CHAPTER XXV.
"Ah, poor gentleman!" said Mr. Drayton, as the cavalcade passed quickly down the tortuous road through the park toward the gates, "I remember the time well when he went through the western counties in a sort of triumph like; when men and maidens turned out of every village and every town to meet him; when his horse's feet trod upon nothing but flowers, and the ringing of the bells kept all the country in a noise. Feasted at Longleet, met by all the gentry of the land, harangued by every corporation, the people made an idol of him, and the great men could not show him too much honor; I fear he will find it different now."
"Do you think the people have lost their love for him, then?" demanded Ralph, anxious to hear more of events which were passing so near, without any certainty having reached his ears.
"Not a whit, sir," answered the steward, "not a whit, if you mean the common people. They are more constant than gentlemen think. Why, they are flocking into Lyme in thousands, I am told. But with the gentry it is different. They courted him for interest--at least one half of them--and now for interest they will keep aloof. The Tories will stick by the crown right or wrong; and Whig gentlemen have a great notion of looking well before they leap. I would take any fair bet that the good duke will not find five men above the rank of a yeoman to join him before he fights a battle and wins it--if ever that should happen."
Ralph made no reply, although he doubted not that Mr. Drayton's anticipations were too true. He inquired, indeed, what was taking place in the country round; but the rumors--which were all that the steward could relate--were, as is always the case on such occasions, confused and various; and, after a time, Ralph begged the worthy man to send him his servant Stilling, in order to renew the conversation which had been broken off by Monmouth's arrival.
Mr. Drayton seemed to hesitate for an instant, and then said, frankly, "I think you had better let him alone, sir, just at present. Something has gone very wrong with him, that is clear. I saw him a minute or two ago walking up and down the stable-yard, and pinching his hands one in the other as if he would have screwed the blood out of his fingers' points. Poor fellow! I remember him a gay, blithesome lad in an attorney's office at Dorchester--a good education he had, Gaunt Stilling--but then the old lady got him a commission in the Tangier regiment, and he went away. He's mightily changed now; and yet he can't be much over thirty."
"So much?" said Ralph, in a tone of surprise; "but tell me, Master Drayton, do you know any thing of the cause of his present distress of mind? You seem to be well acquainted with his family."
"I have known them many years, sir," replied the steward, with a grave face. "As to what is the matter now, I don't exactly know any thing. The carrier brought over word some three weeks ago that his sister had been sent away from Lincolnshire by the old man, to get her from a young gentleman who wished to wrong her. The father brought her half the way, and her uncle went the other half to meet her. Now I fancy Gaunt has been over to see her. It's a bad business, I'm afraid; and the gentleman's name they talked of was the same as yours, sir."
As he spoke he fixed his eyes with an inquiring look upon Ralph's face, and the young gentleman felt himself redden as he recollected all he had seen and heard at Coldenham. He fancied, too, that there was some suspicion in the steward's eyes; and he hastened to reply, "Not mine exactly, sir, for there is no other of the name of Ralph Woodhall that I know; and I never saw poor Stilling's sister but once, and then only for a moment."
He spoke somewhat sharply, and Drayton replied in an apologetic tone, saying, "I beg pardon, sir; I did not at all mean that you were the gentleman--indeed I knew you were not; but I thought it might be some relation."
"Possibly," replied Ralph, not quite satisfied yet; "I know nothing of this matter, however; for, with the exception of the poor cousin whom I have lately lost, and his father, I have been on no terms of intimacy with any of my male relations."
"They are of high rank, sir, I believe," replied the steward, in a tone of inquiry.
But Ralph merely bowed his head, thinking it not necessary to enter into any part of his family history with a mere stranger. After a moment's pause, he said, "I will take your advice, Mr. Drayton, and leave poor Stilling alone for a time; but I think it would be as well to divert his thoughts after a short period from painful subjects of contemplation. I wish, therefore, that you would, without my sending for him, let him know that I wish him to go out in the afternoon and ascertain what is doing in the country. Tell him that I desire very precise and accurate information as to the movements of the Duke of Monmouth's forces and those of the king, for it can not be supposed that a large body in actual rebellion will be suffered much longer to move about the country unopposed."
"I don't know, sir," answered Mr. Drayton, shaking his head; "but sometimes governments are taken napping, and I think the only chance for the good duke would be to push on upon London at once. Bold counsels would bring many a man to his standard, for there is something catching in boldness as well as in fear. I doubt, however, that Stilling will learn much; for I have men all about who would bring me any tidings that are to be got, and they bring me nothing certain."
"I should wish him to go, nevertheless," replied Ralph. "It would serve to occupy his mind, and may, perhaps, furnish us with information even more valuable to your lady than myself."
The steward bowed and withdrew, and for an hour or two Ralph amused himself as best he might. To have seen him one would have supposed him of as idle a nature as ever existed. He opened no books; he had no inclination or application to read. He looked at no pictures, unless it were those of imagination. His mind had harder realities to deal with than those which any canvas can display. The greater part of his time was passed in gazing forth from the windows upon the wide, wavy scene without, which afforded, as it were, a stage sufficiently extensive and ample for all persons in the drama of fancy to play their several parts before his eyes. Oh, how memory and imagination conjured up, from the depths of the past, from the depths of the future, scenes and characters which might all bear their share in the tragedy about to be performed in the land! A gloomy anticipation, a dark but too true shadowing forth of the stern, terrible acts that were about to take place, visited the young man's mind; and he felt that sensation of awe, that sublime, dreadful expectation, which is experienced by a spectator viewing from a height the thunder-cloud marching onward over a sunny land, soon to be left desolate, or the tempest riding over a calm sea, and piling up the glassy waters into surges full of shipwreck and of death.
The minutes glided by almost unnoted; and then, seating himself again at a table, a strange fancy seized him of writing down the thoughts of the moment--the reflections--the anticipations, which rose one by one as he considered the circumstances that surrounded him.
It was a dangerous amusement. Written thoughts, as undigested--as carelessly recorded--as immaturely gathered--as inconsequent and undirected, had aided not a little, in the last reign, to bring the head of the gallant Sydney to the scaffold; but yet the impulse was upon him; and he did not even strive to resist it, but eat and thought, and wrote, and thought, and wrote again.
The day had declined, and evening was not far off, when Gaunt Stilling entered the room abruptly, saying, "There has been a bit of a battle, sir, at Bridport, and the duke's troops have been repulsed. It was plowman against plowman, and the duke's plowmen would have won the day if Lord Grey and his horse had not ran at the first fire."
"Who is Lord Grey?" asked Ralph, in a quiet tone.
"Oh, the duke's general of horse," answered Stilling, with a laugh. "A gentleman very bold in words, and brave enough, they say, in presence of a hangman or a judge; but he does not like the nasty smell of gunpowder, and eschews push of pike."
"Have you any other tidings?" inquired his master.
"Oh yes, plenty," answered Stilling; "the Duke of Albemarle--who is more, by-the-way, of a monk than his father--is marching to attack the duke with the militia. He will be beaten, of course; for, where Monmouth is in person, the people will fight like wolves, and he is no bad general either. That will be a feather in his cap, and may bring some people in. But then Feversham is marching down with three or four regular regiments--my old comrades among the rest. Now Monmouth is worth twenty Frenchmen, and Feversham is only fit for a court supper; but then there is Churchill with the Blues already in the field, and he will give the good duke some trouble, or I mistake my man. But I forgot to tell you, sir, that my Lady Danvers was coming down the hill as I passed; and she will be here in a minute or two, for they were going at a great rate, not liking, I suspect, the sounds of war that were whizzing all round them."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Ralph, starting up eagerly; "I will go to meet her. She comes by the western gates, I suppose?"
"Oh yes, sir, by the west," replied Gaunt Stilling, gazing after his master as he hurried toward the door; and then, as the young gentleman disappeared, the man muttered between his teeth, "Fickle--fickle, like all the rest. What matters it what falls upon him--they are all alike. This girl has captivated his eye, and little cares he how many hearts he breaks. Ah! what a cursed thing it is to be a gentleman, and what fools those are who strive to rise above humble station, to be a prey to the next bigger beast than themselves!"
In the mean while, without hearing or heeding his servant's comments, Ralph had snatched up his hat which lay in the passage, and hurried out down the walks toward the great gates. The little cavalcade was already in sight--the great lumbering vehicle, and the horsemen who accompanied and followed it. It were vain to say that Ralph did not behold it joyfully, or that the coming of Hortensia was not pleasant to him. At the very lowest estimate, it was an agreeable relief to the dull monotony of the life he had been leading. But then there was much more: her grace, her beauty, the charm of her manner and her conversation, shed a light around, like that of the sunshine, which brings out the beauty of even the dullest scenes, when it can reach and enrich them with its varying splendor. With her, too, he could consult, confer, and determine; and action, which seemed to him like life, promised to commence with her coming.
With well-pleased looks, then, he hurried on, and met the carriage half way through the park. He did not approach unmarked; for, whether she expected him or not, Hortensia saw him afar, and bade the coachman stop. When he came near, she alighted, looking, as he thought, more beautiful than ever; and placing her hand within his arm, directed the rest to go on, saying she would walk up to the house. There was a sweet, tender placidity in her look--a gently-moved calmness, which was very lovely in itself; and as she leaned upon Ralph's arm, while the servants hurried on, obeying with due discretion the orders they had received, she looked up in her young companion's face, as if to see how much he had suffered--what ravages thought and remorse had effected in his appearance since they parted.
Her first question, however, referred to things very different from the subject which was uppermost in her thoughts. "I hope," she said, "that my cousin, Lady Di Fullerton, has taken good care of you. Ralph, I have been a sad, weary time upon the journey; but coaches move slowly."
"I doubt not, dear Lady Danvers," replied Ralph, with a faint smile, "that Lady Diana would have taken good care of me had she been here; but--"
"Is she not here?" exclaimed Hortensia, in an eager tone, with the blood suddenly rushing up into her cheek, more from surprise and the sudden pressure of many strange considerations in her mind than from any great disappointment or annoyance. "Why did she not come? She must have received my letter?"
"She was too, ill to come," replied Ralph; "but I fear my stay may be inconvenient to you--perhaps not quite right. There can be no harm or danger in my going forward at once on my way."
"Ralph," exclaimed Hortensia, in a somewhat reproachful tone, "you do not think me so weak--so foolish! Surely, if my good name be so frail a thing as not to bear the giving shelter in an hour of danger to the son of my mother's dearest friend, it were little worth the keeping. You stay, Ralph--you stay, if you have any regard for me! No, no, it matters not. I asked my good cousin out of deference to the cold world's opinion. Having done that, I have done enough."
Well may prophets, and, by their tongues, the great Creator of the human heart, declare that it is the most deceitful of all things; for any one who has ever rendered the secrets of the dark, mysterious cavern of his own bosom objective to the analysis of reason, must have recoiled from the scrutiny, deterred by the fearful complications which the eye, at one glance, can perceive. How far--and how far willingly--Lady Danvers was deceiving herself, it is hardly necessary to inquire. It is quite unnecessary, and would be useless, to attempt to trace all the tortuous and darkling passages by which the deception crept along. Certain it is, however, she had persuaded herself that the son of her mother's dearest friend--of her adopted sister--stood toward her almost in the relation of a brother; that she could not do too much for him; that she could do nothing within the bounds of modesty and honor that was not justifiable and justified in the bright, clear, piercing eye of heaven.
Strong in the rectitude and purity of her own purpose, she cared little for the dull, dark, earthy eye of the world. But she little recollected that there is a misty, shadowy land, between the pellucid light above and the coarse darkness below, where the phantoms of associations hover between the two--ever beheld from the one realm, and sometimes too clearly displayed to the other. She did not ask herself--she did not venture to ask herself--what personal feelings, what mortal affections were stealing in and mingling unperceived with the calm, unselfish, soulful memories which had first drawn her thoughts to Ralph Woodhall. She knew not--she would not know--that there was any difference whatsoever in her feelings toward him, as they walked there in her own park side by side, from those with which she had first beheld him at the Duke of Norfolk's house, a stranger in all but memories. She loved to call him to herself--to think of him in her own mind as her brother Ralph. Oh, cunning heart, how skillful art thou even in snatching the artifice of indistinct words to veil thy workings from the deceived eye of thy master. She would not have called him Mr. Woodhall now for the world. It would have broken the spell--destroyed the illusion. He would have been no longer her brother, but her lover--or him whom she loved. The very thought that her heart could have been so far given, as it really was, to one who had never sought or asked it, would have been death to her; for, with all the warm tenderness of her feelings, the deep, strong, enthusiastic tone of her affections, she had every quality of a true woman: that nearest approach to the angel which the latter world has ever seen.
Let the cold argue against such things. Let the worldly. Argue, ye bound up, molded, fettered in the strong conventionalities of a false and factitious state; ye who are tutored from the nursery to the altar, to bend your wills and crush your hearts before the great world's god, Convenience. In that age--base, corrupt, debased as it was--one of the worst that earth has ever seen--in the reaction--in the rebellion of man's heart and soul against the iron tyranny of a cold and false fanaticism, there were glorious instances of pure and true devotion, of strong and deep affection, of passion above license, of morality beyond decorum, which are rarely seen now when the fire of fanaticism is extinguished, and the rigid rules of a cynical religion have been superseded by the gilded but unsubstantial fetters of an eye-serving propriety. Nay, more, the most licentious chronicle of the scandals of that age, the witty scoffer at every virtue, the pleasant companion of every vice, has been the one to record some of the brightest exceptions to the system in which he moved and had his being.
The freedom of the times; the liberty of thought and action in which she had been brought up; the independence of all conventional forms, except those of courtly ceremony, which prevailed during the whole time of her youth; the very dangers, difficulties, intrigues, cabals, slaughter, agitation, and extraordinary circumstances which marked the latter years of Charles the Second, had rendered Hortensia independent, from a very early period, of the world's opinion; and in the case of Ralph Woodhall, she had already paid it more deference than she was ever inclined to pay.
True, had she asked her own heart why she had yielded thus far to a power she contemned and despised, she might have found there was a weakness in her own bosom which counseled caution. But she would ask her own heart nothing, as I have before said. Like an unskillful general, in the certainty of some strong points--honor, uprightness, purity, and truth--she thought her position impregnable, and made no allowance for the easy slope of passion, or the covert ways of love.
Thus onward she walked with Ralph, repelling the very thought of his quitting her house on account of what the world might say with utter scorn. I know not whether the thought ever presented itself to her mind that there was an easy way of silencing the tongue of scandal by uniting their fate forever; I rather think not; but I am quite sure that such a thought never crossed the mind of Ralph. However, if she was satisfied, he had no cause to be otherwise; for he was not such a Quixote in delicacy as to fear that which, with her better knowledge, she did not fear.
He laughed gayly, then--more gayly than he had done for many a day--saying, "Well, dear Lady Danvers, I only sought to show my devotion to your will by my readiness to go, rather than put you in unpleasant circumstances; but, at the same time, I must tell you that no such dangers exist in my case as you have been led to suppose. My poor cousin Henry, by whosesoever hand he fell, owes not his death to me. I would have sacrificed any thing but honor rather than have crossed swords with him. My long absence from the inn, which perhaps you may have heard of, and which might have given time, though barely, for me to return to Norwich, can be every moment accounted for."
"Ay, that is what has puzzled me," said Hortensia, before he had quite concluded what he had to say; "two different accusations have been brought against you--at first sight incompatible with each other: the one, that you went back to Norwich, fought, and slew your cousin Henry; the other, that you passed several hours in comforting and consoling the unhappy family of the poor Nonconformist minister. But I made anxious inquiry of the people at the inn, and none could tell me at what hour you returned. They said you must have stabled and groomed your horse yourself; and I concluded that some mistake had been made about the hour of the duel; for every thing I had heard before we set out, and every thing contained in the Duke of Norfolk's private letter to myself, seemed to prove that such a duel had taken place."
"I never quitted the town," replied Ralph; "I never took my horse from the stable; and in regard to the duel, I had not the most remote idea that such a lamentable event had taken place till I arrived in these domains."
"Nay, I doubt you not in the least," replied Hortensia; "but, though guiltless of your cousin's death, and though you could prove your innocence completely, which might be more difficult than you imagine, your situation would still be one of imminent peril, and you must not think of stirring from this house so long as you can be here in safety--how long that may be, in these distracted times, who can say?"
"But what is the peril, dear lady?" asked Ralph; "my innocence of my cousin's death can surely be easily proved, for I can account for every moment of my time."
"Did any one see you return to the inn?" asked Lady Danvers; "I made inquiries, and all the servants of the house assured me that such was not the case."
Ralph mused for a moment or two, and then replied, "It is very strange; I do not recollect having seen any one. I entered by the door from the stable-yard, saw a light burning in the entrance, took it up, and went straight to my own room."
"At what hour was this?" asked Hortensia.
"I can not well say," replied Ralph; "it must have been after ten, but I think before eleven."
"The duke's letter to myself," replied Lady Danvers, "said the hour of the duel was some time between ten and twelve. Now, Ralph, consider upon what nice calculations your fate might depend. Those who know you well will have no doubt; but those who do not know you--a prejudiced judge--perhaps a packed jury, will at all events suspect, and if they do suspect, your death would be the consequence."
"Nay, I can not think that," answered Ralph Woodhall; "duels occur every day; and where there is no dishonorable act accompanying them, we never hear of any such severity."
"But you deny the duel," said Lady Danvers; "you can not admit that it took place, if it did not. Yet certain is it that your cousin sent you a challenge for that very hour--that he met some one--that the meeting took place at night--that there were no witnesses--and that he was killed. Your very denial of the meeting would be construed into a consciousness of guilt in the transaction."
The color had been mounting higher and higher in Ralph's cheek every moment, as he saw the extraordinary complication of circumstances which rendered it difficult for him to prove his innocence, and was almost led to fancy that Hortensia believed him guilty still. "Upon my honor as a man, and my faith as a Christian, dear Lady Danvers," he said, "I had no share in this transaction whatsoever."
Hortensia laid her beautiful hand gently on his arm, and replied, looking full in his face, "And upon my honor and faith, Ralph Woodhall, I believe you; but I mentioned other perils besides these. The magistrates, it is true, dismissed the charge against you of attempting to rescue old Mr. Calloway, the Nonconformist preacher; but hardly had you left the town, when it was discovered that you had passed a considerable portion of the night with the family of that poor, persecuted man. You know how severe the laws are upon that subject, and how tyrannically they are exercised. It was proved that several other persons had visited the house that night as well as yourself; they were all arrested and committed to prison. A new charge of attending a night conventicle, contrary to law, was preferred against you, and a warrant was immediately issued for your apprehension. The case would be a perilous one at any time; but since this rash insurrection by the Duke of Monmouth, the great leader of the Calvinistic party, the dangers would be incalculable, even were not the matter complicated by other serious accusations. Nay, nay, you must stay here, Ralph, till we may find means of getting you out of the country. Monmouth must be mad, I think, or fearfully misinformed."
We often find that when the mind is bewildered by considerations too intricately tangled and commixed to be easily separated and reduced to order, it receives the first pretext that presents itself to fly to some other theme, however irrelevant or unimportant, as if to refresh itself before it returns to its more laborious task. Such was probably the case with Ralph Woodhall; for, without pursuing the subject of his own fate further, he said, "I forgot to mention that the Duke of Monmouth was here this morning, and stayed for more than an hour."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Lady Danvers, in a tone of no very great satisfaction; "I wish he had stayed away. I can never forgive him."
"He also left a packet for you," said Ralph, "committing it to my charge, and saying that it contained a letter for you from an old and dear friend, who still loved you well."
"Alas! alas!" replied Lady Danvers, "poor Henrietta! where once she loves, she loves forever. Love has been her ruin and her blight; for she was never taught that there are higher and holier things than even love. Let us go in, Ralph; I must read her letter, for she is still very dear to me."