Part 72 (1/2)
As he spoke, however, he attempted to touch it, and was repulsed with an energy that rather disconcerted him. The poor girl recoiled from him into the farthest corner of that prison in speechless horror--in the darkest confusion of ideas. She did not weep--she did not sob--but her trembling seemed to shake the very carriage. The man continued to address, to expostulate, to pray, to soothe.
His manner was respectful. His protestations that he would not harm her for the world were endless.
”Only just see the home I can give you; for two days--for one day. Only just hear how rich I can make you and your grandfather, and then if you wish to leave me, you shall.”
More, much more, to this effect, did he continue to pour forth, without extracting any sound from f.a.n.n.y but gasps as for breath, and now and then a low murmur:
”Let me go, let me go! My grandfather, my blind grandfather!”
And finally tears came to her relief, and she sobbed with a pa.s.sion that alarmed, and perhaps even touched her companion, cynical and icy as he was. Meanwhile the carriage seemed to fly. Fast as two horses, thorough-bred, and almost at full speed, could go, they were whirled along, till about an hour, or even less, from the time in which she had been thus captured, the carriage stopped.
”Are we here already?” said the man, putting his head out of the window.
”Do then as I told you. Not to the front door; to my study.”
In two minutes more the carriage halted again, before a building which looked white and ghostlike through the mist. The driver dismounted, opened with a latch-key a window-door, entered for a moment to light the candles in a solitary room from a fire that blazed on the hearth, reappeared, and opened the carriage-door. It was with a difficulty for which they were scarcely prepared that they were enabled to get f.a.n.n.y from the carriage. No soft words, no whispered prayers could draw her forth; and it was with no trifling address, for her companion sought to be as gentle as the force necessary to employ would allow, that he disengaged her hands from the window-frame, the lining, the cus.h.i.+ons, to which they clung; and at last bore her into the house. The driver closed the window again as he retreated, and they were alone. f.a.n.n.y then cast a wild, scarce conscious glance over the apartment. It was small and simply furnished. Opposite to her was an old-fas.h.i.+oned bureau, one of those quaint, elaborate monuments of Dutch ingenuity, which, during the present century, the audacious spirit of curiosity-vendors has transplanted from their native receptacles, to contrast, with grotesque strangeness, the neat handiwork of Gillow and Seddon. It had a physiognomy and character of its own--this fantastic foreigner! Inlaid with mosaics, depicting landscapes and animals; graceless in form and fas.h.i.+on, but still picturesque, and winning admiration, when more closely observed, from the patient defiance of all rules of taste which had formed its c.u.mbrous parts into one profusely ornamented and eccentric whole. It was the more noticeable from its total want of harmony with the other appurtenances of the room, which bespoke the tastes of the plain English squire. Prints of horses and hunts, fis.h.i.+ng-rods and fowling-pieces, carefully suspended, decorated the walls. Not, however, on this notable stranger from the sluggish land rested the eye of f.a.n.n.y. That, in her hurried survey, was arrested only by a portrait placed over the bureau--the portrait of a female in the bloom of life; a face so fair, a brow so candid, and eyes so pure, a lip so rich in youth and joy--that as her look lingered on the features f.a.n.n.y felt comforted, felt as if some living protectress were there. The fire burned bright and merrily; a table, spread as for dinner, was drawn near it. To any other eye but f.a.n.n.y's the place would have seemed a picture of English comfort. At last her looks rested on her companion.
He had thrown himself, with a long sigh, partly of fatigue, partly of satisfaction, on one of the chairs, and was contemplating her as she thus stood and gazed, with an expression of mingled curiosity and admiration; she recognised at once her first, her only persecutor. She recoiled, and covered her face with her hands. The man approached her:--
”Do not hate me, f.a.n.n.y,--do not turn away. Believe me, though I have acted thus violently, here all violence will cease. I love you, but I will not be satisfied till you love me in return. I am not young, and I am not handsome, but I am rich and great, and I can make those whom I love happy,--so happy, f.a.n.n.y!”
But f.a.n.n.y had turned away, and was now busily employed in trying to re-open the door at which she had entered. Failing in this, she suddenly darted away, opened the inner door, and rushed into the pa.s.sage with a loud cry. Her persecutor stifled an oath, and sprung after and arrested her. He now spoke sternly, and with a smile and a frown at once:--
”This is folly;--come back, or you will repent it! I have promised you, as a gentleman--as a n.o.bleman, if you know what that is--to respect you.
But neither will I myself be trifled with nor insulted. There must be no screams!”
His look and his voice awed f.a.n.n.y in spite of her bewilderment and her loathing, and she suffered herself pa.s.sively to be drawn into the room.
He closed and bolted the door. She threw herself on the ground in one corner, and moaned low but piteously. He looked at her musingly for some moments, as he stood by the fire, and at last went to the door, opened it, and called ”Harriet” in a low voice. Presently a young woman, of about thirty, appeared, neatly but plainly dressed, and of a countenance that, if not very winning, might certainly be called very handsome.
He drew her aside for a few moments, and a whispered conference was exchanged. He then walked gravely up to f.a.n.n.y ”My young friend,” said he, ”I see my presence is too much for you this evening. This young woman will attend you--will get you all you want. She can tell you, too, that I am not the terrible sort of person you seem to suppose. I shall see you to-morrow.” So saying, he turned on his heel and walked out.
f.a.n.n.y felt something like liberty, something like joy, again. She rose, and looked so pleadingly, so earnestly, so intently into the woman's face, that Harriet turned away her bold eyes abashed; and at this moment d.y.k.eman himself looked into the room.
”You are to bring us in dinner here yourself, uncle; and then go to my lord in the drawing-room.”
d.y.k.eman looked pleased, and vanished. Then Harriet came up and took f.a.n.n.y's hand, and said, kindly,--
”Don't be frightened. I a.s.sure you, half the girls in London would give I don't know what to be in your place. My lord never will force you to do anything you don't like--it's not his way; and he's the kindest and best man,--and so rich; he does not know what to do with his money!”
To all this f.a.n.n.y made but one answer,--she threw herself suddenly upon the woman's breast, and sobbed out: ”My grandfather is blind, he cannot do without me--he will die--die. Have you n.o.body you love, too? Let me go--let me out! What can they want with me?--I never did harm to any one.”
”And no one will harm you;--I swear it!” said Harriet, earnestly. ”I see you don't know my lord. But here's the dinner; come, and take a bit of something, and a gla.s.s of wine.”
f.a.n.n.y could not touch anything except a gla.s.s of water, and that nearly choked her. But at last, as she recovered her senses, the absence of her tormentor--the presence of a woman--the solemn a.s.surances of Harriet that, if she did not like to stay there, after a day or two, she should go back, tranquillised her in some measure. She did not heed the artful and lengthened eulogiums that the she-tempter then proceeded to pour forth upon the virtues, and the love, and the generosity, and, above all, the money of my lord. She only kept repeating to herself, ”I shall go back in a day or two.” At length, Harriet, having eaten and drunk as much as she could by her single self, and growing wearied with efforts from which so little resulted, proposed to f.a.n.n.y to retire to rest.
She opened a door to the right of the fireplace, and lighted her up a winding staircase to a pretty and comfortable chamber, where she offered to help her to undress. f.a.n.n.y's complete innocence, and her utter ignorance of the precise nature of the danger that awaited her, though she fancied it must be very great and very awful, prevented her quite comprehending all that Harriet meant to convey by her solemn a.s.surances that she should not be disturbed. But she understood, at least, that she was not to see her hateful gaoler till the next morning; and when Harriet, wis.h.i.+ng her ”good night,” showed her a bolt to her door, she was less terrified at the thought of being alone in that strange place.
She listened till Harriet's footsteps had died away, and then, with a beating heart, tried to open the door; it was locked from without. She sighed heavily. The window?--alas! when she had removed the shutter, there was another one barred from without, which precluded all hope there; she had no help for it but to bolt her door, stand forlorn and amazed at her own condition, and, at last, falling on her knees, to pray, in her own simple fas.h.i.+on, which since her recent visits to the schoolmistress had become more intelligent and earnest, to Him from whom no bolts and no bars can exclude the voice of the human heart.
CHAPTER XIII.
”In te omnis domus inclinata rec.u.mbit.”--VIRGIL.