ONE evening, at London’s Ranelagh,* when the season was at its height, Lord Granwel, at thirty-six years of age the most debauched, wicked, cruel man in all England and unfortunately one of the richest, observed a pretty young woman he had never seen before pass close by the table where, with the help of libations of punch and champagne, he sat drowning his sorrows with three of his friends.
‘Who is that girl?’ Granwel promptly enquired of one of his guests. ‘And how the devil can there be such a pretty little minx in London who has escaped my notice? I’d wager she’s not yet sixteen. What do you reckon, Sir James?’
Sir James. ‘A figure like Venus herself! Wilson, do you know anything about her?’
Wilson. ‘I’ve come across her once before. She’s the daughter of some baronet from Hereford.’
Granwel. ‘Even if she was the devil’s own daughter, God strike me down if I never have her!* Gave, I make you responsible for instituting enquiries.’
Gave. ‘What’s she called, Wilson?’
Wilson. ‘Miss Henrietta Stralson. The tall woman you see with her is her mother. Her father is dead. She has been in love for ages with a man named Williams, a Hereford gentleman. They are to be married. Williams is in town to collect the inheritance of an elderly aunt which will be the entire extent of his fortune. Meanwhile, Lady Stralson wanted to show her daughter around London. When Williams’s business is done, they will travel back to Hereford where the marriage is to take place.’
Granwel. ‘May all the devils in hell make off with my soul if Williams lays a finger on her before I do!… I never saw a prettier little thing… Is this Williams here? I don’t know the fellow. Point him out to me.’
Wilson. ‘That’s him there, bringing up the rear… Probably stopped for a word or two with some friends of his… He’s caught up with them… Take a good look… that’s him… there’s your man.’
Granwel. ‘The tall young fellow, very prettily made?’
Wilson. ‘The very same.’
Granwel. ‘Damn me, he can’t be much more than twenty!’
Gave. ‘True, your Lordship, he is a fine figure of a man… and a rival…’
Granwel. ‘…who I shall grind into the dust as I have many before him… Gave, on your feet: follow that angel… Really, she has made a deep impression on me… Follow her, Gave, try and find out all you can about her… Set spies on her trail… Have you got any money, Gave, are you in funds? Here are a hundred guineas—I don’t want one left unspent tomorrow but I must know everything… Can I be in love?… What do you reckon, Wilson?… I’ll say this, though: the moment I saw that girl, I felt a definite premonition Sir James, that divine creature shall have my fortune… or my life!’
Sir James. ‘Your fortune, I grant you, but your life?… I hardly think you would ever feel like wanting to die for a woman…’
Granwel. ‘No…’ (And so saying, Granwel gave an involuntary shudder then went on): ‘A figure of speech, my dear fellow. No one dies for trifling creatures like that. But truly, there are some who stir up a man’s soul in the most extraordinary fashion!… Ho, waiter! Bring us some burgundy here! My brain is overheating and only burgundy can cool it down.’
Wilson. ‘Is it true, then, that your Lordship really intends to stoop to folly and put a spoke in poor Williams’s amours?’
Granwel. ‘What do I care for Williams? What do I care for anything on this earth? Listen, my dear fellow, when this combustible heart of mine falls in love, there is no obstacle capable of preventing it from being satisfied. The more I fall in love, the more combustible it becomes. For me, having a woman is satisfying only by reason of the trouble I am put to on the way. Bedding a woman is the most prosaic thing in the world. Have one and you’ve had a hundred. The only way of avoiding the monotony of insipid triumphs is to achieve them by using only subterfuge, and it is on the ruins of a multitude of overturned prejudices that a man can find a modicum of entertainment in this business.’
Wilson. ‘Would it not be better to try to please a woman, attempt to obtain her favours with love, rather than to succeed through violence?’
Granwel. ‘What you say would be valid if women were more sincere. But since there is not one anywhere who is not false and faithless, we must treat them as we do the vipers which are used in medicine: cut off the head to have the body… take, whatever the cost, the few physical advantages they offer and eliminate any moral scruples to the point that you never even notice their effects.’
Sir James. ‘That’s the sort of talk I like.’*
Granwel. ‘Sir James is my pupil and one day I’ll make something of him… But here’s Gave coming back. Let’s see what he has to say…’
Then Gave, taking his seat after drinking a glass of wine, told Granwel:
‘Your goddess creature has left. She got into a hired coach with Williams and Lady Stralson and the driver was told to go to Cecil Street.’*
Granwel. ‘What? But that is so close to my house!… Did you have them followed?’
Gave. ‘I have three men on the trail… three of the sharpest rogues who ever escaped from Newgate.’1
Granwel. ‘Well, Gave? And is she pretty?’
Gave. ‘She is the handsomest woman in London. Stanley… Stafford… Tilner… Burcley… they’ve all gone after her, they’ve all swarmed round her, and they all agree that there is not another girl to equal her anywhere in the three kingdoms.’
Granwel (eagerly). ‘Did you hear her say anything?… Did she speak?… Did the honeyed sound of her voice reach into your vitals?… Did you breathe the air which she sweetened with her presence?… Well? Out with it!… Speak up, man! Do you not see that my head is in an absolute spin… that she must be mine or else I must leave England for ever?’
Gave. ‘I did hear her, your Lordship… She spoke… She told Williams it was very warm at Ranelagh and said she preferred to leave than stroll there any longer.’
Granwel. ‘And Williams?’
Gave. ‘He gives every sign of being deeply attached to her… He never stopped looking at her… it was as though Cupid had tethered him to her footsteps.’
Granwel. ‘He is a scoundrel and I hate him. I very much fear that circumstances might well force me to get rid of the man… Let us be off now, my friends. Wilson, I am obliged to you for your report. Let it remain our secret, or otherwise I shall spread the tale of your affair with Lady Mortmart all across London. And you, Sir James, I shall meet you in the park tomorrow and we shall go calling on that new girl they have at the opera… What am I saying? No, I shan’t go… My mind runs on one topic… In the whole world there is only Miss Stralson and she fills my thoughts, I have eyes only for her… If I have a soul it is to worship her with… You, Gave, will come tomorrow and dine with me, bringing everything you can manage to discover about this divine creature… and sole arbiter of my fate… Farewell, my friends.’
His Lordship leaped into his coach and drove off furiously to the court, where his duties called him.
The few details supplied by Wilson about the beautiful vision who had turned Granwel’s head could not have been more accurate.
Miss Henrietta Stralson, born in Hereford, had indeed come to see London, which she did not know, while Williams was settling his affairs. The whole party would then return home, where their tenderest wishes would be crowned by marriage.
It was not, furthermore, in the least surprising that Miss Stralson should have made such a favourable impression at Ranelagh, for to a captivating figure, the most gentle and alluring eyes, the most lustrous hair imaginable, and a face so fine-drawn, intelligent, and delicate, she added a delightful tone of voice, a moiety of wit, grace, and vivaciousness tempered by an air of virtue and modesty which made her many charms all the more piquant… When a girl has all this at seventeen… then obviously she can hardly fail to catch the eye. Accordingly, Henrietta had caused a prodigious sensation and in London the talk was only of her.
As to Williams, he was what is called a decent fellow, kind, honest, as little given to calculation as to deceit, who had adored Henrietta since childhood. He had set his heart on making her his one day, and in return offered sincere devotion, a pretty substantial fortune (if his lawsuit were to prove successful), a social rank a little lower than Henrietta’s but honourable all the same, and a very pleasing face.
Lady Stralson was also an excellent person who, considering her daughter to be the most precious possession she had in the whole world, loved her as only a country mother can love. For all sentiments become corrupt in capital cities: the more we breathe their pestiferous air, the more our virtues decay and, since the corruption is general, we must either flee or be contaminated.*
Granwel, his head spinning with the effects of wine and love, had no sooner reached the King’s antechamber than he became very aware that he was in no fit state to appear in the royal presence. He went home where, instead of sleeping, he devised the wildest and most extravagant plans for possessing the object of his desires. Having hit upon and rejected a hundred such schemes, each more frightful than the one before, the one he resolved upon consisted of driving a wedge between Williams and Henrietta, of trying if possible to tie Williams in so many legal knots that it would take him a very long time to get free of them, and meanwhile to seize whatever opportunities chance might offer to be with his inamorata, with a view to robbing her of her honour in London or else abducting her and carrying her off to one of his estates on the Scottish borders. There he would have total power over her, and nothing would prevent him from doing with her whatever he liked. This plan, suitably garnished with the most dreadful details, became for that very reason the one which appealed most to the wicked Granwel. And so, the very next day, all was set in motion to ensure its success.
Gave was Granwel’s closest friend. Endowed with sentiments which were even more gross, he fulfilled on his Lordship’s behalf a role which is so common nowadays, that of furthering the amours of others, multiplying their debauches, and profiting from their follies with scant regard for personal honour. You may be sure he did not miss the meeting arranged for the morrow. But that day he had little to report, only that Lady Stralson and her daughter were staying, as had been said, in Cecil Street, with a female relative, while Williams was at the Hotel Poland in Covent Garden.
‘Gave,’ said his Lordship, ‘you’ll have to answer to me for this Williams. I want you to call yourself by some Scottish name and wear Scottish clothes. Then you will drive in a rich carriage to the hotel where the clod is staying and make his acquaintance… then rob him… and ruin him. Meanwhile, I shall make the running with the ladies and you will see, my friend, that it will not take us a month to upset all the honest little plans made by these good country folk.’
Gave took good care to find no drawbacks in his master’s plan. The enterprise called for the expenditure of large sums of money, and it became clear that the more his Lordship spent, the more lucrative its execution would become for the ignoble instrument of his villainous whims. Accordingly he made ready to act. For his part, his Lordship surrounded Henrietta with a large number of lesser agents who were to furnish him with an exact account of that charming young person’s most trifling actions.
Miss Henrietta lived in the house of a cousin of her mother, a widow of ten years’ standing, named Lady Wateley.
Much taken with Henrietta, although she had known her only since her arrival in the capital, Lady Wateley spared no effort to ensure that the object of her pride and affection should appear to the very best advantage. However, this kindly cousin, forced to keep to her room by a weakness of her lungs, had not only been unable to join the recent outing to Ranelagh but was even deprived of the pleasure of accompanying her cousin to the opera, where they were to go the very next day.
As soon as Granwel was informed of this theatregoing excursion by the spies he had placed in Henrietta’s entourage, he resolved not to miss an opportunity to make the most of it. Further intelligence apprised him that a hired carriage would be used, since Lady Wateley needed her horses to fetch her physician to her. Granwel hurried at once to the owner of the carriage which was to be hired out to Henrietta, and without difficulty arranged for one of its wheels to break three or four streets from the point where it would pick up the ladies. Without pausing to think that such an accident could very well cost the life of the woman he loved (for he was concerned only with his stratagem), he paid handsomely for it to be executed and returned to his house in high spirits. From there he set out once more the moment he was informed that Henrietta was about to leave, and ordered the coachman who drove him to wait in the vicinity of Cecil Street until such and such a carriage would leave Lady Wateley’s. The man should follow this carriage the moment he saw it and not let any other vehicle get between him and it.
Granwel was convinced that after leaving Lady Wateley’s the ladies would go to the Hotel Poland and call for Williams. This they did. But the journey was not uneventful. The wheel broke, the ladies shrieked, one of the grooms broke a limb, and Granwel, to whom nothing mattered as long as he succeeded, drew up alongside their wrecked carriage, jumped out of his own, and offered his hand to Lady Stralson together with all the help his carriage could afford her.
‘Really, Lord Granwel, you are too kind,’ she replied. ‘These hired London carriages are a disgrace. A person cannot go about in one of them without risking life and limb. There should be laws to put a stop to this scandalous state of affairs.’
Granwel. ‘You will forgive me, Madame, if I do not complain. As far as I can see, neither you nor the young lady who accompanies you have come to any harm, and in the event I have acquired the inestimable advantage of being of some small service to you.’
Lady Stralson. ‘You are too obliging, sir… But my groom seems to be in pain, and indeed I am very sorry for it.’
Immediately summoning two chairmen, his Lordship arranged for the injured man to be placed in their charge… The ladies gave orders that he was to be sent back whence he had come, and then stepped into Granwel’s carriage which bore them off swiftly to the Hotel Poland.
It is impossible to describe his Lordship’s feelings on finding himself seated next to the woman he loved, and with the circumstances which had brought them together taking on the appearance of a genuine service rendered.
‘No doubt you were intending to pay a call on some lady also up from the country who is staying at the Hotel Poland?’ he said to Henrietta when the carriage had set off.
‘It’s more than a visit to a country acquaintance, your Lordship,’ Miss Stralson replied candidly. ‘We go to call on the man I love… we are to see my future husband.’
Granwel. ‘How disappointed you would have been, Mademoiselle, had this accident delayed the meeting you were so looking forward to. I reckon myself all the more fortunate to have had the pleasure of being of some service.’
Miss Stralson. ‘Your Lordship is so kind to be concerned on our account. We are distraught at having put you to great inconvenience, and Mama will permit me to add that I fear we may have committed an indiscretion.’
Granwel. ‘Ah, Mademoiselle, how unjust you are to view in such a light the greatest pleasure I have ever had! But if I myself dare risk an indiscretion, shall you not need my carriage to continue the other calls you have to make this afternoon? If so, may I be so happy as to know that you would be pleased to accept the use of it?’
Miss Stralson. ‘That would be too great an imposition on our part, your Lordship. We were going to the opera. But now we shall instead spend the evening with the friend we are going to see.’
Granwel. ‘It is a shabby way of repaying what you have acknowledged as a service to refuse me leave to continue it. Pray do not deprive yourselves of the pleasure you were anticipating. Melico1 is singing today for the last time. It would be a dreadful shame to miss this opportunity to hear him. Besides, you must not think that I should in any way be inconvenienced by the offer I have made, since I am going to the performance myself. No more is involved than allowing me to accompany you.’
It would have been ungracious of Lady Stralson to refuse Granwel, and she did not do so. They arrived at the Hotel Poland, where Williams was waiting for the ladies. Gave, though he had arrived at the hotel that day, was not to begin playing his role until the next, and was thus not yet known to our young man who, as a consequence, was alone when mother and daughter arrived. He received them effusively and loaded his Lordship with civilities and thanks. But since time was growing short, they all removed at once to the opera. Williams gave Lady Stralson his arm, and Granwel, as a result of this arrangement which he had anticipated, was able to converse privately with Miss Henrietta, whom he found to be possessed of infinite wit, deep learning, refined taste, and everything which he might well have had great trouble finding in a young lady of more exalted birth who had spent her whole life in town.
After the performance Granwel escorted the two ladies back to Cecil Street. Lady Stralson, who had no cause but to be well satisfied with him, invited him inside to meet her cousin. Lady Wateley, who knew Granwel only slightly, nevertheless received him very grandly. She pressed him to stay to supper, but his Lordship, too canny to run before he could walk, said he had urgent business to attend to and left, more aflame with passion than ever.
Ordinarily, people like Granwel do not go in much for sighing and pining. Obstacles rouse them to action but, in a soul such as his, obstacles which cannot be overcome extinguish rather than inflame the passions. And since persons of this sort need perpetual stimulation, then if all prospect of success is placed beyond reach, they simply find another object for their affections.
Granwel soon realized that working to drive his wedge between Williams and his bride-to-be might prove a long business, and that in the meantime he should also give some thought to setting the charming daughter against her mother, for he was convinced that his plan would come to nothing as long as the two women stood shoulder to shoulder. Once he had his entrée to Lady Wateley’s house, it seemed impossible to him, when to his presence there was added the role of his spies, that anything that Henrietta did could escape him. This new stratagem of separating them now filled all his thoughts.
Three days after their visit to the opera Granwel called to enquire after the health of the ladies. But he was quite taken aback when he saw Lady Stralson appear in the parlour unaccompanied and offer her cousin’s excuses for not being able to invite him upstairs. An indisposition was offered as the reason, and although Granwel was greatly irritated, he showed himself no less concerned for the health of the mistress of the house. But he could not refrain also from enquiring after Henrietta. Lady Stralson replied that she had been rather shaken by the accident and had not left her room since the day it happened. Shortly after this, his Lordship asked if he might call again and then took his leave, feeling very dissatisfied with his day.
Meanwhile Gave had struck up an acquaintance with Williams, and the day after the exasperating call his Lordship had paid on Lady Wateley he came to report on his activities.
‘I have advanced your affairs much further than you think, your Lordship,’ he told Granwel. ‘I have seen Williams and also a number of men of business who are fully acquainted with his lawsuit. The inheritance he expects to get—which is the fortune he hopes to offer Henrietta—could very well be contested. In Hereford there is another nephew who is more closely related than he and completely unaware of his rights. We must write and tell this man to come immediately, befriend him when he is here, and ensure that the aunt’s estate goes to him. Meanwhile I shall empty the pockets of the impertinent puppy who has dared set himself up as your rival. He has confided in me with a candour which does credit to his age, and has already told me all about his amours. He has even spoken of you, and of the kindness you showed his Henrietta the other day. He is well and truly snared, I assure you. You can leave this business entirely to me. I tell you, the dupe is firmly in our pocket.’
‘This news goes some way to making up’, said his Lordship, ‘for yesterday’s setback.’
And he recounted to his friend the manner in which he had been received by Lady Stralson.
‘Gave,’ he went on, ‘I am head over heels in love and all this is taking a very lengthy turn. I cannot hold back indefinitely the violent urge I feel to have that girl… I have a new plan: listen well, then carry it out without delay. Tell Williams you are keen to meet the girl he loves. Say that since it is out of the question for you to go to her in the house of a lady you do not know, he must pretend to be ill and send urgent word to her that she must call for a sedan-chair and come to him at once… Get to work on that, Gave… go to it, but without neglecting the overall scheme, and leave me to act once you have set this new ploy in motion.’
Gave, the wiliest scoundrel in all England, succeeded so well in his efforts that, without losing sight of the main plan or forgetting to send word to Mr Clark, the other heir of Williams’s aunt, that he was to come at once to London, he persuaded his friend to let him meet Henrietta in exactly the manner set out by Granwel. Miss Stralson was told that the man she loved was unwell. She wrote to him saying that she would find an opportunity to come and see him, using an imagined errand as a pretext. His Lordship was immediately informed from both quarters that on the Tuesday following, at four in the afternoon, Miss Henrietta would go out alone in a chair and make her way to Covent Garden.
‘I worship her!’ exclaimed Granwel, seeing his cup of joy overflow. ‘And this time she shall not escape me! However violent the methods I have adopted to possess her may be, they do not fill me with remorse, since I am consoled by the pleasure she shall give me… Remorse! Can a heart like mine ever know the meaning of such a feeling? The habit of evildoing expunged it long ago from my calloused soul. A host of beautiful women, all seduced like Henrietta, deceived like her, abandoned like her, could tell her if I was ever moved by their tears, alarmed by their struggles, moved by their shame, restrained by their charms… Well, here is one more name to add to the list of the illustrious victims of my debauchery. And what use would women be if they were not good for that?… I defy anyone to prove to me that nature created them for any other reason. Let us leave the absurd mania for setting them on pedestals to the morons. By spouting such lily-livered nonsense, we have encouraged women to get above themselves. They observe that we set great store by the petty matter of having them, and accordingly think that they too are entitled to attach a great price to the same business and oblige us to waste on romantic elucubrations precious time which was meant only for pleasure… But what am I saying? Henrietta! Just one glance from your blazing eyes would rout all my philosophy and force me to bend my knee to you even as I swear to do you wrong!… What! Can it be that I am in love?… Begone!… Away, vulgar sentiment!… If there were a woman alive capable of making me feel it, I think I would rather blow her brains out than submit to her infernal arts!… No, no, weak, deceitful sex, you can never hope to fetter me! I have too often tasted of the pleasures you offer to be overawed by them. It is only by provoking the god of love that a man learns to desecrate his temple, and if he really wishes to destroy the creed of love, he cannot commit too many outrages against it…’
After these reflections, which were all too worthy of such a deepdyed villain, Granwel sent out servants to hire all the sedan-chairs plying their trade anywhere near Cecil Street. He stationed men at every corner to ensure that no chair for hire approached Lady Wateley’s residence, and ordered one, carried by two chairmen in his pay, to convey Henrietta, once they had her, towards St James’s Park, to the house of a Madame Schmit who, for twenty years, had been a party to Granwel’s secret affairs and to whom he had taken the precaution of sending word. Henrietta, without giving the matter a second thought or doubting the honesty of the public servants she assumed she was employing, put on her cloak and stepped into the chair which was offered her. She directed the men to take her to the Hotel Poland and, being unfamiliar with the streets, did not suspect for one moment during the entire journey that anything was amiss. She arrived at the house where Granwel awaited her. The chairmen, who had their orders, advanced up Madame Schmit’s carriage-drive and did not stop until they reached her portico. The door opened…
Henrietta was astounded to find herself in a house which she did not know. She gave a cry, took several paces back, and told the chairmen that they had not taken her where she had instructed them to go…
‘Miss Henrietta,’ said Granwel coming forward at once, ‘how thankful I must be to the good Lord above for giving me a second chance to be of service to you! I deduce from what you say and from what I see of the state of your chairmen, first, that they are drunk, and second, that they have mistaken their way. Is it not fortunate in the circumstances that it is at the house of a relative of mine, Lady Edward, that this minor mishap should befall you? Be so good as to come in, dismiss these rogues who cannot be trusted with your life, and allow my cousin’s servants to procure a more reliable chair for you.’
It was difficult to refuse such an offer. Henrietta had met his Lordship only once before. She had no reason to complain of him, and now found herself in the hall of a house whose appointments did not suggest anything untoward. Even supposing there was some small risk in agreeing to the proposal which had been put to her, was there not even more danger in the prospect of remaining in the clutches of men who were not only drunk but, stung by the remarks Henrietta had addressed to them, were of a mind to abandon her there? So she entered the house, begging Granwel’s pardon a thousand times. His Lordship himself sent the chairmen packing, and pretended to give orders to the servants to go out and find another chair. Miss Stralson proceeded further into the house where she was conducted by its mistress, and when she arrived at a charming salon the bogus Lady curtseyed and said to Granwel in a downright impudent tone:
‘That’s the style, your Lordship! To be honest I couldn’t have supplied you with a prettier piece of goods.’
At this, Henrietta gave a shudder, her strength almost abandoned her, and she felt the full horror of her predicament. But she had enough presence of mind to control herself… her safety depended on it. She took her courage in both hands.
‘What do you mean by those remarks, Madame,’ she said, grasping La Schmit’s arm, ‘and who do people here think I am?’
‘A very lovely girl,’ replied Granwel, ‘an angelic creature who very soon, I hope, will turn the most adoring lover that ever lived into the most fortunate of men!’
‘Your Lordship,’ said Henrietta, without releasing her hold on La Schmit, ‘I see that my rash conduct has placed me in your power. But I appeal to your justice. If you take advantage of my situation, if you force me to hate you, you will certainly not gain as much as if you had trusted to the feelings you have started in me.’
‘That is clever, but you will not get round me either by your bewitching face or the very subtle wiles which sustain you at this moment. You do not love me, you could never love me. But I do not aspire to your love. I know the man for whom your heart beats, and I reckon myself to be a happier one than he. He has no more than a trifling sentiment which I shall never obtain from you… But I have your delectable person which will fill my senses with an ecstasy of delights!’
‘Stop, your Lordship! You have been misinformed. I am not in love with Williams. He has been offered my hand but I have not given him my heart. My heart is free and might love you as it might love any other man. But it will assuredly hate you if you insist on taking by force what you have it in your power to earn.’
‘You do not love Williams? So why go calling on the man if you did not love him? Do you think I do not know that you were only going to see him because you believed he was ill?’
‘Quite true. But I should not have gone at all if Mama had not insisted. Make enquiries. All I did was to obey her wishes.’
‘Cunning vixen!’
‘Your Lordship, acknowledge the feeling I now believe I can read in your eyes… Be generous, Granwel, do not force me to hate you when you could choose to have my respect.’
‘Respect?’
‘Heavens! Would you rather have my hate?’
‘Hate would be no more than a warmer feeling which might make me feel something for you.’
‘Are you really so ignorant of a woman’s heart that you do not know what can come from gratitude? Send me home, your Lordship, and one day you will discover if Henrietta is ungrateful and whether or not she was worthy to have obtained your pity.’
‘What! Me, show pity? Pity for a woman?’ said Granwel, separating her from La Schmit… ‘Me, relinquish the best opportunity I ever had and forgo the greatest of life’s pleasures simply to spare you a moment’s suffering?… Now why should I do that? Come here, you siren, come close, I will not listen to another word…’
And so saying, he tore away the kerchief covering Henrietta’s lovely bosom and flung it to the far side of the room.
‘God who art all goodness!’ she cried as she threw herself at his Lordship’s feet. ‘Let me not be the victim of a man who is bent on making me hate him!… Have pity on me, your Lordship, I beg you! May your heart be touched by my tears and may it still hear the voice of virtue! Do not ruin an unfortunate woman who has done you no injury, in whom you inspired gratitude, and who might have felt more…’
As she said these words she was on her knees at his Lordship’s feet, with her arms raised to heaven… Down her delicate cheeks coursed tears which, prompted by fear and desperation, fell on to her bare breasts which were many times whiter than alabaster.
‘Where am I?’ cried Granwel in bewilderment. ‘What is this indescribable sensation which invades every fibre of my being? Where did you get those eyes which unman me? Who loaned you that beguiling voice whose every cadence melts my heart? Are you an angel from heaven or mere flesh and blood? Speak! Who are you? I do not know what I am saying, what I want, or what I am doing. All my faculties are swallowed up in you and allow me only to want what you want… Please rise, Miss Henrietta, get up, it is for me to fall at the feet of the god who enslaves me. Rise: your power is well and truly confirmed. It has become impossible… quite impossible for any impure desire to challenge it in my soul…’
And he returned her kerchief to her.
‘Take this and cover your nakedness which intoxicates my senses. I have no need of anything to heighten the raging fever which so much beauty has stoked up in me!’
‘Oh sublime man!,’ exclaimed Henrietta, pressing his Lordship’s hand. ‘What reward do you not deserve for so generous a gesture?’
‘What I wish to deserve, Mademoiselle, is your heart. That is the only reward to which I aspire, the only prize that would be worthy of me. You must never forget that once I held power of life and death over you and did not use it… And if that does not elicit from you the feelings I ask for, then remember that I shall be entitled to take my revenge, and that vengeance is a terrible thing in a soul such as mine… Please sit, Mademoiselle, and listen to what I have to say… You have given me hope, Henrietta. You said you do not love Williams… you have allowed me to believe that you could love me… There you have my motives for desisting… and the reasons you must thank for your victory. I would rather deserve to be given freely what I could all too easily take by force. Do not make me regret this outbreak of virtue, do not force me to say that the faithlessness of men is a function of the deceitfulness of women, that if women always treated us as they should, we too would always behave as they would like.’
‘Your Lordship,’ replied Henrietta, ‘you cannot possibly disguise the fact that in this unfortunate business the first wrong was committed by you. By what right did you seek to upset the settled pattern of my life? Why did you have me brought to a strange house, when I had entrusted myself to public servants in the belief that they would take me where I directed them? Given these certain facts, your Lordship, what entitles you to tell me what I ought to do? Should you not be offering me your apology instead of imposing conditions on me?’
And observing Granwel give a start of dissatisfaction:
‘Nevertheless,’ she went on quickly, ‘your Lordship will perhaps allow me to explain? The first wrong you did can be excused, if you like, by the love you say you feel, and you have made amends for it by the noblest, the most generous of sacrifices… Of course I am grateful… I gave you my promise I would be, and have no intention of breaking my word… You should come and call on my family, your Lordship, I will urge them to treat you as you deserve. The habit of seeing you will constantly revive those feelings of gratitude you have planted in my heart. From this beginning you may conceive the largest hopes. I should go down in your estimation were I to say any more.’
‘But how are you going to explain this incident to your friends?’
‘In the most obvious way… as a mistake made by the chairmen who, by a most singular coincidence, delivered me a second time into the hands of a man who, having already once been of service to me, was only too delighted to be able to repeat his good deed.’
‘And you solemnly declare, Mademoiselle, that you do not love Williams?’
‘I cannot feel hatred for a man who has never behaved towards me except with plain, honest dealing. He loves me, of that I am quite sure. But he is my mother’s choice, and there is nothing to prevent my sending him away.’
‘With your Lordship’s permission,’ she went on, ‘I will now ask you to send out for a chair for me. This conversation, if prolonged, will arouse suspicion and might throw doubts on what I intend to say. Dismiss me now, your Lordship, and brook no delay in calling upon one who feels the sincerest gratitude for all your kindness and readily forgives you for devising so barbarous a plan in the light of the prudent, virtuous manner with which you choose to blot it from her memory.’
‘Cruel girl,’ said his Lordship, as he too rose from his chair, ‘yes, I shall obey… But I am counting on your heart, Henrietta… I rely on it… Remember that, when betrayed, my passions reduce me to desperate measures… I shall use the same language as you: do not make me hate you. You would have run little danger from the hate you were forced to feel for me—but it will go hard indeed for you if you leave me no alternative but to hate you.’
‘No, your Lordship, no. I will never make you hate me. I have more pride than you think, and I shall never do anything which would end my right to have your respect.’
At these words, Granwel sent for chairmen… there were many in the vicinity… they were announced… and his Lordship took Henrietta by the hand.
‘Angelic creature,’ he said, leading her off, ‘do not forget that you have just won such a victory as no other woman but you could have ever dared dream of… a triumph which you owe entirely to the feelings you have started in me… and that if you ever betray those feelings, they will be replaced by all the crimes which my revenge can devise.’
‘Farewell, your Lordship,’ replied Henrietta as she stepped into the chair. ‘You should never repent of a good deed. Remember, heaven and every just soul will be in your debt.’
Granwel went home in a state of inexpressible agitation. Henrietta returned to her mother looking so distraught that everyone thought she would faint.
Whoever reflects on the conduct of Miss Stralson will of course see at once that there was nothing but artifice and strategy in everything she had said to Granwel… and that she had stooped to these ruses, so foreign to her innocent nature, only so that she might escape the dangers which threatened her. We do not fear that in behaving in this way, our remarkable young woman has laid herself open to censure. The purest virtue must sometimes resort to less than blameless expedients.
When she reached her house, having no further reason for dissimulation, she told her mother and her aunt everything that had happened to her. She held nothing back of what she said in her efforts to escape, nor any of the promises she had been forced to make for the same reason. Apart from her imprudence in going out alone, no criticism was made of anything that Henrietta had done. But both her relatives were opposed to allowing the promise she had made to be honoured. They decided that Miss Stralson should take the greatest care to avoid Lord Granwel everywhere, and that Lady Wateley’s door would remain firmly barred to whatever the scoundrel might attempt. Henrietta felt obliged to point out that such a course of action would greatly anger a man who might prove very dangerous when desperate; that in fact, if he had done wrong he had righted it like a gentleman; and that she believed in consequence that it would be better to allow him to call than make him angry. She felt justified in adding that such would also be Williams’s opinion. But both ladies refused to change their minds, and orders were given accordingly.
Meanwhile Williams, who had waited all evening for Henrietta to come and, growing impatient when she failed to arrive, had left O’Donel (the name Gave adopted when he came to the Hotel Poland), begging his leave to go himself to find out the reason for a delay which gave him great cause for concern. He arrived at Lady Wateley’s an hour after Henrietta had returned. When she saw him, she burst into tears… She took his hand and said to him tenderly:
‘My dear, how near I came to being unworthy of you!’
And since she was at liberty to be alone for as long as she wished to speak with a man whom her mother already regarded as a son-in-law, they were left together to ponder all that had just happened.
‘Oh Mademoiselle!’ cried Williams when he had been told the full story, ‘and it was on my account that you were to be dishonoured!… To give me a moment’s satisfaction, you were almost reduced to becoming the most unfortunate of women!… yes, Mademoiselle, and all for a whim! I must tell you that I was not ill. A friend wished to meet you, and I wanted him to see what a fortunate man I am to possess the tenderness of such a beautiful woman. That is all the mystery there is, Henrietta. You see now that I am guilty twice over.’
‘Let us say no more about it, my dear,’ replied Miss Stralson. ‘I am with you now and all is forgotten. But you do see, Williams,’ she added, allowing her glance to ignite the sweetest of fires in the heart of the man she adored, ‘you must see that I would never have seen you again if disaster had befallen me… You would not have wished to have any more to do with the victim of such a man and, in addition to my own grief, I should have known the despair of losing what I hold most dear in all the world…’
‘You must not think that way, Henrietta,’ Williams replied. ‘There is nothing on this earth which will ever prevent you from being adored by a man who glories in your love… Since I shall worship you until the day I last draw breath, please believe that the sentiments you inspire rise above all human actions, and that it is as impossible for me not to feel them as it is for you to cease to be worthy of inspiring them.’
Then the two young people discussed the disastrous event with slightly cooler heads. They conceded that Lord Granwel was a very dangerous enemy, and that the course of action they had decided on would serve only to make him angrier. But there was no way of altering it, for the ladies would not hear of it. Williams spoke of his new friend, and such were the innocence and sense of security of those honest souls that they never suspected for one moment that the bogus Scotsman might be an agent in Granwel’s employ. Far from it. Williams’s favourable remarks about him made Henrietta wish to meet him. She was very thankful that he had formed so sturdy an acquaintance. But let us quit these right-thinking people who supped together, comforted each other, made plans for the future, and finally said goodnight… let us leave them there for a moment and return to their persecutor.
‘By hell’s pit and all the devils who dwell there,’ his Lordship said when Gave came to see him the next morning, ‘I do not deserve to live, my lad!… I am but a schoolboy, I am an utter fool, I tell you… I held her in my arms… I saw her kneel before me, and I did not have the courage to make her serve my appetites… I simply could not bring myself to humiliate her… She is no woman, my friend, she is a portion of the godhead come down on earth to wake in my soul virtuous feelings I never had before in my whole life. She led me to believe that she might love me some day, and I… I, who could never understand that loving a woman formed any part of the pleasure she gave me, I rejected the pleasure, which was there for the having, in exchange for an imaginary sentiment which torments and alarms me and which I do not yet understand.’
Gave took his Lordship severely to task. He made him fear that he had been the plaything of a mere chit of a girl. He told him roundly that such an opportunity would not come again in a hurry, for their quarry would now be on their guard…
‘Yes, your Lordship,’ he went on, ‘remember that you will live to regret the mistake you have just made, and your leniency will cost you dear. Are you the kind of man who lets himself be carried away by a few tears and a pair of pretty eyes? And will the lethargy into which you have let your heart sink afford you the same quotient of sensual satisfaction which you ordinarily derive from the stoical indifference which you have sworn never to abandon? I tell you, your Lordship, you will rue your pity… upon my soul, you will regret it.’
‘We shall soon know,’ said his Lordship. ‘Tomorrow, without fail, I shall call upon Lady Wateley. I shall study my clever Miss Henrietta, I shall watch her carefully, Gave, I shall read her feelings in her eyes, and if she is deceiving me then let her beware! I shall not lack new ways of making her fall into my clutches once more, and she will not always be able to count on her magic and witchcraft to escape again the way she did before!… As to you, Gave, continue ruining that damned Williams. When Mr Clark shows his face, send him to see Sir James, who I shall have put fully in the picture. He will advise Clark to pursue his inheritance on which another party has lodged a claim, and he shall have our full backing in his dealings with the judges… We can always undo all these arrangements if it is clear that my angel loves me, or press on with them hard if the infernal girl tricks me… But I repeat: I am a novice and I will never forgive myself for acting so foolishly. My stupidity must remain hidden from my friends, Gave. They would scoff without mercy and I should deserve every word of their mockery.’
They separated, and the next day—that is, the third after the interview at Madame Schmit’s house—Granwel presented himself at Lady Wateley’s in all his wealth and splendour.
Nothing had happened to change the ladies’ resolve, and his Lordship was categorically refused entry… He stood firm and sent word that he must absolutely speak with Lady Stralson and her daughter concerning a matter of the greatest importance… The answer came back that the ladies he had asked for no longer lived at that address. He withdrew in a rage. His first thought was to seek out Williams, remind him of the service he had rendered Miss Stralson, giving the version he had agreed with Henrietta at La Schmit’s, and then demand to be taken by him to see Lady Stralson or else, if his rival refused to do his bidding, they would settle their differences with naked blades… But this plan did not strike him as being sufficiently callous. His quarrel was with Miss Stralson alone… It was probable that she had not told her family what she had promised him she would say. She alone was responsible for the way he had been snubbed, and she alone was the person he should seek out and punish. It was to this end that he would direct his best efforts.
Among all the precautions they decided should be taken at Lady Wateley’s, it was never suggested that no one should ever leave the house. Accordingly, Lady Stralson and her daughter did not fail to venture forth as was required by the business they had in London, and they even made forays designed to afford them pleasure or satisfy their curiosity. Lady Wateley, now somewhat recovered, accompanied them to the play, a few friends joined them there, and Williams also attended. Lord Granwel, well served by his spies, was kept fully informed of their movements and tried to turn every opportunity to advantage with a view to finding some way of satisfying both his vengeance and his wicked lusts. A month went by, however, without his being able to hit upon any such means, though on the other hand he never ceased to plot in the shadows.
Mr Clark who, on arriving from Hereford, was briefed by Sir James, had already set the matter of the inheritance in train with the powerful backing of Granwel and his friends. All this was a great worry to Williams, whose fortune the bogus Captain O’Donel, with his daily swindles, soon dilapidated to such an extent that he did not know which way to turn. But this approach proved to be too long-drawn-out for the liking of his impetuous Lordship, who continued to be no less impatient to have an earlier opportunity of humbling the unfortunate Henrietta. He was intent on seeing her on her knees before him once more; he wished to punish her for the stratagems she had used against him. Such were the evil schemes his cursed brain had hatched, when one day he was informed that the whole company residing under Lady Wateley’s roof, none of whom had been much seen in society since Williams’s affairs had taken such a disturbing turn, were nevertheless due the next day to go to Drury Lane, where Garrick, who was then planning to retire, was to perform Hamlet for the very last time.*
At that instant, Granwel’s vile mind conceived the foulest plan that villainy could inspire. He resolved on nothing less than to have Miss Stralson arrested in the theatre and taken off that same evening to Bridewell.1
Let us throw some light on his unspeakable intentions.
A young woman named Nancy, a notorious courtesan, was newly come from Dublin. There she had committed numerous thefts and publicly ruined several Irish gentlemen before crossing to England where, though she was but recently arrived, she had already been guilty of a number of unpublicized misdemeanours. The police, armed with an order for her arrest, were actively working to apprehend her. Granwel got wind of this affair and went to see the officer who was to serve the warrant, and, discovering that the man was not personally acquainted with the young woman he had been ordered to arrest, had no difficulty in persuading him that she would be at Drury Lane that very evening, in the box which he knew would be occupied by Henrietta who, being there in the place of the courtesan who was being actively sought, would be at the mercy of his odious plans. He immediately offered to go bail for her, which meant that if the unfortunate prisoner agreed to his desires, she would be free… If she refused to do so, his Lordship would arrange for ‘Nancy’ to escape, confirm the opinion that Henrietta was one and the same as the Dublin adventuress, and thus ensure that his unfortunate victim’s efforts to extricate herself would drag on interminably. The circle in which Miss Stralson moved gave him pause. But information would be laid before Lady Wateley, who had met Lady Stralson and her daughter for the first time when they had come to London… and knew she had relations of the same name in Hereford but might well have been misled as to the identity of these persons… so that there would be no difficulty in persuading her, said Granwel, that she had made a terrible mistake. What could she say or do to defend the two women and save them from the arm of the law? This plan concocted in the head of Granwel was confided to Gave and Sir James, who both probed it and turned it this way and that and found nothing wrong with it, so that all were unanimous that it should be implemented at once. Granwel hurried off to the Justice of the Peace who was in charge of Nancy’s case. He swore he had seen her the night before, and affirmed she would be at Drury Lane later that day in the company of honest ladies whom she had duped and to whose faces she had the impertinence to call herself a person of quality. The judge and his constable did not hesitate. The order was given and arrangements were made so that there would be no mistake in arresting the unfortunate Henrietta that same day at the play.
Granwel and his dreadful cohort did not fail to be at the theatre that evening. But as much from decency as from prudence, the members of this ignoble gang were to remain as mere bystanders. The box filled up. Henrietta took her place between Lady Wateley and her mother. Behind them sat Williams and Lord Barwill, a friend of Lady Wateley, a Member of Parliament and a man of the highest standing in London… The play ended. Lady Wateley decided that the rest of the audience should be allowed to leave first… It seems that she had some presentiment of the misfortune about to befall her friends. However, the constable and the men of the watch did not let Henrietta out of their sight for a moment, and Granwel and his cronies did not take their eyes off the constable. Finally, when the crowd had dispersed, the party left. Williams gave his arm to Lady Wateley, Lady Stralson walked alone, and Barwill squired Miss Henrietta. At the end of the corridor the officer stepped forward with his hand held high over the hapless young woman. He touched her lightly with his staff and ordered her to follow him. Henrietta fainted. Lady Wateley and Lady Stralson fell into each other’s arms, and Barwill, seconded by Williams, fended off the men of the watch.
‘You are making a mistake, you clods!’ cried Barwill. ‘Away with you, or I shall see that you are punished!’
This scene alarmed those spectators still in the theatre, who stared and crowded round… The constable, showing Barwill his warrant, informed him what sort of woman he took Henrietta to be. At that instant Sir James, prompted by Granwel, approached Barwill.
‘Perhaps your Lordship would be good enough to allow me to point out’, said the rogue, ‘that you might well regret taking the side of a young woman you do not know. You may be in no doubt, your Lordship, that she is indeed Nancy from Dublin. I will swear an oath on it, if I have to.’
Barwill, who had known the two women for only a short space of time, turned to Lady Wateley, while Williams attended to Henrietta.
‘Madame,’ said he, ‘here is a warrant and here is a gentleman whom I know to be a man incapable of deception. He tells me that the warrant is in order and that the constable has made no mistake. Would you be good enough to explain all this to me?’
‘By all that I hold most sacred, your Lordship,’ Lady Stralson promptly exclaimed, ‘this poor girl is my daughter and not the wretched creature the police are looking for. Please, you must not desert us! Be our defender, get to the root of all this, your Lordship, protect us, be the friend of innocence!’
‘Be off with you,’ Barwill said to the constable. ‘I shall be responsible for the young lady. I shall myself escort her to the Justice of the Peace forthwith. Go and wait for us at his house. There you will carry out whatever new orders you may be given. Until then I shall stand guarantor for Henrietta. Your task is finished.’
With these words the crowd broke up, the constable went his way, and Sir James, Granwel, and his accomplices went theirs. As he led the ladies away Barwill said:
‘Let us go quickly and cease drawing attention to ourselves.’
He offered his arm to Henrietta and the rest of the company followed him. He and the three ladies got into his carriage, and they took only a few minutes to reach the house of the celebrated Fielding,* the justice in charge of the case.
This magistrate, taking account of the words of Lord Barwill, his long-standing friend, and after hearing the honest, candid answers of all three women, could not but conclude that he had been misled. To put this opinion beyond the reach of doubt, he set the description of Nancy against Henrietta’s physical appearance and, on finding significant discrepancies between them, was effusive in offering the ladies his apologies and his good wishes. At this point they parted company with Lord Barwill, to whom they expressed their gratitude, and made their unhurried way home where Williams was waiting for them.
‘Oh my dear,’ said Henrietta, still very upset, when she saw him. ‘What powerful enemies we have in this accursed town! I wish we had never come here!’
‘There can be absolutely no doubt about it,’ said Lady Stralson. ‘This whole business must be laid at the door of that villain Granwel. I did not wish to air any of my ideas, out of circumspection, but my every thought merely confirms them. It is impossible not to suspect that the blackguard is hounding us in this way to pay off his score. And who knows’, she went on, ‘if he were not also responsible for saddling Williams with a new rival for his aunt’s estate? We hardly knew this Mr Clark. At Hereford no one ever dreamed he was related to her, and now the man is succeeding and has the support of all London, while my unfortunate friend Williams may be on the verge of ruin! No matter,’ continued the good, honest creature, ‘even if he ends up poorer than Job, he shall still have my daughter’s hand… This I promise, my dear… you have my word on it, Williams. For you are the only man my precious girl loves and I think of nothing save her happiness!’
Henrietta and Williams both flung themselves tearfully into Lady Stralson’s arms, and overwhelmed her with the marks of their gratitude.
Yet Williams felt guilty, but did not dare admit it. Led astray by Gave, who masqueraded under the name of Captain O’Donel, he had, by gambling privately with this false friend or publicly in the assemblies into which he had been introduced by him, lost almost all the money he had brought to London. Knowing of no connection between Granwel and the Scottish Captain, he did not even remotely suspect that O’Donel was his Lordship’s agent… He said nothing, sighed in silence, felt uneasy when offered marks of affection by Henrietta and her mother, and did not dare make a clean breast of his faults. He still hoped his luck might turn and perhaps restore his small fortune. But if it did not, and if, moreover, Clark were to win their lawsuit, then having made himself unworthy of the kindness he was shown daily, Williams, the hapless Williams, was resolved to do anything rather than abuse it.
As for Granwel, there is no need to paint his rage in words: it may be all too easily imagined.
‘She is not a woman,’ he repeated over and over to his friends, ‘she is a creature of superhuman dimensions! Oh, I can strain my wit to mount plots against her, but she will always escape them!… Very well, let her continue… I advise her to do so… But if my star ever has the ascendant over hers, she will pay dearly for the tables she has turned on me!’
Meanwhile, all the heavy artillery calculated to bring poor Williams to his knees was drawn up in battle-order with even more art and dispatch than usual. The proceedings concerning the will had reached the point where a judgement was about to be given, and Granwel spared neither thought nor effort to back the case of Mr Clark who, since he conferred only with Sir James, never suspected whose was the hand which gave him such powerful support.
The day after the incident at Drury Lane, Granwel called upon Fielding to apologize for having been mistaken. This he managed with such good grace that the magistrate appeared to bear him no ill will, and the villain took himself off to devise new schemes, which, with greater success, might finally lure the hapless victim of his infatuation into his clutches.
An opportunity was not long in presenting itself. Lady Wateley owned a rather pretty country estate between Newmarket and Hosden,* about fifteen miles from London. She thought she would take her young niece there, to chase away the black thoughts which had begun to prey on her mind. Granwel, fully informed of every move Henrietta made, was told on which day she was to leave. He knew that the ladies were to spend a week on the estate, and return on the evening of the ninth day after their departure. He adopted a disguise, took with him a dozen of the ne’er-do-wells who roam the streets of London and will enter the service of any man for a few guineas, and galloped off at the head of these bravos to wait for Lady Wateley’s carriage on the edge of a forest, not far from Newmarket and notorious for the murders committed there every day, through which the returning party would have to travel. The carriage arrived, it was halted… the traces were cut… the grooms were thrashed… the horses galloped off… the ladies fainted… Miss Stralson was carried unconscious to another carriage which stood waiting close by… Her kidnapper climbed into it after her, mettlesome steeds sprang into action, the carriage and its passengers arrived in London… His Lordship, who had neither revealed his identity to Henrietta nor spoken a single word to her during their entire journey, swept quickly into his town-house with his prey. He settled her in a sequestered chamber, sent his servants away… and unmasked himself.
‘Well, fickle jade!’ said he in a rage, ‘do you know the man you thought you could betray with impunity?’
‘Yes, your Lordship, I know you,’ replied Henrietta bravely. ‘Whenever disaster strikes, how can I avoid mentioning your name? You are the sole cause of all the misfortunes which have befallen me. Your only charm is your talent to cause me distress. You would not treat me differently if I were your most mortal enemy.’
‘Cruel girl, was it not you who turned me into the most miserable of men by abusing my good faith? And by your duplicity, did you not make me the fool of the feelings I have conceived for you?’
‘I believed your Lordship more just, for I imagined that before passing judgement on the accused you would at least allow them to speak.’
‘And let myself be ensnared a second time in your damnable entanglements? Come now!’
‘O most unhappy Henrietta! So you are to be punished for being too honest, too trusting! And it is the only man in the world you respect who will be the cause of all the calamities in your life!’
‘What do you mean, Mademoiselle? Explain yourself. I am prepared to hear what you have to say in your defence, but do not think that you can play me for a fool… do not imagine you can abuse the love which is my fate and which has so surely worked to my shame… No, Mademoiselle, you will not pull the wool over my eyes a second time… Henrietta, I no longer feel anything for you, I see you now dispassionately, and the only desires you start in me are those prompted by crime and revenge.’
‘Hold hard, sir, you make your accusations too lightly. A woman who set out to dupe you would have received you when you came calling on her, she would have encouraged you to hope, sought to placate you, and, if she had half the artifice you impute to me, she would have succeeded… Stop and consider the very different way in which I have behaved… and when you have deciphered my true motives, then you may condemn me, if you dare.’
‘Come now! At our last meeting, you let me think that you were not indifferent to me. You yourself invited me to call on you… That was what placated me… it was on that condition that my heart turned delicate and cast out those other feelings which I see you do not approve of… Imagine! I did all I could to please you… I sacrificed everything in the hope of winning your heart, though had I heeded only my desires I would not have needed to possess it at all—and my reward was to have your door slammed in my face!… No, no, Miss Artful, you cannot hope to escape me again… you should not expect to, Mademoiselle, all your efforts will come to nothing.’
‘Do with me what you will, your Lordship, I am in your power…‘(and here she shed a few involuntary tears) ‘… but in taking me know that it will be surely at the cost of my mother’s life… No matter. Use me as you will, I say, I shall not attempt to defend myself… But if you can hear the truth without suspecting me of deceiving you, then I would ask your Lordship if the occasions on which you were turned away do not utterly vindicate both the admission I made of my feelings for you and the fears that my friends felt of their power to harm me… For what would have been the point of turning you away if they had not been afraid of you? And would they have feared you had I not stated my feelings for you openly? Take your revenge, your Lordship, settle your account, punish me for surrendering too willingly to my sweet transgression… I deserve your anger… you can never give it too loose a rein… nor be too violent in expressing it.’
‘Well now,’ said Granwel, in a state of the most unbelievable agitation, ‘did I not predict that this wily creature would again try to bring me to heel?… No, no, Mademoiselle, you have no right to speak of your transgressions, for they are all mine… I alone am guilty, and I am the one who must punish myself. I was a monster, that is clear, for I plotted against a woman who loved me from the bottom of her heart… I could not see it, I did not know… Ascribe it to the extreme humility of my character: how could I ever aspire to the proud thought that I might be loved by a woman like you?’
‘You won’t mind if I point out, your Lordship, that neither you nor I are given to sarcasm or jesting. You make me the unhappiest of women and I never wished that you should be the most unfortunate of men. That is all I have to say, your Lordship. Clearly you do not believe me. Please allow me my turn to have enough pride, humiliated though I am, not even to try to convince you. It is hard enough for me to have to blush for my behaviour in front of my family and friends, without being forced to regret it to the face of the man who drove me to it… You should not believe a word of what I say, your Lordship, I am the most duplicitous of women, and you ought not to allow yourself to see me in any other light… Do not believe me, I say…’
‘But, Mademoiselle, if it is true that your feelings for me were really what you seem to be trying to convince me they were, then when you were not allowed to see me, what prevented you from writing? Did you not think how anxious I would be after the rebuff I had received?’
‘I am not my own mistress, your Lordship. That is something you should never forget, for you will agree that a young person of my age, whose sentiments are a reflection of the tenor of her education, must devote all her attention to expunging from her heart any sentiments of which her family cannot approve.’
‘And now that you are in effect free of your barbaric family, which was opposed both to your wishes and mine, will you agree here and now to be my wife?’
‘What? At a time when my mother may be dying and I am kidnapped by your handiwork? Oh, please allow me to consider the woman who brought me into the world before I give any thought to my own happiness!’
‘Make your mind easy on that score, Mademoiselle. Your mother is quite safe. She is at Lady Wateley’s, and both are in as little danger as you. My orders that they should be given every assistance at the same moment that you were carried off were executed even more exactly than the plan which placed you into my power. You need have no anxiety on that score. You must not allow such worries to influence the clear answer I ask you to give me. Will you accept my hand in marriage, Mademoiselle, or do you refuse it?’
‘Do you think that this is a matter which I can decide without the approval of my mother? It is not your mistress that I wish to be, but your wife. Should I be your wife legally if, being still dependent on my family, I were to marry you without their formal blessing?’
‘But Mademoiselle, have you forgotten that you are in my power? That slaves are in no position to lay down conditions?’
‘If that is how matters stand, your Lordship, I shall not marry you… I have no wish to be the slave of the man whom my heart has chosen.’
‘Proud creature! Will I never succeed in taming you?’
‘And what fine sentiment do you associate with achieving victory over a slave? How can what is gained through violence increase your self-regard?’
‘It is not always the case that fine sentiment, of which so much is made, is so precious a thing as women imagine.’
‘Leave such callous ideas to those who do not deserve to have the love of the persons they seek to dominate. Such odious maxims do not suit you, sir.’
‘But Williams, Mademoiselle… as to friend Williams… I wish all the calamities nature inflicts on human kind would rain down on the scoundrel’s head!’
‘Do not call the best of men by such a name!’
‘He has stolen your heart from me, he is to blame for everything. I know you love him.’
‘I have already given you my answer on that subject and I shall go on saying the same thing. Williams loves me, that is all… Oh sir, you will never be as unhappy as you think as long as your plans are not threatened by anything more dangerous than him.’
‘No, you Jezebel, no. I do not believe you…‘(growing agitated) ‘…Come, Mademoiselle, make ready, I have given you plenty of time to reflect. As you can well imagine, it was not to be made a dupe by you for a second time that I brought you here. Matters stand thus: either you become my wife tonight… or my mistress!’
And so saying, he seized her roughly by the arm and dragged her to the pagan altar on which the brute intended to sacrifice her to his desires.*
‘One word, your Lordship,’ cried Henrietta, holding back her tears and resisting Granwel’s onslaught with all her might, ‘just one word, I implore you… What do you hope to gain by the crime you are about to commit?’
‘All the pleasure it can give me!’
‘Then you shall have that pleasure for just one day, your Lordship. Tomorrow I shall be neither your slave nor your mistress. Tomorrow you shall find only the corpse of the woman whose life you ruined… Oh Granwel, you do not know what kind of person I am or the lengths to which I am capable of going. If it is true that you have the slightest feeling for me, do you think you can justify my death with a fleeting gratification of your senses? The pleasures you are intent on taking by force I shall give to you: why do you not wish to accept them as the gift of my heart?… You are a fair-minded man, a man of feeling,’ she continued, her head half bowed and holding her clasped hands out to her tormentor, ‘take pity on my tears!… May my cries of despair reach once more into your soul… you will not repent of having heard them! Oh your Lordship! Behold before you, in the posture of a supplicant, a woman who gloried in the prospect of one day seeing you fall at her feet. You want me to be your wife? Very well! Act as though I were, and you will not dishonour the woman whose destiny it is to be so closely entwined with yours!… Return Henrietta to her mother, she implores you, and it will be with the tenderest, the most ardent feelings that she will repay you for your generosity.’
But Granwel was no longer looking at her but striding around the apartment… inflamed by love… tormented by sensual appetite… burning for revenge… yet stayed despite himself by feelings of pity born of love which her gentle voice, proud bearing, and freely flowing tears stirred in his heart… At certain moments he was ready to seize her again, at others he wanted to forgive her… and there was no way of telling to which of these two impulses he would surrender, when Henrietta, sensing his hesitation, said:
‘Come, your Lordship, come and judge for yourself if I have any wish to deceive you. Take me to my mother yourself, come with me and ask her for my hand, and you shall see whether or not I am willing to serve your desires…’
‘What an incomprehensible girl you are!’ said his Lordship. ‘Very well, yes! I shall yield to you a second time. But should you be so unfortunate as to decide to trick me again, then there is no human power capable of saving you from the effects of my vengeance… Mark me: it will be terrible!… It will mean shedding the blood of those you love best… there shall be not one, not a single one of those who are closest to you, who will not be slaughtered by my hand and left for dead at your feet!’
‘I will submit to all your conditions, sir. Let us go now. Do not prolong the anxiety I feel for my mother. All I require for my happiness to be complete is her consent… to know that she is out of danger… and your desires shall be instantly gratified.’
His Lordship ordered the horses.
‘I shall not come with you,’ he told Henrietta. ‘This is not the time for me to meet your friends—you see how much I trust you? But tomorrow, at noon exactly, I shall send a carriage for you and your mother. You will come to my house, you will be received by my family, the lawyers will be in attendance, and I shall be your husband before the day is out. Yet if I detect, either from you or your relations, the slightest hint of a rebuff, do not forget Mademoiselle, that you will not have in the whole of London a more mortal enemy than I… Now go. Your carriage awaits. I will not even see you to it. I cannot wait to be free of your eyes, which wreak such singular havoc in my heart that in them I see simultaneously everything which impels me towards crime and all that points me towards virtue.’
When Henrietta reached home she found the house in an uproar. Lady Stralson had received injuries to her head and arm. Her cousin Wateley had taken to her bed on account of the dreadful fright they had received. Two grooms had been almost crushed when the carriage had been stopped. Yet Granwel had been as good as his word. Once he had left the scene, the same men who had led the attack on the carriage became its staunchest defenders. They had rounded up the horses, helped the ladies back into the carriage, and escorted them to the gates of London.
Lady Stralson had shed tears far more bitter for the loss of her daughter than for the sudden hurts she had received. She could not be consoled, and the most serious measures were about to be taken for her recovery when Henrietta appeared and flung herself into her mother’s arms. A few words clarified the situation but told Lady Wateley nothing new, for she had been in no doubt that the wicked Granwel was the sole perpetrator of this latest outrage. Miss Stralson related what had happened, and her account only served to deepen the general anxiety. Once his Lordship had formally asked for her hand, there would be no going back: Henrietta would have to become his wife the very next day… If they refused to accept his proposal, they would make a terrible enemy!
Faced with this appalling dilemma, Lady Stralson proposed that they should return at once to Hereford. But although this would be a decisive step, would it be enough to save the unfortunate mother and her daughter from the fury of a man who had sworn to pursue them to the ends of the earth if they did not keep their word? Would it not be better to lodge a complaint and call upon powerful protectors? But adopting this course would merely infuriate to the point of incandescence a man whose passions were terrifying and whose vengeance was to be dreaded. Lady Wateley was inclined to favour the marriage. It was difficult to imagine that Miss Henrietta could do better for herself: a lord of the very highest rank… with vast wealth… and surely the ascendant she had gained over him must convince Henrietta that she would be able to twist him around her little finger for the rest of her life?
But Miss Stralson’s feelings did not allow her to share this view. Everything she had undergone had made Williams dearer to her and served merely to increase her detestation of the beast who pursued her so relentlessly. She declared that she would prefer to die rather than accept Lady Wateley’s proposal, and added that the horrible position in which she had been placed of having to dissemble with Lord Granwel made him even more odious to her. They agreed therefore on delaying tactics, which meant, first, receiving his Lordship courteously and continuing to fan the flame of his love by allowing him to hope, whereas in reality they would put out his fire by postponing action indefinitely; and secondly, while all the foregoing was in train, completing the business they severally had in London, arranging for Henrietta to marry Williams in secret, and then returning to Hereford one fine day without Granwel suspecting a thing. Once there, they reasoned, if that dangerous man continued to stalk a woman who now had a husband, his actions would acquire a degree of gravity which would allow Lady Stralson and her daughter to seek the protection of the law. But would this plan really answer the purpose? Having been deceived twice already, would not a man as combustible as Granwel have grounds for believing that every effort was being made to deceive him a third time? And if this were so, what could they not expect to fear he might do? But these considerations did not enter the minds of Henrietta’s friends. They resolved to keep to the plan they had adopted, and the next day Miss Stralson wrote to her persecutor to say that her mother’s state of health was such as to prevent her honouring the promise she had given him. She earnestly begged his Lordship not to be angry, but on the contrary to call and console her for the regret she felt at being unable to keep her word and comfort her in the distress caused by her mother’s illness.
Granwel’s first reaction was one of vexation.
‘I have been tricked again!’ he cried. ‘This is the third time I have been that deceitful creature’s dupe!… And I had her in my power!… I could have forced her to satisfy my appetites… made her a slave to my will… But I allowed her to win… faithless jade… she has escaped me once more… But let us see what she wants with me… let us discover if it is true that she can use her mother’s health as a legitimate excuse…’
Granwel arrived at Lady Wateley’s and, never for one moment intimating, as will easily be imagined, that he was the instigator of the incident of the previous day, he merely observed that he had heard what had happened, and that the deep concern no one fortunate enough to have met Lady Stralson could help but feel for her had prompted him to call on her at once to enquire after her health and that of those persons who were close to her. This beginning was taken at face value, and the same tone was maintained. After a few moments Granwel took Henrietta to one side and asked if her mother’s slight indisposition would place lengthy obstacles in the way of his happiness in becoming her husband, and enquired whether, despite this delay, he might not hazard a few proposals. Henrietta quieted him and begged him not to be impatient. She told him that although her mother and aunt pretended otherwise, they were nonetheless convinced that he was the sole cause of everything they had suffered the day before, and that in light of this it was definitely not the moment to open any such negotiations.
‘Is it not a great deal’, she went on, ‘that we are allowed to see each other? Can you still accuse me of deceiving you when I have just arranged for you to have a permanent welcome in a house which you have filled with acrimony and gloom?’
But Granwel, who never believed that anyone had done anything for him at all unless his every wish was gratified, gave only a stammering sort of answer, saying to Miss Stralson that he was prepared to grant her another twenty-four hours. At the end of that time he would want to know exactly where he stood. Then his visit came to an end. This brief, quiet interlude will allow us to return to Williams, of whom we have lost sight in all of this.
Given the criminal attentions of Granwel and Gave, it would have been difficult for the poor young man’s affairs to have been in a more parlous state than they were. A few days hence the court would deliver its verdict, and Mr Clark, who had the whole of London on his side, already considered himself, not without reason, to be sole heir to the estate which Williams was counting on to offer, together with his hand, to the lovely Henrietta. Granwel left no stone unturned in his efforts to ensure that the court’s ruling was favourable to his designs. On this piece of chicanery, which had begun as a minor matter, he now placed his entire hopes for the success of his whole plan: would Henrietta be prepared to marry Williams if he were utterly ruined? And supposing that her niceness of sentiment would make her feel that she should, would her mother consent to it? Despite everything Granwel had learned from Miss Stralson at their last interview, he could hardly have failed to detect more diplomacy and circumspection than affection and truth in the words of the woman he loved. Moreover, he was kept informed by his spies, and was left in no doubt that the two young people went on seeing each other. He therefore decided to accelerate Williams’s ruin, as much to discomfit both Stralsons as with a view to using Williams’s undoing as his ultimate means of getting Henrietta in his clutches once more… And this time he swore she would not escape him again.
As for Captain O’Donel, after he had got all he could out of Williams, he had unceremoniously abandoned him and returned to Granwel’s house, going out very little lest he be recognized. His protector had insisted he go on taking this precaution until the business in hand was concluded, which, according to his Lordship, should not take much more than a few days longer.
In the meantime Williams, reduced to his last four guineas and not even having the wherewithal to meet the expenses of the lawsuit which he would have to pay, resolved to go on bended knee to kind Lady Stralson and her adorable daughter and confess frankly what he had done. He was on the way to see them when the final bolts of the thundercloud which hung over his head were suddenly unleashed. The verdict was given, Clark was judged to be two degrees of kinship closer than Williams to the aunt whose estate was contested. At a stroke poor Williams was deprived of the small fortune he currently enjoyed and the larger one he had hoped to inherit one day. Crushed by so many reverses, unable to face the horror of his situation, he was ready to end his life. But he found it impossible to do the deed without seeing for one last time the only human being who made his life worthwhile. He hastened to Lady Wateley’s. He knew Lord Granwel was a visitor there, and he also knew why. However troubling he found this circumstance, he dared not express his disapproval. Was it his place to try to impose his will in the precarious position in which he now found himself? It had been agreed, consequent upon the policy now directing whatever measures needed to be taken, that Williams should always come to the house secretly. It was therefore dark when he arrived, having chosen a time when all were quite sure that Granwel would not put in an appearance. As yet, no one had heard anything of his lost lawsuit. He told them, and at the same time added the ghastly news of his losing streak at the card table.
‘Oh, dearest Henrietta!’ he cried, flinging himself at the feet of the woman he loved, ‘I have come to say farewell forever, to release you from your promise, and break with my life. Deal prudently with my rival, Henrietta, and do not refuse his proposal of marriage. He alone can now make you happy. The mistakes I have made and the reverses I have suffered no longer permit me to be yours. Become the wife of my rival, Henrietta—as your best friend I beg you. Blot out the memory forever of a poor wretch who is no longer worthy of your pity.’
‘Williams,’ said Henrietta, raising him to his feet and sitting him down at her side, ‘I have never stopped loving you for one moment. How could you ever have believed that my feelings depended on the whims of fate? And how unjust a creature would I be were I to stop loving you because of your follies or your ill fortune? Believe me, Williams, my mother will never abandon you any more than I shall. I will take it upon myself inform her of what has happened to you—I want to spare you the distress of telling her yourself. But swear you will do nothing rash, Williams, and say that for as long as you are certain of my love nothing so terrible can ever happen that will tempt you to end your life!’
‘Dearest Henrietta! Yes, I do so swear now on bended knee. What is more sacred to me than your love? What misfortune can I fear if I still have your heart? Yes, I shall live, because you love me, but do not ask me to marry you, you must never agree to join your fate to that of a miserable wretch who is no longer worthy of you! Become his Lordship’s wife. If you do, although I would not greet the event without sadness, I could at least bear it without jealousy, and the magnificent life which so powerful a man would enable you to lead would, if anything could, console me for not having been able to aspire to the same bliss…’
It was not without shedding tears that the tender Henrietta heard these words, which she so disliked that she cut them short.
‘But this is monstrous unfair!’ she cried, taking Williams’s hand in hers. ‘Can I be happy if you are not? And would you be happy to know that I lay in another man’s arms? No, my dear, I shall never desert you. I now have an additional debt to repay… one that your misfortune has laid upon me. Until this moment I was attached to you by love alone, now I am bound by ties of duty… It is my duty to console you, Williams… by whom would you prefer to be comforted if not by your Henrietta? Should it not be my hand that dries your tears? Then why would you deny me the pleasure of doing so? Had you married me with the fortune which you should have inherited, you would have owed me nothing, my dear. But now I can be joined to you by the chains of love and the bonds of gratitude.’
Williams bedewed Henrietta’s hands with his tears, and so overpowering was the emotion which burned in him that he was prevented from finding words adequate to express it. Lady Stralson entered as the souls of our two lovers, lost in each other’s arms, were ignited by the divine sparks of the love which consumed them. Her daughter told her what Williams dared not say, and ended her account of the matter by asking as a particular favour that her mother would not change the way of thinking she had always adopted.
When the excellent Lady Stralson knew everything, she threw her arms around Williams’s neck and said:
‘We loved you when you were rich and we shall love you even more now that you are poor! Never forget your two good friends, you may always look to them for comfort… You have acted rashly… you are young… you have no attachments… and you will put such foolishness behind you once you are married to the one you love.’
We shall not report the tender words which Williams spoke to express his affection. The reader who has a heart like his will know what they were and does not need them to be spelled out, while no number of words would explain his feelings to those whose souls are frigid.
‘But Henrietta,’ Lady Stralson continued, ‘I greatly fear that behind all this I can again detect the handiwork of the terrible man who hounds us!… This Scottish Captain who succeeded in ruining our good friend Williams in such short order… and this Mr Clark whom we never knew was a relative of our dear friend’s aunt… it all smacks of a conspiracy hatched by that reprobate… Oh, how I wish we had never come to London! This is a dangerous city, Henrietta, and we must leave and never come back!’
It is not difficult to believe that Henrietta and Williams were only too pleased to fall in with this suggestion. They therefore settled on a date and resolved that they would leave on the next day but one, but in such secrecy that even Lady Wateley’s servants should know nothing of their intentions. When these plans were agreed by all the parties, Williams was about to leave when Henrietta stopped him.
‘Have you forgotten, dear Williams,’ she said, giving him a purse full of gold, ‘that you told me of the sorry state of your finances and that it is for me alone to mend them?’
‘Oh, Mademoiselle, you are too generous!’
‘Williams,’ said Lady Stralson, ‘she reminds me of how remiss I am… Take her purse… take it… Today I shall allow Henrietta the pleasure of giving, but only on condition that she agrees not to deny it to me ever again…’
Reduced to tears, Williams left them in a welter of gratitude, saying:
‘If I was meant to know happiness on earth, then it is most assuredly only with this respectable family that I shall find it. I have done wrong… I have received a terrible setback… but I am young… the army will offer me a way of redeeming myself… I will strive to ensure that my children never learn anything of all this: those precious fruits of my love shall always be the sole concern of my life, and I shall so wage war on fate that they will never feel the effects of my misfortune!’
The next day Lord Granwel paid a call on the woman he loved. He was received with the same self-control which he was ordinarily shown. But, too astute not to detect small variations in the behaviour of Henrietta and her mother, and too shrewd not to put them down to the revival of Williams’s fortunes, he made enquiries. Although the planned departure and Williams’s most recent visits had been kept secret, it was impossible that a whiff of something should not have leaked out. It could not be long before Granwel, most efficiently served by his spies, would know everything.
‘Well now,’ said he to Gave, once the latest reports had been brought to him, ‘so I have been duped by that treacherous crew yet again! Even as Henrietta receives me at home, all she is thinking about is rewarding my rival!… Deceitful, faithless sex, how right we are to abuse you and despise you afterwards! Does a day go by when your manifold faults do not fully justify the reproaches levelled against you?… Oh Gave! The ungrateful vixen does not know what kind of enemy she has offended! I want my revenge to stand as the vengeance of my entire sex, I will make her weep tears of blood for the wrong she has done me and for the wrongs of all her kind!… Now Gave, in your dealings with that good-for-nothing Williams, did you acquire a specimen of his handwriting?’
‘I have one here.’
‘Good… Give it to me… Take the paper to Johnson: the rogue is well skilled in the art of forging all manner of hands. I want him to counterfeit Williams’s and use it to write the note I shall now dictate to you.’
Gave wrote down the message and delivered the sample to Johnson, who copied it. The day before Henrietta was due to leave, at about seven o’clock in the evening, she was handed the following note by a man who assured her that it was from Williams who, he said, awaited her reply with the greatest impatience:
I am about to be arrested for a debt which amounts to more than all the money I can presently lay my hands on. There is no doubt that powerful enemies are at work. At most I may have a moment to embrace you for the last time. But I hope I might know that joy and receive your advice. Come to the corner of Kensington Gardens and bring a moment’s solace to your luckless Williams, who is ready to die of his sorrows if you should deny him this small comfort.
On reading the note Henrietta was extremely distressed. Fearing that this latest imprudence would finally exhaust her mother’s goodwill, she resolved to hide this new calamity from her, furnish herself with as much money as she could, and rush to Williams’s aid… For a moment she reflected upon the risk she incurred in going abroad at such an hour… But what had she to fear from his Lordship? She believed he had been completely taken in by the strategy employed by her mother and her friend, Lady Wateley. The two ladies had not stopped receiving his visits, and Granwel himself had never seemed in a more settled humour… So what was there to be afraid of?… His Lordship might still take action against Williams, and perhaps he was the architect of this new disaster. But wishing to strike at a rival who was still greatly feared was not a reason for making a fresh attempt to abduct the woman of whose love he was sure.
Oh weak and hapless Henrietta, thus did your foolish thoughts run! Love whispered them to you and justified them. You did not pause to reflect that scales are never more firmly fixed on the eyes of lovers than when the ground is about to open beneath their feet!… Miss Stralson sent out for a sedan-chair and was taken to the appointed place… The chair stopped… the door opened…
‘Mademoiselle,’ said Granwel, handing her out of it, ‘I am sure you were not expecting to see me here. I imagine you are about to say that the bane of your life seems to materialize at every turn.’
Henrietta gave a cry, then attempted to break free and run away.
‘Not so fast, my sweet angel,’ said Granwel placing the barrel of his pistol against her heart and indicating with a gesture that she was surrounded, ‘you have no hope of escape, Mademoiselle, no hope at all… I am tired of being your dupe… I must be avenged… So keep your mouth shut, or I shall not be held accountable for your life.’
Miss Henrietta was carried in a faint to a post-chaise. His Lordship climbed in after her and, without stopping once, made good speed to the north of England, where Granwel owned a vast, isolated castle on the Scottish borders.
Gave remained at his Lordship’s town-house. He had orders to keep his eyes open and provide accurate reports, to be carried by express couriers, of the latest news from London.
Lady Stralson noticed that Henrietta had gone out two hours after she had left the house. She had every confidence in her daughter’s conduct, and at first was not unduly concerned. But when she heard ten o’clock strike, she shivered and the suspicion formed that new snares might have been set… She went at once to see Williams… Trembling, she asked him if he had seen Henrietta… On hearing the young man’s replies, she became even more alarmed. She told Williams to wait for her and ordered her carriage to take her to Lord Granwel’s house… She was told that he was indisposed… She insisted on being announced, feeling confident that his Lordship would allow her to enter when he heard her name. But the same answer was returned. Her suspicions grew stronger. She went back to Williams and both, filled with horrible foreboding, drove at once to find the Prime Minister, whom they knew was related to Granwel. They explained their predicament and demonstrated that the man who continued to disrupt their lives so cruelly, the man who was the sole cause of everything that had happened to them, the man who, in short, had abducted the daughter of one of them and the bride-to-be of the other, was none other than Lord Granwel…
‘Granwel?’ said the Prime Minister in amazement. ‘But are you aware that he is a friend… a relative?… Whatever indiscretion I may suspect him to be capable of, I cannot believe he would stoop to commit such horrors…’
‘It is he! He is the man, your Lordship!’ replied Henrietta’s distraught mother. ‘Look into the matter and you will see if we are trying to deceive you.’
Men were dispatched immediately to Granwel’s house. Gave, not daring to cross agents of the Prime Minister, told them his Lordship had left on a tour of his estates. This reply, added to his own suspicions and the complaint made by Henrietta’s mother, finally opened the Prime Minister’s eyes.
‘Madame,’ said he to Lady Stralson, ‘go home with your young friend and be calm. I shall look into this matter. You may rest assured that I shall do everything in my power to return to you what you have lost and restore your family’s honour.’
But all these measures had taken time. The Prime Minister had been reluctant to authorize any legal steps before he had first heard the views of the King, since Granwel’s royal appointment made him answerable to the monarch. The delay had enabled Gave to dispatch a courier to his friend’s castle, and as a result the events which we have still to narrate would run their course without impediment.
When Granwel reached his estate he had succeeded in calming Miss Henrietta to the extent of persuading her that she should rest a while. But he had taken the precaution of putting her in a room from which it was impossible to escape. However little inclined Miss Stralson was to sleep in her cruel predicament, she was much relieved to have a few hours of peace, and had been making no sound of any kind that might indicate she was awake when Gave’s courier arrived. At that instant his Lordship knew that if he wished to succeed, then he would have to act quickly. He was prepared to adopt any means of achieving his end. However criminal this policy might prove to be, he was determined to stop at nothing, provided that he both got revenge and had his way with his victim. ‘The worst that can happen’, he told himself, ‘is that I shall marry her and not be able to show my face in London again except as her husband.’ But the way matters stood, as he judged from what Gave’s courier had told him, he saw that he would not have time for anything unless he could dispel the storm-clouds which were gathering over his head. To this end, he quickly realized that he must do two things: smooth Lady Stralson’s feathers and neutralize Williams. One abominable subterfuge, one more odious crime, would deal with both at a stroke, and Granwel, who never counted the cost when bent on satisfying his urges, had no sooner conceived his vile plan than his every thought was directed to its implementation.
Ordering the courier to wait, he went to see Henrietta. He began by making the most insulting propositions which, as on previous occasions, she warded off with practised ease. This was precisely what Granwel wanted. His aim was to make her deploy all her persuasive skills so that he might seem to be taken in by them once more, and then catch her in the same traps that she was by now accustomed to set for him. There was no art which Miss Stralson did not use in her efforts to overturn the plans which his Lordship outlined to her: tears, supplication, love, all were mobilized pell-mell against him, and after a long struggle Granwel, with every appearance of yielding, fell slyly to his knees before Henrietta.
‘Heartless girl,’ he said, bedewing her hands with the bogus tears of his remorse, ‘your power is too great for me, you carry all before you, and I surrender now and forever… It is over, Mademoiselle… henceforth you shall find in me not a persecutor but your friend. My heart is nobler than you can possibly know and, like you, I too wish to prove that I am capable of the most extreme acts of courage and virtue. You know what I could by rights demand of you, all I could ask for in the name of love, and all I could obtain through violence. Well, Henrietta, I hereby renounce all my desires! Yes, I intend to force you to respect me, even some day to regret me perhaps… You should know that I was never your dupe, that pretend as you might I was not taken in, for you love Williams… Mademoiselle, it is with my blessing that you shall have him… Will this be enough to earn my pardon for all the suffering I have caused you?… By giving you Williams, and making good out of my own fortune the reverses which his finances have experienced of late, shall I find some small place in your heart, dear Henrietta, and will you then still say that I am your cruellest foe?’
‘Oh, most generous benefactor!’ exclaimed the young woman, only too glad to reach out for the illusion which momentarily flattered her hopes. ‘What divinity has inspired this resolve in you? And why are you so pleased to change poor Henrietta’s fate so expeditiously? You ask me what place you will earn in my heart. All the feelings of a grateful heart which do not belong to the unfortunate Williams shall be yours forever. I shall be your friend, Granwel… your sister… your confidante. Having no care other than to please you, I shall ask only one favour of you, which is that I might live the rest of my life near you and use every moment of it to show my gratitude… Oh consider, your Lordship… are not the feelings of a free heart preferable to those which you intended to take by force? You would have merely made a slave of a woman who will become your dearest friend.’
‘Yes, Mademoiselle, you shall be that loyal friend,’ stammered Granwel. ‘I had so many bridges to mend with you that even with the sacrifice of my own feelings I still dare not think I have yet made full restitution. But I shall trust to time and my best behaviour.’
‘What can your Lordship be thinking of? How badly you know me! Just as when attacked I defend myself, so repentance melts my heart and I no longer remember the injuries done me by anyone who takes a single step to obtain my forgiveness.’
‘Very well, Mademoiselle, let all be forgotten on both sides, and give me the satisfaction of arranging here the wedding you want so much.’
‘Here?’ said Henrietta with an anxious start which she could not repress. ‘But, your Lordship, I thought we would be returning to London!’
‘No, no, my dear young lady, I regard it as a matter of honour not to let you go back to the capital except as the wife of the rival to whom I give you… Yes, by displaying you in this way, I want to show all England how dear my victory over myself has cost me. Do not object to my plan, for in it I shall find both my triumph and my serenity. Let us write to your mother and say that she is to calm her fears. Let us invite Williams to come here, celebrate this marriage at once, and then return to town the next day.’
‘But, your Lordship, shall my mother be informed?’
‘We shall ask for her consent. She is most unlikely to refuse and it shall be Lady Williams who will come and thank her in person.’
‘Very well, your Lordship, I place myself in your hands. I feel such affection and gratitude that I would not wish to interfere in the arrangements which you are kind enough to make for my happiness. Do what you think fit, your Lordship, and I shall approve it all… I am so full of the sentiments which I owe entirely to you, too absorbed by feeling them and putting them into words, that I quite forget anything which interferes with my enjoyment of them.’
‘But Mademoiselle, you must write.’
‘To Williams?’
‘And to your mother. Would what I say carry as much conviction as if you were to write yourself?’
The wherewithal was brought and Miss Henrietta wrote the two following notes:
We should both fall at the feet of the most generous of men. Come and help me express the gratitude which we both owe him. Never was there a nobler sacrifice, never was it made more graciously, never was it more complete! Lord Granwel wishes to join us in matrimony himself, Williams, and with his own hand tie our holy knot… Come quickly… Embrace my mother, obtain her consent, and tell her that soon her daughter will know the happiness of holding her in her arms.
After a time of terrible anxiety follows the gentlest calm. Williams will show you my letter, most loved of all mothers! I beg of you, raise no objection either to your daughter’s happiness or Lord Granwel’s intentions—they are as pure as his heart. Adieu. Forgive your daughter who is so overwhelmed by feelings of gratitude that she can hardly express the sentiments which fill her for the best of mothers.
To these missives Granwel added two others, which assured Williams and Lady Stralson of the joy he felt on being able to bring together two young people whose most devoted friend he wished to be. He invited Williams to call on his London lawyer and receive the ten thousand guineas which he begged him to accept as a wedding gift. These letters breathed true affection, and bore such a stamp of openness and candour that it was impossible not to take them at face value. At the same time his Lordship also wrote to Gave and his friends instructing them to still public rumours, calm the Prime Minister, and spread the word that soon all London should see in what manner he righted the wrongs he had done. The courier galloped off with his dispatches, and Granwel devoted all his time to heaping kindness upon Miss Stralson in order, as he said, that she might do her best to forget all the wrong he had done her which lay heavy on his conscience… But in the depths of his black soul the monster exulted, because he had by means of a ruse at last triumphed over the woman who had for so long entangled him in her webs.
The courier sent by Henrietta’s abductor reached London at the moment when the King had just advised the Prime Minister to set the wheels of justice turning against Granwel… But Lady Stralson, totally duped by the letters she had received, and believing their content all the more readily because she was so accustomed to Henrietta’s habit of winning her battles with Granwel, hastened at once to see the minister. She begged him not to institute proceedings against his Lordship, gave him an account of what was happening, the furore receded, and Williams made ready to leave.
‘Deal tactfully with his Lordship, who is a powerful and dangerous man,’ said Lady Stralson as she embraced him. ‘Enjoy the victory my daughter has won over him and come back quickly, both of you, to comfort a mother who loves you.’
Williams set off, but without collecting the magnificent gift which Granwel intended him to have. He did not even trouble to enquire if the money was there for him or not, for to have done so might have suggested that he had a doubt in his mind, and good people do not harbour such doubts.
Williams reached… God in heaven!… he reached his destination… my pen falters, it refuses to inscribe the detail of the horrors which awaited this tragic lover. Oh devils from hell! Appear and lend me your vipers that it may be with their glinting fangs that my hand shall trace the terrible events which remain for me to tell!
‘My dear Henrietta,’ Granwel exclaimed next morning as he entered his captive’s room, looking happy and radiating good cheer, ‘you must come and see the surprise I have gone to some lengths to arrange for you. Hurry, Mademoiselle, I did not want to let you see Williams until he was at the foot of the altar where he will receive your hand… Follow me, he is waiting for you there.’
‘Here, your Lordship?… Heavens, he has come… Williams… is at the altar?… And I owe it all to you!… Oh sir, allow me to kneel before you… The feelings which you fill me with today are stronger than all the rest…’
Granwel, discomfited, replied:
‘No, Mademoiselle, I cannot yet take pleasure from your gratitude. This is the last time it will draw blood from my heart. Do not show it, Mademoiselle, for after today it will make me suffer no longer… Tomorrow I shall have time to savour it at my leisure… But let us hurry, Henrietta. Williams loves you and aches to be yours—we must not keep him waiting any longer!’
Henrietta stepped out… feeling very nervous… very excited… she could scarce breathe. Never did the roses in her cheeks glow more brilliantly… Buoyed up by love and hope, she believed that she was moments away from happiness… They reached the end of an immense gallery which led into the chapel of the castle… Great God! What a sight was there!… This sacred place was hung with sable drapes and, upon a kind of funeral bier, surrounded by burning candles, lay the corpse of Williams pierced by thirteen daggers which still protruded from the bloody wounds they had just made.
‘Behold your lover, you lying she-devil! See how my vengeance grants your loathsome vows!’
‘False-hearted cur!’ cried Henrietta, gathering up all her strength so that it would not fail her in this terrible pass… ‘No, you have not deceived me! Every excess of vice has a natural place in your heart, and I would have been surprised only if I had found virtue there too. Let me die here, it is the last request I make of your cruel heart!’
‘Your request shall not be granted just yet,’ said Granwel with that icy self-assurance which is the special hallmark of all great villains… ‘My vengeance is a dish that has been only half eaten; now the rest must be consumed. There you see the altar on which we shall make our vows come true. It is there that I wish to hear from your lips the oath you will swear to be mine for ever.’
Granwel was determined to be obeyed… Henrietta, who had sufficient courage not to break under the appalling strain… Henrietta, whose energy was awakened by the desire for revenge… checked her tears and promised to do all that was asked of her.
‘Mademoiselle,’ said Granwel when he was satisfied with her, ‘you may believe every word of what I shall now tell you. Every vengeful impulse I ever felt has evaporated and my only thought is to make amends for my crimes… Follow me, Mademoiselle, let us leave this lugubrious display, everything waits in readiness for us at the temple. The ministers of religion and the common people have been gathered there for some time… Come, accept my hand without further ado… You will dedicate tonight to the first duties of a wife. Tomorrow I shall escort you publicly to London and shall return you to your mother as my bride.’
Henrietta turned and stared wildly at Granwel. She felt quite certain that this time she was not being deceived, but her embittered heart was no longer capable of being consoled by hope… Torn by despair… consumed by thoughts of revenge, she was capable of no other feeling but these.
‘Sir,’ said she, with the utmost calm which was bred of courage, ‘I believe so completely in your unexpected change of heart that I am ready to grant you freely what you could easily obtain by force. Although our union will not have been sanctioned by Heaven, I shall nevertheless this very night satisfy you in the matter of all the duties you demand of me. I therefore beg you to postpone the ceremony until we reach London. I am reluctant on various counts to be married anywhere except in the presence of my mother. This must be a matter of complete indifference to you, Granwel, since I am prepared to submit to your desires.’
Although Granwel sincerely wished to be Henrietta’s husband, he could not view her readiness to be his dupe a second time without a sense of gleeful exultation, and anticipating that after a night of sensual pleasure he might not be so patient, he agreed wholeheartedly to what she had proposed. The rest of the day passed quietly. No move was even made to touch the funereal decor, for it was essential to wait for the blackest shadows of night to gather before poor Williams could be buried.
‘Granwel,’ said Miss Stralson as she was about to retire, ‘I beg you to grant me a second favour. After what happened this morning, will I be able to refrain from crying out for fear when I find myself in the arms of the man who murdered the one I loved? Will you agree that no light will illuminate the bed in which I shall… plight my troth? Must you not grant as much out of respect for my chastity? Have I not suffered enough to claim the right to be granted what I ask?’
‘Make whatever arrangements you will, Mademoiselle,’ replied Granwel. ‘I should be unjust indeed were I to deny you in such matters. I fully understand the struggle that is going on in your heart and I am most anxious to do what I can to minimize it.’
Miss Stralson curtseyed and returned to her room, while Granwel, delighted with the success of his foul plans, silently congratulated himself on having at last routed his adversary. He got into bed, the torches were removed, and Henrietta was informed that her orders had been obeyed, and that she could now enter the nuptial chamber whenever she wished… And so she came… armed with a dagger which she herself had plucked from Williams’s heart… She drew near… Pretending to feel her way, she stretched out one hand which located Granwel’s body and with the other struck with the blade which it held. The villain fell to the floor blaspheming, cursing Heaven and the hand which had delivered the blow.
Henrietta hurried from the room and, trembling, made her way to the funeral chapel where Williams lay. In one hand she held a lamp and in the other the bloody steel which had been the instrument of her vengeance.
‘Williams!’ she cried. ‘We were separated by crime but the hand of God will reunite us… All my life I loved you to distraction. Receive my soul! It will blend into yours, never to be parted from it more!’
And so saying, she turned her weapon against herself and fell convulsively upon the cold corpse on which, in an involuntary spasm, her mouth pressed her final kisses…
News of these dreadful events soon reached London. Granwel’s passing was unlamented. For some time his excesses had made him odious. Gave, fearing to be involved in this appalling episode, fled at once to Italy, and the mourning Lady Stralson returned alone to Hereford, where she continued to weep for the two great losses she had suffered until such time as the Good Lord, touched by her tears, at last gathered her to His bosom and reunited her, in a better world, with those young people, so loved and so worthy of that love, who had been taken from her by libertinage, revenge, cruelty… in short by all the crimes which are spawned by the abuse of wealth, reputation, and above all, the neglect of the standards by which good men live and without which neither we nor those around us can ever be happy on this earth.