CHAPTER XIII.

_Gomez._—And wouldst thou bare thy bosom’s grief to one, A dull mechanic, who but stares on thee With cold unmeaning wonder? I had rather The secret pang should rankle at the core, And eat my life away, than my dear thoughts Be made thus stale and common. Hast no friend, No tried companion, whose unwearied ear Would ease thy o’ercharged breast?

_Pedro._— ... Not one—not one! I am alone, with such a sum of ills As o’erturns reason.

_Manuscript Tragedy._

“Sir,” said Cresford to the lawyer, “I come to you for justice. You see before you a man who has been deeply injured in his honour, his affections, and his rights as a man, a husband, and a father.”

Mr. M‘Leod pointed to a chair, and begged the gentleman to be seated—professed his willingness to lend any assistance in his power to a person who appeared to be suffering under such injuries, and begged him calmly to detail to him the circumstances of the case, that he might judge in what mode he could best render this assistance.

“I am calm, sir: if you knew all, you would wonder at my calmness. During the year of peace in 1802, I was called to France on mercantile business. I left a wife I adored—Oh, sir! she was the loveliest creature that ever walked this earth—she seemed as pure as she was lovely. I worshipped her as the Persians of old worshipped the sun. She was every thing to me! I scarcely suffered the wind to blow on her. The gaze of another man appeared to me almost pollution to a creature so sacred. I left her with her father, as I thought, in honour and in safety, and with her my two children.

“Every one knows the fate of those who were found in France upon the declaration of hostilities. I was one of the _détenus_, and at Verdun I was condemned to drag out many, many weary months, in absence from her I so madly adored. A vague jealousy, a fear of what might occur in my absence, racked my brain almost to madness. I would not accept my parole: the severity of my imprisonment was nothing to me. Of what avail was the liberty of wandering a few miles from the town, to one whose whole soul was in another land? It mattered little to me where I was detained, if I was far from her, and I would be bound by no ties of honour from attempting every thing in my power to make my escape. Several times I had nearly accomplished it, but each time the vigilance of my jailers overtook me.

“At length I thought of a plan which proved successful. I wrote a letter to my wife, informing her that I intended to counterfeit illness,—on my feigned death-bed, to obtain permission to be buried by torch-light in the Protestant burying-ground outside the town, and with the assistance of my friend and only confidant, Morton, to follow my own funeral procession, at night, wrapt in a military cloak, as one of the mourners. Every thing succeeded to my wishes. I was considered as falling a victim to my mental sufferings, and my fate excited pity. I obtained the permission required. Morton administered a strong sleeping draught, and as he was my constant attendant, he pronounced me dead. I was placed in my coffin, and on the evening of my funeral, which was the next succeeding my supposed death, he begged to be allowed to weep in private over the bier of his best friend, and took that opportunity of opening the coffin, dressing me in the clothes which he had conveyed into the room, filling the coffin with some billets of wood which had been brought to make up the fire, and of concealing me in an adjoining closet till the moment arrived for the procession to move on. I then mixed among the mourners, and by favour of the darkness, escaped detection. As most of the other officers were on parole, there was no difficulty made as to the number who passed the gates, and with a palpitating heart, I found myself, unfettered by any pledge of honour, beyond the walls of Verdun.

“It was not till all present were occupied in actually lowering the coffin into the ground that I ventured to absent myself. I took that moment to steal away, and plunging into a neighbouring thicket, I remained there closely concealed, till they had all wound their way back into the town.

“Morton had placed for me a peasant’s dress, a bag of provisions, and some money, in a hollow tree, the situation of which he had so accurately described to me, that I found it without much loss of time, and having changed my dress, and carefully concealed my military costume, I dashed right onwards, and before morning had cleared three leagues. I need not tell you how I made my way from day to day—how I crossed the Rhine in an open boat, which in my wanderings I found moored to the shore; how I was, in Germany, immediately seized as a spy, and how for four years, I was enabled still to endure the tortures of an Austrian dungeon, by the distant hope of some day being restored to my Ellen,—_my_ Ellen! I thought her _mine_ then! I have escaped from my dungeon—I have returned! I came to my home—no one knew me—I asked for my wife—I received no answer—I inquired for my children—they were at Mr. Hamilton’s!—for that is his name—that is the name of the man who has robbed me of my wife—my wedded, lawful wife!—for she is my wife! By the law of the land, she is my wife, sir? There is justice for me in this land of law, of liberty, of impartial justice, is there not? She can be prosecuted for bigamy, sir. She must be found guilty. I come to you to learn how to proceed—Do you advise me, guide me. Oh! my brain is confused and maddened! I cannot, cannot think!”

Cresford paced the apartment in violent agitation. The quiet lawyer looked up from his spectacles, and half wondered whether his would-be client was quite in his right senses. Cresford had not paused for a moment. There was a relief in thus disburthening himself of all that had long been pent up in his soul. He had found those who were nearest and dearest to him, severed, eternally severed from him. All other ties and affections were as nothing before those which had been thus rudely rent asunder, and having once begun to speak to this stranger, he poured forth all his tale as to his best friend. He might also be prompted to indulge in this confidence by a feeling unknown to himself, that a person totally unacquainted with Ellen would be more likely to listen with complete sympathy to his wrongs, than any one who had known, or even seen her.

Mr. M‘Leod answered,

“Indeed, sir, your case appears to be a very hard one. You wrote, you say, to your wife to inform her of the plan you meant to adopt?”

“I wrote to her explaining the whole thing, and sent the letter by my friend Maitland, who succeeded in making his escape a month before I put my plan in execution. I waited to make sure he got off in safety. He wrote to me the evening before he sailed in a fishing-vessel for England.”

“And you are confident she received this letter?”

“She says she did not—but she had fallen in love with Hamilton! She never loved me, I am now sure she never loved me,” he repeated in a tone of deep despondency, but he continued with more bitterness: “It was very convenient to her to believe in my death; convenient to my partners in trade, to divide the profits of the business—very convenient for her brother to be admitted to a share. Ha, ha, ha! they have all revelled in my spoils—they have thought me safe in my dungeon! But I am here—I am alive—they cannot prove me dead. I will wrest my wife, my children, my property, from the spoiler’s grasp!” and he laughed a wild laugh of desperation.

It had been Mr. M‘Leod’s fate frequently to see people under a state of great excitement, so that, although he feared his visiter’s mind might be somewhat warped by his misfortunes, he did not doubt there was ground for all he stated, and he now inquired methodically into his name, his connections, his residence.

He remembered the name as one of considerable note in the mercantile world, and he had some recollection of having heard his death mentioned, as one of the melancholy consequences of the cruel and unjustifiable act of arbitrary power, which must always be a disgrace on the name of Napoleon.

“Indeed, Mr. Cresford,” rejoined M‘Leod, “I pity you most sincerely—whether your wife may be to blame or not.”

“Whether my wife may be to blame or not? And do I hear an Englishman, whose profession it is to right the injured, to procure justice for all indifferently—do I hear him advocate the cause of the faithless wife? then, indeed, have I little chance of redress!”

“My good sir, you misunderstand me entirely. I do not mean to advocate her cause, or anybody’s cause. I merely mean to say, that I am very sorry for you, whether your wife did ever receive the letter you wrote to her, or whether she did not.”

“She did receive it—she must have received it; and, if she did not, she should have waited for some more positive and certain information of my death than common report!”

“Very true, Mr. Cresford—quite true, sir; yet, if you had been dead, it would not have been easy for you to write her word you were dead, though she might have expected to hear from you that you were alive.”

“Is there justice for me in the laws of my country, or is there not?” repeated Cresford sternly.

“Certainly, sir. In this country there is justice for everybody.”

“Then how am I to seek redress? In what court?”

“Why, if by redress you mean revenge, that is to be obtained by prosecuting your wife for bigamy, in which case the trial would take place at the assizes of the county in which the marriage ceremony was performed: but, under the circumstances of the case under which the crime of bigamy was committed, I conclude, that if she quits the roof of her second husband——”

“He is not her husband, sir; I am her husband, and I will prove it. She, the immaculate—the refined—who seemed to shrink from my love as too impassioned—she shall be proved to have been living in sin with another man!”

“Does she still reside with Mr.——I beg your pardon, what was the name you mentioned?”

“Hamilton—Hamilton is his name—and curses on it!” exclaimed Cresford, goaded to madness by the cool and methodical manner of the lawyer, who, though a lawyer, was an honest straightforward man, with plain manners and a good heart.

“Does she still reside with Mr. Hamilton?”

“No! she is with her father. She had not the face to live on with Hamilton when she knew I was alive, and on my way home.”

“And your children, sir, does she make any difficulty about sending them to you?”

“No! I brought them away with me yesterday.”

“Then I do not exactly understand what redress you seek at the arm of the law.”

The clear head, and the kind heart of the lawyer, made him begin to see that, although a most singular and lamentable case, it was one in which all parties were more deserving of pity than of blame, and it seemed to him that the poor woman had acted as well as she could under the unfortunate circumstances.

“Have you and Mrs. Cresford had an interview since your return, and in what manner did she comport herself?”

“I saw her yesterday. I saw her in all her loveliness—I could almost have forgotten every thing—for the moment it was such rapture to gaze on her again; when she told me, in so many words, that her whole heart and soul were his—my rival’s.”

“Poor woman!” ejaculated Mr. M‘Leod.

“And is it she whom you pity? Am I doomed to be scorned and persecuted by the whole human race? To be hated by all who are bound to me by the nearest and dearest ties? Are even strangers to take part against me? But I will have revenge, if I cannot have sympathy. I will be feared, if I cannot be loved. I would fain be loved; it was my nature to love, and to wish for love in return.” His voice softened, and the tears swam in his eyes. “But I have never been loved—no, she never did love me! He had her first affections—her whole affections! Oh, how those words ring in my ears!”

Mr. M‘Leod was moved by his expressions of wretchedness, and rising from his seat, he took his hand kindly.

“Though I am a stranger to you, sir, I pity you most sincerely,” he said, “and I wish I could persuade you to look more calmly on the case.”

“Can you—will you assist me?”

“Explain to me in what mode you wish for my assistance.”

“Will you undertake the prosecution of Ellen Cresford for bigamy?”

“Why, I must consider a little about it. I am an odd sort of fellow, and though I am a lawyer, I have a corner of conscience,” and Mr. M‘Leod smiled. Cresford hated him for being able to smile. “I do not engage in any thing till I know a little more about the matter. I am very well off in the world, and I do not want to make money, by causing my fellow-creatures to be more unhappy than they need be. I can’t tell what I might do if I was poor; but, thank God, I can afford to dismiss a client, if I think that no good can come of gaining his cause.”

“Then you dismiss me, Mr. M‘Leod?”

“I do not justly say that; but I should like to know how truly your wife believed you were dead and buried, and whether she had got acquainted with the other gentleman before she heard the news of your death, and a few more such questions; for it runs in my head, that though your case is a hard one, hers may be a hard one too; and that the best thing you could both do, would be to let each other alone, and bear your misfortunes as well as you can.”

“It is easy enough to preach forbearance, and patience, and submission, and resignation. You would not find them quite so easy to practise. I did not come to you, Mr. M‘Leod, for ghostly counsel! I came to you for professional advice. Thus much I have ascertained, that the offence will be tried at the county assizes, and the punishment——?”

“Mercy upon me, sir! You do not really wish your wife to be transported, when you deceived her with a false report of your death! I will have nothing to say to the matter, Mr. Cresford. You may find another solicitor, who is sharper set for a job than I am.”

Cresford seized his hat, and muttering between his teeth, “Friend and foe, stranger and the wife of my bosom,—all leagued against me!” he made a slight bow to the honest lawyer, and again found himself jostled in the busy throng of London.

One thing, however, he had ascertained,—that the prosecution would take place at her native town, and he felt a certain pleasure in the idea that she would be held up to disgrace there, among the very people who knew he was the betrayed and the detested husband. Those who were aware of the humiliating situation in which he was placed, would be witnesses of his revenge.