Arthur Mervyn Part 20

"To desert you would be flagitious and dastardly beyond all former acts; yet to stay with you is to contract the disease, and to perish after you.

"Life, burdened as it is with guilt and ignominy, is still dear--yet you exhort me to go; you dispense with my a.s.sistance. Indeed, I could be of no use; I should injure myself and profit you nothing. I cannot go into the city and procure a physician or attendant. I must never more appear in the streets of this city. I must leave you, then." He hurried to the door. Again, he hesitated. I renewed my entreaties that he would leave me; and encouraged his belief that his presence might endanger himself without conferring the slightest benefit upon me.

"Whither should I fly? The wide world contains no asylum for me. I lived but on one condition. I came hither to find what would save me from ruin,--from death. I find it not. It has vanished. Some audacious and fortunate hand has s.n.a.t.c.hed it from its place, and now my ruin is complete. My last hope is extinct.

"Yes, Mervyn! I will stay with you. I will hold your head. I will put water to your lips. I will watch night and day by your side. When you die, I will carry you by night to the neighbouring field; will bury you, and water your grave with those tears that are due to your incomparable worth and untimely destiny. Then I will lay myself in your bed, and wait for the same oblivion."

Welbeck seemed now no longer to be fluctuating between opposite purposes. His tempestuous features subsided into calm. He put the candle, still lighted, on the table, and paced the floor with less disorder than at his first entrance.

His resolution was seen to be the dictate of despair. I hoped that it would not prove invincible to my remonstrances. I was conscious that his attendance might preclude, in some degree, my own exertions, and alleviate the pangs of death; but these consolations might be purchased too dear. To receive them at the hazard of his life would be to make them odious.

But, if he should remain, what conduct would his companion pursue? Why did he continue in the study when Welbeck had departed? By what motives were those men led hither? I addressed myself to Welbeck:--

"Your resolution to remain is hasty and rash. By persisting in it, you will add to the miseries of my condition; you will take away the only hope that I cherished. But, however you may act, Colvill or I must be banished from this roof. What is the league between you? Break it, I conjure you, before his frauds have involved you in inextricable destruction."

Welbeck looked at me with some expression of doubt.

"I mean," continued I, "the man whose voice I heard above. He is a villain and betrayer. I have manifold proofs of his guilt. Why does he linger behind you? However you may decide, it is fitting that he should vanish."

"Alas!" said Welbeck, "I have no companion, none to partake with me in good or evil. I came hither alone."

"How?" exclaimed I. "Whom did I hear in the room above? Some one answered my interrogations and entreaties, whom I too certainly recognised. Why does he remain?"

"You heard no one but myself. The design that brought me hither was to be accomplished without a witness. I desired to escape detection, and repelled your solicitations for admission in a counterfeited voice.

"That voice belonged to one from whom I had lately parted. What his merits or demerits are, I know not. He found me wandering in the forests of New Jersey. He took me to his home. When seized by a lingering malady, he nursed me with fidelity and tenderness. When somewhat recovered, I speeded hither; but our ignorance of each other's character and views was mutual and profound.

"I deemed it useful to a.s.sume a voice different from my own. This was the last which I had heard, and this arbitrary and casual circ.u.mstance decided my choice."

This imitation was too perfect, and had influenced my fears too strongly, to be easily credited. I suspected Welbeck of some new artifice to baffle my conclusions and mislead my judgment. This suspicion, however, yielded to his earnest and repeated declarations. If Colvill were not here, where had he made his abode? How came friendship and intercourse between Welbeck and him? By what miracle escaped the former from the river, into which I had imagined him forever sunk?

"I will answer you," said he, with candour. "You know already too much for me to have any interest in concealing any part of my life. You have discovered my existence, and the causes that rescued me from destruction may be told without detriment to my person or fame.

"When I leaped into the river, I intended to perish. I harboured no previous doubts of my ability to execute my fatal purpose. In this respect I was deceived. Suffocation would not come at my bidding. My muscles and limbs rebelled against my will. There was a mechanical repugnance to the loss of life, which I could not vanquish. My struggles might thrust me below the surface, but my lips were spontaneously shut, and excluded the torrent from my lungs. When my breath was exhausted, the efforts that kept me at the bottom were involuntarily remitted, and I rose to the surface.

"I cursed my own pusillanimity. Thrice I plunged to the bottom, and as often rose again. My aversion to life swiftly diminished, and at length I consented to make use of my skill in swimming, which has seldom been exceeded, to prolong my existence. I landed in a few minutes on the Jersey sh.o.r.e.

"This scheme being frustrated, I sunk into dreariness and inactivity. I felt as if no dependence could be placed upon my courage, as if any effort I should make for self-destruction would be fruitless; yet existence was as void as ever of enjoyment and embellishment. My means of living were annihilated. I saw no path before me. To shun the presence of mankind was my sovereign wish. Since I could not die by my own hands, I must be content to crawl upon the surface, till a superior fate should permit me to perish.

"I wandered into the centre of the wood. I stretched myself on the mossy verge of a brook, and gazed at the stars till they disappeared. The next day was spent with little variation. The cravings of hunger were felt, and the sensation was a joyous one, since it afforded me the practicable means of death. To refrain from food was easy, since some efforts would be needful to procure it, and these efforts should not be made. Thus was the sweet oblivion for which I so earnestly panted placed within my reach.

"Three days of abstinence, and reverie, and solitude, succeeded. On the evening of the fourth, I was seated on a rock, with my face buried in my hands. Some one laid his hand upon my shoulder. I started and looked up.

I beheld a face beaming with compa.s.sion and benignity. He endeavoured to extort from me the cause of my solitude and sorrow. I disregarded his entreaties, and was obstinately silent.

"Finding me invincible in this respect, he invited me to his cottage, which was hard by. I repelled him at first with impatience and anger, but he was not to be discouraged or intimidated. To elude his persuasions I was obliged to comply. My strength was gone, and the vital fabric was crumbling into pieces. A fever raged in my veins, and I was consoled by reflecting that my life was at once a.s.sailed by famine and disease.

"Meanwhile, my gloomy meditations experienced no respite. I incessantly ruminated on the events of my past life. The long series of my crimes arose daily and afresh to my imagination. The image of Lodi was recalled, his expiring looks and the directions which were mutually given respecting his sister's and his property.

"As I perpetually revolved these incidents, they a.s.sumed new forms, and were linked with new a.s.sociations. The volume written by his father, and transferred to me by tokens which were now remembered to be more emphatic than the nature of the composition seemed to justify, was likewise remembered. It came attended by recollections respecting a volume which I filled, when a youth, with extracts from the Roman and Greek poets. Besides this literary purpose, I likewise used to preserve in it the bank-bills with the keeping or carriage of which I chanced to be entrusted. This image led me back to the leather case containing Lodi's property, which was put into my hands at the same time with the volume.

"These images now gave birth to a third conception, which darted on my benighted understanding like an electrical flash. Was it not possible that part of Lodi's property might be enclosed within the leaves of this volume? In hastily turning it over, I recollected to have noticed leaves whose edges by accident or design adhered to each other. Lodi, in speaking of the sale of his father's West-India property, mentioned that the sum obtained for it was forty thousand dollars. Half only of this sum had been discovered by me. How had the remainder been appropriated?

Surely this volume contained it.

"The influence of this thought was like the infusion of a new soul into my frame. From torpid and desperate, from inflexible aversion to medicine and food, I was changed in a moment into vivacity and hope, into ravenous avidity for whatever could contribute to my restoration to health.

"I was not without pungent regrets and racking fears. That this volume would be ravished away by creditors or plunderers was possible. Every hour might be that which decided my fate. The first impulse was to seek my dwelling and search for this precious deposit.

"Meanwhile, my perturbations and impatience only exasperated my disease.

While chained to my bed, the rumour of pestilence was spread abroad.

This event, however, generally calamitous, was propitious to me, and was hailed with satisfaction. It multiplied the chances that my house and its furniture would be unmolested.

"My friend was a.s.siduous and indefatigable in his kindness. My deportment, before and subsequent to the revival of my hopes, was incomprehensible, and argued nothing less than insanity. My thoughts were carefully concealed from him, and all that he witnessed was contradictory and unintelligible.

"At length, my strength was sufficiently restored. I resisted all my protector's importunities to postpone my departure till the perfect confirmation of my health. I designed to enter the city at midnight, that prying eyes might be eluded; to bear with me a candle and the means of lighting it, to explore my way to my ancient study, and to ascertain my future claim to existence and felicity.

"I crossed the river this morning. My impatience would not suffer me to wait till evening. Considering the desolation of the city, I thought I might venture to approach thus near, without hazard of detection. The house, at all its avenues, was closed. I stole into the back court. A window-shutter proved to be unfastened. I entered, and discovered closets and cabinets unfastened and emptied of all their contents. At this spectacle my heart sunk. My books, doubtless, had shared the common destiny. My blood throbbed with painful vehemence as I approached the study and opened the door.

"My hopes, that languished for a moment, were revived by the sight of my shelves, furnished as formerly. I had lighted my candle below, for I desired not to awaken observation and suspicion by unclosing the windows. My eye eagerly sought the spot where I remembered to have left the volume. Its place was empty. The object of all my hopes had eluded my grasp, and disappeared forever.

"To paint my confusion, to repeat my execrations on the infatuation which had rendered, during so long a time that it was in my possession, this treasure useless to me, and my curses of the fatal interference which had s.n.a.t.c.hed away the prize, would be only aggravations of my disappointment and my sorrow. You found me in this state, and know what followed."

CHAPTER XXII.

This narrative threw new light on the character of Welbeck. If accident had given him possession of this treasure, it was easy to predict on what schemes of luxury and selfishness it would have been expended. The same dependence on the world's erroneous estimation, the same devotion to imposture, and thoughtlessness of futurity, would have const.i.tuted the picture of his future life, as had distinguished the past.

This money was another's. To retain it for his own use was criminal. Of this crime he appeared to be as insensible as ever. His own gratification was the supreme law of his actions. To be subjected to the necessity of honest labour was the heaviest of all evils, and one from which he was willing to escape by the commission of suicide.

The volume which he sought was mine. It was my duty to restore it to the rightful owner, or, if the legal claimant could not be found, to employ it in the promotion of virtue and happiness. To give it to Welbeck was to consecrate it to the purpose of selfishness and misery. My right, legally considered, was as valid as his.

But, if I intended not to resign it to him, was it proper to disclose the truth and explain by whom the volume was purloined from the shelf?

The first impulse was to hide this truth; but my understanding had been taught, by recent occurrences, to question the justice and deny the usefulness of secrecy in any case. My principles were true; my motives were pure: why should I scruple to avow my principles and vindicate my actions?

Welbeck had ceased to be dreaded or revered. That awe which was once created by his superiority of age, refinement of manners, and dignity of garb, had vanished. I was a boy in years, an indigent and uneducated rustic; but I was able to discern the illusions of power and riches, and abjured every claim to esteem that was not founded on integrity. There was no tribunal before which I should falter in a.s.serting the truth, and no species of martyrdom which I would not cheerfully embrace in its cause.

After some pause, I said, "Cannot you conjecture in what way this volume has disappeared?"

"No," he answered, with a sigh. "Why, of all his volumes, this only should have vanished, was an inexplicable enigma."

"Perhaps," said I, "it is less important to know how it was removed, than by whom it is now possessed."

"Unquestionably; and yet, unless that knowledge enables me to regain the possession, it will be useless."

"Useless then it will be, for the present possessor will never return it to you."