CHAPTER XXIV. The Abduction.
Night had come on, and Aveline was anxiously expecting the arrival of her lover, when a loud knocking was heard at the door of the cottage; and before the summons could be answered by Anthony Rocke, two persons entered, and pushing past the old serving-man, who demanded their business, and vainly endeavoured to oppose their progress, forced their way into the presence of his mistress. Dame Sherborne was in an inner room, but, alarmed by the noise, she flew to the aid of her charge, and reached her at the same moment with the intruders. Her lamp threw its light full upon their countenances; and when she found who they were, she screamed and nearly let it fall, appearing to stand much more in need of support than Aveline herself.
The foremost of the two was Sir Giles Mompesson, and his usually stern and sinister features had acquired a yet more inauspicious cast, from the deathlike paleness that bespread them, as well as from the fillet bound round his injured brow. The other was an antiquated coxcomb, aping the airs and graces of a youthful gallant, attired in silks and velvets fashioned in the newest French mode, and exhaling a mingled perfume of civet, musk, and ambergris; and in him Aveline recognised the amorous old dotard, who had stared at her so offensively during the visit she had been forced to make to the extortioner.
Sir Francis's deportment was not a whit less impertinent or objectionable now than heretofore. After making a profound salutation to Aveline, which he thought was executed in the most courtly style, and with consummate grace, he observed in a loud whisper to his partner, "'Fore heaven! a matchless creature! a divinity! Introduce me in due form, Sir Giles."
"Suffer me to make known to you Sir Francis Mitchell, fair mistress," said Mompesson. "He is so ravished by your charms that he can neither eat, drink, nor sleep; and he professes to me, his friend and partner, that he must die outright, unless you take pity on him. Is it not so, Sir Francis? Nay, plead your own cause, man. You will do it better than I, who am little accustomed to tune my voice to the ear of beauty."
During this speech, the old usurer conducted himself in a manner that, under other circumstances, must have moved Aveline's mirth; but it now only excited her disgust and indignation. Sighing, groaning placing his hand upon his heart, languishingly regarding her, and turning up his eyes till the whites alone were visible, he ended by throwing himself at her feet, seizing her hand, and attempting to cover it with kisses.
"Deign to listen to me, peerless and adorable damsel!" he cried in the most impassioned accents he could command, though he wheezed terribly all the while, and was ever and anon interrupted by a fit of coughing. "Incline your ear to me, I beseech you. Sir Giles has in no respect exaggerated my sad condition. Ever since I beheld you I have been able to do nothing else than—ough! ough!—dwell upon your surpassing attractions. Day and night your lovely image has been constantly before me. You have driven sleep from my eyelids, and rest from my—(ough! ough!)—frame. Your lustrous eyes have lighted up such a fire in my breast as can never be extinguished, unless—(ough! ough! ough!)—plague take this cough! I owe it to you, fair mistress of my heart, as well as my other torments. But as I was about to say, the raging flame you have kindled in my breast will utterly consume me, unless—(ough! ough! ough!)"
Here he was well-nigh choked, and Sir Giles had to come to his assistance.
"What my worthy friend and partner would declare, if his cough permitted him, fair Mistress Aveline," urged the extortioner, "is that he places his life and fortune at your disposal. His desires are all centred in you, and it rests with you to make him the happiest or most miserable of mankind. Speak I not your sentiments, Sir Francis?"
"In every particular, good Sir Giles," replied the other, as soon as he could recover utterance. "And now, most adorable damsel, what say you in answer? You are too gentle, I am sure, to condemn your slave to endless tortures. Nay, motion me not to rise. I have that to say will disarm your frowns, and turn them into smiles of approval and assent. (O, this accursed rheumatism!" he muttered to himself, "I shall never be able to get up unaided!) I love you, incomparable creature—love you to distraction; and as your beauty has inflicted such desperate wounds upon my heart, so I am sure your gentleness will not fail to cure them. Devotion like mine must meet its reward. Your answer, divinest creature! and let it be favourable to my hopes, I conjure you!"
"I have no other answer to give," replied Aveline, coldly, and with an offended look, "except such as any maiden, thus unwarrantably and unseasonably importuned, would make. Your addresses are utterly distasteful to me, and I pray you to desist them. If you have any real wish to oblige me, you will at once free me from your presence."
"Your hand, Sir Giles—your hand!" cried the old usurer, raising himself to his feet with difficulty, "So, you are not to be moved by my sufferings—by my prayers, cruel and proud beauty?" he continued, regarding her with a mortified and spiteful look. "You are inflexible—eh?"
"Utterly so," she replied.
"Anthony Rocke!" cried Dame Sherborne, "show the gentlemen to the door—and bolt it upon them," she added, in a lower tone.
"Not so fast, Madam—not so fast!" exclaimed Sir Francis. "We will not trouble old Anthony just yet. Though his fair young mistress is indisposed to listen to the pleadings of love, it follows not she will be equally insensible to the controlling power of her father's delegated authority. Her hand must be mine, either freely, or by compulsion. Let her know on what grounds I claim it, Sir Giles."
"Your claim cannot be resisted, Sir Francis," rejoined the other; "and if you had followed my counsel, you would not have condescended to play the abject wooer, but have adopted the manlier course, and demanded her hand as your right."
"Nay, Sir Giles, you cannot wonder at me, knowing how infatuated I am by this rare and admirable creature. I was unwilling to assert my rights till all other means of obtaining her hand had failed. But now I have no alternative."
"Whence is your authority derived?" inquired Aveline, trembling as she put the question.
"From your dead father," said Sir Giles, sternly. "His last solemn injunctions to you were, that you should wed the man to whom he had promised you; provided your hand were claimed by him within a year after his death. With equal solemnity you bound yourself to fulfil his wishes. The person to whom you were thus sacredly contracted is Sir Francis Mitchell; and now, in your father's name, and by your father's authority, he demands fulfilment of the solemn pledge."
"O, this is wholly impossible!—I will not believe it!" almost shrieked Aveline, throwing herself into Dame Sherborne's arms.
"It is some wicked device to ensnare you, I am convinced," said the old lady, clasping her to her breast. "But we defy them, as we do the Prince of Darkness, and all his iniquities. Avoid thee, thou wicked old sinner!—thou worse than the benighted heathen! Get hence! I say, Sathanas!" she ejaculated to Sir Francis.
"Ay, I am well assured it is all a fabrication," said Anthony Rocke. "My master had too much consideration and tenderness for his daughter to promise her to a wretched old huncks like this, with one foot in the grave already. Besides, I knew he held both him and Sir Giles Mompesson in utter abomination and contempt. The thing is, therefore, not only improbable, but altogether impossible."
"Hold thy peace, sirrah!" cried Sir Francis, foaming with rage, "or I will cut thy scurril tongue out of thy throat. Huncks, indeed! As I am a true gentleman, if thou wert of my own degree, thou shouldst answer for the opprobrious expression."
"What proof have you that my father entered into any such engagement with you?" inquired Aveline, turning to Sir Francis. "Your bare assertion will scarcely satisfy me."
"Neither will it satisfy me," remarked Anthony. "Let him produce his proofs."
"You are acquainted with your father's handwriting, I presume, fair maiden?" rejoined Sir Francis. "And it may be that your insolent and incredulous serving-man is also acquainted with it. Look at this document, and declare whether it be not, as I assert, traced in Hugh Calveley's characters. Look at it, I say, thou unbelieving hound," he added, to Anthony, "and contradict me if thou canst."
"It is my master's writing, I am compelled to admit," replied the old serving-man, with a groan.
"Are you prepared to render obedience to your father's behests, maiden?" demanded Sir Giles, menacingly.
"O, give me counsel! What shall I say to them?" cried Aveline, appealing to Dame Sherborne. "Would that Sir Jocelyn were here!"
"It is in vain to expect his coming," rejoined Sir Giles, with a bitter laugh. "We have taken good care to keep him out of the way."
"There is no help then!" said Aveline, despairingly. "I must submit."
"We triumph," whispered Sir Giles to his partner.
"Talk not of submission, my dear young lady," implored Anthony Rocke. "Resist them to the last. I will shed my best blood in your defence. If my master did give them that paper he must have been out of his senses, and you need not, therefore, regard it as other than the act of a madman."
"Peace, shallow-pated fool!" cried Sir Giles. "And do you, fair mistress, attend to me, and you shall learn under what circumstances that contract was made, and how it becomes binding upon you. Deeply indebted to Sir Francis, your father had only one means of discharging his obligations. He did hesitate to avail himself of it. He promised you to his creditor, and obtained his own release. Will you dishonour his memory by a refusal?"
"O, if this tale be true, I have no escape from misery!" exclaimed Aveline. "And it wears the semblance of probability."
"I take upon me to declare it to be false," cried Anthony Rocke.
"Another such insolent speech shall cost thee thy life, sirrah!" cried Sir Giles, fiercely.
"Read over the paper again, my dear young lady," said Dame Sherborne. "You may, perhaps, find something in it not yet discovered, which may help you to a better understanding of your father's wishes."
"Ay, read it!—read it!" cried the old usurer, giving her the paper. "You will perceive in what energetic terms your father enjoins compliance on your part with his commands; and what awful denunciations he attaches to your disobedience. Read it, I say, and fancy he is speaking to you from the grave in these terms—'Take this man for thy husband, O my daughter, and take my blessing with him. Reject him, and my curse shall alight upon thy head.'"
But Aveline was too much engrossed to heed him. Suddenly her eye caught something she had not previously noticed, and she exclaimed,—"I have detected the stratagem. I knew this authority could never be committed to you."
"What mean you, fair mistress?" cried Sir Francis, surprised and alarmed. "My name may not appear upon the face of the document; but, nevertheless, I am the person referred to by it."
"The document itself disproves your assertion," cried Aveline, with exultation.
"How so?" demanded Sir Giles, uneasily.
"Why, see you not that he to whom my father designed to give my hand was named Osmond Mounchensey?"
"Osmond Mounchensey!" exclaimed Sir Giles, starting.
"This is pure invention!" cried Sir Francis. "There is no such name on the paper—no name at all, in short—nor could there be any, for reasons I will presently explain."
"Let your own eyes convince you to the contrary," she rejoined, extending the paper to him and revealing to his astounded gaze and to that of his partner, who looked petrified with surprise, the name plainly written as she had described it.
"How came it there?" cried Sir Giles, as soon as he could command himself.
"I cannot say," replied Sir Francis. "I only know it was not there when I—that is, when I received it. It must be Clement Lanyere's handiwork," he added in a whisper.
"I see not how that can be," replied the other, in a like low tone. "The alteration must have been made since it has been in your possession. It could not have escaped my observation."
"Nor mine," cried Sir Francis. "'T is passing strange!"
"Your infamous project is defeated," cried Aveline. "Let the rightful claimant appear, and it will be time enough to consider what I will do.—But I can hold no further discourse with you, and command your instant departure."
"And think you we mean to return empty-handed, fair mistress?" said Sir Giles, resuming all his wonted audacity. "Be not deceived. By fair means or foul you shall be the bride of Sir Francis Mitchell. I have sworn it, and I will keep my oath!"
"As I am a true gentleman, it will infinitely distress me to resort to extremities, fair mistress," said the old usurer, "and I still trust you will listen to reason. If I have put in practice a little harmless stratagem, what matters it? All is fair in love. And if you knew all, you would be aware that I have already paid so dearly for you that I cannot afford to lose you. Cost what it will, you must be mine."
"Never!" exclaimed Aveline, resolutely.
"You will soon alter your tone, when you find how little power of refusal is left you, fair mistress," said Sir Giles. "A litter is waiting for you without. Will it please you to enter it?"
"Not unless by force—and you dare to offer me violence," she replied.
"I advise you not to put our forbearance to the test," said Sir Giles.
"I should be grieved to impose any restraint upon you," subjoined Sir Francis; "and I trust you will not compel me to act against my inclinations. Let me lead you to the litter."
As he advanced towards her, Aveline drew quickly back, and Dame Sherborne uttered a loud scream; but her cries brought no other help than could be afforded by old Anthony Rocke, who, planting himself before his young mistress, menaced Sir Francis to retire.
But this state of things was only of brief duration. It speedily appeared that the two extortioners had abundant assistance at hand to carry out their infamous design. A whistle was sounded by Sir Giles; and at the call the cottage door was burst open by some half dozen of the myrmidons, headed by Captain Bludder.
Any resistance that the old serving-man could offer was speedily overcome. Knocked down by a pike, he was gagged and pinioned, and carried out of the house. The cries of Aveline and the elderly dame were stifled by scarves tied over their heads; and both being in a fainting condition from fright, they were borne to the litter which was standing at the door, and being shut up within it, were conveyed as quickly as might be to Sir Giles Mompesson's mansion, near the Fleet. Thither, also, was old Anthony Rocke taken, closely guarded on the way by two of the myrmidons.