Eveline Mandeville The Horse Thief Rival

CHAPTER VII.

FA­THER AND DAUGH­TER--DUF­FEL.

A few days af­ter the trans­ac­tions record­ed in the pre­ced­ing chap­ter, the fever left Eve­line, and con­scious­ness was re­stored to its em­pire and rea­son to its throne. But alas! what a wreck of her for­mer self she was! Mr. Man­dev­ille could scarce­ly re­strain his tears while gaz­ing up­on her pal­lid coun­te­nance and wast­ed form. She was help­less as a child, and so weak it was feared the re­cu­per­ative pow­ers were ex­haust­ed, and she must die from pros­tra­tion; but a day or two of care­ful nurs­ing, aid­ed by cor­dials and ton­ics, pro­duced a change for the bet­ter, and in the course of ten days, she was able to walk in the open air and hap­py sun­shine, sup­port­ed by her fa­ther. How light­ly his heart beat in his bo­som, as the child of his pride and af­fec­tion leaned up­on his arm, as he gen­tly led her whith­er she de­sired to go.

She had a lit­tle ar­bor in the gar­den, the vines about which had been care­ful­ly trained by her own hands; it had al­ways been a fa­vorite re­sort, and of late had be­come a thou­sand times more dear, be­cause it was there that she and Hadley had spent most of their hap­py hours. So soon as she had suf­fi­cient strength to bear the fa­tigue, she re­quest­ed to be tak­en there, and her wish was grant­ed. What a throng of mem­ories came crowd­ing through her mind as she once more sat in that ver­dant bow­er! Ev­ery flow­er had a tongue and a rem­inis­cence, and the en­tire place and scene spoke of the past in lan­guage mute but elo­quent. How her heart beat with ex­cite­ment, as the many as­so­ci­ations of oth­er days rushed over her spir­it with the light­en­ing wings of thought, and awak­ened emo­tions of joy and grief. While with the past she was hap­py; but when the cheer­less present oc­cu­pied her mind, sad­ness filled her heart, while shad­ows gath­ered up­on her brow, and tears in her eyes.

The fa­ther saw all this, for he watched the changes of her coun­te­nance with the deep­est so­lic­itude. When he not­ed the sad­dened ex­pres­sion that came over it, his heart was heavy, for he di­vined the cause. How his feel­ing of bit­ter­ness to­ward Hadley in­creased, as he saw the wreck of hap­pi­ness he had made; and how he longed to ex­pose the black­ness of his char­ac­ter to his in­fat­uat­ed daugh­ter! He felt cer­tain that his child would cease to re­gard him as she had done, the mo­ment she was put in pos­ses­sion of the facts which so clear­ly es­tab­lished his guilt. But it would cost her a se­vere strug­gle, and he feared she was yet too weak to sus­tain the shock.

At length, how­ev­er, as he per­ceived that in­ter­nal grief was prey­ing up­on her spir­its, it oc­curred to him that the evil re­sult­ing from this eat­ing sor­row, which was brood­ed over in se­cret, would be greater in the end than the quick pang, though it should be sharp and pow­er­ful for an hour or a day. Ap­proach­ing her af­fec­tion­ate­ly, and with great ten­der­ness of man­ner, he said:

“You are sad, Eve­line; you are not hap­py, I know you are not; and yet you do not con­fide your sor­row to me. Is this kind, my dear?”

“Oh, fa­ther!” and she burst in­to tears. He drew her head up­on his bo­som, and for a short pe­ri­od per­mit­ted sor­row to have its way, then in­quired:

“May I share my daugh­ter's grief?”

“Fa­ther, fa­ther, do not wound my heart afresh! I fear me now it will nev­er heal!”

“Eve­line, child, you mis­un­der­stand me. God for­bid that I should add to your sor­row; my on­ly de­sire is to re­lieve and heal!”

“May I in­deed trust in my fa­ther? Oh, what a ques­tion to ask my­self! Yet--”

“Yet what? Speak ful­ly, and let us for once open our hearts to each oth­er with­out re­serve.”

“Yet I fear I have had cause to make the in­quiry.”

“I fear so too, my dear; but let us now un­der­stand each oth­er. I hope much from such an un­der­stand­ing.”

“What would you draw from me?”

“The se­cret of your un­hap­pi­ness.”

“Do you not know it al­ready?”

“I sur­mise the cause.”

“And you think--”

“I _fear_ it is be­cause you love Charles Hadley.”

“Why do you _fear_ that is the cause?”

“Be­cause he is un­wor­thy of your love.”

“Oh, do not say so! Is pover­ty a mark of un­wor­thi­ness?”

“No, it is not; if he was on­ly poor I would give my con­sent to your union to-​day; but I am sor­ry to say he is wicked as well as poor.”

“What mean you? You sure­ly can al­lege noth­ing against one so no­ble, and pos­sessed of such pure prin­ci­ples, as Charles Hadley?”

“Alas, my daugh­ter, he has base­ly de­ceived you.”

“Fa­ther!”

“I would not say so on slight grounds, but it is too sad­ly true.”

“I must have proof, strong proof, ere I can be­lieve that he is false.”

“Could you bear such an ex­po­sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then you shall have the ev­idence of his guilt at once.”

Say­ing this, he pro­duced the let­ter be­fore spo­ken of, and placed it in her hands for pe­rusal.

It would be im­pos­si­ble to de­scribe Eve­line's feel­ings while ex­am­in­ing the con­tents of the let­ter. At first, the ev­idence ap­peared so con­clu­sive and over­whelm­ing her strong faith in her lover was shak­en; but a sec­ond read­ing and sec­ond thoughts re­stored her con­fi­dence, yet she could hard­ly ac­count for the change in her feel­ings and judg­ment, the ev­idence was just as strong as be­fore, and she could not help ac­knowl­edg­ing the fact; she on­ly knew that she _felt_ Hadley was in­no­cent; and she would trust this in­tu­itive con­vic­tion in pref­er­ence to any anony­mous com­mu­ni­ca­tion that could be pro­duced against him. But what should she say to her par­ent? How could she im­press him with her own feel­ings, or even fix a doubt of Hadley's guilt in his mind? While she was re­volv­ing these things in her mind, Mr. Man­dev­ille kept his eye up­on her, and not­ed ev­ery change of ex­pres­sion that passed over her face. At length he said:

“What do you think of that?”

The ques­tion found her still in doubt as to what she should say in de­fense of her lover, but with the query came de­ci­sion of pur­pose, and she read­ily replied:

“I think it is a forgery.”

“A forgery?”

“Yes, so far as Hadley is con­cerned. I do not be­lieve he has ev­er seen it.”

“You sure­ly do not be­lieve I would be guilty of such base­ness as your words im­ply.”

“Oh! no, no; I do not for a mo­ment doubt your good faith and per­fect sin­cer­ity; but I think you are de­ceived. How did you get pos­ses­sion of this doc­ument?”

“Well, I must con­fess, not in the most up­right man­ner, or rather, my knowl­edge of that por­tion of its con­tents which is in­tel­li­gi­ble, was ob­tained ig­nobly; but I can­not blame my­self for the act, since it has placed such im­por­tant facts at my dis­pos­al.”

Here he re­lat­ed the cir­cum­stance of find­ing and read­ing the let­ter, and then added:

“You see the whole train of cir­cum­stances ren­ders it im­pos­si­ble that Hadley should not be the one to whom the let­ter was ad­dressed. I found it just in the place where he was in the habit of com­ing, a spot that no one else fre­quent­ed, and so se­clud­ed as to for­bid the idea of a ca­su­al pas­sen­ger drop­ping it. Be­side, where is there an­oth­er per­son of the same name?”

“I frankly own there is a mys­tery con­nect­ed with the sub­ject which I can­not ex­plain, but that mys­tery does not con­vince me of Hadley's guilt.”

“What in­creduli­ty! What stronger ev­idence do you want to con­vict him?”

“I de­sire pos­itive as­sur­ance that the let­ter was ac­tu­al­ly writ­ten to and for him; at present I do not be­lieve that it was.”

“Love is tru­ly blind!”

“Love?”

“Yes.”

“What has that to do with the case un­der con­sid­er­ation?”

“It is not worth while for you to dis­guise the fact that you have loved Hadley; I know that you do or did, and your own heart knows full well how much it has suf­fered through that love. Alas, that I, your own fa­ther, should have caused you so much an­guish!”

“Does my fa­ther re­al­ly say that?”

“Yes, Eve­line, and much more. If you on­ly knew how deeply I have suf­fered, what an­guish I en­dured, as your fevered and bro­ken ex­cla­ma­tions fell up­on my ear while watch­ing by your bed­side, I think you could find it in your heart to for­give me for the un­in­ten­tion­al wrong, it was my mis­for­tune, and not my wish, to in­flict up­on you.”

“Fa­ther, I have wronged you,” said she, lean­ing for­ward and wind­ing her arms about his neck. “For­give me for ac­cus­ing you of cru­el­ty and un­kind­ness in my thoughts.”

“You had cause for such ac­cu­sa­tion, though it was far­thest from my thoughts to in­jure you. I did, how­ev­er, once think of forc­ing you to wed Duf­fel, and this is the on­ly re­al wrong I med­itat­ed against you, and I was per­suad­ed it was for your good; but I see dif­fer­ent­ly now--you shall nev­er be co­erced in­to a union with any man against your will.”

“Thank you for that as­sur­ance; it re­lieves me from one source of dis­qui­et.”

“I am en­ti­tled to no thanks; it is not a par­ent's pre­rog­ative to use vi­olence in such cas­es, though I once held dif­fer­ent­ly. And let me here say to you, that in all I have done my _mo­tives_ were pure. I de­sired your good above all else, and that I was en­deav­or­ing to pro­cure hap­pi­ness for you in the wrong way was on­ly an er­ror of judg­ment, the in­cor­rect­ness of which I now see clear­ly.”

“How much I have mis­un­der­stood you, and how much you have mis­con­ceived your own heart.”

“True; the world, and the opin­ions of world­ly men, had al­most buried up the good that was in me; but the light of Heav­en has shone in­to my spir­it, the fog is dis­pelled, and I see where I have de­part­ed from the right way.”

“Thank Heav­en for that!”

“I hope, now that we un­der­stand each oth­er, I may dare to make a re­quest of you, which you may or may not feel free to grant.”

“Name it.”

“It is this, that you will hold no com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Hadley un­til this mat­ter is sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly cleared up, or un­til he can show that he is in­no­cent of the crimes this let­ter would fas­ten up­on him.”

“If it is your wish I will do so, though I should be pleased to know what he could say in his own fa­vor. I feel strong­ly con­fi­dent he will be able to prove him­self in­no­cent of all and any par­tic­ipa­tion in the many thefts and oth­er vil­lainies which have of late be­come so com­mon. Where is he now?”

“Ah, there it is again! I have not told you that Tom was stolen some time ago.”

“Tom stolen!”

“Yes; he was tak­en very soon af­ter this let­ter came in­to my pos­ses­sion, and Hadley has nev­er been seen or heard of since!”

“How?”

“On the very night that Tom was tak­en from the sta­ble, Hadley dis­ap­peared, and nei­ther he nor the horse have been heard of since! Have I not strong rea­sons for be­liev­ing him guilty, as held out in this let­ter?”

“I must con­fess, this last piece of in­tel­li­gence stag­gers my faith.”

“You will now be­gin to un­der­stand why I took such de­cid­ed steps to­ward him, as a vis­itor here, on that mem­orable oc­ca­sion which re­sult­ed so dis­as­trous­ly. I had the strongest as­sur­ance of his be­ing as­so­ci­at­ed with bad men for bad pur­pos­es, ere I for­bid him the house. I on­ly re­gret that I act­ed so pre­cip­itate­ly. I hope, how­ev­er, all will come right in the end.”

“God grant that it may.”

Here their in­ter­course was in­ter­rupt­ed by the an­nounce­ment that Duf­fel had called and in­quired for Mr. Man­dev­ille.--They re­turned to the house, and the two gen­tle­men had a pri­vate in­ter­view to the fol­low­ing ef­fect:

“How is Eve­line?” in­quired Duf­fel.

“I am hap­py to say she is very much bet­ter.”

“I am tru­ly glad to hear that she is con­va­lesc­ing. What do you think is the state of her feel­ings in cer­tain del­icate mat­ters?”

“I am per­suad­ed her good opin­ion of Hadley has re­ceived a shock from which it will nev­er re­cov­er. That let­ter, in con­nec­tion with his present dis­ap­pear­ance, was too much for her faith.”

“And well it might be! I do not see how any one could doubt his guilt in the face of such ev­idence.”

“Yet I think Eve­line does doubt; but that the doubt will soon give place to full con­vic­tion, I am quite sure. Once you can fix a par­tial­ly formed be­lief of crime in the mind, and if the ev­idence con­tin­ues, es­pe­cial­ly if it ac­cu­mu­lates, there is a moral cer­tain­ty of its pro­duc­ing the ef­fect we de­sire in the present in­stance.”

“How long do you sup­pose it will take Eve­line to for­get any pref­er­ence she may have had for Hadley?”

“I do not know.”

“Do you not think the ex­er­cise of a lit­tle pa­ter­nal au­thor­ity would ac­cel­er­ate the ac­com­plish­ment of your wish­es? I hope you will par­don me if the sug­ges­tion is ill-​timed or out of taste; it is made in ac­cor­dance with a dec­la­ra­tion to that ef­fect you will re­mem­ber to have made to me a short time pre­vi­ous to your daugh­ter's ill­ness.”

“I have not for­got­ten the dec­la­ra­tion to which you al­lude; it was made in the heat of a mo­ment of ex­cite­ment; but I am frank to own that it was then my de­ter­mi­na­tion to use parental au­thor­ity to­ward Eve­line, in case it be­came nec­es­sary to do so, in or­der to bend her will to my pur­pos­es. This in­ten­tion I have en­tire­ly aban­doned. I have re­flect­ed more dis­pas­sion­ate­ly on the sub­ject; and I now see clear­ly that my daugh­ter has rights as well as my­self, and that first in im­por­tance among these, is the right to be­stow her­self in mar­riage to whom she choos­es. I will con­tin­ue to give you my in­flu­ence, but I have al­ready pledged her my word that she shall be free to make her own se­lec­tion of a hus­band.”

“You are right, sir, right. I see where­in we have both erred in our for­mer views; but then we were blind­ed, at least I was; for you know love has al­ways been blind. I must crave your par­don, as I would the for­give­ness of Eve­line, were she present, for hav­ing en­ter­tained so un­just a thought to­ward her for a sin­gle mo­ment. Be as­sured, if she can­not be won by gen­tle­ness and love, I shall nev­er con­sent to make her my wife, though she is dear­er to me than life it­self.”

“Very well; I still feel that all will come out right, and that a peace­ful calm of sun­shine will suc­ceed the sea­son of storm and clouds; but we must not hur­ry mat­ters; time will do more for us than we can for our­selves, where­as haste might de­feat all our hopes. At present, I do not think it would be ad­vis­able for you to urge your suit to her; her mind is not yet pre­pared to re­ceive you with that de­gree of fa­vor de­sir­able.”

“I shall act in the mat­ter as your bet­ter judg­ment and clear­er per­cep­tion shall dic­tate, and hope for the best.”

And thus the in­ter­view end­ed. How strange that Mr. Man­dev­ille should be so eas­ily de­ceived in re­gard to Duf­fel! and how de­bas­ing­ly hyp­ocrit­ical was the dis­sem­bling vil­lain! Will he nev­er be over­tak­en by his crimes?