Joseph Wilmot, or, The Memoirs of a Man-Servant — page 71: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

58 JOSEPH WILMOT; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A MAN-SERVANT. the black demon of Ruin, as a man in desperation | father, of extricating ourselves from this web of sells period after period of his life to Satan! No —not a single sacrifice on your part!—but I am to make ten thousand! And now you think to render this hideous marriage the crowning one of all? But it shall not be.” “Walter, you asked me to listen to you,” replied Lord Rayenshill, in a tremulous and almost broken voice; “and I have done so. But now hear me, Yes—I confess that I have been guilty of some wrongs towards you; and, thank heaven! we are thus speaking in the dark, so that a father may be saved the painful humiliation of having to blush in the presence of his son. But still you have viewed my conduct in the severest light, and have painted it in the blackest colour. You have gone too far. Think you that if your mother and myself sought to sustain a certain position, it was for ourselves alone ? No—it was still more for you. Oh! can you not imagine that your poor mother and myself have passed many and many a sleepless night— have endured many and many an hour of poignant agony—when we have been compelled to envisage the difficulties of our position? But our hope still was that you—with your handsome person, your fine intellect, your courtly manners, and the proud name you were destined at my death to bear, would amend all by a brilliant alliance.” “ And this,” ejaculated Walter, in thrilling tones of bitterest scorn and keenest irony—*“ this is the brilliant alliance you have found for me Bou- stead’s daughter !” Here the young man sent forth a loud and mocking laugh, which rang with the horrible sar- donism of a very fiend. It was a laugh such as in the extreme of despair would be wrung from a breaking heart in defiance of a threat holding out the infliction of some fresh misfortune: it was indeed one of those laughs which grate along all the nerves, make the blood run cold in the veins, and cause the soul to shudder at the frightful potency of passion whereof the human mind is capable. “Walter, you will drive me mad!” exclaimed Lord Rayenshill: and I heard his foot stamp upon the frozen pathway. * Drive you mad ?” cried Walter, in that same tone of bitterest irony. “I am mad already! Now, father, it is useless for us to remain in con- versation here. My resolve is taken, and you know what it is.” : ee i é “Then listen, Walter!” rejoined the nobleman: and for a few instants there was a solemn pause, which was broken by his lordship’s voice sounding, deep and hollow in its accents, as he said, “Adhere to your resolve, if you will: but mistake not the warning I am about to give. You will be the murderer of your father !” _ An ejaculation of horror burst from the lips of Walter Ravenshill. “Yes,” the nobleman went on to say: “do not mistake me! Within the very same hour that the bailiffs take possession of Charlton Hall, do I put @ period to my existence. Now, Walter, have you the courage—have you the heartlessness to drive me to this horrible catastrophe P” _ “No, my God—no!” exclaimed the wretched young man, in accents of wildest anguish, but no longer fraught with irony nor sardonism: “not for worlds would I do this! But is there no way, difficulties which is closing in around us, save by the consummation of that hated alliance ?” “None, Walter,’ was the response,—* unless another and a better bride could be found, with a quarter of a million as a dower, and another quar- ter of a million in the perspective: for this is the wealth which Boustead’s daughter will bring.” *“ Another bride?” said Walter, slowly and musingly repeating his father’s words: then with a sudden outburst of excitement, he cried, * Oh, that I had but a few months’ respite !—oh that I had but another chance of rendering myself accept- able to some wealthy damsel whose appearance, whose manners, and whose family would not dis- grace us! Father,” continued Mr. Ravenshill, his voice suddenly sinking into the more subdued tone of deliberate seriousness, “ there is a matrimonial field which I have left unexplored. If the daugh- ters of the aristocracy be for the most part por- tionless,—those of bankers, merchants, and wealthy London citizens are not so. Some of these families are as well brought up and almost as refined as those of the sphere to which we belong “True, Walter!” ejaculated Lord Ravenshill, as if pleased with the idea thus suggested. “ Ah! you consent that I shall essay this one chance of delivering myself from the necessity of marrying Boustead’s daughter ? Look you, father,” continued Walter; “ my ‘proceedings are plain and easy. I return to London without breaking off the present engagement: if within a few months I form an alliance better suited to my tastes, and equally eligible in a pecuniary sense, we shall be satisfied nay, more, we shall be happy. But if I fail, then must I adopt the alternative of espousing Boustead’s daughter; and in the mean- time I shall at least have sufficient leisure to reflect upon what may be my probable destiny, and thus be enabled to meet it with more courage than I can now display. Do you approve of my plan, father P—and do you not think that you can make sufficient excuses to the Bousteads to postpone the wedding-day for a few months, as well as to account. for my absence during the interval, in such a man- ner that they may not suspect what is going on! »?? ** All this would be easy enough,” replied Lora Ravenshill, “if the creditors themselves would wait. They are anxiously looking forward for next month, when it is presumed the nuptials are to take place. F “T can suggest a plan!” eagerly interrupted Walter. “Let a paragraph be inserted in the county newspapers to the effect that ‘ the nuptials of the Hon. Walter Ravenshill with the beautiful and accomplished daughter of Titus Boustead, Esq., the eminent contractor, are postponed until the first week of August, in consequence of a death in the family of Lord Ravenshill” Let such a paragraph, I say, be inserted: the vanity of the Bousteads will be tickled by it—the creditors will have patience. They will say to themselves that the marriage is really to take place; and that in respect to their claims it is a mere matter of time, with the certainty of eventual settlement. Cannot all this be done, dear father ?” The contrast between the tone which Walter Ravenshill was now adopting towards his sire, and that which but a little time back he had been i _ ete de, Se en CORNICLO@ S (c@)