The circumstances were as follows. Jin of the Gins, (whose identity with the strolling beggar, who stole Edmund when a child, is not, we trust, forgotten,) had, it seems, been so long in the employ of the elder St. Aubin as a confidential agent for the concealment and disposal of smuggled goods, and the conduct of various other transactions of a like nature, that she had, in her turn, confided to him the secret of our hero’s birth, for the purpose of consulting him as to whether the said secret was, or was not marketable. She had even offered to go shares with him, provided he would assist her in making something of the business. He had, of course, dissuaded her from taking any step that might risk discovery before the marriage of Julia to Henry should be effected, after which he promised to put her in the way of extorting a sum, either from the nurse and her son for keeping the secret, or from Lord Fitz-Ullin, the father, then living, and Edmund his rightful heir, for disclosing it. All this was explained in a letter from the outlaw to his son, as an argument for redoubled vigilance in the watch the latter always kept over Julia and Edmund. In the elder St. Aubin’s next letter, his fears of the consequences of Julia’s attachment to our hero seem to have been much increased by some late accounts from Henry; for he even hints at how desirable it would be to rid themselves of all apprehension of danger from that quarter, and concludes by commanding his son to procure him a ticket to the Arandale masquerade, where, by approaching the parties in disguise, he should be enabled, he says, to judge himself of the urgency of the case. This epistle left no doubt that the elder St. Aubin had acted the part of the Indian juggler. Another letter contained allusions identifying him with the false pilot, who had attempted to run the Euphrasia aground at Leith.
In an early part of the correspondence the fate of poor Betsy Park was spoken of as having been untimely; but so darkly that whether the dreadful apprehensions which cost poor David his life, were well or ill founded must remain for ever involved in mystery. One of the letters of the elder St. Aubin, however, was of a very suspicious tendency, as it expressed the most unbridled rage towards Henry for having committed any folly which might ultimately interfere with the perfect legality of his projected marriage with Julia; adding, with savage ferocity, that whatever step his own imprudence had made necessary must be taken without flinching. Those letters may appear, considering the subjects of which they treat, to have been imprudently written: but the precaution of the invisible ink seems by the correspondents to have been thought all sufficient. It must also be observed that the information now obtained is collected from scattered hints darkly enough given, but elucidated on the present occasion by a comparison of both sides of the correspondence, a contingency scarcely to have been anticipated. That such letters, however, were not all regularly destroyed is only one proof more, added to the many already extant, of the glaring imprudence with which vicious proceedings of every description are almost invariably carried on.
Lord L⸺ expressed himself greatly shocked at those proofs of Henry’s depravity. “We certainly have before us,” rejoined Mr. Jackson, “melancholy evidence that he has, from a boy, lived the base tool of his desperate father, the convenient link of the outlaw with civilized society, the slave of a tyrant whom he could not love, yet, from the spell of habit unbroken from childhood, dared not resist. How he at last died by the hand of that parent, we have seen: and, that the blow by which he fell may be invested with its full portion of horror, we must remember that it was struck with the intent to murder, though not to murder Henry.”
“To facilitate the retaking of his ship,” said Fitz-Ullin, “by the death of the only officer on board, was, I should think, all that the elder St. Aubin could have had in view by his wanton assassination, in cold blood, of a person he believed to be a stranger.”
Henry’s having no knowledge to whom the privateer belonged, when he went on board her as prize-master, was accounted for by an attention to dates, which showed that she had been entirely fitted out and manned, since he, Henry, had last gone to sea in the Euphrasia. Each shocking discovery had been discussed, as the letter or letters throwing light on each, had been severally perused. The final decision of the gentlemen was, that none of the circumstances should ever be mentioned to Mrs. Montgomery; and that even to Julia and Frances, the disgusting scene of guilt and misery should be but partially, and gradually laid open.
Lord L⸺ was the first to leave the library: the retrospect of past years always spread a shade over his brow, and occasioned him to seek the retirement of his own apartment. Fitz-Ullin was also hurrying away, when Mr. Jackson drew him back, and, with a countenance of the deepest melancholy, showed him a letter which he had, he said, succeeded in setting apart while examining the papers.
This letter contained allusions to the death of Lady L⸺, worded in a style which made it appear but too probable, that there has been some foul play.
The vengeance which the elder St. Aubin had long since sworn to accomplish, and, in its accomplishment, to render his wretched child his tool, is adverted to in evident connexion with other allusions to the immense fortune thus by the nature of certain settlements, secured beyond contingency to a certain individual: expressions which, all circumstances considered, seemed scarcely to admit of other construction.
When Fitz-Ullin had finished the perusal of the lines pointed out to him, both gentlemen looked at each other for some seconds in silence. Mr. Jackson then, taking the letter from the hand of our hero, said solemnly, “With your approval, my Lord, I shall commit this paper to the flames: the surmise it suggests, is too horrible to be suffered to poison the future reflections of a bereft husband.
“If the crime which that surmise presents to the appalled imagination, has indeed been perpetrated, both the perpetrators already stand before a higher, and more unerring tribunal, than earth affords.” So saying, he flung the letter on the fire, and stood to see its last vestiges consumed.