Erema - My Father's Sin, Richard Doddridge Blackmore [read me a book TXT] 📗

us--we both detested laws and men. My intimacy with him is the one thing in life which I am ashamed of. He passed by a false name then, of course. But his true name was Montague Hockin. My mother was in very weak health then, and her mind for the most part clouded; and I need not say that she knew nothing of what I had done for her sake. That man pretended to take the greatest interest in her condition, and to know a doctor at Baden who could cure her.

"We avoided all cities (as he knew well), and lived in simple villages, subsisting partly upon my work, and partly upon the little income left by my grandfather, Thomas Hoyle. But, compared with Hockin, we were well off; and he did his best to swindle us. Luckily all my faith in mankind was confined to the feminine gender, and not much even of that survived. In a very little time I saw that people may repudiate law as well from being below as from being above it.

"Then he came one night, with the finest style and noblest contempt of every thing. We must prepare ourselves for great news, and all our kindness to him would be repaid tenfold in a week or two. Let me go into Freyburg that time to-morrow night, and listen. I asked him nothing as to what he meant, for I was beginning to weary of him, as of every body. However, I thought it just worth while, having some one who bought my wicker-work, to enter the outskirts of the town on the following evening, and wait to be told if any news was stirring. And the people were amazed at my not knowing that last night the wife of an English lord--for so they called him, though no lord yet--had run away with a golden-bearded man, believed to be also English.

"About that you know more, perhaps, than I do. But I wish you to know what that Hockin was, and to clear myself of complicity. Of Herbert Castlewood I knew nothing, and I never even saw the lady. And to say (as Sir Montague Hockin has said) that I plotted all that wickedness, from spite toward all of the Castlewood name, is to tell as foul a lie as even he can well indulge in.

"It need not be said that he does not know my story from any word of mine. To such a fellow I was not likely to commit my mother's fate. But he seems to have guessed at once that there was something strange in my history; and then, after spying and low prying at my mother, to have shaped his own conclusion. Then, having entirely under his power that young fool who left a kind husband for him, he conceived a most audacious scheme. This was no less than to rob your cousin, the last Lord Castlewood, not of his wife and jewels and ready money only, but also of all the disposable portion of the Castlewood estates. For the lady's mother had taken good care, like a true Hungarian, to have all the lands settled upon her daughter, so far as the husband could deal with them. And though, at the date of the marriage, he could not really deal at all with them--your father being still alive--it appears that his succession (when it afterward took place) was bound, at any rate, as against himself. A divorce might have canceled this--I can not say--but your late cousin was the last man in the world to incur the needful exposure. Upon this they naturally counted.

"The new 'Lady Hockin' (as she called herself, with as much right as 'Lady Castlewood') flirted about while her beauty lasted; but even then found her master in a man of deeper wickedness. But if her poor husband desired revenge--which he does not seem to have done, perhaps--he could not have had it better. She was seized with a loathsome disease, which devoured her beauty, like Herod and his glory. I believe that she still lives, but no one can go near her; least of all, the fastidious Montague."

At this part of the letter I drew a deep breath, and exclaimed, "Thank God!" I know not how many times; and perhaps it was a crime of me to do it even once.

"Finding his nice prospective game destroyed by this little accident--for he meant to have married the lady after her husband's death, and set you at defiance; but even he could not do that now, little as he cares for opinion--what did he do but shift hands altogether? He made up his mind to confer the honor of his hand on you, having seen you somewhere in London, and his tactics became the very opposite of what they had been hitherto. Your father's innocence now must be maintained instead of his guiltiness.

"With this in view, he was fool enough to set the detective police after me--me, who could snap all their noses off! For he saw how your heart was all set on one thing, and expected to have you his serf forever, by the simple expedient of hanging me. The detectives failed, as they always do. He also failed in his overtures to you.

"You did your utmost against me also, for which I bear you no ill-will, but rather admire your courage. You acted in a straightforward way, and employed no dirty agency. Of your simple devices I had no fear. However, I thought it as well to keep an eye upon that Hockin, and a worthy old fool, some relation of his, who had brought you back from America. To this end I kept my head-quarters near him, and established my mother comfortably. She was ordered sea air, and has had enough. To-morrow I shall remove her. By the time you receive this letter we shall both be far away, and come back no more; but first I shall punish that Hockin. Without personal violence this will be done.

"Now what I propose to you is simple, moderate, and most strictly just. My mother's little residue of life must pass in ease and comfort. She has wronged no one, but ever been wronged. Allow her 300 pounds a year, to be paid as I shall direct you. For myself I will not take a farthing. You will also restore, as I shall direct, the trinket upon which she sets great value, and for which I sought vainly when we came back to England. I happen to know that you have it now.

"In return for these just acts, you have the right to set forth the whole truth publicly, to proclaim your father's innocence, and (as people will say) his chivalry; and, which will perhaps rejoice you also, to hear no more of

"THOMAS HOYLE.

"P.S.--Of course I am trusting your honor in this. But your father's daughter can be no sneak; as indeed I have already proved."


CHAPTER LVI


WITH HIS OWN SWORD

"What a most wonderful letter!" cried the Major, when, after several careful perusals, I thought it my duty to show it to him. "He calls me a 'worthy old fool,' does he? Well, I call him something a great deal worse--an unworthy skulk, a lunatic, a subverter of rank, and a Radical! And because he was a bastard, is the whole world base? And to come and live like that in a house of mine, and pay me no rent, and never even let me see him! Your grandfather was quite right, my dear, in giving him the cold shoulder. Of course you won't pay him a farthing."

"You forget that he is dead," I answered, "and his poor mother with him. At least he behaved well to his mother. You called him a hero--when you knew not who he was. Poor fellow, he is dead! And, in spite of all, I can not help being very sorry for him."

"Yes, I dare say. Women always are. But you must show a little common-sense, Erema. Your grandfather seems to have had too much, and your father far too little. We must keep this matter quiet. Neither the man nor the woman must we know, or a nice stir we shall have in all the county papers. There must be an inquest, of course, upon them both; but none of the fellows read this direction, for the admirable reason that they can not read. Our coming forward could do no good, and just now Bruntsea has other things to think of; and, first and foremost, my ruin, as they say."

"Please not to talk of that," I exclaimed. "I can raise any quantity of money now, and you shall have it without paying interest. You wanted the course of the river restored, and now you have more--you have got the very sea. You could float the Bridal Veil itself, I do believe, at Bruntsea."

"You have suggested a fine idea," the Major exclaimed, with emphasis. "You certainly should have been an engineer. It is a thousand times easier--as every body knows--to keep water in than to keep it out. Having burst my barricade, the sea shall stop inside and pay for it. Far less capital will be required. By Jove, what a fool I must have been not to see the hand of Providence in all this! Mary, can you spare me a minute, my dear? The noblest idea has occurred to me. Well, never mind, if you are busy; perhaps I had better not state it crudely, though it is not true that it happens every hour. I shall turn it over in my mind throughout the evening service. I mean to be there, just to let them see. They think that I am crushed, of course. They will see their mistake; and, Erema, you may come. The gale is over, and the evening bright. You sit by the fire, Mary, my dear; I shall not let you out again; keep the silver kettle boiling. In church I always think more clearly than where people talk so much. But when I come home I require something. I see, I see. Instead of an idle, fashionable lounging-place for nincompoops from London, instead of flirtation and novel-reading, vulgarity, show, and indecent attire, and positively immoral bathing, we will now have industry, commerce, wealth, triumph of mechanism, lofty enterprise, and international good-will. A harbor has been the great want of this coast; see what a thing it is at Newport! We will now have a harbor and floating docks, without any muddy, malarious river--all blue water from the sea; and our fine cliff range shall be studded with good houses. And the whole shall be called 'Erema-port.'"

Well, Erema must be getting very near her port, although it was not at Bruntsea. Enough for this excellent man and that still more excellent woman that there they are, as busy and as happy as the day is long--which imposes some limit upon happiness, perhaps, inasmuch as to the busy every day is short. But Mrs. Hockin, though as full of fowls as ever, gets no White Sultans nor any other rarity now from Sir Montague Hockin. That gentleman still is alive--so far, at least, as we have heard of; but no people owning any self-respect ever deal with him, to their knowledge. He gambled away all his father's estates, and the Major bought the last of them for his youngest son, a very noble Captain Hockin (according to his mother's judgment), whom I never had the honor of seeing. Sir Montague lives in a sad plight somewhere, and his cousin still hopes that he may turn honest.

But as to myself and far greater persons, still there are a