"I will, Sir," replied he, prepared to hear something that would displease him, and yet determined to hear with patience to the conclusion.
"Then, my Lord,"--(cried Rushbrook, in the greatest agitation of mind and body) "Your daughter"----
The resolution Lord Elmwood had taken (and on which he had given his word to his nephew not to interrupt him) immediately gave way. The colour rose in his face--his eye darted lightning--and his hand was lifted up with the emotion, that word had created.
"You promised to hear me, my Lord!" cried Rushbrook, "and I claim your promise."
He now suddenly overcame his violence of pa.s.sion, and stood silent and resigned to hear him; but with a determined look, expressive of the vengeance that should ensue.
"Lady Matilda," resumed Rushbrook, "is an object that wrests from me the enjoyment of every blessing your kindness bestows. I cannot but feel myself as her adversary--as one, who has supplanted her in your affections--who supplies her place, while she is exiled, a wanderer, and an orphan."
The Earl took his eyes from Rushbrook, during this last sentence, and cast them on the floor.
"If I feel grat.i.tude towards you, my Lord," continued he, "grat.i.tude is innate in my heart, and I must also feel it towards her, who first introduced me to your protection."
Again the colour flew to Lord Elmwood"s face; and again he could hardly restrain himself from uttering his indignation.
"It was the mother of Lady Matilda," continued Rushbrook, "who was this friend to me; nor will I ever think of marriage, or any other joyful prospect, while you abandon the only child of my beloved patroness, and load me with rights, which belong to her."
Here Rushbrook stopped--Lord Elmwood was silent too, for near half a minute; but still his countenance continued fixed, with his unvaried resolves.
After this long pause, the Earl said with composure, but with firmness, "Have you finished, Mr. Rushbrook?"
"All that I dare to utter, my Lord; and I fear, I have already said too much."
Rushbrook now trembled more than ever, and looked pale as death; for the ardour of speaking being over, he waited his sentence, with less constancy of mind than he expected he should.
"You disapprove my conduct, it seems;" said Lord Elmwood, "and in that, you are but like the rest of the world--and yet, among all my acquaintance, you are the only one who has dared to insult me with your opinion. And this you have not done inadvertently; but willingly, and deliberately. But as it has been my fate to be used ill, and severed from all those persons to whom my soul has been most attached; with less regret I can part from you, than if this were my first trial."
There was a truth and a pathetic sound in the utterance of these words, that struck Rushbrook to the heart--and he beheld himself as a barbarian, who had treated his benevolent and only friend, with insufferable liberty; void of respect for those corroding sorrows which had imbittered so many years of his life, and in open violation of his most peremptory commands. He felt that he deserved all he was going to suffer, and he fell upon his knees; not so much to deprecate the doom he saw impending, as thus humbly to acknowledge, it was his due.
Lord Elmwood, irritated by this posture, as a sign of the presumptuous hope that he might be forgiven, suffered now his anger to burst all bounds; and raising his voice, he exclaimed in a rage,
"Leave my house, Sir. Leave my house instantly, and seek some other home."
Just as these words were begun, Sandford opened the library door, was witness to them, and to the imploring situation of Rushbrook. He stood silent with amazement!
Rushbrook arose, and feeling in his mind a presage, that he might never from that hour, behold his benefactor more; as he bowed in token of obedience to his commands, a shower of tears covered his face; but Lord Elmwood, unmoved, fixed his eyes upon him, which pursued him with enraged looks to the end of the room. Here he had to pa.s.s Sandford; who, for the first time in his life, took hold of him by the hand, and said to Lord Elmwood, "My Lord, what"s the matter?"
"That ungrateful villain," cried he, "has dared to insult me.--Leave my house this moment, Sir."
Rushbrook made an effort to go, but Sandford still held his hand; and meekly said to Lord Elmwood,
"He is but a boy, my Lord, and do not give him the punishment of a man."
Rushbrook now s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand from Sandford"s, and threw it with himself upon his neck; where he indeed sobbed like a boy.
"You are both in league," exclaimed Lord Elmwood.
"Do you suspect me of partiality to Mr. Rushbrook?" said Sandford, advancing nearer to the Earl.
Rushbrook had now gained the point of remaining in the room; but the hope that privilege inspired (while he still harboured all the just apprehensions for his fate) gave birth, perhaps, to a more exquisite sensation of pain, than despair would have done. He stood silent--confounded--hoping that he was forgiven--fearing that he was not.
As Sandford approached still nearer to Lord Elmwood, he continued, "No, my Lord, I know you do not suspect me, of partiality to Mr.
Rushbrook--has any part of my behaviour ever discovered it?"
"You now then only interfere to provoke me."
"If that were the case," returned Sandford, "there have been occasions, when I might have done it more effectually--when my own heart-strings were breaking, because I would not provoke, or add to what you suffered."
"I am obliged to you, Mr. Sandford:" he returned, mildly.
"And if, my Lord, I have proved any merit in a late forbearance, reward me for it now; and take this young man from the depth of despair in which I see he is sunk, and say you pardon him."
Lord Elmwood made no answer--and Rushbrook, drawing strong inferences of hope from his silence, lifted up his eyes from the ground, and ventured to look in his face: he found it composed to what it had been, but still strongly marked with agitation. He cast his eyes away again, in confusion.
On which his uncle said to him--"I shall postpone executing your obedience to my late orders, till you think fit once more to provoke them--and then, not even Sandford, shall dare to plead your excuse."
Rushbrook bowed.
"Go, leave the room, Sir."
He instantly obeyed.
Then Sandford, turning to Lord Elmwood, shook him by the hand, and cried, "My Lord, I thank you--I thank you very kindly, my Lord--I shall now begin to think I have some weight with you."
"You might indeed think so, did you know how much I have pardoned."
"What was his offence, my Lord?"
"Such as I would not have forgiven you, or any earthly being besides himself--but while you were speaking in his behalf, I recollected there was a grat.i.tude so extraordinary in the hazards he ran, that almost made him pardonable."
"I guess the subject then," cried Sandford; and yet I could not have supposed"----
"It is a subject we cannot speak on, Sandford, therefore let us drop it."
At these words the discourse concluded.
CHAPTER IV.
To the relief of Rushbrook, Lord Elmwood that day dined from home, and he had not the confusion to see him again till the evening. Previous to this, Sandford and he met at dinner; but as the attendants were present, nothing pa.s.sed on either side respecting the incident in the morning.
Rushbrook, from the peril which had so lately threatened him, was now in his perfectly cool, and dispa.s.sionate senses; and notwithstanding the real tenderness which he bore to the daughter of his benefactor, he was not insensible to the comfort of finding himself, once more in the possession of all those enjoyments he had forfeited, and for a moment lost.
As he reflected on this, to Sandford he felt the first tie of acknowledgement--but for his compa.s.sion, he knew he should have been at that very time of their meeting at dinner, away from Elmwood House for ever; and bearing on his mind a still more painful recollection, the burthen of his kind patron"s continual displeasure. Filled with these thoughts, all the time of dinner, he could scarce look at his companion, without tears of grat.i.tude; and whenever he attempted to speak to him, grat.i.tude choaked his utterance.