"Geoffrey," said he, "how do you know all this? Yours is not a profession which allows men to jump at conclusions. What can you tell of my past or present trials. What if I should say, they had been far greater and worse to bear than your own?"
"Impossible!"
"All things that have reference to sorrow and trouble, in this world, are only too possible. But I will have patience with you, my poor friend; your heart is very sore. The deadly wounds in mine are partially healed; yet, my experience of life has been bought with bitter tears;—the loss of hope, health and self-respect. I am willing that you should profit by this; and, having made this confession, will you condescend to hear my lecture to an end?"
"Oh, tell me something more about yourself. I would rather listen to your sorrows, than have my faults paraded before me."
A melancholy smile passed over his face.
"Geoffrey, what a child you are! Listen to me. You have suffered this personal dislike to your uncle and his son to overtop, like some rank weed, every better growth of your mind; to destroy your moral integrity and mental advantages; to interfere with your studies, and prevent any beneficial result which might arise from your situation as clerk in this office. Is this wise?"
I remained obstinately silent.
"You are lengthening the term of your bondage, and riveting the fetters you are so anxious to break. Does not your uncle know this? Does he not laugh at your impotent efforts to break his yoke from off your neck? In one short year your articles will expire, and you will become a free agent. But, with the little knowledge you have gained of your profession, what would liberty do for you? Would it procure for you a better situation; establish your claims as a gentleman, or fill an empty purse?"
"Let the worst come to the worst, I could work for my bread."
"Not such an easy thing as you imagine."
"With health, strength and youth on my side, what should hinder me?"
"Your uncle's influence, which is very great. The world does not know him, as we know him. He is considered an upright, honourable man. One word from him would blast your character, and keep you out of every office in London."
I felt my cheeks grow pale. I had never seen matters in this light before. Still, I would not yield to the arguments of my friend. The obstinate spirit of the Monctons was in active operation just then, and would not submit to reason.
"There are more ways of earning a living than by following the profession of the law," said I doggedly.
"To all of which you have an apprenticeship to serve. Think, Geoffrey, of the thousands of respectable young men who are looking for employment in this vast metropolis, and how few are successful; and then ask yourself, how you, without money, without friends, and with a powerful enemy to crush all your honest endeavours, and render them abortive, are likely to earn your own living."
I was struck speechless, and for the first time in my life became aware of my utter inability to extricate myself out of the net of difficulties which surrounded me.
"You are convinced at last. Look me steadily in the face, Geoffrey, and own that you are beaten. Nay, smooth that frowning brow: it makes you look like Robert Moncton. Your profession is a fortune in itself, if you persevere in acquiring it. Be not discouraged by difficulties that beset the path. A poor man's road to independence is always up-hill work. Duty fences the path on either side, and success waves her flag from the summit; but every step must be trod, often in ragged garments, and with bare feet, if we would reach the top."
I pressed George Harrison's hand, silently within my own. He had won a great victory over obstinacy and self-conceit.
From that hour my prospects brightened. I became a new creature, full of hope, activity and trust. My legal studies engaged all my leisure moments. I had no time left to brood over my wrongs. My mind had formed an estimate of its own powers; the energetic spirit which had been wasted in endless cavils and contradictions (for my temper was faulty and headstrong, and my uncle not always the aggressor) now asserted its own dignity, and furnished me with the weapon most needed in such petty warfare—self-respect. Harrison had given me a motive for exertion, and I was ashamed of having suffered my mental powers to remain so long inactive. As my mind recovered a healthy tone, my spirits rose in proportion. The thirst for improvement daily acquired new strength, while my industry not only surprised, but drew forth the commendations of my uncle.
"What has become of your churlish, morose temper, Geoffrey?" said he to me one day, at dinner; "why, boy, you are greatly changed of late. From a sulky, impertinent, vindictive lad, you have become an industrious, agreeable, pleasant fellow."
"It is never too late to mend, uncle," said I, laughing, though I did not much relish his portrait of what I had been. "My temper I found a greater punishment to myself than to others, so I thought it high time to change it for a better."
"You were perfectly right. I have a better hope for your future than I once had. I shall be able to make something out of you yet."
This unlooked-for condescension on the part of Mr. Moncton, softened the hard feelings I had long cherished against him into a more Christian-like endurance of his peculiarities; and the conscientious discharge of my own duty taught me to consider his interests as my own.
CHAPTER VIII.
UNGRATIFIED CURIOSITY.
There is a period in every young man's first outset in life, which gives a colouring to his future destiny. It is the time for action, for mental and moral improvement, and the manner in which it is applied or neglected, will decide his character, or leave him weak and vacillating all the days of his life.
If this precious portion of existence be wasted in frivolous amusements, time gets the start of us, and no after-exertion will enable us to overtake him in his flight. This important era was mine; and I lost no opportunity of turning it to the best advantage. I worked early and late in the office, and made myself master of the nature of the work which employed my hands. I learned the philosophy of those law forms, which hitherto I had only copied mechanically, and looked upon as a weary task, and I soon reaped the benefit of my increased stock of knowledge. Grave men, in the absence of my uncle, often applied to me for information and advice, which I felt proud and happy in being able to supply.
Thus, I found that in serving my employer faithfully, I conferred the greatest benefit on myself; and the hours devoted to study, while they formed a pleasant recreation from the day labours of the office, were among the happiest and most sinless of my life.
I was seldom admitted into my uncle's drawing-room, and never allowed to mingle with evening parties, which, during the brief visits of Theophilus to his home, were not only frequent, but very brilliant. This I felt as a great hardship. My solitary and companionless youth had deeply imbued my mind with romance. I was fond of castle-building; I pictured to myself the world as a paradise, and fancied that I was an illustrious actor in scenes of imaginary splendour, which bore no analogy to the dull realities of my present life.
I was a dreamer of wild dreams, and suffered my enthusiasm to get the master of reason, and betray me into a thousand absurdities. My love for poetry and music was excessive. I played upon the flute by ear, and often when alone dissipated my melancholy thoughts by breathing them into the instrument.
Through this medium, Harrison became an adept at discovering the state of my feelings. "My flute told tales," he said. "It always spoke the language of my heart." Yet from him I had few concealments. He was my friend and bosom-counsellor, in whom I reposed the most unreserved confidence. But strange to say, this confidence was not mutual. There was a mystery about George which I could not fathom; a mental reservation which was tantalizing and inexplicable.
He was a gentleman in education, appearance and manners, and possessed those high and honourable feelings, which if displayed in a peasant would rank him as one, and which are inseparable from all who really deserve the title. He never spoke to me of his family—never alluded to the events of his past life, or the scenes in which his childhood had been spent. He talked of sorrow and sickness—of chastisements in the school of adversity, in general terms; but he never revealed the cause of these trials, or why a young man of his attainments was reduced to a situation so far below the station he ought to have held in society.
I was half inclined to quarrel with him for so pertinaciously concealing from me circumstances which I thought I had a right to know; and in which, when known, I was fully prepared to sympathize. A thousand times I was on the point of remonstrating with him on this undue reserve, which appeared so foreign to his frank, open nature, but feelings of delicacy restrained me.
What right hadIto pry into his secrets? My impertinent curiosity might reopen wounds which time had closed. There were, doubtless, good reasons for his withholding the information I coveted.
Yet, I must confess that I had an intense curiosity—a burning desire to know the history of his past life. For many long months my wishes remained ungratified.
At this time I felt an ardent desire to see something more of life, to mingle in the gay scenes of the great world around me. Pride, however, withheld me from accepting the many pressing invitations I daily received from the clerks in the office, to join them in parties of pleasure, to the theatres and other places of public amusement. Mr. Moncton had strictly forbidden me to leave the house of an evening; but as he was often absent of a night, I could easily have evaded his commands; but I scorned to expose to strangers the meanness of my wealthy relative, by confessing that mine was an empty purse; while the thought of enjoying myself at the expense of my generous companions, was not to be tolerated for an instant. If I could not go as a gentleman, and pay my own share of the entertainment, I determined not to go at all; and these resolutions met with the entire approbation of my friend Harrison.
"Wait patiently, Geoffrey, and fortune will pay up the arrears of the long debt she owes you. It is an old and hackneyed saying, 'That riches alone, cannot confer happiness upon the possessor.'"
"My uncle and cousin are living demonstrations of the truth of the proverb. Mr. Moncton is affluent, and might enjoy all the luxuries that wealth can procure; yet he toils with as much assiduity to increase his riches, as the poorest labourer does to earn bread for his family. He can acquire, but has not the heart to enjoy—while the bad disposition of Theophilus would render him, under any circumstances, a miserable man. Yet, after all, George, in this bad world, money is power."
"Only, to a certain extent: to be happy, a man must be good; religiously, morally, physically. He must bear upon his heart the image of the Prince of Peace, before he can truly value the glorious boon of life."
"I wish I could see these things in the same calm unprejudiced light," said I; "but I find it a bitter mortification, after so many years of hard labour, to be without a penny to pay for seeing a raree-show."
Harrison laughed heartily, "You will perhaps say, that it is easy for me to preach against riches; but like the Fox in the fable, the grapes are sour. I speak, however, with indifference of the good that Providence has placed beyond my reach. Geoffrey, I was once the envied possessor of wealth, which in my case was productive of much evil."
"How did you lose such an advantage?" I eagerly exclaimed, "do tell me something of your past life?"
This was the first allusion he had made to his former circumstances; and I was determined not to let the opportunity pass unnoticed.
He seemed to guess my thoughts. "Are you anxious for a humiliating confession, of vanity, folly and prodigality? Well, Geoffrey, you shall have it; but mark me—it will only be in general terms—I cannot enter into particulars. I was born poor, and unexpectedly became rich, and like many persons in like circumstances, I was ashamed of my mean origin; and thought, by making a dashing appearance and squandering lavishly my wealth, to induce men to forget my humble birth. The world applauds such madness as long as the money lasts, and for a short period, I had friends and flatterers at will.
"My brief career terminated in ruin and disgrace: wealth which is not acquired by industry, is seldom retained by prudence; and to those unacquainted with the real value of money, a large sum always appears inexhaustible. So it was with me. I spent, without calculating the cost, and soon lost all. The world now wore a very different aspect. I was deserted by all my gay associates; my most intimate companions passed me in the streets without recognition. I knew that this would be the result of my altered fortunes, yet the reality cut me to the heart.
"These are mortifying lessons, which experience, wisdom's best counsellor, daily teaches us; and a man must either be very self-conceited, or very insensible, who cannot profit by her valuable instructions. The hour which brought to me the humiliating conviction, that I was a person of no consequence; that the world could go on very well without me; that my merry companions would not be one jot less facetious, though I was absent from their jovial parties, was after all not the most miserable of my life.
"I woke as from a dream. The scales had fallen from my eyes. I knew myself—and became a wiser and better man. I called all my creditors together, discharged my debts, and found myself free of the world in the most liberal sense.
"Good Heavens!" I exclaimed. "How could you bear such a dreadful reverse with such fortitude—such magnanimity?"
"You give me greater credit than I deserve, Geoffrey: my imprudent conduct merited a severe punishment, and I had sense enough to discern that it was just. After the first shock was over, I felt happier in my poverty than I had ever done during my unmerited prosperity. I had abused the gifts of fortune while they were mine, and I determined to acquire an independence by my own exertions. A friend, whom I had scarcely regarded as such, during my reckless career of folly, came unexpectedly to my assistance, and offered to purchase for me a commission in the army, but I had private reasons for wishing to obtain a situation in this office. Writing a good hand, and having been originally educated for the profession, together with the recommendation of Mr. Bassett who was related to my friend, procured me the place I now hold."
"And your reasons for coming here?" I cried, burning with curiosity.
"Pardon me, Geoffrey. That is my secret."
He spoke with the calmness of a philosopher, but I saw his emotion, as his eyes turned mechanically to the parchment he was copying, and affected an air of cheerful resignation.
The candid exposure of his past faults and follies raised, rather than sunk him in my estimation; but I was sadly disappointed at the general terms in which they were revealed. I wanted to know every event of his private life, and this abridgment was very tantalizing.
While I was pondering these things in my heart, the pen he had grasped so tightly was flung to some distance, and he raised his fine eyes to my face.
"Thank God! Geoffrey; I have not as yet lost the faculty of feeling—that I can see and deplore the errors of the past. When I think what I was, what I am, and what I might have been, it brings a cloud over my mind which often dissolves in tears. This is the weakness of human nature. But the years so uselessly wasted rise up in dread array against me, and the flood-gates of the soul are broken up by bitter and remorseful regrets. But see," he exclaimed, dashing the thickening mist from his eyes, and resuming his peculiarly benevolent smile: "the dark cloud has passed, and George is himself again."
"You are happier than I. You can smile through your tears," I cried, regarding his April face with surprise.
"And so would you, Geoffrey, if, like me, you had brought your passions under the subjection of reason."
"It is no easy task, George, to storm a city, when your own subjects defend the walls, and at every attack drive you back with your own weapons, into the trenches. I will, however, commence the attack, by striving to forget that there is a world beyond these gloomy walls, in whose busy scenes I am forbidden to mingle."
"Valiantly resolved, Geoffrey. But how comes it, that you did not tell me the news this morning?"
"News—what news?"
"Your cousin Theophilus returned last night."
"The devil he did! That's everything but good news to me. But are you sure the news is true?"
"My landlady is sister to Mr. Moncton's housekeeper. I had my information from her. She tells me that the father and son are on very bad terms."
"I have seldom heard Mr. Moncton mention him of late. I wonder we have not seen him in the office. He generally pays us an early visit to show off his fine clothes, and to insult me."
"Talk of his satanic majesty, Geoff. You know the rest. Here comes the heir of the house of Moncton."
"He does not belong to the elder branch," I cried, fiercely. "Poor as I am, I consider myself the head of the house, and one of these days will dispute his right to that title."
"Tush!" said George, resuming his pen, "you are talking sad nonsense. But hereby hangs a tale."
I looked up inquiringly. Harrison was hard at work. I saw a mischievous smile hovering about his lips. He turned his back abruptly to the door, and bent more closely over his parchment, as Theophilus Moncton entered the office equipped for a journey.
CHAPTER IX.
A PORTRAIT.
Two years had passed away since I last beheld my cousin, and during his absence, there had been peace between his father and me. He appeared before me like the evil genius of the house, prepared to renew the old hostility, and I could not meet him with the least show of cordiality and affection.
I am not a good hand at sketching portraits, but the person of my cousin is so fresh in my memory, his image so closely interwoven with all the leading events of my life, that I can scarcely fail in giving a tolerably correct likeness of the original.
He was about the middle stature, his figure slender and exceedingly well made: and but for a strong dash of affectation, which marred all that he did and said, his carriage would have been easy and graceful. His head was small and handsomely placed upon his shoulders, his features sharply defined and very prominent. His teeth were remarkably white, but so long and narrow, that they gave a peculiarly sinister and malicious expression to his face—which expression was greatly heightened by the ghastly contortion that was meant for a smile, and which was in constant requisition, in order to show off the said teeth, which Theophilus considered one of his greatest attractions. But my cousin had no personal attractions. There was nothing manly or decided about him. Smooth and insidious where he wished to please, his first appearance to strangers was always unprepossessing; and few persons on their first introduction had any great desire to extend their acquaintance.
He ought to have been fair, for his hair and whiskers were of the palest tint of brown; but his complexion was grey and muddy, and his large sea-green eyes afforded not the least contrast to the uniform smokiness of his skin. Those cold, selfish, deceitful eyes; his father's in shape and expression, but lacking the dark strength—the stern, determined look which at times lighted up Robert Moncton's proud, cruel face.
Much as I disliked the father, he was in his worst moods more tolerable to me than his son. Glimpses of his mind would at times flash out through those unnaturally bright eyes; and betray somewhat of the hell within; but Theophilus was close and dark—a sealed book which no man could open and read. An overweening sense of his own importance was the only trait of his character which lay upon the surface; and this, his master-failing, was revealed by every look and gesture.
A servile flatterer to persons of rank, and insolent and tyrannical to those whom he considered beneath him, he united in his character, the qualifications of both tyrant and slave.
The most brilliant sallies of wit could not produce the least brightening effect upon his saturnine countenance, or the most pathetic burst of eloquence draw the least moisture to his eye, which only became animated when contradicting some well-received opinion, or discussing the merits of an acquaintance, and placing his faults and follies in the most conspicuous light.
He was endowed with excellent practical abilities, possessed a most retentive memory, and a thorough knowledge of the most intricate windings of the human heart. Nothing escaped his observation. It would have been a difficult matter to have made a tool of one, whose suspicions were always wide awake; who never acted from impulse, or without a motive, and who had a shrewd knack of rendering the passions of others subservient to his own.
He was devoted to sensual pleasures, but the mask he wore, so effectually concealed his vicious propensities, that the most cautious parents would have admitted him without hesitation into their family circle. Robert Moncton thought himself master of the mind of his son, and fancied him a mere puppet in his hands; but his cunning was foiled by the superior cunning of Theophilus, and he ultimately became the dupe and victim of the being for whose aggrandizement he did not scruple to commit the worst crimes.
Theophilus was extremely neat in his dress, and from the cravat to the well-polished boot, his costume was perfect. An effeminate, solemn-looking dandy outwardly—within, as ferocious and hard a human biped as ever disgraced the name of man.
"Well, Geoff!" said he, condescendingly presenting his hand, "what have you been doing for the last two years?"
"Writing, in the old place," said I, carelessly.
"A fixture!—ha, ha! 'A rolling stone,' they say, 'gathers no moss.' How does that agree with your stationary position?"
"It only proves, that all proverbs have two sides to them," said I. "You roll about the world and scatter the moss that I sit here to help accumulate."
"What a lucky dog you are," said he, "to escape so easily from the snares and temptations of this wicked world. While I am tormented with ennui, blue-devils and dyspepsia, you sit still and grow in stature and knowledge. By Jove! you are too big to wear my cast-off suits now. My valet will bless the increase of your outward man, and I don't think you have at all profited by the circumstance. Where the deuce did you get that eccentric turn-out? It certainly does not remind one of Bond Street."
"Mr. Theophilus!" I cried, reddening with indignation. "Did you come here on purpose to insult me?"
"Sit still, now, like a good lad, and don't fly into heroics and give us a scene. I am too lazy to pick a quarrel with you. What a confounded wet morning! It has disarranged all my plans. I ordered the groom to bring up my mare at eleven. The rain commenced at ten. I think it means to keep on at this rate all day."
He cast a peevish glance at the dusty ground-glass windows.
"There's no catching a glimpse of heaven through these dim panes. My father's clerks are not called upon to resist the temptation of looking into the streets."
"They might not inappropriately be called the pains and penalties of lawyer's clerks," said I, smothering my anger, as I saw by the motion of Harrison's head, that he was suffering from an agony of suppressed laughter.
"Not a bad idea that. The plan of grinding the glass was suggested by me. An ingenious one, is it not? My father had the good sense to adopt it. It's a pity that his example is not followed by all the lawyers and merchants in London."
In spite of the spattering of Harrison's pen, which told me as plainly as words could have done, that he was highly amused at the scene, I felt irritated at Theophilus joking about a circumstance which, to me, was a great privation and annoyance.
"Ifyouhad a seat in this office, Mr. Theophilus," said I, laying a strong stress upon the personal pronoun, "you would, I am certain, take good care to keep a peep-hole, well-glazed, for your own convenience."
"If I were in the office," he replied, with one of his sidelong, satirical glances, "I should have too much to do in keeping the clerks at work and in their places, to have much time for looking out of the window. My father would do well to hire an overseer foridlehands."
Harrison's tremulous fit increased, while I was burning with indignation, and rose passionately from my seat.
"Geoffrey"—pronounced in an undertone, restrained me from committing an act of violence. I resumed my stool, muttering audibly between my teeth—
"Contemptible puppy!"
I was quite ready for a quarrel, but Theophilus, contrary to my expectations, did not choose to take any notice of my imprudent speech. Not that he wanted personal courage. Like the wasp, he could, when unprovoked, attack others, and sting with tenfold malice when he felt or fancied an affront. His forbearance on the present occasion, I attributed to the very handsome riding-dress in which he had encased his slight and elegant form. A contest with a strong, powerful young fellow like me, might have ended in its demolition:
Slashing his boot with his riding-whip, and glancing carelessly towards the window, he said, with an air of perfect indifference,
"Well, if the rain means to pour in this way all day, it is certain that I cannot prosecute my journey to Dover on horseback. I must take the coach, and leave the groom to follow with the horses."
"Dover!" I repeated, with an involuntary start, "are you off for France?"
"Yes" (with a weary yawn); "I shall not return until I have made the tour of Europe, and I just stepped in for a moment to say good-by."
"Unusuallykind," said I, with a sneer.
He remained silent for a few minutes, and seemed slightly embarrassed, as if he found difficulty in bringing out what he had to say.
"Geoffrey, I may be absent several years. It is just possible that we may never meet again."
"I hope so," was the response in my heart, while he continued,
"Your time in this office expires when you reach your majority. Our paths in life are very different, and from that period I must insist upon our remaining perfect strangers to each other."
Before I had time to answer his ungracious speech, he turned upon his heel and left the office, and me literally foaming with passion.
"Thank God he is gone!" cried Harrison. "My dear Geoff, accept my sincere congratulations. It would indeed be a blessing did you never meet again."
"Oh, that he had stayed another minute that I might have demolished his gay plumes! I am so angry, so mortified, George, that I can scarcely control myself."
"Nonsense! His departure is a fortunate event for you."
"Of course—the absence of one so actively annoying, must make my bondage more tolerable."
"Listen to me, petulant boy! there is war in the camp. Theophilus leaves the house under the ban of his father's anger. They have had a desperate quarrel, and he quits London in disgrace; and if you are not a gainer by this change in the domestic arrangements, my name is not George Harrison."
"Why do you think so?"
"Because I know more of Robert Moncton than you do. To provoke his son to jealousy, he will take you into favour. If Theophilus has gone too far—he is so revengeful, so unforgiving—he may, probably, make you his heir."
"May God forbid!" cried I, vehemently.
Harrison laughed.
"Gold is too bright to betray the dirty channels through which it flows—and I feel certain, Geoffrey——"
A quick rap at the office-door terminated all further colloquy, and I rose to admit the intruder.
Harrison and I generally wrote in an inner, room, which opened into the public office; and a passage led from the apartment we occupied into Mr. Moncton's private study, in which he generally spent the fore-part of the day, and in which he received persons who came to consult him on particular business.
On opening the door which led into the public office, a woman wrapped closely in a black camblet cloak, glided into the room.
Her face was so completely concealed by the large calash and veil she wore, and, but for the stoop in the shoulders, it would have been difficult at a first glance to have determined her age.
"Is Mr. Moncton at home?" Her voice was harsh and unpleasant; it had a hissing, grating intonation, which was painful to the ear.
The moment the stranger spoke, I saw Harrison start, and turn very pale. He rose hastily from his seat and walked to a case of law-books which stood in a dark recess, and taking down a volume, continued standing with his back towards us, as if intently occupied with its contents.
This circumstance made me regard the woman with more attention. She appeared about sixty years of age. Her face was sharp, her eyes black and snake-like, while her brow was channelled into deep furrows which made you think it almost impossible that she had ever been young or handsome. Her upper lip was unusually short, and seemed to writhe with a constant sneer; and in spite of her corrugated brow, long nose, and curved chin, which bore the unmistakable marks of age, her fine teeth shone white and ghastly, when she unclosed her fleshless, thin lips. A worse, or more sinister aspect, I have seldom, during the course of my life, beheld.
In answer to her inquiry, I informed her that Mr. Moncton was at home, but particularly engaged; and had given orders for no one to be admitted to his study before noon.
With a look of bitter disappointment, she then asked to speak to Mr. Theophilus.
"He has just left for France, and will not return for several years."
"Gone!—and I am too late," she muttered to herself. "If I cannot see the son, Imustandwillspeak to the father."
"Your business, then, was with Mr. Theophilus?" said I, no longer able to restrain my curiosity; for I was dying to learn something of the strange being whose presence had given my friend Harrison's nerves such a sudden shock.
"Impertinent boy!" said she with evident displeasure. "Who taught you to catechise your elders? Go, and tell your employer thatDinah Northis here; andmustsee him immediately."
As I passed the dark nook in which Harrison was playing at hide and seek, he laid his hand upon my arm, and whispered in French, a language he spoke fluently, and in which he had been giving me lessons for some time, "My happiness is deeply concerned in yon hag's commission. Read well Moncton's countenance, and note down his words, while you deliver her message, and report your observations to me."
I looked up in his face with astonishment. His countenance was livid with excitement and agitation, and his whole frame trembled. Before I could utter a word, he had quitted the office. Amazed and bewildered, I glanced back towards the being who was the cause of this emotion, and whom I now regarded with intense interest.
She had sunk down into Harrison's vacant seat, her elbows supported on her knees, and her head resting between the palms of her hands: her face completely concealed from observation. "Dinah North," I whispered to myself; "that is a name I never heard before. Who the deuce can she be?" With a flushed cheek and hurried step, I hastened to my uncle's study to deliver her message.
I found him alone: he was seated at the table, looking over a long roll of parchment. He was much displeased at the interruption, and reproved me in a stern voice for disobeying his positive orders; and, by way of conciliation, I repeated my errand.
"Tell that woman," he cried, in a voice hoarse with emotion, "that Iwill notsee her! nor any one belonging to her."
"The mystery thickens," thought I. "What can all this mean?"
On re-entering the office, I found the old woman huddled up in her wet clothes, in the same dejected attitude in which I had left her. When I addressed her, she raised her head with a fierce, menacing gesture. She evidently mistook me for Mr. Moncton, and smiled disdainfully on perceiving her error. When I repeated his answer, it was received with a bitter and derisive laugh.
"He will not see me?"
"I have given you my uncle's answer."
"Uncle!" she cried, with a repetition of the same horrid laugh. "By courtesy, I suppose; I was not aware that there was another shoot of that accursed tree."
I gazed upon her like one in a dream. The old woman drew a slip of paper from her bosom, bidding me conveythatto myworthyuncle, and ask him, in her name, "whether he, or his son,daredto refuse admittance to the bearer."
I took the billet from her withered hand, and once more proceeded to the study. As I passed through the passage, an irresistible impulse of curiosity induced me to glance at the paper, which was unsealed, and my eye fell upon the following words, traced in characters of uncommon beauty and delicacy:
"If Robert Moncton refuses to admit my claims, and to do me justice, I will expose his villainy, and his son's heartless desertion, to the world."A. M."
"If Robert Moncton refuses to admit my claims, and to do me justice, I will expose his villainy, and his son's heartless desertion, to the world.
"A. M."
I had scarcely read the mysterious billet than I felt that I had done wrong. I was humbled and abashed in my own eyes, and the riddle appeared as difficult of solution as ever. My uncle's voice sounded as ominously in my ears as the stroke of a death-bell, as he called me sharply by name. Hastily refolding the note, I went into his study, and placed it on the table before him, with an averted glance and trembling hand. I dreaded lest his keen, clear eye should read guilt in my conscious face. Fortunately for me, he was too much agitated himself to notice my confusion. He eagerly clutched the paper, and his aspect grew dark as he perused it.
"Geoffrey," said he, and his voice, generally so clear and passionless, sunk into a choking whisper, "Is that woman gone?"
"No, uncle, she is still there, and dares you to refuse her admittance."
I had thought Robert Moncton icy and immovable—that his blood never flowed like the blood of other men. I had deceived myself. Beneath the snow-capped mountain, the volcano conceals its hottest fires. My uncle's cold exterior was but the icy crust that hid the fierce passions which burnt within his breast. He forgot my presence in the excitement of the moment, and the stern unfeeling eye blazed with lurid fire.
"Fool!—madman—insane idiot!" he cried, tearing the note to pieces, and trampling on the fragments in his ungovernable rage: "how have you marred your own fortune, destroyed your best hopes, and annihilated all my plans for your future advancement!"
Suddenly he became conscious of my presence, and glancing at me with his usual iron gravity, said, with an expression of haughty indifference, as if my opinion of his extraordinary conduct was matter of no importance,
"Geoffrey, go and tell that mad-woman—But no. I will go myself."
He advanced to the door, seemed again irresolute, and finally bade me show her into the study. Dinah North rose with alacrity to obey the summons, and for a person of her years, seemed to possess great activity of mind and body. I felt a secret loathing for the hag, and pitied my uncle the unpleasant conference which I was certain awaited him.
Mr. Moncton had resumed his seat in his large study chair, and he rose with such calm dignity to receive his unwelcome visitor, that his late agitation appeared a delusion of my own heated imagination.
Curiosity was one of my besetting sins. Ah, how I longed to know the substance of their discourse; for I felt a mysterious presentiment that in some way or another, my future destiny was connected with this stranger. I recalled the distress of Harrison, the dark hints he had thrown out respecting me, and his evident knowledge, not only of the old woman, but of the purport of her visit.
I was tortured with conjectures. I lingered in the passage; but the conversation was carried on in too low a tone for me even to distinguish a solitary monosyllable; and ashamed of acting the part of a spy, I stole back with noiseless steps to my place in the office. I found George at his desk: his face was very pale, and I thought I could perceive traces of strong emotion. For some time he wrote on in silence, without asking a word about the secret that I was burning to tell. I was the first to speak and lead him to the subject.
"Do you know that horrible old woman, George?"
"Too well: she is my grandmother, and nursed me in my infancy."
"Then, what made you so anxious to avoid a recognition?"
"I did not want her to know that I was living. She believes me dead: nay more," he continued, lowering his voice to a whisper, "she thinks she murdered me." His lips quivered as he murmured, in half-smothered tones: "And she—the beautiful, the lost one—what will become of her?"
"Oh, Harrison," I cried, "do speak out; do not torture me with these dark hints. If you are a true friend, give me your whole confidence, nor let your silence give rise to painful conjectures and doubts. I have no concealments from you. Such mental reservation on your part is every thing but kind."
"I frankly acknowledge that you have just cause to suspect me," said George, with his usual sad, winning smile. "But this is not a safe place to discuss matters of vital interest to us both—matters which involve life and death. I trust to clear up the mystery one of these days, and for that purpose I am here. But tell me: how did Moncton receive this woman—this Dinah North?"
I related the scene. When I repeated the contents of the note, his calm face crimsoned with passion, his eyes flashed, and his lips quivered with indignation.
"Yes, I thought it would come to that; unhappy, miserable Alice! how could you bestow the affections of a warm, true heart on a despicable wretch like Theophilus Moncton. The old fiend's ambition and this fatal passion have been your ruin."
For some time he remained with his face bowed upon his hands. At length, raising his head, and turning to me with great animation, he asked if I knew any of my father's relations, besides Robert Moncton and his son?
"I was not aware that I had any other relatives."
"They are by no means a prolific race, Geoffrey. And has your insatiable curiosity never led you to make the inquiry?"
"I dared not ask my uncle. My aunt told me that, but for them, I should be alone in the world. It was a subject never discussed before me," I continued, after a long pause, in which George seemed busy with his own thoughts. "I understood that my uncle had only one brother."
"True," said George, "but he has a cousin; a man of great wealth and consequence. Did you never hear Theophilus mention Sir Alexander Moncton?"
"Never."
"Nor to whom his long visits in Yorkshire were made?"
"How should I? No confidence existed between us. I was indifferent to all his movements; not imagining that they could in any degree interest me."
"I begin to see my way through this tangled maze," returned George, musingly. "I now understand the secluded manner in which you have been brought up; and their reasons for keeping you a prisoner within these walls. They have an important game to play, in which they do not want you to act a conspicuous part. I can whisper a secret into your ears well worth the knowing—ay, and the keeping, too. Geoffrey Moncton, you are this Sir Alexander'sheir!"
A sudden thrill shot through my whole frame. It was not pleasure, for at that moment I felt sad enough; nor hope, for I had long accustomed myself to look only on the dark side of the picture. It was, I fear, revenge; a burning desire to pay back the insults and injuries I had received from Theophilus Moncton, and to frustrate the manœuvres of his designing father.
"Has Sir Alexander no children?"
"He has a daughter—an only daughter, a fair, fragile girl of sixteen; the noblest, the most disinterested of her sex; a creature as talented as she is beautiful. Margaretta Moncton is destined to be the wife of her cousin Theophilus."
"Does he love her?"
"How can you ask that question, knowing the man, and after having read the note addressed to your uncle?"
"That note was signed A—— M——."
"It was written by an unhappy, infatuated creature, whom Theophilusdidlove, if such a passion as his callous bosom can feel, deserves the name; but he shall not escape my vengeance. The arrow is in the bow, and a punishment as terrible as his crime, shall overtake him yet."
"Oh, that you would enter more fully into these dark details. You are ingenious at tormenting. I am bewildered and lost amid these half disclosures."
"Hush, Geoffrey! these walls have ears. I, too, am tortured, maddened by your questions. You are too imprudent—too impulsive, to trust with matters of such vital importance; I have revealed too much already. Try and forget the events of this morning; nor let your uncle discover by look, word or gesture, that you are in possession of his secret. He is deeply offended with his son, not on account of his base conduct to this poor orphan girl, but because it is likely to hinder his marriage with Miss Moncton, which has been for years the idol wish of his heart. His morose spirit, once aroused, is deadly and implacable; and in order to make Theophilus feel the full weight of his anger, he may call you to fill his vacant place."
The sound of Mr. Moncton's step in the passage put a sudden stop to our conversation, but enough had been said to rouse my curiosity to the highest pitch; and I tried in vain to lift the dark veil of futurity—to penetrate the mysteries that its folds concealed.
CHAPTER X.
DREAMS.
I went to bed early, and tried in vain to sleep. The events of the day passed continually through my brain, and brought on a nervous headache. All the blood in my body seemed concentrated in my head, leaving my feet and hands paralyzed with cold. After tossing about for many hours, I dropped off into a sort of mesmeric sleep, full of confused images, among which the singular face of Dinah North haunted me like the genius of the night-mare.
Dreams are one of the greatest mysteries in the unsolved problem of life. I have been a dreamer from my cradle, and if any person could explain the phenomena, the practical experience of a long life ought to have invested me with that power.
Most persons, in spite of themselves, or what they consider to be their better judgment, attach a superstitious importance to these visions of the night; nor is the vague belief in the spiritual agency employed in dreams, diminished by the remarkable dreams and their fulfilment, which are recorded in Holy Writ, the verity of which we are taught to believe as an article of faith.
My eyes are scarcely closed in sleep, before I become an actor in scenes of the most ludicrous or terrific nature. All my mental and physical faculties become intensified, and enjoy the highest state of perfection; as if the soul centered in itself the qualities of its mysterious triune existence.
Beautiful visions float before the sight, such as the waking eye never beheld; and the ear is ravished with music which no earthly skill could produce. The dreaming sense magnifies all sounds and sights which exist in nature. The thunder deepens its sonorous tone, ocean sends up a louder voice, and the whirlwind shakes the bending forest with tenfold fury.
I have beheld in sleep the mountains reel; the yawning earth disclose her hidden depths, and the fiery abyss swarm with hideous forms, which no waking eye could contemplate, and the mind retain its rationality. I have beheld the shrinking sea yield up the dead of ages, and have found myself a guilty and condemned wretch, trembling at the bar of Eternal Justice.
"Oh! what have I not beheld in sleep?"
I have been shut up, a living sentient creature in the cold, dank, noisome grave; have felt the loathsome worm slide along my warm, quivering limbs; the toad find a resting-place upon my breast; the adder wreath her slimy folds round my swelling throat; have struggled against the earthly weight that pressed out my soul and palsied my bursting heart, with superhuman strength; but every effort to free myself from my prison of clay was made in vain. My lips were motionless; my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth and refused to send forth a sound. Hope was extinct. I was beyond the reach of human aid; and that mental agony rendered me as powerless, as a moth in the grasp of a giant.
I have stood upon the edge of the volcano, and listened to the throbbings of Nature's fiery heart; and heard the boiling blood of earth, chafing and roaring far below; while my eyes vainly endeavoured to explore its glowing depths. Anon, by some fatal necessity, I was compelled to cross this terrible abyss—my bridge, a narrow plank insecurely placed upon the rounded stems of two yielding, sapling trees. Suddenly, frightful cries resounded on every side, and I was pursued by fiend-like forms in the shape of animal life. I put my foot upon the fearful bridge, I tried its strength, and felt a horrid consciousness that I never could pass over it in safety; my supernatural enemies drew nearer—I saw their blazing eyes—heard their low muttered growls; the next moment I leaped upon the plank—with a loud crash it severed—and with the velocity of thought, I was plunged headlong into the boiling gulf—down—down—down—for ever whirling down—the hot flood rushed over me. I felt the spasmodic grasp of death upon my throat, and awoke struggling with eternity upon the threshold of time.
Most persons of a reflective character, have kept a diary of the ordinary occurrences of life. I reversed this time-honoured mental exercise; and for some months, noted down what I could remember of the transactions of the mind, during its sleeping hours.
So wild and strange were these records, so eccentric the vagaries of the soul during its nocturnal wanderings, that I was induced to abandon the task, lest some friend hereafter, might examine, the mystic scroll, and conclude that it was written by a maniac.
It happened, that on the present night, I was haunted by a dream of more than ordinary wildness.
I dreamt that I stood in the centre of a boundless plain of sand, which undulated beneath my feet like the waves of the sea. Presently, I heard the rushing of a mighty wind, and as the whirl-blast swept over the desert, clouds of sand were driven before it, and I was lifted off my feet, and carried along the tide of dust as lightly as a leaf is whirled onward through the air. All objects fled as I advanced, and each moment increased the velocity of my flight.
A vast forest extended its gloomy arms athwart the horizon; but did not arrest my aerial journey. The thick boughs groaned and crashed beneath me, as I was dragged through their matted foliage; my limbs lacerated and torn, and my hair tangled amid the thorny branches. Vainly I endeavoured to cling to the twigs which impeded my passage, but they eluded my frenzied grasp, or snapped in my hands, while my cries for help were drowned in the thundering sweep of the mighty gale. Onward—onward. I was still flying onward without the aid of wings. There seemed no end to that interminable flight.
At length, when I least expected a change, I was suddenly cast to the bottom of a deep pit. The luxury of repose to my wounded and exhausted frame, was as grateful and refreshing as the dews of heaven to the long parched earth. I lay in a sort of pleasing helplessness, too glad to escape from past perils to imagine a recurrence of the same evil.
While dreamily watching the swallows, tending their young in the holes of the sandy bank that formed the walls of my prison, I observed the sand at the bottom of the pit caught up in little eddies and whirling round and round. A sickening feeling of dread stole over me, and I crouched down in an agony of fear, and clung with all my strength to the tufts of thorny shrubs which clothed the sides of the pit.
Again the wind-fiend caught me up on his broad pinions, and I was once more traversing with lightning speed the azure deserts of air. A burning heat was in my throat—my eyes seemed bursting from their sockets; confused sounds were murmuring in my ears, and the very blackness of darkness swallowed me up. No longer carried upward, I was now rapidly descending from some tremendous height. I stretched forth my hands to grasp some tangible substance in order to break the horrors of that fall, but all above, around, and beneath me, was empty air;—the effort burst the chains of that ghastly slumber, and I awoke with a short stifled cry of terror, exclaiming with devotional fervour, "Thank God! it is only a dream!"
The damp dews stood in large drops upon my brow, my hands were tightly clenched, and every hair upon my head seemed stiffened and erect with fear.
"Thank God!" I once more exclaimed in an agony of gratitude, "it is only a dream!"
Then arose the question: "What was the import of this dream, the effects of which I still felt through all my trembling frame, in the violent throbbing of my heart, and the ghastly cessation of every emotion save that of horror?"
Then I began to ponder, as I had done a thousand times before, over the mysterious nature of dreams, the manner in which they had been employed by the Almighty to communicate important truths to mankind, until I came to the conclusion that dreams were revelations from the spirit land, to warn us of dangers which threatened, or to punish us for crimes committed in the flesh.
"What are the visions which haunt the murderer's bed," I thought, "but phantoms of the past recalled by memory and conscience, and invested with an actual presence in sleep?"
Dr. Young, that melancholy dreamer of sublime dreams, has said—