Joseph Wilmot, or, The Memoirs of a Man-Servant — page 53: what you’re looking at

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

40 JOSEPH WILMOT ; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A MAN-SERVANT. “Eugenie dying!—is it possible?” exclaimed | tone, Theobald said, “But if her illness be still the young Duke, in accents the wildness of which | very, very alarming—if there be any danger did indeed contrast strangely with his former low, | Oh, then come back to me quick, and I will speed deep, hollow tone of despair. “Joseph; you are | thither at once!” gaying all this to move me—to excite me But} I departed to execute this commission. I made no, no—I am dead to everything in this world!” | the best’ of my way to the banker's residence: but Then, Monsieur le Duc,” I exclaimed, “you | on reaching it, I was smitten with dismay on per- are dead to that love which exists in fondest | ceiving all the blinds drawn down and the gate vitality in the heart of her who cherishes it to- | closed. Inquiry was unnecessary: I nevertheless wards you! And, oh! what would your feelings | made it—but it only elicited the response which I be if a messenger came this moment with the | had anticipated. Poor Eugenie was no more! tidings that she was no more—and that in her last moments she had craved but a single instant ——— of your presence !” 3 “Enough, Joseph—enough!” exclaimed Theo- CHAPTER LXXXV. bald: and sinking upon a chair, he burst into tears. THEOBALD. | This spectacle gladdened my heart. Yes, reader : —TI use the phrase deliberately: it gladdened my | Iw the course of my career I had on various occa- heart. I had endeavoured to bring this scene sions found myself compelled to undertake dis- about—to make this impression—to create this | agreeable and painful duties: but what task could revulsion of feelings. Even though I pierced his possibly be more afflicting to my own feelings than soul with the intelligence of Eugenie’s alarming | this which I had now to perform? As I slowly illness, yet I knew that it was better to goad him | retraced my. way towards the mansion, I walked thus into the susceptibility of emotions, than to | through the streets in a state of dismayed conster- leave him in that unnatural condition of blank and | nation: it appeared indeed as if some tremendous numbed despair. The rock had been stricken— | calamity had fallen upon my own head. I re- the living waters gushed forth—and I felt that I! member that as I thought of what the conse- had acted wisely and well. quences might be—or rather wondered what they * Yes, Joseph, you are right,’ said the young | would be—I closed my eyes for a moment, as if Duke, suddenly springing up from his seat and | by thus obscuring my outward vision I could shut erasping me by the hand. “I must not think of | out some hideous ghastly object that was haunting myself alone—I have no right to renounce the|my mind. AsI neared the mansion, I slackened whole world so long as it includes hex! Ah, I | my pace more and more: I could Lave wished that feel that if she were well and with me now, she | it was still miles and miles away, so that the fatal would minister the softest, the sweetest, the holiest ‘instant that I so much dreaded might be postponed consolations. But, good God! what calamities | as Jong as possible. have overtaken me!’—and pressing both his| As 1 entered the gate, it occurred to me that hands to his wildly throbbing brows, he murmured, | I had better’ perhaps first of all communicate with “My God, my God! why was I ever born to ex- | the Marshal, and suffer him to break the cruel perience all this ?” intelligence to his grandson: but then I remem- “ And now again you are wrong, Monsieur le | bered that the commission had been entrusted to Due,” I gently whispered, as I approached him: | me, and that it was indeed my duty to perform it is not for men to demand an account of the | this painful task myself. I accordingly proceeded Eternal for his actions.” to the apartment where I had left the young The young Duke bent upon mea look of the} Duke; and I found him there alone. He was deepest contrition and humility; and taking my | seated at a table, on which his elbows rested; and hand, he did now press it warmly, as he said, | his countenance was buried in his hands. He was "Yes, you are right! Step by step you are teach- | evidently in profound thought,—so deeply absorbed ing me my duties. Oh, that you had been with! in his reflections that he had not heard me enter me when first I received the intelligence of this | the room. I advanced close up to the table, and dreadful deed! I should not have been haunted | gently placed my hand upon his shoulder. He by all the horrible thoughts which rose up, gaunt | slowly raised his countenance, and looked upon me and ghastly, and spectre-like in my mind!” _~ —|in such @ strange vacant manner, that I was “And now, Monsieur le Duc,” I said, seeing | seized with mingled alarm and horror: for I fan- the influence I had obtained over him, and deter. | cied that his intellects were altogether deranged. mined to exercise it, as I hoped and trusted, to © Well, Joseph, what is it now ?” he inquired, bis advantage,—“you will’ make some communi- | with a sort of listless apathy. “Ab, I recollect! cation to Mademoiselle Delacour—you will send |—you went to convey a message to Eugenie :"— her a message—or you will go to her !” and now he all in a moment seemed to become “TI dare not go to her at once,” replied the | more intelligent. ; young Duke: “it were indecent—it were un-| ‘Yes, Monsieur le Duc,” I answered, in 4 seemly for me to take such a step within the first | mournful tone, and without the slightest endeavour few hours of my return to this mansion of dreadful | to banish that same melancholy from my looks : memories. But go you, Joseph—see Eugenie’s | for I wished him to read therein the dread intel. maid — and through her transmit on my behalf a | ligence that I had to impart. suitable message to her mistress. Say that to-| ‘ “Enough, Joseph!” he said: “I understand it morruw at an early hour in the forenoon I will be | all!”’—and again did his countenance put on that there. But one word more, Joseph: ”—and then | look of blank fixed despair which it had worn on after a brief pause, and now speaking in a lower | his arrival. “ Eugenie is dead—I know it—I read _$ eee Se SS ~~ ————— ae EORNICLOOKSsE©