East Lynne

“Infamous! Contemptible!” was the old gentleman’s excited answer. “But he’ll get his deserts yet, Mr. Otway; they have already begun. He was treated to a ducking yesterday in Justice Hare’s green pond.”

“And he did look a miserable devil when he came out, trailing through the streets,” added Mr. Ebenezer, while Otway Bethel burst into a laugh. “He was smothered into some hot blankets at the Raven, and a pint of burnt brandy put into him. He seems all right to-day.”

“Will he go in and win?”

“Chut! Win against Carlyle! He has not the ghost of a chance; and government—if it is the government who put him on—must be a pack of fools; they can’t know the influence of Carlyle. Bethel, is that style of costume the fashion where you come from?”

“For slender pockets. I’ll sell ‘em to you now, James, at half price. Let’s get a look at this Levison, though. I have never seen the fellow.”

Another interruption of the crowd, even as he spoke, caused by the railway van bringing up some luggage. They contrived, in the confusion, to push themselves to the front, not far from Sir Francis. Otway Bethel stared at him in unqualified amazement.

“Why, what brings him here? What is he doing?”

“Who?”

He pointed his finger. “The one with the white handkerchief in his hand.”

“That is Sir Francis.”

“No!” uttered Bethel, a whole world of astounded meaning in his tone. “By Jove! He Sir Francis Levison?”

At that moment their eyes met, Francis Levison’s and Otway Bethel’s. Otway Bethel raised his shaggy hat in salutation, and Sir Francis appeared completely scared. Only for an instant did he lose his presence of mind. The next, his eyeglass was stuck in his eye and turned on Mr. Bethel, with a hard, haughty stare; as much as to say, who are you, fellow, that you should take such a liberty? But his cheeks and lips were growing as white as marble.

“Do you know Levison, Mr. Otway?” inquired old Dill.

“A little. Once.”

“When he was not Levison, but somebody else,” laughed Mr. Ebenezer James. “Eh, Bethel?”

Bethel turned as reproving a stare on Mr. Ebenezer as the baronet had just turned on him. “What do you mean, pray? Mind your own business.”

A nod to old Dill, and he turned off and disappeared, taking no further notice of James. The old gentleman questioned the latter.

“What was that little bit of by-play, Mr. Ebenezer?”

“Nothing much,” laughed Mr. Ebenezer. “Only he,” nodding towards Sir Francis, “was not always the great man he is now.”

“Ah!”

“I have held my tongue about it, for it’s no affair of mine, but I don’t mind letting you into the secret. Would you believe that that grand baronet there, would-be member for West Lynne, used, years ago, to dodge about Abbey Wood, mad after Afy Hallijohn? He didn’t call himself Levison then.”

Mr. Dill felt as if a hundred pins and needles were pricking at his memory, for there rose up in it certain doubts and troubles touching Richard Hare and one Thorn. He laid his eager hand upon the other’s arm. “Ebenezer James, what did he call himself?”

“Thorn. A dandy, then, as he is now. He used to come galloping down the Swainson road at dusk, tie his horse in the woods, and monopolize Miss Afy.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because I’ve seen it a dozen times. I was spooney after Afy myself in those days, and went down there a good deal in an evening. If it hadn’t been for him, and—perhaps that murdering villain, Dick Hare, Afy would have listened to me. Not that she cared for Dick; but, you see, they were gentlemen. I am thankful to the stars, now, for my luck in escaping her. With her for a wife, I should have been in a pickle always; as it is, I do get out of it once in a while.”

“Did you know then that he was Francis Levison?”

“Not I. He called himself Thorn, I tell you. When he came down to offer himself for member, and oppose Carlyle, I was thunderstruck—like Bethel was a minute ago. Ho ho, said I, so Thorn’s defunct, and Levison has risen.”

“What had Otway Bethel to do with him?”

“Nothing—that I know of. Only Bethel was fond of the woods also—after other game than Afy, though—and may have seen Thorn often. You saw that he recognized him.”

“Thorn—Levison, I mean—did not appear to like the recognition,” said Mr. Dill.

“Who would, in his position?” laughed Ebenezer James. “I don’t like to be reminded of many a wild scrape of my past life, in my poor station; and what would it be for Levison, were it to come out that he once called himself Thorn, and came running after Miss Afy Hallijohn?”

“Why did he call himself Thorn? Why disguise his own name?”

“Not knowing, can’t say. Is his name Levison, or is it Thorn?”

“Nonsense, Mr. Ebenezer!”

Mr. Dill, bursting with the strange news he had heard, endeavored to force his way through the crowd, that he might communicate it to Mr. Carlyle. The crowd was, however, too dense for him, and he had to wait the opportunity of escaping with what patience he might. When it came he made his way to the office, and entered Mr. Carlyle’s private room. That gentleman was seated at his desk, signing letters.

“Why, Dill, you are out of breath!”

“Well I may be! Mr. Archibald, I have been listening to the most extraordinary statement. I have found out about Thorn. Who do you think he is?”

Mr. Carlyle put down his pen and looked full in the old man’s face; he had never seen him so excited.

“It’s that man, Levison.”

“I do not understand you,” said Mr. Carlyle. He did not. It was as good as Hebrew to him. “The Levison of to-day, your opponent, is the Thorn who went after Afy Hallijohn. It is so, Mr. Archibald.”

“It cannot be!” slowly uttered Mr. Carlyle, thought upon thought working havoc with his brain. “Where did you hear this?”

Mr. Dill told his tale. Otway Bethel’s recognition of him; Sir Francis Levison’s scared paleness, for he had noticed that; Mr. Ebenezer’s revelation. The point in it all, that finally settled most upon Mr. Carlyle, was the thought that if Levison were indeed the man, he could not be instrumental in bringing him to justice.

“Bethel has denied to me more than once that he knew Thorn, or was aware of such a man being in existence,” observed Mr. Carlyle.

“He must have had a purpose in it, then,” returned Mr. Dill. “They knew each other to-day. Levison recognized him for certain, although he carried it off with a high hand, pretending not.”

“And it was not as Levison, but as Thorn, that Bethel recognized him?”

“There’s little doubt of that. He did not mention the name, Thorn; but he was evidently struck with astonishment at hearing that it was Levison. If they have not some secret between them, Mr. Archibald, I’ll never believe my own eyes again.”

“Mrs. Hare’s opinion is that Bethel had to do with the murder,” said Mr. Carlyle, in a low tone.

“If that is their secret, Bethel knows the murderer, rely upon it,” was the answer. “Mr. Archibald, it seems to me that now or never is the time to clear up Richard.”

“Aye; but how set about it?” responded Mr. Carlyle.

Meanwhile Barbara had proceeded home in her carriage, her brain as busy as Mr. Carlyle’s, perhaps more troubled. Her springing lightly and hastily out the moment it stopped, disdaining the footman’s arm, her compressed lips and absent countenance, proved that her resolution was set upon some plan of action. William and Madame Vine met her in the hall.

“We have seen Dr. Martin, Mrs. Carlyle.”

“And he says—”

“I cannot stay to hear now, William. I will see you later, madame.”

She ran upstairs to her dressing-room, Madame Vine following her with her reproachful eyes. “Why should she care?” thought madame. “It is not her child.”

Throwing her parasol on one chair, her gloves on another, down sat Barbara to her writing-table. “I will write to him; I will have him here, if it be but for an hour!” she passionately exclaimed. “This shall be, so far, cleared up. I am as sure as sure can be that it is that man. The very action Richard described! And there was the diamond ring! For better, for worse, I will send for him; but it will not be for worse if God is with us.”

She dashed off a letter, getting up ere she had well begun it, to order her carriage round again. She would trust none but herself to put it in the post.

“MY DEAR MR. SMITH—We want you here. Something has arisen that it is necessary to see you upon. You can get here by Saturday. Be in these grounds, near the covered walk, that evening at dusk. Ever yours,

“B.”

And the letter was addressed to Mr. Smith, of some street in Liverpool, the address furnished by Richard. Very cautious to see, was Barbara. She even put “Mr. Smith,” inside the letter.

“Now stop,” cried Barbara to herself, as she was folding it. “I ought to send him a five pound note, for he may not have the means to come; and I don’t think I have one of that amount in the house.”

She looked in her secretaire. Not a single five-pound note. Out of the room she ran, meeting Joyce, who was coming along the corridor.

“Do you happen to have a five-pound note, Joyce?”

“No, ma’am, not by me.”

“I dare say Madame Vine has. I paid her last week, and there were two five-pound notes amongst it.” And away went Barbara to the gray parlor.

“Could you lend me a five-pound note, Madame Vine? I have occasion to enclose one in a letter, and find I do not possess one.”

Madame Vine went to her room to get it. Barbara waited. She asked William what Dr. Martin said.

“He tried my chest with—oh, I forget what they call it—and he said I must be a brave boy and take my cod-liver oil well, and port wine, and everything I liked that was good. And he said he should be at West Lynne next Wednesday afternoon; and I am to go there, and he would call in and see me.”

“Where are you to meet him?”

“He said, either at papa’s office or at Aunt Cornelia’s, as we might decide. Madame fixed it for papa’s office, for she thought he might like to see Dr. Martin. I say, mamma.”

“What?” asked Barbara.

“Madame Vine has been crying ever since. Why should she?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. Crying!”

“Yes but she wipes her eyes under her spectacles, and thinks I don’t see her. I know I am very ill, but why should she cry for that?”

“Nonsense, William. Who told you you were very ill?”

“Nobody. I suppose I am,” he thoughtfully added. “If Joyce or Lucy cried, now, there’d be some sense in it, for they have known me all my life.”

“You are so apt to fancy things! You are always doing it. It is not likely that madame would be crying because you are ill.”

Madame came in with the bank-note. Barbara thanked her, ran upstairs, and in another minute or two was in her carriage.

She was back again, and dressing when the gentlemen returned to dinner. Mr. Carlyle came upstairs. Barbara, like most persons who do things without reflection, having had time to cool down from her ardor, was doubting whether she had acted wisely in sending so precipitately for Richard. She carried her doubt and care to her husband, her sure refuge in perplexity.

“Archibald, I fear I have done a foolish thing.”

He laughed. “I fear we all do that at times, Barbara. What is it?”

He had seated himself in one of Barbara’s favorite low chairs, and she stood before him, leaning on his shoulder, her face a little behind, so that he could not see it. In her delicacy she would not look at him while she spoke what she was going to speak.

“It is something that I have had upon my mind for years, and I did not like to tell it to you.”

“For years?”

“You remember that night, years ago, when Richard was at the Grove in disguise—”

“Which night, Barbara? He came more than once.”

“The night—the night that Lady Isabel quitted East Lynne,” she answered, not knowing how better to bring it to his recollection and she stole her hand lovingly into his, as she said it. “Richard came back after his departure, saying he had met Thorn in Bean lane. He described the peculiar motion of the hand as he threw back his hair from his brow; he spoke of the white hand and the diamond ring—how it glittered in the moonlight. Do you remember?”

“I do.”

“The motion appeared perfectly familiar to me, for I had seen it repeatedly used by one then staying at East Lynne. I wondered you did not recognize it. From that night I had little doubt as to the identity of Thorn. I believed that he and Captain Levison were one.”

A pause. “Why did you not tell me so, Barbara?”

“How could I speak of that man to you, at that time? Afterwards, when Richard was here, that snowy winter’s day, he asserted that he knew Sir Francis Levison; that he had seen him and Thorn together; and that put me off the scent. But to-day, as I was passing the Raven, in the carriage—going very slow, on account of the crowd—he was perched out there, addressing the people, and I saw the very same action—the old action that I had used to see.”

Barbara paused. Mr. Carlyle did not interrupt her.

“I feel a conviction that they are the same—that Richard must have been under some unaccountable mistake in saying that he knew Francis Levison. Besides, who but he, in evening dress, would have been likely to go through Bean lane that night? It leads to no houses, but one wishing to avoid the high road could get into it from these grounds, and so on to West Lynne. He must have gone back directly on foot to West Lynne, to get the post carriage, as was proved, and he would naturally go through Bean lane. Forgive me, Archibald, for recalling these things to you, but I feel so sure that Levison and Thorn are one.”

“I know they are,” he quietly said.

Barbara, in her astonishment drew back and stared him in the face—a face of severe dignity it was just then.

“Oh, Archibald! Did you know it at that time?”

“I did not know it until this afternoon. I never suspected it.”

“I wonder you did not. I have wondered often.”

“So do I now. Dill, Ebenezer James, and Otway Bethel—who came home to-day—were standing before the Raven, listening to his speech, when Bethel recognized him; not as Levison—he was infinitely astonished to find he was Levison. Levison, they say, was scared at the recognition, and changed color. Bethel would give no explanation, and moved away; but James told Dill that Levison was the man Thorn who used to be after Afy Hallijohn.”

“How did you know?” breathlessly asked Barbara.

“Because Mr. Ebenezer was after Afy himself, and repeatedly saw Thorn in the wood. Barbara, I believe now that it was Levison who killed Hallijohn, but I should like to know what Bethel had to do with it.”

Barbara clasped her hands. “How strange it is!” she exclaimed, in some excitement. “Mamma told me, yesterday, that she was convinced something or other was going to turn up relative to the murder. She had had the most distressing dream, she said, connected with Richard and Bethel, and somebody else, whom she appeared to know in the dream, but could not recognize or remember when she was awake. She was as ill as could be—she does put such faith in these wretched dreams.”

“One would think you did also, Barbara, by your vehemence.”

“No, no; you know better. But it is strange—you must acknowledge that it is—that, so sure as anything fresh happens touching the subject of the murder, so sure is a troubled dream the forerunner of it. Mamma does not have them at other times. Bethel denied to you that he knew Thorn.”

“I know he did.”

“And now it turns out that he does know him, and he is always in mamma’s dreams—none more prominent in them than Bethel. But, Archibald, I am not telling you—I have sent for Richard.”

“You have?”

“I felt sure that Levison was Thorn. I did not expect that others would recognize him, and I acted on the impulse of the moment and wrote to Richard, telling him to be here on Saturday evening. The letter is gone.”

“Well, we must shelter him as best we can.”

“Archibald—dear Archibald, what can be done to clear him?” she asked, the tears rising to her eyes.

“Being Levison, I cannot act.”

“What!” she uttered. “Not act—not act for Richard!”

He bent his clear, truthful eyes upon her.

“My dearest, how can I?”

She looked a little rebellious, and the tears fell.

“You have not considered, Barbara. Any one in the world but Levison; it would look like my own revenge.”

“Forgive me!” she softly whispered. “You are always right. I did not think of it in that light. But, what steps do you imagine can be taken?”

“It is a case encompassed with difficulties,” mused Mr. Carlyle. “Let us wait until Richard comes.”

“Do you happen to have a five-pound note in your pocket, Archibald? I had not one to send to him, and borrowed it from Madame Vine.”

He took out his pocket book and gave it to her.

In the gray parlor, in the dark twilight of the April evening—or it was getting far into the night—were William Carlyle and Lady Isabel. It had been a warm day, but the spring evenings were still chilly, and a fire burned in the grate. There was no blaze, the red embers were smoldering and half dead, but Madame Vine did not bestir herself to heed the fire. William lay on the sofa, and she sat by, looking at him. Her glasses were off, for the tears wetted them continually; and it was not the recognition of the children she feared. He was tired with the drive to Lynneborough and back, and lay with eyes shut; she thought asleep. Presently he opened them.

“How long will it be before I die?”

The words took her utterly by surprise, and her heart went round in a whirl. “What do you mean, William? Who said anything about dying?”

“Oh, I know. I know by the fuss there is over me. You heard what Hannah said the other night.”

“What? When?”

“When she brought in the tea, and I was lying on the rug. I was not asleep, though you thought I was. You told her she ought to be more cautious, for that I might not have been asleep.”

“I don’t remember much about it,” said Lady Isabel, at her wits’ ends how to remove the impression Hannah’s words must have created, had he indeed heard them. “Hannah talks great nonsense sometimes.”

“She said I was going on fast to the grave.”

“Did she? Nobody attends to Hannah. She is only a foolish girl. We shall soon have you well, when the warm weather comes.”

“Madame Vine.”

“Well, my darling?”

“Where’s the use of your trying to deceive me? Do you think I don’t see that you are doing it? I’m not a baby; you might if it were Archibald. What is it that’s the matter with me?”

“Nothing. Only you are not strong. When you get strong again, you will be as well as ever.”

William shook his head in disbelief. He was precisely that sort of child from whom it is next to impossible to disguise facts; quick, thoughtful, observant, and advanced beyond his years. Had no words been dropped in his hearing, he would have suspected the evil, by the care evinced for him, but plenty of words had been dropped; hints, by which he had gathered suspicion; broad assertions, like Hannah’s, which had too fully supplied it; and the boy in his inmost heart, knew as well that death was coming for him as that death itself did.

“Then, if there’s nothing the matter with me, why could not Dr. Martin speak to you before me to-day? Why did he send me into the other room while he told you what he thought? Ah, Madame Vine, I am as wise as you.”

“A wise little boy, but mistaken sometimes,” she said from her aching heart.

“It’s nothing to die, when God loves us. Lord Vane says so. He had a little brother who died.”

“A sickly child, who was never likely to live, he had been pale and ailing from a baby,” spoke Lady Isabel.

“Why! Did you know him?”

“I—I heard so,” she replied, turning off her thoughtless avowal in the best manner she could.

“Don’t you know that I am going to die?”

“No.”

“Then why have you been grieving since we left Dr. Martin’s? And why do you grieve at all for me? I am not your child.”

The words, the scene altogether, overcame her. She knelt down by the sofa, and her tears burst forth freely. “There! You see!” cried William.

“Oh, William, I—I had a little boy of my own, and when I look at you, I think of him, and that is why I cry.”

“I know. You have told us of him before. His name was William, too.”

She leaned over him, her breath mingling with his; she took his little hand in hers; “William, do you know that those whom God loves best He takes first? Were you to die, you would go to Heaven, leaving all the cares and sorrows of the world behind you. It would have been happier for many of us had we died in infancy.”

“Would it have been happier for you?”

“Yes,” she faintly said. “I have had more than my share of sorrow. Sometimes I think that I cannot support it.”

“Is it not past, then? Do you have sorrow now?”

“I have it always. I shall have it till I die. Had I died a child, William, I should have escaped it. Oh! The world is full of it! full and full.”

“What sort of sorrow?”

“All sorts. Pain, sickness, care, trouble, sin, remorse, weariness,” she wailed out. “I cannot enumerate the half that the world brings upon us. When you are very, very tired, William, does it not seem a luxury, a sweet happiness, to lie down at night in your little bed, waiting for the bliss of sleep?”

“Yes. And I am often tired; so tired as that.”

“Then just so do we, who are tired of the world’s cares, long for the grave in which we shall lie down to rest. We covet it, William; long for it; but you cannot understand that.”

“We don’t lie in the grave, Madame Vine.”

“No, no, child. Our bodies lie there, to be raised again in beauty at the last day. We go into a blessed place of rest, where sorrow and pain cannot come. I wish—I wish,” she uttered, with a bursting heart, “that you and I were both there!”

“Who says the world’s so sorrowful, Madame Vine? I think it is lovely, especially when the sun’s shining on a hot day, and the butterflies come out. You should see East Lynne on a summer’s morning, when you are running up and down the slopes, and the trees are waving overhead, and the sky’s blue, and the roses and flowers are all out. You would not call it a sad world.”

“A pleasant world one might regret to leave if we were not wearied by pain and care. But, what is this world, take it at its best, in comparison with that other world, Heaven? I have heard of some people who are afraid of death; they fear they shall not go to it; but when God takes a little child there it is because He loves him. It is a land, as Mrs. Barbauld says, where the roses are without thorns, where the flowers are not mixed with brambles—”

“I have seen the flowers,” interrupted William, rising in his earnestness. “They are ten times brighter than our flowers here.”

“Seen the flowers! The flowers we shall see in Heaven?” she echoed.

“I have seen a picture of them. We went to Lynneborough to see Martin’s picture of the Last Judgment—I don’t mean Dr. Martin,” said William interrupting himself.

“I know.”

“There were three pictures. One was called the ‘Plains of Heaven,’ and I liked that best; and so we all did. Oh, you should have seen it! Did you ever see them, Madame Vine?”

“No. I have heard of them.”

“There was a river, you know, and boats, beautiful gondolas they looked, taking the redeemed to the shores of Heaven. They were shadowy figures in white robes, myriads of them, for they reached all up in the air to the holy city; it seemed to be in the clouds coming down from God. The flowers grew on the banks of the river, pink, and blue, and violet, all colors they were, but so bright and beautiful; brighter than our flowers are.”

“Who took you to see the pictures?”

“Papa. He took me and Lucy; and Mrs. Hare went with us, and Barbara—she was not our mamma then. But, madame”—dropping his voice—“what stupid thing do you think Lucy asked papa?”

“What did she ask him?”

“She asked whether mamma was amongst that crowd in the white robes; whether she was gone up to Heaven? Our mamma that was, you know, and lots of people could hear what she said.”

Lady Isabel dropped her face upon her hands.

“What did your papa answer?” she breathed.

“I don’t know. Nothing, I think; he was talking to Barbara. But it was very stupid of Lucy, because Wilson has told her over and over again that she must never talk of Lady Isabel to papa. Miss Manning told her so too. When we got home, and Wilson heard of it, she said Lucy deserved a good shaking.”