In another room in that same house sat, solitary as Helen, a stern, gloomy, brooding man, in whom they who had best known him from his childhood could scarcely have recognized a trace of the humane, benignant, trustful, but wayward and varying Harley, Lord L’Estrange.
He had read that fragment of a memoir, in which, out of all the chasms of his barren and melancholy past, there rose two malignant truths that seemed literally to glare upon him with mocking and demon eyes. The woman whose remembrance had darkened all the sunshine of his life had loved another; the friend in whom he had confided his whole affectionate loyal soul had been his perfidious rival. He had read from the first word to the last, as if under a spell that held him breathless; and when he closed the manuscript, it was without a groan or sigh; but over his pale lips there passed that withering smile, which is as sure an index of a heart overcharged with dire and fearful passions, as the arrowy flash of the lightning is of the tempests that are gathered within the cloud.
He then thrust the papers into his bosom, and, keeping his hand over them, firmly clenched, he left the room, and walked slowly on towards his father’s house. With every step by the way, his nature, in the war of its elements, seemed to change and harden into forms of granite. Love, humanity, trust, vanished away. Hate, revenge, misanthropy, suspicion, and scorn of all that could wear the eyes of affection, or speak with the voice of honour, came fast through the gloom of his thoughts, settling down in the wilderness, grim and menacing as the harpies of ancient song—
“Uncaeque manus, et pallida semper Ora.”
“Hands armed with fangs, and lips forever pale.”
Thus the gloomy man had crossed the threshold of his father’s house, and silently entered the apartments still set apart for him. He had arrived about an hour before Leonard; and as he stood by the hearth, with his arms folded on his breast, and his eyes fixed lead-like on the ground, his mother came in to welcome and embrace him. He checked her eager inquiries after Violante, he recoiled from the touch of her hand.
“Hold, madam,” said he, startling her ear with the cold austerity of his tone. “I cannot heed your questions,—I am filled with the question I must put to yourself. You opposed my boyish love for Leonora Avenel. I do not blame you,—all mothers of equal rank would have done the same. Yet, had you not frustrated all frank intercourse with her, I might have taken refusal from her own lips,—survived that grief, and now been a happy man. Years since then have rolled away,—rolled over her quiet slumbers, and my restless waking life. All this time were you aware that Audley Egerton had been the lover of Leonora Avenel?”
“Harley, Harley! do not speak to me in that cruel voice, do not look at me with those hard eyes!”
“You knew it, then,—you, my mother!” continued Harley, unmoved by her rebuke; “and why did you never say, ‘Son, you are wasting the bloom and uses of your life in sorrowful fidelity to a lie! You are lavishing trust and friendship on a perfidious hypocrite.’”
“How could I speak to you thus; how could I dare to do so, seeing you still so cherished the memory of that unhappy girl, still believed that she had returned your affection? Had I said to you what I knew (but not till after her death), as to her relations with Audley Egerton—”
“Well? You falter; go on; had you done so?”
“Would you have felt no desire for revenge? Might there not have been strife between you, danger, bloodshed? Harley, Harley! Is not such silence pardonable in a mother? And why deprive you too of the only friend you seemed to prize; who alone had some influence over you; who concurred with me in the prayer and hope, that some day you would find a living partner worthy to replace this lost delusion, arouse your faculties,—be the ornament your youth promised to your country? For you wrong Audley,—indeed you do!”
“Wrong him! Ah, let me not do that. Proceed.”
“I do not excuse him his rivalship, nor his first concealment of it. But believe me, since then, his genuine remorse, his anxious tenderness for your welfare, his dread of losing your friendship—”
“Stop! It was doubtless Audley Egerton who induced you yourself to conceal what you call his ‘relations’ with her whom I can now so calmly name,—Leonora Avenel?”
“It was so, in truth; and from motives that—”
“Enough! let me hear no more.”
“But you will not think too sternly of what is past? You are about to form new ties. You cannot be wild and wicked enough to meditate what your brow seems to threaten. You cannot dream of revenge,—risk Audley’s life or your own?”
“Tut, tut, tut! What cause here for duels? Single combats are out of date; civilized men do not slay each other with sword and pistol. Tut! revenge! Does it look like revenge, that one object which brings me hither is to request my father’s permission to charge myself with the care of Audley Egerton’s election? What he values most in the world is his political position; and here his political existence is at stake. You know that I have had through life the character of a weak, easy, somewhat over-generous man. Such men are not revengeful. Hold! You lay your hand on my arm,—I know the magic of that light touch, Mother; but its power over me is gone. Countess of Lansmere, hear me! Ever from infancy (save in that frantic passion for which I now despise myself), I have obeyed you, I trust, as a duteous son. Now, our relative positions are somewhat altered. I have the right to exact—I will not say to command—the right which wrong and injury bestow upon all men. Madam, the injured man has prerogatives that rival those of kings. I now call upon you to question me no more; not again to breathe the name of Leonora Avenel, unless I invite the subject; and not to inform Audley Egerton by a hint, by a breath, that I have discovered—what shall I call it?—his ‘pardonable deceit.’ Promise me this, by your affection as mother, and on your faith as gentlewoman; or I declare solemnly, that never in life will you look upon my face again.”
Haughty and imperious though the countess was, her spirit quailed before Harley’s brow and voice.
“Is this my son,—this my gentle Harley?” she said falteringly. “Oh, put your arms round my neck; let me feel that I have not lost my child!”
Harley looked softened, but he did not obey the pathetic prayer; nevertheless, he held out his hand, and turning away his face, said, in a milder voice, “Have I your promise?”
“You have, you have; but on condition that there pass no words between you and Audley that can end but in the strife which—”
“Strife!” interrupted Harley. “I repeat that the idea of challenge and duel between me and my friend from our school days, and on a quarrel that we could explain to no seconds, would be a burlesque upon all that is grave in the realities of life and feeling. I accept your promise and seal it thus—”
He pressed his lips to his mother’s forehead, and passively received her embrace.
“Hush,” he said, withdrawing from her arms, “I hear my father’s voice.”
Lord Lansmere threw open the door widely, and with a certain consciousness that a door by which an Earl of Lansmere entered ought to be thrown open widely. It could not have been opened with more majesty if a huissier or officer of the Household had stood on either side. The countess passed by her lord with a light step, and escaped.
“I was occupied with my architect in designs for the new infirmary, of which I shall make a present to our county. I have only just heard that you were here, Harley. What is all this about our fair Italian guest? Is she not coming back to us? Your mother refers me to you for explanations.”
“You shall have them later, my dear father; at present I can think only of public affairs.”
“Public affairs! they are indeed alarming. I am rejoiced to hear you express yourself so worthily. An awful crisis, Harley! And, gracious Heaven! I have heard that a low man, who was born in Lansmere, but made a fortune in America, is about to contest the borough. They tell me he is one of the Avenels,—a born Blue; is it possible?”
“I have come here on that business. As a peer you cannot, of course, interfere; but I propose, with your leave, to go down myself to Lansmere, and undertake the superintendence of, the election. It would be better, perhaps, if you were not present; it would give us more liberty of action.”
“My dear Harley, shake hands; anything you please. You know how I have wished to see you come forward, and take that part in life which becomes your birth.”
“Ah, you think I have sadly wasted my existence hitherto.”
“To be frank with you, yes, Harley,” said the earl, with a pride that was noble in its nature, and not without dignity in its expression. “The more we take from our country, the more we owe to her. From the moment you came into the world as the inheritor of lands and honours, you were charged with a trust for the benefit of others, that it degrades one of our order of gentleman not to discharge.”
Harley listened with a sombre brow, and made no direct reply.
“Indeed,” resumed the earl, “I would rather you were about to canvass for yourself than for your friend Egerton. But I grant he is an example that it is never too late to follow. Why, who that had seen you both as youths, notwithstanding Audley had the advantage of being some years your senior—who could have thought that he was the one to become distinguished and eminent, and you to degenerate into the luxurious idler, averse to all trouble and careless of all fame? You, with such advantages, not only of higher fortunes, but, as every one said, of superior talents; you, who had then so much ambition, so keen a desire for glory, sleeping with Plutarch’s Lives under your pillow, and only, my wild son, only too much energy. But you are a young man still; it is not too late to redeem the years you have thrown away.”
“The years are nothing,—mere dates in an almanac; but the feelings, what can give me back those?—the hope, the enthusiasm, the—No matter! feelings do not, help men to rise in the world. Egerton’s feelings are not too lively. What I might have been, leave it to me to remember; let us talk of the example you set before me,—of Audley Egerton.”
“We must get him in,” said the earl, sinking his voice into a whisper. “It is of more importance to him than I even thought for. But you know his secrets. Why did you not confide to me frankly the state of his affairs?”
“His affairs? Do you mean that they are seriously embarrassed? This interests me much. Pray speak; what do you know?”
“He has discharged the greater part of his establishment. That in itself is natural on quitting office; but still it set people talking; and it has got wind that his estates are not only mortgaged for more than they are worth, but that he has been living upon the discount of bills; in short, he has been too intimate with a man whom we all know by sight,—a man who drives the finest horses in London, and they tell me (but that I cannot believe) lives in the familiar society of the young puppies he snares to perdition. What’s the man’s name? Levy, is it not?—yes, Levy.”
“I have seen Levy with him,” said Harley; and a sinister joy lighted up his falcon eyes. “Levy—Levy—it is well.”
“I hear but the gossip of the clubs,” resumed the earl; “but they do say that Levy makes little disguise of his power over our very distinguished friend, and rather parades it as a merit with our party (and, indeed, with all men—for Egerton has personal friends in every party) that he keeps sundry bills locked up in his desk until Egerton is once more safe in parliament. Nevertheless if, after all, our friend were to lose his election, and Levy were then to seize on his effects, and proclaim his ruin, it would seriously damage, perhaps altogether destroy, Audley’s political career.”
“So I conclude,” said Harley. “A Charles Fox might be a gamester, and a William Pitt be a pauper. But Audley Egerton is not of their giant stature; he stands so high because he stands upon heaps of respectable gold. Audley Egerton, needy and impoverished, out of parliament, and, as the vulgar slang has it, out at elbows, skulking from duns, perhaps in the Bench—”
“No, no; our party would never allow that; we would subscribe—”
“Worse than all, living as the pensioner of the party he aspired to lead! You say truly, his political prospects would be blasted. A man whose reputation lay in his outward respectability! Why, people would say that Audley Egerton has been—a solemn lie; eh, my father?”
“How can you talk with such coolness of your friend? You need say nothing to interest me in his election—if you mean that. Once in parliament, he must soon again be in office,—and learn to live on his salary. You must get him to submit to me the schedule of his liabilities. I have a head for business, as you know. I will arrange his affairs for him. And I will yet bet five to one, though I hate wagers, that he will be prime minister in three years. He is not brilliant, it is true; but just at this crisis we want a safe, moderate, judicious, conciliatory man; and Audley has so much tact, such experience of the House, such knowledge of the world, and,” added the earl, emphatically summing up his eulogies, “he is so thorough a gentleman!”
“A thorough gentleman, as you say,—the soul of honour! But, my dear father, it is your hour for riding; let me not detain you. It is settled, then; you do not come yourself to Lansmere. You put the house at my disposal, and allow me to invite Egerton, of course, and what other guests I may please; in short, you leave all to me?”
“Certainly; and if you cannot get in your friend, who can? That borough, it is an awkward, ungrateful place, and has been the plague of my life. So much as I have spent there, too,—so much as I have done to its trade!” And the earl, with an indignant sigh, left the room.
Harley seated himself deliberately at his writing-table, leaning his face on his hand, and looking abstractedly into space from under knit and lowering brows.
Harley L’Estrange was, as we have seen, a man singularly tenacious of affections and impressions. He was a man, too, whose nature was eminently bold, loyal, and candid; even the apparent whim and levity which misled the world, both as to his dispositions and his powers, might be half ascribed to that open temper which, in its over-contempt for all that seemed to savour of hypocrisy, sported with forms and ceremonials, and extracted humour, sometimes extravagant, sometimes profound, from “the solemn plausibilities of the world.” The shock he had now received smote the very foundations of his mind, and, overthrowing all the airier structures which fancy and wit had built upon its surface, left it clear as a new world for the operations of the darker and more fearful passions. When a man of a heart so loving and a nature so irregularly powerful as Harley’s suddenly and abruptly discovers deceit where he had most confided, it is not (as with the calmer pupils of that harsh teacher, Experience) the mere withdrawal of esteem and affection from the one offender; it is, that trust in everything seems gone; it is, that the injured spirit looks back to the Past, and condemns all its kindlier virtues as follies that conduced to its own woe; and looks on to the Future as to a journey beset with smiling traitors, whom it must meet with an equal simulation, or crush with a superior force. The guilt of treason to men like these is incalculable,—it robs the world of all the benefits they would otherwise have lavished as they passed; it is responsible for all the ill that springs from the corruption of natures whose very luxuriance, when the atmosphere is once tainted, does but diffuse disease,—even as the malaria settles not over thin and barren soils, not over wastes that have been from all time desolate, but over the places in which southern suns had once ripened delightful gardens, or the sites of cities, in which the pomp of palaces has passed away.
It was not enough that the friend of his youth, the confidant of his love, had betrayed his trust,—been the secret and successful rival; not enough that the woman his boyhood had madly idolized, and all the while he had sought her traces with pining, remorseful heart-believing she but eluded his suit from the emulation of a kindred generosity, desiring rather to sacrifice her own love than to cost to his the sacrifice of all which youth rashly scorns and the world so highly estimates,—not enough that all this while her refuge had been the bosom of another. This was not enough of injury. His whole life had been wasted on a delusion; his faculties and aims, the wholesome ambition of lofty minds, had been arrested at the very onset of fair existence; his heart corroded by a regret for which there was no cause; his conscience charged with the terror that his wild chase had urged a too tender victim to the grave, over which he had mourned. What years that might otherwise have been to himself so serene, to the world so useful, had been consumed in objectless, barren, melancholy dreams! And all this while to whom had his complaints been uttered?—to the man who knew that his remorse was an idle spectre and his faithful sorrow a mocking self-deceit. Every thought that could gall man’s natural pride, every remembrance that could sting into revenge a heart that had loved too deeply not to be accessible to hate, conspired to goad those maddening Furies who come into every temple which is once desecrated by the presence of the evil passions. In that sullen silence of the soul, vengeance took the form of justice. Changed though his feelings towards Leonora Avenel were, the story of her grief and her wrongs embittered still more his wrath against his rival. The fragments of her memoir left naturally on Harley’s mind the conviction that she had been the victim of an infamous fraud, the dupe of a false marriage. His idol had not only been stolen from the altar,—it had been sullied by the sacrifice; broken with remorseless hand, and thrust into dishonoured clay; mutilated, defamed; its very memory a thing of contempt to him who had ravished it from worship. The living Harley and the dead Nora—both called aloud to their joint despoiler, “Restore what thou hast taken from us, or pay the forfeit!”
Thus, then, during the interview between Helen and Leonard, thus Harley L’Estrange sat alone! and as a rude irregular lump of steel, when wheeled round into rapid motion, assumes the form of the circle it describes, so his iron purpose, hurried on by his relentless passion, filled the space into which he gazed with optical delusions, scheme after scheme revolving and consummating the circles that clasped a foe.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg