Henry Dunbar by M. E. Braddon

M >> M. E. Braddon >> Henry Dunbar

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"Yes," answered Mr. Balderby, "I have seen Miss Laura Dunbar at her
grandfather's country seat. She is a very beautiful girl, and Percival
Dunbar idolized her. But now to return to business, my good Sampson. I
believe you are the only person in this house who has ever seen our
present chief, Henry Dunbar."

"I am, sir."

"So far so good. He is expected to arrive at Southampton in less than a
week's time, and somebody must be there to meet him and receive him.
After five-and-thirty years' absence he will be a perfect stranger in
England, and will require a business man about him to manage matters for
him, and take all trouble off his hands. These Anglo-Indians are apt to
be indolent, you know, and he may be all the worse for the fatigues of
the overland journey. Now, as you know him, Sampson, and as you are an
excellent man of business, and as active as a boy, I should like you to
meet him. Have you any objection to do this?"

"No, sir," answered the clerk; "I have no great love for Mr. Henry
Dunbar, for I can never cease to look upon him as the cause of my poor
brother Joseph's ruin; but I am ready to do what you wish, Mr. Balderby.
It's business, and I'm ready to do anything in the way of business. I'm
only a sort of machine, sir--a machine that's pretty nearly worn out, I
fancy, now--but as long as I last you can make what use of me you like,
sir. I'm ready to do my duty."

"I am sure of that, Sampson."

"When am I to start for Southampton, sir?"

"Well, I think you'd better go to-morrow, Sampson. You can leave London
by the afternoon train, which starts at four o'clock. You can see to
your work here in the morning, and reach your destination between seven
and eight. I leave everything in your hands. Miss Laura Dunbar will come
up to town to meet her father at the house in Portland Place. The poor
girl is very anxious to see him, as she has not set eyes upon him since
she was a child of two years old. Strange, isn't it, the effect of these
long separations? Laura Dunbar might pass her father in the street
without recognizing him, and yet her affection for him has been
unchanged in all these years."

Mr. Balderby gave the old clerk a pocket-book containing six five-pound
notes.

"You will want plenty of money," he said, "though, of course, Mr. Dunbar
will be well supplied. You will tell him that all will be ready for his
reception here. I really am quite anxious to see the new head of the
house. I wonder what he is like, now. By the way, it's rather a singular
circumstance that there is, I believe, no portrait of Henry Dunbar in
existence. His picture was painted when he was a young man, and
exhibited in the Royal Academy; but his father didn't think the likeness
a good one, and sent it back to the artist, who promised to alter and
improve it. Strange to say, this artist, whose name I forget, delayed
from day to day performing his promise, and at the expiration of a
twelvemonth left England for Italy, taking the young man's portrait with
him, amongst a lot of other unframed canvases. This artist never
returned from Italy, and Percival Dunbar could never find out his
whereabouts, or whether he was dead or alive. I have often heard the old
man regret that he possessed no likeness of his son. Our chief was
handsome, you say, in his youth?"

"Yes, sir," Sampson Wilmot answered, "he was very handsome--tall and
fair, with bright blue eyes."

"You have seen Miss Dunbar: is she like her father?"

"No, sir. Her features are altogether different, and her expression is
more amiable than his."

"Indeed! Well, Sampson, we won't detain you any longer. You understand
what you have to do?"

"Yes, sir, perfectly."

"Very well, then. Good night! By the bye, you will put up at one of the
best hotels at Southampton--say the Dolphin--and wait there till the
_Electra_ steamer comes in. It is by the _Electra_ that Mr. Dunbar is to
arrive. Once more, good evening!"

The old clerk bowed and left the room.

"Well, Austin," said Mr. Balderby, turning to the cashier, "we may
prepare ourselves to meet our new chief very speedily. He must know that
you and I cannot be entirely ignorant of the story of his youthful
peccadilloes, and he will scarcely give himself airs to us, I should
fancy."

"I don't know that, Mr. Balderby," the cashier answered; "if I am any
judge of human nature, Henry Dunbar will hate us because of that very
crime of his own, knowing that we are in the secret, and will be all the
more disagreeable and disdainful in his intercourse with us. He will
carry it off with a high hand, depend upon it."

CHAPTER II.

MARGARET'S FATHER.

The town of Wandsworth is not a gay place. There is an air of old-world
quiet in the old-fashioned street, though dashing vehicles drive through
it sometimes on their way to Wimbledon or Richmond Park.

The sloping roofs, the gable-ends, the queer old chimneys, the quaint
casement windows, belong to a bygone age; and the traveller, coming a
stranger to the little town, might fancy himself a hundred miles away
from boisterous London; though he is barely clear of the great city's
smoky breath, or beyond the hearing of her myriad clamorous tongues.

There are lanes and byways leading out of that humble High Street down
to the low bank of the river; and in one of these, a pleasant place
enough, there is a row of old-fashioned semi-detached cottages, standing
in small gardens, and sheltered by sycamores and laburnums from the
dust, which in dry summer weather lies thick upon the narrow roadway.

In one of these cottages a young lady lived with her father; a young
lady who gave lessons on the piano-forte, or taught singing, for very
small remuneration. She wore shabby dresses, and was rarely known to
have a new bonnet; but people respected and admired her,
notwithstanding; and the female inhabitants of Godolphin Cottages, who
gave her good-day sometimes as she went along the dusty lane with her
well-used roll of music in her hand, declared that she was a lady bred
and born. Perhaps the good people who admired Margaret Wentworth would
have come nearer the mark if they had said that she was a lady by right
divine of her own beautiful nature, which had never required to be
schooled into grace or gentleness.

She had no mother, and she had not even the memory of her mother, who
had died seventeen years before, leaving an only child of twelve months
old for James Wentworth to keep.

But James Wentworth, being a scapegrace and a reprobate, who lived by
means that were a secret from his neighbours, had sadly neglected this
only child. He had neglected her, though with every passing year she
grew more and more like her dead mother, until at last, at eighteen
years of age, she had grown into a beautiful woman, with hazel-brown
hair, and hazel eyes to match.

And yet James Wentworth was fond of his only child, after a fashion of
his own. Sometimes he was at home for weeks together, a prey to a fit of
melancholy; under the influence of which he would sit brooding in
silence over his daughter's humble hearth for hours and days together.

At other times he would disappear, sometimes for a few days, sometimes
for weeks and months at a time; and during his absence Margaret suffered
wearisome agonies of suspense.

Sometimes he brought her money; sometimes he lived upon her own slender
earnings.

But use her as he might, he was always proud of her, and fond of her;
and she, after the way of womankind, loved him devotedly, and believed
him to be the noblest and most brilliant of men.

It was no grief to her to toil, taking long weary walks and giving
tedious lessons for the small stipends which her employers had the
conscience to offer her; they felt no compunction about bargaining and
haggling as to a few pitiful shillings with a music mistress who looked
so very poor, and seemed so glad to work for their paltry pay. The
girl's chief sorrow was, that her father, who to her mind was calculated
to shine in the highest station the world could give, should be a
reprobate and a pauper.

She told him so sometimes, regretfully, tenderly, as she sat by his
side, with her arms twined caressingly about his neck. And there were
times when the strong man would cry aloud over his blighted life, and
the ruin which had fallen upon his youth.

"You're right, Madge," he said sometimes, "you're right, my girl. I
ought to have been something better; I ought to have been, and I might
have been, perhaps, but for one man--but for one base-minded villain,
whose treachery blasted my character, and left me alone in the world to
fight against society. You don't know what it is, Madge, to have to
fight that battle. A man who began life with an honest name, and fair
prospects before him, finds himself cast, by one fatal error, disgraced
and broken, on a pitiless world. Nameless, friendless, characterless, he
has to begin life afresh, with every man's hand against him. He is the
outcast of society. The faces that once looked kindly on him turn away
from him with a frown. The voices that once spoke in his praise are loud
in his disfavour. Driven from every place where once he found a welcome,
the ruined wretch hides himself among strangers, and tries to sink his
hateful identity under a false name. He succeeds, perhaps, for a time,
and is trusted, and being honestly disposed at heart, is honest: but he
cannot long escape from the hateful past. No! In the day and hour when
he is proudest of the new name he has made, and the respect he has won
for himself, some old acquaintance, once a friend, but now an enemy,
falls across his pathway. He is recognized; a cruel voice betrays him.
Every hope that he had cherished is swept away from him. Every good deed
that he has done is denounced as the act of a hypocrite. Because once
sinned he can never do well. _That_ is the world's argument."

"But not the teaching of the gospel," Margaret murmured. "Remember,
father, who it was that said to the guilty woman, Go, and sin no more.'"

"Ay, my girl," James Wentworth answered, bitterly, "but the world would
have said, 'Hence, abandoned creature! go, and sin afresh; for you shall
never be suffered to live an honest life, or herd with honest people.
Repent, and we will laugh at your penitence as a shallow deception.
Weep, and we will cry out upon your tears. Toil and struggle to regain
the eminence from which you have fallen, and when you have nearly
reached the top of that difficult hill, we will band ourselves together
to hurl you back into the black abyss.' That's what the _world_ says to
the sinner, Margaret, my girl. I don't know much of the gospel; I have
never read it since I was a boy, and used to read long chapters aloud to
my mother, on quiet Sunday evenings; I can see the little old-fashioned
parlour now as I speak of that time; I can hear the ticking of the
eight-day clock, and I can see my mother's fond eyes looking up at me
every now and then. But I don't know much about the gospel now; and
when, you, poor child, try to read it to me, there's some devil rises in
my breast, and shuts my ears against the words. I don't know the gospel,
but I _do_ know the world. The laws of society are inflexible, Madge;
there is no forgiveness for a man who is once found out. He may commit
any crime in the calendar, so long as his crimes are profitable, and he
is content to share his profits with his neighbours. But he mustn't be
found out."

Upon the 16th of August, 1850, the day on which Sampson Wilmot, the
banker's clerk, was to start for Southampton, James Wentworth spent the
morning in his daughter's humble little sitting-room, and sat smoking by
the open window, while Margaret worked beside a table near him.

The father sat with his long clay pipe in his mouth, watching his
daughter's fair face as she bent over the work upon her knee.

The room was neatly kept, but poorly furnished, with that old-fashioned
spindle-legged furniture which seems peculiar to lodging-houses. Yet the
little sitting-room had an aspect of simple rustic prettiness, which is
almost pleasanter to look at than fine furniture. There were
pictures,--simple water-colour sketches,--and cheap engravings on the
walls, and a bunch of flowers on the table, and between the muslin
curtains that shadowed the window you saw the branches of the sycamores
waving in the summer wind.

James Wentworth had once been a handsome man. It was impossible to look
at him and not perceive as much as that. He might, indeed, have been
handsome still, but for the moody defiance in his eyes, but for the
half-contemptuous curve of his finely-moulded upper lip.

He was about fifty-three years of age, and his hair was grey, but this
grey hair did not impart a look of age to his appearance. His erect
figure, the carriage of his head, his dashing, nay, almost swaggering
walk, all belonged to a man in the prime of middle age. He wore a beard
and thick moustache of grizzled auburn. His nose was aquiline, his
forehead high and square, his chin massive. The form of his head and
face denoted force of intellect. His long, muscular limbs gave evidence
of great physical power. Even the tones of his voice, and his manner of
speaking, betokened a strength of will that verged upon obstinacy.

A dangerous man to offend! A relentless and determined man; not easily
to be diverted from any purpose, however long the time between the
formation of his resolve and the opportunity of carrying it into
execution.

As he sat now watching his daughter at her work, the shadows of black
thoughts darkened his brow, and spread a sombre gloom over his face.

And yet the picture before him could have scarcely been unpleasing to
the most fastidious eye. The girl's face, drooping over her work, was
very fair. The features were delicate and statuesque in their form; the
large hazel eyes were very beautiful--all the more beautiful, perhaps,
because of a soft melancholy that subdued their natural brightness; the
smooth brown hair rippling upon the white forehead, which was low and
broad, was of a colour which a duchess might have envied, or an empress
tried to imitate with subtle dyes compounded by court chemists. The
girl's figure, tall, slender, and flexible, imparted grace and beauty to
a shabby cotton dress and linen collar, that many a maid-servant would
have disdained to wear; and the foot visible below the scanty skirt was
slim and arched as the foot of an Arab chief.

There was something in Margaret Wentworth's face, some shade of
expression, vague and transitory in its nature, that bore a likeness to
her father; but the likeness was a very faint one, and it was from her
mother that the girl had inherited her beauty.

She had inherited her mother's nature also: but mingled with that soft
and womanly disposition there was much of the father's determination,
much of the strong man's force of intellect and resolute will.

A beautiful woman--an amiable woman; but a woman whose resentment for a
great wrong could be deep and lasting.

"Madge," said James Wentworth, throwing his pipe aside, and looking full
at his daughter, "I sit and watch you sometimes till I begin to wonder
at you. You seem contented and most happy, though the monotonous life
you lead would drive some women mad. Have you no ambition, girl?"

"Plenty, father," she answered, lifting her eyes from her work, and
looking at him mournfully; "plenty--for you."

The man shrugged his shoulders, and sighed heavily.

"It's too late for that, my girl," he said; "the day is past--the day is
past and gone--and the chance gone with it. You know how I've striven,
and worked, and struggled; and how I've seen my poor schemes crushed
when I had built them up with more patience than perhaps man ever built
before. You've been a good girl, Margaret--a noble girl; and you've been
true to me alike in joy and sorrow--the joy's been little enough beside
the sorrow, poor child--but you've borne it all; you've endured it all.
You've been the truest woman that was ever born upon this earth, to my
thinking; but there's one thing in which you've been unlike the rest of
your sex."

"And what's that, father?"

"You've shown no curiosity. You've seen me knocked down and disgraced
wherever I tried to get a footing; you've seen me try first one trade
and then another, and fail in every one of them. You've seen me a clerk
in a merchant's office; an actor; an author; a common labourer, working
for a daily wage; and you've seen ruin overtake me whichever way I've
turned. You've seen all this, and suffered from it; but you've never
asked me why it has been so. You've never sought to discover the secret
of my life."

The tears welled up to the girl's eyes as her father spoke.

"If I have not done so, dear father," she answered, gently, "it has been
because I knew your secret must be a painful one. I have lain awake
night after night, wondering what was the cause of the blight that has
been upon you and all you have done. But why should I ask you questions
that you could not answer without pain? I have heard people say cruel
things of you; but they have never said them twice in my hearing." Her
eyes flashed through a veil of tears as she spoke. "Oh, father,--dearest
father!" she cried, suddenly throwing aside her work, and dropping on
her knees beside the man's chair, "I do not ask for your confidence if
it is painful to you to give it; I only want your love. But believe
this, father,--always believe this,--that, whether you trust me or not,
there is nothing upon this earth strong enough to turn my heart from
you."

She placed her hand in her father's as she spoke, and he grasped it so
tightly that her pale face grew crimson with the pain.

"Are you sure of that, Madge?" he asked, bending his head to look more
closely in her earnest face.

"I am quite sure, father."

"Nothing can tear your heart from me?"

"Nothing in this world."

"What if I am not worthy of your love?"

"I cannot stop to think of that, father. Love is not mete out in strict
proportion to the merits of those we love. If it were, there would be no
difference between love and justice."

James Wentworth laughed sneeringly.

"There is little enough difference as it is, perhaps," he said; "they're
both blind. Well, Madge," he added, in a more serious tone, "you're a
generous-minded, noble-spirited girl, and I believe you do love me. I
fancy that if you never asked the secret of my life, you can guess it
pretty closely, eh?"

He looked searchingly at the girl's face. She hung her head, but did not
answer him.

"You can guess the secret, can't you, Madge? Don't be afraid to speak,
girl."

"I fear I can guess it, father dear," she murmured in a low voice.

"Speak out, then."

"I am afraid the reason you have never prospered--the reason that so
many are against you--is that you once did something wrong, very long
ago, when you were young and reckless, and scarcely knew the nature of
your own act; and that now, though you are truly penitent and sorry, and
have long wished to lead an altered life, the world won't forget or
forgive that old wrong. Is it so, father?"

"It is, Margaret. You've guessed right enough, child, except that you've
omitted one fact. The wrong I did was done for the sake of another. I
was tempted to do it by another. I made no profit by it myself, and I
never hoped to make any. But when detection came, it was upon _me_ that
the disgrace and ruin fell; while the man for whom I had done wrong--the
man who had made me his tool--turned his back upon me, and refused to
utter one word in my justification, though he was in no danger himself,
and the lightest word from his lips might have saved me. That was a hard
case, wasn't it, Madge?"

"Hard!" cried the girl, with her nostrils quivering and her hands
clenched; "it was cruel, dastardly, infamous!"

"From that day, Margaret, I was a ruined man. The brand of society was
upon me. The world would not let me live honestly, and the love of life
was too strong in me to let me face death. I tried to live dishonestly,
and I led a wild, rackety, dare-devil kind of a life, amongst men who
found they had a skilful tool, and knew how to use me. They did use me
to their heart's content, and left me in the lurch when danger came. I
was arrested for forgery, tried, found guilty, and transported for life.
Don't flinch, girl! don't turn so white! You must have heard something
of this whispered and hinted at often enough before to-day. You may as
well know the whole truth. I was transported, for life, Madge; and for
thirteen years I toiled amongst the wretched, guilty slaves in Norfolk
Island--that was the favourite place in those days for such as me--and
at the end of that time, my conduct having been approved of by my
gaolers, the governor sent for me, gave me a good-service certificate,
and I went into a counting-house and served as a clerk. But I got a kind
of fever in my blood, and night and day I only thought of one thing, and
that was my chance of escape. I did escape,--never you mind how, that's
a long story,--and I got back to England, a free man; a free man, Madge,
_I_ thought; but the world soon told me another story. I was a felon, a
gaol-bird; and I was never more to lift my head amongst honest people. I
couldn't bear it, Madge, my girl. Perhaps a better man might have
persevered in spite of all till he conquered the world's prejudice. But
_I_ couldn't. I sank under my trials, and fell lower and lower. And for
every disgrace that has ever fallen upon me--for every sorrow I have
ever suffered--for every sin I have ever committed--I look to one man as
the cause."

Margaret Wentworth had risen to her feet. She stood before her father
now, pale and breathless, with her lips parted, and her bosom heaving.

"Tell me his name, father," she whispered; "tell me that man's name."

"Why do you want to know his name, Madge?"

"Never mind why, father. Tell it to me--tell it!"

She stamped her foot in the vehemence of her passion.

"Tell me his name, father," she repeated, impatiently.

"His name is Henry Dunbar," James Wentworth answered, "and he is the son
of a rich banker. I saw his father's death in the paper last March. His
uncle died ten years ago, and he will inherit the fortunes of both
father and uncle. The world has smiled upon him. He has never suffered
for that one false step in life, which brought such ruin upon me. He
will come home from India now, I dare say, and the world will be under
his feet. He will be worth a million of money, I should fancy; curse
him! If my wishes could be accomplished, every guinea he possesses would
be a separate scorpion to sting and to torture him."

"Henry Dunbar," whispered Margaret to herself--"Henry Dunbar. I will not
forget that name."

CHAPTER III.

THE MEETING AT THE RAILWAY STATION.

When the hands of the little clock in Margaret's sitting-room pointed to
five minutes before three, James Wentworth rose from his lounging
attitude in the easy-chair, and took his hat from a side-table.

"Are you going out, father?" the girl asked.

"Yes, Madge; I'm going up to London. It don't do for me to sit still too
long. Bad thoughts come fast enough at any time; but they come fastest
when a fellow sits twirling his thumbs. Don't look so frightened, Madge;
I'm not going to do any harm. I'm only going to look about me. I may
fall in with a bit of luck, perhaps; no matter what, if it puts a few
shillings into my pocket."

"I'd rather you stayed at home, father dear," Margaret said, gently.

"I dare say you would, child. But I tell you, I can't. I _can't_ sit
quiet this afternoon. I've been talking of things that always seem to
set my brain on fire. No harm shall come of my going away, girl; I
promise you that. The worst I shall do is to sit in a tavern parlour,
drink a glass of gin-and-water, and read the papers. There's no crime in
that, is there, Madge?"

His daughter smiled as she tried to arrange the shabby velvet collar of
his threadbare coat.

"No, father dear," she said; "and I'm sure I always wish you to enjoy
yourself. But you'll come home soon, won't you?"

"What do you call 'soon,' my lass?"

"Before ten o'clock. My day's work will be all over long before that,
and I'll try and get something nice for your supper."

"Very well, then, I'll be back by ten o'clock to-night. There's my hand
upon it."

He gave Margaret his hand, kissed her smooth cheeks, took his cane from
a corner of the room, and then went out.

His daughter watched him from the open window as he walked up the narrow
lane, amongst the groups of children gathered every here and there upon
the dusty pathway.

"Heaven have pity upon him, and keep him from sin!" murmured Margaret
Wentworth, clasping her hands, and with her eyes still following the
retreating figure.

James Wentworth jingled the money in his waistcoat-pocket as he walked
towards the railway station. He had very little; a couple of sixpences
and a few halfpence. Just about enough to pay for a second-class return
ticket, and for his glass of gin-and-water at a London tavern.

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