CHAPTER XXI.
William Barham was punctual to his hour; but Lieberg made him wait for fully twenty minutes in an empty room, looking out into the dull back court of a London house, where there was nothing to amuse his mind within the chamber or without: not a picture, not a print upon the walls: not the sight of a chimney, the smoke of which would have given occupation to the eye: not an odd-looking table, with carved legs: not anything, in short, on which the energies of the spirit could spend themselves. The very carpet was in long straight lines of monotonous colours, and the walls were painted of a blank greyish hue.
The mind, when surrounded by dulness from which it cannot escape, is like the scorpion when hemmed in by fire, and turns to sting itself. That room seemed the very abode of gloom and despondency. The windows were dusty, and admitted but little light; they were not as regularly opened as they ought to have been, and there was a closeness in the atmosphere, a smell of desolation, if we may so call it, which made one feel faint. The grate looked somewhat rusty from neglect, and there were no fire-irons.
William Barham first walked to a window, and looked out, but nothing met his eye, except the tall, unpleasant, dingy brick wall of an opposite house, without a single casement looking that way. He then turned, and gazed round the room. It was all cheerless and dull. His eye found nothing on which it could rest. It was empty and gloomy as a heart that has been bereaved of the object of its love. He tried the window again, and then let his eye run over the walls of the room; but all was dark and sad. There was not even a Greek border on the broad expanse of dull, grey painted stucco, with which the mind might form a labyrinth for thought to lose herself withal. He walked up and down for a moment or two, and then cast himself down upon a chair, and his fancy gave itself up to that which was most painful--his own fate and circumstances.
Did Lieberg do it on purpose? Who can say? There are few men who know human nature better than he did. There are few who could more correctly appreciate the effect of solitary thought, with gloomy adjuncts, upon a mind loaded with crime, and weakened by vice and intemperance. None, then, could judge better what would be that effect upon William Barham, and yet he had ordered him, with particular care, to be placed in that room, which he himself had never entered above once or twice since he had hired those apartments; and yet while the youth remained there, Lieberg was not occupied with any important affair. He was trifling with some objects of art; writing a note or two in answer to invitations; doing a thousand things, in short, that might have been done at any other time. It seemed, certainly, that he calculated upon producing a particular effect upon the mind of the unhappy boy who was in his power.
William Barham's eye, in the meantime, strained upon the floor. It grew more and more anxious in expression, its gaze more and more intense. He looked as if horror-struck with some object on which his eyes fell upon the carpet--but the unhappy boy saw nothing before him but his own fate. Remorse, if not repentance, visited his heart! He thought of all that he had done, of all that he might have done; he saw that, by his own folly, and by his own crimes, at the best he had driven himself from his native land, and had, but for an accident, condemned himself to death, to an ignominious and terrible death. He had lost all the advantages of a fair education, an honourable teaching, and of a good example. He had voluntarily chosen evil when good was within his grasp, and now the consequences had fallen upon his head, without any place of shelter, any hope, any refuge, except in the mercy of a man who had shewn him some harshness, and whose objects he was strongly inclined to doubt. He had come thither with a palpitating heart, and he remained in agitation and distress.
Minute after minute went by, and each one seemed an age, till at length he began to think--"Is this man deceiving me?--Perhaps he is playing me false!--Perhaps even now he has sent for the officers of justice to seize their prey!"
He started up and approached the door, intending to steal out if he found no one, and to say that he could not wait any longer, if he met with any of the servants in the passage. There was a footman within a few yards, however, and when he had repeated that which he had made up his mind to speak, the man answered, with the cold sauciness of a London lackey,--"My master said you were to wait for him, and so you must wait, if you please."
The man stood directly in the way, and William Barham, re-entered the room, with a sinking heart. His thoughts, hurried and confused, first turned to flight, but flight, he soon saw, was impossible. The window was high--there was a fall of five-and-twenty feet, or more, into the area below. His next thought was, what else could give him safety? Where was there any other hope? "This man must want something," he thought. "He must have some object, some purpose, some end to answer!--What can it be?--I will do anything, everything, if he will but spare my life."
It was at that moment that Lieberg, as if he had calculated it by a watch, sent to call the unfortunate William Barham to his presence; and when the youth appeared, he questioned him sternly and steadily, as to the whole transaction of the forgery, writing down his replies. Had William Barham been an old and wily offender, he might have refused to plead in this illegitimate sort of court; but fear now superseded everything: even natural cunning gave way before it, and he told all, though he saw Lieberg taking notes of each word he spoke.
"Now," asked the interrogator, when he had finished, "will you sign that?" and he put the paper before him.
"But will you promise me safety?" said the boy, torn by terrors of several kinds, and gazing upon the countenance of Lieberg with eyes that seemed as if they would start from their sockets--"will you promise me safety?"
"Yes," answered Lieberg, "I will promise you--but on one condition, that you will help me with your whole heart and mind in something that I desire to accomplish."
"Oh, that I will!" exclaimed the youth, "in anything that you like."
"In anything?" said Lieberg, with emphasis, and at the same time holding up his finger, to mark more particularly, that he had some especial object.
The blood rose slightly in William Barham's cheek, but the game was for life and death, and he had made up his mind. "Yes," he replied, nodding his bead significantly; "perhaps I understand what you mean. But I say, I will help you in anything you like."
"That is right," answered Lieberg, "that is quite right; and if you do help me, instead of death, or exile, and poverty, and privation, and gnawing want, you shall have comfort, and respectability, and affluence, in your own land."
The youth's eyes sparkled, and Lieberg went on, "Attach yourself to my fortunes," he continued, "and you are safe. I tell you fairly, all I wish you to sign this paper for, is, that I may have such a hold upon you, that neither any of those rascally companions whom you have unfortunately met with, nor any of the whining Methodists and hypocrites who are scarcely better than the others, may ever persuade you to play me false in this matter. Mark me! It is not any knavery on your part that I fear, it is weakness; but I think you know me well enough, to be sure that I will hang you, as certain as I live, if you fail me----"
"But will you certainly spare me, if I do not?" cried the youth. "Will you write it down?"
Lieberg paused for a moment, in meditation, drawing in his eyelids, as if to shut out even the daylight from his busy brain, and he replied, at length--
"Very well, I will, marking the condition, that you pledge yourself to assist me in one particular object, with your whole power and might."
"Very well," said the youth, and Lieberg wrote down the stipulations.
The boy signed, what might be called, his confession, and Lieberg put his hand to the promise. After he had done so, however, he shook his head, gazing on the boy with a smile full of pity and contempt.
"I will keep that promise, my good youth, firmly," he said, "but at the same time I will tell you, it is of no earthly value; for I have nothing to do but to let this bill slip into the hands of the Bow-street officers, and you are arrested, tried, and executed in the shortest possible time. No promise of mine could save you. It is the state that prosecutes, the law that condemns. I have nothing to do with it but to swear that this name, purporting to be mine, is not my handwriting," and he took out of his pocket-book the identical bill which William Barham had forged, and laid his finger upon the fatal words, "Frederick Lieberg," at the bottom.
The unhappy youth gazed at it, with eyes of eager fire--and oh, what would he have given to snatch it from the hand of him that held it, and tear it into a thousand pieces that moment! The bright eyes of Lieberg seemed to read his very thoughts, and again the dark and bitter smile curled his lip, as he said--
"You cannot get it, my good youth. It will remain with me till there is a stronger bond between you and me, and what I desire is accomplished.--Where is your sister?"
"I do not know," replied the youth, boldly. "Do you not know?--I thought you did."
"No, indeed," replied Lieberg, "I am utterly ignorant. But we must both know ere long. This is the first business we have before us.--You tell me true, I see it--but how happens it that she was removed without your knowledge?"
"I was away for two days," replied the youth, "and when I came back she was gone. But he knows--that Sir Morley Ernstein! Cannot you get him to tell you?"
"I would not ask him for this right hand," replied Lieberg, "but we will soon find out without him."
"He refused to tell me," said the youth; "he would give me no tidings, indeed, but that she is safe and with two ladies, one of whom is a lady of rank."
"Ha!" exclaimed Lieberg. "A lady of rank? Who can that be? And he positively refused to let you know where she is?"
"That he did," answered the youth; "but I'll tell you what he told me, too; he said that I should know where she is, and she should write to me, as soon as I was aboard ship to go to the colonies. Can't we make something of that, sir?"
"Certainly," answered Lieberg, "we will make everything of that, if we cannot do what we desire before; for that might produce a long delay, which must be avoided if possible.--Oh, we will arrive at it!" he said, after a moment's thought--"where did you sleep, last night?"
"In our own house," replied the boy. "The rent is paid, the woman told me, and she is put in to keep it, with seven shillings a week; but the place is still ours, till the twenty-ninth of September."
"Well then," said Lieberg, "go back at once to the good woman who is in the house, and in the course of the evening get her to tell you exactly what was the appearance of the ladies who came for your sister, and what was the livery of the servant whom she talked of to me. Whether he was a tall man or a short man, and, in a word, all the particulars that she can furnish you with. Do not let her see that you are cross questioning her, for I suspect, from her manner to me yesterday morning, she has been told not to tell the truth to any one. You must therefore proceed cautiously."
"Oh, I understand--I understand!" replied the boy. "I must fish it out, you mean."
"Exactly," said Lieberg, with a smile at the expression. "Fish it out, and come to me at six o'clock to-day. I shall then be dressing for dinner, but you will be admitted; and now, as perhaps you are in want of money, there is a ten-pound note for you. If we proceed successfully, your fortunes are begun."
The youth took the money eagerly. It was certainly the wages of iniquity, but evil--whatever be its kind--always smoothes the road for more; and William Barham had so often tasted burning pleasures bought by money wrongly acquired, that there were no great scruples left in his mind. His sister's honour and soul, her happiness, and her peace of mind, he was very ready to sell for the combined temptation of safety and enjoyment; and, taking the money greedily, he gave Lieberg a meaning smile, which even sickened the superior demon with whom he was dealing; for surely it is a part of the punishment which evil spirits are destined to feel, even in the joys which they propose to themselves, that they must abhor the tools they work with, and loathe the means which they employ for their own ends. If Lieberg, at that moment, had given way to his own inclination, he would have driven the youth, with contempt and hatred, into the street. But he suffered him to depart quietly, saying--"Do not fail;" and William Barham proceeded on his way.
Exactly at the hour appointed he was at Lieberg's door again, and was instantly admitted to his dressing-room. The splendour and the luxury of everything that he beheld, the beautiful arrangement, the exquisite taste, struck him so much, that for a moment he did not speak, gazing round at all the richly-chased silver implements, the china, the glass, and the steel-work, with which the dressing-table was covered, and thinking that his sister would be a very happy girl, if, on any terms, she was permitted to live in the midst of such magnificence as that. And yet William Barham had been taught good principles; had heard, during his early youth, moral and religious doctrines from the lips of his mother; and, until his father's health had failed entirely, had daily received instruction from him. But there are some minds which seem incapable of imbibing any clear and definite notion of right and wrong. They can recollect that they have been told one thing is good, and another thing is evil, and perfectly distinguish between the two, but without feeling in their hearts, even in the slightest degree, the excellence of the one and the hatefulness of the other. They are like that arid soil, which will produce abundance of weeds, but in which any good shrub withers as soon as it is planted.
Such was very much the case with William Barham; but there was another cause which had tended also to make him what he was, and which must be clearly pointed out. His father, though an excellent man and a sincere Christian, was fond of indulging in speculative opinions--not of embracing, but of discussing them--the most dangerous practice in the world before young people, for if they do not absolutely adopt the opinion that is wrong, they learn not to be quite sure that any opinion is right. The mind of Helen herself might have been affected by this fault on the part of their father, but she had two safeguards--a pure, high-spirited heart, and the memory of her mother's counsels, she having been somewhat older than her brother, and more capable of receiving principles than he was, at the time of that mother's death.
The tidings which William Barham brought were fuller than Lieberg had expected. The appearance of the servant and of the ladies was detailed with great accuracy, and even the crest upon the servant's button was known; but when Lieberg sent his valet to bring him a book that he named, in which the crest of all the principal families of England were displayed, he found that several would answer the description, which, as may easily be supposed, had not been given with true heraldic accuracy. William Barham seemed at his wits' end, when he found that this was the case; but Lieberg, whatever might be the strength of his passions, was not one of those who give them vent at every trifling obstacle. On the contrary, like the great propelling power of the present day, they were kept pent up within the iron of his bosom, but to carry him on with the fiercer vehemence to the end desired; and on this occasion he only laughed, saying--"We shall arrive at it--do not be afraid. Combining the crest with the colour of the livery, and then applying the description of the man himself and the ladies, to discriminate among the various branches of the family, we shall find out the facts. I will put it in the hands of an Argus this very night, who will ferret out the whole matter ere eight-and-forty hours be over. Difficulties, my young friend, to a man of a firm mind, and obstacles in his path, of whatever nature they may be, only afford him stronger inducements to follow his course, and render his pursuit a passion. I remember a man who was told that he could never throw the same combinations four times running with the dice, and he sat for three months in the same room till he had done it. That man was fit to struggle for an empire. I have seldom suffered myself to seek anything very eagerly; but I never yet was baffled when I did. And now go home, and keep yourself as quiet as may be. Have no communication of any kind with the men that you know in London, and confide no secrets to the women. Always be at your own house, so that I may find you from nine in the morning till night-fall; the rest of the four-and-twenty hours is your own."