To explain the chief incidents of the last chapter, it is our necessary, though repellent task to retrograde some six months past, and enter the gloomy mansion of Montrevor, where all that time its infirm master lay, like a chained enchanter on his bed of sickness.
His son had late that day left for London, amply supplied with those funds to supply his exigencies, which he had little difficulty now in drawing from the resources of the now powerless old dotard.
A few hours later, when darkness had closed in, and the house was hushed and still, a woman"s form was seen issuing from the old man"s chamber.
It was Mabel Marryott. She was changed from the day we last saw her, sailing along the pa.s.sages of Montrevor. She came forward with a slow, uncertain step, holding a shawl wrapped loosely over her breast; and the lamp she carried in the other hand showed her countenance to bear a sick and ghastly expression, betokening the painful disease through which she finally perished, to have already laid its sharp fangs on her system.
But though bodily strength might be subdued, no mental debilitation seemed the consequence. She went straight forward to the door of her master"s library; entering without a pause of fear, or conscious stricken awe, that gloomy haunt of many sinful and accusing memories, she shut the door behind her, placed the lamp upon a table and sat down to rest, her eyes wandering deliberately round the room fearing little to encounter the spiritual shades of the past--the meek upbraiding of one wronged being"s saintly eyes--the n.o.ble scorn--the scathing indignation of another"s. She feared not yet either angel or spirit, her day of fear was yet to come. She looked round with a keen scrutinizing glance of survey, and then she rose and went composedly to work; she had the field to herself, and one master-key which the old man had managed to keep concealed even from his son, she had contrived by strict vigilance to discover the hiding-place, and get into her possession.
"Thou fool!" might have seemed the utterance of her heart, as with a look of fiendish mockery she flung open the depository into which she thus found entrance, and viewed the glittering treasures it contained.
"Thou fool! thou hast indeed many goods laid up for many years, and this night--perhaps this night, this very night, thy dotard soul may be required of thee."
"Thou fool! how long hast _thou_ to live," the spirit of air might have echoed in _her_ ear, as the woman proceeded on her work of iniquity.
But strange the insane delusion by which each man would seem to deem all men mortal but themselves. Even with that fatal malady gnawing on her very vitals. Mabel Marryott trusting in an arm of flesh, confidant in human skill, was laying in store for herself many years of antic.i.p.atory pleasure, ease, and competence.
With a well-filled purse of gold, she then had for the present turned away content--gold which the old man she thought would never rise from his bed to demand, and of which his heirs could guess only the existence; and thus she would have departed, had not her quick eye suddenly discovered a secret recess, which from the difficulty she had in opening it, more keenly excited her curiosity and interest.
By dint of much trouble and exertion the aperture finally yielded, and a heap of papers, which had to all appearance been carelessly thrust in together, was the issue of her research. They were bank-notes. One after another, she read the tempting numbers--hesitated--replaced them, and finally divided and pocketed the half.
Two hours after this deed had been perpetrated, some one came knocking gently at the door of Mr. Trevor"s chamber, to which Mrs. Marryott had returned to inform her that a young woman had arrived, desiring to speak with her. Mrs. Marryott kept the person waiting some little time for she was giving Mr. Trevor his arrow-root; but at length went down to her sitting-room, where she found a woman of decent appearance though poorly attired, seated patiently awaiting her coming; a dark cloak wrapped around her, and a large bonnet and veil nearly concealing her face.
On perceiving Marryott she rose, and to the inquiry: "What was her business?" the stranger put back her veil, and showing her pale and anxious countenance, in tremulous accents murmured: "Mother!"
Surprise was at first strongly depicted on Marryott"s countenance; but the next instant the hard impenetrable expression of her face returned, in a cold measured tone she demanded what it might be that brought her there?
"Mother; have you no words of kindness to give your daughter?" faltered the poor woman.
"Words of kindness--pshaw! is that all you have come this long way for,"
the other answered impatiently.
"Alas! no mother," was the sorrowful reply, drooping her head despairingly; "but if you have not even those to give me, how can I ask for more."
"More! ah, I thought so--I thought that pride would have a fall at last: that you would put your virtue into your pocket, and be coming one day crawling on your knees to beg a morsel of bread, or a hole in this house, from the mother who was not _good_ enough for you some years ago.
So I suppose your lover won"t have you now that you are old and ugly--bah! don"t think that I will take you in here; if this house was not good enough for you _then_, it"s none the better _now_. At any rate there"s no place in it for you, so you must go back from whence you came."
"Mother, mother--do not speak so cruelly--do not blame me, if knowing what was good and what was evil, I could not come to live here, hearing of you what I did. But alas! my spirit indeed waxeth faint, and my strength faileth me. I am worn out with useless labour, and I come to ask a little help from the mother who bore me, trusting that G.o.d will forgive both her and me, for we have all sinned--all stand in need of forgiveness. * * Yes, I come to ask for a little help to take me to America--to Henry Wilson, who still waits for and expects me."
"Oh, that"s it,"--with a scornful laugh--"it"s money you want; those "wages of iniquity," which you scorned at so finely long ago."
"Mother--those were strong words perhaps for a daughter so young to use towards a mother, but my heart was grieved for you; it was in sorrowful affection, not undutiful scorn, that I thus spoke."
Mabel Marryott sat down--she had hitherto remained coldly standing--and signed to her daughter to do the same. The submissive manner Jane had a.s.sumed, probably in a degree mollifying her hardened spirit; or rather perhaps it was a sort of triumph, to see her virtuous child thus brought low before her. She had quite lived down any womanly or maternal feeling; and would probably, without the slightest compunction, have turned her from the door penniless as she came: yet something--perhaps the idea that it would be disagreeable and degrading to her high pretensions, to have that poor, shabby creature coming begging at the house as her daughter--made her calculate that it might be a better plan to get rid of her at once--easily as it was in her power now to accomplish it. Those notes still in her pocket, she had begun already to repent not having left them in their hiding place--bank notes were terrible things to meddle with, but at any rate no harm could come of their being put in use by one under Jane Marryott"s circ.u.mstances.
In short, it ended as we all know by those twice guilty papers being transferred into the hands of the innocent; and Jane Marryott--bound by the promise of strict secrecy, which she so resolutely maintained inviolate--left the house without any member of the household having been made aware of her ident.i.ty, with the unblessed cause of fresh misfortune in her possession. With the unhappy sequel we are acquainted.
Six months had pa.s.sed, and Mabel Marryott lay groaning on a bed of agony. The pains of h.e.l.l truly had got hold of her, and conscience--faint foretaste of the never dying worm, rose up to torment her "before her time," with the dark catalogue of remembered sin--sin unrepented, and therefore unforgiven. She would not turn to the one sure fountain, open for sin and for uncleaness. She even repulsed all offers of spiritual ministration from those members of the household who had thought and feeling, to see the awful nature of the dying woman"s position.
"No, she wanted no clergymen, they could avail her nothing--could not undo one of the sins she had committed." But at length one day, she sent to desire Eugene Trevor would come himself and speak to her in private.
He came, and lifting herself up with difficulty in her bed, she turned her ghastly countenance towards her foster-son as he stood by her side, and fixing her sunken eyes upon him, addressed him thus:
"Eugene Trevor, my daughter is to be tried this week at ---- for forgery."
"So I was sorry to hear, Mabel; but there seems, I think, every chance of her being acquitted."
"Chance--yes; but I am not going to leave it to chance, and die with this too on my conscience. I have been a bad mother from the first, I forsook the child at my breast for the hire of a stranger, and cast her on the world to shift for herself in toil and trouble; and last of all, by my stolen charity have brought this curse upon her. Yes, Eugene Trevor," she added, emphatically, "I stole those notes from your father"s chest, and gave them to the girl--but who _forged_ them?"
Eugene Trevor started as if an adder had stung him; and turning ashy pale, sunk down upon a chair that stood near.
"What--what in the name of Heaven do you mean, Marryott?" he stammered forth.
"Eugene Trevor, do not try to deceive a dying woman. I have confessed my part of the business, do not deny yours. There was not much which pa.s.sed between you and your father that night ten years ago, that I did not overhear, and which now put together, would be enough to commit _you_--but do not fear, I am not going to betray you, only do my bidding; go to ---- and get that girl free--it matters little to me, who shall be dead perhaps, before the morning, what I"m thought of; go and tell them that _I_ gave the notes, and that _she_ was ignorant of this falsity--go, get her off, and come back and tell me she is free, and I die silent; if not, as sure as I lie here a dying woman, I send for a magistrate and tell him all."
Eugene Trevor"s discomfiture and perturbation at this disclosure may be imagined. He had been surprised at the time of her apprehension, to see the account of Jane Marryott"s examination in the papers, but Mabel had professed such perfect ignorance on the subject--such careless indifference concerning the trouble of her daughter, that though the coincidence of the notes might strike him as singular, it scarcely occurred to him as possible that those half-forgotten instruments of his youthful crime, which he had not for a moment doubted his father immediately destroyed, could possibly have fallen into the prisoner"s hands.
There was nothing to be done but to obey his accuser"s wishes, knowing well the determined spirit of that fearful woman, so that there would be no other way of preventing her, even with her dying lips, declaring the part he had in the dark transaction in question. He therefore took all necessary precautions and started on his critical commission with as little delay as possible, receiving before his departure, the formal summons from Arthur Seaham to attend as witness on the trial.
CHAPTER X.
Ah, Zelica! there was a time, when bliss Shone o"er thy heart from every look of his; When but to see him, hear him breathe the air In which he dwelt was thy soul"s fondest prayer; When round him hung such a perpetual spell, Whate"er he did, none ever did so well.
Too happy days! when, if he touch"d a flower Or gem of thine, "twas sacred from that hour.
LALLA ROOKH.
Mary Seaham sat alone that same evening by the hotel room fire, expecting Eugene Trevor.
She had told him to come late, because by that time, she knew that her brother, with Judge Elliott"s party, would have gone to the county ball held that night in the town; and that the important interview with him, who still deemed himself her lover, might take place without interruption.
Mary had not told her brother of the appointment she had made; so fearful was she that any obstacle should occur to impede or prevent the anxious purpose she had formed. Yet now that the carriage containing Arthur, the radiant Carrie, and their chaperon had driven from the door, and she knew that Eugene at any moment, might be announced, her heart began to fail her, and she almost repented of what she had undertaken.
What was she going to do or say--what part pursue?
A dark and bewildered maze seemed to lie before her, and she sat there, pale and trembling at every sound, something grasped convulsively in her hand, her eyes fixed with a dark and anxious gaze upon the flickering fire-flame.
Times indeed were changed, since in serene and quiet happiness, Mary had so often waited at Silverton for her lover"s approach. No one could have imaged forth an intended love-tryste from her aspect now. Yet the critical moment came. Eugene entered--the door closed behind him, and once more they were alone together. Mary having resumed her seat, with blanched lips and beating heart--he standing on the hearth-rug looking down upon her like as he had done on that memorable occasion of the first declaration of his love--that beginning of so much happiness--but greater misery to Mary. Alas! was this to be its end?
He began to speak hurriedly of the length of time since they had met, of the strange circ.u.mstances of their _rencontre_ that day; Mary listening as to a voice speaking in a dream, and a.s.senting mechanically, till finally, as he alluded more particularly to the circ.u.mstances of the case, mentioning the name of Mabel Marryott and the astounding facts which had transpired concerning that old--he had almost said _faithful_ but he subst.i.tuted long-established servant of the family. Then the pure blood mounted for a moment to Mary"s brow, leaving something like a stern and calm resolution on her countenance; whilst to Eugene Trevor"s somewhat complacent communication, as to what he had done for the daughter, the measures he had taken to secure her from further trouble and delay in the accomplishment of her emigration, she listened grave and unmoved, as if she deemed his proceedings in this respect had been but what was strictly due to the innocent sufferer of so much iniquity.
Yes, darker and darker seemed to grow the picture before Mary"s eyes that house and home presented, of which she had once contemplated with such innocent satisfaction and happy antic.i.p.ation becoming the mistress.
Sin after sin, more or less strange and terrible to her startled spirit, rose up to scare and to repel her; so much so, that to think that one to whom she had been devoted, should have amalgamated himself even in a pa.s.sive character with the influence of such a foul and infected atmosphere, was horrible to her feelings, and most "blessed" indeed in comparison--"when men shall revile you and cast you out of their company"--appeared to her the persecuted in such a case.
Was it that some outward manifestation of these inward impressions revealed themselves upon her countenance, that Eugene regarded her with that keen and scrutinizing expression, as for a moment her eyes were, with a careworn abstracted look, cast downwards upon the ground.
"Now, Mary, let me hear something of yourself," he suddenly exclaimed, breaking off his former topic of discourse; "what have you been doing since I saw you last?"