"I have something to tell you which will surprise you much more, Lawrence. This little girl, Dorothy, whom you adopted as your own, is descended from him too."
"Now, my lord, you be surely making fun o" me; for n.o.body in the world knows who Dolly"s mother was, still less her father. I ha" been puzzling my brain about that secret for the last sixteen years, without finding it out. It was the want of knowing who she was, that has ruined both me and my son."
"She is my daughter, Lawrence. The poor woman that you found dead on Hadstone Heath, was Alice Knight, a beautiful girl, whom you may remember was adopted by my mother, Lady Dorothy. She was my wife, and the mother of our Dorothy."
"The Lord a" mercy!" cried Rushmere, starting to his feet. "An" you let the poor la.s.s die for want, an" her child work for her bread, in the house of a stranger. You may call yourself n.o.ble, an" all that, Lord Wilton, but I should feel prouder of the relationship of a poor, honest man."
"I do not blame you, Rushmere. My conduct, from the view you take of it, must appear atrocious indeed. But I was as ignorant of the facts as you were."
"But how could your lawful wife come to such a state o" dest.i.tution? Did a" play you false?"
"I will tell you how it all happened," returned Lord Wilton, "and you will be more ready to forgive me, as the unfortunate worship of the golden calf, which I find is an hereditary sin, brought about this unhappy affair."
Drawing his seat beside the old yeoman, he told him the story the reader has just learned from the preceding chapter, patiently submitting to his blunt cross-questioning on many points, that could not fail to be very distressing to his feelings.
"Well, my lord," he said, when he had listened with intense interest to the said history, "I am sartain sure I should ha" done exactly as you did. Such a fortin as that very few men could ha" resisted. It was a sore temptation, there"s no doubt. I allers thought that yon poor creature had been summat above her condition. She had bonny hair, an"
the smallest foot an" hand in the world. People that work hard, allers show it most in the extremities. Labour calls out the muscles and sinews, makes the limbs large, an" gives breadth more than height to the figure, tans the complexion, an" makes it ruddy an" coa.r.s.e. To such as I this be real beauty, but you lords of the creation prefer a white skinned, die away, half dead an" alive sort o" a cretur, to a well grown healthy buxom la.s.s like our Dorothy, who ha" grown up just as G.o.d made her, whom all the delicate women folk envy, an" all the young men are mad arter. She be just what I call a beauty."
Dorothy laughed at her foster-father"s ideas of real beauty, and told him that she was not at all flattered by his description, as she was very much afraid the gentle folks would consider it "_barn-yard beauty_."
"Don"t you mind what they call it, my Lady Dorothy. I "spose I must call you so now. You need not be ashamed to show your face anywhere; all I be afeared on is this, that when you go home to live in the grand old Hall, that belonged to him," pointing up to the picture, "you"ll forget the cross old man who was father to you, when you had none. An" you might ha" been my own darter too," he added, with a sigh, "but for my greed.
An" your children an" Gilbert"s might have inherited the home of my ancestors. I was nigh cursing Gilbert "tother day, but Gilly has more cause to curse me. Alack, alack, what poor miserable blind creatures we be! It is well for us, that G.o.d"s providence is at work behind it all."
"Father, you need never fear my forgetting you," said Dorothy; "I have known this change in my fortunes a long time; and have you found any alteration in my regard?"
"An" did a" wait upon the old man for the last three months, an" knew a"
was a t.i.tled lady all the time?"
"I"m not a t.i.tled lady to you, dear father, but always your own little Dorothy. Where I am--you must go too, and when I leave Heath Farm, you will have to go to Heath Hall, for I cannot live without you; and kind Mrs. Brand has prepared a nice room for you; and we will try and make you forget all the past troubles," and she put her arm round his neck and kissed him.
"Rushmere, I shall grow jealous of you," said Lord Wilton, "if my daughter bestows on you more kisses than she gives me. What Dorothy says is perfectly true; she considers you too old to trouble about the farm, that it is high time you should rest from labour. You must allow her to have her own way in this matter. I have no doubt that she will contrive to make you happy."
A week later, and Dorothy"s claims were established on a legal basis, and all the country rang with the romantic tale.
Mrs. Lane put on her best bonnet and hurried up to Nancy Watling, with the newspaper in her hand. She had run every step of the way, a good half mile, for fear Miss Watling should hear the news from any one else, and when she burst into the parlour, she was too much out of breath to speak.
Miss Watling ran upstairs for her smelling bottle, thinking that the good woman was going to faint. By the time, however, that she reached the parlour, the vendor of small wares had recovered the use of her tongue.
"Well, Miss Watling," she cried, still panting, "the mystery"s all out at last. Dorothy Chance is Lord Wilton"s _own_ daughter! and that poor beggar woman, as you was used to call her, was no other than Alice Knight, rich old Mrs. Knight"s daughter, whom the Earl"s good mother adopted, and he married unbeknown to her."
"I"ll not believe a word of it!" said Nancy, resolutely.
"Why, woman, it"s all here in the paper," and Mrs. Lane tapped the important doc.u.ment significantly, "and as true as gospel. Do you suppose the Earl would allow the newspapers to meddle with his private affairs?
Don"t you hear the bells ringing; and if you come down to the village with me, you"ll see all the flags a flying, and them who has no flags, puts out o" their windows quilts and hankerchers. Oh, it"s true, true, and I be right glad on it. I allers did think Dorothy Chance a fine girl."
"I wonder how her ladyship bears her new dignity?" said Miss Watling, waspishly.
"As meek as a lamb," returned Mrs. Lane.
"How the old man will fret and fume that Gilbert did not marry her. It serves him right, at any rate."
"How money do make people turn about," continued Mrs. Lane. "It was only this time last year that I heard you praise old Rushmere for turning Dorothy out o" doors. Before another week is over, you will be boasting of her acquaintance.
"Good morning, Nancy, I can"t stay longer. The butcher has promised to give me a cast in his cart, as far as Barfords. I know Jane Barford will be glad of any good that happens to Dorothy."
And off went the little bustling woman to spread the glad tidings in every house she pa.s.sed.
Miss Watling"s envy of Dorothy was greatly diminished by her exaltation to rank and fortune. She was now too far above her to provoke compet.i.tion, and she began to praise what she could not pull down.
Mrs. Lane was right, when she antic.i.p.ated the hearty congratulations of Mrs. Barford; even Letty stopped her churn, and, clapping her hands, said:
"Who wud ha" thought that we shud ever have a t.i.tled lady for a dairy maid, or that a countess wud nurse my boy, Tommy. It do seem jist like a fairy tale."
"Yes," returned old Mrs. Barford, "and Dorothy may be considered as the queen of the fairies. If Gilbert"s in England, I wonder what he will say to all this? As to Dorothy, she had a good miss of him. They do say that he made that other woman a wretched husband."
"I"m thinking," said Letty, sententiously, "that it wor the wretch o" a woman that made him a bad wife. What he could see in that dirty, impudent wench, Martha Wood, to run off wi" un, "stonishes I more than"s marrying yon stuck up Gallimaufry from Lunnon."
"Nothing need astonish you, Letty, that is done by a drunken man. But in this matter of Dorothy Chance, Lawrence Rushmere was more to blame than his son, and a fine mess he has made of it. Howsomever, I don"t believe that people can marry just whom they like. G.o.d mates them, and not man, or we should not see such strange folk come together."
"If that be true, mother," cried Letty, with unusual vivacity, "how can yer go on from day to day, fretting an" nagging, an" blaming Joe for marrying I? If I had to be his wife, he wor forced to take I, whether or no."
This was rather a poser to Mrs. Barford"s favourite theory, on which much might be said for and against, and which still remains an unsolved enigma. The old lady was wont to excuse her own imprudent marriage on the score of its being _her fate_. She took up her knitting and began rattling her pins vigorously, as if perfectly unconscious of her daughter-in-law"s sensible remark.
There was one, however, to whom the change in Dorothy"s social position brought no joy, producing the most bitter disappointment, and giving rise to vindictive and resentful feelings. This was Gilbert Rushmere.
Before leaving Heath Farm with Martha Wood, he had secured a tolerably large sum of money by the sale of the farm horses, which had been accomplished without the knowledge of his father. With this sum, it was his intention of taking his pa.s.sage to America; but meeting in London some of his gambling a.s.sociates, they had prevailed upon him to stay, until fleeced in his turn of all his ill-gotten store, he was reduced to the necessity of acting as a decoy duck, in a low tavern, which was the common resort of men even yet more fallen and degraded than himself.
He was sitting maudling over a strong potation of gin and water, after a night of riot and debauchery, in an underground kitchen in this den of infamy, striving to drown the recollection of former respectability in the maddening gla.s.s. His red bloated face, unshaven chin and matted hair, contrasted painfully with the faded uniform that seemed to claim for its wearer the t.i.tle of a gentleman.
It is not the murderer alone who bears upon his brow the stamp of Cain.
Vice marks all her degraded victims with an unerring sign, which reveals to the spectator the depths of their debas.e.m.e.nt. This sign is so distinctly traceable in the countenance of a wicked man, that a little child--nay even a dog--alike unconscious of the cause of this physical degradation, sees that something is wrong, and shrinks instinctively from his companionship. If a good man feels it difficult to maintain the straight onward path of prescribed duty, the downward career of the wicked man has no stumbling blocks in the way. Every step accelerates his speed, till he gains, by a final plunge in deeper guilt, the dreadful goal.
That miserable man, in his half conscious state, with his unwashed face and soiled garments, and brutalized expression, is a sad ill.u.s.tration of such a frightful career.
Scarcely a year has expired, when, a brave, honest soldier, he was respected by his comrades, the pride of his parents, and the beloved of a virtuous woman, and held an honourable and independent position. He then gave a fair promise of becoming a useful member of society. Look at him now leaning on that dirty table, drivelling over the accursed liquor, for which he has bartered body and soul, and to obtain which he has to herd with ruffians yet more fallen and degraded than himself.
His shameless companion deserted him when he was no longer able to gratify her vanity, by the purchase of fine clothes and bogus jewellery.
Of his wife and her mother he neither knows nor cares, and never names them without a curse, as the author of his misery.
His gla.s.s is out, and he is just going to fling himself upon the dirty floor, to sleep off the headache due to last night"s shameless orgies.
"Hullo! Rush! You"re not going to sleep?" cries one of the gang, entering in his shirt sleeves, with a newspaper in his hand. "In less than an hour you"ll have plenty of work to do. If you are in your senses rouse up and read this, to keep your eyes open till the governor wants you."
Rubbing his eyes with a dreadful oath, and wishing his companion in the place to which he is himself fast hastening, Gilbert staggered up, and sat down once more by the greasy table.
"It"s hard that you won"t leave me alone, Boxer. This life"s killing me.
My head aches confoundedly. I want to go sleep, "to forget my misery,"
as that jolly old dog, Solomon, has it, "and remember my poverty no more.""
"This paper will wake you up. It"s the history of your old sweetheart, Dolly, that you are always boring me about. Not that I believe a word of all that now. Not a very likely tale that such a girl as that would have anything to say to such a chap as you. A nice fellow, an"t you, for a lady of rank to break her heart about."