The Man in Black: An Historical Novel of the Days of Queen Anne

by G. P. R. James

"Hours!" repeated John Ayliffe. "My time is reduced to minutes!"

Emily approached quietly, and Mrs. Best quitted the room and shut the door. Mr. Dixwell drew the table nearer to the bed, spread some writing paper which he had brought with him upon it, and dipped a pen in the ink, as a hint that no time was to be lost in proceeding.

"Well, well," said John Ayliffe with a sigh, "I won't delay, though it is very hard to have to tell such a story. Mistress Emily, I have done you and your family great wrong and great harm, and I am very, very sorry for it, especially for what I have done against you."

"Then I forgive you from all my heart," cried Emily, who had been inexpressibly shocked at the terrible change which the young man's appearance presented. She had never seen death, nor was aware of the terrible shadow which the dark banner of the great Conqueror often casts before it.

"Thank you, thank you," replied John Ayliffe; "but you must not suppose, Mistress Emily, that all the evil I have done was out of my own head. Others prompted me to a great deal; although I was ready enough to follow their guidance, I must confess. The two principal persons were Shanks the lawyer, and Mrs. Hazleton--Oh, that woman is, I believe, the devil incarnate."

"Hush, hush," said Mr. Dixwell, "I cannot put such words as those down, nor should you speak them. You had better begin in order too, and tell all from the commencement, but calmly and in a Christian spirit, remembering that this is your own confession, and not an accusation of others."

"Well, I will try," said the young man faintly, lifting his hand from the bed-clothes, as if to put it to his head in the act of thought. But he was too weak, and he fell back again, and fixing his eyes on a spot in the wall opposite the foot of the bed, he continued in a sort of dreamy commemorative way as follows: "I loved you--yes, I loved you very much--I feel it now more than ever--I loved you more than you ever knew--more than I myself knew then. (Emily bent her head and hid her eyes with her hands.) It was not," he proceeded to say, "that you were more beautiful than any of the rest--although that was true too--but there was somehow a look about you, an air when you moved, a manner when you spoke, that made it seem as if you were of a different race from the rest--something higher, brighter, better, and as if your nobler nature shone out like a gleam on all you did--I cannot help thinking that if you could have loved me in return, mine would have been a different fate, a different end, a different and brighter hope even now--"

"You are wandering from the subject, my friend," said Mr. Dixwell. "Time is short."

"I am not altogether wandering," said John Ayliffe, "but feel faint. Give me some more wine." When he had got it, he continued thus: "I found you could not love me--I said in my heart that you would not love me; and my love turned into hate--at least I thought so--and I determined you should rue the day that you had refused me. Long before that, however, Shanks the lawyer had put it into my head that I could take your father's property and title from him, and I resolved some day to try, little knowing all that it would lead me into step by step. I had heard my mother say a hundred times that she had been as good as married to your uncle who was drowned, and that if right had been done I ought to have had the property. So I set to work with Shanks to see what could be done. Sometimes he led, sometimes I led; for he was a coward, and wanted to do all by cunning, and I was bold enough, and thought every thing was to be done by daring. We had both of us got dipped so deep in there was no going back. I tore one leaf out of the parish register myself, to make it seem that your grandfather had caused the record of my mother's marriage to be destroyed--but that was no marriage at all--they never were, married--and that's the truth. I did a great number of other very evil things, and then suddenly Mrs. Hazleton came in to help us; and whenever there was any thing particularly shrewd and keen to be devised, especially if there was a spice of malice in it towards Sir Philip or yourself, Mrs. Hazleton planned it for us--not telling us exactly to do this thing of that, but asking if it could not be done, or if it would be very wrong to do it. But I'll tell you them all in order--all that we did."

He went on to relate a great many particulars with which the reader is already acquainted. He told the whole villanous schemes which had been concocted between himself, the attorney, and Mrs. Hazleton, and which had been in part, or as a whole, executed to the ruin of Sir Philip Hastings' fortune and peace. The good clergyman took down his words with a rapid hand, as he spoke, though it was somewhat difficult; for the voice became more and more faint and low.