The Land of Bondage

CHAPTER IX

MY MOTHER

That afternoon we took the first packet boat for Holyhead, where, being favoured by fortune, we found a fast coach about to start for London which, in spite of its rapidity and in consequence of the badness of the roads and some falls of snow in the West, took five days in reaching the Metropolis. Yet, long as the journey was-though rendered easier by the quality of the inns at which we halted and the excellence of the provisions, to which, in my youth, there was nothing to compare in Ireland-yet, I say, long as the journey was and tedious, I was happy to find myself once more in London-in which I had not been since I was a child of six years of age, when my father and mother were then living happily together in a house in the new Hanover Square. Nay, I was more than happy at the thought that I was about so soon to see my dear and honoured mother again, so that, as the coach neared London, I almost sang with joy at the thought of all my troubles being over, and of how we should surely live together in peace and happiness now until my rights were made good.

Oliver had rid himself of his occupation by a simple method; he had merely abstained from going to his work at the butcher's any more, and had sent round to say he had found other and more suitable employment, and, as a slight recompense to his master for any loss he might suppose himself to sustain, had bidden him keep the few shillings of wage due to him. So that he felt himself, as he said, now entirely free to look after and protect me.

"For look after you I always shall," he said, "So long as it is in my power and until I see you accorded your own. Then, when that happens, you may send me about my business as soon as you will, and I will shift for myself."

"It can never happen," I replied, "that the time will come when you and I must part," – alas! I spake as what I was, a child who knew not and could not foresee the stirring events that were to be my portion for many years to come, nor how the seas were to roll between me and that honest creature for many of those years, – "nor can the time ever come when I shall fail in my gratitude to you or to Mr. Kinchella. You! my only friends."

Then Oliver's face lighted up with pleasure as I spoke, and he grasped my hand and said that if Providence would only allow it we would never part.

To Mr. Kinchella I had gone between the time of the affray with my uncle-of whom the last I saw was his being half-led and half-carried to a coach by Considine, after he had learnt who it was who had gone to Virginia in my place-and the sailing of the packet, and I had found him busy making his preparations for departing for his vacation, the Michaelmas term being now nearly at its end. He was astonished at my appearance, as he might well be, and muttered, as he looked smilingly down at me, "Quantum mutatus ab illo! Have you come in for your fortune and proved your right to your title, my lord?"

But when I had sat me down and told him the whole of my story and of the strange things that had happened during the last two days, he seemed as though thunderstruck and mused deeply ere he spoke.

"'Tis a strong blow, a brave blow," he exclaimed at last, "and boldly planned. Moreover, I see not how your uncle can proceed against you or Quin for your parts in it. If he goes against Quin, there is the paper showing that he was willing that you should be sold into slavery. Therefore he dare not move in that quarter. Then, as for you, if he proceeds against you he acknowledges your existence and so stultifies his own claim. And, again, he cannot move because witnesses could be brought against him to show that the scheme was his, though the carrying out of it was different from his hopes-those player wenches could also testify, though I know not whether a court of law would admit, or receive, the evidence of such as they."

"There are others besides," I said. "Mr. Garrett, with whom Roderick quarrelled, and who seemed to be of a good position; he, too, heard it. Also, there were several by the river this morning who witnessed the fit into which my uncle fell when he found how his wicked plot had recoiled on his own head-"

"Ay, hoist with his own petard! Well, I am honestly glad of it. And, moreover, 'tis something different from the musty old story told by the romancers and the playwrights. With these gentry 'tis ever the rightful heir who goes to the wall and is the sufferer, but here in this, a real matter, 'tis the heir who-up to now at least-is triumphant and the villains who are outwitted. Gerald, when you get to London, you should make your way to the coffee-houses-there is the 'Rose'; also 'Button's' still exists, I think, besides many others-and offer thy story to the gentlemen who write. It might make the fortune of a play, if not of the author."

"'Tis as yet not ripe," I replied, though I could not but laugh at good Mr. Kinchella's homely jokes; "the first act is hardly over. Let us wait and see what the result may be."

"Prosperity to you, at least," he said, gravely now, "and success in all that you desire. For that I will ever pray, as well as for a happy issue for you and your mother out of all your afflictions," and here he bent his head as he recited those solemn and beautiful words. "And now, farewell, Gerald, farewell, Lord St. Amande. Any letter sent to me here at the College must ever find me, and it will pleasure me to have news of you, and more especially so if that news is good. Fare ye well."

And so, after my thanks had been again and again tendered to him, we parted, and I, making my way swiftly to the quay was soon on board the packet. But I thought much of him for many a long day after, and when, at last, Providence once more, in its strange and mysterious visitations, brought me face to face with him again and I saw him well and happy and prosperous, I did indeed rejoice.

And now the coach was rolling rapidly over Hadley Heath, that dreaded spot where so many travellers had met with robbery, and sometimes death, from highwaymen (one of whom and the most notorious, one Richard Turpin, was hanged at York a little more than a year after we passed over it); and the passengers began to point out to each other the bodies of three malefactors swinging in chains as a warning to others. Yet, it being daytime as we crossed the heath, I took very little heed of their stories and legends, but peered out of the window and told Oliver that this place was not many miles from London, and that we should soon be there now. As, indeed, he could see for himself, for soon the villages came thicker and thicker together; between Whetstone and Highgate we passed many beautiful seats, doubtless the suburban retreats of noblemen and gentry, while, at Highgate itself, so close were the dwellings together that, had we not met a party of huntsmen with their horns and hounds, who, the guard told us, were returning from hunting, we should have supposed we were already in London instead of being still four miles from it. But those four miles passed quickly and soon we arrived.

So now we had come to the inn whence the north-western coaches departed, and at which they arrived three times a week with a regularity that seems incredible, since, even in the worst of wintry weather, they were scarce ever more than a day behind in their time. And here amongst all the bustle of our arrival, of the shouts of the hackney coachmen to those whom they would have as fares, and of the porters with their knots, Oliver and I engaged a coach, had our necessaries put on it, and gave directions to be driven to my mother's abode.

The house in Denzil Street, to which we soon arrived, presented but a sordid appearance such as made me feel a pang to think that my dear mother should be forced to live in such a place when, had she but possessed all that should have been hers, her lot would have been far different. The street had once been, I have since heard, the abode of fashion-indeed 'twas a connection of my mother's house, one William Holles, a relative of that Denzil Holles who had been, as many even now recall, one of the members impeached of high treason by King Charles, who built it, – but certainly 'twas no longer so. Many of the houses seemed to be occupied by persons of no better condition than musicians and music-teachers; a laundry-woman had a shop at one end in which might be seen the girls at work as we passed by; there were notices of rooms to be let in several of the houses, and there was much garbage in the streets. Heaven knows I had seen so much squalor and wretchedness in Dublin, and especially in the places where I had lain hid, that I, of all others, should have felt but little distaste for even such a place as this, nor should I have done so in this case had it not been that it seemed so ill-fitting a spot for my mother, with her high birth and early surroundings, to be now harbouring in.

Nor did the maid who opened the door to us present a more favourable appearance than the street itself, she being a dirty, slatternly creature who looked as if the pots and pans of the kitchen were her constant companions. Neither was she of an overwhelming civility, since, when she stood before us, her remark was:

"What want you?" and, seeing our necessaries on the hackney coach, added, "There are no spare rooms here."

"We wish to see the Lady St. Amande," I said, assuming as much sternness as a youth of my age could do. "Tell her-"

"She is sick," the servant replied, "and can see none but her physician."

"Tell her," I went on, "that her son, Lord St. Amande, with his companion, Mr. Quin, has arrived from Ireland. Tell her, if you please, at once."

Whether the creature had heard something of my untoward affairs I know not, but, anyway, she glanced at me more favourably on receipt of this intelligence, and, gruffly still, bade us wait in the passage while she went to speak to her ladyship. But I could not do that, and so, springing up the stairs after her, was into the room as soon as she, and, almost ere she had announced my arrival, I was enfolded in my mother's arms.

She was at this time not more than thirty-five years of age, having been married at eighteen to my father, yet, already, pain and sickness had laid its hand heavily upon her, and, along with trouble, had saddened, though they could not mar, her sweet face. The brow that, as a still younger woman I remembered so soft and smooth, and over which I had loved to pass my hands, was now lined and had a wrinkle or so across it; the deep chestnut hair had threads of silver in it, the soft blue eyes looked worn and weary and had lost their sparkle. For sorrow and tribulation had been her lot since first my unhappy father had crossed her path, and to that sorrow there had come ill health in the form of a palsy, that, as she had written Mr. Kinchella, sometimes left her free but mostly kept her fast confined to the house.

And now, the servant having quitted us, she drew me to her closer still as I knelt beside her, and removing my wig which, she said through her tears and smiles, made me look too old, she fondled and caressed me and whispered her happiness.

"Oh, my child, my sweet," she said, "how it joys me to hold thee to my heart again after I had thought thee dead and gone from me. My dear, my dear, my loved one, 'tis as June to my heart after a long and cruel winter to have thee by me once again; my child, my child of many tears and longings. And how handsome thou art," pushing back my hair with her thin white hand, "even after all thy sufferings, how beautiful, how like-Ah! how like him," and here she shuddered as she recalled my father, though she drew me nearer to her as she did so and took my head upon her breast. Then she wept a little, silently, so that I could feel her tears falling upon my face and wetting my collar, and whispered half to herself and half to me, "So like him, who was as handsome as an angel when first I saw him, yet so vile-so vile." And then, bending her head even nearer to me so that her lips touched my ear, she murmured, "Is't true? was it as that gentleman, your friend, wrote me? Did he die alone and unbefriended? Were there none by him to succour him? None to pity him? Oh! Gerald, Gerald, my husband that once was," she moaned, "oh! Gerald, Gerald, how different it might all have been if thou would'st have had it so."

We stayed locked in each other's arms I know not how long, while she wept and smiled over me and wept again over my dead father. After which, calming herself somewhat, she bade me go and fetch Oliver of whom I had whispered something to her in the time, since she would see and thank him for all that he had done.

So Oliver came up from the passage where he had been sitting patiently enough while whistling softly to himself, and stood before her as she spoke gratefully as well as graciously to him.

"Sir," she said after she had given him her hand, which Oliver bent over and kissed as a gentleman might have done, and with a grace which, I think, he must have acquired when he followed the great Duke twenty years before and was himself a gallant young soldier of eighteen years of age. "Sir, how shall a poor widow thank you for all that you have done for her son and your friend?" – here Oliver smiled pleasedly at my being termed his friend, but disclaimed having done aught of much weight for me. "Nay, nay," she went on, "do not say that. Why! you have brought him forth from the jaws of death, you have saved him from those scheming villains to place him in his mother's arms again, you have risked your own safety to do so-shall I not thank you deeply, tenderly, for all that?"

"Madam," Oliver said, "my lady, I could not see the poor youth so set and put upon and stand idly by without so much as lending him a hand. And, my lady, if there was any reason necessary for helping him beyond that of mercy towards one so sorely afflicted as he was, I had it in the fact that I had known him long before at New Ross."

"At New Ross!" my mother exclaimed. "At New Ross! Is that your part of the country?"

"It is, my lady, and there, after quitting the army, I lived for many years working at my trade. And it was there that I have often seen Gerald-as I have come to call him, madam, since we have been drawn so close together, tho' I am not forgetful of his rank nor of the respect due to it-with you and with his late lordship, more especially when you all drove into New Ross in the light chaise my lord brought from London, or when Gerald would ride into the town on his pony with his groom."

These recollections, more especially that of the light chaise which had been a new toy, or gift, from my father to his wife at the time they were living happily together and he still had some means, disturbed my dear mother so much that the tears sprang to her eyes. And Oliver, who was tender as a child in spite of his determination and great fierceness when about any business which demanded such qualities, desisted at once and, turning his remarks into such a channel as he doubtless thought more acceptable, went on to say:

"And, my lady, none who ever saw his present lordship then-and there are scores still alive who have done so-but would testify to him. So it cannot be but that his uncle must ere long desist from the wicked and iniquitous claims he has put forward and be utterly routed and defeated, when my lord here shall enjoy his own."

"I pray so. I pray so," said my mother. "And, moreover, his kinsman the Marquis now seems, since my husband's death, to veer more to our side than to Robert's. So we may hope."

But now the slatternly servant came in bearing upon a tray some refreshments that my mother had bade her fetch, there being some good salted beef, a stew and some vegetables, a bottle of Madeira and two fair-sized pots of London ale. And being by now well hunger-stung, for we had eaten nought since the early morning, we fell to and made a good meal while my mother, sitting by my side and ministering to both our wants, listened to all we had to tell her. Wherefore, you may be sure, when she heard of the wicked plot which my uncle had conceived for shipping me off as a redemptioner, or an indented servant, to Virginia, and of how it had failed and the biter had himself been bit through the astuteness of Oliver as well as his manfulness in carrying out the plans he conceived, she again poured out her gratitude to him and told him that never could she forget all that he had done for her and her child.

CHAPTER X

A NOBLE KINSMAN

As the evening drew on Oliver retired, accompanied by the maid-servant, to seek a room in one of the neighbouring houses which advertised that they had these commodities at the service of those who required them; and on the latter returning to say that Mr. Quin had found a room hard by which he considered suitable, my mother and I sat over the fire discussing the past, the present, and the future.

"Something," she said, "must be done for Mr. Quin, and that at once. For his kindness we may well be indebted to him, nay, must, since he seems of so noble a nature that he would be wounded at any repayment being offered. But for the money which he has spent-that must instantly be returned."

"I doubt his taking it," I said. "He regards it as mine since he has come by it entirely through saving me from my uncle's evil designs. And, indeed, if you do but consider, dear mother, so it is."

"Nay," she said. "Nay. He would have earned the money easily enough had he been false to you and put you in that dreadful ship the Dove-gracious Heavens, that such a vile craft should have so fair a name! – surely we must not let him lose any of that money by being true and staunch to you."

"Give it back to him, then," I exclaimed with a laugh, "if you can persuade him to take it. Of which, however, as I said before, I doubt me much."

"Alas!" she replied, "I cannot give it back to him, but interest must be made with the Marquis to take up your cause and help you, as he seems well disposed to do now. For myself, until the villain, Robert, is defeated, I have but the hundred guineas a year left me by my uncle-a bare pittance only sufficing to pay for these rooms, the physician's account and my food."

"Shall I not see the Marquis?" I asked; "surely I should go to him and tell him all."

"Thou shalt see him soon enough," she said. "I have acquainted him with the fact of all I knew-no human creature could have guessed or thought how much more there is to tell, nor how wicked can be the heart of man, ay! even though that man be one's own flesh and blood-and also that you might soon be expected to reach London. And he has sent two or three times a week to know if you had yet arrived: doubtless he will send again to-morrow. He lives but a stone's throw from here, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, on the north side."