"Good-morning, Colonel Manners," she said, as they walked towards the breakfast-room; "you find me with a curious little companion: but the fact is, that, while you were all out walking yesterday, a poor gipsy woman accidentally fell down from the high bank close by the house, and was brought in here, completely stunned. The village apothecary was away; and, as I endeavour to enact my Lady Bountiful, I did what I could for the poor creature, who soon recovered. We had half a dozen of her tribe in the servant's hall, however; and, much to the butler's and Peter's surprise--and, I must confess, to my own also--when they went away, nothing was missing. According to a promise made by one of them, they have sent me down that little boy this morning to tell me that the poor woman is now quite well. I wished to have despatched the apothecary to her, and offered to do so as soon as he returned; but they seemed to have an invincible repugnance to all the professors of the healing art."

"All people, I believe, who enjoy very good health," replied Colonel Manners, "feel the same towards the learned doctors--the very sight of one reminds us of losing one of the best blessings of Heaven. However, the meeting with that little gipsy gentleman here explains something which I might have made a mystery of, had I not heard your account of your yesterday's interview; for this morning I had a long conversation with a gipsy on the hill--a very singular person--who addressed me at once by name, and seemed perfectly well acquainted with my being at your house."

"Oh, your servant was present yesterday," replied Mrs. Falkland, "and, with all the dexterity of an old soldier, gave us very great a.s.sistance in bringing the poor woman to herself. I remarked, too, that her gipsy companions did but little, and contented themselves with standing round, asking irrelevant questions of the servants, which, of course, in that temple of t.i.ttle-tattle, a servant's hall, they found somebody willing to answer; so that I dare say there was nothing supernatural in your name being known on the hill. But how came you, Colonel Manners," she added, with a smile, "how came you in such deep consultation with a gipsy at this hour of the morning? You surely have not been having your fortune told?"

"I must plead guilty, I am afraid," replied Colonel Manners; "but if the fault be a very grievous one, I must lay the blame upon Miss Falkland, as it was under her special injunctions that I went."

"Indeed!" said Mrs. Falkland; "and to answer what object?"

"Oh, if you mean Miss Falkland's object, I really cannot tell," he replied; "and my object was certainly a very foolish one, but one that leads many a man to do a still more foolish thing: I mean, it was to prove that I was not afraid."

"And pray, what was the result?" demanded Mrs. Falkland; but by this time they were at the breakfast-room door, and Colonel Manners declared that he would not communicate his fate to any one before he revealed it to Miss Falkland in general consistory. This he had soon an opportunity of doing: and the whole business was laughed at gayly enough. It is wonderful how light a little merriment soon makes every thing appear; and this is the reason why, in moments of mirth and cheerfulness, so many secrets are revealed that one would often give worlds to shut up again in the casket of one's own breast. Let wise diplomatists keep far from merriment; for a light laugh or a gay witticism, whose idle wings seemed hardly strong enough to flutter it across the table, has often taken a weighty secret on its back, and flown away with it, never to return. Now, the letter that the gipsy had given Colonel Manners for his friend he had believed might be of some importance, as long as he was alone; but every gay word that was spoken on the subject of gipsies and fortune-telling took away something from its weight in his estimation; and had he been only restrained by a sense of its importance, he might have delivered the letter before breakfast was over, and made a jest of it. It has never been said that Colonel Manners was perfect; and though his mind was strong, it certainly was not without a full share of human weaknesses.

Colonel Manners, however, was restrained by something besides a sense of the letter's importance--he had given his word to deliver it in a particular manner; and, whatever else he might do in the way of frailties, he never forgot a promise, though, in the present instance, it was long ere he found an opportunity of fulfilling the one he had made the gipsy on the hill.

CHAPTER VIII.

Any one who has tried to speak with another for five minutes in private, without the pomp and circ.u.mstance of demanding an interview, will know that it is almost impossible to find the opportunity, unless the person be one's own wife. There is always something comes in the way just at the very moment--something unforeseen and unlikely,--especially if one be very anxious upon the subject. If the matter be of no importance, the opportunity presents itself at every turn; but if one be very, very desirous to unburden a full heart, or tell a tale of love, or give a valuable hint, or plead the cause of one's self, or any one else, without the freezing influence of a formal conference, one may wait hours and days--nay, weeks and months, sometimes--without finding five minutes open in the whole day.

As soon as breakfast was over, Edward de Vaux followed Marian into the music-room; and when Marian left him, he came to tell his friend and Isadore that they proposed making a riding party to see something in the neighbourhood. Manners went up in his room to prepare; and, as he found himself on the stairs alone with De Vaux, he had his hand in his pocket to produce the letter, when Miss Falkland's step sounded close by them, and her voice invited her cousin to come with her, and see a little present she had bought for Marian's birthday. As soon as Manners was equipped for riding, he went to De Vaux's room, calculating--as he usually dressed in half the time that his friend expended on such exertions--that he would find him there: but no one was in the apartment but a servant, who told him that Mr. De Vaux had gone down. As he pa.s.sed along one of the corridors, he saw De Vaux sauntering across the lawn towards the gates of the stable-yard; but ere he could catch him, his friend was surrounded by grooms and servants, receiving his orders concerning the horses; and as they turned again towards the house. Marian and Miss Falkland were standing in their riding dresses on the steps.

"Well, I must wait," thought Manners, reflecting sagely on the difficulties of executing punctually even so simple a commission as that which he had undertaken. "Well, I must wait till we go to dress for dinner; then I am sure to find my opportunity."

He was not destined, however, to remain burdened with his secret so long. The ride was pleasant, but did not extend far; and on the return of the party, while Manners and De Vaux stood looking at their boots in the hall, Miss Falkland and her cousin retired to change their dress, and the opportunity was not lost.

"Now we are alone," said Manners, "let me execute a commission with which I am charged towards you, De Vaux, and which has teased me all the morning."

"Not a challenge, I hope," replied the other; "for it seems a solemn emba.s.sy."

"No, no, nothing of the kind," answered his friend; "but the fact is--"

"Please, sir," said Colonel Manners' servant, opening the gla.s.s doors, "I believe the young mare is throwing out a splint; and I did not like to--"

"Well, well," said Manners, somewhat impatiently, "I will come and see her myself, presently--I am engaged just now." The man withdrew; and resuming his discourse at the precise point where he had left off, Manners continued, "The fact is, that gipsy, of whom I was speaking this morning, charged me with a letter to you, which I promised to deliver in private, and when you were likely to be able to read it without interruption."

"A gipsy!" said De Vaux, knitting his brows; "the circle of my acquaintance has extended itself farther than I thought, and in a cla.s.s, also, equally beyond my wishes and antic.i.p.ations: but are you sure there is no mistake? does he really mean me?"

"There is the letter," replied Manners, "with your t.i.tles, _nomen and cognomen_, as clearly superscribed as ever I saw them written:--Captain the Honourable Edward de Vaux, with many et caeteras."

"And in a good hand, and on tolerably clean paper," said De Vaux, taking the letter, and gazing on the back. "Why, this gipsy of yours must be a miracle, Manners."

"He is a very extraordinary person, certainly," answered his companion, "both in his ideas and his deportment, which are equally above his cla.s.s."

"Nay, he must be a miracle--a complete miracle!" said De Vaux, laughing, "if he can mend kettles and write such an address as that, with the same good right hand. But this must be a begging letter."

"I think not," replied Manners: "it would not surprise me to find that he knows more of you than you imagine; but, at all events, read the letter."

De Vaux turned the letter, looked at the seal, which offered a very good impression, though one with which he was not acquainted, and then, tearing open the paper, read the contents. The very first words made his eye strain eagerly upon the page; a few lines more rendered him deadly pale; and though, as he went on, his agitation did not increase, yet the intensity of his gaze upon the sheet before him was not at all diminished; and when he had concluded it, after staring vacantly in his companion's face for a moment, he again turned to the letter, and read it attentively over once more.

"I am afraid I have brought you evil tidings, De Vaux," said Colonel Manners, who had watched with some anxiety the changes upon the countenance of his friend: "if so, can I serve you? You know Charles Manners; and I need scarcely say how much pleasure it will give me to do any thing for you."

"I must think, Manners--I must think," replied De Vaux: "these are strange tidings indeed, and vouched boldly too; but I doubt whether I have a right to communicate them to any one but the person they affect next to myself. However, I must think ere I act at all. Forgive me for not making you a sharer of them; and excuse me now, for I am much agitated, and hardly well."

"Let me be no restraint upon you, De Vaux," answered his friend. "If I can serve you, tell me; if I can alleviate any thing you suffer by sympathy, let me share in what you feel; but do not suppose for a moment that I even desire to hear any thing that it may be proper to keep to your own bosom. Leave me now, without ceremony: but take care how you act, De Vaux; for I see there is matter of much importance in your mind; and you are, sometimes at least, in military affairs, a little hasty."

"I will be as cool and thoughtful as yourself, my friend," replied De Vaux; "but I am agitated, and the best place for me is my own room."

Thus saying, he left his friend, not a little surprised, indeed, that such a letter from such a person should have had the power to produce on the mind of a man like De Vaux the extreme agitation which he had just witnessed. De Vaux, he well knew, was not one to give credence to any thing lightly, or to yield to any slight feeling which a first impression might produce; but, in the present instance, it was evident that his friend had received a shock from some tidings which had been totally unexpected, but which must have been probable, as well as unpleasant, to produce such an effect. The extraordinary fact, however, that news of such importance should be left to the transmission of such a man as the gipsy--so separated by station, and state, and circ.u.mstances, from the person whom they concerned--was of course a matter of much astonishment to Colonel Manners; and surprise divided his bosom with anxiety and sympathy for his friend.

It is a very disagreeable thing to have any two feelings thus making a shuttlec.o.c.k of our attention; or, when they are very eager, struggling for it with mutual pertinacity; but the only way to act under such circ.u.mstances is, to treat them like two quarrelsome boys; and, shutting them up together, leave them to fight it out without interruption. Such was the plan which Colonel Manners now proposed to pursue; and, consequently, quitting the hall where his conversation with De Vaux had taken place, he walked straight to the library, and opened the door.

What happened next was not without its importance; but as the mind may be at this moment more anxious concerning De Vaux than concerning his companion, we will follow him up the staircase as lightly as possible; enter his chamber, lay our hand upon his bosom, draw the curtain, and show the reader the scene within. But it may be as well first to look at that letter upon the table before which he is sitting, with his left hand upon his brow, and his right partly covering the sheet of paper which had so disturbed him. If one can draw it gently out from underneath his fingers, while his eyes are shut and his thoughts are busy, one may read what follows:--

"To Captain Edward de Vaux." Here, be it remarked, that there was a difference between the superscription and the address; the latter having borne, "To Captain the Honourable Edward de Vaux," while in the inside was merely written, "To Captain Edward de Vaux."

The difference may appear insignificant; but, in the present instance, and with the commentary of the epistle itself thereon, it signifies a great deal. However, the letter went on:--

"_To Captain Edward de Vaux_.

"Sir: I shall make no excuse for addressing you, as I am fully justified therein; and you yourself, however great the pain I may inflict upon you, will eventually admit that I am so. You are about, I understand, to unite your fate to a young lady of rank and fortune; and it is more than possible that mutual affection and mutual good feelings would render your union happy. Nevertheless, believing you to be a man of honour, I feel sure that you would not like to lead any one into such an alliance with expectations which are not alone doubtful, but fallacious. It is therefore necessary that you should know more precisely how you are situated; and I hesitate not to inform you, that on the t.i.tle and estates held by your father you have no earthly right to calculate; that, should you marry Miss de Vaux, you bring with you nothing but your commission as a captain in the army; and that whatever you expect from your parent will most certainly go to another person. Your first conclusion--as a world in which there are so many villains is naturally suspicious--will be, that this letter is written either by some one who intends to set up some unjust claim to your rightful inheritance, by some disappointed suitor of your bride, or by some malevolent envier of another's happiness. Such, however, is not the fact. The person who writes this owes some grat.i.tude to your family; not so much for what was accomplished, as for what your grandfather sought to accomplish in his favour. You may have heard the story--in which case you will give more credence to the present letter--or you may not have heard the story: but still, the way to satisfy yourself is open before you. Either resolve to question your father boldly concerning the points herein contained; or, if you would have the facts proved so that you cannot doubt them, come alone to the gipsies' tents, in the sand-pit on Morley Down, this evening or early to-morrow morning, and inquire for

"Pharold."

Now, under any ordinary circ.u.mstances, the only course which De Vaux would have pursued might have been, to twist up the paper into any strange and fanciful form that the whim of the moment suggested, and put it into the first fire he met with, giving it hardly a second thought. But there were circ.u.mstances totally distinct from, and independent of, the letter itself, which gave it a degree of importance far above that which it intrinsically possessed. Edward de Vaux, though he had a slight recollection of a dark-eyed, beautiful creature, whom in his infancy he had called mother, lost all remembrance of her at a particular period of his life, and had never since, that he knew of, heard her name mentioned. He pa.s.sed, it is true, for Lord Dewry's legitimate son, was received as such in society, and admitted as such by his own family and relations. But, if so, how was it he had never seen a picture of his mother among those of his ancestors, and beside that of his father, which stood in the gallery, and represented him as a man of about thirty-five years of age?--How was it he had never heard his mother's jewels mentioned, though those of the two baronesses who had preceded her were often referred to? How was it that his aunt, Mrs. Falkland, as he inferred from many facts, had never seen his mother? How was it that his father had never spoken her name in his hearing? All this had often struck him as something very extraordinary; and a thousand minor circ.u.mstances, which cannot be here recapitulated, had shown him that there was some mystery in regard to his family, which had frequently given him pain. Since his return, however, something more had occurred: two or three words had been spoken by his father, during their dispute concerning Colonel Manners, which had startled him at the time with a suspicion which he had instantly banished, but which now came up again with fearful confirmation of the tidings he had just received. Lord Dewry had declared that he could be deprived of the entailed estates of the barony by a single word. At the time, that expression had but slightly alarmed him; for, well knowing the violence of his father's disposition, and the acts and words of almost insane vehemence to which any opposition would drive him, he had instantly concluded that it was a meaningless threat, spoken to punish him for the spirit of resistance he had displayed. But now it came back in its full force; and he asked himself, what could such words mean, if he were a legitimate child? The estates were entailed on the male heir; he himself was the only male heir in the present line; and if by birth he were the lawful son of Lord Dewry, no earthly power could deprive him of the lands of his forefathers. But his father, who had been educated for the bar before he succeeded to the t.i.tle, had told him that a word would take them from him. A stranger now repeated the same tale, and pointed more directly to the same conclusion; and all his former recollections changed his bitter doubts into a terrible certainty.

Edward de Vaux bent down his head upon his hands, and covered his eyes, with a feeling of shame and degradation that was hardly supportable. It was not alone one well of bitterness that was opened upon him; but, in whatever direction he turned his thoughts, new gall and wormwood was poured into his cup. If there had been aught on earth of which he had been proud--and, in that instance, his pride, though bridled and restrained by better feelings, had been great;--if there had been any thing on earth of which he had been proud, it had been of his clear descent from thirteen generations of n.o.ble ancestors. He had taken a delight, even from boyhood, in tracing the recorded history of each, and in proving that there had not been one, from the founder of the family to his own immediate parent, who had not been well deserving of the rank and station that they held in their native land.

He had drawn from his n.o.ble birth the moral which n.o.ble birth should always afford; and had determined that he, too, would deserve the t.i.tle that they had received for great deeds; that he, too, would transmit the jewel of hereditary virtue to his children as an heirloom, unimpaired in pa.s.sing through his hands. He knew that, in the words of a great natural poet,--

"The rank is but the guinea's stamp-- The man's the gold for a' that;"

and he felt that, to bear the name of n.o.ble, without being n.o.ble in his heart, was but to carry the die of value upon inferior metal, and pa.s.s upon society a base and worthless counterfeit. But all such thoughts, such remembrances, and aspirations were now at an end. He could no longer look back to mighty men amid his forefathers, for the world's law cut the link between him and them. He had no longer a proud name to keep up and adorn with n.o.ble actions, for he was an illegitimate son, who had unrightfully usurped the name and station which belonged not to him. His best support, his n.o.blest designs, his most generous purposes, were cast down, and his heart was laid prostrate along with them.

But this was not all: he was now a beggar! the estates were entailed, and descended with the t.i.tle; and though his father lived in somewhat gloomy retirement, yet the state with which he had surrounded his solitude De Vaux well knew could have left little acc.u.mulation from the revenues of his property. Here, then, were new evils to be encountered. Accustomed to luxury, and ease, and plenty, without one thought of that sordid ore, the want of which cramps so many a n.o.ble spirit, and stifles so many a great design, he had lived free from one of the greatest burdens upon man. He had never been lavish or extravagant, for such was not a part of his nature; but he had been generous and liberal to others, as well as at ease himself; and now he felt that every expense must be measured and gauged by considerations of economy; that every guinea must be weighed and estimated before it was parted with; that he must look upon money in a light that he had never done before; that he must make it a continual object of thought; that his mind, like the traveller in the land of the Lilliputians, must be painfully pinioned down on every side by the irritating ties of petty cares; that his ease must be at an end, and his generosity cease.

There was more, however, far more bitter kept mingling in the draught.

Round the idea of one's mother the mind of man clings with fond affection. It is the first sweet, deep thought stamped upon our infant hearts, when yet soft and capable of receiving the most profound impressions, and all the after-feelings of the world are more or less light in comparison. I do not know that even in our old age we do not look back to that feeling as the sweetest we have known through life.

Our pa.s.sions and our wilfulness may lead us far from the object of our filial love; we learn even to pain her heart, to oppose her wishes, to violate her commands; we may become wild, headstrong, and angry at her counsels or her opposition; but when death has stilled her monitory voice, and nothing but calm memory remains to recapitulate her virtues and good deeds, affection, like a flower beaten to the ground by a past storm, raises up her head and smiles among the tears. Round that idea, as we have said, the mind clings with fond affection; and even when the early period of our loss forces memory to be silent, fancy takes the place of remembrance, and twines the image of our dead parent with a garland of graces, and beauties, and virtues, which we doubt not that she possessed. Thus had it been with De Vaux: he could just call to mind a face that had appeared to him very beautiful, and a few kind and tender words from the lips of her he had called mother; but he had fancied her all that was good, and gentle, and virtuous; and now that he was forced to look upon her as a fallen being, as one who had not only forgotten virtue herself, but, in sin, had brought him into the world, to degradation and shame, what could be his feelings towards her?

Horrid! horrid is it to say, that the world should take unto itself that awful power claimed by Almighty Omniscience, of visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, and of making the guiltless offspring more than share the punishment inflicted on the offending parent! But so De Vaux felt that the world does, and that, in his instance, it was not alone the usual contemptible sneer, or still more contemptible neglect, that he was destined to meet; but that he must expect all the venomous pity and malignant compa.s.sion which his fall, more than his situation, would excite, and which the hard and unfeeling beings of the earth affect to experience for those they wish most powerfully to depress.

Such acc.u.mulated feelings were all bitter enough; but there was one more bitter still, more filled with agony and degradation. De Vaux, as we have seen, was engaged to a being full of beauty, and grace, and gentleness, by promises which united them to each other, not alone as persons of high rank and fortune, having found a fitting alliance; but as two people who had known each other from infancy, had grown up in affection, and had for many a year looked forward to their marriage as the means of securing to both the utmost degree of human happiness for life; as the binding on of a talisman, that would shut out from their domestic hearth all the evil things of earth. With De Vaux, these feelings, these antic.i.p.ations, were even stronger. He loved Marian with the fullest, deepest, most pa.s.sionate attachment. Towards her his heart was all fire and thrilling energy; and, though there were times when he somewhat doubted that her feelings were of as powerful a kind towards him, yet he believed that she loved him as much as she could love; and perhaps even her slight reserve made him love her the more ardently. The day for their marriage was already fixed; the bridal ornaments were all prepared; their future life had, in the conversation of that very day, been laid out before them as on a map, and Edward de Vaux had as much doubted, when he sprang from his horse, that Marian, in all her beauty, was to be his bride within three short weeks, as he doubted of his own existence.