Till Fate or Fortune near the place convey’d
His
steps where secret Palamon was laid,
Full
little thought of him the gentle knight,
Who,
flying death, had there concealed his flight
In
brakes and brambles hid, and shunning mortal strife
And less he knew him for his hated foe,
But feared him as a man he did not know.
—Palamon and Arcite.
Helen 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.
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.
The Honorable Lester Vane paused before the cluster of trees; he even took a step or two as though to enter its recess.
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.
As soon as he was out of hearing, Helen turned to her companion, exclaiming—
“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.”
“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.”
“Nay, you will soon return, Hugh,” she said, with a seeming conviction that his absence would be brief. He shook his head sadly.
“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.”
“Far more distant journey, Hugh?”
“Helen, I have very powerful reasons for believing that my destination is India.”
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.
Alas! for Hugh—they were not such thoughts as he could have wished to occupy her mind.
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.
She was silent. Her mind was too busy to permit her to speak a word.
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.
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—
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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?”
“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.”
“In expectation of meeting you soon again, certainly,” she replied.
His quick ear detected a slight coolness, and a little impatience in the tone.
“But in expectation of not soon meeting again?” he asked, sharply and with misgiving.
“Why imagine that which is not likely to happen?” she returned, pettishly.
“I have told you that it will happen.”
“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.”
“Helen, you wrong me.”
“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.”
He started, and released her hand, of which, until now, he had retained possession.
“You do not love me, Helen!” he exclaimed, passionately, as he recoiled from her.
“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——”
“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!”
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.
“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.”
“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!”
He paused for a moment, overpowered by a throng of painful anticipations. Helen remained perfectly silent; and clearing his voice he went on.
“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.”
“Hark” cried Helen, starting suddenly, “a footstep approaches—I must fly. Farewell, Hugh! God bless you, and guard you until we meet again!”
She threw herself into his arms. He strained her passionately to his breast, and imprinted a thousand fervid kisses on her lips.
“And you will be true to me, Helen?” he whispered.
“I will, Hugh, I will,” she replied with an earnestness rivalling his own.
“You swear it, dear Helen.”
“I do! I do!”
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.
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.
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.
A voice he did not recognise said, roughly, to him—
“Fellow! why are you lurking here?”
Hugh flung him fiercely hack.
“Who are you who dare thus address me?” he cried, angrily.
“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.”
More he was unable to say, for the impetuous bands of Hugh clutched his throat, and prevented further utterance.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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!”
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.
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.
Directly his pale green eyes fell upon the prostrate form of Mr. Grahame’s guest, he exclaimed—
“Oh, my ’evens! if it isn’t the ’onerbbel Mr. Lester Wane! Grashus! Is it the wine ’es overcom ’im, I wonder?”
“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.”
“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.”
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.
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.
The Duke of St. Allborne laid his hand upon his shoulder, and shook him, saying, at the same moment—
“Vane, wecovaw youawself, my good fellah. We aw all fwiends. I’m St. Allborne—don’t you wecog-nise me?”
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—
“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.”
“But, Mr. Vane,” responded Mr. Grahame quickly, “the attack you have suffered”——
“Was made by no common individual, Mr. Grahame! one who is by this time, I have no doubt, far beyond pursuit.”
“But the object, Mr. Vane?” observed Mr. Grahame, with an air of mystified wonder.
“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.”
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.
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.
Not the least astounded of the party present was Helen Grahame.
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.
Hugh Riversdale and Lester Vane had encountered each other.
What had passed?
Her first impulse was to dart out of the room—the house, and flee anywhere—anywhere!
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
By an effort of her will, she knew she could achieve this much, and she resolved to do it.
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.
A thrill of pain ran through the frame of Helen as she felt his large, dark eye settle upon her.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The ordeal, however, was yet to come.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
For the sake of effect, the speaker adopted a poetical style of narration, not without success upon the majority of his listeners.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
While standing irresolute as to the steps he should take, a female emerged from the thicket, and fled past him towards the house.
“Towards my house!” cried Mr. Grahame, elevating his eyebrows with astonishment.
“Even so,” cried Lester Vane.
“Surely she did not enter it?” he cried, his eyes sparkling with fury; “no shameless person world dare”——
“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.”
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?
“And this wretch—this insolent scoundrel,” cried Mr. Grahame, “you fastened upon him, I presume, and thus was most murderously assaulted?”
“No,” said Lester Vane, speaking slowly, and with distinctness, “the moonlight fell upon his face—that I saw clearly and well defined.”
“You would know it again?” exclaimed Mr. Grahame, with eagerness.
“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.”
“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?”
“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.”
“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.
“She may be in the house,” interposed Mrs. Grahame, feeling that a deadly outrage had been committed upon the family pride.
“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.”
“The lady, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Grahame, in a tone of immeasurable contempt. “To-morrow, Mr. Grahame, this strange affair must be thoroughly sifted.”
“Indeed, Mrs. Grahame, it shall be,” he replied.
“How widiculously womantic, Miss Gwahame,” laughed the Duke of St. Allborne, addressing Helen.
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.
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—
“Perhaps, Miss Grahame, you conceive that the affair, after all, was a mere fancy, occasioned by the fatigues of my journey to-day?”
“Or the stwength of our fwiend Gwahame’s fine old pawt,” exclaimed the Duke, with a loud laugh.
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.
“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.”
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.
Suddenly, when near the ornamental water, he paused. He drew from his breast a small but exquisitely fine cambric handkerchief.
“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?”
She looked at it. In a corner, embroidered, were the initials “H. G.” It was her own, and one of value. She smiled.
“Indeed,” she answered, “I ought to know it well, Mr. Vane.”
“I found it beneath a tree, there,” he added, pointing to the thicket in which she had parted with Hugh Riversdale.
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—
“Possibly; it is one I some time since gave to my maid, Chayter.”
Lester was unable to utter a word in reply; he was baffled. He watched the handkerchief float away, and he said to himself—
“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.”
Alas! he’s mad!
This is the very coinage of your brain.
This
bodiless creation, ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
—Shakspere.
The 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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—
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
As the dark features of the Colonel attracted his attention, he clutched his daughter’s hand, and, in a hoarse whisper, said—
“Is it safe—is it safe?”
“Is what safe, dear father?” she asked.
“The paper!—the paper I gave into your care,” he replied, wildly.
“Yes! yes!” she responded, quickly. “I gave it back to you, scarce half an hour ago. Do you not remember?”
He placed his hand to his brow, and then pressed his fingers over his eyes, as if to recal what had recently passed.
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.
He rose up: his eye was bright, his carriage firm, and his head erect. His bearing gave him the aspect of another man.
“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.”
“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.
And she wondered that he should grow so serious, and seem so sad, because her father spoke in tones of joyfulness.
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.
Old Wilton proceeded, addressing the colonel.
“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 in extremis; 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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.
“Gratitude, Colonel Mires,” exclaimed Wilton, drily, “would, I have no doubt, raise up such a feeling in your breast.”
The Colonel winced, but bowed affirmatively. Wilton then added, hastily—
“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”—
“The moment I had a suspicion”——
Old Wilton waved his hand.
“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.”
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. He 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 any 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.
It was a soft, low sound, unconsciously emitted, not altogether well bred we must admit, but it was the very symbol of extreme surprise.
Old Wilton heard him, glanced at him, turned his eyes away, and a faint smile curled his upper lip.
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!
Her father understood her gaze, he read her thoughts, and his smile deepened.
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—
“Will you say to-morrow, Mr. Wilton?”
“Of course,” thought Hal, “that’s just it; he might as well say half-an-hour hence—one is as likely as the other.”
To his surprise, not less than to that of Colonel Mires, Wilton answered—
“To-morrow, if you please. At what hour?”
“At moonshine,” thought Hal; “poor old man, how mad he is getting!”
“Ten o’clock in the morning,” returned the Colonel, with a grim smile.
“At ten!” echoed Wilton; “you have not named the place,” he added.
“It must be here, if there is to be a meeting anywhere,” thought Hal.
Colonel Mires produced a card-case, and handed a card to Wilton, who held it close to his eyes.
“So far,” he muttered, and then exclaimed aloud—“I will be there, Colonel, punctually, and without fail.”
“It will not put you to any inconvenience, I hope?” said Colonel Mires, with a mystified air.
“No, no, oh no!” returned old Wilton, with a smile.
“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?”
Colonel Mires gave a dry cough.
“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.”
“The thing is not difficult when you know the way. I have a way,” returned Wilton, rather curtly.
“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.
“I shall keep my appointment, Colonel Mires, never fear,” said Wilton decidedly, though coldly.
“You leave here, possibly, to-day,” suggested the Colonel.
“I shall accompany my daughter hence,” responded Wilton
Hal walked to the window and looked out: this last remark by Wilton seemed to him quite to settle the point of his sanity.
“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.”
“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.”
“Indeed!” ejaculated the Colonel, in a tone of insulting surprise.
“Fact, nevertheless,” continued Wilton, and raising his voice, said, “many a would-be Bayard, sans peur et sans reproche, would have hesitated ere he attempted to perform the brave deed this gallant youth has lately achieved. You will know more of him anon.”
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.
“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!”
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.
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.
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—
“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.”
“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.”
“No dreams, my Flo’, but a real mansion, with its luxurious apartments, its galleries of pictures, sculptures, and articles of vertu 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.”
He clutched her by the wrist.
“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.”
He pressed her again and again to his bosom, and kissed her with passionate fondness, while large tears rolled down his yet pallid cheeks.
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.
Before Wilton could clear his voice to give the permission to enter the room, the door opened and closed instantly.
But rapid as was the action, the door on closing had left within the room Nathan Gomer.
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.
Wilton uttered a cry of joy. He ran up to him, and seized him by the hand.
“I wanted to see you,” he cried.
“I imagined as much. Here I am,” responded Nathan.
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—
“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.”
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.
“You have no objection, Master Vivian,” observed Wilton, fancying that he hesitated.
“Objection!” echoed Hal, with an astounded look.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Flora and Hal were, in consequence, comparatively alone in their walk.
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—
“Can it be possible, my dear Miss Wilton, that your father is not labouring under a delusion in speaking of his immediate liberation?”
Somehow Flora had expected this question, yet she had not prepared an answer to it. She paused for a moment, then replied—
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
Hal saw the tears spring into her eyes, and he blamed himself for having brought them there, especially when she said—
“It will so much add to the grief I have already suffered.”
“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.”
“Not cheerfully,” said Flora with innocent surprise, “why with reluctance, Mr. Vivian?”
“Not reluctance, Miss Wilton, that is not the word—sorrow is the truer term.”
“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.
“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.”
“So I understand it,” returned Flora, finding Hal pause.
“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.”
“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.
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.
“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?”
“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.
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.
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—
“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.”
“But the two thousand pounds for which he is lodged here?” said Hal, with a stupified air.
“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.