The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain Part 91

"Where is Miss Gourlay, sir?" asked his master, with eyes kindled by rage and alarm.

"I was out, sir," replied Gibson, "and cannot tell."

"You can never tell anything, you scoundrel. For a thousand, she's off with him again, and all's ruined. Here, Matthews--M'Gregor--call the servants, sir. Where's her maid?--call her maid. What a confounded fool--a.s.s--I was, not to have made that impudent baggage tramp about her business. It's true, Lucy's off--I feel it--I felt it. Hang her hypocrisy! It's the case, however, with all women. They have neither truth, nor honesty of purpose. A compound of treachery, deceit, and dissimulation; and yet I thought, if there was a single individual of her s.e.x exempted from their vices, that she was that individual. Come here, M'Gregor--come here you scoundrel--do you know where Miss Gourlay is? or her maid?"

"Here's Matthews, sir; he says she's gone out."

"Gone out!--Yes, she's gone out with a vengeance. Do you know where she's gone, sirra? And did any one go with her?" he added, addressing himself to Matthews.

"I think, sir, she's gone to take her usual airing in the carriage."

"Who was with her?"

"No one but her maid, sir."

"Oh, no; they would not go off together--that would be too open and barefaced. Do you know what direction she took?"

"No, sir; I didn't observe."

"You stupid old lout," replied the baronet, flying at him, and mauling the unfortunate man without mercy; "take that--and that--and that--for your stupidity. Why did you not observe the way she went, you! villain?

You have suffered her to elope, you hound! You have all suffered her to elope with a smooth-faced impostor--a fellow whom no one knows--a blackleg--a swindler--a thief--a--a--go and saddle half a dozen horses, and seek her in all directions. Go instantly, and--hold--easy--stop--hang you all, stop!--here she is--and her maid with her--" he exclaimed, looking out of the window. "Ha! I am relieved.

G.o.d bless me! G.o.d bless me!" He then looked at the servants with something of deprecation in his face, and waving his hand, said, "Go--go quietly; and, observe me--not a word of this--not a syllable--for your lives!"

His anger, however, was only checked in mid-volley. The idea of her having received a clandestine visit from her lover during his absence rankled at his heart; and although satisfied that she was still safe, and in his power, he could barely restrain his temper within moderate limits. Nay, he felt angry at her for the alarm she had occasioned him, and the pa.s.sion he had felt at her absence.

"Well, Lucy," said he, addressing her, as she entered, in a voice chafed with pa.s.sion, "have you taken your drive?"

"Yes, papa," she replied; "but it threatened rain, and we returned earlier that usual."

"You look pale."

"I dare say I do, sir. I want rest--repose;" and she reclined on a lounger as she spoke. "It is surprising, papa, how weak I am!"

"Not too weak, Lucy, to receive a stolen visit, eh?"

Lucy immediately sat up, and replied with surprise, "A stolen visit, sir? I don't understand you, papa."

"Had you not a visitor here, in my absence?"

"I had, sir, but the visit was intended for you. Our interview was perfectly accidental."

"Ah! faith, Lucy, it was too well timed to be accidental. I'm not such a fool as that comes to. Accidental, indeed! Lucy, you should not say so."

"I am not in the habit of stating an untruth, papa. The visit, sir--I should rather say, the interview--was purely accidental; but I am glad it took place."

"The deuce you are! That is a singular acknowledgment, Lucy, I think."

"It is truth, sir, notwithstanding. I was anxious to see him, that I might acquaint him with the change that has taken place in my unhappy destiny. If I had not seen him, I should have asked your permission to write to him."

"Which I would not have given."

"I would have submitted my letter to you, sir."

"Even so; I would not have consented."

"Well, then, sir, as truth and honor demanded that act from me, I would haye sent it without your consent. Excuse me for saying this, papa; but you need not be told that there are some peculiar cases where duty to a parent must yield to truth and honor."

"Some peculiar cases! On the contrary, the cases you speak of are the general rule, my girl--the general rule--and rational obedience to a parent the exception. Where is there a case--and there are millions--where a parent's wish and will are set at naught and scorned, in which the same argument is not used? I do not relish these discussions, however. What I wish to impress upon you is this--you must see this fellow no more."

Lucy's temples were immediately in a blaze. "Are you aware, papa, that you insult and degrade your daughter, by applying such a term to him?

If you will not spare him, sir, spare me; for I a.s.sure you that I feel anything said against him with ten times more emotion than if it were uttered against myself."

"Well, well; he's a fine fellow, a gentleman, a lord; but, be he what he may, you must see him no more."

"It is not my intention, papa, to see him again."

"You must not write to him."

"It will not be necessary."

"But you must not."

"Well, then, I shall not."

"Nor receive kis letters."

"Nor receive his letters, knowing them to be his."

"You promise all this?"

"I do, sir, faithfully. I hope you are now satisfied, papa?"

"I am, Lucy--I am. You are not so bad a girl as I sus--no, you are a very good girl; and when I see you the Countess of Cullamore, I shall not have a single wish un-gratified."

Lucy, indeed, poor girl, was well and vigilantly guarded. No communication, whether written or otherwise, was permitted to reach her; nor, if she had been lodged in the deepest dungeon in Europe, and secured by the strongest bolts that ever enclosed a prisoner, could she have been more rigidly excluded from all intercourse, her father's and her maid's only excepted.

Her lover, on receiving the doc.u.ments so often alluded to from old Corbet, immediately transmitted to her a letter of hope and encouragement, in which he stated that the object he had alluded to was achieved, and that he would take care to place such doc.u.ments before her father, as must cause even him to forbid the bans. This letter, however, never reached her. Neither did a similar communication from Mrs.

Mainwaring, who after three successive attempts to see either her or her father, was forced at last to give up all hope of preventing the marriage. She seemed, indeed, to have been fated.

In the meantime, the stranger, having, as he imagined, relieved Lucy's mind from her dreaded union with Dunroe, and left the further and more complete disclosure of that young n.o.bleman's position to Mrs.

Mainwaring, provided himself with competent legal authority to claim the person of unfortunate Fenton. It is unnecessary to describe his journey to the asylum in which the wretched young man was placed; it is enough to say that he arrived there at nine o'clock in the morning, accompanied by old Corbet and three officers of justice, who remained in the carriage; and on asking to see the proprietor, was shown into a parlor, where he found that worthy gentleman reading a newspaper.

This fellow was one of those men who are remarkable for thick, ma.s.sive, and saturnine features. At a first glance he was not at all ill-looking; but, on examining his beetle brows, which met in a ma.s.s of black thick hair across his face, and on watching the dull, selfish, cruel eyes that they hung over--dead as they were to every generous emotion, and incapable of kindling even at cruelty itself--it was impossible for any man in the habit of observing nature closely not to feel that a brutal ruffian, obstinate, indurated, and unscrupulous, was before him. His forehead was low but broad, and the whole shape of his head such as would induce an intelligent phrenologist to p.r.o.nounce him at once a thief and a murderer.

The stranger, after a survey or two, felt his blood boil at the contemplation of his very visage, which was at once plausible and diabolical in expression. After some preliminary chat the latter said:

"Your establishment, sir, is admirably situated here. It is remote and isolated; and these, I suppose, are advantages?"

"Why, yes, sir," replied the doctor, "the further we remove our patients from human society, the better. The exhibition of reason has, in general, a bad effect upon the insane."