Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete
who had been long, though not intimately, acquainted with the deceased,
took upon himself all the necessary arrangements, and superintended the
funeral; after which ceremony, Howard returned to London; and in Paris,
as in the grave, all things are forgotten! But still in De Montaigne's
breast there dwelt a horrible fear. As soon as he had learned from
Maltravers the charge the maniac brought against Vargrave, there came
upon him the recollection of that day when Cesarini had attempted
De Montaigne's life, evidently mistaking him in his delirium for
another,--and the sullen, cunning, and ferocious character which the
insanity had ever afterwards assumed. He had learned from Howard
that the outer door had been left ajar when Lord Vargrave was with
Maltravers. The writing on the panel, the name of Vargrave, would have
struck Castruccio's eye as he descended the stairs; the servant was
from home, the apartments deserted; he might have won his way into the
bedchamber, concealed himself in the _armoire_, and in the dead of the
night, and in the deep and helpless sleep of his victim, have done the
deed. What need of weapons--the suffocating pillows would stop speech
and life. What so easy as escape,--to pass into the anteroom; to unbolt
the door; to descend into the courtyard; to give the signal to the
porter in his lodge, who, without seeing him, would pull the _cordon_,
and give him egress unobserved?
All this was so possible, so probable.
De Montaigne now withdrew all inquiry for the unfortunate; he trembled
at the thought of discovering him, of verifying his awful suspicions, of
beholding a murderer in the brother of his wife! But he was not doomed
long to entertain fear for Cesarini; he was not fated ever to change
suspicion into certainty. A few days after Lord Vargrave's burial, a
corpse was drawn from the Seine. Some tablets in the pockets, scrawled
over with wild, incoherent verses, gave a clew to the discovery of the
dead man's friends: and, exposed at the Morgue, in that bleached
and altered clay, De Montaigne recognized the remains of Castruccio
Cesarini. "He died and made no sign!"
CHAPTER VII.
SINGULA quaeque locum teneant sortita.*--HORACE: _Ars Poetica_.
* "To each lot its appropriate place."
MALTRAVERS and the lawyers were enabled to save from the insolvent bank
but a very scanty portion of that wealth in which Richard Templeton had
rested so much of pride. The title extinct, the fortune gone--so
does Fate laugh at our posthumous ambition! Meanwhile Mr. Douce, with
considerable plunder, had made his way to America: the bank owed nearly
half a million; the purchase money for Lisle Court, which Mr. Douce had
been so anxious to get into his clutches, had not sufficed to stave off
the ruin,--but a great part of it sufficed to procure competence for
himself. How inferior in wit, in acuteness, in stratagem, was Douce
to Vargrave; and yet Douce had gulled him like a child! Well said the
shrewd small philosopher of France--"On peut etre plus fin qu'un autre,
mais pas plus fin que tous les autres."*
* One may be more sharp than one's neighbour, but one can't be
sharper than all one's neighbours.--ROCHEFOUCAULD.
To Legard, whom Maltravers had again encountered at Dover, the latter
related the downfall of Evelyn's fortunes; and Maltravers loved him when
he saw that, far from changing his affection, the loss of wealth seemed
rather to raise his hopes. They parted; and Legard set out for Paris.
But was Maltravers all the while forgetful of Alice? He had not been
twelve hours in London before he committed to a long and truthful letter
all his thoughts, his hopes, his admiring and profound gratitude. Again,
and with solemn earnestness, he implored her to accept his hand, and to
confirm at the altar the tale which had been told to Evelyn. Truly he
said that the shock which his first belief in Vargrave's falsehood had
occasioned, his passionate determination to subdue all trace of a
love then associated with crime and horror, followed so close by his
discovery of Alice's enduring faith and affection, had removed the
image of Evelyn from the throne it had hitherto held in his desires and
thoughts; truly he said that he was now convinced that Evelyn would soon
be consoled for his loss by another, with whom she would be happier
than with him; truly and solemnly he declared that if Alice rejected
him still, if even Alice were no more, his suit to Evelyn never could be
renewed, and Alice's memory would usurp the place of all living love!
Her answer came: it pierced him to the heart. It was so humble, so
grateful, so tender still. Unknown to herself, love yet coloured every
word; but it was love pained, galled, crushed, and trampled on; it was
love, proud from its very depth and purity. His offer was refused.
Months passed away. Maltravers yet trusted to time. The curate had
returned to Brook-Green, and his letters fed Ernest's hopes and assured
his doubts. The more leisure there was left him for reflection, the
fainter became those dazzling and rainbow hues in which Evelyn had been
robed and surrounded, and the brighter the halo that surrounded his
earliest love. The more he pondered on Alice's past history, and the
singular beauty of her faithful attachment, the more he was impressed
with wonder and admiration, the more anxious to secure to his side one
to whom Nature had been so bountiful in all the gifts that make woman
the angel and star of life.
Months passed. From Paris the news that Maltravers received confirmed
all his expectations,--the suit of Legard had replaced his own. It was
then that Maltravers began to consider how far the fortune of Evelyn
and her destined husband was such as to preclude all anxiety for their
future lot. Fortune is so indeterminate in its gauge and measurement.
Money, the most elastic of materials, falls short or exceeds, according
to the extent of our wants and desires. With all Legard's good qualities
he was constitutionally careless and extravagant; and Evelyn was too
inexperienced, and too gentle, perhaps, to correct his tendencies.
Maltravers learned that Legard's income was one that required an economy
which he feared that, in spite of all his reformation, Legard might not
have the self-denial to enforce. After some consideration, he resolved
to add secretly to the remains of Evelyn's fortune such a sum as might,
being properly secured to herself and children, lessen whatever danger
could arise from the possible improvidence of her husband, and guard
against the chance of those embarrassments which are among the worst
disturbers of domestic peace. He was enabled to effect this generosity
unknown to both of them, as if the sum bestowed were collected from the
wrecks of Evelyn's own wealth and the profits of the sale of the houses
in C-----, which of course had not been involved in Douce's bankruptcy.
And then if Alice were ever his, her jointure, which had been secured
on the property appertaining to the villa at Fulham, would devolve upon
Evelyn. Maltravers could never accept what Alice owed to another. Poor
Alice! No! not that modest wealth which you had looked upon complacently
as one day or other to be his.
Lord Doltimore is travelling in the East,--Lady Doltimore, less
adventurous, has fixed her residence in Rome. She has grown thin, and
taken to antiquities and rouge. Her spirits are remarkably high--not an
uncommon effect of laudanum.
CHAPTER THE LAST.
ARRIVED at last
Unto the wished haven.--SHAKSPEARE.
IN the August of that eventful year a bridal party were assembled at
the cottage of Lady Vargrave. The ceremony had just been performed, and
Ernest Maltravers had bestowed upon George Legard the hand of Evelyn
Templeton.
If upon the countenance of him who thus officiated as a father to her he
had once wooed as a bride an observant eye might have noted the trace of
mental struggles, it was the trace of struggles past; and the calm had
once more settled over the silent deeps. He saw from the casement the
carriage that was to bear away the bride to the home of another,--the
gay faces of the village group, whose intrusion was not forbidden, and
to whom that solemn ceremonial was but a joyous pageant; and when he
turned once more to those within the chamber, he felt his hand clasped
in Legard's.
"You have been the preserver of my life, you have been the dispenser of
my earthly happiness; all now left to me to wish for is, that you may
receive from Heaven the blessings you have given to others!"
"Legard, never let her know a sorrow that you can guard her from; and
believe that the husband of Evelyn will be dear to me as a brother!"
And as a brother blesses some younger and orphan sister bequeathed and
intrusted to a care that should replace a father's, so Maltravers laid
his hand lightly on Evelyn's golden tresses, and his lips moved in
prayer. He ceased; he pressed his last kiss upon her forehead, and
placed her hand in that of her young husband. There was silence; and
when to the ear of Maltravers it was broken, it was by the wheels of the
carriage that bore away the wife of George Legard!
The spell was dissolved forever. And there stood before the lonely man
the idol of his early youth, Alice,--still, perhaps, as fair, and once
young and passionate, as Evelyn; pale, changed, but lovelier than of
old, if heavenly patience and holy thought, and the trials that purify
and exalt, can shed over human features something more beautiful than
bloom.
The good curate alone was present, besides these two survivors of the
error and the love that make the rapture and the misery of so many of
our kind; and the old man, after contemplating them a moment, stole
unperceived away.
"Alice," said Maltravers, and his voice trembled, "hitherto, from
motives too pure and too noble for the practical affections and ties of
life, you have rejected the hand of the lover of your youth. Here again
I implore you to be mine! Give to my conscience the balm of believing
that I can repair to you the evils and the sorrows I have brought upon
you. Nay, weep not; turn not away. Each of us stands alone; each of us
needs the other. In your heart is locked up all my fondest associations,
my brightest memories. In you I see the mirror of what I was when the
world was new, ere I had found how Pleasure palls upon us, and Ambition
deceives! And me, Alice--ah, you love me still! Time and absence have
but strengthened the chain that binds us. By the memory of our early
love, by the grave of our lost child that, had it lived, would have
united its parents, I implore you to be mine!"
"Too generous!" said Alice, almost sinking beneath the emotions that
shook that gentle spirit and fragile form, "how can I suffer your
_compassion_--for it is but compassion--to deceive yourself? You are
of another station than I believed you. How can you raise the child
of destitution and guilt to your own rank? And shall I--I--who, Heaven
knows! would save you from all regret--bring to you now, when years have
so changed and broken the little charm I could ever have possessed, this
blighted heart and weary spirit? Oh, no, no!" and Alice paused abruptly,
and the tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Be it as you will," said Maltravers, mournfully; "but, at least, ground
your refusal upon better motives. Say that now, independent in fortune,
and attached to the habits you have formed, you would not hazard your
happiness in my keeping,--perhaps you are right. To _my_ happiness you
would indeed contribute; your sweet voice might charm away many a memory
and many a thought of the baffled years that have intervened since we
parted; your image might dissipate the solitude which is closing round
the Future of a disappointed and anxious life. With you, and with you