IN that curious compound, the human heart, a respectable motive is sometimes connected with a criminal act. And it was so with Joseph Wylie. He had formed an attachment to Nancy Rouse, and her price was two thousand pounds.
This Nancy Rouse was a character. She was General Rolleston's servant for many years; her place was the kitchen. But she was a woman of such restless activity, and so wanting in the proper pride of a servant, that she would help a house-maid, or a lady's maid, or do anything almost, except be idle. To use her own words, she was one as couldn't abide to sit mum-chance. That fatal foe to domestic industry, theLondon Journal,fluttered in vain down her area, for she could not read. She supported a sick mother out of her wages, aided by a few presents of money and clothes from Helen Rolleston, who had a great regard for Nancy, and knew what a hard fight she had to keep a sick woman out of her twenty pounds a year.
In love, Nancy was unfortunate; her buxom looks and sterling virtues were balanced by a provoking sagacity, and an irritating habit of speaking her mind. She humbled her lovers' vanity, one after another, and they fled. Her heart smarted more than once.
Nancy was ambitious; and her first rise in life took place as follows: When the Rollestons went to Australia, she had a good cry at parting with Helen; but there was no help for it. She could not leave her mother. However, she told Helen she could not stomach any other service, and, since she must be parted, was resolved to better herself. This phrase is sometimes drolly applied by servants, because they throw Independence into the scale. In Nancy's case it meant setting up as a washerwoman. Helen opened her hazel eyes with astonishment at this, the first round in the ladder of Nancy's ambition; however, she gave her ten pounds, and thirty introductions, twenty-five of which missed fire, and with the odd five Nancy set up her tub in the suburbs, and by her industry, geniality and frugality, got on tolerably well. In due course she rented a small house backed by a small green, and advertised for a gentleman lodger. She soon got one; and soon got rid of him. However, she was never long without one.
Nancy met Joseph Wylie in company. And, as sailors are brisk wooers, he soon became her acknowledged suitor, and made some inroad into her heart, though she kept on the defensive, warned by past experience.
Wylie's love-making had a droll feature about it; it was most of it carried on in the presence of three washerwomen, because Nancy had no time to spare from her work, and Wylie had no time to lose in his wooing, being on shore for a limited period. And this absence of superfluous delicacy on his part gave him an unfair advantage over the tallow-chandler's foreman, his only rival at present. Many a sly thrust, and many a hearty laugh, from his female auditors, greeted his amorous eloquence. But, for all that, they sided with him, and Nancy felt her importance, and brightened along with her mates at the sailor's approach, which was generally announced by a cheerful hail. He was good company, to use Nancy's own phrase, and she accepted him as a sweetheart on probation. But, when Mr. Wylie urged her to marry him, she demurred, and gave a string of reasons, all of which the sailor and his allies, the subordinate washerwomen, combated in full conclave.
Then she spoke out: "My lad, the washtub is a saddle as won't carry double. I've seen poverty enough in my mother's house; it shan't come in at my door to drive love out o' window. Two comes together with just enough for two; next year instead of two they are three, and one of the three can't work and wants a servant extra, and by and by there is half a dozen, and the money coming in at the spigot and going out at the bung-hole."
One day, in the middle of his wooing, she laid down her iron, and said: "You come along with me. And I wonder how much work will be done while my back is turned, for you three gabbling and wondering what ever I'm a going to do with this here sailor."
She took Wylie a few yards down the street, and showed him a large house with most of the windows broken. "There," said she, "there's a sight for a seafaring man. That's in Chancery."
"Well, it's better to be there than in H—," said Wylie, meaning to be sharper.
"Wait till you've tried 'em both," said Nancy.
Then she took him to the back of the house, and showed him a large garden attached to it.
"Now, Joseph," said she, "I've showed you a lodging-house and a drying-ground; and I'm a cook and a clear-starcher, and I'm wild to keep lodgers and do for 'em, washing and all. Then, if their foul linen goes out, they follows it. The same if they has their meat from the cook-shop. Four hundred pounds a year lies there a waiting for me. I've been at them often to let me them premises. But they says no, we have got no horder from the court to let. Which the court would rather see 'em go to rack an' ruin for nothing, than let 'em to an honest woman as would pay the rent punctual, and make her penny out of 'em, and nobody none the worse. And to sell them, the price is two thousand pounds, and if I had it I'd give it this minit. But where are the likes of you and me to get two thousand pounds? But the lawyer he says, 'Miss Rouse, fromyouone thousand down, and the rest on mortgige at forty-five pounds the year,' which it is dirt cheap, I say. So now, my man, when that house is mine, I'm yours. I'm putting by for it o' my side. If you means all you say, why not save a bit o' yours? Once I get that house and garden, you needn't go to sea no more; nor you shan't. If I am to be bothered with a man, let me know where to put my finger on him at all hours, and not lie shivering and shaking at every window as creaks, and him out at sea. And if you are too proud to drive the linen in a light cart, why, I could pay a man." In short, she told him plainly she would not marry till she was above the world; and the road to above the world was through that great battered house and seedy garden in Chancery.
Now it may appear a strange coincidence that Nancy's price to Wylie was two thousand pounds, and Wylie's to Wardlaw was two thousand pounds. But the fact is it was a forced coincidence. Wylie, bargaining with Wardlaw, stood out for two thousand pounds, because that was the price of the house and garden and Nancy.
Now, when Wylie returned to England safe after his crime and his perils, he comforted himself with the reflection that Nancy would have her house and garden, and he should have Nancy.
But young Wardlaw lay on his sick bed; his father was about to return to the office, and the gold disguised as copper was ordered up to the cellars in Fenchurch Street. There, in all probability, the contents would be examined ere long, the fraud exposed, and other unpleasant consequences might follow over and above the loss of the promised 2,000 pounds.
Wylie felt very disconsolate, and went down to Nancy Rouse depressed in spirits. To his surprise she received him with more affection than ever, and, reading his face in a moment, told him not to fret.
"It will be so in your way of life," said this homely comforter; "your sort comes home empty-handed one day, and money in both pockets the next. I'm glad to see you home at all, for I've been in care about you. You're very welcome, Joe. If you are come home honest and sober, why, that is the next best thing to coming home rich."
Wylie hung his head and pondered these words; and well he might, for he had not come home either so sober or so honest as he went out, but quite as poor.
However, his elastic spirits soon revived in Nancy's sunshine, and he became more in love with her than ever.
But when, presuming upon her affection, he urged her to marry him and trust to Providence, she laughed in his face.
"Trust to himprovidence, you mean," said she; "no, no, Joseph. If you are unlucky, I must be lucky, before you and me can come together."
Then Wylie resolved to have his 2,000 pounds at all risks. He had one great advantage over a landsman who has committed a crime. He could always go to sea and find employment, first in one ship, and then in another. Terra firma was not one of the necessaries of life to him.
He came to Wardlaw's office to feel his way, and talked guardedly to Michael Penfold about the loss of theProserpine.His apparent object was to give information; his real object was to gather it. He learned that old Wardlaw was very much occupied with fitting out a steamer; that the forty chests of copper had actually come up from theShannonand were under their feet at that moment, and that young Wardlaw was desperately ill and never came to the office. Michael had not at that time learned the true cause of young Wardlaw's illness. Yet Wylie detected that young Wardlaw's continued absence from the office gave Michael singular uneasiness. The old man fidgeted, and washed the air with his hands, and with simple cunning urged Wylie to go and see him about theProserpine,and get him to the office, if it was only for an hour or two. "Tell him we are all at sixes and sevens, Mr. Wylie; all at sixes and sevens."
"Well," said Wylie, affecting a desire to oblige, "give me a line to him; for I've been twice, and could never get in."
Michael wrote an earnest line to say that Wardlaw senior had been hitherto much occupied in fitting out theSpringbok,but that he was going into the books next week. What was to be done?
The note was received; but Arthur declined to see the bearer. Then Wylie told the servant it was Joseph Wylie, on a matter of life and death. "Tell him I must stand on the staircase and hallo it out, if he won't hear it any other way."
This threat obtained his admission to Arthur Wardlaw. The sailor found him on a sofa, in a darkened room, pale and worn to a shadow.
"Mr. Wardlaw," said Wylie, firmly, "you mustn't think I don't feel for you; but, sir, we are gone too far to stop, you and me. There is two sides to this business; it is 150,000 pounds for you, and 2,000 pounds for me, or it is—"
"What do I care for money now?" groaned Wardlaw. "Let it all go to the Devil, who tempted me to destroy her I loved better than money, better than all the world."
"Well, but hear me out," said Wylie. "I say it is 150,000 pounds to you and 2,000 pounds to me, or else it is twenty years' penal servitude to both on us."
"Penal servitude!" And the words roused the merchant from his lethargy like a shower-bath.
"You know that well enough," said Wylie. "Why, 'twas a hanging matter a few years ago. Come, come, there are no two ways; you must be a man, or we are undone."
Fear prevailed in that timorous breast, which even love of money had failed to rouse. Wardlaw sat up, staring wildly, and asked Wylie what he was to do.
"First, let me ring for a bottle of that old brandy of yours."
The brandy was got. Wylie induced him to drink a wine-glassful neat, and then to sit at the table and examine the sailors' declaration and the logs. "I'm no great scholard," said he. "I warn't a going to lay these before the underwriters till you had overhauled them. There, take another drop now—'twill do you good—while I draw up this thundering blind."
Thus encouraged and urged, the broken-hearted schemer languidly compared the seamen's declaration with the logs; and, even in his feeble state of mind and body, made an awkward discovery at once.
"Why, they don't correspond!" said he.
"What don't correspond?"
"Your men's statement and the ship's log. The men speak of one heavy gale after another, in January, and the pumps going; but the log says, 'A puff of wind from the N.E.' And, here again, the entry exposes your exaggeration. One branch of our evidence contradicts the other; this comes of trying to prove too much. You must say the log was lost, went down with the ship."
"How can I?" cried Wylie. "I have told too many I had got it safe at home."
"Why did you say that? What madness!"
"Why were you away from your office at such a time? How can I know everything and do everything? I counted on you for the head-work ashore. Can't ye think of any way to square the log to that part of our tale? might paste in a leaf or two, eh?"
"That would be discovered at once. You have committed an irremediable error. What broad strokes this Hudson makes. He must have written with the stump of a quill."
Wylie received this last observation with a look of contempt for the mind that could put so trivial a question in so great an emergency.
"Are you quite sure poor Hudson is dead?" asked Wardlaw, in a low voice.
"Dead! Don't I tell you I saw him die!" said Wylie, trembling all of a sudden.
He took a glass of brandy, and sent it flying down his throat.
"Leave the paper with me," said Arthur, languidly, "and tell Penfold I'll crawl to the office to-morrow. You can meet me there; I shall see nobody else."
Wylie called next day at the office, and was received by Penfold, who had now learned the cause of Arthur's grief, and ushered the visitor in to him with looks of benevolent concern. Arthur was seated like a lunatic, pale and motionless; on the table before him was a roast fowl and a salad, which he had forgotten to eat. His mind appeared to alternate between love and fraud; for, as soon as he saw Wylie, he gave himself a sort of shake and handed Wylie the log and the papers.
"Examine them; they agree better with each other now."
Wylie examined the log, and started with surprise and superstitious terror. "Why, Hiram's ghost has been here at work!" said he. "It is his very handwriting."
"Hush!" said Wardlaw; "not so loud. Will it do?"
"The writing will do first-rate; but any one can see this log has never been to sea."
Inspired by the other's ingenuity, he then, after a moment's reflection, emptied the salt-cellar into a plate, and poured a little water over it. He wetted the leaves of the log with this salt water, and dog's-eared the whole book.
Wardlaw sighed. "See what expedients we are driven to," said he. He then took a little soot from the chimney, and mixed it with salad oil. He applied some of this mixture to the parchment cover, rubbed it off, and by such manipulation gave it a certain mellow look, as if it had been used by working hands.
Wylie was armed with these materials, and furnished with money to keep his sailors to their tale, in case of their being examined.
Arthur begged, in his present affliction, to be excused from going personally into the matter of theProserpine;and said that Penfold had the ship's log, and the declaration of the survivors, which the insurers could inspect, previously to their being deposited at Lloyd's.
The whole thing wore an excellent face, and nobody found a peg to hang suspicion on so far.
After this preliminary, and the deposit of the papers, nothing was hurried; the merchant, absorbed in his grief, seemed to be forgetting to ask for his money. Wylie remonstrated; but Arthur convinced him they were still on too ticklish ground to show any hurry without exciting suspicion.
And so passed two weary months, during which Wylie fell out of Nancy Rouse's good graces, for idling about doing nothing.
"Be you a waiting for the plum to fall into your mouth, young man?" said she.
The demand was made on the underwriters, and Arthur contrived that it should come from his father. The firm was of excellent repute and had paid hundreds of insurances, without a loss to the underwriters. TheProserpinehad foundered at sea; several lives had been lost, and of the survivors one had since died, owing to the hardships he had endured. All this betokened a genuine calamity. Nevertheless, one ray of suspicion rested on the case at first. The captain of theProserpinehad lost a great many ships; and, on the first announcement, one or two were resolved to sift the matter on that ground alone. But when five eye-witnesses, suppressing all mention of the word "drink," declared that Captain Hudson had refused to leave the vessel, and described his going down with the ship, from an obstinate and too exalted sense of duty, every chink was closed; and, to cut the matter short, the insurance money was paid to the last shilling, and Benson, one of the small underwriters, ruined. Nancy Rouse, who worked for Mrs. Benson, lost eighteen shillings and sixpence, and was dreadfully put out about it.
Wylie heard her lamentations, and grinned; for now his 2,000 pounds was as good as in his pocket, he thought. Great was his consternation when Arthur told him that every shilling of the money was forestalled, and that the entire profit of the transaction was yet to come; viz., by the sale of the gold dust.
"Then sell it," said Wylie.
"I dare not. The affair must cool down before I can appear as a seller of gold; and even then I must dribble it out with great caution. Thank Heaven, it is no longer in those cellars."
"Where is it, then?"
"That is my secret. You will get your two thousand all in good time; and, if it makes you one-tenth part as wretched as it has made me, you will thank me for all these delays."
At last Wylie lost all patience, and began to show his teeth; and then Arthur Wardlaw paid him his two thousand pounds in forty crisp notes.
He crammed them into a side pocket, and went down triumphant to Nancy Rouse. Through her parlor window he saw the benign countenance of Michael Penfold. He then remembered that Penfold had told him some time before that he was going to lodge with her as soon as the present lodger should go.
This, however, rather interrupted Wylie's design of walking in and chucking the two thousand pounds into Nancy's lap. On the contrary, he shoved them deeper down in his pocket, and resolved to see the old gentleman to bed, and then produce his pelf, and fix the wedding-day with Nancy.
He came in and found her crying, and Penfold making weak efforts to console her. The tea-things were on the table, and Nancy 's cup half emptied.
Wylie came in, and said, "Why, what is the matter now?"
He said this mighty cheerfully, as one who carried the panacea for all ills in his pocket, and a medicine peculiarly suited to Nancy Rouse's constitution. But he had not quite fathomed her yet.
As soon as ever she saw him she wiped her eyes, and asked him, grimly, what he wanted there. Wylie stared at the reception; but replied stoutly, that it was pretty well known by this time what he wanted in that quarter.
"Well, then," said Nancy, "Want will be your master. Why did you never tell me Miss Helen was in that ship? my sweet, dear mistress as was, that I feel for like a mother. You left her to drown, and saved your own great useless carcass, and drowned she is, poor dear. Get out o' my sight, do."
"It wasn't my fault, Nancy," said Wylie, earnestly. "I didn't know who she was, and I advised her to come with us; but she would go with that parson chap."
"What parson chap? What a liar you be! She is Wardlaw's sweetheart, and don't care for no parsons. If you didn't know you was to blame, why didn't you tell me a word of your own accord? You kep' dark. Do you call yourself a man, to leave my poor young lady to shift for herself?"
"She had as good a chance to live as I had," said Wylie, sullenly.
"No, she hadn't; you took care o' yourself. Well, since you are so fond of yourself, keep yourselftoyourself, and don't come here no more. After this, I hate the sight on ye. You are like the black dog in my eyes, and always will be. Poor, dear Miss Helen! Ah, I cried when she left—my mind misgave me; but little I thought she would perish in the salt seas, and all for want of a man in the ship. If you had gone out again after in the steamboat—Mr. Penfold have told me all about it—I'd believe you weren't so much to blame. But no; lolloping and looking about all day for months. There's my door, Joe Wylie; I can't cry comfortable before you as had a hand in drowning of her. You and me is parted forever. I'll die as I am, or I'll marry aman;which you ain't one, nor nothing like one. Is he waiting for you to hold the door open, Mr. Penfold? or don't I speak plain enough? Them as I gave the sack to afore you didn't want so much telling."
"Well, I'm going," said Wylie, sullenly. Then, with considerable feeling, "This is hard lines."
But Nancy was inexorable, and turned him out, with the 2,000 pounds in his pocket.
He took the notes out of his pocket, and flung them furiously down in the dirt.
Then he did what everybody does under similar circumstances, he picked them up again, and pocketed them, along with the other dirt they had gathered.
Next day he went down to the docks and looked out for a ship; he soon got one, and signed as second mate. She was to sail in a fortnight.
But, before a week was out, the banknotes had told so upon him that he was no longer game to go to sea. But the captain he had signed with was a Tartar, and not to be trifled with. He consulted a knowing friend, and that friend advised him to disguise himself till the ship had sailed. Accordingly he rigged himself out with a long coat, and a beard, and spectacles, and hid his sea-slouch as well as he could, and changed his lodgings. Finding he succeeded so well, he thought he might as well have the pleasure of looking at Nancy Rouse, if he could not talk to her. So he actually had the hardihood to take the parlor next door; and by this means he heard her move about in her room, and caught a sight of her at work on her little green; and he was shrewd enough to observe she did not sing and whistle as she used to do. The dog chuckled at that. His bank-notes worried him night and day. He was afraid to put them in a bank; afraid to take them about with him into his haunts; afraid to leave them at home; and out of this his perplexity arose some incidents worth relating in their proper order.
Arthur Wardlaw returned to business; but he was a changed man. All zest in the thing was gone. His fraud set him above the world; and that was now enough for him, in whom ambition was dead, and, indeed, nothing left alive in him but deep regrets.
He drew in the horns of speculation, and went on in the old safe routine; and to the restless activity that had jeopardized the firm succeeded a strange torpidity. He wore black for Helen, and sorrowed without hope. He felt he had offended Heaven, and had met his punishment in Helen's death. Wardlaw senior retired to Elmtrees, and seldom saw his son. When they did meet, the old man sometimes whispered hope, but the whisper was faint and unheeded.
One day Wardlaw senior came up express, to communicate to Arthur a letter from General Rolleston, written at Valparaiso. In this letter, General Rolleston deplored his unsuccessful search; but said he was going westward, upon the report of a Dutch whaler, who had seen an island reflected in the sky, while sailing between Juan Fernandez and Norfolk Isle.
Arthur only shook his head with a ghastly smile. "She is in heaven," said he, "and I shall never see her again, not here or hereafter."
Wardlaw senior was shocked at this speech; but he made no reply. He pitied his son too much to criticise the expressions into which his bitter grief betrayed him. He was old, and had seen the triumphs of time over all things human, sorrow included. These, however, as yet, had done nothing for Arthur Wardlaw. At the end of six months, his grief was as somber and as deadly as the first week.
But one day, as this pale figure in deep mourning sat at his table, going listlessly and mechanically through the business of scraping money together for others to enjoy, whose hearts, unlike his, might not be in the grave, his father burst in upon him, with a telegram in his hand, and waved it over his head in triumph.
"She is found! she is found!" he roared. "Read that!" and thrust the telegram into his hands.
Those hands trembled, and the languid voice rose into shrieks of astonishment and delight, as Arthur read the words, "We have got her, alive and well. Shall be at Charing Cross Hotel, 8 P. M."
WHILE the boat was going to theSpringbok,General Rolleston whispered to Captain Moreland; and what he said may be almost guessed from what occurred on board the steamer soon afterward. Helen was carried trembling into the cabin, and the order was given to heave the anchor and get under way. A groan of disappointment ran through the ship; Captain Moreland expressed the general's regret to the men, and divided two hundred pounds upon the capstan; and the groan ended in a cheer.
As for Helen's condition, that was at first mistaken for ill health. She buried herself for two whole days in her cabin; and from that place faint moans were heard now and then. The sailors called her the sick lady.
Heaven knows what she went through in that forty-eight hours.
She came upon deck at last in a strange state of mind and body; restless, strung up, absorbed. The rare vigor she had acquired on the island came out now with a vengeance. She walked the deck with briskness, and a pertinacity that awakened admiration in the crew at first, but by and by superstitious awe. For, while the untiring feet went briskly to and fro over leagues and leagues of plank every day, the great hazel eyes were turned inward, and the mind, absorbed with one idea, skimmed the men and things about her listlessly.
She had a mission to fulfill, and her whole nature was stringing itself up to do the work.
She walked so many miles a day, partly from excitement, partly with a deliberate resolve to cherish her health and strength; "I may want them both," said she, "to clear Robert Penfold." Thought and high purpose shone through her so, that after a while nobody dared trouble her much with commonplaces. To her father, she was always sweet and filial, but sadly cold compared with what she had always been hitherto. He was taking her body to England, but her heart stayed behind upon that island. He saw this, and said it.
"Forgive me," said she, coldly; and that was all her reply.
Sometimes she had violent passions of weeping; and then he would endeavor to console her; but in vain. They ran their course, and were succeeded by the bodily activity and concentration of purpose they had interrupted for a little while.
At last, after a rapid voyage, they drew near the English coast; and then General Rolleston, who had hitherto spared her feelings, and been most indulgent and considerate, felt it was high time to come to an understanding with her as to the course they should both pursue.
"Now, Helen," said he, "about the Wardlaws!"
Helen gave a slight shudder. But she said, after a slight hesitation, "Let me know your wishes."
"Oh, mine are not to be too ungrateful to the father, and not to deceive the son."
"I will not be ungrateful to the father, nor deceive the son," said Helen, firmly.
The general kissed her on the brow, and called her his brave girl. "But," said he, "on the other hand, it must not be published that you have been for eight months on an island alone with a convict. Anything sooner than that. You know the malice of your own sex; if one woman gets hold of that, you will be an outcast from society."
Helen blushed and trembled. "Nobody need be told that but Arthur; and I am sure he loves me well enough not to injure me with the world."
"But he would be justified in declining your hand, after such a revelation."
"Quite. And I hope he will decline it when he knows I love another, however hopelessly."
"You are going to tell Arthur Wardlaw all that?"
"I am."
"Then all I can say is, you are not like other women."
"I have been brought up by a man."
"If I was Arthur Wardlaw, it would be the last word you should ever speak to me."
"If you were Arthur Wardlaw, I should be on that dear island now."
"Well, suppose his love should be greater than his spirit, and—"
"If he does not go back when he hears of my hopeless love, I don't see how I can. I shall marry him; and try with all my soul to love him. I'll open every door in London to Robert Penfold; except one; my husband's. And that door, while I live, he shall never enter. Oh, my heart; my heart!" She burst out sobbing desperately. And her father laid her head upon his bosom, and sighed deeply, and asked himself how all this would end.
Before they landed, her fortitude seemed to return; and of her own accord she begged her father to telegraph to the Wardlaws.
"Would you not like a day to compose yourself, and prepare for this trying interview?" said he.
"I should. But it is mere weakness. And I must cure myself of my weakness, or I shall never clear Robert Penfold. And then, papa, I think of you. If old Mr. Wardlaw heard you had been a day in town, you might suffer in his good opinion. We shall be in London at seven. Ask them at eight. That will be one hour's respite. God help me, and strengthen poor Arthur to bear the blow I bring him!"
Long before eight o'clock that day, Arthur Wardlaw had passed from a state of somber misery and remorse to one of joy, exultation and unmixed happiness. He no longer regretted his crime, nor the loss of theProserpine.Helen was alive and well, and attributed not her danger, but only her preservation, to the Wardlaws.
Wardlaw senior kept his carriage in town, and precisely at eight o'clock they drove up to the door of the hotel.
They followed the servant with bounding hearts, and rushed into the room where the general and Helen stood ready to receive them. Old Wardlaw went to the general with both hands out, and so the general met him, and between these two it was almost an embrace. Arthur ran to Helen with cries of joy and admiration, and kissed her hands again and again, and shed such genuine tears of joy over them that she trembled all over and was obliged to sit down. He kneeled at her feet, and still imprisoned one hand, and mumbled it, while she turned her head away and held her other hand before her face to hide its real expression, which was a mixture of pity and repugnance. But, as her face was hidden, and her eloquent body quivered, and her hand was not withdrawn, it seemed a sweet picture of feminine affection to those who had not the key.
At last she was relieved from a most embarrassing situation by old Wardlaw; he cried out on this monopoly, and Helen instantly darted out of her chair, and went to him, and put up her cheek to him, which he kissed; and then she thanked him warmly for his courage in not despairing of her life, and his goodness in sending out a ship for her.
Now, the fact is, she could not feel grateful; but she knew she ought to be grateful, and she was ashamed to show no feeling at all in return for so much; so she was eloquent, and the old gentleman was naturally very much pleased at first; but he caught an expression of pain on Arthur's face, and then he stopped her. "My dear," said he, "you ought to thank Arthur, not me; it is his love for you which was the cause of my zeal. If you owe me anything, pay it to him, for he deserves it best. He nearly died for you, my sweet girl. No, no, you mustn't hang your head for that, neither. What a fool I am to revive old sorrows! Here we are, the happiest four in England." Then he whispered to her, "Be kind to poor Arthur, that is all I ask. His very life depends on you."
Helen obeyed this order, and went slowly back to Arthur; she sat, cold as ice, on the sofa beside him, and he made love to her. She scarcely heard what he said; she was asking herself how she could end this intolerable interview, and escape her father's looks, who knew the real state of her heart.
At last she rose, and went and whispered to him: "My courage has failed me. Have pity on me, and get me away. It is the old man; he kills me."
General Rolleston took the hint, and acted with more tact than one would have given him credit for. He got up and rang the bell for tea. Then he said to Helen, "You don't drink tea now, and I see you are excited more than is good for you. You had better go to bed."
"Yes, papa," said Helen.
She took her candle, and, as she passed young Wardlaw, she told him, in a low voice, she would be glad to speak to him alone to-morrow.
"At what hour?" said he eagerly.
"When you like. At one."
And so she retired, leaving him in ecstasies. This was the first downright assignation she had ever made with him.
They met at one o'clock; he radiant as the sun, and a rose in his button-hole; she sad and somber, and with her very skin twitching at the thought of the explanation she had to go through.
He began with amorous commonplaces; she stopped him, gravely.
"Arthur," said she, "you and I are alone now, and I have a confession to make. Unfortunately, I must cause you pain—terrible pain. Oh, my heart flinches at the wound I am going to give you; but it is my fate either to wound you or to deceive you."
During this preamble, Arthur sat amazed rather than alarmed. He did not interrupt her, though she paused, and would gladly have been interrupted, since an interruption is an assistance in perplexities.
"Arthur, we suffered great hardships on the boat, and you would have lost me but for one person. He saved my life again and again; I saved his upon the island. My constancy was subject to trials—oh such trials! So great an example of every manly virtue forever before my eyes! My gratitude and my pity eternally pleading! England and you seemed gone forever. Make excuses for me if you can. Arthur—I—I have formed an attachment."
In making this strange avowal she hung her head and blushed, and the tears ran down her cheeks. But we suspect they ran forhim,and not for Arthur.
Arthur turned deadly sick at this tremendous blow, dealt with so soft a hand. At last he gasped out, "If you marry him, you will bury me."
"No, Arthur," said Helen, gently; "I could not marry him, even if you were to permit me. When you know more, you will see that, of us three unhappy ones, you are the least unhappy. But, since this is so, am I wrong to tell you the truth, and leave you to decide whether our engagement ought to continue? Of course, what I have owned to you releases you."
"Releases me! but it does not unbind my heart from yours," cried Arthur, in despair.
Then his hysterical nature came out, and he was so near fainting away that Helen sprinkled water on his temples, and applied eau-de-cologne to his nostrils, and murmured, "Poor, poor Arthur! Oh, was I born only to afflict those I esteem?"
He saw her with the tears of pity in her eyes, and he caught her hand, and said, "You were always the soul of honor; keep faith with me, and I will cure you of that unhappy attachment."
"What! Do you hold me to my engagement after what I have told you?"
"Cruel Helen! you know I have not the power to hold you."
"I am not cruel; and you have the power. But oh, think! For your own sake, not mine."
"I have thought; and this attachment to a man you cannot marry is a mere misfortune—yours as well as mine. Give me your esteem until your love comes back, and let our engagement continue."
"It was for you to decide," said Helen, coldly, "and you have decided. There is one condition I must ask you to submit to."
"I submit to it."
"What, before you hear it?"
"Helen, you don't know what a year of misery I have endured, ever since the report came of your death. My happiness is cruelly dashed now, but still it is great happiness by comparison. Make your conditions. You are my queen, as well as my love and my life."
Helen hesitated. It shocked her delicacy to lower the man she had consented to marry.
"Oh, Helen," said Arthur, "anything but secrets between you and me. Go on as you have begun, and let me know the worst at once."
"Can you be very generous, Arthur?—generous to him who has caused you so much pain?"
"I'll try," said Arthur, with a groan.
"I would not marry him, unless you gave me up. For I am your betrothed, and you are true to me. Icouldnot marry him, even if I were not pledged to you; but it so happens, I can do him one great service without injustice to you; and this service I have vowed to do before I marry. I shall keep that vow, as I keep faith with you. He has been driven from society by a foul slander; that slander I am to sift and confute. It will be long and difficult; but I shall do it; and you could help me if you chose. But that I will not be so cruel as to ask."
Arthur bit his lip with jealous rage; but he was naturally cunning, and his cunning showed him there was at present but one road to Helen's heart. He quelled his torture as well as he could, and resolved to take that road. He reflected a moment, and then he said:
"If you succeed in that, will you marry me next day?"
"I will, upon my honor."
"Then I will help you."
"Arthur, think what you say. Women have loved as unselfishly as this; but no man, that ever I heard of."
"No man ever did love a woman as I love you. Yes, I would rather help you, though with a sore heart, than hold aloof from you. What have we to do together?"
"Did I not tell you?—to clear his character of a foul stigma, and restore him to England, and to the world which he is so fitted to adorn."
"Yes, yes," said Arthur; "but who is it? Why do I ask, though? He must be a stranger to me."
"No stranger at all," said Helen; "but one who is almost as unjust to you as the world has been to him;" then, fixing her eyes full on him, she said, "Arthur, it is your old friend and tutor, Robert Penfold."
ARTHUR WARDLAW was thunderstruck; and for some time sat stupidly staring at her. And to this blank gaze succeeded a look of abject terror, which seemed to her strange and beyond the occasion. But this was not all; for, after glaring at her with scared eyes and ashy cheeks a moment or two, he got up and literally staggered out of the room without a word.
He had been taken by surprise, and, for once, all his arts had failed him.
Helen, whose eyes had never left his face, and had followed his retiring figure, was frightened at the weight of the blow she had struck; and strange thoughts and conjectures filled her mind. Hitherto, she had felt sure Robert Penfold was under a delusion as to Arthur Wardlaw, and that his suspicions were as unjust as they certainly were vague. Yet now, at the name of Robert Penfold, Arthur turned pale, and fled like a guilty thing. This was a coincidence that confirmed her good opinion of Robert Penfold, and gave her ugly thoughts of Arthur. Still, she was one very slow to condemn a friend, and too generous and candid to condemn on suspicion; so she resolved as far as possible to suspend her unfavorable judgment of Arthur, until she should have asked him why this great emotion, and heard his reply.
Moreover, she was no female detective, but a pure creature bent on clearing innocence. The object of her life was, not to discover the faults of Arthur Wardlaw, or any other person, but to clear Robert Penfold of a crime. Yet Arthur's strange behavior was a great shock to her; for here, at the very outset, he had somehow made her feel she must hope for no assistance from him. She sighed at this check, and asked herself to whom she should apply first for aid. Robert had told her to see his counsel, his solicitor, his father, and Mr. Undercliff, an expert, and to sift the whole matter.
Not knowing exactly where to begin, she thought she would, after all, wait a day or two to give Arthur time to recover himself, and decide calmly whether he would co-operate with her or not.
In this trying interval, she set up a diary—for the first time in her life; for she was no egotist. And she noted down what we have just related, only in a very condensed form, and wrote at the margin:Mysterious.
Arthur never came near her for two whole days. This looked grave. On the third day she said to General Rolleston:
"Papa,youwill help me in the good cause—will you not?"
He replied that he would do what he could, but feared that would be little.
"Will you take me down to Elmtrees, this morning?"
"With all my heart."
He took her down to Elmtrees. On the way she said: "Papa, you must let me get a word with Mr. Wardlaw alone."
"Oh, certainly. But, of course, you will not say a word to hurt his feelings."
"Oh, papa!"
"Excuse me. But, when a person of your age is absorbed with one idea, she sometimes forgets that other people have any feelings at all."
Helen kissed him meekly, and said that was too true; and she would be upon her guard.
To General Rolleston's surprise, his daughter no sooner saw old Wardlaw than she went—or seemed to go—into high spirits, and was infinitely agreeable.
But at last she got him all to herself, and then she turned suddenly grave, and said:
"Mr. Wardlaw, I want to ask you a question. It is something about Robert Penfold."
Wardlaw shook his head. "That is a painful subject, my dear. But what do you wish to know about that unhappy young man?"
"Can you tell me the name of the counsel who defended him at the trial?"
"No, indeed, I cannot."
"But perhaps you can tell me where I could learn that."
"His father is in our office still; no doubt he could tell you."
Now, for obvious reasons, Helen did not like to go to the office; so she asked faintly if there was nobody else who could tell her.
"I suppose the solicitor could."
"But I don't know who was the solicitor," said Helen, with a sigh.
"Hum!" said the merchant. "Try the bill-broker. I'll give you his address;" and he wrote it down for her.
Helen did not like to be too importunate, and she could not bear to let Wardlaw senior know she loved anybody better than his son; and yet some explanation was necessary. So she told him, as calmly as she could, that her father and herself were both well acquainted with Robert Penfold, and knew many things to his credit.
"I am glad to hear that," said Wardlaw; "and I can believe it. He bore an excellent character here, till, in an evil hour, a strong temptation came, and he fell."
"What! You think he was guilty?"
"I do. Arthur, I believe, has his doubts still. But he is naturally prejudiced in his friend's favor. And, besides, he was not at the trial; I was."
"Thank you, Mr. Wardlaw," said Helen, coldly; and within five minutes she was on her way home.
"Arthur prejudiced in Robert Penfold's favor!" That puzzled her extremely.
She put down the whole conversation while her memory was fresh. She added this comment: "What darkness I am groping in!"
Next day she went to the bill-broker, and told him Mr. Wardlaw senior had referred her to him for certain information.
Wardlaw's name was evidently a passport. Mr. Adams said obsequiously, "Anything in the world I can do, madam."
"It is about Mr. Robert Penfold. I wish to know the name of the counsel he had at his trial."
"Robert Penfold! What, the forger?"
"He was accused of that crime," said Helen, turning red.
"Accused, madam! He was convicted. I ought to know; for it was my partner he tried the game on. But I was too sharp for him. I had him arrested before he had time to melt the notes; indicted him, and sent him across the herring pond, in spite of his parson's coat, the rascal!"
Helen drew back as if a serpent had stung her.
"It was you who had him transported!" cried she, turning her eyes on him with horror.
"Of course it was me," said Mr. Adams, firing up; "and I did the country good service. I look upon a forger as worse than a murderer. What is the matter? You are ill."
The poor girl was half fainting at the sight of the man who had destroyed her Robert, and owned it.
"No, no," she cried, hastily; "let me get away—let me get away from here-you cruel, cruel man!"
She tottered to the door, and got to her carriage, she scarcely knew how, without the information she went for.
The bill-broker was no fool; he saw now how the land lay; he followed her down the stairs, and tried to stammer excuses.
"Charing Cross Hotel," said she faintly, and laid her face against the cushion to avoid the sight of him.
When she got home, she cried bitterly at her feminine weakness and her incapacity; and she entered this pitiable failure in her journal with a severity our male readers will hardly, we think, be disposed to imitate; and she added, by way of comment: "Is this how I carry out my poor Robert's precept: Be obstinate as a man; be supple as a woman?"
That night she consulted her father on this difficulty, so slight to any but an inexperienced girl. He told her there must be a report of the trial in the newspapers, and the report would probably mention the counsel; she had better consult a file.
Then the thing was where to find a file. After one or two failures, the British Museum was suggested. She went thither, and could not get in to read without certain formalities. While these were being complied with, she was at a stand-still.
That same evening came a line from Arthur Wardlaw:
"DEAREST HELEN—I hear from Mr. Adams that you desire to know the name of the counsel who defended Robert Penfold. It was Mr. Tollemache. He has chambers in Lincoln's Inn."Ever devotedly yours,"ARTHUR WARDLAW."