After the company had separated I went up to Theophilus, and demanded an explanation of his ungentlemanly conduct. The answer I received was an insolent laugh.
No longer able to restrain my feelings, I poured upon him the boiling rage of my indignation, and did and said many bitter things, that had been better unsaid. He threatened to complain of me to his father. I dared him to do his worst--and left the room in a state of dreadful excitement.
The next morning, while busy in the office, Mr. Moncton came in, and closed the door carefully after him.
I rose as he entered and stood erect before him. I knew by the deadly pallor of his face, that something decisive was about to take place.
"Geoffrey," he said, in a low, hoa.r.s.e voice, which he vainly endeavoured to make calm, "you have grossly insulted my son, and spoken to him in the most disrespectful terms of me, your friend and benefactor. Without you will make a full and satisfactory apology to me for such intemperate language, and ask his pardon, you may dread my just displeasure."
"Ask his pardon!" I cried; almost choking with pa.s.sion--"for what? For his treating me like a menial and a slave!--Never, Mr. Moncton, never!"
My uncle regarded me with the same icy glance which froze my blood when a child, while I recapitulated my wrongs, with all the eloquence which pa.s.sion gives--pa.s.sion which makes even the slow of speech act the part of an orator.
He listened to me with a smile of derision.
Carried beyond the bounds of prudence, I told him, that I would no longer be subjected to such degrading tyranny; that his deceitful conduct had cancelled all ties of obligation between us; that the favours lately conferred upon me, I now saw had only been bestowed to effect my ruin; that he had been acting a base and treacherous game with me to further his own dishonest views; that I was fully aware of his motives, and appreciated them as they deserved; that he well knew the story of my illegitimacy was a forgery, that I had the means to prove it one, and would do it shortly; that the term of my articles would expire on the following day, and I would then leave his house for ever and seek my own living.
"You may do so to-day," he replied, in the same cool sarcastic tone; and unlocking his desk he took out the indentures.
A sudden terror seized me. Something in his look threatened danger: I drew a quicker breath, and advanced a few paces nearer.
All my hopes were centered in that sheet of parchment, to obtain which, I had endured seven years of cruel bondage. "No, no," said I, mentally, "he cannot be such a villain--he dare not do it!"
The next moment the fatal scroll lay torn and defaced at my feet. A cry of despair burst from my lips: I sprang forward, and with one blow laid him senseless at my feet, and fled from the house.
I saw Robert Moncton but once again. Recollection shudders when I recall that dreadful meeting.
I walked rapidly down the street, perfectly unconscious that I was without my hat, and that the rain was falling in torrents; or that I was an object of curiosity to the pa.s.sers-by.
Some one caught my arm.
I turned angrily round to shake off the intruder--it was my friend Harrison.
"In the name of Heaven! Geoffrey, tell me what has happened? What is the matter--are you in your right senses? Have you quarrelled with your uncle? Let me return with you to the house," were questions he asked in a breath.
"_My uncle!_ he is an infernal scoundrel!" I exclaimed, throwing out my clenched hand, and hurrying on still faster. "Oh, that I could crush him with one blow of this fist!"
"Geoffrey, you are mad--do you know what you say?"
"Perfectly well--stand back, and let me kill him!"
He put his arm forcibly round me. "Calm yourself, Geoffrey. What has caused this dreadful excitement? Good Heavens! how you tremble. Lean upon me--heavier yet. The arm of a sincere friend supports you--one who will never desert you, let what will befall."
"Leave me, George, to my fate. I have been shamefully treated, and I don"t care what becomes of me."
"If you are unable to take care of yourself, Geoffrey," he replied, clasping my hand fervently in his own, and directing my steps down a less frequented street, "it is highly necessary that some one should, until your mind a restored to its usual tranquillity. Return with me to my lodgings; take a composing draught, and go to bed. Your eyes are bloodshot, and starting from your head for want of sleep."
"Sleep! how is it possible for me to sleep, when the blood is boiling in my veins, and my brain is on fire, and I am tempted every moment to commit an act of desperation?"
"This feverish state cannot last, my poor friend; these furious bursts of pa.s.sion must yield to exhaustion. Your knees bend under you. In a few minutes we shall be beyond public observation, and can talk over the matter calmly."
As he ceased speaking, a deadly faintness stole over me--my head grew giddy, the surrounding objects swam round me in endless circles and with surprising rapidity, the heavens vanished from my sight, and darkness, blank darkness closed me in, and I should have fallen to the earth, but for the strong arm which held me in its grasp.
When I again opened my eyes, it was in the identical apothecary"s shop into which, some months before, I had carried the fainting Catherine Lee. The little apothecary was preparing to open a vein in my arm. This operation afforded me instant relief; my fury began to subside, and tears slowly trickled down my cheeks.
George, who was anxiously watching every change in my countenance, told the shop-boy to call a coach, which conveyed me in a few minutes to his old lodgings in Fleet Street.
CHAPTER XV.
GEORGE HARRISON AND HIS HISTORY.
Many days pa.s.sed over me of which I was totally unconscious. A violent fever had set in, and I was not aware of my situation; scarcely of the bodily sufferings I endured. My wants were ministered to by the kindest, truest friend that ever soothed the miseries of the unfortunate.
Fancying myself still under the control of Robert Moncton, and a resident beneath his roof, I raved continually of my wrongs, and exhausted myself by threats of vengeance. Long before the crisis of the fever had pa.s.sed, George had gathered from my impotent ravings the story of my injuries. After fluctuating a long time between life and death, youth and a naturally strong const.i.tution conquered my malady, and I once more thought and felt like a rational creature. My indignation against my uncle and cousin subsided into a sullen, implacable hatred, to overcome which I tried, and even prayed in vain.
Ashamed of harbouring this sinful pa.s.sion, I yet wanted the moral courage and Christian forbearance to overcome what reason and conscience united to condemn.
Degraded in my own estimation, I longed, yet dreaded to confide to Harrison, that the man he attended with such devotion was capable of such base degeneracy--of entertaining sentiments only worthy of Robert Moncton and his son.
The violence of my disorder had reduced me to such a state of weakness that I imagined myself at the point of death, when I was actually out of danger. My nervous system was so greatly affected that I yielded to the most childish fears, and contemplated dying with indescribable horror.
Harrison, who was unacquainted with the state of my mind, attributed these feelings to the reaction produced by the fever; and thinking that a state of quiescence was necessary for my recovery, seldom spoke to me but at those times when, with tenderness almost feminine, he gave me food and medicine, arranged my pillows, or made affectionate inquiries about my bodily state. I often pretended to be asleep, while my mind was actively employed in conjuring up a host of ghastly phantoms, which prevented my recovery, and were effectually undermining my reason.
One afternoon, as I lay in a sort of dreamy state, between sleeping and waking, and mournfully brooding over my perishing hopes and approaching dissolution, I thought that a majestic figure, clothed in flowing garments of glistening white, came to my bedside, and said to me in tones of exquisite sweetness, "Poor, perishing, sinful child of earth!
if you wish to enter Heaven, you must first forgive your enemies. The gate of Life is kept by Love, who is ready to open to every one who first withdraws the bar which Hatred has placed before the narrow entrance."
Overwhelmed with fear and astonishment, I started up in the bed, exclaiming in tones of agonized entreaty, "Oh, G.o.d, forgive me! I cannot do it!"
"Do what, dear Geoffrey?" said George, coming to the bedside, and taking my hand in his.
"Forgive my enemies. Forgive those wretches who have brought me to this state, and by their cruel conduct placed both life and reason in jeopardy. I cannot do it, though He, the merciful, who dying forgave his enemies, commands me to do so."
"Geoffrey," said Harrison, soothingly, "you can never recover your health, or feel happy till you can accomplish this great moral victory over sin and self."
"I cannot do it!" I responded, turning from him, and burying my face in the bed-clothes while I hardened my heart against conviction. "No, not if I perish for refusing. I feel as if I were already with the condemned."
"No wonder," returned Harrison, sternly. "Hatred and its concomitant pa.s.sion, Revenge, are feelings worthy of the d.a.m.ned. I beseech you, Geoffrey, by the dying prayer of that blessed Saviour, whom you profess to believe, try to rise superior to these soul-debasing pa.s.sions; and not only forgive, but learn to pity, the authors of your sufferings."
"I have done my best. I have even prayed to do so."
"Not in a right spirit, or your prayers would have been heard and accepted. What makes you dread death? Speak the truth out boldly. Does not this hatred to your uncle and cousin stand between you and Heaven?"
"I confess it. But, Harrison, could you forgive them?"
"Yes."