CHAPTER XIII.
To a person inexperienced in the ways of life and in human character, it might seem strange that a man should pursue one woman with every appearance of passion, and should yet, at the same time, not only seek the love of another, but also entertain some feeling of jealousy at any sign of favour for a rival. But yet this is the case every day, and it was so with Lord Hadley. Had he been asked whether he admired Helen Clive or Eda Brandon most, he would have replied, if he answered sincerely, "Helen Clive;" but she was in his eyes merely a plaything, to be possessed, to sport with, and to cast away; while Eda was looked upon in a very different light--to add wealth to his wealth; to flatter his vanity by the display of her beauty and her grace as his wife; to gratify his pride by uniting the blood of the Brandons, one of the oldest families in the land, to that of the Hadleys, who, to say the truth, required not a little to graft their young plant upon a more ancient stock. Whatever feelings he entertained for her certainly did not reach the height of passion; but yet, when he was beside her, he evidently sought to win regard, and it was plain that he by no means liked the preference she showed for Dudley.
Sir Arthur Adelon saw that something had gone amiss with his young and noble guest; and while they were sitting at luncheon, with not the most placable of feelings existing on the part of Lord Hadley towards his tutor, Sir Arthur was considering what could be the cause of the coldness and haughtiness of tone which he remarked, when a servant entering announced to Mr. Dudley that a gentleman of the name of Norries wished to speak with him for a few moments in the library.
Sir Arthur instantly turned deadly pale; but recovering himself in a moment, he started up before his guest could reply, saying, "I beg you ten thousand pardons, Mr. Dudley, but I have something of much importance to say to Mr. Norries, and if you will permit me I will take up his time for a moment or two while you finish your luncheon, as I have got business which will call me out immediately, and perhaps your conversation with him may be somewhat long."
Dudley was replying that he really did not know what business Mr. Norries could have with him, as he knew no such person, when, with a familiar nod, Sir Arthur said, "I will not detain him three minutes," and hurried out of the room, followed by the keen, cold eye of the priest.
"Who is Mr. Norries, father?" inquired Eda Brandon. "I never heard of him before."
"An old acquaintance of Sir Arthur's," replied Mr. Filmer, in a common-place tone. "He was once a lawyer, I believe, and too honest a man for a profession from which he retired some time ago."
Not two minutes elapsed before Sir Arthur Adelon was in the room again. His conference with Mr. Norries had been short indeed; but it seemed to have been satisfactory, for when he returned his lip wore a smile, although his face was now a good deal flushed, as if from some recent and great excitement.
"You will find Norries in the library, Mr. Dudley," said the baronet, as soon as he entered; and while Dudley rose and walked to the door, Sir Arthur seated himself at the table and fell into deep thought.
In the mean time Dudley proceeded to the room to which he had been directed, and found there, waiting his arrival, the same powerful, hard-featured man whom I have before described.
The keen gray eyes of Norries were fixed upon the door, and when Dudley entered a slight flush passed over his cheek. "Mr. Dudley," he said; "there is no mistaking you. You are very like your father."
"I believe I am, Mr. Norries," replied Dudley, "pray be seated. You were well acquainted with my poor father, I presume."
"No, I had not that honour, sir," answered Norries. "I have seen him more than once, however, as the partner of Mr. Sherborne, the Yorkshire solicitor of Sir Arthur Adelon."
Dudley's face grew stern, and he made a movement as if to rise, but refrained, merely saying, "Mr. Sherborne's name, sir, is an unpleasant one to me. I should not like to speak my opinion of him to his partner; but were he still living, I should undoubtedly let him hear it in person."
"I was his partner, sir, in business, but not in rascality," replied Norries, "the full extent of which I did not know till he was dead. Nature did not make me for a lawyer, Mr. Dudley; and the result of my study of the profession has been to show me that, either by errors in their original formation, or by perversions which have crept in through the misinterpretation of judges, the laws of this land do not afford security against injustice, redress for wrongs committed, protection to the innocent, punishment to the guilty, or equity in any of the relations between man and man. With this view of the case, I could not remain in a profession which aided to carry out, in an iniquitous manner, iniquitous laws, and I therefore quitted it. Before I did so, however, it became my task to examine all the papers in the office of my deceased partner and myself, many of which I had never seen or heard of before. In so doing, sir, I found some which affected your father; and amongst others, several letters of his, apparently of importance. The latter you shall have; the other papers, relating to a contested election in which he took part, are at present necessary to myself."
"I feel much obliged to you, Mr. Norries," replied Dudley. "Of course I shall feel glad to have my poor father's letters. In regard to the other papers relative to the election, as that has been a business long settled, they can be of no service to me, and I do by no means wish to recall old grievances. I am now in the house of my father's opponent on that occasion, and I am well aware that he then acted honourably, and afterwards most liberally and kindly to my poor father."
Norries knit his brows, and shut his teeth tight, but he suffered no observation to escape him; and Dudley continued, saying, "I do not, therefore, wish for one moment to revive any unpleasant memories connected with that contest, and think the papers referring to it just as well in your hands as in mine. Was this the only matter you wished to speak to me upon!"
"I have nothing farther to say, Mr. Dudley," replied Norries, rising, "but that I will in a few days send your father's letters to you at any place you please to mention." And after having received Mr. Dudley's address at St. John's College, Cambridge, he took his leave. Once he stopped for a moment as he was going out--thought, muttered something to himself, but without adding anything more, departed.
On quitting Brandon House, Norries made his way straight to the avenue which I have mentioned once or twice before; and walking hurriedly down under the shade of the trees, he turned into a path which led through the copse on the right to a stile over the wall. His direction was towards the Grange, but he did not follow exactly the same road which had been pursued by Edgar Adelon. About a hundred yards up the lane there lay the entrance of another narrow footway which was sunk deep between two banks, with a hedge at the top, forming an exceedingly unpleasant and dangerous cut in the way of any horseman following the fox-hounds; and indeed there was a tradition of two gentlemen having broken their necks there some fifty years ago, in consequence of having come suddenly upon this unseen hollow way, in leaping the hedge above. Along it, however, Mr. Norries now sped with a quick step, till it opened out upon a little green, where stood two cottages in a complete state of ruin, to arrive at which more easily from the high road, the path had probably been cut in former years. On the other side of the green, mounting over the bank and passing through the fields, was a more open footway, with a stile at the bottom of the descent, upon which was sitting, when Norries came up, a short, slightly-made man, with a sharp face, and keen, eager, black eyes. "Well, Nichols," said Norries, approaching, "I have not kept you long."
"No, no," answered the other man, quickly; "but what news--what news, Mr. Norries? What does he say?
"Why he will come, Nichols, whenever we give the word," answered Norries, "without hesitation or delay."
"Indeed!" exclaimed the other; "better news than I thought. I feared he was shirking, from what he said last time, or else that he would take so long to consider that we should lose our opportunity."
"I took means to quicken his decision," said Norries. "But let us get on, Nichols, for I expect Conway and Mac Dermot to join me at Clive's for a consultation; and we must then separate till to-morrow night."
"Is Clive's a safe place?" asked Nichols, following, as the other strode on rapidly. "He is dead against us, you know, Norries."
"But he would not betray any man," replied the other; "and besides, he is out at the town, and will not be back for two or three hours."
Nothing farther was said till they reached the Grange, where, going in without ceremony, Norries put his head into Helen's drawing-room, saying, "I can go into the up-stairs room which I had before, Helen dear, I suppose?"
"Oh, certainly!" answered Helen. "Everything is there just as you left it; but my father is not at home, and will not return for some hours."
"That does not matter," answered Norries; and calling one of the maids, he told her, if any gentlemen came to inquire for him, to show them up stairs to him; and mounting the steps, he led the person called Nichols into the room where his conference had been held with Sir Arthur Adelon. Helen in the mean time remained below, unoccupied, apparently, with anything but thought, for though there was a book open before her, she seldom looked at it. She was seated with her face to the window, which commanded a view of the garden, and through the trees across the river to the opposite side of the little dell in which it flowed. With one arm in a sling, and the other resting across the book upon the table, she gazed forth from the window, watching that opposite bank with an anxious, almost apprehensive expression of countenance, and if she dropped her eyes to the page for a moment, she raised them again instantly. Hardly three minutes had passed after Norries' arrival, when a figure was indistinctly seen coming over the slope, and Helen, starting up, exclaimed, "There he is again! This is really too bad. I am glad my uncle is here!" But before the words were well uttered, the figure came more fully in sight, and Helen saw that it was that of a perfect stranger. Another equally unknown to her, followed close behind the first; and she sat down again, murmuring with a slight smile, "I frighten myself needlessly. But it is really very hard to be so treated. I do not know what to do. If I were to tell my father what he had said, and how he had treated me, he would kill him on the spot; and if I told Edgar all, they would fight, I am sure. Poor, dear, generous Edgar! I can see he is very uneasy, and yet I dare not speak. It is very strange that Father Peter should treat the matter with such indifference. I believe my best way would be to tell my uncle."
As she thus went on murmuring broken sentences, the two men whom she had seen approached the house, rang the bell, and Helen could hear their heavy footsteps mount the stairs.
She had turned her head towards the door when they came into the house; but the moment that her eyes were directed towards the window again, she saw the figure of Lord Hadley, coming down the path with a proud, light, self-confident step, and instantly starting up once more, she closed the book, and ran out of the room. A maid was in the passage, and in an eager and frightened tone, the beautiful girl exclaimed, "Tell him exactly what I said, Margaret. If he asks for me, say I will not see him. Make no excuses, but tell him plainly and at once, I will not."
"That I will, Miss Helen," answered the woman, heartily. "Shall I ask Ben the ploughman to thrash him if he won't go away?"
If Helen had uttered the reply that first rose in her mind, her words would have been, "I wish to heaven you would!" but she refrained, and saying, "No; no violence, Margaret," she ran up stairs to her own room, and seated herself near a little table, after locking the door.
What passed below she could not hear; but between that chamber and the next was a partition of old dark oak, not carved into panels, as in the rooms below, but running in long polished planks from the ceiling to the floor, with the edges rounded into mouldings, for the sake of some slight degree of ornament. They were tightly joined together, but still the words of any one speaking in a loud tone in the one room, could be heard in the other; and it seemed to Helen, from the pitch to which two or three of the voices were elevated, that one of the party at least in her uncle's chamber was somewhat hard of hearing. Her thoughts for a moment or two after she entered, were too much agitated for her to pay any particular attention; but all remained still below, and she said to herself, "He has gone in to wait for my father, or to sit down and rest himself, as he pretends, I dare say. I wonder how a gentleman can have recourse to such false excuses, and here I must be kept a prisoner till he chooses to go."
As she thus thought, some words from the neighbouring room caught her ear, and instantly fixed her attention. It was without design she listened: by an impulse that was irresistible. Her cheek turned paler than it was before; her lips parted with eagerness and apparent anxiety; and she put her hand to her brow, murmuring, "Good heaven! I hope my father has no share in all this! I will go down upon my knees to him, and beg him not to meddle with it." But the next moment other words were spoken, and the look of terror passed away from her beautiful face like a dark cloud from a summer sky. Then again the name of Sir Arthur Adelon was mentioned frequently, and again the cloud came over Helen's fair brow; but now there was surprise mingled with fear, for it was marvellous to her, that a man of great wealth, station, and respectability, should be implicated so deeply in the schemes which she heard.
About half an hour passed in this manner, and then the maid came up and tapped at her door, saying, "He is gone, Miss Helen:" and the fair prisoner, glad to be released, opened her door and descended to the room below. "What shall I do? How shall I act?" was Helen's first thought. "To betray them to justice I cannot, I must not; but yet it is very horrible. There will be terrible bloodshed! And Sir Arthur Adelon, too; who could ever have suspected that he would join them? Oh, I wish he would be warned! I will tell Eda. She has more power over him than any one, and he may be persuaded to refrain. My uncle will have his course; nothing will turn him, I am sure, and he will ruin himself utterly in the end; but I do hope and trust he will have no influence over my father. Oh, no! the men said he would have nought to do with it. But hark!"
There were steps heard descending. Two or three people quitted the house, and after a lapse of a few minutes, Norries entered the room with a calm, even cheerful countenance, and seated himself beside Helen.
"What is the matter, little pet?" he said. "You look sad and anxious. Is your arm paining you, my dear?"
"Oh, no!" replied Helen; "it has never pained me at all since it was set. I think it is quite well now."
"Who was that came in about half an hour ago?" asked Norries, somewhat abruptly. "I heard the bell ring, and a man's foot in the passage."
"It was Lord Hadley," answered Helen, colouring a little at the very mention of his name. "He came in to to wait for my father, I suppose, or upon some such excuse."
"My dear Helen," said Norries, laying his hand quietly upon hers, "have nought to do with him, see him as little as possible; for though to suspect you, my dear child, of anything that is wrong, is quite out of the question for those who know you, yet the frequent visits of men who, in our bad state of society, hold a rank far superior to your own, and especially of such a dissolute, thoughtless youth as this, may injure your fair fame with those who do not know you."
The kindly tone in which he spoke encouraged Helen; and looking up in his face, she said, "This is a subject on which I much wish to speak to you, for I dare not tell my father. I did not see Lord Hadley, my dear uncle, for I went to my own room the moment I saw him coming, and ordered the maid to tell him, if he asked for me, that I would not see him, in those plain terms."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Norries, now much interested; "then he must have done something very wrong, Helen."
"He has said things to me which I cannot repeat, my dear uncle," she replied, with a glowing face. "He wanted to persuade me to leave my father's house, and go away to London with him; and--and--he has behaved very ill to me, in short."
"Did he dare?" exclaimed her uncle, with his eyes flashing, and his cheek turning red. "Your father must know this, Helen."
"Oh, no, no!" cried Helen Clive; "I dare not tell him, indeed. I am sure if he knew all he would kill him on the spot. You know how very violent he is when he is made angry, and how angry he would be if he knew I had been insulted as I have been."
"I do know it well, Helen," replied Norries, thoughtfully, "and I will acknowledge yours is a difficult position. You are no coquette, my dear child, to give this man any encouragement, even at the first, before he had shown himself in his true colours; and I feel sure you have done your best to keep him from the house."
"Indeed I have," replied Helen Clive; "I have never liked him from the first, though I felt gratitude for the kindness which I received from him and his friend Mr. Dudley, and expressed it. But oh! how different has Mr. Dudley's conduct ever been. It was to him, indeed, I owed my safety, though the other was kind also at the time; but the very night when they had brought me here, he looked at me in a way--I cannot describe it--but it made me feel very uncomfortable."
"And Mr. Dudley has been always kind?" asked her uncle.
"I cannot tell you how kind," answered Helen. "His manner was so gentle, so like a gentleman; and he seemed to feel so much for me in every way, both when he was extricating me from the heap of stones and earth, and afterwards when I was anxious to let my father know what had happened, that I can never forget it; and then, when I saw him the day after, there was such a difference between his conduct and Lord Hadley's, that in any moment of danger I would have clung to him like a brother, while I shrunk from the other's very look. I did not know why then; but I know now."
"It is like the race of Dudley," replied Norries, and leaning his head upon his hand, he fell into deep and seemingly bitter thought. "How men may be led into great errors!" he exclaimed at length. "Helen, your father must know of all this; but I will tell him, and tell him why you dared not. That in itself will act as a check upon him; for with high hearts like his, to see the consequences of their passions is to regret them. But fear not, little pet, I will take care to tell him when he will have time for calm thought before he can act. Helen, it must be! A daughter must not show a want of confidence in her father."
"I would not for the world," replied Helen Clive; "but oh! take care, my dear uncle, for I tremble to think of the consequences."
"I will take care, poor thing," said Norries; "although, dear Helen, we must never think of consequences where a matter of right and duty is concerned; and now farewell." Thus saying, he took his departure, and left her, with an anxious mind and agitated heart, to await the coming events.