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Title: The contrast, Volume 2 (of 3)
Author: Marquess of Constantine Henry Phipps Normanby
Release date: May 15, 2026 [eBook #78689]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1832
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78689
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONTRAST, VOLUME 2 (OF 3) ***
THE
CONTRAST,
BY THE AUTHOR OF “MATILDA,” “YES AND NO,”
&c. &c.
Take but degree away--untune that string,
And hark! what discord follows.
SHAKSPEARE.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
HENRY COLBURN AND RICHARD BENTLEY,
NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
1832.
THE CONTRAST.
CHAPTER I.
Knights and dames I sing,
Such as the times may furnish: ’tis a flight
Which seems at first to need no lofty wing
Plumed by Longinus, or the Stagyrite:
The difficulty lies in colouring,
(Keeping the due proportions still in sight,)
With nature, manners which are artificial,
And rendering general that which is especial.
BYRON.
He’s justice of the peace, ay, and rotulorum.
SHAKSPEARE.
Some years had passed over Sir North Saunders’ head since we were
last in his company, and yet we shall find him much as we left him,
neither richer nor poorer, wiser nor better, nor, except “quoad”
baptismal register, much older than when, upon first establishing
himself for the summer season at Hornscliff Abbey, he had accompanied
Castleton and Lady Madelina to Morden Bay. He still looked much the
same; he could still eat as much, and walk as little. True, in the
interval one great epoch had occurred in the life of a politician of
his calibre; _he had sworn off_, or, to explain it in other words
to the uninitiated, he was now turned sixty: a fact which, when
sworn to, gives a member of Parliament an exemption from attendance
on committees, it being “in the wisdom of the legislature” thought
that to rise by ten o’clock in the forenoon would be very injurious
at that advanced age, though to sit up all night, and decide the
most important questions at five o’clock in the morning, is a duty
constantly exacted.
Coeval, however, with this survival of part of his senatorial
functions, he had assumed new provincial duties. He had lately acted
as a justice of the peace! in the jargon of the sessions, he had sued
out his _dedimus_, and become one of the _quorum_, a phraseology
probably retained to contradict the proverbial assertion, that
translation of the dead languages is of benefit to country gentlemen.
It may be thought a little late for an elderly gentleman, turned
sixty, to take upon himself, for the first time, the complicated
duties of administering the laws; but then it should be recollected
that he had passed the last forty in making them, and from the
singular ease with which he had, during that period, executed his
part in the former process, it is no wonder that he thought himself
perfectly adequate to the subordinate department he now undertook.
It may not be understood with what sort of “hocus pocus” facility
most of the enactments, on the construction of which Sir North
had undertaken to decide, had become the law of the land. Provided
they touched not the interests of any one within hearing, the whole
process seems to consist in a bit of parchment being subjected to the
magic touch of a certain number of men with wigs on their heads and
gowns on their backs, a certain number of times; true, it is also
said to be read a certain number of times, which, however, consists
in one of the gownsmen mumbling the first unmeaning half line in a
tone somewhat lower than that in which every voice is talking around
him. The chief of the gownsmen then, in somewhat the same tone,
invites all of one opinion to say “ay,” and all of the other “no;”
an invitation to which, whilst all are equally unconscious to what
it alludes, no one can pay the slightest attention. Having undergone
this mystic touch the prescribed number of times in one room, it for
once gets into the hands of a man without either gown or wig, who,
with sundry “kotous,” carries it into another room, where it is again
subject, a similar number of times, to the same touching process,
when at last all the wigs being now collected in one room, one of
them stands in the middle, produces a few strange sounds of barbarous
French, and the magic parchment at once becomes the law of the land,
without ninety-nine in a hundred, upon whose authority it has so
become, ever having heard more of it than the cabalistic syllable,
equally applicable to all, of “Whereas.”
The fact is, from the day of the Druids down to our own inclusive,
there never was any mummery more unmeaning than that with which an
unopposed law is passed through the British legislature. Therefore,
though from being constantly at the beck of every succeeding
whipper-in of the Treasury, Sir North had, perhaps, more frequently
than any other individual, bowed bills up to the bar of the House
of Lords; he was not by any means aware how much he had by that
contributed to complicate the new duties he had undertaken, off hand,
and expected to execute by intuition. But here, let not the reader
be alarmed: I am not going to start off with one of the sweeping
invectives, with some so popular, against the “great unpaid;” such
a digression would be out of place here, if I thought it in reason
anywhere. But my own opinion is, that it is a system which rather
requires to be regulated than superseded. I by no means think that
all is obtained that is required, because the magistrate is unpaid:
but neither do I think that all would be remedied if he was paid. I
do not think it by any means certain, that this change alone would
at once insure oracles of wisdom, and miracles of wit, all over the
country. If, too, their appointments are all to emanate from the
crown, I am much surprised that any, who entertain a constitutional
jealousy of the executive, should tolerate a plan, which either
must be made the means of increased patronage to the dependants of
Government and their supporters amongst the local aristocracy, or
if there ever should be a minister who should be disposed to drill
all under him into a sort of military subordination, would enable
him to organize a system, if not of police espionage, at least, of
ministerial surveillance. “Surveillance!” The word is not English;
because the thing itself has never been naturalized amongst us. And
next to the consideration of how the stipendiary magistrates are to
be appointed, comes that of from what class are they to be selected.
Probably from amongst those educated for the profession of the law.
But you could never expect that the infinite number of appointments
necessary, would be such as to tempt men of eminence or ambition to
accept them, so that everywhere you must be content with mediocrity
of talent and attainments. Added to this, is the name of lawyer,
whether deservedly or not, so popular among the lower orders, as
to make such a change desired by those for whose advantage it is
supposed to be proposed? Whatever the defects of the present system
may be, I am sure much good is frequently effected by the attention
willingly paid to the amicable recommendations of him who is looked
up to in his immediate neighbourhood, as uniting the character of
magistrate with that of kind protector, or benevolent landlord. Far,
however, am I from thinking that the present system is perfect. Many,
I am aware, are the instances both of injustice and ignorance,
which it has fostered under the head of injustice. The “game laws,”
administered by the very persons most interested against the accused
party, have led to much capricious tyranny. But abolish the game laws
(as you have begun to do); destroy the unjust law, and you remove
the temptation to injustice in the administration. As to ignorance,
too, I am afraid that there are but too many lamentable instances;
but why, then, is the most complicated and important business of
administering the laws, supposed to be the only one for which no
previous practice or preparation is required? A diploma is expected
for medicine; a degree or examination, for taking orders as a priest.
Why, as most of our magistrates are of the class usually educated at
one of the Universities, why should not a course of English law be
engrafted upon the many less useful things exacted as necessary to
a degree? or why should not a certificate from a separate college,
established for that purpose, be required from every one wishing
to act as a magistrate? Would it be very unreasonable to expect
that some little fitness should be ascertained, before duties were
undertaken, in which the interests of so many, and amongst them those
the least able to defend themselves, are involved. But nothing of
this kind was required of Sir North Saunders; and he had entered upon
the whole career of “summoning, passing, committing, and certifying,”
without undergoing any other _test_ than the one then exacted from
all, for the preservation of religious intolerance. Through life
it had been the maxim of Sir North Saunders, to unite as much as
possible the outward appearance of a dissipated man of pleasure, with
the solid advantages of a shrewd man of business; and as a principal
ingredient in maintaining his first character, he was always very
conspicuous in his devotion to some one of the reigning beauties
of the day. Not that his gallantries were ever of a nature either
to endanger the character of their object, or at all to interfere
with any more serious affair in which she might at the time be
engaged;--on the contrary, his gratification always seemed complete
when his house was proposed for any little flirting assignation, on
the part of the person whom he for the time admired. And this was a
favour not unfrequently granted to him, being on many accounts found
particularly convenient; for whilst the decorous character of the
society, which he united both in town and country, was maintained
by the tutelary presence of some of the most rigid dowagers of his
own party and connexion, always anxious for the support of splendid
establishments, whether domestic or political, and attracted by the
orthodoxy of his creed and kitchen, there was a most complete absence
of all constraint in a society where every one thought they rather
honoured the host, by condescending to partake of his hospitalities.
Not that Sir North was without his “toad-eaters;”--where is the man
of forty thousand a-year that ever was?--but it was so completely the
tone of the house to take every thing Sir North did for his friends,
as a matter of course, and as their due, that there was never any
openly avowed admiration of any thing, and his veriest creatures
only carried on a contraband trade in flattery, smuggling their
contingent of subserviency at a favourable moment, when unobserved;
and even these, to whom his hospitality was a convenience, and who
had no alternative between the Baronet and his Grace Humphrey, would,
without scruple, criticise the most _recherché_ of his _entrées_, and
make believe a bottle was corked to show they were not obliged to
drink it.
The party at present assembled consisted, as usual, of a strange
melange, composed of well-paid placemen in search of amusement during
the recess, and needy men of fashion seeking subsistence through the
dead months; of dowagers hunting marrying men, and dandies hunting
married women; but amongst those were to be found, some whom Sir
North had contrived to persuade to visit him, who were rather above
the class usually collected at a house whose ostentatious hospitality
was too much ridiculed to be very _recherché_. And in this list was
to be placed Lady Gayland, the young widow mentioned in Castleton’s
letter to his friend, as a continental acquaintance. She had lately
returned to her native country, and had accepted the invitation to
Hornscliff Abbey, eagerly pressed by Sir North. As she possessed
too much good spirits to be really bored anywhere; and too much
good sense to affect to be so at the caprice of others, and quite
wit enough to avail herself, as a matter of amusement, and in a
good-natured way, of the ridicule of Sir North’s character; she found
such a residence for a short time, well calculated to suit her easy
humour, and independent situation.
CHAPTER II.
Her chief resource was in her own high spirit,
Which judged mankind at their due estimation;
And for coquetry she disdained to wear it,
Secure of admiration; its impression
Was faint as if an every-day possession.
BYRON.
But then her face
So lovely, yet so arch; so full of mirth,
The overflowings of an innocent heart.
It will be equally impossible, I fear, to give the reader of these
pages an idea of the charm of Lady Gayland’s character, whether he
is allowed to guess his way to its developement through the mazes of
contradictory traits which the events themselves may incidentally
present, and so be left puzzled and perplexed, as Lord Castleton
himself was in his former acquaintance with her; or whether the more
arduous task shall be undertaken of giving him a clue through the
medium of introductory description. Yet, how to tie down to terms of
fixed description, that which, if it was as brilliant, was also as
changeful as the sun-beam! How to exemplify that which, at all times,
was unlike any thing else, or how to describe that which was often
most unlike itself! I might, it is true, vaunt the undeniable beauty
of her fine features, expatiate on the brilliancy of her full dark
eye; or detail the form of that noble brow which seemed the chosen
throne of thought. Yet how, even by this means, to give any idea of
that strength of varied expression, which, as the occasion required,
even before the ready words had risen to her lips, stamped upon her
countenance the perfect prototype of indignation, ridicule, or
sympathy! If I were even to recall some of the sallies of her playful
wit, they might, thus stiffly recorded, no longer be the same as
when flowing forth the spontaneous burst of high spirits and buoyant
fancy; and seem, perhaps, abrupt and harsh when deprived of the
accompanying sweet smile and soft tone, which could even blunt the
sting of satire.
On the other hand, it might be difficult to persuade those who felt
not that her movements were the result of some higher impulse, which
spurned the usual rules of drawing-room refinement--how impossible it
was that under any circumstances she could ever be ungraceful; and
such as she was, when most unlike every one else, she seemed least
aware of it herself. Her’s was the singularity of genius; not the
genius of singularity. If she was often in word and deed what some
might say they would not imitate, still oftener was she what others
owned they could not emulate. And whilst many who knew her slightly,
thought it was well for the world that there was no _second_ Lady
Gayland; all who knew her well, thought there was nothing which the
world could not better spare than that one.
The morning after the events, described in the last Chapter, had
happened at Morden Bay, a large party was assembled round the
breakfast-table at Sir North’s, and in the full enjoyment of the
social meal; for though, contrary to his usual custom, their host
had not yet appeared, his authority had been put in commission, as
amongst the guests there were many who considered themselves quite at
liberty to treat his servants as if they were their own.
“How I envy you your spirits, Lady Gayland!” drawled out that
beshawled and draperied anatomy, Mrs. M‘Angle, as she sat coiled up
in one corner of the easy _fauteuil_, which, as an invalid, had been
provided for her. “I shan’t be half awake these three hours yet; and
you talk as gaily as if it was after midnight, instead of before
noon.”
“For my part,” said Lady Gayland, “I never feel more alive than with
the freshness of the morning dew upon my thoughts; I enjoy, above all
the other _agrémens_ of a country party, a social breakfast-table.
But where is he ‘_who is the cause of mirth in others_?’”
“Our host has undertaken the part of Banquo,” rejoined his humble
friend, Mr. Spencer, pointing to the vacant chair of Sir North.
“Perhaps we are too noisy for him; he is accustomed ten months in the
year to a solitary meal, dividing his attention between his sodden
muffin, and newspaper done dry at a quick fire; but, after all, I
believe here he is.”
But it was not Sir North, but an individual whose entrance was
likely to produce, amongst the other guests, a much stronger
sensation than “one so common hacknied in the eyes of men,” as their
much despised host. The person in question was equipped, as to his
lower man, in the most correct shooting costume; but the jacket had
not as yet replaced the accustomed blue coat with royal buttons,
crossed up to his chin, many loops for sundry stars being seen on
his left breast. He was well known to all the half-fed placemen, who
now _officiously_, perhaps _officially_, cleared him his place at
the breakfast-table, and who, though they would gladly have picked
up HIS crumbs, brushed THEIR OWN out of his way. Indeed, though
all there might not previously have come in personal contact with
him, who did not know, by name, The Right Honourable the Earl of
Stayinmore, K.G., G.C.B., G.G.C., the proprietor of the three snug
little boroughs of Singlecot, Bankcumwall, and Old Summertemple,
and one of the confidential advisers of the Crown at that day? His
Lordship had, through life, observed great judgment in establishing
the reputation of his wisdom by his silence--and of his consequence,
by his civility. But he contrived by his silence often to place more
restraint upon opinion than others by a direct negative, looking
the while as “if I could contradict if it was worth my while;” and
his civility was so ostentatiously condescending, that to some it
was more offensive than would have been the actual assumption of
superiority. One of those who saw it in this light was Lady Gayland;
and it was evident to the blindest of bystanders, even whilst
the diplomatic assurances, &c. of the morning acknowledgements,
were going on between them, that there would very soon be a “war
of opinion.” The serviles formed a royalist militia round Lord
S. whilst all the unquiet spirits looked to Lady Gayland for
encouragement.
Lord Stayinmore was, however, determined if possible to propitiate
his beautiful antagonist by the studied courtesy of his morning
address to her; and disregarding the attempts of his satellites to
fix him in their system by offering vacant chairs as he bowed his way
up the table, he at last deposited himself in one just opposite Lady
Gayland, saying, with a curvature of the body and an inflexion of the
voice, which became so substantial an impersonation of the shade of
Chesterfield, “Here’s metal more attractive.”
“New and true,” muttered Lady Gayland; adding more loudly, and in a
manner it was impossible to say positively was meant for ridicule:
“‘I kiss thy hand, but not flattery, Cæsar,’” “There,” said she,
turning to her neighbour Mr. Spencer; “there is a quotation repaid
in kind, as original, and more sincere.”
As there was nothing in the world, next to the loss of his three
Boroughs of Singlecot, Bankcumwall, and Old Summertemple, which Lord
Stayinmore so particularly dreaded as the idea of being laughed
at, warned by a certain “lurking devil in her eye,” he did not
again address Lady Gayland, but confined himself for some time to
condescending commonplaces amongst his other neighbours. But this
prolonged armistice was, as other prolonged armistices may (not a
thousand years ago) have been, displeasing to these bystanders, who
thought they might gain, and could not lose, by the actual conflict
of the contending parties. And Mr. Spencer, who was sitting next her,
viewed it peculiarly in this light.
Peter Alexander Spencer was rather, in his way, a character: he
had been ever since he left school a “rising young man,” in every
other respect except bodily height, which had remained stationary
at _five feet one_; but like many little men, he had a most exalted
idea of his own importance, though with great power of bending
to the weaknesses of others, when it suited his object. He was
remarkable for another thing; not only always using the longest
words, but adding still more to their natural length by protracted
pronunciation. He had arrived there the day before, unable to resist
Sir North’s offer of an opportunity to try his double-barrelled
gun, though very proud of the career that had just opened to him,
by being called to the Bar. His arrival had much exhilarated Lady
Gayland. I am afraid it must be owned, that she dearly loved a butt,
and there was in the assumed importance, and natural insignificance
of Mr. Spencer, much, that irresistibly cried out to any one with
the slightest sense of the ridiculous. “Even if you love me, laugh
at me!” She was constantly, in the effervescence of her merry
mood, venting forth many bad jokes about “short Spencers,” and
“long robes,” which she would have been very sorry to have heard
repeated, and which would have been as soon forgotten by every one
else as by herself, but for the intervention of Spencer’s friend,
Mr. Middleman, who shared Spencer’s britscha down, at the allotted
cost of one _post-horse_, and half a post-boy. Middleman was one
of those persons who make their way in the world by constantly
repeating such sentences as “Did you hear what Lady Gayland said of
Spencer! Capital! eh?” Thus storing up the superabundant produce of
more fertile imaginations, and retailing it forth, at moments of
conversational scarcity, thereby gaining his own little percentage
of attention; which he achieved in this instance by repeating,
whenever he thought it would entail most ridicule on his friend and
fellow-traveller, what Lady Gayland had only lightly uttered in a
moment of thoughtlessness.
CHAPTER III.
A beauteous ripple of the brilliant stream
Of rank and youth, though purer than the rest.
BYRON.
Great things were now to be achieved at table.
* * *
But oh, the scenes mid which they met and parted--
The thoughts, the recollections, sweet and bitter--
Th’ Elysian dreams of lovers when they loved--
Who shall restore them?
* * *
In the mean time, Mr. Spencer, whose general _toadying_ turn was
regulated in its particular application by the accidental propinquity
of the moment, now drawled out, making as usual a prolonged note of
each vowel, or a sort of appogiatura between it and its succeeding
consonant,
“D--_o_--_o_ pray t--_o_rture him a l--_ee_tle. There’s nothing so
del--_i_ghtful as your persifl_a_--_a_--_ge_.”
“But I’m not so sanguinary an amazon as to declare unprovoked war,”
replied she, “still, ‘sotto voce,’ his silence leaves me no pretence:
he is determined to avail himself of the most literal application of
the Italian proverb,
‘In bocca chiusa non entran’ mosche.’”
But even whilst she was thus declining any wanton act of hostility,
a subject was fixed upon Lord Stayinmore, by one of his satellites,
which was almost the only one on which he could then have been
provoked so far to commit his opinion as to risk a contradiction.
The topic introduced was the conduct which ought to be pursued by
the government of that day, upon one of those “bit by bit” measures
of reform which then excited curiosity, and, if not interest in
itself, had, at least, divided opinion as to the effect the treatment
of it might have upon the constantly recurring cry for parliamentary
reform. Lord Stayinmore felt more deeply than he thought on this
subject, and always expressed himself strongly upon it.
“It is the bounden duty,” said he, “of every man who has been bred
up in due estimation of the unparalleled blessings of our invaluable
constitution, to make his immovable stand at once, arresting these
erratic changes on the very threshold of their progress, nipping in
the bud these flowery projects of alteration, choking and damming up,
as I may say, this mischievous current of public opinion, even at its
fountain head.”
Lady Gayland, for the sake of herself as well as her hearers, had
much rather have met her antagonist on some field where her wit
might have given her more vantage ground of position, than on the
wide and level plains of political discussion, and here she was,
therefore, determined not to be forced into a general action; but as
she retired, she could not avoid a skirmishing diversion; and taking
up his last words, “Stop, indeed, the current of public opinion
at its fountain head!” she continued. “That puts me in mind of an
incident I remember hearing last year amongst the _Yuoddling_ hills
of Switzerland. Shall I begin, ‘Once upon a time----’”
“Oh, pray do,” exclaimed simultaneously half the breakfast-table.
“You have, most of you, seen those German _Stu_--dents in the
_U_--_niversities_ who are sedentary in the winter, but peripatetic
all the summer, with waists like wasps, and faces like sheep, all
lank locks and learning. One of these was taken to see the source of
the Danube, when, whilst he pressed his palm against the bubbling
spring as it oozed through the cleft of the rock, he exclaimed, in a
fit of geographical grandiloquence, ‘I wonder what they’ll think of
that at Vienna?’ What do you think they did think of that at Vienna,
Lord Stayinmore?”
“Amusing! but how applicable?” condescendingly notified Lord
Stayinmore, avoiding the question himself by interposing another.
“Oh, my dear Lord,” replied Lady Gayland, “if it is mine to adorn the
tale, it is not mine to point the moral; but, however, if you will
make a Cassandra of me in spite of myself, and insist upon my ‘laying
bare my prophetic soul,’ I should say that, if whilst you think you
have the power, you attempt to impede the natural flow of popular
feeling with those political bungs, Singlecot and Bankcumwall, which
you now have at your fingers’ ends, they will only be the more
inevitably borne down with its headlong career; and that the majestic
stream of public opinion, swollen on all sides by tributary springs,
will flow resistlessly onward, bearing on its triumphant waves the
united wishes of a liberal government and a grateful people; and any
such opposition as you now threaten, will then no more be felt, than
was the impression of the pigmy fingers of the German student in the
diminished waters of the Danube at Vienna!”
Lady Gayland had warmed with her subject, and had rattled on more
than she had intended; but she had tact enough, in the midst of
her rhapsody, to perceive evident intimations on the part of
Lord Stayinmore, that the impression she was making was far from
agreeable. He made, first, a nondescript sort of a noise, between a
short cough and a long groan; his chin sunk within the loose folds
of his ample neckcloth, and his broad chest swelled against the
closely-buttoned breast of his well-padded coat. Suddenly checking
herself, she therefore added, in a more playful tone, “But, as
Beatrice says, _I pray your Grace, pardon me, I was born to speak all
mirth, and no matter_.”
“No matter, indeed, Ma’am,” said Lord Stayinmore, with a forced
effort to maintain his courtesy--“I can sincerely affirm that it is
no matter. Could any one oblige me with the evening paper?” he added,
anxious to escape.
“Here it is,” said she, handing it over to him with equal
_empressement_; then turning to Mr. Spencer, “‘A nemico che fugge fa
un ponte d’oro,’ as the prudent Italians say; and in default of gold,
I pay in paper currency.”
“How little they can have to fill the papers with,” said his
Lordship, “when they are reduced to such extracts from the country
journals as this. ‘Lord Castleton has been some time expected at his
seat, Somersby Park, in this neighbourhood, but has not yet arrived.
Report says, that being in a delicate state of health, he still
lingers amongst the sea-breezes at Brighton, but none of the late
notices from that fashionable watering-place mention his Lordship as
amongst its distinguished visitants.’ Who cares?”
“Indeed, I never knew any body care at all about Lord Castleton’s
movements; he is one of those persons in whose case universal
popularity is synonymous with general indifference,” drawled out Mrs.
MacAngle, who had, in former days, made as much of an effort as was
consistent with her listless nature to detach him from his allegiance
to Lady Madelina Manfred.
“Castleton will never make any figure in public life. He cannot keep
his object in view with the proper uniformity of purpose,” ejaculated
Lord Stayinmore. “He has no steady political consistency, still
harping on the threatened dangers of Bankcumwall, Singlecot, and
Summertemple.”
“For my part, I reckon him an intolerable _bore_,” said Mr. Spencer,
to whom he never addressed half-a-dozen words in his life; “and
it’s quite a mistake to _ca-al_ him ha-andsome: a fair man a-always
wants expression,” added he, casting, as he rose from the table, an
approving glance at his own enormous black head, which, being stuck
upon the shortest of persons’ was only just seen trunkless in the
mirror above the sideboard.
“You have, some of you,” said Lady Gayland, “hit upon the greatest
of all possible faults under which he at present labours, if not in
all your eyes, on all your tongues; he is the absent one. How lucky
it is that all the sins which absence from such a society as this
comprehends, all its atrocities, imperfections, ridicules, (that is
not in this case so much an anti-climax as you think,) can never be
perpetuated on one devoted head; that we are all in turn subject
to its influence, and that, if _la moitié du monde prend plaisir à
médire, et l’autre moitié à croire les médisances_, in our turn _we_
must all be comprised in one or other of these two divisions.”
“Dear Lady Gayland, what a tirade!” said Mrs. MacAngle; “I was
not aware, when I ventured to assert that nobody cared about Lord
Castleton, that you were prepared to give me so immediate and
convincing a contradiction of my assertion.”
How many distant and scattered images will the reference but of a
moment collect, when the heart points the index of the memory. Even
whilst Mrs. MacAngle was drawling forth her half-hinted insinuation,
there passed over in the mirror of Lady Gayland’s mind the reflection
of many a brilliant fête, and many a meeting in sculptured hall, and
the softer shade of many a social promenade, beneath the soothing
influence of an Italian summer. But whatever she felt, she hesitated
not to reply, “You are now quite mistaken!” blushing slightly,
perhaps, at her generous warmth being so misinterpreted, and
speaking, consequently, in a more hurried manner. “You are now quite
mistaken! my observations were merely general. It is true, I did know
Lord Castleton well in Italy; but our exotic acquaintance, which the
warm south had ripened into intimacy, has not borne transplanting
into this northern clime, and I have seen but little of him since
my return. Certainly, I will acknowledge that my recollection of
him does not confirm the opinions of this meeting, that he is all
these,--ill-looking--dull--weak, and uninteresting, but _n’importe_.
Do I think the worse of him for all this? or, in point of fact, do
any of you? And which of you would not say as much of his present
neighbour, if afflicted with that first of faults, absence? The
only cure would be, if B. instead of C. could some day hear what A.
meant C. should hear of B. how much less agreeable a companion that
first of wits A. would be thought by his butt B. I have often longed
that there could be cross-hearings as well as cross-readings; but
the misfortune is, that though libellous letters might be mis-sent,
mis-directed, a social sarcasm never miscarries, but goes straight to
its mark.”
“But really, for you of all people,” said Mrs. Mac Angle, “to
complain of one’s occasionally saying a severe thing!”
“I am as aware as any one can be, how much too freely I often speak
my mind to those that are present, for which, of those _here_ whom
I have thus offended, I humbly sue for pardon,” clasping her hands
together, and looking at Lord Stayinmore with an expression of
contrition, which, though slightly burlesqued, it was impossible
to resent, and difficult to resist. “But, _en revanche_, I never do
speak ill of the absent; perhaps, for no better reason than that my
soul pants for nobler game. Had my friend Peter the Great there,”
pointing to Mr. Spencer, who was seen equipped for sport starting
from the front-door; “had he, like his northern namesake, ever known
other fields than those of stubble, and popped at what could pop at
him again, he would not be so keen after the partridges.”
Above a quarter of an hour had elapsed after this conversation, and
the last lingering sipper of tea and crumbler of roll had brought
to conclusion his most carefully elongated meal, when at length Sir
North made his appearance, and, with a jerking bow, to be divided
amongst all present, began, in that sort of disjointed colloquy and
string of clipped sentences for which, it was before mentioned, he
was famous:--“I beg a thousand pardons--quite shocked; but the fact
is--a most unpleasant occurrence that--Lady Gayland, I need not ask
how your Ladyship has rested--evident--Aurora--rather Hebe;--but as
breakfast’s over--somewhat late for that simile--Jupiter’s jug, and
all that--I am never late, only the fact is, this morning--a most
unpleasant occurrence that--Lord Stayinmore, it has prevented my
reading the papers,--only looked at the Gazette--Delighted to see the
judicious use your Lordship has made of the vacancy caused by the
death of our late excellent friend. You could not have chosen better;
no steadier voter than Montague Mumchance;--won’t speak often,--so
much the better. Talk of rising young men, indeed; we don’t care for
their rising, so long as they are good sitters. Apropos to rising,
though you will not think that that is my forte--but the fact is, a
most unpleasant occurrence, involving a little legal business--only
just come down, not got into Burn yet--as fresh at it as my friend
Peter Spencer. By the bye, where is he?--just the game for him to
smell out--like a young pointer--break him in--”
“But Peter Spencer is just now smelling out game by the means of his
proxy pointer,” said his friend Mr. Middleman, “and he’s applying his
own nose to the stock of his gun in a turnip field.”
“Peter the Great,” added Lady Gayland, “is probably, like his
imperial namesake, by this time, if not _overthrown_, fairly _beat_
by the _Swedes_. But, my dear Sir North, now you have sufficiently
informed us both that the fact is an unpleasant occurrence, and
that the unpleasant occurrence is a fact, do let us judge of their
reciprocal qualities ourselves, and tell us what has happened?”
Sir North then informed his hearers, as clearly as the confused and
contradictory notions he had as yet imbibed on the subject enabled
him, of some of the occurrences of the preceding night; how a daring
gang of smugglers had been captured by a revenue cutter, after
having landed and concealed somewhere a valuable cargo, and how it
was found on this occasion a barbarous murder had been added to
their former misdeeds. All the information they had as yet collected
was vague, and amounted merely to inference. It was principally
derived from the captain of the revenue cutter, whom even Sir North
had had penetration enough to discover to be a shrewd and sensible
man; though this opinion, which he had correctly formed, he did
not himself confirm to his present hearers in its full extent, by
the more confused and interpolated version which he gave of the
information he had thus obtained.
No one of the smugglers had as yet seemed the least inclined to turn
King’s evidence; no corpse had been found on board the vessel; but
the open boat or coble belonging to the lugger had several stains of
blood at the bottom, and on its gunnel the stamp of a bloody hand was
distinctly traced, the ends of the finger marks being inside, and as
if they had been strongly pressed against the inward ledge, seeming
to indicate that a person mortally hurt had been thrown overboard,
and had struggled for life to the last by clinging to the side of the
boat.
The part which was quite unintelligible to them to whom Sir North
endeavoured to explain it, and which had rather puzzled the captain
of the cutter himself, was how to connect these appearances with the
exclamations, when first found, of the girl, who had been discovered
on the beach; and who appeared to have some connection with, or
at least, previous knowledge of the transactions of the gang, as
involved in the last night’s adventure. Her first wild inquiry had
been, “Where is the body?” which would lead one to conclude, that the
act of violence had been committed ashore, and under her observation;
and yet the appearances in the boat would seem to indicate that the
mortal struggle had been after they had put out to sea.
“As it is,” said Sir North, “it is impossible, at present, to extract
any coherent account from her; she is either decidedly _non compos_,
or, though far be it from me to suspect any thing harsh of one so
young, who ought not yet to be hardened, and who, I am bound to
add, is of rather an interesting appearance; yet I fear all this
unwillingness to give any account arises from wilful stubbornness.”
“Poor wretch! stubbornness!” exclaimed Lady Gayland,
compassionately; “is there no more charitable way to account for such
unwillingness? She would not, probably, young as you describe her,
have been even casually involved in such a transaction, unless under
circumstances which would lead one to believe her at this moment
labouring under the overwhelming affliction of either the untimely
loss, or impending shame, of some one she loves. Where is she?”
“Why, I saw I could make nothing of her at present,” answered Sir
North, “so I turned her over to Jones, telling her to keep her apart
from her companions, and lock her up a bit by herself, in a darkish,
lonely room, where, I’ll warrant, reflection will bring her about,
and she will understand her duty, and learn how to make her peace
with the offended majesty of injured justice.”
Sir North attempted to look grand, under the consciousness that he
was himself to personify his own peroration. Lady Gayland made no
reply, but shortly after left the room.
Sir North, with all his vanity, did not feel himself quite up to
understanding, much less expounding and administering, the most
complicated section of the most intricate portion of our penal code,
which comprises the revenue laws; with which, in this instance, there
was but too much reason to fear an accusation of murder would be
involved. He therefore postponed the examination till late in the
day, when he hoped for the arrival of an able solicitor from Mayton;
one whose well-tried merits had prevented our poor friend Pounce, in
his probationary lifetime, from dividing any business with him: and
this Mr. Asklaw, Sir North meant on this occasion should act as his
clerk: his butler, who usually doubled that part, being, in point of
fact, not up to much more besides executing warrants himself to take
up the oldest offenders from the cellar, and making out “permits” to
transfer poachers to the House of Correction.
By thus postponing the examination, Sir North calculated that, even
should Mr. Asklaw not come upon his summons, Peter Spencer would then
be returned with his bagfull, not of briefs, but of birds, and ready
to act as his assessor.
CHAPTER IV.
Yet time serves wherein you may redeem
Your banished honours, and restore yourselves
Into the good thoughts of the world again.
SHAKSPEARE.
“I can assure your Ladyship, it’s quite the most _unsuitablest_
place you ever _seed_ for your Ladyship,” said Mrs. Jones, in answer
to Lady Gayland’s entreaty to be shown the room to which the poor
girl had been conveyed. “It’s quite a place for a lady like you to
catch the _cholera_, or the _tic-dooleeroose_, or some other narvous
disorder.”
“Why! should all these dreadful things happen to me for staying in
it for a few minutes, at my own will and pleasure, and yet it be a
proper place in which forcibly to confine that poor creature? What is
it? not a real dungeon, I hope?”
“Oh! no, my Lady, I trust I am not such an _unchristen hankeret_, as
to deal in such things. You see, Ma’am, the fact is, she’s stowed in
my lumber-room. It’s many a year now, whenever Sir North said to me,
‘Jones, take this here out of my way, and put it by’--up it’s always
gone, under lock and key, into the lumber-room. So, when he said
to-day, ‘You, Jones, put by this young woman, and keep her safe till
I want her;’ it come most _natral_ like to me, just to pop her in
there, and there she is.”
There was much in Mrs. Jones’s manner which would have been to Lady
Gayland, at any other time, irresistible food for ridicule; but the
errand on which she was then going, had so much excited her interest,
that she was regulated, in her answers to Mrs. Jones, by an anxious
desire to smooth as much as possible the precise objections that
were started by that methodical body to the object she had in view.
No one of which objections were founded at all upon any difficulty
in counteracting Sir North’s orders, which had been that the young
person should be kept alone; for, though Mrs. Jones had known Sir
North all his life-time, and, consequently, much of her own, she had
not therefore imbibed a more respectful deference for his authority,
than those more recently added members of his establishment, which
had been gradually swelled to the present extent. Mrs. Jones had
begun life as servant-maid to old Sir Simon, at his office in the
City. And therefore let it not be supposed that she is given as a
common specimen of the housekeeping species as it now exists. It
would be strange indeed, if, in these days, when education has been
so widely diffused amongst the middling and lower orders, a pet
preserve of slipslop and ignorance should be found, exactly amongst
those who have the most means of improving themselves by comparing
their own phraseology with that of their superiors. Mrs. Jones had,
in spite of the accumulated dignity of her multiplied charges,
retained much of the original “Maid of All Work of Cripplegate.” In
the course of the many years when she had been left in the solitary
keeping of Hornscliff Abbey, her original cockney had become a little
chequered with the country dialect in the neighbourhood: and from her
occasional association with the fine gentlemen’s fine gentlemen, and
the _elegantes, helegant women_, which Sir North had occasionally,
at considerable intervals, collected there, she had acquired nothing
but awkward affectation.
But I forget that all this while I am keeping Lady Gayland on the
staircase of the turret even longer than Mrs. Jones would, who, at
length, said--
“But, _o’ coorse_, my Lady, I’m not going for to say you shan’t not
do nothing you chooses.” And with this she began to mount the spiral
staircase of the turret, jingling at the same time the big bunch of
keys, from which she was feeling out the biggest, as belonging to the
ponderous lock of the lumber-room. Whilst fitting it in its allotted
key-hole, she turned to Lady Gayland, saying, “I’m afraid your
Ladyship will find it a small matter _dampishish_, it’s so nigh the
roof. I could light a bit of fire now, but it do smoke a triflish at
first lighting: as I remember well this time five years back, when
Sir North set me to burn some old papers here; and if I’d known you’d
been so _descending_ as to come up here, I’d have lighted it when I
first put her in here; but the reason was I was a bit _timbersome_ of
her, poor despairing _cretur_! that she might be _misheevous_ with
fire, since we’ve heard tell of the burnings of the _insensiblaries_,
and some of them _papish monkeish_ old chairs would catch like
tinder.”
Her follower, as may be imagined, declined the offer to smother her
with smoke, though, at first entrance, the room struck damp, and yet
close, as never having been aired. The low gallery, let into the roof
and sparingly lighted, was, nevertheless, spacious, as far as its
dimensions could be guessed at through the immense heaps of littered
rubbish with which it was crowded, and which afforded ample proofs
that if Mrs. Jones, who kept the key, rarely visited it, she could
never have done so empty-handed.
Against the low groined windows were leaned so as almost to exclude
the light, broken detached wings of a japan screen, and over them
were hung the sails of a pleasure-boat. On the seats of some
fractured high-backed cedar chairs, which had belonged to the monks,
were piled all the numbers of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ from the
beginning; a crayon drawing of George Anne Bellamy; a print of
Admiral Duncan; Mrs. Abington, as _Scrub_; Sir Simon’s hatchment; and
some coloured lamps for an illumination. On an old billiard-table
were heaped, a gouty chair, fishing-tackle, packets of Sir Simon’s
treasury vouchers scattered loose about, and specimens of rare plants
sent as presents and never unpacked, with every other possible
variety of chaotic confusion, much too numerous to describe.
But Lady Gayland hardly observed all this, for her attention was
engrossed by an object which seemed as motionless as any of the
incongruous fixtures by which it was surrounded. Lucy Darnell was
discovered sitting on a low stool, leaning one elbow on a tattered
sofa beside her, and the other on her knee, whilst she covered
her face with her hands, pressing the palms against her eyes, and
clenching between her fingers, the locks of her long fair hair, which
was twined and twisted through them. Her intended comforter, Lady
Gayland, moved slowly and softly towards her, and was about to place
herself silently on the sofa beside her, on which Lucy was leaning,
when Mrs. Jones stopped her with something of a scream:
“Oh, my Lady! take care! it’s dust an inch thick, quite a shame to
be seen! nothing as comes here ever feels a duster _agin_; and _that
ere sofar_ has been here long afore my day; they do say it was put
by ever since the last Lord Hornscliff was laid on it, when he made
away with himself, after he had made away with every thing else; and
to think of your brushing down the nasty dust as _has bin_ there ever
since, with that sweet gown. Vapor, (vapeur) too, as Mrs. Angel-leek
calls it, is the most wulnerablest colour as is!”
Lady Gayland could have been impatient at this interference, but
she preferred quickly, but effectually getting rid of Mrs. Jones
altogether, to any mode of controlling her proceedings. And as this
wish was not effected by words, it need not be recorded in them; it
is therefore sufficient to say, that the manner which she adopted for
conveying her desire to Mrs. Jones was satisfactory to both parties.
When at length left alone with poor Lucy Darnell, her visitor felt,
from the graceful, though desolate, attitude of the young person
before her, an interest in her, for which she had not been previously
prepared; and though she had come there with an anxious desire to
minister comfort to her sufferings, she knew not exactly in what
way to commence her self-imposed task. She bent silently over the
apparently unconscious sufferer, desirous, if possible, that her
presence should appear to be in some way acknowledged by her to
whom she came, before she abruptly intruded herself on her notice.
She stood intently gazing on her whose face was still concealed. On
her own fine countenance, the workings of that benevolence which
had brought her there, were blended with that softened expression
of true feminine delicacy, which now made her pause and shrink
from the fear of incautiously wounding where she meant to soothe.
It would have been next to impossible to identify in her, who was
even then fastidiously restrained by the mere chance of inadvertent
offence or injury to a helpless girl, whom she came to serve--the
same person who, an hour before, had fearlessly scattered the
shafts of her ridicule amongst the great and powerful--those who
were easiest to offend and slowest to forgive. The classical contour
of the finely-chiselled features was indeed the same, and was such
as Domenichino would have selected for its beauty--such as, loving
to paint, he would have dressed in one or other of those varied
expressions, according as his subject had been, a Sibyl or a saint.
Seeing that the motionless being over whom she leaned, and whom
she had gradually approached, still gave no sign of awakened
consciousness, she softly touched the cold and clammy hand, still so
strongly pressed by Lucy against her brow and forehead, and attempted
gently to draw it off, and take it between her’s, and addressed to
her at the same time these words:
“However great your grief may be, my poor child, there may be some
part of your sorrow which it may be in the power of another to
alleviate; and if so, I think you would prefer to open your heart to
one of your own sex, though unknown to you, rather than to any of
those rude and lawless men in whose company you were brought here,
but to whose society, I feel assured when I look at you, you must be
entirely a stranger.”
There was that harmony in the silvery tone of Lady Gayland’s
voice--there was that sympathy in her soft and persuasive touch,
which, though Lucy’s faculties were as yet too scattered to enable
her rightly to comprehend the purport of what was said, yet prevented
her from abruptly rejecting the proffered interference.
“Thank you most kindly, Ma’am,” said she, gently returning the soft
pressure of the lady’s hand with that which she now allowed her
to detach from her cheek, but dropping her head at the same time
still lower towards her knees, and shading her features with the
other hand, whilst she spoke--“thank you most kindly; But yesterday
I should not have known what to wish for, what favour to ask of any
one, stranger or not; and to-day, though I am obliged to you all
every bit the same, not all your kindness could lend me one ray of
comfort.”
“Why so?” replied her visitor. “It is evident that you are at present
labouring under some severe affliction; but there is no situation
from which every ray of comfort or of hope is excluded, except
guilt, and even there, only from hardened and habitual guilt: that,
I feel assured, is not your case; nay, you tell me yourself that
but yesterday all was peace and content around; think, then, how
much of your present distress may have arisen, not so much from the
extent of the actual calamity which oppresses you, as from the sudden
abruptness of the change by which it was effected. Nay, perhaps you
may have been imprudent,--you have, contrary to the consent of your
friends, wandered where these suspicious associates have unexpectedly
involved you in their lawless transactions,--you dread the exposure,
to those whom you respect, which this discovery entails? If so,
confide openly to me; my protection might, when mere imprudence, not
guilt, is its cause, smooth your return there, whence you ought never
to have wandered. Shame ought never to be allowed to weigh down so
young and gentle a head; and since yesterday it cannot be your casual
connection with the smuggling transactions of last night which have
so completely changed your situation as would induce your friends to
cast you off.”
“Oh, no, God bless them! no one will cast me off; my dear father
could never dart an angry look or give a hard word to his poor Lucy,
if all the judges of the land had found me guilty! But ’tisn’t for
that I grieve: I do not fear for myself; there will be no judge to
find me guilty;--they’ll lay the blame elsewhere, and he will suffer
for it, and it is by him that the name which I bear, and shame, will
be said to have been coupled together, and his stout heart and daring
spirit will only serve to bear the passive trial of a disgraceful
death. But all the time I shall feel that I was the guilty one; yes,
I killed him as much as if I gave the blow. He’s gone, he’s dead, the
best, the kindest, the gentlest, and I’m sure, whatever he was, one
of the noblest of men.”
It was in vain that Lady Gayland gave the best attention of which her
acute faculties were capable, to these disjointed and self-accusing
reflections, on the events of the last four-and-twenty hours; it
was in vain that she attempted to connect in her mind any distinct
idea of what actually had happened, or of who the various parties
were to whom allusion had been made, or what connexion they had with
the person before her: but gathering that her grief was principally
connected with the murder supposed to have been committed, and having
heard from Sir North that the occurrence was not at all as yet
substantiated by evidence, she endeavoured to console the mourner by
throwing some doubts upon the fact, saying, “Give not way at once, my
poor girl, to such bitter repinings; you could not feel more acutely
if his death were already ascertained and pronounced. I understand
that there are yet hopes that the wounded man may recover.”
“Ah! where is he?” screamed Lucy, starting up; “have they then found
him? Quick, dearest Lady, take me to him; let me care him, watch
him, preserve his precious life. But no, no, no!” added she, sinking
down again, upon reading in Lady Gayland’s expressive countenance
that she saw she had gone too far in attempting to excite hopes which
she could not support, “no, I see you are only humouring me like a
child. He cannot, he never will be found. Why was he not found in
the boat with the others, when they refused to let him stay with me?
Where should he be then? ’tis the roar of the waves can alone answer
that question. It was no wild vision when from the beach I thought I
saw them fling him overboard. He struggled hard, and one he dragged
down with him, and, as I thought, the contending breakers bore both
aloft for a moment before my sight, and then, swallowing them as they
sank, rose in another hideous form without them, and closed for ever
over their heads. Was all this so, or not?--who can tell? who can
tell? I’m sure Lucy cannot.”
Knitting her brows, she seemed for a short time endeavouring to
collect and analyze her thoughts on the subject; then, as if finding
the effort in vain, she covered her face again with her hands, and
sobbed hysterically.
Lady Gayland’s strong mind enabled her, when she thought it
necessary, to command her feelings, and through all the early part
of this scene she had made extraordinary efforts to do so, knowing
that if she could be at all useful when she wished so to be, it must
only be by calming the sufferer, not increasing her excitation by
sharing her emotions. But the wild and plaintive manner in which Lucy
asked herself the question as to the reality of the dreadful scene
she fancied, struck upon one of those simple chords which pure nature
has implanted in every gentle breast, which, when touched, vibrate
irresistible sympathy; and she was by this for a time so completely
upset as to be unable to attempt to resume her task of comforter.
CHAPTER V.
I beseech you,
Wrest once the law to your authority:
To do a great right, do a little wrong.
SHAKSPEARE.
My watch, Sir, has indeed comprehended two auspicious persons.
IBID.
Whilst Lady Gayland struggled to recover her own composure, she felt
how important it was to prepare Lucy’s mind for the ordeal which she
had so soon to go through in the shape of a legal investigation into
all these transactions, and previous to which it was so important
that her tranquillity should in some measure be restored. She knew
the unfair inferences which might by possibility be drawn from
her present disordered state; how often, in the hard judgment of
technical men, the effects of modest embarrassment and awe-struck
inexperience may be perverted into the confusion and contradictions
of guilt; and in this case the probability of such a misconstruction
was increased by the overwhelming nature of the recent sorrows which
oppressed her. Yet all the assistance which she could give her to
support her through so severe a trial, Lady Gayland felt, must be
in previous advice, for to it she must go alone and unaccompanied.
However much the interest she now felt in her new _protégée_ might
make her wish to accompany her, she was aware that her presence, as a
female guest of Sir North’s, at a legal investigation in his private
room, into a deed of blood and violence, would be rather misplaced.
She therefore attempted to sustain the impression of the last idea,
which seemed to have so powerful an effect on Lucy’s feelings, and
to enforce upon her a due sense of the unpleasant duty to which she
was shortly to be summoned, and from which she could not shrink,
saying, “If that dreadful scene to which you have alluded with such
natural sensations of horror, is actually impressed upon your mind
as a fact, you should endeavour to recollect that you are now in
the power, and shortly will be summoned into the presence of those
who have a right to ask all you know on the subject. You would, of
course, be most careful not to make a matter of grave accusation
against any one that which may have been merely the workings of your
own distempered imagination; but if you can really feel assured that
you actually saw that which you described, however painful it may be
to the retiring gentleness of your character to bear witness against
any one, you have now no choice; you owe it not only to the memory
of him you mourn, but also your duty to that superior power who has
ordained that through you justice should in this instance be done on
guilt, commands you to speak, without fear or shrinking, the plain
and simple truth.”
“What! and myself twine the rope round his neck. Ugh! no, no!”
muttered Lucy, shuddering: “my first, best, my only friend, whose
only fault was loving me too well; who has thought of his Lucy far,
far off, when, what was night to him, was day to me. No; if they have
tortures here, let them use them, rather than I will utter one word
against poor George.”
Lady Gayland felt now completely perplexed: she thought she knew the
language of passion; she thought she could not be completely deceived
in her estimate of artless innocence; and yet it was difficult
to reconcile such contradictory expressions of strong affection,
as it seemed, at the same time, for the slayer and the slain; him
who had fallen a victim to lawless violence, and the perpetrator
of the deed. The fact was, that Lucy’s affectionate disposition
unconsciously impelled her to vent her feelings in exaggerated terms,
when speaking of either of them; principally from the self-reproaches
with regard to both, which she mixed up with the horrors of the last
four-and-twenty hours. She could not bear to reflect that the last
words on Churchill’s lips, before his untimely end, were unrequited
professions of love for her, which love had, indeed, been the cause
of his death: as little could she bear to recollect that it was to
her alleged fickleness, though there never had been any positive
pledges to confirm such an accusation, that George had attributed
all his progressive errors, and but too plainly traced his last
dreadful act of guilt.
Lady Gayland’s object in seeking Lucy Darnell in her present
temporary confinement, had been, if possible, to soothe the sorrows
of an unfortunate female. But it was no part of her intention to
gratify her own curiosity through the medium of that involuntary
half-confidence which those sorrows themselves might be the
means of eliciting. The sort of mystery which to her seemed to
hang over Lucy’s connexion, both with the murdered man and him
who was in custody, induced her to avoid, rather than to press,
any farther questions on that part of the subject; and she was
confining her counsel to general advice, not to get herself into
farther difficulties by an apparent attempt to thwart the ends of
justice, when Mrs. Jones re-entered the room to inform her that the
Lawyer from Mayton was arrived, and Mr. Spencer was taking off his
shooting-gaiters, and Sir North was almost ready for what Mrs. Jones
called his _justiciary_ business.
Lady Gayland rose to leave her _protegée_ with an anxious feeling
as to the conduct she would pursue during her approaching trial: in
spite of the doubt she was left in as to her connexion with some
of the parties concerned in these transactions, the course of the
interview with her had excited in her monitress’s breast a powerful
interest in her behalf.
It was impossible not to be prepossessed in her favour by her
personal appearance; though the obscurity of the darkened room
in which they were, had prevented Lady Gayland from seeing her
thoroughly. It is not merely on its victim man, that beauty in woman,
when apart from rivalry, produces an irresistibly forcible effect.
Lady Gayland, with all her occasional off-hand manner of speaking,
and with the frequent temptations opened to an ever-ready fancy
of ridiculing personal defects, could never be accused of having
made an ill-natured remark upon a rival beauty; and, certainly, she
could very well spare any occasional advantage which such use of her
satirical powers might have been sufficient to promise. But here, not
only the immeasurable distinction of their different rank in life,
but the present position of one of the parties, would have prevented
the idea of possible rivalry: and certainly, whatever may be thought
the best light for commanding admiration; for exciting sympathy,
there is nothing like beauty in distress.
Lucy was, on her side, so much touched by the unexpected interest
shown in her fate by so superior a being as Lady Gayland, that,
before parting with her, she promised faithfully, that in the
examination to which she was about to be subjected, she would
endeavour to be composed; and that at any rate she would be perfectly
candid, on every part which related to herself, who she was and
whence she came; and that as far as she could, without injuring those
she wished to save, she would explain the whole transaction.
Lady Gayland, however, could not satisfy herself perfectly with this
conditional promise. She felt a great inclination still, if possible,
to be present at the examination; and in passing through the
entrance-hall, in her way down, she found Sir North and Mr. Spencer
in close conference; the former with a light, calfskin-covered,
legal-looking, quarto volume under his arm; the other drawing the
_charge_, not of the prisoners, but of his gun. The case had,
however, been opened to him, as he was saying,
“Oh, certainly, Sir North; it will be the su-mmit of _ea_-rthly
_fe-li-ci_-ty to me, to render myself, in the most _di-mi_-nutive
degree, your servi_cea_ble sl_a_-ve. It is, as you justly assumed,
one of the most _co_-mpli-_ca_-ted departm_e_-nts of your judicial
functions. The advice of a pr_o_-fessional man is not only expedient,
but I may say indisp-_e_-nsable to a rural Archimedes. I suppose we
must attack them under the 9th of George II. Chap. 35. for running
unlawful goods. Apropos, Sir North--that black bitch, Juno, has
taken to running hares; we had better put her into the indictment;
’p_o_-n my soul we had--ha! ha! If, according to the 9th of George
II. this ch_a_-rge could be extr_a-ac_ted, I mean substantiated, it
would be the most _e-li_-gible mode of p_ro_c_ee_ding; if not, we
must pr-_o_-c_ee_d against them under the 5th of George III. Chapter
13. In the mean time, I will just change these,” sticking out
conceitedly a worsted-clad fragment of a column, which was called
a leg, and which it would have been well for him if he could have
changed.
In all this he had shown as usual, that, with the greatest
pretensions to accurate information, and professions of the desire
to serve, his knowledge was never useful, and his assistance always
contingent upon his own convenience.
Lady Gayland joined Sir North, as Mr. Spencer left him. “My dear Sir
North, I am very anxious to interest you in favour of that young
girl, who is about to be examined before you; I am sure that her
connexion with these lawless parties is accidental and recent; but I
foresee that she will be terribly alarmed at the whole proceeding.
Now, what I want of you is no hard task,--it is only to recollect as
_much_ as possible, that _she_ is a very pretty young girl, and as
_little_ as possible, that you are the ‘great Justice Midas.’ I beg
pardon,” she said, seeing that that last allusion was unfortunate;
“all I meant was, that I hoped you would be the good-natured,
indulgent person, you are to _all_ of our sex, and not endue any
additional dignity on this occasion. Now just promise me that,” she
said, in her most coaxing manner.
Sir North, who, in the fascination of her address, forgot Justice
Midas, answered,
“My dear Lady Gayland, I have not now to inform you, that to me your
_will_ alone is law; only recollect, it must not only be law to me,
but must appear so to the professional gentlemen I have called in, or
else--”
“Nay, Sir North, take care, or I shall come myself, and see whether
you administer accurately what you own you consider as your only law,
my sovereign will and pleasure.”
Sir North would generally have thought himself only too much
flattered at Lady Gayland making him her _butt_, in any manner
which at the moment might hit her fancy, or chime in with her merry
humour; but just at present, principally from its novelty, his
magisterial dignity was his hobby, on which account her threatened
presence, bringing with it the imminent danger of ridicule, was
particularly unpleasant to him; and he, therefore, bowed himself
away, with as much of a negative as he dared to put upon any proposal
of hers, vented in disjointed, half-sentences, “Fear--perfectly
impossible--distract attention--syren voice--imperative
duty--strictly private--magisterial functions--lives at stake--”
Lady Gayland, looking after him, only muttered, “Full of wise saws,
and modern instances, and so he plays his part;” for she evidently
saw that it would be impossible under these circumstances, with any
delicacy, to press her desire to attend, and therefore, gave it up,
and retired to her own room, to wait the result.
CHAPTER VI.
I am Robert Shallow, Sir, a poor Esquire of this county, and one of the
King’s Justices of the Peace.
SHAKSPEARE.
There is no future pang
Can deal that justice on the self-condemned
He deals on his own soul.
BYRON.
Sir North having taken his seat on what is figuratively called the
“bench,” typified in this instance by a most portentous looking elbow
chair, meant not only passively to confer dignity upon him who sat
in it, but calculated actively to strike awe into all who approached
it, the prisoners were summoned into his presence. The judicial
consequence of Sir North’s _ci-devant_ study had been recently
perfected by “appropriate scenery and decorations” in the shape of
frame-work divisions, borrowed exactly from the “London boards” or
Metropolitan police-offices. In short, there was only one ingredient
wanting to make it an excellent “justice-shop,” and that was a little
stock of law on the part of the purveyor of that commodity.
Sir North being stationed in what the servants called his throne,
with Mr. Asklaw on one side, and Mr. Spencer on the other, with
Captain Scudd, of the cutter, at a little distance, the prisoners
were brought in. They were many in number, and of varied appearance,
from the hard weather-beaten _tar_, who feared nothing, to the fresh
lubberly youth, who was scared with the apparent certainty of an
hempen cord. There was, among them, both the uneasy assumption of
pretended recklessness, and the downcast gaze of nerveless despair.
The whole set had on this occasion, too, an unusually care-worn
and disordered appearance, as much from the active labours and
hard-fought dangers of the preceding night, as from the awkwardness
of their present position. Captain Collett alone, neither in his
outward appearance, nor, as it seemed, in his internal sensations,
was at all changed by the events that had taken place, but still wore
the same unvaried expression of quiet cunning.
Poor George Darnell, on the other hand, could not have been
recognised for the same light-hearted, frank-spoken, somewhat
overbearing roisterer who had appeared at his uncle’s hospitable
board so few days before. The remorseful feelings of which he had
been the prey during the last few hours, appeared almost to have
eaten into his very features, so deeply was their impression stamped
upon his wild and haggard countenance.
Sir North, whose great anxiety was not to show how little he really
knew of the duties which he had undertaken to discharge, soon found
the greatest difference in the value of his two coadjutors,--of the
professional assistant whom he had casually sought from Mayton, and
of the private friend, on whose considerate suggestions he had mainly
depended for helping him, without expense, out of a difficulty.
The latter (Mr. Spencer) appeared only anxious to confound all his
hearers with the extent of his own information, in which confusion
his friend was most especially included. Mr. Asklaw’s desire, on the
other hand, was to transfuse his own knowledge almost imperceptibly
for the use of his principal. Mr. Spencer began a tirade, much too
long and tedious to be recorded here; the result of which was, that
poor Sir North’s head, in the conclusion, only retained a chaotic
mass of contradictory acts of parliament which he had quoted,
principally from the 8th of George II. c. 18, to the 52d George III.
c. 143, these both inclusive; much about “foreign brandy, arrack
rum, or strong waters;” something about the eye or the limb of a
custom-house officer being assessed of the value of 50_l._ extra;
but most of all, for Mr. Spencer principally relied upon the act
against vessels for hovering near the coast, Sir North had to hear of
the peculiar construction of “cutters, luggers, shallops, wherries,
smacks, and yawls:” this, more than any thing else, bewildered
him; for though he would not for the world have acknowledged his
ignorance, but, on the contrary, looked at least as wise as usual
on the subject, yet there was not one of these, whether cutter,
lugger, shallop, wherry, smack, or yawl, which, if he had seen, he
could have known from Noah’s ark. In the mean time, Mr. Asklaw had
quietly insinuated a Burn’s Justice open at the right place before
him; and though, his head still being a little confused with Peter
Spencer’s prolific jargon, his eye did at first wander to the wrong
page of the two, and his attention yet stranded amongst the islands
of Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, Sark, and Man; yet, at length, he was
beginning to fancy he saw his way clearer, when Spencer having, as
he thought, satisfactorily played the part of counsel, rose to try
his hand as a judge, and make some sort of address to the prisoners;
and he was particularly diffuse upon the enormity of the conduct of
the leader of such a gang as this, (the captain of the smugglers,)
who, in attempting to defraud his country, had evidently deluded his
followers, many of whom were young offenders. Whilst Spencer was
working himself into eloquence, he was interrupted by Captain Collett.
“I’ll tell you what, young gentleman, I take it you’ve only your own
authority for putting yourself into the commission here; if so, you’d
better keep your advice for those who ask it, and your opinions for
those who need them. It is no part of my present misfortunes that
I should be forced to hear you preach; I know exactly how much I’m
forced to bear, and no more. I must answer his worship’s questions
there, always provided that I need not criminate myself, which I’m
not very likely to do; and I must mind his worship’s bidding always,
providing it’s according to law, which, of course, it’s likely to be,
but of which same law, it’s as well to let all present know, I’ve
myself some little smattering. But it’s neither my business, nor my
pleasure, to stand here as a mark for you to shoot your tongue at, as
practice in jaw, or law, whichever you please to call it.”
“Silence, fellow, respect the court!” said Sir North, in, as he
thought, the most impressive manner.
Whilst this collateral dispute was going on, Mr. Asklaw, who had not
previously had any communication with the Captain of the revenue
cutter, had extracted from him the degree of circumstantial evidence
he had been able to collect, and which had, since they arrived at
Hornscliff, been, to a certain extent, confirmed by the general
report, that a stranger, who had been for some days residing in
that neighbourhood, was mysteriously missing. He again repeated
the appearances they had remarked in the smuggler’s open boat,
intimating that a deed of violence had been there consummated. The
girl’s exclamation, when found on the beach, seeming to prove that
the assault which had been the cause of death, (whether by fire-arms,
or what other means, did not yet appear,) had taken place on shore
previous to the re-embarkation; it immediately occurred to Mr.
Asklaw, that this being much the more serious charge of the two, it
would be most desirable to go into this first; because, could a case
of murder be substantiated and brought home to the parties, the other
accusation, though a much more complicated affair, was of infinitely
minor importance.
He therefore suggested that the young girl, who was in attendance,
should be called in and examined as to her knowledge of the earlier
part of these transactions, to which her exclamation on the beach
had referred. This proposal was acceded to by Sir North, and poor
Lucy sent for. In the interval which followed, had all present, of
every degree, not been too much occupied with their own concerns to
remark George, the workings of his countenance, in his efforts to
maintain his composure during these moments of, to him, agonizing
suspense, would then have been construed as the struggles of a guilty
conscience.
After some little while the door opened, and Mrs. Jones only made her
appearance. “I ask pardon, Sir North, for _protruding_ myself, but
it’s quite impossible that young person can make her _testament_, for
she’s _parfectly historical_.”
It was urged by Mr. Spencer that she ought at least to be brought
there, that they might themselves judge of the state in which she
was; when George, with apparent effort, stepped forward to prevent
it. “It’s not the least necessary, gentlemen, if you’ll only give me
leave to speak a moment. She could only hang me if she came here, and
I’d rather do that job for myself than owe it to her handy-work. If
I must know that my guilt is in her thoughts, let me in mercy think
that she could not bring her lips to utter it. If you’ll only hear
me, I’ll tell you all. Nay, never fear,” said he to his companions,
observing rather a murmur of alarm, “I’m not going to peach about
any of you; leave me _alone_ to tell what concerns myself _alone_.
I know you all too well to think you’d make any difficulties about
my twisting my own hempen cord--I know very well what you, too,
are going to say, gentlemen,” added he, turning to the bench, and
persevering through an attempt to interrupt him from thence, “you
would advise me not to criminate myself; but when a man has brought
disgrace on an honest name, repaid the kindness of his kin with
deceit, and behaved like a bloodthirsty savage in the presence of her
he loved, why, the sooner he finishes his own business the better,
and the less he mixes up with his shameful end those dear ones for
whom it would have been better that they had never seen him.--I’ll
out with it at once, without more words,” continued he in a firmer
tone, and, after gulping down that emotion which swelled within his
throat, “’Twas I that killed Churchill; it was all my own affair;
these comrades had nought to do with it. I might not be minded,
perhaps, to kill him outright, but I certainly did hate him with all
my heart, and I fear my spirit yearned for his blood.”
“One moment,” said Mr. Asklaw; “(with your leave, Sir North,) I must
remind you that you can be doing yourself no good by speaking in that
tone: by making those declarations of furious hatred, you are giving
your unhappy act the character of deliberate murder.”
“God forgive me then!” said George; “I would not willingly make
myself out worse than I really am; not for my own sake, for my sand
is run, but for theirs who must share my shame, and to whom there
will soon nought be left behind that was mine but my bad name,
which will stick to them long after they’ve tried hard to forget
George Darnell. I did not mean to say that I carried deadly weapons
expressly to destroy him; but for many a long year that oaken staff,
when ashore, has never been out of my gripe; I never had so much ado
to keep it still as when I was nigh him. It may all be very wrong and
unchristianlike, but when a lad has never had but one hope in the
farthermost seas, and the darkest nights, and the roughest weather,
it’s hard to be run down and capsized by a fair-weather punt, when he
thinks he’s just got safe into that port to which his thoughts have
always turned, as the needle to the pole.”
Mr. Spencer, who was very jealous of any interference on the part of
Mr. Asklaw with what he considered as his peculiar province, the
whole conduct of this case, having already officiated as counsel and
judge, now took upon himself the department of clerk, and offered
to take down this voluntary confession of George Darnell; and when
divested of those ebullitions of feeling, with which the first
explanation was mixed up, and reduced, as he thought, to technical
form, it contained an accurate account of all that part of which the
reader is already aware: George’s first meeting with Churchill on
the cliff, the altercation, the blow, the subsequent conveyance of
the wounded man to the cave on the beach, and his having afterwards
been carried aboard by the orders of Capt. Collett; but of anything
which passed afterwards, (of which I hope the reader is also anxious
to be informed,) he could add nothing certain. There had been such
a confusion in jumping amid the dashing breakers aboard the lugger,
from the crowded boat, that neither the moment, nor the manner, of
Churchill’s end had been remarked by him. It was possible that he
might have fallen the victim of a casual scuffle, or of a blow dealt
in hostility by one of the crew, as the evidence of Capt. Scudd, as
to the state of the coble, seemed to infer; or he might, as George
had previously imagined, have been washed overboard by the breakers,
his weak state preventing him from saving himself by taking effectual
hold. But the only fact to which the confession could speak was, that
upon drawing up the boat, he was nowhere to be found: a circumstance
that, as the revenue cutter was directly after, through the darkness,
discerned a-head, had failed to make even then a transient impression
on the crew.
The result of this confession of George’s was not exactly as he had
anticipated, to concentrate upon himself all the blame; for it was
decided by Sir North, with the advice of his “privy council,” which,
as Mr. Asklaw, from disagreement with the rest of the cabinet, had
resigned, now consisted merely of Peter Spencer, that, connecting
George’s statement with the evidence of Captain Scudd, he George, his
confession having been duly signed, should stand committed to the
county gaol, as a principal in the wilful murder of Churchill, and
Captain Collett, and the rest of his boat’s crew, who had carried him
aboard, as accessaries after the fact.
As soon as this result was communicated to Lady Gayland, she occupied
herself in contriving how Lucy might most speedily, and with the
least discomfort, be restored to her friends, which was arranged
without much difficulty. But she was afterwards prevented from
fulfilling her promise, with which she accompanied the completion of
this arrangement, “That she would herself pay her a visit there.”
For the next post brought letters summoning her to town on legal
business connected with her duty as executrix to Sir Joseph, and
consequently abridged her intended stay at Hornscliff. But though she
cannot accompany the reader there, and he must not expect to revisit
Morden Bay in such gay society as the first time, or to find there as
happy a home as in the second, yet once again for a short time he is
requested to turn his attention towards Bankside Farm.
CHAPTER VII.
Few years have passed since brightly cross the way
Lights from each window shot the lengthened ray,
And busy looks in every face were seen,
Through the warm precincts of the reigning Queen.
There fires, inviting, blazed; and all around
Was heard the tinkling bell’s seducing sound:
The nimble waiters to that sound, from far,
Sprang to the call, then hastened to the bar,
Where a glad priestess of the temple swayed,
The most obedient, and the most obeyed.
CRABBE.
And first, by the way, to stop at the little town of Mayton. The
evening had begun to close in on the day of the events described
above, when the Widow Westbury, having, unfortunately, no guests
to occupy her within, was standing at her front door, the somewhat
narrow threshold of which the ample expanse of her spotless apron
now more completely filled than when on first taking up that
position, seven years back, she had been herself the most attractive
sign to stray travellers on an idle afternoon to induce them to slip
in beside her. She had, as usual on such occasions, been looking
listlessly up the street, and down the road, when, on turning her
head again in the direction of the road leading from Hornscliff, she
was struck with the uncommon spectacle of two carriages crowded with
persons, apparently both within and without, and attended by others
on horseback, coming into town. One short hopeful vision she had time
to form, of full bedrooms and an empty larder, before undeceived
by observing that they were two hack chaises, and, therefore, the
regular undoubted allies of her powerful rival, the Angel, to which,
of course, they therefore edged off.
The Widow Westbury was not an envious woman, but one pang she could
not suppress at the exuberance of her rival’s good fortune, whilst
her own house was literally empty, and she turned her head in the
opposite direction, to avoid seeing the actual unloading. But she
was as much surprised here as at what had met her view in the other
direction. It was not market-day, and yet it could be no other than
Farmer Darnell whom she beheld riding towards her, and pressing
George’s pony beyond its natural speed. The first impression of
pleasure which the Widow derived from recognising him was, however,
as completely destroyed, as had been the half-formed hopes in the
other direction, as soon as she made out the extraordinary state in
which he arrived. His first words were, as he kicked the pony towards
the stable gateway. “Hast seen her, Widow? Hast heard anything on
her? Oh! I’se lost her, she’s gone! She’s been kidnapped from us.”
“What’s fashed about, George? tell us, hinny. Is’t cart mare’s lost,
that ye’re come on t’ galloway?”
“The cart mare, indeed! she might gang and be d--d, for what I’d fash
myself about the likes of she. But I ax yer pardon, Widow. It’s na
th’ time for a sinfu’ mon to tak’ to profane swearing, when he’s in
sair trouble as I am now. What cared I for hard toimes, for rot i’
th’ flocks, or blight i’ th’ crops, so long as I had but her, my own
pet lamb, my pride, and my joy--my little Lucy?”
“And sure there won’t be any harm come to Miss Lucy, then?” asked the
Widow.
“Harm! I trust in mercy, none. But I’se sair flayed aboot her,”
replied he, in language that would have been hardly intelligible
to any but indigenous ears, his provincialism being, as is often
observed to be the case, redoubled by excitement. “And only to think
now that I slept so sound all through t’ night, when may be she was
struggling with them as have _spraited_ her away from us. But I made
sartain sure she were at her aunt’s, where she had boided the night
afore; but when morning came, and it were noised about that there
had been some fasheous doings on t’ beach, I took galloway and rode
down to sister Alice’s, and when I fooun’ my poor darling child had
never bin there, I were clean demented, and did not ken which way to
gang, but as all t’ turnpikes come through Mayton, I thought I’d may
be hear some tidings of her here; and I’ve lossen a good hour, for I
thought to come the gainest way straight by the salt-marshes--and t’
galloway was matched to get me throughf, as he was like to be--being
o’er small to bear me, even on canny groond.”
“And if you haven’t been bogged and are quite dripping wet up to your
waist!” interrupted the Widow--“Come in, Richard, I’ll see and get
you some tidings, and make you comfortable the while.”
“Comfort!” replied Richard, contemptuously; “comfort! and where’s the
comfort ever like to visit me again, but in the sight of my child?”
“But step in a wee bit, and tell me all about it, while Joe gives
a feed to the galloway, for he’s clean done at present. Is’t alone
she’s missing?”
“No: George never com’d back naither; but I don’t count much about
that, for he’s a messmate about in these parts; and he said maybe he
shouldn’t return last night. But Painter Churchill wasn’t to be found
naither.”
“Richard, I’d my misgivings when you took that man home with you
from here, that no good would come of it: he’s just the sort of
soft-spoken chap to take with a young girl. I wish it mayn’t be along
with he that she’s off.”
“What, Widow! my own Lucy, that’s come of decent folk, and all along
been used to have a good roof-top over her head, and bide where she
was known and looked up to; she to bemean herself to give up all and
follow a vagabond stroller, of her own free mind! that’s the least
crediblest surmise of all. Hark! what’s that ere chap saying about
George Darnell?” overhearing the voices of those who were already
circulating in the street that it was George Darnell who had been
brought there in a chaise, on his way to the county gaol. This,
when explained, was sure to be a bitter aggravation of the troubles
of Farmer Darnell, who had always loved his nephew better than any
thing else in the world, except her whom he was then seeking; but
the first impression made on him by this news was only, that somehow
or another it must be connected with the absence of Lucy; and acting
upon the idea, he strode across to the Angel, to inform himself,
without stopping to ask any farther particulars, or to listen to the
Widow’s request that he wouldn’t show himself at “t’ other house” in
that unsightly gait. He was however much shocked, when, upon first
desiring to be shown to George Darnell, a difficulty was made by
the constables in whose custody he was, upon the ground that it was
not usual to allow any communication with a prisoner who was on his
way to gaol on so grave a charge as murder. This objection being
at last surmounted, and the Farmer admitted to George by one of
the constables, his parental anxiety again superseding every other
feeling, he blurted out, “Sad job indeed, George! but feyther before
uncle, after all. Hast seen her? Hast heard on her?”
George, who could make every allowance for any one, father or not,
considering Lucy before every thing else in the world, also forgot
for the moment, his own dreadful situation, in the pleasure he felt
in dissipating his uncle’s fear for his daughter, by informing him
of her safety, and that her return home might speedily be expected.
After this explanation, the more painful task remained, of detailing
to his uncle the particulars of the awful situation in which he had
involved himself. In the whole course of his life, George had never
known what it was to offend his uncle. Many faults he had certainly
committed from his earliest childhood, and scrapes he had got into
with his aunt and others about the house; but his uncle had always
rather taken his part on these occasions; that indulgence towards
venial errors, the result of a disposition not over-strict for
himself, and consequently easy for others, being confirmed by his
strong partiality for his nephew. This only made it more painful to
George to have to break to him the dreadful crime with which he was
now charged; of all the circumstances connected with which he gave
him a faithful account.
Richard Darnell wished, if possible, not to increase the anguish
which he saw his nephew suffered in the relation, but his own
disappointment would break through his endeavours to make the least
of it.
“It’s a baddish piece of work indeed, George,” he said; “that must
be confessed. I hope and trust you may be gettin’ well quit on’t,
and you’re not to doubt that we--that is, I--will do all in my power
to help you. But to think, George, how little I would have guessed
that the first sorrow I ever had about my poor child should be
of your making; I that always looked forward to your keeping her
out of harm’s way when I should be gone to my long rest; and that
it should be you brought her among all that unseemly society! But
I will not say now, how far I’d pushed my hopes that sometime the
name of Darnell might be left to share atween you two in peace and
honour; but to think that, through you, it should fall out that my
own innocent child should have been gaped at by the gentlefolk as a
wanton one, the tramping follower of a band of unlawful ruffians!”
“Don’t, I pray you, uncle,” said George, “don’t; no more o’ that;
it’s just the light in which I’ve been turning it over all this day
and night, and you can’t any how put that stronger in words than I’ve
had it in my thoughts; only from you it hurts me more, for it comes,
I know, strange to Richard Darnell to say an unkind word when his
back’s not up: and of myself you never did yet.”
The dialogue was here interrupted by the head constable, “Come,
gentlemen, the chaise be ready;” in the phrase of the minions of the
law, any one becoming a gentleman who is consigned to their custody
on any charge, however trivial or flagrant.
The other prisoners, who had been stowed in different apartments,
were then brought out, and, upon seeing them, and particularly
recognizing Kit Collett again, Richard Darnell, whose fears
immediately turned to the breeze all this would raise at home, though
anxious to avoid, of his own accord, giving George any farther pain,
could not help saying: “Lord! Lord! George, to think how my Missus
will fash herself when she hears tell how you brought a ruffian like
that ere to sit aside her and break her bread! I shall have a bad
time of it with her, George, all along of you; and if this bean’t
the very spot where I seed you off from last time! That were another
guess voyage you were a-bound on then, George: and who kens but I may
have been summut to blame myself? If I’d gi’en you some o’ that good
counsel your aunt said you needed, and had been a bit more minded
what I was after myself, who knows? But good b’ye, George,” added he,
as his nephew was put into the chaise, “you’ll be gettin’ through
yet, I’se sure.”
And, with a heavier heart, though with somewhat a steadier head
than when he last saw George drive off from the Angel, poor Richard
Darnell returned to the Queen’s Head.
CHAPTER VIII.
O’er all within, the lady-hostess rules,
Her bar she governs, and her kitchen schools;
To every guest the appropriate speech is made,
And every duty with distinction paid.
CRABBE.
Why do you keep alone,
Of sorriest fancies your companions making?
Using those thoughts which should indeed have died
With them they think on.
SHAKSPEARE.
In the mean time there had been an arrival at the Queen’s Head. At
the desire of Lady Gayland, Lucy Darnell had been sent as far as
Mayton, in Sir North’s pony-phaeton, accompanied by her own maid,
Mam’selle Angelique, or Angel-leek, as Mrs. Jones called her.
Lucy’s companion was a gay-hearted, good-humoured little Parisian
girl, recently imported by her mistress; and she thought she best
accomplished the purpose for which she was sent, and whiled away the
tedium of the way, by singing to her in succession scraps of little
French chansons; and occasionally, when Lucy seemed most depressed,
assuring her in a tone of sympathy, but half in English, half in
French, both equally unintelligible to her to whom it was addressed,
that she was to take “courage,” for that it was impossible they could
ever be so cruel as to hang a “_si joli garçon de contrabandist_,” as
that “_amour_” whom she had seen pass the windows.
In this opinion she was more kind and courteous than sincere; for
though George was a fine, handsome, well-made lad, he certainly at
no time, and least of all then, accurately answered the definition
of the sort of man a French girl frequently styles “_un amour_.” Sir
North’s coachman had found, that though the Widow Westbury’s ale
sometimes, for the time being, got the better of memory, memory was
always in favour of making another attack upon it, and therefore he
drove straight, without asking any questions, to the Queen’s Head.
Mrs. Westbury having found out who the two ladies were, met Richard
Darnell on his return with one of her sweetest smiles, “And what do
you think I’ve got for you now?”
But Richard, who was not at that moment in the most amiable frame of
mind towards his hostess, from the compunctious recollections which
his parting with George had awakened, only replied, making straight
for the stable, “It’s of nae use now, Widow, I’ll not tak’ a drop of
aught you’ve gotten, or touch aught you could give till I’ve seen my
child again.”
“And what if it should be just your child herself I’ve got to offer
you?”
“What! what, Lucy?” and Richard Darnell, pushing past the Widow,
rushed into the front parlour, when, upon finding her, the sudden
transition from despondency had a most powerful effect upon him.
His athletic frame actually shook with agitation, and he blubbered
outright, whilst he buried his daughter in his capacious arms.
At this extraordinary spectacle, even Mam’selle Angelique was not a
little touched, though still more astonished at what she thought a
wonderful natural phenomenon, and lifting up her hands in amazement,
unmixed however with ridicule, exclaimed, “_Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! que
les ours de ce pays-ci jouent le grand sentiment!_”
The widow having followed our friend into the room, was very anxious,
as it was rather late, that they should stay there all night; but the
Farmer would not hear of it.
“It’s all very well, Widow; I am always agreeable, you know, when
I’m by myself, but this is my child, whom I’ve only just gettin’ back
out o’ the hands of the Philistines, as my Missus would speak it, and
home’s the most seemly place for the likes o’ she; and besides, Anne,
you know this house wouldn’t be altogither quite entirely fitting
like, you understand.”
This being said in a manner that was quite intelligible to the
hostess, as conveying a negative of her proposal, she bestirred
herself with real zeal to procure them a conveyance homewards, which
was speedily obtained in the shape of a taxed cart; and Angelique,
after kissing Lucy on both cheeks with the fervour of an old friend,
prepared to resume her seat in the phaeton, attended by the coachman
alone, and whom she treated, on her return, to the same scraps of the
same little “vaudeville airs,” to which he occasionally ventured to
attempt a somewhat incongruous accompaniment; Mrs. Westbury’s ale
having made such a breach in his habitual respectful deference for
the steward’s room, as would have been resented by any other member
of that upper house, but which the light-hearted French girl easily
put up with, as adding to the amusement of the moment.
In the mean time the Farmer, with one arm guiding the reins, and the
other still round his recovered treasure, partly as if to be sure he
should not again lose her, and partly to save her delicate limbs from
some of the dislocating effects of this rough conveyance, pursued
his way homeward. And if we once see him safe, we will promise that
the story shall not linger long there at present; for Mrs. Darnell,
it may be imagined, had not been rendered more companionable by all
the late events, and though her fault-finding disposition had been
so long used to pick out petty errors, as not to be able at once to
stretch itself so as to comprehend the enormity of George’s present
offences, yet, perhaps, she was more intolerable when perpetually
fishing for minor accompanying grievances, which would have escaped
the other parties, in the overpowering disgrace of George’s
approaching trial.
But Mrs. Darnell was, as her husband had anticipated, particularly
indignant upon a ruffian like Collett having sat at her board. “Only
to think, if he’d slept here too! as Richard was daft enough to ask
him; it’s just of a piece wi’ all the rest.” And in succession,
“George’s having left Lucy on the shore alone of such a night, to
catch her death of cold, and spoil all her clothes; and Lucy having
been never minded that she’d lost her bonnet there, and having come
home at last with that queer Frenchified thing instead; and Richard,
when he returned from Mayton, having left George’s pony behind, and
Joe Hostler having broken his knees in bringing him over the next
day;”--all these were enumerated, and each in turn pronounced to
be “just of a piece wi’ all the rest.” The effect of all this upon
her husband was to make him enter into a warm and angry defence of
himself upon points on which, if the contrite feelings with which he
had returned from Mayton had been sustained, he would undoubtedly
have pleaded guilty, and sued for mercy.
The peril in which Lucy had lately been, and the alarm which that
peril had occasioned to her father, had left so strong an impression
on the minds of both as to draw forth more than ever their mutual
feelings of affection, and to multiply more than ever little offices
of attachment on one side, and protection on the other: there never
was a better daughter or a kinder father. For many days after Lucy’s
return, Richard Darnell could not bear, without uneasiness, to see
her stray beyond the garden gate; and when he went out to his work,
she employed almost all the time, till she saw him come back, in
devising and arranging his choicest comforts, and endeavouring how to
welcome him home with his favourite little indulgences. The result
of all this was, that Mrs. Darnell very soon reckoned them a useless
pair of idle _do-noughts_; and after many vain attempts to propitiate
her mother on that head, Lucy finding that her presence seemed
only to open an additional ground of dispute, the effect of these
altercations between her parents was to drive her more from home, to
seek comfort, where she never sought it in vain, in the society of
her aunt. From this in itself she could derive nothing but benefit;
but it is matter of doubt whether she, in her present frame of mind,
was the better for those solitary rambles by which these interviews
were necessarily both preceded and followed.
During the course of her short acquaintance with Churchill, she
had, she hardly knew why, been led gradually to think of him more
with the anxious deference due to a superior being, than with the
easy consciousness of equality. This feeling, since the melancholy
thoughts that he was now no more, had hallowed the memory of their
interviews, had increased in intensity to a degree amounting to
reverence, almost to adoration, and with it she would have shrunk
from mixing any alloy of feminine tenderness; whilst, on the
other hand, the shame that George, her cousin, the playmate of
her infantine years, should have so fallen, was mixed up with the
deepest anxiety for his impending fate, constantly recurring, and
as constantly checked by the idea that its indulgence was an injury
to Churchill’s murdered shade, whom her excited imagination often
pictured to be hanging about her in these much-loved spots in her
rambles, which they had together so lately visited.
CHAPTER IX.
Better be with the dead
Whom we to gain our place have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy.
SHAKSPEARE.
How many pine in want and dungeon glooms,
Shut from the common air, and common use
Of their own limbs!
THOMSON.
It has often struck me, that though it is said, in answer to the
question, “whom does time gallop withal?--with a thief to the
gallows, for, though he goes as softly as foot can fall, he thinks
himself too soon there:” yet, if there is a course which time has to
run, which should, if possible, be shortened, it is that elongated
period which, in the greater part of this kingdom, has often to be
passed between the commitment of a prisoner and his trial. In many
cases nine months may elapse--nine weary months elapse before those
whose trials ultimately end in acquittal, can be restored to their
family; and of those who are committed, how large a proportion are
afterwards proved to have been innocent? or rather, if you please,
not proved to be guilty? With the numberless law reforms, previously
deemed visionary and impossible, which the last few years have seen
actually put in practice, it is not likely that this evil should long
be allowed to continue. How the alteration is to be effected, or by
what separation of the civil and criminal functions of the judges the
courts of law at Westminster Hall could still continue open during
the terms, as they are now required to be, and yet commissions for
the dispatch of criminal justice be issued to the country,--must be
left to more experienced heads than mine to determine. But the evil
of the want of some such arrangement is not confined alone to that
one, in itself sufficient, of an innocent man chancing to be detained
whilst those seasons have almost revolved during which he should have
supported his family by his labour; but it is also not rare that
the tendency to crime, which might be epidemic before, is rendered
so much more virulent by contagion, that he who went in a petty
offender, whether acquitted that time or not, comes out a confirmed
criminal; and even on the guilty, on whom certain punishment must
be done, how much of the benefit of that example, which is the sole
object of punishment, is destroyed by its not being speedy as well as
certain! In this age, celebrated above all its other peculiarities
for the rapid succession of fresh sensations, what crime, however
atrocious, can fix the attention of the public for nine long months?
A rural Burke, or a provincial Bishop, is examined upon a charge,
which the infamous notoriety of the first has identified with his
name, both as a noun and a verb. The London journals teem with the
fullest accounts, headed with the most inviting particulars of the
most revolting details. Nine months, perhaps, elapse, and he dies,
without confession, is hanged and dissected, and all in three lines
of the smallest type in an obscure corner of the fourth page of the
same newspaper. Here the benefit of the example is lost, and nobody
can tell exactly why. The interval that has elapsed is rarely blamed
for it. Nobody out of prison holds the stop-watch for him that is
within. I remember, some years back, a fashionable offender, whose
name was in every body’s mouth at the time, being sentenced to five
years’ confinement in ---- gaol; his liberation was, at length,
announced in the papers. It became the subject of conversation. No
one could believe that any how he could have stayed his whole time,
and bets were made and lost upon the utter impossibility of the
fact. And yet, though to those who had “_thus doft the world_ aside,
and bid it pass,” and had kept no count of time, the fact seemed
impossible, to the individual himself, how endless had seemed the
early snail-like creeping days, how tedious the last lingering hours!
But though the first part of these reflections were meant for the
benefit of my friend George, whom we left on his way to the county
gaol, the last seem exclusively devoted to the reader, and as,
perhaps, he may think being longer detained by them as cruel as would
be George’s protracted confinement, I hasten to the week preceding
the one in which the Assizes were to be held.
The time of George’s confinement had not extended at all near
to the full period to which, if his offence had happened at a
different moment, it might have stretched; but was within the
average length previous to trial. Still it had been long enough to
work a considerable effect upon his feelings, which were naturally
good; and with a strongly reviving anxiety that his existence might
be preserved, came a steadfast purpose, if his prayer should be
granted, to lead a new life. He had passed, as usual, much of his
day in solitary meditation, when one evening the door of his cell
was opened by the turnkey, who ushered in a respectable-looking
gentleman, dressed in black, whom the gaoler proposed to leave alone
with George, saying, as he went out, “You may speak your mind freely
to this gemman; he’s come to sarve you in a professional _pint_, and
he never meddles but where there’s a chance; he’s not one of them
carrion beaks, as we calls those who hover about them who are as safe
bespoke as if they were already doomed.”
The professional gentleman, when left alone with George, proceeded
to tell him, that from the examination he had already made into his
case, he thought it by no means a bad one. The worst point was the
confession he had been foolish enough to make and sign; but he was
in hopes that there were informalities and illegalities in the terms
of that confession which would at once prevent its being recorded
as evidence, and therefore also prevent his being obliged to have
recourse to a last expedient, which he hinted he thought he had in
his power, to procure his acquittal. “But,” added he, “you may depend
upon it that, if you are only sincere with me, every possible pains
shall be taken, for I am directed to spare no expense.”
“But I beg you will spare it, though,” said George, “I’m not going to
have the hard-earned savings of my poor uncle squandered to save such
a prodigal as I have been.”
“I beg your pardon, but it is not from your uncle I have received
those directions. No part of the costs will fall on him.”
“On whom then? for I’ve not a stiver to give you, if that’s your
hope.”
“I am not at liberty to explain farther,” replied the solicitor. “But
it is sufficient for you to know, that I do not intend any demand on
you, and am myself quite easy on the subject. With respect to your
uncle, the only communication I have had with him has been on the
subject of his daughter’s testimony. She was subpœnaed on the other
side, but from the conversation I had during my visit to your uncle,
I thought her testimony was so likely to be favourable to you, that,
upon hearing this, her previous distress was changed to eagerness on
the subject; and she now expresses perfect readiness to come forward.”
“Bless her! does she indeed?” said George, “and to speak in my
behalf! A word from her cannot fail to do me good: it must tell with
every one.”
After this they proceeded more in detail to arrange the particulars
of the defence. The same professional gentleman had, as he told
George, been to Bankside Farm, and upon expressing there the same
anonymous commission to spare no expense in the defence, Lucy knew
not to whom she could trace, at the same time, the will and the power
so to act, except, perhaps, to the Lady who had been so kind to her
at Hornscliff Abbey.
The evening preceding the day of trial at length arrived.
This was, as usual on such occasions, fixed for Friday, as was
considerately explained to George by the turnkey, that he might have
four-and-twenty hours more to prepare, in case of any awkward result,
as murderers must die within eight-and-forty hours of conviction;
and, as Sunday does not count, they, by this arrangement, gain one
day more.
Lucy came into the town on that evening, accompanied by her father,
and also by her aunt, who had upon this occasion made the effort
to leave a home from which she had never stirred for many years,
conceiving it to be her duty to support her beloved niece through
this painful trial, and knowing that, if she did not go, her
sister-in-law would have thought she must: and Alice was aware that
her mother’s presence must inevitably be the source of additional,
though unintentional, torment to Lucy. It was settled, that on
no account would it be proper for Lucy to visit George in prison,
even if her character of witness would not have prevented her from
obtaining admission; but Alice Darnell, by the indulgence of the
governor of the prison, had a long interview with her unfortunate
nephew, and, as he expressed himself, it was from that alone that
he had derived the only true consolation of which he had for long
partaken. But poor Alice’s efforts to maintain her composure before
him, combined with the unusual exertion which the whole expedition
had occasioned her, had so shattered her already broken spirits, that
she was utterly unequal to accompany her niece to court next morning,
and it was with her father alone, that Lucy attended there.
The Grand Jury had, the day before, found a “true bill” against
George Darnell for “wilful murder;” and against Christopher Collett,
and three other of the smugglers, as accessaries after the fact; and
had thrown out the bills against the others.
CHAPTER X.
Are you acquainted with the difference
That holds the present question in the court?
Is not this the boy redeemed from death?
SHAKSPEARE.
Can the sea yield up its dead alive?
The Judge took his seat on the bench at nine o’clock: on one side of
him was the high-sheriff, and on the other sat an acquaintance of
the sheriff’s, a fair-haired good-looking young man, who seemed a
silent but apparently an interested spectator of all the proceedings;
and to him the Judge turned frequently during what followed, making
easy courteous remarks, occasionally in a tone of levity which
perhaps did not quite become the person from whom they emanated, or
the occasion on which they were expressed: nor did they seem to be
particularly acceptable to him to whom they were addressed, for he
very faintly re-echoed his Lordship’s chuckling accompaniment to his
own pleasantry.
The prisoners having been placed at the bar, and the pleadings
having been opened from his first brief by Mr. Spencer, a proceeding
which in any hands always seems calculated to make the matter a
thousand times more unintelligible to a simple-minded jury, the case
was stated by a senior counsel, whose practice was so exclusively
confined to the criminal court, that it was said of him, by the
witlings below him, “that he never took any daily exercise but on the
_rope-walk_.” The first witness then called was Lucy Darnell. This
was an awful moment for poor George, when on such an occasion he
heard that name shouted in the court by the crier, and taken up by
the javelin-men.
Except that one moment when, as he was brought back handcuffed, he
had met her half distracted on the beach, he had not seen her since
they parted in anger before the cave. And now, as she appeared at
this summons and mounted the elevated witness-box, a murmur of
admiration ran through the court, so little did her appearance
coincide with what any one who had not seen her, had formed to
themselves as their idea of the sort of girl who was likely to be
mixed up in a transaction of this kind. The effect was universal.
Even the old Judge expressed his favourable feelings in rather too
lively a sally to the fair young man beside him. Mr. Bailey senior,
the leading counsel for the prosecution, altered his usual address to
persons in her situation, of “my good girl,” into “Miss Darnell.”
Tutored as she had been by her aunt, and determined as she was not to
cast her eyes to the bar, Lucy got through all the first questions
tolerably well, interspersed as they were with repeated desires
from Mr. Bailey, “that she would raise her voice,” and “lift up her
head,” and “look at my Lord and the gentlemen of the jury;” and at
length, interrupted by a request, conveyed by him in an unusually
courteous manner, that she would remove her bonnet,--a suggestion
offered to him who made it by a learned brother, who, from where he
sat, could not see her face,--she chose rather to comply at once with
this request, than to make any difficulties, and in consequence,
the graceful contour of her face and throat, except where partially
concealed by the luxuriant clusters of her fine light-brown hair,
became visible to all. This was followed by another of those general
murmurs of approbation peculiarly remarked in courts of justice,
because, perhaps, there least of all they ought to find vent.
To all the first questions, as, “What’s your name?” “Where do you
live?” “What is your father?” “Do you know George Darnell?” “Did
you know a person of the name of Churchill?” “Do you remember the
evening of the 19th of the month of----?” the reader will readily
have anticipated her answers, and they were given with the same
facility, which any of my readers themselves, if they have paid
courteous attention to these pages, could have replied. But when it
came to the act in question, and she was required to speak accurately
to the blow given, old Bailey and his young witness no longer pulled
so well together. She having stated that she was so far off at the
time, that she could not speak positively as to anything more than
seeing the deceased fall: it was then again, “Come, my good girl, you
must try and recollect yourself.” For Mr. Bailey, perhaps, suspecting
that there was a flaw in George’s confession, was very anxious to
have it confirmed on this point. At last, not being able to weather
this difficulty, he was provoked to say, “Come, my good girl, if
the deceased Churchill had been your sweetheart, instead of the
prisoner at the bar, I think this is not exactly the sort of evidence
you would have given.” At this, one of the prisoner’s counsel, who
had been affecting to take notes, but who was, in fact, sketching
the witness’s profile on a scrap of paper before him, finding his
avocation interrupted by the flood of tears which burst from her at
this unjust remark, addressed the Judge, saying, “My Lord, my learned
friend forgets this is his own witness.” The Judge was, for a moment,
prevented from replying, by the amusement he seemed to experience
from the fair young man beside him, who probably, from being easily
excited, and unused to the decorum required in courts of justice,
had started up, as if to resent the insult offered to the young
person, to whose testimony he had throughout been very attentive. His
Lordship smiled for a moment, and then phlegmatically said,
“Mr. Bailey, you may as well not persevere in these remarks.”
As soon as the poor witness was sufficiently composed to be enabled
to go on with her testimony, she was farther interrogated with
respect to the deceased, his habits and character, and whether he was
likely to provoke offence. To all of which she replied warmly and
fervently in his favour. The examination in chief being concluded,
the junior sketching counsel on the other side would have proceeded
to ask her some questions, but, as the solicitor for the defence had
complied with the directions to spare no expense, he had engaged Mr.
Serjeant Leaderly, who had then been pleading in the other court, and
having just been summoned, the consequence was, an immense bustle
and rustling of silk gowns, and many obtrusive heads were somewhat
roughly tapped by the javelin-men, to make room for the learned
Serjeant, and at length he arrived, and took his place on the seat
immediately under the bench, when the Judge handed over a paper to
him, with,
“Take a sandwich, brother Leaderly; they have been sent me by my
learned brother in the other court. I suppose, as they are _hung_
beef, he thought the venue ought to lie here; at any rate, I can’t
deny that _he’s_ on the _civil side_ now,” chuckling audibly, and
turning round to the fair young man for applause, who, by the
constrained expression of his countenance, seemed to think that the
ermine and the toga, no more than grey hairs, became a fool and a
jester.
Mr. Serjeant Leaderly, mumbling his sandwich the while, and turning
over the folios of his brief, at length began:
“My good girl, you knew the deceased (what’s his name?) Churchill;
did he ever himself follow the nautical calling?”
“Sir?”
“Was he involved in these smuggling transactions himself?”
“I believe not, Sir.”
“What was his habit while he resided in your house?”
“His habit was to walk out with me, whenever mother would let him.”
“Yes, yes, I dare say; but I don’t mean that.--Did he ever wear a
short round-cut jacket?”
“I can’t remember that he ever did.”
“Will you undertake to say that he never did wear a short round-cut
jacket?”
“No, I cannot.”
“Will you pretend to deny that he ever did wear a short round-cut
jacket?”
“No; I cannot say positively that he never did.”
The turn of this examination having so little to do with the previous
course of the trial, of which Mr. Serjeant Leaderly had not heard a
word, surprised several. And one or two briefless juniors who were
sitting together, whispered,
“A short round-cut jacket! What can Leaderly be driving at? Spencer,
that’s you he’s describing. Spencer, that must be a cut at you.”
“No,” retorted the other, “it’s the reverse of a cut at Spencer, for
he seems to think thereby to hang a tail.”
But Leaderly, perhaps, not having had time to do more than ascertain
that this was a principal witness for the prosecution, and thinking
it his business to discredit her, evidently somehow imagined he had
made a point, and he continued,
“Then do you mean to tell me, Lucy Darnell, that you cannot answer my
question simply and decidedly, yes or no?”
“I cannot say positively.”
“Oh! you cannot say positively. We must try somehow, and bring you to
the point; you will recollect you are on your oath, or is that a fact
you do recollect?”
“Yes, Sir, certainly,” said Lucy, mildly but firmly.
At this moment a messenger from the other court whispered, from
behind the railing, to Mr. Serjeant Leaderly, that the important
cause of Scurry _versus_ Waitfort was just called on; upon which the
Serjeant, nodding apart, said,
“And being upon your oath, which, it appears, you do recollect, you
mean to tell my lord and the gentlemen of the jury, that you cannot
recollect whether Churchill either did or did not ever wear a short
round-cut jacket?”
“No, I cannot, indeed.”
“My Lord, I shall ask the witness no farther questions,” said the
Serjeant, with the self-satisfied air of a man who had settled the
whole business; and gathering up his papers into his bag, and with
the same rustling of silk gown and tapping of intervening heads, he
made his exit. And this was all the benefit George derived from the
first lawyer on the circuit having been engaged in his behalf.
At this period of the trial the Judge interfered. He was, or he would
never have been on the bench, barring that one defect, an unfortunate
incontinence of waggery, a very quick-sighted person as to the weak
points in a cause; and when he could exercise the power of retention
upon the flow of his pleasantry till a fitting occasion, he was an
excellent judge. He said, “Gentlemen of the jury, I don’t think
this will do at all. It don’t appear clear that the body of this
unfortunate gentleman was ever found. Now, Lucy Darnell, listen to
me; don’t distress yourself. I am not going to ask you any question
which need have that effect. It appears that you knew this Churchill
very well, and therefore would have been able to recognize him
however changed. Now don’t turn your head away, nobody’s going to
frighten you; look at me, and answer my question. When was the last
time you saw Churchill, dead or alive?”
As the Judge finished his question, Lucy, preparing to answer it,
raised her eyes in the direction she had been desired; a ray of
sunshine, through the sky-light above, fell full upon the countenance
of the fair young man on the bench; and Lucy, uttering a piercing
scream, dropped lifeless at the bottom of the witness-box. The
impression which had produced this sudden effect was, that the
person before her was no other than Churchill, and though somewhat
changed in many respects from the state in which she had lately known
him, yet still gazing on her with the same fond interest which his
countenance had expressed on the night on which they last had been
parted.--It certainly was Churchill, or rather Lord Castleton, she
then beheld.
It was thought best for her recovery to remove her from the
court, though no one guessed the cause of this emotion, which
was attributed to the severe discipline, in the shape of cross
examination, to which she had been subjected; and as no one besides
Lord Castleton suspected that his living apparition had produced this
powerful effect, he, without any danger of enlightening them on that
subject, to which he was still averse, speedily afterwards himself
left the court. The reader will foresee George’s acquittal, from
the turn which the Judge’s examination had taken, because, however
the matter might have been for a time involved in mystery from
the confused nature of the depositions taken by Mr. Spencer, upon
enquiry it turned out, that there was no proof of any murder having
been actually committed, from any dead body having been discovered.
We shall therefore take the liberty of inviting the reader also to
leave the court, as what has been recorded was only so far as was
thought necessary for the progress of the story, and with no ambition
of broaching a paraphrase of the celebrated “Causes Celèbres” of a
neighbouring country; and still less with the bad taste of attempting
a parody of our own.
CHAPTER XI.
’Twas strange: in youth, all action, and all life,
Burning for pleasure, not averse from strife,
Woman--the field--the ocean--all that gave
Promise of gladness, peril of a grave,
In turn he tried.
BYRON.
There be land rats, and water rats, land thieves, and water thieves.
SHAKSPEARE.
It is always irksome, in the progress of an “ower true tale,” when
any circumstance has to be explained through the medium of an
extraordinary coincidence, knowing, as one does, that any instance of
the kind, particularly the fortuitous appearance of a necessary agent
at the appointed moment, occurring as such things do in actual life,
and passing unheeded, yet when recorded on paper they are received
with a revulsion of incredulity. The chances of events sometimes
mould themselves into strange combinations. It was but two or three
years back that two men threw themselves down at the same day and
the same hour, one from the leaning tower of Pisa, the other from
St. Mark’s at Venice. There could have been no possible connexion
between these acts. But if a similar coincidence had been interwoven
in a framework of fiction, it would have caused the manufacture to be
rejected as unworkmanlike. If, on the other hand, the same sort of
combination, had favoured a superstitious presentiment, it would have
been taken as an undeniable confirmation of the preternatural.
I have volunteered this preface, though hardly, I think, a necessary
one, before explaining the manner in which Lord Castleton’s life
was preserved: to do which effectually, it will be necessary to
allude a little to one or two incidents in his early life. It will
have been collected, though merely from Alice Darnell’s collateral
tale, that he lost his father when very young; and it will also have
been inferred from the same source, that, during his earlier years,
he could have seen but little of his mother, who had lived separate
from her husband on the Continent. Young Somers remained under his
grandfather’s roof, whilst his mother was amusing herself abroad,
and his father was constantly shifting about in country quarters
with his militia regiment. His infantine years would therefore have
been deprived of any but mercenary female superintendence, except
for the unremitting care of his foster-mother: whose affection for
him was certainly too pure and truly maternal, to be attributed to
any mercenary motives. She had sought, and easily obtained from his
grandfather, the permission to continue her care of him long, very
long after he had completely outgrown the discharge of her original
functions. The only condition with which this request was mixed up,
was not for remuneration, for that, being in easy circumstances,
was not an object, though, left to Lord Castleton, it followed as a
matter of course,--but was, that she might be allowed to have her
own son, the foster-brother of young Somers, also under the roof.
This was thought, at the time, rather an advantage than otherwise, by
the grandfather of our hero; but it turned out quite the contrary,
for the characters of both the parties concerned. It accustomed the
young heir to require a dependent companion, and it habituated the
future yeoman to notions of expense quite beyond his rank in life.
One thing, however, it certainly promoted, a lasting attachment
between the boys: this, on the side of Somers, subject to the alloy
of caprice, and occasional forgetfulness of a superior; on the part
of Harry, ripening into that feeling of utter devotion to its object,
which the relation of foster-brother in the earlier stages of society
was said constantly to produce; and which has not been entirely
without example in our own times.
The earliest event which made a permanent impression on either of the
boys, was the melancholy end of Colonel Somers. Old Lord Castleton,
being at the time it happened very infirm, and almost bedridden, had,
upon being informed of his son’s self-inflicted death, sent Nurse
Carter to make the necessary arrangements for his remains.
She had, upon her return from the seaport where it was mentioned he
had destroyed himself, collected her two young charges round her,
and, with the irresistible desire of her age and station to make
the most of a shocking story, had not spared them the slightest
particular of what she had heard and seen. Much of this, of course,
only served to frighten them out of their wits for many nights
afterwards, but, as she put it in the shape of warning, she took a
locket which she had found round the deceased’s neck, and hung it
round young Somers, saying, “I know not what this may mean, but your
father wore it till his death; do you wear it till yours, and mayhap
the sight of it may sometime save you from rashly daring the same
fate.”
Old Lord Castleton lived enough to appoint guardians for his
grandson, quite independent of the mother, whose second marriage he
much disapproved. The immediate effect of most of this was, that
young Somers remained much longer than perhaps he ought to have done
with the Carters. But at length he was sent to a public school, and
from thence to the University; and of course, for some time, lost
sight entirely of young Henry Carter. But the latter had been long
enough with him to contract habits which did not exactly enable him
to confine his attention to the process which intervenes between
the plough and the reaping-hook. On the contrary, his exclusive
preferences of the horse-race and the cock-pit soon engrossed him
entirely. His mother did not live long enough to suffer all the
uneasiness that these confirmed habits, on his part, would have
caused her, but died in the firm confidence that the day of the
return of her dear young Lord, when of age, to take possession of the
lands of his ancestors, would be the date of the commencement of a
brilliant career for the only other object of her equally divided
solicitude, his early playmate and foster-brother.
In the mean time Harry Carter fell, step by step, into the most
desperate courses, and went on from one extravagance to another. He
was at length so completely ruined that he was obliged to decamp, and
make for the nearest seaport, hardly knowing whether he would seek
out his patron, who was still on the Continent, or start for America
with some choice companions, who were thither bound, and who tried to
persuade him to try his luck with them. His option, however, on this
subject, was rendered superfluous by a press-gang, who entered the
public-house where they were assembled, and carried them all on board
a tender; from thence Harry Carter, in due time, was transferred to
a man-of-war, which was to cruise in the Mediterranean. Though not
inclined to work if he could help it,--when he could not, he made the
best of a bad job, and soon became an able seaman.
It so happened, that once being ashore at a small retired bay on the
Island of Sicily, he and others of his messmates got into a broil
with some of the natives, and, as it had originated in an imputed
act of sacrilege on their part, they were in great danger from the
offended feelings of the priest-ridden peasants, who, congregating
in numbers around them, cut off their retreat to their boats. Harry
Carter, who was foremost in the defence, though he had not been a
ringleader in the outrage, was himself sore beset, when a party of
English travellers, who had been making the tour of the island on
foot, coming up at the moment, interfered between them at no little
risk to themselves; which danger was however removed, as soon as
they came to explain matters; the quarrel having originated in
misapprehension, and the attack having been provoked by the universal
impatience of Englishmen, who, if from ignorance of the language
of a people they cannot make use of their tongues, immediately
have recourse to their hands. Harry Carter at once, through all
the alterations of intervening years, recognized the playmate of
his youth, Somers, now Lord Castleton, who was much hurt at the
condition in life, that of a common sailor, in which he now found his
foster-brother; which he could not help in some degree attributing
to his own forgetfulness and neglect. But Carter would not allow him
to reproach himself on the subject; and, as his duty prevented his
farther stay, the parting between the foster-brothers was as sudden
as the meeting was unexpected, and, in preparing to shove off, Harry
Carter said, “It’s not like we should often meet again, as we used
to do, my Lord: but now I have seen you, you’ve come like a guardian
angel upon me, and I shall only pray that, if there ever should be an
occasion in which you should stand in need of the like assistance,
that may be the moment I may next cross your path.”
And this fervently devoted expression of his wishes, was heard and
granted; for they next met at that most critical moment in Morden Bay.
At the Peace, Henry Carter had been discharged from the navy, and
soon afterwards falling in with Kit Collett, a free trader’s life
had too many temptations for his own confirmed irregular habits for
him to resist the offers made him by that person to join him in
“_La Pie voleuse_.” It so happened, that, being one of the sharpest
and cleverest of the crew, he had been employed by his Captain
confidentially, not long before this last venture, upon a line of
coast on which they had not previously made a descent. He was sent to
make a survey of it, and arrange matters with some loose characters
in the neighbourhood for furthering their scheme.
In the early part of the labours of that eventful evening, Harry
Carter had worked with all the zeal of a principal in stowing the
kegs, thinking that much of the responsibility as to the success of
the venture devolved on him who had so warmly counselled it. But when
the wounded man was shot into the cave, by two of his comrades, with
much less care than they had bestowed upon the other more valuable
burthens with which they had been charged, Harry Carter’s natural
good-nature induced him to devote a little more attention than any
of his messmates seemed inclined to pay to their fellow-creature.
This kindly disposition soon acquired an unexpected inducement to
continue its good offices. The first thing that peculiarly excited
his attention was, that upon attempting to stanch the wound which was
just above the temple, he found that the hair which had clotted into
it was false, being part of a wig which covered a plentiful crop of
natural hair, of a different colour. The cave was already obscure,
yet the light, crisply curling locks, which he now discovered, seemed
to him to be such as he had never seen but on one person before.
The apparent impossibility of a surmise which supposed so altered a
condition in life, at first staggered him; yet it was evident, from
the discovery he had just made, that the person, whoever he was, had
for some reason or another assumed a disguise. It was difficult, even
if the wounded man had been in a state to reply to verbal inquiries,
to make any safely, whilst all his comrades were perpetually passing.
He bethought him of the locket which his mother had put round
Somers’s neck when a boy, with the positive injunction, never, under
any circumstances, to remove it. This injunction, he knew, for some
time had been rigidly observed. He remembered the form and shape of
it himself, and he determined to be decided in his conduct by the
circumstance of finding the locket there or not.
“If it is there,” thought he, “not only shall I feel sure that it
really is my foster-brother, but I shall feel myself enforced as much
by my mother’s memory, as by my own more recent vow, to do all in my
power to save him.”
It was while endeavouring to ascertain this point by searching within
his clothes that Lucy found him, as she thought, employed in plunder.
If he had not actually had his hand on the locket when she addressed
him, the obvious interest taken in him by a girl in that rank of
life would again have staggered him, as he could only imagine that
the disguise must have been temporarily assumed for the purpose,
perhaps, of detecting that very illicit act in which they were then
engaged. But still the locket was there, and in neither that nor the
features, as far as he could discern them, could he be mistaken; and
therefore his determination was fixed, at all risks, to save him.
He was aware, however, that much immediate risk to himself might be
incurred, without even a chance of effecting that object. Any open
assistance would now have been set down for mutiny, and there is no
legal discipline so severe as that which binds lawless men together
in moments of danger. But he quickly formed in his head a plan which
he thought could not fail.
He had been celebrated as one of the best swimmers in the navy:
it was, then, without any uneasiness that he assisted to convey
Castleton to the boat, and even helped to shove it off, knowing
that the lugger would come quite as near the shore as the surf
would permit; and the moment when the smugglers would be in all
the confusion of holding on till the coble was empty, was that he
had fixed for the execution of his intended escape with Castleton,
trusting to the darkness of the night and the roar of the breakers
to assist him in escaping unobserved. Till this time arrived, he sat
stanching the temple of the wounded man with his hand, that he might
not be too much exhausted by previous loss of blood to be able to
sustain even his passive share in the escape. The confusion of the
smugglers at that moment was increased by hearing that another sail,
supposed to be a revenue cutter, was in sight; and this confusion
was even more serviceable to him than he had anticipated.
Not only did he succeed in dropping overboard himself unnoticed,
but also in pulling Castleton after him: in supporting himself to
do which, his bloody hand had made that strongly marked impression,
as of struggling fingers, which Captain Scudd had naturally enough
interpreted to have been left by some one who had endeavoured to
save himself when thrown over. Bearing his still unconscious burthen
lashed to him in that manner which a skilful swimmer knows would
least impede his own efforts, it is possible that he may have risen
for a moment on the breakers in the manner Lucy imagined she had
seen; but, carefully directing his course where he knew there was
least surf and easiest landing, Carter made for the shore, which he
reached just in time, being almost too much exhausted by the double
weight he had carried to have been able to have struggled farther.
CHAPTER XII.
And I have thrust myself into this maze,
Haply to wive and thrive as I may best.
SHAKSPEARE.
It was a violent commencement, and thou shalt see an answerable
sequestration.
Once on shore, while pausing to recover himself, he gazed with a
proud feeling of satisfaction on the still insensible being whom he
had thus providentially rescued; for Carter had been engaged in too
many frays not to know that the wound was not in itself dangerous,
though a severe one; but he also knew enough of the comrades he had
just left to feel certain that upon the first confirmation of the
report of a revenue cutter nearing them, which he had heard just as
he was jumping overboard, a second blow, more sure, would inevitably
have fallen on their already half-lifeless victim: and, tied in a
sack with stones, he would too surely have sought the bottom, to
prevent the possibility of his bearing witness against them.
As soon as Harry Carter was sufficiently recovered again to take up
the motionless body, which as yet showed no symptom of returning
life, he made at once for a lone hut in a cleft between two rocks,
from which an almost impassable road led up into the open country.
Here, as he expected, he found a light cart in the charge of one of
the loose characters who were in league with the smugglers, and whom
he had directed to meet him there on that evening so provided, in
case “_La Pie voleuse_” should have chanced to bring, as part of her
cargo, any smaller articles of more value, which might as well have
been removed, under the cover of the darkness, to one of those most
complete of all possible devices for concealment which are found in
the centre of a populous town.
His confidant was not a little surprised when he beheld him bearing,
as he thought, a corpse, instead of, as he had expected, lace gloves
or ladies’ shoes.
“I say, messmate, holloa!” he cried out, “this is no go, if you’ve
been after a burking job here. You told me I was to carry light
articles, and you fig me off with a stiff ’un. I was never in the
mole-catching line myself, and shouldn’t like to be twigged grubbing.”
“Hold your peace, you lubber,” said Carter, “the man’s not dead, nor
like to die; and if he doesn’t, this will turn out the best job you
ever did yet of all your days. If you’ll only just carry him to yon
place where we were to have taken t’other things, you’ll have earned
as good a brace of RAGS, as sure as your name’s John Smutt; and
perhaps ten times as many more, if you’re only just mum a bit, and
don’t say a word about all this, if we find he wishes you not.”
“Oh! I’ll say nout aboot it. The objections are all about doing it;
once done, there’ll be little to be gained, I take, to either of us,
by having it blowed. But, let us feel:--why, his fin moved--sure
enough, he’s alive. Well, that’s another guess sort of case,
certainly; so I’ll just pop him in here, where he’ll lie as snug as
possible; and I only hope he’ll live to think of that hush-money you
talk about. What’s it?--ten times ten. Why, that’s a hundred pounds.
A hundred pounds!!”
The journey thus arranged was performed expeditiously, and without
observation, in the covered cart; and by break of day they reached
the large inland town, to which they were bound. Here, in the
first instance, Castleton was conveyed to an obscure lodging, as
Carter thought that there he would be better concealed, till with
returning consciousness he might himself be consulted, how far he
wished his late adventure to be known. It will at once be seen, that
if Castleton was not anxious that it should be made the subject
of enquiry, the less that was said about it the better for Carter
himself, who was now rather in an awkward position with both the
parties in any investigation that might be undertaken.
The contusion on the temple, which was Castleton’s principal injury,
though a severe one, quickly progressed towards recovery, under the
anxious care of his present attendant; and he now suffered most from
the weakness ensuing from loss of blood, by a cut which he had also
received in his fall.
His faculties were, after a time, perfectly restored; and upon
recognising Carter, and ascertaining the particulars of his escape,
his gratitude to his deliverer knew no bounds. His first step was to
have himself moved to a more decent lodging, still without assuming
his own name, and to confirm Carter’s bargain with his confederate,
of a hundred pounds, upon condition of his saying nothing about the
sort of cargo his cart had contained. This sum was to be paid in six
months, provided that at the end of the time nothing was known about
the adventure; a remote date for payment being suggested by Carter,
who thought that his acquaintance would be more easily constrained
by future expectation than by past favours; and in this Castleton
acquiesced, being very anxious, for a variety of mixed reasons, that
his late adventure should not be made the subject of gossip.
When almost recovered from the effects of his late accident, Henry
Carter one day brought him the circumstantial account of the arrest
of George Darnell and the gang of smugglers, and of their committal,
George as his murderer, and the others as accessaries after the fact.
Castleton could not for a moment doubt what ought to be his conduct
under such circumstances: at once to show himself to the authorities,
who had entertained the charge, and to state the facts of the case;
bearing, as he did, in his own living person the only utterly
incontrovertible evidence against the truth of such an accusation.
But it was not so easy for him to make up his mind to take this step,
as to convince himself that it was what he ought to do; and he at
length succeeded in persuading his reason, that, peculiarly situated
as he was, there were very good excuses (he went no farther than
that) for his adopting a different line of conduct.
He had ulterior, and, as he thought, truly beneficial views for
the parties most interested, in his decision of this question; and
he felt his pride would prevent him from maintaining his present
intentions, if a public disclosure of all the facts was to take
place. The sight of Lucy’s agony at his sufferings, and her energetic
interference on his behalf on the beach, hallowed as that impression
had been by his again relapsing into death-like insensibility,
had removed any lingering doubts he had entertained as to making
her his wife; and that was now the object nearest his heart. His
principal notion in assuming the disguise, and seeking Bankside
Farm, in execution of the project he had formed, was to be himself
sure that the person who could, in such an assumed character, win
her affections, must be loved for himself alone, and that he might
then enjoy the happy consciousness that his bride had not been
influenced in her preference of him, by any of the outward advantages
of his worldly situation: advantages which he had found not without
their influence upon women even in the highest rank. Yet this was a
satisfaction which he wished as much as possible to keep to himself.
Indeed he did not feel sure that the success of the very object he
had in view would appear to the fashionable denizens of the world so
self-evident, if they were merely made acquainted with the simple
facts of the case. They would be apt, without enquiring into the
way in which he might have won her affections, to imagine it just
possible, if they knew from how low a rank in life he had raised the
future Lady Castleton, that she might be influenced in her acceptance
of him by those extraneous advantages of fortune, which must
certainly have as much weight with her, as with those who, from want
of contrast, could not be expected to value them even so highly as
the low-born peasant. It was, therefore, no part of his scheme, that
it should ever be precisely known in the world who Lady Castleton
had been; and in directing his steps a second time towards Morden
Bay, he was much decided by thinking, that if further observation
there confirmed his early recollections, not only the peculiarly
delicate and refined nature of Lucy’s beauty might, unquestioned,
bear transplanting into any rank in life, but from the very secluded
spot where she had been brought up, and the retired habits of her
parents, her former home need never be traced, even by the prying
and the curious. All these were conditional accompaniments of his
scheme, without which he would never have formed it originally; and
without which, even now, desperately in love with Lucy as he was, or
thought he was, he would still hesitate as to its accomplishment.
And yet all these encouraging considerations were threatened with
complete overthrow, if, by discovering himself, in order to procure
George’s release, he was obliged to disclose any circumstance of his
late adventures. The very extraordinary nature of the facts he would
have to relate, coupled, as they would be, with his own well-known
name, would immediately circulate the wonderful tale in every shape
of paragraph, pamphlet, and perhaps ballad. Then the numberless jokes
which would be circulated, about the supposed rivalry between “The
Noble Lord” and “The Smuggler Cousin,” to which the facts of the
case, when disclosed, would give more than a plausible appearance
of truth! Then that very lawless lad, with all the innuendoes about
doubtful preference between them, was to be his cousin. His cousin!
A convicted smuggler! For though his own appearance would free him
from the charge of wilful murder, the revenue prosecutions would
only be confirmed by the publicity thus given to the transactions in
which they had originated; whereas, if by any other means the danger
from the first prosecution for murder could be averted, without his
being obliged to appear himself ostensibly in it, he did not despair
subsequently, by the exertion of his interest indirectly, to procure
the other to be dropped, at least as against George and the crew. As
all these considerations passed in succession through his mind, they
might have kept him undecided how to act; but the increased force of
his attachment to Lucy, craving, urgent, and engrossing as it then
was, if it still could not be dignified with the name of love, in
its most exalted sense, impelled him to take the course most likely
to get the better of these difficulties, which he foresaw might yet
interfere to prevent his making her his wife.
He, therefore, sent for his confidential man of business, to whom
he told all, and from whom he was happy to hear that the conceited
carelessness with which Mr. Spencer had perverted all the facts which
had been prepared for him in the examination before the magistrate,
rendered it most probable that an acquittal might be easily procured
without his being obliged to disclose himself; and his lawyer having,
in consequence, been entrusted with the management of the defence,
Lord Castleton entered the court with the intention of only coming
forward himself as a last resource.
CHAPTER XIII.
Your father’s image is so hit in you,
His very air, that I should call you
As I did him.
Surely I saw a form, a proud, bright form,
Standing beside my couch.
When Lord Castleton had made his arrangement for watching the
progress of the trial, and the conduct of the Darnell family in it,
one of the last enquiries he had made previously to going to court,
was the exact situation of the lodgings they had taken in town; and
thither he directed his steps upon leaving the court by a different
door from that which Lucy had been carried out.
Alice Darnell had remained in a most painful state of agitating
suspense, pacing the little parlour in which she had been left by
her brother and his daughter. It was so long since she had heard the
busy hum of men; the little lodging where she had now been left to
her solitary fancies and thickening recollections, was so like one to
which she had been used in happier days, then long gone by; the Babel
sound of many voices in the peculiarly thronged streets, were such as
had not met her ear since on that dreadful night she had forced her
way through the crowds of the theatre, to learn her husband’s fate:
all these combined, had worked her into a dreadful state of nervous
excitement, when a knock was heard at the street door, and she opened
that of the apartment at the head of the stairs, thinking that it was
probably some one from the courts, bringing her intelligence.
A stranger ascended the obscured staircase, and Alice, upon his
raising his head slowly, receded from the door without uttering a
word, but keeping her eyes intently fixed upon him as he entered the
room. She pressed her hands against her brain, muttering, “Somers!
Churchill! Who is it? Oh merciful powers, deprive me not of my
senses! The grave might, for some special purpose, have been made
to render up or one or other of these departed spirits; but this
confused vision which recalls them both at once, can only be the
creature of my disordered imagination.”
“Miss Alice Darnell,” said Castleton, “excuse this intrusion, I
entreat you. It was your niece I sought, for the purpose of offering
her an explanation of my conduct. I regret that my sudden appearance
should have so discomposed you, who, as well as the rest of your
family, will have much to forgive in my past conduct; but I trust,
that the future will not give you any thing of which to complain.”
“Who is it then? Churchill indeed restored to life; but not as I saw
you last! The resemblance is much stronger! the hair so like! But I
must not pursue that train, or indeed think of myself at all, if I
mean to keep my spirits and my senses to support others. But if you
are here, what is the trial then about? Where is my niece--my poor
misguided nephew?”
“I will explain all to you, Miss Darnell. The manner in which I have
always heard Lucy speak of you, forbids any mystery where you are
the person concerned. Your nephew either now is, or soon will be,
safe. And for your beloved niece--allow me, before I explain myself
farther, to ask--I am sure my Lucy could never conceal any thing from
you--Do you think--you know not how much hangs on your answer--do you
think she could be really, truly happy, in sharing somewhat a more
exalted lot in life with him whom she only knew as the poor painter
Churchill? Perhaps it has been providentially ordained that I should
have this opportunity of asking a candid reply to that question
from you. If your answer must dash my hopes at once, it may be in
mercy ordained that I should hear it from you, that I may no longer
unwarrantably trespass on the tranquillity of one whose interest
I may have failed in exciting. But I implore you, if you can give
me any encouragement to think otherwise, to do so now. A young and
artless girl may perhaps succeed in concealing the nature of her
sentiments from him who seeks to awaken partiality; but--forgive me
if I address you thus the first time of our meeting;--but it seems
to me, that through Lucy, I already know you thoroughly; and all
my hopes depend upon the impression of her feelings towards myself
formed by you,--her ever watchful guardian genius, from whom she
never could have attempted concealment.”
“It was even thus that Somers looked--it was even thus that Somers
pleaded; and it is not by my lips that such pleadings can be
pronounced vain,” said Alice Darnell, half to herself. “Strange
similarity!” she continued, “yes, even to the inexplicable mystery
of the transaction from which all the mischief in my own case
arose.” Then more decidedly addressing herself to her anxiously
expectant listener, she said: “Forgive me if, till you have
completely cleared away all the mystery in which your proceedings
have been involved, I must decline at present giving any answer
to your enquiries--enquiries which even then you would be hardly
authorised in making of me, and which, perhaps, I should be as little
justified in answering for another; for imprudent as is that woman
who herself opens her heart to him who conceals his intentions, most
unpardonable would she be who, under similar circumstances, betrayed
the confidence of another. Not only should my niece’s sentiments, if
favourable, not through me be known, but, if necessary, they should
themselves be checked, and controlled, till your explanation is
complete.”
“Excuse me, if, in my anxiety to have my doubts removed, I have
myself omitted to be as explicit as I had intended. I commenced by
stating that from you I would have no concealment. But from a name
which I have heard you several times appear to connect with me, I
thought you had some clue to the knowledge I came to impart. Your
niece has only known me as Churchill, but Somers is my name, though
Castleton is the title by which I am called. But you are ill--are
agitated--” interrupting himself, in sudden alarm. For as Castleton
had proceeded in this apparently natural explanation, the gaze of
Alice had become more intensely fixed on his countenance, and at the
abrupt mention of that fatal name, so long enshrined in the secret
recesses of her heart, the sorrows of years passed from her mind,
and for one short fleeting moment she believed she saw before her
the lover of her youth, the husband of her heart--the adored, the
departed Somers. All the blood in her exhausted frame seemed to rush
to her face, as starting from her chair, she staggered one step
towards him, wildly exclaiming: “Somers! my own, my lost--my God!
no--Forgive me, you shall know all.”
And then, bursting into an agonizing flood of tears, she gradually
resumed her composure enough to answer the kind enquiries of her
astonished visitor; who, greatly touched and alarmed at the extent of
her emotion, almost forgot his own urgent anxieties, and asked with
great interest how he had unintentionally distressed her.
“No, go on, my Lord, I entreat you; one moment’s bewildering
astonishment at the disclosure you have just made, if you knew all,
you could not but expect from me; but my object is not to revive past
griefs of my own; but to guard the future of another from similar
danger. I own that while exacting candour from you, concealment on my
part comes with an ill grace; but my demand is founded upon a desire
to secure a happy future to her whom you profess to love, and for
whom alone I now live. My own silence arises from an anxious wish
to spare a recital, which you might think injurious to the memory of
one whom we are equally bound to guard from reproach. Yes, my Lord,
strange as it may appear to you, there was another person in whom we
were mutually deeply interested. At a future time, perhaps, if you
require it, I shall be bound to be explicit; but now I conjure you
by your professed attachment, by your desire to have your own doubts
removed, proceed with your own explanation.”
Castleton, when so adjured, proceeded at once to recount his early
admiration of Lucy; and he detailed with so much unaffected candour
the motives which had induced him a second time to visit Bankside
Farm; and he dwelt with so much fervour upon the still increasing
force of his passion, as he became better acquainted with its object;
and the whole was urged in that soft winning manner, so like one
which his auditress had formerly known to be resistless; that any
previous unfavourable impression was soon removed from Alice’s mind;
most willing, as she was, to be convinced of his sincerity.
By this means he soon acquired a most powerful advocate, had it
been necessary, in his favour with Lucy; but before they had
completely arranged the manner in which he should proceed towards
the accomplishment of his object, a bustle in the passage below
announced, as they rightly imagined, the return of Lucy herself.
As Castleton had already recounted to Alice Darnell the shock that
his unexpected apparition in court had caused to her niece, she
prudently recommended that he should not again present himself to
her till she had herself ascertained whether the poor girl’s nerves
had yet recovered from the agitation they had experienced. With
this view, beseeching him to await her return where he then was,
she went out to meet her niece, with the intention of communicating
with her first in her own room, before she informed her who was
there awaiting her: and it was fortunate that she so decided, for
she found Lucy in a much worse state than she had anticipated. Her
delicate frame, and soft and sensitive nature, were not calculated
to sustain any great nervous excitement. Her mental faculties, clear
and just as they generally were, and adequately sustained, under
ordinary circumstances, by the constant desire to be right herself
and to do wrong to no one, wanted nevertheless that practical energy
which might support them in any extraordinary trial. She had for
many hours fought against the weakness of her nature, in striving to
go successfully through the effort of her examination; and the last
shock,--the apparition, as she thought, of Churchill, had completely
upset her.
The delay in her return from the court had been caused by a
succession of fainting-fits, in the intervals of which her intellects
had been far from settled. She had been attended, in a waiting-room,
by the best medical adviser of the place, who happened to be in
court; and after a conveyance had been procured to remove her home,
he had recommended that, upon returning there, all agitating subjects
should be avoided, and the most perfect quiet rigidly enforced during
the rest of the day.
These transactions were explained to Alice in a few words by her
brother, before he returned into court to hear George’s fate,
the uncertainty about which, he could not help thinking, was the
main cause of his daughter’s indisposition. The aunt, therefore,
accompanied her charge to her own back-room, and darkening it as
much as possible, persuaded her to stretch herself on the bed. Lucy
knew her aunt perfectly, and tacitly complied with her desire; but,
as far as could be gathered from the low mutterings that continued
at intervals, her faculties seemed still confused. All this time,
Castleton remained in the place where he had been left by Alice,
fixed like a statue, afraid to stir, lest the least motion on
his part should disturb the invalid; bitterly regretting his own
inconsiderate appearance in court, and venting reproaches on his own
head, which, but that the same fear which kept him stationary checked
his utterance, would have been as loud as they were heartfelt.
At length Alice slowly opened the intermediate door, and putting her
finger on her lip, whispered--
“I think she sleeps now. She is still far far from composed, and it
would be quite impossible that she should be fit to see you to-day;
nor, indeed, do I think it ought to be risked at all, till I have
had an opportunity of first explaining much to her, if such occasion
should recur on her partial recovery. How much have I authority from
you to say?”
“Say all--every thing--you cannot possibly say enough; for words were
never coined that could express all I feel.”
“Hush,” interrupted Alice; “I hear her voice again, and I think
repeating your name. Step softly this way; and if she repeats it
again, as she did but now, no explanation I could give to the
question you asked me could be one half so satisfactory;” and she
placed him just within the doorway of the obscure apartment.
“Aunt Alice,” called Lucy from the bed. “Aunt Alice; quick, dear
aunt. Hast seen him? where is he? and why is the morning so dark--so
dismal dark? when he’s come back, so gay too, on purpose to marry me.
I knew he couldn’t have it in his heart to die, when he loved me so;
and I’m sure I’d rather have died a thousand deaths myself, than that
he should so have perished.”
There was more even in the tone with which these words were uttered,
than in the disjointed and incoherent sentences themselves, which
confirmed Castleton in his conviction that he was beloved. And so
Alice Darnell construed what she heard; for, as she again motioned
him to retire, she said,
“You cannot surely, my dear Lord, have any more questions to ask of
me now. If you have, trust to my ready-getting answers for you before
to-morrow. She must have rest and quiet now; but with these all will
soon be well again. The ills that spring from a surfeit of happiness,
may in this world be left to their own cure; while there are scars
that misfortune has graven, which any casual coincidence may re-open,
and no time can completely heal. Good b’ye, my dear Lord; and in the
midst of your own happiness, think again of what you proposed to do
for my poor nephew George.”
Lord Castleton having, in the course of his explanation to Alice,
in which he had candidly confessed his dislike that his connexion
with the smuggling transactions should be published to the world,
intimated his intention of providing for George in a manner that
should be satisfactory to all his family.
CHAPTER XIV.
Oh, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes!
SHAKSPEARE.
Alice Darnell had made good and sufficient use of the interval
left her, to execute the task of explaining the past, and opening
the future to the parties concerned. For before that time next
day, she had succeeded in clearing the coast, not only of her
brother, but, what was perhaps more difficult, of her nephew George,
whose acquittal the day before upon both charges, had, thanks to
the clumsiness of Mr. Spencer, been complete. With some little
difficulty Alice had persuaded him, as well as his uncle, that it
would be better for them to keep out of the way; and Castleton had
been for some time established with Lucy, in undisturbed possession
of the little lodging-house parlour.
Whilst he was opening to her, by degrees, the brilliant prospects
which he proposed to her to share with him, she sat on the sofa
beside him, holding one hand in both of hers, and looking up at him
with an expression of innocent adoration, such as could only be
pourtrayed upon a countenance of such unrivalled sweetness. As, after
detailing his views for their own future, he turned to describe what
he proposed to do for the different members of her own family, she
interrupted him with--
“Oh, my dear Lord! but that you are even much more good than great,
I should wonder at your kindness to poor George, not only to bear
him no ill-will for daring to lift his lowly hand against your life,
but even to propose to serve him so effectually, and exactly in the
way he would like best. To procure him a birth in a king’s ship, by
which, in time, he may become an admiral, for George is very clever
in that line, though rude and unlettered in others--think of that,
aunt Alice!” addressing her aunt, who had then entered the room,
which she occasionally quitted. “Think of that, that George may
live to be an admiral, and all through the kind forgiving goodness
of my own dear Lord here,” added she, pressing his hand, which she
held against her heart, and then dropping her head, and looking up
timidly from under her brows, as if she thought she had been too
demonstrative; then turning the subject, she said, “But George is to
go away then, to-day? and didn’t he wish to see me?”
“Yes, he shall see you, when my Lord is obliged to go and arrange his
other necessary matters,” replied Alice; part of whose plan was, in
every possible way to avoid flurry to her niece, whose spirits were
hardly yet settled. She therefore decided that she should not see
more than one person at a time; and, as restored composure was her
great object, she determined, that least of all ought Lucy to see
Castleton and George together.
Lord Castleton, whose intimate friend had just taken the command of
a frigate commissioned for Halifax, and under sailing orders, had
written the strongest recommendation of George, begging his friend
to take him as a supernumerary midshipman, and, if occasion should
occur, to promote him. As it is not always necessary to analyze
motives for liberal actions, so, certainly, no one of the parties who
were to benefit either directly or otherwise by this recommendation,
estimated how much the peculiar value of the arrangement, in Lord
Castleton’s eyes, was enhanced, by the ship taking so immediate a
departure for so distant a station.
Alice Darnell had, upon a consideration of all the bearings of the
case, been disposed to acquiesce in what was rather the suggestion
offered, than the condition proposed by Lord Castleton, that the
marriage should be strictly private; and that, indeed, it need never
be exactly known what had been the previous condition in life, where
the previous residence, of his future wife. She was as much justified
by her own early experience of the great world, as she was guided
by her partiality for her niece, in imagining, that there was a
natural unaffected grace in Lucy’s manner, which would prevent her
former very humble state from being suspected, if not promulgated.
Her early recollections of the world, at the same time, served to
remind her that, if that humble origin was known, defects, supposed
inseparable from it, would be imagined, even though they did not
exist.
On the other hand, concealment on this head, if desirable, was
rendered peculiarly practicable, from the utter solitude in which
Lucy had been brought up, never having had even an acquaintance out
of her own thinly-scattered and secluded neighbourhood. Her brother,
too, Alice felt, however well calculated to fill with credit the
state to which he was born, would be unfit, as he would be unwilling,
to be placed in any other; and his wife, however willing she might be
to make the experiment, would be infinitely more unfit than Richard
Darnell to accompany her daughter into that exalted sphere in which
she was now to move.
Alice Darnell could not help rejoicing that the absence of her
sister-in-law upon this occasion, removed any difficulty that might
have been expected from her not being so well aware as every body
who was acquainted with her was, how impossible it would be that she
should share with Lucy all the advantages of her new situation.
“I should have thought,” said Alice, addressing Castleton, “that you
of all men would have been least likely to persuade me to overlook
all the ills that sometimes spring from mystery in the married
state. But mystery, where it affects the character of the connexion
to be formed, or where it only relates to circumstances which that
connexion itself supersedes, is quite distinct; and therefore I am
inclined to agree with you, that it is better the marriage should
take place here privately, and as soon as the special licence can be
procured, that when my brother and I return home, we may announce it
to her mother as an event completed.”
This being settled, Castleton said to Lucy, “I must leave you now to
take steps for the licence. Farewell for the present, and only for
the _present_, for it is a word that the future shall teach _us_ to
forget to use.”
Castleton having left the room, Alice desired George to come in, to
take leave of his cousin, as he was to depart that afternoon. He was
dressed in a manner better calculated to suit his new character of
gentleman; but never looked so awkward, or seemed so little at his
ease. He walked first straight for the window, then half towards
Lucy, but turned to the fireplace, and from thence back to the
window, without saying a word. From thence he was gently drawn away
by his cousin, who said, “Come, dear cousin George, have you nothing
pretty to say to your poor little Lucy? I am sure I wish _you_ joy of
your promotion with all my heart.”
“And I am as sure that in all mine, there is no other wish than that
your promotion, if you like so to call it, may be attended with every
earthly happiness. Perhaps I’d better go at once. Good b’ye.”
“Nay stay, dear George, it is not enough that we should separate
with these wishes, without settling how we may be informed whether
they are fulfilled or not. I can never forget those days, when we
neither of us ever formed a thought that the other didn’t know; and
believe me, till we meet again, I shall have no greater pleasure than
hearing from you, and how you are getting on;--and now you may put
a direction that will easier reach its mark, than poor Lucy Darnell,
Bankside Farm, England. Wasn’t that the way you wrote to me last, you
said? You’ll try again, won’t you, dear?”
“No, I think I’d better not; it wouldn’t be altogether suitable, I
think, with your new situation. When you get accustomed to all these
fine folk, there will be much in George Darnell you’ll wish altered;
and I shouldn’t like to bring shame on you, Lucy.”
“Bring shame on me! that you could never do, but by such courses as
you have lately followed; and to these I have no fear you will turn
again. Do not bring shame on yourself by such means, and you can
never bring shame on me. If you mean that, because I’m a lady, shame
could spring from the homeliness of true and tried affection, that
would be shame of my own making; ay, and worse than I could bear.”
“Ay, you speak all this out of kindness, and like yourself, dear
Lucy: and so you feel now, I’m sure. But a time will come--and what’s
more, it ought to come--when the less you see, or even perhaps hear
of me, the better. I will not bring up now all about our former
parting, and all that. I was much older than you were then, and
things you said made more impression on me than they were like to do
on yourself; but it’s all for the best. He that’s won you, has done
his taste credit, to find you out, quite out of his line as you were,
and I’m bound to speak well of him, for he’s behaved nobly to me; and
I’ve no doubt he’ll try and make you happy, and he ought to succeed,
for he’s plenty of helps to try with; but all I can say is, that you
can’t want to hear of ME, and I shouldn’t like to intrude.”
“Why shouldn’t I want to hear of you? You talk of the helps he has,
by which I suppose you mean power and wealth. But what would be one’s
first wish to put them to, but to assist one’s friends? And who would
be the first of friends whom one would seek out at the end of the
world to serve? Why, who but you, dear George.”
“Ay, all that’s as you feel now; and I don’t mean to say that any
change could ever make you hard or unfeeling, but I can’t but think
that it an’t in nature that this should always remain the same. I
dare say you judge me a little altered now; so I am, perhaps. I have
turned more things over in my head lately, than I did in all my
life before. A prison’s quite the school of thought. You’re going,
on t’other hand, to one perpetual holiday of the mind,--and every
thing else if you like. It will be an existence of which you’ve no
idea. Well! it mayn’t suit after all. But if so, it’s no short voyage
you’re bound on. You’ll never have Bankside Farm and Morden Bay to
leeward again; and, therefore, you had better not have cousin George
to pilot your thoughts the way they must never turn. But as it’s much
more like you’ll find all sunshine around you, I would not like to
be the one black spot on your horizon; and when not in sight, you
must soon forget to care about the humble playmate of your youth, who
feels even in parting from you so completely that your unhappiness
must make his, that he heartily prays that this last may be the case.
Prosper in your new line of life, and that you may do so, take not
with you a thought of your old one. Once more, a long good b’ye.”
“Good b’ye, dearest George,” said Lucy, throwing herself for the last
time into his arms.
“No, Lucy; that’s more than I can bear,” cried George, tearing
himself away, and rushing from her presence.
CHAPTER XV.
This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever
Ran on the greensward; nothing she does or seems,
But smacks of something greater than herself,
Too noble for this place.
SHAKSPEARE.
The best maker of all marriages
Combine your hearts in one, your states in one!
“Come, lassie,” said Farmer Darnell as he entered, and found her
still in tears. “Come, that’ll be only a sunsh_oi_ny shower I guess,
without which they say our hopes never ripen; but your’s are all fit
for harvesting; so, cheer up, cheer up, my darling child.”
“Oh! father, it’s more than a passing sorrow parting with one’s
earliest friend. I am not ungrateful for the great bounties shown
me; and to think that the noblest, the handsomest, the best of men,
should have condescended like to seek me, when I’m sure there’s not a
high-born lady amongst whom he’s lived, but must have been only too
happy if he’d have turned his eyes on any one of them! Yet, I’ve just
seen, perhaps, the last of George. I shall soon also be separated
from you; and what I lose seems all as strange to me as what I gain.
I see the sudden end of every feeling and thought of which I cannot
recollect the beginning. I would, I feel, at the same time willingly
die in grateful adoration of him who is only much too great and good
for me; but it comes in some sort to this, for so completely new an
existence has something in it of the character of death.”
“Nay, my bonny bairn,” said her father; “take it not in _sick_e a
fasheous style. It comes sair to me ’tis true, to part wi’ that has
been my sole fireside comfort since it first s_u_pped pap--since it
first climbed upon my knee, by thrusting its little fingers into
t’ button-holes. But for thee, my child, you’ve only gettin now a
station you were always fitter to hold than to boide wi’ the loike
o’ us. I can’t quite make it clear why it should be so; it were the
same wi’ Alice afore you. You and she are quite another guess sort o’
class from your mither and me. It’s agin all the rules of breeding
stock that so it should be; but so it is, and that’s a’ that I know.”
“But, my dear father, my heart tells me of no such distinction; and
won’t let me think of parting from you without such a pang here, as
teaches me that ’tis to you I truly belong.”
“As to parting, and all that, my dear child, it’s not a church-yard
separation to which we’re bound to resign ourselves. But it’s along
wi’ Alice I’ve been settling that I should make but a rummish concern
of it in t’ great world. And it’s not any pride, or any thing of that
kind, of my Lord’s that would come atwixt us. No, nothing has been
kinder like than your Lord has been. And he’s just been talking it
’ower out there, and how he would never wish you to forget the best
of fathers. That’s what he called me. And when I thought of you, and
heard him say so, if he’d made me a lord like himself, I could not
have been prouder than of that title. And he added that he’d make
it his care a year should never pass without your coming somehow
or other to see us; and that showed his consideration like. But,
lord, when I thought it was a question of once a year or so, wi’ a
_somehow or other_ tacked to it, I could not but feel like an auld
hen that reared a ducklin, and saw the great waters afore her, into
which she mun never follow her. And here I stand cackling like just
such another auld fool, instead of being thankful for all favours,
as I should be. And after all, when I make myself out a hen, it’s
your mother’s part I’m taking of. And she do cackle sometimes, sure
enough.”
“As you mention my mother, I must say, my dear father, that I hope
you and aunt Alice won’t have me married, as I heard you settling,
without her being brought over. For though I cannot say that in
all respects it is quite as much pain to be separated from her as
from you, my own kindest father; yet, if it is a brilliant, it is a
strange, and to all concerned, a somewhat perilous career on which I
am about to enter; and what safeguard so good at such a moment as to
have asked and deserved a mother’s blessing.”
“Why that’s a’ true enough, and pretty and like yourself to think
so; but it were to spare a power o’ fash she’d mak, that we settled
it t’other way. That is, it were your aunt, she promised me it should
be all her doing. For it were not like I should take it on myself,
and to gang back there all alone afterwards. But here’s sister, talk
it over wi’ she.”
But when Alice found her niece make such a point of her mother’s
presence, she did not think herself justified in adhering to her
first arrangement; she therefore proposed that her brother should
write to her, and should offer to go as far as Mayton, to meet her;
but this part he seemed to have particular reasons of his own for
disliking.
“What! meet she at Mayton? that wouldn’t be altogether quite
suitable. Stop at Queen’s Head! Bide at the widow’s till she came
there to find me out! No, sister, I don’t see why I should gi’ up my
share of the last days o’ my darling child, along o’ she. There are
coaches fra’ Mayton here, let her take one o’ they.”
As this suggestion seemed reasonable enough, it was not opposed;
and as Castleton, however much he might deprecate Mrs. Darnell’s
presence, could not but honour Lucy’s scruples, he made no objection,
only hoping still that she might not come; which wish seemed more
likely to be gratified from the somewhat obscure nature of Farmer
Darnell’s communication, which ran thus:
“Respected Wife,
“This comes first to let you know George is gitten well shot
of his bad job, and now he’s gone to better himself; next to
require your presence at this presint, as soon as evrey bit
quait convenient. I’ve considered you’d loike to see t’ gude
looks has comed to Lucy, sine we comed here; she’s now the
most beautiful prospect ony one ever seed; and she’s quoite
fit to be married ony day, she thinks, if you’d only come. I
can’t enter into ony more particular observations by reason
of the post knowing it, only this; you’ll find curb bridle
for t’ poney on a broken peg behind door in t’ cowshed; put
him on a crupper, for there’s a tail about his tumbling down
wi’ Joe Ostler on Langden bank. But you’ll plaise to call to
mind purticklar that t’ Angel is the house at Mayton, from
which stage coach starts.
“Your fond sarvant and humble husband to command,
RICHARD DARNELL.”
As Richard Darnell, in writing this letter, had his own misgivings
that some of the words might not be spelt exactly right, he thought
it best no one but himself should see it, and therefore put it
himself into the post without showing it to any one, only letting
them know that he had written a letter, which he felt sure would
bring the good woman. But as soon as she could be expected, instead
came the following answer:
“RICHARD DARNELL,
“You must be clean demented to send me such a daft epistle. If
the name had never been on t’ bottom, I should have guessed it
could but have been your’n; for it’s just of a piece wi’ all
the rest. As for George being cleared of this sad affair, it’s
right to be thankfull for any sinner that’s spared. But where,
pray, is he gone? To better himself, you say! If he’s really
minded in penitence to better himself, and I’m sure there’s
need on’t, only let me take him in hand, there’s no need of
his going vagabonding again for that. As for what you say
about Lucy, I knew how it would be, you’d be sure to spoil
her. I’m not going to tramp after her, to see her good looks,
as you call it. If she can’t come to me, let her gang her ain
gait, and not expect her elders to fash themselves about the
like of she. I don’t make out what you mean by her having
getting good looks: if it’s only her foolish prettiness you
commend, as I suppose by your saying she’s the most beautiful
prospect ever seen, I’d have you to recollect, that when you
were i’ that city afore, you thought some one else the most
beautiful prospect you ever seed. Though I’m thankful I never
set my head o’ such vanities. But it’s like you, a _cretur_
made up of hand and mouth, ever whilst you live to think all’s
best that’s by you. I’ll be bound the truest thing that’s in
your letter is, that the silly chit thinks herself fit to be
married. If so, let her be so without me. I thought not long
ago she’d been ready to demean herself by throwing herself at
the head of Painter Churchill. If so, as I said afore, it’s
all her ain affair.
“This from your loving wife,
“MARGARET DARNELL.
“Postscript. It was so like you to put best bridle on broken
peg in t’ cowshed. But it’s just of a piece wi’ all the rest.”
When Farmer Darnell had spelt through this somewhat lengthy, though
unsatisfactory reply, he saw that he had somehow made a mess of
it, and he did not feel quite certain whether he had sufficiently
explained his daughter’s marriage as a fact, not as a surmise. He
took it, full of perplexity, to his sister, who not having seen her
brother’s, to which this was an answer, never suspected that in point
of fact it had never been clearly explained that it was to witness
the great alliance of her daughter she was summoned; and as she
knew enough of the unhappy and worrying temper of her sister-in-law,
to think it possible from the first an ungracious answer might be
returned, she therefore thought it best that her mother’s declining
to come should be communicated to Lucy, omitting those details in her
answer which might be hurtful to her feelings. And this plan suited
the impatience of Castleton, and the inclinations of the farmer;
and therefore it was settled that the wedding should be no longer
postponed.
It was a gay-looking morning, in early spring, which shone
auspiciously on the happy scene, when the select family circle, to
whom alone the secret had been confided, sought the parish church
of St. ----, in the city of ----, armed with the special licence,
which in due form permitted the union of the Right Honourable Egbert
Athelstan Somers Lord Castleton to Lucy Darnell.
Though no high-born kindred crowded round the altar, or lightly
tripped, or swept in state up the empty aisles, which struck chill
and damp upon the little party as they first quitted the light and
buoyant atmosphere without; yet in the whole line of Lord Castleton’s
ancestry, even including that progenitor who had won a stately dame,
through whom, as his name denoted, was traced his descent to the
heptarchy--never had any of his forefathers led to the altar a more
lovely object, or one in outward appearance more distinguished and
refined, than the lowly maid who now clung anxiously to him for
support.
The wedding-robe which she wore had been chosen by him, and though
simple was tasteful; and her aunt’s care had prevented any glaring
defects in the mode of wearing it, which her unpractised ignorance
might otherwise have betrayed; though her toilet was a task which
the perfect proportion of her slight and elegant form rendered easy.
The delicate and finely chiseled contour of her features, and the
unstudied grace of her whole figure, even to the tapering fingers of
the small hand, whose gentle pressure on Lord Castleton’s arm seemed
to claim protection--all these marked her as fitted to adorn that
exalted station to which she was then to be raised.
The quiet dignity of Alice Darnell’s whole deportment showed her a
fitting chaperon on such an occasion for the future peeress. To be
sure, the honest farmer, though dressed in his very best, did not
seem quite of a piece with the other performers in the ceremony; but
nobody could feel this more thoroughly than he did himself; and so
unaffectedly, as to be compatible with great pride in his daughter,
and no shame for himself; and therefore he kept in the back-ground,
exulting yet retiring.
As Lucy knelt at the altar, unconsciously in an attitude which
sculptors might have studied for the line of grace, Castleton fixed
upon her an ardent gaze of unmeasured admiration, which, as the
ceremony concluded, and they rose to depart, she repaid with the mild
expression of intense devotion rather than of passion.
“God save your Ladyship!” cried Farmer Darnell, coming up and
kissing her, trying to bury his feelings in a tone of banter, but in
vain:--“God save you! Lady ----. Good b’ye, my own darling Lucy!” and
he retired to gulp down his emotion. Her aunt also took leave of her
here, to avoid the parting in the streets.
Castleton supported her trembling frame tenderly to the carriage;
and, as soon as they had entered, pressed her to his heart,
saying--“My own, own Lucy, now!” And as the carriage rattled rapidly
through the narrow streets of the city, they were soon out of sight
of the farmer and his sister, who had followed to the door of the
church, to watch the departure of what they both loved best in the
world.
CHAPTER XVI.
----There
Shall sweet Bianca practise how to bride it.
SHAKSPEARE.
So this begins our happy honeymoon.
Honour, high honour, and renown to Hymen!
A Honeymoon! ’Tis a strange term!--an ambiguous definition of the
period of time which it describes: a singular compound of two
incongruous parts--honey and moon. What has the moon, “the inconstant
moon,” to do with that whose “sweets do pall with sameness?” Is there
any sly sarcasm conveyed in the term?--any lurking insinuation,
that where a blessing has been “daily swallowed by men’s eyes, they
surfeited with honey;” and that, as the match-making Friar Lawrence
says, “is loathsome in its own deliciousness?” But, no--it cannot
be. When at sea for a meaning, one seeks the aid of a Dictionary to
pilot one back to sense, and Johnson defines a honeymoon as “the
first month after marriage, when there is nothing but tenderness and
pleasure;” and as this lexicographical lover had tried it himself,
he must have spoken from an experience of his own sensations,--for,
with all the merits of his laborious compilation, he is never known
to have given a signification in direct opposition to his own
feelings and prejudices. It is a curious image this raises to one’s
mind--Doctor Johnson passing a whole month in which there was nothing
but “tenderness and pleasure!”
For these sensations also must, to exist, have been reciprocal;
he must have found another who would lavish similar tenderness
on him,--derive parallel pleasure from him. And our wonderment
increases that such should have been the impression which he chose to
perpetuate in folio sheets for ever, when one recollects that he was
married to a woman twice his own age; and as it is insinuated by one
of his female gossips, he had begun by being in love with his future
bride’s daughter. Add to this, that his own account of his ride to
church does not accord with the immediate prelude to a honied sequel.
Johnson, about to become a bridegroom, in love, and on horseback, at
one and the same time, is an image almost to upset gravity. He states
that on their ride from Birmingham to Derby, they quarrelled two or
three times about the pace, and says, “I was not to be made the slave
of caprice, and I resolved to begin as I meant to end; I therefore
pushed on briskly till I was fairly out of her sight; I contrived
that she should soon come up with me; when she did, I observed her to
be in tears.”
Here does not seem to have been much tenderness on his part, or
one would think much pleasure on hers: but there is no disputing
about tastes; and even after this unpropitious beginning, Johnson,
upon experience, defines the honey-moon as “a month in which there
is nothing but tenderness and pleasure.” There have been, however,
others not so well calculated to pamper themselves with such
unalloyed lusciousness, who have found the taste of the honey infused
with a well-known taint of bitterness; and others may have suspected
that some of the wax had, in that honied space, somewhat clogged the
wings of time. For, admitting to the fullest extent--
“Domestic happiness, the only bliss
Of Paradise that has survived the fall;”
yet it is not the growth of an hour. It is not slipped on with the
wedding-ring. At the altar the staple only is riveted, for which
habit has yet to forge, link by link, those imperceptible bonds which
chain the heart within the domestic circle. Mutual good understanding
must be established by slow degrees. In the vegetable world a graft
is an unsightly excrescence at first; and no more in temper and
tastes, than in trees, is the fruit of such an experiment borne on
the instant. How much tacit, perhaps unconscious, compromise must
gradually be matured, before, as Thomson says--
“Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will,
With boundless confidence;”
he pronounces--
“Happy they the happiest of their kind.”
If, therefore, as I suspect, even amongst those who have afterwards
experienced the most perfect domestic happiness, there have
occasionally been in some of the four-and-twenty hours of some of the
eight-and-twenty days of this mellifluous month some moments when
slight restraint and transient disappointment have mixed themselves
up with that tenderness and pleasure which are said to monopolise it;
if it is a probationary period, which is not sufficient to establish
the whole foundation of happiness for the future, it is sometimes
quite sufficient to dispel some of the bright illusions of the past;
this variegated month will sometimes make sad inroads into the
permanence of that sort of love that--
“Is but a bright beguiling spell,
Which only lives whilst passion glows.”
The passion of love sometimes revels in contradiction. It gains
strength by opposition; it attracts by separation; it smiles most
upon its exacted sacrifices; it entrenches itself most behind broken
duties; its fairest hopes are gathered in the wildest field of fear,
but its vigour is apt to be lost in regular set garden culture; it
pines upon stated indulgence; it dwindles when its shoots are in set
form nailed to the wall; when its early blossom is success, its only
fruit is satiety.
If there ever was a blissful honey-moon! If?--There have been
myriads; those of a mixed character, for which I have been
endeavouring to account, are but the exceptions. In the very first
class of blissful honey-moons, was that of Castleton and Lucy;--most
happy positively, in its exemptions from any of the causes which I
have mentioned as occasionally chequering that happiness: and most
happy comparatively, with their mutual experience of the past: and
I fear I must forestall so far as to add, also comparatively with
their future wedded life. Here there was no unsettled compromise of
tastes, no gradual adaptation of former habits; for the companion was
no more new to Lucy, than was the existence to which she had been
transferred. The very atmosphere she breathed was strange to her; and
in entering upon that new existence, she had but one all-engrossing
object--to study in her own manner the happiness of him to whose
destiny she was united.
Castleton was by nature affectionate; but he must have been
insensible indeed, if he had not shared with more fervour, and
almost equal freshness, every feeling of one so beautiful and so
gracious, so tender and so devoted, as his gentle bride. Besides, he
had another security against her fondness palling upon possession,
if such a thing could otherwise have been possible. It was an
original experiment he had attempted, so far successful, whose
future progress he had to watch; and this blended occupation with his
enjoyment. And there was certainly occupation enough in explaining
many rudiments of conduct in her present sphere, of which Lucy was
completely ignorant. Anxious as she was to learn, and eager as
she was to adopt, any suggestion of his, in spite of her natural
quickness, he sometimes found it difficult to make her comprehend
his meaning, from some ideas being perfectly new to her, which were
so interwoven with his early nature that he could not recollect and
identify their first impression. Castleton being, himself, a person
of very cultivated mind, and having been much in a society famed for
ready memory and apt illustration, had adopted, perhaps more than any
one else, a sort of shorthand turn of conversation, a comprehensive
cypher, known only to the initiated; in which a half-hinted
allusion, or trite quotation, was often meant to awaken a whole train
of ideas: such an inclination he was, of course, obliged to check in
all his communications with Lucy. This made his instructions often
much more circumlocutory, and consequently protracted, than they
would otherwise have been; and though it was impossible to imagine a
more gentle tutor, or a more docile pupil, yet even blended as it was
with the soft dalliance of those first days of exclusive devotion,
there was something irksome to both parties, in the perpetual
recurrence of such topics.
Instruction, however mildly conveyed, infallibly destroys that
feeling of equality, in exact proportion to which confidence is
generally found to exist. Every day Castleton felt more and more
how impossible it would be to ask Lucy’s opinion on any of those
subjects on which she was profoundly ignorant; and every day Lucy
became more aware of her deficiencies, and more anxious therefore to
conceal them from him; and that she could only do by acquiescing in
her ignorance, for there was no one else from whom she could seek
information. There were some points on which she would even have
endeavoured to extract knowledge from the servants; but dreading,
from her former habits, nothing so much as too great a familiarity
in this respect, Castleton had made it one of his first desires to
her, that she would confine her communications with them, to asking
for what she wanted. To this, as to every other desire of his, she
yielded, as far as she could, implicit obedience; but it was often
a great exertion on her part to do so. Of her own maid she had felt
from the first a considerable awe; and to such a degree did this
continue, that she could not conceive any fatigue from labour equal
to the burthen of her assistance. Being naturally of a disposition
both active and obliging, it was quite new to her to have any thing
done for her which she could do for herself. For some time she had as
great a horror of touching a bell-rope, as others have in touching
the string of a shower-bath; and when services were obtruded on her
by the domestics as a matter of course, she had much difficulty in
checking the exuberance of her gratitude.
At home, Big Betsey, mentioned above as the maid of all work,
never considered as any part of her multitudinous duties the
waiting on Miss Lucy, who she not only said “mought moind herself,”
but sometimes called to her, almost authoritatively, to “lend a
hauping haund.” It was, probably, in consequence of the habit thus
engendered, that Lady Castleton was one day caught “lending a helping
hand” to an overloaded under laundry-maid, who had been sent by her
superior with a wicker-bound snowy freight of her Ladyship’s own
superfine linen. But of all the irksome feelings caused by Lucy’s
new position, there was none from which she suffered more, than
_waiting_ to be _waited on_. And it was hinted in the hall, that when
my Lord was not in the room, my Lady got up to help herself to what
she wanted from the sideboard!! And it was whispered in the female
conclave of the housekeeper’s room, that her Ladyship seemed even to
like to--lace her own stays!!
CHAPTER XVII.
I would detain you here some
Month or two before you venture.
How often have I told you ’twould be thus,
How often said my dignity would last
But till ’twere known.
Set on towards London.
SHAKSPEARE.
It had been a _real_ Spring-day, by which we mean one not often
realized, but such a Spring-day as even smoke-dried poets fancy. Lucy
was seated in her own pretty boudoir, which Castleton had arranged
for her with infinite taste. She was making-up and combining with
great care a nosegay of choicest flowers, which she had gathered
from the neighbouring conservatory, into which on one side her
apartment opened; with this she was decorating a beautiful marble
vase, presented to her by her husband, which always stood on the
table beside her. Castleton had been absent that morning on a distant
ride, on business connected with his property; she had previously
been interrupted, and was now anxious, before his return, to finish
this trivial, but to her interesting occupation: for the vase never
met her husband’s eye, studded with its varied scents and gaily
diversified colours, without eliciting the observation, “No one
could arrange these half so prettily as you.” And it required to be
aware, as she was, of her manifold deficiencies, to feel the peculiar
pleasure derived in hearing the repetition of these words from the
lips she loved. She was still thus engaged, when Castleton entered,
and throwing himself on the sofa beside her, interrupted her task by
taking one of her hands in his, pressing his palm against hers--then
tenderly parting her fingers, by entwining his own between them;
whilst, passing his other arm round her waist, he drew her towards
him, and looking fondly in her face, said to himself, “They must, at
any rate, have thought her very beautiful.”
The origin of this reflection was, that on coming home by the
high-road he had met his nearest neighbour, Mrs. Eresby, with her
two daughters, returning from a visit they had during that morning
volunteered to the bride. On perceiving him, Mrs. Eresby had stopped
the carriage for a moment, and after expressing regrets at missing
him, had said, “Charmed with Lady Castleton--so very natural and
perfectly unaffected.”
In bowing, the only possible reply to this compliment, he thought
he had intercepted the telegraph of a smile between Miss Eresby
and her sister Arabella, who sat opposite to each other on the
side of the carriage into which he was leaning.--“Very natural and
perfectly unaffected!” he thought, as he rode home, “What has she
been doing?” Certainly, if there was any quality which Castleton must
have most sought to secure by such means as he had resorted to in
the choice of a wife, it must have been that she should be “natural
and unaffected.” And yet it is true that this testimony of the first
person who had seen her to the success of his pursuit, gave him any
thing but pleasure.--“So you have had visitors this morning, Lucy;
how did you amuse them?”
“Oh, they seemed to amuse each other very well; there were three of
them.”
“How do you mean, amuse themselves? they did not, surely, talk to
each other much before you?”
“Her the others called mother didn’t.”
“My dear Lucy, I’m sure they never called her _mother_.”
“Well then, mamma perhaps it was; I will remember, my dear Lord, what
you told me, never to say mother.”
“And did they make many enquiries of you? ask many questions?”
“Oh, such a many!”
“So many, dearest love, you mean to say.”
“Well, so I do, thank you; and then the mamma asked me, as she had
never seen me before, if I had not been much abroad; and I said,
never at all till I married; and then she said, ‘What! had I been
to Paris since?’ and I find she meant foreign parts by abroad. And
she told me that we ought to go to London soon; that the season was
advanced, and that the Pasta would come out soon this spring. What is
the Pasta--a plant?”
“A plant! no, love. Pasta is a singer’s name, you could not be
expected to know that; but I hope you didn’t say any thing to show
them your ignorance?”
“Oh, no; you told me, whenever I was completely puzzled, that silence
was best; so I said nothing. Pasta’s the name of a singer, then!
Oh, that accounts, for a moment after she the mamma said, that her
daughter Arabella sang delightfully, and asked me if I would sing
with her; so I said no, I’d much rather listen. That was right,
warn’t it? You see I knew you’d ask me all about it, so I recollected
it for you. Arabella then asked me if I would accompany her? so I
said, Wherever she liked,--where did she want to go? But, I suppose,
she altered her mind, for she sat down to the grand instrument you
had brought here for me to begin my lessons upon; and then she sang
such an extraordinary song--all coming from her throat. And the
sister asked me if I understood German? and I answered, No, nor
French neither.”
“That was an unnecessary addition, my love.”
“Well, so it was. Then the youngest sister explained to me, that it
was a song a Swiss peasant girl sang whilst she was milking her cow;
and I said that must be very difficult, to sing while milking a cow.
And then the mamma asked how I knew; and I said I had _tried_ very
_often_.”
“How could you, dear Lucy, volunteer such an avowal?”
“I thought you would be afraid of that; but it all did very well, for
the mother said I was so amusing, had so much natural wit, and they
all tried to persuade me I had said something clever.”
“Well, go on--and what then?”
“And then the lady took me aside, and began saying so much in praise
of you; and when she once got me on that subject, I was ready and
glib enough, I warrant you. But somehow, though I then found it so
much easier to speak, I find it more difficult to recollect exactly
what I said. Is not that strange? And then she said that my happiness
would excite so much envy in the great world; that you had been
admired, courted, nay, even loved by rich, noble, clever ladies. Why
was all this? and how could you ever think to leave all these, to
seek out from her quiet home your poor little Lucy?”
“Oh, that’s a story of by-gone days. These were follies of my youth,
which I thought I had lived to repent.”
‘Nor knew, till seated by thy side,
My heart in all save hope the same.’
“Why, save hope, my dear Lord? What may you not only hope, but trust,
from my constant devotion?”
“I did not mean to tie myself precisely to every word I uttered. It
was only a quotation.
“And what is a quotation?”
“A quotation is the vehicle in which imagination posts forward, when
she only hires her Pegasus from memory. Or sometimes it is only a
quit-rent, which the intellectual cultivator, who farms an idea,
pays to the original proprietor; or rather,”--(seeing that he was
not making the matter more intelligible by his explanation,)--“or
rather, it is when we convey our own thoughts by the means of the
more perfect expressions of some favourite author.”
“But then, surely _you_ need not be driven to borrow, whose own words
always sound to me like a book. As for poor me, I wish I could talk
in quotations for ever; then I need not fear to make these mistakes,
which, as it is, I am afraid I am always like to do.”
There was so much modesty, so lively a sense of her own deficiencies,
with so anxious a desire to remedy them, that Castleton could not,
upon the whole, derive other than a pleasant impression from the
result of this interview.
It has been said that Lucy’s boudoir had been furnished in a manner
that showed the most studied care in the selection, the most
unlimited expenditure in the profusion of articles of luxury. Perhaps
Castleton had even rather exceeded in this respect, from knowing
how different had been the habits of her early life, and rather
wishing that she should, whilst they were still alone, get over the
trouble of being at her ease, rather than let the world witness the
awkwardness of her first impressions, and the difficulty of her
first endeavour not to be astonished at so much that was new.
But there was one department to which he had prudently devoted his
attention, and this from a higher motive, an anxious desire to
cultivate the taste of his pupil-bride, in a manner which might be
an enjoyment, not a task. Her room had been hung with the choicest
“_chefs-d’œuvre_” both of ancient and modern art: the most attractive
subjects, treated in the most skilful manner, in an assortment
of cabinet pictures of various masters. This, at least, thought
Castleton, is an art for which she has shown a wonderful aptitude:
poetry I cannot as yet hope that she should fancy or comprehend; and
of any incipient love of general literature I as yet see no symptom;
but this is a taste which cannot fail to refine such a character as
hers. From Claude and from Poussin she may learn that classical
association will adorn and idealize even the material beauties of
nature; and from the good conception of some historical subject by
the great Italian masters, she may reverse the usual routine, and
from admiration of the manner in which these subjects are treated,
derive a taste for the subjects themselves. Then, thought he, I shall
always have the agreeable reflection, that it was by me alone this
taste was first formed, and that it was by a mutual partiality for
this art that community of feeling was first established between us.
Castleton had mistaken the effect for the cause; he was not aware,
that whilst she had readily followed all the movements of the pencil,
it was the hand that had guided it, not the lines that it traced,
which had given it peculiar value in her eyes. Another morning he had
been again absent on the business which had taken him from home the
day of Mrs. Eresby’s visit; and at the door of the boudoir he was met
by Lucy, who had watched for his returning step, and, drawing him
in after her with more than her usual demonstrations of delight at
seeing him again, with a most triumphant “Look there!” directed his
attention to the costly frames which, under his special direction,
had been carefully fitted to the varied gems of art mentioned above,
but which were, instead, now filled with flimsy drawings upon
different coloured papers; and upon nearer inspection he discovered
them to be his own hasty sketches, which had been thrown aside with
the character he had assumed, and forgotten in the attainment of the
object of that assumption.
“Lucy, you cannot really have been so foolish, so childish, as to
remove those beautiful pictures for such wretched daubs as these?”
This was uttered hastily, and the look of triumph passed away at
the same moment from Lucy’s previously elated countenance, as, in
a desponding tone, she “bade him see that the pictures were still
there,” and that she had occupied herself that morning in cutting
with care and adapting the sketches to the different frames that
hung round her room, which operation had been completed by neatly
attaching the papers in each corner of the pictures with pins.
“Take them down again, for heaven’s sake!” said Lord Castleton; “it
is a bitter disappointment to me, to see you had no taste whatever
for the beauties of these gems, which I selected for you with so much
care, and which, at least, I hoped you might appreciate. I wish you
would try, at least, to know the things you ought to admire.”
“I am sure I always admired these,” said Lucy, sorrowfully, laying
the rejected sketches in a heap before Lord Castleton, and adding to
herself in a lower tone, “so pretty, and so like!” on observing the
upper one of the heap to be a home view of Bankside Farm, and its old
orchard and now deserted garden. But her husband’s good-humour was
not restored by the gentle submission of her looks and manners; he
took the sketches in his hand, and as he turned them over rapidly,
and as each and every one in which Morden Bay was commemorated
recalled the scene of some unpleasant event, some degrading doubt,
some unworthy conflict, which he wished for ever to blot from his own
mind, and hide from the prying curiosity of others, with a sudden
impulse he crushed them firmly together in his hands, and then flung
them on the blazing fire before him. Lucy at first started forward to
save them, but her habitual obedience and respect checked her first
hasty movement. She gazed fixedly on the blazing memorials of her
childhood home; and the first bitter tears she had shed since her
marriage chased each other down her cheeks, as she exclaimed, “Oh,
what a pity to destroy them! I loved them so; they were among the
few, the very few things which reminded me of you and dear Bankside
Farm together.”
“Nay, do not distress yourself so, my dear Lucy. You need, I hope,
nothing to remind you of me, now I am always with you; and the rocks
and the trees of Morden Bay, for it was only inanimate forms that
were there commemorated, will remain the same till you see them
again,--the same the last as the first time you beheld them. But it
is the solitude in which you have been sometimes left lately which
has made you gloomy. Business makes it necessary that I should soon
go to London; we will start next week, and then you will be too
much occupied with seeing, and being seen, to have leisure for these
morbid reflections.”
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,
Dorset-street, Fleet-street.
Transcriber’s Note:
Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent
hyphenation in the text. These were left unchanged, as were jargon,
dialect, obsolete and alternative spellings. Misspelled words were
not corrected. Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by
underscores, _like this_. Final stops missing at the end of sentences
were added. One unnecessary apostrophe was removed.
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