Keep your eye on him,
The man avoids me—knows that I now know him
Watch him!—as you would watch the wild boar when
He make against you in the hunter’s gap—
Like him he must be speared.
He stands
Between me and a brave inheritance.
I may depend on you?
’Twere too late
To doubt it.
Let no foolish pity shake
Your bosom!
Byron.
The flight of Helen Grahame from her home was not followed by a convulsion of the household. Its internal economy proceeded with the same regularity as before. Mrs. Grahame, minus her grand and beautiful eldest daughter—the pride of her family—would, it was only natural to expect, have been overwhelmed by agony, distress, apprehension and unutterable woe at her mysterious bereavement. Love of offspring is the prominent element of maternity. A she-bear is a most loving mother, though its nature is none of the tenderest. Mrs. Grahame might reasonably be credited with much mental suffering, in consequence of the flight of her child, considering too how elegant, how accomplished, how handsome that child was.
To say that she remained unaffected by any of the emotions commonly produced by such an event, would be, perhaps, advancing too much; to say that she displayed none of them—no, not one, is only truth.
Whatever might have been stirred up in the inner recesses of a nature whose depths no mortal, save herself, had plumbed, remained concealed. She permitted no line of anxious care to invade the regularity of her smooth brow, nor did she allow her coldly placid bearing, or the existing arrangements governing her daily movements, to undergo any change.
Miss Grahame had left her home. Whither she had gone, wherefore, or in what manner, she considered, from her point of view, to be that young lady’s business alone. She was herself the last person in the world to offer explanations to any one upon domestic occurrences. As well might such a surrender of dignity be expected from imperial majesty. To the inquiries of friends, it would be enough to say that Miss Grahame was absent, and that was the only decided step she determined upon taking in the really terrible event. She would, it is true, have gladly plied her servants with the waters of Lethe, so that the past, which in any way took in Miss Grahame, might be forgotten by them; but she made no allusion to her; and, discharging, at a moment’s notice, Chayter, Helen’s maid, sternly forbade her own attendant, or any other member of the household, to repeat her daughter’s name in her presence.
Margaret Grahame wasted not her powers of imagination in endeavouring to divine why her sister Helen had fled. She rather looked upon the circumstance as one that had rid her of a formidable rival, and she fixed her sluggish, single thought yet more steadfastly upon the young Duke of St. Allborne.
Malcolm, exclusively under the control of his mother, when he heard from her his sister’s flight, at her desire, moved not with a view of tracing the fugitive. He thought her departure “deuced odd,” and wondered what it could all mean; but, beyond an undefined feeling of surprise, mingled with a vague anxiety, he was not more affected than if some attendant pertaining to the household from childhood had mysteriously disappeared.
He had been, from early boyhood, at public schools, and had met his sister only in the vacations, at which periods their intercourse, under the forms of domestic etiquette laid down by Mrs. Grahame for the observance of her children, was not more affectionate in its nature than if they had been ceremonious acquaintances.
It is the common and natural tendency of public education—that is the system which removes a child from home influences—to detach or diminish filial and fraternal love. The young heart, always seeking for something to love, fastens upon objects with which it comes in daily contact. Love of kindred is weakened in the personal attachments formed at school; and as, during the progress to man or womanhood, the opportunities for correcting this evil are rather lessened by the extra studies imposed, the youth of both sexes usually terminate the educational career with a strong impression that parents are exacting; on the boy’s side, the pater having a predominant passion for stinginess; and, on the girl’s, that “ma” has a great many ridiculous notions, and is only another form of the odious grim feminine tyrant, from whose rigorous despotism she has been just emancipated.
Perhaps, therefore, it is not so surprising that Malcolm Grahame went out to dine with some friends in the Guards on the day of his sister’s flight, his equanimity being not much more disturbed than usual.
Evangeline was the only one who appeared to feel acutely, and to see the affair in its true light, but then she was considered to be of weak intellect. It was a common thing for her to violate all “the proprieties.” Her gentle, loving nature, her soft, womanly sympathies, impelled her to do this, and her “puling absurdities,” as her mamma styled the sweet evidences of her affectionate disposition, were allowed to exhibit themselves only on sufferance. On this occasion, however, she displayed such frantic, inconsolable grief, that she was dismissed harshly to her own room, and was ordered to remain there until she could quit it with a face serene and passionless, upon which remained no traces of the suffering her sister’s flight had occasioned her.
Mr. Grahame had not been communicated with. His lady’s first impulse was to telegraph to him to return instantly to London; upon second thoughts, she decided to await his return.
With him she acted as with others—she simply expressed her will when she adopted a course of action. It did not cross her that Mr. Grahame might object to her mode of proceeding in respect to Helen’s disappearance, but if it had, it would not have influenced her. It was enough that she considered the course she had pursued the proper one.
Mr. Grahame stayed away from London longer than was expected. Freed from embarrassments, he played the lord in his haughtiest and worst aspect. His harshness and his despotic tyranny had obtained for him an outward show of slavish deference, with a fierce under-current of mortal hatred. This bowing down and worshipping had re-inflated him, and he returned to his London mansion, swelled in feeling to the dimensions of a mighty noble.
It was not until he presided at the dinner table that he noticed the absence of his daughter Helen. It immediately occurred to him that she was still too ill to leave her chamber. Nature asserting her right to be heard, even in the icy dominion of pride’s stronghold, touched his heart. He felt the twinge, and immediately-asked Mrs. Grahame respecting her.
The servants waiting at table glanced at each other’s eyes; Margaret and Malcolm sat coldly immovable; Evangeline’s gentle bosom heaved and fell; she clasped her hands tightly together and looked down, striving to restrain the hot tears which sprang up to her trembling lids. Mrs. Grahame displayed not the slightest perceptible emotion, but replied to her husband’s question by saying in a tone which he knew was intended to preclude further inquiry at that time—
“Miss Grahame is from home.”
Mr. Grahame bent his head in acknowledgment, and removed the conversation to the scene of his recent visit. He enlarged upon the improved aspect of his estates, and upon the additions he intended to make—what accession of territory, and what increase of tenantry he had acquired, and was about to acquire. He described the torchlight procession to welcome his arrival, and the vast assemblage gathered to bid him farewell—nine-tenths of whom would have rejoiced at his downfall with savage joy.
All the while he spoke, there was ringing in his brain the words—“Miss Grahame is from home.” As he described the stately reception he gave his tenants in the hall of his Scotch castle, feeling second to no monarch in Europe, the words, “Miss Grahame is from home,” danced before his eyes. Not one passage in his description, illustrative of his own elevated position came gradually from his lips, but he heard those words as if every one was a note in a death-peal.
“Miss Grahame is from home.” he thought, as he took wine with his wife.
Where? under what circumstances? Why should no place, no name be mentioned? He dared not ask; he felt he durst not. He glanced furtively at all the faces at table; from Evangeline’s only could he gather aught to satisfy him that there was something unusual and unsatisfactory in the disappearance of Helen. He said to her abruptly, but not austerely—
“A little wine, Evangeline. You do not look well, child.”
She turned her large, clear eyes, glittering with tears upon him; he saw her small upper lip quiver, and he perceived that her heart was too full for her to articulate a word, as she returned his salutation.
“There is something wrong!—something horrible has happened!” he muttered to himself, and he became almost silent during the remainder of the dinner.
When the cloth was cleared, the dessert spread upon the table, and the servants had retired, he asked in a seemingly careless tone—
“How long has Helen been away? With whom is she staying?”
Mrs. Grahame’s brow slightly contracted. She produced a small, beautifully finished pocket-book, and opening it, took from it her daughter’s letter, which she handed to her husband.
“Miss Grahame’s room was one morning found by her nurse untenanted,” she said; coldly; “that letter was discovered upon her toilette; such explanation as it affords you have equally with myself; I know no more.”
Mr. Grahame’s eyes raced down the trembling characters penned by his wretched child; and when he came to the conclusion; he looked up to his wife in bewildered astonishment.
“What does all this mean?” he cried; almost fiercely Mrs. Grahame shrugged her shoulders; a low sob burst from Evangeline’s lips.
“Mistress Grahame,” he exclaimed; with a strong Scottish accent; an evidence of unusual feeling; “am I to understand that you are unable to offer any further explanation than this miserable epistle affords?”
“You are, Mr. Grahame,” replied his wife; with cold sullenness.
“Did you make no effort to trace her?” he asked.
“None.”
“Have you no clue to the place of her flight?”
“None.”
“You have taken no steps in the matter whatever?”
“None.”
“Very extraordinary conduct; Mistress Grahame;” he cried; with a brow of crimson—“a very unsatisfactory delay; madam.”
She glanced at him with her dull gray eyes.
“You are the head of the house; Grahame,” she replied. “You, as such, will take the steps you deem expedient. For myself, I, as a representative of a line whose annals are unstained, will never permit a degenerate child to continue to move in the same circle, or breathe the same air as myself. She has forgotten her position, her dignity, her blood. She has forfeited her claim to her name; and, therefore, with her own hand, has sundered the ties of affinity. In my eyes she is dead.”
Again a low cry of acute grief burst from Evangeline.
“Dead?”—repeated Mrs. Grahame, only a little more emphatically for the interruption—“sunk into the depths of a grave from which there is no earthly redemption. Mr. Grahame, your and my daughter, Margaret Claverhouse, is now the eldest female representative of our name in your family, and from this moment it will be so understood. Margaret we will retire.”
She rose as she spoke, motioning to Margaret to follow her example.
As she did so, Evangeline flung herself wildly at her feet.
“Have mercy, madam!” she cried. “Helen is still your child. She is my sister—my dear sister. Oh, in mercy, do not discard her! She is our own flesh and blood. You are her mother. Oh, in the face of God, do not forget that though she may have erred—she is but human. Christ forgave, and came to save the erring. Mother, have mercy, as you hope for it at the day of eternal judgment!”
Mrs. Grahame drew her dress angrily from the clutch of Evangeline. She stepped back as the face of her half-swooning girl bowed itself upon her feet, and she said sternly—
“Malcolm, raise this raving girl from her self-degradation. Unworthy of her name, she pleads for one who has disgraced herself—and in vain; Evangeline, retire to your room, and there remain until you can meet me in a manner becoming your position as a Grahame.”
She turned to Mr. Grahame, and added haughtily, but emphatically—
“My path, you perceive, Mr. Grahame, has been selected. I shall pursue it without swerving from it. I suggest this to you, that you may be able to understand what I deem the proper course for you to adopt.”
She swept haughtily out of the room, closely followed by her daughter Margaret.
Malcolm lifted his sister Evangeline up; he whispered to her not to make herself a little fool about a thing that could not be helped; and was so far animated by the common promptings of humanity, as to accompany’ her to her chamber, seeing that she had hardly strength to get there alone. Mr. Grahame, in the meanwhile, with contracted brow and in thoughtful abstraction, made his way to his library.
He entered it slowly and moodily. The lamp which his servant had lighted had been turned down; the whole of the further parts of the room were in deep shadow.
“She has disgraced the name of Grahame,” he muttered between his set teeth; “but how?—how? It is a black mystery; still she has gone—fled! She must be discarded—disowned! How could we receive her again? has she not disgraced the name of Grahame?”
And he looked around him loftily and proudly.
He uttered a cry of horror.
Up on the shadowed cornice he saw written, in letters of lambent flame, the frightful word—forgery!
He covered his eyes with his hands; and still, in fiery characters—leaping, coruscating, glittering—he saw the word—forgery!
He dared not look into either of the murky corners of the apartment, for in one he expected to see sitting, grinning and gibbering at him like a fiend, his arch accomplice, Chewkle.
Disgraced the name of Grahame! What, then, had he done? In what immaculate position did he stand, that he should close his door upon his child—discard, disown her, upon a mere suspicion of error? He slunk into a chair. He felt how hollow was his pride, how contemptible himself. With an impatient and trembling hand he turned up the lamp, until the room was one glare of light.
He rang his bell violently.
The summons was answered by Whelks.
“Tell me,” said Mr. Grahame, resuming his cold, austere manner, “has any person been here desiring to see me privately during my absence?”
He alluded to Chewkle. He fully expected to be told that he had called three or four times; he was, therefore, surprised to hear ‘Whelks answer him negatively.
“Are you sure?” he said, pointedly.
“I am sure no person ’ave been of that deskripshun, sir,” the man replied. “Oh! stay; there was one—yes, there was one, sir.”
“Who was that?” inquired Mr. Grahame, sharply.
“It was the small, little dwarf, who ’ave ’ad the janders offul, sir—Mr. Gummy, sir,” responded Whelks.
“Mr. Gomer,” corrected Mr. Grahame, thoughtfully. Presently he said—
“Did that individual—that person named Chewkle not call in my absence?”
“No, sir,” returned Whelks, who had traced, to the best of his belief, his missing sovring to him. “But Mr. Gummy asked me if he had called lately, which I told him no; and he asked me if I know where I could find him, which I tell him I ’ave not a idee.”
Mr. Whelks would have availed himself of it rather promptly if he had.
This absence of Chewkle in connection with the loss of the document with Wilton’s forged signature, was both mysterious and disturbingly perplexing. The painful doubts it gave birth to in his mind were not relieved by the information that Nathan Gomer had been making inquiries respecting him. He saw, however, that it would not do for him to appear to seek Chewkle; he was likely to prove sufficiently a locust without his taking such a step. He, therefore, determined to await his appearance. Seeming to dismiss the subject from his mind, he turned over a few letters which lay upon his table, and said in a deliberate, but apparently apathetic tone——
“Send Miss Grahame’s maid to me.”
“A—a—Miss Grahame’s, sir,” said Whelks, with an air of embarrassment, “A—a—Stalker, sir?”
“No,” returned Mr. Grahame, with a frown “Miss Grahame’s maid, Chayter—that is her name, I think.”
“Oh—oh, yaas—yaas, sir. She ’ave gone sir.”
“Discharged?”
“A—yaas, sir, yaas.”
“Do you know where she is to be found?”
“I think I ’ave a impression it is—at least her hadver-tisement come out at——”
“Find her and bring her to me instantly—quietly, you understand.”
Whelks bowed and retired; he guessed his master’s object, and very quickly unkennelled Chayter, who likewise suspected the reason why Mr. Grahame sent for her, and prepared herself accordingly.
Within a short time from receiving his instructions,
Whelks introduced Chayter into the library, and stationed himself outside the door, with his ear to the keyhole, to put himself in possession of what transpired at the interview, but a current of air so sharp and so steady poured through the small opening into his ear, that he was compelled to retire, to avoid another onslaught of his ear-ache.
Chayter’s quick eye detected, as soon as she was alone with Mr. Grahame, a little pile of sovereigns, some eight or ten, upon the table. Mr. Grahame pointed to them.
“They shall be yours,” he said, “if you afford me any satisfactory information respecting the disappearance of Miss Grahame.”
“I can only tell you what I know sir,” replied the girl, regarding the sovereigns with a wishful eye.
“And what you may have reason to assume,” he added.
He then put a variety of questions to her, some of which she answered truthfully, and others by mere invention. It was not much that he ascertained, yet enough to know that Helen was in the habit of meeting some person at night in the garden; that whoever he was, he frequently addressed letters to her, and was no doubt the person who, being discovered suddenly by the Honorable Lester Vane, had felled that gentleman to the earth.
Mr. Grahame racked his brain to no purpose to fix upon some one likely to be the man who had so singularly beguiled his daughter from her high place, and at length he handed the money to Chayter, and bade her, if she could obtain any further information upon the strange subject, to communicate it to him, and she should be liberally rewarded.
“I’ll find her out,” said Chayter, when she left. “It will be worth my while. She’ll be clever if she keeps herself hidden from me!”
Chayter was premature in her conclusions.
Mr. Grahame sat alone to reflect upon his situation. A cloud had once more risen upon his fair sky, and threatened a storm. The flight, and possible mésalliance of his daughter Helen would certainly become known, and prove humbling to the pride of his house. The arrangements between himself and Wilton had yet to be completed. He had received large sums of money, for which he had given acknowledgments, and should anything arise to destroy the present understanding, his position would be frightful. Utter ruin and beggary must at one blow ensue.
But there was no reason to presume that the proposition made by Nathan Gomer, and acceded to by Wilton, would not be completed: there was a possibility of his son Malcolm marrying Flora Wilton. Still there was the possible contingency of something arising to prevent either being accomplished. Ah! if old Wilton had but perished in the fire which had consumed his house, or had died in prison, the whole of the wealth in dispute would have come to him, Grahame.
If the old man were to die now—before the arrangement was completed the same result would take place, for the existence of Mark Wilton was a problem, so far as Grahame’s knowledge of him went.
If he were to die now!
Safety, wealth, and a future secure from the fears that now tortured him, would be the consequence to him.
If he were to die now!
Grahame’s heart throbbed, and he felt cold as ice. He threw his eyes stealthily round the library. He was alone!
The man was old. How small a thing might rob him of life; a common accident—a potion administered in mistake—a subtle poison in fruit.
Mr. Grahame rose from his chair. Could he have seen the aspect of his own features at this moment in the glass, he would have almost screamed with horror. He tottered rather than walked to a book-case, and ran his eye down the back of his books; presently he clutched at one, drew it out, and moved back with it to the immediate vicinity of the lamp.
The book was labelled On Poisons.
With a hand which shook as if it was smitten with the palsy, he turned over a few of the leaves, and began reading with some avidity, an article on “Strychnos Tieuté, &c.”
Deeply interested in the revelations, he became unconscious of all else, until the pressure of a heavy hand upon his shoulder caused him to start with fright, and to spring back several feet.
Just where he had been standing, he beheld a grim, dirty-looking man, whose clothes where shabby, greasy, and dusty; whose face was pale, and whose eyes were red; whose matted hair was straggling over his forehead, and whose thick, stubbly beard, rendered his grimy visage yet more foul in its aspect.
Mr. Grahame stretched his hand towards the bell.
A sudden motion on the part of the stranger arrested his attention, and then he saw, for the first time, that his visitor was no other than Mr. Chewkle.
He gazed upon him with an emotion which partook of offended pride, uneasy wonder, and a lurking, darkly foreboding fear.
Mr. Chewkle now present was not, at least in appearance, the Mr. Chewkle first introduced to our readers. Then he was the decently-clad commission agent; now he was the dirty ruffian. The change was so remarkable as to extort an immediate remark from Mr. Grahame, who, with knitted brows, demanded of him how he came to visit him in such filthy guise.
“Never mind about that,” returned Mr. Chewkle, evincing by the tone of his voice, his intention to dispense with ceremony and with deferential respect. “I ain’t come here on a holiday visit, I can tell you. I came about that forger——”
“Hush—hush, man! are you mad that you speak so loud?” interrupted Mr. Grahame excitedly.
“Almost mad, and no mistake,” cried Mr. Chewkle, drawing the dirty cuff of his coat across his parched and blackened lips. “I’ve been hunted like a dog by the hofiicers, but I ain’t been run down yet, and I shan’t be, if you does the thing that’s rights and you must, or by——”
“No threats, man,” again interposed Mr. Grahame, attempting to assume a firm and haughty manner. “Tell me how it is you appear before me in this disreputable condition, and for what you wish, in thus forcing upon me an interview at so unseasonable an hour?”
Chewkle glared at him with red tiger-like eyes. He perused the features of Mr. Grahame, as though to read in their expression the line of conduct he intended to adopt with him.
“Lookee here,” he said, his beetling brows descending low enough to hide the upper lids of his glittering eyes; “there can’t be no mistake between us. That dockyment——”
“What document?”
“Oh! forgotten it so soon? That dockyment, bearing old Wilton’s name, which you forged in my presence; that dockyment which you think to be lost, but which isn’t, because I knows where it is, and can have it brought forard at a minute’s notice; that dockyment which you would swear, I dessay, that you’d never seen before, only you forget that you made a davy, when it went to be registered, that the signature was genuine, and was done in your presence—and in mine; that dockyment which, a few years ago, would a’ hanged you at Newgate, and which now, if I likes—mind, if I likes—will drag you before a judge and jury, and turn you, mighty proud as you are, into a con-vick——”
“Silence, wretch! silence, or I’ll strangle you!” cried Mr. Grahame, springing upon him in a paroxysm of rage and fright—Chewkle’s volubility, urged by his irritation, having resisted all extravagant signs and motions to check it.
He struck down Mr. Grahame’s vulture-like hands, and said—
“No, you don’t; and, mark me; take my advice, and be quiet, or I’ll make your own ’ouse too ’ot to ’old you!”
“What do you want with me?” growled Mr. Grahame, in anxious fear.
Seeing that it would be useless to expostulate with, or threaten, such a determined ruffian, he formed a hasty resolve to give him the money, or some portion off it, that he expected he would require, and get rid of him.
“I wants this of you—money?”
“I expected as much.”
“Ah! but not without earning it. I’ve got something to tell as will startle you. Listen, and see whether it won’t be worth while to open your purse to me, Old Wilton wants one link of evidence to make him master of all that property you have been trying to get—don’t he?”
“He does.” replied Mr. Grahame, with a half-presentiment of what was to follow.
“Well, that link I’ve found.”
“You?”
“I! I know where to clap my hand on it, and bring it to light; or—if liberally renoomerated—to keep it dark.”
“Is this truth?” cried Mr. Grahame, petrified.
Mr. Chewkle immediately took a terrific oath to confirm its assertion.
“The link’s a man,” he added; “and his name is Josh Maybee, eh?”
“The same—the same—where is he?”
“Ah; that’s jest what I shall keep for the present to myself. I don’t mind telling you that he does not know his own vally; and that I does; and I means to make a trifle by him; either out of you or Mr. Wilton; for if you don’t think it worth while to pay to keep the man dark; Mr. Wilton will; I daresay; think very little of a hundred or two to have him turn up.”
“Your intelligence is, indeed; important,” murmured Grahame with colourless features; “you swear that he is living; and can easily be produced?”
“I do.”
“I confess, if you are able to keep him out of the way, you are entitled to a handsome sum from me.”
“I thought you’d hear reason.”
“A-hem—when—when you say that you—that you will keep the man dark—those were yonr words, I think?”
Chewkle nodded.
“I feel I don’t precisely understand yonr meaning. Am I to be assured that you will—will so arrange matters that—this man—this Maybee—can never appear again, either to disturb my peace, or—or to substantiate Wilton’s claim to the estate?”
Mr. Grahame looked into Chewkle’s eyes with a strange meaning; Chewkle read the expression correctly instantly, and he instinctively shuddered and looked over his shoulder.
Then he whispered—
“Murder is it?”
Mr. Grahame threw his eyes slowly round the library, and then fastened them again on Chewkle’s inflamed orbs—
“It would be the source of unceasing torture to me to know the evidence of which you speak to be living, and that at any moment it might be forthcoming.”
“That’s true,” muttered Chewkle.
“It would be to my interest to pay handsomely—very handsomely, if I knew the evidence was”——
“Destroyed!”
“Exactly, Chewkle, my good fellow.”
“I wants money.”
“Pressingly?”
“Werry, werry pressingly.”
“How much at this moment?”
“Well, my position is jes’ this; I was a’pointed secretary and treasurer to a benefit society, and a little while ago they wanted money in a hurry, and I couldn’t let ’em ’ave it.”
“Embezzled their funds, I presume.”
“No, you speaks plain but not correctly. I had borrowed ’em, and it was inconvenient to return ’em jest when they wanted ’em. They was rash, and wouldn’t listen to explanations, and set the police on me. I have been hiding and seeking, and starving ever since. But I can square it by paying the sum they lent me.”
“Or you lent yourself. What is its amount?”
“Just forty pun’—that’s all.”
“You want that sum now?”
“Or Josh Maybee must turn up to-morrow, in Wilton’s favour; the bobbies are too close upon my heels to waste any time in parleying about it.”
Mr. Grahame drew forth his pocket-book, and from it selected a fifty pound note. He opened it to the greedy eyes of Chewkle, but he retained it while he spoke.
“I will give you this note now,” he said, slowly, and in a marked manner, “to relieve you from your present difficulties. But I will give you twice ten times that amount when I know that the evidence we have spoken of cannot at any time—mind! at any time—be produced.”
“Give me the note,” said Chewkle. “You shall be made easy in a few days, and I shall be as—as jolly as a sandboy again.”
Mr. Grahame gave him the note. He took it, and, after carefully reading it, put it away into his pocket.
“Twenty o’ them will be worth fingering,” he said, with a grin, and added abruptly, “and, perhaps, if old Wilton was to die very suddenly, it might be something in my pocket.”
A sickly smile passed over Mr. Grahame’s face.
“There is no telling what happens to old men,” he replied. “I have no desire to harm the old fellow, but I would give a magnificent douceur to the man who brought me tidings that he had been gathered to his ancestors.” Then he added quickly—“Haste away, I expect some of my family here—cannot you contrive to slip out unobserved?”
“Rather,” responded Chewkle, with a knowing look, “I came in by the garding, and up the hanging staircase. Luckily, the winder was half open, though the blind was down; I shall go back the same way.”
Mr. Grahame now understood the secret of his sudden and noiseless appearance. He was not sorry to know that the man could retire from the house without being seen, but he resolved that a like opportunity to enter at unbidden moments should not be afforded him.
He watched him descend into the garden, listened to his stealthy tread upon the smooth gravel path, and remained motionless until his intent ear could detect no other sound than the rustle of leaves, stirred by the soft breath of a gentle night breeze.
Then he returned to his table.
He took up the work “On Poisons.” He had hastily thrown it from him when startled by the unexpected appearance of Chewkle.
He gazed with a self-possessed aspect at the book, opened it, closed it with a smart clap, and then, walking with a firm step to his bookcase, he replaced it.
“I shall not now need its aid,” he muttered.
Then he sat himself by his library table. After musing a moment or two, he jerked his head once or twice, and ejaculated—
“What a scoundrel that fellow Chewkle is!”
Then he calmly applied himself to the perusal of some letters.
She saw it waxing very pale and dead,
And straight all flush’d; so lisped tenderly,
“Lorenzo!”—here she ceased her timid quest,
But in her tone and look he read the rest.
Oh, Isabella! I can half perceive
That I might speak my grief into thine ear;
If thou did’st ever anything believe.
Believe how I love thee—believe how near
My soul is to its doom: I would not grieve
Thy hand by unwelcome pressing, would not fear
Thine eyes by gazing; but I cannot live
Another night, and not my passion shrive.
Keats.
As soon as Wilton’s lawyers had executed and completed all the preliminaries necessary to reinstate him in the possession of that property from which some years back he had been so unceremoniously expelled, and had transferred the accumulated arrears from the Court of Chancery to his bankers the old man set out with Flora suddenly and alone once more to tread those halls—where before he had reigned supreme—as lord and master.
Wilton had a motive in proceeding to his long lost home thus privately. His heart was susceptible of emotion. A long course of comparative poverty had tended greatly to weaken his nervous system, and when last he left the spot he was now about to visit, a young trembling wife—whom he had loved passionately and tenderly, and with a devotion which had never changed under the afflicting trials to which he had been subjected—clung weeping to his arm. Long waving grass swayed softly to and fro now above where she lay in her last sleep. He knew that those tearful eyes, which had looked up at the picturesque old building—had dwelt upon the valley and the hill-side—the clustering woods and the distant villages, with lingering, agonized gaze, could never more regard them—never more bend their earnest, beaming, glad looks of recognition upon the places where in early and in happy times they had so loved to rest. He knew he should have a sharp wrestle with his spirit when he placed again his footstep upon the threshold of his recovered mansion, and he wished no eye, save that of Heaven or of his child, to irreverently obtrude upon his sacred emotions.
This will explain why he so suddenly departed from London without communicating to anyone his intention, and why Flora submitted to his request not to mention his purpose, even to one person.
It was night when they reached their destination in a carriage which bore them from the railway station to their new home, and, by the strict injunctions of Mr. Wilton, the housekeeper and one servant only were at the entrance of Harleydale Hall to receive them.
Wilton, with an agitated manner, drew Flora’s arm within his own, and entered the spacious hall. He threw his eyes hurriedly round, and saw at a glance that everything appeared to be much in the same state as when he had quitted it.
The housekeeper an elderly matron, advanced, and, in trembling voice, said—
“Welcome—welcome, sir, home! Welcome to your own! God be praised, you have won your rights!”
“Thank you, thank you, Mrs. Steadfast,” he replied, huskily. “I am glad to see you are still here!”
“Yes, sir, thank Heaven! and, madam, your dear lady, I am so proud——”
“My daughter, my daughter, Mrs. Steadfast—a mere child when last you saw her.”
Flora put aside her veil, that the old servant, who had many a time held her in her arms, should see her face, and the changes that time had made in it.
The housekeeper uttered an exclamation, and muttered—“The very counterpart!” Then she turned to old Wilton, and said—
“But your dear lady, my loved and honoured young mistress, sir; for young she was when last I saw her.”
Wilton removed his hat, and, gazing upwards, said in a low, impressive tone, yet tremulous with intense feeling—
“She is in heaven!”
There was a solemn stillness for an instant.
The housekeeper raised her handkerchief to her eyes, and Flora gently stole her hand into her father’s, and pressed it.
Then the old man, with a burst of anguish, hurried up the staircase, and, parting in broken sentences with his daughter for the night, sought the retirement of the room prepared for him, and there battled with his sorrow alone.
Flora, too, passed a part of the night in tears and prayer—tears for the loss of the gentle being she had loved so affectionately, and prayer for an angel-life with her hereafter in the ever-sunny regions of Paradise. Somehow, the form of Hal Vivian was interwoven with her thoughts and her prayers. She wept as her vision brought him to her eyes—she knew not wherefore; and her cheek hushed and burned as in fancy she saw his quiet, earnest gaze bent upon her face.
The sun was penetrating brightly through the window of her sleeping chamber as she awoke. She pressed her beautiful eyes with the delicate tips of her soft fingers, and then, opening them, gazed around her, surprised and somewhat disappointed to find that she was no longer dreaming. As, with the assistance, of her maid, she attired herself, she gazed out of the window upon the lovely landscape spread before her Upland and woodland, valley and ridge, all clothed in luxuriant verdure, fair as eye ever rested upon, and her dreams were called up by the beautiful scene before her.
A rosy blush mantled on her cheek as she remembered that Hal took part in her dreams, and probably she thought that, as with joy she had wandered with him in flowery meads and shadowy groves in her dream, the reality, if it were to occur here, would not be altogether distasteful to her.
Again her cheek burned, and her gentle bosom heaved, as, in her mental dreams, she saw his full clear eye turned upon her with thoughtful fervour. Strange that she should not ask herself what this emotion meant.
For the first few days she wandered with her father or alone over the more attractive portions of the property. Memory was busy all the while, and she sought to retrace spots and places she had in laughing childhood gambolled over. At the expiration of a week, Colonel Mires made his appearance.
There was a change in the aspect of his features, his skin was of a white sallowness; his eye was brighter, and the edges of the eyelids were red, as if inflamed. His black hair seemed longer and to be straggling, as if the care originally displayed in its arrangement had been abandoned. His voice, too, was hoarser in its tone, and his manner appeared agitated and abrupt.
Wilton did not notice the alteration in him, but Flora observed it, and attributed it to some event that had happened, and had brought him sorrow; so she was more kind in her manner to him, and seemed to evince more interest in his conversation than she had ever before exhibited.
There was no disguise in the joy which he displayed at this, but she saw in it nothing more than gratefulness for her endeavour to wile away moments he would otherwise have spent in sad thoughts. His flushed cheek and his increased excitement were not interpreted as he could have wished—for that he entertained for her the passion of love, was exactly the last thing she would have conceived respecting him.
He sought, by all the experience he was master of, to increase and improve the opportunity afforded him in having the field to himself, of ingratiating himself in her good graces, and of winning her favour. But anxious as he was upon the point, he was afraid to declare himself, for fear of startling her timid nature—all unpractised in the world’s ways—and thus damage the cause he had at heart. A cause which he trusted to conduct to success by obtaining an influence over her, the insidious approaches of which should be so cautiously concealed, that she would be unable to detect them until she discovered herself in trammels from which she would be unable to get free.
It is easy to lay plans for the capture of a woman’s heart. Artless, innocent, gentle, yielding, she may be; but even when those plans, matured by all that practised skill and experience can suggest, are put in operation, it is often found, at the moment of anticipated triumph, that the surrender of the heart depends solely on some condition which was omitted in the calculations upon which the plans were constructed.
Women have strong instincts as well as large intuitive perceptions, not reducible to any known laws of reasoning. They dislike a certain man because they do, and suspect him from no more explainable cause. Now, this man may be well versed in the weaknesses of the fairer sex, and well acquainted with all the points upon which they are most susceptible and accessible, but if he has excited dislike and suspicion, however fair and clear his conduct may have been, he may just as well lay plans to capture the moon, in the expectation of being successful, as to lay siege to the heart of a woman who dislikes or suspects him, in anticipation of winning it.
The advantage Colonel Mires possessed, in being the sole guest of Mr. Wilton, he continued for some little time to enjoy, and he observed with no small gratification, that Flora sat and listened with quiet attention and evident interest to his strange and wild stories of Indian life. Romantic adventures in campaigns, in which he had been engaged, he narrated with graphic power, artfully making himself the hero of the events, without seeming intentionally to do it. Occasionally, and with consummate skill, he would interweave with his relations love stories, mostly to show how a man, like himself, had, daring the stormy period of his life, raised up an ideal beauty to love and worship. How, on the long, weary march, in the quiet night in his tent, pitched upon the cold damp earth, or in the fierce din of warlike strife, he had looked upon that face as a lodestar cheering him on his march, shining upon him in the silent night, and leading him on to glory in the roar of battle. How, in after times, the reality had presented itself to his longing eyes, and how he had wooed the gentle creature and brought her to love him for—
“The dangers he had passed.”
How she, believing his ardent vow, that his whole future life should be devoted to the consummation of her future happiness, had given to him her hand with her heart in it.
Flora listened to such stories with downcast eyes and thoughtful air. It was evident they made an impression upon her. It seemed, even, that she loved to listen to them; it was plain that she did not grow weary of them, for she never displayed inattention or a desire to be away while he was deep in such a narration. But whether she interpreted them as he wished her to do, he was unable to detect.
Yet she was given much to wander alone. She contrived to elude the endeavours made by the Colonel to accompany her. Soon after dawn she would be away in the woods, or in the glen, upon the hill-side, or by the fair brook, that meandered, like a silver thread, through the valley. Or she would slip away when she perceived that her father had engaged his guest in conversation of a character not likely to terminate for some little time.
Many a sequestered spot, shaded by the soft green leaves of graceful trees, she found in her rambles, and, secure from interruption, enjoyed its solitary retirement, and its quiet beauties, but always alone. She shared the pleasure she obtained in visiting these leafy recesses with no one. It may have been that here she was free to think, without the possibility of the emotions playing over her expressive features being seen, and interpreted—without, too, the full play of her thoughts being impeded.
She would sit for hours in dreamy abstraction—sometimes she would weep unbidden tears—weep she could not tell why—would feel depressed, lonely, sad, without, attempting to assign a cause. Often would her cheek flush, and her bosom heave, while deep sighs burst from her breast; and she would look distastefully round her, rise, and with impatient manner, wander to some other spot, only to repeat her emotions and then return home, perhaps to seek her chamber and there relieve her surcharged heart by weeping.
Suffering this strange soul-disturbance, she knew not wherefore.
One day it was announced, to the discomfiture of Colonel Mires, that the Honorable Mr. Lester Vane had arrived, and craved the honour of paying his respects to Mr. Wilton and his daughter. The old man exhibited considerable pleasure at this arrival, and warmly welcomed his new guest. Flora’s reception of him, under the strong injunctions of her father, had rather too much display to please the Colonel, who could not help looking upon Vane with jealous misgivings. He met him with a cold and haughty reserve, which Vane perceived and returned with interest.
At first, Lester Vane declared that he had arrived with the purpose only of paying a flying visit, but he suffered himself to be persuaded by Wilton into making a longer stay, and he very quickly gave Colonel Mires an opportunity of discovering that he was passionately smitten by Flora’s charms, and that he intended to win her, if he could.
Colonel Mires grew deadly sick at heart, as the conviction—without the consolation of one poor doubt—forced itself upon him. The Honorable Lester Vane was a formidable rival. He was many years his junior; he was tall, well-formed, and possessed a handsome face; he was the son of a nobleman, and, some day, would be himself a lord. He could thus not only present a hand some person to the consideration of a young girl who had been for many years placed in a humble sphere, but could offer to her the prospect of becoming a titled lady—an inducement almost always of weight in feminine consideration. The Colonel, therefore, found that he had much, very much, to do to even maintain the ground he fancied he had gained, and very much more to oust a rival who had, as he believed, every advantage in his favour, and superior claims to his own in the struggle for Flora’s hand.
Lester Vane had conceived a passionate attachment for the person of Flora—a burning, feverish attachment, with which pure love had little to do. Her beauty had taken his soul by storm, and absence from her had inflamed his imagination to an intensity he found it impossible to endure. Hence, in spite of certain other designs he had formed, and was determined upon accomplishing, he had felt himself compelled, on finding Wilton had left London, to follow him down to the country.
He detected the position of Colonel Mires in an instant.
“He is a friend of the family,” he said to himself, with a sneer. “He is smitten with Miss Wilton’s beauty, and he expects to cunningly worm himself into her good graces, and so make her his wife. Bah! she would never willingly sacrifice herself to him—no, no! I don’t like the fellow; I don’t like the expression of his eyes. They have a dangerous, snake-like character. N’importe!—I can cope with him, I think; but if I fail by art, it will not be difficult to goad him by insult into a challenge. Fourteen paces and a firm hand will settle the matter between us for ever.”
So Flora, immediately after the advent of Lester Vane, found her society courted, both by him and Colonel Mires, with a solicitude and an earnestness which quickly became embarrassing to her.
Her father passed a great deal of his time alone in his library; his restoration to the society of his books was one of the happiest conditions in his change from poverty to wealth; he hardly knew how enough to indulge in those treasures of art and science thus repossessed, and which had been his passion in former times.
Flora was thus left to the—it might almost be said—importunities of her father’s guests: for though both, as well-bred men, did not exceed the strict rules of good society, yet they took every occasion to make her see and to understand, that their attentions were dictated by something warmer than the impulses of common friendship.
She had one protection in the fact, that the rivalry existing between these lovers made each take every precaution that the other should not have the satisfaction and the advantage of a tête-à-tête with the object of their mutual passion, and this was even extended to her out-door excursions. Lester Vane, at times, watched and followed her, but he had scarcely reached her side, when they were joined by Mires, who would, on no suggestion or hint from Vane, quit the pair until the house was reached, and Flora had retired to her own apartment.
This occurred several times. Flora began to feel distressed and alarmed. Not any direct profession of love had fallen from the lips of either, but it was impossible for her not to comprehend, by the devoted attentions, the fervent language, and the ardent looks addressed to her by each, that these professions would be made, and at no distant period. Thus she began to contract the duration of her stay in the presence of her father’s guests, and to so contrive her rambles that they should take place at periods when she was likely to be secure from interruption.
She grew pale and melancholy, was often abstracted while in the company of those who sought exclusively to occupy her attention; and, without being marked in her increasing desire for seclusion, she presented herself in the drawing-room or dining-room only when she could not well escape the duties of her position.
It was not difficult for either Colonel Mires or Lester Vane to see that Flora looked upon the seemingly accidental rencontres with themselves in their strolls as unfortunate, and that she viewed them with distaste. Colonel Mires even took the trouble to sound her on the subject, and succeeded in eliciting from her that she preferred in her morning walks to be quite alone.
Lester Vane caught at her acknowledgment, and proposed a shooting excursion for the following morning to Colonel Mires, who promptly acceded to the proposition. Flora perceived that this was a delicate attention to her wish, and responded by a grateful look to Vane, who treasured it up to be that night gloated over as a step gained towards the goal he looked forward to reach.
“I see my way better from that glance,” he thought, “than I have yet by any occurrence that has happened. I will rack my brain to lay her under small obligations; those little thankfulnesses gathered together will reach to the magnitude of fondness; and if I but make her fond—if I can only make her fond—the victory is mine.”
That morning early, Lester Vane and Colonel Mires, equipped for the sport, attended by the gamekeeper and their grooms, set out upon their expedition. Flora, seeing her father safe in his library, surrounded by his favourite authors, and bent upon scientific experiments, which were likely to absorb his devoted attention until dinner-time, took a book with her, and sauntered away from the house in an opposite direction to that which she had seen the gentlemen take. She directed her steps towards a sequestered glen, through which the valley stream flowed, chanting its bubbling lay, and where wild flowers were profuse. Young trees, thickly intertwined, shaded the sun from the soft, even, emerald sward, and the silence was only disturbed by the singing of birds, striving to rival the musical murmur of the rippling water as it swept windingly through the secluded place.
Of late she had visited this spot more frequently than any other; for, in her approach to it, she had not been encountered by either the Colonel or Vane, nor did she ever within its precincts see living creatures, save the birds darting from the sunlight into the shadowy trees, or the fish leaping out of the stream in pursuit of their prey.
She was, therefore, not a little disturbed and surprised, on making her way to her accustomed seat, to find it occupied by a gentleman, who, with his head resting upon his hand, was seated, gazing upon the ever-moving stream in an attitude of abstracted contemplation.
She would have retreated, if possible, without attracting the observation of the stranger, but the glitter of her flowing garments had attracted his eyes, and he turned towards her, rising up as he did so.
A faint exclamation burst from her lips as the stranger advanced in her direction with something of a hesitating manner, but she eagerly held out both her hands to greet him; her eyes glittered like diamonds, and a rosy flush suddenly spread itself over neck, face and forehead.
“Mr. Vivian!” she exclaimed, “how strange we should meet here. You have come down to pay us a visit—have you not. Heaven! how pale you look—are you ill?”
It was Hal Vivian, certainly, and with a face pale, anxious, and marked with lines of sorrow.
He took her extended hands; he saw how her face lighted up with pleasure at meeting him; it was an expression scarcely to be misunderstood or observed, by him at least, with apathy; he saw, too, the crimson flush upon her cheek, and perhaps his own became of as deep a hue.
“It is strange that we have met here, Miss Wilton,” he replied, trying to clear his voice, and to speak with a firm tone. “I did not foresee that you would visit this retired spot; indeed, I myself found it out yesterday only, and struck by its quiet beauty, revisited it this morning.”
“You have then been in the neighbourhood some days at least,” said Flora, with surprise, and added, in a reproachful tone, “you have not called to see my father or—or myself. What have we done, Mr. Vivian, to occasion on your part such singular conduct; have we offended you? You surely should know we would not lightly do that.”
“No, no—oh, not offended me,” replied Hal, quickly and earnestly. “No, it is not that.”
“Why should you, Mr. Vivian, if not offended, refrain from paying us a visit—if even one of mere ceremony?” she returned, with a slightly pouting lip.
“Because—because—pardon me, Miss Wilton, if I speak with too much plainness. I would not, for my own happiness, pain or wound you, but I feel some explanation of my recent and future conduct is due to you, at least. In offering this explanation I may be inflicting upon you some disquiet; if I should, I ask in anticipation your pardon, for I may not swerve from the truth in what I shall reveal, and you will judge that, whatever may be its effect, it has not been uttered with any intention to displease you.”
He took Flora by the hand, and led her to the spot where he had been reclining, and begged her to be seated there while he addressed her.
She went unresistingly and complied with his request. Her heart beat violently, her ears burned and tingled, and she could see nothing but the green tremulous grass at her feet.
Yet she heard clearly and distinctly; every tone of his rich, musical voice seemed to vibrate upon her heart, and to bury itself therein, and she felt as if she could sit thus and listen to him for ever.
“Miss Wilton,” he said, “I will be brief, for what I have to say should be so: for your sake and for my own, the sooner it is over the better. Our acquaintance has been spread over some years, but it has been limited in its character. The events of the past few months have thrown us into more intimate relation, and have resulted in creating an influence over me which time can never efface. I have come to know this—to know, Miss Wilton, that your gentle nature, no less than your other perfections, have absorbed all of passion, of love, I may ever hope to have: and this at a time when it is forced upon me that your position and birth are far removed above mine. That any hopes I might entertain, or wishes I might form, would be unjust to you, I feel; and that they are improbable of realization I cannot deny to myself. I have probed my heart, my soul, and find that change in my feelings towards you can never come. I could not, therefore, continue to visit you—to have you ever in my eyes, and know that you could never, never be mine. I could not see you often, and look upon your heavenly face, listen to the music of your words, grow faint beneath the soft gaze of your quiet, tender eyes, and content myself with that bliss without seeking to raise in your heart the same love that burned in mine. I tried to induce myself to do this. I tried to believe that I could remain near you, watch over you as a guardian spirit, and be happy in the thought that I could shield you from danger or from sorrow, that I could see calmly another wear the gem I would give almost existence to possess. But, oh! Flora, I am but human, miserably, weakly human. My love is selfish, at least in this. I cannot look upon you in the possession of another. So I have come to the determination to leave this country for ever, and, in some distant land, struggle with my hopeless passion as best I may.”
He paused for a moment, and his lip quivered with the strong emotion which convulsed his frame. He pressed his trembling lip with his teeth, and then went on—
“I had intended to have spared myself the pang of parting with you—for—ever—but it was not to be. I came down here to gaze my last upon the roof that sheltered you; to obtain, if possible, one last look upon your dear form; to breathe a prayer for your eternal happiness——”
“I cannot bear it!” cried Flora, springing to her feet. She burst into a passion of tears, and flung herself upon his neck. “You must not go, Hal!” she cried with intense excitement, “you must not, shall not leave me; I should break my heart! I should die if you were parted from me!”
He pressed her with passionate ardour to his breast His heart wras too full to utter a word.
Nothing disturbed the stillness of the quiet air but the gentle warbling of a lonely bird, the plaintive chant of the running stream, and Flora’s low sobbing.