But did he contemplate the immediate adoption of measures to force his father to wrest the title and estates of the Earldom from Arthur? We know not all that passed through the mind of Charles Hatfield on this fatal night:—we can, however, aver that having fully perused the valuable documents which had made to him such important revelations, he did not restore them to the secret recess where he had found them, but secured them about his own person.
Previously to quitting the library, he closed the sliding panel, and replaced the Annual Register in such a manner that the shelf did not appear to have been disturbed.
The west-end clocks were striking three, and the light of a July morning was streaming through the windows of the mansion, when Charles Hatfield retired to his own chamber. His first care was to consign to his writing-desk the documents and letters which he now considered to be the arbiters of his destiny; and, this being performed, he sought his couch.
But slumber would not visit his eyes:—myriads of conflicting ideas were in his brain. He felt that he had to play the hypocrite—to keep a bridle on his tongue—to control every look, and measure every word, until the time should come for proclaiming all he knew. For the present he would not distress his parents by allowing them even to suspect that the things which they considered to be such profound secrets, were no longer so to him. No:—he would endeavour to appear the same gay—frank—confiding—affectionate Charles Hatfield that he hitherto had been!
These were amongst the principal reflections which chased sleep from his pillow until long past four o’clock;—and when at length his heavy lids were weighed down through sheer exhaustion of the mental and physical energies, his slumber was agitated with wild and varying visions, and he awoke unrefreshed, and still suffering with the fatigue of his long vigil.
CHAPTER CXXVII.
THE WANDERERS.
The night on which Charles Hatfield made the important discoveries detailed in the preceding chapter, was marked by other events of a scarcely less interesting nature.
It was about eleven o’clock—the weather was intensely warm—and not a breath of air agitated the foliage on the way-side, as two females toiled slowly and painfully along the high road between Dartford and Shooter’s Hill.
One was a hideous old harridan whose years could not have been less than sixty-two or sixty-three; and yet, though her form—once tall, symmetrical, and on a large scale—was bowed with age and sufferings, she still possessed considerable physical energy. The countenance was weather-beaten and tanned to such an extreme that, had she been dressed in male attire, no delicacy nor feminine cast of features would have betrayed her real sex: her short grizzled locks were confined by an old kerchief wound round her head in a gipsy fashion;—and her garb denoted the utmost penury and distress. Not only did she leave upon the mind the disagreeable impression of revolting ugliness;—but her look was sinister and repulsive. The wrinkles beneath her eyes and about her closely compressed lips, bespoke a ferocious and determined character,—a soul resolute and nerved to every evil purpose;—and the acute observer might also mark in that countenance traces of those stormy and impetuous passions which had influenced her earlier years.
Her companion was a young woman of about nineteen; and though she was dressed almost as wretchedly as the old harridan, yet how different was the form which those rags covered! For her figure, though full even to a maturity beyond her years, was exquisitely modelled,—a waist not ridiculously small, but still small enough to develop in all their voluptuous proportions the swelling hips and fine bust. Clothed in stockings covered with darns, and shod with large clumsy shoes, were limbs and feet that for symmetry might have been envied by a queen;—and, as if anxious in the depths of her penury to preserve her charms as completely as possible, she wore an old pair of gloves upon her beautifully sculptured hands. Then her face, though sun-burnt was of a beauty which event an anchorite must have turned to admire,—yet a beauty of a bold and masculine style, and stamping her rather as a very handsome than as a very lovely woman. Her features were of the Roman cast,—the strong facial aquiline denoting a voluptuous and profoundly sensual disposition;—her fine large grey eyes looked boldly and wantonly from beneath dark brows majestically arched and almost meeting between the temples, and above which rose the high, straight, wide forehead, crowned with intelligence. Her hair was of a dark brown and singularly luxuriant, glossy, and silken;—and it was evident that not even the bitter miseries of poverty rendered her indifferent to the care which that glorious covering required to maintain its splendour unimpaired. Her mouth was small,—the upper lip thin—the lower one fuller, but not pouting;—her teeth, the least thing large, were nevertheless perfectly regular and of pearly whiteness;—and her chin was prominent, but well rounded. The general expression of her countenance was indicative of strong passions and fierce desires—great resolution of purpose—and something approaching even to a resolute sternness of purpose, amounting almost to implacability. She was not above the middle height; and her carriage was more commanding than graceful:—at the same time, it would have struck a beholder that were she attired in a befitting manner, her gait and gestures would have been characterised by nothing positively inelegant.