The Gipsy Part 17

"Your uncle I often returned to see, though longer and longer became my absence, and greater and greater my contempt for gilded halls and mercenary slaves in laced jackets. I took a pleasure, however, a secret pleasure, in marking and learning all the doings of the man I loved best on earth; and sometimes, though my distaste to fine dwellings and insolent lackeys had grown into a diseased abhorrence that would not let me cross the lordly threshold of Dimden, yet often would I meet him in the park or in the walks, and hold a brief conversation with him in the free air. It was after an absence from this part of the country of near two years that I came back, and found that his heart had been withered by the death of her he loved. I was seeking for an opportunity of meeting him, when the offence was given to an unhappy woman of our tribe, which called for vengeance at my hand; and I was forced to conceal myself till I could learn what were the ultimate consequences of the punishment that I had inflicted. I hid myself, as I have told you, in that wood; and all the rest that I said before the magistrate is true: but I said not all the truth. I saw the horseman station himself between the elms; I saw Lord Dewry ride up, and they met; I heard the words they spoke; I saw him ride on, and I saw the other follow, though little did I dream his purpose; I saw him draw the pistol from his bosom; I saw it raised, and the shot fired that struck the good lord down--and the hand that fired it, young man--the hand that fired it was his brother's!"

"It is false!" cried De Vaux, starting up and half-drawing his sword; "it is as false as h.e.l.l itself!"

"It is as true as yon stars in heaven!" replied the gipsy, calmly but sternly; and a long pause followed, while Pharold stood erect and tranquil before the son of him whom he had charged with so fearful a crime, and De Vaux gazed on him with a countenance in which the workings of all the manifold pa.s.sions that such terrible tidings produced were fearfully visible. "Will you hear me out?" demanded the gipsy at length.

"I will," said De Vaux, casting himself down again upon the tree; "I will! but think not to escape me. You have made a dreadful charge; and as there is a G.o.d in heaven, you shall show me that it is true before I quit you!" and leaning his head again upon his hand, he kept his eyes fixed upon the gipsy, as if fearful that he should elude him, till he came to parts of the details that made his hearer again bury his face in his hands.

"I will!" continued Pharold; "I will show you that what I have uttered is true; for it was to that purpose that I brought you here. But be more calm, and let me tell you all the circ.u.mstances which might lead him to the terrible act that he committed."

"He committed it not!" murmured De Vaux; but the gipsy went on as if he had not heard him. "I have since heard all the facts," he proceeded, "from one who knew them too well; the only one, indeed, besides myself. Edward de Vaux, the younger of the two brothers, was a man of extravagant tastes and habits. He went early and often into other countries, and there he learned expensive vices and follies. I would not pain you; but he gamed deeply, and lived sumptuously, while your mother lived neglected, and fared but hardly. What he inherited from his father was but small; what he acquired was nothing; what he squandered came from the liberality of his brother; and often his demands were more than any liberality could supply. Lord Dewry remonstrated and entreated, but in vain; and much and n.o.bly, have I heard, did he offer to do for him, if he would retire into the country, and treat your mother well. But she died, and that cause of dispute was removed by her death. All check, indeed, seemed now cast away by her husband. He gamed more deeply than ever; lost all; applied to his brother; was refused, and then staked what he did not possess.

He lost. Sir William Ryder, his great friend, joined him in an engagement to pay the sum within a certain time; but shortly before the period arrived, Mr. De Vaux was not to be found by his friend. Sir William thought that he had evaded him in order to cast the whole debt upon his shoulders; and, learning the route he had taken, followed at full speed; traced him step by step, and overtook him--at the very moment he had murdered his brother. Horrified, but confused and bewildered, before he well comprehended what he was doing, Sir William became a partic.i.p.ator in the crime, by promising to conceal all that he had seen; and setting spurs to their horses, they arrived in London by different by-roads, in so short a s.p.a.ce of time that it seemed impossible they could have done the distance. Well knowing that he must soon be sent for, the heir of the dead man took care to show himself in every place where his presence in London would be marked and remembered, in case of necessity; and he was found, as I have said, at the play-house. What sort of h.e.l.l was in his heart, as he sat and saw mockeries and pageants, I know not."

"But your story halts, sir," said De Vaux, sternly; "how could he know at what exact spot his brother would be found at that precise time?

How could he--"

"By that letter!" said the gipsy, placing abruptly an old but well-preserved paper in his hands, on which the regular post marks were easily discernible.

"But I cannot read it by this faint light," said De Vaux, attempting to make out the contents, after gazing at the address; "what is its purport?"

"I will tell you," replied the gipsy, striking a light with a flint and touchwood that he carried; "I will tell you; though you shall soon be able to satisfy yourself. It is your uncle's letter to your father, telling him that he has not sufficient money at his banker's to meet his fresh demand; but that, if he will be at the inn at the county town of ----, at noon of the eighteenth of May--the very day of the murder--he will give him the sum of five thousand pounds, which is all he can collect without burdening himself for other people's faults, in a manner that he does not choose to do. There!" he continued, lighting a few dry sticks; "there is light enough to read!"

De Vaux read the letter. It was such exactly as the gipsy described: it was written in a hand which he remembered from other papers he had seen to be that of his uncle; it was dated four days before his death, signed with his name, sealed with his arms, directed to his brother, and by the post marks had evidently been received. Conviction was forcing itself painfully upon his mind, but drowning men will catch at straws; and he hoped yet to find some flaw in the horrible history he heard, and to be enabled to give it the lie to his own heart. He returned the letter; and folding his arms upon his breast, bade the gipsy go on; while, with a knitted brow and quivering lip, he continued gazing upon vacancy, suffering his mind to roam wildly through a thousand painful thoughts and memories, but without letting one word escape his ear.

"By this letter," continued the gipsy, "did he know exactly when his brother would set out for the town of ----; and he knew his habits, too, well enough to arrange the rest of his plan. But crime is always agitated; and it is thus that even the coolest and most determined ever leave some trace behind by which murder may be detected. Your uncle came not so soon as he had expected, and he took the letter from his pocket to be sure that he himself had not overstepped the hour.

Just as he was reading, the horse's feet which bore Lord Dewry sounded, and he hastily thrust back the paper, as he thought, into his pocket; but it fell, and I saw it, and forgot it not afterward. When the deed was done, he paused for a moment gazing upon the swimming horse, and the sinking form of his brother, as it detached itself from the stirrup, and without even a struggle the waters closed over his head; and I am as sure as there is a heaven above us, that at that instant the murderer would have given lands and lords.h.i.+ps--nay, life itself--to have recalled the irrevocable act that he had done. He could gaze at it no longer; but striking his spurs into his horse like a madman, he turned back the way he came. Just at the turn of the wood he was met by Sir William Ryder; what he said I know not, but he grasped his hand for a moment, and then galloped away, followed by the other. Ere he had gone far his coolness had returned; for before he came down here all his plans had been arranged, and his conduct decided. He had questioned the messenger, too, and had heard the evidence that I had given; and though I had declared that I could swear to the person, he felt sure, from my _not_ swearing to him, that I either did not really know him, or had determined to conceal my knowledge. At all events, he had no resource but to front the matter; and he did so boldly. When I was brought into the justice room, I could see that he turned a little pale, and at the same time he put up his finger to his lip, in a way that I might take for a signal or not as I pleased. I repeated all I had said before, nay, I went further, and described exactly the appearance of the murderer, but such descriptions are always loose; and no one asked me whether any of those present was the man--"

"Would you have said yes if they had?" interrupted De Vaux.

"I do not well know what I might have done," replied the gipsy, "but I think not. What use would it have been to me to destroy the son of one who had loved and cherished me? He had committed an awful crime, it is true--but I was not the avenger. Besides, I knew that vengeance, in its intensity tenfold more terrible than aught that man could inflict, was in his heart already,--that there was a serpent eating it up,--that the mighty, the almighty Avenger of all crimes was there in his terrors, and that every hour of his after-existence would be constant judgment and continual death. No, no! on my life, I did not so much hate as pity him. At night, after I had been removed from the justice room, I heard the door of the chamber, in which they had confined me, open, and Sir William Ryder came in with a light. He was a fine-hearted man, though he had been misled; and although the real murderer had shown himself but little shaken, yet through the whole of my examination he, Sir William Ryder, had been agitated, as I could see, to his very soul. Both he and the other, however, whether to make me a friend or what matters little, had done all they could to soften the hardness of old Squire Arden, as he was called; but Sir William now came to me to see what I did know, and how far they could trust me. It was a difficult task; and had he gone about it as cunningly as some would have done, he might have failed with me. But he was too much moved for that. He spoke kindly to me, however, and told me that Lord Dewry was very much interested for me, and would take care of me, and I told him at once to bid Lord Dewry take care of himself, for his was the case of danger, and not mine. So then he said that he saw I knew more than I had spoken, and that Lord Dewry was grateful to me.

'Call him not by a t.i.tle that is not his,' I answered; 'for I know that the patent of their n.o.bility bears, that if any of the family, judged according to law, be found guilty of a felony, he and his children are to be considered dead, their line extinct, and the next heir to claim as if they were not.' He answered that that mattered not, for that his friend had not been found guilty of any felony, nor ever would; and that he had only to say, if I would quit the kingdom, till he gave me leave to return, he would secure me the sum of one thousand pounds directly, and a pension for my life. I said I would think of it, and tell him when I was at liberty; and I was very soon after set free. Sir William Ryder did not fail to find me out, however; and it was agreed between us that I should go; and that he should meet me at the sea-port where I embarked, and there give me the money.

"It took a time, however, to move the tribe to the port, and some were unwilling to go without knowing the reason. So we divided, some going with me, some betaking themselves to their own way. I saw Sir William Ryder often, and when I wrote to him to tell him that we were near a sea-port in Wales, he came down directly, and visited the encampment.

He told me that he, too, was about to set out for America, and intended to spend the rest of his life in the colonies. 'I will try,'

he said, 'by devoting the remainder of my days to doing good, and walking uprightly with all men, to efface from my memory the traces of many follies and of one great crime, in which I have not been a sharer, indeed, but which I have aided to conceal.' The second day, however, that he came out to us, his horse took fright at a monkey, which some of our people had among the tents, and threw him violently.

He broke his collar-bone and several of his ribs, and being carried into a hut, we all nursed him tenderly. I found him better than I thought, and learned to love him; and under our care he got well sooner than if all the doctors in the world had seen him. While he was recovering it was that I learned how all had happened; and he tried to persuade himself and to make me believe that the murder had been committed in a moment of pa.s.sion, and not by design, or that his friend was distracted with anxiety and distress at the moment that he committed it. When he left us for America I went away to Ireland. I have since seen many other lands, and have lived for some years in Scotland, but I never returned to this country of England till about three weeks ago."

The gipsy paused, and De Vaux remained as he had placed himself, with his head bent down almost to his knees, and his eyes buried in his extended hands. He continued silent long, bowed down by a sense of misery, and humiliation, and despair. What would he have given at that moment to have all his former apprehensions confirmed, if the present terrible doubts could have been thereby swept away!--doubts, indeed, they could scarcely now be called, for the gipsy's story was too consistent in every part, was too much combined with facts within his own knowledge, was too clear an explanation of many parts of his father's conduct--his gloom, his reserve, his irritation, his agitation at the very name of Sir William Ryder--for him to entertain any thing but one of those faint, lingering, insane hopes, which death itself is the only thing that can extinguish. But, for the moment, the thought of whether there were still a doubt had merged itself in the more agonizing ideas of what must be his fate if the story were true.

His own father! How could he ever behold him again? How was he to act towards him? What was he to do? Then came the idea of Marian in all her beauty, in all her gentleness, in all her generous love; and he felt that she could never be his; that the blood of her father placed between them an obstacle that could never be removed; that no time, no change, no effort could ever cast down that dreadful barrier; that at the very moment when his pa.s.sionate love had been raised by her n.o.ble conduct almost to adoration was the moment at which he must sacrifice her for ever! And how must he sacrifice her? How must he act towards her? He could not, he dared not explain, by even a single word, the cause of that sacrifice; he could not tell her what had happened; he could not even have the blessing of weeping with her over their blighted hopes. Whichever way he turned, it was all horror and destruction; and the brain of the unhappy young man seemed to reel with the agony he suffered. He spoke not; he could hardly be said to think; it was all one frightful dream of misery and despair. He felt that his fate, as far as happiness was concerned, was sealed for ever; and yet a thousand whirling and inconsistent visions rushed upon his brain regarding his future conduct. How--how was he to act? What--what was he to do? At one moment he thought of going instantly to his father's presence, of telling him he knew all, and of ending his own life before him, to cast off the intolerable burden of thought and sensation; but then he remembered all that his father had already suffered; called to mind the deep and gloomy pondering--the solitary meditations, and the never-smiling lip--the bursts of wild and impatient pa.s.sion, the hollow cheek, the sunken eye, and all the indications of a heart torn and mangled by remorse; and that idea vanished in filial sorrow. At another time he thought of burying himself deep in the wilds of America, of joining some Indian tribe, and hiding his name and its disgrace in scenes to which Europeans never penetrated; but then again the idea of Marian, and of never, never seeing her more, overcame him with fresh anguish. He knew not where to turn his eyes for guide or direction; he knew not how to act; he knew not whither to go: every place was hopeless--every view presented but despair; and, after a long and terrible silence, one deep and bitter groan found its way to his lips.

The gipsy's heart was moved for him; and, after gazing upon him for several minutes, he said, "I grieve from my very heart to pain you thus; but yet, young man, be comforted: there is a balm for all things."

The very words of comfort, however, proceeding from the same tongue that had destroyed all his happiness for ever, roused De Vaux almost to phrensy; and, starting up, he exclaimed, "Either what you have told me is false, or you must know that there is no comfort for me on earth! What balm do you mean?"

"The balm of time," replied the gipsy, unmoved, "which, as I know by the experience of many sorrows, can take the venom from the most cankered wound!"

De Vaux glared at him for a moment as if he would have struck him to the earth, and then--for there are some loads of misery which are too vast for the human mind to comprehend or to believe at first--and then replied, "I believe you have been deceiving me, and wo be unto you if you have! Have you any other proof," he cried, striving eagerly to catch at a doubt; "have you any other proof? If so, produce it quickly!"

"I am not deceiving you, young gentleman," answered the gipsy; "and I can forgive both your anger and your unbelief."

"But the proof! the proof!" cried De Vaux; "have you any other proof?"

"I have," answered Pharold, "and I will produce it, though the letter I have shown you is proof enough. I grieve for you, sir, but you must not injure me."

"The letter you may have stolen," replied De Vaux, fiercely, "or found it years afterward. What other proof have you? Give me some other proof, and I will believe you."

"You believe me already at your heart," answered the gipsy; "but the other proof is this:--I have said that the murderer gazed for a moment after his victim, and that I saw that he gazed in deep and terrible remorse. Know you how I saw that it was so? Thus: The moment that the shot was fired, and that his brother was falling, his hand let the pistol drop from his grasp, and he sat on his horse motionless as a statue, as if the deed he had done had turned him into stone; nor did he move hand or limb till he turned and galloped away as if the fiends of h.e.l.l were pursuing him. The pistol was not lost any more than the letter; and happy for him was it that they both fell into the hands of one who concealed them carefully; for had they been found by any other, your father might have ended his days upon a scaffold more than twenty years ago. You ask for more proof. Look there! that is the weapon, and you know the arms of a younger brother of your race too well to doubt me longer."

De Vaux took the pistol which the gipsy produced. It was curiously inlaid with silver, and the arms of his family embossed upon the stock. He had once seen one, and only one, precisely similar in the hands of his father, when he came upon him by accident in his private study. His father had put it away in haste into a chest that contained it; and, with a pale cheek and quivering lip, had reproved his son for breaking in upon his privacy. De Vaux now saw the fellow-weapon of the one he had then beheld: the last faint gleam of hope left his heart for ever; and striking his hand upon his bosom, and groaning in the bitterness of his heart, he cast himself frantically down upon the cold ground.

CHAPTER XIII.

It is a wonder that man ever smiles; for there is something so strange and awful in the hourly uncertainty of our fate--in the atmosphere of darkness and insecurity that surrounds our existence--in the troops of dangers to our peace and to our being that ride invisible upon every moment as it flies--that man is, as it were, like a blind man in the front of a great battle, where his hopes and his joys are being swept down on every side, and in which his own existence must terminate at length, in some undefined hour, and some unknown manner--and yet he smiles as if he were at a pageant!

Were his smile the smile of faith and confidence in the great, good Being who sees the struggle and prepares the reward, he might smile unshaken indeed; but, alas, alas! is it so? I fear but seldom.

There are few things on earth more melancholy than when one is burdened with some evil news to see those whom it is destined to plunge into grief full of gay life and happiness, enjoying the bright moments as if there were nothing but pleasure in the world. There is something awful in it! It brings home to our own hearts the fearful fact that, at the very instant when we are at the height of joy, some remote, unseen, unknown, unexpected agents may be performing acts destined to blast our happiness for ever. There is something mysterious in it, too; for it shows us that at the very moment when our state is in reality the most miserable upon earth, we are often giving ourselves up to the most wild and rapturous gayety, solely because some other tongue has not spoken in our ear a few conventional sounds which the inhabitant of another land would not understand, but which, as soon as they are spoken, plunge us from the height of joy down into the depth of despair.

On the third morning of Colonel Manners's stay at Morley House, and on which he expected letters that would give him a fair excuse for abridging his visit, he rose as early, but came down somewhat later than usual. He still, however, expected to find himself earlier than the rest of the family; but on pa.s.sing the music-room, the door of which was ajar, he heard the notes of a harpsichord--the solace and delight of our worthy ancestors--mingling with some gay voices talking; and, taking the prescriptive right of opening quite all half-opened doors, he walked in, and found Miss Falkland at the instrument, speaking cheerfully, over her shoulder, to Miss De Vaux, who stood behind.

A slight complaining cry on the part of the lazy hinges made both ladies turn their eyes towards it; and Isadore smiled as she did so, while a faint colour spread itself deepening over Marian's soft cheek--perhaps she might expect to see some one else than Colonel Manners, and be just sufficiently disappointed to say something civil and kind to him on his entrance, as a sort of compensation for the bad compliment she paid him at the bottom of her heart.

"Isadore was just talking of you, Colonel Manners," she said, looking towards her cousin, as if leaving her to explain in what manner.

"There is a proverb to that effect, madam," replied Manners, smiling; "but I am always glad to find myself subject of discourse to those I esteem, if the matter be not censure at least. May I be let into the secret?"

"Oh, beyond all doubt," replied Isadore. "The fact is, De Vaux betrayed you last night, Colonel Manners; and told me, without even binding me to secrecy, that you sing remarkably well."

"He did me injustice, I a.s.sure you," replied Manners; "but if that be 'the head and front of my offence,' I can prove myself innocent of singing remarkably well at any time you like."

"No time like the present, Colonel Manners," said Isadore. "It wants full half an hour to breakfast, and there is nothing on earth so painful as to live in long-drawn expectation of such things. Will you sing, Colonel Manners?"

"I believe," he replied, "that there is some superst.i.tious penalty attached to singing before breakfast; but nevertheless I will dare the adventure if you have any music that I know, for the sin of accompanying myself I commit not."

"Do you know that?" asked Miss Falkland; "or that! or that?"

"No, indeed," answered Colonel Manners; "but I know the air of this one, and have sung it more than once to different words, the composition of a lady possessing no small poetical powers. I will try to recollect them now; though, to speak the truth, it is doing some injustice to the lines to take them from the drama for which they were designed, and apply them to an old song."

"Oh, never mind; we will make all due allowances," replied Miss Falkland; "am I to accompany you, or Marian!--Oh, very well, with all my heart! Is it to be the time of a monody or a jig?"

"Not too fast, if you please," replied Colonel Manners; and Miss Falkland accompanying him, he sang the following lines to an air, which was then not very new, but which is now in all probability lost to posterity.

SONG.

"I woo thee not as others woo, I flatter not as others do, Nor vow that I adore; I cannot laugh, I cannot smile.