Arthur Mervyn Part 41

"Not willingly," said I, in a mild tone. "I came too far to return with the business that brought me unperformed. I am persuaded, madam, you mistake my character and my views. I have a message to deliver your mother which deeply concerns her and your happiness, if you are her daughter. I merely wished to see her, and leave with her a piece of important news; news in which her fortune is deeply interested."

These words had a wonderful effect upon the young lady. Her anger was checked. "Good G.o.d!" she exclaimed, "are you Watson?"

"No; I am only Watson's representative, and come to do all that Watson could do if he were present."

She was now importunate to know my business.

"My business lies with Mrs. Maurice. Advertis.e.m.e.nts, which I have seen, direct me to her, and to this house; and to her only shall I deliver my message."

"Perhaps," said she, with a face of apology, "I have mistaken you. Mrs.

Maurice is my mother. She is really indisposed, but I can stand in her place on this occasion."

"You cannot represent her in this instance. If I cannot have access to her now, I must go; and shall return when you are willing to grant it."

"Nay," replied she, "she is not, perhaps, so very sick but that I will go, and see if she will admit you." So saying, she left me for three minutes; and, returning, said her mother wished to see me.

I followed up-stairs, at her request; and, entering an ill-furnished chamber, found, seated in an arm-chair, a lady seemingly in years, pale, and visibly infirm. The lines of her countenance were far from laying claim to my reverence. It was too much like the daughter's.

She looked at me, at my entrance, with great eagerness, and said, in a sharp tone, "Pray, friend, what is it you want with me? Make haste; tell your story, and begone."

"My story is a short one, and easily told. Amos Watson was your agent in Jamaica. He sold an estate belonging to you, and received the money."

"He did," said she, attempting ineffectually to rise from her seat, and her eyes beaming with a significance that shocked me; "he did, the villain, and purloined the money, to the ruin of me and my daughters.

But if there be justice on earth it will overtake him. I trust I shall have the pleasure one day--I hope to hear he's hanged. Well, but go on, friend. He _did_ sell it, I tell you."

"He sold it for ten thousand pounds," I resumed, "and invested this sum in bills of exchange. Watson is dead. These bills came into my hands. I was lately informed, by the public papers, who were the real owners, and have come from Philadelphia with no other view than to restore them to you. There they are," continued I, placing them in her lap, entire and untouched.

She seized the papers, and looked at me and at her daughter, by turns, with an air of one suddenly bewildered. She seemed speechless, and, growing suddenly more ghastly pale, leaned her head back upon the chair.

The daughter screamed, and hastened to support the languid parent, who difficultly articulated, "Oh, I am sick; sick to death. Put me on the bed."

I was astonished and affrighted at this scene. Some of the domestics, of both colours, entered, and gazed at me with surprise. Involuntarily I withdrew, and returned to the room below, into which I had first entered, and which I now found deserted.

I was for some time at a loss to guess at the cause of these appearances. At length it occurred to me, that joy was the source of the sickness that had seized Mrs. Maurice. The abrupt recovery of what had probably been deemed irretrievable would naturally produce this effect upon a mind of a certain texture.

I was deliberating whether to stay or go, when the daughter entered the room, and, after expressing some surprise at seeing me, whom she supposed to have retired, told me that her mother wished to see me again before my departure. In this request there was no kindness. All was cold, supercilious, and sullen. I obeyed the summons without speaking.

I found Mrs. Maurice seated in her arm-chair, much in her former guise.

Without desiring me to be seated, or relaxing aught in her asperity of looks and tones,--"Pray, friend, how did you _come by_ these papers?"

"I a.s.sure you, madam, they were honestly _come by_," answered I, sedately and with half a smile; "but, if the whole is there that was missing, the mode and time in which they came to me is matter of concern only to myself. Is there any deficiency?"

"I am not sure. I don't know much of these matters. There may be less. I dare say there is. I shall know that soon. I expect a friend of mine every minute who will look them over. I don't doubt you can give a good account of yourself."

"I doubt not but I can--to those who have a right to demand it. In this case, curiosity must be very urgent indeed before I shall consent to gratify it."

"You must know this is a suspicious case. Watson, to-be-sure, embezzled the money; to-be-sure, you are his accomplice."

"Certainly," said I, "my conduct, on this occasion, proves that. What I have brought to you, of my own accord; what I have restored to you, fully and unconditionally, it is plain Watson embezzled, and that I was aiding in the fraud. To restore what was never stolen always betrays the thief. To give what might be kept without suspicion is, without doubt, arrant knavery. To be serious, madam, in coming thus far, for this purpose, I have done enough; and must now bid you farewell."

"Nay, don't go yet. I have something more to say to you. My friend, I'm sure, will be here presently. There he is;" (noticing a peal upon the bell.) "Polly, go down, and see if that's Mr. Somers. If it is, bring him up." The daughter went.

I walked to the window absorbed in my own reflections. I was disappointed and dejected. The scene before me was the unpleasing reverse of all that my fancy, while coming hither, had foreboded. I expected to find virtuous indigence and sorrow lifted, by my means, to affluence and exultation. I expected to witness the tears of grat.i.tude and the caresses of affection. What had I found? Nothing but sordidness, stupidity, and illiberal suspicion.

The daughter stayed much longer than the mother's patience could endure.

She knocked against the floor with her heel. A servant came up. "Where's Polly, you s.l.u.t? It was not you, hussy, that I wanted. It was her."

"She is talking in the parlour with a gentleman."

"Mr. Somers, I suppose; hey, fool? Run with my compliments to him, wench. Tell him, please walk up."

"It is not Mr. Somers, ma'am."

"No? Who then, saucebox? What gentleman can have any thing to do with Polly?"

"I don't know, ma'am."

"Who said you did, impertinence? Run, and tell her I want her this instant."

The summons was not delivered, or Polly did not think proper to obey it.

Full ten minutes of thoughtful silence on my part, and of muttered vexation and impatience on that of the old lady, elapsed before Polly's entrance. As soon as she appeared, the mother began to complain bitterly of her inattention and neglect; but Polly, taking no notice of her, addressed herself to me, and told me that a gentleman below wished to see me. I hastened down, and found a stranger, of a plain appearance, in the parlour. His aspect was liberal and ingenuous; and I quickly collected, from his discourse, that this was the brother-in-law of Watson, and the companion of his last voyage.

CHAPTER XLII.

My eyes sparkled with pleasure at this unexpected interview, and I willingly confessed my desire to communicate all the knowledge of his brother's destiny which I possessed. He told me, that, returning late to Baltimore, on the last evening, he found his sister in much agitation and distress, which, after a time, she explained to him. She likewise put the packets I had left into his hands.

"I leave you to imagine," continued he, "my surprise and curiosity at this discovery. I was, of course, impatient to see the bearer of such extraordinary tidings. This morning, inquiring for one of your appearance at the taverns, I was, at length, informed of your arrival yesterday in the stage; of your going out alone in the evening; of your subsequent return; and of your early departure this morning.

Accidentally I lighted on your footsteps; and, by suitable inquiries on the road, have finally traced you hither.

"You told my sister her husband was dead. You left with her papers that were probably in his possession at the time of his death. I understand from Miss Maurice that the bills belonging to her mother have just been delivered to her. I presume you have no objection to clear up this mystery."

"To you I am anxious to unfold every thing. At this moment, or at any time, but the sooner the more agreeable to me, I will do it."

"This," said he, looking around him, "is no place; there is an inn, not a hundred yards from this gate, where I have left my horse; will you go thither?" I readily consented, and, calling for a private apartment, I laid before this man every incident of my life connected with Welbeck and Watson; my full, circ.u.mstantial, and explicit story appeared to remove every doubt which he might have entertained of my integrity.

In Williams I found a plain, good man, of a temper confiding and affectionate. My narration being finished, he expressed, by unaffected tokens, his wonder and his grief on account of Watson's destiny. To my inquiries, which were made with frankness and fervour, respecting his own and his sister's condition, he said that the situation of both was deplorable till the recovery of this property. They had been saved from utter ruin, from beggary and a jail, only by the generosity and lenity of his creditors, who did not suffer the suspicious circ.u.mstances attending Watson's disappearance to outweigh former proofs of his probity. They had never relinquished the hopes of receiving some tidings of their kinsman.

I related what had just pa.s.sed in the house of Mrs. Maurice, and requested to know from him the history and character of this family.

"They have treated you," he answered, "exactly as any one who knew them would have predicted. The mother is narrow, ignorant, bigoted, and avaricious. The eldest daughter, whom you saw, resembles the old lady in many things. Age, indeed, may render the similitude complete. At present, pride and ill-humour are her chief characteristics.

"The youngest daughter has nothing in mind or person in common with her family. Where they are irascible, she is patient; where they are imperious, she is humble; where they are covetous, she is liberal; where they are ignorant and indolent, she is studious and skilful. It is rare, indeed, to find a young lady more amiable than Miss f.a.n.n.y Maurice, or who has had more crosses and afflictions to sustain.

"The eldest daughter always extorted the supply of her wants, from her parents, by threats and importunities; but the younger could never be prevailed upon to employ the same means, and, hence, she suffered inconveniences which, to any other girl, born to an equal rank, would have been, to the last degree, humiliating and vexatious. To her they only afforded new opportunities for the display of her most s.h.i.+ning virtues,--fort.i.tude and charity. No instance of their sordidness or tyranny ever stole a murmur from her. For what they had given, existence and a virtuous education, she said they were ent.i.tled to grat.i.tude. What they withheld was their own, in the use of which they were not accountable to her. She was not ashamed to owe her subsistence to her own industry, and was only held by the pride of her family--in this instance their pride was equal to their avarice--from seeking out some lucrative kind of employment. Since the shock which their fortune sustained by Watson's disappearance, she has been permitted to pursue this plan, and she now teaches music in Baltimore for a living. No one, however, in the highest rank, can be more generally respected and caressed than she is."

"But will not the recovery of this money make a favourable change in her condition?"