I answered him in broken words; my heart, I think I must have told
him, lay with my dead parents.
'It is enough,' he said. 'It has been my fate to be called on
often, too often, for those services of which we spoke to-night;
none in Utah could carry them so well to a conclusion; hence there
has fallen into my hands a certain share of influence which I now
lay at your service, partly for the sake of my dead friends, your
parents; partly for the interest I bear you in your own right. I
shall send you to England, to the great city of London, there to
await the bridegroom I have selected. He shall be a son of mine, a
young man suitable in age and not grossly deficient in that quality
of beauty that your years demand. Since your heart is free, you
may well pledge me the sole promise that I ask in return for much
expense and still more danger: to await the arrival of that
bridegroom with the delicacy of a wife.'
I sat awhile stunned. The doctor's marriages, I remembered to have
heard, had been unfruitful; and this added perplexity to my
distress. But I was alone, as he had said, alone in that dark
land; the thought of escape, of any equal marriage, was already
enough to revive in me some dawn of hope; and in what words I know
not, I accepted the proposal.
He seemed more moved by my consent than I could reasonably have
looked for. 'You shall see,' he cried; 'you shall judge for
yourself.' And hurrying to the next room he returned with a small
portrait somewhat coarsely done in oils. It showed a man in the
dress of nearly forty years before, young indeed, but still
recognisable to be the doctor. 'Do you like it?' he asked. 'That
is myself when I was young. My - my boy will be like that, like but
nobler; with such health as angels might condescend to envy; and a
man of mind, Asenath, of commanding mind. That should be a man, I
think; that should be one among ten thousand. A man like that - one
to combine the passions of youth with the restraint, the force, the
dignity of age - one to fill all the parts and faculties, one to be
man's epitome - say, will that not satisfy the needs of an ambitious
girl? Say, is not that enough?' And as he held the picture close
before my eyes, his hands shook.
I told him briefly I would ask no better, for I was transpierced
with this display of fatherly emotion; but even as I said the
words, the most insolent revolt surged through my arteries. I held
him in horror, him, his portrait, and his son; and had there been
any choice but death or a Mormon marriage, I declare before Heaven
I had embraced it.
'It is well,' he replied, 'and I had rightly counted on your
spirit. Eat, then, for you have far to go.' So saying, he set
meat before me; and while I was endeavouring to obey, he left the
room and returned with an armful of coarse raiment. 'There,' said
he, 'is your disguise. I leave you to your toilet.'
The clothes had probably belonged to a somewhat lubberly boy of
fifteen; and they hung about me like a sack, and cruelly hampered
my movements. But what filled me with uncontrollable shudderings,
was the problem of their origin and the fate of the lad to whom
they had belonged. I had scarcely effected the exchange when the
doctor returned, opened a back window, helped me out into the
narrow space between the house and the overhanging bluffs, and
showed me a ladder of iron footholds mortised in the rock.
'Mount,' he said, 'swiftly. When you are at the summit, walk, so
far as you are able, in the shadow of the smoke. The smoke will
bring you, sooner or later, to a canyon; follow that down, and you
will find a man with two horses. Him you will implicitly obey.
And remember, silence! That machinery, which I now put in motion
for your service, may by one word be turned against you. Go;
Heaven prosper you!'
The ascent was easy. Arrived at the top of the cliff, I saw before
me on the other side a vast and gradual declivity of stone, lying
bare to the moon and the surrounding mountains. Nowhere was any
vantage or concealment; and knowing how these deserts were beset
with spies, I made haste to veil my movements under the blowing
trail of smoke. Sometimes it swam high, rising on the night wind,
and I had no more substantial curtain than its moon-thrown shadow;
sometimes again it crawled upon the earth, and I would walk in it,
no higher than to my shoulders, like some mountain fog. But, one
way or another, the smoke of that ill-omened furnace protected the
first steps of my escape, and led me unobserved to the canyon.
There, sure enough, I found a taciturn and sombre man beside a pair
of saddle-horses; and thenceforward, all night long, we wandered in
silence by the most occult and dangerous paths among the mountains.
A little before the dayspring we took refuge in a wet and gusty
cavern at the bottom of a gorge; lay there all day concealed; and
the next night, before the glow had faded out of the west, resumed
our wanderings. About noon we stopped again, in a lawn upon a
little river, where was a screen of bushes; and here my guide,
handing me a bundle from his pack, bade me change my dress once
more. The bundle contained clothing of my own, taken from our
house, with such necessaries as a comb and soap. I made my toilet
by the mirror of a quiet pool; and as I was so doing, and smiling
with some complacency to see myself restored to my own image, the
mountains rang with a scream of far more than human piercingness;
and while I still stood astonished, there sprang up and swiftly
increased a storm of the most awful and earth-rending sounds.
Shall I own to you, that I fell upon my face and shrieked? And yet
this was but the overland train winding among the near mountains:
the very means of my salvation: the strong wings that were to
carry me from Utah!
When I was dressed, the guide gave me a bag, which contained, he
said, both money and papers; and telling me that I was already over
the borders in the territory of Wyoming, bade me follow the stream
until I reached the railway station, half a mile below. 'Here,' he
added, 'is your ticket as far as Council Bluffs. The East express
will pass in a few hours.' With that, he took both horses, and,
without further words or any salutation, rode off by the way that
we had come.
Three hours afterwards, I was seated on the end platform of the
train as it swept eastward through the gorges and thundered in
tunnels of the mountain. The change of scene, the sense of escape,
the still throbbing terror of pursuit - above all, the astounding
magic of my new conveyance, kept me from any logical or melancholy
thought. I had gone to the doctor's house two nights before
prepared to die, prepared for worse than death; what had passed,
terrible although it was, looked almost bright compared to my
anticipations; and it was not till I had slept a full night in the
flying palace car, that I awoke to the sense of my irreparable loss
and to some reasonable alarm about the future. In this mood, I
examined the contents of the bag. It was well supplied with gold;
it contained tickets and complete directions for my journey as far
as Liverpool, and a long letter from the doctor, supplying me with
a fictitious name and story, recommending the most guarded silence,
and bidding me to await faithfully the coming of his son. All then
had been arranged beforehand: he had counted upon my consent, and
what was tenfold worse, upon my mother's voluntary death. My
horror of my only friend, my aversion for this son who was to marry
me, my revolt against the whole current and conditions of my life,
were now complete. I was sitting stupefied by my distress and
helplessness, when, to my joy, a very pleasant lady offered me her
conversation. I clutched at the relief; and I was soon glibly
telling her the story in the doctor's letter: how I was a Miss
Gould, of Nevada City, going to England to an uncle, what money I
had, what family, my age, and so forth, until I had exhausted my
instructions, and, as the lady still continued to ply me with
questions, began to embroider on my own account. This soon carried
one of my inexperience beyond her depth; and I had already remarked
a shadow on the lady's face, when a gentleman drew near and very
civilly addressed me.
'Miss Gould, I believe?' said he; and then, excusing himself to the
lady by the authority of my guardian, drew me to the fore platform
of the Pullman car. 'Miss Gould,' he said in my ear, 'is it
possible that you suppose yourself in safety? Let me completely
undeceive you. One more such indiscretion and you return to Utah.
And, in the meanwhile, if this woman should again address you, you
are to reply with these words: "Madam, I do not like you, and I
will be obliged if you will suffer me to choose my own
associates."'
Alas, I had to do as I was bid; this lady, to whom I already felt
myself drawn with the strongest cords of sympathy, I dismissed with
insult; and thenceforward, through all that day, I sat in silence,
gazing on the bare plains and swallowing my tears. Let that
suffice: it was the pattern of my journey. Whether on the train,
at the hotels, or on board the ocean steamer, I never exchanged a
friendly word with any fellow-traveller but I was certain to be
interrupted. In every place, on every side, the most unlikely
persons, man or woman, rich or poor, became protectors to forward
me upon my journey, or spies to observe and regulate my conduct.
Thus I crossed the States, thus passed the ocean, the Mormon Eye
still following my movements; and when at length a cab had set me
down before that London lodging-house from which you saw me flee
this morning, I had already ceased to struggle and ceased to hope.
The landlady, like every one else through all that journey, was
expecting my arrival. A fire was lighted in my room, which looked
upon the garden; there were books on the table, clothes in the
drawers; and there (I had almost said with contentment, and
certainly with resignation) I saw month follow month over my head.
At times my landlady took me for a walk or an excursion, but she
would never suffer me to leave the house alone; and I, seeing that
she also lived under the shadow of that widespread Mormon terror,
felt too much pity to resist. To the child born on Mormon soil, as
to the man who accepts the engagements of a secret order, no escape
is possible; so I had clearly read, and I was thankful even for
this respite. Meanwhile, I tried honestly to prepare my mind for
my approaching nuptials. The day drew near when my bridegroom was
to visit me, and gratitude and fear alike obliged me to consent. A
son of Doctor Grierson's, be he what he pleased, must still be
young, and it was even probable he should be handsome; on more than
that, I felt I dared not reckon; and in moulding my mind towards
consent I dwelt the more carefully on these physical attractions
which I felt I might expect, and averted my eyes from moral or
intellectual considerations. We have a great power upon our
spirits; and as time passed I worked myself into a frame of
acquiescence, nay, and I began to grow impatient for the hour. At
night sleep forsook me; I sat all day by the fire, absorbed in
dreams, conjuring up the features of my husband, and anticipating
in fancy the touch of his hand and the sound of his voice. In the
dead level and solitude of my existence, this was the one eastern
window and the one door of hope. At last, I had so cultivated and
prepared my will, that I began to be besieged with fears upon the
other side. How if it was I that did not please? How if this
unseen lover should turn from me with disaffection? And now I
spent hours before the glass, studying and judging my attractions,
and was never weary of changing my dress or ordering my hair.
When the day came I was long about my toilet; but at last, with a
sort of hopeful desperation, I had to own that I could do no more,
and must now stand or fall by nature. My occupation ended, I fell
a prey to the most sickening impatience, mingled with alarms;
giving ear to the swelling rumour of the streets, and at each
change of sound or silence, starting, shrinking, and colouring to
the brow. Love is not to be prepared, I know, without some
knowledge of the object; and yet, when the cab at last rattled to
the door and I heard my visitor mount the stairs, such was the
tumult of hopes in my poor bosom that love itself might have been
proud to own their parentage. The door opened, and it was Doctor
Grierson that appeared. I believe I must have screamed aloud, and
I know, at least, that I fell fainting to the floor.
When I came to myself he was standing over me, counting my pulse.
'I have startled you,' he said. 'A difficulty unforeseen - the
impossibility of obtaining a certain drug in its full purity - has
forced me to resort to London unprepared. I regret that I should
have shown myself once more without those poor attractions which
are much, perhaps, to you, but to me are no more considerable than
rain that falls into the sea. Youth is but a state, as passing as
that syncope from which you are but just awakened, and, if there be
truth in science, as easy to recall; for I find, Asenath, that I
must now take you for my confidant. Since my first years, I have
devoted every hour and act of life to one ambitious task; and the
time of my success is at hand. In these new countries, where I was
so long content to stay, I collected indispensable ingredients; I
have fortified myself on every side from the possibility of error;
what was a dream now takes the substance of reality; and when I
offered you a son of mine I did so in a figure. That son - that
husband, Asenath, is myself - not as you now behold me, but restored
to the first energy of youth. You think me mad? It is the
customary attitude of ignorance. I will not argue; I will leave
facts to speak. When you behold me purified, invigorated, renewed,
restamped in the original image - when you recognise in me (what I
shall be) the first perfect expression of the powers of mankind - I
shall be able to laugh with a better grace at your passing and
natural incredulity. To what can you aspire - fame, riches, power,
the charm of youth, the dear-bought wisdom of age - that I shall not
be able to afford you in perfection? Do not deceive yourself. I
already excel you in every human gift but one: when that gift also
has been restored to me you will recognise your master.'
Hereupon, consulting his watch, he told me he must now leave me to
myself; and bidding me consult reason, and not girlish fancies, he
withdrew. I had not the courage to move; the night fell and found
me still where he had laid me during my faint, my face buried in my
hands, my soul drowned in the darkest apprehensions. Late in the
evening he returned, carrying a candle, and, with a certain
irritable tremor, bade me rise and sup. 'Is it possible,' he
added, 'that I have been deceived in your courage? A cowardly girl
is no fit mate for me.'
I flung myself before him on my knees, and with floods of tears
besought him to release me from this engagement, assuring him that
my cowardice was abject, and that in every point of intellect and
character I was his hopeless and derisible inferior.
'Why, certainly,' he replied. 'I know you better than yourself;
and I am well enough acquainted with human nature to understand
this scene. It is addressed to me,' he added with a smile, 'in my
character of the still untransformed. But do not alarm yourself
about the future. Let me but attain my end, and not you only,
Asenath, but every woman on the face of the earth becomes my
willing slave.'
Thereupon he obliged me to rise and eat; sat down with me to table;
helped and entertained me with the attentions of a fashionable
host; and it was not till a late hour, that, bidding me courteously
good-night, he once more left me alone to my misery.
In all this talk of an elixir and the restoration of his youth, I
scarce knew from which hypothesis I should the more eagerly recoil.
If his hopes reposed on any base of fact, if indeed, by some
abhorrent miracle, he should discard his age, death were my only
refuge from that most unnatural, that most ungodly union. If, on
the other hand, these dreams were merely lunatic, the madness of a
life waxed suddenly acute, my pity would become a load almost as
heavy to bear as my revolt against the marriage. So passed the
night, in alternations of rebellion and despair, of hate and pity;
and with the next morning I was only to comprehend more fully my
enslaved position. For though he appeared with a very tranquil
countenance, he had no sooner observed the marks of grief upon my
brow than an answering darkness gathered on his own. 'Asenath.' he
said, 'you owe me much already; with one finger I still hold you
suspended over death; my life is full of labour and anxiety; and I
choose,' said he, with a remarkable accent of command, 'that you
shall greet me with a pleasant face.' He never needed to repeat
the recommendation; from that day forward I was always ready to
receive him with apparent cheerfulness; and he rewarded me with a
good deal of his company, and almost more than I could bear of his
confidence. He had set up a laboratory in the back part of the
house, where he toiled day and night at his elixir, and he would
come thence to visit me in my parlour: now with passing humours of
discouragement; now, and far more often, radiant with hope. It was
impossible to see so much of him, and not to recognise that the
sands of his life were running low; and yet all the time he would
be laying out vast fields of future, and planning, with all the
confidence of youth, the most unbounded schemes of pleasure and
ambition. How I replied I know not; but I found a voice and words
to answer, even while I wept and raged to hear him.
A week ago the doctor entered my room with the marks of great
exhilaration contending with pitiful bodily weakness. 'Asenath,'
said he, 'I have now obtained the last ingredient. In one week
from now the perilous moment of the last projection will draw nigh.
You have once before assisted, although unconsciously, at the
failure of a similar experiment. It was the elixir which so
terribly exploded one night when you were passing my house; and it
is idle to deny that the conduct of so delicate a process, among
the million jars and trepidations of so great a city, presents a
certain element of danger. From this point of view, I cannot but
regret the perfect stillness of my house among the deserts; but, on
the other hand, I have succeeded in proving that the singularly
unstable equilibrium of the elixir, at the moment of projection, is
due rather to the impurity than to the nature of the ingredients;
and as all are now of an equal and exquisite nicety, I have little
fear for the result. In a week then from to-day, my dear Asenath,
this period of trial will be ended.' And he smiled upon me in a
manner unusually paternal.
I smiled back with my lips, but at my heart there raged the
blackest and most unbridled terror. What if he failed? And oh,
tenfold worse! what if he succeeded? What detested and unnatural
changeling would appear before me to claim my hand? And could
there, I asked myself with a dreadful sinking, be any truth in his
boasts of an assured victory over my reluctance? I knew him,
indeed, to be masterful, to lead my life at a sign. Suppose, then,
this experiment to succeed; suppose him to return to me, hideously
restored, like a vampire in a legend; and suppose that, by some
devilish fascination . . . My head turned; all former fears
deserted me: and I felt I could embrace the worst in preference to
this.
My mind was instantly made up. The doctor's presence in London was
justified by the affairs of the Mormon polity. Often, in our
conversation, he would gloat over the details of that great
organisation, which he feared even while yet he wielded it; and
would remind me, that even in the humming labyrinth of London, we
were still visible to that unsleeping eye in Utah. His visitors,
indeed, who were of every sort, from the missionary to the
destroying angel, and seemed to belong to every rank of life, had,
up to that moment, filled me with unmixed repulsion and alarm. I
knew that if my secret were to reach the ear of any leader my fate
were sealed beyond redemption; and yet in my present pass of horror
and despair, it was to these very men that I turned for help. I
waylaid upon the stair one of the Mormon missionaries, a man of a
low class, but not inaccessible to pity; told him I scarce remember
what elaborate fable to explain my application; and by his
intermediacy entered into correspondence with my father's family.
They recognised my claim for help, and on this very day I was to
begin my escape.
Last night I sat up fully dressed, awaiting the result of the
doctor's labours, and prepared against the worst. The nights at
this season and in this northern latitude are short; and I had soon
the company of the returning daylight. The silence in and around
the house was only broken by the movements of the doctor in the
laboratory; to these I listened, watch in hand, awaiting the hour
of my escape, and yet consumed by anxiety about the strange
experiment that was going forward overhead. Indeed, now that I was
conscious of some protection for myself, my sympathies had turned
more directly to the doctor's side; I caught myself even praying
for his success; and when some hours ago a low, peculiar cry
reached my ears from the laboratory, I could no longer control my
impatience, but mounted the stairs and opened the door.
The doctor was standing in the middle of the room; in his hand a
large, round-bellied, crystal flask, some three parts full of a
bright amber-coloured liquid; on his face a rapture of gratitude
and joy unspeakable. As he saw me he raised the flask at arm's
length. 'Victory!' he cried. 'Victory, Asenath!' And then -
whether the flask escaped his trembling fingers, or whether the
explosion were spontaneous, I cannot tell - enough that we were
thrown, I against the door-post, the doctor into the corner of the
room; enough that we were shaken to the soul by the same explosion
that must have startled you upon the street; and that, in the brief
space of an indistinguishable instant, there remained nothing of
the labours of the doctor's lifetime but a few shards of broken
crystal and those voluminous and ill-smelling vapours that pursued
me in my flight.
THE SQUIRE OF DAMES (Concluded)
What with the lady's animated manner and dramatic conduct of her
voice, Challoner had thrilled to every incident with genuine
emotion. His fancy, which was not perhaps of a very lively
character, applauded both the matter and the style; but the more
judicial functions of his mind refused assent. It was an excellent
story; and it might be true, but he believed it was not. Miss
Fonblanque was a lady, and it was doubtless possible for a lady to
wander from the truth; but how was a gentleman to tell her so? His
spirits for some time had been sinking, but they now fell to zero;
and long after her voice had died away he still sat with a troubled
and averted countenance, and could find no form of words to thank
her for her narrative. His mind, indeed, was empty of everything
beyond a dull longing for escape. From this pause, which grew the
more embarrassing with every second, he was roused by the sudden
laughter of the lady. His vanity was alarmed; he turned and faced
her; their eyes met; and he caught from hers a spark of such frank
merriment as put him instantly at ease.
'You certainly,' he said, 'appear to bear your calamities with
excellent spirit.'
'Do I not?' she cried, and fell once more into delicious laughter.
But from this access she more speedily recovered. 'This is all
very well,' said she, nodding at him gravely, 'but I am still in a
most distressing situation, from which, if you deny me your help, I
shall find it difficult indeed to free myself.'
At this mention of help Challoner fell back to his original gloom.
'My sympathies are much engaged with you,' he said, 'and I should
be delighted, I am sure. But our position is most unusual; and
circumstances over which I have, I can assure you, no control,
deprive me of the power - the pleasure - Unless, indeed,' he added,
somewhat brightening at the thought, 'I were to recommend you to
the care of the police?'
She laid her hand upon his arm and looked hard into his eyes; and
he saw with wonder that, for the first time since the moment of
their meeting, every trace of colour had faded from her cheek.
'Do so,' she said, 'and - weigh my words well - you kill me as
certainly as with a knife.'
'God bless me!' exclaimed Challoner.
'Oh,' she cried, 'I can see you disbelieve my story and make light
of the perils that surround me; but who are you to judge? My
family share my apprehensions; they help me in secret; and you saw
yourself by what an emissary, and in what a place, they have chosen
to supply me with the funds for my escape. I admit that you are
brave and clever and have impressed me most favourably; but how are
you to prefer your opinion before that of my uncle, an ex-minister
of state, a man with the ear of the Queen, and of a long political
experience? If I am mad, is he? And you must allow me, besides, a
special claim upon your help. Strange as you may think my story,
you know that much of it is true; and if you who heard the
explosion and saw the Mormon at Victoria, refuse to credit and
assist me, to whom am I to turn?'
'He gave you money then?' asked Challoner, who had been dwelling
singly on that fact.
'I begin to interest you,' she cried. 'But, frankly, you are
condemned to help me. If the service I had to ask of you were
serious, were suspicious, were even unusual, I should say no more.
But what is it? To take a pleasure trip (for which, if you will
suffer me, I propose to pay) and to carry from one lady to another
a sum of money! What can be more simple?'
'Is the sum,' asked Challoner, 'considerable?'
She produced a packet from her bosom; and observing that she had
not yet found time to make the count, tore open the cover and
spread upon her knees a considerable number of Bank of England
notes. It took some time to make the reckoning, for the notes were
of every degree of value; but at last, and counting a few loose
sovereigns, she made out the sum to be a little under 710 pounds
sterling. The sight of so much money worked an immediate
revolution in the mind of Challoner.
'And you propose, madam,' he cried, 'to intrust that money to a
perfect stranger?'
'Ah!' said she, with a charming smile, 'but I no longer regard you
as a stranger.'
'Madam,' said Challoner, 'I perceive I must make you a confession.
Although of a very good family - through my mother, indeed, a lineal
descendant of the patriot Bruce - I dare not conceal from you that
my affairs are deeply, very deeply involved. I am in debt; my
pockets are practically empty; and, in short, I am fallen to that
state when a considerable sum of money would prove to many men an
irresistible temptation.'
'Do you not see,' returned the young lady, 'that by these words you
have removed my last hesitation? Take them.' And she thrust the
notes into the young man's hand.
He sat so long, holding them, like a baby at the font, that Miss
Fonblanque once more bubbled into laughter.
'Pray,' she said, 'hesitate no further; put them in your pocket;
and to relieve our position of any shadow of embarrassment, tell me
by what name I am to address my knight-errant, for I find myself
reduced to the awkwardness of the pronoun.'
Had borrowing been in question, the wisdom of our ancestors had
come lightly to the young man's aid; but upon what pretext could he
refuse so generous a trust? Upon none he saw, that was not
unpardonably wounding; and the bright eyes and the high spirits of
his companion had already made a breach in the rampart of
Challoner's caution. The whole thing, he reasoned, might be a mere
mystification, which it were the height of solemn folly to resent.
On the other hand, the explosion, the interview at the public-
house, and the very money in his hands, seemed to prove beyond
denial the existence of some serious danger; and if that were so,
could he desert her? There was a choice of risks: the risk of
behaving with extraordinary incivility and unhandsomeness to a
lady, and the risk of going on a fool's errand. The story seemed
false; but then the money was undeniable. The whole circumstances
were questionable and obscure; but the lady was charming, and had
the speech and manners of society. While he still hung in the
wind, a recollection returned upon his mind with some of the
dignity of prophecy. Had he not promised Somerset to break with
the traditions of the commonplace, and to accept the first
adventure offered? Well, here was the adventure.
He thrust the money into his pocket.
'My name is Challoner,' said he.
'Mr. Challoner,' she replied, 'you have come very generously to my
aid when all was against me. Though I am myself a very humble
person, my family commands great interest; and I do not think you
will repent this handsome action.'
Challoner flushed with pleasure.
'I imagine that, perhaps, a consulship,' she added, her eyes
dwelling on him with a judicial admiration, 'a consulship in some
great town or capital - or else - But we waste time; let us set about
the work of my delivery.'
She took his arm with a frank confidence that went to his heart;
and once more laying by all serious thoughts, she entertained him,
as they crossed the park, with her agreeable gaiety of mind. Near
the Marble Arch they found a hansom, which rapidly conveyed them to
the terminus at Euston Square; and here, in the hotel, they sat
down to an excellent breakfast. The young lady's first step was to
call for writing materials and write, upon one corner of the table,
a hasty note; still, as she did so, glancing with smiles at her
companion. 'Here,' said she, 'here is the letter which will
introduce you to my cousin.' She began to fold the paper. 'My
cousin, although I have never seen her, has the character of a very
charming woman and a recognised beauty; of that I know nothing, but
at least she has been very kind to me; so has my lord her father;
so have you - kinder than all - kinder than I can bear to think of.'
She said this with unusual emotion; and, at the same time, sealed
the envelope. 'Ah!' she cried, 'I have shut my letter! It is not
quite courteous; and yet, as between friends, it is perhaps better
so. I introduce you, after all, into a family secret; and though
you and I are already old comrades, you are still unknown to my
uncle. You go then to this address, Richard Street, Glasgow; go,
please, as soon as you arrive; and give this letter with your own
hands into those of Miss Fonblanque, for that is the name by which
she is to pass. When we next meet, you will tell me what you think
of her,' she added, with a touch of the provocative.
'Ah,' said Challoner, almost tenderly, 'she can be nothing to me.'
'You do not know,' replied the young lady, with a sigh. 'By-the-
bye, I had forgotten - it is very childish, and I am almost ashamed
to mention it - but when you see Miss Fonblanque, you will have to
make yourself a little ridiculous; and I am sure the part in no way
suits you. We had agreed upon a watchword. You will have to
address an earl's daughter in these words: "NIGGER, NIGGER, NEVER
DIE;" but reassure yourself,' she added, laughing, 'for the fair
patrician will at once finish the quotation. Come now, say your
lesson.'
'"Nigger, nigger, never die,"' repeated Challoner, with undisguised
reluctance.
Miss Fonblanque went into fits of laughter. 'Excellent,' said she,
'it will be the most humorous scene.' And she laughed again.
'And what will be the counterword?' asked Challoner stiffly.
'I will not tell you till the last moment,' said she; 'for I
perceive you are growing too imperious.'
Breakfast over, she accompanied the young man to the platform,
bought him the Graphic, the Athenaeum, and a paper-cutter, and
stood on the step conversing till the whistle sounded. Then she
put her head into the carriage. 'BLACK FACE AND SHINING EYE!' she
whispered, and instantly leaped down upon the platform, with a
thrill of gay and musical laughter. As the train steamed out of
the great arch of glass, the sound of that laughter still rang in
the young man's ears.
Challoner's position was too unusual to be long welcome to his
mind. He found himself projected the whole length of England, on a
mission beset with obscure and ridiculous circumstances, and yet,
by the trust he had accepted, irrevocably bound to persevere. How
easy it appeared, in the retrospect, to have refused the whole
proposal, returned the money, and gone forth again upon his own
affairs, a free and happy man! And it was now impossible: the
enchantress who had held him with her eye had now disappeared,
taking his honour in pledge; and as she had failed to leave him an
address, he was denied even the inglorious safety of retreat. To
use the paper-knife, or even to read the periodicals with which she
had presented him, was to renew the bitterness of his remorse; and
as he was alone in the compartment, he passed the day staring at
the landscape in impotent repentance, and long before he was landed
on the platform of St. Enoch's, had fallen to the lowest and
coldest zones of self-contempt.
As he was hungry, and elegant in his habits, he would have
preferred to dine and to remove the stains of travel; but the words
of the young lady, and his own impatient eagerness, would suffer no
delay. In the late, luminous, and lamp-starred dusk of the summer
evening, he accordingly set forward with brisk steps.
The street to which he was directed had first seen the day in the
character of a row of small suburban villas on a hillside; but the
extension of the city had long since, and on every hand, surrounded
it with miles of streets. From the top of the hill a range of very
tall buildings, densely inhabited by the poorest classes of the
population and variegated by drying-poles from every second window,
overplumbed the villas and their little gardens like a sea-board
cliff. But still, under the grime of years of city smoke, these
antiquated cottages, with their venetian blinds and rural
porticoes, retained a somewhat melancholy savour of the past.
The street when Challoner entered it was perfectly deserted. From
hard by, indeed, the sound of a thousand footfalls filled the ear;
but in Richard Street itself there was neither light nor sound of
human habitation. The appearance of the neighbourhood weighed
heavily on the mind of the young man; once more, as in the streets
of London, he was impressed with the sense of city deserts; and as
he approached the number indicated, and somewhat falteringly rang
the bell, his heart sank within him.
The bell was ancient, like the house; it had a thin and garrulous
note; and it was some time before it ceased to sound from the rear
quarters of the building. Following upon this an inner door was
stealthily opened, and careful and catlike steps drew near along
the hall. Challoner, supposing he was to be instantly admitted,
produced his letter, and, as well as he was able, prepared a
smiling face. To his indescribable surprise, however, the
footsteps ceased, and then, after a pause and with the like
stealthiness, withdrew once more, and died away in the interior of
the house. A second time the young man rang violently at the bell;
a second time, to his keen hearkening, a certain bustle of discreet
footing moved upon the hollow boards of the old villa; and again
the fainthearted garrison only drew near to retreat. The cup of
the visitor's endurance was now full to overflowing; and,
committing the whole family of Fonblanque to every mood and shade
of condemnation, he turned upon his heel and redescended the steps.
Perhaps the mover in the house was watching from a window, and
plucked up courage at the sight of this desistance; or perhaps,
where he lurked trembling in the back parts of the villa, reason in
its own right had conquered his alarms. Challoner, at least, had
scarce set foot upon the pavement when he was arrested by the sound
of the withdrawal of an inner bolt; one followed another, rattling
in their sockets; the key turned harshly in the lock; the door
opened; and there appeared upon the threshold a man of a very
stalwart figure in his shirt sleeves. He was a person neither of
great manly beauty nor of a refined exterior; he was not the man,
in ordinary moods, to attract the eyes of the observer; but as he
now stood in the doorway, he was marked so legibly with the extreme
passion of terror that Challoner stood wonder-struck. For a
fraction of a minute they gazed upon each other in silence; and
then the man of the house, with ashen lips and gasping voice,
inquired the business of his visitor. Challoner replied, in tones
from which he strove to banish his surprise, that he was the bearer
of a letter to a certain Miss Fonblanque. At this name, as at a
talisman, the man fell back and impatiently invited him to enter;
and no sooner had the adventurer crossed the threshold, than the
door was closed behind him and his retreat cut off.
It was already long past eight at night; and though the late
twilight of the north still lingered in the streets, in the passage
it was already groping dark. The man led Challoner directly to a
parlour looking on the garden to the back. Here he had apparently
been supping; for by the light of a tallow dip the table was seen
to be covered with a napkin, and set out with a quart of bottled
ale and the heel of a Gouda cheese. The room, on the other hand,
was furnished with faded solidity, and the walls were lined with
scholarly and costly volumes in glazed cases. The house must have
been taken furnished; for it had no congruity with this man of the
shirt sleeves and the mean supper. As for the earl's daughter, the
earl and the visionary consulships in foreign cities, they had long
ago begun to fade in Challoner's imagination. Like Doctor Grierson
and the Mormon angels, they were plainly woven of the stuff of
dreams. Not an illusion remained to the knight-errant; not a hope
was left him, but to be speedily relieved from this disreputable
business.
The man had continued to regard his visitor with undisguised
anxiety, and began once more to press him for his errand.
'I am here,' said Challoner, 'simply to do a service between two
ladies; and I must ask you, without further delay, to summon Miss
Fonblanque, into whose hands alone I am authorised to deliver the
letter that I bear.'
A growing wonder began to mingle on the man's face with the lines
of solicitude. 'I am Miss Fonblanque,' he said; and then,
perceiving the effect of this communication, 'Good God!' he cried,
'what are you staring at? I tell you, I am Miss Fonblanque.'
Seeing the speaker wore a chin-beard of considerable length, and
the remainder of his face was blue with shaving, Challoner could