A Secret Inheritance (Volume 2 of 3)

  III.

  I assume that you are now familiar with the story of Gabriel Carew'slife up to the point, or within a few months, of his marriage withLauretta, and that you have formed some opinion of the differentpersons with whom he came in contact in Nerac. Outside Nerac there wasonly one person who can be said to have been interested in his fate;this was his mother's nurse, Mrs. Fortress, and you must be deeplyimpressed by the part she played in the youthful life of GabrielCarew. Of her I shall have to speak in due course.

  I transport you in fancy to Nerac, my dear Max, where I have been notvery long ago, and where I conversed with old people who to this dayremember Gabriel Carew and his sweet wife Lauretta, whom he broughtwith him to England some little time after their marriage. It is notlikely that the incidents in connection with Gabriel Carew and hiswife will be forgotten during this generation or the next in thatloveliest of villages.

  When you laid aside Carew's manuscript he had received the sanction ofLauretta's mother to his engagement with the sweet maid, and the goodwoman had given her children her blessing. Thereafter Gabriel Carewwrote: "These are my last written words in the record I have kept.From this day I commence a new life." He kept his word with respect tohis resolve not to add another word to the record. He sealed it up anddeposited it in his desk; and it is my belief that from that day henever read a line of its contents.

  We are, then, my dear Max, in Nerac, you and I in spirit, in theholiday time of the open courtship of Gabriel Carew and Lauretta.Carew is occupying the house of which it was his intention to makeLauretta the mistress, and there are residing in it, besides theordinary servants, Martin Hartog, the gardener, and his daughter, withwhom, from Carew's record, Emilius was supposed to be carrying on anintrigue of a secret and discreditable nature. It is evident, from themanner in which Carew referred to it, that he considered itdishonourable. The name of this girl was Patricia.

  There remain to be mentioned, as characters in the drama then beingplayed, Doctor Louis, Eric, and Father Daniel.

  The crimes of the two ruffians who had attempted to enter DoctorLouis's house remained for long fresh in the memories of thevillagers. They were both dead, one murdered, the other executed for adeed of which only one person in Nerac had an uneasy sense of hisinnocence--Father Daniel. The good priest, having received from theunfortunate man a full account of his life from childhood, journeyedshortly afterwards to the village in which he had been born and wasbest known, for the purpose of making inquiries into its truth. Hefound it verified in every particular, and he learnt, moreover, thatalthough the hunchback had been frequently in trouble, it was ratherfrom sheer wretchedness and poverty than from any natural brutality ofdisposition that he had drifted into crime. It stood to his creditthat Father Daniel could trace to him no acts of cruel violence;indeed, the priest succeeded in bringing to light two or threecircumstances in the hunchback's career which spoke well for hishumanity, one of them being that he was kind to his bedridden mother.Father Daniel returned to Nerac much shaken by the reflection that inthis man's case justice had been in error. But if this were so, if thehunchback were innocent, upon whom to fix the guilt? A sadness weighedupon the good priest's heart as he went about his daily duties, andgazed upon his flock with an awful suspicion in his mind that therewas a murderer among them, for whose crime an innocent man had beenexecuted.

  Gabriel Carew was happy. The gloom of his early life, which threatenedto cast dark shadows over all his days, seemed banished for ever. Hewas liked and respected in the village in which he had found hishappiness; his charities caused men and women to hold him in somethinglike affectionate regard; he was Father Daniel's friend, and no caseof suffering or poverty was mentioned to him which he was not ready torelieve; in Doctor Louis's home he held an honoured place; and he wasloved by a good and pure woman, who had consented to link her fatewith his. Surely in this prospect there was nothing that could beproductive of aught but good.

  The sweetness and harmony of the time, however, were soon to bedisturbed. After a few weeks of happiness, Gabriel Carew began to betroubled. In his heart he had no love for the twin brothers, Eric andEmilius; he believed them to be light-minded and unscrupulous, nay,more, he believed them to be treacherous in their dealings with bothmen and women. These evil qualities, he had decided with himself, theyhad inherited from their father, Silvain, whose conduct towards hisunhappy brother Kristel had excited Gabriel Carew's strong abhorrence.As is shown in the comments he makes in his record, all his sympathywas with Kristel, and he had contracted a passionate antipathy againstSilvain, whom he believed to be guilty of the blackest treachery inhis dealings with Avicia. This antipathy he now transferred toSilvain's sons, Eric and Emilius, and they needed to be angels, notmen, to overcome it.

  Not that they tried to win Carew's good opinion. Although his feelingsfor them were not openly expressed, they made themselves felt in theconsciousness of these twin brothers, who instinctively recognisedthat Gabriel Carew was their enemy. Therefore they held off from him,and repaid him quietly in kind. But this was a matter solely andentirely between themselves and known only to themselves. The threemen knew what deep pain and grief it would cause not only Doctor Louisand his wife, but the gentle Lauretta, to learn that they were inenmity with each other, and one and all were animated by the samedesire to keep this antagonism from the knowledge of the family. Thiswas, indeed, a tacit understanding between them, and it was sothoroughly carried out that no member of Doctor Louis's familysuspected it; and neither was it suspected in the village. To alloutward appearance Gabriel Carew and Eric and Emilius were friends.

  It was not the brothers but Carew who, in the first instance, was toblame. He was the originator and the creator of the trouble, for it isscarcely to be doubted that had he held out the hand of a frankfriendship to them, they would have accepted it, even though theiracceptance needed some sacrifice on their parts. The reason for thisqualification will be apparent to you later on in the story, and youwill then also understand why I do not reveal certain circumstancesrespecting the affection of Eric and Emilius for Martin Hartog'sdaughter, Patricia, and for the female members of the family of DoctorLouis. It would be anticipating events. I am relating the story in theorder in which it progressed, and, so far as my knowledge of it goes,according to the sequence of time.

  Certainly the dominant cause of Gabriel Carew's hatred for thebrothers sprang from his jealousy of them with respect to Lauretta.They and she had been friends from childhood, and they were regardedby Doctor Louis and his wife as members of their family. This initself was sufficient to inflame so exacting a lover as Carew. Heinterpreted every innocent little familiarity to their disadvantage,and magnified trifles inordinately. They saw his sufferings and were,perhaps, somewhat scornful of them. He had already shown them how deepwas his hatred of them, and they not unnaturally resented it. Afterall, he was a stranger in Nerac, a come-by-chance visitor, who hadusurped the place which might have been occupied by one of them hadthe winds been fair. Instead of being overbearing and arrogant heshould have been gracious and conciliating. It was undoubtedly hisduty to be courteous and mannerly from the first day of theiracquaintance; instead of which he had, before he saw them, contracteda dislike for them which he had allowed to swell to monstrous andunjustifiable proportions.

  Gabriel Carew, however, justified himself to himself, and it may beat once conceded that he had grounds for his feelings which were tohim--and would likely have been to some other men--sufficient. Thesemay now be set forth.

  When a lover's suspicious and jealous nature is aroused it does notfrom that moment sleep. There is no rest, no repose for it. If itrequire opportunities for confirmation or for the infliction ofself-suffering, it is never difficult to find them. Imagination stepsin and supplies the place of fact. Every hour is a torture; everyinnocent look and smile is brooded over in secret. A most prolific,unreasonable, and cruel breeder of shadows is jealousy, and the evilof it is that it breeds in secret.

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sp; Gabriel Carew set himself to watch, and from the keen observance of anature so thorough and intense as his nothing could escape. He was anunseen witness of other interviews between Patricia Hartog andEmilius; and not only of interviews between her and Emilius butbetween her and Eric. He formed his conclusions. The brothers wereplaying false to each other, and the girl was playing false with both.This was of little account; he had no more than a passing interest inPatricia, and although at one time he had some kind of intention ofinforming Martin Hartog of these secret interviews, and placing thefather on his guard--for the gardener seemed to be quite unaware thatan intrigue was going on--he relinquished the intention, saying thatit was no affair of his. But it confirmed the impressions he hadformed of the character of Eric and Emilius, and it strengthened himin his determination to allow no intercourse between them and thewoman he loved.

  An additional torture was in store for him, and it fell upon him likea thunderbolt. One day he saw Emilius and Lauretta walking in thewoods, talking earnestly and confidentially together. His bloodboiled; his heart beat so violently that he could scarcely distinguishsurrounding objects. So violent was his agitation that it was manyminutes before he recovered himself, and then Lauretta and Emilius hadpassed out of sight. He went home in a wild fury of despair.

  He had not been near enough to hear one word of the conversation, buttheir attitude was to him confirmation of his jealous suspicion thatthe young man was endeavouring to supplant him in Lauretta'saffections. In the evening he saw Lauretta in her home, and shenoticed a change in him.

  "Are you ill, Gabriel?" she asked.

  "No," he replied, "I am quite well. What should make me otherwise?"

  The bitterness in his voice surprised her, and she insisted that heshould seek repose. "To get me out of the way," he thought; and then,gazing into her solicitous and innocent eyes, he mutely reproachedhimself for doubting her. No, it was not she who was to blame; she wasstill his, she was still true to him; but how easy was it for a friendso close to her as Emilius to instil into her trustful heart evilreports against himself! "That is the first step," he thought. "Whatmust follow is simple. These men, these villains, are capable of anytreachery. Honour is a stranger to their scheming natures. How shall Iact? To meet them openly, to accuse them openly, may be my ruin.They are too firmly fixed in the affections of Doctor Louis and hiswife--they are too firmly fixed in the affections of even Laurettaherself--for me to hope to expose them upon evidence so slender. Notslender to me, but to them. These treacherous brothers are conspiringsecretly against me. I will meet them with their own weapons. Secrecyfor secrecy. I will wait and watch till I have the strongest proofagainst them, and then I will expose their true characters to DoctorLouis and Lauretta."

  Having thus resolved, he was not the man to swerve from the plan helaid down. The nightly vigils he had kept in his young life served himnow, and it seemed as if he could do without sleep. The stealthymeetings between Patricia and the brothers continued, and before longhe saw Eric and Lauretta in the woods together. In his espionage hewas always careful not to approach near enough to bring discovery uponhimself.

  In an indirect manner, as though it was a matter which he deemed ofslight importance, he questioned Lauretta as to her walks in the woodswith Eric and Emilius.

  "Yes," she said artlessly, "we sometimes meet there."

  "By accident?" asked Gabriel Carew.

  "Not always by accident," replied Lauretta. "Remember, Gabriel, Ericand Emilius are as my brothers, and if they have a secret----" Andthen she blushed, grew confused, and paused.

  These signs were poisoned food indeed to Carew, but he did not betrayhimself.

  "Have they a secret?" he asked, with assumed carelessness.

  "It was wrong of me to speak," said Lauretta, "after my promise to saynothing to a single soul in the village."

  "And most especially," said Carew, hitting the mark, "to me."

  She grew more confused. "Do not press me, Gabriel."

  "Only," he continued, with slight persistence, "that it must be aheart secret."

  She was silent, and he dropped the subject.

  From the interchange of these few words he extracted the mostexquisite torture. There was, then, between Lauretta and the brothersa secret of the heart, known only to themselves, to be revealed tonone, and to him, Gabriel Carew, to whom the young girl was affianced,least of all. It must be well understood, in this explanation of whatwas occurring in the lives of these young people at that momentousperiod, that Gabriel Carew never once suspected that Lauretta wasfalse to him. His great fear was that Eric and Emilius were workingwarily against him, and were cunningly fabricating some kind ofevidence in his disfavour which would rob him of Lauretta's love. Theywere conspiring to this end, to the destruction of his happiness, andthey were waiting for the hour to strike the fatal blow. Well, it wasfor him to strike first. His love for Lauretta was so all-absorbingthat all other considerations--however serious the direct or indirectconsequences of them--sank into utter insignificance by the side ofit. He did not allow it to weigh against Lauretta that she appeared tobe in collusion with Eric and Emilius, and to be favouring theirschemes. Her nature was so guileless and unsuspecting that she couldbe easily led and deceived by friends in whom she placed a trust. Itwas this that strengthened Carew in his resolve not to rudely make theattempt to open her eyes to the perfidy of Eric and Emilius. She wouldhave been incredulous, and the arguments he should use against hisenemies might be turned against himself. Therefore he adhered to theline of action he had marked out. He waited, and watched, andsuffered. Meanwhile, the day appointed for his union with Lauretta wasapproaching.