Book: Night and Morning, Volume 2

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Night and Morning, Volume 2




"Very well, then,--I'm not particular; a tumbler of braundy and water,
stiffish, cold without, the newspaper--and a cigar. You'll excuse smoking,
sir?"

Philip looked up from his hoard, and Captain de Burgh Smith stood before
him.

"Ah!" said the latter, "well met!" And closing the door, be took off
his great-coat, seated himself near Philip, and bent both his eves with
considerable wistfulness on the neat rows into which Philip's bank-notes,
sovereigns, and shillings were arrayed.

"Pretty little sum for pocket money; caush in hand goes a great way,
properly invested. You must have been very lucky. Well, so I suppose
you are surprised to see me here without my pheaton?"

"I wish I had never seen you at all," replied Philip, uncourteously, and
restoring his money to his pocket; "your fraud upon Mr. Stubmore, and
your assurance that you knew me, have sent me adrift upon the world."

"What's one man's meat is another man's poison," said the captain,
philosophically; "no use fretting, care killed a cat. I am as badly off
as you; for, hang me, if there was not a Bow Street runner in the town.
I caught his eye fixed on me like a gimlet: so I bolted--went to N----,
left my pheaton and groom there for the present, and have doubled back,
to bauffle pursuit, and cut across the country. You recollect that voice
girl we saw in the coach; 'gad, I served her spouse that is to be a
praetty trick! Borrowed his money under pretence of investing it in the
New Grand Anti-Dry-Rot Company; cool hundred--it's only just gone, sir."

Here the chambermaid entered with the brandy and water, the newspaper,
and cigar,--the captain lighted the last, took a deep sup from the
beverage, and said, gaily:

"Well, now, let us join fortunes; we are both, as you say, 'adrift.' Best
way to staund the breeze is to unite the caubles."

Philip shook his head, and, displeased with his companion, sought his
pillow. He took care to put his money under his head, and to lock his
door.

The brothers started at daybreak; Sidney was even more discontented than
on the previous day. The weather was hot and oppressive; they rested for
some hours at noon, and in the cool of the evening renewed their way.
Philip had made up his mind to steer for a town in the thick of a hunting
district, where he hoped his equestrian capacities might again befriend
him; and their path now lay through a chain of vast dreary commons, which
gave them at least the advantage to skirt the road-side unobserved. But,
somehow or other, either Philip had been misinformed as to an inn where
he had proposed to pass the night, or he had missed it; for the clouds
darkened, and the sun went down, and no vestige of human habitation was
discernible.

Sidney, footsore and querulous, began to weep, and declare that he could
stir no further; and while Philip, whose iron frame defied fatigue,
compassionately paused to rest his brother, a low roll of thunder broke
upon the gloomy air. "There will be a storm," said he, anxiously. "Come
on--pray, Sidney, come on."

"It is so cruel in you, brother Philip," replied Sidney, sobbing. "I
wish I had never--never gone with you."

A flash of lightning, that illuminated the whole heavens, lingered round
Sidney's pale face as he spoke; and Philip threw himself instinctively on
the child, as if to protect him even from the wrath of the unshelterable
flame. Sidney, hushed and terrified, clung to his brother's breast;
after a pause, he silently consented to resume their journey. But now
the storm came nearer and nearer to the wanderers. The darkness grew
rapidly more intense, save when the lightning lit up heaven and earth
alike with intolerable lustre. And when at length the rain began to fall
in merciless and drenching torrents, even Philip's brave heart failed
him. How could he ask Sidney to proceed, when they could scarcely see an
inch before them?--all that could now be done was to gain the high-road,
and hope for some passing conveyance. With fits and starts, and by the
glare of the lightning, they obtained their object; and stood at last on
the great broad thoroughfare, along which, since the day when the Roman
carved it from the waste, Misery hath plodded, and Luxury rolled, their
common way.

Philip had stripped handkerchief, coat, vest, all to shelter Sidney; and
he felt a kind of strange pleasure through the dark, even to hear
Sidney's voice wail and moan. But that voice grew more languid and
faint--it ceased--Sidney's weight hung heavy--heavier on the fostering
arm.

"For Heaven's sake, speak!--speak, Sidney!--only one word--I will carry
you in my arms!"

"I think I am dying," replied Sidney, in a low murmur; "I am so tired and
worn out I can go no further--I must lie here." And he sank at once upon
the reeking grass beside the road.. At this time the rain gradually
relaxed, the clouds broke away--a grey light succeeded to the darkness
--the lightning was more distant; and the thunder rolled onward in its
awful path. Kneeling on the ground, Philip supported his brother in his
arms, and cast his pleading eyes upward to the softening terrors of the
sky. A star, a solitary star-broke out for one moment, as if to smile
comfort upon him, and then vanished. But lo! in the distance there
suddenly gleamed a red, steady light, like that in some solitary window;
it was no will-o'-the-wisp, it was too stationary--human shelter was then
nearer than he had thought for. He pointed to the light, and whispered,
"Rouse yourself, one struggle more--it cannot be far off."

"It is impossible--I cannot stir," answered Sidney: and a sudden flash of
lightning showed his countenance, ghastly, as if with the damps of Death.
What could the brother do?--stay there, and see the boy perish before his
eyes? leave him on the road and fly to the friendly light? The last plan
was the sole one left, yet he shrank from it in greater terror than the
first. Was that a step that he heard across the road? He held his
breath to listen--a form became dimly visible--it approached.

Philip shouted aloud.

"What now?" answered the voice, and it seemed familiar to Morton's ear.
He sprang forward; and putting his face close to the wayfarer, thought to
recognise the features of Captain de Burgh Smith. The Captain, whose
eyes were yet more accustomed to the dark, made the first overture.

"Why, my lad, is it you then? 'Gad, you froightened me!"

Odious as this man had hitherto been to Philip, he was as welcome to him
as daylight now; he grasped his hand,--"My brother--a child--is here,
dying, I fear, with cold and fatigue; he cannot stir. Will you stay with
him--support him--but for a few moments, while I make to yon light? See,
I have money--plenty of money!"

"My good lad, it is very ugly work staying here at this hour: still--
where's the choild?"

"Here, here! make haste, raise him! that's right! God bless you! I
shall be back ere you think me gone."

He sprang from the road, and plunged through the heath, the furze, the
rank glistening pools, straight towards the light-as the swimmer towards
the shore.

The captain, though a rogue, was human; and when life--an innocent life
--is at stake, even a rogue's heart rises up from its weedy bed. He
muttered a few oaths, it is true, but he held the child in his arms; and,
taking out a little tin case, poured some brandy down Sidney's throat and
then, by way of company, down his own. The cordial revived the boy; he
opened his eyes, and said, "I think I can go on now, Philip."

. . . . . . . .

We must return to Arthur Beaufort. He was naturally, though gentle, a
person of high spirit and not without pride. He rose from the ground
with bitter, resentful feelings and a blushing cheek, and went his way to
the hotel. Here he found Mr. Spencer just returned from his visit to
Sidney. Enchanted with the soft and endearing manners of his lost
Catherine's son, and deeply affected with the resemblance the child bore
to the mother as he had seen her last at the gay and rosy age of fair
sixteen, his description of the younger brother drew Beaufort's indignant
thoughts from the elder. He cordially concurred with Mr. Spencer in the
wish to save one so gentle from the domination of one so fierce; and
this, after all, was the child Catherine had most strongly commended to
him. She had said little of the elder; perhaps she had been aware of his
ungracious and untractable nature, and, as it seemed to Arthur Beaufort,
his predilections for a coarse and low career.

"Yes," said he, "this boy, then, shall console me for the perverse
brutality of the other. He shall indeed drink of my cup, and eat of my
bread, and be to me as a brother."

"What!" said Mr. Spencer, changing countenance, "you do not intend to
take Sidney to live with you. I meant him for my son--my adopted son."

"No; generous as you are," said Arthur, pressing his hand, "this charge
devolves on me--it is my right. I am the orphan's relation--his mother
consigned him to me. But he shall be taught to love you not the less."

Mr. Spencer was silent. He could not bear the thought of losing Sidney
as an inmate of his cheerless home, a tender relic of his early love.
From that moment he began to contemplate the possibility of securing
Sidney to himself, unknown to Beaufort.

The plans both of Arthur and Spencer were interrupted by the sudden
retreat of the brothers. They determined to depart different ways in
search of them. Spencer, as the more helpless of the two, obtained the
aid of Mr. Sharp; Beaufort departed with the lawyer.

Two travellers, in a hired barouche, were slowly dragged by a pair of
jaded posters along the commons I have just described.

"I think," said one, "that the storm is very much abated; heigho! what an
unpleasant night!"

"Unkimmon ugly, sir," answered the other; "and an awful long stage,
eighteen miles. These here remote places are quite behind the age,
sir--quite. However, I think we shall kitch them now."

"I am very much afraid of that eldest boy, Sharp. He seems a dreadful
vagabond."

"You see, sir, quite hand in glove with Dashing Jerry; met in the same
inn last night--preconcerted, you may be quite shure. It would be the
best day's job I have done this many a day to save that 'ere little
fellow from being corrupted. You sees he is just of a size to be useful
to these bad karakters. If they took to burglary, he would be a treasure
to them--slip him through a pane of glass like a ferret, sir."

"Don't talk of it, Sharp," said Mr. Spencer, with a groan; "and
recollect, if we get hold of him, that you are not to say a word to Mr.
Beaufort."

"I understand, sir; and I always goes with the gemman who behaves most
like a gemman."

Here a loud halloo was heard close by the horses' heads. "Good Heavens,
if that is a footpad!" said Mr. Spencer, shaking violently.

"Lord, sir, I have my barkers with me. Who's there?" The barouche
stopped--a man came to the window. "Excuse me, sir," said the stranger;
"but there is a poor boy here so tired and ill that I fear he will never
reach the next town, unless you will koindly give him a lift."

"A poor boy!" said Mr. Spencer, poking his head over the head of Mr.
Sharp. "Where?"

"If you would just drop him at the King's Awrms it would be a chaurity,"
said the man.

Sharp pinched Mr. Spencer in his shoulder. "That's Dashing Jerry; I'll
get out." So saying, he opened the door, jumped into the road, and
presently reappeared with the lost and welcome Sidney in his arms.
"Ben't this the boy?" he whispered to Mr. Spencer; and, taking the lamp
from the carriage, he raised it to the child's face.

"It is! it is! God be thanked!" exclaimed the worthy man.

"Will you leave him at the King's Awrms?--we shall be there in an hour or
two," cried the Captain.

"We! Who's we?" said Sharp, gruffly. "Why, myself and the choild's
brother."

"Oh!" said Sharp, raising the lantern to his own face; "you knows me, I
think, Master Jerry? Let me kitch you again, that's all. And give my
compliments to your 'sociate, and say, if he prosecutes this here hurchin
any more, we'll settle his bizness for him; and so take a hint and make
yourself scarce, old boy!"

With that Mr. Sharp jumped into the barouche, and bade the postboy drive
on as fast as he could.

Ten minutes after this abduction, Philip, followed by two labourers, with
a barrow, a lantern, and two blankets, returned from the hospitable farm
to which the light had conducted him. The spot where he had left Sidney,
and which he knew by a neighbouring milestone, was vacant; he shouted an
alarm, and the Captain answered from the distance of some threescore
yards. Philip came to him. "Where is my brother?"

"Gone away in a barouche and pair. Devil take me if I understand it."
And the Captain proceeded to give a confused account of what had passed.

"My brother! my brother! they have torn thee from me, then;" cried
Philip, and he fell to the earth insensible.




CHAPTER XI.

"Vous me rendrez mon frere!"
CASIMER DELAVIGNE: _Les Enfans d'Edouard_.

['You shall restore me my brother!]

One evening, a week after this event, a wild, tattered, haggard youth
knocked at the door of Mr. Robert Beaufort. The porter slowly presented
himself.

"Is your master at home? I must see him instantly." "That's more than
you can, my man; my master does not see the like of you at this time of
night," replied the porter, eying the ragged apparition before him with
great disdain.

"See me he must and shall," replied the young man; and as the porter
blocked up the entrance, he grasped his collar with a hand of iron, swung
him, huge as he was, aside, and strode into the spacious hall.

"Stop! stop!" cried the porter, recovering himself. "James! John!
here's ago!"

Mr. Robert Beaufort had been back in town several days. Mrs. Beaufort,
who was waiting his return from his club, was in the dining-room.
Hearing a noise in the hall, she opened the door, and saw the strange
grim figure I have described, advancing towards her. "Who are you?"
said she; "and what do you want?"

"I am Philip Morton. Who are you?"

"My husband," said Mrs. Beaufort, shrinking into the parlour, while
Morton followed her and closed the door, "my husband, Mr. Beaufort, is
not at home."

"You are Mrs. Beaufort, then! Well, you can understand me. I want my
brother. He has been basely reft from me. Tell me where he is, and I
will forgive all. Restore him to me, and I will bless you and yours."
And Philip fell on his knees and grasped the train of her gown. "I know
nothing of your brother, Mr. Morton," cried Mrs. Beaufort, surprised and
alarmed. "Arthur, whom we expect every day, writes us word that all
search for him has been in vain."

"Ha! you admit the search?" cried Morton, rising and clenching his
hands. "And who else but you or yours would have parted brother and
brother? Answer me where he is. No subterfuge, madam: I am desperate!"

Mrs. Beaufort, though a woman of that worldly coldness and indifference
which, on ordinary occasions, supply the place of courage, was extremely
terrified by the tone and mien of her rude guest. She laid her hand on
the bell; but Morton seized her arm, and, holding it sternly, said, while
his dark eyes shot fire through the glimmering room, "I will not stir
hence till you have told me. Will you reject my gratitude, my blessing?
Beware! Again, where have you hid my brother?"

At that instant the door opened, and Mr. Robert Beaufort entered. The
lady, with a shriek of joy, wrenched herself from Philip's grasp, and
flew to her husband.

"Save me from this ruffian!" she said, with an hysterical sob.

Mr. Beaufort, who had heard from Blackwell strange accounts of Philip's
obdurate perverseness, vile associates, and unredeemable character, was
roused from his usual timidity by the appeal of his wife.

"Insolent reprobate!" he said, advancing to Philip; "after all the absurd
goodness of my son and myself; after rejecting all our offers, and
persisting in your miserable and vicious conduct, how dare you presume to
force yourself into this house? Begone, or I will send for the
constables to remove YOU!

"Man, man," cried Philip, restraining the fury that shook him from head
to foot, "I care not for your threats--I scarcely hear your abuse--your
son, or yourself, has stolen away my brother: tell me only where he is;
let me see him once more. Do not drive me hence, without one word of
justice, of pity. I implore you--on my knees I implore you--yes, I,--I
implore you, Robert Beaufort, to have mercy on your brother's son. Where
is Sidney?" Like all mean and cowardly men, Robert Beaufort was rather
encouraged than softened by Philip's abrupt humility.

"I know nothing of your brother; and if this is not all some villainous
trick--which it may be--I am heartily rejoiced that he, poor child! is
rescued from the contamination of such a companion," answered Beaufort.

"I am at your feet still; again, for the last time, clinging to you a
suppliant: I pray you to tell me the truth."

Mr. Beaufort, more and more exasperated by Morton's forbearance, raised
his hand as if to strike; when, at that moment, one hitherto unobserved--
one who, terrified by the scene she had witnessed but could not
comprehend, had slunk into a dark corner of the room,--now came from her
retreat. And a child's soft voice was heard, saying:

"Do not strike him, papa!--let him have his brother!" Mr. Beaufort's arm
fell to his side: kneeling before him, and by the outcast's side, was his
own young daughter; she had crept into the room unobserved, when her
father entered. Through the dim shadows, relieved only by the red and
fitful gleam of the fire, he saw her fair meek face looking up wistfully
at his own, with tears of excitement, and perhaps of pity--for children
have a quick insight into the reality of grief in those not far removed
from their own years--glistening in her soft eyes. Philip looked round
bewildered, and he saw that face which seemed to him, at such a time,
like the face of an angel.

"Hear her!" he murmured: "Oh, hear her! For her sake, do not sever one
orphan from the other!"

"Take away that child, Mrs. Beaufort," cried Robert, angrily. "Will you
let her disgrace herself thus? And you, sir, begone from this roof; and
when you can approach me with due respect, I will give you, as I said I
would, the means to get an honest living."

Philip rose; Mrs. Beaufort had already led away her daughter, and she
took that opportunity of sending in the servants: their forms filled up
the doorway.

"Will you go?" continued Mr. Beaufort, more and more emboldened, as he
saw the menials at hand, "or shall they expel you?"

"It is enough, sir," said Philip, with a sudden calm and dignity that
surprised and almost awed his uncle. "My father, if the dead yet watch
over the living, has seen and heard you. There will come a day for
justice. Out of my path, hirelings!"

He waved his arm, and the menials shrank back at his tread, stalked
across the inhospitable hall, and vanished. When he had gained the
street, he turned and looked up at the house. His dark and hollow eyes,
gleaming through the long and raven hair that fell profusely over his
face, had in them an expression of menace almost preternatural, from its
settled calmness; the wild and untutored majesty which, though rags and
squalor, never deserted his form, as it never does the forms of men in
whom the will is strong and the sense of injustice deep; the outstretched
arm the haggard, but noble features; the bloomless and scathed youth, all
gave to his features and his stature an aspect awful in its sinister and
voiceless wrath. There he stood a moment, like one to whom woe and wrong
have given a Prophet's power, guiding the eye of the unforgetful Fate to
the roof of the Oppressor. Then slowly, and with a half smile, he turned
away, and strode through the streets till he arrived at one of the narrow
lanes that intersect the more equivocal quarters of the huge city. He
stopped at the private entrance of a small pawnbroker's shop; the door
was opened by a slipshod boy; he ascended the dingy stairs till he came
to the second floor; and there, in a small back room, he found Captain de
Burgh Smith, seated before a table with a couple of candles on it,
smoking a cigar, and playing at cards by himself.

"Well, what news of your brother, Bully Phil?"

"None: they will reveal nothing."

"Do you give him up?"

"Never! My hope now is in you."

"Well, I thought you would be driven to come to me, and I will do
something for you that I should not loike to do for myself. I told you
that I knew the Bow Street runner who was in the barouche. I will find
him out--Heaven knows that is easily done; and, if you can pay well, you
will get your news."

"You shall have all I possess, if you restore my brother. See what it
is, one hundred pounds--it was his fortune. It is useless to me without
him. There, take fifty now, and if--"

Philip stopped, for his voice trembled too much to allow him farther
speech. Captain Smith thrust the notes into his pocket, and said--

"We'll consider it settled."

Captain Smith fulfilled his promise. He saw the Bow Street officer. Mr.
Sharp had been bribed too high by the opposite party to tell tales, and
he willingly encouraged the suspicion that Sidney was under the care of
the Beauforts. He promised, however, for the sake of ten guineas, to
procure Philip a letter from Sidney himself. This was all he would
undertake.

Philip was satisfied. At the end of another week, Mr. Sharp transmitted
to the Captain a letter, which he, in his turn, gave to Philip. It ran
thus, in Sidney's own sprawling hand:

"DEAR BROTHER PHILIP,--I am told you wish to know how I am, and therfore
take up my pen, and assure you that I write all out of my own head. I am
very Comfortable and happy--much more so than I have been since poor deir
mama died; so I beg you won't vex yourself about me: and pray don't try
and Find me out, For I would not go with you again for the world. I am
so much better Off here. I wish you would be a good boy, and leave off
your Bad ways; for I am sure, as every one says, I don't know what would
have become of me if I had staid with you. Mr. [the Mr. half scratched
out] the gentleman I am with, says if you turn out Properly, he will be a
friend to you, Too; but he advises you to go, like a Good boy, to Arthur
Beaufort, and ask his pardon for the past, and then Arthur will be very
kind to you. I send you a great Big sum of L20., and the gentleman says
he would send more, only it might make you naughty, and set up. I go to
church now every Sunday, and read good books, and always pray that God
may open your eyes. I have such a Nice Pony, with such a long tale. So
no more at present from your affectionate brother, SIDNEY MORTON."

Oct. 8, 18--

"Pray, pray don't come after me Any more. You know I neerly died of it,
but for this deir good gentleman I am with."

So this, then, was the crowning reward of all his sufferings and all his
love! There was the letter, evidently undictated, with its errors of
orthography, and in the child's rough scrawl; the serpent's tooth pierced
to the heart, and left there its most lasting venom.

"I have done with him for ever," said Philip, brushing away the bitter
tears. "I will molest him no farther; I care no more to pierce this
mystery. Better for him as it is--he is happy! Well, well, and I--I
will never care for a human being again."

He bowed his head over his hands; and when he rose, his heart felt to him
like stone. It seemed as if Conscience herself had fled from his soul on
the wings of departed Love.




CHAPTER XII.

"But you have found the mountain's top--there sit
On the calm flourishing head of it;
And whilst with wearied steps we upward go,
See us and clouds below."--COWLEY.

It was true that Sidney was happy in his new home, and thither we must
now trace him.

On reaching the town where the travellers in the barouche had been
requested to leave Sidney, "The King's Arms" was precisely the inn
eschewed by Mr. Spencer. While the horses were being changed, he
summoned the surgeon of the town to examine the child, who had already
much recovered; and by stripping his clothes, wrapping him in warm
blankets, and administering cordials, he was permitted to reach another
stage, so as to baffle pursuit that night; and in three days Mr. Spencer
had placed his new charge with his maiden sisters, a hundred and fifty
miles from the spot where he had been found. He would not take him to
his own home yet. He feared the claims of Arthur Beaufort. He artfully
wrote to that gentleman, stating that he had abandoned the chase of
Sidney in despair, and desiring to know if he had discovered him; and a
bribe of L300. to Mr. Sharp with a candid exposition of his reasons for
secreting Sidney--reasons in which the worthy officer professed to
sympathise--secured the discretion of his ally. But he would not deny
himself the pleasure of being in the same house with Sidney, and was
therefore for some months the guest of his sisters. At length he heard
that young Beaufort had been ordered abroad for his health, and he then
deemed it safe to transfer his new idol to his _Lares_ by the lakes.
During this interval the current of the younger Morton's life had indeed
flowed through flowers. At his age the cares of females were almost a
want as well as a luxury, and the sisters spoiled and petted him as much
as any elderly nymphs in Cytherea ever petted Cupid. They were good,
excellent, high-nosed, flat-bosomed spinsters, sentimentally fond of
their brother, whom they called "the poet," and dotingly attached to
children. The cleanness, the quiet, the good cheer of their neat abode,
all tended to revive and invigorate the spirits of their young guest, and
every one there seemed to vie which should love him the most. Still his
especial favourite was Mr. Spencer: for Spencer never went out without
bringing back cakes and toys; and Spencer gave him his pony; and Spencer
rode a little crop-eared nag by his side; and Spencer, in short, was
associated with his every comfort and caprice. He told them his little
history; and when he said how Philip had left him alone for long hours
together, and how Philip had forced him to his last and nearly fatal
journey, the old maids groaned, and the old bachelor sighed, and they all
cried in a breath, that "Philip was a very wicked boy." It was not only
their obvious policy to detach him from his brother, but it was their
sincere conviction that they did right to do so. Sidney began, it is
true, by taking Philip's part; but his mind was ductile, and he still
looked back with a shudder to the hardships he had gone through: and so
by little and little he learned to forget all the endearing and fostering
love Philip had evinced to him; to connect his name with dark and
mysterious fears; to repeat thanksgivings to Providence that he was saved
from him; and to hope that they might never meet again. In fact, when
Mr. Spencer learned from Sharp that it was through Captain Smith, the
swindler, that application had been made by Philip for news of his
brother, and having also learned before, from the same person, that
Philip had been implicated in the sale of a horse, swindled, if not
stolen, he saw every additional reason to widen the stream that flowed
between the wolf and the lamb. The older Sidney grew, the better he
comprehended and appreciated the motives of his protector--for he was
brought up in a formal school of propriety and ethics, and his mind
naturally revolted from all images of violence or fraud. Mr. Spencer
changed both the Christian and the surname of his protege, in order to
elude the search whether of Philip, the Mortons, or the Beauforts, and
Sidney passed for his nephew by a younger brother who had died in India.

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