CHAPTER LVII.
A VAIN APPEAL
“Possibly I might do something with him,” said Mr. Golightly to me one day; “I have not much power of persuasion; but if I put a few simple truths before him, and showed him the wickedness of his present course, and how wanton is the injury he has done you, without even the shadow of good to himself, he might try even now to make amends. I can easily get an introduction to him. I suppose you would forgive him, if your dear wife were restored. It would be a noble thing to do.”
“Too noble for me, I greatly fear. But he will never forgive me. If he hated me, when I had never harmed him, what is he likely to do now?”
As yet I had concealed from this conscientious pastor my recent act of rudeness, for I could not expect him to look upon it as the discharge of a Christian duty. But now it seemed better that he should have the story from me, than from some one who might give an unkind turn to it. And he sensibly perceived that as the thing was done, it was useless now to remonstrate.
“It was not a magnanimous act at all,” he replied with a grave shake of his head; “but allowance must be made for provocation; even Mr. Bulwrag must feel that, if he has at all a candid mind. I should not let that discourage me in the least, if you think fit to accept my services; and after all your kind acts to me and my dear child, it would be a very happy day for me – one of the happiest of my life, if I could really help you. Let me try, I entreat you; it can do no harm, and it may do good.”
“You would only expose yourself to rudeness. He is rough and contemptuous in his manner, and has no respect for any one.”
“His rudeness would not injure me. But I do not think that he would show any. I am well acquainted with a cousin of the lady whom he seeks to marry. He was my churchwarden at Knightsbridge, and I became much attached to him. Mr. Bulwrag, for his own sake, will not be rude to any one so introduced.”
This of course made a great difference; and as Mr. Golightly pressed the matter, I consented gratefully, though without seeing even the smallest chance of any good to come from it. However, it would enable me to hear something of that scoundrel, after whom I now began to feel a sort of stupid hankering; such as the young robin has for the cat; or the mallard on the mere about the strange proceedings of that dog among the reeds.
A more unpromising embassy might no man ever undertake; and having still some pride alive, in spite of deadly blows to it, I begged my reverend, and revered, as well as much beloved friend, to understand, and to make it understood, that he went as no envoy of mine, but simply at his own suggestion. “That shall be plain enough,” he said, “he shall not even know that I asked your leave.”
It must have been a strange and curious thing to see this encounter of two men, as different as any two men can be, and as far apart as heaven and hell. Not having been there, I cannot describe it; and I could not have done so, if I had been present. But from what was told me afterwards, the result was much as follows.
Donovan Bulwrag received his unknown visitor politely. He offered him a cigar, but whether in sport or courtesy was not plain, and then he said with his usual slowness, leaning back in his chair, and thinking —
“Sunbury, I think Sir Gilbert says; Sunbury a pretty village on the river. I know it a little, but I ought to know it better; for my mother’s family lived there. And an aunt of mine – Miss Coldpepper – must be one of your oldest inhabitants. But owing to family circumstances, we do not see very much of her. How is she? I hope she supports the Church, as all people of property should do.”
“The Church requires no support” – Mr. Golightly was always annoyed at the idea of the Church being patronized; “except what she has from above, Mr. Bulwrag, and from the proper zeal and gratitude of her dutiful children.”
“To be sure. That is exactly what I meant. I trust that my aunt is a dutiful child. But I know with sorrow that we do not all value our privileges, as we should. You find that the case sometimes, I fear.”
“Too often, I regret to say, I do.” Mr. Golightly was always grave with any one who spoke gravely. “But we do not restrict the opportunities of doing good to parishioners. We have many useful institutions in our parish. Perhaps you would like me to mention a few. And if with your very kind feelings towards the Church, and anxiety about your aunt’s discharge of Christian duties, you should feel impelled to contribute, I happen to have the subscription-lists of six of the most meritorious, all in urgent need of funds; and I carry the receipt-forms in my pocket.”
Downy was caught in his own net very neatly, and the parson heard him mutter – “Confound that Sir Gilbert. This is a little too bad of him.”
“Ah, I don’t quite see. I am sure this is most kind of you – but with the many claims upon my small resources – perhaps it would be better to allow my mother the benefit of this opportunity.”
“You must not blame Sir Gilbert. I did not come upon a begging errand. I intrude upon you for quite a different purpose. A sad and most mysterious thing has happened in our parish.” Mr. Golightly watched him closely, to note the effect of every word. “A lady newly married to an excellent young man, of one of our oldest families, suddenly disappeared last May, and has not since been heard of.”
“You need not tell me that. I know all about it,” Bulwrag replied without any change of face, but in quite a different tone, and speaking quickly. “I could not help knowing it, considering that the girl’s father was my mother’s husband. She married without our knowledge, and is gone without it. My mother, who has been most kind to her, never met with such ingratitude.”
“I do not intrude into family matters. I have nothing to do with that part of the case. I am here simply to discharge my duty. I come by nobody’s suggestion. Only as the clergyman of the parish I feel myself bound to do all I can, to restore peace and happiness, and to right a great wrong.”
“It is very good on your part, and I wish you all success. It would appear to be rather an affair for the police. I am sorry that I have an important engagement. Would you like to see my mother on the subject?”
“No, thank you. My business is with you. I will speak plainly, and as an old man to a young one. All who know of this mysterious affair, believe that it is of your doing. Hear me out, and without anger, as I speak. If from some ill-will to either of those two, or for any other reason of your own, you have contrived to part them, be satisfied now with what you have done. For many months now, you have caused the deepest misery, doubt, suspense, and almost despair. You have crushed two young hearts, which perhaps never will recover. You have desolated a simple, innocent, and tranquil home. Remember, I beseech you, what is manly, good, and just. I will not urge religion, because perhaps you have little sense of it. But even so, you know how short our time is here, and how paltry it is to injure one another. Even now, if you will do what is right, I will pledge myself that you shall be forgiven. Your share in it shall not be published to the world. You will have had more revenge than the bitterest foe can long for, and you will escape the penalty.”
The clergyman urged that last point, because he saw whom – or rather what he had to deal with – a thing that could not be called a man. For during his description of our misery, he had detected a glow of fiendish exultation in the crafty eyes he was observing. This proved to him more clearly than if he had seen the deed, that the guilt lay on that brutal soul.
“It is a sad loss to us, my dear sir,” replied Bulwrag, looking at him steadfastly; “that we have not the privilege of living in your parish. Not only for the sake of the deep interest you feel in the private affairs of your parishioners, but also because you possess very largely that extremely rare gift – eloquence. I should be trembling in my shoes, if I had anything to tremble for. But knowing no more than you do, and perhaps much less, about this strange affair, I am simply astonished at your waste of words, and if you were not a clergyman, I should say – your impertinence.”
“I have never been charged with impertinence before. Even if I am wrong, there is nothing of that about it. But if I have been mistaken, I have done you much wrong as a gentleman; and I will beg your pardon, if you will do this. Take a sheet of paper, and write these words – ‘Upon my honour as a gentleman, I have had nothing whatever to do with the disappearance of Kitty Orchardson. Signed, Donovan Bulwrag.’”
“It would be easy enough to do. But I do not choose so to degrade myself. If you think again, you will see that you were wrong, in proposing a thing so disgraceful. If you will not apologize without that, I must even put up with your insult. I believe that you are a good man, Mr. Golightly, and deeply attached to your parish, sir; but impulsive, and hasty, and illogical. A fault upon the right side, no doubt; but too hasty, sir, much too hasty. I must beg you to excuse the same fault in me – for I cannot wait another moment.”
When Mr. Golightly came back, he declared that but for that glow in Bulwrag’s eyes, he could well have believed in his innocence. For he had never known any one meet a charge, when conscious of guilt, with such entire self-possession, and unfaltering readiness. And he feared that there was no such thing as mercy in his composition.
“He is a foe to be dreaded, Kit,” he continued, looking at me sadly. “There is nothing, however bad, that he would stick at; he is resolute, calm, and resourceful. I have met with some men – not very many – in the course of my work as a clergyman, who seemed to have forgotten and foregone all the good, all the kind, all the tender part of the nature which God has given us. St. Paul describes such beings – one can scarcely call them human; and so from a different point of view does Aristotle. It is useless to deny that they exist, although one would like to deny it – people in whom there does not remain one particle of good feeling to appeal to. Yet according to memoirs of some great Christians they have been such at one time. I will not deny it, though I have never known an instance. It is possible that by the power of Grace such an one may be converted and live, as a brand snatched from the burning; but – ”
“But I hope Bulwrag won’t be so at any rate. And I don’t think there is much fear of it. I hope that he will have his portion – ”
“Hush, Kit, hush! I pray you not to imitate him. Why is he as he is, but from indulging the evil part in early days, and famishing the better side? But I have brought you some news of your father-in-law, the learned and good Professor Fairthorn. You have looked in vain, I think, in that scientific journal, as it seems to be called, which you took in on purpose. I saw this quite by accident in The Globe as I came home; and although it cannot help you, I thought you might like to see it.”
He handed me the paper, and I read as follows, among the short paragraphs of news received that morning: —
“The steamship Archytas, as our readers may remember, proceeded on a cruise of investigation and deep-sea soundings last April or May, being fitted out specially for that purpose by a well-known learned society. Our Government, with its usual penurious system, has left all these questions of prime importance to our commerce and intercourse with the world, entirely to private enterprise; and we acknowledge with shame that we never could have laid a cable across the Atlantic, without the knowledge for which we are indebted to the broader and more enlightened policy of the United States. Unhappily these are now involved in an internecine struggle, which must retard for many years the progress of civilization; and we think that England owes a debt of gratitude to the learned association, which has thus stepped in to man the breach by voluntary efforts. Some uneasiness had been felt concerning the safety of this gallant band, which is under the charge, as we need not say, of one of our most distinguished savants, the well-known Professor Fairthorn; for no tidings of the Archytas and her gallant company had reached this country for many months. But we are happy to announce, in advance of our contemporaries, that the exploring ship was spoken, in latitude and longitude not decipherable on the telegram – for it can hardly have been 361, and 758, which are the apparent figures – by the clipper-ship Simon Pure, which arrived at Liverpool last night. The Simon Pure took letters from her, which will be received with avidity, also instructions that any letters for the members of the expedition should be addressed to Ascension Island, if posted in Great Britain before the end of November. We hope to give further particulars shortly.”
Without loss of a day, I took advantage of this opportunity, but rather as a matter of duty, than of hope or promise. And as my letter led to something, I will venture to insert it here, though a very old-fashioned production.
“My dear and respected Father-in-law, – You will be surprised and shocked to hear that shortly after your departure, your daughter Kitty, my dear wife, left me apparently of her own accord, without a word of explanation, or any cause that I can even imagine. We had lived in perfect happiness and love; no cross word had ever passed between us; instead of growing tired of one another, we had become more and more united. I am well aware that the home I could give her was not such as she, with all her attractions, might have aspired to. But she knew that, before she married me; and to all appearance she was perfectly satisfied, and as happy and lively as the day is long. And we had every hope, with kind friends round us, of improving our condition from year to year. And I say, on the honour of an Englishman, and on the faith of a Christian, that never, in thought, word, or deed, had I wronged her, or been untrue to her. In short, she was all my life in this world, and I loved her even to infatuation, and fondly believed that she loved me likewise.
“Yet on the evening of May 15th, 1861, when I returned to our cottage, at the time arranged, and in full expectation of finding my dear wife, she was gone without a single word; and from that day to this, although I have sought, and others have sought high and low, not a trace of her can be obtained, except as mentioned afterwards, and not a line has come from her.
“It is the deepest mystery I have ever heard, or read of; and when it will end, God only knows. She was much too sensible, and pure, and loving, to have left me thus for any trifle, or for the sake of any other man. Sometimes I fear the very worst, – that she may have met with some fatal accident, or have been decoyed away and killed. But who could do that to my innocent Kitty? Surely not the vilest man ever born. My suspicions rest very strongly on a person well known to you, Donovan Bulwrag; but I cannot bring it home to him.
“We believe that we have traced my wife, after a search of many weeks, to Woking Road Station on the London and South-Western Line; but there all further clue vanishes; and we cannot identify, or even guess at the elderly man, who appears from our inquiries to have taken her thus far. My uncle Cornelius Orchardson, and my aunt, Miss Parslow of Leatherhead, have spared no pains or expense, in helping me in my hopeless search; but nothing comes of it, and I almost despair.
“I need not ask you, if you know anything which can throw any light on this horrible puzzle, to write to me immediately. But my hopes are very faint, because you were far at sea before it happened; as was proved by your kind message, received from the captain at Falmouth, which my dear Kitty read with me, and for which I beg to thank you.
“With all good wishes for your success in the important work you are engaged on, and hoping for your speedy return, I am with all respect and love, your unfortunate son-in-law,
“Kit Orchardson.”
After finding out how much it would cost, I posted this letter with my own hands; and the gloomy winter closed upon me, with nothing but its dreary round of heavy ponderings and lonesome work.
CHAPTER LVIII.
UNCLE CORNY’S LOVE-TALE
“A discontented and sour man,” said my Uncle Corny, one Saturday night when I had dropped into supper, “is as likely as not – unless he prays to God every morning of his life – to turn into a Liberal. I have known a lot do it, and being nabbed on the nail by the shady lot who are always near the corners, never get any chance again to come back into honesty. Kit, is that sort of thing going on with you?”
“Not likely,” I answered, for my principles were sound; “is it likely that I would join a party including Lord Roarmore and his grandson? Conservatives commit no outrage.”
My uncle considered that statement gravely. He was too large-minded and candid of nature to accept it without the support of fact. He was probing his memory, to see if this were so.
“Well,” he said at last, “there is some truth in it, though it seems at first sight to go a little too far. I have known many very tranquil Radicals, and one or two Tories of an energetic turn. All I feared was that you might be driven by the vile wrongs you have suffered into that miserable frame of mind, when people are hatched into Radicals. They injured me, not quite so much as you, my lad, but bitterly, very bitterly. Yet I carried my principles sound through it all.”
“Oh, uncle, you promised to tell me the story of the wrong done to you, in your early days. I have often longed to hear it; but was afraid to ask you, because of the trouble it has been to you. But if you could bring yourself, without feeling it too much, to tell me how that matter was, it would be a great satisfaction to me, and do me a lot of good, I do believe.”
“Well, my boy, it is a frosty night. How soon the year comes round again; though I do not think we shall have a winter fit to compare with the last one. But the east wind is coming up the lane pretty sharp, and we are likely to have a week of it. Let Tabby take the things away, and bring another log or two. You had better come down here, if the frost goes on. You will get frozen up there all alone.”
“Not I. I can keep the fire up, and I believe it is warmer up there than here, because of the wind from the river. How glad I am Bessy is still at Baycliff. They never feel the cold wind there. But go ahead, uncle, according to your promise; I don’t know how many times you have cheated me. Tabby, look sharp, and go home before it snows now.”
“Well, you must put up with my in and outs. I can lay a tree in straight enough, but I am out of my line telling things. And you wouldn’t believe, to see me now, that I was ever a brisk young chap, proud of the cut of his boots and breeches – for we used to wear no long slops then – and blushing at the mention of a pretty girl, and wondering what they were made of. But though you would not think it now, nor anybody else, except the young women that are dead and gone, I was quite as much the swell of Sunbury then, as you were before you fell into your bad luck; not so tall, of course, but I daresay quite as strong, and the master of any lad about the village.
“Somehow or other, I was like you too, and your father as well for that matter, in not making up to any damsel in the place; although they were pretty ones then, I can tell you, as pretty as any of the young ones now, and prettier too to my eyes, and ever so much modester and more becoming. But the queen of the neighbourhood, in my opinion, ay, and of the county, too, was Myra Woodbridge, the daughter of a farmer near Bedfont, who held land under Squire Coldpepper. If I was to tell you what she was like, you would think I was trying to put you out of all conceit with – with almost everybody in the world. And her looks, although they were so sweet and gentle, were not the best part of her, or not the only good one. A kinder-hearted, truer-hearted maiden never lived; and you could talk to her by the hour, without her being tired, or you either of what she had to say.
“Naturally enough, all the young men round about were hankering after this fair maid; and it did not go against her that her father was well off, having made a deal of money in the great war-time, by contracts for fodder for the troops, and so on. Myra was his favourite child, and pretty sure to come in for a good share of his wealth some day. She could play the piano, and sing like an angel, and talk French, and keep accounts, and do anything. The difficulty was for me to get near her, till I thrashed a young miller from Uxbridge who annoyed her, and then I thrashed two other fellows who were after her, for they never summoned people for such little matters then; and that made her begin to think kindly of me; and we used to walk by the brook, every Sunday evening.
“All was going on quite as well as I could wish, and old Robert Woodbridge was quite coming round to the coaxing of his lovely daughter, and the banns were to be put up just before the grass was cut, so that we might have our wedding-day between the hay and wheat – when suddenly everything was thrown abroad, and both our lives were spoilt for ever.
“Give me the sugar, Kit; I did think I should have some one to mix for me, in my old days – a faithful companion of many years, or perhaps a daughter or a grandchild. But God’s will be done. It is useless to take on.
“Squire Coldpepper’s daughter, Monica, the younger of the two very handsome ladies, had taken a violent fancy to Myra; and now, when her elder sister Arabella was carrying on, against her father’s will, with that dashing young buck – as they called them then – the Honourable Tom Bulwrag, Miss Monica, who never cared much for her sister, any more than two firebrands rubbed together, she must needs send for my sweet Myra, to come and stay at the Hall, for some purpose of her own, whether to plot against her sister, or be company for herself, or what else, I cannot tell.
“Myra was very loth to go, for she knew the tempers she would have to deal with, and having a right pride of her own, she could not bear the way they treated her, partly as a friend, and partly as a servant – for she might not have meals with the family – and partly no doubt as a sort of go-between, or what they call a buffer nowadays. And being a mean lot, as everybody knows, their practice was to make her earn her keep by sewing and doing handy jobs about the house, like a servant without any wages. But whether she liked it or not, she must go, for her father durst not disoblige his landlord, that peppery Squire Nicholas.
“Unluckily, while she was in the house, that strange thing happened that I told you of. Tom Bulwrag was to have run away with the elder girl, Arabella; but when everything was ready she burst out about some trifle, and I am blest if he didn’t make off with the other; thinking, I dare say, how sweet she was for taking his side in the shindy. It was out of the frying-pan into the fire, and served him right, said everybody. If the elder was a firebrand, the younger was a Fury; and which is the worst, I should like to know?
“But they might have fought it out between themselves, and no harm done to good people, if Miss Monica had not carried Myra Woodbridge with her. She was forced to have some one perhaps, for her own sake, little as she cared for opinion; but one of the servants would have done as well, or better if she had been older. How Myra allowed herself to be taken, I could never quite understand, for it was not likely to help her father in the good graces of his landlord. Perhaps she thought herself in duty bound to stand by the one who was fond of her, or perhaps she hoped to see that things came right, and thought there might be a worse mess of it with no one of common sense to help; at any rate she went off in the chaise, and never had chance to come back again.
“You can understand what a storm there was at the Manor, when the truth came out. Our Miss Coldpepper had been locked up, and could not get out till they found her; and then she was in such a state of mind, that she could not speak her meaning clearly. The runaways had at least six hours’ start, and it was hopeless to go after them; and in those days there were only coaches, no railways, and no telegraphs. Squire Nicholas swore himself into a fit; and it shortened his days, as the doctors said, though he vowed he would live all the longer for it.
“Myra was of a gentle nature, as a woman should be; yet proud to resent any charge against her, when she knew she was innocent. The obstinate Squire, a pig-headed man, put all the blame upon her, or pretended to do it, to screen himself and his own lazy ways with his daughter. Till any one who listened to him would believe that the whole thing had been devised and carried out by a daughter of one of his tenants. So that when she wrote to her father – for the others left that job to her – to say that they were all at Bath, and doing as well as could be expected, Squire Nicholas sent a most thundering message, through old Robert Woodbridge, that Myra had better never come near Bedfont, or he would have her in prison for conspiring. Of course this was rubbish; but it frightened the poor girl, and made her doubt what justice was.
“Then she wrote to me, a most pitiful letter, begging me to think the best of her – as if I could think anything else – saying how sorry she was for leaving home in that impulsive, foolish way, under a mistaken view of right. Some day perhaps you will have a letter of that sort from your Kitty. And she asked me, as she could not ask her father (who would not forgive her till he saw her), to oblige her by just sending money enough to bring her back to Bedfont. ‘I came away with only half a crown, and there is none to be got from you know who’ – the poor thing said, for she was most careful not to write names that might lead to mischief.
“But like a woman, exactly like a woman, who thinks that the whole world knows everything about her, or else is afraid of their doing so, the only address that she gave was ‘Bath, in the County of Somerset.’ It was hard to send money by post in those days. You must enclose and risk it. But what was the use of putting money in a letter directed to ‘Miss Myra Woodbridge, Bath’? There was nothing more precise in her letter to her father, and it took me three days to find out that, for the old man was gone from home on business. I went to Squire Nicholas, to see if he knew, but he only stormed at me, and told me to go to – a place he was fitting himself for. So that four days were lost before I could start, with your grandfather’s leave, for the west of England.
“When I got to Bath, it took me two days more, as an entire stranger in the place, to find out where the Bulwrags had been stopping. And when I discovered their hotel at last, they had left it on the day before, and no one could tell me what their destination was. I came back to Sunbury in very bad spirits, fearing greatly that I never should see my dear again.
“And so it turned out; although I had one more letter from her, which was enough to break any one’s heart almost. I have it upstairs, but I shall never show it. God only knows what a man goes through. When my time comes, you will find it, Kit; and I wish to have that, and the other, with me. There is more than a twelvemonth between the two; and the second is dated from a German city.
“I could not understand it at the time, because I had no more thought of any other woman, than you have since you lost your Kitty. Afterwards I found out the whole. The poor girl became indispensable to them. She alone eked out their resources, and kept them from going to the dogs, before Bulwrag learned some roguish way of turning money. And to keep her from quitting them and going home, they lied through thick and thin to her, about her father and about myself, and backed up their lies with forgeries. They vowed that her father would never receive her; and that I was married to a Sunbury girl. Her father could make no inquiries about her, for he had been taken with a paralytic stroke; and her brothers, jealous wretches, did not want her nearer home. As for me, I could do nothing, any more than you can now. I knew that they were all upon the Continent, and trusted in her good faith and loyalty, for many a sad day. And although she had been deeply hurt and wounded at my silence, which of course had been twisted to their selfish ends, I believe that she was faithful to me, to the very last.
“The old man died on the very day when I received her second letter, and I went to his funeral with it in my pocket. The brothers looked askance at me, and smiled a sour smile, as much as to say – ‘You don’t cut in for any of it’ – and I did not even speak to them about their sister. But they soon came to grief, by the will of the Lord; and the farm is now occupied by George Fletcher.
“In reply to that letter, which astounded me, I wrote to say that every word she had heard was false. That I had never forgotten her, as she supposed (although she did not reproach me with it); that I cared for no one else, and should never do so, and hoped from the bottom of my heart, that her illness was not so serious as she believed. If she would only write that she wished to see me, I would go to her anywhere in the world. Then I told her of her poor father’s death, and that he had loved her always, and been yearning for her. She was on her deathbed, when she received that letter, and it comforted her dearly, and she died with it in her hand.
“Now what do you think my dear girl died of? It is almost too bad to tell you, Kit; and I can scarcely command myself to do it. I cannot prove it. If I only could – but vengeance belongs to the Lord in heaven. Slowly, but surely, it will fall; and a part is already upon them. Monica Bulwrag killed my Myra, not on the moment, but by slow death. That was why she was so scared with you. That is the reason that her power passes into terror, when she tries to face any of us.