Jul. Although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract to-night;
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say—it lightens. Sweet, good night!
This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
Good night—good night! as sweet repose and rest
Come to thy heart as that within my breast!
Rom. Oh! wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?
Jul. What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?
Rom. The exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.
Jul. I gave thee mine before thou didst request it.
Shakspere.
So Hugh. Riversdale had returned home to England.
How did it come to pass?
The paragraph in the Times correctly detailed what had happened to him on his voyage out up to the moment of placing him insensible on board the “Ripon.”
What followed may be given in a few words.
He was borne to his berth, where he was immediately attended by two or three doctors, who, in addition to the regular medical officer, happened to be on board on their way out to India. He was speedily resuscitated, though not restored to consciousness, and eventually he became so ill that he was landed, under advice, at Malta, for it was considered that to prosecute his journey to India while so prostrated would only be to ensure his death.
Here he lay in a hospital, hovering on the confines of death; in the event of recovery the probabilities were great that insanity would take, during the remainder of his future life, the place of reason.
Events, however, frequently falsify predictions and upset the most careful calculations. A crisis in his illness arrived—passed—left him miserably weak, but with clear, sentient reasoning powers.
His uncle had read the paragraph in the newspaper, and having encountered it without preparation, it shocked him inexpressibly. It erased out of his heart many hard, cold, and worldly conceits and maxims of which he had made principles, and it placed gentler emotions there: feelings and intentions far more in accordance with the Divine precepts than had ever before had a place in his bosom.
He had no child, had never been married, and was enormously wealthy.
“Hugh is my own flesh and blood,” he said, in communing with himself upon this event. “I will treat him as my son: there is enough for him and me, and for the future we will live happily together. I will go to his mother at once.”
He did so, there to learn that Hugh’s indisposition to go to India and his act of folly were the consequences of love.
“He shall have the girl, if gold will buy her,” he exclaimed, with determined emphasis.
Mrs. Riversdale shook her head, but remained silent. She it was who, prevailed upon by the earnest entreaties of Hugh, was at Southampton to meet Helen if she had complied with the request of her son and joined him there.
The uncle, now bent upon Hugh’s happiness as a project, was not to be checked by Mrs. Riversdale’s despondent action, but entered into plans for its accomplishment with all the keenness of a commercial speculation. He feared to ask too much of Mrs. Riversdale, because he desired to hear nothing likely to check his enterprise, for such he made it. He therefore, as a preliminary step, despatched a messenger to bring Hugh home. He instructed him to stop at Malta, and to make inquiries respecting him, as it was not improbable he might have landed there to recruit his strength ere he went on to India.
There were some letters for Hugh which had arrived after his departure from London, and his uncle sent them by the messenger—a confidential clerk in the establishment—one who was personally attached to Hugh.
On the arrival of the messenger at Malta he quickly found young Riversdale, and executed his mission with a skill and a tact which had the most beneficial influence on the speedy restoration of Hugh to convalescence.
But what most called the latter’s recently feeble powers into stronger action, was an extraordinary letter which he received from a college friend, who at the Edinburgh University, where Hugh had been educated, was his chum.
This friend, destined for the church, was ordained before they parted, to seek his own path in life.
The letter ran thus—
“My dear friend Hugh,—I have most grievously, most momentously wronged you. I am aghast as I reflect upon what may be the consequences of an act intended only as a foolish amusement. Let me explain, and deal with me afterwards as gently in your thoughts as you may find it in your heart to do.
“You will remember at Christmas last we spent the holidays in the Highlands. We passed a week snowed up at the dwelling of the Ramsays, at Inverkeale. Other visitors were placed in the same predicament as ourselves. Among the guests were the Grahames, whom you had met before. One of that family, a girl of singular beauty, of wild spirits, as she ivas proud in demeanour, attracted much of your attention, and you were frequently rallied upon the disposition you evinced for her. Oh! unhappy circumstance. Oh! idle folly, which reflects only in the hour of repentance!
“Hugh Riversdale, remember that in one of the wild sallies of mirth, in which you to ere both called upon to endure a storm of raillery, it was laughingly proposed by a mirthful maiden present, that you should be wedded to Miss Grahame. Giving way to the frantic merriment by which you were both surrounded, you assented, and I was called upon to perform the ceremony. Without reflecting upon my most unpardonable and wicked imprudence, I undertook the office. Mark the terrible result.
“The marriage service was fully performed by me, an ordained priest. I omitted no portion. You both made the proper responses. You placed a wedding ring, obtained from a married lady, upon the finger of the thoughtless girl who confronted you, and fulfilled all the requirements of the contract—even to the drawing up of a certificate, which both signed, and which I now hold in my possession.
“At the time it was thought as much a piece of idle play as an acted charade. Alas! it is no such thing. Hugh Riversdale, Helen Grahame is your wife. In the sight of God you are married, and may form no other contract. It is true some legal forms were omitted, but that does not absolve you from the consequences of a joke which has become dread earnest. I leave to you the task of communicating with Miss Grahame; but if I do not hear from you on the expiration of a week from the date of your receipt of this note, I shall communicate with Mr. Grahame. I was guilty of the act of joining you in jest—but in the eyes of Heaven it was an act of marriage. Earnest reflection has impressed upon me the imperative necessity of doing my utmost to prevent aught sundering those whom God hath joined.”
The letter contained many further expressions of sorrow and penitence, and offered—if Hugh was still attached to Miss Grahame, and anything stood in the way of their re-union—to do his utmost to smoothe it away. “I estimate marriage as a sacrament,” he said, “and hold no divorce valid on earth but death.”
The feelings of Hugh Riversdale, on reading this communication, may be imagined. His stay in Malta was brief after this.
On his return to England his uncle made him a gentleman—that is to say, in one acceptation of the term; for he invested for him a very large sum of money, and thus presented him with a most handsome income, conveying and securing it to him and to his heirs for ever; because, having heard from him his love-story, he was resolved he should be in a position, when he claimed Helen Grahame, which was equal to her own.
Hugh, however, to his distraction, found, on immediate and anxious inquiry, that Helen had quitted her home under somewhat mysterious circumstances, and it was not known whither by any one whom he had questioned. He set a close watch upon her father’s house, and hunted in every direction for her without success, until the eventful night upon which she returned home.
He had full faith in the probability of her re-appearance in her father’s house; he had the most sanguine hopes that he should prevail upon her to quit it, and join him, never more to part. He provided a boat and a carriage, with fleet horses, should flight be necessary, and we have seen how he had occasion to use them.
He bore Helen’s inanimate form to his own house, and placed her in charge of his mother, while he went in quest of medical assistance. Helen was aroused from her long insensibility to exhibit only raving delirium; a violent attack of brain fever followed, and, when the violence of this had passed, she settled down into a state of low, dull insanity.
From the moment Hugh had taken her away to the hour that she recovered sufficient strength to be conveyed to one of the mildest parts of Devonshire, she had not once recognised him, nor uttered a sentence by which he could form a clue to her object in leaving home, or the evidently delicate state of health in which he found her. He was pained, saddened, almost broken-hearted, on finding that at the moment the cup of bliss was unexpectedly raised to his lips, it was likely to be dashed from them, either by the continuance of her aberration of intellect, or by her early death. There were faint hopes that, by the recovery of her health, her mind might be restored, but those hopes were faint indeed; and, under advice, he determined to try the effect of the soft air of Madeira. So he left England with her.
It can now be understood why she did not return to Lotte to claim her child.
In the meanwhile, explanations, secret and confidential, had taken place between Lotte and her brother. The former, though she religiously preserved Helen Grahame’s secret, quite gave her brother to understand that she was able to meet him without a blush upon her cheek, raised there by any sense of a blot upon her fair fame; and he was content to believe this, without pressing upon her any prying questions which would have embarrassed her to answer. She learned from him, however, that he had seen Evangeline Grahame several times. He was, therefore, able to inform her of Helen’s sudden appearance at her father’s house, of her subsequent disappearance with some strange man, who, having felled Lester Vane to the ground, when he endeavoured to intercept their flight, had borne her away. In spite of all attempts to discover them, they had not been heard of since.
Lotte, despite the aspect that Helen’s conduct wore, had faith in her still. She had many opportunities of judging her nature during the time that they had lived together; and though she could not help observing many defects in her composition, she was able to detect that they were more the result of a fostered pride and false education than any real failing or flaw in a true nobility of spirit. Of course, she was unable to fathom the cause for her absence and her silence, but she was convinced that she should see her again, and that, too, at the earliest moment the mother could command the opportunity to rejoin her child.
So she continued carefully to tend it, to cherish and fondle it, as though it were her own.
What rosy cheeks she had! what a soft, beaming expression lighted up her humid eyes! and what a pretty smile curled her small lips, as she thought, when pressing this little creature to her bosom, during the first period of its charge, that some day she might have as pretty a treasure to hold up to the fond kiss of the man she loved! But since her last interview with Mark Wilton, that thought, if it presented itself, was hastily dismissed with a tearful sigh.
She never expected to see him more, and she consigned to the tomb of other once-cherished hopes the visionary imaginings she had for a time so fondly conjured up, in spite of the jeers of her common sense, respecting him.
Yet he came again to see her, as before, unbidden; and, as before, unexpectedly.
Hal Vivian had seen him, and had listened quietly to a violent and incoherent string of complaints, observations, reproaches and charges against Lotte Clinton, from his lips; and when he had exhausted his subject, he reasoned with him quietly. He elicited from him that he had never made even an advance to Lotte beyond the limits of courtesy, and that she had, therefore, no right to divine or to perceive that he had formed a strong attachment for her; and that he had neither claim to interfere in her affairs, nor right to utter one harsh epithet respecting her. Hal thereupon told him firmly, that holding her in his high esteem—for he believed her character to be as noble as her nature was pure—he would not suffer any one, not even his nearest relative or dearest friend, to repeat, in his hearing, one word defamatory to her good name.
Mark, despite his own suspicions, his uneasy and unhappy forebodings and speculations, heard Vivian speak thus confidently with inward satisfaction; and having incoherently assented to all he advanced, with some lingering misgivings, he thought it perhaps would be as well if he never saw her more, and under that impression he went—direct to her abode, and again presented himself before her.
He found her at work—ever at work—but as his eye ran rapidly round the apartment, he detected the absence of the child. He cared not where it was, so that it was not where he held an interview with her.
Lotte was, indeed, surprised to see him enter; her heart commenced beating violently, and perhaps her cheeks and lips turned a little pale, but she did not betray any other emotion; on the contrary, she was very cold and distant in her manner, giving him somewhat decidedly to understand that his presence was an unlooked-for intrusion.
He bit his lips and felt angry—he thought she ought to have been glad to see him again, and he drew himself stiffly up. All he had arranged to say fled at once from his memory, and he felt himself completely in a false position.
As he did not speak, and Lotte thought she had waited long enough for him to commence, she inquired of him, in a voice slightly tremulous, the object of his visit. This she did in such a tone that it vibrated through his frame, and he replied instantly—
“I have felt, Miss Clinton, since our last interview, that I have a duty to perform to you. I have an apology to offer, and an acknowledgment to make. Our last meeting was very unsatisfactory”—he paused.
“To me!” ejaculated Lotte, thoughtfully.
“And to me!” he subjoined.
There was another pause, then he proceeded—
“I am impelled to say that, at our last interview, I, by implication, challenged you with conduct which I have since reason to believe was, on my part, a rash and hasty proceeding.”
“Rash and hasty, sir!” echoed Lotte, excitedly; “it was cruelly unjust.”
A gleam of satisfaction brightened Mark’s eyes, as she uttered those words, and he said, earnestly—
“Oh, Miss Clinton, do but assure me, solemnly, that I aspersed you unjustly in my words, and in my thoughts. You will, indeed, relieve a heavy burden from my heart.”
“Sir!” said Lotte, her voice once more trembling, “I have a sense of self-respect too acute to do anything of the kind. You know but little of me; I therefore forgive your harsh and unwarranted impressions, but I cannot, and will not, stoop to defend a fair name which never yet has deserved reproach.”
There was a proud nobleness in her mien, a clear unwavering expression of her eye, and as she concluded an unfaltering tone in her words which instantly carried conviction to Mark’s heart.
“Miss Clinton,” he responded, with considerable earnestness, “I believe you—from my soul I believe you. I do not know how sufficiently to reproach myself, or how urgently enough to plead to you to pardon my ungenerous and ignoble conduct to you when last we met. Upon my knees I will implore you to forgive me, for I now feel keenly how wantonly I insulted you, how inhumanly I wronged you.”
Lotte, with a beaming face, held out her hand.
“You did in truth wrong me,” she said, with a sweet smile, “but the best of us at times form erroneous impressions. Let us no more remember what has passed and never speak of it again.”
He took her hand and pressed it to his heart and, though she struggled a little to withdraw it, to his lips, and imprinted a passionate kiss upon it.
“Dear Miss Clinton,” he said, when he released her hand, “we must speak of it again, for at least I must offer an explanation of the cause of my behaviour, or else appear in your eyes little better than an incomprehensible madman.”
“No—oh, no!” laughed Lotte: “indeed, I am satisfied that you were troubled with some strange hallucination then, which has disappeared now, and I am quite content.”
“But I am not!” he said gravely.
“No?” she rejoined, in a tone of inquiry and with some little surprise.
“No?” he answered; and then added, with ardent warmth, “it is useless to disguise the true state of my feelings towards you. I love you, Lotte—I love you passionately, truthfully, and devotedly. I——”
He seemed for the moment as though the intensity of his feelings would choke him.
Lotte fell back a step, and the colour fled from her cheek. All in the room appeared to become dim to her eyes, and Mark’s form to grow hazy and indistinct.
He fell upon one knee before her, and caught her hand.
“Oh, Lotte!” he cried, “you can now understand how my heart was rent asunder when I came here, hopeful to gain your heart, and found you, as I believed, in the possession of another.”
“Pray rise, Mr. Wilton. Do not kneel to me; you distress me—indeed, indeed you do!” she exclaimed in a low tone, the last word becoming inaudible.
Mark rose up. He saw that she appeared faint and seemed tottering. It is not wonderful that he should slide gently his arm around that small waist, which never had been lovingly encircled by the arm of man before.
She was faint and full of tears, so the arm remained where it had been placed; and, somehow, her head rested upon his breast, while large glittering drops fell from her eyes to the ground.
Oh, the bliss of that moment! Never before in her life had she experienced any emotion equalling that exquisite felicity.
It was natural that the same impulse which drew Lotte to Mark’s breast should dictate to him to hold back, for an instant, that pretty head, and to press his lips upon her forehead.
It was Lotte’s first love-kiss.
She broke from him, startled, affrighted; ran, like a terrified fawn, to a chair, upon which she sank sobbing.
Mark followed her, and bent over her.
“Lotte,” he whispered, gently, in her ear, “do not weep, my own sweet little girl; I cannot bear to see you in tears. I love you, as I have confessed to you, fondly and dearly, and I would make you my own little wife, if you will have me.”
Lotte still wept, but it was with an intensity of happiness to which previously she had been an entire stranger.
Oh, those day dreams! those visions of Paradise, in which she had indulged to wake out of only with a sigh.
Were they, after all, to be realized, and should she really and truly have for her very own that handsome, manly fellow, now pleading his suit in her ear?
The vision was one of happiness to her indeed.
But she woke up from it. Her common sense presented itself coldly and gravely before her; it held up a mirror to her, in which she saw at a glance their respective social positions, and she saw that what she had just heard with such trembling delight was, after all, a dream, only to be added to others which had been dissipated.
She rose up, and turned her face towards him, bending upon him her now timid gaze.
“I must not listen to you, Mr. ‘Wilton,” she said, in a low, sad tone.
“No?” he cried, in a startled tone; “why not? You love another, Lotte, is that why?” he asked, excitedly.
She shook her head gently.
“No,” she replied.
He uttered an audible sigh of relief.
“That is glad tidings!” he ejaculated, with evident satisfaction, and added—“Before we proceed farther—before you say to me aught which may be unsatisfactory in my ears—let us, dear, dear Lotte, come to a decided understanding with each other. I love you, oh! so dearly. You have confessed to me you love no other man——”
“My brother!” said Lotte, archly—serious as she was at heart, she could not forbear the observation.
He waved his hand impatiently.
“Oh, Lotte! tell me, do you—at least, I should say, do you think you could be brought at some future time to love me?”
“Do not ask me, pray do not,” said Lotte, seriously and earnestly, in reply.
“Why not?” he asked, with surprise.
“Because,” she answered, “you have gone too far already for your own peace, and—I—I wish you to see—what you have overlooked—the difference between your position and mine.”
“What difference, Lotte?” he asked, almost sharply. “You are well born, of a long line of ancestry—so your sister has told me—you are now wealthy, and will be richer still; I am but a humble needlewoman, poor, my only dowry a pure name. You see I cannot be admitted into your family, or, if I were, it might be to meet with disdainful looks, and to hear, perhaps, contemptuous remarks which would break my heart. It will, therefore, be better that we should part now. I shall always think of you kindly, and—and——”
She could get no further, and placed her handkerchief before her eyes to conceal the emotion which the image of parting with him for ever created.
Mark waved his hand impetuously and stamped his foot impatiently.
“Lotte,” he said, “leave me to be the judge of what constitutes the difference in our social position. Mine, as yours, is the accident of birth, and in taking you to my bosom, your social condition can have no weight with me. In my hearing none will dare utter a derogatory word or bend a haughty look at my choice. Those who attempt it may be wealthy and purse-proud, but they would be so mean in soul I would not mix with them, and I should return their contempt with interest. I need, Lotte, a pure mind and a loving, faithful heart, to companion me through life, because my future happiness will be wholly dependent upon those qualities. I have mixed with many grades of people, and lived through some wild scenes, and I am somewhat unsettled in my nature. I require a gentle counsellor, one fond enough of me to make my home to me the centre of paradise on earth, while I endeavour to make her life as free from care and as full of unalloyed happiness as it is possible for such an one as myself to accomplish. You, Lotte, are the pure and loving woman upon whom my heart settles like the dove on the ark; mere worldly distinctions I despise. You have centred in your sweet self all I desire to possess.”
“I am very grateful to you, Mr. Wilton,” she responded.
He interrupted her.
“Mark! my name is Mark! do call me Mark!” he exclaimed earnestly.
It was strange to see how his fond eyes brought the colour in her cheeks. She smiled, but yet it was a saddened smile.
“I am grateful,” she repeated, “for your kindness, but you have failed to convince me that an alliance between us will be what is termed a fitting match. Your father——”
“Lotte! Lotte!” he interposed, “only answer me this. Could you be happy with me as my wife, irrespective of the considerations you suggest?”
She hesitated to answer, and cast her eyes upon the ground.
Once more he stole his arm about her waist, and bent his lips to her ear.
“Answer, Lotte, dearest; do not be cold or cruel to me. Could you be happy, if you were my wife?”
She turned her eyes full of tenderness upon his, and in the rich tones of a fall heart said—
“I could, indeed, Mark; in truth I could.”
“And love me, Lotte?”
“And love you, Mark; fondly, tenderly, dearly—very, very dearly.”
He pressed her to his heart.
“I ask no more,” he replied, with deep emotion. “We will settle the social distinctions after we are married.”
That night before he parted with her, he obtained from her a conditional assent to be his. The condition imposed by her was, that his father and his sister should give their consent to the union, and receive her as became the position of the wife of the eldest born of the house.
Mark placed the fulfilment of that condition in the rosiest light, and left her to depart for home on the following morning.
He arrived at his destination at a most critical moment in his father’s life.
Avaunt and quit my sight—let the earth hide thee!
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with.
Hence, horrible shadow,
Unreal mockery, hence!
You have displaced the mirth, broke the meeting
With most admir’d disorder.
Shakspere.
It is necessary to refer to the position in which Harry Vivian was placed by the conduct of Mr. Harper’s returned son.
Ejected with brutal coarseness from the establishment in Clerkenwell, his presence at Highbury was of course, out of the question.
His future was now in his own hands. Most men have latent energies; of these there is a class who can only have them elicited by the pressure of dire disaster; there is another class, in whom they spring into action at the first call of necessity; Harry Vivian was one of the latter. He had money by him. Mr. Harper had, early in life, taught him the advantages of spending less than he received; and funding the residue. This habit was grafted upon him in no miserly spirit; but that in the most important epoch of his life he should be able to determine the value of living within his income by the inestimable comfort enjoyed by all who are never in debt.
One night’s anxious deliberation and his course was clear to him. He was gifted with remarkable powers of perception. When he erred it was by accident—it was never by the failing of his understanding. He detected the right side of a question at the first glance, and though his decision was not formed without a careful consideration, he rarely had occasion to ignore his first impression.
He saw mapped out before him the order events would take, if he adopted an unworthy, clandestine, and mean course with regard to Flora Wilton. She could be his, and she would be, without her father’s consent, but, dearly as he wished for such a result, it would never, he felt, be productive to him or to her of that unalloyed happiness he so ardently longed to enjoy with her.
He saw clearly enough the probable result of straightforward, honourable and manly action; for no matter what the pangs they might be called upon to endure, or the self-sacrifices each might be compelled to make in the interval, the remainder of their life-companionship would be unclouded by a reflection that they had, in order to achieve the hope nearest and dearest to their heart, violated their truth, sullied their open sincerity, or forfeited their honour.
He saw, in their respective positions, Colonel Mires and the Honorable Lester Vane, and he examined their prospects as rival candidates for the hand of Flora Wilton.
The former he feared on no other grounds than that a vehement and passionate nature might hurry him to some deed of violence, out of his unbridled desire to make Flora his own. To prevent such an unwished-for event he resolved should be his especial duty.
Lester Vane he regarded as by far his most dangerous rival; and, from the first moment he beheld him, when he heard, to his dismay, the warm greetings of old Wilton, accompanied by his pressing invite to his mansion, he determined to ascertain as far as possible his antecedents. He saw that he was handsome, highborn, a welcomed guest, evidently much struck by Flora’s beauty, and quite ready to form an alliance with her; while Flora, under the strong pressure of her father’s earnest urgings, had but small plea to refuse accepting his offer.
“If he be unworthy, and I can prove him to be so,” reflected Hal, “I may save Flora from becoming the victim of her father’s unhesitating sacrifice of her to a phantasm, and to the cupidity of a needy adventurer.”
He did make close and acute inquiries, through a well-qualified agent, and he had in his possession a report carefully framed, which, at the proper time, he intended to produce and substantiate, in the strong expectation that the utter discomfiture of a scoundrel would be the inevitable consequence.
At the same time, though most ardently attached to Flora, he had no absurdly romantic imaginings in respect to his own claims to her hand; nor did he attempt to shut his eyes to the fact that the return of the younger Harper, coupled with the death of his deeply lamented uncle, almost completely robbed him of the small chance he had previously possessed.
His first step, after the night’s deliberation of which we have just spoken, was to write at length to Flora, to explain honestly and openly to her the situation in which circumstances had placed him. He detailed how his natural expectations had been abruptly shattered, and the stern necessity which henceforward would imperiously call upon him to supply, by the exercise of his own skill and industry, those resources with which his late uncle had so liberally and kindly intended to furnish him.
He made a clean breast, and disguised nothing; but his letter was not composed in a complaining or whining spirit; and while he dwelt upon his own ardent love for her, and alluded to the tender acknowledgments she had made to him, it was rather with a view to suggest to her that the change in his condition, since her admission of attachment, left her now free to act in the future disposal of her hand and person. This, he told her, he felt to be as a matter of justice and of right simply her due; but it was, also, only fair to himself to state that he did not abrogate one hope or aspiration in which she had hitherto held the first place.
He bade her be assured that he looked into the future firmly, confidently, and with unwavering faith. He asked no promise from her binding her to his future fortunes; he even said that he would think of her in no angry spirit if, after what had recently occurred to himself, she accepted the hand of one her equal in rank and wealth, however deep might be his sense of the loss he should sustain; and finally, that he should ever do his utmost to prove himself worthy of her favourable opinion, even as he should strive, by unabated self-exertion, to recover the position from which he had been so unexpectedly hurled.
The letter despatched, he pursued the course he proposed for himself to follow. Personal application to the first manufacturing goldsmiths in London proved to him that his devotion to his art, and the success which always attends a well-directed perseverance, met its proper reward. In quarters where he believed himself unknown, his skill in the manipulation and the finish of his designs was almost a byeword. He was gratified beyond measure to find that hours withheld from idleness, and dedicated to his advancement, had won for him a name, as a sculptor in the precious metal, earlier in life than could have been accomplished by any other means.
Employment was liberally given to him, and a high scale of remuneration awarded in payment. So far his affairs went well; but his hopes were but hopes coloured by a fervid and sanguine imagination. He was unconscious of the wide gulf which separated him—a young journeyman goldsmith—from the daughter of the representative of an ancient and wealthy house. Before his confident and imaginative eyes there did not present itself that long vista of years, through which, if unaided, he must pass to achieve the position which he himself felt it was fitting he should hold, before he could, in honesty and honour, ask Flora Wilton to become his wife.
He saw not foreshadowed in the task to which it was his intention to devote himself the incessant application and trying toil essential to success; he counted not upon exhaustion of energy, repeated and vexing though common disappointments and retarding circumstances, all to be surmounted before the goal he longed for could be reached. He saw no impediment which steadfast faith and unwavering perseverance might not overcome. He therefore entered upon his mission, not only to win wealth but to reap laurels, with a bold heart and a firm purpose, keeping ever in his eyes, as a tutelary spirit, the beautiful form of Flora Wilton, so that he might ever be conscious of the value of the prize for which he was contending, and never, never grow faint-hearted or weary while prosecuting his labour of love.
Flora Wilton received his letter. She perused it many times and with no little emotion. It came to her as a new opposition to her hopes, raised up in a most unexpected quarter, and, with womanly instinct, she perceived the important influence a knowledge of Hal’s sudden reducement to poverty would have upon her father’s aversion to a union between them; but she was woman enough, too, to feel that it strengthened her resistance to her father’s design.
She wept as she considered that this sudden change in his circumstances must afflict the high spirit of her lover, and she heartily wished that at the moment she had control of a fortune that she might place it at his disposal. There was no absolute engagement existing between them; so far it had been a mutual love-confession, springing out of an accidental circumstance, but Flora now construed it into one.
“Had he been wealthy and of high standing, what has passed between us might not be considered actually binding on the free action of either,” she ruminated “but now misfortune has overtaken him, I cannot in honour release him if I wished. I do not wish to do so—no, oh no, Hal—I love you so very, very dearly, I would sooner die now than we should be separated for ever, and both live on.”
She felt at a loss what steps to take in responding to the contents of the letter, because she was anxious to take the one which should be most cheering to him—that should not wound him by condolement—should express her sympathy and regret, and at the same time assure him that it should make no difference in the esteem—the profound esteem—she entertained for him.
She disliked the word “esteem;” it was cold and inexpressive, yet it was proper to think it as well as use it.
She felt herself to be in an embarrassing position. Her impulses suggested to her to write a long and loving letter to Vivian, but she was conscious of other considerations, which forbade her consulting only self in the matter.
Now it happened about this time that Mark Wilton made the discovery that no inconsiderable portion of his time was occupied in conjuring up the face and form of Lotte Clinton, and in framing small dramas, the incidents of which were strikingly romantic, and in which he and she played the principal parts. For many years Mark’s path in life had been rough hewn, and he had been compulsorily self-reliant. He could by no means brook trammels. He, therefore, acted as impulse directed, never believing that his father could or ought to have any further control over him. So, after making an imaginary better acquaintance with Lotte, passing through a number of visionary love-scenes, in which the young lady was supposed to display a vast deal of fond confidence, and to give faint utterance to the most pleasing open confessions, it is hardly surprising that he should come to the conclusion that she was precisely the person to become Mrs. Mark Wilton, and precisely the person who should become Mrs. Mark Wilton.
He had, nevertheless, his misgivings. They would obtrude, unwelcome enough in all conscience, and did not altogether agree with his proud, free sense of independence.
After the scene in which Hal Vivian was denied an alliance with his sister Flora, and forbidden to entertain in future any hope of her hand, he could hardly help perceiving that his father would insist upon having a voice respecting the admission of other new members to his family. He might, in spite of Mark’s assertion of his right to do as he pleased, in the grave and important act of choosing a wife, object to receive a needle, woman as a daughter-in-law, even though he had been in humble circumstances for a time himself, and, as was very likely he would, exhibit a very strong feeling in the matter, and deliver a no less strong opinion upon it. But though Mark felt this, he determined not to be guided by it. He had heard it said that, in the dance of life, it was a man’s duty to choose his own partner, and he believed in the truth of the aphorism—at all events, he did not want any M.C. to perform that office for him. He had funds of his own, independent of his father’s property, and he resolved that, all things agreeing, he would marry Lotte, in spite of his father’s opposition—always presuming that opposition rested solely on considerations of her previous position in life.
It may be understood that with these sentiments he sympathised with his sister, and after some communing with her, during which, with rosy cheeks and downcast eyes, she made frank acknowledgments, he undertook to proceed to London, ostensibly to convey a message from her to his early friend Harry Vivian, but really to “kill two birds with one stone,” the other bird being Lotte Clinton; though if he attempted to kill her at all, the only murderous weapon he intended to use would be kindness.
He only wanted an excuse for a journey to London, and his sister Flora afforded it to him.
Now he was very warmly attached to Hal Vivian. “They had been friends in youth,” when the brightest side of prosperity was turned towards Hal Vivian, but that fact had only seemed to render the latter more generous and self-sacrificing to Mark Wilton. Their friendship had, indeed, on both sides been characterised by the nobler qualities of human nature; unworldly, unselfish, and romantic in its constitution, and, framed of the materials to render it lasting, it was not of a kind to be lightly disturbed.
Mark knew his sister to be lovely, amiable, well-born, and richly dowered, but he knew no man whom he would sooner see her husband than Hal Vivian. Unaffected by the claims of rank and station, he bowed to those of sterling worth, embodied in high qualities of heart and mind. He believed the happiness of life to be associated with them, and as it was his intention to appeal to them to ensure him a passage to immortal life, through elysian fields on earth, he was well disposed to interest himself to bring about a marriage between Flora and Hal, even though his father was at present averse to it.
He went to London from Harleydale, with what result has been shown.
Previous to his departure from the Hall, Lester Vane, with the promise of an early return, had quitted it. Colonel Mires was also gone, and Nathan Gomer, with a few words of condolence to Flora, couched in mysterious language, had also disappeared from the house and neighbourhood. So at least both Flora and Mark concluded, for though there had been no leavetaking he was no longer visible in house or grounds.
When Mark left, therefore, old Wilton was once more alone with his daughter.
By tacit consent, no allusion was made to the subject of their interview in the library. When they met she was pale, silent, and abstracted; he moody and stern. He spoke to her in sharp, short sentences, and she answered him mostly in monosyllables.
They scarcely met but at meals; he confining himself, with but few exceptions, to his library, and she to visits to the glen where she had confessed to Hal her love for him, or to the solitude of her own chamber, that she might think only of him and those deep eyes which he had bent upon her so earnestly and so lovingly when last they parted.
There were, however, two arrivals in the vicinity of Harleydale after the departure of Mark, in the persons of Colonel Mires and Mr. Chewkle. Both were bent on mischief.
The latter, during the little affair of the benefit society, in which his personal liberty was at some hazard, had contracted the vice of hard drinking. He was always addicted to the “glass that inebriates” when it passes the “cheering” point, but it was an occasional indulgence only which had a very passable interval of sobriety; but now he carried a bottle—a bottle which he filled as soon after it was empty as possible, and emptied as soon after it was filled with a celerity remarkable as an accomplishment, but not, as such, commendable.
Mr. Chewkle, freely indulging his new habit on his way to Harleydale, arrived at his destination upon the eve of an attack of delirium tremens, which fit duly came off on the first evening of his arrival, in the parlour of the village inn, in the presence of a small assemblage of nightly frequenters, and resulted in great damage to visitors and furniture.
Mr. Chewkle, who had been engaged for a considerable portion of the evening in emptying glass after glass of brandy and water, suddenly fastened a fiery eye upon a gaunt tailor, who was employed in trying how long he could make a tumbler of gin and water last. In a little while he began to mutter inarticulate words of suppressed rage. Presently he leaped to his feet with an unearthly screech, and made a dash at the tailor. The latter, intensely horrified, threw a summersault, scrambled under the table, and so out at the door.
A tremendous uproar ensued. Everybody in an agony of fright made an effort to get out of the doorway at the same moment, and a jam resulted. Mr. Chewkle actively employed himself upon the body of fugitives with his chair, until the centre was forced, and the two sides burst outwards, leaving Chewkle in triumph to commit mad riot upon everything breakable within the room, until he fell in horrible convulsions upon the ground, after successive efforts to effect a breach through the wall with his head.
It was not until he remained perfectly motionless, giving no sign of life, save by a dreadful stertorous breathing, that it entered into the head of the frantically amazed landlord to send for a doctor.
Upon the arrival of that skilled personage the truth was revealed, and Mr. Chewkle was placed in bed; and as, on examining his pockets, a good round sum was found, a nurse was provided to attend on him. The landlord, upon considerations of safety as he suggested, took possession of the money, leaving the empty purse in Chewkle’s pocket, and did not forget immediately afterwards to take an inventory of the damage done by his infuriated guest.
Mr. Chewkle, during his illness, raved about Mr. Grahame and Mr. Wilton; frequently acting as though he had the throat of the latter gentleman compressed between his hands and was squeezing life out. He called on Mr. Grahame to pay him well for “the job,” and threatened, unless he received “more bunce,” that he would provide him with a hempen collar at Newgate.
All these ravings were treated as such, and taken no heed of by those who heard them, though they were remembered afterwards.
Mr. Chewkle, after a few days, became conscious of his position; within a week he had a rough notion of the havoc he had committed, from the landlord, who dropped in to see how he was getting on.
The devil’s money never does anyone any good.
Mr. Chewkle reflected upon the bill he should have to pay for breakage, for attendance, and lodging at the inn, for the doctor’s professional services, and for “extras,” the extent of which he could not foresee.
As a principle he determined not to pay a farthing for one solitary item.
How to get out of it?
It seemed strange to him that he had not been asked for any money; that was a fact which, though singular, was advantageous and cheering, and he determined if a proposition to pay, as he went on, should be made by the landlord, that he would show him his gold and silver, but make an excuse for not parting with a shilling until he was convalescent.
In less than a fortnight he felt himself to be so. The landlord seemed still good-humoured and confiding—most confiding—and Chewkle, by his boasts and promises, endeavoured to keep him so.
One night, Mr. Chewkle, finding the household buried in sleep, rose silently and dressed himself. He felt hastily in his pocket to see whether his purse was there, and chuckled as he felt it, for he was at the moment unconscious that there was nothing in it.
By the aid of the small night-lamp which burned in his room, he looked about for portable articles of value, but found none worth the taking. Leaving the light burning he then stole to the window, which was a lattice, opened it, and carefully got without, resting his toes on the stout stems of an old ivy which covered the walls. He closed the window after him, and descended with very little noise to the ground.
It was light enough to see Harleydale Woods in the distance, and for them he made swiftly, trusting to fortune for chances of encountering Wilton alone.
He felt uneasy at the delay occasioned by his illness, for he knew that Wilton’s death, under all the circumstances which had come to his ears, was of hourly importance to Grahame. He knew not, indeed, but that the lapse of time might have rendered his task useless, still he resolved to go on, and if he encountered the old man alone to address him, to elicit from him Grahame’s actual position, and then act as circumstances might dictate. He gained Harleydale Woods without being seen, chuckling at his successful escape, unconscious, in the midst of the hilarity with which he reflected on having done the landlord, that he had skilfully done himself.
Colonel Mires was at the same moment of time hiding in the woods, located at no great distance from Chewkle. His object, though baneful, was of a very different character to that of Grahame’s agent. His passion for Flora had brought him to spend the long nights watching at her window, and the days in vain search of her in hope of meeting her alone.
At first he had a scarcely defined purpose in this. He had a vague notion of declaring his passion to her, of imploring her upon his knees, even with tears, to grant to him her coveted hand. He conjured up promises he would make to her—an offer to be her devoted slave, to scour the earth to gratify her lightest wish, to minister to her pleasures, her caprices, her comforts, and secure to her constant happiness at any self-sacrifice. To proffer, indeed, impossibilities with unscrupulous recklessness, unheeding whether one of these inflated propositions would or could be realized, so that he induced her to become his—only his.
These intangible impressions conducted him to the vicinity of Flora’s dwelling; but in the secrecy arid solitude to which he for a time devoted himself he had the opportunity of reflection, and to separate the impossible from the probable.
His situation he found to be just this. He was inflamed with a passion for a girl who loved another, and whose father, if opposed to his daughter’s giving her hand to the man she loved, would certainly be averse to her bestowing it upon him. Especially as he had himself selected for her husband one of station, wealth, youth, and handsome exterior. It was simply assuring him that he had no chance of success whatever by fair means. Had he been in the western provinces of India, where he was for many years stationed, he would soon have settled the matter; as it was, he was in England, and abductions are not easy matters in this country.
Yet abduction seemed to be the only course open to him.
He bent his energies to the task of framing a plan, and he believed at last that he had succeeded in forming a scheme which was not susceptible of failure.
While Mr. Chewkle was raving in bed, he quitted Harleydale, to make and perfect arrangements, and having completed them, he returned to the wood to effect, if possible, a secret interview with Flora and carry out his project.
He had been two days on the watch, when Chewkle arrived in the wood from the inn. In the course of that morning they came, during a stealthy stroll, suddenly face to face.
Instantly their eyes met each seemed to feel the other was there for an improper purpose.
“Good mornin’, sir,” exclaimed Chewkle, with a playful nod.
The Colonel eyed him sternly.
“What are you here for?” he asked in a sharp tone.
Chewkle bent a keen glance upon him.
“I have as much right here as him—he’s after no good,” thought he. A rogue detects a rogue pretty-much as a detective does a thief, by the eye; and Chewkle after his inspection felt a little more at ease.
Mires repeated his question.
“That’s tellings,” answered Chewkle, putting his tongue in his cheek; “what are you here about, eh?” he inquired, somewhat impudently.
“Insolent scoundrel, how dare you put such a question to me?” exclaimed the Colonel, angrily.
“Oh!” returned Chewkle quickly, “I only returned the compliment. Look here, mister, I am old on the town and have forgotten more than a great many people will ever know, but I know this, that you are up to some dodge here”——
“Fellow!”
“Ah, yes! that’s very good acting, but it ain’t natural enough to satisfy me that I am wrong. Now I don’t mind dropping to you that I am down here on a spec, and, if it comes off right, it will be the making of me. So you see we had better try and help each other, than kick up a row, and bring about our ears a swarm of people we don’t want to see.”
There was something in what Chewkle said, as well as in his manner, which attracted the attention of Colonel Mires. He saw before him a fitting instrument for the commission of any act of rascality, and he came promptly to the conclusion that it would be better to enlist his services than to make an enemy of him. He, therefore, determined to fence with his questions for a short time before he came to an open understanding with him; and directly he proceeded to do this, Chewkle felt satisfied and at his ease. He parried the Colonel’s questions with the greatest ease, and artfully contrived to extract an admission from him which caused him to say——
“So you’ve come after young Miss Wilton, have you? You found another before you, eh? and you want to get hold of her on the sly, don’t you?”
The Colonel eyed him curiously, somewhat staggered at the observation, and said, quickly—
“You know the fellow Vivian, I suppose?”
“Vivian,” thought Chewkle, “Vivian—Wilton, Wilton—Vivian.” He rubbed his chin; presently he said—
“What, you mean Harper the goldsmith’s nevy?”
“The same.”
“I do—what then?”
“I presume you have come down on his business?”
“Well, you ain’t far out. He wants to get hold of Miss Wilton, too, you know.”
This was the merest surmise on the part of Chewkle. He knew that Harry Vivian was acquainted with the Wiltons; it was not difficult to guess pretty near the truth.
“I am aware of his insolent pretensions, as I am of the impossibility of their realization. I presume, as a man of the world, that service suits you best which pays you best.”
“A conjuring freelogonist couldn’t have told you my weakness better if he had his fingers on my bumps. That is my system.”
“Abandon the service you have undertaken, and serve me. Tell me what you receive, and I will double it.”
“You?”
“I will.”
“I am your humble servant.”
Chewkle rubbed his hands with ecstacy. He became a confirmed follower in the belief that “it is better to be born fortunate than rich.”
“Luck’s all,” he ejaculated, in a soliloquy, “and I’ve got it, I have.”
He at once proceeded to tell Colonel Mires a host of lies respecting his mission to Flora. Improbable, and exaggerated as they were, the Colonel, in his raging jealousy and passion, believed them, and readily responded to Chewkle’s request for an earnest of payment before he took a step in his service.
As soon as gold was once more in his purse, the unscrupulous agent declared himself ready to perform anything required of him, and the Colonel drew him by a circuitous path towards the narrow glen Flora was accustomed to visit. He pointed it out to him, and directed him how he might gain access to it unseen.
He had hardly done so when he clutched Chewkle by the arm, and pointed to the pathway leading to it—
“Look!” he exclaimed. “By Heaven, Miss Wilton is proceeding there. Hasten by the route I have described to you, and when she is seated, steal suddenly upon her so as to startle her, then tell her you are from Mr. Vivian’s aunt, and give her this letter. I know what the result will be—she will faint. I will be on the spot, and the rest is provided for. Quick! quick! follow that path, away with you!”
Chewkle, a little bewildered, took the letter and stole cautiously to the spot pointed out to him, while Colonel Mires, with an agitated manner, darted off in a different direction.