Kitabı oku: «The Child Wife», sayfa 26

Chapter Eighty.
On the Tow-Rope

With difficulty cordelling his barge around the Regent’s Park, Bill Bootle, the canal boatman, was making slow speed. This because the fog had thickened unexpectedly; and it was no easy matter to guide his old horse along the tow-path.

He would not have attempted it; but that he was next morning due in the Paddington Basin; where, at an early hour, the owner of the boat would be expecting him.

Bill was only skipper of the craft; the crew consisting of his wife, and a brace of young Bootles, one of them still at the breast. Mrs B, wearing her husband’s dreadnought to protect her from the raw air of the night, stood by the tiller, while Bootle himself had charge of the tow-horse.

He had passed through the Park Road Bridge, and was groping his way beyond, when a drift of the fog thicker than common came curling along the canal, compelling him to make stop.

The boat was still under the bridge; and Mrs Bootle, feeling that the motion was suspended, had ceased working the spokes. Just at this moment, both she and her husband heard a shuffling sound upon the bridge above them; which was quick followed by a “swish,” as of some bulky object descending through the air!

There was also a voice; but so smothered as to be almost inaudible!

Before either had time to think of it, a mass came splashing down upon the water, between the boat and the horse!

It had struck the tow-rope; and with such force, that the old machiner, tired after a long spell of pulling, was almost dragged backwards into the canal.

And frighted by the sudden jerk, it was as much as Bootle could do to prevent him rushing forward, and going in head foremost.

The difficulty in tranquillising the horse lay in the fact that the tow-rope was still kept taut by some one who appeared to be struggling upon it, and whose smothered cries could be heard coming up from the disturbed surface of the water!

The voice was not so choked, but that Bootle could tell it to be that of a woman!

The boatman’s chivalrous instincts were at once aroused; and, dropping the rein, he ran back a bit, and then sprang with a plunge into the canal.

It was so dark he could see nothing; but the half-stifled cries served to guide him; and swimming towards the tow-rope, he discovered the object of his search!

It was a woman struggling in the water, and still upon its surface.

She was prevented from sinking by her cloak, which had swished over on one side of the tow-rope as her body fell upon the other.

Moreover she had caught the rope in her hands, and was holding on to it with the tenacious grasp of one who dreads drowning.

The boatman could not see her face, which appeared to be buried within the folds of a cloak!

He did not stay to look for a face. Enough for him that there was a body in danger of being drowned; and throwing one arm around it, with the other he commenced “swarming” along the tow-rope in the direction of the barge!

Mrs B, who had long since forsaken the tiller, and was now “for’ard,” helped him and his burden aboard; which, examined by the light of the canal-boat lantern, proved to be a very beautiful lady, dressed in rich silk, with a gold watch in her waistbelt, and a diamond ring sparkling upon her fingers!

Mrs Bootle observed that beside this last, there was another ring of plain appearance, but in her eyes of equal significance. It was the hoop emblematic of Hymen.

These things were only discovered after the saturated cloak had been removed from the shoulders of the half-drowned woman; and who, but for it and the tow-rope, would have been drowned altogether.

“What is this?” asked the lady, gasping for breath, and looking wildly around. “What is it, Dick? Where are you? Where am I? O God! It is water! I’m wet all over. It has nearly suffocated me! Who are you, sir? And you, woman; if you are a woman? Why did you throw me in? Is it the river, or the Serpentine, or where?”

“’Taint no river, mistress,” said Mrs Bootle, a little nettled by the doubt thrown upon her womanhood, “nor the Sarpentine neyther. It’s the Regent Canal. But who ha’ pitched you into it, ye ought best to know that yourself.”

“The Regent’s Canal?”

“Yes, missus,” said Bootle, taking the title from his wife; “it’s there you’ve had your duckin’ – just by the Park Road here. You come switching over the bridge. Can’t you tell who chucked you over? Or did ye do it yerself?”

The eyes of the rescued woman assumed a wandering expression, as if her thoughts were straying back to some past scene.

Then all at once a change came over her countenance, like one awaking from a horrid dream, and not altogether comprehending the reality!

For a moment she remained as if considering; and then all became clear to her.

“You have saved me from drowning,” she said, leaning forward, and grasping the boatman by the wrist.

“Well, yes; I reckon you’d a-goed to the bottom, but for me, an’ the old tow-rope.”

“By the Park Road bridge, you say?”

“It be right over ye – the boat’s still under it.” Another second or two spent in reflection, and the lady again said:

“Can I trust you to keep this a secret?” Bootle looked at his wife, and Mrs B back at her husband, both inquiringly.

“I have reasons for asking this favour,” continued the lady, in a trembling tone, which was due not altogether to the ducking. “It’s no use telling you what they are – not now. In time I may make them known to you. Say you will keep it a secret?”

Again Bootle looked interrogatively at his wife; and again Mrs B gave back the glance.

But this time an answer was secured in the affirmative, through an act done by the rescued lady.

Drawing the diamond ring off her finger, and taking the gold watch from behind her waistbelt, she handed the first to the boatman’s wife, and the second to the boatman himself – telling both to keep them as tokens of gratitude for the saving of her life!

The gifts appeared sufficiently valuable, not only to cover the service done, but that requested. With such glittering bribes in hand, it would have been a strange boatman, and still stranger boatman’s wife, who would have refused to keep a secret, which could scarce compromise them.

“One last request,” said the lady. “Let me stay aboard your boat till you can land me in Lisson Grove. You are going that way?”

“We are, missus.”

“You will then call a cab for me from the stand. There’s one in the Grove Road, close up.”

“I’ll do that for your ladyship in welcome.”

“Enough, sir. I hope some day to have an opportunity of showing you I can be grateful.”

Bootle, still balancing the watch in his hand, thought she had shown this already.

Some of the service still remained to be done, and should be done quickly. Leaving the lady with his wife, Bootle sprang back upon the tow-path, and once more taking his old horse by the head, trained on towards the Grove Road.

Nearing its bridge, which terminates the long subterraneous passage to Edgware Road, he again brought his barge to a stop, and went in search of a cab.

He soon came back with a four-wheeler; conducted the dripping lady into it; said good-night to her; and then returned to his craft.

But not till she he had rescued had taken note of his name, the number of his boat, and every particular that might be necessary to the finding him again!

She did not tell him whither she was herself bound.

She only communicated this to the cabman; who was directed to drive her to a hotel, not far from the Haymarket.

She was now sober enough to know, not only where she was, but whither she was going!

Chapter Eighty One.
Consent at Last

Since our last visit to it, Vernon Hall had changed from gay to grave.

Only in its interior. Outside, its fine façade presented the same cheerful front to its park; the Corinthian columns of its portico looked open and hospitable as ever.

As ever, elegant equipages came and went; but only to draw up, and remain for a moment in the sweep, while their occupants left cards, and made inquiries.

Inside there was silence. Servants glided about softly, or on tiptoe; opened and closed the doors gently, speaking in subdued tones.

It was a stillness, solemn and significant. It spoke of sickness in the house.

And there was sickness of the most serious kind – for it was known to be the precursor of death.

Sir George Vernon was dying.

It was an old malady – a disease of that organ, to which tropical climes are so fatal – in the East as in the West.

And in both had the baronet been exposed; for part of his earlier life had been spent in India.

Induration had been long going on. It was complete, and pronounced incurable. At the invalid’s urgent request, the doctors had told him the truth – warning him to prepare for death.

His last tour upon the Continent – whither he had gone with his daughter – had given the finishing blow to his strength; and he was now home again, so enfeebled that he could no longer take a walk, even along the soft, smooth turf of his own beautiful park.

By day most of his time was spent upon a sofa in his library, where he lay supported by pillows.

He had gone abroad with Blanche, in the hope of weaning her from that affection so freely confessed; and which had been ever since a sore trouble to his spirit.

How far he had succeeded might be learnt by looking in her sad thoughtful face; once blithe and cheerful; by noting a pallor in her cheek, erst red as the rose leaf; by listening to sighs, too painful to be suppressed; and, above all, to a conversation that occurred between her and her father not long after returning from that latest journey, that was to be the last of his life.

Sir George was in his library reclining, as was his wont. The sofa had been wheeled up to the window, that he might enjoy the charm of a splendid sunset: for it was a window facing west.

Blanche was beside him; though no words were passing between them. Having finished adjusting his pillow, she had taken a seat near the foot of the sofa, her eyes, like his, fixed on the far sunset – flushing the horizon with strata-clouds of crimson, purple, and gold.

It was mid-winter; but among the sheltered copses of Vernon Park there was slight sign of the season. With a shrubbery whose foliage never fell, and a grass ever green, the grounds immediately around the mansion might have passed for a picture of spring.

And there was bird music, the spring’s fit concomitant: the chaffinch chattering upon the taller trees, the blackbird with flutelike note fluttering low among laurels and laurustines, and the robin nearer the window warbling his sweet simple lay.

Here and there a bright-plumed pheasant might be seen shooting from copse to copse; or a hare, scared from her form, dashing down into the covert of the dale. Farther off on the pastures of the park could be seen sleek kine consorting with the antlered stag, both browsing tranquil and undisturbed. It was a fair prospect to look upon; and it should have been fairer in the eyes of one who was its proprietor.

But not so Sir George Vernon, who might fancy that he was looking at it for the last time. The thought could not fail to inspire painful reflections; and into a train of such had he fallen.

They took the shape of an inquiry: who was to succeed him in that fair inheritance, handed down from a long line of distinguished ancestors?

His daughter Blanche was to be his inheritor – since he had no son, no other child; and the entail of the estate ended with himself.

But Blanche might not long bear his name; and what other was she to bear? What escutcheon was to become quartered upon that of the Vernons?

He thought of Scudamore; he had been long thinking of it, hoping, wishing it; but now, in the hours darkened by approaching death, he had doubts whether this union of armorial bearings would ever be.

In earlier days he had resolved on its being so, and up to a late period. He had spoken of compulsion, such as he held by testamentary powers. He had even hinted it to Blanche herself. He had made discovery how idle such a course would be; and on this he was now reflecting. He might as well have thought of commanding yonder sun to cease from its setting, yonder stag to lay aside its grandeur, or the birds their soft beauty. You may soften an antipathy, but you cannot kill it; and, obedient child though she was, not even her father’s will, not all the powers upon earth, could have removed from Blanche Vernon’s mind the antipathy she had conceived for her cousin Scudamore.

In the same way you may thwart an affection, but not destroy it; and a similar influence would not have sufficed to chase from Blanche Vernon’s mind the memory of Captain Maynard. His image was still upon her heart, fresh as the first impression – fresh as in that hour when she stood holding his hand under the shade of the deodara! Her father appeared to know all this. If not, her pale cheek, day by day growing paler, should have admonished him. But he did know, or suspected it; and the time had come for him to be certain.

“Blanche!” he said, turning round, and tenderly gazing in her face.

“Father?” She pronounced the word interrogatively, thinking it was some request for service to the invalid. But she started as she met his glance. It meant something more!

“My daughter,” he said, “I shall not be much longer with you.”

“Dear father! do not say so!”

“It is true, Blanche. The doctors tell me I am dying; and I know it myself.”

“O father! dear father!” she exclaimed, springing forward from her seat, falling upon her knees beside the sofa, and covering his face with her tresses and tears.

“Do not weep, my child! However painful to think of it, these things must be. It is the fate of all to leave this world; and I could not hope to be exempted. It is but going to a better, where God Himself will be with us, and where we are told there is no more weeping. Come, child! compose yourself. Return to your seat, and listen; for I have something to say to you.”

Sobbingly she obeyed – sobbing as though her heart would break.

“When I’m gone,” he continued, after she had become a little calmer, “you, my daughter, will succeed to my estates. They are not of great value; for I regret to say there is a considerable mortgage upon them. Still, after all is paid off there will be a residue – sufficient for your maintenance in the position to which you have been accustomed.”

“Oh, father I do not speak of these things. It pains me!”

“But I must, Blanche; I must. It is necessary you should be made acquainted with them; and necessary, too, that I should know – ”

What was it necessary he should know? He had paused, as if afraid to declare it.

“What, papa?” asked she, looking interrogatively in his face, at the same time that a blush, rising upon her cheek, told she half divined it.

“What should you know?”

“My dear daughter!” he rejoined, shunning a direct answer. “It is but reasonable to suppose you will be some day changing your name. I should be unhappy to leave the world, thinking you would not; and I could leave it all the happier to think you will change it for one worthy of being adopted by the daughter of a Vernon – one borne by a man deserving to be my son!”

“Dear father?” cried she, once more sobbing spasmodically, “pray do not speak to me of this! I know whom you mean. Yes; I know it, I know it. O father, it can never be!”

She was thinking of the name Scudamore; and that it could never be here!

“Perhaps you are mistaken, my child. Perhaps I did not mean any name in particular.”

Her grand blue eyes, deeper blue under their bedewing of tears, turned inquiringly upon her father’s face.

She said nothing; but seemed waiting for him to further explain himself.

“My daughter,” he said, “I think I can guess what you meant by your last speech. You object to the name Scudamore? Is it not so?”

“Sooner than bear it, I shall be for ever content to keep my own – yours – throughout all my life. Dear father! I shall do anything to obey you – even this. Oh! you will not compel me to an act that would make me for ever unhappy? I do not, cannot love Frank Scudamore; and without love how could I – how could he – ”

The womanly instinct which had been guiding the young girl seemed suddenly to forsake her. The interrogatory ended in a convulsive sob; and once more she was weeping.

Sir George could no longer restrain his tears, nor expression of the sympathy from whence they proceeded.

Averting his face upon the pillow, he wept wildly as she.

Sorrow cannot endure for ever. The purest and most poignant grief must in time come to an end.

And the dying man knew of a solace, not only to himself, but to his dear, noble daughter – dearer and nobler from the sacrifice he had declared herself willing to make for him.

His views about her future had been for some time undergoing a change. The gloom of the grave, to one who knows he is hastening towards it, casts its shadow alike over the pride of the past, and the splendours of the present. Equally does it temper the ambitions of the future.

And so had it effected the views of Sir George Vernon – socially as well as politically. Perhaps he saw in that future the dawning of a new day – when the régime of the Republic will be the only one acknowledged upon earth!

Whether or not, there was in his mind at that moment a man who represented this idea; a man he had once slighted, even to scorn. On his deathbed he felt scorn no longer; partly because he had repented of it; and partly that he knew this man was in the mind of his daughter – in her heart of heart. And he knew also she would never be happy without having him in her arms!

She had promised a self-sacrifice – nobly promised it. A command, a request, a simple word would secure it! Was he to speak that word?

No! Let the crest of the Vernons be erased from the page of heraldry! Let it be blended with the plebeian insignia of a republic, rather than a daughter of his house, his own dear child, should be the child of a life-long sorrow!

In that critical hour, he determined she should not. “You do not love Frank Scudamore?” he said, after the long sad interlude, recurring to her last speech. “I do not, father; I cannot!”

“But you love another? Do not fear to speak frankly – candidly, my child! You love another?”

“I do – I do!”

“And that other is – Captain Maynard?”

“Father! I have once before confessed it. I told you I loved him, with my whole heart’s affection. Do you think that could ever change?”

“Enough, my brave Blanche!” exclaimed the invalid, raising his head proudly upon the pillow, and contemplating his daughter, as if in admiration. “Enough! dearest Blanche! Come to my arms! Come closer and embrace your father – your friend, who will not be much longer near you. It will be no fault of mine, if I do not leave you in other arms – if not dearer, perhaps better able to protect you!”

The wild burst of filial affection bestowed upon a dying parent permits not expression in speech.

Never was one wilder than when Blanche Vernon flung her arms around the neck of her generous parent, and showered her scalding tears upon his cheek!

Chapter Eighty Two.
A Consoling Epistle

“Never more to see her – never more to hear of her! From her I need not expect. She dares not write. No doubt an embargo has been laid upon that. Parental authority forbids it.

“And I dare not write to her! If I did, no doubt, by the same parental authority, my epistle would be intercepted – still further compromising her – still further debarring the chance of a reconciliation with her father!

“I dare not do it – I should not!

“Why should I not? Is it not after all but a false sentiment of chivalry?

“And am I not false to myself – to her? What authority over the heart is higher than its own inclining? In the disposal of the hand, this, and this alone, should be consulted. Who has the right to interpose between two hearts mutually loving? To forbid their mutual happiness?

“The parent claims such right, and too often exercises it! It may be a wise control; but is it a just one?

“And there are times, too, when it may not be wisdom, but madness.

“O pride of rank! how much happiness has been left unachieved through thy interference – how many hearts sacrificed on the shrine of thy hollow pretensions!

“Blanche! Blanche! It is hard to think there is a barrier between us, that can never be broken down! An obstruction that no merit of mine, no struggle, no triumph, no probation, can remove! It is hard! hard!

“And even should I succeed in achieving such triumph, it might be too late? The heart I have now might then be another’s?”

“Ah! it may be another’s now! Who knows that it is not?”

It was Captain Maynard who made these reflections. He was in his own studio, and seated in his writing chair. But the last thought was too painful for him to remain seated; and, springing to his feet, he commenced pacing the floor.

That sweet presentiment was no more in his mind – at least not strongly. The tone and tenour of his soliloquy, especially its last clause, told how much he had lost belief in it. And his manner, as he strode through the room – his glances, gestures, and exclamations – the look of despair, and the long-drawn sigh – told how much Blanche Vernon was in his mind – how much he still loved her!

“It is true,” he continued, “she may by this have forgotten me! A child, she may have taken me up as a toy – no more to be thought of when out of sight. Damaged too; for doubtless they’ve done everything to defame me!

“Oh! that I could believe that promise, made at the hour of our parting – recorded, too, in writing! Let me look once more at the sweet chirograph!”

Thrusting his hand into the pocket of his vest – the one directly over his heart – he drew forth the tiny sheet, there long and fondly treasured. Spreading it out, he once more read: —

“Papa is very angry; and I know he will never sanction my seeing you again. I am sad to think we may meet no more; and that you will forget me. I shall never forget you, never – never!”

The reading caused him a strange commingling of pain and pleasure, as it had done twenty times before; for not less than twenty times had he deciphered that hastily-scribbled note.

But now the pain predominated over the pleasure. He had begun to believe in the emphatic clause “we may never meet more,” and to doubt the declaration “I shall never forget you.” He continued to pace the floor wildly, despairingly.

It did not do much to tranquillise him, when his friend, Roseveldt, entered the room, in the making of a morning call. It was an occurrence too common to create any distraction – especially from such thoughts. And the Count had become changed of late. He, too, had a sorrow of a similar kind – a sweetheart, about the consent of whose guardian there was a question.

In such matters men may give sympathy, but not consolation. It is only the successful who can speak encouragement.

Roseveldt did not stay long, nor was he communicative.

Maynard did not know the object of his late-sprung passion – not even her name! He only thought it must be some rare damsel who could have caused such a transformation in his friend – a man so indifferent to the fair sex as to have often declared his determination of dying a bachelor!

The Count took his leave in a great hurry; but not before giving a hint as to the why. Maynard noticed that he was dressed with unusual care – his moustache pomaded, his hair perfumed!

He confessed to the motive for all this – he was on the way to make a call upon a lady. Furthermore, he designed asking her a question.

He did not say what; but left his old comrade under the impression that it was the proposal.

The interlude was not without suggestions of a ludicrous nature; that for a time won Maynard from his painful imaginings.

Only for a short time. They soon returned to him; and once more stooping down, he re-read Blanche Vernon’s note that had been left lying upon the table.

Just as he had finished a startling knock at the door – the well-known “ra-ta” – proclaimed the postman.

“A letter, sir,” said the lodging-house servant, soon after entering the room.

There was no need for a parley; the postage was paid; and Maynard took the letter.

The superscription was in the handwriting of a gentleman. It was new to him. There was nothing strange in that. An author fast rising into fame, he was receiving such every day.

But he started on turning the envelope to tear it open. There was a crest upon it he at once recognised. It was the crest of the Vernons!

Not rudely now was the cream-laid covering displaced but carefully, and with hesitating hand.

And with fingers that shook like aspen leaves, did he spread out the contained sheet, also carrying the crest.

They became steadier, as he read: —

“Sir, —

“Your last words to me were: – ‘I hope the time may come when you will look less severely on my conduct!’ Mine to you, if I remember aright, were ‘NOT LIKELY!’

“Older than yourself, I deemed myself wiser. But the oldest and wisest may be at times mistaken. I do not deem it a humiliation to confess that I have been so, and about yourself. And, sir, if you do not think it such to forgive my abrupt – I should rather say, barbarous – behaviour, it would rejoice me once more to welcome you as my guest. Captain Maynard! I am much changed since you last saw me – in the pride both of spirit and person. I am upon my deathbed; and wish to see you before parting from the world.

“There is one by my side, watching over me, who wishes it too. You will come!

“George Vernon.”

In the afternoon train of that same day, from London to Tunbridge Wells, there travelled a passenger, who had booked himself for Sevenoaks, Kent.

He was a gentleman of the name of Maynard!