Paul Clifford — Complete
himself, Lucy had ample leisure for enjoying all the thousand-and-one
reports of the scene between Mauleverer and Clifford which regaled
her ears. Nevertheless, whatever might have been her feelings at these
pleasing recitals, a certain vague joy predominated over all. A man
feels but slight comparative happiness in being loved, if he know that
it is in vain; but to a woman that simple knowledge is sufficient to
destroy the memory of a thousand distresses, and it is not till she has
told her heart again and again that she is loved, that she will even
begin to ask if it be in vain.
It was a partially starlight yet a dim and obscure night, for the moon
had for the last hour or two been surrounded by mist and cloud, when at
length the carriage arrived; and Mauleverer, for the second time that
evening playing the escort, conducted Lucy to the vehicle. Anxious to
learn if she had seen or been addressed by Clifford, the subtle earl,
as he led her to the gate, dwelt particularly on the intrusion of that
person, and by the trembling of the hand which rested on his arm, he
drew no delicious omen for his own hopes. “However,” thought he, “the
man goes to-morrow, and then the field will be clear; the girl's a child
yet, and I forgive her folly.” And with an air of chivalric veneration,
Mauleverer bowed the object of his pardon into her carriage.
As soon as Lucy felt herself alone with her father, the emotions so long
pent within her forced themselves into vent, and leaning back against
the carriage, she wept, though in silence, tears, burning tears, of
sorrow, comfort, agitation, anxiety.
The good old squire was slow in perceiving his daughter's emotion; it
would have escaped him altogether, if, actuated by a kindly warming of
the heart towards her, originating in his new suspicion of her love for
Clifford, he had not put his arm round her neck; and this unexpected
caress so entirely unstrung her nerves that Lucy at once threw herself
upon her father's breast, and her weeping, hitherto so quiet, became
distinct and audible.
“Be comforted, my dear, dear child!” said the squire, almost affected
to tears himself; and his emotion, arousing him from his usual mental
confusion, rendered his words less involved and equivocal than they were
wont to be. “And now I do hope that you won't vex yourself; the young
man is indeed--and, I do assure you, I always thought so--a very
charming gentleman, there's no denying it. But what can we do? You see
what they all say of him, and it really was--we must allow that--very
improper in him to come without being asked. Moreover, my dearest child,
it is very wrong, very wrong indeed, to love any one, and not know who
he is; and--and--but don't cry, my dear love, don't cry so; all will be
very well, I am sure,--quite sure!”
As he said this, the kind old man drew his daughter nearer him, and
feeling his hand hurt by something she wore unseen which pressed against
it, he inquired, with some suspicion that the love might have proceeded
to love-gifts, what it was.
“It is my mother's picture,” said Lucy, simply, and putting it aside.
The old squire had loved his wife tenderly; and when Lucy made this
reply, all the fond and warm recollections of his youth rushed upon
him. He thought, too, how earnestly on her death-bed that wife had
recommended to his vigilant care their only child now weeping on his
bosom: he remembered how, dwelling on that which to all women seems the
grand epoch of life, she had said, “Never let her affections be trifled
with,--never be persuaded by your ambitious brother to make her marry
where she loves not, or to oppose her, without strong reason, where
she does: though she be but a child now, I know enough of her to feel
convinced that if ever she love, she will love too well for her own
happiness, even with all things in her favour.” These words, these
recollections, joined to the remembrance of the cold-hearted scheme of
William Brandon, which he had allowed himself to favour, and of his own
supineness towards Lucy's growing love for Clifford, till resistance
became at once necessary and too late, all smote him with a remorseful
sorrow, and fairly sobbing himself, he said, “Thy mother, child! ah,
would that she were living, she would never have neglected thee as I
have done!”
The squire's self-reproach made Lucy's tears cease on the instant;
and as she covered her father's hands with kisses, she replied only
by vehement accusations against herself, and praises of his too great
fatherly fondness and affection. This little burst, on both sides, of
honest and simple-hearted love ended in a silence full of tender and
mingled thoughts; and as Lucy still clung to the breast of the old man,
uncouth as he was in temper, below even mediocrity in intellect, and
altogether the last person in age or mind or habit that seemed fit for a
confidant in the love of a young and enthusiastic girl, she felt the
old homely truth that under all disadvantages there are, in this hollow
world, few in whom trust can be so safely reposed, few who so delicately
and subtilely respect the confidence, as those from whom we spring.
The father and daughter had been silent for some minutes, and the former
was about to speak, when the carriage suddenly stopped. The squire heard
a rough voice at the horses' heads; he looked forth from the window to
see, through the mist of the night, what could possibly be the matter,
and he encountered in this action, just one inch from his forehead, the
protruded and shining barrel of a horse-pistol. We may believe, without
a reflection on his courage, that Mr. Brandon threw himself back into
his carriage with all possible despatch; and at the same moment the
door was opened, and a voice said, not in a threatening but a smooth
accent,--
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to disturb you, but want is imperious;
oblige me with your money, your watches, your rings, and any other
little commodities of a similar nature!”
So delicate a request the squire had not the heart to resist, the
more especially as he knew himself without any weapons of defence;
accordingly he drew out a purse, not very full, it must be
owned,--together with an immense silver hunting-watch, with a piece of
black ribbon attached to it.
“There, sir,” said he, with a groan, “don't frighten the young lady.”
The gentle applicant, who indeed was no other than the specious Augustus
Tomlinson, slid the purse into his waistcoat-pocket, after feeling its
contents with a rapid and scientific finger.
“Your watch, sir,” quoth he,--and as he spoke he thrust it carelessly
into his coat-pocket, as a school-boy would thrust a peg-top,--“is
heavy; but trusting to experience, since an accurate survey is denied
me, I fear it is more valuable from its weight than its workmanship:
however, I will not wound your vanity by affecting to be fastidious. But
surely the young lady, as you call her,--for I pay you the compliment of
believing your word as to her age, inasmuch as the night is too dark
to allow me the happiness of a personal inspection,--the young lady
has surely some little trinket she can dispense with. 'Beauty when
unadorned,' you know, etc.”
Lucy, who, though greatly frightened, lost neither her senses nor her
presence of mind, only answered by drawing forth a little silk purse,
that contained still less than the leathern convenience of the squire;
to this she added a gold chain; and Tomlinson, taking them with an
affectionate squeeze of the hand and a polite apology, was about to
withdraw, when his sagacious eyes were suddenly stricken by the gleam
of jewels. The fact was that in altering the position of her mother's
picture, which had been set in the few hereditary diamonds possessed by
the Lord of Warlock, Lucy had allowed it to hang on the outside of her
dress, and bending forward to give the robber her other possessions,
the diamonds at once came in full sight, and gleamed the more invitingly
from the darkness of the night.
“Ah, madam,” said Tomlinson, stretching forth his hand, “you would play
me false, would you? Treachery should never go unpunished. Favour me
instantly with the little ornament round your neck!”
“I cannot,--I cannot!” said Lucy, grasping her treasure with both her
hands; “it is my mother's picture, and my mother is dead!”
“The wants of others, madam,” returned Tomlinson, who could not for the
life of him rob immorally, “are ever more worthy your attention than
family prejudices. Seriously, give it, and that instantly; we are in a
hurry, and your horses are plunging like devils: they will break your
carriage in an instant,--despatch!”
The squire was a brave man on the whole, though no hero; and the nerves
of an old fox-hunter soon recover from a little alarm. The picture of
his buried wife was yet more inestimable to him than it was to Lucy, and
at this new demand his spirit was roused within him.
He clenched his fists, and advancing himself as it were on his seat, he
cried in a loud voice,--
“Begone, fellow! I have given you--for my own part I think so--too much
already; and, by God, you shall not have the picture!”
“Don't force me to use violence,” said Augustus; and putting one foot on
the carriage-step, he brought his pistol within a few inches of Lucy's
breast, rightly judging, perhaps, that the show of danger to her
would be the best method to intimidate the squire. At that instant the
valorous moralist found himself suddenly seized with a powerful gripe
on the shoulder; and a low voice, trembling with passion, hissed in his
ear. Whatever might be the words that startled his organs, they operated
as an instantaneous charm; and to their astonishment, the squire and
Lucy beheld their assailant abruptly withdraw. The door of the carriage
was clapped to, and scarcely two minutes had elapsed before, the robber
having remounted, his comrade, hitherto stationed at the horses' heads,
set spurs to his own steed, and the welcome sound of receding hoofs
smote upon the bewildered ears of the father and daughter.
The door of the carriage was again opened; and a voice, which made Lucy
paler than the preceding terror, said,--
“I fear, Mr. Brandon, the robbers have frightened your daughter. There
is now, however, nothing to fear; the ruffians are gone.”
“God bless me!” said the squire; “why, is that Captain Clifford?”
“It is; and he conceives himself too fortunate to have been of the
smallest service to Mr. and Miss Brandon.”
On having convinced himself that it was indeed to Mr. Clifford that he
owed his safety as well as that of his daughter, whom he believed to
have been in a far more imminent peril than she really was,--for to tell
thee the truth, reader, the pistol of Tomlinson was rather calculated
for show than use, having a peculiarly long bright barrel with nothing
in it,--the squire was utterly at a loss how to express his gratitude;
and when he turned to Lucy to beg she would herself thank their gallant
deliverer, he found that, overpowered with various emotions, she had,
for the first time in her life, fainted away.
“Good heavens!” cried the alarmed father, “she is dead,--my Lucy, my
Lucy, they have killed her!”
To open the door nearest to Lucy, to bear her from the carriage in his
arms, was to Clifford the work of an instant. Utterly unconscious of the
presence of any one else,--unconscious even of what he said, he poured
forth a thousand wild, passionate, yet half-audible expressions; and as
he bore her to a bank by the roadside, and seating himself supported
her against his bosom, it would be difficult perhaps to say, whether
something of delight--of burning and thrilling delight--was not mingled
with his anxiety and terror. He chafed her small hands in his own; his