The Caxtons: A Family Picture Part 54

"Where is Lady Ellinor? I must see her instantly."

"No worse news of master, I hope, sir?"

"Worse news of what, of whom? Of Mr. Trevanion?"

"Did you not know he was suddenly taken ill, sir,--that a servant came express to say so last night? Lady Ellinor went off at ten o'clock to join him."

"At ten o'clock last night?"

"Yes, sir; the servant's account alarmed her ladyship so much."

"The new servant, who had been recommended by Mr. Gower?"

"Yes, sir,--Henry," answered the porter, staring at me. "Please, sir, here is an account of master's attack in the paper. I suppose Henry took it to the office before he came here,--which was very wrong in him; but I am afraid he's a very foolish fellow."

"Never mind that. Miss Trevanion,--I saw her just now,--she did not go with her mother: where was she going, then?"

"Why, sir,--but pray step into the parlor."

"No, no; speak!"

"Why, sir, before Lady Ellinor set out she was afraid that there might be something in the papers to alarm Miss f.a.n.n.y, and so she sent Henry down to Lady Castleton's to beg her ladyship to make as light of it as she could; but it seems that Henry blabbed the worst to Mrs. Mole."

"Who is Mrs. Mole?"

"Miss Trevanion's maid, sir,--a new maid; and Mrs. Mole blabbed to my young lady, and so she took fright, and insisted on coming to town.

And Lady Castleton, who is ill herself in bed, could not keep her, I suppose,--especially as Henry said, though he ought to have known better, 'that she would be in time to arrive before my lady set off.'

Poor Miss Trevanion was so disappointed when she found her mamma gone.

And then she would order fresh horses and go on, though Mrs. Bates (the housekeeper, you know, sir) was very angry with Mrs. Mole, who encouraged Miss; and--"

"Good heavens! Why did not Mrs. Bates go with her?"

"Why, sir, you know how old Mrs. Bates is, and my young lady is always so kind that she would not hear of it, as she is going to travel night and day; and Mrs. Mole said she had gone all over the world with her last lady, and that--"

"I see it all. Where is Mr. Gower?"

"Mr. Gower, sir!"

"Yes! Can't you answer?"

"Why, with Mr. Trevanion, I believe, sir."

"In the North,--what is the address!"

"Lord N--, C--Hall, near W--"

I heard no more.

The conviction of some villanous snare struck me as with the swiftness and force of lightning. Why, if Trevanion were really ill, had the false servant concealed it from me? Why suffered me to waste his time, instead of hastening to Lady Ellinor? How, if Mr. Trevanion's sudden illness had brought the man to London,--how had he known so long beforehand (as he himself told me, and his appointment with the waiting-woman proved) the day he should arrive? Why now, if there were no design of which bliss Trevanion was the object, why so frustrate the provident foresight of her mother, and take advantage of the natural yearning of affection, the quick impulse of youth, to hurry off a girl whose very station forbade her to take such a journey without suitable protection,--against what must be the wish, and what clearly were the instructions, of Lady Ellinor? Alone, worse than alone! f.a.n.n.y Trevanion was then in the hands of two servants who were the instruments and confidants of an adventurer like Vivian; and that conference between those servants, those broken references to the morrow coupled with the name Vivian had a.s.sumed,--needed the unerring instincts of love more cause for terror?--terror the darker because the exact shape it should a.s.sume was obscure and indistinct.

I sprang from the house.

I hastened into the Haymarket, summoned a cabriolet, drove home as fast as I could (for I had no money about me for the journey I meditated), sent the servant of the lodging to engage a chaise-and-four, rushed into the room, where Roland fortunately still was, and exclaimed,--"Uncle, come with me! Take money, plenty of money! Some villany I know, though I can't explain it, has been practised on the Trevanions. We may defeat it yet. I will tell you all by the way. Come, come!"

"Certainly. But villany,--and to people of such a station--pooh! collect yourself. Who is the villain?"

"Oh, the man I had loved as a friend; the man whom I myself helped to make known to Trevanion,--Vivian, Vivian!"

"Vivian! Ah, the youth I have heard you speak of! But how? Villany to whom,--to Trevanion?"

"You torture me with your questions. Listen: this Vivian (I know him),--he has introduced into the house, as a servant, an agent capable of any trick and fraud; that servant has aided him to win over her maid,--f.a.n.n.y's--Miss Trevanion's. Miss Trevanion is an heiress, Vivian an adventurer. My head swims round; I cannot explain now. Ha! I will write a line to Lord Castleton,--tell him my fears and suspicions; he will follow us, I know, or do what is best."

I drew ink and paper towards me and wrote hastily. My uncle came round and looked over my shoulder.

Suddenly he exclaimed, seizing my arm: "Gower, Gower! What name is this?

You said Vivian."

"Vivian or Gower,--the same person."

My uncle hurried out of the room. It was natural that he should leave me to make our joint and brief preparations for departure.

I finished my letter, sealed it, and when, five minutes afterwards, the chaise came to the door, I gave it to the hostler who accompanied the horses, with injunctions to deliver it forthwith to Lord Castleton himself.

My uncle now descended, and stepped from the threshold with a firm stride. "Comfort yourself," he said, as he entered the chaise, into which I had already thrown myself. "We may be mistaken yet."

"Mistaken! You do not know this young man. He has every quality that could entangle a girl like f.a.n.n.y, and not, I fear, one sentiment of honor that would stand in the way of his ambition. I judge him now as by a revelation--too late--Oh Heavens, if it be too late!"

A groan broke from Roland's lips. I heard in it a proof of his sympathy with my emotion, and grasped his hand, it was as cold as the hand of the dead.

PART XV.

CHAPTER I.

There would have been nothing in what had chanced to justify the suspicions that tortured me, but for my impressions as to the character of Vivian.

Reader, hast thou not, in the easy, careless sociability of youth, formed acquaintance with some one in whose more engaging or brilliant qualities thou hast,--not lost that dislike to defects or vices which is natural to an age when, even while we err, we adore what is good, and glow with enthusiasts for the enn.o.bling sentiment and the virtuous deed,--no, happily, not lost dislike to what is bad, nor thy quick sense of it,--but conceived a keen interest in the struggle between the bad that revolted, and the good that attracted thee, in thy companion? Then, perhaps, thou hast lost sight of him for a time; suddenly thou hearest that he has done something out of the way of ordinary good or commonplace evil; and in either--the good or the evil--thy mind runs rapidly back over its old reminiscences, and of either thou sayest, "How natural! Only, So-and-so could have done this thing!"

Thus I felt respecting Vivian. The most remarkable qualities in his character were his keen power of calculation and his unhesitating audacity,--qualities that lead to fame or to infamy, according to the cultivation of the moral sense and the direction of the pa.s.sions. Had I recognized those qualities in some agency apparently of good,--and it seemed yet doubtful if Vivian were the agent,--I should have cried, "It is he; and the better angel has triumphed!" With the same (alas! with a yet more impulsive) quickness, when the agency was of evil, and the agent equally dubious, I felt that the qualities revealed the man, and that the demon had prevailed.

Mile after mile, stage after stage, were pa.s.sed on the dreary, interminable, high north road. I narrated to my companion, more intelligibly than I had yet done, my causes for apprehension. The Captain at first listened eagerly, then checked me on the sudden. "There may be nothing in all this," he cried. "Sir, we must be men here,--have our heads cool, our reason clear; stop!" And leaning back in the chaise, Roland refused further conversation, and as the night advanced, seemed to sleep. I took pity on his fatigue, and devoured my heart in silence.

At each stage we heard of the party of which we were in pursuit. At the first stage or two we were less than an hour behind; gradually, as we advanced, we lost ground, despite the most lavish liberality to the post-boys. I supposed, at length, that the mere circ.u.mstance of changing, at each relay, the chaise as well as the horses, was the cause of our comparative slowness; and on saying this to Roland as we were changing horses, somewhere about midnight, he at once called up the master of the inn and gave him his own price for permission to retain the chaise till the journey's end. This was so unlike Roland's ordinary thrift, whether dealing with my money or his own,--so unjustified by the fortune of either,--that I could not help muttering something in apology.