CHAPTER XV.

Cosmus, Duke of Florence, had a desperate saying against perfidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable. “You shall read,” saith he, “that we are commanded to forgive our enemies, but you never read that we are commanded to forgive our friends.” But yet the spirit of Job was in a better tune: “Shall we,” saith he, “take good at God’s hands, and not be content to take evil also?” and so of friends in proportion. This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.—LORD BACON.

Redeemer, heal his heart! It is the grief Which festers there that hath bewildered him.

SOUTHEY’_s Roderick_.

The events of the morning had been so sudden and so bewildering, that Ellen scarcely comprehended what was happening. The knowledge that she was again to be brought into the presence of Cresford, was the one idea that possessed her mind. “What does he want me for? What am I to say to him, father? What is this to lead to?”

“I scarcely know, my child. You have nothing to do but to answer the truth. Your conduct has been irreproachable. You have nothing to blush for.”

“Oh, how I dread meeting those eyes again! Keep close to me, father.”

They arrived. Ellen, pale and trembling, was supported by her father into the hall. They were instantly shown into Mr. Turnbull’s study, where he waited to receive them. He offered Ellen a seat. There was a dignity in her timidity that awed, while it excited compassion; and Mr. Turnbull, though a plain matter-of-fact man, treated her with more polite deference than usually appeared in his manner towards women.

“I believe,” he said, “I must now summon Mr. Cresford, that he may go through the form of his deposition.”

Ellen bowed assent, and trembled through every limb. But she kept her eyes on the ground, and moved not. Cresford entered,—she did not stir.

As he approached the table, he gazed on her, though it was rather in triumph than in love; but her veil was down, her bonnet tied close, her form enveloped in a cloak. The oath was administered. Mr. Turnbull said:—

“I believe, madam, you must for a moment remove your veil, that the complainant may identify you.”

Ellen drew it aside, and turned on him her pale, sad face; but still she raised not her eyes. Cresford advanced a step towards the table, to take the Bible, and to swear that the prisoner was Ellen Cresford, his wife. She instinctively seized her father’s arm, and sheltered herself behind him.

Cresford showed his marriage certificate. The servant who had formerly lived with him, and the clerk of * * * *, were present to prove the celebration of the marriage. He then produced the extract from the Longbury register.

Mr. Turnbull asked Ellen what she had to say in reply. In a faint voice, she answered “Nothing!” She had but one absorbing feeling—that of bringing this painful interview to a close. But Captain Wareham interposed.

“I cannot allow this cruel and unjust statement to be made, without simply mentioning the circumstances under which my daughter’s second marriage was contracted. Mr. Cresford chose to publish an account of his own death—he chose to enact his own funeral—his friends and relations mourned him as dead. Two years and two months after the receipt of the paper containing this account of his decease, my daughter contracted a second marriage. Should any man in justice, in honour, prosecute such a case?”

“Certainly not,” was Mr. Turnbull’s concise reply. He looked at Cresford: “Do you wish me, sir, to proceed?—it is yet time to pause. You will no longer be at liberty to retract. If I make out the commitment, you are bound over to prosecute.”

“I know it, sir! It is my intention so to do.”

“Madam, my duty is a painful one, but I must proceed according to the provisions of the Act!” and Mr. Turnbull drew out the warrant of commitment; at the same time he informed the constable that he would himself attend that evening, with a brother magistrate, to admit her to bail; and that he authorised him to conduct her back to her own house, there to await his arrival, rather than at the county gaol.

“Father, father! I am not to be taken to prison! Impossible! He cannot mean to bring such disgrace upon the mother of his children?”

“My dear madam, I will attend you at your own house: as the presence of two magistrates is necessary, I will bring Sir John Staples with me. Captain Wareham can then give us bail for your appearance at the ensuing assizes.”

“The assizes! Oh! he cannot be in earnest! This is too, too cruel! Drag me before the eyes of the whole county! blazon our misery, and our shame to the world! bring upon us the mockery of the coarse and the unfeeling mob! Oh, Charles! what have I done to deserve this?” She burst into an agony of tears.

“What have you done? Have you not blasted my happiness, broken my heart, and maddened my brain?—and she asks what she has done!” he added, turning round to those present, with a wild and fearful laugh.

Mr. Turnbull hastened to bring the scene to a close, and lost no time in leading poor Ellen back to her hack chaise. He almost turned Cresford from the door, and instantly galloped off himself in search of Sir John Staples, to proceed with him to Captain Wareham’s house, and there to admit Ellen to bail, that, at least, she might thus be spared one painful and ignominious part of what she was doomed to endure.

Ellen threw herself, sobbing and weeping, into the corner of the carriage.

“So I am to be tried, father—tried for bigamy, I suppose! Oh! have mercy Heaven! tried like a common malefactor! placed at the bar, with all the lawyers to look at me; and the dirty mob to laugh, and bandy jests upon me! Oh! I never, never thought of this! And must it be? Is there no escape?”

“Alas! alas! my poor Ellen, I know of none. There is no chance of bringing Cresford to reason; every attempt to do so seems but to incense him. I really think his intellects are affected,—he is scarcely in his right senses.”

“I have done that!” she said, in a dejected tone. “It is not for me to be too hard upon him.” After a pause of some length, she added, “And, father—the punishment?”

“Oh, my child! do not think of that! no jury on earth can find you guilty.”

“But I am guilty, father!—it is true I have committed the crime! I am guilty of bigamy—though it is not my fault.”

“They will not condemn you.”

“But if they should? I should like to know the worst.”

“Why, under aggravated circumstances, the punishment may be transportation for seven years; but they will never pass such a sentence, so think no more of that.”

“I had rather it had been death,” she replied, in a quiet tone of despair. After another pause she asked, “If I were to be transported, would that annul my marriage? Should I be free?”

“No, my love, even that would not annul your marriage.”

“Perhaps it is best so. I am glad it would not: I would not mar his glorious and honourable career in his own country. It is enough to have the ruin of one fellow-creature on one’s conscience.” She spoke no more.

They arrived at home. In less than an hour Mr. Turnbull and Sir John Staples arrived, and with them Lord Besville, whom Mr. Turnbull also called upon, and who became bail, with Captain Wareham, for her appearance at the assizes.

The constable was dismissed. Poor Will Pollard! Never had the law of the land a more unwilling assistant in its execution. When he returned to his cottage late in the evening, he threw down his hat on the table.

“Well,” he muttered to himself, “this has been the worst day’s job that ever I had to do. I would not have such another, no—not to be justice of the peace, and a squire to boot. Why,” he exclaimed in a louder voice, and striking his fist on the table, “why, that fellow had no more business to come back alive, after having sent word he was dead, than I have to bring in my bills twice over! Shame upon him!”

It was some time before Peggy got at the rights of the case.

“So, ’tis her second husband as is her true love. Poor soul! Well, ’tis very hard. Why ’tis almost worse than if it was her husband’s ghost come to haunt her—not that I should any ways like to see the ghost of my first lover Tom Hartrop, as was drowned off Ushant.”

Peggy had been a beauty, and was rather fond of talking of her first, her second, her third, and her tenth lover. Will Pollard was in no mood to listen, and, with a manner unusually surly, bade her, “hold her jaw, and make haste with his supper.”

It was a sorrowful evening at Captain Wareham’s. Ellen retired early to rest, or rather to weep. Captain Wareham sat up late preambulating the small drawing-room, while the measured creaking of his shoes, and periodical stamp of his foot, were heard by Ellen in her apartment above, and by Matilda in hers, as they each passed the greater part of the night in painful watching.

Ellen sat down to write to Algernon for the first time since she had quitted his roof, and resumed the name of Cresford. To him she now looked for succour. The cruelty of Cresford seemed to have widened the breach between them, and to draw her irresistibly towards one whose conduct throughout had been dictated by the very spirit of honour, generosity, and tenderness.

She detailed to him all which had that day taken place. She told him she was to be tried, publicly tried; that she must, in vindication of her own fame, produce every proof that they had received the most authentic accounts of Cresford’s death. She begged him to take every means towards finding a copy of the newspaper containing the official return of the deaths at Verdun. She begged him to inquire for Colonel Eversham, and, if possible, to discover what had been the fate of young Maitland, to whom Cresford had entrusted the letter which was to apprize her of his plan.

“I write to you, Algernon,” she continued, “because I know you will leave nothing unattempted to serve me, and to rescue me from the only one additional misery which can now be heaped upon me—that of being supposed to have sinned knowingly. Perhaps I may always have been too much alive to the opinion of the world. Perhaps one ought to be satisfied with knowing one’s intentions to have been innocent, and it may be nobler to despise the idle gossip of those one neither loves nor esteems; but my error, if it is one, is the safest for woman; and you, who know that I would neither see you, nor correspond with you, till I fancied the two years of my widowhood expired, can alone guess what I feel at thus having my miserable history dragged before the public. I have been stunned, annihilated by the blow. The idea of such a consummation to my earthly woes never crossed my mind before. But now my one only hope is at least to prove I sincerely believed myself free when I gave myself to you,—that I did not wittingly involve you in the misery which attends all in any way connected with me.

“You must secure for me the best lawyer. In short, I trust every thing to you. This will be expensive; it has not been pride, but my deference for that world before whom I am doomed to be degraded, which has hitherto prevented my allowing you to contribute to my support. I know full well that all you have might be mine; I know from my own what your feelings are, and for this cause, for the cause of my honour, I am ready to let you incur whatever expense may be necessary. I write to you at once that not a moment may be lost. The assizes are to be held the 20th of next month. If possible, discover the fate of Maitland.—Adieu! I write no more—but you may communicate with my father. May Heaven preserve you to be a blessing to all who are allowed the happiness of belonging to you!

“Our child—oh, there is still one link which binds us together!—our child is well and lovely.

ELLEN.”

Algernon, upon the receipt of this letter, was nearly frantic with rage and indignation. If Cresford longed to find himself hand to hand engaged with his rival, not less did Algernon burn to meet him in mortal strife; but still Cresford would have been safe with him in a desert, so closely did he cling to some distant hope of reunion with Ellen.

Though he was wild with indignation at Cresford’s unmanly and cruel revenge, there was a sense of relief to him in having a definite object to pursue. He had hitherto remained in utter seclusion and inactivity. He feared to injure or to distress her, by any measure he could take, and he had lived the life of an anchorite, wandering among his own woods, far from public business, useless alike to himself and to others. At length he was roused to exertion, and, horrified as he was at the image of his lovely, refined, delicate, shrinking Ellen being exposed to the gaze of a public court, there was a comfort in being actively employed in her behoof. He threw himself into his carriage to fly to London, and there to begin the necessary inquiries.

He first drove to the house of the most eminent lawyer of the day, to secure him as counsel. Cresford had been there before him. He had retained him; and although he was so engaged that he did not attend this circuit, he was effectually prevented from affording Algernon any assistance. He proceeded to another, whose name stood high as a man of overpowering eloquence, when he had justice on his side, although not perhaps equally skilled in making the worse appear the better cause. He found him free, and he was instantly retained.

He next repaired to the newspaper offices, and there having stated the date and the title of the paper of which he was in want, they gave him every hope of soon procuring it.

And now to find Colonel Eversham! He looked in the army-list. He found the name. He proceeded to the Horse Guards. He there learned that Colonel Eversham was with his regiment in Spain, having joined the army under the command of Sir John Moore. He instantly applied to the adjutant-general. He wrote to the military secretary of the commander-in-chief. He explained the case, and implored that leave of absence might be despatched to Colonel Eversham to quit his regiment, and if possible to return to England before the 20th of the ensuing month.

The most difficult point remained. Maitland! He had no clue whereby to discover who or what Maitland was. The army-lists and navy-lists, for the years 1801, 1802, 1803, were turned over and over again. No one appeared whom he could make out to have been a _détenu_.

At length he thought of applying to the Court Guide, and of personally calling at every house in London inhabited by any one of the name of Maitland. He might by chance discover whether any relative had been a _détenu_, and thus ascertain his fate.