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Susanna Moodie - Mark Hurdlestone

S >> Susanna Moodie >> Mark Hurdlestone




"And I, what am I, that I should repine and murmur against the decrees
of Providence?" sighed Juliet. "The sorrows that I now endure have been
felt by thousands who now feel no more. God, give me patience under
every trial. In humble faith teach me resignation to Thy divine will."

With a sorrowful tranquillity of mind she turned from the window, struck
a light, and prepared to undress, when her attention was arrested by a
letter lying upon her dressing table. She instantly recognised the hand,
and hastily breaking the seal, read with no small emotion the following
lines

Say, dost thou think that I could be
False to myself and false to thee?
This broken heart and fever'd brain
May never wake to joy again.
Yet conscious innocence has given
A hope that triumphs o'er despair;
I trust my righteous cause to heaven,
And brace my tortured soul to bear
The worst that can on earth befall,
In losing thee--my life, my all!

The dove of promise to my ark,
The pole-star to my wandering bark,
The beautiful by love enshrined,
And worshipp'd with such fond excess;
Whose being with my being twined
In one bright dream of happiness,
Not death itself can rend apart
The link that binds thee to my heart.

Spurn not the crush'd and wither'd flower;
There yet shall dawn a brighter hour,
When ev'ry tear you shed o'er this
Shall be repaid with tenfold bliss;
And hope's bright arch shall span the cloud
That wraps us in its envious shroud.
Then banish from thy breast for ever
The cold, ungenerous thought of ill,
Falsehood awhile our hearts may sever,
But injured worth must triumph still.

Juliet did not for a moment doubt that Anthony Hurdlestone was the
author of these lines, and involuntarily she pressed the paper to her
lips. Realities are stern things, but Juliet could not now believe him
guilty: and with all the romance of her nature, she was willing to hope
against hope; and she retired to bed, comforted for her past sufferings,
and as much in love with Anthony as ever.

While Juliet enjoyed a profound and tranquil sleep, her unfortunate
lover was a prey to the most agonising doubts and fears. "Surely,
surely, she cannot think me guilty," thought the devoted Anthony, as he
tossed from side to side upon his restless bed. "She is too generous to
condemn me without further evidence. Yet, why do I cling to a forlorn
hope? Stronger minds than hers would believe appearances which speak so
loudly against me. But why should I bear this brand of infamy? I will go
to her in the morning and expose the real criminal."

This idea, entertained for a moment, was quickly abandoned. What, if he
did expose his cousin's guilt, might not Godfrey deny the facts, and
Mary, in order to shield her unprincipled lover, bear him out in his
denial; and then his ingratitude to the father would be more
conspicuously displayed in thus denouncing his son. No: for Algernon's
sake he would bear the deep wrong, and leave to Heaven the vindication
of his honor. He had made an appeal to her feelings; and youth, ever
sanguine, fondly hoped that it had not been made in vain.

Another plan suggested itself to his disturbed mind. He would inform
Godfrey of the miserable situation in which he was placed, and trust to
his generosity to exonerate him from the false charge, which Mary, in
her waywardness or madness, had fixed upon him. Judging his cousin's
mind by his own, he felt that he was secure--that, however painful to
Godfrey's self-love, he would never suffer him to bear the reproach of a
crime committed by himself.

Confident of success, he rose by the dawn of day, and sought his
cousin's apartment. After rapping several times at the door, his summons
was answered by Godfrey in a grumbling tone, between sleeping and
waking.

"I must see you, Godfrey," cried Anthony, impatiently shaking the door.
"My errand brooks no delay."

"What the deuce do you want at this early hour?" said Godfrey with a
heavy yawn. "Now do be quiet, Tony, and give a man time to pull his eyes
open."

Again the door was violently shaken. Godfrey had fallen back into a deep
sleep, and Anthony, in his eagerness to gain an audience, made noise
enough to have roused the Seven Sleepers from their memorable nap. With
a desperate effort Godfrey at length sprang from his bed, and unlocked
the door, but, as the morning was chilly, he as quickly retreated to his
warm nest, and buried his head in the blankets.

"Godfrey, do rouse yourself, and attend to me; I have something of great
consequence to communicate, the recital of which cannot fail to grieve
you, if you retain the least affection for me."

"Could you not wait until after breakfast?" and Godfrey forced himself
into a sitting posture. "I was out late last night, and drank too much
wine. I feel confoundedly stupid, and the uproar that you have been
making for the last hour at the door has given me an awful headache.
But what is the matter with you, Tony? You look like a spectre. Are you
ill? or have you, like me, been too long over your cups?"

"You know I never drink, Godfrey, nor have I any bodily ailment; but in
truth my mind is ill at ease. I am sick at heart, and you, you, cousin,
are the cause of my present sufferings."

"Ah! the old love story. You repent of giving up Juliet, and want me to
release you from your promise. I am not such a romantic fool! I never
give up an advantage once gained, and am as miserly of opportunities as
your father is of his cash. But speak out Anthony," he continued, seeing
his cousin turn pale, "I should like to hear what dreadful charge you
have to bring against me."

"You shall hear, Godfrey, if I have strength and courage to tell you."
Anthony sat down on an easy chair by the side of the bed, and after a
long pause, in which he tried to compose his agitated feelings, he
informed his cousin of the conversation that he had overheard between
Mary and her brother, and what had subsequently happened. Godfrey
listened with intense interest until he came to that part of the
narrative where Mary, in her wandering mood, had confounded him with
Anthony; and there, at the very circumstance which had occasioned his
cousin such acute anguish, and when he expected from him the deepest
sympathy, how were his feelings shocked as, throwing himself back upon
his pillow, Godfrey burst into a loud fit of laughter, exclaiming in a
jocular and triumphant tone, "By Jove, Anthony, but you are an unlucky
dog!"

This was too much for the excited state of mind under which Anthony had
been laboring for some hours, and with a stifled groan he fell across
the bed in a fit. Godfrey alarmed in his turn, checked his indecent
mirth, and dressing himself as quickly as he could, roused up his valet
to run for the surgeon. The fresh air and the loss of a little blood
soon restored the unfortunate young man to his senses and to a deep
consciousness of his cousin's ungentlemanly and base conduct.

Instead of being sorry for this unfortunate mistake, Godfrey secretly
congratulated himself upon his singular good fortune, and laughed at the
strange accident that had miraculously transferred the shame of his own
guilt to his cousin.

"This will destroy for ever what little influence he possessed with
Juliet, and will close the Captain's doors against him. If I do not
improve my present advantage, may I die a poor dependent upon the bounty
of a Hurdlestone!"

Again he laughed, and strode onward to the Lodge, humming a gay tune,
and talking and whistling alternately to his dog.

He found Miss Dorothy and her niece at work; the latter as pale as
marble, the tears still lingering in the long dark lashes that veiled
her sad and downcast eyes. The Captain was rocking to and fro in an easy
chair, smoking his pipe and glancing first towards his daughter, and
then at her starch prim-looking aunt, with no very complaisant
expression.

"By Jove, Dorothy! if you continue to torment that poor child with your
eternal sermons, you will compel me to send you from the house."

"A very fitting return for all my services," whimpered Miss Dorothy;
"for all the love and care I have bestowed upon you and your ungrateful
daughter! Send _me_ from the house--turn _me_ out of doors! _Me_, at my
time of life;" using that for argument's sake which, if addressed to her
by another, would have been refuted with indignation; "to send _me_
forth into the world, homeless and friendless, to seek my living among
strangers! Brother, brother, have you the heart to address this to me?"

"Well, perhaps I was wrong, Dolly," replied the kind-hearted sailor,
repenting of his sudden burst of passion; "but you do so provoke me by
your ill-humor, your eternal contradiction, and your old-maidish ways,
that it is impossible for a man always to keep his temper. It's a hard
thing for a fellow's wife to have the command of the ship, but it seems
deucedly unnatural for him to be ruled by a sister."

"Is it not enough, brother, to make a virtuous woman angry, when she
hears the girl, whose morals she has fostered with such care, defending
a wicked profligate wretch like Anthony Hurdlestone?"

"Excuse me, aunt, I did not defend his conduct, supposing him guilty,"
said Juliet, with quiet dignity; "for if that be really the case such
conduct is indefensible. I only hoped that we had been mistaken."

"Pshaw, girl! You are too credulous," said her father. "I have no doubt
of his guilt. But here is Mr. Godfrey; we may learn the truth from him."

With an air of the deepest concern, Godfrey listened to the Captain's
indignant recital of the scene he had witnessed in the park, and with
his uncle Mark's duplicity (only Godfrey was a laughing villain, always
the most dangerous sinner of the two) he affected to commiserate the
folly and weakness of his cousin, in suffering himself to be entangled
by an artful girl.

"He is a strange lad, a very strange lad, Captain Whitmore. I have known
him from a child, but I don't know what to make of him. His father is a
bad man, and it would be strange if he did not inherit some of his
propensities."

"Weaknesses of this nature were not among his father's faults," said the
Captain. "I must confess that I liked the young man, and he had, I am
told, a very amiable and beautiful mother."

"I have heard my father say so--but she was his first love, and love is
always blind. I should think very little of the moral worth of a woman
who would jilt such a man as my father, to marry a selfish miserly
wretch like Mark Hurdlestone for his money."

"You are right, Mr. Hurdlestone," said Juliet. "Such a woman was
unworthy of your father. Poor Anthony, he has been very unfortunate in
his parents; yet I hoped of him better things."

"You think, Mr. Godfrey, that there is no doubt of his guilt?" asked
Miss Dorothy.

"The girl must know best," returned Godfrey, evading, whilst at the same
moment he confirmed the question. "He always admired her from a boy. We
have had many disputes, nay downright quarrels, about her beauty. She
was never a great favorite of mine. I admire gentle, not man-like
women."

"He is a scoundrel!" cried the Captain, throwing down his pipe with a
sound that made his daughter start. "He shall never darken my doors
again, and so you may tell him, Mr. Godfrey, from me!"

"This is a severe sentence, but he deserves it!" said Godfrey. "I fear
my father will one day repent that he ever fostered this viper in his
bosom. Yet, strange to say, he always preferred him to me. Report says
that there is a stronger tie between them, but this is a base slander
upon the generous nature of my father. He loved Anthony's mother better
than he did mine; and he loves her son better than he does me."

"Poor lad," said the Captain, warmly grasping his hand, "You have been
unkindly treated among them; and you shall always find a friend and a
father in me."

Godfrey was a little ashamed of his duplicity, and would gladly, if
possible, have recalled that disgraceful scene; but having so far
committed himself, he no longer regarded the consequences; but he
determined to bear it out with the most hardened effrontery.

Whilst the victim of his diabolical art was writhing upon a sick bed
under the most acute mental and bodily pain, the author of his suffering
was enjoying the most flattering demonstrations of regard, which were
lavishly bestowed upon him by the inhabitants of the Lodge. But the
vengeance of Heaven never sleeps, and though the stratagems of wicked
men may for a time prove successful, the end generally proves the truth
of the apostle's awful denunciation: "_The wages of sin is death_."




CHAPTER XII.

Art thou a father? did the generous tide
Of warm parental love e'er fill thy veins,
And bid thee feel an interest in thy kind?
Did the pulsation of that icy heart
Quicken and vibrate to some gentle name,
Breathed in secret at its sacred shrine?--S.M.


Short was the time allowed to Anthony Hurdlestone to brood over his
wrongs. His uncle's affairs had reached a crisis, and ruin stared him in
the face. Algernon Hurdlestone had ever been the most imprudent of men;
and under the fallacious hope of redeeming his fortune, he had, unknown
to his son and nephew, during his frequent trips to London,
irretrievably involved himself by gambling to a large extent. This false
step completed what his reckless profusion had already begun. He found
himself always on the losing side, but the indulgence of this fatal
propensity had become a passion, the excitement necessary to his
existence. The management of his estates had always been entrusted
entirely to a steward, who, as his master's fortunes declined, was
rapidly rising in wealth and consequence. Algernon never troubled
himself to enquire into the real state of his finances, whilst Johnstone
continued to furnish him with money to gratify all the whims and wants
of the passing moment.

The embarrassed state of the property was unknown to his young
relatives, who deemed his treasures, like those of the celebrated
Abulcasem, inexhaustible. Godfrey, it is true, had latterly received
some hints from Johnstone how matters stood, but his mind was so wholly
occupied with his pursuit of Juliet Whitmore, and the unpleasant
predicament in which he was placed by his unfortunate connexion with
Mary Mathews, that he had banished the disagreeable subject from his
thoughts.

The storm which had been long gathering at length burst. Algernon was
arrested, his property seized by the sheriff, himself removed to the
jail of the county town of ----. Thither Anthony followed him, anxious
to alleviate by his presence the deep dejection into which his Uncle had
fallen, and to offer that heartfelt sympathy so precious to the wounded
pride of the sufferer.

The gay and joyous disposition of Algernon Hurdlestone yielded to the
pressure of misfortune. His mind bowed to the heavy stroke, and he gave
himself up to misery. His numerous creditors assailed him on all sides
with their harassing importunities; and in his dire distress he applied
to his rich brother, and, humbly for him, entreated a temporary loan of
two thousand pounds until his affairs could be adjusted, and the
property sold. This application, as might have been expected, was
insultingly rejected on the part of the miser.

Rendered desperate by his situation, Algernon made a second attempt, and
pleaded the expense he had been at in bringing up and educating his son,
and demanded a moderate remuneration for the same. To this ill-judged
application, Mark Hurdlestone returned for answer, "That he had not
forced his son upon his protection; that Algernon had pleased himself in
adopting the boy; that he had warned him of the consequences when he
took that extraordinary step; and that he must now abide by the result;
that he, Algernon, had wasted his substance, like the prodigal of old,
in riotous living, but that he, Mark, knew better the value of money,
and how to take care of it."

"Your father, Tony, is a mean pitiful scoundrel!" cried the heart-broken
Algernon, crushing the unfeeling letter in his hand, and flinging it
with violence from him. "But I deserved to be treated with contempt,
when I could so far forget myself as to make an application to him!
Thirty years ago, I should have deemed begging my bread from door to
door an act of less degradation. But, Tony, time changes us all.
Misfortune makes the proudest neck bow beneath the yoke. My spirit is
subdued, Tony, my heart crushed, my pride gone. I am not what I was, my
dear boy. It is too late to recall the past. But I can see too late the
errors of my conduct. I have acted cruelly and selfishly to poor
Godfrey, and squandered in folly the property his mother brought me, and
which should have made him rich. And you, my dear Anthony, this blow
will deprive you of a father, aye, and of one that loved you too. I
would rather share a kennel with my dogs, than become an inmate of the
home which now awaits you."

"Home!" sighed the youth. "The wide world is my home, the suffering
children of humanity my lawful kinsmen."

Seeing his uncle's lip quiver, he took his hand and affectionately
pressed it between his own, while the tears he could not repress fell
freely from his eyes. "Father of my heart! would that in this hour of
your adversity I could repay to you all your past kindness. But cheer
up, something may yet be done. My legitimate father has never seen me as
a man. I will go to him. I will plead with him on your behalf, until
nature asserts her rights, and the streams of hidden affection, so long
pent up in his iron heart, overflow and burst asunder these bars of
adamant. Uncle, I will go to him this very day, and may God grant me
success!"

"It is in vain, Anthony. Avarice owns no heart, has no natural
affections. You may go, but it is only to mortify your pride, agonize
your feelings, and harden your kind nature against the whole world,
without producing any ultimate benefit to me."

"It is a trial, uncle, but I will not spare myself. Duty demands the
attempt, and successful or unsuccessful, it shall be made."

He strode towards the door. Algernon called him back. "Do not stay long,
Tony. I feel ill and low spirited. Godfrey surely does not know that I
am in this accursed place. Perhaps he is ashamed to visit me here. Poor
lad, poor lad! I have ruined his prospects in life by my extravagance,
but I never thought that it would come to this. If you see him on your
way, Anthony, tell him (here his voice faltered), tell him, that his
poor old father pines to see him, that his absence is worse than
imprisonment--than death itself. I have many faults, but I love him only
too well."

This was more than Anthony could bear, and he sprang out of the room.

With a heart overflowing with generous emotions, and deeply sympathising
in his uncle's misfortunes, he mounted a horse which he had borrowed of
a friend in the neighborhood, and took the road that led to his father's
mansion; that father who had abandoned him, while yet a tender boy, to
the care of another, and whom he had never met since the memorable hour
in which they parted.

Oak Hall was situated about thirty miles from Norgood Park, and it was
near sunset when Anthony caught the first glimpse of the picturesque
church of Ashton among the trees. With mingled feelings of pride, shame,
and bitterness he rode past the venerable mansion of his ancestors, and
alighted at the door of the sordid hovel that its miserable possessor
had chosen for a home.

The cottage in many places had fallen into decay, and admitted through
countless crevices the wind and rain. A broken chair, a three-legged
stool, and the shattered remains of an oak table, deficient of one of
its supporters, but propped up with bricks, comprised the whole
furniture of the wretched apartment.

The door was a-jar that led into an interior room that served for a
dormitory. Two old soiled mattresses, in which the straw had not been
changed for years, thrown carelessly upon the floor, were the sole
garniture of this execrable chamber. Anthony glanced around with
feelings of an uncontrollable disgust, and all his boyish antipathy to
the place returned. The lapse of nearly twenty years had not improved
the aspect of his old prison-house, and he was now more capable of
appreciating its revolting features. The harsh words, and still harsher
blows and curses, which he had been wont to receive from the miser and
his sordid associate, Grenard Pike, came up in his heart, and, in spite
of his better nature, steeled that heart against his ungracious parent.

The entrance of Mark Hurdlestone, whose high stern features, once seen,
could never be forgotten, roused Anthony from his train of gloomy
recollections, and called back his thoughts to the unpleasant business
that brought him there.

Mark did not at the first glance recognise his son in the tall
elegantly-dressed young man before him; and he growled out, "Who are
you, sir, and what do you want?"

"Mr. Hurdlestone," said Anthony respectfully, "I am your son."

The old man sat down in the chair. A dark cloud came over his brow, as
if he already suspected the nature of his son's mission, and he knitted
his straight bushy eyebrows so closely together that his small fiery
dark eyes gleamed like sparks from beneath the gloomy shade.

"My son; yes, yes. I've heard say that 'tis a wise son that knows his
own father. It must be a very wise father who could instinctively know
his own son. Certainly, I should never have recognised mine in the gay
magpie before me. But sit down, young sir, and tell me what brought you
here. Money, I suppose; money, the everlasting want that the extravagant
sons of pleasure strive to extort from the provident, who lay up during
the harvest of life a provision for the winter of age. If such be your
errand, young man, your time is wasted here. Anthony Hurdlestone, I have
nothing to give."

"Not even affection it would appear, to an only son."

"I owe you none."

"In what manner have I forfeited my natural claim upon your heart?"

"By transferring the duty and affection which you owed to me to another.
Go to him who has pampered your appetites, clothed you with soft
raiment, and brought you up daintily to lead the idle life of a
gentleman. I disown all relationship with a useless butterfly."

Anthony's cheek reddened with indignation. "It was not upon my own
account I sought you, sir. From my infancy I have been a neglected and
forsaken child, for whom you never showed the least parental regard.
Hard blows and harder words were the only marks of fatherly regard that
Anthony Hurdlestone ever received at your hands. To hear you curse me,
when, starving with cold and hunger, I have asked you for a morsel of
bread--to hear you wish me dead, and to see you watch me with hungry
eager eyes, as if in my wasted meagre countenance you wished to find a
prophetic answer--were sights and sounds of every-day occurrence. Could
such conduct as this beget love in your wretched child? Yet, God knows!"
exclaimed the young man, clasping his hands forcibly together, while
tears started to his eyes--"God knows how earnestly I have prayed to
love you, to forget and forgive these unnatural injuries, which have
cast the shadow of care over the bright morning of youth, and made the
world and all that it contains a wilderness of woe to my blighted heart."

The old man regarded him with a sullen scowl; but whatever were his
feelings (and that he did feel the whole truth of the young man's
passionate appeal, the restless motion of his foot and hand sufficiently
indicated) he returned no answer; and Anthony emboldened by despair, and
finding a relief in giving utterance to the long pent-up feelings which
for years had corroded his breast, continued,

"I rightly concluded that I should be considered by you, Mr.
Hurdlestone, an unwelcome visitor. Hateful to the sight of the injurer
is the person of the injured, and I stand before you a living reproach,
an awful witness both here and hereafter at the throne of God of what
you ought to have been, and what you have neglected to be--a father to
your motherless child. But let that pass. I am in the hands of One who
is the protector of the innocent, and in His righteous hands I leave my
cause. Your brother, sir, who has been a father to me, is in prison. His
heart, sorely pressed by his painful situation, droops to the grave. I
came to see if you, out of your abundance, are willing to save him,
Father, let your old grudge be forgotten. Let the child of your poor
lost Elinor be the means of reconciling you to each other. Cease to
remember him as a rival: behold him only in the light of a brother--of
that twin brother who shared your cradle--of a friend whom you have
deeply injured--a generous fellow-creature fallen, whom you have the
power to raise up and restore. Let not the kind protector of your son
end his days in a jail, when a small sum, which never could be missed
from your immense wealth, would enable him to end his days in peace."

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