The Land of Bondage: A Romance

by John Bloundelle-Burton

Whether the creature had heard something of my untoward affairs I know not, but, anyway, she glanced at me more favourably on receipt of this intelligence, and, gruffly still, bade us wait in the passage while she went to speak to her ladyship. But I could not do that, and so, springing up the stairs after her, was into the room as soon as she, and, almost ere she had announced my arrival, I was enfolded in my mother's arms.

She was at this time not more than thirty-five years of age, having been married at eighteen to my father, yet, already, pain and sickness had laid its hand heavily upon her, and, along with trouble, had saddened, though they could not mar, her sweet face. The brow that, as a still younger woman I remembered so soft and smooth, and over which I had loved to pass my hands, was now lined and had a wrinkle or so across it; the deep chestnut hair had threads of silver in it, the soft blue eyes looked worn and weary and had lost their sparkle. For sorrow and tribulation had been her lot since first my unhappy father had crossed her path, and to that sorrow there had come ill health in the form of a palsy, that, as she had written Mr. Kinchella, sometimes left her free but mostly kept her fast confined to the house.

And now, the servant having quitted us, she drew me to her closer still as I knelt beside her, and removing my wig which, she said through her tears and smiles, made me look too old, she fondled and caressed me and whispered her happiness.

"Oh, my child, my sweet," she said, "how it joys me to hold thee to my heart again after I had thought thee dead and gone from me. My dear, my dear, my loved one, 'tis as June to my heart after a long and cruel winter to have thee by me once again; my child, my child of many tears and longings. And how handsome thou art," pushing back my hair with her thin white hand, "even after all thy sufferings, how beautiful, how like--Ah! how like him," and here she shuddered as she recalled my father, though she drew me nearer to her as she did so and took my head upon her breast. Then she wept a little, silently, so that I could feel her tears falling upon my face and wetting my collar, and whispered half to herself and half to me, "So like him, who was as handsome as an angel when first I saw him, yet so vile--so vile." And then, bending her head even nearer to me so that her lips touched my ear, she murmured, "Is't true? was it as that gentleman, your friend, wrote me? Did he die alone and unbefriended? Were there none by him to succour him? None to pity him? Oh! Gerald, Gerald, my husband that once was," she moaned, "oh! Gerald, Gerald, how different it might all have been if thou would'st have had it so."

We stayed locked in each other's arms I know not how long, while she wept and smiled over me and wept again over my dead father. After which, calming herself somewhat, she bade me go and fetch Oliver of whom I had whispered something to her in the time, since she would see and thank him for all that he had done.

So Oliver came up from the passage where he had been sitting patiently enough while whistling softly to himself, and stood before her as she spoke gratefully as well as graciously to him.

"Sir," she said after she had given him her hand, which Oliver bent over and kissed as a gentleman might have done, and with a grace which, I think, he must have acquired when he followed the great Duke twenty years before and was himself a gallant young soldier of eighteen years of age. "Sir, how shall a poor widow thank you for all that you have done for her son and your friend?"--here Oliver smiled pleasedly at my being termed his friend, but disclaimed having done aught of much weight for me. "Nay, nay," she went on, "do not say that. Why! you have brought him forth from the jaws of death, you have saved him from those scheming villains to place him in his mother's arms again, you have risked your own safety to do so--shall I not thank you deeply, tenderly, for all that?"

"Madam," Oliver said, "my lady, I could not see the poor youth so set and put upon and stand idly by without so much as lending him a hand. And, my lady, if there was any reason necessary for helping him beyond that of mercy towards one so sorely afflicted as he was, I had it in the fact that I had known him long before at New Ross."

"At New Ross!" my mother exclaimed. "At New Ross! Is that your part of the country?"

"It is, my lady, and there, after quitting the army, I lived for many years working at my trade. And it was there that I have often seen Gerald--as I have come to call him, madam, since we have been drawn so close together, tho' I am not forgetful of his rank nor of the respect due to it--with you and with his late lordship, more especially when you all drove into New Ross in the light chaise my lord brought from London, or when Gerald would ride into the town on his pony with his groom."