Read Ebook: Meine Lebens-Erinnerungen - Band 2 by Oehlenschl Ger Adam

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Ebook has 473 lines and 83713 words, and 10 pages

"'Cease, Charlotte, in mercy cease, if you do not mean to drive me mad. Some enemy has poisoned your mind against me. Left to yourself, you could not condemn me in this cold, pitiless manner.'

"'Your own lips have condemned you, Philip.' She stopped, passed her hand across her brow, as if in sudden pain, and sighed deeply.

"'When will these reproaches end, Charlotte? Of what else do you accuse me?'

"'Is what I have said, false or true?' she cried, turning suddenly towards me, and grasping my arm. 'If false, clear yourself. If true, what more can I have to do with you?'

"'Alas!' I cried, 'it is but too true!'

"'And can you expect, Mr. Mornington, that any virtuous, well-educated woman could place her happiness in the keeping of one who has shown such little self-government; who chooses for his associates men of loose morals and bad character. Your constant companion and bosom friend is a notorious gambler, a man whose society is scouted by all honourable men. I pity you, Philip; weep for you; pray for you; and God only knows the agony which this hour has cost me; but we must meet as lovers and friends no more.'

"She glided from the room, and I stood for some minutes stupidly staring after her, with the horrible consciousness of having exchanged a pearl of great price, for the base coin in which pleasure pays her deluded followers, and only felt the inestimable value of the treasure I had lost, when it was no longer in my power to recover it.

"I returned to the company I had quitted. I betted and lost; plunged madly on; staked my whole property on a desperate chance, and returned from the races, forsaken by my gay companions, a heart-broken and ruined man!

"It was night when I reached London. Not wishing to encounter any of my late associates, I entered a coffee-house seldom frequented by men of their class, and called for a bottle of wine.

"The place was ill-lighted and solitary. I threw myself into a far corner of my box, and, for the first time tried to drown care in the intoxicating bowl.

"The wine, instead of soothing, only increased the fever of my spirit, and I began to review with bitterness the insanity of my conduct for the last few months. With a brain on fire with the wine, I continued eagerly to swallow, and a heart as dull and cold as ice from recent mortification and disappointment, I sank with my head upon the table into a sort of waking trance, conscious of surrounding objects, but unable to rouse myself from the stupor which held every faculty in its leaden grasp.

"Two men entered the box. I heard one say to the other, in a voice which seemed familiar.

"'This place is occupied, we had better go to another.'

"Feeling little interest in anything beyond my own misery, I gave no signs of life or motion, beyond pressing my burning brow more tightly against my folded hands, which rested on the table.

"'So, Mornington's career is ended at last, and he is a ruined man,' said the elder of the twain.

"'Yes, I have settled his business for you; and as my success has been great, I expect my reward should be proportionately so.'

"'I am ready to fulfil my promise, but expect nothing more. You have been well paid by your dupe. He has realized the old proverb--Light come, light go. I thought he would have given you more trouble. Yours, Howard, has been an easy victory.'

"'Hang the foolish fellow!' cried my quondam friend; 'I feel some qualms of conscience about him; he was so warm-hearted and generous--so unsuspicious, that I feel as if I had been guilty of a moral murder. And what, Mr. Moncton, must be your feelings: your hatred to the poor young man is almost gratuitous, when it appears that you are personally unknown to each other.'

"'He is the son of my worst enemy, and I will pursue him to death.'

"'He will spare you the trouble, if I read my man rightly. He will not submit to this sudden change of fortune with stoical indifference, but will finish a career of folly with an act of madness.'

"'Commit suicide?'

"'Ay, put a pistol to his head. He is an infidel, and will not be scared from his purpose by any fear of an hereafter.'

"'Bring me that piece of news to-morrow, Howard, and it will be something to stake at hazard before night.'

"He left the box; I rose to prevent him, but the opportunity of revenge was lost. The younger scoundrel remained behind to settle with the waiter; as he turned round I confronted and stared him full in the face. He pretended not to know I who was.

"'Fellow, let me pass!'

"'Never! until you have received the just reward of your treachery. You are a mean, contemptible wretch: the base hireling of a baser villain. I will prosecute you both for entering into a conspiracy against me.'

"'You had better let it alone,' said he, in a hoarse whisper. 'You are a disappointed and desperate man. No sensible person will listen to complaints made by a drunken, broken-down spendthrift and gambler.'

"'Liar!' I cried, losing all self-control, 'when did you ever see me drunk, or knew me guilty of one dishonourable act?'

"'You were always too great a fool, Mornington, to take care of yourself, and you are not able, at this moment, to stand steady. Be that, however, as it may, I never retract my words; if you require satisfaction, you know where to find me.'

"'I will neither meet nor treat you as a gentleman. You are beneath contempt.'

"'The son of a drunken huntsman has a greater claim to gentility,' sneered the sharper, bursting into an insulting laugh. 'Your mother may, perhaps, have given you an indirect claim to a higher descent.'

"This taunt stung me to madness, and sobered me in a moment. I flung myself headlong upon him. I was young and strong--the attack unexpected, he fell heavily to the ground. In my fury I spat upon him, and trampled him beneath my feet. Death, I felt was too honourable a punishment for such a contemptible villain. I would not have killed him though certain that no punishment would follow the act.

"The people of the house interfered. I was taken into custody and kept in durance vile until the following morning; but as no one appeared to make any charge against me, I was released, with a severe reprimand from the police magistrate, and suffered to return home.

"Home! I had now no home: about one hundred pounds was all that remained to me of my fine property when my debts, falsely termed debts of honour, were paid, my lodgings settled for, and my servant discharged.

"My disgrace had not yet reached the home of my childhood. A state of mental suffering brought on a low fever. I was seized with an indescribable longing, an aching of the heart to end my days in my native village.

"Pride in vain combated this feeling. It resisted all the arguments of reason and common sense. Nature triumphed--and a few days saw me once more under the shadow of the great oak which canopied our lowly dwelling."

ALICE.

"As I approached the cottage door, my attention was arrested by a low, mournful voice, singing in sad and subdued tones, a ditty which seemed the spontaneous outpouring of a wounded spirit. The words were several times repeated, and I noted them down as I leant upon the trunk of the old tree. Out of sight, but within a few feet of the songstress, whose face was hidden from me by the thick foliage of the glorious old tree, in whose broad-spreading branches, I had played and frolicked when a boy.

"'THE SONG.

I once was happy, blithe and gay, No maiden's heart was half so light; I cannot sing, for well a-day! My morn of bliss is quenched in night.

I cannot weep--my brain is dry, Deep woe usurps the voice of mirth The sunshine of youth's cloudless sky Has faded from this goodly earth.

My soul is wrapped in midnight gloom, And all that charmed my heart before, Droops earthward to the silent tomb, Where darkness dwells for evermore.'

"The voice ceased. I stepped from my hiding-place. Alice rose from the bench beside the door; the work on which she was employed fell from her hand, and she stood before me wild and wan--the faded spectre of past happiness and beauty.

"'Good heavens! Alice, Can this be you?'

"'I may return the compliment,' she said, with a ghastly smile. 'Can this be Philip? Misery has not been partial, or your brow wears its mark in vain.'

"'Unhappy sister of an unhappy brother!' I cried, folding her passive form to my heart, 'I need not ask why you are altered thus.'

"The fire which had been burning in my brain for some weeks, yielded to softer emotions. My head sunk upon her shoulder, and I wept long and bitterly.

"Alice regarded me with a curious and mournful glance, but shed no tears.

"'Alice! That villain has deceived you?'

"She shook her head.

"'It is useless to deny facts so apparent. Do you love him still?'

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