His years but young, but his experience old;
His head unmellow’d, but his judgment ripe,
And in a word (for far behind his worth
Come all the praises that I now bestow),
He is complete in feature and in mind,
With all good grace to grace a gentleman.
—Shakspere.
Lotte Clinton, returning home to her apartment with some fresh work from the persons who employed her, arrived near to her abode at the culminating point of a great disturbance in the immediate vicinity.
With some alarm, she learned that the uproar had commenced in the house in which she resided, and that some low man had grievously maltreated a gentleman, who had been taken to the hospital, while his assailant, aided by a large proportion of the mob—who, it appeared, had espoused his cause—had escaped.
On entering the house, she found the lodgers and the landlady assembled in solemn conclave; and the moment they perceived her, they called upon her for an explanation of such “goings on” in her apartment—a demand she heard with astonishment, and with which she was utterly unable to comply.
Regarding those who addressed her with an affrighted look, she made no reply, but ran upstairs, entered her apartment, and turned the key, for a variety of strange thoughts, connected with Helen, ran through her mind.
She was not surprised to find her pale and motionless, tears still clinging to her pallid cheeks. She threw down the parcel she had brought home with her, and at once applied some simple restoratives to her senseless companion; but it was not until a long and patient perseverance had been exercised that she was rewarded with the signs of returning animation.
When Helen had so far recovered as to be able to speak, and to recollect what had passed, she threw herself into Lotte’s arms, and told her all.
Then followed passionate pleadings and supplications to the humble work-girl to quit her present place of abode, and move to another more obscure and secluded, where they were not likely to be tracked nor disturbed—where not even Lotte’s own brother should, for a time, know how to find them.
Lotte, as she listened to Helen’s urgent appeals, gazed round her neat little room—at her bird, her flowers—all that made it so cheerful, and ministered so much to her happiness. She thought of the brief but delicious visits of her brother; and there were latent impressions, too—most agreeable even to contemplate—of probable morning calls to be made by Mr. Mark Wilton. These anticipated and other actual pleasures she must sacrifice, if she complied with the wish of Helen. Nay, more, she felt that a sudden departure and secret mode of living must fling her own fair character under the shadow of suspicion.
She was progressing now in the world’s favour—she was more prosperous than she had ever been—she was lifted out of a state of the hardest and poorest paid toil; the world seemed to begin to smile in earnest upon her. To go back into a species of obscurity with Helen was to deaden, if not destroy, all those brighter hopes which, without making them known to mortal, she had shaped and fashioned and pressed to her heart—it was, in fact, to renew under yet harder terms her desperate battle with life.
All these considerations struck her with their full force. The sacrifice required was of herself, not for herself.
She gazed thoughtfully—pained thought it was—upon Helen’s beautiful but woe-stricken face. She perceived the lines of acute misery which already had begun to display themselves, and it flashed across her brain at the instant that if she said nay to Helen’s prayer, Helen would go alone into secrecy among strangers, friendless and heart-broken.
Lotte supported the trembling, earnest, agonized suppliant in her arms.
“If I had not found a friend in my extremity,” she whispered to her, “I had perished. We will go away from here together, and let the world say what it may of me, I am innocent of ill-doing. I can justify myself in the eyes of the Almighty, and I need care little for what others may unkindly believe; I may be humble, but you shall find me, Miss Grahame, a true friend. I will sustain you to the last in your terrible affliction to the best of my power: so compose and calm yourself as well as you can, and leave the rest to me.”
“Oh, Lotte, Lotte!” sobbed Helen, kissing her cheek, passionately. “My more than friend, how can I be ever sufficiently grateful to you?”
“Not a word—not a word!” cried Lotte, putting her hand gently before her mouth, and conducting her tenderly to a seat.
By eight o’clock the next evening, Lotte and her companion had removed from their late abode, without leaving behind them a clue to their new address.
Lotte had managed well. She had no debts, so it was not likely that there would be any active inquiries after her when she had left. Her late landlady, who liked all her lodgers to be the patterns of prudence and quietude, was not, after the two appearances of Mr. Bantom, altogether disturbed at losing the two young girls, especially as they had from the first declined her advances, repudiated her familiarity, and had at no time been seduced by her into the sin of gossiping.
She knew nothing about their private affairs, from first to last; she, therefore, did not trouble herself to inquire whither they were going, or why they had left her house. She wished, if anything, for inquirers, if there happened to be any, to conclude that she had herself given them warning.
Lotte wrote a note to her brother Charley, informing him that she had quitted her apartments, but that she had, at present, a motive for concealing the locality to which she had moved. She added, that in due time he would know the occasion for the mystery surrounding her movements; and she called upon him to have the same strong faith in her truth and virtue which he had hitherto entertained, and to which she felt she was, and always would be, justly entitled. She appended a postscript—that of course—it was affectionate, heartily loving in fact, but it was worded so mysteriously as to cause him the pain of forming some horrible surmises and conjectures, and it carried him post-haste to the abandoned residence. But he could learn only that she, together with her companion, her bird, and her flowers, had left the house, without leaving any clue even to the direction which she had taken.
After racking his brain for a motive for his sister’s strange conduct, or a suggestion which might help him to trace her out, it occurred to him that Harry Vivian might be able to furnish him with some intelligence respecting her inexplicable flight.
Lotte, in fervent language, had acquainted him with the services Hal had rendered her in the perilous moment when Wilton’s house was in flames, as well as later, when he suddenly met with her and saved her from destruction.
Charley was quite aware also, from subsequent circumstances, that Vivian had expressed a friendly anxiety for Lotte’s future welfare, and had betrayed an interest in her well being and doing since she had been at her late abode; it was not improbable that, on comparing notes with him, Vivian might be able to bring to light some matter which would enable the brother to follow and to find his sister, and to obtain from her some better reasons for her remarkable conduct than her note to him contained.
The premises at Clerkenwell were closed, and he made his way to Highbury.
Strange events still.
Mr. Harper’s son, the absent and unregretted, had returned home. A wild profligate and outcast he was in years gone by, when he quitted in ignominious flight his father’s roof and the land that gave him birth. He returned a ragged, dirty, discharged soldier from the East India Company’s service—discharged, too, in disgrace.
His sudden appearance, sufficiently in liquor to be brutish in his conduct, his demand to be received, and to make his father’s house his home—a drunken mad orgie on the night of his return, when valuable glass, pictures, ornaments, were wantonly and recklessly destroyed, produced in Mr. Harper a fit of apoplexy, and in two hours he was a corpse.
It was during the outrageous rioting of the prodigal son that Harry Vivian returned home from Harleydale. His efforts to restrain the ruffian from his acts of violence ended in a tremendous struggle between the two, during which the younger Harper swore with fearful oaths to murder his antagonist; but Harry’s strength prevailed, and he succeeded in forcing him to the ground; and there, with Mr. Harper’s help, binding him so firmly, that he could do no further mischief. They then conveyed him to a bed, upon which he was laid to sleep off his drunkenness.
But he continued shouting, howling and blaspheming for a greater portion of the night, until, exhausted by his own ravings and horrible threats, he fell into a deep sleep.
The horrors of that night slew Mr Harper.
As soon as his son Robert, upon returning to a state of consciousness from his drunken sleep, was informed of his father’s death, he insisted upon being relieved from his gyves; and, only partially restored to sobriety, he demanded why he had been thus secured. When it was explained to him by a workman of his father’s, a powerful fellow, who had been placed to watch him, and who related what had taken place in strong and not flattering language, his brow fell; he said not a word, but seemed to feel ashamed of his conduct of the previous night.
He asked to be released, and promised not to be guilty of like conduct, especially as his father at that moment lay dead in the house.
When he descended to his father’s bed-room, and had assured himself the old man was no more, he ascertained from his prostrate, heart-broken, weeping mother, the name of his father’s solicitor and his address, on pretence of making the necessary arrangements consequent upon the unhappy event which had happened.
At an interview with this solicitor, he elicited that, so far as he knew, Mr. Harper had made no will; at least his professional services had not been called in to execute one. In fact, the latter said, he had often urged upon his client the importance and the necessity of making a proper disposition of his worldly affairs, but those urgings had never been attended, to the extent of his knowledge, with the proper success.
Robert Harper thanked him, told him he should send him notice to be present at the funeral, and made his way to the manufactory, where, as he expected, he found Vivian.
In a few brief, bitter words, he informed Hal of the death of his uncle—his generous patron, his unfailing friend. Mr. Harper had been seized with apoplexy, and had expired after Hal had left Highbury at dawn that morning.
Robert gazed with an insolent air of triumph upon the shocked white features of Hal, who stood transfixed like a statue, and he said to him—
“I’m master here now; I suppose you know that. If you don’t, I’ll soon make you know it. The old man’s gone off and left no will behind him. Do you know that? because if you don’t, you will know it from this time, and be made to know it, too. I am the heir and sole master of all here. Now, last night, you assumed some mighty fine airs, and if it wasn’t that a parcel of fools might be talking, I would give you such a thrashing now that you shouldn’t be able to crawl for a month. There is one thing I can do, and that I will do. See, I am master! get out of here! Come, be off at once, or I’ll kick you out, beggar! If you fancy you have any claim upon me, go to law for it—I can stand that. You shan’t have a farthing from me any other way. You’ve been king of the castle here too long, so be off, Mr. Beggarly Upstart!”
He extended his arm to push young Vivian to the door, but the latter turned to him with a glittering eye, and a lip which trembled with intense emotion.
“Do not lay a hand upon me,” he said, in low but emphatic tones, “or I will fell you to the earth. I would not, in memory of the dear and noble man your father, and my constant benefactor, willingly be guilty of such an act at this moment; but the horrible consequence of your last night’s frantic bestiality, coupled with your present barbarous behaviour, almost drives me into a frenzy of desperation; it wants but your touch to thrust me into madness. I warn you to let me pass hence, without another word or gesture.”
Robert Harper had had a too lengthened experience in physiognomy not to be able to interpret the expression which made Hal’s features rigid, as though they were chiselled in marble, and he turned on his heel, without attempting to reply. Harry Vivian seized his hat and cloak, and rushed from the place.
One earnest interview he sought with the solicitor who had so long conducted Mr. Harper’s affairs, in which that gentleman promised to protect the interests of Mrs. Harper, and to place the property under proper seal and authority, so that Robert Harper could not commence to dissipate it in wild debauchery before it was proved, beyond a doubt, that there was no will—and then to Highbury.
We pass over Hal’s passionate grief at the bedside of his deceased relative, to whom he was so fondly and warmly attached, and the equally sorrowful interview between Mrs. Harper and him, during which her agony and incoherence, occasioned by the terrible affliction with which she had been so suddenly visited, prevented him narrating what that morning had taken place at the manufactory, or telling her that he would not fail to watch over her when she should be left alone with her son.
Subsequently he forwarded a claim to Robert Harper, to be present at the funeral of his uncle. His letter was returned to him, torn in two halves.
Yet he was present at the solemn ceremony, prayed fervently during the service, and lingered long after the cortege had gone, that he might stand by the new-made grave, and pay the tribute of his tears and the last sad testimonies of his loving respect for the departed.
When he quitted the graveyard, it was no more to return to the house which had sheltered him from boyhood.
These were the facts which Charley Clinton partially gathered from his inquiries at Highbury; and as no one knew where Harry Vivian was now to be found, he had to turn disappointedly away.
His acute intellect was not, however, to be so easily thwarted. The very nature of his occupation gave a tone of inquiry to his mind; and in the getting up of evidence—on which service he had been frequently employed—he had found so much advantage result from pushing investigation beyond what appeared to be its natural limits, that he resolved not to pause at the point he had now reached.
Often what we seek is to be found in places where we deem it least likely to be situated. Charley knew this, and he cast about for some other acquaintance or friend of Lotte’s who might be able to drop even a hint upon which he could act.
He thought eventually of Miss Wilton, and at once made his way to the Regent’s Park, to see whether the family was in town: if not, he determined to write as soon, as he reached his lodgings.
Having absolutely no claim to insist on seeing Miss Wilton, if she were to be denied to him—presuming that she was at the town house—he determined upon his mode of proceeding.
By an accident, he mistook Mr. Grahame’s residence for Mr. Wilton’s, and commenced those operations upon the porter there which were intended for the functionary next door.
He was skilled and successful. Whelks, being called into the conference and fee’d, it was resolved that Mr. Clinton should see Mr. Grahame’s youngest daughter—the eldest being from home, and the next at the opera with her mamma.
Charley had explained that his business was of importance, and had nothing whatever to do with any charitable institution, or case of urgent distress recommended by the vicar of his parish; therefore, it was considered that a few words with Miss Evangeline—who, after all, was not looked upon as holding any position in the family—could result in nothing likely to turn out unpleasant to the parties paid to effect the interview.
Accordingly, Charles Clinton and Evangeline Grahame were brought face to face.
He was a little embarrassed at first, but when he began to explain that he came to put a few questions to her, which he hoped she would be able to answer, respecting a missing young lady, he at once lost his embarrassment, and grew interested in observing a flush mount to her cheek, and her eyes glisten while in earnestness she rested her small hand upon his arm, and looked up into his face watching his countenance and listening to his words with intense avidity.
She did not notice that he addressed her as Miss Wilton, but when he mentioned that it was his sister who was missing, she turned from him with an air of grievous disappointment.
This movement produced an explanation, and he delicately contrived to elicit from her that she too had lost a sister, under circumstances no less strange and mysterious than those attending the disappearance of Lotte.
While she was speaking, the remembrance of Lotte’s new-made friend, the companion of her flight, flashed across his mind, and when she had ceased speaking, he gave a rapid sketch of her person to Evangeline; it was graphic and truthful.
“It is she!” exclaimed Evangeline, clasping her hands.
Then followed a thousand questions put to him vehemently. The date, the day, the dress, all confirmed her supposition, but his answers were necessarily limited; he could say very little, save that up to a certain time a young lady had resided with his sister, and that they had departed somewhere together—where, he could not conjecture; but was now engaged in endeavouring to ascertain.
Again and again she made him repeat the particulars which assured her that Helen was still living, and though once more hiding away in some mysterious lurking-place, she was, nevertheless, neither beyond the pale of discovery, nor the probability of being communicated with, visited, perhaps restored to her home by her Evangeline.
Oh, that she might be permitted to assist in the search for her! She suggested this very, very earnestly, and seemed sadly disconcerted when he shook his head. Was there no portion of the inquiry in which she could take part!—was there no species of aid she could lend? Ah! if he could only point out in what particular her services would be useful, with what delight she would render them.
He gazed earnestly upon her features.
“Pardon me,” he said, suddenly, while a peculiar expression of surprise stole over his face, “I fear I have committed some mistake. If you are the sister of the young lady lately residing with mine, you can hardly be Miss Wilton, or surely your brother Mark would have recognized her.”
“My name is Grahame. My sister’s name is Helen Grahame; I have no brother named Mark,” responded Evangeline, naively.
“Then I trust you will pardon my intrusion,” he added, moving as if about to retire. “Miss Wilton is a—a—friend of my sister’s, though a stranger to me, and I hoped that I should from her obtain some desirable information.”
“Oh, pray do not apologize!” exclaimed Evangeline, with a half-frightened air, seeming to feel the long-desired clue to her sister slipping through her fingers. “Miss Wilton when in town resides in the next dwelling to this, but that young lady, with her papa, has been for some long time away from London. She cannot possibly know anything about Miss—Miss”—she looked at his card—“Miss Clinton’s sudden departure, I am sure.”
“Or the causes which have led to it?” he asked, with rather a marked emphasis.
She gave an inquiring look into his face and said—
“You told me you had a letter?”
“Ay,” he said, with bitterness, “so written, as to acquaint me with my sister’s purposed departure—to drive me half distracted; and to bid me live upon the shadowy hope that she will some day see me again.”
“She will—she will!”
“She shall—she must. I will not rest until I find her.”
“And Helen with her?”
“To be sure; if, as I suppose, they are yet together.”
“They are surely together—you believe they are together, do you not?”
“Upon my honour, my dear young lady, I do. Indeed I know my sister Lotte so well, that I am inclined to believe that she is plunging into some mysterious course of proceeding to favour her companion and friend, without having a thought or reflection upon the injury it may do herself.”
“Oh! sir,” said Evangeline, tenderly, “do not be angry with your sister—I can so well appreciate and sympathise with conduct such as hers. If it should prove that, for Helen’s sake, she has incurred your displeasure, and the cold world’s censure, I will, love her, and take her to my heart, and be a fond, affectionate friend, if she will permit me to be.”
Charley here very nearly gravely committed himself. He was in the habit—when Lotte gave utterance to sentiments which chimed with his best feelings, to seize her round the waist, press her to his breast, and kiss her forehead. The words which had just fallen from the lips of Evangeline were uttered in such a soft tone, and evinced so much kindness and gentleness of nature, that upon the impulse, he was about to seize her and go through the usual performance, when she spoke again and brought him back to a recollection of the presence in which he stood.
“Let me implore you,” she exclaimed, with much warmth of manner, “to abstain from judging your dear sister unkindly until you are actually in possession of the true facts which have influenced her actions. It is, sir, so easy to conjecture in a defaming spirit—so impossible to make reparation for the wound an unjust accusation inflicts upon an innocent and honest heart. I pray you, therefore, to forbear judging her until you can justly claim the title to do so.”
Charley felt extremely gratified by what fell from Eva’s lips. No more complete illustration of his real feelings could have been given even by himself, and he expressed himself with some fervour in reply. Preparing to take his leave, he promised to relax no effort likely to enable him to discover the secret abode of the two fugitives.
A problem now gravely presented itself. Evangeline was and would be devoured by an intense anxiety to learn any tidings connected with her sister Helen; and a firm conclusion that in future Charles Clinton must be the medium through whom it was to be obtained’ settled itself in her mind.
But how?
Charles Clinton was a stranger to her family. He was unentitled to visit them. If he wrote to her, her letters would be opened before they reached her either by her mamma or by her sister Margaret. As the family, save herself, had, by common consent, forborne to mention her sister Helen’s name, and even to think of her as one dead, she arrived at a conviction that no letter written by Charles Clinton, containing matter connected with Helen, would ever be permitted to reach her.
What was to be done?
To both it appeared the simplest thing in the world to settle the question.
They could meet in some retired spot at periods agreed upon at each meeting. At these interviews Charles would recount his labours and report progress. Evangeline would be able to gratify the wish nearest her heart, by being brought nearer to communion with her sister, and probably to win her back to peace, happiness and her home.
No sense of the impropriety of such clandestine meetings occurred to either. Charles Clinton had no thought of wrong; had Evangeline’s station been far humbler than his own, he would have met her, treated her with the respectful deference due from man to virtue and innocence, would have protected her if she needed his brave defence, and have restored her to her home as pure as when she first put her full trust in his honour.
Evangeline knew so little of evil, she saw none in taking this step. Her relatives were all frigid and harshly repellant to her. Helen had been cold to her, too, but at times she had displayed a passionate fondness for her, and those ebullitions of fondness had appeared when they were and could only be evidences of heart emotions, and it was these evident impulses which made Evangeline know that a fire of affection glowed beneath the icy surface, and to love her therefore. No trouble had been taken to instil and graft upon her innocent nature a full and perfect system of world-proprieties. She, therefore, arranged with Charles Clinton for their first meeting, in the most guileless faith in his honour—in the most implicit trustfulness in the expediency of the step she purposed taking, the end being good and charitable; and in perfect unconsciousness of the consequences likely to result from a series of clandestine meetings between a young and beautiful girl, and a very frank, open-featured, good-looking young fellow.
They were in an apartment upon the ground floor, whose windows opened and gave egress to a lawn, conducting to a gravelled path in the garden.
They had named the place, the day, the hour they were to meet, when Charles was to report to her how far his search was to prove successful. Evangeline had just innocently placed her hand in his, as he was bidding her farewell, when a shadow fell upon the pair.
Both looked up, startled.
They beheld before them a young man, whose form was concealed by a cloak, but whose face was white and haggard.
Evangeline uttered a faint scream, and instinctively drew close to Charles for protection.
The stranger observed the surprise of one, and the affright of the other.
“Be not alarmed,” he cried, in a low, hurried tone; “I have no sinister motive, I swear before Heaven, though I appear thus strangely before you. Miss Gra-hame, I would have one word with you—for mercy sake do not deny me.”
Evangeline shrank still closer to Charles, in evident alarm. The latter instantly said, sharply—
“Explain, sir, who you are, and why you appear here in this abrupt and strange manner.”
The stranger made him no reply, but, clasping his hands, he stretched them towards Evangeline, and said, in tones of suffering and anxiety—
“Where is Helen—tell me only where is Helen? I have heard that she is gone—fled hence in secret. Oh! tell me only whither she has gone, that I may but see her once again! You are young and child-like—your heart cannot be made of adamant. Tell me, in pity tell me, where is Helen!”
A thousand thoughts careered wildly through the brain of Evangeline. Who was this man?—what had he to do with Helen’s flight?—was he the cause?
She turned deathly white and faint. She burst into tears.
The stranger, still with clasped hands, sank upon his knees before her, murmuring with intense excitement. “Is it true that she is gone?”
Evangeline wrung her hands, and could not speak.
“She has fled from home,” said Charles.
“She fled alone?” cried the stranger to him, eagerly. “She did,” replied Charles.
“Where—where?—in mercy tell me that!”
“We have yet to learn. It is my purpose to search for, and, if possible, to find her.”
“Is she in London—think you she is in London?”
“I believe—nay, I am convinced of that,” replied Charles, emphatically.
“God bless you!” cried the stranger, wildly. “Once more I shall see her, for London has no secret spot I will not narrowly examine, until I have found her—the whole world shall not keep her from me.”
With these words he rushed from the room by the way he had entered, with, if possible, increased wildness of manner, leaving Charles astounded, and Evangeline yet frightened and weeping. Charles endeavoured to restore Eva to a degree of composure by suggesting that the remarkable event which had just happened might, perhaps, afford a clue to the sudden flight from home of her sister; but before he could finish his sentence a tremendous knock at the hall-door resounded through the building.
“My father,” faintly cried Evangeline, and like a startled fawn ran from Charles to her own room.
He advanced to the door, feeling his cheek burn fiercely, and wholly at a loss what to say to the haughty owner of the mansion.
The hall-door was flung back wide; he heard the shuffling of feet, a rapid step ascend the stairs, and then a door banged loudly.
The next instant Whelks stood by his side.
“Mr. Grahame” he said in a whisper, and added, with a grin—“Would you like to see ‘im? he’s in the libree.”
Charles shook his head with a degree of energy indicative of the strength of the negative he wished to convey, and slipped a shilling into the hand of Whelks as an additional contribution; it happened to be a new one, felt thick and crisp; Whelks slid it into his pocket under the impression that it was a sovereign.
He laid his finger upon the side of his nose.
“I shall know you when you come again, sir,” he whispered. “If she’s at home, sir, you shall see her. Foller me, sir. Tread lightly. Good night.”
Charley stood once more in the park alone. The stars shone brightly above him. He had certainly met with a remarkable adventure, but where was Lotte.
He was no nearer to the object with which he came there than he was before.
I’ll have my bond; I will not hear thee speak.
I’ll have my bond; and therefore speak no more;
I’ll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool,
To shake the head, relent, and sigh and yield.
—Shakspere.
Nathan Gomer reached the door of the chamber of Flora Wilton, and paused.
He looked about him, up the corridor and down the corridor, and then, stooping down, he peeped through the keyhole.
He uttered an exclamation—not of joy.
He pressed the palms of his hands together and looked once more up and down the corridor, and then, gently opening Flora’s chamber door, he glided within, closed it after him, and stood for a moment and gazed upon the prostrate girl.
A tear twinkled in both eyes.
He brushed them sharply away.
“Flora—Flora, my child,” he whispered, yet loud enough for her to hear; though his step had been noiseless and her grief was still in its intensity.
He bent over her, and raised her up, with eyes red and swimming in tears; she turned her feeble gaze upon him, and could not in spite of her anguish, repress an exclamation of surprise at seeing the strange looking benefactor of her father before her.
She attempted to efface the traces of her tears, and to speak, but the task was not so easily to be accomplished.
Nathan perceived her intention, and its result, and in a voice agitated and slightly husky, he said to her—“Don’t mind me, pretty one. Don’t mind me—I know all. Make no struggle with your grief on my account—I say don’t make it for me; and when you have exhausted yourself, and feel very ill, as you will if you go on in this fashion—I think I may say that you will—then take for comfort—you can now, if you like—my assurance that you may rely on me as a friend, and all shall yet go well. I say I think you may rely on me. I know whither your heart has travelled and where it resteth; I have vowed to secure your happiness, Flora—I say, your happiness—and it is not wealth that gives happiness. I think—I know that—I believe—I may say I do know that. You shall be happy yet, pretty one, if you will be so.”
Flora turned gratefully towards him. She knew that he possessed inexplicable power, and seemed to be able to produce results according to his pleasure, and she felt that for him to say that in this affair of the heart he would stand her friend, was almost tantamount—considering the extraordinary influence he possessed over her father—to placing her hand in Hal’s before the altar. .
She bent her sweet eyes upon him gratefully.
“How can I thank you?” she said, in a low tone.
“Thank me!” he cried, with a grin, “you must wait before you do that. I say, you should never be premature with thanks; you should always wait until the promise is redeemed, and you are benefited to your wish, then thank. Promises are slippery things—I say promises sometimes are not fulfilled: thank me, my dear child, when you feel supremely happy through my instrumentality.”
He turned his back to her, pressed his two hands together beneath his chin, and gazed heavenwards.
“You shall be,” he murmured—“by God’s providence, you shall be.”
Flora could not help regarding him with a strange mixture of reverence and dread; reverence, for he had been known only to her as a great benefactor to the family; and with dread because he was so singular in his outward form, and appeared at such remarkable moments, and in so strange a manner. He turned again to her. Apparently he read the expression of her features, for a pleased smile lighted up his gold-hued features, and he tapped her gently and pleasantly on the shoulder.
“Come, come,” he said, “dry up those tears and look cheerful; I have said all shall go as you wish it; it shall. I have now an agreeable surprise for you; so you pop on your bonnet and make your way into the garden, and pace by the side of the fountain until my surprise comes and startles you.”
“I pray you to excuse me, sir,” said Flora, faltering, “indeed I have no strength to leave this chamber just now.”
“Nor spirit either, I fancy,” he observed, with his peculiar grin.
She did not reply, and he went on—
“Well, you must have your surprise here, then, I suppose. It wears a hat, a coat, and trousers; it is bronzed with the sun in the face; it went away in years gone by without a word to family or friends, roamed over seas and strange lands”——
“Mark?” almost screamed Flora.
“Come home,” laconically replied Nathan.
Flora staggered to a seat, and looked as if she would faint; her nostrils were inflated, and she breathed short and quick.
“Nonsense!” cried Nathan, growing frightened at her aspect. “Keep up your courage; he is well, hearty, happy, longing to see you. Shall I send him to you?”
“This moment,” gasped Flora. “Oh, my heart aches, and I feel sick and faint, until he again folds his loving arms about me!”
Nathan blew his nose and coughed.
“He shall be here in a—in five minutes,” he said, after two or three efforts to clear his throat. “I’ll send him, never fear—I think I said five minutes—that will give you time to prepare yourself. Remember, no more tears. All will yet go well. I have said it.”
He hurried from the room as he spoke, and though he knew that Mark and Hal were together, he contrived to keep his word. And it was so far well that he did, inasmuch that Mark, after a somewhat lengthened interview with his sister, immediately sought out Hal in the village to which he had retired, and remained with him until he took the train for London, and then he parted with him on the most friendly terms.
During Mark’s absence, Nathan Gomer presented himself before old Wilton, who received him with the same eagerness and respect he had always previously displayed. Colonel Mires, who was having a tete-a-tete with his host, took the opportunity which the coming of Nathan Gomer afforded him to retire, to brood over dark projects for the future.
Nathan looked after him.
“Don’t like him,” he muttered; “mischief in him. He’s got some cut-throat purpose haunting him, and he will try to execute it, too. I say, he will make the attempt. Must look after him.”
“What do you say?” asked Wilton, trying to catch his words.
“Nothing for your ear,” replied Nathan, a little tartly. “I have a bad habit of talking while I am thinking—foolish that; I may venture to say that it is a very foolish habit.”
Wilton responded; and then Nathan Gomer, drawing a chair near to him, sat down and at once proceeded to business.
He circumstantially and clearly related all the incidents which had transpired in connection with Josh Maybee, even to the trick which he had himself played Chewkle, and he assured him that the missing documents were all secured and in safe possession. Arrangements also, he informed him, had been completed with Maybee, who had a rightful share in the property. The only thing he waited for, was to know what course was to be pursued with respect to Grahame, who was now entirely in their power.
Wilton’s features assumed a hard, grim expression. His eyeballs contracted into small glittering circles. He fastened them upon the brilliant orbs of Nathan Gomer.
“No mercy,” he growled through his clenched teeth, “he must be crushed.”
“A-hem!” coughed Nathan Gomer; “revengeful, eh, Wilton?”
“Revengeful!” echoed Wilton, with a hiss. “What! do you think I can forget the years of grinding, torturing poverty he has caused me? Do you think I can wipe out, with a wave of the hand, the recollection of the last effort of his accursed cupidity—the act which tore me from my children, and hurried me to the horrors of a debtor’s prison? Nathan! Nathan?” he cried, clutching at his companion’s wrist, and speaking in a low, guttural tone—an evidence of the depth of the emotion under which he laboured—“can I consign his acts to oblivion when I look round these walls—when I pace these chambers—when I wander in the grounds yonder, among the flowers and the trees, and miss her companionship, her gentle presence, who made this abode a Paradise—whose absence shrouds it in intense gloom?”
“No—no—no!” almost groaned Nathan, shrouding his eyes with his hands. “She reigned here a queen of light, of joy; the music of her voice, the magic of her sweet and tender beaming eyes, made Harleydale a heaven. Was she not thrust from hence?—was she not crammed into a den of wretchedness—into a foul, impure atmosphere?—compelled to endure privation, want, rags? By whom?—by whom?—answer me that.”
“Oh! that I had earlier known whither you had transported yourselves when you quitted this!” moaned Nathan, evidently in anguish at the picture Wilton was placing before his eyes.
“Was it not Grahame!” continued Wilton, fiercely; “did he not juggle me out of my signature to bonds that he might utterly destroy me, when he knew that she—a very flower, cultured only in the tenderest carefulness, sheltered from the ruder atmosphere of human society—had been suddenly hurled where the blasts of poverty and degradation were blighting her, making her pine, fade, droop away out of life. She—my soul, my spirit, the immortal part of my being—who, having gone from me, leaves this frame a machine, this world an expanse of murky mist, penetrated with only one gleam, that bright spot in futurity, When, released from this miserable shackle, this valueless body, I shall join her angel spirit! Did he not slay her?—curse him! Did he not destroy her with his damned impenitent obduracy? Does not her spirit shriek for revenge?”
Wilton flung his arms up in the air, and almost screamed these last words.
Nathan Gomer rose up, and, in a tone of solemnity which thrilled through Wilton’s frame, exclaimed—
“No!”
He paused for a moment, convulsed with emotion.
Then he proceeded—
“Her gentle spirit never harboured such a sentiment. She left to God the exaction of atonement. Your wrongs, which made her a sufferer, did not extort from her a single wish for retribution; you know it, Wilton. She felt the loss of the bright clear air, the waving trees, the open hills, the flowery vales, deeply; but it was because you were thrust from them—because those gentle tributes of her love for you were reared in a sickly atmosphere, instead of the healthy, happy home of which they were unjustly deprived. She sorrowed for them; she pined to see your waning health; she faded, drooped, died; for she had not been gifted with the power to drag out existence in such a sphere as that to which you all were doomed. She hoped, she prayed, for the time when she might see all restored to this fair place again; she knew and felt acutely the wrong which kept you from it; but the wickedness of a bad man never drew from her lips a curse, nor raised within her breast a wish or desire for a remorseless revenge. Her spirit was too angelic, too pure, too good! Oh, Wilton! Wilton! her loss is indeed dreadful!” Nathan pressed his hands over his eyes and hurried to the end of the room, followed by the wondering gaze of Wilton, whose intense and bitter rage against Grahame changed into intense astonishment at what had fallen from his companion’s lips.
What knew he of her who had gone from them to the spirit-land? What entitled him thus to describe and enlarge upon her sweet, unavenging nature? When, where, how had he known her?
Having mastered his feelings, Nathan returned to the table, wearing, to Wilton’s surprise, his usual aspect.
Wilton rapidly put the above questions to him. Nathan waved his hand.
“That explanation, Wilton,” he said, coldly, “will keep until a future day. Let us return to the purpose in hand. Grahame is neck and ankles in your power it is for you to determine what shall be done.”
Again the passion for revenge animated the breast of old Wilton.
“He would not have spared me,” he ejaculated, in a guttural tone. “What right has he to expect mercy at my hands, when he would have shown none to me, had his machinations proved successful?”
“That is beside the question, Wilton, It is in your power now to have an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or, in a spirit of grand magnanimity, to return good for evil. Make your election.”
Wilton leaned over the table, and, in the same fiercely vindictive tone, he growled—
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I will exact all I can”
Nathan paced the room with rather long strides, and returning again, sat down.
“Your plan,” he said, laconically.
“The arrangements with Grahame, in respect to the division of the estates, are not complete.”
“They are not.”
“They shall not be. You hold his promissory notes——”
“I O U’s, capable of being demanded at any moment.”
“The sums you have advanced are large?”
“Very large.”
“If you insist on their being paid instanter, what will be the result to him?”
“Utter and irretrievable ruin.”
“Beggary, Nathan, beggary?”
“The most abject beggary, and imprisonment as well, for the property he once owned is so deeply mortgaged, that not a farthing will be available to pay my new claims upon him.”
Wilton compressed his hands together.
“And his family—his proud, haughty family, Nathan, what of them?”
“They must necessarily be thrown on the world, wholly destitute.”
Wilton rubbed his hands with savage pleasure.
“Who are his mortgagees—do you know their names and addresses?” he asked, in a hissing whisper.
“I am the only mortgagee,” responded Nathan almost proudly, and yet coldly.
“You must transfer all the debts and mortgages to me,” cried Wilton, with an exulting laugh. “Then, then I alone, shall hold complete power over him. Then he shall be made to feel the clanging beating of the brain, the dead booming of the heart, the sickness of hopeless despair, the shrinking cowering of the spirit which they feel who have been hurled from a high estate, with heavy soul, to drink the dregs of poverty. I must have the mortgages, the—I O U’s—all! all! all!”
“No,” said Nathan, with a gloom hanging on his brow; “they are mine, obtained after long, long hard struggles. I shall retain them—I, too, have a purpose to serve, though even in this I act for another;” he raised his eyes upward. Then he added, hastily, “The hard-souled, proud, ambitious man, must be punished, but the mode of his punishment must, after all, I see, be left to me.”
Wilton, with feverish animation, urged his point, but Nathan Gomer was not to be moved, and the result of the conference was, that Wilton, to his deep mortification, was compelled to leave in the hands of Nathan the entire management of the recovery of the estates, and the punishment of his implacable foe.
Incidentally, Nathan alluded to Wilton’s intention with respect to Flora, and listened quietly to a recapitulation of what he had overheard, as well as to Wilton’s renewed expressions of determination that nothing should turn him from the decision at which he had arrived.
Nathan Gomer made no further comment upon it than to advise him to send away Lester Vane for the present, and to let the affair remain in abeyance until he was put into possession of the estates of which he had been so long deprived, to which advice Wilton assented.
It was immediately following this interview that Mr. Grahame received a letter from Nathan Gomer.
It was placed in his hands as he entered his house on the night of Charles Clinton’s interview with Evangeline.
He knew the handwriting at a glance. He snatched it from the hand of Whelks—he forbade him to follow, and he hurried, almost raced, up the staircase to his library.
He locked his door on entering the room, and flung the letter on the table, while he raised the faint light of the lamp to a brilliant glare.
“I do not like the look of that note!” he exclaimed; “I hate the handwriting. It is always the harbinger of intelligence which wrings my heart so that I could shriek with pain. Why is it that I have some spell hanging over me—a species of curse that embitters every joy I try to make my own? It is strange that in my securest moments I should ever have some accursed thing to intervene, and show me the rotten foundation of my assumptions. One fact, however, I am now at least certain of—I shall not die a pauper’s death, and, to confess the truth, it is an end I much feared.”
He took up the letter and held it to the light; he examined the superscription and then the seal; at last with a hasty “Pshaw!” he tore open the envelope and read—
“Sir,—The missing link, which so long prevented Mr. Wilton proving his rightful title to the Eglinton estates, has at length been discovered. Mr. Wilton’s solicitor has, at this moment, in his possession, all the documents essential to the prosecution of his client’s claim; Mr. Wilton has in consequence refused to complete the arrangements which were commenced, for a division of that large property between you and him. You will, therefore, perceive that the immediate return of the sums advanced by me to you, in accordance with our agreement, will be necessary to prevent my commencing an action for the recovery thereof.—I have the honour to remain, Sir, your obedient servant,”
“Nathan Gomer.”
Mr. Grahame read every word in the letter, clearly and distinctly the first time; the second time he perused it, his thoughts of the future thronged in his brain, and mixed themselves up with the words. He tried to read it a third time, but the lines waved up and down, the letters commingled, he threw it from him and sank into his chair.
He pressed his aching temples with his hands: they burned and throbbed violently: and he tried to think what would be the first step to be pursued.
He saw that it would be necessary to write to Nathan Gomer at once, and stave him off for a time with promises. He knew that if he did not answer his letter, he would commence to sue him, without further notice.
His next step was to send for Chewkle, and consult with him. He had quite expected that, according to promise, Maybee had been disposed of, but he felt that it would be a waste of time to speculate when action was essential. Chewkle had given to him necessary information how to communicate with him when he wished to do so, and he adopted the mode with which he had been furnished.
The letter to Gomer was dispatched, and Chewkle was communicated with, but as the latter was not in London, a week elapsed before he made his appearance. By arrangement, he adopted the same mode of entry as before, and made his way into the library by night from the garden. He was not sorry to avail himself of this plan, because it was not his wish, for several reasons that Nathan Gomer should become acquainted with his presence in London.
Mr. Grahame, when assured that they were not likely to be disturbed, laid Nathan’s letter before Chewkle.
The first three lines were enough for Chewkle. He slapped his thigh, and with an oath exclaimed—
“Brimstone’s got the best o’ me!”
“Explain,” said Mr. Grahame anxiously. But Mr. Chewkle could not explain—his double-faced roguery prevented him doing that. He evaded the question by saying—
“Never mind that now; I’ll explain how he’s done me at the proper time.”
He saw at once that Nathan Gomer had extracted from him, in some way, a clue to Josh Maybee, and had honoured him—Chewkle—with a commission to get him out of the way while he obtained possession of the prize.
Possession! He paused at the word. The Queen’s prison had possession of Maybee. Nathan Gomer, with all his cunning and artifice, he believed could not juggle him out of that place, for he had been incarcerated at the order of the Court of Chancery; and he knew that the detainer at the gate was not to be paid off. A long and tedious process in Chancery, he believed, must be gone through before the release of Maybee could be effected.
“Old sulphur phiz couldn’t get him out of there,” he soliloquised, “though he might have been able to get ’old of ’im and gammon a good deal out of ’im. It may not be altogether too late now; Maybee has a weakness for beer, and I knows what to drop in his pewter, to keep him from going into any Court o’ law—anywhere but to six foot by ten of clay.”
Mr. Grahame bent his gaze firmly upon Chewkle’s light gray eyes. He contracted his brows, and spoke only in whispers, but they were painfully audible, and had a strange, harsh sound which was disagreeable and discordant, even to the not oyer-refined ear of Mr. Chewkle.
“Why,” he said, “waste time over the poor wretch in prison? Let him live on; he has given up the documents, his presence in Court will be but of secondary importance. Now my bold and skilful friend Chewkle, if the principal dies—if Wilton was to be found dead—I—as I have before intimated to you—become, beyond all dispute, possessor of the property. Do you not understand?”
Chewkle gave a nod.
“He is an old man; feeble, with no physical strength,” continued Graliame, laying his hand on Chewkle’s rather muscular arm.
Chewkle nodded again.
“You know where he dwells—Harleydale Manor?”
“I know it,” said Chewkle.
“He is fond of walking in the evening, Chewkle. Now an old man may drop down in a wood, and die in an apoplectic fit, or fall over some of the hanging rocks which are on the estate. There are many ways a man may seem to have died a natural death, Chewkle, my friend.”
“I knows a good many ways,” said Chewkle thoughtfully. “It isn’t that: the thing is to manage so as not to be diskivered.”
“I do not think there is much fear of that,” responded Grahame with an affected assumption of its improbability.
“P’rhaps not,” returned Chewkle, “but it’s the danger to number von as I looks at. However, I dessay I can put that right if everything else is squared to make it worth my while.”
Mr. Grahame produced a Bank of England note for fifty pounds.
“Here, my good Chewkle, is an earnest of my future intentions towards you,” he observed, with a furtive glance at the man’s somewhat excited countenance, as he placed the note in the scoundrel’s trembling fingers.
It immediately disappeared like magic in his vest. He turned, with a grin, to his employer, and said——
“It shall be done, sir.”
“At once,” urged Grahame, quickly; “it is essential that no time should be lost. I should go, if I were you, by the earliest train to-morrow morning.”
“All right, sir. You’ll hear of it afore the week’s out in the papers.”
“My best friend. How deeply I shall stand indebted to you.”
“Yes,” thought Chewkle, “rayther deeper than you imagines, I think.”
But he said aloud—
“Let me see: I’m supposed to be at Liverpool, which is a good thing, for even old Gummy won’t suspect my being at Harleydale, and I shall quietly watch for the old man taking his evening walk—the last p’rambulation on earth for ’im, at all events.”
Mr. Grahame shuddered.
He felt anxious to get rid of his villainous companion.
“I think we understand each other now,” he remarked, in a tone which intimated that he wished the interview to terminate.
“Yes,” replied Chewkle, with a very meaning nod, “I think we do understand each other now, and it’s my belief we shall understand one another better by and bye. Good night, sir.”
“Good night—good night,” cried Mr. Grahame, hastily, and added: “Be careful how you descend the staircase, it is narrow, the night is dark, and an accident just now would be unfortunate.”
“To me; but what if I had old Wilton here,” suggested Chewkle, with a savage cackle.
“Hush! hush!” exclaimed Grahame, in a whisper, “not so loud. Mind how you go, do not let the servants discover you, whatever you do, and, above all, be sure to neglect no precaution which may tend to ensure the success of your enterprise.”
Chewkle waved his hand exultingly, and disappeared.
The next morning he was on his way towards Harleydale Manor, bent on executing his murderous mission.