CHAPTER XII.

A SOLEMN APPEAL.

A few days pa.s.sed away in Dalton Hall, and Edith began to understand perfectly the nature of the restraint to which she was subjected. That restraint involved nothing of the nature of violence. No rude or uncivil word was spoken to her. Wiggins and Mrs. Dunbar had professed even affection for her, and the two servants never failed to be as respectful as they could. Her restraint was a certain environment, so as to prevent her from leaving the park grounds. She felt walled in by a barrier which she could not pa.s.s, but within this barrier liberty of movement was allowed. At the same time, she knew that she was watched; and since her first discovery of Hugo on her track, she felt sure that if she ever went any where he would stealthily follow, and not allow her to go out of sight. Whether he would lift his hand to prevent actual escape, if the chance should present itself, was a thing which she could not answer, nor did she feel inclined to try it as yet.

During the few days that followed her first memorable experience she made no further attempt to escape, or even to search out a way of escape. What had become of Miss Plympton she did not know, and could only imagine. She still indulged the hope, however, that Miss Plympton was at Dalton, and looked forward with confidence to see her coming to Dalton Hall, accompanied by the officers of the law, to effect her deliverance. It was this hope that now sustained her, and prevented her from sinking into despair.

Of Wiggins during these few days she saw nothing more than a distant glimpse. She remained in the room which she first occupied during the greater part of the time. Nor did she see much of Mrs. Dunbar. From an occasional remark she gathered that she was cleaning the drawing-room or dusting it; but in this Edith now took no interest whatever. The Hall was now a prison-house, and the few plans which she had been making at first were now thrown aside and forgotten. Mrs. Dunbar brought her her meals at regular intervals, but Edith never took the slightest notice of her. She could not help observing at times in Mrs. Dunbar's manner, and especially in her look, a whole world of sorrowful sympathy, but after her unmistakable championship of Wiggins, she could not feel the slightest confidence in her.

At length one morning Wiggins once more called upon her. She was seated near the window when she heard a knock. The door was already open, and turning, she saw Wiggins. She bowed slightly, but said nothing, and Wiggins bowed in return, after which he entered and seated himself, fixing his solemn eyes upon her in his usual way.

"It is a matter of great regret," said he, "that I am forced to give pain to one for whom I entertain so much kindness, and even, let me add, affection. Had you made your return to this place a little less abruptly, you would have found, I am sure, a different reception, and your position would have been less unpleasant."

"Would you have allowed me my liberty," asked Edith, "and the society of my friends, if I had delayed longer before my return? If so, let me go back now, and I will give you notice before coming here again."

Wiggins shook his head mournfully.

"I am one," said he, "who has had deeper sorrows than usually fall to the lot of man; yet none, I a.s.sure you--no, not one--has ever caused me more pain than my present false position toward you. Can you not place some confidence in me, and think that this is all for--for your good?"

"You speak so plaintively," said Edith, "that I should be touched, if your words were not belied by your acts. What do you think can compensate for the loss of liberty? Were you ever imprisoned? Did you ever have a jailer over you? Did you ever know what it was to be shut in with walls over which you could not pa.s.s, and to know that the jailer's eyes were always upon you? Wait till you have felt all this, and then you will understand how empty and idle all your present words must be."

While she said these words Wiggins sat as if he had been turned to stone. His eyes were fixed on her with a look of utter horror. His hands trembled. As she stopped he shuddered, and hastily looked behind him. Then another shudder pa.s.sed through him. At last with a violent effort, be recovered something of his former calm.

"G.o.d grant," said he, "that you may never know what I have known of all that which you now mention!"

His voice trembled as he spoke these words, and when he had said them he relapsed into silence.

"Since you have invoked the name of the Deity," said Edith, solemnly, "if you have any reverence for your Maker, I ask you now, in His name, by what right you keep me here."

"I am your--guardian," said Wiggins, slowly; "your--guardian; yes," he added, thoughtfully, "that is the word."

"My guardian! Who made you my guardian? Who had the right to put you over me?"

Wiggins paused, and raised his head, which had been bent forward for a few moments past, looked at Edith with a softer light in his solemn eyes, and said, in a low voice, which had a wonderful sweetness in its intonation,

"Your father."

Edith looked at him earnestly for a moment, affected in spite of herself by his look and by his voice; but suddenly the remembrance of her wrongs drove off completely her momentary emotion.

"Do you think my father would have made you my guardian," said she, "if he had suspected what you were going to do with me?"

"I solemnly a.s.sure you that he did know, and that he did approve."

At this Edith smiled. Wiggins now seemed too methodical for a madman, and she began to understand that he was a.s.suming these solemn airs, so as to make an impression upon her. Having made up her mind to this, she determined to question him further, so as to see what more he proposed to do.

"Your father," said Wiggins, "was my friend; and I will do for you whatever I would have done for him."

"I have no doubt of that," said Edith. "Indeed, you are doing for me now precisely what I have reason to understand you did for him."

"I do not comprehend you," said Wiggins.

"It is of no consequence," said Edith. "We will let it pa.s.s. Let us return to the subject. You a.s.sert that you are my guardian. Does that give you the right to be my jailer--to confine me here, to cut me off from all my friends?"

"You use harsh words," said Wiggins; "but nevertheless it is a fact that the law does allow the guardian this power. It regards him in the place of a parent. All that a father can do, a guardian can do. As a father can restrain a child, so can a guardian, if he deems such restraint necessary. Moreover, if the ward should escape, the law will hand him back to his guardian, just as it would hand, back a child to its father."

Not one word of this did Edith believe, and so it made no impression.

Having already got the idea in her mind that Wiggins was melodramatic, and playing a part, she had no doubt that his words would be regulated by the same desire that governed his acts, and would be spoken exclusively with the view of producing an impression upon herself. She therefore looked at him with unchanged feelings, and instantly replied:

"It would be very fortunate for you if it were so, but for my part I think better of the law. At the same time, since you claim all this authority over me, I should like to know how long you think this power will last. You do not seem to think that I am of age."

"That matters not," said Wiggins. "My control over the estates and, my guardianship over you are of such a nature that they can not cease till your marriage."

"Oh, then," said Edith, "according to that, I ought to try to get married as soon as possible. And this, I suppose, is your sole reason for shutting me up?"

Wiggins said nothing, but sat looking gloomily at her.

By his last words Edith now found what appeared to her a clew to his whole plan. He was, or pretended to be, her guardian; he had been appointed, or pretended to have been appointed, by her father. It might have been so. Edith could well imagine how in previous years he had made this false friend his executor and the guardian of his child; and then, in the anguish of the trial and of the punishment, forgotten to annul the deed; or Wiggins may have forged the doc.u.ment himself. If he really was the false friend who had betrayed her father, and who had committed that forgery for which her father innocently suffered, then he might easily forge such a doc.u.ment as this in her father's name.

Such was her conclusion from his words though she did not think fit to say as much to him. What she did say, however, seemed to have affected him, for he did not speak for some time.

"You have no conception," said he at length, "of the torment that some of your careless words cause. You do not know what you do, or what you say. There is something that I can not tell, whatever be the price of silence--something that concerns you and me, and your father, and two great houses--and it is this that makes me dumb, and forces me to stand in this false position. You look upon me as the crafty, scheming steward--one who is your pitiless jailer--and I have to bear it. But there is something which I can say--and I warn you, or rather I implore you, not to disbelieve me; I entreat you to let my words have some weight. I declare to you, then, by all that is most sacred among men, that this restraint which I ask you to undergo is out of no selfish desire, no avarice, no lack of honor for you, and--affection, but because of a plan which I have, the success of which concerns all of us, and you not the least."

Edith listened to this without emotion, though at another time the solemnity of such an appeal could not have failed to enforce belief. But now Wiggins seemed only melodramatic, and every word seemed false.

"What plan?" she asked.

"It is this," said, Wiggins, looking all around with his usual cautions vigilance, and drawing nearer to her. "Your father's name is a dishonored one--the name you bear is covered with the stain of infamy.

What would you not give if his memory could be redeemed from wrong; if even at this late hour his character could be vindicated? You have, I am sure, a n.o.ble and a devoted heart. You would be willing to do much for this. But what I ask of you is very little. I ask only silence and seclusion. If you should consent to this, my work may be done before very long; and then, whatever may be your feelings toward me, I shall feel that I have done my work, and nothing further that this world may do, whether of good or evil, shall be able to affect me. I ask this--more, I entreat it of you, I implore you, in the sacred name of an injured father, by all his unmerited wrongs and sufferings, to unite with me in this holy purpose, and help me to accomplish it. Do not be deceived by appearances. Believe me, I entreat you, for your father's sake."

Never were words spoken with greater apparent earnestness than these; and never was any voice or manner more solemn and impressive. Yet upon Edith no more effect was produced than before. When she had asked him what his plan was, she had been prepared for this, or something like it.

She saw now that the mode by which he tried to work upon her was by adopting the solemn and the pathetic style. The consequence was that every gesture, every intonation, every look, seemed artificial, hollow, and insincere. For never could she forget the one fatal fact that this was her jailer, and that she was a helpless prisoner. More than this, he had as good as a.s.serted his intention of keeping her a prisoner till her marriage, which, under such circ.u.mstances, meant simply till her death.

Not for one instant could he be brought to consent to relax the strictness of his control over her. For such a man to make such an appeal as this was idle; and she found herself wondering, before he had got half through, why he should take the trouble to try to deceive her.

When he had finished she did not care to answer him, or to tell him what was on her, mind. She was averse to quarrels, scenes, or anything approaching to scolding or empty threats. What she did say, therefore, was; perfectly commonplace, but for that reason perhaps all the more disappointing to the man who had made such an appeal to her.

"What you say," said she, "does not require any answer. It is as though I should ask you to submit to imprisonment for an indefinite period, or for life, for instance, for the sake of a friend. And you would not think such a request very reasonable. What I require of you is, not idle words, but liberty. When you ask me to believe you, you must first gain my confidence by treating me with common justice. Or if you will not release me, let me at least see my friends. That is not much. I have only one friend--Miss Plympton."

"You appear to think more of this Miss Plympton than you do of your own father," said Wiggins, gloomily.

"What I think of my father is of no consequence to you," said Edith; "but as to Miss Plympton, she took me as a dying gift from my dear mamma, and has loved me with a mother's love ever since, and is the only mother I have known since childhood. When you turned her away from my gates you did an injury to both of us which makes all your protestations of honesty useless. But she is not under your control, and you may be sure that she will exert herself on my behalf. It seems to me that you have not considered what the result will be if she comes back in the name of the law."

"I have considered every thing," said Wiggins. Then, after a pause, he added, "So you love Miss Plympton very dearly?"

"Very, very dearly!"