Mark Hurdlestone Part 7

"Surely, surely," she thought, "he will never come. He has been too deeply injured to attend to a verbal summons from his unnatural brother."

Although strongly impressed that this would be the case, the desire of once more beholding the love of her youth, though forbidden to speak to him, or even to hear the sound of his voice, produced a state of feverish excitement in her mind which kept alive her fears, without totally annihilating hope.

The misty, grey dawn was slowly breaking along the distant hills, when Grenard Pike, mounted upon a cart-horse which he had borrowed for the occasion, leisurely paced down the broad avenue of oaks that led through the park to the high road. Methodical in all his movements, though life and death depended upon his journey, for no earthly inducement but a handsome donation in money would Grenard Pike have condescended to quicken his pace. This Elinor had it not in her power to bestow; and she calculated with impatience the many hours which must elapse before such a tardy messenger could reach Norgood Hall. Noon was the earliest period within the range of possibility; yet the sound of the horse's hoofs, striking against the frosty ground, still vibrated upon her ear when she took her station at the chamber window, to watch for the arrival of the man whose image a separation of nearly twenty years had not been able to obliterate from her heart. Such is the weakness of human nature, that we suffer imagination to outspeed time, and compress into one little moment the hopes, the fears, the antic.i.p.ations, and the events of years; but when the spoiler again overtakes us, we look back, and, forgetful of our former impatience to accelerate his pace, we are astonished at the rapidity of his flight.

Elinor thought that the long day would never come to a close; yet it was as dark and as short as a bleak, gloomy day in November could be.

Evening at length came, but brought no Algernon. Mr. Moore had paid his visit, and was gone. He expected nothing less than the death of his patient, after giving his consent to such an extraordinary event; and he had even condescended to take a draught and some pills from the doctor's hands. It is true that the sight of him, and the effects of the nauseous medicines he had administered, had put the miser into a fever of ill-temper; and he sullenly watched his wife, as she lingered hour after hour at the window, till, in no very gentle accents, he called her to his bed-side.

At that moment Elinor fancied that she heard the sound of approaching wheels, and she strained her eyes to discern, through the deepening gloom, some object that might realize her hopes. "No," she sighed, "it was but the wind raving through the leafless oaks--the ticking of the old dial--the throbbing of my own heart. He will not--he cannot come!"

"Woman! what ails you?" cried the invalid. "Reach me the drink."

Elinor mechanically obeyed; but her head was turned the other way, and her eyes still fixed upon the window. A light flashed along the dark avenue, now lost, and now again revealed through the trees. The cup fell from her nerveless grasp, and faintly articulating, "Yes--'tis he!" she sank senseless across the foot of the bed, as a carriage and four drove rapidly into the court-yard.

The miser, with difficulty, reached the bell-rope that was suspended from the bed's head, and, after ringing violently for some minutes, the unusual summons was answered by the appearance of Ruth, who, thrusting her brown; curly head in at the door, said, in breathless haste:

"The company's come, ma'arm! Such a grand coach! Four beautiful hosses, and two real gemmen in black a' standing behind--and two on hossback a'

riding afore. What are we to do for supper? Doubtless they maun be mortal hungry arter their long ride this cold night, and will 'spect summat to eat, and we have not a morsel of food in the house fit to set afore a cat."

"Pshaw!" muttered the sick man. "Silence your senseless prate! They will neither eat nor drink here. Tell the coachman that there are excellent accommodations at the Hurdlestone Arms for himself and his horses. But first see to your mistress--she is in a swoon. Carry her into the next room. And, mark me, Ruth--lock the door, and bring me the key."

The girl obeyed the first part of the miser's orders, but was too eager to catch another sight of the grand carriage, and the real gentlemen behind it, to remember the latter part of his injunction.

CHAPTER V.

Is this the man I loved, to whom I gave The deep devotion of my early youth?--S.M.

Algernon Hurdlestone in his forty-second, and Algernon Hurdlestone in his twenty-fourth year, were very different men. In mind, person, and manners, the greatest dissimilarity existed between them. The tall graceful figure for which he had once been so much admired, a life of indolence, and the pleasures of the table, had rendered far too corpulent for manly beauty. His features were still good, and there was an air of fas.h.i.+on about him which bespoke the man of the world and the gentleman; but he was no longer handsome or interesting. An expression of careless good-humor, in spite of the deep mourning he wore for the recent death of his wife, pervaded his countenance; and he seemed determined to repay Fortune for the many ill turns he had received from her in his youth, by enjoying, to their full extent, the good things that she had latterly showered upon him.

He had been a kind manageable husband to a woman whom he had married more for convenience than affection; and was a fatally indulgent father to the only son, the sole survivor of a large family that he had consigned to the tomb during the engaging period of infancy. G.o.dfrey, a beautiful little boy of two years old, was his youngest and his best beloved, on whom he lavished the concentrated affections of his warm and generous heart.

Since his marriage with the rich and beautiful Miss Maitland, he had scarcely given Elinor Wildegrave a second thought. He had loved her pa.s.sionately, as the portionless orphan of the unfortunate Captain Wildegrave; but he could not regard with affection or esteem the wife of the rich Mark Hurdlestone--the man from whom he had received so many injuries. How she could have condescended to share his splendid misery, was a question which filled his mind with too many painful and disgusting images to answer. When he received his brother's hasty message, entreating him to come and make up their old quarrel before he died, he obeyed the extraordinary summons with his usual kindness of heart, without reflecting on the pain that such a meeting might occasion, when he beheld again the object of his early affections as the wife of his unnatural brother.

When he crossed the well-known threshold, and his shadow once more darkened his father's hall, those feelings which had been deadened by his long intercourse with the world resumed their old sway, and he paused, and looked around the dilipidated mansion with eyes dimmed with regretful tears.

"And it was to become the mistress of such a home as this, that Elinor Wildegrave--my beautiful Elinor--sold herself to such a man as Mark Hurdlestone, and forgot her love--her plighted troth to me!"

So thought Algernon Hurdlestone, as he followed the parish girl up the broad uncarpeted oak stairs to his brother's apartment, shocked and astonished at the indications of misery and decay which on every side met his gaze. He had heard much of Mark's penurious habits, but he had deemed the reports exaggerated or incorrect; he was now fully convinced that they were but too true. Surprised that Mrs. Hurdlestone did not appear to receive him, he inquired of Ruth, "if her mistress were at home?"

"At home!--why, yes, sir; it's more than her life's worth to leave home.

She durst not go to church without master's leave."

"And is she well?"

"She be'ant never well; and the sooner she goes the better it will be for her, depend upon that. She do lead a wretched life, the more's the pity; for she is a dear kind lady, a thousand times too good for the like o' him."

Algernon sighed deeply, while the girl delighted to get an opportunity of abusing her tyrannical master, continued:

"My poor mistress has been looking out for you all day, sir; but when your coach drove into the court-yard she died right away. The Squire got into a terrible pa.s.sion, and told me to carry her up into her own room, and lock her in until company be gone. Howsumever I was too much flurried to do that; for I am sure my dear missus is too ill to be seen by strangers. He do keep her so shabby, that she have not a gownd fit to wear; and she do look as pale as a ghost; and I am sure she is nearer to her end than the stingy old Squire is to his."

Algernon possessed too much delicacy to ask the girl if Mark treated Mrs. Hurdlestone ill; but whilst groping his way in the dark to his brother's room, he was strongly tempted to question her more closely on the subject. The account she had already given him of the unfortunate lady filled his mind with indignation and regret. At the end of a long gallery the girl suddenly stopped, and pointing to a half-open door, told him that "that was the Squire's room," and suddenly disappeared.

The next moment, Algernon was by the sick-bed of his brother.

Not without a slight degree of perturbation he put aside the curtain; Mark had sunk into a kind of stupor; he was not asleep, although his eyes were closed, and his features so rigid and immovable, that at the first glance Algernon drew back, under the impression that he was already dead.

The sound of his brother's footsteps not only roused the miser to animation, but to an acute sense of suffering. For some minutes he writhed in dreadful pain, and Algernon had time to examine his ghastly face, and thin attenuated figure.

They had parted in the prime of youthful manhood--they met in the autumn of life; and the snows of winter had prematurely descended upon the head of the miser. The wear and tear of evil pa.s.sions had made such fearful ravages in his once handsome and stern exterior, that his twin brother would have pa.s.sed him in the streets without recognition.

The spasms at length subsided, and after several ineffectual efforts, Algernon at length spoke.

"Mark, I am here, in compliance with your request; I am very sorry to find you in this sad state; I hope that you may yet recover."

The sick man rose slowly up in his bed, and shading his eyes with his hand, surveyed his brother with a long and careful gaze, as though he scarcely recognised in the portly figure before him the elegant fas.h.i.+onable young man of former days. "Algernon! can that be you?"

"Am I so much altered that you do not know me?"

"Humph! The voice is the voice of Algernon--but as for the rest, time has paid as little respect to your fine exterior as it has done to mine; but if it has diminished your graces, it has added greatly to your bulk.

One thing, however, it has not taught you, with all its hard teachings."

"What is that?" said Algernon, with some curiosity.

"To speak the truth!" muttered the miser, falling back upon his pillow.

"You wish for my recovery!--ha! ha! that is rich--is good. Do you think, Algernon, I am such a fool as to believe that?"

"Indeed, I was sincere."

"You deceive yourself--the thing is impossible. Human nature is not so far removed from its original guilt. _You_ wish my life to be prolonged, when you hope to be a _gainer_ by my death. The thought is really amusing--so originally philanthropic, but I forgive you, I should do just the same in your place. Now, sit down if you can find a chair, I have a few words to say to you--a few painful words."

Algernon took his seat on the bed without speaking. He perceived that time had only increased the bitterness of his brother's caustic temper.

"Algernon," said the miser, "I will not enter into a detail of the past.

I robbed you of your share of my father's property to gratify my love of money; and I married your mistress out of revenge. Both of these deeds have proved a curse to me--I cannot enjoy the one, and I loathe the other. I am dying; I cannot close my eyes in peace with these crimes upon my conscience. Give me your hand, brother, and say that you forgive me; and I will make a just rest.i.tution of the money, and leave you in the undisturbed possession of the wife."

He laughed, that horrid fiendish laugh. Algernon shrunk back with strong disgust, and relinquished the hand which no longer sought his grasp.

"Well, I see how it is. There are some natures that cannot amalgamate.

You cannot overcome the old hate; but say that you forgive me; it is all I ask."

"If you can forgive yourself, Mark, I forgive you; and I pray that G.o.d may do the same."

"That leaves the case doubtful; however, it is of no use forcing nature.

We never loved each other. The soil of the heart has been too much corrupted by the leaven of the world, to nourish a new growth of affection. We have lived enemies--we cannot part friends; but take this in payment of the debt I owe you."