Martin Farquhar Tupper - The Twins
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Martin Farquhar Tupper >> The Twins
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He came on quickly, though cautiously, looking right and left; and Emily
trembled on her guardian's feeble arm. Yes--she is right; the fisherman
approaches--she detects him through it all: and now he scorns disguise;
flinging off his cap and the tarpaulin, stands before them--Julian!
"So, sir--you tremble now, do you, gallant general: give me the girl."
And he levelled at his father one of those double-barrelled pistols,
full-cock.
"Julian, my son, I forgive you, Julian; take my hand, boy."
"What--coward? now you can cringe, and fawn, eh? back with you!--the
girl, I say." For poor Emily, wild with fear, was clinging to that weak
old man.
Julian levelled again; indeed, indeed it was only as a threat;
but his hand shook with passion--the weapon was full-cock,
hair-triggered--shotted heavily as always--hark, hark!--And his father
fell upon the turf, covered with blood!
When a wicked man tampers with unintended crime, even accident falls out
against him. Many a one has richly merited death for many other sins,
than that isolated, haply accidental one which he has hanged for.
Julian, horror-stricken, pale and trembling, flew instinctively to help
his father: but Emily has circled him already with her arms; and listen,
Julian--your dying father speaks to you.
"Boy, I forgive--I forgive: but--Emily, no, no, cannot, cannot
be--Julian--she--she is your _sister_!" and the old man swooned away,
from loss of blood and the excitement of that awful scene.
Not a word in reply said that poor sinner, maddened with his life-long
crimes, the fratricide in will, the parricide in deed, and all for--a
sister. But growing whiter as he stood, a marble man with bristling
hair, he slowly drew the other pistol from his pocket, put the muzzle to
his mouth, and, firing as he fell, leapt into the darkly-flowing Mullet!
The current, all too violent to sink in, and uncommissioned now to
save, hurried its black burden to the sea; and a crimson streak of gore
marked the track of the suicide.
The old man was not dead; but a brace of bullets taking effect upon his
feeble frame--one through the shoulder, and another which had grazed his
head--had been quite enough to make him seem so. Forgetful of all but
that dear sufferer, and totally ignorant of Julian's fate--for she
neither saw nor heard any thing, nor feared even for her own imminent
peril, while her father lay dying on the grass--Emily had torn off her
scarf, and bound up, as well as she could, the ghastly scored head and
broken shoulder. She succeeded in staunching the blood--for no great
vessel had been severed--and so simple an application as grass dipped in
water, proved to be a good specific. Then, to her exceeding joy, those
eyes opened again, and that dear tongue faintly whispered--"Bless you."
Oh, that blessing! for it fell upon her heart: and fervently she knelt
down there, and thanked the Great Preserver.
And now, for friendly help; there is no one near: and it is growing
dusk; and she dared not leave him there alone one minute--for
Julian--dreaded Julian, may return, and kill him. What shall she do? How
to get him home? Alas, alas! he may die where he is lying.
Hark, Emmy, hark! The shouts of happy children bursting out of school!
See, dearest--see: here they come homewards merrily from Oxton.
Thus, rewarded through the instrumentality of her own benevolence, help
was speedily obtained; and Mrs. Sainsbury's invalid-chair, hurried to
the spot by an escort of indignant rustics, soon conveyed the recovering
patient to the comforts of his own home, and the appliances of medical
assistance.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHARLES'S RETURN; AND MRS. MACKIE'S EXPLANATION.
AND now the happy day was come at length; that day formerly so
hoped-for, latterly so feared, but last of all, hailed with the joy that
trembles at its own intensity. The very morning after the sad occurrence
it has just been my lot to chronicle--while the general was having his
wounds dressed, slight ones, happily, but still he was not safe, as
inflammation might ensue--while Mrs. Tracy was indulging in her third
tumbler, mixed to whet her appetite for shrimps--and while Emily was
deciphering, for the forty thousandth time, Charles's sanguine
_billet-doux_--lo! a dusty chaise and smoking posters, and a sun-burnt
young fellow springing out, and just upon the stairs--they were locked
in each other's arms!
Oh, the rapture of that instant! it can but happen once within a life.
Ye that have loved, remember such a meeting; and ye that never loved,
conceive it if you can; for my pen hath little skill to paint so bright
a pleasure. It is to be all heart, all pulse, all sympathy, all
spirit--but the warm soft kiss, that rarified bloom of the Material.
How the sick old nurse got out, cased in many blankets; how she was
bundled up stairs, and deposited safely on a sofa, no poet is alive to
sing: to those who would record the payment of postillions, let me leave
so sweet a theme.
The first fond greeting over, and those tumults of affection sobered
down, Charles rejoiced to find how lovingly the general met him; the
kind and good old man fell upon his neck, as the father in the parable.
Many things were then to be made known: and many questions answered, as
best might be, about a mother and a brother; but well aware of all
things ourselves, let us be satisfied that Charles heard in due time all
they had to tell him; though neither Emily nor the general could explain
what had become of Julian after that terrible encounter. In their
belief, he had fled for very life, thinking he had killed his father.
Poor wretched man, thought Charles--on that same spot, too, where he
would have murdered me! And for his mother--why came she not down
eagerly and happily, as mothers ever do, to greet her long-lost son? Do
not ask, Charles; do not press the question. Think her ill, dying,
dead--any thing but--drunken. He ran to her room-door; but it was
locked--luckily.
Now, Charles--now speedily to business; happy business that, if I may
trust the lover's flushing cheek, and Emily's radiant eyes; but a
mournful one too, and a fearful, if I turn my glance to that poor old
man, wounded in body and stricken in mind--who waits to hear, in more
despondency than hope, what he knows to be the bitter truth--the truth
that must be told, to the misery of those dear children.
Faint and weak though she appeared, Jeanie Mackie's waning life
spirited up for the occasion; her dim eye kindled; her feeble frame was
straight and strong; energy nerved her as she spoke; this hour is the
errand of her being.
Long she spoke, and loudly, in her broad Scotch way; and the general
objected many things, but was answered to them all; and there was close
cross-questioning, slow-caution, keen examination of documents and
letters: catechisms, solecisms, Scottisms; reminiscences rubbed up,
mistakes corrected; and the grand result of all, Emily a Stuart, and the
general not her father! I am only enabled to give a brief account of
that important colloquy.
It appears, that when Captain Tracy's company was quartered to the west
of the Gwalior, sent thither to guard the Begum Dowlia against sundry of
her disaffected subjects, a certain Lieutenant James Stuart was one
among those welcome brave allies. That our gallant Tracy was the
beautiful Begum's favourite soon became notorious to all; and not less
so, that the Begum herself was precisely in the same interesting
situation as Mrs. James Stuart. The two ladies, Pagan and Christian,
were, technically speaking, running a race together. Well, just as times
drew nigh, poor Lieutenant Stuart was unfortunately killed in an
insurrection headed by some fanatics, who disapproved of foreign
friends, and perhaps of their princess's situation. His death proved
fatal also to that kind and faithful wife of his--a dark Italian lady of
high family, whose love for James had led her to follow him even into
Central Hindoostan: she died in giving birth to a babe; and Jeanie
Mackie, the lieutenant's own foster-mother, who waited on his wife
through all their travels, assisted the poor orphan into this bleak
world, and loved it as her own.
Two days after all this, the Begum herself had need of Mrs. Mackie: for
it was prudent to conceal some things, if she could, from certain
Brahmins, who were to her what John Knox had erstwhile been to Mary: and
Jeanie Mackie, burdened with her little Amy Stuart, aided in the birth
of a female Tracy-Begum. So, the nurse tended both babes; and more than
once had marvelled at their general resemblance; Amy's mother looked out
again from those dark eyes; there was not a shade between the children.
Now, Mrs. Mackie perceived, in a very little while, how fond both
Christian and Pagan appeared of their own child; and how little notice
was taken by any body of the poor Scotch gentleman's orphan.
Accordingly, with a view to give her favourite all worldly advantages,
she adroitly changed the children; and, while she was still kind and
motherly to the little Tracy-Begum, she had the satisfaction to see her
pet supposititiously brought up in all the splendours of an Eastern
court.
Years wore away, for Captain Tracy was quite happy, the Begum being a
fine showy woman, and the pretty child his playmate and pastime: so he
never cared to stir from his rich quarters, till the company's orders
forced him: and then Puttymuddyfudgepoor hailed him accumulatively both
major and colonel.
When he found that he must go, he insisted on carrying off the child;
and the Begum was as resolute against it. Then Mrs. Mackie, eager to
expedite little Stuart in her escape, went to the princess, told her how
that, in anticipation of this day, she had changed the children, and got
great rewards for thus restoring to the mother her own offspring.
The remainder of that old Scotch nurse's very prosy tale may be left to
be imagined: for all that was essential has been stated: and the
documents in proof of all were these--
First: The marriage certificates of James Stuart and Ami di Romagna,
duly attested, both in the Protestant and Romanist forms.
Secondly: Divers letters to Lieutenant Stewart from his friends at
Glenmuir; others to Mrs. Stuart, from her father, the old Marquis di
Romagna, at Naples: several trinkets, locks of hair, the wedding-ring,
&c.
Thirdly: A grant written in the Hindoostanee character, from the Begum
Dowlia, promising the pension of thirty rupees a month to Jeanie Mackie,
for having so cleverly preserved to her the child: together with a
regular judicial acknowledgement, both from several of Tracy's own
sepoys, and from the Begum herself, that the girl, whom Captain Tracy
was so fond of, was, to the best of their belief, Amy Stuart.
Fourthly: A miniature of Mrs. James Stuart, exactly portraying the
features of her daughter--this bright, beautiful, dark-eyed face--our
own beloved Emily Warren.
And to all that accumulated evidence, Jeanie Mackie bore her living
testimony; clearly, unhesitatingly, and well assured, in the face of God
and man.
Doubt was at an end; fear was at an end; hope was come, and joy. Happy
were the lovers, happy Jeanie Mackie, but happiest of all appeared the
general himself. For now she might be his daughter indeed, sweet Emmy
Tracy still, dear Charles's loving wife. And he blessed them as they
knelt, and gave them to each other; well-rewarded children of affection,
who had prayed in their distress!
CHAPTER XXVIII.
JULIAN TURNS UP: AND THERE'S AN END OF MRS. TRACY.
THERE is a muddy sort of sand-bank, acting as a delta to the Mullet,
just where it spreads from deep to shallow, and falls into the sea.
Strange wild fowl abound there, coming from the upper clouds in flocks;
and at high water, very little else but rushes can be seen, to testify
its sub-marine existence.
A knot of fishermen, idling on the beach, have noticed an uncommon
flight of Royston crows gathered at the island, with the object, as it
would appear, of battening on a dead porpoise, or some such body, just
discernible among the rushes. Stop--that black heap may be kegs of
whiskey;--where's the glass?
Every one looked: it warn't barrels--and it warn't a porpoise: what was
it, then? they had universally nothing on earth to do, so they pushed
off in company to see.
I watched the party off, and they poked among the rushes, and heaved out
what seemed to me a seal: so I ran down to the beach to look at the
strange creature they had captured. Something wrapped in a sail; no
doubt for exhibition at per head.
But they brought out that black burden solemnly, laying it on the beach
at Burleigh: a crowd quickly collected round them, that I could not see
the creature: and some ran for a magistrate, and some for a parson. Then
men in office came--made a way through the crowd, and I got near: so
near, that my foolish curiosity lifted up the sail, and I beheld--what
had been Julian.
O, sickening sight: for all which the pistol had spared of that swart
and hairy face, had been preyed upon by birds and fishes!
There was a hurried inquest: the poor general and Emily deposed to what
they knew, and the rustics, who escorted him from Oxton. The verdict
could be only one--self-murder.
So, by night, on that same swampy island, when the tide was low, they
buried him, deeply staked into the soil, lest the waves should disinter
him, without a parting prayer. Such is the end of the wicked.
In a day or two, I noticed that a rude wooden cross had been set over
the spot: and it gratified me much to hear that a rough-looking crew of
smugglers had boldly come and fixed it there, to hallow, if they could,
a comrade's grave.
However, these poor fellows had been cheated hours before: Charles's
brotherly care had secured the poor remains, and the vicar winked a
blind permission: so Charles buried them by night in the church-yard
corner, under the yew, reading many prayers above them.
Two fierce-looking strange men went to that burial with reverent looks,
as it were chief mourners; and when all the rites were done, I heard
them gruffly say to Charles, "God bless you, sir, for this!"
When the mother heard those tidings of her son, she was sobered on the
instant, and ran about the house with all a mother's grief, shrieking
like a mad woman. But all her shrieks and tears could not bring back
poor Julian; deep, deep in the silent grave, she cannot wake him--cannot
kiss him now. Ah well! ah well!
Then did she return to his dear room, desperate for him--and Hollands
once, twice, thrice, she poured out a full tumbler of the burning fluid,
and drank it off like water; and it maddened her brain: her mind was in
a phrensy of delirium, while her body shook as with a palsy.
Let us draw the curtain; for she died that night.
They buried her in Aunt Green's grave: what a meeting theirs will be at
the day of resurrection!
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE OLD SCOTCH NURSE GOES HOME.
SIX months at least--this is clearly not a story of the unities--six
months' interval must now elapse before the wedding-day. Charles and
Emmy--for he called her Emmy still, though Jeanie Mackie would persist
in mouthing it to "Aamy,"--wished to have it delayed a year, in respect
for the memory of those who, with all their crime and folly, were not
the less a mother and a brother: but the general would not hear of such
a thing; he was growing very old, he said; although actually he seemed
to have taken out a new lease of life, so young again and buoyant was
the new-found heart within him; and thus growing old, he was full of
fatherly fear that he should not live to see his children's happiness.
It was only reasonable and proper that our pair of cooing doves should
acquiesce in his desire.
Meanwhile, I am truly sorry to say it, Jeanie Mackie died; for it would
have been a good novel-like incident to have suffered the faithful old
creature to have witnessed her favourite's wedding, and then to have
been forthwith killed out of the way, by--perishing in the vestry.
However, things were ordered otherwise, and Jeanie Mackie did not live
to see the wedding: if you wish to know how and where she died, let me
tell you at once.
Scotland--Argyleshire--Glenmuir; this was the focus of her hopes and
thoughts--that poor old Indian exile! She had left it, as a buxom
bright-haired lassie: but oaks had now grown old that she had planted
acorns; and grandmothers had died palsied, whom she remembered born;
still, around the mountains and the lakes, those changeless features of
her girlhood's rugged home, the old woman's memory wandered; they were
pictured in her mind's eye hard, and clear, and definite as if she
looked upon them now. And her soul's deep hope was to see them once
again.
There was yet another object which made her yearn for Scotland.
Lieutenant Stuart had been the younger of two brothers, the eldest born
of whom became, upon his father's, the old laird's, death, Glenmuir and
Glenmurdock. Now, though twice married, this elder brother, the new
laird, never had a child; and the clear consequence was, that Amy Stuart
was likely to become sole heiress of her ancestor's possessions. The
lieutenant's marriage with an Italian and a Romanist had been,
doubtless, any thing but pleasant to his friends; the strict old
Presbyterians, and the proud unsullied family of Stuart, could not
palate it at all. Nevertheless, he did marry the girl, according to the
rites of both churches, and there was an end of it; so, innumerable
proverbs coming to their aid about "curing and enduring" and "must
be's," and the place where "marriages are made," &c., the several aunts
and cousins were persuaded at length to wink at the iniquity, and to
correspond both with Mrs. James and her backsliding lieutenant. Of the
offspring of that marriage, and her orphaned state, and of Mrs. Mackie's
care, and the indefinite detention in central Hindostan, they had heard
often-times; for, as there is no corner of the world where a Scot may
not be met with, so, with laudable nationality, they all hang together;
and Glenmuir was written to frequently, all about the child, through
Jeanie Mackie, "her mark," and a scholarly sergeant, Duncan Blair.
Amy's rights--or Emmy let us call her still, as Charles did--were now,
therefore, the next object of Mrs. Mackie's zeal; and all parties
interested willingly listened to the plan of spending one or two of
those weary weeks in rubbing up relationships in Scotland; the general
also was not a little anxious about heritage and acres. Accordingly, off
they set in the new travelling-carriage, with due notice of approach,
heartily welcomed, to Dunstowr Castle, the fine old feudal stronghold of
Robert Stuart, Laird of Glenmuir and Glenmurdock.
The journey, the arrival, and the hearty hospitality; and how the gray
old chieftain kissed his pretty niece; and how welcome her betrothed
Charles and her kind life-long guardian, and her faithful nurse were
made; and how the beacons blazed upon the hill-tops, and the mustering
clan gathered round about old Dunstowr; and how the laird presented to
them all their beautiful future mistress, and how Jeanie Mackie and her
documents travelled up to Edinburgh, where writers to the signet
pestered her heart-sick with over-caution; and how the case was all
cleared up, and the distant disappointed cousin, who had irrationally
hoped to be the heir, was gladdened, if not satisfied, with a pension
and a cantle of Glenmuir; and how all was joyfulness and feasting, when
Amy Stuart was acknowledged in her rights--the bagpipes and the wassail,
salmon, and deer, and black-cock, with a river of mountain dew: let
others tell who know Dunstowr; for as I never was there, of course I
cannot faithfully describe it. Should such an historian as I condescend
to sheer inventions?
With respect to Jeanie Mackie, I could learn no more than this: she was
sprightly and lively, and strong as ever, though in her ninetieth year,
till her foster-child was righted, and the lawyers had allowed her her
claim. But then there seemed nothing else to live for; so her life
gradually faded from her eye, as an expiring candle; and she would doze
by the hour, sitting on a settle in the sun, basking her old heart in
the smile of those old mountains. None knew when she died, to a minute;
for she died sitting in the sun, in the smile of those old mountains.
They buried her, with much of rustic pomp, in the hill-church of
Glenmuir, where all her fathers slept around her; and Emily and Charles,
hand-in-hand, walked behind her coffin mournfully.
CHAPTER XXX.
FINAL.
GLADLY would the laird have had marriage at Dunstower, and have given
away the beauteous bride himself: but there must still be two months
more of decent mourning, and the general had long learned to sigh for
the maligned delights of Burleigh Singleton. So, Glenmuir could only get
a promise of reappearance some fine summer or other: and, after another
day's deer-stalking, which made the general repudiate telescopes from
that day forth (the poor man's eyes had actually grown lobster-like with
straining after antlers)--the travelling-carriage, and four lean kine
from Inverary, whisked away the trio towards the South.
And now, in due time, were the Tamworths full of joy--congratulating,
sympathizing, merrymaking; and the three young ladies behaved admirably
in the capacity of pink and silver bridesmaids; while George proved
equally kind in attending (as he called it) Charles's "execution,"
wherein he was "turned off;" and the admiral, G.C.B. was so
hand-in-glove with the general, H.E.I.C.S., that I have reason to
believe they must have sworn eternal friendship, after the manner of the
modern Germans.
How beautiful our Emmy looked--I hate the broad Scotch Aamy--how bright
her flashing eyes, and how fragrantly the orange-blossoms clustered in
her rich brown hair; let him speak lengthily, whose province it may be
to spin three volumes out of one: for me, I always wish to recollect
that readers possess, on the average, at least as much imagination as
writers. And why should you not exercise it now? Is not Emmy in her
bridal-dress a theme well worth a revery?
For a similar reason, I must clearly disappoint feminine expectation, by
forbearing to descant upon Charles's slight but manly form, and his
Grecian beauty, &c., all the better for the tropics, and the trials and
the troubles he had passed.
When Captain Forbes, just sitting down to his soup in the Jamaica
Coffee-house, read in the _Morning Post_, the marriage of Charles Tracy
with Amy Stuart, he delivered himself mentally as follows:
"There now! Poets talk of 'love,' and I stick to 'human nature.' When
that fine young fellow sailed with me, hardly a year ago, in the Sir
William Elphinston, he was over head and heels in love with old Jack
Tracy's pretty girl, Emily Warren: but I knew it wouldn't last long: I
don't believe in constancy for longer than a week. It does one's heart
good to see how right one is; here's what I call proof. My sentimental
spark kisses Emily Warren, and marries Amy Stuart." The captain, happier
than before, called complacently for Cayenne pepper, and relished his
mock-turtle with a higher gusto.
It is worth recording, that the same change of name mystified slanderous
friends in the Presidency of Madras.
And now, kind-eyed reader, this story of '_The Twins_' must leave off
abruptly at the wedding. As in its companion-tale, '_The Crock of
Gold_,' one grand thesis for our thoughts was that holy wise command,
"Thou shall not covet," and as its other comrade '_Heart_' is founded on
"Thou shalt not bear false witness," so in this, the seed-corn of the
crop, were five pure words, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Other
morals doubtless grew up round us, for all virtue hangs together in a
bunch: the harms of secresy, false witness, inordinate affections, and
red murder: but in chief, as we have said.
Moreover, I wish distinctly to make known, for dear "domestic" sake,
that so far from our lovers' happiness having been consummated (that is,
finished) in the honey-moon--it was only then begun. How long they are
to live thus happily together, Heaven, who wills all things good, alone
can tell; I wish them three score years. Little ones, I hear, arrive
annually--to the unqualified joy, not merely of papa and mamma, but also
of our communicative old general, his friend the G.C.B., and (all but
most of any) the Laird of Glenmuir and Glenmurdock, whose heart has been
entirely rejoiced by Charles Tracy having added to his name, and to his
children's names, that of Stuart.
Mr. and Mrs. Tracy Stuart are often at Glenmuir; but oftener at
Burleigh, where the general, I fancy, still resides. He protests that he
never will keep a secret again: long may he live to say so!
END OF THE TWINS.
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