Sieg. You are charged,
Your own heart may inform you why, with such a crime as—
Gab. Give it utterance, and then
I’ll meet the consequences.
Sieg. You shall do so—
Unless
Gab. First, who accuses me?
Sieg. All things.
If not all men; the universal rumour—
My own presence on the spot—the place, the time,
And every speck of circumstance, unite
To fix the blot on you.
—Byron.
Mr. Chewkle—attired as a traveller about to undertake a long journey—entered the waiting-room of the Great Western Railway Station on the morning following his interview with Nathan Gomer, precisely as the clock pealed the hour of nine. He gazed about him—inspected with unabashed steadfastness the features of the individuals assembled in readiness for the 9.15 train, and then seated himself in a conspicuous situation.
He arranged his hair and his hat: he looked slowly once more at every face, and then, putting the knob of his walking stick to his lips, he fixed his eyes upon a heap of miscellaneous luggage.
He commenced to wait for Nathan Gomer.
At the same hour Nathan presented himself at the gate of the Queen’s Prison, and, in his turn, waited for admission. He took the opportunity of obtaining from one of the officers “on the lock” some particulars respecting Mr. Joshua Maybee, and, immediately the opportunity was afforded him, he made direct for that man’s apartment on the county side of the prison.
Josh Maybee was not afflicted with a mania for early rising; he liked to take out a large share of existence reclining between sheets upon a mattress: he would have preferred a down bed, but that was a luxury unknown to the prison, at least on the county side; he, therefore, went to bed early, and rose late.
He was miserably poor; and, as scarcely anything in the place acknowledged him for master, he had no fear of being robbed—consequently, he slept with his door unlocked. It saved him a trouble night and morning. Nathan Gomer, therefore, entered his room without difficulty, and, closing the door softly behind him, turned the key in the lock. He gazed upon the poor mean prison bed, and upon the pallid old face lying upon the pillow—the eyes closed in sleep. He sighed—for the sallow hue of the man’s features, and the long lines furrowing forehead and cheek, told of long incarceration, and much continued mental suffering.
He drew towards the bed with a noiseless step, and taking off his hat and gloves, he laid them aside with his stick. He then seated himself upon the floor by the bedside, placing his face within a foot of Maybee’s, so that when the latter awoke, he should be promptly alive to the fact that he was honoured with the presence of a visitor.
Without pretending to assert that the eyes of Nathan Gomer possessed magnetic influence, it must be acknowledged that very shortly after Nathan had fixed them upon Joshua Maybee’s sealed orbs, the latter commenced a tremulous vibration, and ultimately the eyeballs appeared to be slowly rotating beneath the lids, increasing their motion until the eyelids seemed forced open, and the eyes of Josh Maybee and Nathan Gomer met.
For an instant there was perfect silence, accompanied by a fixed stare on both sides, Maybee being uncertain whether he was dreaming or awake; then Nathan grinned, whereupon Maybee uttered a roar of fright, and would have leaped out of bed, but that Nathan restrained him, bade him lie down again, and not be terrified. He called upon him to preserve his calmness, as he desired to have a long conversation with him. He also told him that he would have occasion to exercise his memory with patient perseverance, and to communicate the result of the examination to him. He added, that he might expect immediate remuneration for his revelations, equivalent to their value, as well as the prospect of a speedy liberation from the den in which he had so long been incarcerated.
Josh Maybee listened in silent amazement. He looked distrustfully and suspiciously at his mysterious visitor; and, notwithstanding the grand promises of pecuniary recompense and release from imprisonment, he did not seem disposed to entertain the proposition, or to do anything, indeed, to prolong the interview. His flesh crawled as he looked upon the singular features of the strange being before him, who nodded and grinned at him very much after the manner of the gnomes of the Golden Harz, of whom, in his younger days, he had read with awe; and he could hardly help thinking that the awful-looking little stranger was, at least, a native of a lower world, gifted with the power of appearing on earth, adopting, when he availed himself of the advantage he possessed, a form and deportment calculated to fling into hysterics of terror all whom he honoured with his presence.
It was not until Hathan Gomer perceived the alarm his appearance excited, that he more clearly explained the nature of his visit, and displayed his knowledge of the information obtained from Chewkle, then Maybee became more composed, quitted his squalid bed, and dressed himself in his greased and faded habiliments.
By the liberality of Gomer, he was provided with a breakfast the like of which he had not tasted for years; and when he had finished his repast, and emotions stole over him of a right royal and monarchical character, Nathan commenced enlisting his sympathies in favour of Wilton and his daughter, whom he remembered on his attention being drawn to them. He followed up his observations by reverting to the earlier periods of Maybee’s life, extorted from him a complete history of past events, and elicited as he proceeded all that was essential to the establishment of Wilton’s claim to the estates left by old Eglinton.
This done, Nathan Gomer, being beyond a doubt satisfied on all-points, even to the production of documents, entered into a compact with Joshua Maybee, which the latter swore to fulfil. The amber-visaged dwarf, having supplied the poor old prisoner with funds, arranged when he would again see him, and then took his departure.
He jumped into a cab on quitting the prison, and drove to a solicitor’s. The interview between him and his legal adviser was marked by much excitement on the part of Nathan Gomer and evident surprise on that of the lawyer, as well as by the rapid taking of notes. When this interview terminated, Nathan flung himself once more into a cab, and was whirled away at a smart pace for a new destination.
Mr. Chewkle during this period sat in the waiting-room at the railway station patiently for half-an-hour; he was amused by the coming and going of persons, by the diversity of bags and parcels moving to and fro, the contents of which he imagined and coveted, and the general activity and bustle prevailing in such a place. But when ten o’clock struck he began to fancy that he had mistaken the time appointed, and had arrived here an hour before his time.
He sharply examined every person who entered, expecting to see Nathan, but eleven o’clock came and passed, and Gomer had not made his appearance.
Mr. Chewkle now began to grow uneasy—he went carefully over the last night’s interview, but could not alight upon any part of it in which, to use his own language, he had “sold himself;” he, therefore, tried to content himself by assuming that Nathan Gomer had been unexpectedly detained on some important business, and he decided on allowing him the latitude of another hour.
It was striking twelve when, exhausted by the dreary task of enduring three hours’ expectancy, he rose to depart, having fixed his eye upon a lady’s black leather travelling bag, which seemed to be worth taking away He advanced towards it with the air of one who was about to take possession of his own property, and hurry away with it. He had his hand upon the handle, and was in the act of making a plunge at the doorway, when he felt himself seized by the wrist, and a voice said sharply in his ear—
“Put down that bag!”
He dropped it instanter, and turned to apologise for his “mistake,” to as he presumed an officer, but found that he was in the grip of Nathan Gomer.
His jaw dropped, he uttered a kind of hysterical screeching laugh, and gasped out something respecting being made to wait so long without having anything to amuse him, and, at the same time, he felt inwardly convinced that the dwarf had been hiding somewhere ever since nine o’clock to have the opportunity of pouncing upon him in the very act in which he was caught.
Nathan made no allusion to the discrepancy between the hour he had named to meet Chewkle, and that at which he appeared; he merely said—
“Follow me!”
He quitted his hold of Chewkle as he spoke, and made his way out of the station into the street, and Chewkle followed him at the same rapid pace.
Nathan made his way to a small tavern in the vicinity, and diving into a low, dark, room, motioned to Chewkle, who was at his heels—with an unpleasant suspicion that a policeman was bringing up the rear—to take a seat.
He ordered Chewkle a stiff glass of a compound called, by a most elastic stretch of the imagination, brandy and water, and when they were alone, and Chewkle actively engaged in disposing of his powerful beverage, Nathan briefly told him that he had decided to take no steps in the matter, upon which he, Chewkle, had, on the previous evening, visited him.
“You’ve made up your mind to that, eh?” said Chewkle, eyeing him steadfastly.
“Quite: I am resolved,” was the reply.
“You may change your mind?” suggested Chewkle. “No,” said Gomer. “Nothing will make me alter my determination.”
“I can,” observed Chewkle, emphatically.
“No; the same propositions and inducements have been held out before, but proved, after considerable cost, valueless.”
“This won’t,” urged Chewkle.
Nathan Gomer shook his head.
“I tell you it won’t!” cried Chewkle, almost fiercely. “Look a-here!” he exclaimed, in a lower tone, and touching Nathan on the sleeve; “you’d rather Wilton have the property than Grahame, wouldn’t you?” Nathan nodded.
“Well, suppose the man I spoke to you about last night was to die?”
“To die?” echoed Nathan, coldly.
“Yes, was to die all of a sudding, and I was to put into Grahame’s hand a cettifyket of the man’s death? He would push on his claim. Wilton’s only chance would be floored, and Grahame must win.”
“But the man is healthy, and won’t die,” suggested Gomer, with a nonchalant air, which had its effect.
“Healthy men die very suddenly sometimes, you know,” said Chewkle, in a meaning tone; “and its a strornirary fact that men who are wanted out o’ the way goes out of the way jest in the nick o’ time.” Nathan felt the roots of his hair tingle and vibrate. The scoundrel meant murder: he was sure of that.
He made no answer. Chewlde dropped his head suddenly, and hissed in Nathan’s ear.
“S’pose old Wilton hisself was to turn up his toes when he was out a walking, eh? I ’spects Grahame would come in for the swag then, eh? Grahame’s a keen sort, I can tell you.”
Nathan’s face grew a deeper amber than ever; his eyes almost blazed in their brightness; he felt a kind of choking sensation; but he controlled himself.
“Wilton has a son,” he murmured.
“Gone away—not known where, as they says on the enwellops when a lawyer’s letter, with a writ in it, comes back,” replied Chewkle, quickly. “Ah!” he added, “Grahame would have possession of the lot before that young un turned up, and if he ever should show again, he wouldn’t easily get out of the Scotchman’s clutches.”
Nathan Gomer mused; presently he said—
“There is something in your suggestion worth consideration.”
“I knows there is,” chimed in Chewkle.
“I may, therefore, alter my mind in so far as paying Wilton a visit, and consulting with him upon it,” observed Gomer; “but, really, I don’t think anything will come of it in the face of the arrangement now being effected,” he continued.
“Are the dockyments signed by both parties?” inquired Chewkle, rather eagerly.
“No, they are not yet signed,” replied Gomer “but a part of the provisions have been carried out, for I have advanced Grahame a large sum of money.”
“I knows it; on the understanding that if the agreement ain’t completed, he is to return all the money advanced.”
“Exactly.”
“He can’t do it,” returned Chewkle, emphatically. “You came down upon him with that proposal, like a hangel from the sky, and saved him from crunching up like a bit o’ burnt wood—you saved him from wuss—much wuss—but that’s neither here nor there. How-somever, he won’t let a chance slip to get the whole of the estate into his claws. I’ll try a leetle more o’ this brandy, if you please; it’s some o’ the right sort, this is,” subjoined Chewkle, labouring under a delirious delusion on that point.
His glass was replenished, and the interval seemed to give Nathan Gomer time to cogitate, although, actually, his plan had been matured before he sought Chewkle at the railway station.
At length he said—
“I will see Wilton, but I cannot make the journey to Harleydale until three weeks have elapsed.”
“Three weeks,” echoed Chewkle; “say three years. A-hem! Wilton may be dead before three weeks is over.”
“Scoundrel!” thought Gomer. He fixed his eye upon Chewkle, and said—
“That is as Providence directs! For myself, I have important business in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, and Dublin, which must be transacted, and I have no one to nominate in my place if I go to Harleydale.”
“Could I do the work?” exclaimed Chewkle, falling plump into the trap.
“You?” exclaimed Gomer, inquiringly.
“Yes; I am used to all sorts of commission work, bill-broking and collecting. I’ll hunt up a man with any officer in the force, and I’ll dun a man out of his account and out of his mind with any collector in the kingdom.”
“What commission?” asked Gomer. “Oh! I’ll leave that to you. I has five per cent on small things, and two and a-half on large, and my expenses, but I’ll leave that to you.”
Gomer sat and mused, and expressed doubts as to whether he could trust him, and played so much and so well with his fish that the latter absolutely gorged himself with the hook. He importuned the dwarf so urgently at last to employ him in the business he spoke of, that the little man consented, on condition that he started to Birmingham by the three o’clock train that day.
To this proposition Chewkle assented readily, and declared himself ready to go home to his lodgings at once, get a few things for his journey, and then depart on his mission. Gomer accompanied him, furnished him with papers, instructions, and money for his travelling expenses, and never left him until he saw the train leave the platform at Euston Square Station, with Chewkle inside, bound for Birmingham.
Nathan Gomer returned to his solicitor’s, and it was late at night before he saw his bed. The following morning, an application was made in the Court of Chancery in the case of Maybee, and an eloquent Counsel dwelt long and forcibly on the terrible punishment inflicted upon a man imprisoned for eighteen years, through an act of negligence on the part of his solicitor.
The Lord Chancellor granted an order for the man to be produced in Court, and on the following day, wan, haggard, and sallow in the face, dirty and tattered in his attire, he was brought before the Lord Chancellor, in the custody of an officer of the Queen’s Prison. The Lord Chancellor interrogated him, and elicited much that excited great commiseration, and his discharge was ordered forthwith.
The necessary legal forms having been complied with, Nathan Gomer conveyed him away from the prison, after settling all claims, and bore him—where Mr. Chewkle was likely to have much trouble to find him.
Nathan had requested Mr. Chewkle to correspond with him at stated intervals, and inform him of the progress he had made in the mission he had undertaken—chiefly a collection of overdue bills. The agent duly kept his engagements, although Nathan Gomer began to have shrewd suspicions that he was keeping as well some of the proceeds. However, the postmarks upon his communications were evidence of his being far from London, and that served the purpose of his employer to perfection.
Having made skilful and satisfactory arrangements in London, Nathan Gomer started from thence to Harleydale Manor, to have an interview with Wilton upon the new and important phase in his situation.
He arrived at his destination at a remarkable moment.
On reaching the manor-house, and entering the hall, he gave his name to the hall-keeper, and was informed that a servant had the moment previously ascended to the library to announce a gentleman who had followed him up.
Nathan Gomer, with a light step, sprang up the stairs, and arrived at the library door as the servant, in a loud tone of voice, announced—“Mr. Mark Wilton.”
For the moment he was astounded, but recovering himself, he raised his finger to the servant, who recognized him and would have announced him too. He glided behind a screen, and awaited the result of a meeting which he knew would prove of a peculiar kind.
He had no conception of the scene enacting at the moment of Mark’s arrival, and he was to be surprised even yet more than he expected.
Old Wilton, upon the name of his son being announced, started and staggered as if he had been smitten a violent blow; then he drew himself up erect. His flushed face became pale, and his brow remained contracted as sternly as before.
Mark Wilton entered with a hasty step, and advanced rapidly to his father, with the intention of embracing him, but he paused upon observing the old man’s attitude and demeanour.
He stretched out his hands.
“Father!” he exclaimed, with emotion.
The old man remained rigid as a statue, and made no sign of taking the proffered hands.
How changed he was since Mark had last seen him! Then in a poor lodging, surrounded by poverty and bowed by care and toil, he seemed the poor haggard slave of want; now, the tenant of a noble mansion, attired as a gentleman, conscious of the position to which he had been born, he looked like a patrician, only to be approached with deference and humility.
But for certain characteristics of feature, Mark would not have known him again.
Wilton regarded his son with a glance which, while it noted the change that time and climate had made in him too, abated none of its sternness.
“Mr. Mark Wilton,” he said, in harsh tones, “years have passed since you flung away your title to address me by the name of father. You quitted my roof by an exercise of your own self-will; you return to me, I presume, under a similar influence, not having during the whole interval communicated with me or any of your relatives. I am therefore to attribute, I suppose, your present visit to the circumstance of a change for the better in my condition reaching your filial ear.” Mark’s face became the hue of crimson. He folded his arms, and looked his father steadfastly in the eyes.
“I left home, sir,” he exclaimed, in a firm tone, “under motives which I had hoped you would have appreciated. I was a burden to you, sir, in your poverty. I absorbed a share of that income which was barely enough to support the family without my addition. I had no means of aiding you, for I knew no trade. I left you, therefore, to fight the world as best I could, so that I relieved you of a tax upon your exertions. I left you in silence, because I would spare myself the entreaties, the urgings and implorings, to me to remain at home. They would have deeply affected and pained me without making me swerve from my purpose. I have remained silent during my absence, because my career has been a chequered one. I would not write to you until I could send some earnest of my love for you all with my communication. It was only at the last moment when almost in a day I became the owner of considerable wealth, that I felt the time had come for you to be made acquainted with my existence, and immediately I hastened to England to share with you what I had obtained; and if it were not enough for all, to leave you once more until I had won from Fortune sufficient for myself. Such, sir, are the facts I cannot beg you to believe them, because you know, sir, as a boy, I respected truth too reverently to give you the right to doubt them. I have no more to say, sir, than this. My bursting heart tells me that had my most fondly loved, my sainted mother have been spared by God to have met me here, my reception would not have been such as you have extended to me.”
Mark pressed his hands over his eyes. There was a convulsive twitching about the mouth of old Wilton, and his eyelids filled with water.
“Mark!” he exclaimed, in a husky voice: “Mark—my son! In the name of her whom you have apostrophised, come to my heart!”
Mark sprang into his father’s arms, and they embraced. They wrung each other’s hands warmly, and the reconciliation was complete.
Harry Vivian would have retired, to leave the father and son to themselves, though Colonel Mires did not offer to move, but old Wilton waved his hand to him to stay.
“You will oblige me by remaining, if you please, Mr. Vivian,” he said, making an effort to clear his voice. “We will settle our little unpleasant conference before you take your departure. You must see that it will be wise to do so—nay, that it will emphatically be necessary to do so.”
“What!” exclaimed young Wilton, suddenly: “is that Mr. Harper’s nephew?”
Old Wilton assented grandly with, his head. The manner was distinctly patronising.
Alas! how easy it is to forget past services, when the remembrance would interfere with present selfish considerations!
Young Wilton advanced rapidly to where Vivian stood, and seized his hand.
“Hal!” he cried.
“Mark!” exclaimed Hal.
The grasp of the hand that followed was not less warm and earnest than that which had taken place between father and son.
Mark knew Hal’s nature well, and prized its worth at its true value.
After a few brief words of congratulation on both sides, Mark said—
“My father speaks of an ‘unpleasant conference.’” He looked sharply at Colonel Mires. “I hope, Hal, there is nothing between you and him”——
“Be silent for the present, Mark,” exclaimed his father, hastily. “You shall know all shortly, and I am sure you will see matters from the same point of view as myself. Mr. Vivian, you were about to speak when my son entered. Will you be kind enough to proceed? My son may as well be present at what is about to take place.”
Hal bowed.
“I have but little to say, Mr. Wilton,” he exclaimed in reply; “but that little, I trust, will be to the pur pose. I have been charged with having surreptitiously and artfully ensnared the affections of your daughter. Miss Wilton. I answer, that this charge has been made to you by one who deliberately preferred it, knowing it to be utterly, shamefully and scandalously false.”
Colonel Mires, with a furious gesture sprang to his feet. Harry Vivian turned to him with a firm, unmoved air, and waved him calmly but contemptuously back to his seat.
“Mr. Wilton,” he said, with dignified appeal, “I remained silent while contumely and base imputations were heaped upon my head. I expect—nay, I demand, that at least justice be rendered to me!”
Mark Wilton appeared thunder-stricken by what was passing, and stood gazing upon his father and his old playmate in mate surprise.
In the meanwhile, Mr. Wilton observed hastily to the accused—
“Certainly, Mr. Vivian, it is your right, and justice shall be meted out to you. But this distinct denial, so unexpected, what does it mean?”
“This, Mr. Wilton,” returned Vivian, unable to control the excitement under which every nerve quivered; “that while acknowledging a deep and passionate love for your daughter, Miss Wilton, I scornfully and indignantly repudiate the infamous charge of having surreptitiously or insidiously attempted to win her heart. I have, sir, so instinctive, so full a perception of her innocence and purity—of the natural delicacy of the direction of her mind—that a purpose so base would never suggest itself to me. Further, sir, I consider the presumption that Miss Wilton would lend an ear to such incitement an insult to her; and, but for your presence, I would have lashed, like a hound, the paltry knave who is the author of the insult and of the lie!”
“Wilton, Wilton, I cannot submit to this outrage!” roared Colonel Mires, once more starting to his feet and making a dash at Hal; but Mark Wilton sprang forward and stayed him. He forced him back to the spot where he had been seated.
“I know not who you are, or under what circumstances you are here,” he said, sternly, to him, “but I do know Mr. Vivian, and I have the fullest faith in his honour. I know, too, by what has just passed, that you have been using the name of my sister too freely and too impertinently for my satisfaction. Now you must not attempt here, by blustering or playing the part of a bully, to seek to escape from your position. You must either prove what you have gone so far as to assert, or you must look to be expelled hence by an operation more summary than dignified.”
“Unhand me,” cried Mires, his lips purple with passion. “Mr. Wilton, as your guest, I claim to be treated with propriety and respect.”
Mr. Wilton called impetuously to his son to return to his side, and suggested to Colonel Mires that his own intemperate movement had caused Mark’s interference. He then turned to Hal, and said—
“Mr. Vivian, you register a denial and make an admission in a breath; are you prepared upon your honour to state that you have had no clandestine meeting with my daughter, at any period of your acquaintance?”
“I am.”
“How?” almost screamed Mires, “will you dare to utter a falsehood so easily and so clearly to be disproved?”
“By whom?” asked Hal, contemptuously.
“By me!” he cried, with furious emphasis.
Hal regarded him with a scornful curl of the lip, and said—
“I have not to learn that you find pleasure in sneaking into shadowy coverts and dark spots to play the spy in order that you may fill well the equally honourable office of informer. I shall prove that one day to your small satisfaction. In this instance, your contemptible manouvres will avail you nothing; they have given you a foundation, and your own vile nature supplied materials for a fabric, but it is a chateau d’Espagne of the dirtiest kind.”
Hal turned from him to Mr. Wilton, and added—
“I reiterate, sir, there is not a shadow of foundation for such a charge. Once in my life I have met Miss Wilton alone, but the rencontre was accidental and unexpected. I have now only to say that, undesirous as I am to recur to the past, I am compelled to call your attention to your knowledge of the circumstances which have drawn us together, and I ask you to remember any act of mine that has given you reason to doubt that I have acted, or should act, in any way unworthily or dishonourably.”
He ceased, and a silence of almost a minute ensued. Mr. Wilton did recur to the past; he remembered the offer of service made by the generous youth in the hour of his frightful distress. He remembered that mainly to his gallantry he was indebted for not only the life of his daughter, but for the preservation of the important document which had restored him to his present position. But he remembered, too, the vow he had made to the friend of his boyhood, and it decided him how to act. He looked upon Vivian’s handsome face, flushed with excitement, and felt that it offered a fair excuse for Flora’s unwished-for predilection. “It will soon wear off,” he mentally exclaimed, “when she no longer meets with or sees him.”
“Mr. Vivian,” he said, addressing him with an assumed calm loftiness, “I am content to believe that you may have conceived an attachment for my daughter, and that you have not acted upon that impression to secretly endeavour to secure her affection in return. Let all that has been said upon that point be at once, and for ever, buried. It, however, becomes a grave duty on my part to counsel you to eradicate that passion, because it can never be recompensed as you may hope. My daughter Flora is another’s. She was promised to that individual when in infancy, even under a vow to ratify it. I cannot recall it. I would not if I could. She never can be yours. Now, Mr. Vivian, I am not unmindful of your past services; I appreciate them warmly, and am most unlikely to forget them by any breach of the laws of hospitality, but you must see this can no longer be a place for you to visit. I must, therefore, take my farewell of you. I shall be happy to hear of your future welfare and of your fame, for I have always entertained an opinion that a high destiny awaits you. At any time that I can be of service”——
Hal made an impatient, indignant gesture. Mr. Wilton bowed.
“I understand the feeling,” he said, “and I honour it. However, I desire not to part in anger with you; be this the proof;” he tendered his hand to Hal, who coldly received it. “But,” concluded Mr. Wilton, impressively, “I desire that we may part at your earliest convenience. With this I terminate this most unpleasant interview, and would crave to be left alone with my son.”
Hal bowed stiffly, and proceeded to retire. Colonel Mires rose to depart also. Mark Wilton stepped before him.
“Stay,” he said, sternly, pointing to the Colonel’s seat. “You may have something more to tell my father; and permit me to suggest to you to make hay while the sun shines. Father,” he said, “I will attend Mr. Vivian, during the remainder of his brief stay, for the honour of the house, and—you understand,” he concluded, hastily, as he ran after young Vivian.
Wilton glanced at the passionate workings of Colonel Mires’ features, as he watched Hal depart, and comprehended his son’s meaning at once. He therefore detained the Colonel with him until Mark’s return informed him of Vivian’s departure.
Immediately after Mark had disappeared, Nathan Gomer glided out of the room too, and pausing in the corridor muttered to himself—
“I don’t like this. What does the old man want? He had enough sorrow and affliction in his poverty; does he want to create a condition of unhappiness in his wealth? He shan’t. I will see Flora and talk with her about this affair—my mission is to see the children all happy, and I will—ay, I will.”
As he concluded, he rapidly made his way to Flora’s chamber, and tapped lightly at the door.
J. Sh.—Forbear, my lord! here let me rather die,
And end my sorrows and my shame for ever.
East.—Away with this perverseness—‘tis too much.
Nay, if you strive—‘tis monstrous affectation!
J. Sh.—Retire! I beg you leave me—
East.—Thus to coy it!
With one who knows you too.
J. Sh.—Help, oh, gracious Heaven!
Help! Save me! Help!
[Enter Dumont.
East.—Avaunt! base groom—
At distance wait, and know thy office better.
Rowe.
Lotte Clinton, when she beheld a young man dressed in the height of fashion at her room-door, although startled by the sudden fright exhibited by Helen Grahame, felt assured that the smartly attired apparition had made a mistake in the room he intended to visit.
She rose hastily, and advanced towards him, to prevent his entering further into the room, and acquainted him with the conclusion at which she arrived.
He shook his head and laughed.
“No,” he returned, “oh no, my dear madam; I have made no mistake; I came to see you.”
“Me!—I do not know you,” she replied, quietly.
“I suppose not. We have met before, though!” he exclaimed.
“I have no recollection of you,” she said, with an inquiring look at his face.
“I dare say not,” he answered, with an undisguised stare of admiration. “My countenance possesses no such points of attraction as yours. Your charming features struck me forcibly when I first beheld them; I have not been able to get them out of my head since. I have had a great deal of difficulty in discovering you, but I have at last succeeded, and I have now come to improve our friendship, and make you love me if I can.”
It flashed across the mind of Lotte that this was Bantom’s benevolent hero, who was anxious to present her with a fortune. Her face and neck instantly became of the hue of scarlet.
“You have come here to insult me!” she cried, indignantly, “and unless you immediately depart, I will summon assistance. Leave my room, sir!”
She uttered this in a loud tone of voice. The young man, with an alarmed aspect, raised both his hands deprecatingly.
“Hush! hush! don’t make such a noise,” he cried; “I have not come here to insult you; I like you too much for that, upon my honour and soul I do. Now sit down, and let me talk quietly to you. I am wealthy, and——”
Lotte stamped her foot passionately.
“Quit this room, sir! Quit this house this instant, sir, or I’ll scream for help.”
With a hurried gesture, the intruder closed the door, and said, hastily—
“I tell you I don’t want in any way to offend you; I came here, if possible, to make you think well of me, and look kindly upon me, as I do on you. Consider, I am a gentleman born, I don’t mind telling you that; I am a Grahame, I don’t mind telling you that, too.”
Lotte started as she heard the name, and, with distended eyelids, looked again at his face.
“What—what name?” she inquired.
“Grahame,” he answered, “Grahame. We’ve a place in the Regent’s Park and one in Scotland. My name is Malcolm—Malcolm Grahame. I saw you in the garden at Mr. Wilton’s—don’t you recollect?”
Lotte did, indeed.
This, then, was Helen’s brother, all unconscious that a thin partition alone divided him from his missing sister.
Lotte reflected for a moment. He had certainly seen his sister—had he recognised her? This she had to learn. Perhaps he had come with the purpose of endeavouring to discover and take her away. She determined he should not succeed, unless with Helen’s own consent. She felt that she had a difficult task to play, and one likely to be, in all respects, unpleasant. She was, however, equally conscious that she had undertaken, as a duty, the office of protecting and assisting Helen, with the object, if possible, of preserving her fair fame through the present terrible phase of her existence. She would not, therefore, permit the fear of personal insult or threatened dangers of other kinds to make her shrink from the responsibility she had so nobly self-imposed.
“Come, now,” said Malcolm, coaxingly, on observing her muse, “you will let me sit down for a few minutes—won’t you? I do want to set myself right with you.”
Lotte trembled and looked very pale, and then red. She would then and there have ended the interview if she had given way to her natural impulse, but she knew how earnestly Helen wished to learn what had followed her departure from home; and so, for her sake, she said—
“Sir, it may appear strange, after what has just passed, that I should seem to desire to prolong this interview, but I have a question or two to ask of you.”
“I shall be delighted to answer any questions you may put to me, if I can do so.”
She made a brave effort to seem collected, while he was admiring the graceful line from her head to her shoulder, as her face was averted, and then she turned to him and said—
“I have no desire to be improperly inquisitive, sir, nor to wound your feelings by the questions I may put to you; but I have a good motive, and no injury to you or your family can result from your answering me freely.”
“Very nice,” answered Malcolm—“pray go on.”
“You have no member of your family ill, I believe?” commenced Lotte, with a beating heart, for she knew there was another ear beside her own who would greedily drink in all his replies.
“No—no,” he returned, unsuspiciously. “No; I don’t often see the governor, for he is much engaged; and when he is not, he is something like a porcupine—not to be too closely approached. As for ma, I never knew her to be ill. It is undignified, so she don’t condescend to have an ailment; and my sister Margaret thinks as she does—ha! ha! No, they are well enough,” he concluded.
“But,” said Lotte, pursuing her point, “you have other sisters.”
“Ah! yes—oh, ay!” he responded; “there is little Eva. Upon my honour, I had forgotten her, really—how droll! Well, she is not, I think, in good health—she is white-faced; she frets a great deal—goes into corners, and cries; walks into the garden, and cries; wanders over the house, and cries. She’s a regular little pump—a fountain’s nothing to her—ha! ha!”
“Why does she fret?” inquired Lotte, with hesitation.
A slight colour came into Malcolm’s face.
“I can’t tell,” he returned; “nobody can tell. I hardly think she knows herself, excepting that she has lost a pet and favourite, and she is mourning for that. Stupid, isn’t it?”
“There was, I think, an elder sister to those you have named.”
Malcolm coughed, and grew red in the face.
“You have not mentioned Miss Helen Grahame—what of her?”
Malcolm appeared unpleasantly disconcerted; presently he said—
“Dead!”
Lotte started back astounded, and echoed the word in such an incredulous tone that Mr. Malcolm added—
“That is, to us. Excuse me, but you are touching on a tender point—a family matter.”
But Malcolm and Lotte started as he concluded; for, at this instant, a sharp cry of acute pain rang in their ears; it was followed by a low wailing sob, and then all was silent again. Lotte pressed her hand upon her heart, for that burst of agony from the inner room made it ache. She knew whence the sound proceeded, and from whom.
Malcolm was sufficiently well-bred not to make any remark respecting the sound he had heard, but he thought it strange, and wondered much what it meant. Lotte recalled his straying thoughts by asking if his sister Evangeline spoke thus of her sister Helen?
“No,” he returned; “but she is nobody. She is so unlike all the family. Mamma told her that she must consider Helen as dead, and that is why she frets and whines about the place so much. However, the topic is disagreeable; pray let us say no more about it.”
“I have ended, sir,” returned Lotte, quietly, but dreading what was to come.
“No more questions to ask?” he cried.
She shook her head.
“Well, then,” he said, “look here. You are very pretty. I never saw a face I like so much as yours. I am anxious that you should understand that, because it is my wish to have the opportunity of gazing upon it as often as possible. Now you are perpetually drawing that infernal needle backwards and forwards, from morning until night, making your pretty face pale and ‘eyelids weary and worn,’ and all that sort of thing. Now my notion is——”
“To compliment me——” interposed Lotte.
“Yes,” interrupted Malcolm, eagerly, in his turn, “to take you away from this place, throw the needle to the devil, place you in a pretty country house, own servants, brougham——”
“And convert me from a humble, virtuous needlewoman into a shameless and an abandoned outcast,” cried Lotte, firmly, and in clear tones.
“No, upon my honour——” he cried.
“Mr. Grahame, I have not spoken to you previous to this hour; but if I had proposed as soon as we met, that you should become a thief, a degraded and criminal rogue, you would consider that I had inflicted an insulting outrage upon your honour, and you would ask me indignantly, what there was in your conduct and your appearance that called forth so great and undeserved an affront.”
“Yes, clearly, but——”
“May I ask of what I have been guilty, that you should so—so insult me?”
She could not keep down the tears which would spring into her eyes. He perceived them, and said excitedly——
“I don’t want to make you cry. I don’t upon my—upon my—by heaven! I don’t want to insult you.”
“You must quit this place this moment, sir, and return to it no more. I caution you, out of considerations which you cannot surmise, though you may some day know them, not to repeat this visit, for it will be at a risk which, knowingly, you would fly from incurring—go!”
Malcolm took up his hat and stick. He would have spoken, but Lotte walked out of the room and left him, So he descended the stairs, feeling that he had not been anything like so successful as he had hoped.
“I have broken the ice, though,” he muttered, with a half-satisfied nod of the head, “that is something She is very pretty, and very scornful, by Jove! but then, girls are always coy at first. What’s the next step?—capital idea—I’ll go and see Lester Vane, and get his advice. Strange that she should ask about the people at home—odd thing that—what did it mean?”
He had not much brains to puzzle, so he soon gave up speculating upon what he could find no clue to.
He had not long to wait for the return of Lester Vane to town, for, after the incident which had occurred at Harleydale Manor, and which had ended as it were in the expulsion of young Vivian, old Wilton had an interview with him, and suggested that, under existing circumstances, it would be the best policy for him to take his leave, and return when Flora’s mind was more calm, and he would have the field to himself.
Lester Vane the more readily assented to this proposition, as a glance at Mark Wilton’s form, and the sound of his voice, told him he had somewhere met him under disagreeable circumstances, although his memory would not furnish him with the details, and, for the present, is would be politic to avoid him. He, therefore, acted upon the suggestion, and disappeared from Harleydale.
He had not been many days in London before Malcolm Grahame called on him, and after some desultory conversation, in the course of which Helen’s name arose, and he had to repress further questioning by declaring that she was on a visit to a branch of the family in the wilds of Scotland—he stated his own case, his design, and the difficulties which hitherto had prevented him from carrying it into execution.
Vane regarded him with a smile of contempt, even as he pricked up his ears at Malcolm’s glowing description of the beauty of the girl of whom he spoke. Malcolm was cunning enough to conceal that she was the heroine of the adventure in Hyde Park, but all else he knew respecting her he made a clean breast of.
Vane lay back in his chair, and smoked his cigar in deep thought.
He fixed his eyes upon Malcolm, and said, in a decided manner—
“I tell you what, Grahame, you have gone the wrong way to work with this girl. She has got some lofty notions about the church and the ring, and you at once kicked the two out of your offer. I wonder she did not bring in some tall lout of a brother to beat you unmercifully for your cool audacity. I tell you, Grahame, your chance with her is over, unless your proceeding is explained as a mistake. I will see her, assure her that an error or a misconception has sprung up between you, and prevail upon her to give you another hearing.”
“Now, really, this is kind of you,” said Malcolm, shaking his hand heartily.
A few evenings afterwards, Lester Vane presented himself at the door of the house in which Lotte dwelt. A child opened the door, and he, having had a full description from Malcolm of the part of the building in which Lotte was located, ascended the stairs with a noiseless footstep, and paused before her room-door.
He listened; all was quiet within. He opened the door, and entered—to find himself suddenly face to face with Helen Grahame.
Both started, and uttered an exclamation of astonishment.
Perhaps the intensity of surprise was exhibited in a greater degree by Lester Vane than by Helen; yet it flashed through his mind that Malcolm Grahame had appeared fidgetty and uneasy while being questioned respecting his sister, and the place where he said she had gone to pay a visit. A glance at Helen told him that something grave had happened, that she had quitted home under circumstances of an unfavourable kind, though what they could be he was wholly at a loss to divine. He felt, too, that at that moment he was master of the situation, and the revenge he had promised himself was within his reach. How did she feel? She, who had contemplated leading this man on by the small stratagems of a heartless coquette to become her adoring slave, that she might, at an instant, turn on him and crush him with her scorn. Oh! she was humiliated indeed; never did she feel the beauty and the value of truthfulness so much as now.
Vane was the first to speak; he fastened his eye upon her with the insulting gaze of an impudent libertine.
“Miss Grahame,” he said, “this is a pleasure wholly unexpected. My star is indeed in the ascendant.”
Helen drew herself up to her full height. She felt the whole force of the insult conveyed by his eyes, his voice, and his words.
She responded with a stern, haughty gaze.
“Mr Vane,” she replied, “I am at a loss to account for your presence here; it is unbidden and unwished for, no less than it is intrusive. I request that you will retire.”
“Excuse me, Helen——”
“Sir——”
“Well, if you prefer it, Miss Grahame, Has Miss Grahame so soon forgotten the language her eyes have at times addressed to me beneath her father’s roof? Does she expect that she is to spread her wiles with a result satisfactory only to herself, that she is to ensnare the eagle, and that act is to suffice to tame him too? She tried to take captive my poor susceptible heart; and if she has succeeded, should she wonder and feel insulted that I desire some return——”
“You are unmanly—you are contemptibly base. You would not dare thus to insult me, but that you, coward-like, see that I am alone and unprotected. Leave me instantly,” she cried, with a proud, impatient, passionate gesture of her hand.
“No,” he answered, coolly; “not until we have come to a better understanding with each other. It is easy for me to comprehend—indeed, I am partly acquainted with the fact—that you have left home for ever; that you are here residing in humble obscurity, for which you were never destined. In the person of your haughty father and your ridiculously proud mother, the world has turned its back upon you. It is for you to do the same upon it.”
Helen frantically motioned to him to leave the room. Her whole frame was convulsed with violent emotion.
“Go!” she cried, hoarsely; “go, insulting villain, go, or your continued presence will slay me! Oh, is there no help near to save me?”
As if in answer to her appeal, the door opened, and Mr. Bantom, with a slightly excited manner, looked in.
He had visited his friend in “pupple,” who had been the medium of Malcolm Grahame’s offer to Lotte. After shaking the man’s senses almost out of him, he extorted from him that the “gent” who had made a tool of him lived next door to Mr. Wilton’s residence. Bantom went there, and had an interview with Whelks, who, finding that Bantom intended mischief, transferred to Vane’s shoulders the responsibility of having insulted Lotte, believing that Mr. Bantom would never find him, and if he did, he would not dare to touch him. He had mistaken his man. Bantom had hunted Vane down, and had caught him here.
“Beg your pardon, mum,” he said to Helen, with a bow, “but I wants a word with this feller here.”
Lester Vane turned fiercely towards him.
“You dirty ruffian!” he exclaimed, “how dare you intrude here? Leave the room this instant!”
Mr. Bantom knitted his brows.
“Your name’s Mr. Lister Wane, ain’t it?” he said, with a growl that meant mischief.
Lester started.
“If you wish to speak to me, fellow, wait until I leave here,” he answered, hastily.
“But your name is Mr. Lister Wane, ain’t it? I ask you that,” persisted Bantom.
“It is, fool! Go out of the room.”
“I shall, an’ you with me.”
“What do you mean, scoundrel?”
“That I don’t talk to you here, but where you’ll feel every word I sez,” responded Bantom.
With a giant’s grip, he caught Vane by the collar and wrist, and dragged him out of the room with rough violence, but with as much ease as if he had been a child.
Helen Grahame, with hysteric joy, saw herself thus unexpectedly relieved from the presence of the base and heartless villain who had taken advantage of her defenceless position to so basely insult her. But the scene had been too severe in the emotions it occasioned, and she had a gradually fading sense that there was a violent dashing and crashing down the staircase, a terrible disturbance in the street, which died away, leaving her in a swoon.