Let it be remembered, then, that he set out from the dwelling of the miser at Ryebury, promising that punctilious person to return, and sign at once the more formal and regular documents, for which the necessary stamps were still to be procured from Emberton--that he passed William Delaware on his road, concealing himself from him as he did so; and the reader, if he be so pleased, may dip his hand into the wallet of imagination, and take out his own particular little scheme, for leaving the money with which Beauchamp was burdened, in the chamber of--Blanche Delaware's brother.
Those three last words may seem periphrastic; but if the reader thinks they are so, he makes a mistake; for at that moment, it was not in the least as Captain William Delaware, a Master and Commander in his Majesty's Navy, nor as the son of Sir Sidney Delaware of Emberton, Baronet, nor in any other quality, shape, or capacity of any kind whatsoever, that Henry Beauchamp regarded him; but solely and wholly in relation to Blanche Delaware--or, in short, as the brother of her he loved. When he avoided him, it was because she had rejected his--Beauchamp's offered hand; when he placed the money on the table at Emberton, it was, that the clouds which had so long obscured the sunshine of her days, might be scattered for ever; and Henry Beauchamp could no more think of William Delaware, without the connecting link that bound him to his sister, than one can think of the planetary system without the sun.
When it was all done, however; and, having regained the shade of the park trees, Henry Beauchamp was strolling on, slow and sad, towards Ryebury, he bethought him of what was next to be done, as a consequence of the very things that were just accomplished. Let it be remarked that this was the first time he had thought of what was to follow; for the hurry and confusion of the whole day, which had just passed over his head, had left him no time for reflection, even had he been inclined to indulge in it; and the bitter disappointment he had suffered, had given him no great taste for thought of any kind. All he had calculated, was the best means of arriving at his immediate object; and farther than that, he had satisfied himself with the grand conscience-salve for all mad enterprises--"He dared to say, all would go right!"
Now, however, when he began to consider the matter, it presented more difficulties than he had before perceived. He was quite romantic enough and wealthy enough to have given the money to his cousins, with pleasure in the gift, and without inconvenience from the consequences; but, from the delicacy of feeling natural to his own heart, he perfectly understood that neither Sir Sidney Delaware, nor any of his family, would be willing to receive such a sum from any one as a donation--especially from him, circumstanced as he was in regard to Miss Delaware. Disgusted and wearied with the delays and shuffling of the miser, and suspecting that his worthy uncle, Lord Ashborough, might have some share in producing the impediments, he had determined to put it out of the power of any one to prevent the payment, and consequently had acted as we have seen; but, now that he had done so, he found that it would be in no degree easy to give the matter the air of an ordinary transaction.
People who have met with few difficulties in their undertakings, soon teach themselves to trust the execution of anything they themselves find troublesome, to others, and look upon their carrying it through easily as a matter of course; and as Beauchamp, though not in general given to insouciance, was just then in a state of mental irritation and impatience, which rendered long reflection of any kind irksome to him, he determined to throw the burden of the business upon the shoulders of the miser. "I will tell him," he thought, "to write a note to William Delaware, the first thing to-morrow, informing him that he has sent the money by a friend to-night, and is ready to execute the legal documents in regard to the whole transaction." Having so far made his arrangements in his own mind, he walked on slowly, beginning to feel somewhat weary with his day's exertion; and, as he did so--every other subject which could force his thoughts from the most painful object they could choose, being lost for the time--memory naturally led him back to dream of Blanche Delaware, and her strange and unaccountable conduct towards himself. That he loved her as deeply and as sincerely as man could love woman, he now felt but too painfully; but, notwithstanding good Mrs. Wilson's sentimental anticipations of his antique Roman impatience of existence, Beauchamp was the last man on earth to drown himself under any circumstances whatever. Not that he did not feel that the gloss and splendour was, to him, gone from the earth for ever--not that he did not feel that his love would endure to his last hour, mingling the poison drop of disappointment through all the cup of life--not that wounded pride, and broken hopes, and rebuked self-confidence, and all that can embitter man's feelings, were not poured like gall and wormwood into his heart--but, somehow, he had acquired a strange notion, that to lay hands upon one's own life was not only immoral and unchristian, but was also cowardly and stupid--the act of a madman, a lout, or a barbarian. He had never been one of those men that particularly value life; and certainly he felt that, at the present moment, if any one had been inclined to take it from him, it was a sort of commodity he could part with without great regret. Yet, at the same time, even in that case, he would probably have defended it as a matter of course; and, as to throwing it away by his voluntary act, such a thing never entered his mind.
His thoughts, however, in regard to Blanche Delaware were, as we have said, bitter enough. He loved her deeply--with a first, pure, steadfast, and yet passionate affection. His heart--so long guarded--had poured out upon her all its stored enthusiasm and repressed tenderness; and in the full and confident belief that his attachment was returned, hope had seduced him into every one of those waking visions which are so bright to dream and so agonizing to lose. He had certainly believed that he was loved in return; and the dissolution of that belief was the most painful part of all. Yet Beauchamp was both too proud and too just to suppose that he had been trifled with; or to imagine that a woman, on whom he could have so fixed his heart, would have been guilty of such petty coquetry. He rather chose to blame his own vanity; to admit that Blanche Delaware had been perhaps a little thoughtless; but that he had been far too confident.
Thus thinking, he walked on towards Ryebury, deviating slightly from the way, in order that he might not meet William Delaware on his return, and mingling vague, wild schemes for the future, with the bitter memories and regrets of the past. He would visit Greece he thought--perhaps cross over the narrow strait, and wander through Syria and Judea, or penetrate into Armenia, and pause for a while amongst the tribes, whose patriarchal habits have been so beautifully depicted by Morier's entertaining pen, or even travel forward into India itself, and watch the slow customs of Europe forcing their way amidst the immemorial habits of the Hindoo. He would do anything, in short, for amusement--and forgetfulness.
When he at length approached the door of Mr. Tims's house, the moon had sunk considerably, though she had still some hours to shine; and, pouring her beams from the side, with the slightest possible angle of declination towards the back of the house, her light fell full upon the two steps that led up to the door, without lighting the door itself. Beauchamp thought he heard a noise in the passage as he approached; but with his usual indifference, certainly not decreased either by fatigue or grief, he walked on with the same slow pace in which he had before been proceeding, and was just in the act of laying his hand upon the bell, when the door was suddenly and somewhat unexpectedly thrown open. The faint outline of three men standing in the dim darkness of the passage, was all that Beauchamp could perceive; but the moonlight poured full upon his own figure as he stood alone upon the steps. So unlooked-for a sight in the house of Mr. Tims caused him to pause in some surprise; and he had no time to recover from it; for before he could ask any question, or form any conjecture, he received a violent blow from some heavy instrument on the head, which instantly felled him to the ground, completely stunned and motionless.
How long he continued in that state, Beauchamp could hardly tell; but when he again recovered his consciousness, he found himself lying extended upon some planks, with a stiff and numb sensation over all his limbs, a violent headach, and extreme pain in his ancle, while a rippling sound and buoyant undulating motion seemed to show that he was in a boat upon the water. For the first moment he could not verify this supposition by sight, as he seemed to have been cast carelessly into the boat, and his hat was driven so far over his brows as to prevent him from seeing anything around.
Before he was well aware of what he was doing, he started up, pushing back the covering from his eyes; but, as he did so, his unsteady footing in the boat, together with the violent pain in his ancle, made him lose his balance, and very nearly fall over into the sea, which received his hat as he fell, and bore it far away in a moment.