Duty and Inclination/Chapter 19
CHAPTER XIX.
..."Mercy is above the scepter'd sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice."
Shakspeare.
After the expiration of a few days, the lawyer employed by Sir Aubrey again called upon De Brooke. His aspect bore the same appearance of indifference and mercenary restraint as before. As soon as seated, he proceeded to state that Sir Aubrey pursued the business he had entered upon with the greatest reluctance; menacing a discontinuance of it, from the difficulty of gaining any satisfactory compromise with his creditors; some of whom were willing to accede to the propositions made, but others, and by far the greater number, remained obstinately bent upon receiving the entire amount of the debts due; "in short", added he, "if it were not for the command to which you are appointed in Ireland, and the consequent necessity of your repairing thither immediately. Sir Aubrey would at once throw up the business."
Dispiriting as was this language, yet the intelligence gained by De Brooke as to the place of his destination was by no means so. If he was doomed to no worse an exile than to Ireland he had no cause to complain; but ere he allowed himself to give way to exultation, the point in question demanded his serious attention. Dry and laconic in his speech as was the lawyer, he was entirely checked in his attempt of procuring from him further intelligence respecting the post allotted him by Government.
"As long," continued he, "as one creditor holds out our hopes are frustrated; I am come therefore, by the special order of Sir Aubrey, to inform you of the fact, under the possibility that you yourself may have the power of making a better compromise, by writing to those who more particularly oppose our views, promising that as soon as your circumstances permit, you will afford them by instalments the entire liquidation they demand."
Having thus delivered his message, scarcely waiting a reply, he seized his hat and departed.
"How cruel is it," said De Brooke to his wife, "to feel myself so absolutely dependent, on an occasion like the present, upon the compulsory bounty of my father! a misfortune that renders doubly unfortunate the robbery I have sustained, since I am well assured, that what will now be advanced for the purpose of my release, will be so much deducted from my children's future inheritance. It is a melancholy truth, and in common justice it is but myself I should blame, the culpable extravagance of my past conduct having led to this. I would fain think otherwise; but, believe me, if I outlive my father, you will find these words but too well verified."
Surrounded by the multiplicity of duties attending his high station near the crown, Sir Aubrey was sensible of a wound, ever probing his heart, inflicted by the mortifications he endured on his son's account; and that to a degree preventing the entire subjugation of his mind to those important councils and affairs of state that demanded his deepest attention.
In the full unbounded confidence and favour of His Majesty, there was no unreasonable request which the Royal bounty would withhold, either for his own aggrandisement or that of his family: so great were his talents, public virtues, and devotion to his monarch held in estimation, that in recompense for the valuable services he afforded the government of his country, it was but for him to suggest the mode of advancing his interests, to have them ratified to the fullest extent. Satisfied, however, with the many dignities and honours already conferred upon him, he deemed it would be an abuse of the royal clemency to solicit more. Every distinction hitherto obtained had come unsought for, and he might even have profited by greater, a peerage having been lately offered him; he might have exchanged his title of knighthood for that of lord; he had declined the honour. But why (the reader will exclaim) such moderation in one aspiring after fame? The answer is evidently because he sought to reflect lustre on himself alone; the angry and disappointed feelings engendered against his son, caused him to reject every hereditary privilege, however worthy of his ambition.
Though tracing his line of pedigree even to the Norman conqueror, yet, being in his first military onset comparatively but an obscure individual, it was not by good fortune alone, the martial glory which beamed around him, or celebrity accompanying his name,—he had certainly sprung to eminence from causes superior to mere adventitious ones; and thus he had successively risen to the honourable station he then filled. Good fortune may ensure success to the general in the field; but something more than good fortune must attend the statesman, in whom the utmost profundity of intellect and solidity of judgment are essential,—holding, as did Sir Aubrey, in connection with his military titles, the rank of Right Honourable Member of His Majesty's Privy Council. And the simple title of Sir, prefixed to his name as a badge of the distinguished order bestowed upon him, was prized infinitely above any loftier title, since it would cease with himself, nor be transferred to successors with whose name he did not choose that, in future ages, his individual fame should be confounded.
Sir Aubrey, therefore, though unable to forget he had a son who bore his name, the legitimate representative of his race, yet endeavoured carefully to shun all occasions that might lead to inquiries concerning him. Frustrated by the means he had proposed in forwarding his aggrandisement, by presenting him to his sovereign as an object worthy of his patronage, it only remained that while, under the circumstance of his imprisonment and painful persuasion, obloquy on his son's account might attach to himself, he, the father, should be the first to throw over him an impenetrable veil, by erasing if possible the name of Colonel De Brooke from the court.
Such was the public line of conduct pursued by Sir Aubrey against his son, whilst his private feelings, burning with indignation on account of his clandestine marriage, decided him to let him remain in prison. The better fortune of De Brooke, however, ordained it to be otherwise; and succeeding events, if they disarmed not wholly Sir Aubrey's resentment, suspended for awhile its effects. By an act of special favour, notice was communicated to him from a high quarter, intimating the command to which his son was appointed, and which would require him to hold himself in readiness to embark for Ireland. The alternative to which, by this timely intimation, Sir Aubrey found himself reduced—of abandoning on his son's behalf the fair prospect of honour and advancement, or of taking openly an active part in his affairs—could admit no longer of hesitation. Incensed as he was, to have so punished his son at the expense of his own pride and ambition was a measure more foreign to his character than to have disowned him for ever. He was determined, therefore, to inquire without delay into the affairs, with a view to the liberation, of his son. But in a proceeding of this nature Sir Aubrey was constrained, as well by predominant pride as habitual policy, to move with secrecy and circumspection.
He had consequently remained some time inactive, for want of instruments, in an affair of more delicacy than difficulty. Fortunately at this time a written communication, purporting to be from the two principal creditors of De Brooke, containing an exaggerated statement of their dues, was forwarded to Sir Aubrey, accompanied with an intimation threatening, in default of a speedy adjustment, an exposure of their grievances through the medium of the public journals. Such a message, to the haughty temper of the knight, was intolerably galling, and irritated him afresh against De Brooke. But the menaced appeal to the public, while it stung his pride, bade defiance to silent contempt. There was therefore no alternative but a compromise; for which Sir Aubrey, disdaining an immediate communication with the claimants, referred them to De Brooke, as the party best fitted for the discussion of their claims, and the most interested in the result,—intimating, however, that on an equitable accommodation being made, and a fair estimate of their total claim being presented, with the mutual sanction of either party, they might expect satisfaction. Thus modified in practice, but unmitigated in principle, were the counsels of Sir Aubrey respecting his unhappy son.
Encouraged by the result of their manœuvre, the two creditors lost no time in seeking their victim—such was their impatience, aided by an apprehension lest some change in the humour of Sir Aubrey, whom they feared to put to any further proof, should arise, and blast their hopes. Especially were they apprehensive lest in the meantime the other creditors might take the alarm, and, by a similar expedient, anticipate any advantage they hoped would accrue to themselves, both from the son's inexperience, and the supercilious oversight of the father in disdaining a personal inspection of their charges. Determined to avail themselves of every incident which might occur in the course of the debate favourable to themselves, they had intruded upon their sick prisoner under every disadvantage which hope or fear, weakness or surprise, could occasion. With this purpose in view, instinctively guided by their selfish interests, they began to intimate, for they could hardly be said to explain, the object of their visit; and in doing so were guilty of the greatest deceit, disguising the truth under the veil of ambiguous language. They were willing to mislead their unfortunate debtor, by insinuating that their claims had been allowed on the part of Sir Aubrey, which was false, and by concealing at first, what would have revived his heart to know, the part which his father had truly undertaken, under certain conditions, to act in his favour. From this instance of dishonest concealment they did not, it is true, clearly contemplate any certain advantage; being, as was said, governed only by a blind and selfish policy, bent on communicating nothing which it was consistent with their interest to conceal, and resolved to profit by any inadvertence or weakness their own vigilance and audacity might extort from their captive.
It is a painful consideration, how far these wretches were guided in the mode of their proceeding by a mean spirit of low malice, arising from disappointed cupidity, against one on whose resources they had too liberally calculated, if not for their present indemnity, at least for their future profit. Far be it the decision to what extent a petty desire might actuate them to feast their eyes on the misfortunes of their betters.
Certain it is, that most if not all of their hopes were for this time thrown into abeyance by the unexpected, and, as it were, magical effect, with which (as is shown in a former chapter), the sound of Sir Aubrey's name and a glance at his well-known seal had operated, in connection with their appearance, on the already irritated nerves of their debtor, and, for such he fancied himself, persecuted son.
Stupified in their turn by the sudden and unlooked for catastrophe, and believing De Brooke to be either dead or dying, these ill-omened visitors, fearful of consequences, were hesitating how to act, when Robert, alarmed and terrified by the noise of the fall, rushed wildly into the apartment. Scared at the sable apparition, which their guilty, alarmed consciences suggested could be no other than Satan himself or one of his emissaries, the two worthies held no longer consultation, but quitted the chamber with even less ceremony than they had entered it, leaving De Brooke to his fate, or what seemed worse, to the tender mercies of him whom in their confusion they had identified with the enemy of mankind.
Scarcely, however, had the fugitives,—who had never once cast "a lingering look behind",—recovering their first consternation, found the prison-gates interposed between them and the object of their terror, than they recollected that De Brooke was usually attended by a black servant, whom their fears had prevented from recognising in the person of Robert. Being more ashamed of their past fears and precipitate flight than of their callous indifference to the supposed dying state of their debtor, it is not surprising that they felt no hesitation in abandoning him to his destiny, considering into what better hands than those to which, dreading the worst for themselves, they had so readily resigned him, they now believed him fallen;—but it does seem a paradox disgraceful to fallen human nature, that these same fellows, who had been so reluctant to impart good tidings to the distressed, should have been most impatient to make known, in a quarter where they had reason to presume the news would be most unwelcome, the distressing scene they had just witnessed. Nor did they affect to mince matters, but in writing to Sir Aubrey a memorial of their visit and its disastrous results, they bluntly stated that they had left Colonel De Brooke, whom they supposed expiring, to the hopeless efforts of his servant to reanimate.
Such a picture, though given in its coarse outline by those unaccustomed to pity, was, nevertheless, adapted to disarm even fate itself. And Sir Aubrey, with whom the parental feeling was so completely subordinate, yet doubting not the truth of what was told him, the consciousness of vindictive severity exercised against his dying son struck awfully at his heart. But little used to the intrusion of such reflections, they were soon dissipated from his mind, from the firm belief that his misguided son was then suffering under a just chastisement, brought upon him by his irregularities, and disobedience to his wishes and advice.
Sometimes, from that period, an occasional thought of the unhappy De Brooke, whether in existence or otherwise, chequered with gloom his broad and far-extended vistas of ideal glory, and sent a cloud over his brow. It was after the lapse of some weeks, when nothing had transpired that might give reply to his secret inquiries, that he was awakened from the apparent indifference into which he had sunk by the letter from Mrs. De Brooke, from which he learnt that his son, though still alive, was lingering at the last extremity.
This epistle, dictated in terms that might have penetrated the soul of any but himself, shielded as it was by the armour of offended pride, and the self-accusing interpretation he naturally put upon expressions, conveyed but too faithfully a picture, the reality of which alone was a tacit reproach to his cruelty, while conscience "held the mirror up to nature": there needed no colouring of hers, however chaste and softened by the fear to offend; the bare outline had sufficed. Couched in the insulting language of one whom he scorned to acknowledge as a member of his family, and yet concluded in the name, the arrogated name of De Brooke, nothing could have been more calculated to increase, if possible, the fierceness of his indignant wrath. She dare to dictate to him the course he should pursue with his own! or did she hope to beguile him with glowing descriptions and eloquent pathos? Such finespun sentiment might pass upon the weak, but to him they were but the coverings of artifice, seeking to introduce herself to his notice, and which would avail her nothing. The letter was consigned to the flames; but its spirit, or rather his own constructions, self-applied, were, however despised, indelibly imprinted on his memory.
Thus the writing of Mrs. De Brooke, which, if it did not do good, she had supposed could not do injury, was to act as a perpetual memorial against herself. Through the blessing of Divine Providence her husband was restored to her, but not through any relief obtained from his father. Such was the more than unsuccessfulness of her intercessions: and long would have existed that apathy and disregard of Sir Aubrey towards his son, had he not been roused from such a state by the circumstance we are about to relate.
Notwithstanding the vigilance of Sir Aubrey to keep his son out of view, the memory of princes, like those of other men, may be sometimes equally faithful. If Sir Aubrey was held in the confidential friendship of the King, his son was not obliterated from the flattering recollections of the Prince, then heir-apparent to the Crown, in reverting to those times when the young Aubrey, with others of his age, sons of the nobility attached to the Court, lent their aid to heighten the pleasure of his juvenile exercises. De Brooke, ever having been more particularly a favourite of the Prince, had received repeated and distinguished tokens of his friendship, of which, far from being forgetful, he sometimes made the inquiry to himself, what could have befallen his former playmate De Brooke, what employment he held, or under what disgrace he lay, since he was never seen in company with his father Sir Aubrey: he recollected him to have been a frank, gay, and generous-spirited youth.
Taking an occasion to express these sentiments of surprise and curiosity to His Majesty, he was listened to with attention; and the thought occurred to his royal father, that in promoting the fortunes of Sir Aubrey, that zealous, meritorious, and faithful Minister, he might have been too indifferent to those of the son. The recollection of the father's having recently declined a peerage came afresh upon the mind of the King, who was far from guessing the cause, which, had he done so, might have seemed rather worse than ambition, and less than modesty in Sir Aubrey,—evincing a disposition to confine his honours to himself, and to preclude his posterity from sharing in them. However disproportioned the equivalent, yet in order to afford some immediate compensation to De Brooke for what he, the rightful heir to Sir Aubrey, had been, from some peculiar motives of his father, deprived of, it was ordered by His Majesty, who had ascertained that the name of Colonel De Brooke was on the list of those entitled to the rank of Major-General, that some highly lucrative as well as distinguished post of honour, in short the first falling vacant, should, upon the Gazette of promotions appearing, be conferred upon him.
Meanwhile nothing was hinted on the subject to Sir Aubrey, to whom the pleasure, he supposed, would be the greater, as it was to be unexpected. Thus graciously thought His Majesty, having in view to bestow a favour equally upon the father as upon the son; considering it but just that the off-spring of one so worthy should also share his royal regard, and possess a rank that would prevent the father from longer blushing for his son, as might appear to be the case, from the late circumspection of the former in withholding the latter from notice.
Having the good fortune to be thus remembered by the Prince, had De Brooke, previously to his embarkation to Portugal, consulted less his pleasures, and made some sacrifice to ambition, independently of his father's greatness, how splendid was the prospect which lay before him! Alas! that such faded from his view he had no one but himself to blame.
The existing cause leading Sir Aubrey to the inspection of his son's affairs has now been traced. Suddenly and unexpectedly elevated by the special favour of the King, he considered it an indispensable obligation no longer to leave him concealed within the walls of a prison. And since the extent of his debts called for so large a disbursement, he determined, on making the sacrifice, to make also a virtue of necessity, by turning it to his own private views, and procure if possible his son's removal from the kingdom.
But to give Sir Aubrey the credit due to him, it is necessary to state that he entertained the good intention, in removing his son from London, to remove him, not only from his own immediate vicinity, but also from that society which had hitherto led him into extravagance.
A staff appointment, and one highly lucrative, at this particular juncture in his son's affairs, becoming vacant in Ireland, Sir Aubrey, fearing to lose sight of so favourable an occasion, delayed not to solicit it for his son. Nor was he disappointed; De Brooke was named to succeed Major-General Haughton in the command of the district comprising the county of,, with the injunction of repairing thither immediately.
Thus pressed. Sir Aubrey, by the advice of Mr. Arden, employed the attorney whom we have already introduced at the Bench,—where, yielding to a painful suspense, De Brooke but little knew of what had been operating in his favour, and was about effecting so desirable a change in his destiny. If not to his immediate intercession, thought he, it was certainly to his father's high consideration at Court he owed this distinguished military advancement, at a period of life when, in truth, he was the youngest Major-General in His Majesty's service.
According to the advice given by the lawyer, he had written letters of accommodation to those of his creditors found to be the most refractory; but finding them difficult to deal with, and unwilling to enter into terms, De Brooke was reflecting on the perplexing dilemma into which he was thrown, when, hearing a knock without, he rose, and perceived a stranger at his door, who after handing him a packet instantly retired.
De Brooke hastened to break the seal. The arms and crest were not unknown to him; and in looking for the signature, it proved even as he had conjectured. The envelope inclosed a letter from Sir Henry Hodson, together with the money of which he had been so long deprived, and of which he then stood in so much need. His heart beat quick with expectation; his deliverance seemed now secure, and could not but be speedily accomplished. In reckoning over the amount, he found that with the addition of what his father bestowed upon him, he should now have sufficient to satisfy the most exorbitant of his creditors; so that much as he, and still more his wife, had found cause to deplore the loss of his money, it came returned to them most opportunely. Handing the letter to his wife, who, if not always a participator in the secret of his woes, was a welcome sharer in all his joys, he begged of her to read it for him aloud.
Sir Henry began by sayings that, doubtless, when the money from the écritoire had been missed, from a coincidence of circumstances, it was not improbable that suspicion had fallen upon himself. Mean, despicable to a degree, must such an action have appeared, and never on his own account could he have thus exposed himself to its infamy. Sooner, for his part, would he have endured the tortures of the rack, or the horrors of famine. It was and could be for no other motive than to relieve misery in a most aggravated shape—one dearer to him than all the world,—to rescue from ruin and desperation a helpless woman and a sister, that this act, apparently so selfish and unprincipled, had been committed. But let it not be imagined even for a moment that she was accessory to the deed or should be a partaker of its shame. He knew not even whether, next to the crime itself, he had ever had greater cause for regret than in having communicated to her sensitive and delicate soul the shock of an after discovery. He almost despaired of her forgiveness, who best knew and could best appreciate the circumstances, under whose extenuating plea, only short of actual necessity, he had dared in some measure to palliate the guilt of his own transgression.
"If I have appeared," he continued, "guilty in her eyes, trust me, I seem very far from innocent in my own estimation, though impelled at the time by the strongest affection for that amiable being, my only surviving relative, and the afflicted wife of one, whose hard fate seemed only recompensed in his having such a wife. As her brother, and the most devoted of her friends, she had in the first instance applied to me in her distress; not having sufficient by me to answer the whole extent of her husband's debt, I put my signature to the remainder, and the bill being protested, I was in consequence arrested; to which previous accident I owe my first introduction to Colonel De Brooke.
"We became companions in prison and in misfortune. Sympathy for each other under such circumstances led to a frequent interchange of visits. Disgraceful to myself as might appear the termination of this intimacy, believe me, the sentiments I professed for you and yours were perfectly disinterested, and would ever have remained so, had not unforeseen circumstances of the most bewildering nature hurried me to the commission of an act at variance with every law of honour and of humanity.
"The picture of grief and distress, overwhelmed with despair, my beloved sister a second time came, but to apprise me of the cause, not so much in hopes of assistance as in search of a brother's sympathy. Her husband, while yet hopeless of recovery, and exhausted by sickness, lingering in existence, was menaced with the terrors of instant imprisonment. It was to avert this imminent and fatal result that I then called upon you, so urgently soliciting your aid—if, perchance, by an addition being made to my own trifling stock in hand, the immediate rigour of the prosecutors might be mitigated by a compromise.
"Unexpectedly the means of making her at once happy by the rescue of her expiring husband from the grasp of his merciless oppressors, were momentarily placed within my reach. As fate would have it, your pocket-book lay before me; I hesitated one instant ere I opened it; but affection, opportunity, desperation conquered. I seized the notes, rushed precipitately, and deposited them in her hands—received a thousand blessings from one whose destiny had seemed from earliest infancy to command mine. Pity, if you can, and blame as you will, but do not hastily or too harshly condemn.
"After liberating her husband from the hands of persecution, her first act was to procure bail for myself. I could not refuse to accompany her, nor did I dare to remain!
"Nothing now remains but to inform you, that when, her husband having sunk under the weight of sorrow and of sickness, she has turned away to weep her loss in secret, I have acted as her comforter. In a word, I have ever been to her a brother, she more to me than sister, from our childhood. But little did she guess how dearly preserved, how severely tried, had been my devotion for her.
"In a moment of confidence, while speaking of the empire she had exercised over me from infancy, I was hurried on to avow the trespass, to give it no worse a name, of which, in her behalf, I had been guilty towards you. She was thunderstruck; but it was too late to recall my words; she fainted away. After she had recovered from her first stupor of grief and astonishment, I began to fear the loss of her esteem even more seriously than of her life before. Indeed since then she can scarcely be said to live, and assures me shall never know peace until a full acquittal has been made. The effect my involuntary disclosure had upon her was well adapted to probe afresh the wounds so long rankling within me of humiliating self-abasement. From that time I redoubled my exertions, and through my improving finances have been fortunately enabled to return that of which I deprived you.
"This, together with the accompanying explanation, I fervently hope will afford fall proof of my sincerity, and some atonement for my offence. Never, I fear, can it restore me to your good opinion; nor can I expect it, not having forgiven myself. It is not that I dread, however justly deserved, the effects of your resentment, but to banish, if possible, my own recollections, that I hasten, so soon as this act of restitution is completed, to exile myself for ever from England, the scene of my transgression.
"That you may the sooner be enabled to bury the past in oblivion, I pray Heaven to grant you a recompense of prosperity proportioned to your high deserts, in the better fortune awaiting you. And believe me sincere when I add, that not any of your friends rejoiced more truly than I did, when reading in the Gazette among the promotions the name of De Brooke. But while I feel that the deep interest I take in your welfare entitles me to be considered amongst the warmest of your wellwishers, I am at the same time conscious how unworthy I am, since the unpardonable wrong I have committed, to subscribe myself
"Your friend,
"H. Hodson."