Authors: J R Rain
"Well, then, Jack, you hasten a-head, and see Miss Flora, and be sure you prepare her gently and by degrees, you know, Jack, for my appearance, so that she shall not be alarmed."
"Ay, ay, sir, I understand; you wait here, and I'll go and do it; there would be a squall if you were to make your appearance, sir, all at once. She looks upon you as safely lodged in Davy's locker; she minds me, all the world, of a girl I knew at Portsmouth, called Bet Bumplush. She was one of your delicate little creatures as don't live long in this here world; no, blow me; when I came home from a eighteen months' cruise, once I seed her drinking rum out of a quart pot, so I says, 'Hilloa, what cheer?' And only to think now of the wonderful effect that there had upon her; with that very pot she gives the fellow as was standing treat a knobber on the head as lasted him three weeks. She was too good for this here world, she was, and too rummantic. 'Go to blazes,' she says to him, 'here's Jack Pringle come home.'"
"Very romantic indeed," said Charles.
"Yes, I believe you, sir; and that puts me in mind of Miss Flora and you."
"An extremely flattering comparison. Of course I feel much obliged."
"Oh, don't name it, sir. The British tar as can't oblige a feller-cretor is unworthy to tread the quarter-deck, or to bear a hand to the distress of a woman."
"Very well," said Charles. "Now, as we are here, precede me, if you please, and let me beg of you to be especially cautious in your manner of announcing me."
"Ay, ay, sir," said Jack: and away he walked towards the cottage, leaving Charles some distance behind.
Flora and the admiral were sitting together conversing. The old man, who loved her as if she had been a child of his own, was endeavouring, to the extent of his ability, to assuage the anguish of her thoughts, which at that moment chanced to be bent upon Charles Holland.
"Nevermind, my dear," he said; "he'll turn up some of these days, and when he does, I sha'n't forget to tell him that it was you who stood out for his honesty and truth, when every one else was against him, including myself, an old wretch that I was."
"Oh, sir, how could you for one moment believe that those letters could have been written by your nephew Charles? They carried, sir, upon the face of them their own refutation; and I'm only surprised that for one instant you, or any one who knew him, could have believed him capable of writing them."
"Avast, there," said the admiral; "that'll do. I own you got the better of the old sailor there. I think you and Jack Pringle were the only two persons who stood out from the first."
"Then I honour Jack for doing so."
"And here he is," said the admiral, "and you'd better tell him. The mutinous rascal! he wants all the honour he can get, as a set-off against his drunkenness and other bad habits."
Jack walked into the room, looked about him in silence for a moment, thrust his hands in his breeches pockets, and gave a long whistle.
"What's the matter now?" said the admiral.
"D—me, if Charles Holland ain't outside, and I've come to prepare you for the blessed shock," said Jack. "Don't faint either of you, because I'm only going to let you know it by degrees, you know."
A shriek burst from Flora's lips, and she sprung to the door of the apartment.
"What!" cried the admiral, "my nephew—my nephew Charles! Jack, you rascal, if you're joking, it's the last joke you shall make in this world; and if it's true, I—I—I'm an old fool, that's all."
"Ay, ay, sir," said Jack; "didn't you know that afore?"
"Charles—Charles!" cried Flora. He heard the voice. Her name escaped his lips, and rang with a pleasant echo through the house.
In another moment he was in the room, and had clasped her to his breast.
"My own—my beautiful—my true!"
"Charles, dear Charles!"
"Oh, Flora, what have I not endured since last we met; but this repays me—more than repays me for all."
"What is the past now," cried Flora—"what are all its miseries placed against this happy, happy moment?"
"D—me, nobody thinks of me," said the admiral.
"My dear uncle," said Charles, looking over Flora's shoulder, as he still held her in his arms, "is that you?"
"Yes, yes, swab, it is me, and you know it; but give us your five, you mutinous vagabond; and I tell you what, I'll do you the greatest favour I've had an opportunity of doing you some time—I'll leave you alone, you dog. Come along, Jack."
"Ay, ay, sir," said Jack; and away they went out of the apartment.
And now those two loving hearts were alone—they who had been so long separated by malignant destiny, once again were heart to heart, looking into each other's faces with all the beaming tenderness of an affection of the truest, holiest character.
The admiral had done a favour to them both to leave them alone, although we much doubt whether his presence, or the presence of the whole world, would have had the effect of controlling one generous sentiment of noble feeling.
They would have forgotten everything but that they were together, and that once again each looked into the other's eyes with all the tenderness of a love purer and higher than ordinarily belongs to mortal affections.
Language was weak to give utterance to the full gust of happy feelings that now were theirs. It was ecstasy enough to feel, to know that the evil fortune which had so long separated them, depriving each existence of its sunniest aspect, was over. It was enough for Charles Holland to feel that she loved him still. It was enough for Flora Bannerworth to know, as she looked into his beaming countenance, that that love was not misplaced, but was met by feelings such as she herself would have dictated to be the inhabitants of the heart of him whom she would have chosen from the mass of mankind as her own.
"Flora—dear Flora," said Charles, "and you have never doubted me?"
"I've never doubted, Charles, Heaven or you. To doubt one would have been, to doubt both."
"Generous and best of girls, what must you have thought of my enforced absence! Oh! Flora, I was unjust enough to your truth to make my greatest pang the thought that you might doubt me, and cast me from your heart for ever."
"Ah! Charles, you ought to have known me better. I stood amid sore temptation to do so much. There were those who would have urged me on to think that you had cast me from your heart for ever. There were those ready and willing to place the worst construction upon your conduct, and with a devilish ingenuity to strive to make me participate in such a feeling; but, no, Charles, no—I loved you, and I trusted you, and I could not so far belie my own judgment as to tell you other than what you always seemed to my young fancy."
"And you are right, my Flora, right; and is it not a glorious triumph to see that love—that sentiment of passion—has enabled you to have so enduring and so noble a confidence in aught human?"
"Ay, Charles, it is the sentiment of passion, for our love has been more a sentiment than a passion. I would fain think that we had loved each other with an affection not usually known, appreciated, or understood, and so, in the vanity of my best affections, I would strive to think them something exclusive, and beyond the common feelings of humanity."
"And you are right, my Flora; such love as yours is the exception; there may be preferences, there may be passions, and there may be sentiments, but never, never, surely, was there a heart like yours."
"Nay, Charles, now you speak from a too poetical fancy; but is it possible that I have had you here so long, with your hand clasped in mine, and asked you not the causes of your absence?"
"Oh, Flora, I have suffered much—much physically, but more mentally. It was the thought of you that was at once the bane and the antidote of my existence."
"Indeed, Charles! Did I present myself in such contradictory colours to you?"
"Yes, dearest, as thus. When I thought of you, sometimes, in the deep seclusion of a dungeon, that thought almost goaded me to madness, because it brought with it the conviction—a conviction peculiar to a lover—that none could so effectually stand between you and all evil as myself."
"Yes, yes, Charles; most true."
"It seemed to me as if all the world in arms could not have protected you so well as this one heart, clad in the triple steel of its affections, could have shielded you from evil."
"Ay, Charles; and then I was the bane of your existence, because I filled you with apprehension?"
"For a time, dearest; and then came the antidote; for when exhausted alike in mind and body—when lying helpless, with chains upon my limbs—when expecting death at every visit of those who had dragged me from light and from liberty, and from love; it was but the thought of thy beauty and thy affection that nerved me, and gave me a hope even amidst the cruellest disaster."
"And then—and then, Charles?"
"You were my blessing, as you have ever been—as you are, and as you will ever be—my own Flora, my beautiful—my true!"
We won't go so far as to say it is the fact; but, from a series of singular sounds which reached even to the passage of the cottage, we have our own private opinion to the effect, that Charles began kissing Flora at the top of her forehead, and never stopped, somehow or another, till he got down to her chin—no, not her chin—her sweet lips—he could not get past them. Perhaps it was wrong; but we can't help it—we are faithful chroniclers. Reader, if you be of the sterner sex, what would you have done?—if of the gentler, what would you have permitted?
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CHAPTER LXXV.
MUTUAL EXPLANATIONS, AND THE VISIT TO THE RUINS.
During the next hour, Charles informed Flora of the whole particulars of his forcible abduction; and to his surprise he heard, of course, for the first time, of those letters, purporting to be written by him, which endeavoured to give so bad an aspect to the fact of his sudden disappearance from Bannerworth Hall.
Flora would insist upon the admiral, Henry, and the rest of the family, hearing all that Charles had to relate concerning Mr. Marchdale; for well she knew that her mother, from early associations, was so far impressed in the favour of that hypocritical personage, that nothing but damning facts, much to his prejudice, would suffice to convince her of the character he really was.
But she was open to conviction, and when she really found what a villain she had cherished and given her confidence to, she shed abundance of tears, and blamed herself exceedingly as the cause of some of the misfortunes which had fallen upon her children.
"Very good," said the admiral; "I ain't surprised a bit. I knew he was a vagabond from the first time I clapped eyes upon him. There was a down look about the fellow's figure-head that I didn't like, and be hanged to him, but I never thought he would have gone the length he has done. And so you say you've got him safe in the ruins, Charles?"
"I have, indeed, uncle."
"And then there let him remain, and a good place, too, for him."
"No, uncle, no. I'm sure you speak without thought. I intend to release him in a few hours, when I have rested from my fatigues. He could not come to any harm if he were to go without food entirely for the time that I leave him; but even that he will not do, for there is bread and water in the dungeon."
"Bread and water! that's too good for him. But, however, Charles, when you go to let him out, I'll go with you, just to tell him what I think of him, the vagabond."
"He must suffer amazingly, for no doubt knowing well, as he does, his own infamous intentions, he will consider that if I were to leave him to starve to death, I should be but retailing upon him the injuries he would have inflicted upon me."
"The worst of it is," said the admiral, "I can't think what to do with him."
"Do nothing, uncle, but just let him go; it will be a sufficient punishment for such a man to feel that, instead of succeeding in his designs, he has only brought upon himself the bitterest contempt of those whom he would fain have injured. I can have no desire for revenge on such a man as Marchdale."
"You are right, Charles," said Flora; "let him go, and let him go with a feeling that he has acquired the contempt of those whose best opinions might have been his for a far less amount of trouble than he has taken to acquire their worst."
Excitement had kept up Charles to this point, but now, when he arose and expressed his intention of going to the ruins, for the purpose of releasing Marchdale, he exhibited such unequivocal symptoms of exhaustion and fatigue that neither his uncle nor Flora would permit him to go, so, in deference to them, he gave up the point, and commissioned the admiral and Jack, with Henry, to proceed to the place, and give the villain his freedom; little suspecting what had occurred since he had himself left the neighbourhood of those ruins.