Part 143 (1/2)
”Hold!” exclaimed Harley, with a terrible burst of pa.s.sion,--”you kill her twice to me if you say that! I can still feel that she lives--lives here, in my heart--while I dream that she loved me--or, at least, that no other lip ever knew the kiss that was denied to mine! But if you tell me to doubt that--you--you--” The boy's anguish was too great for his frame; he fell suddenly back into Audley's arms; he had broken a blood-vessel. For several days he was in great danger; but his eyes were constantly fixed on Audley's, with wistful intense gaze. ”Tell me,”
he muttered, at the risk of re-opening the ruptured veins, and of the instant loss of life,--”tell me, you did not mean that! Tell me you have no cause to think she loved another--was another's!”
”Hush, hus.h.!.+ no cause--none--none! I meant but to comfort you, as I thought,--fool that I was!--that is all!” cried the miserable friend.
And from that hour Audley gave up the idea of righting himself in his own eyes, and submitted still to be the living lie,--he, the haughty gentleman!
Now, while Harley was still very weak and suffering, Mr. Dale came to London, and called on Egerton. The curate, in promising secrecy to Mrs.
Avenel, had made one condition, that it should not be to the positive injury of Nora's living son. What if Nora were married after all?
And would it not be right, at least, to learn the name of the child's father?
Some day he might need a father. Mrs. Avenel was obliged to content herself with these reservations. However, she implored Mr. Dale not to make inquiries. What could they do? If Nora were married, her husband would naturally, of his own accord, declare himself; if seduced and forsaken, it would but disgrace her memory (now saved from stain) to discover the father to a child of whose very existence the world as yet knew nothing. These arguments perplexed the good curate. But Jane Fairfield had a sanguine belief in her sister's innocence; and all her suspicions naturally pointed to Lord L'Estrange. So, indeed, perhaps; did Mrs. Avenel's, though she never owned them. Of the correctness of these suspicions Mr. Dale was fully convinced; the young lord's admiration, Lady Lansmere's fears, had been too evident to one who had often visited at the Park; Harley's abrupt departure just before Nora's return home; Egerton's sudden resignation of the borough before even opposition was declared, in order to rejoin his friend, the very day of Nora's death,--all confirmed his ideas that Harley was the betrayer or the husband. Perhaps there might have been a secret marriage--possibly abroad--since Harley wanted some years of his majority. He would, at least, try to see and to sound Lord L'Estrange. Prevented this interview by Harley's illness, the curate resolved to ascertain how far he could penetrate into the mystery by a conversation with Egerton. There was much in the grave repute which the latter had acquired, and the singular and pre-eminent character for truth and honour with which it was accompanied, that made the curate resolve upon this step. Accordingly; he saw Egerton, meaning only diplomatically to extract from the new member for Lansmere what might benefit the family of the voters who had given him his majority of two.
He began by mentioning, as a touching fact, how poor John Avenel, bowed down by the loss of his child and the malady which had crippled his limbs and enfeebled his mind, had still risen from his bed to keep his word. And Audley's emotions seemed to him so earnest and genuine, to show so good a heart, that out by little and little came more: first, his suspicions that poor Nora had been betrayed; then his hopes that there might have been private marriage; and as Audley, with his iron self-command, showed just the proper degree of interest, and no more, he went on, till Audley knew that he had a child.
”Inquire no further!” said the man of the world. ”Respect Mrs. Avenel's feelings and wishes, I entreat you; they are the right ones. Leave the rest to me. In my position--I mean as a resident of London--I can quietly and easily ascertain more than you could, and provoke no scandal! If I can right this--this--poor--[his voice trembled]--right the lost mother, or the living child, sooner or later you will hear from me; if not, bury this secret where it now rests, in a grave which slander has not reached. But the child--give me the address where it is to be found--in case I succeed in finding the father, and touching his heart.”
”Oh, Mr. Egerton, may I not say where you may find that father--who he is?”
”Sir!”
”Do not be angry; and, after all, I cannot ask you to betray any confidence which a friend may have placed in you. I know what you men of high honour are to each other, even in sin. No, no, I beg pardon; I leave all in your hands. I shall hear from you then?”
”Or if not, why, then, believe that all search is hopeless. My friend!
if you mean Lord L'Estrange, he is innocent. I--I--I--[the voice faltered]--am convinced of it.”
The curate sighed, but made no answer. ”Oh, ye men of the world!”
thought he. He gave the address which the member for Lansmere had asked for, and went his way, and never heard again from Audley Egerton. He was convinced that the man who had showed such deep feeling had failed in his appeal to Harley's conscience, or had judged it best to leave Nora's name in peace, and her child to her own relations and the care of Heaven.
Harley L'Estrange, scarcely yet recovered, hastened to join our armies on the Continent, and seek the Death which, like its half-brother, rarely comes when we call it.
As soon as Harley was gone, Egerton went to the village to which Mr.
Dale had directed him, to seek for Nora's child. But here he was led into a mistake which materially affected the tenor of his own life, and Leonard's future destinies. Mrs. Fairfield had been naturally ordered by her mother to take another name in the village to which she had gone with the two infants, so that her connection with the Avenel family might not be traced, to the provocation of inquiry and gossip. The grief and excitement through which she had gone dried the source of nutriment in her breast. She put Nora's child out to nurse at the house of a small farmer, at a little distance from the village, and moved from her first lodging to be nearer to the infant. Her own child was so sickly and ailing, that she could not bear to intrust it to the care of an other.
She tried to bring it up by hand; and the poor child soon pined away and died. She and Mark could not endure the sight of their baby's grave; they hastened to return to Hazeldean, and took Leonard with them. From that time Leonard pa.s.sed for the son they had lost.
When Egerton arrived at the village, and inquired for the person whose address had been given to him, he was referred to the cottage in which she had last lodged, and was told that she had been gone some days,--the day after her child was buried. Her child buried! Egerton stayed to inquire no more; thus he heard nothing of the infant that had been put out to nurse. He walked slowly into the churchyard, and stood for some minutes gazing on the small new mound; then, pressing his hand on the heart to which all emotion had been forbidden, he re-entered his chaise and returned to London. The sole reason for acknowledging his marriage seemed to him now removed. Nora's name had escaped reproach. Even had his painful position with regard to Harley not constrained him to preserve his secret, there was every motive to the world's wise and haughty son not to acknowledge a derogatory and foolish marriage, now that none lived whom concealment could wrong.
Audley mechanically resumed his former life,--sought to resettle his thoughts on the grand objects of ambitious men. His poverty still pressed on him; his pecuniary debt to Harley stung and galled his peculiar sense of honour. He saw no way to clear his estates, to repay his friend, but by some rich alliance. Dead to love, he faced this prospect first with repugnance, then with apathetic indifference. Levy, of whose treachery towards himself and Nora he was unaware, still held over him the power that the money-lender never loses over the man that has owed, owes, or may owe again. Levy was ever urging him to propose, to the rich Miss Leslie; Lady Lansmere, willing to atone, as she thought, for his domestic loss, urged the same; Harley, influenced by his mother, wrote from the Continent to the same effect.
”Manage it as you will,” at last said Egerton to Levy, ”so that I am not a wife's pensioner.”
”Propose for me, if you will,” he said to Lady Lansmere,--”I cannot woo,--I cannot talk of love.”
Somehow or other the marriage, with all its rich advantages to the ruined gentleman, was thus made up. And Egerton, as we have seen, was the polite and dignified husband before the world,--married to a woman who adored him. It is the common fate of men like him to be loved too well!
On her death-bed his heart was touched by his wife's melancholy reproach,--”Nothing I could do has ever made you love me!”
”It is true,” answered Audley, with tears in his voice and eyes; ”Nature gave me but a small fund of what women like you call 'love,' and I lavished it all away.” And he then told her, though with reserve, some portion of his former history; and that soothed her; for when she saw that he had loved, and could grieve, she caught a glimpse of the human heart she had not seen before. She died, forgiving him, and blessing.