75.
Chapter LXXV.
MUTUAL EXPLANATIONS, AND THE VISIT TO THE RUINS.
During the next hour, Charles informed Flora of the whole particulars of
his forcible abduction; and to his surprise he heard, of course, for the first
time, of those letters, purporting to be written by him, which endeavoured to
give so bad an aspect to the fact of his sudden disappearance from Bannerworth
Hall.
Flora would insist upon the admiral, Henry, and the rest of the family,
hearing all that Charles had to relate concerning Mr. Marchdale; for well she
knew that her mother, from early associations, was so far impressed in the
favour of that hypocritical personage, that nothing but damning facts, much to
his prejudice, would suffice to convince her of the character he really was.
But she was open to conviction, and when she really found what a villain
she had cherished and given her confidence to, she shed abundance of tears,
and blamed herself exceedingly as the cause of some of the misfortunes which
had fallen upon her children.
"Very good," said the admiral; "I ain't surprised a bit. I knew he was a
vagabond from the first time I clapped eyes upon him. There was a down look
about the fellow's figure-head that I didn't like, and be hanged to him, but I
never thought he would have gone the length he has done. And so you say
you've got him safe in the ruins, Charles?"
"I have, indeed, uncle."
"And then there let him remain, and a good place, too, for him."
"No, uncle, no. I'm sure you speak without thought. I intend to release
him in a few hours, when I have rested from my fatigues. He could not come to
any harm if he were to go without food entirely for the time that I leave him;
but even that he will not do, for there is bread and water in the dungeon."
"Bread and water! that's too good for him. But, however, Charles, when
you go to let him out, I'll go with you, just to tell him what I think of him,
the vagabond."
"He must suffer amazingly, for no doubt knowing well, as he does, his own
infamous intentions, he will consider that if I were to leave him to starve to
death, I should be but retailing upon him the injuries he would have inflicted
upon me."
"The worst of it is," said the admiral, "I can't think what to do with
him."
"Do nothing, uncle, but just let him go; it will be a sufficient
punishment for such a man to feel that, instead of succeeding in his designs,
he has only brought upon himself the bitterest contempt of those whom he would
fain have injured. I can have no desire for revenge on such a man as
Marchdale."
"You are right, Charles," said Flora; "let him go, and let him go with a
feeling that he has acquired the contempt of those whose best opinions might
have been his for a far less amount of trouble than he has taken to acquire
their worst."
Excitement had kept up Charles to this point, but now, when he arose and
expressed his intention of going to the ruins, for the purpose of releasing
Marchdale, he exhibited such unequivocal symptoms of exhaustion and fatigue
that neither his uncle nor Flora would permit him to go, so, in deference to
them, he gave up the point, and commissioned the admiral and Jack, with Henry,
to proceed to the place, and give the villain his freedom; little suspecting
what had occurred since he had himself left the neighbourhood of those ruins.
Of course Charles Holland couldn't be at all accountable for the work of
the elements, and it was not for him to imagine that when he left Marchdale in
the dungeon that so awful a catastrophe as that we have recorded to the reader
was to ensue.
The distance to the ruins was not so great from this cottage even as it
was from Bannerworth Hall, provided those who went knew the most direct and
best road to take; so that the admiral was not gone above a couple of hours,
and when he returned he sat down and looked at Charles with such a peculiar
expression, that the latter could not for the life of him tell what to make of
it.
"Something has happened, uncle," he said, "I am certain; tell me at once
what it is."
"Oh! nothing, nothing," said the admiral, "of any importance."
"Is that what you call your feelings?" said Jack Pringle. "Can't you
tell him as there came on a squall last night, and the ruins have come in with
a dab upon old Marchdale, crushing his guts, so that we smelt him as soon as
we got nigh at hand?"
"Good God!" said Charles, "has such a catastrophe occurred?"
"Yes, Charles, that's just about the catastrophe that has occurred. He's
dead; and rum enough it is that it should happen on the very night that you
escaped."
"Rum!" said Jack, suddenly; "my eye, who mentions rum? What a singular
sort of liquour rum must be. I heard of a chap as used to be fond of it once
on board a ship; I wonder if there's any in the house."
"No!" said the admiral; "but there's a fine pump of spring water outside
if you feel a little thirsty, Jack; and I'll engage it shall do you more good
than all the rum in the world."
"Uncle," said Charles, "I'm glad to hear you make that observation."
"What for?"
"Why, to deal candidly with you, uncle, Jack informed me that you had
lately taken quite a predilection for drinking."
"Me!" cried the admiral; "why the infernal rascal, I've had to threaten
him with his discharge a dozen times, at least, on that very ground, and no
other."
"There's somebody calling me," said Jack. "I'm a coming! I'm a coming!"
and so he bolted out of the room, just in time to escape an inkstand, which
the admiral caught up and flung after him.
"I'll strike that rascal off the ship's books this very day," muttered
Admiral Bell. "The drunken vagabond, to pretend that I take anything, when
all the while it's himself!"
"Well, well, I ought certainly to have suspected the quarter from whence
the intelligence came; but he told it to me so circumstantially, and with such
an apparent feeling of regret for the weakness into which he said you had
fallen, that I really thought there might be some truth in it."
"The rascal! I've done with him from this moment; I have put up with too
much from him for years past."
"I think now that you have given him a great deal of liberty, and that,
with a great deal more he has taken, makes up an amount which you find it
difficult to endure."
"And I won't endure it."
"Let me talk to him, and I dare say I shall be able to convince him that
he goes too far, and when he finds that such is the case he will mend."
"Speak to him, if you like, but I have done with such a mutinous rascal,
I have. You can take him into your service, if you like, till you get tired
of him; and that won't be very long."
"Well, well we shall see. Jack will apologise to you I have no doubt;
and then I shall intercede for him, and advise you to give him another trial."
"If you get him into the apology, then there's no doubt about me giving
him another trial. But I know him too well for that; he's as obstinate as a
mule, he is, and you won't get a civil word out of him; but never mind that,
now. I tell you what, Master Charley, it will take a good lot of roast beef
to get up your good looks again."
"It will, indeed, uncle; and I require, now, rest, for I am thoroughly
exhausted. The great privations I have undergone, and the amount of mental
excitement which I have experienced, in consequence of the sudden and
unexpected release from a fearful confinement, have greatly weakened all my
energies. A few hours' sleep will make quite a different being of me."
"Well, my boy, you know best," returned the admiral; "and I'll take care,
if you sleep till to-morrow, that you sha'n't be disturbed. So now be off to
bed at once."
The young man shook his uncle's hand in a cordial manner, and then
repaired to the apartment which had been provided for him.
Charles Holland did, indeed, stand in need of repose; and for the first
time now for many days he laid down with serenity at his heart, and slept for
many hours. And was there not now a great and a happy change in Flora
Bannerworth! As if by magic, in a few short hours, much of the bloom of her
before-fading beauty returned to her. Her step again recovered its springy
lightness; again she smiled upon her mother, and suffered herself to talk of a
happy future; for the dread even of the vampyre's visitations had faded into
comparative insignificance against the heart's deep dejection which had come
over her at the thought that Charles Holland must surely be murdered, or he
would have contrived to come to her.
And what a glorious recompense she had now for the trusting confidence
with which she had clung to a conviction of his truth! Was it not great, now,
to feel that when he was condemned by others, and when strong and
unimpeachable evidence seemed to be against him, she had clung to him and
declared her faith in his honour, and wept for him instead of condemning?
Yes, Flora; you were of that order of noble minds that, where once
confidence is given, give it fully and completely, and will not harbour a
suspicion of the faith of the loved one, a happy disposition when verified, as
in this instance, by an answering truthfulness.
But when such a heart trusts not with judgment—when that pure, exalted,
and noble confidence is given to an object unworthy of it—then comes,
indeed, the most fearful of all mental struggles; and if the fond heart, that
has hugged to its inmost core so worthless a treasure, do not break in the
effort to discard it, we may well be surprised at the amount of fortitude that
has endured so much.
Although the admiral had said but little concerning the fearful end
Marchdale had come to, it really did make some impression upon him; and, much
as he held in abhorrence the villany of Marchdale's conduct, he would gladly
in his heart have averted the fate from him that he had brought upon himself.
On the road to the ruins, he calculated upon taking a different kind of
vengeance.
When they had got some distance from the cottage, Admiral Bell made a
proposal to Henry to be his second while he fought Marchdale, but Henry would
not hear of it for a moment.
"My dear sir," he said, "could I, do you think, stand by and see a
valuable, a revered, and a respected life like yours exposed to any hazard
merely upon the chance of punishing a villain? No, no; Marchdale is too base
now to be met in honourable encounter. If he is dealt with in any way let it
be by the laws."
This was reasonable enough, and after some argument the admiral coincided
in it, and then they began to wonder how, without Charles, they should be able
to get an entrance to the dungeons, for it had been his intention originally,
had he not felt so fatigued, to go with them.
As soon, however, as they got tolerably near to the ruins, they saw what
had happened. Neither spoke, but they quickened their pace, and soon stood
close to the mass of stone-work which now had assumed so different a shape to
what it had a few short hours before.
It needed little examination to let them feel certain that whoever might
have been in any of the underground dungeons must have be crushed to death.
"Heaven have mercy upon his soul!" said Henry.
"Amen!" said the admiral.
They both turned away, and for some time they neither of them spoke, for
their thoughts were full of reflection upon the horrible death which Marchdale
must have endured. At length the admiral said—
"Shall we tell this or not?"
"Tell it at once," said Henry; "let us have no secrets."
"Good. Then I will not make one you may depend. I only wish that while
he was about it, Charley could have popped that rascal Varney as well in the
dungeon, and then there would have been an end and a good riddance of them
both."
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