“He is, in short, a practitioner about whom suspicions of an infamous kind have prevailed. One branch of his business, a rather strange one, has connected him with persons, more considerable in number than you would readily believe, who were, or are, political refugees.”
“Can this noble baron be a distiller of poisons?” David Arden ruminated.
“In all his other equivocal doings, he found, on the few occasions that seemed to threaten danger, mysterious protectors, sufficiently powerful to bring him off scot-free. His relations of a political character were those which chiefly brought him under the secret notice of the police. It is believed that he has amassed a fortune, and it is certain that he is about to retire from business. I can much better explain to you, when I see you, the remarkable circumstances to which I have but alluded. I hope to be in town again, and to have the honour of waiting upon you, on Thursday, the 29th instant.”
“Ay, that’s the day he named at parting. What a punctual fellow that is!”
“They appear to me to have a very distinct bearing upon some possible views of the case in which you are so justly interested. The Baron Vanboeren is reputed very wealthy, but he is by no means liberal in his dealings, and is said to be insatiably avaricious. This last quality may make him practicable — — “
“Yes, so it may,” acquiesced Uncle David.
“so that disclosures of importance may be obtained, if he be approached in the proper manner. Lebas was connected, as a mechanic, with the dentistry department of his business. Mr. L —— has been extremely kind to Lebas’ widow and children, and has settled a small annuity upon her, and fifteen hundred francs each upon his children.”
“Eh? Upon my life, that is very handsome — extremely handsome. It gives me rather new ideas of this man — that is, if there’s nothing odd in it,” said Mr. Arden.
“The deed by which he has done all this is, in its reciting part, an eccentric one. I waited, as I advised you in mine of the 12th, upon M. Arnaud, who is the legal man employed by Madame Lebas, for the purpose of handing him the ten napoleons which you were so good as to transmit for the use of his family; which sum he has, with many thanks on the part of Madame Lebas, declined, and which, therefore, I hold still to your credit. When explaining to me that lady’s reasons for declining your remittance, he requested me to read a deed of gift from Mr. Longcluse, making the provisions I have before referred to, and reciting, as nearly in these words as I can remember:— ‘Whereas I entertained for the deceased Pierre Lebas, in whose house in Paris I lodged when very young, for more than a year and a half, a very great respect and regard: and whereas I hold myself to have been the innocent cause of his having gone to the room, as appears from my evidence, in which, unhappily, he lost his life: and whereas I look upon it as a disgrace to our City of London that such a crime could have been committed in a place of public resort, frequented as that was at the time, without either interruption or detection; and whereas, so regarding it, I think that such citizens as could well afford to subscribe money, adequately to compensate the family of the deceased for the pecuniary loss which both his widow and children have sustained by reason of his death, were bound to do so; his visit to London having been strictly a commercial one; and all persons connected with the trade of London being more or less interested in the safety of the commercial intercourse between the two countries: and whereas the citizens of London have failed, although applied to for the purpose, to make any such compensation; now this deed witnesseth,’ etc.”
“Well, in all that, I certainly go with him. We Londoners ought to be ashamed of ourselves.”
“The widow has taken her children to Avranches, her native place, where she means to live. Please direct me whether I shall proceed thither, and also upon what particular points you would wish me to interrogate her. I have learned, this moment, that the Baron Vanboeren retires in October next. It is thought that he will fix his residence after that at Berlin. My informant undertakes to advise me of his address, whenever it is absolutely settled. In approaching this baron, it is thought you will have to exercise caution and dexterity, as he has the reputation of being cunning and unscrupulous.”
“I’m not good at dealing with such people — I never was. I must engage some long-headed fellow who understands them,” said he.
“I debit myself with two thousand five hundred francs, the amount of your remittance on the 15th inst., for which I will account at sight. — I remain, dear and honoured Sir, your attached and most obedient servant,
“CHRISTOPHER BLOUNT.”
“I shall learn all he knows in a few days. What is it that deprives me of quiet till a clue be found to the discovery of Yelland Mace? And why is it that the fancy has seized me that Mr. Longcluse knows where that villain may be found? He admitted, in talking to Alice, she says, that he had seen him in his young days. I will pick up all the facts, and then consider well all that they may point to. Let us but get the letters together, and in time we may find out what they spell. Here am I, a rich but sad old bachelor, having missed for ever the best hope of my life. Poor Harry long dead, and but one branch of the old tree with fruit upon it — Reginald, with his two children: Richard, my nephew — Richard Arden, in a few years the sole representative of the whole family of Arden, and he such a scamp and fool! If a childless old fellow could care for such things, it would be enough to break my heart. And poor little Alice! So affectionate and so beautiful, left, as she will be, alone, with such a protector as that fellow! I pity her.”
At that moment her unopened note caught his eye, as it lay on the table. He opened it, and read these words: —
“MY DEAREST UNCLE DAVID,
“I am so miserable and perplexed, and so utterly without any one to befriend or advise me in my present unexpected trouble, that I must implore of you to come to Mortlake, if you can, the moment this note reaches you. I know how unreasonable and selfish this urgent request will appear. But when I shall have told you all that has happened, you will say, I know, that I could not have avoided imploring your aid. Therefore, I entreat, distracted creature as I am, that you, my beloved uncle, will come to aid and counsel me; and believe me when I assure you that I am in extreme distress, and without, at this moment, any other friend to help me. — Your very unhappy niece,
“ALICE.”
He read this short note over again.
“No; it is not a sick lap-dog, or a saucy maid: there is some real trouble. Alice has, I think, more sense — I’ll go at once. Reginald is always late, and I shall find them” (he looked at his watch)— “yes, I shall find them still up at Mortlake.”
So instantly he sent for a cab, and pulled on again a pair of boots, instead of the slippers he had donned, and before five minutes was driving at a rapid pace towards Mortlake.
CHAPTER XLIV.
THE REASON OF ALICE’S NOTE.
The long drive to Mortlake was expedited by promises to the cabman; for, in this acquisitive world, nothing for nothing is the ruling law of reciprocity. It was about halfpast eleven o’clock when they reached the gate of the avenue; it was a still night, and a segment of the moon was high in the sky, faintly silvering the old fluted piers and urns, and the edges of the gigantic trees that overhung them. They were now driving up the avenue. How odd was the transition from the glare and hurlyburly of the town to the shadowy and silent woodlands on which this imperfect light fell so picturesquely.
There were associations enough to induce melancholy as he drove through those neglected scenes, his playground in boyish days, where he, and Harry whom he loved, had passed so many of the happy days that precede school. He could hear his laugh floating still among the boughs of the familiar trees, he could see his handsome face smiling down through the leaves of the lordly chestnut that stood, at that moment, by the point of the avenue they were passing, like a forsaken old friend overlooking the way without a stir.
“I’ll follow this clue to the end,” said David Arden. “I sha’n’t make much of it, I f
ear; but if it ends, as others in the same inquiry have, in smoke, I shall, at least, have done my utmost, and may abandon the task with a good grace, and conclude that Heaven declines to favour the pursuit. Taken for all-in-all, he was the best of his generation, and the fittest to head the house. Something, I thought, was due, in mere respect to his memory. The coldness of Reginald insulted me. If a favourite dog had been poisoned, he would have made more exertion to commit the culprit. And once in pursuit of this dark shadow, how intense and direful grew the interest of the chase, and —— Here we are at the hall-door. Don’t mind knocking, ring the bell,” he said to the driver.
He was himself at the threshold before the door was opened.
“Can I see my brother?” he asked.
“Sir Reginald is in the drawingroom — a small dinner-party to-day, Sir — Lady May Penrose, and Lady Mary Maypol, they returned to town in Lady May Penrose’s carriage, Lord Wynderbroke remains, Sir, and two gentlemen; they are at present with Sir Reginald in the smoking-room.”
He learned that Miss Arden was alone in the small sitting-room, called the card-room. David Arden had walked through the vestibule, and into the capacious hall. The lights were all out, but one.
“Well, I sha’n’t disturb him. Is Miss Alice — — “
“Yes, Alice is here. It is so kind of you to come!” said a voice he well knew. “Here I am! Won’t you come up to the drawingroom, Uncle David?”
“So you want to consult Uncle David,” he said, entering the room, and looking round. “In my father’s time the other drawingrooms used to be open; it is a handsome suite — very pretty rooms. But I think you have been crying, my poor little Alice. What on earth is all this about, my dear! Here I am, and it is past eleven; so we must come to the point, if I am to hear it tonight. What is the matter?”
“My dear uncle, I have been so miserable!”
“Well, what is it?” he said, taking a chair; “you have refused some fellow you like, or accepted some fellow you don’t like. I am sure you are at the bottom of your own misery, foolish little creature! Girls generally are, I think, the architects of their own penitentiaries. Sit there, my dear, and if it is anything I can be of the least use in, you may count on my doing my utmost. Only you must tell me the whole case, and you mustn’t colour it a bit.”
So they sat down on a sofa, and Miss Alice told him in her own way that, to her amazement, that day Lord Wynderbroke had made something very like a confession of his passion, and an offer of his hand, which this unsophisticated young lady was on the point of repelling, when Lady May entered the room, accompanied by her friend, Lady Mary Maypol; and, of course, the interesting situation, for that time, dissolved. About an hour after, Alice, who was shocked at the sudden distinction of which she had become the object, and extremely vexed at the interruption which had compelled her to suspend her reply, and very anxious for an opportunity to answer with decision, found that opportunity in a little saunter which she and the two ladies took in the grounds, accompanied by Lord Wynderbroke and Sir Reginald.
When the opportunity came, with a common inconsistency, she rather shrank from the crisis; and a slight uncertainty as to the actual meaning of the noble lord, rendered her perplexity still more disagreeable. It occurred thus: the party had walked some little distance, and when Alice was addressed by her father —
“Here is Wynderbroke, who says he has never seen my Roman inscription! You, Alice, must do the honours, for I daren’t yet venture on the grass,” — he shrugged and shook his head over his foot— “and I will take charge of Lady Mary and Lady May, who want to see the Derbyshire thistles — they have grown so enormous under my gardener’s care. You said, May, the other evening, that you would like to see them.”
Lady May acquiesced with true feminine sympathy with the baronet’s stratagem, notwithstanding an imploring glance from Alice! and Lady Mary Maypol, exchanging a glance with Lady May, expressed equal interest in the Derbyshire thistles.
“You will find the inscription at the door of the grotto, only twenty steps from this; it was dug up when my grandfather made the round pond, with the fountain in it. You’ll find us in the garden.”
Lord Wynderbroke beamed an insufferable smile on Alice, and said something pretty that she did not hear. She knew perfectly what was coming, and although resolved, she was yet in a state of extreme confusion.
Lord Wynderbroke was talking all the way as they approached the grotto; but not one word of his harmonious periods did she clearly hear. By the time they reached the little rocky arch under the evergreens, through the leaves of which the marble tablet and Roman inscription were visible, they had each totally forgotten the antiquarian object with which they had set out.
Lord Wynderbroke came to a standstill, and then with a smiling precision and distinctness, and in accents that seemed, somehow, to ring through her head, he made a very explicit declaration and proposal; and during the entire delivery of this performance, which was neat and lucid rather than impassioned, she remained tongue-tied, listening as if to a tale told in a dream.
She withdrew her hand hastily from Lord Wynderbroke’s tender pressure, and the young lady with a sudden effort, replied collectedly enough, in a way greatly to amaze Lord Wynderbroke.
When she had done, that nobleman was silent for some time, and stood in the same attitude of attention with which he had heard her. With a heightened colour he cleared his voice, and his answer, when it came, was dry and pettish. He thought with great deference, that he was, perhaps entitled to a little consideration, and it appeared to him that he had quite unaccountably misunderstood what had seemed the very distinct language of Sir Reginald. For the present he had no more to say. He hoped to explain more satisfactorily to Miss Arden, after he had himself had a few words of explanation, to which he thought he had a claim, from Sir Reginald; and he must confess that, after the lengths to which he had been induced to proceed, he was quite taken by surprise, and inexpressibly wounded by the tone which Miss Arden had adopted.
Side by side, at a somewhat quick pace, Miss Arden with a heightened colour, and Lord Wynderbroke with his ears tingling, rejoined their friends.
“Well, my dear child,” said Uncle David, with a laugh, “if you have nothing worse to complain of, though I am very glad to see you, I think we might have put off our meeting till daylight.”
“Oh! but you have not heard half what has happened. He has behaved in the most cowardly, treacherous, ungentlemanlike way,” she continued vehemently. “Papa sent for me, and I never saw him so angry in my life. Lord Wynderbroke has been making his unmanly complaints to him, and papa spoke so violently. And he, instead of going away, having had from me the answer which nothing on earth shall ever induce me to change, he remains here; and actually had the audacity to tell me, very nearly in so many words, that my decision went for nothing. I spoke to him quite frankly, but said nothing that was at all rude — nothing that could have made him the least angry. I implored of him to believe me that I never could change my mind; and I could not help crying, I was so agitated and wretched. But he seemed very much vexed, and simply said that he placed himself entirely in papa’s hands. In fact, I’ve been utterly miserable and terrified, and I do not know how I can endure those terrible scenes with papa. The whole thing has come upon me so suddenly. Could you have imagined any gentleman capable of acting like Lord Wynderbroke — so selfish, cruel, and dastardly?” and with these words she burst into tears.
“Do you mean to say that he won’t take your refusal?” said her uncle, looking very angry.
“That is what he says,” she sobbed. “He had an opportunity only for a few words, and that was the purport of them; and I was so astounded, I could not reply; and, instead of going away, he remains here. Papa and he have arranged to prolong his visit; so I shall be teased and frightened, and I am so nervous and agitated; and it is such an outrage!”
“Now, we must not lose our heads, my dear child; we must consult calmly. It seems you don’t think it
possible that you may come to like Lord Wynderbroke sufficiently to marry him.”
“I would rather die! If this goes on, I sha’n’t stay here. I’d go and be a governess rather.”
“I think you might give my house a trial first,” said Uncle David merrily; “but it is time to talk about that by-and-by. What does May Penrose think of it? She sometimes, I believe, on an emergency, lights on a sensible suggestion.”
“She had to return to town with Lady Mary, who dined here also; I did not know she was going until a few minutes before they left. I’ve been so miserably unlucky! and I could not make an opportunity without its seeming so rude to Lady Mary, and I don’t know her well enough to tell her; and, you have no idea, papa is so incensed, and so peremptory; and what am I to do? Oh! dear uncle, think of something. I know you’ll help me.”
“That I will,” said the old gentleman. “But allowances are to be made for a poor old devil so much in love as Lord Wynderbroke.”
“I don’t think he likes me now — he can’t like me,” said Alice. “But he is angry. It is simply pride and vanity. From something papa said, I am sure of it, Lord Wynderbroke has been telling his friends, and speaking, I fancy, as if everything was arranged, and he never anticipated that I could have any mind of my own; and I suppose he thinks he would be laughed at, and so I am to undergo a persecution, and he won’t hear of anything but what he pleases; and papa is determined to accomplish it. And, oh! what am I to do?”
“I’ll tell you, but you must do exactly as I bid you. Who’s there?” he said suddenly, as Alice’s maid opened the door.
“Oh! I beg pardon — Miss Alice, please,” she said, dropping a curtsey and drawing back.
“Don’t go,” said Uncle David, “we shall want you. What’s the matter?”
“Sir Reginald has been took bad with his foot again, please, Miss.”
“Nothing serious?” said Uncle David.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 543