Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 14

by Unknown

Where, now, does the reader imagine, did Raeburn conduct the unhappy victim of his villany. To his own splendid mansion? No. To a decent hotel, then?—or, probably, he consigned her to the care of some respectable female friend or acquaintance? Neither of these did the heartless ruffian do. He took her to a mean lodging, in one of the meanest parts of the town, pleading some lame apology for not taking her to his own house; and there left her in the hands of strangers, without a word of consolation or comfort, or of kindness. He said, however, before going away, that he would again call in the evening, and would, in the meantime, send a female domestic from his own house, to attend her, together with some necessaries.

It would be a vain, an idle task, to attempt to describe what were the unfortunate girl's feelings, now that the hideous truth, that she had been deceived and betrayed, though with what view she could not conjecture, stood undisguised before her. They were dreadful, too excruciating, too exquisitely agonising, to be expressed in words or in wailing. Their effect was to benumb every faculty, and to prostrate every sense; and, as one thus afflicted, sat poor Fanny Rutherford in a chair, at the window of her shabby apartment.

That evening, the first of her arrival, Raeburn, contrary to his promise, did not again visit her; but Cressingham came in his place, and dreadful was the result of this unwelcome visit on the poor girl's frame. It instantly brought on a crisis in that disease of the mind under which she was already labouring.

The moment he entered the apartment, she uttered a piercing shriek, and rushed frantically to the furthest corner of the room, in the greatest terror, calling on the intruder in the name of Heaven not to come near her—not to approach her. "Leave me, leave me!" she exclaimed, in a tone of bitter agony. "If there be the smallest portion of humanity in your nature, you will leave me instantly. For the love of Heaven," she again repeated, "and of all that you hold dear, leave me! I am deceived and betrayed by him in whom I put all my earthly trust. Oh! my father, my brothers, if ye knew of this. But you will never know it: for I will never see you again. Never, never, never!"

The extreme agitation, the terror and outcries of the unfortunate girl, at once arrested Cressingham's progress, and brought several persons that were in the house around her; and by these last—Cressingham having sneaked off, without saying a word—it was judged advisable to send immediately for medical assistance, which was accordingly done. Nor was it unnecessary; for a strong fever had already seized on the poor young lady, and was rapidly exhausting her strength.

The medical gentleman sent for instantly attended, and ordered Miss Rutherford to be put to bed. He then prescribed for her as for one whose danger he considered imminent; and he was not mistaken. Deeply interested in the unfortunate girl, from whom he had learned a good deal of her melancholy story, the medical gentleman who had been called in did all that man could do to arrest the progress of the fatal disease under which she was labouring. Night and day he attended her, during her severe but brief illness, and not only employed his own skill to save her, but that of some of the most eminent of his professional brethren in the town, whom he brought to his assistance.

But all human efforts were vain. From hour to hour, the fever went on, increasing alarmingly, accompanied by a proportionable diminution of the poor patient's strength, until, at length, the awful and fatal crisis arrived. On the evening of the third day after her arrival in Calcutta, Fanny Rutherford breathed her last, surrounded with strangers, and in a foreign land.

But where was the master ruffian all this time? How was he employed, and how did he feel, while this dreadful and affecting scene was enacting? Why, he was giving himself very little concern about it, further than that which proceeded from his fears for his £5000.

He had indeed called two or three times at Fanny's lodgings during her illness, to inquire for her, and had even sent her some cordials—cordials, alas! of which she had never partaken—from his own house; but more than this he had not done, nor in any other way had he evinced the smallest sympathy for the unhappy victim of his villany.

Raeburn knew that Fanny's illness was of a dangerous nature—but he had no idea that it was to terminate as it did so soon; and it was under this mistaken impression that he and Cressingham called at Fanny's lodgings on the very evening on which she died, and, as it happened, within a few minutes after that melancholy event had taken place.