As he talked on with a gaiety almost excited, there lay before him open on the piano, a pretty song which was then not old. Its words are taken from the fine lyrics of Rokeby, and it begins —
“Oh Brignall banks are wild and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
I’d rather roam with Edmund there
Than reign our English queen.”
It is said that when a spirit enters the room, a chill is felt, and the lights at the moment faint, the powers of life suddenly subside, and with the shadow comes a sense of fear.
A change came suddenly over this young man’s face; it grew pale, and the ghost only of its smile still lingered there. He was looking down upon the open song, and his slender finger pointed to the bar on which his eye was fixed, and with a thrilling voice to the minor melody he sang the mysterious words of the outlaw —
“Maiden, a nameless life I lead,
A nameless death I’ll die:
The fiend whose lantern lights the mead,
Were better mate than I.”
The ghostly minor of the melody rang for a moment in the air; there was a silence, and then she heard his voice, very faintly, with a faint laugh, say —
“That’s pretty well for a tenor dying of consumption, so my doctors tell me, but I don’t believe them. And — there I stop.
The last of my voice you have heard — in this room it will never sound again.”
There was a silence for a little time, and he rambled on —
“When a prodigal like me reappears, he may hear not a welcome but a scream; let him return to the darkness whence he came. Call for his ring — of iron, and the best robe — web and woof — a winding sheet. Miss Gray, I wonder as I stand before you, how I ever dared to profane your presence. How is it no instinct told you when I stole into your house that something evil had come; how did you look at me without a shudder? Good God! — how I pawned my very soul to reach you, and then, villain though I was, threw down my last stake to save you. I’ll not describe myself, my immeasurable treason and — adoration. But oh, Challys, remember I went away penitent, and with a heart quite broken, to expiate all I can of my crime, in uncomplaining misery. Good-by, and for God’s sake forgive me.”
His hands were clasped in agony, and his imploring eyes fixed on her, and he saw before him, not Challys Gray but her ghost. For a time he waited, but no answer came, and slowly he turned away to leave the room, with such a look of agony as a soul departing may turn for one moment, toward the eternal bar.
It is not easy to remember, far less to describe, the stun of a dreadful discovery. Challys Gray has had her warnings — she can’t complain — some vague misgivings too. But, alas! as the love is — so is the faith.
And now on a sudden, at her feet, the earth has opened, and the pale prophet is there, and she stands before him — hearing, yet not hearing — seeing, yet not seeing. There is just the dim consciousness that Alfred Dacre is going away for ever.
With a sudden cry, awaking as it were, Challys Gray said —
“Come back — come back — come back; I was always very frank — it does not matter now how I speak, and that is well, for I will hide nothing. Oh, Alfred, I love you more than you’ll ever be loved again, and I’ll never more care for any one on earth, and I wanted just to say that, and to bid you good-by for ever — and ever, and ever — good-by.”
She was looking up in his face, her hands were laid on his shoulders, and her face looked white and wild with misery.
He stooped and kissed her lips, in a dream, and when he raised his head again, those eyes of unutterable misery, that seemed looking into eternity, were still gazing up in his face, as if they had never moved.
“Shall I tell you all, Challys?” he said, almost in a whisper.
“Oh, no — no — no; you shall always be the same Alfred Dacre, my hero — no, nothing shall sully him, my one dream. Oh, Alfred, if you had died, and I had died, an hour after, and this had never been, and God had taken us to his mercy, and we had met— “
“Challys, if I could only show my unspeakable love — if I had but a chance to redeem my hopes — or to lay down my life for you — but God has denied me everything.”
“No, Alfred, there is one hope for us yet,” cried Challys, wildly; “if you remember poor Challys Gray, or care for her, you will travel a long pilgrimage, so will I patiently. A good man told me once that those that try, with all their hearts, to go to Heaven, will go there. There has been something very bad, — God help us all! who dare go before his judgment? — but I’ll never hear it; and if we try, it may be a long, and sorrowful journey, but at last we’ll reach it. And oh, Alfred, Alfred” she almost screamed, “we’ll meet — promise, promise, oh, don’t you promise — it is not good-by for ever, darling. I’ll see you there.”
He clasped her for one wild moment close in his arms. She felt the throbbing of his heart, and heard him say — but there was no voice in the words, a sob, a whisper— “Challys, Challys, my treasure — my darling,” and he went.
He hurried down the stairs, and through the hall. She heard the hall-door shut and the sound of the receding steps outside. With a bursting heart, she listened, and the roll of wheels, and the clash of the iron gate followed, and the last vestige of her dream was gone.
CHAPTER XXI.
ECLAIRCISSEMENT.
NEXT day in Mr de Beaumirail’s rooms in the Fleet there was a stormy scene.
Mr. Levi had accompanied Mr de Beaumirail the night before in his carriage, attending on behalf of the triumvirate in command of the bodyguard who were posted secretly at the points of egress from the house, to secure that adventurer, should he a second time attempt to effect his escape.
The Jew’s suspicions had been vaguely, but powerfully, aroused by the obstinate silence, and finally by the savage fury of the young man, on their way back. That did not look like the temper of a man on the eve of liberation and fortune. From De Beaumirail, however, he could, for that night, extract nothing, and he drove off to old Gillespie, and together they shrewdly and uncomfortably compared their surmises.
Next day, in consequence, in an uncomfortable state of doubt, looking grim and gloomy, after their several fashions, Messrs. Larkin, Gillespie, and Levi, assembled early in Mr de Beaumirail’s sitting-room.
That gentleman lay obstinately on the sofa in his bedroom. Mr. Gillespie, however, at length came to be of opinion, that “these sort o’ tricks could not be suffered longer,” and accordingly he knocked and clamoured imperiously at his door, whereupon Mr de Beaumirail sprang to his feet, and confronted Gillespie, demanding, with a savage malediction, and a look of fury, what the devil he meant by making that noise in his rooms?
Whereupon Mr. Gillespie sturdily explained the object of their presence there, and declared that they expected Mr de Beaumirail to report progress, “and we require to know defeenitively how the matter stands?”
“It stands, sir,” answered De Beaumirail, with a savage stamp on the floor.
“How the deil do you mean, sir?”
“Stock still,” answered he; “your conspiracy has broken down, you three d — d scoundrels, and your money is buried under it; and if you ever dare to allude to it again in my presence, I’ll brain you with the poker.”
When his three visitors clearly saw how matters were, their fury boiled over.
Gillespie raved and cursed like an old bedlamite, and swore that one way or another he would “have him.”
Levi more pointedly swore that he would leave no stone unturned to bring his French property into the court, and that he would never die till he saw him starving in prison.
And Mr. Larkin, black as thunder, swore not at all, but hinted his belief that the young gentleman had exposed himself to criminal proceedings, on what precise charge, however, he did not care to disclose.
But De Beaumirail brought all this yelling and thunder to an end by turning his enraged visitors out of his room. Some months ago he would have laughed in
cynical gaiety over such a scene, but that spirit was dead and gone. Even the little excitement died away before the sound of their steps.
A bright eye — a bright hectic — and the clear pallor which doctors read so easily, showed this day in the handsome young face of the prisoner.
De Beaumirail was very ill. A nervous temperament — so highly strung and impulsive — cannot long withstand the agitations which try all people sorely in incipient disease. In his system the nerves and brain prevailed. The light and fire — passion and impulse of a fierce and volatile nature — dominated him; and now had come the reaction of apathy and despair.
It was toward sunset, as a man might know by the ruddy light upon the old brick chimney-tops visible from his window, when his old friend, Doctor Wiley, who generally amused a drowsy hour or so daily with De Beaumirail’s case, dropped in to make his usual visit.
He asked him questions; listened at his waistcoat; and retailed, I am afraid unheard, between these professional exercises the dreary news and gossip of the place.
The doctor was in no hurry to go away. There was no fashionable brougham waiting at the door to whirl him at a showy pace away to sick lords’ and great ladies’ doors; he was rich, if in nothing else, in that invaluable treasure, time; and bestowed it liberally upon the fallen star of fashion, whose light was soon to be quenched for ever.
As usual, he read the backs of De Beaumirail’s books, and tumbled over the leaves abstractedly, and whistled gently in his reverie — as he did when his talk was pretty well exhausted.
De Beaumirail seldom wished the harmless loiterer away; was often not conscious of his presence; and, as on this occasion, he stood in his dishabille at the window, with his lank thin hair, very gray, hanging over his ruddy forehead and somewhat dissipated nose, with a lackadaisical patient smile, and his dusty and faded clothes in the reflected light, he might have been sketched, De Beaumirail thought, with a shovel in his hand, for a boosy old village sexton.
“Well,” said De Beaumirail, with a sudden sigh, and looking at him as if he had just awaked, “when am I to make my little excursion to the country?”
“Steal a march on the warden, hey? Is that what you’re thinking of? No, no, we’ll not give you a chance that way. You’re too potent a spirit, sir, to be laid so easily.”
“Spirit — spirits in wood — as the distillers say in the newspapers — they export some that way from this store sometimes,” said De Beaumirail, listlessly.
“Ha, ha — spirits in wood — by Jove, sir, that’s not so bad. Ha, ha, ha! But egad, sir, you’re the sort of spirit that will keep a long time in the stone-jug, hey? and be nothing the worse.”
“You’re a goodnatured fellow; but I should be very glad to die.”
“Come, none of your bosh and nonsense!” said the doctor, with a jolly air.
“I’m tired, sir.”
“Tut, sir. Hang it — life’s sweet,” said the doctor, with a wave of his hand towards the court, as if the gaieties and glories of the world were there at his command.
“I suppose so, doctor; but it’s a sweet one tires of sometimes. I’ve had enough,” he sighed, “and I want sleep.”
“You’ll not be so tomorrow, sir,” said the doctor, kindly. “I’ve been that way myself now and then, sir; it clears up after a while, and who knows but a good time’s coming.”
And so, after a little more, the doctor withdrew; and shortly after the withdrawal of that luminary, twilight came, and a dismal attendant came in and lighted De Beaumirail’s candles.
“Many a rich fellow dying at this moment, who would give his soul to live ten years longer. How gladly I’d take his hours, and leave him my years, were they sixty.”
And to this bitter reflection, common to those who wish for death, we leave him.
CHAPTER XXII.
MR. DE BEAUMIRAIL AND HIS FATHER CONFESSOR.
“IT was very good of you to come, Mr. Parker,” he said, more than an hour after, when the good old clergyman entered his door, “your trouble with me, I hope, will soon be ended, and I wanted to have a talk with you. I wanted to explain what has been going on; it will make you stare. I’ll tell it shortly and intelligibly. You’ll think me what I am when I have related my little story.”
“Think you what you are — what do you mean?” asked Mr. Parker.
“The vilest miscreant on earth, except three — my three accomplices — Larkin, Levi, and Gillespie — but no, they are not so bad; they have excuses that I have not — I suppose — at least, they are three vulgar villains, and I — I ought to have recoiled from the cowardice of fraud.”
“I’m totally in the dark, sir,” said the old clergyman, “your language, I hope, is very exaggerated; I’m very sure it is, judging from all I know of you.”
“My dear sir, you know nothing of me, no more than you do of that heinous Christian, Mr. Larkin.”
“Oh! my dear sir, pray don’t.”
“I’ll tell you my story, and then judge us all round, sir. Sit down, pray. How rude of me to have left you standing for so long.”
The old man sat down, and De Beaumirail said —
“One promise only I exact before I make my disclosure — one word I tell you, you must never repeat to any living being — secresy can no longer compromise anyone, and the only person who had a right to hear it, if she pleased, refused — and — she spared me that.”
There was a silence for a little, and De Beaumirail, who had walked to the window and looked out for a time, to hide some violent emotion, returned and said —
“Well, sir, you promise?”
“Yes, I do sir, I see no difficulty.”
“No, I conceal nothing. You must know then that when Miss Gray refused to subscribe the list of creditors consenting to give me my liberty, I conceived an intense hatred of her, and I would have gone great lengths for revenge. Levi, Larkin, and Gillespie, wanted to get me out; they fancied I could have been of immense use in introducing a project, by which they expected to make money, to some people of rank in Paris with whom I once was intimate — perhaps I could, perhaps I could not — it happened, however, that they were of that opinion, and resolved to make that use of me.”
“I — I suppose they meant honourably, sir. You certainly did once know many influential people there,” said Mr. Parker.
“All honourable men, sir; and being for a purpose anxious to get me out, they were as angry as I at our failure. And now, sir, the devil who was always at my side possessed me, and in my fury I threw out the spark that smouldered and kindled, and was not far from accomplishing an infernal sacrifice.”
“I don’t understand, sir; but you did abandon yourself to a vindictive and violent feeling,” said Mr. Parker, reprovingly.
“I knew nothing of Miss Gray’s real character then. I thought it was just that cruel womanish malice that runs away with things, and thinks the world well lost for a sharp revenge. Good heavens! how I mistook her — and the recoil; well I deserve it. And now, sir, I’ll tell you what my plan was — the plan of a miscreant — but I’m not the least ashamed of it; by Heaven, under the same persuasion I’d go into it again. I’m no slave of hypocrisies, and if I set about punishing an enemy, I do it effectually.”
“I don’t think, Mr. De Beaumirail, that I am a fitting repository for any such confidences,” said the clergyman.
‘‘Don’t misunderstand me, sir; I do not tell it from the mere wish to talk about myself, but with a very serious purpose; pray permit me.”
“Well, sir, on that ground.”
“Thank you, Mr. Parker. Now, sir, here it was in effect. I said to those scoundrels, suppose you try a new enterprise; you can buy up my debts for a song, for three thousand pounds you can buy up thirty thousand; all but that young lady’s. Then get me out of this place altogether, or at least every day — you know how to manage the warden — and I’ll marry Miss Gray without a settlement; and you may pay yourselves out of Gray Forest — turn your three thousand into thirty —
and I’ll have my own share, and lead her a life. That was my retort on the young lady’s imagined malice.”
“Now, sir, again I say, this shocking disclosure ought not to have been for my ears,” said the old gentleman, aghast.
“Sir, there’s nothing in it; you may take it up in your hands and examine it. That infernal machine can never explode, thank Heaven, and you promised to hear me. Now, Mr. Parker, I was naturally a conceited fellow, having had some success in a brilliant world. I was young and all that, and I had some music and drawing and all the kind of thing that interests girls; and I thought the devil was in it, — I beg your pardon, I mean that it would be very strange indeed if, with certain conditions, an impression were not made. Nothing could be more favourable. Here was a young lady who knew nothing of the world, who had passed the few years that might otherwise have been given to seeing something of that great and noisy place, in attendance upon an invalided father, and who was at the time living a life of entire seclusion, with no one to take care of her but a very foolish old woman.”
“Merciful Heaven, sir! How could you engage in such a cruel imposture?”
“You can’t comprehend it, but I can tell you; put a fellow in here for three or four of the best years of his life, with a moral certainty of ending his days in his prison, and give him a chance to recover liberty and fortune by the same coup that punishes his worst enemy, and you’ll not find him troubled with many scruples about it. You have no idea of what a man who is good for anything becomes in a place like this; when he sees his years and his chances gliding from him, and no chance of going out but in his coffin.”
The clergyman made no answer, but remained with ear inclined, looking downward with a look of pain.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 477