Part 27

Bergan Arling, on quitting his uncle, had flung himself into the surrounding darkness, without aim, without hope; conscious only of an intolerable burden of grief and despair. Coming to the river, he had mechanically strode down its bank. Mechanically, too, he had crossed the foot-bridge, when it came in his way; and was scarcely aware that its last rotten plank, on the Hall end, had given away under his feet, and that he had narrowly missed being precipitated into the water. In due time, he found himself standing before the deserted mansion, looking up to its dark front with eyes just beginning to be capable of intelligent vision, and acknowledging to himself that, though his path had been but blindly chosen, it had brought him to a fitting goal.

"A ruined home, and a ruined life," he murmured, with a kind of bitter mournfulness,--"they will suit each other well!"

The door was locked, but there was a dilapidated flight of steps leading to the rotten upper piazza, and the window of his old room yielded readily to pressure. The lamp, too, was in its remembered place, and, having lighted it, he threw himself into a chair, to sum up the record of his past life, and strike the balance.

Not that he did this consciously. Although he felt intuitively that he had reached a turning-point in his path, from whence its course and circumstance, if not its aim, might well be changed, it was with the future only--the consideration of the question what to do next--that he purposed to occupy himself. But the sight of the familiar room, and the ancient furniture and ornaments wherewith he had filled it, having inevitably recalled the period of his first occupancy, and the occasion of his sudden departure, he could not fail to see how all his life since had seemed to hinge on that one deplorable incident. Had he resisted Major Bergan's will in the single particular of entering that vile tavern, or refused, first as well as last, to drink at his bidding, doubtless he would have lost _his_ favor all the same, but he would scarcely have been so completely subjugated by his own fierce temper, he would not have commenced his career in Berganton under such a cloud, he would not have been left to drift in so inauspicious an intimacy with Doctor Remy, his Uncle Godfrey would not have become so deeply prejudiced against him,--possibly, even, the course of his love might have run smooth, despite the verdict of the immortal poet, nor yet have vitiated its claim to be a "true" one. What a pregnant commentary was all this upon that wonderful text of Mr. Islay's memorable sermon. How tightly had he been "holden with the cords of his sins" to a long and wearisome discipline, and a final mystery of retribution,--a retribution involving, alas! the innocent not less than the guilty. Poor, poor Carice! how much easier would it be to bear his own portion, if only hers could be remitted!

Hark! was not that a cry from the direction of the river? He leaned out of the window, and listened attentively; but the sound--if sound it were, and not the simple product of his own disordered fancy--was not repeated. Nothing was to be heard save the low sough of the rising wind, and the melancholy voices of the trees, as one solemn old oak-top leaned toward another, and talked mysteriously of some woful event that it had witnessed--perhaps a century ago, perhaps later--or recounted drearily the long list of human sorrows and sins and retributions stored up in its dreamy old memory. There might have been heard, too, in its further talk, if only the ear were fine enough that listened,--something of patience born of sorrow, and blessedness wrenched from the hand of suffering; of lofty hopes blossoming out of the ashes of despair, and fair, new temples, vocal with the anthem of glory to God and good will to man, built over and out of heaps of ruins. A few words, too, might have been added of love--human love--as the crowning grace and gladness of a man's life,--the delicate carving beautifying the arches, capitals, and pinnacles of the temple, the thick greenery softening its sharp outlines, and the odorous blossoms rooting themselves in its angles and hollows; but neither its strong foundations, its majestic walls, nor the upward spring of its spire,--and never, in any sense, the object of its rightful worship.

Perhaps Bergan heard something of all this; at any rate, that cry from the river, whether real or imagined, had broken the thread of his review of the past, and brought back his mind to the question of the future. What was to be done? Leave Berganton, of course. The place was not wide enough to hold Carice and himself, with comfort to either. If her marriage had been brought about in the way that he suspected, the sight of him would scarce conduce to her peace; while the sight of her, in her new relation, could only cause him useless pain. Moreover, he had seen, from the first, that Berganton afforded little scope for talent; none whatever for ambition. And, now that his life seemed likely to be limited to its public side, and to have no sweet, compensating domestic one, he felt the necessity of directing its course to some quarter where there was room for proper expansion.

Happily, the way was open. Only a short time ago, he had received a most favorable offer, which he still held under consideration,--an invitation to enter into partnership with an eminent lawyer of Savalla, beginning to succumb to the infirmities of old age, and likely, ere long, to surrender to him all the active business of the firm. Nothing could suit him better. Here was scope for all his talent, employment for all his energy. He would be near enough to Berganton, too, for any good name that he might win to reach thither, and clear away whatever prejudice against him still lingered there; yet not near enough to be necessarily brought into contact with its inhabitants.

So much for the future; what of the present?

First, he would see Mrs. Lyte and Astra, bid them farewell, and arrange for the removal of his effects. Then he would hasten to Savalla, to do the last kindness that it was in his power to do for Carice, even though it would seem to justify her father's late incredulity and contemptuous treatment,--namely, meet Doctor Trubie, and dissuade him from any further proceedings against Doctor Remy. There was still room for a doubt that the latter was the murderer of Alec Arling;--let it remain forever a doubt! No weapon should be lifted against him, that must needs fall most heavily upon Carice!

It was gray dawn when this conclusion was reached. The stars were fading from the sky, as a hint that it was time to extinguish his lamp. The East showed a broad rim of light,--only a silver one now, but with some mystic intimation of the gold to which it would soon be transmuted. Was any similar change beginning to show itself in Bergan's heart?

If so, he was in nowise conscious of it. His mind having attained to a comparative degree of composure, his body began to press its claims upon him with some pertinacity. It was twenty-four hours since he had taken food, and nearly double that time since he had slept; this, too, on the end of a long, tedious journey, and while undergoing sore anxiety and distress of mind. No wonder that his head was aching furiously at the temples, and seemed to have a ponderous weight on top, nor that he had a sensation of dizziness at times, while a blinding mist came before his eyes.

He prepared to leave Bergan Hall. That, too, was to be henceforth, so far as he was concerned, a thing of the past. It had given him needful solitude and shelter, in his hour of deep despair; it had been the fittest possible place wherein to take leave of the old life and its shattered hope; but for the new, it had nothing to offer,--except, perhaps, a warning. The stream of active, expansive, beneficent life must forever flow away from its faded splendor, its crumbling massiveness, its dusty traditions and aristocratic genealogies, and its corrupt feudal laws and customs, as well as from that moral ruin, its selfish, tyrannic, besotted master. Together, they might well be likened to a half-buried, decomposing corpse; showing still, through the overspreading mould and fungi, some faint trace of its former grace and nobility of shape and feature, but chiefly impressing the spectator with the carelessness of its exposure and the unsightliness of its decay.

And yet, how strong a hold, after all, had both master and mansion upon his heart! Some time, surely, when he should have won fame and fortune enough to be above all suspicion of self-seeking, he might come back to visit them, and see what could be done for both.

With this thought in his mind, he was about to quit the room as he had entered it, by the window, when a light knock on the door arrested his attention. Almost immediately, Rue entered, and bade him good morning.

"How did you know I was here?" was Bergan's first startled inquiry.

"I heard you when you came," she answered, quietly, "and I knew your step. I always spend this night in the old house; it is the anniversary of your mother's wedding; and she comes back to me in all her youth and beauty, and the rooms light up, and flowers sweeten the air, and there is music and dancing, and the sound of gay young voices; and then, all goes out, and I remember that earth grows dim as heaven draws near. Yes, Master Bergan, I heard you when you came, and I should have come to you at once, only that there was something in your step which told me you came with a heavy heart, and would not like to be disturbed. It is lighter now?"

"A little, maumer; though it is heavy enough yet."

"And nothing will lighten it but time,--and that means the Lord, for time is the Lord's servant, and does His will."

"You know, then,"--began Bergan, and stopped, unable to finish the sentence.

"I know much, Master Bergan; more than you think. Many voices come to whisper in the old blind woman's ear."

"Do you know," asked Bergan, suddenly, "why Doctor Remy has married Carice?"

"Certainly,--to make himself master of Bergan Hall. The more fool he! Rue could have told him it was written on the stars that it should have another and a better master; and the stars do not lie. But I am sorry for Miss Carice; I would have saved her if I could, but there the stars were silent."

"I could have helped the stars in that matter, if I had known," thought Bergan. But he only asked, doubtfully;--"How should Doctor Remy expect to get the Hall by marrying Carice?"

"Because your Uncle Harry has made his will, giving it to her. Never doubt me, Master Bergan, I know what I am talking of; and when I tell you that you shall yet own Bergan Hall, and all the gold that is hidden in it, and every foot of land that belongs to it, you may believe it as implicitly as if it were written in your Bible."

Bergan shook his head; the Hall had ceased to have any value in his eyes, as a possession of his own, or any place in the future that he proposed to himself. Apparently, Rue understood his silence as well as if he had spoken, for she did not press the subject.

She next inquired into his plans, and he explained them to her, as far as they concerned himself.

"It is well," she said, after a moment of reflection. "You could not stay here, of course,--you would be eating your heart out in this dull place. Do your duty in the path that lies so straight before you, and trust God for the rest."

As he quitted the old Hall it occurred to him how strangely events were repeating themselves. Once more, Rue stood in the doorway, in the gray light of the dawn, and promised him its future ownership; once more, he took the road to Berganton, leaving behind him one phase of his life, and entering upon a new one.

Arrived at the hotel he learned that the horse, which he had left at Oakstead on the previous evening, had been sent to the stables, with strict injunctions that he should be notified accordingly, immediately on his arrival,--the friendly act, no doubt, of old Bruno.

Here, too, he first learned the absence of Mrs. Lyte and her family; a piece of information which he received with much unmistakable surprise and wonder, that the landlord, who, like most of the Berganton folk, had suspected him of some connection with their departure, was constrained to believe him innocent.

There being now nothing to detain him in Berganton, he ordered his horse for an immediate return to Savalla. First, however, he went to the breakfast-room, but found that he was unable to eat; food was like ashes in his mouth; the most that he could do was to swallow a cup of coffee.

That ride to Savalla remained always a horrible nightmare in his memory. Sometimes he was riding through the darkness of infinite space; sometimes through whirling trees, over a road heaving as with the throes of an earthquake, and seemingly interminable. Now and then, his senses seemed slipping entirely from his grasp, and were only dragged back by the convulsive effort of an iron will. Reaching the office of the Pulaski House, where he was well known, he just managed to hold them together long enough to scratch a few lines on a sheet of paper, and give directions for its delivery. Then, with a wan smile of relief, he relaxed his hold, and let them slide swiftly away into oblivion.

Two days later, Doctor Trubie, arriving at the same hotel, according to previous agreement, was met by the information that Mr. Arling was lying dangerously ill with that fever which guards, like a flaming sword, the gates of the sunny South; and the letter was put into his hands. Tearing it open, he read:--

"I charge you, by everything that is sacred, to take no further step in the business that brings you here, until I recover, and we can consult together; and, if I die, I charge you, as you would have me rest quietly in my grave, to take none at all. BERGAN."

Doctor Trubie flung down the letter with a most disgusted face. "To think that Roath should escape me thus!" he exclaimed, discontentedly. "That is, to be sure, if Bergan does not recover. He _shall_ recover!"

Upstairs he sprang, two steps at a time. But, once in Bergan's chamber, his heart failed him. The patient lay in a stupor that seemed very near of kin to death. Two physicians stood by the bed, and the first words that met his ear were,--"No hope."

PART FOURTH.

A NEW FIELD.

I.

ALIVE IN FAMINE.

Rarely does a man go down to the verge of the grave, and look into its profound and pregnant depths, without carrying from henceforth traces of the journey. His views of life will be truer, if not sadder, forever afterward. The laws of moral perspective, though they do not change, will be better understood; so that objects at a distance are no longer dwarfed to the understanding, however they may appear to the eye. Character becomes the central "point of sight," toward which duty continually draws converging right lines, by the aid of which happiness, fame, and wealth, fall into their proper places, and assume their true proportions.

Bergan Arling was seated in his office at Savalla. At first sight, it might seem that he was little changed, but a closer inspection would have awakened some surprise that the lapse of little more than a year could have changed him so much. The youthfulness had gone out of his face,--that half-eager, half-wistful look which says so plainly, "The world is all before me, where to choose;"--it was now the face of a man among men, who had found his place and his work, who had grappled with many hard problems, and solved some, who was accustomed to deal with serious subjects in a serious way, and who had withal, a definite rule and object of life. In short, it was informed with a positive and noble individuality, born out of suffering, and not yet wholly oblivious of the pangs that had given it birth, but certain, in good time, to attain to the fulness of an inward joy, which, having a deep wellspring of its own, would be little dependent upon the ebb and flow of outward circumstance.

Nor had the year been fruitless of exterior results. Scarcely had Bergan mastered the details of his new office, when his partner, Mr. Youle, was taken sick, and he was left to conduct its affairs pretty much alone. Several cases of importance being in hand, he was thus afforded a rare opportunity to achieve a rapid fame. His reputation already overshadowed that of many of his legal brethren who had greatly the advantage of him in years and experience.

From the first, he had made it an invariable rule never to speak against his clear convictions of right; and it was curious to observe what an influence the knowledge of this fact was beginning to have upon the community. The cause which he embraced, however hopeless its aspect, always commanded a degree of respect, and was watched with a certain reservation of judgment, in consideration of his acknowledged integrity of purpose; while, as a necessary sequence (from which Bergan, in his humility, would have been glad to escape), the cause which he was understood to have declined was apt to be pronounced suspicious in the popular judgment, however it might go in the courts. So certain is the talent which is known to be conjoined with a pure aim and an upright life, to win, soon or late, high place and strong influence, even in a world that disallows its very principle of being! The visible fruits of righteousness commend themselves to all lips, whatever is thought of the root from whence they spring.

Bergan's desk was littered with papers, but his eyes were studying only the opposite wall, half in abstraction, half in perplexity. Nor did their expression alter much when the door opened, and he rose to greet Mr. Youle, who came in slowly and feebly, leaning on a cane. He was of medium height, with gray hair, a thin face, and a kindly blue eye; and it was easy to see, was on the best of terms with his talented young partner. No room in that ripe intellect and gentle nature for so ignoble a passion as jealousy!

"There, that will do, Arling," he said, humorously, when Bergan had helped him carefully to a chair; "the old gentleman is as comfortable as he's likely to be,--or deserves to be, for that matter. Well, how goes on our case?"

Bergan shook his head, with a faint smile. "Very badly, I should say,--if anything can be said to go badly, which is so entirely in the hands of Providence. I confess that I can make nothing of it."

Mr. Youle looked grave. "I warned you in the beginning," said he, "that there was not a reasonable peg to hang a line of defence on."

"But I believe the man to be innocent," rejoined Bergan. "And," he added, smiling, "'I warned you, in the beginning,' that I should never advocate a cause which seemed to be unrighteous, nor refuse one that seemed to be just, though the one should offer me a fortune in fees, and the other not a cent."

"Yes, yes, I know," replied Mr. Youle. "And I must admit that your two rules have worked miraculously well thus far; we have lost but one case, I believe, since you came into the office. Well, well, such a vein of good luck cannot be expected to last forever,--after the nugget, the rock or the sand. But I don't see how it is that you are so strongly persuaded of Unwick's innocence."

"You would easily understand, if you had looked into his face once; it is a clean passport to confidence. Besides, there is the unvarying testimony of his past life, as set forth by everybody that knows him.--sober, honest, frank, kind, religious, everything that is desirable. A man does not become a murderer in cold blood, all at once; he has to prepare himself for it by vice, or intemperance, or a course of hard, cold, selfish living. There is always a downward slope, before the final plunge."

"Granted; but I doubt if you can make the jury see it clearly enough to ground a verdict of acquittal upon it, in the face of all that terribly strong circumstantial evidence."

Bergan mused for a little time without answering. "I cannot rid myself," he said, at length, "of a conviction that that son of the murdered man could throw some light on the subject, if he chose."

Mr. Youle stared. "I did not know that he had been suspected, for a moment," said he.

"Nor has he. But he is the one who profits most by the murder, since he is heir-at-law. And what a reckless and disobedient youth he has been!--always on bad terms with his father, when he was at home, and doing nothing but write letters for money, while he was in Europe. By the way, I can't help wondering if he _was_ in Europe, all this past year; though really, I don't know why I should doubt it. Well,"--rising and looking at his watch,--"it is time to go to court."

"And, as I am feeling better to-day, I think I'll go along," said Mr. Youle. "Since you seem to think that Providence has the case very specially in His hands,--indeed, I don't mean it irreverently,--I'd like to see how He conducts it."

"I am glad to think that He _is_ conducting it," said Bergan, in a low voice; "else I should be utterly discouraged."

The trial dragged its slow length through the greater part of the morning, without any incident of interest. One witness after another came upon the stand, was examined, and dismissed; each adding something to the weight of evidence against the prisoner, Unwick. The son of the murdered man, Varley by name, sat nearly opposite to Bergan, by the side of the prosecuting attorney; and being of a restless temperament, as well as gifted with extraordinary facility in the use of a pencil, he busied himself, as he listened to the monotonous drone of a witness, with mechanically sketching the faces of the witnesses or the spectators, or scenes and places that he had visited, recalled to his mind by the evidence, or by his own roving thoughts. One of these caught Bergan's eye, and he furtively watched its progress, while seeming to be occupied with his papers. When finished, it was carelessly dropped on the floor, like those which had preceded it; and the skilful pencil quickly set to work on a new subject. In a moment or two, Bergan dropped one of his papers, in a way to take it well under the table, and immediately stooped to get it. When he reappeared, a close observer might have noticed that the look of patient watchfulness, which his face had worn so long, was gone; but the keenest eyes would have been puzzled to read his present expression. Was it triumph, or thankfulness, or perplexity, or a mixture of all?

Mr. Varley was now put upon the stand, to furnish some small link in the chain of evidence that the prosecution was drawing so skilfully around the prisoner. The little that he was desired to say being said, the opposing counsel politely inquired if Mr. Arling had any questions to ask.

"One or two, if you please," answered Bergan, quietly; and rising, and turning toward the witness, he said:--

"I believe you stated, Mr. Varley, that you had never seen the place where your father died?"

"No; he bought it, and removed to it after I went abroad."

"Have you visited it, since your return?"

"I have not. I only got here just before the commencement of this trial, and I have been kept too busy since to find time for the trip."

"Then you have never seen the room where your father came to his death?"

"No, certainly not," returned the witness, beginning to look a little startled by this unaccountable persistency.

"Has it ever been very minutely described to you?"

Varley hesitated;--more, it was evident, to consider what could be the possible drift of the question, than to search his memory for a correct answer. He finally ventured to say that to the best of his recollection he had been favored with no such description.