My Novel - Volume 12

Excerpt

CHAPTER XV.

The entrance of a servant, announcing a name which Harley, in the absorption of his gloomy revery, did not hear, was followed by that of a person on whom he lifted his eyes in the cold and haughty surprise with which a man much occupied greets and rebukes the intrusion of an unwelcome stranger.

"It is so long since your Lordship has seen me," said the visitor, with mild dignity, "that I cannot wonder you do not recognize my person, and have forgotten my name."

"Sir," answered Harley, with an impatient rudeness, ill in harmony with the urbanity for which he was usually distinguished,—"sir, your person is strange to me, and your name I did not hear; but, at all events, I am not now at leisure to attend to you. Excuse my plainness."

"Yet pardon me if I still linger. My name is Dale. I was formerly curate at Lansmere; and I would speak to your Lordship in the name and the memory of one once dear to you,—Leonora Avenel."

HARLEY (after a short pause).—"Sir, I cannot conjecture your business.
But be seated. I remember you now, though years have altered both, and
I have since heard much in your favour from Leonard Fairfield. Still let
me pray, that you will be brief."

MR. DALE.—-"May I assume at once that you have divined the parentage of the young man you call Fairfield? When I listened to his grateful praises of your beneficence, and marked with melancholy pleasure the reverence in which he holds you, my heart swelled within me. I acknowledged the mysterious force of nature."

HARLEY.—-"Force of nature! You talk in riddles."

MR. DALE (indignantly).—"Oh, my Lord, how can you so disguise your better self? Surely in Leonard Fairfield you have long since recognized the son of Nora Avenel?"

Harley passed his hand over his face. "Ah," thought he, "she lived to bear a son then,—a son to Egerton! Leonard is that son. I should have known it by the likeness, by the fond foolish impulse that moved me to him. This is why he confided to me these fearful memoirs. He seeks his father,—he shall find him."

MR. DALE (mistaking the cause of Harley's silence).—"I honour your compunction, my Lord. Oh, let your heart and your conscience continue to speak to your worldly pride."

HARLEY.—"My compunction, heart, conscience! Mr. Dale, you insult me!"

MR. DALE (sternly).—-"Not so; I am fulfilling my mission, which bids me rebuke the sinner. Leonora Avenel speaks in me, and commands the guilty father to acknowledge the innocent child!"

Harley half rose, and his eyes literally flashed fire; but he calmed his anger into irony. "Ha!" said he, with a sarcastic smile, "so you suppose that I was the perfidious seducer of Nora Avenel,—that I am the callous father of the child who came into the world without a name. Very well, sir, taking these assumptions for granted, what is it you demand from me on behalf of this young man?"

"I ask from you his happiness," replied Mr. Dale, imploringly; and yielding to the compassion with which Leonard inspired him, and persuaded that Lord L'Estrange felt a father's love for the boy whom he had saved from the whirlpool of London, and guided to safety and honourable independence, he here, with simple eloquence, narrated all Leonard's feelings for Helen,—his silent fidelity to her image, though a child's, his love when he again beheld her as a woman, the modest fears which the parson himself had combated, the recommendation that Mr....