CHAPTER XLVI.--IS CALCULATED TO “MURDER SLEEP” FOR ALL NERVOUS YOUNG

LADIES WHO READ IT.

The incident related in the last chapter produced a strange and alarming effect upon Miss Livingstone; in fact it may be said to have laid the foundation of a species of monomania which haunted her to the day of her death. From this time forth she laboured under the delusion that a man trained from his youth up to rob and murder his sleeping fellow-creatures was secreted at one and the same moment under every bed and behind all the window curtains in the house. A singular and alarming property belonging to this ambushed ruffian was the extraordinary shadow cast by his legs and feet. Miss Livingstone was perpetually scared by discovering it in the most unlikely places and positions; indeed the statistics of these shadowy phenomena tended to show that it was this villain’s ordinary custom to stand upon his rascally head. Then the noises he made were most strange and unearthly, and a habit he possessed of moaning whenever the wind was high really exceeded anything with which human nature could be expected to put up. The trouble he occasioned everybody was inconceivable; for at least a month after Annie’s adventure the butler almost lived in Minerva’s bedroom, so constantly was he summoned to unearth this lurking traitor; and yet, although Miss Livingstone was quite certain the monster was there, for she had seen the shadow of his boots, with the soles upwards, upon the tester of the bed, by some dreadful fatality he always contrived to evade the strictest search. Once Miss Livingstone thought she _had_ got him, for, having summoned assistance on the strength of hearing him snore, she actually enjoyed the satisfaction of being sworn at by him, when she looked under the bed and poked for him with a large umbrella; but this time he turned out to be the cat. The servants became so harassed by these repeated alarums that at length the butler gave _bona fide_ warning, while the footmen, when there was nobody to hear them, vehemently protested they were not hired as thief-catchers, and that Miss Livingstone had better set up a private policeman of her own, if she chose to be so subject to house-breakers.

Lewis was not at all pleased with this adventure: in the first place, it interrupted the German lessons, for poor Annie had been so seriously frightened--not without cause--that it made her really ill, and for some days she remained on a sofa in her own room. In the second place, Lewis had been so deeply affected when he first heard of the danger to which she had been exposed, that for a moment a doubt crossed his mind whether such a degree of emotion was exactly consistent with that mild imposition yclept platonic friendship. In the third place, he had used his best endeavours to catch Hardy once again, and had been thoroughly and completely baffled. Time, however, that wonder-working individual, passed on, and by his assistance Annie’s nerves recovered their tone, and the German lessons were recommenced; Miss Livingstone saw fewer visions of reversed legs, and confined her researches after the concealed one to a good peep under the bed night and morning. The General made a great fuss about the whole affair, and severely reprimanded several individuals for permitting Hardy to escape who never had it in their power to prevent his doing so. Having relieved his mind by this judicious exercise of authority, he applied himself to other pursuits, and speedily forgot the whole transaction.

About two months after the occurrence of the robbery Lord Belle-field wrote to announce his return, and General Grant went to London alone in order to meet him. Before his departure, Annie, whose dislike to the interrupted engagement appeared to increase rather than to diminish, determined to make a great effort, and to acquaint her father with her disinclination to the proposed alliance, and to entreat him to take no steps which might lead to a renewal of the matrimonial project. The General heard her attentively, and then observed--

“I perfectly understand and appreciate your feelings, my dear Annie; they are such as, under the peculiar circumstances, become _my_ daughter. Remember, my dear, that the matter is in wiser and more experienced hands than yours; and rest assured that nothing shall be done of which even your punctilious delicacy and true sense of honour can disapprove.” Then, seeing Annie was about to speak, he continued, “Any further discussion is not only unnecessary, but as the matter now stands, would appear to imply a doubt of my capability of acting for you; which I should consider, to say the least, disrespectful. You will oblige me by withdrawing, my dear Annie.” Thus saying, he rose, and opening the door with all the frigid courtesy of the Grandisonian school, ushered her out. And so poor Annie’s attempt proved a signal failure.

On the following morning the General left Broadhurst, having given Annie a very unnecessary caution against riding out with merely a servant, and made it his especial request that Lewis and Walter should accompany her by way of escort; a proceeding of which neither tutor nor pupil appeared to disapprove.

General Grant was absent for more than a fortnight; and as the weather was unusually fine during the whole of the time, Annie and her attendants rode out every day. Oh, those rides! what delightful expeditions were they! By a tacit consent between Lewis and Annie, all allusion to the future was avoided, in word or thought; they lived in the present--those loving hearts; they were together, and that sufficed them; and the trees appeared greener, and the flowers more brilliant, and the sunshine brighter, than they had ever seemed before; all was happy as a fairy dream, and dream-like did it pass away.

A letter from the General announcing his intended return was in Annie’s hand, as, bending over a ponderous volume of crabbed characters, she awaited her German lesson. The windows of the breakfast-room in which she was seated opened on to an ample lawn, interspersed with groups of shrubs and gay flower-beds. In crossing this lawn Walter had contrived to intercept Lewis and inveigle him into a game at ball.

Flushed by the exercise, his eyes sparkling with excitement, and his dark curls hanging in wild disorder about his brow, the young tutor approached the window at which Annie was seated. Concealed by the heavy folds of the window curtain, the girl watched him unperceived: involuntarily she contrasted his frank and easy bearing, his free and elastic step, and the smile, half proud, half playful, which parted his curved lips and sparkled in his flashing eyes, with the cold reserve which usually characterised his demeanour, and for the first time she became aware what a bright and noble nature had been obscured and warped by the false position into which circumstances had combined to force him. Who could blame her, who rather would not love her the better, and thank God that He has implanted such beautiful instincts in every true woman’s heart, if she felt that she should wish no fairer destiny than to devote her life to bring back the sunshine of his, and by her affection restore to him the youth of soul which misfortune had wrested from him!

Little guessing the thoughts that were passing through her mind, Lewis advanced towards the window, exclaiming, “Miss Grant, I have a petition to urge--the day is so lovely it is quite wicked to remain indoors: can I persuade you to use your influence with Miss Livingstone to allow us to transfer the site of our German lesson to the bench under the lime-tree? I will promise to arrange a most seductive seat for her in the very shadiest corner.”

“My aunt has departed on a charitable mission,” was the reply; “she received a message to say that an unfortunate child whom she has been doctoring out of that dreadful medicine chest of hers is much worse, and she has rushed off armed with pills and powders.”

“To give it the _coup de grace_ I suppose,” interrupted Lewis.

Annie shook her head reprovingly, and continued, “In the excitement of the occasion, she appears to have entirely forgotten our poor German lesson.”

“In which case the decision as to place rests with you!” resumed Lewis eagerly; “the matter is therefore settled--you _will_ come.” The accent upon the “_will_” was intended to be one of entreaty, but somehow the tone in which it was uttered partook largely of command, and Annie, as she obeyed, said with a smile--

“Or rather, I _must_ come--that is clearly your meaning, Mr. Arundel; however, I see Walter and Faust are already _en position_, and I will not set them an example of disobedience, so if you can find the books, I will join you immediately.”

It was, as Lewis had declared, a lovely evening; the sky was of that deep, clear blue which indicates a continuance of fine weather, a soft breeze sighed through the blossoms of the lime-tree beneath which they sat. Faust lay at Annie’s feet, gazing up into her face as though he loved to look upon her beauty, which perhaps he did, for Faust was a dog of taste, and particular in the selection of his favourites. Walter, stretched at his length upon the turf, was idly turning over the pages of a volume of coloured prints. Lewis opened the work they were translating; it was that loveliest of historical tragedies, Schiller’s “Piccolomini,” and Annie read of Max, the simple, the true, the noble-hearted, and thought that the world contained but one parallel character, and that he was beside her. They read on beneath the summer sky, and tracing the workings of Schiller’s master mind, forgot all sublunary things in the absorbing interest of the story. The scene they were perusing was that in which Max Piccolomini describes the chilling effect produced upon him when he for the first time beholds Thekla surrounded by the splendours of her father’s court, and says (I quote Coleridge’s beautiful translation for the benefit of my _un-German_ readers, and in consideration of the shallowness of my own acquaintance with the language of the Fatherland)--

“Now, once again, I have courage to look on you,

To-day at noon I could not;

The dazzle of the jewels that play’d round you

Hid the belovèd from me.

This morning when I found you in the circle

Of all your kindred, in your father’s arms,

Beheld myself an alien in this circle,

Oh! what an impulse felt I in that moment

To fall upon his neck and call him father;

But his stern eye o’erpower’d the swelling passion,

I dared not but be silent--and those brilliants

That like a crown of stars enwreath’d your brows,

They scared me too--Oh! wherefore, wherefore should he

At the first meeting spread, as ’twere, the ban

Of excommunication round you?--wherefore

Dress up the angel for the sacrifice,

And cast upon the light and joyous heart

The mournful burden of _his_ station? Fitly

May love woo love, but such a splendour

Might none but monarchs venture to approach.”

As Lewis read this speech, the bright, happy look faded from his face, and his voice grew deep and stern; there was in the whole scene a strange likeness to his own position, which pained him in the extreme, and brought back all his most bitter feelings. Engrossing as was this idea when once aroused, he could not but observe the unusual degree of taste and energy which Annie, who appeared carried away by the interest of the drama, infused into her reading, and the tones of her sweet voice did ample justice to the friendly, confiding tenderness with which Thekla endeavours to console her lover. After her appeal to the Countess Tertsky--

“He’s not in spirits, wherefore is he not?

He had quite another nature on the journey,

So calm, so bright, so joyous eloquent”--

she turns to Max, saying--

“It was my wish to see you always so,

And never otherwise.”

Annie spoke the last words so earnestly that Lewis involuntarily glanced at her, and their eyes met. It was one of those moments which occur twice or thrice in a lifetime, when heart reads heart, as an open book, and sympathetic thought reveals itself unaided by that weak interpreter the tongue. Through weary years of sorrow and separation that look was unforgotten by either of them; and when Annie bent her eyes on the ground with a slight blush, confessing that the large amount of womanly tenderness which she fain would show was not unmingled with a portion of womanly love which she would as fain conceal, and Lewis dared not trust himself to speak lest the burning thoughts which crowded on his brain should force themselves an utterance, neither of them was sorry to perceive the figure of Aunt Martha rustling crisply through the stillness, as, burthened with boluses, Minerva appeared before them, to give a triumphant account of her victory over Tommy Crudle’s catarrhal affection, of which ailment she promised Annie a reversion for her imprudence in sitting out of doors without a bonnet.

When Lewis retired to his room that night he sat down to think over in solitude the occurrences of the day. Had he been deceiving himself, then? was his unhappy attachment still unsubdued--nay, had it not strengthened? under the delusive garb of friendship, had not Annie’s society become necessary to his happiness? Again--and as this idea for the first time occurred to him, the strong man trembled like a child from the violence of his emotion--had he not more than this to answer for? Selfishly engrossed by his own feelings, madly relying on his own strength of will, which he now perceived he had but too good reason to mistrust, he had never contemplated the effect his behaviour might produce upon a warm-hearted and imaginative girl. Lewis was no coxcomb, but he must have wilfully closed his eyes had he not read in Annie’s manner that morning the fact that she was by no means indifferent to him. True, it might be only friendship on her part--the natural impulse of a woman’s heart to pity and console one who she perceived to need such loving-kindness--and with this forlorn hope Lewis was fain to content himself. Then he strove to form wise resolutions for the future: he would avoid her society--the German lessons should be strictly confined to business, and gradually discontinued; and even a vague notion dimly presented itself of a time--say a year thence--when Walter might be entrusted to other hands, and he should be able to extricate himself from a situation so fraught with danger. And having thus regarded the matter by the light of principle and duty, feeling began to assert its claims, and he cursed his bitter fortune, which forced him to avoid one whom he would have braved death itself to win. He sat pondering these things deep into the night; the sound of the clock over the stables striking two at length aroused him from his reverie, and he was about to undress, when a slight growl from Faust, who always slept on a mat in Lewis’s dressing-room, attracted his attention, and as he paused to listen, a low whistle, which seemed to proceed from the shrubs under his window, caught his ear. Closing the door of the dressing-room to prevent Faust from giving any alarm, he walked lightly to the window, which, according to his usual custom, he left open all night, and silently holding back the curtain, looked out. As he did so a window on the ground floor was cautiously opened and the whistle repeated. After a moment’s reflection he became convinced that the room from which the signal whistle had been replied to was occupied by the new butler, who had replaced the individual harassed into the desperate step of resigning by Minerva’s incessant crusades against the Under-the-bed One. At the sound of the signal whistle the figures of four men appeared from the shrubs, amongst which they had been hidden, and noiselessly approached the window. The candle which Lewis had brought upstairs with him had burned out; and although his window was open, the curtains were drawn across it; he was therefore able, himself unperceived, to see and hear all that was going on. As the burglars, for such he did not doubt they were, drew near, the following conversation was carried on in a low whisper between their leader, a man of unusual stature, and Simmonds the butler.

“You are late; the plate has been packed and ready for the last two hours.”

“There was a light in the--------d tutor’s room till half-an-hour ago,” was the reply; “and we thought he might hear us and give the alarm if we did not wait till he was in bed.”

“It would not have much signified if he had when you were once in,” returned Simmonds: “the grooms don’t sleep in the house; the valet is in London; so there’s only the tutor, the footman, and the idiot boy, besides women.”

“Where is the old man?” inquired the other.

“Not returned,” was the answer.

A brutal curse was the rejoinder, and the robber continued, “The girl is safe?”

“Yes.”

“And the tutor?”

“Yes. What do you want with them?”

“To knock out his --------d brains, and take her with us,” was the alarming reply. Simmonds appeared to remonstrate, for the robber replied in a louder tone than he had yet used--

“I tell you, _yes!_ Old Grant shall know what it is to lose a daughter as well as other people.”

Afraid lest the loudness of his voice should give the alarm, the other exclaimed in an anxious whisper--

“Hush! come in;” and one after the other the four men entered by the open window.