Michael now rose to take his leave, offering with a fervour that was very touching, his earnest thanks for the generous kindness with which he had been received; but he resisted all the hospitable efforts made to retain him as a guest. He had need, he said, to be alone, that he might bring his mind to such a state as should enable him to sustain the wonderful change in his prospects with something like fortitude and rational composure. There was more real kindness, and true sympathy, in the manner of accepting this excuse, than the most pressing offers of hospitality could have shown; and Michael, after involuntarily kissing the hand stretched out to bid him farewell took his departure from the clergyman’s house, with a heart full of thankfulness to God and man.
CHAPTER XXIX.
MICHAEL CALLS HIS WISDOM TO COUNCIL, AND THE POINTS TO BE DISCUSSED PUZZLE THEM — AN EARLY WALK — AN OLD FRIEND WITH A CHANGED FACE.
To describe Michael Armstrong’s feeling as he took his solitary way along what seemed to him the most unfrequented fields he could find, would be both a difficult and an unnecessary task. That his heart swelled with thankfulness and joy cannot be doubted; yet there was a vagueness and uncertainty as to what he ought immediately to do; which made him anxious and sad, even in the midst of hope and joy. The small sum he had been able to save from his wages had been spent, or very nearly so, since he set out upon his eventful expedition. He had already accepted a loan from the friendly old coachman of Miss Brotherton, and he shrunk from the idea of contracting more debts, while unable to say with certainty when they should be paid. How then was he to reach his brother in his happy distant home? And where and how was he to pass the anxious interval that must of necessity intervene before he could even know to what point he should direct his pilgrim steps, even had he the means of setting forth?
The path he had taken proved to be a short cut leading into the highroad from Fairly to Ashleigh, and on quitting the fields he found himself close to the door of a public-house which he was tempted to select for his shelter as long as he remained in the neighbourhood, both because it was lonely, and because it was humble. Having entered there, bespoken a bed, and made a very frugal repast, he inquired the distance to Dowling Lodge, and finding it was greater than he could traverse on foot with any hope of returning in decent time to occupy his newly-taken lodging, he resolved to wait till the following morning, when, by setting off at daybreak, he might be able to make his visit to Martha, and perhaps report the result of it to Mr. Bell, before he slept.
His mind had too much on which to employ itself for him to feel the afternoon a long one: an orchard close behind the little inn, afforded him shade and soft turf whereon to sit or lie, or to pace backwards and forwards, with unequal steps, as he meditated on the chances for and against his ever being one in the happy, thrice happy party described by Miss Brotherton. Nor had he wearied of these exciting, but most anxious thoughts, when the moon, and the stars, and the heavy dew warned him at length that the day was gone, and night come. And then he remembered that, in order to follow Mr Bell’s advice, he must prepare himself with a letter to Miss Martha, which it would be necessary to write before he went to bed. Fortunately his hotel was able to furnish the needful implements, and after a little reflection, he penned the following note:
“A poor lad, to whom Miss Martha Dowling once showed much charitable kindness, is now waiting at the park-gates, to know if he may pay his duty to her. He takes the freedom of asking for this favour, because he has been told that she would be pleased to hear he was alive and well.” Having directed this to Miss Martha Dowling, and sealed it in the best manner he could, he retired to his little bed in a state of mind that hovered between inexpressible felicity, and anxiety that he was hardly able to bear.
He was afoot in time to hear the lark’s first overture on the following morning; and his spirits, cheered by the bracing influence of the delicious hour, and by the sound sleep which had preceded it, enabled him to breakfast on a slice of brown bread, bespoken the night before, and laid ready for him, with a draught of icy-cold water from a neighbouring well, without any mixture of melancholy, though he thought the while of all the dangers and difficulties he might have to encounter ere he stood beside his Edward on the beautiful terrace to which his dreams had transported him so easily.
Michael was a stout walker, and had reached the well-remembered precincts of Dowling Lodge soon after the earliest servants were stirring. He had made up his mind to be the bearer of his own letter, and accordingly, having shown the address to the woman at the lodge as a reason for being permitted to enter, he approached the stately mansion by the road which led to the offices, and intrusting his epistle to the first female he encountered, requested her to deliver it to Miss Martha without delay.
“Why she bean’t up yet,” said the girl, looking at him however, with the good-humoured smile with which light-hearted young damsels are wont to greet such very handsome lads as our Michael.
“But perhaps you will be so good as to let her have it as soon as she is awake?” he replied, returning the smile.
“Well, poor thing, and that may be now, most likely,” returned turned the girl, “for her cough often wakes her before this time. Will you wait for an answer?”
“I won’t trouble the servants by staying here,” replied Michael; “but if you please you may tell the young lady that I will walk up and down the road till she can let me have it. Does Miss Martha walk out early in the mornings, as she used to do?” he added.
“That’s just what she likes best, poor thing,” replied the girl. “But you needn’t be afeard that she’s gone out already; for if she had, I should have been sure to have seed her; for she never has the great door opened for her at this time of day, for fear of disturbing my lady, who always lies unaccountable late.”
“And does Sir Matthew rise early now?” demanded Michael with some anxiety.
“He! — not he! He eats and sleeps like a pig, they say; but he is grumpier than ever he was, both to men and maids too, since he married the new lady. I wonder as I never happened to see you before, as you seem to know ’em all so well.”
“It is several years since I was last here,” returned Michael; “but run up stairs with it, there’s a dear girl, will you? because I want to get my answer and be off.”
“You had better stop here till I come down again,” replied his good-natured messenger, “instead of walking up and down the road, without knowing whether there’s an answer or no — sit down in the kitchen, and I’ll be back in no time.”
And into the kitchen he went — the selfsame kitchen which just eight years before had been the scene of his painful examination by Sir Matthew Dowling’s servants. He remembered the room perfectly; could have pointed out the exact spot where the awful housekeeper sat, and the place where he had himself stood, with no better champion to sustain his courage than the greasy kitchen-maid, whose pitying broad face, bent over him, he recollected as perfectly as if it had beamed upon him but the day before. He was still deeply revolving these interesting reminiscences, and the strange contrast they offered to his present hopes, when his envoy returned—” Miss Martha wants to know your name, young man,” she said, “but she is getting up, and will be walking in the park as usual, she says, presently, so it is likely enough that she will give you the answer herself.”
“Very well,” replied Michael, perfectly satisfied—” good morning! — I am very much obliged to you.”
“But you haven’t told me your name, and Miss Martha says that she should like to know it.”
“My name isn’t one that would make any difference,” he replied, “so I won’t trouble you to go up again about that — good bye!” And without waiting for any further discussion, he walked off, exceedingly well pleased at having arranged the wished for tête-à-tête so satisfactorily. The noble dimensions of the park enabled Michael to select a space amply sufficient for his promenade which was neither within sight of the mansion nor the lodge, and ere he had made many turns upon it,
he perceived the lady he wished to see, approaching him.
He could not doubt that it was Martha, for at that hour of the morning none other was at all likely to be there; but she was too much altered for him to recognise her in any degree. He thought she was taller than he had expected to see her, but at any rate she was greatly thinner, and so delicately pale, that her appearance was rather a contrast, than a resemblance to what he had expected to meet. She was already near him when he turned upon the path, and met her. He stopped, took off his hat, and bowed respectfully.
“You are Miss Martha Dowling, ma’am?” he said interrogatively.
“Yes,” replied Martha, “that is my name, but when did I see you before, young man? I do not know you.”
“It is a great many years, Miss Martha — but I can never forget your kindness.”
The pale cheek of Martha was tinted with a vivid blush, as she exclaimed, “If it were possible — if I did not know that he was dead — But this is nonsense,” she added, recovering her composure. “I quite forget your person, young man,” she continued, after a pause: “But if I have ever done you any service, I am glad of it. Perhaps if you tell me your name I may remember the circumstances to which you allude.”
“Oh! Miss Martha!” replied Michael, “I am afraid my name will startle you, and therefore I do not like to speak it. But I think it came into your head just now, only you stopped short, and said it was impossible.”
“Can it be Michael Armstrong that I see?” demanded Martha, in an agitated voice.
“It is indeed, Miss Martha!” he replied. “It is Michael Armstrong, come back to thank you for all your great kindness to him.”
“My kindness to Michael Armstrong?” she exclaimed. “Alas! it was I who occasioned all his sufferings, and, as I have thought for many years, his death. How is it you have been saved, Michael? How is it you have escaped from the horrid place to which I was the cause of your being sent?”
“My dear Miss Martha!” returned Michael, greatly affected by her look of ill-health, and by the agitation she displayed — for tears were trickling fast down her pale cheeks. “My dear Miss Martha,” he said, “I know, if nobody else does, the kind motive that you had for every word you spoke — and was it not I myself that said I wanted to go, Miss Martha, when we walked together from here, down to poor mother’s house? Never, never can I thank you enough for all your goodness then, as well as at all other times, from the very first moment that ever I saw you?”
“Thank God!” cried poor Martha, fervently clasping her hands, and raising her eyes to heaven, “you know not, Michael, what a load you have taken from my heart! I have for years lived under the dreadful weight of believing myself to be your murderer. The thought has haunted me by night, and rarely quitted me by day. And my poor father too! This crime at least he has not to answer for!”
Michael could not help thinking — though for worlds he would not have lessened her pious satisfaction by uttering the thought — that though he had escaped with life from the terrible sufferings to which he had been exposed, he owed Sir Matthew but little gratitude for it. Fortunately, however, for his veracity, he was not called upon to answer this observation, for Martha immediately added, “Does Miss Brotherton know that you are alive, Michael?”
“No, Miss Martha, she does not,” he replied; “my brother Edward is living with her in some place abroad, and till yesterday I have existed in the dismal belief that he was dead, and that I had not a single relation in the whole world.”
“And where are you living, Michael? What is your home now? And how did you escape from the dismal place to which you were sent as an apprentice?”
In answer to this, Michael related, as briefly as he could contrive to do it, all that had happened to him, confessing freely that he had run away, and that he supposed he was liable to be sent back again to work out his time, if Sir Matthew discovered that he was alive, and if it were his pleasure to do it.
“We will not talk of any thing of that kind, Michael,” said Martha, a bright blush again visiting her cheek. “It would not be prudent, certainly, for you to make yourself known here — and I particularly desire that you will not do it. I am grateful, oh! most grateful, for your coming to tell me that the dismal news of your death was not true, but now that you have set my heart at rest on that score, do not come here again, Michael — Lady Clarissa is very particular about every body that comes to the house — and — in short — though I shall always have the greatest regard for you, Michael — I would a great deal rather that you did not come to Dowling Lodge again.”
Michael perfectly understood, though it was evident she would not avow it, that poor Martha had fears for his safety, should Sir Matthew discover him; and without giving her the slightest reason to suppose that he saw this, he assured her that he was going immediately from Ashleigh without any intention of returning to it. Martha then looked at her watch, and seeing that there was still above an hour to spare before the usual time at which the family came down stairs, ventured to seat herself on the trunk of a newly-felled tree, while she questioned the youth, for whom she still felt the strongest interest, as to what his projects were, and when, and how he thought of leaving England to join his brother. With frank and touching simplicity, Michael entered freely into all his harassing doubts and difficulties — confessed that he had not a shilling in the world that he could call his own, and, worse still, that be could not help feeling a strong repugnance to throwing himself wholly on the charity of Miss Brotherton, for no other reason in the world than because she had nobly provided for his brother.
“To know that Edward is alive, and not endeavour to see him is impossible,” he continued. “But I would fain earn money enough, if it were possible, to enable me to get to him without being chargeable to her, and once within reach of him — once near enough to his dwelling-place to know that we need never be many days asunder, I should not fear but that I might earn my living, without being indebted to charity for it. I was always stronger than Edward, you know, Miss Martha, and there is no reason because he lives an idle life, dear fellow, that I should do so too.”
“Michael!” she replied, her whole countenance lighted up with the most animated expression of pleasure, “my dear Michael Armstrong! your coming here is certainly the greatest blessing that Heaven could have sent me. I cannot tell you, and you can never know, all I have suffered from believing you were dead, and from knowing that I had been the cause of great and terrible suffering to you. And that, too, wholly owing to the trust which you, and your poor mother reposed in me! May you never, my dear boy, know what it is to have a conscience burdened as mine has been. Be very sure that it is worse than any thing you could have suffered at the Deep Valley, Michael! When you see Mary Brotherton, tell her that I owned this to you — and perhaps she may think, at last, that she judged me rather more harshly than I deserved.”
“If she judged you harshly at all, she was very wrong,” replied Michael, warmly. “People should know, before they judge. Nobody who really knew you, could judge you harshly.”
“I had rather that kind sentence came from your lips, Michael, than from those of any other human being. If you can say it, and mean it too, as I am sure you do, who is there living that can have a right to say the contrary? Yet this is not my only pleasure — I happen to have the power — and I bless my poor father for it — of making some little atonement for the years of suffering that I so unwittingly caused you. From the day we were each of us fifteen, we have received an allowance of sixty pounds a year for dress, and though I really never wanted one-half so much as my sisters, my father, who has ever been a kind father to me, has always insisted upon my having the same, and at the marriage of my two elder sisters, he gave me a hundred pounds each time, that I might be smart. But I have no taste for finery, Michael, it always made me melancholy; so I am very rich — I really do not know how rich, for I have always kept on laying the banknotes that I did not want in a drawer, and I have never counted them. Thi
nk if it will not be a pleasure for me now to open that drawer, and give you all that is in it? Oh! with what different feelings shall I go to bed to-night from any I have felt for years past! I am sure there must be enough to take you to Italy, or wherever else Miss Brotherton may be gone, and to set you up in some little business into the bargain. Wait here only ten minutes, my dear Michael, and I will return with my treasure — a real treasure now, and for the first time that I ever thought it so!”
Martha had risen from her seat as she spoke, and literally before Michael could recover from his astonishment sufficiently to answer her, she was already at some distance from him. He had by no means settled to his satisfaction the question of whether he ought, or ought not, to strip the generous Martha of her little hoard when she again appeared. But she looked hurried and out of breath.
“Make haste, Michael, dear Michael!” she said, with much agitation. “For pity’s sake let me not be again plunged in all the misery of self-reproach from which I have so recently escaped. Take this parcel, Michael! Nay, never stay to count them! My father has left his room — may have inquired for me — and even now be following me. Bless you, Michael! Bless you! Go, go, for goodness sake, and leave the country as quickly as possible.”
With these words she turned from him, and with a step too rapid for her state of health, and plainly showing her extreme anxiety, she hastily retreated towards the house.
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