A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Ernest Maltravers, Book 1

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Ernest Maltravers, Book 1




"Oh, much more!"

"More! and why so?"

"Because I am thinking of you, and perhaps you are not thinking of
yourself."

Maltravers smiled and stroked those beautiful ringlets, and kissed that
smooth, innocent forehead, and Alice nestled herself in his breast.

"How young you look by this light, Alice!" said he, tenderly looking
down.

"Would you love me less if I were old?" asked Alice.

"I suppose I should never have loved you in the same way if you had been
old when I first saw you."

"Yet I am sure I should have felt the same for you if you had been--oh!
ever so old!"

"What, with wrinkled cheeks, and palsied head, and a brown wig, and no
teeth, like Mr. Simcox?"

"Oh, but you could never be like that! You would always look
young--your heart would be always in your face. That clear smile--ah,
you would look beautiful to the last!"

"But Simcox, though not very lovely now, has been, I dare say, handsomer
than I am, Alice; and I shall be contented to look as well when I am as
old!"

"I should never know you were old, because I can see you just as I
please. Sometimes, when you are thoughtful, your brows meet, and you
look so stern that I tremble; but then I think of you when you last
smiled, and look up again, and though you are frowning still, you seem
to smile. I am sure you are different to other eyes than to mine . . .
and time must kill /me/ before, in my sight, it could alter /you/."

"Sweet Alice, you talk eloquently, for you talk love."

"My heart talks to you. Ah! I wish it could say all I felt. I wish it
could make poetry like you, or that words were music--I would never
speak to you in anything else. I was so delighted to learn music,
because when I played I seemed to be talking to you. I am sure that
whoever invented music did it because he loved dearly and wanted to say
so. I said '/he/,' but I think it was a woman. Was it?"

"The Greeks I told you of, and whose life was music, thought it was a
god."

"Ah, but you say the Greeks made Love a god. Were they wicked for it?"

"Our own God above is Love," said Ernest, seriously, "as our own poets
have said and sung. But it is a love of another nature--divine, not
human. Come, we will go within, the air grows cold for you."

They entered, his arm round her waist. The room smiled upon them its
quiet welcome; and Alice, whose heart had not half vented its fulness,
sat down to the instrument still to "talk love" in her own way.

But it was Saturday evening. Now every Saturday, Maltravers received
from the neighbouring town the provincial newspaper--it was his only
medium of communication with the great world. But it was not for that
communication that he always seized it with avidity, and fed on it with
interest. The county in which his father resided bordered on the shire
in which Ernest sojourned, and the paper included the news of that
familiar district in its comprehensive columns. It therefore satisfied
Ernest's conscience and soothed his filial anxieties to read from time
to time that "Mr. Maltravers was entertaining a distinguished party of
friends at his noble mansion of Lisle Court;" or that "Mr. Maltravers's
foxhounds had met on such a day at something copse;" or that, "Mr.
Maltravers, with his usual munificence, had subscribed twenty guineas to
the new county gaol." . . . And as now Maltravers saw the expected paper
laid beside the hissing urn, he seized it eagerly, tore the envelope,
and hastened to the well-known corner appropriated to the paternal
district. The very first words that struck his eye were these:


ALARMING ILLNESS OF MR. MALTRAVERS.

"We regret to state that this exemplary and distinguished gentleman was
suddenly seized on Wednesday night with a severe spasmodic affection.
Dr. ------ was immediately sent for, who pronounced it to be gout in the
stomach. The first medical assistance from London has been summoned.

"Postscript.--We have just learned, in answer to our inquiries at Lisle
Court, that the respected owner is considerably worse: but slight hopes
are entertained of his recovery. Captain Maltravers, his eldest son and
heir, is at Lisle Court. An express has been despatched in search of
Mr. Ernest Maltravers, who, involved by his high English spirit in some
dispute with the authorities of a despotic government, had suddenly
disappeared from Gottingen, where his extraordinary talents had highly
distinguished him. He is supposed to be staying at Paris."


The paper dropped on the floor. Ernest threw himself back on the chair,
and covered his face with his hands.

Alice was beside him in a moment. He looked up, and caught her wistful
and terrified gaze. "Oh, Alice!" he cried, bitterly, and almost pushing
her away, "if you could but guess my remorse!" Then springing on his
feet, he hurried from the room.

Presently the whole house was in commotion. The gardener, who was
always in the house about supper-time, flew to the town for post-horses.
The old woman was in despair about the laundress, for her first and only
thought was for "master's shirts." Ernest locked himself in his room.
Alice! poor Alice!

In little more than twenty minutes, the chaise was at the door: and
Ernest, pale as death, came into the room where he had left Alice.

She was seated on the floor, and the fatal paper was on her lap. She
had been endeavouring, in vain, to learn what had so sensibly affected
Maltravers, for, as I said before, she was unacquainted with his real
name, and therefore the ominous paragraph did not even arrest her eye.

He took the paper from her, for he wanted again and again to read it:
some little word of hope or encouragement must have escaped him. And
then Alice flung herself on his breast. "Do not weep," said he; "Heaven
knows I have sorrow enough of my own! My father is dying! So kind, so
generous, so indulgent! O God, forgive me! Compose yourself, Alice.
You will hear from me in a day or two."

He kissed her, but the kiss was cold and forced. He hurried away. She
heard the wheels grate on the pebbles. She rushed to the window; but
that beloved face was not visible. Maltravers had drawn the blinds, and
thrown himself back to indulge his grief. A moment more, and even the
vehicle that bore him away was gone. And before her were the flowers,
and the starlit lawn, and the playful fountain, and the bench where they
had sat in such heartfelt and serene delight. He was gone; and often,
oh, how often, did Alice remember that his last words had been uttered
in estranged tones--that his last embrace had been without love!



CHAPTER IX.

"Thy due from me
Is tears: and heavy sorrows of the blood,
Which nature, love, and filial tenderness
Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously!"
/Second Part of Henry IV./, Act iv. Sc. 4.

IT was late at night when the chaise that bore Maltravers stopped at the
gates of a park lodge. It seemed an age before the peasant within was
aroused from the deep sleep of labour-loving health. "My father," he
cried, while the gate creaked on its hinges; "my father--is he better?
Is he alive?"

"Oh, bless your heart, Master Ernest, the squire was a little better
this evening."

"Thank Heaven!--On--on!"

The horses smoked and galloped along a road that wound through venerable
and ancient groves. The moonlight slept soft upon the sward, and the
cattle, disturbed from their sleep, rose lazily up, and gazed upon the
unseasonable intruder.

It is a wild and weird scene, one of those noble English parks at
midnight, with its rough forest-ground broken into dell and valley, its
never-innovated and mossy grass, overrun with fern, and its immemorial
trees, that have looked upon the birth, and look yet upon the graves, of
a hundred generations. Such spots are the last proud and melancholy
trace of Norman knighthood and old romance left to the laughing
landscapes of cultivated England. They always throw something of shadow
and solemn gloom upon minds that feels their associations, like that
which belongs to some ancient and holy edifice. They are the cathedral
aisles of Nature with their darkened vistas, and columned trunks, and
arches of mighty foliage. But in ordinary times the gloom is pleasing,
and more delightful than all the cheerful lawns and sunny slopes of the
modern taste. /Now/ to Maltravers it was ominous and oppressive: the
darkness of death seemed brooding in every shadow, and its warning voice
moaning in every breeze.

The wheels stopped again. Lights flitted across the basement story; and
one above, more dim than the rest, shone palely from the room in which
the sick man slept. The bell rang shrilly out from amidst the dark ivy
that clung around the porch. The heavy door swung back--Maltravers was
on the threshold. His father lived--was better--was awake. The son was
in the father's arms.



CHAPTER X.

"The guardian oak
Mourn'd o'er the roof it shelter'd: the thick air
Labour'd with doleful sounds."
ELLIOTT of /Sheffield/.

MANY days had passed, and Alice was still alone; but she had heard twice
from Maltravers. The letters were short and hurried. One time his
father was better, and there were hopes; another time, and it was not
expected that he could survive the week. They were the first letters
Alice had ever received from him. Those /first/ letters are an event in
a girl's life--in Alice's life they were a very melancholy one. Ernest
did not ask her to write to him; in fact, he felt, at such an hour, a
repugnance to disclose his real name, and receive the letters of
clandestine love in the house in which a father lay in death. He might
have given the feigned address he had previously assumed, at some
distant post-town, where his person was not known. But, then, to obtain
such letters, he must quit his father's side for hours. The thing was
impossible. These difficulties Maltravers did not explain to Alice.

She thought it singular he did not wish to hear from her; but Alice was
humble. What could she say worth troubling him with, and at such an
hour? But how kind in him to write! how precious those letters! and yet
they disappointed her, and cost her floods of tears: they were so
short--so full of sorrow--there was so little love in them; and "dear,"
or even "/dearest/ Alice," that uttered by the voice was so tender,
looked cold upon the lifeless paper. If she but knew the exact spot
where he was it would be some comfort; but she only knew that he was
away, and in grief; and though he was little more than thirty miles
distant, she felt as if immeasurable space divided them. However, she
consoled herself as she could; and strove to shorten the long miserable
day by playing over all the airs he liked, and reading all the passages
he had commended. She should be so improved when he returned; and how
lovely the garden would look; for every day its trees and bouquets
caught a new smile from the deepening spring. Oh, they would be so
happy once more! Alice /now/ learned the life that lies in the future;
and her young heart had not, as yet, been taught that of that future
there is any prophet but Hope!

Maltravers, on quitting the cottage, had forgotten that Alice was
without money, and now that he found his stay would be indefinitely
prolonged, he sent a remittance. Several bills were unpaid--some
portion of the rent was due; and Alice, as she was desired, intrusted
the old servant with a bank note, with which she was to discharge these
petty debts. One evening, as she brought Alice the surplus, the good
dame seemed greatly discomposed. She was pale and agitated; or, as she
expressed it, "had a terrible fit of the shakes."

"What is the matter, Mrs. Jones? you have no news of him--of--of my--of
your master?"

"Dear heart, miss--no," answered Mrs. Jones; "how should I? But I'm
sure I don't wish to frighten you; there has been two sich robberies in
the neighbourhood!"

"Oh, thank Heaven that's all!" exclaimed Alice.

"Oh, don't go for to thank Heaven for that, miss; it's a shocking thing
for two lone females like us, and them 'ere windows all open to the
ground! You sees, as I was taking the note to be changed at Mr.
Harris's, the great grocer's shop, where all the poor folk was a-buying
agin to-morrow" (for it was Saturday night, the second Saturday after
Ernest's departure; from that Hegira Alice dated all her chronology),
"and everybody was a-talking about the robberies last night. La, miss,
they bound old Betty--you know Betty--a most respectable 'oman, who has
known sorrows, and drinks tea with me once a week. Well, miss, they
(only think!) bound Betty to the bedpost, with nothing on her but her
shift--poor old soul! And as Mr. Harris gave me the change (please to
see, miss, it's all right), and I asked for half gould, miss, it's more
convenient, sich an ill-looking fellow was by me, a-buying o' baccy, and
he did so stare at the money, that I vows I thought he'd have rin away
with it from the counter; so I grabbled it up and went away. But, would
you believe, miss, just as I got into the lane, afore you turns through
the gate, I chanced to look back, and there, sure enough, was that ugly
fellow close behind, a-running like mad. Oh, I set up such a screetch;
and young Dobbins was a-taking his cow out of the field, and he perked
up over the hedge when he heard me; and the cow, too, with her horns,
Lord bless her! So the fellow stopped, and I bustled through the gate,
and got home. But la, miss, if we are all robbed and murdered?"

Alice had not heard much of this harangue; but what she did hear very
slightly affected her strong, peasant-born nerves; not half so much
indeed, as the noise Mrs. Jones made in double-locking all the doors,
and barring, as well as a peg and a rusty inch of chain would allow, all
the windows--which operation occupied at least an hour and a half.

All at last was still. Mrs. Jones had gone to bed--in the arms of sleep
she had forgotten her terrors--and Alice had crept up-stairs, and
undressed, and said her prayers, and wept a little; and, with the tears
yet moist upon her dark eyelashes, had glided into dreams of Ernest.
Midnight was passed--the stroke of one sounded unheard from the clock at
the foot of the stars. The moon was gone--a slow, drizzling rain was
falling upon the flowers, and cloud and darkness gathered fast and thick
around the sky.

About this time, a low, regular, grating sound commenced at the thin
shutters of the sitting-room below, preceded by a very faint noise, like
the tinkling of small fragments of glass on the gravel without. At
length it ceased, and the cautious and partial gleam of a lanthorn fell
along the floor; another moment, and two men stood in the room.

"Hush, Jack!" whispered one: "hang out the glim, and let's look about
us."

The dark-lanthorn, now fairly unmuffled, presented to the gaze of the
robbers nothing that could gratify their cupidity.

Books and music, chairs, tables, carpet, and fire-irons, though valuable
enough in a house-agent's inventory, are worthless to the eyes of a
housebreaker. They muttered a mutual curse.

"Jack," said the former speaker, "we must make a dash at the spoons and
forks, and then hey for the money. The old girl had thirty shiners,
besides flimsies."

The accomplice nodded consent; the lanthorn was again partially shaded,
and with noiseless and stealthy steps the men quitted the apartment.
Several minutes elapsed, when Alice was awakened from her slumber by a
loud scream she started, all was again silent: she must have dreamt it:
her little heart beat violently at first, but gradually regained its
tenor. She rose, however, and the kindness of her nature being more
susceptible than her fear, she imagined Mrs. Jones might be ill--she
would go to her. With this idea she began partially dressing herself,
when she distinctly heard heavy footsteps and a strange voice in the
room beyond. She was now thoroughly alarmed--her first impulse was to
escape from the house--her next to bolt the door, and call aloud for
assistance. But who would hear her cries? Between the two purposes,
she halted irresolute . . . and remained, pale and trembling, seated at
the foot of the bed, when a broad light streamed through the chinks of
the door--an instant more, and a rude hand seized her.

"Come, mem, don't be fritted, we won't harm you; but where's the
gold-dust--where's the money?--the old girl says you've got it. Fork it
over."

"O mercy, mercy! John Walters, is that you?"

"Damnation!" muttered the man, staggering back; "so you knows me then;
but you sha'n't peach; you sha'n't scrag me, b---t you."

While he spoke, he again seized Alice, held her forcibly down with one
hand, while with the other he deliberately drew from a side pouch a long
case-knife. In that moment of deadly peril, the second ruffian, who had
been hitherto delayed in securing the servant, rushed forward. He had
heard the exclamation of Alice, he heard the threat of his comrade; he
darted to the bedside, cast a hurried gaze upon Alice, and hurled the
intended murderer to the other side of the room.

"What, man, art mad?" he growled between his teeth. "Don't you know
her? It is Alice;--it is my daughter."

Alice had sprung up when released from the murderer's knife, and now,
with eyes strained and starting with horror, gazed upon the dark and
evil face of her deliverer.

"O God, it is--it is my father!" she muttered, and fell senseless.

"Daughter or no daughter," said John Walters, "I shall not put my scrag
in her power; recollect how she fritted us before, when she run away."

Darvil stood thoughtful and perplexed; and his associate approached
doggedly with a look of such settled ferocity as it was impossible for
even Darvil to contemplate without a shudder.

"You say right," muttered the father, after a pause, but fixing his
strong gripe on his comrade's shoulder,--"the girl must not be left
here--the cart has a covering. We are leaving the country; I have a
right to my daughter--she shall go with us. There, man, grab the
money--it's on the table; . . . . you've got the spoons. Now then--" as
Darvil spoke he seized his daughter in his arms; threw over her a shawl
and a cloak that lay at hand, and was already on the threshold.

"I don't half like it," said Walters, grumblingly--"it been't safe."

"At least it is as safe as murder!" answered Darvil, turning round, with
a ghastly grin. "Make haste."

When Alice recovered her senses, the dawn was breaking slowly along
desolate and sullen hills. She was lying upon rough straw--the cart was
jolting over the ruts of a precipitous, lonely road,--and by her side
scowled the face of that dreadful father.



CHAPTER XI.

"Yet he beholds her with the eyes of mind--
He sees the form which he no more shall meet;
She like a passionate thought is come and gone,
While at his feet the bright rill bubbles on."
ELLIOTT /of Sheffield/.

IT was a little more than three weeks after that fearful night, when the
chaise of Maltravers stopped at the cottage door--the windows were shut
up; no one answered the repeated summons of the post-boy. Maltravers
himself, alarmed and amazed, descended from the vehicle: he was in deep
mourning. He went impatiently to the back entrance; that also was
locked; round to the French windows of the drawing-room, always hitherto
half-opened, even in the frosty days of winter,--they were now closed
like the rest. He shouted in terror, "Alice, Alice!"--no sweet voice
answered in breathless joy, no fairy step bounded forward in welcome.
At this moment, however, appeared the form of the gardener coming across
the lawn. The tale was soon told; the house had been robbed--the old
woman at morning found gagged and fastened to her bed-post--Alice flown.
A magistrate had been applied to,--suspicion fell upon the fugitive.
None knew anything of her origin or name, not even the old woman.
Maltravers had naturally and sedulously ordained Alice to preserve that
secret, and she was too much in fear of being detected and claimed by
her father not to obey the injunction with scrupulous caution. But it
was known, at least, that she had entered the house a poor peasant girl;
and what more common than for ladies of a certain description to run
away from their lover, and take some of his property by mistake? And a
poor girl like Alice, what else could be expected? The magistrate
smiled, and the constables laughed. After all, it was a good joke at
the young gentleman's expense! Perhaps, as they had no orders from
Maltravers, and they did not know where to find him, and thought he
would be little inclined to prosecute, the search was not very rigorous.
But two houses had been robbed the night before. Their owners were more
on the alert. Suspicion fell upon a man of infamous character, John
Walters; he had disappeared from the place. He had been last seen with
an idle, drunken fellow, who was said to have known better days, and who
at one time had been a skilful and well-paid mechanic, till his habits
of theft and drunkenness threw him out of employ; and he had been since
accused of connection with a gang of coiners--tried--and escaped from
want of sufficient evidence against him. That man was Luke Darvil. His
cottage was searched; but he also had fled. The trace of cart-wheels by
the gate of Maltravers gave a faint clue to pursuit; and after an active
search of some days, persons answering to the description of the
suspected burglars--with a young female in their company--were tracked
to a small inn, notorious as a resort for smugglers, by the sea-coast.
But there every vestige of their supposed whereabouts disappeared.

And all this was told to the stunned Maltravers; the garrulity of the
gardener precluded the necessity of his own inquiries, and the name of
Darvil explained to him all that was dark to others. And Alice was
suspected of the basest and the blackest guilt! Obscure, beloved,
protected as she had been, she could not escape the calumny from which
he had hoped everlastingly to shield her. But did /he/ share that
hateful thought? Maltravers was too generous and too enlightened.

"Dog!" said he, grinding his teeth, and clenching his hands, at the
startled menial, "dare to utter a syllable of suspicion against her, and
I will trample the breath out of your body!"

The old woman, who had vowed that for the 'varsal world she would not
stay in the house after such a "night of shakes," had now learned the
news of her master's return, and came hobbling up to him. She arrived
in time to hear his menace to her fellow-servant.

"Ah, that's right; give it him, your honour; bless your good
heart!--that's what I says. Miss rob the house! says I--Miss run away.
Oh no--depend on it they have murdered her and buried the body."

Maltravers gasped for breath, but without uttering another word he
re-entered the chaise and drove to the house of the magistrate. He
found that functionary a worthy and intelligent man of the world. To
him he confided the secret of Alice's birth and his own. The magistrate
concurred with him in believing that Alice had been discovered and
removed by her father. New search was made--gold was lavished.
Maltravers himself headed the search in person. But all came to the
same result as before, save that by the descriptions he heard of the
person--the dress--the tears, of the young female who had accompanied
the men supposed to be Darvil and Walters, he was satisfied that Alice
yet lived; he hoped she might yet escape and return. In that hope he
lingered for weeks--for months, in the neighbourhood; but time passed
and no tidings. . . . He was forced at length to quit a neighbourhood at
once so saddened and endeared. But he secured a friend in the
magistrate, who promised to communicate with him if Alice returned, or
her father was discovered. He enriched Mrs. Jones for life, in
gratitude for her vindication of his lost and early love; he promised
the amplest rewards for the smallest clue. And with a crushed and
desponding spirit, he obeyed at last the repeated and anxious summons of
the guardian to whose care, until his majority was attained, the young
orphan was now entrusted.



CHAPTER XII.

"Sure there are poets that did never dream
Upon Parnassus."--DENHAM.

"Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age
Come tittering on, and shove you from the stage."--POPE.

"Hence to repose your trust in me was wise."
DRYDEN'S /Absalom and Achitophel/.

MR. FREDERICK CLEVELAND, a younger son of the Earl of Byrneham, and
therefore entitled to the style and distinction of "Honourable," was the
guardian of Ernest Maltravers. He was now about the age of forty-three;
a man of letters and a man of fashion, if the last half-obsolete
expression be permitted to us, as being at least more classical and
definite than any other which modern euphuism has invented to convey the
same meaning. Highly educated, and with natural abilities considerably
above mediocrity, Mr. Cleveland early in life had glowed with the
ambition of an author. . . . He had written well and gracefully--but his
success, though respectable, did not satisfy his aspirations. The fact
is, that a new school of literature ruled the public, despite the
critics--a school very different from that in which Mr. Cleveland formed
his unimpassioned and polished periods. And as that old Earl, who in
the time of Charles the First was the reigning wit of the court, in the
time of Charles the Second was considered too dull even for a butt, so
every age has its own literary stamp and coinage, and consigns the old
circulation to its shelves and cabinets as neglected curiosities.
Cleveland could not become the fashion with the public as an author,
though the coteries cried him up and the reviewers adored him--and the
ladies of quality and the amateur dilettanti bought and bound his
volumes of careful poetry and cadenced prose. But Cleveland had high
birth and a handsome competence--his manners were delightful, his
conversation fluent--and his disposition was as amiable as his mind was
cultured. He became, therefore, a man greatly sought after in society
both respected and beloved. If he had not genius, he had great good
sense; he did not vex his urbane temper and kindly heart with walking
after a vain shadow, and disquieting himself in vain. Satisfied with an
honourable and unenvied reputation, he gave up the dream of that higher
fame which he clearly saw was denied to his aspirations--and maintained
his good-humour with the world, though in his secret soul he thought it
was very wrong in its literary caprices. Cleveland never married: he
lived partly in town, but principally at Temple Grove, a villa not far
from Richmond. Here, with an excellent library, beautiful grounds, and
a circle of attached and admiring friends, which comprised all the more
refined and intellectual members of what is termed, by emphasis, /Good
Society/--this accomplished and elegant person passed a life perhaps
much happier than he would have known had his young visions been
fulfilled, and it had become his stormy fate to lead the rebellious and
fierce Democracy of Letters.

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