not imagine one half its misery. But his old hectic — this old epileptic — this old spectre of wrongs, calamities, and follies, had still one hope — my manly though untutored son — the last male scion of the Ruthyns, Maud, have I lost him? His fate — my fate — I may say Milly’s fate; — we all await your sentence. He loves you, as none but the very young can love, and that once only in a life. He loves you desperately — a most affectionate nature — a Ruthyn, the best blood in England — the last man of the race; and I— if I lose him I lose all; and you will see me in my coffin, Maud, before many months. I stand before you in the attitude of a suppliant — shall I kneel?”
His eyes were fixed on me with the light of despair, his knotted hands clasped, his whole figure bowed toward me. I was inexpressibly shocked and pained.
“Oh, uncle! uncle!” I cried, and from very excitement I burst into tears.
I saw that his eyes were fixed on me with a dismal scrutiny. I think he divined the nature of my agitation; but he determined, notwithstanding, to press me while my helpless agitation continued.
“You see my suspense — you see my miserable and frightful suspense. You are kind, Maud; you love your father’s memory; you pity your father’s brother; you would not say no, and place a pistol at his head?”
“Oh! I must — I must — I must say no. Oh! spare me, uncle, for Heaven’s sake. Don’t question me — don’t press me. I could not — I could not do what you ask.”
“I yield, Maud — I yield, my dear. I will not press you; you shall have time, your own time, to think. I will accept no answer now — no, none, Maud.”
He said this, raising his thin hand to silence me.
“There, Maud, enough. I have spoken, as I always do to you, frankly, perhaps too frankly; but agony and despair will speak out, and plead, even with the most obdurate and cruel.”
With these words Uncle Silas entered his bed-chamber, and shut the door, not violently, but with a resolute hand, and I thought I heard a cry.
I hastened to my own room. I threw myself on my knees, and thanked Heaven for the firmness vouchsafed me; I could not believe it to have been my own.
I was more miserable in consequence of this renewed suit on behalf of my odious cousin than I can describe. My uncle had taken such a line of importunity that it became a sort of agony to resist. I thought of the possibility of my hearing of his having made away with himself, and was every morning relieved when I heard that he was still as usual. I have often wondered since at my own firmness. In that dreadful interview with my uncle I had felt, in the whirl and horror of mind, on the very point of submitting, just as nervous people are said to throw themselves over precipices through sheer dread of falling.
Chapter 51.
Sarah Matilda Comes to Light
SOME TIME after this interview, one day as I sat, sad enough, in my room, looking listlessly from the window, with good Mary Quince, whom, whether in the house or in my melancholy rambles, I always had by my side, I was startled by the sound of a loud and shrill female voice, in violent hysterical action, gabbling with great rapidity, sobbing, and very nearly screaming in a sort of fury.
I started up, staring at the door.
“Lord bless us!” cried honest Mary Quince, with round eyes and mouth agape, staring in the same direction.
“Mary — Mary, what can it be?”
“Are they beating some one down yonder? I don’t know where it comes from,” gasped Quince.
“I will — I will — I’ll see her. It’s her I want. Oo — hoo — hoo — hoo — oo — o — Miss Maud Ruthyn of Knowl. Miss Ruthyn of Knowl. Hoo — hoo — hoo — hoo — oo!”
“What on earth can it be?” I exclaimed, in great bewilderment and terror.
It was now plainly very near indeed, and Ii heard the voice of our mild and shaky butler evidently remonstrating with the distressed damsel.
“I’ll see her,” she continued, pouring a torrent of vile abuse upon me, which stung me with a sudden sense of anger What had I done to be afraid of anyone? How dared anyone in my uncle’s house — in my house — mix my name up with her detestable scurrilities?
“For Heaven’s sake, Miss, don’t ye go out,” cried poor Quince; “it’s some drunken creature.”
But I was very angry, and, like a fool as I was, I threw open the door, exclaiming in a loud and haughty key —
“Here is Miss Ruthyn of Knowl. Who wants to see her?”
A pink and white young lady, with black tresses, violent, weeping, shrill, voluble, was flouncing up the last stair, and shook her dress out on the lobby; and poor old Giblets, as Milly used to call him, was following in her wake, with many small remonstrances and entreaties, perfectly unheeded.
The moment I looked at this person, it struck me that she was the identical lady whom I had seen in the carriage at Knowl Warren. The next moment I was in doubt; the next, still more so. She was decidedly thinner, and dressed by no means in such lady-like taste. Perhaps she was hardly like her at all. I began to distrust all these resemblances, and to fancy, with a shudder, that they originated, perhaps, only in my own sick brain.
On seeing me, this young lady — as it seemed to me, a good deal of the barmaid or lady’s-maid species — dried her eyes fiercely, and, with a flaming countenance, called upon me peremptorily to produce her “lawful husband.” Her loud, insolent, outrageous attack had the effect of enhancing my indignation, and I quite forget what I said to her, but I well remember that her manner became a good deal more decent. She was plainly under the impression that I wanted to appropriate her husband, or, at least, that he wanted to marry me; and she ran on at such a pace, and her harangue was so passionate, incoherent, and unintelligible, that I thought her out of her mind; she was far from it, however. I think if she had allowed me even a second for reflection, I should have hit upon her meaning. As it was, nothing could exceed my perplexity, until, plucking a soiled newspaper from her pocket, she indicated a particular paragraph, already sufficiently emphasised by double lines of red ink at its sides. It was a Lancashire paper, of about six weeks since, and very much worn and soiled for its age. I remember in particular a circular stain from the bottom of a vessel, either of coffee or brown stout. The paragraph was as follows, recording an event a year or more anterior to the date of the paper:—
“MARRIAGE. — On Tuesday, August 7, 18 — at Leatherwig Church, by the Rev. Arthur Hughes, Dudley R. Ruthyn, Esq., only son and heir of Silas Ruthyn, Esq., of Bartram–Haugh, Derbyshire, to Sarah Matilda, second daughter of John Mangles, Esq., of Wiggan, in this county.”
At first I read nothing but amazement in this announcement, but in another moment felt how completely I was relieved; and showing, I believe, my intense satisfaction in my countenance — for the young lady eyed me with considerable surprise and curiosity — I said —
“This is extremely important. You must see Mr. Silas Ruthyn this moment. I am certain he knows nothing of it. I will conduct you to him.”
“No more he does — I know that myself,” she replied, following me with a self-asserting swagger, and a great rustling of cheap silk.
As we entered, Uncle Silas looked up from his sofa, and closed his Revue des Deux Mondes.
“What is all this?” he enquired, drily.
“This lady has brought with her a newspaper containing an extraordinary statement which affects our family,” I answered.
Uncle Silas raised himself, and looked with a hard, narrow scrutiny at the unknown young lady.
“A libel, I suppose, in the paper?” he said, extending his hand for it.