Chapter XIII

Your father’s image is so hit in you,
His very air, that I should call you
As I did him.

Surely I saw a form, a proud, bright form,
Standing beside my couch.

When Lord Castleton had made his arrangement for watching the progress of the trial, and the conduct of the Darnell family in it, one of the last enquiries he had made previously to going to court, was the exact situation of the lodgings they had taken in town; and thither he directed his steps upon leaving the court by a different door from that which Lucy had been carried out.

Alice Darnell had remained in a most painful state of agitating suspense, pacing the little parlour in which she had been left by her brother and his daughter. It was so long since she had heard the busy hum of men; the little lodging where she had now been left to her solitary fancies and thickening recollections, was so like one to which she had been used in happier days, then long gone by; the Babel sound of many voices in the peculiarly thronged streets, were such as had not met her ear since on that dreadful night she had forced her way through the crowds of the theatre, to learn her husband’s fate: all these combined, had worked her into a dreadful state of nervous excitement, when a knock was heard at the street door, and she opened that of the apartment at the head of the stairs, thinking that it was probably some one from the courts, bringing her intelligence.

A stranger ascended the obscured staircase, and Alice, upon his raising his head slowly, receded from the door without uttering a word, but keeping her eyes intently fixed upon him as he entered the room. She pressed her hands against her brain, muttering, “Somers! Churchill! Who is it? Oh merciful powers, deprive me not of my senses! The grave might, for some special purpose, have been made to render up or one or other of these departed spirits; but this confused vision which recalls them both at once, can only be the creature of my disordered imagination.”

“Miss Alice Darnell,” said Castleton, “excuse this intrusion, I entreat you. It was your niece I sought, for the purpose of offering her an explanation of my conduct. I regret that my sudden appearance should have so discomposed you, who, as well as the rest of your family, will have much to forgive in my past conduct; but I trust, that the future will not give you any thing of which to complain.”

“Who is it then? Churchill indeed restored to life; but not as I saw you last! The resemblance is much stronger! the hair so like! But I must not pursue that train, or indeed think of myself at all, if I mean to keep my spirits and my senses to support others. But if you are here, what is the trial then about? Where is my niece--my poor misguided nephew?”

“I will explain all to you, Miss Darnell. The manner in which I have always heard Lucy speak of you, forbids any mystery where you are the person concerned. Your nephew either now is, or soon will be, safe. And for your beloved niece--allow me, before I explain myself farther, to ask--I am sure my Lucy could never conceal any thing from you--Do you think--you know not how much hangs on your answer--do you think she could be really, truly happy, in sharing somewhat a more exalted lot in life with him whom she only knew as the poor painter Churchill? Perhaps it has been providentially ordained that I should have this opportunity of asking a candid reply to that question from you. If your answer must dash my hopes at once, it may be in mercy ordained that I should hear it from you, that I may no longer unwarrantably trespass on the tranquillity of one whose interest I may have failed in exciting. But I implore you, if you can give me any encouragement to think otherwise, to do so now. A young and artless girl may perhaps succeed in concealing the nature of her sentiments from him who seeks to awaken partiality; but--forgive me if I address you thus the first time of our meeting;--but it seems to me, that through Lucy, I already know you thoroughly; and all my hopes depend upon the impression of her feelings towards myself formed by you,--her ever watchful guardian genius, from whom she never could have attempted concealment.”

“It was even thus that Somers looked--it was even thus that Somers pleaded; and it is not by my lips that such pleadings can be pronounced vain,” said Alice Darnell, half to herself. “Strange similarity!” she continued, “yes, even to the inexplicable mystery of the transaction from which all the mischief in my own case arose.” Then more decidedly addressing herself to her anxiously expectant listener, she said: “Forgive me if, till you have completely cleared away all the mystery in which your proceedings have been involved, I must decline at present giving any answer to your enquiries--enquiries which even then you would be hardly authorised in making of me, and which, perhaps, I should be as little justified in answering for another; for imprudent as is that woman who herself opens her heart to him who conceals his intentions, most unpardonable would she be who, under similar circumstances, betrayed the confidence of another. Not only should my niece’s sentiments, if favourable, not through me be known, but, if necessary, they should themselves be checked, and controlled, till your explanation is complete.”

“Excuse me, if, in my anxiety to have my doubts removed, I have myself omitted to be as explicit as I had intended. I commenced by stating that from you I would have no concealment. But from a name which I have heard you several times appear to connect with me, I thought you had some clue to the knowledge I came to impart. Your niece has only known me as Churchill, but Somers is my name, though Castleton is the title by which I am called. But you are ill--are agitated--” interrupting himself, in sudden alarm. For as Castleton had proceeded in this apparently natural explanation, the gaze of Alice had become more intensely fixed on his countenance, and at the abrupt mention of that fatal name, so long enshrined in the secret recesses of her heart, the sorrows of years passed from her mind, and for one short fleeting moment she believed she saw before her the lover of her youth, the husband of her heart--the adored, the departed Somers. All the blood in her exhausted frame seemed to rush to her face, as starting from her chair, she staggered one step towards him, wildly exclaiming: “Somers! my own, my lost--my God! no--Forgive me, you shall know all.”

And then, bursting into an agonizing flood of tears, she gradually resumed her composure enough to answer the kind enquiries of her astonished visitor; who, greatly touched and alarmed at the extent of her emotion, almost forgot his own urgent anxieties, and asked with great interest how he had unintentionally distressed her.

“No, go on, my Lord, I entreat you; one moment’s bewildering astonishment at the disclosure you have just made, if you knew all, you could not but expect from me; but my object is not to revive past griefs of my own; but to guard the future of another from similar danger. I own that while exacting candour from you, concealment on my part comes with an ill grace; but my demand is founded upon a desire to secure a happy future to her whom you profess to love, and for whom alone I now live. My own silence arises from an anxious wish to spare a recital, which you might think injurious to the memory of one whom we are equally bound to guard from reproach. Yes, my Lord, strange as it may appear to you, there was another person in whom we were mutually deeply interested. At a future time, perhaps, if you require it, I shall be bound to be explicit; but now I conjure you by your professed attachment, by your desire to have your own doubts removed, proceed with your own explanation.”

Castleton, when so adjured, proceeded at once to recount his early admiration of Lucy; and he detailed with so much unaffected candour the motives which had induced him a second time to visit Bankside Farm; and he dwelt with so much fervour upon the still increasing force of his passion, as he became better acquainted with its object; and the whole was urged in that soft winning manner, so like one which his auditress had formerly known to be resistless; that any previous unfavourable impression was soon removed from Alice’s mind; most willing, as she was, to be convinced of his sincerity.

By this means he soon acquired a most powerful advocate, had it been necessary, in his favour with Lucy; but before they had completely arranged the manner in which he should proceed towards the accomplishment of his object, a bustle in the passage below announced, as they rightly imagined, the return of Lucy herself.

As Castleton had already recounted to Alice Darnell the shock that his unexpected apparition in court had caused to her niece, she prudently recommended that he should not again present himself to her till she had herself ascertained whether the poor girl’s nerves had yet recovered from the agitation they had experienced. With this view, beseeching him to await her return where he then was, she went out to meet her niece, with the intention of communicating with her first in her own room, before she informed her who was there awaiting her: and it was fortunate that she so decided, for she found Lucy in a much worse state than she had anticipated. Her delicate frame, and soft and sensitive nature, were not calculated to sustain any great nervous excitement. Her mental faculties, clear and just as they generally were, and adequately sustained, under ordinary circumstances, by the constant desire to be right herself and to do wrong to no one, wanted nevertheless that practical energy which might support them in any extraordinary trial. She had for many hours fought against the weakness of her nature, in striving to go successfully through the effort of her examination; and the last shock,--the apparition, as she thought, of Churchill, had completely upset her.

The delay in her return from the court had been caused by a succession of fainting-fits, in the intervals of which her intellects had been far from settled. She had been attended, in a waiting-room, by the best medical adviser of the place, who happened to be in court; and after a conveyance had been procured to remove her home, he had recommended that, upon returning there, all agitating subjects should be avoided, and the most perfect quiet rigidly enforced during the rest of the day.

These transactions were explained to Alice in a few words by her brother, before he returned into court to hear George’s fate, the uncertainty about which, he could not help thinking, was the main cause of his daughter’s indisposition. The aunt, therefore, accompanied her charge to her own back-room, and darkening it as much as possible, persuaded her to stretch herself on the bed. Lucy knew her aunt perfectly, and tacitly complied with her desire; but, as far as could be gathered from the low mutterings that continued at intervals, her faculties seemed still confused. All this time, Castleton remained in the place where he had been left by Alice, fixed like a statue, afraid to stir, lest the least motion on his part should disturb the invalid; bitterly regretting his own inconsiderate appearance in court, and venting reproaches on his own head, which, but that the same fear which kept him stationary checked his utterance, would have been as loud as they were heartfelt.

At length Alice slowly opened the intermediate door, and putting her finger on her lip, whispered--

“I think she sleeps now. She is still far far from composed, and it would be quite impossible that she should be fit to see you to-day; nor, indeed, do I think it ought to be risked at all, till I have had an opportunity of first explaining much to her, if such occasion should recur on her partial recovery. How much have I authority from you to say?”

“Say all--every thing--you cannot possibly say enough; for words were never coined that could express all I feel.”

“Hush,” interrupted Alice; “I hear her voice again, and I think repeating your name. Step softly this way; and if she repeats it again, as she did but now, no explanation I could give to the question you asked me could be one half so satisfactory;” and she placed him just within the doorway of the obscure apartment.

“Aunt Alice,” called Lucy from the bed. “Aunt Alice; quick, dear aunt. Hast seen him? where is he? and why is the morning so dark--so dismal dark? when he’s come back, so gay too, on purpose to marry me. I knew he couldn’t have it in his heart to die, when he loved me so; and I’m sure I’d rather have died a thousand deaths myself, than that he should so have perished.”

There was more even in the tone with which these words were uttered, than in the disjointed and incoherent sentences themselves, which confirmed Castleton in his conviction that he was beloved. And so Alice Darnell construed what she heard; for, as she again motioned him to retire, she said,

“You cannot surely, my dear Lord, have any more questions to ask of me now. If you have, trust to my ready-getting answers for you before to-morrow. She must have rest and quiet now; but with these all will soon be well again. The ills that spring from a surfeit of happiness, may in this world be left to their own cure; while there are scars that misfortune has graven, which any casual coincidence may re-open, and no time can completely heal. Good b’ye, my dear Lord; and in the midst of your own happiness, think again of what you proposed to do for my poor nephew George.”

Lord Castleton having, in the course of his explanation to Alice, in which he had candidly confessed his dislike that his connexion with the smuggling transactions should be published to the world, intimated his intention of providing for George in a manner that should be satisfactory to all his family.