Part 50 (1/2)
”And my murdered son!” she gasped, ”for I know not yet that G.o.d will hear my prayers and raise him up to me again. Is his blood to count for nothing-or his sufferings-his patient sufferings on that bed? A fine-a paltry fine-a trifle for a rich man. I would pay thrice as much, though it beggared me, to see him sent to the Plantations. O Judge and Avenger of Israel! Thou hast scourged us with pestilence, and punished us with fire; but Thou hast not convinced us of sin. The world is so sunk in wickedness that murder scarce counts for crime.”
The day of terror was past. Denzil's convalescence was proceeding slowly, but without retrograde stages. His youth and temperate habits had helped his recovery from a wound which in the earlier stages looked fatal. He was now able to sit up in an armchair, and talk to his visitor, when Sir John rode twenty miles to see him; but only once did his lips shape the name that had been so dear, and that occasion was at the end of a visit which Sir John announced as the last.
”Our goods are packed and ready for s.h.i.+pping,” he said. ”My daughter and I will begin our journey to Montpelier early next week.”
It was the first time Sir John had spoken of his daughter in that sick-room.
”If she should ever talk of me, in the time to come,” Denzil said-speaking very slowly, in a low voice, as if the effort, mental and physical, were almost beyond his strength, and holding the hand which Sir John had given him in saying good-bye-”tell her that I shall ever remember her with a compa.s.sionate affection-ever hold her the dearest and loveliest of women-yes, even if I should marry, and see the children of some fair and chaste wife growing up around me. She will ever be the first. And tell her that I know she forswore herself in the court; and that she was the innocent dupe of that villain-never his consenting companion. And tell her that I pity her even for that so misplaced affection which tempted her to swear to a lie. I knew, sir, always, that she loved him and not me. Yes, from the first. Indeed, sir, it was but too easy to read that unconscious beginning of unholy love, which grew and strengthened like some fatal disease. I knew, but nursed the fond hope that I could win her heart-in spite of him. I fancied that right must prevail over wrong; but it does not, you see, sir, not always-not--” A faintness came over him; whereupon his mother, re-entering the room at this moment, ran to him and restored him with the strong essence that stood handy among the medicine bottles on the table by his chair.
”You have suffered him to talk too much,” she said, glancing angrily at Sir John. ”And I'll warrant he has been talking of your daughter-whose name must be poison to him. G.o.d knows 'tis worse than poison to me!”
”Madam, I did not come to this house to hear my daughter abused--”
”It would have better become you, Sir John Kirkland, to keep away from this house.”
”Mother, silence! You distress me worse than my illness--”
”This, madam, is my farewell visit. You will not be plagued any more with me,” said Sir John, lifting his hat, and bowing low to Lady Warner.
He was gone before she could reply.
The baggage was ready-clothes, books, guns, plate, and linen-all necessaries for an exile that might last for years, had been packed for the sea voyage; but the trunks and bales had not yet been placed in the waggon that was to convey them to the Tower Wharf, where they were to be s.h.i.+pped in one of the orange-boats that came at this season from Valencia, laden with that choice and costly fruit, and returned with a heterogeneous cargo. At Valencia the goods would be put on board a Mediterranean coasting vessel, and landed at Cette.
Sir John began to waver about his destination after having heard from Henriette of her father's possible emba.s.sy. Certainly if Fareham were to be employed in foreign diplomacy, Paris seemed a likely post for a man who was so well known there, and had spent so much of his life in France. And if Fareham were to be at Paris, Sir John considered Montpelier, remote as it was from the capital, too near his enemy.
”He has proved himself an indomitable villain,” thought the Knight. ”And I could not always keep as close a watch upon my daughter as I have done in the last six weeks. No. If Fareham be for France, I am for some other country. I might take her to Florence, and put the Apennines between her and that daring wretch.”
It may be, too, that Sir John had another reason for lingering, after all was ready for the journey. He may have been much influenced by Angela's concern about his grandchildren, and may have hesitated at leaving them alone in England with only salaried guardians.
”Their father concerns himself very little about them, you see,” he told Angela, ”since he can entertain the project of a foreign emba.s.sy, while those little wretches are pining in a lonely barrack in Oxfords.h.i.+re.”
”Indeed, sir, he is a fond father. I would wager my life that he is deeply concerned about them.”
”Oh, he is an angel, on your showing! You would blacken your sister's character to make him a saint.”
The next day was fine and sunny, a temperature as of April, after the morning frost had melted. There was a late rose or two still lingering in the sheltered Buckinghams.h.i.+re valley, though it wanted but a fortnight of Christmas. Angela and her father were sitting in a parlour that faced the iron gates. Since their return from London Sir John had seemed uneasy when his daughter was out of his sight; and she, perceiving his watchfulness and trouble, had been content to abandon her favourite walks in the lanes and woods and to the ”fair hill of Brill,” whence the view was so lovely and so vast, on one side reaching to the Welsh mountains, and on another commanding the nearer prospect of ”the great fat common of Ottmoor,” as Aubrey calls it, ”which in some winters is like a sea of waters.” For her father's comfort, noting the sad wistful eyes that watched her coming in and going out, she had resigned herself to spend long melancholy hours within doors, reading aloud till Sir John fell asleep, playing backgammon-a game she detested worse even than shove-halfpenny, which latter primitive game they played sometimes on the shovel-board in the hall. Life could scarcely be sadder than Angela's life in those grey winter days; and had it not been for an occasional ride across country with her father, health and spirits must alike have succ.u.mbed to this monotony of sadness.
This morning, as on many mornings of late, the subject of the boy and girl at Chilton had been discussed with the Knight's tankard of home-brewed and his daughter's chocolate.
”Indeed, sir, it would be a cruel thing for us to abandon them. At Montpelier we shall be a fortnight's journey from England; and if either of those dear creatures should fall ill, dangerously ill, perhaps, their father beyond the seas, and we, too, absent-oh, sir, figure to yourself Henriette or George dying among strangers! A cold or a fever might carry them off in a few days; and we should know nothing till all was over.”
Sir John groaned and paced the room, agitated by the funereal image.
”Why, what a raven thou art, ever to croak dismal prophecies. The children are strong and well, and have careful custodians. I can have no dealings with their father. Must I tell you that a hundred times, Angela? He is a consummate villain: and were it not that I fear to make a bigger scandal, he or I should not have survived many hours after that iniquitous sentence.”
A happy solution of this difficulty, which distressed the Knight much more than his stubbornness allowed him to admit, was close at hand that morning, while Angela bent over her embroidery frame, and her father spelt through the last London Gazette that the post had brought him.
The clatter of hoofs and roll of wheels announced a visit; and while they were looking at the gate, full of wonder, since their visitors were of so small a number, a footman in the Fareham livery pulled the iron ring that hung by a chain from the stone pillar, and the bell rang loud and long in the frosty air. The Fareham livery! Twice before the Fareham coaches and liveries had taken that quiet household by surprise; but to-day terror rather than surprise was in Angela's mind as she stood in front of the window looking at the gate.