Morley Ernstein; or, the Tenants of the Heart

by G. P. R. James

Alas! poor Helen Barham!

CHAPTER XXI.

William Barham was punctual to his hour; but Lieberg made him wait for fully twenty minutes in an empty room, looking out into the dull back court of a London house, where there was nothing to amuse his mind within the chamber or without: not a picture, not a print upon the walls: not the sight of a chimney, the smoke of which would have given occupation to the eye: not an odd-looking table, with carved legs: not anything, in short, on which the energies of the spirit could spend themselves. The very carpet was in long straight lines of monotonous colours, and the walls were painted of a blank greyish hue.

The mind, when surrounded by dulness from which it cannot escape, is like the scorpion when hemmed in by fire, and turns to sting itself. That room seemed the very abode of gloom and despondency. The windows were dusty, and admitted but little light; they were not as regularly opened as they ought to have been, and there was a closeness in the atmosphere, a smell of desolation, if we may so call it, which made one feel faint. The grate looked somewhat rusty from neglect, and there were no fire-irons.

William Barham first walked to a window, and looked out, but nothing met his eye, except the tall, unpleasant, dingy brick wall of an opposite house, without a single casement looking that way. He then turned, and gazed round the room. It was all cheerless and dull. His eye found nothing on which it could rest. It was empty and gloomy as a heart that has been bereaved of the object of its love. He tried the window again, and then let his eye run over the walls of the room; but all was dark and sad. There was not even a Greek border on the broad expanse of dull, grey painted stucco, with which the mind might form a labyrinth for thought to lose herself withal. He walked up and down for a moment or two, and then cast himself down upon a chair, and his fancy gave itself up to that which was most painful--his own fate and circumstances.

Did Lieberg do it on purpose? Who can say? There are few men who know human nature better than he did. There are few who could more correctly appreciate the effect of solitary thought, with gloomy adjuncts, upon a mind loaded with crime, and weakened by vice and intemperance. None, then, could judge better what would be that effect upon William Barham, and yet he had ordered him, with particular care, to be placed in that room, which he himself had never entered above once or twice since he had hired those apartments; and yet while the youth remained there, Lieberg was not occupied with any important affair. He was trifling with some objects of art; writing a note or two in answer to invitations; doing a thousand things, in short, that might have been done at any other time. It seemed, certainly, that he calculated upon producing a particular effect upon the mind of the unhappy boy who was in his power.

William Barham's eye, in the meantime, strained upon the floor. It grew more and more anxious in expression, its gaze more and more intense. He looked as if horror-struck with some object on which his eyes fell upon the carpet--but the unhappy boy saw nothing before him but his own fate. Remorse, if not repentance, visited his heart! He thought of all that he had done, of all that he might have done; he saw that, by his own folly, and by his own crimes, at the best he had driven himself from his native land, and had, but for an accident, condemned himself to death, to an ignominious and terrible death. He had lost all the advantages of a fair education, an honourable teaching, and of a good example. He had voluntarily chosen evil when good was within his grasp, and now the consequences had fallen upon his head, without any place of shelter, any hope, any refuge, except in the mercy of a man who had shewn him some harshness, and whose objects he was strongly inclined to doubt. He had come thither with a palpitating heart, and he remained in agitation and distress.

Minute after minute went by, and each one seemed an age, till at length he began to think--"Is this man deceiving me?--Perhaps he is playing me false!--Perhaps even now he has sent for the officers of justice to seize their prey!"

He started up and approached the door, intending to steal out if he found no one, and to say that he could not wait any longer, if he met with any of the servants in the passage. There was a footman within a few yards, however, and when he had repeated that which he had made up his mind to speak, the man answered, with the cold sauciness of a London lackey,--"My master said you were to wait for him, and so you must wait, if you please."

The man stood directly in the way, and William Barham, re-entered the room, with a sinking heart. His thoughts, hurried and confused, first turned to flight, but flight, he soon saw, was impossible. The window was high--there was a fall of five-and-twenty feet, or more, into the area below. His next thought was, what else could give him safety? Where was there any other hope? "This man must want something," he thought. "He must have some object, some purpose, some end to answer!--What can it be?--I will do anything, everything, if he will but spare my life."