'Let me first see you back to the inn, ladies.'

'Some accident may happen in the mean time. The horses are unruly. We will stay here till all is safe.'

The advice was just, and it came from Olivia. I obeyed and hastened to the coachman; who was busied in loosing the traces, and relieving the horses from the carriage. This was presently done; and the coach was left, till proper aid and more light could be obtained.

I then returned to Olivia; and, when the coachman came up, the aunt enquired if their danger had been great?

'I don't know, madam, what you may call great,' answered he; 'but, if that gentleman had not stopped the cattle, and if the near wheels had gone one yard nay two feet farther I should have had an overturn; and then how either you or I could have got out of that gravel pit is more than I can tell. For my own part, I know, I thank him with all my heart; and the other gentleman too: for it is not often that your gentleman are so handy. Instead of helping, they generally want somebody to help them. I hope they'll be civil enough to take a gla.s.s with me. By G---- they shall go to the depth of my pocket, and welcome.'

'If that be the case,' replied the aunt, 'we are all very much obliged to them indeed! But I will take care never to travel in a fog again.'

Just as this was pa.s.sing, we heard at a distance, and as if coming from the inn, a shouting of 'Hollo! Hoix! Coachee! Coach! where are you all?'

'I declare,' said the aunt, 'that is my nephew's voice! This is very lucky! He will now take us in his phaeton.'

'Surely, madam,' exclaimed I, 'you would not trust yourself and this young lady in a phaeton such a night as this; when you see the most experienced drivers are liable to such accidents?'

'If the lady does,' continued the coachman as he was going, 'why I shall suppose she does not value a broken neck of a farthing.'

We then proceeded back to the inn, and were presently joined by Hector; whom the aunt immediately began to rate.

While she was thus employed, I, endeavouring to disguise my voice, as I had before done in the few sentences I had uttered, and addressing myself to Olivia, said, 'I should be exceedingly concerned, madam, if I thought you would suffer Mr. Mowbray to drive you home till day light shall appear.'

'I certainly shall not, sir;' answered she. 'But do you know my brother?'

'Madam!'

'You are acquainted with his name; and I don't recollect that it has been mentioned.'

I hesitated, Hector turned upon us, we were approaching the light, and, with a suddenness which fear and pa.s.sion inspired, knowing that Mowbray did not understand Italian, I said in an under voice--'_Il Signer Hugo Trevor non e morto, bellissima Signora_; Mr. Trevor is not dead, dearest lady'--At the same instant I s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand, pressed it, was about to raise it to my lips, but recollecting myself, turned short round, and added, '_Addio!_'

Clarke was at my back; and I plucked him by the coat, and whispered--'Come with me.'

But what of Olivia? Was she dead to feeling at this strange mysterious moment? Did no rushing torrent of ideas suddenly overwhelm her? The man whose loss she had lamented not in his grave; that man again her saviour, her guardian genius in the dark hour of dread and danger; acquainted in a way the most extraordinary with her thoughts, and favourable wishes; or, as she was too severely inclined to term it, her pa.s.sion and its folly; a witness that she did not credit all which malice could urge against him, nor listen in base silence when her perhaps too partial heart pleaded in his behalf; nay more, that man the protector of her aunt, by whom he had been so often and so bitterly reviled; that man travelling in obscurity; in familiar society with a carpenter, yet braving peril in her behalf, and shunning the thanks which the uncommon services he had rendered might boldly make him claim; avoiding them most certainly because of the mean condition to which he was reduced; faithful in his affection; for such his behaviour spoke him; but unfortunate, depressed, despised; sinking under poverty; languishing away his youth; or crushed by acc.u.mulating disasters!--Did no such fears, no such tender recollections, a.s.sail her bosom?--I have described her ill indeed if that could be supposed. I must pursue my narrative: for how can I picture what most indubitably must have pa.s.sed in her heart, since I feel myself so very incapable of delineating my own!

This adventure did not entirely end here. I wished to have gone forward on foot to Hounslow without delay: but Clarke interceded, for a gla.s.s of brandy. He said the water had chilled him; and he was still more importunate with me to take the same preventative. I had no fear for myself; for I had no such feeling: but, as I did not think I had any right to trifle with his health, I returned with him; taking the precaution to go through the pa.s.sage to the kitchen door.

Here, just as we came to the threshold, who should be coming in face of us, carrying a pair of candles, but my quondam servant, Philip!

The instant he beheld me, he turned pale, trembled, set down the lights, stood aghast for a moment, and then took to his heels.

Though not so terrified, I was almost as much surprised as he; and suffered him to escape before I had the presence of mind to know how to act. As however it was my plan to avoid being known myself for the present, I thought proper to make no other enquiry than to ask whose servant he was? and was answered that he came with the ladies, who had just returned from the coach.

Various conjectures instantly crossed my imagination; all of which were a.s.sociated with the sudden flight from Bath, the robbery he had committed, the seeming honesty and even affection of his character previous to that event, his now being in the service of Olivia, for I understood him to be her own valet, and the story of my death. But, though my curiosity was greatly excited, the present was not the time in which these mysteries could be unravelled. We therefore took Clarke's prescription against cold; and, leaving Cranford bridge, pursued our road to Hounslow: where we arrived about eleven o'clock, and put up at an inferior inn lest any accident should bring us again in company with the aunt and the nephew.

CHAPTER XII

_Meditations on what had pa.s.sed: The condolence of Clarke: Arrival at London: The meeting of former friends: Law arrangements_

It may be well supposed that the incidents of this night were not easily driven from my imagination. While we were walking, the care we were obliged to take, and the gloom around us, prevented any thing from escaping me sufficiently marked to attract the notice of my companion. But, when we were seated in a room with lights, and my mind was no longer diverted by other objects, the reveries into which I fell, the interjections that broke from me, the hasty and interrupted manner in which I ate and drank, the expressions of extreme joy which altered my countenance at one moment, and the solemn seriousness which it a.s.sumed the next, with my eyes fixed, while the tears rolled down my cheeks, at last so agitated poor Clarke that he exclaimed--'For G.o.d's sake, Mr. Trevor, what is the matter with you?'

My silence, for I was unable to speak, did but increase his alarm--'Are you taken ill? What has befallen you? Won't you open your mind to me? If I could do you any good, I hope you don't think I should be backward? Are you unhappy?'

'No, no.'

'I am very glad of that. But something uncommon I am sure has happened to you: though it may not be fit perhaps that I should hear what. And I don't want to be a busy body; though I must say I should be more at ease, if I was quite sure that all was right. That's all. I have no other curiosity.'

'All is not right: but yet I hope it will be. I know not by what means. It seems indeed impossible! And perhaps it is; and yet I hope!

I hope! I hope!'

'Well, well: I am glad of that. We should all hope. We are bid to hope. G.o.d help us if we did not. Perhaps I can't give you any help?

I suppose that is beyond me. I am sorry for it. But what can a poor carpenter do, in the way of befriending a gentleman?'

'A poor carpenter can have a kind heart; and I do not know whether that is not the most blessed thing on earth! Did you ever hear me repeat the name of Olivia?'

'Yes; when you were light-headed, I heard the name many a time and often. And the nurse said you raved of n.o.body else. But we could none of us find out who she was. Though, I must say, I have often enough wished to ask: but that I did not think it became me to seem to be at all prying.'

'That is the lady you have been in company with to-night. It is she whom you have helped me to save. I was sufficiently indebted to you before: but what am I then at present?'

'Well, that to be sure is accidental enough! I could not have thought it! How oddly things do fall out! But I am glad of it with all my heart!'

'I could not see much of her, to be sure; though I looked with all the eyes I had: but I thought somehow she seemed as fine a young creature as I had ever beheld since the hour I was born; which the mildness of her voice did but make the more likely. I thought to myself, I never in my days heard any living soul so sweet-spoken. So that I must say things have fallen out very strangely.

'I always said to my Sally, there must be something between you and the gentlewoman the name of _which_ was on your tongue's end so often, while you were down in the fever; and I am glad to the heart that you have happened on her again so unexpectedly: though I can see no good reason, now you have found her, why you should be in such a hurry to get away.'

The unaffected partic.i.p.ation of Clarke in all my joys and sorrows, the questions which his feelings impelled him to put, and the fidelity of his nature, as well as the impulse which pa.s.sion gave me to disburthen my mind, were all of them inducements to speak; and I informed him of many of those particulars which have already been recited.

The more intimately he became acquainted with my history, the more powerfully he seemed imbued with my hopes and fears; and the better satisfied I was with the confidence I had reposed in him. I am unable to paint the honest indignation of his feelings and phraseology at the injustice which he as well as I supposed had been done me, the depression of his countenance when I dwelt on the despair and wretchedness which the almost impossibility of my obtaining Olivia inspired, and the animation with which he seemed as it were to set his shoulders to the wheel, when my returning fervor led me to the opposite extreme, and gave me confidence in my own powers and the strenuous exertions on which I was resolved.

The conversation continued long after we retired to rest; so that our sleep was short: for we were up again very early, before it was light, and continued our journey to London; where we arrived a little after nine in the morning.

I immediately proceeded to the lodging of Miss Wilmot; whom I found where I had left her, and who was truly rejoiced to see me. Clarke had never been in London: I therefore took him with me, gave a proper account of him to Miss Wilmot, and we all breakfasted together, while Mary waited; whose features as well as her words sufficiently testified the unexpected pleasure of the meeting, and who artlessly related the apprehensions of herself and my few friends, at not hearing from me.

My first enquiries were concerning Wilmot and Turl; and I was delighted to learn that Wilmot, whom I left in a sickly state of mind that was seriously alarming, had been awakened by Turl to a more just sense of human affairs; and had recovered much of the former vigour and elasticity of his talents.

His sister told me that he was at present engaged in a periodical publication; and had beside composed a considerable part of a comedy: of which Turl, as well as herself, conceived the greatest hopes.

The reader scarcely need be told that this intelligence gave me great pleasure. It led me to revolve mighty matters in my own mind, created emulation, and inspired me with increasing confidence and alacrity.

Yes, said I, exultingly, genius may safely encounter and dare difficulties. Let it but confide in itself and it will conquer them all.

While we were conversing Wilmot came in.

I must leave the imagination to paint the welcome we gave each other.