </h2>
- <p class="indent15">
- “You have deserted me; where am I now? <br /><span class="indent15">Not in
- your heart, while care weighs on your brow; <br /><span class="indent15">No,
- no! you have dismissed me, and I go <br /><span class="indent15">From your
- breast houseless; ay, ay, it must be so,” <br /><span class="indent15">He
- answered. <br /><span class="indent30">—John Keats. <br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r. Grahame, though
- greatly agitated at the sudden appearance and abrupt disappearance of
- Nathan Gomer, at a moment of such dread importance, did not make any
- comment upon it to Mr. Chewkle. He felt unequal to such a task, and
- perhaps, too, he thought that it would be better not to suppose that the
- strange little moneyed man had either observed or suspected any foul play
- in the act he must have seen in commission. So he folded his arms, and
- remained silent, assuming the aspect of profound meditation.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Chewkle, finding the coast clear of the small enemy, would have given
- free vent to the feelings which were turbulent and in turmoil within him,
- but Mr. Grahame repressed the very first outbreak.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pray be silent on the matter,” he observed, hastily, as if aroused
- suddenly from a fit of abstraction, “our speculations upon the situation
- are worth nothing, and may lead us astray if suffered to have the rein.
- Keep what you know safely locked within your own breast. Trust the key in
- my keeping alone. Your reward shall not certainly be less than your
- expectations. Mr. Gomer doubtless saw me affixing a signature to a deed,
- and would presume it to be my own; he could not imagine the truth; and
- therefore, though startled at the moment, I do not, upon reflection, see
- any occasion for alarm. Let me see you again in a few days, my good
- friend, and in the meantime endeavour to suggest a mode of bringing that
- wretchedly obstinate old man, Wilton, to reason.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame rang a hand-bell sharply, and Whelks instantly was in the
- room. Mr. Chewkle “had a thing to say,” which had strong reference to an
- immediate pecuniary supply; but Mr. Grahame did not afford him the
- opportunity, for he addressed Whelks as he entered, and bade him escort
- Mr. Chewkle to the door. He tendered a finger to the commission agent as a
- parting salute, honoured him with a stiff bow, and retired promptly to the
- further end of the library.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This way if you please!” exclaimed Whelks to Chewkle, as with head erect
- and shoulders back, he, with the stateliness of a Tartar soldier in an
- Astley’s drama, marched out of the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Chewkle glanced at Mr. Grahame and at Whelks; he had a pressing
- occasion for a few pounds; but though he had quite made up his mind to ask
- for and have a sum, and indeed in a private self-communion on his way
- thither that morning, he had composed the conversation which was to take
- place between himself and Mr. Grahame, and which was to terminate in a
- princely act of munificence towards him on the part of the latter
- personage, he found himself sneaking out, treading tip-toe on the shadow
- of Whelks, without having uttered a word or having obtained a penny.
- </p>
- <p>
- The princely act of munificence did not come off upon this occasion, but
- he promised himself that before long it should; and, ere he was out of the
- house, he had flung his friendship for Grahame to the winds, and had
- carved for himself an antagonistic attitude, in which he played the part
- of one who, having in his possession a dreadful secret, by which the
- safety of another is compromised, makes money by it frequently.
- </p>
- <p>
- As the door closed upon him, Mr. Grahame turned a fitful gaze in that
- direction, and quickly, but silently, turned the key in the lock.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then he paced up and down the library, almost convulsed by a fierce,
- mental struggle. He pressed his burning palm upon his aching forehead, and
- muttered rapidly and wildly—
- </p>
- <p>
- “It must be done now; there is no escape—no escape—none—retreat
- is utterly impossible, and the advance must be swift, or, in spite of
- crime, utter crushing ruin must be the result. No; there is no stopping
- now. That forgery is useless, worthless, while he lives to prove it what
- it is. But how dispose of him without having any apparent connection with
- his death? Let me see! I must have no accomplice. I already have one too
- many; he will be a thorn in my side, I can see that; but there is time
- enough to think of the plan by which I shall get rid of him. But this
- Wilton; he must die, and that immediately. Yes, he must die! he must die!
- or I perish! but how to kill him—how? how?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He threw himself in his chair, and racked his brain for a device by which
- to accomplish his devilish purpose without compromising himself. But as he
- did so, the magnitude of the crime he proposed to effect was not lost upon
- him. He felt that his face was livid, his hands cold and clammy, while
- drops of icy sweat trickled from his temples on to his cheek bones. His
- teeth, too, chattered, and his limbs trembled, as though he had been
- suddenly nipped by a frost.
- </p>
- <p>
- Some hours elapsed before his torturing reverie terminated—even then
- he had only an indistinct notion of the course which he calculated upon,
- as the best to be adopted. The vulgar modes of knife or poison, he foresaw
- could not be employed by him, because he would have to be connected,
- however remotely, with the deed; and how to accomplish his design without
- the aid of one or the other, was a problem harder for him to work out than
- the most difficult in the “first four books” to an indifferent
- mathematician.
- </p>
- <p>
- He certainly hit upon a scheme, but he was not sure that it would
- accomplish the object in view. There was not, however, time to project a
- plan, requiring consummate skill in its details, and rare ability to
- execute. Need was driving, and the ground was such as the devil must cover
- without the option of a choice; and he made up his mind to act at once,
- for he required immediately the funds which the successful execution of
- his infamous purpose would place at his disposal.
- </p>
- <p>
- As if to sustain him in the resolution he had formed, he was aroused by
- the arrival of Whelks at the library door, who, when it was opened,
- informed him that his son had just returned home, accompanied by the Duke
- of St. Allborne, and the Honorable Lester Vane, and that they awaited him
- in the drawing-room.
- </p>
- <p>
- Dismissing Whelks with a message to the effect that he would immediately
- join them, he hastened to his dressing-room, to obliterate all traces of
- the mental struggle he had for so many hours endured, and, making a slight
- alteration in his attire, he descended, <br /><br /><span class="indent25">With
- solemn step and slow, </span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- to welcome his son’s guests upon their arrival from college.
- </p>
- <p>
- He found, on entering the gorgeously furnished apartment, his wife and
- daughters entertaining the new arrivals after the manner of the House—always
- excepting Evangeline, who sat back in a window recess, as if she had no
- business there.
- </p>
- <p>
- A few words of stately congratulation and welcome from Mr. Grahame, and
- the whole party returned to the position which it occupied when he
- entered.
- </p>
- <p>
- The keen eye of Mr. Grahame ran over the forms of the two young men who
- were thus introduced into his family for the first time, and naturally the
- young Duke was the first to attract his attention.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was tall—over six feet, and stout with his height. He was fair,
- with round blue eyes, a small mouth, and no whiskers upon his cheeks or
- moustache upon his upper lip, or the sign of a hair in the vicinity.
- </p>
- <p>
- His hands and feet were small, but there was a bulky, plethoric character
- about his frame, and his legs had an ungraceful leaning to knock-kneeism.
- </p>
- <p>
- The tone of his voice was rich and not unmusical; but, like many members
- of the aristocracy, his tongue refused to have anything to do with the
- letter <i>r</i>, and, as a not unusual consequence, he used words
- containing that letter more frequently than did persons who could sound it
- like the roll of a drumstick upon a kettle-drum.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was dressed elegantly. The jewellery he wore, though spare in quantity,
- was superb in material, and super-eminently costly.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Honorable Lester Vane was of an entirely different stamp; and could,
- perhaps, have better sustained the character of a duke than his friend.
- Standing about five feet ten, he was remarkably well-formed and erect, and
- seemed to be at least six feet high. He was dark; and, though not a
- military man, wore a handsomely-shaped and trimmed moustache: his features
- were regular and well-shaped: his eyes were a very dark blue, and shaded
- by long black eyelashes: his hair and whiskers being of the same hue as
- the latter. His hands were white and small, and his feet were equally neat
- in their proportions. He was dressed with consummate taste and care, and
- of all men was calculated to attract the notice of women.
- </p>
- <p>
- Malcolm Grahame, short in stature, was a rather ugly likeness of his
- sister Margaret, possessing all her pride, but not enough of her studied
- coldness to prevent it becoming vulgar arrogance. He was rather
- overdressed, too; and, altogether, presented a remarkable contrast to his
- college companions. It was soon perceptible that he toadied them, and that
- they both held him at no very flattering height in their estimation.
- </p>
- <p>
- Why, then, did they accompany him home? An answer to that question might
- have been found in the glances bestowed by both the young men on the
- beautiful Helen Grahame, who, conscious of her own charms, received the
- homage of their eyes as simply her due. They were both, very shortly after
- their introduction, aware that she interpreted their looks of admiration,
- rather steadfastly bestowed—that they did not surprise nor did they
- abash her—nay, when, to show her power, she flashed those brilliant
- orbs upon them by turns, with a clear, steadfast gaze, they were fain to
- let their eyelids fall, to screen their unsteady eyes from the direct,
- unfaltering look she bent upon them.
- </p>
- <p>
- Both regarded her in the light of a prize worth having, though each looked
- on the achievement from a different point of view. One seriously hoped to
- win it without the formulary of the wedding ring—the other with that
- aid, but with the addition also of a golden store.
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen Grahame was unquestionably beautiful. The heightened colour of her
- cheek, the sparkling dancing of her brilliant eye, as she observed the
- impression her personal attractions had made upon the two young highborn
- men, greatly enhanced that beauty, which excited admiration even when in
- repose. It kept them at her side, and engrossed the largest share of their
- attention.
- </p>
- <p>
- With a woman’s quickness of perception, Helen saw that she should soon
- have both these men suitors for her favour, sighing at her feet for her
- love. The gracefully fashioned form of Lester Vane pleased her eye and
- taste—the ducal coronet of his bulky friend roused her ambition and
- dazzled her; and she foresaw that she should be perplexed, when, as she
- instinctively knew would be the case, both wooed her, which to prefer. It
- was something to have a handsome “Honorable” for a husband—but to be
- a duchess!—ah!
- </p>
- <p>
- Why at the moment did she sigh so sharply?—why did a spasm run
- through her frame, and make her clutch convulsively at a chair for
- support? Was it that this momentary pang reminded her that in neither
- decision would her heart be enlisted, or that there was another and more
- grave consideration which rendered such a speculation a forbidden subject?
- </p>
- <p>
- After the common-places which usually attend an introduction, Mr. Grahame
- suggested that the guests should be shown to their respective rooms, where
- they might remove the traces of their journey, and prepare their toilet
- for dinner, to be served at half-past eight—a suggestion which was
- somewhat readily accepted, and appeared to be grateful to all parties.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Duke and the Honorable Lester Vane had heard Malcolm Grahame boast of
- his beautiful sister Helen and his proud sister Meg. They had availed
- themselves of his apparently unlimited command of money, and they
- considered that his family were enormously wealthy, but vulgar and
- common-place. When Malcolm invited them home to spend a week with him, at
- his “place” in London, they both, having “places” of their own in the
- great city, looked upon the invitation as a good joke, and accepted it in
- the same spirit. They each resolved to add to the favours they had
- bestowed upon him, by permitting him always to pay, by borrowing his money
- in return for their company, and by running off with the pretty sister, of
- whom he spoke so enthusiastically. They had even entered into a bet with
- each other as to which would prove successful.
- </p>
- <p>
- They were, however, not a little surprised to find the Grahames living in
- a style of elegant luxury, and the members of it displaying a pride of
- bearing not even surpassed by the ineffably proud Somerset himself, whose
- wife—a Percy—never attempted the liberty of kissing him. They
- were equally posed to find the pretty sister a brilliant beauty, who could
- only be approached with deference and humility; who was not to be gained
- with a glance of passion, or won by the pretended asseverations of a love
- having no existence.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lester Vane saw his course at once. His income was narrow, and during his
- father’s life would not be increased by inheritances or bequests from any
- branch of his family, near or remote. To gain a beautiful wife, with an
- enormous dowry, was precisely the means by which he purposed elevating
- himself to wealth, and within a few minutes after his introduction to
- Helen, he abandoned his criminal project, and took up the matrimonial one.
- He formed the determination, too, of thwarting, promptly and effectually,
- the Duke’s designs, without appearing to do so, until he was sure of the
- lady, because he knew not when and how he might require his interest and
- service.
- </p>
- <p>
- The young Duke was quite thrown out, too, by what was presented to his
- astonished eyes. Malcolm Grahame, after all, was not the <i>parvenu</i> he
- had fancied him to be, and his sister, instead of being merely a pretty,
- silly girl, was one to grace a throne. His was not a nature easily to
- abandon a resolution once formed, and he thought of Helen as a mistress
- with a gratified emotion not to be described. A passion for her was at
- once raised in his heart. He, too, remembering his bet with Lester Vane,
- made his resolutions in respect to the intentions of his friend, but as
- his own in that particular remained unchanged, he decided upon preserving
- silence respecting it for the present.
- </p>
- <p>
- Both the young men were therefore glad to escape to their rooms, to
- recover their surprise on finding themselves in an atmosphere they had not
- expected, and in contact with persons differing materially from the
- conceptions they had formed of them. They were anxious to reflect upon
- their line of conduct during their stay, and having well considered the
- path to choose, to follow it out.
- </p>
- <p>
- The two girls and their mother were glad of an opportunity of comparing
- notes and devising plans, to be carried out so long as their guests
- remained.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame seemed to be in a dream, glad to be away from everybody, yet
- hating to be alone.
- </p>
- <p>
- A brilliant dinner was served at the appointed hour. As there was no point
- of resemblance in the characters of those present, save in those of
- Margaret Grahame and her mother, the conversation was certainly not
- monotonous. It afforded, however, an opportunity for those interested in
- such a task to observe and mentally comment upon their companions, and to
- draw conclusions to be treasured up for future use.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Duke of St. Allborne was placed on the right hand of Mr. Grahame, the
- Honorable Lester Vane on the right of Mrs. Grahame, the Duke enjoyed the
- pleasure of having the fair Helen as his right hand neighbour, and Lester
- Vane was honoured with the company of Margaret, for which he was not
- disposed to be especially grateful.
- </p>
- <p>
- Evangeline faced her brother Malcolm, and thus arranged they proceeded to
- discuss the various courses, to partake of the choicest wines, to
- converse, and to gaze upon each other.
- </p>
- <p>
- The last item was by no means the least important. The Duke did his best
- to engross the conversation of Helen, and to keep his round light blue
- eyes settled upon her, which she affected only to observe now and then by
- accident. Then a scarcely perceptible smile turned the corners of her
- mouth.
- </p>
- <p>
- The deep blue eyes of Lester Vane rarely left her face, even when he was
- addressed by others. As often as she turned hers in his direction, which,
- with a motive, she did occasionally, she perceived his earnest, dreamy
- gaze fixed upon her. Twice or thrice it made her shudder, she knew not
- why. It was fixed, expressive, teeming with passion, but, if it possessed
- fascination, it was that of the serpent. Insensibly, every now and then
- her eyes wandered towards his, and settled for a moment upon them, each
- was conscious of the effect they were creating, and when Helen averted
- hers, a strange dread thrilled through her frame.
- </p>
- <p>
- Now, although the beautiful face of this girl absorbed so much of Vane’s
- gaze, he was not ignorant of the fact that there was another face
- possessing great claims to loveliness at the table.
- </p>
- <p>
- At first the timid reserve of Evangeline had caused him to pass her over
- unnoticed, but now that she sat almost opposite to him, he could not fail
- to notice her.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was attired in a dinner dress of pale blue and silver, and, being very
- fair, looked charming. Her gentleness and quietness prevented her
- attracting much attention. To the Duke she was mixed up with the lights,
- the plate, and Malcolm Grahame, but the eye of Vane marked her down.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must fall in with her when she is alone,” he thought; “early in the
- morning or in byeways. She can be made, I am sure, to believe and to keep
- a secret, at any self-sacrifice.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Once more his eye fell upon Helen, who was turning her dark, bright eyes
- upon the Duke, and electrifying him with her beauty, while she confused
- him by the smartness of her sallies.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will have her,” mused Lester Vane. “It may be a task surrounded with
- almost insuperable difficulties, but I will have her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Margaret Claverhouse Grahame divided her attentions between her plate and
- the young Duke. She had estimated Lester Vane at pretty much his value,
- and therefore did not trouble her head any more about him. She fastened
- her gray eyes upon the Duke as often as her dinner would admit, and she
- came to the same conclusion respecting him that Lester Vane had with her
- sister Helen.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He must be mine. He is fat and awkward,” she thought, “but he is a duke,
- and I am born to bear the rank of a duchess.”
- </p>
- <p>
- On the period appointed by etiquette for the ladies to retire arriving,
- the young ladies, led by Mrs. Grahame, quitted the apartment, to leave the
- gentlemen to their wine. They were now on much more familiar terms with
- each other, and, as the ladies retired, the Duke rising with the
- gentlemen, said to Helen—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Weally, Miss Gwahame, I gwow evwy day moah and moah convinced that the
- wegulation which dwove the ladies fwom our society, though only faw a
- time, was absolutely bawbawous; and the pwesent fashion which pwescwibes a
- limit to the sepawation, an intwo-duction of the most admiwable kind.
- Believe me, I shall, with all wespect to my hospitable host, count the
- minutes until we join you in the dwawing woom.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And I!” exclaimed Lester Vane, in a tone of voice which compelled Helen
- to turn towards him; their eyes met—again she felt a strange,
- thrilling dread pass over her frame; she turned her eyes away.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am grateful!” she responded with a bow, and hastily quitted the room
- with her mother and sisters.
- </p>
- <p>
- She did not enter the drawing-room, but ran into her own dressing-room,
- and, throwing herself in a chair, buried her face in a handkerchief.
- </p>
- <p>
- She gave way to a passionate burst of tears; presently she drew from her
- bosom a small note, broke the seal, and perused its contents many times,
- and then she crushed it in her hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How inopportune!” she exclaimed, in a vexed tone; “any night but this;
- still the terms are so peremptory; what is to be done?” She looked at her
- watch. “It is the hour,” she said; “what if I let it pass by, and go not?
- we part then to meet no more—no, no, that must not be—oh,
- fickle heart, to what fate will you drive me!”
- </p>
- <p>
- At this moment her maid entered the room, and she hastily secreted the
- note. She mused for a second, and then she said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Chayter, give me a shawl; I will walk in the garden; my head aches.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is very dark, miss,” returned the girl, “and the air is getting cold.
- It will be dangerous to your health to walk there now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Give me a shawl, Chayter,” cried Helen, impatiently. “It is my pleasure
- to walk there—my brain burns.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The girl knew it was useless to remonstrate further, and handed her a
- thick shawl, which she threw hastily over her head, and left the room. In
- a moment she returned, and said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Chayter, that dress I bade you alter this morning, you may keep.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh thank you, miss,” exclaimed the girl, joyfully, for it was a rich one.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And, Chayter, remain here until you see me. Remember that if I am sent
- for, to say that I am lying upon my couch for a few minutes, and do not
- wish to be disturbed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, miss.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do not mention a word to any one that I have gone to the garden.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not to a soul, miss.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “There’s a good girl; I will reward you on my return.”
- </p>
- <p>
- As she concluded, she hastened down the private staircase.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She’s got a sweetheart, I’ll swear!” murmured Chayter reflectively. “I’ll
- find that out, see if I don’t that will be many a dress in my way.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen hurried on tiptoe until she reached one of the parlours which had a
- window opening on to the lawn. She passed out thence, closing the window
- silently after her.
- </p>
- <p>
- She kept upon the lawn, in the shadow of the house, for a short distance,
- and then pursuing a winding path, did not pause until she reached a small
- thicket of trees planted on the banks of a tongue of land curving the
- ornamental waters.
- </p>
- <p>
- Here she stood still for a moment, and then she coughed thrice. A voice
- whispered, “Helen!” and she clapped her hand. The next instant there
- issued from the thicket a young man, who immediately placed himself at her
- side.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I feared you would not come, dearest!” he said, in a low tone.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Hugh!” she answered; “it was indeed a task difficult to execute, but
- you so earnestly wished me to meet you that I am here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is shameful of me to doubt you, Helen, after the proofs of affection
- which you have bestowed upon me, yet I know the full value of my prize,
- and I so fear to lose it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you still love me, Hugh?” she asked, thoughtfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Love you!—oh, Helen! why do you ask that terrible question? Have I
- changed in look, in word, in thought, in act?” he exclaimed, earnestly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No!” she said, “oh, no! yet do you not think a time may come when your
- love for me will be diverted to another?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Helen!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can you not, Hugh, imagine a time when one fairer, less exacting, more
- gentle, than myself, may win from me that love you say I now alone
- possess?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Helen, this language affrights me—I do not understand it!” he
- exclaimed, in a tone of surprise; and then added, passionately, “surely it
- is not for you to hazard such a terrible supposition! I love you, Helen—I
- have sworn it! I shall never change, never swerve from that adoration,
- that idolatry, with which I worship you. Oh! we are about to part for a
- time, Helen, and is this a moment to raise such doubts?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She remained silent.
- </p>
- <p>
- He pressed his clenched hand upon his heart, and said, with deep emotion—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Helen, I repeat, we are about to part: you cannot have met me to tell me
- that the love you have declared for me, the love which you have proved,
- and which I have, oh! so fondly, so dearly cherished, has faded suddenly
- away at a moment, and you wish that the separation commencing now should
- last for ever? You dare not do it!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh! no, no, Hugh, no!” she cried earnestly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Helen!” he ejaculated, in low but deep tones, as though his very
- existence depended upon her answer, “you have, as I believe, proved to me
- that you loved me; you love me still, do you not?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh! yes, yes, Hugh,” she returned, with fervour, “I do, indeed, Hugh,
- love you with my whole soul.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She sank upon his breast, and he pressed his lips to hers, passionately.
- </p>
- <p>
- At this instant there was the sound of a footstep upon the gravel path.
- </p>
- <p>
- She sprang from his embrace.
- </p>
- <p>
- “For Heaven’s sake, be silent!” she whispered.
- </p>
- <p>
- She turned her eyes in the direction of the advancing footsteps, and saw,
- approaching the spot where she stood with her companion, the Honorable
- Lester Vane.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER VII.—LOVE AWAKENING.
- </h2>
- <p class="indent20">
- Oh, love! no habitant of earth thou art— <br /><span class="indent20">An
- unseen seraph, we believe in thee, <br /><span class="indent20">A faith,
- whose martyrs are the broken heart, <br /><span class="indent20">But never
- yet hath seen, nor e’er shall see <br /><span class="indent20">The naked
- eye, thy form, as it should be; <br /><span class="indent20">The mind hath
- made thee, as it peopled heaven, <br /><span class="indent20">Even with its
- own desiring phantasy, <br /><span class="indent20">And to a thought such
- shape and image given, <br /><span class="indent20">As haunts, the
- unquench’d soul—parch’d, wearied, wrung, and riven. <br /><span
- class="indent30">-Childe Harold. <br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span> sudden
- involuntary effort of the memory had nearly cost Flora Wilton her life.
- </p>
- <p>
- In that dreadful moment, when the house in which she had for years resided
- was a prey to the raging flames, when her own escape—owing to the
- fearful rapidity with which the fire gained ascendancy—was a
- question of doubt, she had remembered a packet of papers, which her father
- had given into her charge, with injunctions to preserve it, even at the
- hazard of her life.
- </p>
- <p>
- It had been placed by herself in a spot, which though secret, was yet of
- easy access. To obtain it would be but the act of a minute; the
- fire-escape conductor had yet to return to convey her from the burning
- house, to the street below; and she made the attempt simultaneously with
- the conception of the thought.
- </p>
- <p>
- The room she entered was densely filled with smoke. She obtained the
- object of her search. She remembered no more.
- </p>
- <p>
- When again consciousness returned to her, she was in the arms of Hal, high
- in the air, upon a dreadful slope, the ruddy glare of the roaring flames
- making visible to her the frightful danger of her position. She relapsed
- into insensibility, and when once more she opened her eyes, she found
- herself in bed, the motherly face of an elderly woman bending over her,
- and her wrist in the hand of a white-haired medical attendant, who had
- himself applied the restoratives which had brought her back to life.
- </p>
- <p>
- A thousand questions thronged to her lips, first wonder, then incoherence,
- then, with an awakening sense of what had happened, her desolate destitute
- condition burst with full force upon her, and she fell into a passionate
- fit of weeping.
- </p>
- <p>
- The soft, kindly voice of the woman at her side was addressed to her in
- soothing tones, while the strictest injunctions fell from the lips of the
- doctor, forbidding speech on either side. He recommended Flora to commend
- herself to God, and then endeavour to sleep, under the conviction that the
- fearful event in which she had borne so prominent a part had not involved
- any loss of life.
- </p>
- <p>
- Poor Flora! she had no words at command, no language in which to express
- the emotions the horrors of the night had occasioned, and she obeyed the
- doctor’s behest of silence simply because her tongue refused its office.
- </p>
- <p>
- She listened to the exhortations addressed to her, and made a feeble
- motion to the effect that she would endeavour to comply with the wishes
- that had been expressed: and so she was left alone.
- </p>
- <p>
- Where was she?
- </p>
- <p>
- She cast her weeping eyes around; but, in the well-furnished room,
- recognised no object that could enlighten her upon that point. By the aid
- of the light of the candle, which had been left burning upon a table, she
- could distinguish everything in the room plainly enough, but there was
- nothing to tell her whose house she was within.
- </p>
- <p>
- But she had a surmise. Women, quick at assumption, are rarely far wrong in
- their suppositions.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora, when she opened her eyes to find herself at a dizzy height above
- the uproar of the excited multitude assembled to witness the destruction
- of the dwelling by the remorseless fire, saw, too, that she was in the
- firm grasp of Harry Vivian. She remembered that now; and she was led to
- believe, therefore, that she had been conveyed by him to the house of his
- uncle, and that the kind and tender matron who had spoken to her such
- words of tenderness was his aunt.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her lip quivered as the thought passed through her mind, and when—following
- the counsel of the doctor, no less than the dictates of her own pure mind—she
- offered up a prayer of thankfulness to the Throne of Grace for her escape,
- she invoked a blessing upon the head of him who had perilled so much to
- accomplish the work of her deliverance.
- </p>
- <p>
- It has been said that it is seldom a woman disposes of her own heart—circumstances
- decide for her. One thing is certain—that she does not long remain
- in ignorance when her heart has been made captive. A man may for some time
- believe and assure himself that he only admires and esteems some very
- pretty girl: an accident will, however, disclose to him that he loves her.
- This is not the case with woman: a man upon whom she casts at first an
- indifferent eye may possess attractions which, gradually gaining her good
- will, ultimately win her affections; but her heart will no sooner be his
- than she becomes cognizant of the fact, and she takes her position
- accordingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora had been present many times when Hal Vivian had visited her father
- upon business. She had been irresistibly struck by his handsome face and
- well-formed figure, his pleasant expression of countenance, and his mild,
- courteous manner; but, if she had then thought of him at all, it was to
- consider him as an amiable young man—bearing the palm, perhaps, from
- every other she had as yet seen—nothing more.
- </p>
- <p>
- Now, as she sought to close her eyes in sleep, she saw vividly his face,
- the bright red glow of the fire glaring upon it; she saw his glittering
- eye, his contracted brow, his inflated nostril, and compressed lip, the
- collective symbols of brave energy; she saw, too, that the contour was
- handsome and noble—with an almost painful distinctness she perceived
- that the daring effort of courage, which then so brilliantly animated his
- fine face, was solely made to save her from a dreadful death.
- </p>
- <p>
- While giving him full credit for the very noblest impulse, she had not
- been true to her woman’s nature if she had not instinctively felt that his
- arduous exertions received an impetus from some favourable impression she
- had created upon him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Indefinite, unacknowledged as this conception, in her agitated state,
- really was, it was not without its influence in composing her to slumber.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her dead mother’s pale face seemed to look down upon her from its place in
- heaven, gently and placidly. Her father’s countenance, quivering with an
- agonised anxiety of expression, disturbed and sorrowful, oppressed her,
- but the features of Hal floated before her vision, appearing to grow
- brighter and brighter in her eyes, and to suggest a hopeful and happy
- future.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was broad daylight when she awoke. She turned her pained eyes around
- her, and beheld at her side again that same kind, motherly face which had
- been the first she looked upon the night before, when recovering from
- insensibility. She was greeted with kind words as on the previous
- occasion, and was permitted this time not only to recur mentally to the
- sad event of the night before, but to obtain some control over her natural
- emotions before a question was put to her, which called upon her to utter
- a word. During this interval, she learned that all her surmises had been
- founded on a true basis; that she was indebted to Hal Vivian for an almost
- miraculous escape from a dreadful death, and that she had been received
- and sheltered beneath the roof of Mr. Harper, where she was assured that
- she was welcome to remain until some arrangements for her comfort and
- convenience could be made.
- </p>
- <p>
- Further, Flora was given to understand that the good Samaritan before her
- was Mrs. Harper, who, though she had servants in the house, believed that
- her own ministrations to the suffering girl would be attended with more
- beneficial results than if she had delegated the task to others.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs. Harper was a truly generous, kind-hearted woman, and her efforts to
- serve others had, at least, the gratifying effect of rewarding herself,
- for hitherto she had been so fortunate as not to misplace them, or throw
- them away on unworthy objects. Her doves of pity and goodwill had always
- brought her back an olive branch, and if they had not, it is doubtful
- whether she would have ceased to render those services which came so
- opportunely, and were so grateful to whoever needed them.
- </p>
- <p>
- When Flora could command herself to speak, she, in warm and eloquent
- terms, expressed her deep and earnest gratitude for that self-sacrificing
- bravery which the nephew of Mrs. Harper had exhibited in the behalf of
- herself, and to the goodness and charity of the old lady, who, in her
- distress, had granted her so valuable an asylum.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don’t speak of it, my child,” returned Mrs. Harper. “For my part, I wish
- my hospitality had been afforded to you under happier circumstances. And
- as for Hal, Heaven bless us! I thought I should have died when I saw him
- crawling with you up the roof of that horrible old house over the way. I’m
- sure I never expected to see you come down alive, either of you, and, in
- truth, I don’t believe you would if it hadn’t been for those bold firemen,
- who, mercy on us! were up in the flames, moving about like a parcel of
- demons in the fiery regions in the play!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora clasped her hands, and said sorrowfully—
- </p>
- <p>
- “This perilling of life for me, and I can in no way repay it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tut, tut, my dear,” returned Mrs. Harper, “don’t think about that—these
- men are paid for their work; it is their duty, and they are used to it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But Mr. Vivian?” suggested Flora.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Just what I said, my dear,” observed Mrs. Harper, garrulously. “Hal is
- neither paid for nor used to such work, but when I said so, he closed my
- mouth with a kiss, and vowed that it was his duty that he had performed,
- and if it was to do again he would not hesitate one minute to go through
- all he did last night.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is so noble!” said Flora, with the faintest of sighs.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Poor fellow!” ejaculated Mrs. Harper. “He looks rather jaded this
- morning, and so odd with his whiskers and eyebrows singed with the fierce
- fire. Ah! it was a dreadful sight.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dreadful!” exclaimed Flora, with a shudder.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, and he was so eager to know how you were,” continued Mrs. Harper,
- “Dear me, what a many questions he asked me about you. Ah! well, I told
- him you should yourself reply to him bye and bye.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora was conscious of a rosy hue stealing into her cheek. She thought of
- his deep, earnest eyes, and how steadfastly they would after the late
- event settle upon hers, and how she would never be able to meet his,
- though she had at other times and recently done so without even a passing
- thought upon the matter.
- </p>
- <p>
- Why was this? She sighed—perhaps she guessed.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was some two or three days before she was enabled to grant an interview
- to Hal, anxious as she was for the meeting. All her clothes had been
- consumed by the fire, and Mrs. Harper’s dresses were “a world too wide”
- for her.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora was not affected on the point of dress. She had no unnecessary or
- false pride in that respect, but she had the natural regard to external
- appearance, which every woman, young or old, unless utterly lost,
- possesses; and, though she was not truly cognisant of the influence a
- tasteful arrangement of well-fashioned garments would have in heightening
- charms already of a very superior order, she had no desire to present
- herself to Harry Vivian disguised in a dress sufficiently capacious for
- Mrs. Harper, but in no degree contract-able to her dimensions.
- </p>
- <p>
- With most generous spirit and charming willingness, the old lady put the
- powers of her draper and her dressmaker into active requisition, and Flora
- was able to quit her room in the time mentioned.
- </p>
- <p>
- She rapidly recovered her health and a certain serenity of mind. The loss
- of all her father’s little property, buried among the charred ruins
- opposite, was an evil to be regretted, but it was a fact which no grief
- could disturb or obviate. A remedy was to be sought—something was to
- be done for herself, probably for her father too, who, an inmate of a
- prison, was scarcely likely to be able to help himself; and from the
- moment she came to recognise and comprehend her position, her mind busied
- itself in forming plans for the future, by which she should at least be
- able to support him who had no one now in the wide, wide world to look up
- to but herself.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was hopeful and sanguine, but she knew very little of the world.
- </p>
- <p>
- Old Mr. Harper knew a very great deal about it, plain and matter-of-fact
- as he appeared. He had for some time past determined to have a country
- house at Islington—in fact, had decided upon it, and was slowly
- having it furnished. He pushed on the work now; for, after a very grave
- consultation with Mrs. Harper, his wife, he decided that the poor girl,
- bereaved of home by fire, and of a father by the law, could not turn out
- into the streets. So, looking upon her as a trust confided to his care by
- the Almighty, he resolved to take charge of her, house, feed, and clothe
- her, until something was done in her behalf by such persons as had a
- better title to perform the good work than himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- Thus, at the end of a week, he calculated upon entering his new house at
- Highbury, which he should leave in the morning and return to at night,
- accompanied by his nephew, and he resolved that Flora Wilton should become
- an inmate as well as those who constituted his family. He absolutely
- chuckled to think what a delightful companion she would make his wife,
- who, having lived so long in the old house in Clerkenwell, would find the
- solitude of her new home, without such society as that now ready for her,
- absolutely insupportable.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Harper confided to Hal the task of imparting to Flora his intentions.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She owes you something for the service you afforded her in escaping,”
- said the old goldsmith, “and so if she raises any foolish objection, the
- prompting of a reluctance to become burdensome, or any such stuff as that—for
- she is just the sort of girl to show a great deal of pride, you know—you
- will be able to combat her arguments and reason her out of it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal’s face lighted up as though a sunbeam had made it radiant.
- </p>
- <p>
- What happiness to have her dwelling at his home, her eyes to greet him
- when he returned at night, and follow him when he departed in the morning,
- her sweet-toned voice to welcome him and to speed him on his way, her
- delicious presence to smoothe down the fatigues of his daily labour, and
- to wile away imperceptibly hours which otherwise might drag their slow
- length tediously along.
- </p>
- <p>
- Harry Vivian, overflowing with Mr. Harper’s instructions and his own
- emotions of delight, one morning by arrangement entered the room in which
- Flora was seated alone, and advanced towards her shyly and slowly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora, who, as the door opened, turned her gaze upon it as though she
- <br /><br /><span class="indent15">Knew whose gentle hand was on the latch,
- <br /><span class="indent15">Ere the door had given him to her eyes,
- </span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- as he made his way into the apartment, rose up. The colour fled from her
- cheek, and she was seized with such a sudden and violent palpitation of
- the heart that she was forced back into her chair again. She trembled all
- over. Then her cheek flushed, and she felt once more impelled to rise and
- hurry towards him to grasp his hand, and pour forth a torrent of eloquent
- gratefulness. The emotion which she experienced was new and strange to
- her; her every nerve thrilled rather with a sense of pleasure rather than
- with any other feeling.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was confused, dizzy. But withal, an overpowering gladness reigned
- within her soul that he and she were once more face to face.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ay, they were palm to palm, too. At first without a word. What could they
- say? their hearts were too full for utterance; both remembered how
- together they had trembled on the verge of eternity, and there was a deep
- solemnity in the thought, which, for the moment, forbade speech.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora was the first—wonderful gift pertaining to woman—to
- recover her self-possession. In words, low toned, but earnest and
- heartfelt, she expressed her sense of the obligation she owed him, and
- though he, recovering, too, his speech, would have stayed her, she was not
- to be so checked, but gave utterance to all her full heart dictated.
- </p>
- <p>
- “For my own life I am your debtor. I am sensible what I owe to you on that
- account,” she observed, with much feeling, “and I can never, never
- discharge the obligation; nay, perhaps I would not if I could, for indeed,
- Mr. Vivian, after the brave and noble conduct you have displayed, it
- affords me a gratification I have no words to describe, to know that I
- shall henceforward be attached to you by ties of gratitude which no
- adverse circumstances can ever sunder.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Why did she suddenly turn so crimson, and look affrighted at the words
- which she herself had uttered? Was it that Hal’s eye danced with joy, or
- that he raised her hand to his lips, and pressed it with them?
- </p>
- <p>
- Well, it matters not; her eye fell upon the ground, and her hand remained
- within his; she did not offer to withdraw it, though he had kissed it
- softly and tenderly it is true, but not without a little <i>empressement</i>—if
- ever so little.
- </p>
- <p>
- He had not seen her frightened look, but her words had made his heart
- leap, and but that he had the proposition of his uncle to make, it is not
- impossible that he would have responded to them by confessing that her
- attachment, however ardent, was fully reciprocated by him. As it was, he
- restrained himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My dear Miss Wilton,” he said, in a somewhat tremulous tone, “do not
- over-rate my services; I was excited by the occurrence, and acted upon an
- impulse.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A noble one, Mr. Vivian.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But not uncommon. Thousands would have done as I have done, had they
- similar opportunities, and I should have exerted myself equally had you
- been an entire stranger to me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That I believe,” said Flora, innocently and praise-fully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is to say,” continued Hal, correcting himself, for he did not quite
- like her to entertain that belief, “my impression is that I should. I must
- acknowledge, Miss Wilton, that knowing you, as I have had the honour of
- doing for some time, I had an additional incentive to endeavour to snatch
- you from an awful death. I very much congratulate myself that I succeeded,
- and I pray you to believe that you cannot be more overjoyed at my good
- fortune than myself. Thank God, you are safe, and I hope almost recovered
- from the fright. We will let the past go, and cast an eye upon the
- future.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have already done so,” interposed Flora.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I do not dispute it, my dear Miss Wilton,” returned he, speaking quietly
- yet firmly, as though to drown all opposition; “but my uncle has been
- beforehand with you. He is a man of the world, and knows much; he is a
- wealthy man, too, Miss Wilton, and can well afford to be kind,
- considerate, and generous. He is quite alive to the very embarrassing
- position in which the late sad disaster has placed you, and he is anxious
- that you should not experience its inconvenience during the interval which
- must elapse between any arrangements you may be able to make hereafter for
- your future course. He has laid out his plans, with which you are
- connected; he confesses that they are not without a little selfishness in
- them, but he is wishful that you should overlook that, and not offer any
- opposition to the proposal he has empowered me to make to you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He, then, in the most delicate words he was able to employ, laid before
- her his uncle’s plan, and begged her to assent to it.
- </p>
- <p>
- To have refused, under present circumstances, would have been simply a
- preposterous absurdity; she had no such notion, but she felt this
- additional kindness most acutely.
- </p>
- <p>
- She remained silent, because she felt that she should sob as she spoke, if
- she attempted to give utterance to her feelings. She turned her large
- eyes, suffused in tears, upon him—he was easily able to read their
- language.
- </p>
- <p>
- With instinctive delicacy, desirous of sparing her further distress from
- painful recollections, he terminated the interview here.
- </p>
- <p>
- In a rejoiced spirit he interpreted her look of overflowing gratitude as
- an acceptance of his uncle’s liberal offer, and he once more pressed her
- unreluctant hand, as, relieving her of any necessity for speaking, he
- informed her that he should convey to his kind-hearted relative her
- judicious decision upon the matter.
- </p>
- <p>
- If he were not in love now, it is more than doubtful if ever he could be.
- </p>
- <p>
- During the period which had elapsed between the rescue and the present
- moment, Flora had not, for an instant, forgotten her father.
- </p>
- <p>
- The expression of dire misery which pervaded his features, when he parted
- from her in custody of Messrs. Jukes and Sudds, remained present to her as
- vividly as though it had been photographed upon her vision. It haunted
- her, and added greatly to the sad impression with which the recent
- occurrences and several afflicting events had clouded her young life in
- the years immediately past.
- </p>
- <p>
- She wished so much to see her father again, to be with him, to minister to
- his wants and to his comforts, to both of which, she felt assured, he had
- no one to attend, and must, therefore, be plunged into a state of
- despairing wretchedness.
- </p>
- <p>
- In accepting the offer of Mr. Harper, she saw—in no selfish or
- narrow-minded spirit, that she would, in her present dreadful strait, be
- at least provided with a home, until some means were obtained to place her
- where she would be no longer a burden to Mr. Harper, and she had not,
- therefore, hesitated thankfully to fall in with the arrangement proposed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Yet she desired to be the companion and loving attendant upon her father
- in prison.
- </p>
- <p>
- In prison!
- </p>
- <p>
- How that dreadful word rang in her ears!
- </p>
- <p>
- She had but a vague notion of that receptacle for vice, dishonesty, and
- misfortune. She had no clear perception of the difference between the
- debtor’s and the criminal’s place of incarceration. To her it was one huge
- black building, frowning and grim in its aspect without; all cells,
- chains, and torture within.
- </p>
- <p>
- To some such a place she believed her father to have been borne. She
- shrank not to share his captivity She had a sense that the air would be
- foul, stifling, pestiferous, and the cell wanting the light of day. She
- pictured four black, mildewed walls, a straw bed, always damp with slime
- and dank with humid earth, a small wretched table, a pitcher of water, and
- a lump of dark, noisome bread. She had heard of such places. There might
- be some alleviation where the crime was only inability to pay, but a
- prison was still a prison, and hopeful as she might be that his condition
- was not so bad, yet she could see it in no other light.
- </p>
- <p>
- To Mrs. Harper she revealed her wishes, but that good lady not only had a
- difficulty in believing in its practicability, but even in its propriety.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Harper was consulted, and he hastened to set Flora right.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do not suppose,” he said, “Miss Wilton, that I have overlooked the
- situation of your father—common humanity would have forbidden that.
- I made it my duty to send to him, as early as the gates of the
- establishment where he is detained were open, on the morning after the
- fire, to let him know that the sad disaster had happened, but that his
- child was safe in my charge. I further caused him to be informed that as
- soon as you were able to leave your chamber, you would go to him, and
- explain all that I was unable to communicate.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, sir! let me go to him at once,” cried Flora eagerly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you feel strong enough, certainly,” replied Mr. Harper.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, sir! I am quite strong enough, quite—indeed I am. I so long to
- see him; I have so much, so very much to say to him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Be it so; Hal shall accompany you to protect you. You cannot go alone.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No! it would not be well to do so. Through the agency of some unknown
- friend, a writ of <i>habeas corpus</i> has been obtained, and your father
- has been removed from Whitecross Street to the Queen’s Prison—all of
- which you do not understand. However, there he is, and the place is one of
- which you can have no conception. The assemblage there is large, mixed,
- and not scrupulous in its behaviour. You would be bewildered without some
- one to make inquiries for you, and be, perhaps, rudely assailed by the
- unreflecting or the callous and the impertinent. Yes; Hal shall go with
- you, and you will, believe me, find the prison somewhat different to the
- picture you have sketched in your imagination.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora listened in silence, and acquiesced in the arrangement, not that the
- disagreeable part of it would be the society of Hal—nay, she would
- have gone with Jukes rather than not have gone at all, malicious ogre as
- she considered him—but she would have preferred to have gone alone.
- </p>
- <p>
- She felt an intuitive reluctance that Hal, whom she so much esteemed, and
- whom, therefore, she would have wished to have seen her relatives in their
- best light, should visit her father in a prison, and that the visit should
- be paid with her.
- </p>
- <p>
- But inexorable circumstances compelling, she set out with him, her small
- hand resting upon his arm, and making him feel a far wealthier and happier
- potentate than any monarch that ever reigned upon earth.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER VIII.—THE PRISON.
- </h2>
- <p class="indent20">
- There’s a divinity doth shape our ends, <br /><span class="indent20">Rough
- hew them how we will. <br /><span class="indent30">—Hamlet. <br /><br /></span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hen they together
- reached the lodge, or gate, as it is called, of the Queen’s Prison, Hal
- and Flora gazed with surprise on the motley group waiting for the door to
- be unlocked, that they might enter to see those confined within.
- </p>
- <p>
- A sallow faced, black-haired turnkey, who seemed all eyes, was what is
- called “on the lock,” and he “took stock” of every individual about to
- pass into the prison with a sharp scrutiny, and with a rapidity which told
- that this had been for years his daily practice.
- </p>
- <p>
- Young and old, rich and poor, were standing there together, elbow to
- elbow. The shabby man, who acted as messenger—the aristocrat,
- moustached and habited in the latest fashion—the slatternly dressed
- woman, with a basket containing small purchases—and the fine lady,
- whose husband had settled a fortune upon her, but who was, himself, “in”
- for a few thousands, and whose carriage waited without the gate—the
- squalid child, the pampered boy, the virtuous and the vicious—were
- huddled together, forming no indifferent sample of the congregation
- gathered within the embrace of the high brick chevaux-de-frise crested
- walls.
- </p>
- <p>
- The turnkey, who had been reading a newspaper with one eye and surveying
- his guests with the other, having found the collection of guests large
- enough, rose slowly up and opened the door. A crowd was waiting on the
- opposite side to come out.
- </p>
- <p>
- As Hal, with his young and beautiful but shrinking companion, passed the
- turnkey, he inquired where he should find Mr. Wilton, and had to repeat
- his question before he could obtain a reply. At last, as the way was being
- stopped up because Hal, with the blood tingling in his forehead, refused
- to budge until he obtained his answer, the man said, in a low and surly
- tone—
- </p>
- <p>
- “No. 5, in No. 10.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal passed on and entered a long quadrangle, where he saw assembled some
- three or four hundred persons of all descriptions, many of them passing
- away their hours of confinement in the game of rackets.
- </p>
- <p>
- An exclamation of surprise burst from both his lips and from Flora’s. Her
- visions of a damp, horrible dungeon were dissipated in a moment.
- </p>
- <p>
- The day was cloudless, and as the sun streamed down among the hordes
- congregated together, bustling here and there, standing in groups, or
- engaged actively at rackets, laughing, shouting, or speaking in high
- tones, the scene appeared more like a community enjoying a festival day
- than a body of prisoners in confinement, visited by condoling friends.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora’s surprised eyes ran eagerly over the lively masses, thronging in
- groups, or moving rapidly to and fro, and she felt a great weight removed
- from her heart, although even her small stock of worldly knowledge told
- her that the aspect of the society she beheld gathered here was a shade
- shabbier, and a dash more slovenly than that met with “outside.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Both she and her companion were slightly confused, but the latter, after a
- curious gaze at the motley multitude, turned his attention to the object
- with which he visited the place.
- </p>
- <p>
- He saw upon the arched doorways leading to the prison chambers, a painted
- number upon the key-stone, and shrewdly guessed at the explanation of “No
- 5 in No. 10,” which had at first a little mystified him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Before he could advance many paces, an experienced eye picked him out as
- an “outsider” and a visitor. A dingy tattered man—sallow with long
- confinement, and the pressure of an enduring poverty, which had, as he who
- gave it as a toast, said, stuck by him long after his friends had deserted
- him—touched Hal on the elbow.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Stranger here, I see,” he observed, as the young man turned sharply
- around; “come to see a friend, I presume. If you will honour me with the
- name of the gentleman residing here, I will conduct you straight to his
- room. If you don’t find him there, I’ll search for him among the players—sure
- to find him—one of the conveniences of this establishment is, that
- the friend you call to see is never far from his hutch—‘not at home’
- is not known in our vocabulary.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal saw that the information was to be purchased at an arbitrary gift. He
- felt that a guide was unnecessary, as the information he had received from
- the turnkey, though not at first clear, was plain enough now. Yet there
- was something in the careworn aspect of the man’s features—in the
- wistful, anxious expression of his eye—telling of the strong hope he
- had now before him of obtaining a breakfast; so that Hal, who had
- breakfasted heartily, could not find it in his heart to disappoint his
- expectations; and, after a perusal of the poor fellow’s face, and a hasty
- glance at his threadbare attire, he said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “I want to see a Mr. Wilton. Do you know where he is—situated?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal had almost said, confined, but he arrested the word ere it left his
- lips.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wilton, Wilton,” repeated the man; “he is a new comer, eh?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is,” replied Hal.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah!” returned the man, “then he is either 2 in 8, or 7 in 4, or”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can save you the trouble of speculating by telling you”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “5 in 10,” interrupted the man; “that is the only other room which has
- been recently occupied. The lawyers—you a lawyer, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal laughed freely.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” he answered, “I am not a lawyer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Glad to hear it. The precious rastals! they have been driving a roaring
- trade lately. Ah, sir! what a glorious country this would have been
- without lawyers! No writs, no executions, no imprisonment for debt. By
- Jove! what a splendid state of things.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The man shut his eyes to enjoy the ecstacy he felt even in imagining such
- an Utopia.
- </p>
- <p>
- “For swindlers no doubt!” observed Hal, with a smile; “but lawyers are
- essentially necessary to prevent honest men being devoured by rogues.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very true, sir; that is one side of the question. If they confined
- themselves to that line, they would be a valuable body of professionals,
- but unfortunately they do not. You are too young and too inexperienced to
- know that they are much more the rogue’s friend than the honest man’s
- counsellor and servant.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal shook his head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah! you don’t know. I hope you may never have occasion to know. I do; God
- knows I do. I have been here eighteen years, sir. Never in all that time
- beyond the door through which you entered this pandemonium. The lawyers
- brought me here, and here I am likely to die.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But can’t you take the Benefit”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of the Act. No! I am here for contempt of court—a contempt of which
- I am intentionally as innocent as you are—a contempt about which I
- knew nothing—yet the rascally lawyers clapped me in here for it, and
- here I have been ever since, because I am not able to purge my contempt,
- as they call it. Besides, if it were not for contempt that I am here, I
- couldn’t take the Benefit, for I am connected with a large property, and I
- don’t intend to let the villains have that simply because I should, like a
- bird, be glad to get out of my cage. However, sir, you want to see Mr.
- Wilton, and not to listen to my doleful history. Come along, sir, this
- way.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He shuffled onward as he spoke, and Hal prepared to follow him.
- </p>
- <p>
- As he did so, he caught sight of a man within three feet of him, fastening
- a stare of passionate admiration upon Flora’s sweet face.
- </p>
- <p>
- His gaze was impudent only so far as that it was fixed and steadfast He
- had caught sight of her countenance and had stopped short, as though he
- had been transfixed suddenly to the ground.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was about forty years of age, evidently a gentleman, probably a
- military man, for his carriage was remarkably erect, and his upper lip—though
- that nowadays is no symbol of the profession of arms—was garnished
- with a thin, black moustache, long at the ends, and having the appearance
- of being perpetually manipulated by the finger and thumb of either hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- His complexion was very dark, bearing evidence of having for years been
- exposed to the tender mercies of an Indian sun. His eyes were a brilliant
- jet and unusually large; they flashed as he moved them; his hair, which
- was short, was black, as were his whiskers, which were thin and polished,
- curling at the edges with a uniformity that spoke of irons.
- </p>
- <p>
- His attire was plain and dark, but that of a gentleman.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was evidently one in no common position. Hal ran his eye scrutinisingly
- over him, and then turned a side glance at Flora, whose face he perceived
- to be flushed, and its expression that of one distressed at being thus
- rudely stared out of countenance.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of course, with the instincts of his youth, he felt convulsed with a
- jealous rage, and burned to commit himself in some wrathful and violent
- way.
- </p>
- <p>
- As Flora was nearest to the stranger, and must have touched him as she
- passed, Hal moved her by an easy act. Setting his shoulder firm, he
- increased his pace, as if to follow the messenger, and came into sharp
- collision with the gentleman, who had not yet removed his eyes from the
- face of Flora.
- </p>
- <p>
- The effect of the concussion was to thrust him back some two or three
- feet, while Hal passed on apparently unmoved.
- </p>
- <p>
- Another minute, and the latter felt his shoulder rudely seized. He wheeled
- round instanter. The man he had pushed out of his path was at his side,
- his features distorted with rage.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Unmannerly cub!” he cried, “how dare you thrust yourself against me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are quite able to frame the explanation if you require one, and to
- comprehend my refusal to make any apology,” returned Hal, with calmness.
- “Let me also counsel you not to repeat the offence of which you have been
- guilty, or the consequences, as now, may not terminate in a simple
- collision.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He moved on, as the excited individual exclaimed—
- </p>
- <p>
- “But for that fair creature on your arm, I would have caned you soundly,
- you insolent puppy.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal’s lip curled contemptuously; he refrained from replying to the threat,
- and left the man to resent his conduct in any shape he pleased.
- </p>
- <p>
- They were now before the open dooorway, No. 10, and followed the messenger
- up the worn stone steps that looked as though water was to them a fable
- and grease their daily food.
- </p>
- <p>
- By the aid of the iron banisters and Hal’s arm, Flora, with beating heart,
- reached the second flight, and saw the messenger who had preceded them
- halting in the stone corridor before a door.
- </p>
- <p>
- Upon it was painted the figure 5.
- </p>
- <p>
- This, then, was 5, in 10, and within the room which that painted door
- guarded, was her father, a prisoner.
- </p>
- <p>
- Still there was no grim turnkey, no dripping walls, no dark dungeon—though
- Heaven knows the vaulted passages lighted by small, arched, iron-grated
- windows, looked dreary enough.
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is the place,” said the messenger, “the room where Mr. Wilton is
- staying; and with better luck than I have. Ah, sir, my friends have all
- died, or wandered away long ago, and I, without them, or help of any kind,
- have been obliged to declare myself on the County. That means, sir, that I
- am supplied with a room and a scanty allowance of food by the authorities,
- but not a farthing in money, sir, not a farthing. You see before you, sir,
- a wretch who has not a farthing, nor any means of obtaining one, save
- through the charity of kind persons like yourself, who reward me with a
- trifle for conducting them to their friends.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal put his hand into his waistcoat pocket and drew forth half-a-crown.
- The usual reward was about twopence. Sometimes, by the tough-skinned, a
- penny was doled out, or a profitless, “Thank you,” but half-a-crown—that
- was unhoped-for munificence. With economy, how long would it supply him
- with tobacco and beer?
- </p>
- <p>
- The man’s eye glistened as a ray of light fell upon the coin. It was one
- of the last new dies, and was bright as from the Mint.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What a beautiful piece of silver!” he exclaimed, with a grin of
- satisfaction. “Well, you <i>are</i> a gentleman! When you come again, sir,
- ask for me—my name is Maybee: everybody here knows Josh Maybee,
- anything I can do for you <i>in</i> the prison I will: out of it, you
- know, is not at present in my line. God bless you, sir! good day—oh!
- stay, you had better knock and see whether Mr. Wilton is in his room. If
- not, I’ll run into the ground, and hunt him up.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora tapped gently at the door, but there was no response. She turned the
- handle of the lock gently, and opened it a little way. She looked into the
- apartment with a throbbing heart.
- </p>
- <p>
- Upon a bed she saw seated her father—the very picture of desolation
- and woe. His head was bowed almost to his knees, and his two hands were
- spread open over his forehead. He seemed unconscious of everything but the
- intense anguish under the influence of which his body was swaying to and
- fro.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora ran into the room: she sank upon her knees at his feet: she drew
- gently his hands from before his eyes, and twined her arms about him with
- a sweet tenderness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Father, dear father!” she said, “look up: see, your own Flo’ has come to
- you—to be with you—to share your prison—to tend you, and
- to be a comfort to you as she was at home. Look at me—speak to me,
- father dear.”
- </p>
- <p>
- With a startled cry, the old man looked up, as if suddenly roused out of a
- dream of gloom and horror into a paradise of sunshine.
- </p>
- <p>
- He caught Flora’s soft cheeks between his withered hands, and gazed upon
- her young, bright, lovely face with an expression of passionate joy
- lighting up his wrinkled, pallid, grief-furrowed features.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Flo’!” he cried, hysterically, “Flo’! Flo’! my—my Flo’, not dead,
- not consumed! my own Flo, not lost to me for ever! Oh, beneficent Creator!
- I can bear all now: my sorrows are assuaged. Come what come may, I care
- not, for my child is spared to me. To my heart, my darling!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The old man drew her to his breast, and pressed her convulsively there,
- sobbing, as he did so, like a child. Hal, with water glittering in his
- eyes, turned his face from them, and looked out upon the bustling noisy
- groups in the racket ground beneath.
- </p>
- <p>
- Shabby Josh Maybee made an effort to clear his throat, as if he had
- swallowed a cobweb, and felt that, in spite of all his economic
- resolutions, at least twopence of the half-crown would instantly be melted
- into beer.
- </p>
- <p>
- He darted away down the stone staircase, two steps at a time, with the
- practised agility of one who had descended them many hundred times. As
- soon as Flora could disengage herself from her father’s embrace, she drew
- his attention to Hal, who had all the time modestly remained close to the
- threshold of the door. In glowing terms she related to him the part which
- he had played in the dreadful fire, the origin of which was a mystery. She
- told him of the desperate hazard he had incurred in his efforts to save
- her life, and she also related to him what had since occurred. Old Wilton,
- with tears in his eyes, thanked him:—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Vivian,” he said feebly, “the day may be distant, but I have faith
- that it will come, when I shall in some degree be able to repay you for
- the past: not that salvation of a life can ever be meetly rewarded, but
- something in the direction may be achieved—some service may be
- needed by you, and it may be in my power to render it; it will show, at
- least, the spirit of my gratefulness towards you. Mr. Vivian, I have not
- always been the abject wretch you now see me; I may not continue to be
- such. Ah! my God!” he cried, putting his hands to his forehead, as though
- smitten with sudden agony, and then, turning to his astonished daughter,
- who was regarding him with an affrighted look, he said, in a tone of
- unutterable anguish—“everything was hopelessly, utterly destroyed in
- that dreadful fire.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She clasped her hands, bowed her head, and replied, sorrowfully—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Alas! everything!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He groaned bitterly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The fire was so sudden and so violent,” observed Hal, gently, “even those
- who escaped had hardly time to save themselves in their night dresses—opportunity
- was barely afforded for that.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The old man rose up, and paced the room, murmuring, in accents of acute
- misery—
- </p>
- <p>
- “All gone, all gone, the long cherished hope of years—the one link
- which, through all my misery, has bound me to life. Everything has
- perished—my long, long sustained hopefulness is swept from me, and
- henceforth there is nothing left but misery and despair!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Father, dear father, do not give way to such gloomy fears,” cried Flora,
- tenderly caressing him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A cloud has long hung over our house; it is at its darkest now, but it
- will disperse and pass away.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Never! never!” cried the old man, hoarsely. “In that dread fire, all our
- expectations—all the possibilities of restoring them, are consumed;
- we might have been wealthy in the time to come, now we must be beggars for
- ever.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your sorrows overpower your better reason, Mr. Wilton,” exclaimed Hal,
- pained to see the acute grief of the old man, and the sharp tears of
- anguish coursing down the cheeks of Flora, whom he seemed to love more
- deeply and fervently each time his eye traced the exquisite beauty of her
- features.
- </p>
- <p>
- Old Wilton turned to him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You know not the extent of my loss, Mr. Vivian,” he said, almost sharply,
- “you cannot, therefore, measure the depth of my grief.” Then, addressing
- his daughter, he said—“Ah! my child, I am to blame that I did not
- confide to you the true value of that document which I charged you to
- guard with your life. Had I done so you would”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have saved that packet,” cried Flora, eagerly interrupting him. “I
- returned for it at the last moment, and I should have died when I secured
- it, had not Mr. Vivian risked his life to follow me, and bear me through
- flame and smoke to a place of safety.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She turned a soft glance upon Hal as she said this, which made his heart
- leap again.
- </p>
- <p>
- Old Wilton stood speechless, staring upon her as if distraught while she
- spoke. As she concluded, he said, in a hoarse whisper—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where is it? where is it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She drew from beneath her mantle a small packet, and handed it to him. He
- clutched it with trembling fingers. He ran his eye eagerly over it, though
- it shook in his hands, so that to decipher a word of that which was
- written in endorsement upon it seemed impossible. His breath went and came
- in short convulsive sobs.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is the same!” he murmured; “it is the same! Saved!—saved! My
- Flo’, saved!” The last words sounded feebly, and he staggered as if he was
- about to fall.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal rushed forward and caught him in his arms. The emotion had been too
- much for him, and he had fallen into a swoon. Hal laid him tenderly on his
- bed, and unloosed his neckcloth, while Flora, procuring some water from a
- brown pitcher, which stood in a corner of the apartment, bathed his
- temples and his lips with it.
- </p>
- <p>
- After some anxious moments, spent in the endeavour to restore him, he
- heaved a deep sigh, and opened his eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- They fell upon his daughter’s face close to his own. Her soft arm was his
- pillow, and her gentle hand wiped the clammy dew from his forehead.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Are you better, dearest father?” she asked, in low tones.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Better! better!” he ejaculated, “Well! happy! saved!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He pressed her cheek to his, and they mingled their tears together.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal knew they had much to say to each other, private matters to
- communicate, the past to speak about, and the future to arrange. In such
- communion, he felt that he would only be an intruder, and he availed
- himself of the situation to say—
- </p>
- <p>
- “You would gladly be alone with your father, Miss Wilton. You have much to
- talk over of importance which my presence would render embarrassing to
- both. I feel a curiosity to watch the proceedings below. I will return for
- you in an hour.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He did not wait for the answer, but quitted the room, closing the door
- after him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh! good and generous youth,” exclaimed old Wilton, gazing after him,
- “would that all the world were like him!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora echoed the sentiment, but in silence. Perhaps, too, she had her
- thoughts concerning him; or why did her full lid droop as the sound of his
- descending footstep gradually lost itself in the echoes of the vaulted
- passages.
- </p>
- <p>
- As Harry Vivian entered the quadrangle where were assembled the “benchers”
- and their friends and satellites, he gazed around upon the noisy, active
- throng, uncertain whither to bend his steps.
- </p>
- <p>
- He impulsively strolled towards the farther end of the quadrangle, where
- racket-playing was going on vigorously. As he moved on, his eye suddenly
- caught sight of the dark, military looking personage who had so rudely
- stared at Flora Wilton, and whom he had so unceremoniously ejected from
- his path.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was in close conversation with old Josh Maybee, and twice or thrice
- during their conversation he pointed to No. 10, and Josh Maybee pointed
- there, too—even up at the window of No. 5, where Flora was with her
- father.
- </p>
- <p>
- Not for an instant did Hal doubt that Flora was the subject of their
- conversation. It was so natural for him to surmise it. The moustached man
- had stared at her in the most marked manner—impertinently and
- rudely, as Hal believed. He was struck with her beauty—that was
- certain; he could hardly be to blame for that—how could he help it?
- But there the matter ought to end. Why was he making inquiries about her,
- as it was very evident he was? Why should he desire to know who and what
- she was? Perhaps he wished to see her again, and to speak to her. Nothing
- more probable.
- </p>
- <p>
- According to Hal’s calculation of consequences, he thought he had better
- not make the attempt.
- </p>
- <p>
- After a few minutes thus occupied, the tall, dark gentleman left Josh
- Maybee, and walked as if in deep thought towards the end of the
- quadrangle.
- </p>
- <p>
- Josh Maybee hurried with a smiling face towards the doorway, where Hal was
- yet standing.
- </p>
- <p>
- He would have passed, but Hal caught him by the arm.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Stay,” he said, “I want a word with you, Maybee?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Fifty, if you please, young sir,” cried Maybee, who appeared quite
- excited. “You have been lucky to me to-day, sir. Just had a crown given to
- me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I guess who gave it to you—a tall, dark man with whom you were just
- now speaking.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The very same,” returned Maybee, rubbing his hands.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is it fair to ask the subject of your conversation?” observed Hal,
- hesitatingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Certainly,” replied Maybee, “he didn’t caution me to keep what was said
- to myself. He asked me, first of all, who was that pretty girl—and,
- dear heart! she has a blessed sweet face—that was with you, sir. And
- I told him that I didn’t know. Then he gave me a crown piece, which I put
- away quickly, for fear he should ask for change or to have it back again.
- Ah! there aint many crowns and half-crowns given away here, sir!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” exclaimed Hal, impatiently, “that was not all that passed?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Lord bless you! no, sir!” returned Maybee, turning the crown over the
- half-crown, and the half-crown over the crown in his pocket. “No, he asked
- me where I conducted you to? I told him 5 in 10. He asked the name of the
- gentleman you went to visit? I told him ‘Wilton.’ Then he asked me if I
- knew anything about Mr. Wilton? and I told him no. Was he a scientific
- man? I said I didn’t know. Had he come up from the country? I couldn’t
- tell him. He asked me a good many more such questions, but I couldn’t
- answer him. Then he said he was himself an Indian officer, and had not
- long returned; he had been away a long, long time he said; but he knew a
- Mr. Wilton before he went away, and he wondered if he were the same. Of
- course I told him that I could not answer that question; and then he
- wished to know the room, and I pointed it out to him, that’s all, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Did he mention his own name?” inquired Hal, thoughtfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, sir; he merely said he was an officer just returned from India,
- nothing more,” responded Maybee, who felt more disposed for the
- twopennyworth of beer he had promised himself than ever.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal let him go. In less than a minute Mr. Maybee was at the bar and a
- foaming pint was placed before him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal walked up and down, reflecting upon this event.
- </p>
- <p>
- He looked after the Indian officer, but he had disappeared, and though he
- remained in the quadrangle the time he had prescribed for himself to
- remain away from Wilton’s apartments, he saw nothing more of the man with
- whom he had come into collision.
- </p>
- <p>
- The hour having passed, he ascended the stairs with a light step, and
- paused before the door of No. 5. He fancied he heard voices within, and
- knocked gently for admission. His summons was, perhaps, not heard, and he
- repeated it louder. In the interval he was convinced that there were
- voices which he did not recognise, and this lent a greater firmness to his
- knock.
- </p>
- <p>
- He heard old Wilton’s voice exclaim, “Come in,” and he entered.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was not a little surprised on advancing into the room to perceive the
- Indian officer, accompanied by a young, dashingly dressed fellow, seated
- far too near to Flora to be agreeable to him. Old Wilton was standing, and
- displayed an air of dignity, which Hal, certainly, had never seen him wear
- before.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a silence upon his entrance, and the Indian officer gazed upon
- him grimly. Old Wilton, however, with a pleasant smile, and the manner of
- a gentleman, motioned him to a seat, and then, turning to the officer,
- said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Proceed, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I was about to ask of you, Mr. Wilton, whether you ever lived in
- Devonshire?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Am I, before I reply, permitted to ask your motive in questioning me?
- You, a stranger.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Unquestionably. I have just returned from India after an absence—with
- one short exception—-of seventeen years. One of my first objects, on
- arriving in England, on retiring from the service, has been to find out
- those old friends, dwelling in this country, who, in my early years, were
- kind and generous in their conduct to me. Among those I can so class, was
- a gentleman of the name of Wilton, who dwelt at Harleydale Manor, Devon. A
- chance glance at that young lady’s exquisite face awakened memories long
- since slumbering, and the accidental mention of your name, in connection
- with it, led me to seek you to ask whether you are Eustace Wilton, of
- Harleydale Manor?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Old Wilton’s lip quivered; he drew himself up erect, and said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am that man!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The officer rose to his feet, and grasped his hand, shaking it with great
- apparent warmth.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Time has wrought great changes in us both,” he said. “I am Colonel Mires
- of the Bengal army—that same Ensign Mires whom you defended at a
- moment when honour, reputation, family, life itself were at stake.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Old Wilton started as the name fell upon his ears; he raised his eyes to
- the face of the officer, and appeared to scan every lineament. Then,
- uttering an exclamation of wonder, he released his hand from the grip of
- the colonel, and sank into his seat with an air of stupefaction.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER IX.—THE MYSTERY.
- </h2>
- <p class="indent15">
- Till Fate or Fortune near the place convey’d <br /><span class="indent15">His
- steps where secret Palamon was laid, <br /><span class="indent15">Full
- little thought of him the gentle knight, <br /><span class="indent15">Who,
- flying death, had there concealed his flight <br /><span class="indent15">In
- brakes and brambles hid, and shunning mortal strife <br /><span
- class="indent15">And less he knew him for his hated foe, <br /><span
- class="indent15">But feared him as a man he did not know. <br /><span
- class="indent25">—Palamon and Arcite. <br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>elen Grahame, with
- her hand tightly clutching the wrist of the young man with whom she had
- been in such tender converse, retreated noiselessly into the deepest
- shadows of the small thicket where they had met, and there stood with her
- companion, as the Honorable Lester Vane advanced, motionless.
- </p>
- <p>
- Though greatly agitated by the unexpected appearance of her brother’s
- guest in the garden at such a moment, she betrayed no outward sign of
- emotion. She could hear the beating of her heart, but, by an almost
- superhuman exertion, she was calm, collected, prepared for action, if
- discovered, and even in such an emergency could have spoken without any
- visible symptom of embarrassment.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Honorable Lester Vane paused before the cluster of trees; he even took
- a step or two as though to enter its recess.
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen, had he but advanced one foot more, would have emerged from her
- place of concealment, and with some ready excuse for being there, have led
- him away, so that her companion might have escaped unobserved, but, as if
- satisfied that it possessed no outlet, he turned away and sauntered slowly
- and thoughtfully down the gravelled path by a separate route to that by
- which he had approached.
- </p>
- <p>
- As soon as he was out of hearing, Helen turned to her companion,
- exclaiming—
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must leave you, Hugh, and at once—nay, dearest, do not urge me to
- remain; you know what happiness it would be to me to share your dear
- society for hours—would it were for ever!—but it would be
- madness to risk discovery for a few minutes of stolen felicity.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Helen, I cannot part from you thus,” returned the youth at her side, in a
- voice trembling with emotion. “I am quitting London—you know it—possibly
- by dawn in the morning; and these may be the last few precious moments I
- may pass with you for a long and dreary term.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nay, you will soon return, Hugh,” she said, with a seeming conviction
- that his absence would be brief. He shook his head sadly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I do not know what are the intentions of my uncle with respect to my
- future movements,” he answered. “I know only that I am ordered to be in
- readiness to proceed at a minute’s notice to Southampton, there to await
- further instructions, and to be prepared for the possibility of having to
- undertake a far more distant journey.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Far more distant journey, Hugh?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Helen, I have very powerful reasons for believing that my destination is
- India.”
- </p>
- <p>
- An exclamation burst from the lips of the young girl. A thousand thoughts
- flashed through her brain at the vision of a long separation from him who
- now addressed her.
- </p>
- <p>
- Alas! for Hugh—they were not such thoughts as he could have wished
- to occupy her mind.
- </p>
- <p>
- She would regret his departure unquestionably: but it brought with it a
- sense of liberty, a freedom of action, an unquestioned license for
- listening to soft words from other lips, and for responding to meaning
- glances from admiring eyes, without the dullness of indifference or a
- flash of scorn. The suggestion of a protracted separation brought more
- strongly before her mind the ducal coronet of the young peer, now in her
- father’s mansion, and the impressive eyes of Lester Vane.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was silent. Her mind was too busy to permit her to speak a word.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had involuntarily uttered an exclamation when he revealed his fear
- that he was about to leave England for a lengthened term, and he
- attributed her subsequent silence to the grief he presumed she would
- necessarily feel at the occurrence of an event which, to him, was
- distracting.
- </p>
- <p>
- He twined his arms about her waist, and she rested her beautiful face upon
- his shoulder. He pressed the lips thus offered up to his own, and, with a
- groan of agony, murmured—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Helen! my own noble beautiful one, my life’s treasure, it will be
- death to me to part with you. I cannot, will not, go: I will submit to any
- sacrifice rather. I will not be torn from you, for, in truth, it will
- break my heart.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hugh, dearest, do not give way thus,” she rejoined, as her youthful
- companion, under the intense pressure of his feelings, suffered his head
- to fall upon her neck, and sobbed passionately; “this is not like you,
- Hugh: I have seen you brave enough in desperate peril—come, be brave
- now. Remember you are making yourself unhappy upon a surmise only.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would I could view it only as a surmise, Helen,” he returned, sadly.
- “Unhappily, I have too much occasion for faith in the presentiment which
- oppresses me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mere childishness, Hugh! We have parted before, but only to meet again,
- and with increased happiness. You quitted me hopefully, you have returned
- to me joyously; why not again?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is clear, Helen,” he said, raising up his head, and dashing away the
- tear which yet trembled on his cheek, “that you can contemplate a
- separation with calmness and firmness.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In expectation of meeting you soon again, certainly,” she replied.
- </p>
- <p>
- His quick ear detected a slight coolness, and a little impatience in the
- tone.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But in expectation of not soon meeting again?” he asked, sharply and with
- misgiving.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why imagine that which is not likely to happen?” she returned, pettishly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have told you that it <i>will</i> happen.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hugh, I do not comprehend what of late has possessed you,” she retorted
- in the same fretful voice. “You have suffered the most ridiculous fancies
- and chimeras to seize upon your brain, and you not only make yourself
- miserable, but you seem to wish to compel everybody else to become so.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Helen, you wrong me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed, I fear I do not. Even to-night, when you must have been conscious
- that to accomplish a meeting with you was to me next to an impossibility,
- you insisted upon my complying with your request, and you bring me here
- only to entertain me with a string of doubts and fears, which are not
- worthy of you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He started, and released her hand, of which, until now, he had retained
- possession.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You do not love me, Helen!” he exclaimed, passionately, as he recoiled
- from her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not love you, Hugh,” she replied, throwing up her head angrily; “you are
- ungrateful, sir. Ask your reason. At what sacrifice have I paused for you?
- You, at least, have had proof that my love for you was of no ordinary
- character; you——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Helen!” he cried falling upon his knees before her, “pardon me,
- forgive me! I am frenzied at the prospect of losing you. I do love you so
- fondly, so dearly, so madly, that death in any shape seems to me
- preferable to being torn from you for years. You are my heart’s idol, its
- worship—my adoration; and if I am captious, full of strange
- conceptions and dread misgivings, attribute it alone to my passion for
- you, my Helen, my beloved!”
- </p>
- <p>
- It is rarely that a young girl who is possessed of genuine tenderness of
- feeling for a young and handsome man, remains an indifferent listener to
- his ardent expressions of passionate devotion. Helen Grahame was not less
- susceptible in this particular than the weakest of her sex. She bent over
- Hugh, parted with her soft white hand his rich glossy hair from his
- forehead, and pressed it with her ruby lips.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Rise, Hugh, rise,” she said, fondly and earnestly, “I entreat you. Pray,
- be more calm. Elevate yourself above this morbid feeling of unhappiness,
- and let me hear what you have to communicate to me, for indeed I must
- almost instantly return to the house. I am expected in the drawing-room,
- and, if missed, a messenger will be sent in search of me. I would not for
- worlds be discovered here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Helen dearest.” he exclaimed with a quivering lip as he rose to his feet
- and once more twined his arms about her graceful form, “I leave London
- to-morrow—I know not yet at what hour—for Southampton; if that
- were to be the limit of my journey I should not be thus depressed, but
- from a confidential source I have received the hint that I shall be called
- upon to proceed by the overland route, to India—to the city of Agra.
- I believe this is decided; our separation cannot, therefore, be less than
- for six months; it may be for years—it is this thought which wounds
- me so deeply, for what may not happen in my absence? What indeed!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He paused for a moment, overpowered by a throng of painful anticipations.
- Helen remained perfectly silent; and clearing his voice he went on.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I cannot ask you not to forget me,” he said. “I know that would be
- impossible, but—but I would ask you, Helen—I would ask you,
- when I am gone far, far hence, to remember what we have been to each
- other, and to continue to me as, I vow to Heaven I will ever to you remain—true,
- loving, and faithful.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hark” cried Helen, starting suddenly, “a footstep approaches—I must
- fly. Farewell, Hugh! God bless you, and guard you until we meet again!”
- </p>
- <p>
- She threw herself into his arms. He strained her passionately to his
- breast, and imprinted a thousand fervid kisses on her lips.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And you will be true to me, Helen?” he whispered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will, Hugh, I will,” she replied with an earnestness rivalling his own.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You swear it, dear Helen.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I do! I do!”
- </p>
- <p>
- One more passionate embrace, many murmured but heart-spoken farewells, a
- long—long kiss, then she broke hastily from his arms, darted swiftly
- into the deep shadows of the over-arching trees, flitted like a phantom
- over the grassy lawn, and disappeared.
- </p>
- <p>
- With a melancholy gaze he caught the last wave of her white garments, as
- they vanished in the distance and in the darkness, and then, with a deep
- sigh, he proceeded slowly to quit the spot.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ere he had proceeded a dozen yards, a hand was placed somewhat vigorously
- upon his shoulder. He turned quickly: the figure of a man was before him,
- but in the darkness he could distinguish nothing further.
- </p>
- <p>
- A voice he did not recognise said, roughly, to him—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Fellow! why are you lurking here?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hugh flung him fiercely hack.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Who are you who dare thus address me?” he cried, angrily.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That you shall know somewhat too soon for your satisfaction,” returned
- his questioner, again seizing him, and, with great strength, dragging him
- from the thicket towards the gravel path. “The lady, too,” he added, “can
- hardly escape detection. I have marked her down.”
- </p>
- <p>
- More he was unable to say, for the impetuous bands of Hugh clutched his
- throat, and prevented further utterance.
- </p>
- <p>
- A desperate struggle ensued. It was so far but a wrestle. Hugh sought to
- release himself from the grip of him who had seized him, and his captor
- did his utmost to retain his hold.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the course of the contention they emerged from the thicket into the
- moonlight, which fell upon the faces of both; each was thus able to
- distinguish clearly the features of his antagonist, but both were utter
- strangers to each other; simultaneously they detected they had not met
- before.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hugh Riversdale knew not that he was striving with Lester Vane, but he was
- sure that he should never forget the face, the pallid face, within a foot
- of his own, which the gray moonlight was tinting with the hue of death.
- </p>
- <p>
- Nor did Lester Vane fear he should fail to remember the features of one
- whom he instantly perceived was strikingly handsome and no common
- personage.
- </p>
- <p>
- He found his strength failing him, that Hugh would succeed in releasing
- himself from his custody, and he shouted loudly for help. The next instant
- he received a tremendous blow upon the temple, and was hurled to the
- ground with such force as to compel him to remain there stunned and
- insensible. Hugh cast a glance upon him as he lay motionless upon the
- gravel path.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have seen that face in a dream.” he muttered; “mine enemy from
- henceforward. We have for the first time crossed each other’s path—we
- shall again. Woe to him who stumbles on it!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The sounds of persons running along the garden walk caught his ear at this
- moment. Servants, roused by the shouts of Lester Vane, were hastening to
- his assistance. Hugh plunged into the thicket, vaulted over the iron
- fencing upon the edge of the ornamental waters, plunged into the winding
- canal, and swimming briskly but noiselessly beneath the shadows of some
- weeping willows, continued his progress until he reached a bend of the
- stream, not visible from Mr. Grahame’s garden; and then, emerging from the
- water, he disappeared among the thick cluster of trees which there lined
- its banks.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the meanwhile, the form of Lester Vane, lying insensible, was
- discovered by two or three male servants, under the direction of Whelks.
- During the race from the house, he was absolutely last in it, but on
- finding that there was no enemy to encounter, he exhibited the most
- reckless display of daring, and rushed to the front.
- </p>
- <p>
- Directly his pale green eyes fell upon the prostrate form of Mr. Grahame’s
- guest, he exclaimed—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, my ’evens! if it isn’t the ’onerbbel Mr. Lester Wane!
- Grashus! Is it the wine ’es overcom ’im, I wonder?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” said one of the servants, “he’s got a hugly bump on his forrid; a
- precious whack that! Somebody about here must ha’ given it him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Some owdashus thief, no doubt,” suggested Whelks, with a swift glance
- over his left shoulder at the clump of trees, and a shudder which lifted
- his scalp, and pained him in the heels. “Jackson,” he added, quickly to
- the man who had just spoken, “you ’elp me to carry Mr. Lester
- Wane’s corpse—if he is a corpse—into the ’ouse, and
- you, Cussinks,” he continued, addressing the other servant, “you dash into
- that clump o’ trees, and ’unt about for the beggler.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Whelks and Jackson hurried on with their burden, and “Cussinks,” declining
- the verb to search proposed by Whelks, sallied out for that gallant
- official, the policeman, who is supposed to know no fear, and to be ever
- ready to seize the most ferocious ruffian in existence with the same
- promptness with which he would attack cold mutton down a deep area.
- </p>
- <p>
- By the time the house was gained by this little party, Mr. Grahame had
- been alarmed. With his son Malcolm and the Duke of St. Allborne he was
- hastening to the garden, when he encountered Whelks and Jackson bearing
- the body of Lester Vane. Almost at the same moment, the injured young man
- aroused from the stupor into which the blow he had received had flung him,
- recovered his feet, and gazed round him with an astonished air. He looked
- into the many eager faces bent upon his own, without recognising any of
- them.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Duke of St. Allborne laid his hand upon his shoulder, and shook him,
- saying, at the same moment—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Vane, wecovaw youawself, my good fellah. We aw all fwiends. I’m St.
- Allborne—don’t you wecog-nise me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The sound of his voice brought back the absent recollection of Lester
- Vane. He put his hand over his eyes, as though to collect his thoughts,
- and then he exclaimed hastily—
- </p>
- <p>
- “I remember all now—all, distinctly, clearly.” He looked up, and
- addressing Mr. Grahame, he said—“My dear sir, if you will allow me
- to retire for a few minutes to collect myself, I will join you with the
- ladies in the drawing-room, where I will relate to you the strange
- incident in which I have, I believe, borne the worst part.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But, Mr. Vane,” responded Mr. Grahame quickly, “the attack you have
- suffered”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Was made by no common individual, Mr. Grahame! one who is by this time, I
- have no doubt, far beyond pursuit.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But the object, Mr. Vane?” observed Mr. Grahame, with an air of mystified
- wonder.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Neither plunder nor violence,” returned Lester Vane, adding hastily—“Pray
- interrogate me no further now. A few minutes hence, and I will relate all
- that occurred. I beg now to be allowed to retire to my room.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame bowed, and directed Whelks to show Mr. Vane to his chamber,
- while he, with the Duke and Malcolm, his son, took their way to the
- drawing-room, talking over the mysterious event.
- </p>
- <p>
- The ladies had entered the room a moment before them, and they now heard
- from the gentlemen, with astonishment, that the Honorable Lester Vane,
- walking in the garden, had been suddenly attacked and felled to the earth
- by some unknown assailant.
- </p>
- <p>
- Not the least astounded of the party present was Helen Grahame.
- </p>
- <p>
- The blood rushed from her heart to her brain; she felt as though a
- thousand bells were ringing in her ears. Then the life-stream swept back
- to her heart, leaving her as cold as death—and as colourless.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hugh Riversdale and Lester Vane had encountered each other.
- </p>
- <p>
- What had passed?
- </p>
- <p>
- Her first impulse was to dart out of the room—the house, and flee
- anywhere—anywhere!
- </p>
- <p>
- The next, to remain where she was, face all that might be brought forward
- to crush her for ever, and to deny every charge firmly, steadfastly; even
- to deny Hugh Riversdale, if in custody he were brought forward to confront
- her.
- </p>
- <p>
- Oh! that she could only know what had actually occurred, so that she might
- be prepared to enact the part it would be best for her to play.
- </p>
- <p>
- Why did Lester Vane refuse to explain what had happened, when he first
- recovered, in Mr. Grahame’s presence? Why did he defer it until all were
- assembled in the drawing-room? Did he know that she had had an interview
- with Hugh Riversdale?
- </p>
- <p>
- This was remarkable, and much disturbed her. Yet if he did know that she
- had a clandestine meeting with his assailant, he could surely entertain no
- feeling of animosity towards her—that seemed impossible. The
- acquaintance of an hour could hardly have raised up in his breast a wish
- to injure her. Yet why did he pursue the strange course of refusing to
- relate what had passed, unless he knew she would be present to hear the
- recital?
- </p>
- <p>
- Her anxious surmises were the suspicions that haunted a guilty mind, for
- she had no just reason to believe that he would connect her with the
- mystery at all.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was perplexed, disconcerted, plunged into an agony of mind, as she
- pursued this train of reasoning. Still she saw the imperious necessity of
- appearing calm, collected, and full of wonder only, to the extent she
- would have been had she had no further share in the event than her sister
- Margaret.
- </p>
- <p>
- By an effort of her will, she knew she could achieve this much, and she
- resolved to do it.
- </p>
- <p>
- As she formed the resolution, the door opened, and Lester Vane entered. He
- was pale; there was a slight wound on his forehead, strapped up, but
- otherwise he was as self-possessed, and had the same cold smile playing
- upon his lips as when first he entered the sitting-room in the earlier
- part of the day.
- </p>
- <p>
- A thrill of pain ran through the frame of Helen as she felt his large,
- dark eye settle upon her.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then a sudden sense of her danger roused her to exertion, and she forced
- down all outward sign of the conflict going on within her breast.
- </p>
- <p>
- She turned her glittering eyes slowly but full upon Lester Vane’s. Met him
- on his own battle-field, and drove him back, for her gaze was so firm and
- unwavering, that he turned his eyes, after a searching glance at her, upon
- the ground.
- </p>
- <p>
- All crowded round him save Evangeline, who, as usual, sat quietly and
- unobtrusively in a retired part of the room—if there was, in that
- brilliantly lighted apartment, such a spot.
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen was among the first of those who called upon Lester Vane to explain
- the remarkable affair which had had so unpleasant a termination for him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her inquiries were dictated by the most intense desire to ascertain if her
- suspicions were correct, but her acting was a masterpiece; it had the air
- of a very natural curiosity only.
- </p>
- <p>
- The ordeal, however, was yet to come.
- </p>
- <p>
- By general request, eagerly urged, Lester Vane commenced his recital.
- Helen perceived that he closely and scrutinisingly perused her features
- while he spoke, and a strange feeling took sudden possession of her.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was a contemptuous consciousness of a superiority in the power of
- deception. She knew that he was trying to read what was passing within her
- heart. She applied herself to the task of baffling him, feeling that she
- could accomplish it with ease. It was her first direct essay in simulation
- under strong pressure, but she went to the task with the skill of a
- practised adept.
- </p>
- <p>
- Cunning is not alone an art—it is necessarily a part of human
- organisation: but to become subtle and refined, it requires to be
- cultivated with careful discrimination, and to be pursued with merciless
- indifference to the feelings of the object upon whom it is exercised. The
- crafty rarely fails to detect the crafty, unless the more crafty with
- consummate ability assumes genuine simplicity—then as there appears
- to be nothing to guard against, cunning is to be effectively deceived by
- an affectation of its absence.
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen never troubled herself to reason upon the point, though she had
- plenty of natural shrewdness to have reached this conclusion, if she had
- addressed her mind to the task. She was naturally an accomplished actress,
- and with no great effort could have seemed as full of natural wonderment
- at what had happened as her sisters Margaret and Evangeline, but she
- decided upon adopting a defiant aspect—one which should say to Vane,
- “You seek by an attempt to confuse me with your steadfast gaze, to compel
- me to make an admission—I defy you.” It was a mistake, because that
- look at once raised up an impression in his mind that she had something to
- conceal—that though she listened to his story attentively, met his
- gaze at certain parts of the recital unflinchingly, made remarks, and put
- questions—all tending to disconnect her with any share in the
- transaction—she was in some degree mixed up with, if she was not one
- of, the principal actors in the little drama.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is true that Evangeline exhibited emotions of distress and confusion,
- but he detected in her conduct no sign of guilt, nothing by which he could
- presume her to have been a participator in the scene he believed himself
- to have disturbed, if even she were a confidante; but Helen, by her
- manner, challenged his suspicions, and, as it appeared to him, laughed
- them to scorn; yet in doing so, gave him reason to form a conviction that
- they were well grounded. He set his teeth, and felt the blood mount to his
- sallow features.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was but for a moment, and he became as pale as before, but he
- determined to apply himself to the task of making himself master of
- Helen’s secret, and by its possession master of her, to be used as his own
- selfish interests might dictate.
- </p>
- <p>
- He related to his marvelling auditors how he had escaped from the dining
- room to allay the heat of his fevered blood in the cool air which had been
- playing among the fragrant flower-beds, and sighing through the graceful
- trees in the elegantly arranged garden.
- </p>
- <p>
- For the sake of effect, the speaker adopted a poetical style of narration,
- not without success upon the majority of his listeners.
- </p>
- <p>
- The lip of Helen curled; to her the chosen language was another proof of
- this man’s art, and she scarcely attempted to disguise from him that such
- was her impression. A sense of her estimate of his display, added only to
- the intensity of his resolve to obtain entire power over her, that he
- might make her endure tenfold the annoyance—it was something more—which
- she made him suffer now.
- </p>
- <p>
- He could not quite comprehend why they so suddenly stood in an
- antagonistic position to each other. It was enough for him that they did
- so, and that he believed that he should be able to avenge himself upon one
- who viewed him in a light insulting to his vanity.
- </p>
- <p>
- Proceeding with his tale, he said that, as he slowly paced the gravelled
- walk in the broad moonlight, he fancied that he heard the murmur of voices
- in a retired part of the garden; low and subdued, in truth, but still he
- was struck by the peculiarity of the sound, which was that of two persons
- in secret conference. He gained the spot from whence it appeared to come,
- and found himself fronting a small cluster of trees, into which he
- directed his gaze; but, not observing any figure or sign of a human being,
- he assured himself that he had been deceived, that he had mistaken the
- soft bubbling of the flowing waters beyond for tones of the human voice.
- He continued his walk; but he had not proceeded far ere the sounds which
- had previously attracted his attention were renewed. The position he had
- gained enabled him to command a view of the thicket.
- </p>
- <p>
- He fixed his deep, dark eyes upon Helen as he arrived at this part of his
- narrative, but her eyelid never wavered, nor did her face undergo any
- change.
- </p>
- <p>
- He felt himself baffled for a moment—then he went on to say that he
- retraced his footsteps, and when near the clump of trees paused, with the
- intent of catching, if possible, some of the words which passed between
- the two persons who were engaged in such deep and earnest conversation.
- Not, he added, hastily, as he saw the eye of Helen glitter with scorn, to
- play the part of a paltry eaves-dropper, but to ascertain whether he had
- unconsciously encountered a couple of enamoured servants deep in a
- love-passage—with what withering emphasis he used those words!—or
- had detected a brace of thieves in the act of concerting measures to rob
- the house of Mr. Grahame.
- </p>
- <p>
- While standing irresolute as to the steps he should take, a female emerged
- from the thicket, and fled past him towards the house.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Towards my house!” cried Mr. Grahame, elevating his eyebrows with
- astonishment.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Even so,” cried Lester Vane.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Surely she did not enter it?” he cried, his eyes sparkling with fury; “no
- shameless person world dare”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “My impression is,” said Lester, observing how intently, and with what
- remarkable self-possession Helen regarded him, “that she disappeared in
- the shrubbery in front of the house. I cannot be positive, for the next
- moment I was in contact with her companion.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Still Helen’s face was rigid, her features composed, and her eye steadily
- fixed upon his. But there was no expression of wonder upon her
- countenance, as upon that of all the rest. What more needed Lester to tell
- him that it was she whom he had seen flitting from the grove of trees
- across the garden to the house, and that she held secret meetings with
- some person unknown to her family?
- </p>
- <p>
- “And this wretch—this insolent scoundrel,” cried Mr. Grahame, “you
- fastened upon him, I presume, and thus was most murderously assaulted?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” said Lester Vane, speaking slowly, and with distinctness, “the
- moonlight fell upon his face—that I saw clearly and well defined.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You would know it again?” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, with eagerness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Amid a million faces,” he answered, between his teeth, and then added:
- “He was a common-looking person, and I should have let him pass, but he
- made a desperate blow at me, although he did not utter a word. I avoided
- his first attack, and collared him, determined to punish him for his
- cowardly and dastardly conduct. I called for assistance, as I had no
- intention of entering into a personal conflict with a low ruffian about
- whom I knew nothing, but he inflicted upon my forehead a blow with some
- weapon which rendered me insensible. And so ends my history.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Most monstrous!” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, with an air of indignant pride.
- “I never heard of such an outrage. You can describe the man, Mr. Vane, so
- that the police may be able to track him, and take him into custody?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, accurately,” replied Lester, “but not to-night. My head aches, and
- the task would be an annoyance—to-morrow with pleasure, but to-night
- excuse me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But the creature with this desperate person—could you not, my dear
- Mr. Vane, describe her—if it were only her attire?” urged Mr.
- Grahame.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She may be in the house,” interposed Mrs. Grahame, feeling that a deadly
- outrage had been committed upon the family pride.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She may be in the house,” returned Lester, with a peculiar glance
- directed to Helen; “all I can inform you, in reply to your question, is
- that her dress was of some light fabric, but as she fled past me like a
- phantom, I was not able to observe her sufficiently well to give a
- description of the lady.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The lady, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Grahame, in a tone of immeasurable
- contempt. “To-morrow, Mr. Grahame, this strange affair must be thoroughly
- sifted.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed, Mrs. Grahame, it shall be,” he replied.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How widiculously womantic, Miss Gwahame,” laughed the Duke of St.
- Allborne, addressing Helen.
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen started as he spoke. She had listened to the sneering sarcasms of
- Lester, and to her mother’s expressions of withering contempt, as though
- she had been exposed to an atmosphere of flame, and was bound to endure
- its tremendous torture without one sob of pain. But, great as was her
- agony, her thoughts would fly away with her to him who had occasioned this
- scene. She was, therefore, thankful to the Duke for thus checking an
- absence of mind, which might have excited attention and caused remark. She
- replied to him with a vivacity which somewhat astonished Lester Vane,
- though it helped to confirm the suspicions he entertained connecting her
- with the interview in the thicket.
- </p>
- <p>
- She adroitly contrived to place the affair in a ridiculous light, without
- openly giving cause of offence to him; because, with affected sympathy,
- she deplored the injury he had received; but she went so far as to cause
- him to observe, with a sickly smile—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perhaps, Miss Grahame, <i>you</i> conceive that the affair, after all,
- was a mere fancy, occasioned by the fatigues of my journey to-day?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Or the stwength of our fwiend Gwahame’s fine old pawt,” exclaimed the
- Duke, with a loud laugh.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame instantly took Helen to task in so serious and so stately a
- manner, that Lester Vane interfered to obtain pardon for her, which was
- granted, at his instance, in a manner that mortified her only more
- bitterly than she had yet been.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will bring him a suppliant to my feet,” she said, mentally, as her
- eyes, sparkling like a star, fastened upon him, “and when he is prostrate,
- abject, I’ll crush him remorselessly.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The next evening, Helen and Lester were walking in the garden together.
- She had already begun to weave her web round him, and he seemed likely to
- become so enmeshed as never more to escape from it.
- </p>
- <p>
- Suddenly, when near the ornamental water, he paused. He drew from his
- breast a small but exquisitely fine cambric handkerchief.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I beg your pardon, Miss Grahame,” he said, “if I betray any impertinent
- curiosity, but I am desirous of knowing whether you are acquainted with
- this handkerchief?”
- </p>
- <p>
- She looked at it. In a corner, embroidered, were the initials “H. G.” It
- was her own, and one of value. She smiled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed,” she answered, “I ought to know it well, Mr. Vane.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I found it beneath a tree, there,” he added, pointing to the thicket in
- which she had parted with Hugh Riversdale.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had, no doubt, dropped it on leaving Hugh the night before. She felt
- an acute pain run through her brain, as she saw in what direction his
- finger pointed, and that as he spoke his eyes were absolutely glaring upon
- her. She detected, in an instant, how much depended upon her answer.
- Controlling, as before, with a remarkable exertion of self-will, the
- expression of her features, she assumed an air of indifference, and
- flinging the handkerchief into the stream, upon the brink of which she was
- standing, she answered—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Possibly; it is one I some time since gave to my maid, Chayter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Lester was unable to utter a word in reply; he was baffled. He watched the
- handkerchief float away, and he said to himself—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yet it was you who stood last night in the thicket along with the fellow
- who felled me to the earth. Despite this check, I will proye it, and to
- you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER X.—THE INEXPLICABLE LIBERATION.
- </h2>
- <p class="indent20">
- Alas! he’s mad!
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /> <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <p class="indent20">
- This is the very coinage of your brain. <br /><span class="indent20">This
- bodiless creation, ecstasy <br /><span class="indent20">Is very cunning in.
- <br /><span class="indent30">—Shakspere. <br /><br /></span></span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he emotion
- displayed by old Wilton when Colonel Mires made himself known to him by
- reference to an incident which had occurred to him at a period now long
- past, was a mystery to the two persons likely to be best acquainted with
- its source.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora, who flew to her father’s aid, marvelled at it, and the Indian
- colonel wondered no less. Flora knew nothing, however, of the event
- alluded to, as her father had not suffered mention of it to escape his
- lips; but Colonel Mires, from whom some emotion might perhaps have been
- expected while recurring to it, having been a principal actor in a
- circumstance of a remarkable nature could find in a rapid review of what
- had then occurred no cause for Wilton to be thus suddenly affected.
- </p>
- <p>
- Wilton had been called upon to render a great, a valuable, and
- disinterested service, he had performed it nobly, because it then seemed
- he was in nowise personally interested or affected by the result; why,
- therefore, he should now appear overcome by his feelings somewhat
- staggered the Colonel, and set him cogitating. Perhaps, after all, there
- had been a motive in his generosity; and if so, it certainly behoved him
- to find it out, and that as soon as possible.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora was surprised, but that emotion gave way to one of affright when she
- beheld her father’s pale and haggard face, his closed eyes, and his lips
- apart. It looked like the approach of death. She knew what a shock the
- arrival of Jukes had given him. Shattered as his frame had been by
- affliction, it had been yet more deeply shaken by the mortal agony he had
- endured when he first learned the destruction of the residence he had
- quitted by fire, when his darling child barely escaped with life. Events
- calculated to act upon his nervous system had rapidly followed each other;
- and the last, by its sudden effect upon him, seemed in no degree the least
- severe.
- </p>
- <p>
- As she hung over him, mournful and foreboding words fell from her lips.
- She turned her eyes appealingly for aid to Hal, for of those present he
- was the only one to whom she could address herself, in reliance upon the
- sincerity of his readiness to assist her.
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Mires observed her glance, and at whom it was directed. Before
- Hal, nimble though he was in responding to her mute summons, could reach
- her, Colonel Mires placed himself at the side of her father, laid his
- fingers upon his wrist, and said, in a low but musical tone of voice—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Be not alarmed, Miss Wilton. A sudden faintness only has seized your
- father. When last we met, his position was very far above this, and on
- meeting with me no doubt the fearful reverse he has experienced has acted
- upon his weak frame. Pray cease to fear—I believe that I can
- speedily restore him; and, when he is a little collected and composed, we
- will design measures to remove him from this charnel-house of the
- unfortunate.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora turned her eyes with a grateful expression upon him, but became
- instantly embarrassed by his steadfast gaze, while a creeping sensation of
- fear and dislike passed over her head. She glanced at Hal, and was rather
- startled to find him regarding the Colonel with a very fierce expression.
- Why, she did not understand.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had yet to learn that a lover rarely betrays satisfaction when he
- perceives the gaze of one of his own sex dwelling with marked admiration
- upon the fair features of the maid he loves.
- </p>
- <p>
- Perhaps the Colonel observed the fiery look of the young goldsmith; if he
- did, he outwardly took no notice of it; but taking from his breast pocket
- a small case, which contained a phial, he poured a few drops into some
- water, and administered it to old Wilton, who had no sooner taken it than
- he revived, and became speedily conscious of the presence of his visitors.
- </p>
- <p>
- As the dark features of the Colonel attracted his attention, he clutched
- his daughter’s hand, and, in a hoarse whisper, said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is it safe—is it safe?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is what safe, dear father?” she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The paper!—the paper I gave into your care,” he replied, wildly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes! yes!” she responded, quickly. “I gave it back to you, scarce half an
- hour ago. Do you not remember?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He placed his hand to his brow, and then pressed his fingers over his
- eyes, as if to recal what had recently passed.
- </p>
- <p>
- The influence of the restorative administered to him by the colonel was
- quickly apparent. He withdrew his hand, and gazed about him, but only for
- a moment.
- </p>
- <p>
- He rose up: his eye was bright, his carriage firm, and his head erect. His
- bearing gave him the aspect of another man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Colonel Mires,” he exclaimed in a tone of exultation, “your arrival in
- England, at this juncture, is most opportune—your discovery of me,
- in this prison, an interposition of Providence. Its consequences to me are
- of vital importance, and it is impossible to describe the joy, the
- happiness, it has brought to a man bowed down by a succession of dire
- misfortunes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Wilton, I am unprepared to hear such expressions from your lips;
- believe me, it affords me especial gratification,” rejoined Colonel Mires,
- casting his eyes craftily upon Flora, to observe what effect her father’s
- words, in his praise, would have upon her. But she saw not his glance, for
- she was watching anxiously the features, of Hal Vivian, who was listening
- to her father with a countenance which appeared to assume a deeper gravity
- at every succeeding sentence.
- </p>
- <p>
- And she wondered that he should grow so serious, and seem so sad, because
- her father spoke in tones of joyfulness.
- </p>
- <p>
- Had she known that he considered her father’s favour a passport to her
- own, she might not have marvelled at his sober countenance at all.
- </p>
- <p>
- Old Wilton proceeded, addressing the colonel.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The hackneyed aphorism which tells us that ‘the darkest hour is the hour
- before the dawn,’ is true in my case, Colonel Mires. My dark hour has
- spent the whole force of its pestilential blackness upon me. I have been
- utterly shrouded in its gloom. Your coming is as the dawn which will
- herald my day of sunshine. How wondrous are the workings of Providence!
- But now I was <i>in extremis</i>; lo! in an instant I bound into new life,
- and yet in the same old—old world. Oh! Colonel Mires, my heart is
- too full for utterance. I will take another and a better opportunity to
- express, not alone what I feel, but to explain to you wherefore your
- arrival has filled me with delight, and why it will prove to me a benefit
- so inestimable.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Upon my honour, Mr. Wilton, by so doing you will confer a great favour
- upon me,” returned Colonel Mires, “for at present, I do assure you, your
- expression of high satisfaction, and your excited manner, form together a
- problem which I feel quite incapable of working to a successful solution.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should be more than surprised if such were not the case,” returned old
- Wilton quickly. “How could you understand my gladness at beholding you,
- when the only conclusion you could form from the past would be, that I
- should meet you with combined feelings of regret and reproach. It is not
- possible for you to conjecture how your advent should be productive of
- happiness to me and mine.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If my coming to England—even though I know not how—should be
- the occasion of so agreeable a change in the lot of Miss Wilton, I shall
- only be too delighted at my good fortune, without caring to inquire by
- what happy combination of circumstances it has been effected!” exclaimed
- Colonel Mires, with another very steadfast, earnest glance at Flora, which
- embarrassed her, and did not have the desired effect of making her think
- favourably of him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gratitude, Colonel Mires,” exclaimed Wilton, drily, “would, I have no
- doubt, raise up such a feeling in your breast.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Colonel winced, but bowed affirmatively. Wilton then added, hastily—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Colonel Mires, your discovery of my detention in this prison is, of
- course, entirely the result of accident. You did not come here to see me—of
- that I am aware”—
- </p>
- <p>
- “The moment I had a suspicion”——
- </p>
- <p>
- Old Wilton waved his hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am quite able to comprehend the reason of your presence, Colonel,” he
- said; “but I am not, to sustain a longer interview to day. You will do me
- a favour by excusing me now, but if you will oblige me with your address,
- I will call upon you there at any appointment you may make, and take an
- occasion to explain to you much of the present mystery.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Harry Vivian had previously entertained some doubts about the saneness of
- old Wilton. The strange rebound from abject wretchedness to a species of
- delirious joy, startled him. <i>He</i> could see nothing in the exterior
- of the swarthy colonel from India, to raise up such a paroxysm of
- gratification as that displayed by the careworn old man, unless he
- expected him to pay off the detainers at the prison gate, and thus set him
- free. But when old Wilton requested of Colonel Mires his address, and
- offered to call upon him at <i>any</i> time he might appoint, then Hal’s
- doubts were dissipated. What! with two thousand pounds turned into locks,
- bolts, bars, and iron gates, to arrest his movements, to talk of keeping
- appointments outside the prison-gates! Why it was the very phantasy of
- lunacy. He believed him to be without a farthing in the world, and had
- provided himself with a little sum with which to carry the old man on, if
- he would accept it, and there was previously every probability that he
- would; but now, to hear his tone, and to note his manner, as well as to
- listen to his airy offer to appear anywhere at any time, he felt disposed
- to button his pocket, and to laugh. He did not do either—he
- whistled.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was a soft, low sound, unconsciously emitted, not altogether well bred
- we must admit, but it was the very symbol of extreme surprise.
- </p>
- <p>
- Old Wilton heard him, glanced at him, turned his eyes away, and a faint
- smile curled his upper lip.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora heard the whistle too, she looked at Hal, and then at her father.
- She had her misgivings likewise—she believed every shilling he had
- possessed to be gone, and to hear him speak thus made her heart throb
- violently. Oh, if grief and trial should have turned his brain!
- </p>
- <p>
- Her father understood her gaze, he read her thoughts, and his smile
- deepened.
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Mires heard the unconscious whistle, also. He darted a look at
- Hal, and then turned to Wilton, and peering at him under his eyebrows in a
- scrutinising manner, he said, in a tone which had more than a tinge of
- irony in it—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Will you say to-morrow, Mr. Wilton?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course,” thought Hal, “that’s just it; he might as well say
- half-an-hour hence—one is as likely as the other.”
- </p>
- <p>
- To his surprise, not less than to that of Colonel Mires, Wilton answered—
- </p>
- <p>
- “To-morrow, if you please. At what hour?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “At moonshine,” thought Hal; “poor old man, how mad he is getting!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ten o’clock in the morning,” returned the Colonel, with a grim smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- “At ten!” echoed Wilton; “you have not named the place,” he added.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It must be here, if there is to be a meeting anywhere,” thought Hal.
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Mires produced a card-case, and handed a card to Wilton, who held
- it close to his eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “So far,” he muttered, and then exclaimed aloud—“I will be there,
- Colonel, punctually, and without fail.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It will not put you to any inconvenience, I hope?” said Colonel Mires,
- with a mystified air.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, no, oh no!” returned old Wilton, with a smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- “To be sure not,” reflected Hal, “how should it? there is only two
- thousand pounds to prevent him leaving the prison, and what is that to a
- man who has not two crowns to jingle together?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Colonel Mires gave a dry cough.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I was not aware,” he said, “that it was an easy thing to effect a
- liberation from this place. I have an old friend in durance here, whom I
- came to see; he has been here a length of time, and is in tribulation at
- the remote possibility of his deliverance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The thing is not difficult when you know the way. I have a way,” returned
- Wilton, rather curtly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And two thousand pounds, too, of course,” mentally suggested Hal,
- considering it hard to understand why, under such circumstances, Wilton
- should have suffered himself to be imprisoned at all.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall keep my appointment, Colonel Mires, never fear,” said Wilton
- decidedly, though coldly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You leave here, possibly, to-day,” suggested the Colonel.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall accompany my daughter hence,” responded Wilton
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal walked to the window and looked out: this last remark by Wilton seemed
- to him quite to settle the point of his sanity.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Poor old gentleman! his brain is completely turned. Poor Flora! fresh
- troubles, instead of coming happiness for you,” he thought. “Well, I will
- try everything to make your heavy burden of care sit as lightly upon your
- shoulders as possible.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now, let me repeat, Colonel,” remarked old Wilton, with emphasis, “I
- shall be glad if by taking your leave you will close this interview. I am
- fatigued—overcome by the exciting events of the past few days; I
- wish to be alone with my daughter and Mr. Vivian, as noble and gallant a
- gentleman as England ever produced.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed!” ejaculated the Colonel, in a tone of insulting surprise.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Fact, nevertheless,” continued Wilton, and raising his voice, said, “many
- a would-be Bayard, <i>sans peur et sans reproche</i>, would have hesitated
- ere he attempted to perform the brave deed this gallant youth has lately
- achieved. You will know more of him anon.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was strange how steadfastly the two men looked into each other’s eyes
- as Wilton uttered these words. Colonel Mires was a soldier, a martinet, he
- had been able to look down his inferior officers and his men, by the hard
- fixedness of his gaze; but he could not compel Hal to wink an eyelash. The
- clear bright eye of the youth was not to be made to waver, and the Colonel
- found himself obliged to be the first to remove his gaze.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Surely,” he thought, “he can never be the suitor for the hand of Wilton’s
- daughter. If he is, he shall never have her. By heaven! so lovely a
- creature shall never be thrown away upon such a churl as he. A pearl for
- such a pig! Bah!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He was, however, with much discomfort, forced to leave the pearl with the
- pig, and obliged to see that while Flora would not permit her eyes to meet
- his, she frequently suffered them, radiant with lustrous beauty, to settle
- upon Hal’s face, lingering there as though loth to leave what they loved
- to dwell upon. It was not an agreeable reflection, considering the new
- emotions awakened in his breast by the sight of her face. It may have been
- that dormant passion only was aroused; he chose to consider it a new
- sensation, and determined to satiate it at any cost or hazard. He was,
- however, not a man to suffer himself to appear to be disconcerted; he was
- cool and calculating, and was not defeated until the possibility of
- victory was wholly removed, then he accepted the condition with inward
- mortification, perhaps, and a hope to obtain the alternative of revenge,
- but he did not suffer to appear whatured (sp.). Rage and disappointment he
- felt acutely, but no one ever saw him exhibit either.
- </p>
- <p>
- He took his leave of Flora with that gentlemanly respect that betokens
- good breeding—of Hal, with a formal bow, which said plainly, though
- not rudely: “You may be a Chevalier Bayard, disguised as a civilian, but I
- am not ambitious of making your acquaintance.” He shook Wilton heartily by
- the hand, as if he were sincere at least in that performance, and
- expressing his gratification at the prospect of meeting him early on the
- following morning, he took his departure, bearing with him his friend, who
- had been all eyes and ears but of no speech.
- </p>
- <p>
- When Wilton, by gazing from the window, had satisfied himself that Colonel
- Mires had mingled with the throng below, he returned to the centre of the
- room, and, folding his daughter to his heart, he kissed her forehead, and
- said to her—
- </p>
- <p>
- “My own sweet darling Flo’, cease to regard me with such anxious eyes. I
- am not mad!—in very truth my child, I am not. My sorrows have sorely
- tried me, but heaven has been withal kind, and has spared me my reason.
- You do not know the source of my present joy, as you know not the occasion
- of my fall from a position, the pleasures and luxuries of which you were
- too young to appreciate, and which were snatched from you ere you were old
- enough to regret or comprehend them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And yet, dear father, whenever I see a handsome mansion, filled with
- splendid furniture, magnificent pictures, beautiful sculpture, standing in
- the midst of gay parterres, over which wave graceful trees, I seem to go
- back to a time when I lived in such scenes. I have fancied that I have
- dreamed of these lovely places in childhood; and when I have in later days
- come to see them, I have believed that my dreams only have recurred to
- me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No dreams, my Flo’, but a real mansion, with its luxurious apartments,
- its galleries of pictures, sculptures, and articles of <i>vertu</i> rare
- and costly, its terraced gardens, its stately trees, its glassy streams
- and lakes, its tall fountains, and its gorgeous woodlands. No dream, my
- Flo’; for in such a scene you were born. In such a scene you shall reign,
- queen of beauty, ere you are much older. My Flo’, no dream, but reality.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He clutched her by the wrist.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The dream has been from the hour when that splendour, at one remorseless,
- dreadful swoop, was torn from my grasp up to the moment of Mires’
- appearance here to-day. That fearful interval has been the dark, horrible,
- terrible dream; but, my Flo’, the shadows of the night are passing from
- us, the fragrance of the morning air is in my nostrils, the golden dawn
- has begun to light up our too long darkened hemisphere, and we shall yet
- revel in the refulgent beams of an unclouded sunshine.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He pressed her again and again to his bosom, and kissed her with
- passionate fondness, while large tears rolled down his yet pallid cheeks.
- </p>
- <p>
- While yet caressing her, and as Hal was preparing to ask him to give him
- some proof that what he had just previously asserted was no mere
- hallucination, a faint knock was heard at the room door.
- </p>
- <p>
- Before Wilton could clear his voice to give the permission to enter the
- room, the door opened and closed instantly.
- </p>
- <p>
- But rapid as was the action, the door on closing had left within the room
- Nathan Gomer.
- </p>
- <p>
- He nodded at Wilton, he nodded at Hal, and he smiled—that is,
- grinned—at Flora. All the while his face glowed like burnished gold
- upon which a sunbeam rested.
- </p>
- <p>
- Wilton uttered a cry of joy. He ran up to him, and seized him by the hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I wanted to see you,” he cried.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I imagined as much. Here I am,” responded Nathan.
- </p>
- <p>
- Old Wilton cast his eyes rapidly upon Flora, upon Hal, and then on Nathan
- Gomer. For an instant he appeared perplexed, then he said to Hal—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Flora has not seen the wonders of this place, Master Henry Vivian. Will
- you conduct her where she can see how the prisoners pass away their long
- and wearisome days of confinement? Just for a stroll.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal could have told him that she had already witnessed as much as it was
- necessary for her to see, but he guessed that Wilton desired to be alone
- with Nathan Gomer, and he bowed assent.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have no objection, Master Vivian,” observed Wilton, fancying that he
- hesitated.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Objection!” echoed Hal, with an astounded look.
- </p>
- <p>
- Objection! What, to have Flora to himself for ten minutes or a quarter of
- an hour? unquestionably not. He emphatically expressed himself to that
- effect, and so Flora tied on her sweet little bonnet, and put on her neat
- little mantle, and laid the softest of soft hands upon his arm, making it
- thrill to his heart, near to which it rested, until he hardly remembered
- anything but that she was at his side—at once the richest, dearest
- treasure upon earth.
- </p>
- <p>
- Confused by the noise, and by the jostling of the throng of persons in the
- racket ground, they unconsciously strolled round to the back of the
- prison, or to the county side, as it is termed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Between the hours of ten and three, this part was comparatively deserted.
- At the period of which we are writing, the needy prisoners, who lived on
- the support of their creditors and the county, were alone permitted to mix
- on the parade in front, or to visit their fellow prisoners who were better
- off than themselves, during that part of the day.
- </p>
- <p>
- No county prisoner—for they had their prison pride—liked to be
- looked upon as a “county bird,” so he showed himself in front as long as
- he could. The back part, thus, as we have said, had few persons
- promenading its precincts at the hours named.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora and Hal were, in consequence, comparatively alone in their walk.
- </p>
- <p>
- As they strolled on, both seemed full of thought; after a silence, which
- endured for a short time, a few remarks were made, but of no personal
- nature; at length Hal ventured to say to her—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can it be possible, my dear Miss Wilton, that your father is not
- labouring under a delusion in speaking of his immediate liberation?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Somehow Flora had expected this question, yet she had not prepared an
- answer to it. She paused for a moment, then replied—
- </p>
- <p>
- “From the moment my dear father was seized as a prisoner, until now, the
- whole affair has been inexplicable to me. I believe you know even more of
- his affairs than I do. What can I answer? the matter of his conversation
- seems to me to be visionary, yet I never remember him to be so clear in
- his delivery, nor so elated, without being incoherent.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That may only be a sign of the disease which may have fastened itself
- upon him, following the terrible agony of grief he has had to endure.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Mr. Vivian, in mercy do not say so—pray do not! I do not think
- he is deranged—do you not remember that when he said to me he was
- not mad, how coherently he spoke? I entreat you, Mr. Vivian, not to say
- you think his mind is gone; if you do, I shall believe you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal saw the tears spring into her eyes, and he blamed himself for having
- brought them there, especially when she said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “It will so much add to the grief I have already suffered.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I would not add to it for the world, Miss Wilton,” he said hastily, and
- added thoughtfully, “it may have been selfishness which has led me to form
- the supposition, but I would willingly, though not cheerfully, abandon it
- if I thought, by so doing, you would be spared one painful emotion.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not cheerfully,” said Flora with innocent surprise, “why with reluctance,
- Mr. Vivian?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not reluctance, Miss Wilton, that is not the word—sorrow is the
- truer term.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I do not understand you; I am, I suppose, very dull; but, Mr. Vivian, is
- it possible that you could be sorry to find my father not insane?” she
- inquired, with some earnestness.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen,” he said: “if what your father has said be not the wanderings of
- a disturbed mind, the return of the gentleman who has recently visited
- him, from India, has opened up to him an immediate return to some former
- wealthy position, even though the instrument appears as unconscious of his
- power to effect it as we are.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “So I understand it,” returned Flora, finding Hal pause.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then,” he exclaimed, strong feeling being manifest in the tone of his
- voice, “I should not, I trust you will credit me, be sorry that he had
- achieved his immediate release from this filthy prison, or that he and you—you,
- Miss Wilton, were restored to a position you so eminently deserve to
- occupy; but I should, I fear, grieve to think that all your good could not
- be accomplished without my discomfort.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your discomfort?” asked Flora, catching his arm, and looking into his
- eyes with an expression of interest for which he would have willingly
- pressed her to his heart if he dared.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was a little confused, for he saw plain enough that if he had no heart
- to pain her, she had no desire to occasion him discomfort.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, Miss Wilton,” he answered, “to speak honestly to you—I had
- reared up a little fabric, based upon what I thought to be your condition;
- I had expected from it much happiness, perhaps that of securing to you
- immunity from troubles and trials, so far as I could. By the return of
- this Indian officer, it is dashed to the ground, and shattered to atoms. I
- rejoice most sincerely that it has brought you and your father good, but
- do not think harshly of me if I selfishly regret that by it my prospects
- of felicity are swept away entirely In the time to come, when difference
- of position shall part us for ever, may I ask you, Flora—Miss Wilton—to
- believe that, had the opportunity been afforded me, I would, when tried,
- have proved to you a sincere and a true friend?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In the time to come—when we shall part for ever—what
- difference of station should part us? Oh, Mr. Vivian, I could not—I
- would not, accept a position which might bring such an estrangement to
- pass. I would sooner die—I owe—my life—to your bravery.”
- She seized his hand and kissed it, and then burst into tears.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal was almost in the act of placing his arm about her, and giving vent to
- a passionate declaration, when a hand was placed upon his shoulder.
- </p>
- <p>
- He turned round with a sudden start, which almost upset the individual who
- had touched him. He found it to be Nathan Gomer, who grinned, and,
- pointing with his thumb behind him, said to Flora—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your father awaits you both in his room. He is about to quit the prison
- with you, but he wishes to say a few words to you before he departs.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But the two thousand pounds for which he is lodged here?” said Hal, with
- a stupified air.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Paid, sir—all paid, sir! Mr. Wilton is free to leave here when he
- will, sir!” exclaimed Nathan Gomer, with the old grin upon his features.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XI.—SHADOWS.
- </h2>
- <p class="indent15">
- Oh, love! of whom great Caesar was the suitor, <br /><span class="indent20">Titus
- the master, Antony the slave, <br /><span class="indent20">Horace,
- Catullus, scholars, Ovid tutor, <br /><span class="indent20">Sappho, the
- sage blue-stocking, in whose grave <br /><span class="indent15">All those
- may leap who rather would be neuter— <br /><span class="indent20">(Leucadia’s
- rock still overlooks the wave), <br /><span class="indent15">Oh, love! thou
- art the very god of evil, <br /><span class="indent15">For, after all, we
- cannot call thee devil. <br /><span class="indent30">—Byron. <br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>elen Grahame sat
- in her dressing-room alone. Scarce half-an-hour had elapsed since she had
- quitted the side of Lester Vane, after their stroll in the garden.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her handkerchief, which she had dropped during her interview with Hugh
- Riversdale in the thicket, yet glared before her eyes as it had done when
- presented by him who, with a sharp, penetrating gaze, had sought to
- extract evidence out of her confusion to assure him that she was the
- heroine of the stolen interview he had disturbed.
- </p>
- <p>
- She yet saw it floating and whirling among the circling eddies of the
- meandering waters, which ran past her feet, and drew such small
- consolation from the possibility of its never being again recovered—at
- least to her disadvantage—as it might afford her.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was something to have destroyed the only evidence that could identify
- her with that stolen meeting, which had been the cause of so much
- mystification, excitement, and scandal among the household. She could
- scarcely prevent a proud smile of triumph curling her small upper lip when
- she reflected that the mastery she possessed over the play of her
- features, when she brought her will into action, had enabled her to baffle
- the scrutiny of Vane, which she felt instinctively was exerted to enable
- him to obtain power over her. Her womanly instincts were too acute, too
- keen, for her not to comprehend that.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is true she had no notion that he intended to act basely or falsely to
- her. In spite of his display, his assumption of wealth, and the inferences
- he left to be drawn from his suggestions, she entertained a conviction
- that his sources of income were far more limited in capacity than he
- wished them to appear. Her father’s reputed affluence—of the reality
- of which she in common with the other members of the family, had no doubt—she
- could easily understand, would attract the attention of a young man of
- high family, who had but little with which to support his station, and she
- as readily comprehended that he would do his best to secure the hand of
- the eldest daughter of a man of wealth, if with it he ensured also the
- certainty of a handsome settlement, to say nothing of the unquestionable
- charms of the “encumbrance” he would have to take with the gold.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had not been twenty-four hours in his company before she detected that
- he had determined upon becoming a suitor for her hand, having fortified
- himself with a belief that her father would give with her a dower, which
- would for ever set at rest his pecuniary anxieties for the future. But she
- revolted at the thought of being sought for what she should bring, rather
- than for her beauty—her heart, so brimful of passion and tenderness—for
- her very self. Especially did she recoil from the supposition that she was
- a “tassel gentle” to be lured by such a falconer’s voice, for the purpose
- of his own aggrandisement, and her whole soul rose in rebellion against
- being made the puppet in such a scheme.
- </p>
- <p>
- The Honorable Lester Vane was well-formed and handsome. There were certain
- points in his figure and in his lineaments of a character to attract and
- to win the admiration of many women—those, at least, who, with the
- failing of their sex, are led by appearances. He had a musically-toned
- voice, and a tongue, gifted with the soft cunning of oily phrases, in so
- eminent a degree, that it could be scarcely surpassed by that which our
- mother Eve found herself unequal to resist. There were few women, who, if
- heart-free, would have been likely to resist his advances, or to have
- remained proof against them were he to address himself to them as a lover.
- Hitherto, he had not found female conquest difficult; there was a
- peculiarity in his manner and appearance which interested a woman in his
- favour immediately she beheld him; and thus, having mastered the
- approaches, he, where he listed, found the citadel not difficult to carry
- by a <i>coup de main</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen was conscious of all this. She had read his character intuitively,
- and had formed a just estimate of him. Perhaps her predominant feeling
- towards him was contempt; but with that was mingled a strange dread of
- some power he possessed to injure her, and which, at a future period, he
- would exercise with a merciless malignity. She knew this impression had no
- foundation, in fact—was, in truth, a mere in defined sense of
- impending evil, of which he was to be the perpetrator, she the sufferer.
- Yet, true to the nature of her sex, her conclusion, arrived at by no
- process of reasoning, was as clear and determined as though it had been
- based upon a train of facts which admitted neither of doubt nor dispute.
- </p>
- <p>
- “At least,” she murmured, “Hugh can have nothing to fear from him, even
- though he will, I am fully convinced, omit no stratagem to gain my love,
- as the means of securing my hand and portion—the portion being
- rather a considerable item in the object he proposes to accomplish. His
- eye looks down searchingly into my heart, as though he would read and
- interpret its most delicate mysteries and fathom its secrets, that he may
- hold me in duress. Never! I defy him! He cannot, shall not, detect or
- decipher anything I may purpose to conceal. He has destined me for his
- prey, a golden fly, to be enmeshed in the entanglements of a web, every
- filament of which is too palpable in my eyes. Ha! there are two words to a
- bargain. It would be a delicious revenge to bring this schemer down upon
- his knees before me, actually and absolutely an abject wooer: so that
- when, with burning words and scorching tears, he pleaded his love, I might
- spurn him with my foot. I will do it! Already has he commenced, with
- consummate art, to make me think about him: he must exercise a wily skill
- indeed to make me love him! I will meet him upon his own battle-field; I
- will not appear to employ either art or skill, yet will I stake my
- happiness that I will compel him to love me with a passionate ardour, of
- which now he does not believe his soul capable. Ay, and when, with a
- whirlwind of pleadings, urgings, and fervid prayers, he implores me to
- bestow my heart upon him, then, in my moment of triumph, I will open up to
- his terrible discomfiture my full knowledge of the speculation which
- embraced my purse with my person, and laugh with derisive scorn, at so
- shallow an attempt to win and wear me—<i>me!</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- While that reference to herself yet trembled upon her lips, a thought
- rushed through her brain, and a flush of crimson spread itself over her
- fair neck and face, and then it subsided, and left her deadly pale.
- </p>
- <p>
- At this moment, the postman’s well-known ring at the gate-bell, given with
- skilful force, resounded suddenly through the house. The noise made her
- start, and utter a faint scream. Her heart began to beat violently, while
- a strange presentiment seized her that the epistle which had arrived by
- this channel was for her. An emotion of dread oppressed her, for which she
- was at a loss to account, for she had but few correspondents, and among
- them there was not one whose communication ought to contain any matter to
- occasion her feelings of dread.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had forgotten one.
- </p>
- <p>
- She listened breathlessly for the light foot-fall of Chayter. She was not
- disappointed. The door opened, and her quiet, neatly-dressed, sleek maid
- entered, bearing a note upon a small silver salver.
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen assumed an air of indifference she did not feel. She glanced, from
- beneath her long dark eyelashes, rapidly at the letter, but she played
- with the pendants of a bracelet, and yawned in Chayter’s face.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A letter for you, if you please, miss,” said the girl, and handed it to
- her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Put it down, Chayter,” said she, “I will read it by and by. I am in no
- humour now to bore over a long crossed scrawl from a tiresome school
- friend.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The girl laid the letter upon the small table at Helen’s elbow, remarking
- to herself, as she gazed upon the superscription, that the school friend
- wrote a remark ably vigorous, masculine hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where is papa?” inquired Helen, with seeming apathy, although deeply
- interested in the answer.
- </p>
- <p>
- “In the library, if you please, miss,” the girl answered.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And mamma, and the rest of them,” added Helen. “Your mamma, and his
- Grace, and Miss Margaret, and Mr. Malcolm, are walking in the garden.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And the Honorable Mr. Lester Vane and Miss Evangeline are in the
- drawing-room.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In the drawing-room?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, miss.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Alone?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, miss, quite alone.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen felt surprised and annoyed to hear this. She did not stay to inquire
- why. Upon the first blush, it seemed to her that Lester Vane had no right
- to be alone with her sister. She was irritated and vexed; not, as she
- suggested to herself, that she cared, because she had a contempt for the
- man; but then, to preserve merely the harmony of consistency, he ought to
- be alone with no one else but her, and look into no other eyes than her
- own. Evangeline, too, so reserved—so shy. She shook her head.
- Perhaps there was more art and depth in that apparently timid girl than
- any of them had ever dreamed of. She determined, instantly, to observe her
- more closely. Evangeline hitherto had passed as a stupid, harmless,
- nervous child, yet beneath such an exterior might lurk much shrewd
- sagacity, and a power to think and act for herself for which she had not
- previously received credit.
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen rather prided herself upon her own perceptive faculties, and, like
- many of her sex, she was so exceedingly keen-sighted as to be at times
- precipitated into forming erroneous conclusions. It occurred to her that
- it would not be altogether impolitic to put in an appearance, rather
- unexpectedly, in the drawingroom, where Vane was <i>tête-à-tête</i> with
- her sister. A glance at the faces of both, she assured herself, would
- suffice to tell her what course Vane was pursuing, and it would serve to
- direct her future conduct.
- </p>
- <p>
- She rose with this intention, and, as she moved past her little table, her
- eye fell upon the letter which the sudden communication by Chayter,
- respecting her sister and Lester Vane, had caused her to forget.
- </p>
- <p>
- She turned her eyes hastily around the apartment, Chayter was no longer
- there. She was alone.
- </p>
- <p>
- She took up the letter and held it to the lamp, so that she might see the
- superscription clearly. She started as she recognised the handwriting.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Heaven! I thought so,” she ejaculated. “It is from Hugh. How thoughtless
- to address to me here!”
- </p>
- <p>
- She examined the post-mark, which bore the name of Southampton. She drew a
- long breath, as though to nerve herself to meet the contents of the
- letter, which she felt would have a marked influence upon her future
- destiny, and then she broke the seal.
- </p>
- <p>
- The contents were penned by a hurried and trembling hand; the very
- character of the scrawled letters betrayed the workings of a mind
- convulsed by passion and sorrow—the words themselves only too
- emphatically proved what the ill-formed characters suggested. She read,
- with burning eyes, what follows—
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Helen! thou passionately loved! Measure the intensity of my grief when
- you learn that my dread forebodings are verified. I sail by the ‘Ripon’ to
- India on the 4th, three days hence. My agony is insupportable! To be
- parted from you for years—perhaps never more to meet on earth—drives
- me to despair—distraction! I could refuse to quit England. I did. An
- alternative was presented to me; it involved the desolation of one to
- insure whose happiness my life were too mean a gift; it would have hurled
- me into beggary, and would still have sundered me from you—from you,
- Helen, you my life-spring, the font from whence I draw the only joy this
- world can yield me. What could I do? The chained and manacled slave had
- more freedom of action than I! My choice lay between this loathed voyage
- and comparative annihilation, and my consent to leave England has been
- thus wrung from me. Helen, though but these feeble words greet your tender
- eyes, yet I am with you face to face, near, near to you in spirit.</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- A cold thrill ran through the frame of Helen as she read these words, and
- she raised her eyes, shrinking and gazing into the misty space before her,
- as if expecting to see his form, phantom-like and grim, standing there.
- </p>
- <p>
- But she saw only the pictures on the walls and the hanging draperies, so,
- with a cold tremor, she went on with the perusal of the letter—
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>You remember, Helen, that night when we stood together in the abbey
- ruins alone—the cold, grey moonlight streamed through the oriel
- window—shattered and decayed it was—and rested upon a
- mutilated cross. You remember that cross, Helen, as, silver like, it stood
- out in bold relief? My earnest gaze was upon it, Helen, when my fevered,
- trembling lips uttered words in your ear only too feeble and inexpressive
- to convey the depth and intensity of that love, which your gentle
- tenderness and your unsurpassed beauty had won from me. And by that cross
- I swore to be true to you while I had life. I see that cross now, Helen!
- Can you? I repeat the oath I took on that night. Will you, oh, Helen,
- dearest? You do not forget that, while my vow was yet vibrating in your
- ear, you turned your lustrous eyes upon that glowing emblem of mortal
- redemption. Your sweet head reclined upon my heaving breast, and in
- faltering words, you owned that the passion was not unrequited—that
- you loved me. Your warm, fragrant breath played upon my cheeks as you
- pointed to that cross, and called Heaven to witness to your truth—to
- testify that, in the time to come, your affection should be as unchanging
- and as unchangeable as my own. Look, Helen, there! See you not that cross
- standing sharply and brightly out from the shadows beyond? Will you refuse
- the duty it calls upon you to perform, or forget the oath it commands you
- to remember? Out of my deep love for you, at what sacrifice would I pause?
- What hesitate to do and dare, that you might be mine? Ah, Helen, will you
- be mine, as you have so often fondly sworn you were, and would be ever?
- Are you prepared for the test which shall prove it? It is this. Will you,
- on receipt of this letter, join me here? Will you, Helen? I have made
- every arrangement by which you can travel on the 3rd by the four o’clock
- train to Southampton alone and secure from interruption. On your arrival,
- you will be received by a lady, who will be expecting you, and will
- conduct you to apartments prepared for you. On the 4th, we will be united
- by </i>a legal<i> marriage, as we have been by love, and—nay, we
- will then bid farewell to England, with hearts light and free; for, come
- any evil after it, we shall at least be happy in the possession of each
- other, and can no more be parted, but by death. Helen, my own Helen, if
- you will fly to me, the devotion of a life will be too poor a return for
- the integrity, the purity, the magnanimity of your love. If you come not—well,
- words would be idle. </i>
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hugh Riversdale.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen staggered to her chair as she concluded the epistle. She pressed her
- hands to her throbbing temples; her brain was in a whirl; she had not the
- power for a minute or two to summon a single thought to her aid.
- </p>
- <p>
- Remember that night! Ay! the events crowded into it were not likely to be
- forgotten by her. As her hot palms pressed down her eyelids, she saw as in
- a vision the ruined abbey, desolate and silent, in the broad moon-light,
- the moss-grown, ivy-bound walls, the dilapidated aisles, the triple-arched
- windows, mouldering and falling away, very skeletons of what they had once
- been; the rude masses of masonry half buried in the long, rank grass; but,
- above all, that cross.
- </p>
- <p>
- That cross!
- </p>
- <p>
- It now glittered and sparkled and wreathed before her eyes as if it were
- living flame, and darted out long, forked, arrowy tongues, to blister and
- consume her if she violated her oath.
- </p>
- <p>
- She sprang to her feet with a scream and a shudder of horror. She gazed
- affrightedly round her; the sight of her maid, Chayter, who had, with
- noiseless step, reentered the room, however, dispelled the vision, and
- restored her to something like composure.
- </p>
- <p>
- She looked for her letter; it was open upon the table where it had fallen;
- waving her hand, she said, in a voice hoarse with emotion—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Leave me, Chayter; I will ring when I require your services.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The girl glanced at the letter and then at her mistress. She gave a short
- cough.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is growing late, miss!” she said, hesitatingly, “I thought——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Leave me!” almost shrieked the haughty beauty, stamping her foot
- violently.
- </p>
- <p>
- The girl dropped a hurried curtsey, and slunk swiftly out of the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had been witness to small displays of irritability, but never to such
- an ebullition of temper as this.
- </p>
- <p>
- When alone, Helen strode to the door and locked it. She threw herself into
- her chair, and again pressed her beating temples with her hands.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is he mad?” she murmured. “Fly with him and to India! How selfish—how
- unreasonable!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He asked for a sacrifice as the test of her love; but what a sacrifice!
- She loved him—he ought to know that. What had she not done to give
- him proofs of it? If the proofs he had already received were insufficient,
- what could suffice? Not even the very sacrifice he called upon her to
- make. He had spoken of sacrifices, he had reminded her of their mutual
- vow, but now he sought to make her crown those cumulative sacrifices by
- inducing her to fling away all personal considerations, and follow his
- fortunes—to minister to his happiness by the surrender of her own.
- </p>
- <p>
- Not that she doubted she should be happy in becoming his wife, but then
- there was so much that went to make up the sum of perfect contentment,
- which she must forego upon quitting home, and which she could not hope to
- possess or enjoy after she had linked her fate with his. Trifles are they
- at best, but to have pleasure the rule, and retirement the exception to be
- flattered, admired, the cynosure of adoring eyes—are constituent
- parts of many a woman’s happiness, wanting only the love of one to make a
- perfect felicity. Helen was called upon to make her election. She could
- not, it appeared, have done both. If she flung away the pleasures of the
- world and the comforts of wealth, she would have to be compensated by
- Hugh’s passionate love and entire devotion. If she flung away his love—well,
- there was still her luxurious home, and—and if he was bent upon
- being so very, very obstinate in his selfish demands, and in the event of
- her not taking part in his wild scheme, were to sunder the connection
- between them—well, there were others moving in a higher sphere than
- his, who would kneel at her feet, and give to her entire and undisputed
- sway, so that she but bestowed her hand upon the suppliant.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will write to him,” she said, taking up his letter, and placing it in
- her desk, which she carefully locked. “Yes, I will write to him, and show
- to him the weakness and the folly of what he asks. Papa would be frenzied,
- and mamma would surely die of mortified pride if I were to take such a
- step. No, no; it must not be. You were not in your senses, Hugh, when you
- addressed that letter to me, and so thoughtless, too, to direct it here.
- Poor fellow!—poor dear fellow!—how he loves me!—how
- deeply, dearly, he truly loves me!—dear Hugh!—yes, I well
- remember that night of mutual confession—oh! I well remember the
- tumult of joy which swelled my bosom when your trembling voice, and nearly
- inarticulate words, told me that which I already instinctively knew, but
- which I so longed for you to confess, my dear, dear Hugh!”
- </p>
- <p>
- To what result the train of reflection, now taking an opposite path to
- that which at first it pursued, might have led, we do not pretend to say.
- Helen was here interrupted by a knock at the door, followed by the voice
- of Chayter, who informed her young mistress that she was expected in the
- drawing-room, inquiries having been already made for her.
- </p>
- <p>
- She gave a rapid glance at her face in the glass. It was pale as
- alabaster, but there was no further trace of the disorder her mind had
- suffered; and so assuming a calm demeanour, she admitted Chayter.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I do believe I have been dozing,” she said to the sleek girl.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t believe anything of the kind,” thought Chayter; but, smiling,
- said—“Dear me, miss, what a thing it is to be lovely, and have a
- dozen noble and beautiful gentlemen grieving to death for you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Chayter!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah, miss! it is as I say,” continued the girl. “I can see. There is his
- Grace talking of nothing but you, and the Honorable Mr. Vane hoping that
- you are not ill because you keep your own room, and you all the while so
- indifferent, dozing in your chair, and Miss Margaret looking—I beg
- your pardon, miss—as if she would give her ears to be taken notice
- of by either of them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dress me, Chayter!” exclaimed Helen, abruptly, “and, if you can, pray be
- silent; your volubility makes my head ache.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Chayter understood a hint, though she did not quite comprehend whether
- volubility meant impertinence or overwhelming information. She gathered
- from Helen’s tone that she was in no humour to listen to her prattle, and
- she was shrewd enough to keep her tongue still when its rattle was likely
- to be unwelcome.
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen quickly made her toilet, and had seldom looked more beautiful than
- she did when she entered the drawing-room, which, though half filled by
- the guests and family, was all but silent without her.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her eye ran round the apartment as she glided in, and she perceived her
- mamma and sister Margaret conversing together. Her papa was discoursing
- with the young Duke upon the management of estates, and detailing a plan
- by which to obtain the largest possible amount of income with the least
- possible expenditure, to all of which the Duke appeared to listen, though
- he yawned frequently; but he rescued himself from the charge of
- inattention by occasionally observing—“Weally!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pwecisely,”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pwobably,”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wemawkable!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Malcolm was half-asleep upon a couch, and Lester Vane was seated by the
- side of her sister Evangeline, talking with her in a tone sufficiently low
- as not to be heard—at least, where she stood.
- </p>
- <p>
- What strange feeling was it that possessed her when her eye fell upon
- Evangeline and Lester Vane, as it were <i>tête-à-tête</i>? Why did a flush
- mount to her brow, and a pang of vexation shoot through her breast? He was
- nothing to her; what he might do ought to have no interest in her eyes,
- for if any feeling for him was predominant in her heart, it was not
- certainly of a favourable nature. Yet he had gazed upon her so ardently,
- and spoken to her with such gentle tones, that if she could draw a
- conclusion from his manner, it was that her beauty had made a deep
- impression upon his heart. Now to see his dreamy eyes dwelling on
- Evangeline’s innocent face so earnestly, to observe his impressive manner,
- as he addressed her with words toned so as to make her gentle heart thrill
- with a new emotion, was to be made to feel that she had made no impression
- upon him at all, or that he made love to her simply <i>pour passer le
- temps</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- She burnt with vexation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He shall love me,” she thought, “woo me, kneel to me. Oh! but how I will
- spurn him—shatter him with my scorn.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Poor Hugh Riversdale!
- </p>
- <p>
- Upon the appearance of Helen, the Duke of St Allborne flung over the
- elaborate dissertation to which he was supposed to be listening, and
- quitting Mr Grahame, advanced hastily to his daughter; Lester Vane caught
- sight of her at the same moment, and rose to his feet, but without
- evincing any emotion, other than that of pleasure at her arrival.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My deah Miss Gwahame,” exclaimed the Duke, all in a flutter of
- excitement, “I am twuly delighted that you have wejoined us; I began to
- feah you weah not well, and would afflict us by not wetawning any moah
- this evening. I should have been gweatly gwieved at youah absence, but faw
- moah so if you had been weally indisposed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your Grace will, I hope, pardon my not being present with my mamma and
- sisters to receive you in the drawing-room,” replied Helen, favouring him
- with one of her most bewitching smiles. “I am really ashamed to
- acknowledge to your Grace the truth, but I am afraid that while reading a
- few pages of a novel I fell into the most unromantic doze possible.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Duke laughed appreciatively—a doze after dinner! Who
- comprehended its luxury more keenly than himself?
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pway don’t apologise, Miss Gwahame,” he exclaimed, “I think a nap after
- one’s wine one of the wosiest and most delicate awdinations of natchaw.”
- Helen smiled bewitchingly again at the Duke, for she knew the eye of
- Lester Vane, who had slowly approached her, was on her face.
- </p>
- <p>
- “My Lord Duke,” she returned, “do not misinterpret me—I dozed after
- my <i>book</i>.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ha! ha!” laughed the Duke. “I beg pawdon. Exactly! I could not suppose
- however, Miss Gwahame, that the wine you sipped at dinnaw would have
- thwown you into a doze. I alluded to myself, eh, Vane?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Weally this girl is devilish pwetty,” thought the
- </p>
- <p>
- Duke, as he turned to his friend. “She is a pawfect beauty; I must weally
- wun off with her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You are skilled in after-dinner indulgence, you are, in fact, a perfect
- master of that species of luxury, St. Allbome,” replied Vane, smiling, and
- added, with marked <i>empressement</i> to Helen, “I would not have done
- you the injustice, Miss Grahame, to have presumed that a <i>post prandial</i>
- slumber had denied us the pleasure of your fair society, if you had not
- yourself offered it in explanation of your absence. I should, if permitted
- to speculate upon your movements, have imagined that a stroll by
- moonlight, along the sinuous paths of the most excellently arranged garden
- attached to this mansion, had occupied you pleasantly, that, tempted by
- the beauty of the night—or some other cause—you had been
- induced to linger in the purple shadows thrown upon the place beneath, by
- the luxuriant foliage of a certain cluster of graceful trees, bending in
- pensive reflection over the flowing stream, whose rippling waters lave
- their base, the balmy air responding to the chant of the water’s low music
- with soft sighs, and gently fondling in its murmuring the deep green
- leaves still and silent in their evening dreams.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The Duke looked up at his friend in indescribable astonishment. Lester
- Vane went on—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Such a scene, Miss Grahame, heightened by those associations your own
- glowing thoughts could supply, would naturally furnish an ample excuse for
- an absence so much regretted by all present. May I suggest that you should
- adopt it, rather than confess to an afterdinner nap?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And dreams of pumpkin pie,” interposed Helen, with sarcastic bitterness,
- and a very formal bend. She understood his allusion; it brought a scarlet
- flush on her cheek, and made her eye flash like a diamond. Her lip curled
- scornfully as she replied to him, and if the sarcastic tone she adopted
- was unnoticed by others, it was not lost upon him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Vane,” she added, not concealing an expression of disdain, “I prefer
- to adhere to the vulgar truth. There are people to whom such a course is
- inconvenient, but I find it less troublesome than to have to coin a number
- of small prevarications. I am afraid I am rather an unromantic individual.
- I catch cold, and have bad fits of sneezing come on, when I am foolish
- enough to be tempted by some poetical enthusiast to enjoy the beauty of a
- moonlight night, shadowy trees, rippling waters, and sighing breezes. On
- those occasions there is always a quantity of mist about, moist
- exhalations, powerfully suggestive I assure you Mr. Vane, of influenza.
- Moonlight scenes are very pretty things at the Opera, or in a picture, but
- the reality is really very trying to the constitution.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The vewy weflections I have frequently made myself,” burst forth the Duke
- with much vivacity. ‘’You enwapchaw me, Miss Gwahame, youaw impwes-sions
- squaw so wondwously with mine. Moonlight nights aw vewy damp aflaws; I
- nevaw venchaw upon one without a heavy boat cape, a box of cigaws, and a
- pawson to play the twumpet, to keep me awake, nevaw!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You surprise me, Miss Grahame,” said Vane, nettled by the tone she
- assumed. “I imagined that your temperament was highly sentimental and
- poetical.” There was a hidden meaning even in these words. Helen detected
- so much; though she did not at the moment perceive the object at which the
- shaft was levelled; she replied quickly—
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have been premature, Mr. Vane, in forming your estimate of my
- character. I am not so easily read as my sister Evangeline. She is imbued
- with romance, as, no doubt, you have before this discovered. She trusts to
- seeming, poor child—I do not.”
- </p>
- <p>
- For a moment her eye fastened itself piercingly upon him. She then took
- the Duke’s ready arm, and advanced up the <i>salon</i> to a magnificent
- harp, to fulfil a promise made by her to the Duke at dinner. As she did
- so, she looked for Evangeline, but she had quitted the room when Lester
- Vane rose up to greet her, and she liked not her disappearance.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lester Vane looked after Helen as, with queenly dignity, she paced the
- room, leaning upon the arm of his bulky, ungraceful friend, all the
- brighter and more beautiful for the contrast.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am right,” he mused; “I am on the track; she chafes at the very mention
- of garden and moonlight. My experiment, too, succeeds—two suns may
- not shine in her hemisphere—she is already jealous of my attention
- to her little, simple, innocent sister. There is power in that. I will use
- it. I will have her completely in my grasp.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He moved towards Mrs. Grahame and the passionless statue, her daughter
- Margaret, perfectly at his ease, and as unconcerned as though the incident
- of the moment alone occupied his thoughts.
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen, too, appeared to commence her task in perfect serenity of mind, yet
- the words, “You remember that cross, Helen!” were ringing in her brain,
- and though she sang words and music correctly, and never faltered in the
- accompaniment, she prayed for the hour of release from the presence of
- guests, the sounds of voices, the glaring lights; to be again alone in her
- room, to wrestle with memories of passion and promise, to contend with
- conflicting emotions, to decide upon obeying the impulse of her heart, or
- to determine upon one great sacrifice, in order to secure the glittering’
- triumphs of a brilliant position.
- </p>
- <p>
- Alone! What would she not have given at that moment, while singing with
- such charming taste, to have been alone!
- </p>
- <p>
- Before her song commenced, Mr. Grahame had been summoned to an interview
- with some person, who required to see him on business of importance, and
- during the performance of the song, while approving smiles were upon the
- features of his guests, and his wife and daughter Margaret sat in
- ineffable elation, he lay upon the floor of his library in a fit!
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XII.—A LIFE STRUGGLE.
- </h2>
- <p class="indent25">
- Where the lamps quiver, <br /><span class="indent25">So far in the river,
- <br /><span class="indent20">With many a light <br /><span class="indent20">From
- many a casement— <br /><span class="indent20">From garret and
- basement, <br /><span class="indent20">She stood with amazement—
- <br /><span class="indent25">Houseless by night! <br /><br /><span
- class="indent20">The bleak wind of March <br /><span class="indent25">Made
- her tremble and shiver; <br /><span class="indent25">But not the dark arch—
- <br /><span class="indent20">Or the black flowing river. <br /><span
- class="indent20">Mad from life’s history, <br /><span class="indent20">Glad
- to Death’s mystery <br /><span class="indent20">Swift to be hurl’d <br /><span
- class="indent25">Anywhere! anywhere— <br /><span class="indent25">Out
- of the world! <br /><span class="indent30">—Hood. <br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>ithin a close,
- narrow, scantily-furnished chamber, upon a miserable bed, sparely provided
- with bedclothes, lay a young girl, weak and wasted, struggling in the
- deadly grip of a fierce fever.
- </p>
- <p>
- The room—a back attic—bore evidence of the humble position of
- the householder, and, in addition to its native foul atmosphere, was
- impregnated with the sickly odour prevalent in chambers in which there is
- sickness.
- </p>
- <p>
- A truckle bed, a table, a chair, comprised the furniture; a soiled and
- ragged curtain at the diamond-paned window comprehended all the room
- possessed in the shape of drapery or hangings; the walls were bare, and
- washed with the odious salmon-hued distemper colour so prevalent in
- debtors’ prisons and apartments in poor neighbourhoods; the floor-boards
- with wide interstices between them, and large knot-holes here and there,
- where mice looked up, and unspareable halfpence sometimes rolled down, had
- not even a show of comfort in the way of a small bit of old stair-carpet
- by the bedside. All within and around bespoke poverty of the grimmest
- school.
- </p>
- <p>
- The girl, who lay upon the bed moaning in a disturbed slumber, with
- flushed cheeks, and pale and transparent lips, was no other than Lotte
- Clinton.
- </p>
- <p>
- Upon the night of the fire, when landed safely by the conductor of the
- fire-escape, she found herself in her thin night-dress, exposed to the
- cold night air, which struck chill to her unprotected bosom, while her
- naked tender feet were upon the hard stones, ankle deep in rushing water.
- </p>
- <p>
- The shock she had experienced on being awakened out of a deep slumber by
- the startling, horrifying cry of fire, the terror which all but paralysed
- her when, half-blinded and nearly suffocated, she discovered her room
- filled with smoke, the excitement which followed the rushing from her
- chamber, the roaring of the flames, the crackling and sputtering of the
- burning wood, the hoarse cries of the mob, the perilous descent to the
- ground, the sudden exposure to the eager gaze of a multitude of faces, red
- in the glaring, unnatural light, the whirl, the turmoil, mingled with a
- species of hysterical joy and gratefulness at her deliverance, created a
- combination of emotions beyond her physical powers of endurance.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is not wonderful that—affrighted, unknowing where to turn,
- whither to go, what to do, chilled to the marrow by the piercing coldness
- of the water rushing over her unprotected, delicate feet, utterly
- overwhelmed by what had happened, by the incidents surrounding her, and in
- which she was yet an actor—she should succumb; and find, that as
- some person hastily and roughly seized her about the waist, she should
- have a dim consciousness that the whole scene was fading from her as some
- expiring terrible vision, and that, when it disappeared from her eyes, she
- should be lifeless in the arms of the person who had caught hold of her.
- </p>
- <p>
- The man who had taken her in his arms was a small tradesman, dealing in
- coals and potatoes, and a little—a very little—greengrocery.
- He lived in a neighbouring street, in a small house, and was blessed with
- a wife and nine children, who were “dragged” up somehow. He was one of the
- first on the spot when the alarm of fire was given. He saw Lotte landed
- from the fire-escape; he observed the agonized expression upon the poor
- girl’s face—heard her low, hysteric sobbing, and saw her totter as
- though she would fall upon her face in the muddy, eddying pool in which,
- barefooted, she was standing. It was enough for him. He drew off instantly
- his heavy coat of “fashionable cable cord,” and, flinging it over her
- shoulders, caught her up in his arms, and raced off to his old ’oman
- with his burden, followed by a small train of women and boys.
- </p>
- <p>
- His wife was no little astonished at this sudden accession to her
- household; but her womanly sympathy was roused immediately she beheld the
- condition of the poor girl, and learned that she had been rescued from the
- raging fire, which her husband had so short a time previously run off to
- see, and she at once busied herself by applying those restoratives, known
- to most women, which, though simple, are efficacious in restoring to
- consciousness those of the sex who fall into swoons.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lotte Clinton, being a girl of strong feelings, was not, however, easily
- brought to a calm sense of her great affliction; on the contrary, she
- recovered from one fainting fit only to fall into another, worse than its
- predecessor; and when, by the aid of the parish doctor, who had been
- called in, she was relieved from successive swoons and thrown into a
- sleep, it was only to awake in a paroxysm of fever and delirium.
- </p>
- <p>
- Two days she lay thus: on the third, late at night, when the hard-worked
- parish doctor made his appearance, in order that he might see his patient
- the last thing, he stood with the woman of the house, at the bed-side of
- the poor girl.
- </p>
- <p>
- Two or three anxious questions were put to him, but he shook his head, as
- the woman thought, ominously.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She is rapidly approaching a crisis,” he said. “By the dawn her fate will
- be decided. She has in her favour youth and a good constitution; but it is
- impossible to tell what may result from the ravages of so fierce a fever
- as that under which she is suffering. We must hope for the best, and leave
- the rest in the hands of God! I think it would be proper to make her
- friends acquainted with her condition, and the sooner they are here at her
- bed-side the better will be their chance of taking their last farewell of
- her.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Those were dread words: ill-omened shadows did they cast. The woman raised
- her apron to her eyes, and gulped audibly, once or twice.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I don’t know where to find her friends, if she has any, poor child!” she
- said, huskily. “My Jem picked her up, out o’ the fire, and brought her
- here; nobody’s been to ax after her; and we don’t know where to go. She’s
- never been in her senses since she was here, else I should have got her to
- tell me; but, lawk! lawk! it is a sad thing for a poor girl like this to
- die away from home, and ne’er a friend or relation to close her poor dear
- eyes. I’m a mother myself, sir! an’ God knows, I should be dreadful
- wretched if one of my babbies was to die away from me in this lonesome
- way.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The poor woman sobbed unaffectedly as she concluded. The doctor, with a
- glittering tear in the corner of his eye, laid his hand gently upon her
- shoulder—
- </p>
- <p>
- “While there is life there is hope, Mrs. Bantom,” he said, kindly. “It is
- too early to despair yet. Had the young woman nothing about her when your
- husband saved her?—no letter?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Lord bless you, nothing on but those night things you see on her; not a
- blessed rag else. My Jem has been a trying if he could learn anything
- about her, but lor! he goes about such matters in sech a bladderheaded
- sort o’ way, that I don’t wonder at his making a bad out on it. He lurches
- and prowls about when he goes to ax for his own in sech a way that people
- are afear’d on him. It was only the other day he went for a little bill,
- which it was a long time a owin’ an’ we wanted the money badly—when
- he explained what he’d come for in sech an in and out round about sort a
- way that the people sent for a policeman believin’ he’d come on the sneak
- to prig the ’ats and mats in the ’all.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The doctor could hardly forbear a smile. He turned his eyes, however, on
- Lotte’s face, and bent his head down closely to listen to her breathing,
- he felt her pulse, timing its rapid beats by his watch; then he laid down
- the unresisting hand, and addressed himself to Mrs. Ban tom.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Poor thing!” he said, “she is very, very ill. If she wakes shortly, give
- to her a dose of the medicine I have brought with me—she must have
- it, especially if she be violent, incoherent, and resists your attempts to
- administer it. Should it not have the effect of pacifying her, send for me
- at once. Good night, Mrs. Bantom. Pray to God to spare her, for she is on
- the threshold of death,” he concluded, with much solemnity in his tone. He
- made his way out of the room. She lighted him down the stairs, and when
- she heard the street-door close she returned to the sick room to watch by
- the side of her friendless patient.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her husband and her children were in bed; he had his long hard day’s work
- to perform on the morrow, and rest was essential to him. The little colony
- of children were better where they were than anywhere else; Mrs. Bantom,
- too, had her share of hard work cut out for her for the next day and
- required sleep, but she did not heed it. She thought only of the poor
- young creature who she believed to be rapidly quitting her brief earthly
- career for one that would have no limit.
- </p>
- <p>
- By the feeble rays of the miserable rushlight burning, she watched the
- flushed face of Lotte, perceiving it become each minute more crimson and
- inflamed-She saw her bosom heave and fall, and she listened with a beating
- heart to her stertorous breathing. She saw her head roll from side to
- side, her burning hands open and shut, and clutch at the bed-clothes. She
- heard with an aching heart the low moan of pain which oozed as it were
- with prolonged mournful cadence from the lips of the poor girl, and she
- prepared for the sudden and violent awakening to which the doctor had
- alluded.
- </p>
- <p>
- But Lotte became silent and motionless again; the only change in her was,
- that her tongue, white and rigid, protruded from her half-opened mouth.
- The heart of good Mrs. Bantom smote her as she observed it, and she feared
- that the fatal moment was indeed at hand. She, however, performed her duty
- as a nurse with watchful perseverance, and with some grapes which the
- doctor had brought, she moistened the dry and parched tongue of poor
- Lotte.
- </p>
- <p>
- This gentle attention, persevered in, passed not unrewarded. She could see
- it had a grateful influence; though, as it seemed to her, Lotte was dying
- in an unconscious state, and would breathe her last without making any
- sign.
- </p>
- <p>
- So, though she knew only the prayers taught to her in childhood, and
- seldom now-a-days went to a place of worship, she remembered the words of
- the doctor, and she knelt down by the bedside. She was unacquainted with
- the subtleties of contending faiths. She had a faith which went deeper:
- she believed implicitly in the supreme power of God, in His ability to
- give and to take away. In that spirit she appealed to Him.
- </p>
- <p>
- She prayed to Him, in earnest sincerity, to grant to the motionless,
- friendless girl, stretched on the bed before her, a longer term, if that,
- by a more extended sojourn on earth, she might know a greater happiness
- than had, perhaps, yet been her lot; but that, if it was the Divine will
- to remove her hence, she implored Him with earnest heart, though with all
- humility and reverence, to take her to His bosom, that the shadow of
- sorrow or affliction might fall upon her never more.
- </p>
- <p>
- When her prayer was ended, she turned her eyes, suffused with tears, upon
- her unconscious patient.
- </p>
- <p>
- She started. The hectic crimson of the girl’s cheek had paled down, and
- was fast changing to a pallid hue. It seemed even that on her brow a
- moisture had appeared. The heavy breathing had abated, as had the moaning
- and uneasy movement of head and hands.
- </p>
- <p>
- Suddenly, Lotte’s eyes opened, and she gazed feebly around her. She looked
- intently at the bare walls, the scanty furniture, and then earnestly upon
- Mrs. Bantom, who was watching her every motion with absorbing eagerness.
- </p>
- <p>
- At length, in a low voice, she murmured, wonderingly—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where—where am I? Who are you? What strange place is this?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs. Bantom’s own common sense told her that the crisis was over; and, so
- far, the girl’s life was saved.
- </p>
- <p>
- With a burst of gratitude, she exclaimed, clasping her hands together—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, my God, you have listened to my prayer! you have heard me, a sinner!
- you have spared her!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Tears checked her voice, and she buried her face once more in the
- bed-clothes.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lotte regarded her with surprise—as, indeed, she did the whole
- situation. She felt strangely weak and powerless. Had she been ill? What
- did it all mean? She repeated the question, in a low voice, and then Mrs.
- Bantom jumped up, and hurried to the medicine bottle. She poured out a
- dose, and said, as tenderly as if Lotte was her own child—
- </p>
- <p>
- “There, drink that, like a good girl, and don’t ask a single question
- until you are stronger; it will be quite time enough to know all then.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Lotte would have persisted, but Mrs. Bantom was peremptory, and she was
- obliged to succumb. Within ten minutes after the medicine had been
- administered, she was asleep.
- </p>
- <p>
- The battle had been fought. Youth, constitution, and judicious treatment
- had won the victory. The abatement of the symptoms was as rapid as had
- been the attack of the fever, and in two days more Lotte was able to sit
- up in bed, and communing with herself, come to a full knowledge of the
- peculiarity and the distressing nature of her situation.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had, in the interval between the crisis and the present moment,
- followed the directions of the doctor, obeyed his instructions, and
- swallowed his medicine with the intrepidity of a martyr. The result had
- been all that could be desired in her progress to health: fresh air was
- only needed to complete the rest.
- </p>
- <p>
- How was that to be got at? How, at present, could she obtain more than
- came in at her window? She had no clothes; all had been destroyed at the
- fire, everything had been consumed, including the very little money she
- had. Her very first impulse had been, on coming to a sense of her
- position, to send for her brother Charley; but, alas! a fellow-clerk had
- embezzled upwards of a thousand pounds from the firm to which they both
- belonged, and had absconded. Charley had been at once charged to accompany
- a detective, engaged to pursue him, to America, and he had started on the
- very night of the fire. He was already on the Atlantic, leaving the shores
- of England at the rate of three hundred miles per day. He had despatched a
- hasty note to Lotte, informing her of the mission upon which he had been
- despatched, and directing her, should she require a little pecuniary
- assistance during his absence, to apply in his name to his firm, and it
- would be readily afforded her.
- </p>
- <p>
- This letter she never got. Charley had slipped it into the letter-box of a
- post-office, on his way to the Euston station, and it was conveyed to its
- destination by the postman on the following morning. But as he was not
- able to deliver it, he returned to the Dead Letter Office, first carefully
- writing upon it, “House burnt down; gone away, not known where.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Bantom was, however, employed by Lotte as a messenger to her brother,
- to inform him of her sad misfortune, but he pursued his inquiries for
- Charley in a manner so mysterious, that he raised in the mind, of the
- Clerk whom he addressed a strong impression that Charley Clinton was
- deeply his debtor, for coals and greengrocery. Now, Charley’s fellow-clerk
- was never out of debt, and had an intense loathing for all creditors; they
- were, he used to say, so offensively pertinacious even when they had got
- an answer, therefore he replied to Mr. Bantom’s questions with curt
- brevity. All Mr. Bantom could gather was, that Charles Clinton had sailed
- for America, and his return was a question involved in obscurity. And the
- clerk facetiously added, “It might not be for years, and it might not be
- for never.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This intelligence was a sad blow to Lotte; what to do she could not tell.
- The honest people who had taken her in to their humble house lived too
- closely from hand to mouth to aid her; indeed, she was already a burden to
- them; they could ill—nay, could not—afford to keep her; this
- she was at no loss to comprehend by what she heard and saw.
- </p>
- <p>
- After her passion of bitter, bitter tears on learning that Charley had
- gone to another quarter of the globe, had passed away, she consulted with
- Mrs. Bantom as to what was to be done.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I cannot lie here,” she exclaimed; “I shall worry myself to death. If I
- could get out, I could get work. I could in some way repay you for your
- kindness, Mrs. Bantom, but to be kept thus—oh, I had better died—
- better have died.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She wrung her hands, and sobbed violently.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It ain’t o’ no use your taking on in this way,” said Mrs. Bantom to her,
- ready to mingle her tears with her, for to say truth, the poor creature
- was easily moved to weep. “Somethin’ ’ll turn up, I’ll be bound. My
- things is too big for you—and too poor—besides, I ain’t got
- much more’n I stand upright in, but I dare say I shall hit on a way to
- dress you afore long, so don’t worrit yourself. As for the bit you eats—lor!
- what’s that among so many on us? there, there, hold your tongue, gal, and
- keep your spirits up; I’ll find a way to help you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- And so she did. She went among her neighbours to make up the different
- articles that constitute the dress of a woman, and poor, as nearly all of
- whom she begged were, none, when they heard Lotte’s frightful story,
- refused her appeal. The poor never refuse to help the poor, if they have
- any means.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her last application, however, should have been her first, for it was to a
- young girl about Lotte’s own age and figure. She was an artificial
- florist, a worker, too, of eighteen hours out of the twenty-four—a
- diligent, unmurmuring, white slave. She was able to sympathise with poor
- Lotte, and she generously offered to lend her all the clothes she would
- require, until she obtained work, and would be able to return them.
- </p>
- <p>
- With delight Mrs. Bantom accepted her offer, and conveyed the clothes to
- Lotte. With yet greater delight did the poor girl attire herself in them,
- and hurry to the house for which she had worked before the fire had
- rendered her homeless. She revealed her unhappy position to the individual
- who had employed her (there are few like him, thank Heaven!) He listened
- coldly to her statement, and finding that six dozen cap fronts, his
- property, had been consumed in the fire, instead of commiserating her,
- abruptly informed her that she must pay for the blonde and flowers before
- she had any more work, and if in two days she did not bring to him the
- amount, he would pay her a visit accompanied by a policeman.
- </p>
- <p>
- Sickened and affrighted, Lotte hurried from the house, her hopes once more
- dashed to the ground, her heart bursting with agony, no one to go to for
- counsel or assistance. What was to be done?
- </p>
- <p>
- Almost frantic, she wandered about without an aim, feeling that she could
- not go back to the kind people who had sheltered her, unless she had some
- prospect of lifting herself out of her desolate destitution, and
- recompensing them, at least, for her board, although she could never repay
- the service and the attention they had rendered to her.
- </p>
- <p>
- She wandered through the streets, growing weak and faint from an exertion
- to which she was not equal, and from being many hours without food,
- gradually becoming desperate, as hopeless. She thought of the coming night
- and the dark waters that swept silently beneath the frowning arches of the
- bridges which spanned their breadth, and an ever-recurring thought kept
- ringing in her ears— <br /><br /><span class="indent25">"Anywhere,
- anywhere— <br /><span class="indent25">Out of the world,” </span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- suddenly her eyes fell upon a printed bill; it said: “One thousand
- cap-front hands wanted!” Not a second elapsed between her discovery of
- that bill and the resting of her trembling hand upon the knocker of the
- door. Her timid summons was responded to, and her application for work met
- with success.
- </p>
- <p>
- She was requested to enter a room and to sit down, and “make a pattern.”
- She was furnished with materials, and it was not long before she produced
- a “front,” which gave great satisfaction to the employer. The answers to
- inquiries put to her being deemed satisfactory, materials for twelve dozen
- fronts were given to her, in a box, which she was to return with her work.
- </p>
- <p>
- With a light heart and a heavy parcel she returned to Mrs. Bantom.
- Constant work was promised to her, provided she was punctual, and her work
- was approved of. She had no fears about that. She promised the work on the
- following Friday night. The task could only be accomplished by incessant
- toil, but she resolved to accomplish it, and she did.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the little squalid bedroom she sat to her exacting toil; few were the
- hours of sleep she obtained during the time between the commencement and
- the close of her labours, but she was rewarded by completing the last
- front within an hour of the time specified. More fit for bed than for a
- journey through the crowded streets, she staggered rather than walked to
- the house of her new employer.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her work was given in, and it was commended. She was told to come the
- following evening, at six, the time when the workers were paid, and bring
- her book, when she would receive the money due to her, and more work would
- be given to her.
- </p>
- <p>
- Elated, she returned to her poor abode, and slept happily that night at
- least. She had in five days and nights—there was not much to be
- taken out for sleep—earned ten shillings. She hoped the next week to
- earn a like sum, and by self-sacrifices, assisted by the kind forbearance
- of the Bantoms, to gradually clear off her debt, and to get herself
- clothes, which she should wear with the satisfaction that they were her
- own.
- </p>
- <p>
- Ah! she raised up wonderful and glittering fabrics, but they were based
- upon most intangible foundations. However, she slumbered lightly, and rose
- refreshed, busying herself the whole of the day in lightening Mrs.
- Bantom’s labours by assisting her in attending to her small regiment of
- blessings.
- </p>
- <p>
- At six o’clock the next evening punctually, and with anxious hopes, she
- stood before the house of her new employer. She looked up wistfully at it.
- It wore a peculiar air of silence and dulness which she had not before
- observed. She did not pause to think upon the impression thus suddenly
- raised, but knocked at the door. A pang smote her breast as it occurred to
- her that a hollow sound echoed through the house on the fall of the
- knocker, as though it was empty. She instinctively again cast her eyes
- upwards; the windows were all closed; there were no blinds, but all was
- dark within the house, and so still—so dreadfully still.
- </p>
- <p>
- She waited: her summons remained unanswered. She knocked again. The same
- hollow sound reverberated through the building, and her heart began to
- sink and die within her.
- </p>
- <p>
- A young girl now came up, stopped at the door, and knocked. She was bound
- upon the same errand as Lotte, save that a fortnight’s work was due to
- her. She had scrambled and starved over the past week, she scarcely knew
- how. Wan and weak, but full of hope, she was here for the miserable sum
- for which she had bartered health, exhausted her strength, and perilled
- her young life.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was no answer to her knock at the door, save the same hollow mocking
- echo, as before.
- </p>
- <p>
- Another girl made her appearance; a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth; all
- here upon one errand—to claim the scanty sum for which they had
- worked, almost from dawn to dawn. They spoke to each other, questioningly:
- they looked into each other’s eyes with dread apprehension, and they
- conversed in low excited tones. The wages they had come to receive had
- been earned with a death-sweat. It was to them of vital consequence.
- </p>
- <p>
- One or two had homes and parents upon whom to fall back for assistance;
- but the loss of the money to the others left them only a choice between
- the streets and the river.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lotte grasped at a railing near her for support. A throng of sharp ringing
- sounds rushed through her brain. She took no part in the conversation. She
- could not have uttered a sound, her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth,
- her throat swelled and contracted as though it would stifle her.
- </p>
- <p>
- She began to lose her perception of what was going on around her.
- Everything seemed to be absorbed in a harrowing consciousness that her
- beggary, her loneliness, and desolation had assumed proportions of more
- terrible magnitude than they had ever yet done—that they surpassed
- her power to endure them longer.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had a dim impression that a person residing next door told them all
- that their employer had fled with his goods ere daybreak, no one knew
- whither.
- </p>
- <p>
- Sickened, heart-broken, Lotte quitted her hold of the railing which had
- sustained her, and staggered away.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was not difficult to find her way to the black and murky river,
- careering swiftly and noiselessly through the heart of the vast metropolis
- down to the sea.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The river! the river!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Those were the only words she muttered.
- </p>
- <p>
- These words of such terrible significance seemed to be shrieked by demons
- in her ears She saw them in fiery characters dancing <i>ignis-fatuus</i>
- like, before her, leading her on to her doom. She followed unresistingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- How she found her way—what route she chose to the river-side—she
- knew not, cared not. She reached a bridge that spanned the dark waters,
- ere she was conscious of her proximity to that grave which could be
- self-made by one desperate plunge.
- </p>
- <p>
- And now the fearful act she contemplated presented itself in its most
- awful guise before her despairing eyes, but not to deter her from her
- frantic purpose. No! If she remained on earth, her future was all black
- and unshapen. There was rest and immunity from the horrors of want and
- destitution in the grave.
- </p>
- <p>
- She knelt down and prayed.
- </p>
- <p>
- She compressed her hands tightly together; a wild hysteric groan, forced
- from her by the intense anguish created by her unutterable thoughts, burst
- from her lips, and she hurried on to the bridge, to end, by one fearful
- plunge, her sorrows and her young life.
- </p>
- <p>
- As she swept on to a recess, blinded by her misery, maddened by a despair
- devoid of one glimmering of hope, the glare from one of the lamps fell
- upon her ghastly face.
- </p>
- <p>
- At that instant a strong hand caught her by the wrist, and a friendly
- voice exclaimed—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Miss Clinton! Miss Clinton!”
- </p>
- <p>
- She fell back against the parapet of the bridge, and the voice changed its
- tone for one of horror and surprise, and it said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good heaven! what is the matter with you? how deadly white you are! What
- has happened?—where are you going?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “To die!—to die!”—she murmured, hoarsely, but faintly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hush! hush! my dear friend,” said he who stayed her, in a soft and
- slightly reproving tone, and added—“calm yourself, I entreat you; do
- not speak for a minute or so; collect your thoughts, and then turn your
- eyes on me. I am a friend. I have a right to that title, and you will
- acknowledge it presently. I claim to aid you in affliction or trial. You
- will not, I am sure, Miss Clinton, refuse consolation or help in need from
- Harry Vivian.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Lotte uttered a faint, hysteric cry; she clutched his arm, and bowed her
- head upon his breast. She knew he had the power to help her; she knew he
- would. As she clung to him, he felt her frame tremble and quiver as though
- she had been smitten with an ague, and her hot tears fell fast upon the
- hand which held hers, and pressed it re-assuringly. He let her weep.
- </p>
- <p>
- In a few minutes, he whispered—
- </p>
- <p>
- “We will not stay here, Lotte. It is chill and cold, and we excite
- attention from the passers-by.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He conducted her from the bridge but a few steps only, for she was nearly
- powerless, and unable longer to continue the struggle without fatigue. He
- quickly perceived it, and had some notion of the cause; so he said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am so glad I have found you at last. I have made many efforts, since
- the night of the fire, to discover you, but in vain. Not alone to satisfy
- my own anxiety respecting you, but to allay the apprehensions of your
- friend. Miss Wilton, to whom you were so kind in her hour of bitter trial.
- Ah, Lotte! her misery is all past, her future life promises to be one of
- supreme happiness, if wealth and station can ensure it. Come to her now:
- she so wishes to see you again. It is not so far: a cab will quickly take
- us to her. You will have, at least, a kindly sympathetic ear in which to
- pour your sorrows, and—who knows?—the meeting between you may
- be the termination of all your trials and sufferings.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Lotte tried to reply. An inarticulate murmur was all that escaped her
- lips. Her deep emotion did not so easily admit of suppression.
- </p>
- <p>
- A cab opportunely approached, and Hal engaged it. He lifted Lotte in: she
- had not power to help herself. He followed her into the vehicle, and gave
- his directions to the driver.
- </p>
- <p>
- The man whipped his horse, and the cab rattled away from the bridge.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lotte thought of the sombre river, whirling on grimly, and she shuddered
- violently.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal pressed her hand.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The gloomiest lane, Lotte,” he whispered, “sometimes leads us to the
- brightest land.”
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XIII.—THE FORGED DEED.
- </h2>
- <p class="indent15">
- The same self-love in all becomes the cause <br /><span class="indent15">Of
- what restrains him, government and laws. <br /><span class="indent15">For
- what one likes, if others like as well, <br /><span class="indent15">What
- serves one will, when many wills rebel? <br /><span class="indent15">How
- shall he keep what, sleeping or awake, <br /><span class="indent15">A
- weaker may surprise, a stronger take? <br /><span class="indent30">—Pope.
- <br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r. Grahame’s
- dissertation upon the improvement of land and the general economy and
- management of estates had been abruptly interrupted by the entrance of his
- daughter into the room where the guests and family were assembled. His
- apathetic and somewhat drowsy auditor, the young Duke, immediately on
- observing the approach of Helen Grahame, with a slight excuse to his host,
- emancipated himself from the dull topic droned into his ears, and advanced
- hastily to meet her.
- </p>
- <p>
- Almost at the same moment, Whelks entered the apartment, with a printed
- card upon a silver salver. It was <i>not</i> an elegant production—the
- typography was bold and in effect smudgy, and the general get-up smacked
- rather loudly of the Seven Dials’ press.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was dingy, too, and nibbled at the corners, indicating cogitation on
- the part of the person whom it represented, the pasteboard having been
- used unconsciously instead of the grimy thumb-nail.
- </p>
- <p>
- The quick eye of Mr. Grahame caught sight of it almost the instant Whelks
- crossed the threshold of the door, carrying it very much with the air of
- one who had a huge slug on a plate, which he was seeking the earliest
- opportunity to dispose of.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame’s eyes flashed fire. What could the idiot mean by bringing to
- him such a dun, drabby bit of card at such a moment. He glared at Whelks,
- who remained unaffected; his gaze was upon the soiled article he carried,
- and his reflections far away into the future, resting upon the rosy hour
- when, liberated from flunkeydom, he should, with Sarah the cook, unite
- hands and savings, and go into business. It was not, he thought, with such
- “a hinfamous fustian smelling objek” as that which rested on the silver
- salver, as though it had no business there, that he should make his
- business announcement to a British public, bursting with a desire to deal
- with him. And as he dreamed thus, he reached his master.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs. Grahame and Margaret Claverhouse, both with an astonishment and
- indignation which their indomitable pride could barely repress, saw upon
- the silver salver, in the hands of Whelks, the offensively dusky, shabby
- card, and if glances could slay, Whelks’ remains would have been spread
- over the magnificently “Sang"-decorated walls. Hewas, however, as we have
- said, all unconscious of the effect he was creating upon the members of
- the household, and he reached Mr. Gra-hame only to perceive him glowering
- upon him like a tiger, inflamed with most sanguinary intentions.
- </p>
- <p>
- With a low, guttural growl, he was about to make known to Whelks the
- nature of his convictions in having, at such an inopportune moment, thrust
- upon him so foul a communication, when his eye caught sight of the name—printed,
- according to the trade term, in fat-faced Egyptian—of Chewkle. He
- felt as if some one had suddenly smote him on the head with a club, and he
- broke into a cold sweat.
- </p>
- <p>
- This man was in possession of his horrid secret; he was in his power; at
- any time he could blazon forth to the world that a Grahame, the proudest
- of a proud family, had committed a base act of forgery. He was now
- amenable to the law of transportation—liable to be torn from his
- present high position, and compelled to work and toil with thieves and
- scoundrels in a penal colony.
- </p>
- <p>
- These reflections, none the less vivid for presenting themselves in that
- brilliantly lighted room, and in the presence of guests of high birth,
- made his face grow white, and his knees tremble.
- </p>
- <p>
- He whipped up the card and thrust it into his pocket, hoping that it had
- escaped the eyes of all but himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- Whelks delivered, then, an urgent message from Chewkle, and Mr. Grahame
- said, in a low tone—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Where is he?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In the ’orl, sir,” returned the footman, with a perked-up nose.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Show him into the library; I will come to him immediately,” exclaimed Mr.
- Grahame, in the same tone as before.
- </p>
- <p>
- Whelks bowed, and departed to obey the instructions he had received, and
- then to discuss with Sarah the nature of the business of a “Kermission
- Agent,” as he styled Chewkle’s occupation, and wherefore it should, as it
- appeared to him that it most certainly did, obtain so great an influence
- over such a man as Mr. Grahame.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame perceiving that Helen had absorbed the attention of the Duke
- and Lester Vane, glided out of the room into the library. As he entered it
- he became conscious of a strong smell of the “fragrant weed,” which,
- however, to his olfactory nerves had not “the scent of the rose,” and he
- saw Mr. Chewkle, with part of a truly British cheroot in his hand,
- standing near to the lamp upon the table, harassed by doubts as to the
- propriety of relighting it or the propriety of doing nothing of the sort.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame bowed patronisingly, but said hastily—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not smoking, I hope, Mr. Chewkle!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” returned Chewkle; “it was out afore I came in, but I thought if you
- didn’t mind, you know——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But, indeed, I do mind!” responded Mr. Grahame, quickly, and then added
- most fiercely, as he perceived the red and begrimed face of his visitor,
- his dirty collar, his necktie and his hair disordered, all indicating the
- frequent quaffing and replenishment of “the glass which cheers” and <i>does</i>
- inebriate—“Pray tell me, Mr. Chewkle, to what circumstance I am to
- attribute your visit at, to me, a most inconvenient time?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, sir, things happens without particularly caring for our
- convenience,” answered Chewkle, with a hiccup, which left a strong odour
- of some beverage—not green tea—behind it. “We would all like
- things to fall out jest as we would wish ‘em, but they don’t, an’ it seems
- as if the more you wish ’em the more they won’t.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” said Mr. Grahame, not liking this preface.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” continued Chewkle, “an’ when things run cross, we must, if we
- wants to right ’em, go to work at once, without caring about
- convenience. At least, them’s my sentiments, an’ that’s my way o’ doing
- business.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A very proper way, no doubt, my good friend,” exclaimed Mr. Grahame,
- growing yet more anxious, “but pray tell me what <i>has</i> happened.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, a very orkurd matter, as things stand,” replied Mr. Chewkle.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is it?—what is it?” cried Mr. Grahame, feverishly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, just this—old Wilton’s out.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Out?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, out o’ quod.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Out—out—out of prison?” gasped Mr. Grahame, clutching at a
- chair for support.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing else,” replied Chewkle, placing his hands behind him, and rocking
- himself backwards and forwards on his toes and heels, in a very dangerous
- fashion for one in his state.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Escaped—escaped?” inquired Mr. Grahame, his eyes almost starting
- out of their sockets.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No such luck!” answered Chewkle, “if he had, he’d a’ soon been nabbed
- agen, and taken back to ha’ been kept closer than ever.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you mean?—speak out, man! you are inflicting upon me
- indescribable torture!” exclaimed Grahame, excitedly. “Is he—is he
- dead?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dead! no; he’s got more lives than a cat, he has. No, sir; he’s out of
- quod because he’s been and paid all the money.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Paid the money!” echoed Mr. Grahame, incredulously.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Every mag of it, sir—every farthing. He has wiped off the detainer
- lodged at the gate agen’ him, and he is free to roam about agen.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame stood as if thunder-stricken.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Impossible!” he ejaculated, like one in a dream.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Fact, sir, all the same for that. I saw Scathe, the managing clerk to
- your solicitor, and he told me all about it. The debts and costs is paid,
- and Wilton is out. The money has been paid under protest, sir; so you
- can’t touch a penny on it until you’ve proved your right to it by a
- haction-at-law. Scathe says he don’t think anything o’ that, because the
- firm holds a dockyment, which Wilton has signed in your favour, as ’ll
- put him out o’ court slap. Now, what I wants to know is this—is the
- dockyment he spoke of the same as——”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame clutched his wrist, looked around him with trepidation, and
- raised his finger warningly. Mr. Chewkle hiccuped again, and lowered his
- tone, and added—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Is it the same as—as—as you signed for him?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame drew a deep breath, but made no reply. Chewkle was a shrewd
- reader of physiognomy, and obtained the information he sought from the
- distorted workings of Mr. Grahame’s haggard features. He gave vent to his
- sensations on learning what he sought to know, in a low, prolonged
- whistle.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Things is wuss than I took them to be,” he murmured. Then he addressed
- Mr. Grahame. “Who do you think?” he asked, “it is as has been making
- himself so very hactive in getting old Wilton out o’ Hudson’s Hotel *
- —you won’t guess. Why it’s that little saffron-jawed imidge, who
- dropped in so unexpected when you jest finished that bit o’ writing for
- the hobstinate Wilton.”
- </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
- * The Queen’s Bench.
-</pre>
- <p>
- “My God!” gasped Grahame, “has <i>he</i> assisted Wilton?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Paid the money, I believe, sir; and is going to stand his friend in the
- law case,” observed Chewkle, emphatically.
- </p>
- <p>
- Grahame clasped his hands and paced the room in agitation, he passed his
- feverish fingers convulsively over his temples. “What is to be done—what
- is to be done?” he cried, “I have commenced to act upon that accursed
- document. I thought he never, never would come out of prison, but would
- die there; and urged by the frightfully pressing nature of my necessity—my
- situation in connection with the estates to which I lay claim—I
- lodged the deed with my lawyer, and ordered him to proceed upon it. He has
- commenced—I know he has commenced; the deed is registered—all
- will be discovered, and—oh, my God! what will ensue?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Transportation for life to a dead certainty,” replied Chewkle, in slow,
- emphatic tones, “You’ll be called upon to prove the signatur—you
- can’t do that; then, o’ course it’s a forgery. Well, who did it? You got
- to show how you come by it—you can’t do that; and then you’ll be
- found guilty, and sentenced for life. That’s clear, I think.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Chewkle felt himself, at the conclusion of his speech, seized by the
- throat.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Villain,” cried Mr. Grahame, froth foaming and bubbling from his mouth.
- “This was your hellish counsel; but for your infernal suggestion and
- complicity, I should never have thought of it, but you shall share my fate—my
- fate—transportation. Oh! horror, horror—my house—my
- family! I—I—death—death—”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Chewkle felt the cold clammy fingers of his antagonist loosen, and as
- the last words died on his lips, he saw him stagger back, and before he
- could catch him, he fell to the ground in a fit.
- </p>
- <p>
- Chewkle’s first impulse was to call for help, but instantly it flashed
- across his mind that he should have a thousand questions to answer,
- besides being regarded with looks of distrust and suspicion. He had no
- wish, at that hour, and in the rather free style and state of his costume,
- to have to encounter the family, to explain that which it was so important
- should be left unexplained, and he proceeded to attempt himself to play
- the part of a medical attendant. Mr. Chewkle was stronger than he looked,
- and he had need of all his strength to pin Mr. Grahame to the floor,
- during the violent paroxysms of the fit by which he had been seized. He
- succeeded, by dint of tremendous exertion, in overmastering the desperate
- struggles of the prostrate man, and when they had ceased, he loosened his
- neckcloth, obtained some water from a bottle upon the table, bathed his
- temples and lips with it until Mr. Grahame opened his eyes, and gazed
- wildly around him, like one waking up out of some dreadful dream.
- </p>
- <p>
- After a few incoherent expressions, he became once more alive to his
- position.
- </p>
- <p>
- He walked up and down his library, wringing his hands, and displaying the
- greatest possible mental anguish.
- </p>
- <p>
- Suddenly he paused before Chewkle, and with a stern countenance, he said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Through blindly following your counsel, I have placed myself in a
- situation of awful peril. Tell me, what must be done to avoid the dreadful
- degradation with which I am threatened—how is this frightful false
- step to be retrieved?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not by going on, sir, as if you’d gone stark, staring mad!” answered
- Chewkle, rather brusquely. “There’s a good deal at stake, you know; and
- there’s only one way to make the best of a bad game—that’s by being
- as cool as hice, and as clear about the head-piece. You must be slow to
- think and decide, but prompt to hact. You are in a mess, that’s pretty
- certain; the only way to get out of it, is to be quite calm and easy-like,
- to calculate your chances carefully, to say not a word to nobody but them
- you must employ, and fight it out to the last, hinch for hinch.”
- </p>
- <p>
- This advice seemed tolerably sound, but Mr. Grahame could not reflect
- calmly, nor calculate coldly; he could do nothing but have shifting
- visions of the happy time of youth, when he was free from the cares and
- responsibilities of life, and of the grim, shadowy, future, lying behind a
- curtain of black and obscure vapour; they were mingled in one picture,
- whirling and rioting through his aching brain, and incapacitating him from
- sitting down to plan a scheme, by which he might escape the consequences
- of the crime he had committed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is useless,” he said, at length, impatiently, “to expect from me, in
- my present excitement, any suggestion dictated by cool reflection. My
- brain is in chaotic confusion; it is racked with agony. I feel that
- something must instantly be done, but what—what, my good Chewkle,
- cannot you devise something?—you are cooler than I am.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, you see, if the wust comes to the wust, sir,” responded Mr.
- Chewkle, calculatingly, “I shan’t be hit so hard as you; I can afford to
- be cooler; now my notion is, that the first thing to be done is to get
- hold of that jeuced dockyment, and when got hold on, to drop it quietly
- into the fire.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A good thought; I’ll send for it at once to my solicitor——”
- </p>
- <p>
- “They won’t be at the hoffice now,” interposed Chewkle. “You must let me
- manage it. I’ll be with ’em afore nine to morrow morning, so as to
- bust upon ’em afore they opens their letters, or commences looking
- at papers which have been served on ’em in different causes, an’
- I’ll be in such a fluster an’ hurry to get back to you, that I’ll get the
- dockyment out of ’em, instead of being put off with a promise to
- look it out and send it by a clerk. We can’t wait, you know; we <i>must</i>
- have it; and you’ll see I’ll bring it back with me all right.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “My best of friends, how can I reward you?” said Mr. Grahame, clutching at
- hope and relief from the scheme proposed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” said Mr. Chewkle, “a tenner will do for me jest now; I ain’t
- greedy, though I am short of money.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame was here made to understand that a ten pound note was needed;
- he drew one promptly from his purse, and gave it to Chewkle, who instantly
- transferred it to his badly worn portmonnaie, which he plunged into the
- depths of his pocket.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You must write a note—a strong note—to your solicitor, sir,”
- he observed, when the money was stowed away, “directing him to give to <i>me</i>
- the deed—mention my name—immediately on the receipt of your
- note—dash under ‘immediately’—that will throw him off his
- guard; he will give the dockyment to me; I’ll bring it to you, and then
- you can destroy it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But it is registered, and that will afford proof that there was such a
- document,” suggested Mr. Grahame, nervously.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, that there was, perhaps,” answered Chewkle; “but what of that?—who’s
- to prove ’andwriting on a thing that ain’t forthcoming?—who’s
- to substantiate a charge of forgery”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hush! for Heaven’s sake!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, who’s to substantiate such a charge upon a thing as don’t exist—that
- can’t be put in in support of the case. It can’t be done.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But—but what if proceedings have already commenced, and my lawyer
- is prepared to put in that deed to bar the claim they will make?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But he musn’t.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But what if he has this very day? for I urged him to proceed with all
- speed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, then we must be prepared to prove that it <i>is</i> Wilton’s
- signature.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That it <i>is</i> his?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “’Zackly. I don’t want more in this affair than ourselves, but we
- musn’t be beat while there is a chance of winning. Suppose I swears I saw
- him sign the deed, and suppose old Jukes swears <i>he</i> saw him do it,
- and suppose his follerers, Sudds and dirty Nutty, swears they stood by,
- and saw it signed—how then? There’s nothing can be brought against
- us to invalidate our evidence, and what could the hother side do then? Old
- Wilton will swear, of course, hard and fast, that he did not sign, but
- what then?—you don’t appear in the matter? you commissioned me to
- get it signed, and I brings forard three respectable men, who swears—swears,
- mind—they saw him sign it; who’ll be believed then? he wouldn’t have
- a leg to stand on. These men will be difficult to get, but they’ve got
- their price, sir, and are to be had.”
- </p>
- <p>
- All these remarks and suggestions, rascally as they were, afforded comfort
- to Mr. Grahame. They conveyed to him a glimmering of hope that the
- difficulty, after all, was not so desperate as he had presumed it to be.
- He recoiled at the notion of having to work with such dirty instruments—when,
- however, did dishonesty and crime ever work with other tools?—but he
- did not recoil at the work itself.
- </p>
- <p>
- To obtain a vast advantage, at the price of the misery and destruction of
- another, would not have occasioned him a moment’s remorse, or in any
- degree have ruffled his equanimity or serenity, but to accomplish that
- task by the aid of a small knot of low rascals, was the source of extreme
- annoyance and vexation to him. Still if the object could not be obtained
- without such assistance, he elected to employ it rather than forego his
- purpose; they were the means to the end at which he sought to arrive,
- disagreeable enough, but necessary to the result—and, as such,
- accepted.
- </p>
- <p>
- The alternative of stoutly maintaining the forged signature of Wilton to
- be genuine, had not struck him. The suggestion was a valuable one, and he
- resolved to treasure it up. It occurred to him that his own word would
- have weight in a Court of Justice, from the high position which he held in
- society, and if he repudiated having had anything to do with the
- signature, or of having been present when it was being signed—he
- would in all probability be believed, not alone because it would seem the
- natural course for him, wanting the signature, to have pursued to obtain
- it, but because it would be considered incredible that he had descended to
- any unworthy artifice or to crime even, to have possessed himself of it.
- Its return to his own possession was, however, of the first importance;
- its destruction would raise another question, to be settled hereafter. So
- he sat down, and penned the letter to his solicitor, the outlines of which
- Chewkle had supplied.
- </p>
- <p>
- As he completed it, and inclosed it in an envelope, he said to Chewkle—
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am disturbed to learn that Mr. Gomer has interested himself in Wilton’s
- favour. That fact tells rather against my interests. He is a singular man
- is Mr. Gomer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Sing’lar, sir,” echoed Chewkle; “he’s as yallar as a canary; he’s
- everywhere at once, and people says he’s as rich as ‘creeses,’ though why
- <i>they</i> should be called rich I never could understand, unless it is
- they grows in profusion, an’ you get ’em at six bunches a penny.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is a very extraordinary man,” said Grahame, musingly; “a very
- extraordinary man—enormously wealthy. I fear the man—I fear
- him. I don’t know why, but I feel terrified in his presence, and I shudder
- when I think of him.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is orful hugly, and that is the truth,” observed Chewkle,
- emphatically, adding, “don’t talk about him, sir, or I’m blow’d if you
- won’t find him at your elber. Shouldn’t be surprised to see him walk out
- o’ the dark at the end of the room there.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pshaw!” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, with a slight shudder, as Chewkle jerked
- his thumb over his left shoulder to the part of the room then in shadow.
- To confess the truth, he would not have been surprised, though he might
- have been appalled, to have seen the apparition of Nathan Gomer in the
- spot pointed out, but he would not appear to acknowledge so much to
- Chewkle.
- </p>
- <p>
- He finished the superscription of the note, and handed it to his agent,
- saying—
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will deliver this to the principal of the firm, and I presume I may
- expect you here about ten tomorrow morning?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It will all depend upon what time the principal comes to business in the
- morning, sir,” answered, Chewkle, “but I shall be there afore the postman,
- and I’ll have the deed safe enough, depend on it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Of course it was this business alone that induced you to come here
- to-night?” inquired Mr. Grahame, almost fearing to ask, in case there
- might be further unpleasant communications for him to receive.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothen’ else, sir,” returned Chewkle, although the bank note was the
- principal occasion of his visit. “When I learned the news about Wilton, I
- thought it my duty to lose no time in letting you know—knowing what
- I knowed, you know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, yes, yes—quite right—you did quite right,” observed
- Grahame, hastily. “Let me see you with the deed as early as you can in the
- morning. Good night, Chewkle.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame rang for Whelks as he spoke, and was promptly answered by the
- immediate appearance of his man, who had applied his ear to the keyhole
- with most persevering zeal, in the hope to unravel the mystery of
- Chewkle’s audiences with his proud and haughty master, but he had caught
- nothing—but the ear-ache, which subsequently took him for a walk up
- and down his bedroom all night, to the doctor’s in the morning, afterwards
- to Covent Garden Market for poppy heads, and subsequently it treated
- itself to scorching flannel, blistering fermentations, and applications of
- hot and cold vinegar, until Whelks was nearly pickled.
- </p>
- <p>
- On the disappearance of his servant and Chewkle, Mr. Grahame returned to
- his guests with a smiling face and perfect serenity of manner, although
- every one in the room noticed his haggard aspect and the ghastly whiteness
- of his face. As he made no complaint, they were too well bred to make any
- remark, and, exerting himself to please, his pallid anxiousness passed
- without further observation.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the meanwhile, Chewkle followed Whelks down stairs. The first twinges
- of pain were introducing themselves to Whelks’ notice. A sensation as if
- he was being repeatedly stabbed in the ear with a bradawl was the first
- intimation he had of something unpleasant coming on. He had a dim notion
- at the same time that Chewkle was addressing him as “guv’nor,” but the
- lunges with the figurative brad-awl were so brisk when they once
- commenced, that he was plunged into the wildest confusion, being for the
- moment uncertain whether he was descending to the mat at the foot of the
- stairs upon his highly-floured locks, or upon his tight patent pumps.
- </p>
- <p>
- Chewkle, on reaching the hall, however, made him understand that he was
- anxious to get change for a ten-pound note, and wished to know where he
- could achieve it; Whelks, who was desirous of holding a little
- conversation with him, in hopes to worm something out of him, explanatory
- of the strange and anomalous influence he evidently possessed with the
- head of the household, offered to accommodate him, having, he said he
- believed, as much gold in his purse. He produced it, and displayed to the
- greedy eyes of Chewkle some eighteen or twenty sovereigns.
- </p>
- <p>
- As Whelks counted out the gold, a storm of stabs set in on the inner
- portion of his ear, so that he grew embarrassed and handed a number of
- sovereigns to Chewkle, saying, as his eyes overran with water—
- </p>
- <p>
- “See if they are right—ow! ow! ow! I’ve the dreadfullest pangs.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Chewkle counted eleven sovereigns, and said the amount was quite right. He
- handed the note to Whelks, and thrust the sovereigns into his pocket.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I was goin’ to say to you, sir,” commenced Whelks, “that I should like to
- have a ’arf-’our’s chat with you, if—ow! ow! ow! I never.
- Wheugh! oh, my hear.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bad thing,” said Chewkle, anxious to get off with the extra sovereign; “I
- should ’ave it hout.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “’Ave it hout?” echoed Whelks, “hits my hear, sir—ow! ow!
- ow!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, yes,” responded Chewkle, inattentive to everything but getting away,
- “’ave it hout by all means—get it done for a bob. Good night,
- good night.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He darted through the doorway, as the porter threw open the door to admit
- a friend of his own, and made the best of his way to his home.
- </p>
- <p>
- He lay awake, after getting to bed, for some time, busily plotting; and,
- before he dropped asleep, he made up his mind how he would act.
- </p>
- <p>
- By half-past eight in the morning, he appeared before the door of the
- offices of Mr. Grahame’s solicitors. He knocked, and the laundress who was
- setting the clerk’s office “to rights,” admitted him. He pretended to be
- surprised that no clerk was there, but on his stating that he had been
- sent, upon business of the utmost importance, by a client of the firm, and
- that he must not go back without an answer, the woman accommodated him
- with a seat.
- </p>
- <p>
- He sat motionless, but watched her movements closely. He observed her
- enter an inner apartment the consulting room of the principal. She
- remained in there some little time, and when she returned, he engaged her
- in conversation in a chatty, affable, familiar way, silently observing, at
- the same time, that she placed the key of the inner apartment in a
- particular spot.
- </p>
- <p>
- Presently she was summoned to make the breakfast of one of <i>her</i>
- clients, on another floor, and, telling Chewkle that the clerk would
- shortly arrive, she left him alone. He watched her, through the keyhole,
- ascend the stairs, then he heard a door above bang, and her foot
- reverberating overhead.
- </p>
- <p>
- With the greatest possible quickness he made for the spot where the key
- was placed, and, securing it, unlocked the door of the inner apartment,
- and glided into the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- He gazed sharply around at the boxes on the shelves, and upon one
- japanned, large and square, he saw printed in white letters, the name of
- Grahame, and beneath it the date of the year. He made for it, and opened
- it noiselessly. It was three parts full of papers. Upon the very top was
- the deed for which he had come thither. He recognised the endorsement, but
- he opened it, and at the bottom saw Wilton’s signature as Grahame had
- written it. The sight of the name was sufficient. He carefully closed the
- box, retreated from the room, replaced the key where he had taken it from,
- put the deed beneath his waistcoat, and then buttoned his coat over that
- up to his chin.
- </p>
- <p>
- He reseated himself in pretty much the same position as that he had taken
- when the laundress left him, and upon his face he wore a blank expression,
- leaving it a debateable point whether he was more stupid than innocent.
- </p>
- <p>
- The clock of a neighbouring church struck nine!
- </p>
- <p>
- About ten minutes afterwards the door opened, and a young man about two
- and twenty entered. He started on seeing Chewkle, and looked as
- disconcerted as a man who comes suddenly upon a creditor whom he cannot
- pay, the said creditor being inexorable and rapacious, and money his only
- pacificator. If such were the clerk’s feelings, his apprehensions were
- relieved by Chewkle stating the object of his visit.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Governor won’t be here till ten,” replied the clerk; “I can’t open his
- letters: and if I did I don’t dare give up any papers. You must wait till
- he comes.” He gave Chewkle back the letter and told him to take his seat
- again, which Chewkle did.
- </p>
- <p>
- About half-past nine Chewkle said, suddenly, that he wanted to make a call
- at no great distance off, and he thought he might as well go on that
- business as sit there doing nothing until ten, by which hour he could
- certainly be again at the office. The clerk said he thought so too. So
- Chewkle went leisurely away.
- </p>
- <p>
- No sooner out of sight of the office than he jumped into a cab, and drove
- to his own house, and in a secret place deposited in an iron chest, with
- other articles of value, the deed he had purloined. He locked the chest
- safely, and once more made his way to the street, where he hired another
- cab, rattled back to the neighbourhood of the lawyer’s office, discharged
- it, and entered the office at three minutes to ten.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Governor not here yet,” said the clerk; “sit down.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Chewkle obeyed, looking vacant; laughing stupidly when the eye of the
- clerk caught his. “What a pump,” thought the young man.
- </p>
- <p>
- Chewkle felt slightly uneasy, for fear the managing clerk Scathe should
- make his appearance and recognise him, but he calculated he was engaged at
- Westminster, in a cause, and would be hunting up witnesses before he made
- his appearance at the office.
- </p>
- <p>
- As the thought passed through his mind, the door was flung open, and the
- principal of the firm entered. Chewkle rose up and handed him the letter.
- </p>
- <p>
- “From Mr. Grahame, Regent’s Park,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh!” said the solicitor, with a smile. “An answer?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pray be seated. I will give you one immediately.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The clerk handed to his principal the key of his room; he took it,
- unlocked the door, and, passing in, closed it after him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Chewkle sat and waited for the <i>dènouèment</i>, as if he was engaged
- counting the letters in the printed notices of sittings in term, stuck up
- over the fireplace.
- </p>
- <p>
- Presently a bell rang, and the clerk entered the room, closing the door
- after him, Chewkle still reading the printed paper. Some time elapsed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Somethin’s happened, shouldn’t wonder,” muttered Chewkle, still staring
- at the printed bill.
- </p>
- <p>
- By and by the clerk made his appearance, and said o Chewkle—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Step in, please.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He led the way into the inner apartment, and Chewkle saw the solicitor
- with a flushed face and excited countenance, going through the papers in
- the box with the name of Grahame painted upon it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your name is Chewkle, I believe,” said the solicitor, as Chewkle
- approached him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That is my name, and no other, sir,” he replied. “Hem! You were sent
- hither for a deed by Mr. Grahame—eh?” inquired the lawyer.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A deed, sir—why, he said ’twas to be a paper packet,”
- returned Chewkle.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes—yes. Do you know what the paper was about?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Me, sir?—no, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nor why Mr. Grahame is so anxious to have it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Me, sir?—no, sir?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Um!—very odd—very remarkable, indeed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Scathe must have got it, or put it somewhere,” suggested the clerk.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I can furnish no other solution of the mystery,” answered the principal
- in the same tone. “But if that is the case, Mr. Scathe is very much to
- blame, and will not fail, to be made acquainted with my opinion to that
- effect.” Then raising his voice, he addressed Chewkle. “Be good enough to
- tell Mr. Grahame that I will send the deed up to him by one of my clerks.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He told me to say, sir, that he couldn’t wait for that, so I was to bring
- it with me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He could not wait for <i>that!</i> What do you mean?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, sir, I s’pose he thought you might be busy and would put off
- sending the packet to him until it suited your convenience.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah! I see—um! Well, deliver the message I have given you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But he said I warn’t to go without it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Return to Mr. Grahame, my man, and say I will send it up to—him—by—my—clerk!”
- exclaimed the solicitor, speaking, under increasing irritation, with
- marked emphasis.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can’t go back without it, sir, on no consideration,” persisted Chewkle,
- assuming a dogged manner, “them’s my instructions.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The solicitor looked fiercely at him, and raising his voice, said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “You can’t have it. I say—you—can’t—have it. It is not
- come-at-able at this moment! do you understand?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Chewkle quite understood that. It was certainly not come-at-able, unless
- some one picked the lock of his iron safe, but he appeared not to
- comprehend anything, except that he was ordered not to return without a
- paper.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Dolt!” growled the solicitor, angrily.
- </p>
- <p>
- He sat down and penned a note to Mr. Grahame, stating that his managing
- clerk—as the business was being pushed on—had the deed under
- his charge; he was at the moment down at Westminster engaged upon a cause,
- but that on his return the deed should be forwarded to Mr. Grahame.
- </p>
- <p>
- Folding up his note, and directing it, he gave it to Chewkle, saying—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Deliver that to Mr. Grahame;” turning sharply to his clerk, he added,
- “Mr. Crumpler, show him out.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Crumpler caught Chewkle by the coat sleeve, drew him into the outer
- office, and pointed significantly to “the way out.” Chewkle exhibited his
- teeth—no mistaking them for pearls—to Mr. Crumpler, and obeyed
- the sign. He descended the stairs rapidly, and moved along the footway of
- the street, quivering in the throes of what he considered an immense
- triumph.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A hincome for life,” he muttered, “that deed will be as good as a ’nuity
- to me. I can bleed Grahame of jest whatever I pleases by threatening of
- him. I ain’t agoin’ to let him know I’ve got the forged hinstru-ment, but
- I shall, in good time, ’int as I knows where it is, and I can keep
- it dark, or blow it, jest whichever I likes. ‘Find it and send it up,’ ha!
- ha! by Mr. Walker I s’pose. They little thinks I nabbed it, none of ’em
- will ever dream o’ that—I could lay a ’undred to one about
- that, I could.”
- </p>
- <p>
- As he offered to lay these very long odds, he ran up against Nathan Gomer.
- </p>
- <p>
- The visage of the little man shone like burnished gold. His eyes danced
- and sparkled, and he chuckled as if animated by the most pleasurable
- emotions.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Aha! friend Chewkle,” he exclaimed, placing his cold, fishy hand upon
- Chewkle’s fevered wrist; “you are active this morning—full of
- business—away from home to a lawyer’s office—then hurrying
- back in a cab to your charmingly retired abode—away in a cab back to
- the solicitors, and now, ha! ha! eh? I’ll be sworn to Mr. Grahame’s, in
- the Regent’s Park, with <i>a</i> communication—I say <i>a</i>
- communication, he! he! Brisk fellow, sharp fellow, smart dog.” He poked
- Chewkle in the ribs, and Chewkle felt as if the dent his finger made
- remained, and would continue a hole for the rest of his life. “Oh”
- continued Nathan, “I am so partial to sharp fellows, especially when they
- move about so nimbly to serve others, without a thought of serving
- themselves, eh, friend Chewkle?—I say without one thought of doing
- themselves a small turn.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Chewkle tried to laugh, but no sound issued from his distended jaws. He
- felt his flesh crawl and creep over his bones, and his marrow vibrate; his
- scalp seemed to have the “pins and needles,” and his hair to rise slowly
- up, dust and all, threatening to tilt his hat into the mud.
- </p>
- <p>
- Nathan grinned at him like a Hindoo idol, nodded, and, diving among the
- flowing stream of persons ceaselessly passing on, disappeared. Chewkle
- shuddered, and drew a long breath. “I believe he’s the devil hisself,” he
- groaned, and slowly—now doubtfully—pursued his way to
- Grahame’s abode, made very uneasy by the conviction that the secret of his
- morning’s performance was not exclusively confined to himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XIV.—LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT.
- </h2>
- <p class="indent15">
- <i>Tra</i>.—I pray, sir, tell me—is it possible <br /><span
- class="indent20">That love should of a sudden take such hold? <br /><span
- class="indent15"><i>Luc.</i>—Oh, Tranio, till I found it to be true,
- <br /><span class="indent20">I never thought it possible or likely; <br /><span
- class="indent20">But see while idly I stood looking on, <br /><span
- class="indent20">I found the effect of love in idleness. <br /><span
- class="indent30">—Shakspere. <br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hen Hal Vivian and
- Flora Wilton, summoned by Nathan Gomer, rejoined old Wilton, prior to his
- departure from the Queen’s Bench, they found him at the gate, leading into
- the ante-chamber or cage, through which every incomer or outgoer must
- pass, awaiting them.
- </p>
- <p>
- He appeared, in the eyes of both Flora and Hal, to have become another
- being.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was yet meanly clad, his face was still furrowed, and bore the lines of
- care and sorrow, and his hair straggled loosely and wildly; but there was
- a brilliancy in his eye, recently so dim; there was a hectic flush upon
- his cheek, of late wan and pallid; and his figure, some few hours past
- drooping, the symbol of hopeless wretchedness, was now erect, firm, and
- that of a gentleman.
- </p>
- <p>
- Even the tone of his voice had undergone a change. It had been sharp,
- though weak and querulous—it was now round and clear, indicating a
- heart purified and emancipated from the destroying influences of despair.
- </p>
- <p>
- His manner, which had been that of a grateful and respectful recipient of
- services, now assumed the character of the power to confer them, not
- haughtily nor patronisingly, but gently and kindly, still marked by
- conscious elevation of position.
- </p>
- <p>
- The golden key, used by some, as yet unknown, good angel, had shot back
- the bolts of the prison to let Eustace Wilton pass into the free world
- beyond. The gatekeepers had an instinctive respect for a man who could pay
- two thousand pounds after so short a detention, so they cast away their
- brusque, sharp, extraofficial impertinence of manner, and obsequiously
- congratulated him upon his early departure. They expressed their full and
- decided conviction that he would not quit “Hudson’s Hotel” without
- remembering those attached to the establishment, because, as the spokesman
- forcibly rather than elegantly observed—
- </p>
- <p>
- “It was the custom o’ gentlemen, as was gentlemen, to act as sech, and to
- behave accordingly.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Wilton had not forgotten the poor debtors’ box, and in the elation of his
- spirits, could not resist the appeal thus made to him. To the manifest
- astonishment of Hal Vivian, and to the marvel of Flora, he took from his
- purse two sovereigns, and handed them to the gatekeeper, who accepted the
- amount with a smile, which extended to the visages of two of his brother
- officers, who were at his elbow prepared to divide the gift as soon as
- Wilton’s back was turned. Nathan Gomer witnessed the act with undisguised
- disgust, and muttered—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ghouls! They fatten on the flesh and blood of the destitute and the
- wretched.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He took Wilton by the arm as he spoke, and hurried him through the cage to
- the entrance, where a cab was waiting to receive the party.
- </p>
- <p>
- Here Nathan Gomer, after a brief private conference with Wilton, took his
- leave, and the cab departed for the residence of Mr. Harper.
- </p>
- <p>
- Wilton was compelled to proceed there; his own dwelling was now a heap of
- charred and blackened ruins; but he had no intention of staying beneath
- the roof of Mr. Harper one hour longer than was necessary. He was grateful
- in his acknowledgments to the good goldsmith and his wife. Once more he
- also assured Hal that the obligation he had conferred upon him by saving
- Flora from destruction, was one which he could never repay, and that he
- should consider himself bound in the future to perform for him any service
- within his power, when called upon by him to do so.
- </p>
- <p>
- For two days, old Wilton was constantly occupied abroad. His manner was
- peculiar and mysterious; he volunteered no explanations, and answered
- questions with, reserve. He never alluded to the circumstances of his
- sudden liberation from prison, nor was even Flora made by him acquainted
- with the means by which it had been effected.
- </p>
- <p>
- Upon the evening of the second day, he returned to Mr. Harper’s residence,
- and laconically informed the old goldsmith that he had been successful in
- securing a furnished house; he proposed, therefore, at once to remove
- himself and his daughter thither, that they might no longer prove a burden
- to those who had so unexpectedly such an addition made to their numbers,
- but who had played the part of Samaritans so nobly.
- </p>
- <p>
- The announcement was listened to with regret by at least one person
- present, but no objection could be interposed, and before the hour of
- midnight had arrived, Flora found herself wooing the coy embraces of
- slumber upon a down bed, in an elegantly furnished bed-chamber, one of a
- suite in a handsome villa mansion in the Regent’s Park.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had parted with Hal quietly: neither had displayed emotion: what they
- felt was concealed from the eyes of all present. Their words were few, but
- each seemed to wish the other to understand that lightly to forget would
- not be possible.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was some compensation to Hal for the rude shattering of the ideal
- fabric he had so blissfully reared, to receive from Mr. Wilton the
- assurance that the doors of his house would ever be open to him, that he
- had a right to enter whenever he pleased, and that he might, in fact, view
- it as a second home.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The saviour of my child deserves no less at my hands,” he added.
- </p>
- <p>
- When Hal Vivian encountered poor Lotte Clinton, he had therefore no
- hesitation in conveying her direct to the new residence of Flora Wilton.
- Flora had frequently inquired after her, and had hoped that she would
- visit her, for she had not forgotten her display of womanly sympathy when
- she was distracted by a combination of troubles, and she was anxious to
- express her grateful sense of Lotte’s kindheartedness, and her hope that
- some day she might be able to repay it.
- </p>
- <p>
- But Lotte came not. Flora imagined that her brother had conveyed her to
- some place of residence near his own, and though at times uneasy thoughts
- would rise and suggest that she might have escaped the horrors of the
- burning house only to fall into new dangers, still she hoped that she
- should see her again, smiling and cheerful, as she had been, and in a
- better position than ever.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal knew this, and decided that he could not do better than conduct Lotte
- to her when he found her in a condition of despair and destitution which
- had given up all other hope of relief but what self-destruction would
- afford.
- </p>
- <p>
- As the cab pursued its way, Lotte sat with her face buried in her hands,
- weeping. She wished to restrain the violence of her emotions—to
- attain a calmness which would enable her to speak to Hal with some degree
- of steadiness—but in vain; she had not power to resist the torrent—the
- floodgates were borne away, and she could only lean in the corner of the
- vehicle, and let her tears pursue their impetuous course.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was not that new hopes were awakened, or that she doubted the result of
- her meeting with Hal. She knew instinctively it would lift her for the
- moment out of her despairing destitution, but it still rendered her future
- shadowy and undefined. She must accept pecuniary obligations from him. She
- shrank from them—needlessly enough—but her fears had by
- reflection been aroused, and her desperate situation had magnified them
- into unnatural proportions.
- </p>
- <p>
- After all, her thoughts were of a very uncertain, half-formed character;
- she was too prostrated to think much. She had, with a mind worked up to a
- pitch of frenzy, stood upon the verge of eternity—a moment more, and
- she had precipitated herself into the obscure and misty regions of that
- unmapped land. She had been suddenly held back to renew the battle of life—upon
- what terms was hidden from her, but the revulsion of feeling occasioned by
- this recall overmastered all faculties but that of weeping, and left her,
- as we have stated, absorbed in tears.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal sought not to check them. It would be time enough to speak to her when
- the paroxysm had ceased, or at least abated somewhat of its violence. He
- hoped then for the return of better feelings; not that he intended to read
- her any homily upon the folly and the wickedness of the crime into the
- commission of which she was hurrying, because he believed that more
- powerful suggestions than any he could offer would present themselves to
- her, and because, also, from what little he knew of her nature, he felt
- fully convinced that the incitement to leap out of life into the dread
- unknown must have been of a description exceeding the sustaining powers of
- others gifted even with a higher capacity of endurance than she possessed.
- </p>
- <p>
- So, for a considerable distance, they rode on in silence.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her low-drawn sobs had grown gradually wider in the interval of their
- inspirations, and ultimately the painful sound ceased entirely. Having
- satisfied himself that she had not fainted, he made a few commonplace
- observations. Yet not altogether unconnected with the circumstances under
- which he had fallen in with her at a moment of such intense importance, in
- order to prove to her that it was a direct interposition of Providence in
- her behalf.
- </p>
- <p>
- A faint monosyllable, uttered now and then, was all she returned in reply;
- for she felt her helpless position most acutely, however grateful she
- ought to have been for her rescue from an attempt to commit
- self-destruction, and she was glad when the cab stopped at the address
- which Hal had given to the driver.
- </p>
- <p>
- Having dismissed the vehicle, Hal led Lotte up the gravelled path leading
- to the door of Mr. Wilton’s new residence, and gave a summons at the door
- with the hand of one who felt he had a right of <i>entree</i> in that
- house at any time. He was ushered into the hall promptly. It was his first
- visit. A glance told him the style in which Mr. Wilton—so recently a
- humble gold-worker to his uncle’s establishment—had commenced to
- live. The hall-porter who opened the door turned his inquiring eyes upon
- the new comers, uncertain whether to be civil or calmly insulting to them.
- He had yet to learn the description of visitors whom his new master
- delighted to honour.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal, sensitive, and restive under suspicion as to his status in society,
- drew a card from his card-case, and in a very decided tone, which sounded
- like command, said, as he handed the small piece of thin pasteboard to him—
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will please to say that I am desirous of seeing Miss Wilton, and that
- I shall esteem it a favour if she will grant me an interview at once and
- alone.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The hall-porter instantly summoned a man-servant, dressed in a livery of
- deep violet hue, and gave him the card and the message.
- </p>
- <p>
- Scarcely a minute elapsed ere the man reappeared, and bade him follow him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal pressed the arm of Lotte as he felt her cower by his side, overwhelmed
- by what her dim eyes beheld, and he led her gently in the direction the
- man had taken. She tottered, and could hardly find strength to walk.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Courage! courage! Lotte, my good girl: my life for it, you will be
- tenderly received,” he whispered gently to her.
- </p>
- <p>
- Oh! she was grateful to him for those encouraging words. But all this
- grandeur! She could have met Flora readily, if she were as she had until
- now known her, but to come before her—so hapless a wretch as she
- deemed herself to be—in the midst of all this luxury and wealth, was
- only a new trial. She said not a word, but she feared her reception; to be
- pitied and to be patronised now would be to slay her.
- </p>
- <p>
- The man ushered them into a small but elegantly furnished apartment: a
- lamp burned brightly upon the table. Near to it stood Flora Wilton,
- dressed as Hal had never seen her before. Her attire was such as a
- princess might have worn—and with pride, for it was costly in its
- value, and in its taste unimpeachable.
- </p>
- <p>
- As the light fell full upon her face and form, Hal turned faint. Flora
- smiled sweetly, and said in a tone musical, half joyous, yet half
- reproachful—
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am so glad to see you, Hal!—Mr. Vivian—I—I thought
- you would have come before; I quite ex——”
- </p>
- <p>
- She paused, for she suddenly perceived Lotte, who had tremblingly shrunk
- behind Hal, wishing from the depths of her aching heart she had never,
- never been induced to come here.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal followed the direction of her eyes, and he said, hastily—
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am grateful, Miss Wilton, for your kind reception, but to-night, at
- least, I do not claim it for myself. I have one poor sorrowful heart here
- with me for whom I entreat your warm interest; she needs it. To ensure
- your sympathy, I may only suggest that Lotte Clinton”——
- </p>
- <p>
- Not a word more.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora was at the side of Lotte in an instant, with her arm round her
- waist. The bright rays of the lamp fell upon the thin, white, wasted
- features of the poor, half-fainting creature. Flora had last seen her a
- roundfaced, pretty, lively, laughing girl. What a dreadful change did she
- now behold!
- </p>
- <p>
- She burst into tears.
- </p>
- <p>
- She twined her arms about Lotte’s shoulders; she laid her cold wan face
- upon her own warm bosom.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh Lotte, Lotte, dear, dear Lotte, what has happened?” she murmured,
- through her streaming tears; “why are are you so dreadfully changed?
- Confide in me as in a sister—pray, pray do; oh, my heart aches to
- see you thus; indeed, Lotte, it does; in very truth, it does.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Why, had Flora been grand, had she played the lady, had she offered to
- take the case presented to her by Hal at an early moment, and promised to
- do something, Lotte might have been pierced to the heart—but she
- would then have stood up bravely and haughtily—have declined the
- intended favour, though she consigned herself to destitution by the act;
- but to be caught thus to Flora’s heart—to be embraced—to have
- poured into her ears expressions of tender sympathy—to feel upon her
- cheeks the tears of human pity, which had the essence of divine pity—to
- feel, to be convinced that the tender commiseration which Flora—though
- unknowing the circumstances—had exhibited for her was sincere—it
- was all—all!—more than she could bear; she sank at Flora’s
- feet, embraced her knees, tried to ejaculate her gratefulness, tried to
- tell that now, indeed, she felt herself lifted out of despair and
- degradation; but exhausted nature refused to do more, and she fell back
- upon the carpet in a swoon.
- </p>
- <p>
- Hal, who had walked to the end of the apartment, half choked in his
- efforts to repress the tears which would flow into his eyes, now, at a
- sudden cry from the lips of Flora, rushed forward, and raised Lotte from
- the ground, while Flora rang the bell, which brought into the apartment
- her maid—a young, but strong, good looking, and seemingly
- good-humoured girl.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora beckoned to her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Help me to bear this young lady into my dressing-room,” she said; “she
- has fainted; be very gentle and tender in your movements, Mercy, for she
- is very ill.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Poor dear young lady,” said the girl, gazing upon Lotte’s ghastly
- features. “She do look bad, surely.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She received her from Hal’s custody, and lifting her up in her arms as if
- she had been a child, she bore her tenderly to Flora’s chamber, and laid
- her gently on the bed. As Flora was following, Hal detained her, and in a
- few brief words, acquainted her with the circumstances which had attended
- his meeting with Lotte; he left her to obtain the rest from her own
- surmises, or from any communications Lotte might make, and he took the
- opportunity of bidding her farewell, promising that he would pay a more
- formal visit, and make a more protracted stay, within a few days.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do not fail,” said Flora with some earnestness, “for my father is very
- anxious to see you here; he has made many inquiries respecting you, and I—I—do
- hope you will come soon.”
- </p>
- <p>
- She need have been under no apprehension that he would stay away. Her
- beauty was a magnet which would have drawn visitors loving her far less
- passionately than he.
- </p>
- <p>
- He made his way home, defiantly challenging the ideal to produce such
- exquisite and perfect loveliness as the real had that night presented to
- him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora hurried to her chamber, where poor Lotte yet lay senseless. She was
- too ill that night to leave her bed. She was placed under the careful
- skill of an eminent physician, who at once declared her illness to be
- occasioned solely by mental distress, and treated her accordingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- We may here mention that Mrs. Bantom grew very uneasy when nine o’clock
- came and Lotte had not come back, and by ten Mr. “Jeems” Bantom was
- dispatched in search of her, with strong injunctions not to go about his
- task as if he was anxious to give her into the custody of the police on a
- charge of petty larceny, or to act in such a way as to induce persons to
- believe that he was on the prowl with the view of dishonestly possessing
- himself of property which “wasn’t his’n,” but to proceed at once, and make
- his inquiries in a clear and straightforward manner.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Jeems” Bantom fortunately possessed the address of the knave for whom
- Lotte had worked without obtaining her earnings, and he went there direct.
- He quickly found that the place was shut up, and that the proprietor had
- “bolted.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The gal’s been done out of her wages,” he said, to himself, “and is
- afeard to come back. She’s a hiding of herself somewheres, an’ I must find
- her, else she’ll be goin’ and doin’ somethen foolish. I’d keep that gal
- jes’ the same as I would one of my own kids, rather than any harm should
- come to her—that I would; ’cos I’m sure she is honest,
- straightfor’ard, and hard-working. Ah! I’m blessed if ever I saw anyone,
- woman or man, work so hard as she did over them faddle-daddies wimmen will
- have, without carin’ a farden how many of their own blessed sort they
- kills in the makin’ on ‘em. I jes’ wish I could get hold o’ that cove that
- got the poor gal to do all that work, and then hooked it. I’d jes’ scrag
- him. I’d make a korps on him, or my name ain’t Jem Bantom.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The chances are that if Mr. Bantom had fallen in with him, at the moment,
- he would have kept his word, or at least have so severely trounced him
- that his most intimate friends would, for a lengthened period, have been
- unable to recognise him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Bantom was checked at the very place where he expected to obtain
- information. None of the persons living near to the house where Lotte had
- called for her money had seen her, and he had to start off to find a clue
- to her as best he could. He inquired at police-stations, at hospitals, and
- at cab-ranks, but without gaining any tidings of her; and the night had
- worn away when he returned to report his ill success.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs. Bantom wrung her hands.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The poor young lonesome thing ’as drownded herself,” she cried,
- “all along o’ the cussed money she told me she owed us. She said she
- would!—she said she would.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Poor Mrs. Bantom sobbed bitterly as she uttered the last words.
- </p>
- <p>
- Bantom looked upon Lotte very much as he would upon a dog which he had
- picked up, brought home, found to possess good qualities, and had grown
- into a pet. He had found and brought Lotte home, and he felt a personal
- interest in her, which could not have been created in his breast under any
- other circumstances. When, therefore, he heard his wife’s surmise, he
- seized his hat, put it on his head, and, tired as he was, prepared to
- sally forth again.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Keziah” he said, in a husky tone, “I likes to know the wust, I does—I
- purfers it. I’m off to the river, I am, jes’ to show you you’re wrong.
- Keep up your pluck, old gal, I’ll be back as quick as ever I can.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He went; traversed both sides of the river between London and Westminster
- bridges, and crawled home in the morning exhausted, as the clock was
- striking seven. He threw himself into a chair despondent as ever man in
- this world was, and said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “I told you, Keziah, you wus wrong; nobody has drownded themselves this
- blessed night. I’ve been both sides of the river, from Billin’sgate to
- Lambeth.”
- </p>
- <p>
- A loud knock at this instant was given at the street-door. Mr. and Mrs.
- Bantom came into collision at the lock, and both pulled at it together. It
- was not Lotte who had knocked, and their countenances fell, for, with
- hearts beating high with hope, they had fully persuaded themselves she had
- come “home” at last.
- </p>
- <p>
- A footman in violet livery met their gaze instead.
- </p>
- <p>
- He looked at husband and wife, and, with the air and manner of a cabinet
- minister in his court dress, he said, inquiringly—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bantom?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That’s me!” exclaimed husband and wife together.
- </p>
- <p>
- The footman produced a letter, and handed it to Bantom.
- </p>
- <p>
- “See if it’s all right,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Bantom could read, but not with ease and rapidity; he could write,
- too, but his hand was bold and slightly irregular. He was very nervous
- this morning and the handwriting of the superscription was so delicate a
- fairy might have penned it. He looked at his wife, opened the envelope,
- and took out a sheet of delicate note paper, which he unclosed. It
- contained a Bank of England note, which, with trembling fingers, Bantom
- spread wide.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A fi’pun note, ’ep my goodness!” he exclaimed, with astonishment.
- He mechanically handed the paper which had contained the note to the
- footman.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You looks like a good scholard,” he observed;“’jes’ read that
- pretty writing for me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The footman, with a supercilious smile, not sorry to be put in possession
- of the contents of the note, read asfollows:—
- </p>
- <p>
- <i>Lotte sends her “kindest love to Mr. and Mrs. Bantom, and begs them to
- forgive her for any uneasiness she may have occasioned them. She desires
- to assure them that though ill, she is quite safe.</i>”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A-hah-ha-ah!—ah-a-hah-a!” burst from Bantom’s lips, sounds composed
- of hysterical laughter, and a genuine cry, although the latter was the
- offspring of joy alone. Mrs. Bantom flung her apron over her head, that
- the tears she shed might not be visible to the strange young man in
- violet. She had small need to be ashamed of the honest tears of happiness
- at the communication thus received of Lotte’s safety.
- </p>
- <p>
- The footman was rather indignant at this interruption, he saw nothing as
- he said to “’owl at,” and he requested them to be quiet while he
- read the remaining’ contents of the note. They obeyed him, an occasional
- sigh and sniff from Mrs. Bantom being the only further interruption. The
- note went on to say that Lotte would see them shortly, but in part payment
- of what she was indebted to them, she inclosed the note, hoping they would
- believe she would never forget their kindness to her.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was joy in Bantom’s house that day. His shop was better stocked than
- usual, and many of the very poor were allowed to have credit, which, under
- ordinary circumstances, Bantom could not have afforded.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lotte, on being recovered from her swoon, though very feeble and under
- strong injunctions not to speak, could not rest until she had unfolded her
- true condition to Flora, and begged her to let the Bantoms, at least know
- that she was safe; that her mysterious absence, as nearly as possible,
- might be accounted for. We have seen in what manner Flora complied with
- her wish.
- </p>
- <p>
- A few days and the tender care and kindness of Flora Wilton were rewarded
- by the rapidly returning strength of Lotte. She was able to leave her room
- and to walk in the garden with Flora. These walks in the soft fresh air
- did much to revive her; the garden was so prettily laid out, the flowers
- so profuse and beautiful—she loved flowers passionately—that
- it afforded her considerable pleasure to stroll there in company with her
- kind friend.
- </p>
- <p>
- Besides, while most grateful for the affectionate sympathy and generosity
- of Flora, she had no notion of remaining dependant. She had far too brave
- a spirit for that, and she felt that these daily walks among the flowers
- in the bright clear air were bringing back to her health and strength, to
- renew the labour of breadwinning.
- </p>
- <p>
- One lovely morning, while strolling with Flora, she said to her lightly—
- </p>
- <p>
- “The garden adjoining this appears to be extremely beautiful, although it
- is hardly possible to get a glimpse at it.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora smiled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have discovered already the mysteries of this garden, Lotte. There are
- several little secret nooks, of which you would never dream, if you had
- not searched them out. I will take you to one where you can have an
- unimpeded view of the next garden, and you will say when you see it that
- it is beautiful indeed.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora at once turned from the path into a narrow alcove of young alder and
- beech trees, and Lotte followed her. They pursued a winding course for a
- short distance, and were stopped by a wire fence.
- </p>
- <p>
- The adjoining garden lay spread out before them in all its cultivated
- beauty.
- </p>
- <p>
- But also before them, face to face, within five or six feet, were a party
- of ladies and gentlemen—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good gwacious, Vane,” exclaimed suddenly a tall, bulky, fair young man,
- “did you evaw in youaw wemembwance see an angel’s face so wavishingly
- beautiful?”
- </p>
- <p>
- The eyes of the whole party were turned at once upon Flora Wilton.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Lovely, indeed!” ejaculated Lester Vane, for he, with Helen, Margaret,
- and Evangeline Grahame, were of the party.
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen Grahame turned her large dark eyes upon Flora. It was impossible not
- to acknowledge the extreme loveliness of the fair young face upon which
- her gaze rested, but a pang of mortification and jealousy penetrated her
- bosom, for Vane’s words rang in her ears, and a glance told her that his
- eyes were riveted upon Flora’s face with an expression of passionate
- admiration.
- </p>
- <p>
- The scene lasted but a moment. Flora, abashed and almost terrified, shrank
- back and hurried away, closely followed by Lotte, who felt like being
- detected in a somewhat mean act of espionage, though in this she was not
- just to herself or to her friend.
- </p>
- <p>
- All that day and night Lester Vane could not forget the face he had
- momentarily seen. It was before him in the flowers, in the fleecy clouds,
- in the waters of the fountain, in the shadows of the night. When his eyes
- in thoughtfulness closed, it was like a star in the misty gloom. Turn
- which way he would, direct his thoughts to any channel, still the face
- floated before his vision.
- </p>
- <p>
- Who was that young and lovely creature—what her name, condition,
- character?
- </p>
- <p>
- He determined to ascertain as quickly as he could. He knew that he should
- be restless and unhappy until he had acquired this information at least.
- </p>
- <p>
- Had he conceived a sudden absorbing passion for her? Was this love at
- first sight?
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XV.—THE PROPOSITION.
- </h2>
- <p class="indent25">
- Great floods have flown <br /><span class="indent15">From simple sources;
- and great seas have dried; <br /><span class="indent15">When miracles have
- by the greatest been denied. <br /><span class="indent15">Oft expectation
- fails, and most oft there, <br /><span class="indent15">Where most it
- promises; and oft it hits <br /><span class="indent15">Where hope is
- coldest, and despair most sits. <br /><span class="indent30">—Shakspere.
- <br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">M</span>r. Grahame entered
- his library, on the morning following his interview with Chewkle, at least
- an hour before the time appointed for the return of that individual, with
- the deed which he had promised to obtain, and of which he had possessed
- himself—to use as an instrument of extortion.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was no sound in the library, save the ticking of the valuable and
- exquisitely finished specimen of handicraft, the skeleton timepiece, upon
- the broad marble mantel-shelf, for Mr. Grahame sat with hands clasped
- before him, plunged in profound, and uneasy thought.
- </p>
- <p>
- But though a death-like stillness pervaded the apartment, there was a
- terrible storm raging within his bosom.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame’s position was perilous and critical.
- </p>
- <p>
- On attaining his majority, he had inherited landed property, from which he
- derived an income of nearly ten thousand a year, and personal property to
- the value of thirty thousand pounds. He married a near relative of a
- Scotch Duke, also a Grahame, and kin of many of the proudest—if
- poorest—families in Scotland. With her he had a dowry of ten
- thousand pounds; and thus he may be said to have commenced his married
- life in a station of affluence, and with the brightest prospects of
- happiness.
- </p>
- <p>
- But he had, during his minority, been brought up in parsimonious
- seclusion. Like the majority of his race, he was burdened with an arrogant
- pride—a pride that would eat toasted herrings and potatoes in state,
- that would look down in ineffable scorn upon the tradesmen it was too poor
- to pay—a pride that was essentially inflation, and wholly devoid of
- true dignity.
- </p>
- <p>
- When approaching manhood, provided with the narrowest allowance, he had
- preferred to be chiefly in the glen or on the mountain, where but little
- money was needed, to mixing with the gay world into which his narrow
- stipend would have introduced him—slightly above the condition of a
- beggar. And thus he passed his minority away, yearning for the death of
- his miserly father, who scraped, and saved, and accumulated, without a
- thought crossing him that some day the mean and acquisitive spirit which
- inhabited his frame would take its flight suddenly to the unknown land;
- and, with the old and withered trunk it had inhabited, leave all the
- savings, and dirty hoardings and scrapings behind.
- </p>
- <p>
- So it turned out. One morning old Grahame was found at the threshold of
- his bed-room door—a stiff, stark, grinning corpse—and
- Claverhouse Grahame was declared the inheritor of ten thousand a year, and
- thirty thousand pounds besides.
- </p>
- <p>
- Shortly after this, he encountered Margaret Grahame. As she was
- marriageable, and had ten thousand pounds by way of dowry, he proposed for
- her hand. How could she refuse ten thousand a year? The possibility of
- liking Claverhouse Grahame never entered her imagination. She took him as
- part of the fortune—rather because she could not have the fortune
- without him, and because the married state was not altogether complete
- without a husband.
- </p>
- <p>
- Of love, in its purity and holiness, she had no conception. She considered
- her father and mother as grand and dignified persons, entitled to filial
- respect and deference from her. She was passionately fond of state, and
- pomp, and display, of jewels, of dress, of genealogy—whatever
- pertained to an elevated position; but an emotion purely disinterested,
- one equal to a self-sacrifice, she never possessed. She gave her hand to
- Grahame, because the act brought her ten thousand a year. Her heart was
- only so far involved in the transaction that it vibrated with pleasure at
- the prospect of the situation in which such an income would place her.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was a natural consequence of Grahame’s probation, and his wife’s
- immeasurable pride—a pride which, like his, had been confined by the
- economical style of living adopted by her parents, to enable them to give
- such a wedding portion with her as he had received—that his
- imagination should convert the capabilities of ten thousand a year into
- those of five times the amount, and that, by the same process of mental
- exaggeration, his forty thousand pounds, should appear inexhaustible.
- </p>
- <p>
- He proceeded to live as though his income possessed an elasticity which
- enabled it to stretch to any length, and was startled, at the end of some
- few years, to find that his forty thousand pounds had not only evaporated,
- but that his liabilities more than exceeded three years’ income. He was
- too proud to make his wife acquainted with this unpleasant state of his
- affairs, because it would necessitate suggestions of retrenchment. Now she
- had formed so large an estimate of her dowry, that he was quite aware she
- would taunt him with having unjustifiably made away with it, although she
- had herself spent every shilling of it, and a large sum in addition, in
- the indulgence of her overweening pride.
- </p>
- <p>
- She would too, he knew, hurl upon him expressions of contempt, for having
- inveigled her with so splendid a jointure, from her castle home in the
- Highlands—where a great deal of dirty state was maintained at a
- small cost—only to subject her to the degradation of being
- compelled, when she formed a wish suggested for the gratification of her
- darling pride, to take the means of accomplishing it into consideration.
- </p>
- <p>
- He therefore said not a word to her, and went on as before, save that he
- looked more closely into his own affairs, raised his rents where possible
- to the highest limits, forgave no tenant, on any plea, arrears, and
- squeezed all he could out of renewals of leases. Hard, uncompromising,
- refusing to spend a shilling on his land, he was hated by the whole
- tenantry, and when, to gratify the stately dreams of his wife, he paid an
- annual visit to the castle, his tenants, one and all uttered reluctantly
- the hurrahs which, under the dark threats of the steward, they gave to
- greet his arrival.
- </p>
- <p>
- In spite of his efforts, he found it impossible to pay off his
- liabilities, and make his income support the style in which he lived. What
- he contrived to save, his wife expended, growing, as her family increased
- in years, more arrogantly proud than ever. It was not that she lavished or
- squandered money, but her tastes were enormously expensive. She bought as
- an empress, preferring to give many hundreds for rare objects rather than
- single pounds for articles equally handsome, but more common; and it was
- these heavy drains upon his resources which kept Mr. Grahame in a
- perpetual state of embarrassment.
- </p>
- <p>
- At length many of his debts assumed a pressing character; he shrank from
- appearing in a tradesman’s eyes deficient in funds, and, to obtain ready
- cash, a first mortgage on a portion of his property was executed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Once within the vortex, rescue by the aid of his remaining property,
- without the most rigid curtailment of every unnecessary expense, was
- utterly hopeless, and at the moment of his forging Wilton’s name to the
- deed which Chewkle had that morning stolen, a few thousand pounds at his
- bankers was all he possessed to meet heavy engagements, and all the
- future, for every acre of his lands was in the possession of a mortgagee.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was, however, an enormous property to which he preferred a claim by
- right of descent. It was disputed, and in Chancery; the claimants had been
- many, but they had dwindled down by death to two—himself and Eustace
- Wilton.
- </p>
- <p>
- Years back, during the lifetime of the owner of the property, Wilton had
- lived upon a portion of the estate—a slice of considerable
- dimensions, and held under a simple document—a deed of gift, though
- not drawn up by a lawyer. The original owner died suddenly, and, as it was
- believed, intestate. As he died without issue, and no will could be found,
- a host of claimants sprang up, and the estate went into Chancery.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then Wilton was called upon to prove his claim to the estate he held, and
- to improve which he had expended every sixpence of the fortune he had
- possessed independent of it. He produced his document. So far as the
- wording of the instrument went, it had full legal force; but proof was
- needed that it was in the actual handwriting of the deceased, and that it
- was in all respects executed by him in favour of Wilton—given
- freely, fairly, without coercion, and with the full intention that Wilton
- should enjoy, have, and hold possession of the estate thus presented to
- him for ever.
- </p>
- <p>
- It had been witnessed, but the witness was gone away, no one knew where.
- The handwriting of the document was questioned, and on the trial to prove
- Wilton’s title to the estate, the weight of evidence for and against its
- being genuine was divided—if it did preponderate, it was rather
- against than for him.
- </p>
- <p>
- The judge held the non-production of the witness to be fatal to the claim,
- and a verdict was so given. The property was therefore wrested from
- Wilton; he was turned homeless into the world, with his wife and family,
- while the estate itself was joined to the other property, and the whole
- income went into the hands of the receiver appointed by the Court—to
- be held in trust, disgorged only when a claimant appeared, who could prove
- his title to inherit it.
- </p>
- <p>
- In the claim to the property as a whole, Wilton was the nearest of kin,
- but here again he was debarred for want of a witness, who was believed to
- be living, but who could not be found.
- </p>
- <p>
- Grahame’s chain of evidence in support of his claim was unbroken, and his
- title to the property indisputable if Wilton were out of the way. The only
- thing which debarred Wilton’s obtaining the estates was a doubt thrown
- upon the validity of his mother’s marriage. Grahame knew that, and, so far
- as it went, it was enough to keep him out of possession. But if Wilton
- signed a paper waiving all claim to the property, which was at his finger
- tips, without the power to grasp it, Grahame would, as the only other
- surviving claimant become entitled to it, and would obtain it; for, as we
- have said, his chain of evidence proving his right to it, next of kin
- failing, was complete in all its parts.
- </p>
- <p>
- It may now be understood how immensely important it was to him to obtain
- Wilton’s signature to a deed which he had had most carefully drawn up, and
- we have seen the lengths to which he went to obtain it. It may also be
- understood wherefore Wilton preferred imprisonment, under the strong hope
- that his much-wanted witness would some day appear, rather than sign a
- deed which excluded not only himself but his family from the possession of
- wealth, which was in truth and justice, though not to the satisfaction of
- the law, actually theirs.
- </p>
- <p>
- Grahame pondered over the past down to the present despairing moment.
- </p>
- <p>
- What was now to be done? With the payment of the two bonds given by Wilton
- while trying his right to possess that which had been given him, he had
- lost all power by pressure over him: and destitution, perhaps
- imprisonment, stared him in the face—no, not imprisonment—no,
- not that.
- </p>
- <p>
- He opened a drawer, and took out a case, which, with a furtive glance
- round the chamber, he opened.
- </p>
- <p>
- It contained within a beautifully-finished pair of pistols. He took one
- out, and examined it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is loaded,” he muttered, “and in good order.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He replaced it in the velvet compartment made to receive it, and returned
- the case to the drawer, which he closed and locked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “They are there when needful,” he said, between his clenched teeth. “A
- Grahame knows how to die, but not to endure the degradation of poverty and
- ignominy. I will never die a pauper’s death!” he added, with a fearful
- oath.
- </p>
- <p>
- He pressed his hands over his burning forehead, and racked his brain to
- find a path by which he could conquer his difficulties.
- </p>
- <p>
- “That usurious wretch, Gomer, has promised me funds upon the very document
- which before this he must know will not be completed,” he muttered. “What
- is to be done? What if I persist in affirming that the signature has been
- given, and act upon the man Chewkle’s advice, suborn the men he named, and
- boldly claim the whole property? It is an enormous prize, and worth the
- risk. I can pay the villains well to hold their tongues until I am fairly
- in possession, and then—then—who knows—at some carouse
- at which <i>all</i> are assembled to celebrate their success—something
- in their drink may make them sleep—sleep to the day of doom. I do
- not like the man, Chewkle; the scoundrel is beginning to grow insultingly
- familiar, and will, I foresee, ere long assume a mastery over me. I must
- specially direct my attention to his permanent welfare. When, by his aid,
- my scheme is consummated, then—then if he escapes what I shall
- prepare for him, his good fortune will be a marvel”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Mr. Chewkle, sir!” exclaimed a servant, suddenly throwing open the
- library door.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame’s heart leaped within him, and it palpitated painfully, but he
- exhibited his accustomed cold <i>hauteur</i>.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Show him in!” he exclaimed.
- </p>
- <p>
- Chewkle entered with the air of a chap-fallen, disappointed man. His
- manner presented a strong contrast to the half-drunken, offensive, easy
- indifference it had displayed the evening before.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame detected it instantly; he replied to Chewkle’s bow by an
- inclination of the head, and pointed to a chair upon the edge of which Mr.
- Chewkle gently sank, poising himself when there with the skill of a
- performer on the tight rope.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You have obtained the deed, Chewkle,” said Mr. Grahame—“that of
- course.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, no sir,” returned Chewkle, “not quite. I entertained ’igh,
- very ’igh hopes, but they has been chucked down into the deeps of
- the greatest disappointment. Them lawyers, sir”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you mean?—they did not refuse to give it to you?” asked Mr.
- Grahame, hastily and sternly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, no, not quite that, sir.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then where is it?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “That’s jest it—where is it, sir? That’s jest what I should like to
- know.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What do you mean?” cried Mr. Grahame, springing to his feet with a
- countenance of alarm. “You do not mean to say it has been stolen?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Stolen!” cried Chewkle, leaping up with a face suddenly of the hue of
- scarlet. “That would be too good a joke, too. Who’d prig such a thing as
- that, I’d like to know?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Explain yourself, man! You are speaking in enigmas!” cried Mr. Grahame,
- excitedly.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Chewkle drew from out of a dirty piece of light brown paper—which
- had been employed in the task of enclosing half-a-pound of “moist” sugar—the
- letter he received from the solicitor.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame snatched it from him, and tore it open. He read the contents
- twice, and then sat down and reflected for a minute.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is nothing, Chewkle,” he said, more composedly, “that I perceive in
- this communication to occasion alarm: the deed will be sent here to day by
- one of the clerks.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I hopes it may,” observed Chewkle, laconically.
- </p>
- <p>
- “In the meantime, my good friend,” said Grahame, assuming a bland tone, “I
- have been pondering over the situation, and I am afraid we have gone a
- little too far to pause now, or to retrace our steps.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We,” echoed Chewkle, opening his eyes widely.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” continued Mr. Grahame; “if I stand in the position of a principal
- in the affair, you take the part of an accessory before the fact, and a
- very important one you are, too, inasmuch as you counselled the deed, and
- instructed me how to perform it, lending your assistance throughout.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Chewkle would have here interposed some very emphatic observations,
- but that Mr. Grahame checked him, and continued speaking.
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is not my intention,” he said, “or my wish that the conversation
- should assume its present tone. I would rather that it took a shape which,
- while it consulted my interest, gave liberal promise of rich advantages to
- you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Chewkle pricked up his ears.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Last night, if you remember,” said Mr. Grahame, slowly fixing his eye
- firmly upon that of his ‘agent,’ “you threw out several suggestions
- calculated to afford me, in the distress of mind under which I was
- labouring, a very considerable degree of consolation. Do you remember
- this?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Chewkle caught hold of his dusty, shaggy whiskers at the roots, and drew
- them out to their full extent with the tips of his fingers and thumb
- several times, to appear the unconscious act of a man plunged in
- reflection. Presently he said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ain’t altogether certain as I does.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame now repeated the plan which he had the previous evening
- proposed to accomplish by the aid of Mr. Jukes and his companions, by
- which, in spite of all Wilton’s protestations and oaths to the contrary,
- the signature was to be sworn to as being <i>bona fide</i> and genuine.
- </p>
- <p>
- Chewkle listened in silence, and when Mr. Grahame concluded by observing
- that he had almost decided upon adopting it, Mr. Chewkle felt himself to
- be unpleasantly situated upon the horns of a dilemma. Mr. Grahame had been
- candid enough to acknowledge that, unless he obtained the estate, he would
- be lost, destroyed, unable to reward the services of any person; but that
- if he, by the assistance of “zealous friends,” succeeded in securing it,
- the most magnificent recompense should be bestowed upon them.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Chewkle’s difficulty consisted in having possession of the deed. If he
- retained it, it seemed that Mr. Grahame would be reduced to poverty, and
- his <i>exposé</i> of the guilty act of forgery would bring him nothing,
- perhaps, but the questionable advantage of being brought under the anxious
- consideration of a judge and jury, as a <i>particeps criminis</i>. If he
- gave it up to Mr. Grahame, he would have to account for its possession, an
- acknowledgment of the truth would place him at once in the power of Mr.
- Grahame, who could give him, if he pleased, into the custody of the police
- as a thief.
- </p>
- <p>
- There was, certainly, no middle course to steer, save waiting for a little
- while, to see what direction matters would take. He reflected that it
- would be wise not to be precipitate, but that it would be best to
- carefully consider whether there was a safe way to hit upon, which would
- conduct him out of his perplexing position. He began to fear he had been
- too hasty in securing the deed. The possession now seemed to be by no
- means so valuable to him, as it had done, when he locked it up carefully
- in his iron safe. The figure of Nathan Gomer kept dancing before his eyes,
- too, in the most disagreeable fashion—it was embarrassingly
- suggestive, and it disturbed him.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame awaited his opinion upon the adoption of the desperate course
- with impatience, and at length said, hastily—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why are you silent? Does the intention to carry out your own suggestion
- startle and terrify you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” he replied, “it is not that; but swearing point blank in a court of
- law that a signature to a deed was written by a man whose hand never went
- near it, and in the teeth of his oath to the contrary, ain’t altogether to
- be done without a good deal o’ consideration and arrangement.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Granted.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And—don’t you think it will be the best plan to wait until you have
- got the deed back in your own hands?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No—wherefore? It is in the custody of my solicitor”—
- </p>
- <p>
- “I ain’t so sure about that,” suggested Chewkle, artfully but
- uncomfortably. “He could not find it this morning”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bah! His managing clerk has it safe enough; he will proceed by the proper
- legal course to claim the estate which this waiver of Wilton’s at once
- will put me in possession of. Of course Wilton will dispute it. We shall
- swear he signed to be released from the judgments we held against him,
- prove his signature on oath, I obtain the estate, and you and your friends
- a rich reward. Therefore, having finally resolved to pursue this plan, the
- deed cannot be better placed than where it is now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Chewkle shook his head. He had rather the deed had been anywhere but
- where it now was. He, however, interposed no further objection, but
- suggested that he should pay a visit to Messrs. Jukes and Nutty to sound
- them upon the matter.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You see, sir, this plan makes us commit perjury as well as forgery,” he
- exclaimed, laying such emphasis on the two crimes, that Mr. Grahame
- started, and involuntarily shuddered. “Now,” he continued, “it is not
- every man who has the pluck to take a false oath and stick to it—stick
- to it, that’s the rub, sir. Taking a false oath ain’t much, but it’s when
- the counsel begins to badger you, and to ask you this question and that,
- sometimes about the subjeck, and sometimes about things as has nothen to
- do with it, and then comes slap back to the subjeck again, so as to jerk a
- contradictory confession out on you; it’s that as tries you. I ain’t got
- much doubt about Jukes; he can stand any amount o’ cross-examining, he
- can, but it’s t’other I ain’t certain about. However, I will go onto ’em
- at once, sound ’em cautiously without using any names”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Right,” observed Mr. Grahame, approvingly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “And if they agrees, I will come to terms with them; and if they don’t,
- sir”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “We must get some one else,” suggested Mr. Grahame.
- </p>
- <p>
- Chewikle passed his hand over his chin. “Yes,” he replied, “that is, if
- they are to be got.” Very few words more were interchanged between them
- ere Mr. Chewkle quitted the house, cursing the deed which he had with such
- an exercise of cunning purloined, and which would require so much
- ingenuity to restore, and leave him unsuspected of the theft.
- </p>
- <p>
- “<i>Perjury and Forgery!</i>” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, as soon as he knew
- himself to be alone. “This is hastening on in the career of crime. What if
- some voice were to howl in the ear of Mistress Grahame that her husband
- was a perjurer and a forger! A Grahame, one of the race that has prided
- itself upon never having cowered under the taint of dishonour—a
- wretched criminal—liable to be dragged, with all the horrors of the
- lowest degradation, to the bar of justice, thence to work out in chains a
- fearful servitude, in the company of wretches the most desperate. Into
- what a frightful, position has my pecuniary embarrassment hurled me?
- Henceforth I shall live in perpetual horror of discovery, of being called
- upon at any moment to face an officer to”——
- </p>
- <p>
- A loud, single knock at the library door at this moment made his heart
- leap into his mouth, and nearly caused him to scream with fright, but that
- his voice forsook him. Before he could recover sufficiently to accord
- permission to enter, Nathan Gomer walked into the room.
- </p>
- <p>
- Pale and haggard, Mr. Grahame regarded him with any other feeling than
- that of complacency. Nathan Gomer held mortgages on his property, and had
- advanced money on a bond; the day of payment named in it was fast
- approaching. He had also promised, upon certain security, to furnish
- additional funds. Mr. Grahame could only look upon him with the eyes of
- one deeply indebted to him; he believed that he would realise some portion
- of the sums he had loaned, but he knew that if fate proved adverse to him,
- Nathan would lose largely as well. He both hated and feared him, and he
- viewed his presence now with distrust. He anticipated that he was the
- harbinger of bad news: everything had gone so wrong of late, there was
- nothing else to expect.
- </p>
- <p>
- Nathan Gomer turned up his shining yellow visage, and grinned. How Grahame
- loathed that grin!—it seemed to betoken only mischief.
- </p>
- <p>
- He motioned to Nathan to take a chair, and, in a husky voice, begged to be
- informed what fortunate circumstance it was to which he was indebted for
- the felicity his presence thus unannounced, afforded him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A matter I apprehend of no small importance to you, Mr. Grahame,” replied
- Nathan.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame gulped. No doubt it was of importance to him; he expected that—most
- painful importance. What else could it be.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think I am prepared,” he said, “for anything you may have to
- communicate to me, whatever distressing features it may possess.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I think not,” said Nathan. “Hearken: you have a new neighbour next door
- to you;” he pointed as he spoke, and asked—“Do you know his name?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame looked at him with some surprise. What did such a question
- portend?
- </p>
- <p>
- Nathan only grinned, and Mr. Grahame answered coldly—
- </p>
- <p>
- “I am not accustomed to take any notice of my neighbours, or trouble
- myself to make inquiries respecting them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You would have been interested if you had, in the present instance.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed!” ejaculated Grahame, a curl turning his lip.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ay! His name is Wilton—Eustace Wilton—ah, you are interested
- now.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame clutched Nathan by the arm.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What?” he shouted, “the wretched man dying inch by inch in his poverty—a
- day or so back in the Queen’s Prison, and now”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your next door neighbour, with an income of five thousand a-year, and
- cash to the tune of sixty thousand pounds.” replied Nathan Gomer, with
- forcible emphasis.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Impossible!” groaned Grahame.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Fact!” ejaculated Gomer.
- </p>
- <p>
- “By what magic has it been accomplished?” inquired Grahame, apparently
- stupefied by what he heard.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No magic at all,” returned Nathan Gomer, grinning. “A simple process of
- law. Years ago a near relative, named Eglinton, a connection of your own,
- gave to him an estate”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Which the law took from him, exposing a trumped up”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gently, Mr. Grahame, be careful what you say until you have heard more.
- When our tongues run away with us, we have sometimes occasion to lament
- the want of a curb. This estate was taken from him by the Court of
- Chancery, because he failed only to produce the attesting witness.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Tush! the witness was a fiction, an imaginary person, who”——
- </p>
- <p>
- Has recently returned from India, a colonel in the East India Service, and
- sufficiently tangible to satisfy the law. This officer has not only sworn
- to the genuineness of the deed of gift, but has proved its validity, by
- giving information of the existence of a duplicate lodged by Eglinton
- himself in the hands of a solicitor long since retired from practice. This
- has been produced, attested to the satisfaction of the Chancellor, and the
- estate, together with the large arrears accumulated, are in the process of
- being restored to “Wilton.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame listened in grim silence. He felt choking, with spite and
- envy. The man he had pressed to the verge of despair, in the hope to
- compel him to sign away his birthright, was now immeasurably his superior
- in position as he was his equal in descent. He would be a formidable
- antagonist to fight with the miserable deed he had forged. He could not
- dare to attempt it.
- </p>
- <p>
- He fell back in his chair with a groan. Nathan Gomer had brought him ill
- news indeed. He had expected foul tidings, yet not such as this. He could
- have wept scalding tears of bitterness, vexation, and rage. He bit his
- white and trembling lips, and exerting himself to control his tremulous
- voice, he said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is to give me this information you have waited upon me, Mr. Gomer, I
- suppose, and with no other object?” The misty shapes dancing before his
- eyes began to take the distinct form of a pistol with which he had
- resolved to anticipate the thunderbolt hovering over to crush him.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have another object, calculated, I think, to prove vastly advantageous
- to you,” returned Nathan, with a grin. “You know I have your interest at
- heart,” he grined again; “and I wish to serve you—in my own way.” He
- rubbed his hands, and grinned again, then he went on. “You and Wilton are
- the claimants to the whole of old Eglinton’s property. Wilton wants a
- witness—you want—Wilton dead—hem! All this time, neither
- of you are deriving any benefit from the property. Now supposing you and
- Wilton were to unite your claims and possess it jointly; the sum
- accumulated in arrears is enormous, and the yearly rental largely improved
- since Eglinton’s death, is at least thirty thousand a-year. Now, an income
- of fifteen thousand pounds sterling, with half the enormous sum in cash
- for each, would not be so bad, I conceive! The money would be doing more
- good, I suspect—administering to the comforts, the pleasures, the
- enjoyments of yourselves and respective families—than it will in
- swelling the millions already held in trust by the Court of Chancery. How
- say you, Mr. Grahame—what is your opinion of my proposition?”
- </p>
- <p>
- All the time Nathan Gomer was speaking, Mr. Grahame experienced a variety
- of emotions. He was cold and hot by turns—now his knees quivered,
- and his teeth chattered—anon he burnt as if scorched by fever. What
- burst of sunshine was this on a heart almost buried in a dense,
- life-destroying gloom? What sudden saving hand was this lifting him up out
- of the engulph-ing quicksands of almost fathomless debt, and placing him
- upon a rock firm enough to stand the shock of any storm? What haven of
- safety was this stretching out its unassailable arms to receive him into
- its secure shelter, even while sinking beneath the hurricane raging around
- him?
- </p>
- <p>
- Did he hear aright? Had Nathan Gomer come hither only to taunt him? The
- gold-faced dwarf, albeit he grinned, seemed to be perfectly earnest and
- sincere in his proposition, and had, no doubt, good grounds for making it.
- </p>
- <p>
- It struck Grahame suddenly that Wilton had, perhaps, ascertained that his
- chance of obtaining any of the property beyond what he had recovered, was
- hopeless, and, therefore, now sought by a stratagem to secure half. If
- this were the fact, there was nothing to bar Grahame’s claim to all, and
- the splendid income, with the immense sum in ready cash, roused his
- avarice—it dazzled his vision. Not a farthing should Wilton have, if
- he could obtain all—all. What a grand thing it would be to possess
- himself of all! He did not observe how keenly Nathan was perusing his
- features, nor conceive with what skilled eyes he read in their changing
- expression the thoughts which were passing through his mind. He little
- thought how bare his base greed lay before the man from whom, of all
- others, he would have most concealed it.
- </p>
- <p>
- After a pause purposely made by him to reduce his tone of voice and his
- manner to an attitude of perfect calm, he said to Nathan—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your friend Wilton of course suggested this proposition?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He does not even dream of it,” was the reply. “On the contrary, he is
- most sanguine of shortly discovering the witness who can prove the
- validity of his mother’s marriage with his father. Certainly his chances
- of doing so are such as to bar any other claim to the property, until it
- is proved to the satisfaction of the Court that all his efforts have
- hopelessly failed. In the meantime, you have heavy liabilities approaching
- maturity. You best know what resources you possess to meet them, and if
- they are not unquestionable and beyond the reach of casualties, it seems
- to me you ought to leap with gladness at the chance of suddenly acquiring
- the wealth my suggestion would place within your reach.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame thought for a moment; his present position was very ugly;
- still he could not bring himself to think a proposition so extraordinary
- as this would be made to him unless his chances of obtaining the property
- had, in some manner unknown to himself, materially improved. Now if he
- could elicit this, he would not, for an instant, hesitate to decline to
- accede to the terms, and with this object he commenced to cross-examine
- Nathan Gomer; but before he had completed a sentence a servant entered
- with a letter.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame recognised the superscription as his lawyer’s handwriting, and
- saying to Gomer hastily—“Pardon me,” he tore it open, and read its
- contents. They were to inform him that the managing clerk of the firm
- having returned, it was ascertained that he had not had the deed; it must,
- therefore, be unfortunately mislaid. Mr. Grahame was assured that prompt
- steps would be taken to recover it, but if they failed, the usual course
- to discover any article of importance, missing or stolen, would be adopted
- without the least loss of time.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame was aghast at this information. That the deed was lost or
- stolen was clear. In either case, his position was painfully embarrassing.
- The proposal of Nathan Gomer was, therefore, a harbour of refuge to be
- secured instanter to be secured at all; so he turned to him, and said,
- quickly—
- </p>
- <p>
- “What reason have you to suppose that Wilton will meet your views, if he
- is in the position in this affair which you declare him to be?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is unnecessary to give my reason. Will you have an interview with him
- upon the subject?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh—yes—yes—readily! When shall it take place?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Now?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “This minute, if you will. I know that he is at home.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is so sudden that”——
- </p>
- <p>
- “I hardly imagine the possession of fifteen thousand a-year can occur too
- soon for your peace and safety, Mr. Grahame.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Lead on, sir. I will accompany you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Within five minutes from that time, Nathan Gomer and Mr. Grahame were
- ushered into Mr. Wilton’s library.
- </p>
- <p>
- The persecutor and the persecuted stood face to face.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br /><br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- CHAPTER XVI.—SELFISHNESS AND SORROW.
- </h2>
- <p class="indent20">
- But most the proud Honoria fear’d th’ event, <br /><span class="indent20">And
- thought to her alone the vision sent: <br /><span class="indent20">Her
- guilt presents to her distracted mind <br /><span class="indent20">Heaven’s
- justice. <br /><span class="indent30">—Dryden. <br /><br /></span></span></span></span>
- </p>
- <p>
- <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>f Flora Wilton’s
- lovely countenance had so remarkable an effect upon the Duke of St.
- Allborne, and specially upon the heart of the Honorable Lester Vane, it is
- very certain that the persons of those gentlemen made no such impression
- either upon Flora or even Lotte. Both were so embarrassed at their sudden
- intrusion, as it appeared, upon the privacy of the party in the adjoining
- garden, that they hurried away without taking particular notice of the
- individuals composing it.
- </p>
- <p>
- But both Flora and Lotte had a floating impression that one of the
- gentlemen there had large, deep, dark eyes; and that he used them too
- unreservedly and unscrupulously. Flora had also an idea of a fair, young,
- gentle face, the soft eyes of which regarded her with tenderness and
- admiration.
- </p>
- <p>
- Beyond this, nothing was retained in their minds of the persons they had
- encountered. Flora only laughingly suggested that she should scarcely
- attempt again to observe her neighbour’s garden from that point of view.
- </p>
- <p>
- Both girls had quite overlooked Malcolm Grahame; but if the Duke and
- Lester Vane were struck by the beauty of Flora’s face, so was Malcolm by
- that of Lotte. It was precisely of that order of prettiness which
- especially commended itself to his taste. Selfish and proud as his mother,
- silly and conceited too, there was not much space in his heart for
- affection; nevertheless, passion occupied a tolerably large space, and the
- gratification of it was a first consideration with him.
- </p>
- <p>
- In his eyes Lotte was the “prettiest” girl he had yet seen, and to call
- the prettiest girl in the kingdom his was an ambition. He did not count
- the cost even to the poor girl who was to be captured and wear his chains.
- He had found satins and jewels, and golden gifts achieve wonders; he
- believed there was no limit to their efficacy in conquering a woman’s
- scruples, and he had the strongest possible conviction that, if employed
- without reserve or hesitation, the most severely rigid propriety would
- succumb to their influence.
- </p>
- <p>
- To be smitten with the face of Lotte was to desire to obtain her. He
- viewed it as a question of time and money, and he made a memorandum in his
- note-book to that effect.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lotte, thus favoured by his admiration and his intentions, had not
- observed him; if she had, she would have forgotten him immediately
- afterwards.
- </p>
- <p>
- No; her thoughts were employed upon the future. Under the care and
- kindness of Flora, she had in one short week won back more strength and
- health than she would have done in a month under the roof of Mrs. Bantom,
- or such an one as she could herself afford. It must be remembered, too,
- that her mind was at peace in respect to the present, and hopeful as
- regarded the future.
- </p>
- <p>
- One week longer she decided to stay beneath the roof of her good friend,
- and then into the world again, that she might eat the bread for which her
- own hands had laboured successfully. It was in vain that Flora endeavoured
- to change her determination; her self-dependent nature and free spirit
- recoiled from being indebted even to Flora for a home. So long as she had
- strength to work, and was able to obtain it, she would support herself
- until she became the wife of the man she had yet to see and love, and then
- if able to keep her, she would accept the luxury the wedded state might
- afford her; if not, they would work together, and together win a living
- for both.
- </p>
- <p>
- She did not refuse to accept from Flora a complete stock of clothes, nor
- the loan of a small sum of money to start with, nor did she ridiculously
- refuse her profferred assistance in procuring an apartment in a
- respectable dwelling; nor when Flora urged upon her to employ her
- abilities upon some description of needlework less slavish and better paid
- than cap-front making, did she refuse to make the effort, or hesitate to
- accept work from a juvenile clothing warehouse, obtained through the
- influence of Flora’s new dressmaker.
- </p>
- <p>
- Her spirit of independence was neither fastidious nor affected; it was
- genuine, sincere, and directed her along a path that, while by her open,
- ingenuous, cheerful, loving disposition, she gained the affection of all
- who knew her, she commanded their respect by eschewing all obligations
- calculated to fetter her freedom of action.
- </p>
- <p>
- Malcolm Grahame, during the last few days of his stay, had contrived to
- ascertain her name, and the information that she was a humble friend of
- Miss Wilton’s—a communication he received with great satisfaction,
- because it intimated that she was poor. To be poor was to be accessible to
- temptation, and he resolved to use gold profusely to gain her.
- </p>
- <p>
- He little thought while making this ignoble calculation, that he himself
- stood on the very brink of a degraded beggary. Lotte was poor, but her
- poverty had no blur of dishonour upon it.
- </p>
- <p>
- He caught sight of her walking alone in the garden several times, and
- rushed to an upper window to waft a kiss <i>viâ</i> his fingers to her, or
- to lay his hand upon the left side of a rather narrow chest, or to render
- himself conspicuously ridiculous in other ways. His vagaries were
- uselessly performed and expended without result, for Lotte did not once
- perceive him, and left the roof of Flora Wilton, in the Regent’s Park,
- without knowing, or desiring to know, that any such vain heartless coxcomb
- as Malcolm Grahame was in existence.
- </p>
- <p>
- The interview between old Wilton and Grahame was brief; on the side of the
- former; it was conducted with cold dignity, and on the latter—after
- two or three revelations were made which yet further opened his eyes to
- the tremendous character of the gulf, on the verge of which he had stood
- with so slippery a footing—with an oily obsequiousness which was
- contemptible.
- </p>
- <p>
- Nathan Gomer conducted the whole proceedings, and displayed an influence
- over Wilton, the more extraordinary as it was evidently not obtained at
- the price of pecuniary obligations. The preliminaries were all arranged,
- Mr. Grahame consenting to terms which gave him the enjoyment of half the
- property and surplus funds in trust, until the claim of Wilton was fully
- substantiated, when Mr. Grahame was to resign his half, and enter upon
- arrangements by which he would gradually restore to the estate the sums he
- had received from it.
- </p>
- <p>
- The arrangement was far from being a satisfactory one to Grahame, but his
- position was that of a drowning man, and, therefore, he was only too glad
- to seize anything that floated within his reach, by which he might support
- himself for a time, if not save himself altogether.
- </p>
- <p>
- A memorandum was drawn up by Nathan, who grinned as he composed it,
- grinned as Grahame signed it, and grinned yet more when he appended his
- name as a witness to it. He even laughed a fat, chuckling laugh as he drew
- Grahame’s attention to the fact, that the sheet of paper, upon which the
- memorandum was executed, bore the proper stamp.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was Grahame’s turn to smile when, throwing a cold doubt upon the
- realisation of the estates to be thus divided, Gomer laconically requested
- him to furnish him with a list of his most pressing engagements, and he
- would at once liquidate them.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have some thousands lying idle at my bankers,” he said. “I may as well
- realize a slightly better percentage from you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “And the security?” questioned Grahame, doubtfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I require nothing more than your acknowledgment of the amounts advanced,
- and your copy of this memorandum,” replied Gomer.
- </p>
- <p>
- Grahame assented delightedly, and would have taken the most affectionate
- farewell of both Wilton and Nathan Gomer, but that the former coldly
- repelled him, and the latter grinned in his face in a manner so strangely
- impish that he involuntarily shuddered, and hastened away.
- </p>
- <p>
- As he descended the stairs, he encountered Flora Wilton, just as she was
- entering her favourite sitting-room, a small one overlooking the garden.
- </p>
- <p>
- He started as he caught sight of her upturned face, and turning to Nathan
- Gomer, who was following him, he said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Miss Wilton, I presume.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Nathan nodded.
- </p>
- <p>
- “How strikingly beautiful!” he ejaculated. “Pray introduce me,” he added.
- </p>
- <p>
- Gomer did so briefly, saying—
- </p>
- <p>
- “You will soon have the opportunity of knowing each other better.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In truth, Mr. Gomer,” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, in his grandest manner, “I
- shall look forward with impatience for that honour, I need not add, and
- high gratification.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Flora could only look timidly from one to the other, and feel extremely
- relieved by the absence of both.
- </p>
- <p>
- Nathan Gomer having, ere they parted, reiterated his promise of supplying
- Mr. Grahame with all the funds his present need required, that gentleman
- walked into his mansion with the cold loftiness of a Sultan, and with high
- elation of spirits. Not that the latter emotion rendered him cheerful; on
- the contrary, it expanded and inflated his pride—it made him look
- over to the verge of the horizon, and believe the lands and domains
- between were his own. It made him regard his servants as serfs, his
- tradespeople as vassals, his acquaintances as persons who lived only to
- bask in the sunshine of his smiles, himself an imperial personage, to whom
- it was the duty of the world in general to bow down and worship.
- </p>
- <p>
- During the last ten days, he had felt rather disposed to sneak out of
- sight than to exhibit his greatness to wondering eyes. Now, removed from
- the danger of imminent disgrace, his own grand staircase appeared too
- circumscribed for the majesty of his presence.
- </p>
- <p>
- Whelks, who had—by hot lotions and cold lotions, and fomentations,
- and blistering garlic, new flannel, a couple of calomel pills, and a
- half-a-pint of black draught—subdued the ear-ache, lost a sovereign—how,
- he was mystified in imagining—and taken the form of a ghostly shadow—noticed
- the change in his master, but with infinitely less surprise than that
- alteration which made him almost familiar with Chewkle.
- </p>
- <p>
- With the instinctive perception of individuals of his class, he presumed,
- by the ascendancy of the commission agent, that “something was up.” He was
- extremely anxious to find out what: hence, his civility to Chewkle, and
- his desire to form an acquaintance with him. Whatever that something was,
- it was plain, by his master’s resumption of stern pomposity that it was
- “down again.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame, preceded by Whelks, entered the room in which he expected to
- find Mrs. Grahame and one at least of her daughters, but the whole family
- as well as the two guests, who had been prevailed to extend their visit
- beyond the term originally intended, were assembled together, engaged in
- conversation, which did not pause for an instant at the appearance of Mr.
- Grahame.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Can it be pawsible, Lady Mawgawet,” exclaimed the young Duke, addressing
- Miss Margaret Grahame, using the prefix “Lady” as he said in
- “playfulness,” “that you did not considaw that that young cweachaw
- wejoices in one of the fawest, divinest faces, ever pwesented by the wosy
- goddess Beauty to one of youaw chawming sex?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I scarcely noticed the person,” returned Margaret, in a cold,
- supercilious tone, bending her half-closed eyes upon a magnificently
- jewelled bracelet, clasping her fat white arm, which she placed in various
- positions to study the effect of the ornament, and to admire trinket and
- arm together.
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen looked up at the Duke with a quick action and a glittering eye. She
- said in a slightly petulant tone—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wax dolls have the ‘fairest, divinest faces,’ my lord Duke, yet we do not
- fall into raptures with them.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not <i>we</i>, assuredly Miss Grahame,” observed Lester Vane, slowly,
- “but little children do. In their eyes dolls’ faces possess immense
- attractions, and they have a title to be ranked as the best judges of
- beauty in dolls, as”——
- </p>
- <p>
- He paused, and looked into Helen’s eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- “As men lay claim to be of loveliness in woman,” she responded, with a
- scarcely perceptible sneer.
- </p>
- <p>
- He bowed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “As, indeed, they ought to be,” he rejoined, quickly; “else why are your
- sex so desirous to obtain the approving admiration of ours?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A fallacy, which your sex has the impertinence to assert, and the fatuity
- to believe,” she responded with a curling lip.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A shrewd imbecility, nevertheless,” returned Vane, smiling meaningly.
- “What say you, Miss Evangeline?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Indeed, I think she had the sweetest face I ever beheld!” exclaimed
- Evangeline, with an enthusiasm which afflicted Mrs. Grahame—if that
- lady permitted any emotion, residing soberly within her well-ordered
- frame, to agitate itself to the extent of affliction.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pish!” cried Malcolm, “you like dolls, even now. The fact is, you are all
- at fault; the companion was the prettiest of the two.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What, haw maid?” inquired the Duke, extending his eyebrows half way up
- his forehead.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, her friend. I have seen them arm in arm. None of you looked at her
- face; I did—she had the prettiest in Christendom, St. Allborne, all
- the world to nothing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “May I, without inadvertence, inquire whose merits you are discussing?”
- inquired Mr. Grahame, with a loftiness he had for some time not displayed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have been listening in pain and astonishment,” responded Mrs. Grahame;
- “the subject is some creature who suddenly intruded herself upon your
- family and your guests in your garden, Mr. Grahame.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Intruded herself in my garden!” exclaimed ‘Mr. Grahame, in a tone of
- outraged dignity.
- </p>
- <p>
- “His grace, perhaps, will repeat the romantic story?” added Mrs. Grahame.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, weadily, weadily! you are wight, madam, the stowy is womantic,”
- returned the Duke, with vivacity. “The fact is, my deaw host,” continued
- he, “we weaw all in the gawden the othaw mawning; we had awested owaw
- steps for a few seconds, when, all of a moment, an appawition of angelic
- beauty pwesented itself to owaw dazzled eyes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “In my garden!” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, fiercely, as much as to say, “how
- dare apparitions of angelic beauty present themselves in <i>my</i>
- garden?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” returned the Duke, “in the next gawden to the left. She wemained but
- faw an instant, and then dis-appeawed. We aw divided in opinion with
- wespect to haw chawms.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The manner of Mr. Grahame in a moment strangely altered its character.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The young lady is exquisitely beautiful!” he exclaimed, with an emphasis
- which made Mrs. Grahame slowly elongate upwards and Margaret Claverhouse
- open her eyes to their full extent, while the others looked at him with
- surprise.
- </p>
- <p>
- At length Mrs. Grahame found a tongue.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I should have hardly conceived that such a person had attracted the
- notice of Claver’se Grahame!” she exclaimed, in a tone of contemptuous
- surprise.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have just returned from a visit to the young lady’s father,” he
- returned, sharply stung by the tone of his wife’s remark.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs. Grahame knew not how to support this dreadful wound to her pride; her
- upper lip trembled.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Pray, Mr. Grahame,” she said, “have you been seized by the weakness of
- toadying to some man, some person, some mushroom trader, because he has
- been able to make a little parade by successful plunder?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Stay, Mistress Grahame,” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, with imperious grandeur.
- “Before you suffer yourself to be betrayed into any observation you may be
- disposed hereafter to recall, let me inform you that Mr. Wilton, the
- father of the young lady of whom you appear to speak and think so
- slightingly, is a gentleman possessing twenty thousand a year, and cash to
- the extent of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds”——
- </p>
- <p>
- An exclamation burst from the lips of all present. Mrs. Grahame felt that
- she had been premature. How Margaret began to hate Flora!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let me add,” continued Mr. Grahame, “that Mr. Wilton can claim an older
- and a nobler descent than either you, madam, or myself. In his veins runs
- the blood of the Stuarts, the Eglintons, the Grahames, and the Gordons.
- When, therefore, you apply the epithets of ‘man’ and ‘person’ to him, you
- injuriously insult a gentleman entitled to your highest consideration.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He ought to have added, also, for the “consideration” of his proud lady—“A
- short time back he was a pauper whom I sued and thrust into prison.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mrs. Grahame was sure now she had been premature.
- </p>
- <p>
- Margaret hated Flora more than ever. She had despised her before; she
- feared her now.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Weally,” cried the Duke, “this is a twuly bwilliant <i>dénouement</i> to
- owaw womance. Gwahame, you must pawsitively intwoduce me to that
- delightful young lady. Miss—what is haw name?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Wilton,” responded Grahame; “Mrs. Grahame will probably make a visit to
- Miss Wilton, and introduce the young ladies. Miss Wilton, I have no doubt,
- will be induced to return the visit. This, as a matter of course. Our
- families are, though distantly, related. Mr. Wilton descends from the
- elder branch.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I shall have the greatest pleasure in paying a visit to this pearl of
- beauty,” said Mrs. Grahame, with an animation quite unusual to her. “I
- regret my hasty observations, but who could have dreamed that our next
- neighbour was of such distinguished birth and position; and a relative
- too? I will not defer my visit, and taking advantage of the relationship,
- waive a portion of that ceremony I consider it essential in other cases to
- observe.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “So I shall have, too, an introduction to this ‘pearl of beauty,’” thought
- Lester Vane; “it will save me a world of trouble.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “May I not go with you when you pay your first visit to Miss Wilton, dear
- mamma?” asked Evangeline.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Absurd!” muttered Margaret, contemptuously; “mamma will go alone; I shall
- not go.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. Grahame frowned; his wife caught the expression of his face, and in a
- tone which her daughters all knew was intended to silence opposition, she
- said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Helen and Margaret will accompany me; they will exert themselves to win
- the favourable opinion of their relative—attracting her to visit us
- by their cheerful smiles, rather than repelling her by any formal
- frigidity. You, Evangeline, who set all the rules of propriety at
- defiance, must remain at home, or you will only commit yourself in some
- such manner as heroines do in novels.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Don’t you think I ought to accompany you, madam?” exclaimed Malcolm, with
- a strong impression that he should get an opportunity of exchanging looks
- and words with Lotte. “I think the visit will hardly be <i>en règle</i>,
- without my presence.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It suddenly struck Mr. Grahame that a match between Malcolm and Flora
- Wilton would, in all respects, be most desirable. The young lady possessed
- a long line of ancestry, wealth, and beauty. What more could a man desire
- in a wife? A marriage, too, would end the conflicting interests of both
- parties. He did not doubt for a moment, that Wilton would gladly embrace
- the advantages offered by such a plan, and he, therefore, almost looked
- upon it as being accomplished, his own future peace being secured by the
- arrangement.
- </p>
- <p>
- It did not occur to him that Flora might object, or Malcolm offer any
- opposition. He looked upon marriage as a contract, in which it was the
- parent’s duty to secure for their children eligible matches, and for the
- children to unhesitatingly complete them.
- </p>
- <p>
- He was immediately, therefore, anxious that Malcolm should accompany his
- mother, and his suggestion took the shape of a command. No one but himself
- had any inkling of his project, but though some little surprise was
- manifested, no remark was made or objection raised.
- </p>
- <p>
- As the visit was not to be paid until the next morning, the subject was
- here changed, and Lester Vane, as before, addressed his attentions almost
- exclusively to Helen. He rarely spoke to her without conveying a meaning
- beyond the apparent import of his words. He omitted no opportunity, either
- by word or glance, to induce her to believe that he was fascinated by her
- personal attractions and charmed by the graces of her mind.
- </p>
- <p>
- She threw herself as much in his way as possible, whether in the presence
- of her family or alone, and she exerted all her powers to enslave him. She
- was by turns full of fire and life, seemingly gratified by his presence;
- anon, cold and pettish. She would laugh with him, and frown at him,
- display interest in what he said or did when he appeared least to desire
- to chain her attention, and seem most provokingly indifferent when he
- wished her to listen to him heedfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- Most of all, when alone, did she play with him.
- </p>
- <p>
- When, by some tenderness of manner, he would be induced to commence
- acknowledgments warmer than those warranted by friendship, she would parry
- his observations, turn them to ridicule, or give to them an interpretation
- they were never intended to bear: so that he would trust only to his
- expressive eyes to say what she refused to hear his tongue utter.
- </p>
- <p>
- He could tell by her drooping lid and rising blush that she comprehended
- that language, and that if she would defiantly encounter his gaze, she
- must read it and interpret it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “She loves me,” he would say to himself, “and she must be mine—under
- what contract circumstances must alone decide for me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- That decision was arrived at when he heard that Flora Wilton was well born
- and rich—his hand should be for her, his passion for Helen.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is easy to make calculations based on probabilities, but when
- contingencies are left out, the result mostly takes a very different form
- to that which it first promised to assume.
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen had carefully watched his countenance while her father spoke of
- Flora Wilton; she had not forgotten how his eyes seemed to gloat on her
- beauty when he beheld her in the garden, and she felt convinced by the
- expression which passed over his features when he learned that Miss Wilton
- was of good birth and rich, that he then formed designs respecting her.
- </p>
- <p>
- A flush of indignation and mortification passed through her frame.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will bring him to my feet, and spurn him yet!” she said to herself.
- </p>
- <p>
- It was in this spirit they were all but toying with each other, when
- Malcolm, who had been reading the <i>Times</i>, uttered an exclamation,
- and, turning to his father, he said—
- </p>
- <p>
- “You remember young Riversdale, sir?—you do, Helen, of course,” he
- cried, turning to his sister.
- </p>
- <p>
- Had fame—life—depended upon an unchanged countenance, she must
- have lost both. She on the instant grew deathly pale; she could not reply—she
- merely bent her head.
- </p>
- <p>
- “A son of Major Riversdale,” said Mrs. Grahame; “I think we met them in
- the north?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes,” returned Malcolm.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah! I remember; his father died a beggar, and his uncle, an East India
- merchant, took charge of him—made him a clerk, or something of that
- kind,” observed Mr. Grahame—“a person one could not notice now. Why
- did you introduce his name to our notice?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Here is a paragraph about him in the <i>Times</i>. It is rather a strange
- affair, I’ll read it out,” replied Malcolm.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do so,” said his mother.
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen held her breath. She felt that some dreadful disclosure was about to
- be made, which would overwhelm her, too. Oh, that she might not faint! If
- only she did not faint, and could get to her room, to wrestle with the
- trial—for such it must be—alone! She sat with closed hands,
- teeth, her eyes only open, motionless as a statue. Malcolm turned his eyes
- upon the journal he held in his hand, and, in a loud, clear voice, read as
- follows:—
- </p>
- <p>
- “A singular circumstance attended the departure from these shores of the
- Peninsula and Oriental Steam Company’s ship, the ‘Ripon,’ bearing the
- mails for India and China. When off the Needles, a young gentleman, whose
- name was ascertained to be Mr. Hugh Riversdale, was observed to be
- regarding the receding cliffs of England with deep emotion. Suddenly,
- uttering a loud cry, said by some who heard it to be the name of a lady,
- he sprang on to the taffrail of the ship, and leaped into the sea.
- Fortunately, a pilot-boat was standing off and on, waiting the arrival of
- an American liner. Her crew had observed the suicidal act, and made most
- noble efforts to rescue the young gentleman. Their exertions were, we are
- happy to say, so far crowned with success that they picked up the body in
- a lifeless state. Meanwhile, the engines of the ‘Ripon,’ under the
- thrilling cry of ‘a man overboard,’ had been stopped and reversed, and the
- crew of the pilot-boat were thus enabled to convey the body on board the
- steam-ship—the most advisable course to be pursued, as the best
- medical assistance, with ready access to restoratives, could be there
- promptly afforded. We are unable to state whether the exertions to restore
- life were successful, as on the recovery of the body the engines of the
- steamer were set in motion. The crew of the pilot-boat returned to their
- vessel, and the Ripon, at race-horse speed, proceeded on her distant
- voyage.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Rather strange affair that!” concluded Malcolm, laying down the paper.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Vewy womantic! ha! ha!” laughed the young Duke. “Pwepostewous folly that,
- to dwown oneself for love! Ha! ha!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Suddenly they were all startled by a terrified cry bursting from the lips
- of Evangeline. She sprang from her seat, and twined her arms round her
- eldest sister.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Helen! Helen!” she cried; “Helen, dearest Helen, you are ill, darling!
- Speak, Helen! Speak, for Heaven’s sake! Oh, mamma, mamma, pray come to
- Helen; she is dying!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Helen sat erect, still, rigid as a stone statue and as lifeless.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had listened in a state of high-wrought feeling to the reading of the
- paragraph up to a certain point. She heard the description of Hugh’s
- emotion at the sight of the diminishing heights of the land containing all
- that he loved or prized. She knew that her form—her averted form was
- at that instant before his humid eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- She heard his despairing call upon her name; she saw him suddenly spring
- up upon the vessel’s edge, and leap out with a wild cry, plunging down,
- down into the dreadful depths of the surging sea, to find that peaceful
- release from intense mental anguish which she had selfishly and
- heartlessly denied to him here.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then all was dark!
- </p>
- <p>
- She sat motionless, stark, corpse-like, consciousness departing from her,
- and leaving her without sense or motion.
- </p>
- <p>
- Mr. and Mrs. Grahame were disturbed at the undignified departure from the
- proprieties of life displayed by both Helen and Evangeline. Mrs. Grahame
- especially was grieved to think that the example of icy immobility set on
- all occasions by Margaret Claverhouse was not followed by both her
- sisters. The bell was rung violently by Malcolm, who, except Evangeline,
- displayed the most feeling of the family. Chayter was summoned, and Helen,
- accompanied by Evangeline, was borne to her apartment.
- </p>
- <p>
- Lester Vane retired to the garden.
- </p>
- <p>
- Folding his arms, he paced the sinuous paths thoughtfully.
- </p>
- <p>
- “So,” he muttered, “the mystery is solved. This youth, Hugh Riversdale,
- was my assailant in the alcove, and Helen was his companion there. Hem!
- His merchant uncle has despatched his clerk to India. He, out of his
- love-sick grief, like a mad fool, leaps into the sea, and she swoons to
- hear of his folly. She is selfish; but she loves him and seeks to fool me.
- ’Um! He struck me—this clerk. Well, she shall avenge the
- blow: away with thoughts of marriage! No; Miss Wilton, young, exquisitely
- lovely, of proud descent, and great wealth, she shall be my bride; while
- you, Helen, you—’um! we shall see.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He leaned upon the slight iron rail which ran along the end of the garden,
- and gazed thoughtfully into the depths of the flowing stream running
- soundlessly by.
- </p>
- <h3>
- END OF VOL. I.
- </h3>
- <div style="height: 6em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Flower Of The Flock, Volume I (of
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