The Trail of the Serpent/Book 6/Chapter 7
Chapter the Last.
Farewell to England.
Scarcely had Slopperton subsided in some degree from the excitement into which it had been thrown by the trial and suicide of Raymond de Marolles, when it was again astir with news, which was, if anything, more exciting. It is needless to say that after the trial and condemnation of De Marolles, there was not a little regretful sympathy felt by the good citizens of Slopperton for their unfortunate townsman, Richard Marwood, who, after having been found guilty of a murder he had never committed, had perished, as the story went, in a futile attempt to escape from the asylum in which he had been confined. What, then, were the feelings of Slopperton when, about a month after the suicide of the murderer of Montague Harding, a paragraph appeared in one of the local papers which stated positively that Mr. Richard Marwood was still alive, he having succeeded in escaping from the county asylum?
This was enough. Here was a hero of romance indeed; here was innocence triumphant for once in real life, as on the mimic scene. Slopperton was wild with one universal desire to embrace so distinguished a citizen. The local papers of the following week were full of the subject, and Richard Marwood was earnestly solicited to appear once more in his native town, that every inhabitant thereof, from the highest to the lowest, might be enabled to testify heartfelt sympathy for his undeserved misfortunes, and sincere delight in his happy restoration to name and fame.
The hero was not long in replying to the friendly petition of the inhabitants of his native place. A letter from Richard appeared in one of the papers, in which he stated that as he was about to leave England for a considerable period, perhaps for ever, he should do himself the honour of responding to the kind wishes of his friends, and once more shake hands with the acquaintance of his youth before he left his native country.
The Sloppertonian Jack-in-the-green, assisted by the rather stalwart damsels in dirty pink gauze and crumpled blue-and-yellow artificial flowers, had scarcely ushered in the sweet spring month of the year, when Slopperton arose simultaneously and hurried as one man to the railway-station, to welcome the hero of the day. The report has spread—no one ever knows how these reports arise—that Mr. Richard Marwood is to arrive this day. Slopperton must be at hand to bid him welcome to his native town, to repair the wrong it has so long done him in holding him up to universal detestation as the George Barnwell of modern times.
Which train will he come by? There is a whisper of the three o'clock express; and at three o'clock in the afternoon, therefore, the station and station-yard are crowded.
The Slopperton station, like most other stations, is built at a little distance from the town, so that the humble traveller who arrives by the parliamentary train, with all his earthly possessions in a red cotton pocket-handkerchief or a brown-paper parcel, and to whom such things as cabs are unknown luxuries, is often disappointed to find that when he gets to Slopperton station he is not in Slopperton proper. There is a great Sahara of building-ground and incomplete brick-and-mortar, very much to let, to be crossed before the traveller finds himself in High Street, or South Street, or East Street, or any of the populous neighbourhoods of this magnificent city.
Every disadvantage, however, is generally counterbalanced by some advantage, and nothing could be more suitable than this grand Sahara of broken ground and unfinished neighbourhood for the purposes of a triumphal entry into Slopperton.
There is a great deal of animated conversation going on upon the platform inside the station. It is a noticeable fact that everybody present—and there are some hundreds—appears to have been intimately acquainted with Richard from his very babyhood. This one remembers many a game at cricket with him on those very fields yonder; another would be a rich man if he had only a sovereign for every cigar he has smoked in the society of Mr. Marwood. That old gentleman yonder taught our hero his declensions, and always had a difficulty with him about the ablative case. The elderly female with the dropsical umbrella had nursed him as a baby; "and the finest baby he was as ever I saw," she adds enthusiastically. Those two gentlemen who came down to the station in their own brougham are the kind doctors who carried him through that terrible brain-fever of his early youth, and whose evidence was of some service to him at his trial. Everywhere along the crowded platform there are friends; noisy excited gesticulating friends, who have started a hero on their own account, and who wouldn't turn aside to-day to get a bow from majesty itself.
Five minutes to three. From the doctor's fifty-guinea chronometer, by Benson, to the silver turnip from the wide buff waistcoat of the farmer, everybody's watch is out, and nobody will believe but that his particular time is the right time, and every other watch, and the station clock into the bargain, wrong.
Two minutes to three. Clang goes the great bell. The station-master clears the line. Here it comes, only a speck of dull red fire as yet, and a slender column of curling smoke; but the London express for all that. Here it comes, wildly tearing up the tender green country, rushing headlong through the smoky suburbs; it comes within a few hundred yards of the station; and there, amidst a labyrinth of straggling lines and a chaos of empty carriages and disabled engines, it stops deliberately for the ticket-collectors to go their accustomed round.
Good gracious me, how badly those ticket-collectors do their duty!—how slow they are!—what a time the elderly females in the second class appear to be fumbling in their reticules before they produce the required document!—what an age, in short, it is before the train puffs lazily up to the platform; and yet, only two minutes by the station-clock.
Which is he? There is a long line of carriages. The eager eyes look into each. There is a fat dark man with large whiskers reading the paper. Is that Richard? He may be altered, you know, they say; but surely eight years could never have changed him into that. No! there he is! There is no mistaking him this time. The handsome dark face, with the thick black moustache, and the clustering frame of waving raven hair, looks out of a first-class carriage. In another moment he is on the platform, a lady by his side, young and pretty, who bursts into tears as the crowd press around him, and hides her face on an elderly lady's shoulder. That elderly lady is his mother. How eagerly the Sloppertonians gather round him! He does not speak, but stretches out both his hands, which are nearly shaken off his wrists before he knows where he is.
Why doesn't he speak? Is it because he cannot? Is it because there is a choking sensation in his throat, and his lips refuse to articulate the words that are trembling upon them? Is it because he remembers the last time he alighted on this very platform—the time when he wore handcuffs on his wrists and walked guarded between two men; that bitter time when the crowd held aloof from him, and pointed him out as a murderer and a villain? There is a mist over his dark eyes as he looks round at those eager friendly faces, and he is glad to slouch his hat over his forehead, and to walk quickly through the crowd to the carriage waiting for him in the station-yard. He has his mother on one arm and the young lady on the other; his old friend Gus Darley is with him too; and the four step into the carriage.
Then, how the cheers and the huzzas burst forth, in one great hoarse shout! Three cheers for Richard, for his mother, for his faithful friend Gus Darley, who assisted him to escape from the lunatic asylum, for the young lady—but who is the young lady? Everybody is so anxious to know who the young lady is, that when Richard introduces her to the doctors, the crowd presses round, and putting aside ceremony, openly and deliberately listens. Good Heavens! the young lady is his wife, the sister of his friend Mr. Darley, "who wasn't afraid to trust me," the crowd heard him say, "when the world was against me, and who in adversity or prosperity alike was ready to bless me with her devoted love." Good gracious me! More cheers for the young lady. The young lady is Mrs. Marwood. Three cheers for Mrs. Marwood! Three cheers for Mr. and Mrs. Marwood! Three cheers for the happy pair!
At length the cheering is over—or, at least, over for the moment. Slopperton is in such an excited state that it is easy to see it will break out again by-and-by. The coachman gives a preliminary flourish of his whip as a signal to his fiery steeds. Fiery steeds, indeed! "Nothing so common as a horse shall carry Richard Marwood into Slopperton," cry the excited townspeople. We ourselves will draw the carriage—we, the respectable tradespeople—we, the tag-rag and bob-tail, anybody and everybody—will make ourselves for the nonce beasts of burden, and think it no disgrace to draw the triumphal car of this our townsman. In vain Richard remonstrates. His handsome face—his radiant smiles, only rekindle the citizens' enthusiasm. They think of the bright young scapegrace whom they all knew years ago. They think of his very faults—which were virtues in the eyes of the populace. They remember the day he caned a policeman who had laid violent hands on a helpless little boy for begging in the streets—the night he wrenched off the knocker of an unpopular magistrate who had been hard upon a poacher. They recalled a hundred escapades for which those even who reproved him had admired him; and they gather round the carriage in which he stands with his hat off, the May sunlight in his bright hazel eyes, his dark hair waving in the spring breeze around his wide candid brow, and one slender hand stretched out to restrain, if he can, this tempest of enthusiasm. Restrain it?—No! that is not to be done. You can go and stand upon the shore and address yourselves to the waves of the sea; you can mildly remonstrate with the wolf as to his intentions with regard to the innocent lamb; but you cannot check the enthusiasm of a hearty British crowd when its feelings are excited in a good cause.
Away the carriage goes! with the noisy populace about the wheels. What is this?—music? Yes; two opposition bands. One is playing "See, the conquering hero comes!" while the ether exhausts itself, and gets black in the face, with the exertion necessary in doing justice to "Rule Britannia." At last, however, the hotel is reached. But the triumph of Richard is not yet finished. He must make a speech. He does, ultimately, consent to say a few words in answer to the earnest entreaties of that clamorous crowd. He tells his friends, in a very few simple sentences, how this hour, of all others, is the hour for which he has prayed for nearly nine long years; and how he sees, in the most trifling circumstances which have aided, however remotely, in bringing this hour to pass, the hand of an all-powerful Providence. He tells them how he sees in these years of sorrow through which he has passed a punishment for the careless sins of his youth, for the unhappiness he has caused his devoted mother, and for his indifference to the blessings Heaven has bestowed on him; how he now prays to be more worthy of the bright future which lies so fair before him; how he means the rest of his life to be an earnest and a useful one; and how, to the last hour of that life, he will retain the memory of their generous and enthusiastic reception of him this day. It is doubtful how much more he might have said; but just at this point his eyes became peculiarly affected—perhaps by the dust, perhaps by the sunshine—and he was forced once more to have recourse to his hat, which he pulled fairly over those optics prior to springing out of the carriage and hurrying into the hotel, amidst the frantic cheers of the sterner sex, and the audible sobs of the fairer portion of the community.
His visit was but a flying one. The night train was to take him across country to Liverpool, whence he was to start the following day for South America. This was kept, however, a profound secret from the crowd, which might else have insisted on giving him a second ovation. It was not very quickly dispersed, this enthusiastic throng. It lingered for a long time under the windows of the hotel. It drank a great deal of bottled ale and London porter in the bar round the corner by the stable-yard; and it steadfastly refused to go away until it had had Richard out upon the balcony several times, and had given him a great many more tumultuous greetings. When it had quite exhausted Richard (our hero looking pale from over-excitement) it took to Mr. Darley as vice-hero, and would have carried him round the town with one of the bands of music, had he not prudently declined that offer. It was so bent on doing something, that at last, when it did consent to go away, it went into the Market-place and had a fight—not from any pugilistic or vindictive feeling, but from the simple necessity of finishing the evening somehow.
There is no possibility of sitting down to dinner till after dark. But at last the shutters are closed and the curtains are drawn by the obsequious waiters; the dinner-table is spread with glittering plate and snowy linen; the landlord himself brings in the soup and uncorks the sherry, and the little party draws round the social board. Why should we break in upon that happy group? With the wife he loves, the mother whose devotion has survived every trial, the friend whose aid has brought about his restoration to freedom and society, with ample wealth wherefrom to reward all who have served him in his adversity, what more has Richard to wish for?
A close carriage conveys the little party to the station; and by the twelve o'clock train they leave Slopperton, some of them perhaps never to visit it again.
The next day a much larger party is assembled on board the Oronoko, a vessel lying off Liverpool, and about to sail for South America. Richard is there, his wife and mother still by his side; and there are several others whom we know grouped about the deck. Mr. Peters is there. He has come to bid farewell to the young man in whose fortunes and misfortunes he has taken so warm and unfailing an interest. He is a man of independent property now, thanks to Richard, who thinks the hundred a-year settled on him a very small reward for his devotion—but he is very melancholy at parting with the master he has so loved.
"I think, sir," he says on his fingers, "I shall marry Kuppins, and give my mind to the education of the 'fondling.' He'll be a great man, sir, if he lives; for his heart, boy as he is, is all in his profession. Would you believe it, sir, that child bellowed for three mortal hours because his father committed suicide, and disappointed the boy of seein' him hung? That's what I calls a love of business, and no mistake."
On the other side of the deck there is a little group which Richard presently joins. A lady and gentleman and a little boy are standing there; and, at a short distance from them, a grave-looking man with dark-blue spectacles, and a servant—a Lascar.
There is a peculiar style about the gentleman, on whose arm the lady leans, that bespeaks him to the most casual observer to be a military man, in spite of his plain dress and loose great coat. And the lady on his arm, that dark classic face, is not one to be easily forgotten. It is Valerie de Cevennes, who leans on the arm of her first and beloved husband, Gaston de Lancy. If I have said little of this meeting—of this restoration of the only man she ever loved, which has been to her as a resurrection of the dead—it is because there are some joys which, from their very intensity, are too painful and too sacred for many words. He was restored to her. She had never murdered him. The potion given her by Blurosset was a very powerful opiate, which had produced a sleep resembling death in all its outward symptoms. Through the influence of the chemist the report of the death was spread abroad. The truth, except to Gaston's most devoted friends, had never been revealed. But the blow had been too much for him; and when he was told by whom his death had been attempted, he fell into a fever, which lasted for many months, during which period his reason was entirely lost, and from which he was only rescued by the devotion of the chemist—a devotion on Blurosset's part which, perhaps, had proceeded as much from love of the science he studied as of the man he saved. Recovering at last, Gaston de Lancy found that the glorious voice which had been his fortune was entirely gone. What was there for him to do? He enlisted in the East India Company's service; rose through the Sikh campaign with a rapidity which astonished the bravest of his compeers. There was a romance about his story that made him a hero in his regiment. He was known to have plenty of money—to have had no earthly reason for enlisting; but he told them he would rise, as his father had done before him, in the wars of the Empire, by merit alone, and he had kept his word. The French ensign, the lieutenant, the captain—in each rising grade he had been alike beloved, alike admired, as a shining example of reckless courage and military genius.
The arrest of the soi-disant Count de Marolles had brought Richard Marwood and Gaston de Lancy into contact. Both sufferers from the consummate perfidy of one man, they became acquainted, and, ere long, friends. Some part of Gaston's story was told to Richard and his young wife, Isabella; but it is needless to say, that the dark past in which Valerie was concerned remained a secret in the breast of her husband, of Laurent Blurosset, and herself. The father clasped his son to his heart, and opened his arms to receive the wife whom he had pardoned long ago, and whose years of terrible agony had atoned for the wildly-attempted crime of her youth.
On Richard and Gaston becoming fast friends, it had bean agreed between them that Richard should join De Lancy and his wife in South America; where, far from the scenes which association had made painful to both, they might commence a new existence. Valerie, once more mistress of that immense fortune of which De Marolles had so long had the command, was enabled to bestow it on the husband of her choice. The bank was closed in a manner satisfactory to all whose interests had been connected with it. The cashier, who was no other than the lively gentleman who had assisted in De Marolles' attempted escape, was arrested on a charge of embezzlement, and made to disgorge the money he had abstracted.
The Marquis de Cevennes elevated his delicately-arched eyebrows on reading an abridged account of the trial of his son, and his subsequent suicide; but the elegant Parisian did not go into mourning for this unfortunate scion of his aristocratic house; and indeed, it is doubtful if five minutes after he had thrown aside the journal he had any sensation whatever about the painful circumstances therein related. He expressed the same gentlemanly surprise upon being informed of the marriage of his niece with Captain Lansdown, late of the East India Company's service, and of her approaching departure with her husband for her South American estates. He sent her his blessing and a breakfast-service; with the portraits of Louis the Well-beloved, Madame du Barry, Choiseul, and D'Aiguillon, painted on the cups, in oval medallions, on a background of turquoise, packed in a casket of buhl lined with white velvet; and, I dare say, he dismissed his niece and her troubles from his recollection quite as easily as he despatched this elegant present to the railway which was to convey it to its destination.
The bell rings; the friends of the passengers drop down the side of the vessel into the little Liverpool steamer. There are Mr. Peters and Gus Darley waving their hats in the distance. Farewell, old and faithful friends, farewell; but surely not for ever. Isabella sinks sobbing on her husband's shoulder, Valerie looks with those deed unfathomable eyes out towards the blue horizon-line that bounds the far-away to which they go.
"There, Gaston, we shall forget"
"Never your long sufferings, my Valerie," he murmurs, as ho presses the little hand resting on his arm; "those shall never be forgotten."
"And the horror of that dreadful night, Gaston"
"Was the madness of a love which thought itself wronged, Valerie: we can forgive every wrong which springs from the depth of such a love."
Spread thy white wings, oh, ship! The shadows melt away into that purple distance. I see in that far South two happy homes; glistening white-walled villas, half buried in the luxuriant verdure of that lovely climate. I hear the voices of the children in the dark orange-groves, where the scented blossoms fall into the marble basin of the fountain. I see Richard reclining in an easy-chair, under the veranda, half hidden by the trailing jasmines that shroud it from the evening sunshine, smoking the long cherry-stemmed pipe which his wife has filled for him. Gaston paces, with his sharp military step, up and down the terrace at their feet, stopping as he passes by to lay a caressing hand on the dark curls of the son he loves. And Valerie—she leans against the slender pillar of the porch, round which the scented yellow roses are twined, and watches, with, earnest eyes, the husband of her earliest choice. Oh happy shadows! Few in this work-a-day world so fortunate as you who win in your prime of life the fulfilment of the dear dream of your youth!