Charles Tyrrell; or, The Bitter Blood. Volumes I and II

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XIV.

We must now turn for a time to Charles Tyrrell, and give some farther details of the events which had befallen him between his return to Oxford and his recall to Harbury Park, which we have hitherto purposely omitted.

Although there were many things unpleasant in his situation; although the conduct of his father towards himself had sent him back, as usual, with unpleasant memories fresh upon him, yet there was something now in the storehouse of remembrance which made up for all. There was a drop of that elixir cast into his cup, which is described by one of the greatest painters of human nature that ever lived, Le Sage, as giving flavour and sweetness to the sourest, the bitterest, or the most insipid cup. He had loved and was beloved; and when he looked back upon the last short month, it seemed as if the whole of the rest of life was as nothing compared with what he had done, enjoyed, and suffered in that brief space. The memory thereof afforded him sufficient matter to occupy his mind till he reached the university, and then it still remained, a comfort, a consolation, a hope, a joy. It was to him as an angel stretching out one hand towards the future and the other towards the past, and scattering flowers over both.

We will not dwell upon the passing of a week or two, on the prosecution of his academical studies, on the society that he kept, or the amusements which the narrow means his father afforded him enabled him to seek. We are coming now to the more bustling and active scenes of the drama, and we must not pause upon many interludes.

Time slipped by quietly. Charles kept his word faithfully to Mrs. Effingham; he wrote not to Lucy. He sent her even no message when he wrote to his mother, though he never failed to mention her in his letters with terms which he knew would induce Lady Tyrrell to repeat them to Lucy herself, and would show to her whom he loved how deeply he still loved her. In so writing, to say the truth, there was perhaps a greater pleasure than there even would have been in writing to herself. There was something exciting and doubly interesting in the shadowing forth, under anything that suggested itself, those feelings, wishes, hopes, and memories which he was forbidden to express more plainly. He now mentioned to his mother having met with some flower, or heard some song that recalled the sweet moments passed in the society of Lucy Effingham; it was now a picture he had bought which he longed to show her; it was now a book that he had read which would give her pleasure to read also; it was something now that she had said which he remembered and applied under new circumstances.

He certainly thought of Lady Tyrrell when he wrote those letters to her; but neither Lady Tyrrell, nor himself, nor Lucy Effingham could doubt that he thought of the latter, too, at every line he wrote. Lady Tyrrell could not help soon perceiving that her son was really, and not nominally, in love with Lucy Effingham; but, between a mother's fondness and a woman's clear-sightedness, she had discovered something long before which gave her comfort and satisfaction; it was, that Lucy Effingham was not quite indifferent to her son.

The time thus slipped quietly away, day after day, and Charles Tyrrell was calculating, with schoolboy impatience, how many days yet remained to the holidays. He had totally forgotten, by this time, Lieutenant Hargrave and everything concerning him. As soon as he had found that Lucy had never loved that personage, he had lost all feelings of enmity towards him, and his conduct in regard to the duel had only excited contempt.

A person we despise is soon forgotten, and such was the case in the present instance; but he was suddenly roused one morning from such forgetfulness by having a note put into his hands bearing Arthur Hargrave's name. It simply went to inform him that he had followed him to Oxford, with his friend Lieutenant ----, for the purpose of settling the affair which they had been prevented from settling before. The servant who brought the note told him farther, that the gentleman who delivered it had said he would call again for an answer towards five o'clock; and Charles, fully determined to have nothing farther to do with a person who had before failed to keep his appointment, merely sent for one of his friends of the same college to witness the explanation that was to ensue, and waited patiently for the hour appointed.

At five o'clock precisely the lieutenant of the revenue cutter made his appearance, and after the ordinary civilities usual on such occasions, Charles Tyrrell informed him that, by the advice both of the friend who accompanied him on the previous occasion and the gentleman whom he then saw present, he had determined to proceed no farther in the matter, having already done all that was required of him, and not thinking himself bound to be at the beck and call of Lieutenant Hargrave at any time that he thought proper.

"I am afraid, sir," replied the lieutenant, "that if you adhere to this resolution, you will seriously affect your own reputation. I am charged to give you a full explanation of the causes which prevented Lieutenant Hargrave from meeting you, and those causes will be found quite sufficient in the eyes of any man of honour."

Charles Tyrrell turned a questioning look upon his friend, who replied to it by saying,

"Of course we must hear. Pray, sir, what were those causes?"

"Why, sir," replied the lieutenant of the revenue cutter, "it is a delicate subject, in some degree, to deal with; but as I am quite sure I am speaking with two gentlemen and men of honour, who will not, on any account, betray a trust reposed in them, I will give you the real causes explicitly. You must know, that after I left Mr. Tyrrell, with the full determination of bringing Lieutenant Hargrave to the ground appointed on the following morning, Hargrave informed me of his intention of carrying off a young lady, who, he said, was willing to elope with him, and with whom he was in love."

Charles Tyrrell started off his chair, exclaiming, "The scoundrel! I trust, sir, you had no hand in such a business."

"No farther hand than might become a man of honour, sir," replied the lieutenant, calmly. "He told me the young lady was ready to go off with him, he was quite sure; that she would have a large fortune at her father's death--"

"Why her father has been dead for many months!" exclaimed Charles Tyrrell, again interrupting him.

"There must be some mistake," replied the lieutenant; "for I saw you talking to her father himself the very last time we met; and I am as certain as a man can be of anything in this world, that old Longly was alive not eight-and-forty hours ago."

"Old Longly!" exclaimed Charles Tyrrell; "that is quite another affair. I beg your pardon; I interrupted you by mistake; pray go on."

"Well, sir, as I was about to say, he told me if I would but carry them round to Guernsey or Jersey in the cutter, I should lay him under an infinite obligation, and it was settled that I was to land him that evening near the house; that he was to go to meet her, with two of the boat's crew to carry her things; that he and I were to land the next morning, to give you the meeting; and, when he had shot you, we were to go on board again, and get under weigh for Guernsey."

"A kind, pleasant, and jovial arrangement!" said Charles Tyrrell, with a touch of his father's bitterness in his tone and manner; "pray what prevented it from succeeding?"

"Why two things," replied the officer; "in the first place, while we were away, the people got intimation that it was Hargrave that had spied out the smuggled goods, and given the information which led to the seizure. His name, it is true, did not appear, but he was to have two thirds of the reward. In the next place, you see, the young lady was not quite so willing as he had represented her to be. We landed, indeed, at the hour appointed; and he went up with the two men and met her in the wood; but then she did not choose to come away with him; and when he made his entreaties somewhat too pressing, and got one of the men to help him lead her down to the boat, perhaps not so tenderly as might be, she set up a scream, which brought me up from the shore, and I insisted upon her being set free directly. She then ran back to her father's house; but it would seem the old gentleman had by this time found out the whole business, and refused to take her in; so that, if she had not met with John Hailes, the fisherman, and found shelter in his cottage, I do not know what would have become of her; for by this time we had put off, and perhaps reached the ship. Well, Hargrave and I had a bit of a quarrel that night, as you may suppose."

"I am glad to hear it, I am glad to hear it," exclaimed Charles Tyrrell, vehemently; "for the honour of human nature, I am glad to hear it."

"Why I did not like the job, it must be confessed," replied the young officer; "but, however, as I had engaged to stand his friend in the business with you, I could not get off, you see, and we landed the next morning in time to be with you. How it was that the fishermen, and hovellers, and smugglers got an inkling of what we were about, I don't know. But it seems they had found out, not only that Hargrave had given information, but that we were going to land early that morning, and they had laid an ambuscade just to the west of Stony Point; so that, before we had got a hundred yards from the boat, they were upon us, and Hargrave was in their hands in a minute. They did not offer to hurt us, though they were five or six to one; but they thrashed him with the stretchers in such a way, that I saw they would kill him outright before they had done; and consequently, getting all the boat's crew together, I made a rush for it, and got him more than half dead out of their hands. They pelted us all the way back to the boat with large stones, which hurt several of the men; but we got off notwithstanding, and, as soon as I could, I wrote a note to you, and going ashore higher up, sent it off by a boy. I hope it reached you."

"It certainly did," replied Charles Tyrrell, "but not till I had waited some time. However, by your own account, sir, this Lieutenant Hargrave seems to be so little of a gentleman and so much of a scoundrel, that I wonder you consent to present yourself upon his part."

"I do not intend to justify his conduct or to make myself his champion, sir," replied the commander of the revenue cutter, "and therefore we will put all that out of the question, if you please. Having once engaged in the business, I do not choose to go back; and have only farther to say, that, of course, you will act as you please; but that the cause of Lieutenant Hargrave's conduct in not meeting you at the place appointed having been explained, and that cause being that he was incapacitated from doing anything by the ill usage of the mob, it seems to me that a gentleman, a brave man, and a man of honour cannot refuse the appointment he before made."

"Well, sir," replied Charles Tyrrell, "on your account, and to make it perfectly evident that fear has nothing to do with the matter, I will meet him. I suppose if you, a respectable officer and an honourable and gentlemanly man, do not refuse to second him, I must not refuse to fight him: but still, sir, I must say, that I look upon him as a scoundrel of the lowest and most ungentlemanly character, for whom the only proper treatment would be a horsewhip."

The lieutenant bit his lips. "I must beg leave to decline giving any opinion respecting his character," he answered; "the task I have undertaken I will accomplish, and I have only further to ask you to name the time and place."

The rest of the preliminaries were speedily arranged, and upon the particulars of the duel we shall not pause. Every precaution was taken by Charles Tyrrell and his second to keep the matter so private that it could not reach the ears of the academical authorities, and in this they succeeded perfectly. Charles met his antagonist at a considerable distance from Oxford, and, as he had predetermined, did not fire at him, though he made no display of firing in the air. The other fired at him and missed him only by a few inches; and the moment that an exchange of shots had taken place, Lieutenant Hargrave's second walked up to Charles Tyrrell, saying, "I ask you, sir, as a gentleman and a man of honour, whether you fired at Lieutenant Hargrave?"

"To a question so put," replied Charles, "I can but reply, that I did not."

"Then the business can go no farther," said the lieutenant; "I presume you agree with me, sir?" he continued, turning to Charles Tyrrell's second.

The other replied that he did so exactly; and, without any farther discussion, the parties prepared to separate.

To Charles's surprise, however, he perceived, as they were getting into the chaise which brought them there, that Arthur Hargrave and his second parted also on the ground, with no other farewell than a cold bow on either side. Every precaution was adopted, in returning to Oxford, to avoid attracting attention, and, by extreme prudence and care, not a whisper of the transaction spread through the university.

Everything resumed its usual train in the life of Charles Tyrrell, and he fancied the matter would never be farther heard of, when he suddenly was aroused from this dream of repose by receiving the bitter but laconic note from his father, which we mentioned in a former chapter, bidding him come immediately to Harbury Park. The tone of this epistle led him to believe, upon full consideration, that Sir Francis was acquainted with the whole affair of the duel, though of course he did not know, till he reached home, that his engagement with Lucy Effingham had been also disclosed.

He prepared, however, instantly to obey the summons he had received, and certainly did not suppose that his father, who had always been an advocate for duelling, would now entertain any very serious wrath at what had occurred, if the matter were properly explained to him. Making his preparations, therefore, with as much quickness as possible, he set out, on the morning after the receipt of his father's note, upon a journey destined to prove the most important of his life. He followed the same course that he had pursued on his preceding journey, going first to London, and then making his way onward by the heavy nightcoach.

During the former part of the journey, namely, from Oxford to London, Charles Tyrrell's thoughts were principally employed in endeavouring, by one effort of imagination or another, to divine who could be the person that had given Sir Francis Tyrrell information of an event which had been so carefully concealed as to be perfectly unknown to the members of the university, within twenty miles of the spot where it took place. But the only person whom he could fix upon was Lieutenant Hargrave himself, as he felt perfectly sure that that officer's second would not mention the matter: it having been represented to him beforehand that very serious consequences might ensue if it became known, by any chance, to the heads of the colleges, that a duel had been fought by one of the gentlemen commoners.

The irritation which he felt, under these circumstances, was very great; and it was fortunate that Lieutenant Hargrave himself was not near at hand at the moment when Charles came to the above conclusion, as it is not improbable that he would speedily have resorted to some sharp measure for chastising what he conceived to be an unwarrantable breach of confidence. However, as we have said, it luckily so happened that Lieutenant Hargrave was not in the coach, and, even more, that there was nobody in it at all: for Charles Tyrrell was certainly in an irritable mood, and there are few men, let their dispositions be what they will, who are not disagreeable companions when such is the case. Thus he had plenty of opportunity to torment himself with his own fancies, and in the course of that journey he learned one of the most valuable secrets of the human heart, by long and solitary commune with his own in a state of excitement.

People of an eager and impetuous nature, when by chance they fall into the sin and folly of anger, are apt to declare, that other people or other things have put them in a passion, when, in truth--even if others have had any share in the business at all, which is not always the case--those angry people have been themselves the principals, and others only the accessories. It generally happens that others may throw down for us a little smouldering straw, but it is our own thoughts and imagination that toss it up into a flame.

Charles Tyrrell felt that such was the case in his own instance; that he had worked himself up into a fit of anger upon very unreasonable grounds. He detected the habit of doing so in his own mind, and he had sufficient firmness and resolution, as soon as he had detected that habit, vigorously to set about rooting it out.

As the first effort so to do, he resolved to think upon Lieutenant Hargrave no farther; gazing forth from the window, he revolved with pleasure upon a thousand other things; remembered that the shooting season had already commenced; laid out a plan for being absent from home the greater part of the day, either occupied in the healthful sports of the field, or passing the hours in the society of her he loved best; and devising with her schemes for future happiness, building on foundations laid by imagination with materials from the abundant storehouses of hope.

At length, however, he reached the great metropolis of smoke and industry, and then once more set out in the Old Blue for the park of his father. At a little distance from London, however, the coach stopped, and a woman and a little girl, seemingly both out of health, and probably proceeding to the seaside for its recovery, applied to the coachman to be admitted. There was one place vacant in the vehicle, and the guard represented that the little girl was young and small, and would occupy but little space, if the passengers would consent to her sitting on her mother's knee.

Against this proposal a fat lady, who, if equity ruled stagecoaches, should have paid for two places instead of one, opposed her veto most vehemently, declaring that she would get out and take a chaise, and make the coachman pay, if any more than the legal proportion of passengers was admitted into the favoured vehicle in which she travelled. The poor woman stood by the coachside, with her child in her hand, waiting the event of the discussion, and pleading by no other means than a look of care, and anxiety, and ill health. The little girl was a frail, delicate child, like a flower of the early spring, that the first frost might wither, and she looked up first to her mother's face, and then to the vehicle, as if asking what they were to do.

After listening for a moment or two to the fat woman's objections, Charles Tyrrell put his foot out of the coach, saying, "My good lady, I will soon settle the matter; you sha'n't be put to the trouble of seeking a postchaise to-night by having too many in the inside. Coachman, I will go on the top, and then there will be plenty of room."

The fat woman had nothing to say, but, "Well, I declare!" but the poor woman by the coach side dropped him a low and grateful courtesy, and thanked him in a tone which could not be mistaken.

If it had been the coldest night of the year, Charles Tyrrell would have been well repaid for what was, in fact, no sacrifice. But it was clear, and beautiful, and warm; and as the coach rolled along, with the fine summer's moon pouring her bright light over the sleeping world, he enjoyed himself highly, till a gray streak here and there upon the edge of the eastern sky, and a faint indescribable glistening about, the tops of the hills, told that the orb of day was soon about to rise.

They had now come very near to the seacoast, and were within a few miles of the spot where, winding round the deep shores of a small bay, the road turned to pass the park of Sir Francis Tyrrell. The distance by the road might be about ten miles; through the wood it was less than half; and so fine had been the night, that Charles Tyrrell had almost made up his mind to alight at that spot, and take the shorter path in order to enjoy the morning freshness more at leisure.

As they approached the shore, however, and the day began to dawn, a thick sea-fog came on, unusual at that period of the year, but which took away all promise of pleasure from the idea of walking through the wood. The high road itself was scarcely discernible; and as they turned away from the sea again to sweep round the bay and cut across the opposite point, they could hear the voices of persons talking close by the road, without being able to see where they were.

The coachman was going on at a furious rate, and one of the passengers who sat on the box had just said, "You had better take care, or you will run over something or somebody," when some object coming out of the wood on the left, which neither the coachman nor any of the passengers could see, startled the leaders, who dashed violently up the bank on the opposite side of the road. The coach was carried after them and instantly upset, and Charles Tyrrell, with the rest of the passengers on the outside, felt himself instantly cast with enormous force towards the wood on the left.

Of what happened after for some time he had no consciousness. He felt, indeed, a violent blow upon the head, but that was all; and when, after a long lapse of time, he regained his senses for a few minutes, it was but to feel, or at least to think, he was dying, and to sink again into insensibility. Those brief moments, however, had been sufficient for many a painful thought to cross his mind. He thought of Lucy Effingham certainly; but we must tell the truth, and acknowledge that the first, the deepest, the most painful thought was of his mother. Lucy, he knew, had other ties to life; and though she might grieve, she would not grieve without consolation. Lady Tyrrell had none but him, and, had he had power to speak, he might have exclaimed with the wounded cavalier, Prince Baldwin, in the Marquis of Mantua:

"O triste Reyna mi madre,
Dios te quiera consolar,
Que yà es quebrado el espejo
En que te solias mirar.
"Siempre de mi recelaste
Sobresalto de pesar
Ahora de aqui adelante
No te cumple rezelar."

However, as we have said, he spoke not; for there was a faint sickness upon him, a deathlike sensation at his heart, which took away all power; and the first feelings that assailed him instantly cast him back into insensibility once more. How long he remained in this state, he, of course, could in no degree calculate; but when he at length opened his eyes again, he felt much better than he had been before, and could see around him, which had not been the case on the former occasion, when all had been dim and indistinct. It was night, and the place in which he was had the appearance of a fisherman's cottage; and stretched upon a rough but clean bed, he gazed round, and saw several anxious faces watching him by the light of a single candle.

All those faces but one were known to him, and they were those of honest John Hailes, the fisherman, his wife, and his eldest boy, who now, apparently recovered from the injury he had sustained, but pale and eager with anxiety, was holding a basin under Charles's arm, while the blood flowed into it from an incision just made by a gentleman in black, who was sitting by the bedside, and whom Charles Tyrrell naturally concluded to be a surgeon. The medical man immediately saw that consciousness had returned, and slightly moving the arm backward and forward, he caused the bleeding to proceed more freely, every drop that flowed giving his patient greater relief.

After a short time Charles found himself able to speak, and was about to ask some questions when the surgeon held up his finger, saying, "Perfect quietness, and you will soon be quite well! There is no bone broken, no injury to the scull, merely a severe cut and concussion. But you must be perfectly quiet; neither speak nor move, nor think, if it be possible, till to-morrow morning. I will stay with you all night, and not leave you till I am perfectly sure you are safe. Your father has been informed of what has occurred, as soon as these good people could send up to let him know. But their first care was, of course, most wisely to seek for medical advice, which rendered it late. You will soon be quite well, however, so keep your mind at ease."

His arm was then bandaged up, and, by the surgeon's direction, Hailes and his wife and children left the room in which the young gentleman was, and retired into an inner chamber, keeping everything as quiet as possible. The surgeon then resumed his seat by his patient's bedside, shaded the lamp, and applied himself to read, refraining from speaking even a word. Charles Tyrrell did not sleep for some time, however, and towards midnight the surgeon felt his pulse, and gave him something to drink, which seemed both to cool and tranquillize him: for in a few moments he fell asleep, and did not wake again till the sun was high up in the sky.