Oh, love! of whom great Caesar was the suitor,Titus the master, Antony the slave,Horace, Catullus, scholars, Ovid tutor,Sappho, the sage blue-stocking, in whose graveAll those may leap who rather would be neuter—(Leucadia’s rock still overlooks the wave),Oh, love! thou art the very god of evil,For, after all, we cannot call thee devil.—Byron.
Helen Grahame sat in her dressing-room alone. Scarce half-an-hour had elapsed since she had quitted the side of Lester Vane, after their stroll in the garden.
Her handkerchief, which she had dropped during her interview with Hugh Riversdale in the thicket, yet glared before her eyes as it had done when presented by him who, with a sharp, penetrating gaze, had sought to extract evidence out of her confusion to assure him that she was the heroine of the stolen interview he had disturbed.
She yet saw it floating and whirling among the circling eddies of the meandering waters, which ran past her feet, and drew such small consolation from the possibility of its never being again recovered—at least to her disadvantage—as it might afford her.
It was something to have destroyed the only evidence that could identify her with that stolen meeting, which had been the cause of so much mystification, excitement, and scandal among the household. She could scarcely prevent a proud smile of triumph curling her small upper lip when she reflected that the mastery she possessed over the play of her features, when she brought her will into action, had enabled her to baffle the scrutiny of Vane, which she felt instinctively was exerted to enable him to obtain power over her. Her womanly instincts were too acute, too keen, for her not to comprehend that.
It is true she had no notion that he intended to act basely or falsely to her. In spite of his display, his assumption of wealth, and the inferences he left to be drawn from his suggestions, she entertained a conviction that his sources of income were far more limited in capacity than he wished them to appear. Her father’s reputed affluence—of the reality of which she in common with the other members of the family, had no doubt—she could easily understand, would attract the attention of a young man of high family, who had but little with which to support his station, and she as readily comprehended that he would do his best to secure the hand of the eldest daughter of a man of wealth, if with it he ensured also the certainty of a handsome settlement, to say nothing of the unquestionable charms of the “encumbrance” he would have to take with the gold.
She had not been twenty-four hours in his company before she detected that he had determined upon becoming a suitor for her hand, having fortified himself with a belief that her father would give with her a dower, which would for ever set at rest his pecuniary anxieties for the future. But she revolted at the thought of being sought for what she should bring, rather than for her beauty—her heart, so brimful of passion and tenderness—for her very self. Especially did she recoil from the supposition that she was a “tassel gentle” to be lured by such a falconer’s voice, for the purpose of his own aggrandisement, and her whole soul rose in rebellion against being made the puppet in such a scheme.
The Honorable Lester Vane was well-formed and handsome. There were certain points in his figure and in his lineaments of a character to attract and to win the admiration of many women—those, at least, who, with the failing of their sex, are led by appearances. He had a musically-toned voice, and a tongue, gifted with the soft cunning of oily phrases, in so eminent a degree, that it could be scarcely surpassed by that which our mother Eve found herself unequal to resist. There were few women, who, if heart-free, would have been likely to resist his advances, or to have remained proof against them were he to address himself to them as a lover. Hitherto, he had not found female conquest difficult; there was a peculiarity in his manner and appearance which interested a woman in his favour immediately she beheld him; and thus, having mastered the approaches, he, where he listed, found the citadel not difficult to carry by acoup de main.
Helen was conscious of all this. She had read his character intuitively, and had formed a just estimate of him. Perhaps her predominant feeling towards him was contempt; but with that was mingled a strange dread of some power he possessed to injure her, and which, at a future period, he would exercise with a merciless malignity. She knew this impression had no foundation, in fact—was, in truth, a mere in defined sense of impending evil, of which he was to be the perpetrator, she the sufferer. Yet, true to the nature of her sex, her conclusion, arrived at by no process of reasoning, was as clear and determined as though it had been based upon a train of facts which admitted neither of doubt nor dispute.
“At least,” she murmured, “Hugh can have nothing to fear from him, even though he will, I am fully convinced, omit no stratagem to gain my love, as the means of securing my hand and portion—the portion being rather a considerable item in the object he proposes to accomplish. His eye looks down searchingly into my heart, as though he would read and interpret its most delicate mysteries and fathom its secrets, that he may hold me in duress. Never! I defy him! He cannot, shall not, detect or decipher anything I may purpose to conceal. He has destined me for his prey, a golden fly, to be enmeshed in the entanglements of a web, every filament of which is too palpable in my eyes. Ha! there are two words to a bargain. It would be a delicious revenge to bring this schemer down upon his knees before me, actually and absolutely an abject wooer: so that when, with burning words and scorching tears, he pleaded his love, I might spurn him with my foot. I will do it! Already has he commenced, with consummate art, to make me think about him: he must exercise a wily skill indeed to make me love him! I will meet him upon his own battle-field; I will not appear to employ either art or skill, yet will I stake my happiness that I will compel him to love me with a passionate ardour, of which now he does not believe his soul capable. Ay, and when, with a whirlwind of pleadings, urgings, and fervid prayers, he implores me to bestow my heart upon him, then, in my moment of triumph, I will open up to his terrible discomfiture my full knowledge of the speculation which embraced my purse with my person, and laugh with derisive scorn, at so shallow an attempt to win and wear me—me!”
While that reference to herself yet trembled upon her lips, a thought rushed through her brain, and a flush of crimson spread itself over her fair neck and face, and then it subsided, and left her deadly pale.
At this moment, the postman’s well-known ring at the gate-bell, given with skilful force, resounded suddenly through the house. The noise made her start, and utter a faint scream. Her heart began to beat violently, while a strange presentiment seized her that the epistle which had arrived by this channel was for her. An emotion of dread oppressed her, for which she was at a loss to account, for she had but few correspondents, and among them there was not one whose communication ought to contain any matter to occasion her feelings of dread.
She had forgotten one.
She listened breathlessly for the light foot-fall of Chayter. She was not disappointed. The door opened, and her quiet, neatly-dressed, sleek maid entered, bearing a note upon a small silver salver.
Helen assumed an air of indifference she did not feel. She glanced, from beneath her long dark eyelashes, rapidly at the letter, but she played with the pendants of a bracelet, and yawned in Chayter’s face.
“A letter for you, if you please, miss,” said the girl, and handed it to her.
“Put it down, Chayter,” said she, “I will read it by and by. I am in no humour now to bore over a long crossed scrawl from a tiresome school friend.”
The girl laid the letter upon the small table at Helen’s elbow, remarking to herself, as she gazed upon the superscription, that the school friend wrote a remark ably vigorous, masculine hand.
“Where is papa?” inquired Helen, with seeming apathy, although deeply interested in the answer.
“In the library, if you please, miss,” the girl answered.
“And mamma, and the rest of them,” added Helen. “Your mamma, and his Grace, and Miss Margaret, and Mr. Malcolm, are walking in the garden.”
“Yes.”
“And the Honorable Mr. Lester Vane and Miss Evangeline are in the drawing-room.”
“In the drawing-room?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, miss, quite alone.”
“Indeed!”
Helen felt surprised and annoyed to hear this. She did not stay to inquire why. Upon the first blush, it seemed to her that Lester Vane had no right to be alone with her sister. She was irritated and vexed; not, as she suggested to herself, that she cared, because she had a contempt for the man; but then, to preserve merely the harmony of consistency, he ought to be alone with no one else but her, and look into no other eyes than her own. Evangeline, too, so reserved—so shy. She shook her head. Perhaps there was more art and depth in that apparently timid girl than any of them had ever dreamed of. She determined, instantly, to observe her more closely. Evangeline hitherto had passed as a stupid, harmless, nervous child, yet beneath such an exterior might lurk much shrewd sagacity, and a power to think and act for herself for which she had not previously received credit.
Helen rather prided herself upon her own perceptive faculties, and, like many of her sex, she was so exceedingly keen-sighted as to be at times precipitated into forming erroneous conclusions. It occurred to her that it would not be altogether impolitic to put in an appearance, rather unexpectedly, in the drawingroom, where Vane wastête-à-têtewith her sister. A glance at the faces of both, she assured herself, would suffice to tell her what course Vane was pursuing, and it would serve to direct her future conduct.
She rose with this intention, and, as she moved past her little table, her eye fell upon the letter which the sudden communication by Chayter, respecting her sister and Lester Vane, had caused her to forget.
She turned her eyes hastily around the apartment, Chayter was no longer there. She was alone.
She took up the letter and held it to the lamp, so that she might see the superscription clearly. She started as she recognised the handwriting.
“Heaven! I thought so,” she ejaculated. “It is from Hugh. How thoughtless to address to me here!”
She examined the post-mark, which bore the name of Southampton. She drew a long breath, as though to nerve herself to meet the contents of the letter, which she felt would have a marked influence upon her future destiny, and then she broke the seal.
The contents were penned by a hurried and trembling hand; the very character of the scrawled letters betrayed the workings of a mind convulsed by passion and sorrow—the words themselves only too emphatically proved what the ill-formed characters suggested. She read, with burning eyes, what follows—
“Helen! thou passionately loved! Measure the intensity of my grief when you learn that my dread forebodings are verified. I sail by the ‘Ripon’ to India on the 4th, three days hence. My agony is insupportable! To be parted from you for years—perhaps never more to meet on earth—drives me to despair—distraction! I could refuse to quit England. I did. An alternative was presented to me; it involved the desolation of one to insure whose happiness my life were too mean a gift; it would have hurled me into beggary, and would still have sundered me from you—from you, Helen, you my life-spring, the font from whence I draw the only joy this world can yield me. What could I do? The chained and manacled slave had more freedom of action than I! My choice lay between this loathed voyage and comparative annihilation, and my consent to leave England has been thus wrung from me. Helen, though but these feeble words greet your tender eyes, yet I am with you face to face, near, near to you in spirit.”
A cold thrill ran through the frame of Helen as she read these words, and she raised her eyes, shrinking and gazing into the misty space before her, as if expecting to see his form, phantom-like and grim, standing there.
But she saw only the pictures on the walls and the hanging draperies, so, with a cold tremor, she went on with the perusal of the letter—
“You remember, Helen, that night when we stood together in the abbey ruins alone—the cold, grey moonlight streamed through the oriel window—shattered and decayed it was—and rested upon a mutilated cross. You remember that cross, Helen, as, silver like, it stood out in bold relief? My earnest gaze was upon it, Helen, when my fevered, trembling lips uttered words in your ear only too feeble and inexpressive to convey the depth and intensity of that love, which your gentle tenderness and your unsurpassed beauty had won from me. And by that cross I swore to be true to you while I had life. I see that cross now, Helen! Can you? I repeat the oath I took on that night. Will you, oh, Helen, dearest? You do not forget that, while my vow was yet vibrating in your ear, you turned your lustrous eyes upon that glowing emblem of mortal redemption. Your sweet head reclined upon my heaving breast, and in faltering words, you owned that the passion was not unrequited—that you loved me. Your warm, fragrant breath played upon my cheeks as you pointed to that cross, and called Heaven to witness to your truth—to testify that, in the time to come, your affection should be as unchanging and as unchangeable as my own. Look, Helen, there! See you not that cross standing sharply and brightly out from the shadows beyond? Will you refuse the duty it calls upon you to perform, or forget the oath it commands you to remember? Out of my deep love for you, at what sacrifice would I pause? What hesitate to do and dare, that you might be mine? Ah, Helen, will you be mine, as you have so often fondly sworn you were, and would be ever? Are you prepared for the test which shall prove it? It is this. Will you, on receipt of this letter, join me here? Will you, Helen? I have made every arrangement by which you can travel on the 3rd by the four o’clock train to Southampton alone and secure from interruption. On your arrival, you will be received by a lady, who will be expecting you, and will conduct you to apartments prepared for you. On the 4th, we will be united bya legalmarriage, as we have been by love, and—nay, we will then bid farewell to England, with hearts light and free; for, come any evil after it, we shall at least be happy in the possession of each other, and can no more be parted, but by death. Helen, my own Helen, if you will fly to me, the devotion of a life will be too poor a return for the integrity, the purity, the magnanimity of your love. If you come not—well, words would be idle.
“Hugh Riversdale.”
Helen staggered to her chair as she concluded the epistle. She pressed her hands to her throbbing temples; her brain was in a whirl; she had not the power for a minute or two to summon a single thought to her aid.
Remember that night! Ay! the events crowded into it were not likely to be forgotten by her. As her hot palms pressed down her eyelids, she saw as in a vision the ruined abbey, desolate and silent, in the broad moon-light, the moss-grown, ivy-bound walls, the dilapidated aisles, the triple-arched windows, mouldering and falling away, very skeletons of what they had once been; the rude masses of masonry half buried in the long, rank grass; but, above all, that cross.
That cross!
It now glittered and sparkled and wreathed before her eyes as if it were living flame, and darted out long, forked, arrowy tongues, to blister and consume her if she violated her oath.
She sprang to her feet with a scream and a shudder of horror. She gazed affrightedly round her; the sight of her maid, Chayter, who had, with noiseless step, reentered the room, however, dispelled the vision, and restored her to something like composure.
She looked for her letter; it was open upon the table where it had fallen; waving her hand, she said, in a voice hoarse with emotion—
“Leave me, Chayter; I will ring when I require your services.”
The girl glanced at the letter and then at her mistress. She gave a short cough.
“It is growing late, miss!” she said, hesitatingly, “I thought——”
“Leave me!” almost shrieked the haughty beauty, stamping her foot violently.
The girl dropped a hurried curtsey, and slunk swiftly out of the room.
She had been witness to small displays of irritability, but never to such an ebullition of temper as this.
When alone, Helen strode to the door and locked it. She threw herself into her chair, and again pressed her beating temples with her hands.
“Is he mad?” she murmured. “Fly with him and to India! How selfish—how unreasonable!”
He asked for a sacrifice as the test of her love; but what a sacrifice! She loved him—he ought to know that. What had she not done to give him proofs of it? If the proofs he had already received were insufficient, what could suffice? Not even the very sacrifice he called upon her to make. He had spoken of sacrifices, he had reminded her of their mutual vow, but now he sought to make her crown those cumulative sacrifices by inducing her to fling away all personal considerations, and follow his fortunes—to minister to his happiness by the surrender of her own.
Not that she doubted she should be happy in becoming his wife, but then there was so much that went to make up the sum of perfect contentment, which she must forego upon quitting home, and which she could not hope to possess or enjoy after she had linked her fate with his. Trifles are they at best, but to have pleasure the rule, and retirement the exception to be flattered, admired, the cynosure of adoring eyes—are constituent parts of many a woman’s happiness, wanting only the love of one to make a perfect felicity. Helen was called upon to make her election. She could not, it appeared, have done both. If she flung away the pleasures of the world and the comforts of wealth, she would have to be compensated by Hugh’s passionate love and entire devotion. If she flung away his love—well, there was still her luxurious home, and—and if he was bent upon being so very, very obstinate in his selfish demands, and in the event of her not taking part in his wild scheme, were to sunder the connection between them—well, there were others moving in a higher sphere than his, who would kneel at her feet, and give to her entire and undisputed sway, so that she but bestowed her hand upon the suppliant.
“I will write to him,” she said, taking up his letter, and placing it in her desk, which she carefully locked. “Yes, I will write to him, and show to him the weakness and the folly of what he asks. Papa would be frenzied, and mamma would surely die of mortified pride if I were to take such a step. No, no; it must not be. You were not in your senses, Hugh, when you addressed that letter to me, and so thoughtless, too, to direct it here. Poor fellow!—poor dear fellow!—how he loves me!—how deeply, dearly, he truly loves me!—dear Hugh!—yes, I well remember that night of mutual confession—oh! I well remember the tumult of joy which swelled my bosom when your trembling voice, and nearly inarticulate words, told me that which I already instinctively knew, but which I so longed for you to confess, my dear, dear Hugh!”
To what result the train of reflection, now taking an opposite path to that which at first it pursued, might have led, we do not pretend to say. Helen was here interrupted by a knock at the door, followed by the voice of Chayter, who informed her young mistress that she was expected in the drawing-room, inquiries having been already made for her.
She gave a rapid glance at her face in the glass. It was pale as alabaster, but there was no further trace of the disorder her mind had suffered; and so assuming a calm demeanour, she admitted Chayter.
“I do believe I have been dozing,” she said to the sleek girl.
“I don’t believe anything of the kind,” thought Chayter; but, smiling, said—“Dear me, miss, what a thing it is to be lovely, and have a dozen noble and beautiful gentlemen grieving to death for you.”
“Chayter!”
“Ah, miss! it is as I say,” continued the girl. “I can see. There is his Grace talking of nothing but you, and the Honorable Mr. Vane hoping that you are not ill because you keep your own room, and you all the while so indifferent, dozing in your chair, and Miss Margaret looking—I beg your pardon, miss—as if she would give her ears to be taken notice of by either of them.”
“Dress me, Chayter!” exclaimed Helen, abruptly, “and, if you can, pray be silent; your volubility makes my head ache.”
Chayter understood a hint, though she did not quite comprehend whether volubility meant impertinence or overwhelming information. She gathered from Helen’s tone that she was in no humour to listen to her prattle, and she was shrewd enough to keep her tongue still when its rattle was likely to be unwelcome.
Helen quickly made her toilet, and had seldom looked more beautiful than she did when she entered the drawing-room, which, though half filled by the guests and family, was all but silent without her.
Her eye ran round the apartment as she glided in, and she perceived her mamma and sister Margaret conversing together. Her papa was discoursing with the young Duke upon the management of estates, and detailing a plan by which to obtain the largest possible amount of income with the least possible expenditure, to all of which the Duke appeared to listen, though he yawned frequently; but he rescued himself from the charge of inattention by occasionally observing—“Weally!”
“Pwecisely,”
“Pwobably,”
“Wemawkable!”
Malcolm was half-asleep upon a couch, and Lester Vane was seated by the side of her sister Evangeline, talking with her in a tone sufficiently low as not to be heard—at least, where she stood.
What strange feeling was it that possessed her when her eye fell upon Evangeline and Lester Vane, as it weretête-à-tête? Why did a flush mount to her brow, and a pang of vexation shoot through her breast? He was nothing to her; what he might do ought to have no interest in her eyes, for if any feeling for him was predominant in her heart, it was not certainly of a favourable nature. Yet he had gazed upon her so ardently, and spoken to her with such gentle tones, that if she could draw a conclusion from his manner, it was that her beauty had made a deep impression upon his heart. Now to see his dreamy eyes dwelling on Evangeline’s innocent face so earnestly, to observe his impressive manner, as he addressed her with words toned so as to make her gentle heart thrill with a new emotion, was to be made to feel that she had made no impression upon him at all, or that he made love to her simplypour passer le temps.
She burnt with vexation.
“He shall love me,” she thought, “woo me, kneel to me. Oh! but how I will spurn him—shatter him with my scorn.”
Poor Hugh Riversdale!
Upon the appearance of Helen, the Duke of St Allborne flung over the elaborate dissertation to which he was supposed to be listening, and quitting Mr Grahame, advanced hastily to his daughter; Lester Vane caught sight of her at the same moment, and rose to his feet, but without evincing any emotion, other than that of pleasure at her arrival.
“My deah Miss Gwahame,” exclaimed the Duke, all in a flutter of excitement, “I am twuly delighted that you have wejoined us; I began to feah you weah not well, and would afflict us by not wetawning any moah this evening. I should have been gweatly gwieved at youah absence, but faw moah so if you had been weally indisposed.”
“Your Grace will, I hope, pardon my not being present with my mamma and sisters to receive you in the drawing-room,” replied Helen, favouring him with one of her most bewitching smiles. “I am really ashamed to acknowledge to your Grace the truth, but I am afraid that while reading a few pages of a novel I fell into the most unromantic doze possible.”
The Duke laughed appreciatively—a doze after dinner! Who comprehended its luxury more keenly than himself?
“Pway don’t apologise, Miss Gwahame,” he exclaimed, “I think a nap after one’s wine one of the wosiest and most delicate awdinations of natchaw.” Helen smiled bewitchingly again at the Duke, for she knew the eye of Lester Vane, who had slowly approached her, was on her face.
“My Lord Duke,” she returned, “do not misinterpret me—I dozed after mybook.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed the Duke. “I beg pawdon. Exactly! I could not suppose however, Miss Gwahame, that the wine you sipped at dinnaw would have thwown you into a doze. I alluded to myself, eh, Vane?”
“Weally this girl is devilish pwetty,” thought the
Duke, as he turned to his friend. “She is a pawfect beauty; I must weally wun off with her.”
“You are skilled in after-dinner indulgence, you are, in fact, a perfect master of that species of luxury, St. Allbome,” replied Vane, smiling, and added, with markedempressementto Helen, “I would not have done you the injustice, Miss Grahame, to have presumed that apost prandialslumber had denied us the pleasure of your fair society, if you had not yourself offered it in explanation of your absence. I should, if permitted to speculate upon your movements, have imagined that a stroll by moonlight, along the sinuous paths of the most excellently arranged garden attached to this mansion, had occupied you pleasantly, that, tempted by the beauty of the night—or some other cause—you had been induced to linger in the purple shadows thrown upon the place beneath, by the luxuriant foliage of a certain cluster of graceful trees, bending in pensive reflection over the flowing stream, whose rippling waters lave their base, the balmy air responding to the chant of the water’s low music with soft sighs, and gently fondling in its murmuring the deep green leaves still and silent in their evening dreams.”
The Duke looked up at his friend in indescribable astonishment. Lester Vane went on—
“Such a scene, Miss Grahame, heightened by those associations your own glowing thoughts could supply, would naturally furnish an ample excuse for an absence so much regretted by all present. May I suggest that you should adopt it, rather than confess to an afterdinner nap?”
“And dreams of pumpkin pie,” interposed Helen, with sarcastic bitterness, and a very formal bend. She understood his allusion; it brought a scarlet flush on her cheek, and made her eye flash like a diamond. Her lip curled scornfully as she replied to him, and if the sarcastic tone she adopted was unnoticed by others, it was not lost upon him.
“Mr. Vane,” she added, not concealing an expression of disdain, “I prefer to adhere to the vulgar truth. There are people to whom such a course is inconvenient, but I find it less troublesome than to have to coin a number of small prevarications. I am afraid I am rather an unromantic individual. I catch cold, and have bad fits of sneezing come on, when I am foolish enough to be tempted by some poetical enthusiast to enjoy the beauty of a moonlight night, shadowy trees, rippling waters, and sighing breezes. On those occasions there is always a quantity of mist about, moist exhalations, powerfully suggestive I assure you Mr. Vane, of influenza. Moonlight scenes are very pretty things at the Opera, or in a picture, but the reality is really very trying to the constitution.”
“The vewy weflections I have frequently made myself,” burst forth the Duke with much vivacity. ‘’You enwapchaw me, Miss Gwahame, youaw impwes-sions squaw so wondwously with mine. Moonlight nights aw vewy damp aflaws; I nevaw venchaw upon one without a heavy boat cape, a box of cigaws, and a pawson to play the twumpet, to keep me awake, nevaw!”
“You surprise me, Miss Grahame,” said Vane, nettled by the tone she assumed. “I imagined that your temperament was highly sentimental and poetical.” There was a hidden meaning even in these words. Helen detected so much; though she did not at the moment perceive the object at which the shaft was levelled; she replied quickly—
“You have been premature, Mr. Vane, in forming your estimate of my character. I am not so easily read as my sister Evangeline. She is imbued with romance, as, no doubt, you have before this discovered. She trusts to seeming, poor child—I do not.”
For a moment her eye fastened itself piercingly upon him. She then took the Duke’s ready arm, and advanced up thesalonto a magnificent harp, to fulfil a promise made by her to the Duke at dinner. As she did so, she looked for Evangeline, but she had quitted the room when Lester Vane rose up to greet her, and she liked not her disappearance.
Lester Vane looked after Helen as, with queenly dignity, she paced the room, leaning upon the arm of his bulky, ungraceful friend, all the brighter and more beautiful for the contrast.
“I am right,” he mused; “I am on the track; she chafes at the very mention of garden and moonlight. My experiment, too, succeeds—two suns may not shine in her hemisphere—she is already jealous of my attention to her little, simple, innocent sister. There is power in that. I will use it. I will have her completely in my grasp.”
He moved towards Mrs. Grahame and the passionless statue, her daughter Margaret, perfectly at his ease, and as unconcerned as though the incident of the moment alone occupied his thoughts.
Helen, too, appeared to commence her task in perfect serenity of mind, yet the words, “You remember that cross, Helen!” were ringing in her brain, and though she sang words and music correctly, and never faltered in the accompaniment, she prayed for the hour of release from the presence of guests, the sounds of voices, the glaring lights; to be again alone in her room, to wrestle with memories of passion and promise, to contend with conflicting emotions, to decide upon obeying the impulse of her heart, or to determine upon one great sacrifice, in order to secure the glittering’ triumphs of a brilliant position.
Alone! What would she not have given at that moment, while singing with such charming taste, to have been alone!
Before her song commenced, Mr. Grahame had been summoned to an interview with some person, who required to see him on business of importance, and during the performance of the song, while approving smiles were upon the features of his guests, and his wife and daughter Margaret sat in ineffable elation, he lay upon the floor of his library in a fit!
Where the lamps quiver,So far in the river,With many a lightFrom many a casement—From garret and basement,She stood with amazement—Houseless by night!The bleak wind of MarchMade her tremble and shiver;But not the dark arch—Or the black flowing river.Mad from life’s history,Glad to Death’s mysterySwift to be hurl’dAnywhere! anywhere—Out of the world!—Hood.
Within a close, narrow, scantily-furnished chamber, upon a miserable bed, sparely provided with bedclothes, lay a young girl, weak and wasted, struggling in the deadly grip of a fierce fever.
The room—a back attic—bore evidence of the humble position of the householder, and, in addition to its native foul atmosphere, was impregnated with the sickly odour prevalent in chambers in which there is sickness.
A truckle bed, a table, a chair, comprised the furniture; a soiled and ragged curtain at the diamond-paned window comprehended all the room possessed in the shape of drapery or hangings; the walls were bare, and washed with the odious salmon-hued distemper colour so prevalent in debtors’ prisons and apartments in poor neighbourhoods; the floor-boards with wide interstices between them, and large knot-holes here and there, where mice looked up, and unspareable halfpence sometimes rolled down, had not even a show of comfort in the way of a small bit of old stair-carpet by the bedside. All within and around bespoke poverty of the grimmest school.
The girl, who lay upon the bed moaning in a disturbed slumber, with flushed cheeks, and pale and transparent lips, was no other than Lotte Clinton.
Upon the night of the fire, when landed safely by the conductor of the fire-escape, she found herself in her thin night-dress, exposed to the cold night air, which struck chill to her unprotected bosom, while her naked tender feet were upon the hard stones, ankle deep in rushing water.
The shock she had experienced on being awakened out of a deep slumber by the startling, horrifying cry of fire, the terror which all but paralysed her when, half-blinded and nearly suffocated, she discovered her room filled with smoke, the excitement which followed the rushing from her chamber, the roaring of the flames, the crackling and sputtering of the burning wood, the hoarse cries of the mob, the perilous descent to the ground, the sudden exposure to the eager gaze of a multitude of faces, red in the glaring, unnatural light, the whirl, the turmoil, mingled with a species of hysterical joy and gratefulness at her deliverance, created a combination of emotions beyond her physical powers of endurance.
It is not wonderful that—affrighted, unknowing where to turn, whither to go, what to do, chilled to the marrow by the piercing coldness of the water rushing over her unprotected, delicate feet, utterly overwhelmed by what had happened, by the incidents surrounding her, and in which she was yet an actor—she should succumb; and find, that as some person hastily and roughly seized her about the waist, she should have a dim consciousness that the whole scene was fading from her as some expiring terrible vision, and that, when it disappeared from her eyes, she should be lifeless in the arms of the person who had caught hold of her.
The man who had taken her in his arms was a small tradesman, dealing in coals and potatoes, and a little—a very little—greengrocery. He lived in a neighbouring street, in a small house, and was blessed with a wife and nine children, who were “dragged” up somehow. He was one of the first on the spot when the alarm of fire was given. He saw Lotte landed from the fire-escape; he observed the agonized expression upon the poor girl’s face—heard her low, hysteric sobbing, and saw her totter as though she would fall upon her face in the muddy, eddying pool in which, barefooted, she was standing. It was enough for him. He drew off instantly his heavy coat of “fashionable cable cord,” and, flinging it over her shoulders, caught her up in his arms, and raced off to his old ’oman with his burden, followed by a small train of women and boys.
His wife was no little astonished at this sudden accession to her household; but her womanly sympathy was roused immediately she beheld the condition of the poor girl, and learned that she had been rescued from the raging fire, which her husband had so short a time previously run off to see, and she at once busied herself by applying those restoratives, known to most women, which, though simple, are efficacious in restoring to consciousness those of the sex who fall into swoons.
Lotte Clinton, being a girl of strong feelings, was not, however, easily brought to a calm sense of her great affliction; on the contrary, she recovered from one fainting fit only to fall into another, worse than its predecessor; and when, by the aid of the parish doctor, who had been called in, she was relieved from successive swoons and thrown into a sleep, it was only to awake in a paroxysm of fever and delirium.
Two days she lay thus: on the third, late at night, when the hard-worked parish doctor made his appearance, in order that he might see his patient the last thing, he stood with the woman of the house, at the bed-side of the poor girl.
Two or three anxious questions were put to him, but he shook his head, as the woman thought, ominously.
“She is rapidly approaching a crisis,” he said. “By the dawn her fate will be decided. She has in her favour youth and a good constitution; but it is impossible to tell what may result from the ravages of so fierce a fever as that under which she is suffering. We must hope for the best, and leave the rest in the hands of God! I think it would be proper to make her friends acquainted with her condition, and the sooner they are here at her bed-side the better will be their chance of taking their last farewell of her.”
Those were dread words: ill-omened shadows did they cast. The woman raised her apron to her eyes, and gulped audibly, once or twice.
“I don’t know where to find her friends, if she has any, poor child!” she said, huskily. “My Jem picked her up, out o’ the fire, and brought her here; nobody’s been to ax after her; and we don’t know where to go. She’s never been in her senses since she was here, else I should have got her to tell me; but, lawk! lawk! it is a sad thing for a poor girl like this to die away from home, and ne’er a friend or relation to close her poor dear eyes. I’m a mother myself, sir! an’ God knows, I should be dreadful wretched if one of my babbies was to die away from me in this lonesome way.”
The poor woman sobbed unaffectedly as she concluded. The doctor, with a glittering tear in the corner of his eye, laid his hand gently upon her shoulder—
“While there is life there is hope, Mrs. Bantom,” he said, kindly. “It is too early to despair yet. Had the young woman nothing about her when your husband saved her?—no letter?”
“Lord bless you, nothing on but those night things you see on her; not a blessed rag else. My Jem has been a trying if he could learn anything about her, but lor! he goes about such matters in sech a bladderheaded sort o’ way, that I don’t wonder at his making a bad out on it. He lurches and prowls about when he goes to ax for his own in sech a way that people are afear’d on him. It was only the other day he went for a little bill, which it was a long time a owin’ an’ we wanted the money badly—when he explained what he’d come for in sech an in and out round about sort a way that the people sent for a policeman believin’ he’d come on the sneak to prig the ’ats and mats in the ’all.”
The doctor could hardly forbear a smile. He turned his eyes, however, on Lotte’s face, and bent his head down closely to listen to her breathing, he felt her pulse, timing its rapid beats by his watch; then he laid down the unresisting hand, and addressed himself to Mrs. Ban tom.
“Poor thing!” he said, “she is very, very ill. If she wakes shortly, give to her a dose of the medicine I have brought with me—she must have it, especially if she be violent, incoherent, and resists your attempts to administer it. Should it not have the effect of pacifying her, send for me at once. Good night, Mrs. Bantom. Pray to God to spare her, for she is on the threshold of death,” he concluded, with much solemnity in his tone. He made his way out of the room. She lighted him down the stairs, and when she heard the street-door close she returned to the sick room to watch by the side of her friendless patient.
Her husband and her children were in bed; he had his long hard day’s work to perform on the morrow, and rest was essential to him. The little colony of children were better where they were than anywhere else; Mrs. Bantom, too, had her share of hard work cut out for her for the next day and required sleep, but she did not heed it. She thought only of the poor young creature who she believed to be rapidly quitting her brief earthly career for one that would have no limit.
By the feeble rays of the miserable rushlight burning, she watched the flushed face of Lotte, perceiving it become each minute more crimson and inflamed-She saw her bosom heave and fall, and she listened with a beating heart to her stertorous breathing. She saw her head roll from side to side, her burning hands open and shut, and clutch at the bed-clothes. She heard with an aching heart the low moan of pain which oozed as it were with prolonged mournful cadence from the lips of the poor girl, and she prepared for the sudden and violent awakening to which the doctor had alluded.
But Lotte became silent and motionless again; the only change in her was, that her tongue, white and rigid, protruded from her half-opened mouth. The heart of good Mrs. Bantom smote her as she observed it, and she feared that the fatal moment was indeed at hand. She, however, performed her duty as a nurse with watchful perseverance, and with some grapes which the doctor had brought, she moistened the dry and parched tongue of poor Lotte.
This gentle attention, persevered in, passed not unrewarded. She could see it had a grateful influence; though, as it seemed to her, Lotte was dying in an unconscious state, and would breathe her last without making any sign.
So, though she knew only the prayers taught to her in childhood, and seldom now-a-days went to a place of worship, she remembered the words of the doctor, and she knelt down by the bedside. She was unacquainted with the subtleties of contending faiths. She had a faith which went deeper: she believed implicitly in the supreme power of God, in His ability to give and to take away. In that spirit she appealed to Him.
She prayed to Him, in earnest sincerity, to grant to the motionless, friendless girl, stretched on the bed before her, a longer term, if that, by a more extended sojourn on earth, she might know a greater happiness than had, perhaps, yet been her lot; but that, if it was the Divine will to remove her hence, she implored Him with earnest heart, though with all humility and reverence, to take her to His bosom, that the shadow of sorrow or affliction might fall upon her never more.
When her prayer was ended, she turned her eyes, suffused with tears, upon her unconscious patient.
She started. The hectic crimson of the girl’s cheek had paled down, and was fast changing to a pallid hue. It seemed even that on her brow a moisture had appeared. The heavy breathing had abated, as had the moaning and uneasy movement of head and hands.
Suddenly, Lotte’s eyes opened, and she gazed feebly around her. She looked intently at the bare walls, the scanty furniture, and then earnestly upon Mrs. Bantom, who was watching her every motion with absorbing eagerness.
At length, in a low voice, she murmured, wonderingly—
“Where—where am I? Who are you? What strange place is this?”
Mrs. Bantom’s own common sense told her that the crisis was over; and, so far, the girl’s life was saved.
With a burst of gratitude, she exclaimed, clasping her hands together—
“Oh, my God, you have listened to my prayer! you have heard me, a sinner! you have spared her!”
Tears checked her voice, and she buried her face once more in the bed-clothes.
Lotte regarded her with surprise—as, indeed, she did the whole situation. She felt strangely weak and powerless. Had she been ill? What did it all mean? She repeated the question, in a low voice, and then Mrs. Bantom jumped up, and hurried to the medicine bottle. She poured out a dose, and said, as tenderly as if Lotte was her own child—
“There, drink that, like a good girl, and don’t ask a single question until you are stronger; it will be quite time enough to know all then.”
Lotte would have persisted, but Mrs. Bantom was peremptory, and she was obliged to succumb. Within ten minutes after the medicine had been administered, she was asleep.
The battle had been fought. Youth, constitution, and judicious treatment had won the victory. The abatement of the symptoms was as rapid as had been the attack of the fever, and in two days more Lotte was able to sit up in bed, and communing with herself, come to a full knowledge of the peculiarity and the distressing nature of her situation.
She had, in the interval between the crisis and the present moment, followed the directions of the doctor, obeyed his instructions, and swallowed his medicine with the intrepidity of a martyr. The result had been all that could be desired in her progress to health: fresh air was only needed to complete the rest.
How was that to be got at? How, at present, could she obtain more than came in at her window? She had no clothes; all had been destroyed at the fire, everything had been consumed, including the very little money she had. Her very first impulse had been, on coming to a sense of her position, to send for her brother Charley; but, alas! a fellow-clerk had embezzled upwards of a thousand pounds from the firm to which they both belonged, and had absconded. Charley had been at once charged to accompany a detective, engaged to pursue him, to America, and he had started on the very night of the fire. He was already on the Atlantic, leaving the shores of England at the rate of three hundred miles per day. He had despatched a hasty note to Lotte, informing her of the mission upon which he had been despatched, and directing her, should she require a little pecuniary assistance during his absence, to apply in his name to his firm, and it would be readily afforded her.
This letter she never got. Charley had slipped it into the letter-box of a post-office, on his way to the Euston station, and it was conveyed to its destination by the postman on the following morning. But as he was not able to deliver it, he returned to the Dead Letter Office, first carefully writing upon it, “House burnt down; gone away, not known where.”
Mr. Bantom was, however, employed by Lotte as a messenger to her brother, to inform him of her sad misfortune, but he pursued his inquiries for Charley in a manner so mysterious, that he raised in the mind, of the Clerk whom he addressed a strong impression that Charley Clinton was deeply his debtor, for coals and greengrocery. Now, Charley’s fellow-clerk was never out of debt, and had an intense loathing for all creditors; they were, he used to say, so offensively pertinacious even when they had got an answer, therefore he replied to Mr. Bantom’s questions with curt brevity. All Mr. Bantom could gather was, that Charles Clinton had sailed for America, and his return was a question involved in obscurity. And the clerk facetiously added, “It might not be for years, and it might not be for never.”
This intelligence was a sad blow to Lotte; what to do she could not tell. The honest people who had taken her in to their humble house lived too closely from hand to mouth to aid her; indeed, she was already a burden to them; they could ill—nay, could not—afford to keep her; this she was at no loss to comprehend by what she heard and saw.
After her passion of bitter, bitter tears on learning that Charley had gone to another quarter of the globe, had passed away, she consulted with Mrs. Bantom as to what was to be done.
“I cannot lie here,” she exclaimed; “I shall worry myself to death. If I could get out, I could get work. I could in some way repay you for your kindness, Mrs. Bantom, but to be kept thus—oh, I had better died— better have died.”
She wrung her hands, and sobbed violently.
“It ain’t o’ no use your taking on in this way,” said Mrs. Bantom to her, ready to mingle her tears with her, for to say truth, the poor creature was easily moved to weep. “Somethin’ ’ll turn up, I’ll be bound. My things is too big for you—and too poor—besides, I ain’t got much more’n I stand upright in, but I dare say I shall hit on a way to dress you afore long, so don’t worrit yourself. As for the bit you eats—lor! what’s that among so many on us? there, there, hold your tongue, gal, and keep your spirits up; I’ll find a way to help you.”
And so she did. She went among her neighbours to make up the different articles that constitute the dress of a woman, and poor, as nearly all of whom she begged were, none, when they heard Lotte’s frightful story, refused her appeal. The poor never refuse to help the poor, if they have any means.
Her last application, however, should have been her first, for it was to a young girl about Lotte’s own age and figure. She was an artificial florist, a worker, too, of eighteen hours out of the twenty-four—a diligent, unmurmuring, white slave. She was able to sympathise with poor Lotte, and she generously offered to lend her all the clothes she would require, until she obtained work, and would be able to return them.
With delight Mrs. Bantom accepted her offer, and conveyed the clothes to Lotte. With yet greater delight did the poor girl attire herself in them, and hurry to the house for which she had worked before the fire had rendered her homeless. She revealed her unhappy position to the individual who had employed her (there are few like him, thank Heaven!) He listened coldly to her statement, and finding that six dozen cap fronts, his property, had been consumed in the fire, instead of commiserating her, abruptly informed her that she must pay for the blonde and flowers before she had any more work, and if in two days she did not bring to him the amount, he would pay her a visit accompanied by a policeman.
Sickened and affrighted, Lotte hurried from the house, her hopes once more dashed to the ground, her heart bursting with agony, no one to go to for counsel or assistance. What was to be done?
Almost frantic, she wandered about without an aim, feeling that she could not go back to the kind people who had sheltered her, unless she had some prospect of lifting herself out of her desolate destitution, and recompensing them, at least, for her board, although she could never repay the service and the attention they had rendered to her.
She wandered through the streets, growing weak and faint from an exertion to which she was not equal, and from being many hours without food, gradually becoming desperate, as hopeless. She thought of the coming night and the dark waters that swept silently beneath the frowning arches of the bridges which spanned their breadth, and an ever-recurring thought kept ringing in her ears—"Anywhere, anywhere—Out of the world,”
suddenly her eyes fell upon a printed bill; it said: “One thousand cap-front hands wanted!” Not a second elapsed between her discovery of that bill and the resting of her trembling hand upon the knocker of the door. Her timid summons was responded to, and her application for work met with success.
She was requested to enter a room and to sit down, and “make a pattern.” She was furnished with materials, and it was not long before she produced a “front,” which gave great satisfaction to the employer. The answers to inquiries put to her being deemed satisfactory, materials for twelve dozen fronts were given to her, in a box, which she was to return with her work.
With a light heart and a heavy parcel she returned to Mrs. Bantom. Constant work was promised to her, provided she was punctual, and her work was approved of. She had no fears about that. She promised the work on the following Friday night. The task could only be accomplished by incessant toil, but she resolved to accomplish it, and she did.
In the little squalid bedroom she sat to her exacting toil; few were the hours of sleep she obtained during the time between the commencement and the close of her labours, but she was rewarded by completing the last front within an hour of the time specified. More fit for bed than for a journey through the crowded streets, she staggered rather than walked to the house of her new employer.
Her work was given in, and it was commended. She was told to come the following evening, at six, the time when the workers were paid, and bring her book, when she would receive the money due to her, and more work would be given to her.
Elated, she returned to her poor abode, and slept happily that night at least. She had in five days and nights—there was not much to be taken out for sleep—earned ten shillings. She hoped the next week to earn a like sum, and by self-sacrifices, assisted by the kind forbearance of the Bantoms, to gradually clear off her debt, and to get herself clothes, which she should wear with the satisfaction that they were her own.
Ah! she raised up wonderful and glittering fabrics, but they were based upon most intangible foundations. However, she slumbered lightly, and rose refreshed, busying herself the whole of the day in lightening Mrs. Bantom’s labours by assisting her in attending to her small regiment of blessings.
At six o’clock the next evening punctually, and with anxious hopes, she stood before the house of her new employer. She looked up wistfully at it. It wore a peculiar air of silence and dulness which she had not before observed. She did not pause to think upon the impression thus suddenly raised, but knocked at the door. A pang smote her breast as it occurred to her that a hollow sound echoed through the house on the fall of the knocker, as though it was empty. She instinctively again cast her eyes upwards; the windows were all closed; there were no blinds, but all was dark within the house, and so still—so dreadfully still.
She waited: her summons remained unanswered. She knocked again. The same hollow sound reverberated through the building, and her heart began to sink and die within her.
A young girl now came up, stopped at the door, and knocked. She was bound upon the same errand as Lotte, save that a fortnight’s work was due to her. She had scrambled and starved over the past week, she scarcely knew how. Wan and weak, but full of hope, she was here for the miserable sum for which she had bartered health, exhausted her strength, and perilled her young life.
There was no answer to her knock at the door, save the same hollow mocking echo, as before.
Another girl made her appearance; a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth; all here upon one errand—to claim the scanty sum for which they had worked, almost from dawn to dawn. They spoke to each other, questioningly: they looked into each other’s eyes with dread apprehension, and they conversed in low excited tones. The wages they had come to receive had been earned with a death-sweat. It was to them of vital consequence.
One or two had homes and parents upon whom to fall back for assistance; but the loss of the money to the others left them only a choice between the streets and the river.
Lotte grasped at a railing near her for support. A throng of sharp ringing sounds rushed through her brain. She took no part in the conversation. She could not have uttered a sound, her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth, her throat swelled and contracted as though it would stifle her.
She began to lose her perception of what was going on around her. Everything seemed to be absorbed in a harrowing consciousness that her beggary, her loneliness, and desolation had assumed proportions of more terrible magnitude than they had ever yet done—that they surpassed her power to endure them longer.
She had a dim impression that a person residing next door told them all that their employer had fled with his goods ere daybreak, no one knew whither.
Sickened, heart-broken, Lotte quitted her hold of the railing which had sustained her, and staggered away.
It was not difficult to find her way to the black and murky river, careering swiftly and noiselessly through the heart of the vast metropolis down to the sea.
“The river! the river!”
Those were the only words she muttered.
These words of such terrible significance seemed to be shrieked by demons in her ears She saw them in fiery characters dancingignis-fatuuslike, before her, leading her on to her doom. She followed unresistingly.
How she found her way—what route she chose to the river-side—she knew not, cared not. She reached a bridge that spanned the dark waters, ere she was conscious of her proximity to that grave which could be self-made by one desperate plunge.
And now the fearful act she contemplated presented itself in its most awful guise before her despairing eyes, but not to deter her from her frantic purpose. No! If she remained on earth, her future was all black and unshapen. There was rest and immunity from the horrors of want and destitution in the grave.
She knelt down and prayed.
She compressed her hands tightly together; a wild hysteric groan, forced from her by the intense anguish created by her unutterable thoughts, burst from her lips, and she hurried on to the bridge, to end, by one fearful plunge, her sorrows and her young life.
As she swept on to a recess, blinded by her misery, maddened by a despair devoid of one glimmering of hope, the glare from one of the lamps fell upon her ghastly face.
At that instant a strong hand caught her by the wrist, and a friendly voice exclaimed—
“Miss Clinton! Miss Clinton!”
She fell back against the parapet of the bridge, and the voice changed its tone for one of horror and surprise, and it said—
“Good heaven! what is the matter with you? how deadly white you are! What has happened?—where are you going?”
“To die!—to die!”—she murmured, hoarsely, but faintly.
“Hush! hush! my dear friend,” said he who stayed her, in a soft and slightly reproving tone, and added—“calm yourself, I entreat you; do not speak for a minute or so; collect your thoughts, and then turn your eyes on me. I am a friend. I have a right to that title, and you will acknowledge it presently. I claim to aid you in affliction or trial. You will not, I am sure, Miss Clinton, refuse consolation or help in need from Harry Vivian.”
Lotte uttered a faint, hysteric cry; she clutched his arm, and bowed her head upon his breast. She knew he had the power to help her; she knew he would. As she clung to him, he felt her frame tremble and quiver as though she had been smitten with an ague, and her hot tears fell fast upon the hand which held hers, and pressed it re-assuringly. He let her weep.
In a few minutes, he whispered—
“We will not stay here, Lotte. It is chill and cold, and we excite attention from the passers-by.”
He conducted her from the bridge but a few steps only, for she was nearly powerless, and unable longer to continue the struggle without fatigue. He quickly perceived it, and had some notion of the cause; so he said—
“I am so glad I have found you at last. I have made many efforts, since the night of the fire, to discover you, but in vain. Not alone to satisfy my own anxiety respecting you, but to allay the apprehensions of your friend. Miss Wilton, to whom you were so kind in her hour of bitter trial. Ah, Lotte! her misery is all past, her future life promises to be one of supreme happiness, if wealth and station can ensure it. Come to her now: she so wishes to see you again. It is not so far: a cab will quickly take us to her. You will have, at least, a kindly sympathetic ear in which to pour your sorrows, and—who knows?—the meeting between you may be the termination of all your trials and sufferings.”
Lotte tried to reply. An inarticulate murmur was all that escaped her lips. Her deep emotion did not so easily admit of suppression.
A cab opportunely approached, and Hal engaged it. He lifted Lotte in: she had not power to help herself. He followed her into the vehicle, and gave his directions to the driver.
The man whipped his horse, and the cab rattled away from the bridge.
Lotte thought of the sombre river, whirling on grimly, and she shuddered violently.
Hal pressed her hand.
“The gloomiest lane, Lotte,” he whispered, “sometimes leads us to the brightest land.”