The Mysteries of London, Vol. II [Unabridged & Illustrated] (Valancourt Classics)

by George W. M. Reynolds

  “I do not wish to insult your feelings, young woman,” said Lord Ravensworth; “especially since you manifest so praiseworthy a desire to retrieve your character. But you must perceive the impossibility, as her ladyship observes, of retaining you in our service. You might be known—recognised——”

  “I understand your lordship,” interrupted Lydia, bitterly; “I might be recognised as an unhappy creature who had once earned a livelihood by parading the public streets. That is scarcely probable:—I am much changed since then. The kindness of an excellent lady has enabled me to recruit my strength and to recover a healthy appearance. Yes—I must be altered; for your lordship does not perceive in me the poor miserable starving wretch who some few months since accosted her ladyship in Saint James’s Street.”

  “Ah! I recollect,” exclaimed the nobleman, as the incident flashed to his mind. “I only observed you for a moment on that occasion; but still—so miserable was your appearance—it made an impression on my mind. Yes—you are indeed changed! Nevertheless, those who saw you in an unhappy career, before you became so reduced as you were on the occasion which you have mentioned, might recognise you. And—pardon my frankness, young woman; but the subject admits not of the measurement of words—what would be thought of me—of my wife—of all the other members of my household——”

  “If I were seen in your establishment, your lordship would add,” exclaimed Lydia. “I admit the truth of all your lordship states: still my wish to remain a member of that establishment is unchanged. For—as your lordship may have ere now gathered from our conversation—it was her ladyship who first placed me in those paths which led to my ruin and it must be her ladyship who shall aid me in earning an honourable character once more.”

  “But this punishment is too severe!” exclaimed Adeline, almost wringing her hands; for she perceived how completely the honour of two families was in Lydia’s power.

  “Consider, I implore you, the position of my wife,” said the nobleman: “in a few weeks she will become a mother!”

  “My lord, her ladyship never had any consideration for me, from the first moment that I ceased to be useful to her,” returned Lydia, with inexorable firmness; “and I cannot consent to sacrifice what I consider to be my own interests to her ladyship’s wishes now.”

  Then Lydia Hutchinson rose, as if to intimate that her determination was unchangeable; and that obscure girl was enabled to dictate her own terms to the noble peer and the proud peeress.

  “It must be so, then—it must be so,” said Lord Ravensworth, with a vexation of manner which he could not conceal. “You shall have an apartment in my establishment and handsome wages:—all I exact is that you do not force your attentions on her ladyship save when she demands them.”

  “If I remain here, it must be in the capacity of her ladyship’s principal attendant,” returned Lydia: “otherwise I could not fairly earn a good character in the eyes of the other dependants of your lordship.”

  “Perdition! young woman,” exclaimed the nobleman; “you demand too much!”

  “More than I will ever concede,” added Lady Ravensworth, unable to restrain a glance of malignity and desperate hate towards Lydia Hutchinson.

  “Then your lordship will permit me to take my departure,” said she, calmly; and she moved towards the door.

  “My God! she will reveal every thing!” almost shrieked Lady Ravensworth.

  “Yes—every thing,” said Lydia, returning the look which Adeline had cast on her a few moments before.

  “Stay, young woman—this may not be!” ejaculated Lord Ravensworth. “You exercise your power with a fearful despotism.”

  “The world has been a fearful despot towards me, my lord,” was the firm but calm reply.

  “And with your tyranny in this respect you will kill my wife—kill my yet unborn child!” exclaimed the nobleman, rising from his seat and pacing the room in a state of desperate excitement. “But the honour of the Rossvilles and the Ravensworths must be preserved—at any sacrifice—at any risk!—Yes—though you bring misery into this house, here must you remain—since such is your inflexible will. Were an exposure to take place, the consequences—my God! would be awful—crushing! The finger of ridicule and scorn would point at me—the elderly man who espoused the young and beautiful girl, and who was so proud that he had won her for a wife! And then—should the child of which she is so soon to become a mother, prove a son—although the law would recognise him as the heir to my name and fortune, yet the scandalous world would throw doubts, perhaps, on his legitimacy. Ah! the thought is maddening! And my brother—my brother too——”

  Lord Ravensworth checked himself in the midst of those musings, into the audible expression of which the agitation of his mind had hurried him:—he checked himself, for the convulsive sobs which came from his wife’s lips suddenly reminded him that every word he was uttering pierced like a dagger into her soul.

  “Oh! God have mercy upon me!” she exclaimed, in a voice scarcely audible through the convulsions of her grief: “how dearly—dearly am I now paying for the errors of my youth!”

  “Does that sight not move you, woman?” muttered the nobleman between his grinding teeth, as he accosted Lydia, and pointed to the lamentable condition of his wife.

  “My lord, I lost all by serving the interests of her who is now Lady Ravensworth; and it is time that I should think only of my own.”

  This reply was given with a frigid—stern—and inexorable calmness, that struck despair to the heart of the unhappy nobleman and his still more wretched wife.

  “Then be it all as you say—be it all as you wish, despotic woman!” cried Lord Ravensworth. “Remain here—command us all—drive us to despair—for our honour is unhappily in your remorseless hands.”

  With these words, the nobleman rushed from the room in a state bordering on distraction.

  A few minutes of profound silence elapsed.

  Lydia remained standing near the mantel, gazing with joyful triumph on Adeline, whose head was buried in her hands, and whose bosom gave vent to convulsive sobs.

  Suddenly Lady Ravensworth looked up, and gazed wildly around her.

  “He’s gone—and you are still there!” she said, in a low and hoarse voice. “Now we are alone together—and doubtless I am to look upon you as one determined to drive me to despair. What other motive had you for insisting upon remaining here?”

  “Lady, I will now explain myself,” returned Lydia, speaking slowly and solemnly. “It pierced me to the heart to cause so much grief to that good nobleman, of whom you are so utterly unworthy; but for you I have no kind consideration—no mercy. Adeline, I hate you—I loathe you—I detest you!”

  “Merciful heavens!” exclaimed Lady Ravensworth: “and you are to be constantly about my person!”

  “Yes: and my second motive for remaining here to enjoy that privilege,” continued Lydia, bitterly, “is vengeance!”

  “Vengeance!” repeated Adeline, recoiling as it were from the terrible word, and clasping her hands franticly together.

  “Vengeance—vengeance!” continued Lydia Hutchinson. “Before the rest of the world I shall appear the humble and respectful dependant—yes, even in the presence of your husband. But when alone with you, I shall prove a very demon, whose weapons are galling reproaches, ignominies, insults, and indignities.”

  “Oh! this is terrible!” cried Adeline, as if her senses were leaving her. “You cannot be such a fiend.”

  “I can—I will!” returned Lydia. “Have I not undergone enough to make me so? And all was occasioned by you! When I was your wretched tool, you promised me the affection of a sister; and how did you fulfil your pledge? You came to me at a house where I was a governess, and whence I was anxious to remove from the importunities of the master; and there you threw off the mask. I then saw the hollowness of your soul. My fa
ther died of a broken heart, and my brother perished in a duel, in consequence of my iniquity. But who had made me criminal? You! I called upon you at Rossville House at a time when a little sympathy on your part might have still saved me; for I should have felt that I had one friend still left. But you scorned me—you even menaced me; and I then warned you that I was absolved from all motives of secrecy on your account. Your black ingratitude drove me to despair; and I immediately afterwards fell to the lowest grade in the social sphere—that of a prostitute! Yes—for I need use no nice language with you. All the miseries I endured in my wretched career I charge upon your head. And ere now you menaced me again: you threatened to accuse me falsely of a crime that would render me amenable to the criminal tribunals of the country. It only required that to fill the cup of your base ingratitude to the very brim. And think you that your malignant—your spiteful glances,—your looks of bitter, burning hate,—were lost upon me? No—you would doubtless assassinate me, if you dared! Oh! I have long detested you—long loathed your very name! But, never—never, until we met in this room ere now, did I believe that my hatred against you was so virulent as it is. And never—never until this hour did I appreciate the sweets of vengeance. At present I can revel in those feelings:—I can wreak upon you—and I will—that revenge which my own miseries and the death of those whom I held dear have excited in my heart! Your ladyship now knows the terms of our connexion, for one year; and at the expiration of that period you will be glad—Oh! too glad to rid yourself of me by giving me a character that will never fail to procure for me a place in future.”

  With these words Lydia Hutchinson left the room.

  Lady Ravensworth sank back in convulsions of anguish upon the ottoman.

  And Lord Ravensworth,—who throughout the morning had experienced so much lightness of heart and mental calmness that he resolved to wrestle in future with that apathy and gloom which drove him to his pipe,—had shut himself up in his private cabinet, to seek solace once more in the fatal attractions of the oriental tobacco.

  Thus had the presence of Lydia Hutchinson,—once despised, scorned, and trampled on,—brought desolation and misery into that lordly dwelling.

  O Adeline, Adeline! thou wast now taught a bitter lesson illustrative of the terrible consequences of ingratitude!

  The aristocracy conceives that it may insult the democracy with impunity. The high-born and the wealthy never stop to consider, when they put an affront upon the lowly and the poor, whether a day of retribution may not sooner or later come. The peer cannot see the necessity of conciliating the peasant: the daughter of the nobility knows not the use of making a friend of the daughter of the people.

  But the meanest thing that crawls upon the earth may some day be in a position to avenge the injuries it has received from a powerful oppressor; and the mightiest lord or the noblest lady may be placed in that situation when even the friendship of the humblest son or the most obscure daughter of industry would be welcome as the drop of water to the lost wanderer of the desert.

  Yes! Most solemnly do I proclaim to you, O suffering millions of these islands, that ye shall not always languish beneath the yoke of your oppressors! Individually ye shall each see the day when your tyrant shall crouch at your feet; and as a mass ye shall triumph over that proud oligarchy which now grinds you to the dust!

  That day—that great day cannot be far distant; and then shall ye rise—not to wreak a savage vengeance on those who have so long coerced you, but to prove to them that ye know how to exercise a mercy which they never manifested towards you;—ye shall rise, not to convulse the State with a disastrous civil war, nor to hurry the nation on to the deplorable catastrophe of social anarchy, confusion, and bloodshed;—but ye shall rise to vindicate usurped rights, and to recover delegated and misused power, that ye may triumphantly assert the aristocracy of mind, and the aristocracy of virtue!

  CHAPTER CCVIII.

  THE RESURRECTION MAN’S HOUSE IN GLOBE TOWN.

  Return we to the house of the Resurrection Man in Globe Town,—that house where we have already seen such diabolical mischief concocted, and much of which was actually perpetrated,—that house where the gloomy subterraneans had echoed to the moans of Viola Chichester!

  It was about seven o’clock in the evening, when the Resurrection Man suddenly emerged from that very same cell in which Viola had once been confined.

  He held a lantern in his hand; and the feeble rays glanced upon a countenance convulsed and distorted with deep, malignant rage.

  On the threshold of the dungeon he paused for a moment; and turning towards the interior of that living tomb, he growled in a savage tone, “By all the powers of hell! I’ll find means to cure you of this obstinacy.”

  A hoarse and stifled moan was the only answer.

  “Then try another night of it!” exclaimed the Resurrection Man.

  And he closed the door violently.

  The heavy bolt grated upon the ears of another victim to the remorseless cruelty of this fiend-like miscreant!

  Muttering maledictions to himself, the Resurrection Man slowly left the subterranean, and extinguishing his lantern, secured the doors of the lower part of his dwelling.

  As he was about to ascend the steep staircase leading to the upper floor, a person in the street called after him in a low and tremulous tone, “Mr. Tidkins! Mr. Tidkins! is that you?”

  “Rather so,” replied the Resurrection Man, who had immediately recognised the voice; “walk up, Mr. Tomlinson.”

  “I—I—if you have no objection,” stammered the stock-broker, who evidently had some cause of alarm, “I would much prefer—that is, I should like to speak to you down here; because my time is precious—and——”

  “And you are afraid to trust yourself with me,” added the Resurrection Man, gruffly. “Why, what an infernal fool you must be! I don’t suppose that you’ve come with your pockets full of gold: and, if you haven’t, you certainly ain’t worth robbing and murdering. So, walk up, I say—and no more of this gammon. Shut the door, and bolt it after you.”

  The stock-broker did not like to offer any farther objection, so deep was his dread of irritating a man of whom he entertained a vague and horrible apprehension.

  He accordingly closed the door, and followed Tidkins up the precipitate steps to the back room on the first floor: for the Resurrection Man had converted this one into his parlour, to avoid the necessity of having a light in the front chamber, the windows of which looked upon the street—the miscreant being compelled to adopt as many precautions as possible to prevent his numerous enemies from discovering a trace of his whereabouts.

  “Sit down, and don’t be afraid, Mr. Tomlinson,” said Tidkins. “There, sir—draw near the fire; and here’s brandy, rum, or gin, if you like to take any thing.”

  “Nothing, I thank you,” faltered the stock-broker, casting a hurried glance of alarm around him as he sank upon a chair. “You wrote to desire me to call this evening—at seven o’clock—or I might repent—”

  “Yes—and so you would repent the consequences,” added the Resurrection Man. “But, as you have come, it is all right. I dare say you thought I had forgotten you: you were deceived, you see; for I never lose sight of old friends. When I want to use them, I am sure to find them out again.”

  “And what can I do for you, Mr. Tidkins?” asked the stock-broker, in a tremulous tone; for he felt a desperate alarm lest the Resurrection Man should have discovered the one secret which he had taken so much pains to conceal—the secret of the abode of old Michael Martin.

  “I have but two wants in the world at any time,” answered the Resurrection Man, lighting his pipe: “money most often—vengeance now and then. But it is money that I want of you.”

  “Money—money!” murmured Tomlinson: “do you think I am made of money? I have had hard struggles—losses—expenses——”

/>   “I dare say you have,” observed the Resurrection Man, drily. “I do not mean to be hard upon you; but something I must have. You see, I have got a little amount put by—how obtained is neither here nor there; and I want to scrape together as much as I can, so that in a few months, when I have settled the different matters I have on hand, I may leave England for America, or some such place; and then you will never hear of me any more.”

  “That will be a great blessing,” thought Tomlinson; but he did not say so.

  “And under all circumstances, you must help me to make up the sum I want,” added the Resurrection Man.

  “You are too hard upon me, Mr. Tidkins,” said Tomlinson. “If I had employed you on any business, it would be different: but——”

  “But if you have a secret that I have found out, and that’s worth keeping?” exclaimed Tidkins, significantly.

  “Oh! then it is as I feared!” murmured Tomlinson, pressing his feverish hand to his forehead, through which a sudden pain seemed to shoot, producing a sensation as of tightness on the brain. “Surely this man must be Satan himself, who comes at intervals to goad the wicked to desperation for their sins!”

  “What’s that you say about Satan?” asked Tidkins.

  “Nothing—nothing,” replied the stock-broker, hastily: “I was only thinking to myself that Satan took a delight in persecuting me.”

  “I know nothing about that,” observed the Resurrection Man. “All I care for is the cash that you will have the goodness to bring me down to-morrow evening at this same hour.”

  A sudden idea struck Tomlinson. Was the Resurrection Man really acquainted with Martin’s present place of abode? or was he endeavouring to extort money merely upon the strength of his knowledge, some time previously obtained (as our readers will remember), that the old clerk, though generally believed to have absconded, had actually remained concealed in London?