"My Novel" — Volume 12

Audley went on without notice of the interruption. "There is a change in Harley,—to me and to all; a change, perhaps, not perceptible to others— but I have known him from a boy."

"He is occupied for the first time with the practical business of life. That would account for a much greater change than you remark."

"Do you see him familiarly, converse with him often?"

"No, and only on matters connected with the election. Occasionally, indeed, he consults me as to Randal Leslie, in whom, as your special protege, he takes considerable interest."

"That, too, surprises me. Well, I am weary of perplexing myself. This place is hateful; after to-morrow I shall leave it, and breathe in peace. You have seen the reports of the canvass; I have had no heart to inspect them. Is the election as safe as they say?"

"If Avenel withdraws his nephew, and the votes thus released split off to you, you are secure."

"And you think his nephew will be withdrawn? Poor young man! defeat at his age, and with such talents, is hard to bear." Audley sighed.

"I must leave you now, if you have nothing important to say," said the baron, rising. "I have much to do, as the election is yet to be won, and—to you the loss of it would be—"

"Ruin, I know. Well, Levy, it is, on the whole, to your advantage that I should not lose. There may be more to get from me yet. And, judging by the letters I received this morning, my position is rendered so safe by the absolute necessity of my party to keep me up, that the news of my pecuniary difficulties will not affect me so much as I once feared. Never was my career so free from obstacle, so clear towards the highest summit of ambition; never, in my day of ostentatious magnificence, as it is now, when I am prepared to shrink into a lodging, with a single servant."

"I am glad to hear it; and I am the more anxious to secure your election, upon which this career must depend, because—nay, I hardly like to tell you—"

"Speak on."

"I have been obliged, by a sudden rush on all my resources, to consign some of your bills and promissory notes to another, who, if your person should not be protected from arrest by parliamentary privilege, might be harsh and—"

"Traitor!" interrupted Egerton, fiercely, all the composed contempt with which he usually treated the usurer giving way, "say no more. How could I ever expect otherwise! You have foreseen my defeat, and have planned my destruction. Presume no reply! Sir, begone from my presence!"

"You will find that you have worse friends than myself," said the baron, moving to the door; "and if you are defeated, if your prospects for life are destroyed, I am the last man you will think of blaming. But I forgive your anger, and trust that to-morrow you will receive those explanations of my conduct which you are now in no temper to bear. I go to take care of the election."

Left alone, Audley's sudden passion seemed to forsake him.

He gathered together, in that prompt and logical precision which the habit of transacting public business bestows, all his thoughts, and sounded all his fears; and most vivid of every thought, and most intolerable of every fear, was the belief that the baron had betrayed him to L'Estrange.

"I cannot bear this suspense," he cried aloud and abruptly. "I will see Harley myself. Open as he is, the very sound of his voice will tell me at once if I am a bankrupt even of human friendship. If that friendship be secure, if Harley yet clasp my hand with the same cordial warmth, all other loss shall not wring from my fortitude one complaint."

He rang the bell; his valet, who was waiting in the anteroom, appeared.

"Go and see if Lord L'Estrange is engaged. I would speak with him."

The servant came back in less than two minutes.

"I find that my Lord is now particularly engaged, since he has given strict orders that he is not to be disturbed."

"Engaged! on what, whom with?"

"He is in his own room, sir, with a clergyman, who arrived, and dined here, to-day. I am told that he was formerly curate of Lansmere."

"Lansmere! curate! His name, his name! Not Dale?"

"Yes, sir, that is the name,—the Reverend Mr. Dale."

"Leave me," said Audley, in a faint voice. "Dale! the man who suspected Harley, who called on me in London, spoke of a child,—my child,—and sent me to find but another grave! He closeted with Harley,—he!"

Audley sank back on his chair, and literally gasped for breath. Few men in the world had a more established reputation for the courage that dignifies manhood, whether the physical courage or the moral. But at that moment it was not grief, not remorse, that paralyzed Audley,—it was fear. The brave man saw before him, as a thing visible and menacing, the aspect of his own treachery,—that crime of a coward; and into cowardice he was stricken. What had he to dread? Nothing save the accusing face of an injured friend,—nothing but that. And what more terrible? The only being, amidst all his pomp of partisans, who survived to love him, the only being for whom the cold statesman felt the happy, living, human tenderness of private affection, lost to him forever! He covered his face with both hands, and sat in suspense of something awful, as a child sits in the dark, the drops on his brow, and his frame trembling.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Meanwhile Harley had listened to Mr. Dale's vindication of Leonard with cold attention.

"Enough," said he, at the close. "Mr. Fairfield (for so we will yet call him) shall see me to-night; and if apology be due to him, I will make it. At the same time, it shall be decided whether he continue this contest or retire. And now, Mr. Dale, it was not to hear how this young man wooed, or shrunk from wooing, my affianced bride, that I availed myself of your promise to visit me at this house. We agreed that the seducer of Nora Avenel deserved chastisement, and I promised that Nora Avenel's son should find a father. Both these assurances shall be fulfilled to- morrow. And you, sir," continued Harley, rising, his whole form gradually enlarged by the dignity of passion, "who wear the garb appropriated to the holiest office of Christian charity; you who have presumed to think that, before the beard had darkened my cheek, I could first betray the girl who had been reared under this roof, then abandon her,—sneak like a dastard from the place in which my victim came to die, leave my own son, by the woman thus wronged, without thought or care, through the perilous years of tempted youth, till I found him, by chance, an outcast in a desert more dread than Hagar's,—you, sir, who have for long years thus judged of me, shall have the occasion to direct your holy anger towards the rightful head; and in me, you who have condemned the culprit shall respect the judge."

Mr. Dale was at first startled, and almost awed, by this unexpected burst. But, accustomed to deal with the sternest and the darkest passions, his calm sense and his habit of authority over those whose souls were bared to him, nobly recovered from their surprise. "My Lord," said he, "first, with humility I bow to your rebuke, and entreat your pardon for my erring, and, as you say, my uncharitable opinions. We dwellers in a village and obscure pastors of a humble flock, we, mercifully removed from temptation, are too apt, perhaps, to exaggerate its power over those whose lots are cast in that great world which has so many gates ever open to evil. This is my sole excuse if I was misled by what appeared to me strong circumstantial evidence. But forgive me again if I warn you not to fall into an error perhaps little lighter than my own. Your passion, when you cleared yourself from reproach, became you. But ah, my Lord, when with that stern brow and those flashing eyes, you launched your menace upon another over whom you would constitute yourself the judge, forgetful of the divine precept, 'Judge not,' I felt that I was listening no longer to honest self-vindication,—I felt that I was listening to fierce revenge!"

"Call it revenge, or what you will," said Harley, with sullen firmness; "but I have been stung too deeply not to sting. Frank with all, till the last few days, I have ever been. Frank to you, at least, even now, this much I tell you: I pretend to no virtue in what I still hold to be justice; but no declamations nor homilies tending to prove that justice is sinful will move my resolves. As man I have been outraged, and as man I will retaliate. The way and the mode, the true criminal and his fitting sentence, you will soon learn, sir. I have much to do to-night; forgive me if I adjourn for the present all further conference."

"No, no; do not dismiss me. There is something, in spite of your present language, which so commands my interest; I see that there has been so much suffering where there is now so much wrath,—that I would save you from the suffering worse than all,—remorse. Oh, pause, my dear Lord, pause and answer me but two questions; then I will leave your after course to yourself."

"Say on, sir," said Lord L'Estrange, touched, and with respect.

"First; then, analyze your own feelings. Is this anger merely to punish an offender and to right the living,—for who can pretend to right the dead? Or is there not some private hate that stirs and animates and confuses all?"

Harley remained silent. Mr. Dale renewed,

"You loved this poor girl. Your language even now reveals it. You speak of treachery: perhaps you had a rival who deceived you; I know not, guess not, whom. But if you would strike the rival, must you not wound the innocent son? And, in presenting Nora's child to his father, as you pledge yourself to do, can you mean some cruel mockery that, under seeming kindness, implies some unnatural vengeance?"

"You read well the heart of man," said Harley; "and I have owned to you that I am but man. Pass on; you have another question."

"And one more solemn and important. In my world of a village, revenge is a common passion; it is the sin of the uninstructed. The savage deems it noble! but Christ's religion, which is the sublime Civilizer, emphatically condemns it. Why? Because religion ever seeks to ennoble a man; and nothing so debases him as revenge. Look into your own heart, and tell me whether, since you have cherished this passion, you have not felt all sense of right and wrong confused,—have not felt that whatever would before have seemed to you mean and base, appears now but just means to your heated end. Revenge is ever a hypocrite: rage, at least, strikes with the naked sword; but revenge, stealthy and patient, conceals the weapon of the assassin. My Lord, your colour changes. What is your answer to my question?"

"Oh," exclaimed Harley, with a voice thrilling in its mournful anguish, "it is not since I have cherished the revenge that I am changed, that right and wrong grow dark to me, that hypocrisy seems the atmosphere fit for earth. No; it is since the discovery that demands the vengeance. It is useless, sir," he continued impetuously,—" useless to argue with me. Were I to sit down, patient and impotent, under the sense of the wrong which I have received, I should feel, indeed, that debasement which you ascribe to the gratification of what you term revenge. I should never regain the self-esteem which the sentiment of power now restores to me; I should feel as if the whole world could perceive and jeer at my meek humiliation. I know not why I have said so much,—why I have betrayed to you so much of my secret mind, and stooped to vindicate my purpose. I never meant it. Again I say, we must close this conference." Harley here walked to the door, and opened it significantly.

"One word more, Lord L'Estrange,—but one. You will not hear me. I am a comparative stranger, but you have a friend, a friend dear and intimate, now under the same roof. Will you consent, at least, to take counsel of Mr. Audley Egerton? None can doubt his friendship for you; none can doubt that whatever he advise will be that which best becomes your honour. What, my Lord, you hesitate,—you feel ashamed to confide to your dearest friend a purpose which his mind would condemn? Then I will seek him, I will implore him to save you from what can but entail repentance."

"Mr. Dale, I must forbid you to see Mr. Egerton. What has passed beween us ought to be as sacred to you as a priest of Rome holds confession. This much, however, I will say to content you: I promise that I will do nothing that shall render me unworthy of Mr. Audley Egerton's friendship, or which his fine sense of honour shall justify him in blaming. Let that satisfy you."

"Ah, my Lord," cried Mr. Dale, pausing irresolute at the doorway, and seizing Harley's hand, "I should indeed be satisfied if you would submit yourself to higher counsel than mine,—than Mr. Egerton's, than man's. Have you never felt the efficacy of prayer?"

"My life has been wasted," replied Harley, "and I dare not, therefore, boast that I have found prayer efficacious. But, so far back as I can remember, it has at least been my habit to pray to Heaven, night and morning, until at least—until—" The natural and obstinate candour of the man forced out the last words, which implied reservation. He stopped short.

"Until you have cherished revenge? You have not dared to pray since? Oh, reflect what evil there is within us, when we dare not come before Heaven,—dare not pray for what we wish. You are moved. I leave you to your own thoughts." Harley inclined his head, and the parson passed him by, and left him alone,—startled indeed; but was he softened? As Mr. Dale hurried along the corridor, much agitated, Violante stole from a recess formed by a large bay window, and linking her arm in his, said anxiously, but timidly: "I have been waiting for you, dear Mr. Dale; and so long! You have been with Lord L'Estrange?"

"Well!"

"Why do you not speak? You have left him comforted, happier?"

"Happier! No."

"What!" said Violante, with a look of surprise, and a sadness not unmixed with petulance in her quick tone. "What! does he then so grieve that Helen prefers another?"

Despite the grave emotions that disturbed his mind, Mr. Dale was struck by Violante's question, and the voice in which it was said. He loved her tenderly. "Child, child," said he, "I am glad that Helen has escaped Lord L'Estrange. Beware, oh, beware how he excite any gentler interest in yourself. He is a dangerous man,—more dangerous for glimpses of a fine original nature. He may well move the heart of the innocent and inexperienced, for he has strangely crept into mine. But his heart is swollen with pride and ire and malice."