CHAPTER XLIX.--CONTAINS A PARADOX--LEWIS, WHEN LEAST RESIGNED, DISPLAYS

THE VIRTUE OF RESIGNATION.

On the morning after his second visit to Hardy, Lewis received a packet from the hospital chaplain enclosing the letter of which the dying man had spoken, together with a note containing the information that Hardy had breathed his last about two hours before, daybreak. The chaplain had seen him, and judged him to be in a fitting state of mind to receive the last consolations of religion. After partaking of the Holy Communion he had fallen into a state of unconsciousness, and died without any return of pain. Lewis opened Hardy’s letter: it merely contained a repetition of the request in regard to his unfortunate daughter, together with a reference to one of his associates, in whose possession was a packet containing his father-in-law’s will and other papers, all of which he begged Lewis to take charge of and examine at his leisure; he also gave a clue by which Miss Grant’s watch and trinkets might be recovered, and expressed his deep penitence for that robbery, as well as for his other crimes. As Lewis perused this letter, he for the first time became more fully aware of the embarrassing situation in which he had placed himself by his promise to Hardy. How was he to discover Lord Bellefield’s victim? how endeavour to reclaim her? After a few minutes’ thought his determination was taken. General Grant had announced that morning the fact that Lord Bellefield, having accepted an invitation to Broadhurst, might be expected in the course of the following day; Lewis therefore resolved to address a letter to his lordship, to be given him on his arrival, detailing such portions of Hardy’s confession as related to his daughter, and the promise which he had been thereby induced to make to the dying poacher; adding that if Lord Bellefield would afford him the information necessary to enable him to carry out her father’s wishes, and would pledge his word of honour to avoid her for the future, he should not attempt to give publicity to the matter, but that in the event of his refusal he should feel it his duty to make General Grant acquainted with the whole affair.

In pursuance of the system he had laid down for himself, Lewis avoided Annie’s society as much as was possible; a line of conduct which she soon appeared to observe, and at first to wonder at.. The arrival of Lord Bellefield, however, and her knowledge of Lewis’s feelings towards him, afforded her an imaginary clue to the young tutor’s altered demeanour; still, the change annoyed and pained her more than she chose to acknowledge even to her own heart. Lord Belle-field was all amiability; he had visited Italy, and brought back innumerable anecdotes of the domestic felicity of his brother Charles, whose wife he reported to be a model to her sex. His accounts of Charles’s prodigious business efforts, varied by occasional lapses into the _dolce far niente_ of dandyism, were amusing in the extreme Annie was forced to own that her cousin appeared greatly improved, and yet her repugnance to a renewal of the engagement seemed daily to increase. General Grant, however, by no means sympathised with this caprice, as he considered it, and was only restrained from some violent manifestation of domestic despotism by his confidence in his own authority, and in the certainty of Annie’s obedience whenever he might see fit to demand it. Lewis wrote the letter to Lord Bellefield, and having ascertained that it had reached him safely, waited patiently for an answer. Several days elapsed without his receiving one, and he was debating what step he should next take, when, as he was pacing up and down a shrubbery walk, wrapped in meditation, he suddenly met Lord Bellefield face to face. Determining not to lose an opportunity, he raised his hat, and bowing slightly, began--

“This meeting is fortunate, as I am anxious to ask your lordship a question. Have you not received a letter from me?”

“I have, sir,” was the haughty and concise reply.

“It is customary between gentlemen to acknowledge the receipt of a letter,” urged Lewis, “more particularly when, as in this instance, the writer has pledged himself to act according to the tenor of the answer.”

“I scarcely see how your observation applies to the present case,” was the insolent rejoinder. “In regard to your letter, I have treated it with the silent contempt it merited.”

Lewis’s brow flushed; controlling the angry impulse, however, he said calmly, “Your lordship cannot irritate me by such insinuations--you are aware of the alternative when you refuse to answer my letter?”

“I am, sir; you are welcome to take any course you please: I scorn your false accusations, and leave you to do your worst.”

“In that case we understand each other,” was the stern reply, and again raising his hat, Lewis passed on.

After this brief conversation he lost no time in obtaining a private interview with General Grant; scarcely, however, had he begun his statement when the General interrupted him by observing--

“I need not trouble you to proceed; Mr. Arundel; I am in possession of all the facts you are about to detail--Lord Bellefield has given me a full explanation of the matter, and I can assure you that you are labouring under an erroneous impression. The main facts of the story are, I am sorry to say, true; but the chief actor in the affair was a rascally valet of Lord Bellefield’s, who assumed his master’s name and apparel in order to accomplish his nefarious designs.”

“But I myself witnessed an interview between Lord Bellefield and the poor girl on the morning after the ball,” returned Lewis in surprise; “I should not have brought such a charge on insufficient grounds, believe me.”

“Your zeal, sir,” replied the General--“for I am willing to attribute the step you have taken solely to misdirected zeal--has assuredly led you into error. Lord Bellefield, who seems by some means aware of this idea of yours----”

“I mentioned the fact that I had seen him in a letter which I addressed to him on the subject,” interrupted Lewis. “It is only fair when you accuse a man of any fault to explain the grounds on which you believe him to have committed it.”

“Quite right, sir, quite right,” rejoined the General with an approving nod; “it is owing to the fair and manly way in which you have stated this matter that Lord Bellefield has been enabled to clear himself to my entire satisfaction. In regard to the interview to which you refer, he has recalled to me the fact that he spent the morning in question almost entirely in my company; we were engaged upon matters connected with the approaching election--you must therefore have mistaken the identity of the person you imagined to be him.”

“I am not apt to make such mistakes,” replied Lewis dryly, feeling convinced that the story was a clever fabrication from beginning to end, while, at the same time, he was becoming aware that for him to prove it to be so would be next to impossible.

“Nevertheless, you must have done so in this instance,” resumed General Grant; “but the mistake is easily to be accounted for. Lord Bellefield tells me that in order more safely to carry on his schemes, this rascally valet used to disguise himself so as to resemble his master as much as possible, even wearing false moustachios to increase the likeness; the fact of his having deceived you proves how successfully the fellow had contrived his disguise.”

While the General was speaking, Lewis hastily ran over in his mind all the evidence he possessed to prove Lord Bellefield’s guilt; and though he still felt as deeply convinced as he had ever been that in his first impression he had not erred, yet so skilfully had this story of the valet been adapted to suit the circumstances of the case that it appeared impossible to undeceive a man whose habits of mind were so obstinate as those of General Grant. His first introduction to the girl after the glove affair in the ice-room, although it carried conviction to his own mind, proved nothing, save that having witnessed a quarrel between two gentlemen, she was naturally enough alarmed as to the probable consequences to which it might lead. Again, in his second interview she might have been herself deceived by the valet’s representations into believing him to be Lord Bellefield, or, as she said, Mr. Leicester, his brother; or again, it was still more probable that she had been in her lover’s confidence, and striving to mystify and deceive Lewis. Hardy might have been aware of other facts, but his mistake in regard to Lewis proved that his information was not to be relied on. All this Lewis saw at a glance; and seeing, felt more annoyed and embarrassed than he could express.

“Time will prove the truth,” he said; “I cannot believe in Lord Bellefield’s innocence, but I am unable, at the present moment, to adduce any facts which might not bear the interpretation he has chosen to put upon them, and can only express my sorrow at having annoyed you, sir, by making a charge which I have failed to substantiate.”

“You annoy me more, Mr. Arundel, by refusing to be convinced by evidence which, after having given the matter my fullest attention, has sufficed to satisfy me. I can only imagine that in this matter private pique has warped your usually clear judgment; perhaps, after a little cool reflection, you may be induced to take a more charitable view of the affair.” So saying, the General stalked out of the room with a majestic port, as of an offended lion, leaving Lewis in a frame of mind the reverse of seraphic. But his trials for that morning were not yet at an end. Annie Grant had brooded over the young tutor’s gloomy looks and altered demeanour till she had made herself quite unhappy, when the idea occurred to her that she herself might be to blame. Since the last German lesson, to which allusion has been made, she had felt an instinctive dread of sounding the depth of her own feelings, or of allowing any one else, and much more Lewis, to perceive them. But it now struck her that in avoiding one extreme she had fallen into the other, and that Lewis might conceive the alteration in her manner to be owing to Lord Bellefield’s influence. This notion having once struck her, was so inconceivably painful that she determined to avail herself of the first opportunity of inquiring to what cause Lewis’s estrangement might be attributed; and if she found it had been produced by any supposed coolness on her part, she resolved to explain away such impression, and as she herself would have termed it, “make friends” again. Pondering these thoughts, she entered the library by a door communicating with the garden; in her hand she carried a bunch of roses, which she had just gathered, and hanging from her arm was her garden bonnet, which she had converted for the occasion into an extempore basket, also filled with roses; her golden ringlets, scared from their propriety by the wind, hung in picturesque disorder about her face and neck; the alarm she had lately undergone had rendered her somewhat paler than ordinary, and her delicate features were characterised by an unusually pensive expression. She entered so quietly, that Lewis, who, buried in thought, was seated at the table, his head resting on his hands, did not perceive her presence until, in a soft, low voice, she uttered his name. At the moment she spoke he was thinking of her--striving in vain to banish her image, which haunted his imagination like some restless ghost--trying to _think down_ the temptation which was hourly becoming too strong for him; and when the sound of her voice reached him, and looking up with a start he saw her standing by him in the power of her dazzling beauty, it seemed as though the phantom of his imagination had suddenly assumed a bodily shape to tempt him beyond all power of resistance. Something of all this must have appeared in the expression of his features, for Annie began, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Arundel, I had no idea of startling you; I fancied you had heard me enter--but you look pale and tremble, surely you are not ill?”

“Oh, no!” he replied, forcing a smile, “it is nothing; a slight giddiness which will pass away in a moment.”

As he spoke, however, he pressed his hand to his brow, which throbbed as though it would burst. Annie became alarmed, and placing her flowers on the table, she drew nearer to him, saying--

“I am sure there is something the matter; you are either ill or unhappy; you have received some bad news of your mother, or dear Rose, is it not so?”

“Indeed you are mistaken,” returned Lewis, making an effort to rouse himself; “I was buried in thought, and your sudden entrance startled me. I am not usually given to such freaks, but since our nocturnal adventure I must confess to having become practically convinced of the existence of nerves. I must have lost more blood from this cut in the wrist than I was at first aware of.”

“Ah! that dreadful night!” exclaimed Annie, clasping her hands and turning pale at the recollection; “I shall never forget all I went through on that night if I live to be a hundred. I had been asleep for an hour or more, when I suddenly woke and saw Lisette standing by my bedside pale and trembling; as soon as she could find voice to speak she told me there were robbers in the house, and that we should all be murdered. My first idea was that you would be able to save us, and I told her to go and arouse you instantly; I soon found, however, she was too much alarmed to go alone, so I rose and accompanied her. The rest you know; but you can never know the agony of mind I suffered after you had left me: first, the dreadful interval of suspense before the robbers came upstairs, and then the fearful sounds of the conflict. I felt sure they would kill you, and I thought how wickedly selfish I had been to allow you to stay there and meet them, when, but for me, you might have escaped. I felt as if I had condemned you to death, and that I could never--never be happy again. Oh! it was too horrible!” and carried away by the recollections she had called up, Annie sank into a chair and covered her eyes with her hands, as if to shut out some painful object.

And Lewis, what had been his feelings, as, hurried on by the interest of her subject, Annie had thus unconsciously afforded him a glimpse into the inmost recesses of her heart? When she mentioned that her impulse on the first alarm of danger had been to rely on his protection, his dark eyes beamed with an inexpressible tenderness; but as she proceeded, and her artless confession proved that in the moment of peril her fears were not for herself but for him, his emotions became uncontrollable, and the volcano of passion, whose secret fires had already begun to prey upon his very life-springs, threatened to burst forth and bear down all before it. Already he had half risen from his seat; in another moment his arm would have encircled her, and the words that told of his deep, his overpowering love--the words that, once said, could never have been recalled, would have been poured forth, when, by one of those dispensations of Providence which men call Chance, his eye fell upon two persons who were pacing, arm-in-arm, along a terrace walk on the farthest side of the lawn--they were General Grant and Lord Bellefield. The revulsion of feeling was instantaneous; duty, honour, pride, all came to the rescue, and the fight was won, but the cost remained yet to reckon. Lewis, once excited, was not a person to take half-measures; with the speed of thought, the resolution rushed upon him that while their mutual relations remained unchanged, he and Annie must never meet again. The purpose was no sooner formed than it was acted upon. Turning to his companion, who, engrossed by her own feelings, had remained wholly unconscious of the struggle that had been proceeding in Lewis’s breast, he said in a calm, mournful voice, “Although I have not exactly received evil tidings, yet circumstances have occurred which require my presence elsewhere, and I am now about to ask your father’s permission to leave Broadhurst; this will, therefore, probably be the last time I shall see you.”

“Until you return,” interrupted Annie eagerly.

A bitter smile flitted across Lewis’s mouth as he replied, “Yes, until I return! I will therefore bid you good-bye at once.” He paused, and his eye fell upon a rose-bud she was unconsciously playing with. “I have a fancy for that flower,” he said; “will you give it to me?”

“Nay, let me find you a better one,” was the reply; “this is blighted.”

“For which reason I prefer it to any other; you know I have odd fancies sometimes.” He took the bud from her, fixed it in his buttonhole, then resumed, “I must now seek the General--good-bye!”

Annie regarded him with a pleading glance, as though she would fain learn more; but reading in the stern resolution of his countenance the inutility of further questioning, held out her hand in silence; he took it, clasped it in his own, then, yielding to an irresistible impulse, pressed it hurriedly to his lips, and was gone.

General Grant was naturally by no means of a suspicious disposition; the position in which he was placed giving him irresponsible authority over nearly every person with whom he came in contact, had rendered him pompous and arbitrary; but although not a man of enlarged mind, or possessing much delicacy of perception, he was actuated by a strong principle of justice. This attribute imparted a degree of frankness and generosity to his character, which, despite occasional displays of obstinacy or prejudice, caused him to be very generally respected, and in some instances beloved. To a mind of this nature there can be nothing more vexatious or annoying than to have its preconceived opinions of a person shaken by artful insinuations, which will require long and patient investigation to verify or disprove. In such a state of mind as we have described, however, did Lord Bellefield leave General Grant when, after pacing up and down the memorable terrace walk which had been the scene of De Grandeville’s ill-judged confidence to Charley Leicester, he at length quitted him. The subject of their conversation had been the character of Lewis Arundel; and Lord Bellefield had taken advantage of the General’s momentary irritation against the young tutor to suggest, rather than positively to make, the following accusation:--He first hinted that the General had been deceived by Lewis’s fair seeming, to adopt a wrong view of his disposition, and that, instead of the chivalrous, high-spirited, honourable being he imagined him, he was in fact an artful and accomplished hypocrite. He then proceeded to state that he had long seen this, and even suspected the object of his lengthened residence at Broadhurst, nay, possibly of his original entrance into that family; this object he declared to be a systematic design to ensnare the affections of the General’s daughter, probably relying on his good looks and insinuating manner to enable him to inveigle her into a runaway marriage. “Hence,” he observed, “his animosity towards me; hence his unsuccessful attempts to blacken my character, first in regard to poor Mellerton’s affair, and now concerning the poacher’s daughter. If he could once have succeeded in producing a quarrel between us, he would have had a clear field to himself. I was unwilling to disturb you by telling you this before, sir,” he continued. “I felt perfect confidence in my cousin Annie’s affection; and as to the young fellow himself, he was of course quite beneath my notice; but Annie, after all, is a mere girl, and naturally inexperienced in the ways of the world. Since the hint you threw out, advising me to proceed with gentleness, because she appeared to have some girlish scruples as to the renewal of the engagement, I have felt it was incumbent on me to put you on your guard without delay. The man is handsome--chance has given him many opportunities of interesting a romantic girl, and it must be confessed our dear Annie has a spice of romance about her.”

“I do not think so, sir,” interrupted the General snappishly; “none of the Grants ever were romantic. I am not romantic myself, and I do not believe a daughter of mine would forget her duty, her position, in fact her relationship to me, so far as to indulge in romance in regard to a private tutor. Moreover, I believe Mr. Arundel to be a highly honourable young man; he is the son of a soldier and a gentleman, and I cannot but consider that you wrong him by your suspicions; at the same time, I promise you the matter shall be looked into, the engagement between my daughter and yourself formally renewed, and the moment she is of age, it is my wish that the marriage should take place. It is desirable for your sake as well as for hers. I trust when you become a married man to see you give up racing, and take more interest in public business. It is, as you are aware, my intention to settle Broadhurst upon your second son; it will therefore behove you to distinguish yourself as one in whom the families of Leicester and Grant are united.”

So saying, the General relapsed into a solemn silence, and Lord Bellefield, inly raging at the tone of authority which his future father-in-law saw fit to assume towards him, quitted him, leaving the poison he had instilled into his mind to work; and it did work, for although he was disinclined in the highest degree to admit the truth of his intended son-in-law’s insinuations against Lewis, yet he could not banish them from his mind. A thousand little circumstances came to his recollection of which at the moment he had thought nothing, but which now appeared to favour Lord Bellefield’s view of the case; and for the first time his own imprudence in throwing so constantly together two young people in every way calculated to attract each other occurred to him, and he paced the terrace walk in a frame of mind by no means customary to that gallant officer--viz., one of self-reprobation. While thus pondering, at a sudden turn in the walk the object of his thoughts appeared before him, looking so tall, dark, and cold, as, with his arms folded across his breast, he stood statue-like beneath the shadow of an old yew-tree, that the General started as though he had seen a ghost. If any such notion occurred to him, however, the illusion was soon dissipated, for Lewis, raising his hat, advanced towards him and said--

“I have sought you, General Grant, to thank you for all the generous courtesy I have received at your hands, and to tell you that it is impossible for me longer to continue a member of your household.”

As Lewis spoke these words calmly and respectfully, the General’s face assumed an expression of surprise and dismay most wonderful to behold.

“What!” he exclaimed, “resign your appointment as tutor to my ward! quit Sir Walter before you have completed his education, when your system has been so surprisingly successful, too! Oh, the thing is impossible, I cannot hear of it.”

A look of sorrow passed across Lewis’s features as the General mentioned Walter, but he replied with the same calm, respectful, but determined manner, which, to one who knew him well, would have proved that he was acting in accordance with some resolve that he had formed upon principle, and to which he would adhere inflexibly.

“I am grieved to be obliged to relinquish my task unfinished,” he said, “more especially since the interest I have long felt in my poor pupil has rendered duties which others might consider irksome a labour of love to me. I trust, however, that I have been enabled so far to develop poor Walter’s intellects that any person who will treat him judiciously and kindly (and to no other, I am sure, you would entrust him) may be able to complete all that remains to be done towards his education.”

“And pray what is your reason for this sudden determination, Mr. Arundel?” inquired the General, becoming more and more perplexed as he perceived that it would be no easy matter to alter Lewis’s determination. “I presume some more advantageous prospect has been thrown open to you?”

Lewis shook his head mournfully. “You wrong me by such a supposition, sir,” he replied; “my future, as far as I can foresee it, is not a bright one, believe me.”

“Has Lord Bellefield in any way annoyed or interfered with you?” inquired the General, as a suspicion crossed his mind that his amiable future son-in-law might have taken some aggressive step against the young tutor; but Lewis again replied in the negative, adding that his reason for resigning his post was entirely of a personal nature, and that he had not come to the conclusion without due consideration.

“Really, sir,” returned the General, drawing himself up stiffly, as the suspicions instilled by Lord Bellefield suddenly flashed across his mind, “these enigmas are past my comprehension. You propose to resign at a moment’s notice the conduct of my ward’s education, thereby materially injuring him, and causing me the greatest inconvenience and annoyance; I think, therefore, you owe it to me as well as to yourself candidly to state your reason for so doing; at all events I must be allowed to say such concealment is most unlike your usual frank and manly course of proceeding.”

As the General uttered this reproach Lewis coloured, and his compressed lip and knitted brow told how deeply it affected him. When the other had ceased speaking he answered haughtily, “Your reproof may be deserved, General Grant, but it was my wish to save us both pain, which alone induced me to desire the concealment you reprobate; your words, however, oblige me to speak openly, and cost what it may, I will do so. _I cannot remain longer beneath your roof \ because I love your daughter_. Wait,” he continued sternly, as with a start of horrified surprise the General seemed about to give vent to his indignation in a torrent of words, “you have forced me to speak, and must now hear me out. I well know the feelings with which you regard my mad presumption, as you consider it; I know better even than you do the gulf which lies between your daughter and your paid dependant; but nature recognises no such distinctions--the same God who made her good and beautiful implanted in my breast the admiration for those qualities, and I could no more exist in her presence without loving her than I could stand in the glorious sunshine without feeling its genial warmth. My love was from the beginning as hopeless as I know it to be at this moment, when I read in your lowering brow that if your frown could annihilate me, you would deem the punishment only too mild for my offence against your pride of station; and yet I know, and you know it too, that casting aside the adventitious gifts of rank and fortune, my nature is more akin to your own than is that of the titled worldling you have selected as your future son-in-law. Before night sets in I shall have left this house for ever, and from that moment to you and yours I shall be as one dead. I may therefore say without fear of misconstruction that which I could not speak as long as I remained a member of your household. The tale that I told you regarding the poacher’s child was _TRUE_. In the version Lord Bellefield gave of it he lied to you. He is a man of evil passions and of narrow mind, and I warn you, if you entrust your daughter’s happiness to him, a time will come when you will bitterly repent it. I will next tell you why I have remained here thus long, and why I leave you now. My passion for your daughter has been the growth of months; how I have striven against it and endeavoured to crush it out--ay, though I crushed my heart with it, none will ever know; it is enough that I have failed, that where I fancied myself strong I have been proved weak. If I have suffered, ’tis through my own folly; if my future appear one fathomless hell of recollection, for myself have I prepared it.” He paused, drew his hand across his throbbing brow, and then continued--

“I remained here for Walter’s sake, relying on my own fortitude to conceal the mental torture I endured; I bore Lord Bellefield’s sneers, and harder still, your daughter’s gentle kindness, with an unmoved aspect, but at each successive trial the effort became greater, and my strength grew less, until this mornings when in her tender woman’s mercy, your daughter, reading in my face traces of the anguish which was consuming me, spoke words of kindliness and sympathy, chance alone, or rather the watchful providence of God, prevented my secret from transpiring. A similar trial might recur at any moment--I have lost all confidence in my power of self-control; therefore every principle of honour and of duty bids me leave this place without delay; and this, so help me Heaven, is the whole and simple truth.”

As he concluded, General Grant, whose brow had gradually relaxed during Lewis’s speech, exclaimed with a degree of warmth most unusual to him, “You have behaved like a man of honour, Mr. Arundel, under what I own to have been a very great trial, and I admire and respect you for so completely justifying the favourable opinion I have formed of you; I wish--that is, I could wish if the thing were not impossible--but it is useless to talk in this way--you must, as you wisely perceive, leave Broadhurst immediately. I will take upon me to find some reason to account for your abrupt departure, but you will carry with you my esteem and gratitude, and in whatever career you may think fit to adopt you may rely upon my willingness to assist you to the uttermost. May I inquire your future plans?”

“I have formed no plans,” returned Lewis hurriedly. “When I leave your house my only prospect is to begin life anew, with every hope that renders life endurable shut out from me for ever--I am grateful for your offers, but must decline them. Henceforward I am likely to do little credit to any one’s patronage, and must strive with existence alone and single-handed. And now, ere I leave you, let me again thank you for the courtesy you have uniformly shown me--I expected justice at your hands, you have added kindness also: we shall probably never meet again, but the chances of life are strange, and should it ever be in my power to return your benefits, you will not find me forgetful.”

He raised his hat as he spoke, and turned to depart. General Grant advanced as if he would detain him, but checking himself, he muttered--

“You shall hear from me--I will write to you at your banker’s;” and Lewis bowed and left him.