The Monctons Part 6

"'Nonsense! how timid you are! Go back to the house, and re-light the candle.'

"'I dare not go alone.'

"'Then let me go?'

"'And leave me with him? Oh, not for worlds. Mother, mother! I hear him moving in the grave. He is going to rise and drag me down into it.

Look--look! I see his eyes glaring in the dark hole. There, mother--there!'

"'Curse you for a weak fool! You make even my flesh creep.'

"'Cover it up--cover it up!' cried Alice, pushing with her hands and feet some of the loose earth into the grave. 'That ghastly face will rise and condemn us at the Last Day. It will haunt me as long as I live. Oh, 'tis terrible, terrible, to feel the stain of blood on your soul, and to know that all the waters of the great ocean could never wash it out.'

"'I will go home with you, Alice, and return and close the grave myself,' said Dinah, in a determined tone. 'If you stay here much longer, you will make me as great a coward as yourself.'

"I heard the sound of their retreating steps, and leaving my place of concealment, slowly pursued my way to the next village. Entering a small tavern, I asked for a supper and a bed. The innkeeper and his wife were both known to me, but I was so much altered by sickness that they did not recognize me. After taking a cup of tea, I retired to rest, and was so overcome by mental and bodily fatigue, that I slept soundly until noon the next day, when I breakfasted, and took a seat in the mail coach for London.

"During my journey I calmly pondered over my situation, and formed a plan for the future, future, which I lost no time in putting into practice.

"From what had fallen from the lips of Alice, I was convinced that some mystery was connected with my birth, and the only means which I could devise to fathom it, was to gain more insight into the character and private history of Robert Moncton.

"At times the thought would present itself to my mind that this man might be my father. My mother was a strange creature--a woman whose moral principles could not have ranked very high. I scarcely knew, from my own experience, whether she possessed any--at all events I determined to get a place in his office, if possible, and wait patiently until something should turn up, which might satisfy my doubts, and expose the tissue of villainy which an untoward destiny had woven around me. While at college, I had gained an extensive knowledge in the jurisprudence of my country--in which I took great delight, and which I had intended to follow as a profession; when, unfortunately, the death of Mr. Mornington rendered me an independent man. At school I had learned to write all sorts of hands, and could engross with great beauty and accuracy.

"As a man, I was personally unknown to Robert Moncton, whom I never beheld but once, and for a few minutes only, when a boy, and time and sickness had so altered me, that it was not very likely that he would recognize me again.

"Two years previous to the time of which I am now speaking, I had saved the eldest son of Mr. Moncton's head clerk from drowning, at the risk of my own life. Mr. Ba.s.sett was overwhelming in his expressions of grat.i.tude, and as to his poor little wife, she never mentioned the circ.u.mstance with dry eyes. The boy, who was about ten years of age, was a very n.o.ble, handsome little fellow, and I often walked to their humble lodgings to see him and his good parents, who always received me with the most lively demonstrations of joy.

"To these good people I determined to apply for advice and a.s.sistance.

Fortunately my application was made in a lucky moment. Mr. Ba.s.sett was about to leave your uncle's office, and he strongly recommended me to his old master, as a person well known to him; of excellent character, and who was every way competent to fill his place.

"I was accepted. You know the rest."

"Our friendship, dear Geoffrey," said Harrison, concluding the narrative of his life, "rendered my situation far from irksome, while it enabled me to earn a respectable living. At present, I have learned little which can throw any additional light upon my sad history. Alice Mornington still lives, and is about to become a mother. Theophilus, the dastardly author of her wrongs, is playing the lover to the beautiful Catherine Lee, who is a ward of his father's.

"From the conversation which pa.s.sed between Dinah North and Mr.

Moncton in your chamber, I suspect that my poor Alice is less guilty than she appears. Dinah has some deeper motive than merely obliging Robert Moncton, in wishing to make you illegitimate. I feel confident that this story has been recently got up, and is an infamous falsehood. If true, you would have heard of it before, and I advise you to leave no stone unturned to frustrate their wicked conspiracy."

"But what can I do?" said I. "I have neither money nor friends; and my uncle will take precious good care that no one in this city shall give me employment."

"Go to Sir Alexander. He expressed an interest in your situation. Tell him the story of your wrongs, and, depend upon it, he will not turn a deaf ear to your complaint. I know that he hates both father and son, and will befriend you to oppose and thwart them."

My heart instantly caught at this proposal.

"I will go!" I cried. "But I want the means."

"I can supply you with the necessary funds," said George Harrison--for I must still call him by his old name. "And my offer is not wholly disinterested. Perhaps, Geoffrey, you may be the means of reconciling your friend to his old benefactor. But this must be done cautiously.

Dinah North must not know that I am alive. Her ignorance of this fact places this wicked woman in our power, and may hereafter force her to reveal what we want to know."

I promised implicit obedience to these injunctions, and thanked him warmly for his confidence and advice. His story had made a deep impression on my mind. I longed to serve him. Indeed, I had become very warmly attached to him; regarding him in the light of a beloved brother.

In a fortnight, I was able to walk abroad, and was quite impatient to undertake my Yorkshire journey. Harrison was engaged as a writer in the office of a respectable solicitor in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and we promised to correspond regularly with each other during my absence. He generously divided with me the little money he possessed, and bidding G.o.d bless and prosper my journey, bade me farewell. I mounted the York stage, and for the first time in my life, bade adieu to London and its environs.

CHAPTER III.

MY VISIT TO MONCTON PARK.

It was a fine, warm, balmy evening in May--green delicious May. With what delight I gazed abroad upon the face of Nature. Every scene was new to me, and awakened feelings of curiosity and pleasure.

Just out of a sick-bed, and after having been confined for weeks in a dusky, badly-ventilated and meanly-furnished garret, my heart actually bounded with rapture, and, I drank in health and hope from the fresh breeze which swept the hair from my pale brow and hollow cheeks.

Ah, glorious Nature! beautiful, purest of all that is pure and holy!

Thou visible perfection of the invisible G.o.d. I was young then, and now am old, but never did I find a genuine love of thee, dwelling in the heart of a deceitful, wicked man. To love thee, we must adore the G.o.d who made thee; and however sin may defile what originally He p.r.o.nounced good, when we return with child-like simplicity to thy breast, we find the happiness and peace which a loving parent can alone bestow.

Nothing remarkable occurred during my journey. The coach in due time deposited me at the gates of the Lodge, in which my poor friend Harrison had first seen the light. An involuntary shudder ran through me, when I recognized old Dinah North, standing within the porch of the cottage.

She instantly knew me, and drew back with a malignant scowl.

Directing the coachman to leave my portmanteau at the village inn until called for, I turned up the broad avenue of oaks that led to the Hall.

The evening was calm and lovely. The nightingale was pouring his first love-song to the silent dewy groves. The perfume of the primrose and violet made every swelling knoll redolent of sweets. I paused often, during my walk, to admire the beauty of a scene so new to me. Those n.o.ble hills and vales; that bright-sweeping river; those towering woods, just bursting into verdure, and that princely mansion, rising proudly into the blue air--all would be mine, could I but vindicate my mother's honour, and prove to the world that I was the offspring of lawful wedlock.

I felt no doubt myself upon the subject. Truth may be obscured for a while, but cannot long remain hid. The innate consciousness of my mother's moral rect.i.tude never for a moment left my mind--a proud conviction of her innocence, which, I was certain, time would make clear.

Full of these reflections, I approached the Hall. It was an old-fashioned building, which had been created during the wars of York and Lancaster, now venerable with the elemental war of ages, and might in its day have stood the shock of battle and siege. It was a fine old place, and a.s.sociated as it was with the history of the past sent a thrill of almost superst.i.tious awe through my heart.

For upwards of three hundred years it had been the birth-place of my family. Here they had lived and flourished as Lords of the soil; here, too, most of them had died, and been gathered into one common burial-place, in the vault of the picturesque gothic church, which stood embosomed in trees not far from the old feudal mansion.

And I, the rightful heir of the demesne, with a soul as large,--with heart and hand equal to do and dare, all that they in their day and generation had accomplished--approached the old home, poor and friendless, with a stigma upon the good name, which legally I might never be able to efface.

But, courage, Geoffrey Moncton! He who first added the appendage of Sir to that name, rode among the victors at the battle of Cressy, and the war-shout of one of his descendants rang out defiantly on the b.l.o.o.d.y field of Agincourt! Why need you despair? England wants soldiers yet, and if you fail in establishing your claims to that name and its proud memories, win one, as others have done before you, at the cannon's mouth.

I sent up my card, which gained me instant admittance. I was shown into the library, which Harrison had so often described. A n.o.ble old room panelled to the ceiling, with carved oak now almost black with age. Here I found the Baronet engaged with his daughter in a game at chess. He rose to meet me with evident marks of pleasure, and introduced me to Miss Moncton, as a young cousin, in whom he felt much interested, and one with whom he hoped to see her better acquainted.

With a soft blush, and a smile of inexpressible sweetness, the little fairy, for she was almost as diminutive in stature, bade me welcome.

Her face, though very pleasing, was neither striking nor beautiful. It was, however, exquisitely feminine, and beaming with intelligence, dignity and truth. Her large, dark, soul-lighted eyes were singularly beautiful. Her complexion, too fair and pale for health; the rich ruby-coloured full lips and dazzling teeth, forming a painful contrast with the pure white cheeks, shaded by a dark cloud of raven tresses, which, parting on either side of her lofty brow, flowed in rich curls down her snowy neck, and over her marble shoulders to her waist.

Her figure in miniature comprised all that was graceful and lovely in woman; and her frank, unsophisticated manners rendered her, in spite of a faulty mouth, very attractive.

After exchanging a few sentences, Miss Moncton withdrew, and I lost no time in explaining to her father the cause of my visit; the manner in which I had been treated by my uncle, my recent illness, and the utter friendlessness of my position. "You told me, sir, to come to you at any crisis of difficulty, for advice and a.s.sistance. I have done so, and shall feel most grateful for your counsels in the present emergency. I am willing and able to work for my bread; I only want an opening to be made in order to get my own living."

"Your profession, Geoffrey; why not stick to that?"