The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain Part 94

The conduct of Corbet was on this occasion very singular. He complained that the stench of the dungeon in which they found Fenton had sickened him; but, notwithstanding this, something like ease of mind might be read in his countenance whenever he looked upon Fenton; something that, to the stranger at least, who observed him closely, seemed to say, "I am at last satisfied: the widow's heart will be set at rest, and the plans of this black villain broken to pieces." His eye occasionally gleamed wildly, and again his countenance grew pale and haggard, and he complained of headache and pains about his loins, and in the small of his back.

On arriving in Dublin, the stranger brought Fenton to his hotel, where he was desirous to keep him for a day or two, until he should regain a little strength, that he might, without risk, be able to sustain the interview that was before him. Aware of the capricious nature of the young man's feelings, and his feeble state of health, he himself kept aloof from him, lest his presence might occasion such a shock as would induce anything like a fit of insanity--a circ.u.mstance which must mar the pleasure and gratification of his unexpected reappearance. That medical advice ought instantly to be procured was evident from his extreme weakness, and the state of apathy into which he had sunk immediately after, his removal from the cell. This was at once provided; but unfortunately it seemed that all human skill was likely to prove unavailable, as the physician, on seeing and examining him, expressed himself with strong doubts as to the possibility of his recovery. In fact, he feared that his unhappy patient had not many days to live.

He ordered him wine, tonics, and light but nutritious food to be taken sparingly, and desired that he should be brought into the open air as often as the debility of his const.i.tution could bear it. His complaint, he said, was altogether a nervous one, and resulted from the effects of cruelty, terror, want of sufficient nourishment, bad air, and close confinement.

In the meantime, the doctor was committed to prison, and had the pleasure of being sent, under a safe escort, to the jail of the county that had been so largely benefited by his humane establishment.

As we are upon this painful subject, we may as well state here that he was prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, with hard labor.

CHAPTER XL. Lady Gourlay sees her Son.

Having done all that was possible for poor Fenton, the stranger lost no time in waiting upon Lady Gourlay, that he might, with as much prudence as the uncertain state of the young man's health would permit, make known the long wished for communication, that they had at length got him in their possession. His task was one of great difficulty, for he apprehended that an excess of joy on the part of that affectionate woman might be dangerous, when suddenly checked by the melancholy probability that he had been restored to her only to be almost immediately removed by death. He resolved, then, to temper his intelligence in such a way as to cause her own admirable sense and high Christian feeling to exercise their usual influence over her heart. As he had promised Corbet, however, to take no future step in connection with these matters without consulting him, he resolved, before seeing Lady Gourlay, to pay him a visit. He was induced the more to do this in consequence of the old man's singular conduct on the discovery of Fenton. From the very first interview that he ever had with Corbet until that event, he could not avoid observing that there was a mystery in everything he did and said--something enigmatical--unfathomable, and that his looks, and the disagreeable expression which they occasionally a.s.sumed, were frequently so much at variance with his words, that it was an utter impossibility to draw anything like a certain inference from them. On the discovery of Fenton, the old man's face went through a variety of contradictory expressions. Sometimes he seemed elated--triumphant, sometimes depressed and anxious, and occasionally angry, or excited by a feeling that was altogether unintelligible. He often turned his eye upon Fenton, as if he had discovered some precious treasure, then his countenance became overcast, and he writhed in an agony which no mortal penetration could determine as anything but the result of remorse. Taking all this into consideration, the stranger made up his mind to see him before he should wait upon Lady Gourlay.

Although a day had elapsed, he found the old man still complaining of illness, which, he said, would have been more serious had he not taken medicine.

"My mind, however," said he, "is what's troublin' me. There's a battle goin' on within me. At one time I'm delighted, but the delight doesn't give me pleasure long, for then, again, I feel a weight over me that's worse than death. However, I can't nor won't give it up. I hope I'll have time to repent yet; who knows but it is G.o.d that has put it into my heart and kept it there for so many years?"

"Kept what there?" asked the stranger.

The old man's face literally blackened as he replied, almost with a scream, "Vengeance!"

"This language," replied the other, "is absolutely shocking. Consider your advanced state of life--consider your present illness, which may probably be your last, and reflect that if you yourself expect pardon from G.o.d, you must forgive your enemies."

"So I will," he replied; "but not till I've punished them; then I'll tell them how I made my puppets of them, and when I give their heart one last crush--one grind--and the old wretch ground his teeth in the contemplation of this diabolical vision--ay," he repeated--"one last grind, then I'll tell them I've done with them, and forgive them; then--then--ay, but not till then!"

"G.o.d forgive you, Corbet, and change your heart!" replied the stranger.

"I called to say that I am about to inform Lady Gourlay that we have her son safe at last, and I wish to know if you are in possession of any facts that she ought to be acquainted with in connection with his removal--in fact, to hear anything you may wish to disclose to me on the subject."

"I could, then, disclose to you something on the subject that would make you wondher; but although the time's at hand, it's not come yet. Here I am, an ould man--helpless--or, at all events, helpless-lookin'--and you would hardly believe that I'm makin' this black villain do everything accordin' as I wish it."

"That dark spirit of vengeance," replied the stranger, "is turning your brain, I think, or you would not say so. Whatever Sir Thomas Gourlay may be, he is not the man to act as the puppet of any person."

"So you think; but I tell you he's acting as mine, for all that."

"Well, well, Corbet, that is your own affair. Have you anything of importance to communicate to me, before I see Lady Gourlay? I ask you for the last time."

"I have. The black villain and she have spoken at last. He yielded to his daughter so far as to call upon her, and asked her to be present at the weddin'."

"The wedding!" exclaimed the stranger, looking aghast. "G.o.d of heaven, old man, do you mean to say that they are about to be married so soon?--about to be married at all? But I will leave you," he added; "there is no possibility of wringing anything out of you."

"Wait a little," continued Corbet. "What I'm goin' to tell you won't do you any harm, at any rate."

"Be quick, then. Gracious heaven!--married!--Curses seize you, old man, be quick."

"On the mornin' afther to-morrow the marriage is to take place in Sir Thomas's own house. Lord Dunroe's sisther is to be bridesmaid, and a young fellow named Roberts--"

"I know--I have met him."

"Well, and did you ever see any one that he resembled, or that resembled him? I hope in the Almighty," he added, uttering the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n evidently in connection with some private thought or purpose of his own, "I hope in the Almighty that this sickness will keep off o' me for a couple o' days at any rate. Did you ever see any one that resembled him?"

"Yes," replied the stranger, starting, for the thought had flashed upon him; "he is the living image of Miss Gourlay! Why do you ask?"

"Bekaise, merely for a raison I have; but if you have patience, you'll find that the longer you live, the more you'll know; only at this time you'll know no more from me, barrin' that this same young officer is to be his lordship's groom's-man. Dr. Sombre, the clergyman of the parish, is to marry them in the baronet's house. A Mrs. Mainwaring, too, is to be there; Miss Gourlay begged that she would be allowed to come, and he says she may. You see now how well I know everything that happens there, don't you?" he asked, with a grin of triumph. "But I tell you there will be more at the same weddin' than he thinks. So now--ah, this pain!--there's another string of it--I feel it go through me like an arrow--so now you may go and see Lady Gourlay, and break the glad tidin's to her."

With feelings akin to awe and of repugnance, but not at all of contempt--for old Corbet was a man whom no one could despise--the stranger took his departure, and proceeded to Lady Gourlay's, with a vague impression that the remarkable likeness between Lucy and young Roberts was not merely accidental.

He found her at home, placid as usual, but with evidences of a resignation that was at once melancholy and distressing to witness.

The struggle of this admirable woman's heart, though sustained by high Christian feeling, was, nevertheless, wearing her away by slow and painful degrees. The stranger saw this, and scarcely knew in what terms to shape the communication he had to make, full as it was of ecstasy to the mother's loving spirit, yet dashed with such doubt and sorrow.

"Can you bear good tidings, Lady Gourlay," said he, "though mingled with some cause of apprehension?"

"I am in the hands of G.o.d," she replied, "and feel that I ought to receive every communication with obedience. Speak on."

"Your son is found!"

"What, my child restored to me?"

She had been sitting in an arm-chair, but on hearing these words she started up, and said again, as she placed her hands upon the table at which he sat, that she might sustain herself, "What, Charles, my darling restored to me! Is he safe? Can I see him? Restored! restored at last!"

"Moderate your joy, my dear madam; he is safe--he is in my hotel."

"But why not here? Safe! oh, at last--at last! But G.o.d is a G.o.d of mercy, especially to the patient and long-suffering. But come--oh, come!

Think of me,--pity me, and do not defraud me one moment of his sight.

Bring me to him!"

"Hear me a moment, Lady Gourlay."

"No, no," she replied, in a pa.s.sion of joyful tears, "I can hear you again. I must see my son--my son--my darling child--where is my son?

Here--but no, I will ring myself. Why not have brought him here at once, sir? Am not I his mother?"

"My dear madam," said the stranger, calmly, but with a seriousness of manner that checked the exuberance of her delight, and placing his hand upon her shoulder, "hear me a moment. Your son is found; but he is ill, and I fear in some danger."

"But to see him, then," she replied, looking with entreaty in his face, "only to see him. After this long and dreary absence, to let my eyes rest on my son. He is ill, you say; and what hand should be near him and about him but his mother's? Who can with such love and tenderness cherish, and soothe, and comfort him, as the mother who would die for him? Oh, I have a thousand thoughts rushing to my heart--a thousand affectionate anxieties to gratify; but first to look upon him--to press him to that heart--to pour a mother's raptures over her long-lost child!

Come with me--oh, come. If he is ill, ought I not, as I said, to see him the sooner on that account? Come, dear Charles, let the carriage be ordered; but that will take some time. A hackney-coach will do--a car--anything that will bring us there with least delay."

"But, an interview, my lady, may be at this moment as much as his life is worth; he is not out of danger."

"Well, then, I will not ask an interview. Only let me see him--let his mother's eyes rest upon him. Let me steal a look--a look; let me steal but one look, and I am sure, dear Charles, you will not gainsay this little theft of the mother's heart. But, ah," she suddenly exclaimed, "what am I doing? Ungrateful and selfish that I am, to forget my first duty! Pardon me a few moments; I will return soon."

She pa.s.sed into the back drawing-room, where, although the doors were folded, he could hear this truly pious woman pouring forth with tears her grat.i.tude to G.o.d. In a few minutes she reappeared; and such were the arguments she used, that he felt it impossible to prevent her from gratifying this natural and absorbing impulse of the heart.

On reaching the hotel, they found, after inquiring, that he was asleep, a circ.u.mstance which greatly pleased the stranger, as he doubted very much whether Fenton would have been strong enough, either in mind or body, to bear such an interview as must have taken place between them.

The unhappy young man was, as we have said, sound asleep. His face was pale and wan, but a febrile hue had tinged his countenance with a color which, although it concealed his danger, was not sufficient to remove from it the mournful expression of all he had suffered. Yet the stranger thought that he never had seen him look so well. His face was indeed a fair but melancholy page of human life. The brows were slightly knit, as if indicative of suffering; and there pa.s.sed over his features, as he lay, such varying expressions as we may presume corresponded with some painful dream, by which, as far as one could judge, he seemed to be influenced. Sometimes he looked like one that endured pain, sometimes as if he felt terror; and occasionally a gleam of pleasure or joy would faintly light up his handsome but wasted countenance.

Lady Gourlay, whilst she looked upon him, was obliged to be supported by the stranger, who had much difficulty in restraining her grief within due bounds. As for the tears, they fell from her eyes in showers.