Chapter 9

A PORTRAIT.

Two years had passed away since I last beheld my cousin, and during his absence, there had been peace between his father and me. He appeared before me like the evil genius of the house, prepared to renew the old hostility, and I could not meet him with the least show of cordiality and affection.

I am not a good hand at sketching portraits, but the person of my cousin is so fresh in my memory, his image so closely interwoven with all the leading events of my life, that I can scarcely fail in giving a tolerably correct likeness of the original.

He was about the middle stature, his figure slender and exceedingly well made: and but for a strong dash of affectation, which marred all that he did and said, his carriage would have been easy and graceful. His head was small and handsomely placed upon his shoulders, his features sharply defined and very prominent. His teeth were remarkably white, but so long and narrow, that they gave a peculiarly sinister and malicious expression to his face--which expression was greatly heightened by the ghastly contortion that was meant for a smile, and which was in constant requisition, in order to show off the said teeth, which Theophilus considered one of his greatest attractions. But my cousin had no personal attractions. There was nothing manly or decided about him. Smooth and insidious where he wished to please, his first appearance to strangers was always unprepossessing; and few persons on their first introduction had any great desire to extend their acquaintance.

He ought to have been fair, for his hair and whiskers were of the palest tint of brown; but his complexion was grey and muddy, and his large sea-green eyes afforded not the least contrast to the uniform smokiness of his skin. Those cold, selfish, deceitful eyes; his father's in shape and expression, but lacking the dark strength--the stern, determined look which at times lighted up Robert Moncton's proud, cruel face.

Much as I disliked the father, he was in his worst moods more tolerable to me than his son. Glimpses of his mind would at times flash out through those unnaturally bright eyes; and betray somewhat of the hell within; but Theophilus was close and dark--a sealed book which no man could open and read. An overweening sense of his own importance was the only trait of his character which lay upon the surface; and this, his master-failing, was revealed by every look and gesture.

A servile flatterer to persons of rank, and insolent and tyrannical to those whom he considered beneath him, he united in his character, the qualifications of both tyrant and slave.

The most brilliant sallies of wit could not produce the least brightening effect upon his saturnine countenance, or the most pathetic burst of eloquence draw the least moisture to his eye, which only became animated when contradicting some well-received opinion, or discussing the merits of an acquaintance, and placing his faults and follies in the most conspicuous light.

He was endowed with excellent practical abilities, possessed a most retentive memory, and a thorough knowledge of the most intricate windings of the human heart. Nothing escaped his observation. It would have been a difficult matter to have made a tool of one, whose suspicions were always wide awake; who never acted from impulse, or without a motive, and who had a shrewd knack of rendering the passions of others subservient to his own.

He was devoted to sensual pleasures, but the mask he wore, so effectually concealed his vicious propensities, that the most cautious parents would have admitted him without hesitation into their family circle. Robert Moncton thought himself master of the mind of his son, and fancied him a mere puppet in his hands; but his cunning was foiled by the superior cunning of Theophilus, and he ultimately became the dupe and victim of the being for whose aggrandizement he did not scruple to commit the worst crimes.

Theophilus was extremely neat in his dress, and from the cravat to the well-polished boot, his costume was perfect. An effeminate, solemn-looking dandy outwardly--within, as ferocious and hard a human biped as ever disgraced the name of man.

"Well, Geoff!" said he, condescendingly presenting his hand, "what have you been doing for the last two years?"

"Writing, in the old place," said I, carelessly.

"A fixture!--ha, ha! 'A rolling stone,' they say, 'gathers no moss.' How does that agree with your stationary position?"

"It only proves, that all proverbs have two sides to them," said I. "You roll about the world and scatter the moss that I sit here to help accumulate."

"What a lucky dog you are," said he, "to escape so easily from the snares and temptations of this wicked world. While I am tormented with ennui, blue-devils and dyspepsia, you sit still and grow in stature and knowledge. By Jove! you are too big to wear my cast-off suits now. My valet will bless the increase of your outward man, and I don't think you have at all profited by the circumstance. Where the deuce did you get that eccentric turn-out? It certainly does not remind one of Bond Street."

"Mr. Theophilus!" I cried, reddening with indignation. "Did you come here on purpose to insult me?"

"Sit still, now, like a good lad, and don't fly into heroics and give us a scene. I am too lazy to pick a quarrel with you. What a confounded wet morning! It has disarranged all my plans. I ordered the groom to bring up my mare at eleven. The rain commenced at ten. I think it means to keep on at this rate all day."

He cast a peevish glance at the dusty ground-glass windows.

"There's no catching a glimpse of heaven through these dim panes. My father's clerks are not called upon to resist the temptation of looking into the streets."

"They might not inappropriately be called the pains and penalties of lawyer's clerks," said I, smothering my anger, as I saw by the motion of Harrison's head, that he was suffering from an agony of suppressed laughter.

"Not a bad idea that. The plan of grinding the glass was suggested by me. An ingenious one, is it not? My father had the good sense to adopt it. It's a pity that his example is not followed by all the lawyers and merchants in London."

In spite of the spattering of Harrison's pen, which told me as plainly as words could have done, that he was highly amused at the scene, I felt irritated at Theophilus joking about a circumstance which, to me, was a great privation and annoyance.

"If _you_ had a seat in this office, Mr. Theophilus," said I, laying a strong stress upon the personal pronoun, "you would, I am certain, take good care to keep a peep-hole, well-glazed, for your own convenience."

"If I were in the office," he replied, with one of his sidelong, satirical glances, "I should have too much to do in keeping the clerks at work and in their places, to have much time for looking out of the window. My father would do well to hire an overseer for _idle_ hands."

Harrison's tremulous fit increased, while I was burning with indignation, and rose passionately from my seat.

"Geoffrey"--pronounced in an undertone, restrained me from committing an act of violence. I resumed my stool, muttering audibly between my teeth--

"Contemptible puppy!"

I was quite ready for a quarrel, but Theophilus, contrary to my expectations, did not choose to take any notice of my imprudent speech. Not that he wanted personal courage. Like the wasp, he could, when unprovoked, attack others, and sting with tenfold malice when he felt or fancied an affront. His forbearance on the present occasion, I attributed to the very handsome riding-dress in which he had encased his slight and elegant form. A contest with a strong, powerful young fellow like me, might have ended in its demolition:

Slashing his boot with his riding-whip, and glancing carelessly towards the window, he said, with an air of perfect indifference,

"Well, if the rain means to pour in this way all day, it is certain that I cannot prosecute my journey to Dover on horseback. I must take the coach, and leave the groom to follow with the horses."

"Dover!" I repeated, with an involuntary start, "are you off for France?"

"Yes" (with a weary yawn); "I shall not return until I have made the tour of Europe, and I just stepped in for a moment to say good-by."

"_Unusually_ kind," said I, with a sneer.

He remained silent for a few minutes, and seemed slightly embarrassed, as if he found difficulty in bringing out what he had to say.

"Geoffrey, I may be absent several years. It is just possible that we may never meet again."

"I hope so," was the response in my heart, while he continued,

"Your time in this office expires when you reach your majority. Our paths in life are very different, and from that period I must insist upon our remaining perfect strangers to each other."

Before I had time to answer his ungracious speech, he turned upon his heel and left the office, and me literally foaming with passion.

"Thank God he is gone!" cried Harrison. "My dear Geoff, accept my sincere congratulations. It would indeed be a blessing did you never meet again."

"Oh, that he had stayed another minute that I might have demolished his gay plumes! I am so angry, so mortified, George, that I can scarcely control myself."

"Nonsense! His departure is a fortunate event for you."

"Of course--the absence of one so actively annoying, must make my bondage more tolerable."

"Listen to me, petulant boy! there is war in the camp. Theophilus leaves the house under the ban of his father's anger. They have had a desperate quarrel, and he quits London in disgrace; and if you are not a gainer by this change in the domestic arrangements, my name is not George Harrison."

"Why do you think so?"

"Because I know more of Robert Moncton than you do. To provoke his son to jealousy, he will take you into favour. If Theophilus has gone too far--he is so revengeful, so unforgiving--he may, probably, make you his heir."

"May God forbid!" cried I, vehemently.

Harrison laughed.

"Gold is too bright to betray the dirty channels through which it flows--and I feel certain, Geoffrey----"

A quick rap at the office-door terminated all further colloquy, and I rose to admit the intruder.

Harrison and I generally wrote in an inner, room, which opened into the public office; and a passage led from the apartment we occupied into Mr. Moncton's private study, in which he generally spent the fore-part of the day, and in which he received persons who came to consult him on particular business.

On opening the door which led into the public office, a woman wrapped closely in a black camblet cloak, glided into the room.

Her face was so completely concealed by the large calash and veil she wore, and, but for the stoop in the shoulders, it would have been difficult at a first glance to have determined her age.

"Is Mr. Moncton at home?" Her voice was harsh and unpleasant; it had a hissing, grating intonation, which was painful to the ear.

The moment the stranger spoke, I saw Harrison start, and turn very pale. He rose hastily from his seat and walked to a case of law-books which stood in a dark recess, and taking down a volume, continued standing with his back towards us, as if intently occupied with its contents.

This circumstance made me regard the woman with more attention. She appeared about sixty years of age. Her face was sharp, her eyes black and snake-like, while her brow was channelled into deep furrows which made you think it almost impossible that she had ever been young or handsome. Her upper lip was unusually short, and seemed to writhe with a constant sneer; and in spite of her corrugated brow, long nose, and curved chin, which bore the unmistakable marks of age, her fine teeth shone white and ghastly, when she unclosed her fleshless, thin lips. A worse, or more sinister aspect, I have seldom, during the course of my life, beheld.

In answer to her inquiry, I informed her that Mr. Moncton was at home, but particularly engaged; and had given orders for no one to be admitted to his study before noon.

With a look of bitter disappointment, she then asked to speak to Mr. Theophilus.

"He has just left for France, and will not return for several years."

"Gone!--and I am too late," she muttered to herself. "If I cannot see the son, I _must_ and _will_ speak to the father."

"Your business, then, was with Mr. Theophilus?" said I, no longer able to restrain my curiosity; for I was dying to learn something of the strange being whose presence had given my friend Harrison's nerves such a sudden shock.

"Impertinent boy!" said she with evident displeasure. "Who taught you to catechise your elders? Go, and tell your employer that _Dinah North_ is here; and _must_ see him immediately."

As I passed the dark nook in which Harrison was playing at hide and seek, he laid his hand upon my arm, and whispered in French, a language he spoke fluently, and in which he had been giving me lessons for some time, "My happiness is deeply concerned in yon hag's commission. Read well Moncton's countenance, and note down his words, while you deliver her message, and report your observations to me."

I looked up in his face with astonishment. His countenance was livid with excitement and agitation, and his whole frame trembled. Before I could utter a word, he had quitted the office. Amazed and bewildered, I glanced back towards the being who was the cause of this emotion, and whom I now regarded with intense interest.

She had sunk down into Harrison's vacant seat, her elbows supported on her knees, and her head resting between the palms of her hands: her face completely concealed from observation. "Dinah North," I whispered to myself; "that is a name I never heard before. Who the deuce can she be?" With a flushed cheek and hurried step, I hastened to my uncle's study to deliver her message.

I found him alone: he was seated at the table, looking over a long roll of parchment. He was much displeased at the interruption, and reproved me in a stern voice for disobeying his positive orders; and, by way of conciliation, I repeated my errand.

"Tell that woman," he cried, in a voice hoarse with emotion, "that I _will not_ see her! nor any one belonging to her."

"The mystery thickens," thought I. "What can all this mean?"

On re-entering the office, I found the old woman huddled up in her wet clothes, in the same dejected attitude in which I had left her. When I addressed her, she raised her head with a fierce, menacing gesture. She evidently mistook me for Mr. Moncton, and smiled disdainfully on perceiving her error. When I repeated his answer, it was received with a bitter and derisive laugh.

"He will not see me?"

"I have given you my uncle's answer."

"_Uncle!_" she cried, with a repetition of the same horrid laugh. "By courtesy, I suppose; I was not aware that there was another shoot of that accursed tree."

I gazed upon her like one in a dream. The old woman drew a slip of paper from her bosom, bidding me convey _that_ to my _worthy_ uncle, and ask him, in her name, "whether he, or his son, _dared_ to refuse admittance to the bearer."

I took the billet from her withered hand, and once more proceeded to the study. As I passed through the passage, an irresistible impulse of curiosity induced me to glance at the paper, which was unsealed, and my eye fell upon the following words, traced in characters of uncommon beauty and delicacy:

"If Robert Moncton refuses to admit my claims, and to do me justice, I will expose his villainy, and his son's heartless desertion, to the world.

"A. M."

I had scarcely read the mysterious billet than I felt that I had done wrong. I was humbled and abashed in my own eyes, and the riddle appeared as difficult of solution as ever. My uncle's voice sounded as ominously in my ears as the stroke of a death-bell, as he called me sharply by name. Hastily refolding the note, I went into his study, and placed it on the table before him, with an averted glance and trembling hand. I dreaded lest his keen, clear eye should read guilt in my conscious face. Fortunately for me, he was too much agitated himself to notice my confusion. He eagerly clutched the paper, and his aspect grew dark as he perused it.

"Geoffrey," said he, and his voice, generally so clear and passionless, sunk into a choking whisper, "Is that woman gone?"

"No, uncle, she is still there, and dares you to refuse her admittance."

I had thought Robert Moncton icy and immovable--that his blood never flowed like the blood of other men. I had deceived myself. Beneath the snow-capped mountain, the volcano conceals its hottest fires. My uncle's cold exterior was but the icy crust that hid the fierce passions which burnt within his breast. He forgot my presence in the excitement of the moment, and the stern unfeeling eye blazed with lurid fire.

"Fool!--madman--insane idiot!" he cried, tearing the note to pieces, and trampling on the fragments in his ungovernable rage: "how have you marred your own fortune, destroyed your best hopes, and annihilated all my plans for your future advancement!"

Suddenly he became conscious of my presence, and glancing at me with his usual iron gravity, said, with an expression of haughty indifference, as if my opinion of his extraordinary conduct was matter of no importance,

"Geoffrey, go and tell that mad-woman--But no. I will go myself."

He advanced to the door, seemed again irresolute, and finally bade me show her into the study. Dinah North rose with alacrity to obey the summons, and for a person of her years, seemed to possess great activity of mind and body. I felt a secret loathing for the hag, and pitied my uncle the unpleasant conference which I was certain awaited him.

Mr. Moncton had resumed his seat in his large study chair, and he rose with such calm dignity to receive his unwelcome visitor, that his late agitation appeared a delusion of my own heated imagination.

Curiosity was one of my besetting sins. Ah, how I longed to know the substance of their discourse; for I felt a mysterious presentiment that in some way or another, my future destiny was connected with this stranger. I recalled the distress of Harrison, the dark hints he had thrown out respecting me, and his evident knowledge, not only of the old woman, but of the purport of her visit.

I was tortured with conjectures. I lingered in the passage; but the conversation was carried on in too low a tone for me even to distinguish a solitary monosyllable; and ashamed of acting the part of a spy, I stole back with noiseless steps to my place in the office. I found George at his desk: his face was very pale, and I thought I could perceive traces of strong emotion. For some time he wrote on in silence, without asking a word about the secret that I was burning to tell. I was the first to speak and lead him to the subject.

"Do you know that horrible old woman, George?"

"Too well: she is my grandmother, and nursed me in my infancy."

"Then, what made you so anxious to avoid a recognition?"

"I did not want her to know that I was living. She believes me dead: nay more," he continued, lowering his voice to a whisper, "she thinks she murdered me." His lips quivered as he murmured, in half-smothered tones: "And she--the beautiful, the lost one--what will become of her?"

"Oh, Harrison," I cried, "do speak out; do not torture me with these dark hints. If you are a true friend, give me your whole confidence, nor let your silence give rise to painful conjectures and doubts. I have no concealments from you. Such mental reservation on your part is every thing but kind."

"I frankly acknowledge that you have just cause to suspect me," said George, with his usual sad, winning smile. "But this is not a safe place to discuss matters of vital interest to us both--matters which involve life and death. I trust to clear up the mystery one of these days, and for that purpose I am here. But tell me: how did Moncton receive this woman--this Dinah North?"

I related the scene. When I repeated the contents of the note, his calm face crimsoned with passion, his eyes flashed, and his lips quivered with indignation.

"Yes, I thought it would come to that; unhappy, miserable Alice! how could you bestow the affections of a warm, true heart on a despicable wretch like Theophilus Moncton. The old fiend's ambition and this fatal passion have been your ruin."

For some time he remained with his face bowed upon his hands. At length, raising his head, and turning to me with great animation, he asked if I knew any of my father's relations, besides Robert Moncton and his son?

"I was not aware that I had any other relatives."

"They are by no means a prolific race, Geoffrey. And has your insatiable curiosity never led you to make the inquiry?"

"I dared not ask my uncle. My aunt told me that, but for them, I should be alone in the world. It was a subject never discussed before me," I continued, after a long pause, in which George seemed busy with his own thoughts. "I understood that my uncle had only one brother."

"True," said George, "but he has a cousin; a man of great wealth and consequence. Did you never hear Theophilus mention Sir Alexander Moncton?"

"Never."

"Nor to whom his long visits in Yorkshire were made?"

"How should I? No confidence existed between us. I was indifferent to all his movements; not imagining that they could in any degree interest me."

"I begin to see my way through this tangled maze," returned George, musingly. "I now understand the secluded manner in which you have been brought up; and their reasons for keeping you a prisoner within these walls. They have an important game to play, in which they do not want you to act a conspicuous part. I can whisper a secret into your ears well worth the knowing--ay, and the keeping, too. Geoffrey Moncton, you are this Sir Alexander's _heir_!"

A sudden thrill shot through my whole frame. It was not pleasure, for at that moment I felt sad enough; nor hope, for I had long accustomed myself to look only on the dark side of the picture. It was, I fear, revenge; a burning desire to pay back the insults and injuries I had received from Theophilus Moncton, and to frustrate the manoeuvres of his designing father.

"Has Sir Alexander no children?"

"He has a daughter--an only daughter, a fair, fragile girl of sixteen; the noblest, the most disinterested of her sex; a creature as talented as she is beautiful. Margaretta Moncton is destined to be the wife of her cousin Theophilus."

"Does he love her?"

"How can you ask that question, knowing the man, and after having read the note addressed to your uncle?"

"That note was signed A---- M----."

"It was written by an unhappy, infatuated creature, whom Theophilus _did_ love, if such a passion as his callous bosom can feel, deserves the name; but he shall not escape my vengeance. The arrow is in the bow, and a punishment as terrible as his crime, shall overtake him yet."

"Oh, that you would enter more fully into these dark details. You are ingenious at tormenting. I am bewildered and lost amid these half disclosures."

"Hush, Geoffrey! these walls have ears. I, too, am tortured, maddened by your questions. You are too imprudent--too impulsive, to trust with matters of such vital importance; I have revealed too much already. Try and forget the events of this morning; nor let your uncle discover by look, word or gesture, that you are in possession of his secret. He is deeply offended with his son, not on account of his base conduct to this poor orphan girl, but because it is likely to hinder his marriage with Miss Moncton, which has been for years the idol wish of his heart. His morose spirit, once aroused, is deadly and implacable; and in order to make Theophilus feel the full weight of his anger, he may call you to fill his vacant place."

The sound of Mr. Moncton's step in the passage put a sudden stop to our conversation, but enough had been said to rouse my curiosity to the highest pitch; and I tried in vain to lift the dark veil of futurity--to penetrate the mysteries that its folds concealed.