The Forgery; or, Best Intentions.

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XXXVII.

The clock had not struck eight when Maria entered the library at Milford. The servants had just quitted the room: and through the open windows came the perfumed breath of summer, bearing from wild banks, no one knew where, the odours of the honeysuckle and the eglantine. The soft, early beams of unconfirmed day stole in, and streaked the floor with long rays of light; and a merry bird was singing without, in harmony with the fragrance and the sunshine. Joyful to the light heart, soothing to the memories of sorrow, the sweet, calm things of nature are painful to anxiety and dread. They raise not, they speak not of hope. The song of the bird, the odour of the flower, the gleam of the sunshine, are then like the farewell, the parting kiss, the last long look.

Maria felt sadly depressed as she entered the room. At first she did not see her lover, for he was standing in one of the deep windows; but the opening door and her light step instantly called him forth to meet her.

"Thanks, dear one and kind one!" he said, drawing her towards him and kissing her; "you are earlier than I expected, my Maria, but not earlier than I hoped. You are pale, my love: have you rested well?"

Maria shook her head with a sigh.

"How could I rest well with such apprehensions, Henry?" she asked. "I watched with thought till nearly two, and thought again awoke me. But tell me now, Henry, what danger menaces? Your words last night alarmed me sadly."

"No danger, I trust, dear Maria," he answered; "and I did not mean to express any apprehension or to excite any in you; but I thought it best to let you know that the hour of struggle is approaching, in order that you might be prepared for it. Indeed, dearest Maria, it is for your agitation that I fear and feel, more than for any peril to myself, of which I believe here is little or none; but I cannot help being grieved that your love for me should bring even one cloud over the sunshine of a life that I would fain render all bright. I saw how you were agitated when I arrived yesterday; I saw that you had been anxious and apprehensive regarding me; and I asked myself what right I had to make you, whose fate has been shaped in the fairest mould of fortune, take part in the darker lot of one who has been too often the sport of adversity."

"Every right--every right, Henry," she answered warmly; "or at least the best right--the right of affection. But let me share all your thoughts. Do you know, in spite of all you have said, I am half jealous of Anne Mellent. Not that I dream you love her; for I have trust and confidence enough to know that you would never tell me you love me were such the case--and, indeed, what motive could you have? Nor is it that I fancy she loves you; for I have known her from infancy, and never saw the least cloud dim her pure, high heart; but, Henry, it seems as if you had more confidence in her than in me."

He had listened with a smile till she uttered the last words, but then he eagerly replied--

"No! oh, no, dear Maria! do not fancy that for one moment. But perhaps I have been wrong. I should have told you before that she knows more than you do, from other sources. Her father was intimate with one now no more, of whom I will utter no reproachful word, although, to save and screen him, the bright early part of youth has been sacrificed by me. In a word, Maria, she possesses a power over my fate which no other human being has; and frankly and generously she is disposed to use it for my best happiness; making no condition, but only asking as a favour that I will let her unravel the web in her own way. Can I-- could I--refuse her, dear Maria? But yet it is needful that we should often consult together; for, though she suggests most of the steps to be taken, and has bound me by a promise to be silent to every one as to the motives on which she acts, it is very necessary that I should point out to her, from time to time, consequences which, in her somewhat wild and fanciful moods, she does not see."

"Well," replied Maria, with a faint smile, "I suppose an explanation must soon come, and I do believe she loves me as a sister."

"She does indeed," replied Henry; "and this very day all will be explained, I doubt not. But now, dear girl, let me tell you that which is likely immediately to occur. By some means, your uncle, Mr. Scriven, has become fully convinced of my identity with the poor lad whom he pursued so eagerly ten years ago. I know not well how he was first put upon the track, but I imagine by some imprudence----"

"Oh, my aunt Fleetwood! my aunt Fleetwood!" said Maria, with a sigh. "She, I know, told him--with the best intentions--all that she suspects herself; but still she has nothing but suspicion, nor can he have more."

"Yes, indeed," replied Henry; "he has conviction and proof--whether legal or not I do not know; but at all events such is the case, and of course my conduct must soon be determined. Indeed, Mr. Scriven himself is resolved to bring matters to an issue; and from the information I received yesterday in the park, he will probably be here this very day, to point me out as Henry Hayley and charge me openly with a felony."

"And what do you intend to do?" demanded Maria, with an expression full of terror. "Oh, Henry! would it not be better to go away?"

"No, dear girl--no!" he answered; "that cannot be. I will never fly again: indeed, I have now no object. I will meet him face to face, hear all he has to say, let him make his charge, and cast it back upon his own head."

Maria gazed at him in some surprise, for he spoke very sternly; and she asked, in a low and anxious tone--

"But how will you meet the charge, Henry? Will you defy him to prove your identity? or will you acknowledge your own name, and disprove the charge of forgery by the papers of which you told me?"

"Alas, dear Maria! those papers are destroyed," said Henry; and in a few words he told her the fate that had befallen his pocket-book. "Most unfortunately," he added, "I took it with me that very night I was attacked. It was the first time I had carried it for some years; but I was anxious to trace out my mother's family, and in that pocket-book I had put down all the information I had ever gleaned upon the subject."

"But this is ruin, Henry; oh, this is ruin!" exclaimed Maria, in an agony of alarm. "Indeed, indeed, it will be better to fly! Oh, do, Henry--do! I--I will go with you if you wish. He will never, surely, persecute his niece's husband."

"As bitterly as a stranger," answered her lover, gravely; "but no, Maria--dear, generous girl!--no! I will not take advantage even of that kind, noble offer. Nor do I think----"

"But how can you prove your innocence without those papers?" she asked, interrupting him, "especially that declaration of your father?"

"I think I can," he answered; "nay, I am sure I can--thanks to dear Lady Anne. How I shall act must be regulated by circumstances. We have determined to let him evolve his own plans step by step. Excellent Mr. Hargrave is fully in our confidence; and by his advice I will in some degree be guided. What I wished to say now, however, more particularly, is this, dearest girl--I think it would be better for you not to be present at the scene which must ensue upon your uncle's arrival."

"No, Henry--no!" she said; "do not ask that of me. I have promised to be yours--I am yours; and in weal or woe I will stand by your side."

"But it is not alone on account of anything that may happen to me that I make the request," answered Henry, "but because, dearest girl, there may be words spoken, regarding your uncle's conduct towards me and mine, which it may be painful for you to hear. He forces me to meet him as an enemy. If he shows forbearance, so will I; but if he does not--if his hatred and his vindictiveness push him to the last extreme--the accumulated wrongs of many years will find a voice, and a more powerful one, perhaps, than he imagines."

"Stay--let me think a moment," she replied; and then added, after a very short pause, "No, Henry--I thank you much; but I will adhere to my first purpose--I will be present at the whole. It may be painful--nay, it must be so in every way; but still I say, I will stand by your side in all, and will not be scared away by any fears of pain to myself."

"May you have your reward, dear, noble girl!" replied Henry; "and if a life devoted to you can prove my gratitude, that evidence shall not be wanting. My only anxiety is to spare you pain, my Maria; for I tell you, for myself I have no fears. I am sure--I am confident--that my character and my conduct will come out of the trial pure and unstained; and, were it not for the agitation that must befal you in such a scene, I should wish you to hear every word that may be spoken both against me and for me. But I will not try to shake your purpose. It is noble, and high, and like yourself; and I am sure that a compensation will follow for the painful emotions you must undergo, by joyful and well-satisfied feelings hereafter. And now, dear Maria, come out for a while to walk on this sunshiny terrace. We need now have no concealment from any one, for the time is very near when all must be explained."

"Your words comfort me, Henry," replied Maria, "and yet I cannot help feeling alarm; but I will try not to think of what is coming, and enjoy our short hour of happiness without the alloy of painful anticipations."

For twenty minutes they walked backwards and forwards upon the terrace in the bright sunshine. The morning was cool, for the sun had not yet heated the sky; the air was fresh and clear, for the ground was high. The clouds, as they floated along, mingling with the sunshine, produced gleams of purple and gold upon the slopes of the park and the brown mountain tops rising beyond; and Maria, now less anxious, felt that there is a voice speaking of hopes and consolations within the blessed and beautiful bosom of Mature, such as no mortal tongue can afford. Their conversation, too, was very sweet; for both strove to banish, even from memory, that there were dangers in the future, and to fill the present with happy dreams; while still through all came the mellowing shade of past emotions, gently and lightly touching the heart, and making the thrill of strong affection all the more exquisite. At the end of that time Lady Anne joined them, without bonnet or shawl, as gay as ever, as bright, as joyous.

"Is not this delightful, Maria?" she said, as she felt the morning air fanning her cheek, "Who would lag in cities, with their dull clouds and close atmosphere, when there are such scenes and such air as this? When I have lived in London for a fortnight, I wonder at myself. I feel as if I were a stuffed chameleon in a glass case, and have a great inclination to tell my maid to take me out and dust me."

While she was thus speaking, she turned her eyes once to Henry's countenance, and then added abruptly--

"You've been telling her. I see it in both your faces. Whenever Maria's eyebrow goes up in that way, I am sure there is something very busy in her mind. You have been telling her."

"Not more than you permitted," replied Henry. "I have only been preparing her for what must come."

"Foolish man!" cried Lady Anne; "do you not know that you should never prepare a woman's mind for anything? Pain and fear are not like butter or gold, that you can spread out to an infinite thinness. You only augment them by stretching them out through time, without diminishing their weight one grain. Let everything take a woman by surprise; then she will bear up much better under it, for it is once for all."

"But often," replied Henry, "the surprise greatly increases the pain; and I did think that it was absolutely necessary, not only to tell her what was coming, but to assure her that, whatever appearance things might put on, there was little real danger."

"If you were driving a pair of fresh young horses in a curricle, would you say to her, 'The brutes have run away, but do not fear; I will get you safely round that corner, which looks as if it would dash our brains out?' But never mind. I tell you, dear Maria, that there is not the least danger." Such was Lady Anne's reply.

"And now," she added, "let us go and take a walk farther in the park."

"Will you not put something on?" asked Maria. "You will catch cold."

"Not I," answered Lady Anne: "I am so full of warm, high spirits, that nothing, cold can get in. I feel like a general, who is sure of winning, just preparing for a battle. So let us go."

They walked for nearly an hour, and as they were returning they saw a gentleman's carriage standing before the door of the house.

"That's either Sir Harry Henderson or Colonel Mandrake," said Lady Anne. "I hope Mr. Hargrave is down, for I never saw them or heard of them before, yet I have invited them both to breakfast; but still we must get home and be civil. I did not know it was near nine o'clock."

The carriage moved round towards the stables; and as they entered the door of the house, Lady Anne asked a servant who was standing there if Mr. Gunnel had arrived.

"Yes, my lady," replied the man; "he is waiting in the housekeeper's room."

"You go and talk to him, Henry," said Lady Anne; "Maria, come with me, and help me to entertain these county magistrates."

Lady Anne, however, did not find the persons she expected in the drawing-room. Lady Fleetwood was there, and Mr. Winkworth, but neither Mr. Hargrave nor the two gentlemen just arrived. It would seem as if excellent Lady Fleetwood had a sort of presentiment of a coming bustle, for all her good intentions and her little anxieties were in a flutter. She declared that she had been very anxious about Maria, when she heard she had gone out so early, and begged her to recollect that Northumberland was very different from the neighbourhood of London, and that colds were easily caught, but not easily got rid of; adding a number of sage observations of the same kind, much to the amusement of Lady Anne. Then turning upon her fair hostess, she informed her, "that one of the servants had been seeking her, as two gentlemen had just arrived to breakfast," adding, "that they seemed friends of Mr. Hargrave's, who had gone away with them to the library."

"Well," answered Lady Anne, "I dare say he'll soon bring them out again, and so I shall wait here till he does." Nor was she disappointed in her expectation; for in about five minutes Mr. Hargrave returned, with one tall and one short elderly gentleman, who were introduced to Lady Anne in turn, and then to her various guests. Colonel Middleton entered as the ceremony was going on, and to him especially Mr. Hargrave presented the two magistrates, whose demeanour somewhat surprised Maria; for, while tall Colonel Mandrake addressed her lover with a sort of dignified deference, fat little Sir Harry Henderson was all bows and scrapes. Henry received them frankly, but calmly; and a moment or two after, Lady Anne led the way to the breakfast-room. There the meal passed pleasantly enough, no one seeming anxious but Maria; no one showing herself fidgetty but Lady Fleetwood. That dear lady, indeed, did her best to create several little disorders; but, even with the best intentions, she was unsuccessful. A treat, however, was in store for her; for breakfast was just over, and the party had hardly sauntered into the drawing-room, when a post-chaise-and-four rushed up to the doors, and in a minute after the butler appeared, announcing Mr. Scriven.