Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
certain young lady, taking her in the light of a young lady; but of the
two as a couple, I have no knowledge, sir, none whatever. My son, sir,
is upon his patrole.’
‘I thought I saw him looking through the corner window but this moment,’
said Mr Chester, who naturally thought that being on patrole, implied
walking about somewhere.
‘No doubt you did, sir,’ returned John. ‘He is upon his patrole of
honour, sir, not to leave the premises. Me and some friends of mine that
use the Maypole of an evening, sir, considered what was best to be done
with him, to prevent his doing anything unpleasant in opposing your
desires; and we’ve put him on his patrole. And what’s more, sir, he
won’t be off his patrole for a pretty long time to come, I can tell you
that.’
When he had communicated this bright idea, which had its origin in the
perusal by the village cronies of a newspaper, containing, among other
matters, an account of how some officer pending the sentence of some
court-martial had been enlarged on parole, Mr Willet drew back from his
guest’s ear, and without any visible alteration of feature, chuckled
thrice audibly. This nearest approach to a laugh in which he ever
indulged (and that but seldom and only on extreme occasions), never even
curled his lip or effected the smallest change in--no, not so much as a
slight wagging of--his great, fat, double chin, which at these times, as
at all others, remained a perfect desert in the broad map of his face;
one changeless, dull, tremendous blank.
Lest it should be matter of surprise to any, that Mr Willet adopted this
bold course in opposition to one whom he had often entertained, and who
had always paid his way at the Maypole gallantly, it may be remarked
that it was his very penetration and sagacity in this respect, which
occasioned him to indulge in those unusual demonstrations of jocularity,
just now recorded. For Mr Willet, after carefully balancing father and
son in his mental scales, had arrived at the distinct conclusion that
the old gentleman was a better sort of a customer than the young one.
Throwing his landlord into the same scale, which was already turned by
this consideration, and heaping upon him, again, his strong desires
to run counter to the unfortunate Joe, and his opposition as a general
principle to all matters of love and matrimony, it went down to the very
ground straightway, and sent the light cause of the younger gentleman
flying upwards to the ceiling. Mr Chester was not the kind of man to be
by any means dim-sighted to Mr Willet’s motives, but he thanked him as
graciously as if he had been one of the most disinterested martyrs that
ever shone on earth; and leaving him, with many complimentary reliances
on his great taste and judgment, to prepare whatever dinner he might
deem most fitting the occasion, bent his steps towards the Warren.
Dressed with more than his usual elegance; assuming a gracefulness of
manner, which, though it was the result of long study, sat easily upon
him and became him well; composing his features into their most serene
and prepossessing expression; and setting in short that guard upon
himself, at every point, which denoted that he attached no slight
importance to the impression he was about to make; he entered the bounds
of Miss Haredale’s usual walk. He had not gone far, or looked about him
long, when he descried coming towards him, a female figure. A glimpse
of the form and dress as she crossed a little wooden bridge which lay
between them, satisfied him that he had found her whom he desired to
see. He threw himself in her way, and a very few paces brought them
close together.
He raised his hat from his head, and yielding the path, suffered her to
pass him. Then, as if the idea had but that moment occurred to him, he
turned hastily back and said in an agitated voice:
‘I beg pardon--do I address Miss Haredale?’
She stopped in some confusion at being so unexpectedly accosted by a
stranger; and answered ‘Yes.’
‘Something told me,’ he said, LOOKING a compliment to her beauty, ‘that
it could be no other. Miss Haredale, I bear a name which is not unknown
to you--which it is a pride, and yet a pain to me to know, sounds
pleasantly in your ears. I am a man advanced in life, as you see. I am
the father of him whom you honour and distinguish above all other
men. May I for weighty reasons which fill me with distress, beg but a
minute’s conversation with you here?’
Who that was inexperienced in deceit, and had a frank and youthful
heart, could doubt the speaker’s truth--could doubt it too, when the
voice that spoke, was like the faint echo of one she knew so well, and
so much loved to hear? She inclined her head, and stopping, cast her
eyes upon the ground.
‘A little more apart--among these trees. It is an old man’s hand, Miss
Haredale; an honest one, believe me.’
She put hers in it as he said these words, and suffered him to lead her
to a neighbouring seat.
‘You alarm me, sir,’ she said in a low voice. ‘You are not the bearer of
any ill news, I hope?’
‘Of none that you anticipate,’ he answered, sitting down beside her.
‘Edward is well--quite well. It is of him I wish to speak, certainly;
but I have no misfortune to communicate.’
She bowed her head again, and made as though she would have begged him
to proceed; but said nothing.
‘I am sensible that I speak to you at a disadvantage, dear Miss
Haredale. Believe me that I am not so forgetful of the feelings of my
younger days as not to know that you are little disposed to view me
with favour. You have heard me described as cold-hearted, calculating,
selfish--’
‘I have never, sir,’--she interposed with an altered manner and a firmer
voice; ‘I have never heard you spoken of in harsh or disrespectful
terms. You do a great wrong to Edward’s nature if you believe him
capable of any mean or base proceeding.’
‘Pardon me, my sweet young lady, but your uncle--’
‘Nor is it my uncle’s nature either,’ she replied, with a heightened
colour in her cheek. ‘It is not his nature to stab in the dark, nor is
it mine to love such deeds.’
She rose as she spoke, and would have left him; but he detained her with
a gentle hand, and besought her in such persuasive accents to hear him
but another minute, that she was easily prevailed upon to comply, and so
sat down again.
‘And it is,’ said Mr Chester, looking upward, and apostrophising the
air; ‘it is this frank, ingenuous, noble nature, Ned, that you can wound
so lightly. Shame--shame upon you, boy!’
She turned towards him quickly, and with a scornful look and flashing
eyes. There were tears in Mr Chester’s eyes, but he dashed them
hurriedly away, as though unwilling that his weakness should be known,
and regarded her with mingled admiration and compassion.
‘I never until now,’ he said, ‘believed, that the frivolous actions of a
young man could move me like these of my own son. I never knew till now,
the worth of a woman’s heart, which boys so lightly win, and lightly
fling away. Trust me, dear young lady, that I never until now did
know your worth; and though an abhorrence of deceit and falsehood has
impelled me to seek you out, and would have done so had you been the
poorest and least gifted of your sex, I should have lacked the fortitude
to sustain this interview could I have pictured you to my imagination as
you really are.’
Oh! If Mrs Varden could have seen the virtuous gentleman as he said
these words, with indignation sparkling from his eyes--if she could have
heard his broken, quavering voice--if she could have beheld him as he
stood bareheaded in the sunlight, and with unwonted energy poured forth
his eloquence!
With a haughty face, but pale and trembling too, Emma regarded him in
silence. She neither spoke nor moved, but gazed upon him as though she
would look into his heart.
‘I throw off,’ said Mr Chester, ‘the restraint which natural affection
would impose on some men, and reject all bonds but those of truth and
duty. Miss Haredale, you are deceived; you are deceived by your unworthy
lover, and my unworthy son.’
Still she looked at him steadily, and still said not one word.
‘I have ever opposed his professions of love for you; you will do me
the justice, dear Miss Haredale, to remember that. Your uncle and myself
were enemies in early life, and if I had sought retaliation, I might
have found it here. But as we grow older, we grow wiser--bitter, I would
fain hope--and from the first, I have opposed him in this attempt. I
foresaw the end, and would have spared you, if I could.’
‘Speak plainly, sir,’ she faltered. ‘You deceive me, or are deceived
yourself. I do not believe you--I cannot--I should not.’
‘First,’ said Mr Chester, soothingly, ‘for there may be in your mind
some latent angry feeling to which I would not appeal, pray take this
letter. It reached my hands by chance, and by mistake, and should have
accounted to you (as I am told) for my son’s not answering some other
note of yours. God forbid, Miss Haredale,’ said the good gentleman, with
great emotion, ‘that there should be in your gentle breast one causeless
ground of quarrel with him. You should know, and you will see, that he
was in no fault here.’
There appeared something so very candid, so scrupulously honourable,
so very truthful and just in this course--something which rendered the
upright person who resorted to it, so worthy of belief--that Emma’s
heart, for the first time, sunk within her. She turned away and burst
into tears.
‘I would,’ said Mr Chester, leaning over her, and speaking in mild and
quite venerable accents; ‘I would, dear girl, it were my task to banish,
not increase, those tokens of your grief. My son, my erring son,--I will
not call him deliberately criminal in this, for men so young, who have
been inconstant twice or thrice before, act without reflection, almost
without a knowledge of the wrong they do,--will break his plighted faith
to you; has broken it even now. Shall I stop here, and having given you
this warning, leave it to be fulfilled; or shall I go on?’
‘You will go on, sir,’ she answered, ‘and speak more plainly yet, in
justice both to him and me.’
‘My dear girl,’ said Mr Chester, bending over her more affectionately
still; ‘whom I would call my daughter, but the Fates forbid, Edward
seeks to break with you upon a false and most unwarrantable pretence. I
have it on his own showing; in his own hand. Forgive me, if I have had
a watch upon his conduct; I am his father; I had a regard for your peace
and his honour, and no better resource was left me. There lies on his
desk at this present moment, ready for transmission to you, a letter,
in which he tells you that our poverty--our poverty; his and mine, Miss
Haredale--forbids him to pursue his claim upon your hand; in which he
offers, voluntarily proposes, to free you from your pledge; and talks
magnanimously (men do so, very commonly, in such cases) of being in
time more worthy of your regard--and so forth. A letter, to be plain, in
which he not only jilts you--pardon the word; I would summon to your
aid your pride and dignity--not only jilts you, I fear, in favour of the
object whose slighting treatment first inspired his brief passion for
yourself and gave it birth in wounded vanity, but affects to make a
merit and a virtue of the act.’
She glanced proudly at him once more, as by an involuntary impulse, and
with a swelling breast rejoined, ‘If what you say be true, he takes much
needless trouble, sir, to compass his design. He’s very tender of my
peace of mind. I quite thank him.’
‘The truth of what I tell you, dear young lady,’ he replied, ‘you will
test by the receipt or non-receipt of the letter of which I speak.
Haredale, my dear fellow, I am delighted to see you, although we meet