The Fortunes of Nigel

“Ask me no questions, my lord,” said Christie, bluntly. “I am a man of peace – I came not hither to wrangle with you at this place and season. Just suppose that I am well informed of all the obligements from your honour’s nobleness, and then acquaint me, in as few words as may be, where is the unhappy woman – What have you done with her?”

“What have I done with her!” said Lord Glenvarloch – “Done with whom? I know not what you are speaking of.”

“Oh, yes, my lord,” said Christie; “play surprise as well as you will, you must have some guess that I am speaking of the poor fool that was my wife, till she became your lordship’s light-o’-love.”

“Your wife! Has your wife left you? and, if she has, do you come to ask her of me?”

“Yes, my lord, singular as it may seem,” returned Christie, in a tone of bitter irony, and with a sort of grin widely discording from the discomposure of his features, the gleam of his eye, and the froth which stood on his lip, “I do come to make that demand of your lordship. Doubtless, you are surprised I should take the trouble; but, I cannot tell, great men and little men think differently. She has lain in my bosom, and drunk of my cup; and, such as she is, I cannot forget that – though I will never see her again – she must not starve, my lord, or do worse, to gain bread, though I reckon your lordship may think I am robbing the public in trying to change her courses.”

“By my faith as a Christian, by my honour as a gentleman,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “if aught amiss has chanced with your wife, I know nothing of it. I trust in Heaven you are as much mistaken in imputing guilt to her, as in supposing me her partner in it.”

“Fie! fie! my lord,” said Christie, “why will you make it so tough? She is but the wife of a clod-pated old chandler, who was idiot enough to marry a wench twenty years younger than himself. Your lordship cannot have more glory by it than you have had already; and, as for advantage and solace, I take it Dame Nelly is now unnecessary to your gratification. I should be sorry to interrupt the course of your pleasure; an old wittol should have more consideration of his condition. But, your precious lordship being mewed up here among other choice jewels of the kingdom, Dame Nelly cannot, I take it, be admitted to share the hours of dalliance which” – Here the incensed husband stammered, broke off his tone of irony, and proceeded, striking his staff against the ground – “O that these false limbs of yours, which I wish had been hamstrung when they first crossed my honest threshold, were free from the fetters they have well deserved! I would give you the odds of your youth, and your weapon, and would bequeath my soul to the foul fiend if I, with this piece of oak, did not make you such an example to all ungrateful, pick-thank courtiers, that it should be a proverb to the end of time, how John Christie swaddled his wife’s fine leman!”

“I understand not your insolence,” said Nigel, “but I forgive it, because you labour under some strange delusion. In so far as I can comprehend your vehement charge, it is entirely undeserved on my part. You seem to impute to me the seduction of your wife – I trust she is innocent. For me, at least, she is as innocent as an angel in bliss. I never thought of her – never touched her hand or cheek, save in honourable courtesy.”

“O, ay – courtesy! – that is the very word. She always praised your lordship’s honourable courtesy. Ye have cozened me between ye, with your courtesy. My lord – my lord, you came to us no very wealthy man – you know it. It was for no lucre of gain I took you and your swash-buckler, your Don Diego yonder, under my poor roof. I never cared if the little room were let or no; I could live without it. If you could not have paid for it, you should never have been asked. All the wharf knows John Christie has the means and spirit to do a kindness. When you first darkened my honest doorway, I was as happy as a man need to be, who is no youngster, and has the rheumatism. Nelly was the kindest and best-humoured wench – we might have a word now and then about a gown or a ribbon, but a kinder soul on the whole, and a more careful, considering her years, till you come – and what is she now! – But I will not be a fool to cry, if I can help it. What she is, is not the question, but where she is; and that I must learn, sir, of you.”

“How can you, when I tell you,” replied Nigel, “that I am as ignorant as yourself, or rather much more so? Till this moment, I never heard of any disagreement betwixt your dame and you.”

“That is a lie,” said John Christie, bluntly.

“How, you base villain!” said Lord Glenvarloch – “do you presume on my situation? If it were not that I hold you mad, and perhaps made so by some wrong sustained, you should find my being weaponless were no protection, I would beat your brains out against the wall.”

“Ay, ay,” answered Christie, “bully as ye list. Ye have been at the ordinaries, and in Alsatia, and learned the ruffian’s rant, I doubt not. But I repeat, you have spoken an untruth, when you said you knew not of my wife’s falsehood; for, when you were twitted with it among your gay mates, it was a common jest among you, and your lordship took all the credit they would give you for your gallantry and gratitude.”

There was a mixture of truth in this part of the charge which disconcerted Lord Glenvarloch exceedingly; for he could not, as a man of honour, deny that Lord Dalgarno, and others, had occasionally jested with him on the subject of Dame Nelly, and that, though he had not played exactly le fanfaron des vices qu’il n’avoit pas, he had not at least been sufficiently anxious to clear himself of the suspicion of such a crime to men who considered it as a merit. It was therefore with some hesitation, and in a sort of qualifying tone, that he admitted that some idle jests had passed upon such a supposition, although without the least foundation in truth. John Christie would not listen to his vindication any longer. “By your own account,” he said, “you permitted lies to be told of you injest. How do I know you are speaking truth, now you are serious? You thought it, I suppose, a fine thing to wear the reputation of having dishonoured an honest family, – who will not think that you had real grounds for your base bravado to rest upon? I will not believe otherwise for one, and therefore, my lord, mark what I have to say. You are now yourself in trouble – As you hope to come through it safely, and without loss of life and property, tell me where this unhappy woman is. Tell me, if you hope for heaven – tell me, if you fear hell – tell me, as you would not have the curse of an utterly ruined woman, and a broken-hearted man, attend you through life, and bear witness against you at the Great Day, which shall come after death. You are moved, my lord, I see it. I cannot forget the wrong you have done me. I cannot even promise to forgive it – but – tell me, and you shall never see me again, or hear more of my reproaches.”

“Unfortunate man,” said Lord Glenvarloch, “you have said more, far more than enough, to move me deeply. Were I at liberty, I would lend you my best aid to search out him who has wronged you, the rather that I do suspect my having been your lodger has been in some degree the remote cause of bringing the spoiler into the sheepfold.”

“I am glad your lordship grants me so much,” said John Christie, resuming the tone of embittered irony with which he had opened the singular conversation; “I will spare you farther reproach and remonstrance – your mind is made up, and so is mine. – So, ho, warder!” The warder entered, and John went on, – “I want to get out, brother. Look well to your charge – it were better that half the wild beasts in their dens yonder were turned loose upon Tower Hill, than that this same smooth-faced, civil-spoken gentleman, were again returned to honest men’s company!”

So saying, he hastily left the apartment; and Nigel had full leisure to lament the waywardness of his fate, which seemed never to tire of persecuting him for crimes of which he was innocent, and investing him with the appearances of guilt which his mind abhorred. He could not, however, help acknowledging to himself, that all the pain which he might sustain from the present accusation of John Christie, was so far deserved, from his having suffered himself, out of vanity, or rather an unwillingness to encounter ridicule, to be supposed capable of a base inhospitable crime, merely because fools called it an affair of gallantry; and it was no balsam to the wound, when he recollected what Richie had told him of his having been ridiculed behind his back by the gallants of the ordinary, for affecting the reputation of an intrigue which he had not in reality spirit enough to have carried on. His simulation had, in a word, placed him in the unlucky predicament of being rallied as a braggart amongst the dissipated youths, with whom the reality of the amour would have given him credit; whilst, on the other hand, he was branded as an inhospitable seducer by the injured husband, who was obstinately persuaded of his guilt.

CHAPTER XXIX

  How fares the man on whom good men would look  With eyes where scorn and censure combated,  But that kind Christian love hath taught the lesson —  That they who merit most contempt and hate,  Do most deserve our pity. —Old Play.

It might have seemed natural that the visit of John Christie should have entirely diverted Nigel’s attention from his slumbering companion, and, for a time, such was the immediate effect of the chain of new ideas which the incident introduced; yet, soon after the injured man had departed, Lord Glenvarloch began to think it extraordinary that the boy should have slept so soundly, while they talked loudly in his vicinity. Yet he certainly did not appear to have stirred. Was he well – was he only feigning sleep? He went close to him to make his observations, and perceived that he had wept, and was still weeping, though his eyes were closed. He touched him gently on the shoulder – the boy shrunk from his touch, but did not awake. He pulled him harder, and asked him if he was sleeping.

“Do they waken folk in your country to know whether they are asleep or no?” said the boy, in a peevish tone.

“No, my young sir,” answered Nigel; “but when they weep in the manner you do in your sleep, they awaken them to see what ails them.”

“It signifies little to any one what ails me,” said the boy.

“True,” replied Lord Glenvarloch; “but you knew before you went to sleep how little I could assist you in your difficulties, and you seemed disposed, notwithstanding, to put some confidence in me.”

“If I did, I have changed my mind,” said the lad.

“And what may have occasioned this change of mind, I trow?” said Lord Glenvarloch. “Some men speak through their sleep – perhaps you have the gift of hearing in it?”

“No, but the Patriarch Joseph never dreamt truer dreams than I do.”

“Indeed!” said Lord Glenvarloch. “And, pray, what dream have you had that has deprived me of your good opinion; for that, I think, seems the moral of the matter?”

“You shall judge yourself,” answered the boy. “I dreamed I was in a wild forest, where there was a cry of hounds, and winding of horns, exactly as I heard in Greenwich Park.”

“That was because you were in the Park this morning, you simple child,” said Nigel.

“Stay, my lord,” said the youth. “I went on in my dream, till, at the top of a broad green alley, I saw a noble stag which had fallen into the toils; and methought I knew that he was the very stag which the whole party were hunting, and that if the chase came up, the dogs would tear him to pieces, or the hunters would cut his throat; and I had pity on the gallant stag, and though I was of a different kind from him, and though I was somewhat afraid of him, I thought I would venture something to free so stately a creature; and I pulled out my knife, and just as I was beginning to cut the meshes of the net, the animal started up in my face in the likeness of a tiger, much larger and fiercer than any you may have seen in the ward of the wild beasts yonder, and was just about to tear me limb from limb, when you awaked me.”

“Methinks,” said Nigel, “I deserve more thanks than I have got, for rescuing you from such a danger by waking you. But, my pretty master, methinks all this tale of a tiger and a stag has little to do with your change of temper towards me.”

“I know not whether it has or no,” said the lad; “but I will not tell you who I am.”

“You will keep your secret to yourself then, peevish boy,” said Nigel, turning from him, and resuming his walk through the room; then stopping suddenly, he said – “And yet you shall not escape from me without knowing that I penetrate your mystery.”

“My mystery!” said the youth, at once alarmed and irritated – “what mean you, my lord?”

“Only that I can read your dream without the assistance of a Chaldean interpreter, and my exposition is – that my fair companion does not wear the dress of her sex.”

“And if I do not, my lord,” said his companion, hastily starting up, and folding her cloak tight around her, “my dress, such as it is, covers one who will not disgrace it.”

“Many would call that speech a fair challenge,” said Lord Glenvarloch, looking on her fixedly; “women do not masquerade in men’s clothes, to make use of men’s weapons.”

“I have no such purpose,” said the seeming boy; “I have other means of protection, and powerful – but I would first know what is your purpose.”

“An honourable and a most respectful one,” said Lord Glenvarloch; “whatever you are – whatever motive may have brought you into this ambiguous situation, I am sensible – every look, word, and action of yours, makes me sensible, that you are no proper subject of importunity, far less of ill usage. What circumstances can have forced you into so doubtful a situation, I know not; but I feel assured there is, and can be, nothing in them of premeditated wrong, which should expose you to cold-blooded insult. From me you have nothing to dread.”

“I expected nothing less from your nobleness, my lord,” answered the female; “my adventure, though I feel it was both desperate and foolish, is not so very foolish, nor my safety here so utterly unprotected, as at first sight – and in this strange dress, it may appear to be. I have suffered enough, and more than enough, by the degradation of having been seen in this unfeminine attire, and the comments you must necessarily have made on my conduct – but I thank God that I am so far protected, that I could not have been subjected to insult unavenged.” When this extraordinary explanation had proceeded thus far, the warder appeared, to place before Lord Glenvarloch a meal, which, for his present situation, might be called comfortable, and which, if not equal to the cookery of the celebrated Chevalier Beaujeu, was much superior in neatness and cleanliness to that of Alsatia. A warder attended to do the honours of the table, and made a sign to the disguised female to rise and assist him in his functions. But Nigel, declaring that he knew the youth’s parents, interfered, and caused his companion to eat along with him. She consented with a sort of embarrassment, which rendered her pretty features yet more interesting. Yet she maintained with a natural grace that sort of good-breeding which belongs to the table; and it seemed to Nigel, whether already prejudiced in her favour by the extraordinary circumstances of their meeting, or whether really judging from what was actually the fact, that he had seldom seen a young person comport herself with more decorous propriety, mixed with ingenuous simplicity; while the consciousness of the peculiarity of her situation threw a singular colouring over her whole demeanour, which could be neither said to be formal, nor easy, nor embarrassed, but was compounded of, and shaded with, an interchange of all these three characteristics. Wine was placed on the table, of which she could not be prevailed on to taste a glass. Their conversation was, of course, limited by the presence of the warder to the business of the table: but Nigel had, long ere the cloth was removed, formed the resolution, if possible, of making himself master of this young person’s history, the more especially as he now began to think that the tones of her voice and her features were not so strange to him as he had originally supposed. This, however, was a conviction which he adopted slowly, and only as it dawned upon him from particular circumstances during the course of the repast.

At length the prison-meal was finished, and Lord Glenvarloch began to think how he might most easily enter upon the topic he meditated, when the warder announced a visitor.

“Soh!” said Nigel, something displeased, “I find even a prison does not save one from importunate visitations.”

He prepared to receive his guest, however, while his alarmed companion flew to the large cradle-shaped chair, which had first served her as a place of refuge, drew her cloak around her, and disposed herself as much as she could to avoid observation. She had scarce made her arrangements for that purpose when the door opened, and the worthy citizen, George Heriot, entered the prison-chamber.

He cast around the apartment his usual sharp, quick glance of observation, and, advancing to Nigel, said – “My lord, I wish I could say I was happy to see you.”

“The sight of those who are unhappy themselves, Master Heriot, seldom produces happiness to their friends – I, however, am glad to see you.”

He extended his hand, but Heriot bowed with much formal complaisance, instead of accepting the courtesy, which in those times, when the distinction of ranks was much guarded by etiquette and ceremony, was considered as a distinguished favour.

“You are displeased with me, Master Heriot,” said Lord Glenvarloch, reddening, for he was not deceived by the worthy citizen’s affectation of extreme reverence and respect.

“By no means, my lord,” replied Heriot; “but I have been in France, and have thought it is well to import, along with other more substantial articles, a small sample of that good-breeding which the French are so renowned for.”

“It is not kind of you,” said Nigel, “to bestow the first use of it on an old and obliged friend.”

Heriot only answered to this observation with a short dry cough, and then proceeded.

“Hem! hem! I say, ahem! My lord, as my French politeness may not carry me far, I would willingly know whether I am to speak as a friend, since your lordship is pleased to term me such; or whether I am, as befits my condition, to confine myself to the needful business which must be treated of between us.”

“Speak as a friend by all means, Master Heriot,” said Nigel; “I perceive you have adopted some of the numerous prejudices against me, if not all of them. Speak out, and frankly – what I cannot deny I will at least confess.”

“And I trust, my lord, redress,” said Heriot.

“So far as in my power, certainly,” answered Nigel.

“Ah I my lord,” continued Heriot, “that is a melancholy though a necessary restriction; for how lightly may any one do an hundred times more than the degree of evil which it may be within his power to repair to the sufferers and to society! But we are not alone here,” he said, stopping, and darting his shrewd eye towards the muffled figure of the disguised maiden, whose utmost efforts had not enabled her so to adjust her position as altogether to escape observation. More anxious to prevent her being discovered than to keep his own affairs private, Nigel hastily answered – “‘Tis a page of mine; you may speak freely before him. He is of France, and knows no English.”

“I am then to speak freely,” said Heriot, after a second glance at the chair; “perhaps my words may be more free than welcome.”

“Go on, sir,” said Nigel, “I have told you I can bear reproof.”

“In one word, then, my lord – why do I find you in this place, and whelmed with charges which must blacken a name rendered famous by ages of virtue?”

“Simply, then, you find me here,” said Nigel, “because, to begin from my original error, I would be wiser than my father.”

“It was a difficult task, my lord,” replied Heriot; “your father was voiced generally as the wisest and one of the bravest men of Scotland.”

“He commanded me,” continued Nigel, “to avoid all gambling; and I took upon me to modify this injunction into regulating my play according to my skill, means, and the course of my luck.”

“Ay, self opinion, acting on a desire of acquisition, my lord – you hoped to touch pitch and not to be defiled,” answered Heriot. “Well, my lord, you need not say, for I have heard with much regret, how far this conduct diminished your reputation. Your next error I may without scruple remind you of – My lord, my lord, in whatever degree Lord Dalgarno may have failed towards you, the son of his father should have been sacred from your violence.”

“You speak in cold blood, Master Heriot, and I was smarting under a thousand wrongs inflicted on me under the mask of friendship.”

“That is, he gave your lordship bad advice, and you,” said Heriot —

“Was fool enough to follow his counsel,” answered Nigel – “But we will pass this, Master Heriot, if you please. Old men and young men, men of the sword and men of peaceful occupation, always have thought, always will think, differently on such subjects.”

“I grant,” answered Heriot, “the distinction between the old goldsmith and the young nobleman – still you should have had patience for Lord Huntinglen’s sake, and prudence for your own. Supposing your quarrel just – ”

“I pray you to pass on to some other charge,” said Lord Glenvarloch.

“I am not your accuser, my lord; but I trust in heaven, that your own heart has already accused you bitterly on the inhospitable wrong which your late landlord has sustained at your hand.”

“Had I been guilty of what you allude to,” said Lord Glenvarloch, – “had a moment of temptation hurried me away, I had long ere now most bitterly repented it. But whoever may have wronged the unhappy woman, it was not I – I never heard of her folly until within this hour.”

“Come, my lord,” said Heriot, with some severity, “this sounds too much like affectation. I know there is among our modern youth a new creed respecting adultery as well as homicide – I would rather hear you speak of a revision of the Decalogue, with mitigated penalties in favour of the privileged orders – I would rather hear you do this than deny a fact in which you have been known to glory.”

“Glory! – I never did, never would have taken honour to myself from such a cause,” said Lord Glenvarloch. “I could not prevent other idle tongues, and idle brains, from making false inferences.”

“You would have known well enough how to stop their mouths, my lord,” replied Heriot, “had they spoke of you what was unpleasing to your ears, and what the truth did not warrant. – Come, my lord, remember your promise to confess; and, indeed, to confess is, in this case, in some slight sort to redress. I will grant you are young – the woman handsome – and, as I myself have observed, light-headed enough. Let me know where she is. Her foolish husband has still some compassion for her – will save her from infamy – perhaps, in time, receive her back; for we are a good-natured generation we traders. Do not, my lord, emulate those who work mischief merely for the pleasure of doing so – it is the very devil’s worst quality.”

“Your grave remonstrances will drive me mad,” said Nigel. “There is a show of sense and reason in what you say; and yet, it is positively insisting on my telling the retreat of a fugitive of whom I know nothing earthly.”

“It is well, my lord,” answered Heriot, coldly. “You have a right, such as it is, to keep your own secrets; but, since my discourse on these points seems so totally unavailing, we had better proceed to business. Yet your father’s image rises before me, and seems to plead that I should go on.”

“Be it as you will, sir,” said Glenvarloch; “he who doubts my word shall have no additional security for it.”

“Well, my lord. – In the Sanctuary at Whitefriars – a place of refuge so unsuitable to a young man of quality and character – I am told a murder was committed.”

“And you believe that I did the deed, I suppose?”

“God forbid, my lord!” said Heriot. “The coroner’s inquest hath sat, and it appeared that your lordship, under your assumed name of Grahame, behaved with the utmost bravery.”

“No compliment, I pray you,” said Nigel; “I am only too happy to find, that I did not murder, or am not believed to have murdered, the old man.”