Heart

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"How do I know it? that's a good un now, father, when I had it under
your hand to give the girl away myself instead of you. Do you mean to
say you didn't write that letter?"

"Boy, I tell you, I've written nothing--I know nothing; you speak in
riddles."

"Well then, governor, if I do, I'll to guess 'em: I begin to see how it
was all brought about--but they did it cleverly too, and were quite too
many for me. Only listen: that fellow Clements, ay, and Miss Maria too
(artful minx, I know her), must have forged a letter as if from you to
get poor fools, me and my mother, to see 'em spliced, while you were
tooling to Yorkshire."

"Impossible--ey? what? I'll--I'll--I'll--"

"Now, governor, don't stand there doing nothing but denying all I say;
only you go yourself, and ask my mother if she didn't see the letter--if
they didn't marry upon it, and if that precious sister of mine doesn't
richly deserve every thing she'll some day get from her affectionate,
her excellent, her ill-used father?"

Iago's self, or his master, smooth-tongued Belial, could not have
managed matters better.

The incredulous knight, scarcely able to discover how far it might not
still be all a joke, especially after his Yorkshire expedition, rushed
up to Lady Dillaway; on her usual sofa, quietly knitting, and thinking
of her Maria's second day of happiness.

"So, ma'am--ey? what? is it true? are they married? is it true?
married--ey? what?"

"Certainly, Thomas, they were only too glad, and I will add, so was I,
to get your kind--"

"Mine? I give leave? ey? what? Madam, we're cheated, fooled--I never
wrote any letter."

"Most astonishing; I saw it myself, Thomas, your own hand; and our dear
John too."

"Ay, ay--he sees through it all, and so do I now--ey? what? that
precious pair of rogues forged it! Now, ma'am, what don't they deserve,
I should like to know?"

It was quite a blow, and a very hard one, to the poor tranquil mother.
Could her dear Maria really have been so base, and that noble-looking
Henry too? how dreadfully deceived in them, if this proved true! And how
could she think it false? A letter contrived to expedite their marriage
in the father's casual absence, which no one could have thought of
writing but Sir Thomas himself, or the impatient lovers. So poor Lady
Dillaway could only fall a-crying very miserably; whereupon her husband
more than half suspected her of being an accomplice in the despicable
plot.

"Now then, ma'am, I'm determined: as they are married, the thing's at an
end; we can't untie that knot--but, once tied, I've done with the girl;
they may starve, for any help they'll get of me: and as for you, mum,
give 'em money at your peril; stay, to make sure of it, Lady Dillaway, I
shall stint you to whatever you choose to ask me for out of my own
pocket; never draw another cheque on Jones's, do you hear? ey? what? for
your cheques shall not be honoured, ma'am. And now, from this hour, you
and I have only one child, John."

"Oh, Thomas--Thomas! be merciful to poor Maria! indeed, she was
deceived; she believed it all--poor Maria!"

"Ma'am, never mention that woman again--ey? what? deceived? Yes, she
deceived you and me, and John, and all. Wicked wretch! and all to marry
a beggar! Well, ma'am, there's one comfort left; the fellow married her
for money, and he's caught in his own trap; never a penny of mine shall
either of them see. Henceforth, Lady Dillaway, we have no daughter; dear
John is the only child left us for old age."

In spite of himself, of wrath, and disappointment, the father spoke in a
moved and broken manner; and his weeping wife attempted to explain,
console, and soothe him; but all in vain--he was inexorable and
inveterate against those mean deceivers. To say truth, the poor mother
was staggered too, especially when her managing son set all the matter
in what he stated to be the right light; for he had, the whole business
through, whispered so separately to each, and had seemed to say so
little openly (making his mother believe that his sister told him of the
coming letter, and a choice variety of other embellishments), that he
was now looked upon as the very martyr to roguish plotting, in having
been induced to give away his sister. Excellent, mistaken John!

And forthwith John became installed sole heir, proving the most dutiful
of sons: how glibly would he tell them any sort of welcome news,
original or selected; how many anecdotes could he invent to prove his
own merits and certain other folks' deficiencies; how amiably would he
fetch and carry slippers and smelling-bottles, and write notes, and read
newspapers, and make himself every thing by turns (he devoutly hoped it
would be nothing long) to his poor dear parents, as became an only
child! It was quite affecting--and both father and mother, softened in
spite of themselves at the loss of that Maria, often would talk over the
new-found virtues of their most exemplary son. His character came out
now with five-fold lustre when contrasted with his former usual
ruggedness: no widow ever had a one sick child more tender, more
considerate, more dutiful, than rude Jack Dillaway.

He gained his end; saw the new will signed; earwigged the lawyer; and
kept a copy of it.

CHAPTER IX.

FALSE-WITNESS KILLS A MOTHER, AND WOULD WILLINGLY STARVE A SISTER.

Day by day, letters, doubtless full of happiness and Heart, were left by
the promiscuous and undiscerning postman at the house in Finsbury
square, from our excellent calumniated couple; but, seeing that there
were always two sieves waiting ready to sift it before it came to Lady
Dillaway's turn--to wit, John in the hall, and Sir Thomas in his study,
it came to pass that every letter with those malefactors' hand and seal
on it got burnt instanter, and unopened.

How many troubles might mankind be spared if they would only stop to
hear each other's explanations! How many ailments, both of body and
soul, if explanations only came more frequently and freely! Melancholy
from that dreadful doubt, and all these cold delays, viewing her
daughter as a criminal, the husband as a swindler, and all this long
course of silence as very, very heartless and seemingly conclusive of
their guilt, the poor mother sickened fast upon her couch: she had for
years always been an invalid, wan and wo-begone, living upon ether, gum,
and chicken-broth; but her white skin now grew whiter, her faint voice
fainter, the energies of life in her debilitated frame weaker than ever;
it was no mere hypochondria, or other fanciful malady: her calm heart
seemed to be dying down within her, as a plant that has earth-grubs
gnawing at its root--she grew very ill. Days, weeks of silence--her
heart was sick with hope deferred. How could Maria, with all her seeming
warmth, treat her with such utter negligence? But now the honey-moon was
coming to an end: they must call and see her some day again, surely; how
strangely unkind not to answer those motherly and anxious letters, sent
to their first known stage, Salt hill, and thereafter to be forwarded.

O, cold continued crime! Bad man, bad man, thy mother's own hand-writing
shall plead against thee at the last dread day. For those coveted
letters of affection, often sent on both those loving parts, had been
regularly and ruthlessly intercepted, opened, mocked, and burnt! How
could the man have stood case-proof against those letters--his mother's
anxious outbursts of affection towards a lost, an innocent, a
calumniated sister? For selfishness had dried up in that hard and wily
man all the milk of human kindness.

And our loving pair, upon their travels, were as much hurt and surprised
at this long silence as poor Lady Dillaway herself: it was most
mysterious, inexplicable. The only letter they had received ever since
they had left home was one--only one, from John, which had frightened
them exceedingly. Some practical joker (the bridesmaid's brother was
suspected), by way of giving Maria a present on her approaching wedding,
as it would seem, had cleverly imitated her father's hand-writing,
and--that letter was a forgery! to every body's great amazement. Nobody
could, according to his own account, be kinder than John, who had done
more than mortal things to appease his father; but the old man remained
implacable. It was a meanly-contrived clandestine match, he said; and he
never intended to set eyes on them again! As for John, he in that letter
had strongly counselled them to keep away, and trust to him for bringing
his father round. In the midst of their terrible dilemma, kind brother
John seemed as an angel sent by Heaven to assist them.

Dear children of affection and calamity! how innocently did they walk
into the snare; and how closely doth the wicked man draw his toils
around them. Who can accuse them of any wrong (the hopefulness of love
considered) in point either of honour or duty? And shall they not be
righted at the last? It may be so--it shall be so: but Holy Providence
hath purposes of good in plunging those twin wedded hearts deep beneath
the billows of earthly destitution. The wicked must prosper for a while,
in this as in a million other cases, and the good for their season
struggle with adversity; that the one may be destroyed for ever, and the
others may add to this world's wealth the incalculable riches of
another.

They had spent the few first weeks of marriage among the pleasant lakes
and hills of Westmoreland and Cumberland, wandering together, in
delightful interchange of thought, from glen to glen, from tairn to
tairn, all about Ambleside, Helvellyn, and Lodore, Ullswater,
Saddleback, and Schiddaw. Maria's ever-flickering smile seemed to throw
a sun-beam over the darkest moor, even in those darkest hours of doubt,
heart-sickening anxiety, and grief at the neglect which they
experienced; while Henry's well-informed good sense not only availed to
cheer the sad Maria, but made every rock a point of interest, and showed
every little flower a miracle of wisdom. There were hundreds of
extemporaneous "lover's seats," where they had "rested, to be thankful"
for the past, joyful for the present, and hopeful for the future; and
every ramble that they took might deservedly take the name, style, and
title of a "lover's walk!" Happy times--happy times! but still there
might be happier; yes, and happiest, too, they seemed to whisper, if
ever they should have a merry little nursery of prattling boys and
girls! But I am not so entirely in the confidence of those young folks
as to be certain about what they seemed to whisper: in that pretty
prattling sentence were they not getting a little beyond the honey-moon?
Yes--yes, young Hymen is too full of new-found pleasure to heed those
holier joys of calm old marriage; for wedded love is as a coil of line,
lengthening with the lapse of years, fitted and intended, day after day,
to be continually sounding a lower and a lower deep in the ocean of
happiness.

Returned to town, it was the immediate care of our fond, confused, and
unfortunate young couple to call at the old house in Finsbury square;
where, to their great dismay and misery, they encountered a formal
standing order for their non-admission. The domestics were new, had been
strictly warned against the name of Clements, and, in effect, were
creatures of the worthy John. It was a deplorable business; they did not
know what to think, nor how to act. Letters left at the door, couched in
whatever terms of humility, kindliness, and just excuse, were equally
unavailing; for the Cerberus there was too well sopped by pleasant
brother John ever to deliver them to any one but him. It was entirely
hopeless--extraordinary--a most wretched state of things. What were they
to do? The only practicable mode of getting at Sir Thomas, and,
therefore, at some explanation of these mysteries, was obviously to
watch for him, and meet him in the street. As for Lady Dillaway, she was
very ill, and kept her chamber, which was as resolutely guarded from
incursion or excursion as Danae's herself--yea, more so, for gold was
added to her guards: Sir Thomas, going to and from his counting-house,
appeared to be the only weak point in the enemy's fortifications.

Poor old man! he was, or thought he was, harder, colder, more inveterate
than ever: and his duteous son John rarely let him venture out alone,
for fear of some such meeting, casual or intended. Accordingly, one day
when the Clements and the Dillaways mutually spied each other afar off,
and a junction seemed inevitable, John's promptitude bade his father
(generously as it looked, for paternal peace of mind's sake) return a
few paces, get into a cab, and so slip home, the while he valiantly
stepped forward to meet the enemy.

"Mr. Clements! my father (I grieve to say) will hear no reason, nor any
excuse whatever; he totally refuses to see you or Mrs. Clements."

"O, dearest John! what have I done--what has Henry done, that papa, and
you, and dear mamma, should all be so unkind to us?"

"You have married, Mrs. Clements, contrary to your father's wish and
knowledge: and he has cast you off--I must say--deservedly."

"Brother, brother! you know I was deceived, and Henry too. This is
cruel, most cruel: let me see my beloved father but one moment!"

"His commands are to the contrary, madam; and I at least obey them.
Henceforth you are a stranger to us all."

The poor broken-hearted girl fell into her husband's arms, stone-white:
but her hard brother, making no account whatever of all that show of
feeling, only took the trouble quietly to address Henry Clements.
"Misfortunes never come single, they say; it is no fault of mine if the
proverb hits Mr. Henry Clements. I am sorry to have to tell you, sir,
that the Austral Independent bank has stopped payment, and is not
expected to refund to its depositors or shareholders one penny in the
pound."

"Impossible, Mr. Dillaway! You answered for its stability yourself: and
the proposition came originally from you. I hope surely, surely, you may
have been misinformed of these bad news."

"It is true, sir--too true for you: the wisest man on 'change is often
out of reckoning. I have nothing now of yours in my hands, sir: you are
aware that no writings passed between us."

"Great Heaven! be just and merciful! Are we, then, to be utterly
ruined?"

"Really, sir, you know your own affairs better than I can.--Your
servant, Mr. Clements."

O, hard and wicked heart!--what will not such a miscreant do for money?
Nothing, I am clear, but the cowardly fear of discovery prevents John
Dillaway from becoming a positive parricide by very arsenic or razor, so
as to grasp his cheated father's will and wealth. And this assertion
will appear not in the least uncharitable, when the reader is in this
place reminded that Henry Clements's own little property had never been
Australized at all, but was still safe and snug in the coffers of crafty
John. Jermyn street--or the sharpers congregated there--had drained him
very considerably; all his own ill-got gains had been gradually raked
away by the croupier at the gaming-table; and unsuspecting Henry's
little trust-fund was to be the next bank on which the brother played.

Poor Henry and Maria! What will they do? where will they go? how will
they live? Hard questions all, not to be answered in a hurry. We shall
see. There was one comfort, though, amidst all their misery;--they did
not find the adage a true one, which alludes to poverty coming in at the
door, and love flying out of the window; for they never loved each other
more deeply--more devotedly--than when daily bread was growing a
scarcity, and daily life almost a burden. But we are anticipating.

And how fared the parents all this while? was the erring daughter
entirely forgotten? No, no. Son John, indeed, took good care to hinder
any amicable feelings of relapse to intrude upon his father's
resolution. But the old man was not easy, nevertheless; often thought of
poor Maria; and could not clearly make out who had forged the letter.
Had it not been for that wicked brother John, a meeting--an
explanation--a reconciliation--would undoubtedly have taken place: but
he was shrewd enough to keep them asunder, and did not take much to
heart his father's altered spirits and breaking state of health: his
will and wealth were seemingly all the nearer.

And what of that poor stricken mother? Wasted to a shadow, feverish and
weak, she lay for weeks, counting the dreary hours, till she heard of
dear, though unnatural, Maria. Oh! the heartless caitiff, John! will he
thus watch his mother die by inches, when one true word from his lips
could restore her to tranquillity and health? Yes, he would--he did--the
wretch! She gradually pined--waned--wasted; the candle of her life burnt
down into the hollow socket--glimmering awhile--flared and reeled, and
then--one night, quietly and suddenly--went out! She entered on the
world of spirits, where all secrets show revealed; and there she read,
almost before she died--whilst yet the black curtain of eternity was
gradually rising to receive her--the innocence of good Maria, and the
deep-stained villany of John. Her last words--uttered supernaturally
from her quiescence, with the fervour of a visionary whose ken is more
than mortal--were "Look, look, Thomas!--beware of John. O poor, poor
innocent outcast!--O rich, rich heart of love--Maria! my Mari--a--!"

CHAPTER X.

HOW TO HELP ONE'S SELF.

Where then did they live, and how--that noble and calumniated couple?
They had done no wrong, nor even, as it seems to us, the semblance of
wrong, unless it be by having acquiesced in the foolishness of secresy,
and thus aided the contrivance of false witness; for aught else, their
only social error had been lack of business caution among business men.
Feeling generously themselves, they gave others credit for the like good
feeling; acting upon honourable impulse, they believed that other men
would act so too. Heart was the hindrance in their way;--too much
sensitiveness towards all about them; too swift a surrender of the
judgment to the affections: too imprudent a reliance upon other men of
the world; though, when they trusted to a father's love, and a brother's
honesty, prudence herself might have almost been dispensed with.
Machinations of the wicked and the shrewd hemmed them in to their
un-doing: and really, they, children more or less of affluent homes,
born and bred in plenty, who had moved all their lives long in circles
of comparative wealth and wastefulness, now seemed likely to come to the
galling want of necessary sustenance. Was it not to teach them deeper
feeling for the poor, if ever God again should give them riches? Was it
not, by poverty, to try those hearts which had passed so blamelessly
through all the ordeals and temptations of wealth, in order that they
worthily might wear the double crown given only to such as remain
unhardened by prosperity, unembittered by adversity? Was it not to
discipline our warm Maria's love, and to chasten her Henry's very
gentlemanly pride into the due Christian proportions--self-respect with
self-humiliation? Was it not, chiefest and best, to school their hearts
for heaven, and, by feeding them on miseries and wrongs a little while,
to fix their affections on things above rather than on things of this
world? Yes: Providence has many ends in view, and they all tend
consistently to one great focus--the ultimate advantage of the good by
means of the confusion of the wicked.

Meanwhile came trouble on apace. Henry Clements justly felt aggrieved,
insulted; and the sentiment of pride, improper only from excess,
determined him to make no more advances: all that man could do, that
is, which a gentleman ought to do, he had done; but letters and visits
proved equally unavailing. He had come to the resolution that he would
make no more efforts himself, nor scarcely let Maria make any. As for
her, poor soul! she was now in grievous tribulation, with sad,
sufficient reason for it too; seeing that, in addition to her father's
anger, still protracted--in addition to that vile forgery imputed to her
craft, and whereof she had been made the guilty victim--in addition to
their own soon pressing money-wants, and that heartless fraud of John's
against her husband's little all (though she counted of it only as a
luckless speculation)--she had just become acquainted, through the
public prints, of her dear good mother's death, even before she had
heard of any illness. What bitter pangs were there for her, poor child!
That she should have lost that mother just then, without forgiveness,
without blessing--whilst all was unexplained, and their whole conduct of
affections without guile, wore the hideous mask of base, undutiful
contrivance! Cheer up, Maria; cheer up! only in this bad world can
innocence be sullied with a doubt: cheer up! the spirit of that mother
whom you loved on earth knows it well already; learned it while yet she
was leaving the body of her death: cheer up! she is still near you
both--dear children of affliction and affection! and God has
commissioned her for good to be your ministering angel.

With reference to means of living, they appeared limited at once to a
little ready money, and a few personal chattels and trinkets; without so
much as one pound of capital to back the young house-keepers, or a
shilling's-worth of interest or dividend or earnings coming in for
weekly bills. Clements had been utterly confounded in all his economical
arrangements by that sudden bitter breach of trust; and, albeit (as we
have hinted), his aim in marriage was not money; still, without much of
worldly calculation, he might prudently have looked for some provision
on Maria's part at least equal to his own: in fact, the fond young
couple had reasonably set their hearts upon that golden mean--four
hundred a-year to begin with. Now, however, by two fell swoops--brother
John's dishonesty and Sir Thomas's resolve of disinheritance--all this
rational and moderate expectation had been dashed to atoms; and the
cottage of contented competence appeared but as a castle in the
clouds--a mere airy matter of undiluted moonshine. Thus, when that
happiest of honeymoons had dwindled down the hundred-pound bank-note
(shrewd John's well-expended bait) to the fractional part of a ten, and
our newly-married pair came to put together their united resources,
wherewithal to travel through the world, they could muster but very
little:--considering, too, the future, and the promise of an early
increase to provide for, forty-seven pounds was not quite a fortune; and
a few articles of jewellery did not much increase it.

We need not imagine that Henry calmly acquiesced without a struggle in
the roguish fraud which had impoverished him; but, notwithstanding all
his best endeavours, he found, to his dismay, that the case was
irremediable: the transfer-books, indeed, were evidence; and equity
would give credit for the trust: but that the "Independent bank" had
failed was a simple fact; and so long as John stood ready to swear he
had invested in it, there was an end to the business. Be sure, shrewd
Jack was not likely to leave any thing dubious or unsatisfactory in the
affair. Austral papers were easily got at now, cheap as whitey-brown;
and for any help the law could give him, poor Henry Clements might as
well engage the wind-raising services of a Lapland witch.

He must put his shoulder to the wheel without delay; manifestly, his
profession of the law, however unlucrative till now, must be the mighty
lever that should raise him quickly to the summit of opulence and fame:
and he vigorously set to work, as the briefless are forced to do,
inditing a new law-book, which should lift him high in honour with those
magnates on the bench; being, as he was, a court-counsel, not a chamber
one, an eloquent pleader too (if the world would only give him a
hearing), he unluckily took for his thesis the questionable '_Doctrine
of Defence_;' combating magnanimously on the loftiest moral grounds all
manner of received opinions, time-honoured fictions, legitimated
quibbles, and other things which (as he was pleased to put it) "render
the majesty of the law ridiculous to the ears of common sense, and
iniquitous in the sight of Christian judgment." Rash youth! forensic
Quixote! better had you plodded on, without this extra industry and
skill, in the hopeless idleness and solitude of your Temple
garret--better had you burnt your wig and gown outright, with all the
airy briefs to come that fluttered round them, than have owned yourself
the author of that heretical piece of moral mawkishness--'_The Doctrine
of Defence_, by Henry Clements.'

He had with difficulty found a publisher--a chilling incident enough in
itself, considering an author's feelings for his book-child; and when
found, the scarcely satisfactory arrangement was insisted on, of mutual
participation in profit and loss: in other parlance, the bookseller
pocketing the first, and the author unpocketing the second. Thus it came
to pass, that after three months' toil and enormous collation of
cases--after extravagant indulgence of the most ardent hopes--glory,
good, and gold, consequent instantaneously on this happy
publication--after reasonably expecting that judges would quote it in
their ermine, and sergeants consult it in their silk--that London would
be startled by the event from the humdrum of its ordinary routine--and
the wondering world applaud the name of Henry Clements--O,
heart-sickening reality! what was the result of his exertions?

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