CHAPTER XXIX.
The Young Lovers.—The Gallant of a Hundred Years Since.—Hopes and Fears.—The Dream of a True Heart.
It was several moments before Ada or Albert Seyton could speak from excess of joyful emotion, and it was then the drawling, affected voice of the beau that recalled them to a consciousness of where they were, and that some one besides themselves was in the world.
“’Pon honour—really—damme!” cried Ada’s persecutor. “This is extraordinary.”
“Sir,” said Albert Seyton.
“Well, sir,” said the beau.
“I thought you spoke to me.”
“’Pon honour no; I wouldn’t condescend on any account. Oh, no, ’pon honour.”
“I have no desire for your conversation,” said Albert, turning his back to him.
“My dear, my charming, delicious damsel,” sais the beau, smiling at Ada.
“Do you know, sir,” said Albert rising, “that it is a high crime to commit an assault in the Park?”
“Well, ’pon honour what then?”
“Only this, that if you will come outside the gates, I’ll cane you within an inch of your life.”
“Eh, oh—a perfect savage—a wild beast, ’pon honour,” said the beau, making a precipitate retreat.
“Oh, Harry; dear, dear Harry!” said Albert; “by what kind mercy of Heaven are you here?”
“Albert, do not call me Harry.”
“My own girl, I know you by no other name. I am not surprised to see you in these becoming garments.”
“You—you did not know—”
“That my playmate, Harry, was a beautiful girl,” interrupted Albert. “No—I did not—my father it was who first breathed the suspicion that such was the fact. And now tell me some dear feminine name to call you by.”
“My name is Ada.”
“Ada? A charm is in the sound. My own dear, dear Ada. How came you here—have you thought of me? Where is your uncle? Are you happy—dear Ada, are you glad, to see me?”
“Albert,” said Ada, smiling through her tears, “I will answer your last question first—I am glad to see you, so very glad that I could weep for joy.”
“Nay, dear Ada, weep not. You shall never weep again if Albert Seyton can save a tear from dimming your eyes.”
“I know it,” said Ada; “you were ever kind to the poor persecuted Ada.”
“I loved you, Ada.”
“Oh, Albert; I have passed through such horrors since we met.”
“Horrors, Ada?”
“Yes; and even now I shudder to think of my situation. I am destitute, homeless, hopeless.”
“No, Ada,” said Albert; “there you wrong yourself and my love; destitute you cannot be while I have an arm to labour for you—homeless you shall not be, for my father, who is an honourable gentleman, will love you as his adopted daughter. Can you then call yourself friendless, Ada?”
“Albert, I am—I am.”
“What, Ada; what can you be but what I know you are—all truth, all innocence and virtue?”
“Suppose—suppose,” gasped Ada, looking beseechingly in Albert’s face, as if her whole existence hung upon his reply—“suppose my name was a disgrace.”
“A disgrace?”
“Yes; suppose I had found a father whose hands were stained with blood.”
“Oh, no—no—Ada. This is some chimera of your own overwrought fancy.”
“Suppose it’s true, Albert Seyton; could you—dared you then call me your Ada?”
“I could—I dared.”
“If—I were—the child of a—a—”
“A what?”
“A murderer!”
Albert took her hand gently and tenderly.
“Ada,” he said, “crime is not hereditary. You are sinless, spotless, and if I desert you because you may have the misfortune to be the child of one who is guilty, may God desert me in my utmost need.”
“Albert,” sobbed Ada, “I—I do not believe it; but it is a remote possibility that Jacob Gray is my father.”
“Nor do I believe it,” said Albert, “’Tis against all nature—depend upon it, Ada, it is not true.”
“But—but if it were?”
“My Ada,” was his only reply, accompanied by a smile that fell like sunlight on the young girl’s innocent heart.
“You would not, even then, despise me, Albert?” she said.
“Despise you? Oh how can you associate that word with yourself? Despise you, Ada; if you knew the weary miles I have traversed in search of you, you would then feel how truly my happiness is wound up in yours. Not a street, court, or lane in the great city, has been un-trodden by me to look for you since your sudden departure from Mrs. Strangeways.”
“My uncle hurried me from there to a more secret place of concealment. We have now for some time inhabited a dilapidated house in Lambeth, which you might pass a hundred times, and never guess that aught human lodged within its crumbling walls.”
“And still you know not the cause of all this mystery?”
“No; all is dark and mysterious as ever, Albert, except my name, my Christian name, and that in a moment of unguarded passion, Jacob Gray let slip from his lips. Oh, you know not what a pleasure it was to me, in my desolation, to find I had a right to a name.”
“My poor Ada.”
“Yes, Albert, I am your poor Ada.”
“But rich in all true wealth, beauty, innocence, and dear virtue, such as no gold can buy.”
“The kind words of those who love are so very grateful,” sighed Ada, “and they are so new to me.”
“Tell me all that has happened to you since we last parted,” said Albert. “My own history is very shortly summed up. My father, remained some few weeks longer at Mrs. Strangeways, and then having by dint of earnest applications and remonstrances, procured some portion of what was his due from the Government, we have come close here by Buckingham House, and I am myself in the hope of procuring a situation as private secretary to a man, they say, of enormous wealth and great liberality.”
“I joy in your prospects,” said Ada. “Alas! Mine is a darker retrospect—a gloomier future.”
“Nay, Ada, our happiness must go hand-in-hand; or farewell to it for Albert Seyton.”
Ada sighed.
“You forget, Albert, that I am beset with difficulties—strange mysteries are around me; who and what I am, even, I know not; although perhaps my ignorance is my greatest joy, while it is my constant source of anxiety, for I have hope now which might by a knowledge of the truth be extinguished for ever.”
“Your hope shall become a bright certainty,” said Albert, fervently; “and now, tell me, Ada, of your present situation. You have more freedom, or you would not be in the Great Mall of St. James’s Park.”
“My freedom is but transitory,” sighed Ada.
“How so?”
“Last night there came with furious knocking at our house, two men. My uncle said they came to take his life and mine, but that, not finding me, they would allow him to escape.”
“’Tis very strange.”
“He urged me then to change my boyish clothing for these garments. I resisted his request; he implored me—begged of me to do so, saying that those who sought me knew me but as a boy, and would allow a girl to pass out unmolested. Still I refused, for he had taken the life of a poor dog that loved me, and my mind was sore against him. He kneeled to me, wept, and at the last moment declared himself my father and a murderer!”
“Good Heavens!”
“Yes; the words fell like a thunderbolt on my heart. The men were at the door; there was not time to think. With frantic speed I did his bidding.”
“And the plan succeeded?”
“It did. With wondering looks they let me pass. I wandered I know not where;—to some bridge I came at length, and there, as I lay crouching from the cold of the raw morning, one of the men passed over.”
“One of those who sought Jacob Gray?”
“Yes, the most violent. There, within my hearing, he had an altercation with a poor mad wanderer, from whom I heard his name.”
“His name, Ada?—It may afford some clue.”
“It may. She called him Andrew Britton.”
“Andrew Britton!—I will not forget.”
“He attempted her murder. My screams, I believe, saved her life.”
“And their discourse, Ada?—What said they?”
“Their speech was of some child to whom great wrong had been done years since. Oh, Albert, my heart told me it was of me they spoke.”
“Could you learn nothing of the woman?”
“Alas! No. Her wits were gone. She wandered strangely in her speech; madness had taken possession of her, and she, who seemed to know the mystery which envelopes me, could not shape her thoughts to tell me.”
“Heaven, Ada, will work out your deliverance in its own good time from this tangled web of guilt and mystery that is cast around you. I still think, as I thought before, that the packet which Gray keeps so carefully concealed would unravel all.”
“And perhaps destroy him!”
“It might be so.”
“Then, Albert, arises the terrible doubt that bad, wicked, cruel as he is, he may be the father of the wretched Ada.”
“I cannot for one moment think so,” said Albert; “and yet, I own the thought is terrible.”
“If we err, Albert, oh, let us err safely. I cannot call down upon him the vengeance of the laws he has outraged. If some proposal could be made to him, by which he might be induced to tell the truth, upon an assurance of safety from the consequences, I might be saved the bitter pang of betraying my own father, guilty though he may be.”
“You are right, Ada,” said Albert; “that is the best, the surest, and the most merciful course. My father will undertake to make such terms with Jacob Gray. He will be mild, yet firm.”
“That would be joy indeed,” said Ada.
“It shall be done. Dear Ada, a happier future is brightening before you. The past will seem like an envious dream that has only robbed you of a few hours of sunshine and joy.”
“Oh, would I could think so!” said Ada.
“It will—it must be so!” cried Albert, with a full face of animation. “Come with me now to my father, and we will concert all necessary measures.”
“I think,” said Ada, “that if this matter can be arranged with Gray, as we wish, he must be taken completely by surprise, or all will be lost. If he have time to hide the papers, or to concoct some deception, we shall gain nothing.”
“That is true, Ada, but how can we do as you wish:“
“Thus,” replied Ada. “I will show you the house, and expecting you and your father at a particular hour, I can direct you. Then there can be no time for Gray even to think of any but a straightforward course of action.”
“But—but,” said Albert, “that involves your return to—to—Gray—and—”
“Oh, heed not that, Albert. A few short hours, blessed as they will be by the conviction that they are the last, will seem nothing in that house, where for so long I have been immured secretly during the light of day, and with no companion to cheer, my solitude but a poor dumb creature, that could but look its kindness and gratitude.”
“And yet, Ada, my heart is very sad at the mere thought of your returning.”
“And so would mine be, Albert, were it not with the assurance of so soon bidding adieu to those gloomy walls for ever.”
“I suppose it must be so,” said Albert with a sigh. “I will only just see you so far as to enable you to point out the exact place to me, and then depend upon my father and I being with you in another hour.”
“But one hour?”
“But one, dear Ada.”
“That will be easily supported,” said Ada, with a grateful smile. “Oh, let us go at once.”
They rose from the Park seat, and the young lovers, arm-in-arm, walked down the Great Mall.
“Are you sure you know the way, Ada?” said Albert, anxiously.
“If I saw the bridge again, I could find it, I know, although I might not discover the most direct route, Albert.”
Thus affectionately, and dreaming of future happiness, which, alas! was still not close at hand, the young guileless beings pursued their course to the old house at Lambeth.