Читать книгу The Gipsy: A Tale (Vols I & II) - G. P. R. James - Страница 18

Table of Contents

Any one who has tried to speak with another for five minutes in private, without the pomp and circumstance of demanding an interview, will know that it is almost impossible to find the opportunity, unless the person be one's own wife. There is always something comes in the way just at the very moment--something unforeseen and unlikely,--especially if one be very anxious upon the subject. If the matter be of no importance, the opportunity presents itself at every turn; but if one be very, very desirous to unburden a full heart, or tell a tale of love, or give a valuable hint, or plead the cause of one's self, or any one else, without the freezing influence of a formal conference, one may wait hours and days--nay, weeks and months, sometimes--without finding five minutes open in the whole day.

As soon as breakfast was over, Edward de Vaux followed Marian into the music-room; and when Marian left him, he came to tell his friend and Isadore that they proposed making a riding party to see something in the neighbourhood. Manners went up in his room to prepare; and, as he found himself on the stairs alone with De Vaux, he had his hand in his pocket to produce the letter, when Miss Falkland's step sounded close by them, and her voice invited her cousin to come with her, and see a little present she had bought for Marian's birthday. As soon as Manners was equipped for riding, he went to De Vaux's room, calculating--as he usually dressed in half the time that his friend expended on such exertions--that he would find him there: but no one was in the apartment but a servant, who told him that Mr. De Vaux had gone down. As he passed along one of the corridors, he saw De Vaux sauntering across the lawn towards the gates of the stable-yard; but ere he could catch him, his friend was surrounded by grooms and servants, receiving his orders concerning the horses; and as they turned again towards the house. Marian and Miss Falkland were standing in their riding dresses on the steps.

"Well, I must wait," thought Manners, reflecting sagely on the difficulties of executing punctually even so simple a commission as that which he had undertaken. "Well, I must wait till we go to dress for dinner; then I am sure to find my opportunity."

He was not destined, however, to remain burdened with his secret so long. The ride was pleasant, but did not extend far; and on the return of the party, while Manners and De Vaux stood looking at their boots in the hall, Miss Falkland and her cousin retired to change their dress, and the opportunity was not lost.

"Now we are alone," said Manners, "let me execute a commission with which I am charged towards you, De Vaux, and which has teased me all the morning."

"Not a challenge, I hope," replied the other; "for it seems a solemn embassy."

"No, no, nothing of the kind," answered his friend; "but the fact is--"

"Please, sir," said Colonel Manners' servant, opening the glass doors, "I believe the young mare is throwing out a splint; and I did not like to--"

"Well, well," said Manners, somewhat impatiently, "I will come and see her myself, presently--I am engaged just now." The man withdrew; and resuming his discourse at the precise point where he had left off, Manners continued, "The fact is, that gipsy, of whom I was speaking this morning, charged me with a letter to you, which I promised to deliver in private, and when you were likely to be able to read it without interruption."

"A gipsy!" said De Vaux, knitting his brows; "the circle of my acquaintance has extended itself farther than I thought, and in a class, also, equally beyond my wishes and anticipations: but are you sure there is no mistake? does he really mean me?"

"There is the letter," replied Manners, "with your titles, nomen and cognomen, as clearly superscribed as ever I saw them written:--Captain the Honourable Edward de Vaux, with many et cæteras."

"And in a good hand, and on tolerably clean paper," said De Vaux, taking the letter, and gazing on the back. "Why, this gipsy of yours must be a miracle, Manners."

"He is a very extraordinary person, certainly," answered his companion, "both in his ideas and his deportment, which are equally above his class."

"Nay, he must be a miracle--a complete miracle!" said De Vaux, laughing, "if he can mend kettles and write such an address as that, with the same good right hand. But this must be a begging letter."

"I think not," replied Manners: "it would not surprise me to find that he knows more of you than you imagine; but, at all events, read the letter."

De Vaux turned the letter, looked at the seal, which offered a very good impression, though one with which he was not acquainted, and then, tearing open the paper, read the contents. The very first words made his eye strain eagerly upon the page; a few lines more rendered him deadly pale; and though, as he went on, his agitation did not increase, yet the intensity of his gaze upon the sheet before him was not at all diminished; and when he had concluded it, after staring vacantly in his companion's face for a moment, he again turned to the letter, and read it attentively over once more.

"I am afraid I have brought you evil tidings, De Vaux," said Colonel Manners, who had watched with some anxiety the changes upon the countenance of his friend: "if so, can I serve you? You know Charles Manners; and I need scarcely say how much pleasure it will give me to do any thing for you."

"I must think, Manners--I must think," replied De Vaux: "these are strange tidings indeed, and vouched boldly too; but I doubt whether I have a right to communicate them to any one but the person they affect next to myself. However, I must think ere I act at all. Forgive me for not making you a sharer of them; and excuse me now, for I am much agitated, and hardly well."

"Let me be no restraint upon you, De Vaux," answered his friend. "If I can serve you, tell me; if I can alleviate any thing you suffer by sympathy, let me share in what you feel; but do not suppose for a moment that I even desire to hear any thing that it may be proper to keep to your own bosom. Leave me now, without ceremony: but take care how you act, De Vaux; for I see there is matter of much importance in your mind; and you are, sometimes at least, in military affairs, a little hasty."

"I will be as cool and thoughtful as yourself, my friend," replied De Vaux; "but I am agitated, and the best place for me is my own room."

Thus saying, he left his friend, not a little surprised, indeed, that such a letter from such a person should have had the power to produce on the mind of a man like De Vaux the extreme agitation which he had just witnessed. De Vaux, he well knew, was not one to give credence to any thing lightly, or to yield to any slight feeling which a first impression might produce; but, in the present instance, it was evident that his friend had received a shock from some tidings which had been totally unexpected, but which must have been probable, as well as unpleasant, to produce such an effect. The extraordinary fact, however, that news of such importance should be left to the transmission of such a man as the gipsy--so separated by station, and state, and circumstances, from the person whom they concerned--was of course a matter of much astonishment to Colonel Manners; and surprise divided his bosom with anxiety and sympathy for his friend.

It is a very disagreeable thing to have any two feelings thus making a shuttlecock of our attention; or, when they are very eager, struggling for it with mutual pertinacity; but the only way to act under such circumstances is, to treat them like two quarrelsome boys; and, shutting them up together, leave them to fight it out without interruption. Such was the plan which Colonel Manners now proposed to pursue; and, consequently, quitting the hall where his conversation with De Vaux had taken place, he walked straight to the library, and opened the door.

What happened next was not without its importance; but as the mind may be at this moment more anxious concerning De Vaux than concerning his companion, we will follow him up the staircase as lightly as possible; enter his chamber, lay our hand upon his bosom, draw the curtain, and show the reader the scene within. But it may be as well first to look at that letter upon the table before which he is sitting, with his left hand upon his brow, and his right partly covering the sheet of paper which had so disturbed him. If one can draw it gently out from underneath his fingers, while his eyes are shut and his thoughts are busy, one may read what follows:--

"To Captain Edward de Vaux." Here, be it remarked, that there was a difference between the superscription and the address; the latter having borne, "To Captain the Honourable Edward de Vaux," while in the inside was merely written, "To Captain Edward de Vaux."

The difference may appear insignificant; but, in the present instance, and with the commentary of the epistle itself thereon, it signifies a great deal. However, the letter went on:--

"To Captain Edward de Vaux.

"Sir: I shall make no excuse for addressing you, as I am fully justified therein; and you yourself, however great the pain I may inflict upon you, will eventually admit that I am so. You are about, I understand, to unite your fate to a young lady of rank and fortune; and it is more than possible that mutual affection and mutual good feelings would render your union happy. Nevertheless, believing you to be a man of honour, I feel sure that you would not like to lead any one into such an alliance with expectations which are not alone doubtful, but fallacious. It is therefore necessary that you should know more precisely how you are situated; and I hesitate not to inform you, that on the title and estates held by your father you have no earthly right to calculate; that, should you marry Miss de Vaux, you bring with you nothing but your commission as a captain in the army; and that whatever you expect from your parent will most certainly go to another person. Your first conclusion--as a world in which there are so many villains is naturally suspicious--will be, that this letter is written either by some one who intends to set up some unjust claim to your rightful inheritance, by some disappointed suitor of your bride, or by some malevolent envier of another's happiness. Such, however, is not the fact. The person who writes this owes some gratitude to your family; not so much for what was accomplished, as for what your grandfather sought to accomplish in his favour. You may have heard the story--in which case you will give more credence to the present letter--or you may not have heard the story: but still, the way to satisfy yourself is open before you. Either resolve to question your father boldly concerning the points herein contained; or, if you would have the facts proved so that you cannot doubt them, come alone to the gipsies' tents, in the sand-pit on Morley Down, this evening or early to-morrow morning, and inquire for

"Pharold."

Now, under any ordinary circumstances, the only course which De Vaux would have pursued might have been, to twist up the paper into any strange and fanciful form that the whim of the moment suggested, and put it into the first fire he met with, giving it hardly a second thought. But there were circumstances totally distinct from, and independent of, the letter itself, which gave it a degree of importance far above that which it intrinsically possessed. Edward de Vaux, though he had a slight recollection of a dark-eyed, beautiful creature, whom in his infancy he had called mother, lost all remembrance of her at a particular period of his life, and had never since, that he knew of, heard her name mentioned. He passed, it is true, for Lord Dewry's legitimate son, was received as such in society, and admitted as such by his own family and relations. But, if so, how was it he had never seen a picture of his mother among those of his ancestors, and beside that of his father, which stood in the gallery, and represented him as a man of about thirty-five years of age?--How was it he had never heard his mother's jewels mentioned, though those of the two baronesses who had preceded her were often referred to? How was it that his aunt, Mrs. Falkland, as he inferred from many facts, had never seen his mother? How was it that his father had never spoken her name in his hearing? All this had often struck him as something very extraordinary; and a thousand minor circumstances, which cannot be here recapitulated, had shown him that there was some mystery in regard to his family, which had frequently given him pain. Since his return, however, something more had occurred: two or three words had been spoken by his father, during their dispute concerning Colonel Manners, which had startled him at the time with a suspicion which he had instantly banished, but which now came up again with fearful confirmation of the tidings he had just received. Lord Dewry had declared that he could be deprived of the entailed estates of the barony by a single word. At the time, that expression had but slightly alarmed him; for, well knowing the violence of his father's disposition, and the acts and words of almost insane vehemence to which any opposition would drive him, he had instantly concluded that it was a meaningless threat, spoken to punish him for the spirit of resistance he had displayed. But now it came back in its full force; and he asked himself, what could such words mean, if he were a legitimate child? The estates were entailed on the male heir; he himself was the only male heir in the present line; and if by birth he were the lawful son of Lord Dewry, no earthly power could deprive him of the lands of his forefathers. But his father, who had been educated for the bar before he succeeded to the title, had told him that a word would take them from him. A stranger now repeated the same tale, and pointed more directly to the same conclusion; and all his former recollections changed his bitter doubts into a terrible certainty.

Edward de Vaux bent down his head upon his hands, and covered his eyes, with a feeling of shame and degradation that was hardly supportable. It was not alone one well of bitterness that was opened upon him; but, in whatever direction he turned his thoughts, new gall and wormwood was poured into his cup. If there had been aught on earth of which he had been proud--and, in that instance, his pride, though bridled and restrained by better feelings, had been great;--if there had been any thing on earth of which he had been proud, it had been of his clear descent from thirteen generations of noble ancestors. He had taken a delight, even from boyhood, in tracing the recorded history of each, and in proving that there had not been one, from the founder of the family to his own immediate parent, who had not been well deserving of the rank and station that they held in their native land. He had drawn from his noble birth the moral which noble birth should always afford; and had determined that he, too, would deserve the title that they had received for great deeds; that he, too, would transmit the jewel of hereditary virtue to his children as an heirloom, unimpaired in passing through his hands. He knew that, in the words of a great natural poet,--