"You are a fool to feel the least trouble about him," said Dinah.
"There, he is again insensible; our efforts to bring him to his senses will only make matters worse. Listen to me, Geoffrey Moncton, I have a burden on my conscience I would fain remove, and which it is necessary that you should know. Remember what I told you when we last met. That the next time we saw each other, my secret and yours would be of equal value."
CHAPTER XII.
DINAH"S CONFESSION.
"It is an ill wind, they say, Geoffrey Moncton, which blows no good to any one. Had the son of Sir Alexander Moncton lived, you would have retained your original insignificance. It is from my guilt that you derive a clear t.i.tle to the lands and honours which by death he lost."
I know not why, but as she said this, a cold chill crept through me. I almost wished that she would leave the terrible tale she had to tell untold. I felt that whatever its import might be, that it boded me no good. My situation was intensely exciting, and made me alive to the most superst.i.tious impressions. It was altogether the most important epoch in my life.
Seated at the foot of that miserable bed, the ghastly face of the wounded man, just revealed by the sickly light of a miserable candle, looked stark, rigid, and ghost-like, to all outward appearance, already dead. And that horrible hag, with her witch-like face, with its grim smile, standing between me and the clear beams of the moon, which bathed in a silvery light the floor of that squalid room, and threw fantastic arabesques over the time-stained walls, glanced upon me like some foul visitant from the infernal abyss.
The hour was solemn midnight, when the dead are said to awake in their graves, and wander forth until the second crowing of the bird of dawn.
I felt its mysterious influence steal over my senses, and rob me of my usual courage, and I leant forward, to shut out the ghastly scene, and covered my face with my hands.
Every word which Dinah uttered fell upon my ear with terrible distinctness, as she continued her revelations of the past.
"My daughter, Rachel, by some strange fatality had won the regard of her delicate rival, Lady Moncton, who seemed to feel a perverse pleasure in loading her with favours. Whether she knew of the attachment which had existed between her and Sir Alexander is a secret. Perhaps she did not, and was only struck with the beauty and elegance of the huntsman"s wife, which was certainly very unusual in a person of her humble parentage. Be that as it may, she deemed her worthy of the highest trust which one woman, can repose in another--the charge of her infant son, and that son the heir of a vast estate.
"Rachel was not insensible to the magnitude of the confidence reposed in her; and for the first six months of the infant"s life, she performed her duty conscientiously, and bestowed upon her nurse-child the most devoted care.
"Robert Moncton came to the Hall at this time to receive the rents of the estate for Sir Alexander--for he was his man of business. He saw the child, and perceived that it was a poor, fragile, puling thing; the thought entered his wicked heart, that if this weakly scion of the old family tree were removed, his son would be heir to the t.i.tle and lands of Moncton.
"I don"t know what argument he made use of to win Rachel to his purpose. I was living with him at the time as his housekeeper; for the wife he had married was a poor, feeble-minded creature--the mere puppet of his imperious will, and a very indifferent manager. But she loved him, and at that period he was a very handsome man, and had the art of hiding his tyrannical temper, by a.s.suming before strangers a pleasing, dignified manner, which imposed on every person who was not acquainted with the secrets of the domestic prison-house.
"Rachel consented to make away with the child; but on the very night she had set apart for the perpetration of the deed, G.o.d smote her own lovely boy upon the breast, and the tears of the distracted mother awoke in her mind a consciousness of the terrible sin she had premeditated.
"To hearts like Robert Moncton"s and mine this circ.u.mstance would not have deterred us from our purpose; but Rachel was not like us, hardened in guilt or bad, and unknown to us both she reared the young heir of Moncton as her own.
"It was strange that neither of us suspected the fact.
"I might have known, from the natural antipathy I felt for the child, that he was not of my flesh and blood; but G.o.d hid it from me, till Rachel informed me on her death-bed of the deception she had practised.
"It was an important secret, and I determined to make use of it to extort money from Robert Moncton, when the child should be old enough to attract his attention. I owed him a long grudge, and this gave me power to render him restless and miserable. Thus I suffered George Moncton to live, to obtain a two-fold object--the gratification of Avarice and Revenge.
"In spite of neglect and harsh treatment, which were inseparable from the deep-rooted hatred I bore him on his parents" account, the hand of Heaven was extended over the injured child. He out-grew the feeble delicacy of his infancy, and when he had attained his fourth year, was a beautiful and intelligent boy.
"His father, as if compelled by powerful natural instinct, lavished upon him the most abundant marks of favour. Lady Moncton"s love was that of a doting mother, which increased up to the period of her death.
"The death of Lady Moncton, and that of Roger Mornington, followed quickly upon each other, and all my old hopes revived, when Sir Alexander renewed his attentions to my daughter. But vain are the expectations of the wicked. Bitter experience has taught me (though it took me a long life to learn that lesson) that man cannot contend with G.o.d; and my beautiful Rachel died in her prime, just when my fondest expectations seemed on the point of realization.
"Years fled on--years of burning disappointment and ungratified pa.s.sion. The little girl Rachel left to my care was handsome, clever and affectionate, and I loved her with a fierce love, such as I never felt before for anything of earth--and she loved me--a creature from whose corrupted nature, all living things seemed to start with abhorrence. I watched narrowly the young heir of Moncton, who led that smiling rose-bud by the hand, and loved her too, but not as I could have wished him to love her.
"Had I seen the least hope of his ever forming an attachment for his beautiful playmate, how different would have been my conduct towards him!
"Alice, was early made acquainted with the secret of his birth, and was encouraged by me, to use every innocent blandishment towards him, and even to hint that he was not her brother, in order to awaken a tenderer pa.s.sion in his breast.
"His heart remained as cold as ice. His affections for Alice never exceeded the obligations of nature, due to her as his sister. They were not formed for each other and, again disappointed in my ambitious hopes, I vowed his destruction. At this time Sir Alexander sent him to school at York, and the man who lies grovelling on that bed, was made acquainted with his existence."
A heavy groan from Robert Moncton interrupted for a few minutes the old woman"s narrative. She rose from her seat, took the lamp from the table, and bending over the sorry couch, regarded the rigid marble features of my uncle, with the same keen scrutiny that she had looked upon me in the garret of the old house in Hatton Garden.
"It was but a pa.s.sing pang," said she, resuming her seat. "His ear is closed to all intelligible sounds."
I thought otherwise, but after rocking herself to and fro on her seat for a short s.p.a.ce, she again fixed upon me her dark, searching, fiery eyes, and resumed her tale:--
"Robert Moncton bore the intelligence with more temper than I expected. Nor did he then propose any act of open violence towards the innocent object of our mutual hatred, but determined to destroy him in a more deliberate and less dangerous way. At that time I was not myself eager for his death, for my poor deluded, lost Alice, had not then formed the ill-fated attachment to Theophilus Moncton, which terminated in her broken heart and early grave--and which, in fact, has proved the destruction of all, and rendered the house of the destroyer as desolate as my own.
"At first I could not believe that the attachment of my poor girl to Theophilus was sincere, but when I was at length convinced that both were in earnest, my long withered hopes revived. I saw her in idea, already mistress of the Hall, and often in private called her Lady Moncton.
"I despised the surly wretch, whom unfortunately she only loved too well, and looked upon his union with my grandchild as a necessary evil, through which she could alone reach the summit of my ambitious wishes.
"In the meanwhile, Alice played her cards so well that she and her lover were privately married--she binding herself by a solemn promise, not to divulge the secret, even to me, until a fitting opportunity.
After a few months, her situation attracted my attention; and I accused her of having been betrayed by her fashionable paramour.
"She denied the charge--was obstinate and violent, and much bitter language pa.s.sed between us. Just at this period, young Mornington returned to us, a ruined man. He fell sick, and both Alice and myself hoped that his disease would terminate fatally. In this we were disappointed. He slowly and surely recovered in spite of our coldness and neglect.
"Before he was able to leave his bed, Robert Moncton, who had discovered his victim"s retreat, paid us a visit. Me, he cajoled, by promising to give his consent to his son"s marriage with Alice, but only on condition of our uniting to rid him for ever of the man who stood between him and the long-coveted estates and t.i.tle of Moncton.
I, for my part, was easily entreated, for our interests were too closely united in his destruction, for me to raise any objections.
"Alice, however, was a novice in crime, and she resisted his arguments with many tears, and it was not until he threatened to disinherit her husband, if he ever dared to speak to her again, that she reluctantly consented to administer the fatal draught which Robert prepared with his own hands."
There was a long pause; I thought I heard the sound of horses" hoofs in the distance. Dinah heard it too, and hastened to conclude her narrative.
"Yes, George Moncton died in the bloom of life, the victim of treachery from the very morning of his days. But the cry of the innocent blood has gone up to the throne of G.o.d, and terrible vengeance has pursued his murderers.
"When I discovered that Alice was the lawful wife of Theophilus Moncton, and that the child she carried, if it proved a son, would be Sir Alexander"s heir, I made a journey to London, to communicate the fact to Robert Moncton, and to force him to acknowledge her publicly as his daughter-in-law.
"He would not believe me on my oath; and declared that it was only another method to extort money. I produced the proofs. He vowed that they were base forgeries, and tore the doc.u.ments, trampling them under his feet; and it was only when I threatened to expose the murder of his cousin, that he condescended to listen to reason.
"It was then for the first time I heard of your existence, and a new and unforeseen enemy seemed to start up and defy me to my teeth.
"Robert Moncton laughed at my fears, and told me how ingeniously he had contrived to brand you with the stigma of illegitimacy. He could not however lull my fears to rest, until I was satisfied that Walters had really placed the stolen certificates in the iron chest in your garret--and late as it was, we went to a.s.sure ourselves of the fact."
"Oh, how well I remember that dreadful visit," said I--"and the horrible dream which preceded it."
"You were awake, then?"
"Yes--awake with my eyes shut--and heard all that pa.s.sed."
"A true Moncton," and she shook her palsied head. "The devil is in you all. You know then, that our search was fruitless, and I returned to Moncton with the conviction, that we were destined to be defeated in our machinations.
"Six months after these events, Alice gave birth to a son, and was greatly cheered by the news, which reached her through one of the servants at the Hall, that her husband had returned from Italy, and was in London."
"The rest of her melancholy history is known to me," said I. "It was my arm that lifted her from the water when she attempted to destroy herself. Oh, miserable and guilty woman, what have you gained by all your deep-laid schemes of villainy? As to you, Dinah North, the gibbet awaits you--and your prospects beyond the grave are more terrible still."