The Countess Ida a tale of Berlin |
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| 28. | CHAPTER XXVIII. |
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 | CHAPTER XXVIII. The Countess Ida |  |
28. CHAPTER XXVIII.
It is often observed that events of peculiar interest
come crowding upon us together. The man
who has inherited a rich legacy is not unlikely to
draw a prize in the lottery, or he who has just lost
a ship at sea, to have his house burned down at
about the same period. One might almost be
tempted to think that superior beings wove, in a
kind of sport, the destinies of mortals; conscious,
perhaps, that hereafter the objects of their amusement
will be raised so far above their present condition
as to join in the merriment which all that belongs
merely to earth is alone worthy to excite.
Elkington, after pacing his room all night in a
state which precluded the possibility of sleep, sent
early the next morning for a gentleman whom he
knew he might trust with the commission he intended
to ask of him. This was a retired French
officer, who, like himself, was a duellist in principle
and by profession, having in his time sent to a
bloody grave several persons who had inadvertently
trodden on his toe, occupied his seat at the opera,
looked at his female companions, or committed some
other heinous offences, without offering in reparation
exactly the kind of apology which he thought
an ugly face and a still more disagreeable person.
He had no qualities which rendered him pleasing.
He did not pay his debts, nor serve his friends with
fidelity, unless when he thought his interest required
him to do so. Nobody really liked him. But
he was invited everywhere. He was a brave man,
and had performed some gallant feats in action; but,
having been shot through the body in one duel with
a brother officer, because he would not disown an
expression which he afterward confessed he had
never used, and having received a cut across the
cheek in another, from a person who said he was
an ass, and who, upon being called upon to retract,
declared himself ready to abide by what he had said,
and accordingly left on his physiognomy this visible
record of his opinion—having received these disqualifications
for the service, he had retired on a
small fortune, and had become a kind of authority
in affairs of honour. The name of this gentleman
was General Le Beau, although one can scarcely
imagine a name less expressive of the appearance
of the individual who bore it.
On receiving the commands of Elkington, he
twirled his long red mustache between his thumb
and finger, gave a significant smile, took the note,
and proceeded to fulfil his task.
Scarcely had he gone when Scarlet entered with
three letters. The first was in a hand with which
he was not acquainted. It ran thus:
“Although Lord Elkington is ignorant of the
name and existence of the writer of this note, the
latter has the most accurate knowledge of your
lordship and his affairs. It is not impossible that
your lordship may be at first incredulous on reading
it, but a few moments' conversation with your lordship's
mother will entirely convince you of its truth.
I ain't a rich or a great man like your lordship, but
has been for some time a source of profit, and which,
I freely tell your lordship, I shall use to my own
advantage. Your lordship is aware that your noble
father, the Earl of Beverly, was married before he
united himself to your mother, the present Lady
Beverly. That match was unfortunate, as the world
well knows; but—I beg to call your lordship's attention
to this fact—there is a circumstance connected
with it which neither your lordship nor the world
knows, viz., that the issue of that marriage yet survives,
in the person of a son, who is, in reality, the
heir of your father's estate. This secret exists
solely and exclusively in my bosom. The son of
the Earl of Beverly, for causes which doubtless can
be explained, should it be necessary to investigate
the matter in a court of justice, went with his mother
to the West Indies. The vessel in which they
sailed was wrecked, and all on board perished but
two persons. One was the child, who was picked
up senseless from a spar (to which the mother had
attached him, being herself washed overboard and
drowned before she could make herself fast); the
other individual saved was myself. We were picked
up by the same ship, and I was carried, with the
child, into Boston. It had happened that I knew
the Earl of Beverly having had a boyish passion for
a young female in his household, who, before I left
England, had revealed to me certain family secrets
of a highly important nature, and, among others,
that the mother of this child had fled from her husband
in consequence of charges against her honour
of the vilest kind. I had seen her in the earl's family
(then Mr. Lawson), and I recognised her on board
the ship which bore us to the New World, although
she was there under an assumed name, and was totally
unknown to all but myself. Here, then, I found
myself with this boy, whom no one in America knew
anything of. Being aware that his father had disowned
boy and myself by keeping, for a time, the secret of
his birth. For years I kept my eye on him, for a
finer fellow never walked. His beauty and character
at length attracted the attention of a lady, who,
hearing of his desolate situation, took him with her
to England, at the age of eight years. Dying, she
bequeathed him as a legacy to a lady, who educated
him till he left the University. It was then that I
informed the Earl of Beverly of his existence. That
nobleman arranged with me never to reveal the secret,
and has paid me for my silence.
“Your lordship will probably learn, on the same
day which brings you this, that your noble father
has been seized with another fit, which will probably
end his existence long before the arrival of my
letter. Your lordship, on beholding such an inheritance
within your grasp, would not like to be dispossessed
by a stranger—a misfortune which would
not only leave your lordship penniless, but, I believe,
deeply in debt. I have not intrusted this letter to
the hands of a third person, upon a question so extremely
embarrassing and important, but have come
to Berlin in person, and am waiting your lordship's
leisure. As this is purely a matter of business, we
had better discard all ceremony, and come directly
to the point. I received an annuity of £100 from
the earl, on condition of keeping this secret, and he
assured me that a provision to that effect would be
found in his will. A life of idleness, however, has
caused me to contract expensive habits, and I no
longer find this allowance sufficient. Just at this
time, too, I am unfortunately in debt to a considerable
amount. I expect from your lordship the immediate
means of relief. A note left at the postoffice,
to the address of Mr. Oliver Richards, will
procure you an interview with me, at the hour and
place most convenient to your lordship. I need not
hint that, should your lordship be reluctant to negotiate
better terms from the other party.
Elkington's first impulse on reading this strange
epistle was to laugh at it as a hoax, and he dropped
it on the table as a thing requiring no more attention,
while he opened the second letter. It came
from the Marquis of Manby. Its contents were as
follows:
“The melancholy duty has devolved upon me of
informing you of the sudden, and, I fear, fatal malady
which has attacked your father. He was reading
this morning in his library; a violent ringing of
the bell called the servants to his side, when he was
found struggling in his fauteuil in a fit of the most
alarming description. Doctor B—and Sir Richard
L—have pronounced his case incurable. It
is not impossible, they say, that he may recover so
far as to retain life for months, and perhaps a year;
but that he can never again leave his bed, or recover
his senses except as a prelude to immediate dissolution,
is quite certain. I need not say that we
deeply sympathize with the distress which this
event will occasion your amiable mother, and the
pain it will inflict upon you particularly, as I have
been told some coolness had unhappily arisen between
your esteemed parent and yourself. I need
only say, my dear Elkington, that, while I sympathize
profoundly with your grief, I am the most sincere,
as I am the first of your friends to congratulate
you upon the magnificent inheritance which is about
to descend to you, and which, I am quite certain,
could not have fallen into more worthy hands. Command
me in any way, should necessity detain you
some days longer on the Continent.
his patient is beyond the danger of any immediate
change; he is quite senseless, and will probably
thus remain for an indefinite period.”
The perusal of this letter threw a more serious
character over the first. He took it up, and read it
again with greater attention. It was written in a
rude, unpractised hand, as by one not used to a pen;
and there was about it a sort of bold familiarity, and
an insolence, checked at times by an assumed air of
respect, which seemed natural enough under such
circumstances. The writer, at least, was aware of
the incident related by the Marquis of Manby. He
had, it seems, started, the instant the earl's dangerous
illness was known, from London to Berlin; and,
if it were a hoax, by the offer of an interview he had
placed in his reach the means of ascertaining at once
whether such a person was in existence. But, should
some one present himself in the character of Mr.
Oliver Richards, and with such a demand for money,
was not the story he had told evidently a bungling
and absurd tissue of improbabilities, if not of
impossibilities, trumped up by some of those hackneyed
London swindlers who, from the recesses of
that vast Babel, ever watch, in the goings on of the
world around them, an opportunity of making some
one their prey? Possibly few heirs have acceded
to such brilliant possessions as that magnificent,
long-sighed-for inheritance now about to become
his own, without being made the object of some
audacious fraud of this kind.
“It is a contemptible scheme to extort money,”
said he, although pale with the ideas which it had
conjured up. “It is a stupid, infamous fabrication,
and, if the scoundrel presents himself, I'll—”
With a shaking hand—for debauchery and unbridled
passion had long ago destroyed his nerves,
and deprived him of the power of self-command on
third letter. It was from Mr. Pennington, his father's
solicitor; and as he read, the last drop of blood
ebbed from his face, and the last spark of courage
from his heart. Poverty—sudden disgrace—debt
—destitution—the enmity of Shooter, to whom he
owed so much, and who was desperate enough to
revenge himself in any way—the dreaded Abraham,
with his enormous claims—a jail, with all its dismal
misery, rushed upon his mind, and with them a thousand
other horrors, vague, startling, and insupportable.
The letter of the solicitor was in the following
words:
“You are probably aware of the event which has
reduced your distinguished father to a bed of death,
from which I am advised by his medical attendant
he can never rise, and which precludes all idea of
his again assuming the care of his affairs. I beg
leave, therefore, my lord, to address myself to you,
and shall await your orders.
“The point upon which I first request your directions
relates to the annuity which, your lordship
is probably aware, has been for several years paid
by the earl to a certain person by the name of Claude
Wyndham. The affair has been conducted with
secrecy from reasons never communicated to me,
but which, I presume, your lordship is aware of. I
have been instructed to deposite yearly, in the hands
of Messrs. N. B. & Co., the sum of £500 in advance,
without letting these gentlemen or any other
person know from whose hand it comes. As the
usual period of the deposite is now arrived, I delay
making it only till I hear from your lordship; and I
beg your lordship to furnish me, at your earliest convenience,
with instructions as to future proceedings.
The whole truth was now before him. It broke
upon him with a force which made his head reel.
So sudden, so unexpected and blasting was the
stroke, that it completely appalled his heart. It seemed
like a judgment hurled upon him from Heaven
to arrest his guilty and bloody course. Thoughts
that made him start now rose upon his mind. The
resemblance which he had often perceived in
Wyndham to some one he had seen before, particularly
when sternness came over his countenance
and indignation flashed to his eyes—this singular
resemblance, curious as it may appear, he now for
the first time perceived, was to his father; but in the
smooth face of youth and health, the expression had
not been traced to that of the earl, now worn with
grief, thought, and age, and his head covered with
white hairs. It was, undoubtedly, more a resemblance
to the earl as he had been in his youth than
as he was now. Lady Beverly's unaccountable
anxiety respecting him, too—her pale watchfulness
—her morbid curiosity to ascertain who he was—
her hatred of him—her unceasing endeavours to
ruin him—her unaccountable eagerness to conclude
the union with Ida—her half-hinted fears as to the
possibility of his losing his father's estates, which
had often struck him, and which had always been
inexplicable—the letters and journals he had been
enabled to read by the aid of Carl—a thousand circumstances
rose to his memory, all never particularly
reviewed before, all pointing to one astounding
truth, that the man he most hated and pursued was
his brother—was the destined master of Ida's hand
—was the true heir of his father's estates and title
—was in every way his successful rival—his superior—his
evil demon. His inflated heart, so proud,
so vain, so brave in a moment of personal danger,
so ready to tax others with cowardice, so ready to
inflict every kind of pain on those around him—this
bad heart—without religion, principle, or virtue, and
from Heaven and which leads to it—quailed and
sunk into a state of entire helplessness and agony.
The thought of misfortune to himself cowed him,
and in that moment the fashionable and gallant Elkington
shook like the meanest coward.
He was aroused by the voice of Lady Beverly, who
entered suddenly. She was in a rich morning dress,
going to call on the Carolans and drive in the Park.
Scarlet announced the carriage, and she came in to
give him the usual morning salutations in high spirits.
| CHAPTER XXVIII. The Countess Ida | |