The Disowned — Volume 08. Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон
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of religion, country, wife, children? This petty mineral can purchase them all! Oh, what a bright joy speaks out in your white cheek, my beauty! What are all human charms to yours? Why, by your spell, most magical of talismans, my years may walk, gloating and revelling, through a lane of beauties, till they fall into the grave! Pish! that grave is an ugly thought,— a very, very ugly thought! But come, my sun of hope, I must eclipse you for a while! Type of myself, while you hide, I hide also; and when I once more let you forth to the day, then shine out Richard Crauford,—shine out!" So saying, he sewed the diamond carefully in the folds of his shirt; and, rearranging his dress, took the cooling powder, which he weighed out to a grain, with a scrupulous and untrembling hand; descended the back stairs; opened the door, and found himself in the open street.
The clock struck ten as he entered a hackney-coach and drove to another part of London. "What, so late!" thought he; "I must be at Dover in twelve hours: the vessel sails then. Humph! some danger yet! What a pity that I could not trust that fool! He! he! he!—what will he think tomorrow, when he wakes and finds that only one is destined to swing!"
The hackney-coach stopped, according to his direction, at an inn in the city. Here Crauford asked if a note had been left for Dr. Stapylton. One (written by himself) was given to him.
"Merciful Heaven!" cried the false doctor, as he read it, "my daughter is on a bed of death!"
The landlord's look wore anxiety; the doctor seemed for a moment paralyzed by silent woe. He recovered, shook his head piteously, and ordered a post-chaise and four on to Canterbury without delay.
"It is an ill wind that blows nobody good!" thought the landlord, as he issued the order into the yard.
The chaise was soon out; the doctor entered; off went the post-boys; and Richard Crauford, feeling his diamond, turned his thoughts to safety and to France.
A little, unknown man, who had been sitting at the bar for the last two hours sipping brandy and water, and who from his extreme taciturnity and quiet had been scarcely observed, now rose. "Landlord," said he, "do you know who that gentleman is?"
"Why," quoth Boniface, "the letter to him was directed, 'For the Rev.
Dr. Stapylton; will be called for.'"
"Ah," said the little man, yawning, "I shall have a long night's work of it. Have you another chaise and four in the yard?"
"To be sure, sir, to be sure!" cried the landlord in astonishment.
"Out with it, then! Another glass of brandy and water,—a little stronger, no sugar!"
The landlord stared; the barmaid stared; even the head-waiter, a very stately person, stared too.
"Hark ye," said the little man, sipping his brandy and water, "I am a deuced good-natured fellow, so I'll make you a great man to-night; for nothing makes a man so great as being let into a great secret. Did you ever hear of the rich Mr. Crauford?"
"Certainly: who has not?"
"Did you ever see him?"
"No! I can't say I ever did."
"You lie, landlord: you saw him to-night."
"Sir!" cried the landlord, bristling up.
The little man pulled out a brace of pistols, and very quietly began priming them out of a small powder-flask.
The landlord started back; the head-waiter cried "Rape!" and the barmaid "Murder!"
"Who the devil are you, sir?" cried the landlord.
"Mr. Tickletrout! the celebrated officer,—thief-taker, as they call it. Have a care, ma'am, the pistols are loaded. I see the chaise is out; there's the reckoning, landlord."
"O Lord! I'm sure I don't want any reckoning: too great an honour for my poor house to be favoured with your company; but [following the little man to the door] whom did you please to say you were going to catch?"
"Mr. Crauford, alias Dr. Stapylton."
"Lord! Lord! to think of it,—how shocking! What has he done?"
"Swindled, I believe."
"My eyes! And why, sir, did not you catch him when he was in the bar?"
"Because then I should not have got paid for my journey to Dover. Shut the door, boy; first stage on to Canterbury." And, drawing a woollen nightcap over his ears, Mr. Tickletrout resigned himself to his nocturnal excursion.
On the very day on which the patent for his peerage was to have been made out, on the very day on which he had afterwards calculated on reaching Paris, on that very day was Mr. Richard Crauford lodged in Newgate, fully committed for a trial of life and death.
CHAPTER LXXXIII
There, if, O gentle love! I read aright The utterance that sealed thy sacred bond, 'T was listening to those accents of delight She hid upon his breast those eyes, beyond Expression's power to paint, all languishingly fond.
"And you will positively leave us for London," said Lady Flora, tenderly, "and to-morrow too!" This was said to one who under the name of Clarence Linden has played the principal part in our drama, and whom now, by the death of his brother succeeding to the honours of his house, we present to our reader as Clinton L'Estrange, Earl of Ulswater.
They were alone in the memorable pavilion; and though it was winter the sun shone cheerily into the apartment; and through the door, which was left partly open, the evergreens, contrasting with the leafless boughs of the oak and beech, could be just descried, furnishing the lover with some meet simile of love, and deceiving the eyes of those willing to be deceived with a resemblance to the departed summer. The unusual mildness of the day seemed to operate genially upon the birds,—those children of light and song; and they grouped blithely beneath the window and round the door, where the hand of the kind young spirit of the place had so often ministered to their wants. Every now and then, too, you might hear the shrill glad note of the blackbird keeping measure to his swift and low flight, and sometimes a vagrant hare from the neighbouring preserves sauntered fearlessly by the half-shut door, secure, from long experience, of an asylum in the vicinity of one who had drawn from the breast of Nature a tenderness and love for all its offspring.
Her lover sat at Flora's feet; and, looking upward, seemed to seek out the fond and melting eyes which, too conscious of their secret, turned bashfully from his gaze. He had drawn her arm over his shoulder; and clasping that small and snowy hand, which, long coveted with a miser's desire, was at length won, he pressed upon it a thousand kisses, sweeter beguilers of time than even words. All had been long explained; the space between their hearts annihilated; doubt, anxiety, misconstruction, those clouds of love, had passed away, and left not a wreck to obscure its heaven.
"And you will leave us to-morrow; must it be to-morrow?"
"Ah! Flora, it must; but see, I have your lock of hair—your beautiful, dark hair—to kiss, when I am away from you, and I shall have your letters, dearest,—a letter every day; and oh! more than all, I shall have the hope, the certainty, that when we meet again, you will be mine forever."
"And I, too, must, by seeing it in your handwriting, learn to reconcile myself to your new name. Ah! I wish you had been still Clarence,—only Clarence. Wealth, rank, power,—what are all these but rivals to poor Flora?"
Lady Flora sighed, and the next moment blushed; and, what with the sigh and the blush, Clarence's lips wandered from the hands to the cheek, and thence to a mouth on which the west wind seemed to have left the sweets of a thousand summers.
CHAPTER LXXXIV
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