“Lydia—I beg you—I implore you—on my knees I beseech you to have mercy upon me!” cried Adeline, clasping her hands together in a paroxysm of ineffable anguish, and falling at the feet of the stern and relentless woman whom she had wronged.
“I can know no mercy for you!” said Lydia Hutchinson, now speaking in a deep and almost hoarse tone, which denoted the powerful concentration of her vengeful passions. “When I think of all that I have suffered—when I trace my miseries to their source—and remember how happy I might have been in the society of a fond father and a loving brother,—when I reflect that it was you—you who led me astray, and having blighted all my prospects—demanding even the sacrifice of my good name to your interests,—thrust me away from you with scorn,—when I ponder upon all this, it is enough to drive me mad;—and yet you ask for mercy! No—never, never! I cannot pity you—for I hate, I abhor you!”
“Do not talk so fearfully, Lydia—good Lydia!” cried Adeline, in a voice of despair, while she endeavoured to take the hands of her servant, at whose feet she still knelt.
“Think not to move me with a show of kindness,” said Lydia, drawing back her hands in a contemptuous manner: “your overtures of good treatment come too late!”
“But I will make amends for the past—I will henceforth consider you as my sister,” exclaimed Adeline, raising her eyes in an imploring manner towards the vengeful woman. “I will do all I can to repair my former ingratitude—only be forbearing with me—if not for my sake, at least for the sake of my unborn babe!”
“Your maternal feelings have improved in quality of late,” said Lydia, with a scornful curl of the lip; “for—as you must well remember—your first babe was consigned to me to be concealed in a pond, or thrust into some hole—you cared not how nor where, so long as it was hidden from every eye.”
“Of all the agonies which you make me endure, detestable woman,” ejaculated Adeline, rising from her knees in a perfect fury of rage and despair, “that perpetual recurrence to the past is the most intolerable of all! Tell me—do you want to kill me by a slow and lingering death? or do you wish to drive me mad—mad?” she repeated, her eyes rolling wildly, and her delicate hands clenching as she screamed forth the word.
The scene was really an awful one—a scene to which no powers of description can possibly do justice.
The stern, inflexible tyranny of Lydia Hutchinson forced Lady Ravensworth to pass through all the terrible ordeal of the most tearing and heart-breaking emotions.
Did the miserable peeress endeavour to screen herself within the stronghold of a sullen silence, the words of Lydia Hutchinson would gradually fall upon her, one after the other, with an irritating power that at length goaded her to desperation. Did she meet accusation by retort, and encounter reproach with upbraiding, the inveteracy of Lydia’s torturing language wound her feelings up to such a pitch that it was no wonder she should ask, with an agonising scream, whether the avenging woman sought to drive her mad? Or, again, did she endeavour to move the heart of her hired servant by self-humiliation and passionate appeal, the coldness, or the malignant triumph with which those manifestations were received awoke within her that proud and haughty spirit which was now so nearly subdued altogether.
“Do you wish to drive me mad?” Lady Ravensworth had said:—then, when the accompanying paroxysm of feeling was past, she threw herself on a chair, and burst into an agony of tears.
But Lydia was not softened!
She suffered Adeline to weep for a few minutes; and when the unhappy lady was exhausted—subdued—spirit-broken—the unrelenting torturess repeated her command—“You can now arrange my hair.”
Oh! bad as Adeline was at heart—selfish as she was by nature and by education,—it would have moved a savage to have seen the imploring, beseeching look which, through her tears, she cast upon Lydia’s countenance.
“My hair!” said Lydia, imperatively.
Then Lady Ravensworth rose, and meekly and timidly began to perform that menial office for her own menial.
“I never thought,” observed Lydia, “while I was a wanderer and an outcast in the streets,—as, for instance, on the occasion when I accosted you, in the bitterness of my starving condition, in Saint James’s Street, and when your lacqueys thrust me back, your husband declaring that it was easy to see what I was, and your carriage dashing me upon the kerbstone,—little did I think then that the time would ever be when a peeress of England should dress my hair—and least of all that this peeress should be you! But when, in your pride, you spurned the worm—you knew not that the day could ever possibly come for that worm to raise its head and sting you! Think you that I value any peculiar arrangement which you can bestow upon my hair? Think you that I cannot even, were I still vain, adapt it more to my taste with my own hands? Yes—certainly I could! But I compel you to attend upon me thus—I constitute myself the mistress, and make you the menial, when we are alone together—because it is the principal element of my vengeance. It degrades you—it renders you little in your own eyes,—you who were once so great—so haughty—and so proud!”
In this strain did Lydia Hutchinson continue to speak, while Lady Ravensworth arranged her hair.
And each word that the vindictive woman uttered, fell like a drop of molten lead upon the already lacerated heart of the unfortunate Adeline.
At length the ordeal—that same ordeal which had characterised each morning since Lydia Hutchinson had become an inmate of Ravensworth Hall—was over; and Adeline was released from that horrible tyranny—but only for a short time.
CHAPTER CCXIV.
THE DUELLISTS.
When Lady Ravensworth descended to the breakfast parlour, she summoned her husband’s principal valet, Quentin, to her presence, and desired him to hasten and inform his lordship that the morning meal was served up.
Quentin bowed and retired.
But both Lady Ravensworth and the valet were well aware that this was a mere idle ceremonial which would only lead to the same ineffectual result as on the six preceding mornings—indeed, ever since the arrival of Lydia Hutchinson at the Hall. At the same time, the servant was very far from suspecting how large a share the new lady’s-maid enjoyed in the relapse of his master and the increasing sorrows of his mistress.
In a few minutes Quentin returned.
“His lordship requests you, my lady, to excuse his absence,” was the message which he delivered—a message as formal as the one that had evoked it.
“How is your lord this morning?” asked Adeline, with a profound sigh.
“His lordship does not appear to be improving, my lady,” was the answer.
Adeline sighed once more, and remained silent.
The valet withdrew; and the unhappy lady endeavoured to eat a morsel of food: but she had no appetite—her stomach seemed to loathe all solid nourishment; and she pushed her plate from her.
She then endeavoured to while away an hour or two with the most recently published novel and the morning’s newspapers; but she found her imagination ever wandering to other and sadly painful topics.
It was about mid-day, when, as she was standing listlessly at the window, which commanded a view of the park, she suddenly caught sight of a carriage that was advancing rapidly towards the mansion.
The livery of the servants belonging to it was unknown to her; and she hastily summoned a domestic to instruct him that “she was not at home to any visitors.”
The vehicle drove up to the principal entrance of Ravensworth Hall; and although the domestic delivered the answer commanded by his mistress, it did not seem sufficient to cause the departure of the carriage.
There was some conversation between the servant who gave that answer and the occupants of the vehicle;—but Lady Ravensworth could not overhear a word that was said.
In a few minutes, however, the domestic returned to
Adeline’s presence.
“Please your ladyship,” he said, “there is a gentleman below who has just been dangerously wounded in a duel; and his companions earnestly request——”
“I understand you,” interrupted Lady Ravensworth. “This is quite another consideration. You must admit them by all means.”
The domestic once more hurried away; and Adeline shortly beheld, from the window, two gentlemen alight from the carriage, and then carefully remove a third, who appeared to be in a helpless condition. She did not, however, catch a glimpse of either of their faces.
Lady Ravensworth now felt herself to be in a most unpleasant situation. Her husband, she knew, would not come forth from his private cabinet to do the honours of his mansion; and delicacy prevented her from hastening to receive persons who might be total strangers to her, and who arrived under such extraordinary circumstances.
She did not, however, long hesitate how to act. Ringing the bell, and summoning Quentin to her presence, she said to him, “You must make a fitting excuse for the non-appearance of Lord Ravensworth, and see that the wounded gentleman be conveyed to a chamber. Then assure his friends that they may command every thing they require in this house; and state that I shall be happy to receive them in the drawing-room in half an hour.”
Quentin retired to execute this commission. He had the wounded man borne to a bed-room, and offered to send a messenger on horseback to procure medical assistance from the nearest village; but one of the other two gentlemen proved to be a surgeon whose services had been engaged in the usual manner by the duellists.
In the meantime, Lady Ravensworth repaired to her boudoir, to change her dress.
She was immediately followed thither by Lydia Hutchinson.
“I do not require your attendance,” said Adeline, with a visible shudder, as the lady’s-maid closed the door behind her.
“I care not for your wishes or aversions,” returned Lydia. “Appearances compel me to wait upon you—or to have the semblance of waiting upon you;—and, moreover, I have something important to communicate. Oh! I feel such pleasure in being the bearer of good news to you!”
“What new torture have you in store for me, horrible woman?” cried Lady Ravensworth, affrighted by the malignant bitterness with which these last words were uttered.
“Know you to whom your princely mansion has just afforded its hospitality?” demanded Lydia.
“To a wounded duellist and his friends,” replied Adeline. “Is this circumstance to be in any way rendered available to your fearful purposes of torture in respect to me?”
“And that wounded duellist and one of his companions are well known to you,” said Lydia, impressively.
“Known to me!” ejaculated Adeline, who felt convinced that some fresh cause of anguish to herself lurked in the mysterious language of her torturess.
“Oh! yes—known too well to yourself and to me also!” said Lydia, as if shuddering with concentrated rage.
“Ah! my God—it would require but that to drive me to desperation!” exclaimed Adeline, a terrible suspicion darting across her mind.
“Then despair must be your lot,” said Lydia, fixing her eyes with malignant joy upon her mistress: “for—as sure as you are called Lady Ravensworth—Lord Dunstable and Colonel Cholmondeley are inmates of this mansion!”
“May God have mercy upon me!” murmured Adeline, in a low but solemn tone.
And she sank almost insensible upon the sofa.
“Yes,” continued the unrelenting Lydia, “he to whom you gave your honour, as one child might a give a toy of little value to another—and he who stole my honour as a vile thief plunders the defenceless traveller upon the highway,—those two men are beneath this roof! The villain who ruined me and slew my brother, is now lying upon a bed from which he may never more be removed save to the coffin. His second was the gay seducer who rioted awhile upon your charms, and then threw you aside,—yes, you—the daughter of one of England’s proudest peers—as he would a flower that had garnished his button-hole for an hour, and then failed to please any longer. These two men are beneath your roof!”
“Oh! if my errors have been great, surely—surely my punishment is more than commensurate!” murmured Adeline, in the bitterness of her heart.
“Your punishment seems only to have just begun,” retorted Lydia, ever ready to plunge a fresh a dagger into the soul of the unhappy lady.
“My God! you speak but too truly!” ejaculated Adeline, clasping her hands together. “Oh! that I could pass the latter half of my life over again—oh! that I could recall the years that have fled!”
“The years that have fled have prepared a terrible doom for those that are to come,” said Lydia. “But hasten, my lady,—this time I will aid you to change your dress,” she added sneeringly; “for I long to see your meeting with Colonel Cholmondeley.”
“See our meeting!—you!” cried Lady Ravensworth, springing from the sofa in alarm.
“Yes—I shall contrive that pleasure for myself,” observed Lydia, calmly.
Adeline made no reply: she felt convinced that all remonstrance would be useless.
She accordingly addressed herself to the toilet, Lydia assisting her in that ceremony for the first time.
“I have chosen the attire that best becomes you—and I have arranged your hair in the most attractive manner,” said Lydia; “for I should be vexed were you not to appear to advantage in the presence of him who made you his mistress during pleasure.”
“Wretch!” cried Adeline, turning sharply round upon Lydia, whose bitter taunt touched the most sensitive fibre of her heart.
“If I be a wretch, it is you who made me so,” said Lydia, with imperturbable coolness.
Adeline bit her lips almost till the blood came, to suppress the rage that rose as it were into her throat.
She then hastily left the boudoir, followed at a short distance by Lydia Hutchinson.
Lady Ravensworth knew that her torturess was behind her,—knew also that it was vain to reason with her in respect to any particular line of conduct that she might choose to adopt.
As the unhappy lady proceeded towards the drawing-room, she endeavoured to compose both her countenance and her mind as much as possible: but she felt herself blushing at one moment and turning pale the next,—now with a face that seemed to be on fire—then with an icy coldness at the heart.
Since she was at school at Belvidere House she had never met Colonel Cholmondeley. He had been much abroad; and, when he was in London, accident had so willed it that he did not once encounter the partner of his temporary amour.
But that same chance was not for ever to be favourable to Adeline in this respect; and now she was at length about to meet that man of all the species in whose presence she had most cause to blush.
Such an encounter was however necessary, for the sake of appearances. What would her servants think if she remained in the solitude of her own chamber while visitors were at the mansion? what would the surgeon, who attended the wounded duellist, conjecture if she refused the common courtesy which became the mistress of the mansion? The total retirement of Lord Ravensworth was already a sufficient reason to provoke strange surmises on the part of the newly-arrived guests, although the existence of his extraordinary and unaccountable malady was well known in the fashionable world: but if to that fact were superadded the circumstance of a similar seclusion on the part of Lady Ravensworth, the most unpleasant rumours might arise. Thus was Adeline imperatively forced to do the honours of her house on this occasion.
And now she has reached the door of the drawing-room.
She pauses for a moment: how violently beats her heart!
“This is foolish!” she murmurs to herself: “the ordeal must be passed;—better to enter upon it at once!”
And she entered the drawing-ro
om.
One only of the guests was there; and he had his back towards the door at the moment.
But full well did she recognise that tall, graceful, and well-knit frame.
The sound of light footsteps upon the thick carpet caused him to turn hastily round;—and then Adeline and her seducer were face to face.
“Lady Ravensworth,” said the Colonel, rather averting his glance as he spoke, for he experienced the full embarrassment of this encounter, “necessity, and not my wish, has compelled me to intrude upon your hospitality. My friend Lord Dunstable and another officer in the same regiment had an altercation last evening, which would permit of none other than a hostile settlement. The choice of time and place, fell, by the laws of honour, to Lord Dunstable’s opponent; and the vicinity of your abode was unfortunately fixed upon as the spot for meeting. My friend was grievously wounded with the first shot; and I had no alternative but to convey him to the nearest habitation where hospitality might be hoped for. Your ladyship can now understand the nature of that combination of circumstances which has brought me hither.”
“I deeply regret that Lord Ravensworth should be too much indisposed to do the honours of his house in person,” said Adeline, with her eyes fixed upon the ground, and a deep blush upon her cheeks. “Is your friend’s wound dangerous?”
“Mr. Graham, a surgeon of known skill, is now with him,” answered the Colonel; “and entertains great hopes of being enabled to extract the ball, which has lodged in the right side. It is true that I incur some risk by remaining in the neighbourhood of the metropolis; but I cannot consent to abandon my friend until I am convinced that he is beyond danger.”
The Mysteries of London, Vol. II [Unabridged & Illustrated] (Valancourt Classics) Page 83