There are few sensations that affect the heart of man which are more impressive, I might almost say sublime, than those which he feels when he wakes from the first sleep that is afforded to him after strange and stirring events, when some vast change has been effected, when some great result has been achieved. During that dark and terrible night--that night so full of joy and pain, which we have spoken of in the last chapter, Morley Ernstein obtained but little refreshing repose. Much confusion and agitation took place in his own dwelling after he returned thither with Helen Barham; and the emotions of joy, we all know, are not less exciting than even those of grief.
The meeting between Juliet and Helen was in itself affecting to both, and equally so to him who witnessed it; but Helen Barham was the same as she had always been--generous and enthusiastic in her affections, and thinking far less of herself than others. When Morley, indeed, led her into the room where Juliet waited his return with anxious expectation, her heart fluttered, and her lips murmured a few words which might perhaps be prayer; but she cast her arms round her friend, and told her all the terror and the anguish she had felt while uncertain of her fate upon the sea.
"But now," she added, after the events which had just taken place upon the hill had been related to their fair auditor--"from all I see, and from a few words which he has spoken, dear Juliet, I believe I may thank God, not only for saving you from destruction, but for restoring you fully to him towards whom I am such a debtor. To see you two happy will be the greatest of happiness to me, for, indeed, I may well say that I love you both, better than any beings on this earth; and I am very sure, as no one can ever confer such benefits upon me as you have done, so will no one ever arise even to share in that affection which is your due from me."
In conversation such as this, and in enquiries, explanations, and arrangements, two or three hours passed after Morley's return, and it wanted but a short time of the dawn when he laid his head down to rest. Thought occupied that space, and the sky was growing grey with the approach of daylight, when sleep fell upon the young Englishman's eyes. He slept for about two hours, then rose, and went out to gaze over the sea. All was calm and tranquil. The storm which had swept the waters on the preceding evening had passed away; sunshine, and brightness, and tranquillity, had returned; and Morley could not help finding a symbol in the atmospheric changes of that night, of the workings of his own fate, which had just taken place. He felt that a tempest had swept over him, had passed, and had left a calm to come back again and soothe his heart. He raised his voice to God, and thanked him for the infinity of his mercies.
Morley Ernstein had yet more to be grateful for than perhaps he already knew; but he was quite satisfied with his fate, and sought to enquire no farther. He comprehended easily how, with rash haste, he had concluded that Juliet had become Lady Clavering, and would have asked no farther questions on a subject, the very memory of which was painful to him, had not the good Countess herself, with her usual kindly simplicity, thought it right to explain to her young friend--as soon as she could get down, on the day following the shipwreck--all the reasons and motives of her marriage with Lord Clavering.
"I dare say you, my dear Morley," she said, "and a great number of other people, thought it a very silly thing for an old woman like myself to do, and perhaps for my good lord also; but we have known each other for some thirty years, and have seen each other at periods of great grief for the loss of those we loved better than we shall ever love again. We both found ourselves somewhat solitary in life; and therefore, when I saw that Juliet here had made up her mind to give her hand to you, I listened to the proposal of Lord Clavering, though I had some time before hesitated to agree to it. You may be very sure, my dear Morley, that neither wealth nor station was my object; for though my income was a very limited one, I always made it answer my purposes, and, at all events, it was as great as my ambition."
"Had you waited a little," said Morley, looking at Juliet with a smile, "your fortune would have been much increased."
Lady Clavering was surprised, but the tale was soon told, and Adam Gray himself sent for to explain the whole. He now repeated what he had said the night before; but as a proof of his assertions, had produced a paper which the widow of Sergeant More had signed, as the reader may recollect, when she was journeying over with him and her daughter to Doncaster. By this she acknowledged that, shortly after her arrival in England, whither she had come after leaving her husband with the army, she had taken up her abode in a small Yorkshire village, between Morley Court and Yelverly, with three children of her own, and one infant, the daughter of an officer in the Austrian service, which she had brought from the Continent, leaving its father dying, and its mother dead. She received some kindness from the father of Sir Morley Ernstein on her first arrival, and he had seen the infant she brought. But before she had been a week in the cottage she inhabited, Mr. Carr himself came down one night in haste, and concluded with her a bargain, by which, for the sum of two hundred pounds, and the promise of future protection and support, she gave up to him the infant which she had brought to England, and taking the dead child in its place, pretended that her little charge had fallen sick and expired. The motive assigned by Mr. Carr for his part of this proceeding was, that his wife would go distracted if she found her child had died. But Mrs. More soon began to hear rumours of a different sort; Sir Morley Ernstein's father came down to her, and with kindly, though serious admonitions, besought her to tell the truth in regard to the death of the child, as a considerable property was at stake. Mr. Carr himself ultimately acknowledged the fact to her; but by payment of a second sum, and obtaining her husband's promotion, induced her to go with Sergeant More to India, where she remained for eighteen or nineteen years.
Such were the contents of the paper which Adam Gray now read, but Jane Martin, he said, possessed all the more important documents, and she was soon brought from Sorrento, to throw what light she could upon the case. She produced four curious documents, perfectly sufficient to confirm all that the old man had asserted. The first, was another clear statement by Mrs. More herself precisely similar in all material points to the other: it was drawn up by her own hand, signed and witnessed. The next, was an acknowledgment of the facts which she had extracted from Mr. Carr before she would consent to leave England. The third, was a certificate in German of the birth of Juliet Willoughby; and the fourth, a letter from her father, Captain Willoughby, to the rector of some parish in Yorkshire, recommending the child to his care, and begging him to interest the writer's elder brother in the poor orphan. On this letter was written, in Mrs. More's hand--"The rector had died of the fever before I got to England."
"Shew me those two last papers," cried Lady Clavering, as Morley read them aloud; "let me see them, Morley--let me see them! Juliet, my dear child," she continued, casting her arms around her, after she had read and re-read the papers, "if you have lost one father, you have found another--that Captain Willoughby is my husband!"
It were needless to trouble the reader with farther explanations, or to ask his permission, like the vanquished party after a battle, to bury our dead. If he will turn to the first part of this volume, he will see the reference made by Lord Clavering himself--which, probably, he skipped at the time, as being irrelevant to the history before him--to some of the circumstances of his early life, and I can afford him no farther information, not possessing any myself. Suffice it, that nobleman, on his arrival at Naples, about a fortnight afterwards, held Juliet to his heart, and wept over her as a long-lost child; and that without any tedious delay, he united his daughter to the man whom she had always loved.
For Morley, he was happier than even imagination, warmed by love and expectation, had been able to paint; and with Juliet by his side, let it be said, the good "Tenant of the heart" the high, the holy, and the pure--the spirit of the soul, maintained a perpetual sway over her more earthly comrade.
Some five or six years after the period of this tale, the two cottages, which we have described as seated in the little glen near Warmstone Castle, appeared thrown into one, decorated with shrubs and flowers, and, generally, with three or four rosy children running about the doors. From the little garden-gate every morning, half an hour after sun-rise, might be seen to ride forth a very powerful man, growing, perhaps, a little heavy withal, but mounted on a stout Yorkshire horse, well fitted to carry him. The labourers and tenants touched their hat to the steward; and, though with a wary and a watchful eye he perambulated the property, seeing that no injustice was done to his beloved mistress, yet all the people on the land declared that Mr. Martin was a kind, good man; that he was tender to the poor, charitable to all, liberal to the active and industrious, and, above all things, clement, and no way harsh to an unconfirmed wrong-doer; for he himself well knew, that, whatever magistrates or lawgivers may say,Mercy has power to reclaim.
And of her, the mistress of the mansion, what have we to tell? That Helen remained Helen Barham still, in mind, in character, as well as in name. If there was regret resting as a shade upon her mind, if there was disappointment amongst the memories of the heart, the pure, high spirit, veiled them from all eyes; and though I must not say shestruggled withthem--for there was nothing like contention in her breast, after Juliet and Morley were once united--yet sherepressed< br> all selfish feelings, and saw the happiness that their union produced, with a bright, though grave, tranquillity. She laid out for herself, from that moment, her course of life. In the fair and calm abode which seemed to have been prepared expressly for her, she passed her future years in diffusing happiness and sunshine round her. The cottage knew her step well; and a class above that found her a kind and indulgent lady, healing all wounds, reconciling all differences, and silencing clamour and complaint. It was very seldom throughout the whole neighbourhood, that sweet smile, and that soft voice, would not prevail, even where every harsher means had been tried in vain. She was a good neighbour, too, and a good friend; and her beauty, her extraordinary beauty, remained undiminished for many years. It was as if the pure and noble spirit had a balmy and preserving influence even upon her corporeal frame. There is one thing strange, however, in regard to her fate; though many admired the lovely woman, and many coveted the hand of the wealthy heiress, no one ever ventured to ask that boon of Helen Barham.
Several years afterwards she besought Juliet to allow her to adopt one of her children, and make him heir of the property which had once been his father's. The boy spent several months with her in each succeeding year; and once--but only once--as he looked up with a bright and beaming smile in Helen's face, while she parted the beautiful hair upon his brow, her eyes filled with tears, and she clasped him to her bosom, with emotions that could not be restrained.
And Lieberg! Was nothing, then, ever heard of him? Can one form no conjecture, backed by sufficient probabilities, of his real fate?
Reader, his body was never found; but his spirit, alas! still lives, and pervades too many a scene, blasting with its presence what otherwise might be bright. Happy is the man who has not a Lieberg always, very, very near him!
Where?
In his own heart!
Footnote 1: This is now altered.
Footnote 2: Let no reader suppose that either the suddenness or the violence of this storm is exaggerated. Such is by no means the case.