CHAPTER XXII My imagination Carries no favour in it but Bertram's; I am undone, there is no living, none, If Bertram be away.
--All's Well that Ends Well.
At the hour which he had appointed the preceding evening theindefatigable lawyer was seated by a good fire and a pair of wax candles,with a velvet cap on his head and a quilted silk nightgown on his person,busy arranging his memoranda of proofs and indications concerning themurder of Frank Kennedy. An express had also been despatched to Mr.Mac-Morlan, requesting his attendance at Woodbourne as soon as possibleon business of importance. Dinmont, fatigued with the events of theevening before, and finding the accommodations of Woodbourne muchpreferable to those of Mac-Guffog, was in no hurry to rise. Theimpatience of Bertram might have put him earlier in motion, but ColonelMannering had intimated an intention to visit him in his apartment in themorning, and he did not choose to leave it. Before this interview he haddressed himself, Barnes having, by his master's orders, supplied him withevery accommodation of linen, etc., and now anxiously waited the promisedvisit of his landlord.
In a short time a gentle tap announced the Colonel, with whom Bertramheld a long and satisfactory conversation. Each, however, concealed fromthe other one circumstance. Mannering could not bring himself toacknowledge the astrological prediction; and Bertram was, from motiveswhich may be easily conceived, silent respecting his love for Julia. Inother respects their intercourse was frank and grateful to both, and hadlatterly, upon the Colonel's part, even an approach to cordiality.Bertram carefully measured his own conduct by that of his host, andseemed rather to receive his offered kindness with gratitude and pleasurethan to press for it with solicitation.
Miss Bertram was in the breakfast-parlour when Sampson shuffled in, hisface all radiant with smiles--a circumstance so uncommon that Lucy'sfirst idea was that somebody had been bantering him with an imposition,which had thrown him into this ecstasy. Having sate for some time rollinghis eyes and gaping with his mouth like the great wooden head at Merlin'sexhibition, he at length began--'And what do you think of him, MissLucy?'
'Think of whom, Mr. Sampson?' asked the young lady.
'Of Har--no--of him that you know about?' again demanded the Dominie.
'That I know about?' replied Lucy, totally at a loss to comprehend hismeaning.
'Yes, the stranger, you know, that came last evening, in the postvehicle; he who shot young Hazelwood, ha, ha, ha!' burst forth theDominie, with a laugh that sounded like neighing.
'Indeed, Mr. Sampson,' said his pupil, 'you have chosen a strange subjectfor mirth; I think nothing about the man, only I hope the outrage wasaccidental, and that we need not fear a repetition of it.'
'Accidental! ha, ha, ha!' again whinnied Sampson.
'Really, Mr. Sampson,' said Lucy, somewhat piqued, 'you are unusually gaythis morning.'
'Yes, of a surety I am! ha, ha, ho! face-ti-ous, ho, ho, ha!'
'So unusually facetious, my dear sir,' pursued the young lady, 'that Iwould wish rather to know the meaning of your mirth than to be amusedwith its effects only.'
'You shall know it, Miss Lucy,' replied poor Abel. 'Do you remember yourbrother?'
'Good God, how can you ask me? No one knows better than you he was lostthe very day I was born.'
'Very true, very true,' answered the Dominie, saddening at therecollection; 'I was strangely oblivious; ay, ay! too true. But youremember your worthy father?'
'How should you doubt it, Mr. Sampson? it is not so many weeks since--'
'True, true; ay, too true,' replied the Dominie, his Houyhnhnm laughsinking into a hysterical giggle. 'I will be facetious no more underthese remembrances; but look at that young man!'
Bertram at this instant entered the room. 'Yes, look at him well, he isyour father's living image; and as God has deprived you of your dearparents--O, my children, love one another!'
'It is indeed my father's face and form,' said Lucy, turning very pale.Bertram ran to support her, the Dominie to fetch water to throw upon herface (which in his haste he took from the boiling tea-urn), whenfortunately her colour, returning rapidly, saved her from the applicationof this ill-judged remedy. 'I conjure you to tell me, Mr. Sampson,' shesaid, in an interrupted yet solemn voice, 'is this my brother?'
'It is, it is! Miss Lucy, it is little Harry Bertram, as sure as God'ssun is in that heaven!'
'And this is my sister?' said Bertram, giving way to all that familyaffection which had so long slumbered in his bosom for want of an objectto expand itself upon.
'It is, it is!--it is Miss Lucy Bertram,' ejaculated Sampson, 'whom by mypoor aid you will find perfect in the tongues of France and Italy, andeven of Spain, in reading and writing her vernacular tongue, and inarithmetic and book-keeping by double and single entry. I say nothing ofher talents of shaping and hemming and governing a household, which, togive every one their due, she acquired not from me but from thehousekeeper; nor do I take merit for her performance upon stringedinstruments, whereunto the instructions of an honourable young lady ofvirtue and modesty, and very facetious withal--Miss Julia Mannering--hathnot meanly contributed. Suum cuique tribuito.'
'You, then,' said Bertram to his sister, 'are all that remains to me!Last night, but more fully this morning, Colonel Mannering gave me anaccount of our family misfortunes, though without saying I should find mysister here.'
'That,' said Lucy, 'he left to this gentleman to tell you--one of thekindest and most faithful of friends, who soothed my father's longsickness, witnessed his dying moments, and amid the heaviest clouds offortune would not desert his orphan.'
'God bless him for it!' said Bertram, shaking the Dominie's hand;' hedeserves the love with which I have always regarded even that dim andimperfect shadow of his memory which my childhood retained.'
'And God bless you both, my dear children!' said Sampson; 'if it had notbeen for your sake I would have been contented--had Heaven's pleasure sobeen--to lay my head upon the turf beside my patron.'
'But I trust,' said Bertram--'I am encouraged to hope, we shall all seebetter days. All our wrongs shall be redressed, since Heaven has sent memeans and friends to assert my right.'
'Friends indeed!' echoed the Dominie, 'and sent, as you truly say, by HIMto whom I early taught you to look up as the source of all that is good.There is the great Colonel Mannering from the Eastern Indies, a man ofwar from his birth upwards, but who is not the less a man of greaterudition, considering his imperfect opportunities; and there is,moreover, the great advocate Mr. Pleydell, who is also a man of greaterudition, but who descendeth to trifles unbeseeming thereof; and thereis Mr. Andrew Dinmont, whom I do not understand to have possession ofmuch erudition, but who, like the patriarchs of old, is cunning in thatwhich belongeth to flocks and herds; lastly, there is even I myself,whose opportunities of collecting erudition, as they have been greaterthan those of the aforesaid valuable persons, have not, if it becomes meto speak, been pretermitted by me, in so far as my poor faculties haveenabled me to profit by them. Of a surety, little Harry, we must speedilyresume our studies. I will begin from the foundation. Yes, I will reformyour education upward from the true knowledge of English grammar even tothat of the Hebrew or Chaldaic tongue.'
The reader may observe that upon this occasion Sampson was infinitelymore profuse of words than he had hitherto exhibited himself. The reasonwas that, in recovering his pupil, his mind went instantly back to theiroriginal connexion, and he had, in his confusion of ideas, the strongestdesire in the world to resume spelling lessons and half-text with youngBertram. This was the more ridiculous, as towards Lucy he assumed no suchpowers of tuition. But she had grown up under his eye, and had beengradually emancipated from his government by increase in years andknowledge, and a latent sense of his own inferior tact in manners,whereas his first ideas went to take up Harry pretty nearly where he hadleft him. From the same feelings of reviving authority he indulgedhimself in what was to him a profusion of language; and as
people seldomspeak more than usual without exposing themselves, he gave those whom headdressed plainly to understand that, while he deferred implicitly to theopinions and commands, if they chose to impose them, of almost every onewhom he met with, it was under an internal conviction that in the articleof eru-di-ti-on, as he usually pronounced the word, he was infinitelysuperior to them all put together. At present, however, this intimationfell upon heedless ears, for the brother and sister were too deeplyengaged in asking and receiving intelligence concerning their formerfortunes to attend much to the worthy Dominie. When Colonel Manneringleft Bertram he went to Julia's dressing-room and dismissed herattendant. 'My dear sir,' she said as he entered, 'you have forgot ourvigils last night, and have hardly allowed me time to comb my hair,although you must be sensible how it stood on end at the various wonderswhich took place.'
'It is with the inside of your head that I have some business at present,Julia; I will return the outside to the care of your Mrs. Mincing in afew minutes.'
'Lord, papa,' replied Miss Mannering, 'think how entangled all my ideasare, and you to propose to comb them out in a few minutes! If Mincingwere to do so in her department she would tear half the hair out of myhead.'
'Well then, tell me,' said the Colonel, 'where the entanglement lies,which I will try to extricate with due gentleness?'
'O, everywhere,' said the young lady; 'the whole is a wild dream.'
'Well then, I will try to unriddle it.' He gave a brief sketch of thefate and prospects of Bertram, to which Julia listened with an interestwhich she in vain endeavoured to disguise. 'Well,' concluded her father,'are your ideas on the subject more luminous?'
'More confused than ever, my dear sir,' said Julia. 'Here is this youngman come from India, after he had been supposed dead, like Aboulfouaristhe great voyager to his sister Canzade and his provident brother Hour. Iam wrong in the story, I believe--Canzade was his wife; but Lucy mayrepresent the one and the Dominie the other. And then this livelycrack-brained Scotch lawyer appears like a pantomime at the end of atragedy. And then how delightful it will be if Lucy gets back herfortune.'
'Now I think,' said the Colonel, 'that the most mysterious part of thebusiness is, that Miss Julia Mannering, who must have known her father'sanxiety about the fate of this young man Brown, or Bertram, as we mustnow call him, should have met him when Hazlewood's accident took place,and never once mentioned to her father a word of the matter, but sufferedthe search to proceed against this young gentleman as a suspiciouscharacter and assassin.'
Julia, much of whose courage had been hastily assumed to meet theinterview with her father, was now unable to rally herself; she hung downher head in silence, after in vain attempting to utter a denial that sherecollected Brown when she met him.
'No answer! Well, Julia,' continued her father, gravely but kindly,'allow me to ask you, Is this the only time you have seen Brown since hisreturn from India? Still no answer. I must then naturally suppose that itis not the first time. Still no reply. Julia Mannering, will you have thekindness to answer me? Was it this young man who came under your windowand conversed with you during your residence at Mervyn Hall? Julia, Icommand--I entreat you to be candid.'
Miss Mannering raised her head. 'I have been, sir--I believe I amstill--very foolish; and it is perhaps more hard upon me that I must meetthis gentleman, who has been, though not the cause entirely, yet theaccomplice, of my folly, in your presence.' Here she made a full stop.
'I am to understand, then,' said Mannering, 'that this was the author ofthe serenade at Mervyn Hall?'
There was something in this allusive change of epithet that gave Julia alittle more courage. 'He was indeed, sir; and if I am very wrong, as Ihave often thought, I have some apology.'
'And what is that?' answered the Colonel, speaking quick, and withsomething of harshness.
'I will not venture to name it, sir; but (she opened a small cabinet, andput some letters into his hands) I will give you these, that you may seehow this intimacy began, and by whom it was encouraged.'
Mannering took the packet to the window--his pride forbade a more distantretreat. He glanced at some passages of the letters with an unsteady eyeand an agitated mind; his stoicism, however, came in time to hisaid--that philosophy which, rooted in pride, yet frequently bears thefruits of virtue. He returned towards his daughter with as firm an air ashis feelings permitted him to assume.
'There is great apology for you, Julia, as far as I can judge from aglance at these letters; you have obeyed at least one parent. Let usadopt a Scotch proverb the Dominie quoted the other day--"Let bygones bebygones, and fair play for the future." I will never upbraid you withyour past want of confidence; do you judge of my future intentions by myactions, of which hitherto you have surely had no reason to complain.Keep these letters; they were never intended for my eye, and I would notwillingly read more of them than I have done, at your desire and for yourexculpation. And now, are we friends? Or rather, do you understand me?'
'O, my dear, generous father,' said Julia, throwing herself into hisarms, 'why have I ever for an instant misunderstood you?'
'No more of that, Julia,' said the Colonel; 'we have both been to blame.He that is too proud to vindicate the affection and confidence which heconceives should be given without solicitation, must meet much, andperhaps deserved, disappointment. It is enough that one dearest and mostregretted member of my family has gone to the grave without knowing me;let me not lose the confidence of a child who ought to love me if shereally loves herself.'
'O, no danger, no fear!' answered Julia; 'let me but have yourapprobation and my own, and there is no rule you can prescribe so severethat I will not follow.'
'Well, my love,' kissing her forehead, 'I trust we shall not call uponyou for anything too heroic. With respect to this young gentleman'saddresses, I expect in the first place that all clandestinecorrespondence, which no young woman can entertain for a moment withoutlessening herself in her own eyes and in those of her lover--I request, Isay, that clandestine correspondence of every kind may be given up, andthat you will refer Mr. Bertram to me for the reason. You will naturallywish to know what is to be the issue of such a reference. In the firstplace, I desire to observe this young gentleman's character more closelythan circumstances, and perhaps my own prejudices, have permittedformerly. I should also be glad to see his birth established. Not that Iam anxious about his getting the estate of Ellangowan, though such asubject is held in absolute indifference nowhere except in a novel; butcertainly Henry Bertram, heir of Ellangowan, whether possessed of theproperty of his ancestors or not, is a very different person fromVanbeest Brown, the son of nobody at all. His fathers, Mr. Pleydell tellsme, are distinguished in history as following the banners of their nativeprinces, while our own fought at Cressy and Poirtiers. In short, Ineither give nor withhold my approbation, but I expect you will redeempast errors; and, as you can now unfortunately only have recourse to ONEparent, that you will show the duty of a child by reposing thatconfidence in me which I will say my inclination to make you happyrenders a filial debt upon your part.'
The first part of this speech affected Julia a good deal, the comparativemerit of the ancestors of the Bertrams and Mannerings excited a secretsmile, but the conclusion was such as to soften a heart peculiarly opento the feelings of generosity. 'No, my dear sir,' she said, extending herhand,' receive my faith, that from this moment you shall be the firstperson consulted respecting what shall pass in future between Brown--Imean Bertram--and me; and that no engagement shall be undertaken by meexcepting what you shall immediately know and approve of. May I ask ifMr. Bertram is to continue a guest at Woodbourne?'
'Certainly,' said the Colonel, 'while his affairs render it advisable.'
'Then, sir, you must be sensible, considering what is already past, thathe will expect some reason for my withdrawing, I believe I must say theencouragement, which he may think I have given.'
'I expect, Julia,' answered Mannering, 'that he will respect my roof, andentertain some se
nse perhaps of the services I am desirous to render him,and so will not insist upon any course of conduct of which I might havereason to complain; and I expect of you that you will make him sensibleof what is due to both.'
'Then, sir, I understand you, and you shall be implicitly obeyed.'
'Thank you, my love; my anxiety (kissing her) is on your account. Nowwipe these witnesses from your eyes, and so to breakfast.'