A splendid fortune: a novel

Chapter I. Through The Dark Woods

Poor Lady Somers, after retiring to bed, sat for some time watching her sleeping child. Perhaps to persons in any deep affliction, especially one in which the mind is overworked and overweighted, the silent night brings more trials than any por tion of the day. The young mother lay down upon her bed, and addressed herself to pray and to weep, but, indeed, without much success in either endeavour. A nameless terror, utterly without foundation, VOL. III. B but not the less bitterly poignant, had taken possession of her soul. She made many resolves, and found each one less practicable than the last. She would wait till the morning, and then demand that Lotty Morton should proceed with her at once to the Earl, and tell him who she was, ancl what were her claims for his support and guardian ship.

Then arose within her mind the misery of her situation — without proof of her marriage ; the extreme youth of her child, her own weakness, and a certain mental confusion of which she had grown acutely and very painfully sensible. She heard Lotty Morton and Mrs. Lapis go up to their different rooms to bed, and she envied them their quiet sleep, even while she most suspiciously mistrusted them. She wondered at the doctor's absence, which might be protracted for some time, and sbe even suspected that honest, good fellow of a design of finding the register of her marriage and destroying it. She had read of such things in novels and newspapers, and asked herself why they should not occur to her. Every movement seemed to be surrounded with danger. Her husband had spoken more than once to her of his sister-in-law, of her ambition, and the evident desire which he could very well perceive which that lady had of becoming the mother of the heir to the Bradstock estates.

Emmy felt that such a desire was very natural, and saw plainly enough that her appearance and claims would be death to the hopes of this ambitious lady. Her illness and affliction had been such that she had not been able to nurse her son; and a fine and strong young country wife, one of the many young damsels who gained their living in polishing, caning, and stuffing chairs in the factories at Bilscombe, had been provided, by the kindness and forethought of Dr. Morton, to fill one of the most important posts with regard to the heir of the earldom. Although it must be conceded that Emmy looked upon the fondness of baby for this second mother with some kind of jealousy, which was perfectly natural on the part of one who was at once fond and weak, still she regarded the young woman with some little affection, and, b2 curiously, with a great deal more trust than any one else in the house.

The baby, however, slept generally in his mother's room, beyond which was a dressing-room, in which a bed had been placed for the young nurse, who came in at certain hours of the morning and fed the little child, or, if he was restless, which was indeed seldom, took him to her own bed. Emmy was wide awake when the nurse entered on the night referred to ; and baby, who was not awake, did not, however, object, as indeed babies very seldom do, to an early or late meal, but took kindly to the nurse, and, half asleep and half awake, put his little arms out to her. "You had better take him altogether, nurse," said Emmy, gently, " and then you will not wake me if you want him again." " La, bless me, ma'm ! are you awake ?" said Mary, startled. " I have been awake a long time," answered her mistress, quietly.

She had been meditating painfully what to do, and had not solved the question. " I'm 'fraid you're not well, ma'm," said the young nurse, pressing the baby warmly to her breast and kissing it. " Can I do anythin' for you ?" She dropped her final g's, like the natives of that part generally; but she had a good heart, and her tone and manner touched her mistress. The nurse came aud stood by her bed-side, still caressing the baby, whom she had learned to love almost as well as her own. " No, Mary ; no," said Lady Somers, sadly. " I am sorely puzzled, and don't know what to do. I am afraid I've been very wicked, that I should be so deserted." " La, ma'm, indeed we are all wicked !" an swered the little nurse, stating a general truth in a manner that showed plainly that she herself had not the least doubt about the matter.

"We are all desperately wicked, ma'm ; but, as my Joe says, it don't matter how wicked we are if we only lean on the Lord, ma'm. Please, ma'm" — here she dropped a courtesy — "if you were on'y at once to go straight to the Lord and lean on him, he wouldn't turn you away. I felt that so when :ny poor baby died." As the soft voice of Mary said these words, the tears of poor Lady Somers fell fast. Lean on the Lord, indeed ! The words, Miss Nightley would have said, were of that " horrid, foolish language " taught by the Dissenters about Bilscombe ; and, in fact, Mary and Joe, who was a steady young carpenter, belonged to those obscure religionists who at one time were very numerous and strong at Bilscombe Regis, and would on Sunday afternoons meet in the beautiful park, and under some wide spreading tree troll out a psalm in a manner more remarkable for its fervour than for its harmony.

To Emmy the phrases used by the little nurse were slightly strange. She had been taught some what perfunctorily what religion was, but she knew nothing or little of fervour or faith. To be good, gentle, upright, and pure, such was her simple creed : she did not even imagine that she could approach to cast her burden down, or could lean on that Saviour to whom she prayed in awe-struck accents, and of whom the little nurse talked so very familiarly. As the poor lady still wept and said nothing, A SPLENDID FORTUNE. Mary, regardless of catching cold, still continued her exhortations. "Ah, ma'm," she said, "I'm afraid you haven't had experiences ! Perhaps the Lord hasn't come to you. Well, he come to me, ma'm, when I was quite young, when poor father died and mother had to send us all out to work ; and many's the mornin' that I've risen to work, and fasted through the day, to make up some little to pay for poor father's buryin'.

But we're all right now, ma'm. He come to us all, and give us faith, he did ; and I'm 'appy now, I am, for I know my little angel 's a-singin' round His throne." The country girl with the baby at her breast looked up as purely as a saint, with a rapt gaze of adoration which Emmy remembered for a long time after. Her mistress stayed her tears and dried her eyes. "Mary," she said, "thank you for what you have said. I am not at all cross with you — not at all. Take care of the baby, and promise me that, whatever happens to me, you will never desert it till it is strong and well. I am sure I can believe you. You will promise me, will you not, Mary ?" A SPLENDID FORTUNE. Mary thought her mistress was going to be very ill or was somewhat mad, and that her request was preposterous; but she said nothing, but pro mised quietly.

" As I hope in Him, I will, ma'm," she said : "no one shall take it from me. Shall I come to bed with you, ma'm? Perhaps you'd be more quiet with the baby." " No, Mary ; no, thank you, my good girl," said the young mother, rising and kissing her humble friend. "I believe you that He is with you, and I, too, want to pray for his help." And so, as Mary said afterwards, she left the poor young widow to " wrestle in prayer, and to obtain comfort." Mary's language was somewhat symbolical ; for she had been brought up by a sect which depended for every morsel of its mental food upon Eastern imagery and strong language ; and Mary herself somewhat astonished her superiors in position by her accurate knowledge of one book, and the wideness and soundness of her interpreta tions of the contents of that one book.

Did not Peter Daniel Huet, who spent a life of ninety-five years in reading ancl commenting on the fathers, and who edited the celebrated edition of the classics, " In Usum Serenissimi Delphini," declare that he read the Scriptures three hours daily, not only for the excellence of the matter contained in them, but also for the wonderful style, which benefited, as he said, every scholar and every thinking man ? And why should not our little chair-maker be benefited in the same way? When Mary had left her mistress to prayer, she heard her shut the door between the two rooms, and, as she supposed, betake herself to prayer by falling on her knees. The night was fresh, and, indeed, somewhat gusty, and the great beeches which grew near Cold Blow, and higher up, as well as lower down the sides of the hills, beat their great branches together in the wind or moaned with a rustling noise; so that it was really not to be wondered at if our little friend the nurse, lured and lulled by the warmth of her bed, the soft embraces of her young charge, and her own quiet peace of mind, should, after she had said a simple prayer, fall very soundly asleep.

The young widow did not, however, do so. As soon as she heard — for her sense of hearing had become almost painfully acute — that the nurse had fallen asleep, she rose from her knees— she had not, indeed, prayed — and hurried on her dress. The sighing of the wind and rustling of the boughs of the trees prevented any slight noise that she made from being heard ; and, moreover, the young widow used every precaution and was as noiseless as a fairy. Alas, all her trouble was of little use! Lotty Morton, who was the lightest sleeper of her three guardians, was as soundly somnolent as ever she had been, and, moreover, was at a greater distance from the widow's room than Mrs. Lapis, who, with her head covered over with a shawl and merely half-undressed, so as to be very watchful indeed, had kept awake just the requisite time to plunge her in the very deepest of slumbers, from which hardly the fall of Cold Blow and the rattle of its beams and rafters would have awakened her.

So, the doctor's rough dog Boxer having grown past service, and having been despatched by a coup de grace to the Hades of faithful dogs, there was no one in the house to give the alarm ; while the poor lady, with her heart nerved to a certain firm and mischievous courage, prowled about the house, selecting her thickest boots, her shawls and bonnet, her purse and reticule, preparatory to her flight. Soon she was upon the stairs, pale, bold, and defiant, ready to grapple with and overthrow the valiant Mrs. Lapis, should she meet her; for the most delicate ladies have a pretty shrewd notion of punching and beating, and, indeed, utterly over throwing one of their own sex, could they but meet them in a fair field, and when they are thoroughly indignant with them. And so this timid little widow, madly flying from her best friends, without purpose, with a confused and weakened brain, indeed carried in that brain a valiant determination to effect the one fixed longing for escape, and would, had she met our good old friend, have doubtless overthrown her.

Happily, Mrs. Lapis was quietly asleep ; and the orderly and silent doors of the doctor, to the due oiling of the hinges of which Keith Morton himself saw to periodically, opened noiselessly and let her out; chains fell before her noiselessly, too; bolts were withdrawn by those tiny and weak white hands; and, merely latching the street or front door after her, she went out into the cloudy, gusty night, and into the wood, now as dark as the most desperate highwayman could desire, and now brightly light from the moon, which was high in the heavens and now and then shone brightly forth from behind a cloud. Timid as the young lady was, she had somehow in her brain one fixed purpose which overcame all fear ; and she walked boldly forward through the dark woods, although at another time she would have been terrified at the very sight of her own shadow cast on the side of an old staircase by the very candle which she held.

It was a pleasant night, or rather morning, for the witching hours had passed; and the smell of the fresh earth, and of the damp, dead leaves, borne upon the breeze, which now was gentle, and then, as if by magic, quickened to a gust, was inexpressibly sweet to her. She walked quickly on, seeming more strengthened at every yard of the way. What her purpose was she hardly knew. She at one time thought of going straight to the Abbey, at another of reaching London by some means, and there, either by help or by trusting to some agent, finding out the church where she was married, and then boldly confronting her father-in-law. At the same time there was a curious feeling in her mind that her pursuit was of itself so romantic and so foolishly undertaken, that, if she were captured or fell into the hands of her enemies, they could easily twist from her sufficient to justify their probable assertion that she was mad.

To utterly baffle and defeat these enemies, which, after all, were mere creatures of the imagination, as far as she knew in reality, the young widow hastened onward and pressed her speed far beyond her strength. The wood which extends on the Oxford road some four miles from Bilscombe Regis she quickly passed, and she was sorry enough when she got beyond its friendly shelter. At the same time she was glad to see that the moon, which had now and then shone out so brightly, had become thoroughly obscured, and that the wind had fallen altogether, whilst over her head the clouds were driving fast into masses and piling themselves into vaporous mountains with a threatening air of storm and rain. Her eyes had become so accustomed to the light, or rather visible darkness, that she could see that rain would soon fall, and was even rather glad of it than not, because, as she said, "the people in the market-carts, if they meet me, will hurry ou and not notice me."

"Poor little baby !" she said to herself, looking back : " it is for him and for his rights that I go. That good girl will do all she can for him, I am sure, and I shall not be away long. They can't do anything to the baby : it is me, it is myself that I fear." The rain, which had been long threatening, began to fall, at short intervals, in single, heavy drops, which betokened a sharp shower shortly ; but it was so dark that, had any one passed her, she would not have been seen; and as for market carts, there were none to pass, it not being market-morning at Oxford, and the long trail of town-going vehicles, luckily or unluckily, not to be met with iu that part. Presently the rain came down smartly, and Emmy hurried on, encumbered by a thick shawl, and growing exhausted by her exertions. Still she struggled on in a courageous way, furnished with courage by that which makes timid creatures often more brave than the bravest men — a fear of being captured.

Wet, tired, and becoming indeed quickly ex hausted, Emmy walked still rapidly on, getting farther and farther from the wood, and at each step feeling less alarmed at any chance of pursuit. " They are all asleep, I know," said she to her self, " and I shall be able to reach some town and hide myself away, and then get to London." While she comforted herself with this idea, the clouds grew lighter, and the first faint, dim light of the morning broke about her — not even a twilight, but a certain sign that light was coming and that darkness would pass away. Emmy hurried on her steps; but the haste aud excitement were too much for her; and she rested for a moment on a rustic stile, to look around her, and to mark where she was. Beyond the stile stretched a ten-acre field, through which, intersecting the almost square field by cutting it into two unequal triangles, ran a broad and beaten path, which led to a little wood.

Think ing that the path might lead to some by-road, and, indeed, might be, perhaps, a nearer cut to the unknown town whither she was hastening, the frightened lady crossed the stile and went towards the wood, hoping, in -the very worst case, to gain some shelter from the storm. She soon reached the fir-trees, which in the faint light looked thicker and more than they really were, and, happily, beyond them saw a little Gothic church, very new and very pretty, from the chancel of which a faint light streamed, and from which, too, rose a sound of voices. Hardly credit ing her own ears, Emmy staggered up to the priest's door and listened. She heard a measured chant, which ceased, and then what seemed a bless ing. She, too, knelt to receive it, her brain on fire, her body weak and exhausted. " She told me," she said — " Mary told me to seek Him.

So I have found Him here without seeking : He will help me, or I will die." She gave a faint knock at the little door as she fell upon her knees praying ; but the rustling of the few footsteps and the constant falling of the rain prevented any one from hearing. Father Pen Gargle, and sundry zealous neophytes, some stray sheep from a neighbouring church, were celebrat ing their orisons. He was used to early hours ; and the good man, indeed, knelt both late and early to offer up his prayers at heaven's gate. He did not hear the sound; he was wrapped in his dismissal prayer; and it was only until his neophytes had disappeared and he himself came forth at the priest's door, that he found the figure of Emmy prostrate and in a swoon. c VOL.

Chapter II. Three Ends Of

A SKEIN. In the little Belgian towns through which the delighted English tourist passes, dressed — the traveller, and not the towns — in those curiously uncomfortable suits which cheap tailors franticly advertise in the autumnal season, and the British tourist more franticly adopts ; in these quiet towns, little sleepy hollows of continental life, where a man might dream himself back into the Middle Ages, one finds curiously neat and clean retreats, in which certain good women of a religious order, having retired from the world, nurse and tend others who have been more shattered in health than themselves. For the world — in spite of defiant materialism and bold go-ahead Americanism, fire brand-new from the phœnix fire which has burnt up every thing except the big bird itself — does certainly distress, dilapidate, and shatter certain poor mor tals.

It is supposed that the great and strong men get over this, and escape it altogether ; but if any one will walk London streets, or Paris streets, or the streets of any town on the globe, he will mark, if he choose to be contemplative, the lines of care and the furrows of anxiety upon every face past twenty-five. Will not many recall the anec dote of Sir Joshua Reynolds having remarked to David Garrick that he began to look old in his face? "Ay; and, egad!" said Dane, firing up — for none of us like to bear the signs of age, so proud are we — "if your face had had half the wear and tear that mine has, you would look old too." Out in the world there is an immense deal of wear and tear ; but in these quiet retreats the faces of the sisters wear a placid calmness difficult to imagine ; a sort of set countenance which one might wear awaking up from a calm, long sleep, c2 and without dreams.

They move about their cham bers, cleanly white-washed, and with black doors and skirting-boards, noiselessly ; almost as noise less as are the figures in the old paintings of such scenes, of which many are to be seen. So quiet are the towns where these retreats are to be found, that the hurried tourist, contrasting the quiet which he finds with the noise he has left, wonders that any one should need it there, and sighs to stay himself a long time in such a quiet, calm, deserted place, to unpack his full brain or un burden his loaded and stuffed bosom. Many good English people have sighed to think that there are no retreats like these in England, where men and women, too broken and shattered by the world, might retire for a breathing space of time before they left the world in its noisy, busy course.

And, of late years, some have been founded ; but, even at the time when Father Pen Gargle, coming out at the priest's door, found Lady Somers fainting thereat, many good persons of his faith had founded sisterhoods and retreats wherein, in poverty and quietude, ladies passed their lives in religious duties, and in prepariug themselves for another and a better world. Pen Gargle, in changing the form of his religion, had taken with him the soft heart which yields to every call of pity ; and as he gazed at Emmy he felt the softest compassion for her. " Poor thing !" he said ; " so young, so fair, and yet so careworn and deserted ! This has been, no doubt, some flower rudely plucked and ruthlessly thrown away." Then he thought that God had bent her wander ing feet, perhaps, to that door, that she might be led to repentance.

He stooped to raise her, and carried her into the chancel, and there, by the light still burning on the altar, noticed the ring upon her finger. But he was not so unaccustomed to the world that he did not know that many wore that plain gold ring almost as a mockery, at any rate as a blind and a deceit, and he shook his head sadly. He called for assistance, however, ancl had her removed to a house which stood not far from the church, where ladies clothed in black, in gar ments strange to English eyes, and stranger then than now, lived in poverty and prayer. The poor lady was very ill ; her over-exertion had been too much for her; she wandered in her mind, and told of matters which the good father heard, but which he kept sacred; and there, in this retreat, where she remained many months, free at least from harm and from her enemies' pursuit, we will leave her.

When the Lady Amethyst and her companion stood near the artificial waterfall in Broadacres Park, the latter had promised her friend and employer to busy herself upon her side, and to undertake certain commissions, which she had duly performed with but little success. The interview with Father Gargle had been productive of little good. The priest read the two ladies like a book ; for, as luck would have it, he had, at the Retreat near the Chapel of the Pisca torians, met with a solution of their riddle; and although Miss Nightley went so far as to assure the father that it would be greatly to his benefit, and no less to that of his order and his Church, that the estate of Broadacres with its ancestral title should pass into the family of one profesing the Roman Catholic religion, the good man withstood the temptation, and merely gave the ladies some very good moral advice, which had a great deal more of the Christian priest in it than that of the par tisan.

When he left Miss Nightley was inclined to be indignant. " There, now, Amethyst," said she, familiarly ; "that man is a riddle. Does not everybody suppose that he, a convert or a pervert, whichever you choose to term him, would be anxious for the benefit of his Church?" " No doubt he is," said the lady ; " but he fancies, perhaps, that he will not benefit it by any intrigue on his part." " Intrigue, forsooth ! is he not always intrigu ing? Does not history tell us of the intrigues of priest, bishop, and Jesuit ? Is not fiction full of it?" " That is all very true," said Amethyst, sadly ; " but perhaps history does not always say what is the fact ; and as for fiction, I imagine people write a great deal of what they know nothing. They bear false witness against their neighbour, in fact." " Oh, if you take it so, you may.

What are you to do in your case ? " " I am sure I don't know : I am puzzled." " Will you let things take their course ? If so, some fine morning you will be prepared to turn out and let the son of nobody, perhaps a pretender, push you from the door." Miss Nightley spoke dramatically, and not entirely literally, in employ ing this image. " Well," said Amethyst, " suppose we leave the matter to the Earl : he will see all things properly cared for." " Properly cared for !" said the companion, in dignantly : " his proper care means this : — He is an old and a weak man" — the speaker had not forgotten the haughty look and gesture of the old nobleman as applied to herself — " and, like all old and weak men, nothing would please him more than some baby to dandle, especially if any one could be got to swear that it was his son's. That your quiet, virtuous, awkward doctor is prepared to do.

I hate those quiet men, who look as if butter would not melt in their mouths." " How do you know that Dr. Morton is prepared to act so dishonestly?" " I know this : he has gone to London. I heard it in the town. Now what do you think his pur pose in London can be ?" "To buy medicines, perhaps," answered Lady Amethyst, with seeming carelessness, although in wardly pleased at the partisanship which her com panion was showing. " To buy medicines ! to buy poison, you mean. I hate doctors : half their drugs are poisons ; and Voltaire was right when he said that they put drugs of which they knew nothing into bodies of which they knew less." " Your authors are cynical, Ellen, and you quote them with pleasure. What other business can the doctor have in London ? I believe he is a clever chemist, poor man ! and is forced to compound his own prescriptions — or prepare them, that is the better word.

Perhaps he will also get some of his instruments sharpened, instruments blunted by hacking away at the hard limbs of country bump kins." "Pray don't twit me with being cynical, my lady," said Miss Nightley, with a bitter smile : " I see you can hit pretty hard when you like. Yes, he will get his instruments sharpened, no doubt ; but they will be those which, by a cunning and no doubt a legal amputation, will cut off this fair estate and this splendid fortune from you and yours for ever. This matter must be met; and, as you have been kind enough to confide iu me, I will meet it." " Thank you," said the lady, with a gleam of real gratitude — for favours to come, let us remember with Rochefoucauld, as the companion took care to remind the lady — "Thank you, Ellen; and to meet it you will want money.

You can depend on me. Will you go to London?" " The time will come, no doubt, for doing so. When does Father Gargle call again ?" " To-night he dines with us — frugally, of course, and with my husband and yourself. Lord Brad stock dines in his own room." " Let us see whether we can get more out of him then," said the companion. The priest came and went, but with the same result as before. The conversation was general ; and Miss Nightley shone with a lurid lustre peculiarly her own. Happily for her, as she thought — for she was a great believer in luck — after she bowed forth the Piscatorian father with a great many obeisances, she had that interview with the young gentleman from London which has been recorded. When she had ushered Stannard out of the Abbey she was triumphant. But she well knew how to keep a secret, and, except that she obtained some money from Lady Amethyst, that lady knew little or nothing of her business.