Chapter XXXII

While Mr. Justice Whistler and his colleagues had been proceeding in their examinations, and the events we have just narrated had been taking place in a distant part of the country, the days and nights in the little village of Danemore had been spent in the slow and wearing anxieties of watching the progress of sickness towards death. Alice Herbert remained almost constantly with the Earl, at his own earnest wish, and Sir Walter Herbert coming over from the Manor House early every day, spent the greater part of his time with Langford, in all those various occupations of which the circumstances in which they both stood furnished an abundance to fill up the time.

The Earl of Danemore lay upon his bed of sickness, and hour by hour showed as it went by, that it would be the bed of death also. It was not, indeed, that his wounds were mortal, for no vital part in all his frame had been touched; but he received those wounds, not only as an old man in whom the loss even of a portion of that strange red current that flows within our veins, dispensing life and vigour, is not easily restored; he received them also as one on whom strong and ungovernable passions had already wrought most powerfully, and on whom also the same intensity of feeling was still destined to work, though excited by better causes, and a better purpose. Weakened by great loss of blood, exhausted by fatigue and excitement, but little was wanting to bring fever in the train of corporeal injury; and the energetic eagerness with which he applied his mind to everything connected with Henry Langford, only served to increase his irritability, rather than to lead his mind to calmer and more tranquillizing subjects. He felt that his days on earth were numbered: and that feeling begat in him an anxiety to make up for the evils he had inflicted, which tended to shorten those few hours that remained to him.

The difficult and painful situation in which he was placed also; the necessity of sacrificing one child to another; the struggle to do justice to one for whom he felt deep gratitude and esteem, when opposed by the claims of old affection and long-nourished tenderness; the knowledge that disgrace would fall upon his name, and, like the yellow lichen on a tombstone, would live and flourish, and render indistinct every record of his life, when all below had mouldered away into dust; all joined together to make him feel most poignantly and bitterly that the last dark hour of life, when the bright sun that has lighted us through the morning of our youth and the mid-day of our manhood, and even shone warmly on the evening of our decline, has gone down behind the horizon, leaving but a few faint rays in the sky behind, is not the time to seek our way back into the light path which we have abandoned in the splendid noon of our existence; and that even if we do regain it at last, it must be by plunging into the thorns and briars of grief, regret, and remorse, without hesitation, though with difficulty and agony itself.

It was not that even in those last hours of his life the Earl of Danemore looked upon death with any feeling of terror. Such sensations were not within the grasp of his nature; he knew not what fear meant. He might see and know that there was danger in this thing or in that; he might fix his eyes even upon death itself, and the retributive future after death; but still while gazing on the frowning brow of fate, and comprehending all which that dark inevitable countenance menaced, he strode on undaunted, and said, even to Omnipotence, "Strike!"

No! it was not that anything like fear affected him; but weakened in body and wearied in mind with a long struggle against many internal adversaries, he listened to the voice of conscience and of equity, making itself heard through the medium of a judgment naturally strong and acute--making itself heard not the less distinctly in the silence of exhausted passions, because in former times the small still voice had been drowned amidst their contending fury.

He felt what it was right to do, and he strove now to do it, however difficult, however painful his own acts might have rendered the task--however fatal to his corporeal frame might be the efforts that he made, and the anxieties he suffered. For the greater part of one whole night he remained eagerly dictating his will to the lawyer Evelyn; providing for his younger son, but endeavouring to strengthen in every way the claim of the elder to his title and estates. He made a solemn declaration of his marriage too; named the day, the spot, the clergyman who had performed it, with scrupulous accuracy, pointed to the woman Bertha as the only surviving witness, and related how the leaf on which the marriage had been inscribed had been cut from the register and how he had forced his young and unhappy wife to give up to him the certificates she had received of their union. He spared himself, in short, in nothing; and again and again he asked eagerly if that declaration and the woman Bertha's testimony would not be sufficient.

The lawyer shook his head doubtingly. The marriage, he said, had been denied for so many years; the woman, too, was an alien and a Roman Catholic, against whom prejudices then ran high. The question involved an ancient peerage and immense property; and, in short, there was every reason to doubt whether the young gentleman's title could be sustained, unless the papers were recovered. If the register itself were not in existence, and the marriage had never been denied, the case might easily have been made good; but, with no trace of such an act in the existing register, and no absolute publication of the marriage, he had many doubts.

"But there is a trace!" exclaimed the Earl vehemently; "there is a trace; there is the leaf cut out. Send for the register! Let it be brought here immediately!"

"We can do that to-morrow, my lord," replied the lawyer.

But the Earl would not be satisfied till a servant was despatched for the record on which so much depended. It was brought to him by the clerk of the parish of Uppington, during the grey daylight of the next morning, for the very vehemence of his nature had taught every one through the country round to yield instant, and now habitual deference to his wishes. On examining the book, however, he found nothing but disappointment. When by large bribes he had induced the low-minded but cunning priest, who then held the living, to cut out the leaf, he had enjoined him strictly to leave no trace whatever of the transaction; and so nicely had the removal been accomplished, that no eye could detect the place where the vacancy existed.

Again his own acts fell upon his own head; and the Earl felt as if it were ordained by retributive justice that he should go down to the grave leaving the fate of both his children still entirely in doubt. The idea took possession of him, and it weighed him down. Often he asked if any news had been heard of his son Edward; and when the reply was made that none had been received, he exclaimed, "Of course--of course! Nothing will be known of him till I am dead."

As the third and fourth days went by, his mind began to wander, and that most painful of all states to see, delirium, came rapidly upon him. He raved of his first wife, his Eugenie, the only one whom he had ever loved, and yet the one whom he had most deeply wronged. He called upon her to return to him, to bring her boy to his father's arms; and then again he went over some bitter quarrels, where it was evident that her firm sweetness had but served to aggravate his fiery wrath. It was a scene most painful to behold, and yet Alice Herbert, tending him as if she had been his own child, beheld it all, and with sweet and thoughtful tenderness did much to soften and tranquillize the mind of him who suffered, as well as the feelings of him who stood by with a wrung heart, witnessing a father's agony and a father's remorse.

To the eyes of Langford never did Alice Herbert, in all the bright flush of health and happiness, as he had at first beheld her, look so lovely; never did she seem to his heart--even when she acknowledged the love that made him happy--so dear as now; while somewhat pale with cares and anxieties lately suffered, and fatigues daily undergone, she stood, by the pale light of the shaded lamp, with calm sorrow and apprehension in every line of that fair face, watching the death-bed of his father, and soothing the last hours of him who had caused her so much pain. He felt from his heart that a common exaggeration of affection was, to her at least, well applied, though he would not himself apply it; and he listened well pleased, when Bertha, after watching Alice long, with the usual dark and stern expression, at length exclaimed, "Thou art certainly an angel!"

Towards the evening of the fifth day there seemed a slight improvement in the condition of the Earl. He slept for an hour or two in the course of the evening. His mind was more collected: he recognised his son, and Alice Herbert, and her father, at all times; and although his words occasionally wandered and his eyes looked wild, yet there were evident promises of returning judgment and returning strength; and both Alice and Langford hoped--and in a degree trusted because they hoped--that the Earl might yet regain his corporeal health, and that his mind, like the air when purified by a thunder-storm, might rise freed from all the vehement passions which had worked up the tempest that had hung around the last few days.

Nevertheless, the vital powers were evidently diminished in a terrible degree; and the eye of the surgeon at once perceived that the sleep he enjoyed was the sleep of exhaustion; that feebleness, and not returning health, brought repose; and that, although that repose might perhaps produce the only favourable change which his situation admitted, there were a thousand chances to one against its restoring him to health.

It was on that very night that a messenger arrived from a village at a considerable distance, eagerly asking to speak with the Earl of Danemore, and on being questioned by Langford, he at once informed him that he came to bear the Earl tidings of his son Lord Harold's safety, as well as a note under the young nobleman's own hand, with which he had been entrusted. Some discussions ensued between the rector, Sir Walter, and Langford, as to whether it would be expedient, in the Earl's state at that moment, to communicate the intelligence which had just been received.

Sir Walter, who had seen less of the world than his young friend, and had examined much less deeply that which he had seen, eagerly entreated Langford to communicate the tidings to the Earl directly, declaring that the news of his son's safety must necessarily act as the best remedy which could be applied to his case. The good knight spoke from the impulse of a fine and generous mind, practically unacquainted with evil, and with all the complicated and even opposite impulses which the existence of evil in the human mind must necessarily produce. The rector urged the same course through mere ignorance, for he was a man of no strong sensations himself, and those which he did possess were merely the animal ones. To hear of a son's welfare, he felt in himself, must--separate from all other things--be a joyful event; and he was incapable of weighing or judging, or even comprehending the various circumstances which might render that which was in itself joyful, most painful and agitating.

Langford, however, knew better. He had discovered before this time, many of the deep, peculiar points in the Earl's character, and he knew all the particular details of his situation which might make the certainty of his brother's life and speedy return a matter of apprehension, care, and emotion. Both his companions, however, so strongly urged him to communicate at once the tidings to his father, that he felt he could not and he ought not to withhold them.

He cared not, it is true, what others would think of his conduct; but it might, perhaps, be a weakness in Langford, that--knowing well, by early experience of the world and all the world's baseness, the many turns, the subtle disguises, the strange masquerading tricks which selfishness will take to deceive, not only the natural and habitual egotist, but the kindest and the most liberal of men, where any dear interest, or prejudice, or affection is at stake--he was as much upon his guard against himself as if he had known himself to be ungenerous; and was always more willing to take the opinions of others in a matter where his own interest might be risked, than on subjects where self was totally out of the question.

In the present instance, it was clear that the life or death of his brother might make the greatest difference in the Earl's views and feelings; and although he knew himself too well not to be sure that the consideration of such a difference would not influence him in the slightest degree in withholding or communicating the news he had received, yet he yielded to the opinion of others against his own judgment, when he would not have done so had his own interests been in no degree implicated. He only demanded that Sir Walter himself should communicate the tidings; and he warned him, when he agreed to do so, that the effect might be more powerful than he expected.

Sir Walter, though he totally misunderstood the view that Langford took, and the fears which he entertained, acted, from natural goodness of heart and sensibility of feeling, exactly as his young friend could have desired, only apprehending that the joy would be so great as to perform the part of grief itself.

Although he had resolved at first not to do so--lest his very presence might excite in the mind of his dying father those painful combinations on which his thoughts had evidently been wandering during his delirium--Langford followed Sir Walter into the room, and stood at a little distance behind, listening, with a heart whose accelerated beatings told even to himself how deeply he was interested by the words in which the worthy knight clothed his communication.

"I have got what I trust may be pleasant news for you, my good lord," said Sir Walter, as he seated himself deliberately in the chair by the Earl's bedside, affecting the greatest possible degree of composure and tranquillity as he did so, and banishing every appearance of haste or excitement from his manner.

"What is it?" demanded the Earl, turning round towards him as quickly as he could; for he no longer started up with that vehemence which he had displayed but a few days before. "What is it? Are the papers found? For ever since Eugenie--but I wander--I wander. I feel that I wander; that I have been wandering for many days. But go on, go on. I am more collected now. What of the papers? It was about them you were talking, was it not?"

"No, my lord," replied Sir Walter; "we are not talking about the papers, but of something which, if I judge rightly, may prove of as great interest as even their recovery--I mean that of your son. We have heard some tidings of him, my lord."

"What are they?" demanded the Earl. "Speak! What are they?"

"They are all as favourable as you could desire," replied Sir Walter, in the same calm manner. "We have heard that he is rapidly recovering, and has escaped from the hands of the people who detained him." And seeing that the Earl listened without reply, he added, "We may, I trust, soon expect him here."

Lord Danemore pressed his thin white hand--through the blanched and shrivelled skin of which might be seen protruding the large bones and joints which had once marked his extraordinary strength--upon his eyes, and remained for several minutes in deep thought. He then withdrew his hand, and turning to Sir Walter Herbert, he said in a low voice, "It is a terrible thing, Sir Walter; it is a terrible thing not to be able to thank God for the recovery of a son that we love--not to know whether we desire to see him before we die, or not."

"It is, indeed, a terrible thing, my lord," replied Sir Walter; "but I trust that such is not your case, and that your son's coming will give you unmixed pleasure."

"Far from it," replied the Earl, gloomily. "He will have to hear sad truths; to undergo mortifications the most bitter to a proud nature like his. He will have to hear of his father's faults and crimes, he will have to learn that, instead of vast wealth, a noble name, and a high rank, he has no inheritance but that of an illegitimate son; that he has no name; that he has no station; that he has no rank; and all this the consequence of his father's faults. I know him, Sir Walter Herbert; I know him: and there is too much of my own blood in his veins for me to expect that he should do anything, in the bitter disappointment of a proud spirit, but curse him who, for his own gratification, and in the indulgence of mad and headlong passions, brought shame and sorrow and disgrace upon him. My own blood, I say, will cry out against me in his heart. He will curse me, as I would have cursed my father had he so acted. He will look down upon me as I lie here like a writhing worm, and he will think that it is only because my corporeal vigour is at an end, and my strong heart weakened by abasing sickness, that I do those acts of justice which I had determined on long ere I knew these wounds to be fatal: which I had determined on as soon as I found that he whom I had wronged, that he who had borne with me so patiently, that he who had defended me, and rescued me from death, was my own child, the son of her I early loved. He will misconceive, he will misunderstand it all. I know his heart, from my own; and I know that in my meeting with him under these circumstances all will be dark, and stormy, and terrible. I feel not even sure that it will be better for him to live rather than to die, as we supposed he had. I feel not sure that death would not be preferable to the feelings he will have to endure. He will not bear the crossing of his high fortune meekly. He will strive against it; he will strive to prove the words false that take from him his high station, even though they are spoken by his father. He will contend for the rank and fortune and place which he has so long expected, even with his brother. Through life he will go on in bitterness and disappointment. His heart will henceforth be full of gall, and his lip breathing curses. It would have been so with me, and why should it not be so with him? He is my own child, the inheritor of my nature, if not of my name."

It was evident that he was exciting himself to a dangerous degree by the exaggerated picture which his imagination drew; and Langford could not restrain from advancing, and trying to soothe him.

"My dear father," he said, "if such be really Edward's character--though I think you judge of him and of yourself too harshly--how much better it will be to take the middle course that I have proposed; to conceal from him the period of my mother's death; and never to let him know that the marriage to which he owes his birth was an unlawful one. Willingly I offered, and willingly I repeat the offer to do more, and abandon to him altogether the rank and station which he has held in England, the estates which are attached to the title of our ancestors, and content myself with justifying my mother's fair fame to her kindred in another land, and with claiming there the fortune to which I have a right through my noble uncle."

"You are all your mother!" exclaimed the Earl, gazing upon him. But then other feelings seemed to rush across his mind; the expression of his countenance changed, and he exclaimed, "What! would you have me afraid of my own son? Would you have me dastardly conceal the truth from him, for fear of his anger? No, no; he must hear it. It may be bitter, but he must hear it. Bitter things are good for us sometimes. But from whose lips shall he hear it?" he added after a moment's pause. "Not from mine, Henry; not from mine, for I feel that the hour is drawing nigh! I shall never see him more in life. I feel that there is a chill hand upon me: surely it must be the hand of death!"

It was so, for from that moment the Earl rapidly sunk. His senses did not leave him again, however, and from time to time he spoke to those around him. He expressed neither hope nor fear in regard to the future. The only words, in fact, which he uttered at all, referring to the awful consideration of a future life, were spoken about an hour after the conversation had taken place which we have just detailed. He then beckoned Alice to draw nearer, took her hand affectionately in his, and as she bent down to listen, he said, "I owe you much, sweet lady--much for all that you have done for me; but more than all for the endeavour to give me such hopes and expectations as may best soothe and cheer this last dark hour. Whether such hopes are to be realised I soon shall see, and as far as bitterly repenting everything I have done amiss, I have followed the injunction to the letter. But alas! Alice, if it be necessary to the repentance you speak of, to bow down in terror as well as remorse, that--struggle for it as I may--I cannot accomplish. I can repent, but I cannot fear. I am ready to meet my doom, whatever it may be, and to endure it to the utmost. Nevertheless, to you I owe deep thanks, and you have them. Now leave me, sweet lady. Farewell, for the last time! I would not have you see me die."

His words had turned Alice deadly pale, and Langford, taking her hand, led her from the room. She found relief, however, in tears. She then strove to read, but she could not; and she sat waiting in the rector's parlour, with a heavy heart, till she heard footsteps moving down the stairs. Her father and Langford then entered the room. The latter was pale and grave, but calm and firm; and sitting down by Alice's side, he laid his hand upon hers, saying, "Thank you, my beloved Alice, for all that you have done to soothe the death-bed of my father."

It was enough, and Alice again burst into tears; but the next moment a servant entered the room, asking the two gentlemen if they knew where he could find the rector.

"He is up stairs, in the chamber of death," said Sir Walter; "but you had better not disturb him at present."

"Why, sir, I must disturb him," said the man; "for there is a gentleman waiting, who came down two or three days ago, in a coach with only two horses, and who has been hanging about here and up at the Castle ever since, though nobody knows who he is. He desires to speak with my master immediately. He has inquired every day if the Earl were still living, but would not give his name nor tell his business. So I must disturb my master."

"Do so, then," replied Sir Walter; and the man quitted the room.