"And they knew my master, sir," said Hallings, turning to me, and appealing to L---- to confirm the truth of his a.s.sertion--"They knew my master, and, poor small creatures as they were, must have loved him too in their way, as every living thing did; for they used to buzz all round him as he sat there, and often pitch upon him, even upon his hands or head, and never one was known to sting him, vengeful as they were if strangers made too free near their hives, or among the flower-beds my master used to call their pleasure-grounds."
"What has become of old Ralph and the tortoise, Hallings?" asked L----, as he stopt to take a melancholy survey of the altered scene. "The gold-fish, of course, have been long destroyed, for I see the little basin with its small fountain is quite choked up with dead leaves and rubbish."
"Mr Heneage Devereux took out the gold-fish, sir, the week after my master"s death," replied the old butler; "but the tortoise had buried himself for the winter; and when he crawled out the spring afterwards, and took to his old haunt in the basin, one would have supposed he found out the change that had taken place, for the creature was quite restless; and I often found him out of the water, and making his way about the garden, as if in search of something; and for a long, long time, old Ralph and he--for Ralph is living, sir, and you will see him presently--he and the old raven were the only living creatures, beside the birds, that did not desert the poor old place--except myself indeed.
I could never keep away from it a whole day together, and I used to come here to feed old Ralph too; for it was long before we could lure him to the cottage for his food, and now he is almost always here, and hides himself for the most part in the great bay-tree there in the corner, where part of the north gable is still standing."
As he spoke, we coasted leisurely along the hedge-side walk, as carefully (though almost unconsciously) avoiding to tread the beds it skirted, as if they were still filled with choice flowers, or fragrant and aromatic herbs, or matted hoops, or hand-gla.s.ses guarding the rarer or tenderer plants, bulbs, and auriculas, once (L---- observed) the pride of that small garden. The forms of those fair flower-knots were still discernible from their edgings of thrift, box, daisy, London pride, now grown, however, into perfect hedges, where still untrampled, or into ragged bushes, still indicating the once clipt line of geometrical exactness, as each bed radiated to a centre, where lay the little basin with its fairy fountain before alluded to. Some large stone flower-pots, green and discoloured with damp and weather-stains, were still standing round it in mockery of decoration. From two or three shot up a luxuriant growth of common weeds; in one, a beautiful foxglove, exulting as it were in plebeian pride and brilliancy over its aristocratical neighbour in an adjoining vase, a delicate and sickly Persian lilac, whose pensile sprays drooped languidly even under their scanty growth of yellow leaves and pale and stunted blossoms. Here and there, within the flower-knots, bloomed a tuft of double white narcissus, struggling through gra.s.s and matted vegetation. Some tall fris"s, white lilies, and other hardy flowers, had also shot up into beauty or fair promise; but the elegant moss-rose drooped to the earth, as if in sorrow, and its half-blighted buds lay cankering on the moss-grown path. The scene, desolate as it was, would still have been one of beauty in decay, had the work of destruction been wrought by "Time"s defacing fingers" only; but man"s more desecrating touch was too perceptible there; and, independently of peculiar circ.u.mstances and a.s.sociations, there is a wide difference between the pleasing melancholy which loves to meditate among ivied and moss-grown ruins, and that painful feeling with which we contemplate the newness of untimely desolation. It was a ghastly sight even to a stranger"s eye, that of the gaping void left along one entire side of the little garden by the demolition of the old mansion; and the dreary effect of that blank exposure was not a little heightened by the contrasting incongruity of the prospect beyond, where the great gateway to what had been the princ.i.p.al entrance-court stood perfectly isolated and entire. The beautiful gate of iron open work closed between the ma.s.sy side-pillars, on each of which the lion couchant of the Devereuxs still kept watch and ward as proudly as when that gate had unclosed in the last reign of the Tudors to admit a royal visitant and her courtly train.
On either side, the ball.u.s.traded wall was wholly removed, so that the eye ranged on, unimpeded but by the solitary gateway, down a triple avenue of magnificent elms, in whose tall tops the dark people, who from generation to generation had built there unmolested, were fast a.s.sembling for the night; the mingled sounds of their hoa.r.s.e cawing, and the rustling of innumerable wings, adding in no slight degree to the impressive sadness of that scene and hour.
We were now standing on the lime and brick-strewn site of what (L---- informed me) had been the Library. All around us, the vaults and cellarage below were laid open to view through the bare rafters, from whence the flooring and pavement had been removed; but the boards were not yet torn up from that one small spot--so small in its unwalled exposure, which had been so recently an apartment of n.o.ble dimensions, furnished with the collected wisdom of successive ages! At one end it was of those few square yards of flooring, that a part of the gable, including a stack of chimneys, was still standing. We stood on the hearthstone of what had been the Library fireplace; and high above us, in the naked wall, yawned a corresponding aperture, belonging to the upper chamber, which had been Mr Devereux"s bedroom, the flooring of which had been rent away with the side and part.i.tion walls, all but a small portion which hung slanting from a few rafters still adhering to the remaining corner of the end gable. The eyes of my companions seemed drawn by sympathetic impulse towards that forlorn remnant; and, calling to mind the words of Hallings, I was at no loss to account for the deep and sorrowful interest with which they dwelt upon it. After a long pause, a look of intelligence pa.s.sed between them; and the old man, first breaking silence, said, with a deep sigh,--"That is the very place, sir! The very spot where I stood by the easy-chair in which my dear master breathed his last, his head supported on my shoulder."
"And it was there you found him, was it not, Hallings, when"----
"Yes, sir! yes! there, in that very spot, from whence, as you see, he could just reach the mantel-shelf, where stood"--But here the old servant stopt abruptly, glancing towards me a look of troubled consciousness; and L----, hastening to relieve his embarra.s.sment, said, "Fear nothing, good Hallings, from my friend Hervey here! He is one from whom I have no secrets--who would feel as you and I do on the subject of your thoughts, if he were acquainted with it. But neither you nor I must now dwell on it longer. You have said it, Hallings--"G.o.d is merciful!" To Him we commit the issue. And now, a long farewell to Devereux Hall!"
So saying, my friend cast round him one long leisurely survey of the desolated spot, turning again, and lingering yet a moment on what had been the threshold of the gla.s.s door into the Library. The short twilight was already brightening into silvery moonlight, edging the dark glossy leaves of the old bay-tree by the ruined gable, towards which its tall spiral top (just agitated by a pa.s.sing breeze) swayed with slow and melancholy motion, while a shivering sound ran through the crisped foliage and long rustling branches, like whisperings and lamentations of good genii departing from the scene of their long-delegated guardianship. As he gazed with these "thick-coming fancies" on the fine old evergreens, so magnificent in sombre beauty, I was startled by the sudden disturbance of its lower boughs, and by a sound proceeding from them more hoa.r.s.e and deep, if not more ominous, than the low unearthly murmurs I had been listening to with such excited feelings. My exclamation roused Hallings from the abstraction he had fallen into while taking his farewell look at all that remained of the venerable mansion, and, turning towards the object at which I pointed, he said, with a sad smile, "It is my old fellow-servant, sir! the only one besides me that haunts the place now; but it is time he should leave it too, for even _that_ tree, my master"s favourite tree, that he planted when a child with his own hands, will be cut down to-morrow." So saying, he gave a low whistle, and calling, "Ralph! Ralph!" the well-known signal was acknowledged by an answering croak, and a huge raven, hopping to the ground from his dark covert in the interior of the bay-tree, came towards Hallings with sedate and solemn gait, and, first eyeing the old man"s countenance with a look of almost human intelligence, perched upon his extended wrist, and suffered himself to be borne on it as we retraced our steps toward the cottage, discoursing (I could have fancied) by sidelong glances at his kind supporter, of the departed glories of their master"s house, and their last look at its untimely ruins.
CHAPTER II.
Our ride home--our pleasant moonlight ride! was performed almost in silence. My friend"s thoughts were busy with sad and tender recollections, and mine with the scene from whence we came, and the persons and circ.u.mstances I had heard so tenderly spoken of, and mysteriously alluded to. "I must hear more before I sleep," was my inward soliloquy, as we reined up our steeds at the lodge gate; and forthwith I obtained a promise from L---- that he would gratify my curiosity before we retired for the night. My fair hostess was able and willing to contribute her share of information on a subject not less interesting to her than to her husband; and from their mutual reminiscences I made out a little history of the last Devereux, uneventful, indeed, for the most part, and not perfectly explanatory in its latter details, but such a one as may be listened to without impatience by the indulgent hearer, who has accompanied me unwearied in my pilgrimage to the cottage of Matthew Hallings, and to the desolated site where so lately stood the venerable fabric of Devereux Hall.
The late Mr Devereux and his sister, said my friend, were the only children of Roger Devereux, Esq., and Dame Ethelred, his wife, whose venerable and dignified old age I well remember, for it was extended to such a patriarchal term, that "the young folks" (as they were wont to term their son and daughter, "the young Squire and Miss," as Mr Reginald and Miss Devereux were called by the servants and tenantry) had attained--the former to the mature age of fifty years--the latter to that of forty-eight, before the children were called on to pay the last duties to those dear and honoured parents, to whom they had been children indeed--in a sense of the word little understood in our day of enlightened liberality, when, for the most part, the obsolete virtues that were then thought beautiful and becoming in the filial character (deferential tenderness and submissive duty), are cast aside with other antique trumpery, and triumphantly superseded by the improved system of familiar intercourse, on terms of perfect equality, friendly and confidential, or cold and ceremonious, according to the character and circ.u.mstances of the parties, whose filial and parental relations, like those of "the beasts that perish," appear to cease with the flight of the young brood, or the sprouting of its pen-feathers. I can remember that when I was an idle boy, the antiquated fashions of Devereux Hall sometimes excited in me "a laughing devil," that was scarcely repressed by the frowning of my anxious mother, or my own profound veneration for our excellent friends and neighbours--and that the wicked spirit had nearly got the better of me on more than one occasion, when Mrs Devereux would tenderly censure for "youthful heedlessness or imprudence" the sedate spinster, whose years outnumbered those of my own mother, or when Mr Reginald, while undergoing his seventh annual attack of gout, was alluded to as "the dear boy," by his sympathising father. But if my boyish mirth was sometimes excited by these and suchlike innocent and natural incongruities, far other feelings--such as I firmly believe have been happily influential in the formation of my character--were oftener awakened in me, by the example, early witnessed at the dear old Hall, of tender union, pure morality, and genuine Christianity. And when I look back upon those old times and antiquated manners (antiquated even in that long past day), and contrast them with our modern times and modern code, I am disposed to think we have gained less by exploding the stateliness and formality of our ancestors, than we have lost in degenerating from their high-toned politeness and true English hospitality into fashionable ease, often (in the higher ranks especially) amounting to vulgarity, and a style of living with which it would be absurd to connect the idea of social intercourse. But, in fact, the country gentry of England have been long a deteriorated, and will soon be an extinct species. The last perfect specimens within my knowledge were the late possessors of Devereux Hall.
I have told you that Mr Devereux and his sister were far advanced in life when their parents paid the debt of nature. Both were single, also, as they continued to the last hour of their inseparable companionship; for, though "the young Squire" had been early wedded to the choice of his heart, and the selected of his parents--a fair and gentle being, who was transplanted to her husband"s home, and taken to the bosom of his family, only to win for herself its tender affection and undying remembrance--before the expiration of the nuptial year, the young wife and her new-born son slept in the vault of the Devereuxs, and her sorrowing husband (in this instance only resisting the gently implied wishes of his parents) could never be prevailed on to contract a second marriage.
His sister--the faithful sharer of all his joys and sorrows--was to him as a consoling angel in the season of his sore calamity. Her mind (the stronger of the two) was the support of his in its great trial, and her heart, tender as ever beat in a woman"s breast, was tuned to finer sympathy with his, by having also undergone the touchstone of affliction.
Eleanor Devereux had been wooed and won with the parental sanction--had loved tenderly--had trusted n.o.bly--would have wedded splendidly in the world"s acceptation. But before the irrevocable knot was tied, the suspicions of her anxious father were awakened by certain unguarded expressions of his future son-in-law, which led to serious investigation on the part of Mr Devereux, and a reluctant, but unqualified avowal, of more than scepticism on the most sacred subject, from him to whom the truly Christian parent was about to commit the earthly welfare of his beloved child, and perhaps her eternal interests. Mr Devereux shrank not for a moment from the fulfilment of the duty imposed on him by this painful discovery. But when he imparted it to his darling, and required from her the sacrifice of those innocent hopes which had grown up under the fullest sanction of parental encouragement, the utmost exertions of manly fort.i.tude, based on Christian principle, alone enabled him to persevere in his painful duty. There was no pa.s.sionate remonstrance, no resisting wilfulness, no ebullition of violent feeling, on the part of the mild and right-minded Eleanor; but the quivering lip, the swimming upraised eye, the voice that faltered and failed in its endeavour to articulate her acquiescence to the required sacrifice--this voiceless eloquence went to the father"s heart, and his tears mingled with hers as he clasped her to his breast, inwardly ejaculating, almost in the words of the prophet-king--"Would to G.o.d I could suffer alone for thee, my child! _my child!_" For a while the hopeful tenderness of woman"s nature delayed Eleanor"s final decision, speciously whispering to her heart the possible blessedness of converting darkness into light, by the influence of holy example, and love"s unwearying persuasiveness. But the parental guardian was near, to suggest to her the dangerous fallacy of that fond illusion, and Eleanor"s love, though true and tender as ever woman felt, was not the blinding, all-engrossing pa.s.sion "which refuses to hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely." She wept and spoke not, but retired to her chamber, and for that day was seen no more; but the next morning brought her to her parents" feet, with a colourless cheek indeed, but a look of such heavenly composure, as seemed reflected from the source of light to which she had resorted in her hour of mental darkness and distress; and though she hid her face on her mother"s lap, and her soft voice trembled in uttering the decisive words, they were spoken--the renunciation was made--and the sacrifice complete. How dear it cost her, was known only to G.o.d and her own heart; for, having renounced (as it then seemed to her) every view of earthly happiness for herself, she devoted herself the more a.s.siduously to promote that of her parents and her brother, and of every living creature within the sphere of her benign influence, till at last, and by insensible degrees, she became blest in the consciousness of blessing, and never for one moment of her after life did she repent the act of that hour, the sharp agony of which had left behind it "Peace which pa.s.seth understanding." But from thenceforth the lot of Eleanor Devereux was one of fixed celibacy.
Hers were not transferable affections; and however, for her sake, the fond parents might have wished it otherwise, they could ill resist the pleading of the dutiful child, who only prayed to be allowed to cleave to them, and them only, and to her dear brother, in this life, as she hoped to be reunited to them in eternity. So it came to pa.s.s that the elder branch of the House of Devereux was destined to become extinct, when the bachelor brother and his maiden sister were removed from the Hall of their ancestors to the family burying-place, in the chancel of their parish church.
After the year of mourning and seclusion, religiously observed by Mr Reginald and his sister, for the loss of their last surviving parent, all things at the Hall fell into their former course, and, save the diminution of the family circle, and that the places of the revered elders at the hospitable board were now filled by their filial successors, little change was perceptible to readmitted guests; and the brother and sister resumed those habits of social intercourse with the large and respectable surrounding neighbourhood, which it had been the pleasure and principle of their parents to maintain, as in like manner devolved upon them by the example of revered progenitors.
The Devereuxs had been at one time the wealthiest, as they continued to be the most ancient family, in their part of the country; and on the succession of the last lineal descendant to the inheritance of his forefathers, the same liberality, and even stately hospitality, characterised the general establishment and style of entertainment at Devereux Hall, as had distinguished it under the rule of many preceding generations. Far less did it enter into the contemplation of the last Devereux to diminish aught of the munificent charities which had so long dispensed comfort and gladness, not only among the dependants of the family, and the peasantry on their estate, but in every poor man"s cottage for many miles around the venerable Hall. The bounteous stream flowed in its several channels with unabated regularity, and little was it suspected by any of those who shared as friends or dependants in its diffusive plenteousness, that the waters at the source were already shrunken, and threatened with fatal diversion from their ancient courses.
Yet such was the melancholy fact, though known only to Mr Devereux, his confidential man of law, and his distant relation, Mr Heneage Devereux, of whom you may remember Old Hallings made mention in terms of no special reverence, while we stood among the ruins of the demolished mansion. That man has been indeed a serpent in the bosom of his n.o.ble unsuspecting kinsman.
Very distantly related to the family of Devereux Hall, and still less akin by congeniality of character to its respected possessors, between them and Mr Heneage Devereux little social intercourse had at any time been kept up, though, unfortunately for my venerable friend, communication on matters of business became but too frequent between him and his wily kinsman, who acquired over him a strange and at the time inexplicable ascendancy; inexplicable even to Mrs Eleanor, whose stronger mind (had she been early aware of her brother"s circ.u.mstances) might have counteracted the influence so banefully exerted on his feebler character.
But loving her, dearly as ever brother loved the dearest sister--cherishing her as the inestimable companion--the faithful friend--almost the guardian angel of his life, Mr Devereux"s affection lacked that perfect confidence which "casteth out fear;" for, strange as was the anomaly, from some instinctive sense of weakness and inferiority, he stood in awe of the opinion of that gentle being whose tenderness and devotion to him were almost deferential. Motives of tenderness towards her--a desire to spare her the partic.i.p.ation of his corroding cares, had doubtless their share in his ill-starred system of concealment--and having no other confidential friend and adviser, so it was that he became the prey--alas! I fear the victim--of his calculating, unprincipled relation.
I cannot detail to you--for all such are unknown to me--the minute and particular circ.u.mstances of those pecuniary transactions between my old friend and Mr Heneage Devereux, which ended in results so fatal to the former; but I have reason to believe that Mr Heneage, who had acc.u.mulated considerable wealth in mercantile speculations, found means in the first place to possess himself of certain bond debts and considerable mortgages on the property, incurred by the father and grandfather of Mr Devereux, as the pressure of the times or untoward casualties forced upon them the alternative of so burdening the family property, or the more energetic measure of wise and timely retrenchment.
Mr Devereux"s legal adviser was undoubtedly in the interest of his speculating kinsman, whose primary object was to secure to himself the reversion of the family property, the entail of which ended with the late possessors. And Mr Heneage was well aware that he had no chance of being voluntarily selected as the heir of the Devereuxs.
Not only had there been a long-subsisting estrangement between the ancient stock and that distant branch from which Mr Heneage derived his descent, though a frigid intercourse was formally kept up by visits at stated periods, and letters of ceremony as occasion called for them; but on the part of the late Mr Devereux there was evidently a degree of instinctive repugnance towards his distant relation, which would have amounted to aversion, had his kindly and gentle nature been capable of so unchristian-like a feeling. No two characters could have been more dissimilar than these two kinsmen. I have already dwelt affectionately on the amiability of Mr Devereux. I have also touched on its slight alloy--a degree of moral weakness, in part doubtless inherent in his nature, but which, from the circ.u.mstances of his life and long indulgence of his tastes and feelings, had grown into const.i.tutional infirmity, which made him an easy prey to the bold and designing.
Mr Devereux"s manners and habits were those of refined elegance, his tastes and opinions nice even to fastidiousness; and his perceptions acute on some points to a degree of sickliness. His very person was cast as if for an appropriate mould to enshrine this fine frame of moral organisation. Small, delicate, beautifully proportioned, with hands and feet of almost feminine moulding--while those of Cousin Heneage!----How have I seen the slender fingers of my dear old friend shrink from the vice-like grasp of that coa.r.s.e bony hand, that looked capable of crushing it to atoms, together with the large mourning ring on the little finger, the oval of which, set with diamonds, encircled a groundwork of fair silky hair, bearing the device of an urn and a weeping willow, in small brilliants.
During the last few years of Mr Devereux"s life, it became too evident to his old and true friends that, notwithstanding his ill-concealed repugnance to Cousin Heneage, the man had by some unaccountable means obtained an extraordinary influence over him--a baneful influence, that by degrees superseded that mild persuasive power hitherto exercised so beneficially for Mr Devereux, by the faithful companion of his life--the tenderest of sisters. His affection for her was evidently unabated. His tender solicitude for her, as the growing infirmities of advanced life rendered her more feeble and delicate, was peculiarly affecting, from the circ.u.mstances of his own age, and more evident decay, and from the expression of anxious sadness with which he often regarded her. What, then, was the surprise of their mutual friends, when the wife of Mr Heneage Devereux accompanied her husband in one of his now frequent visits to the Hall, and was received by Mr Devereux as an invited guest!
Cousin Heneage had promoted this lady from the superintendence of his kitchen to that of his family, and the honours of a lawful wife, but he did not deem it requisite to notify the forming of so respectable a connection to the then surviving parents of Mr Devereux; neither did the birth of some half-score promising babes, with whom he was presented in yearly succession, form part of the formal communications addressed at stated periods to his kinsman at the Hall. And when he occasionally presented himself in person, no allusion was ever made on either side to the lady or her progeny, till the time I mentioned, about three years preceding the death of my venerable friend. Imagine, then, the consternation of Mrs Eleanor, when her brother, with an abruptness of manner very different from his usual address, requested her to prepare herself for the reception of Mrs Heneage Devereux, who, with her husband and three elder children, a son and two daughters, between the ages of fifteen and one-and-twenty, would arrive the day following, to make some stay at the Hall. It so happened that I went over to pay a visit to my friends on the morning of this strange communication, and was ushered into Mrs Eleanor"s morning room, just as her brother left it, pa.s.sing me with a hurried excuse, and in evident agitation. I found the sister flushed, and trembling with surprise and pain; and it was in vain that she endeavoured to welcome me with her usual serenity, and the kind sweet smile that was wont to light up her benevolent countenance at sight of those she loved and valued: when I took her hand with the inquiring look of affectionate concern it was impossible not to feel at the thought that any distressful circ.u.mstance should wound the heart of that gentle and heavenly-minded creature, the tears gushed from her eyes, and with a tremulous tone, she related to me the short and peremptory communication just made to her by her brother.
"And such a brother!" she exclaimed, while her voice trembled with emotion--"You knew him, Mr L----; you have known him from your childhood; the best and kindest of human beings--one from whose lips no living creature ever heard a harsh or an ungentle word. And to me, what has he not been!--in what perfect love and unity have we not dwelt together all our long lives!--But that fearful man!--that hard, coa.r.s.e-minded Heneage Devereux! Is it to be believed that that man should step in between my brother and myself--not sundering our hearts, for that is impossible; but causing reserve on the part of my dear brother, in lieu of that perfect confidence he ever placed in me? What can be the nature of the influence that has so changed him? and how has it been acquired? I am sure his heart bled but now, when, as if compelled by some dire necessity, he desired me to prepare for the reception of Mrs Heneage Devereux; but when I would have uttered--as well as the suddenness of my surprise permitted--a few words of gentle remonstrance, my brother stopt me, with an almost stern reiteration of his wishes, and turned from me as if in anger. But it was not so; it was in deep distress, I am certain, Mr L----, and therefore it is that you find me thus overpowered; for what fearful cause can so move my dear brother, and instigate his present determination?"
You may readily believe how tenderly I sympathised in the anxiety and distress of my venerable friend, though powerless to give her comfort, for my mind was painfully impressed with similar apprehensions; and vague surmises had for some time haunted me, that all was not well with the circ.u.mstances of Mr Devereux. As we talked together--forming various conjectures respecting the motives which could have led him to put such violence on his feelings, and even on his sense of propriety, as to require his respectable sister to receive, in the house of their ancestors, a person so every way unworthy of admittance there as was the wife of Mr Heneage Devereux--the sad gleams of truth seemed to flash momentarily across the mind of Mrs Eleanor; and as I considered the matter, my previous suspicions became more definite. But still, save and except the late inconsistencies of Mr Devereux"s conduct in relation to his subtle and unprepossessing kinsman, there had been nothing--absolutely nothing--in his conduct and apparent circ.u.mstances, to warrant a doubt respecting the perfect order and prosperousness of his worldly affairs. And I felt a delicacy--or rather a difficulty--in discussing the subject with Mrs Eleanor, which restrained me from fully opening my mind to her. I have regretted more than once that I did not overcome this morbid feeling, and that, overstepping, in the zeal and truth of friendship, the shallow suggestions of false delicacy, I had not spoken openly even to Mr Devereux. I might have spoken in time. One friendly hand stretched out in time might have prevented.... But I cannot dwell on that conjecture--It is too painful.
Well! I know not how the reception day pa.s.sed off, nor how dear Mrs Eleanor was supported through her distressing task. But when I called, a few days after, at the Hall, I found her apparently reconciled to the appointed trial, looking, indeed, more pale and serious than was usual with her, but not less serenely composed, and her manner, and the expression of her countenance, when she addressed her brother, or looked towards him, was almost heavenly--so eloquent of the tenderest compa.s.sion and respect. But that brother! I--my old respected friend--how had a few days of mental misery--the truth was evident--how fearfully had those few days altered him! He was alone with his sister when I entered his morning room.
"A little indisposed," he said, smiling; "and faint, from the unusual heat." And she stood by him as he reclined in his easy-chair, to take back the wine-gla.s.s, in which she had just administered to him some drops of ether. The ancient handmaiden, with whom you have made acquaintance, was in attendance with the salver, and having received the empty gla.s.s from her lady, withdrew with a respectful curtsy to myself, and, as she pa.s.sed me, and her eyes met mine, I saw they were glistening with tears.
My old friend stretched out to me a trembling hand, and apologised, with his wonted and unfailing courtesy, for not rising to receive me: "But Eleanor insists on it that I have over-exerted myself lately," he observed, smiling affectionately on her; "and I must be rude and self-indulgent to oblige her, and to recruit myself, to meet my guests at dinner. They are so good as to excuse me in the morning," he added hurriedly, and a faint blush pa.s.sed over his countenance as he continued with averted eyes, "By the by, L----, you have heard from my sister, that I have felt it due to my cousin Heneage to invite his wife and part of his family to the Hall? His feelings were naturally hurt by their exclusion from it--and--and"----The struggle to proceed was a painful one, but he achieved it, and in a firmer tone, and with eyes that were raised to meet mine with a deprecating look, went on to say,--"You are aware, L----, that I should not willingly have imposed on my dear sister the irksomeness of receiving as a guest a person so ill qualified to a.s.sociate with her as is Mrs Heneage Devereux, by birth and breeding, and perhaps--I fear"----And again his voice faltered, and his eye avoided mine--"I fear, by other circ.u.mstances, previous to her union with my cousin; but _he is_ my cousin, you know, and--and--my dear sister _could not_ disoblige me;"--and as he pressed his lips to her hand as it lay upon the arm of his easy-chair, I saw a tear drop on it from his closed eyelids. "Of course," he continued, recovering himself after a moment"s pause, during which I had endeavoured to relieve his distress by a few cheerful, though scarce connected words--"Of course, during the time of my cousin"s visit to us, we shall live secluded from our friends and neighbours; for I cannot expect from any lady the complaisance of meeting Mrs Heneage Devereux at my table." Yet he looked at me half-imploringly as he spoke, and it would be impossible for me to describe the expression of grateful affection which beamed in the countenances of both brother and sister, when I hastened to remove the humiliating doubt, by exclaiming, "Whatever be your intention with regard to the neighbourhood in general, my dear sir, do not flatter yourself you will so easily banish your old and attached friends.
Neither my wife nor I could endure a week"s exclusion from Devereux Hall, and I think it is more than that period of time since we have sat at your hospitable board. Mrs L---- would take it kindly if you were to invite us for to-morrow, and we would do our best to help you to entertain these inconvenient visitors."
Mr Devereux grasped my hand, and looked his grateful acquiescence to my proposal, for it was more than a minute before he could speak it audibly, and I left my valued friends that morning with the comfort of believing that I had been so fortunate as to evince my affection for them in the way most grateful and soothing to their feelings.
As I pa.s.sed through the Hall in my way out, the door of the eating-room burst open, and out rushed a couple of overdressed hoydens, with flame-coloured faces and arms, followed by a hopeful youth, all shirt-collar and cravat, booted and spurred, and armed with a dog-whip, which he flourished in playful menace after the fair fugitives, eloquently apostrophising them with--"Hoie! hoie! little dogs!--That"s it, Loa!--Well run, Phil!--Unkennel the old one!" At sight of me the frolicsome trio slunk back somewhat confused, and a shrill female voice called out from the eating-room, in a half-laughing, half-wrathful tone, "Come back, you combustious creturs! Come back, I tell ye, or I"ll tell your Pa when he comes in. Let alone your sisters, do, Watty, dear! or you"ll tear their tails again, as you did yesterday, wi" them there nasty spurs!" My inclination to laugh was overpowered by sensations of a very different nature as I hurried past the scene of uproarious vulgarity, and I rode away from the old Hall, with a full heart, well-nigh lamenting that the last lineal descendants of the Devereuxs had lived so long as to witness its desecration.
From that day forward.... But I should tell you that my dear wife gave her ready a.s.sent to the engagement I had ventured to make for both of us, though she accompanied me next day to the Hall in painful expectation of witnessing the annoyance and distress of our valued friends. But the perfect good-breeding of Mr Devereux and his sister, especially the dignified self-possession of Mrs Eleanor, prevented all outward manifestation of what must have been the inward feeling. We found them a.s.sembled in the drawing-room with their uncongenial guests, and two neighbouring gentlemen, old bachelor friends of Mr Devereux, who had dropt in uninvited to dinner. We were previously acquainted with Mr Heneage, but were, of course, introduced to his lady and her daughters, and Walter Heneage Devereux, jun., who bobbed his chin into the depths of his starched cravat in the most approved style of dandy vulgarity--and Mrs and Misses Heneages! Heavens! that such ma.s.ses of coa.r.s.eness, finery, and ignorant a.s.sumption, should have borne in common with our venerable friends the honoured name of Devereux! It was my office (Mr Devereux having led out my wife) to conduct Mrs Heneage to the dining-room; and had my feelings been less painfully excited, I should have been amused at her evidently first attempt at the a.s.sumption of aristocratical ease and urbanity, as, thrusting her huge thick arm through mine up to the elbow, she leant on me with a weight that would have annihilated the fragile frame of our venerable host, and must have left on my arm the impression of the gilt jack-chain she wore by way of bracelet.
Ludicrous as was throughout the day the deportment of these incongruous personages, the remembrance of it is, even now, too painful, as connected with the distress and humiliated feelings of my lamented friends, for me to enter more fully into details that might be amusing enough under other circ.u.mstances. Whatever, however, must have been the feelings of our host and hostess, they were never for a moment betrayed into visible annoyance by the species of martyrdom to which they were subjected; and the remarkably dignified, though gentle deportment of Mrs Eleanor in particular, was not without its triumph in obtaining for her a degree of involuntary deference, even from the coa.r.s.e-minded persons who were incapable of appreciating her real claims. Yet once (I remember it now)--once _she was moved_ to the utterance of a reproof, the severity of which was felt rather than understood by the vulgar mind of Mrs Heneage, who had provoked it by some offensive comment on the portrait of "the old lady there," as she familiarly designated the late Mrs Devereux. "I am sure, madam, you are not aware," said the dear Mrs Eleanor, while her sweet voice faltered with emotion, and a faint blush suffused her venerable face,--"I am sure you cannot be aware that the lady represented by that portrait was our dear and venerated mother, to whose lifeless resemblance even, I should hope, no person would knowingly allude disrespectfully, least of all in the presence of her children." The woman to whom this mild rebuke was addressed, coloured, fidgeted, fanned herself violently, and glancing as if half frightened towards her husband, who frowned tremendously, stammered out something of an apology, which was accepted with a grave and silent inclination of the head, as Mrs Eleanor rose to lead the way into the drawing-room.
The scenes I have sketched so hastily are but samples of a long long series of annoyances and mortifications, to which my dear friends were from thenceforward subjected at frequent intervals, until the close of the clouded evening of their lives; for the air of Devereux Hall was found to be particularly beneficial to the delicate health of Mrs Heneage, and the bloom (as she termed it) of the full-blown peonys, her daughters, besides that Walter Heneage, jun., took especial pleasure in thinning Mr Devereux"s preserves, and insolently trespa.s.sing on those of the neighbouring gentlemen, who submitted more patiently to the young c.o.c.kney"s inroads than they would have done, but for their regard and respect for their venerable neighbour, whose moral thraldom to his stern repulsive kinsman was now generally known and compa.s.sionated, as the fatal cause became gradually, and at last strongly suspected. Some attempts were made by myself and others to invite the confidence of Mr Devereux; but from all allusion to that mysterious influence so visibly exercised over him, he shrank with a morbid sensitiveness which made it impossible to proceed, without seriously offending; and when I last conferred on the subject with Mrs Eleanor, she requested me, with tears, to desist from all farther interposition, "for, alas!" said the dear lady, "all such attempts are, I am convinced, hopeless, and only inflict additional pain on my beloved brother, even exciting in him a degree of irritability, of which his mild spirit was till lately unsusceptible."
My late observations of the change in Mr Devereux"s once equable temper, but too well corroborated the qualified and reluctant hint thus drawn from his devoted sister; and to me it was obvious, likewise, that the mental powers of my venerable friend, always more characterised by kindliness of nature, than by admixture of the "sterner stuff," which goes to the composition of moral strength, had been for some time yielding to the weight of some intolerable burden, and that as years and infirmities grew upon him, his natural timidity became almost shyness, and so helped to preclude him from the benefit of good offices which many were ready to render him, had the least opening on his part encouraged them to solicit greater confidence.
But the days drew near when our poor friend was to be bereaved of his last earthly comfort--the companionship of this tender sister, who had said truly, "That no evil influence could ever estrange their hearts from each other, however it might have robbed her of her brother"s confidence." As they had grown up together in love and unity, so was her life devoted to him to the last, and her faithfulness perfected in the manner of her death. For though he never knew it (thank G.o.d! that drop of bitterness was spared), her life was sacrificed to her anxiety for his comfort, and her reluctance to cause him a moment"s distress, or even impatience, which it was in her power to avert.
For many years Mrs Eleanor Devereux, as well as her brother, had been subject to periodical fits of gout, their hereditary malady. Mr Devereux"s attacks had always been most obstinate and painful, though never alarming, as affecting only the hands and feet. His sister"s were still slighter, though more frequent, and she even forgot her own pain, or thanked G.o.d it was so moderate, causing only a temporary lameness--and leaving her hands free to minister, as only hers could minister, to the comfort of her more suffering brother. As both advanced in age, however, the disease gained ground on both.
Mr Devereux was subjected to long and excruciating torture, and almost helplessness, being entirely confined to his bed and easy-chair; and not being aware--for she never complained--that his sister was often suffering at the same time, though not equally with himself, he not only accepted, as he had been wont to do, that unwearied attention and that tender ministry to which she had so long accustomed him, but unconsciously became more exacting and more difficult to please, as his mind and temper became enfeebled and irritable, from natural causes of decay, and the more fatal inroads of unconfided care. So it was that at seasons of suffering he could scarcely endure her absence for an hour together; and when the cruel malady left him free from pain, but reduced to greater feebleness, as little could he spare her from the side of his garden seat, or study chair, who was the sharer of all his intellectual pleasures, as she was the soother of his bodily anguish.
And when his evil genius was about him in the shape of cousin Heneage, ill could the tender sister brook the thought of leaving him to that hateful companionship, from which he evidently shrank with increasing repugnance, though too frequently compelled, as it seemed, by some secret necessity, to submit to long private conferences with his dark kinsman. From these interviews, I have since heard from Hallings, he always reappeared in a state of pitiable agitation or deep despondence; and more than once on his reaching Mrs Eleanor"s dressing-room, in which, as if in a haven of safety, he was wont to take refuge from the scene of torment, he has fallen into a sort of fit, his forehead breaking out into profuse cold perspiration, and his eyes fixed with perfect unconsciousness on his agonised sister.
It is wonderful that the mental fabric should not have been utterly overthrown by such cruel conflicts; but though weakened in its powers of endurance, and perhaps in its reflective faculties, the common course of nature was reversed with regard to its sensibilities, which became more painfully acute as those powers decayed which should have counterbalanced their morbid ascendancy.
Toward the close of the last summer preceding his decease, a season which had been made particularly irksome to him by the prolonged visitation of Mrs Heneage and her family, my old friend was left once more to the quiet society of his sister, and to her gentle tending, through one of his const.i.tutional attacks, the effects of which still lingered about him, when the health of his kind nurse began to droop, and a fearful change in her appearance was manifest to all those who were not blinded to it by habits of hourly intercourse, and her uncomplaining serenity. Her own maid, however, the faithful Celia, was but too competent to perceive the alteration in her lady, and to surmise its cause; for she was aware, though enjoined to strict secresy, that for some time past, on the first indication of any gouty symptoms, Mrs Eleanor had had recourse to powerful repellants, counting as little her own personal risk, in comparison with the dread necessity of leaving her brother companionless in the midst of his intrusive guests, or alone on the bed of sickness, as might have been the case had her own malady been allowed to take its progress unchecked at the first indications, which were of a more than heretofore threatening nature. The antidote had been but too efficacious, and when Mrs Eleanor was at length induced by the entreaties of her faithful servant, and her own internal sensations, to speak privately to her medical attendant (an attached friend of the family), he saw so much cause for serious alarm, that it was with difficulty she prevailed on him to withhold for a few days only from her brother the shock of a communication, which she undoubtedly flattered herself might yet be rendered unnecessary by her amendment.
And for a day or two she appeared to rally, and there was a visible improvement in her, to my observation and that of Mrs L----, when we stopt at the Hall in our evening drive, and drank tea with her and Mr Devereux, on the last of those few days.
We had hardly done breakfast the following morning, when our medical friend (the attendant of the Devereuxs) sent in a request to speak to me in my library.
It was to announce to me the removal of our dear friend from earth to heaven. She had been found that morning in her bed asleep in death.
It needs not to say how promptly I betook myself to the house of mourning--how earnestly I pressed for admittance to the forlorn survivor, who had locked himself into his library, at the door of which stood Hallings in an agony of grief and apprehension, imploring leave to enter, if but for a moment. I joined my supplications to his, and after a time we heard a heavy sigh, and the approach of feeble footsteps to the door, on the opening of which the bereaved old man, as if overpowered by the effort, staggered backwards, and would have fallen, but that I caught him in my arms, and supported him to his easy-chair, still holding his hand, as I took my seat beside him, in that deep awe of silent sympathy, which feels it profanation to break in with human speech upon the sacredness of unutterable sorrow. Long he lay back, as he had sunk into his chair, silent and motionless. The small thin hand I held, was as cold and pale as that of a corpse; and as I contemplated his venerable countenance, colourless as the hand, the closed eyelids, and sunken temples, and every sharpened feature set in rigid and unnatural composure, I was startled--not shocked--by a sudden thought that the imperishable spirit had departed already from that poor frame of decaying mortality.
In breathless awe I stole my fingers gently to the wrist of the hand I held in mine, _almost_ praying inwardly that I might find all quiet there; but even while I felt for the imperceptible pulse, a change came over the pale countenance--a slight tremor of the muscles about the mouth, a quivering of the lower eyelids, and then a tear stole glistening through the thin worn lashes of either eye, and slowly, heavily trickled down the furrowed cheek, and after a minute the trembling hand was withdrawn from the tender pressure of mine, and with its fellow joined and half upraised in the att.i.tude of prayer. The old man"s eyes were still closed, but his lips moved, and in the tremulous accents which escaped them, I distinguished--"I thank thee!... I thank thee.... Oh Lord!... Thou hast taken _her_ from the evil to come."
Uninvited and unwelcome, Mr Heneage Devereux presented himself at the Hall, as suddenly as rapid travelling could bring him there, after the notification of Mrs Eleanor"s death had reached him in London. And it was evident to me and others that he had motives for preventing as much as possible all unrestrained and confidential intercourse between his cousin and those old friends and neighbours, who would have rallied round him in his distress and perplexities, and, by their strenuous and disinterested counsels and a.s.sistance, have even then released him from his bondage to the fiend, had time been allowed them to win gradually upon the shyness and timidity of Mr Devereux"s character, so as to induce him to overstep the little weakness of that false pride which shrank from disclosure of worldly difficulties, and exposure--such as no doubt he had pictured to himself--to the humiliating comments of contemptuous pity. Mr Heneage came, and such perpetual and vexatious obstacles were thrown in the way of the neighbouring gentlemen, in all their attempts at a renewal of social intercourse with Mr Devereux, that one by one all relinquished their kindly hopes of serving him effectually, though a few, like myself, persevered in seeing him as often as we could obtain admission into that altered abode, where in past days such a gracious and smiling welcome had ever greeted us. But I fear our venerable friend derived little pleasure or comfort from these almost intrusive visits. Courteously and kindly indeed he ever received all who approached him; and to the few who had been particularly distinguished by his friendship and that of Mrs Eleanor, there was even a more touching expression--one of grateful tenderness in his accustomed affectionateness of manner. But the exertion of conversation, absorbed as he was by corroding cares and fatal concealments, was evidently a painful effort to him, and he often sunk, even while his friends were endeavouring to engage his attention, into fits of sad abstraction, broken unconsciously by such deep-fetched sighs as went to the heart of those who were powerless to comfort. Little was even yet known of the real nature of those transactions between our venerable friend and his kinsman, which had wrought such lamentable change in him, and all connected with him; but whispers got abroad that Mr Devereux"s circ.u.mstances were in a very dilapidated state, and that there was even a possibility, if his life were spared beyond a certain period, that the old man might be driven forth from the home of his ancestors, to seek some meaner shelter for his grey head, before it was laid to rest in the vault of the Devereuxs.