Devereux — Complete

I think I see Isora now, as she stood by the window which she had opened, with a woman’s minute anxiety, to survey even the aspect of the clouds, and beseech caution against the treachery of the skies. I think I see her now, as she stood the moment after I had torn myself from her embrace, and had looked back, as I reached the door, for one parting glance,—her eyes all tenderness, her lips parted, and quivering with the attempt to smile, the long, glossy ringlets (through whose raven hue the purpureum lumen broke like an imprisoned sunbeam) straying in dishevelled beauty over her transparent neck; the throat bent in mute despondency; the head drooping; the arms half extended, and dropping gradually as my steps departed; the sunken, absorbed expression of face, form, and gesture, so steeped in the very bitterness of dejection,—all are before me now, sorrowful, and lovely in sorrow, as they were beheld years ago, by the gray, cold, comfortless light of morning!

“God bless you,—my own, own love,” I said; and as my look lingered, I added, with a full but an assured heart; “and He will!” I tarried no more: I flung myself on my horse, and rode on as if I were speeding to, and not from, my bride.

The noon was far advanced, as, the day after I left Isora, I found myself entering the park in which Devereux Court is situated. I did not enter by one of the lodges, but through a private gate. My horse was thoroughly jaded; for the distance I had come was great, and I had ridden rapidly; and as I came into the park, I dismounted, and, throwing the rein over my arm, proceeded slowly on foot. I was passing through a thick, long plantation, which belted the park and in which several walks and rides had been cut, when a man crossed the same road which I took, at a little distance before me. He was looking on the ground, and appeared wrapt in such earnest meditation that he neither saw nor heard me. But I had seen enough of him, in that brief space of time, to feel convinced that it was Montreuil whom I beheld. What brought him hither, him, whom I believed in London, immersed with Gerald in political schemes, and for whom these woods were not only interdicted ground, but to whom they must have also been but a tame field of interest, after his audiences with ministers and nobles? I did not, however, pause to consider on his apparition; I rather quickened my pace towards the house, in the expectation of there ascertaining the cause of his visit.

The great gates of the outer court were open as usual: I rode unheedingly through them, and was soon at the door of the hall. The porter, who unfolded to my summons the ponderous door, uttered, when he saw me, an exclamation that seemed to my ear to have in it more of sorrow than welcome.

“How is your master?” I asked.

The man shook his head, but did not hasten to answer; and, impressed with a vague alarm, I hurried on without repeating the question. On the staircase I met old Nicholls, my uncle’s valet; I stopped and questioned him. My uncle had been seized on the preceding day with gout in the stomach; medical aid had been procured, but it was feared ineffectually, and the physicians had declared, about an hour before I arrived, that he could not, in human probability, outlive the night. Stifling the rising at my heart, I waited to hear no more: I flew up the stairs; I was at the door of my uncle’s chamber; I stopped there, and listened; all was still; I opened the door gently; I stole in, and, creeping to the bedside, knelt down and covered my face with my hands; for I required a pause for self-possession, before I had courage to look up. When I raised my eyes, I saw my mother on the opposite side; she sat on a chair with a draught of medicine in one hand, and a watch in the other. She caught my eye, but did not speak; she gave me a sign of recognition, and looked down again upon the watch. My uncle’s back was turned to me, and he lay so still that, for some moments, I thought he was asleep; at last, however, he moved restlessly.

“It is past noon!” said he to my mother, “is it not?”

“It is three minutes and six seconds after four,” replied my mother, looking closer at the watch.

My uncle sighed. “They have sent an express for the dear boy, Madam?” said he.

“Exactly at half-past nine last evening,” answered my mother, glancing at me.

“He could scarcely be here by this time,” said my uncle, and he moved again in the bed. “Pish, how the pillow frets one!”

“Is it too high?” said my mother.

“No,” said my uncle, faintly, “no—no—the discomfort is not in the pillow, after all: ‘tis a fine day; is it not?”

“Very!” said my mother; “I wish you could go out.”

My uncle did not answer: there was a pause. “Ods fish, Madam, are those carriage wheels?”

“No, Sir William—but—”

“There are sounds in my ear; my senses grow dim,” said my uncle, unheeding her: “would that I might live another day; I should not like to die without seeing him. ‘Sdeath, Madam, I do hear something behind!—Sobs, as I live!—Who sobs for the old knight?” and my uncle turned round, and saw me.

“My dear—dear uncle!” I said, and could say no more.

“Ah, Morton,” cried the kind old man, putting his hand affectionately upon mine. “Beshrew me, but I think I have conquered the grim enemy now that you are come. But what’s this, my boy?—tears—tears,—why, little Sid—no, nor Rochester either, would ever have believed this if I had sworn it! Cheer up, cheer up.”

But, seeing that I wept and sobbed the more, my uncle, after a pause, continued in the somewhat figurative strain which the reader has observed he sometimes adopted, and which perhaps his dramatic studies had taught him.

“Nay, Morton, what do you grieve for?—that Age should throw off its fardel of aches and pains, and no longer groan along its weary road, meeting cold looks and unwilling welcomes, as both host and comrade grow weary of the same face, and the spendthrift heart has no longer quip or smile wherewith to pay the reckoning? No, no: let the poor pedler shuffle off his dull pack, and fall asleep. But I am glad you are come: I would sooner have one of your kind looks at your uncle’s stale saws or jests than all the long faces about me, saving only the presence of your mother;” and with his characteristic gallantry, my uncle turned courteously to her.

“Dear Sir William!” said she, “it is time you should take your draught; and then would it not be better that you should see the chaplain? he waits without.”

“Ods fish,” said my uncle, turning again to me, “‘tis the way with them all: when the body is past hope comes the physician, and when the soul is past mending comes the priest. No, Madam, no, ‘tis too late for either.—Thank ye, Morton, thank ye” (as I started up—took the draught from my mother’s hand, and besought him to drink it), “‘tis of no use; but if it pleases thee, I must,”—and he drank the medicine.

My mother rose, and walked towards the door: it was ajar; and, as my eye followed her figure, I perceived, through the opening, the black garb of the chaplain.

“Not yet,” said she, quietly; “wait.” And then gliding away, seated herself by the window in silence, and told her beads.

My uncle continued: “They have been at me, Morton, as if I had been a pagan; and I believe, in their hearts, they are not a little scandalized that I don’t try to win the next world by trembling like an ague. Faith now, I never could believe that Heaven was so partial to cowards; nor can I think, Morton, that Salvation is like a soldier’s muster-roll, and that we may play the devil between hours, so that, at the last moment, we whip in, and answer to our names. Ods fish, Morton, I could tell thee a tale of that; but ‘tis a long one, and we have not time now. Well, well, for my part, I deem reverently and gratefully of God, and do not believe He will be very wroth with our past enjoyment of life, if we have taken care that others should enjoy it too; nor do I think, with thy good mother, and Aubrey, dear child! that an idle word has the same weight in the Almighty’s scales as a wicked deed.”

“Blessed, blessed, are they,” I cried through my tears, “on whose souls there is as little stain as there is on yours!”

“Faith, Morton, that’s kindly said; and thou knowest not how strangely it sounds, after their exhortations to repentance. I know I have had my faults, and walked on to our common goal in a very irregular line; but I never wronged the living nor slandered the dead, nor ever shut my heart to the poor,—‘t were a burning sin if I had,—and I have loved all men and all things, and I never bore ill-will to a creature. Poor Ponto, Morton, thou wilt take care of poor Ponto, when I’m dead,—nay, nay, don’t grieve so. Go, my child, go: compose thyself while I see the priest, for ‘t will please thy poor mother; and though she thinks harshly of me now, I should not like her to do so to-morrow! Go, my dear boy, go.”

I went from the room, and waited by the door, till the office of the priest was over. My mother then came out, and said Sir William had composed himself to sleep. While she was yet speaking, Gerald surprised me by his appearance. I learned that he had been in the house for the last three days, and when I heard this, I involuntarily accounted for the appearance of Montreuil. I saluted him distantly, and he returned my greeting with the like pride. He seemed, however, though in a less degree, to share in my emotions; and my heart softened to him for it. Nevertheless we stood apart, and met not as brothers should have met by the death-bed of a mutual benefactor.

“Will you wait without?” said my mother.

“No,” answered I, “I will watch over him.” So I stole in, with a light step, and seated myself by my uncle’s bed-side. He was asleep, and his sleep was as hushed and quiet as an infant’s. I looked upon his face, and saw a change had come over it, and was increasing sensibly: but there was neither harshness nor darkness in the change, awful as it was. The soul, so long nurtured on benevolence, could not, in parting, leave a rude stamp on the kindly clay which had seconded its impulses so well.

The evening had just set in, when my uncle woke; he turned very gently, and smiled when he saw me.

“It is late,” said he, and I observed with a wrung heart, that his voice was fainter.

“No, Sir, not very,” said I.

“Late enough, my child; the warm sun has gone down; and ‘tis a good time to close one’s eyes, when all without looks gray and chill: methinks it is easier to wish thee farewell, Morton, when I see thy face indistinctly. I am glad I shall not die in the daytime. Give me thy hand, my child, and tell me that thou art not angry with thine old uncle for thwarting thee in that love business. I have heard tales of the girl, too, which made me glad, for thy sake, that it is all off, though I might not tell thee of them before. ‘Tis very dark, Morton. I have had a pleasant sleep. Ods fish, I do not think a bad man would have slept so well. The fire burns dim, Morton: it is very cold. Cover me up; double the counterpane over the legs, Morton. I remember once walking in the Mall; little Sid said, ‘Devereux’—it is colder and colder, Morton; raise the blankets more over the back; ‘Devereux,’ said little Sid—faith, Morton, ‘tis ice now—where art thou?—is the fire out, that I can’t see thee? Remember thine old uncle, Morton—and—and—don’t forget poor—Ponto. Bless thee, my child; bless you all!”

And my uncle died!

CHAPTER III

A GREAT CHANGE OF PROSPECTS

I SHUT myself up in the apartments prepared for me (they were not those I had formerly occupied), and refused all participation in my solitude, till, after an interval of some days, my mother came to summon me to the opening of the will. She was more moved than I had expected. “It is a pity,” said she, as we descended the stairs, “that Aubrey is not here, and that we should be so unacquainted with the exact place where he is likely to be that I fear the letter I sent him may be long delayed, or, indeed, altogether miscarry.”

“Is not the Abbe here?” said I, listlessly.

“No!” answered my mother, “to be sure not.”

“He has been here,” said I, greatly surprised. “I certainly saw him on the day of my arrival.”

“Impossible!” said my mother, in evident astonishment; and seeing that, at all events, she was unacquainted with the circumstance, I said no more.

The will was to be read in the little room where my uncle had been accustomed to sit. I felt it as a sacrilege to his memory to choose that spot for such an office, but I said nothing. Gerald and my mother, the lawyer (a neighbouring attorney, named Oswald), and myself were the only persons present. Mr. Oswald hemmed thrice, and broke the seal. After a preliminary, strongly characteristic of the testator, he came to the disposition of the estates. I had never once, since my poor uncle’s death, thought upon the chances of his will; indeed, knowing myself so entirely his favourite, I could not, if I had thought upon them, have entertained a doubt as to their result. What then was my astonishment when, couched in terms of the strongest affection, the whole bulk of the property was bequeathed to Gerald; to Aubrey the sum of forty, to myself that of twenty thousand pounds (a capital considerably less than the yearly income of my uncle’s princely estates), was allotted. Then followed a list of minor bequests,—to my mother an annuity of three thousand a year, with the privilege of apartments in the house during her life; to each of the servants legacies sufficient for independence; to a few friends, and distant connections of the family, tokens of the testator’s remembrance,—even the horses to his carriage, and the dogs that fed from his menials’ table, were not forgotten, but were to be set apart from work, and maintained in indolence during their remaining span of life. The will was concluded: I could not believe my senses; not a word was said as a reason for giving Gerald the priority.

I rose calmly enough. “Suffer me, Sir,” said I to the lawyer, “to satisfy my own eyes.” Mr. Oswald bowed, and placed the will in my hands. I glanced at Gerald as I took it: his countenance betrayed, or feigned, an astonishment equal to my own. With a jealous, searching, scrutinizing eye, I examined the words of the bequest; I examined especially (for I suspected that the names must have been exchanged) the place in which my name and Gerald’s occurred. In vain: all was smooth and fair to the eye, not a vestige of possible erasure or alteration was visible. I looked next at the wording of the will: it was evidently my uncle’s; no one could have feigned or imitated the peculiar turn of his expressions; and, above all, many parts of the will (the affectionate and personal parts) were in his own handwriting.

“The date,” said I, “is, I perceive, of very recent period; the will is signed by two witnesses besides yourself. Who and where are they?”

“Robert Lister, the first signature, my clerk; he is since dead, Sir.”

“Dead!” said I; “and the other witness, George Davis?”

“Is one of Sir William’s tenants, and is below, Sir, in waiting.”

“Let him come up,” and a middle-sized, stout man, with a blunt, bold, open countenance, was admitted.

“Did you witness this will?” said I.

“I did, your honour!”

“And this is your handwriting?” pointing to the scarcely legible scrawl.

“Yees, your honour,” said the man, scratching his head, “I think it be; they are my ees, and G, and D, sure enough.”

“And do you know the purport of the will you signed?”

“Anan!”

“I mean, do you know to whom Sir William—stop, Mr. Oswald, suffer the man to answer me—to whom Sir William left his property?”

“Noa, to be sure, Sir; the will was a woundy long one, and Maister Oswald there told me it was no use to read it over to me, but merely to sign, as a witness to Sir William’s handwriting.”

“Enough: you may retire;” and George Davis vanished.

“Mr. Oswald,” said I, approaching the attorney, “I may wrong you, and if so, I am sorry for it, but I suspect there has been foul practice in this deed. I have reason to be convinced that Sir William Devereux could never have made this devise. I give you warning, Sir, that I shall bring the business immediately before a court of law, and that if guilty—ay, tremble, Sir—of what I suspect, you will answer for this deed at the foot of the gallows.”

I turned to Gerald, who rose while I was yet speaking. Before I could address him, he exclaimed, with evident and extreme agitation,

“You cannot, Morton,—you cannot—you dare not—insinuate that I, your brother, have been base enough to forge, or to instigate the forgery of, this will?”

Gerald’s agitation made me still less doubtful of his guilt.

“The case, Sir,” I answered coldly, “stands thus: my uncle could not have made this will; it is a devise that must seem incredible to all who knew aught of our domestic circumstances. Fraud has been practised, how I know not; by whom I do know.”

“Morton, Morton: this is insufferable; I cannot bear such charges, even from a brother.”

“Charges!—your conscience speaks, Sir,—not I; no one benefits by this fraud but you: pardon me if I draw an inference from a fact.”

So saying, I turned on my heel, and abruptly left the apartment. I ascended the stairs which led to my own: there I found my servant preparing the paraphernalia in which that very evening I was to attend my uncle’s funeral. I gave him, with a calm and collected voice, the necessary instructions for following me to town immediately after that event, and then I passed on to the room where the deceased lay in state. The room was hung with black: the gorgeous pall, wrought with the proud heraldry of our line, lay over the coffin; and by the lights which made, in that old chamber, a more brilliant, yet more ghastly, day, sat the hired watchers of the dead.

I bade them leave me, and kneeling down beside the coffin, I poured out the last expressions of my grief. I rose, and was retiring once more to my room, when I encountered Gerald.

“Morton,” said he, “I own to you, I myself am astounded by my uncle’s will. I do not come to make you offers; you would not accept them: I do not come to vindicate myself, it is beneath me; and we have never been as brothers, and we know not their language: but I do come to demand you to retract the dark and causeless suspicions you have vented against me, and also to assure you that, if you have doubts of the authenticity of the will, so far from throwing obstacles in your way, I myself will join in the inquiries you institute and the expenses of the law.”

I felt some difficulty in curbing my indignation while Gerald thus spoke. I saw before me the persecutor of Isora, the fraudulent robber of my rights, and I heard this enemy speak to me of aiding in the inquiries which were to convict himself of the basest, if not the blackest, of human crimes; there was something too in the reserved and yet insolent tone of his voice which, reminding me as it did of our long aversion to each other, made my very blood creep with abhorrence. I turned away, that I might not break my oath to Isora, for I felt strongly tempted to do so; and said in as calm an accent as I could command, “The case will, I trust, require no king’s evidence; and, at least, I will not be beholden to the man whom my reason condemns for any assistance in bringing upon himself the ultimate condemnation of the law.”

Gerald looked at me sternly. “Were you not my brother,” said he, in a low tone, “I would, for a charge so dishonouring my fair name, strike you dead at my feet.”

“It is a wonderful exertion of fraternal love,” I rejoined, with a scornful laugh, but an eye flashing with passions a thousand times more fierce than scorn, “that prevents your adding that last favour to those you have already bestowed on me.”

Gerald, with a muttered curse, placed his hand upon his sword; my own rapier was instantly half drawn, when, to save us from the great guilt of mortal contest against each other, steps were heard, and a number of the domestics charged with melancholy duties at the approaching rite, were seen slowly sweeping in black robes along the opposite gallery. Perhaps that interruption restored both of us to our senses, for we said, almost in the same breath, and nearly in the same phrase, “This way of terminating strife is not for us;” and, as Gerald spoke, he turned slowly away, descended the staircase, and disappeared.

The funeral took place at night: a numerous procession of the tenants and peasantry attended. My poor uncle! there was not a dry eye for thee, but those of thine own kindred. Tall, stately, erect in the power and majesty of his unrivalled form, stood Gerald, already assuming the dignity and lordship which, to speak frankly, so well became him; my mother’s face was turned from me, but her attitude proclaimed her utterly absorbed in prayer. As for myself, my heart seemed hardened: I could not betray to the gaze of a hundred strangers the emotions which I would have hidden from those whom I loved the most. Wrapped in my cloak, with arms folded on my breast, and eyes bent to the ground, I leaned against one of the pillars of the chapel, apart, and apparently unmoved.

But when they were about to lower the body into the vault, a momentary weakness came over me. I made an involuntary step forward, a single but deep groan of anguish broke from me, and then, covering my face with my mantle, I resumed my former attitude, and all was still. The rite was over; in many and broken groups the spectators passed from the chapel: some to speculate on the future lord, some to mourn over the late, and all to return the next morning to their wonted business, and let the glad sun teach them to forget the past, until for themselves the sun should be no more, and the forgetfulness eternal.

The hour was so late that I relinquished my intention of leaving the house that night; I ordered my horse to be in readiness at daybreak and before I retired to rest I went to my mother’s apartments: she received me with more feeling than she had ever testified before.

“Believe me, Morton,” said she, and she kissed my forehead; “believe me, I can fully enter into the feelings which you must naturally experience on an event so contrary to your expectations. I cannot conceal from you how much I am surprised. Certainly Sir William never gave any of us cause to suppose that he liked either of your brothers—Gerald less than Aubrey—so much as yourself; nor, poor man, was he in other things at all addicted to conceal his opinions.”

“It is true, my mother,” said I; “it is true. Have you not therefore some suspicions of the authenticity of the will?”

“Suspicions!” cried my mother. “No!—impossible!—suspicions of whom? You could not think Gerald so base, and who else had an interest in deception? Besides, the signature is undoubtedly Sir William’s handwriting, and the will was regularly witnessed; suspicions, Morton,—no, impossible! Reflect, too, how eccentric and humoursome your uncle always was: suspicions!—no, impossible!”

“Such things have been, my mother, nor are they uncommon: men will hazard their souls, ay, and what to some are more precious still, their lives too, for the vile clay we call money. But enough of this now: the Law,—that great arbiter,—that eater of the oyster, and divider of its shells,—the Law will decide between us, and if against me, as I suppose and fear the decision will be,—why, I must be a suitor to fortune instead of her commander. Give me your blessing, my dearest mother: I cannot stay longer in this house; to-morrow I leave you.”

And my mother did bless me, and I fell upon her neck and clung to it. “Ah!” thought I, “this blessing is almost worth my uncle’s fortune.”