CHAPTER LV
A DEAD LETTER
With that great tornado, the wind took a leap of more points of thecompass than I can tell. Barnes, the fisherman, said how many; but Imight be quite wrong in repeating it. One thing, at any rate, was withinmy compass--it had been blowing to the top of its capacity, direct fromthe sea, but now it began to blow quite as hard along the shore. Thisrough ingratitude of wind to waves, which had followed each breath ofits orders, produced extraordinary passion, and raked them into pointedwind-cocks.
"Captain, we can't live this out," cried Barnes; "we must run her ashoreat once; tide has turned; we might be blown out to sea, with one oar,and then the Lord Himself couldn't save us."
Crippled as we were, we contrived to get into a creek, or backwater,near the Major's gate. Here the men ran the boat up, and we all climbedout, stiff, battered, and terrified, but doing our best to be most trulythankful.
"Go home, Captain, as fast as you can, and take the young lady along ofyou," said Mr. Barnes, as we stood and gazed at the weltering breadth ofdisaster. "We are born to the drip, but not you, Sir; and you are not soyoung as you was, you know."
"I am younger than ever I was," the lord of the manor answered, sternly,yet glancing back to make sure of no interruption from his betterhalf--who had not even heard of his danger. "None of that nonsense tome, Barnes. You know your position, and I know mine. On board of thatboat you took the lead, and that may have misled you. I am very muchobliged to you, I am sure, for all your skill and courage, which havesaved the lives of all of us. But on land you will just obey me."
"Sartinly, Captain. What's your orders?"
"Nothing at all. I give no orders. I only make suggestions. But if yourexperience sees a way to recover those two poor bodies, let us try itat once--at once, Barnes. Erema, run home. This is no scene for you. Andtell Margaret to put on the double-bottomed boiler, with the stock shemade on Friday, and a peck of patent pease. There is nothing to beat peasoup; and truly one never knows what may happen."
This was only too evident now, and nobody disobeyed him.
Running up his "drive" to deliver that message, at one of the manybends I saw people from Bruntsea hurrying along a footpath through thedairy-farm. While the flood continued this was their only way to meetthe boat's crew. On the steps of "Smuggler's Castle" (as BruntlandsHouse was still called by the wicked) I turned again, and the newsea-line was fringed with active searchers. I knew what they werelooking for, but, scared and drenched and shivering as I was, no morewould I go near them. My duty was rather to go in and comfort dear AuntMary and myself. In that melancholy quest I could do no good, but agreat deal of harm, perhaps, if any thing was found, by breaking forthabout it.
Mrs. Hockin had not the least idea of the danger we had encountered.Bailiff Hopkins had sent her home in Rasper's fly by an inland road, andshe kept a good scolding quite ready for her husband, to distract hismind from disaster. That trouble had happened she could not look outof her window without knowing; but could it be right, at their time oflife, to stand in the wet so, and challenge Providence, and spoil thefirst turkey-poult of the season?
But when she heard of her husband's peril, in the midst of all hislosses, his self-command, and noble impulse first of all to rescue life,she burst into tears, and hugged and kissed me, and said the same thingnearly fifty times.
"Just like him. Just like my Nicholas. You thought him a speculative,selfish man. Now you see your mistake, Erema."
When her veteran husband came home at last (thoroughly jaded, andbringing his fishermen to gulp the pea soup and to gollop the turkey),a small share of mind, but a large one of heart, is required to imagineher doings. Enough that the Major kept saying, "Pooh-pooh!" and the morehe said, the less he got of it.
When feelings calmed down, and we returned to facts, our host and hero(who, in plain truth, had not so wholly eclipsed me in courage, thoughof course I expected no praise, and got none, for people hate courage ina lady), to put it more simply, the Major himself, making a considerablefuss, as usual--for to my mind he never could be Uncle Sam--producedfrom the case of his little "Church Service," to which he had stuck likea Briton, a sealed and stamped letter, addressed to me at Castlewood, inBerkshire--"stamped," not with any post-office tool, but merely with thered thing which pays the English post.
Sodden and blurred as the writing was, I knew the clear, firm hand, thesame which on the envelope at Shoxford had tempted me to meanness. Thisletter was from Thomas Hoyle; the Major had taken it from the pocket ofhis corpse; all doubt about his death was gone. When he felt his feet onthe very shore, and turned to support his mother, a violent wave struckthe back of his head upon Major Hockin's pillar-box.
Such sadness came into my heart--though sternly it should have beengladness--that I begged their pardon, and went away, as if with aprivate message. And wicked as it may have been, to read was more thanonce to cry. The letter began abruptly:
"You know nearly all my story now. I have only to tell you what broughtme to you, and what my present offer is. But to make it clear, I mustenlarge a little.
"There was no compact of any kind between your father and myself. Heforbore at first to tell what he must have known, partly, perhaps, tosecure my escape, and partly for other reasons. If he had been broughtto trial, his duty to his family and himself would have led him, nodoubt, to explain things. And if that had failed, I would have returnedand surrendered myself. As things happened, there was no need.
"Through bad luck, with which I had nothing to do, though doubtless thewhole has been piled on my head, your father's home was destroyed, andhe seems to have lost all care for every thing. Yet how much better offwas he than I! Upon me the curse fell at birth; upon him, after thirtyyears of ease and happiness. However, for that very reason, perhaps, hebore it worse than I did. He grew imbittered against the world, whichhad in no way ill-treated him; whereas its very first principle is toscorn all such as I am. He seems to have become a misanthrope, anda fatalist like myself. Though it might almost make one believe theexistence of such a thing as justice to see pride pay for its wickednessthus--the injury to the outcast son recoil upon the pampered one, andthe family arrogance crown itself with the ignominy of the family.
"In any case, there was no necessity for my interference; and beingdenied by fate all sense of duty to a father, I was naturally driven todouble my duty to my mother, whose life was left hanging upon mine.So we two for many years wandered about, shunning islands and insularprejudice. I also shunned your father, though (so far as I know) heneither sought me nor took any trouble to clear himself. If the onechild now left him had been a son, heir to the family property and soon, he might have behaved quite otherwise, and he would have been boundto do so. But having only a female child, who might never grow up, and,if she did, was very unlikely to succeed, he must have resolved at leastto wait. And perhaps he confirmed himself with the reflection that evenif people believed his tale (so long after date and so unvouched), sofar as family annals were concerned, the remedy would be as bad as thedisease. Moreover, he owed his life to me, at great risk of my own; andto pay such a debt with the hangman's rope would scarcely appear quitehonorable, even in the best society.
"It is not for me to pretend to give his motives, although from myknowledge of his character I can guess them pretty well, perhaps. Wewent our several ways in the world, neither of us very fortunate.
"One summer, in the Black Forest, I fell in with an outcast Englishman,almost as great a vagabond as myself. He was under the ban of the lawfor writing his father's name without license. He did not tell me that,or perhaps even I might have despised him, for I never was dishonest.But one great bond there was between us--we both detested laws and men.My intimacy with him is the one thing in life which I am ashamed of. Hepassed by a false name then, of course. But his true name was MontagueHockin. My mother was in very weak health then, and her mind for themost part clouded; and I need not say that she knew nothing of what Ihad done for her sake. That ma
n pretended to take the greatest interestin her condition, and to know a doctor at Baden who could cure her.
"We avoided all cities (as he knew well), and lived in simple villages,subsisting partly upon my work, and partly upon the little income leftby my grandfather, Thomas Hoyle. But, compared with Hockin, we were welloff; and he did his best to swindle us. Luckily all my faith in mankindwas confined to the feminine gender, and not much even of that survived.In a very little time I saw that people may repudiate law as well frombeing below as from being above it.
"Then he came one night, with the finest style and noblest contemptof every thing. We must prepare ourselves for great news, and all ourkindness to him would be repaid tenfold in a week or two. Let me go intoFreyburg that time to-morrow night, and listen. I asked him nothing asto what he meant, for I was beginning to weary of him, as of every body.However, I thought it just worth while, having some one who boughtmy wicker-work, to enter the outskirts of the town on the followingevening, and wait to be told if any news was stirring. And the peoplewere amazed at my not knowing that last night the wife of an Englishlord--for so they called him, though no lord yet--had run away with agolden-bearded man, believed to be also English.
"About that you know more, perhaps, than I do. But I wish you to knowwhat that Hockin was, and to clear myself of complicity. Of HerbertCastlewood I knew nothing, and I never even saw the lady. And to say (asSir Montague Hockin has said) that I plotted all that wickedness, fromspite toward all of the Castlewood name, is to tell as foul a lie aseven he can well indulge in.
"It need not be said that he does not know my story from any word ofmine. To such a fellow I was not likely to commit my mother's fate. Buthe seems to have guessed at once that there was something strange inmy history; and then, after spying and low prying at my mother, to haveshaped his own conclusion. Then, having entirely under his powerthat young fool who left a kind husband for him, he conceived a mostaudacious scheme. This was no less than to rob your cousin, the lastLord Castlewood, not of his wife and jewels and ready money only, butalso of all the disposable portion of the Castlewood estates. For thelady's mother had taken good care, like a true Hungarian, to have allthe lands settled upon her daughter, so far as the husband could dealwith them. And though, at the date of the marriage, he could not reallydeal at all with them--your father being still alive--it appears thathis succession (when it afterward took place) was bound, at any rate, asagainst himself. A divorce might have canceled this--I can not say--butyour late cousin was the last man in the world to incur the needfulexposure. Upon this they naturally counted.
"The new 'Lady Hockin' (as she called herself, with as much right as'Lady Castlewood') flirted about while her beauty lasted; but even thenfound her master in a man of deeper wickedness. But if her poor husbanddesired revenge--which he does not seem to have done, perhaps--he couldnot have had it better. She was seized with a loathsome disease, whichdevoured her beauty, like Herod and his glory. I believe that shestill lives, but no one can go near her; least of all, the fastidiousMontague."
At this part of the letter I drew a deep breath, and exclaimed, "ThankGod!" I know not how many times; and perhaps it was a crime of me to doit even once.
"Finding his nice prospective game destroyed by this littleaccident--for he meant to have married the lady after her husband'sdeath, and set you at defiance; but even he could not do that now,little as he cares for opinion--what did he do but shift handsaltogether? He made up his mind to confer the honor of his hand on you,having seen you somewhere in London, and his tactics became the veryopposite of what they had been hitherto. Your father's innocence nowmust be maintained instead of his guiltiness.
"With this in view, he was fool enough to set the detective police afterme--me, who could snap all their noses off! For he saw how your heartwas all set on one thing, and expected to have you his serf forever,by the simple expedient of hanging me. The detectives failed, as theyalways do. He also failed in his overtures to you.
"You did your utmost against me also, for which I bear you no ill-will,but rather admire your courage. You acted in a straightforward way, andemployed no dirty agency. Of your simple devices I had no fear. However,I thought it as well to keep an eye upon that Hockin, and a worthy oldfool, some relation of his, who had brought you back from America. Tothis end I kept my head-quarters near him, and established my mothercomfortably. She was ordered sea air, and has had enough. To-morrow Ishall remove her. By the time you receive this letter we shall both befar away, and come back no more; but first I shall punish that Hockin.Without personal violence this will be done.
"Now what I propose to you is simple, moderate, and most strictly just.My mother's little residue of life must pass in ease and comfort. Shehas wronged no one, but ever been wronged. Allow her 300 pounds a year,to be paid as I shall direct you. For myself I will not take a farthing.You will also restore, as I shall direct, the trinket upon which shesets great value, and for which I sought vainly when we came back toEngland. I happen to know that you have it now.
"In return for these just acts, you have the right to set forth thewhole truth publicly, to proclaim your father's innocence, and (aspeople will say) his chivalry; and, which will perhaps rejoice you also,to hear no more of
"THOMAS HOYLE.
"P.S.--Of course I am trusting your honor in this. But your father'sdaughter can be no sneak; as indeed I have already proved."
Erema; Or, My Father's Sin Page 55