And thus it came about that the engagement with Lord Bellefield was so speedily renewed.
CHAPTER LII.—VINDICATES THE APHORISM THAT “’TIS AN ILL WIND WHICH BLOWS NO ONE ANY GOOD.”
Richard Frere sat at his breakfast-table; before him stood an egg untasted, which, having once been hot, was so no longer, whilst a cup of coffee, that had undergone the same refrigerating process, threw out its fragrance unregarded. In his hand was an opened letter: we will take the liberty of peeping over his shoulder and making our readers acquainted with its contents. They ran thus:—
“Dear Frere,—I have quitted Broadhurst for ever, and broken off all connection between General Grant and myself. Why I have done this I cannot at present tell you; years hence, when time shall have seared wounds which now bleed at the slightest touch of memory, you shall know all. I have suffered, and must suffer, much; but suffering appears identical with existence—at least, in this present phase of being. I am ill in mind and body; the restless spirit within is at length beginning to tell upon even my iron constitution. The mind must have rest if I would continue sane, the body must be braced by exertion if I wish not to degenerate into a mere nervous hypochondriac. Accordingly, when you receive this letter I shall have quitted England. My project—if such vague ideas as mine deserve the title—embraces a walking tour through Europe, which may possibly be extended to Syria and Persia, should my object not be previously attained. At my banker’s lies the sum of £500, the wages (minus the little my travelling expenses will require) of my two years’ slavery; before that is exhausted fresh funds will be placed at the disposal of my mother and sister, or I shall be dead; in either case I leave my family as a sacred deposit to your care. Dear old Frere, do not judge me harshly. I am not (if I know my own motives) acting with selfish rashness in this matter. My whole being, intellectual and physical, has received a fearful shock, and the course I propose to pursue appears to offer the only chance of a restoration to a healthy frame of mind. I could not do this did I not know that in you my mother and Rose will find a more efficient protector than the one they will lose for a season; I could not do this did I not love you so well as to have perfect faith in your friendship in the very highest sense of the word. Enough on this head—we know each other. In the unlikely event of pecuniary difficulty arising, apply to Mr. Coke, the solicitor, in Lincoln’s Inn. He has my directions also in case of any accident befalling me, and from time to time he will be informed of my whereabouts, as for at least the next year I shall not write to any of you—it is my wish to forget that such a country as England exists. I enclose a note for poor Rose: may I ask you to deliver it in person, and break this matter to her and my mother? As yet they are not even aware that I have quitted Broadhurst. God bless you, and good-bye for——; but we will not pry into the future—‘sufficient for the day is the evil thereof:’
“Yours ever, Lewis Arundel.”
This letter Frere read carefully through; having done so, he ejaculated “Well!” in a tone of the utmost astonishment; then pushing his hair back from his forehead, as if he sought to give his intellectual powers freer play, he steadily reperused it, but apparently with little better success, for when he had a second time arrived at the signature, he gazed round the room with an expression of the most intense perplexity, exclaiming, “I never read such a letter, never!”
Spreading the paper before him, he carefully turned up his wristbands, seized a silver butter-knife, which in his abstraction he conceived to be a pen, felt the point to see if it would write, dipped it into the milk by way of ink, and thus prepared, again attacked the mysterious document sentence by sentence, keeping up during this third reading a running fire of comments somewhat after the following fashion—
“Hum! well! he’s left Broadhurst for ever, etc., etc., and he can’t tell me why now, but will years hence—when he has forgotten all the minute particulars which would make the affair intelligible, I suppose; sensible, very. Thrown away three hundred pounds a year, with a mother and sister depending upon him, and ‘no future prospects,’ as they say in all the ‘shocking destitution’ advertisements. Oh, wise young judge! Well, never mind. ‘Seared wounds—existence identical with suffering—restless spirit affecting iron constitution’—cum multis allis, etc. Now, all that clone into plain English means that he has got into a rampant state of mind about something, which, interfering with the gastric juices and all the other corporeal chemicals, has put his digestion out of sorts; ergo, in order to repair damages he has started on a continental walking-tour: might have done worse; the exercise will settle the dyspepsia in double-quick time; I’m doctor enough to know that. Then he leaves five hundred pounds to support one mother and sister till further notice, or till I receive intelligence of his untimely decease. In the meantime he very obligingly commits the live stock aforesaid to my care, as a sacred deposit; thus, without being allowed as much as even a voice in the matter, I suddenly find myself plus a mother and sister—more peculiar than pleasant, eh? Well, never mind. Then he asserts the truism that he could not do this without faith in my friendship, mentioning the unnecessary fact that we know each other Next comes a very funny idea: if the money runs short, I’m to apply to a lawyer of all people in the world. Now, in my innocence I should have fancied just the reverse, and that if we had been burdened with more cash than we knew what to do with, the lawyer would have been the boy to help us through the difficulty! Well, one lives and learns—what have we next? Oh! my young friend wishes to forget the existence of—England! nothing more—wishes to forget the existence of his own glorious country! The boy’s as mad as a March hare. Then he very coolly hands over to me the pleasant task of breaking the news of his most uncomfortable conduct to his left-off mother and sister; and for the prospective performance of all this toil and trouble he benevolently blesses me, and adducing a text of Scripture, which applies much more to my case than to his own, concludes.