Ellen Middleton-A Tale Part 19

"Have _you_ suffered in this way, Henry? Oh, then, speak on, for I shall understand you, I shall feel for you though no one else in the world should."

"I know it, Ellen; I am persuaded of it. Circ.u.mstances have raised a barrier between us, which ought never to have existed; but there must always be a bond of sympathy in our feelings which nothing ever can or will annihilate. Do you remember that when I left college I went to Elmsley, and spent three or four weeks there?"

"Yes, I do: it was then that you and Edward began to treat me as a grown up woman, and that we took those long walks in the country which first made me feel intimate with you both."

"It was," he resumed; "and those days were the last that I ever spent free from care and anxiety. I sometimes look back to them and live them over again in thought, till I long to blot out from my life and my memory all that has intervened between that time and this. But the one is not more impossible than the other," he added with a sigh, and for a moment leant his face on his hand, and remained silent. "Well," he resumed after a pause, "I left Elmsley, and went to London; there I immediately plunged into the wildest dissipation, and led a life, the details of which I am ashamed to describe in speaking to you. With an income scarcely sufficient to enable me to live as a gentleman, I indulged in every species of extravagance and lavish expenditure; but, above all, my pa.s.sion for gambling was at that time such, that it seemed to me as if life was not worth having, without the means of gratifying it. For weeks I lived in a state of continual fever; my nights were turned into days; and, during the few hours of sleep--but not of repose--which gave me strength to return to the gaming-table, the rattling of the dice and the shuffling of the cards haunted me in my dreams, with alternations of exultation and despair, as vivid though not as distinct, as in my waking hours. At first, (the old history of all such cases,) I won immensely, and this encouraged me to play higher and higher stakes, which, when the tide of fortune turned, involved me, almost before I was conscious of it, in debts of honour, far exceeding in amount what I could even contemplate ever having the power to discharge. Still I played on; a gleam of success now and then giving me a feverish hope that I might regain at least a part of what I had lost. I played on till the case grew so desperate, that I dared no longer look it in the face; and I lived under a sort of perpetual nightmare.

"As long as I had any money left, I paid what I lost; then I ran into debt to the masters of the different clubs, and borrowed money of such of my acquaintance as were kind or imprudent enough to lend it. To others I lost large sums on credit, under promises to pay them on a future day. When the day arrived and found me unable to meet my engagements, I was induced to give bills to my creditors for other and distant days. Again those days came, and again they found me insolvent. I will not, I need not, go through all the miserable details of the difficulties in which I was entangled, of the humiliating excuses I had to make, and the more humiliating threats and reproaches I had to endure. It is enough to say that, with desperate infatuation, I made a solemn promise to my creditors to satisfy them all on the first day of the ensuing month, and on the fulfilment of that promise it depended, whether my character as a gentleman was still preserved or irretrievably lost. Ellen, I cannot attempt to describe to you what I suffered at that time. The wrestling with an impossibility, the struggle after what was unattainable, the incapability of resigning myself to what seemed inevitable, the powerless rage, the smarting pride, the agonised self-reproach; it was dreadful, and no one to speak to, or turn to..."

"And why, in the name of Heaven, why did you not appeal to my uncle? Why did you not speak to Edward Middleton?"

An expression of sudden pain and a burning flush spread over Henry's countenance at this question. After a moment's hesitation he said, "I must tell you _all_, though to tell you this gives me a pang which would almost atone for any degree of guilt. You must know, then, that it was at Oxford that I acquired a taste for gambling, and that there, I ran in some measure the same course of imprudence, and went through the same suffering that I have just described to you, except that the sums which I lost amounted to hundreds instead of thousands. Edward, at that time, observed that something weighed on my spirits, and easily drew from me a confession of my folly, and my embarra.s.sments. After lecturing me for some days on the subject, he brought me a draught for the amount of what I had lost, which he had obtained for me from Mr.

Middleton, but only on the condition that I would give them both my most solemn word of honour that I would never play again. Mr. Middleton's letter was not only stern, it was also contemptuous; and had I then been able to devise any mode of extricating myself from my difficulties, I would have refused the money and the promise exacted from me; but it was vain to seek for any such; and with feelings more wounded than grateful, I gave the promise required. _How_ I kept it, you have seen; and now you can understand that I would sooner have fled to America, and never shown my face in England again, than have turned to Mr. Middleton for aid or a.s.sistance. To my father it would have been useless to apply; he has, as you know, no income but what he derives from the Navy Pay Office--"

Here Henry paused, and drew a long breath as if to gain courage to proceed. He went to the door of the next room to ascertain if Alice was still fast asleep; and, having done so, he again sat down by my side, and went on with his history:--

"At about six o'clock on the day on which I had pledged myself to pay my debts, after several hours of weary pacing up and down the dusty and sultry streets, in which I had met with several acquaintances, who had turned their heads away when they saw me coming, I walked into my father's office and found him dressed for dinner, with his hat and his gloves in his hand, and a strong expression of impatience in his countenance.

"'Oh, how-do-you-do, Henry, my boy,' he said as I came in, 'Do you know, my dear fellow, you could do me a great kindness. I had appointed the chief clerk to be here at half-past six upon business, quite forgetting that I was engaged to dine and sleep at Percy Cross. Now, if you have nothing particular to do and could wait for him here, I should still be in time for dinner.'

"'But what is the business to be done?' I asked, and threw myself at full length on one of the benches of the office. 'Am I competent to perform it?'

"'It only consists in unlocking that drawer,' he replied, 'and putting into his hands bank-notes to the amount of 5,000, which are wanted for some payments to be made to-morrow morning. There is n.o.body here at this moment with whom I should like to leave this key; but if you can stay--'

"'Oh I can stay; I have nothing to do.'

"'I held out my hand for the key, put it in my pocket, wished my father good-night, and returned to my pleasant meditations.

I had been alone for about a quarter of an hour, when the porter of the office came in and told me, as he handed me a card, that a gentleman was without and wished to speak to me.

As I glanced at the name on the card, a disagreeable sort of feeling came over me; and as I desired the porter to show the gentleman into my father's private room, and followed him there, I mentally resolved to pick a quarrel with this individual, and to give him an opportunity of blowing my brains out--about the best thing that could happen to me, as I thought, at that moment.

"Mr. Escourt, the person in question, had been one of my intimates on my first arrival in London, and more than any one else had encouraged me in every species of extravagance, and especially in my pa.s.sion for gambling. Often, when I was on the point of checking myself in the insane course I was pursuing, he had urged me on by a few dexterous words, and laughed at those fears which the desperate condition of my affairs suggested. Latterly he had won from me large sums of money; and I now owed him between three and four thousand pounds. He had always kept on good terms with me; but I had reason to know that he was one of those who had been most active in circulating reports against my character; and that he had secretly, and in the unfairest manner, used his influence with my other creditors to deter them from granting me any further indulgence. Possessed with this idea, I walked into the room where he was waiting. I cannot exactly describe to you what pa.s.sed between us; that it drove me mad for the time is all I can say. He did not utter one word for which I could personally call him to account; he even maintained the character of my friend throughout; but he contrived at the same time to wound, insult, and exasperate me into a state bordering on frenzy. He informed me that, in spite of his efforts to prevent it, my creditors had come to the resolution of taking no more excuses; and if their claims were not satisfied on that very day, to make my conduct known to the world, and to take such measures as should lead to my expulsion from the clubs of which I was a member. He ended by expressing his pity for me, and his willingness, as far as his own case went, to forego all claim for what I owed him. How can I describe to you the insulting sneer that pierced through the hypocritical sympathy of his countenance? How shall I tell you--how will you understand--what pa.s.sed through me in that moment? I drew up haughtily; I desired him to spare his pity, to reserve his forbearance for another occasion; that if he would wait five minutes I would satisfy him that his _friends_ had been over-hasty in their conclusions; and that, having so satisfied him, I hoped he would take the opportunity of stating to them that very evening, that, as far as his case was concerned, there was nothing to complain of in my conduct as a _man of honour_. I said all this in a calmer tone than I now repeat it to you, and I walked out of the room with a steady step. Do you guess where I went? I went to the drawer in the office, unlocked it, counted out the money that I wanted, 3,500, and said to myself while I did it, 'At twelve o'clock to-night I shall shoot myself.' I locked the drawer again, put the key in my pocket, went back to Escourt, and handed to him the bank-notes. He bowed, offered to shake hands with me, hoped I did full justice to his good intentions, would make a point of stating at --'s that very evening what had pa.s.sed between us, and walked away. I walked away too; but, as I was opening the door of the office to take away my hat and stick, I met Harding, who I must tell you (if you do not know it already) is a half-brother of Mrs. Tracy, and consequently _her_ uncle," he said, pointing to the next room.

"He bowed, and told me that, having met my father in Piccadilly, who had stopped in his gig to inform him I was waiting at the office for him, he had come on as fast as he could in case I was in a hurry. I looked at him in a strange manner I suppose, for he seemed puzzled and said, 'I'm afraid you are not well, Sir.'

"'Not very well,' I stammered out, and walked towards the door.

"He followed me and said, 'I had understood Mr. Lovell to say, Sir, that he had left with you the key of------'

"'Oh, the key,--yes, I have the key at my lodgings; my father called on me, and left it there. Can you come and fetch it to-morrow morning?'

"'Why, Sir, if it suited you as well,' he began.

"'I am not going home at present, and as it comes to the same--' I rejoined.

"'I must come early then, Sir?'

"'As early as you please,' I said, and walked into the street, where the air appeared to me to have grown ten times more sultry than it was an hour before. The pavement seemed literally to burn under my feet: and the sky had that heavy leaden look, 'dark as if the day of doom hung o'er Nature's shrinking head;' which produces a feeling of intolerable oppression. When I reached my lodgings it was beginning to rain. I threw open the window of my room, and then flung myself on my bed in a state which baffles all description. The prisoner in Newgate, who has just had his sentence read to him, cannot feel himself more inevitably condemned to death than I did at that moment. If before the next morning I did not destroy myself, I was nothing but a common thief. I knew that the only circ.u.mstance which distinguished the act I had committed from other crimes of the same sort, was, that detection was so inevitable, the evidence against me so indisputable, that it could only have been the act of a man who had made up his mind to die.

"I was to die, then, and by my own hand. Ellen, I do not believe that I am a coward; I know I am not, and yet I trembled dreadfully when death, real, actual, b.l.o.o.d.y death, stood before me in unavoidable, almost tangible, shape; a deadly sickness crept over my heart, and such a feebleness into my limbs, that a worse terror seized me lest I should faint and not recover till the moment when Harding should arrive; that perhaps I should not have strength to load and discharge the pistol; then a horrible vision pa.s.sed before me of arrest, trial, execution; of scenes to which all that had tortured me some hours ago seemed but as child's play. I started wildly from my bed, and flung my arms about to prove to myself that I had yet life and strength enough to kill myself. A racking pain shot across my head; I ground my teeth, and then I felt a sudden impulse to laugh and to make mouths, which felt very like going mad. I saw a bottle of laudanum on the chimney-piece, and seized hold of it with desperate eagerness; had it been full, I should have drunk every drop in it; but as it was, there was only a small quant.i.ty, which quieted me. I sat down by the window s.h.i.+vering with cold. The heavy rain was driven in by sudden gusts of wind, and I remained there till gradually, as the night grew darker and the sedative began to take effect, I sunk into a heavy, stupid kind of calmness. I started when the clock struck ten; and, groping about the room, I found the match-box and struck a light. I then went to my bureau; and, taking out of the drawer my pistol-case, I placed it on the table, and then sat down to write a few lines to my father. I gave him a short and tolerably coherent account of what I had done, and begged him to avert inquiry until he had procured the means of replacing the sum I had taken. Mr. Middleton will not refuse (I added) to save my name from public disgrace; for Mary's sake--

"When I wrote that last sentence--when I came to my sister's name, I threw down the pen, and gave myself up for a few minutes to a burst of grief, in which I forgot everything but the misery I was going to bring upon her. As I was searching a drawer for some sealing-wax, my hand touched a book which had lain there for many a day unopened. It was a small New Testament, which she had given me before I went to Oxford. I must hurry on with my story, Ellen, or I would tell you how this accidental circ.u.mstance gave a new turn to my thoughts; how I suddenly remembered that when I was a child I had believed what that book taught, and that since, I had never once thought whether I did believe it or not. I knew I was going to die; and there was a certain phrase in that book which seemed very plain to me at that moment, 'It is appointed to all men once to die, and after that the judgment.' I don't know how it happened that I recollected it so well, for it was years since I had read it; but somehow I did; and again I thought that my brain would give way, for kill myself I must; and if _that_ was true, it would not do to think any more; and so I got up and walked to the table. Now, Ellen, listen to me quietly; don't agitate yourself in this manner; for G.o.d's sake be calm. If Alice should wake, what would she think?"

I struggled with myself, conquered my agitation, and made a sign to him to go on.

"Just as I was loading the pistol," he said, "some one knocked at the door; I instinctively seized on the case; and putting it into the bureau locked it up, and went to the door. I had expected to see the housemaid or my own servant, and almost staggered back when, on opening it, I saw Mrs. Tracy, Alice's grandmother. Her coming took me so entirely by surprise that I did not attempt at first to send her away, or to conceal from her that I was in a state of mental agitation. I sat down on the nearest chair, and stared at her in silence. She locked the door; and, sitting down opposite to me, said in a calm and perfectly resolute tone of voice:

"'Mr. Henry, you have done something dreadful to-night, and now you intend to do something worse; but you shall not.'

"I tried to rouse myself. I stammered out that she was out of her mind--beside herself; that I was busy, worried; that I begged she would go; that I insisted upon it; and I tried to work myself into a pa.s.sion. She got up; and looking me full in the face, said sternly,

"'Don 't lie to me, Henry. I know you; I know what you have done; I know what you mean to do, but G.o.d has sent me to save you.'

"'None of your cant, Tracy,' I now exclaimed in a violent pa.s.sion; 'leave me; this moment leave me.'

"'Mr. Henry,' she said, 'do you remember _this?_' and she put something into my hands.

"What a strange change is sometimes wrought in us in an instant, Ellen! It was a small picture of my mother--of her who died in giving me birth--of her whose image had often stood between me and temptation, and delayed the ruin it could not avert. I had given this miniature to Tracy, and had charged her to keep it for me on the day when I first left home for school. It brought back to my mind a train of childish recollections, and vague reminiscences, which completely overcame me. I pressed the picture to my lips. My pride gave way; tears burst from my eyes; and in that moment of emotion I confessed the whole truth to her. She had guessed it all before.

"Her brother had been aware for some time past how deeply I was involved in debt. He knew the state of my affairs, and that I neither possessed, nor had the means of raising a single s.h.i.+lling. Escourt, with whom he had some previous acquaintance, had informed him, as they met at the door of the office, that I had just paid him the large sum of 3,500.

These facts, coupled with my paleness and incoherence; my pretending that the key was at my lodgings, while he perfectly knew that my father had given it me a moment before in the office; above all, my telling him that I was not going home, and appointing him for the next morning, while, by dodging me in the streets, he ascertained that I had gone straight home;--all this had left no doubt in his mind as to the state of the case; and his sister happening to be in town, and at his house, he had imparted to her his surmises. All this she repeated to me; and then, crossing her arms and standing before mo, she said, 'And now what is to be done?'

"Upon this followed a conversation, all the details of which I need not give you. It began by her suggesting a variety of plans for extricating me from my difficulties, each one more hopeless and more unfeasible than the other. It ended by her proposing an arrangement, which she had long previously had in contemplation, and which the events of that evening had only hurried into maturity.

"And now that I am arrived at this point in my history, Ellen, it is necessary that I should explain to you some circ.u.mstances which can alone account for this strange proposal. My sister has told you, I believe, that I owed my life as a child to this woman's unwearied devotion. The kind of pa.s.sionate attachment which she showed me, and the influence of a strong though uncultivated mind, kept up in me an habitual regard for her which lasted beyond my childish years. When a boy at Eton, and even when I was at Oxford, I used often to write to her, and always to visit her whenever I went through London. On these occasions I always saw her beautiful little grand-daughter, whom she brought up in the strictest seclusion, and with the most anxious care. Even then, I detected the dawning of a scheme which she had evidently formed, and dwelt upon, and cherished, till it had grown into a pa.s.sionate desire to see Alice married to me. She used occasionally to throw out hints on the subject, which I treated as jokes; and when she confided to me, two years before the time which I am speaking of, that her brother-in-law, an old miserly grocer at--, had left Alice 1,500, she looked anxiously into my face, and seemed disappointed at the indifference with which I received this communication, which she charged me to keep a secret. She lived so much alone, and the nature of her character was such, that whatever idea suggested itself strongly to her mind, took by degrees such a hold of it, that it absorbed all other considerations, and acquired a disproportionate magnitude. She admitted to herself no possibility of happiness for Alice but in a marriage with me. She had a superst.i.tions conviction that such an event was predestined: she had dreamt dreams and had visions on the subject, and would gladly, I believe, have sacrificed her life to accomplish it.

"When, therefore, by a singular train of circ.u.mstances, she found me in a situation of hopeless difficulty and danger, from which nothing but the immediate possession of a large sum of money could rescue me, she offered me Alice's fortune and hand; but annexed to this proposal the following conditions.

She said--

"'Give me a written promise, signed by yourself, and witnessed by two persons whom I shall bring with me here, that you will marry her, when I call upon you to do so. Give me, besides that, a written statement of all the circ.u.mstances which have led to this arrangement between us. Let it be signed and witnessed in the same manner. Execute a deed, by which, in the event of your dying before this marriage takes place, Alice will be ent.i.tled to whatever you possess, and in which you will give me full sanction to reveal all the particulars of this transaction to your family, and call upon them to make up to me for the sum which I shall now place at your disposal.

Give me your promise that Alice shall never, as long as she lives, be made acquainted with the circ.u.mstances which have led to this compact, and neither before or after her marriage have any reason to suppose that such an arrangement was entered upon. Do this, Mr. Henry, and by to-morrow morning 10,000, paid into your hands, will enable you to discharge your debts, and to rea.s.sume your position in the world.'

"I need not tell you, Ellen, how much my pride, how much my feelings, revolted against the sale of myself which this bargain involved, and, above all, how hateful it was to me to place myself in the power of this woman and of her brother; but situated as I was, there was no choice between death or disgrace on the one hand, and a blind acceptance of her conditions on the other.

"'I strongly remonstrated, however, against the second of her stipulations, which seemed to have no other object but that of keeping me continually in her power; but she was determined to carry this point; and at last I consented to give up to her the letter I had already written to my father, which, together with the other papers, to be drawn up the next day, made out a case against me, such as would enable her at any moment to expose me to the world, and blast my reputation. These papers are no doubt to this day in her possession. I have never offended or displeased her without her recalling this fact to my recollection. _Now_ it signifies comparatively little to me whether she has destroyed them or not. I told her she was in honour bound to do so on the day I married Alice; but whether she has or not, I have not been able clearly to ascertain.

_Now_, she cannot use them against me without doing an injury to her; and on this subject I have ceased to trouble myself.

Well, she left me that evening, having, a second time, saved my life; and grateful I should have been to her, had it not been for the spirit of distrust, and hard bargaining, which she had evinced throughout, and which modified my grat.i.tude in a way which I regretted myself. The next morning she returned with her brother, and a lawyer, who drew up my will, and saw me sign it, as well as my promise of marriage. John Harding looked gloomy and dark; he evidently disapproved of the whole affair, and thought his niece had the worst of the bargain, as I heard him muttering to himself; but he was always completely governed by his sister; and though he has since attempted to annoy me in different ways, he has never yet ventured to act for himself, except in that foolish attempt to frighten you at Brandon, which his son forced him into, and which he thought, if successful, might be more profitable to himself than the arrangement as it then stood. Now, Ellen, can you understand, that, after all this, in spite of Alice's beauty and of her merits (for I do not attempt to deny them), the idea of marrying her was always connected in my mind with so much that was painful and disgraceful in my past life, that I shrunk from it with a morbid repugnance, which I vainly tried to conquer?

"Now, Ellen--now I am come to the time when every feature of my history is closely connected with yours. Dearest Ellen, listen to me calmly; and if I speak of feelings which must not now be proclaimed to the world; if, in going over the ground which we once trod together, words of love and of regret escape my lips; forgive me! bear with me! and forget everything but that I have loved and lost you--that I deserve to be pitied."

After a pause, he said, "I have not asked you for a promise of secrecy; I am not afraid of being in _your_ power; but, dear Ellen, there are facts which I am now going to reveal to you, which concern you personally; and yet which you must give me a solemn promise never to reveal to any one."

"If they concern me personally," I hastily replied, "surely I can decide for myself on that point; I will bind myself by no promise. You are not afraid of being in my power, and you are right; but you wish--forgive me, Henry, I must speak the truth--you wish to keep me in yours; and this is ungenerous."

"When you know the truth," he answered coldly, "you will retract this unkind accusation. If you intend, which I suppose is the case, to marry Edward Middleton, you are no doubt anxious to keep no secret from him; but I protest unto you, Ellen, that if you do marry him, especially in ignorance of the real nature of your position, you will bring upon yourself,--I said it to you once before,--incalculable misery!

You do not believe me,--I see you do not!" he exclaimed, with impatience; "but you _must_ believe me if I swear!" and s.n.a.t.c.hing up Alice's Bible from the table near us, he laid his hand upon it, and swore that he spoke nothing but the truth.

"I do not intend to marry Edward Middleton," I said; "I never will inflict upon him a wife, whose heart and whose life cannot be laid open before him. I would sooner die than reveal to him the dissimulation I have already practised, the threats I have heard from your lips, the words of love I have been compelled to endure from you,--from you, the husband of Alice, of whom you are as unworthy, as I am of him. No, I shall never be Edward's wife; I never will bring sorrow and disgrace upon _him_. I have stooped to deceit; I am entangled in falsehood; I must drink of the poisoned cup which you hold to my lips; but, with _you_ at least, I will be true! Since there are to be no secrets between us, Henry Lovell, I will tell you what I have never told any human being; and that is, that I love Edward with all the powers of my soul; with all the pa.s.sion, and all the tenderness, which outlives hope, and feeds upon despair!"

As this burst of wounded feeling escaped from me, I laid my hand on the sacred book before me, and, turning to Henry with flas.h.i.+ng eyes and glowing cheeks, I said, "What are your conditions?--dictate them."