Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434

A low, chuckling laugh, close at my elbow, caused me to turn quickly towards the door. Just within the threshold stood Mr Renshawe, looking like a white stone-image rather than a living man, but for the fierce sparkling of his strangely gleaming eyes, and the mocking, triumphant curl of his lips. 'You, too, have at last observed it, then?' he muttered, faintly echoing the under-tone in which I spoke: 'I have known the truth for many weeks.' The manner, the expression, not the words, quite startled me. At the same moment, a cry of women rang through the room, and I immediately seized Mr Renshawe by the arm, and drew him forcibly away, for there was that in his countenance which should not meet the eyes of a dying man.

'What were you saying? What truth have you known for weeks?' I asked, as soon as we had reached his sitting-room.

Before he could answer, another wailing sound ascended from the sick-room. Lightning leaped from Renshawe's lustrous, dilated eyes, and the exulting laugh again, but louder, burst from his lips: 'Ha! ha!' he fiercely exclaimed. 'I know that cry! It is Death's!—Death's! Thrice-blessed Death, whom I have so often ignorantly cursed! But that,' he added quickly, and peering sharply in my face, 'was when, as you know, people said'—and he ground his teeth with rage—'people said I was crazed—mad!'

'What can you mean by this wild talk, my friend?' I replied in as unconcerned and quieting a tone as I could immediately assume. 'Come, sit down: I was asking the meaning of your strange words below, just now.'

'The meaning of my words? You know as well as I do. Look there!'

'At the painting? Well?'

'You have seen the original,' he went on with the same excited tone and gestures. 'It crossed me like a flash of lightning. Still, it is strange she does not know me. It is sure she does not! But I am changed, no doubt—sadly changed!' he added, dejectedly, as he looked in a mirror.

'Can you mean that I have seen Laura Hargreaves here?' I stammered, thoroughly bewildered. 'She who was drowned ten or eleven years ago?'

'To be sure—to be sure! It was so believed, I admit, by everybody—by myself, and the belief drove me mad! And yet, I now remember, when at times I was calm—when the pale face, blind staring eyes, and dripping hair, ceased for awhile to pursue and haunt me, the low, sweet voice and gentle face came back, and I knew she lived, though all denied it. But look, it is her very image!' he added fiercely, his glaring eyes flashing from the portrait to my face alternately.

'Whose image?'

'Whose image!—Why, Mrs Irwin's, to be sure. You yourself admitted it just now.' I was so confounded, that for several minutes I remained stupidly and silently staring at the man. At length I said: 'Well, there is a likeness, though not so great as I imagined'–

'It is false!' he broke in furiously. 'It is her very self.'

'We'll talk of that to-morrow. You are ill, overexcited, and must go to bed. I hear Dr Garland's voice below: he shall come to you.'

'No—no—no!' he almost screamed. 'Send me no doctors; I hate doctors! But I'll go to bed—since—since you wish it; but no doctors! Not for the world!' As he spoke, he shrank coweringly backwards, out of the room; his wavering, unquiet eyes fixed upon mine as long as we remained within view of each other: a moment afterwards, I heard him dart into his chamber, and bolt and double-lock the door.

It was plain that lunacy, but partially subdued, had resumed its former mastery over the unfortunate gentleman. But what an extraordinary delusion! I took a candle, and examined the picture with renewed curiosity. It certainly bore a strong resemblance to Mrs Irwin: the brown, curling hair, the pensive eyes, the pale fairness of complexion, were the same; but it was scarcely more girlish, more youthful, than the young matron was now, and the original, had she lived, would have been by this time approaching to thirty years of age! I went softly down stairs and found, as I feared, that George Irwin was gone. My wife came weeping out of the death-chamber, accompanied by Dr Garland, to whom I forthwith related what had just taken place. He listened with attention and interest; and after some sage observations upon the strange fancies which now and then take possession of the minds of monomaniacs, agreed to see Mr Renshawe at ten the next morning. I was not required upon duty till eleven; and if it were in the physician's opinion desirable, I was to write at once to the patient's uncle, Mr Oxley.

Mr Renshawe was, I heard, stirring before seven o'clock, and the charwoman informed me, that he had taken his breakfast as usual, and appeared to be in cheerful, almost high spirits. The physician was punctual: I tapped at the sitting-room door, and was desired to come in. Mr Renshawe was seated at a table with some papers before him, evidently determined to appear cool and indifferent. He could not, however, repress a start of surprise, almost of terror, at the sight of the physician, and a paleness, followed by a hectic flush, passed quickly over his countenance. I observed, too, that the portrait was turned with its face towards the wall.

By a strong effort, Mr Renshawe regained his simulated composure, and in reply to Dr Garland's professional inquiry, as to the state of his health, said with a forced laugh: 'My friend, Waters, has, I suppose, been amusing you with the absurd story that made him stare so last night. It is exceedingly droll, I must say, although many persons, otherwise acute enough, cannot, except upon reflection, comprehend a jest. There was John Kemble, the tragedian, for instance, who'–

'Never mind John Kemble, my dear sir,' interrupted Dr Garland. 'Do, pray, tell us the story over again. I love an amusing jest.'

Mr Renshawe hesitated for an instant, and then said with reserve, almost dignity of manner: 'I do not know, sir'—his face, by the way, was determinedly averted from the cool, searching gaze of the physician—'I do not know, sir, that I am obliged to find you in amusement; and as your presence here was not invited, I shall be obliged by your leaving the room as quickly as maybe.'

'Certainly—certainly, sir. I am exceedingly sorry to have intruded, but I am sure you will permit me to have a peep at this wonderful portrait.'

Renshawe sprang impulsively forward to prevent the doctor reaching it. He was too late; and Dr Garland, turning sharply round with the painting in his hand, literally transfixed him in an attitude of surprise and consternation. Like the Ancient Mariner, he held him by his glittering eye, but the spell was not an enduring one. 'Truly,' remarked Dr Garland, as he found the kind of mesmeric influence he had exerted beginning to fail, 'not so very bad a chance resemblance; especially about the eyes and mouth'–

'This is very extraordinary conduct,' broke in Mr Renshawe; 'and I must again request that you will both leave the room.'

It was useless to persist, and we almost immediately went away. 'Your impression, Mr Waters,' said the physician as he was leaving the house, 'is, I daresay, the true one; but he is on his guard now, and it will be prudent to wait for a fresh outbreak before acting decisively; more especially as the hallucination appears to be quite a harmless one.'

This was not, I thought, quite so sure, but of course I acquiesced, as in duty bound; and matters went on pretty much as usual for seven or eight weeks, except that Mr Renshawe manifested much aversion towards myself personally, and at last served me with a written notice to quit at the end of the term previously stipulated for. There was still some time to that; and in the meanwhile, I caused a strict watch to be set, as far as was practicable, without exciting observation, upon our landlord's words and acts.

Ellen Irwin's first tumult of grief subsided, the next and pressing question related to her own and infant son's subsistence. An elderly man of the name of Tomlins was engaged as foreman; and it was hoped the business might still be carried on with sufficient profit. Mr Renshawe's manner, though at times indicative of considerable nervous irritability, was kind and respectful to the young widow; and I began to hope that the delusion he had for awhile laboured under had finally passed away.

The hope was a fallacious one. We were sitting at tea on a Sunday evening, when Mrs Irwin, pale and trembling with fright and nervous agitation, came hastily in with her little boy in her hand. I correctly divined what had occurred. In reply to my hurried questioning, the astounded young matron told me in substance, that within the last two or three days Mr Renshawe's strange behaviour and disjointed talk had both bewildered and alarmed her. He vaguely intimated that she, Ellen Irwin, was really Laura somebody else—that she had kept company with him, Mr Renshawe, in Yorkshire, before she knew poor George—with many other strange things he muttered rather than spoke out; and especially that it was owing to her son reminding her continually of his father, that she pretended not to have known Mr Renshawe twelve or thirteen years ago. 'In short,' added the young woman with tears and blushes, 'he is utterly crazed; for he asked me just now to marry him—which I would not do for the Indies—and is gone away in a passion to find a paper that will prove, he says, I am that other Laura something.'

There was something so ludicrous in all this, however vexatious and insulting under the circumstances—the recent death of the husband, and the young widow's unprotected state—that neither of us could forbear laughing at the conclusion of Mrs Irwin's story. It struck me, too, that Renshawe had conceived a real and ardent passion for the very comely and interesting person before us—first prompted, no doubt, by her accidental likeness to the portrait; and that some mental flaw or other caused him to confound her with the Laura who had in early life excited the same emotion in his mind.

Laughable as the matter was in one sense, there was—and the fair widow had noticed as well as myself—a serious, menacing expression in the man's eye not to be trifled with; and at her earnest request, we accompanied her to her own apartment, to which Renshawe had threatened soon to return. We had not been a minute in the room, when his hurried step was heard approaching, and Mrs Waters and I stepped hastily into an adjoining closet, where we could hear and partly see all that passed. Renshawe's speech trembled with fervency and anger as he broke at once into the subject with which his disordered brain was reeling.

'You will not dare to say, will you, that you do not remember this song—that these pencil-marks in the margin were not made by you thirteen years ago?' he menacingly ejaculated.

'I know nothing about the song, Mr Renshawe,' rejoined the young woman with more spirit than she might have exhibited but for my near presence. 'It is really such nonsense. Thirteen years ago, I was only about nine years of age.'

'You persist, then, unfeeling woman, in this cruel deception! After all, too, that I have suffered: the days of gloom, the nights of horror, since that fearful moment when I beheld you dragged, a lifeless corpse, from the water, and they told me you were dead!'

'Dead! Gracious goodness, Mr Renshawe, don't go on in this shocking way! I was never dragged out of a pond, nor supposed to be dead—never! You quite frighten one.'

'Then you and I, your sister, and that thrice-accursed Bedford, did not, on the 7th of August 1821, go for a sail on the piece of water at Lowfield, and the skiff was not, in the deadly, sudden, jealous strife between him and me, accidentally upset? But I know how it is: it is this brat, and the memories he recalls, that'–

Mrs Irwin screamed, and I stepped sharply into the room. The grasp of the lunatic was on the child's throat. I loosed it somewhat roughly, throwing him off with a force that brought him to the ground. He rose quickly, glared at me with tiger-like ferocity, and then darted out of the room. The affair had become serious, and the same night I posted a letter to Yorkshire, informing Mr Oxley of what had occurred, and suggesting the propriety of his immediately coming to London. Measures were also taken for securing Mrs Irwin and her son from molestation.

But the cunning of lunacy is not easily baffled. On returning home the fourth evening after the dispatch of my letter, I found the house and immediate neighbourhood in the wildest confusion. My own wife was in hysterics; Mrs Irwin, I was told by half-a-dozen tongues at once, was dying; and the frightful cause of all was, that little George Irwin, a favourite with everybody, had in some unaccountable manner fallen into the river Lea, and been drowned. This, at least, was the general conviction, although the river had been dragged to no purpose—the poor child's black beaver-hat and feather having been discovered floated to the bank, a considerable way down the stream. The body, it was thought, had been carried out into the Thames by the force of the current.

A terrible suspicion glanced across my mind. 'Where is Mr Renshawe?' I asked. Nobody knew. He had not been seen since five o'clock—about the time, I soon ascertained, that the child was missed. I had the house cleared, as quickly as possible, of the numerous gossips that crowded it, and then sought a conference with Dr Garland, who was with Mrs Irwin. The distracted mother had, I found, been profusely bled and cupped, and it was hoped that brain-fever, which had been apprehended, would not ensue. The physician's suspicions pointed the same way as mine; but he declined committing himself to any advice, and I was left to act according to my own discretion. I was new to such matters at that time—unfortunately so, as it proved, or the affair might have had a less painful issue.

Tomlins and I remained up, waiting for the return of Mr Renshawe; and as the long, slow hours limped past, the night-silence only broken by the dull moaning, and occasional spasmodic screams of poor Mrs Irwin, I grew very much excited. The prolonged absence of Mr Renshawe confirmed my impressions of his guilt, and I determined to tax him with it, and take him into custody the instant he appeared. It was two in the morning before he did so; and the nervous fumbling, for full ten minutes, with his latch-key, before he could open the door, quite prepared me for the spectral-like aspect he presented on entering. He had met somebody, it afterwards appeared, outside, who had assured him that the mother of the drowned child was either dead or dying. He never drank, I knew, but he staggered as if intoxicated; and after he had with difficulty reached the head of the stairs, in reply to my question as to where he had been, he could only stutter with white trembling lips: 'It—it—cannot be—be true—that Lau—that Mrs Irwin is—dying?'

'Quite true, Mr Renshawe,' I very imprudently replied, and in much too loud a tone, for we were but a few paces from Mrs Irwin's bedroom door. 'And if, as I suspect, the child has been drowned by you, you will have before long two murders on your head.'

A choking, bubbling noise came from the wretched man's throat, and his shaking fingers vainly strove to loosen his neck-tie. At the same moment, I heard a noise, as of struggling, in the bedroom, and the nurse's voice in eager remonstrance. I instantly made a movement towards Mr Renshawe, with a view to loosen his cravat—his features being frightfully convulsed, and to get him out of the way as quickly as possible, for I guessed what was about to happen—when he, mistaking my intention, started back, turned half round, and found himself confronted by Mrs Irwin, her pale features and white night-dress dabbled with blood, in consequence of a partial disturbance of the bandages in struggling with the nurse—a terrifying, ghastly sight even to me; to him utterly overwhelming, and scarcely needing her frenzied execrations on the murderer of her child to deprive him utterly of all remaining sense and strength. He suddenly reeled, threw his arms wildly into the air, and before I could stretch forth my hand to save him, fell heavily backwards from the edge of the steep stairs, where he was standing, to the bottom. Tomlins and I hastened to his assistance, lifted him up, and as we did so, a jet of blood gushed from his mouth; he had likewise received a terrible wound near the right temple, from which the life-stream issued copiously.

We got him to bed: Dr Garland and a neighbouring surgeon were soon with us, and prompt remedies were applied. It was a fruitless labour. Day had scarcely dawned before he heard from the physician's lips that life with him was swiftly ebbing to its close. He was perfectly conscious and collected. Happily there was no stain of murder on his soul: he had merely enticed the child away, and placed him, under an ingenious pretence, with an acquaintance at Camden-Town; and by this time both he and his mother were standing, awe-struck and weeping, by Henry Renshawe's deathbed. He had thrown the child's hat into the river, and his motive in thus acting appeared to have been a double one. In the first place, because he thought the boy's likeness to his father was the chief obstacle to Mrs Irwin's toleration of his addresses; and next, to bribe her into compliance by a promise to restore her son. But he could not be deemed accountable for his actions. 'I think,' he murmured brokenly, 'that the delusion was partly self-cherished, or of the Evil One. I observed the likeness long before, but it was not till the—the husband was dying, that the idea fastened itself upon my aching brain, and grew there. But the world is passing: forgive me—Ellen—Laura'–He was dead!

The inquest on the cause of death returned, of course, that it was 'accidental;' but I long regretted that I had not been less precipitate, though perhaps all was for the best—for the sufferer as well as others. Mr Oxley had died some five weeks previously. This I found from Renshawe's will, where it was recited as a reason that, having no relative alive for whom he cared, his property was bequeathed to Guy's Hospital, charged with L.100 a year to Ellen Irwin, as long as she lived unmarried. The document was perfectly coherent; and although written during the height of his monomania, contained not a word respecting the identity of the youthful widow and the Laura whose sad fate had first unsettled the testator's reason.

THE VINCEJO'S PRIZE

[This somewhat curious incident in the under-current of history, is given on the authority of Mr H. G. Austen, of New Square, Lincoln's Inn, to whom the facts were communicated by his father, Sir F. W. Austen, who commanded one of the ships under the orders of Sir George Cockburn on the occasion referred to in the narrative.]

It is well known that when the French republican armies were overrunning the north of Italy, and commencing that wholesale system of plunder which was afterwards carried out to such perfection by Napoleon's marshals, the then reigning Duke of Florence offered the magnificent collection of pictures which adorned the Pitti Palace, to the English nation for the comparatively small sum of L.100,000—a sum which, as the late George Robins might have said, with less than his customary exaggeration, was 'hardly the price of the frames, gentlemen.' Mr Pitt seems, unfortunately, to have been less sensible of the value of the collection than scrupulous of asking parliament for the money; and the opportunity was lost of redeeming the national character, by such a set-off against the republican dispersion of the noble collection of Charles I. This circumstance is well known; but it will probably be new to most of our readers to learn, that many of the best pictures which had thus failed to become British property 'by purchase,' narrowly missed becoming such 'by conquest;' and that, in fact, they were for some hours in British custody. Such, however, was the fact, and the following narrative of the circumstance alluded to may perhaps not be considered devoid of interest.

It was in the latter part of the year 1799, that a squadron of British men-of-war was cruising in the Gulf of Genoa. It was known that the French were on the point of evacuating Italy, and these ships had been detached from Lord Keith's fleet, to watch that part of the coast, and to intercept, as far as possible, all communication between the ports of Italy and France. The squadron consisted of four vessels, under the orders of the present admiral of the fleet, Sir George Cockburn, then Captain Cockburn, whose pendant was flying in the Minerve frigate. Whilst some of the vessels kept pretty close in, so as to cut off all communications alongshore, others kept a look-out more to seaward, for any vessels that might attempt to make a straight run across the bay. One afternoon, four sails were discovered to seaward running towards the coast of France. The signal to chase was immediately made, and each of the British cruisers started off in pursuit of one of the strangers. Our concern is with the Vincejo, a brig of eighteen guns, commanded by Captain Long, which happened, from her position, to be the most advanced in the chase. She was standing off-shore on the larboard tack, with her head to the south-west, when the chase was discovered somewhat to leeward, standing nearly due west, with the wind on her starboard-quarter. The latter was a smart-looking ship of 600 or 700 tons, displaying no colours; though from the course she was steering, and her evident intention to avoid being overhauled, no doubt was entertained that she was an enemy.

Both vessels sailed well; and as the stranger gradually edged away, the Vincejo got more and more into her wake. A stern chase is proverbially a long chase; and though it was apparent from the first that the British, though much smaller, was the faster vessel, it was many hours before she was enabled to get within range. About dusk, however, this was effected, and the first shot from the Vincejo produced an instantaneous effect on the chase: her head was thrown into the wind, and she appeared at once resigned to her fate. Great, of course, was the anxiety of the captors to learn her character, and comparatively keen the mortification which followed, when, in reply to their hail, the words 'the Hercules of Boston, in the United States,' were twanged across the water in unmistakable Yankee tones. Here was 'a lame and impotent conclusion.' England was at peace with the United States; and if the character of the stranger corresponded with her hail, she would prove after all no prize. The captors, however, were of course not to be put off without examination; and a boat was immediately despatched from the Vincejo to board, and see what could be made of her. The officer who was sent on board was received by the captain with a good deal of bluster and swagger: he loudly asserted his rights as a neutral, and threatened the vengeance of Congress if they should be infringed. His account of himself was, that he had come out from Boston with a cargo of 'notions,' which he had traded away at Leghorn; and finding some difficulty in getting a return cargo, he had agreed with some invalid French officers to take them home, and he was now bound for the first port in France he could make. This account appeared to be confirmed by his papers, and by the presence on board of several gaunt, sickly-looking figures, who had all the appearance of being military invalids. There were no visible signs of any cargo; and after a somewhat cursory examination, the lieutenant returned to his ship, after telling the skipper, more for the sake of annoyance than from any expectation of its being realised, 'that Captain Long would certainly detain him.'

This threat had the effect of determining the Yankee skipper to proceed on board the Vincejo, and try his eloquence on the captain; and in this expedition he was accompanied by some of his passengers. After their several natures they assailed Captain Long: the Yankee blustered and bullied; the Frenchmen were all suavity and politeness: 'They were quite sure M. le Capitaine was much too generous to take advantage of the chance which had thrown them into his hands—a few poor wounded and disabled invalids on their way home! The English were a brave people, who do not make war on invalids. What object could be gained by making them prisoners? Assuredly, M. le Capitaine would not think of detaining them.' Captain Long was sorely puzzled how to act. It must be owned, that the circumstances were suspicious. Here was a vessel just come from a port in possession of the enemy—for the French still occupied Leghorn—bound avowedly for the enemy's country, and with enemies on board. Were not these grounds enough to detain her? On the other hand, the captain's story might be true: no appearance of any cargo had been discovered; Captain Long doubted whether the presence of the Frenchmen on board would be sufficient to condemn the vessel; and there seemed something pitiful in making them prisoners under such circumstances, even if the laws of war would have sanctioned it. After some deliberation, he took a middle course, and announced that he should keep the American ship by him till daylight, when, if his senior officer should be in sight, he should take her down to him, to be dealt with as Captain Cockburn might decide: if, on the other hand, the Minerve should not be in sight, he would, on his own responsibility, allow the Hercules to proceed on her voyage. In the meantime, both vessels should return towards the point fixed on by Captain Cockburn as a rendezvous. 'And this,' he observed, 'ought to satisfy all parties, as the Hercules would be thereby brought nearer to her destination, which was more than her captain deserved, after the needless chase he had led the Vincejo.' This announcement seemed extremely unpalatable to the Yankee captain; and from a very energetic discussion which took place in under-tones between him and his passengers, it was evident they were dissuading him earnestly from some course which he was bent on taking. This was pointed out to Captain Long as an additional circumstance of suspicion, that there was something wrong about the American; and he was strongly urged to detain her, at all events, till he could get the opinion of Captain Cockburn: but he adhered to his decision. 'Ay, ay,' said he to the representations of his first-lieutenant; 'it's all very well for you, gentlemen. You share in the prize-money, but not in the responsibility of our captures; that rests upon me. And as I really think there is no ground for detaining the fellow, I'll not do more than I have said.'