University of Virginia Library

34. CHAPTER XXXIV.

It was already evening of the day that succeeded to the conversation between Chaloner
and Alice; but the sun had not yet sunk below the horizon, and his slant rays
were pouring a flood of lurid ruddy light into the western windows of the library, where
there were gathered, in that stately room, a little group consisting of five persons—
Madame de Gondi and her young English cousin; Chaloner and the lawyer, a fine
bald headed man with a high prominent forehead, and an expression of intellect and
benevolence, rather than of craft or shrewdness; and lastly, the lawyer's clerk or scrivener,
carrying a leather case which contained the documents. All these, with the exception
of the personage last named, were seated at the board, while he was reading aloud
in a clear, cold, and extremely unpleasant tone of voice, the will which had been drawn
up strietly in accordance with the dictates of Alice—and it would have been no uninteresting
study, whether for a painter, or a searcher into the minds of his fellow men,
the several expressions of the four five faces of those who listened to that unimpressive

reading. The countenance of the fair girl, whose will it was that occupied all ears,
was perfectly intent on every clause and phrase as she sat still, assenting now and then
by an easy motion of the head, and evidently pleased and gratified at the luminous style
in which her bequests were detailed. Chaloner's noble head expressed no more than
earnest and undivided attention; while Henriette de Gondi, although attentive to a
degree, was restless and impatient; and so dissatisfied with the tenor of the whole
testament, that it could not fail to be observed by every one in the library. The counsellor,
by whose opinion the testament had been planned, while he took in the whole
sense of every word, even the most trivial, which his clerk recited; had at the same
time leisure to let his eyes, and one faculty at least, if not more than one of his capricious
mind, wander over the other actors, and form an estimate, if not an opinion of
their motives. At length the reading was brought to a conclusion; and when the
clerk had ceased, and the document was laid upon the table—

“Now, cousin Alice,” said Chaloner, “does this which you have heard, embody all
you intend? and is there any error in our understanding of your bequests? For the rest,
having carefully perused it, I can be answerable that this man has read it correctly.”

“It is precisely what I wish—precisely to the letter,” answered Alice; “what now
remains to make it binding and complete?”

“Your signature and seal,” answered Chaloner, “but—”

“Well, then, give me the pen, and I will sign it now,” said she, “and you two can
witness it.”

“I was about to say,” interrupted Chaloner, “that I should strongly recommend your
taking it yourself, and reading it in private.”

“No, no!” she replied, “oh, no! my mind is perfectly made up, and I shall not
change it—so give me the pen.”

“As you will,” he replied; “but it concerns myself too nearly, that I should witness
it—but our good friend here, Counsellor Mansfield, will be a very fitting person.”

“Is Mistress Selby of the requisite age, to make her signature to this valid?” asked
Mansfield.

“Oh, yes indeed!” said she, with a smile; “I have been of age some months, as the
parish register at Woolverton, and this book”—producing, with the word, her father's
Bible, wherein the date of her birth was recorded—“will quite sufficiently testify.”

“I had not thought you had spent so many summers, my dear young lady,” answered
the lawyer; “but though you have, you are still very young to be the sole proprietor of
so fine a landed fortune!”

“Too young!” she said, with a deep sigh, her eyes again filling with tears—for her
loss was still too recent that she could bear to hear it spoken of by a stranger—“far,
far too young! But come, give me the pen—I would fain have this over: besides, there
is the other paper, which must be read afterwards.”

“But, Alice, my dear girl,” exclaimed Madame de Gondi, who had evidently been
anxious for some time to speak, “I cannot sign this will as a witness; and I hope that
you will consent to alter it—for—”

“Oh, no!” interrupted Henry Chaloner, so decidedly that it was impossible for Henriette
to proceed. “That legacy of five hundred pounds cannot unfit you for a witness;”
and, as he spoke, he fixed his clear gray eye upon her with a glance so meaning that
she understood, immediately, that he wished her to comprehend more than his words
expressed. “At all events,” he added, “if you are not convinced, permit me to say
three words to you in private, when I doubt not I can remove your scruples. Alice,
excuse us for one moment—your pardon, counsellor”—and he led her out into the next
saloon and closed the door behind them.

“It was not that! it was not that at all,” said she, in great agitation. “You quite
misunderstood me.”

“No, my dear lady, I did not; it is the bequest of the rent charge.”

“Oh, yes—yes, yes!” she replied. “It is quite, quite too horrible! quite too unnatural!
to see her thus endow the man who slew her father—for he did slay him, as
much as if he had smitten him with his sword!”

“I know it,” he replied, gloomily—“I know it, and she must not; and therefore we
must let this pass. Believe me, I regret it—loathe it—as much as you can do; but
yet, believe me, it must be, unless indeed we reveal to her the part the villain played in
her father's death-scene; and—”

“By so doing, you would say, we should slay her!” interrupted Henriette, greatly
moved. “Is it not so, General Henry?”

“Even so,” he replied, “and gain nothing by it. No other argument can avail, save
to annoy and lacerate her feelings. So fixed is she—so high, and so full of her good
and great intent, that it were an easier feat for some new Archimides to unsphere this
puiseant globe, than to warp her or turn her from the path of what she truly believes
right. Besides, although Alice mean it not, bethink you, lady, didst ever hear or read
of a more grand and noble—I had well nigh said, Godlike—vengeance? If this be not
to heap coals of fire on his head, I know not what it is. That—that is half the cause
why I consent. Think you the recreant and dastard knave will not writhe like the
wretch upon the mortal rack, and sweat blood in his agonies, even as he receives—for,
mark my words, the craven will receive—these alms from her whom he has murdered?
Lady, we must consent to this; but think not that this base wretch shall go scathless,
or his crimes unavenged. Surely, there sitteth One above, without whose knowledge,
not so much as a sparrow falleth from heaven.”

His eloquent and fervent manner—the splendid tones of his deep rich voice, suppressed,
that it might not reach the ears of whom he spoke—and above all, something
almost prophetic in his confident divination, had its full weight on the mind of his
companion; so that she grasped his hand and answered only—

“You are the wiser—now let us return;” and, as they entered the library, she
addressed Alice in a tone far more subdued and grave than usual, saying, “Your cousin
has convinced me, as he promised he would: I am ready to witness.”

“I thank you; it is all right now,” said Alice, smiling, as she affixed her seal and
signature to the testament, and went through the legal forms, witnessed by Mansfield
and Henriette de Gondi.

The reading of the deed followed; and as it was much shorter than the other, and
as no opposition followed, this was accomplished speedily, and all was finished. The
will was delivered instantly to Chaloner, in whose custody Alice insisted that it should
remain: but the deed she retained herself, saying, that she knew how to dispose of it.
Duplicate copies of either deed, unsigned, but with the date of signature, and the names
of the witnesses endorsed thereon, were also handed over by the lawyer to his fair
client; and then, after refreshments had been offered, and refused, he declared that
his business was at an end, and courteously withdrew. He had not been long gone,
however, before Alice, whose manner throughout the evening had denoted much excitement,
made an excuse to her friends, and retired at an early hour to her own chamber,
leaving the others sitting together in the large library. For several minutes after her
departure, they both kept silence, pondering in their own minds the things which they
had heard and witnessed. At last, Madame de Gondi spoke—

“Surely, this is the most strange and fearful tragedy that ever I heard of. It is one
of those things, that happen at times here on earth, that almost make men doubt Heaven's
justice. As excellent and pious and old man—as innocent and pure a girl, as ever bowed
is prayer—brought down to the grave in sorrow by one villain's baseness—and that
villain rewarded for his very crime and treason!”

“Rewarded here!” answered Chaloner; “but who shall tell of that which shall come
hereafter? No, no! dear lady, this ought to make no man doubt Heaven's justice.
Heaven's Lord professeth not to reward or punish here; but suffereth these contradictions
to exist here—this crime triumphant, and this virtue persecuted—only to teach us
where to fix our treasures and to build our hopes—not in the perishable present, but in
the everlasting future. Besides, who shall pretend to know or to mete the judgments
of the Everlasting? Who shall presume to style this mortal miserable, or that one
happy? Truly, it is not gratified ambition, or love satisfied, nor gorged avarice, but a

pure soul and blameless conscience, that gives happiness. Think you that Wyvil, in
all the fervor of his passion for this new beauty—in all the pride of winning, the rapture
of possessing her—conscious, within himself, of his own vileness—think you that he
will be more happy? or the deserted girl, that seems to us so wretched?”

“Doubtless, within herself she will,” leplied Madame de Gondi; “indeed, I believe
that in the midst of her very wretchedness, she might be called happy now.”

And he,” said Henry Chaloner, sternly, “in the midst of his triumph! Nay, more!
which one of us can tell how long this triumph will last? Perchance, even now the
Lord has raised up for himself a temporal avenger! For surely I believe that, with the
crimes as with the virtues of mankind, he worketh as with tools his own great ends!
Most surely I believe that he hath put it many times into the souls of men, that they
should do this thing or that, and lo! they have done it straightway, not knowing wherefore;
and very like imagining they were accomplishing some small and selfish object,
when of a truth they were God's ministers of vengeance!”

“And think you then, that it is lawful for a man to avenge his own wrong?” asked
Henriette, almost awed by the deep voice and flashing eye of the enthusiast, “or those
of his friends and kindred?”

“I know that God hath said `vengeance is mine!' and, therefore, I do not think man
at his own fancy may usurp Heaven's prerogative. That men have felt themselves
commissioned unto vengeance, so that they could not in anywise resist the bidding from
on High—though they have watched, and fasted, and prayed earnestly, that that cup might
be removed from them, I well know, for I have seen it. Sure am I that they were ministers
of punishment; how far so justified, I dare not even conjecture.”

A wild and painful thought crossed Henriette's mind, and caused her to look up
intently into the earnest face of the speaker; but there was nothing fanatical or ecstatic
in the noble, thoughtful forehead, or meditative eye—and after a moment she continued:

“And how should a man know whether indeed he is commissioned, or if it be but
a vain delusion, fed by his own resentment, and fostered by the instigation of the
Evil one?”

“Ay! how indeed?” said Chaloner in reply, very thoughtfully; “there is the question,
in that how? If it were not for that—” and he fell for a time into a fit of gloomy
musing. Madame de Gondi watched with an anxious and half-fearful expression, every
variation of his features; but by-and-by, he said—“a man should greatly doubt all such
suggestions, and examine himself carefully, and pray; and even then, I fear, he would
be very often misled—such thoughts are dangerous, at best; I am sorry that we spoke
of them. But see, we have worn the time away with our conversation, that the night
is already far advanced. Good rest to you to-night; I shall call to-morrow, and shall
hope, as we talked of, to persuade our dear invalid to take the air, either on horseback
or in your carriage.”

“Oh, not on horseback, that would be quite impossible; she is too weak by far.
You do not at all dream how weak she is, when not aroused by circumstances; but
we will talk of this to-morrow.”

In the mean time, Alice Selby had not, as her friends imagined, retired to rest; but
when she reached her chamber had sent her waiting-maid, Margaret, for writing implements
and paper, and had continued constantly occupied until this late hour of the
night. For a considerable time it seemed, as if she could not satisfy herself with the
stvle and tone of that which she was desirous of composing, for she commenced a dozen
times, and after writing a few lines, laid down her pen and read what she had written,
and fore it up and committed it to the flames, as if in disgust. At length, however, she
seemed to have hit upon the right vein, for she continued to move her pen very rapidly
for many minutes, her thoughts appearing to flow from her mind more swiftly than her
hand could commit them to paper; and, all the while, the big round tears were plashing
down upon the sheet, she perfectly unconscious that it was so, until the words were
obliterated almost as fast as she formed them; and, when she had finished one side of
the sheet, and was about to read it before turning it, she discovered that her labor had

been absolutely lost. “Oh!” she exclaimed aloud, as she saw what she had been
doing—“this is extremely weak, and foolish; and I will do so no more;” and she rose
up, and walked across the room, and bathed her brows and eyes in water from the
ewer, and returned seemingly quite composed, and sat down again to her task—and
this time, she kept her word; for she was no more affected in like sort, but wrote with
a clear eye and a steady hand, till she had done what she desired.