The life of Louis De Crespigny, from the hour he entered the army, was one continued steeple-chase after pleasure and amusement, in whatever form they could be courted, or at whatever expense they could be enjoyed. At a very early age, he was already a veteran in the world and its ways; for he stood "alone in his glory," the most admired, courted, and idolized of mankind, a perfect adept in all the arts of rendering himself agreeable in society, and possessing many pleasant qualities, but none that were valuable. During a gay career of dissipation and frivolity, he had entered with successive eagerness on a thousand flirtations, though he always forgot to marry in the end, while his heart, like a phœnix, was frequently consumed, yet never destroyed, and always ready at the service of any young lady, with youth, beauty, and accomplishments enough to excite his temporary interest. Being of opinion, that, though not yet a peer, he ought speedily to be one, young De Crespigny openly avowed the impossibility of marrying while Lord Doncaster survived, and jocularly remarked, that it would be a pity prematurely to cut off the hopes of his hundred and one Scotch cousins, who lived, like Ernest Anstruther, on the hope, that if his neck were broken at Melton, his succession might yet be "cut up" amongst them; and to the friendly inquiries of his many relatives, he frequently replied with a condoling look, that he and his uncle were both "hopelessly well."
Lord Doncaster was not even yet, by any means, so great a Methusalemite in age, nor so weighed down by infirmities, as his lively nephew chose among the mothers and daughters of his intimate acquaintance to represent; and some ladies whom young De Crespigny had piqued or affronted, were actually ill-natured enough to hint, that Lord Doncaster was still almost young and almost handsome! They had even been so malicious as to insinuate, that his Lordship might possibly have a genius for marrying his house-keeper, almost the only respectable female who ever crossed his threshold; but Mrs. Fireland's very mature age, and very antiquated dress, shewed how completely she must have given up that point; and even her desire to please him in her own department, became every hour so increasingly difficult, and was attended with failures and disappointments so unforeseen and unaccountable, that the good woman often shook her head ominously, in alluding to his Lordship's numerous whims, saying, in a confidential under tone, which seemed to mean more than met the ear, to the steward, "he's petiklar! he's very petiklar! It would require a person bespoke to order to please his Lordship." And certainly he had become of late years more particular than ever.
One personage only seemed to have the art of doing no wrong in the estimation of Lord Doncaster; and the respect which he withheld from all mankind, was concentrated to an immeasurable degree on the Abbe Mordaunt, who was the Cardinal Wolsey of Kilmarnock Abbey and Beaujolie Castle. Proud, overbearing, harsh, and arbitrary, he ruled over the house, the purse, and even the will of his patron, with despotic and unlimited sway. Men are generally advanced in years before the passions and feelings have stamped their indelible traces, like the impression of a seal, which becomes permanent only after the wax has began to cool; but in every feature of the Abbe's countenance, might now be seen the evidences of a gloomy, severe, and almost ferocious temper, yet never was there a greater triumph of art over nature, than in the skill with which he adapted his looks and conversation to the taste or caprice of those whom it was his interest to govern, and the astonishing facility with which he could call up a bland smile and insinuating voice, to supersede the habitual haughtiness of his tone and manner.
Educated at St. Omers, in all the dark superstitions of that bigoted college, the Abbe was nevertheless far from desirous to seek within the walls of a cloister any protection from those temptations to worldly indulgence, which he had not even the wish to resist. He neither preached nor practised the virtues of his vocation, but paraded a whole troop of vices openly in the public eye; and far from attempting to reform mankind, he never attempted even to reform himself. Though in personal appearance of distinguished ugliness, yet such was the magic of his manner, that even by ladies he was considered perfectly irresistible; and to all, whether old or young, he generally succeeded in imparting a conviction, that he saw in her, for the first time, a realization of female perfection and female fascination. The Abbe was never known to stop half-way in arduously pursuing any object of pleasure, profit, or ambition, nor, whatever might be the impediments, was he ever seen to fail of success; for, like Bonaparte, he did not know the meaning of the word "impossible."
After having recklessly squandered, in a career of almost startling dissipation, the whole of his own patrimony, it was believed that he had obtained fraudulent possession of £10,000 belonging to his very beautiful niece, to whom he must have refunded it had she lived to come of age, or had she married it must have been restored to her children, but about the time our story commences, she was supposed either to have died, or to have retired to a convent abroad, though whether upon conviction or not, might be considered very doubtful, as she had been educated by her mother in the Protestant faith, and it was generally conjectured that to so sudden and entire a removal from all former connections, her poverty more than her will must have consented. Laura Mordaunt had resided much at Kilmarnock Abbe with her uncle, to whom she seemed warmly and blindly attached, but the gossiping world sometimes conjectured that perhaps the evident partiality and admiration of Lord Doncaster might have roused in her some ambitious thoughts, backed by the influence of the Abbe. Among the peculiarities of the Marquis he had always professed a decided contempt for all respectable ladies, and therefore his attentions to Laura Mordaunt were at best a very questionable compliment, and became naturally of a nature which few relatives would have wished to encourage, yet Miss Mordaunt still remained a guest at Kilmarnock Abbey, till the period of her sudden disappearance, which caused so much astonishment among her intimate friends and near connections, that the father of Richard Granville, her cousin, shortly before his own death, wrote an affectionate letter, entreating her to return, were it but for a few months, and to make a home of his house for the future, should it suit her to do so; but to this kind and generous offer no reply ever came, and as all communications were to pass through the Abbe's hands, who alone knew his niece's direction, it might be doubted whether the invitation ever reached that hand for which it was intended.
That Lord Doncaster had cruelly disappointed Laura Mordaunt, as he had already disappointed many others, her friend and cousin had good reason to believe; and though unable to imagine any really romantic or lasting attachment to a man, however elevated in rank or agreeable in manners, of at least fifty years old, yet he knew that Laura, who lived so retired that she could boast of few friends and no admirers, might really have been dazzled with the splendour of his rank or the fascination of his conversation; while it seemed the most unaccountable part of the whole affair, that if such were the case, the attachment had not been reciprocal, between a young and beautiful girl, thrown so continually in his way, and an aged roue, who had so evidently admired her.
If the probable duration of Lord Doncaster's life had been measured according to the estimate formed of it in many an Edinburgh drawing-room, it would have brought a very small premium indeed at the insurance offices. By referring to that valuable record, Debrett's peerage, it was satisfactorily proved that the De Crespignys were a very short-lived family! One Lord Doncaster had died of a fall from his horse at thirty-five; another had been killed in battle, at forty-two; and not one of them had contrived very much to exceed eighty, therefore hopes might be entertained of the popular and fascinating Louis De Crespigny at last gaining the long-expected "step." It might have been supposed by strangers in Edinburgh, that there was but one marquisate in Britain, so frequently were the strawberry-leaves of Lord Doncaster under animated discussion; and any visitor who accidentally took Burke or Debrett in his hand, might smile to observe that the pages naturally fell open where that interesting paragraph presented itself to notice,
"Doncaster, Marquis of. Heir presumptive, Louis Henry De Crespigny."
A tradition prevailed among the elder ladies of fashion now in society, that a splendid set of diamonds, which had been long the ornament and admiration of Queen Charlotte's drawing-rooms, were since entailed, by an old Lady Doncaster, in the family; and many a young beauty, in arranging a bright futurity on her own plan, had frequently worn these far-famed jewels in her imagination, when presented at Court as a Marchioness, the envy and admiration of all her contemporaries. Meantime nothing could be more astonishing than to find how much was known in Edinburgh concerning the modes of life, temper, and character of the present Lord Doncaster, though he lived not only secluded from society, but made it his peculiar study to evade the scrutiny of impertinent curiosity, and was so anxious to check the loquaciousness of servants, that his butler and housekeeper had strict orders to keep up a sort of prison discipline in the establishment, and not to allow a word to be spoken when at meals. It was, however, authentically ascertained by some unknown means, that Lord Doncaster, who had formerly been a man of dissipated habits and irregular hours, now devoted himself to the care of his health as diligently and intensely as a miser does to the care of his money, and that to him it had become a subject of almost avaricious interest. If the Marquis had a finger-ache, it was magnified in Edinburgh into a case of certain death; but after a really severe illness, he was heard jocularly to remark, in sporting phrase, "I have had another round with death!" while he seemed confident, on these occasions, of always coming off victorious, though few among the young ladies of his nephew's acquaintance would have been found ready to back his expectations, while Agnes Dunbar impatiently remarked, that Lord Doncaster had been so long in the world, he seemed not to know how to leave it.
It was generally understood by the juries who sat upon Lord Doncaster's case in society, that his breakfast consisted of strong gravy-soup and poached eggs, which were pronounced to be very plethoric,—he ate no luncheon, which must be very exhausting at his time of life,—he had an enormous appetite for dinner, which would certainly drive blood to his head,—and above all, he took a hot supper, which must be fatal at last;—every newspaper tends to prove, that after eating a hearty supper the night before, people are invariably found dead in their beds the next morning;—and it was already unaccountable how many mornings Lord Doncaster had survived! Any day in the world might bring accounts of his death,—some day must do so, sooner or later,—hundreds of old people were dying continually, and so might the superannuated peer; yet though his days were numbered in so many houses, they nevertheless seemed to be numberless, while gentlemen, older than himself, were often heard impatiently speculating and wondering what will he would make, and declaring they only wished to live, in order to know the result of so many anxious conjectures, while his dutiful nephew gayly remarked, that his uncle need never wait for parchment to write his will upon, while the skin on his face looked so like it.
Still Lord Doncaster obstinately persevered in living on, while, strange to say, many of the manœuvring mamas who had been heard to declare, that if an old person must die at any rate, they could spare his Lordship better than any other mortal, became mortal themselves, and were first consigned to the tomb. Even some of the young and lovely girls, who had thought, in the morning of life, before the freshness of their bloom had been dimmed, or the lustre of their beauty had decayed, that this one obstacle to their happiness must be removed,—many of these gay, joyous, and unthinking beings had sunk unexpectedly into an early grave, while still Lord Doncaster, in a most provoking and unprincipled manner, disappointed everybody, and continued to exist in a world where he was anything but welcome, resolved apparently, never, in an every-day vulgar way, to die at all.
In the mean time, Louis De Crespigny, devoted to the amusements of life, but independent of all its finer sympathies, seemed to breathe nothing but the exhilarating ether of life, joyous, giddy, and intoxicating. He revelled in a laughing, lively, satirical consciousness of his own exact position in society, and privately resolved to make the most of it,—not that he deliberately made up his mind to deceive,—his code of honor was rigid enough in respect to his transactions with gentlemen, but in the case of young ladies it was otherwise,—
"Man, to man so oft unjust,Is always so to woman."
"Man, to man so oft unjust,Is always so to woman."
"Man, to man so oft unjust,
Is always so to woman."
With ladies Mr. De Crespigny considered his own brilliant prospects and personal fascinations to be fair, marketable produce, which there could be no objection that he should use to the utmost advantage, for bringing in the largest possible return of pleasure, profit, and amusement. Accordingly, the gay young Cornet, living upon what he could borrow, on the disinterested attentions of manœuvring mothers, and on the expectation of his uncle's speedy demise, made himself the chosen attendant of half a hundred accomplished and perfectly amiable young ladies, who laughed, talked, sang, and danced with him, while he soon became but too intimately known as a ruthless flirt, to many a young heart, and to many a happy home, where he took care that it should be distinctly implied and understood, that nothing but the jealous penuriousness of "that old quiz, Lord Doncaster," impeded his ardent wish to settle for life; while in the mean time, wherever a good table and cellar were kept, he testified exactly such a degree of partiality for the sister or daughter of his host, as made her be considered his wife-presumptive, and secured him a regular knife and fork in the house on all family festivals and state occasions, without any trouble in either ordering or paying for the entertainment. It has been said, that as a rolling stone gathers no moss, neither does a roving heart gain any affection; but whatever might be the case with others, Louis De Crespigny felt himself without a doubt the idol of every drawing-room, where he sentimentalized, rattled, and flirted in every style, with every girl under twenty, as diligently as if he were canvassing for an election, while they talked, looked, smiled, and dressed their very best; and the excellence of any gentleman's wine might be accurately estimated by the thermometer of Mr. De Crespigny's attention to the daughters; but he had a declared abhorrence of family dinners, which looked too business-like and domestic, as if he had really committed himself; though, as Lady Towercliffe remarked to her four daughters one day, "he never said anything to the purpose, when the purpose was marriage."
Though Mr. De Crespigny seemed, at the "dignity dinners" in Edinburgh, to live for no other object on earth, but the one fascinating young lady, with whom it was his game at the time to appearepris, and though she might probably be astonished and piqued during the following week, to observe this indefatigable amateur in flirtations equally assiduous in his attentions to another, and shooting like a brilliant meteor in the ball-room, unheedingly past herself, yet she might console herself by reflecting, that Mr. De Crespigny was in the habit of confidentially hinting how much he felt embarrassed and annoyed by the necessity of generalizing his intimacies, that no gossiping reports might reach his whimsical relative. "Because actually!" he one day whispered in confidence to Lady Towercliffe, "when my uncle becomes irritable, he threatens to make all sorts of ridiculous marriages himself; and it would be my last hour in his will, if he thought me heretic enough merely to dance with a Protestant partner. He would not engage so much as a housemaid of your persuasion; but for my own part, I leave all these concerns to the Abbe Mordaunt, who, to do him justice, lets me off very easily."
The difference of faith made wonderfully little difference in the intentions of those young ladies who believed themselves the objects of Mr. De Crespigny's unacknowledged preference, for every bit of millinery in a ball-room was in a flutter of agitation whenever he approached; and certainly no one ever excelled more in making those he conversed with rise in their own opinion, from his tact in showing how very high they stood in his, and the consequence was, that he already possessed a rare and romantic collection of sentimental valentines, sketches with his figure in the foreground, songs with the magical name of Louis conspicuously introduced, withered bouquets, anagrams, anonymous letters, and anonymous verses, all with a too-well-remembered history belonging to them, which called up a smile of derision, or a sigh of self-reproach, according as the case required, but all treasured as relics of former happy hours, which had perhaps been the history of a lifetime to the fair donors, and the diversion of a few days only to himself, while he secretly applauded his own dexterity in escaping the matrimonial noose, and to them there remained only the silent remembrance of that intercourse, now for ever at an end, which they had believed was to last for life.
Mr. De Crespigny's engagement book was nearly as complicated an affair as any ledger or day-book, and much more so than his own banker's account, for he arranged it on the most systematic principles of profit and loss. In whatever house he had been invited to dine, he considered himself as "owing a quadrille" to one of the young ladies at the next assembly. If he had actually "sat under her father's mahogany," as he termed it, she might be perhaps entitled to two dances; and when he had spent the greater part of a summer in her mother's country house, that established a sort of sinking fund in her behalf, which entitled him to have the use of him as a partner, whenever he happened accidentally to be disengaged, though indeed nothing ever occurred accidentally in Captain De Crespigny's arrangements, for he never acted on impulse, but always on systematic calculation. He seemed, with his gay pell-mell manner, the most off-hand, careless, and undesigning of men; but even in the trifling affair of going to a ball, where he might literally have exclaimed, "I am monarch of all I survey," he invariably carried in his mind's eye a list of all those partners with whom policy or self-interest directed him to dance, and very seldom indeed did he swerve from his pre-conceived muster-roll.
It was a singular evidence of young De Crespigny's discretion and skill, that, while paying attentions which should either have never been paid at all, or never afterwards discontinued, and while, with all its fascinations, Lady Towercliffe declared it was dangerous to a young lady's happiness to be even introduced to him, still, in not one instance had "his intentions" ever yet been asked, and neither fathers, uncles, nor brothers had betrayed the slightest symptoms of insurrection against his universal dominion, believing, as his excuse for delaying to propose was so perfectly unanswerable and respectable, that his intentions might safely be allowed to "lie on the table," while they awaited in breathless suspense thedenouement, certainly to take place on Lord Doncaster's death.
Some of Mr. De Crespigny's brother officers, envious perhaps of his extraordinary success in society, threw out sceptical hints respecting the certainty of his succession, and laughed sarcastically at the indefatigable vanity with which he evidently liked being thus torn to pieces among the chaperons and dowagers of society; but he laughed as heartily as themselves. No one could ever get the start of him in a joke; and his associates, when he came in competition with any one of them, found it no laughing matter. He knew his own power—who does not know that?—and difficulties only enhanced his triumph.
Lord Doncaster often dryly remarked, that the best economist in Britain must certainly be Louis De Crespigny, as, to his certain knowledge, he possessed only £300 a year, and yet he seemed to revel in all the luxuries of life, besides having a great deal over for extravagance. There was no occasion for the young Cornet ever to think of dining at his club, as he might be entertained at the houses of three or four friends in a day, if he could have mustered as many appetites. In summer he incurred no expense, except to pay for his place occasionally on the top of a coach, or in a steam-boat, from one hospitable country house to another, where gigs were sent a stage to meet him on the way, if he were expected by the mail, or if by sea, a chariot might be seen waiting on the pier. He got "a mount" from one friend, the best seat in a barouche from another, and often the vacant place in a britschska from a third party, even to the expulsion of its more legitimate occupiers.
"De Crespigny has nothing on earth, and you see how he looks!" remarked his handsome friend Sir Patrick one day to Sir Arthur Dunbar; "yet how magnificently he contrives to live at the expense of all those deluded mortals who have disposable or indisposable daughters. His future prospects act like a cork jacket in society, keeping him always at the top. Last summer worthy Lord Towercliffe, with his rapidly increasing family and rapidly decreasing income, took De Crespigny in his gig to that old tumble-down castle of his in Argyleshire, where he spent six weeks, ruining the family in champagne and wax candles. The house became rather cold in September, so at last he accepted a cast in Lady Winandermere's carriage to that nest of nieces and daughters at Castle Highcombe, where he found excellent yachting and sea-bathing. There he lingered a month, till the brother of those four pretty Miss Vavasours bid still higher for his company, by offering him a mount at Kelso, and mentioning that he had a first-rate French cook a 'cordon bleu,' who hires his own stall at the opera during the London season, and enjoys a salary and perquisites amounting to more than the best curacy in the English Church; and all this De Crespigny repays with a few frothy nothings, which he is for ever repeating to any young lady who will lend an ear. Those who beat the bush do not always snare the bird; and I wonder the manœuvring world does not yet see that he is evidently no marrying man."
"What sort of looking individual, is a marrying man?" asked Sir Arthur, slyly. "I am often told that you, for instance, do not look like a marrying man; but pray point me out any one who does, that I may become more a connoisseur on the subject than I am. As for what you say of Louis De Crespigny, it sounds to my unpractised ear very like swindling; and he is not the youth I took him for if he live in such an element of deceit, sacrificing all sense of honor, all confidence, and all good feeling, for a worthless and transient popularity, or worse than all, for motives of mean, heartless self-interest. Such a man is not worth the space he occupies in the world!"
The Admiral's honest indignation would have been vented in still stronger terms, could his upright and honorable mind have been made to understand how entirely every thought, word, and action of Mr. De Crespigny's life was based on the most unswerving principles of cold, hard, unrelenting selfishness, and with what utter carelessness he seemed ready to trample on the wounded feelings of others; for it mattered not to him what degree of confidence he betrayed, or what degree of sorrow he inflicted. If in one house where he had been received as a son or a brother, he no longer found the cordial welcome of other days, a hundred other doors were still opened wide to receive him, where he could boast of having been "very nearly caught," and carry on the same game as before, which was a pastime to him, though fatal to the peace of many, who would willingly have died rather than betray the injury their feelings had suffered, when, after passing through the ordeal of his assiduities, they found themselves beguiled and cheated of all that was deepest and most sacred in their earthly affections—robbed without compunction by one who gave no return—who watched with elated triumph the growing delusion of those whom he had marked as victims to his own self-love, and whom he appeared to consider all in all to his happiness, till they found out at last that they were in reality less than nothing to him; yet the deception admitted of no redress. He lived on in a sort of cowardly impunity; for no young girl endowed with sensibility, and conscious of her own injuries, could desire, after entrusting him with the whole story of her hopes and affections, that the truth should be known; and his was a crime against which no evidence can be brought; for who could describe the tender nothings—the refined insinuations—the looks which say everything and mean nothing—the wordless language of the eyes, with which an undeclared love may be safely and yet obviously professed? What but a smile of ridicule or of censure could attend on such a detail of "unutterable things?" But with Louis De Crespigny nothing was unutterable; for he could say and unsay the same things two hundred times, and they always seemed to carry as much or as little weight as he pleased at the moment, while he entered society as a school-boy rushes into a garden, eagerly to pursue the brilliant insects fluttering in the sunbeams, ready to crush and injure them all for his momentary diversion, and yet on his guard to retreat in good order, should there appear to be the slightest danger of annoyance or discomfort to himself.
It was impossible to pass an hour in the society of Sir Arthur Dunbar, without seeing much to admire, and much also to love,—there was a sturdy, resolute, old-fashioned sense of honor in all his actions, tempered by the kindest and most considerate attention to the feelings, as well as to the interest of all with whom he might be associated, and his sentiments were tinctured by a generous liberality, only limited in action by the rigid restraints consequent on a very narrow income, which he had never been known to exceed, though he was often heard jocularly to remark, that the surplus, after his yearly accounts were paid, would scarcely buy him a pair of gloves.
Though the fire of Sir Arthur's eyes had been quenched by approaching blindness, and his weather-beaten countenance had been scarred in battle, and hardened by facing every tempest which had blown for half a century, yet his aspect had an air of habitual distinction and conscious dignity which commanded instant respect. There was an energy in the expression of his feelings, and a straightforward pursuit of what he thought right in all his actions, which gave him a singular influence over the affections and the conduct of those with whom he wished to associate, and the admirable use he made of which no one afterwards ever had cause to regret. His early life had been one full of action and of vigorous exertion, seeking, with old-fashioned patriotism, the honor of his country, more than the promotion of his own interests; but in advanced years, when no longer able publicly to distinguish himself, he directed his time and talents to the diffusion of happiness at home, and to a zealous, diligent, and humble preparation for that long and quiet home to which he believed himself rapidly approaching, and which he contemplated with the best of all philosophy,—that of a truly devoted Christian.
With all the blunt frankness of his sailor-like manner, Sir Arthur could nevertheless testify an almost feminine gentleness and sympathy towards the unfortunate. He was often discovered to have exerted clandestinely a degree of activity and zeal in serving the needy and desolate, which to a mind less eager and generous, would have seemed almost incredible,—he never lacerated the feelings of those who came to him for comfort, by attempting to convince the sufferer, as most people begin by doing, on such occasions, that the misfortune, whatever it be, is all his own fault,—and he was quite as ready, as well as better pleased, to rejoice with those that rejoiced, than to weep with those that wept, without ever, at any period of life, having found a place for envy in his kindest of hearts, which
"Turn'd at the touch of joy or woe,And turning trembled too."
"Turn'd at the touch of joy or woe,And turning trembled too."
"Turn'd at the touch of joy or woe,
And turning trembled too."
With a good humored smile at his own credulity in having believed that Louis De Crespigny could ever be serious in proposing to sacrifice a day of his gay and busy life, to a prosing tete-a-tete on the sea-beach with an old man like himself, Sir Arthur dismissed the subject from his thoughts, and finally relinquished all hope of seeing his young friend, after a short soliloquy, in which he ended, by slyly hoping that the gay Cornet would never cause those who might feel it more, to regret his having jilted them.
Not many days following, the Admiral had retired at his usual early hour to bed, and after some time passed in profound repose, he was suddenly startled into wakefulness at the dawn of day, while the watchman was calling the hour of "Past four o'clock," by a loud and vehement knocking at the front-door of his house, accompanied by the most fearful and vociferous out-cries of "murder!" It was the sharp, shrill tone of a woman in the agony of fear, becoming more and more vehement at every repetition of the cry, while Sir Arthur dressed with the rapidity of a practised seaman, and hurried down stairs, where he found his maid-of-all-work, and his man-of-all-work, already assembled in breathless consternation round a trembling, terrified-looking servant girl, whose eyes were gleaming with an expression of frantic alarm, while, from her incoherent exclamations, Sir Arthur could only gather that some act of unutterable horror had been perpetrated in an opposite house, the windows of which were all partially closed, except one in the upper story, which was wide open, and seemed to be much broken and shattered.
Without waiting another moment to investigate the business, Sir Arthur strode across the street, hurried in at the open door, and guided by a momentary cry of childish distress, he mounted the staircase, with an activity beyond his years, three steps at a time, and precipitately entered the nearest room he could find. There he paused for a moment on finding himself in a splendidly-furnished bed-room, adorned with a degree of taste and elegance, far excelling what was customary in so obscure-looking a lodging, and the Admiral was about hastily to withdraw, when he became suddenly transfixed to the spot, and his eye seemed perfectly blasted by the spectacle which met his agitated and astonished gaze, while several moments elapsed before he had nerve to advance, and ascertain the reality of a scene, which filled him with horror.
On a magnificent couch, the rich coverlet of which was drenched in blood, that had sprinkled the floor, and spouted to the very roof of the room, lay the cold stiffened corpse of a young female, whose head seemed to have been nearly severed from her body, while a violent contusion appeared upon her forehead. The wrist of her right hand, with which she had probably attempted to defend herself, had also been deeply cut, and in her hand she grasped a quantity of dark hair, which seemed to have been torn from the head of her assassin in the struggle for life. Her teeth were clenched, and her eye-balls were starting from their sockets with a look of agonised fear, most appalling to behold, and her long fair hair which lay in disordered billows on her shoulders, were matted with gore.
A table near the bed had been overturned and broken,—a knife of very peculiar form, bent and distorted, lay conspicuously upon the pillow, as if placed there on purpose to attract notice, and the carpet, on which a pool of congealed blood had gathered, was likewise strewed with money, rings, bijouterie, trinkets, and plate.
Nestled in a little crib, close beside the murdered woman, but plunged in a slumber so profound, that it could not be natural, slept undisturbed and uninjured, a lovely boy of about eight years old. His head rested on his arm, and a clustering profusion of jetty black hair fell over his blooming countenance, in which there was a look of almost death-like repose. Awakened with the utmost difficulty by Sir Arthur, the child, who appeared to be of wondrous beauty, opened for a moment, a pair of bright blue, star-like eyes, and with a cry of terror, called for his mother, but a moment afterwards, overcome by irresistible drowsiness, his rosy cheek dropped upon the pillow, his heavy eyes were closed, and he relapsed into the same strange, mysterious insensibility as before.
It was a fearful sight, that young mother, with her look of ghastly agony turned towards the ruddy healthful countenance of her child in his peaceful slumbers, and it was evident that her last thought had been for him, as his clothes were still convulsively held in her left hand, while a vain attempt had obviously been made to tear them asunder,—many deep cuts being visible on the child's night-gown, though his person had been left uninjured.
Sir Arthur compassionately snatched the boy up in his arms, to hurry him away from the dreadful scene, and called the watchman, who instantly raised an alarm, and summoned the whole neighborhood to his assistance, when before ten minutes had elapsed, the room was filled with a crowd of agitated spectators, scared by the tremendous event, and crowding around the bed in every attitude of astonishment, terror, and commiseration, uttering exclamations of alarm, gazing helplessly at the frightful spectacle, and forming a thousand conjectures respecting the tragical event, instead of attempting to give any rational assistance.
"Not a moment is to be lost!" said Sir Arthur, in the steady authoritive tone of one accustomed in great emergencies, to command, "Where are the other servants?" asked he, turning to the girl who had first given an alarm, "and where is your master?"
"I have no master, Sir!" replied she in a low incoherent whisper. "I think the lady was not married; but perhaps, Sir, she might be! A gentleman called here last week."
"What was he like?" asked Sir Arthur, earnestly.
"A sort of clergyman, or gentleman, Sir! I don't know nothing about him, but he visited sometimes at this here house. No good ever came of it though, for my poor young mistress was always in sore distress after he'd be gone away. Last time there be much loud talking and argufying in the parlor, but it was none of my business to listen. I never pays no attention to what the quality says!"
"Here is a most disastrous business!" exclaimed Sir Arthur, in a deep and solemn tone, while he glanced at the crowd of white, livid, ashy faces, collected around him. "Let us remember, my friends, that every trifle we can observe here, may be of the utmost importance in bringing this dreadful mystery to light. Touch nothing, but have all your eyes about you to detect what you can, and let us instantly search the house."
With the little boy in his arms, who had awakened, bewildered and terrified by the sight of so many strangers, Sir Arthur, followed by the whole troop of spectators, who huddled together with evident symptoms of fearful apprehension, proceeded minutely to scrutinize the whole house.
In one apartment on the garret floor, belonging, as the terrified housemaid declared, to a person who had been taken in, she believed out of charity, to teach the little boy, the bed was disordered, as if the sleeper, when hastily rising, had thrown the bed-clothes almost upon the floor. The window-frame was broken to shivers, by some one violently forcing his way out; but no other sign appeared of the room having been inhabited. Not an article of clothing could be found in the drawers; not a book or a paper; and the search was about to be abandoned, when Sir Arthur perceived in an obscure corner of the room, a man's glove, stained with blood, and a red silk handkerchief, from which the initials had evidently been erased with great care, though he hoped that some one more accustomed to such investigations might yet be able to trace them.
The next room which Sir Arthur attempted to enter had the door double-locked; and though the party which accompanied him made a noise of knocking and hammering that might have raised the dead, no answer was returned, till at length, losing all patience, they broke it open, and impetuously rushed forward, all gazing eagerly around, as if they expected an immediatedenouementof the mystery to take place; but some of those who were foremost shrunk back in astonishment, and hastily made way for Sir Arthur, while the servant girl earnestly whispered in his ear, with a look of anxiety and alarm, "This is Sarah Davenport's room! the child's maid! Better not disturb her, Sir! She is sometimes hardly right in her mind I think!"
When Sir Arthur, disregarding the simple girl's warning, advanced, he perceived with surprise a very young woman, scarcely twenty, who started up in bed, with a look of bewildered perplexity, as he approached, asking in accents of tremulous alarm, what had occurred to cause this extraordinary disturbance. Her cheek was of an ashy paleness, her very lips were blanched, and her voice sounded husky and hollow with agitation; but all this might be attributed to so sudden an inroad of strangers, while again and again she asked with quivering accents, whether any accident had occurred, and why they all appeared so alarmed.
"At all events, my darling boy is safe!" added she, holding out her arms to the child, who instantly recoiled from her, with looks of unequivocal terror, and hiding his face on the shoulder of Sir Arthur, he sobbed aloud with a degree of passionate grief and agitation which seemed almost beyond his years. The observant eye of Sir Arthur perceived that a dark scowl of malignity flitted for a moment across the beautiful features of Sarah, whose brow became singularly contracted over her flashing eyes; but making an effort instantly to recover herself, she averted her countenance, and added in a subdued voice of assumed tranquillity, "The child never knows me in a cap! I forgot to take it off, but the hurry of seeing so many strangers has confused me!"
In an instant she snatched off her night-cap, when her shoulders and neck became covered with a cloud of dark massy ringlets, floating down below her waist, and shading her pallid countenance, which had assumed an expression of livid horror, and unnatural wildness. "Let him come to me now!" added she again, stretching out her arms with a ghastly smile; but the boy struggled more vehemently than before, and clung to Sir Arthur with a tenacity and confidence, which deeply touched the old veteran's heart, who tried to soothe the terrified child by every endearment which his kind nature could suggest, while his attention was nevertheless enchained by observing the rigid, marble look of the young woman's countenance; the dragged and corpse-like appearance which stole over her features, as if she had suffered a stroke of paralysis.
"You have been frightened enough already, poor boy!" said Sir Arthur, soothingly. "No one shall hurt you! With me at least you are safe! Stay where you are, and do not be alarmed! No one shall touch you but myself!"
The child seemed to understand Sir Arthur's promise of protection, and his head drooped sleepily down, while his eyes again closed in that deep unnatural slumber, from which he had been with so much difficulty aroused, till at length,
"Now like a shutting flower, the senses close,And on him lies the beauty of repose."
"Now like a shutting flower, the senses close,And on him lies the beauty of repose."
"Now like a shutting flower, the senses close,
And on him lies the beauty of repose."
"Young woman!" said Sir Arthur, bending a look of penetrating scrutiny on Sarah Davenport, "how came you to be quietly asleep, and partly dressed too! while your mistress was murdered in the room immediately below! Did you hear no disturbance? Was no alarm given?"
"My mistress!" exclaimed Sarah, clasping her hands in an attitude of astonishment, and speaking as if every word would choke her, though not a muscle of her face was altered from the fixed and rigid look it had previously worn. "Oh! what will become of me!"
"What will become of you!" exclaimed Sir Arthur sternly, fixing his penetrating eye upon her. "Think rather of your murdered mistress! Come, come, girl! you performed that start very well; but I know good acting! I greatly fear you are more concerned in this horrid business than we at first suspected, and much more than you would wish to acknowledge. Get up instantly, and follow me!"
There was something fearful and appalling in the silence which reigned among the many persons who had gathered around, when Sarah, as a prisoner, was led into the chamber of death. A look of shuddering horror distorted for a moment her pale and haggard countenance, when she was unwillingly drawn forward to the place where her deceased mistress lay, and Sir Arthur, with silent solemnity, pointed to the ghastly spectacle. His eyes were intensely and most mournfully fixed on the prisoner's sullen and nearly livid countenance, while she silently clung to a chair to support herself.
Sarah appeared neither startled nor astonished after the first thrill of horror, but with a cold stony look of almost preternatural calmness, she muttered to herself in a low tone, which became nevertheless distinctly audible to all the spectators, and was evidently meant to be heard,—
"Why am I brought here! I know nothing, about this! The poor lady has committed suicide! No wonder! She often wished herself dead! She had a miserable life of it, and has got rest at last! I wish!" added Sarah suddenly, with vehement, almost frantic energy, "O how I wish that I could change places with her! O that I could be that cold, senseless image, without memory or feeling, without hope or fear, shut up from living wretchedness in everlasting sleep!"
"Let us hope that the Almighty has in mercy received her never-dying soul, and that in His own good time He will reveal the guilty assassins who sent her so suddenly to judgment," said Sir Arthur solemnly. "Unburden your own mind now, by confessing all, and be assured it will relieve the agony you are so evidently suffering. Murder is like fire, it cannot be smothered long."
"I know nothing! What could I know!" replied Sarah hurriedly. "She has destroyed herself, or thieves have broken into the house and robbed her. Could I help that?"
"No one has broken into this house," replied Sir Arthur, scanning the expression of her fixed and apparently unalterable features. "But you can perhaps tell us who escaped by that shattered window above? Not a lock is broken—not a door is injured—not a trinket seems missing, among the many scattered around the room. Here is money in abundance, if gold had been the inducement! Some other motive has provoked this crime—jealousy perhaps—or revenge——"
At the last word an angry hectic rushed over the face, arms, and neck of the prisoner, and her eye glittered for a moment with an unnatural fire, which rapidly faded away, leaving her as pale and death-like as the corpse beside which she stood, and on which her eye now rested with a look of cold and passionless indifference.
"It was only yesterday that she wished herself dead! this is her own doing!" said Sarah, turning away. "Why am I brought here! This is too dreadful! too shocking! It will drive me mad—it will! it will!" added she, with rising agitation; and then suddenly bursting in a hideous maniacal laugh, which rang with fearful sound through the gloomy chamber, and caused the horror-struck spectators to fall hastily back, "I would have saved her! I would! What woman ever sheds blood! but it was too late! I would have saved her, as I saved the child; but it was done—kill me! kill me! if you have any mercy, let me die! let me hide myself in the grave for ever!" Saying these words, with a scream of agony, she fell upon the floor in violent convulsions, from which it was nearly an hour before she entirely recovered, when faint, weak, and exhausted, Sir Arthur suggested that she could be carried to bed; but before she left the room, anxious, if possible, to elucidate the mystery, and to gain some clue for pursuing the actual murderer, he detained Sarah during a moment, and desired that a glass of water might be brought for her, hoping that the violent emotion she had betrayed might lead her to a full confession. Laying his hand then upon her arm, in tones of deep and awful solemnity, he looked at her, and pointed once more to the corpse, saying,—
"By a dark and harrowing crime those lips are sealed in the silence of death! What a tale they could disclose, if they might but once describe all that passed in this room a few hours ago! Those very walls have echoed this very night to her cries! You alone seem able to throw any light upon the horrid deed. You could tell all, or I am greatly mistaken. We shall yet know, at the day of judgment, if not sooner, how this fearful act was done. Consider, Sarah Davenport, that undying remorse will pursue you through life, and be the fitting tenant of your soul, unless by timely repentance you avert the fearful doom, and hereafter your heart will be tortured by the pangs of eternal despair. Unfortunate woman! consider now, or during the long period of your approaching imprisonment, whether it be better to repent and confess at once, or to confess and suffer everlastingly."
Not a word or look gave evidence that Sarah so much as heard Sir Arthur speak. Her large eyes were vacantly fixed on the ground, her hands were firmly clenched, and her teeth were set with an air of resolute determination, when, after a silence of several minutes, during which her very stillness was frightful, supported by some of the strangers around, she walked with almost mechanical unconsciousness out of the room.
Again and again the house was searched that day—the very floors and wainscots torn up; but not a trace could be discovered to throw light upon the cause or circumstances of this disastrous event; and equally remarkable was it, that no hint could be obtained of who or what the murdered lady had been. There were books on the table in various languages, but not one retained any name written on the boards, though it was evident that on some a coat of arms had once been pasted, and subsequently defaced. Not a letter or paper could be found with either signature or direction, though one or two notes were discovered beneath the pillow of the bed, all anonymous, but written in a similar hand, and containing nothing that could identify the writer; and several sketches of the child, beautifully executed in various attitudes, were found in a portfolio, beside which were written many simple verses, containing the most fervent expressions of tender affection and anxious solicitude for the boy, and the most passionate bursts of melancholy, but all conceived in general terms, which baffled the researches of curiosity.
"This hand is disguised, yet surely I have seen it before," said Sir Arthur, musingly examining the anonymous notes, which related chiefly to remittances of money. "The face of that appalling spectacle sometimes seems also familiar to me. Have I not met with it already, or is this only the delusion of an excited mind? These deep and prominent eyelids—the small aquiline nose—the delicately-pencilled eye-brows—and that month of perfect grace and beauty, which seems still almost to speak without a tongue, in the language of heart-broken misery, telling of deceived affections—of blighted hopes—of unpitied and solitary tears."
Sir Arthur seated himself on a chair beside the couch for some moments in agitated reflection, vainly endeavoring to collect his thoughts, and form them into some tangible remembrance. "It is a strange and bewildering sensation, to look at the mute features of this death-like image, and to feel as if once she had been known to me in her days of youth and bloom. A vague harassing perplexity besets me in trying to realize the floating and flickering remembrance, which dimly mock my efforts to catch them. It seems like starting out on a dark night, and trying to distinguish some busy scene, where figures and lights appear, and vanish again before they can be identified. Where have we met before? Surely in some dream of former days I once beheld those fixed and glassy eyes lighted up with intelligence! but my treacherous memory will not help me—it recalls enough to torture me with perplexity, and not enough to be of any actual avail."
Sir Arthur wearied himself with intense efforts to identify the lineaments before him, but in vain. They were lovely indeed, and many a stranger came likewise to try whether they could be recognised, but without success. The fearful story circulated like wild-fire—the excitement and curiosity it produced became intense; but not a gleam of light was thrown upon the dark and mysterious event.
Among the many who hurried to behold the murdered woman before her remains were disturbed, two gentlemen arrived one evening after dusk, and having ascertained that neither the Admiral nor any other stranger was in the house, they gave Sir Arthur's servant, Martin, who was in attendance, a handsome donation, and desiring him not to follow, hurried up stairs, and remained in the room alone for several minutes. Both were much muffled up, and evidently avoided any scrutiny of their countenances; but they seemed greatly agitated on leaving the room; and as they hastened past Martin, and threw themselves into a hackney coach which awaited them at some distance, one of the party had appeared so overcome, that he could not walk without support. Much conjecture was aroused by this incident, which seemed to increase the mystery and interest attached to the melancholy circumstances, and not a doubt could be entertained that these untimely visitors had a more than common connection with the affair, but of what nature, and to what degree, could only admit of very vague conjecture.
Nothing could exceed the active interest taken in all the proceedings by Sir Arthur, who seemed to forget all his years and infirmities, while keenly promoting the cause of truth and justice. Much as he had formerly bemoaned the trouble entailed upon him by deceased friends, many of whom had bequeathed their estates and children to his guardianship, he felt on this occasion, a pity so intense, for the nameless, friendless, and helpless boy, thus unexpectedly and tragically thrown on his compassion, that he publicly pledged himself to harbor and protect the child in the mean time, trusting that some connections might at last be found, to whom he more naturally belonged. "Life has had a mournful commencement for him, poor boy! His days are dark, and his friends are few," said Sir Arthur, with a strong emotion of pity, "but we must hope for the best hereafter, and do the best that can be done in the mean time, trusting that a wise Providence, who cast him on my care and kindness, will also watch over his future welfare."
On the night previous to that appointed by Sir Arthur for committing to the grave the last remains of the murdered lady, he who had so often faced death in every form, and "kiss'd the mouth of a cannon in battle," yet felt himself awed and deeply affected in contemplating the solemn preparations for committing to the tomb one so young, so deeply injured, and so apparently unlamented. It was with mournful and mysterious wonder that he stood beside the corpse, and contemplated that mortal frame, from which the spirit had been so suddenly and so cruelly driven; and he could not but imagine the scenes of love and joy which those eyes had once probably looked upon—the busy thoughts that had hurried through that lifeless head—the warm affections that had flowed through that heart, now for ever at rest.
While yet his mind was dwelling with painful interest on all the thoughts which crowded through his fancy, Martin hastily entered the room, and in an agitated voice requested Sir Arthur's immediate presence in the entrance-hall, as some persons were there who had orders to communicate only with himself.
On arriving in the passage, Sir Arthur was astonished, and almost startled, to find several porters in the passage, carrying a coffin magnificently decorated, and covered with a velvet pall, on the summit of which was conspicuously placed a large brass plate, with the date of the murder engraved, and bearing no other inscription, but these two words in German characters—
My Wife.
"This is strange!" said Sir Arthur, turning anxiously to the men. "Who sent you here?"
"A gentleman left his orders with the undertaker, Sir. No questions were to be asked; and he paid for everything at once, leaving neither name nor direction," said the man who seemed to have charge of the business. "We know nothing of him; but he desired us to deliver this note into your own hands, and perhaps it may tell you more."
Sir Arthur hastily tore open the letter offered to him, giving an impatient glance at the handwriting, which was exactly similar to that of the anonymous notes he had already so carefully and so vainly scrutinized. He was astonished; and solemn as the occasion was, almost amused to observe that his name and direction had been carefully cut out of the newspaper paragraph which he quarrelled with some weeks before at the Club, and that this unknown correspondent, to prevent the possibility of his writing being detected by those who examined the outside, had pasted these printed letters on the cover, "Sir Arthur Dunbar, Portobello." The packet was sealed with a plain impression on black wax; the paper bore a broad black border; and there was an evident tremulousness in the pen which had inscribed these words:—
"Enclosed is the sum of £200, for the benefit of Sir Arthur Dunbar's adopted ward, Henry De Lancey. The same amount shall be transmitted annually, so long as no effort is made to trace from whence it originates; and the day he comes of age, it shall be increased to £500 per annum. The first attempt to find out his connections will be detected, and shall put a final period to all intercourse. The unfortunate woman was married to one who remained ignorant, till a few hours ago, of the circumstances attending her death. She disgraced his name, and abandoned his house; nevertheless her child may one day, perhaps, be acknowledged; and the whole expenses of his education shall be liberally defrayed, till he is grown up and has chosen a profession."
It was a strange, cold, heartless communication from a parent, without one expression of relenting affection, one word of solicitude for his happiness, or one expression of gratitude to Sir Arthur for taking upon himself so arduous a charge; but still it was to a certain extent most satisfactory, the Admiral being relieved of a great perplexity, by having thus ascertained in what rank of life the interesting boy should be educated, as he felt justified now in obtaining for him the highest cultivation, an advantage to which he attached the utmost importance, often repeating his favorite aphorism, that "principle is the helm, and learning the main-sail, which carries a young man forward in life; but both would be useless, unless the wind, which 'bloweth where it listeth,' be sent from Heaven to guide and direct him safely into harbor."
The day of trial at length arrived, and the court, from the roof to the floor, seemed one sea of faces, crowded together like the "studies of heads" on a painter's canvass. During the legal investigation, which was conducted with deep solemnity and anxious perseverance, the mystery became still deeper, and more inscrutable. No appearance of a robbery could be observed, except that the finger of the lady's hand, on which a wedding ring had probably been worn, was much bruised and discolored, as if, immediately after her decease, it had been violently torn off; and a vain attempt had evidently been made to snatch away a gold chain hung round her neck, to which was appended a small broken miniature frame, set with brilliants, and adorned with what seemed to represent a very antique coronet. The portrait which it once enclosed, had been, with obvious difficulty removed, as the marks were visible all round, of some sharp-pointed instrument having been inserted in the frame, to which there still adhered several broken fragments of glass.
Sarah Davenport, who had been fully committed for trial, on suspicion of being an accomplice, refused to give any references as to character, and was strongly suspected of habitually concealing her real name, and of more than once assuming those that were fictitious, as her clothes and linen appeared to be marked with various initials, but in not one case did they bear those that she pretended were her own. It was evident that she labored under a powerful, but forcibly-subdued excitement; yet, with a tone and manner externally cold and hard as Siberian ice, she persisted in professing her own perfect innocence, and her utter consciousness of anything that might by possibility lead to a discovery of the perpetrators. She coldly, and almost calmly, threw back glance for glance, on the spectators nearest her, who were keenly watching every turn of her countenance, while dark surmises, and fearful conjectures, were whispered in murmurs of horror on every side; but at length her eye wandered to a distant part of the court, when suddenly a livid paleness flashed upon her face—an indescribable but startling lustre glittered in her eyes—her whole frame shook, as in the coldest blast of winter, and with a suppressed groan of agony and fear, she bowed her head upon her hands, and sunk fainting upon the floor. At the same time, a man was observed hastily to leave the court, and, gliding with rapid steps through the narrow passages, disappeared, before any of those who stood near had presence of mind to stop him, or could even identify his appearance.
Nothing apparently touched the feelings of Sarah Davenport, except when a suspicion seemed to be implied that she meant to injure the boy; and when a question to this effect was put to her by the court, she wrung her hands and burst into tears, saying, in accents of piercing anguish, though with a shudder as if death were upon her, "No! oh, no! Who suspects that I would injure a hair of his head! He once loved me! Few—few but he, ever did!—none that have not afterwards given me reason to hate them! I am a solitary, lost, and desolate being; but let him not forget in after years, that I saved his life!—that I saved it at a risk you never can conceive!"
An impulse of mournful interest and astonishment ran through the assembled multitude, when they beheld the rare and singular beauty of the child, after he was led into court; and it seemed as if the spectators had ceased to breathe as soon as he began to answer some of the questions which were skilfully put, to draw out his recollections of past times, and especially the dark history of the last few weeks. He was at first shy and intimidated, but gradually regained an unexpected degree of self-possession, and spoke with a surprising degree of intelligence and distinctness of all he remembered.
The boy retained a faint recollection of having been awakened, on the night of the murder, by some violent scene of strife and horror; but his faculties had evidently been so benumbed by opiates, that no distinct impression remained; and to his own young mind, the whole seemed like a fearful dream, too dreadful to look back upon even yet, except with bewildering terror. He gave a clear account, however, of the last evening he had passed with his mother, of whom he spoke in accents of infantine affection, evidently unable yet to conceive that he should see her face no more.
An old gentleman, he said, had come into the room and spoken angrily to her; while, with astonishing precision, the boy acted over the whole scene, recapitulated some of the language they had used, and described how his mother had hung to him with frantic eagerness, saying she would promise anything, if she might only retain her child; how the stranger, who was very tall, and wore a black coat, had spoken again with angry vehemence before he left the room; and how his mother, when left alone, had prayed and wept over him with looks of agonized and desolate grief, until he had been carried away to bed by the maid, who administered some medicine to him, which she said the doctor had ordered.
He spoke much also of a large room, hung with pictures, in which his earliest days had been passed, and of a small dark apartment close beside it, into which he had often been precipitately hurried, apparently for concealment, and where toys and sweetmeats had been always provided to keep him quiet, while he was punished with the utmost severity, for making the slightest noise; and he still remembered with looks of apprehension, the gentleman dressed in black, who most frequently visited him there, and often caused his mother to weep bitterly.
Sarah Davenport was then recalled, and rigidly cross-examined, respecting the gentleman who had visited at the house; but she doggedly asserted her entire ignorance respecting his rank in life, or connections, and pertinaciously maintained that the lady's death had been her own voluntary act, and that the sleeping potion had been given to the boy by his mother's own imperative orders, as she did not herself know even what it contained.
During a long and anxious consultation of the jury, there was a hushed and intense silence in the court, so still and unbroken, that the breathing of an infant would have been audible, while every eye perused the countenance of the prisoner, with an intensity that brought a hectic flush, burning like fire, upon her cheek, and she gazed around with a glance of anger that caused her beauty for the moment to look like that of a fiend or a fury.
At length, after arduously scrutinizing every atom of evidence that could be gathered, the jury, though morally certain of the prisoner's being an accomplice in the crime, felt unwillingly obliged to bring in a verdict of "not proven," and she was immediately liberated, after which, amidst the yells, jeers, and execrations of the populace who were convinced of her criminality, she hurried from the court, and was seen no more.
Nothing is half so attractive as a mystery, and many crowded at first, with a temporary enthusiasm, to see the beautiful boy, so strangely bereaved, and so cruelly abandoned; but the interest and excitement of hearing and relating his story were soon superseded by greater wonders and fresher news. In a world where all are rushing on headlong in pursuit of novelty, and where events, great or small, are speedily hurried into one common oblivion, people were tired at last of thinking or talking about young Henry and his concerns.
Every one of the Admiral's friends hinted that he could have managed the whole affair ten times better than Sir Arthur; all blamed him for many things, and praised him for very few; the Admiral was wondered at, criticised, discussed, admired, pitied, and censured, more than he remembered to have been for many years before; and the givers of advice were lavish of propositions and objections, all which were borne by their venerable friend with good-humored indifference, whether adopted or not. At length some perfectly new murders from London came on the tapis in society; those who liked reading in the Jack Sheppard style were satiated with studies from the life; the Mording Post assumed a terrifying interest; and the lady of fashion who consulted Sir Henry Halford about her appetite, because she could no longer enjoy her murders and robberies at breakfast, would have thought, when they were coming out hot and hot every week, that it was a wearisome repetition to speculate another hour upon a murder nearly a month old.
In short, "the Portobello story" ceased to be told or listened to. Henry had had his day. There is no such thing now as a nine days' wonder, because nothing lasts so long. Young De Lancey had been talked of as much as any reasonable being could expect to be talked of; and now it was universally voted a bore whenever the subject occurred in conversation; for, as Lady Towercliffe remarked, with a very long-drawn yawn, when, for the last time, it was alluded to in her presence, "It was a shocking, barbarous, and really startling affair; but all stories should be allowed to die out like an echo, which grows fainter and fainter at every repetition. One cannot be for ever talking of the same thing."
When Henry De Lancey lost one parent, he certainly gained another in Sir Arthur, who often afterwards remarked, that in no instance could virtue be more obviously its own parent, than in the case of any kindness he had shown to this fascinating boy, whose gay, joyous spirits became a source of perpetual amusement to him, while the Admiral seemed to derive new life from watching the frolicsome gambols of his young companion, occasionally enlivened by the gleeful vivacity of his niece Marion, when she escaped a single day from the trammels of school, bringing generally in her train two of her favorite juvenile companions, Clara Granville and Caroline Smythe, both several years older than herself.
On many occasions the sensibility of Henry De Lancey seemed already to have attained almost the depth and intensity of manhood, so strong were the bursts of natural feeling with which he occasionally spoke or acted, while it was deeply affecting to trace throughout the extraordinary progress thus early made in his education, the careful culture given to his remarkable abilities—the pains bestowed by his solitary parent to strengthen his mind for future difficulties and sorrows, the earliest and worst of which she could so little have foreseen or apprehended.
With considerable thoughtfulness of character, however, and natural integrity of mind, which Sir Arthur was delighted from the first to remark, yet, when the merry group of young friends assembled together on the shore of Portobello, building houses of sand, or running eagerly in search of shells, it would have been difficult to say which was the most carelessly happy, while the Admiral seemed to borrow their young spirits for the time, and gazed with ceaseless delight on those joyous countenances, radiant with laughter and smiles, which were archly turned towards their aged playmate, sometimes with a challenge to run after them, or lighted up with smiles of affection when they brought him a bouquet of his favorite flowers, torn roughly from the stems, and crumpled in their little hands.
Sir Arthur often seemed almost ashamed to betray the engrossing interest and delight he felt in his young companion, who gained every day a stronger hold upon his affections, and it appeared as if he were anxious to forget that a time had ever existed when the playful and interesting boy was unknown to his heart; but a circumstance occurred, not long after Henry's adoption, which brought painfully to mind, with greatly increased solicitude, the fearful mystery that hung over his origin, proving also that danger still threatened him from some unforeseen quarter.
While the whole party of his young guests were noisily engaged on the shore in a game at hide-and-seek, one day in the month of July, Sir Arthur had seated himself on a bench within sight of them, sometimes watching their gambols with pleasure, and frequently conning over a newspaper, which proved by undeniable and satisfactory demonstration, that the country was entirely ruined—that the Government was coming to an end—that the Houses of Lords and Commons would be completely demolished—that the ministry had not another day to exist—and, as a grand climax, that anarchy, confusion, bankruptcy, and revolution, were about finally to drop their extinguisher over Great Britain. Sir Arthur had read the same thing in different words every day during fifty years, and under twenty varied administrations; yet still the wonder grew, how a constitution so mismanaged could so long survive, and that when all was wrong at the head of the country, it still had a leg to stand on. The Admiral's patriotic meditations had been several times interrupted by repeated complaints from the little girls, that Henry had hid himself so well, that they could not possibly find him; but he was too much pre-occupied to give the subject much attention, till at length Martin announced that the children's dinner had waited some time, and that still the boy was not to be found, though his companions had been searching for him at least half an hour.
Upon hearing this, Sir Arthur hastily started up, making a considerable expenditure of energetic and wondrous explanations, while he gazed around with increasing surprise at the wide waste of sand, like an Arabian desert, with which he was on every side encompassed, and where it seemed to him as if a mouse could not be long concealed.
A hasty and most anxious search was instantly commenced in the garden, while Sir Arthur and Martin shouted the name of Henry at the full pitch of their voices, but in vain; not a sound was heard in reply, nor was there a spot unexamined in which he could by possibility be lurking.
The Admiral now became seriously alarmed at so unaccountable a disappearance, especially when the child's gardening tools, with which he had been last observed, were found mutilated and broken, at a great distance, on the beach—one of his shoes had fallen off close to the water, and his hat lay nearly buried in the tide. Sir Arthur instantly summoned the police to his aid, but the search continued fruitless, till at length the dreadful conjecture became more and more probable, that Henry must have rashly ventured into the water, and been washed away by the waves—in pursuance of which apprehension Sir Arthur summoned more assistance, that the water might instantly be dragged.
Martin, meantime, no less active than his master, had accidentally met a stranger on the beach, who mentioned, on hearing of his alarm, that on the road to Leith, half an hour before, he had observed a boy struggling and screaming in the arms of a female, dressed like a nursery-maid, who complained loudly that the child would not go home, when a young man, rather strangely dressed, and of very singular appearance, had instantly offered his assistance, and carried him forcibly onwards. This gentleman said he had stopped the woman to remonstrate with her on using the boy so roughly, as a cap was drawn over his eyes, and he seemed to suffer agonies of terror, sobbing convulsively, and trembling in every limb; but the man had answered in reply, with a strong Irish accent, that he would see the child safe to his friends, and let no one do the poor boy "a taste of harm." The stranger added indifferently, that it was no affair of his, therefore he ceased to interfere; but he thought both the man and the woman had a very bad expression, and he would not trust either of them with his dog for an hour, to use it kindly.
Without wasting time in returning to communicate what he had heard, Martin hurried forward to Leith, where, with reckless speed and untiring diligence, he threaded all the narrow streets, and elbowed his way among carts, carriages, parcels, and passengers, till at length he reached the pier, to which he had been so eagerly aiming his steps. At its farthest point stood a smoking steam-boat in full boil, while men and women, boxes, packages, bags, and trunks were pouring in; and at length, as he breathlessly approached within some hundred yards, an arbitrary little bell was rung, to summon stragglers on board, and to hurry stragglers away.
A single plank, connecting the steam-boat with the pier, was on the point of being withdrawn, when Martin approached; and while he paused, in momentary hesitation whether to pursue his almost hopeless search, the steward peremptorily desired him to hasten on board instantly, if he were coming at all, as not a moment more could be lost.
At this moment a cry, almost amounting to a scream of childish joy, became audible on the deck—a young boy was seen vehemently struggling in the arms of a female; and in an instant, pursued by a man who vainly endeavored to overtake him, he rushed past the steward, ran across the temporary bridge, and clasped Martin round the knees, exclaiming, with eager incoherent exclamations of almost hysterical delight, "Take me, Martin! take me! O let me go home to Sir Arthur! I did not come away without leave! I did not, indeed! That naughty, horrid woman forced me! She tied a cap over my face, and would not let me go back! I have been so frightened and so sorry," added the child, bursting into tears, and sobbing as if his heart would break; "I thought Sir Arthur would be angry, and I thought, perhaps, I would never see him again! O take me home, Martin! take me home! and let me never see these people again!"
The boy put his hand, with an air of happy confidence and security into that of Martin, who snatched him up in his arms, with a thousand expressions of joyful surprise; but a moment afterwards, when he recollected himself, his first impulse was to secure the culprits who had decoyed Henry away, and to deliver them up to a magistrate for examination. With this intention, he looked hastily around, intending to cause their immediate apprehension; but the steam-boat had sailed off; and all the gesticulations he could make to bring them back only caused the steward laughingly to shake his head, thinking that Martin had merely missed his passage, as he deserved, for not showing more alacrity in obeying his injunctions to embark.
At Portobello, meantime, Sir Arthur had suffered agonies of grief, and even of self-reproach, thinking he had too securely relied on the safety of his young protege; and with a heavy heart he was still directing his steps, and conducting his assistants to the most probable places for finding the child's body, having already ordered his maid to have everything in readiness, in case a chance remained of his being restored to life, when he felt a gentle pull at the skirt of his coat, and, on looking down, he uttered a volley of joyful exclamations, on beholding the radiant countenance of Henry, whom he clasped in his arms with unutterable joy. While Martin and the boy himself gave each his own history of the strange adventure, Sir Arthur walked up and down in a state of irrepressible irritation, clenching his teeth, and grasping his walking-stick firmly in his hand, as if about to wreak instant vengeance on the miscreants. At length, after exhausting his indignation, he took Henry again in his arms, declaring he would never for a moment lose sight of him again.
Nothing in Henry's narrative threw the slightest gleam of light on the plans or intentions of the strange man and woman, which seemed destined to remain buried in impenetrable obscurity. They had evidently been accomplices in decoying him from home; and the boy had brought away from the steam-boat a small book which they had given him, full of ribald songs and profane jests, but covered with magnificent boards, and clasped with silver hinges, which seemed to have once belonged to some ancient missal, and still retained in the inside a collection of texts beautifully written in a very remarkable hand, which seemed to be that of a highly-educated female.