East Lynne Part 100

"What did your papa answer?" she breathed.

"I don't know. Nothing, I think; he was talking to Barbara. But it was very stupid of Lucy, because Wilson has told her over and over again that she must never talk of Lady Isabel to papa. Miss Manning told her so too. When we got home, and Wilson heard of it, she said Lucy deserved a good shaking."

"Why must not Lady Isabel be talked of to him?"

A moment after the question had left her lips, she wondered what possessed her to give utterance to it.

"I'll tell you," said William in a whisper. "She ran away from papa.

Lucy talks nonsense about her having been kidnapped, but she knows nothing. I do, though they don't think it, perhaps."

"She may be among the redeemed, some time, William, and you with her."

He fell back on the sofa-pillow with a weary sigh, and lay in silence.

Lady Isabel shaded her face, and remained in silence also. Soon she was aroused from it; William was in a fit of loud, sobbing tears.

"Oh, I don't want to die! I don't want to die! Why should I go and leave papa and Lucy?"

She hung over him; she clasped her arms around him; her tears, her sobs, mingling with his. She whispered to him sweet and soothing words; she placed him so that he might sob out his grief upon her bosom; and in a little while the paroxysm had pa.s.sed.

"Hark!" exclaimed William. "What's that?"

A sound of talking and laughter in the hall. Mr. Carlyle, Lord Mount Severn, and his son were leaving the dining-room. They had some committee appointed that evening at West Lynne and were departing to keep it. As the hall-door closed upon them, Barbara came into the gray parlor. Up rose Madame Vine, scuffled on her spectacles, and took her seat soberly upon a chair.

"All in the dark, and your fire going out!" exclaimed Barbara, as she hastened to stir the latter and send it into a blaze. "Who's on the sofa? William, you ought to be to bed!"

"Not yet, mamma. I don't want to go yet."

"But it is quite time that you should," she returned, ringing the bell.

"To sit up at night is not the way to make you strong."

William was dismissed. And then she returned to Madame Vine, and inquired what Dr. Martin had said.

"He said the lungs were undoubtedly affected; but, like all doctors, he would give no decisive opinion. I could see that he had formed one."

Mrs. Carlyle looked at her. The firelight played especially upon the spectacles, and she moved her chair into the shade.

"Dr. Martin will see him again next week; he is coming to West Lynne. I am sure, by the tone of his voice, by his evasive manner, that he antic.i.p.ates the worst, although he would not say so in words."

"I will take William into West Lynne myself," observed Barbara. "The doctor will, of course, tell me. I came in to pay my debts," she added, dismissing the subject of the child, and holding out a five-pound note.

Lady Isabel mechanically stretched out her hand for it.

"Whilst we are, as may be said, upon the money topic," resumed Barbara, in a gay tone, "will you allow me to intimate that both myself and Mr.

Carlyle very much disapprove of your making presents to the children. I was calculating, at a rough guess the cost of the toys and things you have bought for them, and I think it must amount to a very large portion of the salary you have received. Pray do not continue this, Madame Vine."

"I have no one else to spend my money on; I love the children," was madame's answer, somewhat sharply given, as if she were jealous of the interference between her and the children, and would resent it.

"Nay, you have yourself. And if you do not require much outlay, you have, I should suppose, a reserve fund to which to put your money. Be so kind as to take the hint, madame, otherwise I shall be compelled more peremptorily to forbid your generosity. It is very good of you, very kind; but if you do not think yourself, we must for you."

"I will buy them less," was the murmured answer. "I must give them a little token of love now and then."

"That you are welcome to do--a 'little token,' once in a way, but not the costly toys you have been purchasing. Have you ever had an acquaintance with Sir Francis Levison?" continued Mrs. Carlyle, pa.s.sing with abruptness from one point to another.

An inward shiver, a burning cheek, a heartpang of wild remorse, and a faint answer. "No."

"I fancied from your manner when I was speaking of him the other day, that you knew him or had known him. No compliment, you will say, to a.s.sume an acquaintance with such a man. He is a stranger to you, then?"

Another faint reply. "Yes."

Barbara paused.

"Do you believe in fatality, Madame Vine?"

"Yes, I do," was the steady answer.

"I don't," and yet the very question proved that she did not wholly disbelieve it. "No, I don't," added Barbara, stoutly, as she approached the sofa vacated by William, and sat down upon it, thus bringing herself opposite and near to Madame Vine. "Are you aware that it was Francis Levison who brought the evil to this house?"

"The evil----" stammered Madame Vine.

"Yes, it was he," she resumed, taking the hesitating answer for an admission that the governess knew nothing, or but little, of past events. "It was he who took Lady Isabel from her home--though perhaps she was as willing to go as he was to take her; I do know--"

"Oh, no, no!" broke from the unguarded lips of Madame Vine. "At least--I mean--I should think not," she added, in confusion.

"We shall never know; and of what consequence is it? One thing is certain, she went; another thing, almost equally certain, is, she did not go against her will. Did you ever hear the details?"

"N--o." Her answer would have been "Yes," but possibly the next question might have been, "From whom did you hear them?"

"He was staying at East Lynne. The man had been abroad; outlawed; dared not show his face in England; and Mr. Carlyle, in his generosity, invited him to East Lynne as a place of shelter, where he would be safe from his creditors while something was arranged. He was a connection in some way of Lady Isabel's, and they repaid Mr. Carlyle, he and she, by quitting East Lynne together."

"Why did Mr. Carlyle give that invitation?" The words were uttered in a spirit of remorseful wailing. Mrs. Carlyle believed they were a question put, and she rose up haughtily against it.

"Why did he give the invitation? Did I hear you aright, Madame Vine? Did Mr. Carlyle know he was a reprobate? And, if he had known it, was not Isabel his wife? Could he dream of danger for her? If it pleased Mr.

Carlyle to fill East Lynne with bad men to-morrow, what would that be to me--to my safety, to my well-being, to my love and allegiance to my husband? What were you thinking of, madame?"

"Thinking of?" She leaned her troubled head upon her hand. Mrs. Carlyle resumed,--

"Sitting alone in the drawing-room just now, and thinking matters over, it did seem to me very like what people call a fatality. That man, I say, was the one who wrought the disgrace, the trouble to Mr. Carlyle's family; and it is he, I have every reason now to believe, who brought a nearly equal disgrace and trouble upon mine. Did you know--" Mrs.

Carlyle lowered her voice--"that I have a brother in evil--in shame?"

Lady Isabel did not dare to answer that she did know it. Who had there been likely to inform her, the strange governess of the tale of Richard Hare!

"So the world calls it--shame," pursued Barbara, growing excited. "And it is shame, but not as the world thinks it. The shame lies with another, who had thrust the suffering and shame upon Richard; and that other is Francis Levison. I will tell you the tale. It is worth the telling."

She could only dispose herself to listen; but she wondered what Francis Levison had to do with Richard Hare.

"In the days long gone by, when I was little more than a child, Richard took to going after Afy Hallijohn. You have seen the cottage in the wood; she lived there with her father and Joyce. It was very foolish for him; but young men will be foolish. As many more went after her, or wanted to go after her, as she could count upon her ten fingers. Among them, chief of them, more favored even than Richard, was one called Thorn, by social position a gentleman. He was a stranger, and used to ride over in secret. The night of the murder came--the dreadful murder, when Hallijohn was shot down dead. Richard ran away; testimony was strong against him, and the coroner's jury brought in a verdict of 'Wilful Murder against Richard Hare the younger.' We never supposed but what he was guilty--of the act, mind you, not of the intention; even mamma, who so loved him, believed he had done it; but she believed it was the result of accident, not design. Oh, the trouble that has been the lot of my poor mamma!" cried Barbara, clasping her hands. "And she had no one to sympathize with her--no one, no one! I, as I tell you, was little more than a child; and papa, who might have done it, took part against Richard. It went on for three or four years, the sorrow, and there was no mitigation. At the end of that period Richard came for a few hours to West Lynne--came in secret--and we learnt for the first time that he was not guilty. The man who did the deed was Thorn; Richard was not even present. The next question was, how to find Thorn. n.o.body knew anything about him--who he was, what he was, where he came from, where he went to; and thus more years pa.s.sed on. Another Thorn came to West Lynne--an officer in her majesty's service; and his appearance tallied with the description Richard had given. I a.s.sumed it to be the one; Mr. Carlyle a.s.sumed it; but, before anything could be done or even thought of Captain Thorn was gone again."

Barbara paused to take breath, Madame Vine sat listless enough. What was this tale to her?