“Harry, Harry!” he exclaimed, “be calm, I beseech you, and do not drive me more distracted than I am already. Mr Fane’s name was Thomas—Tom Fane. You see, my dear boy, that this is all too true. Bear it like a man, or you will make children of us both; and rather try to aid me in considering how it is to be revealed to her, than make yourself unfit to join in alleviating her misery. I say nothing now, Henry, about your proposals—be that as you may think fit hereafter, for such a calamity as this must alter everything; only this I conjure you to, let us not now desert the innocent girl in the time of her affliction.”
But I could not bear up against the agony of my feelings, as I was at length forced to admit the horrible conviction. I was utterly unable to take a part in the solicitous cares of my friend. In vain did he persuade—chide—denounce,—I wept, and groaned in the bitterest and deepest despair. After trying every means that prudence and humanity could suggest, he led me at last to my bedroom, where he left me, with the assurance that, in the mean time, nothing should be disclosed to Ellen (in whose presence I had not been trusted again even long enough to bid good-night—nor had I desired it), and promised, at parting, to make my apologies below, on the ground of sudden illness. I spent a night, if possible, more miserable than the evening. Not one minute’s sleep, not one minute’s respite from horrible thoughts—I tossed in bodily fever, and mental disorder still more insufferable, through all the long hours (although but few in number), till the grey dawn appeared around me. And now I am going to make a shameful confession. I rose with the first light, strong enough to show the shape of things, and stole like a thief out of my window. I could no longer bear the thought of being married to a murderer’s daughter, and had made up my mind to fly from Bromley Hall. I dropped safely to the court, and ran across the lawn, impelled by shame, and selfishness, and pride, and turned my steps with a dastardly speed along the road towards London. I ran on till broad daylight, when, after ascending a steep hill, I threw myself behind a clump of furze by the road side, being utterly exhausted by my impetuous speed and contending passions. The bright freshness of the sunrise glittered over wide and rich lowlands beneath me. The breeze came up, heavy with meadow sweet and new mown hay—a delicious bath for my hot forehead. The singing of birds was showered forth from every bush and blossoming hedgerow, and a milk-white heifer came lowing up a lane, and stood placid and ruminating in the warmth beside me. I could not help thinking of the Sunday, when I had sat with Ellen on just such a hill, and had overlooked just such a sweep of meadows and pastures—and could I think of that scene, and forget how I had then vowed to cherish and support her through good and evil report, and how she had promised that she would never marry man but me? Could I forget how she had bared her bosom to the bleak wind, that she might bind my brows when I was perishing with cold? Could I forget how she had stooped to menial occupations in a hovel, to get me fire, and meat, and drink, when I was wet, and hungry, and athirst? And could I now be the false, the base and recreant villain, to leave her in her premature widowhood alone, exposed to all the calamity of sudden abhorrence and bereavement? It was beyond the obstinacy of pride to resist the influence of such reflections. I found myself looking round at the white chimneys of Bromley, where they rose among the trees behind me: I burst into tears like a child, and, with a revulsion of feelings as complete as when I had first felt myself longing to escape from her, I turned my steps back again towards Ellen’s dwelling.
I had hardly descended the hill when I met the London coach—I would have given twenty fares for a seat on it half an hour before; and even now, when the driver checked his horses as he passed, and asked me, was I for London, I felt a renewal of the conflict almost as fierce as ever: But my better genius conquered. I continued on my way, and reached the house again before seven o’clock. I wished to get in unobserved, and appear at breakfast as if nothing had happened, but my host himself met me as I crossed the lawn. We exchanged a melancholy salute, and he turned with me, without even asking where I had been. We walked into the library together, and I took up a book, and turned away to avoid his eye, in which a tear was trembling as well as in my own. He sat down to read his letters, sighing as if his heart would break while he opened one after another, till suddenly he caught me by the arm, and drew me close to him. I had been standing in his light; but it was not that that made him grasp me so closely. “Harry, Harry, thank God, with me!” he cried, in a voice tremulous with joy, “she is safe! she is safe!—our dear girl is safe from even a shadow of disgrace!—But why do I talk of disgrace?—here, read that letter, and thank God!”
This is a copy of the letter, which he here put into my hands:—
“My dear Blundell,—I have made a sad mistake about poor Fane. I was called on to visit him suddenly this morning, and found him in his last moments at a miserable lodging in the Barbican, where he expired to-day at four o’clock. Before his death, he told me the circumstances connected with the command of the Gull. It appears that, when the commission came, he was unable to move in its use from gout and the effects of long dissipation, and that the Forrests of the Race being in town, prevailed on him, for a trifling sum, to give up the papers to a vagabond namesake of his own (but no connection, as far as I can understand), who had been an old associate of theirs in Cornwall. This fellow went down to Sheerness, and took the command unquestioned, in the hurry of preparation for sea, and, as I mentioned in my note of yesterday, has set sail for the fleet. By the by, there are dark reports in the Admiralty about the Forrests and the old Phœnix (Manson, jun.), that was supposed to have gone down at sea two years ago. The story goes, that they and this fellow Fane (against whom an order is already issued, on the elder Manson’s application), made away with the crew at the Race, into which she had driven at night, and getting the ship off by the next tide, sailed her to Bordeaux, where they sold her to the Messrs Devereux, and fitted out their letter of marque with the money. Of course, this is in confidence. I have often warned poor Ellen’s father of Adam Forrest, and told him how improper the situation was for her (I know Forrest designed getting her for his cousin), but he was in the fellow’s debt, and therefore under his control; so that, although he disliked the thing as much as I, my representations had no effect. His death must be a relief to us all, yet I cannot but lament him—bold, generous, and honourable he always was, even to the last; and, now that he is gone, let us say nothing of the one deforming vice.—Believe me, most truly yours,” &c. &c.
For five days I had been torn from my former self by a continued series of disaster and passionate suffering, and so constantly and rapidly had each astonishment succeeded the other, that I was become, I thought, in great measure callous to the most surprising change that could now possibly take place. But here I was placed all at once, and that when least of all expected, on the same ground as when I had parted from Ellen on the night before our first separation; and all the intermediate ordeal of terror and despair was past, and from it I had come out a bolder, truer, and happier man. It may well be credited, then, that my thanks to the Providence, through whose inscrutable hands I had been thus kindly dealt with, were full and fervent; and it may well be supposed how Ellen wondered, with blushes and doubtful confusion, what the embrace, so sadly tender yet so ardent, might mean, when both her guardian and her lover congratulated her on the dispersion of her threatened calamities. Natural sorrow took its course; and grief for the parent, wretched as he was, claimed its indulgence of time and solitude. I had not forgotten the advice of my excellent friend, about making a man (worthy such a wife) of myself by my own exertions; and receiving official directions to join the fleet, after I had made the necessary depositions, I left Ellen with her tears scarce dried, on the understanding that I should return, so soon as of age, and claim her for my own.