Читать книгу Self-Raised; Or, From the Depths - Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth - Страница 9

For though thou work'st my mother ill

I feel thou art my father still!

—Byron.

Yet what no chance could then reveal,

And no one would be first to own,

Let fate and courage still conceal,

When truth could bring reproach alone.

—Milnes.

Ishmael had been violently shaken. It was with much effort that he controlled his own emotions in order to administer consolation to one who was suffering even more than he himself was, because that suffering was blended with a morbid remorse.

"Father," he said, reaching forth his hand to the stricken man; but his voice failed him.

Herman Brudenell looked up; an expression of earnest love chasing away the sorrow from his face, as he said:

"Father? Ah, what a dear name! You call me thus, Ishmael? Me, who worked your mother so much woe?"

"Father, it was your great misfortune, not your fault; she said it on her death-bed, and the words of the dying are sacred," said Ishmael earnestly, and caressing the pale, thin hand that he held.

"Oh, Nora! Oh, Nora!" exclaimed Herman, as all his bosom's wounds bled afresh.

"Father, do not grieve so bitterly; and after all these years so morbidly! God has wiped away all tears from her eyes. She has been a saint in glory these many years!"

"You try to comfort me, Ishmael. You, Nora's son?" exclaimed Herman, with increased emotion.

"Who else of all the world should comfort you but Nora's son?"

"You love me, then, a little, Ishmael?"

"She loved you, my father, and why should not I?"

"Ah, that means that you will love me in time; for love is not born in an instant, my son."

"My heart reaches out to you, my father: I love you even now, and sympathize with you deeply; and I feel that I shall love you more and more, and as I shall see you oftener and know you better," said the simply truthful son.

"Ishmael! this is the happiest hour I have known since Nora's death, and Nora's son has given it to me."

"None have a better right to serve you."

"My son, I am a prematurely old and broken man, ruined and impoverished, but Brudenell Hall is still mine, and the name of Brudenell is one of the most ancient and honored in the Old and New World! If you consent, Ishmael, I will gladly, proudly, and openly acknowledge you as my son. I will get an act of the Legislature passed authorizing you to take the name and arms of Brudenell. And I will make you the heir of Brudenell Hall. What say you, Ishmael?"

"Father," said the young man, promptly but respectfully, "no! In all things I will be to you a true and loving son; but I cannot, cannot consent to your proposal; because to do so would be to cast bitter, heavy, unmerited reproach upon my sweet mother's memory! For, listen, sir: you are known to have been the husband of the Countess Hurstmonceux for more years than I have lived in this world; you are known to have been so at the very time of my birth; you could not go about explaining the circumstances to everyone who would become acquainted with the facts, and the consequences would be what I said! No, father, leave me as I am; for, besides the reasons I have given, there is yet another reason why I may not take your name."

"What is that, Ishmael?" asked Brudenell, in a broken voice.

"It is, that in an hour of passionate grief, after hearing my mother's woeful story from the lips of my aunt, I fell upon that mother's grave and vowed to make her name—the only thing she had to leave me, poor mother!—illustrious. It was a piece of boyish vainglory, no doubt, but it was a vow, and I must try to keep it," said Ishmael, faintly smiling.

"You will keep it; you will make the name of Worth illustrious in the annals of the country, Ishmael," said Mr. Brudenell.

There was a pause for a little while, at the end of which the latter said:

"There is another way in which I may be able to accomplish my purpose, Ishmael. Without proclaiming you as my son, and risking the reproach you dread for your dear mother's memory, I might adopt you as my son, and appoint you as my heir. Will you make me happy by consenting to that measure, Ishmael?" inquired the father, in a persuasive tone.

"Dear sir, I cannot. Oh, do not think that I am insensible to all your kindness, for indeed I am not! I thank you; I love you; and I deeply sympathize with you in your disappointment; but—"

"But what, my son? what is the reason you cannot agree to this last proposal?" asked Mr. Brudenell, in a voice quivering with emotion.

"A strong spirit of independence, the growth of years of lonely struggle with the world, possesses and inspires me. I could not for an hour endure patronage or dependence, come they from where or how they might. It is the law of my life," said Ishmael firmly, but affectionately.

"It is a noble law, and yours has been a noble life, my son. But—is there nothing, nothing I can do for you to prove my affection, and to ease my heart, Ishmael?"

"Yes!" said the young man, after a pause. "When you return to England, you will see—Lady Vincent!" The name was uttered with a gasp. "Tell her what you have told me—the history of your acquaintance with my mother; your mutual love; your private marriage, and the unforeseen misfortune that wrecked your happiness! Tell her how pure and noble and lovely my young mother was! that her ladyship may know once for all Nora Worth was not"—Ishmael covered his face with his hands, and caught his breath, and continued—"not, as she said, 'the shame of her own sex and the scorn of ours'; that her son is not 'the child of sin,' nor 'his heritage dishonor!'" And Ishmael dropped his stately head upon his desk, and sobbed aloud; sobbed until all his athletic form shook with the storm of his great agony.

Herman Brudenell gazed at him—appalled. Then, rising, he laid his hand on the young man's shoulder, saying:

"Ishmael! Ishmael! don't do so! Calm yourself, my son; oh, my dear son, calm yourself!"

He might as well have spoken to a tempest. Sobs still shook

Ishmael's whole frame.

"Oh, Heaven! oh, Heaven! Would to the Lord I had never been born!" cried Herman Brudenell, in a voice of such utter woe that Ishmael raised his head and struggled hard to subdue the storm of passion that was raging in his bosom. "Or would that I had died the day I met Nora, and before I had entailed all this anguish on you!" continued Herman Brudenell, amid groans and sighs.

"Don't say so, my father! don't say so! You were not in fault. You were as blameless as she herself was; and you could not have been more so," said Ishmael, wiping his fevered brow, and looking up.

"My generous son! But did Claudia—did Lady Vincent use the cruel words you have quoted, against your mother and yourself?"

"She did, my father. Oh, but I have suffered!" exclaimed Ishmael, with shaking voice and quivering features.

"I know you have; I know it, Ishmael; but you have grandly, gloriously conquered suffering," said Mr. Brudenell, with enthusiasm.

"Not quite conquered it yet; but I shall endeavor to do so," replied the young man, who had now quite regained his self-possession.

And another pause fell between them.

Ishmael leaned his head upon his hand and reflected deeply for a few moments. Then, raising his head, he said:

"My father, for her sake, our relationship must remain a secret from all the world, with the few exceptions of those intimate friends to whom you can explain the circumstances, and even to them it must be imparted in confidence. You will tell Lady Vincent, that her ladyship may know how false were the calumnies she permitted herself to repeat; and Judge Merlin and Mr. Middleton, whose kindness has entitled them to the confidence, for their own satisfaction."

"And no one else, Ishmael?"

"No one else in the world, my father. I myself will tell Uncle Reuben. And in public, my father, we must be discreet in our intercourse with each other. Forgive me if I speak in too dictatorial a manner; I speak for lips that are dumb in death. I speak as my dead mother's advocate," said Ishmael, with a strange blending of meekness and firmness in his tone and manner.

"And her advocate shall be heard and heeded, hard as his mandate seems. But, ah! I am an old and broken man, Ishmael. I had hoped, in time, to claim you as my son, and solace my age in your bright youth. I am grievously disappointed. Oh! would to Heaven I had taken charge of you in your infancy, and then you would not disclaim me now!" sighed Mr. Brudenell.

"I do not disclaim you, father. I only deprecate the publicity that might wound my mother's memory. And you are not old and broken, my father. How can you be—at forty-three? You are in the sunny summer noon of your life. But you are harassed and ill in mind and body; and you are very morbid and sensitive. You shun society, form no new ties with your fellow-creatures, and brood over that old sad tragedy long passed. Think no more of it, father; its wounds are long since healed in every heart but yours; my mother has been in heaven these many years; as long as I have been on earth; my birthday here was her birthday there! Therefore, brood no more over that sad time; it is forever past and gone. Think of your young love as much as you please; but think of her in heaven. It is not well to think forever of the Crucifixion and never of the Ascension; forever of the martyrdom that was but for a moment, and never of the glory that is from everlasting to everlasting. Nora was martyred; her martyrdom was as the grief of a moment; but she has ascended and her happiness is eternal in the heavens. Think of her so. And rouse yourself. Wake to the duties and pleasures of life. Look around upon and enjoy the beauty of the earth, the wisdom of man, the loveliness of woman, and the goodness of God. If you were a single man I should say 'marry again'; but as you are already a married man, though estranged from your wife, I say to you, seek a reconciliation with that lady. You are both in the prime of life."

"What! does Nora's son give me such advice?" inquired Brudenell, with a faint, incredulous smile.

"Yes, he does; as Nora herself in her wisdom and love would do, could she speak to you from heaven," said Ishmael solemnly Brudenell slowly and sorrowfully shook his head.

"The Countess of Hurstmonceux can nevermore be anything to me," he said.

"My father! have you then no kindly memory of the sweet young lady who placed her innocent affections upon you in your early manhood, and turning away from all her wealthy and titled suitors, gave herself and her fortune to you?"

Slowly and bitterly Herman Brudenell shook his head. Ishmael, still looking earnestly in his face continued:

"Who left her native country and her troops of friends, and crossed the sea alone, to follow you to a home that must have seemed like a wilderness, and servants that were like savages to her; who devoted her time and spent her money in embellishing your house and improving your land, and in civilizing and Christianizing your negroes; and who passed the flower of her youth in that obscure neighborhood, doing good and waiting patiently long, weary years for the return of the man she loved."

Still the bitter, bitter gesture of negation from Herman.

"Father," said Ishmael, fixing his beautiful eyes on Brudenell's face and speaking earnestly, "it seems to me that if any young lady had loved me with such devotion and constancy, I must have loved her fondly in return. I could not have helped doing so!"

"She wronged me, Ishmael!"

"And even if she had offended me—deeply and justly offended me—I must have forgiven her and taken her back to my bosom again."

"It was worse than that, Ishmael! It was no common offense. She deceived me! She was false to me!"

"I cannot believe it!" exclaimed Ishmael earnestly.

"Why, what ground have you for saying so? What can you know of it?"

"Because I do not easily think evil of women. My life has been short and my experience limited, I know; but as far as my observation instructs me, they are very much better than we are; they do not readily yield to evil; their tendencies are all good," said Ishmael fervently.

"Young man, you know a great deal of books, a great deal of law; but little of men, and less of women. A man of the world would smile to hear you say what you have just said, Ishmael."

"If I am mistaken, it is a matter to weep over, not to smile at!" said Ishmael gravely, and almost severely.

"It is true."

"But to return to your countess, my father. I am not mistaken in that lady's face, I know. I have not seen it since I was eight years old; but it is before me now! a sweet, sad, patient young face, full of holy love. Among the earliest memories of my life is that of the young Countess of Hurstmonceux, and the stories that were afloat concerning herself and you. It was said that every day at sunset she would go to the turnstile at the crossroads on the edge of the estate, where she could see all up and down two roads for many miles, and there stand watching to catch the first glimpse of you, if perhaps you might be returning home. She did this for years and years, until people began to say that she was crazed with hope deferred. It was at that very stile I first saw her. And when I looked at her lovely face and thought of her many charities—for there was no suffering from poverty in that neighborhood while she lived there—I felt that she was an angel!"

"Aye! a fallen angel, Ishmael!"

"No, father! no! my life and soul on her truth and love! Children are good judges of character, you know! And I was but eight years old on the occasion of which I speak! I was carrying a basket of tools for the 'professor,' whose assistant I was; and who would have carried them himself only that his back was bent beneath a load of kitchen utensils, for we had been plastering a cistern all day and in coming home took these things to mend in the evening. And as we passed down the road we saw this lovely lady leaning on the stile. And she called me to her and laid her hand on my head and looked in my face very tenderly, and turning to the professor, said: 'This child is too young for so heavy a burden.' And she took out her purse and would have given me an eagle, only that Aunt Hannah had taught me never to take money that I had not earned."

"Grim Hannah! It is a marvel she had not starved you with her scruples, Ishmael! But what else passed between you and the countess?"

"Not much! but if she was sorry for me, I was quite as sorry for her."

"There was a bond of sympathy between you which you felt without understanding at the time!"

"There was; though I mistook its precise character. Seeing that she wore black, I said: 'Have you also lost your mother, my lady, and are you in deep mourning for her?' And she answered, 'I am in deep mourning for my dead happiness, child!'"

"For her dead honor, she might have said!"

"Father! the absent are like the dead; they cannot defend themselves," said Ishmael.

"That is true; and I stand rebuked! And henceforth, whatever I may think, I will never speak evil of the Countess of Hurstmonceux."

"Go farther yet, dear sir! seek an explanation with her, and my word on it she will be able to confute the calumnies, or clear up the suspicious circumstances or whatever it may have been that has shaken your confidence in her, and kept you apart so long."

"Ishmael it is a subject that I have never broached to the countess, and one that I could not endure to discuss with her!"

"What, my father? Would you forever condemn her unheard? We do not treat our worst criminals so!"

"Spare me, my son! for I have spared her!"

"If by sparing her you mean that you have left her alone, you had better not spared her; you had better sought divorce; then one of two things would have happened—either she would have disproved the charges brought against her, or she would have been set free! either alternative much better than her present condition."

"I could not drag my domestic troubles into a public courtroom,

Ishmael!"

"Not when justice required it, father?—But you are going down into the neighborhood of Brudenell Hall! You will hear of her from the people among whom she lived for so many years, and who cherish her memory as that of an angel of mercy, and—you will change your opinion of her."

Herman Brudenell smiled incredulously, and then said:

"Apropos of my visit to Brudenell Hall! I hope, Ishmael, that you will be able to join me there in the course of the summer?"

"Father, yes! I promise you to do so. I will be at pains to put my business in such train as will enable me to visit you for a week or two."

"Thanks, Ishmael! And now, do you know I think the first dinner bell rang some time ago and it is time to dress?"

And Herman Brudenell arose, and after pressing Ishmael's hand, left the library.

The interview furnished Ishmael with too much food for thought to admit of his moving for some time. He sat by the table in a brown study, reflecting upon all that he had heard, until he was suddenly startled by the pealing out of the second bell. Then he sprang up, hurried to his chamber, hastily arranged his toilet, and went down into the dining room, where he found all the family already assembled and waiting for him.