Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XIV Part 7

Guessing, or rather knowing very well, the cause of f.a.n.n.y's outcry and terror, he went towards her, and sternly and angrily asked her, "What she made all this noise for!"

"O Henry! Henry!" exclaimed the agitated girl, "take me out of this, take me out of this. Let us go on sh.o.r.e, Henry, directly. Do, do, let us go on sh.o.r.e; for I will not go down into that cabin again."

"Pooh, you silly fool, you!" replied Raeburn, harshly. "What are you afraid of? Don't you like Cressingham? He's an excellent fellow, only a little rough or so, now and then; but not a pin the worse for that. Why, he's one of the handsomest and richest fellows in Calcutta, and half the girls in the town are c.o.c.king their caps at him."

"I have nothing to say to or of Mr Cressingham, Henry," replied f.a.n.n.y.

"All that I ask of you is, to take me immediately ash.o.r.e."

With this request Raeburn, seeing that it would not be advisable to push matters further at that moment, sulkily complied. A boat was ordered alongside. f.a.n.n.y's luggage was placed in it, and she, Raeburn, and Cressingham, were forthwith rowed on sh.o.r.e, where, the moment they landed, the latter, after whispering something into Raeburn's ear, and offering some ineffectual attempts at making his peace with Miss Rutherford, left them.

Where, now, does the reader imagine, did Raeburn conduct the unhappy victim of his villany. To his own splendid mansion? No. To a decent hotel, then?--or, probably, he consigned her to the care of some respectable female friend or acquaintance? Neither of these did the heartless ruffian do. He took her to a mean lodging, in one of the meanest parts of the town, pleading some lame apology for not taking her to his own house; and there left her in the hands of strangers, without a word of consolation or comfort, or of kindness. He said, however, before going away, that he would again call in the evening, and would, in the meantime, send a female domestic from his own house, to attend her, together with some necessaries.

It would be a vain, an idle task, to attempt to describe what were the unfortunate girl's feelings, now that the hideous truth, that she had been deceived and betrayed, though with what view she could not conjecture, stood undisguised before her. They were dreadful, too excruciating, too exquisitely agonising, to be expressed in words or in wailing. Their effect was to benumb every faculty, and to prostrate every sense; and, as one thus afflicted, sat poor f.a.n.n.y Rutherford in a chair, at the window of her shabby apartment.

That evening, the first of her arrival, Raeburn, contrary to his promise, did not again visit her; but Cressingham came in his place, and dreadful was the result of this unwelcome visit on the poor girl's frame. It instantly brought on a crisis in that disease of the mind under which she was already labouring.

The moment he entered the apartment, she uttered a piercing shriek, and rushed frantically to the furthest corner of the room, in the greatest terror, calling on the intruder in the name of Heaven not to come near her--not to approach her. "Leave me, leave me!" she exclaimed, in a tone of bitter agony. "If there be the smallest portion of humanity in your nature, you will leave me instantly. For the love of Heaven," she again repeated, "and of all that you hold dear, leave me! I am deceived and betrayed by him in whom I put all my earthly trust. Oh! my father, my brothers, if ye knew of this. But you will never know it: for I will never see you again. Never, never, never!"

The extreme agitation, the terror and outcries of the unfortunate girl, at once arrested Cressingham's progress, and brought several persons that were in the house around her; and by these last--Cressingham having sneaked off, without saying a word--it was judged advisable to send immediately for medical a.s.sistance, which was accordingly done. Nor was it unnecessary; for a strong fever had already seized on the poor young lady, and was rapidly exhausting her strength.

The medical gentleman sent for instantly attended, and ordered Miss Rutherford to be put to bed. He then prescribed for her as for one whose danger he considered imminent; and he was not mistaken. Deeply interested in the unfortunate girl, from whom he had learned a good deal of her melancholy story, the medical gentleman who had been called in did all that man could do to arrest the progress of the fatal disease under which she was labouring. Night and day he attended her, during her severe but brief illness, and not only employed his own skill to save her, but that of some of the most eminent of his professional brethren in the town, whom he brought to his a.s.sistance.

But all human efforts were vain. From hour to hour, the fever went on, increasing alarmingly, accompanied by a proportionable diminution of the poor patient's strength, until, at length, the awful and fatal crisis arrived. On the evening of the third day after her arrival in Calcutta, f.a.n.n.y Rutherford breathed her last, surrounded with strangers, and in a foreign land.

But where was the master ruffian all this time? How was he employed, and how did he feel, while this dreadful and affecting scene was enacting?

Why, he was giving himself very little concern about it, further than that which proceeded from his fears for his 5000.

He had indeed called two or three times at f.a.n.n.y's lodgings during her illness, to inquire for her, and had even sent her some cordials--cordials, alas! of which she had never partaken--from his own house; but more than this he had not done, nor in any other way had he evinced the smallest sympathy for the unhappy victim of his villany.

Raeburn knew that f.a.n.n.y's illness was of a dangerous nature--but he had no idea that it was to terminate as it did so soon; and it was under this mistaken impression that he and Cressingham called at f.a.n.n.y's lodgings on the very evening on which she died, and, as it happened, within a few minutes after that melancholy event had taken place.

Having tapped gently at the door, which was slowly opened to him by the lodging-house-keeper herself--

"How is your patient to-night, lady?" he said, addressing the latter, smilingly.

"She is well, sir--she is well," replied the woman, in whom f.a.n.n.y's gentle nature and hard fate--of which she, too, had gathered something during the unfortunate girl's fits of delirium--had excited a strong feeling of sympathy. "She is well!--she is well!" she said, wiping her eyes with her ap.r.o.n as she spoke. "She's in heaven, sir!"

"What!" exclaimed Raeburn, in a tone of voice startling from its hollowness, and becoming deadly pale; his mean and dastardly soul instantly sinking under the weight of guilt with which he felt this dreadful intelligence burdening it. "What! she's not dead?"

"But she is though," replied the woman; "and there's an avenging G.o.d above that will seek out and make a terror and example of those who have been the cause of this poor girl's death."

"What do you mean, woman?" said Raeburn, in an alarm which he could not conceal, and which the slightest allusion to his villany was now sufficient to excite to an overwhelming degree; "you do not mean to say that she died by violence?"

"I know what I know, Mr Raeburn," rejoined the lodging-house-keeper, "and that's all I have to say about the matter." And she turned into the house.

Having by no means any wish to renew the conversation, Raeburn availed himself of the opportunity presented by the woman's retiring into the house, to sneak off, which he did, and joined his friend Cressingham, who was waiting for him at a little distance.

"She's dead, Cressingham!--she's dead!" he said, in great agitation, as he approached the latter.

"Dead!" exclaimed Cressingham--"is it possible? Why, then, Harry, your 5000 are gone, and you have been a villain for nothing."

"A villain, did you say, Cressingham?" repeated Raeburn, his lips pale and quivering as he spoke.

"Yes; surely a villain--a double-dyed villain!" reiterated the former.

"Did you ever imagine you were anything else? My share in the transaction is bad enough--I allow it; but it's nothing to yours, Raeburn--nothing; for I would a.s.suredly have married the girl, if she would have had me. My conduct in the business was perhaps that of a profligate: but yours--yours, Raeburn--was unquestionably that,"

repeated Cressingham, coolly and considerately--"that of a double-dyed villain." Saying this, he turned on his heel and left him.

The instances just mentioned were the first and the only ones in which Raeburn had yet suffered the martyrdom of hearing the opinion of others of his conduct with regard to Miss Rutherford; but this was a species of torture to which he was now to be frequently exposed. On this very occasion, he had not proceeded twenty yards from the place where Cressingham had left him, when he encountered the medical gentleman who had been attending his victim. This person, conjecturing, from the direction whence Raeburn was coming, that he had been inquiring for his patient, accosted him, and asked him how she was.

Raeburn, it will readily be believed, would have gone fifty miles about--ay, even on his bare knees--rather than have exposed himself to this meeting; but it had taken place, and he now, therefore, endeavoured to suppress his agitation, and tried to look as composed as possible; and it was with this forced and affected calmness that he replied to the physician's inquiry, that his patient was dead.

"Dead!" said the kind-hearted man; "ah, poor girl! I knew it was at hand, but I thought she might have lived for at least twenty-four hours yet. Well, then," he went on, and now looking Raeburn sternly in the face, "since it is so, I will tell you, Mr Raeburn, my opinion of what your conduct has been in this most heartrending affair; for you are deeply implicated in it. My opinion, then, is, sir, that it has been most infamous, most atrocious; and, regarding yourself, sir, I certainly think you one of the most heartless ruffians that ever lived."

"Ruffian, sir!" repeated Raeburn, affecting to feel insulted, although he was quaking in every limb--"ruffian, sir! I shall have satisfaction for this, sir, you may depend upon it."

"Satisfaction, you scoundrel!" exclaimed Dr Henderson--the name of f.a.n.n.y's medical attendant--"what right have you to satisfaction? Who would condescend to fight such a dastardly and disgraceful villain as you are? But, mark me, sir," he went on; "I know who the lady's friends are; and you may depend upon it, I shall not lose a moment in writing to inform them of everything connected with this shocking affair, and of your conduct towards the deceased. Take my word for that, sir. And, sir, not only will I do this, but I will inform every one I know of your conduct, until you are scouted from all society."

To this Raeburn made no other reply than by turning on his heel, and muttering the words, "Dr Henderson, you shall hear from me."

"Hear from you, you basest and most infamous of men!" said the doctor, looking with an expression of the most profound contempt and hatred after Raeburn, as he receded; "the less we hear of you or from you, the better for yourself, you ruffian."

Faithfully redeeming his pledge, Dr Henderson, on the following day, wrote to f.a.n.n.y's father, whose address he had learned from her while attending her, and detailed all he knew--and this was nearly all that was to be known--regarding Raeburn's conduct to his daughter; for, although the latter had never accused Raeburn to him of ill-treatment, the doctor had, by connecting the broken hints which she had dropped from time to time, and especially by marking certain expressions which escaped her during her temporary fits of delirium, arrived at a knowledge of the whole truth. Having executed this part of his threat, Dr Henderson set diligently about the remaining portion, which was to give all the publicity he could to the story of Raeburn's infamy; and so successful was he in his efforts in this way, that he had the satisfaction in a very short time of seeing him shunned by all his acquaintances, and completely debarred from respectable society.

After f.a.n.n.y's death, Raeburn had evinced a disposition to take an active part in her obsequies; and even expressed a willingness to defray the whole of the funeral charges. But this Dr Henderson would on no account permit. Neither would he suffer him to interfere in any way whatever with the funeral rites; the whole expense of which he insisted on paying out of his own pocket; and Raeburn knew too well the advantage the doctor possessed over him, to offer any resistance to these peremptory objections.

Thus stood matters, then, with Raeburn, and thus they remained for about eighteen months afterwards. He still, during all this time, continued in possession of his situation; but his superiors, who were well acquainted with the story of his villany to Miss Rutherford, were eagerly and anxiously watching for an opportunity to dismiss him. They did not feel that they would have been warranted in discharging him for his infamous conduct on the occasion alluded to, as it was a matter of which they had no right, officially, to take cognisance; but they had determined that the slightest dereliction of duty on his part should cost him his situation. Of this Raeburn was perfectly aware; and it required all his diligence, care, and attention, to avoid the visitation with which he was threatened. Such, we say, then, was the state of matters with Raeburn for about eighteen months after f.a.n.n.y Rutherford's death. At the expiry of this period, however, that event occurred which winds up this tragic tale.

One evening, about nine o'clock, Raeburn was sitting solitary in his room, musing on the miseries to which his villany had subjected him, and no doubt indulging, as all villains do, in imaginary schemes of vengeance against his enemies, when a waiter from one of the hotels in town called, and said that a gentleman there desired to see him immediately on a matter of importance.

Raeburn, conceiving that it might be on some official business that he was wanted, instantly repaired to the hotel, and was ushered into the room where the person was who wished to see him.

That person kept his back towards Raeburn till he had fairly entered the apartment, and until the waiter who had shown him in had retired. This done, he suddenly rushed towards the door, s.n.a.t.c.hing up at the same time one of a pair of pistols which lay on a table in the middle of the room, and having locked the door in the inside, he fiercely confronted Raeburn, who, horror-struck at the sight, instantly recognised, in the person before him, Edward Rutherford, the brother of the unfortunate f.a.n.n.y.

"Do you know me, villain? Do you know me?" shouted out Edward, first seizing him by the breast, and then das.h.i.+ng him from him with a violence that sent him reeling to the farther end of the apartment. "Do you know the brother of f.a.n.n.y Rutherford, murderer? Did you think, ruffian, that you were safe from my vengeance, because the half of the globe lay between us? If you did, you mistook Edward Rutherford. But I will waste no more words on you, villain! The shade of my murdered sister--murdered by the cruellest of all deaths--is calling aloud for retribution, and, in her name, I am here to demand it! Here, dastard!" he said, taking up the other pistol, and presenting it to Raeburn--"here, take this, and stand to me like a man; for I would not imbrue my hands in your filthy blood but upon equal terms. Although you but little deserve it, I will give you a chance for your life! Come, sir," he went on, Raeburn declining to take the pistol, "take it--take it; for, by the heaven above us, one or other of us, or both, must die; and your only chance is in opposing me; for, if you do not fire, I will! By all that's sacred, I will!" At this moment, Raeburn rushed to the window, with the view of calling for a.s.sistance; and one supplicatory cry, which, however, was unattended to, he did emit. But, ere he could fully effect his object, Edward had him by the throat, and, holding his pistol within a few inches of his head, threatened, if he stirred or repeated his outcry, that that moment should be his last.

Seeing the desperate situation in which he was placed, the trembling wretch now took the pistol from Rutherford's hand, being aware, as he had been told, that it was indeed his only chance for life.

The parties now took their stations, one at each end of the room, and confronted each other.

"Raise your weapon, Raeburn; raise your weapon!" exclaimed Rutherford, on observing that his antagonist was not proceeding to a.s.sume a hostile att.i.tude. "Your not firing will not save you from mine. I give you fair warning!"

Raeburn elevated, and levelled his pistol.

"Are you ready?" said his terrible opponent.

"Yes," replied Raeburn, faintly.