CHAPTER XLVIII.
MAKING PEACE.
Whether Richard's own injuries proved fatal or not was with him a matter of secondary importance. His anxiety was to prove that they were received by misadventure; upon the whole, matters promised favorably for this, and were in other respects as satisfactory as could reasonably be expected. The blood of Solomon Coe was upon his own head. Richard had no need even to reproach himself with having struck in self-defense the blow that killed his enemy; and he did not reflect that he was still to blame for having, in the first instance, placed him in the mine. He had at least done his best to extricate him, and his conscience was (perhaps naturally) not very tender respecting the man who had repaid his attempt at atonement with such implacable animosity. At all events, Richard's mind was too much engaged in calculating the consequences of what had happened to entertain remorse. The question that now monopolized it was, what conclusion was likely to be arrived at by the coroner's inquest that would, of course, be held upon the body. The verdict was of the most paramount importance to him, not because upon it depended his own safety (for he valued his life but lightly, and, besides, his inward pain convinced him that it was already forfeited), but all that now made life worth having—the good regards of Harry and her son. He had no longer any scruple on his own part with respect to accepting or returning their affection. His fear was, lest, having been compelled to take so active a part in the rescue of the unhappy Solomon, something should arise to implicate him in his incarceration.
Fortunately he was far too ill to be summoned as a witness. His deposition alone could be taken, and that he framed with the utmost caution, and as briefly as was possible. His wounded lung defended him from protracted inquiries. Solomon himself had proposed the idea of a partnership in Wheal Danes, and his interest in the mine, the knowledge of which had suggested to Richard the place of his concealment, had evidently proved fatal to him. That he should have broken his neck just as Richard had broken his ribs on such a quest was by no means extraordinary; but how he ever reached the spot where he was found at all, without the aid of a ladder, was inexplicable. The line of evidence was smooth enough but for this ugly knot, and it troubled Richard much, though, as it happened, unnecessarily. Had the place of the calamity been a gravel-pit at Highgate, it would have been guarded by constabulary, and all things preserved as they were until after the official investigation. But Wheal Danes, from having been a deserted mine, had suddenly become the haunt of the curious and the morbid. There was nothing more likely than that Solomon's ladder had been carried off, and perhaps disposed of at a high price per foot as an interesting relic. The presence of the half-extinguished torch that Richard had flung away in the second level (and which should by rights have been found in the third) was still more easily explained: there were a score of such things now lying about the mine, which had been left there by visitors. In short, an "active" coroner and an "intelligent" jury could have come to no other conclusion than that of "accidental death;" and they came to it accordingly.
Other comforters had arrived to the wounded man, before the receipt of that good news, in the persons of Harry and her son and Agnes. There was a reason why all three should be now warmly attracted toward him, which, while it effectually worked his will in that way, gave him many a twinge. They looked upon him, as did the rest of the world, as the man who had lost his life (for his wound was by this time pronounced to be fatal) to save his friend. He told them that it was not so, and they did not believe him. He had not the heart to tell them how matters really stood; but their praise pained him more than the agony of his wound, and he peremptorily forbade the subject to be alluded to. This command was not difficult to obey. Solomon's death, although the awful character of it shocked them much, was, in reality, regretted neither by wife nor son: such must be the case with every husband and father who has been a domestic tyrant, no matter how dutifully wife and son may strive to mourn: his loss was a release, and his memory a burden that they very willingly put aside; and, in particular, his name was never mentioned before Agnes without strong necessity.
Mrs. Coe, always at her best and wisest in matters wherein her son was concerned, had never told this girl of the part which Robert Balfour had taken against her. It would have wounded her self-love to have learned that the influence of a comparative stranger had been used, and with some effect, to estrange her Charley. She would scarcely have made sufficient allowance for a man of the world's insidious arts, notwithstanding the circumstances that had so favored them. Thus Harry had justly reasoned, and kept silence concerning him. Agnes had therefore set down the gradual cessation of her lover's visits to Soho, and his growing coldness, solely to the hostility of Solomon. They had pained her deeply, though she had been too proud to evince aught but indignation; still she strove to persuade herself it was but natural that this lad, entirely dependent upon his father for the means of livelihood, and daily exposed to his menaces or arguments, should endeavor to steel himself against her; that he really loved her less she did not in her own faithful heart believe. It was, however, with no thought of regaining his affection that she had obeyed the widow's hasty summons on the news of the catastrophe at Wheal Danes, but solely from sympathy and affection. She had always loved and pitied her, for Harry had shown her kindness and great good-will; and, notwithstanding the girl's high spirit, she did not now forget, as many would have done, all other debts in that obligation so easy of discharge, namely, "what she owed to herself."
Her presence, notwithstanding the sad occasion of it, at once reawakened Charley's slumbering passion, and the coldness with which she received its advances only made it burn more brightly, like fire in frost. He felt that he had not even deserved the friendship she now offered him in place of her former love, and was patient and submissive under his just punishment. He hoped in time to re-establish himself in her affections; but at present, somewhat to Mrs. Coe's indignation, she had showed no sign of yielding. He did in reality occupy the same position in her heart as of old; but now that he was rich, and his own master (for his mother was his slave), she was not inclined to confess it. Had he been poor and dependent, she would have forgiven him readily enough; nor are such natures unparalleled in her sex, notwithstanding the pictures which are nowadays presented to us as types of girlhood.
Such, then, was the mutual relation in which these two young people stood, who ministered by turns (for Harry was always with him) to the wants of the dying Balfour. The feelings with which he was regarded by all three were in curious contrast with their former ones. What those of Harry were now toward him we can easily guess; her hate and fear had vanished to make room for love—not the love of old times, indeed, but a deeper and a purer passion; it could never bear fruit, she knew—it was but a prolonged farewell. To-morrow, or the next day, Death would interpose between them; but in the mean time they were together, and she clung to him.
Charley, on the other hand, with whom Balfour had once been such a favorite, felt, though attentive to his needs, by no means cordially toward him. Gratitude for the fancied service he had done to his late father compelled him to give Richard his company; but it was not accorded willingly, as heretofore. He could not but set down to the account of his companionship the present frigidity of Agnes, and at first he had even seen him a material obstacle to his hopes. This audacious man of the world, who had at one time so excited his admiration, had suddenly become in his eyes an impudent roué, who even on his sick-bed was only too likely to make their past adventures together the subject of his talk. True, his mother had told him that Mr. Balfour was now an altered man; but the young gentleman had entertained some reasonable doubts of this conversion. His manner to the sick man was so reserved and cool, indeed, that it seemed to all but Richard (who guessed the cause of it, and yet felt its effect more bitterly than all) unkind. This behavior on the part of his former ally did not injure Balfour in the regards of Agnes; she resented Charley's conduct, and did her best to redress it by manifesting her own good-will; she had herself had experience of his shifting moods and causeless changes of demeanor, and perhaps she was willing to show what small importance she attached to his capricious humors. Thus it happened that Richard and herself "got on" together much better (as well, of course, as much more speedily) than the former could have hoped for; for indeed he had, with reason, expected to find a bitter enemy in Agnes. He improved this advantage to the utmost by taking occasion, in Charley's absence, to praise the lad, under whose displeasure he manifestly lay. She answered that he had not, at least from Mr. Balfour's lips, deserved such praise.
"Nay, nay," said Richard, gently; "it is I who have not deserved the lad's good-will; and you, my dear young lady, ought to be the last to pity me, as I see you do."
"How so?" asked she, in surprise.
"Because," answered he, gravely, "I once strove to keep him from you."
She looked annoyed, and cast a hurried glance toward the place where
Mrs. Coe had been sitting; but there was now only an empty chair there.
The widow had purposely withdrawn herself, in accordance with Richard's
wish. Agnes could scarcely leave the sick man without attendance.
"When I say, 'keep him from you,'" continued Richard, "I mean that, being lonely and friendless (as you see I am but for you three), the society of this bright boy was very dear to me, and I selfishly strove to secure it when he would fain have been elsewhere. I needed, as you may well imagine, authority to back me in such efforts, but, unhappily for him, I possessed its aid. He now resents, and very naturally, the restraint which my companionship once imposed upon him, and sets down to my account the estrangement which he so bitterly rues. An old man's friendship is of no great worth at any time; but weighed in the balance against a woman's love—"
"Sir!" interrupted Agnes, with indignation.
"Pardon me," continued Richard, gently; "I see you do not love him. I am deeply grieved, for the sake of this poor lad, who is as devoted to you as ever, to find it so, and to feel that it was in part my fault. I will ask him to forgive me if he can."
"Nay, Mr. Balfour, I beseech you, don't do that," cried Agnes, with crimson cheeks.
"As you please," murmured he, gravely. "But, remember, a few days hence, or perhaps a few hours, and I may be beyond his forgiveness. It will then rest with you, young lady, to clear my memory. You are not angry with me—you can not be vexed with a dying man."
"No, no." She was sobbing violently; her heart was touched, not only by his own condition, as she would have had him believe, but by these confidences respecting Charley. There is nothing more dear to a young girl than the testimony of another man to her lover's fealty; the witness himself is even guerdoned with some payment of the rich store he bears; and from that moment Balfour was not only forgiven by Agnes, but even beloved by her.