Eveline Mandeville The Horse Thief Rival

CHAPTER XI.

THE IN­TER­VIEW--THE PLOT--THE AB­DUC­TION.

Be­fore pro­ceed­ing to ex­trem­ities, Duf­fel re­solved to try the ef­fect of smooth words and per­sua­sive elo­quence on the mind of Eve­line. For this pur­pose he called up­on her with the ex­press in­ten­tion of urg­ing his claims to her hand in a per­son­al in­ter­view. She re­ceived him, as she had been ac­cus­tomed to do of late, with cold po­lite­ness. Had he been a re­al lover, ac­tu­at­ed by pure mo­tives, he would have been de­terred from pros­ecut­ing his suit, or even men­tion­ing the ob­ject of his vis­it, for he could not but per­ceive that he was not warm­ly re­ceived. But he had re­solved up­on a course of ac­tion, and was de­ter­mined that noth­ing should in­flu­ence him to turn aside from the line of con­duct he had marked out for him­self. Af­ter a lit­tle con­ver­sa­tion on com­mon­place mat­ters, he at­tempt­ed to in­tro­duce the sub­ject up­per­most in his thoughts, but find­ing no en­cour­age­ment, ad­dressed his com­pan­ion thus:

“Why this cold­ness, Miss Man­dev­ille? would that I dared to call you, Eve­line! You have ears for oth­ers, for me you have none; you have smiles for oth­ers, but on me you nev­er be­stow a glad­den­ing look; and yet, of all the world, I most long for a smile, for the priv­ilege to talk to you as a friend.”

“I hope I have al­ways treat­ed you with kind­ness; it has cer­tain­ly been my in­ten­tion to do so.”

“No, Miss Man­dev­ille, not with _kind­ness_, par­don me, but it has on­ly been with cold ci­vil­ity. I am sure that if you on­ly knew how my heart yearns for a gen­tle and hope­ful word from your adored lips, how it bleeds and re­coils with­in my bo­som when your cold words pierce it as with an ar­row, you would cer­tain­ly re­lent.”

“The heart, Mr. Duf­fel, is not mas­ter of its own emo­tions; they come un­bid­den of­ten, and not un­fre­quent­ly re­main when we would glad­ly have them de­part.”

“May I trust that in those words there is hope for me--that you would re­al­ly ban­ish old mem­ories and old prej­udices, and re­ceive me as my heart con­tin­ual­ly pleads to be re­ceived?”

“I am not aware that any such changes as those of which you speak have tak­en place in my mind or mem­ory. I have no old and dear mem­ories that I wish to ban­ish; and I be­lieve my feel­ings to­ward you have not ma­te­ri­al­ly changed.”

“Oh, what crush­ing words! Sure­ly your heart can­not be so hard as to drive me away in de­spair, when my spir­it is bleed­ing at the wounds your cru­el words have made.”

“As I was say­ing, when you were so im­petu­ous as to in­ter­rupt me, a few mo­ments ago, we can­not bid our feel­ings go and come as we would. The heart will not love this one or that, at the dic­tates of cold, cal­cu­lat­ing in­tel­lect, and the more it is urged to do so, the far­ther it is from yield­ing, es­pe­cial­ly when harsh means or com­mands are used to bend it. If you have per­mit­ted your feel­ings to rest up­on me as you say they do, it is your mis­for­tune, not my fault; and be­cause I can­not re­cip­ro­cate your feel­ings and wish­es, you have no right to task me with cru­el­ty or hard-​heart­ed­ness; and I hope you will not for­get this in any fu­ture re­marks you may have to make on the sub­ject.”

“Par­don me, my dear Miss Man­dev­ille, if, in the bit­ter­ness of my dis­ap­point­ment, I have spo­ken harsh or un­guard­ed words. When we are in deep dis­tress and anx­iety we are apt to say and do things that we should not. It was far­thest from my de­sign to wound your gen­tle heart, or say one un­gen­er­ous word to you, the best beloved of my friends. Should you ev­er have the mis­for­tune to en­dure the pangs of un­re­quit­ed love, which may Heav­en for­bid, you will know how to feel for me, and to ap­pre­ci­ate my sit­ua­tion.”

“Per­haps it would be well for you to cease con­vers­ing on a sub­ject so painful.”

“Ah, there it is. Great sor­rows are up­per­most in the mind, and though ev­ery word brings a tear to the eye, and sends a pang to the heart, we _must_ talk about them.”

“I was al­ways im­pressed with the idea that such griefs as lay hold up­on the soul, were too deep for ut­ter­ance.”

“Yes, when the last ray of hope is gone, and the night of de­spair set­tles up­on the soul. But, oh, must I go out in­to that unil­lumed dark­ness, for­ev­er shut out from light and hope? Is there no hope that I may some day call you more than friend? that in time, even though it be years in the fu­ture, I may be able to awak­en emo­tions of ten­der­ness in your heart?”

“I think I have an­swered that ques­tion of­ten enough and plain enough. I do not know why you wish to put me to the un­pleas­ant ne­ces­si­ty of re­peat­ing that an­swer. But if I have, by any mis­con­cep­tion of the use of words, and the mean­ing of lan­guage, failed to be suf­fi­cient­ly def­inite in my speech, please now, once for all, un­der­stand me dis­tinct­ly. I can­not bid you hope for any change in my feel­ings to­ward you so far as love is con­cerned. I nev­er can look up­on you as an ac­cept­ed suit­or for my hand, nor will it ev­er be in my pow­er to love you.”

“Per­haps you may think dif­fer­ent­ly here­after.”

“Nev­er!”

“Then my pur­pose is fixed. You shall not wed an­oth­er! You, too, shall feel what it is to be dis­ap­point­ed. You love Charles Hadley. Ah, I knew you did! but mark me, you shall nev­er wed him--_nev­er_! I would soon­er im­brue my hands in his blood, than that you should! But he is a guilty cul­prit, a wan­der­ing fugi­tive from jus­tice, and will nev­er dare re­turn.”

“Mr. Duf­fel, I have hereto­fore borne your per­se­cu­tions with pa­tience; I will do so no longer. _You_, sir, are more guilty this day than Charles Hadley. Look at the blood spots on your hand.”

"What! ha! said the vil­lain, tak­en aback by the bold re­mark.

“Yes, you may well flush and turn pale when your crimes stare you in the face!”

“Crimes? Who dares to ac­cuse me of crimes?”

“I do, sir!”

“You will re­pent it, madam.”

“I do not fear your threats any more than I re­gard your hyp­ocrit­ical protes­ta­tions of es­teem.”

“I will make you fear, then,” and with the words he left the house in a rage.

While to­geth­er, Eve­line and Duf­fel were both de­fi­ant, though they felt in­ter­nal fear of each oth­er, she at his threats, and he in alarm lest she should know some­thing of his se­cret vil­lainies; and when alone each gave way to the feel­ings up­per­most in the mind; she af­ter this man­ner:

“God grant that no harm come to Charles from this wicked plot­ter! And yet I fear he has al­ready con­trived to do him mis­chief. How he was ag­itat­ed when I threw out the ac­cu­sa­tion. Oh, my God! if his hands re­al­ly are stained with in­no­cent blood! Charles is no where to be found; what if he has fall­en by the hands of his en­emy? What a ter­ri­ble sus­pi­cion! Would to Heav­en I knew the truth!”

But the more she thought the more she feared, un­til the sub­ject be­came so painful she tried to ban­ish it from her mind.

In­fu­ri­at­ed and alarmed, Duf­fel raged on this wise when alone:

“It's all over now! this palaver about love and mon­ey! I shall nev­er win my way to the old man's purse in that man­ner; but I'll try my skill at tam­ing that proud, free spir­it! Blast the girl! I won­der if she knows any­thing? But pshaw! what a thought! How could she?--What a fool I was to be so star­tled!--Well she is shrewd, and I give her cred­it for her pen­etra­tion; but she must not be left to sur­mise and pub­lish her sus­pi­cions: I've too much on hand just now to be set up­on by spies; and so the soon­er I get her out of the way the bet­ter. Once in my pow­er I'll see that she tells noth­ing to my hurt.--Oh, but won't I have a glo­ri­ous time!--But enough of an­tic­ipa­tion; I must be up and do­ing lest the cap­tain re­turn and spoil all my cal­cu­la­tions; so now for my pre­cious ras­cals, Bill and Dick--and then!--” And with this he start­ed for the “swamp.”

When Duf­fel reached the place of meet­ing, his ac­com­plices were not there, and he sat him­self down on the trunk of a fall­en tree to ru­mi­nate un­til they should come. As was cus­tom­ary with him un­der such cir­cum­stances, his thoughts com­menced run­ning on schemes of vil­lainy; and he be­came so deeply ab­sorbed in fit­ting out the de­tails of his present all-​ab­sorb­ing op­er­ation, as to be scarce­ly con­scious of any­thing else, ei­ther as re­gard­ed time or place. At length his cor­ru­gat­ed brow re­laxed, a kind of sar­don­ic smile of joy spread over his coun­te­nance, and he ex­claimed in glee­ful ela­tion of spir­it:

“I have it! By Jove! it's the crown­ing cap on the cli­max! I have been afraid of the con­se­quences un­til now, for I know old Man­dev­ille will raise earth and hell when he finds his daugh­ter is miss­ing. But now I have him! What a glo­ri­ous idea! But it is a won­der I had not thought of it be­fore. Well, it will not be the first time a dead man has served a good pur­pose!”

At this mo­ment Bill and Dick made their ap­pear­ance, and he im­me­di­ate­ly opened busi­ness with them.

“Well, you are here at last! I have been wait­ing on you this half-​hour!”

“If it please your hon­or we are here at the ap­point­ed time. You must have some ur­gent busi­ness to be done that you are in such haste?”

“I have. The time has come that I shall need your ser­vice in the mat­ter on hand. Miss Man­dev­ille is in the habit of vis­it­ing the spot I point­ed out to you, dai­ly. To-​mor­row her fa­ther is go­ing to C---- and there will be no one at home but the daugh­ter and the house girl. You must be in wait­ing as agreed up­on. You, Bill, must cau­tious­ly ap­proach her and rep­re­sent your­self as the friend of Hadley, for whom you must be the bear­er of a mes­sage. If that does not suc­ceed, then you must have re­course to the oth­er means, as al­ready ar­ranged. So soon as you get her fair­ly in your pos­ses­sion and se­cured, bear her to the cave, with all dis­patch, by the se­cret route. I will meet you on the way.”

“All right. We un­der­stand the plan, and will take good care that it be prop­er­ly car­ried out; but af­ter­ward we shall ex­pect your aid, or at least your non-​in­ter­fer­ence in a lit­tle af­fair of our own.”

“Oh, cer­tain­ly. Go ahead; but don't make a fuss about it. Who is she?”

“Oh, dang the wom­en, we don't med­dle with them; it is with Du­val that we have an ac­count to set­tle.”

“Be care­ful there! Re­mem­ber your oath to the or­der!”

“We do; but he is a traitor, and if you ex­pect us to work for you in such life-​tak­ing busi­ness as we have late­ly been en­gaged in, you must let us have our way in this in­stance.”

“Very well; if you will be cau­tious and com­mit no oth­ers but your­selves I shall not op­pose you.”

“We'll take care on that point.”

“Re­mem­ber to-​mor­row.”

“Nev­er fear. She shall be yours be­fore the set­ting of the sun.”

Again the vil­lains part­ed; but Duf­fel was not well pleased with the de­mand the ruf­fi­ans had made of him, un­til a new thought struck him, and he said to him­self:

“That will do. I will get all I want out of them; and then to save trou­ble and _to be sure of my own se­cret_, I will have them ar­raigned be­fore the Or­der for killing a mem­ber, and they shall suf­fer the penal­ty, _death_. I will then be free from fear. Cap­ital! Ev­ery­thing is work­ing to suit my pur­pos­es!”

Ex­ult­ing wretch! would to heav­en the vengeance of an an­gry God could over­take you, ere your schemes of fiendish crimes and dark mur­ders are com­plet­ed. But, alas for the in­no­cent, crime is yet in the as­cen­dant!

* * * * *

In a pleas­ant grove, a part of the old for­est yet stand­ing near to the dwelling of the Man­dev­illes, sat Eve­line, be­neath the shade of a friend­ly tree, in a spot ren­dered sa­cred to her by en­dear­ing as­so­ci­ations and holy mem­ories, mus­ing on the past with heart cheer­ing plea­sure, on the present with sad­ness, and the fu­ture with hope. So ab­sorbed had she be­come in her own med­ita­tions, time fled un­heed­ed, and the world was for­got­ten--for­got­ten all, save on­ly two be­ings, the loved and ab­sent Charles--with whose well-​be­ing or mis­for­tunes her own fate was strange­ly blend­ed--and her­self; but of her­self in the sin­gle light in which the mys­te­ri­ous ties of love unit­ed her to him.

How long she had thus re­mained ab­sorbed in her own re­flec­tions she knew not, when her at­ten­tion was drawn from her own thoughts to out­ward things by the ap­proach of a very neat­ly dressed gen­tle­man, who, ad­dress­ing her in the most re­spect­ful man­ner, in­quired:

“Does Mr. Man­dev­ille live in this vicin­ity?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, at the same time ris­ing to her feet. “That is his res­idence yon­der, which you can just dis­tin­guish through the sur­round­ing trees.”

“A beau­ti­ful place!--May I be so bold as to in­quire if you know whether I will find him at home to-​day?”

“No, sir, he is not at home.”

“Per­haps I might still pre­sume on your kind­ness, and in­quire if he has not a daugh­ter that is or has been af­flict­ed, and if she is al­ready con­va­les­cent, or is like­ly so to be soon.”

“His daugh­ter has been very sick, but has re­cov­ered.”

“Would she--? But per­haps you do not know her his­to­ry? Has she any friend now ab­sent, from whom she would be pleased to hear, do you know?”

“What is the ob­ject of the ques­tion, sir?”

“I hope you will ex­cuse me, if I should pre­sume too far; but I am the bear­er of a mes­sage from one who es­teems her above all the world be­side, and--”

“How! do you know Charles Hadley?” she in­quired, with deep­ened in­ter­est.

“Ah, I per­ceive you are not un­ac­quaint­ed with the his­to­ry of the young la­dy. Per­haps I am ad­dress­ing Miss Man­dev­ille in per­son?”

“Your sup­po­si­tion is true, my name is Man­dev­ille. But you have not an­swered my ques­tion yet.”

“Par­don me, fair la­dy, for my seem­ing rude ne­glect. Yes, I know Mr. Hadley well, and a bet­ter man does not live. He is my near and dear friend.”

“Do you say so much? Then it is from him you have a mes­sage?”

“It is.”

“Oh! tell me, is he well?”

“He is, but is long­ing to hear from you, to see you, to know that you are still spared by the hand of death.”

“You speak as though he were near. Is it in­deed so?”

“It is, fair la­dy; he awaits your pres­ence, or such word as you may be pleased to send him, a short way from here, in the denser por­tion of the for­est, not wish­ing to transgress your fa­ther's com­mands con­trary to your wish­es, or to ex­pose him­self to the dis­plea­sure of your par­ent, lest it bring trou­ble and dis­qui­et to your own heart. But please read the note he com­mis­sioned me to bear to you; it prob­ably ex­plains the mat­ter bet­ter than I can, as he on­ly con­fid­ed to me such facts as were es­sen­tial­ly nec­es­sary for me to know, in or­der to an in­tel­li­gent per­for­mance of the part he has al­lot­ted to me as his friend.”

Say­ing this he pre­sent­ed a let­ter, which Eve­line re­ceived with a joy-​beam­ing coun­te­nance, and read with a wild­ly-​throb­bing heart. It ran as fol­lows:

"DEAR­EST EVE­LINE: For some weeks past, I have been in a dis­tant city, at the ur­gent call of du­ty, to at­tend the bed­side of a sick moth­er. I left while you were yet very ill, and bore with me the heavy fear that you might nev­er re­cov­er to bless me with a kind word or gen­tle look. So ter­ri­ble has been the sus­pense, and so deep the anx­iety of mind un­der which my spir­it has la­bored, I could on­ly per­form my du­ties to a beloved moth­er by res­olute­ly bend­ing my en­er­gies to the task, and with the first hour of as­sured con­va­les­cence has­tened to learn your fate. Oh, best beloved, may I not hope to see you again? I have learned that you are bet­ter, and the first great bur­den is re­moved, but I so long to be­hold you once more,--to hear you speak--to know that I am not for­got­ten. But you know I dare not come to you with­out in­cur­ring your fa­ther's deep dis­plea­sure; and I have been in doubt and per­plex­ity how to act. This note will be borne to you by my most con­fi­den­tial friend, who will not be­tray us. If you can come to me, even if it be but for a few brief mo­ments, I be­seech you to do so; but do in this mat­ter as your own bet­ter judg­ment shall de­ter­mine. If you can­not come, send me a note, even though it be but a line, that I may have some pre­cious to­ken of re­mem­brance to gaze up­on. I am but a short dis­tance from your home, and a few steps will bring you to me; if you come, place your­self un­der the guid­ance of my friend. Leav­ing you to act as pru­dence and your own heart shall dic­tate, I re­main, im­pa­tient­ly,

"Yours, most faith­ful­ly,

“CHARLES.”

“P.S. Do per­mit me to en­treat you to come if you can. I have a thou­sand things to tell you, and some of them are cheer­ing. I have not time to write more now.”

As we have said, Eve­line read this let­ter with the wildest emo­tions thrilling through her heart. A tu­mult of joy was in her bo­som--joy more exquisite than had glad­dened her spir­it since the hour when her young heart knew that its deep love was re­cip­ro­cat­ed. Hadley was near her--he had been false­ly ac­cused, and in­stead of the vile crim­inal he was rep­re­sent­ed, he was a lov­ing and du­ti­ful son, flee­ing to the bed­side of a sick moth­er! What a con­so­la­tion to her heart! With­out a mo­ment's hes­ita­tion, she re­solved to see him, and turn­ing to the gen­tle­man, from whom she avert­ed her face, while read­ing, to con­ceal her feel­ings, she said, deeply blush­ing as she did so:

“Mr. Hadley wish­es me to see him, and di­rects me to place my­self un­der your guid­ance. Will you be so kind as to show me the way to him?”

“With the great­est plea­sure; for I know he will be but too hap­py to be­hold you. Par­don me, if, in my zeal for my friend, I should say aught that may be out of place.”

He led the way in­to the deep­er re­cess­es of the for­est, and she fol­lowed him. All this had been done in a mo­ment, as it were, and with­out time for the slight­est con­sid­er­ation. Un­der oth­er cir­cum­stances, or with a lit­tle re­flec­tion, Eve­line might have act­ed dif­fer­ent­ly.

The two had pro­ceed­ed a quar­ter of a mile or more, when Eve­line, in pass­ing a large tree, was sud­den­ly seized by rude hands, and ere she had time to scream, a cov­er­ing was placed over her mouth, and her hands se­cured. In these op­er­ations her re­cent guide took an ac­tive part, and when they were com­plet­ed, he said:

“You shall not be in­jured by us, fair la­dy, and we on­ly re­gret that we are com­pelled, by the force of cir­cum­stances, to put you to the in­con­ve­nience of a jour­ney on so short a no­tice. You must go with us; but we will deal ten­der­ly with you so long as you are peace­able and qui­et; but you must be­ware how you at­tempt to make any noise; for we will not suf­fer our­selves to be be­trayed by such means.”

With these re­marks the two kid­nap­pers, one on each side of their cap­tive, start­ed off through the wilder­ness at as rapid a rate as their fair pris­on­er could move.

To at­tempt a de­scrip­tion of Eve­line's feel­ings at this hour would be a vain task. In a mo­ment, she was brought down from the pin­na­cle of hope to the depths of de­spair; for she saw in all this that had passed the hand of Duf­fel, her avowed en­emy; and, in­deed, as the read­er has doubt­less al­ready con­clud­ed, she was in the hands of none oth­ers than Bill and Dick, who were bear­ing her off to the cave.