The Mysteries of London, Vol. II [Unabridged & Illustrated] (Valancourt Classics)

by George W. M. Reynolds

  “And do I not love you?” cried Ellen, pressing her lips to his. “Oh! there was a time when I never thought I could love you—when I only sought you as a husband because you were the father of my child:—but since we have been united in holy bonds, I have learnt to love you—and I do love you—I do love you—in spite of all that has passed!”

  “You are a good girl, Ellen,” said Greenwood, upon whose lash a tear stood: but he hastily dashed it away, exclaiming, “This is unlike me! What can be the cause of these emotions—hitherto unknown? Is it that I am envious of his happiness? Is it that I pine for that sweet domesticity which he will now enjoy? Or is it that I am wearied of a world false and hollow-hearted?”

  “Alas!” cried Ellen, the tears streaming from her eyes: “is the world really false and hollow-hearted? or have you sought only that sphere which wears the appearance that you deplore? Look yonder,” she continued, pointing towards the mansion; “no falsehood—no hollow-heartedness are there! And why? Because he who rules in that abode has encouraged every sweet sympathy that renders life agreeable—every amenity which inspires confidence and mutual reliance between a number of persons dwelling together. The sphere that he has chosen is purified by his own virtues: the light of his excellence is reflected from the hearts of all around him. All are good, or strive to be good in his circle—because he himself is good. Where you have moved—ever agitating amidst the selfish crowd, as in troubled waters—none are good, because no one sets a good example. Every thing in your world is SELF: in Richard’s world he sacrifices SELF unto others. Hence his prosperity—his happiness——”

  “And hence my adversity—my dissatisfied spirit?” exclaimed Greenwood, impatiently. “But talk not thus, Ellen, any more: you will drive me mad!”

  “Oh! my dear husband, what makes you thus?” cried Ellen, in alarm: “I never saw you so before. You who were ever so cool—nay, pardon me, if I say so chilling,—so calculating—so inaccessible to the tenderest emotions,—you are now an altered being! But God grant that your heart is touched at last, and that you will abandon those paths of selfishness which, as you have by this time learnt, are not those of permanent prosperity! Do not be offended with me:—heaven knows I would not wound your heart; for I love you ten thousand times better to-night than ever I did before—and solely because you are changed, or appear to be. Oh! let me implore you to cast aside your assumed name—to throw off all disguise—to return to that home where the arms of sincerest affection will be extended to welcome you——”

  “No—no, Ellen!” cried Greenwood, almost furiously: “my pride will not permit me to do that! Speak no more in this way—or I will quit you immediately. I will fulfil my destiny—whatever it may be. Not a day—not an hour before the appointed time must he and I meet! No—broken though my fortunes be, they are not irreparable. Had it not been for the flight of that villain Tomlinson, I should have retrieved them ere now. I must not, however, despair: my credit is still good in certain quarters; and I possess talents for finance and speculation of no mean order.”

  “But you will not again embark in any such desperate venture as—as——”

  “As the forged bills, you would say, Ellen,” added Greenwood, hastily. “No:—be not alarmed on this head. I will not sully that name which he has rendered great.”

  “Oh! do you not remember,” cried Ellen, as a sudden reminiscence shot through her brain, “that on the morning when our hands were united, you promised that the name which you then gave me should go down to posterity?”

  “It will—it will: the prediction is already fulfilled, Ellen,” said Greenwood, hastily;—“but not by me!” he added mournfully. “I know not why I feel so low spirited to-night; and yet your presence consoles me! Richard now clasps his lovely bride in his arms—and we are forced to snatch this stolen interview, as if we had no right to each other’s society!”

  “And whose fault is that?” asked Ellen, somewhat reproachfully. “Is it not in your power to put an end to all this mystery?”

  “I cannot—I will not,” returned Greenwood, with renewed impetuosity. “No—let us not touch upon the topic again. My resolves are immoveable on that point. If you love me, urge me not to inflict so deep a wound upon my pride. This lowness of spirits will soon pass away: I am afraid that envy—or jealousy, rather—has in some degree depressed me. And yet envy is not the term—nor does jealousy express the true nature of my sentiments. For, in spite of all my faults, I have loved him, Ellen—as you well know. But it is that I feel disappointed—almost disgusted:—I have as yet toiled for naught! I contrast my position with his—and that makes me mournful. Still I am proud of him, Ellen:—I cannot be otherwise.”

  “That is a generous feeling,” said Ellen, again embracing her husband: “It does me good to hear you express such a sentiment.”

  “I scarcely know what I have been saying,” continued Greenwood: “my mind is chaotic—my ideas are confused. Let us now separate: we will meet again shortly—and I will tell you of my progress towards the fortune which I am resolved to acquire.”

  “Yes—let us meet again soon,” said Ellen: “but not here,” she added, glancing towards the trees. “It makes you melancholy.”

  “Well—well: I will find another spot for our interviews. Farewell, Ellen—dearest Ellen.”

  “Farewell, my dearest husband.”

  They embraced, and separated—Ellen retracing her steps towards the mansion, and Greenwood remaining on the hill.

  * * *

  On the following morning, after breakfast, Richard conducted his lovely bride over the grounds belonging to the Place; and when they had inspected the gardens, he said, “I will now lead you to the hill-top, beloved Isabella, where you will behold the memorials of affection between my brother and myself, which mark the spot where I hope again to meet him.”

  They ascended the eminence: they stood between the two trees.

  But scarcely had Richard cast a glance towards the one planted by the hand of Eugene, when he started, and dropped Isabella’s arm.

  She threw a look of intense alarm on his countenance; but her fears were immediately succeeded by delight when she beheld the unfeigned joy that was depicted on his features.

  “Eugene is alive! He has been hither again—he has revisited this spot!” exclaimed Richard. “See, Isabella—he has left that indication of his presence.”

  The Princess now observed the inscriptions upon the tree.

  They stood thus:—

  Eugene.

  Dec. 25, 1836.

  Eugene.

  May 17th, 1838.

  Eugene.

  March 6, 1841.

  “Eugene was here yesterday,” said Richard. “Oh!—he still thinks of me—he remembers that he has a brother. Doubtless he has heard of my happiness—my prosperity: perhaps he even learnt that yesterday blest me with your hand, dearest Isabel; and that inscription is a congratulation—a token of his kind wish alike to you and to me.”

  Isabella partook of her husband’s joy; and after lingering for some time upon the spot, they retraced their steps to the mansion.

  The carriage was already at the door: they entered it; and Richard commanded the coachman to drive to Woolwich.

  On their arrival at the wharf where Richard had landed only two days previously, they found a barge waiting to convey them on board the Castelcicalan steamer.

  The Grand-Duke and Grand-Duchess, with their suite, received them upon the deck of the vessel.

  The hour of separation had come: Alberto and his illustrious spouse were about to return to their native land to ascend a throne.

  The Grand-Duke drew Richard aside, and said, “My dear son, you remember your promise to repair to Montoni so soon as the time of appointment with your brother shall have passed.”

  “I shall only be too happy to return, w
ith my beloved Isabella, to your society,” answered Markham. “My brother will keep his appointment; for yesterday he revisited the spot where that meeting is to take place, and inscribed his name upon the tree that he planted.”

  “That is another source of happiness for you, Richard,” said the Grand-Duke; “and well do you deserve all the felicity which this world can give.”

  “Your Serene Highness has done all that is in mortal power to ensure that felicity,” exclaimed Markham. “You have elevated me to a rank only one degree inferior to your own;—you have bestowed upon me an inestimable treasure in the person of your daughter—and you yesterday placed in my hands a decree appointing me an annual income of twenty thousand pounds from the ducal treasury. Your Serene Highness has been too liberal:—a fourth part will be more than sufficient for all our wants. Moreover, from certain hints which Signor Viviani dropped when I was an inmate at his house at Pinalla—and subsequently, after his arrival at Montoni to take the post of Minister of Finance which I conferred upon him, and which appointment has met the approval of your Serene Highness—I am justified in believing that in July, 1843, I shall inherit a considerable fortune from our lamented friend Thomas Armstrong.”

  “The larger your resources, Richard, the wider will be the sphere of your benevolence,” said the Grand-Duke; then, by way of cutting short our hero’s remonstrances in respect to the annual revenue, his Serene Highness exclaimed, “But time presses: we must now say farewell.”

  We shall not dwell upon the parting scene. Suffice it to say that the grief of the daughter in separating from her parents was attempered by the conviction that she remained behind with an affectionate and well-beloved husband; and the parents sorrowed the less at losing their daughter, because they knew full well that she was united to one possessed of every qualification to ensure her felicity.

  And now the anchor was weighed; the steam hissed through the waste-valves as if impatient of delay; and the young couple descended the ship’s side into the barge.

  The boat was pushed off—and the huge wheels of the steamer began to revolve on their axis, ploughing up the deep water.

  The cannon of the arsenal thundered forth a parting salute in honour of the sovereign and his illustrious spouse who were returning to their native land from a long exile.

  The ship returned the compliment with its artillery, as it now sped rapidly along.

  And the last waving of the Grand-Duchess’s handkerchief, and the last farewell gesture on the part of the Grand-Duke met the eyes of Isabella and Richard during an interval when the wind had swept away the smoke of the cannon.

  The Prince and Princess of Montoni landed at the wharf, re-entered their carriage, and were soon on their way back to Markham Place.

  CHAPTER CCXXIV.

  MR. BANKS’S HOUSE IN GLOBE LANE.

  The evening appointed by Katherine, in her note to Mr. Banks, for the purchase of the papers relating to her birth, had now arrived.

  It was nearly eight o’clock.

  The undertaker was at work in his shop, the door of which stood open; and several idle vagabonds were standing near the entrance, watching the progress that was made in bringing a new coffin to completion. Somehow or another, people always do stop at the doors of undertakers’ workshops—doubtless actuated by feelings of the same morbid nature as those which call crowds of faces to the windows in a street along which a funeral is passing.

  Mr. Banks had laid aside his coat, and appeared in his dingy shirt sleeves: he wore a paper cap upon his head; and a long apron was tied very high up—above his waist—reaching, indeed, almost to the waistcoat pockets. As the gas was not laid on in his establishment, he was working by the light of a couple of tallow candles, that flickered in a most tantalizing manner with the draught from the open door—leaving Mr. Banks every other minute in a state of exciting suspense as to whether they were about to be extinguished or to revive again. Still he did not choose to adopt the very natural precaution of closing the shop-door, because he considered it business-like to have a group of idlers collected at the entrance.

  And there was an air of business about Mr. Banks’s establishment. There were shining white coffin-plates hanging along one row of panes in the window; and black japanned ones suspended along another row. At a central pane hung a miniature coffin-lid, covered with black cloth, and studded with nails in the usual manner. The shop itself was crowded with coffins, in different stages towards completion: the floor was ankle deep in shavings and saw-dust; and carpenters’ tools of all kinds lay scattered about. But, pre-eminently conspicuous amongst all those objects, was a glass-case standing upon a little shelf, and enclosing that very miniature model of the patent coffin which he had displayed at the farm-house near Hounslow.

  Mr. Banks was busily employed in fitting a lid to a coffin which stood upon trestles in the middle of the shop; and his two eldest boys, one fifteen and the other thirteen, were occupied, the first in planing a board, and the second in sawing a plank.

  “Well,” mused Mr. Banks to himself, as he proceeded with his work, “I hope Miss Kate won’t fail to keep her appintment—partickler as Tidkins seems so sure of the job. That other feller which came yesterday to look at my first floor front as is to let, never returned. And yet he appeared to like the blessed place well enow. Goodness knows he asked questions by the dozen, and looked in every cranny about the house. What did he want to bother his-self like that as to whether there was a good yard for his missus to hang her clothes in on washing days? He should have sent her to see all about that. Then he would see where the yard-wall looked—and whether there was a yard or a street t’other side—and all about it. I raly thought he would have taken the rooms. But p’rhaps he didn’t like the coffins: p’rhaps his missus don’t fancy that there constant hammering. Ah! it’s a sinful world!”

  And, as if deeply impressed by this conviction, the undertaker shook his head solemnly.

  He then continued his employment for some time without musing upon any one topic in particular.

  At length he broke silence altogether.

  “Now, Ned,” said he to his eldest-born (he had five or six smaller specimens of the Banks’ breed indoors), as he raised his head from his work, and looked severely round towards the lad; “that’s quite planing enow: the board’ll be veared as thin as a egg-case before it’s used. Make it on economic principles, boy—economic principles, I say, mind!” added Mr. Banks, sternly.

  “It ain’t economic principles to turn out coffins as rough as if they didn’t know what planing is,” returned the youth; “ ’cause the friends of the defuncks’ll only send them back again.”

  “The friends of the defuncts will do no such a thing to a ’spectable furnisher of funerals like me, as has lived, man and boy, in the same house for fifty year, and paid his way reglar,” responded Mr. Banks. “If we adopts economic principles, we can’t waste wood or time either.”

  “And do you mean to say, father,” cried the boy, “that this here plank is planed enow? Pass your hand along it, and it’ll get kivered with splinters—stuck all over like a porkipine.”

  “It will do exceeding well for the blessed carkiss that’ll rejice in such a lid as that board will help to make him,” said Banks, sweeping his horny palm over the plank. “That’s good enow—that’s economic principles.”

  “Then economic principles is a fool and a humbug,” returned the lad, sulkily: “that’s all I can say about the matter.”

  “Oh! that’s it—is it?” cried Banks, assuming a threatening attitude.

  “Yes—with a wengeance,” added his son.

  “No—that’s the wengeance,” said Mr. Banks, coolly, as he dealt his heir a tremendous box on the ear, which forced the young man nearly over the plank that had caused the dispute; but as the lad was not quite floored, his father bestowed on him a kick which, speedily succeeding the sl
ap, levelled the youthful coffin-maker altogether.

  “Brayvo!” shouted the idlers at the door.

  The discomfited son of Mr. Banks got up, retreated to the farther end of the shop, and was about to discharge a volley of insolence at his father when a gentleman and lady suddenly appeared on the threshold of the shop.

  “Ah! Miss Wilmot,” exclaimed Mr. Banks—“punctual to the time! Your most obedient, sir,” he added, turning towards Kate’s companion, whom he did not know personally, but who was really Richard Markham. “Walk in, Miss—walk in, sir.”

  Then, without farther ceremony, the undertaker banged the door violently in the faces of the loungers at the shop-entrance.

  “Please to come this way,” he said, again turning to his visitors. “Take care of that lid, Miss; it’ll soon cover a blessed defunct as a widder and seven small childern is now a-weeping for. I’m doing it cheap for ’em, poor things—eighteen-pence under the reg’lar charge, ’cause they had to sell their bed to pay for it—in adwance. This way, sir: mind them trestles. Ah! a many coffins has stood on ’em—all made on the newest and most economic principles; for my maxim is that a cheap and good undertaker is a real blessin’ to society—a perfect god-send in this world of wanity and wexation. What would the poor sinful wessels in this neighbourhood do without me?—what indeed?”

  Thus talking, and shaking his head in a most solemn manner, Mr. Banks led the way to a parlour behind the shop: and when his two visitors had entered it, he closed the door to prevent the intrusion of his sons.

  “Pray, sit down, Miss—sit down, sir,” said the undertaker, doing the honours of his abode with all the politeness of which he was master. “I am truly glad to behold your blessed countenance again, Miss;—for it’s a sinful world, and blessed countenances is scarce—wery scarce. And this gentleman is Mr.—Mr.—ahem!—I haven’t the pleasure of knowing him.”