Not doubting at all, however, that one of the interlocutors was the person who was to guide him on his way, Wilton paused, determined to wait till they came up.

A loud "So be it then!" was at length uttered; and the next moment steps were heard advancing rapidly towards him, and the figure of a man made its appearance through the mist, first like one of the fabled shades upon the dim sh.o.r.es of the gloomy river, but growing into solidity as it came near.

CHAPTER XXIII.

For the right understanding of all that is to follow--strange as it may appear to the reader, we are only just at the beginning of the story--it may be necessary to go back to the house of Monsieur Plessis, and to trace the events of the past day, till we have brought them exactly down to that precise time Wilton was walking, as we have described, with a mist around him both moral and physical, upon the road between High Halstow and Cowley. We must even go beyond that, and introduce the reader into a lady's bedchamber, on the morning of that day, as she was dressing herself after the night's repose; though, indeed, repose it could scarcely be called, for those bright eyes had closed but for a short period during the darkness, and anxiety and grief had been the companions of her pillow. Yet it is not Lady Laura of whom we speak, but of that gentle-looking and beautiful lady whom we have described as sitting in the saloon of Plessis's house, shortly before the conspirators a.s.sembled there.

Without any of the aids of dress or ornament, she was certainly a very beautiful being, and as, sitting before the gla.s.s, she drew out with her taper fingers the glossy curls of her rich dark hair, nothing could be more graceful than the att.i.tudes into which the whole form was cast. Often as she did so, she would pause and meditate, leaning her head upon her hand for a moment or two. Sometimes she would raise her eyes imploringly towards Heaven, and once those eyes became full of tears. She wiped them away hastily, however, as if angry with herself for giving way, and then proceeded eagerly with the task of the toilet.

While she was thus engaged, some one knocked at the door, which she unlocked, and the next instant, another lady, to whom the reader has been already introduced, entered the chamber. It was the same person whom we have called the Lady Helen, in her interview with Wilton Brown; and there was still in the expression of her countenance that same look of tender melancholy which is generally left upon the face by long grief acting upon an amiable heart. It was, indeed, less the expression of a settled gloom on her own part, than of sympathy with the sorrows of others, rendered more active by sorrows endured herself. On the present occasion she had a note in her hand, which she held out towards the fair girl whom she had interrupted at her toilet, saying, with a faint smile, "There, Caroline--I hope it may bring you good news, dear girl." The other took it eagerly, and broke the seal, with hands that trembled so much that they almost let the paper drop.

"Oh, Lady Helen," cried the younger lady, while the colour came and went in her cheek, and her eyes sparkled, and then again nearly overflowed, "we must, indeed, we must stay over to-day. He says he will come down to see me this afternoon. Indeed we must stay; for it is my last chance, Helen dear, my last chance of happiness in life."

"We will stay, of course, Caroline," replied the other; "but I trust, my poor girl, that if you see him, you will act both wisely and firmly. Let him not move you to yield any farther than you have done; left him not move you, my sweet Caroline, to remain in a degrading and painful state of doubt. Act firmly, and as you proposed but yesterday, in order, at least, if you do no more, not to be, as it were, an accomplice in his ill-treatment of yourself."

"Oh no!" replied the other--"oh no! Fear not, dear lady, that I will deal with him otherwise than firmly. But yet you know he is my husband, Helen, and I cannot refuse to obey his will, except where he requires of me a breach of higher duties."

"Ay," replied the Lady Helen. "When he claims you openly as his wife, Caroline, then he has a right to command, and no one can blame you for obeying; but he must not take the whole advantage of his situation as your husband, without giving you the name and station, or suffering you to a.s.sume the character of his wife. Let him now do you justice in these respects, or else, dear Caroline, leave him!

fly from him! strive to forget him! Look upon yourself as widowed, and try to bear your sorrow as an infliction from the hand of Heaven, for having committed this action without your father's knowledge and consent."

"Oh, Helen!" replied the other, mournfully, "you know my father was upon the bed of death; you know that Henry was obliged to depart in three weeks; you know that I loved him, and that if I had parted with him then, without giving him the hand I had promised, it might have been years before I saw him again; for then I should have had no t.i.tle to seek him as his wife, and the ports of France were not likely to be opened to him again. Would you have had me agitate my father at that moment? Could I refuse to be his, under such circ.u.mstances, when I believed every word that he said, when I thought that if he departed without being my husband, I might not behold him for many years to come?"

"Forgive me for glancing at the past, poor child," replied her friend--"I meant not to imply a reproach, Caroline; but all I wish is to counsel you to firmness. Let not love get the better of your judgment. But tell him your determination at once, and abide by it when it is told. If you would ever obtain justice for yourself, Caroline, now is the moment. He himself will love and respect you more for it hereafter. He a.s.signs no reason for farther delay; and his letters, hitherto, have certainly suggested no motives which could lead either your judgment or your affection to consent to that which is degrading to yourself. I have seen enough of these things, Caroline, and I know that they always end in misery."

"Misery!" replied the younger lady, "alas! Helen, what have I to expect but misery? Oh, Helen, it is not that he does not openly acknowledge our marriage, and forbids me to proclaim it--it is not that which makes me unhappy. Heaven knows, were that all, I could willingly go on without the acknowledgment. I could shut myself from the day, devote myself to him alone, forswear rank, and station, and the pleasures of affluence, for nothing but his love; so long that, knowing I myself was virtuous, I also knew that he continued to love me well. It is not that, Helen, it is not that; but all which I have heard a.s.sures me, that notwithstanding every vow of amendment, of changed life, of constant affection towards me, he is faithless to me in a thousand instances; that his wish of longer concealment proceeds, not from necessity, but from a libertine spirit; in short, Helen, that I have been for a week the creature of his pleasure, but that he never really loved me; that his heart rested with me for an hour, and has now gone on to others."

As she spoke, she sank again into her chair, and clasping her hands together as they rested on her knee, fixed her eyes upon the ground during a moment or two of bitter thought.

The other lady advanced toward her, and after gazing at her for a minute, she kissed her beautiful brow affectionately, saying, "Nevertheless, Caroline, he does love you. He is a libertine by habit, Caroline, I trust not a libertine in heart; and I see in every line that he writes to you that he loves you still, and always will love you. It is my belief, dear Caroline, that if you behave well to him now, firmly, though kindly, gently, though decidedly; if you yield nothing, either to love, or importunity, or remonstrance, but tell him that you now bid him farewell for ever if he so chooses it, and that you will never either see him, or hear from him, or write to him, till he comes openly as your husband, and gives you the same vows and a.s.surance of future affection and good conduct that he did at first--it is my firm conviction, I say, that the love for you which I see is still strong within him, the only good thing perhaps in his heart, will bring him back to you at last. Pa.s.sion may lead him astray, folly may get the better of reason, evil habits may rule him for a time; but the memory of your sweetness, and your beauty, and your firmness, and your gentleness, will come back upon his mind, even in the society of the gay, the light, and the profligate, and will seem like a diamond beside false stones."

"Hush, hush, hush!" said the younger lady, blushing deeply--"I must not hear such praises, Helen: praises that I do not deserve."

"Nay, my dear child, I speak but what I mean," replied the Lady Helen--"I say that the recollection of you and your young fresh beauty, and your generous mind, will return to his remembrance, my Caroline, at all times and in all circ.u.mstances, even the most opposite: in the midst of various enjoyments, in the heated revel, and in the idle pageant; when lonely in his chamber, when suffering distress, or pain, or illness; amidst the reverses and the strife, as well as in the prosperity and the vanities, of the world, he will remember you and love you still. That memory will be to him as a sweet tune that we have loved in our youth, the recollection of which brings with it always visions of the only joys that we have known without alloy. But still, remember, Caroline, that the condition on which this is to be obtained, the condition on which his recollection of you is to be, as it were, a precious antidote to the evils of his heart, is, that you now act towards him with firmness and with dignity."

"But suppose, dear lady," said the other, "that he were to ask me to remain with him, still concealing our marriage. Nay, look not terrified--I am not going to do it. I have told you how I am going to act, and, on my honour, I will keep to my determination. I only ask you what you think would then be the consequences?"

"Destruction both to you and to him," replied the Lady Helen: "he would never look upon you entirely as his wife, he would never treat you entirely as such. You would dwell with him almost as a concubine.--Forgive me, but it must be spoken.--He would grow tired of your beauty, weary of your society; your virtues would be lost upon him, because he would see that firmness was not amongst them, and he would not respect you because you had not respected yourself.

There is something, Caroline, in the state and dignity, if I may so call it, which surrounds a virtuous married woman, that has a great effect upon her husband, ay, and a great effect upon herself. There is not one man, Caroline, out of a million, who has genuine n.o.bility of heart enough to stand the test of a long concealed private marriage. I never saw but one, Caroline, and I have mingled with almost every scene of human life, and seen the world with almost all its faces. However, here, there can be no cause which should justly induce you to consent to live with him under such circ.u.mstances, and there are a thousand causes to prevent you from so doing. If you were to do it, you would lose your respect for yourself, and how then could you expect that he would retain any for you?"

The conversation was some time protracted in the same tone, and nearly a whole hour was thus pa.s.sed ere the younger lady was dressed and ready to accompany her friend to breakfast.

Monsieur Plessis was there to do the honours of his table, treating his fair guests not exactly as his equals, but yet behaving not at all as an Englishman, under such circ.u.mstances, could have demeaned himself He was polite, attentive, deferential; but he was still Monsieur Plessis in his own house. There can be no doubt that all he furnished them with was amply paid for; but yet he had an air of conferring a favour, and indeed felt that he did so when he received them into his dwelling at all. There was thus an air of gallantry mingled with his respectfulness, a sweet smile that bent his lips when he pressed either of them to their food, a courteous and affable look when he greeted them for the first time that clay, all of which spoke that Monsieur Plessis felt that he was laying them under an obligation, and wished to do it in the most graceful manner possible.

The breakfast table was beautifully laid out, with damask linen of the finest quality, and more silver than was usually displayed at that day even in families of distinction. Both the ladies seated themselves; and Plessis was proceeding to recommend some of the most exquisite chocolate which had ever been brought from Portugal--at least so he a.s.sured them--when the elder lady interrupted its praises by saying, "Had we not better wait a little, Monsieur Plessis, for the young lady whom we saw yesterday?"

Plessis, however, put his finger on his large nose, saying, "Her breakfast will be taken to her in her chamber, Miladi. There are mysteries in all things, as you well know. Now here you are; and there are nine or ten gentlemen meet at my house every night, from whom I am obliged to hide that you are in the place at all. Here is this young lady, whom, it seems, I should have concealed from you in the same way: only I could not refuse to let you see her and speak to her yesterday, in order that you might be kind to her on board the ship; for she is to go in the ship with you, you know, and she seems quite helpless, and not accustomed to all these things. When the worthy gentlemen found that the ship was not to sail last night, they were in great embarra.s.sment, and charged me strictly not to let her see any one till the ship sailed; and I find they have put a man to watch on both sides of the house, so that no one can go out or come in without being seen. They told me nothing about it; and that was uncivil; but, however, I must keep her to her own room; for the man that they left in the house, with my consent, to keep guard over her, watches sharply also."

The elder lady said nothing, but the colour of the younger heightened a good deal at this detail, and she started up indignantly as soon as Plessis had finished, exclaiming, "Nonsense, sir. I never heard of such a thing!--You, a man of honour and gallantry," she continued, with a gay smile, such as had once been common to her countenance, pa.s.sing over it for a moment--"you, a man of honour and gallantry, Monsieur Plessis, consenting to see a lady discourteously used and maltreated in your house, and a stranger put as a spy upon you in your own dwelling. Fie! For shame! I never heard of such a thing! I shall go immediately to her, with your compliments, and ask her to come to breakfast. And let me see if this spy upon you will dare to stop me."

"Oh no, Miladi," replied Plessis, "he is not a spy upon me; but I said myself I would have nothing to do with the young lady being detained; that it was no part of my business, and should not be done by my people; that they might have the rooms at the west corner of the house if they liked, but that I would have nothing to do with it.

I beseech you, dear lady," he continued, seeing Caroline moving towards the door--"I beseech you, do not meddle; for this is a very dangerous and bad business, and I fear it will end ill, Nay, nay!"

and springing towards the door, he placed himself between it and the lady, bowing lowly, with his hand upon his heart, and exclaiming, "Humbly on my knees I kiss your beautiful feet, and beseech you not to meddle with this bad business."

"A very bad business, indeed," said Caroline; "and it is for that very reason that I am going to meddle, Monsieur Plessis. Do me the favour of getting out of my way. I thought you were a man of gallantry and spirit, Monsieur Plessis.--I am determined; so there is no use in opposing me."

Plessis shrugged up his shoulders, bowed his head low, and with a look which said as plainly as any look could say, "I see there is never any use of opposing a woman," he suffered the fair lady to pa.s.s out, while her friend remained sitting thoughtfully at the table.

The lady whom we have called Caroline walked quietly along one of the corridors of the house till she came to a spot where a man in the garb of a sailor was sitting on a large chest, with his elbows on his two knees, and his chin on his two hands, looking very much wearied with his watch, and swinging one of his feet backwards and forwards disconsolately. There was a door farther on, and towards it the lady walked, but found that it was locked, though the key was on the outside. The sailor personage had started up as she pa.s.sed, and then gazed at her proceedings with no small surprise; but as she laid her hand upon the lock, he came forward, saying, "Ma'am, what do you want there?".

"I want," replied the lady, turning round, and looking at him from head to foot, "I merely to call this young lady to breakfast. Be so good as to open the door: the lock is rather stiff."

She spoke so completely with the tone of calm authority, that the man did not even hesitate, but opened the door wide, taking it for granted that she had some right to enter. The lady was about to go in; but suddenly a feeling of apprehension seized her, lest the man should shut the door and lock it upon her also; and pausing in the doorway, she addressed Lady Laura, who we need scarcely tell the reader was within,--"I have come to ask you," she said, "if you will go with me to breakfast."

"Oh gladly, gladly!" cried the poor girl, darting forward, and holding out her hands to her; and Caroline, drawing one fair arm through her own, led her onward to the room where she had left the Lady Helen.

The man paused and hesitated, and then followed the two ladies along the pa.s.sage; but before he was near enough to hear what was said, Caroline had whispered to her companion, "It is already done: I have had an answer to my note, which went in the same packet, so that the place of your detention is now certainly known to those who will not fail to send you aid."

The bright joy that came up in the eyes of Laura might very well have betrayed to the man who guarded her, had he seen her face, that she has received more intelligence than his employers could have wished.

He followed, however, at some distance, without taking any notice; and seeming to think it enough to watch her movements, and prevent her egress from the house, he seated himself again near the door of the chamber where breakfast had been prepared, while Laura and her fair companion entered the room.

They found the Lady Helen and Monsieur Plessis in eager conversation, the lady having just announced to him her intention of delaying their departure till another day; and he, who was in fact part proprietor of the vessel which was to bear them to France, and was actuated by very different views, urging her eagerly to follow her first intention of sailing that night. He made representations of all sorts of dangers and difficulties which were to arise from the delay; the two ladies were likely to be arrested; he was likely to be ruined; the master of the ship would sail without them; and in short, everything was represented as about to happen which could induce them to take their departure with all speed.

The Lady Helen, however, was resolute. She replied that, from what she had heard in London, she was convinced there was not the least chance whatsoever of their even being inquired after, and much less of their being arrested; that his ruin was only likely to be a consequence of the arrest, and therefore that was disposed of. Then again, in regard to the captain of the vessel sailing without them, she said that was improbable, inasmuch as he would thereby lose the large sum he was to receive, both for bringing them thither and taking them back.

Now, though Monsieur Plessis was, in his way, a very courageous and determined person, who in dealing with his fellow men could take his own part very vigorously, and, as we have shown, successfully, yet he was much feebler in the presence of a lady, and on the present occasion, with three to one, they certainly made him do anything they liked. The consequence was, that Laura was permitted to spend a great part of that day with the two accidental tenants of Monsieur Plessis's house; and not a little comfort, indeed, was that permission to her.

It was a moment when any society would have been a great consolation and relief. But there was in the two ladies with whom she was now a.s.sociated for the time much more to interest and to please. The manners of each were of the highest tone; the person of each was highly pleasing; and when Laura turned to the Lady Helen, and marked the gentle pensiveness of her beautiful countenance, listened to the high, pure, n.o.ble words that hung upon her lips, and marked the deep feelings which existed beneath an exterior that people sometimes thought cold, the remembrance of her own mother rose up before her, and she felt a sort of clinging yearning towards a being who resembled her in so many respects.

With the younger lady, too, she had many a thought and many a feeling in common. Caroline was a few years older than herself, and evidently more acquainted with the world; but there were deep strong feelings apparent in every word she uttered--a thoughtfulness (if we may so express ourselves) which blended with an air of carelessness--a depth to be seen even through occasional lightness, which was only like a profound river rippled by a rapid breeze. Each had subjects for thought; each had more or less matter for grief or apprehension; but each found relief in the society of the other; and the day pa.s.sed over more happily than Laura could have imagined it would have done in such circ.u.mstances.

Towards evening, indeed, she became anxious and apprehensive, for no attempt to deliver her had, apparently, been made, and she had been warned that she was to embark for France that night. From this apprehension, however, the Lady Helen speedily relieved her, by a.s.suring her that there was no other ship to convey her but that which was hired to take herself and her young friend to France, and that they had determined upon putting off their departure till the succeeding night.

About the same hour, however, Caroline became uneasy and agitated.

She rose often; she looked often at her watch; she gazed out froth the window; she turned her eyes to the sky; and in the end she retired for a time to her own chamber, and returned shortly after, dressed for going out, with a short black cloak, richly trimmed, cast over her shoulders, and a silk hood, stiffened with whalebone and deeply fringed with lace, covering her head and the greatest part of her face.

"Who are you going to take with you, my dear child, to show you the way?" said the Lady Helen.

"No one, sweet lady," replied the other. "While you were away from me in London I had plenty of opportunity to explore every path round this house, and the place is so distinctly marked, that neither he nor I can mistake it."

Lady Helen looked in her face for a moment with an expression somewhat sad as well as inquiring; and her beautiful companion, as if comprehending at once what she meant, advanced quietly towards her, knelt on the footstool at her feet, and putting her two hands in hers, she said, "I promise you most solemnly, dearest lady--most solemnly and firmly do I promise, not to suffer myself to be shaken in any one of the resolutions which I have taken with your advice."

"Thank you, my child, thank you," cried the elder lady, "thank you for giving me the prospect, Caroline, of seeing you ultimately happy.

But oh, do not be late, my sweet child. Return to us soon. The country is in a distracted state--the hour is very late. You see it is already growing dusk."

"I will return as soon as I can," replied Caroline, and left the room.

The man who was still on watch in the pa.s.sage looked at her attentively, but said nothing; and Plessis, who was at the door speaking to two ship-boys, said merely, "It is very cold and very late, madame. I wonder you don't get cold with such late walks."