JASPER LOSELY SLEEPS UNDER THE PORTICO FROM WHICH FALSEHOOD WAS BORNE BY BLACK HORSES. HE FORGETS A PROMISE, REWEAVES A SCHEME, VISITS A RIVER-SIDE, AND A DOOR CLOSES ON THE STRONG MAN AND THE GRIM WOMAN.
Jasper, had satisfied the wild yearnings of his wounded vanity. He had vindicated his claim to hardihood and address, which it seemed to him he had forfeited in his interview with Darrell. With crest erect and a positive sense of elation, of animal joy that predominated over hunger, fatigue, remorse, he strided on—he knew not whither. He would not go back to his former lodgings; they were too familiarly known to the set which he had just flung from him, with a vague resolve to abjure henceforth all accomplices, and trust to himself alone. The hour was now late—the streets deserted—the air bitingly cold. Must he at last resign himself to the loathed dictation of Arabella Cram? Well, he now preferred even that to humbling himself to Darrell, after what had passed. Darrell’s parting words had certainly implied that he would not be as obdurate to entreaty as he had shown himself to threats. But Jasper was in no humour to entreat. Mechanically he continued to stride on towards the solitary district in which Arabella held her home; but the night was now so far advanced that he shrunk from disturbing the grim woman at that hour—almost as respectfully afraid of her dark eye and stern voice as the outlaws he had quitted were of his own crushing hand and levelled pistol. So finding himself in one of the large squares of Bloomsbury, he gathered himself up under the sheltering porch of a spacious mansion, unconscious that it was the very residence which Darrell had once occupied, and that from that portico the Black Horses had borne away the mother of his wife. In a few minutes he was fast asleep—sleeping with such heavy deathlike soundness, that the policeman passing him on his beat, after one or two vain attempts to rouse him, was seized with a rare compassion, and suffered the weary outcast to slumber on.
When Jasper woke at last in the grey dawn, he felt a strange numbness in his limbs; it was even with difficulty that he could lift himself up. This sensation gradually wearing off, was followed by a quick tingling down the arms to the tips of the fingers. A gloomy noise rang in his ears, like the boom of funeral church-bells; and the pavement seemed to be sliding from under him. Little heeding these symptoms, which he ascribed to cold and want of food, and rather agreeably surprised not to feel the gnaw of his accustomed pains, Jasper now betook himself to Podden Place. The house was still unclosed; and it was not till Jasper’s knock had been pretty often repeated, that the bolts were withdrawn from the door, and Bridgett Greggs appeared. “Oh, it is you, Mr. Losely,” she said, with much sullenness, but with no apparent surprise. “Mistress thought you would come while she was away, and I’m to get you the bedroom you had, over the stationer’s, six years ago, if you like it. You are to take your meals here, and have the best of everything; that’s mistress’s orders.”
“Oh, Mrs. Crane is out of town,” said Jasper, much relieved; “where has she gone?”
“I don’t know.”
“When will she be back?”
“In a few days; so she told me. Will you walk in, and have breakfast? Mistress said there was to be always plenty in the house—you might come any moment. Please scrape your feet.”
Jasper heavily mounted into the drawing-room, and impatiently awaited the substantial refreshments, which were soon placed before him. The room looked unaltered, as if he had left it but the day before—the prim book-shelves—the empty birdcage—the broken lute—the patent easy-chair—the footstool—the sofa, which had been added to the original furniture for his express comfort, in the days when he was first adopted as a son-nay, on the hearth-rug the very slippers, on the back of the chair the very dressing-gown, graciously worn by him while yet the fairness of his form justified his fond respect for it.
For that day he was contented with the negative luxury of complete repose; the more so as, in every attempt to move, he felt the same numbness of limb as that with which he had woke, accompanied by a kind of painful weight at the back of the head, and at the junction which the great seat of intelligence forms at the spine with the great mainspring of force; and, withal, a reluctance to stir, and a more than usual inclination to doze. But the next day, though these unpleasant sensations continued, his impatience of thought and hate of solitude made him anxious to go forth and seek some distraction. No distraction left to him but the gaming-table—no companions but fellow-victims in that sucking whirlpool. Well, he knew a low gaming-house, open all day as all night. Wishing to add somewhat to the miserable remains of the L1 borrowed on the horse, that made all his capital, he asked Bridgett, indifferently, to oblige him with two or three sovereigns; if she had them not, she might borrow them in the neighbourhood till her mistress returned. Bridgett answered, with ill-simulated glee, that her mistress had given positive orders that Mr. Losely was to have everything he called for, except—money. Jasper coloured with wrath and shame; but he said no more—whistled—took his hat—went out—repaired to the gaming-house—lost his last shilling, and returned moodily to dine in Podden Place. The austerity of the room, the loneliness of the evening, began now to inspire him with unmitigated disgust, which was added in fresh account to his old score of repugnance for the absent Arabella. The affront put upon him in the orders which Bridgett had so faithfully repeated made him yet more distastefully contemplate the dire necessity of falling under the rigid despotism of this determined guardian: it was like going back to a preparatory school, to be mulcted of pocket-money, and set in a dark corner! But what other resource? None but appeal to Darrell—still more intolerable; except—he paused in his cogitation, shook his head, muttered “No, no.” But that “except” would return!—except to forget his father’s prayer and his own promise—except to hunt out Sophy, and extract from the generosity, compassion, or fear of her protectress, some such conditions as he would have wrung from Darrell. He had no doubt now that the girl was with Lady Montfort; he felt that, if she really loved Sophy, and were sheltering her in tender recollection, whether of Matilda or of Darrell himself, he might much more easily work on the delicate nerves of a woman, shrinking from all noise and scandal, than he could on the stubborn pride of his resolute father-in-law. Perhaps it was on account of Sophy—perhaps to plead for her—that Lady Montfort had gone to Fawley; perhaps the grief visible on that lady’s countenance, as he caught so hasty a glimpse of it, might be occasioned by the failure of her mission. If so, there might be now some breach or dissension between her and Darrell, which might render the Marchioness still more accessible to his demands. As for his father—if Jasper played his cards well and luckily, his father might never know of his disobedience; he might coax or frighten Lady Montfort into secresy. It might be quite unnecessary for him even to see Sophy; if she caught sight of him, she would surely no more recognise his altered features than Rugge had done. These thoughts gathered on him stronger and stronger all the evening, and grew into resolves with the next morning. He sallied out after breakfast—the same numbness; but he walked it off. Easy enough to find the address of the Marchioness of Montfort. He asked it boldly of the porter at the well-known house of the present Lord, and, on learning it, proceeded at once to Richmond—on foot, and thence to the small, scattered hamlet immediately contiguous to Lady Montfort’s villa. Here he found two or three idle boatmen lounging near the river-side; and entering into conversation with them about their craft, which was sufficiently familiar to him, for he had plied the strongest oar on that tide in the holidays of his youth, he proceeded to inquiries, which were readily and unsuspectingly answered. “Yes, there was a young lady with Lady Montfort; they did not know her name. They had seen her often in the lawn—seen her too, at church. She was very pretty; yes, she had blue eyes and fair hair.” Of his father he only heard that “there had been an old gentleman such as he described—lame, and with one eye—who had lived some months ago in a cottage on Lady Montfort’s grounds. They heard he had gone away. He had made baskets—they did not know if for sale; if so, perhaps for a charity. They supposed he was a gentleman, for they heard he was some relation to the young lady. But Lady Montfort’s head coachman lived in the village, and could, no doubt, give him all the information he required.” Jasper was too wary to call on the coachman; he had learned enough for the present. Had he prosecuted his researches farther, he might only have exposed himself to questions, and to the chance of his inquiries being repeated to Lady Montfort by one of her servants, and thus setting her on her guard; for no doubt his father had cautioned her against him. It never occurred to him that the old man could already have returned; and those to whom he confined his interrogatories were quite ignorant of the fact. Jasper had no intention to intrude himself that day on Lady Montfort. His self-love shrank from presenting himself to a lady of such rank, and to whom he had been once presented on equal terms, as the bridegroom of her friend and the confidential visitor to her mother, in habiliments that bespoke so utter a fall. Better, too, on all accounts, to appear something of a gentleman; more likely to excite pity for suffering—less likely to suggest excuse for rebutting his claims, and showing him to the door. Nay, indeed, so dressed, in that villanous pea-jacket, and with all other habiliments to match, would any servant admit him?—could he get into Lady Montfort’s presence? He must go back—wait for Mrs. Crane’s return. Doubtless she would hail his wish—half a reform in itself—to castoff the outward signs of an accepted degradation.
Accordingly he went back to town in much better spirits, and so absorbed in his hopes, that, when he arrived at Podden Place, he did not observe that, from some obliquity of vision, or want of the normal correspondence between will and muscle, his hand twice missed the knocker-wandering first above, then below it; and that, when actually in his clasp, he did not feel the solid iron: the sense of touch seemed suspended. Bridgett appeared. “Mistress is come back, and will see you.”
Jasper did not look charmed; he winced, but screwed up his courage, and mounted the stairs—slowly-heavily. Form the landing-place above glared down the dark shining eyes that had almost quailed his bold spirit nearly six years before; and almost in the same words as then, a voice as exulting, but less stern, said: “So you come at last to me, Jasper Losely—you are come.” Rapidly-flittingly, with a step noiseless as a spectre’s, Arabella Crane descended the stairs; but she did not, as when he first sought that house in the years before, grasp his hand or gaze into his face. Rather, it was with a shrinking avoidance of his touch—with something like a shudder-that she glided by him into the open drawing-room, beckoning him to follow. He halted a moment; he felt a longing to retreat—to fly the house; his superstitious awe of her very benefits came back to him more strongly than ever. But her help at the moment was necessary to his very hope to escape all future need of her, and, though with a vague foreboding of unconjecturable evil, he stepped into the room, and the door closed on both.
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