Duty and Inclination/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV.
"What day so sacred, which no guilt profanes,
No secret fraud, no open rapine stains?"
Having attained the object of her wishes, Mrs. De Brooke lost no time in making every arrangement in her power towards rendering her new abode as convenient as its circumscribed limits would admit. The chamber which they had taken was soon in a condition to be occupied, even by its present inhabitants, without absolute disgust to its mistress,—from relative considerations more tolerable and delectable than a royal abode where home was wanting.
The apartment overlooking the court being destined for a sitting-room, its bedroom furniture was presently conveyed to the other, which, with the addition of a few more necessary articles, procured through the activity of Robert, soon gave to the chamber an appearance of positive comfort. The other in like manner underwent a similar change; the boarded table and wicker chairs were replaced by a Pembroke and neat japan elbow ones, and a small mirror was suspended over the chimney-piece: but what conduced more to elate the mind of De Brooke, was the choice collection of myrtles and geraniums, reared by the hand of his wife, suddenly transplanted from Kennington, and now decorating his window, supported there by a little verandah, tastefully, through the ingenuity of his wife's directions, erected by Robert; whilst two birds, the favourites of his children, were hung in brass-wire cages on either side.
A metamorphosis so magical and attractive entranced De Brooke, and in a species of delusion, peace and serenity smiling around, he forgot he was the inhabitant of a prison, and that his person was enthralled within its ignoble and narrow confines. The reality of things, however, was not long in forcing itself back upon his thoughts; the heavenly affections daily manifested before him opened a more true and permanent source of alleviation. The strength of mind of his wife, her domestic regulations, every plan she formed, however apparently trifling, gave him subject of delightful contemplation. No deficiency was observable; she seemed to rise above and disregard the adventitious circumstances of fate: what might have been termed privation by others, was nobly sustained by her, as witnessed in the course of each day's actions. And many were those that revolved over their heads affording but the variety of good Mr. and Mrs. Philimore's visits to chequer them.
Sometimes, for the benefit of air and exercise, they walked in the court overlooked by their window; sometimes De Brooke, to vary and amuse the interval whilst his wife was employed at her needle, read to her, till obliged to desist, interrupted by the noisy mirth of their little ones. "Happy children!" exclaimed he; "with hearts elastic ye bound to the touch of joy in every shape, unmindful of your parents' sighs as they reflect upon your future destiny!"
After a due lapse of time, De Brooke became acquainted with several who, like himself, were unhappily doomed to bear the yoke of imprisonment. Count de Bellemare was one of those French noblemen, who, obliged to fly his country, and exiled thence, his person was held in detention within the walls of the Bench; but light, thoughtless and volatile, he seemed not to regard his misfortune as one requiring much depth of philosophy for its endurance. He was one of those who sometimes called to pass away an hour or two in the apartment of Colonel De Brooke. His person was handsome, his manners were polished; and as he had passed much of his time at the French court, his conversation was witty and agreeable, such as rendered his company an acquisition. Sir Henry Hodson also became a very frequent visitor at the door of De Brooke, and his gentle tap never failed to give notice of who was coming; quiet and unassuming in his demeanour, he took his seat; though fearful of obtruding, yet always welcome. Having passed through a variety of chequered scenes in life, his discourse was interspersed by pleasing anecdote, which beguiled attention during the time he indulged his friends with his society. Two or three others also, of an address infinitely above the common, men of sense and erudition, afforded the De Brookes the pleasure of their neighbourly calls.
However such guests might diversify the pursuits of each day, in another point of view they might be found unprofitable, as injurious to the interests of their purse. Comparatively to those who thus courted their acquaintance, the De Brookes enjoyed easy circumstances; partners in affliction, in one common calamity, a nearer sympathy was induced than is found to exist between slight intimates. Glowing with kind fellow-feeling, De Brooke could never turn aside from the voice of sorrow with an unpitying heart. Thus, too often forgetful of his own and his family's interests, he acceded to the requests made to him for the loan of money, and yielded with unsuspecting confidence to the promises made of return. The Baronet was one of those who, from his greater speciousness of humility and candour, had drawn upon him the most largely. Still, however, the society of those well-informed men, who made their visits mostly of an evening, was some compensation, and gave an agreeable close to the day.
Mrs. De Brooke had frequent intervals permitted her for indulging in the delight of social intercourse with her early and attached friend Mrs. Philimore; but, if precluded from a more general acquaintance with her own sex, the intellectual charm derived from the other caused her to be the less sensible of the privation.
Time passed with so little even of casual interruption, that, apparently forgotten by his father, his sister, and the world, fallen into complete oblivion, and living for his family alone, De Brooke seemed as if he had tasted of the precious Nepenthe, so seldom did reflection, as formerly, lead him to the contemplation of his miseries. When man, however, appears the most secure from danger, and the soul in its soft abandonment resigns itself to the stillness of repose; then suddenly, as clouds gather in the horizon, darken to gloom, nor lighten without the flash of the angry thunderbolt; so some fatal calamity, breaking forth in its strength, falls the heavier, desolating the heart, in proportion as, though not unforeseen in its approach, its effect is instantaneous.
Mrs. De Brooke was sometimes in the habit of absenting herself for a few hours in the forenoon, accompanied by Robert and her son Aubrey. Thus, one morning, in leaving her husband, she gave her daughters in charge to him. Scarcely was she gone, and De Brooke, in tender concern to her injunctions, was watching over his children, than he was interrupted by a visit from the Baronet. Though somewhat unprepared for his calling at so early an hour, yet he was not the less welcome. Leaving his little girls in play with each other, he stepped with him into the opposite chamber, where, as soon as seated, the Baronet entered upon the business which had brought him. With looks of consternation, and every degree of plausibility accompanying his words, he spoke of an immediate and pressing necessity, much to the distress of De Brooke, begging for the loan of a certain sum. To have made the offer of a trifling amount, De Brooke would have felt ashamed, and as to one beyond such, he felt would be acting with injustice to his family. Disconcerted by a repetition of these demands, he had nothing for it but to combat with the natural philanthropy of his disposition, and give a decided refusal; unprepared for which, and supposing De Brooke not deficient in the means of obliging him, he again preferred his suit, with a pathetic detail, and solemn promise of a speedy return.
The generous nature of De Brooke, ever ready to lend assistance to the wants of others, was beginning to yield, when, just at that moment, piercing shrieks met his ear, the sounds being those that burst from affrighted children, proceeding from the opposite chamber, into which he precipitately rushed; the door was ajar, and within a fearful bull-dog caught his eye. His children! where were his children? He stood as one petrified, when a closet-door opening suddenly, relieved him from his anguish; he beheld the dear innocents themselves. Scared at the sight of the fierce intruder, they had run with one accord, and, locked in each other's arms, had sheltered themselves, till, in gaining courage, they ventured to peep from the covert inclosing them in darkness.
Upon seeing his little ones in safety, De Brooke was about securing the door against a further entrance of the terrific animal, causing so great a panic, when Count de Bellemare, who occupied an apartment on the story beneath, leisurely mounting the staircase, in a loose robe-de-chambre and slippers, smiling and bowing to De Brooke with his usual courteousness, told him he was come in search of his dog, who, at the call and well-known voice of his master, crept submissively to his feet. Not in humour to encounter one so vivacious as the Count, De Brooke preserved silence: having exchanged salutations, he pointed to the floor, besmeared as it was with blood by the savage dog. With an air half risible, half serious, the Count began to relate his story, till somewhat awed by the indignant glances of his hearer.
"I beg ten tousand pardons," said he, "and am very sorry for de circumstance, which arose from an unfortunate hazard dat could not have been foreseen; dis honest fellow and myself," patting his dog, "were indulging in our usual sport—"
"Sport!" exclaimed De Brooke with a look of incredulity.
"Yes, certainly, sport," returned the Count; "excellent sport; man is fond of de chase, and for de privation of which in dis circumscribed dwelling, I create a substitute; I take a cat, I shut it up in a dark closet, widout food, till it become wild; I den give de creature liberty, and set my dog, dis noble bull-dog here, loose upon it; rendered de more ferocious from abstinence, it tirsts for its prey; dey have togeder a rare battle! de cat, wit flaming eyes, springing, clinging, leaping to de walls, even to de ceiling; till, exhausted by her unnatural efforts, she falls nearly into de jaws of de dog; again she gaders strength, but, closely pursued by her enemy, falls at last, his easy victim. Somebody entering my apartment during de height of dis my entertainment, de cat, profiting by de moment, took her flight, and was pursued, it appears, even to your chamber; encore je demande mille graces for having caused alarm to yourself or de children;" saying which, and politely bowing, he descended to his own apartment, leaving upon the mind of De Brooke lasting impressions against him of contempt and disgust.
The event in itself, however revolting, would from its insignificance, his children having been in no ways affected than by a temporary fright, have been speedily obliterated, had it not been connected with another of the utmost and last importance, bearing with it in its train and superinduced consequences the most grievous and fatal evils. Left to himself, he embraced his precious little daughters, rejoicing to think their mother had not been a witness to what had given even to himself so great an alarm.
Taking them each by the hand, he returned to the sitting-room, where he had left the Baronet. The demand he had made upon his purse returned to his memory, but he was no longer present. Previous to his visit, De Brooke had been making some arrangement of his papers in an écritoire, which then lay open on a table before him; he was about turning the key, but the Baronet's sad countenance haunting his imagination, with the charitable purpose of sending him a few bank-notes, he laid his hand upon a pocket-case, which inclosed the whole of his savings during the period he had inhabited the Bench, and which he had been enabled, through the strict œconomy and frugality of his wife, to amass, towards the liquidation in part of the sums he owed. But what unspeakable astonishment took possession of him, when he found the greater part was abstracted, some bills of small value alone remaining!
If ever philosophy was required by De Brooke, it was at that moment. Even the patient endurance of a stoic might have been overcome: with trembling haste he proceeded to examine and unfold every separate paper within every niche and corner of his desk, till, entirely stripped of its contents, the search he had made left him in hopeless evidence of the fact. Raising his clasped hands and troubled looks, he exclaimed aloud, "The money here deposited with my own hands, 'tis gone, and how? robbed! Good heavens! and by whom?" Leaning his elbow on the table, and pressing his aching temples with his hands, he ruminated upon his unfortunate loss, his cruel and perverse destiny; but the more he did so, the more confused became his ideas. The Baronet, his friend, a gentleman, a man of rank; one with whom he had so familiarly associated;—better to have presented an open weapon to his bosom, he might then have parried the blow,—than have acted in a manner so mean, hidden, and despicable. How should he seek redress? he had no proofs to bring forward; he had no witness to whom to apply; nor did he know the number of the notes he had lost. Revolting as were such suspicions to his feelings, he could not suppress them.
"Robbed, robbed!" again exclaimed he.
Robert, who had just arrived, supposing he had been called, burst into the room, saying, "Missus will be here presently; she has sent me on before her."
Starting from his sorrowful recumbent posture, De Brooke turned, and beheld Robert. Seared as was his heart at that moment towards the Baronet, it expanded with more than usual warmth towards his faithful servant; it had need to disburthen itself, and he thought also, that through the skill and address of Robert, some light might be thrown upon the affair, which without his help might be for ever involved in mystery. He considered him also a sharer in his calamity, to whom he owed more than a year's wages, and still he should be obliged to postpone paying him, wrested from him as was now the power of doing so.
Having first carefully bound Robert to secrecy, De Brooke hasted to reveal confidentially to him the great misfortune he had sustained in the loss of the money, which previous to the coming of the Baronet was still safe in his possession. The honest indignation of the black broke at intervals from his lips; concise and few were his words, but of a nature to prove how deeply he felt the injury done his master. Anger and resentment in their most formidable aspect flamed from his eyes, which had the Baronet been present, might have shaken his every nerve. Even De Brooke, struck by his appearance, sought to subdue his violence, urging the absolute necessity, if they hoped to recover what was lost, of proceeding with caution and moderation.
"Leabe de affair to me, massa, and let me die, if me do not bring back wat you habe lost! Did eber Robert vow, and not make his vow goot? But all shall be secret, fear not; no more for de present. Here comes missus," and he strode out of the chamber.
The heart of De Brooke sensibly lightened by the part his sympathizing and attached servant took in his misfortune: collecting in a mass the scattered papers which lay before him, he prepared with tolerable composure to meet his wife. The long abstracted fits, however, into which he afterwards fell, might certainly have drawn upon him the observation of Mrs. De Brooke, had not her attention been partially called away as the evening closed in by a visit from the Count. He had called with the view of repeating his excuses to Mrs. De Brooke for the intrusion of his dog, which in the morning he had made to the Colonel. The latter, however, in addition to his personal disapprobation of the Counts levity, was not in a humour to find his company any further agreeable, than that, by his supporting a conversation with his wife, it drew her attention from himself, leaving him to the mercy of those reflections, which in spite of his endeavours to banish, nevertheless intruded.
In passing flippantly from subject to subject, the Count again touched upon the entertainment he derived between the combat of the infuriated cat and his ferocious bull-dog. Whilst shuddering at the relation, the mind of Mrs. De Brooke was led to the event of the morning, as she had from time to time gathered it, partly from her husband, and from the children themselves; and which she could not but conclude was the cause of the nervous irritation from which her husband was apparently suffering. Interrupting the Count, she could not forbear expostulating with him on so cruel a sport. But, treating her arguments with jocularity, he defended himself with an address worthy of a better cause.
No longer inclined to dispute, Mrs. De Brooke fell into that silence and reserve by which her husband was affected; she saw in the Count nothing that could please her, and wondered she had been before so blind to his demerits; his gaiety appeared but trifling, his conversation insipid, and, in a word, himself contemptible; proving, that when the congenial sympathies are dissolved, the telescope of human judgment becomes reversed, and we see as through fresh optics.
Perceiving a change so visible in the manner of Mrs. De Brooke, the Count would have departed, inwardly deriding what he termed narrow prejudice confounding with criminal sports a harmless diversion. Dissembling his feelings, not wishing to take his leave abruptly, he spoke of other subjects; ever fluent he was not at a loss; and amongst his sudden transitions, "Dere", exclaimed he, "is a lucky fellow,—Sir Henry Hodson—"
De Brooke, who had sunk upon his chair, feigning sleep, started suddenly from his seat, fixing upon the Count an eye that would have penetrated his soul.
"Echappé," continued the Count, "escaped from prison, is now enjoying liberty at large. Happy man! it was but dis morning dat I saw him de same woeful knight as usual, and dis afternoon il est libre! Reservé, profond comme il était, on n'aurait pas cru que son exit was so near."
The hopes of De Brooke died within him; secret torture racked his bosom, under the supposition of so large an amount being irrecoverably lost to him. The Count rose to take his leave, and De Brooke retired to his pillow.