University of Virginia Library

23. CHAPTER XXII.

He had passed thus several days with all his philosophy
and religion, pale, sad, and silent, when the
jailer called him down to receive a visiter.

It was a stranger, booted and spurred in the English
fashion, and speaking the English language. He
approached and handed two letters. Claude opened
and read. The first was as follows:

The other was from Madame Wharton. The first
words thrilled him with emotion, which would have
been rapture had it not been so mingled with bewilderment
and incredulity.

The packet which accompanied this was, as stated
by Madame Wharton—whom, as well as Claude, we
shall continue to call by her old name—a full history
of the circumstances which attended her marriage, her
separation from her husband, her subsequent life, the
loss and apparent death of her child, with divers other
particulars, many of which the reader is already acquainted
with. It is to be regretted that the space allotted
to our history will not permit us to give this letter,
embracing, as it did, not only the past adventures
of the lady—who now showed herself as able to bear
prosperity as she had been to bear adversity—but the
circumstances which first awakened her attention respecting
Claude — her reveries, her suspicions, her
hopes, and, lastly, her convictions, that the singular interest
she had taken in the stranger who bore so remarkable
a resemblance to her husband, from the first
moment she saw him, was not merely accidental. The
manuscript which the gracious permission of the courteous
librarian who rules over the mute population
of immortal tomes in la Bibliotheque du Roi has enabled
us to consult in throwing together our story,
gives this letter, with many marks of admiration and
wonder at the striking and (the writer says, in a note)
apparently improbable incidents which distinguished
the attempt of this injured lady to regain her rights in
behalf of her son, and to establish her own innocence.
It informs us of a fact, that at the interview between
Lady Beverly and Elkington, where this rash and
wicked person, trained by the habitual indulgence
of his passions, dared to strike even a woman—and
that woman his mother, and where all that Lady Beverly
knew of her history was revealed; it informs us
that Carl, who, on having been dismissed by Claude,
had been taken into the employ of Elkington, and who
was all the time ensconced under the bed between two
large portmanteaux, thus possessed himself of the whole
history; and, having already read all Claude's letters,
journals, &c., his active mind commenced examining

the subject as one worthy of his powers; and at length,
by a coincidence which would appear perfectly natural
had we time to explain it, alighted upon the traces
of Madame Wharton as being one of the characters
in this game of blind-man's-buff. Thinking he might
make a good affair of it, he communicated to Madame
Wharton all he knew; which so perfectly accorded
with the thousand indications she had herself discovered,
that she set off for London to institute inquiries
and take the necessary measures. In this she had
been baffled for a long time, occasioning much delay;
but at length, by great sagacity and prudence, and the
aid of several distinguished auxiliaries, of whom the
Marquis of E— was one—by recovering from the
heirs of Lord Perceval many of his private memoranda
upon the history of Claude, which, from his likeness
to his father, Lord Perceval had also suspected—in
short, with Carl's evidence, and by an appeal to the
young noble, Lord —, who had, with Lady Beverly,
been one of the instruments of her ruin, and who was
now a gouty, bloated, bed-ridden old man, willing to
purchase by any confession an exemption from the
consequences which the revival of his youthful “follies”
would bring upon him—in short, the whole history
was made clear, that Lord Elkington and Lady
Beverly had been all the while absent from London,
the latter being too ill to travel; that it wanted but the
recovery of the earl to an hour's use of his senses to
procure his recognition of an innocent wife and a lost
son, both worthy of him. As if Fortune were loath to
spoil such a fine train of affairs, the earl recovered in
an unexpected manner, and was for several days in
the full possession of his strength and clear reason.
Our unpractised hand must not attempt to describe the
denouément, nor relate the earl's emotions when convinced
that he had committed a whole life of injustice
by prematurely crediting a calumny; and when he
beheld once more in his presence her who had left
him a radiant and tender girl, and pure as the dewy
rose, and who now appeared with the transformations
of twenty years in her person. Many traces of that
soft face, however, were preserved—for temperance and
virtue are potent cosmetics; and their mutual recognition
furnished a scene fitter for the inspired hand of
Shakspeare than ours. Indeed, her visit to London
would itself furnish forth an edifying romance. The
lofty character and personal beauty of his son, when
they were recounted to the earl in this brief but delicious
interval between life and death, swelled his bosom
with unutterable joy and a natural desire to behold
him. But this was not to be gratified; for he had no
sooner, in presence of the Marquis of E— and several
others of his ancient friends, freely and legally
completed the arrangements necessary to the succession
of Claude, and exchanged with his devoted wife
a pardon which strewed the dismal path of death with
roses, than the remorseless tyrant, who could wait no
longer, suddenly laid his cold hand upon him; and
Madame Wharton trembled to perceive that she had
recovered the treasure so priceless and so long lost, only
to behold it—for such is human joy—slip again and
for ever from her grasp. Hence her triumph was sad,
and her success so mixed with sorrow, that the dazzling
revolution in her condition did not disturb the
usual composure of her soul, or produce any remarkable
change in her manners. A P.S. stated that the
bearer was a confidential valet of the Marquis of E—,
and that his honesty, knowledge, and discretion were
to be implicitly trusted.