CHAPTER X.—THE INEXPLICABLE LIBERATION.
Alas! he’s mad!
This is the very coinage of your brain.
This bodiless creation, ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
—Shakspere.
The emotion displayed by old Wilton when Colonel Mires made himself known to him by reference to an incident which had occurred to him at a period now long past, was a mystery to the two persons likely to be best acquainted with its source.
Flora, who flew to her father’s aid, marvelled at it, and the Indian colonel wondered no less. Flora knew nothing, however, of the event alluded to, as her father had not suffered mention of it to escape his lips; but Colonel Mires, from whom some emotion might perhaps have been expected while recurring to it, having been a principal actor in a circumstance of a remarkable nature could find in a rapid review of what had then occurred no cause for Wilton to be thus suddenly affected.
Wilton had been called upon to render a great, a valuable, and disinterested service, he had performed it nobly, because it then seemed he was in nowise personally interested or affected by the result; why, therefore, he should now appear overcome by his feelings somewhat staggered the Colonel, and set him cogitating. Perhaps, after all, there had been a motive in his generosity; and if so, it certainly behoved him to find it out, and that as soon as possible.
Flora was surprised, but that emotion gave way to one of affright when she beheld her father’s pale and haggard face, his closed eyes, and his lips apart. It looked like the approach of death. She knew what a shock the arrival of Jukes had given him. Shattered as his frame had been by affliction, it had been yet more deeply shaken by the mortal agony he had endured when he first learned the destruction of the residence he had quitted by fire, when his darling child barely escaped with life. Events calculated to act upon his nervous system had rapidly followed each other; and the last, by its sudden effect upon him, seemed in no degree the least severe.
As she hung over him, mournful and foreboding words fell from her lips. She turned her eyes appealingly for aid to Hal, for of those present he was the only one to whom she could address herself, in reliance upon the sincerity of his readiness to assist her.
Colonel Mires observed her glance, and at whom it was directed. Before Hal, nimble though he was in responding to her mute summons, could reach her, Colonel Mires placed himself at the side of her father, laid his fingers upon his wrist, and said, in a low but musical tone of voice—
“Be not alarmed, Miss Wilton. A sudden faintness only has seized your father. When last we met, his position was very far above this, and on meeting with me no doubt the fearful reverse he has experienced has acted upon his weak frame. Pray cease to fear—I believe that I can speedily restore him; and, when he is a little collected and composed, we will design measures to remove him from this charnel-house of the unfortunate.”
Flora turned her eyes with a grateful expression upon him, but became instantly embarrassed by his steadfast gaze, while a creeping sensation of fear and dislike passed over her head. She glanced at Hal, and was rather startled to find him regarding the Colonel with a very fierce expression. Why, she did not understand.
She had yet to learn that a lover rarely betrays satisfaction when he perceives the gaze of one of his own sex dwelling with marked admiration upon the fair features of the maid he loves.
Perhaps the Colonel observed the fiery look of the young goldsmith; if he did, he outwardly took no notice of it; but taking from his breast pocket a small case, which contained a phial, he poured a few drops into some water, and administered it to old Wilton, who had no sooner taken it than he revived, and became speedily conscious of the presence of his visitors.
As the dark features of the Colonel attracted his attention, he clutched his daughter’s hand, and, in a hoarse whisper, said—
“Is it safe—is it safe?”
“Is what safe, dear father?” she asked.
“The paper!—the paper I gave into your care,” he replied, wildly.
“Yes! yes!” she responded, quickly. “I gave it back to you, scarce half an hour ago. Do you not remember?”
He placed his hand to his brow, and then pressed his fingers over his eyes, as if to recal what had recently passed.
The influence of the restorative administered to him by the colonel was quickly apparent. He withdrew his hand, and gazed about him, but only for a moment.
He rose up: his eye was bright, his carriage firm, and his head erect. His bearing gave him the aspect of another man.
“Colonel Mires,” he exclaimed in a tone of exultation, “your arrival in England, at this juncture, is most opportune—your discovery of me, in this prison, an interposition of Providence. Its consequences to me are of vital importance, and it is impossible to describe the joy, the happiness, it has brought to a man bowed down by a succession of dire misfortunes.”
“Mr. Wilton, I am unprepared to hear such expressions from your lips; believe me, it affords me especial gratification,” rejoined Colonel Mires, casting his eyes craftily upon Flora, to observe what effect her father’s words, in his praise, would have upon her. But she saw not his glance, for she was watching anxiously the features, of Hal Vivian, who was listening to her father with a countenance which appeared to assume a deeper gravity at every succeeding sentence.
And she wondered that he should grow so serious, and seem so sad, because her father spoke in tones of joyfulness.
Had she known that he considered her father’s favour a passport to her own, she might not have marvelled at his sober countenance at all.
Old Wilton proceeded, addressing the colonel.
“The hackneyed aphorism which tells us that ‘the darkest hour is the hour before the dawn,’ is true in my case, Colonel Mires. My dark hour has spent the whole force of its pestilential blackness upon me. I have been utterly shrouded in its gloom. Your coming is as the dawn which will herald my day of sunshine. How wondrous are the workings of Providence! But now I was in extremis; lo! in an instant I bound into new life, and yet in the same old—old world. Oh! Colonel Mires, my heart is too full for utterance. I will take another and a better opportunity to express, not alone what I feel, but to explain to you wherefore your arrival has filled me with delight, and why it will prove to me a benefit so inestimable.”
“Upon my honour, Mr. Wilton, by so doing you will confer a great favour upon me,” returned Colonel Mires, “for at present, I do assure you, your expression of high satisfaction, and your excited manner, form together a problem which I feel quite incapable of working to a successful solution.”
“I should be more than surprised if such were not the case,” returned old Wilton quickly. “How could you understand my gladness at beholding you, when the only conclusion you could form from the past would be, that I should meet you with combined feelings of regret and reproach. It is not possible for you to conjecture how your advent should be productive of happiness to me and mine.”
“If my coming to England—even though I know not how—should be the occasion of so agreeable a change in the lot of Miss Wilton, I shall only be too delighted at my good fortune, without caring to inquire by what happy combination of circumstances it has been effected!” exclaimed Colonel Mires, with another very steadfast, earnest glance at Flora, which embarrassed her, and did not have the desired effect of making her think favourably of him.
“Gratitude, Colonel Mires,” exclaimed Wilton, drily, “would, I have no doubt, raise up such a feeling in your breast.”
The Colonel winced, but bowed affirmatively. Wilton then added, hastily—
“Colonel Mires, your discovery of my detention in this prison is, of course, entirely the result of accident. You did not come here to see me—of that I am aware”—
“The moment I had a suspicion”——
Old Wilton waved his hand.
“I am quite able to comprehend the reason of your presence, Colonel,” he said; “but I am not, to sustain a longer interview to day. You will do me a favour by excusing me now, but if you will oblige me with your address, I will call upon you there at any appointment you may make, and take an occasion to explain to you much of the present mystery.”
Harry Vivian had previously entertained some doubts about the saneness of old Wilton. The strange rebound from abject wretchedness to a species of delirious joy, startled him. He could see nothing in the exterior of the swarthy colonel from India, to raise up such a paroxysm of gratification as that displayed by the careworn old man, unless he expected him to pay off the detainers at the prison gate, and thus set him free. But when old Wilton requested of Colonel Mires his address, and offered to call upon him at any time he might appoint, then Hal’s doubts were dissipated. What! with two thousand pounds turned into locks, bolts, bars, and iron gates, to arrest his movements, to talk of keeping appointments outside the prison-gates! Why it was the very phantasy of lunacy. He believed him to be without a farthing in the world, and had provided himself with a little sum with which to carry the old man on, if he would accept it, and there was previously every probability that he would; but now, to hear his tone, and to note his manner, as well as to listen to his airy offer to appear anywhere at any time, he felt disposed to button his pocket, and to laugh. He did not do either—he whistled.
It was a soft, low sound, unconsciously emitted, not altogether well bred we must admit, but it was the very symbol of extreme surprise.
Old Wilton heard him, glanced at him, turned his eyes away, and a faint smile curled his upper lip.
Flora heard the whistle too, she looked at Hal, and then at her father. She had her misgivings likewise—she believed every shilling he had possessed to be gone, and to hear him speak thus made her heart throb violently. Oh, if grief and trial should have turned his brain!
Her father understood her gaze, he read her thoughts, and his smile deepened.
Colonel Mires heard the unconscious whistle, also. He darted a look at Hal, and then turned to Wilton, and peering at him under his eyebrows in a scrutinising manner, he said, in a tone which had more than a tinge of irony in it—
“Will you say to-morrow, Mr. Wilton?”
“Of course,” thought Hal, “that’s just it; he might as well say half-an-hour hence—one is as likely as the other.”
To his surprise, not less than to that of Colonel Mires, Wilton answered—
“To-morrow, if you please. At what hour?”
“At moonshine,” thought Hal; “poor old man, how mad he is getting!”
“Ten o’clock in the morning,” returned the Colonel, with a grim smile.
“At ten!” echoed Wilton; “you have not named the place,” he added.
“It must be here, if there is to be a meeting anywhere,” thought Hal.
Colonel Mires produced a card-case, and handed a card to Wilton, who held it close to his eyes.
“So far,” he muttered, and then exclaimed aloud—“I will be there, Colonel, punctually, and without fail.”
“It will not put you to any inconvenience, I hope?” said Colonel Mires, with a mystified air.
“No, no, oh no!” returned old Wilton, with a smile.
“To be sure not,” reflected Hal, “how should it? there is only two thousand pounds to prevent him leaving the prison, and what is that to a man who has not two crowns to jingle together?”
Colonel Mires gave a dry cough.
“I was not aware,” he said, “that it was an easy thing to effect a liberation from this place. I have an old friend in durance here, whom I came to see; he has been here a length of time, and is in tribulation at the remote possibility of his deliverance.”
“The thing is not difficult when you know the way. I have a way,” returned Wilton, rather curtly.
“And two thousand pounds, too, of course,” mentally suggested Hal, considering it hard to understand why, under such circumstances, Wilton should have suffered himself to be imprisoned at all.
“I shall keep my appointment, Colonel Mires, never fear,” said Wilton decidedly, though coldly.
“You leave here, possibly, to-day,” suggested the Colonel.
“I shall accompany my daughter hence,” responded Wilton
Hal walked to the window and looked out: this last remark by Wilton seemed to him quite to settle the point of his sanity.
“Poor old gentleman! his brain is completely turned. Poor Flora! fresh troubles, instead of coming happiness for you,” he thought. “Well, I will try everything to make your heavy burden of care sit as lightly upon your shoulders as possible.”
“Now, let me repeat, Colonel,” remarked old Wilton, with emphasis, “I shall be glad if by taking your leave you will close this interview. I am fatigued—overcome by the exciting events of the past few days; I wish to be alone with my daughter and Mr. Vivian, as noble and gallant a gentleman as England ever produced.”
“Indeed!” ejaculated the Colonel, in a tone of insulting surprise.
“Fact, nevertheless,” continued Wilton, and raising his voice, said, “many a would-be Bayard, sans peur et sans reproche, would have hesitated ere he attempted to perform the brave deed this gallant youth has lately achieved. You will know more of him anon.”
It was strange how steadfastly the two men looked into each other’s eyes as Wilton uttered these words. Colonel Mires was a soldier, a martinet, he had been able to look down his inferior officers and his men, by the hard fixedness of his gaze; but he could not compel Hal to wink an eyelash. The clear bright eye of the youth was not to be made to waver, and the Colonel found himself obliged to be the first to remove his gaze.
“Surely,” he thought, “he can never be the suitor for the hand of Wilton’s daughter. If he is, he shall never have her. By heaven! so lovely a creature shall never be thrown away upon such a churl as he. A pearl for such a pig! Bah!”
He was, however, with much discomfort, forced to leave the pearl with the pig, and obliged to see that while Flora would not permit her eyes to meet his, she frequently suffered them, radiant with lustrous beauty, to settle upon Hal’s face, lingering there as though loth to leave what they loved to dwell upon. It was not an agreeable reflection, considering the new emotions awakened in his breast by the sight of her face. It may have been that dormant passion only was aroused; he chose to consider it a new sensation, and determined to satiate it at any cost or hazard. He was, however, not a man to suffer himself to appear to be disconcerted; he was cool and calculating, and was not defeated until the possibility of victory was wholly removed, then he accepted the condition with inward mortification, perhaps, and a hope to obtain the alternative of revenge, but he did not suffer to appear whatured (sp.). Rage and disappointment he felt acutely, but no one ever saw him exhibit either.
He took his leave of Flora with that gentlemanly respect that betokens good breeding—of Hal, with a formal bow, which said plainly, though not rudely: “You may be a Chevalier Bayard, disguised as a civilian, but I am not ambitious of making your acquaintance.” He shook Wilton heartily by the hand, as if he were sincere at least in that performance, and expressing his gratification at the prospect of meeting him early on the following morning, he took his departure, bearing with him his friend, who had been all eyes and ears but of no speech.
When Wilton, by gazing from the window, had satisfied himself that Colonel Mires had mingled with the throng below, he returned to the centre of the room, and, folding his daughter to his heart, he kissed her forehead, and said to her—
“My own sweet darling Flo’, cease to regard me with such anxious eyes. I am not mad!—in very truth my child, I am not. My sorrows have sorely tried me, but heaven has been withal kind, and has spared me my reason. You do not know the source of my present joy, as you know not the occasion of my fall from a position, the pleasures and luxuries of which you were too young to appreciate, and which were snatched from you ere you were old enough to regret or comprehend them.”
“And yet, dear father, whenever I see a handsome mansion, filled with splendid furniture, magnificent pictures, beautiful sculpture, standing in the midst of gay parterres, over which wave graceful trees, I seem to go back to a time when I lived in such scenes. I have fancied that I have dreamed of these lovely places in childhood; and when I have in later days come to see them, I have believed that my dreams only have recurred to me.”
“No dreams, my Flo’, but a real mansion, with its luxurious apartments, its galleries of pictures, sculptures, and articles of vertu rare and costly, its terraced gardens, its stately trees, its glassy streams and lakes, its tall fountains, and its gorgeous woodlands. No dream, my Flo’; for in such a scene you were born. In such a scene you shall reign, queen of beauty, ere you are much older. My Flo’, no dream, but reality.”
He clutched her by the wrist.
“The dream has been from the hour when that splendour, at one remorseless, dreadful swoop, was torn from my grasp up to the moment of Mires’ appearance here to-day. That fearful interval has been the dark, horrible, terrible dream; but, my Flo’, the shadows of the night are passing from us, the fragrance of the morning air is in my nostrils, the golden dawn has begun to light up our too long darkened hemisphere, and we shall yet revel in the refulgent beams of an unclouded sunshine.”
He pressed her again and again to his bosom, and kissed her with passionate fondness, while large tears rolled down his yet pallid cheeks.
While yet caressing her, and as Hal was preparing to ask him to give him some proof that what he had just previously asserted was no mere hallucination, a faint knock was heard at the room door.
Before Wilton could clear his voice to give the permission to enter the room, the door opened and closed instantly.
But rapid as was the action, the door on closing had left within the room Nathan Gomer.
He nodded at Wilton, he nodded at Hal, and he smiled—that is, grinned—at Flora. All the while his face glowed like burnished gold upon which a sunbeam rested.
Wilton uttered a cry of joy. He ran up to him, and seized him by the hand.
“I wanted to see you,” he cried.
“I imagined as much. Here I am,” responded Nathan.
Old Wilton cast his eyes rapidly upon Flora, upon Hal, and then on Nathan Gomer. For an instant he appeared perplexed, then he said to Hal—
“Flora has not seen the wonders of this place, Master Henry Vivian. Will you conduct her where she can see how the prisoners pass away their long and wearisome days of confinement? Just for a stroll.”
Hal could have told him that she had already witnessed as much as it was necessary for her to see, but he guessed that Wilton desired to be alone with Nathan Gomer, and he bowed assent.
“You have no objection, Master Vivian,” observed Wilton, fancying that he hesitated.
“Objection!” echoed Hal, with an astounded look.
Objection! What, to have Flora to himself for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour? unquestionably not. He emphatically expressed himself to that effect, and so Flora tied on her sweet little bonnet, and put on her neat little mantle, and laid the softest of soft hands upon his arm, making it thrill to his heart, near to which it rested, until he hardly remembered anything but that she was at his side—at once the richest, dearest treasure upon earth.
Confused by the noise, and by the jostling of the throng of persons in the racket ground, they unconsciously strolled round to the back of the prison, or to the county side, as it is termed.
Between the hours of ten and three, this part was comparatively deserted. At the period of which we are writing, the needy prisoners, who lived on the support of their creditors and the county, were alone permitted to mix on the parade in front, or to visit their fellow prisoners who were better off than themselves, during that part of the day.
No county prisoner—for they had their prison pride—liked to be looked upon as a “county bird,” so he showed himself in front as long as he could. The back part, thus, as we have said, had few persons promenading its precincts at the hours named.
Flora and Hal were, in consequence, comparatively alone in their walk.
As they strolled on, both seemed full of thought; after a silence, which endured for a short time, a few remarks were made, but of no personal nature; at length Hal ventured to say to her—
“Can it be possible, my dear Miss Wilton, that your father is not labouring under a delusion in speaking of his immediate liberation?”
Somehow Flora had expected this question, yet she had not prepared an answer to it. She paused for a moment, then replied—
“From the moment my dear father was seized as a prisoner, until now, the whole affair has been inexplicable to me. I believe you know even more of his affairs than I do. What can I answer? the matter of his conversation seems to me to be visionary, yet I never remember him to be so clear in his delivery, nor so elated, without being incoherent.”
“That may only be a sign of the disease which may have fastened itself upon him, following the terrible agony of grief he has had to endure.”
“Oh, Mr. Vivian, in mercy do not say so—pray do not! I do not think he is deranged—do you not remember that when he said to me he was not mad, how coherently he spoke? I entreat you, Mr. Vivian, not to say you think his mind is gone; if you do, I shall believe you.”
Hal saw the tears spring into her eyes, and he blamed himself for having brought them there, especially when she said—
“It will so much add to the grief I have already suffered.”
“I would not add to it for the world, Miss Wilton,” he said hastily, and added thoughtfully, “it may have been selfishness which has led me to form the supposition, but I would willingly, though not cheerfully, abandon it if I thought, by so doing, you would be spared one painful emotion.”
“Not cheerfully,” said Flora with innocent surprise, “why with reluctance, Mr. Vivian?”
“Not reluctance, Miss Wilton, that is not the word—sorrow is the truer term.”
“I do not understand you; I am, I suppose, very dull; but, Mr. Vivian, is it possible that you could be sorry to find my father not insane?” she inquired, with some earnestness.
“Listen,” he said: “if what your father has said be not the wanderings of a disturbed mind, the return of the gentleman who has recently visited him, from India, has opened up to him an immediate return to some former wealthy position, even though the instrument appears as unconscious of his power to effect it as we are.”
“So I understand it,” returned Flora, finding Hal pause.
“Then,” he exclaimed, strong feeling being manifest in the tone of his voice, “I should not, I trust you will credit me, be sorry that he had achieved his immediate release from this filthy prison, or that he and you—you, Miss Wilton, were restored to a position you so eminently deserve to occupy; but I should, I fear, grieve to think that all your good could not be accomplished without my discomfort.”
“Your discomfort?” asked Flora, catching his arm, and looking into his eyes with an expression of interest for which he would have willingly pressed her to his heart if he dared.
He was a little confused, for he saw plain enough that if he had no heart to pain her, she had no desire to occasion him discomfort.
“Well, Miss Wilton,” he answered, “to speak honestly to you—I had reared up a little fabric, based upon what I thought to be your condition; I had expected from it much happiness, perhaps that of securing to you immunity from troubles and trials, so far as I could. By the return of this Indian officer, it is dashed to the ground, and shattered to atoms. I rejoice most sincerely that it has brought you and your father good, but do not think harshly of me if I selfishly regret that by it my prospects of felicity are swept away entirely In the time to come, when difference of position shall part us for ever, may I ask you, Flora—Miss Wilton—to believe that, had the opportunity been afforded me, I would, when tried, have proved to you a sincere and a true friend?”
“In the time to come—when we shall part for ever—what difference of station should part us? Oh, Mr. Vivian, I could not—I would not, accept a position which might bring such an estrangement to pass. I would sooner die—I owe—my life—to your bravery.” She seized his hand and kissed it, and then burst into tears.
Hal was almost in the act of placing his arm about her, and giving vent to a passionate declaration, when a hand was placed upon his shoulder.
He turned round with a sudden start, which almost upset the individual who had touched him. He found it to be Nathan Gomer, who grinned, and, pointing with his thumb behind him, said to Flora—
“Your father awaits you both in his room. He is about to quit the prison with you, but he wishes to say a few words to you before he departs.”
“But the two thousand pounds for which he is lodged here?” said Hal, with a stupified air.
“Paid, sir—all paid, sir! Mr. Wilton is free to leave here when he will, sir!” exclaimed Nathan Gomer, with the old grin upon his features.