Bred in the Bone; Or, Like Father, Like Son Part 45

All this might be true; but such philosophy could scarcely now obtain a hearing, while his enemy was dying of starvation in his living tomb. It was in vain for him to repeat mechanically that he had also suffered a sort of lingering death for twenty years. The present picture of his rival's torments presented itself in colors so lively and terrible that it blotted out the reminiscence of his own. The recollection of his wrongs was no longer sufficient for his vindication. He therefore strove to behold his victim in another light than as his private foe--as the murderer of his friend Balfour, the history of whose end may here be told.

On the night that Richard escaped from Lingmoor, it was Balfour, of course, who a.s.sisted him, and who was awaiting him in person at the foot of the prison wall. The old man's arms had received him as he slipped down the rope; and the object at which the sentry had fired had been two men, though in the misty night they had seemed but one. Balfour had been mortally wounded, and it was with the utmost difficulty that, laden with the burden of his dying friend, Richard had contrived to reach Bergen Wood. As his own footsteps were alone to be traced along the moor, the idea of another having accompanied his flight--though they knew there was complicity--had not occurred to the authorities. Balfour had hardly reached that wretched asylum when he expired, pressing Richard's hand, and bidding him remember Earl Street, Spitalfields.

"What you find there is all yours, lad," was his dying testament and last words of farewell. And over his dead body Richard swore anew his vow of vengeance against the man that had thus, though indirectly, deprived him of his only friend. He had watched by the dead body, on its bed of rotten leaves, through that night and the whole of the next day; then, changing clothes with it, he had fled under cover of the ensuing darkness, and got away eventually to town.

He had found the house in Earl Street a wretched hovel, tenanted by a few abjects, whom the money found on Balfour--which he had received on leaving prison--was amply sufficient to buy out. Once alone in this tenement, he had easily possessed himself of the spoil so long secreted, and, furnished with it, he had hastened down to Crompton--the news of Carew's death having reached London on the very day that he found himself in a position to profit by it. The very plan which he had suggested to Balfour, whose name he also a.s.sumed, he himself put into execution. He made a private offer for the disused mine, which was gladly accepted by those who had the disposal of the property, acting under the advice of Parson Whymper. Trevethick, the only man that had attached any importance to the possession of it, was dead; and it was not likely that any one at the sale should bid one-half of the sum which this stranger was prepared to give for the mere gratification of his whim. The mine itself, indeed, had scarcely been mentioned in the transaction; it merely formed a portion in the lot comprising the few barren acres on which this capricious purchaser had expressed his fancy to build a home. "Disposed of by private contract" was the marginal note written in the auctioneer's catalogue which dashed Solomon's long-cherished hopes to the ground.

Richard staid on in the neighborhood to attend the sale. It attracted an immense concourse; and no less than a guinea a head was the price of admission to those who explored the splendid halls of Crompton, discussing the character of its late owner, and retailing wild stories of his eccentricities. Poor Parson Whymper, who had not a s.h.i.+lling left to him--for Carew had died intestate, though, thanks to him, not absolutely a beggar--was perhaps the only person present who felt a touch of regret. He had asked for his patron's signet-ring, as a keepsake, and this request had been refused on the part of the creditors; he wandered among the gay and jeering crowd like a ghost, little thinking that the one man who looked at him with a glance of pity was he whom he had once regarded as the heir of Crompton. It was the general opinion now that the unhappy chaplain had been Carew's evil genius, and had "led him on." Even Richard bestowed but that single glance upon him; he _was_ looking in vain for the face that had so terrible an interest for himself. He had not heard that Trevethick was dead, but he knew it was so the instant that his eyes fell upon Solomon Coe, and all his hate was at once transferred to his younger enemy. The business upon which this man had come was as clear to him as though it had been written on his forehead. The first gleam of pleasure which had visited his dark soul for twenty years was the sight of Solomon's countenance when, on the sixth day's sale, the auctioneer gave out that lot 970 had been withdrawn. Solomon might have received the intimation long before but for the cautious prudence which had prevented him from making any inquiries upon the subject. For a minute or two he stood stunned and silent, then hurriedly made his way to the rostrum. Richard, who was sitting at the long table with the catalogue before him, kept his eyes fixed upon its pages while the auctioneer pointed him out as the purchaser of the lot in question. He knew the inquiry that was being asked, and its reply; he knew whose burly form it was that thrust itself the next minute in between him and his neighbor; every drop of blood in his body, every hair on his head, seemed to be cognizant that the man he hated most on earth was seated cheek by jowl with him--that the first step in the road of retribution had been taken voluntarily by his victim himself. The rest is soon told. Solomon at once commenced his clumsy efforts at conciliation; and his endeavors to recommend himself to the stranger's friends.h.i.+p were suffered quickly to bear fruit. He invited him to his house in London, which, to Richard's astonishment and indignation, he found to be his mother's home; and, in short, fell of his own accord into the very snare which the other, had he had the fixing of it, would himself have laid for him.

And now, as we have said, when all had gone exactly as Richard would have had it go, and Solomon was being punished to the uttermost, the executor of his doom was beginning to feel, if not compunction, at all events remorse. No adequate retribution had indeed overtaken Harry. To have made her a widow was, in fact, to have freed her from the yoke of a harsh and unloved master; but the fact was, notwithstanding the perjury of which he believed her to have been guilty, he had never hated her as he had hated the other authors of his wrongs. She had once on the rock-bound coast at Gethin preserved his life; she had accorded to his pa.s.sion all that woman can grant, and had reciprocated it; not even in his fiercest hour of despair had he harbored the thought of raising his hand against her; he had hated her, indeed, as his betrayer, and as Solomon's wife, but never regarded her with that burning detestation which he felt toward her husband. There was another motive also, though he did not even admit it to himself, which, now that his chief foe was expiating his offense, had no inconsiderable weight in the scale of mercy as regarded the others.

His endeavors to win Charley's favor had had a reflex action. In spite of himself, a certain good-will had grown up in him toward this boy, whom his mission it was to ruin. If there had been less of his mother in the lad's appearance, or any thing of his father in his character, his heart might have been steeled against his youth and innocence of transgression. As a mere son of Solomon Coe's he would have beheld in him the whelp of a wolf, and treated him accordingly; but between the wolf and his offspring there was evidently as little of affection as there was of likeness. The very weaknesses of Charley's character--his love of pleasure, his credulity, his wayward impulsiveness, of all which Balfour had made use for his own purposes--were foreign to the nature of the elder Coe; while the lad's high spirit, demonstrativeness, and geniality were all his own. If he had one to guide as well as love him--a woman with sound heart and brain, such as this Agnes Aird was represented to be, what a happy future might be before this youth!

Without such a wise counselor, how easy it would be, and how likely, for him to drift on the tide of self-will and self-indulgence to the devil!

The decision rested in Richard's own hands, he knew. Should he blast this young life in the bud, in revenge for acts for which he was in no way accountable, and which were already being so bitterly expiated? The apprehension that Solomon might even yet be found alive perhaps alone prevented Richard from resolving finally to molest Harry and her son no further. If his victim should have been rescued, his enmity would have doubtless blazed forth afresh against them as inextinguishable as ever, but in the mean time it smouldered, and was dying out for want of fuel.

If he had no penitence with respect to the terrible retribution he had already wrought, the idea of it disturbed him. If he had no scruples, he had pangs: when all was over--in a day or two, for even so strong a man as Solomon could scarcely hold out longer--he would doubtless cease to be troubled with them; when he was once dead Richard did not fear his ghost; but the thought of this peris.h.i.+ng wretch at present haunted him.

He was still not far from Gethin, and its neighborhood was likely to encourage such unpleasant feelings. He had only executed a righteous judgment, since there was no law to right him; but even a judge would avoid the vicinity of a gallows on which hangs a man on whom he had pa.s.sed sentence.

He would go into Midlands.h.i.+re--where he was now supposed to be--until the affair had blown over. That watching and waiting for the Thing to be discovered would, he foresaw, be disagreeable, nervous work. And when it happened, how full the newspapers would be of it! How Solomon got to the place where he would be found would be as much a matter of marvel as the object of his going there. If the copper lode--the existence of which Richard did not doubt--were discovered, as it most likely would be when the mine became the haunt of the curious and the morbid, it was only too probable that public attention would be drawn to the owner. The identification of Robert Balfour with the visitor who had visited Turlock might then be established, whence would rise suspicion, and perhaps discovery. Richard had no terrors upon his own account, but he was solicitous to spare his mother this new shame. He had been hitherto guiltless in her eyes, or, when blameworthy, the victim of circ.u.mstances; but could her love for him survive the knowledge that he was a murderer? But why encourage these morbid apprehensions? Was it not just as likely that the Thing would never be discovered at all? Once set upon a wrong scent, as folks already were, since the papers had suggested the man was drowned, why should they ever hit upon the right one? Wheal Danes had not been explored for half a century. Why should not Solomon's bones lie there till the judgment-day?

At this point in his reflections the door opened--he was taking his breakfast in a private sitting-room--and admitted, as he thought, the waiter. Richard stood in such profound thought that it was almost stupor, with his arms upon the mantel-piece, and his head resting on his hands. He did not change his posture; but when the door closed, and there was silence in place of the expected clatter of the breakfast things, he turned about, and beheld Harry standing before him--in deep black, and, as it seemed to him, in widow's weeds!

CHAPTER XLV.

FACE TO FACE.

If Solomon himself, half starved and imbecile with despair, had suddenly presented himself from his living tomb, Richard could not have been more astonished than at the appearance of his present visitor. He had left her but three days ago for Midlands.h.i.+re. How was it possible she had tracked him hither? With what purpose she had done so he did not ask himself, for he had already read it in her haggard face and hopeless eyes.

"Have I come too late?" moaned she in a piteous, terror-stricken voice.

"For breakfast?--yes, madam," returned Richard, coldly; "but that can easily be remedied;" and he feigned to touch the bell. His heart was steel again; this woman's fear and care he felt were for his enemy, and for him alone. It was plain she had no longer fear of himself.

"Where is my husband?" she gasped out. "Is he still alive?"

"I am not your husband's keeper, madam."

"But you are his murderer!" She held out her arm, and pointed at him with a terrible significance. There was something clasped in her trembling fingers which he could not discern.

"You speak in riddles, madam; and it seems to me your humor is somewhat grim."

"I ask you once more, is my husband dead, and have I come too late?"

"I have not seen him for some days; I left him alive and well. What makes you think him otherwise, or that I have harmed him?"

"This"--she advanced toward him, keeping her eyes steadily fixed upon his own--"this was found among your things after you left my house!"

It was a ticket-of-leave--the one that had been given to Balfour on his discharge from Lingmoor. It seemed impossible that Richard's colorless face could have become still whiter, but it did so.

"Yes, that is mine," said he. "It was an imprudence in me to leave such a token among curious people. You took an interest in my effects, it seems."

"It was poor Mrs. Basil who found it, and who gave it to me." Her voice was calm, and even cold; but the phrase "poor Mrs. Basil" alarmed him.

"The good lady is still unwell, then, is she?"

"She is dead."

"Dead!" Richard staggered to a chair, and pressed his hands to his forehead. The only creature in the world on whom his slender hopes were built had, then, departed from it! "When did she die?" inquired he in a hollow voice, "and how?"

"On the evening of the day you left, and, as I believe, of a disease which one like you will scarcely credit--of a broken heart."

Her manner and tone were hostile; but that moved not Richard one whit; the cold and measured tones in which she had alluded to his mother's death angered him, on the other hand, exceedingly. If his mother had died of a broken heart, it was this woman's falsehood that had broken it; and yet she could speak with calmness and unconcern of the loss which had left him utterly forlorn! He forgot all his late remorse; and in his eyes glittered malice and cruel rage.

"I do not fear you," cried she, in answer to this look; "for the wretched have no fear. The hen will do battle with the fox, the rabbit with the stoat, to save her young. If I can not save my husband, I will save my son. I have come down here to do it. You are known to me now for what you are--a jail-bird. If you dare to meet my Charley's honest face again, I will tell him who and what you are."

"Did Mrs. Basil tell you that, then?"

"Thus far she did," cried Harry, pointing to the ticket which Richard had taken from her hand. "Is not that enough? She warned me with her latest breath against you. 'Beware of him,' said she; 'and yet pursue him, if you would save your husband and your son. Where Solomon is, there will this man also be. Pursue, pursue!' I did but stay to close her eyes."

"And so she knew me, did she?"

"She knew enough, as I do. Of course she could not guess--who could?--your shameful past, the fruit of which is there!" and again she pointed to the ticket.

"_My_ shameful past!" cried Richard, rising and drawing himself to his full height. "Who are you, that dare to say so? Do you, then, need one to rise from the dead to remind you of _your_ past! Look at me, Harry Trevethick--look at _me_!"

"Richard!" It was but one word; but in the tone which she p.r.o.nounced it a thousand memories seemed to mingle. An inexpressible awe pervaded her; she stood spell-bound, staring at his white hair and withered face.

"Yes, it _is_ Richard," answered the other, mockingly, "though it is hard to think so. Twenty years of wretchedness have worked the change.

It is you he has to thank for it, you perjured traitress!"

"No, no; as Heaven is my judge, Richard, I tell you No!" She threw herself on her knees before him; and as she did so her bonnet fell, and the rippling hair that he had once stroked so tenderly escaped from its bands; the color came into her cheeks, and the light into her eyes, with the pa.s.sionate excitement of her appeal; and for the moment she looked almost as he had known her in the far-back spring-tide of her youth.

"Fair and false as ever!" cried Richard, bitterly.

"Listen, listen!" pleaded she; "then call me what you will."

He sat in silence while she poured forth all the story of the trial, and of the means by which her evidence had been obtained, listening at first with a cold, cynical smile, like one who is prepared for falsehood, and beyond its power; but presently he drooped his head and hid his features. She knew that she had persuaded him of her fidelity, but feared that behind those wrinkled hands there still lay a ruthless purpose. She had exculpated herself, but only (of necessity) by showing in blacker colors the malice of his enemies. She knew that he had sworn to destroy them root and branch; and there was one green bough which he had already done his worst to bend to evil ways. "Richard, Richard!"

said she, softly.

He withdrew his chair with a movement which she mistook for one of loathing.

"He hates me for their sake," thought she, "although he knows me to be innocent. How much more must he hate those who made me seem so guilty!"

But, in truth, his withdrawal from her touch had a very different explanation. He would have kissed her, and held out both his hands, but for the blood which he dreaded might be even now upon them. He saw that she loved him still, and had ever done so, even when she seemed his foe: all the old affection that he thought had been dead within him awoke to life, and yet he dared not give it voice.

"You have said my husband was alive and well, Richard?"

"I said I had left him so," answered he, hoa.r.s.ely.