"I do believe, indeed," said his unsuspecting brother, "that the best thing we could all do would be to put ourselves under his guidance; as for my part I am perfectly willing to do so, Harry. After hearing the good sense you have just uttered, I think you are ent.i.tled to every confidence from us all."
"You overrate my abilities, Charles; but not, I hope, the goodness of an affectionate heart that loves you all. Charles, come with me for a few minutes; and, mother, do you also expect a private lecture from me by and by."
"Well," said the mother, "I suppose I must. If I were only spoken to kindly I could feel as kindly; however, let there be an end to this quarrel as the boy says, and I, as well as Charles, shall be guided by his advice."
"Now, Charles," said he, when they had gone to another room, "you know what kind! of a woman my mother is; and the truth is, until matters get settled, we will have occasion for a good, deal of patience with her; let us, therefore, exercise it. Like most hot-tempered women, she has a bad memory, and wrests the purport of words too frequently to a wrong meaning. In the account she gave you of what occurred between Alice Goodwin and me, she entirely did."
"But what did occur between Alice Goodwin and you, Harry?"
"A very few words will tell it. She admitted that there certainly has been an attachment between you and her, but--that--that--I will not exactly repeat her words, although I don"t say they were meant offensively; but it amounted, to this, that she now filled a different position in the eyes of the world; that she would rather the matter were not renewed; that if her mind had changed, she had good reason for justifying the change; and when I, finding that I had no chance myself, began to plead for you, she hinted to me that, in consequence of the feud that had taken place between the families, and the slanders that my mother had cast upon her honor and principles, she was resolved to have no further connection whatsoever with any one of the blood; her affections were not now her own."
"Alas, Harry!" said Charles, "how few can bear the effects of unexpected prosperity. When she and I were both comparatively poor, she was all affection; but now that she has become an heiress, see what a change there is! Well, Harry, if she can be faithless and selfish, I can be both resolute and proud. She shall have no further trouble from me on that subject; only I must say, I don"t envy her her conscience."
"Don"t be rash, Charles---we should judge of her charitably and generously; I don"t think myself she is so much to blame. O"Connor Fardour, or Farther, or whatever you call him--"
"O, Ferdora!"
"Yes, Ferdora; that fellow is at the bottom of it all; he has plied her well during the estrangement, and to some purpose. I never visit them that I don"t find him alone with her. He is, besides, both frank and handsome, with a good deal of dash and insinuation in his address and manner, and, besides, a good property, I am told. But, in the meantime, I have a favor to ask of you; that is, if you think you can place confidence in me."
"Every confidence, my dear Harry," said Charles, clasping his hand warmly; "every confidence. As I said before, you shall be my guide and adviser."
"Thank you, Charles. I may make mistakes, but I shall do all for the best. Well, then, will you leave O"Connor to me? If you do, I shall not promise much, because I am not master of future events; but this is all I ask of you--yes, there is one thing more--to hold aloof from her and her family for a time."
"After what you have told me, Harry, that is an unnecessary request now; but as for O"Connor, I think he ought to be left to myself."
"And so he shall in due time; but I must place him in a proper position for you first--a thing which you could not do now, nor even attempt to do, without meanness. Are you, then, satisfied to leave this matter in my hands, and to remain quiet until I shall bid you act?"
"Perfectly, Harry, perfectly; I shall be guided by you in everything."
"Well, now, Charley, we will have a double triumph soon, I hope. All is not lost that"s in danger. The poor girl is surrounded by a clique.
Priests have interfered. Her parents, you know, are Catholics; so, you know, is O"Connor. Poor Alice, you know, too, is anything but adamant.
And now I will say no more; but in requital for what I have said, go and send our patient mild mamma, to me. I really must endeavor to try something with her, in order to save us all from this kind of life she is leading us."
When his mother entered he a.s.sumed the superior and man of authority; his countenance exhibited something unpleasant, and in a decisive and rather authoritative tone he said,--
"Mother, will you be pleased to take a seat?"
"You are angry with me, Harry--I know you are; but I could not restrain my feelings, nor keep your secret, when I thought of their insolence in requiting you--you, to whom the property would and ought to have come--"
"Pray, ma"am, take a seat."
She sat down--anxious, but already subdued, as was evident by her manner.
"I," proceeded her son, "to whom the property would and ought to have come--and I to whom it will come--"
"But are you sure of that?"
"Not, I am afraid, while I have such a mother as you are--a woman in whom I can place no confidence with safety. Why did you betray me to this silly family?"
"Because, as I said before, I could not help it; my temper got the better of me."
"Ay, and I fear it will always get the better of you. I could now give you very agreeable information as to that property and the piece of curds that possesses it; but then, as I said, there is no placing any confidence in a woman of your temper."
"If the property is concerned, Harry, you may depend your life on me. So help me, G.o.d, if ever I will betray you again."
"Well, that"s a solemn a.s.severation, and I will depend on it; but if you betray me to this family the property is lost to us and our heirs forever."
"Do not fear me; I have taken the oath."
"Well, then, listen; if you could understand Latin, I would give you a quotation from a line of Virgil--
"_Haeret lateri lethhalis arundo_."
The girl"s doomed--subdued--overcome; I am in the process of killing her."
"Of killing her! My G.o.d, how? not by violence, surely--that, you know, would not be safe."
"I know that; no--not by violence, but by the power of this dark eye that you see in my head."
"Heavenly Father! then you possess it?"
"I do; and if I were never to see her again I don"t think she could recover; she will merely wither away very gently, and in due time will disappear without issue--and then, whose is the property?"
"As to that, you know there can be no doubt about it; there is the will--the stupid; will, by which she got it."
"I shall see her again, however--nay, in spite of them I shall see her time after time, and shall give her the Evil Eye, until the; scene closes--until I attend her funeral."
"My mind is somewhat at ease," replied his mother; "because I was alarmed lest you should have had recourse to any process that might have brought you within the operation of the law."
"Make your mind easy on that point, my dear mother. No law compels a man to close his eyes; a cat, you know, may look on a king; but of one thing you may be certain--she dies--the victim is mine."
"One thing is certain," replied his mother, "that if she and Charles should marry, you are ousted from the property."
"Don"t trouble yourself about such a contingency; I have taken steps which I think will prevent that. I speak in a double sense; but if I find, after all, that they are likely to fail, I shall take others still more decisive."
CHAPTER XIII. Woodward is Discarded from Mr. Goodwin"s Family
--Other Particulars of Importance.
The reader sees that Harry Woodward, having ascertained the mutual affection which subsisted between his brother and Alice, resorted to such measures as were likely to place obstructions in the way of their meeting, which neither of them was likely to remove. He felt, now, satisfied that Charles, in consequence of the malignant fabrications which he himself had palmed upon him for truth, would, most a.s.suredly, make no further attempt to renew their former intimacy. When Alice, too, stated to him, that if she married not Charles, whether he proved worthy of her or otherwise, she would never marry another, he felt that she was unconsciously advancing the diabolical plans which he was projecting and attempting to carry into effect. If she died without marriage or without issue, the property, at her death, according to his uncle"s will, reverted, as we have said, to himself. His object, therefore, was to expedite her demise with as little delay as possible, in order that he might become master of the patrimony. With this generous principle for his guide, he made it a point to visit the Goodwins, and to see Alice as often as was compatible with the ordinary usages of society. Had Caterine Collins not put the unsuspecting and timid girl on her guard against the influence of the Evil Eye, as possessed by Woodward, for whom she acted as agent in the business, that poor girl would not have felt anything like what this diabolical piece of information occasioned her to experience. From the moment she heard it her active imagination took the alarm. An unaccountable terror seized upon her; she felt as if some dark doom was impending over her. It was in a peculiar degree the age of superst.i.tion; and the terrible influence of the Evil Eye was one not only of the commonest, but the most formidable of them all. The dark, significant, but sinister gaze of Harry Woodward was, she thought, forever upon her. She could not withdraw her imagination from it. It haunted her; it was fixed upon her, accompanied by a dreadful smile of apparent courtesy, but of a malignity which she felt as if it penetrated her whole being, both corporeal and mental. She hurried to bed at night with a hope that sleep might exclude the frightful vision which followed her; but, alas! even sleep was no security to her against its terrors.
It was now that in her distempered dreams imagination ran riot. She fled from him, or attempted to fly, but feared that she had not strength for the effort; he followed her, she thought, and when she covered her face with her hands in order to avoid the sight of him, she felt him seizing her by the wrists, and removing her arms in order that he might pour the malignant influence of that terrible eye into her very heart. From these scenes she generally awoke with a shriek, when her maid, Sarah Sullivan, who of late slept in the same room with her, was obliged to come to her a.s.sistance, and soothe and sustain her as well as she could. She then lay for hours in such a state of terror and agitation as cannot be described, until near morning, WHen she generally fell into something like sound sleep. In fact, her waking moments were easy when compared with the persecution which the spirit of that man inflicted on her during her broken and restless slumbers. The dreadful eye, as it rested upon her, seemed as if its powerful but killing expression proceeded from the heart and spirit of some demon who sought to wither her by slow degrees out of life; and she felt that he was succeeding in his murderous and merciless object. It is not to be wondered at, then, that she dreaded the state of sleep more than any other condition of existence in which she could find herself. As night, and the hour of retiring to what ought to have been a refreshing rest returned, her alarms also returned with tenfold terror; and such was her apprehension of those fiend-like and nocturnal visits, that she entreated Sarah Sullivan to sleep with and awaken her the moment she heard her groan or shriek. Our readers may perceive that the innocent girl"s tenure of life could not be a long one under such strange and unexampled sufferings.
The state of her health now occasioned her parents to feel the most serious alarm. She herself disclosed to them the fearful intelligence which had been communicated to her in such a friendly spirit by Caterine Collins, to wit, that Harry Woodward possessed the terrible power of the Evil Eye, and that she felt he was attempting to kill her by it; adding, that from the state of her mind and health she feared he had succeeded, and that certainly, if he were permitted to continue his visits, she knew that she could not long survive.