Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II)

C >> Charlotte M Yonge >> Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II)

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The next stroke was young Madison's sudden disappearance, and the
declaration by Robson that he had carried off a great deal of
property--a disappointment to her even greater than the loss. Robson
was profuse in compliments and attentions, but continually deferred
the statement of affairs that he had promised; and Mary could not
bear to accept the help of Mr. Ward, the only person at hand able and
willing to assist her. She had at last grown desperate, and,
resolved to have something positive to write to Mr. Dynevor, as well
as not to go on living without knowing her means, she had insisted on
Robson bringing his accounts. She knew just enough to be
dissatisfied with his vague statements; and the more he praised her
sagacity, the more she saw that he was taking advantage of her
ignorance, which he presumed to be far greater than it really was.
At the very moment when she was most persuaded of his treachery, and
felt the most lonely and desolate--when he was talking fluently, and
she was seeking to rally her spirits, and discover the path of right
judgment, where the welfare of so many was concerned--it was then
that Fitzjocelyn's voice was in her ear.

She had scarcely explained to Louis why his coming was, if possible,
doubly and trebly welcome, when the negro admitted another guest,
whom Rosita received much as she had done his predecessor, only with
less curiosity. Mary rose, blushing deeply, and crossing the room
held out her hand, and said simply, but with something of apology,
'Mr. Ward, this is Lord Fitzjocelyn.'

Mr. Ward raised his eyes to her face for one moment. 'I understand,'
he said, in a low, not quite steady voice. 'It is well. Will you
present me?' he added, as though collecting himself like a brave man
after a blow.

'Here is my kindest friend,' she said, as she conducted him to Louis,
and they shook hands in the very manner she wished to see, learning
mutual esteem from her tone and each other's aspect.

'I am sorry to have intruded,' said Mr. Ward. 'I came in the hope
that you might find some means of making me of use to you; and,
perhaps, I may yet be of some assistance to Lord Fitzjocelyn.'

He enforced the proposal with so much cordiality, and showed so
plainly that it would be his chief pleasure and consolation to do
anything for Miss Ponsonby, that they did not scruple to take him
into their counsels; and Mary looked on with exulting wonder at the
ability and readiness displayed by Louis in the discussion of
business details, even with a man whose profession they were. In
remote space, almost beyond memory, save to enhance the present joy
of full reliance, was the old uncomfortable sense of his leaning too
much upon her. To have him acting and thinking for her, and with one
touch carrying off her whole burthen of care, was comfort and
gladness beyond what she had even devised in imagination. The only
drawback, besides compassion for Mr. Ward, was the shock of hearing
of the extent of the treachery of Robson, in whom her father had
trusted so implicitly, and to whom he had shown so much favour.

They agreed that they would go to the Consul, and concert measures;
Mary only begging that Robson might not be hardly dealt with, and
they went away, leaving her to her overwhelming happiness, which
began to become incredible as soon as Louis was out of sight.

By-and-by, he came back to the evening meal, when Rosita appeared,
with her uncovered hair in two long, unadorned tresses, plaited, and
hanging down on each shoulder, and arrayed in black robes, which, by
their weight and coarseness, recalled Eastern fashions of mourning,
which Spain derived from the Moors. She attempted a little Spanish
talk with El Visconde, much to his inconvenience, though he was too
joyous not to be doubly good-natured, especially as he pitied her,
and regarded her as a very perplexing charge newly laid on him.

He had time to tell Mary that he was to sleep at the Consul's, whence
he had sent a note and a messenger to fetch Tom Madison, since it
appeared that the prosecution, the rumour of which had frightened the
poor fellow away, had not been actually set on foot before he
decamped; and even if it had been, there were many under worse
imputations at large in the Peruvian Republic.

Fitzjocelyn had appointed that Robson should call on him early in the
morning, and, if he failed to detect him, intended to confront him
with Madison before the Consul, when there could be little doubt that
his guilt would be brought home to him. He found that the Consul and
Mr. Ward had both conceived a bad opinion of Robson, and had wondered
at the amount of confidence reposed in him; whereas Madison had been
remarked as a young man of more than average intelligence and
steadiness, entirely free from that vice of gambling which was the
bane of all classes in Spanish South America. Mary sighed as she
heard Louis speak so innocently of 'all classes'--it was too true, as
he would find to his cost, when he came to look into their affairs,
and learn what Rosita had squandered. Next, he asked about the other
clerk, Ford, of whom Mary knew very little, except that she had heard
Robson mention to her father, when preparing to set out for
Guayaquil, that in the consequent press of business he had engaged a
new assistant, who had come from Rio as servant to a traveller. She
had sometimes heard Robson speak in praise of his acquisition, and
exalt him above Madison; and once or twice she had seen him, and
fancied him like some one whom she had known somewhere, but she had
for many months seldom left her father's room, and knew little of
what passed beyond it.

Louis took his leave early, as he had to examine his prize, the
pocket-book, and make up his case before confronting Robson; and he
told Mary that he should refrain from seeing her on the morrow until
the 'tug of war should be over.' 'Mr. Ward promises to come to help
me,' he added. 'Really, Mary, I never saw a more generous or
considerate person. I am constantly on the point of begging his
pardon.'

'I must thank him some way or other,' said Mary; 'his forbearance has
been beautiful. I only wish he would have believed me, for I always
told him the plain truth. It would have spared him something; but
nobody would trust my account of you.'

The morning came, and with it Madison; but patient as Fitzjocelyn
usually was, he was extremely annoyed at finding his precious time
wasted by Robson's delay in keeping his appointment. After allowing
for differing clocks, for tropical habits, and every other imaginable
excuse for unpunctuality, he decided that there must have been some
mistake, and set off to call at the counting-house.

A black porter opened the door, and he stepped forward into the inner
room, where, leaning lazily back before a desk, smoking a cigar over
his newspaper, arrayed in a loose white jacket, with open throat and
slippered feet, reposed a gentleman, much transformed from the spruce
butler, but not difficult of recognition. He started to his feet
with equal alacrity and consternation, and bowed, not committing
himself until he should see whether he were actually known to his
lordship. Fitzjocelyn was in too great haste to pause on this
matter, and quickly acknowledging the salutation, as if that of a
stranger, demanded where Mr. Robson was.

In genuine surprise and alarm, Ford exclaimed that he had not seen
him; he thought he was gone to meet his lordship at the Consular
residence. No! could he be at his own house? It was close by, and
the question was asked, but the Senor Robson had gone out in the very
early morning. Ford looked paler and paler, and while Louis said he
would go and inquire for him at Miss Ponsonby's, offered to go down
to the Consul's to see if he had arrived there in the meantime.

Mary came to meet Louis in the sala, saying that she was afraid that
they had not shown sufficient consideration for poor Dona Rosita, who
really had feeling; she had gone early to her convent, and had not
yet returned, though she had been absent two hours.

Louis had but just explained his perplexity and vexation, when the
old negro Xavier came in with looks of alarm, begging to know whether
La Senora were come in, and excusing himself for having lost sight of
her. She had not gone to the convent, but to the cathedral; and he,
kneeling in the crowded nave while she passed on to one of the side
chapels, had not seen her again, and, after waiting far beyond the
usual duration of her devotions, had supposed that she had gone home
unattended.

As he finished his story, there was a summons to Lord Fitzjocelyn to
speak to Mr. Ford, and on Mary's desiring that he should be admitted,
he came forward, exclaiming, 'My Lord, he has not been at the
Consul's! I beg to state that he has the keys of all the valuables
at the office; nothing is in my charge.'

Louis turned to consult Mary; but, as if a horrible idea had come
over her, she was already speeding through the door of the quadra,
and appearing there again in a few seconds, she beckoned him, with a
countenance of intense dismay, and whispered under her breath,
'Louis! Louis! her jewels are gone! Poor thing! poor thing! what
will become of her?'

Mary had more reasons for her frightful suspicion than she would
detain him to hear. Robson, always polite, had been especially so to
the young Limenian; she had been much left to his society, and Mary
had more than once fancied that they were more at ease in her own
absence. She was certain that the saya y manto had been frequently
employed to enable Rosita to enjoy dissipation, when her husband's
condition would have rendered her public appearance impossible; and
at the Opera or on the Alameda, Robson might have had every
opportunity of paying her attention, and forwarding her amusements.
There could be no doubt that she had understood more of their plans
than had been supposed, had warned him, and shared his flight.

Pursuit, capture, and a nunnery would be far greater kindness to the
poor childish being, than leaving her to the mercy of a runaway
swindler; and all measures were promptly taken, Ford throwing himself
into the chase with greater ardour and indignation than even Madison;
for he had trusted to Robson's grand professions that he could easily
throw dust into the young Lord's inexperienced eyes, come off with
flying colours, and protect his subordinate. If he had changed his
mind since the Senora's warning, he had not thought it necessary to
inform his confederate; and Ford was not only furious at the
desertion, but anxious to make a merit of his zeal, and encouraged by
having as yet seen no sign that he was recognised.

Regardless of heat and fatigue, Fitzjocelyn, Mr. Ward, and the two
clerks, were indefatigable throughout the day, but it was not till
near sunset that a Spanish agent of Mr. Ward's brought back evidence
that a Limenian lady and English gentleman had been hastily married
by a village padre in the early morning, and Madison shortly after
came from Callao, having traced such a pair to an American vessel,
which was long since out of harbour. It was well that the pocket-
book had been saved, for it contained securities to a large amount,
which Robson, after showing to Mary to satisfy her, doubtless
intended to keep in hand for such a start as the present. Without
it, he had contrived, as Madison knew, to secure quite sufficient to
remove any anxieties as to the Senora Rosita owning a fair share of
her late husband's property.

The day of terrible anxiety made it a relief to Mary to have any
certainty, though she was infinitely shocked at the tidings, which
Louis conveyed to her at once. Mrs. Willis, whom Mr. Ward had sent
to be her companion, went to her brother in the outer room, and left
the lovers alone in the quadra, where Mary could freely express her
grief and disappointment, her sorrow for the insult to her father,
and her apprehensions for the poor fugitive herself, whom she loved
enough to lament for exceedingly, and to recall every excuse that
could be found in a wretched education, a miserable state of society,
a childish mind, and religion presented to her in a form that did
nothing to make it less childish.

Mary's first recovery from the blow was shown by her remembering how
fatigued and heated Louis must be, and when she had given orders for
refreshment for him, and had thus resumed something of her ordinary
frame, he sat looking at her anxiously, and presently said, 'And what
will you do next, Mary!'

'I cannot tell. Mrs. Willis and Mrs. --- have both been asking me
very kindly to come to them, but I cannot let Mrs. Willis stay with
me away from her children. Yet it seems hard on Mr. Ward that you
should be coming to me there. I suppose I must go to Mrs. ---; but I
waited to consult you. I had rather be at home, if it were right.'

'It may easily be made right,' quietly said Louis.

'How!' asked Mary.

'I find,' he continued, 'that the whole affair may be easily settled,
if you will give me authority.'

'I thought I had given you authority to act in my name.'

'It might be simplified.'

'Shall I sign my name!'

'Yes--once--to make mine yours. If your claims are mine, I can take
much better care of the Dynevor interest.'

Mary rested her cheek on her hand, and looked at him with her grave
steady face, not very much discomposed after the first glimpse of his
meaning.

'Will you, Mary?'

'You know I will,' she said.

'Then there is no time to be lost. Let it be to-morrow. Yes'--going
on in the quiet deliberate tone that made it so difficult to
interrupt him--'then I could, in my own person, negotiate for the
sale of the mines. I find there is an offer that Robson kept secret.
I could wind up the accounts, see what can be saved for the Northwold
people, and take you safe home by the end of a fortnight.'

'Oh, Louis!' cried Mary, almost sobbing, 'this will not do. I cannot
entangle you in our ruinous affairs.'

'Insufficient objections are consent,' said Louis, smiling. 'Do you
trust me, Mary?'

'It is of no use to ask.'

'You think I am not to be trusted with affairs that have become my
own! I believe I am, Mary. You know I must do my utmost for the
Dynevors; and I assure you I see my way. I have no reasonable doubt
of clearing off all future liabilities. You mean to let me arrange?'

'Yes, but--'

'Then why not obviate all awkward situations at once?'

'My father! You should not ask it, Louis.'

'I would not hasten you, but for the sake of my own father, Mary. He
is growing old, and I could not have left him for anything but the
hope of bringing him his own chosen daughter. I want you to help me
take care of him, and we must not leave him alone to the long
evenings and cold winds.'

Mary was yielding--'I must not keep you from him,' she said, 'but to-
morrow--a Sunday, too--'

'Ah! Mary, do you want gaiety! No, if we cannot have it in a holy
place, let it at least have the consecration of the day--let us have
fifty-two wedding days a year instead of one. Indeed, I would not
press you, but that I could take care of you so much better, and it
is not as if our acquaintance had not begun--how long ago--twenty-
seven years, I think?'

'Settle it as you like,' she managed to say, with a great flood of
tears-but what soft bright tears! 'I trust you.'

He saw she wanted solitude; he only stayed for a few words of earnest
thanks, and the assurance that secrecy and quietness would be best
assured by speed. 'I will come back,' he said, 'when I have seen to
the arrangement. And there is one thing I must do first, one poor
fellow who must not be left in suspense any longer.'

Tired as he ought to have been, he lightly crossed the sala to the
room appropriated to business, where he had desired the two clerks to
wait for him, and where Tom Madison stood against the wall, with
folded arms, while Ford lounged in a disengaged attitude on a chair,
but rose alert and respectful at his appearance.

Louis asked one or two necessary questions on the custody of the
office for the night and ensuing day, and Ford made repeated
assurances that nothing would be found missing that had been left in
his charge. 'I believe you, Mr. Delaford,' said Fitzjocelyn,
quietly. 'I do not think the lower species of fraud was ever in your
style.'

Delaford tried to open his lips, but visibly shook. Louis answered,
what he had not yet said, 'I do not intend to expose you. I think
you had what excuse neglect can give, and unless I should be called
on conscientiously to speak to your character, I shall leave you to
make a new one.'

Delaford began to stammer out thanks, and promises of explaining the
whole of Robson's peculations (little he knew the whole of them).

'There is one earnest of your return to sincerity that I require,'
said Louis. 'Explain at once the degree of your acquaintance with
Charlotte Arnold.'

Tom Madison still stood moody--affecting not to hear.

'Oh! my Lord, I did not know that you were interested in that young
person.'

'I am interested where innocence has been maligned,' said Louis,
sternly.

'I am sure, my Lord, nothing has ever passed at which the most
particular need take umbrage,' exclaimed Delaford. 'If Mr. Madison
will recollect, I mentioned nothing as the most fastidious need--'

Mr. Madison would not hear.

'You only inferred that she had not been insensible to your
attractions?'

'Why, indeed, my Lord, I flatter myself that in my time I have had
the happiness of not being unpleasing to the sex,' said Delaford,
with a sigh and a simper.

'It is a mortifying question, but you owe it to the young woman to
answer, whether she gave you any encouragement.'

'No, my Lord. I must confess that she always spoke of a previous
attachment, and dashed my earlier hopes to the ground.'

'And the book of poems! How came that to be in your possession?

Delaford confessed that it had been a little tribute, returned upon
his hands by the young lady in question.

'One question more, Mr. Delaford: what was the fact as to her lending
you means for your voyage?'

Delaford was not easily brought to confession on this head; but he
did at length own that he had gone in great distress to Charlotte,
and had appealed to her bounty; but he distinctly acknowledged that
it was not in the capacity of suitor; in fact, as he ended by
declaring, he had the pleasure of saying that there was no young
person whom he esteemed more highly than Miss Arnold, and that she
had never given him the least encouragement, such as need distress
the happy man who had secured her affections.

The happy man did not move till Delaford had left the room, when
Louis walked up to him and said, 'I can further tell you, of my own
knowledge, that that good girl refused large wages, and a lady's-
maid's place, partly because she would not live in the same house
with that man; and she has worked on with a faithful affection and
constancy, beyond all praise, as the single servant to Mr. and Mrs.
Frost in their distress.'

'Don't talk to me, my Lord,' cried Tom, turning away; 'I'm the most
unhappy man in the world!'

'I did not ask you to shake hands with Delaford to-night. You will
another day. He is only a vain coxcomb, and treated you to a little
of his conceit, with, perhaps, a taste of spite at a successful
rival; but he has only shown you what a possession you have in her.'

'You don't know what I've done, my Lord. I have written her a letter
that she can never forgive!'

'You don't know what I've done, Tom. I posted a letter by the mail
just starting from Callao--a letter to Mr. Frost, with a hint to
Charlotte that you were labouring under a little delusion; I knew,
from your first narration, that Ford could be no other than my old
friend, shorn of his beams.'

'That letter--' still muttered Tom.

'She'll forgive, and like you all the better for having afforded her
a catastrophe, Tom. You may write by the next mail; unless, what is
better still, you come home with us by the same, and speak for
yourself. If I am your master then, I'll give you the holiday. Yes,
Tom, it was important to me to clear up your countenance, for I want
to bespeak your services to-morrow as my friend.'

'My Lord!' cried Tom, aghast. 'If you do require any such service,
though I should not have thought it, there are many nearer your own
rank, officers and gentlemen fitter for an affair of the kind. I
never knew anything about fire-arms, since I gave up poaching.'

'Indeed, Tom, I am very far from intending to dispense with your
services. I want you to guide me to procure the required weapon!'

'Surely,' said Tom, with a deep, reluctant sigh, 'you never crossed
the Isthmus without one?'

'Yes, indeed, I did; I never saw the party there whom I should have
liked to challenge in this way. Why, Tom, did you really think I had
come out to Peru to fight a duel on a Sunday morning?'

'That's what comes of living in this sort of place. Duels are meat
and drink to the people here,' said Tom, ashamed and relieved, 'and
there have been those who told me it was all that was wanting to make
me a gentleman. But in what capacity am I to serve you, my Lord!'

'In the first place, tell me where I may procure a wedding-ring!
Yes, Tom, that's the weapon! You've no objection to being my friend
in that capacity!'

Tom's astonished delight went beyond the bounds of expression, and
therefore was compressed into an almost grim 'Whatever you will, my
Lord;' but two hot tears were gushing from his eyes. He dashed them
away, and added, 'What a fool I am! You'll believe me, my Lord,
though I can't speak, that, though there may be many nearer and more
your equals, there's none on earth more glad and happy to see you so,
than myself.'

'I believe it, indeed, Tom; shake hands, to wish me joy; I am right
glad to have one here from Ormersfield, to make it more home-like.
For, though it is a hurry at last, you can guess what she has been to
me from the first. Knowing her thoroughly has been one of the many,
many benefits that Ferny dell conferred on me.'

There was no time for more than to enjoin silence. Louis had to
hurry to the Consul and the Chaplain, and to overcome their
astonishment.

On the other hand, Mary was, as usual, seeking and recovering the
balance of her startled spirits in her own chamber. She saw the
matter wisely and simply, and had full confidence in Louis, with such
a yearning for his protection that, it may be, the strange suddenness
of the proposal cost her the less. She came forth and announced her
intention to Mrs. Willis, who was inclined to resent it as derogatory
to the dignity of womanhood, and the privileges of a bride; but Mary
smiled and answered that, 'when he had taken so much trouble for her,
she could not give him any more by things of that sort. She must be
as little in his way as possible.'

And Mrs. Willis sighed, and pitied her, but was glad that she should
be off her poor brother's mind as soon as might be, and was glad to
resign her task of chaperoning her.

Only three persons beyond the Consul's family knew what was about to
happen, when Miss Ponsonby, in her deep mourning, attended the
morning service in the large hall at the Consul-house; and such eyes
as were directed towards the handsome stranger, only gazed at the
unwonted spectacle of an English nobleman, not with the more eager
curiosity that would have been attached to him had all been known.

Mr. Ward lingered a few moments, and begged for one word with Miss
Ponsonby. She could not but comply, and came to meet him, blushing,
but composed, in that simple, frank kindness which only wished to
soften the disappointment.

'Mary,' he said, 'I am not come to harass you. I have done so long
enough, and I would not have tormented you, but on that one head I
did not do justice to your judgment. I see now how vain my hope was.
I am glad to have met him--I am glad to know how worthy of you he is,
and to have seen you in such hands.'

'You are very kind to speak so,' said Mary.

'Yes, Mary, I could not have borne to part with you, if I were not
convinced that he is a good man as well as an able man. I might have
known that you would not choose otherwise. I shall see your name
among the great ladies of the land. I came to say something else. I
wished to thank you for the many happy hours I have spent with you,
though you never for a moment trifled with me. It was I who deceived
myself. Good-bye, Mary. Perhaps you will write to my sister, and
let her know of your arrival.'

'I will write to you, if you please,' said Mary.

'It will be a great pleasure,' he said, earnestly. 'And will you let
me be of any use in my power to you and Lord Fitzjocelyn?'

'Indeed, we shall be most grateful. You have been a most kind and
forbearing friend. I should like to know that you were happy,' said
Mary, lingering, and hardly knowing what to say.

'My little nieces are fond enough of their uncle. My sister wants
me. In short, you need not vex yourself about me. Some day, when I
am an old man, I may come and bring you news of Lima. Meanwhile, you
will sometimes wear this bracelet, and remember that you have an old
friend. I shall call on Lord Fitzjocelyn at the office to-morrow,
and see if we can find any clue to Robson's retreat. Good-bye, and
blessings on you, Mary.'

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