Rosa Lambert — page 241: what you’re looking at

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

230 ewe ee ee _ — ROSA LAMBERT. . tls forged draft was drawn, would not join in the ‘look over —that I knew not how long I should be preyer. , Three weeks had now passed since Oyril’s com-— mittal for trial; and in the meantime I had visited | him thrice in Newgate. Thither I had bent my way on foot, dressed in my plainest apparel, and stealing as it were to the door of the ominous looking gaol with a sensation as if I myself were a culprit, dreading to be observed, and recoiling from the chance of recognition, I found him on each occasion dogged and sullen, or else full of a devil-me-care recklessness. It was all in vain to speak to him of contrition for his past misdeeds: | detained—and that IL would return home in a hired vehicle. Wearily—Oh! how wearily, passed the hours in that lawyer's office. Yes—time seemed to drag itself along with a leaden step, although my thoughts were all in a whirl. But at length — at about two o’clock in the afternoon—the at- torney made his appearance; and then I learnt the result. The gentleman whose name had been forged, faithfully and honourably fulfilled the pro« mise he had made-to me, and strongly recom- mended my unhappy brother to the mercy of the court: he looked at me as if he thought that such a recommendation came unsuitably enough such lips as mine. I felt that he had but too much | right thus to regard me, but the idea only added to the deep, deep bitterness of my harassed and weight ; harrowed feelings. from | while, on the other hand, the banker had remained equally frue to his declaration, that he could not, consistently with his own notions of justice, join in that recommendation, Neverthe- ‘less, the gentleman’s humane pleading had its and as no other circumstance to the pre- I told him what I was doing | judice of Cyril’s character was brought before the on his behalf in respect to the prosecutors: but he court, the judge considered that he might deal was far more interested in the fact that I had lodged money with the tavern-keeper opposite the gaol, so that he might be supplied with his meals from outside instead of being compelled to take the prison allowance. Altogether I could not conceal from myself the dreadful conviction that the unfortunate Cyril was a lost character. The reader may be assured that the three weeks which thus elapsed from that memorable date which was marked by such a storm of frightful | harrowing incidents for me, constituted by no> means a happy epoch in my existence. ‘The sense of the diabolie outrage which I had sustained at the hands of my cousin Sir John Haverstock—the branding infamy which had affixed itself upon my brother—the reflection that my own deplorable fate had rendered it impossible that I should any longer aspire to the hope of becoming Cap- tain Beaumont’s wife, sustained a perpetual agita- tion of the brain, which at times made me feel as if I were going mad. And I had no one to con- sole me—no one to whose ear I could reveal my sorrows—no one from whose lips I could receive the language of sympathy and solace! Joanna Haverstock had ceased to visit me; and when alone at the villa—when in the solitude of the sumptuously furnished drawing-room or the ele- gantly appointed bed-chamber, I was yielding per- force to the excruciating current of my thoughts, I regretted that I had enjoined her brother to for- bid those visits, which, despite her close kinship with himself, I now felt would be a relief and a consolation. The morning of the trial dawned; and it was with the utmost difficulty I could conceal from my maid the frightful agitation which was revel- ling and rioting in my brain. It was in the first instance my purpose to remain at home, and await the coming of the solicitor to communicate the result: but my feverish suspense and my restless anxiety grew into a positive frenzy: the atmo- sphere of a room seemed to stifle me—I longed for the fresh air—L felt that [ must go out, and that I must do something to oceupy myself, or I should become frantic. IL had already pretended to have business of my own in hand at the solicitor’s ; and there was consequently no need of a pretext to re- pair thither, L went in the carriage,—but dis. missed it, observing to the domestics in attendance upon the equipage, that I had numerous deeds to | it against the personal examination he would have somewhat leniently with the case. Instead of transportation therefore, my brother was sentenced (o imprisonment in a convict-hulk for a period of two years. Now that the trial was over, I regained some- what of my former calmness: that is to say, the hurry, the whirl, and the agitation which for three weeks had been raging in my brain, experienced a partial abatement. I thanked tho solicitor for the zeal which he had displayed in conducting the case; and when his account was sent in, I paid it liberally. But the day succeeding the trial was marked by an incident singularly and painfully illustrating the dark and occult phases of the human character. At about noon on that day,— just four-and-twenty hours after the banker had stood in the witness-box in the Old Bailey, bearing evidence against my brother, and sternly remain- ing silent at the moment when he might have echoed the other prosecutor’s recommendation to mercy,—the doors of his bank were closed, a notice was placarded to the effect that payments were suspended, and he himself at once absconded. Within a few hours after this occurrence, it was discovered that he,—that very banker—the rigid moralist—the upholder of society's laws—the im- placable invoker of the country’s justice against a delinquent,—had committed forgeries to a very large amount, and warrants were issued for his apprehension. I may here add that he never was caught—but that he succeeded in making his escape to the United States; and three or four years afterwards, my eye chanced to light upon a paragraph in a newspaper, stating that this gen- tleman—once the eminent banker of such-and-such a street at the West End of London,—was living in a princely manner upon a Virginian plantation, which he had purchased—that he was tbe owner of numerous slaves whom he treated diabolically— but that he had built a chapel and school-house on his estate; and was therefore regarded as a pattern of morality by all the neighbouring planters and slaveholders. To return however to the thread of my nar- rative. I paid one more visit to my brother before he was removed to the hulks at Woolwich ; and his first question was whether I had got any money about me? If inquired of what use money would now be to him—or how he hoped to secure (Elo) € a