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Devereux, Book III.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Devereux, Book III.




"The date," said I, "is, I perceive, of very recent period; the will is
signed by two witnesses besides yourself. Who and where are they?"

"Robert Lister, the first signature, my clerk; he is since dead, Sir."

"Dead!" said I; "and the other witness, George Davis?"

"Is one of Sir William's tenants, and is below, Sir, in waiting."

"Let him come up," and a middle-sized, stout man, with a blunt, bold,
open countenance, was admitted.

"Did you witness this will?" said I.

"I did, your honour!"

"And this is your handwriting?" pointing to the scarcely legible scrawl.

"Yees, your honour," said the man, scratching his head, "I think it be;
they are my /ees/, and G, and D, sure enough."

"And do you know the purport of the will you signed?"

"Anan!"

"I mean, do you know to whom Sir William--stop, Mr. Oswald, suffer the
man to answer me--to whom Sir William left his property?"

"Noa, to be sure, Sir; the will was a woundy long one, and Maister
Oswald there told me it was no use to read it over to me, but merely to
sign, as a witness to Sir William's handwriting."

"Enough: you may retire;" and George Davis vanished.

"Mr. Oswald," said I, approaching the attorney, "I may wrong you, and if
so, I am sorry for it, but I suspect there has been foul practice in
this deed. I have reason to be convinced that Sir William Devereux
could never have made this devise. I give you warning, Sir, that I
shall bring the business immediately before a court of law, and that if
guilty--ay, tremble, Sir--of what I suspect, you will answer for this
deed at the foot of the gallows."

I turned to Gerald, who rose while I was yet speaking. Before I could
address him, he exclaimed, with evident and extreme agitation,

"You cannot, Morton,--you cannot--you dare not--insinuate that I, your
brother, have been base enough to forge, or to instigate the forgery of,
this will?"

Gerald's agitation made me still less doubtful of his guilt.

"The case, Sir," I answered coldly, "stands thus: my uncle could not
have made this will; it is a devise that must seem incredible to all who
knew aught of our domestic circumstances. Fraud has been practised, how
I know not; by whom I do know."

"Morton, Morton: this is insufferable; I cannot bear such charges, even
from a brother."

"Charges!--your conscience speaks, Sir,--not I; no one benefits by this
fraud but you: pardon me if I draw an inference from a fact."

So saying, I turned on my heel, and abruptly left the apartment. I
ascended the stairs which led to my own: there I found my servant
preparing the paraphernalia in which that very evening I was to attend
my uncle's funeral. I gave him, with a calm and collected voice, the
necessary instructions for following me to town immediately after that
event, and then I passed on to the room where the deceased lay in state.
The room was hung with black: the gorgeous pall, wrought with the proud
heraldry of our line, lay over the coffin; and by the lights which made,
in that old chamber, a more brilliant, yet more ghastly, day, sat the
hired watchers of the dead.

I bade them leave me, and kneeling down beside the coffin, I poured out
the last expressions of my grief. I rose, and was retiring once more to
my room, when I encountered Gerald.

"Morton," said he, "I own to you, I myself am astounded by my uncle's
will. I do not come to make you offers; you would not accept them: I do
not come to vindicate myself, it is beneath me; and we have never been
as brothers, and we know not their language: but I /do/ come to demand
you to retract the dark and causeless suspicions you have vented against
me, and also to assure you that, if you have doubts of the authenticity
of the will, so far from throwing obstacles in your way, I myself will
join in the inquiries you institute and the expenses of the law."

I felt some difficulty in curbing my indignation while Gerald thus
spoke. I saw before me the persecutor of Isora, the fraudulent robber
of my rights, and I heard this enemy speak to me of aiding in the
inquiries which were to convict himself of the basest, if not the
blackest, of human crimes; there was something too in the reserved and
yet insolent tone of his voice which, reminding me as it did of our long
aversion to each other, made my very blood creep with abhorrence. I
turned away, that I might not break my oath to Isora, for I felt
strongly tempted to do so; and said in as calm an accent as I could
command, "The case will, I trust, require no king's evidence; and, at
least, I will not be beholden to the man whom my reason condemns for any
assistance in bringing upon himself the ultimate condemnation of the
law."

Gerald looked at me sternly. "Were you not my brother," said he, in a
low tone, "I would, for a charge so dishonouring my fair name, strike
you dead at my feet."

"It is a wonderful exertion of fraternal love," I rejoined, with a
scornful laugh, but an eye flashing with passions a thousand times more
fierce than scorn, "that prevents your adding that last favour to those
you have already bestowed on me."

Gerald, with a muttered curse, placed his hand upon his sword; my own
rapier was instantly half drawn, when, to save us from the great guilt
of mortal contest against each other, steps were heard, and a number of
the domestics charged with melancholy duties at the approaching rite,
were seen slowly sweeping in black robes along the opposite gallery.
Perhaps that interruption restored both of us to our senses, for we
said, almost in the same breath, and nearly in the same phrase, "This
way of terminating strife is not for us;" and, as Gerald spoke, he
turned slowly away, descended the staircase, and disappeared.

The funeral took place at night: a numerous procession of the tenants
and peasantry attended. My poor uncle! there was not a dry eye for
thee, but those of thine own kindred. Tall, stately, erect in the power
and majesty of his unrivalled form, stood Gerald, already assuming the
dignity and lordship which, to speak frankly, so well became him; my
mother's face was turned from me, but her attitude proclaimed her
utterly absorbed in prayer. As for myself, my heart seemed hardened: I
could not betray to the gaze of a hundred strangers the emotions which I
would have hidden from those whom I loved the most. Wrapped in my
cloak, with arms folded on my breast, and eyes bent to the ground, I
leaned against one of the pillars of the chapel, apart, and apparently
unmoved.

But when they were about to lower the body into the vault, a momentary
weakness came over me. I made an involuntary step forward, a single but
deep groan of anguish broke from me, and then, covering my face with my
mantle, I resumed my former attitude, and all was still. The rite was
over; in many and broken groups the spectators passed from the chapel:
some to speculate on the future lord, some to mourn over the late, and
all to return the next morning to their wonted business, and let the
glad sun teach them to forget the past, until for themselves the sun
should be no more, and the forgetfulness eternal.

The hour was so late that I relinquished my intention of leaving the
house that night; I ordered my horse to be in readiness at daybreak and
before I retired to rest I went to my mother's apartments: she received
me with more feeling than she had ever testified before.

"Believe me, Morton," said she, and she kissed my forehead; "believe me,
I can fully enter into the feelings which you must naturally experience
on an event so contrary to your expectations. I cannot conceal from you
how much I am surprised. Certainly Sir William never gave any of us
cause to suppose that he liked either of your brothers--Gerald less than
Aubrey--so much as yourself; nor, poor man, was he in other things at
all addicted to conceal his opinions."

"It is true, my mother," said I; "it is true. Have you not therefore
some suspicions of the authenticity of the will?"

"Suspicions!" cried my mother. "No!--impossible!--suspicions of whom?
You could not think Gerald so base, and who else had an interest in
deception? Besides, the signature is undoubtedly Sir William's
handwriting, and the will was regularly witnessed; suspicions,
Morton,--no, impossible! Reflect, too, how eccentric and humoursome
your uncle always was: suspicions!--no, impossible!"

"Such things have been, my mother, nor are they uncommon: men will
hazard their souls, ay, and what to some are more precious still, their
lives too, for the vile clay we call money. But enough of this now: the
Law,--that great arbiter,--that eater of the oyster, and divider of its
shells,--the Law will decide between us, and if against me, as I suppose
and fear the decision will be,--why, I must be a suitor to fortune
instead of her commander. Give me your blessing, my dearest mother: I
cannot stay longer in this house; to-morrow I leave you."

And my mother did bless me, and I fell upon her neck and clung to it.
"Ah!" thought I, "this blessing is almost worth my uncle's fortune."

I returned to my room; there I saw on the table the case of the sword
sent me by the French king. I had left it with my uncle, on my
departure to town, and it had been found among his effects and reclaimed
by me. I took out the sword, and drew it from the scabbard. "Come,"
said I, and I kindled with a melancholy yet a deep enthusiasm, as I
looked along the blade, "come, my bright friend, with thee through this
labyrinth which we call the world will I carve my way! Fairest and
speediest of earth's levellers, thou makest the path from the low valley
to the steep hill, and shapest the soldier's axe into the monarch's
sceptre! The laurel and the fasces, and the curule car, and the
emperor's purple,--what are these but thy playthings, alternately thy
scorn and thy reward! Founder of all empires, propagator of all creeds,
thou leddest the Gaul and the Goth, and the gods of Rome and Greece
crumbled upon their altars! Beneath thee the fires of the Gheber waved
pale, and on thy point the badge of the camel-driver blazed like a sun
over the startled East! Eternal arbiter, and unconquerable despot,
while the passions of mankind exist! Most solemn of hypocrites,
--circling blood with glory as with a halo; and consecrating
homicide and massacre with a hollow name, which the parched throat of
thy votary, in the battle and the agony, shouteth out with its last
breath! Star of all human destinies! I kneel before thee, and invoke
from thy bright astrology an omen and a smile."



CHAPTER IV.

AN EPISODE.--THE SON OF THE GREATEST MAN WHO (ONE ONLY EXCEPTED) /EVER
ROSE TO A THRONE/, BUT BY NO MEANS OF THE GREATEST MAN (SAVE ONE) WHO
/EVER EXISTED/.

BEFORE sunrise the next morning I had commenced my return to London. I
had previously intrusted to the /locum tenens/ of the sage Desmarais,
the royal gift, and (singular conjunction!) poor Ponto, my uncle's dog.
Here let me pause, as I shall have no other opportunity to mention him,
to record the fate of the canine bequest. He accompanied me some years
afterwards to France, and he died there in extreme age. I shed tears as
I saw the last relic of my poor uncle expire, and I was not consoled
even though he was buried in the garden of the gallant Villars, and
immortalized by an epitaph from the pen of the courtly Chaulieu.

Leaving my horse to select his own pace, I surrendered myself to
reflection upon the strange alteration that had taken place in my
fortunes. There did not, in my own mind, rest a doubt but that some
villany had been practised with respect to the will. My uncle's
constant and unvarying favour towards me; the unequivocal expressions he
himself from time to time had dropped indicative of his future
intentions on my behalf; the easy and natural manner in which he had
seemed to consider, as a thing of course, my heritage and succession to
his estates; all, coupled with his own frank and kindly character, so
little disposed to raise hopes which he meant to disappoint, might alone
have been sufficient to arouse my suspicions at a devise so contrary to
all past experience of the testator. But when to these were linked the
bold temper and the daring intellect of my brother, joined to his
personal hatred to myself; his close intimacy with Montreuil, whom I
believed capable of the darkest designs; the sudden and evidently
concealed appearance of the latter on the day my uncle died; the
agitation and paleness of the attorney; the enormous advantages accruing
to Gerald, and to no one else, from the terms of the devise: when these
were all united into one focus of evidence, they appeared to me to leave
no doubt of the forgery of the testament and the crime of Gerald. Nor
was there anything in my brother's bearing and manner calculated to
abate my suspicions. His agitation was real; his surprise might have
been feigned; his offer of assistance in investigation was an unmeaning
bravado; his conduct to myself testified his continued ill-will towards
me,--an ill-will which might possibly have instigated him in the fraud
scarcely less than the whispers of interest and cupidity.

But while this was the natural and indelible impression on my mind, I
could not disguise from myself the extreme difficulty I should
experience in resisting my brother's claim. So far as my utter want of
all legal knowledge would allow me to decide, I could perceive nothing
in the will itself which would admit of a lawyer's successful cavil: my
reasons for suspicion, so conclusive to myself, would seem nugatory to a
judge. My uncle was known as a humourist; and prove that a man differs
from others in one thing, and the world will believe that he differs
from them in a thousand. His favour to me would be, in the popular eye,
only an eccentricity, and the unlooked-for disposition of his will only
a caprice. Possession, too, gave Gerald a proverbial vantage-ground,
which my whole life might be wasted in contesting; while his command of
an immense wealth might, more than probably, exhaust my spirit by delay,
and my fortune by expenses. Precious prerogative of law, to reverse the
attribute of the Almighty! to fill the /rich/ with good things, but to
send the poor empty away! /In corruptissima republica plurimoe leges/.
Legislation perplexed is synonymous with crime unpunished,--a
reflection, by the way, I should never have made, if I had never had a
law-suit: sufferers are ever reformers.

Revolving, then, these anxious and unpleasing thoughts, interrupted, at
times, by regrets of a purer and less selfish nature for the friend I
had lost, and wandering, at others, to the brighter anticipations of
rejoining Isora, and drinking from her eyes my comfort for the past and
my hope for the future, I continued and concluded my day's travel.

The next day, on resuming my journey, and on feeling the time approach
that would bring me to Isora, something like joy became the most
prevalent feeling in my mind. So true it is that misfortunes little
affect us so long as we have some ulterior object, which, by arousing
hope, steals us from affliction. Alas! the pang of a moment becomes
intolerable when we know of nothing /beyond/ the moment which it soothes
us to anticipate! Happiness lives in the light of the future: attack
the present; she defies you! darken the future, and you destroy her!

It was a beautiful morning: through the vapours, which rolled slowly
away beneath his beams, the sun broke gloriously forth; and over wood
and hill, and the low plains, which, covered with golden corn, stretched
immediately before me, his smile lay in stillness, but in joy. And ever
from out the brake and the scattered copse, which at frequent intervals
beset the road, the merry birds sent a fitful and glad music to mingle
with the sweets and freshness of the air.

I had accomplished the greater part of my journey, and had entered into
a more wooded and garden-like description of country, when I perceived
an old man, in a kind of low chaise, vainly endeavouring to hold in a
little but spirited horse, which had taken alarm at some object on the
road, and was running away with its driver. The age of the gentleman
and the lightness of the chaise gave me some alarm for the safety of the
driver; so, tying my own horse to a gate, lest the sound of his hoofs
might only increase the speed and fear of the fugitive, I ran with a
swift and noiseless step along the other side of the hedge and, coming
out into the road just before the pony's head, I succeeded in arresting
him, at a rather critical spot and moment. The old gentleman very soon
recovered his alarm; and, returning me many thanks for my interference,
requested me to accompany him to his house, which he said was two or
three miles distant.

Though I had no desire to be delayed in my journey for the mere sake of
seeing an old gentleman's house, I thought my new acquaintance's safety
required me, at least, to offer to act as his charioteer till we reached
his house. To my secret vexation at that time, though I afterwards
thought the petty inconvenience was amply repaid by a conference with a
very singular and once noted character, the offer was accepted.
Surrendering my own steed to the care of a ragged boy, who promised to
lead it with equal judgment and zeal, I entered the little car, and,
keeping a firm hand and constant eye on the reins, brought the offending
quadruped into a very equable and sedate pace.

"Poor Bob," said the old gentleman, apostrophizing his horse; "poor Bob,
like thy betters, thou knowest the weak hand from the strong; and when
thou art not held in by power, thou wilt chafe against love; so that
thou renewest in my mind the remembrance of its favourite maxim, namely,
'The only preventive to rebellion is restraint!'"

"Your observation, Sir," said I, rather struck by this address, "makes
very little in favour of the more generous feelings by which we ought to
be actuated. It is a base mind which always requires the bit and
bridle."

"It is, Sir," answered the old gentleman; "I allow it: but, though I
have some love for human nature, I have no respect for it; and while I
pity its infirmities, I cannot but confess them."

"Methinks, Sir," replied I, "that you have uttered in that short speech
more sound philosophy than I have heard for months. There is wisdom in
not thinking too loftily of human clay, and benevolence in not judging
it too harshly, and something, too, of magnanimity in this moderation;
for we seldom contemn mankind till they have hurt us, and when they have
hurt us, we seldom do anything but detest them for the injury."

"You speak shrewdly; Sir, for one so young," returned the old man,
looking hard at me; "and I will be sworn you have suffered some cares;
for we never begin to think till we are a little afraid to hope."

I sighed as I answered, "There are some men, I fancy, to whom
constitution supplies the office of care; who, naturally melancholy,
become easily addicted to reflection, and reflection is a soil which
soon repays us for whatever trouble we bestow upon its culture."

"True, Sir!" said my companion; and there was a pause. The old
gentleman resumed: "We are not far from my home now (or rather my
temporary residence, for my proper and general home is at Cheshunt, in
Hertfordshire); and, as the day is scarcely half spent, I trust you will
not object to partake of a hermit's fare. Nay, nay, no excuse: I assure
you that I am not a gossip in general, or a liberal dispenser of
invitations; and I think, if you refuse me now, you will hereafter
regret it."

My curiosity was rather excited by this threat; and, reflecting that my
horse required a short rest, I subdued my impatience to return to town,
and accepted the invitation. We came presently to a house of moderate
size, and rather antique fashion. This, the old man informed me, was
his present abode. A servant, almost as old as his master, came to the
door, and, giving his arm to my host, led him, for he was rather lame
and otherwise infirm, across a small hall into a long low apartment. I
followed.

A miniature of Oliver Cromwell, placed over the chimney-piece, forcibly
arrested my attention.

"It is the only portrait of the Protector I ever saw," said I, "which
impresses on me the certainty of a likeness; that resolute gloomy
brow,--that stubborn lip,--that heavy, yet not stolid expression,--all
seem to warrant a resemblance to that singular and fortunate man, to
whom folly appears to have been as great an instrument of success as
wisdom, and who rose to the supreme power perhaps no less from a
pitiable fanaticism than an admirable genius. So true is it that great
men often soar to their height by qualities the least obvious to the
spectator, and (to stoop to a low comparison) resemble that animal* in
which a common ligament supplies the place and possesses the property of
wings."


* The flying squirrel.


The old man smiled very slightly as I made this remark. "If this be
true," said he, with an impressive tone, "though we may wonder less at
the talents of the Protector, we must be more indulgent to his
character, nor condemn him for insincerity when at heart he himself was
deceived."

"It is in that light," said I, "that I have always viewed his conduct.
And though myself, by prejudice, a Cavalier and a Tory, I own that
Cromwell (hypocrite as he is esteemed) appears to me as much to have
exceeded his royal antagonist and victim in the virtue of sincerity, as
he did in the grandeur of his genius and the profound consistency of his
ambition."

"Sir," said my host, with a warmth that astonished me, "you seem to have
known that man, so justly do you judge him. Yes," said he, after a
pause, "yes, perhaps no one ever so varnished to his own breast his
designs; no one, so covetous of glory, was ever so duped by conscience;
no one ever rose to such a height through so few acts that seemed to
himself worthy of remorse."

At this part of our conversation, the servant, entering, announced
dinner. We adjourned to another room, and partook of a homely yet not
uninviting repast. When men are pleased with each other, conversation
soon gets beyond the ordinary surfaces to talk; and an exchange of
deeper opinions was speedily effected by what old Barnes* quaintly
enough terms, "The gentleman-usher of all knowledge,--Sermocination!"


* In the "Gerania."


It was a pretty, though small room, where we dined; and I observed that
in this apartment, as in the other into which I had been at first
ushered, there were several books scattered about, in that confusion and
number which show that they have become to their owner both the choicest
luxury and the least dispensable necessary. So, during dinner-time, we
talked principally upon books, and I observed that those which my host
seemed to know the best were of the elegant and poetical order of
philosophers, who, more fascinating than deep, preach up the blessings
of a solitude which is useless, and a content which, deprived of
passion, excitement, and energy, would, if it could ever exist, only be
a dignified name for vegetation.

"So," said he, "when, the dinner being removed, we were left alone with
that substitute for all society,--wine! "so you are going to town: in
four hours more you will be in that great focus of noise, falsehood,
hollow joy, and real sorrow. Do you know that I have become so wedded
to the country that I cannot but consider all those who leave it for the
turbulent city, in the same light, half wondering, half compassionating,
as that in which the ancients regarded the hardy adventurers who left
the safe land and their happy homes, voluntarily to expose themselves in
a frail vessel to the dangers of an uncertain sea? Here, when I look
out on the green fields and the blue sky, the quiet herds basking in the
sunshine or scattered over the unpolluted plains, I cannot but exclaim
with Pliny, 'This is the true Movoetov!' this is the source whence flow
inspiration to the mind and tranquillity to the heart! And in my love
of Nature--more confiding and constant than ever is the love we bear to
women--I cry with the tender and sweet Tibullus,--


"'Ego composito securus acervo
Despiciam dites, despiciamque famem.'"*


* "Satisfied with my little hoard, I can despise wealth, and fear not
hunger."


"These," said I, "are the sentiments we all (perhaps the most restless
of us the most passionately) at times experience. But there is in our
hearts some secret but irresistible principle that impels us, as a
rolling circle, onward, onward, in the great orbit of our destiny; nor
do we find a respite until the wheels on which we move are broken--at
the tomb."

"Yet," said my host, "the internal principle you speak of can be
arrested before the grave,--at least stilled and impeded. You will
smile incredulously, perhaps (for I see you do not know who I am), when
I tell you that I might once have been a monarch, and that obscurity
seemed to me more enviable than empire; I resigned the occasion: the
tide of fortune rolled onward, and left me safe but solitary and
forsaken upon the dry land. If you wonder at my choice, you will wonder
still more when I tell you that I have never repented it."

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