Miles Tremenhere Volume Ii Part 2

"The misfortune is," said one of the guests, "that we men do not gain wisdom with age--our wise teeth are the first to decay and desert us. We forget how many years have gone over our heads; and at sixty expect some lovely girl of twenty to love us for ourselves alone."

"A grave error," answered Tremenhere, laughing. He was resolved, if possible, to chase painful thought, and the cold, unfounded suspicions gathering round his heart. "For an old man, marrying a young girl, generally becomes like a hoop in a child's hands; which it trundles before it whither it will, giving it hard knocks at every step!"

"Bravo!" cried several.

"It is not always thus," said their host, laughing. "Some old fellows weary their young wives to death; these always remind me of a punishment I have read of somewhere, where a living person was chained to a corpse till death came--some old men are brutes."

"I'd poison such a one!" exclaimed one man, laughing.

"I know such a being now," responded Lord Randolph, "with his hair dyed a purple black, idem whiskers, and one of our celebrated dentists is guilty of affording him the means of mastication, and life."

"If I were his wife," said Tremenhere, "I'd take away his teeth, and starve him! 'Twould be a decay of nature, nothing to affect the conscience!"

Some more jests were pa.s.sed on this subject; and when silence was a little restored, Burton asked, "But Vellumy has not yet accounted for the fair spirit he spoke of--where is she?"

"In the picture gallery," answered Lord Randolph, hastily. "Tremenhere, you are such a deucedly lazy fellow, that, till you send me your 'Aurora,' I have gladdened my eyes with a Venus; you must give me your opinion of her by candle-light. Vellumy loses himself in ecstasy before her."

"By whom is she?" asked Tremenhere.

"Gad I forget! some young aspirant. I have a fancy of my own, to bring forward unknown genius and beauty."

Here again he looked at Vellumy, and again a cloud pa.s.sed over Tremenhere's heart. Much more was said on various subjects. The cloth was removed--the wine circulated freely. Vellumy whispered Tremenhere, "Come along; leave those fellows drinking; let's go and have a quiet hit at billiards."

Both rose. "Where are you off to?" exclaimed Lord Randolph; "I'll have no s.h.i.+rking, Vel. You and Tremenhere remain--we'll all go shortly."

"You can join us," answered Vellumy; "we're going to see the Venus first," and he moved to the door.

"I'll be shot if you do!" cried their host springing towards, and locking it.

"That's right!" cried several; "keep them in! That's not fair to leave so soon."

"Done, my boy!" exclaimed Vellumy, rus.h.i.+ng to another--a side one. "Come along, Tremenhere; we can find our way through this pa.s.sage."

"Try, try!" shouted Lord Randolph after them; "the doors are locked that way, you must come back."

"This way, Tremenhere," called Vellumy, running on before; "up this side pa.s.sage, and the private stair, to G_w_ay's own rooms; I know the way, come along!"

They had both been drinking rather freely, and in the cup Tremenhere had forgotten all annoyance.

CHAPTER III.

Up the narrow stair they hurried laughing, then down a pa.s.sage, at the further end of which was a door.

"G_w_ay forgot this," laughed the conductor; "this leads to the g_w_allery."

Apparently Gray had not forgotten it; for, for some unexplained purpose, it was fastened.

"Confound it!" exclaimed the speaker; "what can he have locked up all these doors for? Try that one on your left; that leads to his own apa_w_tments."

"Locked, too," said Tremenhere, after trying it.

"I won't be b_w_eaten!" cried Vellumy; "st_w_op a moment. I'll run down the p_w_a.s.sage, and g_w_et the keys out of the other doors; they'll most likely op_w_en this;" and back he ran. Tremenhere stood looking after him.

"Here," he called out, though under his breath, from the end of the pa.s.sage; "here's a key--t_w_y it;" and he flung it down the carpeted corridor. "I'll go look for m_w_ore."

Tremenhere raised the key and applied it to the lock, which yielded at once; he entered unhesitatingly, with that freedom natural to a bachelor-house, and found himself in a small antechamber leading to Lord Randolph's own rooms; for an instant he stood irresolute. Which way turn? the picture-gallery was the object of his search. There were two doors in this room--one opposite the one by which he had entered; towards this he moved, and, gently turning the handle, found himself at the entrance of a small, but elegantly-furnished sitting-room. There were no lights, except from the fire, which threw a wide, cheerful blaze over all. A sofa was drawn close to it, and on this sat a lady, leaning half over the arm of it; her back was turned to the door, which had opened noiselessly. The light was not uncertain, and it threw its fullest blaze on that fair form--and that fair form was Minnie's!

Tremenhere stood still--a statue-like stillness. Life seemed fading away in horror. He felt drunk for a moment with suffering; then vision, thought--all cleared away into perfect sobriety, and he strode silently towards her. She started, and, dropping her book, uttered a cry of surprise, and, by an involuntary feeling of sudden alarm, shrunk back; then, seeing who it was, exclaimed in joy, if he could so have read it,--

"Oh, Miles, is that you? but you startled me, indeed, standing like a ghost, there. You look as if you did not expect me!"

"You here--you here!" he muttered with cold lips. "In these rooms! and why here at all?" And he held his hands before him to keep her back.

"Miles," she cried, still advancing; and though the face grew pale with some sudden fear of untimely birth, for it was so unexpected, yet the brow was clear and pure to all but a jealous man. "You know wherefore I am here; think--you must be mad!"

"Mad!" he echoed, staring wildly; "I must be mad, or dreaming!--you were locked in, and in _these_ rooms."

"Where am I?" she cried, looking hurriedly round.

"Do you not know," he articulated beneath his breath, "or are you deceiving me? These are Lord Randolph Gray's private apartments."

"His!" she whispered, dropping on a seat; "I thought they were yours."

Poor girl! her limbs tottered beneath her weight.

"You will drive me mad," he cried, seizing her trembling hands; "tell me, in Heaven's name--tell me how you came here, and why?"

"I came," she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed half in surprise and half in fear, "because you sent for me; but why am I in these rooms, why not in yours?" She did not yet understand his suspicions; her fears arose from his strange excitement; she began to fear for his reason, thinking that he had sent for her.

"Woman!" he cried in agony, wringing her cold hands, "I never called you hither, and this you must know." She could not speak, but sat silently staring at him, her eyes distended with terror. "Speak--speak truth, if you _dare_--and tell me why you are here? and how? for I am nearly mad; do you not see it, woman? I conjure you, speak."

"Speak you!" she whispered, "and tell me your hidden meaning; you affright me with these spirit thoughts. Embody them, Miles; for I dare not believe my heart's fear."

"Speak them!" he exclaimed, "do they need speech? No! your guilty soul has uttered them to your terror-stricken frame; you have done, and now you shudder at your own act. Woman, I am doubly deceived, deceived when this day I took you to my loving heart, deceived when I was lured from my home that you might come hither in secret, but I will have revenge, where revenge may be taken." And casting her hands from him, which he had held grasped in his, he sprung towards the door, but like lightning she was before him, and placing her slight form, now nerved by resolution against it, she said, "Miles, I bore much this day patiently, for I had been guilty of concealment, though done for a worthy purpose; but now, that my soul is clear of any wilful sin against you, in the sight of Heaven, I _demand_ that you should hear me."

"Speak," he said coldly folding his arms, "my revenge can wait."

"When," she articulated faintly, for the nerve of a moment had pa.s.sed away--"when you left me to-day, an hour elapsed in thoughts of you, all you Miles, and joy--that deep joy which reconciliation brings. I was aroused from this dream of peace and rest, after my recent sorrow, by a messenger who came, he said, with a letter from you, which you had given him on starting, and this letter bade me at once come to Uplands to rejoin you, placing myself under the care of this messenger; you had a project in view for our mutual happiness, and my presence was necessary; so, dear Miles, I did not delay a moment,"--here the long restrained tears overflowed her eyes at the calling of that gentle word on her lip--"but fearlessly quitted home, knowing your judgment must be best in all things for my benefit, I could not err in following your guidance,"

her full eye looked all its love on him as she spoke.

"The letter," he said hoa.r.s.ely, holding out a hand; he durst not take her, as he longed to do, to his heart, without this proof.

"Are _you_ mad, or am _I_?" exclaimed the affrighted girl--his calmness awed her. "I have burned that letter, you know you bade me do so."

"By heavens!" he laughed wildly, "your cold-hearted a.s.surance proves you the most consummate deceiver in the world. Girl--woman--demon! I _never_ bade you come--I never wrote to you; and you _know_ I did not, but your paramour knew me safe here; and in safety lodged you here also. By heaven it was a bold, daring game, worthy a better cause!" How often, in our bitterest or most serious moments, some pa.s.sage either ludicrous, or irreverent, will cross our minds; through his flitted the words of Iago,--