 | CHAPTER VIII.
The Miniature. Herman de Ruyter |  |
8. CHAPTER VIII.
The Miniature.
When the message from the Consul came
to lord Delorme, he was at the moment in conversation
with lord Edward, who was in the
act of asking him where he had had the miniature
taken which had been shown him by
the Consul.
`I know of no miniature, Edward,' answered
the nobleman. `What have you seen?'
Before Lord Edward replied, the message
was delivered by an attendant from the Consul,
desiring Lord Delorme's presence in the
library.
`Come, Lord Edward, let us go in together
and ask the Consul about this miniature you
speak of!'
Together they entered the library. The
consul met them in the door.
`Pardon me, my lord, for taking this liberty;
but I have a few words to say to you in
private.'
`Then I will retire,' answered the young
man.
`No my lord, remain, if you please. You
can hear all I have to say. Be seated!'
Lord Delorme having taken a chair, the
Consul thus addressed him, while Mr. Carrol
sat regarding the features of the nobleman
with the most intense interest, comparing
he held in his band.
`My lord,' said the Consul, `I have taken
the liberty of sending for you to ask you if
ever you had a miniature of yourself taken?'
`This singular question would surprise me,
I must confess, sir,' answered Lord Delorme,
but that I was just spoken to about a miniature
of myself by my nephew. What is this
picture you both speak of?'
Will you be so kind, first, my lord, to
recollect if you ever had a miniature taken?'
`Yes, several.'
`In lockets?'
`No, but one.'
`Is that it, my lord?' cried Mr. Carrol, extending
that he held in his hand towards
him.
`This, my lord, is Mr. Carrol, an eminent
merchant of this city,' said the consul. `He
will explain to you how he came by the picture.'
Lord Delorme took the picture in hand, and
had no sooner glanced at the face than an ex
pression of recognition, mingled with the most
intense surprise, came upon his countenance.
He stared for full one minute, fixedly regarding
the portrait, and then raising his eyes,
while his face was the color of marble.
`Pray—pray, sir,` he said in a voice tremulous
with emotion, and looking towards Mr.
Carroll, `can you tell me where you obtained
this?' and his hand shook like an aspen leaf
as he held it out, with the miniature in it, towards
Mr. Carrol. `The last time I saw this
miniature I placed it around my child's neck,
since which fatal hour I have never beheld
either! But quickly tell me, sir! He who
can explain how he came by this, must know
something of my lost child!'
His words were full of the pathos of deep
grief. The Consul and Mr. Carrol exchanged
glances of gratified intelligence, both being
satisfied that now, at last, the parentage of
the lovely child was discovered.
`Will your lordship be so good as to state
in what manner and under what circumstances
you last beheld this miniature?' asked Mr.
Carrol.
`I was returning from London in my carriage,
with my little daughter and her nurse,
having taken her to town in the morning, to
indulge her with a holiday. We left London
about an hour before sun-set, I intending to
reach home in time to dine at seven, as my
villa was but sixteen miles from town. The
nurse and child sat on the front seat, and I
upon the back; and as I had had this very
miniature finished that day, and was taking
it home to Lady Delorme, to please the child
I took it from its case, and threw it around
her neck to amuse her while I took a nap, as
was my custom in riding to and from town.
The next thing I recollect was being awakened
by a cold draught in the carriage, when I saw
that one of the doors was open, and that I was
alone! It was just dark, nay, nearly dark!
Filled with alarm and surprise, I pulled the
string of the carriage to stop it and spring to
the ground. Where is the nurse and my child?
I demanded of the coachman in accents of
horror. No one knew. The postman had
seen nothing—heard nothing! Yet by some
means they were both gone, and the door of
the coach I had found open. But without entering
into the details of my grief and consternation,
and giving you an account of my
fruitless search and enquiries, I will briefly
add, that ten days afterwards the nurse made
her appearance at the villa, where all was
mourning, in a state bordering on insanity.
She confessed that while I slept she also fell
asleep, leaving the child standing against the
glass window of the coach, looking out!—
That she was awakened by missing the child,
when she found the door open and her charge
gone. She said that the fastening must have
slipped, and that it had fallen out of the carriage
into the road. Instantly overwhelmed
with a sense of her responsibility, she sprung
from the carriage without giving the alarm,
hoping to find it unhurt, and with the resolve
if it was killed, to take her own life. She represented
that after searching up and down
the moors all night (for it was while crossing
them she missed the child) she sunk exhausted
by the way-side. She was taken up by
some humane persons and carried into an
Inn, where she was ill several days with
brain fever; and as soon as she could move
she desired them to take her to me, that she
might know if the child was found, and if not
to confess her own guilt. From that time I
have not been able to trace any clue to my
daughter. I advertised her in all the papers,
offering large rewards even for the least information
respecting her either alive or dead;
for even the knowledge of her death would
state of uncertainty under which we labored.
At length, after a year had elapsed, we
gave her up as dead, though not without a
lingering hope, she might yet live and be restored
to us. And now when I inform you,
gentlemen, that this miniature is the very one
which I placed around her neck the last time
I looked upon her, you will not be surprised
at the emotion which you have seen me manifest
on beholding it under circumstances so
extraordinary! Sir, if you regard a father's
feelings, make haste to give me such information
as you possess in relation to this picture!'
`My lord,' answered Mr. Carrol with deep
sympathy in his tones, `Seven years ago the
past season, I came passenger from England
to this port, in a ship which also carried as a
steerage passenger, a poor but respectable
looking woman, who had with her a young
girl of nine or ten years of age. This woman
died on the passage and committed the child
to my charge. She said that it was not her
own; but that she had found it one evening
wandering on the moss near London, when it
was about five years old.'
`My child! This was the eye of my lovely
Maria when I lost her,' exclaimed Lord Delorme,
deeply interested in this narration.
`The woman said she took the child home,
and her heart yearned toward it because she
had a few days before buried her own little
girl about the same age. She said the child
was richly dressed and had not only the
minature you now hold about its neck, but
also a small cross. She gave me the miniature
in her dying hands, saying she had repented
keeping the child, and hoped that it
would be the means of returning her to her
friends. She said she had not heard any inquiries
after it, which is probable from her
obscure situation; and as she removed to
another neighborhood and pawned it off for
her own little girl suspicion never fastened
upon her.'
`That child, gentleman, must be my daughter,'
answered Lord Delorme with the most
profound emotion.
`There can be no question of it,' exclaimed
earnestly Lord Edward. `How extraordinary!'
`I fear from the sad expression upon your
face, Mr. Carrol,' said Lord Delorme, `that
the child entrusted to you, no longer lives,
and that I have found my daughter only to
weep over her grave.'
`I wish, my lord, I could relieve your anxiety
as well as my own touching the fate of
this sweet child.'
`Then my foreboding's are true.
`You shall hear, my lord! I accepted the
trust the dying woman confided to me, and
took the lovely child to my own house and
adopted her as my daughter.'
`Thanks, thanks, kind sir.'
`I, at the same time, had a portrait taken
from this miniature and sent to the — gallery
in London, in hopes some one, knowing
the original, might see it and so lead to the
discovery of her parentage; for, much as the
lovely little girl became endeared to us, I felt
it my duty to leave no means untried to discover
her family.'
`Sir, you now have a father's warmest gratitude,'
said Lord Delorme.
`I have also, my lord, the approval of my
own heart. We soon learned to love the
child as our own, and each day she wound
herself more and more closely around our
hearts. I also had a portrait of the child
taken with the intention of sending it to London,
when—'
`A portrait of my child,' exclaimed Lord
Delorme with intense excitement. `Where
is it? Let me behold it! The sight of it would
at once assure me of the identity of this protege
of yours with my daughter, if they are
one and the same, of which I have no doubt!
Where have you this portrait, Mr. Carrol?'
`It will be here in a moment, my lord,' answered
Mr. Carrol. `After getting back here
with the miniature, I recollected the portrait
and despatched a servant for it, thinking it
would serve to strengthen the testimony I
foresaw from your resemblance to the miniature,
was about to be brought to bear upon my
protege's parentage.'
While Mr. Carrol spoke a knock was heard
at the door and on opening it he saw the man
with the portrait. He took it from him and
placing it in a strong light over against the
lamp, stepped aside for lord Delorme to look
at it. The nobleman and his nephew both
eagerly approached to view it and both at the
moment exclaimed,
`It is she!'
`It is my daughter, my long lost child again
upon one knee before the picture and
gazing upon it with wrapt affection. `Yes,
the same delicate brow! the same sweet
smile and mouth! the same soft brown hair!
Only it is my Maria with more maturity; the
maturity that six years would give! In her
fifth year she was lost to me, and this was
taken you say six years afterwards, Mr. Carrol!'
`She was probably eleven when this was
painted, my lord!'
`So she would have looked at eleven!'
`It looks almost as she looked at five, uncle,'
said Lord Edward, gazing upon it with
surprise and tenderness. `There can now be
no manner of doubt as to the identity of the
original of this portrait!'
`There is even a correct representative of
the very cross she wore—her mother's gift,'
resumed the nobleman, still kneeling before
the picture and regarding its features with
the deepest attention and an air of grief mingled
with tenderness. The young man also
began to fix his eyes upon it with suddenly
renewed animation, as if he had all at once
discovered in it some half-remembered resemblance
of some one. The longer he gazed the
stronger this impression grew upon him that
he had not only seen the original of that picture
before him years past, in childhood, but
he had seen the same face recently. But
where he could not decide! Still he surveyed
it, more and more puzzled, for the longer
he looked the deeper grew this impression.
`Now, Mr. Carrol, all that remains is for you
to inform me of the fate of my child,' said
Lord Delorme, rising and turning sadly towards
him. `I am persuaded she is no more;
therefore tell me when she died and where you
have laid her!'
`There seems destined, my lord, that all
connected with his lovely child should be attended
with mystery. A few weeks after I
had had this picture taken, my house was
broken into by night, by a notorious burglar,
who was, however, arrested. But by some
stratagem he escaped and the next night the
house was also entered, but whether by the
same or not I cannot tell. The alarm was
given by a servant, and as I was rushing from
my room I heard the wild cries of Maria from
the rear of the house. Appalled at the sound,
for I supposed she was fast asleep in her little
bed, I flew down stairs, her cries ringing in
my ears—
`Save me, father, Oh, save me!'
`Would to God I, her father, had been
there to answer her cries! Go on sir,' said
the nobleman with deep excitement.
`I reached the gate and leaping into the
lane saw a carriage at the other end just driving
off at a furious rate. I suspected that
Maria had been borne away in it and giving
the alarm I started in swift pursuit. But it
was out of sight when I got to the head of the
lane and I saw it no more. Three days afterwards
the body of the burglar Shears, who
had broken into my house was found floating
in a dock in East River, with a deep knife
wound in his breast. All search after Maria
proved fruitless and at length I gave her up
as dead!'
`And from that moment you have not seen
nor heard from the hapless girl?' asked lord
Edward.
`No, my lord. It is my belief she horribly
perished in some way connected with the
burglar's death; for I cannot but believe that
he was the person who abducted her; for he
escaped the day after he was taken in my
house, and doubtless came the next night and
carried off the child out of revenge!'
`It is doubtless so. But how he should
come to a sudden death and no traces of the
child is extraordinary,' said Lord Edward.—
Was there any suspicion how this notorious
burglar got his death wound.'
`No, my lord. It was doubtless in some
broil among his associates who threw his body
into the river to conceal the act!'
`But my child—my child. What became
of my child?' cried the nobleman in the deepest
anguish.
`Was there no child's body found near that
time?' asked Lord Edward.
`None. I made every inquiry but without
being able to get hold of the least clue to unravel
the mystery that hung around her sudden
disappearance from beneath my roof!'
`Mr. Carrol,' said Lord Delorme in a tone
at once solemn and despondingly, `do you
have the least hope that my child lives?'
`I have never, my lord, given up the hope
of once more seeing or hearing from her. It
is my opinion she lives, though perhaps dead
to us who are so deeply interested in the
knowledge of the fact!'
`Oh that I could believe that I should once
more behold her! But no! There is not the
least probability! She is no more! Alas!
that I should have discovered thus much!
that I should have dispelled one painful mystery
hanging about her first disappearance, to
be plunged into the mazes of another still
more distressing! Is there no clue by which
we might sift this matter to the bottom?'
`I would recommend, my lord,' replied the
Consul `that an advertisement be inserted in
the principal papers of the city, referring to
the events narrated by Mr. Carrol, and offering
a large reward for any information that
may throw light upon her present condition.'
`It shall be done. Edward you will write
such an advertisement, and be so good as to
have it in the paper to-morrow. My child
may yet live, and I may yet embrace her!
By this time she would be seventeen! Alas!
if living, into what fearful moral degradation
may she not have been plunged. Nevertheless,
she would be still my child!'
The parties so deeply interested in the fate
of the lovely wanderer after some further discussion
upon the subject, retired from the library.
Lord Delorme called his carriage and
sought his rooms at the Astor, where he had
related all he had heard to his sister, lady
Lessington, who listened with surprise, that
cannot be described but may be imagined.
It was her opinion, after Maria's first preservation
so wonderfully, that she was destined
again to re-appear; and that both would yet
behold her. She was all hope and joy, and
communicated new energies to the depending
spirits of lord Delorme.
Edward was not disposed to retire so early
from the ball, and lingered till twelve, when
he left, and wrapped in his cloak, pursued his
way alone, thinking upon the extraordinary
revelations he had heard. As he came near
the lane which turned down to the abode of
the lovely cigar-vender, he was inspired by a
idesire to pass her window and recall her sweet
mage, quite forgetting his promise made to
his mother. As he came near, he saw a man
looking by the door in a suspicious manner,
and he paused in the shade, the closer to observe
his operations.
| CHAPTER VIII.
The Miniature. Herman de Ruyter | |