CHAPTER III.

“TAKE BACK THESE LETTERS, MEANT FOR HAPPINESS.”

THERE were several notes and letters in the next packet which Eustace Thorburn examined, and over these he lingered very long--reading some amongst them a second time, and returning to reconsider others which he had put aside after a first perusal. These letters were written on the thickest and finest paper, and exhaled a faint odour of millefleurs, so faint as to be only the impalpable ghost of a departed perfume. Notes and letters were alike dated, but the only signature to be found amongst them was the single initial H.

Eustace read them in the order in which they had been written.

“The author of the book which Miss Mayfield was reading on Tuesday afternoon has called at the library three times since that day, but has not had the happiness of seeing her. Will Miss Mayfield be good enough to write one line, saying _when_ she may be seen? The writer, who feels himself unworthy of her eloquent praises, most earnestly wishes for an interview, if only of a few minutes’ duration.

“_The George Hotel, June 6, 1843._”

“The author of the book?” repeated Eustace; “what book? Was this man a writer?”

This letter had been delivered by hand. The next bore the postmark of Bayham, that Dorsetshire watering-place to which Daniel’s letters had been addressed. It was directed to

“C. M., _The Post-Office_, _Bayham_.

“_To be left till called for._”

“The seducer’s favourite address,” muttered Eustace, as he unfolded the letter.

“_George Hotel, June 15, 1843._

“MY DEAR MISS MAYFIELD,--If you could know the time I have wasted since Thursday week, in the vain endeavour to obtain a glimpse of your face, between the sheets of music and coloured lithographs in your father’s window, you would be more inclined to believe what I told you on that day. I told you that, if I did not see you, I should write, and I told you where I should address my letter. You forbade me to write, and assured me that my letter would lie at the post-office unasked for. But you, who are so sweet and gentle, could hardly adhere to such a cruel resolve. I dare to hope that this will reach your hands, and that you will forgive me for having disobeyed you.

“I do so much wish to see you again--if only once more--yes, even if only once. I am haunted day and night by the vision of that sweet face which I first saw bending over one of my own books. Do you remember that day?--only three weeks ago; and yet it seems to me as if a new existence began for me upon that day, and as if I were older by half a lifetime since then. Sweet tender face, with the dark eyes and wild-rose bloom, shall I ever learn to forget it? Will it ever cease to come between me and my books? I was trying to read a grand old tragedy last night: but you would not let me. You were Electra, and I saw you bending over your brother’s funereal urn, as I had seen you bending over the silly volume which you praised so sweetly. The Greek tragedy reminded me of that doctrine of fatality which we laugh at in these modern days. And yet surely Destiny has her hand in the fashion of our lives. I had been writing letters on the day on which I first saw you, and the people here had given me such wretched pens and paper that I sallied out to seek better for myself. If they had given me decent writing materials, I might never have seen you. There are three other places in the town at which I might have sought what I wanted; but Destiny laid her hand on my coat-collar, and conducted me to your father’s library. I went in quietly, with all my thoughts two hundred miles away from Bayham. I saw you sitting behind the counter, with a book in your lap; and all my thoughts came back to Bayham, to take up their abode with you for ever. You were so absorbed in your book, that you did not hear my modest request for a quire of letter-paper, until it had been three times enunciated; and I meanwhile had time to read the title of the book which interested you. I suppose every writer can read the title of his _own_ book upside-down. You looked up at last, with such a pretty, shy, innocent look, and the wild-rose bloom came into your cheeks. And then I asked you what you thought of the book; and you praised it with such bewitching eloquence, and wondered who the writer could be. I had heard the book lauded by a great many people, and abused by more; but I had never until that moment felt the smallest temptation to reveal myself as the author of it. I had, indeed, taken great trouble to conceal my identity. But when _you_ praised my work, I flung prudence to the winds. It was so delightful to see your bright blush, your bewitching confusion, when I told you that it was my happiness to have pleased you. O Celia, if you like my book so well, why is it that you distrust and avoid me? Let me see you, dear, I implore--anywhere--at any time--under any conditions you may choose to impose upon me. I wait in this dull town, day after day, in the hope of seeing you. A hundred duties call me away! and yet I wait. I shall wait for a week after having posted this letter; and if I receive no sign from you during that time, I shall leave Bayham, never again to venture within its fatal precincts.

“Ever and ever faithfully yours, “H.”

There was an interval of six weeks between the dates of the second and third letters; and there was a considerable alteration in the tone of the writer. He no longer pleaded for an interview with the stationer’s daughter. It was evident that he had seen her very often during the interval; and his letter was full of allusions to past meetings.

“MY OWN SWEET LOVE,” he began,--(ah, what a change in six short weeks from “My dear Miss Mayfield!”)--“my ever dearest, there is _no_ gulf between us, or no gulf so wide that love cannot bridge it over. Why are you so cruel as to doubt and avoid me? You know that I love you. You told me that you believed in my love last night when we stood by the sea in that sweet twilight, and when there was such a solemn quiet all around us that it would have been easy to fancy ourselves cast away upon some desert island. You talk to me of your humble birth,--as if the birth of an angel or a goddess could be humble,--and you implore me to go back to the world and its slavery, and to forget this bright glimpse of something better than the world. I am only five-and-twenty, Celia; and yet I fancied I had outlived the possibility of such love as that which I feel for you.

“You told me on Saturday that your father’s anger would be something terrible if he discovered our acquaintance. I should put an end to all your fears, dearest, by going straight to Mr. Mayfield and demanding the right to call you my own for ever, if I were not fettered hand and foot by social difficulties. You have some cause to doubt me, Celia; and if you were not the most generous of women, I should fear to speak frankly. Whenever we are married, our marriage must be kept secret until my father’s death releases me from bondage. You will think me a coward, perhaps, when I confess to you that I dare not openly defy my father; but you can scarcely imagine how complete the slavery of a son may be when he is an only son, and his father cherishes grand views for his advancement. I write about these wretched obstacles to our happiness, my sweet one, because when you are with me I _cannot_ speak of the difficulties which beset us. My troubles take flight when those dear eyes look up at me. I forget this work-a-day world and all its ills; and I could fancy this earth still the home of the gods, and foolish Pandora’s casket unopened. When I am away from you, all is changed, and hope only remains.

“So I shall make no allusion to this letter when we meet, dearest. We will be children, and fancy this world young again. We will wander arm-in-arm on that delicious stretch of golden sand beyond the curve of the bay, and far away from the bustle of the town. We will forget all our commonplace difficulties and troubles, and that the gods have abandoned the earth. Ah! if we had only lived in those mythic ages, when Eros himself might have taken compassion upon our sorrows, and transported us to some enchanted isle, where our youth and love should be immortal as his own divinity!

“Let me see you at seven, dear love. I shall await your coming at the old spot, and you will easily shake off your confidante and companion, Miss K. Can you suggest any feminine prettiness which Miss K. would care to possess? I should like to offer her some testimony of my respectful admiration; she has been so very indulgent to us, in her own prim fashion. Let me know whether it is to be a necklace, or a bracelet, or a pair of ear-rings, and I will see what the Bayham jeweller can do for us. And now, dearest and loveliest, adieu for a few hours; and may Phaethon whip his horses to the West, and bring the sweet sunset hour and the rosy light upon our favourite stretch of sand.

“Ever and ever yours, “H.”

There were many more letters--less playful and more passionate--the dates extending over six or seven weeks; and then there was a considerable interval, and then two letters written in the January of the following year. The writer had won his dearest Celia’s consent to a clandestine marriage. She was to leave her home secretly, and was to go with him to London, where all arrangements had been made. It was very evident that her consent to this step had not been won without great difficulty. The letters were full of protestations and promises. The writer was always repeating how his heart had been wrung by the sight of her tears, how the thought of her sorrow was almost more than he could bear. But he had borne it, nevertheless, and had persisted in his own designs, whatever they might be, for the last letter contained all necessary directions for the girl’s flight. She was to meet her lover at the coach-office after dark; and they were to travel the first stage of the journey by the night-mail, and then take post across country and get to London by a different road; so that any one following them, or making inquiries about them on the direct road from Bayham, would be completely baffled.

This was all--and yet more than enough for the young man, who sat brooding over the last letter with a gloomy face. It was such a common story, and so easily put together: the poor, weak, provincial beauty, who is lured away from her quiet home under the pretence of a secret marriage, a marriage which is never solemnized, and was never intended to be solemnized; then the brief dream of happiness, the noontide holiday in a new garden of Eden, with the fatal serpent, which is called Remorse, always in hiding beneath the flowers; and the speedy close to that fever-dream of bliss--utter despair and bitterness. This was the hackneyed romance which Eustace Thorburn wove out of the packet of letters signed with the initial H.; and it was so cruel and humiliating a story that the young man suffered his weary head to sink upon the little heaps of paper, and wept aloud.

He had recovered in some measure from this passion of grief, and was employed in arranging the letters, when the door was opened, and a man came into the room. The man was somewhere between forty and fifty, and was a very remarkable-looking person. He had once been handsome--of that there was no doubt, but the flower of his youth had faded in some pernicious atmosphere, and the chilling blasts of a premature autumn had blighted him while he should have been still in all the glory of his midsummer prime. He had a fiery red nose, and fiery black eyes, and dark hair, which he wore longer than was authorized by the fashion of the day. There were gray hairs amongst those straggling dark locks, and the man’s moustache had that tinge of Tyrian purple in its blackness which betrays the handiwork of the chemist. He was a man of imposing presence, tall and stalwart; and although he lacked the conventional graces of a modern gentleman, he was not without a certain style and dash of his own. To-day he wore mourning, and there was an unwonted softness in his manner. This was Daniel Mayfield; a man whose genius had been of much use to other people, but of little benefit to himself, and a man who contemplated the visage of his deadliest foe whenever he looked in the glass.

Yes, the only enemy Mr. Mayfield had made was himself. Everybody liked him. He was your true Bohemian, your genuine Arab of the great desert of London. Money ran between his fingers like water. He had been more successful, and had worked harder, than men whose industry had won for them houses and lands, horses and carriages, plate and linen and Sèvres china. His acquaintance were always calculating his income, and wondering what he did with it. Did he gamble? Did he speculate on the Stock Exchange? Did he consume fifteen hundred a year in tavern-parlours? Daniel himself could not have answered these questions. He wondered as much as any one about this mysterious enigma. He had never known how he spent his money. It went, somehow, and there came an end to it. Jack borrowed a few pounds; and there was a night’s card-playing, through which the luck went against poor Dan; and there was a Greenwich dinner on Tom’s birthday; and he took a fancy to a rare old copy of the _Diable Boiteux_, on large paper, sold at Willis and Sotheran’s; and then there were occasional periods of famine, during which Dan had recourse to a friendly usurer, for whose succour he ultimately paid something like a hundred and fifty per cent. So the money went. Daniel was the last person to trouble himself as to the manner of its departure. When his pockets were empty, he called for pen, ink, and paper, and set himself to fill them.

To-day this reckless genius was something less than his accustomed self. The fierce black eyes were shadowed by a settled sadness of expression, and the rollicking swagger of the Bohemian was changed to an unwonted quietness of gait and gesture. He stood for a few moments near the doorway, contemplating his nephew. The young man looked up suddenly and stretched out his hands.

“Dear Uncle Dan!” he cried, grasping the outstretched hands of his visitor. The fierce grip of his uncle’s muscular fingers was the only direct expression of sympathy which he received from that gentleman. The men understood each other too well for there to be need of many words between them.

Daniel looked at the open desk.

“You have been examining your mother’s papers,” he said, in a low voice. “Have you discovered anything?”

“More than enough, and yet not half what I must know, sooner or later. I have never asked you any questions, Uncle Dan. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. But now--now that she is gone----”

“I understand you, dear boy. I know little enough myself (for I never could find it in my heart to question her, God bless her!), but you have a right to know that little; and if you can put the story together out of anything you have found there--” said Daniel, pointing to the desk.

“I understand the story--I want to know the name of the man!” cried Eustace, passionately.

“I have wanted to know that for the last twenty years,” answered Daniel.

“Then you can tell me nothing?”

“I can tell you very little. When I left home to be articled to a brace of London lawyers, I left the brightest and loveliest creature that ever a man was proud to call his sister. We were the two only children of comfortable tradespeople in a quiet little watering-place, you know, Eustace. We lived in a square, brick-built house, facing the sea. My father kept a circulating-library and reading-room, and my mother did something in the millinery line. Between them both they made a very comfortable income. Bayham was a sleepy, out-of-the-world place, in which a tradesman who once manages to establish himself generally enjoys a snug monopoly. I know that we were very well off, and that we were people of importance in our way. My sister was the prettiest girl in Bayham. She faded so early, became so complete a wreck, that you can scarcely imagine what a lovely creature she was in those days. She was ashamed of the notice her beauty drew upon her, and she had a pretty, childish shyness of manner which made her all the more charming. A great, hulking hobbledehoy of eighteen seldom knows what beauty is; but I knew that my sister was lovely, and I admired and loved her. I used to boast of her to my fellow-clerks, I remember, and made myself obnoxious by turning up my uncultivated nose at their sisters. I was so proud of our little Cely.”

He stopped and shaded his eyes with his hands for some minutes, while Eustace waited impatiently.

“To make a long story short,” continued Daniel, “there came a letter from my father, written in a very shaky style and almost incoherent in its wording, to tell me that they were in great trouble at home, and that I was to go back to them immediately. Of course I thought of money troubles--we are such sordid creatures by nature, I suppose--and I fancied there was commercial ruin at home, and thought remorsefully of all the money I had cost my father, and the little good I had ever been to him. When I got to Bayham, I found that there was something worse than want of money in the grief-stricken household. Celia had disappeared, leaving a letter for my father, in which she told him that she was going away to be married; but there were reasons why her marriage and the name of her husband should be kept a secret for some time; but that he had promised to bring her back to Bayham directly he was free to reveal his name and position. Of course we all knew what this meant; and my father and I set out to seek our poor cheated girl, with as gloomy a despair at our hearts as if we had gone to seek her in the realms of Pluto.”

“And you failed?”

“Yes, lad, we failed ignominiously. There were neither electric telegraphs nor private detectives in those days; and after following several false scents, and spending a great deal of money, we went back to Bayham--my father looking ten years older for his wasted labour. He died three years after that, and my mother followed him very quickly, for they were one of those old-fashioned couples who cling to each other so fondly through life that they must needs sink together into the grave. They died; and the poor girl, whom they had forgiven from the very first hour of her offending, was not permitted to comfort their last hours. They had been dead more than twelve months when I saw a woman’s faded face flit past me in the most crowded part of the Strand. I walked on a few paces, with a strange, sudden pain at my heart, and then I turned and hurried after the woman, for I knew that I had seen my sister.”

There was another brief pause--broken only by the short, eager breathing of Eustace, and one profound sigh from Daniel.

“Well, boy, she had been living in London for more than three years, hidden in the same big jungle which sheltered me, and Providence had never sent me across her path. She had been living as many such lonely creatures do live in London; managing to exist somehow--now by means of one starvation work, now another. I went home with her, and we gathered her few pitiful possessions together, and carried them and you away with us in a cab, and--you know the rest. She lived with me until you were old enough to be in danger of suffering from a bad example; and then she made some excuse for leaving me--poor innocent soul, she was afraid lest dissolute Daniel should contaminate her pet-lamb. In all the time that we were together, I forbore to question her; I always believed that she would confide in me sooner or later, and I waited patiently in that hope. She told me once that she had made two journeys to Bayham--the first while her father and mother were still alive, and that she had waited and watched, under cover of the winter evening darkness, until she had contrived to see them both; the second when they were lying in the parish churchyard. This was all she ever told me. I asked her one day if she would tell me the name of your father. But she looked at me with a sad, frightened face, poor child, and said No, she could never tell me that; he was away from England--at the other end of the world, she believed. This was the only attempt I ever made to penetrate the secret of your birth.”

“The letters--the man’s letters--are full of allusions to an intended marriage. Do you think there was no marriage?”

“I am sure there was none.”

Eustace groaned aloud. For a long time he had suspected as much as this; but to hear his suspicions confirmed by the opinion of another was none the less bitter.

“You have some reason for saying as much, Uncle Dan?” he asked, presently.

“I have this reason, Eustace: if my sister could have come back to Bayham, she would have come. The sorrow must have been a very bitter one which kept her away from her father and mother.”

The young man made no reply to his uncle. He walked to the window, and looked out at the dreary street, where the perpetual organ-grinder, who seems to grind all our sorrows in a musical mill, was grinding on at the usual pace. For the common world the thing which he played was an Ethiopian melody; but Eustace never afterwards heard the simple air without recalling this miserable hour, and the story of his mother’s luckless life.

He came back to his kinsman. Heaven pity him, the law denied him even this human tie, and it was only by courtesy he could call this man his uncle. He came away from the window, and flung himself on honest Daniel’s breast and sobbed aloud.

“And now take me to my mother’s grave,” he said presently.